The argument based on poverty is of still less force. On the other hand,
it is the best reason why the people of India should have the power to
determine and carry out their fiscal policy. We hope the admissions made
in Paragraph 135 of the Report which we bodily reproduce[2] will once
for all dispose of the silly statement, so often repeated even by men
who ought to know better, that materially India has been highly
prosperous under British rule. If so, how is it that in the language of
the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy "enormous masses of the
population have little to spare for more than the necessaries of life"?
What about the prosperity of a province, one of the biggest in India
(the United Provinces), in which the number of landlords (not tenants
and farmers) whose income derived from their proprietary holdings
exceeds £20 ($100 a year, which comes to 30 cents a day for the whole
family), is about 126,000 out of a population of 48 millions!
Acceptance of the argument of poverty as sufficient to deprive people of
political right is putting a premium on it which is hardly creditable to
the political ethics of the twentieth century. It is the poorest and the
most ignorant in the community who most egregiously suffer at the hands
of autocracy. It is they who require protection from it. The wealthy and
the educated know how to placate the bureaucrat and get what they want.
It is the poor who pay the penalty of political helplessness, yet,
curiously, it is for them and in their interest that the English
Government in India proposes to withhold the power of the purse from the
proposed Indian Councils and insists on denying the Indian people even
the elements of responsible government. While we admit the general
justice and accuracy of the observations made under the head of "extent
of interest in political questions," "political capacity of the rural
population," we fail to see anything in them which justifies the
conclusion that the interests of the classes not politically minded will
be safer in the hands of the British officer, and on the whole better
protected by him than by his educated countrymen who are likely to get
the power in case of responsible government being conceded now. In our
judgment no greater argument for the immediate grant of a substantial
step in the direction of complete responsible government throughout
India and in all spheres of government, could be advanced than what is
involved in the following observation of the authors of the joint
Report:
"The rural classes have the greatest stake in the country because
they contribute most to its revenues; but they are poorly equipped
for politics and do not at present wish to take part in them.
Among them are a few great landlords and a larger number of yeoman
farmers. They are not ill-fitted to play a part in affairs, but
with few exceptions they have not yet done so. But what is perhaps
more important to appreciate than the mere content of political
life in India is its rate of growth. No one who has observed
Indian life during even the past five years can doubt that the
growth is rapid and is real. It is beginning to affect the large
landholders: here and there are signs of its beginning to affect
even the villages. But recent events, and above all the war, have
given it a new earnestness and a more practical character. Men are
coming to realise more clearly that India's political future is
not to be won merely by fine phrases: and that it depends on the
capacity of her people themselves to face difficulties and to
dispose of them. Hence comes the demand for compulsory education,
for industries, for tariffs, for social reform, for social, public
and even military service."
In the next paragraph, the authors approvingly give an extract from an
official report in which it is frankly admitted that the rural
population "may not be vocal, but they are certainly not voiceless." The
last meeting of the Indian Congress was attended by 700 farmer
delegates. Thousands of farmers have joined the Home Rule Leagues. The
statement that "hitherto they have regarded the official as their
representative in the Councils of the Government" is entirely devoid of
any truth. In their eyes the official is the Government itself. Some of
them may think that the official _represents_ the Government, but to say
that they regard the official as "_their representative_ in the Councils
of the Government" is a mere travesty of truth. The paragraph on the
"interests of the ryot" bristles with so many unwarranted assumptions
that we must enter an emphatic protest against its misleading nature.
But it gives us pleasure to accord our whole-hearted support to the
following statement with which the paragraph opens:
"It is just because the Indian ryot is inarticulate and has not
been directly represented in our deliberations that we feel bound
to emphasise the great claim he has upon our consideration. The
figure of the individual cultivator does not often catch the eye
of the Governments in Simla and Whitehall. It is chiefly in the
mass that they deal with him, as a consumer of salt or of
piece-goods, or unhappily too often as the victim of scarcity or
disease."
It is true that "the district officer and his lieutenants" are in a
position to know the difficulties that beset the ryot and his very human
needs. But of what good is this knowledge of the district officer and
his lieutenants to him if it has neither provided for the education of
his children nor made any provision for his employment in occupations
other than agriculture; nor saved him from the intricacies of the law;
nor protected him from the ubiquitous salt tax; nor raised his wages
proportionately to the increase of prices; nor yet put him in a position
to assert his human rights and to obtain redress for his human, too
human, wrongs. If we examine a little more carefully the merits of what
is claimed to have been done for him so far by "an official Government,"
we will find that the claim is by no means established.
