# Young India/Chapter 1

YOUNG INDIA
AN INTERPRETATION AND A HISTORY
OF THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
FROM WITHIN
CHAPTER I
THE GENERAL VIEWPOINT OF THE INDIAN NATIONALIST
Indian History rolls back to thousands of years before the Christian Era. Much of it is still enveloped in mystery. What little is known has been discovered and put in shape within the last hundred years. The materials, from which the early History of India has been prepared, have long been in existence, but little of them were known to the Western people.
It can not be said that a complete history of Ancient India has been fully and finally constructed. What is known has been discovered bit by bit. Much yet remains to be found and put in order. It is quite unsafe, therefore, to dogmatise about the deficiencies of Ancient Indian civilisation. Yet this much can be said with certainty, that centuries before the birth of Christ India possessed a marvellous civilisation, a wonderful literature, a well ​organised social system, a conception of government based on law and on the legal rights of subjects inter se, as well as against the ruling monarch.
We have, besides, ample evidences in the ancient literature of India, as translated and interpreted by Western scholars, to the effect that democratic institutions were not unknown to Ancient India. Nor can it be said that the idea of universal sovereignty over the whole of India under one permanent power was unknown to the Hindus. How often it was realised and for how long, can not be said with any certainty.
First Invasion of India. The first political and military invasion of India known to history was that of Alexander the Great in 326 b. c. Alexander was no doubt victorious up to a certain point, but he never conquered India, nor did he occupy it. He did not reach even so far into the interior as Delhi on the Jumna. He is said to have left behind him some officers to administer the affairs of the conquered province, but it is a well established historical fact that in the conflict between Chandra Gupta, the Hindu, and Seleucus, the Greek, who was the chief ruling authority in Babylon after the death of Alexander, Seleucus was practically worsted and a peace was concluded by which the independence of India was fully realised. Chandra Gupta ruled over the whole of India north of ​Vindhyachal. Bengal as far east as Assam, and the Punjab as far west as Afghanistan, were among his provinces. Fortunately for us, we have enough independent testimony in the writings of Megasthenes, the Greek Ambassador at the court of Chandra Gupta, and other contemporaneous Greek writers, as to the state of India at that time.
Chandra Gupta and Asoka. Megasthenes’ account of the Government of Chandra Gupta and of the details of the administration under him, is enough to fill every Indian with pride. Chandra Gupta’s organisation4 included almost every form of governmental activity known to modern Europe. There was a separate department of labour under him, a separate registrar of births, deaths and marriages, a minister who looked after public charities, another in charge of trade and commerce, one in charge of agriculture, and so on. He had a great army, a currency and a navy. Even then the system of commercial papers was well known to Indians, who had a great name for honesty and truthfulness. Their word was better than a bond. Chandra Gupta was followed by Asoka, perhaps the greatest and noblest Emperor India has had during the historical period. Under him the whole coun¬ try was consolidated under one imperial sway. He ruled not by force, but by love. His love extended even to animals. He is known to have organised hospitals for the treatment of animals. All this happened before Christ was born. Between 326 For an account of Chandra Gupta’s Government see Early ​and the middle of the eighth century A. D., India knew no foreign masters, in the sense that it was never ruled for any length of time from without. A few of the nomadic tribes of Central Asia did penetrate into India, only to be absorbed and assimilated by the mass of the Aryans already settled and in power there.
The next foreign invasion of India, which was to leave a permanent mark on the history and institutions of India and with which starts an altogether separate epoch in Indian history, was by Abul Qasim in the middle of the eighth century. For full 400 years the Mohammedans knocked at the door of India before they could establish a kingdom there. The first Mohammedan King of Delhi was Kutb-ud-din Aibak, who established a dynasty in 1206 A. D. The Mohammedans were in possession of some parts of Sindh and the Punjab between the eighth and the twelfth centuries, but India was not conquered nor the Hindus beaten until Prithvi Raj, the last Rajput King of Delhi, was defeated by the treachery of a brother Rajput chief in the year 1193 A. D.
