India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947; Nationalism -- India
If this definition be correct, then India, as so many writers have
shown, has nothing to learn from anybody else, and this is as it should
be. We notice that mind is a restless bird; the more it gets the more it
wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions,
the more unbridled they become. Our ancestors, therefore, set a limit to
our indulgences. They saw that happiness was largely a mental condition.
A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich, or unhappy because he
is poor. The rich are often seem to be unhappy, the poor to be happy.
Millions will always remain poor. Observing all this, our ancestors
dissuaded us from luxuries and pleasures. We have managed with the same
kind of plough as it existed thousands of years ago. We have retained
the same kind of cottages that we had in former times, and our
indigenous education remains the same as before. We have had no system
of life-corroding competition. Each followed his own occupation or
trade, and charged a regulation wage. It was not that we did not know
how to invent machinery, but our forefathers knew that, if we set our
hearts after such things, we would become slaves and lose our moral
fibre. They, therefore, after due deliberation, decided that we should
only do what we could with our hands and feet. They saw that our real
happiness and health consisted in a proper use of our hands and feet.
They further reasoned that large cities were a snare and a useless
encumbrance, and that people would not be happy in them, that there
would be gangs of thieves and robbers, prostitution and vice flourishing
in them, and that poor men would be robbed by rich men. They were,
therefore, satisfied with small villages. They saw that kings and their
swords were inferior to the sword of ethics, and they, therefore, held
the sovereigns of the earth to be inferior to the Rishis and the Fakirs.
A nation with a constitution like this is fitter to teach others than to
learn from others. This nation had courts, lawyers and doctors, but they
were all within bounds. Everybody knew that these professions were not
particularly superior; moreover, these vakils and _vaids_ did not rob
people; they were considered people's dependents, not their masters.
Justice was tolerably fair. The ordinary rule was to avoid courts. There
were no touts to lure people into them. This evil, too, was noticeable
only in and around capitals. The common people lived independently, and
followed their agricultural occupation. They enjoyed true Home Rule.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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