Chapter XXVII: Conclusions (2)

When God has so ordained, think ye not that at this auspicious moment it is the duty of every good son of India to slay these white enemies? Do not allow yourselves to die of plague and cholera, thus polluting the sacred soil of Mother-India. Our _Shastras_ are our guide for discriminating between virtue and vice. Our _Shastras_ repeatedly tell us that the killing of these white fiends and of their aiders and abettors is equal to a great ceremonial sacrifice _(Asyamedh Jagna_.) Come, one and all. Let us offer our sacrifice before the altar in chorus, and pray that in this ceremony all white serpents may perish in its flames as the vipers perished in the serpent slaying ceremony of _Janmajob_. Keep in mind that it is not murder but _Jagna_--a sacrificial rite.

NOTE 9

BENGALEE LAWLESSNESS.

A very striking, and at the same time sober, picture of the conditions produced by Bengalee methods of agitation is to be found in the speech delivered at the opening of the Provincial Legislature of Eastern Bengal at Dacca on April 6, 1910, by Sir Lancelot Hare, the Lieutenant-Governor appointed in succession to Sir Bampfylde Fuller. "We have had abundant experience," he said, "in the last three years that the advocacy of the boycott at public meetings is invariably followed by acts of tyranny and brutality and illegal interference with the rights of a free people to buy and sell as they, and not as a particular set of agitators, prefer. No district officer anxious to maintain the peace of his district can allow a recrudescence of these disturbances. I have seen it denied that there have been such cases, but the state calendar of crime is there to refute such an assertion; and you and I well know that the cases which have been brought to trial bear a very small proportion to the cases which have arisen but which the raiyats have been afraid to press home. When we remember the enormous power of the zemindar following from the unfortunate absence of any record of right upon which the tenant can lean, and rely, we can well understand how a raiyat hesitates to oppose his landlord's will. I have seen, it claimed that such advocacy of the boycott is a constitutional right. The extraordinary fallacy of this assertion hardly needs refuting. With a democratic Government an appeal to the public is an appeal to the Government, as it is an appeal to the voter who appoints the member of Parliament who appoints the Government. Such a condition does not exist in this country, and when an agitator who wishes to press his views on Government says that the boycott will be preached until Government takes a particular course which Government has decided is not for the good of the people, and has announced that it will not adopt, such an appeal is not a constitutional act nor an appeal to Government but an act of defence and open resistance to Government. This Government now as always will do what it believes to be in the best interests of the people. It will always give such regard as it can to respectful representations, even when they come from a small minority only of the population; but appeals to force and violence, appeals to the mob for race hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, do not constitute constitutional agitation. I would say a few words on the mischief of the boycott agitation. The boycott agitation has been the curse of this province for the past five years, causing endless suffering and unrest, obstructing the path of progress, exciting ill-feeling between Government and the people, and hindering their co-operation in the work of reconstitution and reform. The agitation has displayed itself in many evil forms, all tending to oppression, and lawlessness."

"MANY-HEADED MISCHIEF."

It is difficult to review this many-headed mischief in a few words, but its main features may readily be brought to mind. First there is the economic disturbance which resulted from the enforcement of the boycott whether by persuasion, or by intimidation or by force. This has been a very real mischief and a very real suffering in many parts of the country where the cultivators found themselves unable to obtain the products to which they were accustomed at prices which they could afford to pay. Next is to be noted the violent scenes in the bazaars, where the sale of British goods was sought to be obstructed by organized force. The deplorable riot at Jamalpore, with its terrible sequel, is only one among many such scenes. A closely allied evil was the picketing of the bazaars by students and other young men, which became an intolerable nuisance until it was put down with a strong hand. The case at Jhalakati, where the young boycotters practically took possession of the bazaar, is a prominent typical instance. Then followed the numerous cases of interference with individuals with the accompaniment of assault and mischief and criminal restraint. The long list of crimes of this nature that have been punished in due course would be wearisome to repeat. No less mischievous and perhaps even more widespread and more common have been the cases of criminal intimidation, in which notices have been posted, or letters have been sent, threatening vendors or purchasers individually or collectively with arson or murder or other outrage. Wealthy zemindars and bankers, shopkeepers of all grades, and villagers and townsfolk have alike prayed to be protected from such interference in the lawful pursuit of their ordinary avocations; and too often it has been impossible to afford this protection. That these threats were not mere idle extravagance has been proved to the hilt by the grave incidents that have actually taken place. More widespread, more difficult to deal with, and causing even greater suffering than these violent methods has been the social persecution which has been exercised upon those who have failed to bow down to the orders of the boycotters. This is one of the most serious chapters in the whole history of the agitation, and Government has again had to deplore the sufferings to which quiet and law-abiding persons have been subjected. The constitution of Hindu society lends itself with great readiness to this form of compulsion, and no weapon is more feared than social ostracism when ruthlessly used in pursuance of a political object. Another most grave aspect of the boycott agitation has been the constant attempt to excite disaffection against Government by public meetings, speeches, propagandist tours, newspapers, pamphlets, songs, flaunting and noisy processions, and dramatic performances. Every effort has been made to try and persuade the people that the Government is hostile, callous, and neglectful and that boycott, and its kindred measures, are the means by which to bring it to a better course. Some of the worst offenders have been prosecuted under the law and have paid the penalty of their crimes, but it is impossible by such means to counteract or nullify the mischief that they and others have caused.

