New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century, John Morrison [free ebook reader TXT] 📗
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An outstanding illustration of the anti-British spirit is the frequently expressed opinion that the Indian famines are a result of British rule, or at all events have been aggravated thereby. The reasoning is that India is being financially drained to the amount of between thirty and forty millions sterling a year, and that the people of India have thus no staying fund to keep them going when famine comes. Having said this, we ought perhaps to quote the opinion (1903), on the other side, of Mr. A.P. Sinnett, ex-editor of one of the leading Indian newspapers, and, as a theosophist, very unlikely to be prejudiced in favour of Britain. He insists "that loss of life in famine time is infinitesimal compared with what it used to be." "As for impoverishment," he goes on to say, "we have poured European capital into the country by scores of millions for public works and the establishment of factories, and we have enriched India instead of impoverishing it to an extent that makes the Home Charges—of which such agitators as Digby always exaggerate the importance—a mere trifle in the balance." Lord Curzon's statement of three or four years back was that there were eight hundred and twenty-five crores of rupees (five hundred and fifty millions sterling) of buried capital in India; and he might have added the easily ascertainable fact that the sum is yearly being added to. The anti-British idea was put forward in 1885 by the late Mr. William Digby, an ardent supporter of the Congress; the Congress adopted it in one of its resolutions in 1896, and the idea has lamentably caught on. In 1897 a Conference of Indians resident in London did not mince their language. In their opinion, "of all the evils and terrible misery that India has been suffering for a century and a half, and of which the latest developments are the most deplorable famine and plague arising from ever-increasing poverty,... the main cause is the unrighteous and un-British system of Government, which produces an unceasing and ever increasing bleeding of the country," etc. etc.[43] Such language, such ideas, do not call for refutation, here at least; they are symptoms only of a state of mind now prevailing, out of which educated India must surely grow.
Nor need it be forgotten that the rise of the anti-British feeling was foreseen and political danger apprehended when the question of English education for natives of India was under discussion. A former Governor-General, Lord Ellenborough, declared to a committee of the House of Commons in 1852, that England must not expect to retain her hold on India if English ideas were imparted to the people. "No intelligent people would submit to our Government," were his words—a sentiment repudiated with indignation by the learned Bengali, the late Rev. Dr. K.M. Banerjea. In the same spirit, apparently, Sir Alfred Lyall still contemplates with some fear the rapid reformation of religious beliefs under modern influences. He sees that the old deities and ideas are being dethroned, and that the responsibility for famines, formerly imputed to the gods, is being cast upon the British Government. "The British Government," he says, "having thrown aside these lightning conductors [the old theocratic system], is much more exposed than a native ruler would be to shocks from famines or other wide-spread misfortunes." "Where no other authority is recognised, the visible ruler becomes responsible for everything."[44] Fortunately, "policy" of that sort has not prevailed with Indian statesmen in the past, and Britain can still retain self-respect as enlightener and ruler of India.
The championing of all things Indian is another recent phase of the same national consciousness. As the work of Britain is depreciated, the heroes, the beliefs, and the practices of India are exalted and defended as such. Idolatry and caste have their apologists. At almost every public meeting, according to the late Mr. Monomohun Ghose of Calcutta, he heard the remark made "that the ancient civilisation of India was far superior to that which Europe ever had."[45] In the political lament over a golden past, there is glorification by Hindus of the Mahomedan emperor Akbar, praise of the Native States and their rule as opposed to the condition of British India, and there are apologies for leaders in the Mutiny of 1857. Much of that is natural and proper patriotism, no doubt, and no one would deny the ancient glories of India or the many admirable characteristics of the people of India to-day. It is the self-deceiving patriotism, the blind ancestor-worship, of which we are speaking as a phase of modern opinion. As an instance when Indians certainly did themselves injustice by this spirit, we may single out the celebrated trial in 1897 of the Hon. Mr. Tilak, member of the Legislative Council of the Governor of Bombay. The Mahrattas of Western India look back to Sivaji as the founder of their political power, which lasted down to 1817, and have lately instituted an annual celebration of Sivaji as the hero of the Mahratta race. One great blot rests on Sivaji's career. In one campaign he invited the Mahomedan general opposing him to a personal conference, and stabbed him while in the act of embracing him. It was at one of these Sivaji celebrations in 1897 that Mr. Tilak abandoned himself to the pro-Indian and anti-British feeling, glorifying Sivaji's use of the knife upon foreigners. "Great men are above common principles of law," ... he said. "In killing Afzal Khan did Sivaji sin?" ... "In the Bhagabat Gita," he replied to himself, "Krishna has counselled the assassination of even one's preceptors and blood relations.... If thieves enter one's house, and one's wrists have no strength to drive them out, one may without compunction shut them in and burn them. God Almighty did not give a charter ... to the foreigners to rule India, Sivaji strove to drive them out of his fatherland, and there is no sin of covetousness in that." Practical application of Mr. Tilak's language was soon forthcoming in the assassination of two British officers in the same city of Poona. Mr. Tilak, victim of his own eloquence and of the spirit of the day, was necessarily prosecuted for his inflammatory speech, and was sent to prison for eighteen months. But it is not too much to say that the unanimous feeling of educated India went with Mr. Tilak and regarded him as a martyr.
