Abstract
NATURE has hitherto refrained from further comment on the progress of discussion in relation to the political future of India, as for the moment it had passed from the field in which the results of scientific investigation of Indian peoples and institutions might usefully be applied. Attention has now, however, once more been directed to the larger issue of the applicability of western democratic institutions to an eastern community of heterogeneous composition in the evidence before the Joint Select Committee of Mr. M. K. Acharya, a representative of the All-India Varnashram Swarajya Sangha, which was reported in the Times of August 5. In the course of evidence it was claimed that this organisation represents 170,000,000 Hindus who are not heterodox and are not denationalized. It is of little moment whether this claim can be fully substantiated, or whether any attempt should be made hereafter to discredit Mr. Acharya. He admits that he has broken his caste and on his return to India will have to undergo penance in accordance with the well-known rule affecting high-class Hindus who cross the seas. It is important to recognise that he represents an important body of Hindu opinion, whatever its exact dimensions may be, which is largely inarticulate; but for which religious observances are of more importance than political advancement. This feeling is not blindly conservative and obstructive; it is cultural. Mr. Acharyas replies, when questioned on such subjects as the relation of social reform to the fundamentals of religion, child marriage and suttee, deserve careful consideration, not as pointing to the necessity for any reversal of policy in these matters, but as indicative of the principles which should be observed in reform. The suggested utilisation of the village councils, for example, in preference to a lowering of the franchise, is more fully in accord with Indian institutions than any system which exalts the individual but ignores the social group of which he is an integral part.
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Politics and Religion in India. Nature 132, 234 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132234c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132234c0