The Political Future of India Part 1

The Political Future of India.

by Lajpat Rai.

PREFACE

My book, _Young India_, was written during the first year of the war and was finally revised and sent to the press before the war was two years old. It concluded with the following observation:

"The Indians are a chivalrous people; they will not disturb England as long as she is engaged with Germany. The struggle after the war might, however, be even more bitter and sustained."

The events that have happened since have amply justified the above conclusion. India not only refrained from disturbing England while she was engaged in war with Germany, but actively helped in defeating Germany and winning the war. She raised an army of over a million combatants and supplied a large number of war workers, and made huge contributions in money and materials. She denied herself the necessities of life in order to feed and equip the armies in the field though within the last months of the war, when scarcity and epidemic overtook her, she lost six millions of her sons and daughters from one disease alone--influenza. This was more than chivalry. This was self-effacement in the interests of an Empire which, in the past, had treated her children as helots. How much of this effort was voluntary and how much of it was forced it is difficult to appraise. Great Britain, however, has unequivocally accepted it as voluntary and has attributed it to India's satisfaction with her rule. That India was not satisfied with her rule she has spared no pains to impress upon the British people as well as the rest of the world. Reading between the lines of the report of the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy has established the fact of that dissatisfaction beyond the possibility of doubt, but if any doubt still remained it has been dispelled by the writings and utterances of her representative spokesman in India, in Great Britain and abroad. The prince and the peasant, the landlord and the ryot, the professor and the student, the politician and the layman--all have spoken. They differ in their estimates of the "blessings" of British rule, they differ in the manner of their profession of loyalty to the British Empire, they sometimes differ in shaping their schemes for the future Government of India but they are all agreed:

(1) That the present const.i.tution of the Government of India is viciously autocratic, bureaucratic, antiquated and unsatisfying.

(2) That India has, in the past, been governed more in the interests of, and by the British merchant and the British aristocrat than in the interests of her own peoples.

(3) That the neglect of India's education and industries has been culpably tragic and

(4) That the only real and effectual remedy is to introduce an element of responsibility in the Government of India.

In the report of the Secretary of State and the Viceroy, so often quoted and referred to in these pages, the truth of (1), (3), and (4) is substantially admitted and point (2) indirectly conceded. In the following pages an attempt is made to prove this by extracts from the report itself. Ever since the report was published in July, 1918, India has been in a state of ferment,--a ferment of enthusiasm and criticism, of hope and disappointment. While the country has freely acknowledged the unique value of the report, the politicians have differed in their estimates of the value of the scheme embodied therein. Yet there is a complete unanimity on one point, that nothing _less_ than what is planned in the report will be accepted, even as the first step towards eventual complete responsible Government. This is the minimum. Even the ultra-moderates have expressed themselves quite strongly on that point.

Speaking at the Conference of the Moderates held at Bombay on November 1, 1918, the President, Mr. Surendranath Banerjea, is reported to have said: "our creed is co-operation with the Government wherever practicable, and opposition to its policy and measures when the supreme interests of the mother-land require it.... I have a word to say ... to the British Government. I have a warning note to sound.... If the enactment of the Reform proposals is unduly postponed, if they are whittled down _in any way_ ... there will be grave public discontent and agitation." A little further in the same speech he asked if "by the unwisdom of our rulers" India was "to be converted into a greater Ireland." In less than six months from the date of this p.r.o.nouncement, the rulers of India gave ample proof of their "unwisdom" by actually converting India into a "greater Ireland" and in establishing the absolute correctness of the prognostication made by the present writer in the concluding sentence of his book _Young India_. The manifesto of the Moderate Party issued over the signatures of the Moderate leaders all over the country contained the following warning: "We must equally protest against every attempt, by whomever made and in whatever manner, at any mutilation of the Montagu-Chelmsford proposals. We are constrained to utter a grave warning against the inevitable disastrous effects of such a grievous mistake on the future relations of the British Government and the Indian people which will result in discontent and agitation followed by repression on the one side and suffering on the other side." Little did they know when they uttered the warning that repression would come even before the Reform Scheme was discussed in Parliament and "mutilated" there. British rule in Ireland has been for the last twenty years a wearisome record of mixed concessions and coercions. Every time a concession was made it was either preceded or accompanied by strong doses of coercion. One would have thought that British statesmen were wiser by their experience of Ireland, but it seems that they have learnt nothing and that they have no intention of doing in India anything different from what they have been doing in Ireland. The history of British statesmanship in relation to Irish affairs is repeating itself almost item by item in India.

