Imitation — Is India Civilized — Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo

One may argue as one will as to the greatness of Indian civilization, but the fact will remain that the Indian people have been, and still are, a subject people governed by foreigners; a fact which, it will be contended, is inconsistent with the possession by them of true morality. For on the world-path (Pravritti Marga) a free and independent spirit which looks to itself to do the work of the self and does it with courage, vigour, and adherence to racial ideals is morality. In short, a complete and free manhood is true morality and those who are politically and culturally subject, by that very fact have it not. Freedom, again, is the sign of true spirituality. That glorious word Svarajyasiddhi involves in its fullest sense the effective rule of the self by the Self in all the planes spiritual, mental and material;

for this autonomy is not, as in the Western sense of the word, merely material and political but freedom of the soul ending in Liberation itself.

Mr. Archer and others attribute the lack of this-world morality evidenced by the present subjection of India to an arrested development, or to the vicious principles on which its civilization is founded and to the false ideals it holds. In the same way, some lay to the charge of the Christian religion which preaches " peace on earth to men of good will" the present Carnage and its wealth of Hate. In either case the fault lies not so much (if at all) with the principles but is due to neglect and wrong application of them, and to the failure of those who profess to hold these principles to state them rightly, and to make them effective to-day. In judging, moreover the cause of the present state of India, it must be remembered that all peoples pass through periods of rise and decline, of activity and rest according to the rhythm which governs the whole

universe. India has been for sometime past in a cycle of depression which may mean either Her approaching death— India's final Pralaya ; or merely a state of inertia, corresponding to the Nitya Pralaya which is one's daily slumber (Sushupti), from which she will rise refreshened in the morning of a new day. If it be the first, then India has been preserved until such time as the West and a new Eastern civilization are ready to receive the truths which She has taught. If it be the second (and the stirring of life may be said to show it) India will, in the essentials of Her civilization, remain, in whatever way her external social structure may be re-formed to meet the needs of the time. In either case these essentials and in such sense " India" will endure until the World-dissolution. I here, however, speak of India as the particular expression of those ideas as existing in fact to-day.

Before a conclusion in the first sense is reached, we must ascertain the cause of the present conditions and see whether they

are removable. It will be time then to consider whether Her civilization is at fault. Those present conditions are attributable both to causes which were in operation before the arrival of the English and to causes which have since arisen. The first cause is the decline or inertia which rendered India open to the Mussalman invaders, and the second includes the same together with other special causes which have come into play by reason of the introduction of the western civilization of India's present rulers through whose influence, on the other hand, this-country is again showing signs of a freshened vitality.

What is wanted is Power (Shakti). It is wonderful to see how throughout the world, in East and West, this idea of Power is spreading concomitantly with the consciousness of man's essential Divinity. If there be one people whose doctrine (whatever be their practice) preaches self-reliance, it is India. For She alone has taught in its-fullest form the doctrine of the Self. If to-day all are not self-reliant in fact, it is

due to bodily weakness, ignorance and want of application of these truths. It is curious to note how the so-called "progressive " nations of the West have been self-reliant in fact, notwithstanding a religion which, in its purely Christian form, preaches humility, self-abasement and dependence, and how India has been lacking in self-reliance despite the fact that the highest form of its religion teaches that man is the master of his destiny, that he is essentially one with the Cosmic Power (Prapancha Shakti) and that complete autonomy (Svarajya-siddhi) is his goal. The Shakta Dharma is a perfected type of this doctrine of the worship of this Mother-Power.

Power (Shakti) is physical or material and psychic or mental, and spiritual. This Shastra teaches that man is a Magazine of all power. In every man there is this " Inner Woman" as a Shakta Sadhaka aptly called Her. The problem is how to make Her awake (Prabuddha). With the mass of men we must commence with the gross physical vehicle (Sthula deha.) The

first fact we notice is the weakness of the body. This is due to the great poverty of the mass of the Indian people. And so food is lacking. Food is Power, for it is the material source of both physical and psychic Power. Annam is Brahman. Salutation, therefore, to Annam. Ill-nutrition induces disease. As I write some 30,000 deaths have taken place in a week in India from Plague and some 10 to 12,000 weekly from Malaria, due in part at least, it is said, to disturbance of natural drainage caused by railway embankments and to the silting up of rivers. Consumption, too, is rapidly spreading. An English doctor recently told me that it was "decimating" (I use his own word) the student population and poorer homes in Calcutta to-day. In varying numbers these deaths have been going on for years past. Effects breed again their causes, and we therefore see lack of attention to those principles of hygiene and sanitation which the ancient Smritis and customs prescribed, as does Western science to-day. The connection

between poverty and disease is shown by the fact that it is nearly always the poor who suffer.