YOUTHS AND POLITICS.

There remains another point which is at the present time of the most sinister significance. The promoters of the agitation conceived the deplorable idea that their propaganda might best be spread, and that their designs might best be carried out by the youths of the country. From this selection has arisen what is now the worst feature of the situation. It is impossible to condemn too strongly the use of the students and other youths to foster political aims. It has resulted in a wave of excitement amongst immature and impressionable minds throughout the affected districts. In this province in the first instance this evil exhibited itself in the constant appearance of youths in the forefront of political demonstration, however hostile and objectionable in character. This phenomenon was naturally accompanied by numerous instances of indiscipline among students which Government has repeatedly been obliged to denounce. The effect on the minds of the most impressionable youths, and especially among those who had a ready means of livelihood and an available occupation, has reached a pitch which was doubtless never contemplated by the more sober among those who initiated this regrettable movement. Nevertheless a series of crimes in which youths belonging to the respectable classes have been known to participate must be regarded as directly attributable to the excitement of political agitation. It is impossible to avoid mentioning in this connexion the system of national schools which was to be lauded in all three of the prohibited Conferences, and which has been encouraged in other similar meetings that are taking place.

During the past few years in this Province the record of these schools is an evil one. They were established in open hostility to the State system of education, which is the true national system, and several of the most important were opened for the purpose of receiving boys expelled from or punished in other schools for taking part in political demonstrations of a most reprehensible character. Their subsequent history has accorded with the spirit in which they were founded and their close connexion with forms of political agitation most unhealthy for young minds has been evinced in many a regrettable incident.

THE OUTLOOK.

If we review the present position we find that during the past year there has been some subsidence of the acute stage of the malady, or rather it has taken a different turn. The bulk of the reasonable inhabitants have become wearied of the senseless agitation which brings annoyance and suffering without doing them good. There is less active boycott and the ordinary citizen has become less amenable to the leaders of the agitation. But in spite of this, two circumstances stand out--first, the local leaders have not in general abated one tittle of their efforts to enforce the boycott, and where in any locality they showed signs of resting, their chiefs are ready to urge them forward; secondly, the perversion of our young men has reached a most alarming stage, not merely from the point of view of the crime and the sense of insecurity that it engenders, but also from the more general aspect of the character and prospects of the rising generation. Many parents have most bitter reason to lament their failure to guide, control, and restrain their children. On the 7th August boycott celebrations occurred at the headquarters of each district of the Dacca division, and at a number of places in the interior. The boycott vow was everywhere renewed and at several meetings speeches were delivered, the tendency and object of which was to excite renewed disaffection and to stir up zeal for the cause. The observances for the 16th October were prescribed in an order of the chiefs published in the Calcutta papers, and the local leaders did their best to carry out these instructions. Rakhibandan bathing, abstinence from cooked food, and the solemn renewal of the boycott vow were the principal features. In some places public meetings were held and again the tone of several speakers was most reprehensible. District conferences and other similar meetings played their usual important part in the year's programme. In the Dacca division, Jhalakati, Faridpur, and Pangsa were selected as the theatres of those performances. The resolutions were varied in character, but however guarded and mild their phraseology, the speeches advocated boycott in its most blatant form, and sentiments were expressed tending to keep alive the most pernicious and dangerous characteristics of the political and social situation. Similar conferences, in which the boycott played a prominent part, and in which ill-feeling against the Government was excited, were held in August and September at Pabna and Dinajpur, and in the Sylhet district in October a series of meetings took place. In a portion of the Faridpur district, the unsettled condition of which has for some time been a cause of anxiety, the inhabitants are mostly Namasudras. The ostensible object of these meetings was to raise the social condition of the people, but it appears from the accounts published in the Press that the Anti-Partition agitation and the boycott of foreign goods were urged and the promise of social privilege was only made as a reward or return for promising to take the boycott vow. This condition of affairs could not be permitted to continue indefinitely, and it became evident that sooner or later--and the sooner the better--the mischief must be stopped and the people of the province given the opportunity which they need and desire to settle down to their normal life and to co-operation with the Government for their material and moral progress.

NOTE 10

SACRIFICING "WHITE GOATS"

The term occurs, for instance, in one of the most violent fly-sheets issued only a few months ago from a clandestine press in India, under the heading _Yagantar_, killing no murder:--

Rise up, rise up, O sons of India, arm yourselves with bombs, despatch the white _Asuras_ to Yana's abode. Invoke the mother Kali; nerve your arm with valour. The Mother asks for sacrificial offerings. What does the Mother want? The cocoanut? No. A fowl or a sheep or a buffalo? No, She wants many white _Asuras_. The Mother is thirsting after the blood of the Feringhees who have bled her profusely. Satisfy her thirst. Killing the Feringhee, we say, is no murder. Brother, chant this verse while slaying the Feringhee white goat, for killing him is no murder: With the close of a long era, the Feringhee Empire draws to an end for behold! Kali rises in the East.

