Always impatient of criticism, Lord Curzon hastened through Eastern Bengal, lecturing the Hindu leaders and trying to win over the Moslems. With the Moslems, by one means or another, he partially succeeded, but the opposition among the bulk of the Bengal population continued as determined as ever. Hundreds of indignation meetings were held; I believe about two thousand in all. Great petitions were presented; one with 70,000 signatures attached was sent to the Home Government. But it was all in vain. The English people paid no attention; they were not sure where Bengal was; most of them had never heard of it apart from tigers, and did not care what Partition meant. The Home Government perhaps had its own reasons for “letting Curzon down gently.” The scheme was hustled through almost in secrecy, and almost avowedly against his better judgment, Mr. Brodrick gave his assent. The fatal “Government Resolution on the Partition of Bengal” was issued from Simla on July 19, 1905; it was followed by the Proclamation of September 1st, and a blow was given to the credit of our country and to her reputation for justice and popular government, from which it will take us long years of upright administration and reform to recover.[37]
On October 16th of the same year the Resolution took effect, and the Partition became what Mr. Morley in an unhappy moment called “a settled fact.” The anniversary of that national wrong has now become the Ash Wednesday of India. On that day thousands and thousands of Indians rub dust or ashes on their foreheads; at dawn they bathe in silence as at a sacred fast; no meals are eaten; the shops in cities and the village bazaars are shut; women refuse to cook; they lay aside their ornaments; men bind each other’s wrists with a yellow string as a sign that they will never forget the shame; and the whole day is passed in resentment, mourning, and the hunger of humiliation. In Calcutta vast meetings are held, and the errors of the Indian Government are exposed with eloquent patriotism. With each year the indignation of the protest has increased; the crowds have grown bigger, the ceremonial more widely spread, the fast more rigorous.
Such was the Partition of Bengal, prompted, as nearly all educated Indians believe, by Lord Curzon’s personal dislike of the Bengali race, as shown also by his Convocation speech of the previous February, in which he brought against the whole people an indictment for mendacity.[38] The Partition marks the beginning of the “unrest” in its present form. I think some kind of unrest would have been developed within the next few years in any case. It arises from all manner of deep-lying causes—from the success of Asiatic Japanese in war against a great European power, from the general communication by railway, the visits of even high-caste Brahmans to Europe, the use of English as a common tongue, the increasing knowledge of our history and liberties, and the increasing study of our great Liberal thinkers and John Morley’s works. Add to these things the growing alienation of the subject races, owing to notorious cases of injustice in the law courts, ill-mannered arrogance on the part of certain Anglo-Indians, abusive incitements to violence by Anglo-Indian newspapers, and a system of espionage by the police and postal officials. It would be a wonder indeed if any people with a grain of self-respect left in them had remained unmoved. But beyond question it was the Partition that directly occasioned the present outbreaks of distrust and hostility. When their petitions remained unanswered, and their public meetings had no effect, when the Partition was carried out with despotic indifference to their feelings and interests, the Bengali people, and through them the vast majority of educated Indians, unwillingly became convinced that England no longer cared what happened to them or their country, provided they paid the revenue and kept quiet. It was a dangerous conviction to which they had been brought. England as a whole neither knew nor cared anything about it. She thought she had done enough when she had entrusted Lord Curzon and the Home Government with the duty of knowing and caring.
All advocates of the Partition, from Sir Harvey Adamson downwards, have continually sneered at the Bengali objection to having their country cut in half as “sentimental.”[39] By “sentimental” I find that this sort of people always understand an emotion that does not bring in sixpence. For instance, if we love our country because of her reputation for justice and freedom, they call us hysterical sentimentalists; but if we love our country because trade follows the flag, they call us sound supporters of the Empire. In accordance with this despicable standard, we may say that the chief objection to the Partition is one of sentiment. It is none the less strong on that account. It is the same kind of sentiment as would set Scotland ablaze with indignation if an English Prime Minister drew a jagged line from Thurso to Dumfries, and announced that in future Scotland would consist of two separate provinces, with one government in Edinburgh and the other in Glasgow, and no connection between them. A Scotsman’s chief objection might be described as “sentimental” by people of Sir Harvey Adamson’s mind, but I think “unrest” would hardly be the word for what would follow.
Yet that is exactly what England has allowed to be done in Bengal. The root of the indignation is a sentiment—an emotion that does not bring in sixpence. It is the sentiment of a patriotic and progressive race cut in two by an action which they believe to have been arbitrary and suggested by pique. And just because it is a sentiment, no material advantage or convenience of administration can ever serve as compensation for the wrong. But even if outraged national feeling could be set aside as a sentimental complaint, the other grievances are strong. Calcutta is justly claimed by all Bengalis for their own capital, as well as the capital of India. It is the centre of their culture and trade, of justice and government. It has the best Indian newspapers; it is the home of the best social intercourse; its University sets the standard of knowledge; its High Court is regarded with confidence by all Indians as a sure appeal against injustice. To be separated from Calcutta and compelled to look to poor, ruinous, decrepit old Dacca as their capital is for Bengalis an intellectual and material loss. Dacca was a good enough Mohammedan capital three centuries ago, but now it is difficult to get at; its river, as I said, is silting up; it has not a single newspaper worthy of the name; it has no University, no High Court, and its new Lieutenant-Governor lives for months together far away at Shillong, almost inaccessible in the hills. It is true that Government has bought a lot of land north of the town and has laid out foundations for residences and offices where future officials can enjoy themselves in comfort. The existence of those foundations is a common argument against reversing the Partition even among the many officials who recognized its error. But to the Bengalis it only makes the thing worse, for their wretched country will now have to pay fora double set of buildings, a double set of high and low officials, and a double set of questionable police.
There are other points. No one but landlords feels much disturbed at the woes of landlords, who suck their livelihood off the land like ticks off a sheep. But even sheep-ticks have their feelings, and in Eastern Bengal the zemindars also have a certain use in the world, especially when hunger drives them to cultivate their land themselves. To the zemindars the Partition has been a loss and hardship, increasing their legal expenses, and reducing such amenity as life afforded them. Naturally, their sufferings are worst when the line of partition passes straight through their land and exposes their flanks to double lawyers’ fees from right and left. An Englishman whose ancestral estate had been thus divided between the two provinces, told me his existence had been rendered almost intolerable. He had always been accustomed to go to Calcutta for business connected with the estate, and as he was a celebrated polo-player and took an intelligent interest in horse-racing, his business visits to the capital were both frequent and pleasing. But now for more than half his business he had to travel far away to dingy Dacca—no horse-racing; no polo renown! This was no imaginary or sentimental grievance like the indignation of a proud and ancient race split in two for the satisfaction of its rulers, and I felt sure that if only such a case could be brought home to the sportsmanlike governors of our Empire, they would persuade Lord Morley to regard his “settled fact” in a more pliable spirit.
The Eastern Bengalis also object to being bound up with the backward province of Assam, whose people they regard as semi-barbarous, and for whose improvement they alone will now have to pay, whereas the cost was formerly shared by all India. “Are we to be Assamese for ever?” is the scornful question of even Mohammedan peasants when they meet the sort of man who knows the news. Equally significant was a small Assamese deputation which came to me in Calcutta, because they had heard I was a Liberal, and they supposed that a Liberal Government would listen to Liberal principles. Their petition was for help in removing the yoke which now binds them to Eastern Bengal, where the progressive and educated population are too clever for them by half!
But of all material grievances—of all grievances other than the central crime of cutting a nationality in half—I think the Eastern Bengalis most fear their threatened separation from the Calcutta High Court. It is true that the blow has not yet fallen, but it is almost certain to fall, and the Government has refused to give any pledge against it. When I consulted Sir Andrew Fraser, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, upon this subject, he very kindly referred me to Sir Herbert Risley’s answer to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, which had from the first petitioned against the change.[40] In Sir Andrew Fraser’s opinion, “Lord Curzon’s Government there placed clearly on record their view that nothing less than a High Court could ever be established in the new province,” but he appears to me to have misread the document. In the main sections of his reply, Sir Herbert Risley carefully guards the Government three times over from making any guarantee as to the future. He states it as the Government’s opinion:—
“That it is most unlikely that in the event of the existing judicial machinery being found inadequate for the service of the two provinces and of public opinion then demanding the establishment of a Chartered High Court, any tribunal occupying a position of less authority and influence would either be proposed by the Government of India or sanctioned by the Secretary of State.”
But he refuses to bind the future Government either to maintain the present connection between Eastern Bengal and the Calcutta High Court, or to establish a new High Court at Dacca in its place. The fear of the Eastern Bengalis is that in place of a High Court, which is regarded throughout India as the embodiment of true British justice uncontaminated by Anglo-Indian prejudice and tradition, they may be put off with a Chief Court, in which the judges have been trained under the distorting influence of that prejudice and tradition. It is hard for us, accustomed to regard all our Courts as fairly equal in the dispensation of justice, to realize what that difference implies to Indians. But it is exactly parallel to the difference they recognize between most Anglo-Indians and the Englishman straight from home.