Chapter VI: Part 6

(e) The control of Parliament (XI) This Conference, while
and of the Secretary of State generally approving of the
must only be modified as the proposals embodied in the Report
responsibility of the Indian and regarding the India Office and
provincial Governments to the Parliamentary control, urges:--
electorates is increased. No
power over provincial (a) That the administrative
Governments now exercised by control of Parliament over the
Parliament and by the Secretary Government of India exercised
of State must be transferred to through the Secretary of State
the Government of India, save in should continue except in so far
matters of routine as the control of the
administration until the legislature on the spot is
latter is responsible to substituted for the present
the electorates. Parliamentary control.

(d) No financial or (d) That until the India Council
administrative powers in regard can be abolished by substituting
to reserved subjects should be Indian control for the control
transferred to the provincial of Parliament over the affairs
Governments until such time as of India, it should be a mere
they are made responsible advisory body with its strength
regarding them to electorates, reduced to 8 members, four of
and until then the control of whom should be Indians.
Parliament and the Secretary of
State should continue. (c) That at least a major part
of the cost of the India Office
(b) The Council of India shall should be borne by the British
be abolished, and there shall be Exchequer.
two permanent Undersecretaries
to assist the Secretary of State (b) That Indian opinion should
for India, one of whom shall be be represented on the Committee
an Indian. appointed to report upon the
organisation of the India Office
(c) All charges in respect to and the evidence of Indian
the India Office establishment witnesses invited.
shall be placed on the British
estimates.

(d) The committee to be
appointed to examine and report
on the present constitution of
the Council of India shall
contain an adequate Indian
element.

_Mahomedan Representation_

Resolution VII. The proportion (VIII) (d) Mahomedan
of Mahomedans in the Legislative representation in every
Council and the Legislative legislature should be in the
Assembly as laid down in the proportions mentioned in the
Congress-League Scheme must be Scheme adopted by the Congress
maintained. and the Muslim League at
Lucknow in 1916.

_Army Commissions_

Resolution XII. This Congress (b) This Conference strongly
places on record its deep urges that Indians should be
disappointment at the altogether nominated to 20 per cent.,
inadequate response made by the to start with, of King's
Government to the demand for the commissions in the Indian Army
grant of commissions to Indians and that adequate provision for
in the army, and is of opinion training them should be made in
that steps should be immediately this country itself.
taken so as to enable the grant
to Indians at an early date of
at least 25 per cent. of the
commissions in the army, the
proportions to be gradually
increased to 50 per cent. within
a period of ten years.

_Public Services_

Resolution XVII. That this X (a) This Conference thanks the
Congress is of opinion that the Secretary of State and the
proportion of annual recruitment Viceroy for recommending that
to the Indian civil service to all racial bars should be
be made in England should be 50 abolished and for recognizing
per cent. to start with, such the principle of recruiting of
recruitment to be by open all the Indian public services
competition in India from in India and in England instead
persons already appointed to the of any service being recruited
Provincial Civil Service. for exclusively in the latter
country.

_Franchise for Women_

Resolution VIII. Women possessing
the same qualifications as are
laid down for men in any part
of the Scheme shall not be
disqualified on account of sex.

CONSTITUTION OF COUNCILS CONSTITUTION OF PERIODIC
COMMISSION
Resolution XIII. That, so far as
the question of determining the 9 (b) Some provision should be
franchise and the constituence made for the appointment and
and the composition of the cooperation of qualified Indians
Legislative Assemblies is on the periodic commission
concerned, this Congress is of proposed to be appointed every
opinion that, instead of being ten or twelve years and it
left to be dealt with by should further be provided that
Committees, it should be decided the first periodic commission
by the House of Commons and be shall come to India and submit
incorporated in the statute to its recommendations to
be framed for the constitution Parliament before the expiry of
of the Indian Government. the third Legislative Council
after the Reform Scheme comes
Resolution XIV. That as regards into operation and that every
the Committee to advise on the subsequent periodic commission
question of the separation of should be appointed at the end
Indian from provincial functions of every ten years.
and also with regard to the
Committee if any for the
consideration of reserved or an
unreserved department, this
Congress is of opinion that the
principle set forth in the above
resolution should apply _mutatis
mutandis_ to the formation of
the said Committee.

Or

In the alternative; if a
Committee is appointed for the
purpose, the two non-official
members of the Committee should
be elected--one by the All-India
Congress Committee and the other
by the Council of the Moslem
League while the coopted
non-official for each province
should be elected by the
Provincial Congress Committee
of that province.

The All-India Muslim League is in substantial accord with the resolutions of the Special Congress. It will be easily seen that Indian opinion, of both Hindus and Mussulmans, is substantially in accord in their demands for the democratization of the Central government and in their criticism of the rest of the scheme. The Indians have thus exercised their right of self-determination through their popular bodies and are entitled to get what they demand. After all, what they ask for is only a modest instalment of autonomy under British control.

In the appendices the reader will find a comparative table showing (a) the present Constitution of Government in India (b) the proposals of the Secretary of State and the Viceroy (c) and the Congress League Scheme.

XI

INDIA'S CLAIM TO FISCAL AUTONOMY "INDUSTRIES AND TARIFFS"

... for equality of right amongst nations, small as well as
great, is one of the fundamental issues this country and her
allies are fighting to establish in this war.