India Practically Independent up to the Twelfth Century. It will be thus seen that India was practically independent up to the beginning of the thirteenth century a. d. By independent, I mean that no foreign rule had been imposed upon it from without. Some parts of the northwestern provinces of the Punjab and Sindh had been for some time under Muslim domination, but the main territory was under native rulers and native laws. As ​said before, the tribes that overran the northwestern parts of India between the invasion of Alexander the Great and that of Abul Qasim, came to settle. Once settled there, they adopted the religion and the social life of the country and were merged with the natives. Thenceforth there was no distinction between them and the other Indian people.
Muslim Rule. The Mohammedan rule over India lasted for six centuries with varying vicissitudes of fortune. For three centuries, from the thirteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, their rule was practically confined to Northern India. Deccan, Rajputana and Central India were always more or less independent until Akbar consolidated the whole country under his flag; though even he failed to vanquish Partap, the invincible Rana of Udeypore (Rajputana). Partap was defeated, was driven out of his capital, was pursued and harassed, but he did not make his submission to the Mogul. Akbar won over to his side almost all the other Rajput chiefs, some by his prowess, others by friendship, but the Sessodia chief would not bend his knee. His countrymen simply worshipped him. So strong was the feeling of patriotism and the love of independence among the Hindus, even then, that when Akbar one day announced in the Durbar that he had received ​a petition of submission from Partap, the Rajputs present in the Durbar refused to believe him. It is well known how one of them, Prithvi Raj, a poet, wrote to Partap of the indescribable grief the report had caused them, and telling him that the Hindu sun would set forever if Partap would yield; and how he received an answer that the report was wrong and that Partap would never yield and would keep the flag flying. That shows how a Hindu servant of Akbar, who had made his submission and accepted the service of the Mogul, felt in the matter. Although beaten himself, he would not acknowledge that the Hindus had been finally beaten so long as Partap was resisting the Mogul arms. It speaks very highly of the broad-mindedness of Akbar that, so far back as the sixteenth century, he allowed one of his Hindu captives and servants to speak out so boldly and plainly of his love of Hindu independence. Akbar, we must remember, had succeeded in making alliances with almost all the other important Rajput houses. The proud Rahtores had given him a daughter for a bride, and the Kutchwahas, Bikanir and Boondi had also submitted. So Partap had to fight the combined forces of Akbar and his own brother-Rajput chiefs, some of whom were related to him by the dearest ties of blood and marriage. Yet singlehanded, for a quarter of a century, did he withstand the efforts of the mighty empire over which Akbar ruled to force his submission. In the words ​of Colonel Tod, it is worthy “ the attention of those who influence the destinies of states in more favoured climes to estimate the intensity of feeling which could arm Partap to oppose the resources of a small principality against the then most powerful empire in the world, whose armies were more numerous and far more efficient than any ever led by the Persians against the liberties of Greece.”
On his deathbed Partap made his successor swear to eternal conflict against “ the foes of his country’s independence.” This was in the sixteenth century, four hundred years after the first Muslim king had ascended the throne of Delhi. But a hundred years had hardly gone by after the event when the Hindus again questioned Muslim supremacy. The Sikhs in the Punjab, the Rajputs in Central India, and the Mahrattas in the Deccan, had started their campaigns before Aurangzeb died in 1707 A. D. The Muslim supremacy was destroyed by the Hindus and not by the British.
Muslim Rule in India not Foreign. Yet it is not right to say that the Muslim rule in India was a “ foreign rule.” The Muslim invaders were no doubt foreign in their origin, just as the Normans and Danes were when they came to England, but as soon as they settled in India, adopted the country, made it their home, married and raised children there, they became the sons of the soil. Akbar and Aurangzeb were as much Indians as are to-day the Moguls and Pathans in Delhi or elsewhere. Sher Shah and Ibrahim Lodi were no more foreigners in ​India than were the descendants of William the Conqueror or the successors of William of Orange in Great Britain. When Timur and Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali attacked India, they attacked a kingdom which was ruled by Indian Muslims. They were as much the enemies of the Mohammedan rulers of India as of the Hindus.
