Young India / An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within

by Lala Lajpat Rai

YOUNG INDIA

AN INTERPRETATION AND A HISTORY OF
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
FROM WITHIN

CHAPTER I
THE GENERAL VIEWPOINT OF THE INDIAN NATIONALIST

INDIAN History rolls back to thousands of years before the Christian Era. Much of it is still enveloped in mystery. What little is known has been discovered and put in shape within the last hundred years. The materials, from which the early History of India has been prepared, have long been in existence, but little of them were known to the Western people.

It can not be said that a complete history of Ancient India has been fully and finally constructed. What is known has been discovered bit by bit. Much yet remains to be found and put in order. It is quite unsafe, therefore, to dogmatise about the deficiencies of Ancient Indian civilisation. Yet this much can be said with certainty, that centuries before the birth of Christ India possessed a marvellous civilisation, a wonderful literature, a well organised social system, a conception of government based on law and on the legal rights of subjects inter se, as well as against the ruling monarch.[27]

We have, besides, ample evidences in the ancient literature of India, as translated and interpreted by Western scholars, to the effect that democratic institutions were not unknown to Ancient India.[28] Nor can it be said that the idea of universal sovereignty over the whole of India under one permanent power was unknown to the Hindus. How often it was realised and for how long, can not be said with any certainty.[29]

First Invasion of India. The first political and military invasion of India known to history was that of Alexander the Great in 326 B. C. Alexander was no doubt victorious up to a certain point, but he never conquered India, nor did he occupy it. He did not reach even so far into the interior as Delhi on the Jumna. He is said to have left behind him some officers to administer the affairs of the conquered province, but it is a well established historical fact that in the conflict between Chandra Gupta, the Hindu, and Seleucus, the Greek, who was the chief ruling authority in Babylon after the death of Alexander, Seleucus was practically worsted and a peace was concluded by which the independence of India was fully realised. Chandra Gupta ruled over the whole of India north of Vindhyachal. Bengal as far east as Assam, and the Punjab as far west as Afghanistan, were among his provinces. Fortunately for us, we have enough independent testimony in the writings of Megasthenes, the Greek Ambassador at the court of Chandra Gupta, and other contemporaneous Greek writers, as to the state of India at that time.

Chandra Gupta and Asoka. Megasthenes’ account of the Government of Chandra Gupta and of the details of the administration under him, is enough to fill every Indian with pride. Chandra Gupta’s organisation[30] included almost every form of governmental activity known to modern Europe. There was a separate department of labour under him, a separate registrar of births, deaths and marriages, a minister who looked after public charities, another in charge of trade and commerce, one in charge of agriculture, and so on. He had a great army, a currency and a navy. Even then the system of commercial papers was well known to Indians, who had a great name for honesty and truthfulness. Their word was better than a bond. Chandra Gupta was followed by Asoka, perhaps the greatest and noblest Emperor India has had during the historical period. Under him the whole country was consolidated under one imperial sway. He ruled not by force, but by love. His love extended even to animals. He is known to have organised hospitals for the treatment of animals. All this happened before Christ was born. Between 326 B. C. and the middle of the eighth century A. D., India knew no foreign masters, in the sense that it was never ruled for any length of time from without. A few of the nomadic tribes of Central Asia did penetrate into India, only to be absorbed and assimilated by the mass of the Aryans already settled and in power there.

The next foreign invasion of India, which was to leave a permanent mark on the history and institutions of India and with which starts an altogether separate epoch in Indian history, was by Abul Qasim in the middle of the eighth century. For full 400 years the Mohammedans knocked at the door of India before they could establish a kingdom there. The first Mohammedan King of Delhi was Kutb-ud-din Aibak, who established a dynasty in 1206 A. D. The Mohammedans were in possession of some parts of Sindh and the Punjab between the eighth and the twelfth centuries, but India was not conquered nor the Hindus beaten until Prithvi Raj, the last Rajput King of Delhi, was defeated by the treachery of a brother Rajput chief in the year 1193 A. D.

India Practically Independent up to the Twelfth Century. It will be thus seen that India was practically independent up to the beginning of the thirteenth century A. D. By independent, I mean that no foreign rule had been imposed upon it from without. Some parts of the northwestern provinces of the Punjab and Sindh had been for some time under Muslim domination, but the main territory was under native rulers and native laws. As said before, the tribes that overran the northwestern parts of India between the invasion of Alexander the Great and that of Abul Qasim, came to settle. Once settled there, they adopted the religion and the social life of the country and were merged with the natives. Thenceforth there was no distinction between them and the other Indian people.

Muslim Rule. The Mohammedan rule over India lasted for six centuries with varying vicissitudes of fortune. For three centuries, from the thirteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, their rule was practically confined to Northern India. Deccan, Rajputana and Central India were always more or less independent until Akbar consolidated the whole country under his flag; though even he failed to vanquish Partap, the invincible Rana of Udeypore (Rajputana).[31] Partap was defeated, was driven out of his capital, was pursued and harassed, but he did not make his submission to the Mogul. Akbar won over to his side almost all the other Rajput chiefs, some by his prowess, others by friendship, but the Sessodia[32] chief would not bend his knee. His countrymen simply worshipped him. So strong was the feeling of patriotism and the love of independence among the Hindus, even then, that when Akbar one day announced in the Durbar that he had received a petition of submission from Partap, the Rajputs present in the Durbar refused to believe him. It is well known how one of them, Prithvi Raj, a poet, wrote to Partap of the indescribable grief the report had caused them, and telling him that the Hindu sun would set forever if Partap would yield; and how he received an answer that the report was wrong and that Partap would never yield and would keep the flag flying. That shows how a Hindu servant of Akbar, who had made his submission and accepted the service of the Mogul, felt in the matter. Although beaten himself, he would not acknowledge that the Hindus had been finally beaten so long as Partap was resisting the Mogul arms. It speaks very highly of the broad-mindedness of Akbar that, so far back as the sixteenth century, he allowed one of his Hindu captives and servants to speak out so boldly and plainly of his love of Hindu independence. Akbar, we must remember, had succeeded in making alliances with almost all the other important Rajput houses. The proud Rahtores[33] had given him a daughter for a bride, and the Kutchwahas,[a/][33] Bikanir[a/][33] and Boondi[a/][33] had also submitted. So Partap had to fight the combined forces of Akbar and his own brother-Rajput chiefs, some of whom were related to him by the dearest ties of blood and marriage. Yet single-handed, for a quarter of a century, did he withstand the efforts of the mighty empire over which Akbar ruled to force his submission. In the words of Colonel Tod, it is worthy “the attention of those who influence the destinies of states in more favoured climes to estimate the intensity of feeling which could arm Partap to oppose the resources of a small principality against the then most powerful empire in the world, whose armies were more numerous and far more efficient than any ever led by the Persians against the liberties of Greece.”

On his deathbed Partap made his successor swear to eternal conflict against “the foes of his country’s independence.” This was in the sixteenth century, four hundred years after the first Muslim king had ascended the throne of Delhi. But a hundred years had hardly gone by after the event when the Hindus again questioned Muslim supremacy. The Sikhs in the Punjab, the Rajputs in Central India, and the Mahrattas in the Deccan, had started their campaigns before Aurangzeb died in 1707 A. D. The Muslim supremacy was destroyed by the Hindus and not by the British.

Muslim Rule in India not Foreign. Yet it is not right to say that the Muslim rule in India was a “foreign rule.” The Muslim invaders were no doubt foreign in their origin, just as the Normans and Danes were when they came to England, but as soon as they settled in India, adopted the country, made it their home, married and raised children there, they became the sons of the soil. Akbar and Aurangzeb were as much Indians as are to-day the Moguls and Pathans in Delhi or elsewhere. Sher Shah and Ibrahim Lodi were no more foreigners in India than were the descendants of William the Conqueror or the successors of William of Orange in Great Britain. When Timur and Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali attacked India, they attacked a kingdom which was ruled by Indian Muslims. They were as much the enemies of the Mohammedan rulers of India as of the Hindus.

The Muslims, who exercised political sovereignty in India from the thirteenth up to the middle of the nineteenth century A. D., were Indians by birth, Indians by marriage, and Indians by death. They were born in India, they married there, there they died, and there they were buried. Every penny of the revenues they raised in India was spent in India. Their army was wholly Indian. They allowed new families from beyond the borders of Hindustan to come and settle in India, but they very rarely, if at all, employed people who were not willing to stay in India for good and to make it their home. Their bias, if any, against the Hindus was religious, not political. The converts to Islam were sometimes treated even with greater consideration than the original Muslims. Akbar, of course, did away with that distinction, but even the most bigoted and the most orthodox Mohammedan ruler of India was not possessed of that kind of social pride and social exclusiveness which distinguishes the British ruler of India to-day. If the racial question ever came into prominence during Mohammedan supremacy in India, it was not between Hindus and Mohammedans, but between Mohammedans and Mohammedans, as for instance between Tuglaks and Pathans, or between Moguls and Lodis.[34]

In the reign of rulers like Sher Shah, Akbar, Jehangir, and Shah Jahan, the Hindus were eligible for the highest offices under the crown next after the princes of royal blood. They were governors of provinces, generals of armies, and rulers of districts and divisions. In short, the distinctions between the Hindus and Muslims were neither political nor social. Looked at from the political and the economic point of view, the Government was as much indigenous as under Hindu rule. The Muslims never attempted to disarm the population; nor did they prohibit the manufacture or import of arms. They did not recruit their servants from Arabia, or Persia, or Afghanistan. They had no Lancashire industries to protect, and were under no necessity of imposing excise duties on Indian-made goods. They brought their own language and literature with them. For a time, perhaps, they transacted all government business through that language, but eventually they evolved a language which is as much Indian as any other vernacular spoken in India to-day. The groundwork of this language, which is now called Urdu or Hindustani, is purely Indian. The Muslim rulers of India had no anxiety for, and were in no way concerned with, the prosperity of the labouring classes of Persia or Afghanistan. If any one sought their patronage, he had to come to and settle in India. So their government was an Indian government and not a foreign government.

History does not record a single instance of India being ruled from without, by a people of purely non-Indian blood and in the interests of another country and another people, before the British.[35] India was always an empire by herself. She was never a part of another empire, much less a dependency. She had her own army, her own navy, her own flag. Her revenues were spent for her own benefit. She had her industries and manufactured the goods she consumed. Any one wanting the privilege of trading with India under special terms had to obtain the sanction of her government, as the East India Company did. There was no India Office in Arabia or in Persia or in Kabul, to which the people of India looked for initiative in the affairs of their native land.

INDIA UNDER THE BRITISH

India under the British is, however, entirely different.[36] For the first time in history she becomes a part of another empire. India to-day is not an empire by herself, but a part of the British Empire, as Britain once was a part of the Roman Empire. For the first time in history she has been reduced to the position of a dependency. For the first time in her history she is ruled from the outside. For the first time the Indians have been reduced to the position of a subject people, governed by an alien race residing in a different and far-off country. For the first time she is ruled by a sovereign who does not live in India, who sends out every five years a viceroy to administer the affairs of the country under the authority of a minister in a foreign land. For the first time her affairs are managed by people who come and go, under laws made outside of India.[37] All the chief offices of state, the direction and control of armies, the administration of revenues, of divisions, of districts, the coining of money, the administration of justice, the imposing of taxes, etc., are generally in the hands of foreigners who have absolutely no interest in the country except as servants of the crown, persons whose interests in the country cease with the expiration of their term of service. These servants are recruited and appointed out of India. Indians as such are virtually ineligible for many of these offices. During the 150 years of British rule in India, no Indian has been appointed to the governorship of any province. Indians are ineligible for commissions in the army; they cannot be enrolled as volunteers. In order to qualify for the Civil service of their own country, they have to travel six thousand miles, to take the chance of succeeding once in a while.

Political Disqualification of the Indians. For the first time in the political history of India it has become a political disqualification to be an Indian. The offspring of an Englishman, domiciled in India and married to an Indian lady, loses in rank and status by that fact; nor does the issue of an Indian gentleman from an Englishwoman gain anything thereby. So the inferiority in both ways lies in Indian blood and Indian origin. The Muslim who married in India, or the Indian who married a Persian or Afghan, were not affected thereby in their political privileges in the Mohammedan régime. An Indian convert to Christianity is in no better position in India than a Hindu or a Muslim. Thus it is not a religious inferiority or a religious distinction, upon which the political disabilities of an Indian are based, but the fact of his being an Indian by blood and by birth. Never before was India governed by a handful of officers, military and civil, who came to rule for a period, going away when that period was over, only to be replaced by another set equally temporary. India thus loses all or most of what these receive in the shape of money; she loses all the experience which they gain in the different spheres of activity that engages them during the period of their service in India; last but not least, she is deprived of the satisfaction and pride of claiming these men as her sons, who would in their turn take pride in her and feel as sons should for their mother. They come as her rulers, and till the end remain the same. Their sons and grandsons also may in their turn come as rulers, but never as sons. The sons of India, who gain the rank of officials, are only servants of the British. Their position in the Indian services is generally that of drawers of water and hewers of wood for their British masters.

All Europeans, Eurasians including Armenians and Jews can carry arms free of license; not so the Indians. In India, the Indians only are forbidden to carry arms except by special permission of their masters; and permission is of course granted very sparingly and as a matter of favour, as a special concession and not as a right. The highest, the noblest, and the purest among the Indians has to be excepted from the operation of the Arms Act, as an act of mercy on the part of his foreign rulers. In the hills of his own native country, where his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents before him were born, where they perhaps ruled or held positions of trust, where they died, where they fertilised the soil with their blood, and where within less than a century they enjoyed absolute freedom, he, their immediate descendant, must not carry an umbrella over his head to give him shelter from rain or sun without the risk of being kicked to death or being insulted by the lowest among the foreign masters of his country.[38] The hoary Himalayas, the beloved abode of his most respected divinities, are in some places virtually shut against him because the “white gods” have developed a fancy for them.

But that is not all. Even outside India he carries the badge of political subjection with him. The British colonies, more than any other country, bang their doors on him. He is a pariah all over the world. Considering that this is his position in his home, he could hardly be anything else outside. The British Government does not like his going abroad except as an indentured coolie to the British colonies. He may go to England on a pleasure trip, but they do not want Indians there in any numbers. They particularly dislike his going to America and settling there. The reason is obvious. Travelling abroad gives him opportunities of comparing British rule in India with the forms of government prevailing in other countries. Free atmosphere and free environment raise aspirations which are dangerous, at any rate inconvenient to British supremacy in India. Moreover, they effectively break down the hypnotism which has so far enthralled the Indian mind in its judgments regarding British character. On his return to India, a travelled Indian becomes a centre of discontent. In the course of their travels some Indians meet the free-thinkers and revolutionaries of Europe and learn their methods. All this is naturally disliked by the British.

Therefore, of late, the British have been taking steps to discourage foreign travelling on the part of Indians. They have been trying to keep Indian students out of Great Britain by imposing conditions which are repellent. They have raised the educational standards which had formerly secured them admission into British universities and British Inns of Court. They have organised an official bureau in London which, ostensibly acting as their guardian and adviser, discourages them from entering British universities, keeps a vigilant eye on their movements, reports on their conduct to the authorities at home, and insists upon their seeking admission to British educational institutions through it.[39] At all Indian ports there are police officers present, who note down the names of, and particulars relating to, every Indian who leaves Indian shores. Thenceforth two eyes are almost always watching him, go wherever he may.

To him, the British embassies in the different countries of the world mean nothing. He is afraid of seeking their help, first for fear of getting a rebuff and being insulted, second because he is afraid of circumstances being created which might force his early departure from that country. His wrongs are nobody’s wrongs. He may be assaulted, nay, even killed, or insulted, or robbed, or ill-treated, yet he has no government to look to his interests. The British Government does not resent other countries’ excluding him; they are rather happy at it and in some cases are understood to have exercised their influence against his entry into foreign countries. The self-governing dominions of the British Empire have built a solid wall of most revolting and inhuman laws and regulations against his entry into those dominions. He cannot go there, even on a pleasure trip or for study, except by submitting to impossible tests or most revolting conditions.

In this respect he is much better treated by non-British countries. Till recently he could come and go there quite freely. No European country bars his visits. Of late the United States, it is said, at the instance of the British Government, has been following a policy of exclusion. But once in the country, all universities and institutions receive him, provided he fulfils their conditions and complies with their regulations. That much, however, cannot be said of Great Britain. It is true that Great Britain imposes no restrictions on his coming and going, as she imposes no restrictions on any one else’s coming and going, but there are British institutions which would not admit him as a student, however high his social position or status may be. Even those institutions which admit him for study, discriminate against him in the matter of military drill. They would not admit him into their volunteer corps; nor would they take him as a boy scout. A great many of the British clubs would have nothing to do with him. The only British club of note, which has a fairly good number of Indians on its rolls and which accords them a welcome, is the National Liberal Club. This club is a noble exception.

Now the British must be an extremely unimaginative people, if they think that all this does not make the Indian feel the inferiority of his position. The latter, naturally, ascribes all this to the fact of his country’s having no national government of her own to protect him and to advance his interests. All this reminds him most forcibly of the fact that he belongs to a subject race, that his country does not count in the world because she is not free and has no embassies, that she has no flag of her own, nor consular representatives to back her sons, and that in the great mass of civilised humanity he is a mere cypher. All this naturally tells on his nerves and he becomes an extremist. He feels that anything would be preferable to this life of shame and dishonor.

It is difficult for people who have never been placed in a similar position to realise the sense of humiliation and shame involved in this condition of things. Let the British for a moment imagine themselves under similar circumstances, and they may then be in a position to appreciate the point of view of an Indian nationalist. Let us suppose for a moment that the Germans conquer England and impose their rule on the British race. How would the British like their country being administered by a viceroy of the Kaiser selected by the German Chancellor, with the help of a council consisting of Germans and of a bureaucracy recruited almost exclusively from Prussia, with only a sprinkling of native Britishers? No one can question the efficiency of the German system. The strong hand of Germany might keep Ireland in peace and prevent the suffragists and the socialists and the Roman Catholics disturbing public tranquillity. They might even employ a whole army of Britishers in the subordinate posts, might pay them handsomely for military and police duty, might confer decorations and titles on them, might build even greater engineering works for them than they had ever done, and might let them retain their language for elementary education or for religious or domestic purposes. Would the English be satisfied and would they be contented? Would they consider German rule to be a blessing and judge it by trade returns? Never![40] Why then, should they question the patriotism or good sense of the Indians who want self-government for India? Did not Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman say that good government could never be a substitute for self-government?

The fact is, that it is impossible for a free-born citizen of a free country to put himself in the position of a political subject and realise fully and properly the sense of humiliation and shame involved therein. The feeling is unknown to him, and he has not sufficient imagination to place himself in that position. Why cannot a Britisher see that every Indian, visiting foreign countries, has to hang his head in shame?

British statesmen, politicians, publicists and journalists all talk of the blessings of British rule in India, of what the British have done there in establishing peace and order, in making railways and canals, in imparting education, in stimulating trade, in administering impartial justice, in fostering industries, in organising the postal and the telegraph systems, and in opening the country to the world. They cannot see why the Indian should wish to get rid of the British. The British have done so much for him, have brought civilisation to his door, have raised him from “obscurity,” have given him their language and their institutions, have opened to him the gates of knowledge, have provided for him security from both domestic and foreign dangers, and have put him on the road to ever-increasing prosperity and “happiness.” Let us assume for the moment that all this is wholly true, but can it compensate for the loss of manhood which is involved in political bondage? Chains are chains, no matter if gilded. Can the wealth of the whole world be put in the scales over against liberty and honour? What would it avail if one were to get the sovereignty of the world but lose his own soul? A subject people has no soul, just as a slave can have none. Subjects and slaves are not even the masters of their bodies.

An Indian leader, a high-class Bengali lawyer, who is now one of His Majesty’s judges in the High Court of Calcutta, once said, while presiding over a conference in Bengal before he became a judge, that a subject people could have no politics. A people who have no politics have no soul. A man without a soul is a mere animal. A nation without a soul is only a herd of “dumb driven cattle,” and such are the Indians of the present day. It is a base calumny, and a mean falsehood to say in reply, that they have been so from time immemorial, that they have never been free, that they have never cared who ruled over them, that they have never been patriotic, or that patriotism and a feeling of nationality are new growths due to contact with the West, and that the Indian people do not sympathise with the aspirations of the nationalists. Of course, there are some people in India, as elsewhere, who, through rolling in wealth, living in purple, inheriting long pedigrees, carrying high titles, bearing proud names, seem to be happy and contented under the existing conditions. For them, the security from molestation they have, the freedom of enjoyment they possess, the comforts and luxuries which they command, the pleasure which is born of inactive, lazy, parasitic, debauched lives, is all in all. Any change may bring all this edifice down; it may spell ruin to them and their children. The immunity from work, which they at present enjoy, may all disappear by a change of political conditions. The British Government has guaranteed them not only their possessions, but also their right to live and thrive on the ignorance, the superstitions, and the mental and moral slavery of their followers and subjects.

Such are some of the Nabobs and Maharajas of India. Many of them might have to cut stones and make roads to earn their living, if they were not protected by British bayonets. Their harems consisting of numerous innocent women doomed to life-long imprisonment, to lives of barrenness and shame and emptiness, their big cellars full of the choicest and the oldest of whiskies, brandies, and champagnes, their stables full of the swiftest and the noblest of race horses, their drawing rooms decorated with gold, silver, silk and velvet, all that money can buy and art can embellish, their dining tables laden with all inviting dishes and delicacies which the best paid cuisine in the world can produce, their ability to travel in special trains and gorgeous saloons, and to command a new woman and a new wine every day of the year, and to move in the most fashionable circles,—all depend on the continuance of the existing conditions. For them, this is life. They do not know what honour is. For them, struggle, strife, duty, political change, mean a dislocation of everything dear to them. It would be practical death to them. Yes, it may be true that such people do not care for political liberty, for freedom, for independence, for patriotism. For them, their present life is bliss and they do not want to be molested either by the politician or by the patriot.

But their number is not large. Some of the ruling chiefs may not speak out, but in their heart of hearts many of them feel the humiliation of the situation. A Maharana of Udeypore may not be in a position to assert his independence and take the chance of losing his State, but even he may not consent to walk behind a Curzon in a coronation procession in honour of the King of England and the foreign Emperor of India. A Gaekwar of Baroda may be powerless as against the British army and British navy, but even he, in a moment of exalted self-respect, may forget to make an abject obeisance to the King of England. Such men and even many of less worth and nobility, cannot put up with a Lord Curzon. It is good for their sense of self-respect and also for the country at large to have a Curzon for a viceroy. It reminds them, as nothing else perhaps would, of their degradation and fall.

It is very interesting to observe how the Indian Chiefs writhe and fret and foam when a Curzon threatens their privileges, tries to limit their freedom, and otherwise trespasses upon their rights. It is then that a wave of shame sweeps over them and touches some lingering sense of self-respect and pride in their hearts. But the infamous, lazy, debauched lives which some of them have led make it impossible for them to maintain this indignation long enough for it to goad them to any sustained effort to throw away their thraldom and assert their manhood. The injecting of an electric current may temporarily revive a dead body, may produce some kind of activity even in a parasite, but it cannot put life into it.

But after all, as compared with the number of people who are alive to the sense of self-respect and honour, the parasitical crowned heads or priests or noblemen (Nabobs, Rajas, and Maharajas) are only a few. They are a mere drop in the ocean, though they possess the means of keeping themselves in the public eye and of having their trumpets blown and praises sung by the press and from the platform both in India and in England. The British too are interested in keeping them at the front, in parading their loyalty and devotion to the empire, and in magnifying their importance and greatness.

There are few among the nobility of India who command any real respect either from the educated section of their countrymen in general, or even from their own subjects and dependents. Of course there are noble exceptions to this statement. And yet it is true that a large number of ruling chiefs are mere figureheads in their states. Their policy is either dictated or guided or controlled by the British Resident or the British Political Agent through his creatures or through persons, who, though not quite his creatures, are afraid of his displeasure. In some states, the Resident interferes in almost everything, and all the details of administration pass through his fingers either directly or indirectly. In others, the Resident watches the administration from a distance and lays down the broad outlines of policy. There are few native states, their number may be counted on one’s fingers, where the ruling chief has a will or capacity to really assert himself, to stand on his dignity, and to maintain his independence. Even the most enlightened and the most independent Prince is compelled to consult the wishes of the Resident and the wishes of the Government of India as expressed by him.

Loyalty of Ruling Chiefs. It would be quite wrong to conclude, as some people do, that all the ruling chiefs are sincerely loyal to the British supremacy, or that their acts displaying loyalty are free and independent expressions of their minds or their will.[41] Some of them are devoid of any real sense of honour, or are lost to it by habitual submission or habitual debauchery. They are quite contented to be left alone to enjoy. There are others, however, who would be only too glad to throw away the British yoke, if they could only see a way of successfully doing so. They are not prepared to take their chances. It should be distinctly understood, therefore, that the Nationalist Party does not count upon their help or sympathy. A good many perhaps sympathise with the party of violence, and chuckle at their successes, but none of them dare do anything to help them in any shape. A few openly sympathise with the “constitutional” party, but even they cannot and would not give them any monetary or other kind of help as it might easily be construed into an act of unfriendliness towards the Paramount Power, and might mar their relations with that.

The smaller fry, the wealthy banker, the great landlord, the Bengal Zemindar, and the Oudh Talukdar, are almost completely in the hands of the British officials. The sympathy of the British officials benefits them materially. Their antipathy or dislike or aversion would ruin them financially. The British collector or magistrate holds complete sway over their souls. They would rather go out of their way to propitiate him and win his pleasure, than risk the slightest suspicion of an independent attitude, or of any conduct which even by stretch of imagination could be construed into independence. Yet there are some, in Bengal at least, who do sympathise with, and give active help to, the Revolutionary Party. There are others who sympathise with, and give occasional monetary assistance to, the Constitutional Party. The latter class does not count for much in Indian politics, and anything said or done by them cannot be said to represent the attitude of any very large section of the Indian community.

Men of wealth and men of means have nowhere led the revolutionary or the political movements in the history of freedom in this world of ours. Their interests as a class are opposed to change. Sometimes there does arise from among their ranks a man of courage, a man endowed with an adventurous nature or fired by ambition, who leads the movement for change, in the hope of either establishing a dynasty, or otherwise leaving a name in history; and sometimes one comes across a wealthy man who, out of regard for principle, and from conviction, is a patriot, and joins the patriotic party deliberately, and risks his possessions and position; but such instances are always few and far between in all countries.

Middle Class Desires Political Freedom. The desire for political independence, the sense of shame and humiliation born of being a subject race, of being a political pariah, must from the nature of things be confined largely to the educated middle class. Even the masses could not be expected to take a very deep interest in the movement for political independence. Their ignorance, their illiteracy, but most of all the hard struggle they have to carry on for barest existence, prevents them from devoting time or thought to the question. Their time and thought are given to the fight against hunger and want, against disease and distress, against misery and wretchedness. They are easy to please. A slight act of kindness or of charity or of consideration makes them happy. They are easily confused on fundamental issues. This is true even in Europe and America, where the common people have received the benefits of school education, and where they have had a training in democratic thought for a century or more. The masses are easily led astray by governments or by classes in league with governments. In every country it is the educated middle class that leads the movement for political independence or for political progress. It is the strength of their convictions, their earnestness, their capacity to suffer for their convictions, their willingness to sacrifice themselves for principles and for truth, coupled with the extent and amount of their influence over the masses, which determines the fate of the movement for liberty.

A movement of that nature never dies. “The battle of freedom once begun is carried on from father to son,” is as good to-day as it ever was. Yet the movement may be delayed, or its issue may be confused, or the contrary, according to the wisdom or the folly of its advocates, or the amount of earnestness they put in it, or the amount of influence they have over the masses, as well as by the wisdom or shortsightedness or cunning of those who oppose it. All the world over, progressive political movements have had vicissitudes of fortune, stages of development, times of reactions, defeats and reverses. Governments always begin by ignoring such movements. Then comes a period of ridicule, followed by repression. But their efforts are futile. The food on which the tender plant of liberty thrives is the blood of the martyr. The rope of the hangman, the axe of the executioner, or the shot of the gunner, extinguishes individual life, only to make the desire for corporate life keener and stronger. Banishments, deportations, imprisonments, tortures and confiscations, are the usual weapons of the tyrant to strangle liberty, to extirpate those that are after it, but they have so far proved ineffectual to kill it. Conciliation is sometimes more successful than repression, but conciliation delayed or concessions forced have been proved to be worse than useless. The Nationalist Movement in India has passed through some of these stages, and is passing through the rest. We presume it will be of some interest and use to trace its development, and to make a retrospective review of its successes and failures so far.[42]

CHAPTER II
INDIA FROM 1757 TO 1857 A. D.

