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diff --git a/12820-h/12820-h.htm b/12820-h/12820-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c257351 --- /dev/null +++ b/12820-h/12820-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1920 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Case For India, by Annie Besant</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + + hr { width: 33%; } + + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12820 ***</div> + +<h1>THE CASE<br /> +FOR<br /> +INDIA</h1> + +<h3>THE PRESIDENTIAL<br /> +ADDRESS DELIVERED BY<br /> +ANNIE BESANT AT THE<br /> +THIRTY-SECOND INDIAN<br /> +NATIONAL CONGRESS<br /> +HELD AT CALCUTTA<br /> +26TH DECEMBER 1917</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h2>Table of Contents</h2> + +<p> + <a href="#Presidential_Address"><b><i>Presidential Address</i></b></a><br /> + <a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a><br /> + <a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a><br /> + <a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="Presidential_Address"></a><i>Presidential Address</i></h2> + +<p>Fellow-delegates and friends,</p> + +<p>Everyone who has preceded me in this Chair has rendered his thanks in +fitting terms for the gift which is truly said to be the highest that +India has it in her power to bestow. It is the sign of her fullest love, +trust, and approval, and the one whom she seats in that chair is, for +his year of service, her chosen leader. But if my predecessors found +fitting words for their gratitude, in what words can I voice mine, whose +debt to you is so overwhelmingly greater than theirs? For the first time +in Congress history, you have chosen as your President one who, when +your choice was made, was under the heavy ban of Government displeasure, +and who lay interned as a person dangerous to public safety. While I was +humiliated, you crowned me with honour; while I was slandered, you +believed in my integrity and good faith; while I was crushed under the +heel of bureaucratic power, you acclaimed me as your leader; while I was +silenced and unable to defend myself, you defended me, and won for me +release. I was proud to serve in lowliest fashion, but you lifted me up +and placed me before the world as your chosen representative. I have no +words with which to thank you, no eloquence with which to repay my debt. +My deeds must speak for me, for words are too poor. I turn your gift +into service to the Motherland; I consecrate my life anew to her in +worship by action. All that I have and am, I lay on the Altar of the +Mother, and together we shall cry, more by service than by words: VANDE +MATARAM.</p> + +<p>There is, perhaps, one value in your election of me in this crisis of +India’s destiny, seeing that I have not the privilege to be Indian-born, +but come from that little island in the northern seas which has been, in +the West, the builder-up of free institutions. The Aryan emigrants, who +spread over the lands of Europe, carried with them the seeds of liberty +sown in their blood in their Asian cradle-land. Western historians trace +the self-rule of the Saxon villages to their earlier prototypes in the +East, and see the growth of English liberty as up-springing from the +Aryan root of the free and self-contained village communities.</p> + +<p>Its growth was crippled by Norman feudalism there, as its +millennia-nourished security here was smothered by the East India +Company. But in England it burst its shackles and nurtured a +liberty-loving people and a free Commons’ House. Here, it similarly +bourgeoned out into the Congress activities, and more recently into +those of the Muslim League, now together blossoming into Home Rule for +India. The England of Milton, Cromwell, Sydney, Burke, Paine, Shelley, +Wilberforce, Gladstone; the England that sheltered Mazzini, Kossuth, +Kropotkin, Stepniak, and that welcomed Garibaldi; the England that is +the enemy of tyranny, the foe of autocracy, the lover of freedom, that +is the England I would fain here represent to you to-day. To-day, when +India stands erect, no suppliant people, but a Nation, self-conscious, +self-respecting, determined to be free; when she stretches out her hand +to Britain and offers friendship not subservience; co-operation not +obedience; to-day let me: western-born but in spirit eastern, cradled in +England but Indian by choice and adoption: let me stand as the symbol of +union between Great Britain and India: a union of hearts and free +choice, not of compulsion: and therefore of a tie which cannot be +broken, a tie of love and of mutual helpfulness, beneficial to both +Nations and blessed by God.</p> + +<h3>GONE TO THE PEACE.</h3> + +<p>India’s great leader, Dadabhai Naoroji, has left his mortal body and is +now one of the company of the Immortals, who watch over and aid India’s +progress. He is with V.C. Bonnerjee, and Ranade, and A.O. Hume, and +Henry Cotton, and Pherozeshah Mehta, and Gopal Krishna Gokhale: the +great men who, in Swinburne’s noble verse, are the stars which lead us +to Liberty’s altar:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>These, O men, shall ye honour,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Liberty only and these.<br /></span> +<span>For thy sake and for all men’s and mine,<br /></span> +<span>Brother, the crowns of them shine,<br /></span> +<span>Lighting the way to her shrine,<br /></span> +<span>That our eyes may be fastened upon her,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That our hands may encompass her knees.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Not for me to praise him in feeble words of reverence or of homage. His +deeds praise him, and his service to his country is his abiding glory. +Our gratitude will be best paid by following in his footsteps, alike in +his splendid courage and his unfaltering devotion, so that we may win +the Home Rule which he longed to see while with us, and shall see, ere +long, from the other world of Life, in which he dwells today.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>PRE-WAR MILITARY EXPENDITURE.</h3> + +<p>The Great War, into the whirlpool of which Nation after Nation has been +drawn, has entered on its fourth year. The rigid censorship which has +been established makes it impossible for any outside the circle of +Governments to forecast its duration, but to me, speaking for a moment +not as a politician but as a student of spiritual laws, to me its end is +sure. For the true object of this War is to prove the evil of, and to +destroy, autocracy and the enslavement of one Nation by another, and to +place on sure foundations the God-given Right to Self-Rule and +Self-Development of every Nation, and the similar right of the +Individual, of the smaller Self, so far as is consistent with the +welfare of the larger Self of the Nation. The forces which make for the +prolongation of autocracy—the rule of one—and the even deadlier +bureaucracy—the rule of a close body welded into an iron system—these +have been gathered together in the Central Powers of Europe—as of old +in Ravana—in order that they may be destroyed; for the New Age cannot +be opened until the Old passes away. The new civilisation of +Righteousness and Justice, and therefore of Brotherhood, of ordered +Liberty, of Peace, of Happiness, cannot be built up until the elements +are removed which have brought the old civilisation crashing about our +ears. Therefore is it necessary that the War shall be fought out to its +appointed end, and that no premature peace shall leave its object +unattained. Autocracy and bureaucracy must perish utterly, in East and +West, and, in order that their germs may not re-sprout in the future, +they must be discredited in the minds of men. They must be proved to be +less efficient than the Governments of Free Peoples, even in their +favourite work of War, and their iron machinery—which at first brings +outer prosperity and success—must be shown to be less lasting and +effective than the living and flexible organisations of democratic +Peoples. They must be proved failures before the world, so that the +glamour of superficial successes may be destroyed for ever. They have +had their day and their place in evolution, and have done their +educative work. Now they are out-of-date, unfit for survival, and must +vanish away.</p> + +<p>When Great Britain sprang to arms, it was in defence of the freedom of a +small nation, guaranteed by treaties, and the great principles she +proclaimed electrified India and the Dominions. They all sprang to her +side without question, without delay; they heard the voice of old +England, the soldier of Liberty, and it thrilled their hearts. All were +unprepared, save the small territorial army of Great Britain, due to the +genius and foresight of Lord Haldane, and the readily mobilised army of +India, hurled into the fray by the swift decision of Lord Hardinge. The +little army of Britain fought for time; fought to stop the road to +Paris, the heart of France; fought, falling back step by step, and +gained the time it fought for, till India’s sons stood on the soil of +France, were flung to the front, rushed past the exhausted regiments who +cheered them with failing breath, charged the advancing hosts, stopped +the retreat, and joined the British army in forming that unbreakable +line which wrestled to the death through two fearful winters—often, +these soldiers of the tropics, waist-deep in freezing mud—and knew no +surrender.</p> + +<p>India, with her clear vision, saw in Great Britain the champion of +Freedom, in Germany the champion of Despotism. And she saw rightly. +Rightly she stood by Great Britain, despite her own lack of freedom and +the coercive legislation which outrivalled German despotism, knowing +these to be temporary, because un-English, and therefore doomed to +destruction; she spurned the lure of German gold and rejected German +appeals to revolt. She offered men and money; her educated classes, her +Vakils, offered themselves as Volunteers, pleaded to be accepted. Then +the never-sleeping distrust of Anglo-India rejected the offer, pressed +for money, rejected men. And, slowly, educated India sank back, +depressed and disheartened, and a splendid opportunity for knitting +together the two Nations was lost.</p> + +<p>Early in the War I ventured to say that the War could not end until +England recognised that autocracy and bureaucracy must perish in India +as well as in Europe. The good Bishop of Calcutta, with a courage worthy +of his free race, lately declared that it would be hypocritical to pray +for victory over autocracy in Europe and to maintain it in India. Now it +has been clearly and definitely declared that Self-Government is to be +the objective of Great Britain in India, and that a substantial measure +of it is to be given at once; when this promise is made good by the +granting of the Reforms outlined last year in Lucknow, then the end of +the War will be in sight. For the War cannot end till the death-knell of +autocracy is sounded.</p> + +<p>Causes, with which I will deal presently and for which India was not +responsible, have somewhat obscured the first eager expressions of +India’s sympathy, and have forced her thoughts largely towards her own +position in the Empire. But that does not detract from the immense aid +she has given, and is still giving. It must not be forgotten that long +before the present War she had submitted—at first, while she had no +power of remonstrance, and later, after 1885, despite the constant +protests of Congress—to an ever-rising military expenditure, due partly +to the amalgamation scheme of 1859, and partly to the cost of various +wars beyond her frontiers, and to continual recurring frontier and +trans-frontier expeditions, in which she had no real interest. They were +sent out for supposed Imperial advantages, not for her own.</p> + +<p>Between 1859 and 1904—45 years—Indian troops were engaged in +thirty-seven wars and expeditions. There were ten wars: the two Chinese +Wars of 1860 and 1900, the Bhutan War of 1864-65, the Abyssinian War of +1868, the Afghan War of 1878-79, and, after the massacre of the Kabul +Mission, the second War of 1879-80, ending in an advance of the +frontier, in the search for an ever receding “scientific frontier”; on +this occasion the frontier was shifted, says Keene, “from the line of +the Indus to the western slope of the Suleiman range and from Peshawar +to Quetta”; the Egyptian War of 1882, in which the Indian troops +markedly distinguished themselves; the third Burmese War of 1885 ending +in the annexation of Upper Burma in 1886; the invasions of Tibet in 1890 +and 1904. Of Expeditions, or minor Wars, there were 27; to Sitana in +1858 on a small scale and in 1863 on a larger (the “Sitana Campaign”); +to Nepal and Sikkim in 1859; to Sikkim in 1864; a serious struggle on +the North-west Frontier in 1868; expeditions against the Lushais in +1871-72, the Daflas in 1874-75, the Nagas in 1875, the Afridis in 1877, +the Rampa Hill tribes in 1879, the Waziris and Nagas in 1881, the Akhas +in 1884, and in the same year an expedition to the Zhob Valley, and a +second thither in 1890. In 1888 and 1889 there was another expedition +against Sikkim, against the Akozais (the Black Mountain Expedition) and +against the Hill Tribes of the North-east, and in 1890 another Black +Mountain Expedition, with a third in 1892. In 1890 came the expedition +to Manipur, and in 1891 there was another expedition against the +Lushais, and one into the Miranzal Valley. The Chitral Expedition +occupied 1894-95, and the serious Tirah Campaign, in which 40,000 men +were engaged, came in 1897 and 1898. The long list—which I have closed +with 1904—ends with the expeditions against the Mahsuds in 1901, +against the Kabalis in 1902, and the invasion of Tibet, before noted. +All these events explain the rise in military expenditure, and we must +add to them the sending of Indian troops to Malta and Cyprus in 1878—a +somewhat theatrical demonstration—and the expenditure of some +£2,000,000 to face what was described as “the Russian Menace” in 1884. +Most of these were due to Imperial, not to Indian, policy, and many of +the burdens imposed were protested against by the Government of India, +while others were encouraged by ambitious Viceroys. I do not think that +even this long list is complete.