NOTE 11

HINDUS AND MAHOMEDANS IN GOVERNMENT SERVICE.

Some statistics have been collected lately by the Moslem League with reference to the relative numbers of Hindus and Mahomedans employed in Government service in India. The figures are still subject to revision, and therefore can only be given as approximately correct. Moreover, the classification adopted does not seem to have been precisely the same in the different provinces. But even if a considerable margin is allowed for discrepancies which may yet have to be rectified, the figures quoted below for several important branches of the service are instructive:--

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS OF THE RANK OF DEPUTY COLLECTORS, DEPUTY
MAGISTRATES, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONERS, &c.

Hindus. Mahomedans.
----------------------------------+----------+--------------
Bombay .. .. .. ..| 53 | 9
Madras .. .. .. ..| 61 | 7
Bengal .. .. .. ..| 265 | 59
Eastern Bengal .. .. ..| 136 | 49
Central Provinces .. .. ..| 60 | 24
United Provinces .. .. ..| 125 | 98
Punjab .. .. .. ..| 74 | 68

SUB-DEPUTY COLLECTORS, SUB-DEPUTY MAGISTRATES, &c.

Hindus. Mahomedans.
----------------------------------+----------+--------------
Bombay .. .. .. ..| 186 | 3
Madras .. .. .. ..| 151 | 11
Bengal .. .. .. ..| 165 | 33
Eastern Bengal .. .. ..| 107 | 39
Central Provinces .. .. ..| 52 | 16
United Provinces .. .. ..| 122 | 106
Punjab .. .. .. ..| 142 | 90

SUB-DEPUTY JUDGES AND MUNSIFFS

Hindus. Mahomedans.
----------------------------------+----------+--------------
Bombay .. .. .. ..| 109 | 2
Madras .. .. .. ..| 132 | 1
Bengal .. .. .. ..| 195 | 17
Eastern Bengal .. .. ..| 21 | 1
Central Provinces .. .. ..| 117 | 6
United Provinces .. .. ..| 111 | 35
Punjab .. .. .. ..| 81 | 52

EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

Hindus. Mahomedans.
----------------------------------+----------+--------------
Bombay .. .. .. ..| 39 | 17
Madras .. .. .. ..| 127 | 10
Bengal .. .. .. ..| 110 | 16
Eastern Bengal .. .. ..| 56 | 15
Central Provinces .. .. ..| 23 | 2
United Provinces .. .. ..| 58 | 5
Punjab .. .. .. ..| 53 | 6

NOTE 12

INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS SUBSIDIES TO ITS SUPPORTERS IN ENGLAND.

The following resolutions passed by the Indian National Congress show that considerable financial support has been regularly given by that body towards the expenses of its London organ, _India_, and of the British committee it co-operates with.

MADRAS, 1898.

"That a sum of Rs.60,000 be assigned for the expenses of the British Committee and the cost of the Congress publication _India_, and also for the expenses of the Joint-General Secretary's Office, and that the several circles do contribute, as arranged, either now or hereafter in Committee for the year 1899."

AHMEDABAD, 1902.

"That with a view to meet the balance required to defray the expenses of _India_ and the British Committee a special delegation fee of Rs.10 be paid by each delegate in addition to the usual fee now paid by him with effect from 1902."

MADRAS, 1903.

"That a sum of Rs.10,500 be assigned for the expenses of the British Committee and that the several Congress circles do contribute the amount allotted to each."

BOMBAY, 1904.

"That a sum of £700 be assigned for the expenses of the British Committee and that the several Congress circles do contribute the amount allotted to each."

NOTE 13

AN ENGLISH SOCIALIST "MANIFESTO."

The support given to Indian Nationalists by a certain class of politicians in England goes sometimes to such lengths that the tolerance extended to them is open to very serious question. For instance, in a London newspaper which calls itself "the Organ of Social Democracy," _Justice_ there appeared on August 27 a "Manifesto" headed "The Infamies of Liberal Rule in India," which contained, along with much indiscriminate denunciation of British tyranny, the outrageous statement that Savarkar, who is now undergoing trial in Bombay on grave charges, including the abetment of murder, had been arrested in England "for an alleged political offence, and in order that he might not have a fair trial defended by Council, and safeguarded by public opinion in this country, he was sent back to India, where, innocent or guilty, his condemnation could be officially ensured." In conclusion, it was stated:--"We, at any rate, shall take care that this little manifesto of ours shall be distributed in the native languages throughout Hindustan, in order that the population of that great Empire may know that there is an active and growing party in this island which has neither part nor lot in the outrages and crimes committed by our rulers, and that its members heartily sympathize with the legitimate efforts of Indians of all races, castes, and creeds to emancipate themselves finally from the monstrous domination under which they suffer to-day."

Many loyal Indians, and indeed the disloyal ones too, may very reasonably ask whether it is right and just to allow language of this kind to be used and circulated with impunity in this country when, if it were used and circulated in India, it would at once give rise to a criminal prosecution.

NOTE 14

INDIAN STUDENTS IN ENGLAND.

