CHAPTER IV
TILAK AND SOCIAL REFORM
I do not believe in reform; I believe in growth.
I have yet to see a nation, whose faith is determined, by the number of husbands its widows gety.
Instead of increasing the elements of friction—the besetting weakness of reformers and dissidents of all kinds—he took infinite trouble to reduce those elements to the lowest possible points. Hence he was careful not to take up too many subjects at once, because, the antagonism generated by each, would have been made worse, by the antagonism to each other; and he would have called up a host of enemies together, instead of leaving himself free to deal with one at a time.
THE stagnant condition of the Indian civilisation during several centuries has given rise to a number of social evils which by their very accumulation impressed the imagination of the first generation of English-educated Indians. But these evils are neither more pressing nor more hideous than those which during the last three centuries have accompanied the rapid growth of European power and culture. The first duty of every country is to strengthen its position and consolidate its influence amidst neighbouring groups of nations with a view to safe-guard its political liberty which is the mother of all social well-being. Where this hberty is wanting, the duty of the people lies in recovering it
