Division S 4 1 3 . F45 Section I INDIA’S SILENT REVOLUTION THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY * CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO INDIA’S SILENT REVOLUTION BY FRED B. FISHER Author of “Gifts From the Desert,” “The Way to Win” WITH THE COLLABORATION OF GERTRUDE M. WILLIAMS jReto ^orb THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1919 A.U right t reserved Copyright, 1919 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped Published April, 1919. TO E. J. F. FBLLOW TRAVILI*. FOREWORD This volume endeavors to present from the American viewpoint the economic, social, political and religious situation in India. No attempt is made to treat Indian history except where the historical setting adds clarity to the presentation of modern movements. The war is taken as a starting point because by a peculiar combina- tion of circumstances it brought India to the thresh- old of her national desire. It was my privilege to reside in India during that por- tion of Lord Curzon’s regime when the partition of Ben- gal precipitated the extreme nationalist agitation. A few years later a trip to Great Britain gave opportunity for inquiries concerning Indian movements from the standpoint of British administration. It was again my fortune to visit India at the time of the recent govern- mental tour of investigation conducted by Hon. E. S. Montagu, the present Secretary of State. The demand for Home Rule, coupled with India’s vast and effective participation in the world war, made this a particularly opportune time to gain fresh and vivid impressions. Obligation must be acknowledged to the long list of authorities on India. Likewise to friends who as gov- ernment officials, missionaries, and Indian gentlemen, rep- resenting the Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan com- munities, have helped interpret the spirit of this land of ancient charm and marvelous future. Special gratitude is due Mrs. Williams for her efficient collaboration in re- search and in the preparation of the manuscript. FRED B. FISHER. New York, January, 1919. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I India at the Cross Roads i II The War Changes Things 8 III Fields and Factories 31 IV Old Orders and New 62 V Touching the Untouchables 94 VI Lifting the Purdah 116 VII Education and Democracy 145 VIII Moving Toward Home Rule 166 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Indian troops won high praise for their heroic conduct during the war 1 1 Punjabis listening to the marvelous stories of their boys, home from the service n Mother learns to write a letter to her boy in the trenches 25 Having the kitchen outdoors insures good ventilation . 25 The accommodating charpoy which serves as bed by night and as settee or wall tapestry by day ... 45 This is not an American factory, but the laboratory of an industrial school in Nadiad 45 The American Tractor breaks ground for the new day 55 Would you know what to do with the plow and dices of a tractor in a flax field in India? 55 The Yankee and the Indian make a good combination. Principal T. C. Badley of Lucknow College and an Indian Member of Faculty 92 Future statesmen for India are now seriously “ doing their sums ” 92 He isn’t going to a masquerade ball in his great-grand- father’s dress coat; he is just on his way to school in a costume quite common among Indian boys . 113 Children with the look of to-morrow on their faces . 113 An Indian Barrister and his progressive family . .134 Starting for the Baby Health Show 134 ILLUSTRATIONS PACING PAGE In Madras Christian College young Indian men are learning to fight the battle against ignorance, caste, prejudice and atheism 149 Instead of staying home behind closed doors the new woman rides forth by her husband’s side on the snorting motorcycle 164 While the modern school trains the mind and wakes the soul, it also develops the physique 164 George Gordon, with Lloyd George smile. He is the energetic leader of ten thousand forward-looking outcastes 182 Prof. H. Devadassan, B.A., who stands for increased Indian responsibility in both church and state . . 182 INDIA’S SILENT REVOLUTION i INDIA AT THE CROSS ROADS Obscure and uncertain, the perpetual process of adjust- ment between East and West looms in the background of every effort to secure a basis for permanent world peace. India, involved in any potential balance of power in Asia emerges from a dilemma within the British Em- pire to claim world attention and significance. Pan-German and Pan-Islam are familiar terms. Since 1905 there has been an embryonic Pan-Asia which could easily assume formidable proportions. In the long succession of civilizations, this is the white man’s day. Ethnologists prophesy that the next may be the brown man’s. A glimpse of the Orient, a sense of the plodding patience of China’s millions, and the aggressiveness of the Japanese gives the traveler a vivid consciousness of such a possibility. It is not surprising that the dark- skinned races, rebelling against the subtle sense of supe- riority which the white race feels and shows, should look forward to turning the tables. This hope, as alluring and deeply rooted as the will- to-live itself, received an unexpected fillip in 1896 when Abyssinia’s victory over Italy gave Oriental troops their first taste of dominance over the whites for at least three centuries. In 1905 came more emphatic confirmation of 2 INDIA S SILENT REVOLUTION this dawning power when Japan won victories over Russia both on land and sea. Ever since the Oriental world has carried itself with a certain jauntiness because of a new hope in its heart. Their books and speeches make fre- quent reference to these victories. They never forget them. Japan is recognized as the moving spirit in any Pan- Asia movement. She took the occasion of the war to seize German territory in China. For this she has been both criticized and praised according to the viewpoint of the observer. It amounts to the same thing whether we accept Japan’s Twenty-one Demands as a sincere effort to work out a Japanese Monroe Doctrine which should protect China from the aggression of the western world, or whether we believe that Japan is scheming to control China as a first step in vast imperialistic dreams. The Pan-Asia movement has grave significance in either case. Asia’s 900 million, or even China’s 400 million, mar- shalled by Japan’s more aggressive 55 millions, would constitute a formidable opponent to the 500 millions of Europe and the United States combined. In this align- ment India literally holds the balance. India’s 300 mil- lions subtracted leaves Asia only 600 million. Added to Europe and the United States it gives them 800 million. Atlases list India as part of Asia. India’s darker skin, her Oriental customs and habits of thought, as well as her geographical position place her in Asia. But the fundamental fact remains that India is of Aryan stock like ourselves. The blood, ancestry and inheritance of India is as far removed from the Mongolian as is our own. If blood really tells, there is no inherent reason why India should cast in her lot with Asia. INDIA AT THE CROSS ROADS 3 Max Muller, perhaps the most conspicuous among scholars who have devoted their attention to India, wrote, “ Even the blackest Hindu represents an earlier stage of Aryan speech than the fairest Scandinavian.” 1 The Encyclopedia defines Aryan as “ a word with dignified associations by which the peoples belonging to the eastern section of the Indo-Europeans were proud to call themselves.” Latest researches show that the oldest domiciles of the Indo-Europeans or Aryans were probably in the steppe country of southern Russia . 2 The Imperial Gazeteer, final authority on all scientific facts affecting India, in a chapter on the ethnology of the country, says : “ Compared with the rest of Asia, India may be described as mainly an area of long-headed people, separated by the Himalayas and its offshoots from the Mongolian country where broad-headed types are more numerous than anywhere else in the world . 3 G. Lowes Dickinson in his essay on the Orient, al- though he argues that Indian culture is more remote from the western than that of any other eastern country, also says, “ Between India on the one hand and China or Japan on the other, there is as great a difference as between India and any western country.” 4 The contrast he finds is between India and the rest of the world. He affirms that ‘‘the Vedas reflect an attitude toward life similar to that of the western Aryans.” 5 East of Turkey and Arabia, and southwest of China, India is geographically a part of Asia. But the deter- 1 “ Biographies of Words,” p. 120. 2 “ Imperial Gazeteer,” vol. I, p. 352. 3 “ Imperial Gazeteer,” vol. 1, p. 289. 4 “ Essay on the Civilizations of India, China and Japan,” p. 7. 5 Ibid., p. 14. 4 India’s silent revolution mining factor stands unchanged. However the difference in the color of their skins may have come about, all the subtle psychic and atavistic influences of blood and race draw India to us rather than to the yellow Mongolian. The war gave abundant proof of India’s instinctive re- sponse to the call of the western world. There are fifty- seven million Mohammedans in India. Germany, allied with Turkey, had counted confidently on stirring up a Holy War in which all Mohammedans should rally to the aid of their Turkish brethren against the Allied Chris- tians. This Holy War was to have been the entering wedge for a nation-wide revolt throughout India against English rule. The Rowlatt report, following an official British investigation of the subject, outlines the minute details with which Germany elaborated her plans. Fa- miliarity with the extravagance and resourcefulness of German propaganda in this country and Mexico suggests how eagerly she must have cultivated possibilities of In- dian discontent. They were to begin by smuggling guns and ammunition into Calcutta, sacking the city, and then spreading the rebellion across India. None of this eventuated. India rose to the support of the Allies with a spontaneous loyalty which stirred even the British pulse in those early days of the war, when glowing messages of support flooded into London from every corner of the Empire. Germany did not even succeed in bringing the Moham- medans together. For the first time in all the centuries of Mohammedan history, Islam was divided against it- self. Moslems subordinated loyalty to their faith to a greater issue. Side by side, Indian Moslems and Hindus rallied to the British colors. When some of these troops were taken prisoners, the Germans sent INDIA AT THE CROSS ROADS 5 them down to Constantinople, hoping that the pressure of Islam’s sacred city, with all its associations, would win them over. They were held prisoners down there for some months, finally escaping eastward across Afghan- istan. Never once did they waver in their allegiance to the British Raj, as they call the Government. Great Britain has an alliance treaty with Japan for “ the consolidation and maintenance of the general peace in the regions of Eastern Asia and India,” by which, under certain conditions, the Japanese army and navy will turn out to help if Great Britain calls on them. This alliance has been the subject of varied discussion in the Orient during the war. An editorial in the Yorodzu, an inde- pendent paper of Tokyo, throws an interesting sidelight on the possible attitude of Japan toward India. “If a third power should attack India, Japan must help. But in case of a civil war, Japan has no duty to help England oppress the Indians. As we are at war with Germany, we had advocated sending an expedition to Europe. But we had never thought of making our- selves slaves of England, to oppress the Indians against whom we had no grudge. We had an intimate friend- ship with India from ancient times. We consider the 300 million Indians as if they were our own brethren. . . . The desire of the Indians for self-government did not develop on account of German instigation. We Jap- anese should study this situation of India very carefully indeed.” 1 India stands at what may ultimately be a parting of the ways. Two centuries of British administration have overlaid upon the variegated mosaic of Indian life a 1 Quoted in T. F. Millard’s “ Our Eastern Question,” p. 248. 