An Indian Correspondent of _The Times_ who has made a special study of the condition of his fellow-countrymen studying in England writes that it would be almost impossible for an Englishman who has never been in the East to realize the enormous difference between the life to which the student has been used and the life to which he has come. In many instances his home is in some far off lonely village. He may have been to some town to study in a Government or missionary school or college. But that has not given him an insight into English life. In the Government institution he sees little of his English teacher or professor outside lessons or lecture hours. He never has the chance of knowing an English lady. The student has little time for more than his studies, so numerous are the subjects and the prescribed text-books for Indian examinations. In the vacations the Professors go to the hills, or sail for England, and the student goes back to his village. He has acquired little or no knowledge of the English. He comes to England feeling there is a gulf between the East and the West, save in the case of a missionary interest in his soul. He is by nature extremely sensitive. On board ship he and his brother Indians keep together. The English passengers, fatigued after a period of hard work in a hot climate, have no energy left for the effort of trying to draw out and know this batch of silent Orientals. So the gulf gapes wide. If they tarry in Marseilles or Paris there are those who are anxious and ready to widen this gulf between the Indians and English. Then the student arrives in London, where a man can be more lonely than anywhere in the world. Here he has to find a dwelling. The man from a dreamy, lonely, Eastern village, from the land of the sun has to select an abode in London. Hotels and boarding houses and lodgings there are in abundance; but the hotel or boarding house or lodging suitable to this man's need--fitted to introduce him to English life, may exist, but how is he to find it? He is not only bewildered, he is terribly home-sick. His wish to come to England has been, gratified, but oh! for a sight of his own people and, his simple home. He must drown this longing as best he may. There are many ways of drowning it in London. There are many who will assist him to forget what he had better never forget--his village home. But after all there are some English people who will know him. He has found lodgings, and the landlady and her family make themselves most agreeable. He knows no other English people. He wants friendliness so far away from home, so these and theirs become his friends.

In London the majority of Indian students gain admission to the Inns of Court. The new regulations, which come into force in January next, were intended to render admission more difficult to attain; but they will fail of their purpose, for success in the Oxford and Cambridge senior local examinations is a qualification for admission, and these examinations are held in various parts of India. Students will in future avoid entering the Indian Universities, but will get private coaching, and sit for these examinations in India, with a view to gaining admission to one or other of the Inns. It never seems to have occurred to the Honourable Societies of the Inns to take any steps to look after the well-being of these numberless students, who bring hundreds of pounds to their coffers every year. So different is their position from that of the English student that their case merits special attention. To look after them might be unusual, it would certainly be expedient. The eating of a few dinners and attendance at certain lectures are no tax on the student's time. He puts off real study to the last moment. It is so easy to learn all the subjects just before each examination. With a few exceptions the English and Indian students do not speak to each other. So the Inns do not provide the Indian with society. A youth from the East, dwelling in a London lodging, finding himself for the first time in command of a banking account, with abundance of leisure, and no English friends of his own standing--can he become a loyal, useful citizen of our Empire?

Some of them go to Oxford and Cambridge. They have heard in India, from some Indians who were up at these Universities from ten to fifteen years ago, how delightful the life is--how sociable the undergraduates, how hospitable the dons. Surely then at these ancient seats of learning they will find friendliness, and will come to know the English. They go up only to find disappointment. The numbers have largely increased and all sorts and conditions of men come. Colleges are reluctant to admit them. The English undergraduate accepts any man who is good at games and ready to enter into the University life, but leaves severely alone the man of any nationality who has had no opportunity of learning English games, and who is too shy and sensitive to show what he is worth. Those who are good at games get on, the others are far from being happy. A few gain admission to colleges, the rest are "unattached." Lodging-house existence at Oxford or Cambridge is preferable to that in London; but it does not assist to a knowledge of the English. Foreigners at the Universities take the trouble to try and know the Indian, and extend to him that friendship which the English undergraduate, through youthful lack of thought, withholds. The Imperial instinct is lacking in the youth of to-day; else would they realize that it is an important duty to try and know fellow-subjects from a distant part of the Empire. There is nothing that Orientals will not do to make the stranger to their country feel at home. They cannot understand the reserved Occidental who leaves the stranger to his Western country all alone. Some of the Indian students think that the only way to bid for the English undergraduate's acquaintance is by a lavish expenditure on wine parties; and so he spends largely, and acquires an acquaintance, but not with the typical Englishman. If Indian students at the old Universities are only to know each other or foreigners, how are they to be bound by a loyal attachment to England? At Edinburgh the gulf is wide indeed. A number of Colonial students help to make it wider. The two sides seldom or never meet. They just tolerate each other's presence. So the Indian student is tempted to seek for company in circles which do not help his education or tend to elevate him. Should such a state of things continue?

Engineering and medical students are in better case than others. Their work is so hard and exacting, if they do it aright, they have no time to feel solitude. The one complaint of engineering students is that they find it enormously difficult to gain opportunities for learning the practical side of their work. Firms are most reluctant to admit them as apprentices. France and Germany welcome them, and Continental firms extend to them the aid the English firms deny. Is it always to be so? Other nations gaining that esteem and gratitude which England should so jealously acquire and guard. Americans, too, are winning the good will of the Indian student both in India and abroad. They have well-equipped schools and colleges all over India. They spare no efforts to make the Indian student feel they are there solely for him. They are with him in and out of school and college hours. They inspire him with their enthusiasm. Wherever they meet him they give him a grip of the hand which leaves him in no doubt as to their frank friendliness. Yet it is not to America nor to any other nation that India belongs, but to England. But there is no security in mere possession. The only safety lies in the constant effort to hold--to hold pleasantly, gaining the heart and head.

