We may now consider the case of the Punjab. Lord Morley's verdict
notwithstanding, it is abundantly clear that the troubles of 1907, with
which the history of unrest in the Punjab begins, were principally
agrarian in their origin. Lord Morley's speech in the House of Commons
(in 1907) as to the root of the trouble was based on reports supplied to
him by the Government of the Punjab and we know from personal knowledge
how unreliable many of these reports are. We may here illustrate this
point by a few extracts from these documents.
(1) Lord Morley stated that: "There were twenty-eight meetings
known to have been held by the leading agitators in the Punjab
between 1st March and 1st May. Of these five only related, even
ostensibly, to agricultural grievances; the remaining twenty-three
were all purely political."
The number of meetings held from March 1 to May 1, 1907 was, at the
lowest calculation, at least double of 28, or perhaps treble, and _most
of them_ related "even ostensibly to agricultural grievances"; the
number of purely political meetings could not have exceeded ten or
twelve.
(2) On p. 61 the committee writes that "Chatarji's father too had
ordered him home on discovering that he was staying with Hardayal in the
house of Lajpat Rai." The whole of this statement is absolutely false. I
am prepared to swear and to prove that Chatarji did not stay in my house
even for a single night. He came there a few times with Hardayal.
Hardayal was at that time living in a house he had rented for himself in
the native city about one mile from my place which is in the Civil
Station on the Lower Mall.
On the same page the committee has approvingly quoted a sentence from
the judgment of the Sessions Judge in the Delhi Conspiracy Case.
Speaking of Amir Chand, one of the accused in that case who was
sentenced to death, the Sessions Judge describes him as "one who spent
his life in furthering murderous schemes which he was too timid to carry
out himself." Now I happen to have known this man for about 20 years
before his conviction. I have no doubt that he was rightly convicted in
this case but I have no doubt also that this description of him by the
Sessions Judge was absolutely wrong. Up till 1910 the man had led an
absolutely harmless life, helping students in their studies and
otherwise rendering assistance, according to his means, to other needy
people. No one ever credited him with violent views. His revolutionary
career began in 1908. Before that he could not and would not have
tolerated even the killing of an ant, much less that of human beings.
In governments by bureaucracies one of the standing formulas of official
etiquette is never to question the findings of facts arrived at by your
superiors or predecessors. This naturally leads to the perpetuation of
mistakes. A wrong conclusion once accepted continues to be good for all
times to come. The Rowlatt Committee has studiously acted on that
formula throughout its present inquiry. They have invariably accepted
the findings of executive and judicial authorities preceding them about
the incidents that happened since 1907, without making any independent
inquiry of their own. Hence their opinion about the original or the
principal cause of the unrest of 1907 in the Punjab is not entitled to
greater weight than that of the Punjab officials whose mishandling of
the affairs of the province produced the unrest. One ounce of fact,
however, is of greater weight in the determination of issues than even a
hundred theories. The fact that the Government of India _had_ to veto
the Punjab Government's Land Colonies Act in order to allay the unrest
proves conclusively that the unrest was due to agrarian trouble.
The unrest of 1907 subsided after the repeal of the land legislation of
1907, but the legacy it left is still operative.
The Sikhs and the Mussulmans of the Punjab, as well as the military
classes among the Hindus, the Rajputs and the Jats, are the most virile
portions of the population. They have fought the battles of the Empire.
In the interests of the Empire they have travelled far and wide. Yet we
find that educationally, as well as economically, they have suffered
most. They have the largest numbers of illiterates among them. They are
the least developed and the least progressive of all the classes in the
Punjab. They are heavily in debt. The Government has occasionally
recognised it and has tried to satisfy them by preferential treatment
in the filling of Government posts, or in the bestowal of titles or in
nominating their supposed leaders to Legislative Councils. These
ridiculous palliative measures, however, have failed in their objective.
The classes disaffected do not get any satisfaction by these palliative
measures. They need opportunities of education and economic betterment.
These could not be provided without making education general and without
a more equitable distribution of land among the agricultural classes and
the inauguration of industries other than agriculture. This the
Government never cared to do. The Sikhs and the Mussulmans naturally
directed their attention to emigration.
The opportunities they found in other parts of the Empire whetted their
appetites. They compared the conditions abroad with conditions at home
and drew their own conclusions. Having helped in the expansion and
development of the Empire they thought they were entitled to benefit
therefrom. They demanded fair treatment. Instead they found the doors
shut upon them. Even those that had been admitted were made to feel the
humiliation of their position. Deliberate, active, concerted measures
were taken to drive them away or to make life for them intolerable.
