Annie
Besant 1847 - 1933
THE CASE FOR
The Presidential Address Delivered by Annie
Besant at the
Thirty-Second Indian National Congress Held at
FELLOW-DELEGATES
AND FRIENDS,
Everyone who has
preceded me in this Chair has rendered his thanks infitting
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, forhis
year of service, her chosen leader. But if my predecessors found fitting words
for their gratitude, in what words can I voice mine, whosedebt
to you is so
overwhelmingly
greater than theirs? For the first timein Congress
history, you have chosen as your President one who, whenyour
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, youbelieved in my integrity and good faith; while I was
crushed under the heel of bureaucratic power, you acclaimed me as your leader;
while I wassilenced 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 upand placed me before the world as
your chosen representative. I have nowords 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 giftinto
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 theMother,
and together we shall cry, more by service than by words: VANDE MATARAM.
There is,
perhaps, one value in your election of me in this crisis ofIndia'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, inthe 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 theEast, and see the growth of English liberty as
up-springing from the Aryan root of the free and self-contained village
communities.
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 similarlybourgeoned 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.
GONE TO THE
PEACE.
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:
These, O men, shall ye honour,
Liberty only and these.
For thy sake and for all men's and mine,
Brother, the crowns of them shine,
Lighting the way to her shrine,
That our eyes may be fastened upon her,
That our hands may encompass her knees.
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 to-day.
CHAPTER I.
PRE-WAR
MILITARY EXPENDITURE.
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 thewelfare
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 havehad 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.
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 ofIndia, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On this Gopal Krishna Gokhale said:
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.
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 _materiel_ 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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.)
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.
Mr. Fawcett
once remarked that when the East India Company was abolished
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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."
In addition
to these, Lord Hardinge speaks of sending to England
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.
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.
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."
Between the
autumn of 1914 and the close of 1915, the defence of
our own frontiers was a serious matter, and Lord Hardinge
says:
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.
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.
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.
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.'"
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
_Englishman_ and the _Madras Mail_ on the shocking
inefficiency
of Indian officials.
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:
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.
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.
Lord Chelmsford
rightly pointed out:
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.
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 meager 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.
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 utilized 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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER II.
CAUSES OF THE
NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA.
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:
(a) The Awakening of Asia.
(b) Discussions abroad on Alien Rule and
Imperial Reconstruction.
(c) Loss of Belief in the Superiority of the
White Races.
(d) The Awakening of Indian Merchants.
(e) The Awakening of Indian Womanhood to claim
its Ancient
Position.
(f) The Awakening of the Masses.
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.
THE AWAKENING
OF ASIA.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
DISCUSSIONS
ABROAD ON ALIEN RULE AND IMPERIAL RECONSTRUCTION.
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 realize 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.
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.
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.
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:
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 _official_ representation at the Imperial
Conference:
he does not plead for _popular_ 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
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."
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.
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. Or 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.
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.
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.
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.
LOSS OF
BELIEF IN THE SUPERIORITY OF WHITE RACES
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:
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.
And again:
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 discoveredthat Vedanta
in its highest form can alone spiritualise their
social aspirations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
THE AWAKENING
OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The
Indentured Labour question, involving the dishonour
of women, again, moved them deeply, and even sent a deputation to the Viceroy
composed of women.
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.
THE AWAKENING
OF THE MASSES.
*
* * *
*
CHAPTER III.
WHY INDIA
DEMANDS HOME RULE.
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.
I. THE VITAL
REASON.
What is a
Nation?
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 _right_ to carry them.
A Nation, an individual, cannot develop his capacities to the utmost without
liberty. And this is recognized everywhere except in India. As Mazzini truly said:
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.
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.
The Cry for
Self-Rule.
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 fullness of life, and to enjoy such fullness
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.
Stunting the
Race.
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:
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.
The Hon. Mr. Bhupendranath Basu has spoken on
similar lines:
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.
In this connexion the warning of Lord Salisbury to Cooper's Hill
students is
significant:
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.
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.
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."
India's
Rights.
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.
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.
II. THE
SECONDARY REASONS.
Tests of
Efficiency.
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:
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 foragricultural
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.
A Change of
System Needed.
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:
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 _lèse majesté_.
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
modified
curriculum.... These worthy people [officials] confuse
manly
independence with disloyalty; they cannot conceive of
natives
except either as rebels or as timid sheep.
Non-Official
Anglo-Indians.
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:
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.
Similarly,
Sir John Lawrence wrote:
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.
Keene,
speaking of the principle of treating equally all classes of the community,
says:
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 connectionwith
the newspapers of Calcutta and of London--it was farbetter
able to make its passion heard.
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 _Madras Mail_, the _Englishman_ of Calcutta, the_Pioneer
of_ Allahabad, the _Civil and Military Gazette_ 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.
The Re-action
on England.
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:
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
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.
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.
The First
Test Applied.
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.
_Education_.
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.
_Sanitation
and Medical Relief_. 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.
_Agricultural
Development_. 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, landrevenue
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:
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.
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.
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.
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 _laissez faire_ towards Japanese enterprise, which, leaning on its
own Government, is taking the place of Germany in shouldering Indians out of
their own natural heritage.
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 _Imperial Gazeteer_ 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:
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.
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 _and interesting_
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,_Co-operative
Societies and Panchayats_:
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.
Again:
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 _pari passu_
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.
The need for
these changes--to which England is returning, after full experience of the
miseries of life in manufacturing towns--is pressing.
Addressing an
English audience, G.K. Gokhale summed up the general
state of India as follows:
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.
In all the
matters which come under Gokhale's first test, the
Bureaucracy
has been and is inefficient.
Give Indians
a Chance.
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:
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.
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.
The Other
Tests Applied.
I need not
delay over the second, third, and fourth tests, for the
answers _sautent aux yeux_.
_The second
test, Local Self-Government:_ 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.
_The third
test, Voice in the Councils:_ 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.
_The fourth
test, the Admission of Indians to the Public Services:_ 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.
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:
Civil
Departments Salaries and Expenses
£19,323,300
Civil
Miscellaneous Charges 5,283,300
Military
Services
23,165,900
___________
£47,772,500
___________
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.
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.
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