Surely the fact that many influences are at work systematically striving to estrange these students from England should rouse the English to effort. It may not be an easy task to gain these men. It will need patience and zeal. There must be no touch of patronage in the attempt. Their deep-rooted belief that no real friendship can exist between the English and the Indian has to be overcome; the much misrepresentation which has made the Indian student misjudge the English character has to be counteracted and set right. It must be remembered that he is a being far away from home, excessively sensitive, situated in extremely unusual surroundings and in most cases having lost that religious belief without which no Oriental is really happy or able to live and be his best. He is, in truth, not himself. Such is the student who is to be won to attachment. The difficulty of the task should appeal to the English nature.

What is required is not a sudden and indiscriminate rush to seek out and know the Indian student. That would not last and would lead to much disappointment on both sides. The great need of the present is workers who know both sides and who will judiciously draw them together. Connecting links to bring the right Indians into touch with the right English. They will need very special qualifications, these workers, if they are to succeed. There is enough to be done to employ the full time of exceptionally energetic men. Wonders could be worked if England only realized her duty to these men. The Indian student would return to his home at any rate with no feeling of bitterness. He would have his chance of seeing the real English, and of being influenced aright. Misconceptions would be banished. He would live in an atmosphere better adapted to hard work. He would attain a higher standard in his studies and examinations. He would be better fitted to be a useful citizen. Friendliness would, at any rate, have blunted antagonistic tendencies. And what a difference it would make to his people! The father who has spent so much on him would no longer feel that his son has lost and not gained by crossing the seas. The mother who, though behind the purdah, has eagerly been watching his career, dwelling lovingly on the weekly news, counting the days to his return, would no longer need to weep that it is not well with her son, who has come back so different from all she had hoped. Whole families would bless the England which had made their member manly, upright, better for his sojourn there, fitted to earn a living honourably, and possessed of grit to strive to do his best. And he, the student, stirred, by memories of kindness in the West, would win those with whom he comes in contact to a friendlier feeling for the British race. The seditionist would find no soil here ready for his seed. Could anything be better worth accomplishing?

NOTE 15

THE VICEROY'S EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.

A Mahomedan gentleman, Mr. Ali Imam, has been appointed to succeed Mr. Sinha as Indian member of the Viceroy's Executive Council. He too is a leading member of the Bengal Bar, and, like Mr. Sinha, will take charge of the Legal Department. Though the selection of a Mahomedan in succession to a Hindu cannot fail to gratify Indian Moslems, Mr. Ali Imam's appointment should not be altogether unacceptable to the Hindus. For when the details of the reforms' scheme were being worked out in India, he adopted, on the subject of separate electorates for the Mahomedan community, a line of his own which was applauded by the Hindus, but was very much resented by the vast majority of his co-religionists. The Government of India seemed inclined to favour his proposals, and he proceeded to England to press them upon Lord Morley. But the Secretary of State wisely decided that the pledges originally given by Lord Minto to the Indian Mahomedans must be scrupulously and fully redeemed, so as to secure to them substantial representation in the new Councils.

NOTE 16

The first Indian Member of the Bengal Executive Council is expected to be Mr. R.N. Mookerjee, a partner in the well-known Calcutta firm of Messrs. Martin and Co., to whom I have referred (page 258) as "the one brilliant exception" amongst Western-educated Bengalees, who has achieved signal success in commerce and industry and has shown the possibility and the advantages of intelligent and business-like co-operation in those fields between Englishmen and Indians.

NOTE 17

THE WASTAGE IN INDIAN UNIVERSITIES.

The most striking feature about the number of graduates at the Indian Universities is not the magnitude of their total or any increase in it, but the very high proportion of wastage. It takes 24,000 candidates at Matriculation to secure 11,000 passes, it takes 7,000 candidates at the Intermediate examination to secure 2,800 passes, and it takes 4,750 candidates for the B.A. degree to secure 1,900 passes.

There are 18,000 students at college in order to supply an annual output of 1,935 graduates. This means that a very large number fall out by the way without completing successfully their University career. The phenomenon, peculiar to India, of candidates for employment urging as a qualification that they have failed at a University examination (meaning that they have passed the preceding examination and added thereto some years of study for the next) is due to two causes, the large number of students whom the University rejects at its examinations before it grants the B.A. degree to the remainder, and the dearth of graduates. _(Quinquennial Report on the Progress of Education in India for_ 1902-1907, by Mr. H.W. Orange, Director-General of Education.)

NOTE 18

ENGLISH HISTORY IN INDIAN SCHOOLS.