We have no desire to deny that among the foreign officers of the British
Government in India there are and have been a great many who were
genuinely anxious to help the ryot and do all which is claimed to have
been done for him in this paragraph, but that they have been unable to
do anything worth mentioning will be admitted by every right-minded
official.[3] The reasons for their failure were not of their making. The
laws of the land made by the British legislators fresh from the Inns of
Court, the spirit of the administration and the system of land taxation
have effectively prevented them from doing many of the things which they
might otherwise have liked to do. We are sorry that the eminent
statesmen responsible for the report should have been the unconscious
instruments of producing an entirely wrong impression by the statements
in this paragraph. If the statements are true, India must be a veritable
paradise and the lot of the Indian ryot enviable. But we know, and the
authors of the Report knew it as well, and they have stated in so many
words that it is not so. We can quote any number of authorities to show
that the Indian ryot is the most pitiable figure in the whole length
and breadth of India, if not in the whole world. This is not the place
to quote the easily accessible opinions of eminently qualified and
highly trustworthy British writers and administrators on the subject.[4]
The English official Government has no doubt _professed_ to do all it
claims to have done for the ryot, but how far it has benefited him in
these directions is another story. To ask credit for having provided him
with a system of law "simple, cheap and certain," or for having
established schools and dispensaries within reasonable distance of his
residence; or for even having looked after his cattle, by the provision
of grazing lands; or for having supplied wood for his implements is to
run violently in the face of facts to the contrary. These are verily his
principal complaints against British rule. The official Government is
certainly entitled to some credit for having started the coöperative
credit societies and a few coöperative rural banks for the benefit of
the peasantry, but the reform is so belated and at present plays such an
insignificant part in the rural economy of India that it seems hardly
worth mentioning or discussing.[5]
But even assuming that the official Government has so far done all that
for the ryot, what reason is there to insinuate that the Government of
the people will fail to do it for him in the future or will not do it so
well as or even better, than has been heretofore done by the
bureaucracy? It is quite a gratuitous assumption that in future he will
be required to do all these things for himself. Even in the most
advanced democracies in the world the peasantry or the masses of the
people do not do these things for themselves. Most of these things are
done by officials. The only difference is that in a responsible
government the officials are the servants of the people while in an
absolute government they are their masters. We are really surprised at
the presumption of the British bureaucrat, in posing as the special
friend of the Indian masses as against their own educated countrymen.
The experience of the past does not support the claim and there is
absolutely no reason to assume that it will be different in the future.
A mere cursory glance at the resolutions of the Indian National Congress
passed continuously for a period of thirty years, will show how
persistently and earnestly the educated classes have been pleading
_inter alia_ for (a) compulsory and free education, (b) for technical
instruction in vocations, (c) for the reduction of the salt tax and the
land tax, (d) for the raising of the minimum incomes liable to income
tax, (e) for the provision of pasture lands, (f) for the comforts of the
third-class railway travelling public, (g) for the milder administration
of the forest laws, (h) for the reform of the Police, etc. All these
years the bureaucracy did nothing for the ryot and now they pose as his
special friends, whose continuance in power and in office is necessary
for his protection from the politically minded middle classes. We are a
friend neither of the landlord nor of the capitalist. We believe that
the ryot and the working men in India as elsewhere are being exploited
and robbed by the classes in possession of the means of production and
distribution. We would wholeheartedly support any scheme which would
open a way to a just and righteous distribution of wealth and land in
India and which would insure the ryot and the working man his rightful
place in the body politic. We would not mind the aid of the foreign
bureaucracy toward that end if we could be sure that the bureaucracy
would or could do it. But we have no doubts in the matter that it cannot
be done. The bureaucracy has so far played into the hands of the
plutocrat. They have served first their own capitalists and then the
capitalists and landlords of India. Some among them have tried to do a
little for the submerged classes, the poor ryot and the ill-paid sweated
laborer, but their efforts were of no consequence. They have failed and
their failure is writ large on the face of the ryot. We are not sanguine
that the politically minded classes when they get power will immediately
rehabilitate the ryot and give him his due. We have no hope of that
kind. Yet we unhesitatingly support the demand of the politically minded
classes for a responsible government in India. In our judgment, that is
