Jain Gazette 1905 10

Author(s): Jain Student Institute Kolhapur
Publisher: Jain Student Institute Kolhapur
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/542510/1

Page #1
Registered No. B. 6 THE JAIN GAZETTE. BEING THE MONTHLY ORGAN OF THE Jain Young Men's ASSOCIATION OF INTIA. 06 BODE BOHI EDITED BY A. B. Latthe M. A. New Series VII No. 6.) 7 ( OCTOBER 1 Misleading figures. By Shet Hirachan 2 A great life. 3 Backward classes in the Dekkan. .... Published by the Editor at Kolhapur. Manager: Superintendant, Jain Students' Institute, Kolhapur. Annual Subscription Single Copy ... .... Rs. 1-4-0 ... , 0-2-0

Page #2
Gauri Nagri Kosha, This Dictionary contains the meanings of Hindi, Urdu, Prakrit, mskrit, Arabic and Persian words. The book is of use to Vakils, ukhtars, Pandits, teachers, translators, students and in fact to ery man who has to do with reading and writing; and has won e approbation of men like SIR ANTONY MACDONNELL, HAD OF REWAH and of the TEXT BOOK CO. unjab University. Educational INSPECTORS become its purchasers. It contains 550 pages, For all this the price of the Kosha is only Three NS OF LIVELIHOOD-- No fiction! The Book is name acquaints you with the secrets of 500 kinds ind arts. Price One Rupee. A WATCH For nothing!! a half-anna stamp and get a free copy of the hove offer: will impart to the knower of one language, a 4 languages, English, Urdu, Gurmukhi and he help of a teacher. Price Ten annas. Lariksha.- A compilation from the old books of Wayaunatta and others. It tells you the time of death of a man who is to expire in a year, in one or two months or in 10 or 15 days. Price with postage, Eleven-annas. Balabodhini.- An indispensable means of educating women; and impressing upon them their duties towards their parents-in-law brothers and sisters, sisters-in-law, neighbours, &c. &c. Should be read by all girls. Price only Five annas. Rajakumara, (A Novel)- This novel is written by a Bengali and contains a very touching story. Price Three annas Note- The above mentioned books are all in Hindi. Piease apply to-MANAGER, Sarasvat Compny, MEERUT CITY.

Page #3
A MISLEADING COMBINATION OF STATISTICS. The figures of convicts in British Indian Jaols as given, in the Jaol Administration Reports are a very good index of the moral condition of the several communities of India. They enable us to compare one community with another with reference to the character of men following different religious faiths. I have been studying these figures with this view for many years past and I find, as I hope every one will find on a study of the same, that the Jains as a class are the strictest adherents of ethical principles in India. But the way in which these figure are given in the Reports are so misleading that a superfici observer may jump from them to just the opposite conclusio / This is due to the combination of Jains and Budhists003 tables showing the number of convicts according to their rema Attempts are being made to call the attention of the Gover. of India to the mischievous results of this unnecessary amalg tion of two entirely independent communities: I wish the attempts to be on a larger scale and hence I shall briefly explain to the readers of the Jain Gazette the true position of the question. According to the Roport of Jaol Administration for the year 1901, the number of convicts, Jain and Budhists together in British India is 13,307. The number of followers of the two religions in the same year, according to the Census Report of 1901, is 98,90,149 in British India. This obviously gives one convict to 743 persons, Jains and Budhists together. This proportion would bring down the Jains to the bottom of the ladder, as will be seen from the following table in which the Jains and Budhists are grouped together.

Page #4
(2) Total Population in 1901. Hindus. Parsees. N. Christians. Jains and Budhists together. Jain Gazette. 14657179 Population. Convicts in Jaol. Proportion of one convict to 73945 758765 9890149 British Burma. Budhists. 9184121 13051 Covicts in 1901. 703 9714 0 29 0 333 I shall now try to examine these figures from another side and see if they represent the true state of things. Separate figures are available for British Burma and Bombay and it is to be observed that the former is the province in which Budhists abound. The following table gives these figures separately. 13307 Proportion per thousand. 1509 "" 2549 477 Bombay. Jains. Budhists. Jains. 93 547 227696 Not known. 743 31 7363 This shows that the Jains are the most civilized people from the moral standpoint and instead of the bottom, they occupy the top of the ladder. What can be more striking and evident than this fact? And I may ask, what can be a worse perversion of facts than this combination of Jains and Budhists ?

