Part 13 (1/2)
These admissions should put India's claims for fiscal autonomy beyond the range of doubt and dispute, but so strange are the ways of modern statesmans.h.i.+p that consistency and logic are not the necessary accompaniments thereof.
The authors have advanced another very strong argument for the economic development of India, viz., ”military value,” which makes the case conclusive. This argument has been supplied by the Great War and is so well known that we need not state it in their words.
If India is to prosper and take her legitimate place in the British Commonwealth, and in the great family of Nations of the World, it is absolutely necessary that she should be given complete fiscal freedom to manage her own affairs, develop her own industries and do her own trading. Considering her size and resources, it wounds her self-respect and makes her feel exceedingly mean and small to go begging for alms and charity every time there is a failure of rains and the cry of famine is raised.
For a nation of 315 millions of human beings living in a country which nature has endowed with all its choicest blessings, rich and fertile soil, plenty of water and sun, an abundant supply of metals and coal, willing labor, artistic skill and a power of manipulating for beauty and elegance unexcelled in the world--to exist in pitiful economic dependence is a condition most deplorable and most pathetic. We want no charity, no concessions, no favors, no preference. What we most earnestly beg and ask for is an _opportunity_.
For a synopsis of the findings and recommendations of the Industrial Commission mentioned in this chapter see appendix 1.
XII
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
In December, 1917, the Government of India appointed a committee of three Englishmen and two Indians (1) ”to investigate and report on the nature and extent of the criminal conspiracies connected with the revolutionary movements in India, (2) to examine and consider the difficulties that have arisen in dealing with such conspiracies and to advise as to the legislation, if any, necessary to enable the government to deal effectively with them.” Of the three English members, Mr.
Justice Rowlatt of the King's Bench Division, England, was appointed as president, and of the other two, one was a judge in the service of the Government and the other a member of a Board of Revenue in one of the Indian Provinces. Of the two Indians, one was a judge and the other a practicing lawyer.
This committee submitted its report in April, 1918, which was published by the Government of India in July of the same year. The president, Mr.
Justice Rowlatt's letter covering the report gives the nature of the evidence upon which their report is based, which is as follows: ”Statements have been placed before us with doc.u.mentary evidence by the Governments of Bengal, Bombay, Bihar and Orissa, the Central Provinces, the United Provinces, the Punjab and Burmah as well as by the Government of India. In every case, except that of Madras, we were further attended by officers of the government, presenting this statement, who gave evidence before us. In the two provinces in which we held sittings, namely, Bengal and Punjab, we further invited and secured the attendance of individuals, or as deputed by a.s.sociations, of gentlemen who we thought might give us information from various non-official points of view.”
It is clear from this statement that the investigation of the committee was neither judicial nor even semi-judicial; it was a purely administrative inquiry conducted behind the backs of the individuals concerned, without the latter having any opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses or giving their explanations of the evidence against them.
While the different Governments in India were fully represented in each case by the ablest of their servants, the individuals investigated were not. We do not want to insinuate that either the Governments or the officers deputed by them were unfair in their evidence. All that we want to point out is that the other side had no opportunity of putting their case before the committee. Consequently, it is no wonder that one comes across many traces of political and racial bias both in the introduction and the Report.
The very first paragraph of the introduction betrays either ignorance on the part of the committee about the ancient history of India, or a deliberate misrepresentation of the nature of the Hindu State. The committee says: ”Republican or Parliamentary forms of governments as at present understood were neither desired nor known in India until after the establishment of British rule. In the Hindu State the form of government was an absolute monarchy, though the monarch was by the Hindu Shastras hedged round by elaborate rules for securing the welfare of his subjects and was a.s.sisted by a body of councillors, the chief of whom were Brahmin members of the priestly cla.s.s which derived authority from a time when the priests were the sole repositories of knowledge and therefore the natural instruments of administration.” The statements made in this paragraph do not represent the whole truth.
