Glimpses of World History Page 3

  I cannot say if you will like these letters when you see them. But I have decided to write them for my own pleasure. They bring you very near to me, and I feel almost that I have had a talk with you. Often enough I think of you, but today you have hardly been absent from my mind. Today is New Year’s Day. As I lay in bed, very early in the morning, watching the stars, I thought of the great year that was past, with all its hope and anguish and joy, and all the great and gallant deeds performed. And I thought of Bapuji, who has made our old country young and vigorous again by his magic touch, sitting in his prison cell in Yeravada. And I thought of Dadu1 and many others. And especially I thought of Mummie and you. Later in the morning came the news that Mummie had been arrested and taken to gaol. It was a pleasant New Year’s gift for me. It had long been expected and I have no doubt that Mummie is thoroughly happy and contented.

  But you must be rather lonely. Once a fortnight you may see Mummie and once a fortnight you may see me, and you will carry our messages to each other. But I shall sit down with pen and paper and I shall think of you. And then you will silently come near me and we shall talk of many things. And we shall dream of the past, and find our way to make the future greater than the past. So on this New Year’s Day let us resolve that, by the time this year also grows old and dies, we shall have brought this bright future dream of ours nearer to the present, and given to India’s past a shining page of history.

  2

  The Lesson of History

  January 5, 1931

  What shall I write to you, my dear? Where shall I begin? When I think of the past, vast numbers of pictures rush through my mind. Some of the pictures stay longer than others. They are my favourites and I begin to muse about them, and, unconsciously almost, I compare past happenings with what is taking place today, and try to find a lesson in them for my guidance. But what a strange jumble is one’s mind, full of disconnected thoughts and ill-arranged images, like a gallery with no order in the arrangement of pictures. And yet perhaps the fault is not entirely ours. Most of us could certainly arrange the order of events in our minds better. But sometimes the events themselves are strange and difficult to fit into any scheme of things.

  I think I wrote to you once that a study of history should teach us how the world has slowly but surely progressed, how the first simple animals gave place to more complicated and advanced animals, how last of all came the master animal—Man, and how by force of his intellect he triumphed over the others. Man’s growth from barbarism to civilization is supposed to be the theme of history. In some of my letters I have tried to show you how the idea of co-operation or working together has grown, and how our ideal should be to work together for the common good. But sometimes, looking at great stretches of history, it is difficult to believe that this ideal has made much progress or that we are very much civilized or advanced. There is enough of want of cooperation today, of one country or people selfishly attacking or oppressing another, of one man exploiting another. If after millions of years of progress we are still so backward and imperfect, how much longer will it take us to learn to behave as sensible and reasonable persons? Sometimes we read about past periods of history which seem to be better than ours, more cultured and civilized even, and this makes us doubt if our world is going forward or backward. Our own country has surely had brilliant periods in the past, far better in every way than our present.

  It is true that there have been brilliant periods in the past in many countries—in India, Egypt, China, Greece, and elsewhere—and that many of these countries have relapsed and gone back. But even this should not make us lose heart. The world is a big place and the rise and fall of any country for a while may not make much difference to the world at large.

  Many people nowadays are apt to boast of our great civilization and of the wonders of science. Science has indeed done wonders, and the great men of science are worthy of all respect. But those who boast are seldom the great. And it is well to remember that in many ways man has not made very great progress from the other animals. It may be that in certain ways some animals are superior to him still. This may sound a foolish statement, and people who do not know better may laugh at it. But you have just read Maeterlinck’s Life of the Bee, of the White Ant, and the Ant, and you must have wondered at the social organization of these insects. We look down upon the insects as almost the lowest of living things, and yet these tiny things have learnt the art of co-operation and of sacrifice for the common good far better than man. Ever since I read of the White Ant and of its sacrifices for its comrades, I have developed a soft corner in my heart for it. If mutual co-operation and sacrifice for the good of society are the tests of civilization, we may say that the White Ant and the Ant are in this respect superior to man.

  In one of our old Sanskrit books there is a verse which can be translated as follows: “For the family sacrifice the individual, for the community the family, for the country the community, and for the Soul the whole world”. What the Soul is few of us can know or tell, and each one of us can interpret it in a different way. But the lesson this Sanskrit verse teaches us is the same lesson of co-operation and sacrifice for the larger good. We in India had forgotten this sovereign path to real greatness for many a day, and so we had fallen. But again we seem to have glimpses of it, and all the country is astir. How wonderful it is to see men and women, and boys and girls, smilingly going ahead in India’s cause and not caring about any pain or suffering! Well may they smile and be glad, for the joy of serving in a great cause is theirs; and to those who are fortunate comes the joy of sacrifice also. Today we are trying to free India. That is a great thing. But even greater is the cause of humanity itself. And because we feel that our struggle is a part of the great human struggle to end suffering and misery, we can rejoice that we are doing our little bit to help the progress of the world.

