ery language in which it has learnt to express
them. Out of the ancient world of India we have raised a new Indian
middle class, with one foot perhaps still lingering in Indian
civilisation but with the other certainly planted in Western
civilisation. It has long claimed that its leaders were fit to be the
leaders of a nation. We have now conceded that claim. It rests with
those leaders to make it good. They have already given proofs of both
political wisdom and courage; for it is they who bore the brunt of the
battle against the wreckers of the new Constitution during the elections
and won it, and it is they who, forming the majority in the new
assemblies, have shown sagacity and moderation in the exercise of their
new rights and the discharge of their new responsibilities as the means
to closer co-operation between Indians and British. But the opposing
forces arrayed against co-operation, as I have shown in the previous
chapter, are still formidable. They assume many different shapes. They
exploit many different forms of popular discontent. If they have failed
to lay hold of the better and more educated classes, they have captured
in some parts at least the masses that were never before anti-British.
They have inflamed the racial hatred which untoward incidents helped to
stir up. In Mr. Gandhi they have found a strangely potent leader who
appeals to the religious emotions of both Hindus and Mahomedans to shake
themselves free from the degrading yoke of an alien civilisation, and
implores them to return to the ancient and better ways of India's own
civilisation.

It is just there that Mr. Gandhi strikes a responsive chord in many
thoughtful Indians who repudiate him as a political leader. For their
faith in either the material or moral superiority of Western
civilisation is, one must admit, far less general and deep-seated than
it still was only a generation ago. The emergence of Japan and her
sweeping victories on land and water over the great European power that
tried to humble her dealt the first heavy blow at their belief in the
material superiority of the West. Just as severely shaken is their
belief in its moral superiority, even with many whose loyalty to the
British cause never wavered during the Great War and who still pride
themselves on India's share in its final victory, when they see how the
world of Western civilisation has been reft asunder by four years of
frightful conflict which drenched all Europe wi