A WONDERFUL PAMPHLET.

WE can best give an idea of the pamphlet to which we have referred in the preceding article by quotation, and we only regret that our quotations must necessarily be few, and can give but a slight impression of the unanimity with which the protests, all drawn up independently, point to precisely the same dangers. The following extracts are taken from an address presented by the Deccan Ryots' (Agriculturists') Association to the Viceroy and Mr. Montagu :- " The higher castes are determined to maintain intact their social predominance 'founded on religious theories and supported by all the superstitions of the dark ages. On the other hand, awakened by the spread of Western ideas in this country, the lower classes have begun to chafe at the irritating distinctions of caste under which they are condemned to perpetual inferiority. In this respect, our society stands to-day where European society stood on the eve of the Renaissance and the Reformation. In such a state of society, the introduction of purely democratic forms of government is bound to concentrate all power in the hands of the more advanced castes, while the lower castes would be placed at a great disadvantage in consequence of any such measure, unless every care is taken to see that the power to legislate and control the' Executive is effectively shared by all sections of the population. . . . If the majorities in the proposed Legislative Councils are to consist of persons who will-be typical of the majorities in the more literate castes, the fate of the vast masses of people who fill the lower strata of our society will be sealed for all time. Inspired by the orthodox Hindu ideals of the Varnashrama dharma and strengthened by the half-mystical explanations of social inequality offered by Theosophy, the legislators of the future, drawn from the upper layers of Hindu society for the most part, will only tighten the shackles by which the masses are bound down to degrading traditions and customs and laws."

That is as true as it is well stated. The belief that a man who is poor and an outcast has to pay for his sins in a former life is a truly dreadful weapon in the hands of a priestly class. The Deccan ryots give very significant examples of the manner in which the high-caste political Brahmin would act if more power were placed in his hands :—

" On the few occasions, however, on which scope was found for the manifestation of the narrow caste-spirit which seeks self- aggrandisement at the cost of the more ignorant communities, several of the members of our Legislative Councils have shown a lamentable disregard of the interests of the people they profess to represent. The question of the modi script very recently discussed by the Bombay Council would illustrate how the elected members of that body who belonged to the higher castes supported. the reintroduction of the mod& script, although it was distinctly pointed out by the heads of the great departments that the said script created serious difficulties in the way of the lower illiterate classes. When, again, the injustice to which the depressed classes were subjected by the Hindu community was mooted for discussion by a Parsi member of the supreme Legislative Council, every Hindu member—and they belonged to the higher castes—showed himself to be the exponent of the views of the higher castes only."

Finally, bite Deccan ryots say :- " British rule in India was welcomed with joy by all the classes in this country except a few whose instincts had become pre- eminently political by centuries of training. Subjected to the worst class tyrannies that the world has ever seen, all these classes looked upon British rule with a sigh of relief.".

In other words, Home Rule for India means Caste Ascendancy —a much worse thing than any kind of class tyranny known anywhere outside India. The following extracts are taken from the address of the Depressed Indian Association to the Viceroy and Mr. Montagu :—

" The social condition of the depressed classes is so miserable that it is impossible to point out on the earth's surface any parallel to it. They are treated by the rest of the Indians—Hindus, Muhammadan, Jains and all—as if they were worse than beasts. They are not allowed to live in villages or towns. They are deemed untouchables. If an untouchable accidentally touches a member of the non-untouchable class, the latter must wash himself and his clothes to get rid of the pollution caused by the unholy touch ! As will be easily imagined, the effects of these permanent inhuman disabilities on the unfortunate people haVe been grave and far- reaching. - . . Where such is the state of things—the majority of people unwilling to afford any human treatment to a large section of the population (forming nearly one-fifth of the total), and they on the other hand mostly unprepared to assert their rights of citizenship, or rather humanity—any transfer of substantial political power to the Indians is bound to prove disastrous to the best interests of the depressed classes. The great pride of the British rule in India is that it has given equal opportunities of elevation to all classes. The depressed classes have just begun to show signs of life and to profit by the favourable conditions. Any change in Indian Polity calculated to upset these and reintroduce the reign of higher castes will be a death-blow to all hopes of emanci- pation of the depressed classes."