6 India’s silent revolution considerable degree of Anglo-Saxon culture. In the de- velopment of India’s educational and industrial systems. Great Britain, even were she to withdraw from India to- morrow would leave a profound and lasting impression. The call of blood, the atavism of race itself, however much modified by an Oriental environment, is fundamen- tally toward the West. The West, absorbed in its own affairs, far from study- ing to understand India, maintains a superior attitude. As Dickinson phrases it, “ There the English are, a small camp of conquerors planted down among millions of con- quered.” The Japanese permit themselves no such arrogance. Although of alien stock, they make the most of the fact that they are both dark skinned. With Oriental suavity, they pay compliments to India as “ the mother of reli- gions,” and “ the ancient progenitor of culture.” Urged on by varied influences, Indians are to-day de- manding a fuller share and representation in their gov- ernment. The world is in a mood for readjustment, for the finishing off of old regimes and the commencement of new eras. England has given evidence that she realizes that some- thing is expected of her. Even while the war was on, her Liberal administration found time to appoint a commis- sion to report on constitutional reform for India. This report was presented to Parliament in July, 1918. Al- though it was far from sweeping enough to satisfy even the middle ground of representative Indian opinion, Par- liament found it too radical for its taste and has ever since hedged and postponed — on the ground of absorp- tion in the war. Now the war is over. The primary business of all the INDIA AT THE CROSS ROADS 7 world has become the consideration and readjustment of just such matters as this question of the extension of representative government in India. India stands wait- ing to learn what England is going to do for her. She is waiting with admirable self-control and patience. If India had been as deliberate in deciding just how much help she would offer in the war, England might still be waiting for Indian troops and supplies. Shall India follow the trend of her racial ties and the influence of the Anglo-Saxon culture, which has already taught her to yearn for a Magna Charta of her own? Shall she remain in spirit and influence an Aryan peo- ple? Or shall she cross the divide, and throw in her three hundred millions, with all their man power and resources, to become a true Asian among Asiatics ? The British Parliament holds the decision of this ques- tion in the dim and mysterious recesses of its gloomy halls, where, as in other legislative chambers, reports of vital import are sometimes shelved and tabled and com- mitteed until the time for action has passed. II THE WAR CHANGES THINGS India's sons fought and died in the Allied trenches. Her industries leaped into unprecedented activity, to sup- ply khaki, tents, blankets, shoes and munitions for the armies of the empire. Her farmers had to make ten seeds grow where one grew before, to produce the needed cotton, jute, wheat, and food stuffs. India has been affected by the war even more pro- foundly than her participation in men and money would imply. War conditions, negligible in their effect in other countries, worked fundamental changes there. For India is a fascinating and mysterious combination of the tenth century and the twentieth. The British have built three hundred thousand miles of railroad. But the turbaned engineer delays his English train while he crouches on a station platform before a priest in a loin cloth. The priest daubs red and white paint on the en- gineer’s forehead, renewing the trident or the spot of bright carmine which brands him a worshiper of Vishnu or of Siva, and which had been dimmed by the soot and wind of his engine window. Patiently the Indian ryot potters over the sixteen mil- lion acres of land scientifically irrigated under the Brit- ish administration, plowing it with a crooked stick. Wealthy and progressive Indian landowners give dem- onstrations of the modern farm machinery which their sons have brought back from American agricultural col- 8 ERRATUM Page 8, line 13, for three hundred thousand read thirty thousand. THE WAR CHANGES THINGS 9 leges. But the tenth-century farmer gazes skeptically, and, shaking his head, goes back to his crooked stick — or at least he did until the demands of the war made it urgent that India produce more cotton, wheat and jute for the armies. Suddenly India’s tenth-century life, untouched by a nineteenth century at peace, made way for a twentieth century at war. The newspapers gave evidence of how deeply the war penetrated into the seclusion of Indian life. School children recited selections from their national epic Ra- mayana, followed by modern battle poems. At Red Cross entertainments, Indian purdah ladies — the high- caste women carefully isolated behind the purdah or cur- tain which divides the women’s apartment from the rest of the house — rolled bandages and knit socks as de- votedly as the women of New York City or Uphams Corners. Early in the war the women of Bombay held a mass meeting in the town hall to organize a center for war re- lief work. The members gathered daily to cut out gar- ments which were taken home to be finished by women of all classes. This center turned out as many as 2,000 shirts per week. A children’s branch was established to collect garments and donations for the children of sol- diers. Work was provided for families in distress. Committees of women visited hospitals, gave concerts and organized fairs. There were tag days, name days, money-raising campaigns. Her Majesty the Queen sent over special gifts to be auctioned off for the benefit of war causes. “ A French Vernis Martin fan, a gold van- ity case; gold pendants of George and Dragon; a crys- tal box and a work bag, on view in the window of the Currency Office in Hornby Road.” 10 INDIA’S SILENT REVOLUTION The papers, down to the very cheapest, printed picture supplements giving maps of the battle lines and photo- graphs from the front. There were interviews with In- dian soldiers who distinguished themselves in the trenches ; a Mussulman who owned a herd of camels and wanted to raise a camel corps; a Ghurka Rifle who though badly wounded himself, rescued a British soldier and two Ghurkas, in broad daylight under the German fire, and received the Victoria Cross. From the first the response of Indian princes and rajahs of the native states was so immediate and gen- erous that it was not until the second year of war that England undertook to float a loan in India. Lord Sy- denham, 'ex-governor of Bombay and an English states- man of the old school in his attitude toward India, has published an appreciative little white-bound book, elabo- rately illustrated, which describes the liberality and ex- travagance of these princely gifts. The Maharajah of Gwalior from his private purse fitted out the hospital ship Loyalty to accompany the Indian Expeditionary Force, at a cost of $1,600,000. The Nizam of Hyderabad offered the Government $2,- 000,000, and the Maharajah of Mysore a similar sum. Personal stables of horses, camels, and elephants were turned over to the War Department. Princely jewels were pledged for the purchase of machine guns and equipment. Twenty-seven of the native states main- tain imperial service troops, and these were all put at the disposal of the Viceroy. Even the chiefs of border tribes, whose capriciousness and security in their moun- tain strongholds has made the frontier problem always an anxious one for the British army in India, sent mes- sages of loyalty and support. It was largely due to the Indian troops won high praise for their heroic conduct during the war Punjabis listening to the marvelous stories of their boys home from the trenches THE WAR CHANGES THINGS I I loyalty of these tribes, who do not owe allegiance to the British Empire and have never been subdued, that the Germans were unable to make headway toward India from the north. To celebrate the centenary of the first treaty between the British Government and the state of Bikaner, the Maharajah offered three lakhs of rupees ($100,000) for any war purpose or war charity which His Majesty might designate. The Nizam of Hyder- abad, near the end of the war, was so stirred on reading a message from His Majesty that he cabled a gift of $500,000. War loans of five hundred and three hundred and twenty-five million dollars, subscribed during the second and fourth years of the war by India’s population of 315,000,000, do not seem overwhelming when compared with our Liberty Loans running into the billions, until one considers the proportionate wealth. India’s “ free gift ” of $500,000,000 is like the widow’s mite as com- pared with any sums, however huge, that this country may raise. In the United States the average annual in- come is $400, as computed by the National City Bank of New York. In India the average income is $20 a year. Floating a loan of $500,000,000 on average incomes of six cents a day becomes a very impressive matter. Lord Hardinge, who was Viceroy of India during the first three years of the war, testifying during the Mesopotamia Commission Inquiry in July, 1917, before the House of Lords as to India’s participation in the war, stated that early in the fall of 1914 she sent to France, and later to Egypt, an expeditionary force of 290,000 troops fully trained and equipped — a force three times the size of the entire American army before the war. Of these, 210,000 were Indian troops and 12 India’s silent revolution 80.000 British. Lord Hardinge compared these figures with the force of 18,000 which was India’s previous rec- ord for an overseas expedition. He called attention to the fact that there was an interval between dispatch of the expedition and the arrival of the newly drafted ter- ritorials to take their places when there were only about 15.000 British soldiers in all India. It was the first time since the mutiny in 1857 that the British army had ever been allowed to drop so low. Summing up, Lord Hard- inge used a vivid phrase, “ The Imperial Government al- lowed India to be bled absolutely white during the first weeks of war.” In 1917 India recruited 285,000 soldiers for the Al- lied army, and in 1918 a half million were enlisted. These figures again do not seem particularly significant for a population of 315,000,000. It is estimated that one out of every four males in Great Britain served in the army, whereas in India less than one in one hundred and sixty-one males saw foreign service, either as fight- ers or war workers. The fact that the proportion is so small is largely due to the traditional policy of the British Government, which did not consider it wise to arm and train any very large force of Indians because of the possibility of in- ternal discontent. 1 This fear has of course been in- tensified by the danger of German propaganda. If the announcement by the Government in August, 1918, that Indians will hereafter be eligible for com- missions in the British army materializes on any ade- quate scale, it will go far toward changing the present apathy as regards army careers among Indians. It has 1 St. Nihal Singh, Contemporary Review, June, 1918. THE WAR CHANGES THINGS *3 not roused much enthusiasm because of the vagueness of its terms. It does not specify how many commissions are to be granted, except in the case of the ten cadetships at Sandhurst. Indian critics complain that these cadet- ships are nominations and will be limited to the sons of wealthy Indians who are on particularly good terms with the administration. It is suggested that a royal military college for India, where all officers to serve in India, both Indian and British, must be trained, would be more acceptable. When Lord Chelmsford took his seat as Viceroy of India in September, 1917, he summarized India’s contri- butions to the war as follows : “ The dispatching of so many expeditionary forces from India has necessitated a great expansion in military transport. Four-camel transport corps and 27 mule corps have been dispatched on service, representing a total of over 13,000 men and 17,000 animals. To replace these units and provide for wasteage, some 16 new transports corps and cadres have been formed. Six labor corps have been sent to the front, and some 1,500 overseers, draftsmen, clerks, storekeepers, carpenters, smiths and mechanics. In re- spect of medical personnel and equipment, India’s con- tributions have been on a very big scale — 40 field am- bulances, 6 clearing, 35 stationary and 8 general hos- pitals, and 25 special sections with a personnel of 6,000 trained men and nearly 20,000 Indian followers. The strain which has been caused to the Civil Medical De- partment by these changes and withdrawals has been very great. In the medical sphere, in fact, it must be patent to all that, in responding to the demands made upon us, we have gone as far as it was possible to go.” His Excellency called attention to the very satisfac- 14 India’s silent revolution tory results following the opening of recruiting to sev- eral classes to whom it had previously been closed, in- cluding the Bengalis, and he read a long list of recent individual gifts from ruling princes and chiefs, includ- ing $144,000 from Rajputana for anti-aircraft machine guns and motor ambulances, $14,400 for aeroplanes, and $72,000 from the privy purse of the Maharajah of Bi- kaner. India’s contributions in supplies of all sorts, food- stuffs, clothing, ordnance, equipment and munitions, the training and dispatching of horses, and lending to the Admiralty a great part of her Royal Indian Marine fleet, were totalled up by the Finance Member of the Viceroy’s Council as amounting to fifty million for the first year of the war, ninety million the second year, and over one hundred millions the third year. There has been cordial recognition of the enthusiasm of India’s response from the Imperial