CHAPTER XI.
REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATIONS OUTSIDE INDIA.
It required nothing less than the shock of a murder perpetrated in the heart of London to open the eyes of those in authority at home to the nature of the revolutionary propaganda which has been, and is still being, carried on outside India in sympathy, and often in connivance, with the more violent leaders of the anti-British agitation in India itself. Even now it may be doubted whether they fully realize the importance of the support which the extremists receive from outside India. I am not alluding to the moral countenance which the Hindu reaction has received from eccentric Americans and Europeans on the look out for any novel religious sensation, or which "advanced" politicians have derived from sympathetic members of Parliament and journalists in England[13], but to the secret organizations established in Europe and in America by the Indian extremists themselves as a base for hostile operations against the British Raj. However loudly the extremists protest against the importation of Western influences into India they have certainly not been too proud to borrow the methods of Western revolutionists. They have of all Indians been the most slavish imitators of the West, as represented, at any rate, by the Irish Fenian and the Russian anarchist. Their literature is replete with references to both. Tilak took his "No-rent" campaign in the Deccan from Ireland, and the Bengalees were taught to believe in the power of the boycott by illustrations taken from contemporary Irish history. When the informer Gosain was shot dead in Alipur gaol the Nationalists gloried in the deed, which had far excelled that of Patrick O'Donnell, who shot dead James Carey, the approver in the Phoenix Park murders, inasmuch as Gosain had been murdered before he could complete his "treachery," whereas the murder of Carey had been only a tardy "retribution" which could not undo the past. The use of the bomb has become the common property of revolutionists all over the world, but the employment of amateur dacoits, or armed bands of robbers, for replenishing the revolutionary war-chest has been directly taken from the revolutionary movement in Russia a few years ago. The annals of the Italian risorgimento have also been put under contribution, and whilst there is no Indian life of Cavour, Lajpat Rai's Life of Mazzini and Vinayak Savarkar's translation of Mazzini's Autobiography are favourite Nationalist text-books of the milder order. European works on various periods of revolutionary history figure almost invariably amongst seizures of a far more compromising character whenever the Indian police raids some centre of Nationalist activity. Hence in the literature of unrest one frequently comes across the strangest juxtaposition of names, Hindu deities, and Cromwell and Washington, and celebrated anarchists all being invoked in the same breath.
Equally foreign in its origin has been the establishment of various centres of revolutionary activity outside of India. In America there appear to be two distinct organizations both having their headquarters in California, and branches in Chicago, New York, and other important cities. The Indo-American Association runs an English periodical, Free Hindustan, which was originally started in Canada and thence transferred to Seattle when it began to attract the attention of the Canadian authorities. The moving spirits are students, chiefly from Bengal, who have found ready helpers amongst the Irish-American Fenians. They have also been able to make not a few converts amongst the unfortunate British Indian immigrants who suffered heavily from the anti-Asiatic campaign along the Pacific slope, and some of these converts, being Sikhs and old soldiers, were of special value, as through them direct contact could be established with the regiments to which they had belonged, or, at any rate, with the classes from which an important section of the native army is recruited. Large quantities of seditious leaflets, circulated broadcast three years ago amongst Sepoys, were printed in America. The other organization, called the Young Indian Association, with "head centres" and "inner" and "outer circles" that have a genuine Fenian ring, is even more "extreme," and is connected with the "Indian Red Flag" in India, to which Khudiram Bose, who murdered Mrs. and Miss Kennedy at Muzafferpur, and other young fanatics of the same type belonged. The Young Indian Association seems to devote itself chiefly to the study of explosives and to smuggling arms into India. In Anglo-Indian official circles extreme reticence is naturally observed in these matters, but from other sources I have seen evidence to show that both these associations were in frequent communication with the seditious Press all over India, in the Deccan as well as in Bengal and in the Punjab.
