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Updated: June 4, 2025
But in the statistics of literacy based on the last census, the Brahmans figure at the head of all the Hindu castes with the very creditable proportion of 578 males and 40 females per mille. The Western-educated classes in Southern India, whilst as progressive as in any other part, show greater mental balance than in Bengal, and less reactionary tendencies than in the Deccan.
At one time before the Congress gave precedence to political reforms social reform did find many enthusiastic supporters amongst the best class of Western-educated Indians, but the gradual disappearance of men of that type may be said almost to coincide with the growth of political agitation.
If, however, when that explosion came the Western-educated classes were against us rather than with us, the explanation cannot be sought only in their continued exclusion from all real participation in the counsels of Government, or in the refusal of the political rights for which they had vainly agitated, or even in a general reaction against the earlier acceptance of the essential superiority of the West.
That measure was intended to mitigate the evils of infant marriage by raising the age for the woman's consent to its consummation from ten to twelve, and the death quite recently of a young Hindu girl of eleven in Calcutta due to the violence inflicted upon her by a husband nearly twenty years older than she was, had enlisted very widespread support for Government amongst enlightened Hindus and especially amongst the Western-educated.
Amongst the Western-educated classes the new forces which had been turning the minds of young India towards Swaraj as the watchword of national unity and independence had drawn much of their inspiration from text-books which taught them how large a share Nationalism had played in redeeming modern nations from alien oppression and in shaping the whole political evolution of Europe.
Yet at the very time when an Indian-elected assembly, representing as far as possible all creeds and classes and communities, and above all the Western-educated classes who are the intellectual offspring of British rule, were gathered together to hear delivered to them in English the one language in which, as a result of British rule, and by no means the least valuable, Indians from all parts of a vast polyglot country are able to hold converse the Royal message throwing open to the people of India the road to Swaraj within the British Empire, the imperial city of Delhi went into mourning as a sign of angry protest, and the vast majority of its citizens, mostly, it must be remembered, Mahomedans, very strictly observed a complete boycott of the Royal visit in accordance with Mr.
But such a system, however well it worked in practice for the production of a reliable fighting machine, was not calculated to train the Indians to protect themselves. That nothing was done to open up a military career to the Western-educated classes was not at first more than a sentimental grievance.
They generally proceed from the new, more or less Western-educated middle class whose attitude towards British officials is seldom calculated to promote cordial relations; and they are also sometimes inspired by another class of Indian who, one may hope, will before long have vanished, but whom of all others the civilian is bound to keep at arm's length.
They might be inclined to judge the Western-educated class of Indians too harshly, and to identify them too closely with the type that was beginning to dominate the Indian National Congress, but the form in which the question of yielding to Indians any substantial part of their authority presented itself to their minds was by no means an entirely selfish one.
We must remember also that even the best type of Western-educated Indian only speaks at present for a minute section of the population of India, and that, when he does not speak, as he often naturally does, merely in the interests of the small class which he represents, he has not yet by any means proved his title to speak for the scores of millions of his fellow-countrymen who are still living in the undisturbed atmosphere of the Indian Middle Ages.
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