Page #5
Jain Gazette. (3) The same truth forces itself on the student of the following, more detailed, table: No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 Bombay. 8 Burma. 11 12 13 14 Provinces. 15 Ajmir-Marwada. 19922 Andman. Asam Baluchistan, Bengal. Berar. Jain population. Total. EUR1 1797 8 7457 19639 227696 Central Provinces 47306 Coorg. Madrass. N. W. Frontier. Panjab. United Province. 107 27431 37 42745 Popula- Budha I prisoner tion of and Jain out of Budhists. Prisoners pulation. po 84401 0 1860 93 9184121 8911 0 210628 0 547 169 0 243 0 4182 788 478700 9411449 1 0 7 0 199 0 31 13051 14 0 0 0 4 0 13307 7363 743

Page #6
(4) Jain Gazette. I think I have shown what absurd conclusion we arrive at by taking the jaol-figures as they are now published. The reasons for the separation of Jains from Budhists in the reports of Jaol Adminstration are not, however, merely sentimental. These figures are calculated to show what the moral fibre of the several communities is and this is certainly to give the leaders of those communities a basis on which they should proceed to improve it. The Budhist and Jain communities are entirely different and it is necessary for the leaders of both the communities that they should know accurately the moral condition of the men whose ideas and conduct they can influence. The smallness of the Jain population cannot properly be urged as a reason for the inclusion of them under the Budhists. When the question involved is the moral state of a society, such considerations of convenience are not to be counted as anything. I feel sure that the Government of India is not guided by such a paltry motive as that of convenience when such a gross injustice ase complain of is concerned. The Parsis, whose total number is less than a lac of souls, get an independent place in the said tables and I do not know why the Jains, who number nearly fourteen lacs, should be grudged a place in them only to avoid a little more inconvenience. 1 I hope Jain public bodies everywhere will move to call the attention of the Government to this question. Hirachand Nemchand A GREAT LIFE. Nothing so effectively evokes the innate but dormant virtues of men as the contact of heroic lives. This is the principle of worship as enunciated by our religion. We are told to study the lives of

Page #7
Jain Gazette. (5). greater souls than we are, because that study is bound to react on our character by developing the potential capacities in us. The very presence of a superior personality among us elevates our own ideals of life and, as it were, gives life to the unfelt ideals that lie in most of us only awaiting an impulse from outside. Such an example of uncommon virtues acts like a current of atmospheric electricity calling forth all at once its sympathetic negative from the society of men. Great men, while they live, live a life of useful work; but the still greater wonder is that they leave behind them a force that is never seen by earthly eyes but, all the same, that works miraclesin other men. The communities who can proudly claim a long series of such ancesters and a present phalanx of high-souled person ages, nood never despair in the dreariest of struggles that has to be carried on in the march of progress. When the struggle is growing fiercer than ever it is a relief to reflect over the fact that our own community has never been wanting in men whose great qualities of both head and heart entitie them to be respected by all who know them. Shet Premachand Roychand who left this world on the 30th August last may be fitly placed in the lis 1. of those great men who have kept on the traditions of the history even to this day. We give below the chief points in our long and chequered life. HIS EDUCATION. Born of a poor Shvetambar Jaina family at Surat-the birth-place of another great Jain, Shet Maneckchand-Shet Premachand received some education at the famous Elphinstone Institution. It would be difficult to explain how it is that no other institution in the Bombay Presidency should have produced even a fraction of the large number of talented men that this Institution has sent forth. The great bard of ancient IndiaBhavabhuti-was certainly quite right in singing: vitarati gurumAjhe vidyAM yathaiva tathA jaDe naca tayoone zaktiM karotyapahaMti vA /

Page #8
(6) Jain Gazette. But it must be admitted that the peculiar atmosphere of the school-room shapes the mind of the receptive pupil to a muchlarger extent than is ordinarily believed. When there is that faithful confidence of a true disciple eagerly proceeding to meet the anxious solicitude of the teacher for his pupils--when the teacher and the taught mutually reciprocate the feeling of reverent love--when the student approaches his Guru in the mood of humility and appreciation and the Guru in turn takes care of the interests of his pupil with a sincere wish to be outrivalled by him--surely it would never be the unfortunate lot of the pupil to complain that his educational alma mater is but a cramming house, nor would it ever be necessary for the teacher to disavow all responsibility for the habits and training of his student by saying that his influence is a very small factor in the formation of his character. The lamentable estrangement of feelings between the scholar and his Professor-no doubt widening day by day--which all of us regret in these days, gives countenance to the oft-repeated cry that the scholar of these days kes his chief lessons not from the lecture-room which he antifies with a factory for turning out dissatisfied clerks and norous Vakils but to a very large degree from the adjecent hading-room governed by the wiseacres of the editorial profession. With such surroundings, our boys can derive very little inspiration from their public schools either for good or for evil. And such of us as would confine their observation to this unnatual state of things, will find it hard to realise adequately what an immense force the school is in the progres of the student. No one will claim for Mr. Premchand Roychand any considerable amount of literary accomplishment as a result of his association with the Elphinstone Institute. But there is a far more valuable function of education in the development of a young man and we see in the life of Shet Premchand that his connection, even though not of a long duration, with this greatest of our Bomay schools and the mother of the largest number of our notable leaders, produced very healthy effects on the mind of young Premchand. It imbibed on his mind a rare catholicity and

