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The Political Future of India

OTHER BOOKS BY LAJPAT RAI

YOUNG INDIA
An Interpretation and a History of the
Nationalist Movement from Within
Price $1.50 net

ENGLAND’S DEBT TO INDIA
A Historical Narrative of Britain’s
Fiscal Policy in India
Price $2.00 net

AN OPEN LETTER TO LLOYD GEORGE
Price 25 cents net

THE ARYA SAMAJ
An Account of its Origins, Doctrines
and Activities
Price $1.75 net

OBTAINABLE FROM ALL BOOKSELLERS

The
Political Future of India
by
Lajpat Rai

NEW YORK
B. W. HUEBSCH
MCMXIX

COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY B. W. HUEBSCH
PRINTED IN U.S.A.

TO MY FRIEND
COLONEL JOSIAH WEDGWOOD, M. P., D. S. O.

PREFACE

My book, Young India, was written during the first year of the war and was finally revised and sent to the press before the war was two years old. It concluded with the following observation:

“The Indians are a chivalrous people; they will not disturb England as long as she is engaged with Germany. The struggle after the war might, however, be even more bitter and sustained.”

The events that have happened since have amply justified the above conclusion. India not only refrained from disturbing England while she was engaged in war with Germany, but actively helped in defeating Germany and winning the war. She raised an army of over a million combatants and supplied a large number of war workers, and made huge contributions in money and materials. She denied herself the necessities of life in order to feed and equip the armies in the field though within the last months of the war, when scarcity and epidemic overtook her, she lost six millions of her sons and daughters from one disease alone—influenza. This was more than chivalry. This was self-effacement in the interests of an Empire which, in the past, had treated her children as helots. How much of this effort was voluntary and how much of it was forced it is difficult to appraise. Great Britain, however, has unequivocally accepted it as voluntary and has attributed it to India’s satisfaction with her rule. That India was not satisfied with her rule she has spared no pains to impress upon the British people as well as the rest of the world. Reading between the lines of the report of the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy has established the fact of that dissatisfaction beyond the possibility of doubt, but if any doubt still remained it has been dispelled by the writings and utterances of her representative spokesman in India, in Great Britain and abroad. The prince and the peasant, the landlord and the ryot, the professor and the student, the politician and the layman—all have spoken. They differ in their estimates of the “blessings” of British rule, they differ in the manner of their profession of loyalty to the British Empire, they sometimes differ in shaping their schemes for the future Government of India but they are all agreed:

(1) That the present constitution of the Government of India is viciously autocratic, bureaucratic, antiquated and unsatisfying.

(2) That India has, in the past, been governed more in the interests of, and by the British merchant and the British aristocrat than in the interests of her own peoples.

(3) That the neglect of India’s education and industries has been culpably tragic and

(4) That the only real and effectual remedy is to introduce an element of responsibility in the Government of India.

In the report of the Secretary of State and the Viceroy, so often quoted and referred to in these pages, the truth of (1), (3), and (4) is substantially admitted and point (2) indirectly conceded. In the following pages an attempt is made to prove this by extracts from the report itself. Ever since the report was published in July, 1918, India has been in a state of ferment,—a ferment of enthusiasm and criticism, of hope and disappointment. While the country has freely acknowledged the unique value of the report, the politicians have differed in their estimates of the value of the scheme embodied therein. Yet there is a complete unanimity on one point, that nothing less than what is planned in the report will be accepted, even as the first step towards eventual complete responsible Government. This is the minimum. Even the ultra-moderates have expressed themselves quite strongly on that point. Speaking at the Conference of the Moderates held at Bombay on November 1, 1918, the President, Mr. Surendranath Banerjea, is reported to have said: “our creed is co-operation with the Government wherever practicable, and opposition to its policy and measures when the supreme interests of the mother-land require it.... I have a word to say ... to the British Government. I have a warning note to sound.... If the enactment of the Reform proposals is unduly postponed, if they are whittled down in any way ... there will be grave public discontent and agitation.” A little further in the same speech he asked if “by the unwisdom of our rulers” India was “to be converted into a greater Ireland.” In less than six months from the date of this pronouncement, the rulers of India gave ample proof of their “unwisdom” by actually converting India into a “greater Ireland” and in establishing the absolute correctness of the prognostication made by the present writer in the concluding sentence of his book Young India. The manifesto of the Moderate Party issued over the signatures of the Moderate leaders all over the country contained the following warning: “We must equally protest against every attempt, by whomever made and in whatever manner, at any mutilation of the Montagu-Chelmsford proposals. We are constrained to utter a grave warning against the inevitable disastrous effects of such a grievous mistake on the future relations of the British Government and the Indian people which will result in discontent and agitation followed by repression on the one side and suffering on the other side.” Little did they know when they uttered the warning that repression would come even before the Reform Scheme was discussed in Parliament and “mutilated” there. British rule in Ireland has been for the last twenty years a wearisome record of mixed concessions and coercions. Every time a concession was made it was either preceded or accompanied by strong doses of coercion. One would have thought that British statesmen were wiser by their experience of Ireland, but it seems that they have learnt nothing and that they have no intention of doing in India anything different from what they have been doing in Ireland. The history of British statesmanship in relation to Irish affairs is repeating itself almost item by item in India.

Lord Morley’s reforms were both preceded and followed by strong measures of repression and suppression. As if to prove that British statesmanship can never in this respect set aside precedent even for once, Mr. Montagu’s proposals have been followed by a measure of coercion unique even for India. Mr. Montagu’s proposals for the reconstruction of Government in India are yet in the air. They are being criticised and examined minutely by numerous British agencies both in India and in England as to how and in what respects they can be made innocuous. Certain other reforms promised by the report, such as the scheme for Local Self Government and the policy in relation to the Arms Act, have already been disposed of in the usual masterly way of giving with one hand and taking back with the other. Similarly the “great” scheme of opening the commissioned ranks of the Army to the native Indians has practically (for the present at least) ended in fiasco. But the policy underlying the Rowlatt laws has surpassed all. In the chapters of this book dealing with the Revolutionary movement the reader will find a genesis of the Rowlatt laws of coercion.

On the sixteenth of January in the Gazette of India was published a draft of two bills that were proposed to be brought before the Legislative Council of India (which has a standing majority of Government officials). These bills were to give effect to the recommendations of the committee presided over by Mr. Justice Rowlatt of the High Court of England, for the prevention, detection and punishment of sedition in India. Their introduction into the Legislative Council was at once protested against by all classes of Indians with a unanimity never before witnessed in the history of India. All sections of the great Indian population from the Prince to the peasant, including all races, religions, sects, castes, creeds and professions joined in the protest. Hindus, Mohammedans, Indian Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsees—all stood up, to a man, to oppose the measure. All the political parties, Conservatives, Liberals, Moderates and Extremists expressed themselves against it. The measure was opposed by all the non-official Indian members of the Legislative Council. All methods of agitation were resorted to in order to make the opinion of the country known to the Government and to warn the latter against the danger of defying the united will of the people. The press, the pulpit and the platform all joined in denouncing the measures, meetings of protest were held in all parts of the country and resolutions wired to the Government. A few days before the final meeting at which these bills were to be passed into law a number of prominent citizens, male and female, pledged themselves to passive resistance in case the measures were enacted. The passive resistance movement was inaugurated and led by Mr. M. K. Gandhi, a man of saintly character, universally respected and revered in India, the same who stood for the Government during the war and rendered material help in recruiting soldiers, raising loans and procuring other help for its prosecution. The following is the text of the pledge that was signed by hundreds and thousands of Indians belonging to all races and religions and hailing from all parts of the continent:

“Being conscientiously of opinion that the bills known as the Indian Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill No. 1 of 1919 and No. 2 of 1919 are unjust, subversive of the principle of liberty and justice and destructive of the elementary rights of individuals on which the safety of the community as a whole and the State itself is based, we solemnly affirm that, in the event of these bills becoming law, we shall refuse civilly to obey these laws and such other laws as a committee to be hereafter appointed may think fit and we further affirm that in this struggle we will faithfully follow truth and refrain from violence of life, person or property.”

The passive resistance movement was not approved by the country as a whole, and influential voices were raised against it even in its early stages but the fact that Mr. Gandhi had taken the responsibility of initiating and leading it and that many women had signed the pledge should have opened the eyes of the Government as to the intensity of the feeling behind it. Besides this threat of passive resistance the Indian members of the Council showed their solid opposition to the measure by using all the historic obstructive methods so well known to the student of Parliamentary debates in the House of Commons as associated with the Irish Nationalist party under the leadership of Parnell. The debates in the Legislative Council of India do not ordinarily last for more than one day, consisting, at the most, of eight hours. The debate on this bill lasted for three days; one sitting lasted “from 11 o’clock in the morning ... until nearly half past one the following day with adjournments for luncheon and dinner.” The officials were determined to pass the bill at that sitting and so they refused to rise until the amendments on the agenda had been disposed of and the bill passed into law. The non-officials proposed no less than 160 amendments but by the application of closure methods they were all disposed of in three days and the bill passed (on the 18th of March). The Government made a few minor concessions but on the whole the bill remained as it had been drafted, a monument of Governmental shortsightedness and stupidity. The consideration of the other bill was postponed. As soon as the news reached Bombay that the first bill had become law “the market was closed as a protest” and “posters in English and the vernacular, were displayed throughout the city urging the non-payment of taxes and asking the people to resist the order of a tyrannical Government.” (London Times, April 2.) Similar manifestations of anger were made throughout the country and the movement for passive resistance was definitely inaugurated. It spread like wild fire. Thousands joined it and the relations between the people and the Government became very strained. However, no violence was resorted to, nor was any harm done to life and property. Several members of the Legislative Council resigned their offices. One of them a Mohammedan leader, wrote the following letter to His Excellency the Viceroy:

“Your Excellency, the passing of the Rowlatt Bill by the Government of India and the assent given to it by your Excellency as Governor-General against the will of the people has severely shaken the trust reposed by them in British justice. Further, it has clearly demonstrated the constitution of the Imperial Legislative Council which is a legislature but in name, a machine propelled by a foreign executive. Neither the unanimous opinion of the non-official Indian members, nor the entire public opinion and feeling outside has met with the least respect. The Government of India and your Excellency, however, have thought it fit to place on the statute-book a measure admittedly obnoxious and decidedly coercive at a time of peace, thereby substituting executive for judicial discretion. Besides, by passing this Bill, your Excellency’s Government have actively negatived every argument they advanced but a year ago when they appealed to India for help at the War Conference, and have ruthlessly trampled upon the principles for which Great Britain avowedly fought the war.

“The fundamental principles of justice have been uprooted and the constitutional rights of the people have been violated, at a time when there is no real danger to the state, by an overfearful and incompetent bureaucracy which is neither responsible to the people, nor in touch with real public opinion and their whole plea is that ‘powers when they are assumed will not be abused.’

“I, therefore, as a protest against the passing of the Bill and the manner in which it was passed, tender my resignation as a member of the Imperial Legislative Council, for I feel that, under the prevailing conditions, I can be of no use to my people in the Council, nor, consistently with one’s self respect, is coöperation possible with a Government that shows such utter disregard for the opinion of the representatives of the people in the Council Chamber and the feelings and sentiments of the people outside.

“In my opinion, a Government that passes or sanctions such law in times of peace forfeits its claim to be called a civilized Government and I still hope that the Secretary of State for India, Mr. Montagu, will advise his Majesty to signify his disallowance to this Black Act.