</p> + +<p>Ever since the Government of India was taken over by the Crown, India +has been regarded as an Imperial military asset and training ground, a +position from which the jealousy of the East India Company had largely +protected her, by insisting that the army it supported should be used +for the defence and in the interests of India alone. Her value to the +Empire for military purposes would not so seriously have injured at once +her pride and her finances if the natural tendencies of her martial +races had been permitted their previous scope; but the disarming of the +people, 20 years after the assumption of the Government by the Crown, +emasculated the Nation, and the elimination of races supposed to be +unwarlike, or in some cases too warlike to be trusted, threw recruitment +more and more to the north, and lowered the physique of the Bengalis and +Madrasis, on whom the Company had largely depended.</p> + +<p>The superiority of the Punjab, on which Sir Michael O’Dwyer so +vehemently insisted the other day, is an artificial superiority, created +by the British system and policy; and the poor recruitment elsewhere, on +which he laid offensive insistence, is due to the same system and +policy, which largely eliminated Bengalis, Madrasis and Mahrattas from +the army. In Bengal, however, the martial type has been revived, chiefly +in consequence of what the Bengalis felt to be the intolerable insult of +the high-handed Partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon.</p> + +<p>On this Gopal Krishna Gokhale said:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>Bengal’s heroic stand against the oppression of a harsh and + uncontrolled bureaucracy has astonished and gratified all + India.... All India owes a deep debt of gratitude to Bengal.</p></div> + +<p>The spirit evoked showed itself in the youth of Bengal by a practical +revolt, led by the elders, while it was confined to Swadeshi and +Boycott, and rushing on, when it broke away from their authority, into +conspiracy, assassination and dacoity: as had happened in similar +revolts with Young Italy, in the days of Mazzini, and with Young Russia +in the days of Stepniak and Kropotkin. The results of their despair, +necessarily met by the halter and penal servitude, had to be faced by +Lord Hardinge and Lord Carmichael during the present War. Other results, +happy instead of disastrous in their nature, was the development of grit +and endurance of a high character, shown in the courage of the Bengal +lads in the serious floods that have laid parts of the Province deep +under water, and in their compassion and self-sacrifice in the relief of +famine. Their services in the present War—the Ambulance Corps and the +replacement of its <i>materiel</i> when the ship carrying it sank, with the +splendid services rendered by it in Mesopotamia; the recruiting of a +Bengali regiment for active service, 900 strong, with another 900 +reserves to replace wastage, and recruiting still going on—these are +instances of the divine alchemy which brings the soul of good out of +evil action, and consecrates to service the qualities evoked by +rebellion.</p> + +<p>In England, also, a similar result has been seen in a convict, released +to go to the front, winning the Victoria Cross. It would be an act of +statesmanship, as well as of divinest compassion, to offer to every +prisoner and interned captive, held for political crime or on political +suspicion, the opportunity of serving the Empire at the front. They +might, if thought necessary, form a separate battalion or a separate +regiment, under stricter supervision, and yet be given a chance of +redeeming their reputation, for they are mostly very young.</p> + +<p>The financial burden incurred in consequence of the above conflicts, and +of other causes, now to be mentioned, would not have been so much +resented, if it had been imposed by India on herself, and if her own +sons had profited by her being used as a training ground for the +Empire. But in this case, as in so many others, she has shared Imperial +burdens, while not sharing Imperial freedom and power. Apart from this, +the change which made the Army so ruinous a burden on the resources of +the country was the system of “British reliefs,” the using of India as a +training ground for British regiments, and the transfer of the men thus +trained, to be replaced by new ones under the short service system, the +cost of the frequent transfers and their connected expenses being +charged on the Indian revenues, while the whole advantage was reaped by +Great Britain. On the short service system the Simla Army Commission +declared:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>The short service system recently introduced into the British + Army has increased the cost and has materially reduced the + efficiency of the British troops in India. We cannot resist the + feeling that, in the introduction of this system, the interest + of the Indian tax-payer was entirely left out of consideration.</p></div> + +<p>The remark was certainly justified, for the short service system gave +India only five years of the recruits she paid heavily for and trained, +all the rest of the benefit going to England. The latter was enabled, as +the years went on, to enormously increase her Reserves, so that she has +had 400,000 men trained in, and at the cost of, India.</p> + +<p>In 1863 the Indian army consisted of 140,000 men, with 65,000 white +officers. Great changes were made in 1885-1905, including the +reorganisation under Lord Kitchener, who became Commander-in-Chief at +the end of 1902. Even in this hasty review, I must not omit reference to +the fact that Army Stores were drawn from Britain at enormous cost, +while they should have been chiefly manufactured here, so that India +might have profited by the expenditure. Lately under the necessities of +War, factories have been turned to the production of munitions; but this +should have been done long ago, so that India might have been enriched +instead of exploited. The War has forced an investigation into her +mineral resources that might have been made for her own sake, but +Germany was allowed to monopolise the supply of minerals that India +could have produced and worked up, and would have produced and worked up +had she enjoyed Home Rule. India would have been richer, and the Empire +safer, had she been a partner instead of a possession. But this side of +the question will come under the matters directly affecting merchants, +and we may venture to express a hope that the Government help extended +to munition factories in time of War may be continued to industrial +factories in time of Peace. The net result of the various causes +above-mentioned was that the expense of the Indian army rose by leaps +and bounds, until, before the War, India was expending,£21,000,000 as +against the £28,000,000 expended by the United Kingdom, while the +wealthy Dominions of Canada and Australia were spending only 1-1/2 and +1-1/4 millions respectively. (I am not forgetting that the United +Kingdom was expending over £51,000,000 on her Navy, while India was free +of that burden, save for a contribution of half a million.)</p> + +<p>Since 1885, the Congress has constantly protested against the +ever-increasing military expenditure, but the voice of the Congress was +supposed to be the voice of sedition and of class ambition, instead of +being, as it was the voice of educated Indians, the most truly patriotic +and loyal class of the population. In 1885, in the First Congress, Mr. +P. Rangiah Naidu pointed out that military expenditure had been +£1,463,000 in 1857 and had risen to £16,975,750 in 1884. Mr. D.E. Wacha +ascribed the growth to the amalgamation scheme of 1859, and remarked +that the Company in 1856 had an army of 254,000 men at a cost of 11-1/2 +millions, while in 1884 the Crown had an army of only 181,000 men at a +cost of 17 millions. The rise was largely due to the increased cost of +the European regiments, overland transport service, stores, pensions, +furlough allowances, and the like, most of them imposed despite the +resistance of the Government of India, which complained that the changes +were “made entirely, it may be said, from Imperial considerations, in +which Indian interests have not been consulted or advanced.” India paid +nearly,£700,000 a year, for instance, for “Home Depôts”—Home being +England of course—in which lived some 20,000 to 22,000 British +soldiers, on the plea that their regiments, not they, were serving in +India. I cannot follow out the many increases cited by Mr. Wacha, but +members can refer to his excellent speech.</p> + +<p>Mr. Fawcett once remarked that when the East India Company was abolished</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>the English people became directly responsible for the + Government of India. It cannot, I think, be denied that this + responsibility has been so imperfectly discharged that in many + respects the new system of Government compares unfavourably + with the old.... There was at that time an independent control + of expenditure which now seems to be almost entirely wanting.</p></div> + +<p>Shortly after the Crown assumed the rule of India, Mr. Disraeli asked +the House of Commons to regard India as “a great and solemn trust +committed to it by an all-wise and inscrutable Providence.” Mr. George +Yule, in the Fourth Congress, remarked on this: “The 650 odd members had +thrown the trust back upon the hands of Providence, to be looked after +as Providence itself thinks best.” Perhaps it is time that India should +remember that Providence helps those who help themselves.</p> + +<p>Year after year the Congress continued to remonstrate against the cost +of the army, until in 1902, after all the futile protests of the +intervening years, it condemned an increase of pay to British soldiers +in India which placed an additional burden on the Indian revenues of +£786,000 a year, and pointed out that the British garrison was +unnecessarily numerous, as was shown by the withdrawal of large bodies +of British soldiers for service in South Africa and China. The very next +year Congress protested that the increasing military expenditure was not +to secure India against internal disorder or external attack, but in +order to carry out an Imperial policy; the Colonies contributed little +or nothing to the Imperial Military Expenditure, while India bore the +cost of about one-third of the whole British Army in addition to her own +Indian troops. Surely these facts should be remembered when India’s +military services to the Empire are now being weighed.</p> + +<p>In 1904 and 1905, the Congress declared that the then military +expenditure was beyond India’s power to bear, and in the latter year +prayed that the additional ten millions sterling sanctioned for Lord +Kitchener’s reorganisation scheme might be devoted to education and the +reduction of the burden on the raiyats. In 1908, the burdens imposed by +the British War Office since 1859 were condemned, and in the next year +it was pointed out that the military expenditure was nearly a third of +the whole Indian revenue, and was starving Education and Sanitation.</p> + +<p>Lord Kitchener’s reorganisation scheme kept the Indian Army on a War +footing, ready for immediate mobilisation, and on January 1, 1915, the +regular army consisted of 247,000 men, of whom 75,000 were English; it +was the money spent by India in maintaining this army for years in +readiness for War which made it possible for her to go to the help of +Great Britain at the critical early period to which I alluded. She spent +over £20 millions on the military services in 1914-15. In 1915-16 she +spent £21.8 millions. In 1916-17 her military budget had risen to £12 +millions, and it will probably be exceeded, as was the budget of the +preceding year by £1-2/3 million.</p> + +<p>Lord Hardinge, the last Viceroy of India, who is ever held in loving +memory here for his sympathetic attitude towards Indian aspirations, +made a masterly exposition of India’s War services in the House of Lords +on the third of last July. He emphasised her pre-War services, showing +that though 19-1/4 millions sterling was fixed as a maximum by the +Nicholson Committee, that amount had been exceeded in 11 out of the last +13 budgets, while his own last budget had risen to 22 millions. During +these 13 years the revenue had been only between 48 and 58 millions, +once rising to 60 millions. Could any fact speak more eloquently of +India’s War services than this proportion of military expenditure +compared with her revenue?</p> + +<p>The Great War began on August 4th, and in that very month and in the +early part of September, India sent an expeditionary force of three +divisions—two infantry and one cavalry—and another cavalry division +joined them in France in November. The first arrived, said Lord +Hardinge, “in time to fill a gap that could not otherwise have been +filled.” He added pathetically: “There are very few survivors of those +two splendid divisions of infantry.” Truly, their homes are empty, but +their sons shall enjoy in India the liberty for which their fathers died +in France. Three more divisions were at once sent to guard the Indian +frontier, while in September a mixed division was sent to East Africa, +and in October and November two more divisions and a brigade of cavalry +went to Egypt. A battalion of Indian infantry went to Mauritius, another +to the Cameroons, and two to the Persian Gulf, while other Indian troops +helped the Japanese in the capture of Tsingtau. 