AURANGZEB, the 6th Mogul Emperor of India, died in 1707 A. D. Within fifty years of his death, the Mogul sovereignty in India was reduced to its last gasp. The seeds sown by his bigotry, fanaticism, and suspicious nature were ripening and bringing to his successors a harvest of dissensions and discords, of rebellions and revolts. In the North as well as the South, forces had been generated which threatened the end of the Mogul rule. The martyrdom of Guru Teg Bahadur, the Sikh Guru, who was foully murdered at Delhi, where he had gone on a mission of peace, had sunk deep into the hearts of his followers, and his son, Guru Govind Singh, was organising forces which were destined to supplant Mogul rule in the Land of the Five Rivers.[43] In the Deccan, Sivaji’s[44] standard and throne had become the rallying point of the fighting forces of Southern India.

By 1757 A. D., the Sikhs in the Punjab and the Mahrattas in the Deccan had succeeded in undermining the foundations of the Mogul rule, which was now steadily disintegrating. The Nizam of Hyderabad, and the Nawab of Mysore had asserted their independence and were disputing the mastery of the Deccan with the Mahrattas. Similarly the Nabobs of Bengal and Oudh owed only nominal allegiance to the King of Delhi. The greater part of the peninsula, Central India, was under the Mahrattas.

Conflict of French and English in India. The political fate of India was hanging in the balance, when a power arose to take advantage of the disturbed conditions of things. The French and the English both entered the arena, taking different sides, and began to shuffle their cards. They sold their help to the highest bidder, and at the conclusion of every game, or even in the midst of it, changed partners as often as they could in the interest of their respective masters. The first military achievement of note, which gave decisive advantage to the British, was at the battle of Plassey in 1757. That practically gave them the key to the sovereignty of India. From 1757 to 1857 was the century of struggle, both military and diplomatic. The one end kept in view was the making of the Empire and the amassing of wealth.

How British Rule in India was Established. Hindus were played against the Mohammedans, and vice versa, states and principalities against states and principalities, Jats against Rajputs, and Rajputs against Jats, Mahrattas against both, Rohillas against Bundelas, and Bundelas against Pathans, and so on. Treaties were made and broken without the least scruple, sides were taken and changed and again changed without the least consideration of honour or faith. Thrones were purchased and sold to the highest bidder. Military support was purchased and given like merchandise. Servants were induced to betray their masters, soldiers to desert flags, without any regard to the morality of the steps taken. Pretences were invented and occasions sought for involving states and principalities in wars and trouble. Laws of all kinds, national and international, moral and religious, were all for the time thrown into the discard. Neither minors nor widows received any consideration; the young and the old were treated alike. The one object in view was to loot, to plunder, and to make an empire. Everything was subordinated to that end. One has only to read Mill and Wilson’s “History of British India,” Burke’s “Impeachment of Warren Hastings,” Torrens’ “Our Empire in Asia,” Wilson’s “Sword and Ledger,” Bell’s “Annexation of the Punjab” to find out that the above is a bare and moderate statement of truth.

Methods of Consolidation of British India. Policies (fiscal, industrial, religious, educational) were all discussed and formulated from one point of view, viz., the establishing of British authority, the consolidation of British rule, and pecuniary gain to the East India Company. If one were to pile up “scraps of paper” which the British destroyed or disregarded in the making of their Indian empire, one could fill a decent sized box therewith. The administrations of Wellesley and Dalhousie alone would furnish sufficient material for the purpose. We do not know of anything in Indian history which could be compared with the deeds of this century. It was a century of consistent, prolonged, and deliberate spoliation, subtle and scientific sometimes, in the pursuance of which all laws of morality, humanity, and fairness were tossed aside, and the object in view was persistently and doggedly kept in view and achieved. It was not the doing of this man or that man, but, with some noble exceptions, of the whole body of Administrators sent by the East India Company to manage their affairs in the East. The policies and doings of the various rulers that were sent from England to administer the affairs of India differed in degree only.

British Public Ignorant of Facts. It is true that the British people as a whole had no notion of what was going on in India. They were as ignorant of it, then, as they are to-day of the doings of their countrymen in that vast “continent.” It sufficed for them to know that their countrymen were carving an empire there, conquering provinces and bringing millions of alien people under British rule; as it suffices for them to know to-day that they have an empire in India. India brought them wealth and material prosperity. Individuals became fabulously rich and their wealth filtered downward and filled the whole British nation. The nation became rich by the dividends of the East India Company, and by the enormous profits which British manufacturers and British traders made by the fact of British supremacy in India. That was enough for the nation. Even when their moral sense was at times shocked by certain disclosures, which by chance found their way into the press or into the literature of the country, it was soon calmed and set at rest by the speeches made by the statesmen at the helm of affairs, who explained them away, excused their authors on political grounds, and laid down in high, grandiloquent terms that the general aim of British rule in India was beneficent, and that this aim was steadily being pursued. The impeachment of Warren Hastings by Burke should have opened the eyes of the British public as to what was happening in India; but the eventual acquittal of that famous pro-consul set matters at rest. And Warren Hastings was by no means the worst offender. What happened then is happening every day in India, only in a different way and on a different scale.

Yet I am not disposed to criticise the British public. Democracies have no time for the critical examination of the affairs of other countries and other people. They have their own trouble, enough and to spare. They look to material benefits, and their imagination is fired and their mind is thrilled by the fact of so many millions being under their rule. In the case of the British, both combined make them proud of their countrymen, who rule and administer India in their name. They have no reason to be critical. Human nature is human nature after all. Ordinary human nature is not inclined to be critical at gains, especially when it does not directly feel the iniquity of the methods by which those gains are made. But this is only by the way.

To continue the thread of my narrative: the history of British “conquest” of India from 1757 to 1857 A. D. is a continuous record of political charlatanry, political faithlessness, and political immorality. It was a triumph of British “diplomacy.” The British founders of the Indian empire had the true imperial instincts of empire-builders. They cared little for the means which they employed. Moral theorists cannot make empires. Empires can only be built by unscrupulous men of genius, men of daring and dash, making the best of opportunities that come to their hands, caring little for the wrongs which they thereby inflict on others, or the dishonesties or treacheries or breaches of faith involved therein. Empires can only be conceived by Napoleons, Bismarcks, Disraelis, Richelieus, and Machiavellis. They can only be built by Clives, Hastings, Wellesleys, and Dalhousies. Burkes and Gladstones cannot do that work, nor can Morleys, though they may connive at others doing it, and might accept it as fait accompli.

Conquest of India Diplomatic, not Military. The British conquest of India was not a military conquest in any sense of the term. They could not conquer India except by playing on the fears of some and the hopes of others, and by seeking and getting the help of Indians, both moral and material. The record is as black as it could be; but nothing succeeds like success, and all that is largely a forgotten page so far as the present generation of Indians is concerned. Only one feels disposed to smile when one hears of Indian nationalists being charged in British-Indian courts with attempting to subvert “the government established by law.” One is inclined to ask “By what law?” and “Who made that law?”

The Great Indian Mutiny of 1857. We have, however, referred to this story in these few words only to introduce the great Indian mutiny of 1857, as the first Indian political movement of the nineteenth century. The movement was national as well as political. The underlying causes and the contributory forces were many. The union of the Hindus and Mohammedans, the thoroughness of the organisation which preceded the mutiny, the stubbornness with which the mutineers fought, and the comparatively few treacheries that characterised the mutinous campaign, all point to the same conclusion.

The mutiny, however, failed because the people on the whole had no faith in the constructive capacity of the mutineers. The mutineers had no doubt agreed to postpone the question of the constructive ends in view, until after they had turned out the British, but the people could not. The people’s patience had been exhausted by the military activities of the preceding century and the accompanying disorder and anarchy, and they saw before them the possibility of a recurrence of the same in the case of success attending the arms of the mutineers. They hated the British; the Indian nobility and aristocracy, as well as the Indian people, hated them. They sympathised with the mutineers; but they helped them only half-heartedly. They had no faith in them. The ruling families of India, the aristocracy and the nobility, were perhaps more dreaded and hated by the people than were the British. There was no one to rally them to one standard.

How the Mutiny was Put Down. Here again it was British “diplomacy” that saved the British situation. The British rallied to their support the newly born aristocracy of the Punjab,—the Sikhs. The Sikhs had been persecuted and oppressed by the Mohammedans. They were not in a mood to look favourably at the chance of Mohammedan supremacy being re-established in India. They had had enough of the “Turk,” as they called every Mohammedan; and they threw the whole weight of their recently gathered virility on the side of the British. They were told and they believed, that in crushing the Mohammedan power, they were revenging themselves on the slayers of Guru Teg Bahadur, the oppressors of Guru Govind Singh, and the murderers of his sons. It was the thought of Sirhind and the incidents associated with the name of that cursed place,[45] that goaded them to the destruction of the last chance of Mohammedan supremacy in India.

The mutiny failed, but its course showed with what intensity the mutineers hated the British. The Indians are a very kind-hearted people; they would not injure even an ant, much less a human being, if they could help it, but some of them were guilty of the most cruel excesses during the mutiny. The British, too, in their turn did not spare the Indians in any way either during the mutiny or after it. Innocent and guilty alike were placed before the cannon and shot in lots.[46] In their marches through the country, British soldiers tortured men, women, and children,[47] and sometimes hung their heads or carcasses on the trees.[48] Both sides vied with each other in their cruelties.

The victors have immortalised the reprisals (or say, the iniquities) of the vanquished by building permanent memorials on the spots where they were perpetrated; their own, they have forgotten, and so have perhaps the descendants of those who were the objects thereof, though they are recorded in history.

The impression which a visit to these memorials leaves on the mind of an English visitor can be better realised by the following extract from an account published in The Outlook (the English journal) on the 3rd of April, 1915, over the signature of one F. G. A. Speaking of the mutiny memories and monuments of Lucknow and Cawnpore, the writer remarks:

“Their mutiny memories are quite distinct, as are the impressions they leave on the pilgrim to these shrines of heroism and devilry. The battered ruins of Lucknow, testifying to a heroism so splendid as to rob even death of its sting, bring an inspiration that is almost joyous. Every crumbling gateway and every gloomy cellar has its tale of heroic endurance and magnificent defence, and the final relief of the beleaguered garrison wrote such a finis to the story as erased much of its earlier bitterness....

“None of this forgiveness is conceivable in those who visit Cawnpore. Even the sculptured angel over the unspeakable Well bears, on one profile at any rate, an expression of stern condemnation that holds out no promise of pardon. The atmosphere of historic Cawnpore is one of haunting horror and a sadness that will not pass with the years. Time seems powerless to heal this rancour. I care not whether the pilgrim wanders through the beautiful Memorial Gardens (in which, significantly, no native is allowed to enter), feasting his eyes on the blaze Bougainvillæa, or resting them in the shade of the peepul and the banyan, or whether he lingers in the strangely Italian-looking Memorial Church and reads the roll of honour that fills a series of mural tablets; everywhere his soul will be filled with gloom and will cry for eternal vengeance on the authors of the massacre and on those who threw the dying with the dead into the awful blackness of the pit. These memories hold nothing but hate and horror, without one redeeming chapter to leaven them with comfort or forgiveness.”[49]

The English are mistaken if they think that a reading of the history of the mutiny and the excesses and cruelties indulged in by the British does not excite similar feeling in the minds of the Indians. The British can express their feelings freely. The Indians cannot; their feelings must be repressed.

It would, however, be better for both parties to try to wipe off the past in a spirit of mutual trust and mutual good will, which is only possible if England were to cease to pursue a policy of exploiting India and to establish her connection with India on a basis of equality, honesty and justice. That can only be done by treating her as a partner in the Empire and not as a mere “dependency” or “possession.”

CHAPTER III
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905

PART I—FROM 1857 TO 1885

THE mutiny was quelled. The ringleaders among the mutineers were killed, hanged or shot, and with them a lot of those who were innocent. Many of the rank and file were pardoned, as no government could shoot or hang all those who had taken part in the mutiny. Their number was legion. The British Empire in India was saved, but the East India Company was gone. The system of open pillage was ended. The crown assumed the direct government of India. The Queen’s Proclamation and the policy of “mercy and reconciliation” inaugurated by Canning calmed the country.

The Bengalee Babu. The only parts of the country which had received some education on modern lines were the provinces of Bengal, Bombay and Madras. The number of educated men even in these provinces was small. In the work of settlement that followed the mutiny, these educated men found ample scope for their ambition. Men who knew English had the advantage over those who did not. Men with a knowledge of English were few. The posts requiring a knowledge of that language were many. Consequently, the English-knowing Indians were in great demand and secured ample salaries to make them “happy and loyal.” The English-knowing Bengalees spread over the whole of Northern India, lately the scene of mutiny, and materially helped in bringing about settled conditions of life. They were the pioneers in every department of governmental activity and were looked to, both by the rulers and the people, for advice and guidance. The Bengalee is a sentimental being. His position under the Government filled him with pride and his gratitude and loyalty were overflowing. The British also liked him because he was useful, intelligent, keen, shrewd, ready to serve, and willing to be of use. He relieved the British officer of much of his intellectual work, and left him ample time for play and rest. Many a departmental head ruled the country with the brain of the “Bengalee Babu.” The Bengalee Babu worshipped the Feringhee[50] as Mai Bap,[51] and began to imitate him in his tastes. He began to live as the Britisher lived; English life, English manners and customs, became his ideal. Gradually he became very fond of English literature and began to think as an Englishman thought. The Bengalees were the first to send their sons to England for their education and to compete for the I. C. S. (Indian Civil Service) and the I. M. S. (Indian Medical Service). They with the Parsees were the first to qualify for the English bar. In England they lived in an atmosphere of freedom.

With freedom in drinking and eating they also learned freedom of thought and expression.

The first generation of the Bengalees was thus Anglicised through and through. They looked down upon their own religion; they thought poorly of Indian society. They knew nothing of their own past history, and they glorified in being “Sahibs.”[52] Some of them became Christians. Alarmed at this transformation, Ram Mohan Roy and a few others resolved to stem the tide. For a time they succeeded, but only partially. Be it said to the credit of the Bengalees that a fairly good number refused to be carried down-stream, and in spite of their English education stuck to their own religion and their own customs. They saw a good deal in their society which needed reform; but they declined to make sweeping changes and would not imitate. These veterans laid the foundations of the modern Bengalee literature. They wanted to pour their knowledge, derived from a study of English language and literature, into their own mother tongue, and in order to enlarge the vocabulary of the latter for their work, they had to study Sanskrit. Thus in spite of the Anglification of the first generation of Bengalees, there grew up a class of men imbued with nationalistic tendencies. Ram Mohan Roy, the founder of Brahmo Samaj, was the first nation-builder of Modern India.

For a time the field that was opened for the employment of English-educated Bengalees in Upper India (in the then N. W. Provinces, in the Punjab, in Behar, in Central India, in Rajputana, even in Sindh) checked the growth of these tendencies. The feeling of gratitude and contentment was supreme. The Bengalee was indispensable in almost every department. The reins of practical management were mostly in Bengalee hands, whether it was a court of justice, or a Revenue Commissioner’s office, or a commissariat depot, of an adjutant’s camp, or the department of land survey, or education. The heads of departments were always English, but the heads of ministerial establishments were generally Bengalees. The English could not do without them. The former did not know the language of the country, nor did they know the character of the people. The Bengalees were thus an absolute necessity. With the spread of a knowledge of the English language, the first generation of English-knowing Indians in every province came to occupy an important position. While the old-fashioned Pandit or Moulvie sulked, the English-knowing Hindu or Mohammedan basked in sunshine and flourished. The British laid down policies and gave orders; the English-knowing Indian saw that they were carried out. They thus came to enjoy the confidence of their masters and imitated their vices.

But what was most important was that they began to think like their English masters. The English read their newspapers; so the Indians started their newspapers. The English met in clubs and churches. So the Indians started Samajes and Sabhas and debating clubs. For a time the English-knowing Indian prided himself in imitating his master. He took his dress, he took his cheroot and pipe, and also his cup and beefsteak. He began to live in houses built and furnished in the English way. He detested Indian life and took pride in being Anglicised. Everything Indian was odious in his eyes. The Indians were barbarians; their religion was a bundle of superstitions; they were dirty people; their customs and manners were uncivilised; they were a set of narrow-minded bigots who did not know that man was born free. So the English set the fashion for them in everything. If their English masters went to church and read the Bible, they did the same. If the English masters indulged in free-thinking, they did the same. They wanted to be like their English masters in every way. Their ambition, however, soon met a check. They could equal the British in drinking and in free-thinking, but they could not aspire to his position and place in the government of the country. Some of them decided to try this in the case of their sons. They sent them to England. A few passed the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Medical Service examinations, others became barristers. Both found out by bitter experience that, however able and clever they might be, whatever their intellectual acquirements, no matter if they were Christians, or semi-Christians, or free-thinkers, there was a limit to their aspirations both in service and out of it. That was the first eye-opener.

In the meantime, the thoughtful among the Indians, who had not taken to English manners, were anxiously watching the flow of the current. They saw the disintegrating and denationalising forces that were at work; they saw that their national edifice was crumbling down brick by brick; everything which they had valued and held sacred was being devastated and treated with contempt and reduced to ashes. Their own children were deserting the old banners to which innumerable generations before them had clung with love and reverence. They saw all this; they were sorry; they wept tears of blood; but they could do nothing. They were powerless before the tide. They tried palliatives, but failed. What was fatal to their pious wishes was that they could not themselves resist the fruits which English education brought in the shape of emoluments and rank and position. They wanted these fruits without the thorns. They soon found that that was impossible, and so they gave up the struggle in despair and became reconciled to the inevitable. What they failed to achieve was, however, brought about by a combination of circumstances which we will briefly enumerate below.

Forces Resisting Denationalisation. 1. The English education imparted in schools and colleges established by the British, and the Christian missions (in some instances supplemented by Indian agencies), opened the gates of Western thought and Western literature to the mass of educated Indians.

2. Some of the British teachers and professors who taught in the schools and colleges consciously and unconsciously inspired their pupils with ideas of freedom as well as nationalism.

3. The over-zeal of the missionaries in their attacks upon Indian religions and Indian thought suggested to Indian minds a closer and deeper study of their own religion and thought.

4. In this they were materially helped by the awakening of Europeans to the thought of the East. The labours of the European savants and their appreciation of Eastern thought kindled a fresh fire in the bosom of Hindus and Mohammedans.

5. The writings of Ram Mohan Roy, Debendra Nath Tagore, Rajendra Lal Mitra, in Bengal, those of Ranade, Vishnu Pandit and others in Mahrashtra, of Swami Dayanand and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in Upper India, of Madam Blavatsky and the other Theosophists in Madras, brought about a new awakening, which afterwards received an even stronger impetus from the writings and speeches of Mrs. Annie Besant and Swami Vivekananda. This was on the religious and social side mainly, but its national character was unmistakable.

Political Disappointments. The current produced by these causes met another current, which was generated by political disappointments. The aspirations of the educated Indian had met a check. The few successes gained by Indians in the Indian Civil Service examinations alarmed the British, and they sought for means of keeping them out. One of the means adopted was to require that the candidates should not be more than 19 to 21 years of age at the time of examination, an age so young as made it impossible for Indians to come over to England and successfully compete. This raised a howl and cry in Bengal, and the rest of the country followed Bengal. Then came other measures like the Vernacular Press Act of Lord Lytton, and the remission of cotton duties,[53] and so on. The generation educated in England had some experience of the methods of political agitation in that country, and they soon began to organise on those lines. Political agitation on modern lines thus became a fact of Indian life, and English-educated Indians began to talk of liberty and self-government.

Thus were laid the foundations of the national awakening, of which so much has been heard of late. The methods of the English Government in India, their educational system, their press, their laws, their courts, their railways, their telegraphs, their post-offices, their steamers, had as much to do with it as the native love of country, of religion and nation, which had received a temporary check by the crushing defeat of the mutineers in 1857, and by the Indian people’s too ready acquiescence in the political and social domination of the foreigner which ensued.

This time, however, the movement was brought into existence by those who had received their inspiration from Europe. Within less than twenty years after the great mutiny, the Nationalist Movement of India was born, almost at the same time and place at which Lord Lytton was presiding at the great Imperial Durbar, and announcing that the great Queen of England was assuming the title of Empress of India. The Durbar reduced the chiefs of India from the position of allies to that of feudatories, but it quite unconsciously and against the intentions of its authors raised in theory the status of the Indian subjects of the Queen to that of citizens of the British Empire. Little did the authors of that Durbar realise the inner significance of the move they were making. That Durbar, we may say, marked the beginning of the movement which filled the educated Indian with the idea of obtaining his rightful place in the Empire. He became articulate and began to assert himself. He was no longer satisfied with the minor positions which he held in the Government of India. He claimed his country as his own, and raised the cry of “India for the Indians.” His cry gained strength when he found that the India which he looked down upon in the fifties or sixties, the system of thought and life which he considered barbarous, primitive and old fashioned, and the past which he despised, were after all not so bad as he had thought.

The latter was the contribution of the Brahmo Samaj, the Theosophical Society, the Society for the Resuscitation of Sanskrit Literature, the Bengal Sahitya Parishad, the Maharastra Sabha, the Arya Samaj, the Sanatan Sabhas and other societies of a similar nature. The Bengali and the Mahratta writers, who had carried on researches in Indian history and unearthed valuable documents and written in their respective vernaculars, contributed materially to the growth of this feeling. The Theosophical Society began to praise and justify every Hindu institution and to find science in every custom. In fact, for a time, the thoughtful began to fear lest the pendulum was swinging the other way and we were in the midst of a wave of reaction.

Lord Ripon. India was in this state of fermentation, religious, social and political, when Lord Ripon was appointed to the viceroyalty of India. Lord Ripon was an exceedingly kind man and commanded a broad outlook. He was very lucky in having come on the heels of an exceedingly unpopular Viceroy like Lord Lytton. Lord Lytton was a Tory of pronounced imperial tendencies. Under the inspiration of Disraeli, he had by an unworthy trick on the ruling chiefs of India changed their position from that of allies to that of feudatories; he had gagged the vernacular press by his press legislation; he had blundered into a bloody Afghan war and was responsible for several other reactionary measures. Lord Ripon started by undoing most of what Lord Lytton had done. He repealed the Vernacular Press Act, which at once set the seal of popular approval on his administration. The most important of his achievements were, however, constructive. He formulated a policy of local government, and thus laid the foundations of representative institutions in India; he substituted merit for patronage and jobbery in filling public services, by organising competitive examinations for filling a certain number of posts in the higher branches of the subordinate services; last but not least, he resolved to so alter the criminal law as to place the European and the Indian on an equal footing in the matter of trials.

All this aroused the bitterest anger of the Anglo-Indian officialdom. The Anglo-Indians opposed every one of these measures. They ridiculed the idea of introducing any measure of local self-government in India, and predicted that that must be the beginning of the end. They called the measure rash and ill-advised and impracticable. The natives were incapable of self-government, they said. Their religious and social differences made it impossible. Officialdom was equally opposed to the filling of any posts in government service by open competition. This would bring in the “Babu,” and the “Babu” they had now begun to hate and look down upon. The “Babu” was a “low-caste hybrid,” who wrote bad English and talked of liberty and equality, who lacked in qualities of docility and submissiveness, which had so far characterised persons appointed by selection. This interfered materially with the prestige of the Lord of the District, as people could now get “high” appointments under the Government independently of him. Why should the people respect him any more? His was a government by prestige, and measures like these of Lord Ripon would destroy it. So prophesied the heaven-born “white Brahmins.” But the worst offence of Lord Ripon was the “Ilbert Bill,”[54] which aimed at placing the European and the Indian on an equal footing in the eyes of the law, and would remove the disabilities of the Indian Magistrate in the matter of the trial of the white men. “Shall we be judged by the Nigger?” “shall he send us to jail?” “shall he be put in authority over us? Never! It is impossible! Better that British rule in India should end than that we be obliged to submit to such humiliating laws.” The whole tribe of the Anglo-Indians (official and non-official) opposed the measure most vehemently, and attacked Lord Ripon as never viceroy was attacked before by his own countrymen in India. They called him insulting names, passed resolutions condemning his administration wholesale, proposed his recall before the expiration of his period of office, and did everything possible to make him feel that they hated him.

His unpopularity among the Anglo-Indians made him popular among the Indians. The press and the platform sang his praise. The country was ablaze with excitement. Never before under British rule had the country been so enthusiastic in political matters. In Lord Ripon, they thought, they had found a political Messiah. They gave him addresses, unharnessed the horses from his carriage, in many places, and otherwise showed their love and regard for him, which exasperated the European community beyond measure. The Europeans saw in all this a menace to their power, and the beginning of the end of imperial despotism in India. They thought they were on the verge of losing India. In Lord Ripon the Indians recognised the first British viceroy who was prepared to make an honest attempt at giving effect to the pledges given and the promises made by Queen Victoria in her famous proclamation of 1858, when the administration of India passed into the hands of the regular British Government. Lord Ripon lost the battle on the particular measure which had aroused the anger of the European community more than anything else, viz., his proposed amendment of the Criminal Procedure Code. A compromise was made by which the principle of the bill was really abandoned. But he had raised hopes and aspiration which were, so to say, the beginning of political life in India. On the expiration of his term of office, the Indians agitated for an extension of his term, which was not granted. However, they gave him a farewell which still rings in the ears of the older generation of Indians who took part in it, in Calcutta, in Bombay, in Benares, and other places.

Lord Ripon left a permanent impression on the minds of the Indians. Lord Hardinge has won a great deal of popularity, but it is doubtful if he is so universally loved and honoured as Lord Ripon was.

Lord Dufferin. However, the point of the story is, that when Lord Ripon left India, the country was in a state of perturbation. There was a great deal of tension still lingering between the Indian and the European communities. The fire was still smouldering when Lord Dufferin took charge of the office of viceroyalty. He had been brought up in diplomacy. To him diplomacy was like mother’s milk. He was a diplomat by birth as well as by training. His mission was to appease the anger of the governing class and in a quiet way to undo what Lord Ripon had done. But he thought that perhaps it might be dangerous to go at it straight. The cry of political liberty and political equality had been raised. It was impossible to satisfy it; yet it might be dangerous to strangle it by force. It was impossible to revive the Vernacular Press Act of Lord Lytton. It was impossible to stifle political life which had sprung up in the atmosphere created by Lord Ripon’s policy, and which was making a rather precocious growth. The more it was opposed, ridiculed and despised, the more it thrived. So he decided to guide it and to make it as innocuous as it could be without rousing the suspicions of those who were to be the tools.

PART II. THE BIRTH OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS

Indian National Congress an English Product. It is an undisputed historical fact, that the idea of the Indian National Congress was a product of Lord Dufferin’s brain; that he suggested it to Mr. Hume,[55] and that the latter undertook to work it out. We have no means of knowing whether Mr. Hume communicated the fact to all the Indian leaders who joined hands with him in organising it, but in all probability he told some of them. It leaked out, however, in Lord Dufferin’s lifetime, was published in the press, brought to his notice and never denied by him. Nor did Mr. Hume, who died only in 1912, ever deny it. It has since been admitted to be true by his biographer, another veteran Congress leader, Sir William Wedderburn.[56] Sir William says on page 59 of his life of Mr. Hume: “Indeed in initiating the National Movement, Mr. Hume took counsel with the viceroy, Lord Dufferin; and whereas he was himself disposed to begin his reform propaganda on the social side, it was apparently by Lord Dufferin’s advice that he took up the work of political organisation as the first matter to be dealt with.” We have no hesitation in accepting the accuracy of the statement made by Sir William Wedderburn as to what Lord Dufferin told Mr. Hume, because we have no doubt of Mr. Hume’s sincerity of purpose. Lord Dufferin did evidently tell Mr. Hume that “as head of the Government, he had found the greatest difficulty in ascertaining the real wishes of the people; and that for purposes of administration it would be a public benefit, if there existed some responsible organisation through which the Government might be kept informed regarding the best Indian public opinion.” Sir William Wedderburn assures us that “these kindly counsels (i. e., those given by Lord Dufferin) were received with grateful appreciation by all concerned,” and “indeed so cordial were the relations” between the officials and the Congress leaders that “Lord Dufferin was approached with a view to the first Congress being held under the presidency of Lord Reay, then Governor of Bombay.” We are told that Lord Dufferin welcomed the proposal as showing the desire of the Congress to work in complete harmony with the Government, but he saw many difficulties in accepting the proposal, and so the idea was abandoned. “None the less the first Congress was opened with the friendly sympathy of the highest authorities.”