The Muslims, who exercised political sovereignty in India from the thirteenth up to the middle of the nineteenth century a. d., were Indians by birth, Indians by marriage, and Indians by death. They were born in India, they married there, there they died, and there they were buried. Every penny of the revenues they raised in India was spent in India. Their army was wholly Indian. They allowed new families from beyond the borders of Hindustan to come and settle in India, but they very rarely, if at all, employed people who were not willing to stay in India for good and to make it their home. Their bias, if any, against the Hindus was religious, not political. The converts to Islam were sometimes treated even with greater consideration than the original Muslims. Akbar, of course, did away with that distinction, but even the most bigoted and the most orthodox Mohammedan ruler of India was not possessed of that kind of social pride and social exclusiveness which distinguishes the British ruler of India to-day. If the racial question ever came into prominence during Mohammedan supremacy in India, it was not between Hindus and Mohammedans, but between Mohammedans and ​Mohammedans, as for instance between Tuglaks and Pathans, or between Moguls and Lodis.
In the reign of rulers like Sher Shah, Akbar, Jehangir, and Shah Jahan, the Hindus were eligible for the highest offices under the crown next after the princes of royal blood. They were governors of provinces, generals of armies, and rulers of districts and divisions. In short, the distinctions between the Hindus and Muslims were neither political nor social. Looked at from the political and the economic point of view, the Government was as much indigenous as under Hindu rule. The Muslims never attempted to disarm the population; nor did they prohibit the manufacture or import of arms. They did not recruit their servants from Arabia, or Persia, or Afghanistan. They had no Lancashire industries to protect, and were under no necessity of imposing excise duties on Indian-made goods. They brought their own language and literature with them. For a time, perhaps, they transacted all government business through that language, but eventually they evolved a language which is as much Indian as any other vernacular spoken in India to-day. The groundwork of this language, which is now called Urdu or Hindustani, is purely Indian. The Muslim rulers of India had no anxiety for, and were in no way concerned with, the prosperity of the labouring classes of Persia or Afghanistan. If any one sought their patronage, he had to come to and settle in India. So their ​government was an Indian government and not a foreign government.
History does not record a single instance of India being ruled from without, by a people of purely non-Indian blood and in the interests of another country and another people, before the British. India was always an empire by herself. She was never a part of another empire, much less a dependency. She had her own army, her own navy, her own flag. Her revenues were spent for her own benefit. She had her industries and manufactured the goods she consumed. Any one wanting the privilege of trading with India under special terms had to obtain the sanction of her government, as the East India Company did. There was no India Office in Arabia or in Persia or in Kabul, to which the people of India looked for initiative in the affairs of their native land.
INDIA UNDER THE BRITISH
India under the British is, however, entirely different. For the first time in history she becomes ​a part of another empire. India to-day is not an empire by herself, but a part of the British Empire, as Britain once was a part of the Roman Empire. For the first time in history she has been reduced to the position of a dependency. For the first time in her history she is ruled from the outside. For the first time the Indians have been reduced to the
​position of a subject people, governed by an alien race residing in a different and far-off country. For the first time she is ruled by a sovereign who does not live in India, who sends out every five years a viceroy to administer the affairs of the country under the authority of a minister, in a foreign land. For the first time her affairs are managed by people who come and go, under laws made outside of India. All the chief offices of state, the direction and control of armies, the administration of revenues, of divisions, of districts, the coining of money, the administration of justice, the imposing of taxes, etc., are generally in the hands of foreigners who have absolutely no interest in the country except as servants of the crown, persons whose interests in the country cease with the expiration of their term of service. These servants are recruited and appointed out of India. Indians as such are virtually ineligible for many of these offices. During the 150 years of British rule in India, no Indian has been appointed to the governorship of any province. Indians are ineligible for commissions in the army; they cannot be enrolled as volunteers. In order to qualify for the Civil service of their own country, they have to travel six thousand miles, to take the chance of succeeding once in a while. Political Disqualification of the Indians. For the first time in the political history of India it has become a political disqualification to be an ​Indian. The offspring of an Englishman, domiciled in India and married to an Indian lady, loses in rank and status by that fact; nor does the issue of an Indian gentleman from an Englishwoman gain anything thereby. So the inferiority in both ways lies in Indian blood and Indian origin. The Muslim who married in India, or the Indian who married a Persian or Afghan, were not affected thereby in their political privileges in the Mohammedan regime. An Indian convert to Christianity is in no better position in India than a Hindu or a Muslim. Thus it is not a religious inferiority or a religious distinction, upon which the political disabilities of an Indian are based, but the fact of his being an Indian by blood and by birth. Never before was India governed by a handful of officers, military and civil, who came to rule for a period, going away when that period was over, only to be replaced by another set equally temporary. India thus loses all or most of what these receive in the shape of money; she loses all the experience which they gain in the different spheres of activity that engages them during the period of their service in India; last but not least, she is deprived of the satisfaction and pride of claiming these men as her sons, who would in their turn take pride in her and feel as sons should for their mother. They come as her rulers, and till the end remain the same. Their sons and grandsons also may in their turn come as rulers, but never as sons. The sons of India, who gain the rank of officials, are only servants of the British. Their position in the Indian services is ​generally that of drawers of water and hewers of wood for their British masters.
