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Social reform : Sri Aurobindo: Reform is not an excellent thing in itself as many Europeanised intellects imagine; neither is it always safe & good to stand unmoved in the ancient paths as the orthodox obstinately believe. Reform is sometimes the first step to the abyss, but immobility is the most perfect way to stagnate & to putrefy. Neither is moderation always the wisest counsel: the mean is not always golden. It is often an euphemism for purblindness, for a tepid indifference or for a cowardly inefficiency. Men call themselves moderates, conservatives or extremists & manage their conduct & opinions in accordance with a formula. We like to think by systems & parties & forget that truth is the only standard. Systems are merely convenient cases for keeping arranged knowledge, parties a useful machinery for combined action; but we make of them an excuse for avoiding the trouble of thought. . . . One is repelled by the ignorant enthusiasm of [Hindu] social reformers. Their minds are usually a strange jumble of ill-digested European notions. Very few of them know anything about Europe, & even those who have visited it know it badly. But they will not allow things or ideas contrary to European notions to be anything but superstitious, barbarous, harmful & benighted, they will not suffer what is praised & practised in Europe to be anything but rational & enlightened. They are more appreciative than Occidentals themselves of the strength, knowledge & enjoyment of Europe; they are blinder than the blindest & most self-sufficient Anglo-Saxon to its weakness, ignorance & misery. . . . The social reformer repeats certain stock arguments like shibboleths. For these antiquities he is a fanatic or a crusader. Usually he does not act up to his ideas, but in all sincerity he loves them & fights for them. He pursues his nostrums as panaceas; it would be infidelity to question or examine their efficacy. His European doctors have told him that early marriage injures the physique of a nation, & that to him is the gospel. It is not convenient to remember that physical deterioration is a modern phenomenon in India & that our grandparents were strong, vigorous & beautiful. He hastens to abolish the already disappearing nautchgirl, but it does not seem to concern him that the prostitute multiplies. Possibly some may think it a gain that the European form of the malady is replacing the Indian! . . . . At the present moment all societies are in need of reform, the Parsi, Mahomedan & Christian not a whit less than the Hindu which alone seems to feel the need of radical reformation. . . . Unknown to men the social revolution prepares itself, & it is not in the direction they think, for it embraces the world, not India only. Whether we like it or not, He will sweep out the refuse…. But the broom is not always sufficient; sometimes He uses the sword in preference. It seems probable that it will be used, for the world does not mend itself quickly, & therefore it will have violently to be mended. . . . But…how shall we determine the principles that are particular to the nature of the community & the nature of the Age? There is such a thing as yugadharma, the right institutions & modes of action for the age in which we live. For action depends indeed on the force of knowledge or will that is to be used, but it depends, too, on the time, the place & the vessel. Institutions that are right in one age are not right in another. Replacing social system by social system, religion by religion, civilisation by civilisation God is perpetually leading man onwards to loftier & more embracing manifestations of our human perfectibility…. [CWSA Vol.12: 50-55; s/a The Yuga(s)]