210,000 Indians were +thus sent overseas. The whole of these troops were fully armed and +equipped, and in addition, during the first few weeks of the War, India +sent to England from her magazines “70 million rounds of small-arm +ammunition, 60,000 rifles, and more than 550 guns of the latest pattern +and type.”</p> + +<p>In addition to these, Lord Hardinge speaks of sending to England</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>enormous quantities of material, ... tents, boots, saddlery, + clothing, etc., but every effort was made to meet the + ever-increasing demands made by the War Office, and it may be + stated without exaggeration that India was bled absolutely + white during the first few weeks of the war.</p></div> + +<p>It must not be forgotten, though Lord Hardinge has not reckoned it, that +all wastage has been more than filled up, and 450,000 men represent this +head; the increase in units has been 300,000, and including other +military items India had placed in the field up to the end of 1916 over +a million of men.</p> + +<p>In addition to this a British force of 80,000 was sent from India, fully +trained and equipped at Indian cost, India receiving in exchange, many +months later, 34 Territorial battalions and 29 batteries, “unfit for +immediate employment on the frontier or in Mesopotamia, until they had +been entirely re-armed and equipped, and their training completed.”</p> + +<p>Between the autumn of 1914 and the close of 1915, the defence of our own +frontiers was a serious matter, and Lord Hardinge says:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>The attitude of Afghanistan was for a long time doubtful, + although I always had confidence in the personal loyalty of our + ally the Amir; but I feared lest he might be overwhelmed by a + wave of fanaticism, or by a successful Jehad of the tribes.... + It suffices to mention that, although during the previous three + years there had been no operations of any importance on the + North-West frontier, there were, between November 29, 1914, and + September 5, 1915, no less than seven serious attacks on the + North-West frontier, all of which were effectively dealt with.</p></div> + +<p>The military authorities had also to meet a German conspiracy early in +1915, 7,000 men arriving from Canada and the United States, having +planned to seize points of military vantage in the Panjab, and in +December of the same year another German conspiracy in Bengal, +necessitating military preparations on land, and also naval patrols in +the Bay of Bengal.</p> + +<p>Lord Hardinge has been much attacked by the Tory and Unionist Press in +England and India, in England because of the Mesopotamia Report, in +India because his love for India brought him hatred from Anglo-India. +India has affirmed her confidence in him, and with India’s verdict he +may well rest satisfied.</p> + +<p>I do not care to dwell on the Mesopotamia Commission and its +condemnation of the bureaucratic system prevailing here. Lord Hardinge +vindicated himself and India. The bureaucratic system remains +undefended. I recall that bureaucratic inefficiency came out in even +more startling fashion in connection with the Afghan War of 1878-79 and +1879-80. In February 1880, the war charges were reported as under £4 +millions, and the accounts showed a surplus of £2 millions. On April 8th +the Government of India reported: “Outgoing for War very alarming, far +exceeding estimate,” and on the 13th April “it was announced that the +cash balances had fallen in three months from thirteen crores to less +than nine, owing to ‘excessive Military drain’ ... On the following day +(April 22) a despatch was sent out to the Viceroy, showing that there +appeared a deficiency of not less than 5-1/4 crores. This vast error was +evidently due to an underestimate of war liabilities, which had led to +such mis-information being laid before Parliament, and to the sudden +discovery of inability to ‘meet the usual drawings.’”</p> + +<p>It seemed that the Government knew only the amount audited, not the +amount spent. Payments were entered as “advances,” though they were not +recoverable, and “the great negligence was evidently that of the heads +of departmental accounts.” If such a mishap should occur under Home +Rule, a few years hence—which heaven forbid—I shudder to think of the +comments of the <i>Englishman</i> and the <i>Madras Mail</i> on the shocking +inefficiency of Indian officials.</p> + +<p>In September last, our present Viceroy, H.E. Lord Chelmsford, defended +India against later attacks by critics who try to minimise her +sacrifices in order to lessen the gratitude felt by Great Britain +towards her, lest that gratitude should give birth to justice, and +justice should award freedom to India. Lord Chelmsford placed before his +Council “in studiously considered outline, a summary of what India has +done during the past two years.” Omitting his references to what was +done under Lord Hardinge, as stated above, I may quote from him:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>On the outbreak of war, of the 4,598 British officers on the + Indian establishment, 530 who were at home on leave were + detained by the War Office for service in Europe. 2,600 + Combatant Officers have been withdrawn from India since the + beginning of the War, excluding those who proceeded on service + with their batteries or regiments. In order to make good these + deficiencies and provide for war wastage the Indian Army + Reserve of Officers was expanded from a total of 40, at which + it stood on the 4th August, 1914, to one of 2,000.</p> + +<p> The establishment of Indian units has not only been kept up to + strength, but has been considerably increased. There has been + an augmentation of 20 per cent. in the cavalry and of 40 per + cent. in the infantry, while the number of recruits enlisted + since the beginning of the War is greater than the entire + strength of the Indian Army as it existed on August 4, 1914.</p></div> + +<p>Lord Chelmsford rightly pointed out:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>The Army in India has thus proved a great Imperial asset, and + in weighing the value of India’s contribution to the War it + should be remembered that India’s forces were no hasty + improvisation, but were an army in being, fully equipped and + supplied, which had previously cost India annually a large sum + to maintain.</p></div> + +<p>Lord Chelmsford has established what he calls a “Man-Power Board,” the +duty of which is “to collect and co-ordinate all the facts with regard +to the supply of man-power in India.” It has branches in all the +Provinces. A steady flow of reinforcements supplies the wastage at the +various fronts, and the labour required for engineering, transport, +etc., is now organised in 20 corps in Mesopotamia and 25 corps in +France. In addition 60,000 artisans, labourers, and specialists are +serving in Mesopotamia and East Africa, and some 20,000 menials and +followers have also gone overseas. Indian medical practitioners have +accepted temporary commissions in the Indian Medical Service to the +number of 500. In view of this fact, due to Great Britain’s bitter need +of help, may we not hope that this Service will welcome Indians in time +of peace as well as in time of war, and will no longer bar the way by +demanding the taking of a degree in the United Kingdom? It is also +worthy of notice that the I.M.S. officers in charge of district duties +have been largely replaced by Indian medical men; this, again, should +continue after the War. Another fact, that the Army Reserve of Officers +his risen from 40 to 2,000, suggests that the throwing open of King’s +Commissions to qualified Indians should not be represented by a meagre +nine. If English lads of 19 and 20 are worthy of King’s Commissions—and +the long roll of slain Second Lieutenants proves it—then certainly +Indian lads, since Indians have fought as bravely as Englishmen, should +find the door thrown open to them equally widely in their own country, +and the Indian Army should be led by Indian officers.</p> + +<p>With such a record of deeds as the one I have baldly sketched, it is not +necessary to say much in words as to India’s support of Great Britain +and her Allies. She has proved up to the hilt her desire to remain +within the Empire, to maintain her tie with Great Britain. But if +Britain is to call successfully on India’s man-power, as Lord Chelmsford +suggests in his Man-Power Board, then must the man who fights or labours +have a man’s Rights in his own land. The lesson which springs out of +this War is that it is absolutely necessary for the future safety of the +Empire that India shall have Home Rule. Had her Man-Power been utilised +earlier there would have been no War, for none would have dared to +provoke Great Britain and India to a contest. But her Man-Power cannot +be utilised while she is a subject Nation. She cannot afford to maintain +a large army, if she is to support an English garrison, to pay for their +goings and comings, to buy stores in England at exorbitant prices and +send them back again when England needs them. She cannot afford to train +men for England, and only have their services for five years. She cannot +afford to keep huge Gold Reserves in England, and be straitened for +cash, while she lends to England out of her Reserves, taken from her +over-taxation, £27,000,000 for War expenses, and this, be it remembered, +before the great War Loan. I once said in England: “The condition of +India’s loyalty is India’s freedom.” I may now add: “The condition of +India’s usefulness to the Empire is India’s freedom.” She will tax +herself willingly when her taxes remain in the country and fertilise it, +when they educate her people and thus increase their productive power, +when they foster her trade and create for her new industries.</p> + +<p>Great Britain needs India as much as India needs England, for prosperity +in Peace as well as for safety in War. Mr. Montagu has wisely said that +“for equipment in War a Nation needs freedom in Peace.” Therefore I say +that, for both countries alike, the lesson of the War is Home Rule for +India.</p> + +<p>Let me close this part of my subject by laying at the feet of His +Imperial Majesty the loving homage of the thousands here assembled, with +the hope and belief that, ere long, we shall lay there the willing and +grateful homage of a free Nation.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>CAUSES OF THE NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA.</h3> + +<p>Apart from the natural exchange of thought between East and West, the +influence of English education, literature and ideals, the effect of +travel in Europe, Japan and the United States of America, and other +recognised causes for the changed outlook in India, there have been +special forces at work during the last few years to arouse a New Spirit +in India, and to alter her attitude of mind. These may be summed up as:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"> +<p>(<i>a</i>) The Awakening of Asia.</p> + +<p> (<i>b</i>) Discussions abroad on Alien Rule and Imperial + Reconstruction.</p> + +<p> (<i>c</i>) Loss of Belief in the Superiority of the White Races.</p> + +<p> (<i>d</i>) The Awakening of Indian Merchants.</p> + +<p> (<i>e</i>) The Awakening of Indian Womanhood to claim its Ancient + Position.</p> + +<p> (<i>f</i>) The Awakening of the Masses.</p> +</div> + +<p>Each of these causes has had its share in the splendid change of +attitude in the Indian Nation, in the uprising of a spirit of pride of +country, of independence, of self-reliance, of dignity, of self-respect. +The War has quickened the rate of evolution of the world, and no country +has experienced the quickening more than our Motherland.</p> + +<h3>THE AWAKENING OF ASIA.</h3> + +<p>In a conversation I had with Lord Minto, soon after his arrival as +Viceroy, he discussed the so-called “unrest in India,” and recognised it +as the inevitable result of English Education, of English Ideals of +Democracy, of the Japanese victory over Russia, and of the changing +conditions in the outer world. I was therefore not surprised to read his +remark that he recognised, “frankly and publicly, that new aspirations +were stirring in the hearts of the people, that they were part of a +larger movement common to the whole East, and that it was necessary to +satisfy them to a reasonable extent by giving them a larger share in the +administration.”</p> + +<p>But the present movement in India will be very poorly understood if it +be regarded only in connexion with the movement in the East. The +awakening of Asia is part of a world-movement, which has been quickened +into marvellous rapidity by the world-war. The world-movement is towards +Democracy, and for the West dates from the breaking away of the American +Colonies from Great Britain, consummated in 1776, and its sequel in the +French Revolution of 1789. Needless to say that its root was in the +growth of modern science, undermining the fabric of intellectual +servitude, in the work of the Encyclopædists, and in that of +Jean-Jacques Rousseau and of Thomas Paine. In the East, the swift +changes in Japan, the success of the Japanese Empire against Russia, the +downfall of the Manchu dynasty in China and the establishment of a +Chinese Republic, the efforts at improvement in Persia, hindered by the +interference of Russia and Great Britain with their growing ambitions, +and the creation of British and Russian “spheres of influence,” +depriving her of her just liberty, and now the Russian Revolution and +the probable rise of a Russian Republic in Europe and Asia, have all +entirely changed the conditions before existing in India. Across Asia, +beyond the Himalayas, stretch free and self-ruling Nations. India no +longer sees as her Asian neighbours the huge domains of a Tsar and a +Chinese despot, and compares her condition under British rule with those +of their subject populations. British rule profited by the comparison, +at least until 1905, when the great period of repression set in. But in +future, unless India wins Self-Government, she will look enviously at +her Self-Governing neighbours, and the contrast will intensify her +unrest.