NEW POLITICAL IDEAS
I. A UNITING INDIA
"There are many nations of the Indians, and they do not speak
the same language."
--HERODOTUS.[34]
[Sidenote: The ideas of citizenship and public questions.]
With modern education and the awakening of the Indian mind have come
entirely new political ideas. That there are public questions has in
fact been discovered; for in India the idea of citizenship, the
consciousness of being a political unit, was itself a new idea. We may
say that it was made possible in 1835, when an Act of Legislature was
passed declaring the press free. In 1823 an English editor had been
deported from Calcutta for free criticism of the authorities, but after
1835 it was legal not merely to think but to speak on public questions.
Before we pass on, we note the strange inverted sequence of events which
may attend on fostered liberty. The right to criticise was bestowed
before any right to be represented in the Legislature or Executive was
enjoyed. In this freedom to criticise the acts of Government, the India
of to-day is far ahead of countries like Germany and Russia.
[Sidenote: Government exists for the good of the governed.]
The new idea of citizenship, thus made possible by a free press, is
largely the outcome of three great influences. Christian philanthropic
ideas, disseminated both by precept and example, could not but be
producing some sense of brotherhood, and what Burke calls a "civil
society." Then again, the free and often democratic spirit of English
literature was being imbibed by thousands; and in the third place,
through the newspapers, English and vernacular, the people were being
brought into actual contact with the political life of Great Britain.
Due particularly to the first of these influences, the noblest of the
new Indian political ideas is that tacitly assumed in many of the native
criticisms of the British Government in India--high tribute as well as
criticism--that Government exists for the good of the governed, and
indeed responsible for the welfare of the masses. The British Government
is indeed an amazing network covering the whole continent, ministering
life, like the network of the blood-vessels in our frame. At least, its
apologists declare it _to be doing so_, and its native critics declare
that it _ought to_. The native press, for example, is prompt to direct
the attention of the Government to famine and to summon the Government
to its duty. In India a noble idea of the Commonwealth and its proper
government has thus come into being. Likewise, it ought to be added,
except in times of political excitement, and in the case of professional
politicians, it is generally acknowledged that the conception of the
British Government in India is noble, and that many officers of
Government are truly the servants of the people. It is not suggested
that the policy or the methods should be radically altered. The
politician's theme is that the Government is more expensive and less
sympathetic than it might be, because of the employment of alien
Europeans where natives might be employed.
[Sidenote: The new national consciousness.]
[Sidenote: English rule, a chief cause.]
[Sidenote: The very name _Indian_ is English.]
Other new political ideas follow the lines of social change. We have
seen how in the modern school, the idea of caste gives way before the
idea of rank in the school, to be followed in College by the idea of
intellectual distinction, and still later in life by the idea of success
in some modern career. In the political sphere, modern life is also busy
dissolving the older and narrower conceptions of life. Atop of the
sectarian consciousness of being a Hindu or the provincial consciousness
of belonging to Bengal or Bombay, is coming the consciousness of being
an Indian. This consciousness of a national unity is one of the
outstanding features of the time in India, all the more striking because
hitherto India has been so unwieldily large, and her people incoherent,
like dry sand. "The Indian never knew the feeling of nationality," says
Max Müller. "The very name of India is a synonym for caste, as opposed
to nationality," says Sister Nivedita, the pro-Hindu lady already
referred to, who likewise notes the emergence of the national idea.[35]
"Public spirit or patriotism, as we understand it, never existed among
the Hindus," writes Mr. Bose, himself an Indian, author of a recent work
on _Hindu Civilisation under British Rule_.[36] And Raja Rammohan Roy,
the famous Bengali reformer of the beginning of the nineteenth century,
we have already heard denouncing the caste system as "destructive of
national union." From what then, during the nineteenth century, has the
national consciousness come forth? Many causes may be cited. The actual
unification effected by the postal, the telegraph, and the railway
organisation, has done much. The omnipresence of the foreign government,
all-controlling, has also done much. The current coins and the postage
stamps with King Edward's head upon them--the same all over India, a few
native states excepted--bring home the union of India to the most
ignorant. The constant criticism of the Government in the native press,
the meetings of the All-India political association called the Congress,
and the fact that modern interests, stimulated by daily telegrams from
all over the world, are international, not provincial or sectarian--all
these things combine to give to the modern educated Indian a new Indian
national consciousness in place of the old provincial and sectarian one.
