The native disaffection in Bengal which _History for ready reference, Volume 7

its violence in 1907, and which perpetrated a number of

murders before it was suppressed, culminated on the 10th of

February, 1909, in the assassination of a prominent native

lawyer, Ashutosh Biswas, who had taken part in the prosecution

of some of the anarchists. Writing of that crime, from

Calcutta, a special correspondent of the London _Times_,

who had been pursuing an investigation of the terrorist

conspiracy from its beginning, gave an extended account of

what he had learned, part of which is given in the following:

"All that can be said with certainty is that the gospel of

violence, the creed which advocates the use of any form of

force against the British, is Mahratta in its origin; but so

far it is the Bengalis alone who have put it into practice. It

was conceived in Poona, which city has always continued to

inspire and direct it; it was transferred to Baroda, where it

flourished in secret among a limited circle; and it was

transplanted to Calcutta, where it grew apace, somewhere

between the years 1902 and 1904. Certain classes of Bengalis,

who are all adepts at intrigue, took up the new idea with

enthusiasm; but not all who knocked were admitted to the inner

circle. The real conspirators were still probably few in

number when the ‘partition’ of Bengal gave the politicians

their opportunity. The anarchists were furious at the

partition agitation. They were quite content that less

militant persons should prepare the ground for them, by

preaching to the people of the iniquities of the British Raj;

but they were reluctant to see the popular mind actively

diverted to such minor issues as _swadeshi_ and the

boycott. The extermination of the British was their one and

only aim.

"However, as the Congress politicians had succeeded in

arousing intense excitement about the partition, the anarchist

gang sought to turn the situation to their own advantage. …

Recruits were, however, only gradually admitted into the inner

ring; and there were many people who associated with the

anarchists, and sometimes furnished them with funds, who never

took part in their operations. Propaganda formed a prominent

feature of the anarchists’ work. In this department the worst

types of seditious journals, which have now disappeared,

played a great part. Such newspapers as the _Yugantar_

started ‘messes’ and ‘hostels,’ to which subscribers,

particularly those residing up-country, were invited to come

free of charge. They stayed for a day or two, heard the new

gospel preached, and then made way for others. …

"The existence of this considerable organization was not

really suspected by the police until after the attempt to

wreck Sir Andrew Fraser’s train in December, 1907. Some of the

anarchists were under suspicion, and were being watched as

notoriously disaffected persons, but even the shooting of Mr.

B. C. Allen, District Magistrate of Dacca, in the same month,

did not reveal the conspiracy. The police were, however, on

the right track; and a couple of days after two unfortunate

ladies had been killed by a bomb at Muzaffarpur, on April 30,

1908, they acted. At a house in Calcutta, and in a garden on

the outskirts, large seizures of bombs, explosives, and

revolvers were made and about 30 alleged anarchists were

arrested. Other arrests followed. The famous Manicktollah

garden was the principal scene of anarchist activity. It is so

secluded that one wonders it was ever discovered. Far on the

confines of Calcutta, through a network of mean huts beneath

waving palms, a series of winding paths leads to a couple of

mouldering gate-pillars innocent of any gate. Within, under

shady trees, stands a small building in the last stage of

disrepair. It is mean and dirty and squalid, the true squalor

of anarchism. If it is only in such a spot that any movement

can be hatched for the overthrow of the British Raj, then the

British Raj is safe for a long time.

{315}

"The prisoners were taken to the Alipur Gaol, and their trial

was commenced at the Alipur Police Court. I visited the Court

one day—I think it was the seventieth day of the trial—and

marvelled afresh. They were ranged in rows, about 50 men, all

young, all huddled together and squatting on their haunches.

The only man among them with an intellectual face was Arabindo

Ghose, the alleged leader, who sat in a far corner. He has the

face of a dreamer, as indeed he is, and with his long hair and

short beard might very well pass for a certain type of

artistic Frenchman. Whether he be guilty or not is no affair

of mine, but his record excites pity. He went to England with

brilliant gifts and high hopes, and he had a distinguished

career at school and University. But men who profess to know

say that he had more than the ordinary share of the rough and

tumble of juvenile life amidst alien and often thoughtless

comrades, and that those years were made thoroughly unhappy

for him. When at last, after he had passed for the Civil

Service, he was rejected because he could not pass the

horsemanship test, one can perhaps understand that a man of

his temperament returned to India with black rage and despair

at his heart. But his associates seemed to be mere boys,

haggard, wild looking youths of a peculiarly low physical

type."

The trial of the prisoners described above, at Alipur,

resulted in the condemnation of two to death, six to

transportation for life, one to imprisonment for life, and

five to imprisonment for terms ranging from one to ten years.

The remainder, including the alleged leader, Arabindo Ghose,

were acquitted. With the sanction of Lord Morley, the

Secretary for India, summary measures were taken to silence

the seditious journalism and speech which took a terroristic

tone and instigated crime. Loud protests against these

measures were called out in England, and one hundred and

forty-six Liberal, Labor, and Irish Members of Parliament

addressed a note in May last to the Prime Minister, asking his

attention to "the fact that ever since the 8th December last

nine British subjects in India have been deported from their

homes and detained in prison without having been charged with

any offence or informed even of the grounds of suspicion

entertained against them by the Government of India. Some of

them are admitted to be men of high character. None are

alleged to have been previously convicted of any crime. Under

these circumstances," said the writers, "we may venture to

make an urgent appeal to you that they may be either brought

to trial or set at liberty."

In his reply Mr. Asquith said: "Such an appeal is perfectly

natural, and I am not surprised to find that it is widely and

influentially supported. Deportation without trial as a method

of dealing with political agitation must necessarily be

repugnant to Englishmen, and to no one has the necessity of

resorting to such a measure been more repugnant than to Lord

Morley. When, however, I am appealed to on behalf of the

persons so deported, I must ask you and those who are acting

with you to bear in mind that deportation has been resorted to

for the sole purpose of preserving the country from grave

internal commotion. It is a preventive not a punitive measure,

and the responsibility for fixing the period of detention

must, therefore, rest with those who are charged with the

arduous and anxious duty of maintaining order in India.

"The Secretary of State and the Government of India are, I

submit, the only possible judges of the circumstances which

may warrant the release or the further detention of the

persons deported, and the decision is one which, in my

view—and I hope that you and your co-signatories may find

yourselves in agreement with me—may be left with absolute

confidence in their hands.