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE

"The War Aims of the Allies." Speech delivered
to delegates of the Trade Unions, at the Central
Hall, Westminster, January 5, 1918.

I beg to record my strong opinion that in the matter of Indian
industries we are bound to consider Indian interests firstly,
secondly, and thirdly. I mean by "firstly" that the local raw
products should be utilised, by secondly, that industries should be
introduced and by "thirdly" that the profits of such industry
should remain in the country.

SIR FREDERICK NICHOLSON

Quoted on page 300, Report of the Indian
Industrial Commission, 1916-1918.

Economic bondage is the worst of all bondages. Economic dependence, or the lack of economic independence, is the source of all misery, individual or national. A person economically dependent upon another is a virtual slave, despite appearances. He who supplies food and raiment and the necessities of life is the real master.

The desire for gain dominates the world and all its activities. Even religion, as ordinarily understood, interpreted and administered, is a game of pounds and shillings, say what one may to the contrary. There are exceptions to this statement, but they are few and far between. The world does not subsist by bread alone, but without bread it cannot exist even for a minute. The generality of the world cares more for bread than for anything else, though there are individuals and groups of individuals who would not stoop to obtain bread by dishonorable means and those also who would die rather than obtain bread by the violation of their soul.

There are numerous ways in which a subject nation feels the humiliation and helplessness of her position, but none is so telling and so effective as the subordination of her economic interests to those of the dominant power. This is especially true in these days of free and easy transportation, of quick journeys, and of scientific warfare. In any struggle between nations, the victory eventually must rest with the one in possession of the largest number of "silver bullets." It is true that silver bullets alone will not do unless there are brains and bodies to use them, but the latter without the former are helpless.

A nation may be the greatest producer of food; yet she may die of hunger from lack of ability to keep her own produce for herself. Food obeys the behest of the silver bullets. The law of self-preservation, therefore, requires only that nations be free to regulate their own household, subject to the condition that thereby they do not violate the rules of humanity or trample upon the rights of any human being.

Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford have, in parts of their Report, been extremely candid. The value of their joint production lies in this candidness. In no other part, perhaps, have they been so candid as in the one dealing with "Industries and Tariff." In Paragraph 331 they frankly admit the truth of the following observation of the late Mr. Ranade on the economic effects of British rule in India:

"The political domination of one country by another attracts far
more attention than the more formidable, though more unfelt,
domination which the capital, enterprise and skill of one country
exercise over the trade and manufactures of another. This latter
domination has an insidious influence which paralyses the springs
of all the various activities which together make up the life of a
nation."

In the course of a letter addressed to the _Westminster Gazette_ in 1917, Lord Curzon said that "the fiscal policy of India during the last thirty or forty years has been shaped far more in Manchester than in Calcutta." This candid admission about "the subordination of Indian fiscal policy to the Secretary of State and a House of Commons powerfully affected by Lancashire influence," is the keynote of the Indian demand for Home Rule. The authors of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report say so quite frankly and fairly in Paragraphs 332 to 336 of their report, from which we make the following extracts:

"The people are poor; and their poverty raises the question
whether the general level of well-being could not be materially
raised by the development of industries. It is also clear that the
lack of outlet for educated youth is a serious misfortune which
has contributed not a little in the past to political unrest in
Bengal. But perhaps an even greater mischief is the discontent
aroused in the minds of those who are jealous for India by seeing
that she is so largely dependent on foreign countries for
manufactured goods. They noted that her foreign trade was always
growing, but they also saw that its leading feature continued to
be the barter of raw materials valued at relatively low prices for
imported manufactures, which obviously afforded profits and
prosperity to other countries industrially more advanced.
Patriotic Indians might well ask themselves why these profits
should not accrue to their country: and also why so large a
portion of the industries which flourished in the country was
financed by European capital and managed by European skill."

"The fact that India's foreign trade was largely with the United
Kingdom gave rise to a suspicion that her industrial backwardness
was positively encouraged in the interests of British
manufactures, and the maintenance of the excise duty on locally
manufactured cotton goods in the alleged interests of Lancashire
is very widely accepted as a conclusive proof of such a purpose.
On a smaller scale, the maintenance of a Stores Department at the
India Office is looked upon as an encouragement to the Government
to patronize British at the expense of local manufacturers."

There can thus be no autonomy without fiscal autonomy. In fact, the latter alone is the determining characteristic of an autonomous existence.

The one national trait which distinguishes the British from other nations of the world is their habit of truthfulness and frankness. When we say that we do not thereby mean that all Britishers are equally truthful--to the same extent and degree. But we do mean that on the whole the British nation has a larger percentage of truthful and candid persons in her family than any other nation on the face of the earth. Where their interests clash with those of others, they can be as hard, exacting and cruel as any one else in the world. But repentance overtakes them sooner than it does the others. They have a queer but admirable faculty of introspection which few other people possess to the same extent and in the same numbers. This is what endears them even to those who are never tired of cursing their snobbishness and masterful imperialism. The faculty of occasionally seeing themselves with the eyes of others, makes them the most successful _rulers of men_. They are as a nation lacking in imagination, but there are individuals amongst them who can see, if they will, their own faults; who can and do speak out their minds honestly and truthfully, even though by so doing they may temporarily earn odium and unpopularity.

