The India of Tomorrow

At a special luncheon of The Empire Club of Canada, held on Monday, September 18, 1933, the guest speaker was Diwan Mudaliar, former Mayor of Madras and leader of the Indian delegation to the British Commonwealth Relations Conference.

In introducing the speaker, MAJOR JAMES BAXTER, the President, explained that Mr. Mudaliar was substituting for The Honourable Mr. Justice Roche who had been scheduled to speak but, owing to a train accident, had found it impossible to be present.

MR. DIWAN MUDALIAR: Gentlemen: Though I am a very poor substitute for the gentleman who was to have spoken to you this afternoon, I deem it the highest privilege I could be afforded in my short stay in Canada that I should have this opportunity of speaking to you and speaking, particularly, on a subject which I have, to the limited extent I have, dedicated my life-the future of my country, not merely internally but in foreign politics, as well.

I do not know what impression you have of India and Indian conditions, but judging by the very meagre newspaper reports I have seen during the past fortnight of that country and, in fact, many countries in Asia, I do not think it is inaccurate to say that most Canadians must have a very hazy idea of India and of Indian problems. We are so far remote geographically! And we are so far apart in many other ways. Racially, we are apart. Though in India there are many millions who speak the English language, we can not claim affinity, and culturally, we are supposed to be quite distinct. But anyone who has followed the life of our country and its various peoples will find an harmonious unity throughout the whole that makes for the betterment of human beings.

I propose to describe briefly what we hope will be the position of India in the future. "The India of Tomorrow as I have ventured to suggest as the theme of my subject to you.

India is pulsating with new hopes-the same activities 'that you find in every other country have been the activities of India. No country in the world is the same today as before the Great War, and it is a truism that the youth of the country is continually striving to find for themselves that expression and responsibility which in every nation they try to strive for. In India, more than any other country, this aspect has to be emphasized because owing to no fault of theirs, historians deal with the Indian problem in a way that is a travesty on the East. It is spoken of as "The Unchanging East"-the affairs of the world having no effect on them and making for no progress among them, as making no tangible change in their manners and customs and their outlook on life.

I frankly suggest that if you want to appreciate the Indian situation, you have to get rid of the idea of an un-changing East and realize for yourselves that it is the East which is most rapidly changing because it is changing more differently from the past than any other country.

Take my own country, for instance. There are many conditions that existed in India before the War which I do not recognize at present, though an Indian myself. You have been accustomed to hear of women in India going about in veils, in purdah, isolated and not able to take part in the public life and their faces not visible to the male eye. Millions of women have been brought up in this isolated condition in India, apart from one half of the human population of India. It was perfectly true before the War and to a certain extent it is true in some portions of India today, but the changes that have overcome Indian women is something that is indescribable.

You have heard of the civil disobedience movement--the movement started by the Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Ghandi which agitated for a better political status for my country and resorted to methods which some deprecated. In that movement you may be surprised to learn, out of about 60,000 people sent to jail, not less than five thousand were women and they were women drawn from the highest of castes women who never have gone near a penitentiary even for a minor visit women who formerly would not have been seen walking along the streets but who would have considered it a loss of dignity and lowering to their prestige if they were seen by male eyes. At the public meetings, thousands of women gathered together and they addressed the public meetings and were arrested by the law officers of the government of India and imprisoned. It is impossible to put the women back in their former place, however much we, as men, might like to do so. They have established already their position in the public life of the country and say what you may, they are ready to play their part in the social and political development of my country. That is an arresting fact which has to be taken notice of.