"It is particularly necessary at a moment when a great

extension of popular representative elements in Indian

administration has just been sanctioned by Parliament that

none of the various forms of anarchical violence should be

tolerated, and that no lawful instrument for suppressing them

should be discarded."

One of the trials for seditious journalism which caused most

excitement throughout India did not arise from publications in

Bengal, but in Bombay. The accused was Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a

Brahmin, professor of law and mathematics, who conducted a

native paper called the _Mahratta_. The specific charge

against him was that in his newspaper he had urged the people

to demand the restoration of the old Shiwaji religious

festivals and, if it was refused, to throw bombs until it was

granted. The government contended that he had not incited the

people to violence in overt words, but by subtle insinuations

and unmistakable innuendo. At his trial in July, 1908, he

spoke in his own defence, with great ability, for five days.

He was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for six years.

INDIA: A. D. 1907-1908.

Mortality Statistics and Birth Rate.

See (in this Volume)

PUBLIC HEALTH.

INDIA: A. D. 1907-1909.

The recent Movements of Discontent.

Their Character, Causes, and Meaning.

Hindu and Moslem feeling.

English attitude.

The Past of British Government and its Fruits.

Neglect of Education and Political Training.

Slight Organization of Local Self-Government.

The Governed not taken into the confidence of the Government.

Is Democracy forbidden to Asiatic peoples?

The political disaffection in India which has been expressing

itself violently within the last few years, not only in

seditious speech and print, but in the manner of the Russian

terrorists, with bombs and other instruments of anarchy and

assassination, was not started by the Bengal Partition and the

resentments which that measure gave rise to, but those gave a

fresh and strong impulse to feelings that had been in

fermentation for some time. Behind that immediate impulse was,

undoubtedly, a much stronger one, which came from the

startling revelation of the Russo-Japanese War, that one

Asiatic people, at least, could outfight one, at least, of the

proud and domineering Powers of Europe, and outdo them all in

a practical handling of the boasted "Science of the West."

Torpid energies and sleeping ambitions were pricked in India

by the amazing triumph of the Japanese, as they were elsewhere

throughout the East; and it is since 1905 that the demand of

the Hindus for a political life of their own has taken a tone

which commands the ear of all open-minded and generous

Englishmen, like John Morley, and draws from them the response

they are now trying to make.

{316}

So far as it is a demand for an Independent Indian Empire,

with the whole fabric of British rule swept away, it comes

manifestly from nothing that has weight or force in India

itself. Probably no Hindu who could make intelligent use of

political freedom ever dreams of the present possibility of a

nationalized India, in which the 200,000,000 of his own race

and creed and the 60,000,000 of Mohammedans (saying nothing of

the added millions of other lineages and other faiths) would

be peaceful fellow citizens, administering the institutions of

self-government in harmony together. The Moslems, at least,

are under no illusion as to what would happen if the

incongruous elements of the enormous population of India were

left politically to themselves, under the conditions that now

exist. In 1908, when that idea seemed to be growing in Hindu

thought, they organized an "All-India Moslem League,"

avowedly, as declared by the Nawab of Dacca, "to save

themselves from being submerged by an enormous and noisy

majority of the other race." "The safety of the Mohammedans,"

said the president of the conference, "lay in loyalty to the

government; they must be prepared to fight for the government

if necessary." Thus British rule in its present form has the

Moslem dread of Hindu ascendency to give it a substantial

support, even though the Hindus outnumber the Moslems by more

than three to one. In thinking power, the Hindu is perhaps the

higher type of man; but the blood of the Afghan and Mongol

conquerors of Hindustan must have transmitted more of

political as well as military energy to the Moslems of the

present day. The Hindu mind is too mystically metaphysical for

the politics of a world that is dominated by its least

metaphysical minds.

But the higher intelligence of the Hindus appears to agree

with that of the Moslems in understanding that India is in no

present condition for taking its political fortunes into its

own hands. The really intelligent classes have been making it

plain, however, that they do want a more effective

participation in the management of their own affairs than has

been allowed to them hitherto, and it is the claim of that

class which Lord Morley and his colleagues in the British

Government are acknowledging and aiming to satisfy. It seems

to have been generally and fairly represented in the great

conventions assembled annually for many years past, under the

name of the "Indian National Congress," an unofficial

Congress, possessing no authority, but exercising an influence

that has increased. Its character was described a few years

ago in one of the American reviews by a writer who said that

he had watched it from its birth:

"The Indian National Congress," he wrote, "is avowedly

national in its name and scope. The Provincial Congresses

which meet in every province for the discussion of provincial

matters, unite together in a National Congress, which is

annually held at a chosen centre, for the furtherance and

discussion of national interests. A Congress consists of from

five hundred to one thousand of the political leaders of all

parts of India, comprising representatives of noble families,

landowners, members of local Boards and municipalities,

honorary magistrates, fellows of universities, and

professional men, such as engineers, bankers, merchants,

shopkeepers, journalists, lawyers, doctors, priests and

college professors. The delegates are able to act in concert

and to declare in no uncertain accents the common public

opinion of the multitude of whom they are the mouthpiece. They

are as representative in regard to religion as to rank and

profession; Hindus, Parsis, Mohammedans and Christians have in

turn presided.

"The deliberations are marked by acumen and moderation. The

principal items of their propaganda constitute a practical

programme displaying insight and sagacity, and covering most

of the political and economic problems of the Indian Empire. I

take it upon myself to say, as a watchful eye-witness from its

birth, that the Indian National Congress has discharged its

duties with exemplary judgment and moderation."

_Sir Henry Cotton,

The New Spirit in India

(North American Review, November, 1906)._

The meeting of this Indian Congress in 1908 was held at Madras

on the 27th of December, not long after Lord Morley had

explained his plan for the enlargement of the Legislative

Councils in India and for the election of a certain number of

their members by popular vote. In the address of the President

of the Congress, Dr. Rash Bihari Ghose, the proposed reforms

were discussed at length, and welcomed with warmth, as going

near, apparently, to satisfying the claims of the majority of

those represented in the Congress. "We are now," said the

speaker, "on the threshold of a new era. An important chapter

has been opened in the history of the relations between Great

Britain and India—a chapter of constitutional reform which

promises to unite the two countries together in closer bonds

than ever. A fair share in the Government of our own country

has now been given to us. The problem of reconciling order

with progress, efficient administration with the satisfaction

of aspirations encouraged by our rulers themselves, which

timid people thought was insoluble, has at last been solved.

