For the last fourteen months my one thought was to bring India into touch with the living activities of the larger world of humanity. It was not because I thought that India would be the sole gainer by this contact, but because I was certain that when the dormant mind of India was roused from its torpor, she would be able to offer something for the needs of the human race which would be valuable.
Through different modes of political co-operation and non-co-operation, India has assumed up to the present an attitude of asking boons from others. I have been dreaming of some form of co-operation, through which she would be in a position to offer her own gifts to the world. In the West, the mind of man is in full activity. It is vigorously thinking and working towards the solution of all the problems of life. This fulness of intellectual vigour itself gives its inspiration to mental vitality. But in our Indian Universities, we simply have the results of this energy—not the living velocity itself. So our mind is burdened and not quickened by our education. This has made me realise, that we do not want schoolmasters from the West, but fellow-workers in the pursuit of truth.
My aspiration for my country is that the mind of India must join its own forces to the great movement of mind, which is in the present-day world. Every success that we may attain in this effort will at once lead us directly to feel the unity of Man. Whether the League of Nations acknowledges this unity or not, it is the same to us. We have to realise it through our own creative mind.
The moment that we take part in the building up of civilisation, we are instantly released from our own self-seclusion—from our mental solitary cell. We have not yet gained the confidence, that we have the power to join hands with the great builders—the great workers of the world. Either our boastfulness breaks its voice in unnatural shrieking, or our self-denunciation makes an abnormal display of itself in an aggressive flutter of humility.
But I am certain that we have every claim to this confidence, and we must do everything to realise it. We do not want bragging; we need for ourselves the dignity of the man, who knows that he has some purpose to fulfil for all people and for all time. This has made me bold to invite students and scholars from different parts of the world to an Indian University to meet there our students and scholars in a spirit of collaboration. I wonder if this idea of mine will find any response in the hearts of my countrymen of the present day. But are you free to render me full help in this difficult undertaking? *