All Europeans, Eurasians including Armenians and Jews can carry arms free of license; not so the Indians. In India, the ^Indians only are forbidden to carry arms except by special permission of their masters; and permission is of course granted very sparingly and as a matter of favour, as a special concession and not as a right. The highest, the noblest, and the purest among the Indians has to be excepted from the operation of the Arms Act, as an act of mercy on the part of his foreign rulers. In the hills of his own native country, where his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents before him were born, where they perhaps ruled or held positions of trust, where they died, where they fertilised the soil with their blood, and where within less than a century they enjoyed absolute freedom, he, their immediate descendant, must not carry an umbrella over his head to give him shelter from rain or sun without the risk of being kicked to death or being insulted by the lowest among the foreign masters of his country.The hoary Himalayas, the beloved abode of his most respected divinities, are in some places virtually shut against him because the “white gods ” have developed a fancy for them.
But that is not all. Even outside India he carries the badge of political subjection with him. The British colonies, more than any other country, bang their doors on him. He is a pariah all over ​the world. Considering that this is his position in his home, he could hardly be anything else outside. The British Government does not like his going abroad except as an indentured coolie to the British colonies. He may go to England on a pleasure trip, but they do not want Indians there in any numbers. They particularly dislike his going to America and settling there. The reason is obvious. Travelling abroad gives him opportunities of comparing British rule in India with the forms of government prevailing in other countries. Free atmosphere and free environment raise aspirations which are dangerous, at any rate inconvenient to British supremacy in India. Moreover, they effectively break down the hypnotism which has so far enthralled the Indian mind in its judgments regarding British character. On his return to India, a travelled Indian becomes a centre of discontent. In the course of their travels some Indians meet the free-thinkers and revolutionaries of Europe and learn their methods. All this is naturally disliked by the British.
Therefore, of late, the British have been taking steps to discourage foreign travelling on the part of Indians. They have been trying to keep Indian students out of Great Britain by imposing conditions which are repellent. They have raised the educational standards which had formerly secured them admission into British universities and British Inns of Court. They have organised an official bureau in London which, ostensibly acting as their guardian and adviser, discourages them from enter​ing British universities, keeps a vigilant eye on their movements, reports on their conduct to the authorities at home, and insists upon their seeking admission to British educational institutions through it. At all Indian ports there are police officers present, who note down the names of, and particulars relating to, every Indian who leaves Indian shores. Thenceforth two eyes are almost always watching him, go wherever he may.
To him, the British embassies in the different countries of the world mean nothing. He is afraid of seeking their help, first for fear of getting a rebuff and being insulted, second because he is afraid of circumstances being created which might force his early departure from that country. His wrongs are nobody’s wrongs. He may be assaulted, nay, even killed, or insulted, or robbed, or ill-treated, yet he has no government to look to his interests. The British Government does not resent other countries’ excluding him; they are rather happy at it and in some cases are understood to have exercised their influence against his entry into foreign countries. The self-governing dominions of the British Empire have built a solid wall of most revolting and inhuman laws and regulations against his entry into those dominions. He cannot go there, even on a pleasure trip or for study, except by submitting to impossible tests or most revolting conditions. ​In this respect he is much better treated by nonBritish countries. Till recently he could come and go there quite freely. No European country bars his visits. Of late the United States, it is said, at the instance of the British Government, has been following a policy of exclusion. But once in the country, all universities and institutions receive him, provided he fulfils their conditions and complies with their regulations. That much, however, cannot be said of Great Britain. It is true that Great Britain imposes no restrictions on his coming and going, as she imposes no restrictions on any one else’s coming and going, but there are British institutions which would not admit him as a student, however high his social position or status may be. Even those institutions which admit him for study, discriminate against him in the matter of military drill. They would not admit him into their volunteer corps; nor would they take him as a boy scout. A great many of the British clubs would have nothing to do with him. The only British club of note, which has a fairly good number of Indians on its rolls and which accords them a welcome, is the National Liberal Club. This club is a noble exception.