The people of India will now be associated with the Government

in the daily and hourly administration of their affairs. A

great step forward has thus been taken in the grant of

representative government for which the Congress had been

crying for years. … We do not know what the future destiny of

India may be. We can see only as through a glass darkly. But

of this I am assured, that on our genuine co-operation with

the British Government depend our future progress and the

development of a fuller social and political life. Of this

also I am assured, that the future of the country is now in a

large measure in our own hands."

At about the same time the All-India Moslem League held its

meeting at Amritsar, and gave an equally hearty welcome to the

principle of the proposed reforms, but appealed against the

mode of election contemplated, which might be to the

disadvantage of the Moslem minority. In the address of the

President, Mr. Ali Imam, he said: "It is impossible for

thoughtful men to approach the subject without regard to the

pathetic side of the present situation.

{317}

It is the liberalism of the great British nation that has

taught Indians, through the medium of English education, to

admire democratic institutions, to hold the rights of the

people sacred above all rights and to claim for their voice

first place in the government of the country. The mind of

close upon three generations of the educated classes in the

land has been fed on the ideas of John Stuart Mill, Milton,

Burke, Sheridan and Shelley, has been filled with the great

lessons obtainable from chapters of the constitutional history

of England and has been influenced by inexpressible

considerations arising out of the American War of

Independence, the relation of Great Britain with her Colonies,

and last, though not least, the grant of Autonomy to the Boers

after their subjugation at an enormous sacrifice of men and

money. The bitterest critic of the educated Indian will not

hold him to blame for his present state of mind. It is the

English who have carefully prepared the ground and sown the

seed that has germinated into what some of them are now

disposed to consider to be noxious weed. It will be a dwarfed

imagination however that will condemn the educational policy

of the large-hearted and liberal-minded Englishmen who laid

its foundation in this country. Those who inaugurated it aimed

at raising the people to the level where co-operation and good

understanding between the rulers and the ruled are possible.

Under the circumstances, the desire of the educated Indian to

take a prominent part in the administration of his country is

neither unnatural nor unexpected. …

"The best sense of the country recognizes the fact that the

progress of India rests on the maintenance of order and

internal peace, and that order and internal peace in view of

the conditions obtaining in our country at present and for a

very long time to come, immeasurably long time to come, spell

British occupation. British occupation not in the thin and

diluted form in which Canada, Australia and South Africa stand

in relation to England, but British occupation in the sense in

which our country has enjoyed internal peace during the last

50 years. Believe me that as long as we have not learnt to

overcome sectarian aggressiveness, to rise above prejudices

based on diversity of races, religions and languages, and to

alter the alarming conditions of violent intellectual

disparity among the peoples of India, so long British

occupation is the principal element in the progress of the

country. The need of India is to recognize that true

patriotism lies in taking measure of the conditions existing

in fact, and devoting one’s self to amelioration. … The creed

of the All-India Muslim League is cooperation with the Rulers,

coöperation with our non-Muslim countrymen and solidarity

amongst ourselves. This is our idea of United India."

These expressions from prominent leaders of the two principal

races of India are quite in accord with the judgment of

liberal-minded Englishmen, as to the present duty of their

government to the people of this great Asiatic Dependency.

They are quite in accord with the judgment that has dictated

the measure undertaken by the present British Government. They

recognize that the relation which England bears to India,

however unjustifiable in its origin it may be, is one that

cannot be suddenly changed without great danger and certain

harm. As Goldwin Smith has said:

"To attempt to strike the balance between the advantages and

disadvantages of British rule in India would be to enter into

a boundless controversy. Foreign rule in itself must always be

an evil. India was rescued by Great Britain from murderous and

devastating anarchy. Though at the time she was plundered by

official corruption of a good deal of the wealth which, being

poor though gorgeous, she could ill afford to lose, she has

since enjoyed general peace and order; both, we may be sure,

to a far greater extent than she otherwise would have done.

The deadly enmity between her races and religions has been

controlled and assuaged. …

"It does not appear that there is any considerable migration

from the provinces directly under British dominion to those

which are under native rule. The people, no doubt, are

generally fixed to their habitations by poverty and difficulty

of movement; still, if they greatly preferred the native rule,

a certain amount of migration to it there would probably be.

That the masses of India in general are miserably poor cannot

be denied. The question is, whether under the Mogul Emperors

they were better off. … The population has vastly increased,

and its increase may in some measure account for dearth. With

regard to fiscal and commercial questions, it may safely be

said that, at all events in late years, there has been no

disposition on England’s part to do anything but justice to

India.

"India’s complaints, speaking generally, seem to be of things

inseparable from foreign rule, the withdrawal of which would

be the only remedy. But suppose British rule withdrawn from

India, what would follow? Is there anything ready to take its

place? would not the result be anarchy, such as prevailed when

England came upon the scene, or a struggle for ascendency

between the Mahometan and the Hindoo, with another battle of

Paniput? Suppose the Mahometan, stronger in spirit though

weaker in numbers, to prevail, would his ascendency be more

beneficial and less galling to the Hindoo than is that of the

English Sahib?"

_Goldwin Smith,

British Empire in India

(North American Review, September 7, 1906)._

Of the ultimate possibilities of a nationalized unification of

the mighty masses of population in the vast peninsula, there

can, perhaps, be as much or more said hopefully as against the

hope. A writer who believes that there may be an independent

India has put an outline of the argument, pro and con, in

these few following words:

"India, we are almost tired of hearing, is as large as Europe,

putting aside Russia and Scandinavia, with as great a

population, as many diverse and heterogeneous nationalities,

differing from each other in language, in custom, in religion,

and in everything that makes for individuality; and we might

as well speak of the Indian nation as the European nation. …

To this contention Young India opposes the most emphatic

contradiction. India is a nation, a people, a country: its

interests and aspirations are one and unique. Railways,

telegraphs, post-office, the Press, education, knowledge of

English, have welded into one harmonious whole all the

manifold centrifugal forces of its vast area.

