To those who hoped for a more rapid and widespread fusion of Indian and
Western ideals, some of the phenomena which have marked the latter-day
revival of Hinduism and the shape it has recently assumed in Mr.
Gandhi's "Non-co-operation" campaign, may have brought grave
disappointment. But the inrush of Western influences was assuredly bound
to provoke a strong reaction. For let us not forget that to the abiding
power of Hinduism India owes the one great element of stability that
enabled her, long before we appeared in India, to weather so many
tremendous storms without altogether losing the sense of a great
underlying unity stronger and more enduring than all the manifold lines
of cleavage which have tended from times immemorial to divide her.
Hinduism has not only responded for some forty centuries to the social
and religious aspirations of a large and highly endowed portion of the
human race, almost wholly shut off until modern times from any intimate
contact with our own Western world, but it has been the one great force
that has preserved the continuity of Indian life. It withstood six
centuries of Mahomedan domination. Could it be expected to yield without
a struggle to the new forces, however superior we may consider them and
however overwhelming they may ultimately prove, which British rule has
imported into India during a period of transition more momentous than
any other through which she has ever passed, but still very brief when
compared with all those other periods of Indian history which modern
research has only recently rescued from the legendary obscurity of still
earlier ages?

We are witnessing to-day a new phase of this great struggle, the clash
of conflicting elements in two great civilisations. A constitution has
been inaugurated at Delhi to bring India into permanent and equal
partnership with a commonwealth of free nations which is the greatest
political achievement of Western civilisation, and the latest prophet of