</p> + +<p>But even if she gains Home Rule, as I believe she will, her position in +the Empire will imperatively demand that she shall be strong as well as +free. She becomes not only a vulnerable point in the Empire, as the +Asian Nations evolve their own ambitions and rivalries, but also a +possession to be battled for. Mr. Laing once said: “India is the +milch-cow of England,” a Kamadhenu, in fact, a cow of plenty; and if +that view should arise in Asia, the ownership of the milch-cow would +become a matter of dispute, as of old between Vashishtha and +Vishvamitra. Hence India must be capable of self-defence both by land +and sea. There may be a struggle for the primacy of Asia, for supremacy +in the Pacific, for the mastery of Australasia, to say nothing of the +inevitable trade-struggles, in which Japan is already endangering Indian +industry and Indian trade, while India is unable to protect herself.</p> + +<p>In order to face these larger issues with equanimity, the Empire +requires a contented, strong, self-dependent and armed India, able to +hold her own and to aid the Dominions, especially Australia, with her +small population and immense unoccupied and undefended area. India alone +has the man-power which can effectively maintain the Empire in Asia, and +it is a short-sighted, a criminally short-sighted, policy not to build +up her strength as a Self-Governing State within the Commonwealth of +Free Nations under the British Crown. The Englishmen in India talk +loudly of their interests; what can this mere handful do to protect +their interests against attack in the coming years? Only in a free and +powerful India will they be safe. Those who read Japanese papers know +how strongly, even during the War, they parade unchecked their +pro-German sympathies, and how likely after the War is an alliance +between these two ambitious and warlike Nations. Japan will come out of +the War with her army and navy unweakened, and her trade immensely +strengthened. Every consideration of sane statesmanship should lead +Great Britain to trust India more than Japan, so that the British Empire +in Asia may rest on the sure foundation of Indian loyalty, the loyalty +of a free and contented people, rather than be dependent on the +continued friendship of a possible future rival. For international +friendships are governed by National interests, and are built on +quicksands, not on rock.</p> + +<p>Englishmen in India must give up the idea that English dominance is +necessary for the protection of their interests, amounting, in 1915, to +£365,399,000 sterling. They do not claim to dominate the United States +of America, because they have invested there £688,078,000. They do not +claim to dominate the Argentine Republic, because they have invested +there £269,808,000. Why then should they claim to dominate India on the +ground of their investment? Britons must give up the idea that India is +a possession to be exploited for their own benefit, and must see her as +a friend, an equal, a Self-Governing Dominion within the Empire, a +Nation like themselves, a willing partner in the Empire, and not a +dependent. The democratic movement in Japan, China and Russia in Asia +has sympathetically affected India, and it is idle to pretend that it +will cease to affect her.</p> + +<h3>DISCUSSIONS ABROAD ON ALIEN RULE AND IMPERIAL RECONSTRUCTION.</h3> + +<p>But there are other causes which have been working in India, consequent +on the British attitude against autocracy and in defence of freedom in +Europe, while her attitude to India has, until lately, been left in +doubt. Therefore I spoke of a splendid opportunity lost. India at first +believed whole-heartedly that Great Britain was fighting for the freedom +of all Nationalities. Even now, Mr. Asquith declared—in his speech in +the House of Commons reported here last October, on the peace resolution +of Mr. Ramsay Macdonald—that “the Allies are fighting for nothing but +freedom, and, an important addition—for nothing short of freedom.” In +his speech declaring that Britain would stand by France in her claim for +the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, he spoke of “the intolerable +degradation of a foreign yoke.” Is such a yoke less intolerable, less +wounding to self-respect here, than in Alsace-Lorraine, where the rulers +and the ruled are both of European blood, similar in religion and +habits? As the War went on, India slowly and unwillingly came to realise +that the hatred of autocracy was confined to autocracy in the West, and +that the degradation was only regarded as intolerable for men of white +races; that freedom was lavishly promised to all except to India; that +new powers were to be given to the Dominions, but not to India. India +was markedly left out of the speeches of statesmen dealing with the +future of the Empire, and at last there was plain talk of the White +Empire, the Empire of the Five Nations, and the “coloured races” were +lumped together as the wards of the White Empire, doomed to an +indefinite minority.</p> + +<p>The peril was pressing; the menace unmistakable. The Reconstruction of +the Empire was on the anvil; what was to be India’s place therein? The +Dominions were proclaimed as partners; was India to remain a Dependency? +Mr. Bonar Law bade the Dominions strike while the iron was hot; was +India to wait till it was cold? India saw her soldiers fighting for +freedom in Flanders, in France, in Gallipoli, in Asia Minor, in China, +in Africa; was she to have no share of the freedom for which she fought? +At last she sprang to her feet and cried, in the words of one of her +noblest sons: “Freedom is my birthright; and I want it.” The words “Home +Rule” became her Mantram. She claimed her place in the Empire.</p> + +<p>Thus, while she continued to support, and even to increase, her army +abroad, fighting for the Empire, and poured out her treasures as water +for Hospital Ships, War Funds, Red Cross organisations, and the gigantic +War Loan, a dawning fear oppressed her, lest, if she did not take order +with her own household, success in the War for the Empire might mean +decreased liberty for herself.</p> + +<p>The recognition of the right of the Indian Government to make its voice +heard in Imperial matters, when they were under discussion in an +Imperial Conference, was a step in the right direction. But +disappointment was felt that while other countries were represented by +responsible Ministers, the representation in India’s case was of the +Government, of a Government irresponsible to her, and not the +representative of herself. No fault was found with the choice itself, +but only with the non-representative character of the chosen, for they +were selected by the Government, and not by the elected members of the +Supreme Council. This defect in the resolution moved by the Hon. Khan +Bahadur M.M. Shafi on October 2, 1915, was pointed out by the Hon. Mr. +Surendranath Bannerji. He said:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>My Lord, in view of a situation so full of hope and promise, it + seems to me that my friend’s Resolution does not go far enough. + He pleads for <i>official</i> representation at the Imperial + Conference: he does not plead for <i>popular</i> representation. He + urges that an address be presented to His Majesty’s Government, + through the Secretary of State for India, for official + representation at the Imperial Council. My Lord, official + representation may mean little or nothing. It may indeed be + attended with some risk; for I am sorry to have to say—but say + it I must—that our officials do not always see eye to eye with + us as regards many great public questions which affect this + country; and indeed their views, judged from our standpoint, + may sometimes seem adverse to our interests. At the same time, + my Lord, I recognise the fact that the Imperial Conference is + an assemblage of officials pure and simple, consisting of + Ministers of the United Kingdom and of the self-governing + Colonies. But, my Lord, there is an essential difference + between them and ourselves. In their case, the Ministers are + the elect of the people, their organ and their voice, + answerable to them for their conduct and their proceedings. In + our case, our officials are public servants in name, but in + reality they are the masters of the public. The situation may + improve, and I trust it will, under the liberalising influence + of your Excellency’s beneficent administration; but we must + take things as they are, and not indulge in building castles in + the air, which may vanish “like the baseless fabric of a + vision.”</p></div> + +<p>It was said to be an epoch-making event that “Indian Representatives” +took part in the Conference. Representatives they were, but, as said, of +the British Government in India, not of India, whereas their colleagues +represented their Nations. They did good work, none the less, for they +were able and experienced men, though they failed us in the Imperial +Preference Conference and, partially, on the Indentured Labour question. +Yet we hope that the presence in the Conference of men of Indian birth +may prove to be the proverbial “thin end of the wedge,” and may have +convinced their colleagues that, while India was still a Dependency, +India’s sons were fully their equals.</p> + +<p>The Report of the Public Services Commission, though now too obviously +obsolete to be discussed, caused both disappointment and resentment; for +it showed that, in the eyes of the majority of the Commissioners, +English domination in Indian administration was to be perpetual, and +that thirty years hence she would only hold a pitiful 25 per cent. of +the higher appointments in the I.C.S. and the Police. I cannot, however, +mention that Commission, even in passing, without voicing India’s thanks +to the Hon. Mr. Justice Rahim, for his rare courage in writing a +solitary Minute of Dissent, in which he totally rejected the Report, and +laid down the right principles which should govern recruitment for the +Indian Civil Services.</p> + +<p>India had but three representatives on the Commission; G.K. Gokhale died +ere it made its Report, his end quickened by his sufferings during its +work, by the humiliation of the way in which his countrymen were +treated. Of Mr. Abdur Rahim I have already spoken. The Hon. Mr. M.B. +Chaubal signed the Report, but dissented from some of its most important +recommendations. The whole Report was written “before the flood,” and it +is now merely an antiquarian curiosity.</p> + +<p>India, for all these reasons, was forced to see before her a future of +perpetual subordination: the Briton rules in Great Britain, the +Frenchman in France, the American in America, each Dominion in its own +area, but the Indian was to rule nowhere; alone among the peoples of the +world, he was not to feel his own country as his own. “Britain for the +British” was right and natural; “India for the Indians” was wrong, even +seditious. It must be “India for the Empire,” or not even for the +Empire, but “for the rest of the Empire,” careless of herself. “British +support for British Trade” was patriotic and proper in Britain. +“Swadeshi goods for Indians” showed a petty and anti-Imperial spirit in +India. The Indian was to continue to live perpetually, and even +thankfully, as Gopal Krishna Gokhale said he lived now, in “an +atmosphere of inferiority,” and to be proud to be a citizen (without +rights) of the Empire, while its other component Nations were to be +citizens (with rights) in their own countries first, and citizens of the +Empire secondarily. Just as his trust in Great Britain was strained +nearly to breaking point came the glad news of Mr. Montagu’s appointment +as Secretary of State for India, of the Viceroy’s invitation to him, and +of his coming to hear for himself what India wanted. It was a ray of +sunshine breaking through the gloom, confidence in Great Britain +revived, and glad preparation was made to welcome the coming of a +friend.</p> + +<p>The attitude of India has changed to meet the changed attitude of the +Governments of India and Great Britain. But let none imagine that that +consequential change of attitude connotes any change in her +determination to win Home Rule. She is ready to consider terms of peace, +but it must be “peace with honour,” and honour in this connection means +Freedom. If this be not granted, an even more vigorous agitation will +begin.</p> + +<h3>LOSS OF BELIEF IN THE SUPERIORITY OF WHITE RACES</h3> + +<p>The undermining of this belief dates from the spreading of the Arya +Samaj and the Theosophical Society. Both bodies sought to lead the +Indian people to a sense of the value of their own civilisation, to +pride in their past, creating self-respect in the present, and +self-confidence in the future. They destroyed the unhealthy inclination +to imitate the West in all things, and taught discrimination, the using +only of what was valuable in western thought and culture, instead of a +mere slavish copying of everything. Another great force was that of +Swami Vivekananda, alike in his passionate love and admiration for +India, and his exposure of the evils resulting from Materialism in the +West. Take the following:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>Children of India, I am here to speak to you to-day about some + practical things, and my object in reminding you about the + glories of the past is simply this. Many times have I been told + that looking into the past only degenerates and leads to + nothing, and that we should look to the future. That is true. + But out of the past is built the future. Look back, therefore, + as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are + behind, and after that, look forward, march forward, and make + India brighter, greater, much higher than she ever was. Our + ancestors were great. We must recall that. We must learn the + elements of our being, the blood that courses in our veins; we + must have faith in that blood, and what it did in the past: and + out of that faith, and consciousness of past greatness, we must + build an India yet greater than what she has been.