{318}

Young India will quote Switzerland as an example of a country

with several languages and two conflicting religions, and yet

undoubtedly constituting a nation. If the only tongue in which

the Madrassi and the Bengali can communicate is English, so

let it be. It is sufficient that a medium of communication

exists. And it does exist. The educated Indian speaks and

writes in English as easily as in his own mother-tongue. It is

in English that the most vehement tirades against British

rule, whether printed, spoken, or dealt with in private

correspondence, are hurled across the land. Politically

speaking, Lahore is a suburb of Calcutta. The fact cannot be

gainsaid and must be reckoned with. India, as a whole, as a

political unit, has found a voice. There is a national India,

as there is not a national Europe."

_E. C. Cox,

Banger in India

(Nineteenth Century, December, 1908)._

This view recognizes, as was recognized in the address of the

President of the All-India Moslem League, quoted above, that

English rule and English influence have done much towards

preparing both the country and the people for the

self-government to which the latter are now beginning to

aspire. It must be said, however, that most of this

preparation has been casually consequent on policies that had

no such deliberate intent. Until quite late years there is

little sign to be seen in British Indian policy of a thought

of developing opportunity and capability in the people to

become more than valuable customers and docile wards. While

India was in the hands of a commercial company it was managed,

naturally, like an imperial estate, with strictly economic

objects in view. Even then there was wisely economic

consideration given to the general welfare of the people; but

it was welfare as seen from the estate-owners' standpoint. The

proprietary government did many things for its subjects and

servants; bettered their conditions in many ways; added

greatly to the equipment of their lives; but it did very

little, if anything, toward putting them in the way of

bettering things for themselves. It contemplated nothing for

India but the perpetuity of its management as an imperial

estate, entailed in the possession of a proprietary race.

The taking of this imperial estate from company management

into national management has not seemed hitherto to alter the

business nature of its administration very much. Its many

millions of inhabitants have been better governed and better

cared for, without doubt; but the idea of benevolence to them

has never been much enlarged beyond the idea of an honestly

good overseeing care. Institutions have been provided or

encouraged for the educating of a class among them which could

be of useful assistance in the caretaking of the mass; but

common education for the mass, to qualify them better for the

care of themselves, received scant attention till 25 years

ago. In the very explanation that is often given of the

present discontent in India there is an impeachment of the

past treatment of the country by its able and powerful

masters. It is said that the educated Hindus find no

satisfying career for themselves outside of the service of the

government, and that an increasingly large class in excess of

the openings which that service can afford has been educated

in recent years; that, consequently, the swelling crowd of

disappointed place-seekers, whose intelligence and ambition

have been whetted in the higher schools and colleges of the

Indian Empire, are the disturbers of public content. After a

century and a half of supreme British influence and power in

India, there ought to have been more and better openings of

opportunity for educated young Hindus than through the doors

of public office. There would have been if the development of

country and people had been conducted with more reference to

their benefit, and with less close attention to the interests

of British trade.

Since 1882-1883 there has been more endeavor to establish and

assist native primary schools; but the percentage of

population that they reach is small. The statistics given in

an official "Statement exhibiting the Moral and Material

Progress and Condition of India during the year 1905-1906"

make the following showing:

Provinces. Number of Number of

Institutions Pupils

Bengal 43,996 1,232,278

United Provinces 15,708 576,336

Punjab 3,762 211,464

Burma 20,996 385,214

Central Provinces 3,090 209,680

Eastern Bengal and Assam 21,790 722,371

Coorg 116 4,666

North West Frontier Province 1,087 28,496

Madras Presidency 28,258 918,880

Bombay and Sind Presidency 13,865 736,209

Total 152,668 5,025,594

Except in the Punjab and in Eastern Bengal and Assam these

figures include both public and private institutions of

education, of all grades, from primary schools to colleges.

All institutions in which the course of instruction conforms

to standards prescribed by the Department of Education or by

the University, and which either undergo inspection by the

Department or present pupils at public examinations, are

classed as "public," but may be under either public or private

management. While the schools and colleges seem numerous, it

will be seen that they average but 33 pupils each, and give

teaching to a slender fraction of the children of the

294,000,000 of people under British rule. In the report from

which we quote the proportion of pupils to the estimated

population of school-going age is given as 28.4 per cent. of

boys and 2.9 per cent. of girls in Bengal; 8.06 per cent. of

boys and 0.96 per cent. of girls in the United Provinces; 21.8

per cent. of boys and 1.8 of girls in the Central Provinces;

28.2 per cent, of boys and 2.9 per cent. of girls in Eastern

Bengal and Assam; 29 per cent. of boys and 5.4 per cent. of

girls in Madras; 31.8 per cent. of boys and 6 per cent of

girls in Bombay. The total expenditure on education, from all

sources, including fees, was £735,043 in Bengal (increased to

£830,415 in 1907-1908); £441,421 in the United Provinces

(increased to £491,723 in 1907-1908); £331,038 in the Punjab;

£218,445 in Burma; £145,389 in the Central Provinces; £318,788

in Eastern Bengal and Assam; £624,602 in the Madras Presidency

(increased to £712,740 in 1907-1908); £685,444 in the Presidency

of Bombay (increased to £756,168 in 1907-1908). Total in 1905-1906,

£3,500,170. Education in British India cannot be made wide or

deep on expenditure of this scale.

{319}

Education in the literary meaning, then, was tardily

undertaken and is very limited yet in its extent. Quite as

tardy, and quite as scant in the measure until John Morley got

the handling of it, has been the political training that

England,—greatest of political teachers as she has been for

the world at large,—has allowed her Indian subjects to

receive. It must not be understood that nothing of

self-government has been conceded hitherto to these people.

