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expression of his notions he went further than the artists of any other race, except perhaps the ancient Egyptians. In the age-long process of seeking for their most typical expression, all the conceptions with which students of Indian art are familiar, in stone and metal, came to be born. The traditional Siva, Vishnu, Krishna and the rest are the complete and final realisation of Hindu art-thought on the problems of their religion. We can but note the severe, lofty and noble expression of the features, the slender waists, the delicate hands, the monumental attitudes, of some of the older and greater examples among the Hindu pantheon to realise how this was achieved. Nor can we ignore the remarkable effect of the duplication and re-duplication of the arms in many of the most familiar portrayal of the deities. Besides the symbolic significance of this usage, it also has an æsthetic value. The many arms endow the figure with a strange feeling of superior force and majesty, almost of omnipotence, which to the sensitive mind entirely obliterates the commonplace objection that there is a sense of the unpleasant, abnormal and unnatural about such presentments. In all these and other ways, in all of, which the human form is profoundly modified, the sense of the remote, the colossal and God-like is induced.

We thus see the marked divergence between European and Indian art and in what it consists and how it was brought about. At this point we may return to European art and notice the movement which is now in process of development. During the last few years, as we have indicated, a notable change has begun. Artists have become dissatisfied with the older representational art, which concerns itself chiefly with attractive externals, and have begun to seek for the secret of inward expression, the realisation of self-sufficient ideas in plastic form. They have begun to feel that the close imitation of nature is incompatible with the presentation of lofty aesthetic conceptions, or æsthetic conceptions of any ideal intensity at all; that in order to make its most powerful appeal an art-product must be first of all a creation in the artist's mind and that the shapes which are used must be adapted to the realisation of his conceptions. They are rediscovering what the ancient Hindu artists knew centuries ago, that the idea is master and the form the handmaid-but the most important handmaid. Thus there is beginning in tentative fashion a complete reversal of the art creeds which have held sway in Europe for centuries.

Thus it is that we have many remarkable and novel schools of painting-the cubists, futurists, post-impressionists and others, widely differing in method but having generally in common the central notion upon which we have just remarked. Some of their productions are singular enough, and the obvious complaint of the imperceptive mind that the artists have completely ignored drawing, colour and tone and indulged in a riot of extravagance which they hope will pass muster as art. This, indeed, may be true of the baser disciples of the new school, but it certainly is not true of the more serious and deeper thinking exponents, such as Cézanne. Many post-impressionist works (the term post-impressionist is conveniently compendious if not very expressive) are hopelessly absurd and bizarre, and merit the abuse unstintingly showered upon them, but there are many which make a powerful-an almost uncannily powerful-appeal. One critic observed, after having seen number of them in proximity to certain works of the older school: "They make these other fellows seem so unreal!" And this is the effect they produce in spite of their apparent neglect of drawing, tone and colour in the sense in which those elements of picturemaking are employed in the academies. Exactly how the effect of power and force which these new productions possess is created only the artist knows, but broadly the process is that of the ideal art of primitive times. A form is discovered (and tone and colour may be considered to be a part of "form") which bears a precise aesthetic relation to the idea to be expressed. As one artist put it, the problem is to express "the treeness of the tree," to discover a way of rendering a tree in paint which shall exactly express by form the inner relation of the æsthetic idea of a tree in the artist's mind to the tree as a natural object. The same with higher problems. The process is mysterious and elusive, but we need only recur to our remarks on ancient Indian art to see how form may be made expressive of idea. There are concrete examples in thousands all over India.