So this is the genesis of the Congress, and this alone is sufficient to condemn it in the eyes of the advanced Nationalists. There is no parallel to this in the history of the world. Who has ever heard of a movement for political liberty being initiated by a despotic government, which is foreign in its agency and foreign in its methods?

Hume, a Lover of Liberty. It is obvious that when Lord Dufferin expected a political organisation to represent the best Indian opinion, it was far from his mind to suggest an organisation that would demand parliamentary government for India, or self-government even on colonial lines. What he evidently aimed at was a sort of an innocuous association which should serve more as a “safety valve” than as a genuine Nationalist organisation for national purposes. Mr. Hume may have meant more. He was a lover of liberty and wanted political liberty for India under the ægis of the British crown. He was an English patriot and as such he wanted the continuance of British connection with India. He saw danger to British rule in discontent going underground, and one of his objects in establishing the Congress was to save British rule in India from an impending calamity of the gravest kind which he thought was threatening it at that time. In his reply to Sir Auckland Colvin,[57] he admitted that “a safety valve for the escape of great and growing forces generated by” British “connection, was urgently needed, and no more efficacious safety valve than” the “Congress movement could possibly be devised.” This correspondence between Sir Auckland Colvin, then Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces, and Mr. Hume, reveals the whole genesis of the Congress movement, and is so clear and illuminating that no student of Indian politics can afford to neglect it.

It leaves no doubt whatsoever that the immediate motive which underlay the idea of starting the Congress was to save the Empire from “the danger” that loomed ahead “tremendous in the immediate future,” “the misery of the masses acted on by the bitter resentment of individuals among the educated class.” In the words of Mr. Hume, “no choice was left to those who gave the primary impetus to the movement. The ferment, the creation of Western ideas, education, invention, and appliances, was at work with a rapidly increasing intensity, and it became of paramount importance to find for its products an overt and constitutional channel for discharge, instead of leaving them to fester as they had already commenced to do, under the surface.” Mr. Hume further adds that though “in certain provinces and from certain points of view the movement was premature, yet from the most important point of view, the future maintenance of the integrity of the British Empire, the real question when the Congress started, was, not is it premature, but is it too late? will the country now accept it?” Indeed, by that test, the events have proved that the Indian National Congress has been a great success, and that either Mr. Hume’s reading of the political situation was exaggerated, or that his remedy has been amply justified.

Congress to Save British Empire from Danger. But one thing is clear, that the Congress was started more with the object of saving the British Empire from danger than with that of winning political liberty for India. The interests of the British Empire were primary and those of India only secondary, and no one can say that the Congress has not been true to that ideal. It might be said with justice and reason that the founders of the Indian National Congress considered the maintenance of British rule in India of vital importance to India herself, and therefore were anxious to do everything in their power, not only to save that rule from any danger that threatened it, but even to strengthen it; that with them the redress of political grievances and the political advance of India was only a by-product and of secondary importance. If so, the Congress has been true to its ideal, and no one can find fault with it.

On the strength of an illuminating memorandum found among his papers, Hume’s biographer has stated the nature of the evidence that “convinced” Mr. Hume at the time (i.e., about 15 months before Lord Lytton left India) that the British were “in immediate danger of a terrible outbreak.” We will give it in Mr. Hume’s own words.

“I was shown seven large volumes (corresponding to a certain mode of dividing the country, excluding Burmah, Assam, and some minor tracts) containing a vast number of entries; English abstracts or translations—longer or shorter—of vernacular reports or communications of one kind or another, all arranged according to districts (not identical with ours), sub-districts, sub-divisions, and the cities, towns and villages included in these. The number of these entries was enormous; there were said, at the time, to be communications from over thirty thousand different reporters. I did not count them, they seemed countless; but in regard to the towns and villages of one district of the Northwest Provinces with which I possess a peculiarly intimate acquaintance—a troublesome part of the country, no doubt—there were nearly three hundred entries, a good number of which I could partially verify, as to the names of the people, etc.” He mentions that he had the volumes in his possession only for about a week; into six of them he only dipped; but he closely examined one covering the greater portion of the Northwest Provinces, Oudh, Behar, parts of Bundelkund and parts of the Punjab; and so far as possible verified the entries referring to those districts with which he had special personal acquaintance. Many of the entries reported conversations between men of the lowest classes,[58] “all going to show that these poor men were pervaded with a sense of the hopelessness of the existing state of affairs; that they were convinced that they would starve and die, and that they wanted to do something, and stand by each other, and that something meant violence,” (for innumerable entries referred to the secretion of old swords, spears and matchlocks, which would be ready when required. It was not supposed that the immediate result, in its initial stages, would be a revolt against the Government, or a revolt at all in the proper sense of the word. What was predicted was a sudden violent outbreak of sporadic crimes, murders of obnoxious persons, robbery of bankers, looting of bazaars). “In the existing state of the lowest half-starving classes, it was considered that the first few crimes would be the signal for hundreds of similar ones, and for a general development of lawlessness, paralysing the authorities and the respectable classes. It was considered also, that everywhere the small bands would begin to coalesce into large ones, like drops of water on a leaf; that all the bad characters in the country would join, and that very soon after the bands obtained formidable proportions, a certain small number of the educated classes, at the time desperately, perhaps, unreasonably, bitter against the Government, would join the movement, assume here and there the lead, give the outbreak cohesion, and direct it as a national revolt.”

To this, Sir William Wedderburn adds further from his own personal knowledge:

“The forecast of trouble throughout India was in exact accordance with what actually occurred, under my own observation, in the Bombay Presidency, in connection with the Agrarian rising known as the Deccan riots. These began with sporadic gang robberies and attacks on the money lenders, until the bands of dacoits, combining together, became too strong for the police; and the whole military force at Poona, horse, foot, and artillery, had to take the field against them. Roaming through the jungle tracts of the Western Ghauts, these bands dispersed in the presence of military forces, only to reunite immediately at some convenient point; and from the hill stations of Mahableshwar and Matheran we could at night see the light of their campfires in all directions. A leader from the more instructed class was found, calling himself Sivaji, the Second, who addressed challenges to the Government, offered a reward of 500 rupees for the head of H. E. Sir Richard Temple (then Governor of Bombay), and claimed to lead a national revolt upon the lines on which the Mahratta power had originally been founded.”

So in the words of these two leaders, the immediate motive of the Congress was to save the British Empire from this danger. There is, however, one difficulty in believing outright that this was the immediate reason of the birth of the Congress. Mr. Hume is said to have seen this evidence at the time he was in the service of the Government, viz., fifteen months before Lord Lytton left India. Between then and the first meeting of the Congress in 1885 intervened a period of about seven years. During this time Lord Ripon was viceroy for five years. The idea of starting a political organisation on the lines of the Congress is said to have originated with Lord Dufferin.

This is a little inconsistent with the theory that the Congress was founded out of fear of a political outbreak and only in the nature of a safety valve. Nor is the latter theory consistent with Mr. Hume’s first political manifesto addressed to the graduates of the Calcutta University in March, 1883. This document is so manly in its outspokenness, so true in its principles, that we will quote the whole of it (or at least as much of it as is given in Mr. Hume’s biography). Addressing the graduates of the university, Mr. Hume said:

“Constituting, as you do, a large body of the most highly educated Indians, you should, in the natural order of things, constitute also the most important source of all mental, moral, social, and political progress in India. Whether in the individual or the nation, all vital progress must spring from within, and it is to you, her most cultured and enlightened minds, her most favoured sons, that your country must look for the initiative. In vain may aliens, like myself, love India and her children, as well as the most loving of these; in vain may they, for her and their good, give time and trouble, money and thought; in vain may they struggle and sacrifice; they may assist with advice and suggestions; they may place their experience, abilities and knowledge at the disposal of the workers, but they lack the essential of nationality, and the real work must ever be done by the people of the country themselves.” “Scattered individuals, however capable and however well meaning, are powerless singly. What is needed is union, organisation and a well defined line of action; and to secure these an association is required, armed and organised with unusual care, having for its object to promote the mental, moral, social and political regeneration of the people of India. Our little army must be sui generis in discipline and equipment, and the question simply is, how many of you will prove to possess, in addition to your high scholastic attainments, the unselfishness, moral courage, self-control, and active spirit of benevolence which are essential in all who should enlist?”

Even truer and nobler are the sentiments in the final appeal which ended this letter and which runs thus:

“As I said before, you are the salt of the land. And if amongst even you, the élite, fifty men can not be found with sufficient power of self-sacrifice, sufficient love for and pride in their country, sufficient genuine and unselfish heartfelt patriotism to take the initiative, and if needs be, devote the rest of their lives to the cause, then there is no hope for India. Her sons must and will remain mere humble and helpless instruments in the hands of foreign rulers, for ‘they who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.’ And if even the leaders of thought are all either such poor creatures, or so selfishly wedded to personal concerns, that they dare not or will not strike a blow for their country’s sake, then justly and rightly are they kept down and trampled on, for they deserve nothing better. Every nation secures precisely as good a government as it merits. If you, the picked men, the most highly educated of the nation, can not, scorning personal ease and selfish ends, make a resolute struggle to secure freedom for yourselves and your country, a more impartial administration, a larger share in the management of your own affairs, then we, your friends, are wrong, and our adversaries right; then are Lord Ripon’s aspirations for your good, fruitless and visionary; then, at present, at any rate, all hopes of progress are at an end, and India truly neither lacks nor deserves any better government than she now enjoys. Only, if this be so, let us hear no more factious, peevish complaints that you are kept in leading strings, and treated like children, for you will have proved yourselves such. Men know how to act. Let there be no more complaints of Englishmen being preferred to you in all important offices, for if you lack that public spirit, that highest form of altruistic devotion that leads men to subordinate private ease to the public weal, that true patriotism that has made Englishmen what they are, then rightly are these preferred to you, and rightly and inevitably have they become your rulers. And rulers and taskmasters they must continue, let the yoke gall your shoulders ever so sorely, until you realise and stand prepared to act upon the eternal truth, whether in the case of individuals or nations, self-sacrifice and unselfishness are the only unfailing guides to freedom and happiness.”

The capitals and italics are, except in two cases, ours. In the original there are only two italics, (1) the word themselves in the sentence “they who would be free, themselves must strike the blow,” and, (2) “Men know how to act.” Now these are not the words of a diplomat, much less those of a hypocrite. Mr. Hume was too noble not to mean what he said, and the present writer has no doubt but that Mr. Hume was absolutely sincere in what he said. He had a passion for liberty. His heart bled at the sight of so much misery and poverty as prevailed in India, and which according to him was preventable by good government. He burned with indignation at the “cowardly” behaviour of his countrymen towards Indians, and he could not help feeling ashamed at the way in which pledges given and promises made were being ignored. He was an ardent student of history and knew full well that no government, whether national or foreign, had conceded to popular demands without pressure from below. In the case of an alien government, the chances were even still more meagre. He therefore wanted the Indians “to strike” for their liberty if they wanted it. The first step was to organise. So he advised organisation.

Nor are we prepared to believe that men like Ranade, Tilak, Naoroji, W. C. Bonnerjea, Ajudhia Nath, and Tyabji, were only tools in the hands of the Britishers. No, we do not think so. They were all true and good patriots. They loved their country and they started the Congress with the best of motives. It is possible that with some British sympathisers, the interests of the British Empire were primary, and they sided with the Congress because they believed that thereby they could best secure the Empire; but the writer of this book knows from personal experience how deeply the love of humanity and liberty is embedded in the hearts of some Britishers, and he is compelled to believe that at least some of those who showed their sympathy with the Congress were of that kind.

The Imperialist Junker and Jingo calls such men “Little Englanders,” but the truth is that their hearts are too big to be imperial. They believe in humanity, and in liberty being the birthright of every human being. In their eyes a tyrant, one who robs others of their liberty, one who bases his greatness on the exploitation of others, or deprives them of their rights by might or clever diplomacy, does not cease to be so by the fact of his being their countryman. They are patriots themselves and will shed the last drop of their blood in the defence of their liberty, and in the defence of their country’s liberty and independence, but their patriotism does not extend to the point of applauding their country’s robbing others of theirs. Yes, there are Britons who are sincere friends of the cause of liberty all over the globe. They deplore that their country should be ruling India at all, and if it were in their power, they would at once withdraw from India. Some of these sympathise with the Indian Nationalists in all sincerity, and have done so ever since the Indian National Congress was started, or even from before that time. It is no fault of theirs, if the Indian Nationalist Movement has not been such a success as they would have wished it to be, and if it has not been able to achieve anything very tangible. The fault is purely that of the Indians, and of the Indians alone, or of the circumstances.

Mr. Hume was quite sincere in his motives, but he forgot that a political organisation started at the instance or even with the approval of the rulers whose power and emoluments it proposed to curtail, whose despotism and principles it questioned, in short, whom it proposed to displace and dethrone, was an anomaly; it was unnatural. In their desire to have an easy and unopposed start, the Indian founders of the National Congress forgot their history, and consequently ignored the truth that “those who wanted to be free must themselves strike the blow,” and that it was monstrous to expect those against whom the blow was aimed to bless the striker and the striking. We do not agree with Mr. Gokhale that “no Indian could have started the Indian National Congress” and that “if the founder of the Congress had not been a great Englishman and a distinguished ex-official, such was the official distrust of political agitation in those days that the authorities would have at once found some way or other to suppress the movement.”

First, political agitation did not start with the Congress. It had been started before and no attempt to suppress it had succeeded. Second, the distrust of political agitation in India was not greater in those days than it is now and has been during the life of the Congress. But if it be true that the movement could not have been started by an Indian or by the combined efforts of many Indians, all we can say is that that itself would be proof of its having been started before time and on wrong foundations.

Had not Mr. Hume said that “whether in the individual or the nation, all vital progress must spring from within,” and that it was “to her own sons that the country must look for the initiative?” Did not Mr. Hume say in his manifesto of 1883 that “in vain may aliens like myself love India ... in vain may they struggle and sacrifice ... they may assist with advice and suggestion, but they lack the essential of nationality, and the real work must ever be done by the people of the country themselves?”

These may be only truisms, but they are fundamental and any political effort made in defiance of them must be futile and impotent. The Indian leaders of the Congress have never fully realised the absolute truth of these principles and the result is the comparatively poor record of the Congress. In his original manifesto issued in 1883, Mr. Hume wanted fifty Indians “with sufficient power of self-sacrifice, sufficient love for and pride in their country, sufficient genuine and unselfish heartfelt patriotism to take the initiative and if needs be to devote the rest of their lives to the cause.”

Of course there were many times fifty men of that kind in the country, even then, who were devoting their lives to the service of their country, but not in the political line. It took the Congress and the country, by working on Congress lines, more than twenty years to produce fifty, many times fifty, such men to devote their lives to the political cause. But unfortunately these are neither in the Congress, nor of the Congress. Barring Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji and the late Mr. Gokhale, who among the living Congress leaders can be said to have devoted their lives, in the way Mr. Hume wanted them to do, to the Congress cause? Within the last thirty years India has produced many noble sons who have given their all in the service of the Motherland. They come from all provinces, all religions, all denominations, and all castes. But very few of them have ever been active in the Congress or for the Congress. Within the same period many Indians have given away many hundreds of thousands of rupees, some the whole earnings of a lifetime, in aid of education or for other public or charitable purposes; but the Congress work has always languished for want of funds. The British Committee of the Indian National Congress, located in London, have never had sufficient money to do their work decently. The expenses of the British Committee have largely fallen on Sir William Wedderburn. He and Mr. Hume between them spent quite a fortune on the movement. No single Indian is said to have spent even a fraction of that. The question naturally arises,—why has it been so? The answer is obvious. The movement did not appeal to the nation. The leaders lacked that faith which alone makes it possible to make great sacrifices for it.

In the early years of the Congress there was a great deal of enthusiasm for it among the English educated Indians. So long as no attempts were made to reach the masses and carry on the propaganda among the people, the officials expressed their sympathy with the movement. Lord Dufferin even invited the members as “distinguished visitors” to a garden party at Government House, Calcutta, when the Congress held its second session in that city in 1886. In 1887 the Governor of Madras paid a similar compliment to them at Madras,[59] but in 1888 when Mr. Hume adopted the methods and tactics of the Corn-Law Leaguers of England, down came the hand of the Government; and then the Congress movement at once adopted an apologetic tone and abandoned the only method by which it could make itself heard with effect. Why? Because, in the words of Mr. Hume, there were no “men who could act.”

The Congress Lacked Essentials of a National Movement. Ever since then the Congress has cared more for the opinion of the Government and the officials than for truth or for the interests of the country. Again the question arises, why? And the reply is, because the leaders had neither sufficient political consciousness nor faith. They had certain political opinions, but not beliefs for which they were willing to suffer. They were prepared to urge the desirability of certain reforms in the government of the country, even at the risk of a certain amount of official displeasure, but they were not prepared to bear persecutions, or suffer for their cause. Either they did not know they had a cause, or they were wanting in that earnestness which makes men suffer for a cause. Or, to be charitable, they thought that the country was not prepared for an intense movement and considered it better to have something than nothing. They perhaps wanted to educate the country in political methods and bring about a political consolidation of all the national forces, before undertaking an intensified movement. But with the greatest possible respect for the founders of the Indian National Congress, or for those who a few years ago took up the control of the movement, we cannot help remarking that by their own conduct they showed that their movement lacked the essentials of a national movement.

A movement does not become national by the mere desire of its founders to make it so. In the opinion of the writer it is a mistake to start a national political movement unless those who start it are prepared to make great sacrifices for it. A halting, half-hearted political movement depending on the sympathy and good will of the very class against whom it is directed, consulting their wishes at every step, with its founders or leaders trembling for their safety and keeping their purse strings tight, only doing as much as the authorities would allow and as would not interfere in any way with their own personal interests and comforts and incomes, is from its very nature detrimental to real national interests. A political movement is mischievous in its effects if its leaders do not put a sufficient amount of earnestness into it to evoke great enthusiasm among their followers, such as would prepare them for great sacrifices for the cause on the one hand, and on the other, produce a certain amount of fear of unpleasant consequences in those against whom it is directed. For this it is necessary that the leaders should be prepared to suffer for the cause. The sacrifice of money is the least proof of earnestness which a believer in any cause can give.

It is a fact that the English friends of the movement showed more earnestness than many of the Indian leaders. They spent their own money over it and they incurred the displeasure of their countrymen and the odium of being called traitors to their own country. Mr. Hume was “in deadly earnest.” He started the movement with the good will of the authorities and waited for results for two years. When, however, he found that “the platonic expressions of sympathy by the authorities were a mockery,” that nothing was done to lessen the “misery of the masses” and to relieve their sufferings and redress their grievances, he decided to put more intensity into the movement. He undertook to instruct the Indian nation and rouse them to a sense of their right and to a sense of the wrong that was being done to them. In his opinion, “the case was one of extreme urgency, for the deaths by famine and pestilence were counted not by tens of thousands or by hundreds of thousands, but by millions.”[60] He concluded that “in order to constrain the Government to move, the leaders of the Indian people must adopt measures of exceptional vigour, following the drastic methods pursued in England by Bright and Cobden in their great campaign on behalf of the people’s food.” So, like Cobden, Hume decided that since the attempt of the Congress leaders to instruct the Government had failed and since the Government had refused to be instructed by them, the next step was “to instruct the nations, the great English nation in its island home, and also the far greater nation of this vast Indian continent, so that every Indian that breathes upon the sacred soil of this our motherland, shall become our comrade and coadjutor, our supporter and if need be our soldier, in the great war that we, like Cobden and his noble band, will wage for justice, for our liberties and our rights.”[61]

Hume’s Political Movement. Now these were noble words, pointing out the only political weapon that ever succeeds against autocratic governments. We are told by Mr. Hume’s biographer that “in pursuance of such a propaganda in India, Mr. Hume set to work with his wonted energy, appealing for funds to all classes of the Indian community, distributing tracts, leaflets and pamphlets, sending out lecturers and calling meetings both in large towns and in country districts. Throughout the country over one thousand meetings were held, at many of which over five thousand persons were present, and arrangements were made for the distribution of half a million pamphlets, translations into twelve Indian languages being circulated of two remarkable pamphlets, showing by a parable the necessary evils of absentee state landlordism, however benevolent the intention.”[62]

That was true political work, done with a real political insight. If it had been persevered in, the history of the Congress would have been different and perhaps the revolutionary party would never have been born or would have been born earlier. In either case the country would have been farther ahead in politics than it is now. What, however, actually happened was that the Government was at once moved to hostility. Lord Dufferin spoke of the Congress in terms of contempt “as the infinitesimal minority,” at a Calcutta dinner. Sir Auckland Colvin stirred up the Mohammedans, organised an Anti-Congress Association and denounced the Congress in no measured terms, as mischievous, disloyal, and much before the time.

Congress Overawed. Mr. Hume started to explain in an apologetic tone. It was at this time that he came out with the “safety valve” theory. The propaganda was at once abandoned, never to be resumed in the history of the movement. The movement in England failed for want of funds. The movement in India collapsed for want of perseverance, vigour and earnestness. Here again we are disposed to think that Mr. Hume’s subsequent conduct was influenced more by the fears and half-heartedness of the Indian leaders than by his own judgment. If the Indian leaders had stuck to their guns and pushed on their propaganda, the country would have supplied funds and would have rallied round them. Perhaps there might have been a few riots and a few prosecutions. But that would have drawn the attention of the British public to Indian conditions more effectively than their twenty-eight years of half-hearted propaganda in England did. The political education of the people would have been more rapid and the movement would have gained such a strength as to make itself irresistible. It is possible, nay, probable, that the Government would have suppressed the movement. But that itself would have been a victory and a decided and effective step in the political education of the people. The revolutionary movement would have come earlier and the Government would have seen the wisdom of conciliating the moderates much earlier than 1909. What was given to us in 1909 might have been given twenty years earlier. The Mohammedans would have been happy to get in 1889 what they got in 1909. The Indian leaders, however, thought that they were not sufficiently strong and that the movement stood the chance of being suppressed. They gave in and abandoned the only effective weapon they had forged to get redress of political grievances.

No nation and no political party can ever be strong enough to make their voice effective, unless and until they put forward a sufficient amount of earnestness (not bluff) to convince their opponents that in case their demands are trifled with, the consequences might be serious to both parties. The history of political advance in self-governed countries like England, Germany, France, etc., amply proves this. No political agitation need be started unless those who are engaged in it are prepared to back it by the power of the purse and the power of conviction.

Congress Agitation in England. The Congress overawed in 1888 and 1889, failed in both respects. So far as the first is concerned, why, that has been a theme of lamentation, appeals, and wailings from year to year. Friends in England, whether in or outside the British Committee, have lamented it in pathetic terms. The Congress agitation in England has never been effective. The Congress has had precious little influence on English public opinion, and although the British Committee of the Congress have had an office and an organ in London for the last 25 years or more, their influence in English politics has been almost nil. But for the generosity of Mr. Hume and Sir William Wedderburn, the Congress office in London might have been long ago closed. The leaders of the Congress have talked very much of their implicit faith in the English nation; they have held out hopes of our getting a redress of our wrongs if we could only inform the British people of the condition of things prevalent in India; yet the efforts they have put forward to achieve that end have been puerile and paltry. There is a party of Indian politicians who do not believe in agitation in England, but the leaders of the Congress and those who have controlled the organisation in the last 30 years do not profess to belong to that party. We shall now try to explain why this has been so.

Causes of Failure of the Congress. (1). The movement was neither inspired by the people nor devised or planned by them. It was a movement not from within. No section of the Indian people identified themselves with it so completely as to feel that their existence as honourable men depended on its successful management. The movement was started by an Englishman, at the suggestion of an English pro-consul. The Indians, who professed to lead it, were either actually in government service or in professions allied to government service and created by the Government. A good many of the latter aspired to offices under the Government or to a recognition of their merit and public spirit by the Government. They were patriotic enough to give a part of their time and energy to the movement, so long as it did not clash with their own interests, so long as they were not required to mar their careers for it, or so long as it did not demand heavy sacrifices from them. We do not question either their motives or their patriotism, but it was not sufficiently intense to induce them to stake their all on it.

(2). The movement lacked the essentials of a popular movement. The leaders were not in touch with the people. Perhaps they did not even want to come in touch with them. Their propaganda was confined to a few English-educated persons, was carried on in English and was meant for the ears of the authorities rather than for the people. The leaders always felt shy of the masses, made no efforts to reach them, and systematically discouraged the younger men from doing the same. Some of them have openly opposed efforts in this direction.

(3). The leaders failed to inspire enthusiasm among the people, either by their own failure to make sacrifices, or by the triviality of their sacrifices. Their ordinary life, their income, their prosperity, and their luxuries were in no way affected by the movement. There were only two exceptions to this, viz., Dadabhai Naoroji and Gokhale. The sacrifices of Messrs. Hume and Wedderburn shamed the people, but failed to appeal to their imagination. In fact, they roused the anger of the people against the leaders and created distrust. The spectacle of leaders accepting high offices they were offered under the Government added to this distrust.

(4). The movement was neither confined to a select few, nor open to all. While the people were expected to add to the spectacular side of the show by their presence in large numbers, by crowded meetings, by cheers and applause, they were never given a hand in the movement. Differences of opinion were always discouraged and free discussion was never allowed. It was neither a public forum, nor a private meeting of the select few. In the latter case it would have been less expensive and would have saved money for work in England. In the former case it would have been more effective.

(5). A national movement, demanding only a few concessions and not speaking of the liberties of the nation and of its ideals, is never an effective movement. It is at best an opportunist movement. It is mischievous in so far as it diverts attention from substantial nation building and character making. It brings fame without sacrifice. It opens opportunities for treacheries and hypocrisies. It enables some people to trade in the name of patriotism. No political movement can be entirely free from these disadvantages, but the greatest mischief which a political movement lightly handled and led does, is that it delays the development of the people on normal lines by raising hopes which are baseless and can never be realised by means recommended and methods adopted.

PART III. THE BIRTH OF THE NEW NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

The National Movement in India continued on its placid and humdrum course until Lord Curzon’s ridicule of the movement convinced the people that the political methods of the Congress were quite powerless to bring them any relief against the despotism that trampled upon all their rights and sensibilities. This led to a deeper and a closer study of the political problem on the part of men who had convictions as distinguished from opinions, who had faith as against opportunism, who wanted a soul for their people, rather than a few more posts under the Government. They discovered that the movement had suffered not only by the adoption of wrong methods and by want of sacrifice on the part of leaders, but by their failure to grasp principles and to formulate ideals. Hence the cry of Swadeshi and Swaraj.[63]

Swadeshi and Swaraj. No sooner was the cry raised than the country was swept by a wave of political activity which deeply and intimately influenced the proceedings of the Congress in 1905 and 1906. Calcutta might have witnessed in 1906 what Surat did in 1907, but for the sagacity and patriotism of Dadabhai, who rose equal to the occasion and blessed the cry for self-government. He declared in the words of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the British Premier, that good government could never be a substitute for self-government. So far good government had been the ideal of the Congress. At the Calcutta session of 1906 it was changed to self-government,—and from the mouth of a man who had devoted his whole life to the political cause. That is the date of the birth of the real National Movement in India.

