Commonwealth and Foreign
THE REDISCOVERY OF INDIA
By IQBAL SINGH
IT is a hopeful augury that the suggestion of holding an exhibition of Indian art at the Burlington House has had an unusually enthusiastic reception. But that the idea should have required so loiig a period of incubation, and that it should eventually have come from an inspired layman rather than an initiate, is a matter which deserves some reflection.
It is not enough to argue that what had hitherto prevented initiative being taken was the consideration of practical diffi- culties in the way of collecting adequate material for an exhibition of this nature. Practical difficulties were no less great in the case of the Persian and Chinese exhibitions. Nor can the somewhat tardy recognition which Indian art has so far received in England be attributed to the fact that the Indian aesthetic standards are so different from anything to which the British public is accustomed as to be almost incomprehensible. If the statue of Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia from Easter Island which adorns the colonnade of the British Museum can attract admiring crowds, it is reasonable to assume that the delicate beauty of the statuary from Samath would not altogether be lost on the British public. I claim no expert knowledge, but it seems to me that there is hardly anything in the art of India which anyone endowed with a moderate measure of sensibility would find unintelligible. Taken as a whole, it is an art refreshingly concrete and sensuous in conception; and, though it is known to deal in abstract and symbolic truths, it has always the saving grace that it takes its images from the more familiar forms of incar- nate reality. Chinese art, to take an example that has been mentioned in this connexion, is abstruse, at times even esoteric, by comparison. How is it, then, that even a sympathetic critic like Mr. Laurence Binyon feels somewhat apprehensive that the public in this country may not find Indian art quite so " accessible " as the art of China ?
The question is well worth asking. I should like to add that I am not questioning Mr. Binyon's aesthetic judgement. The question, in fact, is not one of aesthetics at all. I suggest that the difficulty which has been experienced by the English critics in arriving at a true appreciation of Indian art is not aesthetic but psychological. And this psychological difficulty evidently arises from a fantastic notion which has come to prevail in this country that India is a mysterious country, and that the Indians are an inscrutable people. Even the more catholic and intelligent type of Englishman somehow seems unable entirely to free his mind from this curious idle fixe while approaching India. That such an id& fixe should persist after three centuries of almost uninterrupted intercourse between the two peoples is one of the most tragic paradoxes of Indo-British relations.
How the myth of India's Mystery has originated is rather obscure. On the one hand, it has probably been created by ardently imperialistic Anglo-Indian scribes who appear to have had a somewhat mistaken idea of England's politico- economic interests in India ; on the other, some of India's own native interpreters, who, out of genuinely patriotic' but misguided motives, like to insist that Indian civilisation is a thing apart from all other civilisations under the sun, have had something to do with giving currency to this demon- strably absurd belief. But whatever its origin one thing seems fairly certain : it has not served to further the British interests in India, and it has not made the realisation of India's legitimate aspirations any easier.
One would have expected that the vastly increased facilities of intercourse afforded by the improved means of com- munication would bring about a corresponding widening of the basis of understanding. Unfortunately, this expectation has not been fulfilled. Indeed, in one's more pessimistic moments one is inclined to believe that the reverse has been the case. In the days when the Englishman went to India via the Cape of Good Hope he does not seem to have found that country quite so incomprehensible. The earliest merchant-adventurers to reach India were no doubt puzzled by some of the quaint customs of the Indians ; and they have left on record their surprise at the Indian habit of having daily baths, " be it ever so warm or cold " ; but they never postulated any such fundamental antithesis between East and West as did the late Mr. Kipling. Even men like Nicholson, Outram and the Lawrences, Mr. G. T.
Garratt has observed, found many aspects of India much less strange and remote than would a modern educated Englishman. Paradoxical as it may sound, the burden of India's Mystery apparently began to grow after the opening of the Suez Canal had reduced the distance between the home country and the Land of Exile by about one half.
Now it can hardly be maintained that during the past hundred years the Indians have developed certain baffling cultural eccentricities, or that they have lagged so far behind the rest of the world as to have lost all contemporary interest. If anything—and in spite of the most unfavourable con- ditions—they- have shown a rather remarkable capacity for adapting themselves to the demands of a changing civilisa- tion. The time-lag between India and the outside world has gradually been diminishing ; and, in particular, since the War this process has considerably been accelerated. True, India is still a land full of glaring and painful contrasts ; but at least these contrasts have become intelligible. And what is obvious is that Indian culture is today _passing through what may well prove to be the most decisive and significant transition of its history.
This is a crucial issue ; and yet, until quite recently, it was scarcely recognised even by the better-informed people in this country. It is still not an unfair criticism- to make that in England there is little awareness of India as a cultural entity. Some time ago Mr. Aldous Huxley wrote " A hundred years after their independence one would find in the habits of the Indian peoples almost no trace of our long occupation of the country." In this matter, I ycncu,re to suggest, Mr. Huxley is likely to prove a false prophet. A hundred years after India has attained her independence, the Indians will probably still be playing football, wearing Sola hats, and quoting Shelley and Shakespeare—and, perhaps, even Mr Huxley himself. But a question which seems much more pertinent to ask is, Whether a hundred years after the last British soldier has left the shores of India one would fmd in the habits of the English people any trace of their conquest and domination of India ? For one cannot help feeling that, whatever economic benefits England may have derived from her long occupation of India, culturally she has drawn what may, for all practical purposes, be regarded as a blank. And economic benefits, for all their impressive solidity, are, in the ultimate analysis, quite as evanescent and illusory as the baseles's fabric of Prospero's vision.
It is, therefore, no mere platitude to say, that, unless the relationship between the two countries is to culminate in a sterile tragedy, England will have to rediscover India. Such an attempt should amply repay itself. For India has many much more precious riches to offer than the trifles like gold and spices which first lured the Islanders from the North Sea to the Coast of Coromatidal. The proposed exhibition of Indian art, if it materialises, should reveal something of that undiscovered wealth. But for such an exhibition to fulfil its purpose it is imperative that it should not be made an occasion for an exchange of flattering compliments.
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