This kind of government has existed in India for the past two hundred years. To begin with, England carried away all the tangible wealth of the country “in the form of indemnities, grants, and gifts from its princes, and assessments and taxes from the people.” At the same time the industries of the country were destroyed, and its commercial prosperity was checked by a selfish policy of enriching the manufacturing classes of England at the expense of those in India. The entire population of the country was disarmed as the next step. Thus were the natures of the people degraded, their martial spirit was crushed, and “a race of soldiers and heroes converted into a timid flock of quill-driving sheep.”
The introduction of an utterly alien system of education was still another step in rooting out of the country the remnants of national honor and pride. According to the scheme of English education in the country, formulated by Lord Macaulay, English was made the medium of instruction for all branches of study. English history and English literature received preference over Indian history and Indian literature. The text-books for schools and colleges were prepared by English agents of the government; and from them sentiments of love and admiration for Indian civilization and culture on one hand, and respect for the character and behavior of its princes on the other, were rigidly excluded. In its place the English kings, the English people, the English religion, the English government, the English institutions, in fact everything English was held up as ideal. According to the history texts, whenever a battle was fought between the English and the native princes, the former were always in the right and the latter forever in the wrong. The English were always the victorious, and the natives always the beaten party. Mir Jafar, the arch-traitor of the country, was a noble and worthy prince, while Mir Kasam, the benevolent protector of his subjects against the injustice of the East India Company’s agents, was a hypocrite and a debauché. The reason for the exaltation of Mir Jafar and the execration of Mir Kasam is, however, easily understood. Mir Jafar was the commander-in-chief of the army of Siraj-ud-Daulah, who stood against the forces of Lord Clive on the battlefield of Plassey. At a suggestion of bribery from Clive, Mir Jafar led the whole of his army over to the side of the enemy, and thus secured for the English the victory of Plassey, which was the beginning of their real power in the country. On the other hand, Mir Kasam was continually fighting against the encroachments of the East India Company over his own territories and the rights of his subjects. Which of the two princes was a real man and a worthy hero among his people, Mir Jafar or Mir Kasam? Mir Kasam, according to every kind of moral and ethical standard of nobility and courage; Mir Jafar, according to the corrupt standards of British Imperialism in India.
After the Indian youths had finished their scanty education, the future that lay before them was of a very uninviting nature. As all the high offices in the service of the country were monopolized by the English, the only positions left for the educated classes of Indians were those of low-paid clerks and assistants in the government offices. No prospect of fame, or wealth, or power opened before them. There was no great stimulus for the pursuit of higher knowledge. The young scholars no sooner began to know their positions in the world than they realized the uselessness of great attainments. Of what use was their learning if they were not to have employment as responsible public administrators of their country and so use their knowledge in the service of India? The extent of the exclusion of the native inhabitants of the country from offices of dignity and high emoluments in the government service may be realized from the following figures. According to the figures of 1913, out of 2,501 civil and military offices in British India carrying monthly salaries of 800 rupees ($266.00) or more, only 242, less than ten per cent were held by Indians; out of the 4,986 appointments carrying a monthly salary of 500 rupees ($166.00), only 19 per cent were held by Indians; and out of the 11,064 appointments carrying a monthly salary of 200 rupees ($66.00) only 42 per cent were held by Indians. Conditions have not changed much since 1913.[46]
In order to enable the American reader to realize fully the magnitude of injustice involved in the wrong policies of the English government in India regarding the country’s systems of education and public employment, we shall use our previous illustration once more. Let it be supposed that simultaneously with the consolidation of Japanese power in America it was ordered by the Mikado that henceforth the Japanese language should form the sole medium of instruction in the schools and colleges throughout the United States. The American children would be required to learn the Japanese language before reaching school. The texts given to the youths of the country to study and digest would be books written and published in Japan, from which the names of such national heroes as Washington and Lincoln were excluded, but in which the praises of Japan were sung in high chorus. Shakespeare, Milton, Emerson, Longfellow, and Hawthorne would be excluded from the American school curriculum, and Japanese literature substituted in its place. The business of all governmental departments would be conducted in Japanese, and its official circulars and reports would be printed in Japanese. All the higher posts in the service of the country would be reserved for the Mikado’s own countrymen. The president and his cabinet; supreme, district, and superior court judges; the governors of the states,—all would be appointed in Tokyo from among the Japanese in favor with the government of the Mikado. Native-born Americans would be employed only as stenographers, postmen, grammar school teachers, and street car conductors, and then only at starvation wages. Buddhism would be made the state religion of America. What would any self-respecting American say if all this were done to his country? What would he do when his children and his grandchildren raised a cry against the injustice done to their country and its manhood, and this cry was drowned by the declaration of the Japanese imperialists that Japan was carrying the Yellow Man’s burden in the United States of America.
