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MY MOTHER INDIA
_by_
DALIP SINGH SAUND, M.A., Ph.D.
[Illustration]
_Published by_
THE PACIFIC COAST KHALSA DIWAN SOCIETY, INC. (SIKH TEMPLE) STOCKTON,
CALIFORNIA.
COPYRIGHT, 1930
BY
DALIP SINGH SAUND
FROM THE PRESS OF
WETZEL PUBLISHING CO., INC.
LOS ANGELES
_Dedicated to
my beloved friend Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind_
PREFACE
This work was undertaken at the request of THE PACIFIC COAST KHALSA
DIWAN SOCIETY, commonly known as the SIKH TEMPLE at Stockton,
California. The original plan was to write a comprehensive reply to
Katherine Mayo’s book MOTHER INDIA, which was changed later to one of
producing a handbook on India for general use by the American public.
In view of the momentous changes of worldwide interest, which have
taken place in India during recent years, the need for such a book was
quite imminent. And it was only fitting that THE PACIFIC COAST KHALSA
DIWAN SOCIETY, in its role as the interpreter of Hindu culture and
civilization to America, should undertake its publication.
Only a few years ago, India, like other countries of the Orient, was a
far Eastern problem. To-day, if rightly judged, it has already become a
near Western issue. Except for the few scholars of oriental history and
literature, who occupied themselves diligently in exploring the hidden
treasures of Hindu civilization, the name of India was an unknown thing
to the rest of the American world. For the average man and woman in
the United States the affairs of that oriental country were too remote
an issue for them to notice. With the advances made by science during
recent times, however, different parts of the world have become so
near together, and their business and cultural relations have grown so
desperately interlaced, that the affairs of one section of the globe
cannot, and should not, remain a matter of comfortable unconcern for
the other. It has been my aim in the preparation of this book to answer
the various questions that commonly arise in the minds of the American
people regarding the cultural and political problems of India. And if I
have succeeded in bringing about a better understanding of India by the
people of America, I consider myself amply repaid.
Wherever feasible I have made free uses of striking passages and
phrases from the writings of several authors. Since these were copied
from my notes gathered during a course of study extending over several
years, it has not always been possible for me to trace the source, for
which I wish to be humbly excused.
I wish to express my sincerest appreciation to my beloved wife for
her untiring assistance in the preparation of the manuscript and the
reading of the proofs. I wish also to thank my friend Mr. Anoop Singh
Dhillon for valuable suggestions.
Los Angeles, California.
March, 1930.
DALIP SINGH SAUND.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WOMAN’S POSITION IN INDIA. IS SHE BOND OR FREE? 9
II. THE HINDU IDEAL OF MARRIAGE 36
III. THE CIVILIZATION AND ETHICS OF INDIA 64
IV. THE CASTE SYSTEM OF INDIA 81
V. GANDHI--THE MAN AND HIS MESSAGE 108
VI. INDIA’S EXPERIMENT WITH PASSIVE RESISTANCE 126
VII. JALLIANWALLA MASSACRE AT AMRITSAR 146
VIII. WHY IS INDIA POOR? 162
IX. INDIAN NATIONALISM--ITS ORIGIN AND GROWTH 190
CHAPTER I
WOMAN’S POSITION IN INDIA. IS SHE BOND OR FREE?
“_Where women are honored,_
_there the gods are pleased;_
_but where they are dishonored,_
_no sacred rite yields reward._”
Thus, in the year 200 B. C., wrote Manu, the great law-giver of
India--India, whose mind was full grown when the western nations were
yet unborn; India, whose life rolled on while the West, like the
dragon fly, lived and died to live again. While Europe was still in a
state of primitive barbarism, the Indo-Aryans of _Bharat_ (India) had
reached an elevated state of moral and spiritual perfection; and in
the realm of intellectual culture they had attained an eminence which
has not yet been equalled by the most advanced of western countries.
Not only had they a perfect alphabet and a symmetrical language, but
their literature already contained models of true poetry and remarkable
treatises on philosophy, science, and ethics when the forefathers
of the modern western nations were still clothed in skins and could
neither read nor write. In their firm grasp of the fundamental meaning
and purpose of life, and in the organization of their society with a
view to the full attainment of the fruits of life, namely, “to take
from each according to his capacity, and to give to each according to
his needs,” they had attained to a high degree of excellence, which has
been recognized by the greatest of both western and oriental scholars.