the only way to raise the masses to a consciousness of their rights and
responsibilities. The experience of the West tells us that in that way
and in that way alone lies salvation. Political consciousness must
travel from the classes to the masses and the longer the inauguration of
popular Government is delayed, the greater the delay in the awakening of
the ryot and the working man. Absolutism must first give way and
transfer its power to the politically minded classes, then will come the
turn of the masses to demand their rights and compel compliance. We can
see no risk of a greater harm or injury to the masses of India from the
transference of power from the hands of a close bureaucracy of
foreigners into the hands of the educated and propertied oligarchy of
their own countrymen. Even in countries like Great Britain, America and
France it is the educated and the propertied classes who rule. Why then
this hubbub about the impropriety and danger of giving power to the same
classes in India? Why are the representatives of landlordism and
capitalism in the British House of Lords and among the ranks of Imperial
Anglo-Indians so solicitous of the welfare of the Indian masses, when
they have for so long persistently denied justice to the proletariat of
their own country? It is a strange phenomenon to see the champions of
privilege and status, the defenders of capitalism and landlordism, the
advocates of the rights of property, the upholders of caste in Great
Britain, spending so much powder and shot to _protect_ the Indian ryot
from the prospective exploitation of him by the Indian Brahmin and the
Indian Banya[6] (the priest and the capitalist). Let the British Brahmin
and the British Banya first begin by doing justice to the proletariat of
their own country and then it will be time for them to convince the
Indian of their altruism and honesty of purpose in obstructing the
inauguration of responsible government in India in the interests of the
Indian proletariat. In this connection the authors of the Report make
some pertinent observations which deserve to be quoted. After speaking
of "religious animosities and social cleavages" and the duty of
discouraging them the authors say:
"Nor are we without hope that the reforms will themselves help to
provide the remedy. We would not be misunderstood. Representative
institutions in the West, where all are equal at the ballot box,
have checked but not abolished social exclusiveness. We do not
make a higher claim for similar institutions in India than that
they will help to soften the rigidity of the caste-system. But we
hope that these incidents of it which lead to the permanent
degradation and ostracism of the lowest castes will tend to
disappear in proportion to the acceptance of the ideas on which
the new constitution rests. There is a further point. An
autocratic administration, which does not share the religious
ideas of the people, obviously finds its sole safe ground in
leaving the whole department of traditional social usage severely
alone. In such matters as child-marriage, it is possible that
through excess of caution proper to the regime under which it
works, it may be actually perpetuating and stereotyping customs
which the better mind of India might be brought, after the
necessary period of struggle, to modify. A government, in which
Indians themselves participate, invigorated by a closer touch with
a more enlightened popular opinion, may be able with all due
caution to effect with the free assent or acquiescence of the
Indians themselves, what under the present system has to be
rigorously set aside."
Nor are the authors unmindful of the effect of free institutions on the
character of the people as they themselves over and over again
recognise.
"Free institutions have, as we have said, the faculty of reacting
on the adverse conditions in which the start has to be made. The
backwardness of education may embarrass the experiment at the
outset; but it certainly ought not to stop it, because popular
government in India as elsewhere is sure to promote the
progressive spread of education and so a widening circle of
improvement will be set up."[7]
Among the authors' reasons for what they call a gradual advance they
state the following also: (a) "We find it freely and widely admitted
that they (i.e. the Indians) are not yet ready." This admission may
legitimately be used against the total withdrawal of all control of
Indian affairs by the Parliament. Firstly, it is questionable whether
any such admission is really "freely and widely" made. Secondly, the
admission justifies the retention of the powers of vital, general
supervision and general control and also the retention of some Europeans
in the higher services, but not the total denial of all responsibility
for maintaining law and order and of all power to control the central
Executive. (b) That the responsibility of India's defence is the
ultimate burden which rests on the Government of India; and this duty is
the last which can be intrusted to inexperienced or unskilful hands.
"So long as India depends for her internal and external security
upon the army and navy of the United Kingdom, the measure of
self-determination which she enjoys must be inevitably limited. We
cannot think that Parliament would consent to the employment of
British arms in support of a policy over which it had no control
and of which it might disapprove. The defence of India is an
Imperial question: and for this reason the Government of India
must retain both the power and the means of discharging its
responsibilities for the defence of the country and to the Empire
as a whole."
