The Political Future of India Part 6

Acceptance of the argument of poverty as sufficient to deprive people of political right is putting a premium on it which is hardly creditable to the political ethics of the twentieth century. It is the poorest and the most ignorant in the community who most egregiously suffer at the hands of autocracy. It is they who require protection from it. The wealthy and the educated know how to placate the bureaucrat and get what they want.

It is the poor who pay the penalty of political helplessness, yet, curiously, it is for them and in their interest that the English Government in India proposes to withhold the power of the purse from the proposed Indian Councils and insists on denying the Indian people even the elements of responsible government. While we admit the general justice and accuracy of the observations made under the head of "extent of interest in political questions," "political capacity of the rural population," we fail to see anything in them which justifies the conclusion that the interests of the cla.s.ses not politically minded will be safer in the hands of the British officer, and on the whole better protected by him than by his educated countrymen who are likely to get the power in case of responsible government being conceded now. In our judgment no greater argument for the immediate grant of a substantial step in the direction of complete responsible government throughout India and in all spheres of government, could be advanced than what is involved in the following observation of the authors of the joint Report:

"The rural cla.s.ses have the greatest stake in the country because they contribute most to its revenues; but they are poorly equipped for politics and do not at present wish to take part in them.

Among them are a few great landlords and a larger number of yeoman farmers. They are not ill-fitted to play a part in affairs, but with few exceptions they have not yet done so. But what is perhaps more important to appreciate than the mere content of political life in India is its rate of growth. No one who has observed Indian life during even the past five years can doubt that the growth is rapid and is real. It is beginning to affect the large landholders: here and there are signs of its beginning to affect even the villages. But recent events, and above all the war, have given it a new earnestness and a more practical character. Men are coming to realise more clearly that India's political future is not to be won merely by fine phrases: and that it depends on the capacity of her people themselves to face difficulties and to dispose of them. Hence comes the demand for compulsory education, for industries, for tariffs, for social reform, for social, public and even military service."

In the next paragraph, the authors approvingly give an extract from an official report in which it is frankly admitted that the rural population "may not be vocal, but they are certainly not voiceless." The last meeting of the Indian Congress was attended by 700 farmer delegates. Thousands of farmers have joined the Home Rule Leagues. The statement that "hitherto they have regarded the official as their representative in the Councils of the Government" is entirely devoid of any truth. In their eyes the official is the Government itself. Some of them may think that the official _represents_ the Government, but to say that they regard the official as "_their representative_ in the Councils of the Government" is a mere travesty of truth. The paragraph on the "interests of the ryot" bristles with so many unwarranted a.s.sumptions that we must enter an emphatic protest against its misleading nature.

But it gives us pleasure to accord our whole-hearted support to the following statement with which the paragraph opens:

"It is just because the Indian ryot is inarticulate and has not been directly represented in our deliberations that we feel bound to emphasise the great claim he has upon our consideration. The figure of the individual cultivator does not often catch the eye of the Governments in Simla and Whitehall. It is chiefly in the ma.s.s that they deal with him, as a consumer of salt or of piece-goods, or unhappily too often as the victim of scarcity or disease."

It is true that "the district officer and his lieutenants" are in a position to know the difficulties that beset the ryot and his very human needs. But of what good is this knowledge of the district officer and his lieutenants to him if it has neither provided for the education of his children nor made any provision for his employment in occupations other than agriculture; nor saved him from the intricacies of the law; nor protected him from the ubiquitous salt tax; nor raised his wages proportionately to the increase of prices; nor yet put him in a position to a.s.sert his human rights and to obtain redress for his human, too human, wrongs. If we examine a little more carefully the merits of what is claimed to have been done for him so far by "an official Government,"

we will find that the claim is by no means established.

