In December, 1917, the Government of India appointed a committee of
three Englishmen and two Indians (1) "to investigate and report on the
nature and extent of the criminal conspiracies connected with the
revolutionary movements in India, (2) to examine and consider the
difficulties that have arisen in dealing with such conspiracies and to
advise as to the legislation, if any, necessary to enable the government
to deal effectively with them." Of the three English members, Mr.
Justice Rowlatt of the King's Bench Division, England, was appointed as
president, and of the other two, one was a judge in the service of the
Government and the other a member of a Board of Revenue in one of the
Indian Provinces. Of the two Indians, one was a judge and the other a
practicing lawyer.
This committee submitted its report in April, 1918, which was published
by the Government of India in July of the same year. The president, Mr.
Justice Rowlatt's letter covering the report gives the nature of the
evidence upon which their report is based, which is as follows:
"Statements have been placed before us with documentary evidence by the
Governments of Bengal, Bombay, Bihar and Orissa, the Central Provinces,
the United Provinces, the Punjab and Burmah as well as by the
Government of India. In every case, except that of Madras, we were
further attended by officers of the government, presenting this
statement, who gave evidence before us. In the two provinces in which we
held sittings, namely, Bengal and Punjab, we further invited and secured
the attendance of individuals, or as deputed by associations, of
gentlemen who we thought might give us information from various
non-official points of view."
It is clear from this statement that the investigation of the committee
was neither judicial nor even semi-judicial; it was a purely
administrative inquiry conducted behind the backs of the individuals
concerned, without the latter having any opportunity of cross-examining
the witnesses or giving their explanations of the evidence against them.
While the different Governments in India were fully represented in each
case by the ablest of their servants, the individuals investigated were
not. We do not want to insinuate that either the Governments or the
officers deputed by them were unfair in their evidence. All that we want
to point out is that the other side had no opportunity of putting their
case before the committee. Consequently, it is no wonder that one comes
across many traces of political and racial bias both in the introduction
and the Report.
The very first paragraph of the introduction betrays either ignorance on
the part of the committee about the ancient history of India, or a
deliberate misrepresentation of the nature of the Hindu State. The
committee says: "Republican or Parliamentary forms of governments as at
present understood were neither desired nor known in India until after
the establishment of British rule. In the Hindu State the form of
government was an absolute monarchy, though the monarch was by the Hindu
Shastras hedged round by elaborate rules for securing the welfare of his
subjects and was assisted by a body of councillors, the chief of whom
were Brahmin members of the priestly class which derived authority from
a time when the priests were the sole repositories of knowledge and
therefore the natural instruments of administration." The statements
made in this paragraph do not represent the whole truth.
The committee ignores the fact that Republican or Parliamentary forms of
Government "_as at present understood_" were neither desired nor known
in any part of the world, except perhaps England itself until _after_
the establishment of British rule in India.[1] Then the committee has
altogether ignored that, in the Hindu State, the form of government was
not an absolute monarchy _always and in all parts of India_. There is
ample historical evidence to prove that India had many Republican
States, along with oligarchies and monarchies at one and the same period
of her history. The second part of the second sentence is also not
correct, because the priestly class derived its authority from a time
when the priests were not the sole repositories of knowledge. The
several Hindu political treatises belong to a period when the whole
populace was highly educated and could take substantial part in the
determination of the affairs of their country.
Equally misleading is the last sentence of the introduction where the
committee says that it is among the Chitpavan Brahmins of the Poona
district that they first find indications of a revolutionary movement.
This statement is incorrect, if it means that after the establishment of
British rule in India no attempt had been made to overthrow it prior to
the Revolutionary movement inaugurated by the Poona Brahmins. The
statement ignores three such attempts which are known to history; viz.,
(_a_) the great Mutiny of 1857, (_b_) the Wahábee Rebellion of Bengal,
and (_c_) the Kúká Rebellion of the Punjab; not to mention other minor
attempts made in other places by other people.