The Surat Fiasco[64] was, among other causes, brought about by the fear that the so-called moderate leaders wanted to go back past what had been done in 1906. There is no doubt that they had gone back in spirit, though perhaps not in letter. The enthusiasm, created by popular propaganda of the Congress in 1888, was killed by the reaction that followed in subsequent years. The same thing would have happened in 1907 but for the fact that this time the movement was sufficiently intense to claim its martyrs.

The high ideals embodied in Swadeshi and Swaraj were the ideals worked out by the sons of India: the miseries of the motherland had given an impetus to the idea, but the idea itself stood on higher ground. It was not the redress of grievances that filled the mind of the people, but the desire for liberty. It was not concessions they wanted, but liberty. Liberty is not a thing of the earth, and therefore it can neither be given nor accepted as a gift. It has to be won. People felt that, and were prepared to realise that in their lives.

After more than twenty years of more or less futile agitation for concessions and redress of grievances, they had received stones in place of bread. Lord Ripon was succeeded by a Curzon. People saw that a sort of mist, a deep, covering fog, had prevented them from seeing ahead. They had been wandering in pursuit of vain things. The haven had been concealed from their vision and the result was that their tiny bark had been following a wrong course. The waters were stormy and the sea was heavy, but no ship could reach its destination unless the mariners and sailors in charge knew what their goal was, and unless they were prepared to put forth all they had in them to carry the bark through. So far, the bark had been sailing under misleading stars, without a compass to guide the captain. Now the compass was found and with the finding of the compass the aspect changed. Ideas inspire men. Ideals prepare them to breast martyrdom. The ideal of Swaraj found men ready to suffer for it, to meet death like martyrs. The new movement has inspired a class of men whose life is filled with that idea and that idea alone. They are the worshippers of Swaraj; they love their motherland above everything else. They do not want office, or incomes, or recognition, or applause. What they want is liberty, not for themselves, because that they might get perhaps by settling in other countries, but for their beloved country. High Court Judgeships, Civil Service, Councils, mean nothing to them.

The founders of the Indian National Congress began their movement under inspiration of government and under the shadow of the high offices they held or aspired to under that government, but the founders and inspirers of the National Movement started their propaganda by boycotting government and government patronage. The former wanted high offices, the latter despised those who held them. The former asked for concessions, the latter rejected them. The former wanted Councils, the latter would have nothing to do with them. The former appealed to the British Government and the British nation, the latter appealed to their own people and to their own patriotism and to their God. The former were led by the British, the latter by pure Indians. The former would not do anything which would mar their careers, the latter threw away their chances like poisoned bread. The former lived in bungalows, revelled in drawing rooms, velvet-covered chairs, were attended by liveried servants, ate at well-furnished tables, entertained governors and magistrates; the latter gave up even the little comforts they had, changed trousers for dhotis, coats for chapkans or kurtas (shirts), overcoats for blankets, and boots for ordinary Swadeshi shoes. The former owed their prosperity in life, their positions, and their comforts, to the British system, and were therefore under obligation to the British; but the latter chose the path of poverty and destitution to avoid obligations. They threw away their chances deliberately and with the conviction that that was the right thing to do. The former cared for wines, for children, and for home. The latter gave up all, to devote themselves completely to the cause and to the motherland. The former had produced only two full time workers for the cause in the course of 22 years, the latter produced virtually hundreds and thousands in less than two years. The former worked under the best auspices, the latter started their work under overhanging clouds, which soon burst and swept away many of them into prisons.

Is it any wonder that under such inspiration the movement spread like wildfire and assumed wide proportions? Life met life. Forces met forces. Conflict and clash resulted in fatal accidents to either party. The casualties on the side of the Nationalists have been tremendously heavy and out of all proportion to their number, but judging the conflict by the resources, no one need hesitate in saying that the moral victory lies with the Nationalists. Within less than five years of their propaganda, they forced the hand of the Government to make concessions which could not be even thought of in 1905. The Congress leaders claim credit for themselves and so does the Government; but the verdict of impartial and unbiased historians will be otherwise.

Lord Morley would rally the moderates because there were extremists in the land. In the absence of the so-called extremists, the moderates were extremists and the Government and its agents looked down upon them. The Anglo-Indian statesman and his confidant, the moderate Congress leader, say that the extremists are few, that most of them are those good-for-nothings, who could do nothing at the universities, or with their lives; that they are maniacs and men who have lost all sense of right and wrong.

Men who have Inspired the Movement. But look at the men who have inspired the movement, some of whom are leading it even to-day. Is Arabinda Ghosh a failure? Is Har Dayal a failure? Were the nine deportees from Bengal failures? How many high-class graduates have been hanged; how many are in jail! Look at their university records and look at their prospects, and then say if you can call them “malcontents” or men who have arisen against the Government because they could not prosper under it. Their propaganda has compelled the Government to adopt the severest repressive measures open to a foreign government. The penal code has been amended to make the definition of sedition more comprehensive. The criminal procedure code has been amended to facilitate convictions and to accelerate trials. Provisions have been added to enable magistrates to award summary imprisonment for failure to give security for good behaviour asked for on political grounds. A Seditious Meetings Act has been enacted to make open propaganda impossible. An Explosives Act has been placed on the statute book. A Press Law has been passed to muzzle the press. Spies and detectives have been employed out of number. Teachers, professors, friends, pupils, class-fellows, parents, have all been requisitioned to crush the movement. The number of publications confiscated under the Press Act, the convictions for sedition, for seditious murders, for dacoities and for keeping arms, the sentences for failure to find securities for good behaviour, all continue to grow. The cry is, “Still they come!” In prisons the political prisoner has been subjected to horrible treatment; one committed suicide and another lost his senses in the Andamans. Many a tale of misery and wretchedness, of torture and of insults comes from the prisons in India, but still the movement is far from being crushed.

There is evidence that new recruits join the secret propaganda every year and take the place of those hanged or imprisoned. A number has exiled themselves and are carrying on their propaganda in distant lands under very discouraging and depressing circumstances. The man who says that the movement is dead or dying must be a liar or a fool. The movement is alive and possibly as vigorous as it ever was. It has captured the imagination of the younger generation. And at least 75 per cent. of the students in India and in England sympathise with this party. Almost all are Anti-Congress. Even those who are not Nationalists do not like the Congress and feel no obligation towards it, because the Congress failed to communicate high principles and lay down high ideals, and because it failed to create that spirit of self-sacrifice, that willingness to suffer, without which no national movement can grow, prosper, and inspire.

The failures of the Congress evolved the Nationalist Movement. The Congress did its work that way. It brought conviction home that no amount of prayers, resolutions, protests, memorials, could move the autocratic bureaucracy in India, and no amount of petitions were likely to make any impression upon the people in England. The fact that the Congress leaders would not make sacrifices for the Congress cause, though they would give large amounts of money for educational purposes and other charities, forced people to think that they themselves had no faith in the Congress propaganda or in the Congress methods, though they lacked the courage to say so or to change their methods. It was perhaps unreasonable to expect that of the kind of men that led the Congress. Most of them loved their country and were public spirited; they had given proof of it, good and sufficient, in other sides of national activity, in the cause of social reform, in the cause of public education, in industrial propaganda. Outside the Congress they have done enough to create an atmosphere which was bound to bring about the development of the political movement along the lines on which it eventually did develop in 1905.

The Nationalist child was, so to say, brought up on the lap of the old Congress man and fed on the food provided by him; though, strange enough, this bringing up and this feeding produced results for which the Congressman was not prepared and which shocked him a bit. The first shock over, some of them were happy to have lived to see the day, and blessed the movement. Some made up their minds to throttle it, but soon found that it was not in their power to do so. The worst they could do was to condemn it and to denounce it. All they could achieve was to cut the new movement, shake off all responsibility for it, and thus secure their own safety. We do not say that they did it to save their skins. But fortunately for them their convictions led them the way their safety lay. In their heart of hearts they blessed the new movement and were heartily glad that it came. It acted and reacted on their own movement. It made it possible for them to put strength and force into their demands for concessions. Whenever an extremist leader recanted or used compromising language, they were sorry. They wanted the movement to continue and to live, though they would not join it and though they believed that it was harmful to the country in some respects. They deplore the lack of enthusiasm and sacrifice in their own ranks, but they admire the selflessness of the extremists and respect their real leaders. An Arabinda Ghosh and a Tilak simply compel their admiration and respect. Whatever the shortcomings of Har Dayal may be, he is a unique personality.

We have stated wherein the new movement differed from the old, and we have also stated what its dominant note is. We would now like to examine how it intended to proceed and how its hands were forced to do the things it has done since.

Lord Curzon and Indian Education. We have already hinted that Lord Curzon’s policy and his utterances helped a great deal in the birth of the new movement. When Lord Curzon came to India, he formulated a rather ambitious programme of reforms to be introduced into the administration of the country. One of these reforms related to education.

Every one in the country, who has had anything to do with education in India, was of opinion that the country was very backward in education and that the system of education there in vogue was defective. It laid too great stress on the literary side and did not fit people for the battle of life; it gave undue importance to the English language and Western modes of thought, at the cost of the vernaculars and the indigenous civilisation of the country; it encouraged “cram” at the cost of real merit; it produced a class of imitators and left little scope or none for originality; it invited third class men from England to fill the highest positions in the educational service of the country, and placed the best native intellect and talent under them to starve and rot for want of opportunities; it did not recognise the duty of the Government to look after the education of the child from the beginning until he was fit to fight his own way in the world.

The educational system of the country required radical changes, but what was most needed was that the Government should be prepared to spend adequate sums of money for its spread and in order to make it efficient. Lord Curzon’s pronouncements and programme therefore raised great hopes in the minds of the people. His University Commission was simply flooded with suggestions and statements from Indians and Anglo-Indians. The two classes, however, discussed the matter from entirely different standpoints: The Indians wanted greater facilities for education, more schools, more colleges, more masters, more stipends, an extension of primary school education, abler and better-paid teachers, freedom of private enterprise, ample provision for technical and industrial education; but what they wanted most and cared for most was that education should be more nationalised and humanised. The Anglo-Indians wanted a curtailment of the educational opportunities, a greater and stricter control of private enterprise, a raising of university standards, and a system of education which would curb the rising generation and make them more easily amenable to discipline and obedience.

Lord Curzon did go into all these questions, but the decision arrived at convinced the educated Indians that the motive which underlay Lord Curzon’s policy was the tightening of government control, the strangling of all independence in matters educational, and the eventual weakening of all national movement and national sentiment.

Lord Curzon’s Secret Educational Conference. The fact that he admitted no Indian to the meeting of the Secret Educational Conference held at Simla, when he formulated the government policy, strengthened that idea. His University Legislation shocked the country beyond measure and left no doubt whatsoever that what he aimed at was a complete official control of all education in India. Educated Indians read between the lines and concluded that it was a mistake to look to the Government to do things or to follow a policy which might quicken the national pulse, strengthen the Nationalist sentiment, or add to the efficiency of the people so as to fit them to stand on their legs and desire to get rid of the leading strings in which they were held by the British.

Indians and Lord Curzon at Cross Purposes. Indians saw that they and Lord Curzon were at cross-purposes. They aimed at self-government and freedom; Lord Curzon aimed at prolongation of the period of their bondage and the permanence of the existing political conditions. We wanted independence; he wanted us to be dependent on the British. We wanted to quicken the pace of national advance; he wanted to slacken it. We wanted to be assertive and self-reliant; he wanted us to be submissive and in permanent control and tutelage. We wanted to go forward, he mistrusted us. We wanted a policy of honest confidence; instead of that he inaugurated a policy of suspicion. We wanted unity, he proceeded to bring into existence fresh causes of friction between community and community. We wanted the marshalling of our forces in the common cause, he proceeded to divide us and to keep us apart. We wanted consolidation, and he started active disintegration. We wanted an extension of representative government, Lord Curzon did his best to discredit the institutions that had been granted and to set back the hands of the clock.

The Congress Deputation to England in 1905. The leaders of the Indian National Congress saw all this; they resisted Lord Curzon’s policy rather boldly; they spoke with courage; they sought his patronage and sent their president to wait on him. Lord Curzon refused to see him and thus slapped the Congress in the face. He characterised their activities as the letting off of “gas.” Their resolutions he looked upon with contempt because, as he said, nothing had ever come out of them. The leaders felt offended, they fretted and foamed. But all they resolved to do was to appeal to the British public. So a deputation was sent to England in 1905 to place the grievances of India before the British public.

This deputation was composed of Messrs. Gokhale and the writer of this book. They addressed a large number of meetings in Great Britain, made many friends, saw some politicians; but they were not very hopeful as to the results. One of them on his return (the present writer) struck an unmistakable note of despondency. He frankly told his people that the British democracy was too busy with their own affairs to do anything for them, that the British press was not willing to champion Indian aspirations, that it was hard to get a hearing in England, and that the influence and the credit of the Anglo-Indians was too strong to be met successfully by the necessarily inadequate agitation which the Congress could set up in England. On his return to India the message which he brought to his people was, that if they really cared for their country, they would have to strike the blow for freedom themselves, and that they would have to furnish unmistakable proofs of their earnestness.

His message was in no way different from what Mr. Hume had told the graduates of the Calcutta University in 1883, or in his pamphlets “The Star in the East” and the “Old Man’s Hope.”

The Congress of 1905. This was the first time that an Indian publicist had spoken in that strain. The swadeshi and boycott had already been started in Bengal during his absence from India. Even Mr. Gokhale approved of the boycott as a political weapon. So the message which he brought fell on willing and sympathetic ears. The country was in a mood to listen to it, and it did listen. The Congress Session of 1905, held at Benares,[65] gave an opportunity for comparing notes and for settling a programme. The reception accorded to Mr. Gokhale and the rather uproarious meetings of the Subjects Committee afforded ample evidence of the temper of the people. Gokhale was cautious, careful, but enthusiastic. His presidential address was inspiring, though strictly moderate. His Bombay friends, however, would not let him go sufficiently far. The very first night the Subjects Committee sat, it appeared that a split was inevitable and the proceedings could not be as unanimous and harmonious as was customary. The old Congress leaders were accustomed to unanimity, but the younger generation soon convinced them that unanimity on the old lines was impossible.

When the meeting of the Subjects Committee broke up after its deliberation on the first night, no unanimity had been reached with regard to a resolution welcoming the visit of the Prince of Wales (the present King) to India. The dissentionists threatened to oppose it in the Congress. The reception committee and the older leaders were all furious, threatened all sorts of retributions, and predicted all sorts of evil consequences, but the younger men would not listen. The whole of the morning was spent in efforts to induce them to withdraw their opposition, but young Bengal refused to agree. The meeting was delayed; Gokhale then made a personal appeal to the Mahratta and the Punjab leaders, and they prevailed on their Bengalee friends to absent themselves from the meeting and let the resolution be passed in their absence. The resolution relating to Swadeshi,[66] boycott, and national education, again evoked lively discussion resulting in compromise, wherein the principles for which the Nationalists stood were conceded.

In the Congress camp, the younger generation had met in open conference to discuss their future programme. It was then that Mr. Tilak gave out the idea of passive resistance. No formal resolutions were passed, but the better mind of the people present decided to inaugurate an era of self-help and self-reliance based on an active boycott of government service and of the semi-government institutions.

Object of the Passive Resistance Movement. The object was two-fold. (1). To destroy the hypnotism that had caused the people and the country to have faith not only in the omnipotence of their rulers, but also in their altruism. In the words of one of the leaders of the Nationalist thought (Babu B. C. Pal,[67] “The Spirit of Indian Nationalism,” page 42), the people had been hypnotised to believe in the altruism of their foreign rulers:

“Untrained in the crooked ways of civilised diplomacy, they had believed what their rulers had said, either of themselves or of their subjects, as gospel truth. They had been told that the people of India were unfitted to manage their own affairs, and they believed it to be true. They had been told that the people were weak and the Government was strong. They had been told that India stood on a lower plane of humanity and England’s mission was to civilise ‘the semi-barbarous native.’ The Nationalist school took it upon themselves to expose the hollowness of all these pretensions. They commenced to make what are called counter-passes in

hypnotism, and at once awoke the people to a sense of their own strength, an appreciation of their own culture.”

In the second place, the object was to create a passionate love of liberty, accompanied by a spirit of sacrifice and readiness to suffer for the cause of the country. This was to be done more by example than precept. What the programme was may better be stated in the words of the leader whom we have quoted above:

“Boycott both economic and political, boycott of foreign and especially British goods, and of all honorary associations with the administration, national education implying a withdrawal of the youths of the nation from the officialised universities and government-controlled schools and colleges, and training them up in institutions conducted on national lines subject to national control and calculated to help the realisation of the national destiny, national civic volunteering, aiming at imparting a healthy civic training to the people by the voluntary assumption of as much of the civic duties, at present discharged by official or semi-official agencies, as could be done without any violation of the existing laws of the country,—duties, for instance, in regard to rural sanitation, economic and medical relief, popular education, preventive police duties, regulation of fair and pilgrim gathering,—settlement of civil and non-cognisable, criminal disputes by means of arbitration committees:—these were the proclaimed methods of the Nationalist school.”

As to the objects of this scheme, we will again quote the same writer:

“The evident object was to create in the first place a strong civic sentiment in the people with the help of co-operative organisations for the furtherance of the common good, and thus to train them gradually for the larger and heavier responsibilities of free citizenship, and in the next place, to cover the whole country with a net-work of active, political organisations which would place the leaders in direct and living touch with the people, and enable them to bring, from time to time, the irresistible pressure of organised public opinion to bear upon the Government, helping thereby the gradual expansion of popular rights.”

Now it should be noted here in passing, that with the exception of boycott and volunteering, every other item in the above propaganda had been more or less tried and with varying success in all parts of the country, but more particularly in the Punjab and Maharashtra before this. The Deccan education Society and the Poona Fergusson College were the offshoots of the desire to further the cause of education by self-imposed sacrifices, with the underlying motives of quickening the patriotic impulse and the Nationalist spirit. Similarly Swadeshi, co-operative organisations, and private arbitration courts had been thought of and tried. The motives underlying these attempts were absolutely patriotic, combining an element of philanthropy in them. The private colleges in Bengal, started by Vidyasagar and others, were also due to the same impulse, and so was the Pachaipiya College at Madras. Bombay had its own schemes and was ahead of the rest of India in purely Indian industrial and trade organisations. Similarly in the Punjab the idea of swadeshi had been started as early as 1877. The motives were economic and patriotic. The idea of national education had found expression in the D. A. V. (Dayanand Anglo-Vedic) College, and that of national co-operative organisations in the “Punjab National Bank,” the “Bharat Insurance Company” and other joint stock concerns. Religious and philanthropic motives had brought into existence the Hindu orphan movement, the famine relief movement, and so on. A little volunteering had also been attempted in connection with the famine relief movement and the Kangra earthquake relief movement. Long before 1905, the Punjab had a network of privately organised, privately financed, unaided schools and other charitable institutions, over which the Government had little effective control. Patriotism and philanthropy were the underlying motives of these institutions, but not politics.[68]

The ruling bureaucracy did not quite like these activities, but they could not suppress them. Individual officers sometimes sympathised and even helped these movements. So far Bengal had been rather backward in the matter of national development on these lines. So, when Lord Curzon proclaimed the partition of Bengal, attacked the veracity of the orientals in his Calcutta University convocation speech, and on other occasions called them cowards, windbags, unpractical talkers, and mere frothy patriots, the Bengalees awoke to a consciousness of their weaknesses, and resolved to revenge themselves upon Lord Curzon, and prove to the world at large that Lord Curzon was a liar. What followed may be briefly stated in a separate chapter.

CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST YEARS OF THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

Partition of Bengal. It was on the 16th of October, 1905, that the old Province of Bengal was partitioned by Lord Curzon. On that day “immense numbers of people in the two divisions of the partitioned province abstained from lighting their kitchen fire, went about barefooted, performed ceremonial baths in rivers or sacred tanks,[69] and tied on one another’s wrist the sacred rakhi, a piece of silk or cotton thread, as a symbol of fraternal or national unity.” On the 7th of August, 1905, the leaders of Bengal, in public meeting assembled, in the Calcutta Town Hall, under the presidency of Maharaja Mannidra Chandra Nundy of Cossimbazar,[70] had already declared “a general boycott of British goods as a practical protest against the proposed partition.”

Boycott of British Goods. The original idea was to resort to boycott as a temporary measure, and therefore in the pledges drawn up in the early days, a time limit was put in. The boycott was to last until “the partition was withdrawn.” In the words of a Bengalee politician, the idea was to cause pecuniary loss to the British manufacturer and thus enlist his sympathy and help for the purpose of getting the measure cancelled. But it was soon discovered that the boycott might be an effective economic weapon, to be used as a measure of protection against the economic exploitation of the country by the foreigner.

To quote the same writer, “The pledges sent from Calcutta came back, duly signed by large numbers of people, but with the conditional sentence, ‘until Partition is withdrawn,’ scored through. The boycott was a great success for some time. ‘The Lucky Day’ of October, 1905, on which generally a very large number of forward contracts in Manchester goods are made at Calcutta, passed without any business being done. Simultaneously with this decline in foreign goods, many indigenous industries began to revive. There was a boom in handlooms all over India. Provinces outside of Bengal did not adopt a policy of active boycott, but the cry of Swadeshi[71] was taken up by all the country, whereby a great impetus was given to indigenous manufacturers. The significance of the movement in Bengal, where it was rigorously pursued, lay in the fact that prince and peasant, capitalist and labourer, literate and illiterate, educated and uneducated, all joined hands.” For some time the boycott was so effective that The Englishman, an Anglo-Indian newspaper published in Calcutta, declared: “It is absolutely true that Calcutta warehouses are full of fabrics that can not be sold. In the earlier days of the boycott it was the fashion to assert that depression in piece goods trade was due to this or the other economic cause.

“Many prominent Marwari[72] Firms have been absolutely ruined and a number of the biggest European import houses have had either to close down their piece goods branch or to put up with a very small business, where they previously had a large one. As for stocks in warehouses, they tend to grow larger, as Marwari and Indian buyers who had given forward orders, now state that they can not afford to take delivery. These facts are now so well known that it is idle to attempt to hide them. Indeed the time has come when all injuries inflicted on trade by boycott should be made fully known. There is no question of encouraging the boycotters, as they need no encouragement. But there is the question of thoroughly awakening the public at home and the Government of India to the fact that in boycott the enemies of the Ráj have found a most effective weapon for injuring British interests in the country.”

The triumph of the boycotters was testified to by the following remarks of The Englishman, with which the article ended: “The question however is, what is the Government going to do about it? Boycott must not be acquiesced in, or it will more surely ruin British connection with India than an armed revolution.” [The italics are ours.]

Government’s Reply. In reply to this move on the part of the Bengalee leaders,—a move in which all Bengal was united, including the present moderates,—the Government started a crusade against the students whom the boycotters had enlisted in their service. The bureaucracy thought that the more active part of the propaganda was carried on by them. According to Mr. B. C. Pal, “the success of the boycott, especially in the earlier stages before the sentiment had time to settle down into the conscience and consciousness of the people, depended almost entirely upon picketing.” Mr. Pal assures us that “their method was uniformly intellectual and moral,” and that “there was no intimidation, no violence, no appeal to physical fear, none of the things that characterise picketing among the robuster people of the West.”

The British, of course, do not accept this statement as true. But whatever its nature, the Government did not like picketing. They thought they could not stand by and let a movement of that kind gain strength. “Their first move was to make it penal for the young student population to participate in any way in the nationalist activities. Students who attended public meetings were threatened with various punishments to the extent even of expulsion from school, college, or university.”

The Second Move of the Bengalees: The National University. The Bengalee leaders then put their heads together and resolved to start a National University, wherein education would be given independent of government control. The educational policy of Lord Curzon had already set people to thinking along that line. The measures now adopted to strike at the boycott movement by punishing the students who participated therein “accentuated the need and called forth actual measures to meet it.” This movement also, like the boycott, met the universal support of United Bengal. The actual leadership of it fell on Sir Gurdas Bannerjea, late Judge of the Calcutta High Court, who had been vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University for some time and whose loyalty and moderation had never been questioned by friend or foe. Besides, he had sat on the University Commission appointed by Lord Curzon and had written a note of dissent from the policy recommended by the majority of its members. “Under his guidance, the Bengal Council of National Education proposed to work, independent of, but by no means in opposition to, the Government Education Department. And this independent activity was justified on the ground that the education hitherto imparted under official supervision lacked a vital reference to the thoughts, the sentiments, the traditions, the religions, and even the outer physical and biological environments of the people. The object of the new movement was to organise a thoroughly national system of education, both scientific and literary, as well as technical, on national lines and under national control.”

Besides making an ample provision for literary, scientific, and technical education, the National Council of Education at once reduced English to the status of a secondary language, the first place being given to Bengalee and Sanskrit, and in the case of Mohammedans to Urdu, Persian, and Arabic.

The National Education Movement in Bengal was in no way an anti-government movement. Though it owed its “initiation to the threats of the Government to close the doors of the official schools and colleges and universities against those who would take any part in, even to the extent of simply attending, any political meeting or demonstration, the National Education Movement in Bengal sought to avoid all open causes of friction with the authorities and proposed to work independent of, but not in opposition to, the Government. Political in its origin, it tried to avoid all conflicts with the authorities by assuming an absolutely non-political attitude.”

Arabinda Ghosh. To this movement, Indian Nationalism owes the emerging into prominence of a quiet, unostentatious, young Hindu, who was till then comparatively obscure, holding his soul in patience and waiting for opportunities to send currents of the greatest strength into the nation’s system. He was gathering energy. His name was Arabinda Ghosh. Arabinda had received first class education in England. The headmaster of the school, where he studied before joining the university, is reported to have said that during the 25 to 30 years he had been in charge of the school, Arabinda Ghosh was by far the most richly endowed in intellectual capacity of any of the students that had come under his charge.

At Cambridge he distinguished himself in European classics and took first class honours. He

passed the Indian Civil Service examinations with credit, but failed in the test for horsemanship. Never did a failure prove more a blessing than in his case.

He was in the service of His Highness, the Maharaja of Baroda,[73] drawing a salary of about 500 pounds sterling, when his country’s call came to him. He listened to it readily, gave up his post and agreed to be the principal of the National College on ten pounds a month. We are told by one who worked with him for some time that he did not support the “declaration of the National Council of Education” about their non-political attitude. He could not appreciate this needless dread, as they thought, of offending official susceptibilities. He, however, accepted the verdict of the majority and began his work. But his position as “the nominal head of the National College, controlled by men” who “differed from him in their political views and opinions, became almost from the very beginning anomalous.” This was rather unfortunate. Arabinda Ghosh had received the best modern education that any man of his country and generation could expect to have. He had for some years been a teacher of youth in Baroda and had acquired considerable experience in his art. He had clearly realised the spirit and actualities of the life of his nation, and knew how the most advanced principles of pedagogy could be successfully worked into a thoroughly national system of education in India. He knew that the foundations of national independence and national greatness must be laid in a strong and advanced system of national education. He had a political ideal, no doubt; but politics meant to him much more than is ordinarily understood by the term. It was not a game of expediency, but a “school of human character” which acted and reacted on the life of the nation. “Education could no more be divorced from politics,” in his opinion, “than it could be divorced from religion and morals. Any system of education that helps such isolation and division between the various organic relations of life is mediæval and not modern.”[74]

The monied leaders of the National Council of Education movement, however, could not accept Arabinda’s principles. “They were not free from the fear of possible official opposition, which, if once aroused, would make their work, they thought, absolutely impossible. They had a real dread of the bureaucracy” whom they were not prepared to defy. Experience has shown that they were quite mistaken if they thought they could develop their scheme of education without rousing the fears and the bitterest opposition of the bureaucracy, even after declaring the non-political character of their scheme.

Never before in the history of the human race was it so well realised as now that the school is the nursery of the man and the citizen. Lord Curzon realised it in full and it was his aim to curtail or, if possible, crush the nationalist influences in the schools and colleges managed and conducted by Indian agencies. It was his desire to introduce the English element in all these institutions and to put them under English control. He had invited European missionaries to the Secret Educational Conference at Simla, but not a single Indian, Hindu or Mohammedan. He could not trust them (i. e., the Indians) with his ideas. Hence the need of secrecy. The National Council of Education was supposed to be working against the spirit of his policy. He was gone, but the bureaucracy who were identified with his wishes, views and schemes, were there. It was impossible that they would let the Bengalees, whoever they might be, build up a system of education and a network of educational institutions, that not only would owe nothing to the Government but were also to be quite free of official or English control and of English influence.