Says Max Müller, the noted scholar of oriental languages:
“If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country
most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that
nature can bestow--in some parts a very paradise on earth--I
should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human
mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has
most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has
found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention
even of those who have studied Plato and Kant--I should point
to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we,
here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on
the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the
Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order
to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more
universal, in fact more truly human, a life not for this life
only, but a transfigured and eternal life--again I should point to
India.”[1]
Further, of the culture of this ancient people of India Sir
Monier-Williams, sometime Boden Professor of Sanskrit in the University
of Oxford, famous translator of Sanskrit drama, and author of many
works on history and literature, speaks from an intimate knowledge of
India derived from long residence in the country when he writes:
“Indeed, I am deeply convinced that the more we learn about the
ideas, feelings, drift of thought, religious and intellectual
development, eccentricities, and even errors of the people of
India, the less ready shall we be to judge them by our own
conventional European standards--the less disposed to regard
ourselves as the sole depositories of all the true knowledge,
learning, virtue and refinements of civilized life--the less prone
to despise as an ignorant and inferior race the men who compiled
the laws of Manu, one of the remarkable productions of the
world--who composed systems of ethics worthy of Christianity--who
imagined the _Ramayna_ and _Mahabharata_, poems in some respects
outrivalling the Iliad and the Odyssey--who invented for
themselves the sciences of grammar, arithmetic, astronomy, logic,
and six most subtle systems of philosophy. Above all, the less
inclined shall we be to stigmatize as benighted heathen the
authors of two religions, however false, which are at this moment
professed by about half the human race.”[2]
Such a civilization has built up the enormous literature of the Hindus
embodied in the _Vedas_, _Upnishads_, the epic poems of _Ramayna_
and _Mahabharata_, and the immortal works of Kalidasa, a literature
comprising in itself an achievement of the human mind which may be
considered sublime, and of which any civilization, ancient or modern,
may feel justly proud. The poetical merit of Kalidasa’s _Sakuntala_
is universally admitted, and it ranks among the best of the world’s
masterpieces of dramatic art. Its beauty of thought and its tenderness
in the expression of feeling are exquisite, while its creative fancy is
rich, and the charm of its spirit is full. Says Goethe:
“_Wouldst thou the life’s young blossoms and the fruits of its decline,_
_All by which the soul is pleased, enraptured, feasted, fed,--_
_Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sweet name combine?_
_I name thee, O_ Sakuntala, _and all at once is said_.”
The epic poems of _Ramayna_ and _Mahabharata_ consist of stories
and legends which form a splendid superstructure on the teachings
contained in the earlier scriptures of the _Vedas_. By relating what
the men and women of those times thought, said, and did, these poems
illustrate in a highly instructive manner the general character and
culture of the early Hindus. The stories contained in these poems,
which, in fact, rival the best known epic poems of the world, tell
us of the thoughts and beliefs, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows of
the people of this earliest recorded period. Through these stories
we learn the fundamental concepts which governed the religious and
social life of the early Hindus; in them are revealed also the basic
moral and spiritual laws which controlled the actions, “not only of
gods and supernatural men, but of ordinary men and women of India.”
“They explain--by showing the degrees of danger incurred by such
vices as anger and pride, deception and faithlessness, intemperance
and impiety--the evil consequences of moral transgressions from both
man-made and supernatural laws; and at the same time they emphasize the
beauty of such virtues as patience and self-control, truthfulness and
purity, obedience and filial love.”[3]
As an illustration of the fascinating and elevated nature of its lofty
idealism, we shall quote two passages from _Ramayna_. In the first,
Rama, the ideal king, has determined to execute the will of his late
father by staying in the forests as an exile for fourteen years. Sita,
his wife and the heroine of the story, begs her lord and husband to
allow her to accompany him in his exile to the forests and offers a
picture highly expressive of pious conjugal love. Sita says:
“_Thou art my king, my guide, my only refuge, my divinity._
_It is my fixed resolve to follow thee. If thou must wander forth_
_Through thorny trackless forests, I will go before thee, treading down_
_The prickly brambles to make smooth thy path. Walking before thee, I_
_Shall feel no weariness: the forest thorns will seem like silken robes;_
_The bed of leaves, a couch of down. To me the shelter of thy presence_
_Is better far than stately palaces, and paradise itself._
_Protected by thy arm, gods, demons, men shall have no power to harm me._
_Roaming with thee in desert wastes, a thousand years will be a day;_
_Dwelling with thee, e’en hell itself would be to me a heaven of bliss._”
In the second selection Rama is heard answering to the entreaties of
Bharata, who has tried in vain to dissuade him from carrying out his
design. The following is Rama’s answer to the messenger of Bharata:
“The words which you have addressed to me, though they recommend
what _seems_ to be right and salutary, advise, in fact, the
contrary. The sinful transgressor, who lives according to the
rules of heretical systems, obtains no esteem from good men. It
is good conduct that marks a man to be noble or ignoble, heroic
or a pretender to manliness, pure or impure. Truth and mercy are
immemorial characteristics of a king’s conduct. Hence royal rule
is in its essence _truth_. On truth the world is based. Both sages
and gods have esteemed truth. The man who speaks truth in this
world attains the highest imperishable state. Men shrink with fear
and horror from a liar as from a serpent. In this world the chief
element in virtue is truth; it is called the basis of everything.