We have no desire to deny that among the foreign officers of the British Government in India there are and have been a great many who were genuinely anxious to help the ryot and do all which is claimed to have been done for him in this paragraph, but that they have been unable to do anything worth mentioning will be admitted by every right-minded official.[3] The reasons for their failure were not of their making. The laws of the land made by the British legislators fresh from the Inns of Court, the spirit of the administration and the system of land taxation have effectively prevented them from doing many of the things which they might otherwise have liked to do. We are sorry that the eminent statesmen responsible for the report should have been the unconscious instruments of producing an entirely wrong impression by the statements in this paragraph. If the statements are true, India must be a veritable paradise and the lot of the Indian ryot enviable. But we know, and the authors of the Report knew it as well, and they have stated in so many words that it is not so. We can quote any number of authorities to show that the Indian ryot is the most pitiable figure in the whole length and breadth of India, if not in the whole world. This is not the place to quote the easily accessible opinions of eminently qualified and highly trustworthy British writers and administrators on the subject.[4]

The English official Government has no doubt _professed_ to do all it claims to have done for the ryot, but how far it has benefited him in these directions is another story. To ask credit for having provided him with a system of law "simple, cheap and certain," or for having established schools and dispensaries within reasonable distance of his residence; or for even having looked after his cattle, by the provision of grazing lands; or for having supplied wood for his implements is to run violently in the face of facts to the contrary. These are verily his princ.i.p.al complaints against British rule. The official Government is certainly ent.i.tled to some credit for having started the cooperative credit societies and a few cooperative rural banks for the benefit of the peasantry, but the reform is so belated and at present plays such an insignificant part in the rural economy of India that it seems hardly worth mentioning or discussing.[5]

But even a.s.suming that the official Government has so far done all that for the ryot, what reason is there to insinuate that the Government of the people will fail to do it for him in the future or will not do it so well as or even better, than has been heretofore done by the bureaucracy? It is quite a gratuitous a.s.sumption that in future he will be required to do all these things for himself. Even in the most advanced democracies in the world the peasantry or the ma.s.ses of the people do not do these things for themselves. Most of these things are done by officials. The only difference is that in a responsible government the officials are the servants of the people while in an absolute government they are their masters. We are really surprised at the presumption of the British bureaucrat, in posing as the special friend of the Indian ma.s.ses as against their own educated countrymen.

The experience of the past does not support the claim and there is absolutely no reason to a.s.sume that it will be different in the future.

A mere cursory glance at the resolutions of the Indian National Congress pa.s.sed continuously for a period of thirty years, will show how persistently and earnestly the educated cla.s.ses have been pleading _inter alia_ for (a) compulsory and free education, (b) for technical instruction in vocations, (c) for the reduction of the salt tax and the land tax, (d) for the raising of the minimum incomes liable to income tax, (e) for the provision of pasture lands, (f) for the comforts of the third-cla.s.s railway travelling public, (g) for the milder administration of the forest laws, (h) for the reform of the Police, etc. All these years the bureaucracy did nothing for the ryot and now they pose as his special friends, whose continuance in power and in office is necessary for his protection from the politically minded middle cla.s.ses. We are a friend neither of the landlord nor of the capitalist. We believe that the ryot and the working men in India as elsewhere are being exploited and robbed by the cla.s.ses in possession of the means of production and distribution. We would wholeheartedly support any scheme which would open a way to a just and righteous distribution of wealth and land in India and which would insure the ryot and the working man his rightful place in the body politic. We would not mind the aid of the foreign bureaucracy toward that end if we could be sure that the bureaucracy would or could do it. But we have no doubts in the matter that it cannot be done. The bureaucracy has so far played into the hands of the plutocrat. They have served first their own capitalists and then the capitalists and landlords of India. Some among them have tried to do a little for the submerged cla.s.ses, the poor ryot and the ill-paid sweated laborer, but their efforts were of no consequence. They have failed and their failure is writ large on the face of the ryot. We are not sanguine that the politically minded cla.s.ses when they get power will immediately rehabilitate the ryot and give him his due. We have no hope of that kind. Yet we unhesitatingly support the demand of the politically minded cla.s.ses for a responsible government in India. In our judgment, that is the only way to raise the ma.s.ses to a consciousness of their rights and responsibilities. The experience of the West tells us that in that way and in that way alone lies salvation. Political consciousness must travel from the cla.s.ses to the ma.s.ses and the longer the inauguration of popular Government is delayed, the greater the delay in the awakening of the ryot and the working man. Absolutism must first give way and transfer its power to the politically minded cla.s.ses, then will come the turn of the ma.s.ses to demand their rights and compel compliance. We can see no risk of a greater harm or injury to the ma.s.ses of India from the transference of power from the hands of a close bureaucracy of foreigners into the hands of the educated and propertied oligarchy of their own countrymen. Even in countries like Great Britain, America and France it is the educated and the propertied cla.s.ses who rule. Why then this hubbub about the impropriety and danger of giving power to the same cla.s.ses in India? Why are the representatives of landlordism and capitalism in the British House of Lords and among the ranks of Imperial Anglo-Indians so solicitous of the welfare of the Indian ma.s.ses, when they have for so long persistently denied justice to the proletariat of their own country? It is a strange phenomenon to see the champions of privilege and status, the defenders of capitalism and landlordism, the advocates of the rights of property, the upholders of caste in Great Britain, spending so much powder and shot to _protect_ the Indian ryot from the prospective exploitation of him by the Indian Brahmin and the Indian Banya[6] (the priest and the capitalist). Let the British Brahmin and the British Banya first begin by doing justice to the proletariat of their own country and then it will be time for them to convince the Indian of their altruism and honesty of purpose in obstructing the inauguration of responsible government in India in the interests of the Indian proletariat. In this connection the authors of the Report make some pertinent observations which deserve to be quoted. After speaking of "religious animosities and social cleavages" and the duty of discouraging them the authors say:

