THE HINDU – THE FIRST 100 A SELECTION OF EDITORIALS
VOLUME I
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978
THE HINDU
Preface
THE selection of 100 editorials to mark the 100 years of THE HINDU has not been easy.
For one thing copies of THE HINDU are not available for five years in its early life, including the year when it was born.
For another THE HINDU has been prolific, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in the variety of subjects on which it wrote all these hundred years and any one who wants to pick and choose is confronted with a surfeit of excellent material and the problem is what to discard.
Fortunately for us the first editorial of THE HINDU was preserved by one of its founders, M. Veeraraghavachariar, and we have been enabled to publish it in this volume. It is not certain whether it is the complete editorial or only the most important parts of it but it has all the appearance of being a finished product. To make up for the missing years, three extra editorials have been chosen to complete the tally and two more have been added in view of their importance and significance, bringing the total to 102.
One editorial has been selected for every year of THE HINDU (except in some years where there are two) and in making the choice the effort has been not to concentrate on politics which is the staple food of Indian newspapers, but to cast the net wide to include as much of variety in the topics presented, serious and light, as possible. It is inevitable that a major number of the editorials should relate to the nationalist movement and its leaders and to the alien rulers and their policies, for THE HINDU was the torch-bearer in the fight for independence and for over 60 years its battle cry was “Freedom”. They tell a story of faith and hope in the Victorian era relentlessly moving on to the age of disillusionment and despair and culminating in the saga of the battle for freedom under Gandhiji.
THE HINDU was from the beginning a keen observer of the international scene and the editorials presented in this book are a representative sample of its outlook and perceptive insight in world affairs.
THE HINDU’s interest in social and cultural problems is reflected in some of the editorials, not to speak of its devotion to sport which is represented in the editorial with the title “Cricketers All”.
THE HINDU specialised in light editorials which sparkled with humour and wit but unfortunately not many could be included because of the limitation imposed by the choice of one editorial for every year.
The editorials collected here represent a cross section of the views and thoughts expressed by THE HINDU over a century and will afford an interesting glimpse into the heart and mind of the great men who made it what it is today.
DECEMBER G. KASTURI
1978
EDITOR
Although copies of THE HINDU for the first three years are not available, its first inaugural editorial “Ourselves” was preserved by one of its founders, M. Veeraraghavachariar, but it is not certain what follows is the whole of that editorial or only the most important parts of it.
SEPTEMBER, 20, 1878
Ourselves
IN ACCORDANCE WITH LONGSTANDING ETIQUETTE OBTAINING among the journalistic community, we seeking admission into it as a new member, herald our first appearance before the public, by a leader rather ostentatiously styled “Ourselves in which we will presently set forth the circumstances that justify the appearance of a new paper, its professed intentions and aims, the line of policy it proposes to pursue and the principles by which it is to be guided. It is with great diffidence that we usher this paper into existence presuming that the indulgent public will give us a warm reception by supporting and encouraging us in spite of our shortcomings.
We shall confine ourselves as much as possible to Indian politics. We do not belong either to that class of men who altogether ignore the superiority of western rule and find fault with everything the Government does or to that of those who are so far carried away by the influence of their English education as to cry down everything native and advocate as a rule the preferability of western institutions to those of our community. With many Anglo-Indian statesmen such as Sir Thomas Munro, Sir Henry Lawrence and several others we are of opinion that there has been a tendency on the part of our rulers to interfere too much in the internal administration of the country. We are inclined to be conservative as much as it is consistent with the national progress of the nation. The whole world is destined to be guided by Europe and it will not be desirable even if it were possible to withstand the pressure of the European influence brought to bear upon us by the spread of western knowledge and civilisation among us. The principles that we propose to be guided by are simple those of fairness and justice. It will always be our aim to promote harmony and union among our fellow countrymen and to interpret correctly the feelings of the natives and to create mutual confidence between the governed and the governors. In religion though there have been of late occasions to look with unpleasant feelings and suspicion upon the conduct of a particular sect of missionaries, we shall observe the strictest neutrality; sectarian disputes we shall never allow to appear in our columns. But when religious questions involve interests of a political and social character we shall keep our columns open to any prudent remarks and criticisms.
If our attempt proves successful we shall have reason to congratulate ourselves and feel proud that we have succeeded in doing what we consider to be our duty. But owing to a want of encouragement and co-operation from the public if our attempt follows its predecessors to the fundiscovered country, we shall retire from the field with the melancholy conviction that the native public of South India are not prepared to support among them more than one native newspaper and beg the pardon of the public for having disturbed their equanimity.
“To India this is a very crucial period. The time has come when her matters must be set right, with the help of the ablest master-mind available. A thousand of her questions, each of which is very imminent, have been postponed with the expectation of a time when the British Government may have leisure to consider them. When this leisure will come is not certain … what then is the remedy? To us a more independence in the matter of Government, whenever that day may come when the people may be fit for it seems to be the only remedy”.
SEPTEMBER, 2, 1881
Parliamentary Government and India
INDIA IS A FOOTBALL BETWEEN THE TWO POLITICAL FACTIONS of England; without enjoying any of the advantages of party government, she is subject to all its disadvantages. She has no voice in the election of the members of parliament, and the motives, therefore of English statesmen in administering the affairs of India are simply those of justice and humanity. England is not bound to us by the ties of a common nationality or a common religion; on the other hand too many of those whom she deputes to exercise her immediate power over us are actuated by the strong impulses of an assumed superiority in civilisation and morals. The great body of the English public have no idea of this their most important dependency; nor do they care to inform themselves of its affairs and interests. Their own constitute a world of anxiety to them and they are content to leave alone the questions relating to other countries. In the midst of the responsibilities which the vast Empire of Britain with her numerous colonies imposes on her statesmen, the attention that these statesmen can spare for India is comparatively nil. The British Empire is simply colossal; it includes the whole island continent of Australia, South Africa, Canada, and others of various sizes, amounting in all to more than forty in number. The Colonial Under-Secretary, Mr. Grant Duff, gave a very striking description of the magnitude of these colonies, in his recent speech to his constituents, an extract from which we published in our last issue. Each of these colonies is in itself sufficient in extent and importance, to tax the whole energy of the ablest statesmen. These colonies are every day increasing in importance. England cannot do without them. With an area equal to a few Indian districts put together and with a population of 40 millions increasing in wealth every year, colonies form the very life of the English nation. They are a manufacturing people, having hardly any rural population. They indeed once had a noble peasantry of which England was justly proud. But her old peasantry has been either sent away to foreign colonies or has been superseded by machines, and even the remaining agricultural population shows a tendency to diminish rapidly. Large estates absorb small ones, and the villages are becoming cities. England in fact is now a country of cities, each of which is an important manufacturing centre. This absence of a considerable population having interest in land is a great source of weakness to that country. The industrial population, too, is not in a flourishing condition; they lead a miserable life. The poor law is becoming more and more important as it is availed of more and more by the poor. This poor law is at the same time a blessing to the destitute and the lazy, and a curse to the more honourable portion of the low-class. Those who disdain to throw themselves on the support of the world’s charity and resolve to maintain maintain themselves on the strength of their own hands, are taxed to support the less prudent and the less industrious. Wages are unsteady and strikes and trade unions are, therefore, more and more resorted to. The contest between labour and property is thus becoming harder every day. The sympathy of the ruling class does not seem to be much towards those helpless people. The imperialists desire to establish the prestige of their country abroad, while misery and poverty are stalking beneath their guilded carriages. Meanwhile the industrial hands are replaced by machinery, and the cotton bales of Lancashire are increasing in gigantic proportions. Thus both the decreasing room for manual labour and the increasing manufactures by machinery render the colonies more and more important to England. Commercial interests form the most important feature in the foreign policy of English ministers. Parliament, which is the representative of the wealthy of the country, necessarily becomes more and more exclusive. So vast an area of colonial Empire, bound to the mother country by such essential interests, taxes fully the attention of the imperial Government. The independence accorded to the local Governments of these colonies enables them to resent any injustice from the imperial Government. The colonies and the mother country are thus bound by mutual obligations. India is in no such position. She can be used in any way the imperial Government may like; her industries may be suppressed in the interests of those of England; her exchequer may be appropriated for the party purposes of English politicians. Her mouth can be gagged. In fact she and her millions may be treated like blocks having no feelings or interests like those of the ruling class. Her complaints are not listened to. The statesmen of England may be actuated by the best motives; but charity begins at home; and sympathy with foreigners must yield to the demands of the kindred. At present England has not even a breath to spare for India. Ireland is poking her in her side and she is divided between embarrassment and rage. The South African colonies form another source of anxiety to the statesman of England. Yet to India this is a very critical period. The time has come when her matters must be set right, with the help of the ablest master-mind available. A thousand of her questions, each of which is very imminent, have been postponed with the expectation of a time when the British Government may have leisure to consider them. When this leisure will come is not certain. If the Irish difficulty is solved in some way, another difficulty may arise. In an empire of such gigantic dimensions, there will be always imminent questions demanding all the available statesmanship of the country. And India is set down as the last among the British possessions in the order of their claims on the attention of the imperial Government. It will be indeed a glorious day for India when statesmen like Mr. Gladstone undertake to solve Indian questions. But the day seems to be ever receding. Many of these Indian questions have been in a state of postponement for the last thirty years and more, and there does not seem to be any prospect of the period of postponement coming to an end. What then is the remedy? To us a more independence in the matter of Government, whenever that day may come when the people may be fit for it, seems to be the only remedy.
THE HINDU vehemently opposed a farewell party to Mr. D. F. Carmichael, member of the Madras Governor’s Executive Council. THE HINDU: “We are compelled to protest in unqualified language and in the name of all that binds the rich and the learned in solemn obligation to the poor and ignorant of the same community, against the poojah which these men propose to make to the Hon’ble D. F. Carmichael. We say, with the utmost pain, that the poojah ought not to be made and Mr. Carmichael does not deserve it…. We thought for honour to have value it must be discriminating and it must be deserved”.
NOVEMBER 14, 1883
The Honourable D.F. Carmichael
FROM THE LETTERS WE HAVE PUBLISHED IN OUR COLUMNS and from those that we publish today, the feeling of the native community with regard to the proposed Carmichael Poojah will be apparent. When we were first told that such a proposal was entertained by one or two leading native gentlemen, we could not believe it; we refused to believe it. We believed that the natives had too vivid recollection of the disasters that had befallen them under the latest wave of that angel’s wings to regard him entitled to worship any longer. But when a notice signed by the Honourables G. N. Gujputee Rao, Humayoon Jah and T. Muthuswami Iyer, was put in our hands, oh, what was our surprise! The three signatories are honourable native gentlemen, for whose services to the country and Government we entertain the highest regard, and for whom personally no native has a higher respect than ourselves. But we thought that, above all, they were citizens, bound by certain relations of mutual obligation and carrying a trust, a responsibility, that was too sacred to be slighted at the very time when that trust and responsibility acquired a heavier weight and more profound significance. We wish we were able to express sufficiently the sense of pain and reluctance that depresses us while writing against the decided course of our citizens, whom we respect so much. Yet we have a higher and more sacred trust to discharge; we have imposed upon ourselves a task of representing public feeling and we feel bound to discharge that trust to the utmost satisfaction of our conscience irrespective of any result to our personal interests. We write under full and accurate knowledge of the feeling of the great mass of the people in this matter; and under an equally full sense of the responsibility that attaches to our criticism of officials and citizens. Writing as we do under these conditions, we are compelled to protest in unqualified language and in the name of all that binds the rich and learned in solemn obligation to the poor and ignorant, of the same community, against the poojah which these men propose to make to the Hon’ble D.F. Carmichael. We say, we say with the utmost pain, that the poojah ought not to be made and Mr. Carmichael does not deserve it. The poojah is indeed to be made by Mr. Carmichael’s friends and admirers, yes friends and admirers of Mr. Carmichael the Collector and Mr. Carmichael the Member of the Council, we suppose. Let us see what these friends and admirers can say in defence of the poojah. Can they say that he was the friend of the country, of the ryots, of the poor working men, of the educated classes or even of the officials in general? Can they say that he fought hard for the employment of natives in the higher branches of the public service? Can they say that he was for giving their countrymen a status of equality with his own countrymen? Can they say that he was for extending the political liberties of the people? Can they say that his administration was beneficial in its general results? Can they at least say that the general results of his administration were free from positive harm to the native community or that he employed his knowledge and influence in preventing such results? We shall not anticipate what these “friends and admirers” may say in the place of meeting. But we can hardly bring ourselves to believe that these native gentlemen, who have the welfare of their country at heart and who resent the injuries done to their helpless countrymen, unable to defend themselves against the oppression of unprincipled officials, could have so soon forgotten the loud wail of oppression that filled the ears of every one in Madras and in the district a year ago from the poor ryots of Chingleput. Could they have forgotten how their poor countrymen were kept under the trees in hot midday without food or water and dragged, day in and day out, from house to court and court to house, to be threatened and otherwise maltreated, because the helpless wretches no longer able to brook the tyranny of their favourite “tiger” meekly cried against him? Could these honourable gentlemen have so soon forgotten the utter ruin to which hundreds of families of their countrymen of Salem were subjected, because an incompetent official to whose timidity and want of foresight the whole occurrence was to be attributed had to be screened? How these “friends and admirers” relish the report of Government to the Secretary of State that a spirit of lawlessness was growing amongst the people and that lawlessness was to be put down and Government credited, by transporting innocent men and ruining Salem, how they relish this explanation, we cannot say. But we can say that the authors of that explanation are not the men to be adored by the community so maligned. How will the wretched ryots of Chingleput, against whom last year and the year before last, warrants and summonses flew like arrows to hunt them out of the nooks and huts where they had hid themselves to find a day of rest and repose, how will those ryots look upon their countrymen of wealth and influence, making poojah to one to whose omission to remove the hand that smote them so bitterly, they attribute their sufferings? Will the wretches of Salem who yet cling to their families, disgraced and ruined, and between whom and the abode of their former patrons a grim ocean now rolls, have a word of blessing for the worshippers who honour the officers, in whose power it was to have saved them, but who aggravated their misery by tolerating a policy of vindictive, oppressive and wicked cruelty? Let the men that will assemble for worship on Saturday deny, if they can, the charges of commission and omission which our esteemed correspondent vox populi, himself a representative native gentleman, lays at the door of the retiring Councillor’s administration. We thought for honour to have value it must be discriminating and it must be deserved.
The poojah-makers are indeed to consist of “friends and admirers”. But these friends and admirers are not, we suppose, isolated individuals, distracted from society, having no obligation to their fellow-citizens; they are educated men who are citizens first and then friends and admirers of one another. If their object of worship is an idol of such holiness why do they shrink from inviting a general adoration from the whole community? They must be conscious of the singular character of the estimate which is utterly out of harmony with that of the large majority of their fellow-citizens. The men that have initiated this odious movement, owe their distinction to their position in society and their relation to the public. Has the “friendship and admiration between them arisen from any relation of consanguinity or any other relation than that of the respective public character of the persons honouring and the person honoured? Now can their acts escape from being construed that, by honouring an officer whom the community, as a whole, regard with feelings the reverse of esteem, they abuse the trust devolving on them by virtue of their social rank and commit the community to a course which they protest against? If these friends and admirers honour their idol silently, individually without making use of a public place and without referring to his official deeds and vote a statue, the public will hardly concern themselves about their folly. As an official, as a member of Government, they are going to honour Mr. Carmichael, and it is in that capacity he has made himself an object of the people’s intense dislike. In honouring Mr. Carmichael these men do anything but honour their own community and to the injury that has been accumulated, they are going to add insult of the most exasperating description. Has it come to this? To be honoured by natives can no longer be an honour. The officer whose obstruction has tended to perpetuate the spoliation of our temples, who has ever refused to interfere in our favour between us and the members of his own service, who looked on with indifference while two districts were being trampled under foot, who has done nothing to extend our local liberty, who protested against raising the native to a position of equality with Englishmen, who has striven to impose odious taxes and revive barbarous and oppressive institutions, who has never encouraged the ambition of the educated young men, who practically laid down flattery and personal attendance as passport to his favour, and who has not done a single measure which may be countered as beneficial to the country, and in fact whose administration has been so devoid of positive merit, but on the other hand has been so injudicious, onesided and arbitrary as to make him unpopular among his own service, an official of this description is to be honoured in the name of the community, by our countrymen in whom the country has unlimited confidence and to whom they have hitherto looked for advice and help in all matters concerning their welfare. We know that several Englishmen simply laugh at the step that has been proposed and wonder how it can be possible. In order to screen our community from a reproach which they do not deserve we have raised our protest against the step. We say we have honour, ambition, and aspiration, we complain that Government do not respect our claims, that Englishmen look upon us with contempt and haughtiness born of imagined race superiority, we talk of patriotism and public spirit and we dream a thousand dreams of the future greatness of our country, we do all this, but what are these boasts, claims and dreams worth, if we cannot defer temporary individual interest to the permanent interests of the country, if we cannot sink the individual in the citizen, if we cannot discriminate the true object of honour and the object that deserves a distinct assurance of our resentment. In protesting against the proposed meeting to honour Mr. Carmichael, we are doing a duty which we would fain have seen devolve on other men, but which in recollection of our duty to our countrymen, we feel bound to discharge, however painfully. We are aware that the names of the signatories are such as to create confidence in some, and influence others to show apparent sympathy, but there is a time when such individual relations ought to be submerged in deference to public duty; and we call upon our countrymen to recollect Salem and Chingleput when the notice inviting them for the meeting is placed in their hands.
THE HINDU felt the two greatest of all obstacles to good government in the country were the professional administrator and the adventurer. THE HINDU: “Among their ranks have been many men, good and true. The majority of them, however, are unsympathetic and unjust, enemies to reform and progress, staunch advocates of the perpetuation of injustice to the people of this country. They live in the land no doubt, but apart from its people”.
JANUARY 23, 1884
Roar or reason?
BRITISH ADMINISTRATION IN INDIA IS PASSING AT PRESENT through a transition stage. This is the first critical period of the post-mutiny era when our English rulers have to take note of changed times and to shape their policy in consonance with the new circumstances that have arisen. Whether the country prospers or not, whether the administration rises or declines in popularity, whether the institutions of the land become national, native and natural or remain foreign, exotic, unsuited and without the elements of stability and permanence, whether British rule itself is to stand or fall, all will depend upon the foresight, wisdom and tact which are displayed in understanding and dealing with the new facts and phenomena which meet the eye everywhere and which he who runs may read. The mutiny marked the close of the era of repression and annexation, of the age when the fell crew of the now historical English “nabobs” hovered over the land feeding on its entrails and sinews, when blunder and plunder formed the prominent characteristics of Anglo-Indian administration. That dreadful and ever memorable event opened the eyes of the English people to the condition of Indian affairs. English statesmen realised the gravity of the situation and rose to the occasion. And the result was that the Company ceased to be, the dark age of British rule passed away, and the gracious proclamation of Her Majesty inaugurated the dawn of a progressive and prosperous time for this country. A generation has nearly passed since then, and the interval that has elapsed has been in many respects marked by events and features of progress in the history of our country that have been a marvel to the civilised world. The future of the land, the future of English dominion in it, the making or marring of reputations, all depend on the measure of recognition and appreciation which the situation receives from the statesmen who represent in this country Her Majesty and the great English people. In these after-mutiny years the Viceregal throne has been filled by several great and worthy statesmen who have shown themselves by words and by deeds fully alive to the exigencies of progress. Lord Lawrence himself, one who had been brought up in his early days in the traditions of bureaucracy, outlived them by the force of his character and his genius and in many ways contributed to the improvement of the administration. He enunciated the great principles on which it should be conducted and with the prophetic eye of a statesman anticipated several of the measures, the adoption of which circumstances would soon force on the rulers. Lord Mayo was his worthy successor. During his short tenure of office reformation was at its flood-tide. And, had life been spared him, he might have rendered substantial services to the people of this country. Lord Northbrook’s lot was cast in evil times; he was continually hampered and harassed by an unsympathetic and stupid conservatism at headquarters. And, lastly, we have had, and still have in our midst, the greatest of England’s proconsuls, the foremost of our Viceroys, the great apostle of justice to India, Lord Ripon. While cordially recognising how far the cause of progress has been furthered by these great and good men, we cannot but feel how much evil has been done, how much good has had to be left undone, by the operation of the two greatest of all obstacles to good government in this country, the professional administrator and the adventurer. Among their ranks have been many men, good and true. The majority of them, however, are unsympathetic and unjust, enemies to reform and progress, staunch advocates of the perpetuation of injustice to the people of this country. They are birds of passage. They have no interest in the future of this country. They live in the land, no doubt, but apart from its people. Originally attracted to its distant shores by the lust of wealth, the one guiding principle of all their acts, the ruling passion of their lives here, is, by hook or by crook, to make as much money as they can, to enjoy as much privilege as they can, to wield as much power as they can. Each of these classes forms of itself a vested body: the ranks of each are kept close and unbroken, subject to no invasion and no curtailment of prerogative. And the result is that they stand by each other at all times and at all hazards. Governors and Viceroys come and go, but these remain a good life-time in this country and life is to them one continued round of pleasure, pastime, privilege, prestige and power. The official class occupies all positions of influence and emolument, they give judicial decisions with all the wisdom and authority of the Delphic oracle, they settle the revenue of the State, they are extensive dispensers of patronage; and all these advantages of their position go to invest them with a halo of glory in the eyes of the people and naturally lead to the plentiful burning of incense before them. It is no wonder that as the flames of incense rise before them, they are disposed somewhat to indulge in the pleasant dreams of fancy, that they think themselves equal to any task and believe nothing to be beyond their accomplishment. Sir Henry Durand, late of Indian celebrity, is said to have written on one occasion: “I maintain I could invent a dozen different philosophical systems, all of them starting from points that would entitle them to a respectful investigation.” What self-assertion, what extravagant bumptiousness! What a melancholy exhibition of ignorance and folly, mingled with presumption! And still we cannot say how many there are in the ranks of Indian officialdom who will out-Durand Durand himself. And intimately associated with the official class by many ties of kinship, blood, matrimony, association, friendship, is the non-official community who hold numerous positions of influence as members of Municipalities and of Local Fund Boards, as honorary Magistrates, as Justices of the Peace, etc. The very fact that they move in relations of close intimacy with the leading European officials often goes to vest them with an adventitious importance in the eyes of a subject and powerless people. Thus many circumstances co-exist and co-operate to induce officials and non-officials to make common cause whenever any crisis arrives in the administration of affairs. Each class is in itself a stronghold of influence, powerful for mischief, with a mighty organisation and extensive resources, capable of offering a bold and united front to every possible enemy, from whatever quarter, often fighting under the same shibboleths and party cries. And united they form a compact, impenetrable, and decisive opposition to all constitutional government in this country. Whenever, therefore, any measure is initiated which will curtail any of the privileges which they severally or in common enjoy at present, or will augment the privileges and power of the subject race and thereby lead them nearer even by a step to the establishment, however distant, of the equality of all races before the law, they raise a hubbub and a tumult, often knit together in solemn though secret, compact, almost always brought into conjunction by common interests. And then they rarely listen to the voice of reason. They find it prejudicial to their interests to take note of passing events and the circumstances of the hour, to observe the changes taking place in their surrounding, the advance in enlightenment of the people among whom they live. All they care is to raise their voice and roar as loudly as they can, against the carrying out of reforms. They have tried the tactics of roaring and rattling on more than one occasion. Such tactics have so far fortunately not succeeded; the tide of progress in this country has been too powerful for them and has overborne in its resistless sweep all obstruction and all obstacle. But still, Mrs. Partington-like, they never cease to use their mop of opposition against the Atlantic waves of reform. Lord Ripon’s policy in India has been the mark against which they have directed their incessant attacks. Against the policy of the Ilbert Bill, the official class sent forth a very powerful and numerous contingent to cooperate with the solid and serried ranks of the non-official community. Against the policy of self-government which has been devised by our noble Viceroy, to lessen the influence of the Indian official protests have gone forth from the non-official community. Witness, for example, the speech of Mr. Keswick at the now famous St. Andrew’s dinner at Calcutta. Thus the greatest obstacles of progress in India are the professional functionary and the mercantile adventurer. Well, we ask, what is to guide the policy of responsible rulers like Lord Ripon, charged by the mandate of the English people and the gracious Queen Empress with the task of governing the affairs of this vast and diversified community, with the extensive and valuable interests to safeguard and to advance? The voices of reason and of truth and the calls of duty imperatively clamour for justice to the people of this country, who have no voice or choice in its affairs. The roars of interested opposition clamour, on the other hand, violently and virulently for the perpetuation of injustice as the history of the past two years has unmistakably proved. Well, the future equally of the Indian people and of British dominion lies in the choice between the two. Viewed in the light of the above considerations, the now notorious Concordat fills and ought to fill, every thinking mind with gloomy forebodings, with apprehension and dismay. That an irresponsible body of men should dictate the policy of a civilised and responsible Government is without parallel even in the history of this country. There is likely to be no serious harm done to the vital interests of the people of this country so long as there is a strong man like Lord Ripon at the helm. But how sad the precedent will be with a weak-minded parasite on the Viceregal throne, it is dreadful to contemplate. Once more, then, the question recurs to us what is to guide the policy of our rulers, “the harebrained chatter of irresponsible frivolity”, or the holy voice of truth and righteousness?
“If Russia is bent upon a war she will not withdraw her troops from within the Afghan frontier as she has been demanded to do by the British Government. It will then remain, for Her Majesty’s Ministers to issue an ultimatum and formally declare war. The war is not of England’s seeking.”
MARCH 11, 1885
The Central Asian crisis
RUSSIA IS DETERMINED TO FORCE AWAR UPON US. SHE BELIEVES that England’s difficulties in the Soudan furnishes too good an opportunity to be passed over. There was a faint hope that the autocracy at St. Petersburgh might be persuaded to abandon its aggressive policy and by diplomatic negotiations an arrangement might be arrived at which would satisfy both parties. But this hope is now dispelled by the announcement of the ministerial organ, the Daily News that negotiations have reached a critical stage. If Russia is bent upon a war she will not withdraw her troops from within the Afghan frontier, as she has been demanded to do by the British Government. It will then remain for Her Majesty’s Ministers to issue an ultimatum and formally declare war. The war is not of England’s seeking. Various causes have been working, upon the minds of the Russian statesmen and they induce them to uphold perpetually a war-like foreign policy. They have inherited the mission of carrying out the mandate of the greatest of their sovereigns to establish the Russian capital on the Bosphorus: and the designs of the disaffected subjects of the Czar necessitate occasional diversion of the people’s minds from their revolutionary teachings to a so-called national war abroad. It is hoped that the thought of a common enemy threatening the interests of the Empire will induce the Czar’s ignorant subjects to forget his autocratic mis-Government and their own demands for a constitutional form of government and to look upon him with feelings of sympathy instead of dislike. It is impossible that Russia can sustain the strain which such a policy must cast upon her financial resources. The ignorant people who entertain a vague feeling of reverence for their sovereign may part with their money under the impulse of their excited loyal feeling. But the country must nevertheless sink the second time into a state of insolvency if it undertakes a war with England. A war between England and Russia is likely to involve other European countries also. Turkey will, of course, join England to revenge herself on her old enemy; although England has done everything to justify her adopting an attitude of cold reserve, yet it is the interest of Turkey to join England in any engagement against Russia. If Germany means to interfere at all, she might perhaps have done so earlier than now; even now it is to be hoped that Prince Bismarck will offer to mediate between the lion and the bear. It is hardly to be believed that without the encouragement of Germany or directly against her advice, Russia will be foolish enough to play the costly game of war with England. If Germany, however, gives any sort of encouragement to Russia, England, we suppose, can calculate upon France offering her help as a counter move. Meanwhile the northern Bear is restless. Russian troops are said to be moving southwards from the Caspian Sea, and if the Bombay Gazette’s information is to be credited, there has been already an encounter between the Russian and Afghan troops. Altogether the situation is critical and further information will be awaited with great anxiety. The central Asian problem must be solved at some time if not now. And if Russia is particularly anxious to have it solved now, England will see no reason why she should not accept the invitation, although any suggestion of an amicable settlement will not be disregarded in the least. But she can under no circumstances tolerate any encroachment on the integrity of Afghanistan which Her Majesty’s Ministers are pledged to uphold both on account of their past pledges and of the on the integrity of Afghanistan which Her Majesty’s Ministers are pledged to uphold both on account of their past pledges and of the requirements of the safety of the Indian Empire.
“When therefore the final settlement of the (Egyptian) question is blocked at the last stage by a power (Turkey) which did not care to co-operate and represent her interests in the settlement of the question during the progress of the negotiation, it will be open to England to say to the other powers who co-operated with her that she had tried her best to arrive at a proper understanding on the matter with Europe; that it is no fault of hers if that mode of settlement is blocked and that since she cannot leave Egypt to take care of itself there is no other course open to her but annexing it also to her already overgrown Empire, however reluctant she may be to do so”.
JULY 6, 1887
The Egyptian convention
THE INTEREST OF INDIA IN THE SETTLEMENT OF THE EGYPTIAN question is the interest of having to pay for all the “little wars” of England carried on in the interests of her capitalists. The words “road to India” “key to India” and the rest have often furnished convenient pretexts to the ministry of the day for fleecing poor India of large sums of money to pay for the blunders and to pacify the British taxpayers. On that ground the maintenance of the consulate establishment at Teheran, the cost of the entertainment to the Sultan in English soil, Mr. Gladstone’s first crime in Abyssinia in 1869, his second crime in Egypt in 1882, have all been paid for by India. The first great act which endeared Lord Ripon to India is the fight he made to obtain the English subvention for the cost of the Afghan war 1878-1879. His second great fight for “evenhanded justice to India” of which his mind and heart were so very full was his protest against the call of his “great and honoured chief” to contribute to his Egyptian crime, in which his Lordship was not, however, very successful as India had eventually to pay £ 770,000. If between Mr. Gladstone and Lord Ripon, India has had once to pay more than three quarters of a million for an affair for which none is now more sorry than Mr. Gladstone, the interest of India will be apparent in any final settlement of that question. It is, therefore, a matter for very great regret, that at the finishing stage of negotiations, at the point of obtaining the ratification of the Sultan, the Egyptian Convention should be totally blocked. The power that has interposed this block is no other than Russia which is bringing great pressure to bear on the Porte against the ratification of the Anglo-Turkish convention and demands the payment of arrears of the war indemnity (for the Russio-Turkish war of 1876) still due! On the day of Her Majesty’s Jubilee, France and Russia both sent strongly worded notes to the Porte against the AngloTurkish Convention in which they threaten to declare war if the Sultan ratifies the Convention. The Sultan asked and the English Commissioner had agreed to extend the time for ratification until the end of the Bairam festival which was due on the 25th June last. But no intimation has yet been received of the Sultan having ratified the Convention; and we may be sure that His Majesty dare not do it against Russia and France. There is something very unfortunate, if not humiliating, in all this opposition and delay after the Convention had received the Queen’s ratification, and Sir H. Drummond Wolff notified to the Porte that he only awaited the Sultan’s irade for the exchange of the British and Turkish ratifications to be made We cannot but wish that Her Majesty’s ratification had been delayed till the reply of the Palace was received to the requisition for the Sultan’s ratification. The curse of the Sublime Porte has been its inability to learn that procrastination has been the cause of all its wars as the curse of the Stuarts and Bourbons was their inability to profit by experience. If the Sublime Porte had learned expedition in the despatch of business, perhaps Russia and France might have been left without an opportunity of sending the learned expedition in the despatch of business, perhaps Russia and France might have been left without an opportunity of sending the threatening note to declare war. But there is no reason to suppose that Russia has not been watching the progress of the Convention with equal anxiety as England, and has not bided her opportunity to make her hand felt at a time when it will be most painfully felt. For she has already instructed the Porte to say in reply to the requisition for ratification made by the sovereign that the Sultan would not ratify the Convention unless the same was modified. One of the changes which Turkey is made to propose is the impracticable and impossible proposal that Turkey alone should be entitled to send troops into Egypt to restore order in the event of internal disorder there. In the first place Turkey had the right to interfere in 1882, when she did not; and England was consequently compelled to interfere alone, as France then refused even to cooperate; and India paid the piper by men and money. As Turkey may or may not in future be in a position to interfere when the occasion comes, England cannot afford to look on calmly when affairs in Egypt again get out of order. In the second place, England did not undergo all the anxiety and expenditure and India did not send her men and money, simply to be told at last that Turkey alone had the right to interfere in case of future disorders there. Now that the block interposed by Russia and France is not likely to be removed by those powers in the way of the ratification of the Convention and the Egyptian question cannot and will not be allowed to lie unsettled, England has only two courses open to cut the Gordian knot – a bold annexation pure and simple – or, a more accommodating diplomacy in regard to the interests of Russia in South-Eastern Europe. The prolongation of the present undefined occupation will be rendered impossible. For obvious reasons, Turkey and France are at present both willing to do the bidding of Russia at any time in any manner in any question. Turkey dreads absorption and extinction. France wants Russia’s help very badly. When England displays, therefore, a disposition to drop the Egyptian question sine die, Russia will again be at work; “note” will be presented by the Porte; the French Press will clamour; and the French ambassador will “call” for the settlement of the Egyptian question. We may be certain that the question of annexation was carefully considered and solved before the commencement of the Wolff mission. But it is probable that her Majesty’s present advisers think that the policy of annexation has assumed a new aspect from the evident disinclination of the Porte and from the attitude of Russia and France to whom particularly every possible concession was made by England, in order to arrive at an understanding with Turkey. When therefore the final settlement of the question is blocked at the last stage by a power which did not care to cooperate and represent her interests in the settlement of the question during the progress of the negotiation, it will be open to England to say to the other powers who cooperated with her that she had tried her best to arrive at a proper understanding on the matter with Europe; that it is no fault of hers if that mode of settlement is blocked; and that since she cannot leave Egypt to take care of itself there is no other course open to her but annexing it also to her already overgrown Empire, however reluctant she may be to do so. It is, therefore, yet possible that that course may yet be decided upon by Her Majesty’s present advisers. But then besides the irritation it will necessarily cause to the other Powers who cooperated in the progress of the Convention now blocked, it will certainly entail the obligation to show Russia some accommodation in her exigencies in South-Eastern Europe. This brings us to the consideration of the second alternative to the settlement of the Egyptian question we indicated above. The reply of Russia to England and the other powers who cooperated with England would only be that if England removes the block in the settlement of the Bulgarian question according to Russia’s own fashion, Russia will remove not only her block in the settlement of the Egyptian question according to England’s own fashion, but also the Central Asian scares! There lies the key to the position of Russia, and the origin of the block in the Sultan’s ratification of the Convention, and the periodical Central Asian scares of which Lord Dufferin is now being treated to more than the usual extent.
“We are satisfied that most of the native states can challenge comparison with British India so far as the material condition of their subjects goes. The subjects of the former, especially the agricultural classes, are happier and more well to do than their brethren of the British provinces. But the ideal Government is not one which is satisfied merely by providing its subjects with the means of meeting the requirements of their physical wants… We hear nothing of the endeavours made in the other equally necessary matter of promoting the moral and political education of the people”.
JANUARY 19, 1888
Moral and political progress in native states
THE TELEGRAPH OF HYDERABAD SAYS THAT THE PRIME MINISTER of His Highness the Nizam is about to exercise his “prerogative” of deportation with regard to certain servants of the State. These servants are said to have carried certain complaints directly to the Resident in violation of the prescribed procedure, which insists on all communications to the Resident going through the Prime Minister. The offenders appear, from the statement of our contemporary to be, some of them, natives of Hyderabad and others Europeans. We are not aware of the circumstances that make this offence so heinous as to deserve the extreme punishment of deportation. But we should take liberty to observe that the tendency of despotic Governments is to indulge in their “prerogative” rather frequently and also with respect to comparatively light offences. While firmness and presence of mind are very valuable instruments of successful administration in a state containing an unruly and intriguing aristocracy like Hyderabad the Ministers of the State responsible for the well-being and progress of the people should exercise tolerance and leniency and should not visit all hostile criticisms of Government with severe punishments. With the exception of Mysore, where the genius of the late Mr. Rangacharlu, sowed the first seeds of political knowledge by inviting leading merchants and ryots to an annual discussion of State affairs and also by introducing some measure of local self-government, we see no native State in all India making the least progress in the direction of inducing the people to take part in the management of public business. We expected a good deal from the present Maharajah of Travancore whose enlightenment and culture have been a subject of praise and hope throughout India. But far from progressing, Travancore has gone on, since the accession of the present ruler, in a retrogressive direction and at present presents the sorrowful spectacle of a learned ruler countenancing a regime of intolerance, espionage and persecution, which has made the deceased Maharajah the idol of the people. It is to be hoped that the little capacity for liberal and progressive Government which the present Maharajah of that so-called model State, has shown himself to possess, will not be the sample of that of other educated young princes such as those of Hyderabad, Baroda, Bhownuggar and Cooch Behar. We are satisfied that most of the native States can challenge comparison with British India so far as the material condition of their subjects goes. The subjects of the former, especially the agricultural classes, are happier and more well-to-do than their brethren of the British Provinces. But, as we have often remarked in these columns the ideal Government is not one which is satisfied by merely providing its subjects with the means of meeting the requirements of their physical wants. The ambition of most of the native princes does not soar higher than the institution of what is said to be a liberal public works policy. The construction of railways, parks, palaces and other public works, which may be more magnificent than really useful, undertaken with much cost and labour, is regarded to constitute the very acme of good Government; and to complete the self-sufficiency of the ruler pursuing such a crude policy, he is regarded to constitute the very acme of good Government, and to complete the self-sufficiency of the ruler pursuing such a crude policy, he is patted and flattered by the Residency officials and the Government of India manifests its approbation by conferring on him some high honorary titles. We do not in the least deprecate the policy of investing State funds in public works, if it be founded on a true appreciation of the wants of the people and of the financial condition of the State. Such an investment is a much wiser course than that of investing them in Government securities as some native States have done. But we do deprecate a policy of bombast and vanity, of doing things not so much from sympathy with the people as from a desire to secure the good opinion of English officers and of the Anglo-Indian press. Now, a native prince like Maharajah Holkar, one of the worst of his royal contemporaries, who will not part willingly with a pie from his treasury for any good object of government, readily comes forward to spend thousands in ceremonies, fetes and in general pageantry. Such a blind courting of the good opinion of influential and distinguished Englishmen is an indication of .a most demoralising principle of administration, especially when it is contrasted with the utter absence of solicitude for the moral and political advance of the people. We have read a good deal about the endeavours made in the native States to ameliorate the material condition of the people. All honour to the rulers that thus fulfil the first of their duties towards the numerous fellow-beings of theirs that Providence has placed under their care, and all honour to their English and native advisers who instil and encourage such worthy ideas in their minds. But beyond this, we hear nothing of the endeavours made in the other equally necessary matter of promoting the moral and political education of the people. Within the past fortnight some events of local importance have taken place in Baroda and Bhownuggar – perhaps two of the most forward native States. The rulers of both these Provinces are young and educated and are generally spoken of highly. But the tendency of their administrations does not contain indications of the course to which we complain that native princes and native ministers are so generally apathetic. The Maharajah of Baroda assured “General Watson, Ladies and Gentlemen” that he could and would improve the condition of his capital and that they might look forward to the time when the drainage of Baroda would be satisfactory, when its markets and main streets would be broad and pleasant, when its public buildings would be spacious, when the approaches to it from the surrounding country would be numerous and easy;” and General Watson, as in duty bound, congratulated His Highness in the name of the British Government “who spends so much on works of public utility, and who can feel no greater pleasure than to find rulers of native States following their example in the same direction”. A correspondent that writes for the Times of India an account of recent festivities at Bhownuggar bears testimony to “the heartfelt loyalty, and the sincere affection with which the unsophisticated (mark the word – Editor) subjects of a native ruler look up to him as their veritable mabap, literally mother and father” and says that His Highness seems to be determined to use his surplus revenues in “acts of charity and benevolence”. All this is good, which we regard as the sign of a new spirit coming over the administration of native States. But what we regret is the apparent indifference to an essential element of social well-being, the moral elevation of the people. The great progress that has been going on in British territories for the past twenty years has evidently had little effect on the neighbouring areas subject to native administration. Yet it cannot be said that upon these latter English education has not trespassed. In Travancore and Cochin for instance there have been first rate Colleges and schools doing good work for several years, and Christian missionaries’ have settled in larger numbers than in other parts of the country, yet the people remained “unsophisticated”; not regarding indeed the Maharajah as their mabap – literally their father and mother – but working out their monotonous life in perpetual dread of the Sirkar. We hope that a change for the better will soon set in, and as communications are opened more largely with the British Provinces and as English education makes more progress, the subjects of native States will imbibe the spirit of advancement and reform that at present animates the minds of their fellow-subjects of the British Government and that has brought them to the threshold of an era so full of promise in the near future. Much depends upon the Ministers, who when they happen to be men of education and capacity, naturally exercise much influence over the titled rulers. It will be unworthy of their education, and infraction of the duty they owe to their fellow-countrymen, if they yield to the temptations of despotic power and to the intrigues of court, and neglect the moral education of the people whose ignorance and servitude as well as the abject poverty must be a source of humiliation to them. Political Residents should not be actuated by an unbecoming jealousy against the diffusion of public spirit and political knowledge among the subjects of the native States, but, on the other hand, should encourage to the utmost of their power and opportunities every attempt made in the direction in a manner worthy of the sons of England – the motherland of political liberty.
“Exact thinkers and speakers have their value in all times and ages. But what India wants even more than these is a class of men who will devote themselves with heroic self-sacrifice to the regeneration of their country. Truthfulness, devotion, self-sacrifice and enterprise are the type of qualities which education in India should aim at more directly than exactness in speech and thought”.
FEBRUARY 11, 1889
Responsibilities of university education
AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW BUILDINGS FOR THE ELPHINSTONE College, in Bombay, Lord Reay made another of those remarkable speeches on education, which have contributed so much to the delight and enlightenment of Indian readers. We recently had the pleasure of reviewing his masterly speech at the recent convocation of the Bombay University, so full of lofty ideals and practical wisdom, and on the occasion we are referring to, he supplemented it by certain new observations which equally deserve the earnest attention of all those engaged in the education of Indian youths. When he said, addressing the students of the Elphinstone College, that it was for them and their successors to solve the problem of their own destinies and of the destinies of their country, he gave utterance to what might be characterized as a truism. But this truism is not kept in view always by professors and teachers, and the students do not receive a serious impression of the responsibilities they are contracting. The object that is kept in mind is the passing of the University Examinations, and in the worry and haste that accompany the process of training they forget this higher view of their future position. We believe that like all serious works, the work of national education must have some definite object in view; and although in every country higher education must be directed towards the formation of individual character, and through it of the character of the nation, still the degree of direct attention paid to this object in schools would depend on the condition of the people. In advanced countries the character of the individual and the nation is not formed merely in schools. The home and the State contribute largely to this result. Even more than the education received in schools that of the domestic influence is powerful in European countries. There are, besides, the numerous branches of the public service and respectable professions, which constantly influence and direct the tendencies of the people. The names of several great men who have left their mark in European history but who owed little or nothing to their education in schools, can be mentioned. But in India both of these two latter influences are absent and all that moral force which is necessary to regenerate the nation has to be supplied more or less by our schools and colleges. It is no doubt a serious defect which the Australian gentleman pointed among the results of our University Education. The character of the Indian mind possesses extraordinary inherited powers of memory, but according to this gentleman it was lacking in aptitude for exact thinking. This charge we must admit to be true with regard to the present generation of Hindus. But it is not certainly true of their great ancestors who were the authors of the Indian systems of philosophy and the architects of Indian civilisation. To those European scholars who have dived deep into our ancient literature, nothing in it has appeared more striking than the exactness, logical precision and boldness of their reasoning. With the decline of our political power the intellectual manliness of the nation disappeared, and two thousand years of anarchy and ceaseless revolution have not proved indeed favourable to the best cultivation of thinking powers. Times have changed, the beneficent British rule has planted the seeds of peaceful progress; and it may be hoped that the Hindus will develop those powers of mind for which their ancient sages were celebrated. Meanwhile progress; and it may be hoped that the Hindus will develop those powers of mind for which their ancient sages were celebrated. Meanwhile our Colleges and Universities have to pay, in the present state of the country, more attention to moral culture than to exactness in speech and thought. We do not say that this has been altogether neglected hitherto. On the other hand, the modern generation of educated Hindus is from every moral point of view superior to its predecessors. In every walk of life educated Hindus have distinguished themselves by their integrity and intelligence. As citizens, as public servants and as professional men, they have satisfied a high moral standard. There is indeed a disposition to cast discredit on them. As Dr. Peterson said, there is a growing distrust of the educated classes, a latent misgiving as to the wisdom of the policy of liberal education in India. But this distrust and this misgiving are not genuine but merely feigned to cover a selfish jealousy against the advancement of the people. Dr. Peterson, like the professors of our leading colleges, is fully entitled to resent the imputation that moral training has been neglected. Still, not to neglect a duty is different from discharging it in the spirit of a conviction that it is the most important and direct object of University education. Exact thinkers and speakers have their value in all times and in all ages. But what India wants even more than these is a class of men who will devote themselves with heroic self-sacrifice to the regeneration of their country. Truthfulness, devotion, self-sacrifice and enterprise are the type of qualities which education in India should aim at more directly than exactness in speech and thought. The Indian character has seldom been wanting in examples of what may be called passive virtues. Patience, personal attachment, gentleness and such like qualities have always been prominent. But for ages together, India has not had amongst her sons one like Gordon, Garibaldi or Washington. The forcing of moral text-books on University students will be absolutely fruitless. Nor is it quite enough to depend upon the Christian ethics permeating English literature. It is from the lessons of history and more especially from the biographies of those great men who, from time to time have directed the destinies of nations that this moral training in its highest sense can be achieved. Education must adapt itself to the requirements of the age; and how else can these requirements be best summarised than by condensing them in the one expression, the general reinvigoration of society? In all departments of life, the Hindus require a vigorous, manly individuality, a determination to succeed and to sacrifice everything in the attempt. A good deal is now said and written about practical education, about technical schools, and the development of industries. But all these efforts will be in vain unless the character of the nation is improved. England, Germany and Russia were at one time much poorer than India is at present, still they have made marvellous advancement in material prosperity within the last hundred years, and the only advantage they had over India was the superior character of their people. Similarly, as the basis of all social and political reform we want the elevation of the national character. In our humble opinion, the best moral code of a nation is to be found in the memorable examples of history. And more recent these examples are, the better. We should think study of modern history is a more powerful instrument of moral training than that of the histories of ancient peoples. The history of England, Germany, Italy and the United States are much more profitable studies and more fitted to influence practical life than the history of Greece and Rome. We cannot but think that sufficient importance is not attached to this most useful and interesting branch of study in our schools and colleges. There is another means of education which used to be more largely utilized some years ago than at present. The education received out of lecture-rooms and from an intercourse with the professors is as important as that received within the four walls of the college. “My friend, Sir Alexander Grant”, said Lord Reay, “used always to be ready at all times to see his pupils in his own study and he attached importance to the conversation he held there with them, almost more importance than to the influence which he exercised through his eloquent lectures.” In our Presidency too, the same is said of Mr. E. B. Powell, of Mr. Porter and generally of the earlier batch of our professors. But of late, we must say, there has been a deterioration in this respect. In the selection of professors and teachers is not exercised that degree of care which the importance of their function demands; and there is now less attachment to the work on the part of the professors. The improvement of their fortune is with them a more anxious concern than the true education of the students entrusted to their charge. A professor is not merely a professor now-a-days; in many instances he is half a dozen other things each of which brings an addition to his income. It is almost impossible that a man can prove what a professor ought to be. Leisurely conversations with the students or weekly walks with them or any manner of social intercourse, evoking the thinking powers of the students, improving their stock of knowledge, and teaching exact speaking and thinking, are out of the question. Speaking of the Elphinstone College, Lord Reay remarked. “If this College is to be in the future what many of the pages of its history show it to have been in the past, the torch lighting educated opinion in this Presidency, then we shall have to show that we are in earnest in the task which we have undertaken and I can assure you that no task to my mind is more important and more arduous than that which falls on the gentlemen who preside over the destinies of this College.” These are golden words, and they quite aptly apply to the professors of other Colleges in the country whether maintained by Government or by private bodies.
“Every educated man is bound to think for himself and while condemning all that is opposed to his sense of right and reason he should hold fast to those that commend themselves to him. We do not forget that there are many beliefs in regard to which a calm suspense of judgment is the wisest attitude of mind. But to uphold and justify institutions and usages which are condemned by the plainest reason but which happen to be upheld or justified in a book of a bygone age is neither reason nor faith. We quite approve of Mr. Ranganadham deprecating the tendency to accept our shastras as an infallible guide to social conduct in these days”.
APRIL 1, 1890
Professor Ranganadham on social reform
IN AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA in 1866, the late Sir Henry Maine expressed sentiments similar to those of Professor Ranganadham’s in regard to social reform. “There are native usages”, Sir Henry said, “not in themselves open to heavy moral blame, which every educated man can see to be strongly protective of ignorance and prejudice. I perceive a tendency to defend these, sometimes on the ground that occasionally and incidentally they serve some slight practical use, sometimes because an imaginative explanation of them can be given, sometimes and more often for the reason that something superficially like them can be detected in European society… There is no greater delusion than to suppose that you weaken an error by giving it a colour of truth. On the contrary, you give it pertinacity and vitality and greater power for evil…. They (the graduates) may be safely persuaded that in spite of discouragements which do not all come from themselves or their countrymen, their real affinities are with Europe and the future not with India and the past. They would do well once for all to acquiesce in it and accept, with all its consequences, the marvellous destiny which has brought one of the youngest branches of the greatest family of mankind from the uttermost ends of the earth to renovate and educate the eldest.” The guidance which these sentiments were intended to furnish to the graduates of the Calcutta University nearly fourteen years ago is exactly, it appears to us, what Mr. Ranganadham wants the graduates of the present day to follow. The affinities of modern India are undoubtedly with Europe, that is, with reason, science and progress, but not with dogmas, with superstitions and deterioration. The education that is imparted in our schools and colleges, with all its defects, develops a wholesome spirit of inquiry, and every graduate worth the honour of that name can be persuaded to feel the absurdity of “assuming that all our thinking has been done for us by our ancestors.” Every educated man is bound to think for himself and while condemning all that is opposed to his sense of right and reason he should hold fast to those that commend themselves to him. We do not forget that there are many beliefs in regard to which a calm suspense of judgment is the wisest attitude of mind. But to uphold and justify institutions and usages which are condemned by the plainest reason but which happen to be upheld or justified in a book of a bygone age is neither reason or faith. We quite approve of Mr. Ranganadham deprecating the tendency to accept our Shastras as an infallible guide to social conduct in these days. We think that in the following lines the sentiments which we have so often expressed in these columns are columns are reproduced. “The Shastras are worthy of all reverence as handing down to us the traditions of a by-gone civilisation. No social reformer can afford to despise them, or to neglect their study. But it is abundantly manifest that rules and observances and institutions that suited the men of a by-gone age can hardly suit us, who live under a very different environment. The method of finding in the Shastras chapter and verse in support of this or that reform may carry us some little way forward and that only after a long struggle over texts and interpretation, but I feel convinced that such a re-casting and reconstruction as would eliminate from our social life the elements that have for so long held an iron sway and paralysed our intellectual and moral energies, could be achieved only by modifying the shastraic injunctions and not by a tacit conformity to them. I have said that the method under criticism is injurious and my reason for saying so is that what might be gained by placing reform on a false basis is nothing as weighed in the scales against what must be lost. This wrong method will and must stand in the way of many important reforms that every true friend of India would wish to see accomplished and I would, therefore, impress upon your minds the necessity for giving this subject your most earnest consideration.” Our evening contemporary has condemned this part of Mr. Ranganadham’s speech as an infringement of the principle of religious neutrality which the University is bound to follow. We however see nothing of this infringement. Mr. Ranganadham did not refer to the Shastras as the spiritual guide of the Hindus. If he had condemned the Shastras as failing to satisfy the curiosity and needs of a cultured man in his spiritual yearnings, he would certainly have been guilty of a breach of religious neutrality. He did nothing of the kind. He referred to them as the authority which some Hindus rely upon in defending and following certain social and domestic usages most obnoxious to reason. And unless the University altogether prohibits its annual speakers from referring to social questions at all – a procedure which we are confident that that body will never adopt – no enlightened Hindu seeking to edify his countrymen in the principles of their conduct as individuals and citizens can avoid all reference to the Shastras. Like Sir Henry Maine. Mr. Ranganadham also might have so worded his admonitions as to avoid all mention of them by word. But we are not sure that such avoidance will improve his position from the point of view adopted by our contemporary. Nothing can be more valuable in the present unsettled condition of many of our social and political problems than distinct and unambiguous advice. It will be absurd to tell our young men that they ought to venerate the Shastras in the same spirit in which an illiterate boor, or an uneducated priest venerates them. No nobler and no safer guide can be recommended than one’s reason and conscience and every dogma and every authority not consistent with the directions of this guide ought to be summarily discarded. This is what Mr. Ranganadham said and for saying that he has earned the thanks of all thoughtful well-wishers of the country.
An official notification prohibited Government servants from attending Congress meetings. THE HINDU: “The Congress is a magnificent Assembly and officials and non-officials may be curious to see what it is like. Anti-Congressmen no less than Congressmen must share this curiosity. Government seem to have deluded themselves into the belief that the people of India will calmly put up with the insulting resolution as they have done with other resolutions. There is, however, a limit for everything; and an impudent aggression of this sort on the liberty of the people will be resented throughout the country.”
JANUARY 3, 1891
The conspiracy against the Congress
THE WOUND CAUSED BY THE OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT HAS HAD scarcely time to heal before another act of official folly has placed the rulers and the ruled in a position of uncompromising hostility if not positive hatred. The indignation that was aroused in the Congress Hall by the ill-advised and foolish notification in the Calcutta papers interdicting the attendance of Government officials at Congress meetings has suddenly radiated far and wide. Nobody could for a moment entertain the faintest suspicion that a Government presided over by an English statesman, trained in the free atmosphere of Britain and inured to the tactics of party politics could be a party to the secret conspiracy set up against the Congress by individual members among the officials. That the representative of the gracious Sovereign who had pledged herself to be bound to her Indian subjects by the same obligations of duty as bind her to her English subjects should have committed himself to such an inconsiderate act of wanton aggression upon the feelings of a people who, whatever may be their shortcomings, have never lacked in their devotion to the Queen and the British nation, should cause intense pain and surprise in the hearts of all well-wishers of British rule. That solid foundation of popularity which Lord Ripon had wisely laid and which the shrewdness and statesmanship of Lord Dufferin did not allow to be seriously disturbed, has been left to “the illustrious bearer of an historic name” to be thoughtlessly thrown down. Jealous, suspicious and timid, the Government have been devising one plan after another to take the wind out of the sails of the Congress, forgetting that the wind which they aim at has not been moving the Congress hitherto. There are, indeed, English as well as Indian officials who heartily sympathise with the efforts of the Congress for the reform of serious political abuses; but their sympathies from the very nature of their position have been more or less of a passive character. A strong official phalanx, on the other hand, has always been opposing it tooth and nail, setting man against man and race against race. A Lieutenant-Governor wrote “Democracy not suited to India” and found a knee-crooking aristocrat in the Rajah of Bhinga to claim its authorship. Sir Syed Ahmed stood forth for a time as the head of the opposition, but the unholy alliance with Rajah Siva Prasad and the Lucknow printer ended in the now famous war of the “patriots”. The Congress has been fighting its way independently of the support and in spite of the active opposition of all such formidable men; and what is the result? Do the Government expect anything better from the forced boycotting of the Congress by their servants? But there is another side to the question, which is too important to be ignored which is too important to be ignored. How far is individual liberty to be restrained by official position? It is, no doubt, a wholesome principle that Government officials ought not to exert themselves in collecting subscription from the public. We only wish that it had been adhered to in all cases. Again no reasonable objection could be taken to the ruling that Government officials ought not to take part in criticising the Government, provided that the observance of the rule is more consistently enforced. But to go beyond this, to dictate his private movements, to limit his enjoyments, to forbid his communion with an individual or a body of individuals, to direct where he is to go and where he is not to go, is unalloyed despotism which those entrusted with the administration of India ought to be ashamed to proclaim to the civilised world. The Congress is a magnificent assembly and officials as well as non-officials may be curious to see what it is like. Anti-Congressmen no less than Congressmen must share this curiosity. Government seem to have deluded themselves into the belief that the people of India will calmly put up with this insulting resolution as they have done with other resolutions. There is, however, a limit for everything; and an impudent aggression of this sort on the liberty of the people will be resented throughout the whole country. The authorities in England will also be pressed and will feel themselves bound to give their verdict on the conduct of the Indian Government. We understand that it has been resolved upon to address the Secretary of State for India on the subject; and if Lord Cross will have the courage to face the House of Commons he may endorse the action taken by the Government of India. But it is too much to suppose that he will court a defeat. If, however, the House of Commons be called upon to express themselves on the question, there will be shaking of the head in several quarters. We cannot imagine that a statesman of Lord Lansdowne’s stamp would give his adherence to a reactionary policy without calculating the consequences. On the contrary, we are perfectly willing to believe that the notification in question has been issued without his Lordship’s sanction or authority. If so, his Lordship is bound for the sake of his own reputation as well as that of the Government he presides over and the Sovereign he represents, to repudiate the notification which is as scandalous as it is mischievous and disabuse the public mind of the notion that methods such as are worthy only of Russia could be inaugurated and enforced under the sway of Britain. As for the extremely moderate and reasonable demands of the Congress, they will be granted sooner or later. The justice of the most important of the measures put forth by the Congress has been generally admitted and victory is within measurable distance. Having conceded one by one all that the Congress asks for, no particular purpose will be served by the open hostility shown to the institution. It can only keep up that soreness and bitterness of feeling which it has been the earnest endeavour of many a patriotic Englishman to remove, replacing it by a oneness of feeling and sentiment, strengthened by the common desire of preserving the interdependence of the two countries and solidarity of the Empire as a whole. God forbid that the thoughtlessness of individual rulers should tend to the alienation of the feelings of the people from a noble race which has spread its influence for good over all parts of the world and has been the proclaimer of liberty to all races.
“To our own mind Mr. Dadabhai’s election (to the British Parliament) has appeared significant not merely because it might directly or indirectly do good to our country but also because it shows the generous and truly imperial character of the English people. Those that are jealous of Indian progress affect to see no political significance in the event. But to all thoughtful and impartial minds this significance must be obvious. It has already raised the British character in the estimation of the Indian people”.
AUGUST 20, 1892
Lord Harris on Dadabhai Naoroji
IT WAS VERY GOOD OF HIS EXCELLENCY LORD HARRIS TO HAVE publicly expressed his sympathy with the feeling that Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji’s election to Parliament has roused in this country. All his countrymen here do not look upon this event with the same feeling. Some have hardly cared to conceal their ill-feeling. They have called Dadabhai hard names; they have expressed their disgust at the action of the electors who are found fault with for having preferred an Indian to a countryman of theirs; and the importance of the event they have endeavoured to minimise by questioning the representative character of Dadabhai and his ability to do any good to this country. Others have simply ignored the event, as if the progress of the world depended upon their recognition of that progress from time to time. To our own mind Mr. Dadabhai’s election has appeared significant not merely because it might directly or indirectly do good to our country but also because it shows the generous and truly imperial character of the English people. Those that are jealous of Indian progress affect to see no political significance in the event. But to all thoughtful and impartial minds this significance must be obvious. It has already raised the British character in the estimation of the Indian people. In his book on “Imperial Defence” Sir Charles Dilke writes a good deal of the moral power of the British nation being based on its military prowess. This is no doubt so; but this moral power is impaired by such deeds of kindly and generous sympathy towards the Indian people as the Liberal electors of Central Finsbury have distinguished themselves by. Like the experienced and enlightened statesman that he is, Lord Harris finds no reason to cry down the election merely because he belongs to the party to which Mr. Dadabhai is opposed. The division of political parties in the United Kingdom has no significance so far as Indians are concerned; and as an Indian citizen and an Indian tax-payer His Excellency joins in the congratulation that is pouring on the veteran Parsee patriot from every corner of India. Even apart from the political significance of the event and what good it may do to this country, it is certainly one that deserves a prominent record in the history of this country. Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji did not obtain his seat in the House of Commons for the mere asking of it. He waged a regular seven years’ war as Mr. Mehta put it. He fought not merely against the Conservatives who were his natural opponents, but also against the party under whose banner he offered to fight. The Liberal party treated him very shabbily and altogether the serious and manifold difficulties that confronted him throughout the struggle would have unnerved a less resolute and less courageous mind. He has shown such extraordinary patience and perseverance and self-reliance that his name might well be cherished with cherished with admiration and gratitude by posterity.
“If the Irish always betray a disposition to quarrel with England, the only way to reconcile them is to concede to them some measure of real liberty and some degree of substantial choice in the disposition of their own domestic affairs”.
JULY 6, 1893
Where are the angels?
PARTY SPIRIT, IN SPITE OF THE EXCELLENT SERVICE IT IS ABLE to render to the cause of the public, ought not to be suffered to degenerate into absurd tomfoolery. Under its sway even statesmen become blind and give utterance to statements which are only calculated to provoke the risible susceptibilities of even the most average reader. Lord Salisbury on the 12th June, delivered a speech in South London on the Home Rule Bill and His Lordship in the course of his address invented what The Times terms the “Angelic Theory”, His Lordship, always cynical in his utterances, ridiculed the Irish as angels. “But seriously this question of the angelic nature of the Irish statesmen of the future” said the leader of the Conservative Party “is one that concerns you very much, because it is only upon that that these extraordinary proposals are defended.” And the obvious retort which these remarks suggest is, are the English angels? Is Lord Salisbury himself an angel? If not, why should the Irish people be denied what they claim because their statesmen in future could not be what no man on this earth can ever be. Lord Salisbury is a friend of coercion and an opponent of local self government in the wider sense of this term. Lord Salisbury concluded his observations on the angelic theory thus – “Now you will observe – I am anxious to bring you back to that point – that the matter we have to consider is the probability of the angelic theory – the probability that these men who have fought us for centuries – these men whose fathers when we were quarrelling with Spain took the side of Spain, when we were quarrelling with France took the side of France, when we were quarrelling with America took the side of America – that these men who have been brought up and nourished on hatred to England and who are in the hands of an organisation which certainly does not love England – that these men should be converted so suddenly from their ancient thought and belief that you can safely trust to them a position in Parliament which, if they misuse it, will enable them to wreck your institutions altogether.” But the historical facts on which the above condemnation is based can be as well availed of by the originators of the Home Rule Bill. If the Irish always betray a disposition to quarrel with England, the only way to reconcile them is to concede to them some measure of real liberty and some degree of substantial choice in the disposition of their own domestic affairs. If the English were the angels which the Irish, as Lord Salisbury told the world, are not, then Ireland would not have been annexed and treated for centuries in a manner discreditable to the history of England. Lord Salisbury while speaking on the angelic theory broached another which is more astounding. “Ever since the dawn of history” Lord Salisbury said, “there have been in all parts of the world, incessant conflicts, and in all those conflicts it was at all events safe to say with respect to one of the parties that their action was contrary to their own self-interest. Everywhere human beings have fought. They have been stimulated, not by a careful consideration of self-interest, but by anger, by pride, by misconception, by unreason; but they have fought. They have fought in all classes and through all ages. And why? Do we not constantly see in the newspapers some case in which a some case in which a wife has aggravated her husband, and the husband has broken the head of the wife? (Laughter). On grounds of pure self-interest that was exceedingly absurd. It never could have been the interest of the wife to aggravate her husband; it never could have been the interest of the husband to break the head of his wife; but yet these things have been and are, and you have had to make laws and to inflict punishment in view of that very unreasonable state of affairs. (Hear, hear). What is there to lead us to think that the Irish Government of the future, the Irish Government which will no doubt be driven by Archbishop Walsh (groans) and Mr. Timothy Healy (renewed groans) and other men like unto them, will be angelic, free from all the ordinary failings of humanity?” Why should the Irish alone be free from all the ordinary failings of humanity? Are the English, the French and the Americans above such failings? This standard of “above humanity” is to say the least a flimsy pretence for refusing to men the liberty to administer their own affairs. If men had not the failings of men, they will cease to be men. They may be angels or beasts and neither of these two stand in need of Governments and Bills to secure what they want. And then it is not all husbands and wives that delight in breaking each other’s head. And that a few foolish people do so, only proves the rule. The people who fight for their rights because they promote their self-interests are greater in number than those who fight pressed on by anger or pride. Lord Salisbury has certainly no faith in the success of human endeavour and in the progressive development of national powers. The speech of one of the pillars of the Conservative Party shows on what unreasonable and fragile basis Home Rule is opposed. When statesmen are driven to such makeshifts, Irish victory must be within measurable distance. With Mr. Gladstone as their great deliverer and the Liberal party carrying out clause after clause and standing together in close phalanx, Irishmen may hope to gratify their long cherished ambition, because they are not angels to suffer forever, and being ordinary mortals, they will not rest content till they exhaust all resources at their command to achieve that success which they have deserved by their long suffering and remarkable patience.
“The British Government places no restriction on the legitimate ambition of any individual and so far as Government can be a means of elevating the character of the people, we must thankfully acknowledge that a steady advance is being made. But it is not Government alone that can accomplish this end. It can only remove obstacles and provide facilities, and when this is done the rest is the work of the people themselves”.
APRIL 16, 1894
What is the greatest boon of the British rule?