The remarks and observations of the eminent authors of the Report relating to the fiscal relations of India and England reflect the honesty of their purpose and the sincerity of their mind as no other part of the Report does. They have entered upon the subject with great diffidence and, though expressing themselves with marked candor and fairness, have refrained from making any definite recommendations.

In this respect it will be only fair to acknowledge the equally candid opinion of Mr. Austin Chamberlain, who, in 1917, made a most significant confession by stating on an important occasion that "India will not remain, and ought not to remain content to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for the rest of the Empire."

To our simple minds, not accustomed to the anomalies of official life, it seems inexplicable how, after these candid admissions, the authors could have any hesitation in recommending the only remedy by which India's wrong could be righted and her economic rights secured in the future--viz., fiscal autonomy.

In Paragraph 335 the authors of the report give the genesis of the Swadeshi boycott movement of 1905, and very pertinently observe that "in Japanese progress and efficiency" the educated Indians see "an example of what could be effected by an Asiatic nation free of foreign control," or in other words, of what could be achieved by India, if she had a national government of her own interested in her industrial advance. Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford thus rightly observe that "English theories to the appropriate limits of the State's activity are inapplicable in India" and that if the resources of the country are to be developed the Government must take action.

"After the war," add the authors, "the need for industrial development will be all the greater unless India is to become a mere dumping-ground for the manufactures of foreign nations which will then be competing all the more keenly for the markets on which their political strength so perceptibly depends. India will certainly consider herself entitled to claim all the help that her Government can give her to enable her to take her place as a manufacturing country; and unless the claim is admitted it will surely turn into an insistent request for a tariff which will penalize imported articles without respect of origin."

Further on the Report states:

"We are agreed therefore that there must be a definite change of
view; and that the Government must admit and shoulder its
responsibility for furthering the industrial development of the
country. The difficulties by this time are well-known. In the
past, and partly as a result of recent _swadeshi_ experiences,
India's capital has not generally been readily available; among
some communities at least there is apparent distaste for practical
training, and a comparative weakness of mutual trust; _skilled
labour is lacking_, and although _labour is plentiful, education
is needed to inculcate a higher standard of living and so to
secure a continuous supply; there is a dearth of technical
institutions; there is also a want of practical information about
the commercial potentialities of India's war products_. Though
these are serious difficulties, they are not insuperable; but they
will be overcome only if the State comes forward boldly as guide
and helper. On the other hand, there are good grounds for hope.
India has great natural resources, mineral and vegetable. She has
furnished supplies of manganese, tungsten, mica, jute, copra, lac,
etc., for use in the war. She has abundant coal, even if its
geographical distribution is uneven; she has also in her large
rivers ample means of creating water-power. There is good reason
for believing that she will greatly increase her output of oil.
Her forest wealth is immense, and much of it only awaits the
introduction of modern means of transportation, a bolder
investment of capital, and the employment of extra staff; while
the patient and laborious work of conservation that has been
steadily proceeding joined with modern scientific methods of
improving supplies and increasing output, will yield a rich
harvest in the future. We have been assured that Indian capital
will be forthcoming once it is realized that it can be invested
with security and profit in India; a purpose that will be
furthered by the provision of increased facilities for banking and
credit. Labor, though abundant, is handicapped by still pursuing
uneconomical methods, and its output would be greatly increased by
the extended use of machinery. We have no doubt that there is an
immense scope for the application of scientific methods.
Conditions are ripe for the development of new and for the revival
of old industries, and the real enthusiasm for industries which is
not confined to the ambitions of a few individuals but rests on
the general desire to see Indian capital and labour applied
jointly to the good of the country, seem to us the happiest
augury."

The views of educated India about fiscal policy have been very faithfully reproduced in Paragraphs 341 and 342, which also we reproduce almost bodily:

"Connected intimately with the matter of industries is the
question of the Indian tariff. This subject was excluded from the
deliberations of the Industrial Commission now sitting because it
was not desirable at that juncture to raise any question of the
modification of India's fiscal policy; but its exclusion was none
the less the object of some legitimate criticism in India. The
changes which we propose in the Government of India will still
leave the settlement of India's tariff in the hands of a
government amenable to Parliament and the Secretary of State; but
inasmuch as the tariff reacts on many matters which will
henceforth come more and more under Indian control, we think it
well that we should put forward for the information of His
Majesty's Government the views of educated Indians upon this
subject. We have no immediate proposals to make; we are anxious
merely that any decisions which may hereafter be taken should be
taken with full appreciation of educated Indian opinion.

"The theoretical free trader, we believe, hardly exists in India
at present. As was shown by the debates in the Indian Legislative
Council in March, 1913, educated Indian opinion ardently desires a
tariff. It rightly wishes to find another substantial basis than
that of the land for Indian revenues, and it turns to a tariff to
provide one. Desiring industries which will give him Indian-made
clothes to wear and Indian-made articles to use, the educated
Indian looks to the example of other countries which have relied
on tariffs, and seizes on the admission of even free traders that
for the nourishment of nascent industries a tariff is permissible.
We do not know whether he pauses to reflect that these industries
will be largely financed by foreign capital attracted by the
tariff, although we have evidence that he has not learned to
appreciate the advantages of foreign capital. But whatever
economic fallacy underlies his reasoning, these are his firm
beliefs; and though he may be willing to concede the possibility
that he is wrong, he will not readily concede that it is our
business to decide the matter for him. He believes that as long as
we continue to decide for him we shall decide in the interests of
England and not according to his wishes; and he points to the
debate in the House of Commons on the differentiation of the
cotton excise in support of his contention. So long as the people
who refuse India protection are interested in manufactures with
which India might compete, Indian opinion cannot bring itself to
believe that the refusal is disinterested or dictated by care for
the best interests of India. This real and keen desire for fiscal
autonomy does not mean that educated opinion in India is unmindful
of Imperial obligations...."

