Bertrand Russell on India.

In an interview given in 1927, Bertrand Russell said 

A foreign culture can never be imparted to another nation except at the point of the sword.

Russell had taught in China- he considered its civilization more humane than that of the West- and visited Japan which he had not enjoyed because of the obnoxious intrusiveness of Japanese journalists. Both countries where adopting Western technology at a rapid pace but, as he regretfully observed, adopting militaristic policies. Neither had been conquered. Indeed, they had been forced to Westernize themselves so as to avoid the fate of India and Indo-China.

Still, the fact is, the Japanese and Chinese people, motivated by patriotism, were very willingly following a  path previously trodden by the West. This was a case of 'Tardean mimetics'. They were copying the more successful countries of the world. Indeed, it may be said, in some respects they would later outdo Western countries.

The Romans imparted theirs to England and France at the point of the bayonet

there were no bayonets at that time. 

and we are doing the same in India.

Britain wasn't trying to impose its language, religion or culture on the Indians. The Law Courts relied on traditional Hindu or Islamic personal law.  Russell only visited India briefly after Independence and it is perhaps a little unfair of us to take him to task for his views on a country in which he had no interest. Indeed, if Russell was appointed head of the India League in London despite the fact that his recent book on 'Marriage & Morals' had made him deeply unpopular, the blame must rest with Krishna Menon. Still, it must be said, Indian politicians didn't want people sitting comfortably in London to gain the limelight. Russell was famous- or notorious- but he was a light-weight. Nobody took him seriously. Still, back then, a belted Earl with a seat in the House of Lords was not wholly inconsequential. 

It may be unfortunate, yet it has, I see, been the only way hitherto of spreading a culture among an alien people.

Most Indians were following Mahatma Gandhi who, in rather a theatrical fashion, was absolutely rejecting Western culture. 

In an article titled 'India as a Permanent Source of Trouble', Russell, who later became the Chairman of the pro-Congress India League, wrote-

The Indian type of civilization involves a much greater amount of human misery than the Western type.

Arguably, the pre-Boxer Rebellion Chinese- whose culture featured slavery, foot-binding, and cruel and unusual judicial punishments, was more inhumane than India. As for the 'Western type' of civilization, it had given the world the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the genocide of indigenous people in the Americas, the Opium War and the type of Imperialism which Russell was supposed to be against.  

If the populations of India were to forget their several religions and their immemorial social customs, to adopt instead the outlook of enlightened Westerners, there would be

Wars and Ethnic Cleansing on a massive scale.  

much more diffused happiness in the country than there is at present.

No. India needed to adopt to sensible economic policies. In particular, it needed to boost agricultural productivity and transfer surplus labour from the countryside to urban factories.  

Russell was no great friend of India's. A foolish book of his on the Indo-China war was later banned by the Indian Government. In part, like Keynes and other 'Liberals' of the period, this was because Russell had imbibed a Racialist type of Enlightenment philosophy. It was a case of one rule for Europe and another rule, preferably Western rule, for the rest of Humanity. Liebniz's formula for peace in Europe involved France going off to conquer Egypt. What he didn't understand was that if some European countries gained overseas colonies, then they could become financially stronger than other European countries and this could become the basis of a military threat to them. One reason the Germans wanted to go to War in 1914 is because they suspected that French Capital had been used to destabilize the German Stock Market as a way of punishing that country for what was happening in Agadir.

Turning to mathematical philosophy, Russell made his name by independently discovering (along with Zermelo) the problem with 'unrestricted comprehension'. But this is just part of the wider problem regarding epistemic or 'intensional' objects. Russell, following De Morgan and others who wrote disparagingly of Indian mathematics, did not understand that all traditional logic had a pragmatic notion of restricted comprehension linked to verification for a particular purpose. There may be some universal type theory at the end of time when all intensions or epistemic objects are fully known but that is irrelevant to us here and now. The impression created by Russell, Godel, Turing etc, is that the big problem is impredicativity- self-reference- rather than intensionality. But getting rid of impredicativity isn't going to magically solve the problem of epistemic objects which change over time as our knowledge, or our needs, change. 

Turning to Russell's politics- which were quixotic when not actively mischievous- we find a type of antagonomia- this is a man at odds with his own class and his own milieu- which we might consider 'aristocratic' but must regretfully turn our backs upon. On the other hand, we have no reason to deny ourselves the pleasure of reading his elegant, sometimes quite witty, prose.