Exactly the same idea was expressed by the Maharajah of Kolhapur at the Maratha Educational Conference in December, 1917. If castes remain as they are," he said, " Home Rule in the sense in which it is meant will result in nothing short of oligarchy. I may repeat once again, I am not against Home Rule, for surely we want it. Under the present circumstances, however, we must have the protection and guidance of the British Government until the evils of the caste system become ineffective." In an address to the Viceroy and Mr. Montagu in December, 1917, the South Indian Liberal Federation said :

" We beg to impress on you the necessity for consulting tit, opinion of other and more important interests than those of the Congress and the Moslem League, which are now entirely guided by a body of impatient idealists ' who in no way represent the mass of the people of this country."

The Madras Dravidian Hindu Association—representing of course the people who are the remnant of the aborigines— in an address to the Viceroy and Mr. Montagu said :— " Our improvement in the social and economic scale began with and is due to the British Government. The Britishers in India- Goveinment Officers, Merchants, and last, but not least, Christian Missionaries—love us and we love them in return. . . . We shall fight to the last drop of our blood any attempt to transfer the seat of authority in this country from British hands to so-called high- caste Hindus, who have ill-treated us in the past and would do so again but for the protection of British laws."

These words may be compared with the statement made at a mass meeting of Tiyas and other backward castes held at Cochin in February, 1918. Home Rule, declared these back- ward castes, would " lead to endless social and civic dis- turbances, ending even in bloodshed." Such language proves, as we have already said, that the responsibility for producing trouble in India is not upon those who criticize the Report, but upon those who wrote it.

We will now quote from a profoundly moving letter drawn up by Hindu villagers of Bengal, which was published in the Englishman in November, 1917 :- " This is an appeal from poor villagers, who live on agriculture, and it is earnestly to be hoped that Englishmen as well as Indians will listen to our grievances and formulate a scheme of self-govern- ment whereby we could be saved from ruin. Of self-government or Home Rule we know nothing, but we gather from people who visit the big towns or read newspapers that it is but another form of the rule to which we are accustomed in village punchayets as governed by presidents drawing a salary of 12 rupees a month ! Like fever-stricken people we tremble to think of it, for we see in the self-government of punchayets the sapping of the foundations of British rule in India. Presidents of punchayets are living embodiments of the Lord of Hades, and woe betide the poor villager who does not propitiate him with offerings ! To Englishmen

and to sensible countrymen of ours our appeal Save us from Home Rule, if it is to be an enlarged edition of the punchayet system.' We fail to see how the self-government of the country can be entrusted to people who cannot properly govern villages according to the punchayet system. We are convinced that there is not one honourable member of council to watch our interests or put in a plea in our behalf ; those who profess to represent us are as much strangers to us as we are to them and are probably not even aware of our existence. Under the circumstances how is it possible for them to remove our wants or remedy our grievances ? And we are sure whatever we have said would be endorsed by 28 crores out of 30 crores of His Majesty's subjects. The peasantry of the country is, in our humble opinion, as much a source of strength to railway and shipping companies as to Government and to His Majesty the King-Emperor. It is through their tireless exertions that India is yielding all her produce, that merchants, railway and shipping companies are prospering and that Government is getting its revenue. There are six seasons in this country, during each of which the peasantry work day and night ceaselessly and tirelessly, and there is not a soul living, not even the most callous, that would not be moved by their sufferings to tears. And it is these poor people on whom a kindly glance is not cast by anybody —oh ! the pity of it ! True it is that Government has done us a lot of good, but much of it is threatened with extinction, and we can hardly believe that Government is not aware of the fact. The persecution the peasantry is subjected to is growing daily, and whatever happens we are always the worst sufferers. And so, frankly and honestly, all this talk about self-government and Home Rule makes us shiver and apprehensive of evils to come, and we beseech Englishmen and the sensible among our countrymen to save us from further oppression."

The reference to the Village Councils is very curious and in- structive, as these Village Councils used constantly. to .be applauded and encouraged by early Anglo-Indian reformers as the birthplaces of Indian self-government. And does not the allusion to the " Lord of Hades " recall, with bitter reflections, Tennyson's words in " In Memoriam " ?- " Hold thou the good : define it well : For fear divine Philosophy

Should push beyond her mark, and be Procurers to the Lords of Hell."