The committee ignores the fact that Republican or Parliamentary forms of Government ”_as at present understood_” were neither desired nor known in any part of the world, except perhaps England itself until _after_ the establishment of British rule in India.[1] Then the committee has altogether ignored that, in the Hindu State, the form of government was not an absolute monarchy _always and in all parts of India_. There is ample historical evidence to prove that India had many Republican States, along with oligarchies and monarchies at one and the same period of her history. The second part of the second sentence is also not correct, because the priestly cla.s.s derived its authority from a time when the priests were not the sole repositories of knowledge. The several Hindu political treatises belong to a period when the whole populace was highly educated and could take substantial part in the determination of the affairs of their country.
Equally misleading is the last sentence of the introduction where the committee says that it is among the Chitpavan Brahmins of the Poona district that they first find indications of a revolutionary movement.
This statement is incorrect, if it means that after the establishment of British rule in India no attempt had been made to overthrow it prior to the Revolutionary movement inaugurated by the Poona Brahmins. The statement ignores three such attempts which are known to history; viz., (_a_) the great Mutiny of 1857, (_b_) the Wahabee Rebellion of Bengal, and (_c_) the Kuka Rebellion of the Punjab; not to mention other minor attempts made in other places by other people.
Yet we think that this report is a very valuable doc.u.ment, giving in one place the history and the progress of the Revolutionary Movement in India. The findings and the recommendations of the committee may not be all correct, but the material collected and published for the first time is too valuable to be neglected by anyone who wants to have an intelligent grasp of the political situation in India, such as has developed within the last twenty years.
The committee gives a summary of its conclusions as to the conspiracies in Chapter XV, which we copy verbatim:
”In Bombay they have been purely Brahmin and mostly Chitpavan. In Bengal the conspirators have been young men belonging to the educated middle cla.s.ses. Their propaganda has been elaborate, persistent and ingenious. In their own province it has produced a long series of murders and robberies. In Bihar and Orissa, the United Provinces, the Central Provinces and Madras, it took no root, but occasionally led to crime and disorder. In the Punjab the return of emigrants from America, bent on revolution and bloodshed, produced numerous outrages and the _Ghadr_ conspiracy of 1915. In Burma, too, the _Ghadr_ movement was active, but was arrested.
”Finally came a Mohammedan conspiracy confined to a small clique of fanatics and designed to overthrow British rule with foreign aid.
”All these plots have been directed towards one and the same objective, the overthrow by force of British rule in India.
Sometimes they have been isolated; sometimes they have been interconnected; sometimes they have been encouraged and supported by German influence. All have been successfully encountered with the support of Indian loyalty.”
In this general summary the committee has made no attempt to trace out the causes that led to the inauguration of the revolutionary movement and its subsequent progress. A chapter on that subject would have been most illuminating.
In chapters dealing with provinces they have selected some individuals and cla.s.ses on whom to lay blame for ”incitements” to murders and crimes, but have entirely failed to a.n.a.lyze the social, political and economic conditions which made such incitements and their success possible.
It is clear even from this summary that the only two provinces where the revolutionary propaganda took root and resulted in more than occasional outrages were Bengal and the Punjab.
In the Bombay Presidency, revolutionary outrages did not exceed three within a period of 20 years (from 1897 to 1917), two murders and one bomb-throwing. Besides, three trials for conspiracies are mentioned all within a year (1909-1910), two in Native States and one in British territory. Altogether 82 men were prosecuted for being involved in these conspiracies. The total result comes to this, that in the course of 20 years about 100 persons were found to be involved in a revolutionary movement in a territory embracing an area of 186,923 square miles and a population of 27 million human beings. This is surely by no means a formidable record justifying extraordinary legislation such as is proposed.[2] The net loss of human life did not exceed three, though unfortunately all three victims were Europeans.
Bihar and Orissa formed part of the province of Bengal during most of the period covered by the revolutionary movement of Bengal, viz., from 1906 to 1917. It was in Bihar which was then a part of Bengal, that in 1908, the first bomb was thrown. The only other revolutionary outrage that took place in Bihar was one in 1913, resulting in the murder of two Indians.
In the United Provinces of Agra and Oude, the only tangible evidence of revolutionary activity recorded by the committee is the Benares Conspiracy that came to light in 1915-1916. The only outrage noted is that of the alleged murder of a fellow revolutionary by a member of the same gang.