At the opening of an Educational Conference held last April in Bombay under the joint auspices of the Director of Public Instruction and of the Teachers' Association, the Governor, Sir George Clarke, alluded to some of the effects of Western education on the younger generation of Indians:--"It is widely admitted by the thoughtful Indians that there are signs of the weakening of parental influence, of the loss of reverence for authority, of a decadence of manners and of growing moral laxity. The restraining forces of ancient India have lost some of their power; the restraining forces of the West are inoperative in India. There has thus been a certain moral loss without any corresponding gain. The educated European may throw off the sanctions of religion; but he has to live in a social environment which has been built up on the basis of Christian morality, and he cannot divest himself of the influences which have formed his conscience. The educated or partially educated Indian who has learned to look on life and the affairs of men from a Western standpoint has no such environment and may find himself morally rudderless on an ocean of doubt. The restraints of ancient philosophies, which have unconsciously helped to shape the lives of millions in India who had only the dimmest knowledge of them, have disappeared from his mental horizon. There is nothing to take their place. Ancient customs, some of them salutary and ennobling, have come to be regarded as obsolete. No other customs of the better sort have come to take their place, and blindly to copy the superficial customs of the West is to ignore all that is best in western civilization."

Commenting on his Excellency's speech, the Bombay _Examiner_, a weekly paper very ably conducted in the interests of the Roman Catholic missions, drew attention, in the following terms to some of the causes of the mischief.

(1) The study of English history in schools reveals a gradual transition from an unlimited monarchy to a limited monarchy differing barely from a republic, the gradual transfer of political power from kings and aristocracy through the barons and then through the burghers and finally to the whole people. In reality this process took almost a thousand years, but in the schoolroom it is compressed into a term. The gradualness of the process, the long preparation of each class of citizens, the slow political education of the masses, all of which forms a long historical perspective, is through the medium of the text-book thrown upon, the screen at once as a flat picture. It may not occur perhaps to the young mind to apply the precedent to his own country; but as soon as he falls under the influence of the political agitator the question, suggests itself: If the English people thus fought their way to supremacy, why should not the Indian people do the same? Losing sight of the perspective of history, it seems to him feasible that India should achieve in one bound what it took nearly a thousand years for the English people to bring about.

(2) In studying political economy and social science he meets with such principles as these--that the ruler is merely the delegate and representative of the people, from whose will he derives all his power. This power is to be exercised for the well-being of the people who have conferred it, and according to their will in conferring it. The old idea that all power, even that conferred through the people, is ultimately derived from God and exercised in His Name, is of course never heard of. The ruler is a public servant of the collective nation, and that is all. To introduce this notion among a people whose idea of government has run for thousands of years on the lines of absolute monarchy and hereditary if not divine right is nothing short of revolutionary. All idea of the sacredness of authority is at once gone. The Government is a thing to be dictated to by the people, to be threatened and bullied and even exterminated if it does not comply with the nation's wishes. Hence as soon as the political agitator appears on the scene nothing seems more plausible to the raw mind of the student than an endeavour to upset the existing order of things. This cannot, of course, all be done at once; but at least a beginning can be made. Let us agitate for the redress of this or that grievance, for the increase of native appointments, and the like; and if we do not at once get what we ask for, let us try what bullying and intimidation can do--aspiring ultimately to substitute a representative for a monarchical form of government, and having secured this, wait the opportune moment for driving the foreigner into the sea. Thus a change which, to be successful, would require the gradual education of the people for generations, is to be forced on at once; and "if constitutional means are not sufficient to achieve our ambition, why not try what unconstitutional means will do?"

NOTE 19

A SHAMELESS APPEAL.

Perhaps the most audacious defence of the enlistment by Hindu politicians of schoolboys and students in the service of a lawless propaganda occurs in an article in the _Bengalee_ of August 2, 1906, shamelessly appealing to the language of Christ. The _Bengalee_, which is published in English, is Mr. Surendranath Banerjee's organ:--

"In all great movements boys and young men play a prominent part, the divine message comes first to them; and they are persecuted and they suffer for their faith. 'Suffer the little children to come unto Me,' are the words of the divinely-inspired Founder of Christianity; and the faith that is inseparable from childhood and youth is the faith which has built up great creeds and has diffused them through the world. Our boys and young men have been persecuted for their _Swadeshism_; and their sufferings have made _Swadeshism_ strong and vigorous."

_NOTE 20 (page_ 241).

THE BRAHMANS AND WESTERN EDUCATION.

The special caste grievances of Brahmans against Western education are very frankly set forth in a speech on "The Duties of Brahmans," delivered in Bombay at the beginning of this year to his fellow caste-men by Rao Sahib Joshi, a distinguished and very enlightened, member of the Yajurvidi Palshikar sept of Brahmans. Mr. Joshi, who laid great stress upon the duty of loyalty to the British _Raj_, began by recalling the patent conferred upon them by a British Governor of Bombay at the beginning of the eighteenth century for the protection of their privileges, especially in connexion with the teaching of medicine. But their community had gradually lost ground from various causes, and amongst those which he enumerated, he laid the chief stress upon the diffusion of secular education. He fully recognized the benefits of English education, but "all education being of a secular character, it made the new generation a class of sceptics. People brought up with English ideas, and in the atmosphere of secular education, now began to pay less respect to their Gurus and hereditary priests. In former days when the Guru or head priest came to one's house people used to say:--'I bow down to the Guru; the Guru is Brahma, the Guru is Vishnu, the Guru is Shiwa; verily the Guru is the Sublime Brahma!' This idea, this respect the secular English education shattered to pieces, and so the income and importance of the hereditary priests dwindled down."

