EAST MEETS WEST

Hokitika Guardian, 23 August 1930, Page 8

EAST MEETS WEST

EVOLUTION OF INDIA. BUILDING A NATION. GREAT BRITAIN’S TASK. “The day of ‘Rule Britannia’ has gone in India. The Only way out of a menacing situation is the why not 61 armaforce but the Way of international friendforce by the Way of international friendship and of bo-operatiOn.” In these words Dr A. H. Driver, M.D., Ch.fiof the London Mission Hospital, jammaiamadugu, South India concluded an address to the Wellington Rotary Club recently. Fascinating as India had always been Dr Driver said, he did not think she had ever been more fascinating than she was at the present time. The fascination was that of the sight of a great Empire, containing one-fifth of the human race, torn by internal dissensions and menaced by ’external foes, and yet keenly conscious or a national spirit. History was being made rapidly in India, but with a very dark and menacing back (ground. There was miich in the situation that was puzzling. BLIND ADHERENCE TO IDEALS.

Comment on India was frequently made from two sections. On one hand there were those who loved to suggest that Hinduism was a pure and beautiful thing and who usually ignored thf central problem of India, that ( of Hin-du-Moslem relationships. On the other hand there were those who drew all thii ..knowledge of India from Katherine Mayo. The evils of India were exclusively emphasised, and India’s sore dissensions were rather smugly taken as an excuse for beating the ‘lmperial drum. 'Both views Were false—false because they were one-sided and incomplete. In India the political atmosphere was coloured by religious and idealistic com ceptions foreign to our habit of thought Indian leaders were followed up to tin point of adoration not In • proportion,t< their skill .in -'framing policies, . but in proportion to the depth of their devot ion; to an ideal, no matter how vision ary that ideal might be, or With what inconsistencies, or, indeed, with wliat dire results it might be associated. Ii was only when that capacity for blim adherence to an ideal was realised tha 1 one could understand the amazing in flnence of Gandhi in India. There exist ed at the present time however, a real conflict between an awakening soc ial conscince and orthodox Brahminism

THROUGH EASTERN EYES, , Dealing with the philosophy under lying expressions of the national move ment, Dr Driver said the Hindu regard ed the organisation of the \Vesteri: state, especially in its industrial sid( as destructive to every Hindu ideal In the view of the Hindu the Western system stood for greed, for selfishness, for the subordination of the spir it of man to the spirit of commercial or of racial necessity. This reassertion of the. value of certain ethical ideas it Hinduism was accompanied by increased Sensitiveness to the reality of the problem of the poverty arid illiteracy of the Indian villiage. Behind it all was a vague and hazy philosophy of socia’ idealism, unattached to practical endeavour, and in itself insufficient t< cope with great problems facing Indir to-day. A great awakening among the depres sed classes was accompanied by a-slow-ly-changing attitude in the / world ol caste, said Dr Driver. All were familiar with the more obvious manifestations of Hindu. Moslepi -discord—how that hardly a day passed without some bitter riot, because a Hindu procession with musie passed a mosque at the>tim» of prayer, or because Moslem fanatics violated the Hindu Veneration for'-tin cow by leading a sacrificial cow through Hindu streets. i ;r

THE SPELL OF ISLAM. i 'iTie loyalties of Moslems were first vu Islam, .and only second to India, and Islam’s first insistence was that she be dominant. Mohammedan India dreaded nothing so much as the prospect of a Hindu Raj. Exactly in proportion as political evolution in India, moved toward Dominion status, and towards injrease of power to the Brahmin ami the Hindu, Moslem apprehensions and suspicions werp increasing. “A few issues stand out cleariy in regard to our relations with India,” said the speaker. .. “The whole issue should be lifted , above considerations of political 'and . commercial expediency, and the whole energies of Government devoted to its declared aim, the sympathtic guidance of India, into freedom,' but a freedom that will be a true nate- ! ionnl freedom and not the domination of one class—a freedom, too, in which will not be imperilled the best achievement of Britain in India, freedom 'from the never-far-distant spectres of war and famine. Both spectres will certainly become very real were there to be any breakdown of the complex and far-reaching system-, of administration that Britain has built up in India.” THE ONLY WAY OTJT. Further, in the new order of things it was essential that a thorough-going application of the principles of Christianiliy be made to every aspect of the Bri-

tish connection. The only (forces that would make any ultimate impression of an awakened East, the only forces that would provide an adequate basis for the meeting of East and West, the only forces oil Which could be laid the foundations of'World peace, were the forces of the spirit, those forces of which Christiammissibns tried to be a practical and living exprssion.