Page #9
Jain Gazette. (7) wideness of views that are the sure results of education in a great cosmopolitan seminary. His mind became saturated with the spirit of the coming age of western commercialism in which he played such an important part. HIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY. In olden days, there was no doubt a large amount of carrying trade between the internal centres of Indian commerce. There were the old, unhappily now decaying, ports like Surat, Chiplun and Rajapore on the Western side of this country which carried on sea-borne trade with various other parts and supplied flourishing markets for the bullock-borne commodities produced by up-Ghat plains. But the very conditions of those times put all commerce out of the sphere of competition and consequent risk. Indeed even a certain amount of dangerous risk was run by the marchants owing to the insecure state. their society. But there was very little commercial closche between the growing districts and the consuming Want of roads, postal convenience and telegraphic comm cation and the ever threatening danger that beset the roads that existed, seperated the various portions of the country even more than could the huge mountain ranges untraversed by human feet. To such as took this besetting risk, trade was a monopoly of a very paying kind. In the middle ages, the Arab caravans were said to charge forty Rupees for an article that cost them originally only one Rupee. If not to this extent, one would be quite safe in saying that the profit charged by our merchants in pre-railway-days were certainly worthy of being placed in the same category as above to a pretty good extent. But the advent of British Rule in India inaugurated a new era in commerce as in every other respect. And with this new age, a large number of able men rose up to greate prosperity. mor

Page #10
(8) Jain Gazette. AN EXPLANATION. How was it? To us who live amidst days of "little Indianism" -when the cry is furiously abroad that we are degenerating and ceasing to produce great men as we did only a generation back-to us, again who can take a calm and careful account of the sixties and seventies of the recently-expired century, the question repeatedly confronts itself, what was it that gave us a Ram Mohan Roy or Iswar Chandra in the intellectual, or a Premchand Roychand in the commercial field? It would be injustice to the great men who attained eminence in the last generation if we ascribe their success to external causes alone. Their merits are beyond question. But we have also the wave of fortune to take into account not the mysterious, unaccountable, capricious fortune distributing ts favours blindly and promiscuonsly: we mean the strange, foreseen conjunction of events beyound human control, sometimes mend and sometimes mar the most heroic is pts of men and bring success where it is deserved. The useful study of history or biography consists certainly in an analysis and assymilation of those principles of character, inimitable but nevertheless regulative and ideal for ordinary men, that made men intrinsically great, successful or not. But an accurate history is made of two factors, one the essentially personal element and the other, the external non-personal or eventual element. Beside being indispensible in a complete account of life, this latter has a peculiar place in the life of Shet Premchand. If we ignore it, his life may be looked upon as a failure due to his weak character. His great fortune may be taken as the result of blind favouritism in the Darbar of Fortune and the subsequent wreck of his prosperity may be equally well considered as the result of his unbounded greed and avarice. Neither of this was true and we can see this plainly by observing how the favour of Fortune-the irresistible

Page #11
: Jain Gazette. (9) current of external events-rose and fell-rose as high as it fell low. Now this ebb and flow in the river of life is not a vain freak of nature: it is an immutable law to which none can be exempt. Our great men thirty years ago launched upon the highseas of life at a favourable season and this is the only account of the sudden rise of a host of brilliant men in those days. PROSPERITY OF PREMCHAND). As we said above, that favouarble season was not in itself wholly a miracle of any sort. A new era of commercial enterprise was opened by the development of the great city which was the scene of his chequered life. New and promising fields of commerce were for the first time discovered by our Shetias. And those of them who had the comprehensive eye to take in at a glance the new opportunity, amassed inmense wealth. One of the most notable enterprises of Mr. Premchand was the reclamation of the Back Bay. By his tact, courage and induspor he achieved remarkable success in this and similar undertaking with the result that he became the master of the giant market of Bombay. He was for a time known as the " King of the Share Bazar " And this was no empty title. At his bidding prices rose or sell to make or mar the fortunes of hundreds and thousands of merchants. The whole of the native commercial world of Bombay trembled at his word. Whenever he chose to do so, he could effect a virtual monopoly of any commodity that sirted him. At one time, the native marchants of Bombay concluded their correspondence by substituting the name of Shri Deva by that of Premchand to whom the addresses were referred for the mraket-rates of the next day! In those days, they say, Premchand was the lord of about nine crores of silver coin. Surely he belonged to the class of plutocrats of the carnegie type.