Yet we think that this report is a very valuable document, giving in one
place the history and the progress of the Revolutionary Movement in
India. The findings and the recommendations of the committee may not be
all correct, but the material collected and published for the first time
is too valuable to be neglected by anyone who wants to have an
intelligent grasp of the political situation in India, such as has
developed within the last twenty years.
The committee gives a summary of its conclusions as to the conspiracies
in Chapter XV, which we copy verbatim:
"In Bombay they have been purely Brahmin and mostly Chitpavan. In
Bengal the conspirators have been young men belonging to the
educated middle classes. Their propaganda has been elaborate,
persistent and ingenious. In their own province it has produced a
long series of murders and robberies. In Bihar and Orissa, the
United Provinces, the Central Provinces and Madras, it took no
root, but occasionally led to crime and disorder. In the Punjab
the return of emigrants from America, bent on revolution and
bloodshed, produced numerous outrages and the _Ghadr_ conspiracy
of 1915. In Burma, too, the _Ghadr_ movement was active, but was
arrested.
"Finally came a Mohammedan conspiracy confined to a small clique
of fanatics and designed to overthrow British rule with foreign
aid.
"All these plots have been directed towards one and the same
objective, the overthrow by force of British rule in India.
Sometimes they have been isolated; sometimes they have been
interconnected; sometimes they have been encouraged and supported
by German influence. All have been successfully encountered with
the support of Indian loyalty."
In this general summary the committee has made no attempt to trace out
the causes that led to the inauguration of the revolutionary movement
and its subsequent progress. A chapter on that subject would have been
most illuminating.
In chapters dealing with provinces they have selected some individuals
and classes on whom to lay blame for "incitements" to murders and
crimes, but have entirely failed to analyze the social, political and
economic conditions which made such incitements and their success
possible.
It is clear even from this summary that the only two provinces where the
revolutionary propaganda took root and resulted in more than occasional
outrages were Bengal and the Punjab.
In the Bombay Presidency, revolutionary outrages did not exceed three
within a period of 20 years (from 1897 to 1917), two murders and one
bomb-throwing. Besides, three trials for conspiracies are mentioned all
within a year (1909-1910), two in Native States and one in British
territory. Altogether 82 men were prosecuted for being involved in these
conspiracies. The total result comes to this, that in the course of 20
years about 100 persons were found to be involved in a revolutionary
movement in a territory embracing an area of 186,923 square miles and a
population of 27 million human beings. This is surely by no means a
formidable record justifying extraordinary legislation such as is
proposed.[2] The net loss of human life did not exceed three, though
unfortunately all three victims were Europeans.
Bihar and Orissa formed part of the province of Bengal during most of
the period covered by the revolutionary movement of Bengal, viz., from
1906 to 1917. It was in Bihar which was then a part of Bengal, that in
1908, the first bomb was thrown. The only other revolutionary outrage
that took place in Bihar was one in 1913, resulting in the murder of two
Indians.
In the United Provinces of Agra and Oude, the only tangible evidence of
revolutionary activity recorded by the committee is the Benares
Conspiracy that came to light in 1915-1916. The only outrage noted is
that of the alleged murder of a fellow revolutionary by a member of the
same gang.
To the Central provinces the committee has given a practically clean
bill.
In Madras the revolutionary outrages consisted of one murder (of a
European Magistrate) and one conspiracy involving nine persons.
The conspiracies and intrigues detected in Burma are ascribed to people
of other provinces and not a single outrage from that province itself is
reported.
So we find that in the period from 1906 to 1907, both inclusive,
outside the provinces of Bengal and the Punjab, the revolutionary crime
was limited to three outrages and three conspiracies in the Bombay
Presidency, one outrage in Bihar, one outrage and one conspiracy in the
United Provinces, one outrage and one conspiracy in Madras and some
intrigues and conspiracies during the war in Burma. Thus the only two
provinces in which the revolutionary movement established itself to any
appreciable extent was Bengal and the Punjab.
In the Punjab, again, the first revolutionary crime took place in
December, 1912, and the second in 1913 and the rest all during the War.