Truth is lord in the world; virtue always rests on truth. All
things are founded on truth; nothing is higher than it. Why,
then, should I not be true to my promise, and faithfully observe
the truthful injunction given by my father? Neither through
covetousness, nor delusion, nor ignorance, will I, overpowered by
darkness, break through the barrier of truth, but remain true to
my promise to my father. How shall I, having promised to him that
I would thus reside in the forests, transgress his injunction, and
do what Bharata recommends?”
In _Mahabharata_ again we find proof of the high esteem in which the
manly virtues of truthfulness, charity, benevolence, and chivalry
towards women were held by the ancient Hindus. The most important
incident in the drama (Mahabharata), namely, the death of Bhishma,
occurred when this brave and virtuous man, in fidelity to his pledge
never to hurt a woman, refused to fight, and was killed by a soldier
dressed in a woman’s garb.
The drama is full of moral maxims, around each one of which the poet
has woven a story in a beautiful and elegant manner.
“If Truth and a hundred horse sacrifice were weighed together,
Truth would weigh the heavier. There is no virtue equal to Truth,
and no sin greater than falsehood.”
“For the weak as well as for the strong, forgiveness is an
ornament.”
“A person should never do to others what he does not like others
to do to him, knowing how painful it is to himself.”
“The man who fails to protect his wife earns great infamy here,
and goes to hell afterwards.”
“_A wife is half the man, his truest friend;_
_A loving wife is a perpetual spring_
_Of virtue, pleasure, wealth; a faithful wife_
_Is his best aid in seeking heavenly bliss;_
_A sweetly-speaking wife is a companion_
_In solitude, a father in advice,_
_A mother in all seasons of distress,_
_A rest in passing through life’s wilderness._”
These great epic poems have a special claim to our attention because
they not only illustrate the genius of a most interesting people, but
they are to this day believed as entirely and literally true by the
vast population of India. “Huge congregations of devout men and women
listen day after day with eager attention to recitations of these old
national stories with their striking incidents of moral uplift and
inspiration; and a large portion of the people of India order their
lives upon the models supplied by those venerable epics.”
The subjection of woman was accepted as a natural thing by the entire
West until very recent times. Woman was held in the eyes of the law
as no better than a slave, and she was considered useful in society
merely to serve and gratify man, her master. Truly, such a condition
forms a dark page in the history of the race. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,
in her foreword to Mill’s _Subjection of Women_, writes:
“In defense of these expressions [subjection and slavery used in
Mill’s essay] and the general character of the essay, it must be
said that the position of women in society at that time [1869]
was comparable to that of no other class except the slave. As
the slave took the name of his master so the woman upon marriage
gave up her own and took that of her husband. Like the slave, the
married woman was permitted to own no property; as, upon marriage,
her property real and personal, and all she acquired subsequently
by gift, will, or her own labour, was absolutely in her husband’s
control and subject to his debts. He could even will away her
marriage portion and leave her destitute. The earnings of the
slave belonged to the master, those of the wife to the husband.
Neither slave nor wife could make a legal contract, sue or be
sued, establish business, testify in court, nor sign a paper as a
witness. Both were said to be ‘dead in law’.
“The children of the slave belonged to the master; those of the
wife to the husband. Not even after the death of the husband was
the wife a legal guardian of her own children, unless he made her
so by will. While living he could give them away, and at death
could will them as he pleased. He dictated the form of education
and religion that they should be taught, and if the parents
differed in religion, the wife was forced to teach the husband’s
faith. Like the slave, if the wife left her husband she could take
nothing with her, as she had no legal claim to her children, her
clothing, nor her most personal possessions.
“The law in many lands gave husbands the right to whip their wives
and administer other punishments for disobedience, provided they
kept within certain legal restrictions. Within the memory of those
living in Mill’s day, wife-beating was a common offense in England
and America, husbands contending that they were well within their
‘rights’, when so doing.
“ ... Education, always considered the most certain sign of
individual advancement, was either forbidden or disapproved, for
women. No colleges and few high schools, except in the United
States, were open to women. Common schools were less usual for
girls than for boys and the number of totally illiterate women
vastly exceeded the number of illiterate men. Religion was
recommended to women as a natural solace and avenue of usefulness,
but they were not permitted to preach, teach, or pray in most
churches, and in many singing was likewise barred! The professions
and more skilled trades were closed to them.”
That such a state of things was ever tolerated in the advanced
countries of Europe and America seems to us of India incredible. But
it is, nevertheless, true. As in the case of other social laws, the
subjection of woman was the result of the fundamental ideals (or the
lack of ideals) which governed the western society of those times. Men
were still in that low state of development in which “Might was Right,”
and in which the law of superior strength was the rule of life. No
pretension was made to regulate the affairs of society according to any
moral law. The physical law which sanctioned traffic in human slaves,
at the same time sustained the bondage of the weaker sex.
