Chapter IV: Preface: To the Second Edition

Considering that in August, 1916, when this book was published, I was only a stranger in this country, known only to a few individuals, with almost no credentials of any kind to command the attention of the reading public, it is extremely gratifying that the first edition should have been sold out in less than six months. The fact can only be explained by the broad-minded sympathy of the American public for the “under dog.” I had a story to tell which the American public decided was worthy of being heard. So they heard it and now that they have heard it they want more of it.

In launching a second edition I take the opportunity of thanking the American press for their most generous and kindly appreciation of my little work. To the London Liberal press represented by the _Nation_ and the _New Statesman_ also I pay my acknowledgments. Their kindly reception shows the genuineness of their liberalism which, by the by, is the most valuable asset of English public life. Compare with this the treatment that has been accorded to me and my book by the British Indian Government. The first thing they did to injure me was to get the High Court at Lahore to cancel my license as a lawyer in the Punjab, India, on the ground of my being the author of a pamphlet called “Some Reflections on the Political Situation in India,” to which they objected and which they barred from entry into British India. This order is of course illegal; but the High Court of the Punjab has not a high reputation for its legal attainments and is always a willing instrument of the Executive. Then came the order barring this book. This by itself ought to be sufficient to show off the amount of political freedom we enjoy in India, but the year 1916 has been made memorable in the political history of India by other events of even a more significant character. Throughout the year, the Government in India continued to prosecute an English lady of world-wide fame, for the simple reason that that lady had the audacity of identifying herself with the “Home Rule of India” movement. Mrs. Annie Besant is an English woman of international fame. She is one of the most accomplished and eloquent platform speakers which the English speaking nations possess. She is a distinguished author and the revered head of the Theosophical Society which has ramifications all over the world. In addition to her religious and social and literary activities Mrs. Annie Besant has for some years been taking an active interest in the Indian Nationalist movement. She owns and edits two papers, one a daily and the other a weekly, both written in English and published at Madras, India, in the interests of Indian Nationalism. She is the founder and President of an Indian Home Rule League. She is an outspoken critic of the Russian methods of repression, suppression and confiscation that are in vogue in the Indian Administration. During Lord Hardinge’s viceroyalty her criticism was tolerated, as the Head of the Government was known to be friendly to her. As soon, however, as Lord Hardinge turned his back on India, Mrs. Besant’s good luck abandoned her and down came the hand of the Madras Government. The first order against her demanded security for her daily paper, _New India_. This security was duly furnished and has since been confiscated and a new security of a much larger sum has been demanded. Mrs. Besant has complied with these orders also, though under protest and is contesting them in the courts. One court has rejected her appeal, holding that though the order of the Government was illegal, the statutes gave them no power to give relief. She is now appealing to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in London, and the matter rests there. Two other Provincial Governments, those of Bombay and the Central Provinces, took action to restrict her liberty of movement, by prohibiting her entry into their respective jurisdictions, under the Defence of India Act. All this has made a sensation and Mrs. Annie Besant is one of the most popular persons in India at the present moment. She is considered a heroine and the Nationalist party is backing her up fully. Her financial losses have been made up to her and her papers are flourishing. Her Home Rule League is spreading.

Mrs. Annie Besant has not, however, been the only recipient of Government attention during the course of the year. The Nationalist leader, Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak, has been persecuted in various ways. A Magistrate was found to adjudge some of his speeches in favour of Home Rule as seditious and on the basis of that adjudication, Mr. Tilak was ordered to deposit security of over $13,000 for good behaviour for a year, the object being to gag him. On Mr. Tilak appealing to the High Court the Judges quashed the order, holding that the speeches, read as a whole, did not violate the law. He is, however, still being followed and persecuted otherwise.

_Press Act._ The following resolution passed by the Council of the Bombay Presidency Association in connection with the proceedings taken by the Government against Mrs. Besant’s _New India_ speaks for itself:

“Having regard to the arbitrary character of the provisions of the
Press Act of 1910 and the manner in which it has been enforced in
the case of several newspapers, and recently in the case of _New
India_, thereby causing public dissatisfaction and discontent, this
Council is of opinion that a representation should be submitted to
the Government by the Association pointing out the oppressive
character of the Act and its administration and asking for its
appeal. The Council, therefore, resolves, that a committee
consisting of Sir Narayan Chandavarkar, Messrs. B. G. Horniman, D.
N. Bahadurji, A. M. Jinnah and the Honorary Secretaries be
appointed to draft a memorial for the purpose and submit it to the
Council within a fortnight.”