NO NATION IS RUINED BY TEMPORARY ERRORS OF ITS GOVERNMENT, but it is sure to deteriorate and decay under a Government which is fundamentally despotic and oppressive. A British rule in India has inflicted woeful wrongs on the people, but at its foundation and in its nature it is not despotic and is not oppressive. It is, indeed, slow to recognize the right of the people to be treated with confidence; it is often swayed by self-interest in the administration of their finances; it sometimes enacts bad laws; and treats individuals with harshness. But all these will not retard the progress of the people to the same extent that the freedom and individual liberty that it recognises as its basis and essence will advance it. There can be no hesitation in acknowledging that this freedom, this liberty, this tendency to progress, is the greatest boon for which the Indian people are indebted to the British rule and which more than compensates them for the wrongs and injuries that they have now and again suffered from its measures and policies. Macaulay says in his History of England: “In every experimental science there is a tendency towards perfection. In every human being there is a wish to ameliorate his own condition. These two principles have often sufficed, even when counteracted by great public calamities and by bad institutions, to carry civilisation rapidly forward.” To neither of these two tendencies does British rule offer opposition. On the other hand, by its tradition, instinct, and pledges the British nation has been their great promoter and it recognizes its mission in this country to be to advance positive knowledge among the people and to encourage natural desire of the individual to improve his condition. European nations have become so intimately familiar with popular forms of Government that they do not always remember the influence that the methods and principles of Government have on the character of the people. Mr. Gladstone said recently that the greatest aim of every Government should be to enable every individual to live the purest and the most useful life; but no Government that is opposed to the highest education and the utmost freedom of the people can realise this end. On the AngloIndian statesmen that settled the country six years ago in the forms of Western Government as far as it could be done then, the benevolent influences of a free and progressive rule constantly pressed themselves and we thus behold towering figures in the early British Indian history, like Munro, Elphinsione and Metcalfe frequently holding forth in almost impassioned language on the great benefits that it was in the power of British rule to confer on the downtrodden millions of this country. No reader of Sir Thomas Munro’s life can fail to be struck with the fervour with which he pleaded for the advance of these two principles, of freedom and progress, under the benevolent dominance of his nation in the East. In one of those tours of which, while he was Governor of Madras, he was so particularly fond, he met some ryots whom he questioned about the produce of their fields. One of the bearded sages replied that they yielded very little and that it was sometimes difficult to get a return from them equal to the seed they had sown. The reply was of course untrue, but the sympathetic Governor-tourist did not attribute this to any natural disposition of the people to lying, for, in his opinion, “they were simple, harmless, honest and have as much truth in them as any men in the world”. “The hesitation to tell the truth arose from the oppressive and inquisitorial Government, which always prying into their affairs in order to lay new burdens upon them, forces them to deny what they have as the only means of saving their property.” “An excellent book”, Sir Thomas then strikes into a philosophical reflection of great value, but unfortunately not always influencing rulers of mankind, “might be written by a man of leisure, showing the wonderful influence that forms of Government have moulding the disposition of mankind.” He foresaw that the strength of the British Government, by preventing wars and by protecting life and property, will increase the wealth and population of the country. Besides, by the establishment of schools, it would extend among the Hindus a knowledge of their own literature and the literature of England. But all this, Munro thought, would not improve their character; they would be made more pliant and servile, more industrious and perhaps more skilful in the arts; and there would be fewer banditti, but, he added with emphasis, “We shall not raise their moral character”. “Our present system of Government”, he wrote to Lord Canning when he resigned the office of the President of the Board of Control, “by excluding all natives from power and trust and emolument, is much more efficacious in depressing than all our laws and school books can do in elevating their character. We are working against our own designs and we can expect to make no progress while we work with a feeble instrument to improve and a powerful one to deteriorate. The improvement of the character of a people and the keeping them, at the same time, in the lowest state of dependence on foreign rulers to which they can be reduced by conquest, are matters quite incompatible with each other.” Since Sir Thomas Munro thus wrote with the sagacity of genuine statesmanship, a good deal has been done to raise the people from a state of dependence; their ambition has been stirred, and a goal has been provided for the aspiration of the nation as well as the individual. So far as the service of the State is concerned no office is beyond the point to which the acquirements and character of an individual can lead him; and the community too, as a whole, need no longer pine in reflecting on the disabilities of a conquered and incapable people, but is now inspired with hopes of advancement and is encouraged by successes made possible by the sympathies and the wisdom of the ruling race. Sir Thomas rightly attaches little importance to mere books as an instrument of moral elevation. Schools and books can only impart knowledge; but the improvement of character comes from a constant application of knowledge, in a spirit of righteousness and sacrifice, to the promotion of private and public interest. By the establishment of numerous schools and colleges in every part of the country, ample facilities for the acquisition of knowledge have been provided and a very considerable scope for the utilisation of this knowledge and the exercise of the freedom guaranteed to every law-abiding citizen exists in the number of liberal institutions worked wholly or in part by the people themselves. The British Government places no restriction on the legitimate ambition of any individual, and so far as Government can be a means of elevating the character of the people, we must thankfully acknowledge that a steady advance is being made. But it is not Government alone that can accomplish this end. It can only remove obstacles and provide facilities, and when this is done, the rest is the work of the people themselves. If they cannot prosper and rise to an honourable position in the world under the liberal influences of British rule, then there is little chance of the regeneration ever coming at all.
“With the finest and most cultured of intellects and with the highest and the most honourable reputations as a public servant and with complete confidence in his own ability and character, he (Sir T. Muthuswami Iyer) combined a degree of gentleness, courtesy and sense of duty which made him on the whole a most fascinating type of man, a pride to his country and an ornament to the service in which he spent nearly 40 years of his life”.
JANUARY 25, 1895
The late Sir T. Muthuswami Iyer
AFTER AN ILLNESS OF HARDLY TEN DAYS, WITHOUT MUCH suffering, with alternate despair and hope of recovery and without losing consciousness to the last moment, Sir T. Muthuswami Iyer passed away peacefully this morning, regretted not merely by his family but by the whole country, respected and loved by every one that knew him and honoured by the people and by the Government. The deceased was a strict Hindu with enlightened orthodox notions of God and religion and it may be supposed that in addition to the satisfaction of his knowledge of the regard and honour he universally commanded he had in his last moments the solace which a pure conscience and faith in religion invariably bring. In his character the most prominent qualities of his race found an embodiment. With the finest and most cultured of intellects and with the highest and the most honourable reputations as a public servant and with complete confidence in his own ability and character, he combined a degree of gentleness, courtesy and sense of duty, which made him on the whole a most fascinating type of man, a pride to his country and an ornament to the service in which he spent nearly forty years of his life. Born of parents who were very poor but respected, Mr. Muthuswami Iyer commenced his struggle for life with little but his own brain and his poverty to help and advance him, and thanks to the respect which poverty affianced to intelligence has always commanded in this country, he found patrons who appreciated the young man’s intellectual qualities, undertook his education, and introduced him into public service. Once introduced, he no further wanted a patron, his own ability and sterling character serving him instead most unswervingly and most effectually and he soon rose to distinction, which grew higher and higher, in the service. In his character were found many of the elements of greatness. He was thoroughly honest and had nothing like conceit or self-sufficiency. He was always considerate to others’ feelings and generally of the most uninterfering nature. What he might have been if he had taken up any other profession than Judicial service, it is difficult to say. His unobtrusiveness and his want of self-assertiveness might have operated against him although even then his honesty and his remarkable intellectual power should have given him a distinct advantage over others. He was a Judge of the Madras High Court for seventeen years and during this long period he uniformly maintained his high reputation as a Judge and lawyer as well as the confidence of his colleagues and the public. He seldom took leave and never complained of work, although it often happened that his colleagues who understood life to be a mixture of recreation and work found in Mr. Muthuswami Iyer’s willingness a peculiar convenience to them. As Hindu Judge, his opinions were sought with special confidence on matters relating to Hindu law and customs and whenever he was called upon, as a Judge of the highest tribunal and as the highest authority on these matters, to highest authority on these matters, to declare his interpretations, he divested himself of all bias in favour of the modern ideas of social wellbeing and perceived his duty more in a strict and true interpretation of the law and custom as he understood them than in importing into their significance a sense suited to a non-existing ideal. Whether such a frame of mind is desirable in a Judicial officer or not, this is not the place or occasion to determine, but even as a conservative lawyer, he has reared a fabric fully permeated by his erudition, his grasp of principles and his prolonged experience, which will last long as a monument of his success and as an example and inspiration to the coming generations. It is very much to be regretted that Mr. Muthuswami Iyer did not retire from service some years ago and spend the evening of his life in relaxed work and refreshing ease. Like so many of our countrymen, Mr. Muthuswami Iyer too thought that having accepted the paid service of the State, he had lost his claim to the pleasures and recreations of life and was bound to give to the State that employed him all that was in him of energy and sustaining power. An European in his place would work for a fixed length of time and no further and would look upon sports and amusements as necessary and indispensable as the doing of his official work. Indeed, he would argue if his employers expect him to give them the best return for the wages they paid him, he should be free to spend a portion of the day in health-giving and invigorating exercise as he is bound to spend another portion in the discharge of his official duty. Mr. Muthuswami Iyer neglected this and consequently died while in harness without affording his countrymen the satisfaction of seeing him free from the trammels of official service and utilizing his experience and social influence in the guidance of their own movements. The most lamentable death of Mr. Muthuswami Iyer vacates a place in the highest rank of the living generation of educated Indians, which it will not be easy to fill, but the lamp of wisdom and merit which he has lit will remain long to guide the footsteps of many a wanderer in search of the hidden secret of success in the material world.
“In this matter-of-fact age, convenience modified by the influence of example is the only standard (for dress) and there can be no doubt that boots and trousers with the European coat constitute the most convenient dress for moving about briskly. The oriental dress is suited to a life of leisure, indolence and slow locomotion, whereas the western costume indicates an active and self-confident life”.
APRIL 24, 1896
Hindu dress
DOLORES” – EVIDENTLY AN OLD-FASHIONED GENTLEMAN hailing from the western coast, with unbounded admiration for that apology of an apparel called the “Mun-doo” by the people of Malabar – starts a vigorous crusade against the change that is coming over the dress of the educated middle class Hindu. He would apparently be glad to see all Hindus, with or without pretention to culture, go about and attend places of public resort in the primitive costume of the race, with a piece of cloth below the waist and with another thrown across the trunk. He ridicules the Indian who adopts the European system. He dislikes the trousers, the coat and collar and tie, and boots and shoes. To him the cap is the most intolerable abomination. In fact, the Hindu in European costume with the time-honoured turban in the place of the hat, is the most ludicrous figure imaginable. Now, we must say, we do not at all agree with this reactionary writer. It is true that the European costume made of woollen stuff is not quite suited to the climate of India; but with a change in the material it can certainly be made less uncomfortable. A general adoption of a pair of dhotties as the dress outside the home is out of the question. They became obsolete even before Indian manners began to be influenced by European example. The Mahomedans introduced the long coat, we believe, and in Northern India the dhottie, too, as the nether garment, had been proscribed. In many parts of India, however, the dhottie still reigns, but there are indications to show that its days are numbered, at all events among the upper middle class and it will be replaced by trousers. If then the Hindu is to appear in trousers, there is no reason why the trousers should not be of English cut. The long coat has become the universal fashion among Indians in all parts of the country, though there is a tendency to adopt the European coat with collar and tie. That the Hindu looks untidy about the neck is true, but in this respect improvement will come in time, when he learns to use soap and handkerchief more largely. We quite agree with “Dolores” in his condemnation of the cap in the place of the turban; but we are not sure that in the case of children and schoolboys the cap is not as good a head-dress as the turban. The writer would recommend some kind of garment which left the neck and arms bare, something of the Roman toga style, which would be, in his opinion, “comely, inexpensive, and adapted to the climate.” He would tolerate no boots or shoes; he would like us to go about barefooted, with sandals to protect the feet from the heat of the roads. In the dress advocated by “Dolores” the Hindu would look like one of those graduates that march from the hall of the Senate House to the Chancellor on the platform to receive his diploma – a costume by no means the ideal one in these busy times. Whether the old Hindu costume or the new imitation of the European dress is more graceful is a matter of opinion, and those like “Dolores” that dislike the new fashion will, we may predict, cease to do so as they so as they get more familiar with it. In this matter-of-fact age, convenience modified by the influence of example, is the only standard and there can be no doubt that boots and trousers with the European coat constitute the most convenient dress for moving about briskly. The oriental dress is suited to a life of leisure, indolence and slow locomotion, whereas the Western costume indicates an active and self-confident life. Very likely, it will in the long run come to this: the Hindu will be content with the inexpensive and scanty clothing of his ancestors while he is at home, and when he goes out he will adopt the European costume and turban, with a slight modification. Perhaps the use of collar and tie will become a matter of taste. We agree with “Dolores” in thinking that the subject is worth discussion.
Gopal Krishna Gokhale made certain allegations against British troops carrying out anti-plague operations in Poona and he later apologised to the Governor of Bombay when he found he could not substantiate his charges. THE HINDU: “We hope we will be pardoned if we tell him (Governor) that no sensible person will change his opinion for all that His Excellency has said in the Council. The Professor of Poona (Gokhale) has no doubt been smashed; but some facts have survived that misfortune and will live till an impartial public enquiry disproves them. Thousands of people in India and England will continue in the conviction that Lord Sandhurst was guilty of a serious blunder in employing British soldiers in a business in regard to which the most experienced and cautious civilians are apt to blunder seriously”.
AUGUST 6, 1897
Lord Sandhurst’s speech
POOR PROFESSOR GOKHALE IS DISCREDITED AND ALMOST crushed for the present. Our friends of the Anglo-Indian press call him names, make fun of him, and heap abuse upon him. It is a strange fatality that he of all men should be the cause of a great blow to the National Party. A more sincere, well-meaning and loyal Indian there does not exist. A young man of great talent and character, he would make his mark in any walk of life and if he were worldly-minded, would make as large a fortune as any other educated man. But disdaining mere money and pleasure, he has devoted himself to the cause of his country’s advancement. That such a man should now stand before the world humiliated and that his error should be the cause of our enemies’ triumph can be understood only as the misfortune of the country. Lord Sandhurst has accepted his apology, but has not failed to remark that though he had made a prompt and full apology, the mischief he has done in a far-off land will remain. No doubt it will, but the mischief will undoubtedly affect the cause which Mr. Gokhale represents more than the official authorities of Bombay. His Excellency’s position is peculiarly strong. Having been appointed as Governor of Bombay, by a Radical Government he has the support of the present Opposition in the House of Commons; and the Tory Secretary of State, being partly responsible for the conduct of the government in India, feels bound to support him through thick and thin. Thus His Excellency is assured of complete support from both sides in Parliament. In India, the whole Anglo-Indian community has rallied round him with enthusiastic support and he is its hero for the moment. In fact, it is the policy of the Anglo-Indian press – a policy of repression – which it has urged during the last twenty years, that Lord Sandhurst is carrying out. In his speech in the Legislative Council at Poona, he assumed naturally a high tone, a tone of courageous selfvindication and injured innocence. He took upon himself the whole responsibility for the policy of the plague operations, he praised the officials and praised soldiers, a great deal exceeding in his praise the bounds of decency, “he was proud to be the head of men who had grappled with famine and suppressed such a plague”. He reiterated his contradictions of the allegations against the Plague Committee. All this is what as the head of the Executive Government with traditions of despotism and secrecy, His Excellency was expected to do. But we hope we will be pardoned if we tell him that no sensible person will change his opinion for all that His Excellency has said in the Council. The Professor of Poona has no doubt been smashed; but some facts have survived that misfortune and will live till an impartial public enquiry disproves them. Thousands of people in India and England will continue in the conviction that Lord Sandhurst was guilty of a serious blunder in employing British soldiers in a business in regard to which the most experienced and cautious civilians are apt to blunder seriously. Our morning contemporary of the Madras Times frankly says that he is “still altogether disinclined to admit that British soldiers were well employed as plague hunters in an Indian city.” “No one who had the smallest sympathy for the feelings of the people or any intelligent conception of their ways,” our contemporary adds, “would have dreamed of setting soldiers to such work, and the intense opposition that the procedure raised is in itself the strongest proof of the great mistake that was made.” This will be the opinion of many people, notwithstanding Lord Sandhurst’s vehement contradictions and praises. The extravagance of his praise of the soldiers and of everybody connected with this muddle will defeat its object and will foster an impression that there must be something wrong at the bottom if such vehement praise was thought necessary. If Lord Sandhurst believes that the information he received from his officials regarding the signatures to the petitions is true, then he must be a very simpleminded gentleman. Does he believe that after the reign of terror established in Poona, in the face of arrests and deportations and the practically irresponsible power of the police any man caring for his liberty or peace of mind will acknowledge his signature to a petition that has caused so much trouble? Why was not a similar inquiry held when the petition was first forwarded to the authorities? At the present moment, when the public mind has been frightened by the Government’s proceeding and nobody is sure of what will happen to him the next moment, every piece of information obtained from the people is absolutely worthless. It is said that only 144 out of the 721 names attached to the petition could be found. That even so many were found is wonderful. Discretion is the better part of valour, and the Poona signatories are not fools to place themselves in the hands of the Police for such favours as they may condescend to show to them. In fact, no enquiry made in the present state of the town, into matters concerning the plague operations, can be worth anything. It is evident that Lord Sandhurst is not in a mood to take the people into his confidence. To the question that was asked in the Legislative Council as to the number of petitions addressed to the Plague Committee, who forwarded them and how they were disposed of, Lord Sandhurst made answer that no good purpose would be served by supplying such information. We entirely differ from His Excellency. We think the information asked for will serve a very good purpose by showing what feeling the operations of the Committee produced in the minds of the public. We are glad that His Excellency will not allow the occurrences of the past few days to alter his feelings towards the people of India – a feeling which we trust will be one of sympathy and love. But will it not be worth His Excellency’s while to inquire why a people so deserving of sympathy and love become disaffected and disloyal the moment they get a smattering of English? The education given in our schools must be most mischievous indeed to convert a contented and loyal people into mischievous seditionmongers. And then the mystery is enhanced by the fact that it is Englishmen that give instruction in the best colleges in the country. Has Lord Sandhurst any means of knowing what impression his recent measures have produced on the people towards whom he assures us he will continue to cherish the same feeling of love with which he first came to Bombay? It is his ignorance that is turned to account by clever designers against the advancement of the people.
“That it is wise expenditure but not ill-judged economy that will benefit India is a truism which applies to every country in the world as well as to India. But can the Government of India convince the public that within the last 20 years its administration has been guided by this wise and statesman-like principle? It is certainly no wise expenditure to have spent more than 70 crores of rupees in 20 years on wars with people beyond the natural boundaries of India”.
MAY 12, 1898
Wise expenditure and ill-judged economy
WHEN THE INDIAN PRESS CHARGES THE GOVERNMENT OF India with extravagance in the expenditure of public funds, it does not mean that the Government should go to the other extreme of ill-judged economy, which in the long run is no better than extravagance. It pleads for due economy in such expenditure as is incurred for purposes not directly beneficial to the people and for liberal expenditure on objects which will conduce to their mental and moral elevation and make them healthy, prosperous and contented. As a fact the Government of India is guilty of ill-judged economy as well as extravagance. It is worse than economical; it is parsimonious in regard to objects which virtually concern the internal administration of the country, objects such as education, judicial administration, sanitation, police and so forth, while in other matters, such as the army, foreign wars, railway construction, salaries of its European employees and others, it pursues a policy of reckless extravagance. That it is wise expenditure but not ill-judged economy that will benefit India is a truism which applies to every country in the world as well as to India. But can the Government of India convince the public that within the last twenty years its administration has been guided by this wise and statesmanlike principle? It is certainly no wise expenditure to have spent more than seventy crores of rupees in twenty years on wars with people beyond the natural boundaries of India. Lord Dufferin justified the annexation of Upper Burma on the ground that it will prove a paying addition to the Queen’s dominion in India. But far from having done so, Upper Burma has been a source of loss to the Empire and of heavy drain every year on the resources of the older provinces. It is true that Theebaw’s dominion is proving valuable to Great Britain inasmuch as it serves as a base from which fresh commercial relations can be opened with the border provinces of the Chinese Empire. But there is no wisdom in India being made to pay for the benefit of such a rich and powerful country as Great Britain. India supplied the men and the money with which the conquest and pacification of Burma were effected. But the gain to India has been literally nil. It is not the educated natives of India that are employed in the high and lucrative offices in the administration of that new province; nor do Indians enjoy a share in its trade. Both the advantages are monopolised by Englishmen, who only add insult to injury by misrepresenting Indians that they are unfit to exercise administrative authority in that country. In no sense can the annexation of Upper Burma be said to have involved a wise expenditure of the Indian taxes. Again the conquest of Upper Burma was effected with the addition that was made to the Indian army in 1885. When Lord Dufferin and Lord Randolph Churchill increased the Indian army by 10,000 British and 20,000 Indian soldiers and thus made a permanent addition of three crores to our expenditure, there were not wanting men of wisdom and experience who protested against the and experience who protested against the increase as not required for any Indian purpose and predicted that the army thus needlessly increased would be a standing danger to peace and would ceaselessly intrigue for the discovery of pretexts for war beyond the frontiers. And the fulfilment of the prediction has come with a vengeance. The Government of India was incited to a war with Theebaw and subsequently to expeditions and wars every year beyond our northwest frontier. Competent authorities, military as well as civil, have declared that this huge army is more than is required for the protection of India against internal dangers, and as her protection against danger from Russia or from any other foreign enemy is the concern of the great Imperial nation as well as of India, the cost should be partly borne by the Imperial Treasury but not solely by the poor tax-payers of this country. It is needless to elaborate this argument. Suffice it to say that to Britain her Indian possession is far more beneficial than British rule is to India, and therefore the present policy of making India pay for the whole cost of the large army, which consumes nearly a third of the net revenues, is unjust and unwise. When the Indian Government agreed to the increase in the army 13 years ago, they did not incur a wise expenditure of the taxes wrung from the starving people of India. Another flagrant instance of a most cruel misuse of Indian money is the so-called compensation allowance granted to the European employees of the Government. This allowance, which is a virtual addition to the salaries of these employees, was granted on the ground that they suffered loss in remitting money home on account of the depreciated rupee. If this allowance was granted from the British treasury, we would raise no objection. But it was granted at the expense of the Indian tax-payers who have in fact suffered far more from this depreciated rupee than the European employees of the Government ever did; and if anybody deserved help it was not the well paid officials but the neglected and the famishing ryots. Well, the crore of rupees which was the amount of the compensation allowance was by no means a wise expenditure of our revenues. Other instances of unwise and extravagance expenditure may be quoted, to show that the history of the Indian administration during the last 20 years, has been a continued series of errors due to the ascendency of official cliques and to most deplorable want of sympathy and touch with the people on the part of the Government. So much for unwise expenditure and we shall proceed to give a few examples of ill-judged economy. Only the other day, Sir James Westland justified in the Viceregal Council his refusal to allot money for the improvement of the judicial service, and spoke of our judicial officers in language the reverse of complimentary to them. He charged them with indolence, while as a fact they are the most hardworking class of officials in the country. A hard-worked, under-paid and discontented judiciary can be no good in any country, and in India, where the strength of British rule rests on the people’s conviction of the purity and efficiency of the administration of justice, such a judiciary is positively mischievous. To refuse to grant funds for such a purpose cannot be wise economy. It is certainly an ill-judged and mischievous economy. It is not only the administration of justice but numerous other branches of the public service that are most unwisely starved because the revenues of the country are swallowed up by the Supreme Government in the pursuit of its extravagant military policy and in meeting its foreign obligations. A civilised and benevolent Government like the Government of India, with magnificent resources as Sir James Westland would say, commanding a total revenue of nearly 100 crores, spends less than one anna per head per year on the education of the people! Can there be a more astounding instance of ill-judged economy? The same ill-judged economy is shown by Government in regard to a score of other needs and reforms which have been repeatedly urged on it and whose urgency has been more than once acknowledged. It was only the other day in the Viceregal Council that Sir James Westland brushed aside with the too familiar plea of want of funds Mr. Nicholson’s earnest appeal for funds in order that village banks might be established for the benefit of the starving and debt-ridden ryot population. Well might Mr. Nicholson express surprise at the ill-judged economy of a Government which derives a revenue of 26 crores from an agricultural population of 176 millions and which yet could not afford more than the pittance of five lakhs for the grand object of the improvement of agriculture. Can ill-judged economy go further?
“Woman is woman, of course everywhere. From the savage half-nude African who values the worth of her male relative by the number of scalps to his credit, to the most cultured European Queen on her throne, they are all capable of loving and hating and share in the good and evil qualities of the human race more or less equally. But each is influenced by the conditions of life, amidst which she lives. And, speaking generally, the most-degraded of Hindu women would no more approve of dancing with male friends in evening dress or moving about with them than the lowest of English women consent to be one of half a dozen wives in a Mahomedan household”.
MAY 12, 1899
The women of India
DIAMOND CUTS DIAMOND, SAYS THE OLD SAW. AND AN ENGLISHMAN’s misrepresentations are best answered by an Englishman. We know it and so we are thankful to the Pioneer for taking the trouble to set Colonel Temple right in regard to the women of India. Some foreigners have abused the Indian woman. And many have pitied her. But the pity, unlike the abuse which was mostly malicious, was ever based on a misunderstanding, as much racial as personal. Writing of Johnson Macaulay says that his philosophy stopped at the first turnpike gate; that is that he knew nothing of humanity outside London and consequently his judgements of people who were not Londoners, were grotesque and outrageous in their ignorant exaggeration. And the narrowness of view that Macaulay deplores in the great Cham of English literature, every Englishman suffers from more or less. Many Englishmen living have seen far more of the world’s life than Johnson could ever hope or dream of seeing. But seeing is not appreciating. And an Englishman is generally too partial to his own views and ideals of living to care to understand the inwardness of the life that is not his. The consequence is he makes a very indifferent judge, that is, when he is not a very unjust one, where other societies than his own are concerned. He sees that an Englishwoman, when she is ignorant, is very vulgar, that she is not happy when she is shut up in a house, or her personal freedom is restricted in any way; that she seldom, if ever, likes her married life ordered by her mother or mother-in-law; and straightway fancies that she is typical of womanhood all the world over. Woman is woman of course everywhere. From the savage half-nude African who values the worth of her male relative by the number of scalps to his credit, to the most cultured European Queen on her throne, they are all capable of loving and hating and share in the good and evil qualities of the human race more or less equally. But each is influenced by the conditions of life, amidst which she lives. And, speaking generally, the most degraded of Hindu women would no more approve of dancing with male friends in evening dress or moving about with them than the lowest of English women consent to be one of half a dozen wives in a Mahomedan household. Our tastes and appreciations we inherit just as much as traits of character. And it is a pity that all of us do not remember the fact while sitting in judgment over those who are not of our community. Colonel Temple, for instance, cannot say, as a matter of personal experience, that the Hindu woman is unhappy. She looks it, says he, and considers and adds she must be unhappy. For, how can she be happy with a mother-in-law who ever keeps nagging, with a husband in whose presence she may not sit, and with her ignorance and love for seclusion? Colonel Temple is sure she cannot be happy and says that her daily life resolves into this: “the strict performance of petty religious ceremonies, feeding, bathing, dressing, cooking and household drudgery, all so hedged round with minute regulations as to make each a special occupation, and to these must be added visiting and gossip during her afternoon leisure.” What a mean, burdensome, inane existence the Indian woman’s life is to be sure! But seriously, is the average English woman’s any better? With her, no doubt, “petty domestic” ceremonies take the place of “petty religious” ones. But we do not know that pettiness is the more bearable because it is domestic and not religious. Yet she has no mother-in-law to worry her. And that reminds us that the tyrannical mother-in-law is not the rule in Hindu Society; and even she is not so black as she is painted. Nor is she so persistent and unchanging in her cruelty to the girl-wife. Nor, to judge by what we hear from Englishmen themselves, now and again, is she such an unnecessary evil as some would have us believe. We do not pretend to be able to know English society. But the Pioneer must know what it is about when it says that “there must be many a European who, after many years of married life, wishes that he had entrusted his young wife to his own mother for a month or two after his marriage.” Colonel Temple makes a good deal of the fact – and he is not the first to do so – that the Indian woman is not book-read. To this the Pioneer makes a fitting reply, “It is true that she is absolutely ignorant of books: but is all learning to be found only in books? Colonel Temple does not say so, but surely he must know that the Indian mater-familias, as he calls her, is more often than not her husband’s and her brother’s great and trusted adviser in all matters touching the family property, and that there have been rulers behind the purdah, every whit as brilliant as our Queen Elizabeth, and that properties have been managed by women, whose voice even no man outside the family circle has ever heard, as prudently and charitably as the wealth of the Baroness Burdett Coutts.’ Colonel Temple also says: – “When there is seclusion, brightness and youthfulness are absent from the manner; the laughter is not happy, it is spiteful; the smiles are not of the pleased but of the cynical. Where there is no seclusion, brightness and youthfulness are the characteristics of the people; there is happiness and good humour in their laughter; there is pleasure and kindliness in the smiles. It comes to this as an observation on society. Lock up and distrust the women and the brilliance will flicker out of life. If you doubt this go to Hindustan, which secludes and then to Burma, Siam and Malaysia, which do not: go to China which secludes, and then to Japan which does not.” And this also we will answer in our Allahabad contemporary’s trenchant language. “Has Colonel Temple ever seen happier faces than among a brood of all castes round a shield during Mohurrum, Santhals bringing in a dead leopard, Koels going out to beat for deer, Bengali schoolboys watching a football match, Behar coolies beating a tank for indigo, North-West Rajputs coming back from a funeral, or Punjab traders waiting for the train? Frenchmen tell us that we take our pleasures sadly. Are we to infer that we distrust our women more than Frenchmen distress theirs?” Of course not.
“The design… of Mr. Dutt of presenting the English reading public the pith of the story of the voluminous epic within the limit of 2,000 verses has been happily conceived and admirably executed. The passages selected for translation are, roughly speaking, about the best to be found in the epic and, in the clean and liberal rendering of the translator, cannot fail to impress the English reader with the faculty divine of the Homer of the East”.
APRIL 14, 1900
Ramayanam – By Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt
WE HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE WITH THANKS THE RECEIPT of this latest book from the pen of Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt, C.I.E., his metrical translation of important passages of the Ramayana, and to apologise to him for not having reviewed it earlier in our columns. Mr. Dutt is too well-known to the literary world to need any introduction from us. As the author of books treating of the history of ancient civilisation in India, he had already won immortal fame and established an indefeasible claim to be regarded as an interpreter between the East and the West. His unostentatious patriotism did not stop there and with a view to the commendable object of bringing about a better understanding between the people of the West and the East, he has of late been engaged in publishing a translation in verse of the most important portions of the two immortal epics which so well describe the political, social and religious life of the ancient Hindus. His “Mahabharata” was published sometime ago and was received with no small praise by the reading public for which it was intended, and his “Ramayana” will, we trust, be accorded an equally cordial reception.
The Ramayana has already been translated into English prose and verse by other writers; but the existing translations whether in prose or verse cover volumes of considerable size, and despite the literary grace of the translators, the busy reader can scarcely find the time to read them even once. The design therefore of Mr. Dutt of presenting to the English-reading public the pith of the story of the voluminous epic within the limit of 2,000 verses has been happily conceived and admirably executed. The passages selected for translation are roughly speaking about the best to be found in the epic, and, in the clear and liberal rendering of the translator, cannot fail to impress the English reader with the marvellous faculty divine of the Homer of the East. The choice of passages for translation from a work of such accreditedly high poetical merits as the Ramayana is no easy task, especially when the object of the translator is not only to show to the West that there have been Indian poets who could hold their own with the best poets of other nations, but also to present to the world the ancient Hindu ideals – ideals which, despite the effects of the Mahomedan domination and the aggressive civilisation of the West, continue to exercise today no small influence on the political, social and religious life of the Hindus, and the difficulty of the task is certainly not diminished by the fact that the translations of such passages connected together by short notes of the translator are to present the long story of Ramayana in a short space. It is therefore no small praise to the translator to say that this work of selection has been admirably done, and is well-calculated to serve all the ends in view. Some critics may perhaps complain that passages of exquisite beauty either for language or for sentiment do not find a place in the book before us. But if such criticism were intended to be avoided, it would result in Mr. Dutt producing a book containing more than 20,000 couplets of English verse instead of the 2,000 we now have; and the reading public would be just as little benefited by it as with Mr. Griffith’s metrical translation of the Ramayana. We have often heard it said that Anglo-Indians and some Indians who share their views have no faith in Indians writing English poetry. How far Mr. Dutt’s book now before us is a refutation of that Anglo-Indian view, we safely leave it to the reader of the book to judge. The book contains passages of considerable poetic merit, and we do not hesitate to say that the spirit of the original has undergone the least possible amount of evaporation in the process of translation into English verse. We are however bound to say that if the translator had discarded rhyme, the translation would have been even more acceptable.
We should very much like to support our high opinion of this book by quotations of choice passages from it, but we are afraid that that course would make our review too long for a newspaper article. We have therefore to content ourselves with referring to some of such passages. We would single out for this purpose the portions which relate how Mandara, maid of Kaikeyi, transformed her gentle mistress into a veritable fury by playing upon her maternal affection; the passages describing the council of war held in Ravana’s court, almost as interesting as the council of the fallen angels in Pandemonium; and the passages describing the fidelity of Sita and her noble conception of a wife’s duties.
Long as the review has already grown, we cannot conclude it without a few remarks on the excellent epilogue written by the translator. With much that is said there we are at one with him. That the Ramayana and the Mahabharata contain between them a correct description of the political, religious, social and domestic life of the ancient Hindus is evident. But we do not quite agree with the translator in the distinction he draws between the different phases of Hindu life portrayed by the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Orthodox Hindus may not quite relish the idea of Rama and Sita being represented as the creations of the poet’s brain. But it is no small consolation to them that Mr. Dutt writing at the fag end of the nineteenth century should have given the Ramayana an antiquity of three thousand years while the epic is considered by some oriental scholars as an allegorical representation of the spread of Aryan civilisation towards the South.
“As the President of the Countess of Dufferin Fund, Her Excellency (Lady Curzon) has issued an appeal to the people of India for funds to further certain aims and objects of the National Association for providing female medical aid to the women of India. Never before did a Viceroy’s wife promote so noble and so humane a movement as the one which bears the name of Lady Dufferin. Whatever may have been Lord Dufferin’s failures as the ruler of India, there has been a wide and lively appreciation of Lady Dufferin’s services for the relief of suffering among the women of this country and it is indeed a worthy task that Lady Curzon has taken upon herself to enlarge the scope of the Dufferin Fund by founding Victoria scholarships for training native midwives”.
FEBRUARY 13, 1901
In commemoration of the Queen-Empress
NOT A FEW ARE THE OBJECTS OF BENEFICENCE AND CHARITY on behalf of which their respective advocates think it possible to enlist public sympathy at a time when the whole country is moved as one man to commemorate the name and reign of Queen-Empress Victoria. Objects of local and imperial interest, those which are intended to enrich the country or elevate the people as well as those which are intended to relieve human suffering and misery, have all found their respective advocates; and if it is possible to find money for all these, the field of beneficent activity in India is wide enough for the satisfaction of all desires of benevolence and charity, and of all interest in the relics of antiquity or in the trophies of war. Lord Curzon has utilised the psychological moment for carrying out his pet idea of a grand imperial memorial at Calcutta. To people outside Bengal this memorial has, by no means, commended itself; and even in Bengal the interest in it must be confined more or less to the citizens of Calcutta. If, then Lord Curzon was not quite happy in his conception of an all India memorial, everybody will gladly acknowledge Lady Curzon has been more successful in gauging the special needs of the country, especially of her sex. As the President of the Countess of Dufferin Fund, Her Excellency has issued an appeal to the people of India for funds to further certain aims and objects of the National association for providing female medical aid to the women of India. Never before did a Viceroy’s wife promote so noble and so humane a movement as the one which bears the name of Lady Dufferin. Whatever may have been Lord Dufferin’s failures as the ruler of India, there has been a wide and lively appreciation of Lady Dufferin’s services for the relief of suffering among the women of this country and it is indeed a worthy task that Lady Curzon has taken upon herself to enlarge the scope of the Dufferin Fund by founding Victoria scholarships for training native midwives. Her Excellency tells us how keen a personal interest the Queen-Empress has always taken in affairs relating to the movement, and how its existence was due to Her Majesty’s initiative. “A matter in which the Queen-Empress took a special interest, and which the Dufferin Fund has up to the present been unable to sufficiently encourage owing to lack of funds and regarding which about eighteen months ago she telegraphed me her hope that we should be able to promote its success, was the training of a greater number of native midwives to work in zenanas. Her Majesty fully realised the difficulty of persuading women of, this country to leave their homes and was always anxious that we should encourage trained midwives to practise in the outlying districts.” Lady Curzon has thus clearly shown that the object for which she seeks public help was one which very much appealed to the active sympathy of Her late Majesty; and what more fitting can be thought of as a memorial to Her Majesty than the development of the movement in which she took so much interest? “I now hope if possible,” adds Lady Curzon, “to establish an endowment fund, the interest accruing from which shall be solely used in forming “Queen-Empress” or ‘Victoria’ scholarships for training native midwives of suitable caste in the hospitals or schools which lie nearest to the localities in which they would be ultimately engaged. I feel sure that there will be many persons who would like to help in founding these scholarships, and to contribute to an object which Her Majesty was known to have very much at heart, and which will do much to relieve the suffering women in India.” Her Excellency says that she has received numerous testimonies of the grief felt by the women of this country at the death of their beloved Sovereign, and she therefore hopes that her proposal will meet with their sympathy. She further expects some native ladies of position and influence to give her their assistance by organizing the collection of subscriptions. We hope the appeal will meet with ready response, especially as we have seen that some ladies have been proposing a women’s memorial through the columns of newspapers. If ladies like these who have displayed such intense desire to have a women’s memorial, will duly cooperate with Lady Curzon and help her in getting subscriptions, Her Excellency’s task will be very much lightened, and the proposed Victoria scholarship will be soon available to those young women who may be disposed to take to the study of midwifery as well for making a living as for relieving the sufferings of their sex. All contributions may be forwarded to Lady Curzon personally and will be duly acknowledged, so that anything done in promotion of the object will not escape the personal recognition of her Ladyship. We need hardly emphasise the extreme appropriateness and value of the special form of memorial which Lady Curzon has proposed in the name of the late Queen-Empress and on behalf and in the interests of the women of India. There need be no more letters to newspapers from Indian ladies of position and influence; for the form of memorial has been very wisely settled; and it now remains only to make it a success by influential cooperation and munificent subscriptions.
“If low income is a justification for the commission of crime, many of the offences affecting property would have to be treated in a different way from that which is in vogue. If Percy Ross, whose salary was Rs. 535 and odd, could embezzle Government money and receive the sympathy of the Englishman, we do not see why the man in need who robs his neighbours should not have the same measure of indulgence and the same measure of sympathy extended to him”.
JANUARY 20, 1902
A martyr to low salary.
BEFORE THE CALCUTTA HIGH COURT, LAST WEEK, MR. PERCY Ross, the Commissioner of the Sunderbands, in Lower Bengal, was charged with the embezzlement of Government money to the extent of very nearly half a lakh of rupees and with falsifying records in that connection. Before the trial commenced the accused, through his counsel pleaded guilty and threw himself on the mercy of the Court. Mr. Justice Stevens, in consideration of the appeal for mercy made on behalf of the accused, sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 18 months, Counsel urged with great earnestness and feeling that the accused was a victim of circumstances, that he owed his difficulties to the comparatively low salary that he was paid. His salary and boat allowance combined amounted only to the sum of Rs. 535-10-10 monthly, with Rs. 3 a day travelling allowance while on tour. This was Ross’s sole means of support of his family which consisted of a wife and eight children, and was absolutely insufficient to maintain his position in the office he held under the Government. It was incredible, he said, as a matter of commonsense and prudent administration that such a poor salary should have been allotted to an officer in his position. Large sums of money had to pass through his hands. In these circumstances, counsel seemed to argue, it was cruel on the part of the Government to have expected the accused to be honest and to have prosecuted him for not being so. Besides, Ross had by his exertions added to the income of the State by about a lakh and a quarter, and he misappropriated only a portion of this sum. Nor had the Government exercised any control over him during a number of years. The accounts had never been audited, the treasury had never been examined for more than nine years. All these circumstances showed that the accused had been placed amidst temptations and being a man with a large family and weak health he easily succumbed to them. The presiding Judge was deeply impressed with this plea, but he had to take into consideration that the defalcations had been going on uninterruptedly for a period of seven years, and that the sum embezzled which represented an average of over Rs. 7,000 a year, was much more than should have been necessary for the support of his family, and His Lordship accordingly awarded the punishment of 18 months’ imprisonment which we have mentioned. We cannot find fault with the counsel for the accused for pleading in the way he did, for throwing the blame for the defalcations mainly on the Government; and we believe that the learned Judge only tempered justice with mercy in awarding the punishment. But there are other aspects of the case which make it necessary for us to add a word of comment. It is in the first place incredible that the Government and all the higher authorities should have for nine and half years left the now fallen Commissioner of the Sunderbands in absolute possession of large sums of money without any check or control. We cannot imagine a grosser instance of persistent negligence than is disclosed by this case. The officer or officers who are responsible for this negligence deserve, in our opinion, immediate dismissal from the service. We cannot conceive any valid reason whereby this gross neglect can be justified or extenuated, a neglect which has caused to the public exchequer a clear loss of nearly half a lakh of rupees besides the heavy expenses incidental to the prosecution of the accused. A public enquiry is absolutely necessary into the circumstances in which the Commissioner happened to be left to himself with all the Government money in his possesion so as to enable him to pose before the public as a victim of Government’s laxity and negligence, and his advocates in the Press to put him forth as a martyr to low pay and allowance. The Englishman of Calcutta devotes a long leading article to showing that “Mr. Ross has been the victim of a false and pernicious system which has followed a cheese-paring economy utterly careless as to the results” and winds up with the observation that he will not have suffered in vain if his case results in the removal of the crying scandal that has been brought to light regarding the office and pay of the Commissioner in the Sunderbands.” In the opinion of this journal it is neither the act of embezzlement on the part of the accused nor the continued negligence on the part of the higher authorities for a period of nine years that constitute the scandal; on the contrary it is the salary of five hundred and odd paid to Ross as Commissioner that is emphatically described as “the crying scandal”. Percy Ross is hereafter to be regarded not as the person who abused his official responsibility by embezzling public money but as the hero who, even like Jesus Christ, suffered for the sins of others, the greatest sinner in this case being the Government itself! The moral standard by which the Englishman judges the conduct of the accused, if adopted generally, will supply justification for a good many other offences committed by a far different class of people. If low income is a justification for the commission of crime, many of the offences affecting property would have to be treated in a different way from that which is in vogue. If Percy Ross, whose salary was Rs. 535 and odd, could embezzle Government money and receive the sympathy of the Englishman, we do not see why the man in need who robs his neighbours should not have the same measure of indulgence and the same measure of sympathy extended to him. “It is impossible to picture the spectacle of this man so grossly underpaid, so heavily overworked without a feeling of sympathy”. So writes our contemporary. We should, indeed, be sorry to see the moral sensibility of people so blunted as to make it impossible for them to denounce the conduct of a man who carried on a long course of embezzlement and brought disgrace on the service to which he belonged. It is quite possible, as we have said, to extend some measure of mercy to a man in the position of Percy Ross, if not for himself, at least for the condition of his wife and children, and we think Mr. Justice Stevens showed the greatest possible mercy by limiting his sentence to 18 months’ imprisonment. Against this few reasonable men are likely to complain. But to elevate the condemned man to the height of a hero and martyr is to distinctly lower the standard of public and official morality; and this is unfortunately what the Englishman has chosen to do.
“Few Dewans would consider it prudent to remain in office for more than five years. So far as we have seen people in Travancore begin to show impatience when a man has been in office for three years and it hardly falls to the lot of any Dewan to enjoy universal popularity after having been the Chief Minister for more than five years”.
SEPTEMBER 24, 1903
Ministerial change in Travancore
A TELEGRAM TO THE MADRAS TIMES SAYS THAT DEWAN BAHADUR Krishnaswami Row, C.I.E., has resigned the office of Dewan. He has, indeed, had a longer tenure of office than any of the Dewans that came after Sir T. Madhava Row, and it is now some months since his retirement began to be talked about. But it was expected that he would continue in office at least till the end of this year. We are not aware of the circumstances which have led to his somewhat sudden resignation; nor are we aware that his successor has been selected. Within the last few days, however, we have been receiving letters from Travancore conveying intelligence of an imminent change; and it seems now that the rumours that prevailed had some foundation in fact. Few Dewans would consider it prudent to remain in office for more than five years. So far as we have seen, people in Travancore begin to show impatience when a man has been in office for three years, and it hardly falls to the lot of any Dewan to enjoy universal popularity after having been the chief Minister for more than five years. Mr. Krishnaswami Row has been in office for over six years, and if he has remained so long it has not been because he particularly desired to continue longer than five years, but because the Maharajah persuaded him to stay. The question of a successor seems to have presented some difficulty. To avoid facing it for as long a time as possible was apparently the cause of His Highness’s disinclination to allow Mr. Krishnaswami Row to resign. Now that the resignation has been tendered, the appointment of a successor must soon be made. Various rumours have for a long time been circulated about possible and probable nominees; and in all likelihood all these will be set at rest very shortly. In Travancore itself there are not too many men to compete for the post, the Maharajah having had the misfortune of late to lose some of his ablest officials. In Mr. Thanu Pillay the State lost not only a man of conspicuous ability, but a statesman of excellent promise, a man of sound judgment and culture. After his lamented death the only name that has been mentioned in connection with the Dewanship is that of Mr. Nagamiah who has undoubted claims on his royal master; and when he was appointed to act for Mr. Krishnaswami Row during the latter’s trip to Delhi, his prospective claim in a way received recognition. Since then, however, there have been persistent rumours and expectations of the apppointment of a person from Madras; and to all thoughtful men it has been evident that that person could be no other than the Hon’ble Dewan Behadur Sreenivasaraghava Iyengar. So his name has been very much in evidence of late in connection with the Dewanship of Travancore.
It is natural that a man of Mr. Sreenivasaraghava Iyengar’s eminence and reputation should be thought of as the fittest person that could be found in the British service for the responsible office of Dewan of Travancore. He has had a very distinguished career throughout his official life. His extensive knowledge of the administration, his wide reading and information, his great ability, sound judgment, tact and firmness should make him a splendid administrator anywhere, and he possesses in no small degree the qualities of statesmanship, which in a country like Travancore, with so many parties and factions, is essential in a Dewan. To onlookers it is quite evident that the influence of a commanding personality will have the effect of unifying the discordant elements and rallying together the forces which are now antagonistic to one another. As the head of an important branch of the administration in Madras, Mr. Sreenivasaraghava Iyengar has made his moral influence very much felt among all who are under his authority. His Dewanship of Baroda during five years was, within the limitations which the will of an able and masterful Sovereign imposed, marked by vigour and originality. He remained in Baroda for a longer period than he had originally stipulated; and it is a remarkable fact that in a State where he was a complete stranger and as such perhaps at first regarded as an intruder, he commanded the genuine respect and regard of all classes of people. He will, we need hardly say, be an acquisition to Travancore; and will certainly add to the strength and prestige of the administration. Nor will the Maharajah, with his natural shrewdness and right perception, fail to discover in him the qualities which His Highness most values and which are indispensable in the head of an administration, in his Chief Minister and adviser. A thoroughly safe and sound man, he may be relied on to loyally cooperate with His Highness in modelling the administration on the lines most conducive to the well being and prosperity of the people and so as to raise the State still higher in the estimation of the world. If the Maharajah can secure the services of Mr. Sreenivasaraghava Iyengar, we may heartily congratulate His Highness.
We say all this without reference to the local claims which we are not disposed to disregard. Mr. Nagamiah occupies the foremost position among the senior executive officials in point alike of emolument, status and distinction. There is no official in Travancore who is better known outside. His Census Report is a monument of his industry and literary accomplishments. He has risen to his present position after passing through successive official stages in consequence of his ability, attainments and devotion to duty. He served such masters as Madhava Row and Seshiah Sastri and gained their appreciation and sympathy. He has also been treated with marked consideration by the late and the present Maharajahs, and as an old and faithful servant of the State he has fully deserved the distinction. If, therefore, a local selection is not altogether out of the question, it will be highly inconsiderate to him to disregard his claim. He has grown grey in the service; and has probably long looked up to the greatest prize of the service. But should circumstance render a local selection out of the question, then the Maharajah need feel no hesitation in inviting Dewan Bahadur Sreenivasaraghava Iyengar who stands high both in the estimation of the Government and that of the public, and whose services on the Police Commission have been of a nature that cannot but redound to his credit and to the advantage of the public.
“Mr. Tata strove to serve his country in a manner that few other Indians have done; and what is more remarkable is that his efforts were directed towards developing the best intellects of the country for the industrial regeneration of India… He perceived that India possessed intellect which could be made to achieve great things, and his scholarships to send young men to Europe and his Research Institute scheme were the direct results of this perception”.
MAY, 21, 1904
The late Mr. J. N. Tata
THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF JAMSETJI NUSERWANJI TATA WILL be received with the most profound regret in all parts of India and among all classes of people. The sad event took place on Thursday, the 19th instant, at Mannheim in Germany, where he had been for a change. He left Bombay in January last owing to indifferent health and after staying for a time at Cairo he visited Naples and other cities on the continent of Europe. The benefit which was expected from the foreign trip was not realised; and his health showed no improvement. Beyond the circle of his friends in Bombay, it was little suspected that his trip to Europe was undertaken for reasons of health; and the suddenness of the melancholy announcement will cause a shock to most people in India who have been expecting to see him back to resume his beneficent and patriotic activity in this country.
Mr. Tata was barely 65 years old at the time of his death; and it was the expectation of all his countrymen that he would live many years longer. But death has suddenly deprived of the Indian community of one of their most patriotic and far-sighted countrymen. Mr. Tata strove to serve his country in a manner that few other Indians have done; and what is more remarkable is that his efforts were directed towards developing the best intellects of the country for the industrial regeneration of India. It would have been little surprising if he had merely contented himself with opening new industries, establishing new business, and opening commercial relations with foreign countries. But his insight led him into quite other parts. He perceived that India possessed intellect which could be made to achieve great things, and his scholarships to send young men to Europe and his Research Institute Scheme were the direct results of this perception. He had himself shown what an Indian could achieve in the world of commerce and industry and as a matter of course in any other fields where one could exercise his intellect free from depressing restraints and limitations. In whatever sphere Indians are permitted unrestricted play to their faculties, there men like Mr. Tata have come upto the front. Mr. Tata having illustrated the fact in himself, could not rest content until he had done something to open out opportunities to the best youths of the country to study science and carry on scientific research; and thus arose from his mind the idea of a Research University which, under a more sympathetic Government than that of Lord Curzon, would have before now been brought into existence.
Mr. Tata was admitted into the Elphinstone College, Bombay, when he was sixteen years old, and left it when nineteen to enter his father’s office. Since then his career was entirely connected with commerce and industry. Soon after leaving his career he went to China and the visit resulted in the establishment of the firm which has been known as Messrs. Tata & Co., with branches in Japan, Hong Kong and Shanghai, Paris and New York. Returning from China in 1863, he went to England two years later with a view to establish an Indian bank in London with Mr. Premchand Roychand as his partner. But owing to a financial crash in Bombay, in which the fortunes of his family suffered, he had to give up the project and return to Bombay. Owing to their financial misfortune, Mr. Tata and his father turned contractors and the contracts they obtained in connection with the Abyssinian war revived his family fortune once more; and from that time forward, Mr. Tata’s career was one of uninterrupted success and prosperity. He then applied his hand to the mill industry. He first purchased an oil mill which he subsequently converted into a spinning and weaving concern and then sold it at a profit. In 1872, he again visited England to study the conditions of the cotton mill industry in Lancashire and after returning to India he established the Nagpur Empress Mills, in commemoration of the assumption of the title of Empress by Queen Victoria on the 1st of January, 1877. Encouraged by the success of this enterprise, he purchased the Dharamsy Mill at Coorla and converted it into the Swadesi Mill. An even greater achievement recorded to his credit is his success against P. and O. Steam Navigation Company. It appears that ever since Bombay’s yarn exports began to assume colossal proportions the P. and O. Company first alone, and then, with two other Companies, monopolised the freight for the staple product so much so that while freights between London and Bombay had, during the same period, undergone considerable reduction, no such reduction had been made in the freights to China and Japan. A new line of the Japanese Navigation Company, started by enterprising Japanese under the guidance of Messrs. Tata and Sons now entered the field as a formidable competitor. Thereupon the P. and O. company reduced the freight from Rs. 17 a ton to the nominal sum of Rs. 2 and again to one rupee per ton. The war of freight was carried on for some time; and finally the P. and O. company applied political pressure upon their rivals through the Japanese Government. Mr. Tata firmly stood to his guns and with the assistance of the Japanese Press resisted the influence. He protested in a pamphlet against the iniquity of the P. and O. Company, subsidised heavily from the Indian revenues, using that very subsidy to make up the loss involved in the ruinous competitive way in which they had reduced their charges. In the end the P. &0. Company yielded.
Though Mr. Tata’s mind and energies were entirely occupied by commerce and industry, he had always a due appreciation of the advantages of higher education to India. He knew that the highest development of Indian intellect was possible only through higher education: and it was for this reason he endowed a fund for sending youths to England which, though originally intended for Parsis, was in 1894 thrown open to all. Having seen the successful operation of this fund, he started his scheme of a Research University which, if accomplished even to some extent in the manner designed by this great philanthropist, is bound to have a very great influence on the industrial regeneration of India. Mr. Tata, it is true, hardly figured in the public life of the country; and he was not a politician in the ordinary sense of the word. But so far as devotion to the interests of his country and his people were concerned, he had not many equals. Not only did he strive to raise the status of his country – albeit industrially – but made sacrifices towards that end such as few other men have made. Few men of wealth would think of devoting so many as thirty lakhs of rupees for the establishment of a Research Institute from which neither he nor his family can get anything. It is a pity that he did not live to see the completion of his scheme owing to the distrust, suspicion and dilatory procedure of Lord Curzon’s Government. But his countrymen will deeply appreciate and feel grateful for his noble benefaction; and we have no doubt that this appreciation and gratitude will not be merely of this or the next generation, but of successive generations to come. India has truly lost one of her greatest and noblest sons.
“Twenty years of reactionary government and the persistent efforts of Lord Curzon to weaken the foundations of our national life and to blast our national hopes have brought home to us the importance of self-help and self-reliance in the making of a prosperous and progressive Indian nation.”
OCTOBER 20, 1905
The dawn of a great epoch
IS THERE AN INDIAN IN ANY PART OF INDIA WHOSE BOSOM DOES not heave with emotion and hope on reflecting on the signs of the new born patriotism in evidence at the present moment everywhere, from one end of the country to the other? For over twenty years the moribund forces of national revivification have been struggling into fresh birth, and today we behold the inspiring and awful spectacle of a great and ancient people stirred into a noble self-consciousness and realising in their own hopeful and buoyant minds the new turn that their history is taking. India is on the eve of a new epoch in the history of her national career. Centuries of metaphysical dream and mental inertia brought on by continued misrule and social chaos had almost taken away all vitality from her mental as well as physical manhood. The dry bones lay in the open valley for centuries, no noise was heard nor a shaking visible. But though doomed to death, they were not destined to die. Though there was no breath in them, yet on the establishment of British supremacy which brought together the scattered atoms and moulded them into one shape, the word went forth,
“Come from the four winds Obreath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
For a century-and-a-half, British supremacy has been blowing gently on the extinct spark of India’s life and had roused a hope that the spark might soon begin to glow and burn again, and fill the inert mould with vital warmth. Naturally at such a stage the nation owes more to the sympathy and beneficence of its foreign rulers than to its own great men. Still, the spark in the languid genius of the nation has now and again appeared bright in the career of a few ardent patriotic souls, who tried to rouse into active life the prostrate body. From Raja Rammohan down to Rao Bahadur Ranade, several noble souls appeared and blew into the vitals of the people the genial heat that spread abroad from the new influences of the West. Other men that succeeded them have continued the noble task and carried the mission of national emancipation to the remotest parts of the land. Their labours have borne fruit in the progress of the process of rejuvenation and in the consummation that we now behold.
For fifty years, our leaders and their humble lieutenants have toiled on the field of politics in the hope that the mighty and enlightened nation to whose custody the destiny of their country is entrusted, would fulfil its promises and gradually raise it to a state of dignity and status, to a state of expanding liberty and growing self-respect. Their toil has not been indeed altogether fruitless; but, on the whole, the result has been certainly disappointing.
The failure of our efforts in the past to reach our ends through political liberty having failed, the conviction is dawning on our minds that a more certain means of reaching them is to bring about a material upheaval, thereby filling the national mind with greater hopefulness and more self-confidence and bringing to our struggle the invaluable strength of abundant material resources. A poverty-stricken people in a drooping and despondent spirit can make little headway against the passive obstruction of an unwilling alien rule and, in the failure of our endeavours till now without the essential sinews of war, we have had ample experience of this melancholy fact. We have risen to the conviction that the path to national regeneration is paved with money as well as with less tangible materials and we now manifest this consciousness by the increasing attention given to questions relating to our material interests in our organs of public opinion and by the wonderful enthusiasm that sways the national mind in every part of the country under the comprehensive idea of Swadesism, which is, in other words, the concentration of our resources on the acquiring of independence in regard to our material requirements. We have not certainly lost sight of our political ends, but we try to open for ourselves a new path along which we believe the Promised Land might be reached in a shorter time and with less solid obstacles. India is truly in the parting of ways; without abandoning the field of politics, on which some people, not too friendly to our national aspirations, say our salvation does not lie, we mean to plough the field of industrial activity in the hope of reaping a more plentiful harvest. The Swadesi Movement is only, as we said a few days ago in these columns, a further and more tangible stage in the departure that was made at the end of Lord Ripon’s benign rule. Twenty years of reactionary government and the persistent efforts of Lord Curzon to weaken the foundations of our national life and to blast our national hopes have brought home to us the importance of self-help and self-reliance in the making of a prosperous and progressive Indian nation.
No country in the world stood at the threshold of a new epoch opening more awful responsibilities resting on its people, and more mighty possibilities, than the one at which India stands today. Will the people prove equal to the situation? Our Anglo-Indian friends naturally ask the question, will the new born enthusiasm visible everywhere last long and bear enduring fruit, or will it vanish into thin air after a short duration of delusive brightness. In their own hearts they answer the question in the affirmative. Their wish is father to their thought.
Will the leading men of India, men of light and leading, public men and silent well-wishers, prove by their apathy and weakness that our critics are right, or will they belie their sinister prediction by a manful determination to carry the stage of transition to a stage of practical and lasting fruition? Will they show that they cherish sincere love for their motherland, the land whose tenderness for her millions of sons has preserved them from extinction and whose noble thoughts and traditions have secured even today a small comer of sympathy and regard in the hearts of the nations of the world for the name of the Aryan race, the race that kindled the lamp of civilisation when darkness brooded over the whole world.
Let us remember that the demand of India on the duty and sacrifice of her sons is greater than the demand which any land made on its children, for she has suffered for us as no other country suffered for its people. Yet, how little is the sacrifice that we have made for this hallowed and hoary land of our birth! now the very feeling of patriotism had been foreign to us; indeed, even now there are many among the educated classes who are ashamed of calling themselves patriots and blush at being called by that name. History records with pride the names of those benefactors of their fellow-creatures who redeemed them from the grasp of native tyrants or from the yoke of foreigners, and in every country in the world patriotism is cherished as a noble feeling and the patriot as the pride and the hope of its people. In India alone this feeling evokes no response and lovers of their country have to profess their feeling in silent whispers.
Let us try to rise above this unworthy and weakening tendency towards self-abasement, and recognising that there is no nobler sentiment than patriotism and no greater honour than to be known as a patriot, let us consecrate our life and everything that we have to the regeneration and honour of our country.
We are now in the habit of looking to Japan as our model and guide. But the Japanese have never shown themselves to be lacking in courage or self-confidence. “Once their leaders,” says an English critic, “have determined on a course of action they carry it through, irrespective of cost in life or treasure.” Will our people do likewise and earn the gratitude of posterity and the applause of the world?
The Arbuthnot & Co. well-known bankers of Madras crashed in October 1906, bringing ruin and desolation to thousands of homes in the Presidency. THE HINDU: “Of all the tragic accounts which we have heard relating to this catastrophe the most revolting are those cases in which it is reported that sums of money have been received on current and fixed deposits by Arbuthnot & Co. on Friday and Saturday last, the last day on which they kept their doors open for investors, whose feelings may be better imagined than described when they heard of the crash the next day.”
OCTOBER 23, 1906
The failure of Arbuthnot & Co.
WE POINTED OUT YESTERDAY THAT THE PARTNERS OF THE firm Arbuthnot & Co. should make a speedy full and fair disclosure of the antecedent circumstances relating to their bankruptcy. The telegram received today that Mr. Macfadyen leading partner of the firm in England has committed suicide enormously increases the gravity of the situation. As one who held the master key of the firm he was in the best position to give the public the correct account of the transactions of the firm, the extent of the losses which it had sustained and how they had been brought about. It is said that “No statement of his affairs is possible”. Naturally so, when the only man who could have unravelled the state of things has put an end to his life in the most barbarous and ignominious manner possible. The public will be shocked to hear that a man who was at the head of a firm of merchants, who enjoyed for such a long period and in such abundant measure, their wholehearted confidence and respect should not only have caused the wreck of so many homes and unspeakable anguish in many households but closed his inglorious career by an act of supreme selfishness and cowardice. The London Times rightly says that the event will produce an unfortunate moral effect in India. It will be true to say that it is sufficient to blast for a long time to come the reputation of Englishmen for probity and righteousness. Since yesterday we have been receiving harrowing accounts of innumerable instances of the little all that people, young and old, had possessed, having become engulfed in this catastrophe. Under the present circumstances, the plain duty of the partners of the firm is by all means in their power to allay the public excitement, indignation and alarm by an honest and open statement of all the circumstances which have led to the disaster and to endeavour to realise the assets and make the best reparation possible to the creditors. The act of selfdestruction which the chief partner has committed makes the position exceedingly gloomy and renders his previous conduct liable to the worst suspicions. It also renders somewhat improbable the prospect of the creditors receiving anything like a substantial dividend. The liabilities are evidently very large and the means by which they have accrued are prima facie such as will not bear close scrutiny, if we are to judge of their nature from the fact that Mr. Macfadyen who was chiefly instrumental in incurring them has shrunk from facing a public enquiry and deemed it safer to get “behind the veil”. It cannot be denied that under the present circumstances the burden of liability and responsibility on Sir George Arbuthnot who is the partner of the firm in Madras has become very heavy indeed. We may say at once that we hope there is no truth in the rumour that he contemplates leaving the country immediately. Personally and as one of the principal partners of Arbuthnot & Co. Sir George Arbuthnot has long enjoyed the confidence and respect of Europeans and Indians alike in the city. There is no doubt that a great reverse has befallen him which is none the less keen or less ill deserved, because it has carried ruin and desolation to many others likewise. An Anglo-Indian contemporary pleads for sympathy by the public on behalf of the partners of the ill fated firm. It need scarcely be pointed out that they will be entitled to sympathy or consideration only in so far as they succeed in showing that the financial ruin with respect to which they have been the instruments of so many hundreds of persons has been caused by circumstances beyond their control and to which they have not contributed by any acts of theirs. As we have said before Mr. Macfadyen the chief partner has by committing suicide sealed his own lips in regard to the bankruptcy of the firm and of the extent of his own responsibility in regard to it. He did not also have the feeling of humanity which ought to have impelled him to retrieve by his future exertions in life the shattered fortunes and conditions of his innumerable customers. To the credit of the English merchants’ fidelity to truth and honest dealing, we may cite an instance which is exactly the reverse of the case of Mr. Macfadyen. An English coffee merchant in the mofussil in this presidency, some years ago was doing the business of a banker. His banking business was like that of Arbuthnot & Co. Owing to the state of the coffee market his business declined and he was involved in bankruptcy. He was able to pay only a small fraction of their debts to his numerous creditors but he faced his misfortune and the execrations of his creditors like a man and set up fresh business. The latter soon flourished and led him on to fortune and in spite of his non-liability under the law this honest Englishman paid up in full the balance of the debts due to his former creditors. He is still doing the prosperous business and lives contented to the approbation of a satisfied conscience and with the esteem and respect of his Indian fellow countrymen. We think Sir George Arbuthnot should emulate his countryman’s example and live up to the traditions of his ancestry and the honourable place which he has hitherto occupied in the minds of the public of this part of India.
As usual in matters of large moment affecting the interests and feelings of a large number of people there are rumours floating about regarding the transactions of the firm during a week or ten days immediately preceding the suspension of payments to creditors. While some of them may be groundless there are others which have an air of plausibility and probability as they are attended by circumstances which may seem to have a corroborative value. It is said that these withdrawals were by a favoured class of creditors. It is admitted by the firm that there were “sudden and unexpected demands for withdrawal of deposits”. It is material for the public to know who were all the persons that were allowed the withdrawals and how and by what sources they were inspired with a knowledge that like rats leaving a sinking ship they should secure their own monies from the impending ruin. It is also relevant to know how much of deposit amounts have been received by the firm during the last one week or ten days.