"Nor are we without hope that the reforms will themselves help to provide the remedy. We would not be misunderstood. Representative inst.i.tutions in the West, where all are equal at the ballot box, have checked but not abolished social exclusiveness. We do not make a higher claim for similar inst.i.tutions in India than that they will help to soften the rigidity of the caste-system. But we hope that these incidents of it which lead to the permanent degradation and ostracism of the lowest castes will tend to disappear in proportion to the acceptance of the ideas on which the new const.i.tution rests. There is a further point. An autocratic administration, which does not share the religious ideas of the people, obviously finds its sole safe ground in leaving the whole department of traditional social usage severely alone. In such matters as child-marriage, it is possible that through excess of caution proper to the regime under which it works, it may be actually perpetuating and stereotyping customs which the better mind of India might be brought, after the necessary period of struggle, to modify. A government, in which Indians themselves partic.i.p.ate, invigorated by a closer touch with a more enlightened popular opinion, may be able with all due caution to effect with the free a.s.sent or acquiescence of the Indians themselves, what under the present system has to be rigorously set aside."

Nor are the authors unmindful of the effect of free inst.i.tutions on the character of the people as they themselves over and over again recognise.

"Free inst.i.tutions have, as we have said, the faculty of reacting on the adverse conditions in which the start has to be made. The backwardness of education may embarra.s.s the experiment at the outset; but it certainly ought not to stop it, because popular government in India as elsewhere is sure to promote the progressive spread of education and so a widening circle of improvement will be set up."[7]

Among the authors' reasons for what they call a gradual advance they state the following also: (a) "We find it freely and widely admitted that they (i.e. the Indians) are not yet ready." This admission may legitimately be used against the total withdrawal of all control of Indian affairs by the Parliament. Firstly, it is questionable whether any such admission is really "freely and widely" made. Secondly, the admission justifies the retention of the powers of vital, general supervision and general control and also the retention of some Europeans in the higher services, but not the total denial of all responsibility for maintaining law and order and of all power to control the central Executive. (b) That the responsibility of India's defence is the ultimate burden which rests on the Government of India; and this duty is the last which can be intrusted to inexperienced or unskilful hands.

"So long as India depends for her internal and external security upon the army and navy of the United Kingdom, the measure of self-determination which she enjoys must be inevitably limited. We cannot think that Parliament would consent to the employment of British arms in support of a policy over which it had no control and of which it might disapprove. The defence of India is an Imperial question: and for this reason the Government of India must retain both the power and the means of discharging its responsibilities for the defence of the country and to the Empire as a whole."

