CAUSES OF THE NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA.
Apart from the natural exchange of thought between East and West, the
influence of English education, literature and ideals, the effect of
travel in Europe, Japan and the United States of America, and other
recognised causes for the changed outlook in India, there have been
special forces at work during the last few years to arouse a New Spirit
in India, and to alter her attitude of mind. These may be summed up as:
(a) The Awakening of Asia.
(b) Discussions abroad on Alien Rule and Imperial Reconstruction.
(c) Loss of Belief in the Superiority of the White Races.
(d) The Awakening of Indian Merchants.
(e) The Awakening of Indian Womanhood to claim its Ancient
Position.
(f) The Awakening of the Masses.
Each of these causes has had its share in the splendid change of
attitude in the Indian Nation, in the uprising of a spirit of pride of
country, of independence, of self-reliance, of dignity, of self-respect.
The War has quickened the rate of evolution of the world, and no country
has experienced the quickening more than our Motherland.
THE AWAKENING OF ASIA.
In a conversation I had with Lord Minto, soon after his arrival as
Viceroy, he discussed the so-called “unrest in India,” and recognised it
as the inevitable result of English Education, of English Ideals of
Democracy, of the Japanese victory over Russia, and of the changing
conditions in the outer world. I was therefore not surprised to read his
remark that he recognised, “frankly and publicly, that new aspirations
were stirring in the hearts of the people, that they were part of a
larger movement common to the whole East, and that it was necessary to
satisfy them to a reasonable extent by giving them a larger share in the
administration.”
But the present movement in India will be very poorly understood if it
be regarded only in connexion with the movement in the East. The
awakening of Asia is part of a world-movement, which has been quickened
into marvellous rapidity by the world-war. The world-movement is towards
Democracy, and for the West dates from the breaking away of the American
Colonies from Great Britain, consummated in 1776, and its sequel in the
French Revolution of 1789. Needless to say that its root was in the
growth of modern science, undermining the fabric of intellectual
servitude, in the work of the Encyclopædists, and in that of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and of Thomas Paine. In the East, the swift
changes in Japan, the success of the Japanese Empire against Russia, the
downfall of the Manchu dynasty in China and the establishment of a
Chinese Republic, the efforts at improvement in Persia, hindered by the
interference of Russia and Great Britain with their growing ambitions,
and the creation of British and Russian “spheres of influence,”
depriving her of her just liberty, and now the Russian Revolution and
the probable rise of a Russian Republic in Europe and Asia, have all
entirely changed the conditions before existing in India. Across Asia,
beyond the Himalayas, stretch free and self-ruling Nations. India no
longer sees as her Asian neighbours the huge domains of a Tsar and a
Chinese despot, and compares her condition under British rule with those
of their subject populations. British rule profited by the comparison,
at least until 1905, when the great period of repression set in. But in
future, unless India wins Self-Government, she will look enviously at
her Self-Governing neighbours, and the contrast will intensify her
unrest.
But even if she gains Home Rule, as I believe she will, her position in
the Empire will imperatively demand that she shall be strong as well as
free. She becomes not only a vulnerable point in the Empire, as the
Asian Nations evolve their own ambitions and rivalries, but also a
possession to be battled for. Mr. Laing once said: “India is the
milch-cow of England,” a Kamadhenu, in fact, a cow of plenty; and if
that view should arise in Asia, the ownership of the milch-cow would
become a matter of dispute, as of old between Vashishtha and
Vishvamitra. Hence India must be capable of self-defence both by land
and sea. There may be a struggle for the primacy of Asia, for supremacy
in the Pacific, for the mastery of Australasia, to say nothing of the
inevitable trade-struggles, in which Japan is already endangering Indian
industry and Indian trade, while India is unable to protect herself.