Page #12
( 10 ) Jain Gazette. A RISK AND A FAILURE, The great American Civil War was the rock_on_which the vessel of Premchand's fortune dashed and was shattered into pieces. He along with others anticipated that the continunace of the war between the Southern and Northern States of America would cause Lancashire to fall exclusively on the Indian market. This of-course meant a huge rise--doubling, trebling and even quadrupling--of the prices of cotton in the Indian market. This was an obvious syllogism without a single fallacy to vitiate it. Convinced, of the accuracy of this inference, he bought the larger part of the cotton fields of Gujerat in advance and believed that he had secured command over the cotton market of Bombay in the season to follow. But his premise proved to be a mistake To the ruin of hundreds of merchants in Bombay, the Civil War ended before the longed for season was in sight; American cotton flooded the market: and the fond hopes of our self-indulgent sreenlator were ruined for ever. This story is told briefly; but its results were as great as the story is short. It would be unjust to criticise the nature of the risk he had run by the wisdom begot of etiam tual experience. This way, one might easily out-General Nepoleon by gravely attacking his want of sagacity in relying on Martial Neigh on the fatal Waterloo-day. And we might very reasonably say that Mr. Premchand's wi-com cannot be stigmatised as defective because he failed in this calculation. One might however pause for a moment and reflect upon the direction in which the path of greed surely and for ever runs. An old poet asks us where is the limit of desire to be met with ? Desire begets desire until life becomes mere desiring, desiring a desire for the sake of desire! A successful desire in another person excites the warm admiration of desire-stricken men who are enamoured of the gandy colours oi Dame Desire But what is the truth about the man--the unfortunate victim of fortune's favours? We are dazzled by the sp'endour of his attire, the lustre of the jewels and pearls that he wears and the imposing

Page #13
Jain Gazette. (11) carriage and four he majestically drives. This is all, to the wondering gaze of the onlooker, an untasted cup of nectarlooking juice: to such as however have tasted it, nothing could be more incliriating than this The satisfaction of desire is the surest dissatisfaction of human soul. The moment that one appears to catch hold of the long-sought object, is also the beginning of an unquenchable, ever inflaming thirst for new object. An headlong pursuit of it, is the ruin of all mankind. Taking the most charitable view of Shet Premchand's metoric career, we may without detriment to his great reputation say that he failed to grasp the real situation in this juncture and became a bankrupt. HIS BENEFACTIONS. Yet he retrieved his fortune calmly and courageously. He had a most remarkable capacity for continous labour; a strong memory was his forte; commercial sagacity was almost his birthright. But all this has not made him so celebrated. His philan. thropy was the greatest of his merits and whether nature smiled or frowned at hin, he was all the same, the liberal, princely patron of all th good movements that he came across. His charity knew no bounds. Even a brief enumeration of his donatious would swell the amount to tens of lacs of rupees. The Rajabai Tower and Library of the Uuiversity of Rombay which cost him six and a half lacs of rupees embody his devotion to the memory of his mother and his in. terests of higheer education in Bomday. The Premchand Roychand Scholaships of the Calcutta University are maintained from the interest of three lacs of rupees handed over by him to that institution. The Training College at Ahemadabad owes him eighty thousand rupees. A brief resume of his long and crowded career is not the place for a list exhaustive of all his gifts. The two or three that we have noted here sufficiently show how catholic and broad his interests were. He rose above the petty sense of Caste-feeling. Not that he ignored the claims of his faith which he so devoutly professed.

Page #14
( 12 ) Juin Gazette. He was as strict and true a Jaina as any, but he was notwith-standing this a great Indian with a national interest in his heart. His charity therefore sought channels-broader than those of the caste. Another trait of his genine goodnese was that he paid sixty thousand_rupees to the Frere Fletcher School in Bombay without his left arm knowing what his right arm had done. It was only during the discussion on the will of the founder of that Scool in the High Court that this example of secret charity found its way to public recognition. One's heart becomes full of admiration at this real charity. It is its own reward. For many years past, Shet Premchand lived a life of comparitive obscurity; to men of the present generation, he was almost an historical personage of faded memory. Yet he lived such a noble life as was bound to command respect from everyone who came in contact with him. He was a man of the highest influence among his co-religionists and this influence he always used to further the best interests o. his commnnity and country. Perhaps of all the Jains in modern times, Shet Premchand was the most universally known and universally respected man in India. The passing away of such a man causes a gap which it is impossible to fill. The only way, to make it up partially is to cherish his memorj and try to be inspired by those high principles that made him so great.

Page #15
Col. Ferris, Your Highness, Mrs. Ferris, Chiefs, Sirdars, Ladies and Gentlemen. more reasons than one. I have great pleasure in addressing you on this occasion for You are aware that the chief function of this morning is to ask you, Col. Ferris, to unveil the little piece of canvas that will in this hall represent the likeness of one of the greatest benefactors of this institution. This tribute of our deep respect and sincere gratitude to His Highness Shri Shahu Chhatrapati Maharaja, though yielding to none of the grandest monuments raised by admiration and love in the depth and sincerity of feeling on which it is based, is nevertheless in inverse proportion to the feelings it paints in point of its physical magnitude, for which we may blame our own scantiness of means. Yet I feel confident that in this matter you will allow our claim to those inward and intrinsic graces of heart and feeling association of which give peculiar charms to even the most trifling thing in the world. All this is too evident to need an explanation so far as the humble workers in the interests of this institution are concerned, and had it all been for them alone, I could have spared you, Ladies and Gentlemen, the trouble of permitting me to make a few more observations. As it is, however, I have to take account of the state of things that surround us and briefly tell you why we chose this as the most opportune moment to testify to the feeling of gratitude to H. H. the Maharajasaheb which we all so devotedly entertain. As you fully know, ours is an institution of only yesterday and we have necessarily very limited resources to present to the the minds of youths of this institution(and these, properly equipped will go to form the very hope of our community,) those elevating circumstances that appeal to the higher imagination of men