The exact measure of their participation in the management of

their own public affairs, and the period within which they

have exercised it, are described in the official "Statement

exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of

India" from which the above exhibit of educational

institutions is taken. The following is quoted partly from the

"Statement" of 1905-1906 and partly from the later one of 1907-1908:

"Local self-government, municipal and rural, in its present

form, is essentially a product of British rule. Beginning in

the Presidency towns, the principle made little progress until

1870, when it was expressly recognised by Lord Mayo’s

Government that ‘local interest, supervision, and care are

necessary to success in the management of funds devoted to

education, sanitation, medical charity, and local public

works.’ The result was a gradual advance in local

self-government, leading up to the action taken by Lord

Ripon’s Government in 1883-1884, and to various provincial Acts

passed about that time, which form the basis of the provincial

systems at present in force. Municipal committees now exist in

most places having any pretension to importance, and have

charge of municipal business generally, including the care and

superintendence of streets, roads, fairs and markets, open

spaces, water supply, drainage, education, hospitals, and the

like. Local and district boards have charge of local roads,

sanitary works, education, hospitals, and dispensaries in

rural districts. A large proportion of their income is

provided by provincial rates. Bodies of port trustees have

charge of harbour works, port approaches, and pilotage. There

is also a smaller number of non-elective local bodies

discharging similar duties in towns other than constituted

municipalities, and in cantonments.

"The municipal bodies exist, raise funds, and exercise powers

under enactments which provide separately for the special

requirements of each province and of the three presidency

capitals, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. In the municipalities

as a whole about half of the members are elected by the

townsfolk under legal rules; in every town some, and in a few

minor towns all, of the members are appointed by the

Government. In almost every municipal body one or more

Government officials sit as members. The number of Indian and

non-official members, however, in every province, largely

exceeds the number of Europeans and officials. The municipal

bodies are subject to Government control in so far that no new

tax can be imposed, no loan can be raised, no work costing

more than a prescribed sum can be undertaken, and no serious

departure from the sanctioned budget for the year can be made,

without the previous sanction of the Government; and no rules

or bye-laws can be enforced without similar sanction and full

publication.

"There were 746 municipalities at the end of 1907-1908,

containing within their limits over 16 million people or 7 per

cent. of the total population. Generally speaking, the income

of municipalities is small. In 1907-1908 their aggregate income

amounted to £3,910,000, excluding loans, sales of securities,

and other extraordinary receipts. About 40 per cent. of the

total is provided by Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, and Rangoon. …

"The interest in municipal elections, and in municipal affairs

generally, is not usually keen, save in a few cities and large

towns; but, as education and knowledge advance, interest in

the management of local affairs gradually increases. In most

provinces municipal work is fairly well done, and municipal

responsibilities are, on the whole, faithfully discharged,

though occasional shortcomings and failures occur. The

tendency of local bodies, especially in the smaller towns, is

to be slow in imposing additional taxes, in adopting sanitary

reforms, and in incurring new expenditure. Many members of

municipal bodies are diligent in their attendance, whether at

meetings for business or on benches for the decision of petty

criminal cases."

The elected members of these municipal committees number less

than five thousand. This, therefore, is the extent of the

class in the whole of British India, which now receives an

elementary political training. Nothing more is needed for

proving that India cannot possibly be prepared for independent

self-government.

In a memorable speech made by Lord Macaulay in 1833 he

predicted a time when England’s Indian subjects might demand

English institutions, and exclaimed: "Whenever the day comes

it will be the proudest in English history." The day has come,

and it does not bring pride to England; because her wards in

India have not been made ready for what they ask. It will need

time to repair the long neglect; but there is no grander fact

in recent history than the beginning of the labor of repair.

It is to be a work of education, not for the people of India

alone, but for Englishmen as well. They are to learn, and have

begun to learn, the mistake of egotism and self-sufficiency in

their government of these people. Some months ago there was

published in _The Times of India_, at Bombay, a number of

articles on the causes of the existing discontent, some by

English writers, some by Hindus, some by Mohammedans, all

seriously and frankly studying the situation, and most

suggestive in their thought. The cause emphasized most by one

of the English writers is that which always has worked and

always will work when one self-complacent and self-confident

people undertakes to be an overruling providence for another

people, by making laws for it and managing its affairs. The

more consciousness there is on the ruling side of just

intention and superior knowledge, the less likely it is to

satisfy the ruled; because the satisfying of its own judgment

of what is good for the latter is assumed to be enough.

During the last half century, at least, the British Government

has endeavored, without a doubt, to do good to its Indian

subjects, and it has done them great good; but everything has

been done in its own way, from its own points of view and upon

its own judgment of things needful and good and right. And

this is why its Indian subjects not only feel wronged, but are

wronged.

{320}

As the writer in _The Times of India_ reminds his

countrymen, "right is a relative term," and not, he says, "as

we Islanders would have it, an absolute one. A thing that is

right for us, with our past training and traditions, may not

only seem, but really be, a grave wrong to those whose

environment differs from our own." He cites instances of grave

mistakes in well-intended legislation that would have been

avoided, if the makers of the laws had counseled sufficiently

with natives of experience in the matters concerned. One

example is in a land alienation act, for the Punjab, which was

framed with purely philanthropic motives, being intended to

free the native peasantry—the ryots—from thraldom to money

lenders, but which, by making the recovery of debts difficult,

has trebled the rate of interest to the ryot, who borrows just

as much, and mortgages himself instead of mortgaging his land.

Alluding to this and to another act of excellent intention but

irritating effect, the writer says: "When these worthy aims of

government were debated in the Bombay and Punjab legislatures,

who was there, among the officials, in touch with Indian

feeling and sentiment? Who among the senators ever suggested

the possibility that the evil of mortgage and borrowing was

not intrinsically an evil in India, but that legislation—our

own past legislation—had made it so? Was there no officer of

government who could advise the authorities that every Hindoo,

almost, is at heart a money lender; that it is second nature

to him; that indebtedness in itself is neither reproach nor

handicap in his eyes; and that if you take from him his

freedom of barter you do take his life?"

"We have failed," says this writer, "to avail ourselves of the

material we ourselves have trained." That, undoubtedly, is the

cardinal mistake that the English in India have made. Until

now, they have not taken the best of India into their

confidence and their counsels.

Another of the writers referred to above gave another

characterization of the British rule as the natives more

generally feel it, in which a deeper working of more subtle

irritations can be seen. He wrote:

"Personal rule, the will of the king, God’s anointed and

therefore invested with quasi-divine sanction, is the only

rule to which the East has been used, which it can like and

respect. The people can understand, even while they suffer

under, the most extravagant individual caprices; and when the

tyranny becomes too intolerable, they always had in the last

resort an excellent chance of being able to overthrow it. But

they cannot and probably never will understand, still less

appreciate, the cold, implacable, inhuman impersonality of the

English government. They might as well be governed by a

dynamo, without human bowels or passions. It cannot be humanly

approached; it has no human side; its very impeccability is

exasperating; and the exactitude with which it metes out its

machine-made justice, according to inflexible rules and

formulae into which no human equation enters, chills and

repels the Eastern mind, and its strength is commensurate with

its remorselessness."

