Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 119

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
Exposition of 1878: "Indian collections are now also, unfortunately, becoming at every succeeding exposition, more and more over-crowded with mongrel articles which is the result of the influences on Indian art, of English society, missionary schools, schools of art, and international exhibitions, and above all, of the irresistible energy of the mechanical productiveness of Manchester, Birmingham, Paris and Vienna."
Terry in his book" Voyages to the East Indies, 1655", while describing the people of India writes: "The natives there show very much ingenuity in their curious manufactures, as in their silk stuffs, which they most artistically weave, some of them very neatly mingled with silver or gold, or both; as also in making quilts of their stained cloth or of fresh colored taffeta lined with their printadoes (prints or chintz), or of their satin, lined with taffata, between which they put pure cotton-wool, and weave them together with silk. **** They will make any new thing by pattern, howsoever difficult it may seem to be; it is therefore no marvel if the natives there make boots, clothes, linen, bands, cuffs of English fashion, which are all very different from their own fashions and habits, and yet make them all exceedingly neat."
Family tradition of particular profession
I am not a supporter of the caste system as it exists to-day in India, but I am convinced, by Dr. Leitner, formerly the Registrar of the Punjab University in India, that the preservation of caste in its original form is the preservation of ancient civilization and unparalleled culture of India, inclusive of its arts and industries, which is perfectly compatible with
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every legitimate demand of modern requirements or aspirations. "The recognition of the principle of heredity in abilities and defects, so tardily recognized by our own physiologists, has maintained Indian society, Indian wisdom, Indian bravery, and Indian arts, and can alone preserve Indian loyalty and ensure Indian progress on the lines of its own genius. It is only imitation of foreign models that can kill what thousands of years and the various vicissitudes of conquest have not been able to do." Sir George Birdwood therefore says to the European public: "We therefore incur a great responsibility when we deliberately undertake to improve such a people in the practice of their own arts, and hitherto the results of our attempts to do so have been anything but encouraging. The Kashmir trade in shawls has been ruined through the quickness with which the weavers have adopted the 'improved shawl patterns' which the French agents of the Paris import houses have set before them, and presently we shall see what the effect of the teaching of our Schools of Art has been on Indian pottery, the noblest pottery in the world until we began to meddle with it. *** We incur a great responsibility in attempting to interfere in the direct art education of these people who already possess the tradition of a system of decoration founded on perfect principles, which they have learned through centuries of practice to apply with unerring truth. *** Of