If food be wanting and if the body be unhealthy, the mind becomes weak. For the mind is fed by food. Without health and strength of body there is listlessness sadness and lack of will and energy. Let India be fed and these will disappear. It is not, as Mr. Archer and others suppose, Karma and Transmigration, Asceticism and what not which are primarily at fault, but lack of food and the spread of disease. Then in the renewed body mental power will generate. The mind is the soul and the body is dependent on it. If the people's soul be lost, then all is lost. It is not yet lost but it is yet not wholly out of danger. When in 1834 Macaulay's Educational Minute decreed that India was to receive through English education the civilization of the West, it was then, it has been said, that ancient India was first to any great degree moulded by foreign invaders and a new India was born. Professor

Seeley that " never was a more momentous question discussed. " We were led to stand out boldly as civilizers and teachers. Macaulay's Minute remains the great landmark in the History of our Empire considered as an institute of civilisation. It marks the moment when we deliberately recognised that a function had developed on us in Asia similar to that which Rome fulfilled in Europe." To an ndian, self-conscious of the greatness of his country's civilization, it must be gall and wormwood to hear others speaking of the " education " and " civilization " of Iidia. India who has taught some of the deepest truths which our race has own is to be " educated." She whose ancient civilization ranks with the greatest the world has known is to be " civilized." and yet this policy of English Education was necessary in the sequence of Indian hitory; otherwise, it would not have been initiated and carried out. This resolution and the work done thereunder has been in several aspects for the benefit of India.

But like all else it has had its evil side and dangers. For as the Hindu proverb runs, there is nothing wholly bad nor yet wholly good. It was good in that it gave new life and a widened outlook to this country. The evil has lain in the fact that the Power of the West, working in a weakened Indian body, tended to overlay, and suffocate the Indian soul. A class arose, and still, to some extent, exists, which finding everything Western, to be good, neglected its own ancient heritage; which lost soul-life, became imitative and lived upon the borrowed ideas of others and not upon its own. This way soul-weakness lies. We can never be strong through others' souls, great though they be. Life may be roused from without, but action must proceed from the inner source which is the own Vital Self. We may awake a sleeper but he must talk and walk of his own power. Each hemisphere can learn from the other and the West can bring to India with profit to Her the knowledge it has gained during the last

century when India was wrapped in a cast of inertia. But the true function of English Civilization is to act as a blister to rouse India from this inertia.

" What a pessimistic view" some one said to me. The remark is characteristic Of the ordinary Western standpoint which farads the function of the West to be not the arousing of the ancient spirit of Indian civilization to new life but the supplanting of that civilization by its own. To me there is no ground for pessimism but rather rejoicing in the fact that other cultures than my own will survive. The whole world will benefit from a variety of vital self-active cultures just as it will lose by the suppression of any which are of worth, and will suffer by imitative cultural automatisms. I believe in Svadharma. Live and let live. Each to his own. "You are always speaking in terms of difference" said another to me. Yes I do so speak; for difference is a present fact and I deal with facts. Difference is in nature itself and I

want no cultural or other Kidgerees. But I also believe that there is an Unity behind all these differences the varied expression of the One Self. And if we recognise and act on that belief, we shall each hold to our own self-expressions without hate or oppression of others. It may well be that as the world goes on, the differences between civilizations may lessen. For all we know they may some day disappear. But meanwhile the duty of each is to perfect his own type in accordance with Svadharma, so that he may become a fit part of the future cultural unity which may be. The reason is that in this material world, as in that of Spirit, all types when perfected are closer to one another than they are in their undeveloped and imperfect state, and a good cultural whole can never be made up of indifferent parts. I have, therefore, my moments of angry wonder as I see the increasing vulgarization of the fine and (in an Eastern sense) aristocratic life of India, the betrayal or neglect of past traditions and culture,

the senseless imitation of foreign ways simply because they are foreign and the many shams and falsities of modern Indian life. Not the least thing which this country can learn from the British and the Irish (with else which they can teach) is the necessity of faithfulness to racial ideals. How many Europeans have been even in partial degree " hinduized" (if that term can be applied to any) as compared with the thousands who have been anglicised? To a Western true to such ideals, it seems inconceivable that a race should adopt with avidity a foreign language, neglecting its own; as also foreign ideas and customs, neglecting and even, as some seem to do, condemning its past cultural inheritance. And yet such has happened and many have become, as I have elsewhere said, the mere mind-born sons (Manasaputra) of the English. This is the reason for the obvious poverty of much of the political thought in this Country which, though cast in the mould of masters of political thinking, should nevertheless be original, inspired by

