THE CASE FOR INDIA
The Presidential Address Delivered by Annie Besant at the
Thirty-Second Indian National Congress Held at Calcutta
26th December 1917
FELLOW-DELEGATES AND FRIENDS,
Everyone who has preceded me in this Chair has rendered his thanks in
fitting terms for the gift which is truly said to be the highest that
India has it in her power to bestow. It is the sign of her fullest love,
trust, and approval, and the one whom she seats in that chair is, for
his year of service, her chosen leader. But if my predecessors found
fitting words for their gratitude, in what words can I voice mine, whose
debt to you is so overwhelmingly greater than theirs? For the first time
in Congress history, you have chosen as your President one who, when
your choice was made, was under the heavy ban of Government displeasure,
and who lay interned as a person dangerous to public safety. While I was
humiliated, you crowned me with honour; while I was slandered, you
believed in my integrity and good faith; while I was crushed under the
heel of bureaucratic power, you acclaimed me as your leader; while I was
silenced and unable to defend myself, you defended me, and won for me
release. I was proud to serve in lowliest fashion, but you lifted me up
and placed me before the world as your chosen representative. I have no
words with which to thank you, no eloquence with which to repay my debt.
My deeds must speak for me, for words are too poor. I turn your gift
into service to the Motherland; I consecrate my life anew to her in
worship by action. All that I have and am, I lay on the Altar of the
Mother, and together we shall cry, more by service than by words: VANDE
MATARAM.
There is, perhaps, one value in your election of me in this crisis of
India’s destiny, seeing that I have not the privilege to be Indian-born,
but come from that little island in the northern seas which has been, in
the West, the builder-up of free institutions. The Aryan emigrants, who
spread over the lands of Europe, carried with them the seeds of liberty
sown in their blood in their Asian cradle-land. Western historians trace
the self-rule of the Saxon villages to their earlier prototypes in the
East, and see the growth of English liberty as up-springing from the
Aryan root of the free and self-contained village communities.
Its growth was crippled by Norman feudalism there, as its
millennia-nourished security here was smothered by the East India
Company. But in England it burst its shackles and nurtured a
liberty-loving people and a free Commons’ House. Here, it similarly
bourgeoned out into the Congress activities, and more recently into
those of the Muslim League, now together blossoming into Home Rule for
India. The England of Milton, Cromwell, Sydney, Burke, Paine, Shelley,
Wilberforce, Gladstone; the England that sheltered Mazzini, Kossuth,
Kropotkin, Stepniak, and that welcomed Garibaldi; the England that is
the enemy of tyranny, the foe of autocracy, the lover of freedom, that
is the England I would fain here represent to you to-day. To-day, when
India stands erect, no suppliant people, but a Nation, self-conscious,
self-respecting, determined to be free; when she stretches out her hand
to Britain and offers friendship not subservience; co-operation not
obedience; to-day let me: western-born but in spirit eastern, cradled in
England but Indian by choice and adoption: let me stand as the symbol of
union between Great Britain and India: a union of hearts and free
choice, not of compulsion: and therefore of a tie which cannot be
broken, a tie of love and of mutual helpfulness, beneficial to both
Nations and blessed by God.
GONE TO THE PEACE.
India’s great leader, Dadabhai Naoroji, has left his mortal body and is
now one of the company of the Immortals, who watch over and aid India’s
progress. He is with V.C. Bonnerjee, and Ranade, and A.O. Hume, and
Henry Cotton, and Pherozeshah Mehta, and Gopal Krishna Gokhale: the
great men who, in Swinburne’s noble verse, are the stars which lead us
to Liberty’s altar:
These, O men, shall ye honour,
Liberty only and these.
For thy sake and for all men’s and mine,
Brother, the crowns of them shine,
Lighting the way to her shrine,
That our eyes may be fastened upon her,
That our hands may encompass her knees.
Not for me to praise him in feeble words of reverence or of homage. His
deeds praise him, and his service to his country is his abiding glory.
Our gratitude will be best paid by following in his footsteps, alike in
his splendid courage and his unfaltering devotion, so that we may win
the Home Rule which he longed to see while with us, and shall see, ere
long, from the other world of Life, in which he dwells to-day.
CHAPTER I.
PRE-WAR MILITARY EXPENDITURE.