  Meanwhile, you sit in Anand Bhawan, and Mummie sits in Malacca Gaol, and I here in Naini Prison—and we miss each other sometimes, rather badly, do we not? But think of the day when we shall all three meet again! I shall look forward to it, and the thought of it will lighten and cheer up my heart.

  3

  Inqilab Zindabad1

  January 7, 1931

  Priyadarshini2—dear to the sight, but dearer still when sight is denied! As I sat here today to write to you, faint cries, like distant thunder, reached me. I could not make out at first what they were, but they had a familiar ring and they seemed to find an answering echo in my heart. Gradually they seemed to approach and grow in volume, and soon there was no doubt as to what they were. “Inqilab zindabad!” “Inqilab zindabad!” the prison resounded with the spirited challenge, and our hearts were glad to hear it. I do not know who they were who shouted our war-cry so near us outside the gaol—whether they were men and women from the city or peasants from the villages. Nor do I know the occasion for it today. But whoever they were, they cheered us up, and we sent a silent answer to their greeting and all our good wishes went with it.

  Why should we shout “Inqilab zindabad”? Why should we want revolution and change? India of course wants a big change today. But even after the big change that we all want has come and India is independent, we cannot rest quiescent. Nothing in the world that is alive remains unchanging. All Nature changes from day to day and minute to minute, only the dead stop growing and are quiescent. Fresh water runs on, and if you stop it, it becomes stagnant. So also is it with the life of man and the life of a nation. Whether we want to or not, we grow old. Babies become little girls, and little girls big girls and grown-up women and old women. We have to put up with these changes. But there are many who refuse to admit that the world changes. They keep their minds closed and locked up and will not permit any new ideas to come into them. Nothing frightens them so much as the idea of thinking. What is the result? The world moves on in spite of them, and because they and people like them do not adapt themselves to the changing conditions, there are big burst-ups from time to time. Big revolutions take place, lik
e the great French Revolution of a hundred and forty years ago, or the Russian Revolution thirteen years ago. Even so in our own country, we are today in the middle of a revolution. We want independence, of course. But we want something more. We want to clear out all the stagnant pools and let in clean fresh water everywhere. We must sweep away the dirt and the poverty and misery from our country. We must also clean up, as far as we can, the cobwebs from the minds of so many people which prevent them from thinking and cooperating in the great work before us. It is a great work, and it may be that it will require time. Let us, at least, give it a good push on—Inqilab zindabad!

  We are on the threshold of our Revolution. What the future will bring we cannot say. But even the present has brought us rich returns for our labours. See the women of India, how proudly they march ahead of all in the struggle! Gentle and yet brave and indomitable, see how they set the pace for others. And the purdah, which hid our brave and beautiful women, and was a curse to them and to their country, where is it now? Is it not rapidly slinking away to take its rightful place in the shelves of museums, where we keep the relics of a bygone age?

  See also the children—the boys and girls—the Vanar Senas and the Bal and Balika Sabhas. The parents of many of these children may have behaved as cowards or slaves in the past. But who dare doubt that the children of our generation will tolerate no slavery or cowardice?

  And so the wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down. It was time it moved in our country. But we have given it such a push this time that no one can stop it.

  Inqilab zindabad!

  4

  Asia and Europe

  January 8, 1931

  Everything changes continually, I said in my last letter. What is history, indeed, but a record of change? And if there had been very few changes in the past, there would have been little of history to write.

  The history we learn in school or college is usually not up to much. I do not know very much about others, but about myself I know that I learnt very little in school. I learnt a little—very little—of the history of India, and a little of the history of England. And even the history of India that I learnt was largely wrong or distorted and written by people who looked down upon our country. Of the history of other countries I had the vaguest knowledge. It was only after I left college that I read some real history. Fortunately, my visits to prison have given me a chance of improving my knowledge.

  I have written to you in some of my earlier letters about the ancient civilization of India, about the Dravidians and the coming of the Aryans. I have not written much about the days before the Aryans, because I do not know much about them. But it will interest you to know that within the last few years the remains of a very ancient civilization have been discovered in India. These are in the north-west of India round about a place called Mohenjo Daro. People have dug out these remains of perhaps 5000 years ago and have even discovered mummies, similar to those of old Egypt. Imagine! all this was thousands of years ago, long before the Aryans came. Europe must then have been a wilderness.

  Today Europe is strong and powerful, and its people consider themselves the most civilized and cultured in the world. They look down upon Asia and her peoples, and come and grab everything they can get from the countries of Asia. How times have changed! Let us have a good look at Europe and Asia. Open an atlas and see little Europe sticking on to the great Asiatic Continent. It seems to be just a little extension of it. When you read history you will find that for long periods and stretches of time Asia had been dominant. Her people went in wave after wave and conquered Europe. They ravaged Europe and they civilized Europe. Aryans, Scythians, Huns, Arabs, Mongols, Turks—they all came from somewhere in Asia and spread out over Asia and Europe. Asia seemed to produce them in great numbers like locusts. Indeed, Europe was for long like a colony of Asia, and many people of modern Europe are descended from these invaders from Asia.