“Yours truly,
“M. A. Jinnah.”

The leaders of the passive resistance movement declared 30th March as “the National protest day.” The protest was to be made by all the traditional methods known to India for ages, viz., by fasting, stopping business, praying, and meeting in congregations in their respective places of worship. The only Western method contemplated was passing resolutions and sending telegrams to the authorities in India and England. The 30th of March was thus observed as a national protest day throughout India and there was only one clash between the people and the Government, viz., at Delhi, the national capital.

Delhi has been the national capital of India from times immemorial. It was the chief capital city of the Moguls. It has a mixed population of Hindus and Mohammedans, almost evenly divided. The European population there is not very large. There is a British garrison stationed in the Mogul fort. Besides being the capital of British India, Delhi is a very important trade center and the terminus of several railway lines. All business was stopped, shops closed and the city gave an appearance of a general strike. A mass meeting attended by 40,000 people, according to British estimates, and presided over by a religious ascetic, passed resolutions of protest and cabled them to the Secretary of State for India in London. It was at Delhi and on this day as already stated that the first clash occurred between the authorities and the people. It is immaterial how it came about but it may be noted that rifles and machine guns were freely used in dispersing the mobs at the railway station and other places. According to official estimates fourteen persons were killed and about sixty wounded. The non-official estimates give larger figures. Evidently nothing serious happened between March 30th and April 6th which last was observed as a day of mourning throughout British India from Peshawar to Cape Comorin and from Calcutta to Karachi and Bombay. People held meetings, made speeches, marched in processions, took pledges of passive resistance, closed shops, suspended business, bathed in the sea, joined in prayer and fasted. No violence of any kind was reported. In the words of a correspondent of the London Times, “the distinguishing feature of many of these demonstrations [meaning thereby passive resistance demonstrations] made on the 6th of April, specially at Delhi, Agra, Bombay and Calcutta, is the Hindu and Moslem fraternization, Hindus being freely admitted to the mosques, on occasions occupying the Mihrab (the niche indicating the direction of Mecca).” In a message dated April 7th the same correspondent cabled “an unprecedented event in the shape of a joint Moslem-Hindu service at the famous Juma Masjed at Delhi, at which a Hindu[1] delivered a sermon.” The Juma Masjed is one of the jewels of Mogul architecture and probably the biggest mosque in India.

On April 9th Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, dwelt with pride on the fact that the province ruled by him with an iron hand for the last five years “had raised 360,000 combatants during the war.” “Dealing with the political situation he declared that the Government of the province was determined that public order which was maintained during the war, should not be disturbed during peace. Action had therefore been taken under the Defence Act against certain individuals who were openly endeavoring to arouse public feeling against the Government.” It was this action, viz., the summary arrest of leaders at Amritsar and the order of prohibition against Mr. Gandhi’s contemplated visit to the Punjab, that set fire to the accumulated magazine. It exasperated the people and in a moment of despair the intense strain of the last few weeks found relief in attacks on Government buildings and stray persons of European extraction. What actually happened in different places no one can definitely tell just at this stage but it is clear that at places so widely distant as Amritsar and Lahore in the Punjab and Viramgam in the Gujerat (Western Presidency) railway stations, telegraph offices and some other public buildings were burned, railway traffic interrupted, tram cars stopped and some Europeans killed and attacked. At Amritsar three banks were burnt down and their managers killed. Telegraphing on April 15th and again on the 16th of April, the correspondent of the London Times remarked that “the Punjab continued to be the principal seat of trouble” which was probably due to the extremely brutal methods which the Punjab Government had followed in repressing and suppressing not only the present ‘riots’ but also all kinds of political activity in the preceding six years. It appears that in about a week’s time almost the whole province was ablaze. The Government used machine guns in dispersing meetings, showered bombs from aeroplanes and declared martial law in several towns, extended the seditious meetings prevention Act and other emergency laws in districts, marched flying military columns from one end to the other, accompanied by travelling courts martial to try and punish on the spot all arrested for offences committed in connection with the passive resistence movement. Leaders were arrested and deported without trial of any kind; papers were suppressed and all kinds of demonstrations prohibited.

Among the leaders arrested are the names of some of the most conservative and moderate of the Punjab public men—men whose whole life is opposed to extremism of any kind. Those men were subjected to various indignities, handcuffed and marched to jail. They have been held in ordinary prison cells and all comforts have been denied to them as if they were criminals. Counsel engaged for them from outside the Province have been refused admission into the Province. Machine guns and aeroplanes have been used in dispersing unarmed mobs and crowds were fired at in many places. At Lahore the General Officer Commanding gave notice “that unless all the shops were re-opened within 48 hours all goods in the shops not opened will be sold by public auction.” As to the causes of the upheaval, the Anglo-Indian view is contained in a telegraphic message to the London Times bearing date April 20th. Below we give a verbatim copy of this message:

CAUSES OF THE UPHEAVAL.

“Bombay, April 20.—We have passed through the most anxious ten days that India has known for half a century. We have further anxious days in store, for although in Bombay conditions are improving and Mr. Gandhi has publicly abandoned the passive resistance movement, while men of weight are rallying to the support of the Government, the situation in Northern India is disquieting.

“We may pause to enquire into this widespread manifestation of violence. How came it that passive resistance to the Rowlatt Act—never likely to be applied to the greater part of India, especially to Bombay, and nominally confined to the sale of proscribed literature of doubtful legality, which was waning—suddenly flamed into riot, arson, and murder at Delhi, Ahmedabad, Viramgam, Amritsar, and other parts of the Punjab on the prevention of Mr. Gandhi’s entry into Delhi? All day on April 11 Bombay stood on the brink of a bloody riot, averted only by the Governor, Sir George Lloyd’s prudent statesmanship and the great restraint of the police and military in face of grave provocation.

“The movement seems to have been twofold. In part it was the expression of the prevailing ferment. India is no less affected than other parts of the world by the social and intellectual revolution of the war, by expectations based on the destruction of German materialism and by ambitions for fuller partnership in the British Empire.

PROFITEERING AND TRICKERY.

“The disruptive effect of these ideals is accentuated by prevailing conditions. The prices of food are exceedingly high, supplies are scanty, while efforts to control prices are hampered by the profiteering and trade trickery unfortunately never absent from this country. [As if it was absent from other countries.]

“India having been swept bare of foodstuffs, to meet the exigencies of the war, the people feel that the home Government is lukewarm in releasing supplies from outside, and resent particularly that the Shipping Controller is maintaining high freights on fat and rice from Burma. These severe sufferings are superimposed on the devastating influenza and cholera epidemics. So much for the social and economic situation.

“Then the activities of the Indo-British Association created grave doubts whether Parliament will deal fairly with India when the reform scheme is considered. The Rowlatt Act was precipitated into this surcharged atmosphere.

“The Act was wickedly perverted by the Extremists until among the common people it became the general belief that it gave plenary powers to a police which was feared and distrusted. Among educated people, few of whom studied the report or the Act, it was bitterly resented as a badge of India’s subjection after loyal participation in the war, at a time when the strongest feeling in the country was craving for its self-respect in the eyes of the nations. Further, it was regarded as prejudicing the cause of political reform.

“Another powerful contributory cause was the ferment amongst the Moslem community. Everywhere the Moslems believe that the Peace Conference is bent on the destruction of Islam. There is no confidence in British protection after our declared policy in regard to Turkey and the undoing of the settled fact in Eastern Bengal in 1911.

“This feeling is the more dangerous because it is inchoate. Moslem officers returned from Palestine and Arabia, and acquainted with the realities of Turkish rule, have expressed astonishment at the strength of this feeling among their co-religionists here. Mohamedans have been foremost in the work of riot and destruction in Ahmedabad and Delhi, and the lower elements were ripe for trouble in Bombay. I am unable to say how far this ferment affected the outbreaks in the Punjab.

“This seething Moslem unrest is the most menacing feature of Indian politics to-day. It explains the unprecedented admission of Hindus to the Mosques of Delhi and Aligarh....

REVOLUTIONARY INSPIRATION

“So much for the general situation. In Northern India the outbreaks were nakedly revolutionary. They are unconnected with the Rowlatt Act or with passive resistance, which probably precipitated a movement long concerted. There is abundant evidence of the organized revolutionary character of the disturbances in the systematic attacks on railways, telegraphs, and all means of communication, and its definitely anti-British character is apparent from the efforts to plunge the railways into a general strike.

“There are signs of the inter-connection of the Punjab revolutionaries with the Bombay revolutionaries who organized attacks on communications at Ahmedabad and Viramgam, derailed trains, cut telegraphs, and sent rowdies from Kaira to take part in the work of destruction. There is evidence also of some outside inspiration, but whether Bolshevist or otherwise is obscure.

“Whilst in the Punjab the soil was fruitful, owing to economic conditions, the ravages of influenza, and the pressure of last year’s recruiting campaign, the revolutionary origin of the disturbances is unquestioned....”

As usual the message is a mixture of truth and imagination. At most it is a partisan view. Be the causes what they may, the events in our judgment amply justify the following conclusions:

(a) That India is politically united in demanding a far reaching measure of self-determination.

(b) That she will not be satisfied with paltry measures of political reform which do not give her power to shape her fiscal policy in her own interests, independent of control from London.

(c) That it is useless to further harp on the “cleavages” of race, religion and language, in dealing with the problem of India.

(d) That the country is no longer prepared to let measures of coercion pass and take effect without making their protest and dislike known to the authorities in a manner, the significance of which may not be open to misunderstanding.

The Indian members of the Legislative Council while opposing the Rowlatt Bills spoke in sufficiently clear and strong language of the grave situation the Government was creating by its ill-considered policy. They knew their people. The bureaucracy evidently dismissed it as bluff or, if it knew what was likely to happen, encouraged it in the hope that the outbreak might justify their opposition to, and dislike of, the Montagu-Chelmsford scheme. In doing that they have had to hatch the eggs they themselves laid. These events have, besides, proved (a) that the lead of the country has passed from the hands of the so called “natural leaders,” the aristocracy of land, money and birth; (b) that even the moderate leaders have considerably lost in prestige and influence; (c) that the lead has definitely passed into hands that openly and frankly stand for self-determination and self-government within the Empire and are prepared for any sacrifice to achieve that end; (d) that the old methods of governing India must now be discarded once for all and the charge of provinces taken away from sun-dried bureaucrats of the type of Sir Michael O’Dwyer and Sir Reginald Craddock.

The bloodshed in the Punjab, which outdid all other Provinces in sending help during the war both in men and money, pointed to the administration or mal-administration of Sir Michael O’Dwyer as responsible for the nature and intensity of the outbreak. If ever there was a British ruler of India who deserved impeachment it is Sir Michael O’Dwyer. He was not only a tyrant and a snob of the worst order but he was incompetent also. One of the two things must have happened: Either he was out of touch with public feeling in the province or he deliberately provoked this disaster by a policy of strength. In either case he deserves to be publicly impeached and condemned for incompetence or brutality or possibly for both.

The following Summary of the orders passed by the officer commanding shows the nature of the martial law administered in the “most loyal” province in India, a province which has so far been considered to be the right arm of British Ráj in India.