Probably the majority of the artists of the new schools are working in the dark, and rather following their æsthetic instinct than proceeding by any logical argument or by the light of knowledge. Moreover they certainly have yet to justify their contentions, in spite of the considerable achievements which already stand to their credit. They have before them a task of great magnitude, they are striving against a powerful

tradition, and they are wrestling with problems which in India and elsewhere took centuries for solution, and then were only solved by the continuous application of the art-brain of the race. In this sense, truly, they can never, perhaps, achieve the colossal results of the primitive arts. They lack the animating fire of common and dominating religion and therefore of common purpose. Artistic endeavour in Europe is now almost entirely individualistic. Each art-thinker concentrates on the problems for himself: there is no heaping up of expression as in the highly traditional religious art of the primitive races. Thus the achievement of truly monumental results is unlikely, unless one man of colossal mind arises who in the new method may be able to express what in the normal course would only be evolved by cumulative endeavour. But the European movement-by whatever name we may call it is a vital and important one, and although it is being laughed at by some (and often justifiably) and whole-heartedly damned by others (sometimes with no less justification) it has, I believe, come to stay and will not improbably redeem European art from the superficiality, inexpressiveness and lack of elevation into which it had declined up to the end of the nineteenth

century. If the post-impressionist movement comes to anything, European art is on the up-grade.

And what of Indian art? This is a big problem indeed. Has it any future? Will it redeem itself from the blight of traditionalism and remove itself from the deep grooves in which it has been running for so long? Can it learn anything from Europe? It is hard to say. There are faint signs here and there that European influence is telling, and it is not improbable that good may come of a judicious blending of Indian ideal and religious art with the materialistic and worldly grace of the West. India has certainly here a very wide field of artistic endeavour. Indeed a whole new art might seem to be in prospect. But we must not forget that the art-product of a people is not determined by what is advisable, or desirable, or attractive, but by the impelling and compelling forces within demanding expression. While India remains what she has been, the greatest religious country of the world, we are not likely to see any marked advances in materialism in art-endeavour or any other province. And on religion art has said best things long ago. So any discussion of the art future of India must end in a note of interrogation. But there can be no question that a Renaissance is needed.

SWADESHI: BY MR. M. K. GANDHI.

T was not without much diffidence that I undertook to speak to you at all. And I was hard put to it in the selection of my subject. I have chosen a very delicate and difficult subject. It is delicate because of the peculiar views I hold upon Swadeshi, and it is difficult because I have not that command of language which is necessary for giving adequate expression to my thoughts. I know that I may rely upon your indulgence for the many shortcomings you will no doubt find in my address, the more so when I tell you that there is nothing in what I am about to say that I am not either already practising or am not preparing to practise to the best of my ability. It encourages me to observe that last month you devoted a week to prayer in the place of an address. I have earnestly prayed that what I am about to say may bear fruit and I know that you will bless my word with a similar

prayer.

After much thinking I have arrived at a definition of Swadeshi that perhaps best illustrates my meaning. Swadeshi is that spirit in us which restricts us to the use and service of our immediate surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote. Thus, as for religion, in order to satisfy the requirements of the definition I must restrict myself to my ancestral religion. That is the use of my immediate religious surrounding. If I find it defective I should serve it by purging it of its defects. In the domain of politics I should make use of the indigenous institutions and serve them by curing them of their proved defects. In that of economics I should use only things that are produced by my immediate neighbours and serve those industries by making them efficient and complete where they might be found wanting. It is suggested that such Swadeshi, if reduced to practice, will lead to the millennium. And as we do not abandon our

* An Address delivered before the Missionary Conference, Madras, on the 14th February.

pursuit after the millennium because we do not expect quite to reach it within our times so may we not abandon Swadeshi even though it may not be fully attained for generations to come.

