When the war broke out in August, 1914, I, with other Indian publicists, thought that however badly you had treated us in the past we had nothing to gain by German victory and the best thing, under the circumstances, was for us to stand by you and establish our claim to better treatment. The Princes and people of India therefore stood by you. You and your colleagues have been singing their praises and extolling their loyalty, but nothing has been done so far to give them even the elementary political rights of a free people. Verily, we have had a deluge of fine words but not an iota of deeds. On the other hand, you have imposed fresh burdens on us. While doing an "act of justice" about the cotton duties you have committed a wrong which wipes away the little good that might otherwise have been expected to accrue therefrom. Your courts and officers in India have taken away what little freedom the people enjoyed before. In cases of alleged sedition the sentences inflicted have been quite on a par with the doings of the Romanoffs in Russia. This time even women have felt your steel.
You knew as well as anyone else does, how the German government has been trying to win the good will of the Indians. It cannot be denied that the temptation was alluring. If, then, we have withstood it, it was not because we were in love with your Government in India, but on different grounds. Personally, I do not believe that any liberty is worth having which we cannot win ourselves, because liberty won by the aid of another places us at the mercy of that other. European diplomacy is so crooked that it is futile to place faith in the promises of any of them.
I would esteem German friendship as much as British or American or that of the Japanese or the Chinese; I would gratefully accept any help anybody would render in educating and fitting our young men for the coming task, but I would not do anything that would cause useless bloodshed in India. I am not afraid of blood. Blood will have to be shed if we are to gain our freedom. I am not afraid of failures and defeats. Failures and defeats are sometimes the necessary steps to victory. I do not believe in peace at any price; nor pacificism at any cost. I do not believe that "they also serve who only stand and wait." I am for a manly assertion of our rights, even though blood may have to be spilled in asserting or defending them; yet I would consider it highly improper to encourage bloodshed where there is not a ghost of a chance of success. That, in my eyes, is sheer lunacy and I have never made a secret of it. So I protested against my people attempting to stir up revolt in India, under the instigation of a foreign government. It was due to my horror of useless bloodshed. I have no doubt that agents provocateur played an important part in instigating those whom your courts have found guilty and sent to the gallows. I believe that the men who have been sacrificed should have lived and worked for the movement for which they have died. So that, in a nutshell, gives you my attitude towards foreign help. Remember, please, sir, that I do not presume to pronounce any judgment on those who think differently and have acted in the light of their consciences. I simply state my opinion and my attitude.
This time the movement has failed. It was bound to fail. But the experience which the Indians engaged in the cause have gained is not lost. Next time, and who knows, the chance may come at no distant date, they will profit by the experience thus gained. The world is not in love with you, sir. There are a dozen peoples in the world who will be glad to see your downfall and help in bringing it about. They will not support the Indian Nationalist and the Indian Revolutionist openly, but they will encourage him in every way they can, without bringing about diplomatic complications. So the Indian will not be altogether friendless when the next opportunity to strike comes. By that time the country also will be better prepared to do something more definite and more spectacular.
Under the circumstances, the question that I wish to put to you is: "Would you do nothing to avert it?" It is in your power to act if you will. The Indians are very easily satisfied. They abhor bloodshed. They do not like revolution. They will gladly remain in the Empire, if permitted to do so on terms of self-respect and honor. Their needs are few. Their life is simple. They care more for spiritual values than for worldly goods. They envy nobody's property. They have no ambition to start on a career of exploitation. All they want is to be let to live and think as they will. At present they are let to exist, but not to live. More than 100 million are insufficiently fed. At least 60 millions do not get two meals a day. More than 80% of the boys receive no schooling, and more than 90% of the girls. They work and toil and sweat primarily in the interests of the British capitalist and secondarily in the interests of his Indian colleague. The latter only gets the leavings of the former. The ships, the railways, the leading banking houses, the big insurance offices, the tea plantations, one-half of the cotton mills, about all the woollen mills, most of the paper mills, all jute mills are owned by the former; a few by the latter. The profits of agriculture are divided between your Government and the big landlords. The pressure on land has reduced the size of the ryots' holdings, while the number of mouths requiring food and the number of bodies requiring clothing has increased.
Your Government encourages drinking, speculating and gambling in a way never before conceived. If you have any pity in your heart, sir; if you are a good father and a good husband, I would beseech you to devote but an hour's time to the wages tables printed by your Government in their Report on Prices and Wages (1915). I give a few samples below:
In the district of Patna (Behar), the monthly wage of an able-bodied agricultural laborer in the year 1907 was only R5.62 (say R6) equal to 8s. or $2. In 1873 it was from R3 to R4. Imagine the laborer having a family of four and then conceive how he manages to live on this wage. In Fyzabad (Oude) the monthly wage of an able-bodied agricultural laborer was only R4 (5s. 4d. or $1.33) in 1905, the same as it was in 1873. In 1906 it is given as ranging from R1.87 to R4 a month. From 1873 to 1906 it was never more than R4 a month.
In Cawnpore (U. P.) it was R3.75 in 1873; R3 in 1892; less than 4 in 1896; from 3.44 to R5 in 1898 and from R3.69 to 7 in 1903; at which figure it practically stayed up to 1906, the last year for which figures are given in the report.
In Meerut (U. P.) it was R4.33 in 1906 as against R4.5 in 1873.
In Belgaun (Madras) it was R6.25 in 1912.