Keshub Chunder Sen

“ If we see that in the name of religion, men, instead of promoting peace on earth and good-will among men, are trying to show their antagonism and animosity towards each other, then certainly we must stand forward with our voice of protest, and say that religion is defeating its own legitimate object.
I have always been distressed to find in my own country how many of the Hindu sects in India fight with each other, and how they combine to war with Mahometans and Christians, whom they look upon and hate as their enemies. ”

“ Are we to despair of getting special funds, and to close the present high schools and colleges? Some are of the opinion that we should, but I think it would be a great calamity – for it is not the richest people who flock to these institutions, but the children and youth of the middle-class. If we close these institutions, we turn away thousands who have no means of educating themselves, and you ought to remember that the soundest kind of education is as a rule, imparted in those high schools and colleges, and that to close them would inflict a serious injury on India. ”

“ But if you succeed in establishing the work of a reformation on the platform of national instincts and national ideas, and if you succeed in establishing all that is good and grand in England and Europe in the heart of India, then, I say, the work done will last for centuries. India will attain true greatness and civilization, if only the basis on which we build this vast fabric is national and firm. ”

“ If we desire to adopt religious life in its entirety and fullness, we must not, we cannot, reject or ignore any particular nation or any branch of God’s vast family. If we embrace all nations and races; if we can take in all religious scriptures, all so-called sacred writings; if we are prepared to do honour to all prophets and the great men of all nations and races; then certainly, but not till then, can we do justice to universal and absolute religion as it exists in God. ”

“ Everyone knows, whatever shortcomings the Hindus may have, he is ever endeavouring to serve God in a gentle, pious and devout spirit, and to perform the duties of social and domestic life according to His will. “Every householder must be devoted to his God. Whatever work he does, he must do unto the glory of God.” If you admit that there was pure religion and pure morality among the Hindus, you must also admit that the system of caste distinctions was not known to my ancestors. ”

“ Unless the women are educated, the education of India will be partial, and at best superficial, for the women of the country conserve all the traditions, all the errors and prejudices, and all the injurious institutions that exist in the country. If you don’t endeavour to give India good mothers, you will not be able to save the rising generations from the evils which have always acted as a curse in India ”

“ I have always been an advocate of the glorious principle of religion which is summed up in these two great doctrines, the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man: and so long as I am enabled to work, whether in my own country or elsewhere, it shall be my duty to speak, and feel, and labour in such a way that not only my own countrymen may, under the guidance of God’s spirit and with God’s help, be brought into one fold, but all nations and races, so far as is possible with my humble resources and powers, may be influenced to feel the necessity of forming themselves into one vast family. ”

“ As Miss Carpenter has already very justly said, Bombay is far ahead of Bengal in the matter of female education. I have visited some of the best schools in Bengal and Bombay, and I can say from my own experience that there are a larger number of girls receiving public education in Bombay than in Bengal; but while Bengal has not come up to Bombay as far as regarded extent of education, Bengal is not behind Bombay in the matter of solidarity and depth. ”

“ What is to become of the vast masses of the people? – who will have pity and compassion upon them? Are they to remain fettered by ignorance and superstition, and will you continue to give education and enlightenment only to those who boast about riches and wealth, and high status in society? Is there none in England or India who will look compassionately upon these poor people? ”

“ Religion is essentially universal. If God is our common Father, His truth is our common property. But the religious world may be likened to a vast market, where every religious sect sells only a portion of truth. Religion is many-sided; but each individual, each nation, oftentimes adopts and represents only one side of religion. In different times and in different countries, therefore, we see not the entire religious life of humanity, but only partial religious life. ”

“ In regard to India, therefore, you must not look only into her condition today, but travel back in imagination thousand of years, and see what she was in ancient times of primitive Hindu simplicity and purity. Even in the earliest books of the Hindus, the Vedas, which must be regarded as the earliest record of Aryan faith – even in them you find glimpses of high moral and religious truths which are unmistakable – not duly formed and organised religious thought, but the crude instincts and aspirations of the human mind in the state of religious infancy, seeking the Deity. ”

“ The poorest, the most ragged people are still destitute of the blessings of education, even in this enlightened country – England.
How then is it possible for us, how can we for a moment hope, to influence the poor ryots and low-caste people of India by conferring the blessings of education upon the upper classes alone? Some, certainly, will receive by a sort of blessed contagion the spirit and influence of true science and literature, but there will be millions of men that it will be impossible to get at. ”

“ It is interesting to observe the present religious and social condition of India. The eye and no less the heart, loves to expatriate on the solemn sublimity of the spectacle of an ancient nation advancing under the enlightening and civilizing influences of the present day. ”

“ There are thousands of admirers of Shakespeare, and Milton, and Newton, in my country.
The work of education has been carried on to a great extent, and the inevitable result is India has been brought to something like an educational crisis. Have the Government carried out fully the spirit of that famous despatch to which I have referred? Has education spread among all classes of the people, or are the blessings of true knowledge confined only to the upper ten thousand? Those are great questions which demand an answer from all who are interested in the country. ”

“ That there should be political and social difference among mankind is not at all surprising; but that men and women should fight with each other in the name of religion and God is really painful and surprising. The true object of religion is to bind mankind together, and to bind them all to God. ”

“ Is the work of reformation that is going on in India really abiding and permanent, or is it only the innovation of a moment? A few individuals may have received education; but may they not one day go back to the ancient system of things, forget the effects of education, and obliterate the influence of modern civilization? ”

“ The education that you give to the upper classes will not uproot idolatry and prejudice, for it is amongst the masses that the error and prejudice will always maintain their power, and while you do not uproot those prejudices from the hearts of the masses, a handful of educated Hindus will never be able successfully to reform the country. ”

“ Christian people sometimes go the length of thinking that the whole of religious life is monopolized by themselves. During my short stay in this country I have been struck with the fact that English Christian life, however grand and glorious it may be – and it certainly is so in many of its aspects and features – is sadly deficient in devotional fervour and enthusiasm; deficient in feelings such as those which a deep and trustful reliance upon a personal and loving God alone can inspire, support, and sustain. Something like that is to be found in India. ”

“ Is civilisation an indigenous growth in the country, or has it been forced upon the people of India?
Anything forced upon a nation, however good and grand it may be, does not and cannot last long. True reformation, in order to be lasting, must come from within. The English people are trying to carry into India the machinery of the present day with the view of more effectually and rapidly developing the physical resources of the country ”

“ The views and aspirations of one must be entirely different from the views and aspirations of the other, and how is it possible to realize happy homes while this is the case? And does it not demand your serious consideration – and ought it not to receive from you the best attention it is possible for you to bestow upon the subject – that in educating one section of the community you add to the suffering of the nation? – for education has made the people of India miserable in some measure, by tending to separate the sexes. ”

“ It is, therefore, extremely unpleasant to us to see those who profess to be his disciples hate the Hindu as a heathen who has no hope of salvation, and who has not one single spark of truth in his own mind. Narrowness of mind has oftentimes its origin in narrowness of creed. Men hate each other, men contaminate their hearts with sectarian bitterness, because they believe that there is no truth beyond the pales of their own denominations and churches. ”

“ The results already achieved are indeed wonderful; but still the question stares us in the face, whether after all we have succeeded in planting in the country a radical and abiding civilization.
Many are apt to congratulate themselves on anything that is new and good; but we natives of the country, must look into the depths of the matter. We cannot congratulate ourselves upon those excellent things which float always on the surface of society. ”