Page #16
and chiefly thrive in an atmosphere of great ideas and historic associations. One of our anxious thoughts has been to try to supply this want and thus it is that we have got a room reserved for and sanctified by, daily prayers by the inmates of the Institution. On the walls, you see the image of the greatest Jaina of our times, the donor of this beautiful building, whose presence will for ever inspire into the hearts of our boys the truest feelings of benevolence, simplicity and selflessness. To this source of noble ideas, we are to-day adding another, equally powerful in calling forth some of the best emotions of human heart. We thus desire to adorn these walls by a small painting of our Maharajasaheb not only because he is the direct descendant of the most popular royal dynasty of the Deccan, not only because he is the beloved ruler of these territories, not even because he has encouraged the founders of this Institution in a hundred ways ever since its birth. All this has its own place in our hearts; but I must plainly tell you, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the greatest claim to our respect established by His Highness is founded not upon his beneficence to individual or a particular class or community, his greatest service to the public is far more substantial and deep-rooted than any of these aspects of his career. The embodiment of a Principle. You will have to take full account of a great many things before you can realise what this claim of His Highness the Maharaja to our profound respect and admiration consists in. The most difficult question that an Indian statesman is confronted with to-day and has met for ages past and will meet for centuries to come is the adjustment of the claims of the numerous elements of Indian society to the satisfaction of all the interests concerned as well as to the safety of the larger interests of the body politic as a whole. That there are jarring and clashiny elements to be dealt with is, I believe, an accepted fact for all who consider the situation

Page #17
3 from a practical stand-point. The ever-arising question therefore is: How are these discordant notes to be harmonised so that each one will have its proper place and the whole will form a melodious song? The idea of there being thus two aims to be simultaneously kept in view is not quite modern. The greatest statesmen of our history, Akabar and Shivajee, tried to grapple with the problem boldly. But their attempts, though heroic, were not as far reaching as they ought to have been. The great Emperor of Dehli, as you might well remember, tried to fuse together the various nationalities of his subjects into one Indian nation by a large number of administrative measures giving equal opportunities to Hindus and Islamites. In this respect, the British-Indian Empire of to-day has very successfully copied the policy of the great Akabar. But to confine to ourselves this aspect of Akabar's great life is rather to missread it. At the best, an administrative adjustment will enable us to maintain an outward balance of influences. The most that this can do is to pack together for a time the incoherent masses of the Indian populace. With his keen insight into the real situation that he wished to improve, Akabar dived far deeper then this. Shivajee, who came half-a-century later, also applied his genius to the solution of this question. Unfortunately, however, Shivajee had a short tenure of life and had not only to found but to consolidate his empire within that period. His activity was, similarly to Akabar's, confined to smoothing the surface, the skin of the society, by external, or what is the same thing, by Governmental adaptations. In upper India, Akabar had to reconcile the Hindus with the Mohamedans and for this purpose he admitted to power the most capable men of both the races. The Maratha Society presents greater difficulties as the interests to be dealt with are far more divergent. Restricting our view to the seventeenth century, we meet with the Marathas, the Brahmins and the Prabhus very keenly and fiercely contending for supremacy and to settle down the contest, Shivajee distributed all offices under him equally

Page #18
among them by appointing, for instance, a Maratha, a Prabhu and a Brahmin to hold the reins of the three departments in the management of every one of his forts which formed the centres of administration in those days. I refer to these facts for two reasons. They indicate the existence of conditions similar to those that prevail to day around us and thus we, who are blamed for fomenting racial feeling whenever we talk of the claims of different communities, may feel sure that the conditions, necessitating such an insistance of particular claims are not of the making of our own leaders, stigmatised as selfish, but that they existed and were recognized in the golden days of the heroic Shivajee. These facts serve a still more useful purpose. They show us what kind of means such universally worshipped heroes as Shivajee and Akabar adopted with a view to reconcile the divergent interests that are troubling the Society even to-day. I believe no one will argue that efficiency was not the consideration of either of the two greatest of our statesmen in their choice of officers. Yet we have it on the authority of eminent historians, among whom the late Mr. Ranade was one, --that the aim of both and especially of Shivajee was to divide authority equally among the various powerful communities of the times. So, after all, Sir B. Fuller who expressed in a circular his intention of giving preference to Mohamedan candidates for office till they form a balance with the Hindu officers and who was on account of this howled against from one end of the Indian newspaper world to the other, was not the inventor of a diabolical measure to ruin the * Bengali nation.' So, again, H. H. the Shahu Chhatrapati Maharaja is only walking in the footsteps of his noble ancestor, Shivajee in reserving half the offices under him for the backward communities. Perversion of Liberalism. But here I am afraid I shall be inet by a volley of terms and phrases drawn from the armoury of European