The Great War, into the whirlpool of which Nation after Nation has been
drawn, has entered on its fourth year. The rigid censorship which has
been established makes it impossible for any outside the circle of
Governments to forecast its duration, but to me, speaking for a moment
not as a politician but as a student of spiritual laws, to me its end is
sure. For the true object of this War is to prove the evil of, and to
destroy, autocracy and the enslavement of one Nation by another, and to
place on sure foundations the God-given Right to Self-Rule and
Self-Development of every Nation, and the similar right of the
Individual, of the smaller Self, so far as is consistent with the
welfare of the larger Self of the Nation. The forces which make for the
prolongation of autocracy--the rule of one--and the even deadlier
bureaucracy--the rule of a close body welded into an iron system--these
have been gathered together in the Central Powers of Europe--as of old
in Ravana--in order that they may be destroyed; for the New Age cannot
be opened until the Old passes away. The new civilisation of
Righteousness and Justice, and therefore of Brotherhood, of ordered
Liberty, of Peace, of Happiness, cannot be built up until the elements
are removed which have brought the old civilisation crashing about our
ears. Therefore is it necessary that the War shall be fought out to its
appointed end, and that no premature peace shall leave its object
unattained. Autocracy and bureaucracy must perish utterly, in East and
West, and, in order that their germs may not re-sprout in the future,
they must be discredited in the minds of men. They must be proved to be
less efficient than the Governments of Free Peoples, even in their
favourite work of War, and their iron machinery--which at first brings
outer prosperity and success--must be shown to be less lasting and
effective than the living and flexible organisations of democratic
Peoples. They must be proved failures before the world, so that the
glamour of superficial successes may be destroyed for ever. They have
had their day and their place in evolution, and have done their
educative work. Now they are out-of-date, unfit for survival, and must
vanish away.
When Great Britain sprang to arms, it was in defence of the freedom of a
small nation, guaranteed by treaties, and the great principles she
proclaimed electrified India and the Dominions. They all sprang to her
side without question, without delay; they heard the voice of old
England, the soldier of Liberty, and it thrilled their hearts. All were
unprepared, save the small territorial army of Great Britain, due to the
genius and foresight of Lord Haldane, and the readily mobilised army of
India, hurled into the fray by the swift decision of Lord Hardinge. The
little army of Britain fought for time; fought to stop the road to
Paris, the heart of France; fought, falling back step by step, and
gained the time it fought for, till India’s sons stood on the soil of
France, were flung to the front, rushed past the exhausted regiments who
cheered them with failing breath, charged the advancing hosts, stopped
the retreat, and joined the British army in forming that unbreakable
line which wrestled to the death through two fearful winters--often,
these soldiers of the tropics, waist-deep in freezing mud--and knew no
surrender.
India, with her clear vision, saw in Great Britain the champion of
Freedom, in Germany the champion of Despotism. And she saw rightly.
Rightly she stood by Great Britain, despite her own lack of freedom and
the coercive legislation which outrivalled German despotism, knowing
these to be temporary, because un-English, and therefore doomed to
destruction; she spurned the lure of German gold and rejected German
appeals to revolt. She offered men and money; her educated classes, her
Vakils, offered themselves as Volunteers, pleaded to be accepted. Then
the never-sleeping distrust of Anglo-India rejected the offer, pressed
for money, rejected men. And, slowly, educated India sank back,
depressed and disheartened, and a splendid opportunity for knitting
together the two Nations was lost.
Early in the War I ventured to say that the War could not end until
England recognised that autocracy and bureaucracy must perish in India
as well as in Europe. The good Bishop of Calcutta, with a courage worthy
of his free race, lately declared that it would be hypocritical to pray
for victory over autocracy in Europe and to maintain it in India. Now it
has been clearly and definitely declared that Self-Government is to be
the objective of Great Britain in India, and that a substantial measure
of it is to be given at once; when this promise is made good by the
granting of the Reforms outlined last year in Lucknow, then the end of
the War will be in sight. For the War cannot end till the death-knell of
autocracy is sounded.
Causes, with which I will deal presently and for which India was not
responsible, have somewhat obscured the first eager expressions of
India’s sympathy, and have forced her thoughts largely towards her own
position in the Empire. But that does not detract from the immense aid
she has given, and is still giving. It must not be forgotten that long
before the present War she had submitted--at first, while she had no
power of remonstrance, and later, after 1885, despite the constant
protests of Congress--to an ever-rising military expenditure, due partly
to the amalgamation scheme of 1859, and partly to the cost of various
wars beyond her frontiers, and to continual recurring frontier and
trans-frontier expeditions, in which she had no real interest. They were
sent out for supposed Imperial advantages, not for her own.
