RAILWAYS
Reader: You
have deprived me of the consolation I used to
have
regarding peace in India.
Editor: I have
merely given you my opinion on the religious
aspect,
but when I give you my views as to the poverty of India, you
will
perhaps begin to dislike me because what you and I have
hitherto
considered beneficial for India no longer appears to me to
be
so.
Reader: What
may that be?
Editor: Railways, lawyers and doctors have impoverished the
country so much so that, if we do not wake up in time.
we shall be
ruined.
Reader: I do
now, indeed, fear that we are not likely to agree at
all.
You are attacking the very institutions which we have hitherto
considered
to be good.
Editor: It is
necessary to exercise patience. The true inwardness
of
the evils of civilization you will understand with difficulty.
Doctors
assure us that a consumptive clings to life even when he is
about
to die. Consumption does not produce apparent hurt it even
produces
a seductive color about a patient's face so as to induce the
belief
that all is well. Civilization is such a disease and we have to
he
very wary.
Reader: Very
well, then. I shall bear you on the railways.
Editor: It must he manifest to you that, but for the railways, the
English could not have such a hold on India as they have. The
railways, too, have spread the bubonic plague. Without them the
masses could not move from place to place. They are the carriers of
plague germs. Formerly we had natural segregation. Railways have
also increased the frequency of famines because, owing to facility
of
means of locomotion people sell out their grain and it is sent to
the
dearest markets. People become careless and so the pressure of
famine increases. Railways accentuate the evil nature of man. Bad
men fulfill their evil designs with greater rapidity. The holy
places
of India have become unholy. Formerly, people went to these places
with very great difficulty. Generally, therefore, only the real real
devotees visited such places. Nowadays rogues visit them in order to
practice their roguery.
Reader: You
have given one-sided account. Good men can visit
these
places as well as bad men. Why do they not take the fullest
advantage
of the railways?
Editor: Good travels at a snail's pace-it can, therefore, have
little to do with the railways. Those who want to do good are not
selfish, they are not in a hurry, they know that to impregnate
people
with good requires a long time. But evil has wings. To build
a house
takes time. Its destruction takes none. So the railways can become a
distributing agency for the evil one only. It may be a debatable
matter whether railways spread famines, but it is beyond dispute
that
they propagate evil.
Reader: Be that
as it may, all the disadvantages of railways are
more
than the counterbalanced by the fact that it is due to them that
we
see in India the new spirit of nationalism.
Editor: I hold this to be a mistake. The English have taught us
that we were not one nation before and that it will require
centuries
before we become one nation. This is without foundation. We were
one nation before they came to India. One thought inspired us. Our
mode of life was the same. It was because we were one nation that
they were able to establish one kingdom. Subsequently they divided
us.
Reader: This
requires an explanation.
Editor: I do
not wish to suggest that because we were one
nation
we had no differences, but it is submitted that our leading
men
traveled throughout India either on foot or in bullock-carts.
They
learned one another's languages and there was no aloofness
between
them. What do you think could have been the intention of
those
farseeing ancestors of ours who established Setubandha
(Rameshwar)
in the South, Jagannath in the East and Hardwar in the
North
as places of pilgrimage? You Will admit they were no fools.
They
knew that worship of God could have been performed just as
well
at home. They taught us that those whose hearts were
aglow
with righteousness had the Ganges in their own homes. But they saw
that India was one undivided land so made by nature. They,
therefore, argued that it must be one nation. Arguing thus, they
established
holy places in various parts of India, and fired the people
with
an idea of nationality in a manner unknown in other parts of the
world.
And we Indians are one as no two Englishmen are. Only you
and
I and others who consider ourselves civilized and superior
persons
imagine that we are many nations. It was after the advent of
railways
that we began to believe in distinctions, and you are at
liberty
now to say that it is through the railways that we are
beginning
to abolish those distinctions. An opium-cater may argue
the
advantage of opium eating from the fact that he began to
understand
the evil of the opium habit after having eaten it. I would
ask
you to consider well what I had said on the railways.
Reader: I will
gladly do so, but one question occurs to me even
now.
You have described to me the India of the pre- Mohammedan
period,
but now we have Mohammedans, Parsis and Christians. How
can
they be one nation? Hindus and Mohammedans are old enemies.