I have italicised some words and sentences for special attention. The reader I hope will note the exceptions in favor of the Europeans and the Indian servants in the employ of the Europeans and also the reasonableness of the other orders, threatening punishment upon the owners of certain properties and requiring “all students,” and all male persons belonging to private Colleges in Lahore to attend four times a day at a particular place for roll call. Order No. 14 is a gem of great brilliance.

I have omitted order No. 6 as unimportant. Orders from 8 to 12 inclusive are not available. What has been given above, however, is quite sufficient to show the nature of the martial law that has been applied to the Punjab, after five years of unquestioned and unrivalled loyalty to the British Empire, in the period of greatest danger that had overtaken it. Such is the reward of “loyalty.”

No. 1

Whereas the Government of India has for good reasons proclaimed Martial Law in the districts of Lahore and Amritsar; and

Whereas superior military authority has appointed me to command troops and administer Martial Law in a portion of the Lahore district, ... and whereas Martial Law may be briefly described as the will of the Military Commander in enforcing law, order and public safety:

I make known to all concerned that until further orders by me the following will be strictly carried out:

1. At 20·00 hours (8 o’clock) each evening a gun will be fired from the Fort, and from that signal till 05·00 hours (5 o’clock) on the following morning no person other than a European or a person in possession of a military permit signed by me or on my behalf will be permitted to leave his or her house or compound or the building in which he or she may be at 20 hours. During these prohibited hours no person other than those excepted above will be permitted to use the streets or roads, and any person found disobeying this order will be arrested, and if any attempt is made to evade or resist that person will be liable to be shot.

This and all other orders which from time to time I may deem necessary to make will be issued on my behalf from the water-works station in the city, whither every ward will keep at least four representatives from 6 A.M., till 17·00 hours (5 P.M.) daily to learn what orders, if any, are issued and to convey such orders to the inhabitants of their respective wards. The onus of ascertaining the orders issued by me will rest on the people through their representatives.

2. Loyal and law-abiding persons have nothing to fear from the exercise of Martial Law.

3. In order to protect the lives of his Majesty’s soldiers and police under my command, I make known that if any firearm is discharged or bombs thrown at them the most drastic reprisals will instantly be made against property surrounding the scene of the outrage. Therefore it behooves all loyal inhabitants to see to it that no evil-disposed agitator is allowed on his premises.

4. During the period of Martial Law I prohibit all processions, meetings or other gatherings of more than 10 persons without my written authority, and any such meetings, gatherings or processions held in disobedience of this order will be broken up by force without warning.

5. I forbid any person to offer violence or cause obstruction to any person desirous of opening his shop or conducting his business or proceeding to his work or business. Any person contravening this order will be arrested, tried by a summary court and be liable to be shot.

6. At present the city of Lahore enjoys the advantage of electric lights and a water-supply; but the continuance of these supplies will depend on the good behaviour of the inhabitants and their prompt obedience to my orders.

No. 2

All tongas and tum-tums, (horse carriages) whether licensed for hire or otherwise, will be delivered up to the Military Officer appointed for that purpose at the Punjab Light Horse ground by 17·00 (5 P.M.) to-day—Tuesday, 15th April. Drivers will receive pay and horses be rationed.

No. 3

All motor-cars or vehicles of any descriptions will be delivered to the Military Officer appointed for that purpose at the Punjab club by 17·00 (5 P.M.) this day.

No. 4

By virtue of the powers vested in me I have prohibited the issue of third or intermediate class tickets at all railway stations in the Lahore Civil Command, except only in the case of servants travelling with their European masters or servants or others in the employ of the Government.

No. 5

Whereas, from information received by me, it would appear that shops, generally known as Langars, for the sale of cooked food, are used for the purpose of illegal meetings, and for the dissemination of seditious propaganda, and whereas I notice that all other shops (particularly in Lahore city) have been closed as part of an organized demonstration against his Majesty’s Government, now, therefore, by virtue of the powers vested in me under Martial Law, I order that all such Langars or shops for the sale of cooked food in the Lahore civil area, except such as may be granted an exemption in writing by me shall close and cease to trade by 10·00 hours (10 A.M.) tomorrow, Wednesday, the 16th April, 1919.

Disobedience to this order will result in the confiscation of the contents of such shop and the arrest and trial by summary procedure of the owner or owners.

No. 7

Whereas I have reason to believe that certain students of the D. A. V. College in Lahore are engaged in spreading seditious propaganda directed against his Majesty’s Government, and whereas I deem it expedient in the interests of the preservation of law and order to restrict the activities of such students, I make the following order:—

All students of the said college now in this Command area will report themselves to the Officer Commanding Troops at the Bradlaugh Hall daily at the hours specified below and remain there until the roll of such students has been called by the principal or some other officer approved by me acting on his behalf, and until they have been dismissed by the Officer Commanding Troops at Bradlaugh Hall.

No. 8

Whereas some evilly-disposed persons have torn down or defaced notices and orders which I have caused to be exhibited for information and good government of the people in the Lahore (Civil) Command.

In future all orders that I have to issue under Martial Law will be handed to such owners of property as I may select and it will be the duty of such owners of property to exhibit and keep exhibited and undamaged in the position on their property selected by me all such orders.

The duty of protecting such orders will therefore devolve on the owners of property and failure to ensure the proper protection and continued exhibition of my orders will result in severe punishment.

Similarly, I hold responsible the owner of any property on which seditious or any other notices, proclamations or writing not authorized by me are exhibited.

No. 13

Whereas information laid before me shows that a martial law notice issued by me and posted by my orders on a property known as the Sanatan Dharam College Hostel on Bahawalpur road, has been torn or otherwise defaced, in contravention of my Martial Law Notice No. 8.

Now, therefore, by virtue of the powers vested in me under martial law, I order the immediate arrest of all male persons domiciled in the said hostel and their internment in the Lahore Fort pending my further orders as to their trial or other disposal.

No. 14

Whereas practically every shop and business establishment in the area under my command has been closed in accordance with the hartal or organized closure of business directed against his Majesty’s Government.

And whereas the continuance or resumption of such hartal is detrimental to the good order and governance of the said area.

And whereas I deem it expedient to cause the said hartal to entirely cease:

Now therefore by virtue of the powers vested in me by martial law I make the following order, namely:—

By 10·00 hours (10 A.M.) tomorrow (Friday), the 18th day of April, 1919, every shop and business establishment (except only langare referred to in martial law notice No. 5, dated 15th April, 1919) in the area under my command, shall open and carry on its business and thereafter daily shall continue to keep open and carry on its business during the usual hours up to 20·00 hours (8 P.M.) in exactly the same manner as before the creation of the said hartal.

And likewise I order that every skilled or other worker will from 10·30 hours (10.30 A.M.) tomorrow, resume and continue during the usual hours his ordinary trade, work or calling.

And I warn all concerned that if at 10·00 hours (10 A.M.) tomorrow, or at any subsequent time I find this order has been without good and valid reason disobeyed, the persons concerned will be arrested and tried under the summary procedure of martial law, and shops so closed will be opened and kept open by force, any resultant loss arising from such forcible opening will rest on the owners and on occupiers concerned.

And I further warn all concerned that this order must be strictly obeyed in spirit as well as in letter, that is to say, that to open a shop and then refuse to sell goods and to charge an exorbitant or prohibitive rate, will be deemed a contravention of this order.

[Note: Shops had evidently remained closed for seven days.]

No. 15

Whereas it has come to my knowledge that the present state of unrest is being added to and encouraged by the spreading of false, inaccurate or exaggerated reports or rumours:

Now, therefore, by virtue of the powers vested in me by martial law I give notice that any person found guilty of publishing, spreading or repeating, false, inaccurate or exaggerated reports in connection with the military or political situation, will be arrested and summarily dealt with under martial law.

No. 16

Whereas I have reason to believe that certain students of the Dyal Singh College in Lahore are engaged in spreading seditious propaganda directed against his Majesty’s Government and whereas I deem it expedient in the interest of the preservation of law and order to restrict the activities of such students, I make the following order:—

All students of the said college now in this command area will report themselves to the officer commanding troops at the telegraph office daily at the hours specified below and remain there until the roll of such students has been called by the principal or some other officer approved by me acting on his behalf, and until they have been dismissed by the Officer Commanding Troops at the telegraph office:—

First parade at 11·00 hours (11 A.M.) on the (?) April, 1919.

“The latest order under martial law passed today makes it unlawful for more than two persons to walk abreast on any constructed or clearly defined pavement or side-walk in such area. Disobedience to this order will be punished by special powers under martial law. It shall also be illegal for any male person to carry or be found in possession of an instrument known as a lathi. All persons disobeying this order will be arrested and tried by summary proceedings under martial law.”

No. 24

Whereas I deem it expedient to make provision for the preservation of health and the greater comfort of British troops stationed in the area under my command,

And whereas a number of electric fans and lights are required in the buildings in which some of such troops are quartered,

Now therefore by virtue of the powers vested in me by martial law I authorize any officer appointed by me for that purpose to enter any college, public building, hostel, hotel, private or other residence or building and remove such number of electric lights and fans required for the purpose aforesaid,

And any attempt to obstruct such removal, or to hide, or to damage or to impair the immediate efficiency of any such fans or lights, will be summarily dealt with under martial law,

But nothing in this order shall authorize the removal of any fan or light from a room usually inhabited by a woman.

These are only a few of the orders we have been able to obtain.

For weeks the Punjab was in a state of terror. Almost all of the Native papers were either directly or indirectly suppressed or terrorized into silence. Numerous persons were arrested and placed for trial before military commissioners. Among them were a large number of the most honored men in the province. Legal counsel from outside the province was denied to them, and admission of newspapermen into the province barred. In punishing the persons found guilty the military commissioners have awarded sentences, the parallel of which can only be found in the history of Czarism in Russia. Flogging in the public was resorted to in more than one place. In short, a complete reign of terror was established. So great was the terrorism that the whole country was thrown into such a paroxysm of rage, anger and despair as to make the people forget the desire for a political constitution at this terrible price.

Just as I am writing these lines I learn from the London Times that the reports of the two committees that were sent to India to inquire into (a) questions connected with the franchise and (b) the division of functions between the Government of India and local governments, and between the official and the popular elements in the local governments, have been published in Great Britain. In one of the Appendices is given a rather brief and inadequate summary of the recommendations of these committees published by the London Times. At this stage it is impossible to make any comments except that the franchise is by no means as broad as it could have been, the restriction of local residence on candidates for the provincial Legislative Councils extremely unreasonable, and the strength of the Provincial Councils very meagre. The recommendations are unsatisfactory in other respects also, specially the power granted to the Governor to dismiss ministers.

The question, however, is, “Will the Cabinet stand by these recommendations or will they allow them to be whittled down?” Mr. Montagu’s bill, which is promised to be introduced in the House of Commons early in June, will answer the question.

In conclusion, I have to tender my thanks to my friend Dr. J. T. Sunderland for having read my proofs.

June 2, 1919.

Lajpat Rai

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This Hindu happened to be the leader of a section of the Arya Samaj—an organization known for its bitter attitude towards Mohammedanism.

CONTENTS

The Political Future of India

I
INTRODUCTORY

Now we are faced with the greatest and the grimmest struggle of all. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, not amongst men, but amongst nations—great and small, powerful and weak, exalted and humble,—equality, fraternity, amongst peoples as well as amongst men—that is the challenge which has been thrown to us.... My appeal to the people of this country, and, if my appeal can reach beyond it, is this, that we should continue to fight for the great goal of international right and international justice, so that never again shall brute force sit on the throne of justice, nor barbaric strength wield the sceptre of right.