Between 1859 and 1904--45 years--Indian troops were engaged in
thirty-seven wars and expeditions. There were ten wars: the two Chinese
Wars of 1860 and 1900, the Bhutan War of 1864-65, the Abyssinian War of
1868, the Afghan War of 1878-79, and, after the massacre of the Kabul
Mission, the second War of 1879-80, ending in an advance of the
frontier, in the search for an ever receding “scientific frontier”; on
this occasion the frontier was shifted, says Keene, “from the line of
the Indus to the western slope of the Suleiman range and from Peshawar
to Quetta”; the Egyptian War of 1882, in which the Indian troops
markedly distinguished themselves; the third Burmese War of 1885 ending
in the annexation of Upper Burma in 1886; the invasions of Tibet in 1890
and 1904. Of Expeditions, or minor Wars, there were 27; to Sitana in
1858 on a small scale and in 1863 on a larger (the “Sitana Campaign”);
to Nepal and Sikkim in 1859; to Sikkim in 1864; a serious struggle on
the North-west Frontier in 1868; expeditions against the Lushais in
1871-72, the Daflas in 1874-75, the Nagas in 1875, the Afridis in 1877,
the Rampa Hill tribes in 1879, the Waziris and Nagas in 1881, the Akhas
in 1884, and in the same year an expedition to the Zhob Valley, and a
second thither in 1890. In 1888 and 1889 there was another expedition
against Sikkim, against the Akozais (the Black Mountain Expedition) and
against the Hill Tribes of the North-east, and in 1890 another Black
Mountain Expedition, with a third in 1892. In 1890 came the expedition
to Manipur, and in 1891 there was another expedition against the
Lushais, and one into the Miranzal Valley. The Chitral Expedition
occupied 1894-95, and the serious Tirah Campaign, in which 40,000 men
were engaged, came in 1897 and 1898. The long list--which I have closed
with 1904--ends with the expeditions against the Mahsuds in 1901,
against the Kabalis in 1902, and the invasion of Tibet, before noted.
All these events explain the rise in military expenditure, and we must
add to them the sending of Indian troops to Malta and Cyprus in 1878--a
somewhat theatrical demonstration--and the expenditure of some
£2,000,000 to face what was described as “the Russian Menace” in 1884.
Most of these were due to Imperial, not to Indian, policy, and many of
the burdens imposed were protested against by the Government of India,
while others were encouraged by ambitious Viceroys. I do not think that
even this long list is complete.
Ever since the Government of India was taken over by the Crown, India
has been regarded as an Imperial military asset and training ground, a
position from which the jealousy of the East India Company had largely
protected her, by insisting that the army it supported should be used
for the defence and in the interests of India alone. Her value to the
Empire for military purposes would not so seriously have injured at once
her pride and her finances if the natural tendencies of her martial
races had been permitted their previous scope; but the disarming of the
people, 20 years after the assumption of the Government by the Crown,
emasculated the Nation, and the elimination of races supposed to be
unwarlike, or in some cases too warlike to be trusted, threw recruitment
more and more to the north, and lowered the physique of the Bengalis and
Madrasis, on whom the Company had largely depended.
The superiority of the Punjab, on which Sir Michael O’Dwyer so
vehemently insisted the other day, is an artificial superiority, created
by the British system and policy; and the poor recruitment elsewhere, on
which he laid offensive insistence, is due to the same system and
policy, which largely eliminated Bengalis, Madrasis and Mahrattas from
the army. In Bengal, however, the martial type has been revived, chiefly
in consequence of what the Bengalis felt to be the intolerable insult of
the high-handed Partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon.
On this Gopal Krishna Gokhale said:
Bengal’s heroic stand against the oppression of a harsh and
uncontrolled bureaucracy has astonished and gratified all
India.... All India owes a deep debt of gratitude to Bengal.
