The meeting held at the Excelsior Theatre in Bombay to pass resolutions
regarding East Africa and Fiji, and presided over by Sir Narayan
Chandavarkar, was an impressive gathering. The Theatre was filled to
overflowing. Mr. Andrews' speech made clear what is needed. Both the
political and the civil rights of Indians of East Africa are at stake.
Mr. Anantani, himself an East African settler, showed in a forceful
speech that the Indians were the pioneer settlers. An Indian sailor
named Kano directed the celebrated Vasco De Gama to India. He added amid
applause that Stanley's expedition for the search and relief of Dr.
Livingstone was also fitted out by Indians. Indian workmen had built the
Uganda Railway at much peril to their lives. An Indian contractor had
taken the contract. Indian artisans had supplied the skill. And now
their countrymen were in danger of being debarred from its use.
The uplands of East Africa have been declared a Colony and the lowlands
a Protectorate. There is a sinister significance attached to the
declaration. The Colonial system gives the Europeans larger powers. It
will tax all the resources of the Government of India to prevent the
healthy uplands from becoming a whiteman's preserve and the Indians
from being relegated to the swampy lowlands.
The question of franchise will soon become a burning one. It will be
suicidal to divide the electorate or to appoint Indians by nomination.
There must be one general electoral roll applying the same
qualifications to all the voters. This principle, as Mr. Andrews
reminded the meeting, had worked well at the Cape.
The second part of the East African resolution shows the condition of
our countrymen in the late German East Africa. Indian soldiers fought
there and now the position of Indians is worse than under German rule.
H.H. the Agakhan suggested that German East Africa should be
administered from India. Sir Theodore Morison would have couped up all
Indians in German East Africa. The result was that both the proposals
went by the board and the expected has happened. The greed of the
English speculator has prevailed and he is trying to squeeze out the
Indian. What will the Government of India protect? Has it the will to do
so? Is not India itself being exploited? Mr. Jehangir Petit recalled the
late Mr. Gokhale's views that we were not to expect a full satisfaction
regarding the status of our countrymen across the seas until we had put
our own house in order. Helots in our own country, how could we do
better outside? Mr. Petit wants systematic and severe retaliation. In
my opinion, retaliation is a double-edged weapon. It does not fail to
hurt the user if it also hurts the party against whom it is used. And
who is to give effect to retaliation? It is too much to expect an
English Government to adopt effective retaliation against their own
people. They will expostulate, they will remonstrate, but they will not
go to war with their own Colonies. For the logical outcome of
retaliation must mean war, if retaliation will not answer.
Let us face the facts frankly. The problem is difficult alike for
Englishmen and for us. The Englishmen and Indians do not agree in the
Colonies. The Englishmen do not want us where they can live. Their
civilisation is different from ours. The two cannot coalesce until there
is mutual respect. The Englishman considers himself to belong to the
ruling race. The Indian struggles to think that he does not belong to
the subject race and in the very act of thinking admits his subjection.
We must then attain equality at home before we can make any real
impression abroad.
This is not to say that we must not strive to do better abroad whilst we
are ill at ease in our own home. We must preserve, we must help our
countrymen who have settled outside India. Only if we recognise the true
situation, we and our countrymen abroad will learn to be patient and
know that our chief energy must be concentrated on a betterment of our
position at home. If we can raise our status here to that of equal
partners not in name but in reality so that every Indian might feel it,
all else must follow as a matter of course.