In order to face these larger issues with equanimity, the Empire
requires a contented, strong, self-dependent and armed India, able to
hold her own and to aid the Dominions, especially Australia, with her
small population and immense unoccupied and undefended area. India alone
has the man-power which can effectively maintain the Empire in Asia, and
it is a short-sighted, a criminally short-sighted, policy not to build
up her strength as a Self-Governing State within the Commonwealth of
Free Nations under the British Crown. The Englishmen in India talk
loudly of their interests; what can this mere handful do to protect
their interests against attack in the coming years? Only in a free and
powerful India will they be safe. Those who read Japanese papers know
how strongly, even during the War, they parade unchecked their
pro-German sympathies, and how likely after the War is an alliance
between these two ambitious and warlike Nations. Japan will come out of
the War with her army and navy unweakened, and her trade immensely
strengthened. Every consideration of sane statesmanship should lead
Great Britain to trust India more than Japan, so that the British Empire
in Asia may rest on the sure foundation of Indian loyalty, the loyalty
of a free and contented people, rather than be dependent on the
continued friendship of a possible future rival. For international
friendships are governed by National interests, and are built on
quicksands, not on rock.
Englishmen in India must give up the idea that English dominance is
necessary for the protection of their interests, amounting, in 1915, to
£365,399,000 sterling. They do not claim to dominate the United States
of America, because they have invested there £688,078,000. They do not
claim to dominate the Argentine Republic, because they have invested
there £269,808,000. Why then should they claim to dominate India on the
ground of their investment? Britons must give up the idea that India is
a possession to be exploited for their own benefit, and must see her as
a friend, an equal, a Self-Governing Dominion within the Empire, a
Nation like themselves, a willing partner in the Empire, and not a
dependent. The democratic movement in Japan, China and Russia in Asia
has sympathetically affected India, and it is idle to pretend that it
will cease to affect her.
DISCUSSIONS ABROAD ON ALIEN RULE AND IMPERIAL RECONSTRUCTION.
But there are other causes which have been working in India, consequent
on the British attitude against autocracy and in defence of freedom in
Europe, while her attitude to India has, until lately, been left in
doubt. Therefore I spoke of a splendid opportunity lost. India at first
believed whole-heartedly that Great Britain was fighting for the freedom
of all Nationalities. Even now, Mr. Asquith declared--in his speech in
the House of Commons reported here last October, on the peace resolution
of Mr. Ramsay Macdonald--that “the Allies are fighting for nothing but
freedom, and, an important addition--for nothing short of freedom.” In
his speech declaring that Britain would stand by France in her claim for
the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, he spoke of “the intolerable
degradation of a foreign yoke.” Is such a yoke less intolerable, less
wounding to self-respect here, than in Alsace-Lorraine, where the rulers
and the ruled are both of European blood, similar in religion and
habits? As the War went on, India slowly and unwillingly came to realise
that the hatred of autocracy was confined to autocracy in the West, and
that the degradation was only regarded as intolerable for men of white
races; that freedom was lavishly promised to all except to India; that
new powers were to be given to the Dominions, but not to India. India
was markedly left out of the speeches of statesmen dealing with the
future of the Empire, and at last there was plain talk of the White
Empire, the Empire of the Five Nations, and the “coloured races” were
lumped together as the wards of the White Empire, doomed to an
indefinite minority.
The peril was pressing; the menace unmistakable. The Reconstruction of
the Empire was on the anvil; what was to be India’s place therein? The
Dominions were proclaimed as partners; was India to remain a Dependency?
Mr. Bonar Law bade the Dominions strike while the iron was hot; was
India to wait till it was cold? India saw her soldiers fighting for
freedom in Flanders, in France, in Gallipoli, in Asia Minor, in China,
in Africa; was she to have no share of the freedom for which she fought?
At last she sprang to her feet and cried, in the words of one of her
noblest sons: “Freedom is my birthright; and I want it.” The words “Home
Rule” became her Mantram. She claimed her place in the Empire.
Thus, while she continued to support, and even to increase, her army
abroad, fighting for the Empire, and poured out her treasures as water
for Hospital Ships, War Funds, Red Cross organisations, and the gigantic
War Loan, a dawning fear oppressed her, lest, if she did not take order
with her own household, success in the War for the Empire might mean
decreased liberty for herself.
The recognition of the right of the Indian Government to make its voice
heard in Imperial matters, when they were under discussion in an
Imperial Conference, was a step in the right direction. But
disappointment was felt that while other countries were represented by
responsible Ministers, the representation in India’s case was of the
Government, of a Government irresponsible to her, and not the
representative of herself. No fault was found with the choice itself,
but only with the non-representative character of the chosen, for they
were selected by the Government, and not by the elected members of the
Supreme Council. This defect in the resolution moved by the Hon. Khan
Bahadur M.M. Shafi on October 2, 1915, was pointed out by the Hon. Mr.