These admissions should put India's claims for fiscal autonomy beyond the range of doubt and dispute, but so strange are the ways of modern statesmanship that consistency and logic are not the necessary accompaniments thereof.

The authors have advanced another very strong argument for the economic development of India, viz., "military value," which makes the case conclusive. This argument has been supplied by the Great War and is so well known that we need not state it in their words.

If India is to prosper and take her legitimate place in the British Commonwealth, and in the great family of Nations of the World, it is absolutely necessary that she should be given complete fiscal freedom to manage her own affairs, develop her own industries and do her own trading. Considering her size and resources, it wounds her self-respect and makes her feel exceedingly mean and small to go begging for alms and charity every time there is a failure of rains and the cry of famine is raised.

For a nation of 315 millions of human beings living in a country which nature has endowed with all its choicest blessings, rich and fertile soil, plenty of water and sun, an abundant supply of metals and coal, willing labor, artistic skill and a power of manipulating for beauty and elegance unexcelled in the world--to exist in pitiful economic dependence is a condition most deplorable and most pathetic. We want no charity, no concessions, no favors, no preference. What we most earnestly beg and ask for is an _opportunity_.

For a synopsis of the findings and recommendations of the
Industrial Commission mentioned in this chapter see appendix 1.

XII

THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

In December, 1917, the Government of India appointed a committee of three Englishmen and two Indians (1) "to investigate and report on the nature and extent of the criminal conspiracies connected with the revolutionary movements in India, (2) to examine and consider the difficulties that have arisen in dealing with such conspiracies and to advise as to the legislation, if any, necessary to enable the government to deal effectively with them." Of the three English members, Mr. Justice Rowlatt of the King's Bench Division, England, was appointed as president, and of the other two, one was a judge in the service of the Government and the other a member of a Board of Revenue in one of the Indian Provinces. Of the two Indians, one was a judge and the other a practicing lawyer.

This committee submitted its report in April, 1918, which was published by the Government of India in July of the same year. The president, Mr. Justice Rowlatt's letter covering the report gives the nature of the evidence upon which their report is based, which is as follows: "Statements have been placed before us with documentary evidence by the Governments of Bengal, Bombay, Bihar and Orissa, the Central Provinces, the United Provinces, the Punjab and Burmah as well as by the Government of India. In every case, except that of Madras, we were further attended by officers of the government, presenting this statement, who gave evidence before us. In the two provinces in which we held sittings, namely, Bengal and Punjab, we further invited and secured the attendance of individuals, or as deputed by associations, of gentlemen who we thought might give us information from various non-official points of view."

It is clear from this statement that the investigation of the committee was neither judicial nor even semi-judicial; it was a purely administrative inquiry conducted behind the backs of the individuals concerned, without the latter having any opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses or giving their explanations of the evidence against them. While the different Governments in India were fully represented in each case by the ablest of their servants, the individuals investigated were not. We do not want to insinuate that either the Governments or the officers deputed by them were unfair in their evidence. All that we want to point out is that the other side had no opportunity of putting their case before the committee. Consequently, it is no wonder that one comes across many traces of political and racial bias both in the introduction and the Report.

The very first paragraph of the introduction betrays either ignorance on the part of the committee about the ancient history of India, or a deliberate misrepresentation of the nature of the Hindu State. The committee says: "Republican or Parliamentary forms of governments as at present understood were neither desired nor known in India until after the establishment of British rule. In the Hindu State the form of government was an absolute monarchy, though the monarch was by the Hindu Shastras hedged round by elaborate rules for securing the welfare of his subjects and was assisted by a body of councillors, the chief of whom were Brahmin members of the priestly class which derived authority from a time when the priests were the sole repositories of knowledge and therefore the natural instruments of administration." The statements made in this paragraph do not represent the whole truth.

The committee ignores the fact that Republican or Parliamentary forms of Government "_as at present understood_" were neither desired nor known in any part of the world, except perhaps England itself until _after_ the establishment of British rule in India.[1] Then the committee has altogether ignored that, in the Hindu State, the form of government was not an absolute monarchy _always and in all parts of India_. There is ample historical evidence to prove that India had many Republican States, along with oligarchies and monarchies at one and the same period of her history. The second part of the second sentence is also not correct, because the priestly class derived its authority from a time when the priests were not the sole repositories of knowledge. The several Hindu political treatises belong to a period when the whole populace was highly educated and could take substantial part in the determination of the affairs of their country.