Cases of seditious utterances and writings are not included in the term
"revolutionary crime" used in the above paragraphs. It was from Bengal,
then, that before the War revolutionary propaganda was carried on to any
large extent, revolutionary movements organized and revolutionary crimes
committed. About half of the Report deals with Bengal and the general
findings of the committee may be thus summarized:
(1) That the object of the movement was the overturning of "the British
government in India by violent means" (p. 15 and also p. 19).
(2) That the class among whom the movement spread was comprised of the
_Bhadralok_ (the respectable middle class). The committee says:
"The people among whom he (i.e., Barendra, the first Bengali
revolutionary propagandist) worked, the _bhadralok_ of Bengal,
have been for centuries peaceful and unwarlike, but, through the
influence of the great central city of Calcutta, were early in
appreciating the advantages of Western learning. They are mainly
Hindus and their leading castes are Brahmins, Kayasthas and
Vaidyas; but with the spread of English education some other
castes too have adopted _bhadralok_ ideals and modes of life.
_Bhadralok_ abound in villages as well as in towns, and are thus
more interwoven with the landed classes than are the literate
Indians of other provinces. Wherever they live or settle, they
earnestly desire and often provide English education for their
sons. The consequence is that a number of Anglo-vernacular
schools, largely maintained by private enterprise, have sprung up
throughout the towns and villages of Bengal. No other province of
India possesses a network of rural schools in which English is
taught. These schools are due to the enterprise of the _bhadralok_
and to the fact that, as British rule gradually spread from Bengal
over Northern India, the scope of employment for English-educated
Bengalis spread with it. Originally they predominated in all
offices and higher grade schools throughout Upper India. They were
also, with the Parsees, the first Indians to send their sons to
England for education, to qualify for the Bar, or to compete for
the higher grades of the Civil and Medical services. When,
however, similar classes in other provinces also acquired a
working knowledge of English, the field for Bengali enterprise
gradually shrank. In their own province _bhadralok_ still almost
monopolize the clerical and subordinate administrative services of
Government. They are prominent in medicine, in teaching and at the
Bar. But, in spite of these advantages, they have felt the
shrinkage of foreign employment; and as the education which they
receive is generally literary and ill-adapted to incline the
youthful mind to industrial, commercial or agricultural pursuits,
they have not succeeded in finding fresh outlets for their
energies. Their hold on land, too, has weakened, owing to
increasing pressure of population and excessive sub-infeudation.
_Altogether their economic prospects have narrowed, and the
increasing numbers who draw fixed incomes have felt the pinch of
rising prices. On the other hand, the memories and associations
of their earlier prosperity, combined with growing contact with
Western ideas and standards of comfort, have raised their
expectations of the pecuniary remuneration which should reward a
laborious and, to their minds, a costly education._ Thus as
_bhadralok_ learned in English have become more and more numerous,
a growing number have become less and less inclined to accept the
conditions of life in which they found themselves on reaching
manhood. _Bhadralok_ have always been prominent among the
supporters of Indian political movements; and their leaders have
watched with careful attention events in the world outside India.
The large majority of the people of Bengal are not _bhadralok_ but
cultivators, and in the eastern districts mainly Muhammadans; but
the cultivators of the province are absorbed in their own
pursuits, in litigation, and in religious and caste observances.
It was not to them but to his own class that Barendra appealed.
When he renewed his efforts in 1904, the thoughts of many members
of this class had been stirred by various powerful influences."
[The italics are ours.]
We have given this lengthy extract as it shows conclusively (_a_) that
the movement originated and spread among people who had received Western
education, most of the leaders having been educated in England and (_b_)
that the root cause of the movement was _economic_.
(3) That various circumstances occasioned by certain Government measures
"specially favored the development" of the movement (p. 16). Among the
measures specially mentioned are (_a_) the University law of Lord Curzon
"which was interpreted by politicians as designed to limit the numbers
of Indians educated in English and thus to retard national advance";
(_b_) the partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon. "It was the agitation
that attended and followed on this measure that brought previous
discontent to a climax."