Page #19
5 Liberalism. Half-digested liberal ideas are now-a-days promiscuously hurled in the face of any one who in the least tries to draw public attention to the long-ignored claims of many sections of the Indian people. We are told to be ready to merge our class interests into the national good' that is professed to be the end of all public life in India. And whenever the present activity of our educated country-men is scrutinised and its true motives are exposed we are branded as unpatriotic and anti-national. But these critics of every one but themselves manage to forget and refuse to understand that their ideal of national life is either a dream or an imposture, as long as the essential groundwork of national ambitions is not prepared. There are actually before us, many centuries old and possessing the strongest vitality, a large number of castes based on differences of race, religion, profession, interest, history and civilization in general. For ages these sharply and radically divided people are struggling against one another for their very life. These struggles have blasted many a hope of national independence during the past decade of centuries. As a result, we have to-day among us several communities, proud of their past glory, and mourning a series of defeats and losses. Fortunately with the advent of British rule, an era of totally new influences has dawned upon us. Its advent naturally checked the broken down communities as well as those that were on the point of being broken down and thus temporarily destroyed the possibility of any one of the indigenous communities prevailing against all others, and at the same time it also infused new hope into the minds of the fallen and those who had lost all hope of success, and still more, brought about the existence of circumstances that gave birth to a far sounder and satisfactory hope of national life than was ever before conceived. Under the new regime new ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity, were instilled into the minds of those who had the will and capacity to receive them. The middle of the last century in England was dominated by all-round liberalism whose basis was laid on conditions of life far different from those that prevailed in India during the period recorded in authentic history. But that

Page #20
these principles which suited only advanced conditions should be allowed to work out their effects in a totally dissimilar atmosphere without the elements indispensable for the successful application of thein, was a well-meant error leading to results utterly contrary to those that were expected. This was not foreseen by these statesmen who laid the outlives of the British Indian Government. They benevolently hoped that the principles of natural selection, survival of the fittest and so on, could be applied to the benefit of the various communities of India as they were applied in England, and thus the backward mong the Indian population were left protected victims of the luissa. faire system This letting alove the different castes to evolve their own salvation, the state letting the crippled meu lag behind and the stouter to beat them down in an unequal competition was for a time unavoidable in the interests of a foreign domination whose first case was and ought to be the establishment of peace and settled Government. It is also true that any other policy would have during those days been anything but successful merely because a preferential lift even if offered, would have done no good to the decrepit communities who had yet to gather strength for a new effort at social advancement. The coming struggle. But since then a vast change has come over Indian society, demanding a change in policy on the part of the state as well as of the leaders of the public. The policy of indifference as to who is taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the state, has had full play for more than half a century and we can now see how the masses of India have fared under its operatio. A party of liberal-minded educated men has indeed always tried to elevate the whole nation by bestowing special attention on the needs of the masses. In the early days of its existence, this party vividly realised the fact that social, moral, religious, in faut all round, equality must be established between the races and creeds of India and they tried for a time in this direction. But the old and stubborn hankering after class

Page #21
aggrandisement which was the aim of the Brahmin community that ruined the Mahratta power, had not died out and after a short check, it has now arisen polished and refined by the ingenuous sweet application of words and phrases from the liberal propagation. It seeks unity and nationality in the suppression of the non-Brahmins. It seeks equality and liberty in politics while at the same time the non-Brahmins are to be socially doomed to an everlasting inferiority and subordination. It seeks free and representative government while the nonBrahmin masses are as yet absolutely unaware of anything like corporate political existence. It seeks to remove in the name of good Government the only check on caste-animosities that we have, and on the whole its total activity consists in one-sided perversion of liberal ideas. This is the true description of the foremost among our public men but the vast majority of the inferior leaders who are the most powerful constituents and supporters of the party are far more selfish and calculating. Their liberalism is a political weapon against the power that has deprived them of their long ascendency and is bent upon levelling down the authority in whose presence they too sink into an equality with the lower communities. Had this attempt been genuine, it could not have stopped short of perfect social equality between man and man and woman and man. A true principle, whatever it is, knows no one-sidedness and whenever it does so, it must be discarded as a deception. It was this experience in Kolhapur that has exercised the leaders of the various communities during the past few years and has given such a disagreeable odour to public life here. The demand of the hitherto backward communities is for an equality in all directions--in state, in church__and in society, it ought to have been promptly and willingly met by a cordial readiness, on the part of our Brahmin friends to shake hands with the so-called tower classes on a footing of thorough-going, sincere, unreserved fraternity. As you all know, this was not to be and suicidal and desperate attempts are being made persisted in by the priestly community to counter

