as utterly as the mould of Parashara3 or Manu has disintegrated.
What will replace it, is another matter.Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910 — No.33
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 19th February 1910 — No.33
Passing Thoughts
Indian Conservatism
In India we were, if possible, even more attached to our machinery — all the more because we had ceased to understand the science of social mechanics which they embodied.
We attached a superstitious importance to maintaining our society exactly in the mould of our Shastras while in reality that mould had been altered out of recognition centuries ago.
We quoted Parashara1 and Manu while we followed Raghunandan and custom.
This religious fiction was very much like the English superstition about the British constitution which is supposed to be the same thing it was in the days of Lord Somers, but is really a thing Lord Somers would have stared at aghast as an unrecognisable democratic horror.
The cause is the same in both cases — a robust and tenacious society freely developing its machinery in response to its inner needs while cherishing and preserving them.
Englishman and Hindu have been alike in their tenacious conservatism and their refusal to accept revolution, alike in their respect for law and the thing established, alike in their readiness to change rapidly and steadily if the innovator would only disguise from them the fact that they were changing.
The Hindu advanced more slowly because he was an Asiatic in a period of contraction, the Englishman more quickly because he was
a2 European in a period of expansion.
If our social reformers had understood this Indian characteristic, they might have revolutionised our society with comparatively small friction, but the parade of revolution which they made hampered their cause.
Even as it is, Indian society, in Bengal at least, is changing utterly while all the time loudly protesting that it has not changed and will not change.
The mould in which Raghunandan cast society, is disintegrating as utterly as the mould of Parashara3 or Manu has disintegrated.
What will replace it, is another matter.
Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in 30 volumes.- Volume 2.- Karmayogin: Political Writings and Speeches (1909 — 1910).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972.- 441 p.
1 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.2: Parasara
2 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.2: an
3 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.2: Parasara