"They might as well be governed by a dynamo!" That, in this

connection, is a powerfully expressive phrase. The dynamo and

everything of a dynamic nature—every mechanical motor-working

of forces, whether material or political, are naturally

congenial to the man of the Western world—understandable by

him, serviceable to him—and they are not so to the man of the

East. Somewhere in the process of their evolution the one got

an aptitude for projecting work outwardly from the worker—

action at some remove from the actor—shuttle throwing, for

example, carried out from the weaver to the arms and fingers

of a machine, and government from the personally governing

will to an organic political system—while the other did not.

In this, more than in anything else, perhaps, the radical

difference of nature between the Occidental and the Oriental

peoples is summed up. The one is endowed with a self-enhancing

power to act through exterior agencies, of mechanism in his

physical labors, of representative institutions in his

government, of systems and organisms in all his doings, which

the other lacks.

This might have seemed a generation ago to set an

insurmountable barrier against the passing of democracy and

democratic institutions into Asia; but we have little right

to-day to imagine that anything can stop their march.

INDIA: A. D. 1908.

American Mission Schools.

See (in this Volume)

EDUCATION: INDIA.

INDIA: A. D. 1908-1909.

Passage of the Indian Councils Bill by the British Parliament.

Popular Representation in the Legislative Councils introduced.

Lord Morley’s explanations of the Measure.

Appointment of a native member of the

Viceroy’s Executive Council.

The great project of reform in the Government of India which

Lord Morley, as Secretary for India in the British

Administration, brought before Parliament in December, 1908,

embodied fundamentally in what was known during the discussion

of it as the Indian Councils Bill, had its origin more than

two years before that time, not in the councils of the British

Ministry, but in those of the Government of India. The facts

of its inception and preliminary consideration were indicated

in a British Blue Book of 1908 (Cd. 4426), which contained

proposals on the subject from the Government of India, dated

October 1, 1908, and the reply of Lord Morley to them,

November 27. More recently the early history of the reform

project was told briefly by the Viceroy of India, the Earl of

Minto, in a speech in Council, on the 28th of March, 1909. He

said:

"The material from which the Councils Bill has been

manufactured was supplied from the Secretariat at Simla, and

emanated entirely from the bureaucracy of the Government of

India. It was in August, 1906, that I drew attention in

Council in a confidential minute to the change which was so

rapidly affecting the political atmosphere, bringing with it

questions we could not afford to ignore, which we must attempt

to answer, pointing out that it was all-important that the

initiative should emanate from us, that the Government of

India should not be put in the position of appearance of

having its hands forced by agitation in this country or by

pressure from home, and that we should be the first to

recognize the surrounding conditions and place before his

Majesty’s Government the opinion which personal experience and

close touch with the everyday life of India entitle us to

hold.

{321}

I consequently appointed the Arundel Committee. That minute

was the first seed of our reforms sown more than a year before

the first anarchist outrage sent a thrill of shocked surprise

throughout India—the attempt to wreck Sir Andrew Fraser’s

train in December, 1907. The policy of the Government of India

in respect to reforms has emanated from mature consideration

of political and social conditions, while the administrative

changes they advocated, far from being concessions wrung from

them, have been over and over again endangered by the

commission of outrages which could not but encourage doubts as

to the opportuneness of the introduction of political changes,

but which I steadfastly refused to allow to injure the

political welfare of the loyal masses in India."

The Indian Councils Bill was printed on the 20th of February,

1909, and its second reading in the House of Lords was moved

by Lord Morley in an explanatory speech on the 23d. A

prefatory memorandum accompanying the text of the Bill was as

follows:

"The object of this Bill is to amend and extend the Indian

Councils Acts, 1861 and 1892, in such a way as to provide:

"(i.)For an enlargement of the Legislative Council of the

Governor-General and of the existing Provincial Legislative

Councils;

"(ii.) For the election of a certain proportion of their

members by popular vote; and

"(iii.) For greater freedom to discuss matters of general

public interest and to ask questions at their meetings, and

more especially for the discussion of the annual financial

statements.

"The Executive Councils of the Governments of Madras and

Bombay are enlarged, and powers are taken to create Executive

Councils in the other Provinces of India, where they now do

not exist. Provision is also made for the appointment of

Vice-Presidents of the various Councils.

"The details of the necessary arrangements, which must vary

widely in the different Provinces, are left to be settled by

means of regulations to be framed by the Government of India

and approved by the Secretary of State."

In his speech on moving the second reading of the Bill, Lord

Morley said: "I invite the House to take to-day the first

definite and operative step in carrying out the policy which I

had the honour of stating to your lordships just before

Christmas, and which has occupied the active consideration

both of the Home Government and of the Government of India for

very nearly, if not even more than, three years. The statement

was awaited in India with an expectancy that with time became

almost impatience, and it was received in India—and that,

after all, is the point to which I looked with the most

anxiety—with intense interest and attention and various

degrees of approval, from warm enthusiasm to cool assent and

acquiescence. So far as I know … there has been no sign in any

quarter, save possibly in the irreconcilable camp, of

organized hostile opinion among either Indians or

Anglo-Indians. …

"There are, I take it, three classes of people that we have to

consider in dealing with a scheme of this kind. There are the

extremists, who nurse fantastic dreams that some day they will

drive us out of India. In this group there are academic

extremists and physical force extremists, and I have seen it

stated on a certain authority—it cannot be more than guessed—

that they do not number, whether academic or physical force

extremists, more than one-tenth, I think, or even 3 per cent.,

of what are called the educated class in India. The second

group nourish no hopes of this sort, but hope for autonomy or

self-government of the colonial species and pattern. And then

the third section of this classification ask for no more than

to be admitted to co-operation in our administration, and to

find a free and effective voice in expressing the interests

and needs of their land. I believe the effect of the reforms

has been, is being, and will be to draw the second class, who

hope for colonial autonomy, into the third class, who will be

content with being admitted to a fair and full co-operation."