_Political Crime in Bengal._ In Bengal there has been no falling off in the activities of the Revolutionary party in spite of the fact that the powers taken by the Government under the Defence of India Act have been ruthlessly exercised. The following extracts taken from a press comment on the Resolution of the Government of Bengal relating to the working of the Police Department in 1915 may be of some interest in this connection:

“The Resolution of the Bengal Government on the Report of the
Police administration in the Presidency for 1915 says that the
criminal record of the year was a black one. Serious crime of all
kinds except rioting showed considerable increase, which was most
marked in the case of offences against property. True cases of
dacoity increased from 289 in 1914 to 643 in 1915, burglary cases
from 30,294 to 39,812 and theft cases from 17,730 to 31,552. The
increase in theft and burglary may be ascribed mainly to the
unfavourable economic conditions caused by partial crop failures in
many districts of the province and by a heavy fall in the price of
jute. In the case of dacoity, however, there appears to be good
reason for attributing the increase almost entirely to the state of
unrest caused by the war.

“Referring to revolutionary crime in Bengal the resolution says:
The outbreak of revolutionary crime in the early part of the year
was followed by a lull after the introduction of the Defence of
India Act in April. The latter part of the year was, however,
marked by renewed activity on the part of the revolutionary party
and the total number of cases believed to be connected with the
movement was 36 as compared with 12 in the previous year. These
cases included 34 dacoities, 2 attempted dacoities, 9 murders and
one attempted bomb outrage.

“With regard to the circulation of seditious literature, the report
of the Inspector General of Police says: Increased activity in the
circulation of seditious leaflets came to notice about June and
continued throughout the year. Under the existing law mere
possession of seditious matter is not an offence and consequently
there are no means of checking the serious evil at the fountain
head. It is only after the seditious and inflammatory matter has
been circulated and mischief done that the law can be put in
motion. There is convincing evidence that the revolutionary party
in Bengal depend largely upon seditious literature to recruit their
ranks and several youths have confessed that they were drawn into
the movement through reading leaflets issued by the revolutionists.
Penalising the possession of seditious matter may not be a complete
cure for the evil, but it will materially assist to check it.”

As recently as December 11, 1916, the Governor laid renewed emphasis upon the continued existence of serious political crime in Bengal and of their failure to check or extirpate it.

Since then a new ordinance has been promulgated making the mere possession of seditious literature penal.

_In the Punjab_ the Government prosecuted a third batch of persons on charges of political conspiracy, six of whom have since been sentenced to death and the others to varying terms of imprisonment and transportation.

_The united demand for autonomy._ The most significant political event of the year, however, is the presentation to the Viceroy of a joint memorandum of post-war reforms signed by nineteen out of twenty-two elected members of the Viceroy’s Legislative Council. In the opinion of the signatories this is the minimum which will satisfy Indian public opinion _for the present_. The demands are not far-reaching enough on the way to autonomy but the document is remarkable as a symbol of unity between the different religious communities and castes of the Indian population, on the so-called lack of which the British Imperialist so much relies, in justification of denying self-government to India. Coming from men of varying shades of political opinion, pledged by their oath of allegiance to loyalty to the British Government and by their connection with the latter, the document is the most conclusive and scathing condemnation of the existing system of Government in India. We make no apology for giving the document in full.

MEMORANDUM submitted to H. E., the Viceroy, by the undersigned
elected Additional Members of the Imperial Legislative Council with
regard to Post-War reforms.

