IX - The condition of India (cont.): railways

Summary

reader: You have deprived me of the consolation I used to have regarding peace in India.

editor: I have merely given you my opinion on the religious aspect, but, when I give you my views as to the poverty of India, you will perhaps begin to dislike me, because what you and I have hitherto considered beneficial for India no longer appears to me to be so.

reader: What may that be?

editor: Railways, lawyers and doctors have impoverished the country, so much so that, if we do not wake up in time, we shall be ruined.

reader: I do now, indeed, fear that we are not likely to agree at all. You are attacking the very institutions which we have hitherto considered to be good.

editor: It is necessary to exercise patience. The true inwardness of the evils of civilisation you will understand with difficulty. Doctors assure us that a consumptive clings to life even when he is about to die. Consumption does not produce apparent hurt – it even produces a seductive colour about a patient's face, so as to induce the belief that all is well. Civilisation is such a disease, and we have to be very wary.

reader: Very well, then, I shall hear you on the railways.

editor: It must be manifest to you that, but for the railways, the English could not have such a hold on India as they have. The railways, too, have spread the bubonic plague. Without them, masses could not move from place to place.