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INDIAN UNREST
INDIAN UNREST
By A Reprint, revised and enlarged, from "The Times," with an introduction by Sir Alfred Lyall We have now, as it were, before us, in that vast congeries of peoples we call India, a long, slow march in uneven stages through all the centuries from the fifth to the twentieth....
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MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
1910 The numerals above the line in the body of the book refer to notes at the end of the volume....
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
The volume into which Mr. Valentine Chirol has collected and republished his valuable series of articles in The Times upon Indian unrest is an important and very instructive contribution to the study of what is probably the most arduous problem in the politics of our far-reaching Empire. His comprehensive survey of the whole situation, the arrangement of evidence and array of facts, are not unlike what might have been found in the Report of a Commission appointed to investigate the causes and th
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
That there is a lull in the storm of unrest which has lately swept over India is happily beyond doubt. Does this lull indicate a gradual and steady return to more normal and peaceful conditions? Or, as in other cyclonic disturbances in tropical climes, does it merely presage fiercer outbursts yet to come? Has the blended policy of repression and concession adopted by Lord Morley and Lord Minto really cowed the forces of criminal disorder and rallied the representatives of moderate opinion to the
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
Before proceeding to describe the methods by which Indian unrest has been fomented, and to study as far as possible its psychology, it may be well to set forth succinctly the political purpose to which it is directed, as far as there is any unity of direction. One of the chief difficulties one encounters in attempting to define its aims is the vagueness that generally characterizes the pronouncements of Indian politicians. There is, indeed, one section that makes no disguise either of its aspira
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
Thirty years ago, when I first visited India, the young Western-educated Hindu was apt to be, at least intellectually, plus royaliste que le roi. he plucked with both hands at the fruits of the tree of Western knowledge. Some were enthusiastic students of English literature, and especially of English poetry. They had their Wordsworth and their Browning Societies. Others steeped themselves in English history and loved to draw their political inspiration from Milton and Burke and John Stuart Mill.
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
Fundamental as is the antagonism between the civilization represented by the British Raj and the essential spirit of Brahmanism. It is not, of course, always or everywhere equally acute, for there is no more uniformity about Brahmanism than about any other Indian growth. But in the Deccan Brahmanism has remained more fiercely militant than in any other part of India, chiefly perhaps because nowhere had it wielded such absolute power within times which may still be called recent. Far into the eig
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
It is not, after all, in British India (i.e., in that part of India which we directly administer) that the Brahmanical and reactionary character of Indian unrest, at any rate in the Deccan, can best be studied. There it can always be disguised under the "patriotic" aspects of a revolt against alien rule. To appreciate its real tendencies we must go to a Native State of the Deccan about 100 miles south of Poona. Kolhapur is the most important of the Native States under the charge of the Bombay Go
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
It is a far cry in every sense from the Deccan to Bengal. There is a greater diversity of races, languages, social customs, physical conditions, &c., between the different provinces of India than is often to be found between the different countries of Europe. Few differ more widely than the Deccan and Bengal—the Deccan, a great table-land raised on an average over 2,000ft. above sea level, broken by many deep-cut river valleys and throwing up lofty ridges of bare rock, entirely dependent
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
The merits or demerits of the Partition of Bengal have already been discussed to satiety. As far as its purpose was to promote administrative efficiency it is no longer on its defence. Bengal proper is still the most populous province in India, but it has been brought within limits that at least make efficient administration practicable. The eastern districts, now included in the new province, which had been hitherto lamentably neglected, have already gained enormously by the change, which was a
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
The Punjab, the Land of the Five Rivers, differs as widely both from the Deccan and from Bengal as these two differ the one from the other. It has been more than any other part of India the battlefield of warring races and creeds and the seat of power of mighty dynasties. Among its cities it includes Imperial Delhi and Runjit Singh's Lahore. It is a country of many peoples and of many dialects. It is the home of the Sikhs, but the Mahomedans, ever since the days of the Moghul Empire, form the ma
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
Whilst I was at Delhi one of the leading Mahomedans of the old Moghul capital drove me out one afternoon to the great Mosque which still bears witness, in the splendour of its surviving fragments quite as much as in the name it bears, Kuwwat ul Islam , or Power of Islam, to the ancient glories of Mahomedan rule in India. Two or three other Mahomedan gentlemen had come out to meet us, and there, under the shadow of the Kutub Minar, the loftiest and noblest minaret from which the Musulman call to
