The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c6.s2.3

c6.s2.3

Now, the brightest period of Occidental civilization happens to be the darkest period of Oriental. And this, again, is the epoch of the political-*cum*-industrial domination of the East by the West. In the nineteenth century and during the first years of the twentieth it may almost be said that Asia was for all practical purposes lying dead. Howsoever resentful orientals themselves may feel in regard to the prevailing albinocracy, not even the blindest idealist among them can ignore or minimize the situation. For, in the conjuncture of world politics the Orient has for quite a long period remained veritably the "white man's burthen". Asia today is indisputably a continent of slaves, *de jure*, as well as *de facto* (albeit not everywhere *de jure*). And to add insult to injury, the new life which has of late been pulsating through Asian humanity and which has created for Japan a first class rank in the concert of world-powers, is due to the inspiration furnished mainly by Eur-America from Newton to Becquerel, from Washington and Rousseau to Mill and Treitschke. The inferiority of the Orient to the Occident in culture as well as in politics is thus from every side an established fact of modern history. The tragedy of Young Asia is complete.