We now live in an age where the law of the strongest, in principle
at least, has been abandoned as the guiding maxim of life. It is
still very widely practised in individual as well as in national
relationships, but always under the guise of higher social and
cultural ends. The law of force as the avowed rule of general conduct
has given place to ideals of social equality, human brotherhood, and
international goodwill. How far such ideals are being actively followed
by the different peoples of the world remains to be determined; but
their profession as the symbol of good culture, at least, is universal.
The emancipation of woman in the West is thus a very recent
achievement. Yet it is rightly considered by most thinkers the
greatest single step forward in the advancement of the human race. Its
tremendous importance in the future development of the race is realized
now by all classes of people over the entire world. In fact, the social
status of woman in any society is regarded by most people, and properly
so, as the test of its civilization.
Through what hardships and dangers, privations and humiliations ran the
thorny and uphill path of the early leaders of the women’s suffrage
movement. The deeds of true nobility and heroic determination that
were performed by the pioneers of women’s emancipation are very little
known to the average man and woman of the present day. How numerous
and difficult were the obstacles placed in the way of these pioneers
by their brow-beating opponents, how bitter was the nature of their
persecutions, how mean and foul the character of the insults offered
them, and blind and obstinate the attitude of the governing class to
their simple demand for justice are little realized by those who enjoy
the legacy left by those liberators.
The high idealism which inspired the movement of the militant
suffragettes in England is manifest in their every word and action.
Their methods of peaceful, silent, dignified, conscious and
courageous suffering, contrasted with the treacherous, cowardly,
shameful, unmanly, and brutal attacks of their opponents, have
received considerations of high merit from all sections of honest and
fair-minded men the world over. Virtuous women belonging to the highest
stations in life and possessing qualities of rare courage, purity, and
self-denial were attacked in the most cowardly fashion by bands of
strong-bodied hooligans, “felled to the ground, struck in the face,
frog-marched, and tossed hither and thither in a shameless manner.”
“The women speakers were assaulted with dead mice and flocks of live
mice, and flights of sparrows were let loose into their meetings. Paid
gangs of drunken men were dispatched to the women’s gatherings to sing
obscene songs, and drown the voices of the speakers with the rattle of
tin cans and the ringing of bells. Bands of suffragettes were attacked,
struck down unconscious, and driven out over wet roads covered with
carbide by gangs of Liberal volunteers. Suffragette leaders were
imprisoned in the jails of England in groups of hundreds at a time and
were meted out the fancy punishment of forcible feeding through a tube
inserted into the stomach, a process which causes intense and lingering
pain.”[4] This barbarous treatment excited at once the horror and
indignation of the whole civilized world. Yet all these brutalities
were carried on under the very nose, in fact, at the direction of the
full-fledged Liberal members of the British cabinet.
At a campaign meeting held in Swansea where the suffragettes attempted
to ask Mr. Lloyd-George questions regarding his attitude on the problem
of woman franchise, he is reported as having used such language as,
“sorry specimens of womanhood,” “I think a gag ought to be tried,”
“By and by we shall have to order sacks for them, and the first
to interrupt shall disappear,” “fling them ruthlessly out,” and,
“frog-march them.” At another meeting held in Manchester, February
4th, 1906, where Mr. Winston Churchill spoke, on asking a very simple
question, the fourteen year old daughter of Mrs. Pankhurst, Adela, was
savagely attacked, thrown down, and kicked by several men.
The unwholesome and bitter experiences of the peaceful and gentle
suffragettes at the two election campaigns in May, 1907, are described
by Miss Sylvie E. Pankhurst as follows:
“After these stormy meetings the police and hosts of sympathisers
always escorted us home to protect us from the rowdies. Just as
we reached our door there was generally a little scuffle with a
band of youths who waited there to pelt us with sand and gravel as
we passed.... At Uppingham, the second largest town, the hostile
element was smaller than at Oakham, but its methods were more
dangerous. While Mary Gawthorpe was holding an open-air meeting
there one evening, a crowd of noisy youths began to throw up
peppermint ‘bull’s eyes’ and other hard-boiled sweets. ‘Sweets
to the sweet,’ said little Mary, smiling, and continued her
argument, but a pot-egg, thrown from the crowd behind, struck her
on the head and she fell unconscious....”
This is what happened on October 16th, 1909, at an open-air gathering
near Dundee, where Mr. Winston Churchill was to speak:
“ ... Standing in the road were some thirty or forty men, all
wearing the yellow rosettes of official Liberal stewards, and as
the car (containing four prominent suffragettes) slowed, they
rushed furiously towards it, shouting and tearing up sods from the
road and pelting the women with them. One man pulled out a knife
and began to cut the tires, whilst the others feverishly pulled
the loose pieces off with their fingers. The suffragettes tried to
quiet them with a few words of explanation, but their only reply
was to pull the hood of the motor over the women’s heads and then
to beat it and batter it until it was broken in several places.