Now the British must be an extremely unimaginative people, if they think that all this does not make the Indian feel the inferiority of his position. The latter, naturally, ascribes all this to the fact of his country’s having no national government of her own to protect him and to advance his interests. All this reminds him most forcibly of the fact that ​he belongs to a subject race, that his country does not count in the world because she is not free and has no embassies, that she has no flag of her own, nor consular representatives to back her sons, and that in the great mass of civilised humanity he is a mere cypher. All this naturally tells on his nerves and he becomes an extremist. He feels that anything would be preferable to this life of shame and dishonor.
It is difficult for people who have never been placed in a similar position to realise the sense of humiliation and shame involved in this condition of things. Let the British for a moment imagine themselves under similar circumstances, and they may then be in a position to appreciate the point of view of an Indian nationalist. Let us suppose for a moment that the Germans conquer England and impose their rule on the British race. How would the British like their country being administered by a viceroy of the Kaiser selected by the German Chancellor, with the help of a council consisting of Germans and of a bureaucracy recruited almost exclusively from Prussia, with only a sprinkling of native Britishers? No one can question the efficiency of the German system. The strong hand of Germany might keep Ireland in peace and prevent the suffragists and the socialists and the Roman Catholics disturbing public tranquillity. They might even employ a whole army of Britishers in the subordinate posts, might pay them handsomely for military and police duty, might confer decorations and titles on them, might build even greater ​engineering works for them than they had ever done, and might let them retain their language for elementary education or for religious or domestic purposes. Would the English be satisfied and would they be contented? Would they consider German rule to be a blessing and judge it by trade returns? Never! Why then, should they question the patriotism or good sense of the Indians who want self-government for India? Did not Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman say that good government could never be a substitute for self-government?
The fact is, that it is impossible for a free-born citizen of a free country to put himself in the position of a political subject and realise fully and properly the sense of humiliation and shame involved therein. The feeling is unknown to him, and he has not sufficient imagination to place himself in that position. Why cannot a Britisher see that every Indian, visiting foreign countries, has to hang his head in shame?
British statesmen, politicians, publicists and journalists all talk of the blessings of British rule in India, of what the British have done there in establishing peace and order, in making railways and canals, in imparting education, in stimulating trade, in administering impartial justice, in fostering ​industries, in organising the postal and the telegraph systems, and in opening the country to the world.They cannot see why the Indian should wish to get rid of the British. The British have done so much for him, have brought civilisation to his door, have raised him from “obscurity,” have given him their language and their institutions, have opened to him the gates of knowledge, have provided for him security from both domestic and foreign dangers, and have put him on the road to ever-increasing prosperity and “happiness.” Let us assume for the moment that all this is wholly true, but can it compensate for the loss of manhood which is involved in political bondage? Chains are chains, no matter if gilded. Can the wealth of the whole world be put in the scales over against liberty and honour? What would it avail if one were to get the sovereignty of the world but lose his own soul? A subject people has no soul, just as a slave can have none. Subjects and slaves are not even the masters of their bodies.
An Indian leader, a high-class Bengali lawyer, who is now one of His Majesty’s judges in the High Court of Calcutta, once said, while presiding over a conference in Bengal before he became a judge, that a subject people could have no politics. A people who have no politics have no soul. A man without a soul is a mere animal. A nation without a soul is only a herd of “dumb driven cattle,” and such are the Indians of the present day. It is a base calumny, and a mean falsehood to say in reply, that they have been so from time ​immemorial, that they have never been free, that they have never cared who ruled over them, that they have never been patriotic, or that patriotism and a feeling of nationality are new growths due to contact with the West, and that the Indian people do not sympathise with the aspirations of the nationalists. Of course, there are some people in India, as elsewhere, who, through rolling in wealth, living in purple, inheriting long pedigrees, carrying high titles, bearing proud names, seem to be happy and contented under the existing conditions. For them, the security from molestation they have, the freedom of enjoyment they possess, the comforts and luxuries which they command, the pleasure which is born of inactive, lazy, parasitic, debauched lives, is all in all. Any change may bring all this edifice down; it may spell ruin to them and their children. The immunity from work, which they at present enjoy, may all disappear by a change of political conditions. The British Government has guaranteed them not only their possessions, but also their right to live and thrive on the ignorance, the superstitions, and the mental and moral slavery of their followers and subjects.
