BOOKS
' 109
Britain is to have forced industrialization on India. (Actually, the real
crime of Britain during the last thirty years has been to do the opposite.)
The West looks on work as an end in itself, but at. the same time is
obsessed with a 'high standard of living' (it is worth noticing that Mr.
Fielden is anti-Socialist, Russophobe and somewhat contemptuous of the
English working class), while India wants only to live in ancestral sim–
plicity in a world freed from the machine. India must be independent,
and at the same time must be de-industrialized. It is also suggested a
number of times, though not in very clear terms, that India ought to
be neutral in the present war. Needless to say, Mr. Fielden's hero is
Gandhi, about whose financial background he says nothing. 'I have a
notion that the legend of Gandhi may yet be a flaming inspiration to
the millions of the East, and perhaps to those of the West. But it is, for
the time being, the East which provides the fruitful soil, because the East
has not yet fallen prone before the Golden Calf. And it may be for the
East, once again, to show mankind that human happiness does not de–
pend on that particular form of worship, and that the conquest of
materialism is also the conquest of war.' Gandhi makes many appear–
ances in the book, playing rather the same part as 'Frank' in the literature
of the Buchmanites.
Now, I do not know whether or not Gandhi will be a 'flaming
inspiration' in years to come. When one thinks of the creatures who
are
venerated by humanity it does not seem particularly unlike. But the
statement that India 'ought' to be independent,
and
de-industrialized,
and
neutral in the present war, is an absurdity.
If
one forgets the details
of the political struggle and looks at the strategic realities, one sees two
facts which are in seeming conflict. The first is that whatever the 'ought'
of the question may be, India is very unlikely ever to be independent in
the sense in which Britain or Germany is now independent. The second
is
that India's
desire
for independence is a reality and cannot be talked
out of existence.
In a world in which national sovereignty exists, India cannot be a
sovereign State, because she is unable to defend herself. And the more
she is the cow and spinning-wheel paradise imagined by Mr. Fielden,
the more this is true. What is now called indepedence means the power
to manufacture aeroplanes in large numbers. Already there are only five
genuinely independent States in the world, and if present trends continue
there will in the end be only three. On a long-term view it is clear that
India has little chance in a world of power politics, while on a short–
term view it is clear that the necessary first step towards Indian freedom
is
an Allied victory. Even that would only be a short and uncertain step,
but the alternati_ves must lead to India's
continu~d
subjection.
If
we are
defeated, Japan or Germany takes over India and that is the end of
the story.
If
there is a compromise peace (Mr. Fielden seems to hint at
times that this is desirable) India's chances are no better, because in such
circumstances we should inevitably cling to any territories we had cap-