The defence of India involves, (a) men for the army and the navy, (b) officers, (c) war materials and war ships, (d) experts in strategy, (e) money. That India pays for her defense and also contributes towards the defence of the Empire are facts which cannot be questioned. That she shall continue to do so in the future may also be a.s.sumed. That it is extremely desirable that in the matter of war supplies she should be self-dependent has been freely admitted. The permanent Indian army as const.i.tuted in pre-war days contained two-thirds Indians and one-third British. If the present strength of the Indian army be examined it will be found that the proportion of British troops is still smaller. There is absolutely no need of British soldiers in India for the purposes of defence, but if the British Government wants to keep them as safeguards against mutiny among the purely Indian army or against the spirit of rebellion that at any time may exhibit itself among the Indian people, then the British exchequer must pay for them as it did in the case of British garrison in South Africa or as the United States does in the case of American troops in the Philippines. It is adding insult to injury to argue that we should not only pay for British troops but that the fact that British troops form a const.i.tuent element of the Indian army should be used against us for denying us full responsibility even in civil affairs. The armies of the various Asiatic Governments surrounding India have no European elements in them and the Indian soldier is as efficient a fighter as is needed as a protection. That the Indian army should be almost exclusively officered by the British is a survival of the policy of mistrust, jealousy and racial discrimination which has. .h.i.therto prevailed. It is time that the Indian army should in future be mainly officered by the Indians. Until that is achieved it must continue as a tentative measure to be officered by the British, and the Indian Revenues must bear the burden. But that is hardly any reason for denying us full responsible government even on the civil side. The Indians do not desire nor demand the transfer of the control over the Army or the Navy until the Army is princ.i.p.ally officered by the Indians and an Indian Navy has been built to supplement the Imperial Navy. From this criticism of the reasons advanced by the authors for a very mild "advance" (called "gradual") it is with pleasure that we turn to the brighter side of the picture showing the favorable features of the situation. The position of the educated Indian is described fairly and squarely in Paragraph 140.

"The old a.s.sumption that the interests of the ryot must be confided to official hands is strenuously denied by modern educated Indians. They claim that the European official must by his lack of imagination and comparative lack of skill in tongues be gravely handicapped in interpreting the thoughts and desires of an Asiatic people.... Our educational policy in the past aimed at satisfying the few, who sought after English education, without sufficient thought of the consequences which might ensue from not taking care to extend instruction to the many. We have in fact created a limited _intelligentsia_, who desire advance; and we cannot stay their progress entirely until education has been extended to the ma.s.ses. It has been made a reproach to the educated cla.s.ses that they have followed too exclusively after one or two pursuits, the law, journalism or school teaching: and that these are all callings which make men inclined to overrate the importance of words and phrases. But even if there is substance in the count, we must take note also how far the past policy of Government is responsible. We have not succeeded in making education practical. It is only now, when the war has revealed the importance of industry, that we have deliberately set about encouraging Indians to undertake the creation of wealth by industrial enterprise, and have thereby offered the educated cla.s.ses any tangible inducement to overcome their traditional inclination to look down on practical forms of energy. We must admit that the educated Indian is a creation peculiarly of our own; and if we take the credit that is due to us for his strong points we must admit a similar liability for his weak ones. Let us note also in justice to him that the progressive Indian appears to realise the narrow basis of his position and is beginning to broaden it. In munic.i.p.al and university work he has taken a useful and creditable share. We find him organising effort not for political ends alone, but for various forms of public and social service. He has come forward and done valuable work in relieving famine and distress by floods, in keeping order at fairs, in helping pilgrims, and in promoting co-operative credit. Although his ventures in the fields of commerce have not been always fortunate, he is beginning to turn his attention more to the improvement of agriculture and industry. Above all, he is active in promoting education and sanitation; and every increase in the number of educated people adds to his influence and authority."

The authors also say:

"We must remember, too, that the educated Indian has come to the front by hard work; he has seized the education which we offered him because he first saw its advantages; and it is he who has advocated and worked for political progress. All this stands to his credit. For thirty years he has developed in his Congress and latterly in the Muslim League free popular convocations which express his ideals. We owe him sympathy because he has conceived and pursued the idea of managing his own affairs, an aim which no Englishman can fail to respect. He has made a skilful, and on the whole a moderate, use of the opportunities which we have given him in the legislative councils of influencing Government and affecting the course of public business, and of recent years, he has by speeches and in the press done much to spread the idea of a united and self-respecting India among thousands who had no such conception in their minds. Helped by the inability of the other cla.s.ses in India to play a prominent part he has a.s.sumed the place of leader; but his authority is by no means universally acknowledged and may in an emergency prove weak."