Their wives and children were refused admittance and various pretexts
were invented to keep them out or to drive them away. The revolutionary
movement in the Punjab amounted to nothing until it was reinforced by
the return of the Sikh members of the Ghadr party during the war. The
Committee has failed to answer the question: Why did the Sikhs of
Vancouver and California readily fall in with the schemes of Hardayal
and Barkat Ullah, the alleged founders of the revolutionary party of
California? These latter had nothing in common with the Sikhs. In
language and religion, by habits and associations, they were poles apart
from each other. Why did then Hardayal's propaganda find such a ready
soil among the Sikhs of Vancouver B. C. We quote from the report:
"The doctrines which he preached and circulated had reached the
Sikhs and other Indians resident in British Columbia. At a meeting
in Vancouver in December, 1913, a poem from the Ghadr newspaper
was read, in which the Hindus were urged to expel the British from
India. The main grievance of the Vancouver Indians was the
Canadian immigration law under which every intending Asiatic
immigrant, with a few particular exceptions, has to satisfy the
Canadian authorities that he is in possession of 200 dollars and
has travelled by a _continuous_[1] journey on a through ticket
from his native country to Canada. In 1913 three Sikh delegates
visited the Punjab. They had come from America and were members of
the Ghadr party who had come to reconnoitre the position. Their
real purpose was recognised after their departure. They addressed
meetings at various towns on the subject of the grievances of
Indians in Canada and caused resolutions of protest to be passed
in which all communities joined."
Again, tracing the origin of the Budge-Budge riot, the Committee
remarks:
"The central figure in the narrative is a certain Gurdit Singh, a
Sikh of the Amritsar district in the Punjab, who had emigrated
from India 15 years before, and had for some time carried on
business as a contractor in Singapore and the Malay States. There
is reason to believe that he returned to this country about 1909.
He was certainly absent from Singapore for a space; and when he
returned there, going on to Hong Kong, he interested himself in
chartering a ship for the conveyance of Punjabis to Canada.
Punjabis, and especially Sikhs, frequently seek employment in the
Far East, and have for some time been tempted by the higher wages
procurable in Canada. But their admission to that country is to
some extent impeded by the immigration laws which we have
described already.
"There were already in Canada about 4,000 Indians, chiefly
Punjabis. Some of these were revolutionists of the Hardayal
school, some were loyal, and some had migrated from the United
States on account of labour differences there. The Committee of
Enquiry, which subsequently investigated the whole affair,
considered that Gurdit Singh's action had been much influenced by
advice and encouragement received from Indian residents in Canada.
At any rate, after failing to secure a ship at Calcutta, he
chartered a Japanese vessel named the _Komagata Maru_ through a
German agent at Hong Kong. He issued tickets and took in
passengers at that post, at Shanghai, at Moji and at Yokohama. He
certainly knew what the Canadian law was, but perhaps hoped to
evade it by means of some appeal to the courts or by exercising
political pressure. It is equally certain that many of his
passengers had no clear comprehension of their prospects. The
Tribunal that subsequently tried the first batch of Lahore
conspirators held that probably Gurdit Singh's main object was to
cause an inflammatory episode, as one of the witnesses stated that
Gurdit Singh told his followers that should they be refused
admission, they would return to India to expel the British. On
April the 4th, 1914, the _Komagata Maru_ sailed from Hong Kong. On
the 23rd of May the _Komagata Maru_ arrived at Vancouver with 351
Sikhs and 21 Punjabi Muhammadans on board. The local authorities
refused to allow landing except in a very few cases, as the
immigrants had not complied with the requirements of the law.
Protests were made, and, while negotiations were proceeding, a
balance of 22,000 dollars still due for the hire of the ship was
paid by Vancouver Indians, and the charter was transferred to two
prominent malcontents.... A body of police was sent to enforce the
orders of the Canadian Government that the vessel should leave;
but with the assistance of firearms, the police were beaten off,
and it was only when a Government vessel was requisitioned with
armed force that the _Komagata Maru_ passengers, who had prevented
their Captain from weighing anchor or getting up steam, were
brought to terms. On the 23rd of July they started on their return
journey with an ample stock of provisions allowed them by the
Canadian Government. _They were by this time in a very bad temper
as many had staked all their possessions on this venture, and had
started in the full belief that the British Government would
assure and guarantee their admission to a land of plenty._ This
temper had been greatly aggravated by direct revolutionary
influences....