Lord Morley's reforms were both preceded and followed by strong measures of repression and suppression. As if to prove that British statesmanship can never in this respect set aside precedent even for once, Mr.

Montagu's proposals have been followed by a measure of coercion unique even for India. Mr. Montagu's proposals for the reconstruction of Government in India are yet in the air. They are being criticised and examined minutely by numerous British agencies both in India and in England as to how and in what respects they can be made innocuous.

Certain other reforms promised by the report, such as the scheme for Local Self Government and the policy in relation to the Arms Act, have already been disposed of in the usual masterly way of giving with one hand and taking back with the other. Similarly the "great" scheme of opening the commissioned ranks of the Army to the native Indians has practically (for the present at least) ended in fiasco. But the policy underlying the Rowlatt laws has surpa.s.sed all. In the chapters of this book dealing with the Revolutionary movement the reader will find a genesis of the Rowlatt laws of coercion.

On the sixteenth of January in the _Gazette of India_ was published a draft of two bills that were proposed to be brought before the Legislative Council of India (which has a standing majority of Government officials). These bills were to give effect to the recommendations of the committee presided over by Mr. Justice Rowlatt of the High Court of England, for the prevention, detection and punishment of sedition in India. Their introduction into the Legislative Council was at once protested against by all cla.s.ses of Indians with a unanimity never before witnessed in the history of India. All sections of the great Indian population from the Prince to the peasant, including all races, religions, sects, castes, creeds and professions joined in the protest. Hindus, Mohammedans, Indian Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Pa.r.s.ees--all stood up, to a man, to oppose the measure. All the political parties, Conservatives, Liberals, Moderates and Extremists expressed themselves against it. The measure was opposed by all the non-official Indian members of the Legislative Council. All methods of agitation were resorted to in order to make the opinion of the country known to the Government and to warn the latter against the danger of defying the united will of the people. The press, the pulpit and the platform all joined in denouncing the measures, meetings of protest were held in all parts of the country and resolutions wired to the Government. A few days before the final meeting at which these bills were to be pa.s.sed into law a number of prominent citizens, male and female, pledged themselves to pa.s.sive resistance in case the measures were enacted. The pa.s.sive resistance movement was inaugurated and led by Mr. M. K. Gandhi, a man of saintly character, universally respected and revered in India, the same who stood for the Government during the war and rendered material help in recruiting soldiers, raising loans and procuring other help for its prosecution. The following is the text of the pledge that was signed by hundreds and thousands of Indians belonging to all races and religions and hailing from all parts of the continent:

"Being conscientiously of opinion that the bills known as the Indian Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill No. 1 of 1919 and No. 2 of 1919 are unjust, subversive of the principle of liberty and justice and destructive of the elementary rights of individuals on which the safety of the community as a whole and the State itself is based, we solemnly affirm that, in the event of these bills becoming law, we shall refuse civilly to obey these laws and such other laws as a committee to be hereafter appointed may think fit and we further affirm that in this struggle we will faithfully follow truth and refrain from violence of life, person or property."

The pa.s.sive resistance movement was not approved by the country as a whole, and influential voices were raised against it even in its early stages but the fact that Mr. Gandhi had taken the responsibility of initiating and leading it and that many women had signed the pledge should have opened the eyes of the Government as to the intensity of the feeling behind it. Besides this threat of pa.s.sive resistance the Indian members of the Council showed their solid opposition to the measure by using all the historic obstructive methods so well known to the student of Parliamentary debates in the House of Commons as a.s.sociated with the Irish Nationalist party under the leadership of Parnell. The debates in the Legislative Council of India do not ordinarily last for more than one day, consisting, at the most, of eight hours. The debate on this bill lasted for three days; one sitting lasted "from 11 o'clock in the morning ... until nearly half past one the following day with adjournments for luncheon and dinner." The officials were determined to pa.s.s the bill at that sitting and so they refused to rise until the amendments on the agenda had been disposed of and the bill pa.s.sed into law. The non-officials proposed no less than 160 amendments but by the application of closure methods they were all disposed of in three days and the bill pa.s.sed (on the 18th of March). The Government made a few minor concessions but on the whole the bill remained as it had been drafted, a monument of Governmental shortsightedness and stupidity. The consideration of the other bill was postponed. As soon as the news reached Bombay that the first bill had become law "the market was closed as a protest" and "posters in English and the vernacular, were displayed throughout the city urging the non-payment of taxes and asking the people to resist the order of a tyrannical Government." (London _Times_, April 2.) Similar manifestations of anger were made throughout the country and the movement for pa.s.sive resistance was definitely inaugurated. It spread like wild fire. Thousands joined it and the relations between the people and the Government became very strained.