Sir George Arbuthnot is also bound to enlighten the public as to how long he has been in possession of the knowledge that his firm was sinking and was not capable of keeping above water.
Of all the tragic accounts which we have heard relating to this catastrophe the most revolting are those cases in which it is reported that sums of money have been received on current and fixed deposits by Arbuthnot & Co. on Friday and even on Saturday last, the last day on which they kept their doors open for investors, whose feelings may be better imagined than described when they heard of the crash next day. We are told that a deposit of Rs. 10,000 was received from a native gentleman on Saturday and the National Fund collections amounting to Rs. 2,000 were also received on the same day. These facts and other rumours which have an ugly look about them are matters to be explained in a satisfactory manner. No authentic statement of the particulars relating to the bankruptcy has yet been published by the firm. It seems to us that notwithstanding the fact that proceedings have been initiated in the court for declaring insolvency, Sir George Arbuthnot should without delay, in order to allay public excitement, make a detailed statement of the circumstances which have caused the lamentable collapse of his firm. With regard to the order which was made in the insolvency court yesterday, vesting the properties of the firm in the Official Assignee the wish has been widely expressed that in view of the large properties involved and their being situated in various places another Commissioner should be appointed to work with the Official Assignee and he may be an Indian gentleman of experience and position. If it is allowed by the law nothing will give greater satisfaction to the numerous body of Indian creditors under the circumstances.
“The Swadeshi movement in this country, if combined with the driving force ol boycott, whatever effect it may have on the political relations between the British and Indian peoples, is bound, in our view, to accelerate the industrial development of the country. We go further and hold that Swadeshi and Boycott are indispensable factors to produce the economic revolution in the country necessary to ensure its material prosperity, labouring as we do under the disabilities attendant upon a foreign political domination”.
JULY 9, 1907
Economic boycott
IT IS COMMONLY ASSERTED AND BELIEVED IN BY NOT A FEW OF our public men, that boycott of British or foreign goods is a weapon to be used for political purposes, that it is a means of propagating race hatred, and that under the peculiar circumstances of this country, this weapon of hate, as it is termed, ought not to be had recourse to by the people. It is argued that if boycott is the instrument by which you are to wring political concessions from the rulers of the country, it is bound to raise angry passions, and that it must be kept in reserve in order to be employed on extreme occasions only. It is maintained by those who support the adoption of the boycott in its full length, that the administration of the country has arrived at such a pass, that recourse to it is justifiable under existing circumstances. Without discussing this aspect of the question, it seems to us that it may most reasonably be maintained that the economic regeneration of the country will be greatly advanced by adopting the system of boycott of British and foreign goods. The late Mr. Justice Ranade observed at an Industrial Conference held at Poona, that “the political domination of one country by another attracts far more attention than the more formidable, though unfelt, domination, which the capital, enterprise and skill of one country, exercise over the trade and manufactures of another. This latter domination has an insidious influence which paralyses the springs of all the varied activities which together make up the life of a nation.” That the people of this country are at the present moment affected injuriously by the evils of a political domination as well as by the evils arising from the more potent and insidious economic foreign domination needs no demonstration. The Swadeshi movement in this country, if combined with the driving force of boycott, whatever effect it may have on the political relations between the British and the Indian peoples, is bound, in our view, to accelerate the industrial development of the country. We go further and hold that Swadeshi and Boycott are indispensable factors to produce the economic revolution in the country necessary to ensure its material prosperity, labouring as we do, under the disabilities attendant upon a foreign political domination. In an article on “Government and Industrial Development” published in its issue of Friday last, the Pioneer says:-“In considering the administrative action of Government, we may safely discard the idea of a protective tariff. It is true that a long series of English economists have justified protection for starting new industries; it is true that almost any colonial, American, or continental statesman would unhesitatingly prescribe a tariff as the first step to be taken; and it is probably true that a moderate tariff would be the most popular measure that could be introduced in the Legislative Council. But it is also true that the English Government English Government of the time is not prepared to consider the possibility of protection in any shape or form.” The truth of these observations is undeniable, only, the Pioneer affects to throw the blame on the Liberal Government, conveniently ignoring the fact that the Conservative Government, which was in power till 18 months ago, preserved the same attitude and it was the late Marquis of Salisbury, when Secretary of State for India, that directed the repeal of the cotton import duties. Why should the people of India, as stated by the Pioneer, discard the idea of a protective tariff? If the Government of this country is carried on for the benefit of the people, as pompously proclaimed by Mr. Morley in his Budget speech, and if the opinions of a long series of English economists and of the people of the country are in favour of a protective tariff, why does the Government shrink from imposing it? The answer obviously is that it fears to offend the British merchants whose pockets will suffer by the proposed restriction. The British people did not hesitate to prohibit the importation of Indian goods into England when they affected the sale of British goods of similar kind in the market. During the time of the East India Company, Indian silks, cotton and other articles were imported into England and were preferred to the British made goods for their quality and price. The British merchants became exasperated at this and in consequence of their agitation, the British Parliament passed an Act by which it was enacted, that “from and after the 29th day of September 1701, all bought silks, angolas and stuffs mixed with silk or herbs of manufacture of China, Persia, or the East Indies, and all calicoes painted, dyed, printed or stained there, which are, or shall be, imported into this kingdom, shall not be worn or otherwise used in Great Britain, and all goods imported after that date shall be warehoused or exported again.” In 1775, a Patriotic Society was formed in Edinburgh as a protest against the fashion of wearing Indian cotton apparel. The object of that Society was to boycott every man associated with the ladies wearing it. These facts are sufficiently eloquent and as a writer in the Hindustan Review observes, “let our Anglo-Indian critics who find fault with the Bengal movement, ponder over these enactments and resolutions.” The matter, however, is clearly set forth by James Mill in his history of India, where he writes of this subject, as follows:
It was stated in evidence that the cotton and silk goods of India up to this period (1815) could be sold for a profit in the English market at a price from 50 to 60 per cent, lower than those fabricated in England. It consequently became necessary to protect the latter by duties of 70 or 80 per cent, on their value or by positive prohibition. Had not this been the case, the mills of Manchester and Paisley would have stopped at the outset and could scarcely have been in motion even by the power of steam. They were created at the sacrifice of Indian manufacturers. Had India been independent, she would have retaliated. This act of self-defence was not permitted her. British goods were forced on her without paying any duty and the foreign manufacturer employed the arm of political injustice to keep down and ultimately strangle a competitor with whom he could not have contended on equal terms.
The italics are ours, though even without them, the sense of James Mill’s words cannot be missed. The facts above referred to prove conclusively that in the early days of England’s connection with India, the British trade in certain textile fabrics was in danger of losing ground in competition with Indian-made goods. English public opinion, therefore, rose against the imminent peril. Boycott Societies were formed to keep out the Indian goods and the British Parliament solemnly passed an Act prohibiting the importation of Indian goods into England.
The people of India need not complain that the British merchants of those days looked after their interests so keenly, watchfully and well that they took effective measures to protect their interests even, when by so doing, they put the Indian merchants at a great disadvantage.
The situation then created was one of economic and financial independence between the people of Great Britain and the people of India. If this position had been consistently maintained in all the subsequent dealings between the two peoples, Indian commerce and industries would not be in the miserable condition in which they are now. When the interests of the British merchants were endangered by the competition of the Indian merchants in England, the Government and the people of England with united strength erected a wall of protective tariff around their country rigidly shutting out the importation of Indian goods. But when the British goods at a subsequent period were poured into India and swamped the already decaying Indian trade, the Government of England used, as James Mill terms it, the arm of political injustice to throw freely open the ports of India to the goods of British merchants, and helped to smother and almost to extinguish Indian trade in cotton goods.
“The Psychic Research Society has a life of a quarter of a century and the results which have been obtained by constant research and close examination are such as should make even the most sceptical to pause in their work of discrediting every phenomenon which, by their limited reasoning and experiment, they are not able to find the truth about. The existence of such curious and startling phenomenon seems to be assured…”
NOVEMBER 11, 1908
Psychical research
SIR OLIVER LODGE IS ONE OF THE FEW SCIENTISTS IN EUROPE who have an open mind regarding psychic and other puzzling phenomena which are too often put down for stupid superstition. Indeed open-mindedness has been through out his characteristic, and his contributions to the study of what are called “psychological supernormalities have horrified not a few of his co-workers in the field of science. His latest on the subject appear in the Harper’s Monthly Magazine for August, and it is an eloquent plea for the recognition of the truth of certain psychic occurrences. The Psychic Research Society was established twenty-five years ago for the purpose of investigating what substance there was in a number of certain strange, weird apparent facts with which most of the distinguished members who joined the Society at its inception had become acquainted. Those that took part in the deliberations of the P.R.S. were eminent men, trained students in Science, Literature and Philosophy. The P.R.S. has a life of a quarter of a century and the results which have been obtained by constant research and close examination are such as should make even the most sceptical to pause in their work of discrediting every phenomenon which, by their limited reasoning and experiment, they are not able to find the truth about. The existence of such curious and startling phenomena seems to be assured, and every student of the voluminous and epoch-making works of Frederic Myers should now be familiar with them. Sir Oliver Lodge states that the first fact established by the Society’s labour was the reality of telepathy – which is described to be the phenomenon of a thought or image or impression or emotion in the mind of one person giving rise to a similar impression in the mind of another person sufficiently sympathetic and sufficiently at leisure to attend and record the impression. But though this is proved nothing is known about how this is caused, about the mechanism which works this effect. The discovery of this fact has served to explain in a way, many phenomena like apparitions, hallucinations, whether of sight, or of hearing or of touch. At the same time it reduced the stories about the clothes and accessories of so called ‘ghosts’ to absurdity. A second phenomenon of immense importance which there is every probability of being accepted as true in the near future is that which is known under various names, and of which the simplest is called ‘automatic writing’ – “that is writing executed independently of the full knowledge and consciousness of the operator – the hand acting in obedience either to some unconscious portion of the operator’s mind, or else responding to some other psychical influence more or less distinct from both his normal and his hypernormal personality.” Sir Oliver Lodge emphatically says that it is ‘useless and merely ignorant’ to deny occurrences of the nature mentioned above. These phenomena occasionally take the form of unconscious speeches and the person who is used as a medium is often himself unconscious for one or two hours together. Whence the information which is given out in writing or speech is obtained, is not known, but Sir Oliver Lodge states that the simplest assumption and one that covers a majority of cases is that the writer’s unconscious intelligence or subliminal self, his dream or genius stratum is at work. Now two hypothesis are being advanced to explain these phenomena. One of them, believed in by Sir Oliver Lodge himself as sufficiently covering very large number of cases, is that telepathy of some kind is occurring from some living person and is influencing the sensitive mind or train of the unconscious or semi-unconscious operator. But there is the other hypothesis which goes further and this is. It is supposed that the surviving intelligence of some of those who have recently lived on this earth, bring to bear a telepathic or telergic influence on the persons who ‘automatically’ write or deliver a speech while under trance. It is stated that a physiological apparatus is utilised by an intelligence to which it does not belong and this is called motor automatism or ‘telergy, or popularly ‘possession’. These two hypothesis may be taken for the purpose of investigation and research with perfect liberty to throw them away if they are proved to be wrong and unsatisfactory. In ordinary life the process involved in speaking and writing is this. An idea is conceived in the mind and for it to get expressed, it must move matter in the material world. A thought belongs to a different order of existence – “whatever it is it is not material; it is neither matter nor force; it has no direct power over matter; directly and unaided it moves matter; in the muscle is contained energy which only requires to be stimulated into activity in order to be transformed into visible motion. Muscles are stimulated by nerve fibres which themselves are excited from a central source of energy such as exists in the cortex or grey matter in the brain. Only thus much is known and understood. But what is it that stimulates the brain? Only in some cases it is mere reflex action. But in the case of a thought conceived in the mind, asks Sir Oliver Lodge, “operating, so to speak, on the will, and determining that there shall be a response in the material world, how does the stimulus get out of the psychical region into the physical and liberate energy from the brain centre?” Sir Oliver says “I have not the remotest idea; nor, I venture to say, has anyone.” Telepathy has suggested that mind can act directly on mind and thereby indirectly operate on the physical world through the organism of another person. But they are all cases where the mind of the second person is left out of account altogether and where only his brain is affected so that some mechanical action is produced in the physical world. And it is these cases which are called “possession” – a telergical effect as it is technically named. If these are true as there is every indication to believe they are, then, Sir Oliver Lodge says they are worth knowing about thoroughly. Now, it is ordinarily said by religiously orthodox people that the connection between ourselves and our organism is only temporary and that at death, the body resolves itself into its original elements, but the psychic entities still persist. In the new state, which occurs after death, we have no means of moving matter, of operating on the physical world. We cannot communicate with friends – no, not unless one of three things happen, says Sir Oliver Lodge. The telepathic power may continue so as to enable us to operate directly on the conscious or unconscious mind of our friends; or a material agency may continue, which it is somewhat difficult to conceive of, or thirdly and more likely a telergic power enabling the physical unit (ourselves after death) to detect and make use of some fully developed physiological medium – not of course belonging to it, for we speak of things happening at the death – ‘so that, during temporary vacation, by the usual possessor, this physiological medium may be utilised for a time and may achieve, in an unpractised and more or less blundering fashion, some desired influence upon the physical world.’ This trying to use other people’s bodies for conveying messages by surviving intelligence may be due to various cases – it may be due to affection of the operator for his friends, or occasionally, in the words of Sir Oliver Lodge it may be a scientific interest surviving from the time in this life when he was a keen and active member of the P. R. S. so that he desires above all things to convey to his friends, engaged on the same quest, some assurance, not only of his continued individual existence – in which on religious grounds, they may imagine that they already believe – but of his retention of a power to communicate indirectly and occasionally with them, and to produce movements even in the material world, by kind permission of an organism, or part of an organism, the temporary use or possession of which has been allowed him for that purpose.” The P.R.S. is now engaged in aiming at evidence to prove the identity of these surviving intelligences. And this is sought to be done by cross-correspondence – the reception of part of a message through one medium and part through another – and by information or criteria characteristic of the supposed intelligence.
“In taking up an attitude of active hostility to the important portions of the reform proposals, our Anglo-Indian brethren are, we venture to say, not acting in the best interests of this country, present or prospective, nor in the best and enduring interest of the community to which they belong. By engaging in the unwholesome agitation into which they have entered they are setting up a pernicious example to their Indian fellow countrymen; nor is their action calculated to advance the cause of justice and of good government”.
JANUARY 15, 1909
The reception of the reforms
THE LETTERS ON LORD MORLEY’S REFORM PROPOSALS WHICH We have been publishing in these columns from Indians of note in this Presidency concluding today with that of Mr. Nagamiah, the talented ex-Dewan Peishkar of Travancore, show that intelligent and educated public opinion views with much gratification and thankfulness the instalment of reform indicated in the joint proposals of the Secretary of State and of the Government of India. So far as Indian opinion is concerned, there are unmistakable tokens of appreciation and of a sense of relief from every part of the country that the proposed reforms are regarded as a timely, judicious and statesmanlike solution of the impasse into which things have drifted in the country. In placing his proposals of the scheme of Reform before the House of Lords, in a speech of stately dignity, chaste diction and farseeing statesmanship, Lord Morley said that it was his desire to know what reception they would meet with in this country before they were embodied in the form of a bill to be introduced at the next session of Parliament. In the gracious speech of His Majesty the King Emperor, with which Parliament was prorogued on the 21st December last, the following significant words occur: “My Government have, therefore, felt justified in pressing forward the measures that have long been under their consideration, for enlarging the share of the Indian peoples in the administration of the country. These measures have been laid before you and I earnestly hope that they will be received in the spirit of mutual trust and goodwill in which they are proposed.” We commend the words we have italicised to the earnest and deep attention of that section of the Anglo-Indian community which seems bent upon crying down the Reforms or a portion of them, in a spirit far from conducive to strengthening brotherly feelings between the Indian and Anglo-Indian communities, showing likewise a lack of a spirit of loyal cooperation in regard to the declared intentions and policy of His Majesty and of His Government. In taking up an attitude of active hostility to the important portions of the Reform proposals, our Anglo-Indian brethren, are, we venture to say, not acting in the best interests of this country, present or prospective, nor in the best and enduring interests of the community to which they belong. By engaging in the unwholesome agitation into which they have entered they are setting up a pernicious example to their Indian fellowcountrymen; nor is their action calculated to advance the cause of justice and of good government. That portion of the Reform proposals which is apparently viewed with great disfavour by a portion of the Anglo-Indian community is the one relating to the appointment of Indians in the Executive Council. It is difficult to discover any legitimate and reasonable ground of opposition for this measure. Considerations of justice, of policy and wise statesmanship imperatively require the step to be taken. It has indeed been too long deferred. The principle that no Indian shall by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, colour or any of them be disabled from holding any high office under the Crown was established so long ago as 1833, by Statutes 3 and 4 of William IV. The very reasons which the Parliamentary statute has declared not to be operative as a bar to Indians being raised to high offices, have been in practice for three quarters of a century made so to act. Honest English statesmen have not hesitated to denounce this as a political hypocrisy and injustice. It is the desire to perpetuate a racial cleavage between the rulers and the ruled, the ruling race and the subject race that has led to what Lord Lytton rightly characterised as “breaking to the heart the words of promise they had uttered to the ear”. Intelligent Anglo-Indians must admit that the time has now arrived when it is futile and even dangerous to indulge in the cant about racial inferiority in order to debar Indians from climbing beyond a certain step in the official ladder, to say that in the official hierarchy a native of India shall go thus far only and no further. We have said advisedly that the arrogant assertion of racial superiority is dangerous under existing conditions in India, because, singularly enough, in the last number of the Antiseptic just received, in an article republished elsewhere, on “The Patho-genesis of Anarchism”, the following passage occurs: –
“We are told by eminent historians that the guiding principle of Jacobins and French anarchists was political equality. That is also the ideal of Nihilists who are anarchists of a particular type. And the Bengal anarchists appear to be no exception to the rule. Political equality seems to be their object too. But with them political equality is inextricably mixed up with racial equality. And the not infrequent public assertion of racial superiority by the less thoughtful European residents in this country over their Indian fellow-citizens may not unnaturally have fanned into flame the dormant desire for absolute equality lurking in the minds of the potential anarchists of Bengal.”
Be this as it may, there can be no doubt that as a matter of justice and common fairness, the claims of Indians of proved capacity and character should be placed upon a par with those of Englishmen in respect of a reasonable proportion of the highest offices in the country; otherwise, a standing source of national irritation and wrong will subsist. Many years ago, the late Sir Henry Fawcett remarked in the House of Commons as follows: “Sir Madava Row administered Travancore with so much skill as justly to entitle him to be considered the Turgot of India. He found Travancore when he went there in 1849 in the lowest stage of degradation. He has left it a model State. This is the kind of man for whom we have no proper opening at a time when our resources are declared to be inelastic and when, if the opium revenue failed us, we should not know where to turn for the amount required.” It seems to us that apart from all considerations bearing upon the efficiency of and improvement in the administration, consequent on the appointment of Indians as Members to the Executive Councils, it would help to remove a badge, so to speak, of racial inferiority, as well as satisfy the claims of national justice. Mr. H. W. Nevinson, a keen and disinterested observer writes in his book on the “New Spirit in India” referring to the desirable change of attitude on the part of Anglo-Indians towards Indians: “If the phrase ‘rulers and ruled’ died too, and if our social philosophers would cease to drone out with weary ineptitude that ‘East is East and West is West’ the situation would be much eased.” In a speech delivered sometime after his arrival in Madras, His Excellency Sir Arthur Lawley observed as follows: – “If you ask me to define in a single phrase what I conceive should be the true relation between Europeans and Indians of the country, I should say it would be one of ‘manly comradeship’. Think for a moment what that phrase implies. It does not mean the mere passive attitude of the arm-chair sentimentalist, the mere attitude of sympathy and goodwill, but it means for both races devotion of their energies to the attainment of one end; it means the mutual understanding of the modes and actions of both; it means experience of difficulties faced together and the striving shoulder to shoulder, side by side, towards one common goal, the good of India.” This is a most just and statesmanlike view of the situation and the association of Indians with Englishmen in the Executive Councils is, therefore, a legitimate and necessary step in the right direction which all the members of the Anglo-Indian community, as much as Indians, ought ungrudgingly to welcome, and make fruitful of common and public benefit.
“India… while it mourns the loss of an Emperor whose kindness and affection secured for them the blessings of British rule – so graciously granted by the late Queen Empress – welcomes her new King-Emperor whose sympathy with her people has already been assured, whose personal knowledge and insight has already led him to the true secret of wise, progressive and beneficent rule in India”.
MAY 9, 1910
George V – King Emperor
THE SPEECH WHICH HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V. EMPEROR of India, addressed to the Privy Council on Saturday last, a summary of which Reuter has wired to us, will sound the veriest depths of emotion in every one of his subjects. His Majesty recalled his father’s words, that so long as he drew breath he would strive to promote the best interests of the people. “It will be the earnest object of my life”, said His Majesty, “to follow in the footsteps of my father and at the same time uphold the constitutional Government of these realms. I am deeply sensitive to my heavy responsibilities, but know that I can rely on Parliament and the people of these islands and my dominions overseas to help me in the discharge of my arduous duties by their prayers that God will grant me strength and guidance.” His Majesty King George V comes to the throne at a younger age than his late Majesty, but with a wiser head than many monarchs his age could boast of in Europe. King George in the days of his youth was not trained to be a king”. That was done in the case of his late lamented brother, the Duke of Clarence. His Majesty therefore, has had the singular advantage of having been trained as a sailor and the unsecluded career led by him threw him fully and freely in the midst of all his subjects. When he was therefore, called in 1901, by the hand of Providence, to undertake the duties of his royal position as Prince of Wales, His Majesty showed an adaptability and resource in his new position and evinced qualities, which if they were perhaps different from those displayed by his great father, His late Majesty, certainly contributed equally to strengthen the bonds of the people of the Empire to the throne and to attach their affections to himself as the heir-apparent. Quietly, unostentatiously, but none the less effectively, His Majesty has been performing the functions of his high office. His Majesty has visited every part of his Empire and has made himself personally acquainted with all their problems. For the Royal tours in 1901 and 1905-06 were not regarded by him, merely as Royal progresses undertaken for purposes of display or diversion, but as affording opportunities for the purpose of understanding the varying needs and requirements of the Empire. That His Majesty used those opportunities wisely and well, it is superfluous to mention. The speeches which he delivered on his return from his colonial and Indian tours have given his subjects a glimpse of the deep insight which he has acquired into their conditions and into their problems. His Majesty’s Indian subjects now recall with pride the great speech which he made at the Guildhall Banquet given to him in June 1906, which we republish elsewhere and in which he gave an account of his impressions of his Indian subjects, of the enthusiasm and devotion with which they welcomed him, of the unmistakable proofs of their genuine devotion and personal attachment to the King Emperor, his late Majesty, and of the poverty and misery of many of the people of this land to whom he extended his royal sympathy. In the following impassioned words, he appealed to his hearers and to the members of the ruling class in India to rule his people with sympathy:
I have realised the patience, the simplicity of life, the loyal devotion, and the religious spirit which characterise the Indian peoples. I know also their faith in the absolute justice and integrity of our rule. I cannot help thinking from all I have heard and seen that the task of governing India will be made the easier if we, on our part, infuse into it a wider element of sympathy. I will venture to predict that to such sympathy there will be an ever abundant and genuine response. May we not also hope for a still fuller measure of trust and confidence in our earnest desire and efforts to promote the well-being and to further the best interests of every class?
His Majesty’s visit to India synchronised with the beginning of a period of unrest in this land after the regime of Lord Curzon, and nothing has shown the sober and statesmanlike qualities of His Majesty more than the trouble which he took amidst all the pomp and pageantry of a Royal progress, to study and understand the true causes of the unrest among his Indian subjects, to appreciate and sympathise with their disadvantages, difficulties and desires and speak out his mind on them to those agents of his administration in India to whom has been committed the destinies of millions of his subjects. India, therefore, while it mourns the loss of an Emperor whose kindness and affection secured for them the blessings of British rule – so graciously granted by the late Queen Empress – welcomes her new King Emperor whose sympathy with her people has already been assured, whose personal knowledge and insight has already led him to the true secret of wise, progressive and beneficent rule in India. In England, as well as in India. His Majesty succeeds, in the words of the London Times at a time of unusual difficulty and stress, but his subjects may rest assured that they have had his close and anxious attention for many months”. Whatever be the means by which the constitutional crisis in Great Britain between the House of Lords and the House of Commons is tided over we may be sure that, as John Bright once put it, so long as the Throne of England is filled with so much dignity and so much honour – and we may add with so much ability and statesmanship – by Queen Empress Victoria and her descendants, “the venerable monarchy will be perpetual” even were the most socialist Ministry to be in power in England. India, however, has nothing to do directly either with the ending or mending of the House of Lords or any of those party fights which are now acute in the United Kingdom. And amidst the shifts and changes of parties and ministers in England and the continual changes of rulers and administrators in India, the masses of the Indian people have naturally regarded the Royal Family as the one permanent factor in the British connection with India and have continued to place their faith in their sense of justice, sympathy and kindness, as far as they might help in promoting the welfare of the country. So far as His Majesty is concerned, we may be permitted to observe that the Indian problem will be the simpler and easier one for His Majesty to grapple with. For, His Majesty has had the advantage which his Ministers do not possess, of a direct and personal acquaintance with it during his very recent tour – and, to the extent he extends his wide sympathy, “there will be an ever-abundant and genuine response.”
A young Brahmin terrorist, Vanchi Aiyer, shot down Ashe, Collector of Tinnevelly, at the Maniyachi railway station while he was in a train compartment. Vanchi committed suicide after his political crime. THE HINDU: “The noxious growth of anarchical crime so entirely foreign to the instincts, sentiments and cherished convictions of the people of this land is not, it is to be hoped, entering into this peaceful Presidency. It is the duty of the people as that of the Government to strive their best to see that it does not obtain a foothold in this Presidency. The danger of the anarchist to the peace, order and wellbeing of the people must be manifest to the meanest understanding”.
JUNE 19, 1911
The Ashe murder tragedy.
THE FURTHER PARTICULARS WHICH HAVE SINCE BEEN RECEIVED of the outrage at Maniyachi, have not tended much to clear the mystery which yet surrounds the identity of the assassin and the circumstances connected with his heinous crime. The account which we publish elsewhere from an eye-witness of the tragedy at Maniyachi, shows that the peculiarly heartless and revolting and thorough manner in which the foul assassin accomplished his deed. Mr. Ashe must apparently have been dogged by this man from Tinnevelly and have put himself in a specially favourable position for him at the Maniyachi junction where, all unconscious of his impending death, he was staying in his compartment with his wife. Mrs. Ashe was busy attending to some work in her hands and this enabled and emboldened the man to approach them and left him free to take deliberate aim and fire the fatal shot. The painfulness of the situation must have been immense and Mrs. Ashe must have needed all the courage of an English woman to make the appeal for medical help which could not be had there. Mr. Ashe expired before he reached his headquarters, but the assassin had perished long before only to create further obstacles in the way of tracing out the genesis and development of the plot in which he played the foremost and blackest part. So far as the Tinnevelly district is concerned, Mr. Ashe knew it well and had apparently no reason whatever to suspect any plot to murder him or any others. His administration since he was placed in charge of the District was quite efficient and sympathetic and from all that we have heard, he was moving on the best of terms with the people and the educated classes, often visiting their club of which he was an honorary member, and mingling quite freely with them. No immediate motive, either of a political or of a personal kind could have been fancied by the murderer or his accomplices. The murder under the circumstances whether it partakes of the nature of a political crime, as it is suspected to be, or not, is the most wanton and unprovoked outrage which has upto now been recorded in the history of these disgraceful outrages that have tarnished the fair name of the country before the civilised world. The noxious growth of anarchical crime so entirely foreign to the instincts, sentiments and cherished convictions of the people of this land is not, it is to be hoped, entering into this peaceful Presidency. It is the duty of the people as that of the Government, to strive their best to see that it does not obtain a foothold in this Presidency. The danger of the anarchist to the peace, order and well-being of the people must be manifest to the meanest understanding. The anarchist, with his false and traitorous patriotism is a much greater danger to the mass of his countrymen than to the ruling class or to the constituted authority. The negation of law and order and the substitution of the anarchist’s own judgment, means and weapons for those of constituted authority, is fraught with far graver danger to the community than to the agents of administration who could easily take care of themselves, if they have not to take care of the community, too. When they have not to do both the task is an extremely difficult one, and while it is necessary that they should not adopt measures in a panic which would harm the peaceful and law abiding citizens in the attempt to put down this species of violent crime, it is equally necessary that the people and their leaders should strive their utmost to assist the authorities to weed out of this country this strange, cruel and un-Indian movement. It is indeed to be devoutly hoped that the crime at Maniyachi will turn out not to be of an anarchical character. Meanwhile, the hearts of all Europeans and Indians alike will go out towards the bereaved widow, who thus finds herself deprived, under circumstances so tragical, of her husband in a strange land. The esteem and regard in which the late Mr. Ashe was held in Tinnevelly was duly testified to by the leading men of Tinnevelly, who attended the funeral last evening and by the resolution of sympathy with Mrs. Ashe which was passed by the Tinnevelly Club yesterday. The Government, in their Press Note issued, have recorded their appreciation of Mr. Ashe’s work as an officer and have offered a reward of Rs. 1,000 for any information leading to the arrest of the other culprits.
“The use of municipal water is not justified because it is used for any municipal purposes or because it is paid for. The primary use of municipal water is for public health and for public cleanliness. The inhabitants of a city must have adequate water to drink, of really wholesome quality. They also require water for washing and cleaning. Frequent baths under Indian conditions are indispensable and to certain classes of the population bathing is of even greater importance than drinking”.
APRIL 22, 1912
The Corporation and water supply
IT IS TIME THE CORPORATION MAKES EARNEST ENDEAVOURS TO do its duty to the ratepayers in respect of water-supply. The first thing to do is to stop the visible waste and misuse of Municipal water. There are loud complaints of want of water from everywhere. There is an woeful lack of control over water distribution. The executive is apparently powerful to prevent the waste. While thousands are deprived of the water requisite for their health and cleanliness, municipal water is used freely to irrigate gardens. It is stated that numerous stables, cattle-yards, work-houses, bakeries, mess houses and small factories are taking municipal water free. The bulk of the water that is used for building purposes in the City is taken free. Do all the industries and trades that take in water pay for the same? It is impossible to enumerate all the non-domestic purposes for which water is utilised. At the rate of 12 annas per thousand gallons ordinarily levied, the Corporation collected not less than a lakh and fifteen thousand rupees as fees for water supplied for non-domestic purposes in the past year. This accounts for a fraction, after all, of the entire volume of water, surreptitiously used for non-domestic purposes. The Corporation may know how many garden taps there are in Madras. Is every garden tap fitted with a meter and the quantity of water consumed measured regularly? How many dwelling houses have gardens attached? And how are all these gardens watered? And then there is Municipal road-making and road watering. Is there any regulation of the water spent on this account? There are roads which are watered once a day, roads which are watered twice and also those which are watered thrice a day. There is, we think, no measure kept of the water used for road-watering. It was roughly estimated by a Corporation official at 250,000 gallons per day. We do not know if this represents the average daily consumption, taking a whole year into calculation on the watering months of the year. Over Rs. 25,000 is spent on road watering and cleaning establishment alone, and some idea may be gathered of what they are doing with municipal water.
The use of municipal water is not justified because it is used for any municipal purpose or because it is paid for. The primary use of municipal water is for public health and for public cleanliness. The inhabitants of a city must have adequate water to drink, of really wholesome quality. They require also water for washing and cleaning. Frequent baths under Indian conditions are indispensable, and to certain classes of the population bathing is even of greater importance than drinking. The essential requisite of a good system of water supply is that all consumers obtain an adequate quantity of water continuously throughout the day. It has been calculated for the Corporation that 25 gallons per head of the population, per day will meet reasonable requirements in Madras, and satisfy legitimate wants. It is not known whether, in making the calculation, proper allowance had been made for Indian habits. Even taking the estimate as it is, the present consumption is less than 13 gallons per head per day. We presume this quantity represents the average of all the water that is consumed for domestic, non-domestic and public purposes. We have no means of knowing the exact quantity used for domestic purposes alone. We will not be far wrong in taking the domestic average at less than 5 gallons per head per day. Can this be considered an adequate supply? And is this supply at all regular? Over a considerable area, the supply fails during those hours of the day when water is most wanted. The 250,000 gallons of road-watering is done in the mornings and evenings, when you want water most for your domestic purpose. Large areas are without water for many hours in the day. All the gardens are watered only in the mornings and evenings and all the requirements for the thousand-and-one non-domestic purposes synchronise with this time of the day. The result is that while there is abundant misuse of water, there are thousands for whom neither their house services, nor even the public fountains and stand-pipes do any good. In Bombay, the supply is restricted to certain hours of the morning and evening and yet the average consumption per head of the population is 40 gallons. In Calcutta, it is 47 gallons, and they have a distinction of filtered and unfiltered water, the former being used for domestic purposes and the latter for non-domestic purposes, such as flushing, road-watering and building, etc. The Corporation may not give us the quantity in Bombay and Calcutta, but it is bound to see that there is sufficient water for drinking and domestic purposes before it launches on any trade in water or before gardens are watered, roads drenched and sewers flushed. In any case it is bound to stop waste and the unauthorised lifting of water. It is here that the Corporation shows itself to be lamentably incompetent.
Water in Madras is a valuable commodity. There is a moral and legal obligation to provide water for drinking and bathing. A great deal of the illness of Madras is due to the inefficiency of the Corporation to ensure this provision. While there is waste on the one hand, there is scarcity on the other. Nearly six lakhs of rupees are collected annually as water and drainage tax alone. There are over 25,000 house services laid; and how many of these services can be considered satisfactory?
The Corporation however, obtains its water on the most favourable terms from Government. Perhaps, many are not aware that the Red Hills storage tanks and connected works were constructed at the cost of Government and that their upkeep and maintenance are in the hands of the PWD. For the water that is taken from the lake for the supply of the Madras City, the Corporation pays at the rate of a rupee per 1,000 cubic yards or a little less than one-tenth of one anna per 1,000 gallons. Thus what it purchases for a little over a pie, it sells for 12 annas, i.e. for nearly 150 times the cost price. This is good business no doubt. But it is not merely for the sale of water that the Corporation exists and taxes its inhabitants.
If after public convenience had been amply provided and all legitimate uses had been properly served, the Corporation had shown thrift in the use of its surplus water, its action would be deemed praiseworthy. But what the Madras Corporation does is to keep looking on at an inordinate waste of water in various ways, and to traffic in the remainder while people are starved of their supply for their daily wants. It is this great waste that has to be stopped. If only there had been no waste, there should have been no difficulty in meeting all legitimate requirements.
A question of great interest is being fought out between the Triplicane ratepayers and the Corporation executive. The former claim free water for their tank which the latter refuse. The rate-payers contend that the tank and its water serve the best interests of the local public, that the Corporation has all along recognised such interests and has been feeding the tank with Municipal water these 40 years. The needs of public health and sanitation in the locality require that either the tank should be maintained in a proper condition or be filled up so as not to constitute a menace to the health of the people in the locality.
It is pointed out that one of the legitimate functions of the Corporation is to provide bathing tanks for its ratepayers. If such a tank were needed in the city, it is preeminently required in Triplicane where large numbers of votaries congregate. There can be no doubt however that municipal water can only be had when it could be spared. There is good reason for holding that water is not properly expended, economised or supplied in the City. We trust the whole matter will receive the careful consideration of the Commissioners at tomorrow’s meeting.
“A feature against which the Inspector-General vehemently protests is the appearance of 109 girls among them (offenders), there having been only 63 girl offenders in the previous year. He remarks that the increase is regrettable and fout of all proportion to the total number of youthful offenders as compared with the small ratio which females of more mature age bear to the total criminal population’. Apart from this, however, the total number of youthful offenders sent to jail is frightfully large. The great and very often irrevocable harm that results from the association of these youths with older criminals in jails is a well-known fact and it is with a view to render this evil as moderate as possible that Magistrates are empowered to release under section 562 of the Code of Criminal Procedure first offenders, those of youthful age, upon probation”.
JULY 3, 1913
The magistracy and criminal cases
IN SPITE OF THE REPEATED INSTRUCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT, THE Magistrates in this Presidency do not appear to attach as much importance to the sacredness attaching to the liberty of the subject as the enlightened conscience of modern times requires. Indiscriminate arrests, undue detention and the manufacture, unintended though, of hardened criminals by the process of sending youths to jails are some gross defects in the administration of criminal justice against which the public and the Government have very often had to protest; and yet, the improvement effected in these respects has been very imperceptible. The mere issue of orders from the Secretariat does not, if we are to judge from experience, result in that prompt compliance with them as Government expect and the public have a right, under the circumstances, to expect that the authorities would take effective steps to see that their behests are duly and properly attended to. One of the points on which stress is being laid year after year by Government is the disproportion between the number of persons received into jail, and those convicted. In the year 1912, 25,836 persons were received into jails as under-trials of whom 39.4 per cent were convicted and 52.8 per cent were acquitted or discharged. That more than one-half of the prisoners, assumed to be guilty by the authorities, should be pronounced after trial to be innocent, argues an amount of carelessness on the part of those that remand them into custody, that is indeed reprehensible. There has been absolutely no improvement in this respect, though Government have called on the Magistracy to exercise greater discretion in this matter. In 1907, the percentage of conviction was 33 and the percentage of acquittals and discharge 57.6, and in the subsequent three years the percentage has been 42 and 50.4, 40 and 52 and 38 and 55. Things appear to be worse off now than they were in 1908 or 1909, and the Government’s satisfaction that there was a reduction in the year under review, is therefore not of much value. We are glad that Government have, as they say, issued instructions again to the Magistracy ‘impressing on them the need for the exercise of great care in remanding accused persons to custody;’ but in previous years, the remarks conveyed in G.O.’s have been serverer, but the net result has been inappreciable. Last year, commenting on the existence of a similar state of affairs, Government suggested that arrests in many cases were not justified and called on District Magistrates to examine the records of one or more typical courts and then deal with all cases in which unjustifiable arrests were made. There is no evidence at all that this has been done. Again, during the last year, the detention of under-trial prisoners was for 37-33 days in the case of Sessions prisoners and 14.18 days in the case of persons charged before Magistrates. Last year the respective figures were 35.17 days and 14.56 days, and in the year previous 36.9 and 15.4. Here again there has been retrogression, and Government orders have been evidently ignored. In their review last year, the local Government had remarked that “there is still room for further improvement and the matter is one which requires the unremitting attention of the Magistracy.” This year, they say that “it should be possible to reduce this average in the case of persons charged before Magistrates and constant vigilance on the part of District Magistrates is necessary to curb any tendency to protract proceedings unduly.” We will take one more point to show how the Magistracy have not found it practicable to adhere to Government orders to the extent desirable. The number of youthful offenders admitted to jail under the age of 15 was 278, the number for 1909, 1910 and 1911 being 358, 363 and 291 respectively. There has certainly been some progress in this respect, but there is vast scope for improvement. A feature against which the Inspector-General vehemently protests is the appearance of 109 girls among them, there having been only 63 girl offenders in the previous year. He remarks that the increase is regrettable and “out of all proportion to the total number of youthful offenders as compared with the small ratio which females of more mature age bear to the total criminal population.” Apart from this however, the total number of youthful offenders sent to jail is frightfully large. The great and very often irrevocable harm that results from the association of these youths with older criminals in jails is a well known fact and it is with a view to render this evil as moderate as possible that Magistrates are empowered to release, under Section 562 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, first offenders, those of youthful age, upon probation. This section is not, as is shown by statistics, availed of to the extent desirable, and so long as this is the case, ‘the stopping of avoidable committal to prison of juveniles’ which Government say they have so much at heart, cannot be accomplished. Last year, District Magistrates were asked to scrutinise every case of juvenile imprisonment and call the Magistrates concerned to account if necessary, and Government have, for a series of years been urging on District Magistrates to take particular care in this matter. This does not appear to have been done at all. We wish Government devise a method by which they could have their specific instructions, especially in regard to such an important matter as the administration of criminal justice, faithfully and loyally carried out by their subordinates. Experience has, it seems to us, abundantly shown that District Magistrates apparently owing to pressure of other work do not devote their particular attention to these things. It is incumbent on the Government to see however, that their officers do not neglect this most important part of their work by calling for special returns at frequent intervals of time and performing the scrutinising work themselves. Otherwise, any admonition which may be administered in the annual review of the administration report is apt to become quite formal and ineffectual. It is satisfactory to note, however, the progress made in the treatment of adolescents. In the Tanjore adolescent jail, there were during the year 272 convicts all told, of whom 3 were under 15 years of age, 214 between the ages of 16 and 21 and 47 convicts aged between 21 to 25. It would appear that the classes at which regular instruction is given, are regularly attended and that some of the prisoners are anxious to obtain after their release, some appointments and could be independent.
The Inspector-General suggests the formation of aid societies in every district to receive these young men after their period of detention, in order to assist them in securing some useful occupation. The Government of Madras promise every assistance to such societies as may be started for this philanthropic purpose and state that they have at present under consideration an offer by the Salvation Army to establish a settlement for the reception of convicts, similar to the settlement opened in the Punjab.
“Neither the members of the legal profession, barristers, vakils and attorneys, nor the general public were much impressed with the manner in which Mr. Justice Benson discharged his duties as judge of the High Court. He … had no broad outlook in the administration of justice in this country, had an inveterate official bias in the trial of all civil and criminal cases in which the Government or the Crown was interested and was an Anglo-Indian to the backbone in the matter of the relations between Indians and Englishmen in this country”.
APRIL 23, 1914
The Benson memorial
WE LEARN THAT THE PORTRAIT OF SIR RALPH BENSON, late Judge of the Madras High Court, which was got up at the expense of the Provincial Service officers in this Presidency, was brought to the High Court this morning and arrangements are being made to place the portrait in the third Court facing Sir T. Muthuswami Iyer’s statue. The Hon’ble the Chief Justice will, we understand, perform the unveiling ceremony on the 27th instant, at the request of the Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sadasiva Iyer on behalf of the Provincial Service men. This seems to us to be an unprecedented mode of doing honour to a retired Judge of the High Court. Neither the members of the legal profession, barristers, vakils and attorneys, nor the general public were much impressed with the manner in which Mr. Justice Benson discharged his duties as Judge of the High Court. He was a civilian among civilian judges, had no broad outlook in the administration of justice in this country, had an inveterate official bias in the trial of all civil and criminal cases in which the Government or the Crown was interested and was an Anglo-Indian to the backbone in the matter of the relations between Indians and Englishmen in this country. It was very significant that Sir Ralph Benson after his prolonged service on the Bench of the High Court, not to speak of his having been the Nestor of the Indian Civil Service at the time of his retirement, was allowed to depart from the Bench without a word of appreciation and kindly farewell by the members of the Bar, Indian or European. We have no doubt whatever that the members of the Bar acted in conformity with the general feeling of the public on the subject, when they refused to recognise that Mr. Justice Benson was entitled to substantial approbation in the discharge of his duties as Judge. The substance and tenor of Sir Ralph Benson’s evidence before the Royal Commission on Public Services, was against the just claims of the sons of the soil to an adequate share in the Government of the country and in all respectable opportunities to do service to the country and make themselves worthy of it. There was undoubtedly a feeling among the members of the Provincial Judicial Service that Mr. Justice Benson sometimes championed successfully their claims to advancement in the service against the competing claims of members of the legal profession. Sir Ralph Benson’s evidence before the Royal Commission does not show that he had estimated the capacity of the members of the Provincial Judical Service very highly, but it is a fact that when the claims of the members of that Service were pitted against those of members of the Bar, the civilian’s prejudice against the latter class inured to the benefit of the former. However this may be, the members of the Provincial Service, as the outcome of a movement which was avowedly secret and was started and developed at the time when Sir Ralph Benson was in active Service, have no right to foist a memorial upon the public which will, for future generations, have all the semblance of a public acknowledgment of his judicial accomplishments. The present memorial seems to be of the sort brought in by the backdoor to be installed in the face of the public. In view of all these considerations, we cannot but enter a protest on behalf of the public against the placing of the portrait of Sir Ralph Benson in the High Court and in proximity, as is alleged, to the statue of the eminent Hindu Judge, the late Sir T. Muthuswami Aiyar.
“The battle of Ypres was the culmination of a bold and somewhat desperate attempt to outflank the Germans which came very near success indeed and would have been successful but for the paucity of the forces available. Once again the region between Dixmude and the Lys is the scene of some very desperate fighting”.
APRIL 26, 1915
The War
As WAS ANTICIPATED, THE ADVENT OF SPRING HAS BROUGHT with it a renewal of the heavy fighting in the west and we are now witnessing, with a clarity of vision necessarily modified by the requirements of the censorship, the second of those terrific combats which will make Flanders famous in history. The previous great battle in this region was that of Ypres, also called the battle of Calais because the Germans wanted to get there and did not, though this is a detail. That battle, it will be remembered, was one of terrific importance, for its issue decided the fate of the Allied position on the Aisne, as well as the command of the Channel. Had the Germans taken Calais and Dunkirk they would have made use of these submarine bases which would have wrought havoc on Allies’ shipping in the Channel, besides interrupting the communications of the British Expeditionary force. The battle of Ypres was the culmination of a bold and somewhat desperate attempt to outflank the Germans which came very near success indeed and would have been successful but for the paucity of the forces available. Once again the region between Dixmude and the Lys is the scene of some very desperate fighting. The positions, however, of the protagonists are, if not reversed, much less unequal than they were in the previous battle. The Allies were then heavily outnumbered, but the numerical preponderance has been equalised now and both sides are not equally numerous on the long line of that front in the western theatre while the French have a mobile reserve which they can throw at any required point. The German troops had been suffering from want of reserves and the successes of the Allies in the past two months may be traced to this disability. The Germans had to withdraw troops from one part of the front to defend another, a dangerous proceeding with an alert enemy, as events have proved at Neuve Chapelle, the Champaigne and the Woevre. Great as have been the German losses, however, and these have been estimated to work out on both fronts to about 260,000 a month, Germany has still some reserves. The French Staff’s review of the war puts the total available reserves of the Germans at two millions of whom 800,000 have already been absorbed in the front while another 500,000 were expected to be ready this month. How large a proportion of this would be available as new formations it is difficult to say, but the German casualties in recent fighting in the west amounts probably to 100,000 in the west alone which would have to be replaced from the reserve. Then again the eastern front has been very costly to the Germans though we have no means of estimating the losses here. There is at present very little activity on the eastern front but the fighting in the past month and the early days of the present has been very heavy. It is not, therefore, unreasonable to estimate that the new German formations consist of at least six corps, of good material but poorly officered and with a not improbable shortage of guns and a certain shortage of munitions. It is no doubt with these formations that the attack in what will be known as the second battle of Ypres has been made. We are as yet in the early stages of this battle for the fighting, severe as it has been, is not over yet. It was, of course, anticipated that a big German effort was due in April, but it is probable that the effort was compelled to take place earlier than intended by the British success south of Ypres. The Germans’ preparations both in this region and in the north of Ypres were those of a big battle but the British anticipated them and by successful sapperwork succeeded in capturing an important point, Hill Sixty, which seriously threatens the German line. The Germans then instead of making one final effort for the breaking of the Allied lines were compelled to waste their strength first in a futile effort to recapture the position they lost south of Ypres. Their plan probably was a simultaneous attack north and south of Ypres which would result in the capture of the town and lead to that of Calais. The British anticipated the attack, however, and the Germans lost ground here so that their plan miscarried as regards the south. In the north, however, they did gain a success and even succeeded at one point in crossing the Yser canal, but were promptly driven back again while the French and Belgians are engaged in retrieving the ground lost. It is not improbable that further heavy fighting will take place in this region while the importance of Hill Sixty may tempt the Germans to make another effort to recapture it. If our interpretation of the German strategy is correct, then it is evident that the British have broken the shock of the new German offensive in Flanders. The German losses are stated to have been enormous while the British losses, though unfortunately no figures are yet available, must have been very serious though, of course, if the result achieved can be maintained it was worth the sacrifice. The German line around Ypres is in danger of being broken by the British hold on Hill Sixty.
“The greatness of Lord Hardinge lay in his intense sympathy with the people of India in their aspirations, in the insight he had acquired in consequence into their feelings and in his quick responsiveness to public opinion. The bold stand he took in respect of the question of Indians in South Africa, his intervention in the Cawnpore Mosque affair, the striking diplomatic way in which he induced his own council and the Secretary of State to undo the partition of Bengal, and the great interest he took in regard to the eventual abolition of indentured Indian labour are some of the instances in which he exhibited those rare qualities of head and heart which have struck the imagination of Indians”.
APRIL 4, 1916
Lord Hardinge’s viceroyalty.
LORD HARDINGE IS LAYING DOWN TODAY THE REINS OF THE office of Viceroy and Governor-General of India after a strenuous period of service extending to five years-and-a-half during which he has been able to inspire the trust and confidence of the people of India as few Viceroys have done before. When the causes of this striking popularity are analysed, it will be found that it is not on account of any important administrative reforms, or the removal of old sores that His Excellency’s Viceroyalty has become one of the most memorable. The affection and regard of the people of India for the retiring Viceroy have been rather the result of a sympathetic imagination, which Lord Hardinge possessed, which has enabled him to steer clear of rocks which some of his masterful predecessors, lacking in the gift, have struck against, and to feel with the people for the people. Critics of his administration can be divided into two classes; one section have exaggerated ideas of the powers, statutory or otherwise, of Viceroys, and another, in right Anglo-Indian fashion, fall foul of all those acts of the holder of that high office which partake of the nature of righting of wrongs, or of respecting public opinion – acts which, in the eyes of these watchdogs of prestige, imply weakness and sickly sentimentality on the part of the author. The greatness of Lord Hardinge lay in his intense sympathy with the people of India in their aspirations, in the insight he had acquired in consequence into their feelings and in his quick responsiveness to public opinion. The bold stand he took in respect of the question of Indians in South Africa, his intervention in the Cawnpore mosque affair, the striking diplomatic way in which he induced his own Council and the Secretary of State to undo the partition of Bengal, and the great interest he took in regard to the eventual abolition of indentured Indian labour are some of the instances in which he exhibited those rare qualities of head and heart which have struck the imagination of Indians. His Madras speech on the South African situation created a stir and was considered imprudent, if not impudent by people not only in the colonies, but also in Great Britain. But he literally won the hearts of Indians by thus identifying himself with the Indian national sentiment. Referring to that utterance, Lord Hardinge said yesterday, in his reply to the address presented by the Indian Merchants’ Chamber and Bureau: “Though I was criticised in some quarters for the warmth with which I spoke at Madras on this topic, I can say honestly that I never had any serious twinges of conscience on that account, and I spoke what I felt, and if I did not measure my words with absolute nicety, the strength of my feeling and the excellence of my cause must plead my excuse.” Conciliation has been his watchword and his part in the Cawnpore mosque affair, which has been bitterly criticised as being a concession to clamour, has shown him to be a man who brushes prestige aside when the feelings of a whole people are concerned, a characteristic feature which he had already shown in the annulment of the partition of Bengal. Lord Hardinge has always been zealous to consolidate the Council reforms of Lords Morley and Minto; he gave an Executive Council to Bihar and Orissa and provided an elected majority to the same Legislative Council. His effort to give an Executive Council to the United Provinces failed owing to the misguided action of a reactionary party in the House of Lords. Lord Hardinge, representing the opinions and feelings of the people of India, criticised in strong terms this obstructive policy of a small party and pleaded for a change in the procedure by which it was possible for the wishes of a united people to be thwarted by men who were out of touch with the country the affairs of which, however they presumed to judge and control. Lord Hardinge’s term will also be remembered for the fact that, as Mr. Montagu had stated, that “at last and not too soon, a Viceroy has had the courage to state the trend of British policy in India and the lines on which we propose to advance.” The outgoing Viceroy has recently repeated his faith in that policy which he said had been described in plain English. In Paragraph 3 of the Despatch of the Government of India, for which Lord Hardinge was responsible, the true remedy for the just demand of Indians for a larger share in the Government of the country is thus described:– “The only possible solution of the difficulty would appear to be gradually to give the provinces a larger measure of self-government until at last India would consist of a number of administrations autonomous in all provincial affairs, with the Government of India above them all, and possessing power to interfere in case of misgovernment, ordinarily restricting their functions to matters of Imperial concern.” The profound interest Lord Hardinge took in educational matters is well known and greatly appreciated. The recurring grant of Rs. 50 lakhs for Elementary Education, the munificent grant for Universities, the concern he showed for the welfare of students, the great faith he expressed in the necessity for the diffusion of higher education and the multiplication of Universities, the practical interest he exhibited by assisting in the promotion of the Benares University and the Mysore University, have earned for him a high place in the estimation of the educated classes in India. The spirit of his administration, the lofty ideal which inspired it and the large space which India has occupied in His Excellency’s heart, have deeply moved the Indian people who are sincerely sorry that the hour of farewell has at last arrived. How cordially he reciprocated the feelings of the people towards him, he has himself stated in his replies to addresses yesterday. He said that when in England one of his chief endeavours would be to make the British public appreciate the pace at which India was developing, both socially and politically and that it was vain and useless to regard India from the standpoint of what India was ten years ago. As regards the reason of his success, he told his audience: “I have trusted India, I have believed in India, I have hoped with India, I have feared with India, I have wept with India, I have rejoiced with India, and in a word I have identified myself with India”. These words show the genuine warmth of Lord Hardinge’s devotion to the interests of this country and its people. In estimating the achievements and worth of a Viceroy, thoughtful persons must have due regard to the limitations under which that high functionary has to work. The Hon’ble Mr. Vijiaraghava Chariar said in his speech in the Imperial Council: “The historian of India in appraising the value of a Viceroy should take into account not only what he has done but also the very special conditions and limitations under which he did it…. My belief is that in achieving what you did, mylord, you have educated your Hon’ble colleagues of the Executive Council and inspired them into more solid work of higher principles and into loftier ideals, both by precept and example. I consider this achievement of much more national importance than specific instances of policy and measures connected with education and sanitation”. It may truly be said that India parts with Lord Hardinge as Viceroy with as much genuine and deep regret as that expressed by him when, yesterday, he said: “I am filled with a deep regret that the moment has come for me to close the book that has been of such enthralling interest.” May Heaven bless Lord Hardinge with many years of life, health and happiness.
Dr. Annie Besant and her two co-workers were interned by the Madras Government under the Defence of India Act at the height of the Home Rule movement. THE HINDU: “The internment of Mrs. Besant and her co-workers is a particularly unfortunate decision which will be widely interpreted as a hostile act, directed against a movement which has met with much popular support and which she has led with singular self-sacrifice, ability and intrepidity. She had brought to bear on the agitation all her remarkable qualities of eloquence, perseverance, and boldness and one need not agree with her always to appreciate her admirable courage, her great power of organisation, her disinterestedness and her striking personality. The cause for which she has been working so zealously is sure to suffer as soon as her guiding hand is forcibly removed…”.
JUNE 18, 1917
The internments
“This liberty alone that gives the flower of fleeting life, its lustre and perfume. And we are weeds without it – All constraint, Except what wisdom lays on evil men, Is evil” – Cowper.
IT IS AN IRONY OF FATE AND A FACT OF GLOOMY SIGNIFICANCE that the day on which India learnt of the statesmanlike announcement of the release of Irish prisoners in connection with the recent rebellion in Ireland in view of the forthcoming Convention, she should have also heard of the internment of Mrs. Besant and Messrs. B. P. Wadia and G. S. Arundale. These two circumstances, of great and world-wide importance, afford a striking study in contrast and thoughtful people in this country cannot but draw the most disheartening conclusions from them. Mr. Bonar Law, in breaking the news to the House of Commons on Friday last, said that Government could not give a better earnest of the spirit in which they approached the Convention than by removing one of the causes of serious misunderstanding and he was sure in recommending His Majesty to grant a general amnesty to the persons in question, the Government were inspired by the sanguine hope that their action will be welcomed in a spirit of magnanimity. May we ask what has happened in India or in Madras in particular, which has rendered the inauguration of repressive measures a matter of urgency? Ireland, embittered, disloyal and revolutionary – it is deemed necessary to conciliate and satisfy. India, peace-loving, loyal and law-abiding – it has pleased the authorities to attempt to cow down by the adoption of a policy quite contrary in spirit. There has not been a whisper of rebellion or any widespread conspiracy in this part of India, at any rate, and yet, the Defence of India Act, intended against aliens and enemies in Great Britain, has been put in force against three brilliant, unselfish and devoted workers for Indian constitutional reforms. The law under which action has been taken is a war measure, meant principally to arm the authorities with power to act in a summary manner with enemies and undesirable aliens. It cannot be pretended that the persons who have fallen victims in the present instance have either by word, act or deed manifested the least sympathy with German aims; on the contrary they have been known to be earnest and sincere in contributing their mite to the noble attempt to put an end to Prussianism. The Hon’ble Mr. Dadabhai stated at the meeting of the Imperial Legislative Council in February last, when speaking on his resolution regarding amendment of the rules under the Defence of India Act that “a policy of such wholesale arrests, promiscuous house searches, indiscriminate internments, is hardly calculated to inspire public confidence in the administration of the Act.” The Hon’ble Mr. K. K. Chanda, who followed, voiced public feeling when he told the Council that “acts which are really infractions of the ordinary civil law and which would be excluded from the operation of the Defence of the Realm Act in England are dealt with under the Defence of India Act. This is not all; the more serious part is that we do not require any proof, mere suspicion is enough. Sir, I am not drawing upon my imagination.” The public are quite unaware as to how the Government have come to the conclusion that in regard to the persons on whom orders of internment were served on Saturday last there are reasonable grounds for believing that they had acted and were about to act in a manner prejudicial to public safety. The grounds of such belief are not given and it is really astonishing that no attempt was made to apprise them of the offences for which they were to be interned or to take any explanation from them. The orders were served on Messrs. Wadia and Arundale earlier in the day and nobody in the charmed circle of Government had been charged with the duty of telling them why it was that they were served with the orders which, in their cases especially, have astonished and alarmed the public. Mrs. Besant, it is true, was invited to an interview with His Excellency, but we understand, that, on Mrs. Besant pointing out that she may be favoured with the reason why she should be proceeded against under the Defence of India Act – in accordance with an assurance given to that effect by Sir Reginald Craddock – His Excellency declined to discuss the matter with her. The inference, therefore, is irresistible that Government found the ordinary law inconvenient and therefore resorted to the Defence of India Act. The matter may appear to Government to be simple, but the application of a war measure to cases of persons engaged in work for constitutional changes in the machinery of Government, not only exposes the deplorable weakness of the Government’s case, but raises a most important issue. Such an unwarranted application of an emergency measure strikes a blow at popular agitation which is fraught with the gravest danger to the public cause as well as to the prestige of the Government. For, there is no mistaking it that internments in Madras of devoted workers for the public cause, is meant to discourage the agitation for Home Rule or self-Government, and the anxiety and anguish caused in the public mind have, as a consequence, never been surpassed. What appears to be particularly lacking in magnanimity when dealing with Mrs. Besant, Messrs. Wadia and Arundale is the prohibition, as we take it, of having their published books sold and therefore of depriving them of their income. Another consequence of the internments has to be mentioned. Mrs. Besant is the printer and publisher of the New India newspaper and, under the order of internment, she cannot print or publish. The result is that by a single stroke of the pen that journal which had gained great popularity and had, on Saturday last, a circulation of 10,000, has had to be stopped publication – a fact which will be widely and seriously deplored. The removal of Messrs. Wadia and Arundale has facilitated that end. It has also to be noted that two orders were served on Mrs. Besant on Saturday, bearing the dates the 7th June and 14th June respectively, the second of them reducing the period within which Mrs. Besant has to leave Madras, from 14 days to 7 days after the service of notice. An explanation of this unaccountable restriction is certainly called for.
The action of the Government of Lord Pentland will be received with profound grief and disappointment throughout the civilised world; and indications of widespread disapprobation and indignation with which the deprivation of the liberty of Mrs. Besant and her devoted coworkers is viewed, are already reaching us. We had hoped that after the emphatic disapproval of His Excellency’s speech, which had resulted in the issue of a Press Communique explaining that utterance, the local Government would have reconsidered the situation and adopted a conciliatory attitude. The sequel has, however, shown that they have not appreciated the significance of public disapproval and that wiser counsels have not prevailed. On the other hand, the indiscriminate action taken against three prominent individuals, who had identified themselves with the agitation for Home Rule which has now acquired a firm hold upon a large section of the Indian public, indicates a determination on the part of Government not to attach due importance to the maintenance of happy relations between the public and the authorities. Our sorrow is all the greater because this step has been taken at this time when India is contributing her best towards the victorious termination of the war, when new hopes are entertained in the land and when the necessity for conciliating public opinion must be obvious to sound statesmanship manifest.
The internment of Mrs. Besant and her co-workers is a particularly unfortunate decision which will be widely interpreted as a hostile act directed against a movement which has met with much popular support and which she has led with singular self-sacrifice, ability and intrepidity. She had brought to bear on the agitation all her remarkable qualities of eloquence, perseverance and boldness, and one need not agree with her always to appreciate her admirable courage, her great powers of organisation, her disinterestedness and her striking personality. The cause for which she has been working so zealously is sure to suffer as soon as her guiding hand is forcibly removed, but she believes in her robust optimism in the ultimate triumph of the cause. In the enforced retirement to which she must shortly go, she has been deprived of the means of subsistence by the prohibition to have her books sold. Apart from the ungraciousness of the act, the duty of Indians for whom she has laboured so gloriously, is clear. It is to raise a fund for her, such a fund as will unmistakably show to the world how wonderfully she has gained a place in the hearts of Indians, how warmly the Indians recognise her sterling merits and work. We associate ourselves wholeheartedly with the important appeal for funds made in another column by our revered and respected countryman, Dr. Sir S. Subrahmania Aiyar. There are precedents for such acts in crises such as our country finds itself in today. The name of O’Connell, ‘the great liberator’ is cherished and revered in Ireland even today and history records how a grateful country raised a sum of £50,000 as a testimonial to his magnificent work. An annual tribute was also decided upon and it is stated how the amount subscribed exceeded sometimes £15,000 a year, and how between 1829 and 1835, no less than £91,800 was collected. Again, after the campaign on which Richard Cobden was engaged was accomplished the idea was started that the nation should show him some sustained token of gratitude and admiration for his noble sacrifices. Liberal contributions came quickly and Cobden was presented with a sum of £ 80,000. Public life in this country is, it must be confessed, still unorganised to a great extent: public service is still thankless, in some measure, as a consequence. But Indians cannot do better at this unfortunate moment than to show their gratitude for the eminent lady who suffers for them, by responding adequately to our revered countryman’s appeal and learn a much-needed lesson in sacrifice. That occasion has now arisen. A public meeting convened under very influential auspices will be held on Thursday next at which it is expected that there will be an unmistakable expression of popular opinion against the internment orders.
The Moderates seceded from the Congress on the question of accepting the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms. THE HINDU: “The Moderates were faced with the alternative of either a united Congress or the wrecking of the (Reform) scheme and they chose to split the Congress rather than risk the indefinite postponement of reforms. We are not as pessimistic on this question of withdrawal of the scheme as the Moderates. There are occasions on which it is wiser to let go the bird in hand and pin our hopes on those in the bush, but the Hon’ble Mr. (Srinivasa) Sastri betrays surely some deficiency in those generous instincts the lack of which among our politicians he has deplored”.
AUGUST 30, 1918
The great betrayal
THE HYPER-ACTIVE SENSE OF HUMOUR OF THE ANGLO-INDIAN Press affects to find cause for ribald laughter in the attempts which were recently made to effect a compromise between the two wings of Indian nationalists. The extremists were represented as attempting, to use a vulgarism, to put salt on the tail of men whom they had been hitherto abusing in season and out, in order to bring about a fictitious unity of front. We must confess we have not much patience with the argument, now used so freely both by the Anglo-Indian Press and by certain Moderates, that any unity which may be attained by a compromise must necessarily be superficial. Since both parties are presumably sincere in their professions of patriotism there is no essential conflict of interests involved, nothing in fact beyond a question of method and we are at a loss to see what fundamental difference there could possibly be between the two which would give the lie to any compromise between them. As we have before pointed out, on the question at issue before the Special Congress there is no unbridgeable gulf between the parties which a little give and take cannot manage to span and we are thus driven reluctantly to the conclusion that the secession of the Moderates or a certain section of them must find causes, other than the lofty ones professed. Whatsoever interests the Moderates may be safeguarding by thus wantonly splitting up the Congress at a time of national crisis, they are certainly not those of the country. We are aware that the Moderates base their action upon the argument that the scheme of reform is endangered, but no sane person who has compared the criticisms of the scheme from the Moderate side with those from the extremist could tolerate such a position for a moment. Between uncritical intransigence and indiscriminate eulogy there is a vast volume of sober opinion which concentrates attention on the defects of the scheme, seeking not to destroy but to improve. In this category are included the vast bulk of so-called Moderates and extremists and yet when it comes to the question of putting coherent shape to this volume of criticism and giving it the stamp of authoritative endorsement from the only body which is recognised as national, the Moderates have hung back, thus seeking to stultify the authority of the Congress to speak on behalf of a united India. It is a psychology hard to understand from the standpoint of patriotism, or indeed of any other except that of wounded vanity. According to the Hon’ble Mr. Sastri himself, one of the ablest critics of the scheme, it is all a question of strategy. The Moderates were faced with the alternative of either a united Congress or the wrecking of the scheme and they chose to split the Congress indefinite postponement of reforms. We are not as pessimistic on this question of withdrawal of the scheme as the Moderates. There are occasions on which it is wiser to let go the bird in hand and pin our hopes on those in the bush, but the Hon’ble Mr. Sastri betrays surely some deficiency in those generous instincts the lack of which among our politicians, he has so often deplored, in thus too easily taking it for granted that the solemn pledge of the British people could or would be left unredeemed even if the present scheme were withdrawn. Such a suspicious attitude surely befits better the rank extremist than one who is unhesitatingly prepared to pledge our future on the good faith and goodwill of the bureaucracy. We are prepared to accept Mr. Sastri’s explanation of his own personal inclination to attend the Congress though in this connection the message from him, quoted in the “Bengalee” and strongly urging abstention from the Congress, requires some elucidation. When however, Mr. Sastri goes on to say that he considers himself bound by a sense of party discipline and by the decision of the Council of the Servants of India Society we are inclined to wonder if Mr. Sastri has realised the responsibilities as well as he does the privileges of the position he occupies as the Madras representative on the Imperial Council and as one of the authors – and by all accounts not the least considerable of the Congress-League scheme. We have no desire to labour this point but we must point out that loyalty to country ought in reason to come first and to self, friends, society or party afterwards. We have seen that the plea of strategy or of party discipline cannot hold water. There remains only, barring strictly personal considerations, the plea urged in Bengal of possible personal ill-treatment. We are glad that, having a sense of humour, Mr. Sastri has definitely repudiated this plea but that serves only to render his attitude all the more inexplicable. The commendation of The Times and of the Anglo-Indian press is of itself sufficient condemnation of the seceders, but of the incredible folly of voluntarily splitting up our ranks at a time when there are indications of one of those periodical invasions of the rights of citizenship which constitute the history of Indian politics, it is impossible to speak in measured terms.