Such are some of the Nabobs and Maharajas of India. Many of them might have to cut stones and make roads to earn their living, if they were not protected by British bayonets. Their harems consisting of numerous innocent women doomed to life-long imprisonment, to lives of barrenness and shame and emptiness, their big cellars full of the choicest and the oldest of whiskies, brandies, and ​champagnes, their stables full of the swiftest and the noblest of race horses, their drawing rooms decorated with gold, silver, silk and velvet, all that money can buy and art can embellish, their dining tables laden with all inviting dishes and delicacies which the best paid cuisine in the world can produce, their ability to travel in special trains and gorgeous saloons, and to command a new woman and a new wine every day of the year, and to move in the most fashionable circles,— all depend on the continuance of the existing conditions. For them, this is life. They do not know what honour is. For them, struggle, strife, duty, political change, mean a dislocation of everything dear to them. It would be practical death to them. Yes, it may be true that such people do not care for political liberty, for freedom, for independence, for patriotism. For them, their present life is bliss and they do not want to be molested either by the politician or by the patriot.
But their number is not large. Some of the ruling chiefs may not speak out, but in their heart of hearts many of them feel the humiliation of the situation. A Maharana of Udeypore may not be in a position to assert his independence and take the chance of losing his State, but even he may not consent to walk behind a Curzon in a coronation procession in honour of the King of England and the foreign Emperor of India. A Gaekwar of Baroda may be powerless as against the British army and British navy, but even he, in a moment of exalted self-respect, may forget to make an abject obeisance ​to the King of England. Such men and even many of less worth and nobility, cannot put up with a Lord Curzon. It is good for their sense of self-respect and also for the country at large to have a Curzon for a viceroy. It reminds them, as nothing else perhaps would, of their degradation and fall.
It is very interesting to observe how the Indian Chiefs writhe and fret and foam when a Curzon threatens their privileges, tries to limit their freedom, and otherwise trespasses upon their rights. It is then that a wave of shame sweeps over them and touches some lingering sense of self-respect and pride in their hearts. But the infamous, lazy, debauched lives which some of them have led make it impossible for them to maintain this indignation long enough for it to goad them to any sustained effort to throw away their thraldom and assert their manhood. The injecting of an electric current may temporarily revive a dead body, may produce some kind of activity even in a parasite, but it cannot put life into it.
But after all, as compared with the number of people who are alive to the sense of self-respect and honour, the parasitical crowned heads or priests or noblemen (Nabobs, Rajas, and Maharajas) are only a few. They are a mere drop in the ocean, though they possess the means of keeping themselves in the public eye and of having their trumpets blown and praises sung by the press and from the platform both in India and in England. The British too are interested in keeping them at the front, in parading their loyalty and devotion to the ​empire, and in magnifying their importance and greatness.
There are few among the nobility of India who command any real respect either from the educated section of their countrymen in general, or even from their own subjects and dependents. Of course there are noble exceptions to this statement. And yet it is true that a large number of ruling chiefs are mere figureheads in their states. Their policy is either dictated or guided or controlled by the British Resident or the British Political Agent through his creatures or through persons, who, though not quite his creatures, are afraid of his displeasure. In some states, the Resident interferes in almost everything, and all the details of administration pass through his fingers either directly or indirectly. In others, the Resident watches the administration from a distance and lays down the broad outlines of policy. There are few native states, their number may be counted on one’s fingers, where the ruling chief has a will or capacity to really assert himself, to stand on his dignity, and to maintain his independence. Even the most enlightened and the most independent Prince is compelled to consult the wishes of the Resident and the wishes of the Government of India as expressed by him.
