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

by Lala Lajpat Rai

Change in Indian Life and Depth of Nationalism. But this is only partially true of modern India. There is a great deal of exaggeration about the immobility of Indian people. There may be millions in India who are as unaffected by modern conditions of life and modern ideas as they were fifty years ago, but then there are millions who have consciously awakened. Their strength is not to be judged by the attendance at Congresses and conferences or other public meetings or demonstrations, nor by the circulation of newspapers or books. Popular demonstrations organised in honour of popular leaders, and the increase in the circulation of newspapers give indications of a great change in Indian life, but the actual change is even much greater. Read the poetry of the country or its prose, read the rough versifyings of the half-educated or even uneducated men and women (including some who are even illiterate), listen to the talk in the village park or square or other meeting places, see the games which the children of rustics and the poorest classes play, attend to the patterings of children, examine the popular songs or the music that is now in demand, then you will see how deeply nationalism has pervaded Indian life and what a strong hold it has gained in the thoughts of the people. No foreigner can realise that; only an Indian can properly understand it. Examine the vernacular press—the most sober and the most loyal papers, and underlying the expressions of deepest loyalty, you would assuredly come across genuine tears of blood, shed for the misfortune of the country, its decline, its present wretched and miserable condition. From the Indian press we hear a never-ceasing lamentation. Listen to the utterances of the most wanton chief, and the most callous millionaire, bring him out from his isolation or retirement, put him on the public platform, and you will notice a vein of nationalism in his thoughts and in his words. But if you can know what he talks in private to friends from whom he keeps no secrets, you will see and notice a great deal more. The writer has not so far met a single Indian of any class—he has met Indians of all classes and of all shades of opinions, educated, uneducated, prince and peasant, moderate and extremist, loyalist and seditionist,—who was genuinely sorry at the outbreak of this war. A number of Indians are fighting at the front. They are sincerely loyal and true to their oath of allegiance. They would leave nothing undone to win, but in their heart of hearts lurks something which in moments of reflection or when they are off duty, reminds them of the wrongs which they and their countrymen are suffering at the hands of England. Nationalism is no longer confined to the classes. It promises to become a universal cult. It is permeating the masses. Only those Indians realise it who mix with the people and do not derive their knowledge from works written by Englishmen or by other arm-chair politicians. No foreigner, however kind and sympathetic, however great his knowledge of the language of the country, can ever realise it fully. Even the dancing girls are affected by it. They will sing political or national songs if you so wish. Even the wandering minstrel with his rude, one-stringed instrument, knows the song that is likely to bring him help.

Nationalism Fertilised by Blood of Martyrs. No amount of repression or espionage can stop it. No amount of official terrorism and no devices, invented or followed to inculcate loyalty, can stop or check the flow of the new feeling of patriotism and nationalism which is being constantly fed by the sentences of death and transportation that the British courts are passing on beardless youths. The Government can not help it. They must punish the offender and the criminal. They must hunt up the seditionist. They would not be a government if they would do otherwise, but India is now in that stage and Indian nationalism is in that condition when repression, death sentences, and imprisonments are more beneficial to it than otherwise. The more it is repressed and suppressed, the more this spirit grows and spreads. It is a seed that is richly fertilised by the blood of martyrs. The people do not argue, they do not reason, they do not analyse; they feel that good, well-connected, healthy, beautiful boys are dying in the country’s cause and to get a redress of the country’s wrongs. When a bomb is thrown, the people genuinely condemn the bomb thrower, are sincere in their detestation, but when he is hanged or transported, they are sorry for him. Their original abhorrence changes into sympathy and then into love. They are martyrs of the national cause. They may be misguided, even mad, but they are martyrs all the same. The moralist and the legalist and the loyalist and the constitutionalist, all condemn their deeds, but the doers themselves, they adore, and their names they enshrine in their hearts.

Wave of Indian Nationalism is on. Such is human psychology, and such is the psychology of nations in the making. The Indian mind has entered on that phase. No amount of sweet speeches by the Viceroy or by the Lieutenant Governors or by the commissioners or deputy commissioners, no amount of honours and titles or rewards to individuals, no amount of preferment of one community as against another, no amount of canal-making or railway-developing, can change the tide that has begun to flow, or retard the sweep, much less turn it to ebb.