The spirit evoked showed itself in the youth of Bengal by a practical
revolt, led by the elders, while it was confined to Swadeshi and
Boycott, and rushing on, when it broke away from their authority, into
conspiracy, assassination and dacoity: as had happened in similar
revolts with Young Italy, in the days of Mazzini, and with Young Russia
in the days of Stepniak and Kropotkin. The results of their despair,
necessarily met by the halter and penal servitude, had to be faced by
Lord Hardinge and Lord Carmichael during the present War. Other results,
happy instead of disastrous in their nature, was the development of grit
and endurance of a high character, shown in the courage of the Bengal
lads in the serious floods that have laid parts of the Province deep
under water, and in their compassion and self-sacrifice in the relief of
famine. Their services in the present War--the Ambulance Corps and the
replacement of its _materiel_ when the ship carrying it sank, with the
splendid services rendered by it in Mesopotamia; the recruiting of a
Bengali regiment for active service, 900 strong, with another 900
reserves to replace wastage, and recruiting still going on--these are
instances of the divine alchemy which brings the soul of good out of
evil action, and consecrates to service the qualities evoked by
rebellion.
In England, also, a similar result has been seen in a convict, released
to go to the front, winning the Victoria Cross. It would be an act of
statesmanship, as well as of divinest compassion, to offer to every
prisoner and interned captive, held for political crime or on political
suspicion, the opportunity of serving the Empire at the front. They
might, if thought necessary, form a separate battalion or a separate
regiment, under stricter supervision, and yet be given a chance of
redeeming their reputation, for they are mostly very young.
The financial burden incurred in consequence of the above conflicts, and
of other causes, now to be mentioned, would not have been so much
resented, if it had been imposed by India on herself, and if her own
sons had profited by her being used as a training ground for the
Empire. But in this case, as in so many others, she has shared Imperial
burdens, while not sharing Imperial freedom and power. Apart from this,
the change which made the Army so ruinous a burden on the resources of
the country was the system of “British reliefs,” the using of India as a
training ground for British regiments, and the transfer of the men thus
trained, to be replaced by new ones under the short service system, the
cost of the frequent transfers and their connected expenses being
charged on the Indian revenues, while the whole advantage was reaped by
Great Britain. On the short service system the Simla Army Commission
declared:
The short service system recently introduced into the British
Army has increased the cost and has materially reduced the
efficiency of the British troops in India. We cannot resist the
feeling that, in the introduction of this system, the interest
of the Indian tax-payer was entirely left out of consideration.
The remark was certainly justified, for the short service system gave
India only five years of the recruits she paid heavily for and trained,
all the rest of the benefit going to England. The latter was enabled, as
the years went on, to enormously increase her Reserves, so that she has
had 400,000 men trained in, and at the cost of, India.
In 1863 the Indian army consisted of 140,000 men, with 65,000 white
officers. Great changes were made in 1885-1905, including the
reorganisation under Lord Kitchener, who became Commander-in-Chief at
the end of 1902. Even in this hasty review, I must not omit reference to
the fact that Army Stores were drawn from Britain at enormous cost,
while they should have been chiefly manufactured here, so that India
might have profited by the expenditure. Lately under the necessities of
War, factories have been turned to the production of munitions; but this
should have been done long ago, so that India might have been enriched
instead of exploited. The War has forced an investigation into her
mineral resources that might have been made for her own sake, but
Germany was allowed to monopolise the supply of minerals that India
could have produced and worked up, and would have produced and worked up
had she enjoyed Home Rule. India would have been richer, and the Empire
safer, had she been a partner instead of a possession. But this side of
the question will come under the matters directly affecting merchants,
and we may venture to express a hope that the Government help extended
to munition factories in time of War may be continued to industrial
factories in time of Peace. The net result of the various causes
above-mentioned was that the expense of the Indian army rose by leaps
and bounds, until, before the War, India was expending, £21,000,000 as
against the £28,000,000 expended by the United Kingdom, while the
wealthy Dominions of Canada and Australia were spending only 1-1/2 and
1-1/4 millions respectively. (I am not forgetting that the United
Kingdom was expending over £51,000,000 on her Navy, while India was free
of that burden, save for a contribution of half a million.)
Since 1885, the Congress has constantly protested against the
ever-increasing military expenditure, but the voice of the Congress was
supposed to be the voice of sedition and of class ambition, instead of
being, as it was the voice of educated Indians, the most truly patriotic
and loyal class of the population. In 1885, in the First Congress, Mr.