Take the class known as the depressed or the "untouchables". Some say that it numbers about seventy million; and some say sixty millions. I think as the member for Madras in the Indian Legislative Assembly, I might put it at somewhere about thirty millions. But that is a large figure in itself. The position of this caste was something very pathetic about fifty years ago. They had no place in the civic life of the country; they had no place in the political life of the nation. However inadequate may have been the political aspirations of my country, a great stimulus was given to the movement introduced for the first time that that body have representation in the legislation and today, owing to the discussions of the various sessions of the Round Table Conference, the untouchables are going to have a fairly prominent part in the various provincial and federal legislatures in India. In my own province there will be thirty representatives of the untouchable caste and you can easily realize the effect of groups together in various legislatures. And you, in Canada who have adopted your form of federal government and your distribution of office, having always in mind the various interests of groups and always the desirability of getting as many groups represented as possible, will easily understand how the large group of thirty members in the Madras legislature will be a very considerable force in promoting the welfare of their caste and in doing away with the social anachronism which still exists in some parts of the country.

You have been told that there is a great deal of political discontent in India. I admit that there is but I wish you could realize the exact nature of that political discontent. The political contentment which exists amounts

to much more than the extent of the discontent which exists. One agitator that speaks out gets more publicly than a thousand men who feel that everything is going along all right. I should not like to give the impression that the people in India are, in the masses, entirely satisfied with the present state of affairs. Indians of all classes and all political sections and creeds are anxious to be in their own country what other people are in theirs-to live to the full stature of their manhood which will make them respectable citizens and when they travel abroad, they will feel with other members of the Dominions that they are equal co-partners in that great and glorious enterprise the British Commonwealth of Nations.

I should not like you to think that India is essentially seditious or that she wants to get out of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Here and there an individual may express such ideas. Here and there, if there is some agitation, it is merely for the glory, or for purposes connected with individual interests. There might be some resistance offered, but I want this to be impressed on you: India is as anxious to be in the Commonwealth of the British Empire and as anxious to play its part in this great federation, as any other dominion can possibly be and it is not merely a question of sentiment, although sentiment does come into the question. You may think that sentiment only exists among those alike in race, in religion and culture. I venture to doubt it. You have only to look at the history of the world. Men of the same race fight each other. Men of the same religion have been at each other's throats. Often, in our own histories, we have had men of the same culture coming into conflict with each other.

I don't want to affect our "commonalty" if I may venture to call it, but I venture to say that is another reason why India should take its place in the Commonwealth. After all that may be said about the Kingdom of Great Britain, there is this outstanding fact, throughout the history, with occasional lapses, perhaps, it has strived for individual liberty and individual freedom, and has built up a tradition which makes it the protector of smaller nations and communities, based on ideals of justice and equality and independence. (Applause.)

India and Indians realize this. India and Indians feel in this present state of the history of the world, the policy of isolation is impossible. No country can be isolated, however great it may be, nor can a nation be isolated long in world politics. The United States is realizing that more and more today. If that is not the case where you have a powerful state with great resources, you can easily see that a country like ours, great as the population is, great as its resources are, follows the history of the world in the preparation we are making, not for isolation but for co-operative effort. Since the Great War, it has been borne in on us as never before, that, neither economically nor politically, can we be isolated" We feel, if we are to enter any world federation at all, partnership in the British Commonwealth of Nations is the best co-operative effort possible. If that is so, we are anxious, more than anxious, as I said before, and every party in India is anxious that in playing our part in the Federation we must have our status recognized. We must have our status in the Commonwealth of Nations; we must have the freedom and independence to manage our own affairs in our country which is the first essential to making the contribution successful. How else can we do it? Can we do it if we are to have the whole of our affairs directed by people six thousand miles away? In the first place, it isn't necessary. Differences of opinion, racial prejudices and creeds constantly attack the British, merely because they are British, however well they may be acting in our country. Good government can never be;a substitute for good self-government.