There is no doubt that the termination of the war will see a great
advance in the ideals of government all over the civilised world
and especially in the British Empire, which entered into the
struggle in defence of the liberties of weak and small
nationalities and is pouring forth its richest blood and treasure
in upholding the cause of justice and humanity in the international
relations of the world. India has borne her part in this struggle
and cannot remain unaffected by the new spirit of change for a
better state of things. Expectations have been raised in this
country and hopes held out that, after the war, the problems of
Indian Administration will be looked at from a new angle of vision.
The people of India have good reasons to be grateful to England for
the great progress in her material resources and the widening of
her intellectual and political outlook under British rule, and for
the steady, if slow, advance in her national life commencing with
the Charter Act of India of 1833. Up to 1909, the Government of
India was conducted by a bureaucracy almost entirely non-Indian in
its composition and not responsible to the people of India. The
reforms of 1909 for the first time introduced an Indian element in
the direction of affairs in the administration of India. This
element was of a very limited character. The Indian people accepted
it as an indication on the part of the Government of a desire to
admit the Indians into the inner counsels of the Indian Empire. So
far as the Legislative Councils are concerned, the number of
non-official members was merely enlarged with increased facilities
for debate and interpellation. The Supreme Legislative Council
retained an absolute official majority, and in the Provincial
Legislative Councils, where a non-official majority was allowed,
such majority included nominated members and the European
representatives. In measures largely affecting the people, whether
of legislation or taxation, by which Europeans were not directly
affected, the European members would naturally support the
Government, and the nominated members, being nominees of
Government, would be inclined to take the same side. Past
experience has shown that this has actually happened on various
occasions. The non-official majorities, therefore, in the
Provincial Councils have proved largely illusory and give no real
power to the representatives of the people. The Legislative
Councils, whether Supreme or Provincial, are at present nothing but
advisory bodies without any power of effective control over the
Government, Imperial or Provincial. The people or their
representatives are practically as little associated with the real
government of the country as they were before the reforms, except
for the introduction of the Indian element in the Executive
Councils, where again the nomination rests entirely with the
Government, the people having no voice in the selection of the
Indian members.

The object which the Government had in view in introducing the
reforms of 1909 was, as expressed by the Prime Minister in his
speech in the House of Commons on the second reading of the Indian
Councils Bill (1st April, 1909), that “it was most desirable in the
circumstances to give to the people of India the feeling that these
Legislative Councils are not mere automatons the wires of which are
pulled by the official hierarchy.” This object, it is submitted,
has not been attained. Apart from this question of the Constitution
of the Legislative and Executive Councils, the people labour under
certain grave disabilities, which not only prevent the utilisation,
but also lead to the wastage, of what is best in them, and are
positively derogatory to their sense of national self-respect. The
Arms Act which excludes from its operation Europeans and
Anglo-Indians and applies only to the pure natives of the country,
the disqualification of Indians for forming or joining Volunteer
corps, and their exclusion from the commissioned ranks of the Army,
are disabilities which are looked upon with an irritating sense of
racial differentiation. It would be bad enough if these were mere
disabilities. Restrictions and prohibitions regarding the
possession and use of arms have tended to emasculate the civil
populations in India and expose them to serious danger. The
position of Indians in India is practically this, that they have no
real part or share in the direction of the government of the
country, and are placed under very great and galling disabilities
from which the other members of the British Empire are exempt and
which have reduced them to a state of utter helplessness. The
existence, moreover, of the system of indentured emigration gives
to the British Colonies and the outside world the impression that
Indians, as a whole, are no better than indentured coolies, who are
looked upon as very little, if at all, above the slave. The present
state of things makes the Indians feel that, though theoretically
they are equal subjects of the King, they hold a very inferior
position in the British Empire. Other Asiatic races also hold the
same, if not a worse, view about India and her status in the
Empire. Humiliating as this position of inferiority is to the
Indian mind, it is almost unbearable to the youth of India whose
outlook is broadened by education and travel in foreign parts where
they come in contact with other free races.

In the face of these grievances and disabilities, what has
sustained the people is the hope and faith inspired by promises and
assurances of fair and equal treatment which have been held out
from time to time by our Sovereigns and British statesmen of high
standing. In the crisis we are now going through, the Indian people
have sunk domestic differences between themselves and the
Government and have faithfully and loyally stood by the Empire. The
Indian soldiers were eager to go to the battlefields of Europe, not
as mercenary troops but as free citizens of the British Empire
which required their services, and her civilian population was
animated by one desire, namely, to stand by England in the hour of
her need. Peace and tranquillity reigned throughout India when she
was practically denuded of British and Indian troops. The Prime
Minister of England, while voicing the sentiments of the English
people in regard to India’s part in this great war, spoke of
Indians as “the joint and equal custodians of one common interest
and future.” India does not claim any reward for her loyalty, but
she has a right to expect that the want of confidence on the part
of the Government, to which she not unnaturally ascribes her
present state, should now be a thing of the past and that she
should no longer occupy a position of subordination but one of
comradeship. This would assure the Indian people that England is
ready and willing to help them to attain self-government under the
ægis of the British Crown, and thus discharge the noble mission
which she has undertaken and to which she has so often given
voluntary expression through her rulers and statesmen. What is
wanted is not merely good government or efficient administration,
but government that is acceptable to the people because it is
responsible to them. This is what India understands would
constitute the changed angle of vision.