Equally misleading is the last sentence of the introduction where the committee says that it is among the Chitpavan Brahmins of the Poona district that they first find indications of a revolutionary movement. This statement is incorrect, if it means that after the establishment of British rule in India no attempt had been made to overthrow it prior to the Revolutionary movement inaugurated by the Poona Brahmins. The statement ignores three such attempts which are known to history; viz., (_a_) the great Mutiny of 1857, (_b_) the Wahábee Rebellion of Bengal, and (_c_) the Kúká Rebellion of the Punjab; not to mention other minor attempts made in other places by other people.

Yet we think that this report is a very valuable document, giving in one place the history and the progress of the Revolutionary Movement in India. The findings and the recommendations of the committee may not be all correct, but the material collected and published for the first time is too valuable to be neglected by anyone who wants to have an intelligent grasp of the political situation in India, such as has developed within the last twenty years.

The committee gives a summary of its conclusions as to the conspiracies in Chapter XV, which we copy verbatim:

"In Bombay they have been purely Brahmin and mostly Chitpavan. In
Bengal the conspirators have been young men belonging to the
educated middle classes. Their propaganda has been elaborate,
persistent and ingenious. In their own province it has produced a
long series of murders and robberies. In Bihar and Orissa, the
United Provinces, the Central Provinces and Madras, it took no
root, but occasionally led to crime and disorder. In the Punjab
the return of emigrants from America, bent on revolution and
bloodshed, produced numerous outrages and the _Ghadr_ conspiracy
of 1915. In Burma, too, the _Ghadr_ movement was active, but was
arrested.

"Finally came a Mohammedan conspiracy confined to a small clique
of fanatics and designed to overthrow British rule with foreign
aid.

"All these plots have been directed towards one and the same
objective, the overthrow by force of British rule in India.
Sometimes they have been isolated; sometimes they have been
interconnected; sometimes they have been encouraged and supported
by German influence. All have been successfully encountered with
the support of Indian loyalty."

In this general summary the committee has made no attempt to trace out the causes that led to the inauguration of the revolutionary movement and its subsequent progress. A chapter on that subject would have been most illuminating.

In chapters dealing with provinces they have selected some individuals and classes on whom to lay blame for "incitements" to murders and crimes, but have entirely failed to analyze the social, political and economic conditions which made such incitements and their success possible.

It is clear even from this summary that the only two provinces where the revolutionary propaganda took root and resulted in more than occasional outrages were Bengal and the Punjab.

In the Bombay Presidency, revolutionary outrages did not exceed three within a period of 20 years (from 1897 to 1917), two murders and one bomb-throwing. Besides, three trials for conspiracies are mentioned all within a year (1909-1910), two in Native States and one in British territory. Altogether 82 men were prosecuted for being involved in these conspiracies. The total result comes to this, that in the course of 20 years about 100 persons were found to be involved in a revolutionary movement in a territory embracing an area of 186,923 square miles and a population of 27 million human beings. This is surely by no means a formidable record justifying extraordinary legislation such as is proposed.[2] The net loss of human life did not exceed three, though unfortunately all three victims were Europeans.

Bihar and Orissa formed part of the province of Bengal during most of the period covered by the revolutionary movement of Bengal, viz., from 1906 to 1917. It was in Bihar which was then a part of Bengal, that in 1908, the first bomb was thrown. The only other revolutionary outrage that took place in Bihar was one in 1913, resulting in the murder of two Indians.

In the United Provinces of Agra and Oude, the only tangible evidence of revolutionary activity recorded by the committee is the Benares Conspiracy that came to light in 1915-1916. The only outrage noted is that of the alleged murder of a fellow revolutionary by a member of the same gang.

To the Central provinces the committee has given a practically clean bill.

In Madras the revolutionary outrages consisted of one murder (of a European Magistrate) and one conspiracy involving nine persons.

The conspiracies and intrigues detected in Burma are ascribed to people of other provinces and not a single outrage from that province itself is reported.

So we find that in the period from 1906 to 1907, both inclusive, outside the provinces of Bengal and the Punjab, the revolutionary crime was limited to three outrages and three conspiracies in the Bombay Presidency, one outrage in Bihar, one outrage and one conspiracy in the United Provinces, one outrage and one conspiracy in Madras and some intrigues and conspiracies during the war in Burma. Thus the only two provinces in which the revolutionary movement established itself to any appreciable extent was Bengal and the Punjab.

In the Punjab, again, the first revolutionary crime took place in December, 1912, and the second in 1913 and the rest all during the War. Cases of seditious utterances and writings are not included in the term "revolutionary crime" used in the above paragraphs. It was from Bengal, then, that before the War revolutionary propaganda was carried on to any large extent, revolutionary movements organized and revolutionary crimes committed. About half of the Report deals with Bengal and the general findings of the committee may be thus summarized:

(1) That the object of the movement was the overturning of "the British government in India by violent means" (p. 15 and also p. 19).