Propitiation and Petty Concessions Futile. This is the supreme fact of Indian life which every one who has anything to do with India, official or non-official, statesman or layman, politician or publicist, must recognise and face. Nations and individuals, filled with their own importance, drunk with power and resources, accustomed to mould things and forces in their own way, determined to keep what they have got, may not see things which are unpleasant to look at or to think about. But facts are facts and do not wait for their action on the pleasure of those who do not like them. Canute-like they may command the waves, but the waves will not listen to them. The wave of Indian nationalism is on and no amount of tinkering with Indian administration, or sweet phrases, or promises can check it. “We are the subjects of the same sovereign,” “citizens of the same empire,” “brothers in arms,” “comrades,” and so on,—these are kind words spoken by people who perhaps mean well. But in the light of past experience they do not carry much weight; they may befool some soft-hearted people, but they would not affect the general mind of the nation so long as they remain unaccompanied by deeds. An Executive Council for the United Provinces, a High Court for the Punjab, a High Court and a University for Behar, a Charter to the Hindu University, liberal grants to Islamic schools and colleges, may please some barristers and pleaders, but they will not satisfy the nation, so long as the Arms Act is on the statute book, so long as the Indian Councils are a farce, so long as the fiscal policy is laid down in the interests of Lancashire, and so long as hundreds and thousands of Indian boys fail to earn a decent living, while the country is being ruled and exploited by the few fortunate foreigners. Indians want to go to Canada, to South Africa, to the United States of America, because the wages to be earned in India are so low, because the life at home is so miserable, so helpless and so hard and so humiliating. Even abroad the Indian is kicked and insulted at almost every step, but then that is more easily borne than the kicks and insults of Englishmen in India.

Internal Division no Valid Plea. India has and can produce enough to feed her own children,[96] nay to spare, provided she were free to make her own laws, spend her own revenues, and protect her industries. Those who plead that Indians are too hopelessly divided into religions, communities, sects, castes, and languages, to be able to form a government of their own, forget that the English have been in India only for the last century and a half and that before that India governed herself. The India of to-day is in no way happier than it was before pre-British days. The India of Akbar was happier than the England of Elizabeth and even more prosperous. The India of Asoka was infinitely happier and more prosperous than the England of Alfred the Great. The India of Aurangzeb may perhaps have been miserable, but surely not more miserable than the England of Henry VIII, or the England of James I, or the Scotland of Mary, or the Ireland of Cromwell, or the France of Henry IV, or the Holland of Philip. We have the testimony of English historians and observers that subjects of the East India Company were in no way happier or more prosperous than when they were under Native rule,[97] and the subjects of Native States in India governed by Natives are on the whole in no way worse off than British subjects under the direct rule of the British.

Look at the United States, how the varied races, sects, religions, and communities have merged their differences and live under one national government; look at the number of languages spoken in the United States—in their schools and in their factories. Look at Switzerland, what a tiny little country it is! How many languages are spoken and taught in its schools and how many languages are spoken and used in its councils, and how many religions are professed by the people of the country!

The same remarks may be made about the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, where the form of government is largely representative in spite of the diversity of races, sects and languages.

The number of religions, sects and languages in India has been grossly exaggerated. With every census the number goes up by hundreds, though the country and the people are the same.

Illiteracy the Fault of the British and no Bar to Self-government. Again it is sometimes said that India cannot be self-ruling because of its illiteracy. This argument does not come with good grace from the Britishers because it is they who are responsible for the appalling illiteracy of the Indian population. In Japan, where the work of education was begun late in the last century, 28 per cent. of the children of school age were at school in 1873; by 1902-1903 the percentage had risen to 90. In India, after 150 years of British rule, the percentage is 19.6. The Indian Nationalists have for a number of years been asking for compulsory universal education, but the Government would not listen. The late Mr. Gokhale’s Compulsory Elementary Education Bill was strongly opposed by the Government and thrown out. But what is even worse is that the Government would not let the people open their own schools and colleges because of the unreasonably high standard set up by the Department for their recognition as public schools.

However, universal literacy of the people is not an indispensable pre-requisite of self-rule. In Japan, where 50 years ago representative government was set up, only the Samurai were literate. In India, too, the higher classes are educated to a considerable extent.