Then they tore at the women’s clothes and tried to pull them out
of the car, whilst the son of the gentleman in whose ground the
meeting was being held drove up in another motor and threw a
shower of pepper in the women’s eyes.... The only excuse for the
stewards who took part in this extraordinary occurrence is that
many of them were intoxicated.”[5]
And the most pitiful part of the business was that such conduct seemed
to be regarded by its perpetrators as engaging pieces of gallantry.
While a recitation of these incidents might be continued indefinitely,
one more will suffice to show with what contempt and dishonor the
western world has treated its women. On August 2, 1909, a great
Liberal fete was held at Canford Park, near Poole in Dorsetshire. There
were sports and games and Mr. Churchill was to deliver an address on
the budget. Annie Kenney with three companions attended the fete, and
the story of what took place is best told in her own words. She says:
“As we entered the Park together we saw two very young girls being
dragged about by a crowd of Liberal men, some of whom were old
enough to be their fathers. They had thrown a pig net over them,
and had pulled down their hair. We heard afterward that these
girls came from a village near by, but the Liberals suspected them
to be Suffragettes and ordered them out of the Park. ..., but they
were crowded round us and the language they used is not fit for
print.... They were calling out to each other to get hold of me
and throw me into the pond which was very near ..., but as soon
as my back was turned they started dragging me about in a most
shameful way. One man who was wearing the Liberal colours pulled a
knife out of his pocket, and to the delight of the other staunch
Liberals, started cutting my coat. They cut it into shreds right
from the neck downwards. Then they lifted up my coat and started
to cut my frock and one of them lifted up my frock and cut my
petticoat. This caused great excitement. A cry came from those
Liberals, who are supposed to have high ideas in public life, to
undress me. They took off my hat and pulled down my hair, but I
turned round upon them and said that it would be their shame and
not mine. They stopped then for a minute, and then two men, also
wearing the Liberal colours, got hold of me and lifted me up and
afterwards dragged me along, not giving me an opportunity to walk
out in a decent way.”[6]
The heroism and rare genius of Mrs. E. Pankhurst and her associates
in the suffragette movement will be acknowledged by their friends and
foes alike. Through their sufferings they have bequeathed to women of
the western world the priceless heritage of Freedom, and thus pushed
the progress of the human race a long step forward. Mrs. Pankhurst
possessed, undoubtedly, a firm character, a lofty mind, a generous
heart, strong and vigorous good sense. We shall call the emancipator
of English womanhood a great woman, using that word not as a cheap,
unmeaning title but as conveying three essential elements of greatness,
namely, unselfishness, honesty, and boldness. She who sacrificed
everything for the voice of justice and submitted herself and her three
young daughters to cruel indignities and hardships of jail life for
the sake of her fellow creatures was an unselfish, an honest, a bold
woman,--was a great woman--in the best sense of the word. And at this
distant time as a proof of our honest affection and admiration for her
goodness and virtue, we can afford to express a feeling of mingled
sorrow and joy at her prolonged sufferings and final success.
In India, on the contrary, in the development of their wonderful
civilization men and women have played an equal part. The two sexes
have worked side by side in every branch of their spiritual endeavor,
and women have attained the same eminence as men in higher learning.
The Vedic hymns mention both men and women as divine revealers of Truth
and as spiritual instructors of mankind. In fact, The Rig Veda, the
earliest scriptural record of the world, contains hymns revealed by
women; and the Hindu god, Indra, is described as being initiated into
the knowledge of the Universal Spirit by the woman Aditi. Furthermore,
the Upnishads, the philosophical portion of the Veda, frequently
mention the names of women who discoursed on philosophical topics
with the most learned men philosophers of the times. Women scholars
were often appointed arbitrators and umpires in important philosophic
debates, and the names of the two women philosophers, Gargi and
Maitreyi, are familiar to all students of Hindu philosophy. In other
words, the paths of intellectual culture were equally open to men and
women, under exactly similar circumstances. In fact, the very spirit of
such equality is inculcated in the minds of the people from both their
law and their religion that made no distinction between the sexes in
the award of honors for merit. The law-givers of India, taking their
lessons from the Vedas, established the fundamental equality of man and
woman by defining the relation of the sexes thus:
“Before the creation of this phenomenal universe, the first born
Lord of all creatures divided his own self into two halves, so
that one half should be male and the other half female.”
Not only in the direction of scholarly pursuits, but in the
practical business affairs of the world also, the women of India
have distinguished themselves eminently as legislators, ministers,
commercial leaders, and military commanders. Men, women, and children
throughout India are familiar with the story of Queen Chand Bibi, who
defended Ahmedanagar during the long siege by the Grand Moghul; poets
also have sung of her valor and administrative wisdom. Another instance
of the recognition of the ability of women is the story of Nur Jahan
(Light of the Universe), the beautiful queen of the Moghul Emperor,
Jahangir, who guided the affairs of her husband’s vast territories
in a highly efficient manner for a period of nearly ten years.