The emergence of Japan has created so powerful an impression in India that one is not surprised to find the Indian revolutionaries, who live for the most part in the dreamland of their own ignorance, looking in that quarter for guidance and even, perhaps, for assistance. But they have been sorely disappointed. Indian students are well received in Japan, but they are in nowise specially petted or pampered, and when they begin to air their political opinions and to declaim against British rule they are very speedily put in their place. Crossing the Pacific from Japan to America last year I met one who had spent two or three years at Tokyo and was going on to continue his technical studies in the United States. He was a pleasant and intelligent young fellow, and confessed to me that what he had seen in Japan had very much modified the views he had held when he left Bengal as to the ripeness of his fellow-countrymen for independence or self-government. He had received a great deal of kindness from his Japanese professors, but the general attitude of the Japanese was by no means friendly, and there was no trace of sympathy with the political agitation in India. There is an Indo-Japanese Society in Tokyo, but it has no connexion with politics, and the Indians complain that it is run for the benefit of the Japanese rather than for theirs. Those who have joined it in the hope of using it as a base for anti-British operations have certainly got very little for their pains. They occasionally write articles for the very few Socialist papers of Japan, but their effective contribution to the cause is of trifling account.
The most dangerous organization outside India was unquestionably that which had its headquarters at the "India House" at Highgate. It was there that Dinghra appears to have concocted the plot which resulted in the murder of Sir W. Curzon Wyllie and Dr. Lalcaca, and though the London correspondent of the Kal, Vinayak Savarkar, who was arrested this year in London to take his trial on the gravest charges at Bombay, magnified the success of the plot by describing its chief victim as "the eyes of the Secretary of State through which he saw all Indian affairs," there is some reason to believe that Dinghra expected to find at the reception another Anglo-Indian official whom the "extremists" were particularly anxious to "remove," and only in his absence struck at Sir W. Curzon Wyllie. There is reason, too, to believe that it was from this "India House" also that came both the idea of murdering Mr. Jackson and the weapons used by the murderer. Though students from all parts of India were enticed into the "India House," the organization seems to have been controlled by Deccan Brahmans, and in the first instance by Shyamji Krishnavarma, who founded scholarships in connexion with it to honour the Indian "martyrs" executed for murderous outrages in India. When the authorities in London very tardily awoke after the murder of Sir W. Curzon Wyllie to the dangerous nature of this organization, to which The Times first drew attention in the spring of 1908, it was still controlled from the Continent by Krishnavarma, who had retreated to Paris long before, leaving his lieutenants to carry on his campaign amongst the young Indian students. The Indian Sociologist itself continued to be openly published in London and to advocate assassination until the tragedy at the Imperial Institute led the authorities to take woefully-belated action in prosecuting successively two printers of the sheet, which was then transferred to Paris.
That altogether considerable quantities of incendiary literature have been produced abroad and imported into India through these various organizations is beyond doubt. Sometimes books like Savarkar's "War of Indian Independence of 1857"—in its way a very remarkable history of the Mutiny, combining considerable research with the grossest perversions of facts and great literary power with the most savage hatred—were bound in false covers as "Pickwick Papers," or other equally innocuous works. Other seditious leaflets besides those for the incitement of mutiny in the native army appear to have come from America, whilst newspapers like the Talvar and the Bande Mataram, which preach the same gospel of murder as Krishnavarrna's Indian Sociologist, are printed on the Continent of Europe. These papers are either smuggled into India in large parcels or sent through the post in envelopes addressed by name to students in schools and colleges, as well as to schoolmasters, pleaders, Government employés—in fact, to all sorts and conditions of people who, for some reason or other, are supposed to be suitable recipients. They naturally fall sometimes into quite the wrong hands.
The importance which the "extremists" attach to the maintenance of these channels of communication with India appears from the following extract from the March issue of the Bande Mataram, which purports to be published in Geneva, and calls itself "a monthly organ of Indian independence":—
We must recognize at present that the importation of revolutionary literature into India is the sheet-anchor of the party. It keeps up the spirit of all young men, and assures them that the party is living. We must therefore try to strengthen all groups of workers outside India. The centre of gravity of political work has been shifted from Calcutta, Poona, and Lahore to Paris, Geneva, Berlin, London, and New York. The Wahabi conspiracy of 1862 was completely crushed because there was no centre in foreign countries where the work could be carried on during the period of persecution. We must take this lesson to heart, that if we desire to hear more of the murder of British officials as a token of the progress and vitality of the party we must strengthen and establish centres of work in many foreign countries. The circulation of revolutionary leaflets, journals, and manifestoes should be looked upon as a sacred duty by all patriots. We are not exaggerating the importance of this work when we use that expression. Let us look upon every leaf of revolutionary literature with almost superstitious veneration and try to make it reach India by all means in our power. For it is the seed of life of our people, &c.
