"A Letter To A Hindu" by Leo Tolstoy

At the time of Colonial Rule

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Yesterday I have been reading a novel "The first joy" (पहली उमंगें) by Konstantin Fedin. Novel contains an event regarding humanitarian thoughts of Tolstoy. After reading that section, today I searched about Tolstoy and got an article written by Tolstoy regarding Indians, which was published in India in 1909. Then I tried to relate this article with the present conditions of more than three fourth of the population, living in poverty, unemployment, insecurity, and facing problems in their daily life. I would like to share few very good lines from this article.  

Condition of Indians
In Colon

[Reference From: ("A Letter To A Hindu" by Leo Tolstoy, 1909): With an Introduction by M. K. Gandhi]

'A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes, but rather weak and ordinary people, have enslaved two hundred millions of vigorous, clever, capable, freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that not the English, but the Indians, have enslaved themselves?'

 In another paragraph he added,

"In former times the chief method of justifying the use of violence and thereby infringing the law of love was by claiming a divine right for the rulers: the Tsars, Sultans, Rajahs, Shahs, and other heads of states. But the longer humanity lived the weaker grew the belief in this peculiar, God-given right of the ruler. That belief withered in the same way and almost simultaneously in the Christian and the Brahman world, as well as in Buddhist and Confucian spheres, and in recent times it has so faded away as to prevail no longer against man's reasonable understanding"

One side of present  developing India

Now, look at the next section of the same,

"People saw more and more clearly, and now the majority see quite clearly, the senselessness and immorality of subordinating their wills to those of other people just like themselves, when they are bidden to do what is contrary not only to their interests but also to their moral sense. And so one might suppose that having lost confidence in any religious authority for a belief in the divinity of potentates of various kinds, people would try to free themselves from subjection to it. But unfortunately not only were the rulers, who were considered supernatural beings, benefited by having the peoples in subjection, but as a result of the belief in, and during the rule of, these pseudo-divine beings, ever larger and larger circles of people grouped and established themselves around them, and under an appearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when the old deception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled away these men were only concerned to devise a new one which like its predecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage to a limited number of rulers."

Now, more than 77 % population is 
not "allowed" to participate
in the development

But, still rulers are there, and these religious rulers are now replaced by some world imperialists and capitalist class, and they just use the name of religion and God for it. Today, rulers don't say they are the representative of God, they simply create a false smoke of problems that ruled classes are living at their own "misfortune" while God has given a mental ability to enjoy a "successful" life, while other masses that are poor, are paying for their own "bad-luck".

Looking at present conditions, it looks universal truth for every time while there will be exploitation of one man by another man and one nation by another nation, as of today it is happening . . . (But, now it is not British rule!)