The defence of India involves, (a) men for the army and the navy, (b)
officers, (c) war materials and war ships, (d) experts in strategy, (e)
money. That India pays for her defense and also contributes towards the
defence of the Empire are facts which cannot be questioned. That she
shall continue to do so in the future may also be assumed. That it is
extremely desirable that in the matter of war supplies she should be
self-dependent has been freely admitted. The permanent Indian army as
constituted in pre-war days contained two-thirds Indians and one-third
British. If the present strength of the Indian army be examined it will
be found that the proportion of British troops is still smaller. There
is absolutely no need of British soldiers in India for the purposes of
defence, but if the British Government wants to keep them as safeguards
against mutiny among the purely Indian army or against the spirit of
rebellion that at any time may exhibit itself among the Indian people,
then the British exchequer must pay for them as it did in the case of
British garrison in South Africa or as the United States does in the
case of American troops in the Philippines. It is adding insult to
injury to argue that we should not only pay for British troops but that
the fact that British troops form a constituent element of the Indian
army should be used against us for denying us full responsibility even
in civil affairs. The armies of the various Asiatic Governments
surrounding India have no European elements in them and the Indian
soldier is as efficient a fighter as is needed as a protection. That the
Indian army should be almost exclusively officered by the British is a
survival of the policy of mistrust, jealousy and racial discrimination
which has hitherto prevailed. It is time that the Indian army should in
future be mainly officered by the Indians. Until that is achieved it
must continue as a tentative measure to be officered by the British,
and the Indian Revenues must bear the burden. But that is hardly any
reason for denying us full responsible government even on the civil
side. The Indians do not desire nor demand the transfer of the control
over the Army or the Navy until the Army is principally officered by the
Indians and an Indian Navy has been built to supplement the Imperial
Navy. From this criticism of the reasons advanced by the authors for a
very mild "advance" (called "gradual") it is with pleasure that we turn
to the brighter side of the picture showing the favorable features of
the situation. The position of the educated Indian is described fairly
and squarely in Paragraph 140.
"The old assumption that the interests of the ryot must be
confided to official hands is strenuously denied by modern
educated Indians. They claim that the European official must by
his lack of imagination and comparative lack of skill in tongues
be gravely handicapped in interpreting the thoughts and desires of
an Asiatic people.... Our educational policy in the past aimed at
satisfying the few, who sought after English education, without
sufficient thought of the consequences which might ensue from not
taking care to extend instruction to the many. We have in fact
created a limited _intelligentsia_, who desire advance; and we
cannot stay their progress entirely until education has been
extended to the masses. It has been made a reproach to the
educated classes that they have followed too exclusively after one
or two pursuits, the law, journalism or school teaching: and that
these are all callings which make men inclined to overrate the
importance of words and phrases. But even if there is substance in
the count, we must take note also how far the past policy of
Government is responsible. We have not succeeded in making
education practical. It is only now, when the war has revealed
the importance of industry, that we have deliberately set about
encouraging Indians to undertake the creation of wealth by
industrial enterprise, and have thereby offered the educated
classes any tangible inducement to overcome their traditional
inclination to look down on practical forms of energy. We must
admit that the educated Indian is a creation peculiarly of our
own; and if we take the credit that is due to us for his strong
points we must admit a similar liability for his weak ones. Let us
note also in justice to him that the progressive Indian appears to
realise the narrow basis of his position and is beginning to
broaden it. In municipal and university work he has taken a useful
and creditable share. We find him organising effort not for
political ends alone, but for various forms of public and social
service. He has come forward and done valuable work in relieving
famine and distress by floods, in keeping order at fairs, in
helping pilgrims, and in promoting co-operative credit. Although
his ventures in the fields of commerce have not been always
fortunate, he is beginning to turn his attention more to the
improvement of agriculture and industry. Above all, he is active
in promoting education and sanitation; and every increase in the
number of educated people adds to his influence and authority."
The authors also say:
"We must remember, too, that the educated Indian has come to the
front by hard work; he has seized the education which we offered
him because he first saw its advantages; and it is he who has
advocated and worked for political progress. All this stands to
his credit. For thirty years he has developed in his Congress and
latterly in the Muslim League free popular convocations which
express his ideals. We owe him sympathy because he has conceived
and pursued the idea of managing his own affairs, an aim which no
Englishman can fail to respect. He has made a skilful, and on the
whole a moderate, use of the opportunities which we have given him
in the legislative councils of influencing Government and
affecting the course of public business, and of recent years, he
has by speeches and in the press done much to spread the idea of a
united and self-respecting India among thousands who had no such
conception in their minds. Helped by the inability of the other
classes in India to play a prominent part he has assumed the place
of leader; but his authority is by no means universally
acknowledged and may in an emergency prove weak."
In face of these observations about the politically minded classes of
India it is rather unkind of the authors to insinuate later on that in
the interests of the foreign merchant, the foreign missionary and the
European servants of the state it is necessary that the Government of
India should yet remain absolute and that, in the provinces as well,
important branches of the administration should be excluded from the
jurisdiction of the popular assemblies.
To sum up, while we are prepared to concede that the conditions of the
problem may justify the withholding of absolute autonomy,--political,
fiscal, and military,--for some time, there is nothing in them which can
in any way be deemed sufficient to deny full political, and, if not
complete, at least substantial fiscal autonomy to the Indian people at
once.