Letter to a Hindoo

The third scientific justification of violence the most prominent, and unfortunately the most widespread, is in reality the oldest religious justification only a little altered which is the theory that the use of violence in social life against some, for the welfare of others is inevitable, and, however desirable love amongst people might be, coercion is indispensable. The difference between the justification of violence by pseudo science and that of pseudo religion is in the fact that to the question, «Why such and such people, and not others, have the right to decide as to whom violence may and must be used against», – science does not give the same reply as that which religion had formulated: that these decisions are just because they are pronounced by personages who possess a divine power, but that these decisions represent the will of the majority, which, under a constitutional form of government is supposed to express itself in all the decisions and actions of the party who at any given time is in power.

Such are the scientific vindications of coercion. These vindications, although quite groundless, are so necessary to people occupying privileged positions that they as implicitly beliefe in them, and as confidently propagate them, as they formerly did the doctrine of the immaculate conception.

Meantime the unhappy majority weighed down by toil, is so dazzled by the display which accompanies the propagation of these «scientific truths», that, under this new influence it accepts them as readily as it formerly accepted the pseudo religious justifications and continues to submit slavishly to new potentates who are just as cruel as the former one, but who have some what increased in number.

V

Who am I? I am that which thou hast searched for since thy baby eyes gazed wonderingly upon the world, whose horizon but hides this real life from thee. I am that which in thy heart thou hast prayed for, demanded as thy brithright, although thou hast not known what it was. I am that which has lain in thy soul for hundreds and thousands of years. Sometimes I lay in thee grieving, because thou didst not recognise me; sometimes I raised my head, opened my eyes, and extended my arms calling thee either tenderly and quietly, or strenuously, demanding that thou should’st rebel against the hard iron earth-chains which held thee bound to clay.

Krishna P. 192.

Thus it has been, and still is, going on in the Christain world. One could hope that in the vast Brahmin, Buddhist, Confucian worlds this new scientific superstition would not have place, and that the Chinese, the Japanese, the Hindoos, having seen the falsity of religious impositions which justify violence, would proceed direct to the conception of the law of love inherent in humanity, which has been so clearly enunciated by the great teachers of the East. But it appears that the scientific superstition which replaced the religious one, is getting a firmer and firmer grip upon the Oriental nations. It has now a specially strong hold on the land of the extreme East, Japan, not only upon its leaders but on the majority of its people and is the precursor to the greatest calamities. It has taken hold of China with her 400 millions of inhabitants, and also of your India with her 200 millions, or at least the bulk of the people who look upon themselves, as you do, as the leaders of these peoples.

In your magazine you insert as the basis principle which should direct the activity of your people the following thought as an epigraph: «Resistance to aggression is not simply justifiable but imperative; non resistance hurts both Altruism and Egoism».

You say that the English have enslaved and keep the Hindoos in subjection because the latter have not resisted sufficiently, and do not resist the violence by force.

But it is just the contrary. If the English have enslaved the Hindoos, it is just because the Hindoos recognised and do recognise coercion as the main and fundamental principle of their social order: in the name of this principle they submitted to their little Radjas, in their name they struggled with each other, fought with Europeans, with the English, and at present are preparing to a struggle with them again.