Surendranath Bannerji. He said:
My Lord, in view of a situation so full of hope and promise, it
seems to me that my friend’s Resolution does not go far enough.
He pleads for _official_ representation at the Imperial
Conference: he does not plead for _popular_ representation. He
urges that an address be presented to His Majesty’s Government,
through the Secretary of State for India, for official
representation at the Imperial Council. My Lord, official
representation may mean little or nothing. It may indeed be
attended with some risk; for I am sorry to have to say--but say
it I must--that our officials do not always see eye to eye with
us as regards many great public questions which affect this
country; and indeed their views, judged from our standpoint,
may sometimes seem adverse to our interests. At the same time,
my Lord, I recognise the fact that the Imperial Conference is
an assemblage of officials pure and simple, consisting of
Ministers of the United Kingdom and of the self-governing
Colonies. But, my Lord, there is an essential difference
between them and ourselves. In their case, the Ministers are
the elect of the people, their organ and their voice,
answerable to them for their conduct and their proceedings. In
our case, our officials are public servants in name, but in
reality they are the masters of the public. The situation may
improve, and I trust it will, under the liberalising influence
of your Excellency’s beneficent administration; but we must
take things as they are, and not indulge in building castles in
the air, which may vanish “like the baseless fabric of a
vision.”
It was said to be an epoch-making event that “Indian Representatives”
took part in the Conference. Representatives they were, but, as said, of
the British Government in India, not of India, whereas their colleagues
represented their Nations. They did good work, none the less, for they
were able and experienced men, though they failed us in the Imperial
Preference Conference and, partially, on the Indentured Labour question.
Yet we hope that the presence in the Conference of men of Indian birth
may prove to be the proverbial “thin end of the wedge,” and may have
convinced their colleagues that, while India was still a Dependency,
India’s sons were fully their equals.
The Report of the Public Services Commission, though now too obviously
obsolete to be discussed, caused both disappointment and resentment; for
it showed that, in the eyes of the majority of the Commissioners,
English domination in Indian administration was to be perpetual, and
that thirty years hence she would only hold a pitiful 25 per cent. of
the higher appointments in the I.C.S. and the Police. I cannot, however,
mention that Commission, even in passing, without voicing India’s thanks
to the Hon. Mr. Justice Rahim, for his rare courage in writing a
solitary Minute of Dissent, in which he totally rejected the Report, and
laid down the right principles which should govern recruitment for the
Indian Civil Services.
India had but three representatives on the Commission; G.K. Gokhale died
ere it made its Report, his end quickened by his sufferings during its
work, by the humiliation of the way in which his countrymen were
treated. Of Mr. Abdur Rahim I have already spoken. The Hon. Mr. M.B.
Chaubal signed the Report, but dissented from some of its most important
recommendations. The whole Report was written “before the flood,” and it
is now merely an antiquarian curiosity.
India, for all these reasons, was forced to see before her a future of
perpetual subordination: the Briton rules in Great Britain, the
Frenchman in France, the American in America, each Dominion in its own
area, but the Indian was to rule nowhere; alone among the peoples of the
world, he was not to feel his own country as his own. “Britain for the
British” was right and natural; “India for the Indians” was wrong, even
seditious. It must be “India for the Empire,” or not even for the
Empire, but “for the rest of the Empire,” careless of herself. “British
support for British Trade” was patriotic and proper in Britain.
“Swadeshi goods for Indians” showed a petty and anti-Imperial spirit in
India. The Indian was to continue to live perpetually, and even
thankfully, as Gopal Krishna Gokhale said he lived now, in “an
atmosphere of inferiority,” and to be proud to be a citizen (without
rights) of the Empire, while its other component Nations were to be
citizens (with rights) in their own countries first, and citizens of the
Empire secondarily. Just as his trust in Great Britain was strained
nearly to breaking point came the glad news of Mr. Montagu’s appointment
as Secretary of State for India, of the Viceroy’s invitation to him, and
of his coming to hear for himself what India wanted. It was a ray of
sunshine breaking through the gloom, confidence in Great Britain
revived, and glad preparation was made to welcome the coming of a
friend.
