HAPPY INDIA 171 



and prosperity ' of their country, or in other words its 

 scientific exploitation." He asserts that it would be 

 impossible to introduce the farming methods and ap- 

 pliances of other countries " without involving the 

 destruction of the beneficial, co-operative, rural life 

 whereon the whole system of the civilisation of the 

 Hindus has been immemorially based ". Apart from 

 the question of any change in the Hindu system he 

 will not admit that improvement is possible along the 

 ordinary lines on which progress has been secured in 

 other countries. After eulogising the primitive farm 

 implements of the Deccan and declaring them to be 

 preferable to the modern appliances of other countries? 

 he claims for the heavy wooden plough a "perfect 

 adaptation to the surrounding conditions of the land, 

 life and labour in the Maharashtra ". He describes 

 the black soil of the Deccan as "the charmed treasure 

 that assures the fortune, the felicity and the unfailing 

 fame of Indian agriculture," and states that, for 

 ordinary field cultivation, it needs no other manuring 

 than that which it receives from the open hand of 

 nature. As regards the cultivator himself he refers 

 to "the wonderful way in which the Maratha raiyat 

 has adapted himself to his surrounding conditions of 

 soil and climate, and gradually secured his economic 

 mastery over them". 



Now if this idyllic picture be accepted of the Deccan 

 cultivator living in the perfection of human felicity 

 after securing the economic mastery over his environ- 

 ment, it is obvious that there is no ground for putting 