PoliticalPhilosophy is indeed in dire danger of pushing beyond her mark—with the probable result that Tennyson describes. We wish we could quote liberally from the letter by Mr. Daulat Ram Kalla, but we must content ourselves with a single short passage. " To tell the truth," he says, " an average Indian does not understand Home Rule at all, except in those cases where he had been made to believe (by the efforts of political agitators) that it is a magic wand by whose touch he will have any amount of wealth, comfort, and even authority over his uneducated neighbours. . . . In one instance I was told that Home Rule means that every one will rule himself and there will be no police." It used to be said that India was deeply divided by the chasm between Moslems and Hindus. People who saw in that division the whole Indian problem were fortunate, for that old simple division was as nothing compared with the present acuteness of the divisions between the various sorts of Hindus—between the Brahmins and the lower castes.

Here is an extract from the address of the South India Islamia League to the Viceroy and Mr. Montagu in December, 1917 :— " Nothing should be done which will weaken British authority in any manner whatsoever, and hand over the destinies of the Moslem community to classes which have no regard for their interests and no respect for their sentiments. It is one thing to co-operate with other classes under the presiding care of the British Government with power to enforce its will, and quite another to be at the tender mercy of these classes with the British Government stripped of its powers, standing by and looking on helpless and unable to act."

We wish we could do justice to the alarm of the Moslems who thoroughly disapprove of the action of the All-India Moslem League in adopting the political aims of the Indian National Congress. But we must pass on to our final quota- tion. It is taken from a Memorandum from the Indian Christians of certain districts of the United Provinces, drawn up in December, 1917 :— " The Indian Army has responded nobly whenever called upon, but what would happen if the British Army were withdrawn ? It has protected us from disorders of the peace within, and from would-be invaders without. History records wave after wave of invasion, and the plains of Northern India have been drenched with blood. The British have put a stop to this since they assumed control. We fear that with the protection of the British Army withdrawn, India might any day be thrown into the unenviable position in which Russia is to-day—an enemy thundering at or near the gates of her capital, and occupying some of her richest territory, and a terrible civil war going on, while there is no one powerful enough to put down the latter or drive out the former. We feel that there is no real unity amongst Indians, except such as may be contained in the phrase, ' opposition to the British.' Not long since an ex-member of Congress said : We were opposed to anything English, not on the grounds of its being right or wrong, but merely because it was sponsored by an Englishman.' Though it may be natural for them to assume such an attitude we respect. fully beg to point out that mere opposition or negation never set up a responsible and progressive and respectable Government. There must be some underlying constructive principle before there can be progress and success. As in Russia, there are many diffi- culties underlying the immediate introduction of Home Rule in India. When, by the overthrow of the regular Government, the yet unprepared Russians assumed control, pandemonium broke loose. The fatal barriers in Russia were and are linguistic, racial and ignorance and illiteracy. The same barriers are present in India But there is one respect in which India is in even greater danger than Russia was or is ; for there the majority of the people are of one religion, but the same cannot be said of many-religioned India. These in a nutshell seem to us the real obstacles to unity. It is not necessary to enlarge on these, as all know them. We are convinced that the large majority of the people do not want Home Rule now."

We may well read these words of the brave Indian Christians with deep respect. They would have delighted that sweet• souled militant John Bunyan. How good is the clear recog- nition of the fact that in India Peace hath her battles as well as War. To undermine British control would be to turn the Pax Britannica into a continuous civil war. To sum up, India is being threatened with a new and worse way of life, in which the toleration that has been procured for the non- Brahmins, the Moslems of the old tradition, and all the in- articulate masses would be scattered to the winds. The liberty that is demanded would be used to destroy liberty. As Crom- well exclaimed : " Every sect saith : Oh, give me liberty ! But give him it, and, to his power, he will not yield it to any- body else. Liberty. of conscience is a natural right ; and he that would have it ought to give it." India must never be granted Home Rule till we know that those who would be granted liberty would give it to others. There is the whole explana- tion and justification of our presence in India. We are in India because India cannot get on without us. If we were not indis- pensable to India, the miracle of our rule there would be ended in an hour.