A T a time when so many domestic anxieties engross our
thoughts, it is inevitable that the grave situation in India should escape attention. The public is dimly aware that all is not well with the one quarter of the population of the world to which we have hitherto given the blessing of order and impartial government. Almost every day we have news of some fresh disturbance in the form of agrarian outrages, and of strikes with violence, or attacks on the police in the great towns of India, caused in every case by political agitation. But the whole truth is not available, and only from private correspondence and from the Indian Press is it possible to form a correct estimate of the appalling danger which threatens the simple, credulous masses for whose welfare we are respon- sible.
The determined attempt to boycott the reception of the Duke of Connaught in normally tranquil Madras—an attempt happily unsuccessful—is not generally known. Extracts from the wildly mendacious speeches at Nagpur have been published ; but the sinister significance of this anarchical Congress meeting, and the encouragement to disorder given by the members of the Labour Party, who visited India at Mr. Montagu's suggestion, are not under- stood. The Congress was dominated by Gandhi, the Hindu fanatic, who was claimed by the Secretary of State as-his " friend," and who has assumed divine attributes. As an Indian who was present writes : " Gandhi's words were taken as those of a prophet, or God." The West is not familiar with Mandiism ; but the blood-stained story of the Sudan, where in a few years one half of the population perished, conveys some idea of what a reactionary Mahatma might accomplish in India. At this Congress, Marwaris were conspicuous. These hereditary traders owe their prosperity mainly to the pax Britannica, and their presence attests their belief that the sceptre has now passed into other hands. Among the side-shows was a picture gallery intended to illustrate oppression in the Rajputana States, and arrangements were made to subvert the authority of their native rulers. The so-called " moderates " slunk away to their tents, and even extremists who did not accept the complete Gandhi platform were overawed. The keynote of the proceedings was Swaraj, to be obtained within a year by a policy of non-co-operation, resting upon hatred of the British Government and British residents in India. Non-co-operation cannot succeed in all the proposed forms, because few Indian politicians are prepared to make personal sacrifices ; but the preaching of race hatred, based on falsehoods, spreads like wildfire, and efforts are being made to render life in India impossible to Europeans. At the large town of Raneegunge in Bengal a single agitator was able to close four important works, and two others were suddenly deprived of all their staffs and servants without warning. " The servants of Europeans are intimidated in every way and are not permitted even to purchase food in the bazaar for their sahibs." It requires no effort of the imagination to see whither these methods will inevitably lead.
The controversy which raged over the preposterous dyarchical constitution forced upon India by Mr. Montagu has lost all interest. Amazing elections, comparable only to those of a South American Republic some years ago, have taken place, and were boycotted by politicians of the dominant party. In many places, intimidation was freely applied to candidates, voters and returning officers in the towns especially. In some cases, large abstentions occurred, and the new Councils are not representative in the Western sense. A most complicated and expensive machine of government, utterly unsuited to the conditions and genius of India, has been set up, and outside this machine are the agitating class determined to wreck it, and to secure Home Rule by paralyzing the British Raj. The Govern- ment of India is well aware that a rising on a large scale is possible this year ; but, having for some time abdicated its functions, it is anxious to take no step which might appear to precipitate a catastrophe. While Mahatma Gandhi and his Moslem confederates have directed their main campaign against the Government, they have not neglected to organize- attacks on Indian landowners and Indian industries, with a view to create the general disorder they regard as essential to their designs. The most critical portions of India—the areas which produced the Mutiny—are now seething with unrest and .a prey to wild rumours. In the Punjab and Delhi there have been no anti-British riots, because the stern lesson- which it was necessary to administer when the Government was face to face with a most dangerous conspiracy, combined with an Afghan invasion, is not yet forgotten. The most important Province in India has, however, been vigorously exploited by the agitators, and it needs only some further exhibition of weakness to set the Punjab heather on fire.
