The New World of Islam Part 17

Thus Indian industry, despite its very considerable growth, has not come up to early expectations. As the official Year-Book very frankly states: "India, in short, is a country rich in raw materials and in industrial possibilities, but poor in manufacturing accomplishments."[225] In fact, to some observers, India's industrial future seems far from bright. As a competent English student of Indian conditions recently wrote: "Some years ago it seemed possible that India might, by a rapid a.s.similation of Western knowledge and technical skill, adapt for her own conditions the methods of modern industry, and so reach an approximate economic level. Some even now threaten the Western world with a vision of the vast populations of China and India rising up with skilled organization, vast resources, and comparatively cheap labour to impoverish the West.

To the present writer this is a mere bogey. The peril is of a very different kind. Instead of a growing approximation, he sees a growing disparity. For every step India takes toward mechanical efficiency, the West takes two. When India is beginning to use bicycles and motor-cars (not to make them), the West is perfecting the aeroplane. That is merely symbolic. The war, as we know, has speeded up mechanical invention and produced a population of mechanics; but India has stood comparatively still. It is, up to now, overwhelmingly mediaeval, a country of domestic industry and handicrafts. Mechanical power, even of the simplest, has not yet been applied to its chief industry--agriculture. Yet the period of age-long isolation is over, and India can never go back to it; nevertheless, the gap between East and West is widening. What is to be the outcome for her 300 millions? We are in danger in the East of seeing the worst evils of commercialism developed on an enormous scale, with the vast population of India the victims--of seeing the East become a world slum."[226]

Whether or not this pessimistic outlook is justified, certain it is that not merely India but the entire Orient is in a stage of profound transition; and transition periods are always painful times. We have been considering the new industrial proletariat of the towns. But the older social cla.s.ses are affected in very similar fas.h.i.+on. The old-type handicraftsman and small merchant are obviously menaced by modern industrial and business methods, and the peasant ma.s.ses are in little better shape. It is not merely a change in technique but a fundamental difference in outlook on life that is involved. The life of the old Orient, while there was much want and hards.h.i.+p, was an easygoing life, with virtually no thought of such matters as time, efficiency, output, and "turnover." The merchant sat cross-legged in his little booth amid his small stock of wares, pa.s.sively waiting for trade, chaffering interminably with his customers, annoyed rather than pleased if brisk business came his way. The artisan usually worked by and for himself, keeping his own hours and knocking off whenever he chose. The peasant arose with the dawn, but around noon he and his animals lay down for a long nap and slept until, in the cool of afternoon, they awoke, stretched themselves, and, comfortably and casually, went to work again.

To such people the speed, system, and discipline of our economic life are painfully repugnant, and adaptation can at best be effected only very slowly and under the compulsion of the direst necessity. Meanwhile they suffer from the compet.i.tion of those better equipped in the economic battle. Sir William Ramsay paints a striking picture of the way in which the Turkish population of Asia Minor, from landlords and merchants to simple peasants, have been going down-hill for the last half-century under the economic pressure not merely of Westerners but of the native Christian elements, Armenians and Greeks, who had partially a.s.similated Western business ideas and methods. Under the old state of things, he says, there was in Asia Minor "no economic progress and no mercantile development; things went on in the old fas.h.i.+on, year after year. Such simple business as was carried on was inconsistent with the highly developed Western business system and Western civilization; but it was not oppressive to the people. There were no large fortunes; there was no opportunity for making a great fortune; it was impossible for one man to force into his service the minds and the work of a large number of people, and so to create a great organization out of which he might make big profits. There was a very large number of small men doing business on a small scale."[227] Sir William Ramsay then goes on to describe the shattering of this archaic economic life by modern business methods, to the consequent impoverishment of all cla.s.ses of the unadaptable Turkish population.

How the agricultural cla.s.ses, peasants and landlords alike, are suffering from changing economic conditions is well exemplified by the recent history of India. Says the French writer Chailley, an authoritative student of Indian problems: "For the last half-century large fractions of the agricultural cla.s.ses are being entirely despoiled of their lands or reduced to onerous tenancies. On the other hand, new cla.s.ses are rising and taking their place.... Both ryots and zamindars[228] are involved. The old-type n.o.bility has not advanced with the times. It remains idle and prodigal, while the peasant proprietors, burdened by the traditions of many centuries, are likewise improvident and ignorant. On the other hand, the economic conditions of British India are producing capitalists who seek employment for their wealth. A conflict between them and the old landholders was predestined, and the result was inevitable. Wealth goes to the cleverest, and the land must pa.s.s into the hands of new masters, to the great indignation of the agricultural cla.s.ses, a portion of whom will be reduced to the position of farm-labourers."[229]

