"The Educational returns," remark the authors of the Report, "tell us
much the same story," viz., the appalling dissimilarity of conditions
in Europe and in India. While it is painfully true that the percentage
of illiteracy in India is greater than in any of the countries of
Europe, we cannot admit that that fact is a fatal bar to the beginnings
of responsible government in India or to the granting of a democratic
constitution to the country. Literacy is, no doubt, a convenient, but by
no means a sure index of the intelligence of the people, even much less
of their character. The political status of a country is determined more
by intelligence and character than by literacy. In these the people of
India are inferior to none. By that we do not mean that they are
possessed of the same kind of political responsibility as the people of
the United Kingdom or of France or of Germany or of the United States,
but only that by intelligence and character they are quite fitted to
start on the road to responsible government, at least to such kind as
was conceded for the first time to Canada, Australia, Italy, the Balkan
States, Austria, Hungary, etc. The illiteracy of the masses may be a
good reason for not introducing universal suffrage, but it is hardly a
valid reason for refusing a kind of constitution which may place India
in the same position, in the matter of responsible Government, as Great
Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy and the United States were when
those countries showed the same percentage of illiteracy. Literacy has
nowhere been the test of political power. Burma had almost no illiteracy
when the British took possession of it; its population was absolutely
homogeneous and the solidarity of the nation ran no risk from "cleavages
of religion, race and caste." Even today Burma has the highest figures
of literacy in the whole of British India. In that respect it occupies
a higher position than Roumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, many of the
Russian States and perhaps even Italy and Hungary and possibly some of
the South American Republics. In the matter of race and religion, too,
its position is better than that of the countries mentioned, yet the
authors of the Report do not propose to concede to it even such
beginnings of responsible government as they are prepared to grant to
the other provinces of India. The fact is that mere literacy does not
play an important part in the awakening of political consciousness in a
people. It is a useful ingredient of character required for the exercise
of political power but by no means essential.