Then, the very circumstances under which the National College was born and the National Schools affiliated to it were opened, gave them a political character. The Government and the bureaucracy were opposed to the students taking any part in the boycott movement; the Bengalee leaders wanted them to do so, and hence the National College and the National Schools. It was an open challenge—a revolt. Arabinda Ghosh was identified with this revolt, and with him were associated a whole group of powerful writers and speakers, all men of high individuality and lofty ideals and of pure character. They accepted the decision of the majority about the non-political character of the college, but no one could deprive them of the use of their pen and tongue. Any attempt to do that might have been fatal to the scheme. They started journals and preached the gospel of political and economic and educational independence in the clearest language. They were all men of education and knew their history well. They fully realised what the consequences were likely to be, and they were prepared for it. They were prepared to suffer for their propaganda, but they were not yet prepared for violence.

The Nationalist Press. They started a number of papers in Bengalee and also in English, in which they gave their ideas to the people. The Sandhya and the Bande Mátaran, as two of the new papers were called, became their classrooms. In a few months the face and the spirit of Bengal was changed. The press, the pulpit, the platform, the writers of prose and poetry, composers of music and playwrights, all were filled with the spirit of nationalism. Bande Mataram (Hail Motherland) was the cry of the day. It was chanted in schools, in colleges, in streets, in houses, in public squares, almost everywhere. Even the government offices and the compounds of the private residences of European officials resounded with it.

Sabhas and Samitis and Akharas[75] leaped into existence by hundreds, where the Bengalee young men began to take lessons in fencing and other games. This was their reply to those who taunted them as cowards; for the famous, or rather infamous, remarks of Macaulay about Bengalees were often hurled at their heads by the Anglo-Indians, or new language was used to express the same thoughts.

The boycott had created an unheard of situation in some of the districts in Eastern Bengal. In one district—Barisal—the Superintendent of Police and the Collector had both failed to be able to buy a piece of Manchester shirting for one of their friends, as no trader would sell it except by permission of the gentleman who was the leader of the boycotters. This leader happened to be a man who had made his influence by his character and by service. He was, so to say, the uncrowned king of his district. That was a crusher to the bureaucracy. No foreign bureaucracy could tolerate it. Sir William Bamfylde Fuller, on whom had fallen the first Lieutenant Governorship of Eastern Bengal, was bewildered by the strength of the movement and the new character which the Bengalees were developing. The people refused to show him the customary honours. Even the presence of the Lieutenant Governor in the town did not prevent the people from giving ovations to anti-partition propagandists and making anti-partition demonstrations. At one place it is said that even the railway porters refused to touch his baggage, which had to be carried by police constables. This was more than he could bear.

Military Measures against Boycotters. After consultation with Lord Curzon, he resolved to use force. The first step taken was the despatch of a hundred Gurkha troops to Barisal, followed by a demand for the withdrawal of a circular issued by the local leaders advising the people of the legality of a peaceful boycott of British goods. It was evident that a refusal meant a physical conflict, which the leaders were yet anxious to avoid. So the leaders decided to withdraw and the governor was mollified. The Gurkhas are said to have committed numerous outrages on the people, but the leaders kept the latter under control, as they did not want the Government to get a handle to crush the movement by force.

In April, 1906, the Provincial Conference, which was attended by the most prominent leaders of the two Bengals, was broken up by order of the Magistrate “almost at the point of the bayonet.” A procession of some 800 or 900 delegates from the different districts of the two provinces, “including almost every prominent leader in the country, was dispersed by the police, who made a free use of their quarterstaffs and broke more than one head under the very eyes of the District Superintendent of Police.” The people, however, did not retaliate. So far, they were determined not to use force even against force. With every display of force on the side of the Government, the nationalist movement gained ground in popularity and in strength, until the masses, the women and children, all were saturated with it.

This was the birth of a new life in Bengal, which found its reflection in every phase of public activity, religious, social, economic, educational, or political. What was done in Bengal found its echo in the rest of the country. So far the Nationalist party was united. The elder people, who had been born and bred and had lived in a different atmosphere, were not in full accord with the younger party and remonstrated with the latter, when they indulged in intemperate language. Some people in other provinces did not quite approve of the wholesale boycott, inaugurated and declared by the Bengalees, but otherwise the nation was united, and the best mind of the nation was rather gratified at the turn things had taken.

Lord Minto. With the advent of Lord Minto (in 1905), however, things began to assume a different shape. The first serious difference in the Nationalist party occurred over the presidentship of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta in 1906, but an actual split was avoided by a clever and diplomatic move of the leaders of the new moderate party, who obtained the consent of Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji[76] to accept the presidentship, if offered to him. The Congress session of 1906 was rather an uproarious session, but eventually the spirit of compromise and conciliation prevailed and the so-called extremists practically gained all their points so far as the principle of them was concerned.

But it was clear, even to a superficial observer, that a split was inevitable; Lord Minto had succeeded Lord Curzon as Viceroy, and a visible change was coming in the policy of the Government. Lord Curzon was for a policy of repression; Minto inaugurated a reign of conciliation with repression. The movement might have succumbed if the Government had been courageous enough to annul or modify the Partition of Bengal, as they subsequently did in 1912. But that was not to be. On that point the Government would not yield, though otherwise they were in favour of making concessions.

Indian Press Gagged. The years 1905, 1906, and 1907 were years of passive resistance. The nationalists indulged in strong language, carried on a vigorous anti-British propaganda by means of the press and the platform, used their pen and tongue rather freely, but did not think of using force. Editor after editor, and publisher after publisher was sent to prison without any diminution of the campaign. The years 1906 and 1907 saw a regular “tug of war” between the Government on the one side and the nationalists on the other. A large number of prosecutions were launched against the members of the press in Bengal and Bombay, Punjab and the United Provinces, Madras and the Central Provinces, and many persons were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. A complete boycott, economic, political and social, was openly preached, and picketing was again resorted to. Some of the judicial trials were only farcical, the judges being influenced by political considerations, and convictions and sentences being foregone conclusions. Yet such was the people’s regard for law, that so long as the procedure of an open trial was not attacked, they did not think of employing

force for purposes of revenge. Even ill-treatment, either in lock-ups, during trial, or in prisons, after conviction, failed to incite the people to force. Political prisoners were applauded, glorified, and otherwise supported and backed, but no thought of revenge entered anybody’s head.

Deportation of Lajpat Rai. The sudden deportation of Lajpat Rai, however, in May, 1907, changed the whole current of thought and action. The nationalists concluded that the movement for passive resistance required to be supported by secret propaganda as well as the use of force against force. In the words of the Honourable Mr. G. K. Gokhale, in a speech delivered in the Council of the Governor General after the deportation of Lajpat Rai, the latter was a religious, social, and educational reformer and was loved and respected by large classes of his countrymen all over the country. He was one of the persons whom the extreme Nationalists claimed as their own, whom the moderate Nationalists also respected, and whom the populace “liked for his philanthropic and educational activities.” The sudden capture of this man, without trial, without charge, and without notice, drove the young Nationalists to frenzy.[77] Even the sober and the thoughtful among the Nationalists were in despair.

The Anglo-Indian press all over the country, however, was in jubilation. The leading semi-official daily published at Lahore, the headquarters of Lajpat Rai, described him as the leader of a deep-laid revolutionary movement, every detail of which passed through his fingers. He was said to have a following of “100,000 desperadoes.” The Englishman, at Calcutta, charged him with having tampered with the loyalty of the Indian army, and having incited the King of Afghanistan to invade India. As a result of adding, as they did, insult to the injury of deportation, the country was ablaze with indignation. The step was condemned by the unanimous voice of the people. All differences of opinion were forgotten and the whole country joined in protest. The extreme wing of the nationalists, however, decided to take the next step. They decided to use force and began to think of bomb and revolver and of a guerilla warfare against the established despotism. The older people, though they sympathised, would not agree to take any part in the movement using physical force, nor would they give their sanction to such a course.

It is possible that some sort of secret organisation existed in Bengal in 1906, but force did not enter into their programme till after May, 1907, i.e., until after the deportation of Lajpat Rai. The deportation decided them. Yet the first shot was not fired until December, 1907, and the first bomb was not thrown until April or May, 1908. The split[78] at Surat in December, 1907, irrevocably divided the Nationalists into two parties, and confirmed the younger party in their programme of force. The extremists saw the hand of the Government in the split. Within a few months almost all the leaders were seized and thrown into prison. At Surat, Lajpat Rai, having thrown in his lot with the moderates, was for a time left alone, but Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak, the Mahratta leader, was prosecuted and sentenced to six years’ transportation. Arabinda Ghosh was also seized and prosecuted for conspiracy to wage war against the King, though he was afterwards acquitted for want of evidence. Bepin Chandra Pal was also seized and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment; Chidambaran Pillai, a Madras leader, to six years; a Mohammedan leader of the United Provinces, Abul Hasan Hasrat Mohani, to one year. In December, 1908, nine of the Bengal leaders were seized in their homes and imprisoned by an administrative order without trial and without charge.

Disaffection Driven Underground. These persecutions and sentences exasperated the younger party and drove disaffection underground. Undaunted by the loss of leaders, they continued their propaganda and made several attempts on the lives of high officials. The life of the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal was attempted no less than three times, once in open daylight, when he was presiding at a certain state function. The life of the viceroy, Lord Minto, was also attempted, at Ahmedabad. The political secretary of Lord Morley, then Secretary of State, was shot in London; a collector was murdered at Nasik, and many other “outrages” were committed. Publications suppressed and condemned were published and circulated secretly; arms were smuggled and stolen; and attempts were made to wreck railways and otherwise terrorise the Government. Throughout the year 1908 and 1909 the movement was kept up at high pressure. Then in 1910 there was a comparative lull, though the revolutionary activities did come up to the surface occasionally.

The year 1911 was perhaps the dullest year from the revolutionary point of view. That was the year of the King’s visit to India. The King modified the Partition of Bengal and ordered the transfer of the capital to Delhi. For a time there was a great rejoicing in the country, not so much because the Partition had been annulled, but because it was a virtual triumph of the Nationalist agitation.

Lord Hardinge Bombed. In December, 1912, again, the revolutionary party gave conclusive evidence of their existence and strength. A bomb was thrown at Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy, when he was passing in procession midst thousands of troops and hundreds of thousands of spectators, making his first state entry into the new capital of British India, the Delhi of the Moguls. Lord Hardinge was wounded, members of his entourage killed and the procession broken up. The culprit escaped, and in spite of offers of huge rewards[79] and unprecedented police activity has remained undetected up to the present time. This is considered to be the supreme achievement of the revolutionaries. Throughout 1913 and 1914 the revolutionaries were active, and the scanty news that has filtered but from India during the war gives ample reason to think that they are very active now.

Within the last seven or eight years, the Government has tried every form of repression, and has also planned a programme of partial reconciliation, but they have so far failed to crush the extreme wing of the Nationalist party, the wing that believes in force and that has taken to all the methods of guerilla warfare against a foreign government based on force.

The country is in such circumstances now that every step which the Government takes to repress and crush the movement or to punish the offenders, strengthens the spirit of revolt, adds to the volume and intensity of the desire for revenge, adds to the number of those who are prepared to suffer or even die for the cause. From the classes, the movement has spread to the masses; from the non-fighting masses it is now gaining ground and winning adherents among the fighting classes. In 1907 the charge of tampering with the army, laid at the door of Lajpat Rai, was ridiculous. Perhaps there was a certain amount of disaffection among the Punjab regiments due to the Agrarian legislation undertaken by the Punjab Government, which deeply and detrimentally affected the classes from which the army was recruited. When the legislation objected to was vetoed, that cause of disaffection was removed; but since then fresh causes have affected at least certain sections of the army also, so that it cannot be said that the whole army is free from disaffection. The riot at Singapore, caused by the revolt of one of the Indian regiments stationed there, and certain happenings in the Punjab, amply prove this.

CHAPTER V
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS

WE will now see how many types of Nationalists there are in India. From what follows in the chapter, the reader should not conclude that the Indian Nationalists are disunited. So far as the goal is concerned there is practical unanimity in all ranks. Even those who stand for complete independence would be glad to have self-government within the Empire, if that were promised in the near future. As to methods, there is the usual cleavage to be found in all struggles for freedom in all countries. One party stands for the use of physical force, the other for peaceful means. The Indian Nationalists, too, are divided into two parties, the physical force party and the moderate party. The following account of the types is intended to show the different lines of their thinking. Complete unanimity in principles and methods can only be expected of a collection of machine-made clogs of wood.

The Extremists. (1) To take up the extremists first: There are some who do not recognise the British Government at all. They think that the Government of the British in India is founded on force and fraud. They have therefore no scruples to use force as well as fraud against the Government. In their eyes every one who is helping the Government in India either by accepting their service or otherwise by willing co-operation, abets the crime of which the Britishers are guilty. They do not recognise British laws nor their courts. They have no respect or use for either. They believe that their nationalism gives them the right of removing every one who stands in the way of their propaganda, whether by force or fraud. In their heart of hearts they are against every one who supports the British Government in India, but in the prosecution of their object they do not desire to strike at all of them. But if need be they are prepared to strike at any one. They have declared war against the British Government. Their leaders have assumed the right of passing sentences against those who are of the enemy. They judge and deal severely with those whom they think guilty of treason against them. They also consider themselves entitled to collect taxes as they call them, and make impositions on people in India. Acting on the principle that the safety of the state is the first consideration for all those who form the state, and that in case of necessity the state has a right to use the property of every private individual who is included in the body politic, they are prepared to exact their impositions by force. The fact that the British Government is the enemy against whom they have declared war, gives them the right to loot British treasuries and injure their property wherever and whenever they can.

The other principle stated above justifies in their eyes the taking by force of the property or wealth of those who would not give it willingly or voluntarily for the safety of the state as conceived by them. Hence the “dacoities.”

A few Nihilists. The men engaged in those dacoities are of two kinds: There are those who have no moral or religious scruples. They are “nihilists.” But their number is exceedingly small. They are not immoral people. For their own self or for private persons, they would not do anything which in any way contravenes the prevailing code of morality; they would neither steal nor rob, nor kill nor injure any person. But for the purpose of their movement they would do anything. Their number however is, as we said above, exceedingly small. Then there are those who are extremely religious and spiritual. Some of them are the followers of the “Kali”[80] cult as it is understood in Bengal; others are Vedantists. There are some who are deists or theists.

Religious Extremists. In every case, however, they believe that the British are the enemies of their Motherland and also of their religion. They would not touch one hair of any one simply because that person belonged to a religion different from theirs; but they would not scruple to kill any one who interferes with their religion. They believe that they owe their lives to the Motherland, whom they worship as the means of enabling them to be worthy of the worship of the Supreme Mother of the Universe. We will once more quote Mr. Pal[81] to explain what we mean, or rather how he puts the idea:

The Mother Worshippers. “The so-called idolatry of Hinduism,” he says, “is also passing through a mighty transfiguration. The process started really with Bankim Chandra,[82] who interpreted the most popular of the Hindu goddesses as symbolic of the different stages of national evolution. Jagatdhatri—riding a lion which has the prostrate body of an elephant under its paw, represented the motherland in the early jungle-clearing stage. This is, says Bankim Chandra, the mother as she was. Kali, the grim goddess, dark and naked, bearing a garland of human heads around her neck,—heads from which blood is dripping,—and dancing on the prostrate form of Shiva, the God—this, says Bankim Chandra, is the mother as she is, dark, because ignorant of herself; the heads with dripping blood are those of her own children, destroyed by famine and pestilence; the jackals[83] licking these drippings are the symbol of desolation and decadence of social life, and the prostrate form of Shiva means that she is trampling her own God under her feet. Durga, the ten-headed goddess, armed with swords and spears in some hands, holding wheat-sheaves in some, offering courage and peace with others, riding a lion, fighting with demons; with Sarasvati, or the goddess of Knowledge and Arts, supported by Ganapati, the god of Wisdom, on her one side, and Lakshmi, the goddess of Wealth, protected by Kartikeya, the leader of the Heavenly army, on the other side—this, says Bankim Chandra, is the mother as she will be. This interpretation of the old images of gods and goddesses has imparted a new meaning to the current ceremonialism of the country, and multitudes, while worshipping either Jagatdhatri, or Kali, or Durga, accost them with devotion and enthusiasm, with the inspiring cry of Bande Mataram. All these are the popular objects of worship of the Indian Hindus, especially in Bengal. And the transfiguration of these symbols is at once the cause and the evidence of the depth and the strength of the present movement. This wonderful transfiguration of the old gods and goddesses is carrying the message of new nationalism to the women and the masses of the country.”

Vedantists. “Behind this mighty transfiguration of the old religious ideas and symbols of the country stands, however, a new philosophy of life. Strictly speaking, it is not a new philosophy either, but rather a somewhat new application of the dominant philosophical speculations of the race. Behind the new nationalism in India stands the old Vedantism of the Hindus. This ancient Indian philosophy, divided into many schools, has one general idea running through it from end to end. It is the idea of the essential unity of man and God. According to this philosophy, Substance is one though expressed through many forms. Reality is one though appearances are multitudinous. Matter, in the eye of this philosophy, is not material, but essentially spiritual, the thought of God concretised. Man is the spirit of God incarnated. The meaning of cosmic evolution is to be found, not in itself, but in the thought of the Absolute. It is, to adopt the Hegelian dictum, the movement of the Self away from itself, to return to itself, to be itself. The Absolute, or Brahman, is the beginning, the middle, and the end of this evolutionary process. He is the Regulative idea. He is cosmic evolution. He is progressively revealing himself through the world process. In man, the Divine idea, or the Logos, comes slowly to consciousness of itself. The end of human evolution is the fullest realisation of man’s unity with God. Long, especially in what may be called the middle ages in India, this essential unity between God and man was sought to be realised through metaphysical abstractions, by negation of the social and civic life. There was an undue emphasis on the Subjective and the Universal to the neglect of the realities (however relative they might be) of the Objective and the Particular. Protests had, however, been made from time to time against these monkish abstractions, but in spite of these abstractions the dominant note continued to be that of Abstract Monism. Neo-Vedantism, which forms the very soul and essence of what may be called Neo-Hinduism, has been seeking to realise the old spiritual ideals of the race, not through monkish negations or mediæval abstractions, but by the idealisation and the spiritualisation of the concrete contents and actual relations of life. It demands, consequently, a social, an economic, and a political reconstruction, such as will be helpful to the highest spiritual life of every individual member of the community. The spiritual note of the present Nationalist Movement in India is entirely derived from this Vedantic thought.

“Under the influence of this Neo-Vedantism, associated to a large extent with the name of the late Swami Vivekananda, there has been at work a slow and silent process of the liberalisation of the old social ideas. The old bigotry that anathematised the least deviation from the rules of caste, or the authority of custom, is openly giving way to a spirit of new tolerance. The imperious necessities of national struggle and national life are slowly breaking down, except in purely ceremonial affairs, the old restrictions of caste. In the new movement, old and orthodox Brahmins are rendering open obeisance to the heterodox and non-Brahmin teachers. There is an evident anxiety to discover spiritual and traditional authority for even the outrages that some of these have committed against the old social and sacerdotal order. And where no such authority could be found, their personal freedom of thought and action is being condoned on the principle that those who are to be the saviours of their nation stand, like the mendicant and the holy man, above all law. And all this is a proof of the strange hold that the new nationalist propaganda has got on the real mind and soul of the people.”

To these two classes, the Mother worshippers, and the Vedantists, belong the great bulk of the Bengal Nationalists. They are neither “nihilists” nor “anarchists.” They are patriots who have raised their patriotism to the pitch of a religion. Their religion remarkably fits in with their patriotism and makes the latter indescribably intense and alive. Their whole life is permeated with it. They realise their “duty” every moment of their life and they are prepared to do anything and take any and every risk in the performance of that duty. They live on little; their food is abstemious; they scrupulously avoid liquor; they clothe themselves scantily; luxury they do not know. They can fast for days and go without sleep for days. Generally they are men of their word, men of honour, imbued with a strong idea of self-respect, true to their vows; men who are not swayed by lust or passion.

To this class belonged most of the Maniktolah party, Barendra and his friends. But it is evident that there are some theists among them, i.e., theists in the Western sense of the term. The man who shot Gossain, the first approver[84] in Bengal, was a

Brahmo (member of the Brahmo Samaj). They have some Mohammedans and some Christians, too, among them. Brahm Bhandu Bandhopadhyai[85] was a Christian at one time. These people have followers and adherents throughout India, in the Punjab, in the United Provinces, in Maharastra, in Gujrat, in Behar, in Rajputana, even in Madras.

Advocates of Organised Rebellion. (2) Next in order come those who differ from the first in so far as they do not believe in individual murders or dacoities. For traitors and approvers even they have no mercy, but they would not murder individual British officers or Indians in the service of the Government; nor would they rob private persons. They are for organised rebellion, for tampering with the army, for raising the standard of revolt, and for carrying on a guerilla war. For the purposes of this rebellion or war they may do and will do anything that is necessary to be done; but otherwise they would neither murder nor loot.

Har Dayal. To this class, I think, belongs Har Dayal. It is very interesting to note the development of this man. He comes from a Kayastha family of Delhi and received his education in a mission school and a mission college under Christian influence. He was a member of the Young Men’s Christian Association when he graduated. Then he came to Lahore and joined the government college there, as a stipend holder, where he took his Master of Arts degree in 1903, standing at the top of the list. His subject was “English language and literature” and so thorough was his mastery of the language that in some papers he obtained full marks. He continued there for another year and took his M.A. degree a second time in History. All this time he was a cosmopolitan, more of a Brahmo than a Hindu or a Nationalist. Then he left for England, having secured a Government of India scholarship, and joined the St. John’s College at Oxford. It is needless to say that even here he maintained his reputation for brilliant scholarship, but what is remarkable is, that it was here that he became a Nationalist. He is a man of strong impulses. For him, to believe is to act. It appears that within a short time he developed ideas of a rather extreme type. He came to believe that the English were undermining Hindu character; that their educational policy and methods had been designed to destroy Hinduism and to perpetuate the political bondage of the Hindus, by destroying their social consciousness and their national individuality. He studied the history of the British rule and British institutions in India from original documents, parliamentary blue books and varied other sources, and came to the conclusion that the British were deliberately Anglicising the Indians with a view to destroying their nationalism and to impressing them with the inferiority of their institutions, so that they might value the British connection and become Britishers. He thought it wrong to study in their institutions, take their degrees, and otherwise benefit from anything which they did as rulers of India. As we have said above, for him to believe was to act. As soon as he formed the above opinions, he made up his mind to resign his stipend, give up his studies, and return to India, which he did towards the end of 1907. Even before he reached India, he gave up English dress and began to eschew all the peculiarities of English life. He took to Indian shoes, Indian cap, Indian Kurta (shirt), Indian Pajama (trousers) and wrapped himself in an Indian shawl. He would not even mix with Mohammedans and Christians. For a time he was a strict Hindu in form, though not in religion. When his old master, Principal Rudra of the Delhi St. Stephen’s College, called on him at Lahore, he would not shake hands with him nor offer him a seat on his mat, because he was a Christian (he had no chairs). His cult at that time was a wholesale and complete boycott of British government and British institutions. He aimed to establish an order of Hindu ascetics to preach his ideas and to spread his propaganda. With that view he collected about half a dozen young men about him, who, under his inspiration, left their studies as well as their homes and showed their readiness to do as he would wish them to do. He lived a life of purity and wanted others to do the same. At that time he did not believe in or preach violence. He discussed, argued, preached, and wrote for the press. His writings began to attract attention, and so did his activities, and it was feared that the Government would soon find some means of putting him out of the way. So he decided to leave the country, and in the beginning of the second half of the year 1908 left India for good. He went to England, with the idea of preaching his gospel among the Indian students in England. He stayed there for some time and found out that there was not much scope for his type of nationalism. He also feared that the British Government might arrest him. So he left England and for about two years travelled, to and fro, to find a place where he could live very cheaply and without fear of molestation from the British Government and carry on his propaganda. He was for over a year in France, where he came in contact with the best political thought of Europe. Here he made friends with Egyptian nationalists and Russian revolutionists. His knowledge of the French language was good. He could not only speak that language fluently, but could compose in it. He used to write occasionally for the French press. He can use the German language also. Eventually he came to America and settled here. The contributions that he made to the Indian press during the first year of his sojourn in the United States did not indicate any very great change in his views on Nationalism, but a year after he was quite a different man. His political nationalism remained the same, but his views on social questions, on morality, on Hindu literature and Hindu institutions, underwent a complete metamorphosis. He began to look down upon everything Hindu and developed a great admiration for Occidental ideas of freedom. There is, however, one thing about him that has stuck fast, and that is his hatred of British rule in India. His present cult is to dissuade Indians from engaging in any work except that of political propaganda. We are told by him (that was what he said to American journalists at the time of his arrest in San Francisco as an undesirable alien) that he is not an anarchist and that he does not advocate the use of bomb and of revolver for private murders or for the murders of individuals. We have no reason to disbelieve him. Nobody, however, knows what changes are yet to take place in his views. He is a quite uncertain item. He is an idealist of a strange type. He is simple in his life and apparently quite indifferent to the opinions of others about him. He does not court favour at the hands of any one and would go out of his way to help others. He is loved and respected by hundreds and thousands of his countrymen, including those who do not agree with his views or his propaganda or his programme. Even the late Mr. Gokhale admired him.

Hardayalism. Har Dayal is an advocate of open rebellion; he does not advocate the use of the bomb or the revolver for killing individuals, but he admires and glorifies those who have risked their lives using the same.[86]

Neither of these classes is prepared to make any compromise with the British. They stand for absolute independence; full Swaraj. They know, perhaps, that they have a very difficult task before them, but they have confidence in themselves and believe that the difficulties are not insuperable. They do not believe that in order to gain Swaraj, India should have more widespread education, or that social reform and social consolidation must precede political freedom. They consider that these are all fads, ideas with which the British have inoculated the Indians in order to keep them busy with non-political activities and to keep down their manhood. It is a part of the imperial game that the rulers should manage to fill the ruled with the idea of their own incompetence to manage their affairs, of their inability to unite, of many differences and divisions among them, and of their incapacity to win their freedom. These nationalists deprecate communal or sectional activities. They do not countenance the organisations engaged in religious and social reform. In their opinion all these so-called reform organisations are doing positive mischief in keeping the nation engaged in less important matters and in directing the nation’s mind from the all important question of national freedom. They want to concentrate the nation’s mind on this one point.

Political Freedom the First Condition of Life. According to them life in political bondage or in political subjection is a negation of life. Life signifies power and capacity to grow and progress. A slave, a bondsman, is not free to grow. His interests are always subordinate to those of his master. He must give the best in him to the service of the latter. His will must always be under his master’s will, who is practically his conscience’s keeper. No man can grow to the full stature of his manhood; no man can rise to the best in him; no man can make the best use of his faculties and opportunities; no man can develop either his body or his soul according to his liking, under these circumstances. Whatever he does, he does for his master, in his name and in his interest. The credit and the glory and the benefit of it, all accrue to him.[87] If this is true of an individual slave, it is equally true of a nation in political bondage.

As a proof of the truth of their statements, they point to the history and activities of the Indian National Congress. The Congress people ask for Universal Primary Education; the Government says no. They can not find money for it; “the country is not prepared for it; nor is it good for the people at large.” If the masses are educated, they might become discontented and create trouble for the Government. The Congress wants a repeal of the Arms Act; the Government says no. The people might use the arms against the Government, and that is a calamity to be avoided. The Congress desires that Indians be enrolled as volunteers; the Government says no. It is not desirable to give military training to the Indians. They might use it against the Government. It is not desirable to have companies of volunteers composed of Indians only, as they might conspire against the reigning power. It is equally undesirable to force them on European and Eurasian companies against their wishes, as that would wound their social and imperial susceptibilities. The Congress politician wants to protect Indian industries; the Government says no. That will injure Lancashire. The Congress wants more of technical education; the Government says, the country does not need it and they can not spare funds for it. The Congress wants national schools and national universities; the Government says no, “you may misuse them.” The keynote of the situation is, that India must exist in the interests of England and Englishmen; or at any rate England and English politicians know what is good and useful for India, how much she should and how much she should not have; in what line she should advance and in what she should not. India and Indians have no right to think for themselves. Anything they think or decide to do must be tested by Englishmen according to their standards and in the way they think it is likely to further the interests of their empire.