However, no violence was resorted to, nor was any harm done to life and property. Several members of the Legislative Council resigned their offices. One of them a Mohammedan leader, wrote the following letter to His Excellency the Viceroy:

"Your Excellency, the pa.s.sing of the Rowlatt Bill by the Government of India and the a.s.sent given to it by your Excellency as Governor-General against the will of the people has severely shaken the trust reposed by them in British justice. Further, it has clearly demonstrated the const.i.tution of the Imperial Legislative Council which is a legislature but in name, a machine propelled by a foreign executive. Neither the unanimous opinion of the non-official Indian members, nor the entire public opinion and feeling outside has met with the least respect. The Government of India and your Excellency, however, have thought it fit to place on the statute-book a measure admittedly obnoxious and decidedly coercive at a time of peace, thereby subst.i.tuting executive for judicial discretion. Besides, by pa.s.sing this Bill, your Excellency's Government have actively negatived every argument they advanced but a year ago when they appealed to India for help at the War Conference, and have ruthlessly trampled upon the principles for which Great Britain avowedly fought the war.

"The fundamental principles of justice have been uprooted and the const.i.tutional rights of the people have been violated, at a time when there is no real danger to the state, by an overfearful and incompetent bureaucracy which is neither responsible to the people, nor in touch with real public opinion and their whole plea is that 'powers when they are a.s.sumed will not be abused.'

"I, therefore, as a protest against the pa.s.sing of the Bill and the manner in which it was pa.s.sed, tender my resignation as a member of the Imperial Legislative Council, for I feel that, under the prevailing conditions, I can be of no use to my people in the Council, nor, consistently with one's self respect, is cooperation possible with a Government that shows such utter disregard for the opinion of the representatives of the people in the Council Chamber and the feelings and sentiments of the people outside.

"In my opinion, a Government that pa.s.ses or sanctions such law in times of peace forfeits its claim to be called a civilized Government and I still hope that the Secretary of State for India, Mr. Montagu, will advise his Majesty to signify his disallowance to this Black Act.

"Yours truly, "M. A. Jinnah."

The leaders of the pa.s.sive resistance movement declared 30th March as "the National protest day." The protest was to be made by all the traditional methods known to India for ages, viz., by fasting, stopping business, praying, and meeting in congregations in their respective places of worship. The only Western method contemplated was pa.s.sing resolutions and sending telegrams to the authorities in India and England. The 30th of March was thus observed as a national protest day throughout India and there was only one clash between the people and the Government, viz., at Delhi, the national capital.

Delhi has been the national capital of India from times immemorial. It was the chief capital city of the Moguls. It has a mixed population of Hindus and Mohammedans, almost evenly divided. The European population there is not very large. There is a British garrison stationed in the Mogul fort. Besides being the capital of British India, Delhi is a very important trade center and the terminus of several railway lines. All business was stopped, shops closed and the city gave an appearance of a general strike. A ma.s.s meeting attended by 40,000 people, according to British estimates, and presided over by a religious ascetic, pa.s.sed resolutions of protest and cabled them to the Secretary of State for India in London. It was at Delhi and on this day as already stated that the first clash occurred between the authorities and the people. It is immaterial how it came about but it may be noted that rifles and machine guns were freely used in dispersing the mobs at the railway station and other places. According to official estimates fourteen persons were killed and about sixty wounded. The non-official estimates give larger figures. Evidently nothing serious happened between March 30th and April 6th which last was observed as a day of mourning throughout British India from Peshawar to Cape Comorin and from Calcutta to Karachi and Bombay. People held meetings, made speeches, marched in processions, took pledges of pa.s.sive resistance, closed shops, suspended business, bathed in the sea, joined in prayer and fasted. No violence of any kind was reported. In the words of a correspondent of the London _Times_, "the distinguishing feature of many of these demonstrations [meaning thereby pa.s.sive resistance demonstrations] made on the 6th of April, specially at Delhi, Agra, Bombay and Calcutta, is the Hindu and Moslem fraternization, Hindus being freely admitted to the mosques, on occasions occupying the Mihrab (the niche indicating the direction of Mecca)." In a message dated April 7th the same correspondent cabled "an unprecedented event in the shape of a joint Moslem-Hindu service at the famous Juma Masjed at Delhi, at which a Hindu[1] delivered a sermon."