The feeling of a deep and passionate resentment felt by the people of India regarding these matters was expressed by the late Mr. G. K. Gokhale thus:
“A kind of dwarfing or stunting of the Indian race is going on under the present system. We must live all our lives in an atmosphere of inferiority, and the tallest of us must bend, in order that the exigencies of the system may be satisfied. The upward impulse, if I may use such an expression, which every schoolboy at Eton or Harrow may feel, that he may one day be a Gladstone, a Nelson, or a Wellington, and which may draw forth the best efforts of which he is capable, that is denied to us. The height to which our manhood is capable of rising can never be reached by us under the present system. The moral elevation which every Self-Governing people feel, cannot be felt by us. Our administrative and military talents must gradually disappear owing to sheer disuse, till at last our lot, as hewers of wood and drawers of water in our own country, is stereotyped.”
If, therefore, the world sees the spectacle of an indignant India in revolt against the English rule, it should not be surprised. It is only natural that the English should resent the attempts of the Indians to secure their independence. It is hoped, however, that the other nations of the world will not feel hostile against the battle cry of the Indians against the British oppression in their country. If the English imperialists try to prove the virtue of their rule in India, please remember that the question is not whether the English rule is good or bad, but whether the principle underlying it is right or wrong. No self-respecting American citizen desires to see Japanese lordship established in his native land; he would call a condition intolerable in which the Japanese held all the positions of power in the government of his country. The full-blooded inhabitants of India feel in much the same way about the British supremacy in India. The reason of this attitude of both American and Indian nationalists is the same. The self-respect of an honest man revolts against foreign domination. The eyes of Modern India have been opened, and her people realize “that they are men, with a man’s right to manage his own affairs.” As was expressed by Mrs. Annie Besant in her presidential address before the Indian National Congress in 1917: “India is no longer on her knees for ‘boons’; she is on her feet for Rights.”
The first voice of organized Indian nationalist opinion demanding reform in the British government of India, was heard in 1885. In that year the first session of the Indian National Congress was held in Bombay. The Congress began as a gathering of a small group of progressive nationalist leaders from different parts of the country. Gradually, as its function became known, the ranks of the congress were swelled by delegates from all sections of India, and soon its responsible character as the representative organ of Indian progressive opinion on political matters was recognized in both England and India.
The Congress began its career as a critic of British policies in the country. It submitted a request to the English nation for an inquiry into Indian affairs and presented claims for reforms in the irresponsible and autocratic character of the British Government in the country. As time passed and the real nature of English rule began to be disclosed, the Indian nationalists became “bolder in their criticisms and more ambitious in their claims for reform.” Except for minor concessions granted through the courtesy of a few sympathetic viceroys nothing positive in the direction of the better government of India was accomplished by the Indian National Congress until the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909. Yet in spite of its enormous difficulties, arising from the stubbornness of British bureaucracy in India and the cold, unconcerned attitude of the English Parliament towards Indian claims, the Congress had done excellent work in arousing the educated classes of the country to a realization of their political wrongs.
The Indian nationalist movement received a great impetus during the harsh reign of Lord Curzon as the high-handed Viceroy of India. One of the acts of Lord Curzon was the partition of Bengal in 1905,—“an act which aroused in the entire population of Bengal a violent outburst of popular disapproval.” The purpose of the English Viceroy in dividing the province into two portions was to destroy the unity of Bengal, and to sow at the same time seeds of bitter Hindu-Muslim feuds. But the Bengalee youths were determined not to accept the dismemberment of their ancient land of Bengal, and the entire province was in a state of anarchy for a period of six years. In spite of the attempts of the English to quiet the agitation, it gradually spread all over India until at last the hated act was repealed by royal proclamation at the Delhi coronation Durbar in 1911.