As to the objections raised by the Mahomedans of India, to the

plans of the measure for their representation in the Councils,

Lord Morley announced the readiness of the Government to yield

to them. "We," he said, "suggested to the Government of India

a certain plan. We did not prescribe it, we did not order it,

but we suggested and recommended this plan for their

consideration—no more than that. It was the plan of a mixed or

composite electoral college, in which Mahomedans and Hindus

should pool their votes, so to say. The wording of the

recommendation in my dispatch was, as I soon discovered,

ambiguous—a grievous defect, of which I make bold to hope I am

not very often in public business guilty. But, to the best of

my belief, under any construction the plan of Hindus and

Mahomedans voting together in a mixed and composite electorate

would have secured to the Mahomedan electors, wherever they

were so minded, the chance of returning their own

representative in their due proportion. The political idea at

the bottom of that recommendation which has found so little

favour was that such composite action would bring the two

great communities more closely together, and this idea of

promoting harmony was held by men of very high Indian

authority and experience who were among my advisers at the

India Office. But the Mahomedans protested that the Hindus

would elect a pro-Hindu upon it, just as I suppose in a mixed

college of say 75 Catholics and 25 Protestants voting together

the Protestants might suspect that the Catholics voting for

the Protestant would choose what is called a Romanizing

Protestant and as little of a Protestant as possible. … At any

rate, the Government of India doubted whether our plan would

work, and we have abandoned it. I do not think it was a bad

plan, but it is no use, if you are making an earnest attempt

in good faith at a general pacification, out of parental

fondness for a clause interrupting that good process by

sitting too tight.

"The Mahomedans demand three things. I had the pleasure of

receiving a deputation from them and I know very well what is

in their minds. They demand the election of their own

representatives to these councils in all the stages, just as

in Cyprus, where, I think, the Mahomedans vote by themselves.

They have nine votes and the non-Mahomedans have three, or the

other way about.

{322}

So in Bohemia, where the Germans vote alone and have their own

parallel for the idea of a separate register. Secondly, they

want a number of seats in excess of their numerical strength.

Those two demands we are quite ready and intend to meet in

full. There is a third demand that, if there is a Hindu on the

Viceroy’s Executive Council—a subject on which I will venture

to say a little to your lordships before I sit down—there

should be two Indian members on the Viceroy’s Council and that

one should be a Mahomedan. Well, as I told them and as I now

tell your lordships, I see no chance whatever of meeting their

views in that way to any extent at all."

Turning to a much criticised feature of the projected

remodelling of Indian Government—namely, the announced

intention of the Government to name an Indian member of the

Viceroy’s Executive Council—the Secretary reminded the House

that this was not touched by the pending bill, for the reason

that the appointment of that Council lies already within the

province of the Crown. In meeting the objections raised to

this part of the reform project, he amused the House greatly

by remarking: "Lord MacDonnell said the other day: ‘I believe

you cannot find any individual native gentleman who has

enjoyed the general confidence who would be able to give

advice and assistance to the Governor-General in Council.’ It

has been my lot to be twice Chief Secretary for Ireland, and I

do not believe I can truly say I ever met in Ireland a single

individual native gentleman who ‘enjoyed general confidence.’

And yet I received at Dublin Castle most excellent and

competent advice. Therefore I will accept that statement from

the noble lord. The question is whether there is no one of the

300 millions of the population of India who is competent to be

the officially-constituted adviser of the Governor-General in

Council in the administration of Indian affairs. You make an

Indian a Judge of the High Court, and Indians have even been

acting-Chief Justices. As to capacity, who can deny that they

have distinguished themselves as administrators of native

States, where far more demand is made on their resources,

intellectual and moral? It is said that the presence of an

Indian member would cause restraint in the language of

discussion. For a year and a half I have had two Indians at

the Council of India, and I have never found the slightest

restraint whatever."

Debate on the Bill in the House of Lords was resumed on the

4th of March, and it was amended by striking out a clause

which gave power to constitute provincial executive councils

in other provinces than Madras and Bombay, where they were

already existing. It then passed through Committee, and on the

11th of March it was read a third time and passed by the Upper

House.

A fortnight later, Lord Morley brought into exercise the

authority possessed by the Crown, to appoint on its own

judgment a native member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council.

His choice fell on a distinguished Hindu lawyer, Mr. Satyendra

Prasanna Sinha, of whom the London _Times_, on announcing

the appointment, said: "Mr. Sinha now fills the office of

Advocate-General of Bengal, to which he was not long ago

promoted, and he will succeed Sir Henry Richards as Legal

Member of Council. Of his fitness to discharge the

departmental duties of his new position we make no question.

Lord Morley has doubtless satisfied himself that the

qualifications of his nominee in this respect will not

discredit the experiment on which he has ventured. But,

however high those qualifications, and however well they may

stand the test of experience, gifts and attainments of another

order are needed for the post to which Lord Morley has named

him. A member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council is much more

than a departmental chief. … For him there are no State

secrets and no confidential documents. He has a right to know

and to debate the _imperii arcana_. The most delicate

mysteries of diplomacy, the most carefully guarded of military

precautions, are trusted to his faith and to his discretion.

Breadth of political knowledge and of judgment, insight into

men and things, a sure sense and grasp of realities, coolness,

courage, and rapid decision in emergencies, absolute

impartiality between native races, creeds, and classes, and an

instinctive devotion to England, to her traditions and to her

ideals, are amongst the qualities which have been deemed the

best recommendations for so immense a trust. Mr. Sinha may

possess them all, but they are rare amongst the men of any

race, and some of them are notoriously uncommon amongst

Orientals."

This expresses the English opinion that objects to the

admission of Indians to the Executive Councils of Indian

Government, even while assenting to their representation in

the Legislative Councils of the dependency. It is to be hoped

that Mr. Sinha will help to weaken that opinion. Reports from

India on the appointment were to the effect that it had given

great general satisfaction.

On the return of the Councils Bill to the Commons the clause

which the Lords had stricken out was restored, but in a

modified form. Authority to extend the creation of provincial

executive councils was given, but with the reservation to the

House of Lords as well as to the House of Commons of a veto

upon the establishment of such councils in any new provinces,

except Bengal. As thus amended the clause was accepted by the

Upper House and became law, May 25, 1909.

The following are the essential provisions of the Act:

"I.