If, after the termination of the war, the position of India
practically remains what it was before, and there is no material
change in it, it will undoubtedly cause bitter disappointment and
great discontent in the country, and the beneficent effects of
participation in common danger, overcome by common effort will soon
disappear, leaving no record behind save the painful memory of
unrealised expectations. We feel sure that the Government is also
alive to the situation and is contemplating measures of reform in
the administration of the country. We feel that we should avail
ourselves of this opportunity to respectfully offer to Government
our humble suggestions as to the lines on which reforms should
proceed. They must, in our opinion, go to the root of the matter.
They must give to the people real and effective participation in
the government of the country, and also remove those irritating
disabilities as regards the possession of arms and a military
career, which indicate want of confidence in the people and place
them in a position of inferiority and helplessness. With this view,
we would take the liberty to suggest the following measures for
consideration and adoption:

1. In all the Executive Councils, Provincial and Imperial, half the
number of members should be Indians; the European element in the
Executive Councils should, as far as possible, be nominated from
the ranks of men trained and educated in the public life of
England, so that India may have the benefit of a wider outlook and
larger experience of the outside world. It is not absolutely
essential that the members of the Executive Councils, Indians or
Europeans, should have experience of actual administration, for, as
in the case of Ministers in England, the assistance of the
permanent officials of the departments is always available to them.
As regards Indians, we venture to say that a sufficient number of
qualified Indians, who can worthily fill the office of members of
the Executive Council and hold portfolios, is always available. Our
short experience in this direction has shown how Indians like Sir
S. P. Sinha, Sir Syed Ali Imam, the late Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer, Sir
Shams-ul-Huda and Sir Sankaran Nair have maintained a high level of
administrative ability in the discharge of their duties. Moreover,
it is well known that the Native States, where Indians have
opportunities, have produced renowned administrators like Sir Salar
Jang, Sir T. Madhava Rao, Sir Sheshadri Ayer, Dewan Bahadur
Raghunath Rao, not to mention the present administrators in the
various Native States of India. The statutory obligation, now
existing, that three of the members of the Supreme Executive
Council shall be selected from the public services in India and
similar provisions with regard to Provincial Councils should be
removed. The elected representatives of the people should have a
voice in the selection of the Indian members of the Executive
Councils and for that purpose a principle of election should be
adopted.

2. All the Legislative Councils in India should have a substantial
majority of elected representatives. These representatives, we feel
sure, will watch and safeguard the interests of the masses and the
agricultural population, with whom they are in closer touch than
any European officer, however sympathetic, can possibly be. The
proceedings of the various Legislative Councils and the Indian
National Congress and the Moslem League bear ample testimony to the
solicitude of the educated Indians for the welfare of the masses
and their acquaintance with their wants and wishes. The franchise
should be broadened and extended directly to the people,
Mohammedans or Hindus, wherever they are in a minority, being given
proper and adequate representation, having regard to their
numerical strength and position.

3. The total number of the members of the Supreme Council should be
not less than 150, and of the Provincial Councils not less than 100
for the major provinces, and not less than 60 to 75 for the minor
provinces.

4. The Budget should be passed in the shape of money bills, fiscal
autonomy being conceded to India.

5. The Imperial Legislative Council should have power to legislate
on, and discuss and pass resolutions relating to, all matters of
Indian administration, and the Provincial Councils should have
similar powers with regard to Provincial administrations, save and
except that the direction of military affairs, of foreign
relations, declarations of war, the making of peace, and the
entering into treaties, other than commercial, should be vested in
the Government of India. As a safeguard, the
Governor-General-in-Council or the Governor-in-Council, as the case
may be, should have the right of veto, which, however, should be
exercised subject to certain conditions and limitations.

6. The Council of the Secretary of State should be abolished. The
Secretary of State should, as far as possible, hold in relation to
the Government of India a position similar to that which the
Secretary of State for the Colonies holds in relation to the
Colonies. The Secretary of State should be assisted by two
permanent Under-Secretaries, one of whom should be an Indian. The
salaries of the Secretary and the Under-Secretaries should be
placed on the British estimates.

7. In any scheme of Imperial Federation, India should be given
through her chosen representatives a place similar to that of the
self-governing dominions.

8. The Provincial Governments should be made autonomous, as stated
in the Government of India’s despatch dated 25th August, 1911.

9. The United Provinces, as well as the other major provinces
should have a Governor brought from the United Kingdom and should
have an Executive Council.