Our
very proverbs prove it. Mohammedans turn to the West for
worship,
whilst Hindus turn to the East. The former look down on
the
Hindus as idolaters. The Hindus worship the cow, the
Mohammedans
kill her. The Hindus believe in the doctrine of non killing,
the
Mohammedans do not. We thus meet with differences at
every
step. How can India he one nation?
THE CONDITION OF INDIA (CONTINUED): LAWYERS
Reader: You tell me that when two men quarrel they .should
not go to a law-court. This is astonishing.
Editor: Whether you call it astonishing or not, it is the truth.
And your question introduces us to the lawyers and the doctors.
My
firm opinion is that the lawyers have enslaved India, have
accentuated Hindu-Mohammedan dissensions and have confirmed
English authority.
Reader: It is
easy enough to bring these charges, but it will be
difficult
for you to prove them. But for the lawyers, who would
have
shown us the road to independence?
Who would have protected the
poor? Who would have secured justice? For instance, the late Man
Mohan Ghose defended many a poor man free of charge. The
Congress, which you have praised so much is dependent
for its
existence and activity upon the work of the lawyers. To denounce
such an estimable class of men is to spell injustice,
and you are
abusing the liberty of the press by decrying lawyers.
Editor: At one
time I used to think exactly like you. I have no
desire
to convince you that they have never done a single good
thing.
I honor Mr. Ghose's memory. It is quite true that he helped the
poor.
That the Congress owes the lawyers something is believable.
Lawyers are also men, and there is something good in every man.
Whenever instances of lawyers having done good can be
brought
forward, it will be found that the good is due to them
as men rather
than as lawyers.
All I am concerned with is to show you that the
profession teaches immorality; it is exposed to
temptation from
which few are saved.
The
Hindus and the Mohammedans have quarreled. An ordinary
man
will ask them to forget all about it, he will tell them that both
must
be more or less at fault, and will advise them no longer to
quarrel.
But they go to lawyers. The latter's duty is to side with their
clients
and to find out ways and arguments in favor of the clients to
which
they (the clients) are often strangers. If they do not do so they
will
be considered to have degraded their profession. The
lawyers
therefore, will, as a rule, advance quarrels instead of repressing
them. Moreover, men take up that profession, not in order to help
others out of their miseries, but to enrich themselves. It is one of the
avenues of becoming wealthy and their interest exists in multiplying
disputes. It is within my knowledge that they are glad when men
have disputes. Petty pleaders actually manufacture them. Their touts.
like so many leeches, suck the blood of the poor
people. Lawyers are
men who have little to do. Lazy people, in order to
indulge in
luxuries, take up such professions. This is a true statement. Any
other
argument is a mere pretension. It is the lawyers who have
discovered
that theirs is an honorable profession. They frame laws
as
they frame their own praises. They decide what fees
they will
charge and they put on so much side that poor people
almost
consider them to be heaven born.
Why do they want more fees than common laborers? Why
are
their requirements greater? In what way are they more
profitable to
the country than the laborers? Are those who do good
entitled to
greater payment? And, if they have done anything for
the country
for the sake of money, how shall it be counted as
good?
Those
who know anything of the Hindu-Mohammedan quarrels
know
that they have been often due to the intervention of lawyers.
Some
families have been ruined through them; they have made
brothers
enemies. Principalities, having come under the lawyers'
power,
have become loaded with debt. Many have been robbed of
their
all. Such instances can be multiplied.
But
the greatest injury they have done to the country is that they
have
tightened the English grip. Do you think that it
would be
possible for the English to carry on their Government
without law
courts? It is wrong to consider that courts are
established for the
benefit of the people. Those who want to perpetuate their
power do
so through the courts. If people were to settle their
own quarrels, a
third party would not be able to exercise any
authority over them.
Truly,
men were less unmanly when they settled their disputes either
by
fighting or by asking their relatives to decide for them. They
became
more unmanly and cowardly when they resorted to the
courts
of law. It was certainly a sign of savagery when they settled
their
disputes by fighting. Is it any the less so, if I ask a third party to
decide
between you and me? Surely, the decision of a third party is
not
always right. The parties alone know who is right. We,
in our
simplicity and ignorance, imagine that a stranger, by
taking our
money, gives us justice.