Further, and well known to all students of history, is the story of
Mumtaz-i-Mahal, Emperor Shah Jahan’s consort, who assisted him in his
works of administration and in the construction of the famous buildings
of his period. This woman, described as a person of unexampled
dignity, delicacy, and charm, during her life-time was the “light of
his eyes,” and after death the perpetual source of inspiration to the
bereaved Emperor. On her death-bed, Mumtaz, the beloved companion of
his life’s happy days and mother of his six children, asked of Shah
Jahan that a memorial befitting a queen be placed over her grave. In
compliance with this request, and as a token of his unceasing love for
the deceased queen, the Emperor constructed on her grave the famous
Taj Mahal--a monument which by its beauty has made immortal the love
it commemorates. The most beautiful building in the world stands as a
memorial to man’s love for his wife--an unconquerable love, unbroken
and unsatisfied. Says Sir Edwin Arnold:
“He has immortalised--if he could not preserve alive for one brief
day--his peerless wife.... Admiration, delight, astonishment blent
in the absorbed thought with a feeling that human affection never
struggled more ardently, passionately and triumphantly against the
Oblivion of Death. There is one sustained, harmonious, majestic
sorrowfulness of pride in it, from the verse on the entrance
which says that ‘the pure of heart shall enter the Gardens
of God’, to the small, delicate letters of sculptured Arabic
upon the tombstone which tell, with a refined humility, that
Mumtaz-i-Mahal, the ‘Exalted of the Palace’, lies here, and that
‘Allah alone is powerful.’”[7]
The heroic command of her own forces by the Rani (Queen) of Jhansi
during the Indian War of Independence in 1857 is a familiar and more
recent example of a woman entering into practical affairs. Clad in a
man’s uniform, she rode at the head of her troops, and died a brave
and patriotic death in the battlefield. The name of Rani Jhansi is
mentioned among the renowned heroes of the country, and as a special
tribute to her loving memory her picture in a general’s uniform is
kept in many homes. Indian society is not opposed to the active
participation of its women in the higher affairs of their national
life. If the positive declarations of a group of western critics to
the contrary were true, the action of Rani Jhansi would be condemned
instead of being so universally applauded as it is now by even the most
orthodox of old Hindu ladies.
Throughout the long history of India, then, women have not been
hampered by any man-made restrictions from serving in the country’s
religious life, from fighting on its battlefields, and from holding
power in its councils. In the present generation we find women again
taking an active and important part in the affairs of the country.
They have the fullest freedom for self-expression, of which they
seem to have availed themselves in a highly creditable and fitting
manner, without sacrificing the admiration and respect of the men. In
times of their country’s need they have given proofs of patriotism
by self-sacrifice which speaks the language of love and devotion to
motherland. With a voluntary desire to coöperate, the men of India have
given to the women of the country a large share in its councils, and
have invited them to their national conferences of importance. In the
inner and more weighty deliberations of its leaders their influence is
evident, and on all occasions of national demonstration the women of
India are represented.
Shrimati Lajiavati--a frail, delicate figure, but a beautiful model of
womanly courage and dignity--has won for herself in the Punjab a place
which is closely akin to worship. She founded, and is now managing as
its principal, the Arya Samaj Kanya Mahavidyala (girls’ school) in
Jallundhar City, Punjab. Another example of India’s modern women, who
stands high in her countrymen’s esteem, is Shrimati Ramabai Ranade.
Her work as the secretary of Seva Sadhan, a society for social service
work among the women of the country, has been amply recognized. During
the debate over the women’s suffrage bill in the Bombay Legislative
Council, one honorable member remarked amid the greatest applause of
the season: “There is no Council which would not be honored, graced,
and helped by the presence of such a woman as one who is known to us
all, Mrs. Ramabai Ranade.” Mrs. Margaret E. Cousins, describing her
interview with Mrs. Ranade, says:
“I asked her, ‘What do you think of the future of women in India?’
‘It is full of hope and promise’, she replied, and in doing so
spontaneously took my hand and pressed it. It touches a Westerner
when her Eastern sister does that. It bridges gulfs and knits the
human sisterhood together. Like Mirabai of the poet’s intuition she
_Wears little hands_
_Such as God makes to hold big destinies._
“Her hands revealed her soul, for in their touch was soft
sweetness and strong vitality which still inspire me, and which
promise the blessing of her remarkable powers of service to
humanity for years to come.”[8]
Where is the Indian whose heart does not beat with joy at the mention
of Mrs. Sarojini Naidu? Who does not remember with feelings of proud
exultation the name of this beloved and revered sister--she who is the
symbol of patriotism and a flower of womanly beauty and culture, from
whose elevated soul radiate grace, charm, and affection, and who is
the object of her countrymen’s adoration? In 1925, in recognition of
her manifold virtues, the people of India exalted her to the highest
position at their command; she was unanimously elected President of the
Indian National Congress.[9] _In the entire history of mankind no woman
has been more highly honored by her countrymen than has Mrs. Sarojini
Naidu._ Read her poems and you will find the heart of a woman forever
seeking the satisfaction of hungry love:
“_Hide me in a shrine of roses,_
_Drown me in a wine of roses,_
_Drawn from every fragrant grove!_”
Listen to her musical eloquence on the nationalist platform of India,
and you will hear the cry of a patriot’s heart groaning under the load
of its country’s humiliation from the merciless foreign yoke.