(2) That the class among whom the movement spread was comprised of the _Bhadralok_ (the respectable middle class). The committee says:

"The people among whom he (i.e., Barendra, the first Bengali
revolutionary propagandist) worked, the _bhadralok_ of Bengal,
have been for centuries peaceful and unwarlike, but, through the
influence of the great central city of Calcutta, were early in
appreciating the advantages of Western learning. They are mainly
Hindus and their leading castes are Brahmins, Kayasthas and
Vaidyas; but with the spread of English education some other
castes too have adopted _bhadralok_ ideals and modes of life.
_Bhadralok_ abound in villages as well as in towns, and are thus
more interwoven with the landed classes than are the literate
Indians of other provinces. Wherever they live or settle, they
earnestly desire and often provide English education for their
sons. The consequence is that a number of Anglo-vernacular
schools, largely maintained by private enterprise, have sprung up
throughout the towns and villages of Bengal. No other province of
India possesses a network of rural schools in which English is
taught. These schools are due to the enterprise of the _bhadralok_
and to the fact that, as British rule gradually spread from Bengal
over Northern India, the scope of employment for English-educated
Bengalis spread with it. Originally they predominated in all
offices and higher grade schools throughout Upper India. They were
also, with the Parsees, the first Indians to send their sons to
England for education, to qualify for the Bar, or to compete for
the higher grades of the Civil and Medical services. When,
however, similar classes in other provinces also acquired a
working knowledge of English, the field for Bengali enterprise
gradually shrank. In their own province _bhadralok_ still almost
monopolize the clerical and subordinate administrative services of
Government. They are prominent in medicine, in teaching and at the
Bar. But, in spite of these advantages, they have felt the
shrinkage of foreign employment; and as the education which they
receive is generally literary and ill-adapted to incline the
youthful mind to industrial, commercial or agricultural pursuits,
they have not succeeded in finding fresh outlets for their
energies. Their hold on land, too, has weakened, owing to
increasing pressure of population and excessive sub-infeudation.
_Altogether their economic prospects have narrowed, and the
increasing numbers who draw fixed incomes have felt the pinch of
rising prices. On the other hand, the memories and associations
of their earlier prosperity, combined with growing contact with
Western ideas and standards of comfort, have raised their
expectations of the pecuniary remuneration which should reward a
laborious and, to their minds, a costly education._ Thus as
_bhadralok_ learned in English have become more and more numerous,
a growing number have become less and less inclined to accept the
conditions of life in which they found themselves on reaching
manhood. _Bhadralok_ have always been prominent among the
supporters of Indian political movements; and their leaders have
watched with careful attention events in the world outside India.
The large majority of the people of Bengal are not _bhadralok_ but
cultivators, and in the eastern districts mainly Muhammadans; but
the cultivators of the province are absorbed in their own
pursuits, in litigation, and in religious and caste observances.
It was not to them but to his own class that Barendra appealed.
When he renewed his efforts in 1904, the thoughts of many members
of this class had been stirred by various powerful influences."
[The italics are ours.]

We have given this lengthy extract as it shows conclusively (_a_) that the movement originated and spread among people who had received Western education, most of the leaders having been educated in England and (_b_) that the root cause of the movement was _economic_.

(3) That various circumstances occasioned by certain Government measures "specially favored the development" of the movement (p. 16). Among the measures specially mentioned are (_a_) the University law of Lord Curzon "which was interpreted by politicians as designed to limit the numbers of Indians educated in English and thus to retard national advance"; (_b_) the partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon. "It was the agitation that attended and followed on this measure that brought previous discontent to a climax."

(4) That the revolutionary movement received a substantial impetus by the failure of constitutional agitation for the reversal of the policy that decided on partitioning Bengal into two divisions. This failure led to two different kinds of agitation, open and secret: (_a_) open economic defiance by _Swadeshi_ and boycott--_Swadeshi_ was the affirmative and boycott the negative form of the same movement. _Swadeshi_ enjoined the use of country made articles; boycott was directed against English imports, (_b_) open propaganda by a more outspoken and in some instances violent press, (_c_) open control of educational agencies by means of national institutions, (_d_) open stimulus to physical education and physical culture, (_e_) nationalistic interpretation of religious dogma and forms (open), (_f_) organization of secret societies for more violent propaganda, for learning and teaching the use of firearms, for the manufacture of bombs, for illicit purchase and stealing of firearms, for assassination and murder, (_g_) secret attempts to tamper with the army, (_h_) conspiracies for terroristic purposes and for obtaining sinews of war by theft, robbery and extortion.

The following two extracts which the committee has taken from one of the publications of the revolutionary party called _Mukti Kon Pathe_ (what is the path of salvation) will explain clauses (_f_) and (_g_) and (_h_).

"The book further points out that not much muscle was required to
shoot Europeans, that arms could be procured by grim
determination, and that weapons could be prepared silently in
some secret place. Indians could be sent to foreign countries to
learn the art of making weapons. The assistance of Indian soldiers
must be obtained. They must be made to understand the misery and
wretchedness of the country. The heroism of Sivaji must be
remembered. As long as revolutionary work remained in its infancy,
expenses could be met by subscriptions. But as work advanced,
money must be extracted from society by the application of force.
If the revolution is being brought about for the welfare of
society, then it is perfectly just to collect money from society
for that purpose. It is admitted that theft and dacoity are crimes
because they violate the principle of good society. But the
political dacoit is aiming at the good of society, "so no sin but
rather virtue attaches to the destruction of this small good for
the sake of some higher good. Therefore if revolutionaries extort
money from the miserly or luxurious members of society by the
application of force, their conduct is perfectly just."

