Letters to the Editor A NEW OUTLOOK ON INDIA [To
the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have read with feelings of surprise the comments which you were good enough to make on my letter in your issue of January 11th. Surely it is first the existence and the interests of the inarticulate masses o ' India in their hundreds of millions, forming as they do some three-fourths of the population of the British Empire, which constitute the fundamental regulative and limiting factor in any scheme for the rapid erection of democratic machinery in their
country. You would, I understand, postpone those interests to what you consider to be the more immediately urgent task—namely, placating the extremist. Rural India in the long future will not thank you, nor those who think with you.
Your estimate of the value and pretensions of the extremist in the political and social spheres is, to say the least, dis- quieting. It would seem to follow from it that the world may yet have to be content to accept with due submission the social and moral principles of the Russian Soviet ; for may not its exponents fairly claim to be extremists ? The prospect of a twentieth-century world tied to the heels of the extremist, political, moral or social, is one well calculated to reconcile a Victorian like myself to an early departure therefrom. But fortunately such pessimism is baseless ; because the analogy drawn from the historical examples, the American War of Independence—absit omen I—and the rest, with which you support your induction regarding the domination of the extremist, is, I am glad to think, quite open to challenge, though no full discussion is possible here.
The truth, no doubt, is that the extremist can operate with any measure of success only in a milieu of public opinion which, inert though it may be, supports, passively at any rate, principles and objects which he expounds in a more or less grossly exaggerated and distorted form.. In India, taking its population as a whole, such conditions are totally absent. The extremist has no wide popular support; passive or active, and it is neither possible nor necessary to placate him. . Finally, you indicate co-operation with the moderate political elements in India as the best course. But, quite apart from the ambiguities and, one may add, the impossi- bilities which cluster round the conception of Dominion status as applied to India, is such co-operation to be with all these so-called moderate political elements with their widely-divergent demands, or, if not, with which of them ? Let the recently published report of the Central Committee, with its two hundred odd pages of dissenting minutes, supply [We never meant to imply that we thought the right course of action was to sit supinely by while extremists were allowed to go on agitating till they ultimately got what they wanted. The whole intention of the articles and comment which the Spectator has recently been publishing was quite the reverse. We want to take the wind from the sails of the extremists by proving that the British Government sympathizes with the aspirations of the growing number of Indians who regard responsible government as the goal. Everything that we have written has been shown to English- men with life-long experience of and residence in India. We quoted certain historical precedents such as British policy in America in the eighteenth century and Ireland simply as instances of the inelasticity of the British mind in its relations with other peoples—for in the eighteenth century the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies had practically become " foreigners " from the British standpoint, owing to their different environ- ment in a pioneer country—and we expressed a hope that this country would take past lessons to heart.
We freely admit that the analogy between the American Colonies and India, or Ireland and India, may be stretched too far. At the same time Great Britain has on certain occasions acted with rare insight in her dealings with peoples demanding the right to govern themselves. In the nineteenth century there was the outstanding example of British treatment of Canada as a result of the Durham Report, and in the present century Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's granting of responsible government to South Africa. We know that the
case of India, with its multiplicity of races and peoples, is not on all fours with these other cases. But we are sure,that a policy of sympathy and co-operation with all those Indians who desire to put into practice the lessons in self-government that they have learnt from us, is the right one for Great Britain to pursue.
We do not regard the condition of Indian opinion as static. We think that an ever-increasing number of people in India will demand self-government. We think that British policy must recognize that fact, and that its sole object should he to prepare the peoples of India for that day. Telling the politically-minded in India that they are naughty children and must be kept permanently in the schoolroom will, in our view, lead inevitably to the break- ing-off of India from the British Commonwealth, which it is our object to prevent. Of course, the difficulties are very great, but anyhow let us know what we are aiming at.
[Our correspondent deduces from our reasoning that " the world may yet have to be content to accept with due sub- mission the social and moral principles of the Russian Soviet." Not so. In our view, if Trarism had pursued an enlightened policy of associating the growing number of politically- minded in Russia with the governing of the country during the past forty years there would have-been no revolution in 1917. The writer visited Russia on several occasions in the twenty years before the War, and always felt that Russian Tsardom afforded the perfect example of how not to do it. In Russia, like India, the vast masses of the people are engaged in agriculture ; the horizon of the RUssian moujil: was, at least till recently, confined to his crops and livestock. If the Russian Emperor had sought to win liberal-minded opinion to his side, one of the greatest tragedies is history might have been averted.—En. Spectator.]
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