Government, not only in the appointment of the Commission on Consti- tutional Reform, but in messages and speeches. The King Emperor in an imperial message announced that nothing had moved him more than “ the passionate de- votion to my Throne expressed by my Indian subjects and by the Feudatory Princes and Ruling Chiefs of In- dia, and their prodigious offers of their lives and their resources in the cause of the Realm.” The Hon. E. S. Montagu, since appointed Secretary of State, in a speech before the House of Commons in the summer of 1917 said that “ the share of the Indian people in this war from the beginning to the end had always been greater . . . and more willing than the share of the Indian government” (i. e. the British ad- ministration). THE WAR CHANGES THINGS 15 It is too early to attempt to define the effect of the war upon India’s international status, but it seems certain that her position in Asia will be profoundly altered. She can scarcely carry out her functions as the strong- hold and citadel of the British Empire in the East un- less she has a recognized position in the organization of the Federal Government. Changes in this direction are evident. The admission of Indians to imperial councils both in London and in India is unprecedented. For the first time in the history of British rule in India Indians have been admitted to an imperial council sit- ting in London. The Imperial War Council included two Indian members. These two men, His Highness the Maharajah of Bikaner, and the Hon. Lord Sinha, K.C., were also appointed delegates to represent India at the Paris Peace Conference. Lord Sinha is notable as the first Indian member of the British peerage, to which he was elevated shortly after the signing of the armistice. He was at the same time appointed the first Indian Under Secretary of State for India, honors which India has ap- preciated not only as a tribute personal to Lord Sinha, but as a gracious recognition of his country. During the war, the Viceroy for the first time sum- moned a conference representative of all shades of Indian opinion. Rajahs and maharanis, English lieu- tenant-governors and Anglo-Indian officials represent- ing all the provinces, both under native rule and under the British Raj, met together in Delhi early in 1918 at the summons of the Viceroy for an all-India war council. In addition to its purpose of securing the closest co- operation for the war, it considered the problem of an all-India policy which should not only apply during the war but should pave the way for something more far- 1 6 India’s silent revolution reaching afterward. Committees were appointed on man-power, resources, and a second war loan. An immediate result of this conference was the calling of numerous provincial conferences to follow up the res- olutions passed with specific plans. Bengal called the first conference. A significant incident of the Behar conference was a speech by the Hon. Mazur-ul-huque, one of the Nation- alist leaders. He declared that India was loyal to the core. “ Whatever differences we may have had with the Government, they do not concern any one outside India (applause), and to-day we stand ready to sink those dif- ferences and to help the Empire.” Closely linked to the war, and no doubt playing a large part among its causes was the old question of an over- land route to the Far East. It was in 326 b. c. that Al- exander the Great crossed the Hindu Kush Mountains and invaded India. For centuries thereafter caravans of spices, silks, prints and jewels filed through the Khvber Pass, and from the great highroad across Mes- opotamia scattered to all parts of Europe and Asia. It was a long, slow journey of many months, beset by brigands, and Vasco da Gamas’s discovery of a sea route to India in 1498 diverted the burdens of those dusty caravans into the dark, cool holds of caravels and sailing packets. Sails have given place to steam, and the time of pas- sage has been cut in half and fractions, but still we seek a shorter way, and to-day we have turned back again to the old caravan trails where half a dozen projected railroads are pushing ahead impatiently. It is not only the engineering problem that delays them, but also the criss-cross of politics between the nations involved. It I THE WAR CHANGES THINGS 1 7 has been stated that one of the principal reasons for the uncompromising finality of the ultimatum to Serbia was the determination to subjugate Serbia to Austria, and thereby eliminate one more of the units that stood in the way of a clear path from Berlin to the Orient for the Kaiser’s famous “ Berlin to Bagdad ” railroad. Even if the Kaiser had achieved his dream of a Pan- Germany, there would still be 1,500 miles of Persia and Baluchistan between Bagdad and India, most of it track- less desert, serving as a buffer against him. In the meantime, India has a much nearer route to Europe. A Russian railroad of nearly 6,000 miles runs through Warsaw and Moscow, south across Turkestan to within about 400 miles of Peshawar and the famous Khyber Pass. With the completion of this 400 miles it will be possible to enter an express train at the Hook of Hol- land and step out into the Delhi Station six days later, thus cutting down the present schedule of seventeen days by almost two-thirds. It has been in her industrial life that tenth-century In- dia received, perhaps, the most violent impact from this twentieth-century war. For India’s industrial life has amounted to almost nothing with over 90 per cent, of her population engaged in agriculture. Practically the entire population is dependent on the success of the crops. In bad weather, with a poor harvest, entire' communities are left destitute, as they have no alterna- tive source of income. . This is one of the chief causes for India’s terrific famines. In forty years (1860- 1900), thirty million people died of hunger in Tm’-'a. Back in the palmy days of the British East India Com- pany in the 1700’s, India was world-famous for her fine silks and linens and prints, designed and woven by 1 8 India’s silent revolution artist craftsmen. But the competition of the whirring spindles of Manchester and Lancashire proved too much for these simple home industries. One by one the weav- ing communities had to give up and turn to agriculture. Suddenly, it became of vital importance to the British Empire — to the allied world — that India should de- velop over night as a base of supplies for the army. In his first viceregal speech before the Simla Legisla- ture in the fall of 1917, Lord Chelmsford gave great em- phasis to the work of the munitions board under Sir Thomas Holland which developed the manufacture of munitions in India on a considerable scale. Now that peace has come, plans are being laid for the organiza- tion and promotion of a great industrial expansion, con- verting the munitions board into a permanent board of Indian industries. In a speech before the Royal Society of Arts in Lon- don in the summer of 1918. Mr. Montagu, Secretary of State, who had just returned from India, emphasized her immediate importance as a source and base of supplies. She is the third cotton producing country in the world, occupying the most important position as regards cotton in the Empire. With adequate development of Indian re- sources, the United Kingdom could be made quite inde- pendent of outside sources of supply. Owing to shipping difficulties and other causes, Mr. Montagu said that the supply of British-made goods for the army had decreased, and the Government had to fall back on India. In 1917 alone, India supplied 20,- 000,000 yards of khaki drill, 300,500,000 of khaki drill shirting, and 17,500,000 of khaki pugaree cloth. Six large modern mills were put to work making nothing but tent cloth, and India has shown great resourceful- THE WAR CHANGES THINGS 19 ness in supplying even the khaki dyes. “ All this,” said Mr. Montagu, “ had given a tremendous fillip to the in- dustry, and it might be hoped that the ground gained would not be lost with the coming of peace.” Mr. Montagu commented on the increasing number of young, well-educated and competent Indians able to undertake the direction of industrial enterprises. Ev- erywhere he was struck with the eagerness to develop the manufacture in India of goods made from native raw materials. He believes that India has before her a great industrial future. The Tata Iron and Steel Works, one of the largest native industries, has shared in the fabulous war-time prosperity of steel plants, and is now making elaborate plans for the diversion of the product to after-war needs by organizing subsidiary companies to take up new lines of building and expansion. The company has voluntar- ily raised the pay of its employees and provides them a hospital, convalescent fund, night school, mechanical school, two institutes with concert halls, cinema shows, billiard and reading rooms, tennis and playgrounds. It is planning cooperative stores, credit societies, more schools, and has sent to England for a trained, social worker to direct these activities. In view of the short- age of trained mechanics available for reconstruction work, it is planning to build a technological institute at Sakchi to train men in chemical and metallurgical in- dustries. It also plans a research laboratory in these two lines. This work is especially valuable for Indians, as, in trying to get this training in England, students have found a decided prejudice against admitting them to English shops. Queen Mary’s Technical School in Bombay was or- 20 India’s silent revolution ganized during the war. It gives direct industrial train- ing in the various trades to men disabled in war, keeps them at school for six months, providing food and cloth- ing, and gives them return tickets home. There are classes in tailoring, motor-car driving and motor me- chanics, knitting, carpentering, cinema operating, oil en- gine driving, fitting and turning, and elementary engi- neering. There is a machine shop which gives instruc- tion on metal lathes, wood lathes, drills, nut and bolt- making machines, a brass foundry, tin box-making plant, and a dovetailing machine for ammunition boxes. There is a poultry farm stocked with prize fowls, where incubation is taught. There are also lectures on modern scientific principles of cultivation of grain, fruits and vegetables. There are many evidences of the industrial awaken- ing. The Maharajah of Travancore has appointed a trained European officer to make an industrial survey of his state and report on the introduction of industrial and technical education. One curious result of the war has been the sudden reversal of official condemnation of the “ swadeshi ” movement into official endorsement. Swadeshi means home-made — “ Patronize home industries.” The swa- deshi movement in India has in the past been developed into an economic boycott of foreign goods, especially English made. It has been used as a political weapon and to retaliate against the heavy duties on Indian fab- rics which were levied in the early struggling days of the English factory, and which many Indians feel practically strangled the Indian weaving industry to death. It was also used after the partition of Bengal. Sir Valentine Chirol, who was for years correspon- THE WAR CHANGES THINGS 21 dent of the London Times in India and represents con- servative opinion, attacks the swadeshi movement as being far removed from a “ mere innocent economic propa- ganda for the furtherance of native industries,” and af- filiates it with esoteric religious rites and extremes of anti-British political agitation. 1 Yet in the winter of 1917-18, if you had been in Bombay, you might have attended a swadeshi exhibition organized by Her Excel- lency, Lady Wellington, under the auspices of the Vic- eroy and the governors of three presidencies. Home- made brooms, brushes, soaps, shoes and many other man- ufactured articles were on exhibition, as well as fabrics, and an Indian paper complacently boasted that the only essentials to modern life which Indians now have to im- port are watches and spectacles ! The cause of this reversal of attitude was of course the desire to cut down on shipping and make India, for the duration of the war, entirely self-dependent. The importance for India lies in the fact that these indus- tries developed during the war under official patronage will not suddenly shut down on the declaration of peace. Agriculture, as well as industry, has felt the stimulus of war. The Maharajah of Gwalior, one of the native Princes of India, has purchased $100,000 worth of Amer- ican agricultural machinery and has organized the re- clamation of a half-million acres of land in his state for the special benefit of the outcastes. The maharajahs of a dozen other native states have scientific, agricultural experiment and demonstration stations already estab- lished or in process of organization. For some years, the Government of India has set aside a yearly appropriation of $665,000 for scientific exper- 1 “ Indian Unrest.” 