(4) That the revolutionary movement received a substantial impetus by
the failure of constitutional agitation for the reversal of the policy
that decided on partitioning Bengal into two divisions. This failure led
to two different kinds of agitation, open and secret: (_a_) open
economic defiance by _Swadeshi_ and boycott--_Swadeshi_ was the
affirmative and boycott the negative form of the same movement.
_Swadeshi_ enjoined the use of country made articles; boycott was
directed against English imports, (_b_) open propaganda by a more
outspoken and in some instances violent press, (_c_) open control of
educational agencies by means of national institutions, (_d_) open
stimulus to physical education and physical culture, (_e_) nationalistic
interpretation of religious dogma and forms (open), (_f_) organization
of secret societies for more violent propaganda, for learning and
teaching the use of firearms, for the manufacture of bombs, for illicit
purchase and stealing of firearms, for assassination and murder, (_g_)
secret attempts to tamper with the army, (_h_) conspiracies for
terroristic purposes and for obtaining sinews of war by theft, robbery
and extortion.
The following two extracts which the committee has taken from one of the
publications of the revolutionary party called _Mukti Kon Pathe_ (what
is the path of salvation) will explain clauses (_f_) and (_g_) and
(_h_).
"The book further points out that not much muscle was required to
shoot Europeans, that arms could be procured by grim
determination, and that weapons could be prepared silently in
some secret place. Indians could be sent to foreign countries to
learn the art of making weapons. The assistance of Indian soldiers
must be obtained. They must be made to understand the misery and
wretchedness of the country. The heroism of Sivaji must be
remembered. As long as revolutionary work remained in its infancy,
expenses could be met by subscriptions. But as work advanced,
money must be extracted from society by the application of force.
If the revolution is being brought about for the welfare of
society, then it is perfectly just to collect money from society
for that purpose. It is admitted that theft and dacoity are crimes
because they violate the principle of good society. But the
political dacoit is aiming at the good of society, "so no sin but
rather virtue attaches to the destruction of this small good for
the sake of some higher good. Therefore if revolutionaries extort
money from the miserly or luxurious members of society by the
application of force, their conduct is perfectly just."
_Mukti Kon Pathe_ further exhorts its readers to obtain the "help
of the native soldiers.... Although these soldiers for the sake of
their stomach accept service in the Government of the ruling
power, still they are nothing but men made of flesh and blood.
They, too, know (how) to think; when therefore the revolutionaries
explain to them the woes and miseries of the country, they, in
proper time, swell the ranks of the revolutionaries with arms and
weapons given them by the ruling power.... Because it is possible
to persuade the soldiers in this way, the modern English Raj of
India does not allow the cunning Bengalis to enter into the ranks
of the army.... Aid in the shape of arms may be secretly obtained
by securing the help of the foreign ruling powers."
(5) That except in five cases the idea of private gain never entered
into the activities of the revolutionaries and of the five persons
referred to three were taxi-cab drivers either hired or coerced to
coöperate in revolutionary enterprise (p. 20).
(6) That "the circumstances that robberies and murders are being
committed by young men of respectable extraction, students at schools
and colleges, is indeed an amazing phenomenon the occurrence of which in
most countries would be hardly credible."
(7) That "since the year 1906 revolutionary outrages in Bengal have
numbered 210 and attempts at committing such outrages have amounted to
101. Definite information is in the hands of the police of the
complicity of no less than 1038 persons in these offences. But of these,
only 84 persons have been convicted of specified crimes in 39
prosecutions, and of these persons, 30 were tried by tribunals
constituted under the Defence of India Act. Ten attempts have been made
to strike at revolutionary conspiracies by means of prosecutions
directed against groups or branches. In these prosecutions 192 persons
were involved, 63 of whom were convicted. Eighty-two revolutionaries
have rendered themselves liable to be bound over to be of good behaviour
under the preventive sections of the Criminal Procedure Code. In regard
to 51 of these, there is direct evidence of complicity in outrages.
There have, moreover, been 59 prosecutions under the Arms and Explosives
Acts which have resulted in convictions of 58 persons."
