V. THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

The westernized students—The secularization of heaven—The Indian National Congress

In 1923 there were over a thousand Hindus studying in England, presumably an equal number in America, perhaps an equal number elsewhere. They marveled at the privileges enjoyed by the lowliest citizens of western Europe and America; they studied the French and American Revolutions, and read the literature of reform and revolt; they gloated over the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Constitution; they went back to their countries as centers of infection for democratic ideas and the gospel of liberty. The industrial and scientific advances of the West, and the victory of the Allies in the War, gave to these ideas an irresistible prestige; soon every student was shouting the battle-cry of freedom. In the schools of England and America the Hindus learned to be free.

These Western-educated Orientals had not only taken on political ideals in the course of their education abroad, they had shed religious ideas; the two processes are usually associated, in biography and in history. They came to Europe as pious youths, wedded to Krishna, Shiva, Vishnu, Kali, Rama . . .; they touched science, and their ancient faiths were shattered as by some sudden catalytic shock. Shorn of religious belief, which is the very spirit of India, the Westernized Hindus returned to their country disillusioned and sad; a thousand gods had dropped dead from the skies* Then, inevitably, Utopia filled the place of Heaven, democracy became a substitute for Nirvana, liberty replaced God. What had gone on in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century now went on in the East.

Nevertheless the new ideas developed slowly. In 1885 a few Hindu leaders met at Bombay and founded the “Indian National Congress,” but they do not seem to have dreamed then even of Home Rule. The effort of Lord Curzon to partition Bengal (that is, to destroy the unity and strength of the most powerful and politically conscious community in India) roused the Nationalists to a more rebel mood; and at the Congress of 1905 the uncompromising Tilak demanded Swaraj. He had created the word⁵⁰ out of Sanskrit roots still visible in its English translation—“selfrule.” In that same eventful year Japan defeated Russia; and the East, which for a century had been fearful of the West, began to lay plans for the liberation of Asia. China followed Sun Yat Sen, took up the sword, and fell into the arms of Japan. India, weaponless, accepted as her leader one of the strangest figures in history, and gave to the world the unprecedented phenomenon of a revolution led by a saint, and waged without a gun.