CHAPTER 24
Modernity, Reform, and Revival
Dermot Killingley
Introduction
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Hindu traditions have been under-
stood and followed in new ways. Change was prompted by the political and cul-
tural situation brought about by the British presence in south Asia, and by new
means of communication. Challenges and opportunities came through contact
with cultures which had hitherto been inaccessible or unfamiliar. Foremost
among these was British culture, which was embodied, in various limited ways,
by officials, teachers, missionaries, journalists, businessmen, soldiers, and others
on south Asian soil. Further, British culture in all its variety surrounded those
Hindus who traveled to Britain in increasing numbers through the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. Hindus looked not only to Britain but to the United
States, and to France, Germany, and other European countries, through books
and periodicals, and sometimes through correspondence. In 1905 some were
fascinated by the victory of Japan, another Asian country, over Russia; and from
1917, some were stirred by events in what became the Soviet Union.
At the same time new facilities for communication with the past led to a
concern with the literary, cultural and religious heritage of South Asia, which
will be discussed below. This was also the period in which Indians acquired a
common identity. Hitherto they had identified themselves as Bengalis or Tamils,
as S ́aivas, Jains, Muslims, and so on. To the British they were all “Asiatics” or
“Natives,” as contrasted with “Englishmen” or “Europeans.” With the consoli-
dation of British India as a political entity in the first half of the nineteenth
century, the term “Indian,” which hitherto had often meant the British in India,
came to mean the indigenous inhabitants. It thus becomes appropriate for us to
use the term “Indian” rather than “south Asian” when referring to this period,
remembering that in terms of present boundaries it covers not only India but