We wish the committee had also supplemented this information by a
complete record of the punishments that were imposed on persons
convicted of revolutionary crime in the ten years from 1906 to 1917. We
are sure such a statement would have been most informing and
illuminating. It would have conclusively established the soundness of
the half-hearted finding that "the convictions ... did not have as much
effect as might have been expected in repressing crime." In fact they
had no effect. They only added fuel to the fire.
(8) That persons involved in revolutionary crime belonged to all castes
and occupations and the vast bulk of them were non-Brahmins. They were
of all ages, from 10-15 to over 45, the majority being under 25. The
committee has in an appendix (p. 93) given three tables of statistics as
to age, caste, occupation or profession of persons convicted in Bengal
of revolutionary crimes or killed in commission of such crimes during
the years 1907-1917. This clause is based on these statistics.
We are afraid, however, that these statistics do not afford quite a
correct index of the age, caste, occupation and position of all the
people in Bengal that were and are sympathetically interested in the
revolutionary movement of Bengal.
In investigating reasons for failure of ordinary machinery for the
prevention, detection and punishment of crime in Bengal, the committee
has assigned six reasons: (_a_) want of evidence, (_b_) paucity of
police, (_c_) facilities enjoyed by criminals, (_d_) difficulty in proof
of possession of arms, etc., (_e_) distrust of evidence, (_f_) the
uselessness, in general, of confession made to the Police. These
reasons, however, do not represent the whole truth. Some of the most
daring crimes were committed in broad daylight, in much frequented
streets of the metropolis and in the presence of numerous people.
Moreover, the Government did not depend on ordinary law. Measure after
measure was enacted to expedite and facilitate convictions.
Extraordinary provisions were made to meet all the difficulties pointed
out by the committee and extraordinary sentences were given in the case
of conviction. Yet the Government failed either to extirpate the
movement or to check it effectively or to bring the majority of
offenders to book.
The members of the committee have frankly admitted: "That we do not
expect very much from punitive measures. The conviction of offenders
will never check such a movement as that which grew up in Bengal unless
the leaders can be convicted at the outset." They pin their faith on
"preventive" measures recommended by them. It was perhaps not within
their scope to say that the most effective preventive measure was the
removal of the political and economic causes that had generated the
movement. The committee has studiously avoided discussing that important
point, but now and then they have incidentally furnished the real clue
to the situation. Discussing the "accessibility of Bengal schools and
colleges to Revolutionary influences," they quote a passage from one of
the reports of the Director of Public Instruction in Bengal. We copy
below the whole of this paragraph, as, to us, it seems to be very
pertinent to the issue.
"_Accessibility of Bengal Schools and Colleges to Revolutionary
Influences._--Abundant evidence has compelled us to the conclusion
that the secondary English schools, and in a less degree the
colleges, of Bengal have been regarded by the revolutionaries as
their most fruitful recruiting centres. Dispersed as these
schools are far and wide throughout the Province, sometimes
clustering in a town, sometimes isolated in the far-away villages
of the eastern water-country, they form natural objects for
attack; and as is apparent from the reports of the Department of
Public Instruction, they have been attacked for years with no
small degree of success. In these reports the Director has from
time to time noticed such matters as the circulation of seditious
leaflets, the number of students implicated in conspiracy cases
and the apathy of parents and guardians. But perhaps his most
instructive passages are the following, in which he sets out the
whole situation in regard to secondary English schools. 'The
number of these schools,' he wrote, 'is rapidly increasing, and
the cry is for more and more. It is a demand for tickets in a
lottery, the prizes of which are posts in Government service and
employment in certain professions. _The bhadralok have nothing to
look to but these posts_, while those who desire to rise from a
lower social or economic station have their eyes on the same goal.