In short, the British rule has united India, and the awakened mind of
India is rejoicing in the consciousness of the larger existence, and is
identifying the ancient glories of certain centres in North India with
this new India created by Britain. Never before was there a united India
in the modern political sense; never, indeed, could there be until
modern inventions brought distant places near each other. Two great
Indian empires there certainly were in the third century B.C. and the
fourth and fifth centuries A.D., and the paternal benevolence of Asoka,
the great Buddhist emperor of the third century B.C., deserves record
and all honour. Let Indians know definitely who deserves to be called an
ancient Indian emperor, when they wish to lament a lost past; and
descending to historical fact and detail, let them compare that period
with the present. The later empire referred to was an empire only in the
old sense of a collection of vassal states. Turning back to the hoary
past, in which many Indians, even of education, imagine there was a
golden Indian empire, we can trace underneath the ancient epic, the
Ramayan, a conquering progress southward to Ceylon itself of a great
Aryan hero, Ram. But of any Indian empire founded by him, we know
nothing. "One who has carefully studied the Ramayan will be impressed
with the idea that the Aryan conquest had spread over parts of Northern
India only, at the time of the great events which form its
subjects."[37] Coming down to the period of the greatest extent of the
Moghul empire in India in the end of the seventeenth century, we find
the Emperor Aurangzeb with as extensive a military empire as that of
Asoka, but with the Mahrattas rising behind him even while he was
extending his empire southwards. That decadent military despotism cannot
be thought of as a union of India. In truth, the old Aryan conquest of
India was not a political conquest, and never has been; it was a
conquest, very complete in the greater part of India, of new social
usages and certain new religious ideas. The first complete political
conquest of India by Aryans was the British conquest, and the ideas
which have come in or been awakened thereby, we are now engaged in
tracing. As regards the new idea of nationality, we have noted that the
new national name _Indian_ now heard upon political platforms, is not a
native term, but an importation from Britain along with the English
language. How, indeed, could the educated Indian employ any other term
with the desired comprehensiveness? If he speak of _Hindus_, he excludes
Mahomedans and followers of other religions; if he use a Sanscrit term
for _Indians_, he still fails to touch the hearts of Mahomedans and
others who identify Sanscrit with Hindus. There is no course left but to
use the English language, even while criticising the British rulers. The
English language has been a prime factor in evoking the new national
consciousness, and in the English language the Indian must speak to his
new found fellow Indians.[38] Even a considerable portion of the
literature of the attempted Revival of Hinduism is in English, strange
as the conjunction sounds.
How the thought of Indian unity over against the sovereignty of Britain
may reach down even to the humblest, the writer once observed in a
humble street in Calcutta. A working man was receiving his farthing's
worth of entertainment from a peep-show. His eyes were glued to the
peepholes, to secure his money's worth, for the farthing was no small
sum to him; and the showman was standing by describing the successive
scenes in a loud voice, with intent both to serve his customer and to
stimulate the bystanders' curiosity. Three of the scenes were: "This is
the house of the great Queen near London city," "This is one of the
great Queen's lords writing an order to the Viceroy of Calcutta," "This
is the great committee that sits in London city." He actually used the
English word _committee_, the picture probably showing the House of
Commons or the House of Lords. Thus the political constitution of India
and its unity under Britain are inculcated among the humblest. In the
minds of the educated, one need not then be surprised at the growth of a
sense of Indian unity over against British supremacy.
[Sidenote: The Indian National Congress.]
[Sidenote: English, the _lingua franca_ of the Congress.]
The Indian National Congress, or All-India political association, is the
embodiment of this new national consciousness of educated Indians, the
only embodiment possible while India is so divided in social and
religious matters. Were there only ten or twelve million Mahomedans in
India instead of sixty, the new national consciousness would undoubtedly
have been a Hindu or religious, instead of a political, consciousness.
But in matters religious, Hindu looks across a gulf at Mahomedan, and
Mahomedan at Hindu, neither expecting the other to cross over.
Christianity, third in numbers in India proper, proclaims the Christian
Gospel to both Hindus and Mahomedans, but is regarded by both as an
alien.[39] Nor is any All-India _social_ movement possible while social
differences are so sacred as they are. But politically, all India _is_
already _one_; her educated men have drunk at _one_ well of political
ideas; citizenship and its rights are attractive and destroy no
cherished customs; and in the English language there is a new _lingua
franca_ in unison with the new ideas. The Indian National Congress is
the natural outcome. There, representatives of races which a hundred
years ago made war on one another, of castes that never either eat
together or intermarry, now fraternise in one peaceful assembly,
inspired by the novel idea that they are citizens. The Congress meets
annually in December in one or other of the cities of India. The first
meeting at Bombay in 1885 has been described as follows[40]: "There were
men from Madras, the blackness of whose complexions seemed to be made
blacker by spotless white turbans which some of them wore. A few others
hailing from the same Presidency were in simplest native fashion,
bareheaded and barefooted and otherwise lightly clad, their bodies from
the waist upwards being only partially protected by muslin shawls. They
had preferred to retain their national dress and manners; and in this
respect they presented a marked contrast to the delegates from Bengal.
Some of these appeared in entirely European costume, while others could
easily be recognised as Bengalis by the peculiar cap with a flap behind
which they had donned. None of them wore the gold rings or diamond
pendants which adorned the ears of some of the Madrassees; nor had they
their foreheads painted like their more orthodox and more conservative
brethren from the Southern presidency. There were Hindustanis from
Delhi, Agra, and Lucknow, some of whom wore muslin skull-caps and
dresses chiefly made of the same fine cloth. There were delegates from
the North-West--bearded, bulky, and large-limbed men--in their coats and
flowing robes of different hues, and in turbans like those worn by Sikh
soldiers. There were stalwart Sindhees from Karachee wearing their own
tall hat surmounted by a broad brim at top instead of bottom. In the
strange assemblage were to be observed the familiar figures of Banyas
from Gujarat, of Mahrattas in their cart-wheel turbans, and of Parsees
in their not very elegant head-dress, likened to a slanting roof.