Let us briefly examine the three branches of Swadeshi as sketched above. Hinduism has become a conservative religion and therefore a mighty force because of the Swadeshi spirit underlying it. It is the most tolerant because it is non-proselytising, and it is as capable of expansion to-day as it has been found to be in the past. It has succeeded not in driving, as I think it has beer. erroneously held, but in absorbing Buddhism. By reason of the Swadeshi spirit a Hindu refuses to change his religion not necessarily because he considers it to be the best, but because he knows that he can complement it by introducing reforms. And what I have said about Hinduism is, I suppose, true of the other great faiths of the world, only it is held that it is specially so in the case of Hinduism. But here comes the point I am labouring to reach. If there is any substance in what I have said, will not the great missionary bodies of India, to whom she owes a deep debt of gratitude for what they have done and are doing, do still better and serve the spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytising but continuing their philanthropic work? I hope you will not consider this to be an impertinence on my part. I make the suggestion in all sincerity and with due humility. Moreover I have some claim upon your attention. I have endeavoured to study the Bible. I consider it as part of my scriptures. The spirit of the Sermon on the Mount competes almost on equal terms with the Bhagavad-Gita for the domination of my heart. I yield to no Christian in the strength of devotion with which I sing "Lead kindly light" and several other inspired hymns of a similar nature. I have come under the influence of noted Christian missionaries belonging to different denominations. And I enjoy to this day the privilege of friendship with some of them. You will perhaps therefore allow that I have offered the above suggestion not as a biased Hindu but as a humble and impartial student of religion with great leanings towards Christianity. May it not be that "Go Ye Unto All The World" message has been somewhat narrowly interpretted and the spirit of it missed? It will not be denied, I speak from experience, that many of the conversions are only sc-called. In some cases the appeal has gone not to the heart

but to the stomach. And in every case a conversion leaves a sore behind it which, I venture to think, is avoidable. Quoting again from experience, a new birth, a change of heart, is perfectly possible in every one of the great faiths. I know I am now treading upon thin ice. But I do not apologise, in closing this part of my subject, for saying that the frightful outrage that is just going on in Europe, perhaps, shows that the message of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Peace, had been little understood in Europe, and that light upon it may have to be thrown from the East.

I have sought your help in religious matters, which it is yours to give in a special sense. But I make bold to seek it even in political matters. I do not believe that religion has nothing to do with politics. The latter divorced from religion is like a corpse only fit to be buried. As a matter of fact in your own silent manner you influence politics not a little. And I feel that if the attempt to separate politics from religion had not been made as it is even now made, they would not have degenerated as they often appear to do. No one considers that the political life of the country is in a happy state. Following out the Swadeshi spirit I observe the indigenous institutions and the village panchayats hold me. India is really a republican country, and it is because it is that that it has survived every shock hitherto delivered. Princes and potentates, whether they were Indian born or foreigners, have hardly touched the vast masses except for collecting revenue. The latter in their turn seem to have rendered untc Cæsar what was Cæsar's and for the rest have done much as they have liked. The vast organisation of caste answered not only the religious wants of the community, but it answered too its political needs. The villagers managed their internal affairs through the caste system, and through it they dealt with any oppression from the ruling power or powers. It is not possible to deny of a nation that was cap. able of producing the caste system its wonderful power of organisation. One had but to attend the great Kumbha Mela at Hardwar last year to know how skilful that organisation must have been, which without any seeming effort was able effectively to cater for more than a million pilgrims. Yet it is the fashion to say that we lack organising ability. This is true, I fear, to a certain extent, of those who have been nurtured in the new traditions. We have laboured under a terrible handicap owing to an almost fatal

departure from the Swadeshi spirit. We the educated classes have received our education through a foreign tongue. We have therefore not reacted upon the masses. We want to repre

sent the masses, but we fail. They recognise us not much more than they recognise the English officers. Their hearts are an open book to neither. Their aspirations are not ours. Hence there is a break. And you witness not in reality failure to organise but want of correspondence between the representatives and the represented. If during the last fifty years we had been educated through the vernaculars, our elders and our servants and our neighbours would have partaken of our knowledge; the discoveries of a Bose or a Ray would have been household treasures as are the Ramayan and the Mahabharat. As it is, so far as the masses are concerned, those great discoveries might as well have been made by foreigners. Had instruction in all the branches of learning been given through the Vernaculars, I make bold to say that they would have been enriched wonderfully. The question of village sanitation, etc., would have been solved long ago. The village Panchayats would be now a living force in a special way, and India would almost be enjoying self-government suited to its requirements and would have been spared the humiliating spectacle of organised assassination on its sacred soil. It is not too late to mend. And you can help if you will, as no other body or bodies can.