“Our arts have degenerated, our literatures are dead, our
beautiful industries have perished, our valor is done, our fires
are dim, our soul is sinking.”
A more striking proof of the confidence and respect which the men of
India bear towards their women was given during the debates on women’s
suffrage bills in the provincial legislative councils of the country.
The Southborough Franchise Committee, which was formed to study the
general conditions in the country with a view to granting the franchise
to the people of India, in its report to the British Government of
India (1919) had expressed its decision against granting the franchise
to Indian women. This decision was upheld by the British Government
of India in the statement, “In the present conditions of India we
agree with them [the Southborough Committee] that it is not practical
to open the franchise to women.” To this decision of the Government
Sir C. Sankaran Nair, the Indian member of the Executive Council,
entered a strong protest, based on the strength of the evidence which
was presented before the Southborough Committee in favor of granting
franchise to women. His contention, furthermore, was upheld by the
resolution passed at two successive sessions of the Indian National
Congress (Calcutta 1917 and Delhi 1918). This resolution expressed in
an unequivocal manner the opinion of the Indian nation on the important
question of woman franchise as follows:
“Women possessing the same qualifications as are laid down in any
part of the [Reform] Scheme shall not be disqualified on account
of sex.”
A tremendous agitation was staged in India after the publication of the
dispatch of the Government of India, unfavorable to women’s rights. As
a result of this agitation a provision was made whereby the provincial
legislatures were given the power to admit or exclude women from
franchise at their individual options. True to their traditions and
following the teaching of their ancient as well as their modern seers
the majority of the provinces have already granted the franchise to
women on the same basis as to men. This experience is unequalled in the
entire history of mankind. Everywhere else where the women enjoy any
rights to vote or possess property, they have had to fight a battle
involving prolonged hardships and outrageous indignities imposed upon
them by the indignant and oftentimes barbarous ruling sex. India is
the only civilized country of the world in which women in modern times
have been granted franchise on an equality with men without a single
demonstration of insult or disrespect directed against its aspiring
womanhood. If for no other reason, the respect which the people of
India have shown to the desire of their women for the franchise,
should entitle them to a high place in the scale of civilization.
Mrs. Margaret E. Cousins is an international figure in the woman’s
suffrage movement, in which cause she has suffered imprisonments
in both Ireland and England. She is also the founder and Honorary
Secretary of the Women’s Indian Association with its fifty branches
spread over the country, and has lived for twelve years among the women
of India with relations of intimate friendship. Mrs. Cousins is not in
any sense of the word addicted to indiscriminate flattery, but she says:
“Turning then to India one finds that though the percentage
of education is appallingly low, the tradition of Indian law
leaves women very free to take any position for which they show
themselves capable. No Indian political organisations were at any
time closed to women. Women have at every stage of Indian history
taken high positions in their country’s public service. Springing
from their religious philosophy there is fundamentally a belief
in sex equality, and this shows itself when critical periods
demand it. This has been clearly shown during the movement of the
past ten years for self-government. Women have had their share
in all the local Conferences and in the National Congress. No
one who was present can easily forget the sight of the platform
at the Calcutta Congress of 1917 when three women leaders, Mrs.
Annie Besant, President of the Congress, Mrs. Sarojini Naidu,
representative of the Hindu women, and Bibi Ammam, mother of the
Ali brothers and representative of the Muslim women, sat side by
side, peeresses of such men leaders (also present) as Tilak,
Gandhi and Tagore, and receiving equal honor with them.”[10]
As a distinct contribution towards the solution of the world’s social
problems, the _East Indians_, by allowing woman the exercise of her
own free will and the entire responsibility of all her actions, have
established the fact that a woman left completely to herself with
opportunity to develop freely her instincts and faculties, may equal
man in reason, wisdom, and uprightness, and may surpass him in delicacy
and dignity.