The Hindu economist Mukerjee thus depicts the disintegration and decay of the Indian village: "New economic ideas have now begun to influence the minds of the villagers. Some are compelled to leave their occupations on account of foreign compet.i.tion, but more are leaving their hereditary occupations of their own accord. The Brahmins go to the cities to seek government posts or professional careers. The middle cla.s.ses also leave their villages and get scattered all over the country to earn a living. The peasants also leave their ancestral acres and form a cla.s.s of landless agricultural labourers. The villages, drained of their best blood, stagnate and decay. The movement from the village to the city is in fact not only working a complete revolution in the habits and ideals of our people, but its economic consequences are far more serious than are ordinarily supposed. It has made our middle cla.s.ses helplessly subservient to employment and service, and has also killed the independence of our peasant proprietors. It has jeopardized our food-supply, and is fraught with the gravest peril not only to our handicrafts but also to our national industry--agriculture."[230]

Happily there are signs that, in Indian agriculture at least, the transition period is working itself out and that conditions may soon be on the mend. Both the British Government and the native princes have vied with one another in spreading Western agricultural ideas and methods, and since the Indian peasant has proved much more receptive than has the Indian artisan, a more intelligent type of farmer is developing, better able to keep step with the times. A good instance is the growth of rural co-operative credit societies. First introduced by the British Government in 1904, there were in 1915 more than 17,000 such a.s.sociations, with a total of 825,000 members and a working capital of nearly $30,000,000. These agricultural societies make loans for the purchase of stock, fodder, seed, manure, sinking of wells, purchase of Western agricultural machinery, and, in emergencies, personal maintenance. In the districts where they have established themselves they have greatly diminished the plague of usury practised by the "banyas," or village money-lenders, lowering the rate of interest from its former crus.h.i.+ng range of 20 to 75 per cent. to a range averaging from 9 to 18 per cent. Of course such phenomena are as yet merely exceptions to a very dreary rule. Nevertheless, they all point toward a brighter morrow.[231]

But this brighter agricultural morrow is obviously far off, and in industry it seems to be farther still. Meanwhile the changing Orient is full of suffering and discontent. What wonder that many Orientals ascribe their troubles, not to the process of economic transition, but to the political control of European governments and the economic exploitation of Western capital. The result is agitation for emanc.i.p.ation from Western economic as well as Western political control.

At the end of Chapter II we examined the movement among the Mohammedan peoples known as "Economic Pan-Islamism." A similar movement has arisen among the Hindus of India--the so-called "Swades.h.i.+" movement. The Swades.h.i.+sts declare that India's economic ills are almost entirely due to the "drain" of India's wealth to England and other Western lands.

They therefore advocate a boycott of English goods until Britain grants India self-government, whereupon they propose to erect protective tariffs for Indian products, curb the activities of British capital, replace high-salaried English officials by natives, and thereby keep India's wealth at home.[232]

An a.n.a.lysis of these Swades.h.i.+st arguments, however, reveals them as inadequate to account for India's ills, which are due far more to the general economic trend of the times than to any specific defects of the British connection. British governance and British capital do cost money, but their undoubted efficiency in producing peace, order, security, and development must be considered as offsets to the higher costs which native rule and native capital would impose. As Sir Theodore Morison well says: "The advantages which the British Navy and British credit confer on India are a liberal offset to her expenditure on pensions and gratuities to her English servants.... India derives a pecuniary advantage from her connection with the British Empire. The answer, then, which I give to the question 'What economic equivalent does India get for foreign payments?' is this: India gets the equipment of modern industry, and she gets an administration favourable to economic evolution cheaper than she could provide it herself."[233] A comparison with j.a.pan's much more costly defence budgets, inferior credit, and higher interest charges on both public and private loans is enlightening on this point.

In fact, some Indians themselves admit the fallacy of Swades.h.i.+st arguments. As one of them remarks: "The so-called economic 'drain' is nonsense. Most of the misery of late years is due to the rising cost of living--a world-wide phenomenon." And in proof of this he cites conditions in other Oriental countries, especially j.a.pan.[234] As warm a friend of the Indian people as the British labour leader, Ramsay Macdonald, states: "One thing is quite evident, a tariff will not re-establish the old hand-industry of India nor help to revive village handicrafts. Factory and machine production, native to India itself, will throttle them as effectively as that of Lancas.h.i.+re and Birmingham has done in the past."[235]

Even more trenchant are the criticisms formulated by the Hindu writer Pramatha Nath Bose.[236] The "drain," says Mr. Bose, is ruining India.

