{ "book_metadata": { "book_name": "History of Christianity in India: Source Materials", "book_author": "M. K. Kuriakose", "publisher": "Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge", "published_on": "2011" }, "chunks": [ { "chunk_index": 1, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 326 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00350-659d990851552531b8f0.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Andrews and Indian Independence", "chunk_data": "159. C.F. ANDREWS ON INDIAN INDEPENDENCE\n(1921 A.D.)\nThe English missionary, C. F. Andrews, who became a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most influential of that small group of missionaries who were openly sympathetic to the Indian Nationalist movement. Like Gandhi, he was more concerned with the moral and spiritual consequences of continuing British rule than he was with the political implications. It is his concern with the degradation of the Indian spirit consequent upon colonial rule that is the main theme of the document reproduced here. Cited in Marjorie Sykes, C. F. Andrews, Representative Writings, pp. 74-78.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews", "Mahatma Gandhi", "Marjorie Sykes" ], "places": [ "India", "British Empire" ], "event": "Introduces C. F. Andrews's reflections on Indian independence and the moral consequences of British rule.", "tags": [ "Independence", "Colonialism", "Christianity" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 2, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 326 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00350-659d990851552531b8f0.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Freedom Beyond the Empire", "chunk_data": "After many varied experiences in the British colonies I have been carried forward step by step to the conclusion that the goal of Indian freedom lies outside the British Empire. To arrive at such a conclusion has been no easy thing for me; it has represented the complete transformation of the hopes with which I came to India nearly eighteen years ago.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India", "British Empire", "British colonies" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews concludes that Indian freedom must lie outside the British Empire.", "tags": [ "Independence", "Colonialism", "Politics" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 3, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 326, 327 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00350-659d990851552531b8f0.webp", "raw\\pages\\00351-68899b8e4e7216988320.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Moral Issue of Freedom", "chunk_data": "It is not the political, but the moral and spiritual side of this great issue of Indian independence which interests me most deeply. It involves, for me, a great issue still, an issue as wide as humanity, the breaking down of the 'white' race supremacy which I hold to be the greatest menace on earth today. The question therefore is not one of politics, but of humanity.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India", "British Empire" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews defines Indian independence as a moral and spiritual struggle against racial supremacy.", "tags": [ "Independence", "Race", "Humanity" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 4, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 327 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00351-68899b8e4e7216988320.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Foreign Rule and Its Consequences", "chunk_data": "This does not mean that foreign conquest is always, immediately, a disaster. The reign of Akbar was an untold blessing to India. But to prolong a foreign rule appears invariably to lead to disaster. And the whole controversy with England at the present time is that its rule in India has lasted too long.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Akbar", "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India", "England" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews distinguishes beneficial conquest from the prolonged foreign rule of Britain in India.", "tags": [ "Colonialism", "India", "History" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 5, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 327 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00351-68899b8e4e7216988320.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Seeley's First Maxim", "chunk_data": "Two historical maxims put forward by Sir John Seeley, concerning Indian independence, long ago attracted my attention. These have seemed to me to be profoundly disturbing. They have forced me to see how deep the evil of dependence lies, and how hard it is to eradicate it. The first maxim may be quoted in Sir John Seeley's own words, as follows: Subjection for a long time to a foreign yoke is one of the most potent causes of national deterioration. I wish every word of this sentence to be very carefully noted. Not every subjection, but subjection for a long time, is a potent cause of national deterioration.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews", "Sir John Seeley" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews presents Sir John Seeley's maxim that prolonged foreign subjection causes national deterioration.", "tags": [ "Colonialism", "Politics", "History" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 6, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 327 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00351-68899b8e4e7216988320.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Soul of a Subject Nation", "chunk_data": "The evils that arise, when subjection has eaten into the soul of the people, are only too well known. There is a slow undermining of the very foundations of truth and honesty and fearlessness of character, when everything is to be gained by accommodation and flattery. No material benefits can compensate for these vicious effects of foreign rule upon the truthfulness of the people's lives. There is the terrible fact of history to be faced. To remain any further in a state of dependence within the British Empire would appear to mean an increasing measure of national deterioration. We must, therefore, at once awake and shake ourselves free.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "British Empire" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews warns that prolonged dependence undermines the truthfulness and courage of a people.", "tags": [ "Colonialism", "Freedom", "Morality" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 7, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 327 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00351-68899b8e4e7216988320.webp" ], "chunk_title": "A Question of Moral Freedom", "chunk_data": "I have said to myself again and again, in silence: If this independence, which is every Englishman's birthright, has made my own life free and fearless, what right have I to enslave others? How can I refuse to allow the same freedom to every Indian? I had no answer to that question except to acknowledge the truth it contained.