_Mukti Kon Pathe_ further exhorts its readers to obtain the "help
of the native soldiers.... Although these soldiers for the sake of
their stomach accept service in the Government of the ruling
power, still they are nothing but men made of flesh and blood.
They, too, know (how) to think; when therefore the revolutionaries
explain to them the woes and miseries of the country, they, in
proper time, swell the ranks of the revolutionaries with arms and
weapons given them by the ruling power.... Because it is possible
to persuade the soldiers in this way, the modern English Raj of
India does not allow the cunning Bengalis to enter into the ranks
of the army.... Aid in the shape of arms may be secretly obtained
by securing the help of the foreign ruling powers."

(5) That except in five cases the idea of private gain never entered into the activities of the revolutionaries and of the five persons referred to three were taxi-cab drivers either hired or coerced to coöperate in revolutionary enterprise (p. 20).

(6) That "the circumstances that robberies and murders are being committed by young men of respectable extraction, students at schools and colleges, is indeed an amazing phenomenon the occurrence of which in most countries would be hardly credible."

(7) That "since the year 1906 revolutionary outrages in Bengal have numbered 210 and attempts at committing such outrages have amounted to 101. Definite information is in the hands of the police of the complicity of no less than 1038 persons in these offences. But of these, only 84 persons have been convicted of specified crimes in 39 prosecutions, and of these persons, 30 were tried by tribunals constituted under the Defence of India Act. Ten attempts have been made to strike at revolutionary conspiracies by means of prosecutions directed against groups or branches. In these prosecutions 192 persons were involved, 63 of whom were convicted. Eighty-two revolutionaries have rendered themselves liable to be bound over to be of good behaviour under the preventive sections of the Criminal Procedure Code. In regard to 51 of these, there is direct evidence of complicity in outrages. There have, moreover, been 59 prosecutions under the Arms and Explosives Acts which have resulted in convictions of 58 persons."

We wish the committee had also supplemented this information by a complete record of the punishments that were imposed on persons convicted of revolutionary crime in the ten years from 1906 to 1917. We are sure such a statement would have been most informing and illuminating. It would have conclusively established the soundness of the half-hearted finding that "the convictions ... did not have as much effect as might have been expected in repressing crime." In fact they had no effect. They only added fuel to the fire.

(8) That persons involved in revolutionary crime belonged to all castes and occupations and the vast bulk of them were non-Brahmins. They were of all ages, from 10-15 to over 45, the majority being under 25. The committee has in an appendix (p. 93) given three tables of statistics as to age, caste, occupation or profession of persons convicted in Bengal of revolutionary crimes or killed in commission of such crimes during the years 1907-1917. This clause is based on these statistics.

We are afraid, however, that these statistics do not afford quite a correct index of the age, caste, occupation and position of all the people in Bengal that were and are sympathetically interested in the revolutionary movement of Bengal.

In investigating reasons for failure of ordinary machinery for the prevention, detection and punishment of crime in Bengal, the committee has assigned six reasons: (_a_) want of evidence, (_b_) paucity of police, (_c_) facilities enjoyed by criminals, (_d_) difficulty in proof of possession of arms, etc., (_e_) distrust of evidence, (_f_) the uselessness, in general, of confession made to the Police. These reasons, however, do not represent the whole truth. Some of the most daring crimes were committed in broad daylight, in much frequented streets of the metropolis and in the presence of numerous people. Moreover, the Government did not depend on ordinary law. Measure after measure was enacted to expedite and facilitate convictions. Extraordinary provisions were made to meet all the difficulties pointed out by the committee and extraordinary sentences were given in the case of conviction. Yet the Government failed either to extirpate the movement or to check it effectively or to bring the majority of offenders to book.

The members of the committee have frankly admitted: "That we do not expect very much from punitive measures. The conviction of offenders will never check such a movement as that which grew up in Bengal unless the leaders can be convicted at the outset." They pin their faith on "preventive" measures recommended by them. It was perhaps not within their scope to say that the most effective preventive measure was the removal of the political and economic causes that had generated the movement. The committee has studiously avoided discussing that important point, but now and then they have incidentally furnished the real clue to the situation. Discussing the "accessibility of Bengal schools and colleges to Revolutionary influences," they quote a passage from one of the reports of the Director of Public Instruction in Bengal. We copy below the whole of this paragraph, as, to us, it seems to be very pertinent to the issue.