This editorial on the Punjab happenings invited the wrath of the Madras Government which demanded a security of Rs. 2,000 from THE HINDU under the Press Act. THE HINDU: “Public opinion, always ready to support strong measures in the restoration of order, is beginning to view with resentment and dismay the manner in which martial law is being applied. Tyrannical methods are not sanctified because they are applied by a British colonel and sanctioned by an Irish Satrap. One wonders in these days if there is a Central Government at all and if it has any policy at the back of its mind apart from an invertebrate surrender to the provincial (hot) heads of administration”.
MAY 8, 1919
The Punjab situation
AS THE STEADY TRICKLE OF CAREFULLY FILTERED NEWS from the Punjab accumulates, one gathers that things are being done in the name of law and order which, unless their necessity is established to a far more convincing extent than at present, are bound to have very grave consequences for the future peace and contentment of this country. Public opinion, always ready to support strong measures in the restoration of order, is beginning to view with resentment and dismay the manner in which martial law is being applied. Tyrannical methods are not sanctified because they are applied by a British Colonel and sanctioned by an Irish Satrap. One wonders in these days if there is a Central Government at all and if it has any policy at the back of its mind apart from an invertebrate surrender to the provincial (hot) heads of administration. While one ornament of the Service is revelling in the long-awaited opportunity to put his theories into practice, less fortunate fellow-administrators avenge themselves by running riot in an orgy of “plain speech”. One such gravely accuses the Indian Members of the Council with encouraging anarchism. But for the trammels, light as air as they are in these days of man-on-the-spotism run mad, of official position, he would have liked to call them anarchists in intention. Another works himself into a fury over a Government pensioner presuming to criticise the administration whose salt he has eaten. The Satrap of the Punjab his hands full, only occasionally scintillates, as the exquisite humour of seeing his pet aversion, the educated Indian, squirm under martial law proves too much even for his iron self-control. Meanwhile, the Central Government has apparently taken a holiday. It maintains a sphinx-like silence, its only incursions into the work-a-day world being if rumour speaks aright, an occasional descent from Olympian heights to force the hands of a too lenient Governor. While such is the attitude of men in high places the semi-official Press naturally proceeds to unbosom itself of long pent-up emotions with frankness and force. Indian politicians are lectured over their shortcomings and minatory language is the order of the day. Anglo-India has come into its own: it is once more the ruling race. The Indian Press is gravely told that it has not justified its existence and measures are called for to increase the stringency of the Press Act. With a lively concern lest the Government should be inclined to leniency, the Anglo-Indian Press has lately acquired the art of detecting and bringing into daylight hidden sedition and asking, with the artlessness that knows the answer is imminent, can such things be? One paper chortles in glee over the fact that considerable casualties were inflicted by bombing aeroplanes though its satisfaction is tempered by regret at the escape of so many of the mob. Another calls for a long rope and a short shrift for the author of all this mischief. And the strangest part of the business is that the tin-gods are inclined to hearken to such counsels and to shut their ears to those other voices with which, in less strenuous times, they were inclined occasionally to coquet. We are in fact rapidly drifting to the condition of government by newspaper. When the power behind the throne happens to be a Press steeped in racial prejudice, accustomed in the struggle for existence to immoderate expression, the Indian who hears it saying things with impunity that ought not be tolerated, naturally concludes that a new spirit has come over the Government. The days of “co-operation”, of mutual understanding and explanation are past, giving place on the one side to suspicion and on the other to sullenness. There is a rapidly growing feeling that the enthusiasm of Lord Chelmsford for reforms has cooled down and that he has allowed himself to be snowed under by the forces of reaction and repression. If that feeling becomes at all widespread it would constitute one of the gravest menaces to the integrity of the British connection and the consequent happiness of India. The continuance of martial law when the conviction is widespread that it has outstayed a necessity none too clearly demonstrated at its introduction, and the action being taken under it is producing an intense bitterness of spirit which is aggravated by the provocative writings of the panic Press. When we read for example of a life sentence being awarded to an excited man shouting reproaches at a batch of policemen the conviction is irresistible that justice has not been tempered with mercy overmuch in this case. Nor can the commandeering of the lights and fans of respectable citizens contribute as much to their sense of contentment as it may to the comfort of the troops for whose benefit the spoliation was effected. Such measures may be effective for a time but they are rather apt to spread resentment in strata which ordinarily have no sympathy with the forces of disorder. Excessive severity defeats its own object. Indiscriminate severity, such as under martial law seems to be the order of the day, is a sure recipe for further trouble. The Indian public has had grave doubts as to whether the state of things in the Punjab at any time justified the title “open rebellion.” They have no doubt that at present such a title is an absolute misnomer. Sir M. O’Dwyer has had his fling. Is it not possible for the Viceroy to frame a policy that will alleviate the bitterness in the public mind? Harmonious relations between the Government and the people, necessary at all times for progress, is now doubly so; and not merely for the prosperity of the Indian Empire but for its very existence. A new menace now overshadows the country and in a direction not many of our jaundiced Cassandras, shrieking red revolution and Bolshevism, seem to have suspected. As will be seen from a message published elsewhere events in Afghanistan indicate that a rupture is imminent if open hostilities have not at the present moment commenced. It is difficult to sift the news from Afghanistan, so as to arrive at the truth for the Amir’s censorship in its crude way seems to be quite as effective as Sir M. O’Dwyer’s. What is plain to read however is that whatever may have been his original attitude he is now distinctly hostile to the British Empire. How far that attitude has been forced upon him by popular feeling and by other causes it is not possible to determine. The fact, however, remains that the Amir is seeking to consolidate the shifty foundations of his throne by offering his subjects, in the traditional style of statecraft of militarist regimes, diversion in an attack upon the Punjab. With the London Times and other English papers, the Amir has apparently taken the state of open rebellion”, of Viceregal ukases too literally and he painted for the benefit of his warlike subjects a defenceless Punjab with its rich bazaars and fair fields lying at the mercy of the invader. The overt act was not long delayed in the shape of a frontier incident and the protest of the Indian Government was treated with scorn. Hostilities are now inevitable unless the Afghans, who temper martial valour with a wise discretion, see fit to repudiate, in the unmistakable fashion characteristic of their expressions of disapproval, their too bellicose ruler. It is satisfactory to know that the crisis has not caught the Indian Government by surprise and that the necessary dispositions have already been made. The matter now passes into the sphere of military science but the cloud in the north-west makes it all the more necessary that external difficulties should not be complicated by internal ill-feeling. We have said that such a feeling is being rapidly generated all over India, and presumably in Punjab also, by the measures of Sir M. O’Dwyer. Indiscriminate arrests and wholesale deportation, the harassing and humiliating orders issued under martial law, are tending to drive good citizens to despair. When an Editor is tried by a martial law commission for an alleged offence committed before the state of open rebellion”, when a prominent public man is remanded, on no other charge, as far as we are aware, than that of having presided at a public meeting, when convicted men are given sentences which all India agrees in thinking unduly severe, it does not require a major prophet to predict that the result will be intensification of unrest rather than its suppression. If blood and money be the price of confidence and trust, Punjab has paid it in full measure and brimming over. To what extent the recent riots are the result of Afghan intrigue, if at all, is yet a matter for enquiry. Where the traces of that intrigue can be discovered, by all means let the Government put its foot firmly down. We refuse, however, to believe that the educated classes in the Punjab, against whom with a vindictiveness that betrays the master-spirit behind, the martial law edicts seem to be specially directed, could ever be guilty of the folly of inviting an Afghan invasion. It is, therefore up to the Government of India to grasp the reins firmly and seriously consider how far the internal conditions of the country require its constant exasperation by methods such as have been taking place. If it is the duty of the people to cooperate in the restoration of order, it is no less the duty of the State to make such co-operation possible. There is a point of persistence beyond which justice degenerates into vindictiveness and any further tales of the exploits of the “no d-d nonsense” school will only serve to convince the public that that point has been reached and passed.
“If Sir Michael’s bias against the educated classes amounted to an obsession, if Sir Michael and his myrmidons strained law and justice to connect a political agitation with mob excesses and evolved a fullfledged rebellion, is it too far fetched to argue that Sir Michael did, consciously and of set purpose, with whatever excellent motives of purging the Punjab of what he considered its bane, magnify a riot into a rebellion in order to wreak vengeance on his enemies, the politicians?”
MARCH 29, 1920
The agony of the Punjab
THE HOUR FOUND THE MAN WITH LOINS GRIT FOR THE FRAY. At a time when the Punjab was passing through the greatest crisis in its history since the Mutiny and needed more than ever the touch of a sympathetic hand, it found at the helm of affairs – Sir M. O’Dwyer. The Punjab since its annexation has been a sort of happy hunting-ground for the Heaven-born. There the Babu ceased from troubling and the niceties of official procedure hampered not the incipient Empire-builder. The “Punjab manner” has become to the rest of India – bureaucratic India of course – an envious aspiration. A simple, martial people not educated into forgetting the rule and the right of the sword, paternal theories of Government inherited from its predecessors, here was a combination dear to the heart of the silent, strong men in whom Anglo-Indian novelists typify the white man’s burden. They have made us familiar with all the shibboleths of the school. One must be cruel in order to be kind. If the people in their ignorance did not know what was good for them, heroic remedies must be adopted. The bane of their life is education, not the real education which teaches them to sing “God bless the Squire and his relations” but the kind of education which breeds what Kipling in his graphic way calls the “beggar-taught” which teaches them ideas above their proper stations. It is the cult of efficiency carried to its logical extremes.
Steeped in the highest or in the baser traditions of this school – it is all a question of the point of view—Sir Michael perhaps exhibits its virtues and its defects in their most complete form. He was efficient, with the efficiency of the physician who concentrates on eliminating the symptoms and driving them underground. He handled the Ghadr conspiracy with a quick decision which was admirable – in its way. The conspiracy was not: and the conspirators scattered to the four winds of heaven. It was characteristic of Sir Michael’s methods that he took no steps to meet the causes which produced the conspiracy. Similarly in his dealings with recruiting and the war loan, of which we shall have more to say later on. Suffice it here to say that he was successful, very successful. Eschewing the squeamishness of his weaker fellow-satraps he bent his efforts on the results and let the means justify themselves in the end. In the result, in both recruiting and the war loans, Punjab took a place on which she is entitled to look back with pride. It is at any rate not Sir Michael’s fault if she does not for he has lost no opportunity of rubbing in the superiority of the “Punjab manner” into the rest of India and statistics bore out his boast. Here the day’s work sufficed him. The thing was to get the men and the money. That done the consequences might go hang for all he cared. Unfortunately for him and for the Punjab the consequences followed too closely on the achievement. Sir Michael is from this point of view perhaps one of the few who shared the Junkers’ natural regret that the war could not have lasted a little longer. When a man is bent on getting things done, getting them done quickly and getting them done regardless of consequences, it may easily be imagined how fierce must be his hatred of the formalities of procedure, how impatient he must be of criticism and how in the end he could have arrived at a hatred of what he must have considered hampering influences, amounting to a positive obsession. That, stripped of excessive verbiage, is his conception of the theory of Government as is made evident in the following passage from a speech he made immediately after he took charge of the Province:-“I shall welcome any practical suggestion, as to how Government can discharge more efficiently its primary obligation to secure life and property, and how the people can be roused to a sense of their duty towards the community. All other questions of policy are in my opinion subsidiary to these two and should stand over till these obligations are adequately discharged.” That at any rate is plain speaking, if it is not particularly high thinking. He will have peace even if he had to make a wilderness to secure it and he will have the people recognise their duty to the community – by furnishing recruits and money – if necessary at the point of the bayonet. He did. His policy in these fateful years was one long-drawn hymn of hate against the educated classes who dared imbibe and worse, preach, doctrines not conforming to the simple Old Testament theories of Government of Sir Michael. Sir Michael intended not merely to rule but to govern. He would brook no rival beside the throne; not even an Executive Councillor to shine in reflected glory. To a proposal for an Executive Council in his Province he replies – “The proposal had come upon him as a surprise. The people of the province had from the start been habituated to regard the Lieut. Governor as the sole head of and in the last degree responsible for the administration of the province.” It may be recalled that before the Parliamentary Joint Committee he expressed the opinion that he could not have made his handling of the “rebellion” the shining success that it was had he been obliged to consult colleagues.
The war was to him a God-sent opportunity of strafing the “beggar-taught” to some purpose. Says the Report:-“He abused the powers given to him by the Defence of India Act by prohibiting the entry into the province of Messrs. Tilak and Pal. He interned hundreds of local men with little or no cause. He gagged the vernacular press, prevented the Nationalist papers edited outside the Punjab from circulating in the province, as for instance New India, the Amrita Bazar Patrika, the Independent. He prohibited the circulation even of pre-censored vernacular papers and brought a state of things, whereby it became practically impossible for the people of the province to have free interchange of independent views, or a free ventilation of their grievances in the public Press; and then, having prevented free speech and free writing, he allowed himself to think, and gave outsiders to understand that the people of the Punjab were the happiest under his rule”.
Sir Michael’s many speeches, notably the one in the Imperial Council, against the educated classes amply bear out the assertion that his hatred of them had assumed the proportions of a mania. He even quoted Burke – name hated of strong men of his ilk – against giving undue weight to the merely clamant.
His opinion of the politician may be gathered from the following: “It is often stated as an argument for self-government, that there are no religious riots in Native States. For this there are many reasons, but a leading one is that the professional politician does not exist there, or if he does, is not allowed to interfere. The one recent and serious religious disturbance that I am aware of in Native States – between Sunnis and Shiahs in Bhopal – was fomented largely by the interference of a Muhammadan lawyer from Bombay anxious to advertise himself. In the Punjab, though sectarian feeling often runs very high, it rarely leads to riot or bloodshed, because the local authorities know on whom to depend to compose matters. Those are not politicians but quiet men of local influence.”
It is sad to reflect that shorty after these lines must have been penned blood was shed in the Punjab to the tune of many thousands and that the non-political men of local influence were the first to feel the weight of Sir Michael’s hand. If as the Report shows, there was no serious rebellion worth the name; if Sir Michael’s bias against the educated classes amounted to an obsession; if Sir Michael and his myrmidons strained law and justice to connect a political agitation with mob excesses and evolved a full-fledged rebellion; is it too far-fetched to argue that Sir Michael did, consciously and of set purpose, with whatever excellent motives of purging the Punjab of what he considered its bane, magnify a riot into a rebellion in order to wreak vengeance on his enemies, the politicians?
“It has now been made painfully clear that the Moplahs have been guilty of unthinkable excesses, of arson, looting, murder and, worse, forced conversions of Hindus. They may plead provocations in respect of their attacks on Government property – a plea which would carry no weight with non-co-operators as well as the general public – but they have absolutely no excuse for having laid violent hands on their non-Muslim brethren, Europeans included, to such an extent as they have done. The mad acts of violence they have been guilty of were incredible in their brutality… Any attempt made to palliate or condone these acts would constitute an irreparable blow to Hindu-Muslim unity – shattered as it has probably been so far as Malabar is concerned”.
SEPTEMBER 7, 1921
The Moplah riots and after
TO THOSE WHO CAREFULLY STUDIED IT, LORD READING’S ADDRESS to the Indian Legislature must have been a deep disappointment. Lord Reading virtually proclaimed that the era of concessions must be reckoned, even by the Moderate Legislature, as having ceased, giving way to caution which, in the light of Sir William Vincent’s speeches on the Moplah outbreaks as well as that of the Viceroy himself, must be taken to mean repression. In any case, the official speeches in the Legislature are no harbingers of peace. On the other hand, they are marked by a subtle but scarcely mistakable gesture towards repression. The tone and tenor of these speeches are significant. Lord Reading expressly recognised Mr. Gandhi’s anxiety to keep out violence, but as expressly singled out his followers, especially a section of them on whom he fixed the responsibility for actual as well as potential disorders. “There are signs”, said Lord Reading, “that the activities of those in the movement, or at least one section of it”, may take a “form of even a more direct challenge to law and order.” Lord Reading then referred to the attempts made by some fanatical followers of Islam to seduce troops and the police” and stated that his Government could not tolerate these attempts. Sir William Vincent, who elaborated this policy in the Moplah debate, significantly stated regarding the non-cooperation movement, that “although the political situation was dangerous, the Government’s policy towards that movement could not be changed by an isolated disturbance in Malabar.” Indeed, Sir William almost exonerated the non-cooperation movement from all blame in the matter. “There was no sympathy as such” for the non-cooperation movement among the rebels, said Sir William, “because the Moplahs had little feeling for Mr. Gandhi’s personality. Judging from the recent events there was certainly no sympathy for non-violent non-cooperation”. “The whole Moplah rising seemed to be due”, Sir William said, “to the preachings of extremist Khilafat agitators” and added, in a repentant tone, that Mahomed Ali, who he evidently considered as one such preacher, was not prosecuted at Erode owing to the intervention of Mr. Gandhi.
The Government of India’s policy will, we think, be easily gathered from the above statements of their responsible members. That policy, one may reasonably deduce from the above, is to be one of masterly inactivity, born of amused pity perhaps, towards non-violent noncooperation which Government seem to regard as solely a Hindu movement. On the other hand, it will treat as disastrously dangerous the Khilafat movement which is purely a Muslim one and which that Government severely dissociate from the (Hindu) movement of non-violent non-cooperation. The Government of India would appear to have determined ruthlessly to put the latter movement down by taking repressive measures against its leaders. If our interpretation of the Government’s policy be correct, we hope they will not put it into force. In the first place, they are wrong in their appreciation of the facts of the situation. The suggestion that it is the Khilafat organisations that are responsible for the Moplah trouble has little foundation in fact. It is significant that in the localities in which the trouble was most intense. Ernad and Walluvanad, there were the least number of Congress and Khilafat organisations. After all, so far as may be gathered from the reports in the Press it does not appear that Khilafat agitators if by that term is meant members of Khilafat Committees, were prominent in Malabar. On the other hand, where there were effective Khilafat and Congress organisations, as there were at Ponnani, they stood for law and order. It may be, as Sir W. Vincent said, the Moplahs are under the thumb of a priesthood proverbially fanatical and Mr. Thomas’s ill-considered attempt to search the mosque for weapons and arrest priests is sufficient by themselves to account for the outbreak of Moplah violence. There is neither need nor justification to bring in the non-cooperation or even Khilafat worker in general who, so far as they could, really hold in check the violent tendencies of the Moplah. The fact is that the Moplah outbreak is the result of the recrudescence once again of the periodical outburst of Moplah fanaticism of which Ernad was in the past an unfortunate, victim. If the present outbreak has proved more disastrous than those in the past, it is due to the general rise in the level of popular ingenuity and resources in which the rebels have freely shared. To mistake this for a signal of a general determination on the part of the Muslims to resort to violence is to make a serious error. To proceed against Muslim leaders on the strength of this “isolated disturbance” as Sir William termed it, is, we think, to be guilty of a provoking blunder. Any illconsidered and precipitate action on the part of Government may lead to serious and unpleasant consequences. Mahatma Gandhi is feeling the situation at every stage and has wisely advised the postponement of the offer of civil disobedience. It would be unfortunate if Government fail to recognise that he has succeeded to a marvellous extent in instilling ideas of non-violence and disciplined action in the minds of what Government would regard as ill-balanced and inflammable material prone to violence. Would it be wise to obstruct the progress of this educative propaganda by grave acts of provocation such as the arrest of leaders which, far more than in action, would lead to violence?
There is a lesson here to our Muslim brethren as well. The Hindu-Muslim unity is being challenged on all sides and attempts are made to point the uncomplimentary moral to the Hindus in the Moplah outburst. It has now been made painfully clear that the Moplahs have been guilty of unthinkable excesses, of arson, looting, murder and worse, forced conversion of Hindus. They may plead provocation in respect of their attacks on Government property – a plea which would carry no weight with non-cooperators as well as the general public – but they have absolutely no excuse for having laid violent hands on their non-Muslim brethren, Europeans included, to such an extent as they have done. The mad acts of violence they have been guilty of were incredible in their brutality, but, unfortunately, making all allowances for exaggeration they have been reported to be true. Any attempt made to palliate or condone these acts would constitute an irreparable blow to Hindu-Muslim unity – shattered as it has probably been so far as Malabar is concerned. Our profound sympathies must now go to the nonMuslim population of Malabar and the measure of earnestness with which our Muslim brethren join in this expression of sympathy will be the measure of the strength of Hindu-Muslim unity.
“If for a time the Mahatma cannot be with us in the flesh, it behoves us to prove by calm, sustained and steadfast effort that he abides with us in the spirit. Not eternal watchfulness alone but unceasing effort is the price of freedom and in the struggle it must be remembered that arrests such as that of Mr. Das or the Mahatma are but episodes, looming large at the moment but destined to sink into proper perspective in time”.
MARCH 11, 1922
Mahatma Gandhi’s arrest
THE EXPECTED HAS HAPPENED AND MAHATMA GANDHI HAS been arrested. Considering that in these days one need not commit any specific offence to be arrested we need not be too curious concerning the particular section or sections which the Mahatma may be supposed to have infringed. His arrest may therefore be regarded as a sop to Cerberus. The Times has demanded it and what The Times wants it, under the masterly direction of Lord Northcliffe, knows how to get. The hearty enthusiasm with which the announcement of Mr. Montagu’s resignation was greeted by the Unionists in the House of Commons is an illustration of the temper of Mr. Lloyd George’s masters and to defer any longer taking action such as they demand was to imperil his Premiership and Mr. Lloyd George knows that he is too indispensable to the nation and the world at large lightly to risk that. We may take it therefore that the stiffening of opinion in England is the prime motive cause of the arrest. It is difficult to explain it otherwise coming as it does at this particular moment. We could have understood it if he had been arrested when he announced his intention to start civil disobedience in the mass. On both occasions the Government lay low because there was then nobody to egg them on, no panic-stricken Press to feature the coming horror in India in lurid headlines, no Northcliffes to emulate the fat boy in Pickwick thirsting to make the flesh of the public creep. It required the Prince of Wales’ visit to India, a visit which in spite of his great personal qualities we have no hesitation in calling one of the most ill-omened of royal tours, to make the British public realise that all was not well in India, that the Reforms Act had not set the coping-stone on Indian political ambitions. The awakening has come but it is not so much an awakening as a transition from a dreamless sleep into a nightmare and one of the earliest reactions of the new scale of political values is the arrest of Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Montagu’s resignation may not have anything to do with the new orientation of policy but it is at any rate timely. It would have been awkward for him otherwise to reconcile his statement that Mr. Gandhi’s arrest was deferred pending further experience of the reality of his abandonment of mass civil disobedience and the present move. It cannot be pretended that anything has transpired since that statement was made, which could even remotely suggest itself as a reason for the arrest. It is true the Delhi resolutions may be construed as a modification of the Bardoli ones but that is hardly the Mahatma’s fault. His efforts have been consistently directed towards softening them down and the lead he has given has been followed all over the country, even the Punjab, which is usually the most impatient, consenting to give the Bardoli programme a trial. It is clear, therefore, that civil disobedience is an academic question all over the country except in Andhradesa where a premature and apparently unauthorised campaign was begun but which has now been given up. Mr. Gandhi never compromises with his conscience and he is determined that all possibilities of violence must be eliminated before the fight can be begun. The Government cannot be ignorant that all his energies have latterly been devoted with this sole end in view and that so far as any activities of Mr. Gandhi or his followers are concerned no official need lose a night’s sleep. They cannot be ignorant, if their real uneasiness is the possibility of widespread disorder, that Mr. Gandhi free is a greater asset to them than Mr. Gandhi in jail. If in spite of these considerations they decided to arrest Mr. Gandhi, it must have been on grounds quite other than a breach of the law or a possible disturbance of the peace. The Government in fact are pursuing the policy which dictated the arrest of Mr. Das, whose offence was that he was the President-elect of the Congress, and kept him incarcerated for a scandalously long period before trial. It is a challenge thrown in the face of the country. Government feel that the movement has had too much rope, has grown stronger than it imagined could be possible with the “most futile of all movements.” And it seeks to crush the movement by arresting its originator. As is usual with all repression its action is neither timely nor thorough. For one thing it is too late; for another the Government cannot build enough jails for all those who will have to be arrested if the movement is to be scotched. The response of the country to the challenge must be clear and unmistakable. That there will be unbounded resentment at the action goes without saying but what must be insisted on is that that resentment should translate itself to a strengthening of our purpose and not waste itself in futile violence. As the Mahatma has time and again insisted, to resort to violence is to play the Government’s game. The Daily News suggests that the alternative to concessions is handing the country over to the military. We must demonstrate that violence in repression is as unnecessary as it is bound to be futile and that a machine-gun is as useless in a moral struggle as a warrant of arrest. We commend to the attention of our readers the simple and affecting message issued by the Mahatma on the eve of his arrest and would ask them to steel their hearts and set to work upon the programme without wasting their energy in useless grief. If for a time the Mahatma cannot be with us in the flesh, it behoves us to prove by calm, sustained and steadfast effort that he abides with us in the spirit. Not eternal watchfulness alone but unceasing effort is the price of freedom and in the struggle it must be remembered that arrests such as that of Mr. Das or the Mahatma are but episodes, looming large at the moment but destined to sink into proper perspective in time. The faint-hearted may regret the intensified repression the arrest forebodes. Even they, we venture to think, will hardly endorse the appeal made by Mr. Sastri, with the replete gratitude of one who has dined well and often, that the Moderates should support Government if (being behind the scenes he might as well have said, when it felt it necessary to arrest Mr. Gandhi. The choice is theirs however and the mess of pottage for them to take or leave. For the country at large things must grow much worse before they grow better and for the empire – but who shall speculate on how the struggle will develop?
THE HINDU was banned by the Nizam of Hyderabad following publication of a series of articles on the state by St. Nihal Singh, its well-known Correspondent and contributor. THE HINDU: “The fierce light of publicity which has been shed on Hyderabad must have been to it in the nature of a sunbath but apparently it is not so regarded by the wise administrators who contrive the destinies of that state. If they have nothing to hide why should they be afraid of honest criticism? Can it not be reasonably inferred that what they fear is not criticism but publicity? Commonsense would demand that if there are defects they should remedy them or explain them away; that if they have done good they should not hide their achievements under a bushel”.
SEPTEMBER 20, 1923
Hyderabad – of the Middle Ages
AN ASSOCIATED PRESS MESSAGE PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE ANNOUNCES that His Exalted Highness the Nizam has proscribed THE HINDU from his dominion. In the case of Indian rulers who are a law unto themselves, one may ask in vain for reasons for this or that step, as one will look in vain for either reason or justice or consistency in their actions. It may however be presumed, since THE HINDU has not hitherto stood between the wind and His Exalted Highness’s nobility, that the articles recently contributed by Mr. St. Nihal Singh to these columns and the controversy over them have contrived to upset the equanimity of His Exalted Highness and his only less exalted advisers. These articles need not be introduced anew to our readers. They speak for themselves and we have no doubt have considerably edified them. That it was possible for them to give offence we now learn for the first time from the action of the one person to whom they ought most to have appealed. For what are these articles? They are by a gentleman, a trained journalist of considerable standing and repute. Mr. Nihal Singh is no stranger either to the readers of THE HINDU or to the Indian and Anglo-Indian Press in general. His position as a journalist is perhaps unique for an Indian for he is perhaps the only Indian to whom the columns of the British Press are open in any large measure. This is a fact of no small significance when one remembers how reluctant the British Press, even the best section of it, is to discuss Indian affairs or to afford opportunity for a fair presentation of the Indian side of the question. Within the limits of his opportunities Mr. Nihal Singh has been performing this task with a signal measure of success. But there is a further fact connected with the episode that throws a lurid light on the mentality of those who have sought vicariously to punish his too great daring. He was for several months a guest of the State and of Sir Ali Imam. He was allowed to go everywhere, see everything, and every facility was afforded to him for his observations. There was, however, apparently one mental reservation. He was to take notes, but he was not to print them. At least, if he did, he was to exercise a wise discrimination and respect the unwritten firman. “Of the Nizam thou shalt speak nothing but praise.” Not being of that order of journalists which believes in repaying hospitality with flattery laid on with a trowel, Mr. Nihal Singh thought he was free to express what he really thought. His articles speak for themselves. No one who has gone through them will for a moment feel that the writer has set down aught in malice, or deny that his sole malice, or deny that his sole object has been to point out defects where they exist, to give credit where it is due, with the object of remedying these shortcomings. There is nothing in them that any ruler ought to resent. He may think the estimate wrong but he cannot deny that it is honest. Now we hold no brief for Mr. Nihal Singh’s views and conclusions. His conclusions may be right or wrong. His picture may be overdrawn or the reverse. We leave that to those who are in touch with Hyderabad affairs to discuss. As a matter of fact, as the columns of THE HINDU will show, Mr. Singh has met with as considerable a measure of criticism as of support and in the former category are included many who have no official axes to grind and who are not impelled by virtue of their official position to act as self-appointed publicity agents for His Exalted Highness. It will thus be seen that the exalted ruler has no grievance real or imaginary either against THE HINDU or against Mr. Singh. The latter is one whom he himself delighted to honour but a short time back. Unless it is suggested that the feeding was for the purpose of keeping his mouth more usefully or less dangerously employed, it cannot be made an accusation against Mr. Singh that he bit the hand that fed him. As for THE HINDU His Exalted Highness’s attitude is even more extraordinary, THE HINDU was fulfilling one of the ordinary and legitimate duties of a journal by ventilating public affairs. It cannot be said that it was either unfair or one sided. Defenders of the Hyderabad regime had as ready access to its columns as its critics. What then was the object of the proscription? “Thrice blessed are the people who have no grievances, but four times they who are deprived of the means of expressing them”; can it be that that has been exalted into an article of faith by His Exalted Highness? It would seem that the only possible conclusion to be drawn from the action of the Hyderabad authorities is that they have no use for anything so new-fangled as public opinion, just as they have no use for methods of action which are favoured in countries which remain unblessed with paternal government of the Hyderabad type. Much as they may hate being dragged into the garish light of day, from the grim religious light where tinsel can flaunt it undetected, they cannot in the conditions of modern progress have their own undisputed way. The fierce light of publicity which has been shed on Hyderabad must have been to it in the nature of a sunbath but apparently it is not so regarded by the wise administrators who control the destinies of that state. If they have nothing to hide why should they be afraid of honest criticism? Can it not be reasonably inferred that what they fear is not criticism but publicity? Commonsense would demand that if there are defects they should remedy them or explain them away; that if they have done good, they should not hide their achievements under a bushel. But the uncommon sense of Hyderabad thinks elsewise. The matter raises an issue of vital importance to the Indian Press. An action so far divorced from reason, justice and commonsense, an action such as not the most sun-dried bureaucrat in the most backward regions of British India would dare to take, brings into fierce prominence the position of the Indian Press vis-a-vis the Indian States. It was only the other day that a journal so consistently loyal and friendly to Indian States as the Amrita Bazar Patrika was surreptitiously forbidden entry into Patiala because like the rest of the Indian Press it displayed a lively interest in the Nabha abdication. Now THE HINDU is proscribed from Hyderabad because it is displaying an unhealthy, or shall we say, morbid curiosity in the tangled skeins of Hyderabad politics. We hold that it is in itself an act of gross maladministration to put a ban on the entry of honest journals into the State without any sort of notice or warning to the alleged offender. If the Indian Press makes an unfair attack on a ruler he can revenge himself on it not only in his own State but in British India. Why should such protection as in the Princes’ Protection Bill, which was thrust through the teeth of an unwilling Assembly, be afforded to States which are not only object lessons in things as they ought not to be but are at liberty to launch an offensive against any journal without the faintest shadow of justification? This is a matter which it is the duty of the whole Press of India, whatever may be its individual political complexion, to take up.
“He (Montagu) was genuinely attached to India and inside the Cabinet he so stoutly championed her cause that he lost grace with the coalitionists and this championship ultimately cost him his office… As his principles solidified into ‘schemes’ and the schemes into fenactments’ they were seen to have been cast in progressively less attractive moulds. But Mr. Montagu, with all that was a great and undoubted friend of India. His advocacy secured for a time for India a status superior to that of a dependency. He was instrumental in admitting Indians into the inner councils of the Empire and if his efforts lacked solidity and permanency it must be conceded that he is not wholly to blame”.
NOVEMBER 17, 1924
The late Mr. E.S. Montagu
THE NEWS OF THE SUDDEN DEATH OF MR. E. S. MONTAGU, FOR close on six eventful years the Secretary of State for India, will be received with the deepest regret throughout the country. The country was not in the least prepared for it. We know that since his return from the British financial mission to Brazil some months back he was not doing well and that, on account of illness, he was obliged to cancel a visit to South Africa which he had planned. These facts were, however, hardly such as to lead us to infer that his condition was grave. The first intimation that his illness had developed dangerous symptoms was conveyed to us in the message which we published on Saturday. That message was followed yesterday with the announcement that a career which showed such brilliant promise but two years back had abruptly come to a close on the morning of the 15th instant. For, reckoning by age and ability and character, Mr. Montagu might have lived many more years and, indeed, if Mr. Asquith’s hopes of Liberalism be not an idle dream, have risen to the highest rank of responsibility in the Empire. The brief sketch of his career, which we publish elsewhere, will show how rapidly he rose in the ranks of his party and in reputation. Mr. Asquith, as whose Private Secretary Mr. Montagu served in the beginning of his career, early marked him out as a man of promise. And before he completed 31 years, Mr. Montagu had been appointed Under-Secretary of State for India under that exacting scholar-statesman, Lord Morley. This office Mr. Montagu filled with noteworthy distinction. He had an onerous task: for, his chief being a peer and thus obliged to sit in the Upper House, the duty of defending his policy in the Commons fell to Mr. Montagu. Mr. Montagu made the most of his opportunity and so satisfactory had been his work that when the Secretary’s place fell vacant on the next occasion by the resignation of Mr. Chamberlain following the Mesopotamia Report, the post was offered to Mr. Montagu. From his acceptance of the office in 1917 to the date of his resignation, Mr. Montagu had a most strenuous time of it. He had earlier fitted himself for the post, not only by the opportunities he had at the India Office as Under-Secretary, but also subsequently in the short interval while he was out of office. His now famous criticism of the Indian system of government in his speech on the Mesopotamia Report showed that he had put his experience in India – he visited this country while he was Under-Secretary as well as later as Secretary – and his knowledge about India to good purpose. He had conceived an Indian policy of his own and was only waiting for an opportunity to put it into effect. His opportunity came though unfortunately as later events proved it did not enable him to satisfy India. He enunciated excellent principles of constitutional reform, most of them unexceptionable and even beautiful while they remained in the realm of theories, and, judging by his speeches alone, there was perhaps no greater champion of constitutional freedom for India than he. He condemned the bureaucratic system of Government; he showed utter contempt for what he called “government by dispatch”, he waxed enthusiastic over his substitute therefor, namely, “government by vote”. He had a soft comer for the civil service of whose interests he regarded himself as the sole protector so much so that when on one occasion Sir C. Oman claimed to represent the Services, he rose to his feet and protested that he, as the Secretary of State, was their sole protector. But he wanted the civil servant to keep to his place of advising “how the secretariat can carry out most efficiently the orders and wishes of its political superiors.” Mr. Montagu had a grand conception of the Empire to which he gave expression more than once. He envisaged its future as that of a commonwealth of democratic, self-governing dominions. He was genuinely attached to India and inside the Cabinet he so stoutly championed her cause that he lost grace with the Coalitionists and this championship ultimately cost him his office. Of the lasting quality of his achievements we need say little. As his principles solidified into “schemes” and the schemes into “enactments”, they were seen to have been cast in progressively less attractive moulds. But Mr. Montagu, with all that, was a great and undoubted friend of India. His advocacy secured for a time for India a status superior to that of a mere dependency. He was instrumental in admitting Indians into the inner councils of the Empire and, if his efforts lacked solidity and permanency, it must be conceded that he is not wholly to blame. As we said on the occasion of his resignation with all Mr. Montagu’s failings – they were numerous and we have been unsparing in our criticism of his views and methods – we cannot withhold from him our admiration for his undeniable love of India, his tireless devotion to duty, his great tenacity of purpose and his uncommon parliamentary abilities. If he discerned the attainment of India’s great destiny at too great a distance to be appreciated by those of us who are able to see things more clearly as well as near at hand, he at least distinguished himself from the rest of his colleagues by being a man of vision.” It was a tribute to his services for India that, when he was unjustly hounded out of his office by the rising tide of reactionarism in Mr. Lloyd George’s disreputable Coalition, the legislatures of India, from the Assembly downwards, placed on record their sense of gratitude to him. There have been many “friends of India” whose claim to that title rests on far less substantial foundations than Mr. Montagu’s and India, always grateful to those who try to serve her, will cherish the memory of one who had so much vision and whose devotion to her interests was so entirely wholehearted.
The new Viceroy, Mr. Wood (later Lord Irwin) was said to be interested in improving agriculture, which was his forte. THE HINDU: “India is a subject nation and ought to be grateful for small mercies…. But her malady today is political subjection from which she wants to be relieved if she should improve economically, industrially and even agriculturally. It is no good to think of improving agriculture in its technical side alone; there may be a good deal in removing the evil, as far as it could be done, of minute sub-division of land and in introducing intensive methods. But the ryot, even under the present condition, can stand up if the intolerable burdens imposed on him without his consent are lightened, if he is provided with an incentive to develop his holding. This cannot be done without altering the whole system of administration for there can be no relief in taxation till the huge expenditure on defence is considerably reduced…”.
NOVEMBER 14, 1925
Side-tracking
PROFESSOR GANGULEE HAS REASON TO CONGRATULATE HIMSELF on the success of his efforts to get Lord Birkenhead interest himself in Indian agriculture, for Mr. E. F. L. Wood has been appointed as Viceroy, and what is a loss to the British beet sugar industry is, we are told, sure to prove a gain to the most important industry of India. In fact, Mr. Wood promises, if accounts of him are to be believed, to teach the peasant to grow two blades of corn where one grew before and thus entitle himself to be called a saviour of this country, if not of mankind. India is a subject nation and ought to be grateful for small mercies. Sir Frederick Whyte testifies in his article to The Evening News, a cabled summary of which, sent to a contemporary, will be found elsewhere, to the patience of Indians and to their sense of gratitude. But her malady to-day is political subjection from which she wants to be relieved if she should improve economically, industrially and even agriculturally. It is no good to think of improving agriculture in its technical side alone; there may be a good deal in removing the evil, as far as it could be done, of minute sub-division of land, and in introducing intensive methods. But the ryot, even under the present conditions, can stand up if the intolerable burdens imposed on him without his consent are lightened, if he is provided with an incentive to develop his holding. This cannot be done without altering the whole system of administration, for there can be no relief in taxation till the huge expenditure on defence is considerably reduced, which will come only with the control over the budget by the people’s representatives, which, in its turn, depends upon Home Rule. It is therefore a profound mistake to think that any of the economic problems are capable of solution till the root evil of foreign domination is removed. But that is a reform against which the British Government has set its heart, as is clear from Mr. Wood’s appointment. The Times blurts out the truth when it says that the Viceroy-elect would have three questions to tackle. One is agriculture, his special forte, the second is the situation presented by ill-governed Feudatory States, a matter which certainly requires scrutiny and the third is the modification of the administrative methods of the political constitution of the Indian Empire,” a high-sounding phrase which conveys nothing more than that, taking the constitution as it is, consideration would be given as to the improvements which have to be made in order to work it better. In other to work it better. In other words, the majority report of the Muddiman Committee would be examined, not with a view to the adoption of all the proposals made therein, but to select such of them as in the opinion of the bureaucracy, may be introduced without danger to the Raj. That sums the high policy which Mr. Wood is being sent to India to carry out. India has no reason to indulge in any hope hereafter that Great Britain, if it can help it, can be persuaded to revise the constitution before 1929.
It is no doubt true that Lord Birkenhead told the House of Lords that the Government had not arrived at any decisions on the question and that they would do so after consulting the Legislative Assembly. A formal despatch may yet emanate from the India Office, as one did during the time when Viscount Peel was Secretary of State on the Mazumdar resolution. But it does not need a prophet’s mind to read the contents of that document after the official attitude during the historic debate in the Assembly, the frigid speeches of Lord Reading and the latest pronouncement of Mr. Baldwin. The official slogan is: work the reforms and show us you are fit for self-government. India’s reply is, in spite of what Lord Sinha may say to the contrary, that she does not recognise the right of England to dictate to her or test her capacity, much less to set the pace of political advance. But is there any honesty behind this churlish demand to work dyarchy? Sir Frederick Whyte has shown up the hollowness of this burden of the official song, and demonstrated the urgent need of advance, in any view of the case. In his article to which reference has been made above, he has reiterated his views even more clearly and emphatically. Bengal may have damned itself – a view, incidentally, with which we differ – but Madras, Bombay, the United Provinces and the Punjab have admittedly done well. Why do you withhold further Reforms from them, if you are sincere in your professions? On the other hand, if you think that Indians are unfit, you have no sufficient material to arrive at that conclusion. Before you do that, “before any man, Indian or European, presumes to pass judgment upon contemporary political India, he should give Indian public men scope to show what they have in them. They should be given much larger opportunities of proving their quality before you can pronounce them to be unfit.” We cannot have a better or more informed condemnation of British attitude than this striking pronouncement. Nor does Sir Frederick think much about the things said of Mahatma Gandhi’s movement, for Indians would not be worth their salt if they did not protest against the pressure of the alien.” You occupied – the present tense would be more exact – all important posts in the Army and the Civil Services and after thus denying Indians every opportunity to show their responsibility, you complain if they, like the trodden worm, turn against you. Sir Frederick has done a service to India by thus exposing the brazen illogicality of the trustee.”
“Who that has followed his career with some care can deny that far from drawing England and India nearer to one another, Lord Reading has, by the manner in which he has dealt with the Indian people and their concerns, sensibly widened the gulf separating them? The greatest blunder which he committed …. is his failure to enlist the services of Indians of experience and undoubted patriotism, notably of that pure and noble soul, Mahatma Gandhi, in the cause of India’s progress. The Viceroy courted an ignominious failure by underrating Mahatmaji’s influence and hold on his countrymen. By persisting in that folly he has destroyed India’s faith in British intentions and professions….”
MARCH 26, 1926
Lord Reading’s administration
The Viceroy while maintaining and consolidating the good relationship which exists between the princes of India and their States, has at the same time to lead a proud people throbbing anew with race consciousness and with national consciousness as far as in him lies, along the only successful road, the well-ordered road to the highest destiny that awaits any country, partnership in the British Empire: What nobler work can any citizen of this country be called upon to undertake if it succeeds, and it is bound to succeed, what a triumph for all that is best in humanity! and if it fails – God forbid it should fail! – how indisputably the world would be the poorer! -E. S. Montagu.
IT IS A COMMONPLACE IN THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ENDEAVOUR that promise inevitably tends to outrun performance. Since it is impossible, humanly speaking, to obtain absolute parity, one has necessarily to pass judgment on results according to the size of the hiatus that may intervene between the two. Furnishing as he does a most pathetic object-lesson in the tragedy of an idealist degenerating into a helpless and pathetically self-satisfied opportunist, Mr. Montagu’s utterance quoted above has an ironic appropriateness as coming from one victim of missed opportunities to his successor. For these words were spoken at a function held in honour of Lord Reading prior to his departure to India five years ago. How has His Excellency discharged the task, the noblest task which “any citizen of this country (Great Britain) can be called upon to undertake”? Has he succeeded, or has he failed? Is humanity (that collective entity without invoking which no oratory would be complete) richer or the world poorer to-day after five weary years of stewardship of India on the part of one whose proud claim it was to act as the harbinger and the high-priest of justice in general and British justice in particular? We may say at once that India does not heave one sigh of regret at his departure, that he is leaving her shores unhonoured, unwept and unsung and that, though she has no particular reason to be enthusiastic over his successor, there is nevertheless a widespread feeling of relief that a tenure of office, which has been one of lost opportunities, of unparalleled repression, of the prostitution of law, has drawn to a close. In his unimpressive but self-gratulatory farewell speech yesterday at Delhi, Lord Reading laid the flattering unction to his soul by boasting that he had omitted no step which was likely in his view to conduce to the successful realisation of Dominion status by India. Now there are two roads to that goal, one the way of generous recognition of the nation’s demand and the other of denying it and goading the people by repression and oppression. Only in the latter sense can His Excellency’s remarks be true. Who that has followed his career with some care can deny that, far from drawing England and India nearer to one another, Lord Reading has, by the manner in which he has dealt with the Indian people and their concerns, sensibly widened the gulf separating them? The greatest blunder which he committed, one which his successor, if he is wiser, would do well to avoid in the interests of his own reputation and of both the countries, is his failure to enlist the services of Indians of experience and undoubted patriotism, notably of that pure and noble soul, Mahatma Gandhi, in the cause of India’s progress. The Viceroy courted an ignominious failure by underrating Mahatmaji’s influence and hold on his countrymen. By persisting in that folly, he has destroyed India’s faith in British intentions and professions and by ignoring the united demand of a proud people “throbbing anew with national consciousness,” he has dealt a serious blow at the prestige of his country the credit of which with the Indian public is very very low indeed at this moment, as testified to even by the most moderate of Moderates. The following brief review of the chief events of Lord Reading’s administration would show how the above estimate of his achievements is by no means overdrawn.
Lord and Lady Reading have, of course, discharged their social obligations in the fashion required by custom and the spontaneous tributes paid to Her Excellency and the amount of sympathy expressed for her when she fell ill a few months ago, bear evidence to the popularity she has won by her work for the sick, the poor and the needy. It is said that but for Her Excellency’s desire Lord Reading would not have remained in India for the full period, but the new Act, passed by an accommodating Parliament, allowing heads of Governments to take leave, which is already resulting in an epidemic of migrations from India on the part of Governors, came in at the right moment and helped to break the monotony. Pomp and circumstance is the traditional badge of Viceroyalty born of the comfortable notion that the inheritor of the Grand Moghul burden of rule, should live up to the Grand Moghul’s tradition of influence. Pomp and circumstance Their Excellencies did not certainly thrust aside and not only did they pay homage to them in their own way, but wished very much that their guests should exhibit themselves at their best and thus add to the grandeur and gaiety of their parties. The story is told how a certain Prince, the romantic account of whose acquisition of a garland of pearls they had heard, rushed a motor car to his capital for the purpose of fetching the precious jewel in order that it may adorn the person of the ruler at a function the next day.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that because His Excellency followed the usual precedents in regard to his social duties, he was either free or cordial or communicative at such functions or at interviews with leading men and women, Indian or European, official or nonofficial. In fact, he maintained a reserve and a coolness which offended not a few and his sphinx-like attitude and aristocratic hauteur could not be expected to have contributed to his success. It is incredible, but it is nevertheless true, that the Viceroy would not talk on political topics with Indians even when far-reaching decisions were pending on questions which had greatly agitated the public mind. He told the members of the Central Legislature yesterday that he kept “an impartial mind free from the trammels of parties or interests.” This was true enough at the stage when he began to study a question, but he invariably came to the conclusion suggested by his advisers, though in doing so he would assume an independent attitude and even disagree with them on subsidiary matters such as the manner and method of refusing the demands of the people. But what does the beggar care so long as alms are refused him, if the pompous and imperious mother-in-law does it, it is not different from the refusal of the daughter-in-law. Sir Charles Innes has told the world how he was struck by the memory, method and manner of Lord Reading. We are unable to say anything of the first quality, but of his method and manner the less said the better. The unconscionable delay in the disposal of papers, the unaccountable deferring of passing orders in regard to important questions and appointments are the common talk of Simla and Delhi; there would be some compensation if the decisions ultimately reached were satisfactory, but that they were utterly disproportionate to the time spent – or unspent – is only too well-known to the public.
Of the Viceroy’s Liberalism, it is not necessary to say much. In certain quarters much was expected from his influential and intimate association with India, drawing, as he has professed to do, his political inspiration from Gladstone, but even within a few months of his Viceroyalty it had become pretty clear that there was nothing in his politics which was even remotely related to robust Liberalism, but that what distinguished him were those political virtues which made Charles II’s reign a shining success from his own point of view. Else, the public should have expected a stern stand when Lord Curzon described the Government of India as a subordinate branch of the British Government, a title which ill-fitted with the spacious times which the new Viceroy was to assist in ushering; else he should be expected to have experienced not only difficulties but twinges of conscience in serving five different Prime Ministers and four different Secretaries of State, as he himself stated yesterday, belonging to the three political parties of his country and necessarily of divergent political views and tendencies. It is a strain on the principle of loyalty of servants of the Crown to seek to apply it to persons holding such an exalted position as the Viceroyalty of India. Either Lord Reading had his own way with his superiors, a supposition which, if true, would be eloquent of his reactionary attitude, or he was pliant, which appears to be the more correct assumption. It has appeared to many to be a marvel, as damaging to his reputation as it is inconsistent with his antecedents, that Lord Reading should have proved to be such a docile agent of the Secretary of State for the time being; this phenomenon is variously explained, but the meek acquiescence is the triumph of the unseen but ever present influence of the Civil Service. The paucity of positive achievements during the Viceroyalty has been admitted by Sir D. E. Wacha who, conscious of a bankruptcy of tangible achievements to hold up for adulation, could only bid his countrymen to wake up after fifty years when, on a fine morning, Lord Reading’s great and noble deeds for India would suddenly leap to light in all their glory. If supine surrender, at every point, of the interests that he had been set to guard the while making a virtue of surrender, constitutes success then has Lord Reading deserved well of this country. As things are, his country and his countrymen have reason to be grateful to him in that he has ensured them conditions adequately to discharge what in the Pecksniffian post-war phraseology is called “trusteeship” but which a franker generation was content to dub “exploitation”.
As a new comer, who sincerely wished to study things for himself, Lord Reading kept himself aloof for some time from the corroding and anaesthetizing influence of the bureaucracy. He even, with that avidity for immaculateness generally ascribed to new brooms, kept it at some distance, preferring to judge for himself. The steel-frame speech of Lloyd George, in which that super-opportunist said that he could see no period when India could dispense with the European element in the Civil Service, was unpalatable, there is reason to think, to the Viceroy who secured a revised version of it for Indian consumption. He further sent a circular to local Governments on the future of the Indian Services – known as the O’Donnell circular – embodying some admirable sentiments and enunciating some wise principles. Lord Reading at first resisted the extravagant conditions required by the services in regard to the scheme of proportionate pensions. But the pressure from above became irresistible, and the Viceroy yielded where the public had a right to expect him to stand firm. Here again there was an ignominious surrender, European members of the Services having appealed to the Secretary of State over the head of Lord Reading’s Government, who, they openly said, could not be trusted to champion their cause. The Lee Commission, agreed to by the Viceroy without reference in the first instance, we understand, to his Executive Council, came as a packed body and recommended extravagant salaries and emoluments all of which have since been accepted and given effect to in the Parliamentary Act since passed, in spite of protests of the Legislative Assembly, thrice repeated, and of local Legislative Councils. It is noteworthy that the Government of India have plainly stated that all the proposals in regard to the Indian Medical Service are not going to be adopted, obviously because they prejudicially affect Britishers. Moreover, they are gradually receding from the position they took up in regard to Europeans appointed for and serving under Local Governments who are presumably to be granted the Lee concessions against which Simla stood out at one time. It is curious that though the Viceroy has always appeared to be over and above the Services, keeping them at a distance, he has not only sought to grant them higher emoluments at the expense and against the declared wishes of the Indian tax-payer, but has fallen a victim to their machinations, accepting their view as to the unrest and the methods of combating it and resisting with them, the Indian demand for Swaraj. But while the European element has thus been pampered, very little progress has been made in the matter of the Indianisation of the Services, though the preamble to the Government of India Act, which he has been never tired of quoting, has enjoined on the authorities the necessity for closer association of Indians with the administration.
Before, however, reference is made to the reign of terror inaugurated under the auspices of His Excellency and the stem refusal to grasp the hand of fellowship extended by Indian leaders, it would perhaps be useful to examine whether in other matters the Viceroy was able either to conform to his own standard of public duty or to satisfy Indian public opinion. Let us take law and order and the administration of justice. Early in his career, Lord Reading had told the public that he was determined to render as impossible as circumstances would permit the judicial scandals in racial cases and to reform judicial procedure. The Civil Justice Committee and the Indian Bar Committee owe their inception to him and their reports contain recommendations which are yet being examined; except in certain important particulars, it is only right to say that the changes advocated by them might, if adopted, make judicial procedure free from the evils which beset it to-day. But we can scarcely congratulate Lord Reading on his policy in regard to racial distinctions in judicial trials, for all these distinctions have not yet been removed, his Government having weakly surrendered to the British Government in regard to the widening of the definition of the European British subject so as to include colonials and to the ousting of the jurisdiction of courts lower than the High Court in cases against soldiers. In regard to the repeal of repressive laws, it is now a matter of notoriety how the removal of Deportation Regulations, the Seditious Meetings Act and Part II of the Criminal Law Amendment Act from the Statute book was refused in the first instance and how attempts to secure the reforms afterwards were defeated by having recourse to the help of the Council of State. One who has been bred up in the atmosphere of British justice could not tolerate, it may be presumed, the use of firearms on a crowd without warning; but a legislative measure actually brought forward by the Government themselves was afterwards withdrawn and non-official attempts in the same direction have been unsuccessful. The rule of law is yet to be applied to land revenue and the Bill in this respect sent up from Madras has yet to be sent down from Simla. It is astonishing that Lord Reading’s Government should still hesitate to allow Local Governments to separate executive from judicial functions though at one time they told the Assembly not to trouble itself with this question as it concerned the Provinces. What is behind this retrogression except the vigilance of the bureaucracy which has learnt to perfection the art of bending even the stoutest champions of the rule of law to its purpose? The little reputation Lord Reading had completely disappeared when he refused to interfere with the prostitution of the preventive sections of the Criminal Procedure Code, of which more anon.
Lord Reading belongs to a race which had experienced oppression of a galling kind through the long course of history, and as such he should be ordinarily expected to sympathise with Indians in their struggle for liberty at home and abroad. What the Viceroy’s contribution to the former is we shall see by and by, but it is a matter for profound regret that he never allowed himself to express hearty condemnation of the unrighteous policy followed by the Colonies and Dominions in dealing with Indian nationals; he could never bring himself, except at a very late stage and then in a half-hearted manner, even to reach the height attained by an Englishman predecessor of his, Lord Hardinge. There was more of eternal balancing of the pros and cons in his utterances on the subject than the plain talk that the circumstances demanded. The emigration policy of the Government of India during the last five years can be summed up by saying that precious little has been achieved. The equality resolution of the Imperial Conference of 1921 is a dead letter; Mr. Sastri’s mission to the Dominions has, while leading to improvements in Australia, been barren so far as Canada is concerned; the position in Kenya is not a whit better, while that in South Africa is darker than it was ever before. In regard to Kenya, the proposal to send an officer to report on the desirability of Indians settling in the Lowlands mooted by the Viceroy was withdrawn only after an indignant protest by the public. The Government have steadily refused to put into force the Retaliation Act passed by the Indian Legislature or impose countervailing duty on South African coal, even though it was necessary in the economic interests of this country. The circumstances under which the Paddison deputation was sent to South Africa are now well known; it was a move calculated to bring humiliation on India, especially as this step was taken after the Union Government had declined to accept the round table conference proposal. The Viceroy’s reference to the object of this deputation as being to smooth the way for repatriation, his distinction between South Africa-born and other Indians, and his acquiescence in the principle of selection of the personnel of the deputation dictated for him by the Hertzog Government were greatly resented in the country. And the story of the refusal of a passport to a prominent Indian public worker who wanted to go to South Africa and enlist the support of Christian organisations in the country on behalf of the Indian cause, will, when told in full, which we hope would one day be done, rouse the indignation of the public. The fact is that he had no real living interest in the cause and his cold calculating nature was not suitable for the growth of the righteous wrath against wrong which is the mark of truly noble minds.
Of the military policy of Lord Reading’s Government much need not be said. The forward policy has been subjected to much criticism and it is by no means established that success has attended the efforts to bring the turbulent tribes under control, even after the uncivilised warfare carried on by bombing from the air. The only tangible results of Lord Reading’s policy, so far as the public are aware, are the Khyber Railway on which the Government have poured money like water and the magnificent if costly motor roads which traverse Waziristan and are meant to dominate the tribal tract. The possibilities of these brilliant undertakings for catering to the pleasure-bent tourists have been amply demonstrated, but of their value either as instruments for the pacification of the area or, much less, as adding perceptibly to our military strength, we have as yet very little evidence. The tribes, as Lord Reading has had occasion recently to know, are by no means scared by these enveloping movements; indeed, they ask for the extension of the railway building activities to other areas for, as they assured Lord Reading, they contribute immensely to their gaieties no less than to their convenience. Time alone will show whether, far from contributing to our security, these enterprises have done anything more than helped to relieve the tribes of part of the drabness and boredom of their life and thus made them more fit than ever to ply their age-long trade. The War Office still dominates the Government of India and refuses to accept the proposals of the latter. The more important resolutions of the Legislative Assembly on the Report of the Esher Committee, adopted with the approval of the Government, have yet to be brought into effect, while the recommendations of the Territorial Force Committee still adorn the Secretariat shelf. The Government have been strenuously opposing non-official suggestions regarding Indianisation of the Army, while the eight units scheme, which has been a colossal failure, has been laughed to scorn by the Indian public. The Army expenditure, the Commander-in-Chief has pontifically stated, cannot be reduced to the limit of Rs. 50 crores as suggested by the Inchcape Committee. The puny proposals regarding the Indian navy, especially the Indianisation part of it, are too recent to need any elaboration at our hands. If Sir P. S. Sivaswami Aiyer, to whose labours on this aspect of the subject the public is. much indebted, is disgusted with the policy pursued by the authorities, it must be taken that the last word has been said on it.
It is perhaps true that under Mr. Montagu’s inspiration Lord Reading looked forward to intimate co-operation with the Indian legislature, so regulating the relations between his Government and the representatives of the people as to result in complete understanding and necessarily in the working of the reforms in the spirit in which they were conceived. Sir Frederick Whyte had early foreseen the difficulty of an irresponsible Executive getting on smoothly with an Assembly containing an elected majority. Lord Meston in his article to the current number of The Contemporary Review says: — “A regular body of pledged supporters of the Government cannot be looked for so long as the Government is amenable to the British Parliament and to the will of its own Legislature.” A policy of give and take can alone, in these circumstances, tide over the delicate transition stage. The first two years saw the spectacle of taxation being mounted up and the repeal of many objectionable repressive laws on the basis of compromise, the members of the Assembly, belonging as they did to the moderate section, being temperamentally unequal to pitching the demands of the people high. Obviously the bureaucracy in India could not contemplate with equanimity the existence of cordial relations between the Executive and the Legislature because it was leading to the sensible dimunition of its prestige and power. And then began that constant and irritating interference with the decisions of the Assembly which has become the normal feature of Government business. The Princes Protection Bill, which the Assembly would not even look at, was placed on the Statute Book with the assistance of the Council of State, a packed body which has never failed the Executive. The Finance Bill of 1923, containing the enhanced salt tax was also similarly dealt with, despite the vehement protests of the Assembly and the whole country, a transaction which was unnecessary because only a paltry deficit had to be covered up and which was flagrantly opposed to the principle of no taxation without representation which, Lord Reading knew so well, was the very breath of Englishmen. Dr. Rushbrook Williams, unaware of the extent to which exceptional powers were going to be utilised in the coming years, wrote as follows in his annual review for 1922-23: – “It is extremely doubtful whether they can be utilised in future, in anything but the very gravest of emergencies, without detriment to the general political situation. This fact is the more important on account of the natural, indeed, inevitable tendency for the Central Legislature to increase the scope and influence of its deliberations at the expense of the sphere which technically has been reserved from its control.” But a whole host of legislative measures which the non-official members of the Assembly promoted in the second period were ruthlessly destroyed, thanks to the servile help of the Elders who faithfully repeated their master’s voice. The Criminal Law Amendment Bill, the bill to abolish reservation of third class carriages to Europeans and Anglo-Indians, the Special Laws Repealing Bill and the Fire Arms Bill were thus got out of the way, the Viceroy having come to look upon the exercise of his special powers as a necessity in the circumstances which faced him. The Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Supplementary Bill, to which the Assembly objected as it related to the policy of repression in Bengal, was certified and enacted, the Council of State again proving a faithful ally. And only the other day, the Council adopted a motion, previously rejected by the popular House, favouring the official proposal to pay enhanced salaries to two members of the Privy Council. It was hoped by the champions of the Reforms that the special powers would not be frequently used, but certification and restoration have become very common, reducing the prestige and usefulness of the Assembly. The Viceroy prided himself the other day on the fact that he was following the practice of nominating to the Council of State non-officials where he could nominate officials but the way in which he has chosen members recently, deliberately keeping out those who were likely to hold independent views and preferring non-entities, has completely exposed the real object of the manoeuvre, which is to counteract the accession of strength to the party of fighters by the return of a number of Swarajists. It is therefore no matter for surprise that the Upper House and Lord Reading had come to constitute themselves into a mutual admiration society.
The British Government appointed an all-white commission under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon to go into the question of constitutional reforms for India, THE HINDU: “The statutory commission on Indian reforms is an insult to India. It stands for the betrayal of the most solemn pledges, the repudiation of the fundamental principles of Britain’s own constitutional practice, the cynical disregard of those eternal moral scruples which should regulate the conduct of states no less than of individuals. ‘Cooperation and more co-operation’ has been the constant refrain of Britain all these eight years and at last here we have in concrete form her idea of the kind of co-operation she expects from us – the cooperation of the slave in chains with the overseer who superintends his agony whip in hand and not the co-operation that exalts equals and draws the ties of friendship tighter.”
NOVEMBER 9, 1927
A monumental farce
INDIA HAS HAD TO SUFFER MANY INDIGNITIES AT THE HANDS OF Britain but it was reserved to Mr. Baldwin’s Government to strike upon the most irritating and malignant of them all. An all-British Commission made up of amiable mediocrities is the response that Britain has seen fit to make to India’s unparalleled sacrifices in the service of the Empire, her undaunted efforts at attaining a position of equality in the eyes of nations and her unconquerable hopes for the future. And yet she will throw up her hands in despair and pretend to commiserate India on her short-sighted folly when the latter answers, as she must, insult with contempt and injury with inflexible determination to carve her own future, regardless of Britain’s frowns or favours. No one can read the laboured, unconvincing and half-hearted statement issued by Lord Irwin in defence of his masters’ decision to send out an all-British Commission to judge of India’s fitness for further reforms without feeling infinite compassion for him and realising with all the terrible grimness of finality that it is fatal folly to look for our political salvation outside our own determined and united efforts or to expect the vested interests that hold India in their grip to rise to the heights of self-eliminating altruism and help this country to realise its honourable ambitions. The mental processes by which, according to the Viceroy, His Majesty’s Government arrived at their decision are as revealing as the decision itself. It has taken them nearly eight years to realise that “the uncertainty of what constitutional changes might be imminent may have served to sharpen” communal antagonism. But when this patent fact was being repeatedly impressed upon their attention by the nation’s leaders they wilfully shut their eyes to it and refused to do anything.