In face of these observations about the politically minded cla.s.ses of India it is rather unkind of the authors to insinuate later on that in the interests of the foreign merchant, the foreign missionary and the European servants of the state it is necessary that the Government of India should yet remain absolute and that, in the provinces as well, important branches of the administration should be excluded from the jurisdiction of the popular a.s.semblies.

To sum up, while we are prepared to concede that the conditions of the problem may justify the withholding of absolute autonomy,--political, fiscal, and military,--for some time, there is nothing in them which can in any way be deemed sufficient to deny full political, and, if not complete, at least substantial fiscal autonomy to the Indian people at once.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Village Government in British India_, by JOHN MATTHAI. Preface by SIDNEY WEBB, p. xv.

[2] "The Indian Government compiles no statistics showing the distribution of wealth, but such incomplete figures as we have obtained show that the number of persons enjoying a substantial income is very small. In one province the total number of persons who enjoy an income of 66 a year derived from other sources than land is 30,000; in another province 20,000. The revenue and rent returns also show how small the average agricultural holding is. According to one estimate, the number of landlords whose income derived from their proprietary holdings exceeds 20 a year in the United Provinces is about 126,000, out of a population of forty-eight millions. It is evident that the curve of wealth descends very steeply, and that enormous ma.s.ses of the population have little to spare for more than the necessaries of life."

[3] See _Punjab in Peace and War_, by S. S. THORBORN, London, 1904.

[4] They are collected in _England's Debt to India_, by the present author. New York, B. W. Huebsch, 1917.

[5] See Sir D. HAMILTON, _Calcutta Review_, July, 1916.

[6] "Banya" in Hindustan means "trader."

[7] In this connection the pertinent observations of the AGA KHAN in his book _India in Transition_ may be read (Chapter XXV), Putnam, New York.

VI

THE PUBLIC SERVICES IN INDIA

The governing consideration, therefore, in all these cases [speaking of German colonies] must be that the inhabitants should be placed under the control of an administration acceptable to themselves, one of whose main purposes will be to prevent their exploitation for the benefit of European capitalists or Governments.

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE

"The War Aims of the Allies." Speech delivered to delegates of the Trades Unions, at the Central Hall, Westminster, January 5, 1918.

Until now the European servants of the British Government have ruled India quite autocratically. The powers delegated to and the discretion vested in them have been so large that they could do almost anything they liked. They could make or mar the fortunes of millions; they could further their happiness or add to their misery by the simple fiat of their will. The only limitation on their power was their own sense of duty and justice. That some of them did let themselves go is no wonder.

The wonder is that the instances of unbridled oppression and tyranny were not more numerous than they have actually been. Speaking of the European services generally, we have nothing but admiration for their general character. The particular branch of the Public Services that has been all along entrusted with the general administration of the country is known as the Indian Civil Service. It is recruited in England and is overwhelmingly European in personnel. On April 1, 1913, only forty-six of the 1319 civilians on the _cadre_ were natives of India.

Speaking of the executive organizations that have so far ruled India, the eminent authors of the Report for the reorganization of the Government of India remark that it may "well be likened to a mere system of official posts, actuated _till_ now by impulses of its own, but affected by the popular ideas which impinge on it from three sources--the British Parliament, the legislative councils and the local boards." The sentence would have been correct if in place of "but affected" the authors had said "and affected but little." "The system,"

they add, "has in the main depended for its effectiveness on the experience, wisdom and energy of the services themselves. It has, for the most part, been represented by the Indian Civil Service which, though having little to do with the technical departments of government, _has for over 100 years in practice had the administration entrusted to its hands, because, with the exception of the offices of the Governor General, Governors, and some members of the executive councils, it has held practically all the places involving superior control_. It has been in effect much more of a government corporation than of a purely civil service in the English sense. It has been made a reproach to the Indian Civil Service that it regards itself as the Government; but a view which strikes the critic familiar with parliamentary government as arrogant is little more than a condensed truth." [The italics are ours.]

