Thoughts on Indian Discontents (Routledge Revivals) by Edwyn Bevan

Author:Edwyn Bevan [Bevan, Edwyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, India & South Asia, Europe, Great Britain, General
ISBN: 9781317682011
Google: -0jXAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-06-17T16:05:14+00:00

It is the Indians who now use profitably the field of free action open to them, who give ground for hope that under the conditions of swaraj India would make characteristic contributions to the world’s heritage. Those Indians who do not use the field now open to them would probably not do much under swaraj. Perhaps it is one of the harmful things inseparable from a foreign rule that people can always throw upon it the blame for their own deficiencies.

In the matter of intellectual, artistic, and religious production, individual initiative counts for almost everything. The Government has had little to do with the production of new literature which has enriched the life of Bengal in recent times: it conferred upon Rabindranath Tagore a title which he afterwards saw reason to renounce. It is not the foreign Government which prevents in other parts of India the production of new original literature and art. Either the men to produce it are not there—and, if so, swaraj would not create them—or the public is not there which buys good literature and good works of art, and, if so, I see no reason to suppose that the public would do, under a system of political self-government, what it could do to-day, and does not do. It may be said that under swaraj authors and artists would be encouraged by more Government patronage. I am afraid such an argument could move a European only to mirth, when he thought of what Government patronage means for literature and the arts in Europe. A Government, as such, has no qualifications for distinguishing between what is good and what is poor in literature and the arts, and the kind of literature and art which subsisted only by Government patronage would not be of interesting quality. In Europe the production of literature and art is due entirely to individual initiative; the encouragement and criticism which makes the production possible and maintains a standard is carried on in a certain educated section of society quite apart from any Government action. The comparative sterility of India in these things would not be affected by swaraj. It can be remedied only when there are more Indians who buy new Indian books of worth, and new works of art that are good, and that implies a level of taste general in a certain section of society, capable of distinguishing between good and bad work. I remember once hearing Mr. W. Rothenstein lament, in the matter of design in jewellery, that though exquisite work was still sometimes produced by Indian craftsmen following the old tradition, such work was becoming rarer and rarer simply because richer Indians had never trained themselves to understand it, and preferred to buy commonplace European jewellery. It is not the Government which is in fault here. Bengal is far ahead of the rest of India in having a public which makes possible a creative modern literature and art.

We come to education, and here certainly Government action does take a large place.

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