Even more significant is Lord Irwin’s declaration regarding the nature and object of the Commission and its task. It takes for granted that “Parliament must, in any circumstances, be the final arbiter” of India’s destiny, and that Indians, far from claiming a predominant voice in the shaping of their own future, should be grateful to His Majesty’s present Government for their graciously deigning to take account of their aspirations. Lord Irwin says, “For myself I cannot doubt that the quickest and surest path of those who desire India’s progress is by the persuasion of Parliament.” In other words, the Preamble is to be regarded as immutable for all time like the Laws of the Medes and the Persians. And yet, we have it on his own assurance that the Government of India Act (much less the Preamble thereto) “never professed to incorporate irrevocable decisions.” India has never agreed and will never agree that the British Parliament should be the arbiter of her destiny. And for a good reason. Let us glance for a moment at Parliament’s qualifications for the task and also how it proposes to discharge it. Parliament is to decide the fate of three hundred million people, but it requires to be assisted by a Commission which would not only “be unbiased and competent to present an accurate picture of facts to Parliament” but also “willing to take whatever action a study of these facts may indicate to be appropriate.” In other words, the Commission, while nominally acting as the eyes and ears .of Parliament, will in sober fact be the real judge and arbiter. For a Parliament, whose ignorance of India is abysmal whose constitutional scruples have been set at rest and vanity flattered by the appointment of a Committee of its own members and which has shown itself servilely subservient to the present Tory Government, will deem its task done when it has crossed the t’s and dotted the is in the Commission’s report and consign India with a sigh of relief to the limbo of oblivion. How far is this Commission, which will be entrusted with one of the most onerous tasks of the twentieth century, fitted to discharge the duties? A casual glance at the list of names will suffice to show that the most malignant ingenuity could not have thought of a worse set of persons. But for the Chairman, the Commission is composed entirely of third-rate men who have absolutely no knowledge of India and who, if they had been the free choice of Parliament, would have blasted for all time its reputation for discrimination, while its compulsory acquiescence in their selection must scout its pretensions to be regarded as India’s judge in the eyes of all thinking men. And the Commission’s claim to freedom from bias is as debatable as its competence. Sir John Simon, great lawyer and constitutional expert though he is, far from having any sympathy for the victims of imperialism, is an orthodox successor of Mr. Asquith in this respect. Four of the members are Conservatives, so that the others, even if they were minded to dissent from the views of those representatives of Toryism, would find themselves in a minority. It is not for nothing that the proprietor of the most influential of Conservative newspapers, a paper which has been consistently hostile to Indian aspirations, should be on the Commission; from this brilliant stroke Mr. Baldwin’s Government undoubtedly anticipate that British opinion would be carefully prepared to accord a favourable reception to the Commission’s findings and quietly bamboozled into the belief that the Commission was received with delirious enthusiasm in India. As for the two Labourites, who have been pitch-forked into the Commission to give it a representative complexion, men of their modest position in public life could hardly be expected to swim against the tide.
Having thus secured in advance impartiality and a high standard in the Commission, the Government graciously recognise, in the words of the Viceroy, that “Indian opinion has a clear title to ask that, in the elaboration of a new instrument of Government, their solution of the problem or their judgment on other solutions which may be proposed should be made an integral factor in the examination of the question and be given due weight”. But the precise value of this admission may be judged from the fact that, in Lord Irwin’s view, the opinion of British official members is entitled to exactly as much weight as those of Indian leaders. This dictum, taken in conjunction with the proposal to ask the Central Legislature to set up a Select Committee from its elected and nominated non-officials to make representations to the Commission, points to an implication of which the Viceroy was evidently not aware – that the Government are so fully convinced of the identity of outlook of the Commission and of British officials in India that they consider representation of the latter before the Commission a superfluity. If this precaution be deemed insufficient there is, of course, the safety-valve alluded to mysteriously by the Viceroy when he said that “the task of taking evidence on the more purely administrative questions should be undertaken by some other authority which would be in the closest touch with the Commission.” This latter body will in all probability be composed exclusively of members of the steel-frame; in which case, what time a Select Committee of the Legislature would be presenting petitions and making representations with bated breath and whispering humbleness, the bureaucracy, strong in the consciousness that the Commission was its sworn friend, would engage gaily in the task of doctoring corroborative evidence to entrench itself more firmly than ever in its position of top-dog in unfortunate India.
The Statutory Commission on Indian Reforms is an insult to India. It stands for the betrayal of the most solemn pledges, the repudiation of the fundamental principles of Britain’s own constitutional practice, the cynical disregard of those eternal moral scruples which should regulate the conduct of States no less than of individuals. “Co-operation and more co-operation” has been the constant refrain of Britain all these eight years and at last here we have in concrete form her idea of the kind of co-operation she expects from us – the cooperation of the slave in chains with the overseer who superintends his agony whip in hand, and not the co-operation that exalts equals and draws the ties of friendship tighter. Let India give the only possible reply to the arrogant gesture of the British Cabinet. They count upon our mutual differences, our personal and communal jealousies and the much-tried faith of our Moderates in Britain, to keep us apart and make us fall an easy prey to their scheming and make ourselves the laughing-stock of the world. Shall it be said of us that we sold our birthright for a mess of pottage and merited the curse of unborn generations? To these questions the Indian National Congress has only one reply to give -it will have nothing to do with the Commission. It is for other parties to consider whether they will range themselves with the Congress which is determined to liberate India or with those who are fully resolved to keep us in bondage. Let them not be misled by the specious plea that the Indian Legislature has been given its rightful place in our rulers’ counsels by this device of a select committee. Apart from the fact that such a Committee will in no way be representative of India, it will have no more rights than any other body or any individual, however insignificant, since it will have no power to influence the recommendations of the commission in the slightest respect. As will be seen from a special cable published elsewhere, our Labour friends in Parliament roundly condemn the exclusion of Indians from the Commission, but by long experience we know that the Labour Party is a broken reed for us to lean upon; otherwise, would it have allowed two of its members to accept places on the Commission? Once again let it be remembered that our salvation lies in our own hands. In the name of the glorious India of the future which every loyal son sees with the mind’s eye, we implore all Indians irrespective of caste, creed, community or party, to rally to the cause of the Congress which is the cause of the country.
The following is THE HINDU editorial on its Golden Jubilee. “Honest and fearless criticism of men and measures, untainted by personalities and directed solely by consideration of the common weal, will, in the future as in the past, be our constant aim. And it shall be our endeavour to fight with all the strength and skill that may be vouchsafed to us for the freedom of the Motherland, to uphold all causes that are deserving of support and to contribute all that we can to that fullness of life of which a great nation is born.”
OCTOBER 8, 1928
The Golden Jubilee
SUNDAY THE 7TH OCTOBER 1928 WAS A PROUD DAY FOR THE HINDU and all who are associated, in however, humble a capacity, with its conduct. It brought to them an overwhelming realisation of the unique place this journal occupies in the esteem and affection of our countrymen. The hearty manner in which the general public and leaders of all shades of political opinion cooperated in the Jubilee celebrations both in the City and all over the Presidency gave the occasion the character of a national festival. It was an exceptionally brilliant gathering that responded to the invitation of the proprietors to attend the reception given by them at THE HINDU office; for this signal mark of courtesy we should like to express our warmest acknowledgments to the distinguished guests. Nor are we less sensible of the supreme honour done to THE HINDU, its early founders and great architects, by the public of Madras at the meeting in Gokhale Hall where, in the presence of a vast, enthusiastic, cultured and democratic audience, an address was presented to the proprietors, editor and staff of this paper and speeches were made by eminent leaders eulogising in over generous terms such services to the cause of the nation, as in the face of odds, we have been enabled to do by the unwavering sympathy and support of our countrymen. Profoundly conscious as we are of our onerous responsibilities as the inheritors of a great tradition and looking as we do for daily inspiration and guidance to the fragrant memory of the great men who so largely made THE HINDU what it is, the heartfelt tributes paid to the two stars of the first magnitude in the Indian journalistic firmament – the late Messrs. G. Subramania Aiyar and S. Kasturiranga Iyengar – the eminently fitting way in which the public of Madras have decided to perpetuate their memory, are doubly precious to us. Those great men are the beacon-lights who shine far into the future with their radiant message of hope and faith; we into whose hands their sacred charge has passed are but humble feeders of the flame. We are too painfully aware of our own limitations to appropriate as our due all the kind and good things that our friends and well wishers have been saying of us. We realise that it is not so much THE HINDU with all its weaknesses and imperfections that they have been so wholeheartedly praising, as the ideal which THE HINDU has ever set up before itself and earnestly endeavoured to live up to amidst all the storm and stress of circumstance. Perfection is not the portion of our mortal estate, but the joy of the ideal lies in the knowledge that its pursuit is unending and constitutes its own greatest reward. Without exposing ourselves to the charge of immodesty we may be permitted to say that it is in this spirit of high endeavour that the present conductors of THE HINDU have always been trying and will always continue to do their duty by the public. Honest and fearless criticism of men and measures, untainted by personalities and directed solely by consideration of the common weal will, in the future as in the past, be our constant aim. And it shall be our endeavour to fight with all the strength and skill that may be vouchsafed to us for the freedom of the Motherland, to uphold all causes that are deserving of support and to contribute all that we can to that fullness of life of which a great nation is born. We are acutely conscious of the immensity of our task but the thought while it chastens, need not deflect us from the goal, sustained as we are by the knowledge that the country expects THE HINDU to do its duty and is prepared to back it nobly in the strenuous days ahead.
“Are we to believe then that Indian princes are prepared to entrust their fate into the hands of an uninformed and unfamiliar white Democracy in England instead of getting into some kind of federal relationship and treaty arrangement with British India and the future Parliament of their own countrymen?….We refuse to believe that the Indian princes feel themselves in such a humiliating position of helplessness and backwardness as to seek, against a Government composed of their own countrymen, the protection which the coloured races need against their white exploiters.”
APRIL 17, 1929
The Butler report
THE FULL SUMMARY WHICH OUR SIMLA CORRESPONDENT HAS sent us of the report of the Butler Committee, will, we have no doubt, be read with absorbing interest by our readers and with not a little surprise and indignation. Various forecasts were made at various times of the nature and scope of the expected recommendations of the Committee, but few would have been prepared for the definitely reactionary, mischievous and insidious principles which underlie and dominate these recommendations. It would be remarkable indeed if the Indian princes proved to be blind to the implications of the two principal proposals in the report for which unfortunately they were led to express their preference, taken in conjunction with the very definite and unqualified assertion of the rights and privileges of the paramount power of the British Government over them. The Committee have refused to define the limits or the principles of such paramount authority of the British Raj and have declared that it should continue as elastic and uncontrolled as it has till now been. But they have recommended that this paramount power should now be exercised through the Viceroy and not the Governor-General-in-Council and that the relationship thus established should not be transferred without the agreement of the princes to a new Government in British India responsible to the Indian Legislature. The princes wanted a strict definition of their treaty relations with the Crown, and the maintenance of those relations in their integrity strictly by the Crown and not through a democratic Government in India which they most unjustly and unfortunately distrusted. They have now been told that while the power of the paramount power will not be defined or controlled by any definite juristic or international principles, the actual exercise of that will vest as they demanded in the arbitrary control of a Viceroy and free from any control or pressure which a popular Government of their own countrymen in British India expected to act in their interests could exercise upon him. In other words, the princes asked for bread for themselves – ignoring the claims of their own subjects and their fellow-countrymen in British India. They have been given a stone that is calculated to act as a deadweight upon the progress of their own countrymen in British India and their own States in consequence. It is surprising that a proposal originating from designing brains and pregnant with mischievous possibilities, such as that which Sir Leslie Scott foreshadowed long ago, should have found such easy acceptance by the Butler Committee. The Nehru Report foresaw this danger vividly and condemned the insidious plot in no uncertain terms. It warned the Indian princes against being made the cat’s paw in any such nefarious tactics.
We do not propose to-day to examine the legal and constitutional aspects of the two cardinal propositions propounded in the Butler Report. The first, as the Nehru Report puts it, in plain English, means, “that the past and present Governments of India were acceptable because they were essentially foreign in complexion and not responsible to the Indian electorate and that the future responsible Government of India would not be acceptable to the Indian princes because it will consist of their own countrymen and because it will be responsible to an electorate of their own countrymen.” The other proposal is that the Crown should act through the Viceroy as its agent and not through the Governor-General-in-Council in its obligations, contractual or otherwise, towards the Indian princes. This, if analysed, imputes to the princes an amount of unjust and unnatural sentiments which, we think, they do not really or will not on reflection entertain. If, as the Butler Committee have found, these obligations have been performed, to quote the words of the Nehru Report, “by white agents to the apparent satisfaction of the brown princes, on what principle and law, we ask, may that contract not be performed by brown agents, to the equal if not greater satisfaction of the brown princes?” Are we to be told that the Indian princes with all their pride of ancestry and aristocracy and with all their vaunted love for the motherland are prepared to put their faith in the ministers – say, of a government of Tom, Dick and Harry in England and not in ministers consisting of their own countrymen in India responsible to a legislature which from its very nature is bound to have far more regard to the interests, traditions, rights and privileges of the successors of the ancient rulers of India. For, what does this socalled claim of having direct relations with the Crown through the Viceroy amount to? The legal theory of a so-called “personal confidence”-as between the rulers of Indian States and His Majesty the King Emperor may of course be dismissed as ridiculous. It has not been noticed by the Butler Committee itself. But it is possible that the princes may have a wholly superficial notion that His Majesty the King Emperor, apart from the social and ceremonial part that His Majesty discharges in his relations with the Indian princes, has any direct part or lot in the policy or actions of His Majesty’s Government in regard to the exercise of the paramount powers that vest in the Crown. If there is any such notion we do trust that those who are responsible for the recommendations in the report would frankly disabuse them of the same, because no man in his senses believes that to-day in the British constitution His Majesty the King controls or guides the policy of his Government or Ministry. That power has long ago passed into the hands of Parliament. Are we to believe, then, that Indian princes are prepared to entrust their fate into the hands of an uninformed and unfamiliar white democracy in England instead of getting into some kind of federal relationship and treaty arrangement with British India and the future Parliament of their own countrymen? The position that will, under the report be assigned to the Viceroy vis-a-vis the Rulers of Indian States and their territories by the Committee in consequence of the grant of responsible Government to British India, is not dissimilar to that assigned to the Governor-General of South Africa or other colonies in regard to the protection of native races and their territories. We refuse to believe that the Indian princes feel themselves in such a humiliating position of helplessness and backwardness as to seek, against a Government composed of their own countrymen, the protection which the coloured races need against their white exploiters. We know as a matter of fact that some princes do not feel so. It is possible that some of the Indian rulers may hope that the British suzerainty thus altered may in practice not be as rigorously exercised as it is being done by the Foreign Department of the Government of India to-day. But any such expectations are doomed to disappointment in the face of the most unqualified assertion of the paramount power contained in the report. Even to-day although the Governor-General-in-Council is the authority dealing with the Indian States, the Viceroy through the Foreign Department exercises, practically unchecked by his colleagues, all the powers that are vested in him under the statute. The source of the right of the Governor-General to deal with the affairs of Indian States to-day does not lie in any inherent or personal rights of the Crown, but in the actual rights statutorily transferred to the Crown by a Parliamentary enactment of 1858 from the East India Company that preceded the Crown in its relations with them. There can be no doubt therefore that in practice the authority of the Viceroy will be wholly dependent on the authority of His Majesty’s responsible Minister, resting on the support of a democratic Parliament. It follows therefore that the change now asked for has absolutely nothing either in principle or sentiment that could commend it to the Indian princes and we can only hope that they will realise that the gift that they have been offered now is that of the proverbial wooden horse which the Greeks presented to the Trojans.
In regard to other outstanding questions and the proposals made for the settlement of disputes and differences between the princes and the Indian Government, the report of the Butler Committee has hardly added to our knowledge or to the means of their solution in the future. They have relegated the financial questions connected with the imposition of direct and indirect taxes by British India and the States to a special Commission to be hereafter appointed. And they have made proposals for the constitution of conferences and of special tribunals for the decision of non-justiciable and justiciable claims and disputes between them inter se and between themselves and the British Government. In both these matters they have, if we may say so, been wholly anticipated by, if they have not actually followed, the proposals made by the Nehru Committee in their report and it is unnecessary to deal with them at any length to-day. It will be no fault of anyone if the report conveys to him the impression that it is but a part of a concerted plan of action that is being pursued to defeat or delay India’s claims for Swaraj into which the princes have been most unfortunately dragged. Above all, the interests and the future position and rights of the people of Indian States have nowhere found any recognition except in the most casual way either in the report or in the claims which the princes put forward before the Butler Committee. It is therefore necessary for the leaders of the people both in British and in Indian India to immediately take steps to persuade and convince the princes of the essential wisdom and justice of their making common cause with their own subjects and with their brethren in British India and claim for themselves and for British India a Swaraj that is free from the domination or intervention of British interests and that gives the fullest scope for the development of freedom and prosperity for the whole of India.
The District Magistrate of Tanjore, Mr. J. F. Thorne I.C.S., issued a circular that the Satyagrahis marching to Vedaranyam (on the sea coast in the district) under the leadership of C. Rajagopalachari to break the salt law should not be given hospitality or any help and if anyone did so he would be put in jail. THE HINDU : “If we know the intelligent and partiotic people of Tanjore aright they are not likely to be frightened away by this kind of mischievous and disingenuous propaganda from their adherence to strict dharma that those who ask for food and shelter shall not be turned away empty-handed, much less those who ask for it as of right in the name of the motherland.”
APRIL 11, 1930
An egregious circular
THE DISTRICT MAGISTRATE OF TANJORE HAS IN FURTHERANCE of his peculiar notions of safeguarding law and order to which we referred yesterday, caused to be printed and distributed in the district a notice to the public in Tamil, which we reproduce elsewhere with a close translation. The notice begins by blandly asserting that the Salt satyagrahis who propose to start from Trichinopoly for Vedaranyam on the 13th instant constitute an unlawful assembly. This, as we pointed out yesterday, is fundamentally wrong, since the proposed violation of the Salt Act does not come under the category of any of the offences mentioned in Section 141 and secondly, even if its meaning should be strained so as to render the Satyagrahis an unlawful assembly, they would become so only if and when they are presently to become engaged in breaking the law by actually manufacturing salt at Vedaranyam. Mr. Thorne himself seems to dimly apprehend that his conception of what constitutes an unlawful assembly may not square with that of the law of the land; for if he were convinced that the Salt Satyagrahis constituted an unlawful assembly when they began their march, he could arrest them himself and send them for trial. It is evidently an uncomfortable feeling that such a charge might not stand that has prompted him to hamper and obstruct the Satyagrahis by issuing a warning to the people in the localities lying on their route with a view to compelling them to refuse the Satyagrahis even elementary needs. And he proceeds to do this by what we cannot help characterising as a perversion of the plain meaning of Section 157 of the Penal Code. This Section, as we pointed yesterday, can only apply to cases of harbouring and assisting people who have been or are about to be hired, engaged or employed by some others to join or become members of an unlawful assembly already existing or hereafter to be brought into existence and it is not ex hypothesi intended to apply to those who have, as the District Magistrate says, already become an unlawful assembly themselves and have committed an offence of which he can himself take cognisance at once. It is plain, therefore, that no offence of harbouring under Section 157 can be committed in the face of the Magistrate’s own admission that they have already become members of an unlawful assembly; and as there is no design or intention to screen any of them from punishment on the part of the villagers who may give them food and lodging, they are not liable to punishment for any offence whatever.
Naturally he does not stop with merely expounding the law. He embroiders a few diplomatic devices thereupon, even as his confreres in Gujarat and the Andhra country have done, each according to the light of his inspiration. He poses as the champion of outraged local patriotism. For he proclaims that Tanjore does not want to be worried by these pestilential folk, and God willing, they shall not be worried, if he, Mr. Thome, could help it. Lest, however, some misguided folk in the district should not know what is good for them and persist in
receiving the Satyagrahis as the dictates of common humanity and the immemorial laws of hospitality require, he concludes by telling them (a perfect example of the iron hand in the velvet glove) that if they do not behave like good boys why, then, they will be put in jail. If we know the intelligent and patriotic people of Tanjore aright, they are not likely to be frightened away by this kind of mischievous and disingenuous propaganda from their adherence to the eternal dharma that those who ask for food and shelter shall not be turned away empty-handed, much less those who ask for it as of right in the name of the motherland.
The historic pact between Lord Irwin, the Viceroy and Mahatma Gandhi in 1931 brought to an end the salt satyagraha. THE HINDU: “We are sure now that all obstacles have been surmounted, the two parties will be able to proceed to the great constructive effort to establish India’s future constitution in accordance with the nation’s desires and needs in the spirit of conciliation that has today been inaugurated.”
MARCH 4, 1931
Peace
IT IS HARDLY POSSIBLE TO EXAGGERATE THE IMPORTANCE OF the news flashed throughout the country in the early hours of the morning today that agreement had at last been reached in the peace conversations between Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Irwin. No two persons could better represent India and Great Britain at this juncture. That a settlement has been made possible by the fact that these two men in true religious spirit strove with a determination to achieve peace and goodwill between two great peoples where bitterness and mutual distrust had been brought about by policies and incidents of the past is no less significant. It was the hope that such personal and fruitful contact might be established between Gandhiji and the Viceroy that sustained thoughtful minds in both countries in the dark days that are past. Since the time when Lord Irwin impressed with the reality of the Indian struggle for freedom and with the duty he owed his country and India to remove the bitterness and end the conflict that he then clearly foresaw went to England in 1929 and returned to India with a definite policy of advance unhampered by the mistakes of the past, the country has, as Mahatma Gandhi declared and the Congress approved, expressed its appreciation of the sincerity and goodwill that have inspired him. We have often expressed the view that these great qualities that he exhibited should be utilised to evolve concrete political policies and be made the basis of the settlement which the Congress under the lead of Mahatma Gandhi and the lead of those great leaders that alas are no more – Deshbandhu Das and Pandit Motilal – has always striven for. We have repeatedly urged that between a generous interpretation of Lord Irwin’s policy and a just view of the national demands as interpreted by the Congress leaders, the difference was so little that it was eminently the task of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Motilal and Lord Irwin to unite in removing it and that the national struggle should be brought to a speedy and successful end by this means. There existed no doubt such mistrust and suspicion, justified unfortunately by the policies and utterances of Lord Irwin and his government engendered by the stress of the struggle that went on and under the pressure of a system of administration and of its agents and advocates who would not reconcile themselves to the political changes that were coming on so rapidly and certainly. But the determination, sacrifices and suffering of the nation under the lead of the great apostle of peace and non-violence made repression and reaction futile and Lord Irwin has eventually been able to prevail and have his way in bringing about peace. We are sure, now that all obstacles have been surmounted, the two parties will be able to proceed to the great constructive effort to establish India’s future constitution in accordance with the nation’s desires and needs in the spirit of conciliation that has today been inaugurated. It will be the country’s prayer that God would give Mahatma Gandhi health and lead the national cause and realise the nation’s purposes with the same vision, wisdom and unstinted cooperation of all leaders, parties, and communities that he has received at this juncture. It will also be the country’s devout hope that after Lord Irwin lays down the Viceroyalty that has culminated in this great and historic step in national pacification, he will be able with even more freedom and energy to assist in the completion of the national constitution of the Indian people whom he has loved and befriended.
The British Premier, Ramsay MacDonald’s Communal Award which provided for separate electorates for the Depressed Classes led to Gandhiji (who was in prison) going on a fast unto death if the provision was not changed. A conference of leaders of Caste Hindus and the Depressed Classes (including Dr. B. R. Ambedkar) evolved a satisfactory settlement which was approved by the Mahatma who broke his fast. THE HINDU: “Now that the stress of an impending calamity has worked something like a miracle in the course of a few days, is it idle to imagine that if a similarly earnest endeavour were made to promote mutual agreement on a wider scale between the various communities it could not fail of results?”
SEPTEMBER 26, 1932
The Poona pact
THERE IS UNIVERSAL REJOICING IN THE COUNTRY OVER THE satisfactory settlement of the Depressed Classes question brought about by Mahatmaji’s inspiring and heroic lead. The one prayerful thought that is uppermost in the mind of every Indian today is that Gandhiji should come safely out of the travail he imposed on himself for the country’s sake and should be spared to fight the battles that are yet to be won in the cause of freedom. The Government have intimated their acceptance of the settlement and we hope that before these lines are before the public Gandhiji will have broken his fast. The Poona Pact ushers in a new era in the history of India’s struggle. Not only does it lay the axe at the root of those psychological factors which have so long bolstered up untouchability; it demonstrates as Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru rightly said, our ability to compose our domestic differences. This has been vigorously denied by those who do not look with favour on India’s aspirations and we have been repeatedly twitted with the failure to agree among ourselves which, it is pointed out, was responsible for the communal award. Now that the stress of an impending calamity has worked something like a miracle in the course of a few days, is it idle to imagine that if a similarly earnest endeavour were made to promote mutual agreement on a wider scale between the various communities, it could not fail of results? The driving impulse behind the Bombay conference was the common desire to save Gandhiji’s life. Cannot the desire to secure the reality of self-government be mobilised effectively to achieve a wider unity? We trust that this lesson will not be lost on the leaders of the various communities.
The Poona agreement has a moral for the Government also, if they will only look at it squarely. What was regarded by them and by many others as a settled fact has been unsettled in a manner which should make them realise that they would be throwing away a splendid opportunity to bring peace and contentment to India, if they persisted in their refusal to take any step to secure the cooperation of Gandhiji and the Congress. The so-called dual policy has been a disastrous failure; terrorism still stalks the land (the latest victim of which is Mrs. Sullivan whose dastardly murder at Darjeeling is reported elsewhere), while political discontent has become chronic and bitterness is increasing day by day. The Government can apparently think of nothing better, by way of meeting the situation, than loading the ordinary criminal law with offences and penalties which are unknown to any other civilised code, and making a feeble attempt to revive the dead Conference method, into which life can be breathed only if the Government abandon repression in favour of conciliation. If the “third” R. T. conference is to make a success of its job, which is to promote agreed decisions on most of the important questions involved in the transference of power from the British to the Indian people, which are yet unsettled, it is obvious that the best organised and most powerful political party in the country should be properly represented in it. Gandhi’s influence will be an invaluable asset at such a crucial stage of the proceedings; the Poona pourparlers showed the unique contribution that it is in his power to make to the creation of the will to agree, even as they demonstrated the fact that the capacity to take quick decisions and the readiness to act in a spirit of give and take will assuredly emerge at any conference summoned to deal with these outstanding issues if the prize to be won is the substance of power and not the shadow. The Government have intimated their acceptance of the Poona settlement in so far as it affects the communal award and stated that other points mentioned in the Agreement will receive due consideration. With such triumphant proof before them of the immense contribution that Gandhiji and the Congress can make to the cause of constructive reform they would be blind indeed if they refused to take any further steps to secure the cooperation of so potent a power for good.
“Mahatma Gandhi and other Congressmen have agreed that mass civil disobedience should be called off and this, in our view, imposes on all Congressmen who do not propose to participate in civil disobedience, a clear duty towards the Congress. Without in any way surrendering their opinion of or faith in civil disobedience as they understand it, they should have no hesitation in declaring that as a programme of organised mass action, civil disobedience should now be given up and on that footing they should proceed to restore the Congress to its position of primacy among the political instruments that half a century of nation building has evolved for achieving the goal of the country’s political ambitions.”
AUGUST 19, 1933
The present political situation
IT IS MORE THAN A FORTNIGHT SINCE MAHATMA GANDHI RESTARTED Civil disobedience and courted imprisonment as a sequel to the Viceroy’s refusal of his request for an interview to discuss the situation. Some of his close colleagues have followed his lead and others in larger or smaller numbers will go on doing likewise. We have already pointed out the unwisdom and impropriety of the Government’s decision to refuse the interview. We also took the occasion to regret the Poona decisions as to civil disobedience and to reiterate what we had previously urged viz., that in the circumstances and conditions of the country — now fully admitted by Congressmen themselves and recognised by Mahatma Gandhi – civil disobedience as a mass or organised movement should be called off and that the Congress and Congressmen, without abjuring their principles or faith as to civil disobedience, could revert to normal political activities and in particular strive to achieve that concerted political action which was so fruitful in 1928-1929. We emphasised that such reorientation was all the more urgently needed today in view of the dominance of reactionary counsels in Britain.
Mr. Aney, as acting Congress President, issued after the Viceroy’s refusal to see Gandhiji an official statement embodying his decisions after considering the recommendations of the informal conference and the “advice tendered by Mahatma Gandhi” – which advice he has since amplified in a statement the substance of which has been published in the Press. He has also written to Mr. Satyamurti clearing certain doubts and declining, except upon a proper requisition from the requisite number of members, to convene an A.I.C.C. meeting to consider the position further. The contents of this letter, as well as a statement by Mr. Jairamdas Doulatram as Secretary of the Congress, are published elsewhere; they together with Mahatmaji’s exposition exhibit the civil disobedience campaign and the programme of constructive work in a different light from that in which they have been viewed by many Congressmen. Without the least desire to undervalue the faith and determination of those patriots who have already sought or may hereafter seek imprisonment on the new plan, we think it urgently necessary that those Congressmen who have not gone to jail and who do not propose to participate in the civil disobedience movement, should take stock of the present situation and act in a manner consistent with the best traditions of the Congress and conducive to the achievement of the national political objective – Swaraj. It is wholly in this view that we venture to put before them the definite issues that have arisen from the unfortunate decisions at Poona. We have not had any accurate report of what have been described by Mr. Aney as the “recommendations of the informal conference” or of the “advice tendered by Mahatma Gandhi” and we have no desire to rely upon any one-sided press reports of the same. Taking the statements made by Mahatma Gandhi and Mr. Aney and in conjunction therewith the statements of others who were actual participants in the Poona conference, we feel it our duty to point out that the basic principles upon which Mahatma Gandhi proceeded to tender the advice that has been implicitly accepted by his followers, are such as go beyond what the Congress or Congressmen as a body can be irrevocably committed to.
The fundamental position which the Congress took in the past in relation to non-violence and civil disobedience and which it is entitled to revise and vary from time to time should be understood clearly so that the need for the Congress being perfectly free to carry on its primary political programme without the obsessions of any dogma or creed could be correctly appreciated. Congressmen not participating in the civil disobedience movement have been placed in an extremely anomalous and unsatisfactory position by reason of the Poona decisions. Technically, no doubt, these decisions are but personal directions of the acting President, or dictator as he is sometimes called, and questions as to the authority of the Working Committee or of the All India Congress Committee being needed to confirm or vary them have no doubt been raised and may be discussed from various standpoints. But we do not think that the discussion of these technical aspects is of much consequence, so long as Mahatma Gandhi has formulated or endorsed the decisions which on that account are bound to command support from many Congressmen. What we think is necessary for Congressmen to visualise is not so much the right of the All India Congress Committee to discuss and alter these decision, but the necessity for leading members of the A1CC facing the issues squarely and determining what the Congress ought to do at the present juncture in view of the changed conditions that are upon us.
According to the instructions of Mr. Aney, while the campaign of civil disobedience is not unconditionally withdrawn, mass civil disobedience has been discontinued for the time being, the resultant position being stated to be that the right of individuals who may be ready for every suffering and prepared to act on their own responsibility to continue civil disobedience “is reserved”. If this was all that was implied, the position would, to some extent, be analogous to that taken by Mahatma Gandhi when he suspended the starting of mass civil disobedience at Bardoli in 1922. But when Mr. Aney goes further and says that “all who are able and willing to offer individual civil disobedience on their own responsibility though without expectation of help from the Congress organisations are expected to do so” and when Mahatma Gandhi amplifies this instruction by saying that such people “would be acting on behalf of and in the name of the Congress,” the position becomes extremely confusing and perplexing. The rather vague and misleading terms in which the instructions for the dissolution of Congress organisations were couched have now been explained in a manner which has naturally induced the Government to construe Mahatmaji’s statement as favouring the revival of a campaign of general civil disobedience by successive steps. We do not know whether Mahatmaji intended that his action and that of those who might follow him should be interpreted in this sense; if he had, he could hardly have instructed Congressmen not practising civil disobedience to carry on constructive work – including council entry, later on, if found advisable or possible.
It is plain, however, that Mahatma Gandhi has throughout these several expositions ignored the clear distinction which he once very properly made between his own principles and faith in civil disobedience and the principles which the Congress had accepted for achieving its aims. In his statement of 26th July last he has dwelt chiefly upon his own faith in the creed of non-violence and all that flows from it and not on the policy or programme which under very specific limitations and restrictions the Congress accepted and adopted in 1920. Every one will agree with him – and the Congress and the country will ever be grateful to him in this behalf – on the message of non-violence preached by him in the darkest days of India’s travail. By adopting it as “the right route to our goal in 1920” the country has gained in political stature, momentum and power; we see the evidence of it in the mass consciousness of national self-respect that has made itself felt both by our rulers and by the world at large. But neither the country as a whole nor many leading Congressmen will agree with the views which Gandhiji has put forward of the tenet of non-violence and its scope in practical application or with his implied contention that the country as a whole has actually adopted them or that the Congress committed itself to these views for all time. That the spirit of non-violence should spread throughout the world and Satyagraha should be the basis of the future ordering of the world is what idealists may always hope for. But that India should wait for her freedom until the spirit of non-violence permeates every human being in India in the manner in which Mahatma Gandhi wants it should, so that the rest of the world may follow India’s example and do likewise, is a different proposition. It cannot, at any rate, be contended that the Congress has been irrevocably committed to it. Such a contention would amount to a claim to have changed what has all along been an essentially national political organisation for the achievement of political freedom, as it is ordinarily understood, into an organisation for the achievement of a spiritual or religious ideal. It can hardly appeal to those politically-minded Congressmen who still feel that mankind will have to travel a long, long way before such a lofty goal could be realised. None was better aware of this than Mahatma Gandhi himself in 1920 when he appealed to the Congress to adopt it as a policy in the then conditions of India.
In accepting his lead in 1920, the Congress did nothing more than accept nonviolence, very properly, as the basis of the programme of triple boycott and also of its prospective plan of a no-tax and civil disobedience campaign. Successive resolutions of the Congress have not gone further than the resolution from which Mahatma Gandhi now seems to conclude that the Congress attitude towards nonviolence is identical with his own. In his statement of July 26th he observes:
“It may be objected that the heroic suffering of a few individuals, however praiseworthy in itself, is of no practical value and cannot affect British policy. I differ from such a view. In my opinion, the seemingly long or almost interminable process adumbrated by me will in practice be found to be the shortest. For I hold that true Independence i.e. Independence in terms of and on behalf of the masses can be proved in India’s case to be unattainable by any other method. The method of non-violence which is an integral part of the Congress constitution demands the course suggested by me. If ever we, as a nation, reach that living faith in non-violence and banish violence from our hearts we would not even need resort to civil disobedience. The latter is required whilst we are trying non-violence as a mere policy or expedient. Even as a policy, it is any day far more effective than violence. Under the Dictator’s instructions secret organisations naturally disappear. Every civil resister will be his or her own leader. He or she will carry the burden of the Congress on his or her own shoulders. Such civil resisters will be trustees of national honour.”
We think that the Congress did not, either in 1920 or subsequently, take any such irrevocable step with its incalculable consequences. The resolution of the Congress in 1920 observed that “the only effectual means to vindicate national honour and to prevent a repetition of similar wrongs in the future is the establishment of Swarajya” and it went on to declare that the Congress “is further of opinion that there is no course left open for the people of India but to approve of and adopt the policy of progressive non-violent non-cooperation inaugurated by Mr. Gandhi until the said wrongs are righted and Swarajya is established”. Leaving the Khilafat or other similar wrongs out of account as being no longer live issues, what would constitute the establishment of Swarajya has been declared by the Congress concretely on various occasions -in terms, for instance, of the Nehru constitution at one time or of Independence or “substantial Independence” at another, relegating the question of the British connection to a secondary place. But the Independence which Mahatmaji visualises in his last statement in terms of non-violence and the other principles which he holds as part of his creed, is not comprehended in the Congress resolution. Indeed, in the course of a famous note appended by the late Pandit Motilal Nehru to the Civil Disobedience Committee’s report, he pointed out the exact scope and character of the resolution of the Congress and of the policy followed by it later on. We reproduce extracts therefrom elsewhere to show that, to use Panditji’s words, “there has never been any doubt that by accepting the programme of non-violent noncooperation, the Indian National Congress did not adopt all the views of Mahatma Gandhi expressed by him in Hind Swaraj and from time to time in Young India and elsewhere and that Congressmen are only bound by the principles accepted and formulated by the Congress and not by every word or sentiment which might have found utterance from the lips of Mahatmaji”. Many of his theories, as he points out, have “yet to find favour not only with Congressmen generally, but the country at large and among them is the doctrine of Ahimsa and all that flows from it. The one common ground on which all non-cooperators meet is that violence in any shape or form is completely ruled out by existing conditions and as wholly outside the pale of practical politics”. And the Pandit proceeds to cite the authority of Mahatma Gandhi himself – which will be found in the passages extracted elsewhere – and rightly claims that it was on this and this basis alone that the policy of nonviolent non-cooperation was recommended by him and accepted by the Congress.
It seems to us therefore difficult to contend, either on general principles or with reference to the actual events connected with the movement since 1920, that Congress is committed to the continuation of civil disobedience so long as a single civil resister is available, that every civil resister who goes to jail Non the basis assumed by Mahatma Gandhi or even on more restricted grounds, would “be acting on behalf of and in the name of the Congress” because in this view Purna Swaraj or substantial Swaraj or whatever it may be, has not been and will not be achieved until the entire country becomes non-violent in thought, word and deed. On the other hand, it is clear that the Congress adopted its programme of boycott and civil disobedience entirely as a political-weapon for the achievement of what are essentially political ends, namely the attainment of full self-government-call it Independence, substance of Independence or full Dominion status under the Statute of Westminster or by any other name you like – attained in such a manner that the country as a whole would deem it to be a satisfactory settlement of its political future. That the Congress as an institution could not and ought not to be put on any other basis must be clear from the fact that the Congress is older than the Calcutta Congress session and that the Congress has even subsequently adopted programmes inconsistent with this pragmatic view of non-cooperation and non-violence.
Mahatma Gandhi and other Congressmen have agreed that mass civil disobedience should be called off and this, in our view, imposes on all Congressmen who do not propose to participate in civil disobedience, a clear duty towards the Congress. Without in any way surrendering their opinion of or faith in the principle of civil disobedience as they understand it, they should have no hesitation in declaring that as a programme of organised mass action, civil disobedience should now be given up and on that footing they should proceed to restore the Congress to its position of primacy among the political instruments that half a century of nation-building has evolved for achieving the goal of the country’s political ambitions. The Congress has come to occupy a unique place in the affections of the people because it has symbolised the will to be free, the resolve to work for that freedom by all legitimate and constructive political methods and the alert and resolute opposition to all attempts to encroach on the just rights and liberties of the citizen, from whatever quarter they might originate. Only by restoring the Congress to the position in which it can discharge its primary functions will they be able to strengthen and organise it for the great political and social tasks ahead.
“He (Rangaswami Iyengar) had ever a sunny smile and a friendly word for all who came to him for help and advice and none went away but felt comforted or fortified. Abstemious in his habits, and with little ambition except in the country’s cause, his generous impulses responded readily – a little too readily as those who were intimately associated with him might have felt at times – to the constant calls that were being made upon his kindness. Like his great uncle, Kasturiranga Iyengar, he liked to encourage talent wherever he saw it and in his desire to conscript such talent for the service of the country he had a missionary fervour.”
FEBRUARY 6, 1934
A great son of India
INDIA MOURNS THE LOSS OF ONE OF HER GREATEST SONS AND one of her foremost nationalists in the death, in the early hours of yesterday morning of Mr. A. Rangaswami Iyengar, after a short but painful illness borne with characteristic fortitude. And THE HINDU makes its appearance today under the shadow of a great bereavement, one which has deprived it of the services of an Editor who carried on with distinction the high traditions created for it by a succession of illustrious Editors. Great opportunities for service came to Mr. Rangaswami Iyengar and he acquitted himself greatly. But he had also more than the usual share of sorrow and travail; a brilliant son who was as the apple of his eye died in the full vigour of young manhood struck down by tuberculosis; early in life there fell upon him a monetary loss that well-nigh crippled him for life, a loss brought about by that ardent desire for public service which was later to be crowned by such rich achievements, and a naturally delicate constitution, taxed by the arduous conditions of public life and the sedentary habits to which life at the desk habituates one, was at all times a drag on his health and spirits. His only recreation was music of which he was a well-known connoisseur, but he had little liking for the latter day developments that, in his opinion, spoiled the purity and beauty of the art as it is currently expounded, and he sought less and less relaxation in it. He had ever a sunny smile and a friendly word for all who came to him for help and advice, and none went away but felt comforted or fortified. Abstemious in his habits and with little ambition except in the country’s cause, his generous impulses responded readily – a little too readily, as those who were intimately associated with him might have felt at times – to the constant calls that were being made upon his kindness. Like his great uncle, the late Mr. Kasturiranga Iyengar, he liked to encourage talent wherever he saw it; and in his desire to conscript such talent for the service of the country, he had a missionary fervour.
The journalist-politician, who is a comparatively rare phenomenon in the West, has, in the peculiar conditions of India, had to play the role of leader of public opinion. For one thing, among a people who look upon public service as a patriotic duty, conditions have not been propitious – though a change seems to be coming – to the emergence of a class of men who would make politics and politics alone their life’s business. For another, in the absence of a system of universal education which could provide the politician with his raw material, the Press, with its appeal to a numerically small but extraordinarily influential intelligentsia, offered in the first half century of Indian nationalism, the only effective platform for those who wished to awaken the masses to a sense of their birthright. In the early years of this century only those who chose to live dangerously could undertake this form of public service. But if it had its perils it had its fascination too. There was magic in the word Congress, and, to the last, loyalty to the Congress was a dominant factor in Mr. Rangaswami Iyengar’s life. This loyalty was reinforced by the conviction that the organisation which commanded the allegiance of the largest and most powerful body of public opinion in the country was, of right, entitled to have a predominant voice in the shaping of her destinies. But while he felt this and urged it day in, day out, with the whole force of his personality, as the reason why the Government should seek not to belittle the Congress but to persuade it into honourable cooperation if a definitive and amicable settlement was ever to be reached, he was also realist enough to prefer, without ever losing sight of the objective, the more practicable to the less practicable method of achieving it. An ardent admirer of Gandhiji’s saintly life, he realised to the full the nature and significance of the revolution that the Mahatma had effected in the thoughts of men and their ways of life; he paid his heart-felt homage to the heroic suffering and sacrifice by which the common people testified to their faith in the great liberator. But he never disguised either from himself or from others the fact that he had his own differences with Gandhiji. To his unique relations with the late Pandit Motilal Nehru, on the other hand, the only analogy that offers in recent Indian history is the peculiar bond that held Ranade and the younger Gokhale together. Panditji had in overflowing measure that serene wisdom and that equanimity which a profound knowledge of life brings with it; these qualities attracted Mr. Rangaswami Iyengar to him and Panditji in his turn was attracted by the alertness of mind, the constructive practicality, the amazing industry and the thorough grasp of constitutional history and theory and of financial questions which Mr. Rangaswami Iyengar brought to a partnership which was responsible for some of the most brilliant achievements of the Swaraj Party in the Assembly.
If Mr. C. R. Das was the prophet who foresaw the need for a new orientation in Indian politics, Pandit Motilal the statesman who by his sagacity and drive organised it for victory, and Vithalbhai Patel, the stormy petrel who was the spearhead of its onward thrust, it is not too much to say that Mr. Rangaswami Iyengar supplied the sustained intellectual effort and the patience that are required to build up a great party. No wonder that he felt extremely unhappy over the recent political developments, the growing bitterness and alienation of public feeling, the enthronement of reaction in the counsels of Great Britain and the consequent wrecking of the constructive work, such as it was, done by the various Round Table Conferences and the weariness and discouragement that have swept over the country. It was, however, characteristic of the man that he refused to give way to despair and believed that with the combined efforts of men of goodwill on both sides it should be possible to end the impasse and open the way to a happier era. He had hoped to work for this end with all his resources, but it was not to be.
Of the supreme value of Mr. Rangaswami Iyengar’s work as a journalist both in the field of vernacular journalism and as the Editor, at a most eventful period, of a great English daily, the public do not require to be told.
TO THE HINDU which he helped to build up and which for the past six years he directed with unrivalled authority, tact and foresight, his loss is too deep to be adequately expressed. His thorough grasp of constitutional and financial questions enabled him to give a wise and effective lead to public opinion in a sphere which is terra incognita to most and in which a false step would be fraught with the most serious consequences to the country’s interests. He inspired confidence alike in the public mind and in his fellow-workers; even in circles which did not hold with his policies, his sincerity, honesty of purpose and desire to be scrupulously fair were recognised and what he said was invariably listened to with respect.
The glowing tributes to his memory which have been received from all quarters show the immense reputation he had built up for ability and sterling service to the country and the universal esteem in which he was held. In the troublous days ahead, the country will miss in him a wise counsellor, an able servant, his friends – and they were innumerable – a genial and kindly spirit, his colleagues a leader of quenchless enthusiasm and inexhaustible patience and the world a great gentleman. In their hour of grief the members of his family will, however, have the consolation that their sorrow is shared by their countrymen.
Irreparable as its loss is THE HINDU is greatly heartened by the spontaneous sympathy it has received on all hands. On behalf of Mr. Rangaswami Iyengar’s family and of ourselves we tender our thanks to the public and to the numerous friends who have sent us touching messages.
“The Congress has shown itself an incomparably keen and sensitive instrument of India’s will in nothing so much as in the confiding faith with which it placed itself under Gandhiji’s guidance and the loyalty with which it has striven to realise his high ideals. True, it has not yet succeeded in achieving all or even a large part of what it set out to do. But for the short and bright interlude in Indo British relations during the Irwin regime, which culminated in the historic Gandhi-Irwin Pact, there has been no realisation by the mighty power of England that in the Congress there is a power no less great, a power firmly grounded in the affection of the Indian people by virtue of long, honourable and tested service; and that in handing over the control of Indian affairs to the forces of nationalism represented by the Congress, Britain would be truly fulfilling the purposes of her rule.”
DECEMBER 27, 1935
Golden Jubilee of the Congress
“The Congress is the oldest political organisation we have in India. It is what it means – national. It represents no particular community, no particular class, no particular interest. It claims to represent all Indian interests and all classes.”
THIS OBSERVATION, WHICH MAHATMA GANDHI MADE AT THE Second Round Table Conference, about the Indian National Congress which celebrates its golden jubilee tomorrow amidst the rejoicings of a nation, was a sober statement of fact. Alike in its modest origin, its long, chequered and withal glorious career and the unique place it occupies in the affections of the Indian people today, it is sui generis among the political organisations that this country has known. For, it has always been more than a political body, therein lying its strength. At the very first session of the Congress, Mr. W. C. Bonnerji defined its objects in terms which were succinctly restated by Mr. Anandacharlu later as being “to strive to mitigate if not eradicate, race-prejudices, to disarm creed-antipathies and to remove provincial jealousies” and thus “to develop and consolidate sentiments of national unity”. And from the beginning it never functioned in vacuo. As Mr. Gokhale pointed out at the Benares Congress, “it was started to focus and organise the patriotic forces that were working independently of one another in different parts of the country, so as to invest their work with a national character and to increase their general effectiveness”. A signal proof of its catholicity is to be found in its seeking and in the early years obtaining the cooperation of some of the most farseeing members of the British community in India, both official and nonofficial. And indeed this is not surprising when we remember that, if any single man was responsible for founding the Congress, it was Allan Octavian Hume, a retired member of the ICS, of whom, when he died, the President of the year said in the course of a moving tribute, “The father, the founder of the Congress, he who worked for it day and night, winter and summer, ill, to tend, to nourish the child of his affection, he who in the most critical and difficult period of its existence laboured for it as no other man did, has gone, and we all mourn his loss as that of a parent.” As for the non-official Europeans, their better mind was expressed by Mr. George Yule, the first non-Indian to preside over the Congress, when he emphasised that community of interest was a more vital fact than difference of race. “We have no more power and no more voice in the Government of the country than you Indians have”, he said and he urged that “if there be but a small minority in the country fitted to exercise the useful function of the franchise, it is a mistake to withhold the privilege from them on the ground that others are not fitted”.
That was a reply to Lord Dufferin’s sneer that the Congress represented but a “microscopic minority”. The officials, who had watched the beginnings of the national movement with indifference bordering on contempt, were alarmed when they found it gaining rapidly in popular appeal. They began to dub it “disloyal’ and made much of the fact that with the exception of an enlightened minority, the Muslims as a body stood aloof from the Congress, under the leadership of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. But the significant fact was not that a majority of the Muslims stood aloof but that, for the first time since the advent of British rule in India, a section of them came to be persuaded that their interest as well as the interest of the country lay in making common cause with other communities. Well might Mr. Anandacharlu claim on this account that the Congress had within seven short years shown itself to be “a mighty nationaliser”. The attitude of the Muslims towards the Congress has undergone many changes since. But it may be said with perfect fairness that in its attitude towards the Muslims the Congress has never deviated from its desire to carry them with it. The agitation against the Bengal partition, which the Congress led, was an agitation not against the Muslims but against the dismemberment of a homogeneous people. And both by the part it played in regard to the Lucknow Pact of 1916 and by its consistent attitude towards the Communal Award it has given practical proof of its conviction that no minority should be coerced and that it is the duty of the majority to win the confidence of minorities. Its efforts have, no doubt, but imperfectly succeeded so far; nevertheless, it labours to compose political differences in the spirit of Gandhiji’s advice at the Belgaum Congress, “We must tolerate each other and trust to time to convert the one or the other to the opposite belief”.
The second great secret of the strength of the Congress is that it is the product of evolution. While it may not be correct to say that the goal of India’s progress was from the beginning clearly envisaged, the desire to achieve freedom was undoubtedly the deepest impulse that moved the founders of the Congress. It was in 1906 that Dadabhai Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of the Congress, struck a challenging note. “We do not ask for any favours. We want only justice. Instead of going into any further divisions or details of our rights as British citizens, the whole matter can be comprised in one word – “self-government” or Swaraj, like that of the United Kingdom or the Colonies.” But the categorical demands that were placed by Gokhale before the Congress in the previous year could not, by any stretch of imagination, be regarded as even remotely approximating to a demand for self-government. This disparity between the ideal and the immediate objective, which strikes the student of Congress history in the first three decades of its existence, must be explained with reference to two primary facts- the belief, widely prevalent that India could get reforms as gifts from Britain and the then character of the Congress, as a movement representing the classes rather than the masses. There was a deep-rooted belief shared by most educated Congressmen of the time that England was sincerely anxious to enlarge the bounds of freedom and all that was required was to demonstrate to her that India really wanted freedom. In the absence of representative institutions the Congress sought to fill their place by functioning as an unofficial Parliament to ventilate grievances and ask for redress. In his presidential address at the Congress of 1895, Mr. Surendranath Banerji (as he then was) was at pains to explain that it was far from the intention of the Congress to arrogate to itself the position of His Majesty’s Opposition. “We do not oppose for the mere sake of opposition… We oppose bad measures. We support good measures. We may oppose the policy of the Government but we impute no motives”. Starting with this conception of the work to be done it was natural that in the early years, the Congress should devote itself exclusively to pressing upon the rulers the need for establishing representative institutions, reforming the administration, increasing the association of Indians with the Government and other similar ameliorative measures. Its faith in British intentions was largely due to the fact that in the regime of Lord Ripon, which was described as “the Golden Age of Indian Reformers”, “the aspirations of the people were encouraged, education and local self-government were fostered, and the foundations of Indian nationality were firmly laid”. This faith received a rude shock when England, under the influence of the jingoism that was responsible for the Boer War, began to treat Indian aspirations with contempt and put down the new nationalism with a high hand. The Seditious Meetings Act and the Official Secrets Act, the Partition of Bengal, the Press Act and the many other repressive measures by which Lord Curzon sought to humiliate India and break her spirit roused intense indignation throughout the country and the attitude of the Congress underwent a slow but sure change. At first it was inclined to throw the blame on the vicious system of bureaucratic government and cherished the hope that if Britain’s attention could be effectively drawn to the misdeeds of her agents in India, she would forthwith put an end to them. But that too proved a delusion. As early as 1903, in a fighting speech Lal Mohan Ghose declared, “We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that whenever British interests clash with ours, India is certain to kick the beam” and he urged his fellow countrymen to remember that “a great deal depends upon ourselves.”
This flouting of Indian opinion forced the Congress to a realisation of the fact that it lacked, to use a term very popular in later days, effective sanctions. But it was honestly believed that political education would in time percolate down from the intelligentsia to the masses and Congressmen urged that a wise Government should be prepared for this. Thus we find Lal Mohan Ghose observing in the same address, “As the ideas of the educated minority today are bound to be shared by the masses tomorrow, it is the duty of all farsighted statesmen to take time by the forelock and by the concession of well considered reforms to ensure the contentment of the people and to enhance their loyalty and affection for the Government”. Far from doing this, however, the Government seemed bent on alienating them in all possible ways. The psychological harm done by foreign rule is far greater than even the material damage, especially when it affects a proud and sensitive people slowly awaking to its rights. It is no surprise therefore to find that the Congress in its early days was largely preoccupied with questions of status and racial equality. In his address at the Amraoti Conference, Mr. Sankaran Nair (as he then was) declared, “On this race question no concession is possible. No compromise can be accepted so far as it lies in us. We must insist on perfect equality. Inequality means race inferiority, national abasement.” It was on this sore spot that blow upon blow fell. To a Congress which had believed in the magical virtues of British citizenship, it came as a painful discovery that there was one law for the Britisher and another for the Indian in his own land, and that in other parts of the Empire which he had helped to build up he was treated as a helot. But all these pinpricks paled into insignificance beside the terrible grief provoked by the Rowlatt Bills and the Amritsar tragedy of which Thompson and Garratt in their “Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India” write: “It formed a turning point in Indo-British relations almost as important as the Mutiny… The reason for this was not merely the number of the slaughtered at Amritsar or even the brutality displayed in subsequent proceedings, so much as the assumption implied in the behaviour of responsible Englishmen and in their evidence before the Hunter Committee, that Indians could and should be treated as an inferior race.” It was this tragedy that finally forced Indian nationalism to the conclusion that India’s salvation must come from her own efforts, and that self-government here and now could alone be the solvent of her many problems. The Gandhian era in Indian politics had set in.
It is hardly necessary to recount at length the splendid achievement of the Congress under the inspiration and guidance of Gandhiji and his great co-adjutors, Deshbandhu Das, the Nehrus, Pandit Malaviya and others. “In India there is a new-born spirit of self-reliance”, Sir William Wedderburn had declared in his presidential address at the Congress held in 1910. That spirit was kindled and fostered with matchless courage, skill, and devotion by a great band of patriots, the late Lokamanya Tilak and Srijut Arabindo Ghose, still happily with us, being the foremost among them. They were nobly aided by that redoubtable lady – need we say we refer to Dr. Besant? – who brought to the service of her adopted country a gift of oratory, a flair for organisation and a wealth of political experience that made the Home Rule movement spread like wild fire. It was these devoted leaders who awakened the Indian masses from their agelong slumber and helped to convert the Congress, which had been the organ of a small but highly cultured intelligentsia, into the mighty voice of a nation. “Swaraj is my birth right”, declared the Lokamanya and he taught the millions of his countrymen to demand it. And Gandhiji came to put the coping-stone on the Lokamanya’s work. He showed the millions, by the unexampled purity and austerity of his personal life, his unflinching devotion to truth, his ocean-like humanity and his great gospel of service and sacrifice, that self-government cannot come as a gift from another, that it is the crown of a new discipline and a new way of life, and that no task should be regarded as too hard, no sacrifice too great to win freedom. He placed the freedom movement on a broad basis of popular support by putting in the forefront of its activities the programme of constructive work. Unlike the earlier Congress which had fought shy of social reform on the ground that it might lead to dissensions among nationalists and had paid only fitful attention to the need for promoting economic regeneration, Gandhiji by insisting on the importance of advance on all fronts and leading the crusade for the uplift of the lowly and the downtrodden, made the Congress universal in its appeal. We are not concerned to trace here the inevitable vicissitudes that beset this unprecedented attempt to translate a lofty philosophy into action on a nation-wide scale. But who can forget or fail to remember with gratitude that if today the nation holds its head high, in spite of temporary defeats, and is proudly conscious that it is master of its own destiny, we owe this splendid transformation to the magic touch of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi? The Congress has shown itself an incomparably keen and sensitive instrument of India’s will in nothing so much as in the confiding faith with which it placed itself under Gandhiji’s guidance and the loyalty with which it has striven to realise his high ideals. True, it has not yet succeeded in achieving all or even a large part of what it set out to do. But for the short and bright interlude in IndoBritish relations during the Irwin regime, which culminated in the historic Gandhi-Irwin Pact, there has been no realisation by the mighty power of England that in the Congress there is a power no less great, a power firmly grounded in the affections of the Indian people by virtue of long, honourable and tested service, and that in handing over the control of Indian affairs to the forces of nationalism represented by the Congress, Britain would be truly fulfilling the purposes of her rule. But no reverse and no hostility can damp the enthusiasm of our people or lovehear. One of the greates sons of bodi, Mahade Govind Ranade saw the future of his country with prophetic vision and limmed it in lose heart. One of the greatest sons of India, Mahadev Govind Ranade, foresaw the future of his country with prophetic vision and limned it in glowing colours:
“With a liberated manhood, with buoyant hope, with a faith that never shirks duty, with a sense of justice that deals fairly by all, with unclouded intellect and powers fully cultivated, and lastly with a love that overleaps all bounds, renovated India will take her proper place among the nations of the world, and be the master of the situation and of her own destiny.
This is the goal to be reached – this is the Promised Land.”
It is the proud privilege of the Congress to lead the nation to this goal, sustained by the undying spirit that animated the patriots who for half a century have laboured in the cause of freedom. Could any true lover of his country do less than give this national organisation his whole-hearted allegiance?
“There are two questions of great constitutional importance which must be solved…. In the first place Ireland should be left to determine the form of her government and incidentally to decide upon her relations with Great Britain. Close observers of Irish politics have stated that Ireland, though some of its leaders may talk about a republican form of government, is not at all likely to vote for it if a plebiscite on the question should be taken tomorrow…… The other matter affecting the constitution has a reference to the unity of Ireland…. The advantages of bringing about unity between the Northern and Southern Ireland are obvious.”
FEBRUARY 25, 1936
Mr. De Valera’s gesture
A STATEMENT MADE BY MR. DE VALERA TO THE POLITICAL Correspondent of Reuter, a report of which appears elsewhere, should enable British statesmen to appreciate the Irish point of view more clearly than ever before. The Irish Leader has explained his position in unambiguous terms and the occasion is propitious for a final settlement of the question, especially after Mr. De Valera’s courageous stand by the League and the extension of the coal and meat agreement announced a few days ago. The outstanding questions at issue are well known. There is first of all the problem created by the refusal of Ireland to hand over the land annuities to Great Britain, which precipitated the trade war between the two countries. There have been several suggestions made from either side for a solution of this question and it should not be difficult for Ireland and Great Britain to arrive at an undersanding as regards the tribunal to which the dispute should be referred. The Irish Treaty is the next obstacle to be overcome. After the judgment of the Privy Council, declaring the right of Ireland under the Statute of Westminster to pass its own laws, to abolish appeals to the Privy Council, and to do any of the things which the other dominions are entitled to do under the Statute, it is meaningless that Great Britain should insist on taking its stand on that document, to which a very considerable section of Irishmen was not a consenting party. The highest judicial tribunal has declared that that Treaty has in reality been superseded by the Statute of Westminster. Then there is the question of defence. Ireland resents the control of the defence of Ireland by the British Navy and the existence of facilities for coastal defence by air, and oil fuel storage which Ireland is now bound to provide. It may be that Ireland would consent to the arrangements now in force provided that they were arrived at by negotiation afresh on a basis of equality between the two countries. Here again, the way is clear for an agreement. Mr. De Valera has emphatically reiterated the view that an independent Ireland would never allow itself to be used as a base of attack.
There are two questions of great constitutional importance which must be solved and to which Mr. De Valera has referred in his statement to Reuter. In the first place, Ireland should be left to determine the form of her government and, incidentally, to decide upon her relations with Great Britain. Close observers of Irish politics have stated that Ireland, though some of its leaders may talk about a republican form of government, is not at all likely to vote for it if a plebiscite on the question should be taken tomorrow. Considering that the present fusion government in South Africa has allowed discretion to its members to do propaganda for a republican form of government, it should not be very difficult to satisfy Mr. De Valera that Ireland would be perfectly free to exercise its right of self-determination. In any case, a compromise can be reached on the basis of the Statute of Westminster. The other matter affecting the constitution has a reference to the unity of Ireland. Mr. De Valera says that if Northern Ireland had been consulted before Ireland was divided only one-third of the area of the six counties now constituting Northern Ireland, would have shown a unionist majority. However, that may be, the advantages of bringing about unity between the Northern and Southern Ireland are obvious. Home Rule on the basis of the Statute of Westminster has been suggested for Northern Ireland. A Federal Ireland is another proposal that has been put forward. Any decision on this question can only be brought about if Great Britain shows herself really anxious to end the present impasse and the government of Northern Ireland is willing to come to terms with Southern Ireland.
“There are indications to show that China will be able to put up a more effective resistance than in the past. Politically the anti-imperialist front has been developed effectively; the latest demonstration of its genuineness is the news that the Chinese Communists who fought the Nanking Government from 1927 to 1936, are massing their troops against Japan…. If the resistance shown so far can be maintained the dreams of the Japanese may be rudely shaken.”
SEPTEMBER 11, 1937
War in north China
THE NEWS RECEIVED TODAY THAT THE JAPANESE HAVE STARTED a big offensive in North China again is significant. It brings out clearly the fact that Japan’s objective in the present aggressive war is to detach the valuable provinces in North China from the sphere of Nanking’s influence. Japan’s attack on Shanghai was meant to be a diversion, designed to divide Chinese troops in two sections and also to gain time to land more troops in North China to meet the unexpectedly effective resistance of the Chinese. Now that enough troops have poured in the big offensive has started and it is reported that they have already advanced fifty miles from Chahar into the province of Shansi.
Japan’s determination to secure control over the Northern provinces is born out of three very important considerations. Firstly, that area is probably the richest in China, with its plentiful supply of iron and coal. Secondly, Japan considers that the control of those provinces will enable her to win over Outer Mongolia and later Inner Mongolia and thus build up not only a strong buffer state against Soviet Russia but a base from which she will be able to direct operations against her formidable rival. And finally, North China is strategically important for realising Japan’s avowed policy of dominating the whole of China. The first step in this process of subjugation was taken two years ago when Japan was enabled to set up a puppet Political Council for Hopei and Chahar, after a quick and sharp conflict in which the Chinese were overpowered. But the period that followed saw the growth of anti-Japanese elements and Nanking was soon able to recover control. Hence this new move. Japan considers that anti- Japanism must be nipped in the bud by an overwhelming defeat. It is probable that what she contemplates is the formation of more puppet “Political Councils”; direct administration is too much of a responsibility. This idea probably lies behind Mr. Hirota’s speech on September ist. “We are fighting the anti-Japanese movements in China. They exist largely in the Chinese Army and General Chiang Kai-shek is their spearhead. By a fundamental solution of the China question we mean to bring about a state of affairs in which there will be no danger of a repetition of the present circumstances. In North China and in all China, our idea is that Chinese should govern China. We want to see China governed by statesmen who can maintain friendly relations with us”. And for ensuring this “fundamental solution” – which only means a solution that will suit Japanese policy – she is prepared to strain her resources to the uttermost and her Prime Minister states today that in his opinion the conflict will not end this year. Propaganda has done its work and we find that the Japanese nation today is in the grip of that mad and unreasoning patriotic fervour of a nation at war which brooks neither conciliation nor compromise. It is too late to talk in terms of prospects for peace. War must have its toll but the sympathies of all peoples who respect elementary principles of justice and freedom will be with the Chinese people.
There are indications to show that China will be able to put up a more effective resistance than in the past. Politically the antiImperialist front has been developed effectively; the latest demonstration of its genuineness is the news that the Chinese Communists, who fought the Nanking Government from 1927 to 1936, are massing their troops against Japan. Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces are much better trained now than in the past. In this connection it is interesting to note that Mr. Donald, the Australian Adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, thinks highly of China’s capacity to wage a war. The morale of the troops is good; her war record uptodate is very creditable. Pitted against the superior equipment of the Japanese they have fought with heroism, numerous examples of which have been given in the cables in the last few weeks. Surprisingly enough her air force has been very effective and worked havoc on Japanese warships and planes. If the resistance shown so far can be maintained the dreams of the Japanese may be rudely shaken. They have to reckon not only with a brave and determined opponent in the field but with what is fundamentally a rickety financial structure at home.
“The relief with which the Munich Agreement has been hailed will necessarily have to be tempered by doubts if permanent peace can be assured on foundations of such unilateral sacrifice.”
SEPTEMBER 30, 1938
Munich Agreement
THE SIGNING OF THE MUNICH PACT MARKS THE FIRST OCCASION on which Herr Hitler has found himself in agreement with France and Great Britain over the Czechoslovak dispute. Though it has not yet received the formal acceptance of the Czechoslavak Government, their consent may be assumed, if only because the alternative is war with Germany, without help from their allies. In the absence of fuller details of the arrangements proposed in the Agreement, it is impossible to assess the precise price paid for peace, but there can be little doubt that it will be found to be high. Nor can it be acclaimed as the triumph of diplomacy and negotiations over force; as even The Times is constrained to observe that force has been in the background from the beginning. But there can be no two opinions about the immensity of the sacrifice that Czechoslovakia is making and her contribution to efforts to prevent the catastrophe. Throughout the troublous days of the crisis, her attitude, under the wise and statesmanlike guidance of Dr. Benes, has been one of the utmost possible restraint in the face of unprecedented provocation. Equally praiseworthy has been her willingness to go the very limit in making concessions to Herr Hitler, contenting herself with the minimum conditions required for preserving her integrity as a sovereign State. Even on the eve of the Munich Conference, Czechoslovakia had given her consent to a plan sponsored by Britain and France which showed her anxiety for a pacific solution; “At this critical juncture”, said the official statement from Prague, “the Czech Government are placing the interests of civilisation and world peace before the distress of their own people and are resolved to make sacrifices, which never in history were exacted from an undefeated State with such concentrated effort.” The relief with which the Munich agreement has been hailed will necessarily have to be tempered by doubts if permanent peace can be assured on foundations of such unilateral sacrifice.