</p></div> + +<p>And again:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>I know for certain that millions, I say deliberately, millions, + in every civilised land are waiting for the message that will + save them from the hideous abyss of materialism into which + modern money-worship is driving them headlong, and many of the + leaders of the new Social Movements have already discovered + that Vedanta in its highest form can alone spiritualise their + social aspirations.</p></div> + +<p>The process was continued by the admiration of Sanskrit literature +expressed by European scholars and philosophers. But the effect of these +was confined to the few and did not reach the many. The first great +shock to the belief in white superiority came from the triumph of Japan +over Russia, the facing of a huge European Power by a comparatively +small Eastern Nation, the exposure of the weakness and rottenness of the +Russian leaders, and the contrast with their hardy virile opponents, +ready to sacrifice everything for their country.</p> + +<p>The second great shock has come from the frank brutality of German +theories of the State, and their practical carrying out in the treatment +of conquered districts and the laying waste of evacuated areas in +retreat. The teachings of Bismarck and their practical application in +France, Flanders, Belgium, Poland, and Serbia have destroyed all the +glamour of the superiority of Christendom over Asia. Its vaunted +civilisation is seen to be but a thin veneer, and its religion a matter +of form rather than of life. Gazing from afar at the ghastly heaps of +dead and the hosts of the mutilated, at science turned into devilry and +ever inventing new tortures for rending and slaying, Asia may be +forgiven for thinking that, on the whole, she prefers her own religions +and her own civilisations.</p> + +<p>But even deeper than the outer tumult of war has pierced the doubt as to +the reality of the Ideals of Liberty and Nationality so loudly +proclaimed by the foremost western Nations, the doubt of the honesty of +their champions. Sir James Meston said truly, a short time ago, that he +had never, in his long experience, known Indians in so distrustful and +suspicious a mood as that which he met in them to-day. And that is so. +For long years Indians have been chafing over the many breaches of +promises and pledges to them that remain unredeemed. The maintenance +here of a system of political repression, of coercive measures increased +in number and more harshly applied since 1905, the carrying of the +system to a wider extent since the War for the sanctity of treaties and +for the protection of Nationalities has been going on, have deepened the +mistrust. A frank and courageous statesmanship applied to the honest +carrying out of large reforms too long delayed can alone remove it. The +time for political tinkering is past; the time for wise and definite +changes is here.</p> + +<p>To these deep causes must be added the comparison between the +progressive policy of some of the Indian States in matters which most +affect the happiness of the people, and the slow advance made under +British administration. The Indian notes that this advance is made under +the guidance of rulers and ministers of his own race. When he sees that +the suggestions made in the People’s Assembly in Mysore are fully +considered and, when possible, given effect to, he realises that without +the forms of power the members exercise more real power than those in +our Legislative Councils. He sees education spreading, new industries +fostered, villagers encouraged to manage their own affairs and take the +burden of their own responsibility, and he wonders why Indian incapacity +is so much more efficient than British capacity.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, after all, for Indians, Indian rule may be the best.</p> + +<h3>THE AWAKENING OF THE MERCHANTS.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>THE AWAKENING OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD.</h3> + +<p>The position of women in the ancient Aryan civilisation was a very noble +one. The great majority married, becoming, as Manu said, the Light of +the Home; some took up the ascetic life, remained unmarried, and sought +the knowledge of Brahma. The story of the Rani Damayanti, to whom her +husband’s ministers came, when they were troubled by the Raja’s +gambling, that of Gandhari, in the Council of Kings and Warrior Chiefs, +remonstrating with her headstrong son; in later days, of Padmavati of +Chitoor, of Mirabai of Marwar, the sweet poetess, of Tarabai of Thoda, +the warrior, of Chand Bibi, the defender of Ahmednagar, of Ahalya Bai of +Indore, the great Ruler—all these and countless others are well known.</p> + +<p>Only in the last two or three generations have Indian women slipped away +from their place at their husbands’ side, and left them unhelped in +their public life. But even now they wield great influence over husband +and son. Culture has never forsaken them, but the English education of +their husbands and sons, with the neglect of Sanskrit and the +Vernacular, have made a barrier between the culture of the husband and +that of the wife, and has shut the woman out from her old sympathy with +the larger life of men. While the interests of the husband have +widened, those of the wife have narrowed. The materialising of the +husband tended also, by reaction, to render the wife’s religion less +broad and wise.</p> + +<p>The wish to save their sons from the materialising results of English +education awoke keen sympathy among Indian mothers with the movement to +make religion an integral part of education. It was, perhaps, the first +movement in modern days which aroused among them in all parts a keen and +living interest.</p> + +<p>The Partition of Bengal was bitterly resented by Bengali women, and was +another factor in the outward-turning change. When the editor of an +Extremist newspaper was prosecuted for sedition, convicted and +sentenced, five hundred Bengali women went to his mother to show their +sympathy, not by condolences, but by congratulations. Such was the +feeling of the well-born women of Bengal.</p> + +<p>Then the troubles of Indians outside India roused the ever quick +sympathy of Indian women, and the attack in South Africa on the +sacredness of Indian marriage drew large numbers of them out of their +homes to protest against the wrong.</p> + +<p>The Indentured Labour question, involving the dishonour of women, again, +moved them deeply, and even sent a deputation to the Viceroy composed of +women.</p> + +<p>These were, perhaps, the chief outer causes; but deep in the heart of +India’s daughters arose the Mother’s voice, calling on them to help Her +to arise, and to be once more mistress in Her own household. Indian +women, nursed on Her old literature, with its wonderful ideals of +womanly perfection, could not remain indifferent to the great movement +for India’s liberty. And during the last few years the hidden fire, long +burning in their hearts, fire of love to Bharatamata, fire of resentment +against the lessened influence of the religion which they passionately +love, instinctive dislike of the foreigner as ruling in their land, have +caused a marvellous awakening. The strength of the Home Rule movement is +rendered tenfold greater by the adhesion to it of large numbers of +women, who bring to its helping the uncalculating heroism, the +endurance, the self-sacrifice, of the feminine nature. Our League’s best +recruits are among the women of India, and the women of Madras boast +that they marched in procession when the men were stopped, and that +their prayers in the temples set the interned captives free. Home Rule +has become so intertwined with religion by the prayers offered up in the +great Southern Temples, sacred places of pilgrimage, and spreading from +them to village temples, and also by its being preached up and down the +country by Sadhus and Sannyasins, that it has become in the minds of the +women and of the ever religious masses, inextricably intertwined with +religion. That is, in this country, the surest way of winning alike the +women of the higher classes and the men and women villagers. And that is +why I have said that the two words, “Home Rule,” have become a Mantram.</p> + +<h3>THE AWAKENING OF THE MASSES.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>WHY INDIA DEMANDS HOME RULE.</h3> + +<p>India demands Home Rule for two reasons, one essential and vital, the +other less important but necessary: Firstly, because Freedom is the +birthright of every Nation; secondly, because her most important +interests are now made subservient to the interests of the British +Empire without her consent, and her resources are not utilised for her +greatest needs. It is enough only to mention the money spent on her +Army, not for local defence but for Imperial purposes, as compared with +that spent on primary education.</p> + +<h3>I. THE VITAL REASON.</h3> + +<h4><i>What is a Nation</i>?</h4> + +<p>Self-Government is necessary to the self-respect and dignity of a +People; Other-Government emasculates a Nation, lowers its character, and +lessens its capacity. The wrong done by the Arms Act, which Raja Rampal +Singh voiced in the Second Congress as a wrong which outweighed all the +benefits of British Rule, was its weakening and debasing effect on +Indian manhood. “We cannot,” he declared, “be grateful to it for +degrading our natures, for systematically crushing out all martial +spirit, for converting a race of soldiers and heroes into a timid flock +of quill-driving sheep.” This was done not by the fact that a man did +not carry arms—few carry them in England—but that men were deprived of +the <i>right</i> to carry them. A Nation, an individual, cannot develop his +capacities to the utmost without liberty. And this is recognised +everywhere except in India. As Mazzini truly said:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>God has written a line of His thought over the cradle of every + people. That is its special mission. It cannot be cancelled; it + must be freely developed.</p></div> + +<p>For what is a Nation? It is a spark of the Divine Fire, a fragment of +the Divine Life, outbreathed into the world, and gathering round itself +a mass of individuals, men, women and children, whom it binds together +into one. Its qualities, its powers, in a word, its type, depend on the +fragment of the Divine Life embodied in it, the Life which shapes it, +evolves it, colours it, and makes it One. The magic of Nationality is +the feeling of oneness, and the use of Nationality is to serve the world +in the particular way for which its type fits it. This is what Mazzini +called “its special mission,” the duty given to it by God in its +birth-hour. Thus India had the duty of spreading the idea of Dharma, +Persia that of Purity, Egypt that of Science, Greece that of Beauty, +Rome that of Law. But to render its full service to Humanity it must +develop along its own lines, and be Self-determined in its evolution. It +must be Itself, and not Another. The whole world suffers where a +Nationality is distorted or suppressed, before its mission to the world +is accomplished.</p> + +<h4><i>The Cry for Self-Rule.</i></h4> + +<p>Hence the cry of a Nation for Freedom, for Self-Rule, is not a cry of +mere selfishness demanding more Rights that it may enjoy more happiness. +Even in that there is nothing wrong, for happiness means fulness of +life, and to enjoy such fulness is a righteous claim. But the demand for +Self-Rule is a demand for the evolution of its own nature for the +Service of Humanity. It is a demand of the deepest Spirituality, an +expression of the longing to give its very best to the world. Hence +dangers cannot check it, nor threats appal, nor offerings of greater +pleasures lure it to give up its demand for Freedom. In the adapted +words of a Christian Scripture, it passionately cries: “What shall it +profit a Nation if it gain the whole world and lose its own Soul? What +shall a Nation give in exchange for its Soul?” Better hardship and +freedom, than luxury and thraldom. This is the spirit of the Home Rule +movement, and therefore it cannot be crushed, it cannot be destroyed, it +is eternal and ever young. Nor can it be persuaded to exchange its +birthright for any mess of efficiency-pottage at the hands of the +bureaucracy.</p> + +<h4><i>Stunting the Race</i>.</h4> + +<p>Coming closer to the daily life of the people as individuals, we see +that the character of each man, woman and child is degraded and weakened +by a foreign administration, and this is most keenly felt by the best +Indians. Speaking on the employment of Indians in the Public Services, +Gopal Krishna Gokhale said:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>A kind of dwarfing or stunting of the Indian race is going on + under the present system. We must live all the days of our life + in an atmosphere of inferiority, and the tallest of us must + bend, in order that the exigencies of the system may be + satisfied. The upward impulse, if I may use such an expression, + which every schoolboy at Eton or Harrow may feel that he may + one day be a Gladstone, a Nelson, or a Wellington, and which + may draw forth the best efforts of which he is capable, that is + denied to us. The full height to which our manhood is capable + of rising can never be reached by us under the present system. + The moral elevation which every Self-governing people feel + cannot be felt by us. Our administrative and military talents + must gradually disappear owing to sheer disuse, till at last + our lot, as hewers of wood and drawers of water in our own + country, is stereotyped.