The attitude of India has changed to meet the changed attitude of the
Governments of India and Great Britain. But let none imagine that that
consequential change of attitude connotes any change in her
determination to win Home Rule. She is ready to consider terms of peace,
but it must be “peace with honour,” and honour in this connection means
Freedom. If this be not granted, an even more vigorous agitation will
begin.
LOSS OF BELIEF IN THE SUPERIORITY OF WHITE RACES
The undermining of this belief dates from the spreading of the Arya
Samaj and the Theosophical Society. Both bodies sought to lead the
Indian people to a sense of the value of their own civilisation, to
pride in their past, creating self-respect in the present, and
self-confidence in the future. They destroyed the unhealthy inclination
to imitate the West in all things, and taught discrimination, the using
only of what was valuable in western thought and culture, instead of a
mere slavish copying of everything. Another great force was that of
Swami Vivekananda, alike in his passionate love and admiration for
India, and his exposure of the evils resulting from Materialism in the
West. Take the following:
Children of India, I am here to speak to you to-day about some
practical things, and my object in reminding you about the
glories of the past is simply this. Many times have I been told
that looking into the past only degenerates and leads to
nothing, and that we should look to the future. That is true.
But out of the past is built the future. Look back, therefore,
as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are
behind, and after that, look forward, march forward, and make
India brighter, greater, much higher than she ever was. Our
ancestors were great. We must recall that. We must learn the
elements of our being, the blood that courses in our veins; we
must have faith in that blood, and what it did in the past: and
out of that faith, and consciousness of past greatness, we must
build an India yet greater than what she has been.
And again:
I know for certain that millions, I say deliberately, millions,
in every civilised land are waiting for the message that will
save them from the hideous abyss of materialism into which
modern money-worship is driving them headlong, and many of the
leaders of the new Social Movements have already discovered
that Vedanta in its highest form can alone spiritualise their
social aspirations.
The process was continued by the admiration of Sanskrit literature
expressed by European scholars and philosophers. But the effect of these
was confined to the few and did not reach the many. The first great
shock to the belief in white superiority came from the triumph of Japan
over Russia, the facing of a huge European Power by a comparatively
small Eastern Nation, the exposure of the weakness and rottenness of the
Russian leaders, and the contrast with their hardy virile opponents,
ready to sacrifice everything for their country.
The second great shock has come from the frank brutality of German
theories of the State, and their practical carrying out in the treatment
of conquered districts and the laying waste of evacuated areas in
retreat. The teachings of Bismarck and their practical application in
France, Flanders, Belgium, Poland, and Serbia have destroyed all the
glamour of the superiority of Christendom over Asia. Its vaunted
civilisation is seen to be but a thin veneer, and its religion a matter
of form rather than of life. Gazing from afar at the ghastly heaps of
dead and the hosts of the mutilated, at science turned into devilry and
ever inventing new tortures for rending and slaying, Asia may be
forgiven for thinking that, on the whole, she prefers her own religions
and her own civilisations.
But even deeper than the outer tumult of war has pierced the doubt as to
the reality of the Ideals of Liberty and Nationality so loudly
proclaimed by the foremost western Nations, the doubt of the honesty of
their champions. Sir James Meston said truly, a short time ago, that he
had never, in his long experience, known Indians in so distrustful and
suspicious a mood as that which he met in them to-day. And that is so.
For long years Indians have been chafing over the many breaches of
promises and pledges to them that remain unredeemed. The maintenance
here of a system of political repression, of coercive measures increased
in number and more harshly applied since 1905, the carrying of the
system to a wider extent since the War for the sanctity of treaties and
for the protection of Nationalities has been going on, have deepened the
mistrust. A frank and courageous statesmanship applied to the honest
carrying out of large reforms too long delayed can alone remove it. The
time for political tinkering is past; the time for wise and definite
changes is here.