David Lloyd George

“Causes and Aims of the War.” Speech delivered at Glasgow, on being presented with the freedom of that city, June 29, 1917

We are told that the world is going to be reconstructed on entirely new lines; that all nations, big or small, shall be allowed the right of self-determination; that the weaker and backward peoples will no longer be permitted to be exploited and dominated by the stronger and the more advanced nations of the earth; and that justice will be done to all. “What we seek,” says President Wilson, “is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.”

The Indian people also form a part of the world that needs reconstructing. They constitute one-fifth of the human race, and inhabit about two million square miles of very fertile and productive territory. They have been a civilized people for thousands of years, though their civilization is a bit different from that of the West. We advisedly say “a bit different,” because in fundamentals that civilization has the same basic origin as that of Greece and Rome, the three peoples having originally sprung from the same stock and their languages, also, being of common descent. For the last 150 years, or (even) more, India has been ruled by Great Britain. Her people have been denied any determining voice in the management of their own affairs. For over thirty years or more they have carried on an organized agitation for an autonomous form of Government within the British Empire. This movement received almost no response from the responsible statesmen of the Empire until late in the war. In the meantime some of the leaders grew sullen and downhearted, and, under the influence of bitter disappointment and almost of despair, took to revolutionary forms. The bulk of the people, however, have kept their balance and have never faltered in their faith in peaceful methods. When the war broke out the people of India at once realized the world significance of this titanic struggle and in no uncertain voice declared their allegiance to the cause of the Allies. Our masters, however, while gratefully accepting our economic contributions and utilizing the standing Indian army, spurned our offers for further military contributions. In the military development of the Indians they saw a menace to their supremacy in India.

The Russian Revolution first, and then the entry of the United States into the War, brought about a change in the point of view of the British statesmen. For the first time they realized that they could not win the war without the fullest coöperation of the people of India, both in the military and the economic sense and that the fullest coöperation of the United States also required as a condition precedent, quite a radical revision of their war aims. President Wilson’s political idealism, his short, pithy and epigrammatic formulas compelled similar declarations by Allied statesmen. The British statesmen, at the helm of affairs, found it necessary to affirm their faith in President Wilson’s principles and formulas if they would not let the morale of their own people at home suffer in comparison. In the meantime the situation in India was becoming uncomfortable. The Nationalists and the Home Rulers insisted on a clear and unequivocal declaration of policy on the lines of President Wilson’s principles. The British statesmen in charge of Indian affairs, at Whitehall, were still temporizing when the report of the Royal Commission on the causes of the Mesopotamia disaster burst out on the half-dazed British mind like a bombshell. To the awakening caused by the report and its disclosures a material contribution was made by the outspoken, candid and clear-cut speech of a younger statesman, whose knowledge of the working of the Indian Government could not be questioned. When the Parliament, press and platform were all ablaze with indignation and shame at the supposed incompetence of the Indian Government, to whose inefficiency and culpable neglect of duty were ascribed the series of disasters that ended with the surrender of a British force at Kut-el-amara, Mr. Edwin Samuel Montagu, who had been an Under Secretary for India under Lord Morley and was at the time of the Mesopotamia disaster Minister of Munitions, came out with a strong and emphatic condemnation of the system and the form of Government under which the “myriads” of India lived and had their affairs managed. Mr. Montagu’s opinion of the machinery of the Indian Government was expressed as follows:

“The machinery of Government in this country with its unwritten constitution, and the machinery of Government in our Dominions has proved itself sufficiently elastic, sufficiently capable of modification, to turn a peace-pursuing instrument into a war-making instrument. It is the Government of India alone which does not seem capable of transformation, and I regard that as based upon the fact that the machinery is statute-ridden machinery. The Government of India is too wooden, too iron, too inelastic, too antediluvian, to be any use for the modern purposes we have in view. I do not believe that anybody could ever support the Government of India from the point of view of modern requirements. But it would do. Nothing serious had happened since the Indian mutiny, the public was not interested in Indian affairs, and it required a crisis to direct attention to the fact that the Indian Government is an indefensible system of Government.”

Regarding the Indian Budget Debates in Parliament, he said:

“Does anybody remember the Indian Budget Debates before the War? Upon that day the House was always empty. India did not matter, and the Debates were left to people on the one side whom their enemies sometimes called “bureaucrats,” and on the other side to people whom their enemies sometimes called “seditionists,” until it almost came to be disreputable to take part in Indian Debates. It required a crisis of this kind to realise how important Indian affairs were. After all, is the House of Commons to be blamed for that? What was the Indian Budget Debate? It was a purely academic discussion which had no effect whatever upon events in India, conducted after the events that were being discussed, had taken place.”

He held that the salary of the Indian Secretary of State should be paid from the British Treasury, and then there would be real debates:

“How can you defend the fact that the Secretaries of State for India alone of all the occupants of the Front Bench, with the possible exception of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, are not responsible to this House for their salaries, and do not come here with their Estimates in order that the House of Commons may express its opinion....

“What I am saying now is in the light of these revelations of this inelasticity of Indian government. However much you could gloss over those indefensible proceedings in the past, the time has now come to alter them.

“The tone of those Debates is unreal, unsubstantial and ineffective. If Estimates for India, like Estimates for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the Colonial Secretary were to be discussed on the floor of the House of Commons, the Debates on India would be as good as the Debates on foreign affairs. After all, what is the difference? Has it even been suggested to the people of Australia that they should pay the salary of the Secretary of State for the Colony? Why should the whole cost of that building in Charles Street, including the building itself, be an item of the Indian taxpayer’s burden rather than of this House of Commons and the people of the country?”

Can and does the House of Commons control the India Office? Here is Mr. Montagu’s answer.

“It has been sometimes questioned whether a democracy can rule an Empire. I say that in this instance the democracy has never had the opportunity of trying. But even if the House of Commons were to give orders to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State is not his own master. In matters vitally affecting India, he can be overruled by a majority of his Council. I may be told that the cases are very rare in which the Council has differed from the Secretary of State for India. I know one case anyhow, where it was a very near thing, and where the action of the Council might without remedy have involved the Government of India in a policy out of harmony with the declared policy of the House of Commons and the Cabinet. And these gentlemen are appointed for seven years, and can only be controlled from the Houses of Parliament by a resolution carried in both Houses calling on them for their resignations. The whole system of the India Office is designed to prevent control by the House of Commons for fear that there might be too advanced a Secretary of State. I do not say that it is possible to govern India through the intervention of the Secretary of State with no expert advice, but what I do say is that in this epoch now after the Mesopotamia Report, he must get his expert advice in some other way than by this Council of men, great men though, no doubt, they always are, who come home after lengthy service in India to spend the first years of their retirement as members of the Council of India.

“Does any Member of this House know much about procedure in the India Office? I have been to the India Office and to other offices. I tell this House that the statutory organization of the India Office produces an apotheosis of circumlocution and red tape beyond the dreams of any ordinary citizen.”

His own idea of what should be done at that juncture was thus expressed:

“But whatever be the object of your rule in India, the universal demand of those Indians whom I have met and corresponded with, is that you should state it. Having stated it, you should give some instalment to show that you are in real earnest, some beginning of the new plan which you intend to pursue, that gives you the opportunity of giving greater representative institutions in some form or other to the people of India....

“But I am positive of this, that your great claim to continue the illogical system of Government by which we have governed India in the past is that it was efficient. It has been proved to be not efficient. It has been proved to be not sufficiently elastic to express the will of the Indian people; to make them into a warring Nation as they wanted to be. The history of this War shows that you can rely upon the loyalty of the Indian people to the British Empire—if you ever before doubted it! If you want to use that loyalty, you must take advantage of that love of country which is a religion in India, and you must give them that bigger opportunity of controlling their own destinies, not merely by Councils which cannot act, but by control, by growing control, of the Executive itself. Then in your next War—if we ever have War—in your next crisis, through times of peace, you will have a contented India, an India equipped to help. Believe me, Mr. Speaker, it is not a question of expediency, it is not a question of desirability. Unless you are prepared to remodel, in the light of modern experience, this century-old and cumberous machine, then, I believe, I verily believe, that you will lose your right to control the destinies of the Indian Empire.”

The quick and resourceful mind of Premier Lloyd George at once grasped the situation. He lost no time in deciding what was needed. Probably over the head of his Tory colleagues, possibly with their consent, he gave the Indian portfolio to Mr. Montagu, and told him quietly to set to business. Mr. Montagu’s first step was the announcement of August 20, 1917. On that date he made in the House of Commons the following memorable statement:

“The policy of His Majesty’s Government, with which the Government of India are in complete accord, is that of the increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire. They have decided that substantial steps in this direction should be taken as soon as possible, and that it is of the highest importance as a preliminary to considering what these steps should be that there should be a free and informal exchange of opinion between those in authority at home and in India. His Majesty’s Government have accordingly decided, with His Majesty’s approval, that I should accept the Viceroy’s invitation to proceed to India to discuss these matters with the Viceroy and the Government of India, to consider with the Viceroy the views of local Governments, and to receive with him the suggestions of representative bodies and others.

“I would add that progress in this policy can only be achieved by successive stages. The British Government and the Government of India, on whom the responsibility lies for the welfare and advancement of the Indian peoples, must be judges of the time and measure of each advance, and they must be guided by the co-operation received from those upon whom new opportunities of service will thus be conferred and by the extent to which it is found that confidence can be reposed in their sense of responsibility.

“Ample opportunity will be afforded for public discussion of the proposals which will be submitted in due course to Parliament.”

It is obvious that the content of the second sentence of paragraph two in the above announcement is in fundamental opposition to the right of every nation to self-determination, a principle now admitted to be of general application (including, according to the British Premier, even the black races inhabiting the Colonies that were occupied by Germany before the War, within its purview). The people of India are not on the level of these races. Even if it be assumed that they are not yet in a position to exercise that right, fully and properly, it is neither right nor just to assume that they shall never be in that position even hereafter. The qualifications implied in that sentence are, besides, quite needless and superfluous. As long as India remains “an integral part of the British Empire” she cannot draft a constitution which does not meet with the approval of the British Parliament and the British Sovereign. It is to be regretted that the British statesmen could not rise equal to the spirit of the times and make an announcement free from that spirit of autocratic bluster and racial swagger which was entirely out of place at a time when they were making impassioned appeals to Indian manhood to share the burdens of Empire by contributing ungrudgingly in men and money for its defence. This attitude is somewhat inconsistent with the statements in paragraph 179 of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, wherein, after referring to the natural evolution of “the desire for self-determination,” the distinguished authors of the Report concede that “the demand that now meets us from the educated classes of India is no more than the right and natural outcome of the work of a hundred years.”

In spite of this uncalled for reservation in the announcement, it is perfectly true that “the announcement marks the end of one epoch and the beginning of a new one.” What makes the announcement “momentous,” however, is not the language used, as even more high-sounding phrases have been used before by eminent British statesmen of the position of Warren Hastings, Macaulay, Munroe, Metcalf and others, but the fact that the statement has been made by the Secretary of State for India, as representing the Crown and the Cabinet who, in their turn, are the constitutional representatives of the people of Great Britain and Ireland. The statement is thus both morally and legally binding on the British people, though it will not acquire that character so far as the people of India are concerned, unless it is embodied in a Statute of Parliament. Is it too much to hope that when that stage comes the second sentence of the second paragraph might be omitted or so modified as to remove the inconsistency pointed out above?

