The new spirit in India

by Henry Woodd Nevinson

“Orientals, they say, do not understand it. But we are not Orientals; that is the root of the matter. We English, Scotch, and Irish are in India because we are not Orientals.... We are representatives, not of Oriental civilization but Western civilization, of its methods, its principles, its practices; and I for one will not be hurried into an excessive haste for repression by the argument that Orientals do not understand this toleration.

“Anybody who has read history knows that the Extremist beats the Moderate by his fire, his fiery energy, his very narrowness and concentration. But still we hold that it would be the height of political folly for us at this moment to refuse to do all we can to rally the Moderates to the cause of the Government, simply because the policy will not satisfy the Extremists. Let us, if we can, rally the Moderates, and, if we are told that the policy will not satisfy the Extremists, so be it; our line will remain the same.

“... Some of them (the leaders of unrest) are angry with me. Why? Because I have not been able to give them the moon. I have got no moon, and if I had I would not give them the moon.

“... I am not surprised that these educated Indians who read these great masters and teachers of ours (Milton, Burke, Macaulay, and Mill) are intoxicated with the ideas of freedom and nationality and self-government which these great writers promulgate. Who of us can wonder who had the privilege in the days of our youth, at college or at home, of turning over these golden pages and seeing that lustrous firmament dome over our youthful imaginations—who of us can forget the intoxication and rapture with which we made friends with these truths?... I only say this to my idealist friends, whether Indian or European, that for every passage they can find in the speeches or writings of these great teachers of wisdom, I will find them a dozen passages in which, in the language of Burke, the warning is given—‘How weary a step do those take who endeavour to make out of a great mass a true political personality!’”

After referring to a saying about Sir Henry Lawrence, that “no one ever sat at his table without learning to think more kindly of the natives,” Mr. Morley added:—

“India is perhaps the one country—bad manners, overbearing manners are very disagreeable in all countries—India is the only country where bad and overbearing manners are a political crime.”

Towards the end of the summer there had been some local riots and disturbances in Southern India because at Cocanada, on the coast north of Madras, an Englishman was accused of having beaten a Hindu boy for shouting “Bande Mataram.” He was sentenced to a small fine (£10, including damages), and was acquitted on appeal. But this autumn, unhappily, Indian opinion was further inflamed by the results of two trials in private cases held before British juries in the Punjab. In Lahore a British journalist was accused of having shot his bearer dead, after kicking him out of the house, revolver in hand, and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, the jury finding that death was accidental. In the other case, at Rawal Pindi, a British assistant station-master and a Mohammedan porter admitted to having in turn outraged a Hindu woman, who was waiting for a train and was enticed into the stationmaster’s room by threats and pretended information about a telegram. Both were acquitted by the jury on a plea of “consent.”

In November of this year, Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, veteran champion of India’s cause before the English people, returned to spend his last days in a quiet place on the coast near Bombay. Born a Bombay Parsi in 1825, he had first gone to live in England just before the Mutiny, but had often returned to official or other work in Baroda and Bombay. He was a member of the first Indian National Congress at its inauguration in Bombay (1885), and in the next year stood as Liberal candidate for Holborn, on which occasion Lord Salisbury told the electors he could not believe they would vote for a “black man.” Nevertheless, he was Liberal member for Central Finsbury from 1892 to 1895, being the first Indian in the House of Commons. In 1892 he was President of the Congress held at Lahore, and in 1906, in spite of his great age, he consented to be President of the Congress held at Calcutta, because it was felt that the reverence with which he was regarded by all Indians would avert the danger of open rupture between the moderate and extremist parties.

This bare summary of events may, perhaps, be useful for reference, and I think it will enable readers of the following pages better to understand the subjects of public interest that were occupying the attention of educated Indians and of Anglo-Indians when I arrived at Bombay in October, 1907, as correspondent for the Manchester Guardian and other papers.

I owe my hearty thanks to all Anglo-Indian and Indian officials and friends who gave me ungrudging assistance during my visit, and especially to Mr. S. K. Ratcliffe, lately editor of the Statesman in Calcutta, for reading my proofs and giving me the advantage of his exceptional knowledge.