(1) The additional members of the councils for the purpose of

making laws and regulations (hereinafter referred to as

Legislative Councils) of the Governor-General and of the

Governors of Fort Saint George and Bombay, and the members of

the Legislative Councils already constituted, or which may

hereafter be constituted, of the several Lieutenant-Governors

of Provinces, instead of being all nominated by the

Governor-General, Governor, or Lieutenant-Governor in manner

provided by the Indian Councils Acts, 1861 and 1892, shall

include members so nominated and also members elected in

accordance with regulations made under this Act, and

references in those Acts to the members so nominated and their

nomination shall be construed as including references to the

members so elected and their election.

{323}

"(2) The number of additional members or members so nominated

and elected, the number of such members required to constitute

a quorum, the term of office of such members and the manner of

filling up casual vacancies occurring by reason of absence

from India, inability to attend to duty, death, acceptance of

office, or resignation duly accepted, or otherwise, shall, in

the case of each such council, be such as may be prescribed by

regulations made under this Act:

"Provided that the aggregate number of members so nominated

and elected shall not, in the case of any Legislative Council

mentioned in the first column of the First Schedule to this

Act, exceed the number specified in the second column of that

schedule.

" 2.

(1) The number of ordinary members of the councils of the

Governors of Fort Saint George and Bombay shall be such number

not exceeding four as the Secretary of State in Council may

from time to time direct, of whom two at least shall be

persons who at the time of their appointment have been in the

service of the Crown in India for at least twelve years.

"(2) If at any meeting of either of such councils there is an

equality of votes on any question, the Governor or other

person presiding shall have two votes or the casting vote.

"3.

(1) It shall be lawful for the Governor-General in Council,

with the approval of the Secretary of State in Council, by

proclamation, to create a council in the Bengal Division of

the Presidency of Fort William for the purpose of assisting

the Lieutenant-Governor in the executive government of the

province, and by such proclamation—

"(_a_) to make provision for determining what shall be

the number (not exceeding four) and qualifications of the

members of the council; and

"(_b_) to make provision for the appointment of

temporary or acting members of the council during the

absence of any member from illness or otherwise, and for

the procedure to be adopted in case of a difference of

opinion between a Lieutenant-Governor and his council, and

in the case of equality of votes, and in the case of a

Lieutenant-Governor being obliged to absent himself from

his council from indisposition or any other cause.

"(2) It shall be lawful for the Governor-General in Council,

with the like approval, by a like proclamation to create a

council in any other province under a Lieutenant-Governor for

the purpose of assisting the Lieutenant-Governor in the

executive government of the province: Provided that before any

such proclamation is made a draft thereof shall be laid before

each House of Parliament for not less than sixty days during

the session of Parliament, and, if before the expiration of

that time an address is presented to His Majesty by either

House of Parliament against the draft or any part thereof, no

further proceedings shall be taken thereon, without prejudice

to the making of any new draft.

"(3) Where any such proclamation has been made with respect to

any province the Lieutenant-Governor may, with the consent of

the Governor-General in Council, from time to time make rules

and orders for the more convenient transaction of business in

his council, and any order made or act done in accordance with

the rules and orders so made shall be deemed to be an act or

order of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council.

"(4) Every member of any such council shall be appointed by

the Governor-General, with the approval of His Majesty, and

shall, as such, be a member of the Legislative Council of the

Lieutenant-Governor, in addition to the members nominated by

the Lieutenant-Governor and elected under the provisions of

this Act.

"4. The Governor-General, and the Governors of Fort Saint

George and Bombay, and the Lieutenant-Governor of every

province respectively shall appoint a member of their

respective councils to be Vice-President thereof, and, for the

purpose of temporarily holding and executing the office of

Governor-General or Governor of Fort Saint George or Bombay

and of presiding at meetings of Council in the absence of the

Governor-General, Governor, or Lieutenant-Governor, the

Vice-President so appointed shall be deemed to be the senior

member of Council and the member highest in rank, and the

Indian Councils Act, 1861, and sections sixty-two and

sixty-three of the Government of India Act, 1833, shall have

effect accordingly.

"5.

(1) Notwithstanding anything in the Indian Councils Act, 1861,

the Governor-General in Council, the Governors in Council of

Fort Saint George and Bombay respectively, and the

Lieutenant-Governor or Lieutenant-Governor in Council of every

province, shall make rules authorising at any meeting of their

respective legislative councils the discussion of the annual

financial statement of the Governor-General in Council or of

their respective local governments, as the case may be, and of

any matter of general public interest, and the asking of

questions, under such conditions and restrictions as may be

prescribed in the rules applicable to the several councils.

"(2) Such rules as aforesaid may provide for the appointment

of a member of any such council to preside at any such

discussion in the place of the Governor-General, Governor, or

Lieutenant-Governor, as the case may be, and of any

Vice-President.

"(3) Rules under this section, where made by a Governor in

Council, or by a Lieutenant-Governor, or a Lieutenant-Governor

in Council, shall be subject to the sanction of the

Governor-General in Council, and where made by the

Governor-General in Council shall be subject to the sanction of

the Secretary of State in Council, and shall not be subject to

alteration or amendment by the Legislative Council of the

Governor-General, Governor, or Lieutenant-Governor.

"6. The Governor-General in Council shall, subject to the

approval of the Secretary of State in Council, make

regulations as to the conditions under which and manner in

which persons resident in India may be nominated or elected as

members of the Legislative Councils of the Governor-General,

Governors, and Lieutenant-Governors, and as to the

qualifications for being, and for being nominated or elected,

a member of any such council, and as to any other matter for

which regulations are authorised to be made under this Act,

and also as to the manner in which those regulations are to be

carried into effect. Regulations under this section shall not

be subject to alteration or amendment by the Legislative

Council of the Governor-General.

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"7. All proclamations, regulations and rules made under this

Act, other than rules made by a Lieutenant-Governor for the

more convenient transaction of business in his council, shall

be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be

after they are made."

FIRST SCHEDULE.

MAXIMUM NUMBERS OF NOMINATED AND ELECTED

MEMBERS OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCILS.

Maximum

Legislative Council. Number.

Legislative Council of the Governor-General 60

Legislative Council of the Governor of Fort

Saint George 50

Legislative Council of the Governor of Bombay 50