Indian ideals and have an eye t the particular Indian need. I once asked a leading Indian why he thought in this way and his apt answer was " Because I have had an English education." So again, we find the Chit-System applied even to the Upanishads; which some hold to because some Western or other has given them his approval. One may legitimately set off against one Western's depreciation another Western's praise but if the doctrine, of the Upanishads is true, it is so because it is true and not Because even a Western philosopher of world-repute may think so. This same dependent spirit is observable in smaller matters, as in the case of a Bengali friend of mine who was invited by ah anglicised countryman to come and taste " puffed rice " from America, which turned out only to be the common and despised country Murhi, yet. not so fresh and good ; but then it "had come from America." So, again, the ancient custom of taking sour milk (Dayi) which some looked upon as an old folly was respected as a scientific practice

when Professor Metchnikoff discoveredthe Bulgarian Bacillus: and so on and so forth, for " puffed rice " is to be found in religion, literature, philosophy, art, science institutions and manners. To use the recent words of Mr. Lawrence Housman "India must decide whether She wishes to be herself or a reflection of others. Is the movement of India for the Indian people to be accompanied by a subsidiary movement for India to be peopled by Indians Coloured to European taste. Is India now trying to find Herself, or somebody else— her own soul or another's."

It is in the Indian cultural inheritance hat the mass of the Indian people will Gain mental power. The same is true of spiritual power. I am wholly against such as themselves hold to Indian religion not because it is believed to be true but because it is Indian. This is to prostitute what is most sacred in man's nature. Honesty is an essential of true religion. I am, however, equally against those who, without belief in Christianity and without desire

that their children should become Christians, hand them over to Christian Mission schools simply because they are cheap or because such education brings other worldly advantage. The result is that spiritual mess in which the mind of some English--educated Indians flounders to-day. This is the worst of all Kidgerees. One thing is clear and will be admitted by all, that there is no true power unless it be based on and supported by religion, Hindu, Maho-medan, Christian, Positivist or whatever else it be. A Christian may still be an Indian provided that in holding to the essentials of Christianity he does not also think it necessary to become a "Sahib." The Hindu religions have that in them which meet the needs of every capacity and temperament. Prima facie they are best for those whose ancestors have evolved them. Before they are rejected let them be examined. If they are then found to fail in giving knowledge and inspiration, some other should be adopted or devised. A recent missionary book (" Goal of India "

by W. E. S. Holland) quotes the prayer with which the Indian National Congress opens its sessions, which beginning with " Oh most gracious God and Father " proceeds with Christian wording and sentiment to speak of " Providence," " thy unworthy servants," thy Holy name, spirit and will,glorify thy name" and so forth and then winds up with "Amen." "Why" the Author asks "do they not acknowledge-christ and come over to the Christian Church?" His answer is incorrect. The real answer is not that the author and users of this prayer believe in the institu-tional Christianity of the missionary but the language of Western religion is imitated just as political agitation and the fultural forms of thought of the West is imitated. It is true, however, that though the English-educated Indian does not as a rule accept any of the Western creeds of Christianity,many have been largely affect-by its spirit and even forms. Those oven are sometimes to be found who unjustly depreciate their own people on

that account. So an English-educated Bengali told a friend of mine that Hindu boys were not fit to become Boy Scouts because the latter had to eschew impure thoughts and a Hindu boy would think of the Linga. This offensive and ridiculous statement was a suggestion from a missionary-environment. Those Hindus who worship the Linga see nothing indecent in it. It is the missionary and some other Westerns who do so.

It was Svami Vivekananda who said that when India becomes English, she dies. If this be so, all intermediate steps towards such a result spell weakness. When the sufficiently nourished and healthy Indian has sought for mental and spiritual power in his own cultural traditions and has failed to get it, it will then be the time to discuss whether his want of success is due to his alleged Barbarism or to the faulty principles of his civilization or not and if so in what respect and degree.

There is now and has been for sometime past a re-action towards Indian culture

due to a rising racial consciousness and lately to the exposure of some of the weaknesses of Western civilization by the Great War. There are many who now say "Physician, heal thyself." It is now also perceived by some that the effort towards political independence will bear no real fruit if in the process the Racial Soul is lost. In other words, the cultural question is of equal importance as the political one. It is possible that in this reaction every-thing western may be in the near future as unduly disparaged as it was formerly, by some, indiscriminately appreciated, High praise is now more frequently given to all things Indian. If it be held that Wis is sometimes overdone, it is a fault on the right side. Anything is better than servile imitation of, and submission to, other's judgments. But it is just this reaction towards independence of spirit which we happily see in India to-day of which Mr. Archer complains. He constantly speaks of the "insensate arrogance" of the Indian people and of their overweening

pride in the civilization which he calls * Barbarism.' He denies that they or any other people are a " Chosen People."