Canada was founded, about ninety years ago. You glad good government but you weren't satisfied with good government; you wanted self-government. You felt that you could not rise to the full stature of your manhood without having a state in which you ordered your own affairs in your own way. While, therefore, our adherence to the British Commonwealth can not be doubted, and princes of the governments of India have emphasized it over and over again, if the test should ever come again, the people of India will come to the help or the assistance of the United Kingdom just as much and as far as they did in the Great War of 1914. I say, therefore, that sentiment is there and can always be relied on for the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, generally. But we do feel that the time has come when we must have the same status as other dominions. We do not seek too much progress before we know where we are and therefore, the New Constitution provides that in certain spheres of activity--those of external affairs and defence--it might be well for a transitional period to go on as now, but in other internal affairs, India must have responsible government and have its affairs directed by responsible ministers.

If we might turn from our relations with the United Kingdom to our relations with the sister dominions of the Commonwealth, I would like to say that India would like closer associations with the various dominions. India would like to feel that she is understood by them and would like to understand their qualities and their statesmen and their attitude toward industry. I do not want to complain--there is no good in complaining--but I do think that perhaps our point of view is not understood. Our manners, our customs, our habits, our methods of life are not understood, just because there is not that close understanding between the two dominions--there is not the opportunity for coming into contact with each other, or the personal contacts which go a long way toward establishing a real understanding and mutual cooperation.

It was only the other day, in New York, that I came across a film exhibited in one of the cinemas--"India Speaks". I have forgotten the name of the writer-he was a well known traveller. I went in to see what kind of a film it was. Believe me, a grosser caricature of the habits and customs of the Indian people could not have been displayed. One of the statements made was that women do not take part in any religion in India because, according to the religion of the Hindu and the Moslem, women have no souls. You don't know the religions of 'India. No religion that has lasted for hundreds and thousands of years could have survived if that were the principle on which it is founded. If you find Hinduism adopted by two hundred and fifty millions and Mahommedanism by no lesser section, it is a travesty to suggest that women have no souls according to that system.

I am speaking for the Hindus, themselves. We feel that religion has been conserved by the women even more than by the men and that the busy man is likely to forget religion, that the man who wants to be a successful businessman or politician is likely to forget the eternal verities of the Hindu religion, but it is the women who try to carry out the great responsibilities of family life who are much nearer God and the Hindu religion than man very often is.

And, if I might say so, India is such a vast continent, its ideas are so many, that a presentation of any part or section while accurate in its presentation of a part, as a presentation typical of the whole life of the Indian nation will be a gross travesty. You have heard of a set of people known as Animists and whose religion is animistic. If you taken an account of the life of the animist and attempt to portray it as typical of the whole of religion, you will certainly have a very wrong impression, though in itself, a fact. It is extraordinarily difficult for those who go on a mission of globe trotting for a few weeks to come back and present India as she is, the diversities and variations of India being so many.

I do not want to suggest that anyone consciously does an injury to India. I do venture to think that those who have not had the opportunity to play their part in the Indian land, or to get into touch with the people of India can not be in a position to portray India accurately.

What do we want? We want to realize that this Commonwealth of Nations of the British Empire is a reality, that it is a living thing and to do that, we realize that greater contact with the various dominions is essential. We have to understand Canada and Canadians and the Canadian point of view, even as you have to understand India and the Indian point of view. It is perfectly true that you have more Canadians in India who have spent their lives there than we can have in your country. Many missionaries have gone out and have established themselves in various parts of India and have done their level best to promote happiness among those they are serving and I should like to take this opportunity of paying my humble tribute to that set of glorious men who, coming from their own country, have thrown themselves wholeheartedly into the life of the people and have tried to promote the Christian church, promoting the life and welfare of the people whom they serve. We are grateful to them. India is a land of promise.

You hear of Hindu and Moslem conflictions of religion. Believe me, nothing again, can be a grosser caricature of the real truth. It was in India, years ago, that the first settlement of Christians, persecuted by the Romans, came over and settled themselves on the west coast of my province and called themselves the Syrian Christians. It was about eight hundred years ago that the persecuted of Asia came over and settled themselves and today they are known as the Parsees and are the- richest and most influential persons in my country. There are a hundred thousand of them only, but their importance and prosperity in the whole of the economic life of the country is not at all comparable to the small numbers of their population. 'So, from time to time, these people have come over and the Hindu, generally, has tolerated their existence.