As to the importation of arms into India, the murder of Mr. Jackson, "another Nationalist fête celebrated at Nasik amidst the rejoicings of all true patriots," furnishes an occasion for similar exultation:—
We know that the hero possessed Browning pistols. Now these pistols are not manufactured in India, but in Europe. How have they been imported by the revolutionaries? It is clear that this fact is a testimony to the efficiency of our organization and the secrecy of our activity. Besides, the imported arms are not the only weapons on which we have to rely. Daggers can be manufactured in India out of sharp nails to stab all vile agents of the British Government, English or Indian.
Increased vigilance in this country as well as in the Indian Customs and Post Offices is, however, beginning to check these importations, and only two months later the Bande Mataram was already compelled to strike a less exuberant note. It declares, of course, that "our movement cannot be repressed so long as there are patriotic Indians living under other flags than the Union Jack," but it recognizes that the situation "gives rise to anxious thought," and it winds up in a somewhat depressed tone:—
We admit that for the present all active propaganda among the young men of India with a view to the acquisition of new workers is exceedingly difficult. But there are hundreds of patriotic Indian students in America and Japan who can be inspired with apostolic fervour if only some capable workers are sent among them. The harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few. We should now realize that, even if the Government succeeds in checkmating us in India at every step, there is ample scope for work for several years among Indians living abroad. We should reflect that steady work is its own reward. We must not imagine that the Idea is not making progress because our particular journal cannot be circulated, or because those workers whom we know personally have been lost. Again, we must not fancy that if heroic exploits of political assassination do not occur every week the movement will die out.
It is not only in regard to the introduction of poisonous literature or of weapons into India that the activity of these organizations deserves to be closely and continuously watched. One of their main objects, as the Bande Mataram points out, is to gain over young Indians who go abroad, especially those who go abroad for purposes of study. The India Office has recognized the necessity of establishing some organization in London to keep in touch with them and to rescue them from unwholesome influences, political and other. This is a step in the right direction, but much more will require to be done, and not only in London. Committees should be formed in other centres, and public-spirited Englishmen abroad could not do more useful work than by social service of this kind. If we want to do any real and permanent good we must spread our nets as wide as the revolutionists have spread theirs. In Paris, for instance, Krishnavarma has set up, since he migrated to the other side of the Channel, an organization for waylaying and indoctrinating young Indians on their way to England, so as to induce them to hold aloof from those who would wish to be their friends when they arrive in London. The number of Indian students abroad is bound to go on increasing, especially with the growing demand for scientific and technical education for which the provision hitherto made in India is regarded as inadequate. Indian parents and Indian associations that ought to know better are apt to think that, if they can only provide for a youth's travelling expenses, he will somehow be able afterwards to shift for himself. It is not infrequently the misery and distress to which he thus finds himself reduced abroad that drive the young Indian into political recklessness, or, at least, render him peculiarly liable to temptation. British manufacturers might also render valuable assistance. Indian parents complain that, owing to the resentment which crimes like the murder of Sir W. Curzon Wyllie have provoked there is great reluctance now on the part of British firms to admit Indians as apprentices to their works, and that in consequence they are compelled to go to other countries where they are treated with less suspicion. This reluctance is perhaps in reality more often due to the fear lest young Indians should afterwards turn their knowledge to too good an account, as the Japanese have often done, in the promotion of competing industries in their own country. However that may be, the results are certainly regrettable. For, if there is one thing that has impressed itself on me during my last visit to India, it is that, if we want to retain our hold, not only upon the country, but upon the people, we must neglect no opportunity of arresting the estrangement which is growing up between us and the younger generation of Indians. It is upon this estrangement that the revolutionary organizations outside of India chiefly rely for the success of their propaganda, and nothing helps them more than the bitterness with which young Indians who come abroad often return to India ready for any desperate adventure[14].