To have a better idea of oneself than the facts warrant is not an infirmity of the Indian people only. So an Englishman is apt to regard a " foreigner" (even a Western) as something inferior. A quite amusing and recent instance of this occurred in the case of an English lady on a visit to Germany just before the War. The lady complained to a friend of mine of the annoyance caused by the rules imposed by the German Police. On being told that they existed for all foreigners (Auslander) she exclaimed indignantly " But I am not a foreigner. I am an English woman." So strong was her notion of the inferiority of the foreigner, that she could not imagine that under any circumstances, even in the heart of Germany, she could be deemed to be one. Most Englishmen entertain a high idea of their country and its civilization and the claim is even heard that they are the " moral leaders " of the world. Their

greatness has been voiced in much English literature and is with some an Imperial cult. We have all heard of German claims though " Deutsche ueber alles " is mistranslated. It does not mean " Germany above everybody else" but the nation's interest above that of the individual. Yet even in the midst of complaints against Teutonic vauntings an English author has recently published book under a title which could hardly be found in any but political England, for it is called " Christian Imperialism." Therein author, Mr. A. C. Hill, an enthusiastic believer in the imperial destiny of Britain seeks to show that the growth of Her Empire has " on the whole been ruled by a religious impulse." A more absurd and inflated claim it would be hard to imagine. England acquired Her Empire not from religious impulse " but to serve Herself, whatever be the spiritual ends which She may have thus unconsciously forwarded. He then glorifies the British character as that of a race (pace Mr. Archer) " Chosen of God for a high mission ;" holding that

British theories of life " have been stamped with the seal of Christ's approval;" "that no nation has been more keenly sensible of the moral value of Christianity;" that the " literature of England is an Epitome of life as it has been known to all thinking men " and so on and so forth. One cannot, of course, place too much stress upon the opinion of any individual author, but there are many others who have vaunted England's greatness and in some things rightly enough. Thus Mr. Hill (though his own claims are pitched in a high key) thinks that he has been surpassed. For his assertion of "a superiority on our part" is coupled with a condemnation of the popular Evangel of Mr. Rudyard Kipling " as being too reminiscent of the swashbuckler." The English, as other peoples, have good cause to be proud of many achievements. Though Patriotism always tends to exaggerated claims, there can be no question of the greatness of their race. Facts are the proofs. But the sense of racial superiority which they and other

Westerns have as regards the Eastern justified in some degree by their energy and the actual fact of dominance) is likely to, and does, lead to an inordinate self-appreciation, narrow exclusiveness and obtuseness of understanding when estimating types of culture different from their own. it has often been pointed out by Indian writers that the Western is wont to take his own standard to be the measure of excellence and all which falls short of it is considered to be either bad or of little worth absurd. There are but few who will judge another culture in a detached spirit-this obtuseness, and lack of insight, bred in spirit of race-pride is, it has been rightly said, the source of great cleavages not only between Western and Oriental peoples but between the former themselves. On the other hand, it may be conceded that there racial vanity in India as elsewhere. There are, for instance, a considerable number of people who without reason give them-solves airs; for instance, those who are always talking of their great Shastras and

yet never read them and those who, being in a futile way materialists themselves have western materialism always on their lips as if all Westerns were benighted in spiritual darkness. An Indian writer after referring to some observations by an English author to the effect that the present War was the outcome of the prevalence of Western civilization and materialism said that he did not do so to enable every Indian worldling (and to-day there are many such) to vaunt Indian spirituality; adding "a man is to be judged not by the ideals of the best men of his country, dead or living, but by the ideals to which his own life bears witness. Most of us are as materialistic as most Westerns, with this difference that we are feebly and languidly materialistic on a small scale whilst they are strongly and energetic any materialistic on a large scale. But the real question is, are we living up to it ? It should also be considered whether we are as ready as Western idealists are to admit our fault and reform ourselves." There are, on the

other hand, in this country as in the West truly spiritually minded men, for without some spirituality, no civilization, even inefficiently, endures. It is the fact that there are " chosen" peoples just as there are exceptionally endowed individuals. Greece was a chosen people for her wonderful art and philosophy; India for her religion and profound metaphysic; and ther peoples have been in various ways distinguished.