P. Rangiah Naidu pointed out that military expenditure had been
£1,463,000 in 1857 and had risen to £16,975,750 in 1884. Mr. D.E. Wacha
ascribed the growth to the amalgamation scheme of 1859, and remarked
that the Company in 1856 had an army of 254,000 men at a cost of 11-1/2
millions, while in 1884 the Crown had an army of only 181,000 men at a
cost of 17 millions. The rise was largely due to the increased cost of
the European regiments, overland transport service, stores, pensions,
furlough allowances, and the like, most of them imposed despite the
resistance of the Government of India, which complained that the changes
were “made entirely, it may be said, from Imperial considerations, in
which Indian interests have not been consulted or advanced.” India paid
nearly, £700,000 a year, for instance, for “Home Depôts”--Home being
England of course--in which lived some 20,000 to 22,000 British
soldiers, on the plea that their regiments, not they, were serving in
India. I cannot follow out the many increases cited by Mr. Wacha, but
members can refer to his excellent speech.
Mr. Fawcett once remarked that when the East India Company was abolished
the English people became directly responsible for the
Government of India. It cannot, I think, be denied that this
responsibility has been so imperfectly discharged that in many
respects the new system of Government compares unfavourably
with the old.... There was at that time an independent control
of expenditure which now seems to be almost entirely wanting.
Shortly after the Crown assumed the rule of India, Mr. Disraeli asked
the House of Commons to regard India as “a great and solemn trust
committed to it by an all-wise and inscrutable Providence.” Mr. George
Yule, in the Fourth Congress, remarked on this: “The 650 odd members had
thrown the trust back upon the hands of Providence, to be looked after
as Providence itself thinks best.” Perhaps it is time that India should
remember that Providence helps those who help themselves.
Year after year the Congress continued to remonstrate against the cost
of the army, until in 1902, after all the futile protests of the
intervening years, it condemned an increase of pay to British soldiers
in India which placed an additional burden on the Indian revenues of
£786,000 a year, and pointed out that the British garrison was
unnecessarily numerous, as was shown by the withdrawal of large bodies
of British soldiers for service in South Africa and China. The very next
year Congress protested that the increasing military expenditure was not
to secure India against internal disorder or external attack, but in
order to carry out an Imperial policy; the Colonies contributed little
or nothing to the Imperial Military Expenditure, while India bore the
cost of about one-third of the whole British Army in addition to her own
Indian troops. Surely these facts should be remembered when India’s
military services to the Empire are now being weighed.
In 1904 and 1905, the Congress declared that the then military
expenditure was beyond India’s power to bear, and in the latter year
prayed that the additional ten millions sterling sanctioned for Lord
Kitchener’s reorganisation scheme might be devoted to education and the
reduction of the burden on the raiyats. In 1908, the burdens imposed by
the British War Office since 1859 were condemned, and in the next year
it was pointed out that the military expenditure was nearly a third of
the whole Indian revenue, and was starving Education and Sanitation.
Lord Kitchener’s reorganisation scheme kept the Indian Army on a War
footing, ready for immediate mobilisation, and on January 1, 1915, the
regular army consisted of 247,000 men, of whom 75,000 were English; it
was the money spent by India in maintaining this army for years in
readiness for War which made it possible for her to go to the help of
Great Britain at the critical early period to which I alluded. She spent
over £20 millions on the military services in 1914-15. In 1915-16 she
spent £21.8 millions. In 1916-17 her military budget had risen to £12
millions, and it will probably be exceeded, as was the budget of the
preceding year by £1-2/3 million.
Lord Hardinge, the last Viceroy of India, who is ever held in loving
memory here for his sympathetic attitude towards Indian aspirations,
made a masterly exposition of India’s War services in the House of Lords
on the third of last July. He emphasised her pre-War services, showing
that though 19-1/4 millions sterling was fixed as a maximum by the
Nicholson Committee, that amount had been exceeded in 11 out of the last
13 budgets, while his own last budget had risen to 22 millions. During
these 13 years the revenue had been only between 48 and 58 millions,
once rising to 60 millions. Could any fact speak more eloquently of
India’s War services than this proportion of military expenditure
compared with her revenue?