"During the return voyage the War broke out. On hearing at
Yokohama that his ship's company would not be allowed to land at
Hong Kong, Gurdit Singh replied that they were perfectly willing
to go to any port in India if provisions were supplied. The
British Consul at Yokohama declined to meet his demands, which
were exorbitant; but the consul at Kobe was more compliant, and
after telegraphic communication between Japan and India, the
_Komagata Maru_ started for Calcutta. At neither Hong Kong nor
Singapore were the passengers allowed to land. This added to their
annoyance, as, according to the findings of the Committee, many
had not wished to return to India at all."
The Committee found that most of the passengers were disposed to
blame the Government of India for all their misfortunes. "It is
well known," states the Report, "that the average Indian makes no
distinction between the Government of the United Kingdom, that of
Canada, and that of British India, or that of any colony. To him
these authorities are all one and the same. And this view of the
whole _Komagata Maru_ business was by no means confined to the
passengers on the ship. It inspired some Sikhs of the Punjab with
the idea that the Government was biased against them; and it
strengthened the hands of the Ghadr revolutionaries who were
urging Sikhs abroad to return to India and join the mutiny which,
they asserted, was about to begin. Numbers of emigrants listened
to such calls and hastened back to India from Canada, the United
States, the Philippines, Hong Kong and China." [The italics are
ours.]
We have given this extract to show the real cause of the growth of the
revolutionary movement among the Sikhs. Let the reader omit, if he can,
for a moment, all references to active revolutionary propaganda and he
will find that the underlying cause of this trouble was _economic_. Why
did the Sikhs want to emigrate to Canada? Why did they stake all their
possessions on the venture? Why were they unwilling to return to India
at all? Because the economic conditions at home were so bad and the
prospects abroad so good. At home their lands were not sufficient to
absorb all their energies, the income was not sufficient to keep body
and soul together and, in a majority of cases, what they made from land
was hardly more than sufficient to pay Land Revenue to the Government
and interest to the money-lender. There was nothing to bind them to
their homes except the love of home land and the domestic ties. These
melted away in the presence of dire necessity. In extreme need they
left their homes to make more money to be able to pay their debts, to
redeem their lands, if possible to purchase more land and to make life
bearable and tolerable. When they came in the open world they found
insurmountable barriers between them and plenty. They had helped in
making the empire; the empire had enough land for all her sons and
daughters; men were urgently needed to bring land into cultivation and
otherwise to develop the empire; men of other races and colours were not
only welcome but were being induced to come and settle by offers of all
kinds. They, and they alone, were unwelcome and barred.
Add to this the attitude and the record of the Punjab Government towards
political agitation and political agitators, to use their own favorite
expressions. The Punjab Government was the first to resuscitate the old
Regulation III of 1818 for the purpose of scotching a legitimate
agitation against an obnoxious legislative measure. A wise and sagacious
Government would have dropped the legislation which it was eventually
found necessary to veto to maintain peace. The deportations drove the
seeds of unrest deeper. The other contributory causes may be thus summed
up:
(1) The Punjab Government has been the most relentless of all local
governments in India in suppressing freedom of speech and press.
(2) The Punjab Government at one time was very foolishly zealous in
persecuting the Arya Samajists and in making a mountain out of a
molehill about the letters found in the possession of Parmanand.
(3) The sentences which the Punjab Courts have passed in cases of
seditious libel are marked by such brutality as to make them notably
unique in the history of criminal administration in India.
(4) The strangulation of all open political life by direct and indirect
repression led to the adoption of secret methods.
(5) The sentences passed in the Delhi Conspiracy case were much more
severe than those given in Bengal in similar cases. In this case four
men were hanged, two of them only because of membership in the secret
conspiracy and not for actual participation in the outrage that was the
subject of the charge, and two others were sentenced to seven years
rigorous imprisonment each.
(6) The Budge-Budge riot and the considerable loss of life that resulted
therefrom was another case of stupid management and utter incapacity to
handle a delicate situation.
(7) For the Lahore Conspiracy 28 persons were hanged, and about 90
sentenced to long terms of imprisonment and transportation for life. But
for the interference of Lord Hardinge the hangings would have exceeded
50. In addition some mutinous soldiers of two regiments were tried by
Court Martial and a few murderous robbers and train-wreckers were dealt
with by the ordinary courts. The reader may well compare this with the
record of convictions relating to Bengal.
Now, we have not the slightest intention of justifying the conduct of
those who conspired to overthrow the Government by force, or who
committed murders, robberies or other offences in the furtherance of
that design. In our judgment only madmen, ignorant of the conditions of
their country, could have been guilty of such crimes. Nor are we
inclined to blame the Government much for the sharp steps they took to
preserve order and maintain their authority during the war. But, after
all has been said, we must reiterate that the underlying causes were
economic and were the direct result of Government policy.