NOTE 21

FEMALE EDUCATION.

In his quinquennial review of the progress of education in India, Mr. H.W. Orange quotes the following remarks by Mr. Sharp, Director of Public Instruction in Eastern Bengal, on the position of female education, adding that they describe the prevailing, if not quite universal, state of affairs:--

"All efforts to promote female education have hitherto encountered peculiar difficulties. These difficulties arise chiefly from the customs of the people themselves. The material considerations, which have formed a contributing factor in the spread of boys' schools, are inoperative in the case of girls. The natural and laudable desire for education as an end in itself, which is evinced by the upper and middle classes as regards their sons, is no match for the conservative instincts of the Mahomedans, the system of early marriage among the Hindus, and the rigid seclusion of women which is a characteristic of both. These causes prevent any but the most elementary education from being given to girls. The lack of female teachers and the alleged unsuitability of the curriculum, which is asserted to have been framed more with a view to the requirements of boys than those of girls, form subsidiary reasons or excuses against more rapid progress. To these difficulties may be added the belief, perhaps more widely felt than expressed, that the general education of women means a social revolution, the extent of which cannot be foreseen. 'Indian gentlemen,' it has been well said, 'may thoroughly allow that when the process has been completed, the nation will rise in intelligence, in character and in all the graces of life. But they are none the less apprehensive that while the process of education is going on, while the lessons of emancipation are being learnt and stability has not yet been reached, while, in short, society is slowly struggling to adjust itself to the new conditions, the period of transition will be marked by the loosening of social ties, the upheaval of customary ways, and by prolonged and severe domestic embarrassment.' There is, it is true, an advanced section of the community that is entirely out of sympathy with this view. In abandoning child-marriage they have got rid of the chief obstacle to female education; and it is among them, consequently, that female education has made proportionately the greatest progress in quantity and still more in quality. But outside this small and well-marked class, the demand for female education is much less active and spontaneous.... In fact the people at large encourage or tolerate the education of their girls only up to an age and up to a standard at which it can do little good, or, according to their point of view, little harm."

NOTE 22

THE THEORY OF THE "DRAIN."

The Master of Elibank, then Under-Secretary of State, included in his Indian Budget speech on Aug. 5, 1909, a brief but effective refutation of the "drain" theory:--

"If the House will allow me, I wish to digress for a moment to deal with a charge that is constantly made, and has recently been repeated, to the effect that there is poverty in India which is largely due to the political and commercial drain on the country year by year, the political, it is asserted, amounting to £30,000,000 and the commercial to £40,000,000. These figures have been placed even higher by those who wish to blacken the Indian Administration in order to bolster up a malicious agitation against this country. I think it is incumbent upon the representative of the Indian Government in this House to deal with the statement. I may at once say that it has no foundation in fact. (Hear, hear.) Its origin is to be found, no doubt, in the fact that India makes annually considerable payments in England in return for services rendered, such as the loan of British capital; but there is no justification for describing these payments as a drain, and their amount is only a fraction of the figures which I have just quoted. Let me deal first with the question of amount. As the method by which India makes her payments in England is that she exports more than she imports, all calculations as to the amount of payments must necessarily be based on the returns of Indian trade, which show by how much the Indian exports exceed her imports. If the trade returns are examined for 1904, 1906, and 1906, after making due allowance for the capital sent to India in connexion with Government transactions, the average excess of exports over imports, or in other words payments by India to England for services rendered, is £23,900,000 per year during the three years that have been mentioned. This payment is made up of, first, £21,200,000, being the average annual amount of the Government remittance during three years, which corresponds to the alleged political drain of £30,000,000; and, secondly, £2,700,000, the average annual amount of private remittances during the same period, which total has been most carefully examined and corresponds to the alleged commercial drain of £40,000,000. Now let us examine for a moment the nature of these two remittances. The Government remittance is mainly for the payment of home charges--namely, those charges in England which are normally met from revenue. These charges, in the three years to which I have referred, averaged £18,250,000, made up in the following manner:--Interest on debt, £9,600,000; payments for stores, ordered and purchased in this country, which cannot be manufactured in India, £2,500,000; pensions and furlough pay to civil and military officers, £5,000,000; and miscellaneous, £1,250,000. It will thus be seen that alter deducting £5,000,000 for pensions and furlough pay, the bulk of the remittance represents interest for railway developments and other matters with which the interests of the peoples of India are intimately bound up. Besides the home charges proper, certain sums were remitted to England by the Government to defray capital charges. These bring the Government remittances to the total of £21,200,000 already mentioned. Now let us turn for a moment to the supposed commercial drain of £40,000,000 per year, which, as I have endeavoured to show, is in reality £2,700,000, being the difference during the period referred to between the private remittances from India, representing private profits, savings, &c., sent home to England, and the private remittances to India representing the transmission of English capital to that country. We can therefore say definitely that whatever India may have sent to England within the three years, she received from England as capital a sum falling short of that amount by £2,700,000 a year; and perhaps I might incidentally remind the House that at the end of 1907 the capital outlay on railways alone in India amounted to £265,000,000 sterling, the bulk of which is British capital, but by no means represents the full amount of British capital invested in India, which has taken its part in commercially developing its resources and providing employment for the masses of people in that great continent. Hon. members who have followed a recent discussion in the pages of the _Economist_ as to whether £300,000,000 or £500,000,000 was the amount of British capital invested in India for its commercial and industrial development and for providing employment of the people in that land, will agree that the sum could not be placed lower than £350,000,000."