22 India’s silent revolution imental work on Indian agricultural problems and for schools and classes to teach the peasants how to utilize their land. Since the war, and particularly since Russia has been cut off as a base of food supplies, the impor- tance of increasing India’s production ha? been keenly felt. At present, according to the India Year Book, 1 each of the larger provinces has at least one deputy direc- tor of agriculture, an agricultural chemist, and an eco- nomic botanist. There are also fiber and cotton spe- cialists, mycologists, bacteriologists, entomologists — all of them trained experts from Great Britain. Effects of the war on the social life of India, on its individual homes and the status of its women, are subtle and far-reaching. Ninety per cent, of India’s popula- tion engaged in agriculture implies the fact that India lives in villages. There are only 30 cities of over 100,- 000 in India, and they contain only 2 per cent, of the population, whereas in England 45 per cent, live in the cities. There are 730,000 villages in India, remote little groups of huts, hundreds of miles from a railroad or newspaper or white man, and with an average of 363 inhabitants each. The million soldiers that India sent to the European front were recruited from these villages. This army of young men, sons and brothers of India at the front, must end forever the isolation of these vil- lages. Every young man going out to fight for the Empire left behind him a wondering sense of where he went, and why. High-caste women behind their purdahs, and sweeper women cleaning the village streets, all were stirred by a new consciousness of the world overseas and 1 Published annually by The Times of India, Bombay, a conserva- tive British daily paper. THE WAR CHANGES THINGS 23 roused out of the age-long lethargy which has made India so content to let the outside world slip by. Men who were at the front with the Indian forces comment on the eagerness of the Indian soldier to learn to write and spell. He wanted to send a post card mes- sage of his safety back to the little home in one of those 730,000 villages. When the letter reached home, his family had to hunt around for some one to read it to them, for the percentage of those who can read and write is only about 6 per cent, for all India. Then came the problem of sending word back to the boy in the trenches. There was the public letter writer on the street corner, who writes a letter for a penny, but he is being superseded by a suddenly fired ambition ev- erywhere to read and write one’s own letters. More potent than these letters is the influence of the men them- selves as they return from the front to take up life’s tasks again. They come home different men. Fighting shoulder to shoulder beside their allies, men from all over the world, they have a new realization of the nobility and brotherhood of mankind. The rigid caste rules of the Hindu religion keep Hindus in a peculiarly extreme ignorance of the rest of the world. Only born Hindus are eligible citizens in their cosmology. The rest of the world is negligible, barbarians and outcastes, whose very touch is defiling. Strict rules forbid an orthodox Hindu’s crossing the ocean to visit other lands. He may not eat with a mem- ber of another caste, and his food may be prepared only by members of his own caste. It is in defiance of these rules that young Indian students venture out to attend English and foreign universities. On their return, in 24 India’s silent revolution order to be readmitted to their former status, they must submit to most humiliating propitiatory rites. Keyed up to the war spirit as India has been, it is not conceivable that Hindu priests would attempt to insist upon rigid caste rites with all the thousands of returning soldiers. In addition to this initial letting down of the bars, the soldiers themselves have returned with a cos- mopolitan sense of values and standards such as it would have been impossible to carry into India under several generations. Nursed in war hospitals by the Red Cross nurses of the allied nations, they return home with a new conception of the possibilities of camaraderie be- tween men and women. Bivouacked in France and Bel- gium, in the country districts and in the cities, they could not fail to observe many of the elements which placed European culture and civilization in advance of their own. They have a new sense of the value of education; they have experienced the importance of machinery in every-day life; in the administration of their camps they have learned lessons of sanitation and hygiene; in daily contact with the young blood of all the allied nations they gained new respect for the human courage and gen- erosity and sportsmanship of the world outside. Traveling through the Punjab in the spring of 1918, I ran across an incident which, multiplied by the hundred thousands, illustrates what is happening all over India. It was up in the heart of the Punjab, 1,000 miles north of Bombay and Calcutta. As we came into the village we saw that something unusual was going on. We found all the people ranged around three sides of the square that makes the village green, the men on one side, the women on the other, and the children across the Mother learns to write a letter to her boy in the trenches. Having the kitchen outdoors insures good ventilation. THE WAR CHANGES THINGS 2 5 back — all seated on the ground. Facing them stood two young men in uniform, Indian soldiers who had been boys in this village, and were just back from the front, invalided home. One of them had a pointer and was drawing lines in the sand as he explained where France lay in relation to India, and how he sailed to reach it, and where Germany was from France, and England and America. He told them of Paris, and the other cities he had seen — of the street cars and the automobiles and the high buildings, of the women’s dresses. He de- scribed the furniture in restaurants, and how the meals were served, and the food. He tried to give them a sense of distance of how big India is, that he had trav- eled all day and a night and another day before he even reached Bombay, and of the days he spent on the water before he reached France. He told a story of what may happen to caste in the trenches that must have been an eye-opener to these low caste villagers. One day the cook for a group of Brah- man soldiers was killed, and almost as a matter of course a low caste took his place. And sometimes, in the emer- gencies of war, the castes all ate together quite promis- cuously — a defiance of the most rigid, orthodox law which would normally call for excommunication. Ordinarily when a white man enters a remote village, he is the center of interest. Every one watches him anx- iously. Is he going to collect taxes? Or is he a judge come to punish them? On this day, our group of white men entered the village, and sat down on one side of the square practically unnoticed. Every man, woman and child was completely absorbed in these two brothers, who a couple of years before had been just ordinary native 26 India’s silent revolution boys growing up in the village and now had come home to them with the most extraordinary stories they had ever heard. After the meeting, I talked to these boys. They were fired with a sense of the world outside. They were im- pelled to go from village to village, telling what they had seen, spreading their new knowledge among their peo- ple. They had no idea of making money out of it. They would accept food for the day and shelter for the night, but that was all. This new sense of world citizenship, as well as citi- zenship in the British Empire, has been an important el- ement in the Indian soldier’s war experience. Indian troops, reaching Marseilles just in time, reinforced the swaying lines of khaki which stood between the Ger- mans and Calais. That day marked a new chapter in Indian history. It made her a vital factor in the great- est world movement of all time. Hitherto, isolated by oceans and the Himalayas, she had meditated on eter- nity and sought perfection in inaction, in withdrawing from the world. But from the day Indian troops landed at Marseilles, through the campaigns in Mesopotamia and Palestine, and the victories of General Allenby’s army, they have “ maintained the best traditions of the service,” to quote the measured tribute of the Mesopotamia Commission’s report to Parliament. Most important of all, both in its immediate results and in its portent for the future, is the effect of the war upon India’s relation to the British Empire. It was a prodigious coincidence that the war should have crashed upon the world at this peculiarly psychological moment for India. She had been seething with unrest for nine THE WAR CHANGES THINGS 2J years — ever since Lord Curzon’s reign as viceroy from 1899-1905. Several of Lord Curzon’s measures, notably the par- tition of Bengal and certain rather tactless phrases in his speeches, stirred through the calm which had brooded over India for the fifty years since the Mutiny and cre- ated a spirit of rebellious discontent. This ripened into bombings and assassinations under his successor. Indian unrest has expressed itself by individual acts of violence, which have received wide attention because they are sensational and create panic. But those fa- miliar with India reckon the quiet, deeply growing sense of national unity and the movement for constitutional reform of the last decade far more significant. Only the most radical of Englishmen have been radical enough to sympathize with such ambitions. “ Little Englanders,” other Britishers call them; implying that any increase of representative government granted to India would by so much diminish the prestige of England. It is not fair to attribute quite all of India’s restless- ness to the Curzon administration. Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905 had thrilled the entire Orient with a new hope and ambition. Such a tonic to Oriental pride was the most potent sort of stimulus to Indian nationalism, following as it did the seven years of smarting under Lord Curzon’s regime. Discontent had gone so far in India that the coronation concession, reversing Lord Curzon’s famous measure and restoring Bengal as one province in 1911, was too late to be effective. The fire of discontent was still smoking, with occasional flare-ups, when the war broke out. Ger- many, in making her plans for the war, undoubtedly counted on the disaffection of both India and Ireland. 28 India’s silent revolution Oddly enough, where all other efforts, both concilia- tory and domineering, had failed, it was the war that put a quietus on rebellion. India rose as one man, with memorials of loyalty and devotion and with material support. The response was instantaneous. Less than seven weeks after England's entry into the war, Mr. Asquith in the House of Commons stated that, more than any other, the message of the Viceroy of India, pledging the unanimous support of princes and people, had stirred the House and the entire country. Friends of India hope that this new sympathy may be permanent and find ground for hope in the more lib- eral administration of England growing out of the war. Rumors of incompetence on the part of the Indian Gov- ernment resulted in the appointment of the Mesopotamia Commission, which reported to Parliament in the sum- mer of 1917 that the Indian Government had “ failed ad- equately to minister to the wants of the forces employed in Mesopotamia.” The report was more an indictment of the system of government in force than of any individual. It found general “ dissatisfaction at the system of microscopic, financial control exercised over details of military ex- penditure,” and it criticized the technique of Indian ad- ministration in such terms as “ astounding " and “ the im- possible system in force at Simla.” Following precedent in such cases, Air. Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for India, resigned. The Viceroy’s term was just over. So the war gave India a new slate of officials in the summer of 1917. Lord Chelmsford was appointed Viceroy, and Mr. Edwin S. Montagu, Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is the highest official connected THE WAR CHANGES THINGS 2 9 with Indian affairs. Stationed in London, he ranks even higher than the Viceroy in Delhi, and is responsible for the Government of India before Parliament and the Crown, advised by a council of retired Anglo-Indian of- ficials. In connection with the debate on the report of the Mesopotamia Commission, Mr. Montagu, who had been Under Secretary of State with Lord Morley from 1910-13, made a speech containing some remarkably frank and outspoken criticisms of British administration in India. He said, for instance, that “ the Government of India is too wooden, too iron, too inelastic, too ante- diluvian, to be of any use for the modern purposes we have in view. I do not believe that anybody could ever support the Government of India from the point of view of modern requirements. It is an indefensible system.” That Mr. Montagu should have been appointed Sec- retary of State for India a few days after making the speech proved a new temper on the part of the British Government toward India. Nor did Mr. Montagu’s criticisms end with his appointment to office. He pro- ceeded to India at once to investigate conditions and work out a program of constitutional reforms, which were pre- sented to Parliament in a three hundred page report less than a year after his appointment. It is too early to try to judge the significance to India of this sequence following the war — her loyal response, the dramatic f alldown of governmental red-tape, the report of the Mes- opotamia Commission, and the appointment of Mr. Mon- tagu as Secretary of State. But it is from this sequence of events that the important denouement for India must follow. While these contingencies were ripening in the polit- ical world, every soldier of the Indian Expeditionary 30 India's silent revolution Forces has gone through a process of preparation for re- turn to a new India. He has earned a new sense of pride and responsibility in belonging to the British Empire. It is a maxim of human psychology that if you want to make a friend of a man you ask him to do something for you. England asked India to do something for her. From the King and Premier down, they appealed to India for help in the crisis; and India, forgetting the dif- ferences and political and personal animosities of the past, laid aside nationalist propaganda and responded to the call. All India felt the thrill of helping, but espe- cially those men who bring back from the front a new esprit de corps, a new sense of belonging. If England shows liberality and statesmanship in the adaptation of her policy toward them, these men may be leaders in weld- ing India into a new allegiance and devotion as a member of the British Empire. Ill FIELDS AND FACTORIES Mud walls a foot thick, grass-thatched roof, and dirt floor — this is the home of 97 per cent, of India’s pop- ulation. In the south the tiny huts nestle in luxuriant, exotic greenness, and dense palm groves shadow the wet rice fields. Further north, on the scorched plains of the Punjab, the sun-baked mud cabins stand out stark and brown in desolate fields. North or south, most of the huts have but one room, no windows, and one door. Usually the cooking is done on a little mud stove built against the outside wall near the door. If the fire is built inside, the smoke must find its way out by the door, or through the roof, as they have no chimneys. The clay floors are crusted with cow dung mixed with clay, which hardens to a glossy surface like hardwood, and which lasts very well, as the ryots do not wear shoes. The one universal piece of furni- ture which serves as table, chairs, and cradle by day, and bedstead by night, is the charpoy — a simple frame cot of poles lashed upon four legs. Hemp rope or broad bands of tape are darned back and forth lengthwise and crosswise, taking the place of springs and mattress. Luxurious furnishings of a home consist in a multipli- cation of these beds. Chairs would only be in the way, for crouching on the heels is the customary mode of sit- tin" down. During the day, these beds are tipped up on 31 32 India’s silent revolution one end, except the one which serves as a general utility table. There are no attempts at decoration in ordinary vil- lage homes ; no rugs, embroideries, pictures ; most In- dians are too poor. A nation with an average income of $20 a year does not have much margin for ostentation. The well-to-do ryot, the zamindar (land-owner), is dis- tinguished by his brass bowls and cooking utensils, in- stead of earthenware, and by the value of the gold and silver bracelets, anklets, and nose rings of his women- folk. Among the very poor of the lower castes and outcastes, it is customary to share this one room with whatever cattle, goats, and chickens the family are lucky enough to own. The village headman may have a more elaborate home, with a couple of small rooms opening off the main room, and even a small court-yard in front with an entrance gate. But the extra rooms are generally used for storing grain, and with gregarious instinct life crowds into one main room. The Indian’s clothing varies with the tem- perature. In the south he wears a loin cloth; in the north he wraps himself in calico and the printed Indian muslins, which we use for curtains. Chapati is the na- tional bread — an unleavened pancake, baked on the out- side of a metal bowl inverted over the fire; pulse is the ryot’s potato and vegetable curry his characteristic dish. Movies have not yet penetrated past the cities. Vil- lages are so widely scattered that even wandering jug- glers and sword swallowers rarely reach them. There are two main diversions — marriages and funerals. As the ryot is rarely able to save anything, he borrows for these events and runs up debts which, with their accum- ulating interest, hang over him the rest of his life and FIELDS AND FACTORIES 33 are frequently handed down from father to son for sev- eral generations. There are, besides these, two national institutions, commercial and religious — the cattle fair and the an- nual religious festival, the mela. Oriental fairs are a custom handed down from earliest antiquity, and our county fairs are their descendants. They told me there were 200,000 people present at a fair I attended in the Punjab. I could believe it. They looked a million to me. They have the same red lemonade, peanuts, dust, crowds of people, and live stock. But there the resem- blance ends. For never could the sober minded citizens of the United States assemble such a blaze of color. Turbans of orange, salmon color, brilliant greens, blues and Indian red, punctuated here and there with shining black hair and shaven heads, made a flaming top to the picture. The mass of flowing robes of saffron, rose and orange, was streaked with bare bronze legs and backs and vivid rags, while the many white draperies glistened like flashes of iridescence in the dazzling sunshine. Dust was over everything. The grass was white with it. We ate and breathed and swallowed it. Tent flies were stretched over some of the most valuable cattle; the rest stood patiently in the sun and dust while groups of Indians gathered round to bargain and trade. Preachers of all religions distributed tracts and pictures, and, when they could get an audience, made speeches. Crouching in the dust were venders of betel nut, puffed rice, cocoanut candy, chapatis, and ghee. Ghee is merely clarified or melted butter, and is used universally in India as an offering poured over the statues and shrines of the gods. They make a special kind of chapati at these fairs that is very delicious. Where it puffs up in baking, they 34 India’s silent revolution split it open and drop in highly seasoned curry, then roll it and hand it to you. In shape and flavor it is not unlike the hot tamale of which it is perhaps a remote ancestor. Wherever there is the smallest open space, snake charm- ers, fire eaters, and magicians spread out their mats and try to cajole you into stopping to watch their tricks. The village is the unit of Indian life, and in the past it was a complete entity. Its occupations were distrib- uted by caste, and were handed down from father to son. Each village had its own priests, its barber, blacksmith, potter, washerman, musician, carpenter, and, most im- portant of all, money-lender. Larger villages had a weaver, cotton carder, oilman (who ground oil from seeds), grain dealer, petty jeweler, and shopkeeper. These functionaries were at the disposal of the village, and received a regular salary to which each member of the village contributed so many pounds of grain a year — all except the money-lender. His services were intimately personal. Interest as high as 75 per cent, was frequently charged, 1 and while the original was paid back many times over in interest the borrower was rarely able to get enough ahead to pay off the capital. A typical case was a young ryot I knew who was trying to discharge a debt which his grandfather had contracted to pay the dowries of his daughters. His father struggled with it all his life, adding to it, and this young man accepted the bur- den as his inheritance. India has always been predominantly agricultural, but even centuries ago her handicrafts ranked high among the industries of the world. Some of the oldest relics that have come down to us out of the past bear 1 Year Book, 1917, p. 476. FIELDS AND FACTORIES 35 the imprint of India. The Pharaohs of Egypt used to wrap their mummies in India muslin, and fashion their jewel boxes and objcts d'art from the ivory and gold, tamerind and sandal wood, of India. The most diaph- anous and fragile draperies the world has ever known were woven in India, where in the old days her master craftsmen used to spend half a year in weaving a single strip of delicate gossamer. Tissues of evening dew, run- ning water, clouds, smoke, were some of the hyperboles that an enthusiastic Europe was wont to bestow. It was the fine linens and prints, the jewels and em- broideries of eighteenth century India, that enabled the East India Company to pay its bondholders average profits of 117 per cent, for the first eighty years of its existence and to sell shares of stock issued at 100 for as high as 500. 1 Rivalry among European traders to se- cure a footing in India was occasioned, not by her raw produce but by the variety and value of her manufac- tures. Dyeing, rug making, fine embroidery, metal work, damascening of arms, carving, paper making, and the jeweler’s art all flourished, and a considerable proportion of the population were employed in these industries until the close of the eighteenth century. In 1787 the city of Dacca exported muslin to England to the value of $1,- 500,000. By 1817, her exports had dropped to zero. 2 This incredibly abrupt strangling of a great industry had two causes — the natural instinct of Englishmen in the first flush of colonial adventure to develop home in- dustries at the cost of this far-away dependency, and the unfortunate coincidence for India of the invention of power looms and the factory system at just this moment. 1 McCauley, “ History of England,” vol. 4, p. 244. 2 Sir Henry Cotton, “ New India,” p. 104. 36 India's silent revolution Lancashire and Manchester mills were young and could demand protection as infant industries. The tariffs im- posed were practically confiscatory. Henry St. George Tucker, a director of the East India Company, made the statement in 1823 that Indian silks and silk and cotton mixtures had already been excluded from the British markets, and that “ by the operation of a duty of 67 per cent, and also owing to the effect of superior British machinery, the cotton fabrics of India, hitherto her staple product, have not only been displaced, but we are exporting cotton into India. India is thus reduced from the state of a manufacturing to that of an agricultural country.” British goods imported into India were taxed only 3T2 per cent. In a few r years and through a process of crowding out her peasant weavers, instead of exporting fabrics to Eng- land, India was not even weaving enough to supply her own needs. English factories were able to undersell the hand-woven linens and muslins of India. The House of Commons appointed a committee to in- vestigate the situation in 1840. Sir Charles Trevelyan, afterward Finance Minister, testifying before this com- mittee, told of the city of Dacca, the Manchester of India, with a population of 150,000 at the end of the eighteenth century, and now, in less than fifty years, reduced to thirty or forty thousand, “ and the jungle and malaria are fast encroaching on the town — the distress there has been very great indeed.” Figures quoted at this hearing summarize the story. In 1814, India exported 1,250,000 pieces of cotton goods to England; in 1835, only 360,000 pieces. In the same time British exports of machine-made cottons into India had risen from 818,000 yards in 1814, to 51,000,000 in FIELDS AND FACTORIES 37 1835. Even with this balance of trade in her favor, England was still sending her goods into India with a tax of only 3^2 per cent., while she taxed Indian cotton goods 10 per cent., silks 20 per cent., and woolen goods 30 per cent. As the exportation of cotton goods fell off, that of raw cotton increased. Raw cotton exported for five years up to 1813 averaged nine pounds. In the five years end- ing 1838 it had jumped to forty-eight million. This was the beginning of the preponderance of agri- culture, which is one of the principal causes of Indian poverty and maladjustment to-day. The poverty of India is undisputed. The West has no standards by which to judge such penury. No author can adequately tell the whole story. Sir William Hunter, making a speech at Birmingham in 1880, said, “There re- main forty millions of Indians who go through life on insufficient food.” In 1900 William Digby, of the In- dian Civil Service, commented that with an increase of population since 1880 of thirty millions, and a steady de- crease in average income, “ there are seventy million con- tinually hungry people in British India at the beginning of the twentieth century.” 