A UNITED EMPIRE FRONT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23471, 7 October 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

A UNITED EMPIRE FRONT

The Indian Leaders

By KOTARE

FROM the Empire's point of view nothing more significant emerged during the first days of the war than the expressions of goodwill and encouragement sent by Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. These two noted Indian leaders were no doubt in the first place simply declaring their personal opinions. - But both represent so much of the informed opinion and higher aspiration of India-that such a pronouncement of sympathy and co-operation may reasonably be taken almost as a national gesture. There could never have been any real of the sentiment of Australia and New Zealand. We were immensely heartened when Canada and South Africa lined up with the Motherland, for both had special problems that complicated issues so clear and precise from our Southern angle of vision. But, after all, we expected no less of them. But India was another matter.- There was neither the call of the blood nor the spell of long-established ideals, nor the obvious pressure of interest. She, more than any other part of the Empire, could regard tlie fundamental issues with emotional - ncreasingly in recent years she " has clarified her own objectives. Thpre is a vast student constituency that, under a fiery leader, has looked to Russia as the liberator. But apart from these, the nationalist sentiment has been chiefly grouped behind Gandhi, and on another level, Rabindranath Tagore,. Both are practical idealists, always ■ the most potent personalities in history. Both are mystics with a firm grasp of reality. And now%botij>-have come out on the British side, seeing, that the triumph of principles for which they have stood is bound up with the victory of British arms. Mahatma Gandhi India is so complex that it is impossible on any matter to speak with any assurance of the exact direction, in which Indian opinion is moving. But when the two most honoured leaders take a stand like this, we have the strongest guarantee that the structure of Empire is still sound, and that the coming ordeal with its internal and external strains and_ stresses will only strengthen and consolidate it. Recently, an American woman journalist visited Gandhi, and to her, with unwonted exuberance, lie delivered his soul. "India's whole outlook has changed this past year. Everything is brighter now. Many of the discordant, factors have disappeared. The attitude of the British Government is helpful and understanding now. It is more lenient, more understanding with - us than 1 have ever known it to be before. We'j-e getting somewhere now, and we're doing it amicably and sanely. We're doing it with the Government, and not against it." _ Gandhi's message of goodwill underlines that declaration made a few months ago. C. F. Andrews, the chief English interpreter of modern India to the West, 'says in liis_ life of Gandhi, "it is his firm conviction that through the eyes of Gandhi and Tagore the West may learn to appreciate the East." Gandhi, as the great public figure,' is far better known throughout the Empire. But Tagore, the greatest of moaern Indian men of letters, poet, novelist, dramatist, outstanding educationalist, too, is one of the greatest figures and one of thSSmost influential in the Empire to-day. It is worth while investigating what he stands for, and in what directions his influence is operating inside India and throughout the world. Wise Patriotism - Tagore, the name by which he is usually known to Englishmen, is really a family title conferred on an ancestor in the seventeenth century. It is almost an equivalent of Lord of the manor. His family, wealthy and powerful, has a distinguished record of public service. His father, an intense lover of India, was not afraid to denounce ancient customs that kept his country hopelessly bound to an outlived past. He was instrumental in many reforms that alienated the more conservative of his fellow countrymen. That breadth of view descended to his son,_ and through lum has been communicated "*iii large measure to tlie best national movements in the India of to-day. - Tagore early saw that a mere return to the past was no policy for all enlightened people to-day. From his youth lie steeped himself not only ■in the literature of his owii land, but in the best poetry of the West. From his profound study of the ideals of other nations, and from his own essential patriotism he saw that India could be made the meeting ground of all that was best in the thought of the world. He was always conscious of the basal racial element in him, and as a patriot, before Gandhi, advocated the revival of the old cottage industries rapidly disappearing before the onslaughts of _ the machine age. He saw, too, that language is the garment the soul of a nation weaves for itself, and that a nation suffers immeasurable loss if it cuts itself off from this most important of all cultural influences. The Humanist - But he also set his face against what he calls "empty and thoughtless political agitation and sentimental patriotism," which seemed to htm to have an undue place in the national movements, and which he believed would simply generate a futile ferment that would get his people nowhere. He builds not upon any new all-embracing ideology. His faitli is primarily in the individual man. He deserves the name of the greatest humanist of our time. If, on the one hand, he decries the excesses' of the unthinking patriot, ho is equally severe on what he terms "hazy cosmopolitanism." He comes back to the individual man. Make the better, finer man. and the other problems will soon adjust themselves. So lie insists that mere external libertv is valueless unless there is the . internal liberty as well. Freedom; is a mere political catch word, unless the soul ol man is free. Man has infinite potentialities if they are given their chance. But liberty is worth nothing if, at heart, the man is still a slave. The outward trappings mean nothing if there is not the freeman within to fill „ thorn out to their full dignity-. ' Britain, he believes, must play a big part still in the future of India. "I know that the British love justice And , freedom, and hate a lie," lie says frank I v and generously. "They are pure in their thoughts, sincere in their habits, and faithful friends; their actions are honourable and trustworthy-." His view is that many races have lived and ruled iu India and that "Indians have neither the right nor I the power to exclude the Urifcish participation in India's destiny. J new India will pool the best that Britain can give with the best tna India has worked out for herself. Wise and sympathetic co-opoiatiom not dominance and self-assertion. ,V tlie varied elements that have in the - centuries woven the pattern of Ind life, with the generous eidargement ol the spirit of man everywhere,, will gne A to his own land its brave new worm. I