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is well illustrated by the fact that the crippling ideals
of poverty, austerity, indifference to social reality and power came
to be widely cherished. The Bhakti movement became both an
expression and an instrument of fragmentation of the Hindu vision
and personality. As a result excessive emphasis came to be placed on
certain aspects earlier meant not for householders but for
renouncers and ascetics.
Muslim power did not sit easily on
rural India. No Muslim ruler even acquired the capacity either to
disarm the peasantry or destroy local leaders. And cast and thick
forests provided excellent terrain for guerilla warfare. The British
Raj managed to disarm the peasantry, destroy large forests, and make
the local leaders dependent on it for their very survival. The
bhakti psychology was thus powerfully reinforced.
This psychology explains the easy
acceptance by the urban Hindu elite of the alien concepts of
liberalism and Marxism. As noted earlier, their merger to constitute
the theory of democratic socialisms involved the emasculation of
both. Since this is not a familiar proposition, some additional
observations would be in order.
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