1 Sir Charles Elliott esti- mated that one-half of the agricultural population are always hungry. Two meals a day are a maximum, and with hard times, this drops to one meal, which is fre- quently cut to nothing at all by droughts and famines. Sir James Meston, Finance Minister of the Viceroy’s council, and ex-Governor of the United Provinces, in a recent speech in London referred to India as “ the lowest taxed civilized or semi-civilized country in the world.” The actual per capita tax is eight times as high in Russia, 1 “ Prosperous British India,” p. 85. 38 INDIA S SILENT REVOLUTION in England twenty times, in Italy nineteen, in France twenty-five, in the United States and Germany thirteen times. This oft-repeated statement loses much of its force in a comparison with the average incomes of those countries. Comparing the average income of India with that of the United States, our tax rate should be twenty-five times as high. William Digby reckoned that the daily per capita in- come of four cents in 1850 had fallen to about one and one-half cents by 1900. Conditions perhaps speak louder than estimates. The actuarial calculations of insurance companies show that the expectation of life at birth for an Indian is twenty-two years, whereas it is forty-six years for an Englishman. The duration of life for Indians has grown progressively shorter since 1891 and 1901 as shown by census records. 1 Official reports, made at the order of the Indian Gov- ernment some years ago, describe India’s destitution re- lentlessly. In 1891, Mr. S. S. Thornburn, revenue com- missioner of the Punjab, made a house-to-house inves- tigation of conditions in an area of about 1,000 square miles, with a population of 300,000, scattered through 535 villages. The commissioner reported that “ quite half the old agriculturists are already ruined beyond re- demption in 126 villages,” and their farms had passed into the hands of the money lenders whom “ our system is making masters of the community." Mr. 1 hornburn reported that the primary cause for borrowing was to pay the land revenue, and the second cause to buy seed grain. 1 Census of India, 1911, Actuarial Report. FIELDS AND FACTORIES 39 The Hon. Mr. G. Rogers, Indian Civil Service, and member of the Bombay Council, reported similar condi- tions in his territory to the Under-Secretary of State for India. He said that in the eleven years up to 1890 there were sold by auction for the collection of land revenue the occupancy rights of nearly two million acres of land held by 840,713 defaulters, in addition to personal prop- erty to the value of almost a million dollars (Rs. 2,965,- 081). Nearly 60 per cent, of this land ( 1,174,143 acres) had to be bought in by Government for lack of bidders, although it was supposed to have been equitably assessed. That is to say, in eleven years, one-eighth of the entire agricultural population of the district was sold out of house and home. Selling out meant not only the ryot’s land and mud hut, but his cattle, plow, cooking utensils, beds — everything except the rags which he and his fam- ily wore. 1 These figures are old, but later reports and my own ex- perience reaffirm them. The Famine Commission of 1901 reported that at least one-fourth of the cultivators of the Bombay Presidency had lost their land, while less than one-fifth were free from debt. After fifteen years of personal knowledge of India, with residence and travel there, I can assert that while there is improvement it is so gradual that these general statements are still characteristic of conditions. The inadequacy of such a standard of living has made India particularly susceptible to the famines which have swept the country in the past. Her population had no re- serve on which to fall back when the crops failed. There were in the last century thirty-one wide-spread famines, 1 Quoted by C. J. O’Donnell, “ The Failure of Lord Curzon.” 40 India’s silent revolution in which 32,000,000 men, women, and children died of starvation. This is equivalent to the entire population of five of the largest American states — Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania. Illinois, and California. Perhaps the most pitiful part of these famines has been that, in spite of the network of railroads which cover the land, at the very time that people were starving to death by hundred thousands in one province, the ad- joining province might be exporting cargoes of wheat and grain to the markets of the world. People died of starvation, not so much because there was no grain to buy, as because they had no money with which to buy it. Pierre Loti, in his description of famine in the rose- colored city of Jeypore, gives a wonderful sense of the contrasts of India, where unbounded luxury and star- vation brush shoulders. “ What an astonishing and kindly caprice it must have been that planned a whole rose-colored city where all the houses, ramparts, palaces, towers, balconies, and temples are of one color, evenly diapered with similar posies of white flowers. One might almost think that all the walls had been hewn out of onyx. “ I have never seen such extravagant luxury of super- posed colonnades, of festooned arches, towers, windows, and balconies. All, too, of the same tint — a rosy tint whose color is that of a flower, or of an old silk, and even the tiniest molding, or the tiniest arabesque, is out- lined with a white thread graven in relief. It almost looks as if a delicate tracery of white lace had been nailed over the piece of sculpture. “ In the middle of the street there is an unending pro- cession of armed horsemen bestriding gorgeous saddles, of heavy carts drawn by zebras with painted horns, of FIELDS AND FACTORIES 41 long strings of camels and of elephants with gilded robes, whose trunks have been ornamented with complicated networks of colored patterns. Nude fakirs covered with white powder from head to foot walk past, and palan- quins and chairs that are borne on men’s shoulders are carried along. “ Servants lead tame cheetahs belonging to the King through the streets. These are led on slips, so that they may become accustomed to crowds. They wear little em- broidered caps tied under their chins with a bow. “ There are horrible heaps of rags and bones lying on the pavement hidden amongst the gay booths of the mer- chants, and people have to step aside so as not to tread upon them. These phantoms are peasants who used to live in the surrounding districts. They have struggled against the droughts which brought destruction to the land, and their long agony is imprinted on their incred- ibly emaciated bodies. Now all is over; their cattle have died because there was no more grass ; they are hungry and they wish to eat; that is why they have come to the city. They thought that people would take pity on them and would not let them die, and they had heard that food and grain were stored here as if to resist a siege. “ At this very moment they are piling hundreds of sacks which the camels have brought on to the pavements. Room cannot be found in the barns, so three starved and naked children, whose ages range from five to ten years, must be driven from the place where they had sought to rest. The tiniest of the three children seems to be almost dead, for he is motionless and has no longer strength enough to drive away the flies that cling to his closed eye- lids. His belly is so empty that it resembles the carcass of an animal that has been drawn for cooking, and he has 4 2 India’s silent revolution dragged himself along the ground so long that at last his hip bones have rubbed through the skin. But they must move on elsewhere so that there may be room for the sacks of grain.” 1 The British Government in India has administered famine relief on a colossal scale by providing work in building roads and digging canals. In July, 1900, relief was given daily to six and one-half million persons. 2 That there has been no general famines since 1900 gives hope that the experts are finding out how to check them. For the Government has heeded progressive criticism and set about to prevent famine as well as to relieve it. The combined influence of government and mission- ary agricultural schools, demonstration stations estab- lished by successful landowners, and now finally the ne- cessity of war, are not only the most effective antidotes to famine but are regenerating India’s agricultural status and raising the ryot's standard of living to something nearer a conceivable minimum. The work of my friend Samuel Higginbottom, an American missionary, who has been appointed in charge of agriculture for the state by the Maharajah of Gwalior, is typical of the new day. Higginbottom, one of Princeton’s national football stars and a post-graduate of Ohio State Agricultural College, has sold to the princes of India a realization of the ne- cessity of introducing agricultural education into their states, just as an American business man goes out and sells advertising. He demonstrated American weeders doing the work of nineteen men. He showed them a machine cutting several tons of grass in the time it takes a ryot to cut 1 Pierre Loti, “ India,” p. 191. 2 “ Imperial Gazeteer,” vol. 3, p. 492. FIELDS AND FACTORIES 43 enough to feed one horse for a season. Old-fashioned threshing with oxen used to cost 50 cents per hundred pounds. Higginbottom threshes by machinery for 6 cents per hundred. Farm laborers in India only cost 8 cents per day, but modern farm machinery brings in a harvest at one-third of this cost. Higginbottom teaches a ryot how to save 4 2^/2 miles in plowing a single acre. He teaches him rotation of crops, how to use manures, how to build silos, and store away food for the cattle against years of drought. As a result “ Sam ” Higgin- bottom is not only an official of the state of Gwalior, but he is agricultural adviser to the native states of Ruttan, Kotah, Jalawar, Dhar, and Jaora, while through his influence the Maharajahs of Bikaner and Jodhpur are looking for American experts who can give them their entire time. Indian princes under British governors are opening agricultural schools under the Department of Education as rapidly as possible. There are experimental farms in every province. A board of agriculture suggests and re- views programs of work, and publishes an agricultural journal. Several native states are using the same plans. Mysore has opened twenty rural schools in villages cen- trally located, where agricultural methods will be taught along lines proposed by the Inspector General of Educa- tion of British India. In Gwalior, another native state, the Gwalior Agricultural Company, organized by the offi- cial State Trust, has taken over twenty million acres of land for farming operations on a large scale. This will also serve as a demonstration station. No amount of intensive farming and reorganization of her agricultural life wflll fully meet the situation. India’s great economic weakness is over-development of agricul- 44 India’s silent revolution ture to the exclusion of all industrial life. Sir James Meston referred in a recent speech to this situation: . . It is a fact that 90 to 95 per cent, of the population is engaged in agricultural or pastoral pursuits.” The pro- portion of those employed in industry as compared with ag- riculture in India is 2 to 13, whereas in England it is 8 to 1, and even in Ireland, it is 3 to 4. With such an abnor- mal majority working in the fields a community has no alternative source of income when there is drought or a poor harvest. W. H. Moreland, writing in the Quarterly Review, 1 refers to the “ recognized poverty of India ” as the ac- tuating impetus for the present Nationalist movement and adds : “ It is a matter of common knowledge that the present income of the country, even if it were equitably distributed, would not suffice to provide the population with even the indispensable elements of a reasonable life. This fundamental factor of poverty is unquestionably correlated with the undue preponderance of agriculture as a means of livelihood. The need of diversification of employment insisted on so strongly by the Famine Com- mission of 1880, only becomes more obvious with each successive advance in knowledge of the economic condi- tion of the country.” In 1880, there were, in all India, 77 cotton and jute factories, employing 65,000 hands. By 1915 this had risen to 303 factories, employing 279,000 persons. The state industries of munitions and railways employed about three-fourths of a million, and mining another quarter million. No other industry in India employed over 20,000 workers. That is, in 1915, India, with a 1 April, 1917. The accommodating charpoy which serves as bed by night and as settee or wall tapestry by day This is not an American factory, but the laboratory of an industrial school in Nadiad FIELDS AND FACTORIES 45 total population of 315,000,000 had less than a million and a half employed in industry. The war necessity for making India not only self-sup- porting but a source of supply for the allied armies came at the psychological moment. Her economic transition has been enormously speeded up by this new impetus to Indian industry. Swadeshi has its difficulties to over- come, however. It is