There has been no hostility against Christian interests and the propagation of your faith. Some of us do not believe it is necessary to take that religion, and if I bring a message to the audience, I would like to say this: It is not by conversion and the counting of the heads of those Christians that you are really serving the country. It is much more by the transformation of the ideals and the life of the people that you bring about by your own life that you must continue. If I might be a little more explicit: Many of us have been educated in colleges run by Christian missions. I, myself, was a student of the Madras Christian College, run by the Free Church of 'Scotland Mission. I have read the Bible, the Old Testament and the New. I have been inspired by the Old Testament; I have been invigorated by the New Testament. I have heard the Professor in the College discuss the Vision of Saul of Tarsus in both a subjective and an abstract way-just as dispassionately as that. While I have no intention of turning from my faith and while I expect to be a Hindu to the end of my life, I should certainly be ungrateful for the opportunity I have had if 1 should not say how deeply interested I have been by my contact with the Christian faith. But it is not of the conversion of the heart but of the conversion of the life of the people themselves, that the missionaries have to think. It is not so much in the conversions, in the number of baptismal ceremonies-there are a few people converted in that way but I suggest, very respectfully, that there are great numbers who are able to understand the ideals of Christianity and the great ideals of the Lord, perhaps much better than the numbers of people in out of the way places who are living under miserable conditions and who are baptized by hundreds in a day, and, perhaps, in many cases have been induced by the fact that here and there they may get the grant of an acre of land for pasture and cultivation.

Well, Gentlemen, I was bound to say this because, during the past few months a great controversy has taken place in my country--whether, if India ever attained the status of a dominion, there would be toleration of the Christian faith and would Christians be allowed to do their work. I venture to state, and many politicians have stated that there would be no hindrance in that matter at all, so far as they could see there was no reason why the great work could not be carried 'on in the same spirit.

Only one word more: I said that it was essential that we should try to understand each other, that the great ideal of the Commonwealth of Nations, functioning properly, could best be secured by an interchange of representatives of the Dominions and by trying to understand it. Canada will be much nearer to me when I go back than it has ever been before. I have been privileged to have a glimpse of the life of your people and to understand something of their aspirations and I shall certainly feel ever after, in reading any item of news of Canada, that I am nearer to the people of this province and this great Dominion than T have ever been before. It is so with Australia or South Africa, or even the Irish Free State, if we could establish personal contact, if our Commissioners and possibly our High Commissioners were engaged in trying to represent the ideas of each Dominion in a better way than they have before, there would be a closer understanding between the Dominions. The very conception of the British Commonwealth, then and the coherence and the solidarity required of the British Commonwealth of Nations, demands that each unit plays its proper part in world politics, and that great coherence and solidarity will bring about the greatness of the British Empire, and the British Commonwealth of Nations will assume a greater aspect and become a more living factor in making for world peace than ever before, to the glory of that Empire, based on equality, Justice and co-operative efforts, constructing for each other happiness and trying to understand each other. To that great British Empire, let us all who put any thought on the future of the world and world peace, consecrate our life and our efforts.

And believe me, whatever you may hear, India will play her part absolutely with the same spirit and in the same manner in which any other dominion is willing to play its part in this great task. And when we remember that that great task is not merely the consolidation of an Empire, but the task of so utilizing the opportunity to make it effective in world politics and make it impossible for a war to be waged in which humanity is sacrificed as it was during the Great War, that is believed to be the task, I think, whether white or coloured, whether we belong to one dominion or another. All who believe in the great ideals of Christianity which are, I believe, the ideals of every truly great religion, will believe that task not unworthy of ourselves and in the consecration of that great task, we shall discharge our most faithful duty to our Creator. (Prolonged applause.)