Loyalty of Ruling Chiefs. It would be quite wrong to conclude, as some people do, that all the ruling chiefs are sincerely loyal to the British supremacy, or that their acts displaying loyalty are free and independent expressions of their minds ​or their will. Some of them are devoid of any real sense of honour, or are lost to it by habitual submission or habitual debauchery. They are quite contented to be left alone to enjoy. There are others, however, who would be only too glad to throw away the British yoke, if they could only see a way of successfully doing so. They are not prepared to take their chances. It should be distinctly understood, therefore, that the Nationalist Party does not count upon their help or sympathy. A good many perhaps sympathise with the party of violence, and chuckle at their successes, but none of them dare do anything to help them in any shape. A few openly sympathise with the “constitutional” party, but even they cannot and would not give them any monetary or other kind of help as it might easily be construed into an act of unfriendliness towards the Paramount Power, and might mar their relations with that.
The smaller fry, the wealthy banker, the great landlord, the Bengal Zemindar, and the Oudh Talukdar, are almost completely in the hands of the British officials. The sympathy of the British officials benefits them materially. Their antipathy or dislike or aversion would ruin them financially. The British collector or magistrate holds complete sway over their souls. They would rather go out of their way to propitiate him and win his pleasure, than risk the slightest suspicion of an independent attitude, or of any conduct which even by stretch of imagination could be construed into ​independence. Yet there are some, in Bengal at least, who do sympathise with, and give active help to, the Revolutionary Party. There are others who sympathise with, and give occasional monetary assistance to, the Constitutional Party. The latter class does not count for much in Indian politics, and anything said or done by them cannot be said to represent the attitude of any very large section of the Indian community.
Men of wealth and men of means have nowhere led the revolutionary or the political movements in the history of freedom in this world of ours. Their interests as a class are opposed to change. Sometimes there does arise from among their ranks a man of courage, a man endowed with an adventurous nature or fired by ambition, who leads the movement for change, in the hope of either establishing a dynasty, or otherwise leaving a name in history; and sometimes one comes across a wealthy man who, out of regard for principle, and from conviction, is a patriot, and joins the patriotic party deliberately, and risks his possessions and position; but such instances are always few and far between in all countries.
Middle Class Desires Political Freedom. The desire for political independence, the sense of shame and humiliation born of being a subject race, of being a political pariah, must from the nature of things be confined largely to the educated middle class. Even the masses could not be expected to take a very deep interest in the movement for political independence. Their ignorance, their ​illiteracy, but most of all the hard struggle they have to carry on for barest existence, prevents them from devoting time or thought to the question. Their time and thought are given to the fight against hunger and want, against disease and distress, against misery and wretchedness. They are easy to please. A slight act of kindness or of charity or of consideration makes them happy. They are easily confused on fundamental issues. This is true even in Europe and America, where the common people have received the benefits of school education, and where they have had a training in democratic thought for a century or more. The masses are easily led astray by governments or by classes in league with governments. In every country it is the educated middle class that leads the movement for political independence or for political progress. It is the strength of their convictions, their earnestness, their capacity to suffer for their convictions, their willingness to sacrifice themselves for principles and for truth, coupled with the extent and amount of their influence over the masses, which determines the fate of the movement for liberty.
A movement of that nature never dies. “The battle of freedom once begun is carried on from father to son,” is as good to-day as it ever was. Yet the movement may be delayed, or its issue may be confused, or the contrary, according to the wisdom or the folly of its advocates, or the amount of earnestness they put in it, or the amount of influence they have over the masses, as well as by the wisdom or ​shortsightedness or cunning of those who oppose it. All the world over, progressive political movements have had vicissitudes of fortune, stages of development, times of reactions, defeats and reverses. Governments always begin by ignoring such movements. Then comes a period of ridicule, followed by repression. But their efforts are futile. The food on which the tender plant of liberty thrives is the blood of the martyr. The rope of the hangman, the axe of the executioner, or the shot of the gunner, extinguishes individual life, only to make the desire for corporate life keener and stronger. Banishments, deportations, imprisonments, tortures and confiscations, are the usual weapons of the tyrant to strangle liberty, to extirpate those that are after it, but they have so far proved ineffectual to kill it. Conciliation is sometimes more successful than repression, but conciliation delayed or concessions forced have been proved to be worse than useless. The Nationalist Movement in India has passed through some of these stages, and is passing through the rest. We presume it will be of some interest and use to trace its development, and to make a retrospective review of its successes and failures so far.