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "England", "India" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews acknowledges the moral contradiction of enjoying freedom while denying it to Indians.", "tags": [ "Freedom", "Morality", "Independence" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 8, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 327, 328 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00351-68899b8e4e7216988320.webp", "raw\\pages\\00352-058961f1bfc5a311fcfb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Dead Hand of Empire", "chunk_data": "In the European Middle Ages there was a striking phrase describing anything which brought stagnation upon the future; it was called the mortmain, the dead hand. I have seen the dead hand of an essentially foreign rule, such as British rule must always be, laid upon many things in Indian life that were vitally precious. Art, music, poetry, architecture, may for a time be quickened into activity by the impact of a foreign culture; but the dead hand inevitably creeps forward, if the impact is prolonged. In the life of the villages of India, changes which brought the shock of novelty have also brought the shock of destruction. We can see the deadening touch of foreign interference upon many beautiful and natural village customs. I am eagerly longing to see this 'dead hand' removed from India altogether and the country once more entirely free and independent.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India", "Europe" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews describes prolonged British rule as a dead hand stifling Indian culture and village life.", "tags": [ "Colonialism", "Culture", "Independence" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 9, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 328 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00352-058961f1bfc5a311fcfb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Aligarh Revelation", "chunk_data": "In very early days, while these thoughts were present with me, there came one of those sudden revelations of the truth, which are given like a flash from time to time. In the year 1907, at Aligarh, there had been a dispute between the students and the European staff. This had led to extreme bitterness, and provoked a College strike. The students refused to go back until their wrongs were righted. Early one morning at Delhi, Moulvi Nazir Ahmed and Munshi Zaka Ullah, whom I revered most deeply for their singular beauty of character, came to me with tears in their eyes to tell me that the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, the darling treasure of their hearts, was on the point of ruin. They asked me to come with them to Aligarh, and we went together.", "time": { "start_year": 1907, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1907, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1907 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews", "Moulvi Nazir Ahmed", "Munshi Zaka Ullah" ], "places": [ "Aligarh", "Delhi", "Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College" ], "event": "A dispute between students and European staff at Aligarh leads to a bitter college strike.", "tags": [ "Education", "Colonialism", "India" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 10, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 328 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00352-058961f1bfc5a311fcfb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Aligarh College Burning", "chunk_data": "I could feel the outraged spirit of the students, their resentment, their sense of humiliation and injustice. During that very night, when we were present at Aligarh, the insulted students burnt their college furniture, their beds and mattresses, their tables and books. The flames mounted to the skies, a symbol of the students' own flaming indignation.", "time": { "start_year": 1907, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1907, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1907 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews", "Aligarh students" ], "places": [ "Aligarh", "Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College" ], "event": "Aligarh students burn college furniture and books during their strike.", "tags": [ "Protest", "Education", "Colonialism" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 11, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 328 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00352-058961f1bfc5a311fcfb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Students Called Slaves", "chunk_data": "Later, after the strike was over, I asked Moulvi Nazir Ahmed what words of advice he had spoken to the students. He told me that he had said: 'You are slaves. What can we do? Get back to your books and work. You are not free men, but slaves.'", "time": { "start_year": 1907, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1907, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1907 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews", "Moulvi Nazir Ahmed", "Aligarh students" ], "places": [ "Aligarh" ], "event": "Moulvi Nazir Ahmed tells the striking students that they are slaves and must return to their studies.", "tags": [ "Education", "Colonialism", "Protest" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 12, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 328 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00352-058961f1bfc5a311fcfb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Subjection of the Soul", "chunk_data": "These terrible words of the Moulvi Sahib whom I passionately loved, haunted me like an evil dream. Was that all the counsel he was able to give these young men at the very opening of their lives? Was that in very truth these students' true position? Were they slaves? The more I thought over it, the more I found that the words had truth in them. This foreign subjection was a servitude of the soul, more insidious than any outward slavery. However much it might be disguised by a pleasing exterior, the true fact remained.", "time": { "start_year": 1907, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1907, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1907 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews", "Moulvi Nazir Ahmed", "Aligarh students" ], "places": [ "Aligarh", "India" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews interprets foreign rule as a spiritual servitude more insidious than outward slavery.", "tags": [ "Colonialism", "Morality", "Freedom" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 13, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 328 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00352-058961f1bfc5a311fcfb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Independence Takes Root", "chunk_data": "I went over and over again, in mind, Sir John Seeley's maxim, which I had just discovered: Subjection for a long time to a foreign yoke is one of the most potent causes of national deterioration. The words for a long time stuck in my mind. I said to myself: This clearly must be ended. It was not long after this that the central thought of Indian Independence became firmly established in my mind. I have tested