Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1922-03-13
THE EAST.

East is east and west is west" wrote Kipling.
ana 1T was out of flrst-hand knowledge of his sub.
1ect that the poet said that never the twain shall
meet When we apply western methods to east
ern problems VIC arrive at solutions which are likely
70 De wrong IN proportion to the facility with which
they are obtained. The idea that all men are broth
es does not include the conception that all men are
alike. Reared under the same roof and subjected
10 the same influences from childhood, the brothers
OF one family differ in a thousand ways, and even
tney are able to reach only an approximate under
standing of each other. But when people are sep
arated, not only by miles of space, but by race, re-
1igion' and customs and traditions which have been
roofing IN the same soil for thousands of wears. we
have a situation in which mutual understanding be-
comes next to an impossibility, and which IS an
utter lmpossibility without personal contact. init
mate association, and earnest and sympathetic
study. ~
India is today %seetting with unrest. We Of the
western world do not know India. We do. not
know the Indian people. The best that most of us
can do is to learn indirectly of some of the condi-
tons under which some of the Indian people live.
INDIA we are told, demands self government. We
believe self government to be a good thing, an in
ahenable right. We have obtained it for ourselves,
and we hold that it is right that others should en-
JOY 1t. BY quite easy and natural stages we reach
the conclusion that India should have self govern
1nent
If the opinion of men who have spent the best
years Of their lives working in India for the welfare
OF ITS people is worth anything, there can be no such
thing as national self government in India for many
years because the masses of people know absolutely
nothing about self government except in it's most
elementary form in some of their villages. Except
Tor an ln1nitesimal fraction Of highly educated
people OF India is ~illiterate and densely ignorant of
even the fundamentals of national government. The
country is cursed with a caste system which for cen
turles has held the great bulk of the population in a
state OF hopeless degradation, and the efforts of the
lew progressive spirits among the natives, supple
.1ented by every form of western influence which
has been brought to bear upon the subject has been
powerless to do more than make little breaks here
and there into that deplorable system.
IN India caste is a matter Of religion, and every
people VIII resist to the utterrnost an attack on it's
gods: With the caste system there exists in India
z spirit OF mysticism and fatalism which we who
have been reared in a different atmosphere cannot
understand. @Gandhi, the leader Of the present
PACING revolt, is an educated man. Added to the
culture OF his own land he has the training given in
an fng1isn university and a degree in law. Yet this
man, ~ this twentieth century, is ernaciated with
long ana continued fasting and he teaches a doc
tTine for which the term s. niitliilism,, 4 ttne on1v an
Topriate designation. @9
II aGCandhi's movement should H. s,,ccessf,,1
and the life OF India should continue exactlv a1onp
i11e lines which he believes TO BE ideal. ne results
syg1uld beS-zrsIist nothing. He is as thorouohiv IN
& 1sed to a government by Indian princes 81 Indian
SkEescntatiyes as he is to a government 81 fnre;p11
NJ 6s6ority. His theory is that the indiyidta1 sho,,id
s@SIEnpvern himself il All things, and that he shouidlh re
aetienable to no other human authority. The state
his conception Of things. Is wrong because III
aAe represents government The individualis m.
Snsse, and sit is for the individual fo order I'll M.
his own way. 20 love III his fellow beinks. 81
zlMk hinaef while he codtekuplates tie glor;es of