The Great War began on August 4th, and in that very month and in the
early part of September, India sent an expeditionary force of three
divisions--two infantry and one cavalry--and another cavalry division
joined them in France in November. The first arrived, said Lord
Hardinge, “in time to fill a gap that could not otherwise have been
filled.” He added pathetically: “There are very few survivors of those
two splendid divisions of infantry.” Truly, their homes are empty, but
their sons shall enjoy in India the liberty for which their fathers died
in France. Three more divisions were at once sent to guard the Indian
frontier, while in September a mixed division was sent to East Africa,
and in October and November two more divisions and a brigade of cavalry
went to Egypt. A battalion of Indian infantry went to Mauritius, another
to the Cameroons, and two to the Persian Gulf, while other Indian troops
helped the Japanese in the capture of Tsingtau. 210,000 Indians were
thus sent overseas. The whole of these troops were fully armed and
equipped, and in addition, during the first few weeks of the War, India
sent to England from her magazines “70 million rounds of small-arm
ammunition, 60,000 rifles, and more than 550 guns of the latest pattern
and type.”
In addition to these, Lord Hardinge speaks of sending to England
enormous quantities of material,... tents, boots, saddlery,
clothing, etc., but every effort was made to meet the
ever-increasing demands made by the War Office, and it may be
stated without exaggeration that India was bled absolutely
white during the first few weeks of the war.
It must not be forgotten, though Lord Hardinge has not reckoned it, that
all wastage has been more than filled up, and 450,000 men represent this
head; the increase in units has been 300,000, and including other
military items India had placed in the field up to the end of 1916 over
a million of men.
In addition to this a British force of 80,000 was sent from India, fully
trained and equipped at Indian cost, India receiving in exchange, many
months later, 34 Territorial battalions and 29 batteries, “unfit for
immediate employment on the frontier or in Mesopotamia, until they had
been entirely re-armed and equipped, and their training completed.”
Between the autumn of 1914 and the close of 1915, the defence of our own
frontiers was a serious matter, and Lord Hardinge says:
The attitude of Afghanistan was for a long time doubtful,
although I always had confidence in the personal loyalty of our
ally the Amir; but I feared lest he might be overwhelmed by a
wave of fanaticism, or by a successful Jehad of the tribes....
It suffices to mention that, although during the previous three
years there had been no operations of any importance on the
North-West frontier, there were, between November 29, 1914, and
September 5, 1915, no less than seven serious attacks on the
North-West frontier, all of which were effectively dealt with.
The military authorities had also to meet a German conspiracy early in
1915, 7,000 men arriving from Canada and the United States, having
planned to seize points of military vantage in the Panjab, and in
December of the same year another German conspiracy in Bengal,
necessitating military preparations on land, and also naval patrols in
the Bay of Bengal.
Lord Hardinge has been much attacked by the Tory and Unionist Press in
England and India, in England because of the Mesopotamia Report, in
India because his love for India brought him hatred from Anglo-India.
India has affirmed her confidence in him, and with India’s verdict he
may well rest satisfied.
I do not care to dwell on the Mesopotamia Commission and its
condemnation of the bureaucratic system prevailing here. Lord Hardinge
vindicated himself and India. The bureaucratic system remains
undefended. I recall that bureaucratic inefficiency came out in even
more startling fashion in connection with the Afghan War of 1878-79 and
1879-80. In February 1880, the war charges were reported as under £4
millions, and the accounts showed a surplus of £2 millions. On April 8th
the Government of India reported: “Outgoing for War very alarming, far
exceeding estimate,” and on the 13th April “it was announced that the
cash balances had fallen in three months from thirteen crores to less
than nine, owing to ‘excessive Military drain’ ... On the following day
(April 22) a despatch was sent out to the Viceroy, showing that there
appeared a deficiency of not less than 5-1/4 crores. This vast error was
evidently due to an underestimate of war liabilities, which had led to
such mis-information being laid before Parliament, and to the sudden
discovery of inability to ‘meet the usual drawings.’”
It seemed that the Government knew only the amount audited, not the
amount spent. Payments were entered as “advances,” though they were not
recoverable, and “the great negligence was evidently that of the heads
of departmental accounts.” If such a mishap should occur under Home
Rule, a few years hence--which heaven forbid--I shudder to think of the
comments of the _Englishman_ and the _Madras Mail_ on the shocking
inefficiency of Indian officials.
In September last, our present Viceroy, H.E. Lord Chelmsford, defended
India against later attacks by critics who try to minimise her
sacrifices in order to lessen the gratitude felt by Great Britain
towards her, lest that gratitude should give birth to justice, and
justice should award freedom to India. Lord Chelmsford placed before his
Council “in studiously considered outline, a summary of what India has
done during the past two years.” Omitting his references to what was
done under Lord Hardinge, as stated above, I may quote from him:
On the outbreak of war, of the 4,598 British officers on the
Indian establishment, 530 who were at home on leave were
detained by the War Office for service in Europe. 2,600
Combatant Officers have been withdrawn from India since the
beginning of the War, excluding those who proceeded on service
with their batteries or regiments. In order to make good these
deficiencies and provide for war wastage the Indian Army
Reserve of Officers was expanded from a total of 40, at which
it stood on the 4th August, 1914, to one of 2,000.
