Godmen On The Warpath: A Study Of Messianic Movements In India

Ever since the highly civilised powers took it in mind, to "colonise" primitive peoples and to "uplift" them culturally, their efforts, even if well intended, turned disastrous for the colonised. The actual results were wholesale oppression and exploitation, even physical annihilation. The surviving primitive peoples usually suffered a complete break-down of their original culture and a total confusion of their traditional values. But after a certain time the colonised peoples felt the desires for a revival of their pristine way of life-the old traditional values asserted themselves. Yet due to their predominantly magical world-outlook this revitalisation often took an esoteric turn. It also required a leader allegedly possessed with superhuman powers and in close contact with the ancestors or old gods-a Messiah or Saviour. Such revival movements arose all over the world wherever high civilisations clashed with primitive cultures. It is to the credit of the author of Godmen on the Warpath, to have discovered numerous such "messianic" movements in India and to have described them here. Another important and eminently practical result of the author's analysis of such movements is that he convincingly proves that wherever their leaders were able to guide their followers to a gradual and peaceful amalgamation of the new with the original beliefs and practices of the colonised peoples they were largely successful. But here the godmen yielded to the temptation to liberate their people by violent means, they generally were defeated, with disastrous consequences for their people.