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line, the first near-perfect products of this system. But this term
means more than the simple truth that English is the language
largely used by us, although we may be able to get by in one
or the other of the many homespun Indian languages. It means
that people like me are heirs to two sets of customs, are shaped,
in our daily lives, by dual codes of behavior. For example: my
generation on the one hand declared its agnosticism, and on the
other tamely succumbed to the old rituals; we yearned for
romantic love but were reconciled to marriage by the well–
established method of matching horoscopes to a girl selected for us
by our parents; outside our homes we smoked, consumed alcohol,
and ate meat when available, but at home we were rigidly puritan
and vegetarian; we glibly talked about individual salvation al–
though we belonged to a very closely knit joint-family system.
Until India became independent there was, in the minds
of most of my generation, no dismay at the contradictions inherent
in our way of life. This was due to moral inertia and flabbiness.
If
we had then tried to come to terms with our two influences
we may have been able to see them as mutually antagonistic, and
we would then have been compelled to make a choice. The major–
ity of Indians were engaged in a struggle for political independ–
ence, but the method of warfare corresponded to our mental
slovenliness and to our physical lack of energy: "freedom" was a
national enterprise and all our moral anguish could be contained
in one word-slavery.
My generation was an enthusiastic body of freedom-mongers;
many of us must have served terms of imprisonment. Because our
patriotism was never suspected, not even by ourselves, we were
able to feel fully integrated members of one vast community,
sharing one purpose, creating one destiny. But was this not, simply,
the laziest way out? When all that was demanded of us was to lie
down in multitudes in front of trains or on the streets, and walk
in chanting unison to crowd the jails, which one of us could fail
to respond? Although this came at the end of our youth we did not
grow into manhood through Indian independence. We were just
sucked into a shuffling, sleep-walking mass and dreamed of waking
up in some cloud-cuckoo land of bliss. We had all the grandeur
and all the emptiness of a hypnotized people.