10. A full measure of local self-government should be immediately
granted.

11. The right to carry arms should be granted to Indians on the
same conditions as to Europeans.

12. Indians should be allowed to enlist as volunteers and units of
a territorial army established in India.

13. Commissions in the Army should be given to Indian youths under
conditions similar to those applicable to Europeans.

MANINDRA CHANDRA NANDY OF KASIMBAZAR.
D.E. WACHA.
BHUPENDRANATH BASU.
BISHAN DUTT SHUKUL.
MADAN MOHAN MALAVIYA.
K. V. RANGASWAMIENGAR.
MAZHARUL HAQUE.
V. S. SRINIVASAN.
TEJ BAHADUR SAPRU.
IBRAHIM RAHIMTOOLA.
B. NARASIMHESWARA SARMA.
MIR ASAD ALI.
KAMINI KUMAR CHANDA.
KRISHNA SAHAY.
R. N. BHANJA DEO OF KANIKA.
M. B. DADABHOY.
SITA NATH ROY.
MOHAMED ALI MOHAMED.
M. A. JINNAH.

It might be noted that the demands are extremely moderate and accompanied by rather exaggerated acknowledgments of the effects of British rule in India. They proceed from a body of professed loyalists. They have received wide support from representative organisations of Hindus and Mahommedans as well as from representative men of all classes, castes and denominations.

_India in England._ In England the exigencies of the war have left no time for the British Parliament to devote to the meagre discussions of Indian affairs that followed the presentation of East India accounts once a year. The requirements of the law in this respect have been conveniently ignored. In the press too, while every expression of loyalty is lauded to the skies and even cabled to America, the demands for rights and reforms are silently ignored or hooted with contempt. The reactionary Lord Sydenham has, however, sounded a note of alarm urging the “immediate and final” rejection of the demands made by the nineteen members of the Viceroy’s Legislative Council. The London _Nation_ and the _New Statesman_ have come out with sympathetic articles.

_India in America._ Here in the United States of America the attention paid to Indian affairs by the American press, has elicited long statements by British statesmen in connection with their rule in India. The Secretary of State for India, the Under Secretary of State for India, the Viceroy, the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, the Finance Minister have all granted interviews to American correspondents, assuring the latter of the marvellous progress India is making under British rule, of the prosperity and loyalty of India and of the extreme unimportance of the Nationalist party. Judged from these interviews India must be a very paradise on earth--a garden of Eden. Most of the statements are vague and misleading, containing half truths and suppressing important facts. I will pick up one statement for purposes of illustration. The Finance Minister of India is reported to have said:

“So far from the people of India groaning under an enormous burden
of taxation India is one of the most lightly taxed countries on the
face of the earth.... The total Revenue, Imperial and Provincial,
for the current year amounted to £86,500,000 and this sum
distributed among the 244,000,000 people of British India gave a
resultant contribution per capita of only seven shillings.”

Now at best this is only a half truth. The Finance Minister should have added that the total income of India is about £600,000,000 a year, bringing the average per capita to £2 a year. Seven shillings out of £2 a year is perhaps the heaviest tax paid by any country on the face of the earth. Equally misleading are other statements about land tax, etc., which I am noticing in my new book dealing with Economic Effects of British Rule in India which is going to the press soon.

The writer is also establishing a kind of Bureau in New York, where all kinds of information, political, economic, legal, commercial, etc., relating to India will be supplied to the American public.

LAJPAT RAI.

New York,

19th January, 1917.

P. S. Since the above was written the newspapers have reported that the British Government have decided to raise a war loan of $500,000,000 in India as a “free gift” to Great Britain. Free gift, indeed! Where the donor and the donee are the same--a free gift by a people vast numbers of whom do not get two meals a day and have an average income of ten dollars a year. Imperialism, wonderful are thy feats!!!

NOTE: The _Manchester Guardian_, March 13, 1917, comments as
follows upon the war loan mentioned in the above P. S., the italics
being mine:

“Why was this question of a financial contribution from India
raised now? _For our own part we have the gravest doubt as to the
wisdom or justice of taking any financial contribution from India._
We believe that this is not the best way for India and for the
Empire, in which India can serve the common cause, and _that the
loss it represents to an extremely poor population like that of
India is very much greater than the gain it represents to England_.
If we really are seriously concerned that India ‘should develop in
every way the vast potentialities of her indigenous products’ it
would be better to spend 100 millions [£] on developing her
resources than to take that money from India and in exchange give
Bombay a tariff.”

LAJPAT RAI.

18th March, 1917.