NOTE 23

THE SECRETARY OF STATE AND THE VICEROY.

This issue was raised, for instance, during the Viceroyalty of Lord Northbrook, when Lord Salisbury was Secretary of State, Mr. Bernard Mallett's memoir of Lord Northbrook contains the following noteworthy remarks upon the subject by Lord Cramer, who, as Major Baring, was Private Secretary to Lord Northbrook:--

There can be no doubt that Lord Salisbury's idea was to conduct the government of India to a very large extent by private correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Viceroy. He was disposed to neglect and, I also think, to underrate the value of the views of the Anglo-Indian officials ... This idea inevitably tended to bring the Viceroy into the same relation to the Secretary of State for India as that in which an Ambassador or Minister at a foreign Court stands to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ... Lord Northbrook's general view was the exact opposite of all this, and I am strongly convinced that he was quite right ... He recognized the subordinate position of the Viceroy, but he held that Parliament had conferred certain rights not only on the Viceroy but on his Council which differentiated them in a very notable degree from subordinate officials such as those in the diplomatic service ... Lord Northbrook regarded the form of government in India as a very wise combination which enabled both purely English and Anglo-Indian experience to be brought to bear on the treatment of Indian questions. He did not by any means always follow the Indian official view; but he held strongly, in the first place, that to put aside that view and not to accord to the two Councils in London and Calcutta their full rights was unconstitutional in this sense that, though the form might be preserved, the spirit of the Act of Parliament regulating the government of India would be evaded. In the second place, he held that for a Viceroy or a Secretary of State without Indian experience to overrule those who possessed such experience was an extremely unwise proceeding, and savoured of an undue exercise of that autocratic power of which he himself was very unjustly accused.

NOTE 24

THE DIFFICULTIES OF LOYAL HINDUS.

A Hindu gentleman who has taken a considerable part in the struggle against Brahmanical disloyalty and intolerance in the Deccan has sent me a copy of a letter addressed to the _Times of India_ in which he explains the peculiar difficulties with which loyal Hindus find themselves confronted:--

Englishmen hardly appreciate the true magnitude of the difficulties we have to contend with in any attempt to expose sedition. All the social forces that exist in Hindu society run counter to anti-Brahminical movements. The influence which the Brahmins exercise on the popular mind is still considerable. A man who is damned by the village-priest or the Brahmin kulkarni is doomed for good. Loyalty has been rendered odious to the ordinary mind by this as well as by many other influences. Loyalty is flattery. This is a dictum now almost universally recognized in the Deccan. A supporter of the Government is a "Johukum," a "hireling," or a "traitor." The Press has of late become sufficiently powerful to make or mar the reputation of a man so far as the native public is concerned. Every advocate of Government measures--even of the best of them--is held up to ridicule by the Press. This is immediately reflected in the most exaggerated form in what we may call public opinion in the land. Certainly very great courage is necessary in one who is called upon to bear calumny such as this from his society and his castemen. But there are other forces more threatening still. The rowdier section of the people never fails to hoot the man out on every possible occasion and even the women of his family may be subjected to indignities. The vakils are a very powerful class in the Deccan. Many of them do not openly dabble in politics; but you can hardly find many among them who do not sympathize with extremist politics. The landholders, traders and agriculturists in general are always in need of the services or, as they think, of the favour of the legal profession whose prejudices will never be wounded by the classes mentioned. The vakils, I may say, are to be propitiated by every one who wishes to conduct any public movement. But a loyal movement can never save itself from condemnation at the hands of this powerful class.

Although reluctantly, I must add that the lower services of the Government are filled by men who passively help extremism. They form the bulk of the total constituency of our public Press. That is a fact to show their political inclinations. Even they do not hesitate to use their little arts to worry a man known to be "anti-political" whenever he happens to come in contact with them. An agriculturist friend of mine who belonged to the caste to which I have the honour to belong once came to me and asked me why I was taking a particular step connected with the political movements in Kolhapur. The reason he gave for his attempt to dissuade me from participation in any anti-Brahmanical movement was that every Jain would be put to immense trouble in his dealings with pleaders and clerks simply because another Jain (in this instance myself) was against the leaders of their caste! Another class which always forms a check on a pro-government man is composed of the chiefs, sirdars, landholders, &c., who belong to the agitators' caste and who certainly cherish admiration for the doings of the "patriots." Many of us have to come in contact with some one or other belonging to this class and if he be known to favour anything against the great figures of the city-politics, his business is sure to be spoilt.