Page #22
8 act the work of the new spirit that has stirred up the non--Brahmins. It is with reference to this struggle of the plebeians of Indian society against the domination of their patrician masters, that His Highness thc Maharaja saheb has been most useful as the "friend, philosopher and guide' of the untrained, unbacked few among the Marathas, Jains, Lingayets and Mohamedans who are trying to awaken in their followers the sense of dignity and self-respect that is the birth-right of every true citizen. Those whose interest it is to misrepresent this aspect of the career of His Highness and whose aim in life is to discredit that career as a whole so that the policy-religious and social as well as administrative-which it represents shall be also discredited, are now taking their stand by the side of European political shibboleths and from the vantage ground thus gained, they are trying to defeat the ends of the people who look to His Highness for inspiration and lead in their unequal contest with the social oligarchy. The same story is being repeated in all parts of India in some form or other and thus it is that the real unrest in India is not so much political as it is social. But the community which commands the press -- and the plat-form is trying to suppress and belittle this signifi cant unrest as the selfishness of office seekers and stigmatising the leaders of the backward masses as title-hunting abject flatterers.' The lead of His Highness. But the aspirations-silent, unassuming and deep-seated aspirations of the millions of men who are yearning to throw off the yoke of the dominant class will not be thus suppressed. The spirit of the men who are irritated every moment of their life by invidious social customs, cannot be thus checked. The British Government has prepared the way. Education has fitted the leaders of these communities to take up the task with firmness and courage. Princes like His Highness the Maharajasaheb and His Highness the Gaikwad, born leaders as they are, are taking part in the contest and giving

Page #23
life and energy to the weaker party. You will thus realise from what stand-point we regard the career of His Highness as of utmost importance in our new activity. It will require all the resources of the wronged and suppressed to establish their claims to be every way the peers of our happily advanced but unfortunately jealous selfish and antagonistic brethren. His Highness has been their bulwark during the last ten years or so, and they are proud to have him as their ruler and leader. As an administrator or ruler, as the natural leader of his people, as the friend of the oppressed, as the inspirer of hope and strength into the heart of the workers in the cause of the backward people and as the head of a community that has for ages decayed under the sway of the foreign, arrogant priesthood, he has always made it a point to give encouragement to the deserving movements and legitimate desires of the depressed and the degenerate. Our ideal. To secure a few paltry offices is not our aim and we do not count His Highness' determination to reserve a few of them for our people as of very considerable value except as the recognition of a principle. Our aim is wider in scope and more farreaching in consequences. As far as we can see, this aim was clearly realised by only one among our historical personages. As I said before, it was Akbar who tried to work out the ancient ideal of the king being the head--political as well as social- of his people. We read in Purnas of Janak being the warrior and the saint of his tribe. Akabar tried, though not with permanent success, to play the same part. He was the anticipator of many a reform that we are now desiring to introduce into our society. He tried to unite his Mostem and Hindu subjects under one empire, under one religion, under one interdining and intermarrying society. His imperial unity has been imitated even with greater thoroughness by the English. But that is only an external unity, holding the people as a pack of cards. Unloosen

Page #24
10 the bond and you scatter away the cards. Without a cohering, reciprocal attachment, a complete social indentity of interests, sympathies and hopes, there cannot be a durable civilization or even the existence of a nation as such. The most sympathetic of our English rulers cannot hope to initiate such social changes as are necessary for such a 'making of the nation. If the great example of Akabar or the present Mikado of Japan is to be imitated by our princes like His Highness, it is in this direction. I have no doubt such a movement has received and will continue to receive the sympathy and help of our British Indian rulers; but the movement must begin from within. At present, the Maratha society in particular is the most backward of the backward people and nothing but the restoration of them to their lost social dignity as a body of men and not a herd of cattle driven by the Brahmin priest, nothing but such a religious and social revolution will elevate them from their present degeneracy. It is a stupendous task likely to stagger even the most heroic among us. But it is in no way an impossible task. In less favoured times, the Jains and the Lingayets have attained freedom from the bondage of a priesthood. None of us is a prophet; but it is yet the sacred duty of every one of us to try to his utmost to achieve social regeneration with faith in the righteousness of our cause, whether we are called abject flatterers' or 'selfish Office-seekers.' His Highness the Maharajasaheb has been already in the field and his help is a tower of strength. It is for the people now to awaken and get their moral, spiritual and social grievances redressed at the hands of people who claim their allegiance in the only field in which it suits the oligarchy to be pleased to claim it. To you, Col. Ferris, I have a word of appeal on behalf of the Marathas whose friend you have been so long and so truly. Your tactful and sympathetic guidance has been of immense value to His Highness hitherto; but during the period of your official career that now remains, you will, lay the crown on your splendid service to the Maratha country if you, walking in the footsteps of Col. Water of Rajaputana, lay the foundations