“Whatever may be the duty of a political opposition it is not the duty of the Press to oppose any more than it is to support without adequate reasons. In every case it must be guided solely by consideration of the public interest. It must always be for the public to judge how far THE HINDU has lived up to these high ideals. But those in charge of it may be permitted to say that it has been their aim to keep them steadily in view. The great heart of the public has displayed a constant affection for this journal and acclaimed it as a national institution.”
DECEMBER 7, 1939
Sixty Years
THE HINDU COMPLETED SIXTY YEARS OF ITS EXISTENCE AS A newspaper just over a year ago. But as work on the spacious new buildings designed to house it had not been completed then, it was decided that on the occasion offered by the opening of the new offices this journal should share with its readers its pleasure in passing yet another memorable milestone in the endless adventure, by the issue of a special edition. The fiftytwo page special number which our readers will receive with today’s issue in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee may well stand as the outward and visible symbol of the close and friendly communication between the paper and its farflung clientele from which it draws alike its inspiration and its strength. The hundreds of messages it contains from leaders in every walk of life, both at home and abroad, have given those who are responsible today for the conduct of the paper the keenest satisfaction, bearing testimony as they do in generous terms to the efforts that have been constantly made to maintain worthily the great traditions and discharge adequately the onerous responsibilities of what has been always regarded as a trust. Such measure of success as has attended these efforts is due entirely to the solid support that the public has given and the unstinted confidence that it has reposed in THE HINDU. For this, the Proprietors and all who are associated with them in this great enterprise cannot be too grateful; and it will be their constant endeavour in the future as in the past to deserve that support and justify that confidence. They wish to acknowledge here their heartfelt thanks to the public and their indebtedness to the many friends who in their messages have spoken in the highest terms of such service as THE HINDU has been able to render to the country’s cause.
An occasion like this makes the mind not only look back but also look forward to the spirit of prayerful hope. The world and India in particular are passing through critical times which must put to the strictest proof principles and beliefs that in less strenuous days were apt to be lightly held or taken for granted. Thus Democracy is on its trial in Europe and there are faineants who already concede its discomfiture without having given it the slightest chance. In this country there are those who argue that democracy is a western plant, an exotic which cannot survive transplantation. But democracy is essentially a spiritual idea, a way of life that is as akin to the Hindu and the Muslim traditions as to that of Christian Europe in the Middle Ages, which was closer at heart to the democratic principle than the much later Europe of Hobbes and the absolutists. Prof. Laski has observed of mediaeval Europe: “The idea of a legally unlimited will was wholly alien to its way of thinking. From the lowest to the highest men are bound by a hierarchy of laws in which divine law is in the summit. This in the long run promoted popular rights by obviously emphasising the idea of constitutionalism”. The effort to find institutional means for expressing the democratic view was long baffled in Europe by various causes. In India it has to contend against the suspicion and distrust of the minorities and the forces of reactionary opportunism which seize upon the distrust to create divisions in our country. But if the minorities will only reflect a little they will see that no other system guarantees so effectively the rule of law which is the ultimate safeguard of all rights including minority rights. And democracy means and implies the fullest national freedom.
It is no answer to this to say, as some apologists for communal intransigence do, that what the minorities object to is not democratic government as such, but government by party. Long ago Burke answered this objection succinctly when he said that party government was “essentially necessary for the full performance of our public duty accidentally liable to degenerate into faction.” To safeguard against that degeneration is the primary duty of a responsible Press. The Achilles heel of democracy is popular ignorance, an inevitable consequence of which is that with politicians the long view is usually at a discount. In most western countries universal literacy has not solved this problem; far from making for a truly educated electorate, it has in fact created a public singularly susceptible to propaganda, and a type of sensational journalism which by its success has tended to put journals of opinion in the shade. In India, we are more fortunate in this respect. The newspaper reading public is a much smaller one numerically; but it follows the discussions of public issues with an intelligence and a zest which are becoming rare in lands with a longer journalistic tradition where the mass that is “educated enough to read greedily but not to read seriously” has all but swamped the discriminating few. Those critics of Indian journalism who, overlooking this important difference, are all for “brightness,” and would like to see more of vim and snap in the expression of views forget that it is not by bludgeoning the reader’s mind but by reasoning with it that the soundest and most lasting results can be achieved. For the authority of a newspaper is directly dependent on its ability to carry conviction to the largest circle of intelligent readers, as The Times said on a famous occasion, “if we do not represent the opinion of the country we are nothing”. The ascertainment of public opinion (as different from the prejudices of the moment) and the evocation of the atmosphere favourable to its emergence are therefore tasks that a newspaper which is not content to adopt a purely hand to mouth policy must set about with circumspection as well as earnestness. The many and complex issues on which it has to pronounce in the course of the day’s work do not admit of a naive directness of treatment, a simple Yes or No. Where the choice is not between black and white but between various delicate shades of colour, slap-dash methods and the unstable impetuosity which discards opinions as lightly as it adopts them may work considerable harm; while in a country where the clamour of contending passions animated by race and creed often drowns the voice of common sense, a judicial temper is an absolute necessity.
Free discussion is the life-breath of democracy. And it presupposes a readiness to set out the pros and cons fairly and to give the other fellow credit for honesty however wrong-headed you may consider him to be. In a country which has deliberately eschewed the way of violence as unsuitable, whether for winning Swaraj or for securing internal harmony, it becomes the more incumbent on the Press to maintain steadily this appeal to the higher instincts. And the practice of the best journalism the world over shows that honest and trenchant criticism is perfectly compatible with good temper and fairness to opposing points of view. Conversely, a partisan Press is a weak Press. “To perform its duties with entire independence and consequently with the utmost public advantage, the press can enter into no close or binding alliances with the statesmen of the day, nor can it surrender its permanent interests to the convenience of the ephemeral power of any Government”, a statement which though provoked by the circumstances of mid-Victorian England is of universal validity. By the same token, Governments should not be denied support, simply because they are Governments, if “the justice of their principles and the ability of their administrations fairly entitle them” to that support; for whatever may be the duty of a political opposition, it is not the duty of the Press to oppose, any more than it is to support, without adequate reasons. In every case, it must be guided solely by considerations of the public interest. It must always be for the public to judge how far THE HINDU has lived upto these high ideals. But those in charge of it may be permitted to say that it has been their aim to keep them steadily in view. The great heart of the public has displayed a constant affection for this journal and acclaimed it as a national institution. It was a famous editor, C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian, who said, “The public has its rights. The paper which has grown up in a great community, nourished by its resources, reflecting in a thousand ways its spirit and its interests, in a real sense belongs to it.” It shall be always our earnest endeavour to fulfil the high obligations we owe to the public.
“If the Muslims are a minority they must be willing to agree to any arrangement which would give them the right to declare what safeguards there should be for themselves, the matter being left for decision to an impartial outsider in cases where a difference of opinion arises. If on the other hand the Muslims were to maintain that they should be dealt with as a separate nation, the contention which The Times has voiced that Britain had ‘undertaken to defend the interests of the minorities’ would become meaningless so far as the Muslims were concerned. She would have no option, then, but to leave it to the Muslims to settle the future with the Hindus and the other communities.”
JANUARY 22, 1940
The communal problem
THE CONGRESS WORKING COMMITTEE IN AUTHORISING GANDHIJI to seek further clarification on certain points contained in the Viceroy’s recent speech in Bombay has shown that it recognises that the Viceroy’s speech offers a foothold from which a settlement might be reached. And it has demonstrated that the great national organisation is as anxious as Gandhiji himself to achieve a settlement if it could be had with honour and that “it is not spoiling for a fight” any more than he is. And we have no doubt that any settlement that satisfies Gandhiji and the Congress will satisfy the predominant bulk of public opinion in the country. Whether it will satisfy Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim League is another question. The correspondence between Gandhiji and Mr. Jinnah published to-day should make it clear beyond a peradventure that no settlement which proceeds on the basic assumption that India is a unity and must remain so can have the approval of Mr. Jinnah or the League. To the disgruntled leaders of sub-communal and sectional groups within the Hindu community, who, in their unreasoning fury against the Congress, were prepared to immolate themselves on the altar of Mr. Jinnah’s intransigence, he has given a resounding slap in the face. Their recent hobnobbing with himself was as he has more frankly than kindly explained “partly a case of ‘adversity bringing strange bedfellows together and partly because common interest may lead Muslims and other minorities to combine.” But, while he is willing to use them for his purposes and give them a leg-up as against the Congress, he is, as he expressly says, under no illusions that this re-alignment, in which many have been tempted to see the germs of a legitimate political opposition, means any such thing. India, he is convinced, is not a nation, nor even though that seems to less subtle mortals like flying in the face of geographical facts – a country. “It is a sub-continent, composed of nationalities, Hindus and Muslims being the two major nations”. And – though he does not say that in so many words – the two like oil and water cannot mix.
As usual, he does not tell us what is the solution that he would himself suggest for the Indian problems on the basis that India is not and can never be one nation. But he wants Gandhiji to find the solution, telling him, “More than anyone else you happen to be the man to-day who commands the confidence of Hindu India and are in a position to deliver the goods on their behalf. But Gandhiji has repeatedly disclaimed any such authority. He does not recognise that religion constitutes a nation, and Mr. Jinnah, instead of proving as he fancies thatGandhiji is guilty of an inconsistency in taking this stand in view of his admission that religion is the mainspring of his activity, only succeeds in convicting himself. “I could not be leading a religious life”, he says he told the late Mr. E. S. Montagu when that statesman visited India, “unless I identified myself with the whole of mankind and that I could not do unless I took part in politics.” He overlooks the obvious fact that any religion that imparts this universality of outlook cannot become the differentia of a particular nation, and the politics of a truly religious man cannot be communal politics.
“I sometimes wonder,” says Mr. Jinnah, “What can be common between practical politics and yourself, between democracy and the dictator of a political organisation of which you are not even a four-anna member.” But what are we to think of the democratic professions of this ‘practical politician who would make the entire future of the country hinge upon the acceptance by the Congress of his organisation as the sole representative of the Muslim community irrespective of the wishes of the community itself? The Congress is invited to do this so that Mr. Jinnah may kill two birds at one stroke, the Congress on the one hand would write itself down for a communal body and the most extravagant attitude that Mr. Jinnah and the League may choose to take up – as in maintaining that the Muslims are a separate nation – would have to be regarded as a demand coming from the united Muslim community. The Congress cannot do what he asks it to do; for, apart from any question of self-respect, to concede the claim of this major ‘nation’ as Mr. Jinnah calls the Muslims would be to open the door to similar claims by all the other ‘minor nations, and that would be the surest way of letting chaos loose. When mankind is realising that unbridled political nationalism has played untold havoc and nations well differentiated by race, tradition and geography and with centuries of separate existence and development behind them are exploring the possibilities of closer union and even a world federation, it would be midsummer madness to balkanise India in order to oblige Mr.Jinnah and his friends.
Nor can Mr. Jinnah’s claims be consistently endorsed by Britain. Even The Times is constrained to admit that “some of his recent utterances have given the impression that the British policy of defending the lawful interests of minorities has encouraged him to think that the members of the Muslim League are entitled to veto any and every constitutional advance simply because they are a minority.” When it is a question of seeking Britain’s support to thwart progress Mr. Jinnah and the League argue that the Muslims are a minority; when it comes to discussing the future with the Congress, they put up the claim that the Muslims are a nation. Now if the Muslims are a minority, they must be willing to agree to any arrangement which would give them the right to declare what safeguards there should be for themselves, the matter being left for decision to an impartial outsider in cases where a difference of opinion arises. If, on the other hand, the Muslims were to maintain that they should be dealt with as a separate nation, the contention which The Times has voiced, that Britain had “undertaken to defend the interests of the minorities would become meaningless so far as the Muslims were concerned. She would have no option, then, but to leave it to the Muslims to settle the future with the Hindus and the other communities. Indeed, for a much more important reason, she can have no truck with Mr. Jinnah and the League so long as they stick to the notion that the Muslims are a nation; for she has always insisted that nothing should be done to jeopardise India’s unity. In his Bombay speech the Viceroy reiterated his conviction that there could be no definitive solution of the Indian problem which did not comprehend the States. How, then, could Britain consistently encourage the claims of those who are vowed to work for the disruption of India”. If her statesmen see the true inwardness of the extravagant demands that Mr. Jinnah and the League are putting up in the name of the Muslims and against the wishes of vast sections of that community, they will realise the futility, if not worse, of insisting that a settlement of the communal problem – in the shape of the Congress coming to an agreement with Mr. Jinnah and the League – must be the condition precedent to a settlement between Britain and India. If they realise this and are genuinely prepared to explore all possible ways of arriving at a solution acceptable to all parties, we have every confidence that the Congress will wholeheartedly help them in this attempt.
Mr. R. Galletti, Joint Magistrate of Gudur (Andhra) hit the headlines with his eccentric behaviour towards satyagrahis in the individual satyagraha movement in which they courted arrest by shouting anti-war slogans. He lectured to them in his court, attended their meetings and gave them advice and in one instance allowed them to shout anti-war slogans and told them they could march to Delhi.
FEBRUARY 3, 1941
Magistrate on the flying trapeze
MR. GALLETTI WHEN HE STARTED HIS ADVENTURES AMONG satyagrahis was something of a joke. And he obviously enjoyed himself. Possibly he does so still; we do not know. But the public is no longer amused by his antics nor can it overlook him as a harmless bore. For, unlike most private bores, Mr. Galletti is pleasantly conscious of his authority as dispenser of justice – of his own peculiar brand – and of the magisterial privilege of laying about him with the butt-end of abuse when the pistol of argument misfires. The law of contempt, if not divinity, doth still hedge a magistrate; which no doubt explains why the amenities in Mr. Galletti’s Court have been mostly unilateral, though possibly his eccentricities suggested a touch of that inspiration before which men have always done reverence. The ancients, Mr. Galletti will remember, pictured Justice as blind, they never gave her squint eyes. But he himself does not seem to have heard of the elementary rule that judge and prosecutor should not be one; nor of the other commonplace that this judge should not become a law unto himself any more than the man whom he tries. In his evangelical zeal for saving the souls of the politically misguided, he seems to have thought himself permitted alternately to pray and curse, threaten and cajole, sneer and grow maudlin, impale his victim on Morton’s fork and souse him in the purest milk of satyagraha a la Galletti. And now, not content with such easy success, he has turned peripatetic tub-thumper, shouting through his big megaphone; and the irony of it is that while he derides the satyagrahis for repeating somebody else’s slogans, he himself mouths with infinite relish slogans which are far older and far less true. As he is obviously unable to see the impropriety of a magistrate functioning like a vaudeville artist, it is high time that the Government transferred him to a sphere more suited to his talents and tastes. To Mr. Galletti himself a word of friendly advice would not be amiss. As a keen student of the old fabulists, he should be familiar with the story of our simian cousin in the Panchatantra which, in its zeal for setting the world to rights, came to grief with a wedge. Moral: the cobbler should stick to his last.
Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress leaders were arrested in Bombay on August 9. 1942 after the All-India Congress Committee passed the “Quit India” resolution. THE HINDU: “Having got the A.I.C.C. to adopt that resolution, Gandhiji made it clear that he was resolved to explore every avenue to a peaceful settlement, including personal discussion with the Viceroy and stated that a mass movement would be started only as a last resort. But the Government were obviously unwilling to give him a chance to do this. Without making the slightest attempt to understand the new resolution or consider it seriously with a view to finding out whether it offered better prospects of settlement than the Wardha resolution seemed to do, the Government have resolved to force a fight on the Congress just as the Willingdon Government did after the Second Round Table Conference.”
AUGUST 11, 1942
A colossal blunder
THE ACTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA IN ARRESTING Gandhiji and the members of the Congress Working Committee, barely a few hours after the Bombay resolution was adopted, was a colossal blunder. It is not the first time that the Government have thus misjudged the situation, but so extraordinary are the circumstances in which they have elected to precipitate a crisis that the verdict of history will be that they acted even more irresponsibly than they had done on previous occasions. Mr. Amery throws out his chest and declares triumphantly: “By their prompt and resolute action the Government of India have saved India and the Allied cause from grave disaster”. Would that we could believe it. For, disastrous as would undoubtedly be the trouble, which Mr. Amery is confident, “could be dealt with by the Government of India through the police and the courts,” the damage the Government have inflicted on popular morale and the cause of the Allies, which by a curious irony they profess to have served, may prove far more disastrous and irreparable in the long run. For, by the manner in which they have met the Congress demand, the Government have proclaimed to all the world that they, notwithstanding all their professions to the contrary, will not for a moment tolerate the raising of a purely political issue in a crucial way that makes it necessary for them to face it squarely.
The Government have said that they would regard it as wholly incompatible with their responsibilities to the people of India and their obligations to the Allies, that a demand should be discussed, the acceptance of which would plunge India into confusion and anarchy internally and would paralyse her war effort in the common cause of human freedom.” And Mr. Amery, not to be outdone by his henchmen at Delhi, has emphasised that “the real concern is not the demand, which cannot be taken seriously, but the action which the Congress is resolved upon and for which preparation has been for some time in progress.” What is this preposterous demand that cannot be taken seriously? It is that Britain should declare that, so far as she is concerned. India is free from this moment, and should accompany this with a transfer of power which would invest that declaration with reality; if she was ready to do this the Congress said it was prepared to co-operate power. By what stretch of imagination can this demand be represented as calculated to produce internal anarchy or to handicap the war effort? Be it remembered that Britain, through Sir Stafford Cripps, had declared that she would be prepared to confer independence on India after the war: in other words, she had conceded the principle of the Congress demand. She had also appeared to agree to transfer to Indian hands all power forthwith other than that which it was essential for Britain to keep in her own hands for the successful prosecution of the war. The issue had therefore narrowed down to this: what was the irreducible minimum of control that Britain should retain for the duration of the war so that the fight could be carried on with the maximum of efficiency? Instead of facing this problem steadily and trying to find a solution in concert with Indian opinion – the Congress was more than willing to do all it could to help find such a solution – Sir Stafford Cripps incontinently ran away from it, making Gandhiji’s non-violence, the minorities’ opposition et hoc the pretext. The resolution adopted by the A.I.C.C. at Bombay last week-end was expressly designed to leave no room for either genuine misapprehensions or such wanton misrepresentation as Mr. Amery has been repeatedly guilty of. Having got the A.I.C.C. to adopt that resolution, Gandhiji made it clear that he was resolved to explore every avenue to a peaceful settlement, including personal discussion with the Viceroy and stated that a mass movement would be started only as a last resort. But the Government were obviously unwilling to give him a chance to do this. Without making the slightest attempt to understand the new resolution or consider it seriously with a view to finding out whether it offered better prospects of a settlement than the Wardha resolution seemed to do, the Government have resolved to force a fight on the Congress just as the Willingdon Government did after the second Round Table Conference.
The laboured apologia that the Government of India have offered for the action they have taken is really a damning indictment of the fundamentally vicious system which they represent, a system which not only the Congress but all true patriots in whatever camps they may be found wish to put an end to. The Government approvingly describe themselves as “a Government stronger and more representative than ever in the past, a Government predominantly Indian and non-official.” And yet this same Government have no hesitation in declaring that “for the demand of the Congress leaders there is no warrant;” indeed, they go on to repeat parrot-like Mr. Amery’s gibe that “that demand is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with a full sense of responsibility on the part of the leaders of the Congress Party.” We have shown, we hope, that the Congress demand, on the contrary, is nothing new, that Britain at one stage was prepared to concede – or at any rate made an elaborate show of conceding – it in substance. If nevertheless the present Government of India – which, for all its being ‘predominantly Indian and non-official’ is a creature of the British Power–is prepared to denounce that demand in such unbridled terms, because Britain finds it convenient to provoke a showdown now, that only shows conclusively the correctness of the stand taken by the Congress during the Cripps negotiations, when it insisted that the Government of India could not be an indigenous or national Government even if the members of the Executive Council were cent per cent Indians, if that Government did not have the confidence and backing of the people. The Government of India condescend to admit that “the Congress Party has for long occupied a position of great prominence and great importance in India’s political life;” they are even prepared to concede that “at this day its importance is substantial.” Have the signatories to this pompous statement asked themselves what, applying the same test, the world would rate their own importance to be, individually or collectively? Precisely nothing, however estimable and patriotic the individual members of this predominantly Indian and nonofficial” Government may be. It is to say the least ridiculous that such a Government should try to discredit the Congress by airily remarking that they cannot accept the claim of the Congress Party to speak for India as a whole.” If the Congress cannot speak for India as a whole surely the Government of India can have far less justification for speaking in the name of the Indian people. And only a Government at Delhi that can speak for the united people of India can save the country from the crisis that threatens to engulf it today. That is India’s demand and Britain cannot hope to burke it or help the Allied cause by spurning it. Jailing Congress leaders is easy, but it has not paid in the past and will not pay any more now. The problem they present must be faced by Britain boldly, sympathetically and in a spirit of true statesmanship. Otherwise the prospect for both countries is indeed dark.
Prof. Bhansali undertook a fast unto death demanding an enquiry into allegations of molestation of women by British troops in Chimur in Central Provinces. The Government imposed a ban on newspapers from publishing news of the fast. The All-India Newspaper Editors’ Conference as a protest against the ban directed its members to black out official speeches, honours list, circulars and Government House functions from their papers.
THE HINDU: “Those who little mindful of the great question of principle involved, have criticised the Press for a decision which inevitably meant some little inconvenience to the public, should have known that it could be no pleasure to the newspapers to place such voluntary restrictions on their own usefulness and that only a paramount sense of duty to the public could have sustained them in their effort to vindicate the right of the public to be kept informed, even during the war and consistently with the need for respecting military secrets, of everything that might be of interest or concern to them.
JANUARY 14, 1943
Vindicated
THE NEWS THAT PROF. BHANSALI HAS BROKEN HIS FAST As the result of a satisfactory settlement with the C.P. Government over the Chimur issue will be received with profound relief and thankfulness throughout the country. A man of singular purity of life and indomitable courage, he was resolved to make the ultimate sacrifice to vindicate the honour of womanhood than which nothing has ever been more sacred in Indian eyes. Only a burning faith in the justice of the cause he had espoused and the essential goodness of human nature could have sustained him in the terrible ordeal of a sixty-three days’ fast. It is characteristic of the nobility of the man that suffering has bred no bitterness in him and that the predominant feeling in his mind at the moment of triumph is one of humble thankfulness that he should have been instrumental in awakening the public conscience to a great moral issue. So staunch an upholder of the eternal verities is a priceless possession of which any nation may be proud; and all India is indebted in no small measure to all those men of goodwill whose assiduous mediation brought about the happy result of saving his life and, in particular to Dr. Khare and Mr. Munshi, whose unwearied efforts in this behalf are beyond all praise.
The Government of the Central Provinces may also be congratulated on their recognition, belated and half-hearted though it be, that the interests of justice transcend mere considerations of prestige and that public opinion cannot be rendered powerless by being muzzled. Prof. Bhansali has agreed to give up the demand for a public enquiry presumably because the C. P. Government have wisely given up the untenable attitude they had previously taken up in regard to that demand questioning as they had done the bona fides of the complainants and of the independent investigations made by respectable members of the public and repudiating the allegations as grossly improbable – and have now contended themselves with pointing out that after this lapse of time a public enquiry might not be of much use for bringing the by attributing unworthy motives to them in their previous communiques. And it is to be hoped that their affirmation of their resolve to enforce discipline among the forces employed for restoring law and order and particularly to see that women suffer no insult at the hands of these forces will be followed up by practical steps designed to ensure that no room will be given for complaints of the kind which the unfortunate people of Chimur were obliged to make in those dark days of September. The restoration of public confidence in the affected areas will be no easy matter, but with the removal of restrictions on visitors from outside and the mission of goodwill which Mr. Aney has undertaken by promising to visit the area in Prof. Bhansali’s company we may hope that everything possible will be done to obliterate the bitter memories of the past and restore normal conditions.
The issue raised by Prof. Bhansali’s fast was one that far transcended provincial boundaries, and the manner in which it has been settled will, one would fain hope, have a salutary and lasting effect on the attitude of authority throughout the country generally towards the people’s right to have their grievances promptly enquired into and to demand that no impediment shall be placed in the way of their ventilating grievances till they are remedied. As part of the settlement the C. P. Government have lifted the ban on the press relating to Chimur and the Bhansali affair – a ban which should never have been imposed, not only because it offended the first principles of democracy and freedom but also because it constituted a flagrant violation of the agreement that the Government of India had made with the organised Press of the country and which the latter, in the face of many provocations and pinpricks, had consistently respected. Because the C. P. ban was an intolerable affront, the Standing Committee of the All India Newspaper Editors’ Conference was compelled to vindicate the selfrespect of the Press by recommending a striking protest. That it was thoroughly justified in doing so was demonstrated not only by the fact that the vast number of newspapers in the country – no less than 150 out of 170- adopted the recommendation but also by the fact that the few newspapers which for extraneous reasons were unable to fall in with the suggestion nevertheless condemned with one voice the action of the C. P. Government which had provoked retaliation. Now that the C. P. Government have withdrawn the obnoxious orders, the object of the protest has been served, and the President of the A. I. N. E. Conference has therefore announced that it will no longer be operative. Those who, little mindful of the great question of principle involved, have criticised the Press for a decision which inevitably meant some little inconvenience to the public, should have known that it could be no pleasure to the newspapers to place such voluntary restrictions on their own usefulness and that only a paramount sense of duty to the public could have sustained them in their effort to vindicate the right of the public to be kept informed, even during war and consistently with the need for respecting military secrets, of everything that might be of interest or concern to them. The rights of the public and the Press have now been admitted, though tardily, by the C. P. Government and it is to be hoped that in future neither will be lightly called in question by that Government or by any other.
“Kasturba Gandhi, practically unlettered and stubbornly old fashioned as she was had the dignity and integrity of a truly simple soul. Her life was one long act of faith.”
FEBRUARY 24, 1944
Kasturba Gandhi
IN THIS HOUR OF SORROW THE HEARTS OF THE MILLIONS OF HIS countrymen will go out in respectful sympathy to Gandhiji. Not many months ago he lost a loyal friend whom he dearly loved. To-day, the gracious companionship of sixty years is broken by a blow which, for all that it had seemed inevitable, must be hard to bear. Lonely by his very eminence as all great men must be, the loss of the devoted wife who had so long shared with him the exaltations as well as the rigours of the life heroic must make him feel lonelier than ever. Kasturba Gandhi, practically unlettered and stubbornly old-fashioned as she was, had the dignity and integrity of a truly simple soul. Her life was one long act of faith. Made for happy domesticity, for the best part of her long life she knew less than most women the comforts of privacy or the amenities of ordered existence. It was one long fight in a cause which, in the early days, she but imperfectly understood; but through all the trials and tribulations of which she had a greater share than falls to most mortals, she was sustained by a supreme fidelity to duty as she conceived it and by a child-like trust in the man by whose side she trod so bravely. Few passages in “My Experiments with Truth” are more touching than those in which Gandhiji pays tribute to the loving devotion that carried her through many an emotional crisis which the merciless logic of a mind set on self-mastery imposed upon her loyalty. No match to her illustrious husband in intellect, she yet found little difficulty in adjusting her pace to his; what she lacked in subtlety she made up by her honesty and intuitive sympathy. Shrewd and unassuming, homely and yet full of the wisdom that comes from the heart, serene through much suffering borne without bitterness, she was a true helpmate to the great man whose life fate had linked to hers and a tower of strength to all who needed sympathy or succour. In every sense of the word she was a great lady. We offer our respectful condolences to Gandhiji in his great loss.
“The use of the atomic bomb has shown how incalculable can the power ratio be among nations in an age where scientific advancement is so rapid. In the light of this development the whole basis of a security organisation centred on force needs drastic reconsideration; the stress should rather be on disarmament, of which little was heard at San Francisco. One of the saddest features of the present day, compared to 1918, is the reign of pseudo-realism. At least Wilson and others talked of the ‘war to end war’ and disarmament of nations. Today the Allies believe in gathering greater force which can only result in a greater conflagration.”
AUGUST 15, 1945
The Japanese surrender
JAPAN HAS BOWED TO THE INEVITABLE. FACED WITH THE threat of annihilation in a hopeless struggle against a combination of the major Powers of the world, she has wisely decided that a surrender now will give her people a better chance of survival than a prolongation of a desperate and unequal contest. Thus ends the most brutal and nerve-racking war in history, but our feelings of gratitude and thankfulness are tempered by anxiety for the future. It was logical that this mechanised war should be brought to a dramatic halt by the deadly application of modern scientific research. But this raises new problems endangering world security. If the atomic bomb hastened Japanese surrender and thus brought general peace, its manufacture and use have become one of the cardinal problems facing the future security organisation. Fervid nationalists in Britain and America are already talking as if the balance of power vis-a-vis the Soviet Union has been altered in their favour because they have now exclusive possession of the secret. That way lies the suicide of the human race; for it is apparent that very soon every nation, small and big, will find means to manufacture atomic bombs and compete with one another in the production of weapons dealing mass destruction. The use of the atomic bomb has shown how incalculable can the power ratio be among nations in an age where scientific advancement is so rapid. In the light of this development the whole basis of a security organisation centred on force needs drastic reconsideration; the stress should rather be on disarmament, of which little was heard at San Francisco. One of the saddest features of the present day, compared to 1918, is the reign of pseudo-realism. At least Wilson and others talked of the war to end War” and disarmament of nations. To-day, the Allies believe in gathering greater force to meet force which can only result in a greater conflagration.
Japan’s surrender raises many problems, in fact, the main developments shaping the future of the Far East are yet to take place. One of the questions will be the position of Soviet Russia, whose intervention in the war has lasted only a few days. She has many scores to settle with Japan, having eaten humble pie on many occasions in the days of her Republic’s infancy. It is certain that she will recover Port Arthur and Dairen which the Czars lost in 1905. She will also occupy Sakhalin Islands and take over the Chinese Eastern Railway. As a world Power driving to the Pacific, she will also be anxious to increase her growing influence. She is bound to insist on friendly governments in Manchuria and Korea, while it is almost certain that her ally, Outer Mongolia, will lay claim to the Chinese provinces of Chahar, Jehol and Suiyan to form a Greater Mongolian Republic. Russia’s attitude to the Chinese Communists will depend on the course of the talks with Dr. T. V. Soong, but already Yenan is giving an indication of its policy which is to improve its position in the neighbouring areas. The dramatic end of the war and the intervention of Russia are bound to profoundly affect the course of events inside China, which may end in civil war or forge a democratic already Yenan is giving an indication of its policy which is to improve its position in the neighbouring areas. The dramatic end of the war and the intervention of Russia are bound to profoundly affect the course of events inside China, which may end in civil war or forge a democratic unity between the two factions which will enhance the prestige and power of the nation. The fact that Soviet Russia took a lead in mediation is bound to increase her influence on Japan. If the Soviet is anxious to see that a powerful militarist Japan does not continue to threaten her security, she may be equally anxious to prevent the contingency when Japan becomes a puppet in the hands of the Anglo-American Powers.
More important for the future than the alteration in the balance of power is the resurgency of the subject peoples of the Far East. There is no mistaking the trend of mass opinion in these parts. While there is welcome relief that Japan’s career of conquest is at an end, Tokyo’s clarion call “Asia for Asiatics” has made a profound impression. Very soon the Western Powers will be occupying their former colonies. We dare say they will have little difficulty in disarming those colonials who took up arms against them, but it will not be so easy to disarm colonial nationalism, which has taken a deep root. The white man has lost prestige, at any rate millions of dependent races realise that he is not so powerful as they imagined and that mechanised efficiency is not his monopoly. The events of the last three years, and it must be said Tokyo’s broadcasts however mischievous they were at the moment, have created a new awakening and a new confidence. The Annamites in IndoChina will no longer be satisfied with a colonial status: they will revolt if they are not given freedom. The people of Java will hardly accept without protest the small doses of “self-government” doled out by the Royal Dutch Government. India is already on the threshold of nationhood, confident of discharging her duties as a major Power of the East. China, already one of the Big Five by courtesy, will soon rise to her full stature. It is but proper that it is the representatives of these nations speaking for the hundreds of millions of their peoples who should finally decide the future of the Far East. The main problem of the backward races in these areas is to assure self-government and take energetic steps to raise the standard of living. This goal of freedom and prosperity cannot be left to be worked out by the agents of imperialist Powers whose main interest has been to gather profits for investors in Europe. White hegemony in the colonies is incompatible with the future peace and prosperity of the world.
“As every one who has read any history knows, aggressive wars and conspiracies have never been regarded as crimes in law. They may be regarded quite properly as morally unjustifiable but the hard fact remains that there is no world code under which prosecution could be launched. And it is elementary canon of justice that a man can be tried for an offence only if he breaks a law which was recognised as such at the time that he committed the offence.”
OCTOBER 3, 1946
Nuremberg
THE TRIAL OF THE FORMER LEADERS OF NAZI GERMANY which began in November 1945 has at length concluded with a series of verdicts that are unprecedented in modern history. In the trials that were held after the war of 1914-18 a few Germans were punished for atrocities but the doctrine of the responsibility of Governments for waging war was not pushed to the point of judicial trial and the Kaiser left quietly for Holland despite the promise implicit in the English slogan of “Hang the Kaiser”. This time, however, the victorious Allies decided to stage a trial, the purpose of which was apparently to pin the guilt of war inescapably on the leaders of the nation they had defeated. It is astonishing that they have neglected to make this trial, which they claim will set a precedent in international relations, something that might resemble a proper judicial process. The prosecutors and the judges are both drawn from the Allied nations and neutrals have been carefully excluded. The British Prosecutor, Sir Hartley Shawcross, sought to excuse this last December when he said “this Tribunal acting, as we know it will act notwithstanding its appointment, in a world in which hardly any neutrals were left, by the victorious Powers, with complete and judicial objectivity, will provide a contemporary touchstone”. The italicised phrase referring to neutrals was included in the text of the speech as circulated to the Press but a correction was later issued deleting it, which shows quite plainly how conscious the Allies were of the weakness of their procedure. If the German leaders had really started a world war, the whole world had a right to judge them, not excluding the German, Italian, Austrian, Czech and other peoples. The Soviet Government were, during the war, always anxious to insist that their quarrel was not with the Germans but the Hitlerites. Yet at Nuremberg, no German or even the persecuted German Jew was permitted to sit on the Bench.
The indictment against the Nazi leaders was divided into four counts: “the common plan or conspiracy”, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The first and second charge the defendants with deliberately planning a conspiracy to wage a war of aggression and violate accepted treaties, the third was concerned with the murder, enslavement or plunder of civilians or prisoners of war in occupied countries and the last assigned responsibility for illegal acts against Germans and German Jews even before the war. As everyone who has read any history knows, aggressive wars and conspiracies have never been regarded as crimes in law. They may be regarded quite properly as morally unjustifiable but the hard fact remains that there is no world code under which prosecution can be launched. And it is elementary canon of justice that a man can be tried for an offence only if he breaks a law which was recognised as such at the time that he committed the offence. The Allied Tribunal have ignored this canon on the ground that they were erecting new precedents and cited a whole list of treaties and pacts which they said had been violated. The list includes the Versailles Treaty, the Locarno Treaty, the Kellogg Pact, the non-aggression agreement with Poland, the Munich Agreement and the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 among others. It is obvious that such treaties, entered into by individual nations or groups of nations without the sanction of any world Parliament, have always been treated as non-aggression agreement with Poland, the Munich Agreement and the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 among others. It is obvious that such treaties, entered into by individual nations or groups of nations without the sanction of any world Parliament, have always been treated as scraps of paper when they conflicted with the self-interest of the signatories. In fact, treaties are usually signed with endless reservations that negative any value that they may have as legal documents. For instance, the Kellogg Pact to outlaw all war was thick with such reservations. In May 1928 Sir Austen Chamberlain, the British Foreign Secretary, wrote to the U.S. Ambassador reminding him that there are certain regions of the world the welfare and integrity of which contribute a special and vital interest for our peace and safety. His Majesty’s Government have been at pains to make it clear in the past that interference with their regions cannot be suffered. Their protection against attack is to the British Empire a measure of self-defence. It must be clearly understood that H.M.G. accept the new Treaty upon the distinct understanding that it does not prejudice their freedom of action in this respect.” Similarly, the American Government reserved their right to act in the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine and France reserved her own right of self-defence. All this made the Kellogg Pact ridiculous as a means of stopping wars but it has nevertheless been exhumed at Nuremberg to strengthen the case of the prosecution. The truth is that all the policies and acts that led to the second world war are international in their motivation and causation as in any previous war, and it is perfectly sustainable that the groups in Britain, France and elsewhere who connived at the failure of the Weimar Republic and encouraged the rise of Fascism in Germany are as guilty of conspiracy as the Nazis themselves. Yet when Ribbentrop’s lawyer requested the Tribunal to subpoena such British figures as Lord Vannsittart, Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Kemsley, Lord Londonderry and others, he got the reply that the Court had no powers to command their presence.
In the light of these considerations the severity of the verdicts on the German leaders, twelve of whom have been sentenced to death by hanging, comes as a shock to world opinion. It might have been supposed that having staged an impressive trial to demonstrate their guilt, the Allies would have treated them as political offenders are usually treated, that is, with exile, imprisonment or loss of citizenship. But the Nuremberg verdict is full of contradictions; the Tribunal declined to declare the German General Staff, the Cabinet or the Storm Troopers “criminal” as groups but found that individuals in these groups could be regarded as guilty. Is this because the Allies are afraid of the precedent that they are setting up for the future? We have no wish to maintain that Allied conduct during the war and after reached the same level as the German. But it cannot be said to differ in kind. Concentration camps were not unknown in the British Empire, collective fines were levied in India not long ago, British planes bombed villages in Java and wiped them off the map; even today there is German slave labour in Britain and prisoners of war have not yet been repatriated. The Americans have the use of the atom bomb in Japan to answer for. A Japanese doctor said after the raid on Hiroshima: “I see that they are holding a trial for war ciminals in Tokyo just now. I think they ought to try the men who decided to use the atom bomb and they should hang them all.” This statement was editorially quoted in the Manchester Guardian which commented, “it was a thought that could have flown as far as Nuremberg”. When British Liberal opinion can see the wrongness of the trial, its full absurdity is even more patent in countries like ours where European politics are sufficiently remote to be studied with some impartiality. International justice can only be administered when there is a genuine political world order. Nations which seek to arrogate to themselves the powers and rights that properly belong to an international court only succeed in spreading the suspicion that they are promoting their own interests under the pretence of carrying out the mandate of world opinion.
“To-day, a hundred years after his passing away, we remember Sri Thyagaraja with feelings of profound pride and gratitude which are tainted by no narrow considerations of patriotism or parochialism. In his universality he is like Shakespeare. Rooted in the rich soil of the Tamil country watered by the Kaveri, which runs like a silver thread through many a song, the mighty tree of his genius gives rest and refreshment to all who seek its hospitable shade.”
DECEMBER 22, 1946
Thyagaraja
ONCE OR TWICE IN A MILLENNIUM THE HUMAN SPIRIT GATHERS itself up in a mighty upheaval; and a poet, a saint or a master-singer is born. He is made of the stuff of revolution. He contains in himself all the past and the future. His brief sojourn on earth is a benediction. Our common human kind learns to walk erect seeing in him the complete man, “in apprehension, how like a God!” He profoundly affects our destiny by giving us eyes. The extension of consciousness by which evolution takes a leap forward is always the work of a seer, the kranta darsee. Today, a hundred years after his passing away, we remember Sri Thyagaraja with feelings of profound pride and gratitude which are tainted by no narrow considerations of patriotism or parochialism. In his universality he is like Shakespeare. Rooted in the rich soil of the Tamil country watered by the Kaveri which runs like a silver thread through many a song, the mighty tree of his genius gives rest and refreshment to all who seek its hospitable shade. In music we have the nearest approach to a universal language; melody is the soul of music; and Thyagaraja is the soul of melody. As Mr. T. V. Subba Rao has well pointed out in his address to the Music Academy, the triumphal progress of his immortal song has just begun. Some of the finest minds of the West have felt its compelling attraction. Thyagaraja may well prove to be our greatest single contribution to the cause of world harmony.
In the music of Thyagaraja tradition and invention find a unique balance. Mr. U. Rama Rao, in his opening speech at the Academy celebrations, rightly reminds us that he studied with loving reverence the work of the great master-composers who had laid the foundations of Carnatic music, Purandaradas, Kshetragnya, Theerthanarayana Yati. He mastered the theory of his art not merely from books but from the practice of the virtuosi of his time. He soaked himself in the inspiration of the Ramayana and the Bhagavata. And, if one may judge from internal evidence, he received early in life what can only be described as spiritual initiation leading to a unitive experience that lodged itself firmly at the very core of his being. There was no divorce between his life and his art; song was sadhana. He made endless experiments; he was always striking out along new lines. But there was no uncertain groping after perfection. To those of his contemporaries who might have regarded his talent as mainly lyrical the majestic sweep of the epic style, as of an army on the march, displayed in the ‘Pancharatna kirtanas must have come as a blinding revelation. Though he handled the Madhyama Kala and the Adi tala by preference he is equally at home whatever the tempo or the time-measure. Many a raga of which little more than the name was known before his time began to dance its way through the human heart under his life-giving touch. Of each one of them he made a fit vehicle for a recondite emotion which others may have felt before but none could so well express. And even now the mystery at the heart of such ragas well-nigh eludes us; so much so that when the uninspired executant attempts to render them he can do little more than reproduce the appropriate Thyagaraja kriti in outline. As for his pieces in the ghana ragas, one can only say “Here’s God’s plenty!” The inexhaustive fertility of his imagination, the variety, richness and grace when the uninspired executant attempts to render them he can do little more than reproduce the appropriate Thyagaraja kriti in outline. As for his pieces in the ghana ragas, one can only say “Here’s God’s plenty!” The inexhaustive fertility of his imagination, the variety, richness and grace of his phrasing, the revelation at every turn of unsuspected possibilities in the mode handled – these combine to open up endless vistas for the musical explorer.
Behind that magnificent achievement was a soul that had found itself. Unfashionable as it is to talk of such things, we must insist that those who would ignore the mainspring of Thyagaraja’s inspiration, the mystic’s love of God, can never hope to understand him or feel a fraction of his haunting charm. A sublime certitude marked the march through life of this humble man who could look with unerring insight into the heart of the peasant and the prince, the footpad and the fashionable roue. He was tempted neither by the pomp of power nor by the vanity of wealth. He strove with none; his heart was full of compassion. He yearned to bring to his fellow-men the peace that passeth understanding. In the company of the dedicated spirits of all time, Prahlada, Narada and Suka, his immortal genius ministers to our need for sweetness and light.
“India starts on the endless adventure of freedom crippled and maimed in the sight of the world. She is however a great believer in the healing touch of time and in the magic of natural affinities. As the political passions of the day die down and the little things that divide diminish to their natural stature in the vista of the years to come, the notes of the multi-toned harmony which is India, will swell again to a diapason. No political boundary, no difference of creed, no bitterness from the past, can withstand the pervasive and gracious influence of the genius of this land – its grave regard for abiding values, its faith in tolerance, its resolve to walk in the ways of righteousness.
JULY 19, 1947
Freedom
AT 4 O’CLOCK ON FRIDAY EVENING THE ROYAL ASSENT WAS given to the Indian Independence Bill. After a century of storm and stress the ship of Indian freedom has come into port. Battered heavily by wind and tide, scarred and seamed in many a fierce encounter with embattled hosts, she has suffered grievous losses and has had to jettison much precious cargo. She is not spick and span as we had pictured her in the morningtime of our hopes. It is on the whole a sad homecoming. There are treacherous shoals about and the pilot is more than a little weary. But she is a brave little ship for all that, for she carries the high hopes and ambitions of four hundred millions. On her proud mast-head there broods, like the Spirit of Peace, the white soul of India.
Though the British Parliament has created two States India is one and will be one as she has always been one. The political unity and administrative uniformity that came in the wake of the British conquest has passed along with it. It need not have happened if greater patience and forbearance could have been shown on both sides. If the Britisher had displayed greater imagination and if frustration had not been allowed to blight the ardours of many a generous heart the division of India, which is as repugnant to reason as it is harrowing to the feelings, might never have come about. But partition is a tragic fact. India starts on the endless adventure of freedom crippled and maimed in the sight of the world. She is however a great believer in the healing touch of time and in the magic of natural affinities. As the political passions of the day die down and the little things that divide diminish to their natural stature in the vista of the years to come, the notes of the multi-toned harmony which is India will swell once again to a rich diapason. No political boundary, no difference of creed, no bitterness from the past can withstand the pervasive and gracious influence of the genius of this land – its grave regard for abiding values, its faith in tolerance, its resolve to walk in the ways of righteousness.
The future may conceivably see the blunders of the past undone. It may restore a united Indian polity based on reconciliation and voluntary co-operation. At any rate it is a legitimate aspiration; even the British Prime Minister has said that his country would look forward hopefully to such a development and welcome it gladly. We are sure that even those who have been so keen on a division of India know in their heart of hearts that a divided India is a weakened India, weakened not only in material defence but in her ability to be a power for good among the nations. It is to be fervently hoped that this will all the more readily induce them to offer ungrudging co-operation in the strenuous practical tasks that must be wisely tackled before the shell of freedom can become clothed with flesh and blood. Miss Jinnah has been telling her Muslim sisters in Pakistan, “We have got our home and we have now to make it an ideal place to live in.” Yes, and the Muslims of Pakistan practical tasks that must be wisely tackled before the shell of freedom can become clothed with flesh and blood. Miss Jinnah has been telling her Muslim sisters in Pakistan, “We have got our home and we have now to make it an ideal place to live in.” Yes, and the Muslims of Pakistan as well as Hindus in the rest of India should remember that this “home” is no exclusive possession of any one community and none who is lawfully there may be looked down upon as an inferior or an outsider; for a house divided against itself cannot stand. At this solemn hour of parting let us not harden our hearts against each other; to do so would be to deny our common heritage.
“In Mahatmaji’s many writings, in the memory of his heroic deeds, in the powerful picture he has impressed on the sensitive minds of his generation, there is for us a perennial stream of inspiration. He is a reminder to us that an exalted ethic can go hand in hand with practical good sense, that ruthlessness in action is compatible with a boundless love. Men like him are a perpetual rebuke to the faint hearted of every generation; they are the ideal made flesh!”
FEBRUARY 2, 1948
The universal man
THE MAHATMA HAS BECOME IMMORTAL”. THE CRY THAT rose from a million throats as the flames consumed the old frail body that had housed that mighty spirit confidently anticipated the verdict of posterity. The tributes that have flowed from all quarters of the globe show how unique was the stature of this man who became a legend in his life-time not by withdrawing from the world in proud seclusion but by bestriding the consciousness of humanity like a colossus, his feet planted firmly on earth, the refuge of the lowliest and the lost, his head crowned with the stars. King George with fine feeling described as irreparable the loss that the Indian people – “indeed mankind”, had suffered. Prime Minister Attlee said: “His moral and spiritual leadership have been an inspiring example in a distracted and troubled age.” The American President is confident that peoples all over the world will be inspired by his sacrifice to work with increased vigour towards brotherhood and peace which the Mahatma symbolised”. In the Security Council a representative of the ancient civilisation of China spoke of the Mahatma as the pride of Asia and affirmed that “his principles had universal significance.” The oppressed and exploited of all nations feel that the most powerful voice raised in the cause of justice in our time has been stilled. The only world citizens we have had or are ever likely to have are the saints, who touch a chord in every heart. The Mahatma has joined this shining company and become a universal possession. “Friend of all things that are, ever at peace with himself, of love and compassion all compact,” to-day his work done he walks with God.
A great nation feels orphaned and desolate; its heart is wrung with an intolerable anguish and its head bowed in desperate shame. These few last months when brother’s hand was raised against brother were working with tragic inevitability to the climax that came with the foul deed of last Friday. Those who watched Gandhiji closely knew that it was for him the Via Dolorosa. But his faith in the future never wavered. And it is that faith which must sustain us now, setting aside unavailing grief and wounding recriminations. It is in that spirit that Gandhiji would have wished us to work. Speaking during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, another great liberator who died by the assassin’s hand, said: “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years’ struggle, the nation’s condition is not what either party or any man devised or expected – God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills that we of the North shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.” It was in this spirit that Gandhiji laboured during those last few months – conscious of the perils that beset the nation he had led so valiantly, convinced more than ever that it can never be really harmed except by itself and confident that in the long run truth and righteousness will prevail. He had abundant faith in his people. And now the time has come when we must justify it or perish. He has gone but his example remains. Not for nothing did he inculcate self-reliance as the supreme virtue. Other countries like China have found the inspiration to action in the political testament of a great leader. In this respect the time has come when we must justify it or perish. He has gone but his example remains. Not for nothing did he inculcate self-reliance as the supreme virtue. Other countries like China have found the inspiration to action in the political testament of a great leader. In this respect we are even more fortunate. In Mahatmaji’s many writings, in the memory of his heroic deeds, in the powerful picture he has impressed on the sensitive minds of his generation, there is for us a perennial stream of inspiration. He is a reminder to us that an exalted ethic can go hand in hand with practical good sense, that ruthlessness in action is compatible with a boundless love. Men like him are a perpetual rebuke to the faint-hearted of every generation; they are the Ideal made flesh.
India to-day is like a bundle of faggots from which the binding cord has been loosed. The spirit of turbulence and disorder, not having been exorcised but only kept down by main force during the long period of foreign rule, is finding protean expression. And in a world ruled by power politics, it is only strength that is respected. At such a time the country needs staunch leadership and she is supremely fortunate in this respect; for she has in Mr. Nehru and his trusted colleagues men, valiant and true, who have grown in the shadow of the Mahatma and yet have not been stunted. They have learnt from him that, while the basis of moral authority is principle, a sense of direction is as important as fixity of purpose. Statesmanship to-day must be dynamic. An amorphous mass of aspirations has to be integrated; life has to be made meaningful for the millions who have led a twilight existence; new tracks must be laid for the questing spirit. Let us remember that Gandhiji’s immense strength was derived from the fact that his ear was ever close to the earth to catch the heartbeats of humanity. And he scorned the letter that killeth. He created his own tools and made no fetish of them. He had a supreme mastery of technique; but he knew, none better than he, that no technique is useful for all time or in every circumstance. The modern world and India’s own unorganised state are full of opportunities as well as perils for her people. If only her leaders act with faith and courage, the Mahatma’s mighty dream of establishing righteousness on earth may yet come true.
“Nobody claims that the constitution is perfect or even that it is the best that could have been devised if all the talent and patriotism theoretically available in the country could have been harnessed to the task. This, like all previous attempts at constitution-making, was largely moulded by the circumstances in which it was born….. If in spite of the conscientious and prolonged labour of so many men of goodwill there are to be discerned in the product elements of patchwork, unresolved contradictions and imperfectly apprehended trends, it can only be set down to the confusion of ideologies which is characteristic of our age and for coping with which we are as a people even less well prepared than the nations which have long enjoyed political freedom.”
NOVEMBER 29, 1949
The new Constitution
ALMOST THREE YEARS AGO WAS STARTED AN OPERATION which was brought to a successful close last Saturday. The new Indian Constitution is in many ways a remarkable achievement. It is the work of a body which was set up when the country had not achieved independence. And when independence came it came in a manner that involved the repudiation of some postulates which had long been regarded as basic. But, in spite of the sudden and terrific shock of partition, the Constituent Assembly did not allow itself to be thrown off its balance, though it did not hesitate to use the opportunity to cast off certain inhibitions. Thus, while the country had unwillingly agreed to partition in order to avoid strife and discord, it would not countenance the two-nation theory. And through the Assembly it reiterated the resolve that every one who had thrown in his lot with the new India should enjoy equal rights and responsibilities irrespective of caste or creed. While on the one hand it abolished communal electorates, on the other it reiterated its adherence to the ideal of what was, not very happily it must be confessed, described as “the secular State”. While continuing to retain the Federal structure, the Assembly came to favour vesting as large powers as possible, consistently with the maintenance of the Federal form, in the Centre. Time may show that in some ways the Constitution has gone farther in the direction of centralisation than may be compatible with the fullest regional and cultural autonomy. But that kind of mistake, if a mistake is shown to have been made, can be rectified without causing an upheaval; whereas it would have been an act of irresponsibility if the Assembly had ignored the baleful possibilities of giving fissiparous tendencies their head, of which the events of 1947 gave us so bitter a foretaste. After all, the main trend of political thinking in this country ever since nationalist agitation began over a century ago has been in favour of strengthening all the elements that make for unity. The Constituent Assembly and in particular the Drafting Committee with Dr. Ambedkar at their head may well congratulate themselves on keeping this major objective consistently in view.
Nobody claims that the Constitution is perfect or even that it is the best that could have been devised if all the talent and patriotism theoretically available in the country could have been harnessed to the task. This, like all previous attempts at constitution-making. was largely moulded by the circumstances in which it was born. As Dr. Ambedkar pointed out in his concluding speech, the Constituent Assembly, being predominantly composed of a compact political party, the Congress, has naturally been guided in its main objectives by the preferences of that party. At the same time it has included a numerically small but useful minority of men who do not belong to the Congress but who are generally in sympathy with the vision which the Congress has cherished of the future. These, being no yes-men, have brought to the debate of that party. At the same time it has included a numerically small but useful minority of men who do not belong to the Congress but who are generally in sympathy with the vision which the Congress has cherished of the future. These, being no yes-men, have brought to the debate knowledge and independence of judgment which have proved useful correctives. If, in spite of the conscientious and prolonged labours of so many men of good will there are to be discerned in the product elements of patchwork, unresolved contradictions and imperfectly apprehended trends, it can only be set down to the confusion of ideologies which is characteristic of our age and for coping with which we are as a people even less well prepared than the nations which have long enjoyed political freedom.
Dr. Ambedkar referred to the Socialists’ open declaration that they must have unfettered freedom “not merely to criticise but also to overthrow the State.” That is hardly the way to build up that stability and continuity on which alone any kind of well-ordered national life can be based. Dr. Ambedkar rightly emphasised that if we are not to lose the freedom we have got at long last, we must rigorously abjure all unconstitutional modes of protest or resort to violence. But he forgot his own injunction when speaking with considerable feeling on the subject of the down-trodden classes he declared, “These down-trodden classes are tired of being governed.” If a class war was to be averted, he went on, room must be made without delay for the realisation of their aspirations. While the need for ensuring social justice will not be disputed, the implicit claim that every one who feels a grievance against the existing order and thinks that relief is too tardy may resort to remedying his own condition by force, cannot but damage our frail edifice of freedom, whether it is the Socialists who make it or the depressed classes. This instinctive preference for a violent solution of political or economic problems is, of course, no isolated phenomenon peculiar to this country. It is part of the mental climate of our time. Man’s alienation from Society and from Nature is so complete that violence has come to be regarded as, on the one hand, necessary for the individual if he is to assert his individuality against a hostile universe and, on the other, natural as the instrument of power in the hands of a totalitarian dictator claiming to speak for the mass. As a French writer points out, “Even in the more democratic States, social disintegration and irresponsibility, the forerunners of terror, are playing an increasing role.” Every man who wishes well of his country must resist the obscure urges in himself of this anti-social impulse. And men who claim to be leaders and intellectuals should see that they have a special responsibility for safeguarding our newly enfranchised masses, who are all too little prepared for the burden that is being placed upon them, against the temptation to run after political mystagogues and impostors. The common man, unlike the handful of the intelligentsia, has still his roots in a great tradition of patience, tolerance and gentleness. While he must be helped to come into his own politically and economically he must not lose his precious spiritual heritage.
“We have had too many things to do. And we have tried to do too many things at a time. Trained capacity has not matched with ambition. Power went to the head of too many who had done too little to generate it but who swarmed to it as flies to sugar. The sharing of responsibility is a spiritual process for which men must devoutly prepare themselves. The greatest lack that Swaraj has revealed is that behind the brilliant band of patriots who under the Mahatma’s lead won freedom there has been built up practically no second line of defence, no phalanx of younger statesmen to whom the torch could be handed without a flicker and in whose hands it might be trusted to burn as bright as ever.”
JANUARY 26, 1950
A Republic is born
THE INAUGURATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDIA IS AN ACT OF high faith in the people of this country, a gesture of dedication of all the nation’s talent and resources to the realisation of worthy purposes. It amounts to an implicit pledge on the part of every Indian that he will to the extent of his strength and capacity uphold the honour of his country, augment her strength for good and persuasively convey to a distracted world her immemorial message of abhaya. A democratic Republic, which is what our Constitution aims to build, is one in which the worth of the individual is not submerged in the collective will but sustains it. In such a polity no man may walk on crutches or regard public business as no concern of his. Every citizen must remember that if matters go wrong with the State it is he that is ultimately responsible. He must, therefore, not only acquire by study enough familiarity with the working of the machinery of Government through which democracy functions. He must understand the basic problems which have to be tackled if the good life is to be realised here and now. He must have the strength of character which alone is a nation’s true capital. And above all he must have the will to put his shoulder to the wheel and push and pull, never getting out of step with his fellows, never seeking short cuts, never succumbing to the temptation to find scape-goats.
The special Supplement which we are issuing today is intended to give our readers an idea of the onerousness as well as the grandeur of the great adventure on which the people of India are setting out. Nearly a hundred and seventy contributors, drawn not only from every part of India and from every walk of life, but also from other countries, notably Britain and America, have with ready courtesy responded to our invitation to write. (Unfortunately some of the contributions were received too late to be included in the Supplement; but we are printing most of them in today’s issue). Each is an acknowledged expert in his field and offers not only a synoptic survey of such achievements as we may legitimately claim but also an indication of the leeway that must be made up and of the methods which are likely to lead us swiftly to the goal. The poverty as well as the potentialities of our economy, the urgent need for tapping our inexhaustible human wealth, the power of education for unfreezing the spirit after its age-long sleep, the lessons as well as the warnings that we must draw from the successes and failures of other self-reliant peoples – all these matters, as set out in these hundred odd pages, will, it is hoped, provide the reader with a coherent picture of the social and cultural pattern which is in the making on the loom of time.
The predominant note, as any discerning reader will observe, is one of cautious optimism for the future. The first fine careless rapture of August 1947 has sobered down with the exercise of responsibility in conditions to have survived which is itself a triumph. We have had too many things to do. And we have tried to do too many things at a time. Trained capacity has not matched with ambition. Power went to the head of too many who had done little to generate it but who swarmed to it as flies to sugar. The sharing of responsibility is a spiritual process for which men must devoutly prepare themselves. The greatest lack that Swaraj has revealed is that behind the brilliant band of patriots who under the Mahatma’s lead won freedom there has been built up practically no second line of defence, no phalanx of younger statesmen to whom the torch could be handed without a flicker and in whose hands it might be trusted to burn as bright as ever. For Republican India it is as necessary, as it was for India struggling to be free, to keep the crusading spirit alive. Only, the crusade must be turned against the enemy within. The Constitution has provided us with the shell of Democracy. It is up to us to invoke life into it. The Puranic legends of Creation speak of the Virat lying prone on the face of the waters, unresponsive to any of the lesser powers that entered, until at last the Supreme Spirit entered and forthwith the Virat moved. We may regard that as a parable of our present political situation. The Republic of Weimar drew up an admirable Constitution which became waste paper because the Republic had no fire in its belly. It is that fire, that energy of life, that must be roused in the dormant consciousness of the people if India is to build up a fair, equitable and viable polity and a full life for her millions.
“The essence of democracy is that when a law has been adopted after the fullest debate it should not lightly be interfered with even if it should be found unsatisfactory in certain respects. For the sense of continuity on which any stable society must rest may be rudely disturbed by a too restless quest of legislative perfectionism. The argument gains in strength a hundred-fold when the law in question is the fundamental law of the realm. It is a matter singularly unfitted for party legislation. If the party in power today can bring itself to change in important respects a constitution which is so largely of its own making and which has not been in existence long enough to show whether it is sea-worthy or not, what is there to prevent other parties which may come into power tomorrow from scrapping other parts of it or even the whole of it?”
APRIL 14, 1951
Changing the Constitution
IT HAS BEEN STATED THAT DRAFT AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION which the Government of India are considering will, as soon as they are finalised, be circulated to the Chief Ministers of the various States to elicit their opinion. But public opinion, as different from that of the various Legislature Parties which the Chief Ministers may consult, will not have much chance of expressing itself on matters of such paramount importance if the Government, as has been stated, are bent upon incorporating the changes in the Constitution before the end of next month. We advisedly say that the changes are of paramount importance, since many of them aim at a drastic modification of the fundamental law in the direction of curtailment of the rights of the individual as against the State. It is true that the proposed amendments are being undertaken on the ground that a number of judicial decisions have put a constriction upon some of the Fundamental Rights which, according to the Government the framers of the Constitution had not anticipated. It is true, too, that the judicial decisions militate against the implementation of policies to which the Congress, which played a leading part in framing the Constitution, has long committed itself. But to admit this is not to admit the rightness or the propriety of attempting to introduce amendments in haste to get over the difficulties arising from the judicial decisions. It is barely a year since the Constitution came into operation. It cannot be said that it was vamped up in a hurry. Some of the finest legal brains in the country worked upon it continually and the written Constitutions of many of the most democratic countries in the world were examined for light on particular problems. It was after considerable debate that it was decided that fundamental rights should be incorporated in the Constitution itself. The general opinion in the country was that these rights were defined, if anything, too narrowly and with too many restrictive qualifications. If in spite of all this caution it is found that much controversial legislation adopted by the Central and State legislatures is vitiated by incompatibility with the rights of the citizen as laid down in the Constitution it must not be too lightly assumed that the fault lies in the Constitution. An explanation that would be far nearer the truth is that the Government in exercising the power of legislation has been so obsessed by its sense of urgency of social objectives that it has paid too little attention to what is due to the individual. As Constitution-maker and as law-maker, it has allowed its mind to function in water-tight compartments.
The essence of democracy is that when a law has been adopted after the fullest debate it should not lightly be interfered with even if it should be found unsatisfactory in certain respects. For the sense of continuity on which any stable society must rest may be rudely disturbed by a too restless quest of legislative perfectionism. The argument gains in strength a hundred fold when the law in question is the fundamental law of the realm. It is a matter that is singularly unfitted for party legislation. If the party in power today can bring itself to change in important respects a Constitution which is so largely of its own making and which has not been in existence long enough to show whether it is seaworthy or not, what is there to prevent other parties which may come into power tomorrow from scrapping other parts of it or even the whole of it? In fact both the Communists and the Socialists have been going about threatening to do just this if and when they have the power.
We are not for a moment suggesting that the Constitution should be regarded as sacrosanct for all time. All that we are concerned to stress is that constitutional change is something that is not safely attempted under the stress of strong political emotion or without prolonged investigation of the national as distinct from the party reactions to the change proposed. A Parliament which came into existence in extraordinary circumstances and for a very different purpose and a Government which has had no opportunity so far of ascertaining through the recognised method of a general election the measure of popular support behind its policies would be singularly ill-advised to restrict the rights of the citizen in the name of the people, especially after the Supreme Court, which is vested with the sole right to interpret the Constitution, has upheld the individual’s rights. The proper time for considering an amendment of the Constitution would be after the general elections in which a mandate may be legitimately sought on the major policies on which the proposals for amendment hinge. The fact that some of these policies have long figured in Congress manifestoes does not lessen the need for securing such a mandate in the very different conditions prevailing today. On the one hand the Congress Party itself is by no means so united as it was in the days before the transfer of power when it first put these planks on its platform. And in the actual trial some of these policies, for example, prohibition have been found so difficult in the working and so meagre in the results that today there is a considerable cooling of ardour in the Congress camp itself. On the other hand adult franchise will, for the first time, bring to the polls millions whose views on major issues, supposing they have any, are yet to be ascertained. As Senor Salvador de Madariaga has pointed out, the degree of democracy in any country must be judged not only by the number of people necessary “for the consent to authorise a decision to become law” but also by the criterion whether that consent was more or less spontaneous, informed and enlightened”. Judged by either test the attempt to amend the Constitution in a hurry must be regarded as contrary to the spirit of the Democratic republic which the framers of the Constitution aimed to establish. It is to be hoped the Congress and the Government will re-examine the matter carefully from this point of view.
“Since Pakistan’s aggression and her (Kashmir) consequent accession to India, the latter has taken over the defence of the state and must continue to discharge it till the danger of aggression disappears. But the action of Pakistan first in invading the state and then being in unlawful possession of a portion of her territory, shows that the danger of resumption of aggression is very much present and will continue so long as Pakistan’s troops or those trained and controlled by her (however camouflaged as “Azad” forces) continue in being.”