The Juma Masjed is one of the jewels of Mogul architecture and probably the biggest mosque in India.

On April 9th Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, dwelt with pride on the fact that the province ruled by him with an iron hand for the last five years "had raised 360,000 combatants during the war." "Dealing with the political situation he declared that the Government of the province was determined that public order which was maintained during the war, should not be disturbed during peace. Action had therefore been taken under the Defence Act against certain individuals who were openly endeavoring to arouse public feeling against the Government." It was this action, viz., the summary arrest of leaders at Amritsar and the order of prohibition against Mr. Gandhi's contemplated visit to the Punjab, that set fire to the acc.u.mulated magazine. It exasperated the people and in a moment of despair the intense strain of the last few weeks found relief in attacks on Government buildings and stray persons of European extraction. What actually happened in different places no one can definitely tell just at this stage but it is clear that at places so widely distant as Amritsar and Lah.o.r.e in the Punjab and Viramgam in the Gujerat (Western Presidency) railway stations, telegraph offices and some other public buildings were burned, railway traffic interrupted, tram cars stopped and some Europeans killed and attacked. At Amritsar three banks were burnt down and their managers killed. Telegraphing on April 15th and again on the 16th of April, the correspondent of the London _Times_ remarked that "the Punjab continued to be the princ.i.p.al seat of trouble"

which was probably due to the extremely brutal methods which the Punjab Government had followed in repressing and suppressing not only the present 'riots' but also all kinds of political activity in the preceding six years. It appears that in about a week's time almost the whole province was ablaze. The Government used machine guns in dispersing meetings, showered bombs from aeroplanes and declared martial law in several towns, extended the seditious meetings prevention Act and other emergency laws in districts, marched flying military columns from one end to the other, accompanied by travelling courts martial to try and punish on the spot all arrested for offences committed in connection with the pa.s.sive resistence movement. Leaders were arrested and deported without trial of any kind; papers were suppressed and all kinds of demonstrations prohibited.

Among the leaders arrested are the names of some of the most conservative and moderate of the Punjab public men--men whose whole life is opposed to extremism of any kind. Those men were subjected to various indignities, handcuffed and marched to jail. They have been held in ordinary prison cells and all comforts have been denied to them as if they were criminals. Counsel engaged for them from outside the Province have been refused admission into the Province. Machine guns and aeroplanes have been used in dispersing unarmed mobs and crowds were fired at in many places. At Lah.o.r.e the General Officer Commanding gave notice "that unless all the shops were re-opened within 48 hours all goods in the shops not opened will be sold by public auction." As to the causes of the upheaval, the Anglo-Indian view is contained in a telegraphic message to the London _Times_ bearing date April 20th. Below we give a verbatim copy of this message:

CAUSES OF THE UPHEAVAL.

"Bombay, April 20.--We have pa.s.sed through the most anxious ten days that India has known for half a century. We have further anxious days in store, for although in Bombay conditions are improving and Mr. Gandhi has publicly abandoned the pa.s.sive resistance movement, while men of weight are rallying to the support of the Government, the situation in Northern India is disquieting.

"We may pause to enquire into this widespread manifestation of violence. How came it that pa.s.sive resistance to the Rowlatt Act--never likely to be applied to the greater part of India, especially to Bombay, and nominally confined to the sale of proscribed literature of doubtful legality, which was waning--suddenly flamed into riot, arson, and murder at Delhi, Ahmedabad, Viramgam, Amritsar, and other parts of the Punjab on the prevention of Mr. Gandhi's entry into Delhi? All day on April 11 Bombay stood on the brink of a b.l.o.o.d.y riot, averted only by the Governor, Sir George Lloyd's prudent statesmanship and the great restraint of the police and military in face of grave provocation.