</p></div> + +<p>The Hon. Mr. Bhupendranath Basu has spoken on similar lines:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>A bureaucratic administration, conducted by an imported agency, + and centring all power in its hands, and undertaking all + responsibility, has acted as a dead weight on the Soul of + India, stifling in us all sense of initiative, for the lack of + which we are condemned, atrophying the nerves of action and, + what is more serious, necessarily dwarfing in us all feeling of + self-respect.</p></div> + +<p>In this connexion the warning of Lord Salisbury to Cooper’s Hill +students is significant:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>No system of Government can be permanently safe where there is + a feeling of inferiority or of mortification affecting the + relations between the governing and the governed. There is + nothing I would more earnestly wish to impress upon all who + leave this country for the purpose of governing India than + that, if they choose to be so, they are the only enemies + England has to fear. They are the persons who can, if they + will, deal a blow of the deadliest character at the future rule + of England.</p></div> + +<p>I have ventured to urge this danger, which has increased of late years, +in consequence of the growing self-respect of the Indians, but the +ostrich policy is thought to be preferable in my part of the country.</p> + +<p>This stunting of the race begins with the education of the child. The +Schools differentiate between British and Indian teachers; the Colleges +do the same. The students see first-class Indians superseded by young +and third-rate foreigners; the Principal of a College should be a +foreigner; foreign history is more important than Indian; to have +written on English villages is a qualification for teaching economics in +India; the whole atmosphere of the School and College emphasises the +superiority of the foreigner, even when the professors abstain from open +assertion thereof. The Education Department controls the education +given, and it is planned on foreign models, and its object is to serve +foreign rather than native ends, to make docile Government servants +rather than patriotic citizens; high spirits, courage, self-respect, are +not encouraged, and docility is regarded as the most precious quality in +the student; pride in country, patriotism, ambition, are looked on as +dangerous, and English, instead of Indian, Ideals are exalted; the +blessings of a foreign rule and the incapacity of Indians to manage +their own affairs are constantly inculcated. What wonder that boys thus +trained often turn out, as men, time-servers and sycophants, and, +finding their legitimate ambitions frustrated, become selfish and care +little for the public weal? Their own inferiority has been so driven +into them during their most impressionable years, that they do not even +feel what Mr. Asquith called the “intolerable degradation of a foreign +yoke.”</p> + +<h4><i>India’s Rights</i>.</h4> + +<p>It is not a question whether the rule is good or bad. German efficiency +in Germany is far greater than English efficiency in England; the +Germans were better fed, had more amusements and leisure, less crushing +poverty than the English. But would any Englishman therefore desire to +see Germans occupying all the highest positions in England? Why not? +Because the righteous self-respect and dignity of the free man revolt +against foreign domination, however superior. As Mr. Asquith said at the +beginning of the War, such a condition was “inconceivable and would be +intolerable.” Why then is it the one conceivable system here in India? +Why is it not felt by all Indians to be intolerable? It is because it +has become a habit, bred in us from childhood, to regard the sahib-log +as our natural superiors, and the greatest injury British rule has done +to Indians is to deprive them of the natural instinct born in all free +peoples, the feeling of an inherent right to Self-determination, to be +themselves. Indian dress, Indian food, Indian ways, Indian customs, are +all looked on as second-rate; Indian mother-tongue and Indian literature +cannot make an educated man. Indians as well as Englishmen take it for +granted that the natural rights of every Nation do not belong to them; +they claim “a larger share in the government of the country,” instead of +claiming the government of their own country, and they are expected to +feel grateful for “boons,” for concessions. Britain is to say what she +will give. The whole thing is wrong, topsy-turvy, irrational. Thank God +that India’s eyes are opening; that myriads of her people realise that +they are men, with a man’s right to freedom in his own country, a man’s +right to manage his own affairs. India is no longer on her knees for +boons; she is on her feet for Rights. It is because I have taught this +that the English in India misunderstand me and call me seditious; it is +because I have taught this that I am President of this Congress to-day.</p> + +<p>This may seem strong language, because the plain truth is not usually +put in India. But this is what every Briton feels in Britain for his own +country, and what every Indian should feel in India for his. This is the +Freedom for which the Allies are fighting; this is Democracy, the Spirit +of the Age. And this is what every true Briton will feel is India’s +Right the moment India claims it for herself, as she is claiming it +now. When this right is gained, then will the tie between India and +Great Britain become a golden link of mutual love and service, and the +iron chain of a foreign yoke will fall away. We shall live and work side +by side, with no sense of distrust and dislike, working as brothers for +common ends. And from that union shall arise the mightiest Empire, or +rather Commonwealth, that the world has ever known, a Commonwealth that, +in God’s good time, shall put an end to War.</p> + +<h3>II. THE SECONDARY REASONS.</h3> + +<h4><i>Tests of Efficiency</i>.</h4> + +<p>The Secondary Reasons for the present demand for Home Rule may be summed +up in the blunt statement: “The present rule, while efficient in less +important matters and in those which concern British interests, is +inefficient in the greater matters on which the healthy life and +happiness of the people depend.” Looking at outer things, such as +external order, posts and telegraphs—except where political agitators +are concerned—main roads, railways, etc., foreign visitors, who +expected to find a semi-savage country, hold up their hands in +admiration. But if they saw the life of the people, the masses of +struggling clerks trying to educate their children on Rs. 25 (28s. +0-1/4d.) a month, the masses of labourers with one meal a day, and the +huts in which they live, they would find cause for thought. And if the +educated men talked freely with them, they would be surprised at their +bitterness. Gopal Krishna Gokhale put the whole matter very plainly in +1911:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>One of the fundamental conditions of the peculiar position of + the British Government in this country is that it should be a + continuously progressive Government. I think all thinking men, + to whatever community they belong, will accept that. Now, I + suggest four tests to judge whether the Government is + progressive, and, further, whether it is continuously + progressive. The first test that I would apply is what measures + it adopts for the moral and material improvement of the mass of + the people, and under these measures I do not include those + appliances of modern Governments which the British Government + has applied in this country, because they were appliances + necessary for its very existence, though they have benefited + the people, such as the construction of Railways, the + introduction of Post and Telegraphs, and things of that kind. + By measures for the moral and material improvement of the + people, I mean what the Government does for education, what the + Government does for sanitation, what the Government does for + agricultural development, and so forth. That is my first test. + The second test that I would apply is what steps the Government + takes to give us a larger share in the administration of our + local affairs—in municipalities and local boards. My third + test is what voice the Government gives us in its Councils—in + those deliberate assemblies, where policies are considered. + And, lastly, we must consider how far Indians are admitted into + the ranks of the public service.</p></div> + +<h4><i>A Change of System Needed</i>.</h4> + +<p>Those were Gokhale’s tests, and Indians can supply the results of their +knowledge and experience to answer them. But before dealing with the +failure to meet these tests, it is necessary to state here that it is +not a question of blaming men, or of substituting Indians for +Englishmen, but of changing the system itself. It is a commonplace that +the best men become corrupted by the possession of irresponsible power. +As Bernard Houghton says: “The possession of unchecked power corrupts +some of the finer qualities.” Officials quite honestly come to believe +that those who try to change the system are undermining the security of +the State. They identify the State with themselves, so that criticism of +them is seen as treason to the State. The phenomenon is well known in +history, and it is only repeating itself in India. The same writer—I +prefer to use his words rather than my own, for he expresses exactly my +own views, and will not be considered to be prejudiced as I am thought +to be—cogently remarks:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>He (the official) has become an expert in reports and returns + and matters of routine through many years of practice. They are + the very woof and warp of his brain. He has no ideas, only + reflexes. He views with acrid disfavour untried conceptions. + From being constantly preoccupied with the manipulation of the + machine he regards its smooth working, the ordered and + harmonious regulation of glittering pieces of machinery, as the + highest service he can render to the country of his adoption. + He determines that his particular cog-wheel at least shall be + bright, smooth, silent, and with absolutely no back-lash. Not + unnaturally in course of time he comes to envisage the world + through the strait embrasure of an office window. When perforce + he must report on new proposals he will place in the forefront, + not their influence on the life and progress of the people, but + their convenience to the official hierarchy and the manner in + which they affect its authority. Like the monks of old, or the + squire in the typical English village, he cherishes a + benevolent interest in the commonalty, and is quite willing, + even eager, to take a general interest in their welfare, if + only they do not display initiative or assert themselves in + opposition to himself or his order. There is much in this + proviso. Having come to regard his own judgment as almost + divine, and the hierarchy of which he has the honour to form a + part as a sacrosanct institution, he tolerates the laity so + long as they labour quietly and peaceably at their vocations + and do not presume to inter-meddle in high matters of State. + That is the heinous offence. And frank criticism of official + acts touches a lower depth still, even <i>lèse majesté</i>. For no + official will endure criticism from his subordinates, and the + public, who lie in outer darkness beyond the pale, do not in + his estimation rank even with his subordinates. How, then, + should he listen with patience when in their cavilling way they + insinuate that, in spite of the labours of a high-souled + bureaucracy, all is perhaps not for the best in the best of all + possible worlds—still less when they suggest reforms that had + never occurred even to him or to his order, and may clash with + his most cherished ideals? It is for the officials to govern + the country; they alone have been initiated into the sacred + mysteries; they alone understand the secret working of the + machine. At the utmost the laity may tender respectful and + humble suggestions for their consideration, but no more. As for + those who dare to think and act for themselves, their ignorant + folly is only equalled by their arrogance. It is as though a + handful of schoolboys were to dictate to their masters + alterations in the traditional time-table, or to insist on a + modified curriculum.... These worthy people [officials] confuse + manly independence with disloyalty; they cannot conceive of + natives except either as rebels or as timid sheep.</p></div> + +<h4><i>Non-Official Anglo-Indians</i>.</h4> + +<p>The problem becomes more complicated by the existence in India of a +small but powerful body of the same race as the higher officials; there +are only 122,919 English-born persons in this country, while there are +245,000,000 in the British Raj and another 70,000,000 in the Indian +States, more or less affected by British influence. As a rule, the +non-officials do not take any part in politics, being otherwise +occupied; but they enter the field when any hope arises in Indian hearts +of changes really beneficial to the Nation. John Stuart Mill observed on +this point:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>The individuals of the ruling people who resort to the foreign + country to make their fortunes are of all others those who most + need to be held under powerful restraint. They are always one + of the chief difficulties of the Government. Armed with the + prestige and filled with the scornful overbearingness of the + conquering Nation, they have the feelings inspired by absolute + power without its sense of responsibility.