"No Halfway House." Speech delivered at Gray's
Inn, December 14, 1917.
A whole section of the Report has been devoted to a consideration of the
claims of the European Community in India. It is said:
"We cannot conclude without taking into due account the presence
of a considerable community of non-official Europeans in India. In
the main they are engaged in commercial enterprises; but besides
these are the missions, European and American, which in furthering
education, building up character, and inculcating healthier
domestic habits have done work for which India should be grateful.
There are also an appreciable number of retired officers and
others whose working life has been given to India, settled in the
cooler parts of the country. When complaints are rife that
European commercial interests are selfish and drain the country of
wealth which it ought to retain, it _is well to remind ourselves
how much of India's material prosperity is due to European
commerce_." [The italics are ours].
We have no desire to raise a controversy over the assumption which
underlies the last statement in the above extract. The authors are
themselves cognizant of it when they remark, later on, that the
"benefit" which India has received by her commercial development in
European hands is "not less because it was incidental and not the
purpose of the undertaking." These are matters on which the Indian
Nationalist may well hold his own opinion and yet endorse the spirit of
the following observations:
"Clearly it is the duty of British Commerce in India to identify
itself with the interests of India, which are higher than the
interests of any community; to take part in political life; to use
its considerable wealth and opportunities to commend itself to
India; and having demonstrated both its value and its good
intentions, to be content to rest like other industries on the new
foundation of Government in the wishes of the people. No less is
it the wish of Indian politicians to respect the expectations
which have been implicitly held out; to remember how India has
profited by commercial development which only British capital and
enterprise achieved; to bethink themselves that though the capital
invested in private enterprises was not borrowed under any
assurance that the existing form of government would endure, yet
the favourable terms on which money was obtained for India's
development were undoubtedly affected by the fact of British rule;
and to abstain from advocating differential treatment aimed not so
much at promoting Indian as at injuring British commerce."
We must say that the last insinuation is perfectly gratuitous. Nor is it
correct to say even by implication that the non-official European
community has hitherto abstained from taking part in politics. The fact
is that Indian politics have hitherto been too greatly dominated by the
British merchant both at home and in India. The British merchant doing
business in India had to submit to the prior claims of the British
manufacturers in Great Britain in matters in which their interests did
not coincide, but otherwise their interests received the greatest
possible attention from the Government of India. In proportion to their
incomes derived from India by the employment of Indian labour on terms
more or less guaranteed to them by the Indian Government's special
legislation they have made the smallest possible contribution to the
Indian Revenues; yet they have been the greatest possible hindrance in
the development of Indian liberties. They have all the time owned a
powerful press which has employed all the resources of education and
enlightenment, all the powers of manipulating facts and figures in
maintaining and strengthening the rule of autocracy in the country. We
do not propose to open these wounds. But we cannot help remarking that
so far they have exercised quite a disproportionate influence in the
decisions of the Government of India. Those of them who are domiciled in
the country are our brothers and no Indian has the least desire to do
anything that will harm them in any way. Their importance must, in
future, be determined not by their race or colour or creed but by their
numbers, their education and their position in the economic life of the
country. They must no longer lord it over the Indians simply because
they are of European descent. They should claim no preferences or
exemptions because of that fact. As an integral part of the Indian body
politic they are entitled to all the consideration which they deserve by
virtue of their intellectual or economic position. They should
henceforth be Indo-British both in spirit and in name. They will find
the Indians quite ready to forget the past and embrace them as brothers
for the common prosperity of their joint country.
As regards the other European merchants who are not domiciled in India
but are there just to make money and return to spend it in their native
land, they are no more entitled to any place in the political machinery
of the Indian Government than the Hindus who trade in the United States
or in England. So far every European, of whatever nationality he might
be, has occupied a position of privilege in India. He was granted rights
which were denied to the sons of the soil. Every German or Austrian or
Bulgarian could keep or carry any number and kind of arms he wanted
without any license, while the natives of India, even of the highest
position, could not do so unless exempted either by virtue of their rank
or by the favour of the Administration. Jews and Armenians, Turks and
Russians, Scandinavians, Danes, Italians and Swiss all enjoyed the
privilege. When charged with any serious offence punishable by
imprisonment for more than six months, they could claim trial by a jury
having a majority of Europeans on it, while no Indian outside the
Presidency towns of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras had that right. Even
there, the jury trying an Indian could include a majority of Europeans.
In the famous trial of Mr. B. G. Tilak in 1908, the jury was composed of
seven Europeans and two Parsees. It is obvious that these
discriminations in favour of the Europeans must cease and that no
European not domiciled in India should enjoy a position of special
privilege. Indians are noted for their hospitality and chivalry. Their
own codes of honor effectively prevent them from doing any harm or
injury to a foreigner. Every European doing business in India or on any
other errand is a guest of honor and entitled to that treatment,
provided he does not assume racial superiority and look down upon the
people of the country and take advantage of their being subjects of a
European power. No Indian will be so foolish as to injure the commercial
development of his country by scaring the foreign trader or the foreign
capitalist. All that he wants is freedom to lay down the terms on which
that trade will be carried on consistently with the interests of India's
millions. What he stands for is equality and reciprocity. As other
peoples are free to name the conditions on which the foreign trader may
do business in their countries, so must the Indians be. Nothing more and
nothing less than this is demanded.
As regards the citizens of the British Empire also, the same right of
reciprocity is demanded. We are glad that the representatives of the
Dominions have recognized the justice of that claim and expressed their
willingness to concede it.
Coming to the Missions, European and American, the advice given is
rather gratuitous. The Indians have left nothing undone to show their
gratitude to them for the good work done by them in spite of the fact
that they, too, in the past, have not hesitated to use the fact of their
race and colour for the benefit of their propaganda. The person of a
religious man is sacred in the eyes of an Indian, regardless of his
particular creed. The Christian missionary has so far enjoyed a unique
position of safety and freedom in the country even to a greater extent
than the Hindu or the Moslem priest. The latter have often quarrelled
amongst themselves, but the former they have always respected and
honored. There is absolutely no reason to think that this is likely to
change in any way by the grant of political liberty to the Indians.
It is possible, however, that, with the growth of free thought in India,
religious teachers of all denominations may not continue to be the
recipients of the same honour as has been paid to them in the past by
virtue of their religious office. Dogmatic religion, whether it be
Hinduism, Mohammedanism or Christianity is in a state of decay. In that
respect India is feeling the reaction of world forces and no amount of
political coercion or repression can stop it. In my humble judgment the
average Indian has thus far been more tolerant of and more considerate
to the Christian missionary than the latter has been to the Indian. Even
in the matter of gratitude the Christian missionary may with advantage
learn from the Hindu. The instances are not rare in which all the
hospitality, respect and honor which a Christian missionary has
received during his stay in India have been repaid by the latter's
freely traducing the character of the Indians in his home land. To no
small degree is the Christian missionary responsible for the feeling of
contempt with which the Indian is looked down upon in America and other
countries of the West. We do not object to his speaking the truth, but
it is not the truth that he always speaks. Of gratitude, at least, he
gives no evidence.
The European Community in India is divided into two classes: (a)
pure Europeans, who number a little less than 200,000 in the total
population of 315,000,000. (178,908 in the British provinces and
20,868 in the native States.)
(b) Anglo-Indians, hitherto called Eurasians, who number about
83,000 (68,612 in British territories and 15,045 in the Native
States). Thus the whole European community in India is less than
300,000.