NOVEMBER 12, 1952
Kashmir
IF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN RESOLUTION ON KASHMIR NOW BEFORE the Security Council had merely recorded the progress made so far by the U.N. Mediator – such as it is – and appealed to India and to Pakistan to enter into direct negotiations for a settlement, India would have had no objection, because she has always been anxious to arrive at an understanding with Pakistan. But the resolution goes further and queers the pitch (generally against India); for, it circumscribes the scope of the negotiations not only by laying down the limits to the strength of the armed forces on either side of the cease-fire line but decides beforehand that they shall consist of troops on both sides and shall be concerned with the maintenance of the security of the State, as distinct from the maintenance of law and order during the plebiscite. Worse still, it lays down a time limit for the negotiations, carrying with it the implication that, if they prove infructuous, the Security Council would feel free to take its own decision in the matter. Apart from the fact that this savours of arbitration, which India has unequivocally rejected, it practically concedes the various claims made by Pakistan, ranging from equality of status with India to near-parity with India in the matter of the character and quantum of the forces to be retained after demilitarisation. Furthermore, by placing a time limit, it has obviously yielded to the clamour in Pakistan against the alleged dilatoriness of the Security Council and the importance of the “time factor”; it is significant that Pakistan’s official news agency early last week “recalled” that her Foreign Minister, Sir Zafrullah Khan, had carried with him to the last Geneva meeting of the Security Council a brief from his Government to press the Security Council for a “clear-cut” decision and to impress on it the “importance attached by Pakistan to the time factor as far as a settlement of the Kashmir dispute is concerned.” In fact, we are told by the news agency, before Dr. Graham began his most recent series of tripartite talks in Geneva, Pakistan had suggested a “time limit of one month for the talks.” What Dr. Graham, drawing on his experience of the complicated nature of the problem, was reluctant to do, Sir Gladwyn Jebb (and there is no mistaking his authorship of the resolution) has done by fixing precisely the one-month time limit demanded by Pakistan. Nor is this the only respect in which his resolution goes back on the conclusions reached both by Dr. Graham and the United Nations Commission on Kashmir – conclusions which have borne out India’s contentions.
Take this question of the responsibility for the security of the State from external aggression and a threat of possible invasion. India’s contention has always been that, by virtue of the continuing sovereignty of the Kashmir Government (which has been clearly conceded in the relevant U.N. Commission resolution) that Government bears the sole responsibility for security over the whole of the State. Since Pakistan’s aggression and her consequent accession to India, the latter has taken over the defence of the State and must continue to discharge it till the danger of aggression disappears. But the action of Pakistan, first in invading the State, and then being in unlawful possession of a portion of her territory, shows that the danger of a resumption of aggression is very much present and will continue so long as Pakistan’s troops or those trained and controlled by her (however camouflaged as “Azad” forces) continue in being. Hence India must not only insist on the withdrawal or disbandment of these latter but must keep the minimum of her own armed forces consistent with her duty to defend the State from a possible invasion. On the Pakistan side no such considerations arise because, firstly, she has no legal status in Kashmir, and, secondly, she herself being the aggressor, there is no question of her taking any responsibility to guard the State against aggression! Of course, Pakistan has repudiated this position during the later stages of the U.N. negotiations and actually claimed the right to have the same number of troops as India after demilitarisation. Incidentally, she has been emboldened to take up this position by the persistent failure of the Security Council to deal with her on the basis of her being the aggressor, for which there is plenty of evidence in the facts and findings of the various U.N. Commissions and representatives.
Be that as it may, so late as September 4, presenting his final proposals for a settlement at Geneva, Dr. Graham himself described the responsibility and functions of the respective forces to be left on either side of the cease-fire line as follows: On the Pakistan side there shall be “the minimum number of forces that are required for the maintenance of law and order and of the cease-fire agreement, with due regard to the freedom of the plebiscite.” On the Indian side there shall be “the minimum number of Indian forces and State armed forces that are required for the maintenance of law and order and the cease-fire agreement, with due regard to the security of the State and the freedom of the plebiscite.” The words we have italicised bring out clearly that, in Dr. Graham’s view, India should, unlike Pakistan, have the right to keep her armed forces because the security of the State is her responsibility and not that of anybody on the other side of the cease-fire line, least of all, of Pakistan. India responded to these proposals handsomely. She agreed that they were “conceived in the right spirit” and as a basis for the evolution of a suitable definition of the function of the forces on both sides of the cease-fire line, they contained the germs of a settlement. The Pakistan delegation, however, demanded that the phrase, “with due regard to the security of the State” should be deleted from the para describing the functions of the forces on the Indian side. Dr. Graham reported that no agreement could be reached on his last draft proposals, which he was not prepared to revise on the lines suggested by Pakistan. Again Sir Gladwyn Jebb has come to the rescue of Pakistan by specifying in his resolution a definite number of troops both for Pakistan and India and by laying down that they should be “of the same kind.” By way of rubbing it in, he has asserted that “the British Government had never thought that the proposal to limit forces on the Pakistan side of the cease-fire line to an armed civil police force, while leaving military forces on the Indian side, was consistent with a really free plebiscite.” In other words, he questions the bona fides of India’s insistence on keeping her troops in the State. How can India, with any sense of self-respect, even look at a resolution, one at least of whose sponsors has already taken a pontifical attitude about a fundamental issue? She has done the only thing by totally rejecting it.
“Though the credit of actually reaching the summit of the apparently unconquerable mountain belongs in general to the Hunt Expedition and in particular to Hillary, an experienced and indomitable mountaineer, and Tensing, it would be no exaggeration to say that part at least of the credit should be allotted to all the previous expeditions to Everest. The data and the knowledge gathered by everyone of these expeditions have been of great assistance to succeeding attempts…. The memory of men of heroic mould like Mallory and Irvine and the sherpas who lost their lives during the previous assaults on Mount Everest, will naturally come into our minds. They died so that others might succeed.”
JUNE 3, 1953
Everest conquered
EVEREST HAS AT LAST YIELDED TO MAN’S INDOMITABLE SPIRIT. Sherpa Tensing and New Zealander, E. P. Hillary, of Colonel John Hunt’s ninth British Expedition, have reached the summit of the tremendous peak. The news has come on the eve of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth and will add to public rejoicing in Britain. From the time Peary reached the North Pole and Amundsen the South Pole two years later in 1911, Everest has been one of what W. H. Murray, himself an Everest expeditioner of note, has called “one of the last great adventures left to man”. In India and Asia there will be particular satisfaction over the fact that Sherpa Tensing was one of the two members of the Hunt Expedition who actually reached the top of the world. Along with Lambert of the first Swiss Expedition he had already climbed to a height of about 28,215 feet; but they could go no farther upon the occasion. When they returned to a lower camp Tensing lay for a whole day in a state of coma and had continually to be awakened and forced to drink.
Though the credit of actually reaching the summit of the apparently unconquerable mountain belongs in general to the Hunt expedition and in particular to Hillary, an experienced and indomitable mountaineer, and Tensing, it would be no exaggeration to say that part at least of the credit should be allotted to all the previous Expeditions to Everest. The data and the knowledge gathered by every one of these Expeditions have been of great assistance to succeeding attempts. The path to the top, the type of equipment to be used, the most favourable weather conditions and the qualities essential in all those who make up an Everest Expedition; on these and other points much was learnt only by actual experience. There was a sober and cautious optimism that the Hunt Expedition, manned and equipped in the best manner possible in the light of experience gathered during the last thirty-two years, stood a good chance of winning its objective; and that hope has now been fulfilled. Never at any moment was there any inclination to underestimate the hazards of this very difficult task. The memory of men of heroic mould like Mallory and Irvine and the sherpas, who lost their lives during the previous assaults on Mount Everest, will naturally come into our minds. They died so that others might succeed.
Despatches from the leaders of the Expeditions, which have appeared from time to time in THE HINDU, have always been read with great care, even when they spoke only of preliminary (but absolutely vital) reconnaissance and ultimate failure. When the chronicles of final success reach us in due course they will be followed with breathless interest. Some of these mountaineers have had a streak of poetry in them and their powers of expression were appropriate to the task they had undertaken. Mallory, for instance, was an outstanding example. Murray, Shipton, Chevalley and others have been equally competent. When the descriptions of the final assault reach us from Col. Hunt, Hillary and Tensing, a saga of human endurance would be unfolded before us. It would be of interest to know, for instance, whether oxygen was used for the final climb. And, above all, what were the feelings of the two on the top who, from this peerless “snowy summit old in story” looked down upon the rest of the world? It has been said that “the true value of these Expeditions will not be found at any moment of victory, or of defeat, but in the striving and the discovering for which all men are made”. But nothing can equal the satisfaction that comes to men when success crowns their striving, especially when what they strive after has been on a grand scale, something not within the reach of normal men. Such satisfaction will be shared by Col. John Hunt and the members of his Expedition. The congratulations of the world will deservedly pour in on them.
“If there must be a curb on the individual in the interests of others it is better that it is one operating by usage and custom and therefore engaging our passive consent. A state which sets out to destroy traditional restraints in the name of freedom and modernity but makes no bones about imposing its own notions of what kind of restraint is good for the citizen may be merely an agent for unsettlement without being an instrument of reform.”
AUGUST 10, 1954
The state and the individual
SPEAKING AT THE MYSORE UNIVERSITY THE OTHER DAY, MR. M. C. Chagla, the Chief Justice of Bombay, made an eloquent plea against hurried attempts to change human nature and improve individual morality” by legislation. He said the primary duty of the State was to create an atmosphere of security in which the individual can develop himself. But the Welfare State, he went on, was committed to securing economic justice for all; and he suggested that to the extent that this required curtailing the economic liberty and the property rights of those classes that were better off, legislative and administrative interference would be justified. Mr. Chagla would, however, admit the need for restraining the individual’s liberty in those matters that fall within the sphere of his personal life, such as morality and religion, only to the extent they were “against the interests of society and not because they were in the view of the State wrong or immoral Restraint would be permissible, he pointed out by way of illustration, in the case of a man who was drunk and disorderly in a public place. But if he was merely drunk without making a public nuisance of himself and without wasting money on drink which he should use to support his family, the State, said Mr. Chagla, must leave him alone because “he is harming only himself”; he must be allowed to benefit by his own experience and to form his own moral judgment.”
But here a doubt obtrudes. Even if the man does not rob his children of their food, the daily spectacle of his thus degrading himself by over-indulgence might do far greater harm, psychologically speaking, to the children and to others who must bear with him. There might therefore be a case, in the interests of these sufferers, for bringing to bear upon him those influences which might be more effective than State pressure or coercion because they would be grounded in a true knowledge of psychology and appeal to the man’s deepest instincts. Religion and morality are just such influences. And while it may be readily conceded that the State as such is not qualified to speak for religion and morality, it must be realised that they have a definite place in society as well as in the lives of individual men and women. And the least the State could do is not to impede the working of these social and moral forces from a mistaken notion of the meaning of secularism. More often, the growing intolerance of the State against other forms of organisation derives from an obscure feeling that they might serve to weaken its hegemony. The emergence of the totalitarian State has been made possible because the traditional forms of social organisation, which in the old days acted as a curb on State power, have fallen before the onset of head-counting democracy. And political democracy itself, having made away with its rivals one by one, destroyed the old organic society and reduced the individual to the status of a mere atom, easily succumbs to the will of any obstreperous minority that might seize State power. The existence of the tertium quid – numerous non-political forms of organisation – is absolutely essential for the maintenance of a healthy relationship between the State and the citizen.
It is the dim realisation of this truth that has set sociologists groping for ways and means of restoring the old, intimate and freely chosen group life, based on community of interests, ideals or beliefs. In our country the new-found zeal for panchayat raj, where it is not inspired by the desire consciously to emulate the Soviet type of unit government, may well be a harking back in a nostalgic way to the old traditional ideal. But our reformers would eat their cake and have it. They want panchayat raj, as well as unlimited power to a centralised administration to interfere in the ordering of the individual’s concerns. To live a truly free life, unswayed by rule or convention, is so difficult that in the complex conditions of modern life not even the most doughty libertarian attempts it consistently. We are all of us mostly creatures of use and wont. We are guided by what our church, our club, our social set, our traditional mentors, say. And on the whole it is well that it is so. If there must be a curb on the individual in the interests of others it is better that it is one operating by usage and custom and therefore engaging our passive consent. A State which sets out to destroy traditional restraints in the name of freedom and modernity, but makes no bones about imposing its own notions of what kind of restraint is good for the citizen, may be merely an agent for unsettlement without being an instrument of reform.
Mr. Chagla maintained that the State must content itself with a directive to the citizen to educate his child, that it should not go further and demand that he should give him one type of education, not another. But the parent’s ideas of education may be so fantastically cranky that freedom to him to indoctrinate his child in his beliefs may be far more cruel than allowing the State to do the indoctrination; after all no State has ever enough time to be thorough in these matters! The real remedy surely is to see that public education is as far as possible free from State control, diversified, informed by the social ideals and mores that are closely associated with the child’s folkways. To deprive the child, in the name of secularism, of the opportunity of getting religious and moral education, for instance, is to do untold damage to his personality by withholding an essential element for his spiritual growth. Likewise, plans for expropriation of certain sections in the name of equality are not immune to the criticism that Mr. Chagla levelled against the State’s blundering interference with the personal freedom of the individual. Taking away from Peter and giving to Paul may be good for Paul, not necessarily for Peter. A competence has by philosophers of all ages been regarded as the prime condition of self-fulfilment. The plans for equalisation evolved by any Government in power, may, on the other hand, be deeply influenced by the passions and prejudices of the dominant clique. Hence the golden mean has always been favoured by those schools of thought that valued freedom. They believed in taxation, aided by the traditional restraints against covetousness and greed, as the least harmful way of preventing gross inequality. The prescription should still hold good, if only our statesmen realised that the Great Society of the future must be a plural society and the success of the State must be judged by its ability to stimulate the growth of vigorous voluntary organisations of a non-political character.
“Goa is part and parcel of India and the people who live there are as much Indians as those living in the rest of this country. These latter have every right to demand that the former should be reunited with them to share the blessings of freedom.”
JUNE 3, 1955
Goa
PORTUGAL CLAIMS A SORT OF DIVINE RIGHT TO RULE OVER Goa. What she does with that piece of India and the people living there is regarded by her to be nobody’s business but her own. And so far she has done things pretty much in her own way, especially in the matter of suppressing the freedom movement among the Goans. But Goa is part and parcel of India and the people who live there are as much Indians as those living in the rest of this country. These latter have every right to demand that the former should be reunited with them to share the blessings of freedom. Of course, the Government of India are of the same view and have done everything to bring about this consummation with all their resources. But they have had to take account of the fact that a foreign power is in possession in Goa. This has somewhat limited their choice of the method by which to bring about re-union, in the sense that the problem partakes of an international character and India has been following, with some success, the policy of peaceful negotiation in the settlement of her disputes with other countries. Naturally it is a policy which calls for great patience but it has by no means been barren of results. A problem very similar to that of Goa has been solved satisfactorily in the case of French possessions in India. But Portugal is different from France and there are those who believe a firmer handling is called for; the record of Portugal seems to provide justification for this view. Its repercussions in India have been seen in the growing public resentment against Portugal and the insistent demands that a more active policy should be adopted to make her yield. At the popular level a move has been launched to enter Goa in fairly large numbers and seek to aid the liberation movement by the same method by which India won her freedom, namely Satyagraha. Our Prime Minister has. therefore, been called upon to explain why the official policy cannot be changed at present. In his Press Conference on Tuesday, Mr. Nehru said, “We attach great importance to the basic principles governing our policies, international policies especially. We have gained some credit in the world for following those basic principles and we do not wish to be hustled or hurried into forgetting or bypassing those principles. Naturally, one has to adapt that basic policy from time to time to a changing situation, but the basic policy must remain”. The pursuit of this policy has led to a clearer understanding and appreciation in foreign countries of our objective in Goa than was the case previously. To that extent it has weakened Portugal’s hope of getting the Western Powers’ sympathy and support on which she mainly relies.
There remains the question of the Government of India’s attitude to the Satyagraha movement. Mr. Nehru sees no objection to individual Indians showing their sympathy for the Goans by actively participating in the freedom movement. But he is against the entry of Indian nationals into Goa in large numbers, though it would be easy enough to do so and paralyse the administration. His first reason is that it would enable Portugal to say that the movement is engineered by outsiders and to hide the fact that an overwhelming majority of Goans, irrespective of their religious faith, desire merger with India. The more serious reason, from a practical point of view, is the fact that the Portugese Government and officials have little understanding of Satyagraha and other peaceful methods of agitation. And it is to be feared that a situation might result in which large scale shooting and killing might take place and rouse passions in India and elsewhere. The Goan authorities have already given a sample of their brutal way of handling Satyagrahis on a small scale.
But the Portugese Government would be making a big mistake if they thought that these views of our Prime Minister amount to a guarantee for an indefinite continuation of the present stalemate. They would do well to take heed of Mr. Nehru’s warning that it is nothing of the sort; “It is my business what happens in Goa and it is only our definite policy of peaceful approach and restraint which prevents us from taking other steps. I think it is completely open to us to take such steps in the economic domain as we consider proper. We have taken some; we may take others”.
“Mr. Morarji Desai’s probity and high idealism are as well known as his inflexibility of purpose and his efficiency as an administrator. We may be certain that he would not have embarked on the hazardous fast had he not been convinced that less desperate measures would not avail against the unhappy trends revealed by the recent disturbances in Gujarat…. But it seems to us that in the interests of the people themselves and in order to further his own efforts to wean them away from headstrong courses, he should now give up his fast.”
AUGUST 24, 1956
Mr. Desai’s ordeal
MR. NEHRU, WE WOULD FAIN HOPE, IS WARRANTED IN HIS belief that the Ahmedabad situation is improving and that Mr. Morarji Desai will be enabled to break his fast in a day or two. The doctors’ bulletins on Mr. Desai’s health are fairly alarming. And, so far as one can judge from the published reports, the student element which has been foremost in fomenting the opposition to bilingual Bombay has not appreciably relaxed its efforts. The Prime Minister seems to have stated that “the purpose for which Mr. Desai had gone on fast would be achieved in a day or two”. That purpose was to make those concerned see the error of their ways in denying Mr. Desai a peaceful hearing when he came to Ahmedabad to explain the reasons that had led him and his colleagues to support the bilingual solution. Mr. Desai’s thesis was that the citizens of Ahmedabad would have flocked to hear him in large numbers if picketers had not forcibly prevented them. In this picketing and unlawful coercion the Prime Minister sees the hidden hand of the Opposition Parties. Mr. Desai himself thinks that violence such as had broken out in Ahmedabad when Parliament approved the bilingual solution must be stemmed in the larger interests of the people. He has said that though he was himself generally opposed to political fasts he felt he had to lay this tribulation upon himself in order to move the hearts of the errant. Mr. Nehru, though he too has often strongly expressed himself against facile resort to fasting and satyagraha, seems unwilling to interfere because he thinks it is a matter of conscience in this case.
Mr. Morarji Desai’s probity and high idealism are as well known as his inflexibility of purpose and his efficiency as an administrator. We may be certain that he would not have embarked on the hazardous fast had he not been convinced that less desperate measures would not avail against the unhappy trends revealed by the recent disturbances in Gujarat. He understands the Gujaratis as no other living leader does and we have no doubt that his affection for them is only equalled by his understanding. It is therefore easy to read his state of mind. But it seems to us that in the interests of the people themselves and in order to further his own efforts to wean them away from headstrong courses, he should now give up his fast. It may be regarded as having already largely achieved its purpose because violence has died down. No doubt student organisers of the opposition to bilingual Bombay are still active. They are staging counter-fasts and promoting monster petitions. But if no special attention were paid to these things they might in the normal course subside into fairly harmless constitutional modes of protest that could be dealt with on that basis. While it is important to maintain law and order, the Government have to be specially considerate in dealing with excited students. Unscrupulous politicians may have worked upon their feelings of generous idealism but harsh handling of student ebullience can only confirm them in their intransigence.
Even more significant is another observation made by the Prime Minister. He said that the phenomenon of a people, who generally backed the Government on other big issues, having kicked over the traces in this matter of reorganisation of States “should make one sit up and think as to what after all should be the exact relationship between the people and the elected representatives on the one hand and the Government on the other”. It, in fact, is the crux of democracy that “nothing should be done”, as Mr. Nehru said, “to allow a hiatus to grow between the Government and the people”. If the bilingual solution had been explained to the people of Gujarat in time by leaders like Mr. Morarji Desai, they, being canny folk, might have accepted it in spite of the proposal to include Vidharbha and thus reduce the relative strength of the Gujaratis in the new State. Unfortunately, in the sudden access of enthusiasm generated by what looked like an ideal solution promoted by the initiative of back-benchers and members of all parties it was a little too readily assumed that Gujarat would not demur to what Mr. Morarji Desai had accepted. That and the sudden disappearance of a separate State for themselves which the people of Gujarat had been taught to look forward to caused an understandable soreness which was no doubt taken advantage of by hooligans and malcontents. The moral is that, while no statesman can afford to mortgage his judgment to the man in the street from the mistaken notion that he is exercising a delegated power, no political party can afford to take the people for granted. Mr. Morarji Desai is, of all leaders of Gujarat, the best qualified to restore the relations between the Government and the people to the normal. We trust he will give up his fast, as a lessening of the present emotional tension is the indispensable preliminary.
“We have published a number of letters…. from correspondents who question the statement that English is the language of the oppressors. They protest against any attempt to identify it with the shortcomings of British rule and emphasise that the movement against that rule had its inspiration in English literature and history and was led by men who spoke and wrote it with a mastery which showed that they were using it not as an alien language but as their very own. As Mr. C. Rajagopalachari and others have pointed out if we could continue to use and profit from the railways, telegraphs and other products of British rule in India, we do not see any sense in any merely sentimental revolt against the use of English.”
OCTOBER 25, 1957
Official language
AS THE TIME APPROACHES FOR THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY Committee to give its findings on the Report of the Official Language Commission, public opinion is declaring itself increasingly in many parts of India and more particularly in the South, against any hasty move by Government. Our correspondence columns and the reports of meetings and demonstrations organised in this connection testify to the strength of the feeling that English must continue to be the official language of the Indian Union for a long time to come and that its replacement by Hindi when the country is not ready for the change-over would be considered an unwarranted imposition. Non-party leaders of opinion like General Cariappa, whose closely reasoned article we published on Tuesday, have pointed to the proud and pre-eminent position that English occupies in the world today as the language of international thought, art and science and have warned us against cutting ourselves off from the main stream of world communications. They do not see any justifiable objection to having English as our national language as long as the studying of our own languages, each of which has a rich culture, is fully kept up and our youths are induced to learn one or two other languages in addition to their own regional language”. The other, day, the Chief Minister of Kerala, while conceding that English was “the language of the oppressors”, himself came out in strong opposition to the recommendations of the Official Language Commission that it should soon give place to Hindi as the official language at the Centre, because he felt that such replacement should wait until the regional languages were in a position to take over from English as the official language of the respective States. In any event, Hindi could not serve as the official language at the State-level. We have published a number of letters, including one today, from correspondents who question the statement that English is the language of the oppressors. They protest against any attempt to identify it with the shortcomings of British rule and emphasise that the movement against that rule had its inspiration in English literature and history and was led by men who spoke and wrote it with a mastery which showed that they were using it not as an alien language but as their very own. As Mr. C. Rajagopalachari and others have pointed out if we could continue to use and profit from the railways, telegraphs and other products of British rule in India, we do not see any sense in any merely sentimental revolt against the use of English. Such a revolt would only add to our troubles. When all our efforts must be concentrated on economic and scientific development, we would only be wasting precious time, not only in compelling our young men and women to study Hindi but in raising Hindi itself to the level required to enable it to function as the medium of higher scientific and other thoughts.
The plain truth is that, right now and for some years to come, Hindi cannot function as such a medium. Mr. Rajagopalachari, in his recent speeches, has exposed the fallacy of those who reason that it is the language spoken by the largest group of people in the country and he has given facts and figures to show that they are vastly out-numbered by those who do not speak Hindi. He has reaffirmed that this “majority theory” could not be accepted because there is a solid vaccum so far as Hindi is concerned, from Nagpur to Cape Comorin”. It would be mere fanaticism to seek to impose Hindi on this vast region. It would be in conflict with the spirit and letter of our Constitution which assures all citizens equality of opportunity. The people in South India and other non-Hindi-speaking people would harbour a sense of grievance. All interested in the future of India and in the development of harmony among our people expect the Parliamentary Committee and the Government of India to proceed with caution. There are other and more satisfactory ways of developing the study of Hindi than imposing it with unseemly haste on a large and unwilling mass of people as the official language of the Union. We must reiterate that it is more desirable that Parliament and the Government should have the ready and unforced support of all sections in their decisions than that objectives, on which not all are agreed, should be achieved according to some kind of schedule.
“The sweeping trend for newspapers has therefore been to move the main news of the day to the front page and today we join their ranks.”
JANUARY 14, 1958
Our Front Page
THE HINDU APPEARS TODAY WITH A NEW FACE. THE FRONT page is devoted to news instead of to advertisements. This change, though really just a technical one, has not been made light-heartedly to satisfy some passing whim but after considerable deliberation and in deference to the wishes of an overwhelming majority of our readership. It has not been an easy change for us to make either, because our former format featuring advertisements on the front page has not only stood the test of eighty important and highly competitive years but has made THE HINDU a distinctive publication among the great newspapers of the world. But the reading habits of the public have been changing fast in the last two decades, and a newspaper alert and sensitive to public opinion, has to take note of what its readers desire and keep pace with the spirit of the times. We have moved into an age when events go rushing by in such headlong fashion that a reader today has often no time even to pause “to open his paper” for the news but must get it the moment he picks his paper up. The sweeping trend for newspapers has therefore been to move the main news of the day to the front page and today we join their ranks. Thus THE HINDU which throughout its long career has striven to give a lead to its readers on matters of moment, now takes a lead in the matter of its facial appearance. That is the significance of the change effected in our format this morning.
We are aware that some of our readers, would prefer our format of yesterday to continue. To them we respectfully submit that what has happened is merely a change in arrangement, in make-up; a switch of the middle page to the front. The content of the paper remains the same and there will be no let-up in the high standards of journalism the paper has tried to maintain through nearly a century of public service. This is an assurance we would particularly like to give such of our readers as do not wish to see our format altered and we would ask them to give the new “face” a fair trial. Perhaps, when they get accustomed to it, they too will begin to like it.
“No intelligent student of the new Soviet Plan will fail to be impressed by the fact that many of the objectives set out in it are desirable and practicable and that they can be achieved regardless of ideological preferences. Much that the Soviet Plan sets out to secure for the Russian people in the fifth decade of the regime has long ago been achieved in West European countries and in America without a bloody revolution and civil war or the terrible regimentation of the people in the name of planning.”
JANUARY 31, 1959
Mr. Khrushchev’s ambition
ALLOWING FOR THE USUAL PERCENTAGE OF EXAGGERATION in Soviet statistics and the familiar extravagance in the claims of what Communism can achieve, the targets which Mr. Khrushchev placed before the twenty-first Soviet Communist Party Congress as the aims of the new Seven-Year Plan are certainly of world wide interest. It has long been the avowed aim of the Soviet leaders to catch up with the West and go beyond them in as short a period as possible. Mr. Khrushchev promised in his speech that if the new Plan’s targets were achieved the Soviet Union would have gone almost the entire way towards outstripping the United States. Whether by 1965 the Soviet Union will achieve the per capita output of the U.S. is extremely doubtful, though in terms of absolute output the Soviet may reach the levels of American production in steel, cement, oil, electric power and in agriculture. Although in the new Plan, the major part of the outlay is on heavy industry, there is a welcome shift in emphasis, compared to earlier plans, with regard to expansion of consumer goods industries. Mr. Khrushchev promised Soviet housewives more refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, electric irons and floor polishers. More and better food and clothing have also been promised. Above all, there is to be a big development of house building to make up for the terrible shortage of housing, which has been the most neglected aspect of Soviet economic development. A rise in the wages of the lower income groups, a reduction in the hours of work and advance towards a 5-day working week, an increase in pensions for the aged, and improvements in educational and cultural facilities are envisaged in the Plan. A 62.65 per cent rise in the national income in seven years envisaged in the plan is certainly a very high rate of development, though France and Germany have been able to maintain in the past decade an annual rate of expansion of over 8 per cent. It should not be forgotten, however, that the Soviet Union has always had the advantage of an enormous territory and in recent years Mr. Khrushchev has been concentrating on the development of hitherto little developed regions such as Siberia.
A major conclusion to be drawn from the magnitude of the new Soviet Plan is that the concentration on heavy industry in the three decades since 1928 has laid the foundations for a rapid growth of the economy and that, as in the U.S. and other Western countries, the economic system has developed the capacity for financing a high rate of investment from year to year. That all this capacity has been built up at a heavy cost, by imposing considerable sufferings and privations on the people, is past history. That four decades after the Revolution the Soviet people can look forward to a real – and it may be hoped a substantial – improvement in their living conditions is the most promising aspect of the new Plan. An even more significant conclusion to be drawn from Mr. Khrushchev’s speech is that the realisation of this hope depends on the prevention of a major war. When Mr. Khrushchev spoke about peaceful competition between rival social systems and their peaceful co-existence, he was not only emphasising his ideological belief that in the long run the Communist system will prevail, but also that in the short run he needs peace. Since the death of Stalin and more so since the famous Twentieth Party Congress, at which Mr. Khrushchev made the historic disclosures about the crimes and brutalities of the Stalin era, there has been considerable rethinking in the Kremlin in regard to internal as well as external policies. Internally there has been a steady relaxation of the rigours of the Stalin regime and a break with the methods of purges and secret trials and “liquidation of political opponents, which made the Soviet system so abhorrent to all freedomloving people. It is true that the way Mr. Khrushchev has been handling Bulganin, Molotov, Malenkov and others belonging to the so-called “anti-party group” has raised doubts whether it presages a return to Stalinist methods. But there is room to think that Mr. Khrushchev is genuinely anxious to break with the bitter legacy of Stalin and that Molotov and others are opposing him in this policy. The outside world as well as the Soviet people would be in a better position to appreciate the issues involved if the struggle that is apparently going on within the Soviet Communist Party were debated in the open. But such freedom of debate, with the natural prospect of two or three rival leaderships developing around rival policies and programmes, is anathema to Communists who have been wedded to ideas of a monolithic party and a monolithic State. The sturdy independence of Marshal Tito and the developments in Poland and elsewhere have compelled the Russian leaders to recognise that there are many roads to socialism”. Compared to the fanaticism of the Stalin period, when the familiar slogan was, “Whoever is not with us, is against us”, this represents a genuine advance towards an admission of differences in approach and policy among Communist and Socialist parties. But the Russian Communists and their followers elsewhere are yet to realise that there are many roads to human welfare and progress and that socialism itself is only one of those roads. No intelligent student of the new Soviet Plan will fail to be impressed by the fact that many of the objectives set out in it are desirable and practicable and that they can be achieved regardless of ideological preferences. Much that the Soviet Plan sets out to secure for the Russian people in the fifth decade of the regime has long ago been achieved in West European countries and in America without a bloody revolution and civil war or the terrible regimentation of the people in the name of planning. The striking progress which Mexico, Puerto Rico and other smaller countries have been making in recent years – not to mention West Germany and Japan – shows that rapid economic development can be achieved today by a disciplined people, with good organisation and the necessary external aid, within the framework of a democratic system. Thanks to the rapid advance of modern technology, the problem of development in any democratic community today is not any longer a quesion of ideology-eliminating one class or another – but of developing the right type of organisation and providing the right incentives. That frightful mistakes can be committed under the Communist system and that it is no automatic guarantee against inefficiency, waste or corruption, is borne out by Soviet experience. Democratic countries like India which have embarked on development plans to make up for the lapses of the past might learn much from the experience of the Soviet and other countries. But there is no escape from hard work, intelligent organisation and the widespread use of technical and scientific knowledge for raising productivity in agriculture and industry. This is the basic task, whatever the apparent character of the economic system, may be. The Soviet progress, such as it is, is success they have achieved in fulfilling the task than to the special character of the Soviet system.
“The tendency to think of plans in terms of overall figures of outlay and large national targets is resulting in too much of artificial and academic exercises in paper planning – and in fanciful proposals for raising resources – which detract attention from the really important job of preparing concrete programmes of development at various levels based on needs and available resources. The Planning Commission whose ramifications have grown with each successive plan, has done little to encourage realistic planning from the bottom. By its constant emphasis on expenditure as an index of development, it has tended to create an atmosphere in which the mere spending of money is considered as good in itself, without regard to the results of such expenditure.”
JANUARY 6, 1960
Planning: Need for a new approach
UNLESS A FRESH APPROACH IS BROUGHT TO THE SUBJECT OF planning in India there is every risk of our continuing to commit the same mistakes as in the past. Recently there has been much talk about the “take-off” stage and what is required to achieve this position. Mr. Anjaria, in his presidential address to the Indian Economic Conference, doubted whether a country with such a low level of per capita income as India could be considered as having reached the “take-off” stage the moment it is able to maintain a rate of investment of 10 per cent of the national income. If the “take-off” is interpreted as meaning the stage of self-sustaining growth here again it seems highly premature to imagine that such a stage could be reached within the next five or ten years. It may be possible for us to attain “self-sufficiency” say, in food, clothing, iron and steel, cement and some other essential items within a decade. But self-sufficiency would amount, in terms of per capita consumption, only to a fraction of what obtains in the more advanced countries. As for ‘self-sustaining in the sense of non-dependence on foreign capital, it is neither desirable nor possible for at least two decades. There is no need to feel ashamed about this, because leading economists in the West now recognise that the underdevelopment in countries like India is essentially a legacy of the colonial system and that the advanced countries owe it to themselves as well as to the harmonious development of an integrated international economy to make capital and “knowhow” available in a big way for the economic progress of the underdeveloped countries. It would be realistic if Indian planning proceeded on a recognition of the crucial part that must be played by external capital in all its forms) to maintain a sufficiently high rate of development in the country.
The tendency to think of plans in terms of overall figures of outlay and large national targets is resulting in too much of artificial and academic exercises in paper planning – and in fanciful proposals for raising resources – which detract attention from the really important job of preparing concrete programmes of development at various levels based on needs and available resources. The Planning Commission, whose ramifications have grown with each successive Plan, has done little to encourage realistic planning from the bottom. By its constant emphasis on expenditure as an index of development, it has tended to create an atmosphere in which the mere spending of money is considered as good in itself, without regard to the results of such expenditure.
The Prime Minister stated the other day that Rs. 900 crores had been spent on agriculture since 1951 but there was little to show for it by way of results. This hiatus between expenditure and achievement is in fact the crucial defect of Indian planning. This hiatus will not disappear merely by shifting the emphasis from financial targets, as Prof. Mahalanobis and others urge. The argument that what is physically feasible should be financially realisable bypasses the whole gamut of economic reasoning that should determine decisions with regard to physical targets. It may be, for instance, physically possible for us to achieve a target of 10 million tons of steel by 1965, because we have the necessary iron ore, coal, etc. But whether we should proceed to plan for increasing production to the limit would depend on a number of considerations, including whether demand for steel would grow at a rate that would warrant this expansion, whether the capital to be invested on extra steel plants could not be diverted to projects which would provide much larger employment as well as rise the national income by a higher rate than investment in steel, and so on. The inflationary effects of heavy spending on projects which involve a large outlay but which will come into production after five or more years should also be considered in a discussion of the subject. When Prof. Mahalanobis contends that the trend of market demand is “scarcely relevant” to a consideration of our target for steel, he apparently imagines that steel-producing capacity is something desirable in itself even if we have no immediate use for all the steel that can be produced. Such an argument might be all right for a country with a plethora of capital resources, but in the present circumstances it is unwise and uneconomical for India to create surplus capacities in the steel or any other industry. As a matter of fact one of our most urgent tasks is to see that the existing capacities in industries and agriculture are fully utilised, because thereby we achieve increases in national income and in employment without any additional investments. Evaluation bodies have already pointed out the glaring failure all over the country to make profitable use of the irrigation potential created by the multi-purpose projects. What this means in terms of low returns on the investment already made and the loss of potential additions to national income can be easily imagined. In regard to industry, it has been estimated by one authority that in seventeen selected groups of industries, ranging from bicycles to wheat flour (including iron and steel and general engineering), if the existing installed capacity were fully utilised, an increase in output of Rs. 273 crores and an increase in employment of 192,000 could be achieved. What this means to the economy can be inferred from the fact that to achieve an equivalent increase in production by new investment might call for an outlay of Rs. 600 crores or as much as the cost of four new million-ton steel plants. The case for utilisation of unused capacity applies with greater force to manpower. Apart from the large number of unemployed and under-employed in the country, the fact remains that the productivity of even those in employment is very low. Prof. Mahalanobis admitted at the Labour Economics Conference that “there was a good deal of general slackness and disinclination for hard work”. He pointed out how our labour legislation had been “too imitative of the highly developed countries’, with the result that many industries were obliged to retain a considerable amount of surplus labour, which affected productivity as well as efficiency. Our labour policy should be revised not only with a view to ensuring a rise in productivity to which will be linked a rise in wages, but also with a view to securing an increase in employment. Official policy hitherto has aimed at ensuring optimum conditions for the employed without regard to the effects of such legislation in inhibiting opportunities of employment for the unemployed.
A new approach to planning should be based primarily on maximising the opportunities for productive employment to the entire adult population of the country. Viewed from this angle, it could be seen that centralised planning alone will not do the trick in a country of India’s size and diversity of conditions. Mixed economy is an inescapable consequence of the political and economic character of the country. The role of the State should be that of a catalyst. It should not become an octopus that seeks to control everything. This means not only a concentration of effort on the part of the State to fill essential gaps in the industrial structure and to establish the social overheads such as education, roads etc., but also to promote a climate in which there will be full scope for the creative energies of the people on the widest scale. Our plans have failed so far mainly in this latter aspect. There has been too much dependence on Central Governmental direction and support and too little of local initiative and inspiration. Neither the progress of agriculture, which is so vital for the solution of our food problem, nor the diversification of industry, which is essential for providing employment, will be possible unless the impulse for improvement and organisation comes from the bottom, from the village and district level. The problem of resources, which looms so large in present discussions on the Third Plan, would assume manageable proportions if there were greater decentralisation of planning and if the programmes of the Central and State Governments were limited to what can be financed out of the resources, internal and external, which they can obtain without resort to inflation.
“The Indian Communist party is, of course, up against the tough problem that as the self-appointed party of the proletariat industrial wage labour) it can speak only for a tiny minority in the country where factory industry is still in its infancy. Nor has it been gaining ground even in this field. Labour has found that the party is less interested in their general welfare than in their political backing. The party has therefore to look elsewhere to the educated unemployed, to landless labour in the countryside, to linguistic and communal groups who want special advantages.”
APRIL 11, 1961
The Communist Congress
THE MOST INTERESTING FEATURE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY Congress at Vijayawada is the open presentation of two rival programmes and policies by the leadership. The presence of Mr. Suslov, Secretary of the Russian Communist Party and close associate of Mr. Khrushchev, showed the importance attached abroad to the debate at Vijayawada. Mr. Suslov has stated that his country is now passing from Socialism to the third and final stage of building a Communist society (the first stage was “the dictatorship of the proletariat”). He refrained, however, from commenting on the resolution before the congress. The Dange-Ghosh resolution supports the foreign policy of Mr. Nehru and calls for a united front of leftists including the leftists in the Congress. The Ranadive-Bhupesh Gupta resolution calls for a leftist united front against the Congress to capture power to implement socialism. However, debate on these policies has been postponed in favour of discussing the two detailed programmes of objectives.
To the public it may appear rather odd that so much heat should be engendered over these resolutions, which appear in any case to be rather unreal. The only other major leftist parties are the Socialists, who will have nothing to do with the Communists. What, then, is Mr. Ranadive’s United Front to consist of? Perhaps a clue may be found in the Ranadive programme which calls for a Punjabi Suba, the establishment of responsible governments in the Centrally-administered Territories, and more assistance for the Scheduled Castes and tribes. In other words, every communal, linguistic or backward group is to get the benefit of Communist leadership and all these disparate elements are to be used to capture power”. The Dange-Ghosh tactic is equally devious. The party is to woo the leftist elements in the Congress itself, for as the draft frankly says a United Front would have no reality unless the vast following of the Congress masses and a section of the Congress leadership take their place in it. The hope apparently is that in view of the factious quarrels among Congressmen at present, there will be some opportunities to get the dissidents into united fronts led by Communists. The significance of support for “Mr. Nehru’s foreign policy” should also be appreciated. Mr. Nehru’s policy is Congress policy. But the resolution seeks to imply that it is the triumph of a leftist policy within the Congress.
The Indian Communist Party is, of course, up against the tough problem that as the self-appointed party of the proletariat (industrial wage labour) it can speak only for a tiny minority in the country where factory industry is still in its infancy. Nor has it been gaining ground even in this field. Labour has found that the Party is less interested in their general welfare than in their political backing. The Party has therefore to look elsewhere to the educated unemployed, to landless labour in the countryside, to linguistic and communal groups who want special advantages. The Party’s success in Kerala and Bombay showed that these methods can pay off, especially where local Congress Governments show weaknesses. The Party is very conscious of the examples of Russia and China. The Russian Communists in 1917 seized the chance offered by the Kerensky Government’s refusal to stop an unpopular and crippling war. The Chinese Party benefited by the failures of the Chiang Kai-shek regime, also after a major war. The rival resolutions before the Vijayawada Congress are to some extent reflections of current Russian and Chinese policies. The Chinese favour an aggressive and dynamic policy irrespective of the consequences. They believe this can be done because the “Socialist Camp” is superior in military strength to the free world. The Russians know that a big war would prove fatal to both socialism and capitalism. They suggest therefore that Socialism can be achieved everywhere without violence or civil war. The official policy of the Indian Communist Party favours the Russian line and Mr. Suslov is no doubt anxious to see that there should be no straying from this path.
So deeply involved are both wings of the Indian Party in this world-wide Communist controversy, that they fail to appreciate the realities of Indian politics. Our politics is determined by our freedom movement, the Constitution we framed and the economic policy we have felt it necessary to adopt. It is a system which includes parliamentary democracy. The fall of the Communist Government in Kerala showed however that a parliamentary majority is not necessarily the key to power, if other conventions and proprieties peculiar to India are not respected. The Russian model of planning has also proved very instructive and useful to us, but unlike the Russians or the Chinese, we believe that planning can be democratic. The Marxist belief that economic interests are supreme has been shown not to apply to India where both rich and poor are making voluntary sacrifices in order that the nation may prosper in future. The Indian Communist Party wishes to wreck this consensus by organising a war of class against class – a difficult task because we have as yet no rigid class system and do not wish to have one. The Party’s foreign policy is equally unreal. When it has been proved in every possible way that Indian territory has been occupied and that still more territory is being wrongly claimed, the Communist Party cannot, if it has a genuine national outlook, adopt the attitude of a third party who finds that much may be said on both sides of the dispute. Nor can it function as a defence lawyer for the Chinese. As long as the Party thinks in terms of Chinese or Russian policies and fails to function within the conventions and necessities of the Indian system, it will have no more than nuisance value in Indian politics.
“It is clear….that the present operations are not mere frontier skirmishes but a serious attempt to seize large chunks of India’s territory…. A massive national effort will, however, be required if the Army is to obtain all its needs. Whatever the rights and wrongs of our China policy (and it cannot be denied that miscalculations have been made), the time has come for the people to close ranks and give the Government solid support.”
OCTOBER 23, 1962
Naked aggression
ON SATURDAY MORNING, LARGE-SCALE CHINESE FORCES overwhelmed our frontier posts at Dhola and Khinzemane and crossed the Namka Chu (Kechilang) river which is of strategic importance. These places are in the North-East Frontier Agency, east of Bhutan, and are on the Indian side of the McMahon Line. At the same time, the Chinese overwhelmed several frontier posts in Ladakh. Thus China has unleashed an undeclared war against us in pursuance of her expansionist aims. The Prime Minister has characterised the action as “unabashed aggression by an unscrupulous opponent”. One of the aims, no doubt, is to demonstrate to the smaller Himalayan States as well as to other Asian States that China is a great Power which can and will enforce her claims to border areas whatever the real legal position. The aggressor can always choose where he will break through with numerically superior forces, but the defender can exact a heavy toll if he has strong points in the area, and this is what we have done. The Chinese have the additional advantage that their bases are close to the point of attack while our forces have difficult and inaccessible mountain ranges to cross on mule-back or on foot.
The strategic aim of the Chinese appears to be to seize the frontier areas which they claim and dig themselves in before the onset of winter when further fighting will be difficult. They have obviously prepared for this campaign over many months, since their headquarters in Tibet is a long way from China proper and is linked with it only by three major roads. Chinese forces in Tibet are broadly estimated at 200,000 men and to keep them equipped and supplied would require long and careful preparation. This disposes of the story that the Chinese soldiers were only hitting back at Indian attacks on their frontier guards. It is clear from what happened on Saturday and following days that the present operations are not mere frontier skirmishes but a serious attempt to seize large chunks of India’s territory. Although the Government of India have been increasing our military preparedness in the recent past, the offensive in certain specific areas took us by surprise. We obviously have defence posts over the whole region and stiff fighting may be expected in the coming weeks.
A massive national effort will, however, be required if the Army is to obtain all its needs. Whatever the rights and wrongs of our China policy (and it cannot be denied that miscalculations have been made), the time has come for the people to close ranks and give the Government solid support. Already voices have been raised proposing political moves of all kinds, including the severance of diplomatic relations with China, refusal of further negotiations and so on. Precipitate and strong action is the natural first reaction in a crisis but it is not justified by long-term considerations. The Government’s hands regarding diplomatic action should not be tied in advance.
At the same time, the Government should be more forthcoming than they have been so far in the matter of giving information and present a clear picture to the Parliament and the Press of what is happening and how the Government are dealing with the situation. Opposition parties should be taken into confidence as Mr. Nehru has already done, except perhaps the Communists who have taken an equivocal attitude to the issue of Chinese aggression. The Defence Ministry should continue to brief the Press as to the progress of the operations. All this is absolutely essential if the people’s confidence in the Government is to be maintained. The Press, however, also has a corresponding duty not to circulate idle rumours which may have the effect of lowering public morale. Reports from abroad show that India enjoys widespread support and sympathy from other countries. We have taken special care not to embroil our dispute with China in the cold war, despite the flood of Chinese propaganda trying to make out that we are depending upon other and more powerful Western nations. It is for us to defend our own border obtaining equipment and arms quickly from wherever we can and in greater quantities in the light of the serious developments. The justice for our cause should be evident to all, no less to Russia and other Communist States than to the Western Powers. We had done our best to avoid a war, but we could offer to negotiate only on honourable terms and not when our soil is being increasingly occupied by the Chinese.
“In recent years the gap between amateurs and professionals had become quite spurious, with some leading amateurs making more money out of the game than the professionals as England’s present captain Mr. E. R. Dexter, frankly admitted recently. In abolishing the theoretical distinction between the playing categories, the M.C.C. has therefore taken a realistic view.”
FEBRUARY 2, 1963
Cricketers All
AN AGE-OLD BARRIER HAS FALLEN AND GOOD RIDDANCE. Cricket will have no Gentlemen and no Players any more but just cricketers. This happy development has been brought about by the decision now taken by the game’s governing body, the Marylebone Cricket Club, to do away with the amateur status. Compartmentalisation of practitioners of the willow into Gentlemen (to wit, amateurs) and Players (meaning, professionals) has been as old as the game itself and time was when the wall between the Mister Smiths and the plain Smiths was so solid they had to use separate dressing rooms and even had to enter the field through separate entrances and no professional could ever captain a team. The first crack in this tradition occurred, and appropriately, when Jack Hobbs, the greatest of them all, was called upon at a pinch to captain England against Australia in the Third Test of the 1926 series in the absence due to illness of Mr. A. W. Carr. And the break with the past was completed 26 years later when another professional, Len Hutton, was chosen to lead England on a regular basis. In recent years the gap between amateurs and professionals had become quite spurious, with some leading amateurs making more money out of the game than the professionals, as England’s present captain Mr. E. R. Dexter, frankly admitted recently. In abolishing the theoretical distinction between the playing categories, the M.C.C. has therefore taken a realistic view.
But the anachronistic distinction still prevails in many other branches of sport. In tennis the position is even worse. Professionals are barred from the Davis Cup and other tournaments like Wimbledon. The result is an absurd situation. The No. 1 amateur is hailed as the world champion even though it is well known he cannot stand up to any one of the top professionals. And the irony of it all is that amateurism exists only in name. Many amateurs are earning comfortable incomes from tennis by extracting from tournament organisers liberal expenses and other perquisites. Tennis is also probably the only game in which an amateur is prohibited from playing a match against a “pro”. This rule is leading to the game’s slow death. With every prominent amateur turning professional and those left in the amateur ranks denied opportunity to play against their superiors and thus get their steel tempered, the standards of amateur tennis is steadily deteriorating. The “Grand Slam” winner, Laver, on turning professional, could not win even once in his first ten encounters with the “pros”. The international tennis authorities would do well to take a leaf out of the M.C.C’s book and put an end to the present caste system or at least permit “open” tournaments in which both amateurs and professionals can participate. The longer they delay it, the worse for tennis.
“It is given to few leaders to achieve in their life-time all that they set out to accomplish in their youth…. Whatever may be the verdict of posterity a hundred years hence on Jawaharlal’s achievements and failures, he has a secure place in history as a great national leader who used his high prestige and influence among the nations in the cause of world peace and international understanding. His greatest achievement, undoubtedly, is the fact that, despite the horrors of the partition and the surge of communal passions and linguistic loyalties, he kept India united within a democratic secular framework and set her firmly on the road to economic development and modernisation.”
MAY 28, 1964
Jawaharlal Nehru
AN ANGUISHED NATION MOURNS TODAY THE SUDDEN PASSING of her most beloved son. The authentic voice that spoke for India for many years before freedom and for seventeen years after achieving independence, is stilled. To millions from the snowy wastes of Ladakh to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean the sad tidings will come with the poignancy of personal bereavement. For no leader in our times had come so close to the millions of our people so often and so intimately as Jawaharlal Nehru. He was a child of the Indian revolution which found its true and historic expression in the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. But he was also a child of Western Rationalism, Fabian Socialism and the new Humanism that is struggling to take shape to take humanity beyond the conflicts of ideologies to a juster and more harmonious world. In a sense he was a favoured child of fortune, if not of destiny. He was blessed in his parentage and the stimulating atmosphere in which he grew up. Leadership came natural to him and he proved himself a man of the masses almost from the time he plunged into the Non-Co-operation Movement. Crowds inspired him, even as they themselves felt attracted to him in an inscrutable way. The years of the freedom struggle had pre-determined him for the historic role he was to play as Free India’s first Prime Minister.
Like the other great Titans of the freedom struggle – Patel, Azad and Pant – Jawaharlal has died in harness, like a warrior at his post. He had carried for far too long burdens which would have overwhelmed a lesser man many years ago. A man of boundless energy and meticulous discipline, he never spared himself in the discharge of his multitudinous official duties. In addition, he had to carry the burdens that fell to him as the supreme leader of his party and a national symbol whose presence was there at any event of importance anywhere in the country. It is useless to speculate whether his end would have come so soon if he had taken the advice of many of his friends and withdrawn himself from the active leadership of the Government after the illness he had in 1962. One suspects that it was out of a deep sense of unfinished commitments that the Prime Minister decided to carry on, even though he must have been aware that his ailing frame was no longer equal to the task.
It is given to few leaders to achieve in their life-time all that they set out to accomplish in their youth. Jawaharlal must be deemed exceptionally fortunate in this respect because he did achieve a great many things in a life of crowded activity and, in the last few years, as the wielder of immense power and influence over a nation of four hundred and fifty millions. Whatever may be the verdict of posterity a hundred years hence on Jawaharlal’s achievements and failures, he has a secure place in history as a great national leader who used his high prestige and influence among the nations in the cause of world peace and international understanding. His greatest achievement, undoubtedly, is the fact that, despite the horrors of the partition and the surge of communal passions and linguistic loyalties, he kept India united within a democratic secular framework and set her firmly on the road to economic development and modernisation. Unlike Gandhiji, who was wedded to a doctrine of the simple life led in righteousness, Nehru believed in the inevitability of a modern technological society based on the expanding progress of science and the triumph of man over his environment. The impulse which he gave to science and technology during the past fifteen years will remain a permanent memorial to his record as Prime Minister, apart from his other achievements. Mr. Nehru believed at the same time passionately in individual freedom and social justice and he was anxious that in the process of creating a modern industrial society, we should not sacrifice other important human values. His eclectic as well as pragmatic approach to social problems arose out of his faith in the democratic socialism that must continue to serve as the inspiration and guide-post for Mr. Nehru’s successors in the Government and outside.
The Nation must and will bear with courage and resoluteness the tragic loss it has suffered. It can pay no more fitting tribute to his memory than by thus striving to overcome the crisis it faces today. The ruling thought in everyone’s mind today must be a supreme concern for the Nation’s unity and discipline. The perils that we face are obvious enough, both externally and internally. Only an utter dedication to the national interest and a ready willingness to accept the disciplines of democracy will enable us as a people to face successfully the challenges – political, economic and international – that confront us. May the great spirits that moulded the destinies of our nation from Vyasa and Valmiki to Gandhiji and Nehru guide us on the right path!
“In a meaningful India-U.S. entente, supported by other democratic countries like Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, lies the best hope for democracy and freedom in Asia and peace in the world. It is towards forging such an association that India and the U.S. should work. They have no time to lose and they have no cause to fear that Russia, which is also deeply interested in peace, will interpret such a development as inimical to its interests.”
SEPTEMBER 30, 1965
Towards closer Indo-U.S. Accord
THE DEVELOPMENTS OF THE PAST FEW WEEKS HAVE BROUGHT an awareness, at all levels of opinion in the country, of the necessity for a reappraisal of our foreign and domestic policies. The Prime Minister has taken the initiative in calling for such a review and has already given a new direction to what has to be done on the home front. He has instructed the Planning Commission to make an immediate “reappraisal of our plans in the light of our recent experiences and having regard to the essential requirements for the future”, thus introducing a pragmatism in planning which has been rather conspicuous by its absence all these years. A new approach to our external relations is equally important and we would urge the Prime Minister to set the pace in this field also.
If world reaction to the present Indo-Pakistan conflict has proved anything, it is that no country, except Malaysia and Singapore, was prepared to come out openly to support us. This despite the fact that the reports of both the U. N. Secretary-General and the U. N. Observers in Kashmir have shown Pakistan to be guilty of aggression. Even the Soviet Union, after reiterating that Kashmir is an integral part of India, chose to assume, like several other countries, a posture of “neutrality when it came to pulling up Pakistan. Neutrality in a case of aggression like Pakistan’s really loads the dice in favour of the aggressor.
We should however presume each of these countries was acting in its enlightened self-interest. The United States and the Soviet Union, which have been at loggerheads in the past over practically every issue, have now come to realise that they have a common interest in the preservation of world peace and in not letting any conflict develop to such proportions as may engulf the world. In this connection, it is a welcome trend that the United States, which during the ‘fifties was prone to look at world problems through Britain’s eyes probably out of deference to the latter’s long experience in international affairs, has now begun to take a more independent look and has even on occasions strongly differed from Britain and chosen to go it alone. For instance, Britain is still inclined to be complacent about the threat to peace that China poses whereas the United States has a very clear understanding of the Chinese menace and Peking’s infinite capacity for fomenting trouble and creating chaos in the independent countries of Asia. Russia, too, has found its socialist ally entirely intractable and irresponsible and has every reason to be concerned over the policies and goals of a China which is totally out of step with the realities of a peaceful world. It is China’s creed that the Chinese way of dealing with nations is the only right way and is bound to prevail eventually and, in pursuit of its ambitions, it has been going about committing open aggressions at least in one area and subversion in other parts of Asia. The implications of the threat that China poses can be seen from the fact that the Indonesian people have already become a prey to its venomous propaganda and Pakistan has fallen into its diplomatic net. It is China’s sinister objective to bring the whole of Asia and Africa within its sphere of influence. The United States has been the first to recognise this and move to nip the Chinese nettle in the bud. Russia too is now beginning to see it in similar light and seems anxious to curb the spread of China’s influence beyond the Chinese shore.
From the time of our Independence 18 years ago we have followed a policy aimed at befriending the whole world, sometimes at the cost of the national interest. But we now find ourself in a situation where even over an issue of vital importance to us, namely our conflict with Pakistan, we see no evidence of positive overseas support for our cause. This is indeed a sad reflection on our foreign policy. Britain is being blamed in many quarters for our predicament and there are demands that we should withdraw from the Commonwealth. This seems to be a cry of anger born out of frustration. It is undeniable Britain has been playing a dubious role in the world debate on Kashmir but it will not serve our long range interests to react emotionally to it and talk of pulling out of the Commonwealth, though Indian withdrawal would, we believe, deprive this amorphous association of much of its prestige. Our approach to international problems should be mature and dignified and it is up to us to show Britain, biased though it is in favour of Pakistan, how unwise it is in following a policy not calculated to win, in the long run, the support and friendship of a democratic country like India. There is certainly no need for us to make a political opponent of Britain; nor need we feel bound by any ties we may have with it, should they come in the way of our pursuit of our national interests.
It is apparent we will have to face a hostile Pakistan and China for a long time to come. We should naturally build up our strength to stand up to these foes. It would at the same time make our task of resisting aggression easier if we had the active support of some important countries. We should therefore bend our efforts to making new stauncher friendships than we have so far done. We should forge special bonds – not necessarily military alliances – with countries like the U.S. and Japan, whose major interests in Asia synchronise with ours. We cannot, of course, expect any country to support us on matters of vital interest to us unless we are prepared to support it on matters of vital interest to that country so long as no conflict with the principles we stand for is involved. Without such give and take we cannot hope to win friends who will stand by us through thick and thin. It is perhaps our failure in the past to order our international relations on the basis of such quid pro quo that is responsible for our present predicament.
It is imperative for us to convince the United States of the unwisdom of arming a country like Pakistan, a theocratic dictatorship which has made hatred of a peaceful neighbour the sheet-anchor of its foreign policy. Pakistan’s capacity for mischief is directly in proportion to the amount of military assistance it receives from abroad. The Dulles concept of containing Communism through a network of military bases has become obsolete in this age of guided missiles, nullifying any value Pakistan may have had in America’s global strategy in the past. Pakistan by its collusion with China, has also established its unreliability as an ally and we hope Washington realises the danger of basing its Asia policy with Pakistan as one of its pillars.
If the containment of China is the major long-term problem in Asia, it becomes obvious that the U.S. and India should act in close concert. India today is an oasis of freedom in the midst of a desert of totalitarianism in Asia. As we had occasion to observe before, the United States, which has stood out in postwar years as the authentic champion of the democratic world, must not make a mistake about what is really at stake in India. India’s record as a secular democracy is unmatched and on its continued well-being would seem to depend the survival of democracy itself in this vast part of the world. Therefore it is in the interests of preserving the treasured principle of government by consent that India is enabled to become strong enough to withstand the unholy pressures of its totalitarian neighbours.
In a meaningful India-U.S. entente, supported by other democratic countries like Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, lies the best hope for democracy and freedom in Asia and peace in the world. It is towards forging such an association that India and the U.S. should work. They have no time to lose and they have no cause to fear that Russia, which is also deeply interested in peace, will interpret such a development as inimical to its interests. Nor need it affect in any way the understanding and friendship that have grown between the Soviet Union and India over the past 15 years. Russia, in our opinion, would only welcome such a development which is aimed at ensuring a world of peace and of peaceful co-existence by holding at bay the one force threatening it the most, China.
“The Union Ministry of Health believes…. that there are five rats to every Indian. This means that the losses through rodents (of foodgrains) amount to 21.6 million tonnes per annum. This represents nearly 25 per cent of the total production. While this figure of losses…. seems to be too high in the light of the accepted totals of food output and the per caput availability, there can be no gainsaying the fact that the people as a whole have remained undernourished to a larger extent than had been assumed all these years.”
OCTOBER 22, 1966
Food for thought
WHEN THE COUNTRY IS SHORT OF FOODGRAINS, IT CANNOT afford to lose any of it, and most certainly not some lakhs of tonnes of them. The latest annual report of the Food and Agricultural Organisation suggests that rats in India eat away 4.3 million tonnes each year. The assumption is that a rat consumes 9 kilograms a year of foodgrains and the population of rats is equal to that of human beings. The Union Ministry of Health believes, on the contrary, that there are five rats to every Indian. This means that the losses through rodents, amount to 21.6 million tonnes per annum. This represents nearly 25 per cent of the total production. While this figure of losses suggested by the Ministry of Health seems to be too high in the light of the accepted totals of food output and the per caput availability, there can be no gainsaying the fact that the people as a whole have remained undernourished to a larger extent than had been assumed all these years. It is not, however, the arithmetic of the loss but the fact of it that matters, especially in these days of food distress. It is here that the F.A.O.’s guidelines deserve of immediate application. Losses through rodents can, according to the F.A.O., be removed through better sanitation and control measures with rodenticides as the chief instrument. To eliminate insects, micro-organisms and fungus, grains should be stored dry at temperatures below 15 centigrade. On the general question of storage facilities, the F.A.O. rightly emphasises that the type depends on cost-benefit ratio. For instance, rice can be stored in bulk rather than in bags only if large quantities of it pass through the silos. If this be not the case, storage in bags with its higher labour charges, greater spillage in packing, more difficult fumigation and additional costs in extra transport and on bags would still be economical enough. In any case, garnering the grain in proper storage is the obvious way for enlarging its per capita availability.
The F.A.O. report also contains interesting suggestions for enriching the quality of the foodgrain supplied to consumers in the developing countries. Taking rice as an instance, it lays bare the evil of malnutrition inherent in the preference for polished rice which is generally deficient in the B group of vitamins as well as of A and ascorbic acid. There is consequently the high incidence in these countries of protein-calorie deficiency diseases like beriberi, blindness and anaemia particularly in women of child-bearing age. The F.A.O. is aware of the fact that most rice eaters in the Near East and Far East cannot afford any appreciable quantities of supplementary foods like milk and fruits. The only way out is to enrich the rice itself either by preventing serious loss of its protein content or by making good the loss by chemical means where such loss is due to the polishing of rice.
The easier and cheaper method is to avoid protein losses in processing. Despite vigorous propaganda, home-pounded rice rich in protein has not been able to replace milled rice. It would be better under the circumstances to reduce milling to the minimum by replacing highly milled rice by milled parboiled rice and by reducing the amount of washing to which rice is subjected before cooking. The human palate in the developing countries does not appear to be willing to make even this minimum adjustment in food habits. There is therefore the need, in the interest of toning up nutritional standards, for enrichment of raw rice through highly artificial methods. In Haiti, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, the premix” has been the weapon against beri-beri. Premix is highly milled rice impregnated (by spraying) with a solution of the requisite vitamins in the right concentration. Enriched rice in this case would consist of one part of promix with one ninety-nine part of the highly milled rice. The premix may conveniently be added in the rice-mill. Experience in the Philippines has revealed practical difficulties in organising, subsidising and enforcing enrichment regulations for this purpose in the mills. Perhaps if our housewives can take after the example set by their Japanese counterparts by doing all this at home themselves, the cost of this enrichment will be low enough as in Japan. The biggest obstacle is obvious of course – how are we going to supply the ingredients of the vitaminous solution to every household and how soon will the Indian housewife be prepared to learn and apply the process of spraying? To arrest malnutrition under these conditions people should be made to prefer as far as feasible parboiled rice while the schemes for improving the availability of protective foods at the cheapest possible prices should be helped to fructify early.
“A valid criticism of the profession of politics in India is that it is not professional enough – that the majority of its practitioners have not done their home work. Few political parties in this country have made independent studies in the fields of education, health, housing, foreign affairs, finance, etc. Their programmes are not backed up by adequate research.”
MAY 9, 1967
A peculiar profession
REPLYING TO THE WELL-DESERVED TRIBUTES PAID TO HIM for his services to the nation as President of the Union, Dr. Radhakrishnan has appealed to politicians to give more weight to service and humility and less to prestige and power. The duty of the good politician, he said, was to alleviate the sufferings of the people and raise their material standards. It must be admitted that of late the political scene has been marred by unseemly contests for power and place. Mudslinging has replaced orderly debate and the demonstrations organised by ambitious politicians, both of the right and the left. At the same time, there are indications that politics is gradually becoming a profession, rather than a crusade for social and political reform. While, at one time, the majority of politicians were well-to-do lawyers and land-owners, they are now drawn from all ranks of society and much closer to the people whom they represent. As a profession, politics does not demand special academic qualifications, although lack of formal education is now the exception rather than the rule as compared with the position a decade ago.
The training of the professional politician is gained mainly in local government bodies and now that there is a ladder rising from the panchayat to the samiti, the Zilla parishad and State Assembly up to the Central Parliament, the profession is not confined to the urbaneducated person, though he still has the advantage over his country cousin. Long years of apprenticeship at the lower levels are necessary before the average politician can hope to reach the seat of power and influence. While he has to demonstrate to the people his capacity to render services to them, he has also to be skilled in the art of what has been called one-upmanship. The politician has always been blamed for putting the interests of his party first, but this criticism may be misconceived if it is conceded that each party adheres to a programme which is supposed to promote the national interest. But if the politician deserts his party in his own interests, he is not to be commended. As in most other professions, there is a service aspect as well as power aspect. A politician who is not ambitious is not likely to get very far. His integrity, no doubt, depends on the methods he uses. It is always easier and more profitable to cater to special interests than to work for the benefit of the underprivileged masses. But it is the latter who have the bulk of the votes and the politician who becomes identified with a privileged group is heading for defeat at the polls. A valid criticism of the profession of politics in India is that it is not professional enough – that the majority of its practitioners have not done their homework. Few political parties in this country have made independent studies in the fields of education, health, housing, foreign affairs, finance etc. Their programmes are not backed up by adequate research. This gives those parties who hold the reins of power an immense advantage, since they have at their disposal the information provided by the government departments. In a democratic set-up, the politician must know what the people want, but he must also have the data on which he can outline schemes to satisfy the needs of the people.