The Hindu religion has always stood for the absolute equality of woman
with man. In matters religious as well as secular the Hindu woman has
been considered the equal of man before the law since the origin of
the Hindu nation. The admission of women into American universities
began only in recent times, while her partial equality in the sight
of law, not yet quite complete, is less than twenty years old. But in
India women have enjoyed such rights and many more since the beginning
of its recorded history. To the western readers who have been very
injudiciously fed upon missionaries’ tales about India, with their
colorful pictures of the brutality of the heathen towards his women
folk, this statement may seem incredible. But it is an undisputed fact
of history that since the beginning of Hindu law, woman in India has
held more legal rights to acquire knowledge, to hold office, and to
possess property than her sisters in America are having today. She
was never barred from the national institutions of higher learning
because of sex, and in the development of her intellectual, moral, and
spiritual qualities she was not hampered by any social or religious
laws whatsoever. She has stood before law as an exact equal of man
with the same rights to possess property, the same rights to go
before courts of justice and to ask the protection of law. The system
of coeducation prevailed in the ancient universities of Nalanda and
Takhshashila. It is a familiar fact known to all western scholars that
_Sakuntala_, the heroine in Kalidasa’s drama of that name, pleaded her
own case before the court of King Dushyanta. Indian women have fought
on battlefields alongside of men, have taken leading parts in their
historic and philosophic debates, have revealed spiritual truths for
the _Vedas_, and have received, as personifications of the Deity, the
worship from adoring millions. Above all else, the Indian women have
ruled over the hearts of their husbands and children throughout the
ages with a power that is born exclusively of purity in character, and
the spirit of self-sacrifice and love. They have held their dignity
with a poise which does the female sex a great credit.
Does Hindu religion sanction, then, the bondage of woman, and is
wife-beating permitted in Indian society? Is the Hindu wife considered
merely as an instrument of pleasure, and is her whole ambition in life
to be a passive and obedient servant of the husband?
The maxims which guide the conduct of Hindu society were laid down by
the great Law-giver Manu, in the year 200 B. C. He says:
“Where female relations live in grief, the family soon perishes;
but that family where they are not unhappy ever prospers.”
“A woman’s body must not be struck hard, even with a flower,
because it is sacred.”
That a nation which regularly listens to readings from epic poems of
Ramayana and Mahabharata morning and night on every day of the year,
and on whose lips the praises of Sita, the ideal wife (heroine in
Ramayana), dance forever, should be carried away by the desire of
ill-treating its womankind, as is actually believed by most westerners,
is simply inconceivable. Sita’s equal as a model of womanly chastity,
uprightness, kindness, and devotion has not been known in the history
of mankind. The story of her exile with her husband, King Rama, her
fidelity, and her spirituality is known to every child born in India;
while her character is set as an example before all Hindu women in the
country. With such ideals as these constantly before their minds, and
the moral influence of the peaceful, chaste family life always around
them, women of any nation will develop within themselves a power which
it will be impossible for any group of men, however foul and vicious,
to resist. And it must be remembered that the men of India, slow as
they are in catching the militaristic spirit of the competitive western
life, are to an exceptional degree spiritual and religious in their
general behavior. Sir Monier-Williams says:
“Religion of some kind enters largely into their [East Indian]
everyday life. Nay, it may even be said that religious ideas and
aspirations--religious hopes and fears--are interwoven with the
whole texture of their mental constitution. A clergyman, who has
resided nearly all his life in India, once remarked to me that
he had seen many a poor Indian villager whose childlike trust in
his god, and in the efficacy of his religious observances--whose
simplicity of character and practical application of his creed,
put us Christians to shame.”[11]
And again, in describing the general character of the Hindu women and
their family life, he writes:
“Hindu women must be allowed full credit for their strict
discharge of household duties, for their personal cleanliness,
thrift, activity, and practical fidelity to the doctrines and
precepts of their religion. They are generally loved by their
husbands, and are never brutally treated. A wife-beater drunkard
is unknown in India. In return, Indian wives and mothers are
devoted to their families. I have often seen wives in the act of
circumambulating the sacred _Tulsi_ plant 108 times, with the sole
object of bringing down a blessing on their husband and children.
In no other country in the world are family affection and
reverence for parents so conspicuously operative as in India. In
many households the first morning duty of a child on rising from
sleep is to lay his head on his mother’s feet in token of filial
obedience. Nor could there be a greater mistake than to suppose
that Indian women are without influence.”[12]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Max Müller--_What India Can Teach Us_.
[2] Sir Monier-Williams--_Modern India and the Indians_, page 353.
[3] Oman--_The Great Indian Epics_.
[4] E. Sylvie Pankhurst.
[5] E. Sylvie Pankhurst--_The Suffragette_, page 451.
[6] E. Sylvie Pankhurst--_The Suffragette_, page 413.
[7] Sir Edwin Arnold--_India Revisited_, page 211.
[8] Margaret E. Cousins--_The Awakening of Asian Womanhood_, page 114.
[9] The Indian National Congress is the largest representative body of
the Indian nation, with its ramifications spread throughout the country
consisting of thousands of branches. Its meetings are held annually in
different parts of the country.
[10] _Awakening of Asian Womanhood_, page 9.
[11] Sir Monier-Williams--_Modern India and the Indians_, page 54.
[12] Sir Monier-Williams--_Modern India and the Indians_, page 318.