The Movement in Favour of Islamic Culture of the Past   47
one we are at present to consider, cannot be drawn sharply.
The two blend into each other on their outskirts, and are
sufficiently compatible that those on the inside of either
usually do not recognize the difference. None the less, the
difference exists, and can be appreciated by observing the
tendency of each at the centre of its development and not
at the boundary* The new movement's rise coincided in
time with the rise of a new class of men, those who were
building up in India an indigenous capitalism, financed it is
true largely by British capital but none the less competing
with the already flourishing British industrialism. To a
lesser extent it competed also with what other industry had
been already established in India—the first and most success-
ful Indian enterprises were set up and owned mainly by a
few Hindus and Parsls. Furthermore, the whole economic
system, after its early flare, was already beginning its break-
down. Before, the classes for whom Sir Sayyid catered had
an expanding and joyous function to perform within and
because of the imperialist framework. Now the bourgeoisie
had its own creative task: to build up on its own initiative
a native capitalism. This task soon became one of conflict
with the imperialist system which was confining it merci-
lessly. Even for the bureaucracy, still immediately dependent
upon the foreign power, and for the commercial classes,
partly so, the supply of posts soon fell hopelessly behind the
insistent demand. In other words, the prospect before a
middle-class individual now was thoroughly different: what-
ever -his training, he had to struggle bitterly for employment
of any kind; even if he succeeded in finding a position, his
task was difficult, strenuous, and more or less unpromising.
The chances of his disappointment grew increasingly high.
Indian bourgeois society, though created by British imperial-
ism, was presently ruthlessly suppressed by the same from
expanding as a capitalist society must expand. It therefore
reached in a generation or two the period of frustration
which Western bourgeois society has reached only after a
few centuries.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the men involved in