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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 5, No. 2 April 23, 1942

From India To-Day

From India To-Day

"The bankruptcy of imperialism in India is written large in the present situation of India and in the condition of the people. It is impossible to escape the contrast between the achievement of the. Soviet Union during these past two decades (starting from the lowest level of broken down Tsarism) and the record in India in the same period. When we consider such figures as those for the iron and steel industry given above; the contrast in agricultural development and in the movement of the national income; the liquidation of illiteracy in the Soviet Union and the reduction of illiteracy by 2 per cent, in India in twenty years; or the expanding network of health and social services there established and the almost complete absence of the most elementary services in India, these facts bear deep lessons for the Indian people, and those lessons are being taken to heart.

"Modern industry will dissolve the hereditary divisions of labour upon which rest the Indian castes, those decisive impediments to Indian progress and Indian power."—Marx, 1863.

"In places like Jamshedpur where work is done under modern conditions men of all castes and races work side by side in the mill without any misgivings regarding the caste of their neighbours."—Bihar and Orissa Census Report, 1921.

"England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is: Can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England, she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution."— Marx, "The British Rule in India."