But would the Home Rule programme, as envisaged by most Swades.h.i.+sts, cure India's economic ills? Under Home Rule these people would do the following things: (1) Subst.i.tute Englishmen for Indians in the Administration; (2) levy protective duties on Indian products; (3) grant State encouragement to Indian industries; (4) disseminate technical education. Now, how would these matters work out? The subst.i.tution of Indian for British officials would not lessen the "drain" as much as most Home Rulers think. The high-placed Indian officials who already exist have acquired European standards of living, so the new official corps would cost almost as much as the old. Also, "the influence of the example set by the well-to-do Indian officials would permeate Indian society more largely than at present, and the demand for Western articles would rise in proportion. So commercial exploitation by foreigners would not only continue almost as if they were Europeans, but might even increase." As to a protective tariff, it would attract European capital to India which would exploit labour and skim the profits. India has shown relatively little capacity for indigenous industrial development. Of course, even at low wages, many Indians might benefit, yet such persons would form only a t.i.the of the millions now starving--besides the fact that this industrialization would bring in many new social evils. As to State encouragement of industries, this would bring in Western capital even more than a protective tariff, with the results already stated. As for technical education, it is a worthy project, but, says Mr. Bose, "I am afraid the movement is too late, now.

Within the last thirty years the Westerners and the j.a.panese have gone so far ahead of us industrially that it has been yearly becoming more and more difficult to compete with them."

In fact, Mr. Bose goes on to criticize the whole system of Western education, as applied to India. Neither higher nor lower education have proven panaceas. "Higher education has led to the material prosperity of a small section of our community, comprising a few thousands of well-to-do lawyers, doctors, and State servants. But their occupations being of a more or less unproductive or parasitic character, their well-being does not solve the problem of the improvement of India as a whole. On the contrary, as their taste for imported articles develops in proportion to their prosperity, they help to swell rather than diminish the economic drain from the country which is one of the chief causes of our impoverishment." Neither has elementary education "on the whole furthered the well-being of the mult.i.tude. It has not enabled the cultivators to 'grow two blades where one grew before.' On the contrary, it has distinctly diminished their efficiency by inculcating in the literate proletariat, who const.i.tute the cream of their cla.s.s, a strong distaste for their hereditary mode of living and their hereditary callings, and an equally strong taste for shoddy superfluities and brummagem fineries, and for occupations of a more or less parasitic character. They have, directly or indirectly, accelerated rather than r.e.t.a.r.ded the decadence of indigenous industries, and have thus helped to aggravate their own economic difficulties and those of the entire community. What they want is more food--and New India vies with the Government in giving them what is called 'education' that does not increase their food-earning capacity, but on the contrary fosters in them tastes and habits which make them despise indigenous products and render them fit subjects for the exploitation of scheming capitalists, mostly foreign. Political and economic causes could not have led to the extinction of indigenous industry if they had not been aided by change of taste fostered by the Western environment of which the so-called 'education' is a powerful factor."

From all this Mr. Bose concludes that none of the reforms advocated by the Home Rulers would cure India's ills. "In fact, the chances are, she would be more inextricably entangled in the toils of Western civilization, without any adequate compensating advantage, and the grip of the West would close on her to crush her more effectively."

Therefore, according to Mr. Bose, the only thing for India to do is to turn her back on everything Western and plunge resolutely into the traditional past. As he expresses it: "India's salvation lies, not in the region of politics, but outside it; not in aspiring to be one of the 'great' nations of the present day, but in retiring to her humble position--a position, to my mind, of solitary grandeur and glory; not in going forward on the path of Western civilization, but in going back from it so far as practicable; not in getting more and more entangled in the silken meshes of its finely knit, widespread net, but in escaping from it as far as possible."

Such are the drastic conclusions of Mr. Bose; conclusions shared to a certain extent by other Indian idealists like Rabindranath Tagore. But surely such projects, however idealistic, are the vainest fantasies.

Whole peoples cannot arbitrarily cut themselves off from the rest of the world, like isolated individuals forswearing society and setting up as anchorites in the jungle. The time for "hermit nations" has pa.s.sed, especially for a vast country like India, set at the cross-roads of the East, open to the sea, and already profoundly penetrated by Western ideas.

Nevertheless, such criticisms, appealing as they do to the strong strain of asceticism latent in the Indian nature, have affected many Indians who, while unable to concur in the conclusions, still try to evolve a "middle term," retaining everything congenial in the old system and grafting on a select set of Western innovations. Accordingly, these persons have elaborated programmes for a "new order" built on a blend of Hindu mysticism, caste, Western industry, and socialism.[237]

Now these schemes are highly ingenious. But they are not convincing.

Their authors should remember the old adage that you cannot eat your cake and have it too. When we realize the abysmal ant.i.thesis between the economic systems of the old East and the modern West, any attempt to combine the most congenial points of both while eschewing their defects seems an attempt to reconcile irreconcilables and about as profitable as trying to square the circle. As Lowes d.i.c.kinson wisely observes: "Civilization is a whole. Its art, its religion, its way of life, all hang together with its economic and technical development. I doubt whether a nation can pick and choose; whether, for instance, the East can say, 'We will take from the West its battles.h.i.+ps, its factories, its medical science; we will not take its social confusion, its hurry and fatigue, its ugliness, its over-emphasis on activity.'... So I expect the East to follow us, whether it like it or no, into all these excesses, and to go right through, not round, all that we have been through on its way to a higher phase of civilization."[238]

This seems to be substantially true. Judged by the overwhelming body of evidence, the East, in its contemporary process of transformation, will follow the West--avoiding some of our more patent mistakes, perhaps, but, in the main, proceeding along similar lines. And, as already stated, this transformation is modifying every phase of Eastern life. We have already examined the process at work in the religious, political, and economic phases. To the social phase let us now turn.

