UNHAPPY INDIA 173 



same laborious scratching of the soil. Then the 

 weary way homeward in the chilly evening, every 

 member of the family shaking with malaria or fatigue. 

 A drink of water, probably contaminated, the munch- 

 ing of a piece of hard black or green chaupati, a little 

 gossip round the pipal tree, and then the day ends 

 with heavy unrefreshing sleep in dwellings so insan- 

 itary that no decent European farmer would house his 

 cattle in them. I know of only one other scene of 

 this kind, drawn on a large scale canvas, equally 

 saddening. It is that of the average Great-Eussian 

 village before the war, on any day of the winter there. 

 You would see every man, woman and child in the 

 village hopelessly drunk." This conception of the 

 condition of the Indian peasant leads H.H. The Aga 

 Khan to put forward an urgent plea for a vigorous 

 policy calculated to stimulate the ambitions and 

 energies of the cultivators, and to induce them to 

 double their outturn by more intensive cultivation 

 conducted by up-to-date methods and with modern 

 appliances. 



Now it would hardly be possible to find two pictures 

 of the Indian peasantry more dissimilar than those 

 just quoted, the one depicting existing rural conditions 

 as the height of human happiness, and the other 

 as touching the depths of human misery, the one 

 passionately deprecating change, the other earnestly 

 calling for it. The remarkable thing is that these 

 extreme views are not peculiar to a few enthusiasts, 

 but are held by large bodies of the educated classes. 



