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

by Lala Lajpat Rai

Since India has borne faithfully and loyally her part in the war, one of the distinct stipulations in the treaty of peace at the end should be the granting to her of home rule. This is as much her right as is autonomy the right of Belgium or Poland. This right is recognized by not a few Englishmen; it should be recognized by the whole nation, and put into effect generously, freely, without waiting for struggle and bloodshed. The advantage to Great Britain would be incalculable. It would remove from her as a nation her most threatening danger, and it would give to her Empire a solidity and permanent strength such as it cannot otherwise secure.

While India wants freedom to shape her own affairs, her wisest minds do not desire separation from England. They recognize many strong ties between the two countries which they would not see broken. While they are determined not much longer to lie prostrate beneath England’s feet, they would gladly stand by her side, arm in arm with her, firmly united for great ends of mutual welfare and mutual strength. An Anglo-Indian Empire is one of the splendid possibilities of the future, binding Britain and her colonies and her great Asiatic possession together into a powerful world-spanning federation of free peoples. Something like this is the dream of India’s greatest leaders, as it is also the dream of not a few of Britain’s most far-seeing minds.

When this world-revolutionizing war is over, Great Britain must reshape after a larger and more adequate pattern her whole scheme of Imperial Government. She must become a Federated Empire. There must be self-government at home, not only for Ireland but also for Scotland, Wales and England. And there must be self-government abroad, not only for Canada, Australasia and South Africa, but, as not less imperative and not less wise, for India also, to be followed in time, as conditions can be made favourable, by self-rule more or less complete for all of Britain’s more important dependencies.

The danger is that Britain may forget India or thrust her aside, as in the past, to the position of a mere dependency. If she does this she will plant a cancer in the heart of her Empire, she will create a volcano under her throne. It will take courage and large statesmanship to give India home rule, as it took large statesmanship and courage to give home rule to South Africa. But the splendid venture must be made. And, made in the right spirit, it will succeed as perfectly as it did in South Africa.

Has Great Britain statesmen sufficiently far-sighted, with adequate genius and courage, to do to India the splendid justice of giving her the home rule which is her right, and then to create a world-circling federation of free peoples with India a partner in it,—a real Anglo-Indian Empire? It would be the most brilliant, constructive and noble work of statesmanship known to the modern world.

Now that Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans as well as Englishmen, Scotchmen, Welshmen and Irishmen have fought side by side with the soldiers of India, shedding their blood in a common cause, why should they not all gladly welcome those heroic and loyal men of the East to a place by their side in the Empire which they have helped to save?

Need England shrink from the risk? This is her path of least risk. Under present conditions India is her peril. The one thing that will transform India from a source of ever-increasing danger to a bulwark of strength, is to trust her as South Africa has been trusted. She is certainly as worthy of trust as South Africa was. Thus to trust her, and to lift her up to a responsible place in the Empire, will appeal to India’s pride as it has never been appealed to, will create in her an enthusiasm of loyalty equal to anything seen in any of the self-ruling colonies, will bind her to Great Britain with bands of steel.

Is it said that India is incapable of ruling herself? That was said of South Africa; that was said of Canada; that was said of the American Colonies when they broke off from Great Britain and set up a Government of their own; that is what England has long been saying of Ireland. That is what every nation that loves power always says of every section of its people that wants more liberty.

The truth is, the safest Government in the world for every people of any intellectual and moral development at all (and India is advanced, both intellectually and morally) is self-government. No rule so completely destroys the fibre of a nation as rule by a foreign power. India can rule herself far better than any foreign nation can rule her.

If India is incapable of self-government today, what an indictment is that against England! She was not thus incapable before England came. Has one hundred and fifty years of British tutelage produced such deterioration? India was possessed of a high civilization and of developed Governments long before England or any part of Central, Western or Northern Europe had emerged from barbarism. For three thousand years before England’s arrival in the Orient, Indian Kingdoms and Empires had held leading places in Asia, and that means in the world. Some of the ablest rulers, statesmen, generals and financiers known to history, as well as many of the greatest thinkers and writers of mankind, have been of India’s production. How is it, then, that she suddenly becomes imbecile and unable to stand on her own feet or conduct her own affairs as soon as England appears on the scene?