it since by a hundred experiences abroad, but it has stood the test.", "time": { "start_year": 1907, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1907, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "After 1907" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews", "Sir John Seeley" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Aligarh experience firmly establishes the idea of Indian independence in C. F. Andrews's mind.", "tags": [ "Independence", "Colonialism", "Politics" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 14, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 329 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00353-7488f8c110b41fe45171.webp" ], "chunk_title": "English Education's Earlier Benefit", "chunk_data": "I have maintained in times past, and would still maintain, that the widespread teaching of English was of great benefit to India in the past. It was one of the most potent means of giving that shock, or stimulus, which India needed at one time in her history to rouse her out of sleep. It has given ideals of political freedom and of national unity, which have been invaluable.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews acknowledges that English education awakened political freedom and national unity in India.", "tags": [ "Education", "Nationalism", "India" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 15, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 329 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00353-7488f8c110b41fe45171.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Return to the Mother Tongue", "chunk_data": "But the future of India, now that the shock and stimulus have been given, demands a return at all points to the mother tongue of each great province and the teaching of all subjects (except English itself) through the mother tongue. Dangers now lie ahead of India owing to the divorce between the English-educated men (who are forming a class by themselves) and the agricultural and town labourers. Nevertheless, it is almost inconceivable in the present circumstances that such a vital educational change as this can take place, unless India ceases to be an integral part of the British Empire.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India", "British Empire" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews advocates mother-tongue education and links its implementation to India's separation from the British Empire.", "tags": [ "Education", "Independence", "Colonialism" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 16, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 329 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00353-7488f8c110b41fe45171.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Seeley's Second Maxim", "chunk_data": "The second of the two historical maxims presented by Sir John Seeley forces Indians into a dilemma from which there appears to be no escape. He faces the ultimate question of the withdrawal of the British Government from India. With regard to such a withdrawal, Sir John Seeley appears to think, the people of India have so lost the powers of self-government and self-defence, that to withdraw the British Government would be the most inexcusable of all crimes.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Sir John Seeley", "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India", "British Empire" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews presents Seeley's argument that British withdrawal would endanger India because self-government has been weakened.", "tags": [ "Politics", "Independence", "Colonialism" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 17, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 329 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00353-7488f8c110b41fe45171.webp" ], "chunk_title": "India's Vicious Circle", "chunk_data": "The situation is as follows: If dependence and subjection to the foreign rule of the British Empire continue, then national deterioration of India is likely to increase. Yet withdrawal of India from the British Empire is becoming more and more difficult because of the dependence of Indians on British protection. The sentence implies that India has no way out of her difficulties. We are involved in a vicious circle.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India", "British Empire" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews describes India's dilemma between continued subjection and dependence on British protection.", "tags": [ "Independence", "Politics", "Colonialism" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 18, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 329 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00353-7488f8c110b41fe45171.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Hope for an Inspiring Leader", "chunk_data": "I have thought over this problem for many years; and I confess I could find no solution. But quite lately there has appeared to me to be one pathway out of this terrible dilemma. If India could be granted, before it is too late, some genius who could stir up the spirit of independence throughout the whole country, then there might be hope. If India could produce such an inspiring and unifying personality, then all might yet be well.", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews sees hope in the emergence of an inspiring and unifying leader for India.", "tags": [ "Independence", "Leadership", "Nationalism" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 19, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 329 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00353-7488f8c110b41fe45171.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Gandhi's Call for Freedom", "chunk_data": "And surely this is what is happening today. At this most critical moment in Indian history, when subjection and dependence were becoming unbearable, we have been given one who has roughly shaken our age-long conventions and has uttered the mantram: Be free—be slaves no longer'!", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Mahatma Gandhi", "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews identifies Mahatma Gandhi as the leader urging India to reject subjection and become free.", "tags": [ "Gandhi", "Independence", "Nationalism" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 20, "chapter_name": "1921. C. F. Andrews on Indian Independence", "page_numbers": [ 329 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00353-7488f8c110b41fe45171.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Gandhi's Transformative Force", "chunk_data": "With such a volcanic force as the personality of Mahatma Gandhi, there will be much destruction. But the new life-urge", "time": { "start_year": 1921, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1921, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1921 AD" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Mahatma Gandhi", "C. F. Andrews" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "C. F. Andrews anticipates destructive upheaval alongside the new life force generated by Gandhi's personality.", "tags": [ "Gandhi", "Independence", "Social Change" ] } } ] }