Half a Century of India
IN a book about India, by a writer whose connection with that country extends over fifty years, one half expects to find nostalgia and sentimental regret as the dominant note. That note, however, is wholly absent from Sir Stanley Reed's virile and lucid treatment of his subject. Unlike so many modern writers, Sir Stanley is able to be " pro-Indian " without being anti-British, and he has, therefore, given us an unusually well-balanced account of modern Indian political history.
Four main points in that account stand out. The first is the very fair treatment of the Indian Civil Service. Its rigidity and the " general indifference of Civil Service administration to the economic development of the country " are carefully balanced against the new standards of administrative integrity and efficiency introduced by the LC.S. in a judgement which should cause general satisfaction and indeed legitimate pride in Bath or Bournemouth.
Next comes Sir Stanley's appreciation of the unifying and electrify- ing influence exerted on India by the use of the English language. Without higher education in English, there would have been no Indian nationhood. Sir Stanley tells, with effect, the story of a bitter complaint by Rabindranath Tagore against education through the medium-of English. The complaint was addressed in English to an Indian audience, most of whom would not have understood it if Tagore had spoken in his own language. The author quotes also a Hindu social writer, indignant at a proposal to reduce the time spent on the study of English: " You do not know," explained Kamesh Natarajan, " what English means to us ; it is far more than lingua franca ; it brings with it a whole new ethical concept."
The one really bad English- lapse from economic fair play—the cotton excise of 1879—is dealt with frankly and vigorously. The story of how the Viceroy, " the flamboyant Lord Lytton, over-ruling his experienced colleagues in the Council, forced on India a free import policy " is discreditable indeed ; and the author rightly says that it was regarded as a clear indication to India that, in a clash of interests between India and Britain, those of Britain would be preferred. The suspicion and resentment engendered were only partially removed when, °vex forty years later, the policy of dis- criminating protection enabled India to forge ahead in the industrial field. The results of the new policy were rapid and startling, nowhere more so than with sugar in which India soon became self-sufficient. From his early days the author was a consistent supporter of progress towards self-government, and he realised that, whatever might be said as to the suitability or otherwise of parliamentary government in India, no other form of government would have been acceptable to the Indian people. He sees clearly, too, that dyarchy, in spite of the criticisms levelled at it, was a necessary step towards the great 1935 Act. That Act, if completely implemented, would have ushered in full self-government, perhaps without the need for partition. In his castigation of those in authority for the long delay in passing that Act, Sir Stanley perhaps underrates the difficulties, and thereafter he does not fully appreciate the great efforts made by Lord Linlithgow to bring the Princes into the federation. He is, however, right in his judgement that the Princes at that time missed their last chant of effective survival, just as Congress missed the last chance of maintaining the unity of India.
These are the main elements in the author's thesis, but he diverges from them with good effect to appreciate the complex character, of Mahatma Gandhi, or to describe graphically the enduring work of the British irrigation engineers who transformed the desert into fertile lands, or to recount how the vision and determination of Jamsetjee Tata led to the development of the great Indian iron and steel industry. Sir Stanley enjoyed his Indian life to the full, and his robust nature will have none of the traditional nonsense about the white man's " exile " in India. " Life in India offered to the British cadet, whether in the Services or in the commercial houses, the finest prospects which could be held out to any young fellow possessed with what Mulvaney called bowils." Nor has he any doubt that life in India is still worth while. " Here is the allure of adventure —work and play on a far wider plane than offers in the crowded confines of the United Kingdom. . . . Here is the assurance of opportunity." Fortunately for both India and Britain, many hundreds of young Britains today agree with Sir Stanley, and, unless our nature changes so that we all become stay-at-I-tomes, there will always be young Englishmen who feel the attraction of an Indian career.
In spite of several glaring inaccuracies as to names and dates, this is a noteworthy book, informative, stimulating and eminently
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