We have no doubt, however, that the language of the announcement notwithstanding, the destiny of India remains ultimately in the hands of the Indians themselves. It will be determined, favorably or unfavorably, by the solidity of their public life, by the purity and idealism of the Indian public men to be hereafter entrusted with the task of administration, by the honesty and intensity of their endeavor to uplift the masses, both intellectually and economically, by the extent to which they reduce the religious and communal excuses that are being put forth as reasons for half-hearted advance, and by the amount of political unity they generate in the nation. The well known maxim that those who will must by themselves be free, is as good today as ever. They will have to do all this in order to persuade the British Parliament to declare them fit for responsible Government. Once they show their fitness by deeds and by actual conduct, no one can keep them in leading-strings.

Coming back to the announcement itself, would it not be well to bear in mind that what differentiates this announcement from the statutory declarations of the Act of 1833 and the Royal proclamation of 1858 is not the language used but the step or steps taken to ascertain Indian opinion, to understand and interpret it in accordance with the spirit of the times and the frankness and fairness with which the whole problem is stated in the joint report of the two statesmen, who are the present official heads of the Government of India. Nor can it be denied that the announcement and the report have received the cordial appreciation of the Indian leaders.

We, that is, the Indian Nationalists, have heretofore concerned ourselves more with criticism of the British administration than with the problem of construction, though our criticism has never been merely destructive. We have always ended with constructive suggestions. Henceforth, if the spirit of the announcement is translated into deeds it will be our duty to coöperate actively in constructive thought. Not that we refused coöperation in the past, but the conditions and the terms on which we were asked to coöperate made it impossible for us to make an effective response.

Several British critics of the Indian Nationalists have from time to time charged them with lack of constructive ability. They ignore the fact that political conditions in India were an effective bar to any display of ability.

The first attempt at constitution making was made by the Congress in 1915, and as such was bound to be rather timid and half-hearted. The situation since then has considerably improved and the discussions of the last twelve months have enabled the Secretary for India and the Viceroy to claim that, in certain respects, at least, their scheme is a more effective step towards responsible Government than the scheme promulgated jointly by the Congress and the Muslim League. How far that claim can be substantiated remains to be seen. This much is, however, clear: come what may, along with the rest of the world, India cannot go back to the pre-war conditions of life. The high functionaries of the British Government in India are also conscious of that fact, as one of them, the present Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, a member of the Indian bureaucracy, remarked only recently in a speech at Allahabad:

“Nothing will ever be the same,” said Sir Harcourt Butler; “this much is certain, that we shall have to shake up all our old ideals and begin afresh ... we have crossed the watershed and are looking down on new plains. The old oracles are dumb. The old shibboleths are no more heard. Ideals, constitutions, rooted ideas are being shovelled away without argument or comment or memorial.... Our administrative machine belongs to another age. It is top-heavy. Its movements are cumbrous, slow, deliberate. It rejoices in delay. It grew up when time was not the object, when no one wanted change, when financial economy was the ruling passion of Governments, imperial and provincial. Now there are the stirrings of young national life, and economic springtime, a calling for despatch, quick response, bold experiment. Secretariats with enormous offices overhang the administration. An eminent ecclesiastic once told me that Rome had, by centuries of experience, reduced delay to a science; he used to think her mistress of postponement and procrastination, but the Government of India beat Rome every time. Only ecclesiatics could dare so to speak of the Government of India. I, for one, will not lay audacious hands on the chariot of the sun.”

Coming, as it does, from a member of the Anglo-Indian bureaucracy, this statement means much more to the Indian people than even the words of the British Premier. If this statement is not mere camouflage, but represents a genuine change of heart on the part of the British bureaucracy in India, then it is all the more inexplicable to us why the new scheme of the Secretary for India and the Viceroy should breathe so much distrust of the educated classes of India. Any way, we have nothing but praise for the spirit of frankness and fairness which generally characterizes the report. However we might disagree with the conclusions arrived at, it is but right to acknowledge that the analysis of the problem and its constituting elements is quite masterly and the attempt to find a solution which will meet the needs of the situation as understood by them absolutely sincere and genuine. This fact makes it all the more necessary that Indian Nationalists of all classes and all shades of opinion should give their best thought to the consideration of the problem in a spirit of construction and coöperation, as distinguished from mere fault-finding. Nor should it be forgotten for a moment that Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford were all the time, when drawing their scheme, influenced by considerations of what, under the circumstances, is practicable and likely to be accepted, not only in India by the Anglo-Indian bureaucracy and the non-official European community, but by the conservative British opinion at home. It is the latter we have to convince and win over before the scheme has a ghost of a chance of being improved upon. When we say conservative opinion we include in that expression the Liberal and Labour Imperialists also. We should never forget that it is hard to part with power, however idealistic the individual vested with power may be, and it is still harder to throw away the chances of profit which one (and those in whom one is interested) have gained by efforts extending over a century and a half, and in the exercise of which one sees no immediate danger. I am of the opinion that hitherto Indian representation in England has been extremely meagre, spasmodic and inadequate to the needs of the situation. Outside England, India’s voice has been altogether unheard. We have so far displayed an almost unpardonable simplicity in failing to recognise that the world is so situated these days that public opinion in one country sometimes reacts quite effectively on public opinion in another. It is our duty, therefore, to increase our representation in England and to keep our case before the world with fresh energy and renewed vigour, not in a spirit of carping denunciation of the British Government of India, but with a desire to educate and enlist liberal and right-minded opinion all over the world in our favor. In the following pages an attempt is made to examine the Montagu-Chelmsford report in a spirit of absolute candour and fairness, with practical suggestions for the improvement of the scheme in the light of Indian and British criticism thereupon.

II
DEMOCRACY IN INDIA

A nation that can sing about its defeat is a nation which is immortal.

David Lloyd George

“Serbia.” Speech delivered at the Serbian Lunch (Savoy Hotel), August 8, 1917.

Before we take up the report of the Secretary for India and the Viceroy we intend to clear the ground by briefly meeting the almost universal impression that prevails in educated circles in the West, that democratic institutions are foreign to the genius of the Asiatic peoples and have never been known in India before. The latest statement to this effect was made by Mr. Reginald Coupland of the Round Table Quarterly, in an article he contributed to the New Republic (September 7, 1918) on “Responsible Government in India.” We have neither the time nor the desire to go into the question as it relates to other Asiatic countries, though we might state, in general terms, that an impartial study of Asiatic history will disclose that in the centuries preceding the Reformation in Europe, Asia was as democratic or undemocratic as Europe. Since then democracy has developed on modern lines in Europe. While Asia has gradually disintegrated and fallen under foreign domination, Europe has progressed towards democracy. As regards India, however, we intend to refer briefly to what historical evidence is available.

Firstly, we wish to make clear what we understand by “democracy.” There is no desire to enter into an academic discussion of the subject nor to burden this book with quotations from eminent thinkers and writers. In our judgment, the best definition of democracy so far has been furnished by Abraham Lincoln, viz., “the government of the people, by the people and for the people,” regardless of the process or processes by which that government is constituted. One must, however, be clear minded as to what is meant by “the people.” Does the expression include all the people that inhabit the particular territory to which the expression applies, regardless of sex, creed, color and race, or does it not? If it does, we are afraid there is little democracy even in Europe and America today. Until recently half of the population was denied all political power in the State by virtue of sex. Of the other half a substantial part was denied that right by virtue of economic status or, to be more accurate, by lack of economic status considered necessary for the exercise of political power. Even now the Southern States of the United States, Amendment XV to the American Constitution notwithstanding, effectively bar the colored people from the exercise of the franchise supposed to have been accorded to them by the amendment. In Europe, religious and social bars still exist in the constitutions of the different states. As Great Britain is supposed to be the most democratic country in Europe, we cannot do better than take the history of the growth of public franchise in that country as the best illustration of the growth of democracy in the terms of President Lincoln’s formula.

Travelling backwards, the earliest democratic institutions known to Europe were those of Greece and Rome. In applying the term “democratic” to the city republics of Greece and Rome it is ignored that these “republics” were in no sense democratic. “Liberty,” says Putnam Weale, “as it was understood in those two celebrated republics of Athens and Sparta meant abject slavery to the vast mass of the population, slavery every whit as cruel as any in the Southern States of the American Union before the war of Liberation.... In neither of these two republics did the freemen ever exceed twenty thousand, whilst the slaves ran into hundreds of thousands, and were used just as the slaves of Asiatics were used.[1] Thus the Greek republics were simply cities in which a certain portion of the inhabitants, little qualified to exercise them, had acquired exclusive privileges, while they kept the great body of their brethren in a state of abject slavery.”[2] Discussing the nature of Roman citizenship Putnam Weale remarks (p. 25) that “in spite of the polite fiction of citizenship, the destinies of scores of millions were effectively disposed of by a few thousands.” This was true not only with regard to the outlying parts of the Empire but even as to Italy itself. “Roman liberty,” continues Putnam Weale, “though an improvement on Greek conceptions, was like all liberty of antiquity confined really to those who, being present in the capital, could take an active part in the public deliberations. It was the liberty of city and not of a land. It was therefore exactly similar in practise, if not in theory, to the kind of liberty, which has always been understood in advanced Asiatic states—the system of Government by equipoise and nothing else. The idea of giving those who lived at a distance from the capital any means of representing themselves was never considered at all; and so, it was the populace of the capital (or only a part of it), aided by such force as might be introduced by the contesting generals or leaders, which held all the actual political power. Representative Government—the only effective guarantee of liberty of any sort—had therefore not yet been dreamt of.” [The italics are ours.]

Alison in his History of Europe, Vol. I, says: “The states of Florence, Genoa, Venice and Pisa were not in reality free; they were communities in which a few individuals had usurped the rights, and disposed of the fortunes, of the great bulk of their fellow citizens, whom they governed as subjects or indeed as slaves. During the most flourishing period of their history, the citizens of all Italian republics did not amount to 20,000, and these privileged classes held as many million in subjection. The citizens of Venice were 2500 and those of Genoa 4500, those of Pisa, Siena, Lucca and Florence taken together, not above 6000.” [Italics ours.] Coming to more modern times we find it stated by Morse Stephens in his History of Revolutionary Europe that “the period which preceded the French Revolution and the era of war from the troubles of which Modern Europe was to be born may be characterised as that of the benevolent despots. The State was everything, the nation nothing.” Speaking of the eighteenth-century conditions in Europe, Stephens remarks that “the great majority of the peasants of Europe were throughout that century absolute serfs”; also that “the mass of the population of Central and Eastern Europe was purely agricultural and in its poverty expected naught but the bare necessaries of existence. The cities and consequently the middle classes formed but an insignificant factor in the population.” These quotations reveal the real character of the European democracy in ancient and mediæval and even in early modern Europe up to the end of the eighteenth century, or, to be more accurate, to the time of the French Revolution. Compare this with the following facts about the political institutions of India, during the ancient and mediæval times:

(1) First we have the testimony of ancient Brahmanic and Buddhistic literature, preserved in their sacred books, about the right of the people to elect their rulers; the duty of the rulers to obey the law and their obligation to consult their ministers as well as the representatives of the public in all important affairs of State.

