Young India / An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within

by Lala Lajpat Rai

“In connection with this war there is one serious disappointment to which I cannot refrain from making reference in this place. Many an enlightened and intelligent person, irrespective of caste and creed, in every province of the Indian Empire, has applied, from the very date of the declaration of war, to go to the front and fight side by side with the soldiers of the regular Indian army. Even to-day thousands on thousands are willing and ready to take up arms in the great cause for which the Allies are fighting. But unfortunately, the permanent bureaucracy of the land has sternly, if politely, refused those applications, the why and the wherefore of which has never been made known. It is this attitude of the Government, in the midst of the great tragic crisis, that has caused the bitterest disappointment to which many a leading organ of public opinion has given full expression. Russia, which has millions of population but less numerous than that of India, has already raised and is still raising a popular army full of ardour and patriotism to overcome the forces of the modern Vandals who are such enemies of liberty and freedom. The British Colonies are similarly raising corps after corps to give succour to the mother country, but strange to say, that while millions in India are on the qui vive to offer their services, a kind of proscription has gone forth from the governing authorities that they shall not be enrolled. This is indeed an un-English attitude which is unreconcilable with the entire policy of British administration in every other part of the Empire. I am only echoing the universal sentiments and feelings of my countrymen when I venture to say in this place that the Rulers of India still seem to mistrust the people.”

Comparing the policy of the British with Imperial Rome, Mr. Wacha concludes:

“We all devoutly hope that profiting by this great achievement, Great Britain will not deny any further to the Indian people the exercise of arms, the want of which for so many years has led to their emasculation.”[18]

This word “emasculation” affords the key to the situation in India from the purely Indian point of view. Political, physical and economic “emasculation” is the keynote of British rule there, and however they may cloak it with wrappings of pleasant and golden words, and however they may conceal it in finely woven sentences, like the cloven feet it emerges at almost every step. The Modern Review puts it well when it says:

“Under bureaucratic rule, India is the poorest, the most unhealthy and the most ignorant among civilised countries, and her poverty and unhealthiness are not diminishing, and education is spreading at a slower pace than that of the snail. The remedy is Home Rule.”

There is another brief quotation which I will give, from the speech of the President of the last session of the Indian National Congress, viz., the one relating to the poverty of India. He says: “Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to whether India is growing richer or poorer under the British rule, there is none with regard to her extreme poverty. And there can never be political contentment without material prosperity, shared in by all classes of the people. What the District Administration Committee of Bengal quotes with approval as regards Bengal, that our industrial backwardness is a great political danger, applies in reality to the whole of India.

“No one will be disposed to question the fact of this amazing backwardness. Rich in all the resources of nature, India continues to be the poorest country in the civilised world.”[19]

VI

I do not propose to burden this preface with other complaints which the Indian politicians make against the British Government, but I can not refrain from giving one more quotation from my own pamphlet on the question of Education:

“Let us look at education in India. India has been under British rule now for a century and a half in some parts, for over a century in others, and for at least 65 years in the Punjab. Yet the percentage of illiteracy is well nigh 95 per cent., taking the whole of India. Greatest ignorance prevails among the peasantry and the military classes, the two great bulwarks of British rule in India. What has the Government done to educate these classes? Nothing. Some maintain that they have been deliberately kept out of education because, once educated, they may no longer be such willing tools as they are now.