conceded that the Indian is not nat- urally a business man. There is the exception, the Bom- bay Parsi, who has a genius for business. The educated Indian, however, turns more instinctively to professional life, especially law. There are a few successful Hindu and Mohammedan business concerns. A conspicuous ex- ample of Indian management is the Tata Iron and Steel Works, mentioned in the previous chapter. These works have sprung up with American swiftness in the jungles of Orissa, where they have laid out plans for an indus- trial city of 20,000 people. They began with a capitali- zation of seven and three quarter millions, and an In- dian board of directors which engages American experts to organize and administer the works. Their inter- national headquarters in New York City occupies a suite of offices thoroughly American in efficiency and lavish- ness. Already this concern has branched out into nu- merous subsidiary lines, and is promoting plans for build- ing and construction work after the war, which will per- mit it to continue turning out its war-time capacity. Recently I saw an announcement in the New York Times by the Guarantee Trust Company that it had com- pleted arrangements to act as correspondents of the Tata Industrial Bank Company, Ltd., of India. The Tata Bank does a general banking and exchange business, but its specialty is to finance and develop industries in India 46 India’s silent revolution and adjacent countries. Among its interests is a hydro- electric company supplying Bombay with 40,000 horse- power. It is now doubling the plant. The very conspic- uous and isolated success of this concern suggests that India may repeat our American experience of fostering big monopolies rather than numerous small concerns. Infinite industrial opportunity presents itself in such a virgin continent as India. Her recent advance in export figures is due to increased business since the war in raw and manufactured jute, raw and manufactured cotton, and milled grains. Recently India has developed a large export trade in leather, and Cawnpore during the last year of the war furnished all leather for the boots and ac- couterments of British armies in the East. This is es- pecially interesting in view of the orthodox religious prej- udice against traffic in leather and against persons who work in leather, because the body of the cow is sacred. According to Hindu law all such workers are outcaste, and are segregated rigidly from the rest of the community. In the great industrial development ahead of India, she is confronted by the menace which every young indus- trial nation must face, of a terrific ruthlessness as to laboring conditions. An official census of wages pre- vailing in India was taken in 1911. The daily w^age of the unskilled farm hand in Bengal ran from 4 to 8 cents; the unskilled city worker averaged 5 to 10 cents. Among skilled workers there was greater variety. Masons were paid 12 to 16 cents, and in Calcutta car- penters earned as high as 32 cents. Wages in the other provinces were approximately the same. 1 A table of wages paid in eight industries during 1913, gives an av- 1 Official report on Moral and Material Condition of India, 1912- 13 . P- 124- FIELDS AND FACTORIES 47 erage daily wage of 17 cents. The industries were cot- ton, wool, paper, rice, brewing, jute, coal, and tea. With the exception of the last two, these are skilled urban trades, and represent the highest wages paid. 1 There is theoretically such a thing as an irreducible minimum. These wages seem to have reached it. India's standard of wages cannot sink much lower or she will be in the position of the man who had just taught his horse to eat sawdust, when the horse died. The trouble is that when the fierce grind of competition be- tween big industries seizes India, there will be no chance of raising this standard of living and civilization, until the first long spasm of commercial expansion and mon- opoly has passed. Judging by the evidence presented before the Factory Labor Committee which sat in India in 1908, the grind of competition is already about as severe as flesh and blood can endure. This committee appointed by the Government personally visited and examined all the principal jute, cotton, rice, and flour mills of India. The working schedules of these mills come under two classes : those which use electric light, and those which do not. The “daylight hours” mills have a hour working day in summer from 5 130 a. m. to 7 :30 p. m. In winter, this is cut to 1 1 hours. Mills lighted by electricity are not subject to these limitations. The Calcutta jute mills open at 4 :30 in the morning and run until 8 130 at night. The committee found that cotton-ginning mills run 12 to 18 hours a day during the rush season, and the rice and flour mills sometimes as high as 20 to 22 hours. It is a general custom to require the operatives to come to 1 Review of Trade of India, 1913-14, p. 84. 48 India’s silent revolution the mills on Sundays and clean their machines, a task consuming from three to five hours. Because Indian cities are so crowded, many of the op- eratives are forced to live two and three miles from their work, involving a long walk before and after hours. A member of the committee, picking out at random a child of seven working in one of the mills asked him how far away he lived. He replied two miles, and that he had to leave his home at 4 o’clock every morning to reach the works in time. The employment of children is another evil which threatens India's next generation. The laws are very lax. Children over 9 years may be employed as “ half- timers ” — that is 7^2 to 8 hours a day. As soon as they are 14, they may be employed full time. Even these conditions are grossly violated. The Committee found that “ children are as a rule habitually worked during the whole running hours of the factory, not on the excuse that they are over 14, but in pure disregard of the law.” Of 3,300 “ half-timers ” examined by the medical members of the Committee, 10 per cent, were found to be less than 9 years old. In the jute mills of Bengal chil- dren of 6 to 7 working 8 hours a day constitute 30 to 40 per cent, of the “ half-time ” staff. One manager ad- mitted that probably 25 per cent, of the “ half-timers ” in his mill were under 9 years old. Almost the only evidence of intelligent consideration of the human beings involved are the laws affecting the employment of women, which were passed in 1891. W omen may not work more than 1 1 hours a day, and they must have a rest interval during the day of 1 hours. It is discouraging to find that this official com- mittee consisting of six British and three Indian mem- FIELDS AND FACTORIES 49 bers, sitting as recently as 1908, suggested the removal of this one poor protection for the women who must bear and nurse India’s next generation. The committee recommended that the hours of labor for women be ex- tended from 11 to 12 hours, and that the rest interval be reduced from \ l / 2 hours to l / 2 hour. It is only fair to add that a majority of the committee did recommend a reduction in the working hours for men, and certain limitations on the employment of children. Thoughtful Indians are already awake to the menace of the situation. One Indian member of the Committee filed a minority report of outraged protest against such findings. Individual Indians are active in improving con- ditions. They bring to the labor problem something of that same mystical intensity which differentiates their re- ligion and their whole attitude toward life from the Oc- cidental. This is evidenced in an account by M. K. Gandhi of his part in a recent strike of 10,000 mill work- ers in Ahmedabad. Mr. Gandhi became conspicuous in labor affairs as an investigator of the shocking conditions of Indian inden- tured labor in South Africa, and when this strike came on he was appointed one of a board of three arbitrators to settle the dispute. A 70 per cent, bonus, granted in the fall of 1917 because of plague, had suddenly been with- drawn the following spring. The mill hands at first de- manded a permanent raise of 70 per cent, which was later modified to 50. The mill owners offered 20 per cent. The arbitrators succeeded in inducing the workers to compromise on 35 per cent. To their chagrin, the owners refused to meet this compromise. Then Mr. Gandhi, though a member of a joint board of arbitration, took a vow that he would not touch food until the workers 50 India’s silent revolution had either won their 35 per cent, or had themselves given up the strike. The strikers won. In the Indian Review for April, 1918, Mr. Gandhi offers an apology for his vow, with a simple solemnity that is somehow characteristic of the Indian attitude toward anything which he takes seriously. “ But the mill hands had grown weary of the twenty- two days struggle, were preparing to go to work and ac- cept the 20 per cent, increase, and were taunting us (I think very properly) that it was very well for us who had motors at our disposal and plenty of food to attend their meetings and advise staunchness even unto death. “ I felt that it was a sacred moment for me, my faith was on the anvil, and I had no hesitation in rising and declaring to the men that a breach of their vow so sol- emnly taken was unendurable by me, and that I would not take any food until they had the 35 per cent, increase given or until they had fallen. “ Before I took the vow I knew that there were serious defects about it. For me to take such a vow in order to affect in any shape or form the decision of the mill- owners would be a cowardly injustice done to them and I would prove myself unfit for the friendship which I had the privilege of enjoying with some of them. I knew that I ran the risk of being misunderstood. I could not prevent my fast from affecting their decision. The knowledge, moreover, put a responsibility on me which I was ill able to bear. From now I disabled my- self from gaining concessions for the men which ordin- arily in a struggle such as this I would be entirely justi- fied in securing. I put the defects of my vow in one scale and the merits of it in the other. There are hardly any acts of human beings which are free from all taint. FIELDS AND FACTORIES 51 Mine, I knew, was exceptionally tainted: but better the ignominy of having unworthily compromised by my vow the position and independence of the mill-owners than that it should be said by posterity that 10,000 men had suddenly broken a vow which they had for over twenty days solemnly taken and repeated in the name of God.” Even before the growth of her industries had begun, the cities of India presented a baffling housing problem. Into the welter of crooked streets and unsanitary habits of an Oriental city these great industrial plants are wedg- ing their thousands of employees. Working from before dawn until after dark, men and women are too exhausted to go far from the plant to sleep, if they can help it. When near-by houses are jammed to suffocation, they live and sleep in the streets. In Calcutta, twenty years ago, land had reached $200,000 an acre in the over- crowded tenement districts. G. W. Stevens describes it vividly : “ Calcutta is a shame even in the East. In its slums, mill hands and dock coolies do not live ; they pig. Houses choke with unwholesome breath ; drains and com- pounds fester in filth. Wheels compress decaying refuse in the roads; cows drink from wells soaked with sewage, and the floor of bakeries is washed in the same pollution. What wonder, then, that the death rate of the whole city is thirty-six in the thousand — in one ward, forty- eight in the thousand.” 1 The death rate for New York City and for the United States is fourteen per thousand, and in England, thirteen. War work added to the horrors of over-crowding, with profiteering by the landlords. Rents were raised as much 1 G. W. Stevens, “ In India.' 52 India’s silent revolution as 300 per cent., enforced by eviction. Mass meetings of protest in Bombay resulted in government action, fixing maximum rents for some of the tenements occupied by artisans and laborers. Setting maximum rental does not, however, make more room. Last winter in Madras they brought their straw mats and frame cots down on the streets and slept there by hundreds. In New York City the police close cer- tain East Side streets to traffic in the summer for play streets for the children. In India, people themselves make a barricade across either end of the street with their charpoys or cots, placed end to end. Inside these barri- cades the entire street and sidewalk is closely packed with men and women sleeping on straw mats or with only a blanket between them and the pavement. Even streets that are not barricaded are so crowded with sleepers that it is impossible to walk through them. Industrial com- missions have been appointed to investigate and report all over India. At the request of the Amir of Kabul, a commission of British experts is advising him on the planning and administration of woolen mills, tanneries, and leather factories in his state. The Maharajah of Travancore has appointed a Euro- pean expert to make an industrial survey of his state and draw up a program for industrial and technical education. A Government Industrial Commission held protracted hearings in Bombay during the winter of 1917. Re- peated emphasis was given to the difficulty of obtaining capital in India for new enterprises. As one witness put it, “ It is not difficult to raise capital for concerns similar to those already existing, as the cotton mills in Bombay or the jute mills in Calcutta. It is most difficult to raise capital for a new industry, small or large. Investors are FIELDS AND FACTORIES 53 nervous and will not tread unknown paths. This is ag- gravated by the fact that the savings of the people are small; the standard of comfort is low; investors are few, nervous and suspicious; the average rate of interest is much higher than in other industrial countries; no local capital is available for strictly local industries, as laun- dries, gas works and tramways.” 