To all who know and love India and who think only of the welfare of the heterogeneous masses, which have in the past looked upon us with respect and trust often deepening into real affection, the present conditions are a- source of shame and dismay. Why have we alienated- our friends ? Why have we allowed the only authority which could hold India together and raise her peoples to the status of nationhood to be usurped by a little band of denational- ized Indians whose only weapon is the preaching of race hatred based on falsehood ? Some future Gibbon will trace the fall of the Raj to illusions fostered and applied by the most disastrous Minister since Lord North. The Home Rule agitation was begun by Mrs. Besant in Septem- ber, 1916, at a time when the Empire was fighting for its life, and in the following month nineteen members of the Viceroy's Council suddenly presented a crazy scheme for an impossible constitution. This was not the moment when calm consideration could be given to Indian Reforms, and it was obviously unwise to make concessions to a party which continued throughout the war to hamper the Government to whom the finest fighting men in India were rendering gallant service. The Secretary of State who, before taking office, had committed himself to some ill-informed criticisms of the Raj had conceived the notion that a fall-fledged democratic constitution could be immedi- ately imposed upon a huge Eastern country whose ancient traditions, cherished customs, and social structure were fundamentally opposed to the ideas which a small. number of Western educated Indians; mostly lawyers, had imper- fectly assimilated. He failed to realize the facts that more than 300 millions of people knew nothing of any form of government and only desired to be left alone and helped ny times of plague and famine, that 94 per cent. of the whole population was illiterate, and that the governing class could only be formed out of about If millions of adults described as literate in English and for• the most part completely out of touch with the cultivators, who form- the vast majority. All difficulties, he believed, could be surmounted by " deliberately disturbing " the contentment of the many races of India, who by this process could be made to acquire a taste for democracy. He failed to understand that, behind the movement to which he suc- cumbed, there lay a strong reaction against all Western ideas which was certain to assert itself as soon as the agitators gained the strength which he quickly put into their hands. Lastly, he ignored the facts, which stand out in letters of fire in the long history of the East, that only a strong Government can count upon support, and that weakness entails disruption and anarchy with greater certainty in India than elsewhere, because of the intense complexity of internal antagonisms, which strong government alone can hold in check. Misconceiving the life of India and the hollowness of the clamour of a little section of intelligentsia, ignoring all warnings, rejecting a safe and rational policy of reform, and always doednating a notoriously weak Government at Simla, the Secretary of State held on a course which has led straight to what he has himself described as an " extremely dangerous " situation. He has made continuous concessions to agitation in the vain hope of winning support. He has shown marked favour to leading irreconcilables with the result of enhancing their influence for evil. He released the ringleaders of the great conspiracy in the Punjab and enabled them to begin a fresh crusade against Government ; and while he permits prosecutions against petty offenders, he allows the dangerous persons full liberty. Throughout his tenure of office he has shown fear which every Indian understands. He has had his way and set up his constitution, which the real people of India do not want and which the party he strove to propitiate is determined to destroy. Even if there were no active hostility to his- constitution, it could not work unless strong British authority was behind it. You may set up an Arab Government in Mesopotamia, where many conditions resemble those of India • but, unless supported by British force, it will quickly disappear, and if the unquestioned authority of the. Raj is not restored, the-exotic dyarchical plant will wither away. Colonel Wedgwood appears to have attained to a glimmer of the fact that the Indian political leaders whom the Labour Party is supporting, though. naturally craving power for. themselves, are not enamoured. of democracy. When once the Raj has ended, other leaders—men who act and do not talk—will spring up, and the great forces latent in India will quickly reassert themselves. Mahatma Gandhi may contemplate a Hindu kingdom rivalling that of Chandragupta. The Ribilafat party may desire the re-establishment of Mohammedan rule at Delhi, and the Sikhs have not forgotten the Lion of Lahore, while the Marathas, who once carried fire and sword from the Deccan to Calcutta, may find. another Sivaji. It is certain only that warlike elements, which have lived in harmony under the mild rule of Britain, will again strive for power which will not be based upon illiterate electorates. There remains the one-third of India which already enjoys Home Rule. The Princes and Chiefs are closely watching the decline of the Raj, and their more powerful members, who have never tolerated agitation in their territories and have- no intention of being dethroned by the followers of Mahatma Gandhi, have already mapped out the increases of territory which they rightly propose to snatch from the chaos that may be at hand. Those who have seen the wonderful order and tranquillity which have prevailed since the Mutiny until recent years have no idea, of the fierce elemental passions—religious, racial, and social—ready to break out when the strong, hand is removed. The.Savaraj, which Gandhi and his confederates are striving to obtain by wrecking the Raj, would quickly turn to anarchy from which millions of poor peasants, who know not what their forefathers endured, will suffer most. The intelligentski, which fancies that it can. rule in our stead, will find itself powerless to organize and train armies for the. defence of the frontiers, and only great military chiefs can prevent the Afghans from again reaching Delhi or the Gurkhas from occupying Calcutta. Then out of the dark shadows of the. past will emerge the spectre of " red ruin and the breaking up of laws," until some foreign Power intervenes and history repeats itself. The loss of India would be an irretrievable calamity to the Empire and to our working classes especially • but the chief sufferers will be the voiceless millions of Indian workers: whom we have striven to raise to nationhood. Is it still possible to avert the passing of the Raj ?
SYDENJ1AM.
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