The chief thing, however, to be remembered is that
without
lawyers courts could not have been established or
conducted and
without the latter the English could not rule. Supposing that there
were only English judges, English pleaders and English
police, they
could only rule over the English. The English could
not do without
Indian judges and Indian pleaders. How the pleaders were made in
the first instance and how they were favored you should understand
well. Then you will have the same abhorrence for the profession,
that I have. If pleaders were to abandon and consider it just as
degrading as prostitution, English rule would break up in a
day.
They have been Instrumental in having the charge laid
against us
that we love quarrels and courts as fish love water.
What I have said
with reference to the pleaders necessarily applies to
the judges, they
are first cousins; and the one gives strength to the
other.
CHAPTER XII
THE CONDITION OF INDIA (CONTINUED): DOCTORS
Reader: I now understand the lawyers, the good they may have
done is accidental. I feet that Profession is certainly hateful.
You,
however, drag in the doctors also, how is that?
Editor: The
views I submit to you are those I have adopted.
They
are not original. Western writers have used stronger terms
regarding
both lawyers and doctors. One writer has linked the
whole
modern system to the Upas tree. Its branches are
represented by
parasitical professions, including those, of law and
medicine, and
over the trunk has been raised the axe of true
religion. Immorality is
the root of the tree. So you will see that the views do not come right
out
of my mind but represent the combined experiences of many. I
was
at one time a great lover of the medical profession. It was my
intention
to become a doctor for the sake of the country. I no longer
bold
that opinion. I now understand why the medicine men (the
vaids)
among us have not occupied a very honorable status.
The
English have certainly effectively used the medical
profession
for holding us. English physicians are known to have
used their profession with several Asiatic potentates
for political
gain.
Doctors have almost unhinged us. Sometimes I think
that quacks
are better than highly qualified doctors. Let us consider the business
of
a doctor is to take care of the body, or, properly speaking, not
even that. Their business is really to rid the body of
diseases that
may afflict, it. How do these diseases arise? Surely
by our
negligence or indulgence I overeat, I have
indigestion, I go to a
doctor, he gives me medicine, I am cured. I overeat
again, I take his
pills again. Had I not taken the pills in the first
instance, I would
have suffered the punishment deserved by me and I
would not have
overeaten again.
The doctor intervened and helped me to indulge
myself. My body thereby certainly felt more at ease,
but my mind
became weakened.
A continuance of a course of medicine must,
therefore, result in loss of control over the mind.
I have indulged in vice, I contract a disease, a
doctor cures me,
the odds are that I shall repeat the vice. Had the
doctor not
intervened, nature would have done its work, and I
would have
acquired mastery over myself, would have been freed
from vice and
would have become happy.
Hospitals are institutions for propagating sin. Men
take less care
of their bodies and immorality increases. European
doctors are the
worst of all. For the sake of a mistaken care of the
human body, they
kill annually thousands of animals. They practice vivisection. No
religion
sanctions this. All say that it is not necessary to take so
many
lives for the sake of our bodies.
These
doctors violate our religious instinct. Most of their
medical
preparations contain either animal fat or spirituous liquors,
both
of these are tabooed by Hindus and Mohammedans. We may
pretend
to be civilized, call religious prohibitions a superstition and
wantonly
indulge in what we like. The fact remains that the
doctors
induce us to indulge, and the result is that we have
become deprived
of self-control and have become effeminate. In these
circumstances,
we are unfit to serve the country. To study European
medicine is to
deepen our slavery.
It is worth considering why we take up the profession
of
medicine. It is certainly not taken up for the purpose
of serving
humanity. We become doctors so that we may obtain honors and
riches. I have endeavored to show that there is no
real service of
humanity in the profession, and that it is injurious
to mankind.
Doctors make a show of their knowledge, and charge
exorbitant
fees. Their preparations, which are intrinsically worth
a few pence,
cost shillings. The populace, in its credulity and in
the hope of
ridding itself of some disease, allows itself to be
cheated. Are not
quacks then whom we know, better than the doctors who
put on an
air of humaneness?