Assembled in the same hall, they presented a variety of costumes and
complexions scarcely to be witnessed except at a fancy ball." Now and
again, we may add, a speaker expresses himself in a vernacular, and with
the inborn Indian courtesy and patience the assembly will listen; but
the language of the motley gathering is English; the address of the
president and his rulings are in English; the protests, claims, and
resolutions of the Congress are in English. For in the sphere of
politics, the new national feeling _confessedly_ looks to Britain for
ideals. Apologies for India's social customs and for her religious ideas
and ideals are not wanting in India at the present time, for in matters
social and religious, as we shall see, the political reformers are often
ardently conservative, or pro-Indian at least. But in the sphere of
politics it is the complete democratic constitution of Britain that
looms before India's leaders. Britons can view with sympathy the rise of
the national feeling as the natural and inevitable fruit of contact with
Britain and of education in the language of freedom, and even although
the new problems of Indian statesmanship may call forth all the powers
of British statesmen. Like a young man conscious of noble lineage and of
great intellectual power, New India, brought up under Britain's care, is
loudly asserting that she can now take over the management of the
continent which Britain has unified and made what it is.
Where the "National Congress" and the Congress ideas have sprung from is
manifest when she first presents herself upon the Indian stage. As her
first president she has a distinguished barrister of Calcutta, Mr. W.C.
Bonnerjee, of brahman caste by birth, but out of caste altogether
because of frequent visits to Britain. Patriot though he is--nay,
rather, as a true patriot, he has broken and cast away the shackles of
caste. His English education is manifest when he opens his lips, for in
India there is no more complete master of the English language, and very
few greater masters will be found even in Britain. Further, as her first
General Secretary and general moving spirit, the first Congress has a
Scotchman, Mr. A.O. Hume, commonly known as the "Father of the
Congress." His leading of the Congress we can understand when we know
that he is the son of the celebrated reformer and member of Parliament,
the late Dr. Joseph Hume.
[Sidenote: Representative Government.]
Several of the claims of the Congress have been conceded in whole or in
part. Since the first meeting in 1885, elected members have been added
to the Legislative Councils in the three chief provinces, Bengal,
Madras, and Bombay, and new Legislative Councils set up in the United
Provinces and the Punjab. To the Council for all India, the Viceroy's
Council, also have been added five virtually elected members, out of a
council now numbering about twenty-two members in all. Four of the new
members represent the chief provinces, and the fifth the Chamber of
Commerce, Calcutta. Other five the Viceroy nominates to represent other
provinces or other interests. Looking at the representation of Indians,
it is noteworthy that in 1880 only two Indians had seats in the
Viceroy's Council, whereas in 1905 there were no fewer than six. The
Provincial Legislative Council of Bombay will suffice as illustration of
the stage which Representative Government has now reached. Eight of the
twenty-two members are virtually elected. That is to say, certain bodies
nominate representatives, and only in most exceptional circumstances
would the Governor refuse to accept the nominees. And who make the
nominations? Who are the electors enjoying the new political citizenship
of India? We shall not expect that the electors are "the people" in the
British or American sense: no Congress yet asks for political rights for
them. The idea regarding citizenship still is that it is a royal
concession, as it were to royal burghs, not that it is one of the rights
of men. The University elects a member to the Governor's Council, for it
has intelligence and can make its voice heard; the Corporation of Bombay
elects a representative, for in the capital are concentrated the
enlightenment and the wealth of the province; the importance of the
British merchants must be recognised, and so the Chambers of Commerce of
Bombay and Karachi send each a representative. Other groups of
municipalities elect one; the boards of certain country districts elect
one; and finally two groups of landlords elect one representative each.
It comes to this, that the men of learning, the burgesses of the chief
towns, the British traders, and the landowners and country gentlemen,
have now a measure of citizenship in the modern sense of the word.
The same feeling of citizenship has been given recognition to in 759
towns, whose municipalities are now partly elected, the right of
election having been greatly extended by the Local Self-Government Acts
of 1882-84. In these Municipalities even more than in the higher
Councils the new educated Indian comes to the front. According to the
roll of voters, it is property that enjoys the municipal franchise;
emphatically so, for a wealthy citizen of Calcutta might conceivably
cast three hundred votes for his Municipality throughout the twenty-five
wards of the city; but they are English-speaking Indians in all cases
who are returned as members. Politically, this is the day of the
English-educated Indians. Such is the stage of the recognition of this
new idea of citizenship in India. The idea represents a great advance
during the British period, although, broadly speaking, it has not yet
reached the stage of British opinion prior to 1832. Nevertheless one
feels justified in saying that in present circumstances the desire of
the educated class for a measure of citizenship has been reasonably met.
Of course at the examination for the Indian Civil Service, held annually
in London, the Indian competes on a complete equality with all the youth
of the Empire.