Comprehension : Comprehension

Q 466 / 466

UPSC CSE Prelims 2011

Read the following passage and answer the items that follow. Your answers to these items should be based on the passage only.

A country under foreign domination seeks escape from the present in dreams of a vanished age, and finds consolation in visions of past greatness. That is a foolish and dangerous pastime in which many of us indulge. An equally questionable practice for us in India is to imagine that we are still spiritually great though we have come down, in the world in other respects. Spiritual or any other greatness cannot be founded on lack of freedom and opportunity, or on starvation and misery. Many western writers have encouraged that notion that Indians are other-worldly. I suppose the poor and unfortunate in every country become to some extent other-worldly, unless they become revolutionaries, for this world is evidently not meant for them. So also subject peoples. As a man grows to maturity he is not entirely engrossed in, or satisfied with, the external objective world. He seeks also some inner meaning, some psychological and physical satisfactions. So also with peoples and civilizations as they mature and grow adult. Every civilization and every people exhibit these parallel streams of an external life and an internal life. Where they meet or keep close to each other, there is an equilibrium and stability. When they diverge conflict arises and the crises that torture the mind and spirit.
According to the passage, the torture of the mind and spirit is caused

EXPLANATION

Correct Option

The passage explicitly states, "Every civilization and every people exhibit these parallel streams of an external life and an internal life. Where they meet or keep close to each other, there is an equilibrium and stability. When they diverge conflict arises and the crises that torture the mind and spirit." This directly attributes the torture of the mind and spirit to a lack of equilibrium or a divergence between an external life and an internal life.

Incorrect Options

  • Option (a): While foreign domination is a significant theme in the passage, it is presented as a contextual factor that leads to certain societal responses. The passage does not identify foreign domination itself as the direct cause of the "torture of the mind and spirit" in the concluding explanation.
  • Option (b): The passage mentions the desire to escape from foreign domination and find consolation in past greatness as a "foolish and dangerous pastime" and an "equally questionable practice." However, it does not link this specific desire or practice directly to the "crises that torture the mind and spirit" in the final explanation of such crises. The passage describes this as a "foolish and dangerous pastime", not the direct cause of the torture of mind and spirit.
  • Option (d): The passage discusses the poor and unfortunate becoming "other-worldly" or "revolutionaries" as responses to their circumstances. This discussion is separate from the author's ultimate explanation of what causes the "crises that torture the mind and spirit," which is explicitly defined as the divergence between external and internal life.