_The middle classes in Bengal are generally poor, and the
increased stress of competition and the tendency for the average
earnings of certain careers to decrease_--a tendency which is
bound to follow on the increased demand to enter them, _coupled
with the rise in the cost of living and the inevitable raising in
the standard of comfort--all these features continue to make the
struggle to exist in these classes keener_. Hence the need to
raise educational standards, to make school life a greater
influence for good and the course of instruction more thorough and
more comprehensive. A need which becomes more and more imperative
as life in India becomes more complicated and more exacting is
confronted by a determined though perfectly natural opposition to
the raising of fees.... _Probably the worst feature of the
situation is the low wages and the complete absence of prospects
which are the fate of teachers in the secondary schools...._ It is
easy to blame the parents for blindness to their sons' true good,
but the matriculation examination is the thing that seems to
matter, so that if his boy passes the annual promotion
examinations and is duly presented at that examination at the
earliest possible date, the average parent has no criticism to
offer. This is perfectly natural, but the future of Bengal depends
to a not inconsiderable extent on the work done in its secondary
schools, and more is required of these institutions than an
ability to pass a certain proportion of boys through the Calcutta
University Matriculation examination.... The present condition of
secondary schools is undoubtedly prejudicing the development of
the presidency and is by no means a negligible feature in the
existing state of general disturbance. It is customary to trace
the genesis of much sedition and crime to the back streets and
lanes of Calcutta and Dacca, where the organizers of anarchic
conspiracies seek their agents from among University students.
This view is correct as far as it goes, but it is in the high
schools, with their underpaid and discontented teachers, their
crowded, dark and ill-ventilated classrooms, and their
soul-destroying process of unceasing cram, that the seeds of
discontent and fanaticism are sown." [The italics are ours.]
Yet for years nothing was done to improve education, to make it
practical and creative and productive. In fact nothing has been done up
till now.
Let the reader read with this the report of the Indian Industrial
Commission recently issued under the authority of the Government of
India and he will at once find the true causes which underlie the
revolutionary movement in India. These causes are not in any way
peculiar to Bengal or to the Punjab; they are common to the whole of
India, but they have found a fruitful soil in these provinces on account
of the rather intense natures of the people of these two provinces. The
Bengali is an intensely patriotic and emotional being, very sensitive
and very resentful; the Punjabee is intensely virile, passionate and
plucky, having developed a strong, forceful character by centuries of
resistance to all kind of invasions and attacks. Of the Punjab, however,
we will speak later on. For the present we are concerned with Bengal
only. The amazing phenomenon mentioned by the committee on p. 20 and
referred to by us before is easily explained by the facts hinted in the
Directors' report quoted above. And this notwithstanding the fact that
in the matter of Government patronage Bengal has been the most favored
province in India, throughout the period of British rule. To the
Bengalis have gone all the first appointments to offices that were
thrown open to the natives of the soil. They have been the recipients of
the highest honors from the Government. Bengal is virtually the only
province permanently settled where the Government cannot add to the Land
tax fixed in 1793. The Bengalis are the people who spread over India,
with every territorial extension of the British Raj. They have been the
pampered and favored children of the Government and for very good
reasons, too. They are the best educated and the most intelligent of all
the Indian peoples. They know how to adapt themselves to all conditions
and circumstances, they know how to enjoy and also how to suffer. They
have subtle brains and supple bodies. The British Government could not
do without them. It cannot do without them even now. Yet it was this
most loyal and most dutiful, this most westernized and the best educated
class which laid the foundations of the revolutionary movement and has
been carrying it on _successfully_ in face of all the forces of such a
mighty Government as that of the British in India. What is the reason?
It is the utter economic helplessness of the younger generation, aided
by a sense of extreme humiliation and degradation. The Government never
earnestly applied itself to the solution of the problem. They did
nothing to reduce poverty and make education practical. Every time the
budget was discussed the Indian members pressed for increased
expenditure on education. All their proposals and motions were rejected
by the standing official majorities backed by the whole force of
non-official Europeans including the missionaries. The Government thus
deliberately sowed the wind. Is there any wonder that it is now reaping
the whirlwind?
The cause is economic; the remedy must be economic. Make education
practical, foster industries, open all Government careers to the sons of
the soil, reduce the cost on the military and civil services, let the
people determine the fiscal policy of the country and the revolutionary
movement will subside. Die it will not, so long as there is foreign
domination and foreign exploitation. Even after India has attained Home
Rule it will not die. It has come to stay. India is a part of the world
and revolution is in the air all the world over. The effort to kill it
by repression and suppression is futile, unwise and stupid.