"The movement seems to have been twofold. In part it was the expression of the prevailing ferment. India is no less affected than other parts of the world by the social and intellectual revolution of the war, by expectations based on the destruction of German materialism and by ambitions for fuller partnership in the British Empire.

PROFITEERING AND TRICKERY.

"The disruptive effect of these ideals is accentuated by prevailing conditions. The prices of food are exceedingly high, supplies are scanty, while efforts to control prices are hampered by the profiteering and trade trickery unfortunately never absent from this country. [As if it was absent from other countries.]

"India having been swept bare of foodstuffs, to meet the exigencies of the war, the people feel that the home Government is lukewarm in releasing supplies from outside, and resent particularly that the Shipping Controller is maintaining high freights on fat and rice from Burma. These severe sufferings are superimposed on the devastating influenza and cholera epidemics.

So much for the social and economic situation.

"Then the activities of the Indo-British a.s.sociation created grave doubts whether Parliament will deal fairly with India when the reform scheme is considered. The Rowlatt Act was precipitated into this surcharged atmosphere.

"The Act was wickedly perverted by the Extremists until among the common people it became the general belief that it gave plenary powers to a police which was feared and distrusted. Among educated people, few of whom studied the report or the Act, it was bitterly resented as a badge of India's subjection after loyal partic.i.p.ation in the war, at a time when the strongest feeling in the country was craving for its self-respect in the eyes of the nations. Further, it was regarded as prejudicing the cause of political reform.

"Another powerful contributory cause was the ferment amongst the Moslem community. Everywhere the Moslems believe that the Peace Conference is bent on the destruction of Islam. There is no confidence in British protection after our declared policy in regard to Turkey and the undoing of the settled fact in Eastern Bengal in 1911.

"This feeling is the more dangerous because it is inchoate. Moslem officers returned from Palestine and Arabia, and acquainted with the realities of Turkish rule, have expressed astonishment at the strength of this feeling among their co-religionists here.

Mohamedans have been foremost in the work of riot and destruction in Ahmedabad and Delhi, and the lower elements were ripe for trouble in Bombay. I am unable to say how far this ferment affected the outbreaks in the Punjab.

"This seething Moslem unrest is the most menacing feature of Indian politics to-day. It explains the unprecedented admission of Hindus to the Mosques of Delhi and Aligarh....

REVOLUTIONARY INSPIRATION

"So much for the general situation. In Northern India the outbreaks were nakedly revolutionary. They are unconnected with the Rowlatt Act or with pa.s.sive resistance, which probably precipitated a movement long concerted. There is abundant evidence of the organized revolutionary character of the disturbances in the systematic attacks on railways, telegraphs, and all means of communication, and its definitely anti-British character is apparent from the efforts to plunge the railways into a general strike.

"There are signs of the inter-connection of the Punjab revolutionaries with the Bombay revolutionaries who organized attacks on communications at Ahmedabad and Viramgam, derailed trains, cut telegraphs, and sent rowdies from Kaira to take part in the work of destruction. There is evidence also of some outside inspiration, but whether Bolshevist or otherwise is obscure.

"Whilst in the Punjab the soil was fruitful, owing to economic conditions, the ravages of influenza, and the pressure of last year's recruiting campaign, the revolutionary origin of the disturbances is unquestioned...."

As usual the message is a mixture of truth and imagination. At most it is a partisan view. Be the causes what they may, the events in our judgment amply justify the following conclusions:

(_a_) That India is politically united in demanding a far reaching measure of self-determination.

(_b_) That she will not be satisfied with paltry measures of political reform which do not give her power to shape her fiscal policy in her own interests, independent of control from London.

(_c_) That it is useless to further harp on the "cleavages" of race, religion and language, in dealing with the problem of India.

(_d_) That the country is no longer prepared to let measures of coercion pa.s.s and take effect without making their protest and dislike known to the authorities in a manner, the significance of which may not be open to misunderstanding.