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mindful of some of our best traditions—espe-
cially those enshrining wholesome and noble
principles of conduct—and our old regard and
reverence for the sanctities of life, we should have
been better off than we are now.
" It seems to me that our boasted modernism
only means
Freedom from decent self-restraint;
Claim of all knowledge divine and human;
A consciousness of infallibility;
Contempt for religion and scorn of morality.
•> *
To this may be added as serviceable auxiliaries,
falsehood, deceit, mutual distrust, suspicion, ma-
lice and rapacity under various disguises.
" But Hyderabad is a progressive State/' we
hear, by way of justification or Apology. Let us
hope Hyderabad is so, and be it so in the best
sense of the word ! If modernised it must be,
let it be modernised decently.
"To some of us, however, there seems to be a
pestilential quality in modern progress, and a
tendency to become an epidemic wherever it goes.
As an idea it was born of confusion of thoughts,
wishes and hopes that followed in the wake of
the Great War of 1914, and then it was well-
meaning. Repudiation of evil, reformation and
reconstruction of the social system, readjustment
and settlement of human needs—all this was
included in the idea, making it optimistic as a
hope and ameliorative as an aim. But the vision
isoon became overclouded by the dust raised by