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
Unrest in its most dangerous forms has hitherto been almost entirely confined to the Deccan, Bengal, and the Punjab. It has spread to some extent from the Bombay Presidency into the Central Provinces, which, indeed, include part of the Deccan, and it has overflowed both from Bengal and from the Punjab into some of the neighbouring districts of the United Provinces. But thanks very largely to the firm and experienced hands in which the administration of the Central Provinces under their Commissio
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
It required nothing less than the shock of a murder perpetrated in the heart of London to open the eyes of those in authority at home to the nature of the revolutionary propaganda which has been, and is still being, carried on outside India in sympathy, and often in connivance, with the more violent leaders of the anti-British agitation in India itself. Even now it may be doubted whether they fully realize the importance of the support which the extremists receive from outside India. I am not al
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
It is impossible to acquit the Congress of having contributed to the growth of active and violent unrest, though the result may have lain far both from the purpose of its chief originators and from the desire of the majority of its members. Western education has largely failed in India because the Indian, not unnaturally, fails to bring an education based upon conceptions entirely alien to the world in which he moves into any sort of practical relation with his own life. So with the Indian polit
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
When Lord Minto closed at the end of March the first Session of the Imperial Council, as the Viceroy's Legislative Council, enlarged under the Indian Councils Act of 1909, is now officially designated, in contradistinction to the enlarged Provincial Councils of Provincial Governments, his Excellency very properly described it as "a memorable Session." It was, indeed, far more than that. Even to the outward eye the old Council Chamber at Government House presented a very significant spectacle, to
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
The only classes in British India for whom no real representation has been devised in the enlarged Indian Councils are the millions of humble toilers who constitute what are known as the "depressed castes." Under present social conditions in India, this was probably inevitable. Though, rather unreasonably, the vast majority of them go to swell the numbers of the Hindu population in the census upon which Hindu representation ought, according to Hindu politicians, to be based, those politicians ha
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
One of the chief features of the original scheme of constitutional reforms submitted to the Secretary of State by the Government of India was the creation of an Imperial Advisory Council composed of ruling chiefs and territorial magnates. The proposal gave rise to a variety of objections, the most serious one being the difficulty of adjusting the relations to the Government of India of a Council in which the most conspicuous members could have had no definite locus standi in regard to the intern
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
The political aspects of Indian unrest have compelled me to dwell chiefly upon the evil forces which it has generated. But contact with the West has acted as a powerful ferment for good as well as for evil upon every class of Indian society that has come more or less directly under its influence. Were it otherwise we should indeed have to admit the moral bankruptcy of our civilization. The forces of unrest are made up of many heterogeneous and often conflicting elements, and even in their most m
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
The rising generation represent the India of the future, and though those who come within the orbit of the Western education we have introduced still constitute only a very small fraction of the whole youth of India, their numbers and their influence are growing steadily and are bound to go on growing. If we are losing our hold over them, it is a poor consolation to be told that we still retain our hold over their elders. I therefore regard the estrangement of the young Indian, and especially of
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The fundamental weakness of our Indian educational system is that the average Indian student cannot bring his education into any direct relation with the world in which, outside the class or lecture room, he continues to live. For that world is still the old Indian world of his forefathers, and it is as far removed as the poles asunder from the Western world which claims his education. I am not speaking now of the relatively still very small class amongst whom Western ideas are already sufficien
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
Though already in 1889, when Lord Lansdowne was Viceroy, an important resolution, drafted by Sir Anthony (now Lord) MacDonnell as Secretary to Government, was issued, drawing attention to some of the most glaring defects of our educational system from the point of view of intellectual training and of discipline, and containing valuable recommendations for remedying them, it seems to have had very little practical effect. A more fruitful attempt to deal with the question was made during Lord Curz
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
There remains one vital aspect of the educational problem which was left untouched by the Educational Resolution of 1904, and has been left untouched ever since we entered three-quarters of a century ago on an educational experiment unparalleled in the world's history—a more arduous experiment even than that of governing the 300 millions of India with a handful of Englishmen. Many nations have conquered remote dependencies inhabited by alien races, imposed their laws upon them, and held them in
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
It is too late in the day now to discuss whether it was wise to begin our educational policy as we did from the top and to devote so much of our energies and resources to secondary at the expense of primary education. The result has certainly been to widen the gulf which divides the different classes of Indian society and to give to those who have acquired some veneer, however superficial, of Western education the only articulate voice, often quite out of proportion to their importance, as the i
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
Was it not Talleyrand who said that speech had been given to man in order to enable him to disguise his thoughts? Indian politicians are no Talleyrands, but they sometimes seem to have framed their vocabulary on purpose to disguise political conceptions which most of them for various reasons shrink from defining at present with decision. We have already seen how elastic is the word Swaraj , self-government, or rather self-rule. In the mouth of the "moderates" of the Indian National Congress it m
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CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
When Lord Morley introduced his Indian reforms scheme, a section at least of the party to which he belongs supported it not only on general grounds, but more especially in the belief that it would strengthen the hands of the Imperial Government in dealing with the hide-bound officialism of which the Government of India is in the eyes of some British Radicals the visible embodiment. None of them, probably, anticipated that the boot would be on the other leg. If the Government of India have someti
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CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The problems of Indian administration are in themselves difficult enough to solve, but even more difficult are some of the problems connected with the relations of India and her peoples to the rest of the Empire. One of these has assumed during the last few years a character of extreme gravity, which neither the Imperial Government nor the British public seems to have at all adequately grasped. "I think," said Mr. Gokhale in moving his resolution for the prohibition of Indian indentured labour f
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CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXV.
On few subjects are more ignorant or malevolent statements made than on the attitude of Englishmen in India towards the natives of the country. That social relations between Englishmen and Indians seldom grow intimate is true enough, but not that the fault lies mainly with Englishmen. At the risk of being trite, I must recall a few elementary considerations. The bedrock difficulty is that Indian customs prevent any kind of intimacy between English and Indian families. Even in England the relatio
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CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVI.
In the very able speech in which, on July 27, Mr. Montagu, the new Under-Secretary of State for India, introduced the Indian Budget in the House of Commons, one passage referred to the relations between the Secretary of State and the Viceroy in terms which have deservedly attracted very great attention[23]. Differences of opinion, sometimes of an acute character, have at intervals occurred between Secretaries of State and Viceroys as to their relative attributions. Mr. Montagu's language, howeve
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CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVII.
No Viceroy has for fifty years gone out to India at so critical a moment as that at which Lord Hardinge of Penshurst is about to take up the reins of government. In one respect only is he more favoured than most of his predecessors. The Anglo-Russian agreement, of which he himself helped to lay the foundations when he was Ambassador at St. Petersburg, has removed the greatest of all the dangers that threatened the external security of India and the peace of Central Asia during the greater part o
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RELIGION AND POLITICS
RELIGION AND POLITICS
On this point a very important piece of evidence has been recently produced in Court in the course of the Dacca Conspiracy trial. It is a letter, of which the authenticity is beyond dispute, written by Mr. Surendranath Banerjee to one of the extremist leaders, in which he suggests means for carrying out the proposed celebration of the "boycott" anniversary on August 7 in spite of the prohibition of public meetings under the Seditious Meetings Act. "My suggestion," writes this distinguished polit
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"MANY-HEADED MISCHIEF."
"MANY-HEADED MISCHIEF."
It is difficult to review this many-headed mischief in a few words, but its main features may readily be brought to mind. First there is the economic disturbance which resulted from the enforcement of the boycott whether by persuasion, or by intimidation or by force. This has been a very real mischief and a very real suffering in many parts of the country where the cultivators found themselves unable to obtain the products to which they were accustomed at prices which they could afford to pay. N
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YOUTHS AND POLITICS.
YOUTHS AND POLITICS.
There remains another point which is at the present time of the most sinister significance. The promoters of the agitation conceived the deplorable idea that their propaganda might best be spread, and that their designs might best be carried out by the youths of the country. From this selection has arisen what is now the worst feature of the situation. It is impossible to condemn too strongly the use of the students and other youths to foster political aims. It has resulted in a wave of exciteme
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NOTE 10
NOTE 10
The term occurs, for instance, in one of the most violent fly-sheets issued only a few months ago from a clandestine press in India, under the heading Yagantar , killing no murder:— Rise up, rise up, O sons of India, arm yourselves with bombs, despatch the white Asuras to Yana's abode. Invoke the mother Kali; nerve your arm with valour. The Mother asks for sacrificial offerings. What does the Mother want? The cocoanut? No. A fowl or a sheep or a buffalo? No, She wants many white Asuras . The Mot
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NOTE 11
NOTE 11
Some statistics have been collected lately by the Moslem League with reference to the relative numbers of Hindus and Mahomedans employed in Government service in India. The figures are still subject to revision, and therefore can only be given as approximately correct. Moreover, the classification adopted does not seem to have been precisely the same in the different provinces. But even if a considerable margin is allowed for discrepancies which may yet have to be rectified, the figures quoted b
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SUB-DEPUTY JUDGES AND MUNSIFFS
SUB-DEPUTY JUDGES AND MUNSIFFS
Hindus. Mahomedans. —————————————————+—————+——————— Bombay .. .. .. ..| 109 | 2 Madras .. .. .. ..| 132 | 1 Bengal .. .. .. ..| 195 | 17 Eastern Bengal .. .. ..| 21 | 1 Central Provinces .. .. ..| 117 | 6 United Provinces .. .. ..| 111 | 35 Punjab .. .. .. ..| 81 | 52 Hindus. Mahomedans. —————————————————+—————+——————— Bombay .. .. .. ..| 39 | 17 Madras .. .. .. ..| 127 | 10 Bengal
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NOTE 15
NOTE 15
A Mahomedan gentleman, Mr. Ali Imam, has been appointed to succeed Mr. Sinha as Indian member of the Viceroy's Executive Council. He too is a leading member of the Bengal Bar, and, like Mr. Sinha, will take charge of the Legal Department. Though the selection of a Mahomedan in succession to a Hindu cannot fail to gratify Indian Moslems, Mr. Ali Imam's appointment should not be altogether unacceptable to the Hindus. For when the details of the reforms' scheme were being worked out in India, he ad
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NOTE 16
NOTE 16
The first Indian Member of the Bengal Executive Council is expected to be Mr. R.N. Mookerjee, a partner in the well-known Calcutta firm of Messrs. Martin and Co., to whom I have referred (page 258) as "the one brilliant exception" amongst Western-educated Bengalees, who has achieved signal success in commerce and industry and has shown the possibility and the advantages of intelligent and business-like co-operation in those fields between Englishmen and Indians....
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NOTE 17
NOTE 17
The most striking feature about the number of graduates at the Indian Universities is not the magnitude of their total or any increase in it, but the very high proportion of wastage. It takes 24,000 candidates at Matriculation to secure 11,000 passes, it takes 7,000 candidates at the Intermediate examination to secure 2,800 passes, and it takes 4,750 candidates for the B.A. degree to secure 1,900 passes. There are 18,000 students at college in order to supply an annual output of 1,935 graduates.
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NOTE 18
NOTE 18
At the opening of an Educational Conference held last April in Bombay under the joint auspices of the Director of Public Instruction and of the Teachers' Association, the Governor, Sir George Clarke, alluded to some of the effects of Western education on the younger generation of Indians:—"It is widely admitted by the thoughtful Indians that there are signs of the weakening of parental influence, of the loss of reverence for authority, of a decadence of manners and of growing moral laxity. The r
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