From the pro-Indian feeling to the anti-British Boycott feeling is only one step along the road that new-educated India is treading. The boycott of British goods in 1905 has been the next step. The provocation alleged by the politicians who organised the boycott was the division of the province of Bengal. Whether that was cause sufficient to justify the boycott or a mere pretext for another anti-British step is now of secondary importance. The plea of encouragement of native industries we may set aside as an afterthought. The boycott has been declared, and what concerns us is to see the national feeling now take the form of a declaration of commercial war upon Great Britain—none the less disconcerting because some of those concerned clearly have an eye, however foolishly, upon Boston in 1773 and the war thereafter. It gives pause to India's well-wishers. "India for the Indians," will that come next? There no friend of India dare wish her success, to be a possible prey to Russia or Germany, or even to Japan. But reasoning to the logical issue, we get light upon our premisses. India for what Indians?, we ask ourselves. For Hindus or Mahomedans; for the million, English-speaking, or the many-millioned masses? For many a day yet to come it will be Britain's duty to hold the balance, to instruct in self-government and to learn from her blunders.
That the national feeling of Indians may become a main strand in a strong Imperial feeling, as is the national feeling of Scotland, must be the wish of all friends of India. But how is the Indian feeling to be transformed?
The new Social Ideas of India have asserted themselves in spite of opposing ideas, deep-rooted; on the other hand, the new Political Ideas are in accordance with the natural ambition of educated Indians, and have had no difficulty in expanding and spreading. In comparison with the new social ideas, in consequence, the new political ideas are a somewhat rank and artificial growth, forced by editors and politicians, and warped by ignorance and prejudice. The widely current idea that, owing to British rule, the poverty of the Indian people is now greater, and that the famines are more frequent and severe than in former dynasties, is the outstanding instance of the rank growth. Neither the allegation of greater poverty nor the causes of the acknowledged low standard of living have been studied except in the fashion of party politicians. Another of the ideas, as widely current, is that every ton of rice or wheat exported is an injury to the poor. A third is that the payments made in Britain by the Government of India are virtually tribute, meanly exacted, instead of honest payment for cash received and for services rendered. Again, what can be the remedy? In the early part of the nineteenth century, the Foreign Mission Committee of the Church of Scotland objected to Dr. Duff, their missionary, teaching Political Economy in the Church's Mission College, the General Assembly's Institution, Calcutta. They feared lest the East India Company would deem it an interference in politics.[46] In 1897, after the Tilak case already referred to, the writer on Indian affairs in The Times complained of the teaching of historical half-truths and untruths in Indian schools and colleges, instancing the partisan writings of Burke and Macaulay, and many Indian text-books full of glaring historical perversions. The remedy for such erroneous ideas is certainly not to withhold the present dole of knowledge, but to teach the whole truth. The recent History of India and Political Economy with reference to India should be compulsory subjects for every student in an Indian University. It ought to be the policy of Government to select the ablest men for professors and teachers of such subjects. If, along with that remedy, more Anglo-Indians would take a high view of their mission to India, and of their residence in that country, much of that regrettable bias and bitterness on the part of Indians would surely pass away. If instead of adopting the attitude of exiles, thinking only of the termination of the exile and how to while away the interval, Anglo-Indians would take some interest in something Indian outside their business, much would be gained! The best Anglo-Indians are eager to promote intercourse between Europeans and Indians, but many Anglo-Indians, whatever the cause, seem incapable of friendly intercourse. On the matters that should interest both them and their fellow-citizens in India, they have in them nothing save unreasoned feelings. These form the numerous class, of whom Sir Henry Cotton spoke in an address in London in February 1904, to whom it is an offence to travel in the same railway-carriage with Indians. These are the corrupters of good feeling between Britons and Indians, as sympathetic men are the salt that preserves what good feeling may still exist.
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