The Indian Renaissance

BY BHAGAT RAM KUMAR, M.A.

No student of contemporary Indian events could have failed to observe the wonderful surging of a new life that has been so remarkable a phenomenon of our recent national history, and which has infused a new life into every field of our national activity. The purely political aspect of a foreign domination, though the most obvious, is in reality, the least mischevious of its many consequences. The loss of political freedom invariably casts a general demoralisation over national life, so that there is not a department of a nation's life that is not in consequence vitiated. Evolution is a Law of Nature; nothing in Nature is stationary. But Evolution implies freedom. Slavery and Evolution can never go hand in hand. The bud blossoms into a flower in the freedom of Nature; remove it to the slavery of a drawing room, and it dies a premature death. History furnishes no example of a subjugated people reaching the summits of glory in any department of life; it was a free Greece, a free Rome, the Free Cities of Medieval Italy, a free India, a free China that created the Arts and the Sciences that are their glory to this day.

As water that has no outlet not only stagnates itself but poisons the whole atmosphere round about, so the loss of political freedom poisons the very mainsprings of a nation's life.

It is true that India has seen many invasions in the past, before the advent of the British, and yet her national life did not suffer to any great extent; whereas the effects of the last conquest have been blighting. But it is easy to account for this difference. The previous occupations of India were more in the nature of amalgamations than of conquests. The various tribes of Afghans and the Moghuls who occupied India during the middle ages were forced by circumstances, as well as by the wealth and superior civilisation of India, to make it their home, and sooner or later, to amalgamate with the native inhabitants. It was much like the Norman Conquest of England, which in reality proved to be the English Conquest of Normandy. Nature in her wisdom adopts various means for invigorating a stagnant people; and one of these is the seizure of its country by a more vigorous stock, so that a new vigour is implanted on to an old stock, revitalising and reinvigorating it. Such were the effects of both the Norman Conquest in England and of the Muslim Conquest of India.

But far different have been the effects of the English Conquest of India, because there has been no amalgation of the two peoples. The glory, the elation, and the rising sense of self-confidence, has been on the side of the English: the shame, the depression, and the loss of our own worth, has been on our side. Our religion was put by the side of that of our conquerors, and was naturally found to be wanting, however grand its philosophies and metaphysics, by a world where nothing succeeds like success. Our achievements in Arts and Sciences must bow their head before those of England, as the slave before his master. Our social customs, our languages, our very clothes, our houses, our furniture, and our food, all must stand bareheaded before those of the conquerors. And since the habits, the customs, and the institutions of one nation can never be implanted into another soil, we neglected our own, without being able to graft those of England.

We thus became a people without a soul; without culture and tradition, without national pride and patriotism. We were much like the parrot and the monkey, uttering the lessons taught us by our masters, and imitating in our dress, manners, clothes, houses, furniture and habits, our masters, the English. We scoffed at our religion, at our philosophies, at our ancestors, and took a delight in the cheap arts of Lancashire and Manchester.

It was at such a time that there dawned the Indian Renaissance. Its first effects were seen naturally in the sphere of Religion, for religion is the foundation of all civilisation, and thence the movement spread to the political, the social, the artistic, the economic, the educational, and other spheres of our life. It was but natural that this should be so, for a Renaissance, an awakening, is the result of new life-forces, and these must manifest themselves in every sphere of life. No Renaissance can be permanent or vital, unless there is an awakening in each individual, in each sect, in each class, in every department of life.

Hence we witness a seething unrest, and ceaseless activity in every field of our life. Tremendous forces have been let loose, much like the waters of a mighty river, and at times it would appear that they are capable of doing nothing but mischief. Thus we are witnessing in the North the bitter quarrels between the Hindus and the Muslims, and in the South between the Brahmanas and the Non-Brahmanas. These are essentially a part of the national Renaissance, for it shows that the minorities, who have been suppressed and oppressed in the past, are fully conscious of their rights, and are attempting to assert them. Exaggeration in the beginning is but natural; and it is for our national good that each community should attain its equality with the others as soon as possible. Similarly in the political field, we are witnessing the tremendous drama of a struggle for national rights, and here again exaggerations and distortions are but a natural part of the game. In religious matters again, as well as social, we are witnessing a new spirit of reform on all sides. Either silently or openly, the long-standing abuses and distortions that have crept into our religious as well as into our social system, are being reformed or ignored and the past being brought into line with the spirit of the times. And artistic and educational spheres have not escaped this impulse. We are all familiar with the great work done in that line by the Bengal School of Art, while in the matter of education, we have had "National" Schools on all hands.

Thus there can be no doubt that a new spirit is afield, attempting to revitalise our national life; but the ultimate success or failure of this must depend upon us. To the extent that we as a people co-operate with natural forces whole-heartedly and intelligently, will depend their success. The currents of the sea will carry a man far, if he knows how to utilise them. Otherwise they will surely drown him. So also with the forces we are now witnessing. Unless we take advantage of them, we shall be far worse off than before. And we can never co-operate with these forces, unless we enter into the ‘spirit of the times.’ It is part of our human vanity to imagine that we shape and mould history, whereas the most we can do is to co-operate with certain forces and tendencies that nature sets going at special periods. The world forces to-day, as in the past, are all working towards a definite end, and upon our co-operation with them will depend our salvation.