These nationalists therefore maintain that the first condition of life,—life with respect and honour, life for profit and advantage, life for progress and advancement,—is political freedom. Life without that is no life. It is idle therefore to think of matters which are manifestations or developments or embellishments of life.

Education can only profit a living being. A human being instructed on the lines on which certain beasts or animals are instructed, can, like the latter, only respond to the calls of his master. The master wants them to salute; they salute. The master wants them to dance; they dance. The master wants them to do any other job for him; they do it. Their will and intellect are always subordinate to the master. Independent of the master, they have neither will nor intellect. Education under these circumstances, they maintain, is a degrading of human faculties, and a travesty. In their opinion it would be best for their people to remain uneducated, rather than be educated only for the benefit and use of their masters.

Similarly they think that all the schemes for social reform, for sectarian advancement, for commercial interests, are nothing more than so many devices for dividing the nation and keeping them engaged in never-ending internecine quarrels. They consider this to be a misplaced dissipation of energies and a misuse of opportunities. They wish that every man and woman in India should for the present think of nothing else but political freedom. The first thing is to get rid of the foreigner. Who will rule India and how, what shape will the government of the country take, how will the different religions and different interests be represented therein?—these and other cognate questions do not trouble them. They believe that as soon as England leaves India, some one will rise sphinxlike who will establish some form of national government. The time will produce the man. It would be then time to think and discuss how to improve it. They do not mind if the Hindus or the Mohammedans or the Sikhs or the Gurkhas rule India; nor whether it is the Maharaja of Nepal or that of Odeypore, or that of Baroda, or that of Patiala, or the Nawab of Hyderabad, or that of Bhawalpore, who becomes supreme; nor whether the form of government is monarchical or oligarchic, or republican. These questions do not trouble them. They do not, of course, want any foreign government, but if the way of eventual national freedom lies that way, they do not mind even that. Anything would be better than the present government. The British Government is slowly dissolving the nation. If they have to die, they would rather die of plague or cholera, than of typhoid or consumption. The apprehensions of disturbances of peace do not frighten them. They are sick of peace. Peace under existing conditions has unmanned the nation; it has emasculated the people and sapped their manhood. Anything rather than peace at such price. The desire for peace on any terms, has been the curse of British rule. It has done them more harm than disorder or anarchy ever did. Blessed was the disorder that preceded the rise of the Mahratta power or the establishment of the Sikh commonwealth. Blessed were the conditions of life that produced a Partap, a Sivaji, a Durga Dass, and a Govind Singh.[88] Cursed are the conditions of peace that can only produce Daffadars and Jamadars or at the most Risaldars[89] or Kaiser-Hind-medallists.

This is Hardayalism. Most of the Nationalists of the two classes described above belong to this school, but there are some among them who do not wholly fall in with this view. They are prepared to agree that the political question must always be in the forefront, and that nothing should be done which may in any way overshadow this or relegate it to a secondary position; but they do not believe that politics alone should usurp the whole thought and life of the nation. It would not be right to conclude from the above description that the Indian Nationalists have no constructive programme for the future, but it is obvious that in the absence of freedom and opportunities to discuss it openly, opinions on the subject can not be crystallised.

Arabinda Ghosh—Vedantist and Swarajist. It is difficult to say to which of these classes, if to either at all, Arabinda Ghosh belonged or still belongs. At one time it was believed that he belonged to the first class, to which most of the other Bengalee extremists belonged, but whether that belief was right and whether he still thinks on the same lines, it is difficult to say. One thing is certain, that he was and is quite unlike Har Dayal in his line of thought. In intellectual acumen and in scholastic accomplishments he is perhaps superior to Har Dayal, but above all he is deeply religious and spiritual. He is a worshipper of Krishna and is a high-souled Vedantist. Even simpler and more ascetic in his life and habits than Har Dayal, he is for an all-around development of Indian Nationalism. His notions of life and morality are pre-eminently Hindu and he believes in the spiritual mission of his people. His views may better be gathered from an interview, which he recently gave to a correspondent of The Hindu, of Madras. We quote the interview almost bodily and in the words of the interviewer.

“But what do you think of the 1914 Congress and Conferences?” I insisted.

He spoke almost with reluctance but in clear and firm accents. He said: “I do not find the proceedings of the Christmas Conferences very interesting and inspiring. They seem to me to be mere repetitions of the petty and lifeless formulas of the past and hardly to show any sense of the great breath of the future that is blowing upon us. I make an exception of the speech of the Congress President which struck me as far above the ordinary level. Some people, apparently, found it visionary and unpractical. It seems to me to be the one practical and vital thing that has been said in India for some time past.”

He continued: “The old, petty forms and little narrow, make-believe activities are getting out of date. The world is changing rapidly around us and preparing for more colossal changes in the future. We must rise to the greatness of thought and action which it will demand from the nations who hope to live. No, it is not in any of the old formal activities, but deeper down that I find signs of progress and hope. The last few years have been a period of silence and compression, in which the awakened Virya[90] and Tejas of the nation have been concentrating for a greater outburst of a better directed energy in the future.

“We are a nation of three hundred millions,” added Mr. Ghosh, “inhabiting a great country in which many civilisations have met, full of rich material and unused capacities. We must cease to think and act like the inhabitants of an obscure and petty village.”

“If you don’t like our political methods, what would you advise us to do for the realisation of our destiny?”

He quickly replied: “Only by a general intellectual and spiritual awakening can this nation fulfil its destiny. Our limited information, our secondhand intellectual activities, our bounded interests, our narrow life of little family aims and small money getting have prevented us from entering into the broad life of the world. Fortunately, there are ever-increasing signs of a widened outlook, a richer intellectual output and numerous sparks of liberal genius which show that the necessary change is coming. No nation in modern times can grow great by politics alone. A rich and varied life, energetic in all its parts, is the condition of a sound, vigorous national existence. From this point of view also the last five years have been a great benefit to the country.”

I then asked what he thought of the vastly improved relations that now exist between the Briton and the Indian in our own country and elsewhere.

“It is a very good thing,” he said, and he explained himself in the following manner: “The realisation of our nationhood separate from the rest of humanity was the governing idea of our activities from 1905 to 1910. That movement has served its purpose. It has laid a good foundation for the future. Whatever excesses and errors of speech and action were then disclosed, came because our energy, though admirably inspired, lacked practical experience and knowledge.

“The idea of Indian nationhood is now not only rooted in the public mind, as all recent utterances go to show, but accepted in Europe and acknowledged by the Government and the governing race. The new idea that should now lead us is the realisation of our nationhood not separate from, but in, the future scheme of humanity. When it has realised its own national life and unity, India will still have a part to play in helping to bring about the unity of the nations.”

I naturally put in a remark about the Under-Secretary’s “Angle of Vision.”

“It is well indeed,” observed Mr. Ghosh, “that British statesmen should be thinking of India’s proper place in the Councils of the Empire, and it is obviously a thought which, if put into effect, must automatically alter the attitude of even the greatest extremists towards the Government and change for the better all existing political relations.

“But it is equally necessary that we, Indians, should begin to think seriously what part Indian thought, Indian intellect, Indian nationhood, Indian spirituality, Indian culture have to fulfil in the general life of humanity. The humanity is bound to grow increasingly on. We must necessarily be in it and of it. Not a spirit of aloofness or of jealous self-defence, but of generous emulation and brotherhood with all men and all nations, justified by a sense of conscious strength, a great destiny, a large place in the human future—this should be the Indian spirit.”

The oneness of humanity is a topic dear to the heart of Babu Arabinda Ghosh and when I (i.e., the interviewer) suggested to him that Vedantic ideas would be a good basis for unity, his reply was full of enthusiasm:

“Oh, yes,” he said, “I am convinced and have long been convinced that a spiritual awakening, a reawakening to the true self of a nation is the most important condition of our national greatness. The supreme Indian idea of the oneness of all men in God and its realisation inwardly and outwardly, increasingly even in social relations and the structure of society is destined, I believe, to govern the progress of the human race. India, if it chooses, can guide the world.”

And here I said something about our “four thousand” castes, our differences in dress and in “caste marks,” our vulgar sectarian antipathies and so on.

“Not so hard, if you please,” said Mr. Ghosh with a smile. “I quite agree with you that our social fabric will have to be considerably altered before long. We shall have, of course, to enlarge our family and social life, not in the petty spirit of present day Social Reform, hammering at small details and belittling our immediate past, but with a larger idea and more generous impulses. Our past with all its faults and defects should be sacred to us. But the claims of our future with its immediate possibilities should be still more sacred.”

His concluding words were spoken in a very solemn mood:

“It is more important,” he said, “that the thought of India should come out of the philosophical school and renew its contact with life, and the spiritual life of India issue out of the cave and the temple and, adapting itself to new forms, lay its hand upon the world. I believe also that humanity is about to enlarge its scope by new knowledge, new powers and capacities, which will create as great a revolution in human life as the physical science of the nineteenth century. Here, too, India holds in her past, a little rusted and put out of use, the key of humanity’s future.

“It is in these directions that I have been for some time impelled to turn my energies rather than to the petty political activities which are alone open to us at the present moment. This is the reason of my continued retirement and detachment from action. I believe in the necessity at such times and for such great objects, of Tapasya,[91] in silence for self-training, for self-knowledge and storage of spiritual force. Our forefathers used that means, though in different forms. And it is the best means for becoming an efficient worker in the great days of the world.”

Ganesh Vináyak Savarkar. At this stage we might mention the name of another Nationalist, who exercised a vast influence on young Indians in England for a number of years and is now serving a life-term in the Andamans. We mean Ganesh Vináyak Savarkar. In the simplicity of his life he was of the same class as Arabinda Ghosh and Har Dayal. In the purity of his life he was as high as either. In politics he fell in the first category minus their religious fervour. In his general views he was more or less what Har Dayal is, minus his denunciation of those who are engaged in non-political activities. Savarkar had extremely fine qualities of a leader. He has been caught because he was reckless; he never cared about his personal safety; he had the dash of the old warrior who always put himself in the post of danger. Har Dayal keeps himself in the background and avoids danger. Arabinda stands midway between the two.

The Terrorists. (3) The third class of Nationalists consists of those who would like absolute independence, but who do not believe that it is possible in the near future. They approve of the occasional use of bomb and revolver for terrorist purposes; especially now when no other method has been left of carrying on a propaganda of freedom. The press has been gagged; the platform has been dismantled. Any vigorous political propaganda, including strong criticism of the Government and its methods, is out of the question. No one can point out the political and economic disasters of foreign rule, much less discuss it with reference to actual facts and figures. There is no other way of reminding the people at home and abroad of the standing and colossal wrong which the British Government is guilty of in keeping India under her yoke. In their opinion, the occasional use of the bomb and the revolver is the only way to assert their manhood and their desire for freedom, and to announce their dissatisfaction and discontent. It attracts attention all over the world. It makes people think of India. At home it reminds people of the wrongs they have suffered and are suffering at the hands of the Government. At first it shocks the people, but then it stirs them to think. The bomb has entered Indian life, perhaps never to leave it. They abhor it, but they are getting accustomed to it. They do not now think so badly of those who use the bomb as they once used to.

Advocates of Constructive Nationalisation. (4) In the fourth class are comprised those who want independence, but not at once. They would rather consolidate the nation, raise its intellectual and moral tone, increase its economic efficiency, before they raise the standard of revolt. They do not believe that England will ever free them or give them even Colonial Self-Government except under very great pressure. They do not believe that nations let things go out of their grip or hold if they can help it, and unless their own safety demands it. In their opinion the Congress as well as the bomb have come rather early. They would have the nation apply herself wholeheartedly to the work of education and consolidation.

Independence, but not at once. They do not want the British to go until the people of India are sufficiently strong to turn them out by force, and are able to protect themselves and to maintain their independence and their liberties against the outside world. They recognise the force of the argument that the British may never allow them to grow so strong as to be able to win their liberty, and by waiting they might lose all conscious desire for political freedom and might become permanent parasites. They, however, think that they can guard against such possibilities by keeping their nationalism alive and by occasionally suffering for it. Driven to this corner, they admit that now that the Congress and the bomb have come, they might stay. In the opinion of some both are useful in their own way. They would not advocate the use of the bomb and the revolver; in fact they might in all seriousness dissuade people from using them, but when they are used, they would not give up the offenders even if they knew who they were. They would approve the use of the bomb and the revolver against individual tyrants or against people who insult Indian manhood and womanhood, as in the present state of racial and political feeling in India no other way is open to bring them to book and get justice against Englishmen, but they do not like the use of the bomb and the revolver for general political purposes or for terrorising. These people believe in a propaganda of selfless social service. The people must be approached and won over by service and love, before any political upheaval is attempted.

Preparing the Nation for Freedom. Nothing can be achieved without the help of the people. “We must have the people with us,” say they. “And in order to win the people to our side, we must show them conclusively that we have their interests at heart, that we love them perhaps more than we love ourselves, that we are disinterested and public spirited and that we are in every respect better and more honourable than the foreign rulers. Our moral superiority over the agents of the foreign government must be ever present in the minds of the people in order to enable them to support us and back us in the coming political struggle.” In their eyes the Congress propaganda has no other value but educational. They have no faith in the benevolence of British statesmen and they do not believe that the Congress would achieve anything substantial. They are very uncertain about the future, and therefore to them, the best course open is to engage in educational and social work. They are neither dreamers nor idealists, but practical patriots, who are content to do the spade work and sow the seed. They confess that they can not see far ahead and are therefore afraid of the demoralising influences of the bomb and the revolver. Nor can they justify political robberies and dacoities. They think that, this time, independence should come never to be lost again, and in their judgment that is only possible if independence is not won by a few but by the whole united nation. In the meantime they would wait and build up their nation.

Preparatory Work from Below. The Congress has failed, they say, because it has been trying to get political concessions from above. The right policy is to work from below. They do not believe in “mendicancy”; nor do they place any reliance in “benevolence and philanthropy in politics.” On the other hand, they differ from the extremists in their methods, as they believe in a steady development of the national mind and the national will and have no faith in heroic remedies. They do not care to run the risk of “relapses.” They contain in their number some of the noblest sons of India, whose life is a record of continuous selfless service in the field of social work. They should not be confounded with the “resolution” patriots of the Social Conferences or other conferences; nor should they be judged by the length of their speeches or their fluency or capacity to deliver long orations in English. They are generally modest people who do not claim erudite scholarship or great statesmanship. They do not go in for any recognition, whether from the Government or from the people. The satisfaction of their own conscience and undisturbed work are the only rewards they seek.

Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission. They are to be found in all sections of the great Indian nation, in all religions, and in all communities. They live simply on simple fare, in simple and scanty garments and in simple houses. They earn in order to give. They live in order to serve. To this class belong some of the Bengalee deportees, and to this class belong a great many members of the Brahmo Samaj, the Arya Samaj, and the Ramakrishna Mission. They have large followings, but yet their number is by no means great. They are well known in their respective circles, but are not so well known outside, as the “extremists” and “moderates” are. The C. I. D. (Criminal Investigation Department) of the Government keeps a close watch over them; the government officers keep themselves informed of their movements and doings. They want to be left alone and allowed to do their work quietly and unostentatiously, but the Government will not leave them alone and suspects them of deep designs and secret propaganda.

The Moderates. (5) We now come to the moderates. There are some who would not advocate the use of the bomb or the revolver, but who do not desire the total disappearance of the extremist party; and the occasional use of the bomb and the revolver gives a point to their organisation which they would not lose. Lacking the intelligent support of the masses in their propaganda, being too lazy to court it by legitimate means, or too self-centred to run the risk involved therein, they are heartily glad of the existence of a party in the country which has raised their importance in the eyes of the Government and the British public. Of course they do not say so and their abhorrence and detestation of the bomb and the revolver is quite genuine, yet they would be very sorry if the extremist party were extirpated altogether.

Gokhale. The noblest and the best of the Congress type from the Nationalist point of view was represented by Mr. Gokhale. Mr. Gokhale loved his country quite sincerely and lived and worked for it. With the exception of Dadabhai Naoroji, he was the only Congressman of reputation and name that

lived for his country only and gave his all to her service. His life was fairly simple; his patriotism was of the highest type; yet he was not the type of man fitted to be a hero. He had the qualities of statesmanship, but lacked those of generalship. He objected to people designating his policy as one of mendicancy, or questioning his political ideals. He used to remonstrate and say in the most touching way: “Do you think, my friend, we are so devoid of self-respect and so base as to be happy at our country being under foreign domination; do you think we wish that it should always remain under foreign yoke? No, you do us great injustice if you think so. I would have my country be free to-day if that were possible. But is it possible? Can we work on that basis? In politics you must consider what is practical and what is unpractical. We can in no way bind the future generations. Who are we to bind them irrevocably? We are doing what we in our own times consider best and practicable. We are not beggars and our policy is not that of mendicancy. We are ambassadors of our people at a foreign court, to watch and guard the interests of our country and get as much for her as we can. That is our position.” Mr. Gokhale believed in the work of consolidation and in the work for increasing the social efficiency of the people of India regardless of caste, creed, or colour. He had a great deal in common with class number (4). But he had great faith in political agitation on moderate lines. He was fully conscious of the weakness of the Congress methods and extremely disliked the behaviour of some of the leaders. He quite bemoaned their lack of enthusiasm, their want of self-sacrifice, their intolerance, the lack of spirit of true comradeship in them, their self-sufficiency and, last but not least, their luxurious lives. He often compared the type of human material which found its way into the Congress with those who joined the ranks of the extremists. He admired the spirit of the latter, their devotion to the cause, their asceticism and their selflessness. He wished he had some of that stuff to work for the Congress. He admired Arabinda and Har Dayal. He used to say that he could not see very far ahead and therefore he preferred to work for the immediate future. A few days before his departure from England he said to two of his most intimate friends (husband and wife) that India would be free in 25 years. What he meant by freedom we do not know. Probably he meant “as free as the self-governed colonies.” Of late he was losing faith in English liberalism. He noticed the lack of great minds among the liberals, but he said they were the only people with whom we could work. His experiences on the Royal Commission for Public Services saddened the last days of his life. He could not bear the insults that witness after witness (from among the Anglo-Indians) heaped on his countrymen, their character, their honesty, and their capacity. He objected to the extremists calling themselves nationalists to the exclusion of the people of his ways of thinking. He said we were all nationalists. He was by far the noblest of the moderates. There is no one who is even half so good and noble as he was.

Congress Leaders. A great many Congress leaders are true patriots, but they have such an abnormal love of peace and luxury, that they can not even think of methods which might even remotely result in disturbances of peace, in riots, and in disasters. Hence their detestation of the extremist methods and their distrust of carrying on a propaganda among the masses. They would proceed very, very slowly. Of course, there are some among them who are cowards, some who are self-seekers, who hanker after judgeships, memberships, knighthoods, and so on, but we do not count them as nationalists, and history knows of no political party which was absolutely free from such weaknesses. There are some among the Congressmen who are moderates by profession, but extremists in their ways of thinking, lacking the courage of identifying themselves with the latter; just as there are some who are Congressmen in name, but are really out and out loyalists seeking opportunities of advancing their own interests. Then there are some who favour constitutional agitation, but want to make the Congress more self-assertive and self-sufficient. They would pass resolutions on current topics but would have no petitioning or praying or memorialising.

Passive Resisters. There are others who would go even farther and inaugurate a campaign of passive resistance and boycott. The Congress thus claims as many types of nationalists as the extremists. The Passive Resisters are likely to come to the front if Mr. Gandhi, the great Hindu Passive Resister, undertakes to organise them.

For obvious reasons we can not classify the living Indian Nationalists in India by name.

CHAPTER VI
INDIAN NATIONALISM AND THE WORLD-FORCES

Inspiration through European Nationalism. There can be no doubt that Indian nationalism is receiving a great deal of support from the world-forces operating outside of India. On the political side it has been inspired and strengthened by the forces of European nationalism—the struggles and successes of the English proletariat, the sufferings and the eventual triumph of the French revolutionists, the efforts and victories of the Italians, the continued struggle of Russians, Poles, Finns, Hungarians, and others. The Indian nationalist is an ardent student of the history of Modern Europe, of England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Russia, Austria, and last but not least, of Turkey and the Balkan States. The Nationalist Calendar of great men followed by young India contains such names as those of Washington, Cavour, Mazzini, Bismarck, Kossuth, Emmet, Parnell, by the side of Partap, Ram Das, Guru Govind Singh, Sivaji, Tipú Sultan, and the Rani of Jhansi.

History of Modern Europe tabooed in Universities. The Indian Government is conscious of this, and some people think this is what is influencing the policy of the Indian universities in tabooing the history of Modern Europe from the courses of studies.

American literature and American events are also playing their own part in the influences that are feeding Indian nationalism. The leaders are and have ever been close students of American literature and the history of the American Federation. Asia, however, is playing a greater part in moulding and influencing Indian nationalism. The Russo-Japanese War thrilled India to its core. The recognition of Japan as a great power by the Concert of Europe is regarded by Young India as the potent factor in Indian Nationalism. An awakening current passed through the country electrifying the most inert, inarticulate and otherwise unapproachable sections of the populations. Then came the events in Turkey, in Russia, and in China.

Italian-Turko War. Turkey’s war with Italy, followed by her struggle with the Balkan States, has done wonders in nationalising the Indian Mohammedans. At the present moment the Mohammedans perhaps feel even more intensely than the Hindus.

Indian patriots travelling abroad study the current problems of the various countries through which they pass, and note their bearing on their own national problems. But what is most important is, that they seek and get opportunities of meeting and conversing with the nationalists of other countries. Some of them are in close touch with the Egyptian and Irish nationalists, others with Persians, and so on. Indian nationalism is thus entering on an international phase which is bound to strengthen it and bring it into the arena of world forces.

Interpretation of India to Western World. Indian thought, Indian history, and Indian culture are receiving a great deal more attention now than they ever did before. There is hardly an important contribution to the thought of the world which does not notice and consider the Indian view of the matter under discussion. But India is seen by the world only through Western spectacles. Some Indians are doing valuable work in interpreting India to the Western world, and their work is attracting notice; but a great deal yet remains to be done and Indian scholars should make it an item of their programme to open India and Indian thought to the outsiders and thus bring India into the vortex of world forces.

Tagorism. While Rabindra Nath Tagore is to some degree losing in the estimation and affection of his own countrymen by somewhat sacrificing nationalism to art, he is gaining in world reputation. Tagorism is becoming a cult and he is at the present moment perhaps the most popular and most widely read and widely admired literary man in the world. It was a mere chance that his work attracted the notice of the trustees of the Nobel prize trust. He himself did nothing to attract their notice.

The Indian publicist has so far lived in a world of his own. He has ignored or paid very scanty attention to the forces operating in the world for progress, for liberty, and for advance in democratic ways. The leaders of the National Congress have never tried to enlist sympathy for their cause anywhere outside England. They have never realised the value of the world forces and the great sensitiveness of the English as to what the world thinks and says of them.

The Indian Nationalist would do well to note this. He should begin to think and act internationally. It is impossible to separate India altogether from the rest of the world, however the British might try and whatever they might do. For her sons to try to do that is to strengthen their chains and add to the weight which is crushing their country. Nothing could be more suicidal or more short-sighted.

CHAPTER VII
THE RELIGIOUS AND THE COMMUNAL ELEMENTS IN INDIAN NATIONALISM

FOR a time the Mohammedan minority was the hope of the British Government in India. As far back as 1888, Lord Dufferin[92] and Sir Auckland Colvin had successfully appealed to their fears, and won them over by promises of preferential treatment. That policy has been consistently followed since then, and so far has been a great success. The bulk of the educated Mohammedans has opposed the Congress, in order to please the Government and win their gratitude; they also opposed the Swadeshi Movement, although the success of the Swadeshi was likely to benefit them very materially, since the handloom industry was principally in their hands. In return, they received substantial benefits in the shape of large grants of money for educational purposes, a larger percentage of posts in government service, a larger number of titles and honours, a separate and larger representation in the councils, and so on. Lord Morley confirmed this policy of preference by making it a special feature of his Reform scheme in 1908. So the Mohammedans were in very high spirits in 1908. The Nationalist party in Bengal had a large number of friends and sympathisers among the Mohammedans, but as compared with the Separatist party, their number was very small and meagre. In its inception and for some time thereafter the Nationalist movement in India was thus a pre-eminently Hindu movement.

Mohammedan Revulsion of Feeling against the British. The world events of the last four years, however, have changed the whole aspect of affairs in India. The events in Turkey, in Tripoli, in Egypt and in Persia have affected the Mohammedans deeply and have brought about a revulsion of feeling against the British. The Muslims are a virile and proud people. The attitude of Britain towards Turkey has offended their deepest susceptibilities and they have begun to think that the British in India wanted to bribe them into silent acquiescence in what was happening to the Muslim people in the other parts of the globe. For the last four years the Muslim press has been carrying on a strong, vigorous pan-Islamic propaganda. The Mohammedan classes as well as masses are full of veiled and subdued hatred of the British. Sometimes this finds expression on the platform, in the press, and in permanent literature also. In the last Balkan war and during Turkey’s conflict with Italy about Tripoli, the Mohammedan mosques rang with loud prayers for the victory of Turkey, and with strong and open denunciation of their Christian enemies. There is a perceptible and clear change in the political pronouncements of the Muslim League,[93] but the political influence of the Muslim League among the people was, so far, little as compared with the influence of the Pan-Islamic party. This Pan-Islamic party is the extreme wing of the Mohammedan Nationalists.

The number of forfeitures of the Moslem papers and publications under the Press Act, the nature of those publications and the continued support given to the papers that have been more than once forfeited and punished by the Government, the change in the tone of the Moslem papers in their comments on government measures, and the newly born entente between the Hindus and Mohammedans, of which there is unmistakable proof in the press as well as in actual life, all point in the same direction. There is every chance of the Hindu extremists and Muslim extremists making an alliance and joining hands, while even the Mohammedan moderates are coming nearer the Hindu moderates.[94] The former may not actually join the Congress in large numbers, but they are thinking and acting the same way. The Mohammedan moderates are wiser than the Hindu moderates. They use their extreme party as a trump card in their negotiations with the Government more effectively than the Hindus do or have ever done. The Mohammedan extremist receives more substantial support and sympathy from his moderate co-religionist than the Hindu extremist does from the Hindu moderates. The Mohammedan moderate is more outspoken in his criticism of government measures that injuriously affect the Mohammedans; he is less lavish in his praises of the British Raj; he is a more skilful negotiator and a decidedly better and more successful diplomat.

The educated Mohammedans, outside India, are almost to a man identified with Indian Nationalism. So the Indian Mohammedan’s changed sentiments towards the British are likely to be a source of great strength to the national cause and make the situation more hopeful from the point of view of Indian Nationalism.

Disaffection among the Sikhs. But the Mohammedans were not the only people whom the Britishers had succeeded in keeping aloof from the Hindu Nationalists. The Sikhs had also so far kept aloof. The treatment of the Sikhs in Canada, the Komagata Maru[95] incident and the influence of Har Dayal and the Gadar party on the Pacific Coast of America formed by him, have affected a great change of feeling among the Sikhs also. The Government may try to win them back by making concessions and conferring preferments, but a move like the one recently made in giving Mr. K. G. Gupta’s seat on the Secretary of State’s Council in London to Sirdar Daljit Singh, a Sikh nobleman, is likely to make them look even more ridiculous than before. The Britisher’s lack of imagination is colossal, but we did not know that the war was likely to affect even his sense of humour.

CHAPTER VIII
THE FUTURE

IT is both difficult and risky to predict, especially concerning a country situated as India is to-day. It is always the unexpected that happens in human affairs. This is particularly true where human affairs are so complicated and complex as in India. It is perhaps easier to predict the future of America or England, than that of India. The Indian nationalists of the nineties, or even of the early days of the new century, could hardly have imagined the developments of the last fifteen years. It is true that India is rather immobile; its masses are rather inert; and perhaps of all peoples the least affected by changes in the outside world. They have been under the benumbing influence of a philosophy of life which keeps them contented even under adverse circumstances, even when they are starving and have no clothes to hide their nakedness.