"_Accessibility of Bengal Schools and Colleges to Revolutionary
Influences._--Abundant evidence has compelled us to the conclusion
that the secondary English schools, and in a less degree the
colleges, of Bengal have been regarded by the revolutionaries as
their most fruitful recruiting centres. Dispersed as these
schools are far and wide throughout the Province, sometimes
clustering in a town, sometimes isolated in the far-away villages
of the eastern water-country, they form natural objects for
attack; and as is apparent from the reports of the Department of
Public Instruction, they have been attacked for years with no
small degree of success. In these reports the Director has from
time to time noticed such matters as the circulation of seditious
leaflets, the number of students implicated in conspiracy cases
and the apathy of parents and guardians. But perhaps his most
instructive passages are the following, in which he sets out the
whole situation in regard to secondary English schools. 'The
number of these schools,' he wrote, 'is rapidly increasing, and
the cry is for more and more. It is a demand for tickets in a
lottery, the prizes of which are posts in Government service and
employment in certain professions. _The bhadralok have nothing to
look to but these posts_, while those who desire to rise from a
lower social or economic station have their eyes on the same goal.
_The middle classes in Bengal are generally poor, and the
increased stress of competition and the tendency for the average
earnings of certain careers to decrease_--a tendency which is
bound to follow on the increased demand to enter them, _coupled
with the rise in the cost of living and the inevitable raising in
the standard of comfort--all these features continue to make the
struggle to exist in these classes keener_. Hence the need to
raise educational standards, to make school life a greater
influence for good and the course of instruction more thorough and
more comprehensive. A need which becomes more and more imperative
as life in India becomes more complicated and more exacting is
confronted by a determined though perfectly natural opposition to
the raising of fees.... _Probably the worst feature of the
situation is the low wages and the complete absence of prospects
which are the fate of teachers in the secondary schools...._ It is
easy to blame the parents for blindness to their sons' true good,
but the matriculation examination is the thing that seems to
matter, so that if his boy passes the annual promotion
examinations and is duly presented at that examination at the
earliest possible date, the average parent has no criticism to
offer. This is perfectly natural, but the future of Bengal depends
to a not inconsiderable extent on the work done in its secondary
schools, and more is required of these institutions than an
ability to pass a certain proportion of boys through the Calcutta
University Matriculation examination.... The present condition of
secondary schools is undoubtedly prejudicing the development of
the presidency and is by no means a negligible feature in the
existing state of general disturbance. It is customary to trace
the genesis of much sedition and crime to the back streets and
lanes of Calcutta and Dacca, where the organizers of anarchic
conspiracies seek their agents from among University students.
This view is correct as far as it goes, but it is in the high
schools, with their underpaid and discontented teachers, their
crowded, dark and ill-ventilated classrooms, and their
soul-destroying process of unceasing cram, that the seeds of
discontent and fanaticism are sown." [The italics are ours.]

Yet for years nothing was done to improve education, to make it practical and creative and productive. In fact nothing has been done up till now.

Let the reader read with this the report of the Indian Industrial Commission recently issued under the authority of the Government of India and he will at once find the true causes which underlie the revolutionary movement in India. These causes are not in any way peculiar to Bengal or to the Punjab; they are common to the whole of India, but they have found a fruitful soil in these provinces on account of the rather intense natures of the people of these two provinces. The Bengali is an intensely patriotic and emotional being, very sensitive and very resentful; the Punjabee is intensely virile, passionate and plucky, having developed a strong, forceful character by centuries of resistance to all kind of invasions and attacks. Of the Punjab, however, we will speak later on. For the present we are concerned with Bengal only. The amazing phenomenon mentioned by the committee on p. 20 and referred to by us before is easily explained by the facts hinted in the Directors' report quoted above. And this notwithstanding the fact that in the matter of Government patronage Bengal has been the most favored province in India, throughout the period of British rule. To the Bengalis have gone all the first appointments to offices that were thrown open to the natives of the soil. They have been the recipients of the highest honors from the Government. Bengal is virtually the only province permanently settled where the Government cannot add to the Land tax fixed in 1793. The Bengalis are the people who spread over India, with every territorial extension of the British Raj. They have been the pampered and favored children of the Government and for very good reasons, too. They are the best educated and the most intelligent of all the Indian peoples. They know how to adapt themselves to all conditions and circumstances, they know how to enjoy and also how to suffer. They have subtle brains and supple bodies. The British Government could not do without them. It cannot do without them even now. Yet it was this most loyal and most dutiful, this most westernized and the best educated class which laid the foundations of the revolutionary movement and has been carrying it on _successfully_ in face of all the forces of such a mighty Government as that of the British in India. What is the reason? It is the utter economic helplessness of the younger generation, aided by a sense of extreme humiliation and degradation. The Government never earnestly applied itself to the solution of the problem. They did nothing to reduce poverty and make education practical. Every time the budget was discussed the Indian members pressed for increased expenditure on education. All their proposals and motions were rejected by the standing official majorities backed by the whole force of non-official Europeans including the missionaries. The Government thus deliberately sowed the wind. Is there any wonder that it is now reaping the whirlwind?

The cause is economic; the remedy must be economic. Make education practical, foster industries, open all Government careers to the sons of the soil, reduce the cost on the military and civil services, let the people determine the fiscal policy of the country and the revolutionary movement will subside. Die it will not, so long as there is foreign domination and foreign exploitation. Even after India has attained Home Rule it will not die. It has come to stay. India is a part of the world and revolution is in the air all the world over. The effort to kill it by repression and suppression is futile, unwise and stupid.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The beginnings of British rule in India were made in 1757 A.D.

[2] Since enacted.

XIII

THE PUNJAB

We may now consider the case of the Punjab. Lord Morley's verdict notwithstanding, it is abundantly clear that the troubles of 1907, with which the history of unrest in the Punjab begins, were principally agrarian in their origin. Lord Morley's speech in the House of Commons (in 1907) as to the root of the trouble was based on reports supplied to him by the Government of the Punjab and we know from personal knowledge how unreliable many of these reports are. We may here illustrate this point by a few extracts from these documents.

(1) Lord Morley stated that: "There were twenty-eight meetings
known to have been held by the leading agitators in the Punjab
between 1st March and 1st May. Of these five only related, even
ostensibly, to agricultural grievances; the remaining twenty-three
were all purely political."