However, the government stood firm. Violence was countered with stern repression. Riotous mobs were mowed down wholesale by rifle and machine-gun fire or were scattered by bombs dropped from low-flying aeroplanes. The most noted of these occurrences was the so-called "Amritsar Massacre," where British troops fired into a seditious mass-meeting, killing 500 and wounding 1500 persons. In the end the government mastered the situation. Order was restored, the seditious leaders were swept into custody, and the revolutionary agitation was once more driven underground. The enactment of the Montagu-Chelmsford reform bill by the British Parliament toward the close of the year did much to relax the tension and assuage discontent, though the situation of India was still far from normal. The deplorable events of the earlier part of 1919 had roused animosities which were by no means allayed. The revolutionary elements, though driven underground, were more bitter and uncompromising than ever, while opponents of home rule were confirmed in their conviction that India could not be trusted and that any relaxation of autocracy must spell anarchy.
This was obviously not the best mental atmosphere in which to apply the compromises of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. In fact, the extremists were determined that they should not be given a fair trial, regarding the reforms as a snare which must be avoided at all costs. Recognizing that armed rebellion was still impossible, at least for the present, the extremists evolved the idea known as "non-co-operation." This was, in fact, a gigantic boycott of everything British. Not merely were the new voters urged to stay away from the polls and thus elect no members to the proposed legislative bodies, but lawyers and litigants were to avoid the courts, taxpayers refuse to pay imposts, workmen to go on strike, shopkeepers to refuse to buy or sell British-made goods, and even pupils to leave the schools and colleges. This wholesale "out-casting" of everything British would make the English in India a new sort of Pariah—"untouchables"; the British Government and the British community in India would be left in absolute isolation, and the Raj, rendered unworkable, would have to capitulate to the extremist demands for complete self-government.
Such was the non-co-operation idea. And the idea soon found an able exponent: a certain M. K. Gandhi, who had long possessed a reputation for personal sanctity and thus inspired the Hindu masses with that peculiar religious fervour which certain types of Indian ascetics have always known how to arouse. Gandhi's propaganda can be judged by the following extract from one of his speeches: "It is as amazing as it is humiliating that less than 100,000 white men should be able to rule 315,000,000 Indians. They do so somewhat, undoubtedly, by force, but more by securing our co-operation in a thousand ways and making us more and more helpless and dependent on them, as time goes forward. Let us not mistake reformed councils (legislatures), more law-courts, and even governorships for real freedom or power. They are but subtler methods of emasculation. The British cannot rule us by mere force. And so they resort to all means, honourable and dishonourable, in order to retain their hold on India. They want India's billions and they want India's man-power for their imperialistic greed. If we refuse to supply them with men and money, we achieve our goal: namely, Swaraj,[205] equality, manliness."
The extreme hopes of the non-co-operation movement have not been realized. The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms have been put in operation, and the first elections under them were held at the beginning of 1921. But the outlook is far from bright. The very light vote cast at the elections revealed the effect of the non-co-operation movement, which showed itself in countless other ways, from strikes in factories to strikes of school-children. India to-day is in a turmoil of unrest. And this unrest is not merely political; it is social as well. The vast economic changes which have been going on in India for the past half-century have profoundly disorganized Indian society. These changes will be discussed in later chapters. The point to be here noted is that the extremist leaders are capitalizing social discontent and are unquestionably in touch with Bolshevik Russia. Meanwhile the older factors of disturbance are by no means eliminated. The recent atrocious massacre of dissident Sikh pilgrims by orthodox Sikh fanatics, and the three-cornered riots between Hindus, Mohammedans, and native Christians which broke out about the same time in southern India, reveal the hidden fires of religious and racial fanaticism that smoulder beneath the surface of Indian life.
The truth of the matter is that India is to-day a battle-ground between the forces of evolutionary and revolutionary change. It is an anxious and a troubled time. The old order is obviously passing, and the new order is not yet fairly in sight. The hour is big with possibilities of both good and evil, and no one can confidently predict the outcome.
FOOTNOTES:
[192] According to some historians, this race-mixture occurred almost at once. The theory is that the Aryan conquerors, who outside the north-western region had very few of their own women with them, took Dravidian women as wives or concubines, and legitimatized their half-breed children, the offspring of the conquerors, both pure-bloods and mixed-bloods, coalescing into a closed caste. Further infiltration of Dravidian blood was thus prevented, but Aryan race-purity had been destroyed.
[193] Sir Bampfylde Fuller, Studies of Indian Life and Sentiment, p. 40 (London, 1910). For other discussions of caste and its effects, see W. Archer, India and the Future (London, 1918); Sir V. Chirol, Indian Unrest (London, 1910); Rev. J. Morrison, New Ideas in India: A Study of Social, Political and Religious Developments (Edinburgh, 1906); Sir H. Risley, The People of India (London, 1908); also writings of the "Namasudra" leader, Dr. Nair, previously quoted, and S. Nihal Singh, "India's Untouchables," Contemporary Review, March, 1913.
[194] For the nationalist movement, see Archer, Chirol, and Morrison, supra. Also Sir H. J. S. Cotton, India in Transition (London, 1904); J. N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India (New York, 1915); Sir W. W. Hunter, The India of the Queen and Other Essays (London, 1903); W. S. Lilly, India and Its Problems (London, 1902); Sir V. Lovett, A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement (London, 1920); J. Ramsay Macdonald, The Government of India (London, 1920); Sir T. Morison, Imperial Rule in India (London, 1899); J. D. Rees, The Real India (London, 1908); Sir J. Strachey, India: Its Administration and Progress (Fourth Edition—London, 1911); K. Vyasa Rao, The Future Government of India (London, 1918).
[195] I have already discussed this "Golden Age" tendency in Chapter III. For more or less Extremist Indian view-points, see A. Coomaraswamy, The Dance of Siva (New York, 1918); H. Maitra, Hinduism: The World-Ideal (London, 1916); Bipin Chandra Pal, "The Forces Behind the Unrest in India," Contemporary Review, February, 1910; also various writings of Lajpat Rai, especially The Arya Samaj (London, 1915) and Young India (New York, 1916).