Change in Indian Life and Depth of Nationalism. But this is only partially true of modern India. There is a great deal of exaggeration about the immobility of Indian people. There may be millions in India who are as unaffected by modern conditions of life and modern ideas as they were fifty years ago, but then there are millions who have consciously awakened. Their strength is not to be judged by the attendance at Congresses and conferences or other public meetings or demonstrations, nor by the circulation of newspapers or books. Popular demonstrations organised in honour of popular leaders, and the increase in the circulation of newspapers give indications of a great change in Indian life, but the actual change is even much greater. Read the poetry of the country or its prose, read the rough versifyings of the half-educated or even uneducated men and women (including some who are even illiterate), listen to the talk in the village park or square or other meeting places, see the games which the children of rustics and the poorest classes play, attend to the patterings of children, examine the popular songs or the music that is now in demand, then you will see how deeply nationalism has pervaded Indian life and what a strong hold it has gained in the thoughts of the people. No foreigner can realise that; only an Indian can properly understand it. Examine the vernacular press—the most sober and the most loyal papers, and underlying the expressions of deepest loyalty, you would assuredly come across genuine tears of blood, shed for the misfortune of the country, its decline, its present wretched and miserable condition. From the Indian press we hear a never-ceasing lamentation. Listen to the utterances of the most wanton chief, and the most callous millionaire, bring him out from his isolation or retirement, put him on the public platform, and you will notice a vein of nationalism in his thoughts and in his words. But if you can know what he talks in private to friends from whom he keeps no secrets, you will see and notice a great deal more. The writer has not so far met a single Indian of any class—he has met Indians of all classes and of all shades of opinions, educated, uneducated, prince and peasant, moderate and extremist, loyalist and seditionist,—who was genuinely sorry at the outbreak of this war. A number of Indians are fighting at the front. They are sincerely loyal and true to their oath of allegiance. They would leave nothing undone to win, but in their heart of hearts lurks something which in moments of reflection or when they are off duty, reminds them of the wrongs which they and their countrymen are suffering at the hands of England. Nationalism is no longer confined to the classes. It promises to become a universal cult. It is permeating the masses. Only those Indians realise it who mix with the people and do not derive their knowledge from works written by Englishmen or by other arm-chair politicians. No foreigner, however kind and sympathetic, however great his knowledge of the language of the country, can ever realise it fully. Even the dancing girls are affected by it. They will sing political or national songs if you so wish. Even the wandering minstrel with his rude, one-stringed instrument, knows the song that is likely to bring him help.

Nationalism Fertilised by Blood of Martyrs. No amount of repression or espionage can stop it. No amount of official terrorism and no devices, invented or followed to inculcate loyalty, can stop or check the flow of the new feeling of patriotism and nationalism which is being constantly fed by the sentences of death and transportation that the British courts are passing on beardless youths. The Government can not help it. They must punish the offender and the criminal. They must hunt up the seditionist. They would not be a government if they would do otherwise, but India is now in that stage and Indian nationalism is in that condition when repression, death sentences, and imprisonments are more beneficial to it than otherwise. The more it is repressed and suppressed, the more this spirit grows and spreads. It is a seed that is richly fertilised by the blood of martyrs. The people do not argue, they do not reason, they do not analyse; they feel that good, well-connected, healthy, beautiful boys are dying in the country’s cause and to get a redress of the country’s wrongs. When a bomb is thrown, the people genuinely condemn the bomb thrower, are sincere in their detestation, but when he is hanged or transported, they are sorry for him. Their original abhorrence changes into sympathy and then into love. They are martyrs of the national cause. They may be misguided, even mad, but they are martyrs all the same. The moralist and the legalist and the loyalist and the constitutionalist, all condemn their deeds, but the doers themselves, they adore, and their names they enshrine in their hearts.

Wave of Indian Nationalism is on. Such is human psychology, and such is the psychology of nations in the making. The Indian mind has entered on that phase. No amount of sweet speeches by the Viceroy or by the Lieutenant Governors or by the commissioners or deputy commissioners, no amount of honours and titles or rewards to individuals, no amount of preferment of one community as against another, no amount of canal-making or railway-developing, can change the tide that has begun to flow, or retard the sweep, much less turn it to ebb.

Propitiation and Petty Concessions Futile. This is the supreme fact of Indian life which every one who has anything to do with India, official or non-official, statesman or layman, politician or publicist, must recognise and face. Nations and individuals, filled with their own importance, drunk with power and resources, accustomed to mould things and forces in their own way, determined to keep what they have got, may not see things which are unpleasant to look at or to think about. But facts are facts and do not wait for their action on the pleasure of those who do not like them. Canute-like they may command the waves, but the waves will not listen to them. The wave of Indian nationalism is on and no amount of tinkering with Indian administration, or sweet phrases, or promises can check it. “We are the subjects of the same sovereign,” “citizens of the same empire,” “brothers in arms,” “comrades,” and so on,—these are kind words spoken by people who perhaps mean well. But in the light of past experience they do not carry much weight; they may befool some soft-hearted people, but they would not affect the general mind of the nation so long as they remain unaccompanied by deeds. An Executive Council for the United Provinces, a High Court for the Punjab, a High Court and a University for Behar, a Charter to the Hindu University, liberal grants to Islamic schools and colleges, may please some barristers and pleaders, but they will not satisfy the nation, so long as the Arms Act is on the statute book, so long as the Indian Councils are a farce, so long as the fiscal policy is laid down in the interests of Lancashire, and so long as hundreds and thousands of Indian boys fail to earn a decent living, while the country is being ruled and exploited by the few fortunate foreigners. Indians want to go to Canada, to South Africa, to the United States of America, because the wages to be earned in India are so low, because the life at home is so miserable, so helpless and so hard and so humiliating. Even abroad the Indian is kicked and insulted at almost every step, but then that is more easily borne than the kicks and insults of Englishmen in India.

Internal Division no Valid Plea. India has and can produce enough to feed her own children,[96] nay to spare, provided she were free to make her own laws, spend her own revenues, and protect her industries. Those who plead that Indians are too hopelessly divided into religions, communities, sects, castes, and languages, to be able to form a government of their own, forget that the English have been in India only for the last century and a half and that before that India governed herself. The India of to-day is in no way happier than it was before pre-British days. The India of Akbar was happier than the England of Elizabeth and even more prosperous. The India of Asoka was infinitely happier and more prosperous than the England of Alfred the Great. The India of Aurangzeb may perhaps have been miserable, but surely not more miserable than the England of Henry VIII, or the England of James I, or the Scotland of Mary, or the Ireland of Cromwell, or the France of Henry IV, or the Holland of Philip. We have the testimony of English historians and observers that subjects of the East India Company were in no way happier or more prosperous than when they were under Native rule,[97] and the subjects of Native States in India governed by Natives are on the whole in no way worse off than British subjects under the direct rule of the British.

Look at the United States, how the varied races, sects, religions, and communities have merged their differences and live under one national government; look at the number of languages spoken in the United States—in their schools and in their factories. Look at Switzerland, what a tiny little country it is! How many languages are spoken and taught in its schools and how many languages are spoken and used in its councils, and how many religions are professed by the people of the country!

The same remarks may be made about the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, where the form of government is largely representative in spite of the diversity of races, sects and languages.

The number of religions, sects and languages in India has been grossly exaggerated. With every census the number goes up by hundreds, though the country and the people are the same.

Illiteracy the Fault of the British and no Bar to Self-government. Again it is sometimes said that India cannot be self-ruling because of its illiteracy. This argument does not come with good grace from the Britishers because it is they who are responsible for the appalling illiteracy of the Indian population. In Japan, where the work of education was begun late in the last century, 28 per cent. of the children of school age were at school in 1873; by 1902-1903 the percentage had risen to 90. In India, after 150 years of British rule, the percentage is 19.6. The Indian Nationalists have for a number of years been asking for compulsory universal education, but the Government would not listen. The late Mr. Gokhale’s Compulsory Elementary Education Bill was strongly opposed by the Government and thrown out. But what is even worse is that the Government would not let the people open their own schools and colleges because of the unreasonably high standard set up by the Department for their recognition as public schools.

However, universal literacy of the people is not an indispensable pre-requisite of self-rule. In Japan, where 50 years ago representative government was set up, only the Samurai were literate. In India, too, the higher classes are educated to a considerable extent.

England has enjoyed parliamentary government for centuries, but universal education was only introduced in 1870.

Internal Troubles. As for internal troubles following the withdrawal of the British or the grant of self-government we ask, “Is there any country on the face of the earth which is free from internal troubles?” Even Great Britain is not; much less are the self-governing colonies. Yet nobody questions their right to govern themselves. Only the other day President Wilson considered the existence of internal disorder in Mexico to be no justification for the United States interfering in its affairs.

Unfitness of Orientals for Representative Institutions. As for the unfitness of Orientals for democratic institutions, why the ancient history of India refutes it almost conclusively. India was the home of democratic institutions long before England and France had any notion of what democracy implied. But if any further proof of the absurdity of this plea was needed that has been furnished by Japan.

Nationalism has come to Stay. Let England try an experiment by repealing the Arms Act and giving a parliamentary government to India and see if these considerations effectively stand in the way of progress. Be that as it may, however, one thing seems to be assured and certain, that Indian nationalism can neither be killed nor suppressed by repression, nor by minor concessions. Nationalism has come to stay and will stay. What will be the upshot is only known to the Gods. England may win or lose in the great war in which she is engaged. Indian nationalism will gain in either case. We need not consider how India will fare if England loses. She may come under Mohammedan domination, or the Germans may take possession of her; the English would be gone and then India would enter upon a new life. India does not want it. She will resist it with all her strength. But if it comes she can’t help it and Great Britain would be responsible for having brought it. In case, however, England wins, as she is likely to, the Indian nationalism will still gain. There will be a demand for political advance, for a change in the political status of the country and in its relations towards England and her colonies. From what we know of English temper, of English political machinery, of English political methods, of English ways and of English history, that demand is sure to be refused. Some minor, petty concessions may be made, but they would be disproportionate to the sacrifices of men and money that India is making in the war. They will not satisfy the country. Disaffection and discontent will grow and that is the kind of food on which nationalism thrives and prospers. So long as there are Curzons, Macdonnels, and Sydenhams in the English Parliament, Indian nationalism will not starve for want of congenial food. And we have no reason to think that these dignitaries of the British Government are likely to disappear.

Curzons, Macdonnels, Sydenhams, responsible for Bombs and Revolvers. These persons are directly responsible for the appearance of bombs and revolvers in Indian political life. The young men who use them are mere tools of circumstances. If any persons deserve to be hanged for the use of these destructive machines by Indian nationalists, it is they. It is a pity that while the latter are dying by tens on the scaffold, the former should be free to carry on their propaganda of racial discrimination, racial hatred, and social preferment. But the ways of Providence are inscrutable. It is perhaps some higher dispensation that is using these miserable Junkers for its own purposes. Indians have faith in Providence and they believe that what is happening is for the best. 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 more sustained.

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A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS IN ENGLISH

Books by Englishmen

“New Spirit in India” by H. W. Nevinson.

“The Awakening in India” by J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P.

“India, Impressions and Suggestions” by J. Keir Hardie, M.P.

“New India” by Sir Henry Cotton (once an M.P.), late of the Indian Civil Service.

“Allen Octavian Hume” by Sir W. Wedderburn, late of the Indian Civil Service (once an M.P.).

“Prosperous British India” by Mr. William Digby, C.I.E.

“India and the Empire” by Mrs. Annie Besant.

“Indian Nationalism” by Edwyn Bevan.

“Bureaucratic Government” by Bernard Houghton (late of the Indian Civil Service).

“Lord Curzon a Failure” by C. J. O’Donnell (late of the Indian Civil Service).

“Causes of Indian Discontent” by C. J. O’Donnell (late of the Indian Civil Service).

“The Indian Ryot” by Sir W. Wedderburn.

“The Skeleton at the Jubilee Feast” by Sir W. Wedderburn.

“Congress Green Books” (84, 85, Palace Chambers, Westminster, London).

———

“The New Nationalist Movement in India,” by Dr. J. T. Sunderland.

“Indian Famines and Their Cause” by Dr. J. T. Sunderland, 423 West 120th Street, New York.

Books by Indians

“Poverty or Un-British Rule in India” by Dadabhai Naoroji.

“India Under Early British Rule” by R. C. Dutt, C.I.E.

“India in the Victorian Age” by R. C. Dutt, C.I.E.

“Famines and Land Assessment” by R. C. Dutt, C.I.E.

“England and India” (Indian Progress, 1785-1885) by R. C. Dutt, C.I.E.

“The Civilization of India” by R. C. Dutt, C.I.E.

“Speeches of the Honourable Mr. G. K. Gokhale.”

“The Swadeshi, a Symposium.”

“Recent Indian Finance” by Wacha.

“The National Evolution” by A. C. Mazumdar.

“The Indian National Congress.”

“Speeches of Sir P. M. Mehta.”

“The Story of My Deportation” by Lajpat Rai.

“The Alipore [Bomb Case] Trial.”

Periodicals

The Modern Review (monthly). Calcutta.

The Indian Review (monthly). Madras.

The Hindustan Review (monthly). Allahabad.

India (the British Organ of the Indian National Congress, weekly). London.

APPENDICES

I
EXTRACTS FROM SIR HENRY COTTON’S “NEW INDIA.”

Feudatory Chiefs Powerless. “It would perhaps be ungenerous to probe too narrowly the dependent position and consequent involuntary action of the feudatory chiefs. They are powerless to protect themselves. There is no judicial authority to which they can appeal. There is no public opinion to watch their interests. Technically independent under the suzerainty of the Empire, they are practically held in complete subjection. Their rank and honours depend on the pleasure of a British Resident at their Court, and on the secret and irresponsible mandates of a Foreign Office at Simla” (page 34).

Gross Insults to Indians. “That intense Anglo-Saxon spirit of self-approbation which is unpleasantly perceptible in England itself, and is so often offensive among vulgar Englishmen on the Continent, very soon becomes rampant in India.

“There are innumerable instances in which pedestrians have been abused and struck because they have not lowered their umbrellas at the sight of a sahib on the highway. There are few Indian gentlemen even of the highest rank who have not had experience of gross insults when travelling by railway, because Englishmen object to sit in the same carriage with a native” (pages 68-69).

II
SOME OPINIONS ABOUT BRITISH INDIA

Industrial Ruin of India. Gokhale. “When we come to this question of India’s Industrial domination by England, we come to what may be described as the most deplorable result of British rule in this country. In other matters there are things on the credit side and things on the debit side.... But when you come to the industrial field, you will find that the results have been disastrous. You find very little here on the credit side and nearly all the entries on the debit side. Now this is a serious statement to make, but I think it can be substantiated.”

India a Mere Possession. Gokhale. “India formed the largest part of the Empire, but was governed as a mere possession of the British people. Three features showed that it had no part or lot in the Empire. In the first place, the people were kept disarmed; it was thought to be dangerous to allow them to carry arms. Secondly, they had absolutely no voice in the government of their own country; they were expressly disqualified from holding certain high offices, and practically excluded from others. Lastly, they were not allowed a share in the privileges of the Empire in any portion outside British India, except a limited one in the United Kingdom itself.”—Mr. Gokhale.

Masses Starved. Sir C. A. Elliott. “I do not hesitate to say that half our agricultural population never know from year’s end to year’s end what it is to have their hunger fully satisfied.”—Sir C. A. Elliott, one-time Lieut.-Governor of Bengal.

Sir W. W. Hunter. In 1880. “There remain forty millions of people who go through life on insufficient food.”—Sir W. W. Hunter.

William Digby. In 1893. The Pioneer sums up Mr. Grierson’s facts regarding the various sections of the population in Gaya: “Briefly, it is that all the persons of the labouring classes, and ten per cent. of the cultivating and artisan classes, or forty-five per cent. of the total population, are insufficiently clothed, or insufficiently fed, or both. In Gaya district this would give about a million persons without sufficient means of support. If we assume that the circumstances of Gaya are not exceptional,—and there is no reason for thinking otherwise—it follows that nearly one hundred millions of people in British India are living in extreme poverty.”

In 1901. “The poverty and suffering of the people are such as to defy description. In fact, for nearly fifteen years there has been a continuous famine in India owing to high prices.”

70,000,000 Continually Hungry People in British India. W. Digby. “Since Sir William Hunter’s remarks were made the population has increased (or is alleged to have increased) by nearly thirty millions. Meanwhile the income of the Empire has greatly decreased during this period. Wherefore this follows: that is, if with the same income, in 1880 forty millions were insufficiently fed, the additional millions cannot have had, cannot now have, enough to eat; this, again, ensues:—

40,000,000 plus, say, 30,000,000, make 70,000,000; and there are this number of continually hungry people in British India at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.”—William Digby, C. I. E.

Deaths from Famine or Consequent Diseases, 1891 to 1900 alone: estimated by a correspondent of the Lancet, 19,000,000.

Total area under cultivation. In the year 1911-12, the total area under food grains was over 195 million acres, plus 7.5, i.e. over 202½ million acres. In 1912-13, India exported foodstuffs of the value of over 260 million dollars.

In 1913-14 she exported about 216 million dollars’ worth of foodstuffs.

Famines of Money, not Food. Lord G. Hamilton. “The recent famines are famines of money, and not of food.”—Lord G. Hamilton, former Secretary of State.

Causes of Famines. 1. National industries deliberately crushed by the East India Co. cannot revive under existing conditions.

2. Annual drain of India.

3. Lack of such education as will enable people to develop their resources.

Drain. Montgomery Martin. “The annual drain of £3,000,000 from British India has mounted in thirty years, at 12 per cent. (the usual Indian rate) compound interest, to the enormous sum of £723,900,000 sterling.”—Montgomery Martin. (In 1830.)

Digby. “During the last thirty years of the century the average drain cannot have been far short of £30,000,000 per year, or, in the thirty years, £900,000,000, not reckoning interest!”—Sir William Digby.

Enormous Foreign Tribute. Rev. J. T. Sunderland. Rev. J. T. Sunderland in his work “The Causes of Famine in India,” like all impartial writers, has conclusively proved that neither “failure of rains” nor “over population” is the cause of famines in India. He has stated that the real cause of famine is the extreme, the abject, the awful poverty of the Indian people caused by “Enormous Foreign Tribute,” “British Indian Imperialism” and the destruction of Indian industries.

Government assessment too high. Sir W. Hunter. “The government assessment does not leave enough food to the cultivator to support himself and his family throughout the year.”—Sir William Hunter, K. C. S. I., in the Viceroy’s Council, 1883.

The Ryot. Herbert Compton. “There is no more pathetic figure in the British Empire than the Indian peasant. His masters have ever been unjust to him. He is ground until everything has been expressed, except the marrow of his bones.”—Mr. Herbert Compton in “Indian Life,” 1904.

Hindustan is an extensive agricultural country and the average land produces two crops a year, and in Bengal there are lands which produce thrice a year. Bengal alone produces such large crops that they are quite sufficient to provide all the population of Hindustan for two years.

Indian Plunder. Adam Brooks. Adam Brooks says, (“Laws of Civilization and Decay,” page 259-246) “Very soon after the Battle of Plassey (fought in 1757) the Bengal Plunder began to arrive in London and the effect appears to have been almost instantaneous. Probably since the world began, no investment has yielded the profit reaped from the Indian plunder. The amount of treasure wrung from the conquered people and transferred from India to English banks between Plassey and Waterloo (57 years) has been variously estimated at from $2,500,000,000 to $5,000,000,000. The methods of plunder and embezzlement, by which every Briton in India enriched himself during the earlier history of the East India Company, gradually passed away, but the drain did not pass away. The difference between that earlier day and the present is, that India’s tribute to England is obtained by “indirect methods,” under forms of law. It is estimated by Mr. Hyndman that at least $175,000,000 is drained away every year from India, without a cent’s return.”

Swami Abhedananda. “India pays interest on England’s debt, which in 1900 amounted to 244 millions sterling, and which annually increases. Besides this, she pays for all the officers, civil and military, and a huge standing army, pensions of officers, and even the cost of the India Building in London, as well as the salary of every menial servant of that house. For 1901-2 the total expenditure charged against revenue was $356,971,410.00, out of which $84,795,515.00 was spent in England as Home Charges, not including the pay of European officers in India, saved and remitted to England.—Swami Abhedananda (“India and Her People”).

Alfred Webb (late M.P.): “In charges for the India Office (in London); for recruiting (in Great Britain, for soldiers to serve in India); for civil and military pensions (to men now living in England, who were formerly in the Indian service); for pay and allowances on furloughs (to men on visits to England); for private remittances and consignments (for India to England); for interest on Indian debt (paid to parties in England); and for interest on railways and other works (paid to shareholders in England), there is annually drawn from India and spent in the United Kingdom, a sum calculated at from £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 (Between $125,000,000 and $150,000,000).”

“Narrow and Shortsighted Imperial Policy.” Sir Archibald R. Colquehoun. “The present condition of affairs undoubtedly renders the struggle for existence a hard one, as may be realized when it is considered that a vast population of India not only from the inevitable droughts which so frequently occur, but also from a narrow and shortsighted imperial policy which places every obstacle in the way of Industrial development and imposes heavy taxes on the struggling people. According to various authorities, Russia’s demand upon landowners in her Central Asian possession are not so exacting as ours in India, for the British Government insists on a fifth of the produce, making no allowance for good or bad years; while Russia is said to ask only a tenth and allow for variation of production.” (Pages 135-6, “Russia Against India,” by Sir Archibald R. Colquehoun, Gold Medalist, Royal Geographical Society.)

Taxation. Lord Salisbury. The British policy of bleeding Indian people. “The injury is exaggerated in the case of India where so much of the revenue is exported without a direct equivalent. As India must be bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where the blood is congested or at least sufficient, not to those already feeble for the want of it.”—Lord Salisbury.

III
FACTS AND FIGURES

Plague, Deaths from. Plague[98] deaths from 1897-1913: 7,251,257.

Death Rate. Death rate was: 34.28 for the year 1907-11; 32 for the year 1911, and 29.71 for the year 1912.

Rural from 41.8 to 23.5.

Urban from 47.6 to 22.7.

Indian Finance. The budget figures of the government of India for 1914-15 show the total estimated income for the year to be slightly over 85 millions sterling, of which more than 17 millions are given out as railway receipts and about 4½ millions for irrigation work, thus leaving the pure revenue to be about 63 millions.

Land Tax. The principal source of revenue is the land tax, which alone furnishes a little over 21½ millions of pounds, of which, if we deduct 9 millions shown as the “direct demand on the revenues” only 12½ millions are left for general purposes.

The military expenses alone are estimated at about 22 millions, which is even in excess of the gross total receipts from the land tax, and is more than one-third of the total revenues from all sources.

The figures for income are a little misleading, because out of a total of about 17 millions (17 millions and 33 thousand) shown as railway receipts about 13 millions (13,409,000) shown as paid for interest and other miscellaneous charges on the expenditure side, should be deducted. Similarly about 4½ millions are shown as receipts under the head of irrigation, and over 3½ millions are shown against that head as expenditure.

Among the other heads of income, excise brings slightly over 9 millions. Income tax is included under “Other Heads,” which show a total figure of slightly over 5 millions.

Income Tax. The income tax, which is levied on incomes other than those derived from agriculture, is only 6½d. in a pound on incomes of £133 or more, a year, and almost 5d. a pound on incomes below that figure. The minimum taxable income is £66 a year, which shows that all incomes of between 5-6 pounds a month, or between 25-30 dollars a month, are taxed. The large fortunes made by Europeans and Indians by trade, speculation, manufacture, and unearned increments of valuation, are thus easily let off. The principle burden of taxation falls on the poor ryot.

Income from agriculture is supposed to be taxed at the rate of 50 per cent. of the net income of the landlord, or at the rate of 20 per cent. of the gross produce of the ryot, under the ryotwari system. In some cases it exceeds these proportions and is as high as 65 per cent. (See Lord Morley’s reply to C. T. O’Donnell.)

Customs. Customs, which furnish the principal source of revenue in the United States and Germany, in India only yield about less than 7½ millions. The imports are charged ad valorem duty of 5 per cent. with special conditions as to textiles, and “a large free list.” The textile woven goods pay a duty of 3½ per cent. and Lancashire is protected by a corresponding excise duty on textile goods produced in the country. Iron and steel pay only a nominal duty of one per cent.

The other principal source of revenue is the drink traffic, from which the government of India makes an income of about nine millions sterling. How much loss in morals it inflicts thereby on the country may better be imagined. That however is another story.

TRADE FIGURES FOR 1913 to 1914

Imports (manufactured articles forming 80 per cent. of the total):	£127 millions
Treasure:	29 millions
	£156 millions
Exports (chiefly raw produce and articles of food):	£163 millions

The shipping is entirely in European hands and it would be interesting to enquire how much does India pay for the shipping of its imports and exports, and how much do the foreigners make by way of insurance and other charges. The exact gain to Great Britain and other European countries from Indian trade is simply incalculable. The great bulk of the foreign trade on both sides is in the hands of foreigners.

PERSONNEL OF THE GOVERNMENT

Secretary of State and all Under Secretaries, as well as Assistant Under Secretaries:

Council:	British	British Indians	Total
	8	2	10

All Office Establishment and Secretaries: British.

All salaries and other expenses paid by India.

Governor General and Council and staff (i.e., the British Indian Cabinet).

Members of the Executive Council: British 7; one only is an Indian.

Revenue and Agriculture Department: All Secretaries down to the Superintendent of the Office: British. (Total strength, 7.)

Finance Department: 21; all British except that one Assistant Secretary is an Indian, and one Superintendent is an Indian.

Foreign Department: 6; all British except that one Attaché is an Indian.

Education Department: 8; one Assistant Secretary is an Indian.

Legislative Department: 7; only one Legal Assistant an Indian.

Army Department: 10; one Office Superintendent an Indian.

Public Works: 15; no Indian.

Commerce and Industry: 11; 3 Office Superintendents are Indians.

Railway Board: 4, no Indian.

Post Office and Telegraph Department: no Indian.

Indo-European Trade Department: no Indian.

Survey: no Indian.

Geological Survey: 5; no Indian.

Botanical Department: 5; no Indian.

Archæological Survey: 9; one Indian.

Miscellaneous Appointments: 39; one Indian.

The Indian Legislative Council:—

Total strength 67, out of which 35, besides the Governor General are always officials, only one of which is an Indian; of the remaining 32, 28 are Indian members, including 3 nominated by the Government, i.e., a total of 20 out of 67.

Provincial Government:

All Governors, Lieutenant Governors, and Chief Commissioners of Provinces are British.

In Provinces having Executive Councils of three or more, one is an Indian.

Secretaries and Heads of Departments are all Britishers. Of the large army of Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries, perhaps one in each Province is an Indian.

Services:

Army: No Indian is eligible to a commissioned rank.

Indian Civil Service: (on the first of April, 1913) out of a total cadre of 1318, only 46 were Indians.

Indian Medical Service: Little over 5 per cent. are Indians.

In Provincial Legislative Councils having very restricted powers of legislation, the elected Indians are in a minority everywhere.

FIGURES ABOUT EDUCATION AND LITERACY:
(Figures taken from the Year Book of 1914)

Area, 1,773,168 square miles.

Population, 315,132,537.

Universities in British India, 6.

Number of High Schools for males	1273
Number of High Schools for females	144
Primary schools for males i.e., not even 1 for every 10 miles.
Primary schools for females	13,694

Literally.

Males, 106 per 1000, i.e., about 10½ per cent.

Females, only 10 per 1000, i.e., about 1 per cent.

All these figures are taken from the Indian Year Book, published by the Times of India Press, Bombay, for the years 1914 and 1915.

IV
THE FLOGGING OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

(An extract from New India, a paper edited by Mrs. Annie Besant.)