  Asia sprawls right across the map like a big, lumbering giant. Europe is small. But, of course, this does not mean that Asia is great because of her size or that Europe is not worthy of much attention. Size is the poorest test of a man’s or a country’s greatness. We know well that Europe, though the smallest of continents, is today great. We know also that many of her countries have had brilliant periods of history. They have produced great men of science who have, by their discoveries and inventions, advanced human civilization tremendously and made life easier for millions of men and women. They have had great writers and thinkers, and artists and musicians and men of action. It would be foolish not to recognize the greatness of Europe.

  But it would be equally foolish to forget the greatness of Asia. We are apt to be taken in a little by the glitter of Europe and forget the past. Let us remember that it is Asia that has produced great leaders of thought who have influenced the world perhaps more than anyone or anything elsewhere—the great founders of the principal religions. Hinduism, the oldest of the great religions existing today, is of course the product of India. So also is its great sister-religion Buddhism, which now spreads all over China and Japan and Burma and Tibet and Ceylon. The religion of the Jews and Christianity are also Asiatic religions, as their origin was in Palestine on the west coast of Asia. Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Parsis, began in Persia, and you know that Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, was born in Mecca in Arabia. Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ, Mohammed, and Confucius and Lao-Tse, the great philosophers of China—you could fill pages with the names of the great thinkers of Asia. You could also fill pages with the names of the great men of action of Asia. And in many other ways I could show you how great and vital was this old continent of ours in the days gone by.

  How times have changed! But they are changing again even before our eyes. History usually works slowly through the centuries, though sometimes there are periods of rush and burst-ups. Today, however, it is moving fast in Asia, and the old continent is waking up after her long slumber. The eyes of the world are upon her, for everyone knows that Asia is going to play a great part in the future.

  5

  The Old Civilizations and Our Inheritance

  January 9, 1931

  I read yesterday in the Bharat, the Hindi newspaper which brings us some news of the outside world twice a week, that Mummie was not being properly treated in the Malacca Gaol. Also that she is going to be sent to Lucknow Gaol. I was put out a little and I worried. Perhaps there was no truth in the rumour given in the Bharat. But even a doubt about it is not good to have. It is easy enough to put up with discomfort and suffering oneself. It does every one good, as otherwise we might grow too soft. But it is not very easy or comforting to think of the suffering of others who are dear to us, especially if we can do nothing for them. And so the doubt that the Bharat raised in my mind made me worry about Mummie. She is brave and has the heart of a lioness, but she is weak in body, and I would not like her body to become weaker. What can we do, however stout-hearted we may be, if our bodies fail us? If we want to do any work well, we must have health and strength and perfect bodies.

  Perhaps it is as well that Mummie is going to be sent to Lucknow. She may be more comfortable and happier there, and there will be some companions in Lucknow Gaol. Probably she is alone in Malacca. Still, it was pleasant to think that she was not far, just four or five miles away from our prison. But this is a foolish fancy. Five miles or 150 miles are much the same when the high walls of two prisons intervene.

  I was so glad to learn today that Dadu had come back to Allahabad and that he was better. I was also very pleased to learn that he had gone to see Mummie in Malacca Gaol. Perhaps, with luck, I may see all of you tomorrow. For tomorrow is my interview day, and in gaol the mulaqat ka din is a great day. I have not seen Dadu for nearly two months. I shall see him, I hope, and satisfy myself that he is really better. And I shall see you after a long, long fortnight, and you will bring me news of yourself and of Mummie.

  Heigh-ho! I write on of foolish things
although I sat down to write to you about past history. Let us try to forget the present for a while and go back 2000 or 3000 years.

  Of Egypt and of ancient Knossos in Crete, I wrote to you a little in some of my previous letters. And I told you that the ancient civilizations took root in these two countries as well as in what is now called Iraq or Mesopotamia, and in China and India and Greece. Greece, perhaps, came a little later than the others. So the civilization of India takes rank in age with its sister-civilizations of Egypt and China and Iraq. And even ancient Greece is a younger sister of these. What happened to these ancient civilizations? Knossos is no more. Indeed, for nearly 3000 years it has been no more. The people of the younger civilization of Greece came and destroyed it. The old civilization of Egypt, after a splendid history lasting for thousands of years, vanished and left no trace behind it, except the great Pyramids and the Sphinx, and the ruins of great temples and mummies and the like. Of course Egypt, the country, is still there and the river Nile flows through it as of old, and men and women live in it as in other countries. But there is no connecting link between these modern people and the old civilization of their country.

  Iraq and Persia—how many empires have flourished there and followed each other into oblivion! Babylonia and Assyria and Chaldea, to mention the oldest only. And the great cities of Babylon and Nineveh. The Old Testament in the Bible is full of the record of these people. Later, in this land of ancient history, other empires flourished, and then ceased to flourish. Here was Baghdad, the magic city of the Arabian Nights. But empires come and empires go, and the biggest and proudest of kings and emperors strut on the world’s stage for a brief while only. But civilizations endure. In Iraq and Persia, however, the old civilization went utterly, even as the old civilization of Egypt.