"Causes and Aims of the War." Speech delivered
at Glasgow, on being presented with the freedom
of that city, June 29, 1917.
The authors of the report remark:
"There exists a small revolutionary party deluded by hatred of
British rule and desire for the elimination of the Englishman into
the belief that the path to independence or constitutional liberty
lies through anarchical crime. Now it may be that such persons
will see for themselves the wisdom of abandoning methods which are
as futile as criminal; though if they do not, the powers of the
law are or can be made sufficient for the maintenance of order.
But the existence of such people is a warning against the possible
consequences of unrestrained agitation in India. We are justified
in calling on the political leaders, in the work of education that
they will undertake, to bear carefully in mind the political
inexperience of their hearers; and to look for further progress
not to fiery agitation which may have consequences quite beyond
their grasp, but to the machinery which we devise for the
purpose. In every country there will be persons who love agitation
for agitation's sake or to whom it appeals like an intoxicant. It
is the duty of the leaders of Indian opinion to remember the
effect on people not accustomed to weighing words of fiery and
heated speeches. Where ignorance is widespread and passions are so
easily aroused, nothing is easier than for political leaders to
excite a storm; nothing harder for them than to allay it. Breaches
of the peace or crimes of violence only put back the political
clock. Above all things, when the future of India depends upon
co-operation among all races, attacks upon one race or religion or
upon another jeopardise the whole experiment. Nor can the
condemnation of extremist and revolutionary action be left only to
the official classes. We call upon all those who claim to be
leaders to condemn with us and to support us in dealing with
methods of agitation which drive schoolboys to crime and lead to
religious and agrarian disturbance. Now that His Majesty's
Government have declared their policy, reasonable men have
something which they can oppose successfully to the excitement
created by attacks on Government and by abuse of Englishmen,
coupled with glowing and inaccurate accounts of India's golden
past and appeals to race hatred in the name of religion. Many
prominent Indians dislike and fear such methods. A new opportunity
is now being offered to combat them; and we expect them to take
it. Disorder must be prejudicial to the cause of progress and
especially disorder as a political weapon."
We are in general agreement with the sentiments expressed in this
extract but we will be wanting in candour if we fail to point out that,
though the revolutionary movement in India is mainly political, it is
partly economic and partly anarchic also. In the first two aspects it is
at present the product of purely local (Indian) conditions. In the
last, it is the reaction of world forces. While we are hoping that the
change in the policy, now announced, will remove the political basis of
it, we are not quite sure that that will ensure the extermination of the
party or the total destruction of the movement. The growth of democratic
political institutions in India must inevitably be followed by a
movement for social democracy. The spirit of Revolution which is now fed
by political inequalities will, when these are removed, find its
sustenance in social inequalities. That movement may not be
anti-British; perhaps it will not be, but that it will have some
revolutionary element in it may be assumed. The lessons of history make
it clear that the most effective way to prevent its falling into
channels of violence is to have as little recourse to coercion as may be
consistent with the preservation of general order and peace. The
preservation of order and the unhindered exercise of private rights by
all citizens is the pre-requisite condition to good government. Every
government must see to it. It is their duty to use preventive as well as
punitive methods. There are, however, ways of doing these things. One is
the British, the American and the French way.[1] The other is what was
heretofore associated with the name of the late Czar. The third is the
German way. We hope the lessons of Czarism will not be lost on either
party. The governments have as much to learn from it as the peoples. The
best guarantee against the abnormal growth of a revolutionary movement
is to adopt and follow the British methods and to avoid scrupulously
and without fail any approach to the discredited Russian or Prussian
methods.
The Indian soil and the Indian atmosphere are not very congenial for
revolutionary ideas and revolutionary methods. The people are too
docile, gentle, law-abiding and spiritually inclined to take to them
readily. They are by nature and tradition neither vindictive nor
revengeful. Their general spirit is opposed to all kinds of violence.
They have little faith in the virtues of force. Unless they are
provoked, and that too terribly, and are face to face with serious
danger they do not like the use of force, even when recourse to it may
be legal and morally defensible.
One of the causes of the growth of the revolutionary movement in India
has been the insolence and the incivility of the European Community
towards the Indian Community. The charges of cowardice so often hurled
against the Bengali have played no insignificant part in the genesis of
the Bengal revolutionary. The distinguished authors have put it rather
mildly:
"If there are Indians who really desire to see India leave the
empire, to get rid of English officers and English commerce, we
believe that among their springs of action will be found the
bitterness of feeling that has been nurtured out of some
manifestation that the Englishman does not think the Indian an
equal. Very small seeds casually thrown may result in great
harvests of political calamity. We feel that, particularly at the
present stage of India's progress, it is the plain duty of every
Englishman and woman, official and non-official, in India to avoid
the offence and the blunder of discourtesy: and none the less is
it incumbent on the educated Indian to cultivate patience and a
more generous view of what may very likely be no more than
heedlessness or difference of custom."
We admire the dignified way in which they have addressed their advice to
the educated Indian. But we hope they do not ignore that except in a few
scattered instances heretofore the chief fault has lain with the ruling
class. The proceedings of the Royal Commission on the Public Services of
India are full of that racial swagger which the authors of this report
have mildly condemned in the above extract and it is an open secret that
that spirit was one of the dearly cherished articles of faith with the
bureaucracy. We hope the war has effected a great change in their temper
and both parties will be disposed to profit from the advice given to
them in the report.
