ON THE CONDITION OF A PEOPLE 15 this, shall we say. Communism. Karma theory is final solution and answer. It is so deep-rooted, this Karma, it will take years for the poor people to lose their patience". Instead of this, attention must be given not to another ^consciousness' which is inert and passive, this time the passivity which ^Marxist' obscurantism shares with the deepest fatalism of reaction, but to a knowledge which is active in all its meanings and implications. Nor is this demand a matter once more for idle speculation; because for the Chinese, the formerly immiserated and degraded condition of the people is the subject of the bitter memories of the past; but for the great mass of the people of India, it constitutes the material and objective circumstance of the living and dying present. And that is precisely the reason why the Chinese voice can be heard frequently speaking — for those who will listen — with an Indian accent. It is true that there are many Indian voices, a babel, but certain tones of voice and meaning can and must be identified and distinguished not the voice of the poor haunted girl-child standing before you in Calcutta —blood streaking her ragged skirt, sweat marks in the armpits of her torn blouse-top — in a mulch of filth and sorrow, saying, ^You , want? You go? You want go with girl, sahib?59, but those other Chinese voices of strength and anger speaking in India. They are the voices of irreversible knowledge, learned from the books of no scholar: "It is we who harvest the rice, but we who are given the coarsest grain in payment"; or '^1 like to read, but reading for my basic education was not necessary. From poverty, when I was a child, I had malnutrition. From this, I learned without books about the politics and economics of India"; or, ^It is we who have sown these fields. Reap them, landlords, if you can. And in the stocks and stubble, you will find our plan. There will be sickles in it, and heads will be our harvest; neck-and-crop, to the last man." Source of Knowledge We must learn and re-learn in every country to read from life and living; the forms of its expression constituting the basis and source of all knowledge. Thus, one old woman sits upright in Shanghai, her hair carefully brushed and clipped with one hair-grip, worn hands placed together on her knees, and says, ^If we had not learned to change ourselves and become masters of this country, I would have died many years ago", her eyes darting as she speaks; then looking at her clasped hands, turning them from side to side. Another (young) woman lies sleeping on the Madras beach, on soft pink sand, in a faded rose sari, hemmed green and gold at her ankles; wind-blown; her thick black hair untied and streaming. Fishermen are laying out their long grey nets, the beached grey boats weatherbeaten; ropes coiled, and stacked fish baskets. Fishergirls, the sea wind blowing their long grey dresses, bare feet in sand and hands on hips, look down at her, talking. There is a rim