</p></div> + +<p>Similarly, Sir John Lawrence wrote:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>The difficulty in the way of the Government of India acting + fairly in these matters is immense. If anything is done, or + attempted to be done, to help the natives, a general howl is + raised, which reverberates in England, and finds sympathy and + support there. I feel quite bewildered sometimes what to do. + Everyone is, in the abstract, for justice, moderation, and + suchlike excellent qualities; but when one comes to apply such + principles so as to affect anybody’s interests, then a change + comes over them.</p></div> + +<p>Keene, speaking of the principle of treating equally all classes of the +community, says:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>The application of that maxim, however, could not be made + without sometimes provoking opposition among the handful of + white settlers in India who, even when not connected with the + administration, claimed a kind of class ascendancy which was + not only in the conditions of the country but also in the + nature of the case. It was perhaps natural that in a land of + caste the compatriots of the rulers should become—as Lord + Lytton said—a kind of “white Brahmanas”; and it was certain + that, as a matter of fact, the pride of race and the possession + of western civilisation created a sense of superiority, the + display of which was ungraceful and even dangerous, when not + tempered by official responsibility. This feeling had been + sensitive enough in the days of Lord William Bentinck, when the + class referred to was small in numbers and devoid of influence. + It was now both more numerous, and—by reason of its connection + with the newspapers of Calcutta and of London—it was far + better able to make its passion heard.</p></div> + +<p>During Lord Ripon’s sympathetic administration the great outburst +occurred against the Ilbert Bill in 1883. We are face to face with a +similar phenomenon to-day, when we see the European Associations—under +the leadership of the <i>Madras Mail</i>, the <i>Englishman</i> of Calcutta, the +<i>Pioneer of</i> Allahabad, the <i>Civil and Military Gazette</i> of Lahore, with +their Tory and Unionist allies in the London Press and with the aid of +retired Indian officials and non-officials in England—desperately +resisting the Reforms now proposed. Their opposition, we know, is a +danger to the movement towards Freedom, and even when they have failed +to impress England—as they are evidently failing—they will try to +minimise or smother here the reforms which a statute has embodied. The +Minto-Morley reforms were thus robbed of their usefulness, and a similar +attempt, if not guarded against, will be made when the Congress-League +Scheme is used as the basis for an Act.</p> + +<h4><i>The Re-action on England</i>.</h4> + +<p>We cannot leave out of account here the deadly harm done to England +herself by this un-English system of rule in India. Mr. Hobson has +pointed out:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>As our free Self-Governing Colonies have furnished hope, + encouragement, and leading to the popular aspirations in Great + Britain, not merely by practical success in the art of + Self-Government, but by the wafting of a spirit of freedom and + equality, so our despotically ruled Dependencies have ever + served to damage the character of our people by feeding the + habits of snobbish subservience, the admiration of wealth and + rank, the corrupt survivals of the inequalities of + feudalism.... Cobden writing in 1860 of our Indian Empire, put + this pithy question: “Is it not just possible that we may + become corrupted at home by the reaction of arbitrary political + maxims in the East upon our domestic politics, just as Greece + and Rome were demoralised by their contact with Asia?” Not + merely is the reaction possible, it is inevitable. As the + despotic portion of our Empire, has grown in area, a large + number of men, trained in the temper and methods of autocracy, + as soldiers and civil officials in our Crown Colonies, + Protectorates and Indian Empire, reinforced by numbers of + merchants, planters, engineers, and overseers, whose lives have + been those of a superior caste living an artificial life + removed from all the healthy restraints of ordinary European + Society, have returned to this country, bringing back the + characters, sentiments and ideas imposed by this foreign + environment.</p></div> + +<p>It is a little hard on the I.C.S. that they should be foreigners here, +and then, when they return to their native land, find that they have +become foreigners there by the corrupting influences with which they +are surrounded here. We import them as raw material to our own +disadvantage, and when we export them as manufactured here, Great +Britain and India alike suffer from their reactionary tendencies. The +results are unsatisfactory to both sides.</p> + +<h4><i>The First Test Applied</i>.</h4> + +<p>Let us now apply Gokhale’s first test. What has the Bureaucracy done for +“education, sanitation, agricultural improvement, and so forth”? I must +put the facts very briefly, but they are indisputable.</p> + +<p><i>Education</i>. The percentage to the whole population of children +receiving education is 2.8, the percentage having risen by 0.9 since Mr. +Gokhale moved his Education Bill six years ago. The percentage of +children of school-going age attending school is 18.7. In 1913 the +Government of India put the number of pupils at 4-1/2 millions; this has +been accomplished in 63 years, reckoning from Sir Charles Wood’s +Educational Despatch in 1854, which led to the formation of the +Education Department. In 1870 an Education Act was passed in Great +Britain, the condition of Education in England then much resembling our +present position; grants-in-aid in England had been given since 1833, +chiefly to Church Schools. Between 1870 and 1881 free and compulsory +education was established, and in 12 years the attendance rose from 43.3 +to nearly 100 per cent. There are now 6,000,000 children in the schools +of England and Wales out of a population of 40 millions. Japan, before +1872, had a proportion of 28 per cent. of children of school-going age in +school, nearly 10 over our present proportion; in 24 years the +percentage was raised to 92, and in 28 years education was free and +compulsory. In Baroda education is free and largely compulsory and the +percentage of boys is 100 per cent. Travancore has 81.1 per cent. of +boys and 33.2 of girls. Mysore has 45.8 of boys and 9.7 of girls. Baroda +spends an. 6-6 per head on school-going children, British India one +anna. Expenditure on education advanced between 1882 and 1907 by 57 +lakhs. Land-revenue had increased by 8 crores, military expenditure by +13 crores, civil by 8 crores, and capital outlay on railways was 15 +crores. (I am quoting G.K. Gokhale’s figures.) He ironically calculated +that, if the population did not increase, every boy would be in school +115 years hence, and every girl in 665 years. Brother Delegates, we hope +to do it more quickly under Home Rule. I submit that in Education the +Bureaucracy is inefficient.</p> + +<p><i>Sanitation and Medical Relief</i>. The prevalence of plague, cholera, and +above all malaria, shows the lack of sanitation alike in town and +country. This lack is one of the causes contributing to the low average +life-period in India—23.5 years. In England the life-period is 40 +years, in New Zealand 60. The chief difficulty in the way of the +treatment of disease is the encouragement of the foreign system of +medicine, especially in rural parts, and the withholding of grants from +the indigenous. Government Hospitals, Government Dispensaries, +Government doctors, must all be on the foreign system. Ayurvaidic and +Unani medicines, Hospitals, Dispensaries, Physicians, are unrecognised, +and to “cover” the latter is “infamous” conduct. Travancore gives +grants-in-aid to 72 Vaidyashalas, at which 143,505 patients—22,000 more +than in allopathic institutions—were treated in 1914-15 (the Report +issued in 1917). Our Government cannot grapple with the medical needs of +the people, yet will not allow the people’s money to be spent on the +systems they prefer. Under Home Rule the indigenous and the foreign +systems will be treated with impartiality. I grant that the allopathic +doctors do their utmost to supply the need, and show great +self-sacrifice, but the need is too vast and the numbers too few. +Efficiency on their own lines in this matter is therefore impossible for +our bureaucratic Government; their fault lies in excluding the +indigenous systems, which they have not condescended to examine before +rejecting them. The result is that in sanitation and medical relief the +Bureaucracy is inefficient.</p> + +<p><i>Agricultural Development</i>. The census of 1911 gives the agricultural +population at 218.3 millions. Its frightful poverty is a matter of +common knowledge; its ever-increasing load of indebtedness has been +dwelt on for at least the last thirty odd years by Sir Dinshaw E. Wacha. +Yet the increasing debt is accompanied with increasing taxation, land +revenue having risen, as just stated, in 25 years, by 8 +crores—80,000,000—of rupees. In addition to this there are local +cesses, salt tax, etc. The salt tax, which presses most hardly on the +very poor, was raised in the last budget by Rs. 9 millions. The +inevitable result of this poverty is malnutrition, resulting in low +vitality, lack of resistance to disease, short life-period, huge +infantile mortality. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, no mischievous agitator, +repeated in 1905 the figures; often quoted:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>Forty millions of people, according to one great Anglo-Indian + authority—Sir William Hunter—pass through life with only one + meal a day. According to another authority—Sir Charles + Elliot—70 millions of people in India do not know what it is + to have their hunger fully satisfied even once in the whole + course of the year. The poverty of the people of India, thus + considered by itself, is truly appalling. And if this is the + state of things after a hundred years of your rule, you cannot + claim that your principal aim in India has been the promotion + of the interests of the Indian people.</p></div> + +<p>It is sometimes said: “Why harp on these figures? We know them.” Our +answer is that the fact is ever harping in the stomach of the people, +and while it continues we cannot cease to draw attention to it. And +Gokhale urged that “even this deplorable condition has been further +deteriorating steadily.” We have no figures on malnutrition among the +peasantry, but in Madras City, among an equally poor urban population, +we found that 78 per cent. of our pupils were reported, after a medical +inspection, to be suffering from malnutrition. And the spareness of +frame, the thinness of arms and legs, the pitiably weak grip on life, +speak without words to the seeing eye. It needs an extraordinary lack of +imagination not to suffer while these things are going on.</p> + +<p>The peasants’ grievances are many and have been voiced year after year +by this Congress. The Forest Laws, made by legislators inappreciative of +village difficulties, press hardly on them, and only in a small number +of places have Forest Panchayats been established. In the few cases in +which the experiment has been made the results have been good, in some +cases marvellously good. The paucity of grazing grounds for their +cattle, the lack of green manure to feed their impoverished lands, the +absence of fencing round forests, so that the cattle stray in when +feeding, are impounded, and have to be redeemed, the fines and other +punishments imposed for offences ill-understood, the want of wood for +fuel, for tools, for repairs, the uncertain distribution of the +available water, all these troubles are discussed in villages and in +local Conferences. The Arms Act oppresses them, by leaving them +defenceless against wild beasts and wild men. The union of Judicial and +Executive functions makes justice often inaccessible, and always costly +both in money and in time. The village officials naturally care more to +please the Tahsildar and the Collector than the villagers, to whom they +are in no way responsible. And factions flourish, because there is +always a third party to whom to resort, who may be flattered if his rank +be high, bribed if it be low, whose favour can be gained in either case +by cringing and by subservience and tale-bearing. As regards the +condition of agriculture in India and the poverty of the agricultural +population, the Bureaucracy is inefficient.</p> + +<p>The application of Mr. Gokhale’s first test to Indian handicrafts, to +the strengthening of weak industries and the creation of new, to the +care of waterways for traffic and of the coast transport shipping, the +protection of indigo and other indigenous dyes against their German +synthetic rivals, etc., would show similar answers. We are suffering now +from the supineness of the Bureaucracy as regards the development of the +resources of the country, by its careless indifference to the usurping +by Germans of some of those resources, and even now they are pursuing a +similar policy of <i>laissez faire</i> towards Japanese enterprise, which, +leaning on its own Government, is taking the place of Germany in +shouldering Indians out of their own natural heritage.