The Indian Civil Service has thus developed all the characteristics, good and bad, of a caste. It has been a powerful bureaucracy, as exclusive, proud, arrogant and self-sufficient,--if not even more so,--as the original Brahmin oligarchy of the land, except that while the Brahmin oligarchy had ties of race, religion and culture with the rest of the population, the Indian Civil Service is almost entirely composed of aliens. The ancient Brahmins were, however, kept in check by the military caste. The mutual jealousies of these two castes afforded some kind of protection to the people in general. But in the case of the British Indian Civil Service, the military have given entire support to their civilian fellow-countrymen and have been completely under their will.

The Brahmins of India have left a monumental record of their labors.

They produced great thinkers, writers, legislators, administrators and organizers. In their own time they were as wise, energetic and resourceful as any bureaucracy in the world has ever been or will ever be. Yet the system of life they devised cut at the roots of national vitality. It dried almost all the springs of corporate national life. It reduced the bulk of the population to a position of complete subservience to their will, of blind faith in their wisdom, of absolute dependence on their initiative. It deprived the common people of all opportunities of independent thought and independent action. It brought about a kind of national atrophy. And this, in spite of the fact that they began by imposing a rigorous code of self-denial on themselves and their cla.s.s. For themselves they wanted nothing but a life of poverty and asceticism. Their economic interests were never in theory or in practice in conflict with those of the rest of the body politic.

A Brahmin was forbidden to engage in trade or otherwise acc.u.mulate wealth. His life was a life of strict self-abnegation. This cannot be said of the Indian Civil Servant. He receives a handsome salary for his services, expects and receives periodic promotion until he reaches a position which, from an economic point of view, is not unenviable. After retirement he is free to engage in trade and otherwise acc.u.mulate wealth. But over and above this, what distinguishes an Indian Civil Servant from an old Brahmin bureaucrat is the fact that in India he represents a nation whose economic interest may not always be in harmony with those of the people of India. He is thus supposed to be the guardian of the interests of his countrymen, and is expected to further them as much as he can without altogether endangering the safety of British rule in India. Looked at from this angle, we have no hesitation in saying that the work of the Indian Civil Service, too, has in its way, been monumental. As a rule, they have proved capable administrators, individually honest, hardworking and alert. They have organized and tabulated India in a way, perhaps, never done before. But after all has been said in their praise, it cannot be denied that they have done India even more harm than the Brahmin oligarchy in its time, did, by the support they lent to economic exploitation of the country by men of their own race and religion. Now, in this latter respect, we want to guard against being misunderstood. The Indian Civil Service has, in the course of about a century, produced a fairly good number of men who have honestly and fearlessly stood for the protection of Indian interests against those of people of their own race and religion. In doing so they have sometimes ruined their own prospects of promotion and advancement. Whenever they failed in their self-imposed task, and more often they failed than not, they failed because the authorities at the top were forced by considerations of domestic and imperial policy to do otherwise. On the whole, the defects of the bureaucratic administration were more the defects of the system than of the individuals composing it.

The Indian Civil Servant, like the old Brahmin, is autocratic and dictatorial. He dislikes any display of independence by the people put under his charge. He discourages initiative. He likes to be called and considered the _Mai bap_ (mother and father) of his subjects. On those who literally consider him such he showers his favors. The others he denounces and represses. This has, in the course of time, led to national emasculation. That is our chief complaint against the Indian Civil Service. Of the other services we would rather not speak. They have by no means been so pure and high-minded as the I. C. S., nor perhaps so autocratic and dictatorial. The number of men who misused their powers and opportunities to their own advantage has been much larger in services other than the I. C. S. Yet they all have done a certain amount of good work for India; whether one looks at the engineering works designed and executed by them, or the researches they have made in the science of healing and preventing disease, or the risks they have run in preserving order or maintaining peace one cannot but admire their efficiency and ability. The grievances of the Indian Nationalists against the Public Services in India may be thus summarized:

(_a_) That the services monopolize too much power and are practically uncontrolled by and irresponsible to the people of the country.

(_b_) That the higher branches of the services contain too many foreigners.

(_c_) That these are recruited in England, and from some of them the Indians are altogether barred.

(_d_) That even when doing the same work Indians are not paid on the same scale as the Europeans.

(_e_) That the Government has often kept on men of proved inefficiency and of inferior qualities.