And now for the last division of Swadeshi. Much of the deep poverty of the masses is due to the ruinous departure from Swadeshi in the economic and industrial life. If not an article of commerce had been brought from outside India, she would be today a land flowing with milk and honey. But that was not to be. We were greedy and so was England. The connection between England and India was based clearly upon an error. But she does not remain in India in error. It is her declared policy that India is to be held in trust for her people. If this be true, Lancashire must stand aside. And if the Swadeshi doctrine is a sound doctrine, Lancashire can stand aside without hurt though it may sustain a shock for the time being. I think of Swadeshi not as a boycott movement undertaken by way of revenge. I conceive it as a religious principle to be followed by all. I am no economist, but I have read some treatises which show that England could easily become a self-sustained country, growing all the produce she needs, This may be an utterly ridiculous

proposition, and perhaps the best proof that it cannot be true is that England is one of the largest importers in the world. But India can

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not live for Lancashire or any other country before she is able to live for herself. And she can live for herself only if she produces and is helped to produce everything for her requirements within her own borders. She need not be, she ought not to be, drawn into the vortex of mad and ruinous competition which breeds fratricide, jealousy and many other evils. But who is to stop her great millionaires from entering into the world competition? Certainly not legislation. Force of public opinion, proper education, however, can do a great deal in the desired direction. hand-loom industry is in a dying condition. I took special care during my wanderings last year to see as many weavers as possible, and my heart ached to find how they had lost, how. families had retired from this once flourishing and honourable occupation. If we follow the Swadeshi doctrine, it would be your duty and mine to find out neighbours who can supply our wants and to teach them to supply them where they do not know how to, assuming that there are neighbours who are in want of healthy occupation. Then every village of India will almost be a self-supporting and self-contained unit, exchanging only such necessary commodities with other villages where they are not locally producible. This may all sound nonsensical. Well, India is a country of nonsense. It is nonsensical to parch one's throat with thirst when a kindly Mahomedan is ready to offer pure water to drink. And yet thousands of Hindus would rather die of thirst than drink water from a Mahomedan household. These nonsensical men can also, once they are convinced that their religion demands that they should wear garments manufactured in India only and eat food only grown in India, decline to wear any other clothing or eat any other food. Lord Curzon set the fashion for tea-drinking. And that pernicious drug now bids fair to overwhelm the nation. It has already undermined the digestive apparatus of hundreds of thousands of men and women and constitutes an additional tax upon their slender purses. Lord Hardinge can set the fashion for Swadeshi and almost the whole of India will forswear foreign goods. There is a verse in the Bhagavat Gita which, freely rendered, means masses follow the classes. It is easy to undo the evil if the thinking portion of the community were to take the Swadeshi vow even though it may for a time cause considerable inconvenience.

I hate legislative interference in any department of life. At best it is the lesser evil. But I would tolerate, welcome, indeed plead for a stiff protective duty upon foreign goods. Natal, a British colony, protected its sugar by taxing the sugar that came from another British colony, Mauritius. England has sinned against India by forcing free trade upon her. It may have been food for her, but it has been poison for this country.

It has often been urged that India cannot adopt Swadeshi in the economic life at any rate. Those who advance this objection do not look upon Swadeshi as a rule of life. With them it is a mere patriotic effort not to be made if it involved any self-denial. Swadeshi, as defined here, is a religious discipline to be undergone in utter disregard of the physical discomfort it may cause to individuals. Under its spell the deprivation of a pin or a needle, because these are not manufactured in India, need cause no terror. A Swadeshist will learn to do without hundreds of things which today he considers necessary. Moreover, those who dismiss the Swadeshi from their minds by arguing the impossible forget that Swadeshi after all is a goal to be reached by steady effort. And we would be making for the goal even if we confined Swadeshi to a given set of articles allowing ourselves as a temporary measure to use such things as might not be procurable in the country.

There now remains for me to consider one more objection that has been raised against Swadeshi. The objectors consider it to be a most selfish doctrine without any warrant in the civilized code of morality. With them to practise Swadeshi is to revert to barbarism. I cannot enter into a detailed analysis of the proposition. But I would urge that Swadeshi is the only doctrine consistent with the law of humility and love. It is arrogance to think of launching out to serve the whole of India when I am hardly able to serve even my own family. It were better to concentrate my effort upon the family and consider that through them I was serving the whole nation and if you will the whole of hum nity. This is humility and it is love. The motive will determine the quality of the act. I may serve my family regardless of the sufferings I may cause to others, as, for instance, I may accept an employment which enables me to extort money from people, I enrich myself thereby and then satisfy many unlawful demands of the family. Here I am neither serving the family nor the stat. Or I may recognise that God has given me ha ds and feet only to work with for my sustenance a d for that of

those who may be dependent upon me. I would then at once simplify my life and that of those whom I can directly reach. In this instance 1 would have served the family without causing injury to anyone else. Supposing that every one followed this mode of life, we would have at once an ideal state. All will not reach that state at the same time. But those of us who, realising its truth, enforce it in practice will clearly anticipate and accelerate the coming of that happy day. Under this plan of life, in seeming to serve India to the exclusion of every other country, I do not harm any other country. My patriotism is both exclusive and inclusive. It is exclusive in the sense that in all humility I confine my attention to the land of my birth, but it is inclusive in the sense that my service is not of a competitive or antagonistic nature. Sic utere tuo ut alienum non leedas is not merely a legal maxim, but it is a grand doctrine of life. It is the key to a proper practice of Ahimsa or love. It is for you, the custodians of a great faith, to set the fashion and show by your preaching, sanctified by practice, that patriotism based on "hatred killeth" and that patriotism based on love giveth life."

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THE SWADESHI MOVEMENT

A SYMPOSIUM BY

Representative Indians and Anglo-Indians Contents.-Dadabhai Naoroji; H. H. The Gaekwar of Baroda; The Hon. Mr. G. K. Gokhale; The Hon. Dr. Rash Behari Ghose; The Hon. Sir Vitaldas Damodar Thackersey; The Hon, Md. Yusuf Khan Bahadur ; Mrs. Annie Besant; Rajah Peary Mohun Mukerjee; Sister Nivedita; Lala Lajpat Rai; Dewan Bahadur K. Krishnaswamy Row; The Hon. Mr. Harikishen Lal; Babu Surendranath Banerjea: Rai Bahadur Lala Baij Nath; Dewan Bahadur Ragunatha Row; Romesh Chunder Dutt, C.I.E., I.c.s.; Mr. A. Chaudhuri; Hon. Mr. Parekh; Mr. D. E. Wacha; Hon. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya; Mr. Aswini Kumar Datta; The Hon. Mr. Krishnaswamy Iyer; Hon. Mr. Ambica Charan Muzum dar; Dewan Bahadur Ambalal 8. Desai; Mr. G. 8. Arundale; Sir Charles Elliot, Mr. David Gostling: Rajah Prithwipal Singh, Rai Bahadur P. Ananda Charlu, C.I.E.; Sir E. C. Fuck, K.C.S.I.; Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy; Mr. Mu bur Rahman; Abdul Rasul, Esq., Bar.-at-Law; Babu Tara Prasanna Mukerji; Dewan Bahadur Govindaraghava Iyer; Mr. Abdul Halim Ghuznavi; Rao Bahadur R. N. Mudholkar; His Honor Sir Herbert T. White; Mr. Charles W. McKinn; Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak; Mr. Hemendra Prasad Ghose; Pandit Rambaj Dutt; Mr. Mushir Hosain Kidwai, Bar.-at-Law. The book also contains the views of H. E. Lord Minto, H. E. Sir Arthur Lawley, H. H. Sir Andrew Fraser and Lord Ampthill.

Price Re. 1. To Subscribers of the "Review" As. 12.

G. A. Natesan & Co., Sunkurama Chetty Street, Madras

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