</p> + +<p>In all prosperous countries crafts are found side by-side with +agriculture, and they lend each other mutual support. The extreme +poverty of Ireland, and the loss of more than half its population by +emigration, were the direct results of the destruction of its +wool-industry by Great Britain, and the consequent throwing of the +population entirely on the land for subsistence. A similar phenomenon +has resulted here from a similar case, but on a far more widespread +scale. And here, a novel and portentous change for India, “a +considerable landless class is developing, which involves economic +danger,” as the <i>Imperial Gazeteer</i> remarks, comparing the census +returns of 1891 and 1901. “The ordinary agricultural labourers are +employed on the land only during the busy seasons of the year, and in +slack times a few are attracted to large trade-centres for temporary +work.” One recalls the influx into England of Irish labourers at harvest +time. Professor Radkamal Mukerji has laid stress on the older conditions +of village life. He says:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>The village is still almost self-sufficing, and is in itself an + economic unit. The village agriculturist grows all the food + necessary for the inhabitants of the village. The smith makes + the plough-shares for the cultivator, and the few iron utensils + required for the household. He supplies these to the people, + but does not get money in return. He is recompensed by mutual + services from his fellow villagers. The potter supplies him + with pots, the weaver with cloth, and the oilman with oil. From + the cultivator each of these artisans receives his traditional + share of grain. Thus almost all the economic transactions are + carried on without the use of money. To the villagers money is + only a store of value, not a medium of exchange. When they + happen to be rich in money, they hoard it either in coins or + make ornaments made of gold and silver.</p></div> + +<p>These conditions are changing in consequence of the pressure of poverty +driving the villagers to the city, where they learn to substitute the +competition of the town for the mutual helpfulness of the village. The +difference of feeling, the change from trustfulness to suspicion, may be +seen by visiting villages which are in the vicinity of a town and +comparing their villagers with those who inhabit villages in purely +rural areas. This economic and moral deterioration can only be checked +by the re-establishment of a healthy <i>and interesting</i> village life, and +this depends upon the re-establishment of the Panchayat as the unit of +Government, a question which I deal with presently. Village industries +would then revive and an intercommunicating network would be formed by +Co-operative Societies. Mr. C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar says in his pamphlet, +<i>Co-operative Societies and Panchayats</i>:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>The one method by which this evil [emigration to towns] can be + arrested and the economic and social standards of life of the + rural people elevated is by the inauguration of healthy + Panchayats in conjunction with the foundation of Co-operative + institutions, which will have the effect of resuscitating + village industries, and of creating organised social forces. + The Indian village, when rightly reconstructed, would be an + excellent foundation for well-developed co-operative industrial + organisation.</p></div> + +<p>Again:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>The resuscitation of the village system has other bearings, not + usually considered in connection with the general subject of + the inauguration of the Panchayat system. One of the most + important of these is the regeneration of the small industries + of the land. Both in Europe and in India the decline of small + industries has gone on <i>pari passu</i> with the decline of farming + on a small scale. In countries like France agriculture has + largely supported village industries, and small cultivators in + that country have turned their attention to industry as a + supplementary source of livelihood. The decline of village life + in India is not only a political, but also an economic and + industrial, problem. Whereas in Europe the cultural impulse has + travelled from the city to the village, in India the reverse + has been the case. The centre of social life in this country is + the village, and not the town. Ours was essentially the cottage + industry, and our artisans still work in their own huts, more + or less out of touch with the commercial world. Throughout the + world the tendency has been of late to lay considerable + emphasis on distributive and industrial co-operation based on a + system of village industries and enterprise. Herein would be + found the origins of the arts and crafts guilds and the Garden + Cities, the idea underlying all these being to inaugurate a + reign of Socialism and Co-operation, eradicating the entirely + unequal distribution of wealth amongst producers and consumers. + India has always been a country of small tenantry, and has + thereby escaped many of the evils the western Nations have + experienced owing to the concentration of wealth in a few + hands. The communistic sense in our midst, and the fundamental + tenets of our family life, have checked such concentration of + capital. This has been the cause for the non-development of + factory industries on a large scale.</p></div> + +<p>The need for these changes—to which England is returning, after full +experience of the miseries of life in manufacturing towns—is pressing.</p> + +<p>Addressing an English audience, G.K. Gokhale summed up the general state +of India as follows:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>Your average annual income has been estimated at about £42 per + head. Ours, according to official estimates, is about £2 per + head, and according to non-official estimates, only a little + more than £1 per head. Your imports per head are about £13: + ours about 5s. per head. The total deposits in your Postal + Savings Bank amount to 148 million sterling, and you have in + addition in the Trustees’ Savings Banks about 52 million + sterling. Our Postal Savings Bank deposits, with a population + seven times as large as yours, are only about 7 million + sterling, and even of this a little over one-tenth is held by + Europeans. Your total paid-up capital of joint-stock companies + is about 1,900 million sterling. Ours is not quite 26 million + sterling, and the greater part of this again is European. + Four-fifths of our people are dependent upon agriculture, and + agriculture has been for some time steadily deteriorating. + Indian agriculturists are too poor, and are, moreover, too + heavily indebted, to be able to apply any capital to land, and + the result is that over the greater part of India agriculture + is, as Sir James Caird pointed out more than twenty-five years + ago, only a process of exhaustion of the soil. The yield per + acre is steadily diminishing, being now only about 8 to 9 + bushels an acre against about 30 bushels here in England.</p></div> + +<p>In all the matters which come under Gokhale’s first test, the +Bureaucracy has been and is inefficient.</p> + +<h4><i>Give Indians a Chance.</i></h4> + +<p>All we say in the matter is: You have not succeeded in bringing +education, health, prosperity, to the masses of the people. Is it not +time to give Indians a chance of doing, for their own country, work +similar to that which Japan and other nations have done for theirs? +Surely the claim is not unreasonable. If the Anglo-Indians say that the +masses are their peculiar care, and that the educated classes care not +for them, but only for place and power, then we point to the Congress, +to the speeches and the resolutions eloquent of their love and their +knowledge. It is not their fault that they gaze on their country’s +poverty in helpless despair. Or let Mr. Justice Rahim answer:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>As for the representation of the interests of the many scores + of millions in India, if the claim be that they are better + represented by European Officials than by educated Indian + Officials or non-Officials, it is difficult to conceive how + such reckless claim has come to be urged. The inability of + English Officials to master the spoken language of India and + their habits of life and modes of thought so completely divide + them from the general population, that only an extremely + limited few, possessed with extraordinary powers of insight, + have ever been able to surmount the barriers. With the educated + Indians, on the other hand, this knowledge is instinctive, and + the view of religion and custom so strong in the East make + their knowledge and sympathy more real than is to be seen in + countries dominated by materialistic conceptions.</p></div> + +<p>And it must be remembered that it is not lack of ability which has +brought about bureaucratic inefficiency, for British traders and +producers have done uncommonly well for themselves in India. But a +Bureaucracy does not trouble itself about matters of this kind; the +Russian Bureaucracy did not concern itself with the happiness of the +Russian masses, but with their obedience and their paying of taxes. +Bureaucracies are the same everywhere, and therefore it is the system we +wage war upon, not the men; we do not want to substitute Indian +bureaucrats for British bureaucrats; we want to abolish Bureaucracy, +Government by Civil Servants.</p> + +<h4><i>The Other Tests Applied.</i></h4> + +<p>I need not delay over the second, third, and fourth tests, for the +answers <i>sautent aux yeux</i>.</p> + +<p><i>The second test, Local Self-Government</i>: Under Lord Mayo (1869-72) some +attempts were made at decentralisation, called by Keene “Home Rule” (!), +and his policy was followed on non-financial lines as well by Lord +Ripon, who tried to infuse into what Keene calls “the germs of Home +Rule” “the breath of life.” Now, in 1917, an experimental and limited +measure of local Home Rule is to be tried in Bengal. Though the Report +of the Decentralisation Committee was published in 1909, we have not yet +arrived at the universal election of non-official Chairmen. Decidedly +inefficient is the Bureaucracy under test 2.</p> + +<p><i>The third test, Voice in the Councils</i>: The part played by Indian +elected members in the Legislative Council, Madras, was lately described +by a member as “a farce.” The Supreme Legislative Council was called by +one of its members “a glorified Debating Society.” A table of +resolutions proposed by Indian elected members, and passed or lost, was +lately drawn up, and justified the caustic epithets. With regard to the +Minto-Morley reforms, the Bureaucracy showed great efficiency in +destroying the benefits intended by the Parliamentary Statute. But the +third test shows that in giving Indians a fair voice in the Councils the +Bureaucracy was inefficient.</p> + +<p><i>The fourth test, the Admission of Indians to the Public Services</i>: This +is shown, by the Report of the Commission, not to need any destructive +activity on the part of the Bureaucracy to prove their unwillingness to +pass it, for the Report protects them in their privileged position.</p> + +<p>We may add to Gokhale’s tests one more, which will be triumphantly +passed, the success of the Bureaucracy in increasing the cost of +administration. The estimates for the revenue of the coming year stand +at £86,199,600 sterling. The expenditure is reckoned at £85,572,100 +sterling. The cost of administration stands at more than half the total +revenue:</p> + +<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="80%" summary=""> + <tr> + <td>Civil Departments Salaries and Expenses</td> + <td align="right">£19,323,300</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Civil Miscellaneous Charges</td> + <td align="right">5,283,300</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Military Services</td> + <td align="right">23,165,900</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td align="right">£47,772,500</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The reduction of the abnormal cost of government in India is of the most +pressing nature, but this will never be done until we win Home Rule.</p> + +<p>It will be seen that the Secondary Reasons for the demand for Home Rule +are of the weightiest nature in themselves, and show the necessity for +its grant if India is to escape from a poverty which threatens to lead +to National bankruptcy, as it has already led to a short life-period and +a high death rate, to widespread disease, and to a growing exhaustion of +the soil. That some radical change must be brought about in the +condition of our masses, if a Revolution of Hunger is to be averted, is +patent to all students of history, who also know the poverty of the +Indian masses to-day. This economic condition is due to many causes, of +which the inevitable lack of understanding by an alien Government is +only one. A system of government suitable to the West was forced on the +East, destroying its own democratic and communal institutions and +imposing bureaucratic methods which bewildered and deteriorated a people +to whom they were strange and repellent. The result is not a matter for +recrimination, but for change. An inappropriate system forced on an +already highly civilised people was bound to fail. It has been rightly +said that the poor only revolt when the misery they are enduring is +greater than the dangers of revolt. We need Home Rule to stop the daily +suffering of our millions from the diminishing yield of the soil and the +decay of village industries.</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12820 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |