For a synopsis of the findings and recommendations of the Industrial Commission mentioned in this chapter see appendix 1.

XII
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

In December, 1917, the Government of India appointed a committee of three Englishmen and two Indians (1) “to investigate and report on the nature and extent of the criminal conspiracies connected with the revolutionary movements in India, (2) to examine and consider the difficulties that have arisen in dealing with such conspiracies and to advise as to the legislation, if any, necessary to enable the government to deal effectively with them.” Of the three English members, Mr. Justice Rowlatt of the King’s Bench Division, England, was appointed as president, and of the other two, one was a judge in the service of the Government and the other a member of a Board of Revenue in one of the Indian Provinces. Of the two Indians, one was a judge and the other a practicing lawyer.

This committee submitted its report in April, 1918, which was published by the Government of India in July of the same year. The president, Mr. Justice Rowlatt’s letter covering the report gives the nature of the evidence upon which their report is based, which is as follows: “Statements have been placed before us with documentary evidence by the Governments of Bengal, Bombay, Bihar and Orissa, the Central Provinces, the United Provinces, the Punjab and Burmah as well as by the Government of India. In every case, except that of Madras, we were further attended by officers of the government, presenting this statement, who gave evidence before us. In the two provinces in which we held sittings, namely, Bengal and Punjab, we further invited and secured the attendance of individuals, or as deputed by associations, of gentlemen who we thought might give us information from various non-official points of view.”

It is clear from this statement that the investigation of the committee was neither judicial nor even semi-judicial; it was a purely administrative inquiry conducted behind the backs of the individuals concerned, without the latter having any opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses or giving their explanations of the evidence against them. While the different Governments in India were fully represented in each case by the ablest of their servants, the individuals investigated were not. We do not want to insinuate that either the Governments or the officers deputed by them were unfair in their evidence. All that we want to point out is that the other side had no opportunity of putting their case before the committee. Consequently, it is no wonder that one comes across many traces of political and racial bias both in the introduction and the Report.

The very first paragraph of the introduction betrays either ignorance on the part of the committee about the ancient history of India, or a deliberate misrepresentation of the nature of the Hindu State. The committee says: “Republican or Parliamentary forms of governments as at present understood were neither desired nor known in India until after the establishment of British rule. In the Hindu State the form of government was an absolute monarchy, though the monarch was by the Hindu Shastras hedged round by elaborate rules for securing the welfare of his subjects and was assisted by a body of councillors, the chief of whom were Brahmin members of the priestly class which derived authority from a time when the priests were the sole repositories of knowledge and therefore the natural instruments of administration.” The statements made in this paragraph do not represent the whole truth.

The committee ignores the fact that Republican or Parliamentary forms of Government “as at present understood” were neither desired nor known in any part of the world, except perhaps England itself until after the establishment of British rule in India.[1] Then the committee has altogether ignored that, in the Hindu State, the form of government was not an absolute monarchy always and in all parts of India. There is ample historical evidence to prove that India had many Republican States, along with oligarchies and monarchies at one and the same period of her history. The second part of the second sentence is also not correct, because the priestly class derived its authority from a time when the priests were not the sole repositories of knowledge. The several Hindu political treatises belong to a period when the whole populace was highly educated and could take substantial part in the determination of the affairs of their country.

Equally misleading is the last sentence of the introduction where the committee says that it is among the Chitpavan Brahmins of the Poona district that they first find indications of a revolutionary movement. This statement is incorrect, if it means that after the establishment of British rule in India no attempt had been made to overthrow it prior to the Revolutionary movement inaugurated by the Poona Brahmins. The statement ignores three such attempts which are known to history; viz., (a) the great Mutiny of 1857, (b) the Wahábee Rebellion of Bengal, and (c) the Kúká Rebellion of the Punjab; not to mention other minor attempts made in other places by other people.