United States or Saudi Arabia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I think," said Mr. Gokhale in moving his resolution for the prohibition of Indian indentured labour for Natal, "I am stating the plain truth when I say that no single question of our time has evoked more bitter feelings throughout India feelings in the presence of which the best friends of British rule have had to remain helpless than the continued ill-treatment of Indians in South Africa."
Ranade, discouraged and alarmed by the violence of the Tilak party, had by this time retired from the forefront of the fray, but in Dr. Bhandarkar, Mr. Justice Tilang, Mr. A.K. Nulkar, Mr. Gokhale was always ready to co-operate against the forces of religious superstition, he had left disciples ready to carry on the good fight. Tilak raised against them a storm of passion and prejudice.
Gokhale does not, of course, propose that this educational and financial revolution should be effected by a stroke of the pen, and one of his Hindu colleagues held that, it would be contrary to all Hindu traditions for parents to avail themselves of free education if they could afford to pay a reasonable sum for it.
Gokhale had to appeal to the Law Courts for protection against the scurrilous libels of the "extremist" Press. His own experiences in political life since he resigned his work as a professor at the Ferguson College in Poona in order to take a larger share in public affairs have probably helped to convince Mr.
Far be it from me to say that all Hindus are of this purpose or that the school of "liberal Nationalism" to which Gokhale belongs has ceased to exist. But the other school predominates, and as our very existence is at stake we Moslems do not want to take any risks or to see even the very first steps taken towards transforming the British into a Hindu raj.
What has the Bureaucracy done for "education, sanitation, agricultural improvement, and so forth"? I must put the facts very briefly, but they are indisputable. Education. The percentage to the whole population of children receiving education is 2.8, the percentage having risen by 0.9 since Mr. Gokhale moved his Education Bill six years ago.
The need for these changes to which England is returning, after full experience of the miseries of life in manufacturing towns is pressing. Addressing an English audience, G.K. Gokhale summed up the general state of India as follows: Your average annual income has been estimated at about £42 per head.
So miserable a pittance abundantly explains their inefficiency. But there it is, and a new army of teachers nearly half a million altogether would have to be trained before primary education, whether free and compulsory, as Mr. Gokhale would have it, or optional and for payment, as others propose, could be usefully placed within the reach of the millions of Indian children of a school-going age.
Gokhale sets before the "Servants of India" will suffice to supply the necessary driving power.
In the heyday of the Hindu Social Reform Movement, before it was checked by the inrush of political agitation, the question of the elevation of the depressed castes was often and earnestly discussed by progressive Hindus themselves, but it is only recently that it has again been taken up seriously by some of the Hindu leaders, and notably by Mr. Gokhale.
Word Of The Day