Let me now turn to Afghanistan. Generally speaking, the story of our dealings with that country has been a record of stupid, arrogant muddle. From the days of the first Afghan war, when an ill-fated army was despatched on its crazy mission to place a puppet king, Shah Shuja, on the throne of Afghanistan, our statesmen have, with some notable exceptions, mishandled the Afghan problem. And yet it is simple enough in itself. For we want very little of Afghanistan, and she does not really want much of us. All we want from the Amir is good-neighbourliness; that he should not allow his country to become the focus of intrigue or aggression against us by Powers hostile to us, and that he should co-operate with us for the maintenance of peace on our common border. All he wants of us is some assistance in money and munitions for the internal and external safeguarding of his realm, commercial and other facilities, and honourable recognition, for the Afghan, like the Indian, has a craving for self-respect and the respect of others.
Now, where our statesmen have failed is in regarding Afghanistan as a petty little State to be browbeaten and ordered about at our pleasure, without recognising the very valuable cards that the Amir holds against us. He sees his hand and appraises it at its value. He knows, in the first place, that nothing can be more embarrassing to us than the necessity for another Afghan war, and the despatch of a large force to the highlands of Kabul, to sit there possibly for years as an army of occupation, in a desolate country, incapable of affording supplies for the troops, at enormous cost which could never be recovered, and at the expense of much health and life, with no clear-cut policy beyond. He knows, in the second place, that such a war would be the signal for the rising of practically every tribe along our frontier. The cry of Jehad would go forth, as in the third Afghan war, and we should be confronted sooner or later with an outburst from the Black Mountain to Baluchistan—a formidable proposition in these days. He knows, in the third place, that with Moslem feeling strained as it is to-day on the subject of Turkey, there would be sympathy for him in India, and among the Moslem troops of the Indian army. Now these are serious considerations, but I do not suggest that they are so serious as to make us tolerate for a moment an offensive or unreasonable attitude on the part of the Amir. If the necessity should be forced on us, which God forbid, we should face the position with promptitude and firmness and hit at once; and apart from an advance into Afghanistan we have a valuable card in the closing of the passes and the blockade of that country.
All I suggest is that in negotiating with Afghanistan, we should remember these things and should not attempt to browbeat a proud and sensitive ruler, who, however inferior in the ordinary equipment for regular war, holds such valuable assets on his side. And my own experience is that the Afghans are not unreasonable. Like every one else, they will “try it on,” but if handled courteously, kindly, with geniality, and, above all, with complete candour, they will generally see reason. And remember one thing. In spite of all that has happened, our mistakes, our bluster, our occasional lapses from complete disingenuousness, the Afghans still like us. Moreover, their hereditary mistrust of Russia still inclines them to lean on us. We have lately concluded a treaty with Afghanistan—not by any means a perfect treaty, but the best certainly that could be secured in the circumstances, and we have sent a Minister to Kabul, Lt.-Colonel Humphrys, who was one of my officers on the frontier. A better man for the post could not, I believe, be found in the Empire. Unless unduly hampered by a hectoring diplomacy from Whitehall, he will succeed in establishing that goodwill and mutual confidence which between Governments is of more value than all the paper engagements ever signed. One word more of the Afghans. There is an idea that they are a treacherous and perfidious people. This, I believe, is wicked slander, so far as the rulers are concerned. In 1857, during the Indian Mutiny, the Amir Dost Muhammed was true to his bond, when he might have been a thorn in our side; and during the Great War the late Amir Halilullah, in the face of appalling difficulties, maintained the neutrality of his country, as he promised, and was eventually murdered, a martyr to his own good faith to us.
Internal Unrest
Let me now turn to our second question: internal political unrest. In clubs and other places where wise men in arm-chairs lay down the law about affairs of state, one constantly hears expressions of surprise and indignation that there should be any unrest in India at all. “We have,” say the die-hard wiseacres, “governed India jolly well and jolly honestly, and the Indians ought to be jolly grateful instead of kicking up all this fuss. If that meddlesome Montagu had not put these wicked democratic ideas into their heads, and stirred up all this mud, we should have gone on quite comfortable as before.” But if we face the facts squarely, we shall see that the wonder is not that there has been so much, but that there has been so comparatively little unrest, and that India should, on the whole, have waited so patiently for a definite advance towards self-government.
What are the facts? They are these. Partly by commercial enterprise, partly by adroit diplomacy, partly by accident, largely by the valour of our arms, we have obtained dominion over the great continent of India. We have ruled it for more than a century through the agency of a handful of Englishmen, alien in creed, colour, and custom from the people whom they rule—men who do not even make their permanent homes in the land they administer. Now, however efficient, however honest, however impartial, however disinterested such a rule may be, it cannot obviously be really agreeable to the peoples ruled. This is the fundamental weakness of our position. That our rule on these lines has lasted so long and has been so successful is due not to the fact alone that it has been backed by British bayonets, but rather to the fact that it has been remarkably efficient, honest, just, and disinterested—and, above all, that we have in the past given and secured goodwill.
Superimposed on this underlying irritant, there have been of late years a number of other more direct causes of unrest. Education, which we gave to India and were bound to give, had inevitably bred political aspiration, and an intelligensia had grown up hungry for political rights and powers. Simultaneously the voracious demands of a centralised bureaucracy for reports and returns had left the district officer little leisure for that close touch with the people which in the past meant confidence and goodwill. Political restlessness had already for some years begun to manifest itself in anarchical conspiracies and crimes of violence, when the Great War began. In India, as elsewhere, the reflex action of the war was a disturbing element. High prices, stifled trade, high taxation, nationalist longings and ideas of self-determination and self-government served to reinforce subterranean agitation.
But throughout the war India not only remained calm and restrained, but her actual contribution to the war, in men and material, was colossal and was ungrudgingly given. She had a right to expect in return generous treatment; but what did she get? She got the Rowlatt Bill. Now, of course, there was a great deal of wicked, lying nonsense talked by agitators about the provisions of the Rowlatt Bill, and the people were grossly misled. But the plain fact remains that when India had emerged from the trying ordeal of the war, not only with honour untarnished, but having placed us under a great obligation, our first practical return was to pass a repressive measure, for fear, forsooth, that if it was not passed then it might be pigeon-holed and forgotten. India asked for bread and we gave her a stone—a stupid, blundering act, openly deprecated at the time by all moderate unofficial opinion in India. What was the result? The Punjab disturbances and the preventive massacre of the Jallianwala Bagh. I do not propose to dwell on this deplorable and sadly mishandled matter, save to say that so far from cowing agitation, it has left a legacy of hate that it will take years to wipe out; and that the subsequent action of a number of ill-informed persons in raising a very large sum of money for the officer responsible for that massacre has further estranged Indians and emphasised in their eyes the brand of their subjection.
The Rise of Ghandi
To India, thus seething with bitterness over the Punjab disturbances, there was added the Moslem resentment over the fate of Turkey. I was myself in London and Paris in a humble capacity at the Peace Conference, and I know that our leading statesmen were fully informed of the Moslem attitude and the dangers of unsympathetic and dilatory action in this matter. But an arrogant diplomacy swept all warnings aside and scorned the Moslem menace as a bogey. What was the result? Troubles in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and the Khilifat movement in India. Hindu agitators were not slow to exploit Moslem bitterness, and for the first time there was a genuine, if very ephemeral, entente between the two great rival creeds.