Page #25
11 of a Maratha Hit-Karini Sabha on the lines of the great social Kajaput organisation going by the name of that gentleman. With your advice such an institution ought to be a very material help to His Highness in accomplishing the great objects which he has always bad in a view. If the Maratha community were to move in the direction, no better promoters of their aims could be available than His Highness and yourself. Were I to give expression to all my thoughts on this occasion, I am afraid I should tire out your patience. We are all-friends and foes alike-human beings and as such shortcomings are the lot of each one of us. I do not therefore claim for a person like his Highness who has every day to satisfy a hundred divergent claims any sort of Popish or Brahmanic infallibility. As true citizens we would be failing in our duty if we overlooked the mutual obligation of kings and their subjects to exchange views and help each other. These are mere platitudes that need no proof; but when under pretext of discharging a sacred duty, you aim a covert blow, there comes the parting of our ways. To those who here part company with us I have little to say, their interest with the masses consists in a permanently supercilious and domineering attitude towards the very men that in politics are approached as comrades and equals. The cry for justice raised by such men is never sincere: the only proper answer for them, in the words of a Persian poet, is: "Thou who dost blame injustice in mankind, Tis but the image of thine own dark mind," which is no concern of the men whose chief aim is the regeneration of the great masses of our fellows-men, our own kith and kin, the men with whom our destinies too are for ever linked. Col. Ferris, I request you will now kindly unveil the oilpainting of His Highness the Maharajasaheb. The Mission Press, Kenapur.

Page #26

Page #27
HERE AND THERE. Mr. Amaschand Talakchand, of Bombay, offers a prize of Rs. 500 for the best essay on the Jain version of the 771777f7urarg. The prize will be awarded at the end of 1907. We hope many will compete for the prize. Pandit Pannalal of Bombay has published an edition of Shakatayan Vyakaran. This grammer will no doubt enable our Pathashalas to dispense with Panini. Last time that the Jains of C. P. met in conferenee at Bhatkuli, they held a Ladies Meeting which was addressed by Shri. Maganbai. we expect substantial work in the direction of female education. Babu Ramlal of Khandva has sent to us his Dnyanotkarsh diary for 1907. It is an improvement in point of size over the one of last year. Our Calcutta Jains are fast preparing for the forthcoming gathering of the Jain Young Men's Association. We expect a large and enthusiastic gathering The Syadvad Vidyalaya of Benares bids fare to be established on a sound financial basis. Shet Maneekchand has announced his intention of getting fifteen contributions, 1000 Rs. each, towards the Fund of that institution. His intention commands success.

Page #28
A BOON TO THE PUBLIC!! INDIAN ronio Free from all animal ingredients. Most suited for the use of Jairas and vegetarians generally. Quite equal in intensity and duration to foreign-made candles; compare very favourably with Standard Candles. For particulars apply to--KESHAVA LAL B, NANAVATI. Manager, Indian Candle Manufacturing Company. DADAR, BOMBAY. WANTED Purchasers of the following pamphlets published by the Tract Committee of the J. Y. M. Association of India. Rs. &. p. 1. Nirvana 0 0 6 2. Half an hour's Communion with the self ... 0 0 3 3 The Jaina view of the Elements of the Universe 0 0 6 4 The Jainendramat Darpan Part II 0 30 CHAITAN DAS, COLONELGANJ, Allahabad. Mofussil General Order Supplying DFPARTMENT. Gentlemen living in the Mofussil are often put to great inconvenience to get articles from town, and sometime it so happens that even entrusting their orders to Orden Suppliers in Calcutta they do not get articles according to their choice. To remove this difficulty we have opened an ORDER SUPPLYING DEPARTMENT and our object is to supply articles faithfully and according to the choice of our constituents at very SMALL RATE OF COMMISSION. We need hardly mention that it would be our utmost endeavour to secure as much advantages as possible to the general public who may be pleased to entrust their orders with us. A trial is respectfully solicited. We supply all sorts of articles and the following have been in our special line of business:Watches and Clocks, Jewellery, piece Blankets and Carpets, AErated Water goods. Machines. Cycles, Cassiages and Motor Cars. Tron-chests and Hardware Goods, Sewing Gold and Silver ornaments and utensils. Machines. Marble and Bronze Statues (French and Sugar-cane pressing Machines, Indian ). Magic Lanterns and Bioscopic Pictures, Musical Instrument, Wooden Furnitures Microscope, Bioscope and Telescope. Kerosine lamps. Chandeliers and Gasaliers. Husking Machines. Cotton and Silk goods (Country and perfumery, etc. Foreign ). GREAT INDIAN AGENCY, 12, Surbessur Sen's Lane, Calcutta. Printed at the "Jain Bhushan" Press Kolhapur.