The establishment of Indian units has not only been kept up to
strength, but has been considerably increased. There has been
an augmentation of 20 per cent. in the cavalry and of 40 per
cent. in the infantry, while the number of recruits enlisted
since the beginning of the War is greater than the entire
strength of the Indian Army as it existed on August 4, 1914.
Lord Chelmsford rightly pointed out:
The Army in India has thus proved a great Imperial asset, and
in weighing the value of India’s contribution to the War it
should be remembered that India’s forces were no hasty
improvisation, but were an army in being, fully equipped and
supplied, which had previously cost India annually a large sum
to maintain.
Lord Chelmsford has established what he calls a “Man-Power Board,” the
duty of which is “to collect and co-ordinate all the facts with regard
to the supply of man-power in India.” It has branches in all the
Provinces. A steady flow of reinforcements supplies the wastage at the
various fronts, and the labour required for engineering, transport,
etc., is now organised in 20 corps in Mesopotamia and 25 corps in
France. In addition 60,000 artisans, labourers, and specialists are
serving in Mesopotamia and East Africa, and some 20,000 menials and
followers have also gone overseas. Indian medical practitioners have
accepted temporary commissions in the Indian Medical Service to the
number of 500. In view of this fact, due to Great Britain’s bitter need
of help, may we not hope that this Service will welcome Indians in time
of peace as well as in time of war, and will no longer bar the way by
demanding the taking of a degree in the United Kingdom? It is also
worthy of notice that the I.M.S. officers in charge of district duties
have been largely replaced by Indian medical men; this, again, should
continue after the War. Another fact, that the Army Reserve of Officers
his risen from 40 to 2,000, suggests that the throwing open of King’s
Commissions to qualified Indians should not be represented by a meagre
nine. If English lads of 19 and 20 are worthy of King’s Commissions--and
the long roll of slain Second Lieutenants proves it--then certainly
Indian lads, since Indians have fought as bravely as Englishmen, should
find the door thrown open to them equally widely in their own country,
and the Indian Army should be led by Indian officers.
With such a record of deeds as the one I have baldly sketched, it is not
necessary to say much in words as to India’s support of Great Britain
and her Allies. She has proved up to the hilt her desire to remain
within the Empire, to maintain her tie with Great Britain. But if
Britain is to call successfully on India’s man-power, as Lord Chelmsford
suggests in his Man-Power Board, then must the man who fights or labours
have a man’s Rights in his own land. The lesson which springs out of
this War is that it is absolutely necessary for the future safety of the
Empire that India shall have Home Rule. Had her Man-Power been utilised
earlier there would have been no War, for none would have dared to
provoke Great Britain and India to a contest. But her Man-Power cannot
be utilised while she is a subject Nation. She cannot afford to maintain
a large army, if she is to support an English garrison, to pay for their
goings and comings, to buy stores in England at exorbitant prices and
send them back again when England needs them. She cannot afford to train
men for England, and only have their services for five years. She cannot
afford to keep huge Gold Reserves in England, and be straitened for
cash, while she lends to England out of her Reserves, taken from her
over-taxation, £27,000,000 for War expenses, and this, be it remembered,
before the great War Loan. I once said in England: “The condition of
India’s loyalty is India’s freedom.” I may now add: “The condition of
India’s usefulness to the Empire is India’s freedom.” She will tax
herself willingly when her taxes remain in the country and fertilise it,
when they educate her people and thus increase their productive power,
when they foster her trade and create for her new industries.
Great Britain needs India as much as India needs England, for prosperity
in Peace as well as for safety in War. Mr. Montagu has wisely said that
“for equipment in War a Nation needs freedom in Peace.” Therefore I say
that, for both countries alike, the lesson of the War is Home Rule for
India.
Let me close this part of my subject by laying at the feet of His
Imperial Majesty the loving homage of the thousands here assembled, with
the hope and belief that, ere long, we shall lay there the willing and
grateful homage of a free Nation.