The Vedic literature contains references to non-monarchial forms of Government,[3] makes mention of elected rulers and of assemblies of people, though the normal as distinguished from universal form of Government according to Professor Macdonald was by Kings, “a situation which, as in the case of the Aryan invaders of Greece and of the German invaders of England, resulted almost necessarily in strengthening the monarchic element of the constitution.”[4]

In the Aitreya Brahmana occur terms which are translated by some as representing the existence of “self-governed” and “kingless” states. These authorities have been collected, translated and explained by K. P. Jayas Wal and Narendranath Law in a series of articles published in the Modern Review of Calcutta.

The Mahabharata, the great Hindu epic, makes mention of kingless states or oligarchies. “In fact,” says Mr. Banerjea, “all the Indian nations of these times possessed popular institutions of some type or other.”[5]

Professor Rhys Davids has said, in his Buddhist India, that “the earliest Buddhist records reveal the survival side by side with more or less powerful monarchies, of republics with either complete or modified independence.” He names ten such republics in Northern India alone. In regard to the system of Government effective within one of the tribes that constituted a republic of their own, the same scholar observes: “The administrative and judicial business of the clan was carried out in public assembly, at which young and old were alike present in their common Mote Hall. A single chief—how and for what period chosen we do not know—was elected an officeholder, presiding over the sessions, or, if there were no sessions, over the State. He bore the title of Raja, which must have meant something like the Roman Consul or the Greek Archon.”[6] There is no evidence of the existence of slaves or serfs in these communities. Evidently all were freemen.

(2) We have the evidence of Greek historians of the period who accompanied Alexander in his Asiatic Campaign, or who, after Alexander’s death, represented Greek monarchs at the courts of Indian rulers. “Even as late as the date of Alexander’s invasion,” says Mr. Banerjea, “many of the nations of the Punjab lived under democratic institutions.” Speaking of one of them called Ambasthas (Sambastai), the Greek author of Ancient India says: “They lived in cities in which the democratic form of Government prevailed.” “Curtius,” adds Mr. Banerjea, “mentions a powerful Indian tribe, where the form of Government was democratic, and not regal.”[7] Similarly Arrian, another Greek writer, is quoted as mentioning several other independent, self-governing tribal communities who lived under democratic forms of government and bravely resisted the advance of Alexander. One of them, when making submission to Alexander, told him that “they were attached more than any others to freedom and autonomy, and that their freedom they had preserved intact from the time Dionysos came to India until Alexander’s invasion.”[8] There were some others which had an aristocratic form of Government. In one of them mentioned in Ancient India, “the administration was in the hands of three hundred wise men.”

Another Greek writer, Diodoros, speaks of Patala as “a City of great note with a political constitution drawn on the same lines as the Spartan.” It may safely be presumed that the Greek meant what he said. Chanakya, the author of a great treatise on political science, mentions many powerful oligarchies that existed down to the fourth century A. D. In one of the inscriptions, said to be of the sixth century A. D., the Malavas are referred to as living under a republican form of Government.[9]

(3) Even when kingship became an established institution the idea that the King was only a servant of the people survived for a long time. His “remuneration” was fixed at one-sixth of the produce. His subjects had the right to depose him or to turn him out if he failed in his duty. The authorities on these points are collected by Mr. Banerjea on pp. 72 and 73 of his book.

(4) Similarly many authorities are quoted by Mr. Banerjea on pp. 74 and 75 of his learned work showing that, according to Hindu ideals practised in ancient times, the king was not above the law. He was not an autocrat. He was as much bound by the law as his subjects. Laws were not made by kings. “Legislation was not among the powers entrusted to a king,” says Mr. Banerjea. “There is no reference in early Vedic literature to the exercise of legislative authority by the king, though later it is an essential part of his duties,” says Prof. Macdonell.[10]

(5) Assemblies and councils are quite frequently mentioned both in the Rig and the Atharva Vedas. “The popular assembly was a regular institution in the early years of the Buddhistic age (500 to 300 B.C.)” Chanakya mentions that in the King’s Council the decision of the majority should prevail.[11] Sukraniti lays down elaborate rules of procedure for the conduct of business in these assemblies. “The Council was the chief administrative authority in the kingdom. The King was supposed not to do anything without the consent of the Council.”[12] In Kerala State, South India, during the first and second centuries of the Christian Era, there were five assemblies one of which consisted of “representatives of the people summoned from various parts of the State.”[13] “From the Ceylon inscriptions we learn that in that island all measures were enacted by the King in Council, and all orders were issued by and under the authority of the Council.”

While all this is true of Ancient India, we cannot claim the existence of the same system of Government for mediæval India. Even as regards Ancient India, all that is claimed is that it possessed as much democracy, if not more, as Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. The non-existence of slavery in Northern India gives it therefore a superior character to that of the Ancient republics of Greece and Rome. In the South, it is believed slavery did exist. Coming to mediæval times generally known as the Mohammedan period of Indian History consisting of two epochs, from 400 to 1200 A.D. and from 1200 to 1800 A.D., we notice that the country enjoyed a durable kind of government, cities under absolute rule, and villages, as before, self-governed. The absolute rule was a benevolent or malevolent despotism according to the character of the Hindu or Moslem sovereign who reigned. But in the villages India maintained a democratic form of government right up to the beginning of British rule; and though under British rule, it has been practically superseded by the rule of the officials, yet in some parts of the country the spirit is still alive, as will appear from the following testimony recorded by Mr. Sidney Webb in his Preface to Mr. John Matthai’s volume, Village Government in British India:

“One able collector of long service in Central India informed me that he had been, until a few months before, totally unaware that anything of the sort existed in any of the villages over which he ruled. But being led to make specific inquiries on the subject, he had just discovered, in village after village, a distinctly effective if somewhat shadowy, local organization, in one or other form of panchayat, which was, in fact, now and then giving decisions on matters of communal concern, adjudicating civil disputes, and even condemning offenders to reparation and fine. Such a Local Government organization is, of course, ‘extra-legal’ and has no statutory warrant, and, in the eyes of the British tribunals, possesses no authority whatever. But it has gone on silently existing, possibly for longer than the British Empire itself, and is still effectively functioning, merely by common consent and with the very real sanction of the local public opinion.”

Mr. Matthai has also made a similar remark in Paragraph 22 of his book (Introductory).

Village councils ordinarily called village panchayats have often been confounded with caste panchayats and that fact has been emphasised to prove that these Indian panchayats were or are anything but democratic. Mr. Sidney Webb and Mr. John Matthai both have controverted that position and upon good evidence. Says Mr. Webb:

“One suggestion that these fragments of indigenous Indian Local Government seem to afford is that we sometimes tend to exaggerate the extent to which the cleavages of caste have prevailed over the community of neighbourhood. How often is one informed, ‘with authority,’ that the panchayat of which we catch glimpses must be only a caste panchayat! It is plain, on the evidence, that however frequent and potent may be the panchayat of a caste, there have been and still are panchayats of men of different castes, exercising the functions of a Village Council over villagers of different castes. How widely prevalent these may be not even the Government of India can yet inform us. But if people would only look for traces of Village Government, instead of mainly for evidences of caste dominance, we might learn more on the subject.”

Later on in the same paragraph Mr. Webb remarks that, even where caste exists it has, in fact, permitted a great deal of common life, and that it is compatible with active village councils.

Besides the evidence furnished by the texts of Hindu codes, law books and political treatises (like the Arthasastra of Kautalaya), and Nítí Shástrá, etc., other good evidence has been produced by Mr. Matthai in support of the above-mentioned proposition.

In Paragraph 23 he refers to the Madras Epigraphic Report, 1912-13, in support of the statement that “there were village assemblies in South India in the tenth century A.D., which ‘appear to have consisted of all the residents of a village including cultivators, professionals and merchants.’”

“In the Private Diary of Anandaranga Pillay, who served as agent to Dupleix, the French Governor in South India in the middle of the eighteenth century, there is an entry referring to a village meeting to consider a case of desecrating the village temple ‘in which people of all castes—from the Brahman to the Pariah—took part.’”

In Paragraph 24, he points out that a village council (Panchayat) might either be an assembly of all the inhabitants of the village or only a select committee consisting of representatives selected on some recognized principle. The first are common among less developed communities like those of the aboriginal tribes and the latter in more highly organized communities.

Evidences of bigger assemblies consisting of representatives of more than one village, sometimes of more than one district, to decide cases of importance or dispute between whole villages are also cited in Paragraphs 26 and 27 and 32. On the strength of certain South Indian Inscriptions relating to the Tamil Kingdoms of the 10th century A.D., it is stated that the administration of the village was carried on by no less than five or six committees, each vested with jurisdiction relating to certain definite departments of village life, though there was no fixed rule on the point. In Paragraphs 33 and 34 the mode of election to the committees and the qualifications for membership are set down in detail. The procedure seems to have been quite elaborate, though suited to the level of intelligence of the people concerned. These village councils and committees looked after education, sanitation, poor relief, public works, watch and ward, and the administration of justice. To describe the methods by which these departments of village life were administered by the village councils requires too much space, but we give two excerpts from Chapter II on education:

“The history of village education in India goes back perhaps to the beginnings of the village community. The schoolmaster had a definite place assigned to him in the village economy, in the same manner as the headman, the accountant, the watchman, and the artisans. He was an officer of the village community, paid either by rent-free lands or by assignments of grain out of the village harvest.”

“The outstanding characteristics of the schools of the Hindu village community were: (1) that they were democratic, and (2) that they were more secular than spiritual in their instruction and their general character.... Nevertheless, when we speak of the democratic character of these early Hindu schools, it is to be understood that they were democratic only in this sense, that they were open not merely to the priestly caste but to all the four superior castes alike. There was never any question of admitting into the schools those who lay outside the regular caste system whose touch would have meant pollution, nor to the great aboriginal populations of the country.”

“This is very similar to the public schools in the Southern States, in the United States, where schools for the white children are closed to coloured children and vice versa.”

From what has been stated above it appears that the general impression that democratic institutions are entirely foreign to India is nothing but the survival of a prejudice originally due to ignorance of Indian history. In collecting his evidence Mr. Matthai has principally drawn upon South Indian sources. There can be no doubt that abundant evidence of a similar kind is available as regards North India and is waiting to be collected, collated and sifted by other Matthais. We do not contend that India had the same kind of representative institutions as Modern Europe has. In fact no part of the world had. They are all recent developments. The democratic nature of an institution does not depend on the methods of election but on the people’s right to express their will, directly, or through their representatives, in the management of their public affairs. It is clear that that idea was never altogether absent from Indian life either in theory or in practise. Even under the most absolute autocracies, the bulk of the people managed their collective affairs themselves. They organised and maintained schools; arranged and paid for sanitation; built public works; provided for watch and ward; administered justice, and for all these purposes raised revenues and spent them in a democratic way. They did so, not only as regards the internal affairs of a village, but applied the same principles in the larger life of their district or districts. Such a people cannot be said to have always lived a life dictated and held together by force. Nor can it be said with justice that the introduction of modern democratic methods in such a country, among such a people, would be the introduction of an exotic plant, with the spirit and working of which it will take them centuries to be familiar.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is extremely doubtful if there were any slaves in India in the corresponding period of Indian history. At least, Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador at the Court of Chandra Gupta, did not find any in northern India, though his opinion is not accepted as quite correct. It is said that slavery did exist in a mild form in the southern peninsula.