The tragedy of Mr. Ramcharan Lal, the ex-editor of the Swaraj, continues. Mr. Macleod, the city magistrate of Nagpur, has sentenced him to an additional six months of rigorous imprisonment after his sentence has expired for ‘refusing to work.’ Our readers will remember the case. This unfortunate political prisoner—whose analogues in foreign countries have been welcomed and protected on British soil—under-going a sentence of imprisonment, was so brutally flogged for refusing to do work, which he says was more than he could do, that the prison doctor admits that he would have been unable to work for four days after the flogging, and six weeks after it the skin was still discoloured and two serious scars remained. Now he has a heavy sentence of six months’ additional imprisonment. Is this British treatment of a political prisoner? Why did Britons protest against the use of the knout on political prisoners in Russia? Is there no one in the House of Commons who will ask a question on this case, and demand an enquiry into the treatment of political prisoners in India?

INDEX

[A], [B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [I], [K], [L], [M], [N], [P], [R], [S], [T], [V], [W], [Z]

A
Abul Fazal, [52]
Abul Qasim, [70]
Ahmad Khan (Sir Syed), [115]
Akbar, [71], [72], [73], [74]
Alberuni, [52]
Alexander the Great, [68]
Al-Hilal, [62]
Asoka, [9], [11], [12], [69]
Aurangzeb, [52], [73], [95]
B
Ball, Charles (Indian Mutiny), [105]
Bankim, Chandra, [190], [191]
Bannerjea (Sir G.), [171]
Bonnerjea, W. C., [133]
Barendra, [194]
Bengalee (newspaper), [24]
Besant, Annie, [50], [115]
Blavatsky, [115]
Burke, Edmund, [76], [77], [99]
C
Chamberlain, Austen, [28]
Chirol (Sir V.), [1], [29]
Colvin (Sir A.), [124]
Comrade, [62]
Curzon (Lord), [29], [88], [89], [147], [156], [158], [159], [239], [240]
D
Dalhousie, [97]
D. A. V. College, [165]
David, Rhys, [68]
Dayal, Har, [152], [156], [195 to 199], [211]
Dayanand (Saraswati), [115]
Dickinson (Lowes), [5]
Dufferin (Lord), [121], [122], [138], [142]
E
Englishman (The), [168], [169], [182]
F
Faizi, [52]
Fergusson College, [164]
Fuller (Sir W. B.), [177]
G
Gaekwar (Baroda), [88]
Gálib, [52]
Ghosh, Arabinda, [152], [155], [172 to 175], [183], [205], [209], [211]
Gokhale, G. K., [135], [137], [159 to 161], [181], [199], [216], [237]
Gossain (Narendra), [194]
Govind (Singh), [95], [102]
Greece, [11]
Gupta Empire, [13]
Gupta, Chandra, [9], [10], [68], [69]
Gupta, Samundra, [13], [14]
H
Hamdard, [62]
Hardinge (Lord), [121], [184]
Hastings, Warren, [99]
Havell, E. B., [12]
Holmes (History of the Sepoy War), [104];
(History of the Indian Mutiny), [105]
Hume (A. O.), [122], [124 to 127], [130], [135], [137], [140], [144]
I
Ibn, Batuta, [52]
Ilbert (Bill), [119]
K
Kali, [189], [190]
Kaye (History of the Mutiny), [103], [104], [106]
Kipling, Rudyard, [1]
L
Lancashire, [62], [75]
Law, Bonar, [28]
Leader (newspaper), [27]
Lincoln, Abraham, [31]
Lytton, Lord, [116], [118]
M
Macdonald, J. Ramsay, [181], [182]
Macdonnel, Lord, [29], [239], [240]
Malleson (History of the Mutiny), [103], [104], [106]
Manchester, [62]
Mazhar-ul-Haq, [53]
Megasthenes, [69]
Mill (History of Br. India), [68]
Minto (Lord), [179]
Mohani, Abul Hasan Hasrat, [183]
Müller, Max, [1]
Muslim League, [49], [52]
Muslim Gazette, [62]
N
Naoroji Dadabhai, [133], [137], [179]
Nath, Ajudhia, [133]
National Council of Education, [171]
National Congress, Indian, [122-145]
National College, [173]
Nepal, [13]
Nevinson, H. W., [181], [182]
Noble, Miss, [1]
P
Pal, B. C., [162], [183], [190]
Partap, Rana, [71], [72], [73]
Pillai, Chidambaran, [183]
Plassey, [96]
Pratt, [3]
Prithvi, Raj, [70]
R
Rai, Lajpat, [181], [183]
Ramakrishna Mission, [215]
Ranade, [115], [133]
Rawlinson, [10], [11]
Reay, Lord, [123]
Ripon, Lord, [119 to 122]
Roberts (Charles), [28]
Robertson, Sir G. Scott, [29]
Roy, Ram Mohan, [111]
S
Samaj, Arya, [117], [215]
Samaj, Brahmo, [111], [215]
Savarkar, [210], [211]
Seleucus, [68]
Sher Shah, [52], [73]
Shah Jahan, [52]
Sikhs, [73], [102]
Sinha, Sir S. P., [31]
Smith, Vincent, [10], [11], [12], [13], [15]
Sivaji, [95], [129]
Surat, [148]
Swadeshi, [148], [168]
Swaraj, [148]
Sydenham, Lord, [29], [239], [240]
T
Tagore, [5]
Teg, Bahadur Guru, [95], [102]
Theosophical Society, [117]
Tilak (Bal Ganga Dhar), [28], [133], [155], [162], [183]
Tod, Colonel, [73]
Tyabji, [133]
V
Victoria, Queen, [13]
Vidyasagar, [164]
Vikramadityas, [14]
Vivekananda, [115], [193]
W
Wacha, [39], [41]
Wedderburn (Sir W.), [122], [128], [137], [144]
Wellesly, Lord, [97].
Wilson (History of India), [94]
Z
Zamindar (newspaper), [62]

---

YOUNG INDIA

BY LAJPAT RAI

COMMENTS ON THE FIRST EDITION

New York Evening Post:

“He must be indifferent or unimaginative indeed who can read unmoved the pages of this volume. They are so instinct with passion of a consuming emotion, so fired with the force of a national conviction, that it is impossible to believe they can fail to impress all to whom liberty is more than a name and country more than a mere geographical expression. Of the facts and aspirations they so vividly record, few are more competent to speak than their author, for Lajpat Rai has long been in the forefront of the Indian Nationalist movement, and has suffered as well as striven in the promotion of its cause.”

The New Statesman (London):

“This is emphatically a book to be read by the Secretary of State for India himself, as well as by the members of the Council and the clerks in the India Office. It ought to be pondered over by every Indian civilian. It is not that it brings any new indictment against British rule in India, though much that Mr. Lajpat Rai says is very uncomfortable reading; but it reveals, alike to the Indian bureaucracy and to the British public, how unexpectedly acute and well-informed is the criticism to which our somewhat slow and stupid Administration is subjected, how completely it is out of touch with the thought of educated ‘Young India;’ how far we are from getting into sympathetic accord with the feelings and aspirations of the educated classes, Mussulman as well as Hindoo.... Those who read Mr. Lajpat Rai’s very significant volume (Will the Indian Government even allow it to enter India?) will not agree with all his statements or proposals. But they deserve to be widely read and carefully weighed. Every Briton would be the better for reading them. And they deserve an answer—not merely a reasoned refutation by the India Office of that which it thinks erroneous or perverse, but, what is much more important, a prompt reform of all that the India Office does not venture to defend.”

Reedy’s Mirror (St. Louis):

“The book is profoundly interesting as showing what the native thinks of British rule in India. Heretofore we have seen almost wholly through Caucasian eyes—mostly the eyes, of Englishmen, members of the government bureaucracy or missionaries, who have represented England as the great benefactor of India. Through the eyes of Mr. Rai we see an entirely different India—an India under a perfect despotism, in the main a benevolent despotism, but which does not hesitate to use the mailed hand when opposed.”

The Nation (London):

“The whole book is a definite and we believe an accurate statement of the present feeling among a rapidly increasing body of young and educated Indians who have learnt the value of political freedom and the difficulty of winning or retaining it.”

---

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR (IN ENGLISH)

THE ARYA SAMAJ

An account of its origin, doctrines and activities, with a Biographical Sketch of the Founder. With an Introduction by Professor Sidney Webb, LL.B., of the London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London.) With 10 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. pp. xxvi+305, price, $1.75 net. Professor Sidney Webb in the Preface which he has written to this book says—“I believe that this is the first book dealing with what may possibly prove to be the most important religious movement in the whole of India.” The author, Mr. Lajpat Rai, gives a biographical account of the Swami Dayananda, who was the founder of the Arya Samaj, and died in 1883. Since then the organization which Dayananda founded has increased enormously, and numbered 243,000 members in 1911, having more than doubled since 1901.

The Arya Samaj aims at a thorough reformation of the religion of Hinduism. It advocates the abolition of the worship of Idols and desires that the Hindu religion should be restored to the pure and lofty Monotheism of the Vedas which it believes to be the sole source of religious truth. Mr. Blunt, I.C.S., in the census report for the United Province for 1911 calls it “the greatest religious movement in India of the past half century.”

New York Times:—It is quite impossible for any one possessed of imagination to close this book without feeling that it has introduced him to a movement of very great importance ... (a) fascinating book.

Unity:—J. T. Sunderland, D.D. “An interesting, well written, reliable book.”

Journal of Religious Psychology:—A very interesting account.

Boston Transcript:—Very remarkable book.

Christian Intelligence:—Fascinating in style and matter.

Literary Digest:—More interesting to Americans.

Outlook:—It (the Arya Samaj) deserves wide attention.

Christian Work:—“Carefully thought out and selected material” framed “into well-expressed phrases.”

London Times:—A remarkable book.

London Daily News:—An indispensable book.

London “India”:—A historic book.

Very favorable reviews given by the (London) Nation, the (London) New Statesman, the Pall Mall Gazette and other English and American papers in lengthy notices.

REFLECTIONS ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN INDIA

A pamphlet, 25 cents.

To be had of the author, care of B. W. Huebsch, 225 Fifth avenue, New York.

THE STORY OF MY DEPORTATION
Second Edition in Course of Preparation

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The italics everywhere in this quotation are mine.

[2] See Vincent Smith’s “Early History of India,” third edition, p. 135.

[3] “Mr. Vincent Smith is always anxious to deprive India of the credit of all her achievements in art and literature.” Indian Historical Studies by Prof. H. D. G. Rawlinson, p. 227.

[4] The italics in the above quotation are mine.

[5] See also Mr. E. B. Havell’s Ideals of Indian Art, pp. 11-12. Mr. Havell’s conclusion is: “We may see if we have eyes to see, that all India is one in spirit, however diverse in race and in creed.”

[6] First Edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1905.

[7] See footnote to p. 5, of his “Early History of India,” 3rd ed.

[8] A town on the Eastern Coast of India.

[9] Some of these sentences have been reduced.

[10] In 16 cases these sentences have been commuted to life-long imprisonment not out of mercy as the Viceroy has himself officially pointed out, but in consideration of the evidence.

[11] The great mutiny of 1857, of which more hereafter.

[12] Six of them have been sentenced to death, 45 to transportation for life, some to imprisonment and some have been acquitted.

[13] The italics are mine.

[14] The italics are mine.

[15] Some Reflections on the Political Situation in India, by Lajpat Rai, pp. 24-27.

[16] The ludicrous extent to which the prohibition to keep and use arms has been carried will be better illustrated by the following incident reported by the Bengalee of Calcutta.

“A five year old boy of Munshi Ganj Road, Kidderpore, had a toy pistol purchased for one anna. On the 8th of August last the child was playing with it but could not explode the paper caps. A thirteen year lad showed him how to do it. The boy was at once arrested by a beat constable and marched off to the Wat Ganjthana with the fire arm. The boy was eventually sent up for trial at Alipur and the Court fined him three rupees.”

[17] Commenting on the annual report of the issue of licenses the Indian press have made similar statements. The Punjabee says “while the ruffians bent on crime have been able to secure fire arms by foul means, the law abiding section of the community have for the most part continued helpless owing to the difficulties of obtaining licenses for fire arms.” See also Bengalee of the 6th Oct. 1915.

[18] The italics are mine.

[19] The italics are mine.

[20] The examinations have not been discontinued but statutory provision has been made for a large proportion of the appointments formerly filled by examination to be now filled by nomination.

[21] Mr. Lowes Dickinson, an English Professor who has largely travelled in India, has practically admitted the truth of this remark. (P. 23, An Essay on the Civilisation of India, China, and Japan. See also pp. 27 and 28.)

[22] The Pioneer of Allahabad, a semi-official organ of the Anglo-Indians, has in a recent issue said that “The safety of the State is and must be of far greater importance than the rights of the individuals.”

[23] The Western Coast.

[24] Heavy wooden sticks.

[25] A straw mat.

[26] The italics are mine.

[27] “The Raja (i.e., the king) was not above the law.” See Wilson’s note on p. 203, vol. I of Mill’s British India.

[28] See Rhys David’s “Buddhist India.”

[29] See an account of Yudhishthira’s Rajsuya yajna in the Mahabharata.

[30] For an account of Chandra Gupta’s Government see Early History of India by Mr. Vincent Smith.

[31] It is true that parts of Deccan had been from time to time overrun by the Mohammedans and at least one Muslim kingdom had been founded there even before Akbar’s time, but still the general statement in the text stands good.

[32] The tribal name of the House to which Partap belonged.

[33] Names of Rajput ruling families in Akbar’s time.

[34] The history of Europe up to the 18th century is full of parallel disputes on racial and religious grounds.

[35] It is said that for a short time a small portion of Northwest India formed a province of the Empire of Darius and paid tribute to that monarch, but the government was all the same native.

[36] “The Asiatic conquerors very soon abated their ferocity, because they made the conquered country their own. They rose or fell with the rise and fall of the territory they lived in. Fathers there deposited the hopes of their posterity; the children there beheld the monuments of their fathers. Here their lot was finally cast; and it is the normal wish of all that their lot should not be cast in bad land. Poverty, sterility, and desolation are not a recreating prospect to the eye of man, and there are very few who can bear to grow old among the curses of a whole people. If their passion or avarice drove the Tartar hordes to acts of rapacity or tyranny, there was time enough, even in the short life of man, to bring round the ill effects of the abuse of power upon the power itself. If hoards were made by violence and tyranny, they were still domestic hoards, and domestic profusion, or the rapine of a more powerful and prodigal hand, restored them to the people. With many disorders and with few political checks upon power, nature had still fair play, the sources of acquisition were not dried up, and therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of the country flourished. Even avarice and usury itself operated both for the preservation and the employment of national wealth. The husbandman and manufacturer paid heavy interest, but then they augmented the fund from whence they were again to borrow. Their resources were dearly bought, but they were sure, and the general stock of the community grew by the general effect.

“But under the English Government all this order is reversed. The Tartar invasion was mischievous, but it is our protection that destroys India. It was their enmity, but it is our friendship. Our conquest there, after twenty years, is as crude as it was the first day. The natives scarcely know what it is to see the grey head of an Englishman; young men, boys almost, govern there, without society, and without sympathy with the natives. They have no more social habits with the people than if they still resided in England; nor, indeed, any species of intercourse but that which is necessary to making a sudden fortune, with a view to a remote settlement. Animated with all the avarice of age, and all the impetuosity of youth, they roll in one after another, wave after wave, and there is nothing before the eyes of the natives but an endless, hopeless prospect of new flights of birds of prey and passage, with appetites continually renewing for a food that is continually wasting. Every rupee of profit made by an Englishman is lost forever to India.” (Edmund Burke in a speech made in the House of Commons in 1783 A. D. The reflections are as good, to-day, as they were then.)

[37] The constitution of the Government of India is settled by laws made by the Parliament of Great Britain, in which India is not represented.

[38] See Sir Henry Cotton’s New India (1907), pp. 68, 69 and 70.

[39] In England this is the view of the bulk of the Indian student community. The Government, of course, repudiates that view.

[40] In this connection we may refer the reader to an excellent article published in the New Statesman (London) dated April 1, 1916, called, “If the Germans conquered England.” With the alteration of England for Germany and India for England the article would make an excellent exposition of the position of the Indian Nationalist.

[41] See New India by Sir Henry Cotton, 1907, p. 34.

[42] It should be noted that the evils complained of in this chapter are the evils of the system which, in the words of John Stuart Mill, is unnatural, and the unnaturalness of which is recognised in full by many fair-minded Britishers. It was recognised so far back as 1835 by the British historian Wilson in his concluding remarks in the last chapter of his monumental History of British India.

[43] The Punjab.

[44] Sivaji was the founder of the Mahratta Empire in India.

[45] Sirhind is a small town on the road to Delhi, where the Muslim governor of the time tortured the two minor sons of Guru Govind Singh to death by placing them between two brick walls.

[46] See Kaye and Malleson, vol. II, p. 367. “In respect to the mutineers of the 55th, they were taken fighting against us, and so far deserve little mercy. But, on full reflection, I would not put them all to death. I do not think that we should be justified in the eyes of the Almighty in doing so. A hundred and twenty men are a large number to put to death. Our object is to make an example to terrify others. I think this object would be effectually gained by destroying from a quarter to a third of them. I would select all of those against whom anything bad can be shown—such as general bad character, turbulence, prominence in disaffection or in the fight, disrespectful demeanor to their officers during the few days before the 26th, and the like. If these did not make up the required number, I would then add to them the oldest soldiers. All these should be shot or blown away from the guns, as may be most expedient. The rest I would divide into patches: some to be imprisoned ten years, some seven, some five, some three.”

[47] History of Indian Mutiny, Kaye and Malleson, vol. II, p. 203. “Martial law had been proclaimed; those terrible Acts passed by the Legislative Council in May and June were in full operation; and soldiers and civilians alike were holding Bloody Assize, or slaying natives without any Assize at all, regardless of sex or age. Afterwards the thirst for blood grew stronger still. It is on the records of our British Parliament, in papers sent home by the Governor General of India in Council, that the aged, women, and children, are sacrificed, as well as those guilty of rebellion. They were not deliberately hanged, but burnt to death in their villages—perhaps now and then accidently shot. Englishmen did not hesitate to boast, or to record their boastings in writings, that they had ‘spared no one,’ and that ‘peppering away at niggers’ was very pleasant pastime, ‘enjoyed amazingly,’ It has been stated in a book patronised by high class authorities, that ‘for three months eight dead-carts daily went their rounds from sunrise to sunset to take down the corpses which hung at the cross-roads and market-places,’ and that ‘six thousand beings’ had been thus summarily disposed of and launched into eternity.”

[48] See Kaye and Malleson’s History of the Mutiny, vol. II, p. 177. “Already our military officers were hunting down the criminals of all kinds, and hanging them up with as little compunction as though they had been pariah-dogs, or jackals, or vermin of a baser kind. One contemporary writer has recorded that, on the morning of disarming parade, the first thing he saw from the Mint was a ‘row of gallowses.’ A few days afterwards the military courts or commissions were sitting daily, and sentencing old and young to be hanged with indiscriminate ferocity. On one occasion, some young boys, who, seemingly in mere sport, had flaunted rebel colours and gone about beating tom-toms, were tried and sentenced to death. One of the officers composing the court, a man unsparing before an enemy under arms, but compassionate, as all brave men are, towards the weak and the helpless, went with tears in his eyes to the commanding officer, imploring him to remit the sentence passed against these juvenile offenders, but with little effect on the side of mercy. And what was done with some show of formality either of military or of criminal law, was as nothing, I fear, weighed against what was done without any formality at all. Volunteer hanging parties went out into the districts, and amateur executioners were not wanting to the occasion. One gentleman boasted of the numbers he had finished off quite ‘in an artistic manner,’ with mango-trees for gibbets and elephants for drops, the victims of this wild justice being strung up, as though for pastime, in ‘the form of a figure of eight.’”

On mock trials see Holmes’ History of the Sepoy War, p. 124. “Officers, as they went to sit on the court martial, swore that they would hang their prisoners, guilty or innocent.... Prisoners condemned to death after a hasty trial were mocked at and tortured by ignorant privates before their execution, while educated officers looked on and approved.” “Old men who had done us no harm, and helpless women with sucking infants at their breasts felt the weight of our vengeance, no less than the vilest malefactors.” Again see History of the Siege of Delhi quoted by Savarkar in his “War of Indian Independence,” p. 111, by an officer who served there, how, on the way from Umbala to Delhi, thousands were placed before a court martial in rows after rows and condemned to be hanged or shot. In some places cow’s flesh was forced by spears and bayonets into the mouths of the condemned. (All Hindus abhor cow’s flesh and would rather die than eat it.)

See Charles Ball’s Indian Mutiny, vol. I, p. 257. “One trip I enjoyed amazingly; we got on board a steamer with a gun, while the Sikhs and the fusiliers marched up to the city. We steamed up throwing shots right and left till we got up to the bad places, when we went on the shore and peppered away with our guns, my old double-barrel bringing down several niggers. So thirsty for vengeance I was. We fired the places right and left and the flames shot up to the heavens as they spread, fanned by the breeze, showing that the day of vengeance had fallen on the treacherous villains. Every day we had expeditions to burn and destroy disaffected villages and we had taken our revenge. I have been appointed the chief of a commission for the trial of all natives charged with offences against the Government and persons. Day by day, we have strung up eight or ten men. We have the power of life in our hands and, I assure you, we spare not. A very summary trial is all that takes place. The condemned culprit is placed under a tree, with a rope around his neck, on the top of a carriage, and when it is pulled off he swings.”

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“In the Punjab, near Ajnala, in a small island, many a Sepoy who had simply fled away from a regiment which was working under the reasonable fear of being disarmed and shot by the Government for suspicion, was hiding himself. Cooper with a loyal body of troops took them prisoner. The entire number, amounting to two hundred and eighty-two, were then conveyed by Cooper to Ajnala. Then came the question what was to be done with them. There was no means of transporting them to a place where they could be tried formally. On the other hand, if they were summarily executed, other regiments and intending rebels might take warning by their fate, and thus, further bloodshed might be prevented. For these reasons, Cooper, fully conscious as he was of the enormous responsibility which he was undertaking, resolved to put them all to death. Next morning, accordingly, he brought them out in tens and made some Sikhs shoot them. In this way, two hundred and sixteen perished. But, there still remained sixty-six others who had been confined in one of the bastions of the Tahsil. Expecting resistance, Cooper ordered the door to be opened. But not a sound issued from the room; forty-five of them were dead bodies lying on the floor. For, unknown to Cooper, the windows had been closely shut and the wretched prisoners had found in the bastion a second Black-Hole. The remaining twenty-one were shot, like their comrades. 1—8—’57. For this splendid assumption of authority, Cooper was assailed by the hysterical cries of ignorant humanitarians. But Robert Montgomery unanswerably vindicated his character by proving that he had saved the Lahore division.”—Holmes’s History of the Indian Mutiny, p. 363.

“It is related that, in the absence of tangible enemies, some of our soldiery, who turned out on this occasion, butchered a number of unoffending camp-followers, servants, and others who were huddling together in vague alarm, near the Christian church-yard. No loyalty, no fidelity, no patient good service on the part of these good people could extinguish, for a moment, the fierce hatred which possessed our white soldiers against all who wore the dusky livery of the East.”—Kaye and Malleson’s Indian Mutiny, vol. II, p. 438.

[49] It should be noted that this visit took place during the present war and the observations recorded above were penned after the “unique” outburst of loyalty on the part of the Indians in connection with the Great War.

[50] A native term equivalent for Europeans.

[51] This is a native expression signifying the highest respect of the speaker towards one whom he considers his superior. Literally it means mother and father.

[52] I. e., like the English.

[53] In the interests of Lancashire goods.

[54] Mr. Ilbert was the Law member of the Council of the Governor General and the bill came to be named after him.

[55] Mr. Hume was an ex-secretary-of the Government of India who had retired from service.

[56] Sir William Wedderburn is also a retired member of the Government of Bombay, India.

[57] Sir Auckland Colvin was the Lieutenant Governor of the then North Western Provinces (now the United Province of Agra and Oudh).

[58] The quotations from Hume are taken out of W. Wedderburn’s Allan Octavian Hume, the parts enclosed in parenthesis are Wedderburn’s.

[59] These compliments have been renewed of late. The Congress held at Madras in 1914 was attended by the British Governor of the Presidency.

[60] Mr. Hume’s biography by Sir William Wedderburn, p. 62.

[61] Mr. Hume’s biography by Sir W. W., p. 63.

[62] Biography, p. 63.

[63] Swadeshi means country-made, and Swaraj means self-government or self-rule.

[64] The Congress session held at Surat in December, 1907, ended in a split preceded by a disorderly meeting.

[65] Presided over by the Honourable Mr. G. K. Gokhale, a member of the Viceroy’s Council.

[66] Swadeshi means the cult of home industries, i.e., the use of the articles made in the country.

[67] An eminent Bengalee writer.

[68] Moreover the keynote of these organisations was association and co-operation with Government, and not independent self-assertion.

[69] These are signs of mourning in India.

[70] An eminent nobleman and landlord of Bengal.

[71] India made goods.

[72] Wholesale piece goods merchants belonging to Upper India are known in Calcutta by that name.

[73] A ruling chief in the Bombay Presidency.

[74] In my opinion there has never been any time in human history when religion and morals were successfully divorced from politics, either in Ancient India or anywhere else.

[75] Societies, Associations and Gymnasiums.

[76] A leader universally respected and loved by all classes of people throughout India. [See frontispiece.]

[77] See Mr. H. W. Nevinson’s New Spirit in India, p. 295; also pp. 133, 233, etc.; see also Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald’s Awakening of India.

[78] For an account of this split see H. W. Nevinson’s New Spirit in India, Chap. XIII.

[79] A reward of one hundred thousand Rupees equal to 33,000 dollars was offered for information leading to the arrest of the culprit or culprits.

[80] Name of a religious sect. See Pratts’ India and Its Faiths, p. 13.

[81] The Spirit of Indian Nationalism, by Mr. B. C. Pal. p. 36.

[82] A great Bengalee writer of fiction who composed the well-known nationalist song, “Bande Mataram” or Hail Motherland.

[83] Or the foreign exploiters.

[84] It was in the first half of the year 1908 that the first bomb was thrown at Muzaffarpur, Behar. It was meant for a Magistrate who had been passing sentences of whipping on nationalist youths, but by mistake it struck a quite innocent person. The investigation of this case resulted in the discovery of a big conspiracy. The trial of this conspiracy is known by the name “Maniktolah Bomb Case” from the fact that the headquarters of this conspiracy were alleged to have been in the Maniktolah gardens, Calcutta. One of the conspirators Narendra Nath Gossain became an approver. After the case had been committed for trial before the Sessions Court and when the approver and the accused were both lodged in jail at Alipore, one of the leaders of the conspiracy shot the approver dead with a rifle which had been smuggled into the jail premises by their friends.

[85] A great Nationalist leader of Bengal, now dead.

[86] One of his followers in San Francisco has told me that this description of him, viz., that he does not advocate the use of the bomb or the revolver is not correct.

[87] This is illustrated in Indian official life day in and day out. It is not a rare occurrence that the British heads of the Departments get credit for what has been achieved by the genius, intelligence and labour of their Indian subordinates.

[88] Indian heroes.

[89] Non-commissioned officers of the native Indian army.

[90] Force, energy and vitality.

[91] Life of meditation and self-denial.

[92] Lord Dufferin was the Governor General of India and Sir A. Colvin was the Lieutenant Governor of what were then the Northwestern Provinces, now the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.

[93] The organisation of the Pro-British Muslims.

[94] See the Introduction.

[95] Komagata Maru is the name of a Japanese steamer, which a number of Sikh emigrants chartered in Hong Kong in 1914 a. d. in order to take them to Canada. They were not allowed to land and were forced to return to India, under circumstances which have created a bitter anti-British feeling among the Indians all over the world.

[96] During her most dreadful famines hundreds of thousands of tons of foodstuffs were shipped out of India.

[97] See Mill’s History of British India, Vol. VI, pp. 149, 150, Vol. VII, p. 388, and p. 393, Vol. IX, pp. 207, 209. See Bishop Heber’s description of India in 1824 quoted in Mill and Wilson’s History of India, Vol. IX, p. 376. Also that of Mr. Shore in 1833.

[98] We do not mean to say that British Rule in India is responsible for the plague, but with better management of resources, i.e., better sanitation, the plague could have been prevented or eradicated sooner than has been attempted.

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