RANADE, GANDHI AND JINNAH 233
were most deficient. Of one thing we are certain, that after lasting over five hundred years, the Mohammedan Empire gave way, and made room for the re-establishment of the old native races in the Punjab, and throughout Central Hindusthan and Southern India, on foundations of a much more solid character than those which yielded so easily before the assaults of the early Mohammedan conquerors.”
“Both Hindus and Mohammedans lack many of those virtues represented by the love of order and regulated authority. Both are wanting in the love of municipal freedom, in the exercise of virtues necessary for civic life, and in aptitudes for mechanical skill, in the love of science and research in the love and daring of adventurous discovery, the resolution to master difficulties, and in chivalrous respect for womankind. Neither the old Hindus nor the old Mohammedan civilization was in a condition to train these virtues in a way to bring up the races of India on a level with those of Western Europe, and so the work of education had to be renewed, and it has been now going on for the past century and more under the Pax Brittanica with results—which all of us are witnesses to in ourselves.”
A mere glance at these statements is enough to show that the charge is based on a misunderstanding if not on a misreading of the statements. The statements are plain and simple and they cannot even by inference be said to lead to the conclusion that Ranade was opposed to India’s independence. In that sense the charge is false and without foundation.
These statements of Ranade far from casting any reflection upon his selfrespect testify to his wisdom and to his sagacity. What did Ranade want to convey by these statements ? As I understand them, I think, Ranade wanted to convey two things. The first thing he wanted to convey was that the conquest of India by Britain has given India the time, the opportunity and the necessary shelter for rebuilding, renovating and repairing her economic and social structure, to refit herself for bearing the strain of any foreign aggression when she does become free. The second thing Ranade wanted to convey was that going out of the British Empire by India before she had satisfied and solidified herself into a single nation, unified in thought, in feeling, and charged with a sense of a common destiny, was to invite chaos and disruption in the name of independence.
How very important these truths are ? People do not realize the part that shelter plays in the smooth working out of social, economic and political conflicts which are inevitable in every society which desires to advance. The late Prof. Maitland was once asked to explain why Parliamentary Institutions flourished in England but failed to take roots in Europe. His answer reveals the importance of shelter. He said the difference was due to the English channel. By this answer what he meant to convey was that by