As to the duty of the educated leaders in the matter of suppressing the
growth of the revolutionary movement in future, we beg to point out that
all depends on how much faith the governing classes place in the
professions of the popular leaders. Open public speeches and meetings
appealing to racial or religious animosities have not played any
important part in the development of the revolutionary spirit. It is not
likely that the educated leaders will in any way consciously and
voluntarily digress from the limits of reasonable criticism of
Government policy, nor have they very often done so in the past. What
has so far prevented the educated leaders from exercising an effective
check on the growth of the revolutionary movement is their inability to
associate on terms of friendship with the younger generation. This has
been due partly to a false idea of dignity and partly to the fear that
any association with hot-headed young men might bring discredit on them
or might land them in hot water if, sometime or other, any one of their
friends might do anything violent. Public speeches denouncing the
revolutionary propaganda and the revolutionary activities or public
condemnation of the latter in the press are good in their own way, but
they are not quite effective. The revolutionist may ascribe it to fear,
timidity, or hypocrisy. What is needed is that educated leaders of
influence should be free to mix, socially and otherwise, with the
younger generation so as to acquire an intimate knowledge of their trend
of thought and bent of mind. It is in these intimate exchanges of views
that they can most effectively exercise their powers of argument and
persuasion and use their influence effectively. They will not succeed
always, but in a good many cases they will. This cannot be done,
however, unless the Executives and the Police relax their attentions
toward them.
The bureaucrats' want of confidence in any Indian leader reached its
limit in the attentions which the agents of the secret service bestowed
on such men as the late Mr. Gokhale. It is an open secret that the
secret service records have assigned a particular number to every public
leader in India. Religious preachers and teachers of the type of Lala
Hansraj and Lala Mûnshi Rám receive as much attention in the records as
the writer of this book or Mr. B. G. Tilak or Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal. The
"Servants of India" are as much the objects of solicitation on the part
of the secret service men as the members of the Arya Samaj. Of course,
agitators are agitators. All the great progressive souls of the world
have had to agitate at one time or another in their lives. Agitation is
the soul of democracy. There can be no progress in a democracy without
agitation. Sir Denzil Ibbetson could pay no greater compliment to the
Arya Samaj than by his remark in 1907 that, according to his
information, wherever there was an Arya Samaj it was a centre of unrest.
We hope the Governments are now convinced that the Arya Samaj has never
been revolutionary. It is one of the most conservative, restraining
forces in the social life of the country. Yet it cannot be denied that
its propaganda has been and will continue to be one of the most
disturbing factors in the placid waters of Indian life. The bureaucracy
could not look upon it with kindness. Any attempt to persist in this
kind of control or check or persecution will be fatal to the success of
the appeal which Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford have addressed to the
public men of India in the extract given above.
In our judgment the most effective way to check the growth of the
revolutionary movement is by freeing the mind of the leaders of the fear
of being misunderstood if they should mix freely with the younger
generation and yet fail to prevent some of them from becoming
revolutionists. A revolutionary prospers on exclusiveness. Secrecy is
his great ally. Cut off a young man from open, healthy influences and he
will be attracted by the mystery of secrecy. Thenceforth he is doomed.
After that he may be weaned only by kindness and friendliness and not by
threats or persecution. Most of the youths attracted by revolutionary
propaganda have proved to be quite ignorant of the real conditions of
their country. No attempt has been made to instruct them in politics.
They have been fed on unsound history and unsound politics. Reactionary
Imperialism has harmed them more than exaggerated nationalism. They have
had few opportunities of discussion with people who could look upon
things in right perspective. They could not open their minds to their
European teachers. In the few cases in which they did they repented.
Somehow or other, the free confidential talks they had with their
professors found an entry in the police records. It brought a black mark
against their names, to stand and mar their careers forever. The Indian
teacher and professor is afraid of discussing politics with them. So
they go on unrestrained until the glamour of prospective heroism, by a
deed of violence, fascinates one of them and he is led into paths of
crimes of a most detestable kind. Unscrupulous advisors lead him toward
falsehood, hypocrisy, treachery, treason and crime by dubious methods.
One of the things they preach is that morality has nothing to do with
politics. They insinuate that the violence of militarism and Imperialism
can be effectively met and checked only by violence. Poor misguided
souls! They enforce their advice by the diplomatic history of Europe.
They forget that once a youth is led into the ways of falsehood and
unscrupulousness he may as easily use it against his friends as against
his enemies. If he has no scruples about killing an enemy he may have
none about killing a friend. If he has no scruples about betraying the
one, he may have none about betraying the other. Once a man starts
toward moral degeneration, even for desirable or patriotic ends, there
is no knowing whither his course might take him. The most idealistic
young men starting with the highest and purest conceptions of patriotism
have been known to fall into the most ignoble methods of attacking first
their enemies and then their friends. When they reach that stage of
moral corruption they can trust no one, can believe in the honesty of no
one. Their one idea of cleverness and efficiency is to conceal their
motives from everyone, to give their confidence to no one, to suspect
and distrust everyone and to aspire toward the success that consists in
imposing upon all.
The remedy against this lies in encouraging an open and frank discussion
of politics on the part of the younger generation, with such indulgences
as are due to their youth and immaturity of judgment; a systematic
teaching of political history in schools and colleges; a free and open
intercourse with their teachers on the clearest understanding that
nothing said in discussion or in confidence will ever be used either
privately or publicly against them, and an equally free and intimate
intercourse with the leaders of thought and of public life in the
country. These latter must be freed from the attentions of the secret
service if it is intended that they should effectually coöperate in
counteracting revolutionary propaganda. Besides, the younger generation
must be brought up in habits of manly and open encounter with their
adversaries, in a spirit of sport and fair play. Repression,
suppression, and suspicion do not provide a congenial climate for the
development of these habits and they should be subordinated as much as
possible in the present condition of chaotic conflict between social
interests and social ideals.