To these deep causes must be added the comparison between the
progressive policy of some of the Indian States in matters which most
affect the happiness of the people, and the slow advance made under
British administration. The Indian notes that this advance is made under
the guidance of rulers and ministers of his own race. When he sees that
the suggestions made in the People’s Assembly in Mysore are fully
considered and, when possible, given effect to, he realises that without
the forms of power the members exercise more real power than those in
our Legislative Councils. He sees education spreading, new industries
fostered, villagers encouraged to manage their own affairs and take the
burden of their own responsibility, and he wonders why Indian incapacity
is so much more efficient than British capacity.
Perhaps, after all, for Indians, Indian rule may be the best.
THE AWAKENING OF THE MERCHANTS.
* * * * *
THE AWAKENING OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD.
The position of women in the ancient Aryan civilisation was a very noble
one. The great majority married, becoming, as Manu said, the Light of
the Home; some took up the ascetic life, remained unmarried, and sought
the knowledge of Brahma. The story of the Rani Damayanti, to whom her
husband’s ministers came, when they were troubled by the Raja’s
gambling, that of Gandhari, in the Council of Kings and Warrior Chiefs,
remonstrating with her headstrong son; in later days, of Padmavati of
Chitoor, of Mirabai of Marwar, the sweet poetess, of Tarabai of Thoda,
the warrior, of Chand Bibi, the defender of Ahmednagar, of Ahalya Bai of
Indore, the great Ruler--all these and countless others are well known.
Only in the last two or three generations have Indian women slipped away
from their place at their husbands’ side, and left them unhelped in
their public life. But even now they wield great influence over husband
and son. Culture has never forsaken them, but the English education of
their husbands and sons, with the neglect of Sanskrit and the
Vernacular, have made a barrier between the culture of the husband and
that of the wife, and has shut the woman out from her old sympathy with
the larger life of men. While the interests of the husband have
widened, those of the wife have narrowed. The materialising of the
husband tended also, by reaction, to render the wife’s religion less
broad and wise.
The wish to save their sons from the materialising results of English
education awoke keen sympathy among Indian mothers with the movement to
make religion an integral part of education. It was, perhaps, the first
movement in modern days which aroused among them in all parts a keen and
living interest.
The Partition of Bengal was bitterly resented by Bengali women, and was
another factor in the outward-turning change. When the editor of an
Extremist newspaper was prosecuted for sedition, convicted and
sentenced, five hundred Bengali women went to his mother to show their
sympathy, not by condolences, but by congratulations. Such was the
feeling of the well-born women of Bengal.
Then the troubles of Indians outside India roused the ever quick
sympathy of Indian women, and the attack in South Africa on the
sacredness of Indian marriage drew large numbers of them out of their
homes to protest against the wrong.
The Indentured Labour question, involving the dishonour of women, again,
moved them deeply, and even sent a deputation to the Viceroy composed of
women.
These were, perhaps, the chief outer causes; but deep in the heart of
India’s daughters arose the Mother’s voice, calling on them to help Her
to arise, and to be once more mistress in Her own household. Indian
women, nursed on Her old literature, with its wonderful ideals of
womanly perfection, could not remain indifferent to the great movement
for India’s liberty. And during the last few years the hidden fire, long
burning in their hearts, fire of love to Bharatamata, fire of resentment
against the lessened influence of the religion which they passionately
love, instinctive dislike of the foreigner as ruling in their land, have
caused a marvellous awakening. The strength of the Home Rule movement is
rendered tenfold greater by the adhesion to it of large numbers of
women, who bring to its helping the uncalculating heroism, the
endurance, the self-sacrifice, of the feminine nature. Our League’s best
recruits are among the women of India, and the women of Madras boast
that they marched in procession when the men were stopped, and that
their prayers in the temples set the interned captives free. Home Rule
has become so intertwined with religion by the prayers offered up in the
great Southern Temples, sacred places of pilgrimage, and spreading from
them to village temples, and also by its being preached up and down the
country by Sadhus and Sannyasins, that it has become in the minds of the
women and of the ever religious masses, inextricably intertwined with
religion. That is, in this country, the surest way of winning alike the
women of the higher classes and the men and women villagers. And that is
why I have said that the two words, “Home Rule,” have become a Mantram.
THE AWAKENING OF THE MASSES.
* * * * *