* ↑ The Raja (i. e., the king) was not above the law.” See Wilson’s note on p. 203, vol. 1 of Mill’s British India.
* ↑ See Rhys David’s “ Buddhist India.”
* ↑ See an account of Yudhishthira’s Rajsuya yajna in the Mahabharata.
* ↑ History of India by Mr. Vincent Smith.
* ↑ It is true that parts of Deccan had been from time to time overrun by the Mohammedans and at least one Muslim kingdom had been founded there even before Akbar’s time, but still the general statement in the text stands good.
* ↑ The tribal name of the House to which Partap belonged.
* ↑ Names of Rajput ruling families in Akbar’s time.
* ↑ The history of Europe up to the 18th century is full of parallel disputes on racial and religious grounds.
* ↑ It is said that for a short time a small portion of North-west India formed a province of the Empire of Darius and paid tribute to that monarch, but the government was all the same native.
* ↑ “ The Asiatic conquerors very soon abated their ferocity, because they made the conquered country their own. They rose or fell with the rise and fall of the territory they lived in. Fathers there deposited the hopes of their posterity; the children there beheld the monuments of their fathers. Here their lot was finally cast; and it is the normal wish of all that their lot should not be cast in bad land. Poverty, sterility, and desolation are not a recreating prospect to the eye of man, and there are very few who can bear to grow old among the curses of a whole people. If their passion or avarice drove the Tar-
* ↑ tar hordes to acts of rapacity or tyranny, there was time enough, even in the short life of man, to bring round the ill effects of the abuse of power upon the power itself. If hoards were made by violence and tyranny, they were still domestic hoards, and domestic profusion, or the rapine of a more powerful and prodigal hand, restored them to the people. With many disorders and with few political checks upon power, nature had still fair play, the sources of acquisition were not dried up, and therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of the country flourished. Even avarice and usury itself operated both for the preservation and the employment of national wealth. The husbandman and manufacturer paid heavy interest, but then they augmented the fund from whence they were again to borrow. Their resources were dearly bought, but they were sure, and the general stock of the community grew by the general effect. “ But under the English Government all this order is reversed. The Tartar invasion was mischievous, but it is our protection that destroys India. It was their enmity, but it is our friendship. Our conquest there, after twenty years, is as crude as it was the first day. The natives scarcely know what it is to see the grey head of an Englishman; young men, boys almost, govern there, without society, and without sympathy with the natives. They have no more social habits with the people than if they still resided in England; nor, indeed, any species of intercourse but that which is necessary to making a sudden fortune, with a view to a remote settlement. Animated with all the avarice of age, and all the impetuosity of youth, they roll in one after another, wave after wave, and there is nothing before the eyes of the natives but an endless, hopeless prospect of new flights of. birds of prey and passage, with appetites continually renewing for a food that is continually wasting. Every rupee of profit made by an Englishman is lost forever to India.” (Edmund Burke in a speech made in the House of Commons in 1783 a. d. The reflections are as good, to-day, as they were then.)
* ↑ The constitution of the Government of India is settled by laws made by the Parliament of Great Britain, in which India is not represented.
* ↑ See Sir Henry Cotton’s New India (190?), PP- 68, 69 and
* ↑ In England this is the view of the bulk of the Indian student community. The Government, of course, repudiates that view.
* ↑ In this connection we may refer the reader to an excellent article published in the New Statesman (London) dated April 1, 1916, called, “If the Germans conquered England.” With the alteration of England for Germany and India for England the article would make an excellent exposition of the position of the Indian Nationalist.
* ↑ See New India by Sir Henry Cotton, 1907, p. 34.
* ↑ It should be noted that the evils complained of in this chapter are the evils of the system which, in the words of John Stuart Mill, is unnatural, and the unnaturalness of which is recognised in full by many fair-minded Britishers. It was recognised so far back as 1835 by the British historian Wilson in his concluding remarks in the last chapter of his monumental History of British India.