It is possible to interpret this view by suggesting that, according to Haas, the Western tradition sought to discover the symbol, whereas die Indian tradition was essentially allegorical so that what was 'missing in Indian art is the secret meaning beyond that which is portrayed, even when the portrayal in Indian art is of a very high quality' (Merkur 867). This restatement of classic German idealistic aesthetics was, however, not his real point.

The essential difference lay in the fact that time and space were occupied in India by mythology, whereas in Occidental art, these were thrown open to art and, therefore, by implication, to imagination. The argument revolved around secularization. Therefore, modern Indian art was not really possible, because it was either a cheap imitation of the West or a modernization of the Ajanta style. Even in the West, Haas wrote, countries with great art traditions such as Italy or Spain have now only a few great artists. The reasons for this decline would be related to the historical and political decline of these countries. India's contemporary poverty in art lay in the fact that the mystically inspired life-element was outside the artist: 'Indian art shows the separation of the divine from the visible world, not their mutual interpenetration—even when it evokes the immanence of God in this world, and especially when it does so. All that lies beyond the here and now, all imaginary spaces and times are occupied in India by mythology and abstract theology.' (Merkur 872)

The exclusion of the individual from a civilization like India meant for Haas that all modernity was either a superimposition or a juxtaposition, but not unification; modern dams and an age-old system of ploughing the fields or primitive animism and abstract, even atheistic and nihilistic philosophy. Modernity in India merely meant that India was a palimpsest. It is not surprising that Haas ends his brief meditation on art with a political reflection. In India space and time did not build a continuum. In India, time was without perspective, space without eternity, and nothing changed, nothing developed. Even historical time required an imaginary dimension in order to move: 'The real historical events appear strange and unconnected in this unhistorical country and we are observing - not without a measure of anxiety - a new political formation, which will probably not achieve anything other than to put a new layer of hyper-modern formations over the old stratified ones without establishing any connections between the two' (Merkur 872).

Nothing could be simpler than to see in Haas' formulations a variation of an essentialist dichotomization of cultures. He freely uses the familiar topoi of the European imagination of India so well analysed by critiques of orientalism. But Haas was not a theoretician of culture. His idealistic background made a comprehension of cultural complexity difficult. This is, however, a puzzling fact. The cultural complexity of the Danube monarchy should have sensitized him to the complexities of a colonial society rooted in tradition, yet struggling to overthrow colonialism and attempting to embark on a journey of modernity, however problematic that may have been.

It is precisely, however, because simple identification is not possible (in the sense of a naive acceptance), and rejection is not permissible, that a logic of 'difference' has to be erected. In the case of Willy Haas this logic of difference has neither voyeuristic overtones, nor is it by any stretch of imagination the product of a colonial impulse. Haas consciously situated himself as a German-speaking Jew, living in exile, and in exile reacting to Fascism and trying to make his contribution to the anti-Fascist struggle. This, for him was the primary focus and it is, therefore, not surprising that his feelings for the British were marked by the gratitude of the refugee: 'They saved me from the German concentration camps, from the gas-chambers and the gallows, where almost all my relatives and friends, Czechs, Jews and German aristocrats died, unless they had committed suicide in time. How can I not be thankful to them for the rest of my life?' (LW 203)