FOOTNOTES:

[206] F. B. Fisher, _India's Silent Revolution_, p. 53 (New York, 1920).

[207] Rev. A. J. Brown, "Economic Changes in Asia," _The Century_, March, 1904.

[208] _I. e._ the purveyor of the native vegetable-oils.

[209] R. Mukerjee, _The Foundations of Indian Economics_, p. 5 (London, 1916).

[210] On these points, see Fisher, _op. cit._; Sir T. Morison, _The Economic Transition in India_ (London, 1911); Sir Valentine Chirol, _Indian Unrest_ (London, 1910); D. H. Dodwell, "Economic Transition in India," _Economic Journal_, December, 1910; J. P. Jones, "The Present Situation in India," _Journal of Race Development_, July, 1910.

[211] L. Bertrand, _Le Mirage oriental_, pp. 20-21 (Paris, 1910).

[212] Sir T. Morison, _The Economic Transition in India_, p. 181.

[213] Quoted by Jones, _supra_.

[214] _The Indian Review_ (Madras), 1910.

[215] Clarence Poe, "What the Orient can Teach Us," _World's Work_, July, 1911.

[216] C. S. Cooper, _The Modernizing of the Orient_, p. 5 (New York, 1914).

[217] Morison, _op. cit._, p. 242.

[218] H. N. Brailsford, _The War of Steel and Gold_, p. 114 (London, 1915).

[219] A. Metin, _L'Inde d'aujourd'hui: etude sociale_, p. 336 (Paris, 1918).

[220] In his book, _Trois Ans en Perse_ (Paris, 1858).

[221] Brailsford, _op. cit._, pp. 83, 114-115.

[222] Regarding conditions in China, especially the extraordinary discipline and working ability of the Chinaman, see my _Rising Tide of Colour against White World-Supremacy_, pp. 28-30, 243-251.

[223] Metin, _op. cit._, p. 337.

[224] A. Yusuf Ali, _Life and Labour in India_, p. 183 (London, 1907).

[225] "India in the Years 1917-1918" (official publication--Calcutta).

[226] Young and Ferrers, _India in Conflict_, pp. 15-17 (London, 1920).

[227] Sir W. M. Ramsay, "The Turkish Peasantry of Anatolia," _Quarterly Review_, January, 1918.

[228] _I. e._ peasants and landlords.

[229] J. Chailley _Administrative Problems of British India_, p. 339 (London, 1910--English translation).

[230] Mukerjee, _op. cit._, p. 9.

[231] On the co-operative movement in India, see Fisher, _India's Silent Revolution_, pp. 54-58; R. B. Ewebank, "The Co-operative Movement in India," _Quarterly Review_, April, 1916. India's economic problems, both agricultural and industrial, have been carefully studied by a large number of Indian economists, some of whose writings are extremely interesting. Some of the most noteworthy books, besides those of Mukerjee and Yusuf Ali, already quoted, are: Dadabhai Naoroji, _Poverty and Un-British Rule in India_ (London, 1901); Romesh Dutt, _The Economic History of India in the Victorian Age_ (London, 1906); H. H. Gosh, _The Advancement of Industry_ (Calcutta, 1910); P. C. Ray, _The Poverty Problem in India_ (Calcutta, 1895); M. G. Ranade, _Essays on Indian Economics_ (Madras, 1920); Jadunath Sarkar, _Economics of British India_ (Calcutta, 1911).

[232] The best compendium of Swades.h.i.+st opinion is the volume containing p.r.o.nouncements from all the Swades.h.i.+ leaders, ent.i.tled, _The Swades.h.i.+ Movement: A Symposium_ (Madras, 1910). See also writings of the economists Gosh, Mukerjee, Ray, and Sarkar, above quoted, as well as the various writings of the nationalist agitator Lajpat Rai. A good summary interpretation is found in M. Glotz, "Le Mouvement 'Swades.h.i.+' dans l'Inde," _Revue du Mois_, July, 1913.

[233] Sir T. Morison, _The Economic Transition in India_, pp. 240-241.

Also see Sir Valentine Chirol, _Indian Unrest_, pp. 255-279; William Archer, _India and the Future_, pp. 131-157.

[234] Syed Sirdar Ali Khan, _India of To-day_, p. 19 (Bombay, 1908).