[2] The Conflict of Colour, by Putnam Weale, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1910, pp. 20-21.

[3] Public Administration in Ancient India, by P. Banerjea, Macmillan, London, 1916, p. 42.

[4] Vedic India, by Macdonnell & Keith. Vol. II. p. 210.

[5] Banerjea, p. 43.

[6] Buddhist India, p. 9.

[7] Ancient India, Alexander’s Invasion (McCrindle, p. 292), quoted by Mr. Banerjea. p. 44.

[8] Arrian, Anabasis (McCrindle), p. 154; quoted by Mr. Banerjea, p. 154. If the Greek writers were familiar with the conceptions of democracy and republicanism they knew what they meant by the use of these terms in relation to Indian institutions.

[9] Banerjea. p. 46.

[10] Macdonell & Keith, Vedic Index, Vol. II, p. 214.

[11] Banerjea. p. 95.

[12] Footnote, Ibid., p. 96. Original authority quoted by Mr. Banerjea in footnote on p. 103.

[13] Ibid., p. 104.

III
THE PRESENT IDEALS

The wishes, the desires, and the interests of the people of these countries [speaking of German colonies] themselves must be the dominant factor in settling their future government.

David Lloyd George

“Causes and Aims of the War.” Speech delivered at Glasgow, on being presented with the freedom of that city, June 29, 1917.

Every nation has a fundamental right to determine, fix and work out her own ideals. Any interference with this right by individuals or nations of foreign origin is unnatural and unjust. The consent of the governed is the only logical and just basis of governments. These principles have been reiterated with added force and masterly eloquence by President Wilson in his addresses during the War. They have been accepted and adopted by the Allied statesmen. No statesman or publicist of standing in any of the Allied countries can dare question the principles. The difficulty, however, arises when we come to apply them practically. At this point the practical politician’s genius for diplomacy discovers flaws that provide excuses for the non-application of those principles if such course seems helpful to his nation or his sovereign.

President Wilson has asseverated that “the day of conquest and aggrandisement is gone,” which, in plain language, means that the day of Imperialism is over. And, in conformity with the principle stated in the Declaration of Independence, that “All nations have the right to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them,” President Wilson has also said that “every people have a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live”; that “national aspirations must be respected, and that ‘self determination’ is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril.” Yet as practical men we must not ignore the facts of life. The world is not at once going to be an ideal place to live in even if it may become one. It may be that the advanced nations of the earth which just now divide the political and economic control of the world between themselves may accept the underlying policy of the following statement (of President Wilson) that

“This war had its roots in the disregard of the rights of small nations and of nationalities which lacked the union and the force to make good their claim to determine their own allegiance and their own forms of political life.”

and the proposed League of Nations might see that a continuance of the injustice thus far done to small or backward nations is no longer permitted. Being practical men, however, we cannot build on the assumption that at the end of this war the world is at once to be transformed into a paradise and that full justice will be done to all nations and all peoples alike. We already notice a tendency to restrict the application and the enforcement of these principles to the nations of Europe by the more frequent use of the term “free nations.” “Free nations” do not need to be freed. It will be wise, therefore not to be carried off our feet by these declarations and statements. Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford have pointedly reminded us of the Indian saying, “hanoz Delhi Dúr Ast” (i.e. “Delhi is yet far away”). But even if they had not done so we were not so simple as to be swept away by the mere language of the war declarations. The wording of the announcement of August 20, 1917, itself did not leave us in doubt about the truth of the saying quoted by Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford. We have, therefore, to test our ideals and aspirations by the touchstone of practicability and expediency. Happily for us there is, in theory, at least, a full agreement between the political goal set up by the Indian Nationalists of the Congress school (since endorsed by the Home Rulers) and that set up by the authors of the announcement of August 20th. This goal is “Self-Government within the Empire on terms of equality with the other parts of it,” in the language of the Congress school or, “Responsible Government as an integral part of the British Empire,” in the language of the announcement. There is a party of Indian politicians who want complete independence, but at present their number is so limited that we need not take serious consideration of their position in the matter. The vast bulk of the educated classes are agreed:

(a) That they are content to remain within the British Empire if they are allowed a status of equality with the self-governing dominions of the Empire.

(b) That what they want is an autonomous Government on the lines of Canada, Australia and the South African Union.

(c) That they do not want any affiliation with any other Foreign Government.

Much has been written and said about the loyalty of the people of India to the British Government. Opinions, however, differ as to its nature. Some say it is the loyalty of a helpless people or, in other words, a loyalty dictated by fear or force. Others say it is the loyalty of opportunism. The British maintain that the loyalty is the outcome of a genuine and sincere appreciation of the blessings of the British Empire. Be that as it may, it is in the interest of both to bring about circumstances and conditions which would transform this loyalty whatever its nature into one of genuine affection and interest. The announcement of August 20, 1917, may be considered as a first step towards the creation of such loyalty, but much will depend on the steps that are taken to give practical effect to the policy embodied in the said announcement and on the spirit in which the proposed reforms are carried out. Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford’s conception of the “eventual future of India is a sisterhood of states, self-governing in all matters of purely local or provincial interest, in some cases corresponding to existing provinces, in others perhaps modified in area according to the character and economic interests of their people. Over this congeries of States should preside a Central Government increasingly representative of and responsible to the people of all of them; dealing with matters, both internal and external, of common interest to the whole of India; acting as arbiter in interstate relations and representing the interests of all India on equal terms with the self-governing units of the British Empire.”[1] The only changes that we would propose in the language of this statement are (i) the omission of the word “increasingly” which is rather misplaced in the conception of an ideal, and (ii) the substitution of the word “Commonwealth” in place of “Empire.” His Highness the Aga Khan considers the use of the term “responsible” government instead of “self-government” in the announcement as unfortunate because it carries the technical meaning of a government responsible for its existence to an assembly elected by the people. On the other hand, self-government can comprise many and varied forms of expression of the popular will. Further, he is convinced that the words “responsible government” were used in order to carry with the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister some more conservative members of the small war cabinet. It was camouflaged so that the Executive government hereafter might contain Englishmen, while at the same time the administration became sufficiently liberal to be responsible to the people. With due respect to the Aga Khan we do not see the logical connection between the two. Responsible government may or may not involve the necessary inclusion of Englishmen in the Cabinet. Although we may not approve of the interpretation of the expression “responsible” government given to it by the authors of the report, in our judgment its use as an ideal to be attained expresses more forcibly the right of the people to choose their government than the use of the general term “self government” would.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Paragraph 349 of the Report.

IV
THE STAGES

There is no protection for life, property, or money in a State where the criminal is more powerful than the law. The law of nations is no exception, and, until it has been vindicated, the peace of the world will always be at the mercy of any nation whose professors have assiduously taught it to believe that no crime is wrong so long as it leads to the aggrandisement and enrichment of the country to which they owe allegiance.

David Lloyd George

“No Halfway House.” Speech delivered at Gray’s Inn, December 14, 1917.

In the chapter on ideals we have shown that there is almost complete agreement between the bulk of Indian educated men and the British authorities as to the immediate goal of Government in India. There is no such agreement, however, as regards the stages by which that goal is to be reached, nor on the steps which should be immediately taken to carry us to the first stage. The four formulas by which Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford profess to be guided in their recommendations are not accepted in their entirety by the spokesmen of the Indian people. These formulas are:

(1) There should be as far as possible complete popular control in local bodies and the largest possible independence for them of outside control. (Paragraph 188.)

(2) The provinces are the domain in which the earlier steps towards the progressive realization of responsible government should be taken. Some measure of responsibility should be given at once, and our aim is to give complete responsibility as soon as conditions permit. This involves at once giving the provinces the largest measure of independence, legislative, administrative, and financial, of the Government of India which is compatible with the due discharge by the latter of its own responsibilities. (Paragraph 189.)

(3) The Government of India must remain wholly responsible to Parliament, and saving such responsibility, its authority in essential matters must remain indisputable pending experience of the effect of the changes now to be introduced in the provinces. In the meantime the Indian Legislative Council should be enlarged and made more representative and its opportunities of influencing government increased. (Paragraph 190.)

(4) In proportion as the foregoing changes take effect, the control of Parliament and the Secretary of State over the Government of India and provincial Governments must be relaxed. (Paragraph 191.)

There is no difficulty in accepting the first and the fourth formulas. There is some complaint that the actual steps recommended for immediate adoption to give effect to the policy of the first formula are not in keeping with the spirit of the formula and are inadequate. But this we can reserve for future consideration.

No objection can be taken to the first and the last sentences of the second formula; though there is a great divergence of opinion as regards the content of the second. It is maintained by some, and their number is by no means small,[1] that full responsibility should be conceded to the provinces at once and that there is nothing in the conditions mentioned in the report which justifies the postponement thereof.

The third formula, however, is the one about which there is not even a semblance of agreement. All political parties and all qualified persons in India (we mean, of course, Indians of Indian origin) are agreed that the assumptions and presumptions upon which this formula is based are wrong and unacceptable. Native Indian opinion is fairly unanimous on the point.

There are some who claim full autonomy at once. There are others who claim full autonomy except as regards foreign relations, the control of native States, the Army and the Navy. All insist that a beginning of responsible Government must be made in the Central Government also, and point out the absolute necessity of conceding some measure, even if not full, of fiscal autonomy. They can see no reason why “the Government of India must remain wholly responsible to Parliament” and why “its authority must remain indisputable.” On these matters Indian opinion joins issue with the distinguished authors of the report. We will revert to the subject in another chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The non-official members of Bengal, Bombay and the United Provinces have made that demand, which has been endorsed by the Indian National Congress and the All-Indian Muslim League.

V
THE CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM

Let us, at any rate, make victory so complete that national liberty, whether for great nations or for small nations, can never be challenged. That is the ordinary law. The small man, the poor man, has the same protection as the powerful man. So the little nation must be as well guarded and protected as the big nation.

David Lloyd George

“The Pan-German Dream,” Speech delivered at Queen’s Hall on the third anniversary of the Declaration of War, August 4, 1917.

The eminent authors of the report have devoted an entire chapter to a consideration of what they call the “conditions of the problem.” These may be considered under two different heads: (a) those that necessitate a rather radical reorganisation of the Government of India; (b) those that prevent the authors from recommending immediate responsible government and justify the limitations of their scheme.

IMMENSITY OF THE PROBLEM AND THE GRAVITY OF THE TASK

Before we take up the two sets of facts relied upon by them in support of either position we may express our general agreement with them as regards the gravity of the task and the immensity of the problem. The size of the country and the vastness of its population are the measure of the extent of the problem. The existence of powerful vested interests at present possessed by the ruling race which may be interfered with by extended changes in the system of Government are the measure of its gravity. “The welfare and happiness of hundreds of millions of people,” which the authors say are in issue cannot be adequately provided for by any autocratic system of Government however benevolent its purpose, and however magnificent its organisation. An “absolute government” is an anachronism, but when it is foreign it is doubly so. To bring out “the best in the people” for their own “welfare and happiness” as well as for that of mankind in general, it is necessary that the people should be free to develop on their own lines, manage their own affairs, evolve their own life, subject only to such restrictions as the general interests of humanity demand; and subject to such guidance as the better placed and more experienced people of the earth can furnish.

