Tradition, Change and Problems

Abstract

Nehru, the great Indian leader, has written of ‘the curious illusion of all peoples and all nations that in some way they are a chosen race’. As the early Europeans in Asia carved out great trading empires and swept aside the opposition of local peoples, their belief in the superiority of the West over the East was strengthened. Aided by more advanced military techniques and ignorant of Asian countries’ rich cultural background, the impact of the West was justified as ‘the march of civilization’. James Mill, the English historian, declared in 1818 that Europeans, even during the feudal ages, were superior to the Indians. Thomas Macaulay, who advocated an English system of education in India in 1833, declared that the result would be a decline in Hindu beliefs. (Is Christianity superior to Hinduism?)