“The Kantilal episode would have served a very useful purpose if it contributes to making public life in India cleaner. As for Mr. Morarji Desai’s particular problem…. his own hands will be strengthened for the future if he separated his son from the semi-official status of personal secretary (to the Deputy Prime Minister, it should be remembered) that he now enjoys.”
AUGUST 21, 1968
Son problem
MR. MORARJI DESAI IS NOT THE FIRST PERSON HOLDING high office to be confronted with a son problem. Nor India the only country where such a problem has arisen. Queen Victoria and Winston Churchill of England, President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, President Ayub Khan of Pakistan, even Stalin, the Russian dictator, to mention a few instances within living memory, have all had to face in their time their full share of political embarrassment over the activities of their progeny. Mr. Morarji Desai’s current troubles have stemmed from his Kantilal’s business connections and some Opposition members in Parliament have sought to connect Kantilal’s success in business to the fact of his being the Deputy Prime Minister’s son and secretary. Twice, on April 30 and July 24 last, did Mr. Desai make statements in the Lok Sabha refuting the allegations made but that still did not clear up the matter. Mr. Madhu Limaye, who has spear-headed the attack on Mr. Desai, on Friday moved to get the Lok Sabha to censure Mr. Desai for “false statements” about his son’s connections made to the House and also to censure the Prime Minister for not having dismissed Mr. Desai on that account. In rejecting Mr. Limaye’s motion by an impressive 193-57 majority, the Lok Sabha has cleared Mr. Desai of the charges levelled against him and has accepted his explanation of his son’s business activities. This should end the matter, but will it?
Persons in position of high authority should be doubly careful to see they do not give any room for the public to look askance at their record. Caesar’s wife should not only be above suspicion but should be seen to be so. Both the Prime Minister and Acharya Kripalani emphasised this point during the Lok Sabha debate, when the former said, “We all agree that while there is no bar to sons carrying on business, there is as much obligation on such relatives as on the Ministers themselves that there is no occasion for any doubt to be raised that the relationship is utilised for the advancement of any business interests” and the latter said that in public affairs “we have not only to be correct but have to appear to be correct before the public”. This dictum is applicable to all persons occupying responsible positions whether Ministers or career officials, at the Centre or in the States. It cannot be denied that public confidence in our administrators has been at a low ebb lately. There have been so many proven cases of maladministration, corrupt practices, official toleration of indiscipline at various levels of society and so on that the rest of the world is even beginning to have doubts if India is a “going concern”. The Kantilal episode would have served a very useful purpose if it contributes to making public life in India cleaner. As for Mr. Morarji Desai’s particular problem, while there can no longer be any doubt after the Lok Sabha’s verdict that he did his best to ensure his son did not stray from the straight and narrow path, his own hands will be strengthened for the future if he separated his son from the semi-official status of personal secretary (to the Deputy Prime Minister, it should be remembered) that he now enjoys.
It is one of Parliament’s important functions to act as a watchdog of the activities of the Executive and it is to the credit of the Opposition that it has ever kept a vigilant eye open in this respect. But the rub comes when members succumb to the temptation to overplay the watchdog role and begin to chase the political will-o’-the-wisps. The valuable time of Parliament gets wasted in the process and that can never be in the national interest. This has happened all too often during the past few years and parliamentary business has been held up by diversionary political cross-plays. Surely Parliament, should address itself to the more pressing problems on its hands. Among these may be mentioned the Bill to ban company donations to political parties, measures to curb communalism and to check floor-crossing by legislators, the proposals for reorganisation of Assam and the amendment of the Inter-State Waters Disputes Act. Four weeks have already passed since the current six-week monsoon session began and much of the legislative business on the agenda still remains to be completed.
“The present position of weakness and abject dependence on the party’s traditional opponents for sheer survival may and should move the Prime Minister to have worthwhile second thoughts on the entire tragic episode. The history of the country is replete with instances of one of the protagonists of an internal quarrel preferring to play into the hands of an outsider with calamitous consequences. Now that Mrs. Gandhi has to woo one opposition or the other for merely staying in office, is it so difficult for her to ask herself whether it is not easier to make up with her erstwhile party colleagues, men and women who have suffered and sacrificed to win freedom and build up the organisation, than to court the party’s sworn opponents?”
NOVEMBER 18, 1969
Congress vs. Congress
THE GRIM GAME OF NUMBERS HAS BEEN PLAYED OUT AND IT has become clear that there are at least 60 Congress members of the Lok Sabha who have firmly backed the decision of the “old guard” to come down uncompromisingly on indiscipline in high places. With these members no longer behind Mrs. Indira Gandhi in a House of 522, of which the original Congress strength was 282, her Government has been reduced to a minority government since the support of at least 262 members is needed for an absolute majority. Though a combined Opposition vote to defeat the Government may not materialise soon, because of the individual predisposition of the various Opposition parties and perhaps of their anxiety to avoid another election as long as possible, it is an inescapable fact that Mrs. Gandhi’s Ministry can hereafter exist only by courtesy of the Communists. There will, of course, be the price to pay for such support on every crucial occasion, a price that may often make a mockery of the avowed policy commitments of the Prime Minister’s group and compel the Government to engage continuously in horsetrading. Is it for this position of perpetual weakness from which to herald her brave new world of dynamic change that the Prime Minister so assiduously worked all these weeks?
Now that the big break in the Congress has occurred and each side in the grand old party sits apart in the Lok Sabha, this may really be the time for the bitter contenders to pause and take stock of their doings and the consequences. To the onlooker, Mrs. Gandhi’s over-reactions ever since the majority decision of the Congress Parliamentary Board at Bangalore on the party’s Presidential nominee have been hard to understand.. She had her way when she wanted Dr. Zakir Hussain for the Presidentship on an earlier occasion. If every time she must have her way in such matters, is it her contention that the Congress Parliamentary Board, a democratically constituted party body is to be only a rubber stamp of the Prime Minister? The point we seek to make is that her decision which resulted in the bringing down of the whole edifice of her party on this one issue, was destined to do only incalculable harm all round. If her concern was really for a dynamic economic programme, was that not the one issue on which every section of the party, the “old guard” and the Young Turks alike, was equally committed, as the unanimous approval of her “stray thoughts” and the 10-point programme showed? None takes seriously the veneer of ideological ideological differences that has been sought to be applied to the naked power struggle.
It could be that one of the motivations of her recent actions leading to the ultimate split was based on a feeling that the “old guard” had become dissatisfied with her leadership and had decided to replace her sooner or later. No one need deny her exalted sense of mission for initiating and carrying through the changes that the country badly needs — and so of her desire to stay in power at any cost to fulfil that role. Even Mrs. Gandhi’s bitter opponents may concede that principles apart, she has demonstrated a new grit and capacity to live with crisis that can be assets in a leader. Tactical though it may be, her open commitment to implement the accepted Congress policy to which some of the “old guard” are even more inexorably wedded, may also qualify her for the leadership of the party more than ever before.
The present position of weakness and abject dependence on the party’s traditional opponents for sheer survival may and should move the Prime Minister to have worth-while second thoughts on the entire tragic episode. The history of this country is replete with instances of one of the protagonists of an internal quarrel preferring to play into the hands of an outsider with calamitous consequences. Now that Mrs. Gandhi has to woo one Opposition party or the other for merely staying in office, is it so difficult for her to ask herself whether it is not easier to make up with her erstwhile party colleagues, men and women who have suffered and sacrificed to win freedom and build up the organisation, than to court the party’s sworn opponents?
Hopeless as it may appear at this late hour, this may yet be the moment for both sides to see the utter unwisdom of this suicidal split and the wisdom of getting together again in the interests of a stable government at the Centre and for the firm pursuit of progressive policies that everyone swears by. Having launched on one wrong step after another, obviously in a panicky sense of insecurity, it will be upto the Prime Minister to make some concessions – for she alone is in a position to do so effectively – if the breach is to be closed. It may, of course, take a Mahatma Gandhi to confess to a Himalayan blunder and retrace faulty steps. If Mrs. Gandhi can still free herself from those around her (intent for their own ends or on settling old scores) who are leading her up the garden path and muster the moral stature to undo the recent past of her making, she could still emerge as a real leader. That would also bring back stability at the Centre and the climate and the freedom from perpetual coalitionist politics, necessary for purposeful action. Her oft-advertised concern for the poor of this land cannot be sustained by stray sniping at the haves or other desperate policies that her government would be driven to in the face of proddings all round to prove her bona fides. It can be shown only by intelligent and well-planned activation of economic growth which, alas, has already become the first casualty of the continuing power struggle. So the real test of Mrs. Gandhi’s professions will be her ability to arm herself with the strength to govern with purpose, by re-uniting the entire party. The alternative may well be the fall of her government during the Budget session of Parliament, if not in the present one followed by elections, in which a disgusted people may say “A plague on both houses”.
“It will take some time for millions of earth dwellers to realise the full significance of the fact that human beings like themselves have actually set foot on the moon, that familiar heavenly body which has been celebrated in poetry and legend for thousands of years as a symbol of inaccessible beauty.”
JULY 22, 1969
Giant Leap for Mankind
IN HIS ETERNAL DRIVE FOR ENLARGING HIS FRONTIERS OF knowledge and environment man has made many dramatic advances in the past but they all pale into secondary importances before the epic feat of Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin who landed on the moon last night and after a successful visit are now heading back for home. The whole world applauds their achievement which is also the achievement of American science and technology. Neil Armstrong described his first short step on the moon’s surface as a giant leap for mankind and President Nixon has pointed out that the heavens have now become a part of man’s world. It will take some time for millions of earth-dwellers to realise the full significance of the fact that human beings like themselves have actually set foot on the moon, that familiar heavenly body which has been celebrated in poetry and legend for thousands of years as a symbol of inaccessible beauty. In fact, the physical environment of the moon is a cruel and hostile one for living beings, since there is no air or water there and no gradations of light and shade. Some have questioned the value of sending men to risk their lives to land on so hostile a shore. But the scientists assure us that the exploration of the moon will unfold many secrets of the universe and that of a moon landing may also prove to be the first milestone on the road to the remote world of the stars.
In any case the conquest of space (for the moon is 238,000 miles distant from the earth) has called for an effort of technique that has stretched scientific capacity to the utmost. The Apollo Project started by President Kennedy eight years ago has called for the labour of some half a million American scientists and laboratories as well as the manufacturing capacities of 20,000 industrial firms. The present head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Mr. Paine, believes that the cost of space flights will fall in the future and that research stations and observatories can be set up on the moon without heavy expenditure. In characteristic American fashion he holds out the prospect of cheap space travel for everyone in the coming decades.
The tremendous effort put out by the United States in the last eight years to make a touch-down on the moon was, of course, provoked by the successful Russian launching of Sputniks and the pioneering orbital flight of Yuri Gagarin. There were a number of failures of American rockets before the technique was finally mastered. Now the Americans have landed men on the moon, while the Soviet Union has not been able to do more than circle the moon with an unmanned satellite. It is rather unfortunate that Moscow has proved unwilling to inform Washington about the purpose of its latest lunar mission (Luna 15) so as to remove any misapprehension about the purpose of that flight. Yet the element of competition between the two leading industrial powers was no doubt essential to the moon project, as was the rivalry between Spain and Portugal in the days when both were trying to circumnavigate the globe.
While the rest of mankind will applaud the message on the plaque that has been left on the moon which reads. “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind”, the fact remains that the rivalry of nations is still the strongest spur to daring expeditions of the kind that has been accomplished. There are eight planets and some thirty moons in the solar system that are yet unexplored by man and the race will probably continue. The advantage of the American triumph has been the global transmission of information about every stage of the flight to millions of television-viewers and radio listeners. There has been no break in communication, both of voice and vision, between the earth and the men on the moon. The world has shared the experience of the astronauts and rejoiced in their epic achievement.
“In this tropical country, it is considered sound socialistic policy to deny the people what little science and technology offer to mitigate the rigours of heat and promote productive work. Air conditioning, for instance, which should be brought within reach of every office and factory and home by cheap mass production and even state subsidy is deemed a luxury and sought to be taxed out. And so it goes on in this ancient country of ours and it may go on being ancient, as the cycle of summer and winter marks the passing years of planned deprivation.”
MAY 22, 1970
Toll of the heat wave
THEY SAY IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS. HOW ONE WISHES IT does now. For what is worse is that it never shines but it scorches. Especially in May, the month of the dog days. And this year is said to be the most scorching ever in fifty years. The rising toll of deaths from sunstroke in many States, from distant Bihar all the way west across Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat and down south across Vidarbha and Andhra Pradesh, indeed bears grim and ample testimony to it. As many as 650 are reported dead while the number of those on the brink in hospitals is countless, as the merciless heat mows down more and more straining the over-stretched resources of those institutions. Such casualties are but part of the sad story. Thousands in parched Rajasthan clamour for water to drink, since the lakes and tanks and wells have gone dry. And in some places in Central India, the worst is yet to come, as the hottest part of the year is still ahead.
May be that unlike unemployment or starvation deaths, one cannot blame the Government for this seasonal visitation. The weather still defies science and the satellite has yet to be launched that can eclipse the angry sun. But is there nothing that can be done about it, beyond the numerical solace of the euphemistic metric system that puts the mounting temperature in the forties, when it is really a burning 110 or more? Not a year has passed without its toll of deaths from sunstroke and yet have the people been told effectively about the elementary precautions to be adopted, such as consuming some extra salt to offset its hazardous loss in perspiration? And how many of the toilers on the roads (so bereft of shady avenue trees) can boast of a pair of chappals or some headgear to ward off the heat? As for water even to drink, what a shame that two decades of planning have still left thousands of villages without dependable supplies!
Perhaps one has to sweat it all out, until the monsoon sets in again, quenching the thirsty earth and reviving man and beast. But cannot one expect that the governments in the States and at the Centre also will not forget that every coming year will have its hot summer and whatever could be done to make the next one at least less unendurable should be thought of. What the country loses is not merely so many lives. The entire work of the nation in factory and office is slowed down during the summer months, as the heat enervates and immobilises all. But in this tropical country, it is considered sound socialistic policy to deny the people what little science and technology offer to mitigate the rigours of heat and promote productive work. Air-conditioning, for instance, which should be brought within reach of every office and factory and home by cheap mass production and even State subsidy is deemed a luxury and sought to be taxed out. And so it goes on in this ancient country of ours, and it may go on being ancient, as the cycle of summer and winter marks the passing years of planned deprivation. It is some consolation perhaps that since the sizzling days are with us now, the monsoon cannot be far behind.
“The independent newspapers in general have become the favourite whipping boy of politicians, high and low, during recent years. ‘Commitment is the catchword of the new political genus of self-styled socialist revolutionaries and opportunist politicians. The democracy they would like to order for the country is one with a ‘committed judiciary, a ‘committed’ press and a ‘committed’ what you will, in short a ‘commitment all round, except ‘commitment by themselves to preserve all the liberties that go to make a democratic society.”
JANUARY 24, 1971
Pressures on the press
THE LETTERS FROM READERS WHICH APPEAR ON THIS PAGE – they are only a sampling of a large number we have received – throw timely light on the pressures which independent newspapers like THE HINDU have to cope with even in a democratic country like India. The pressures come not only from politicians but also from governments and are aimed at forcing the newspapers to toe their particular lines. These pressures whose intensity seems to grow or lessen according to the fluctuations in the fortunes of the political parties and governments concerned, are sometimes exerted subtly, at other times blatantly. It has been THE HINDU’s lot to experience the latter variety of pressure in recent days. Some observant readers have not failed to notice the sudden drying up of Tamil Nadu Government advertising in THE HINDU during the past few days and have wondered if it could have anything to do with an editorial we wrote on January 5 last under the title “D.M.K. takes the Plunge”. We have of course no way of knowing why exactly the Government decided to depart from usual practice and curtail its advertising in our paper but the sequence of developments would seem to indicate that the editorial has had a bearing, as some readers suspect, on the Government’s decision. On the very next day after the editorial appeared the Government, to our surprise, cancelled all the advertisements it had booked in advance with the paper. On our taking the issue up with the Director of Information and Publicity, two of the cancelled advertisements were re-released but the Government seems to have decided that THE HINDU shall not have the same number of advertisements as its contemporaries, though it did enjoy parity till the other day. And the Government’s classified advertisements stayed switched off till January 22, after which date one has trickled in. We are yet to receive the clarification we sought from the Chief Minister of the reasons for the Government’s sudden decision to taper off its advertising in our columns. We are of course not the first newspaper in the country to be subjected to this kind of governmental pressure. Some other State Governments in recent years have also tried it against newspapers in their region that were critical of the official policy. There is perhaps no government in the world which does not wish that the entire press should support its policies. But a government using its official machinery as a lever for influencing editorial opinion of newspapers is quite different and serious matter. It is uncondonable in a democratic society.
As for the Tamil Nadu Congress (R) President, Mr. R. V. Swaminathan’s diatribe the other day against THE HINDU, the “Indian Express” and the “Dinamani” for their not having given his party’s election propaganda meetings as much space and prominence as he would have liked and his threat that they would be “crushed” after the elections if they did not mend their ways, this too is not the first instance of a frustrated politician venting his spleen on the independent press. Some D.M.K. leaders also have lately been making similar attacks at public meetings. This is a disturbing trend. Such attacks may pay some shortterm dividends but they are bound to prove not only counter-productive in the long run but also destroy the fabric of orderly society. The independent newspapers in general have become the favourite whipping boy of politicians, high and low during recent years. “Commitment” is the catchword of the new political genus of self-styled socialist revolutionaries and opportunist politicians. The democracy they would like to order for the country is one with a “committed” judiciary, a “committed” press and a “committed” what you will, in short, a “commitment” all round, except “commitment” by themselves to preserve all the liberties that go to make a democratic society. Mr. Swaminathan’s tirade against the three newspapers could have been brushed aside as the outburst of what one of our readers, in a letter we published the other day, described as an “inconsequential politician” but for the fact that the Prime Minister and others who shared the dais with him at the Madras meeting and who spoke later said nothing to dissociate themselves from his views. This causes some concern. Could it mean that they concurred with what he said? If they did, Indian democracy is indeed at a dangerous pass.
A free press is as essential a limb of democracy as a parliament freely elected by the people or an independent judiciary. When political parties and governments set out to frighten the press into conformity, it is not press freedom alone that they are trying to cut down but it is democracy itself that they are out to subvert. If newspapers that do not follow a particular party’s line are threatened with extinction, it is logical to wonder if the people who do not vote for that party will also face a similar fate should that party come to power.
It is to the credit of Indian public opinion that despite the sustained campaign mounted against the independent newspapers by some politicians, parties and governments, these newspapers have continued to function freely, thus enabling press freedom to flourish. It is in the hands of the people essentially that the future of our democracy lies. As long as they remain vigilant and zealous in safeguarding all their rights, democracy will be safe, politicians and governments notwithstanding. But only so long as they remain so.
“Rajaji was a man of strong convictions and never hesitated to fight for them, regardless of the consequences for his own political fortunes. This often made him a controversial figure, but he emerged from every political tussle he was involved in and even from some political mistakes he made all the more respected for the courage of his convictions. For in no circumstance was his integrity suspected.’
DECEMBER 26, 1972
Rajaji
IT WILL BE HARD FOR MANY PEOPLE TO BELIEVE THAT RAJAJI is dead. He had been so intimate a part of the national scene for so long and every minute of his 94 years was so crammed with meaningful activity and intellectual vitality that the public had come to look upon him as something eternal. South India has produced many illustrious sons in this century but none for whom can be claimed the national status that Rajaji achieved. Political and social revolutionary, freedom fighter, administrator, crusader for causes, religious teacher, national leader, voice of conscience, his was a many splendoured life. And in every field he walked, he has left his unique mark.
Rajaji started his adult life as a small town lawyer and was well and fast on his way to the top of the profession when a meeting with Mahatma Gandhi at Madras proved a turning point in his life, leading to his throwing himself heart and soul into the national struggle for freedom. His association with Gandhiji developed through the years into such a close, give-and-take relationship that it became difficult to distinguish who was the mentor and who the follower. Not that they were always of the same mind. Indeed they differed on some issues of vital significance to the national cause. As for instance in 1942 when Gandhiji proposed his “Quit India” movement, Rajaji opposed the whole idea and walked out of the Congress when it endorsed Gandhiji’s programme. He similarly took issue with Gandhiji and other colleagues on the issue of the Muslim League’s demand for a separate State. He suggested that they should accept Pakistan in principle and call Mr. Jinnah’s bluff by asking him to define it; and he parted company again with the Congress when it rejected this counsel. But differences like this never came in the way of the respect Gandhiji had for Rajaji’s integrity and honesty of purpose and vice versa. On the other hand, Gandhiji came to look upon him as his “conscience keeper”, to use the Mahatma’s own words.
Rajaji was a man of strong convictions and never hesitated to fight for them, regardless of the consequences for his own political fortunes. This often made him a controversial figure, but he emerged from every political tussle he was involved in and even from some political mistakes he made all the more respected for the courage of his convictions. For in no circumstance was his integrity suspect. But it was his integrity and intellect of the highest order that sometimes got him into political hot water. He could not suffer fools nor could he countenance corruption and such other human foibles.
In an age when many people go into politics for the loaves and fishes it offers, Rajaji’s strict code of conduct and the uncompromising way he enforced it when he was in power created for him many gnawing enemies whom he could have coped with had he been a man of the masses, like Jawaharlal Nehru or Sardar Patel. He had therefore, no second line of defence, namely, the people, to fall back upon, and more than once he found himself a lonely Casabianca facing the fire. It is true he held some of the highest offices in the land but the lack of a mass base and his distaste for political intrigues and manoeuvres made politics impermanent for him. But that never seemed to bother him.
To him politics was not simply the art of the possible. It was a road for bettering the life of the people, a road paved with high moral standards and he could not bring himself to acquiesce in any lowering of those standards. The decay in moral and political standards in the country during the last decade caused him much anguish and when he saw that the citizen’s fundamental rights were also in danger of being whittled away he started a new political party. Swatantra. If nothing substantial came of it during his lifetime it certainly was not-for any want of his trying.
Rajaji’s outstanding role in the winning of independence, his achievements as law-maker and as administrator, his contribution to the sum of human thought all need no enumeration here. His Catholicism, his familiarity with both Indian and Western thought and his towering intellect helped him span the generations and always to keep in the mainstream of world movements. Since politics was his main preoccupation, he no doubt had his full quota of critics. But as Mr. Krishna Menon said in a 93rd birthday tribute last year, “Rajaji, whatever his politics, will live in history as a great patriot and scholar and thinker” and he will be remembered as “one of the great men of our time, whose contributions to history and to Indian nationalism, gigantic as they are, have to be fully known and appreciated hereafter”. With his death, the last of that legendary group of shining patriots who led our country to Independence is gone and the country is very much poorer for it. We may not see the likes of him again for a long, long time to come.
“The Executive and Parliament have unmistakably been invested with the power of a giant. The hope is that they will not exercise that power like a giant. It has to be used, as Justices Hegde and Mukherjee have pointed out, in a manner that gives no room for legitimate complaint that it was exercised with an evil eye or an uneven hand. The ultimate guarantor of such fair application of power is, of course, the people.”
APRIL 26, 1973
Supreme Court’s judgement
I HE MAJORITY VERDICT OF THE 13-JUDGE BENCH OF THE SUPREME Court on Parliament’s power to amend any provision of the Constitution and on certain related matters will have a mixed reception among the people. Many will feel that the long struggle of great and selfless national leaders to secure for the people not only Independence but also a stable constitutional framework that would ensure for them the basic human rights which could not be withdrawn under any circumstances has after all become all but vain within less than three decades of such free existence. The architects of the Constitution most of whom were also the fighters in the battle for freedom from foreign rule had no doubts about what they wanted the Fundamental Rights enshrined in the Constitution to be. Their intentions were crystallised in what Jawaharlal Nehru himself told the Constituent Assembly. He spoke of those Rights as “something that you want to make permanent in the Constitution”, and in saying so, he was but in line with the considered opinion of the free world’s great jurists. “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights”, in the words of Justice Jackson of the U.S. Supreme Court, “was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the Courts. One’s right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to the vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections”. The point is further brought out in the statement of Justice Frankfurter that “man being what he is, cannot safely be trusted with complete immunity from outward responsibility in depriving others of their rights”. And that is the very rationale of a Bill of Rights which seeks to protect the people against “all kinds of fanatics and extremists, none of whom can be trusted with unlimited power over others”. Such protection can by no means lie in their forbearance, but has to be ensured by the limitations wisely imposed by the Constitution.
And yet it is such violations of basic human rights, which had to be prevented or thwarted through the specific enunciation of some clauses in our Constitution, that were sought to be given full approval by certain of the recent Constitution amendments. Those who argue that the hands of coming generations cannot be permanently fettered by any Constitutional restrictions forget that there are certain basic human values that no generation can deny, if they would still be deemed a part of a civilised society. It is in the light of those inviolable guidelines that the attempts to whittle down the basic rights and the majority verdict of the Supreme Court have to be viewed. The 13 Judges have been unanimous in reversing the earlier ruling in what is known as the Golaknath Case and upholding the power of Parliament to amend any part of the Constitution, thereby validating the 24th Amendment to the Constitution. But the more important feature is that nine of the Judges have done so with the vital reservation that this power to amend even the Fundamental Rights (conferred by Article 368) does not enable Parliament “to alter the basic structure or framework of the Constitution”. What this specific limitation imposed by the majority of the Judges means in practice, only time and further battles of writs before the courts can show. But it is still a blessing that the Supreme Court has safeguarded the right to go to it to plead for justice and protection, wherever the executive or Parliament undermines a basic right to such an extent that it amounts to an alteration of the basic structure of the Constitution. By resisting the pointed attempts to deny the jurisdiction of courts in such matters as the Government acquiring a citizen’s property in the public interest for an “amount” and making the whole essay non-justiciable, the majority verdict would seem to have minimised the tyrannical impact of the provision. In the words of Mr. Justice Hegde and Mr. Justice Mukherjee, “while it was no more open to the court to consider whether the amount fixed or to be determined was adequate, it was still open to the court to consider whether the amount in question had been arbitrarily determined or whether the same was an illusory return for the property taken”.
Thus in upholding the validity of both the 24th and 25th Amendments, some limitations at least against the arbitrary exercise of the power to amend the Constitution or to enact confiscatory legislation have been imposed and the power of judicial review retained. These limitations are particularly significant in the partial invalidation of that part of the 25th Amendment which was brought into the Constitution as Article 31-C to confer sweeping powers of legislation even on State legislatures for passing any law infringing Fundamental Rights in the name of implementing the Directive Principles embodied in Article 39(B) and (C). The ruling of the Chief Justice, Mr. Sikri, that Article 31C amounts to indefensible delegation of an amending power that is the prerogative of Parliament to the State legislatures brings out only one of its objectionable features. As such the invalidation of that part of the Article which denies the jurisdiction of the court to go into the legitimacy and bona fides, as it were, of the legislative declaration of intention comes as a silver lining, however thin, in the overhanging clouds of hasty, discriminatory and expropriatory attempts of passing majorities in the legislatures.
The net effect of the rulings of the highest court of the land still amounts to the upholding of a considerable enlargement of the powers of Parliament. But it is not as if the Constitution, even before the 24th and 25th Amendments to it, had not provided for “reasonable restrictions on the citizen’s Fundamental Rights in the public interest. The people may feel that what the government of the day is seeking is not merely the power to impose such reasonable restrictions but even palpably unreasonable ones. It would indeed be unfortunate if that were to come true. The executive and Parliament have unmistakably been invested with the power of a giant. The hope is that they will not exercise that power like a giant. It has to be used, as Justices Hegde and Mukherjee have pointed out, in a manner that gives no room for legitimate complaint that it was exercised with an evil eye or an uneven hand”. The ultimate guarantor of such fair application of power is of course the people. A proper awakening among them has to be persistently promoted by the education of public opinion by the enlightened citizenry all the time, even as the executive and the legislatures are persuaded to take up broad-minded and mature attitudes in their governance of the land. Only that way can the real content of democracy be preserved.
“Is it Mr. Narayan’s democratic’ aim that popular ministries should be replaced by President’s rule until such time the national character undergoes a sea change and produces a new set of highly ethical and able legislators? If corruption and maladministration are what he is up against, one would expect him to lead his followers to unearth hoarded grain and expose corrupt and incompetent men in office through the appropriate or established forums. He may well ask where such forums are that will help him achieve his objective. That might be a tough question to answer. But by bringing down the present elected legislature through demonstrations in the streets does he expect that a successor legislature elected in due course would be free of the ills he wants to eliminate?”
JUNE 11, 1974
Some thoughts for J.P.
IF THE ISSUE IN BIHAR TODAY WERE SIMPLY THE DISMISSAL OF the Ministry and the dissolution of the State legislature, many may agree with Mr. Jaya Prakash Narayan who wants both done. The record of the ruling Congress Legislature Party, with its endless factionalism and the Ministry’s consequent administrative ineffectiveness, would justify the imposition of President’s Rule for a fairly long spell before elections are held again. But for Mr. Narayan’s ill-timed agitation which has made it both an issue of prestige and of democratic propriety for the Government, even the Congress High Command might have come to that decision on its own. Especially as the Supreme Court’s opinion about the validity of the forthcoming Presidential election, with one or more State Legislatures out of existence, no longer imposes a constitutional compulsion to keep the Bihar legislature alive till August 24.
But the real question now is whether a duly elected legislature should be dissolved just because a students’ agitation, however eminently led, demands it. Mr. Narayan, who had so far chosen to remain outside the mainstream of politics and thus shirked his responsibility to shape it and the country’s affairs on what he deems to be sound lines, now seeks to enter the house by the wrong door and even bring it down on the heads of everybody. That a similar agitation got away with it in Gujarat and got the Assembly dissolved is no justification for another such attempt in Bihar. In Gujarat too, fight against high prices and war on corruption in high places were the most prominent slogans. It is doubtful if either battle has been won since the dissolution, though the Ministers are no longer there to be charged with responsibility for them.
Is it Mr. Narayan’s “democratic” aim that popular Ministries should be replaced by President’s Rule until such time the national character undergoes a sea change and produces a new set of highly ethical and able legislators?
If corruption and maladministration are what he is up against, one would expect him to lead his followers to unearth hoarded grain and expose corrupt and incompetent men in office through the appropriate or established forums. He may well ask where such forums are that will help him achieve his objective. That might be a tough question to answer. But by bringing down the present elected legislature through demonstrations in the streets, does he expect that a successor legislature elected in due course, would be free of the ills he wants to eliminate?
Bihar has had perhaps more mid-term elections than any other State in India and governments too of various kinds, both led by Congress and united fronts of the Opposition parties. And all of them have been notorious for the same ills, because the people of Bihar by and large vote on the basis of caste and manage to return more or less the same set of casteminded legislators, many of whom, do not think twice about crossing the floor or plotting against their elected party leaders, for personal benefit. A repetition of the mixture as before can hardly be ruled out in yet another election.
It is being said in defence of Mr. Narayan’s unhappy adventure that one of his aims in launching the agitation is to educate the people politically, so that they will learn to beware of the self-seeking and the corrupt, when they go to the polls next time. What seems more likely is that he may be educating the Biharis in anarchy. His call to the people not to pay taxes and the police to disobey official orders amounts to nothing less. What kind of democracy, of the partyless variety or any other, can he hope to usher in when the people and the officials are taught or asked to run berserk?
If Mr. Narayan’s objective is to show the powers that be that he is still a political force to reckon with, he may have demonstrated it by the one lakh crowd that he was able to mobilise for his recent Patna procession. But if he is keen about rescuing Bihar’s or the country’s politics from its depths and re-shape it to meet the country’s needs, the public would expect him to fight the elections, get the people’s mandate for whatever constructive programme he has to offer and show that the State and the country could be governed better.
From the following that counter-demonstrations to his own could muster, it is clear that even the bulk of the Biharis is not entirely behind his toppling move. It is also clear that what inhibits the Government’s firmer handling of the situation created by him is Mr. Narayan’s undoubted stature as a Gandhian and an upright man. Should he virtually exploit such public standing to usher in what are disorder and disrespect for law and order and the democratic set-up as a whole?
“From the summary (of the judgment) available at the moment it may appear to many that so far-reaching a finding as the unseating of the Prime Minister is based on purely technical grounds which are not substantive and appear rather weak.”
JUNE 13, 1975
Justice Sinha’s verdict
THE SETTING ASIDE OF THE ELECTION OF THE PRIME MINISTER, Mrs. Indira Gandhi to the Lok Sabha is bound to be startling in its countrywide impact. Mr. Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court who delivered the judgment on Thursday in an election petition filed by Mr. Raj Narain, M.P., has also debarred Mrs. Gandhi from contesting any election under the Representation of the People Act for a period of six years, on the ground of having been guilty of corrupt practice. The staying of the operation of the judgment for 20 days, however, provides the necessary breather for all concerned to study and analyse the verdict and its consequences and take suitable action.
One would wait for the full version of the lengthy judgment to be able to assess the weighty arguments that shaped it. From the summary available at the moment, it may appear to many that so far-reaching a finding as the unseating of the Prime Minister is based on purely technical grounds which are not substantive and appear rather weak. The learned Judge has readily rejected a number of serious allegations against Mrs. Gandhi, including one of abuse of religious sentiments (by using the cow-and-calf election symbol) to influence the voters and another of obtaining the assistance of the armed forces of the Union to further her election prospects, because she had used an IAF plane to fly to Lucknow on a date related to the election. Mr. Justice Sinha has also found that the posting of police along the routes taken by the Prime Minister and at meeting places was in the normal discharge of governmental duties to maintain law and order. What is more, the security of the Prime Minister’s person is of paramount national concern and has to be ensured at all times, whether she goes about electioneering on her own behalf or in the discharge of the duties of her high office. After all this, it does appear surprising that the learned judge should deem the construction of rostrums by the UP Government officials being on a different footing”, enabling Mrs. Gandhi to address meetings “from a dominating position”, and to consider it a corrupt practice, serious enough to warrant the invalidation of the election that was won not narrowly but by a massive margin. To the people at large who have watched a succession of general elections and also the many abuses of the official machinery by the ruling parties at the time in different States, like getting officials to canvass votes directly and to hold out official favours to a particular village, town or other group of persons or even threats of official displeasure for that purpose, the technical violation involved in the erection of rostrums and supplying electricity to enable a candidate to do nothing more corrupt than talk openly to the people is bound to be amusing to say the least. It seems, according to Mr. Justice Sinha, that it is not incorrect in terms of the law for the Prime Minister to use an IAF plane at great expense for electioneering (of course on payment) and at Government cost with battalions of the State Government’s policemen providing the stipulated security arrangements at the venue but it is crucially illegal on her on her part to ascend a rostrum, albeit constructed by the officials, and address the meeting.
As unconvincing may appear the other ground on which Mrs. Gandhi’s election has been held to be vitiated, namely, her acceptance of the services of Mr. Yashpal Kapoor for her election, when he was a gazetted officer of the Central Government. From the known facts it is obvious that Mrs. Gandhi was keen that Mr. Kapoor should resign from Government service if he was equally anxious to do so and had in fact submitted his resignation. The bona fides of the Prime Minister in having Mr- Kapoor as her election agent only after he quit his Government post seem well established. Here again, it has been a technical knock-out hinging on such subtleties as the date of submission of Mr. Kapoor’s resignation and its actual acceptance and the date when Mrs. Gandhi finally made up her mind about contesting from the Rae Bareilly constituency. The intention of the Prime Minister in not permitting an official in harness to work for her in the election and the steps taken to ensure that are quite clear but apparently not good enough in law as it has been interpreted.
There has indeed been widespread concern over the abuses that have crept into the electoral process in this country, like the abuse of governmental power and of the mass media under official control, the grant of election eve largesses to sections of the public by the party in power and above all by the use of gross money power. If the election of a Prime Minister, of all legislators, had been set aside on any one of the above substantive grounds, it could be welcomed as a vindication of democracy. Since it is the content of the electoral law that makes possible a verdict such as in the present case, there is need for a careful scrutiny of the law and its revision to ensure that the real intention behind it is carried out, that as far as possible, purely technical knock-outs, are avoided and that the deliberately errant ones are penalised.
“The Chinese mind has never been easy for anyone to fathom. But it has often happened since the Communists came to power that while Peking has maintained a hostile posture towards another country, it has also at the same time tried to establish a working relationship with that country. There is really no issue outstanding between China and India that needs to be settled immediately. If some formula can be devised by which Peking can grasp, without appearing to make a volte face in policy, the hand of friendship extended by India, the relations between the two are bound to change for the better.”
APRIL 18, 1975
India’s foreign relations
FOREIGN POLICY DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT GENERALLY GENERATE much heat but the latest discussion in the Lok Sabha turned out to be a tame affair. This is not surprising though, for the Opposition really had no issue over which to castigate the Government. India has had a fairly good year in the field of foreign relations and ties have been strengthened with practically all countries, China being the exception. And if there is any cause for disappointment at all it is that normalisation of relations with the United States and Pakistan has not progressed as fast and smoothly as it should have. In the case of the United States, the high hopes raised by Dr. Henry Kissinger’s visit last October soon suffered deflation when the U.S. followed it up by lifting the embargo on arms to Pakistan. The quantity of arms that is likely to be made available to Pakistan may not be much and the Government of India evidently is not too worried on this score. What gave a rude jolt to all those in the Government and outside who were looking forward to a dramatic improvement in Indo-American relations was, as Mr. Chavan pointed out in his reply to the debate in the Lok Sabha, the timing of the lifting of the embargo and the consequential revival of the old concept of creating a balance of power in the sub-continent. Apart from causing a setback to the improvement of Indo-U.S- relations, Washington’s decision has also had the effect of slowing down the process of normalisation of relations with Pakistan. Mr. Chavan has said, with some justification, that improvement of Indo-U.S. relations now depends on the latter’s acceptance “of our national sensitivity”. However, since it takes two to make a friendship, it would be wise for us, in judging American intentions and actions, not to lose our sense of perspective and also not to forget that the U.S. is a global power with global interests. That closer Indo-U.S. co-operation is being forged in the economic, educational and cultural spheres must be taken as an indication that both Governments are anxious not to let differences over the arms issue cloud overall policy.
Notwithstanding Mr. Bhutto’s tantrums and periodic diatribes against India and his fruitless efforts to tarnish India’s image abroad, relations with Pakistan have been inching forward. Apart from Israel, Pakistan is the only country with which India has no diplomatic relations to-day and this situation would have been corrected by this time if Islamabad had only implemented all the elements of the Simla Agreement. Mr. Bhutto has his hands full with domestic problems but can there by any doubt that he will be better able to deal with them once he has ironed out his differences with India and Bangladesh
Mr. Chavan has pointed out that if relations with China have not improved it is not for want of India’s trying. The Chinese mind has never been easy for anyone to fathom. But it has often happened since the communists came to power that while Peking has maintained a hostile posture towards another country, it has also at the same time tried to establish a working relationship with that country. The SinoAmerican detente is an example. There is really no issue outstanding between China and India that needs to be settled immediately. If some formula can be devised by which Peking can grasp, without appearing to make a volte face in policy, the hand of friendship extended by India, the relations between the two are bound to change for the better.
It is natural that both official and Opposition spokesmen should have sung paeans of praise to Russia for the valuable and timely help it has been giving India in various directions. But the danger inherent in becoming too dependent on one source should not be lost sight of. India’s own self-interest lies in maintaining an evenly balanced relationship with all the important powers, particularly the U.S. and Russia. It is towards this end that the Government of India should constantly bend its efforts, and in the final analysis its foreign policy will be judged by the success it achieves in this regard.
“We offer our sympathy to the thousands of people who were helpless victims of the flash flooding of vast areas of the city. We are certain that some at least of their suffering could have been alleviated if our weather forecasters had not been miles off their mark in their predictions.”
NOVEMBER 27, 1976
A few thundershowers indeed!
IN THIS CENTENARY YEAR OF THE INDIAN METEOROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT, we find it difficult to share the official enthusiasm of the Indian weathercocks crowing about their achievements. The IMD’s Director-General three days ago talked of a “percentage improvement” in the accuracy of Indian weather forecasts but this claim does not make scientific sense in the absence of absolute figures on the correctness of predictions. A weather forecast from the Madras Meteorological office, received by us towards 9 p.m. on Tuesday evening, read as follows: “Cloudy, with a few showers or thundershowers towards evening”. And it was said to be valid until Thursday morning. By the time people were reading the forecast in the newspaper on Wednesday morning the city was already being lashed by the fury of heavy showers. And the whole of Wednesday turned out to be a nightmare of torrential rain totalling 45 cms (18 inches) in 24 hours – the heaviest downpour since the beginning of this century! We offer our sympathy to the thousands of people who were helpless victims of the flash flooding of vast areas of the city. We are certain that some at least of their suffering could have been alleviated if our weather forecasters had not been miles off their mark in their predictions. The Municipal Corporation, the Electricity Department, and the officials entrusted with the task of watching the levels of rising rivers and lakes could have been better equipped to face the crisis than they were had there been a reliable early warning.
The Madras forecasters’ failure in their interpretation of the deep depression was total, if they are to be judged by the conclusion they came to on a severe cyclone hitting the coast near Cuddalore.
Writing in THE HINDU some time ago, the Regional Director of the IMD in Madras said: “From the pattern of echoes on the radar screen, it is generally possible to locate the clear area or ‘eye’ at the centre of a storm and by continuous observation the course of movement of the storm can be inferred…. By keeping a continuous watch of the cyclonic storm as seen on the radar scope, a forecaster can provide the public a running commentary of the movements of the cyclone hour to hour”. Cyclone warning radars with a range of 400 kms. exist in Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, Visakhapatnam and Paradeep. If technical equipment was not lacking and was in working order, an alert approach has surely been non-existent. How else can we, in turn, interprete the weather-interpreters’ conclusions? People were anxiously switching on their radios to hear the latest news about what the weather was in store for them and such broadcasts as were made were only repeating the already outdated forecasts made several hours earlier. They had nothing else to go by.
Having predicted a severe cyclone was it not the duty of the meteorological officials to give an “hour to hour” commentary on its movements, departing from their rigid schedules of the usual twice-a-day forecasts so that the radio at least could be up-to-date with the information? In the critical hours of Wednesday, when heavy rainfall was threatening the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the Hyderabad Met. Office seems to have been much closer to the developments than Madras which has more sophisticated weather-watch apparatus.
The weathermen also erred in their long term forecast for this season because the organisers of the final New Zealand India cricket Test match, who had consulted them, had been promised” fair days in Madras during the latter part of November.
The Meteorological Department is busy with its centenary fete, which included the inauguration yesterday of a new multi-storeyed building for it in New Delhi. It is talking of adding new sophisticated equipment to improve the data collection work of the vast organisation. It is also to have the benefit of better communication facilities with its counterpart agencies in other countries and access to more and better cloud pattern analysis pictures from satellites. When will all these be coming? But even if they come soon, they will add up to nought if the ability to coordinate, analyse, interpret, and broadcast information does not improve substantially. Some months ago, a conference of astrologers in Poona decided to set up an “observatory” to issue short and medium range weather forecasts. Nothing more has been heard of this organisation or of any of its bulletins. But the recent performance of the meterological experts does not seem to be of a much higher level than the guesswork which the Poona group may have indulged in.
“The effort to get out of the rut of a particular type of planning now threatens to degenerate into an exercise that bears no relevance to the development needs of a poor country such as India. A correct relation is yet to be established between Industry and Agriculture and among different sections of industry and the contraposing of agriculture (which must undoubtedly be the foundation of India’s national economy for a long time to come with industry (which has already become the leading factor) is unwarranted and most disturbing.”
AUGUST 23, 1977
Decentralisation or economic romanticism?
A MIDST THE DIFFERENCES AT THE TOP LEVEL OF THE RULING party over the basic structure of economic policy – differences which have resulted in postponing the clinching of issues to October – the voice of economic romanticism is clearly identifiable, conjuring visions of a utopia whose guiding principle is the supremacy of small scale production. The differences in the viewpoints expressed in the position paper circulated in the Janata Working Committee on behalf of the party Secretariat and in Mr. Charan Singh’s note on the role of agriculture in economic development are by no means inconsiderable, particularly where they relate to the qualitative aspects of the structure of agrarian relations. Nevertheless, what stands out in both is an attempt to reject the very path of development India has taken since Independence as being incapable of solving the problems of unemployment, mass poverty and low growth rates. While few students of political economy would be inclined to contest the bluntly presented conviction that India’s overall performance has not been good enough and that the whole development effort is caught in a rut, it is the nature of the alternative strategy discussed vaguely that must cause concern.
The key incantation so far as the Janata is concerned is decentralisation of economic and political power – initially promised in the party’s election manifesto. This concept has been variously propounded, referring now to the breaking of the dominance of factory industry, now to the need to draw rural areas more closely into the development effort, now to the dispersal of industry over a wide region, over a backward region and so on. At one extreme in the Janata spectrum of views is the concept of decentralisation that is to be translated into practice by recognising the primacy of agriculture over industry, by changing the balance of allocation of development resources radically in favour of agriculture and at the expense of heavy industry, by reserving industrial production now in the domain of large scale machine, or factory, industry, to the ‘decentralised’ sector, that is, to cottage and small-scale industries, and by allowing big industries to exist on pain of export. Such a development alternative must be characterised as pre-modern and even backward looking not merely because it sees the advance of large scale industry as a curse, not merely because it confuses the overriding centralisation and concentration inherent in the historical evolution of India’s modern industrial structure with its bigness (which is, of course, a relative concept) and not merely because it refuses to see in modern industry man’s great achievements in science, technology and production. From the standpoint of the people, it might appear as a prescription for the continued poverty of India, a blueprint to keep the technical basis of India’s economy primitive and undeveloped and to keep India away from the mainstream of world-wide advances in modern production. It is very much in line with familiar homilies showered on us by certain Western circles some years ago to the effect that a country like India does not need a basis of its own for heavy industry, but can rely on more developed economies to meet its development needs. The line that a large part of India’s factory industry heavy industry, but can rely on more developed economies to meet its development needs. The line that a large part of India’s factory industry must live by exports alone would place the industry and the workers employed at the mercy of international market forces and therefore in an increasingly helpless position. The implication that production for the home market can develop at a primitive technical and organisational level while production for export alone must be efficient and competitive is to turn national development priorities topsy-turvy, is therefore clearly unacceptable to the people.
Somewhere along India’s journey of industrialisation from the time it was wisely observed that once machinery and a network of railways were introduced into a vast country with rich resources there was no question of withholding the development of modern industry which would dissolve the hereditary divisions of labour, the real life prospect of decentralisation and the primacy of small scale production got derailed. The ruination of India’s handicraft and cottage industry was a pre-industrial phenomenon – brought on by the savage thrust of British colonialism in an earlier phase – and the process attained a new force in the second half of the nineteenth century and a new intensity since the end of the first world war. Today, the tenacity of small-scale production in India is an expression not of its innate viability, but of the incompleteness, on account of basic structural reasons, of the industrialisation process itself. It is above all a tribute to the plodding heroism of the working people involved in these sectors who are battling against tremendous odds, but heroism does not guarantee stability over the long term. Protection to the traditional industrial sector against ruinous competition from large scale industry, encouragement of methods involving the greater employment of labour and abjuration of modern methods in the production of certain specified non-essential commodities are welcome short term and transitional measures which will not, however, confer on the ‘decentralised’ sector the boon of happy existence. And this applies as much to agriculture – where Mr. Charan Singh’s strategy for the development of an agrarian structure based on a free-wheeling and highly individualistic ‘peasant proprietorship’ is being discussed – as to the field of industry in which, according to the latest resolution of the Janata Party, “what can be produced by cottage industry shall not be produced by the small scale industry and what can be produced by the small scale sector shall not be open for the large scale industry”.
The effort to get out of the rut of a particular type of planning now threatens to degenerate into an exercise that bears no relevance to the development needs of a poor country such as India. A correct relation is yet to be established between industry and agriculture and among different sectors of industry and the contraposing of agriculture (which must undoubtedly be the foundation of India’s national economy for a long time to come) with industry (which has already become the leading factor) is unwarranted and most disturbing. At a time when the country urgently needs a new planning vision based on alertness to world-wide developments in science and production and on an undogmatic evaluation of resources at the grass roots, the debate on economic policy within the ruling party has ceased to be edifying – since it seems to beg the big question of mobilisation of resources for planning.
Whatever the shape of things to come the orderly and peaceful elections just completed successfully in the world’s largest democracy deserve to be followed by a sober acceptance of the verdict by both the victors and the vanquished. Now is the time for the bitterness of the hot contest to yield for reconciliation and co-operation in grappling with the many pressing problems facing the nation.”
MARCH 22, 1977
The people’s verdict
THE ELECTIONS TO THE SIXTH LOK SABHA HAVE INDEED sprung many surprises, the most unexpected being the defeat of the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, in Rae Bareli, which constituency she has held hitherto with big majorities. With the bulk of the returns already on hand, the emerging trend is clear that the Congress Party’s unbroken rule at the Centre since Independence is about to end, that it has been rejected by a majority of those who voted and that the Janata Party, formed by the get-together of the Jan Sangh, the Congress (O), the Bharatiya Lok Dal, and the SSP is well set to hold the reins of power at the Centre. The same people who massively voted Mrs. Gandhi and her party to power with a two-thirds majority in 1971 have thought it necessary now, with an equal sense of purpose, to deny her even a seat in the Lok Sabha. It is also to be noted that the voters who discounted the Grand Alliance’s slogan of “democracy in danger” in 1971 have this time heeded the same slogan when raised by the Janata Party, a re-incarnation of the same alliance under a new name. Evidently they had reasons to believe that this time the cry had a lot more of substance.
Nevertheless, the impressive and unmistakable success of Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress in the southern States which were exposed to the same Emergency restrictions and the same Janata wave as were the populous (and so decisive) northern States may also help isolate the factor or factors that have pushed the Congress down notwithstanding the perceptible benefits derived by the weaker sections from the implementation of some of the schemes of the Prime Minister’s 20-point programme. It is a pity that the era of press censorship had kept the South (and the higher authorities themselves to an extent) ignorant of the gross excesses of the family planning drive in the Hindi-speaking States and other acts of repression. The southern States, especially Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, have in fact achieved far better results in family planning and brought down the birth-rate to below 30 per thousand, while it still remains around 35 per thousand in Hindispeaking belt. But these results were obtained in the South by a judicious combination of motivation, monetary and other incentives, aftercare of sterilisation acceptors in well-conducted F.P. camps and some element of compulsion even. It is the hurried and immature attempts in the northern States to make up for lost time by the use of indiscriminate strong arm methods for mass compulsory sterilisation that are said to have so roused popular anger in the North against Mrs. Gandhi whether or not she herself had had a hand in the misdeed.
If this is indeed the crucial factor that has so clearly differentiated the verdict of the southern and northern States in the present poll, it is all the same unfortunate that there should occur such a region-wise conflict to preferences. For what becomes very relevant and significant is its possible impact on the unity of approach to national problems, so necessary. With the Janata Party so sparsely represented in the Lok Sabha from the four enlightened southern States, their involvement in the business of the Central Government is bound to suffer from the lack of adequate representation. It is however to be hoped that men of vision and statesmanship will take due cognisance of this new lack of adequate representation. It is however to be hoped that men of vision and statesmanship will take due cognisance of this new developing situation to ensure that the interests of the South would not go by default as a consequence of an entirely unexpected turn of events.
Just now the sixth Lok Sabha appears to advance towards a virtually two-party parliamentary system, if it is indeed a most desirable thing in the evolution of our young democracy. The intensive participation of the bulk of the entire nation in the elections that such unprecedently heavy polling shows, is also a welcome indication of the awareness and alertness of the Indian electorate. For it does serve as a warning to any ruling party that it cannot take the people for granted and that even good intentions (as in the F.P. programme) cannot make up for bad implementation. A great deal depends on whether the Janata Party is going to fulfill its pre-election promise to effect de jure merger of the constituent parties soon after the elections. When it does that, it would have taken the first step towards dispelling genuinely entertained fears of instability at the Centre.
The people have unmistakably shown that the basic purpose of using their vote is to set up good government by returning the ruling coalition in the Kerala Assembly elections with much bigger majority than before. And they have shown themselves to be clearly against the marxists, no doubt because of the feeling that, otherwise, they would be retarding economic progress in the State. The rout of the DMK in Tamil Nadu is also proof that the people cannot be fooled for long. Apart from the findings of the Sarkaria Commission of corruption and misuse of authority by the DMK while in power, Mr. Karunanidhi’s thinly disguised separatist proclivities have surely had everything to do with the overwhelming defeat of the party at the polls. All these developments infuse a heartening confidence in the nation that the ordinary people know how to apply their political prerogatives.
It is of course too early to say what the impact of the Lok Sabha poll results is likely to be on the party alignments in the State Assemblies and the possible changes in governmental set-up. The coming months may hold many more surprises. Whatever the shape of things to come, the orderly and peaceful elections just completed successfully in the world’s largest democracy deserve to be followed by a sober acceptance of the verdict by both the victors and the vanquished. Now is the time for the bitterness of the hot contest to yield for reconciliation and co-operation in grappling with the many pressing problems facing the nation. The ruling party and the Opposition are but two essential limbs of governance. The people do expect them to establish new conventions and practices for the constructive functioning of the two houses of Parliament.
“In the new year the single most important characteristic of the political situation is the instability and uncertainty in relation to basic questions that have been brought into sharp relief by the third major split of the Indian National Congress in its 92-year old history. Both Congressmen and Janataites have been given much food for thought. The way they act and decide on issues in the coming months will be closely watched by the people.”
JANUARY 4, 1978
The meaning of this split
HISTORY, IT HAS BEEN OBSERVED, REPEATS ITSELF IN A DISCONCERTING fashion – the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. If the 1969 split in the Indian National Congress contained, for Congressmen and well-wishers of that party, elements of the tragic, the 1978 split reveals unmistakably farcical characteristics. For how else is one to comprehend the various claims and noises made at the “National Convention of Congressmen” that concluded recently? The forces that assembled at Delhi in defiance of a specific party appeal dedicated themselves, by verbal tricks and political sleight of hand, to restoring coherence, direction and unitariness to the political process of the country; to championing the interests of the “downtrodden” and of minorities; to providing strong and patriotic leadership, and incredible as it may sound, to refurbishing democratic political culture. The nature and quality of their programme were expressed, above all, in the act of declaring Mrs. Indira Gandhi – beyond the slightest regard for legality, constitutionality and party procedure – the Congress President. All this signifies that the forces of different complexion that have banded together as followers of Mrs. Gandhi have adopted the strategy of going to the people openly – in contrast to the hesitant and ambiguous official, Congress leadership – in defence of Emergency. Not merely is there no trace of remorse for the towering wrongs done to the nation during the regime, there is social blindness and arrogance at large, reflected in the statement on the real cause of the defeat, viz., the reactionary combine of internal and external forces”. The outlook of Mrs. Gandhi and her henchmen who have captured an unknown part of the Congress Party organisation is blatant. It is to prey upon the complex and uncertain developing situation of the present in order to develop muscle of disruption in the country. No other interpretation can be placed on the political resolution and speeches that rattled at the Delhi convention.
While it will be a mistake to think that Mrs. Gandhi’s group has no real capacity for political mischief, it is well to remember that the present political situation is basically different from the situation that enabled her line to mislead and snare the people in the late sixties. Demagogy practised from the gadi is very different from demagogy practised in a period of political defeat and exposure. It is the deep-going process of exposure taking place before the Shah Commission and the other commissions investigating Emergency misdeeds that explains the desperation, the panic, the stridency that characterise the tactics of Mrs. Gandhi and her entourage.
An analysis of the overall political development of the country during the last decade highlights the following realities. The first reality is that the 1978 split is an advanced development and working out of the process of differentiation within the Congress Party that began some years ago, in response to what was at that time claimed (many would say, falsely) to be live ideological issues and in response to the opposition generated against the inability of the ruling party to solve concrete problems of the people concretely. This does not, of course, mean that any real “politics of conviction” motivated, and issued from the 1969 split. Political, factional and personal factors contributed to the emergence of two lines within the ruling camp at that time, one of which went successfully to the people on a platform of populism and demagogy – which is, after all, the art of playing upon the misery, the feelings, the sentiments of the “downtrodden” while maintaining the existing state of affairs and, more particularly, one’s own sway over everything that matters. The second reality is that if Mrs. Gandhi’s group got the upper hand at a particular juncture for a host of socio-economic, ideological and political reasons, the opposition to her hold gained ground rapidly throughout the Seventies culminating in the Emergency experience and the electoral trouncing last March. The “politics of conviction” so ceremoniously propounded by Mrs. Gandhi in 1969 was gradually undone, as is clear now, on account of its own internal stresses and contradictions, its unaccountable inaction in the matter of offering positive policies, its authoritarian tendency in party and government. It is equally clear that those in the official Congress cannot wash their hands off their own responsibility for the condition that enabled a small coterie of power-wielders to run amok and smother the natural urges of democratic life. The third reality is that the political conglomerate that has replaced the Congress at the Centre has not shown itself capable, so far, of solving the basic problems of the country that eventually got the better of the Congress. The Janata Party has failed to provide imaginative and constructive solutions to these. It has been tormented by internal strife and factionalism and is still to work out for itself an effective policy framework. The Janata Government has failed to overcome the serious weakness injected into the body politic by the polarisation of electoral results between the North and the South; it has by its structure and functioning laid itself wide open to the charge that it is basically a party of one zone of the country which ipso facto becomes neglectful of the interests of the other, the South. While taking note of the split in the Congress – which should, in the coming weeks and as the Assembly elections draw near, push the official Congress group closer to the Janata Party – it must not be forgotten that the issues of poverty, deprivation, atrocities on Harijans, linguistic inequality, self-reliance and neglect of the South do not become unreal and discredited just because Mrs. Gandhi’s camp may choose to adopt them demagogically. They are very real and cannot be tackled promptly and competently unless the Centre acts in close concert with the States, for which an essential pre-condition is the effort to establish greater cohesion among all parts of the federal set-up of the country. In the new year, the single most important characteristic of the political situation is the instability and uncertainty in relation to basic questions that have been brought into sharp relief by the third major split of the Indian National Congress in its 92-year old history. Both Congressmen and Janataites have been given much food for thought. The way they act and decide on issues in the coming months will be closely watched by the people.
“The most precious asset for THE HINDU over its first century has been the heart warming expression of public confidence in the relevance and integrity of its role in national and social life. This has been a source of sustenance in times of trial and the real inspiration for development in the long-term. Just as it gave the strength to the newspaper to survive the numerous trials and challenges thrown onto its path of growth by the colonial authorities it has enabled it to withstand constraints and pressures from various quarters after Independence”.
SEPTEMBER 5, 1978
A Hundred Years
FOR A NEWSPAPER, A CENTURY IS A MEMORABLE MILESTONE in an exciting, ongoing adventure. Since that day a hundred years ago when six young men, fired by the ardent spirit of patriotism and fresh out of college, ran 80 copies off a treadle machine in Triplicane, Madras, after seeking the aid of friends to raise the rupee and three-quarters needed to buy paper, the character of the newspaper, its physical and social environment and the world at large have changed a great deal. The nation has won freedom – along with numerous other developing countries and gone on into a totally new era of development. Momentous changes have taken place in the fields of economy, politics, social life, culture and scientific and intellectual development and these have had their impact on the general condition of the people. The rapid advance of science and technology, in particular, has opened up bright prospects for making the earth a better place to live in and raising the quality of life of the people. The world of communication has been revolutionised, leading to speedier, more accurate, more sophisticated and on the whole better methods of processing and disseminating information about nature and society. These transformations have brought about enormous and yet-to-be-fully comprehended changes in the scope, approach and technique of journalism.
The most precious asset for THE HINDU over its first century has been the heart-warming expression of public confidence in the relevance and integrity of its role in national and social life. This has been a source of sustenance in times of trial and the real inspiration for development in the long term. Just as it gave the strength to the newspaper to survive the numerous trials and challenges thrown onto its path of growth by the colonial authorities, it has enabled it to withstand constraints and pressures from various quarters after Independence. During a particularly trying period, on June 4, 1919 to be exact, a resolution by the citizens of Madras that “public confidence in the policy of THE HINDU continues undiminished provided a strong boost to the newspaper’s confidence in itself. To-day, on this solemn occasion, it has become clearer to us than ever before that it is the happy and stable relationship between the newspaper and the public – reflected in the large and enthusiastic response to this occasion – that is the real guarantee of its future. THE HINDU is honoured that the President, Mr. Neelam Sanjiva Reddi, has inaugurated the centenary celebrations with an inspiring message and that a very large number of distinguished men and women in public life, as well as representatives of the general public, have joined in its happiness and shared its sense of fulfilment.
Such a relationship with society is guided on our side by the desire to put the criterion of public purpose at the centre of our practice of journalism. For nearly seven of the ten decades of its existence, THE HINDU made its own contribution to the Indian people’s struggle for freedom. After Independence, it has had to function in a greatly transformed situation, with new perspectives and tasks. One of the key changes in its role has been professionalisation. In the early days, those who came to serve this newspaper entered a vocation and an opportunity to make their own contribution to the fight for freedom. Today, THE HINDU is part of a well-established profession where journalistic and technical competence has to be matched, in ways better than we know today, by new kinds of commitment to the public interest.
Practice over many a long and significant decade has made the Indian press conscious that public purpose encompasses a broad-based approach to national responsibility as well as larger and growingly complex social concerns. In our own practice national responsibility has come to mean a striving, in policy and principle, to help safeguard the independence and integrity of the nation. It has meant rising above narrow, sectional and sectarian concerns and forming and developing a well-rounded national approach. Such an approach is important at all times, but it becomes crucially important during times such as the present when what is public interest itself becomes the focus of acute contention from many sides. It might be contended perhaps that these consequences are inevitable in a developing society, especially as they have proved unavoidable in many developed societies also. In a multi-structural and multi-interest society such as we have in India, the full weight of myriad social problems – including those handed down by the heritage of the past – presses down on interpretations and analyses of the public interest and impinges with particularly stressful force on the practice of journalism. What sustains the independence and social relevance of a newspaper in this context? The generic function of a newspaper, it has been pointed out, is essentially to provide an accurate and reasonably comprehensive account of the days’ events in a context which invests them with meaning, and to offer a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism. It is the interpretation given to national and social responsibility that is all-important to the health of the press. Where national life itself becomes an arena for differing standpoints and views to have it out, resulting in heated controversy, the role of the press becomes ever more delicate. Quite often, it is subjected to the test of intolerance that demands support to one set of views and policy prescriptions to the exclusion of every other. This seems, in fact, to be an occupational temptation for Governments to lapse into periodically. The reason is the failure to remember that a newspaper’s responsibility to society cannot at all be equated with responsibility either to a political party or to the Government of the day. A serious newspaper is nothing if it does not preserve its relative independence and chart its course with the understanding that its duties and responsibilities are different from those of a Government, although there certainly come times when it is called upon to strengthen Authority in the national and public interest. Support or opposition to a set of policies, or a course of action, must be viewed in a sober perspective, especially by those who, being on a different of opposite side of an issue, disagree strongly with a particular editorial opinion. Here it must be remembered that a choice has to be made as between contending views – which is not at all a transgression of the principle of fairness since no personal prejudice or favouritism has any role to play. A newspaper, it has also been observed, thrives on disclosure and criticism. Although criticism tends to get pushed into the status of an unwanted guest (suffered at best behind impassive countenances) and sometimes raises feelings of indignation and pique, the independent and critical spirit must nevertheless be cherished as a newspaper’s breath of life. But then this right to criticism which is inherent in a democracy must be guided by larger considerations of public weal.
Above all, the practice of criticism must be guided by the realisation that a newspaper, being a part of society, cannot arrogate to itself any brand of superior wisdom, much less infallibility or claim any special privilege – apart, of course, from the legitimate rights and conditions that the press has won historically in order to develop its vital role. Any sound newspaper learns quickly enough to cultivate a sense of respect, closeness and humility in relation to the society and the public it serves. In a country of many languages where the literate sections of the population are still in a minority, the newspaper reading public is a much smaller proportion of the total population than it is in advanced countries. Considering the limitations, what we have found truly remarkable is the intelligence, the sensitivity, the zest with which our readers as a growing force have followed public issues. In relation to such a readership, the sound and healthy approach was taught to us by our predecessors. In an Editorial written on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in December 1939, they noted: “it is not by bludgeoning the reader’s mind but by reasoning with it that the soundest and most lasting results can be achieved…The ascertainment of public opinion (as different from the prejudices of the moment) and the evocation of the atmosphere favourable to its emergence are therefore tasks that a newspaper which is not content to adopt a purely hand to mouth policy must set about with circumspection as well as earnestness. The many and complex issues on which it has to pronounce in the course of the day’s work do not admit of a naive directness of treatment, a simple Yes or No. Where the choice is not between black and white but between various delicate shades of colour, slapdash methods and the unstable impetuosity which discards opinion as lightly as it adopts them may work considerable harm. The practice of the best journalism the world over shows that honest and trenchant criticism is perfectly compatible with good temper and fairness to opposing points of view”. THE HINDU, which has now completed a century, stands firmly by this approach.