The people of India are willing to be guided in their development towards modern democracy by the people of Great Britain and they would be grateful for their coöperation in this difficult task, but they must be made to realize that the task is their own and that they should undertake it in a spirit of courageous faith—faith in their destiny, faith in their ability to achieve it, and faith in the friendship of the great British nation. The test of all measures in relation to the Government of India in future should be, not how far the people of India can coöperate, how far they can be entrusted with responsibility, but how far it is necessary in their interests to control and check them. The difference between the two points of view is fundamental and important. Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford have looked at the problem from the former point of view; the Indian leaders want them to look at it from the latter. They want the great British nation to recognise the justice of India’s claim to manage her own affairs, and to keep in their hands in future only such control as is absolutely necessary (a) to enable the Indian people to conduct their business efficiently and successfully, (b) to make them fulfill their obligations to the great Commonwealth of nations of which they hope soon to be a component part. As long as British statesmen insist on looking at the problem from the former point of view, they will make mistakes and raise a not entirely unreasonable suspicion of their motives. The moment they adopt the other point of view, they remove all grounds of distrust and create an atmosphere of friendliness in which they can deal with the problem in a spirit of mutual trust, absolute frankness and candid perspicacity. There are many contentions of the British statesmen which the educated Indians would gladly admit to be valid and necessary were they sure that their admission would not be used against them by the power whom they habitually regard as their adversary. There is much in this report which could at once be struck out if both parties were actuated by feelings of mutual trust and friendliness. It cannot be denied that many of the proposed restrictions on the power of the popular assemblies and the would-be Indian Administrators are the outcome of distrust. It is no wonder then that the Indian leaders in their turn are not quite sure of the face value of the many professions of good will that characterise the scheme. It is for the removal of this distrust that we appeal as earnestly as we can to the better mind of Great Britain.

In looking at the conditions of the problem, there is another fallacy which underlies the oft-exaggerated estimates of the blessings of British rule in India by British statesmen and British publicists. They compare the India of today with the India of 1757 and at once jump to the conclusion that “the moral and material civilisation of the Indian people has made more progress in the last fifty years than during all the preceding centuries of their history.” The proper comparison is of the Great Britain, the France, the United States, the Germany, the Italy and the Japan of 1757, with the India of that year and of India’s progress within the last century and a half, or even within the last 50 years, with the progress of these countries in the same period. We have no desire to withhold credit for what Great Britain has done in India, but what she has misdone or could have done but failed to do, by virtue of her rule in India being absolute and thus necessarily conditioned by limitations inevitable in a system of absolute rule, should not be forgotten.

The Indian critics of British rule in India have repeatedly pointed out that what they condemned and criticised was the system and not the personnel of the Government, and the distinguished authors of the Report “very frankly recognise that the character of political institutions reacts upon the character of the people” and that the exercise of responsibilities calls forth capacity for it (Paragraph 130), which mainly accounts for the conditions that serve as reasons for withholding responsible government from the Indian people. In discussing “the basis of responsibility” Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford very properly point out that the qualities necessary for it are only developed by exercise and that though “they are greatly affected by education, occupation and social organisation” “they ultimately rest on the traditions and habits of the people.” “We cannot go simply to statistics for the measure of these things.” Yet, unfortunately, it is exactly these statistics that seem to have influenced them largely in the framing of their half-hearted measures. The two dominating conditions which obsess them are (1) that the immense masses of the people are poor, ignorant and helpless far beyond the standards of Europe; and (2) that there runs through Indian society a series of cleavages—of religion, race and caste—which constantly threaten its solidarity.

We admit the existence of these conditions, but we do not admit that they are an effective bar to the beginnings of responsible government even on that scale on which European countries had it when the conditions of life in those countries were no better than they are now in India.

It is said that 226 of 244 millions of people in British India live a rural life: “agriculture is the one great occupation of the people” and “the proportion of these who even give a thought to matters beyond the horizon of their villages is very small.” We ask did not similar conditions exist in Great Britain, France and Germany before the inauguration of the Industrial Revolution, and if they did, did they stand in the way of their people getting responsible government or parliamentary institutions? Everyone knows what the conditions in France were in years immediately preceding the Revolution. Italy was no better off in the middle of the nineteenth century. Perhaps it is not much better even today. The masses of the people in these and other countries of Europe, including Great Britain, were far more ignorant, poor and helpless when these countries obtained parliamentary government than they are in India today. And the authors of the report are not unaware that similar concerns are perhaps the main interests of the population of some country districts in the United Kingdom even today. In several of the Balkan States, Roumania, Serbia and Bulgaria—in Italy and in the component parts of Russia—the conditions are no better, yet their right to autonomous government, nay, even to absolute independence, is hardly questioned. Moreover, as has been pointed out by Mr. Sidney Webb,

“It is a mistake to assume that a land of villages necessarily means what is usually implied by the phrase, a people of villagers. In truth, India, for all its villages, has been also, at all known periods, and to-day still is, perhaps, to a greater extent than ever before, what Anglo-Saxon England, for instance was not or the South African Republic in the days before gold had been discovered, and what the Balkan peninsula even at the present time may perhaps not be, namely a land of flourishing cities, of a distinctly urban civilization, exhibiting not only splendid architecture, and the high development of the manufacturing arts made possible by the concentration of population and wealth, but likewise—what is much more important—a secretion of thought, an accumulation of knowledge, and a development of literature and philosophy which are not in the least like the characteristic products of villages as we know them in Europe or America. And to-day, although the teeming crowds who throng the narrow lanes of Calcutta or Benares, Bombay or Poona, Madras or Hyderabad, or even the millions who temporarily swarm at Hardwar or Allahabad or Puri may include only a small percentage of the whole population, yet the Indian social order does not seem to be, in the European understanding of the phrase, either on its good or on its bad side, essentially one of the villagers. The distinction may be of importance, because the Local Government developed by peoples of villages, as we know of them in Anglo-Saxon England, in the early days of the South African Republic, and in the Balkan States, is of a very different type from that which takes root and develops, even in the villages, in those nations which have also a City life, centers of religious activity, colleges and universities, and other ‘nodal points,’ from which emanate, through popular literature, pilgrimages, and the newspaper press, slow but far-spreading waves of thought and feeling, and aspirations which it is fatal to ignore.”[1]

We have also quoted, in the chapter on “Democracy in India,” the statement of Morse Stephens, about the condition of the people of Europe in the eighteenth century.

EDUCATIONAL BACKWARDNESS

“The Educational returns,” remark the authors of the Report, “tell us much the same story,” viz., the appalling dissimilarity of conditions in Europe and in India. While it is painfully true that the percentage of illiteracy in India is greater than in any of the countries of Europe, we cannot admit that that fact is a fatal bar to the beginnings of responsible government in India or to the granting of a democratic constitution to the country. Literacy is, no doubt, a convenient, but by no means a sure index of the intelligence of the people, even much less of their character. The political status of a country is determined more by intelligence and character than by literacy. In these the people of India are inferior to none. By that we do not mean that they are possessed of the same kind of political responsibility as the people of the United Kingdom or of France or of Germany or of the United States, but only that by intelligence and character they are quite fitted to start on the road to responsible government, at least to such kind as was conceded for the first time to Canada, Australia, Italy, the Balkan States, Austria, Hungary, etc. The illiteracy of the masses may be a good reason for not introducing universal suffrage, but it is hardly a valid reason for refusing a kind of constitution which may place India in the same position, in the matter of responsible Government, as Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy and the United States were when those countries showed the same percentage of illiteracy. Literacy has nowhere been the test of political power. Burma had almost no illiteracy when the British took possession of it; its population was absolutely homogeneous and the solidarity of the nation ran no risk from “cleavages of religion, race and caste.” Even today Burma has the highest figures of literacy in the whole of British India. In that respect it occupies a higher position than Roumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, many of the Russian States and perhaps even Italy and Hungary and possibly some of the South American Republics. In the matter of race and religion, too, its position is better than that of the countries mentioned, yet the authors of the Report do not propose to concede to it even such beginnings of responsible government as they are prepared to grant to the other provinces of India. The fact is that mere literacy does not play an important part in the awakening of political consciousness in a people. It is a useful ingredient of character required for the exercise of political power but by no means essential.

POVERTY

The argument based on poverty is of still less force. On the other hand, it is the best reason why the people of India should have the power to determine and carry out their fiscal policy. We hope the admissions made in Paragraph 135 of the Report which we bodily reproduce[2] will once for all dispose of the silly statement, so often repeated even by men who ought to know better, that materially India has been highly prosperous under British rule. If so, how is it that in the language of the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy “enormous masses of the population have little to spare for more than the necessaries of life”? What about the prosperity of a province, one of the biggest in India (the United Provinces), in which the number of landlords (not tenants and farmers) whose income derived from their proprietary holdings exceeds £20 ($100 a year, which comes to 30 cents a day for the whole family), is about 126,000 out of a population of 48 millions!

Acceptance of the argument of poverty as sufficient to deprive people of political right is putting a premium on it which is hardly creditable to the political ethics of the twentieth century. It is the poorest and the most ignorant in the community who most egregiously suffer at the hands of autocracy. It is they who require protection from it. The wealthy and the educated know how to placate the bureaucrat and get what they want. It is the poor who pay the penalty of political helplessness, yet, curiously, it is for them and in their interest that the English Government in India proposes to withhold the power of the purse from the proposed Indian Councils and insists on denying the Indian people even the elements of responsible government. While we admit the general justice and accuracy of the observations made under the head of “extent of interest in political questions,” “political capacity of the rural population,” we fail to see anything in them which justifies the conclusion that the interests of the classes not politically minded will be safer in the hands of the British officer, and on the whole better protected by him than by his educated countrymen who are likely to get the power in case of responsible government being conceded now. In our judgment no greater argument for the immediate grant of a substantial step in the direction of complete responsible government throughout India and in all spheres of government, could be advanced than what is involved in the following observation of the authors of the joint Report:

“The rural classes have the greatest stake in the country because they contribute most to its revenues; but they are poorly equipped for politics and do not at present wish to take part in them. Among them are a few great landlords and a larger number of yeoman farmers. They are not ill-fitted to play a part in affairs, but with few exceptions they have not yet done so. But what is perhaps more important to appreciate than the mere content of political life in India is its rate of growth. No one who has observed Indian life during even the past five years can doubt that the growth is rapid and is real. It is beginning to affect the large landholders: here and there are signs of its beginning to affect even the villages. But recent events, and above all the war, have given it a new earnestness and a more practical character. Men are coming to realise more clearly that India’s political future is not to be won merely by fine phrases: and that it depends on the capacity of her people themselves to face difficulties and to dispose of them. Hence comes the demand for compulsory education, for industries, for tariffs, for social reform, for social, public and even military service.”

In the next paragraph, the authors approvingly give an extract from an official report in which it is frankly admitted that the rural population “may not be vocal, but they are certainly not voiceless.” The last meeting of the Indian Congress was attended by 700 farmer delegates. Thousands of farmers have joined the Home Rule Leagues. The statement that “hitherto they have regarded the official as their representative in the Councils of the Government” is entirely devoid of any truth. In their eyes the official is the Government itself. Some of them may think that the official represents the Government, but to say that they regard the official as “their representative in the Councils of the Government” is a mere travesty of truth. The paragraph on the “interests of the ryot” bristles with so many unwarranted assumptions that we must enter an emphatic protest against its misleading nature.

But it gives us pleasure to accord our whole-hearted support to the following statement with which the paragraph opens: