ABSTRACT
Is India’s old order passing? Sometimes my mind misgives me. There are signs of coming changes. Incidents occur, articles are written in the Press and in magazines, which indicate increasing irreligiousness in the rising generation, as well as growing political unrest.This last may at times be actually felt even in our quiet Andapur, though the reason for agitation may not be grasped very well. At breakfast one day Rama Dao announced with a grin that he had got some mutton in spite of all shops being shut.“Oh, they are keeping hartal\ then ?” I remarked.“ It is a Government order,” explained Rama Dao.“You mean Mr. Gandhi’s order,” I corrected.“Oh yes, yes. The Prince is passing, they are making it a holiday for everybody.”T hat was the lucid conception of Non-Co-operation which bazar gossip contained and conveyed.Later in the day the Christian head mistress came with her report. Our school had been held as usual as the Prince’s passing was strictly private. All had gone quietly, children came as on other days, but in the late afternoon an invasion of zealous young Non-Co-operators occurred. Without asking anybody’s permission they burst into the school. “ Don’t you know it is hartal? How dare you keep school?”The head mistress is of small stature, but she boldly faced her compatriots.“This is a girls’ school, there are only women here; how dare you come in?”“Will you close, or will you not?” they returned roughly.“ If you will all go out we shall close presently,” she said
pacifically. It was within half an hour of closing time then; by shortening the regular time by only a quarter of an hour honour was preserved; both sides came off with flying colours.Otherwise, few reverberations reach us here. Though who can tell what is going on under the surface ?Even from our little country town young men now find their way to England. A woman of the merchant caste came up to ask me for news of her son, gone to Europe. She was quite illiterate herself; she also had the idea that all white people knew one another and that I could easily find out from “my people” why he did not write. In the end, through a mutual friend, information was obtained; later on the young man returned with brilliant degrees. And with much else. He was now a burning Swarajist; his torrent of fiery speech and indignation revealed an inner volcano before which arguments were futile. Also he was now completely irreligious. In the quiet of my study his lava-like stream of words was innocuous; but elsewhere? He was paying only a brief visit to his home, being on the way to his new post, a Government one. Logic I have rarely found to be a powerful factor in Indian minds.His old mother still has images of Sarasvati and Ganpati on the sacred shelf in her kitchen and faithfully performs her daily worship before them; does her pride in his achievements-which she does not understand-outweigh her grief at his having cast off all ways of piety? The bitterness of clash between the old and the new must inevitably become more accentuated as Indian history moves on. Or is there a way out ?Round about here it is still the old religious India; one still meets the old quick response.It was Sunday morning, a municipal peon arrived with notices, demanding signatures.“ I will take them this time,” I said, “so as not to give you
extra trouble, but do not come again on Sunday. We must keep one day separate for Divine things.”The man looked up with quick understanding. “Yes, that is true. We forget about God. So we have not His blessing.”As good a sermon as I heard presently in church. His reply was not, I felt sure, dictated by mere politeness. Perhaps ancient tax-gatherers with secret religious longings still have their modern counterparts in India.One meets signs along roadsides, or on station platforms, or anywhere.I was walking across the fields to the station at Dharm-palli and passed a quarry. Woddars (stone-breakers) were at work in it. They stopped to gaze, and I to greet, then heard their tale of woe, the usual one. Firewood was so dear; it cost three times as much now to split rocks, how were they to live ? 1I have no magic wand to wave away the ills of our life; a bit of secret bread was all that could be offered. “God gives us each our own burdens, also He helps us to bear them.”Remembering that trains will not wait for sermons I went on and heard behind me: “This is a lucky day. The Messengers have visited us to-day.” There is the atmosphere; India’s immediate appreciation of a word, however brief, of spiritual matters. Will modern political and economic stirrings destroy it? Will mills and factories and encroaching industrialism kill that simple homage to the Unseen, vague and undeveloped as it often is ?When I reached the road I saw a man stoop repeatedly and strew something on the ground from a paper bag. “What are you doing?” I asked him. Questions by strangers and wayside talk are taken as a matter of course in this friendly country.“ I am giving sugar to the ants.” 1 T h e usual method o f quarrying is to heat the rock or boulder by burn ing wood piled up against it, and splitting while hot.
