India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

by John P. Jones

The general subject of the influence of the West upon the East has been recently raised in the very interesting and thought-provoking book on “Asia and Europe” by the English writer, Meredith Townsend. He stiffly maintains that the West never has, and, probably, never will, seriously and permanently influence the East in thought and life. While there is a semblance, yea an element, of truth in his contention, so far as the past is concerned, it fails to apply to the India of the present and must fall far wide of the mark in the future. Many years have elapsed [pg 336] since the author of “Asia and Europe” left India; and he is not conversant, at first hand, with the mighty revolution which is taking place there at present. He fails, for one thing, to appreciate the wonderful influence of modern scientific discovery as a unifier of all peoples and as the handmaid of western life and thought and of Christian conquest. I need refer only to one of these modern agencies—the telegraph. The election of Mr. McKinley as president of the United States was known to me in India before it was known to nine-tenths of the population of this land.

The calamity which recently befell Galveston, Texas, was not only known to Hindus, the very next day; the price of cotton went up in South India villages as a consequence of that sad event. The generous offerings recently contributed in America for the famine sufferers in India were actually distributed to them in food the next day after they were offered! Can these things, and a thousand like them, which enter into the every-day transactions of East and West, have no permanent influence upon the relations of these once remote but now neighbouring people? Isolation has everywhere given way to intercourse and mutual dependence; and that means community of life and thought which produces fundamental action and reaction.

Under these new and marvellous conditions the former “mental seclusion of India,” so unduly emphasized by Mr. Townsend, is rapidly yielding and must utterly pass away. It will, however, not pass away simply because of the influence of the West upon the East, but rather because of the mutual action [pg 337] and reaction of East and West. The East will approach the West because, to a large extent, the West will have learned to appreciate, and to draw in sympathy towards, the East. Herein lies the secret of the future oneness, or at least of the communion, of the two great hemispheres.

India is, therefore, in this matter, facing today such conditions as never before existed there; and these are to further considerably the work of revolution which our religion is bringing to pass in that land, and which such pessimists as Mr. Townsend are wont to ignore.

That keen philosopher and high authority upon India, Sir Alfred Lyall, is right in his anticipation when he claims that India “will be carried swiftly through phases which have occupied long stages in the lifetime of other nations.”

Considering, then, the leavening influences and the general results of our faith in that land we shall see them in many institutions and departments of life.

(a) In laws which the government of India has enacted during the last century.

There has been a steady conflict between the enlightened government of the white man and the inhuman customs of the people of that land. The Christian sentiment of the members of the government, and of other Christians outside of that circle, has ever rebelled against and sought to put down the grossest evils which obtain there.

And the fact which we need to emphasize here is that these evils have been directed and protected by Hinduism itself and are an integral part of its ceremonies and teachings. Whenever the government [pg 338] has sought, by legislation, to do away with these inhuman rites and customs it has been bitterly opposed by Hinduism and has been met by a general uprising of its followers against what they have called religious interference and persecution. Thus the suppression of Thuggism was a definite attack upon a religious institution, for the Thuggs never committed a murder, save as a part of their worship of the goddess Bhowanee to whose service they had dedicated themselves and to which the blood of the innocent traveller (as they thought) was the most welcome sacrifice its devotee could offer. Hence the difficulty which faced the government in bringing these religious murders to an end.

Suttee was also regarded as a high type of religious devotion. For the widow to immolate herself upon the funeral pyre of her dead husband was not only the supreme test of wifely devotion, it was also preëminently the highest religious act possible to her; and it brought to her a future bliss which was painted in glowing and attractive colours by the sacred books of her faith. It was not strange, therefore, that the State hesitated, for a long time, to abolish by law this hideous custom, whereby in the year 1817, for instance, two widows were burned daily in the Bengal Presidency alone.