1 The old Hindu custom of hoarding money handicaps industrial expansion. This is an Indian habit which fills British statesmen with despair. India is called the sink of precious metals. I had the privilege of being taken through the treasure vaults of one of the wealthiest Ma- harajahs. I could have plunged my arm to the shoulder in great silver caskets filled with diamonds, pearls, em- eralds, rubies. The walls were studded with hooks and on each pair of hooks rested gold bars three to four feet long and two inches across. I stood by a great cask of diamonds, and picking up a handful let them drop slowly from between my fingers, sparkling and glistening like drops of water in sunlight. There are some seven hundred native states, and the rulers of every one has his treasure vaults on a more or less elaborate scale. Besides these, every zamandar and every Indian of high or low degree who can save any- thing, wants to have it by him in actual metal ; he distrusts this new-fangled paper currency that they try to pass off on him. Sometimes he beats his coins into bangles for his wives, and sometimes he hides money behind a loose brick or under a flat stone in the bottom of the oven, or he goes out and digs a little hole and buries it. This explains India’s chronic scarcity of silver which became so 1 The Pioneer, November 30, 1917. 54 India’s silent revolution acute last spring as to threaten panic, following a flurry of war-time prosperity and an advance in value of the rupee from one shilling four pence to one shilling seven pence. The United States came to the rescue with an act of Congress whereby we melted down 100,000,000 of our old silver cart wheels and released altogether $200,- 000,000 from our silver reserve, shipping it to India just in the nick of time to relieve the stringency. The spread of cooperative credit societies promises to circumvent both the hoarding habit and the extortions of the money lender, as well as to create reserves available for small industrial enterprises. The conspicuous success of the cooperative movement in rural districts all over Europe led British officials to be- lieve that it would be helpful here, and several efforts were made to introduce the scheme prior to the famines of 1898 to 1900. The Famine Commission of 1901 rec- ommended such action, and the Cooperative Credit So- cieties Act was put through in 1904. Any group of ten persons living in the same village may start a society for the purpose of raising funds from the deposits of mem- bers and distributing them by loans to members. As the schoolmaster or accountant is usually the only literate person in a village, he is generally secretary of the society. In 1916 The Servants of India organized training classes for secretaries in Bombay. Thirty selected secretaries at- tended, their expenses paid by Government. These classes, in addition to training men in the actual work of keeping books and granting loans, attempt to kindle in them a sense of the constructive possibilities of their posi- tion. They inspire these men, scattered through all the remote villages of India, to serve as centers of stimulus and progress in each community. They teach them to The American tractor breaks ground for the new day Would you know what to do with the plow and dices of a tractor in a flax field in India? FIELDS AND FACTORIES 55 give elementary lessons in sanitation, scientific farming, the use of simple machinery, and especially they urge the men to impress their people with the value of education itself. The agricultural societies make loans for the purchase of stock, fodder, seed, manure, the sinking of wells, and, in emergencies, for personal maintenance. There are also non-agricultural societies for hand-loom weavers, milkmen, dyers, basket and brass workers, and housing societies. In June, 1915, there were 17,327 societies, with a total of 825,000 members, and a working capital of nearly thirty million dollars. 1 There have been no widespread famines since the establishment of these so- cieties, and it is hoped that they will serve as another preventive measure. Even the war did not give them any appreciable jolt. Deposits fell off at first, but the Government tided over any tendency to panic by an ad- vance of 500,000 rupees to the central societies, and they are now on a secure basis. Perhaps their greatest achievement has been in lowering the rate of interest from its former exorbitant range of 20 to 75 per cent, to a more nearly nominal 9 to 18 per cent. 2 It is unfair to make any sweeping generalizations about the economic conditions of India. The colossal suffering of general famines is at least diminishing and perhaps it is a thing of the past. But the life-long tor- ment of bitter poverty and chronic hunger is widespread. Financiers and statesmen, removed by many miles of red tape from the actual collection of taxes, from the grim sordidness or evictions and dispossession, give statements cheerily enough of India’s unparelleled prosperity as a 1 B. Abdy Collins, I. C. S., Nineteenth Century, June, 1918, p. 1256. 2 Year Book, 1917, p. 487. 56 India’s silent revolution result of the war. The New York Times headlines a telegraphic item about India’s recent silver crisis, “ Vic- tim of her Prosperity.” 1 The Indian Year Book, 1917, summarizing conditions for the past year, says : “ The danger is lest India, absorbed in this material prosperity, should become less alive to the transcendental ethical is- sues involved in the war.” 2 It seems as if the Year Book was borrowing trouble ! The Hon. E. S. Montagu in a speech on his return from India in the summer of 1918, referring to the very class whom the war has been supposed to benefit, those working in the big mills, said that “ the wages paid in India are so low that even a small rise in the price of food or cotton may give rise to serious disturbance,” and he added that he does “ not think it right that so many of the inhabitants should earn so precarious a living.” Lord Sinha who has been singled out for the most conspicuous honors ever conferred upon any Indian, may be taken to represent the conservative and pro-Adminis- tration type of Indian statesman. In a recent statement given to the Oversea Press Center, he characterized some of these glowing accounts. He said that the statement that India was in a state of great prosperity at the present time “ must have been due to some misunderstanding. It could not be said that India was prosperous. One had heard of tremendous profits by the jute mills of Bengal. Jute being most essential for purposes of war, it was no wonder that jute mills made enormous profits and were very prosperous. But it did not follow that ryots were for that reason well off ; in fact, the truth was that during the whole of the war they had been very badly off. Jute 1 New York Times, August 23, 1918. 2 Year Book, 1917, p. 1. ERRATUM Page 57, third line in last paragraph, for three hundred thousand read thirty thousand. FIELDS AND FACTORIES 57 mills in Calcutta are exclusively British, I might almost say Scottish, and no part of the profit made goes into the Indian pocket. “ India is poor, and so far as one can see, if the policy of laissez-faire goes on, she will remain poor. With a law-abiding and peaceful population, with a fertile soil, with unlimited resources, there is no reason why India should not be as prosperous as any other part of the Em- pire. Who will find a remedy for her poverty? We look to England for the answer.” The name India once suggested fabulous riches. She gave us the word Nabob. Golconda is in Southern India. “ The wealth of Ind’ ” was proverbial. India has mag- nificent natural resources. She produces two-fifths of the world’s total supply of cane sugar; one-third of its total tea, tobacco, rice, and cattle; one-fifth of its cotton; and one-tenth of its wheat. She contains one-fifteenth of the total railway mileage of the world, and yet — one- fifth of her population are underfed. 1 India’s poverty and her ill-adjusted economic organiza- tion should not necessarily be interpreted as an indict- ment of the British Government in India. Some ele- ments of the situation could have been avoided by a more liberal and more generous statesmanship. It is scarcely fair, however, to demand of British statesmen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a perfection still far beyond our twentieth century grasp. The modern social consciousness will produce new economic policies. On the other side of the slate, the British administra- tors of India have splendid achievements to their credit. They have built 300,000 miles of railroad. They have put nearly 17,000,000 acres of land under irrigation. 1 The Statesman, 1918. 58 India’s silent revolution They have given India the beginning of an educational system. They have made headway against India’s two most colossal and overwhelming problems, famine and plague. Gradually they are introducing all the complex devices and labor-saving machinery of modern life — cold storage transport of food and fruit, grain elevators, scientific methods of agriculture, modern sanitation in the cities, cooperative banks and credit societies. Trade con- ditions since the war are hopeful. Her total export trade for 1915-16 was $775,000,000, an advance of 21 per cent, over the previous year, while the gap between her exports and imports amounted to $295,000,000 as com- pared with $200,000,000 for the previous year. Most subtly pervasive of all, the standard of living in the cities is rising. Indians in industry are spending more money on themselves. They are wearing more clothes and of better quality. They are putting on shoes and carrying umbrellas to protect them against the burn- ing Indian sun. While it is quite the opposite of an ad- vance for the temperate Indian, the increasing amount he spends on liquor indicates that he has more of a mar- gin than in the past. India’s growing liquor bill is a serious problem. Not only does the Indian climate ex- aggerate the influence of alcohol many fold, but the aver- age Indian is habitually underfed and cannot stand the effects. Consumption of liquor by an Englishman, in- heritor of a tradition of three meals a day of mutton chops, beef-steak pie, and roast beef with Yorkshire pud- ding, is not to be compared with the effects on vege- tarian India with her one or two scant meals a day. It is more comparable to the difference between a cocktail on an empty stomach and a glass of liquor after a hearty meal. FIELDS AND FACTORIES 59 Both Hindu and Mohammedan religions forbid the use of stimulants, and in the past Indians have been remark- ably temperate. But civilization exacts penalties to bal- ance its benefits. When electric lights were introduced into Indian cities in 1896, the working schedules in the mills were at once lengthened from the daylight hours to fifteen hours a day. 1 India is to-day in a state of transition. She is pass- ing from a terrifically overbalanced agricultural com- munity to a more normal distribution between agricul- ture and industry. Sir Theodore Morison, in one of his economic studies of India, divides the nations of the world into two classes, those which have and have not passed through their industrial revolution. India has not yet passed, but she has started. And because she was already peculiarly disorganized economically, she faces unwonted perils in the process. Her agricultural system, the backbone and vitals of her economic body, must be thoroughly overhauled. In ad- dition, she must adjust herself to the unfamiliar modes of industry. India was not prepared for this abrupt transition from country to city. The old Indian life, while there was much hardship and want, was an easy-going life. Every one rose betimes and worked in the early morning while it was still cool. Around noon, every one stretched out for a nap. Even the animals lay down on the shady side of the street, and the very birds in the trees were still. Then, as the noonday heat diminished, comfortably and casually India went to work again. Now the old Indian pastoral life is giving way, and 1 Indian Year Book, 1917. 6o India’s silent revolution families are broken up. Young mothers put their chil- dren in charge of old dames in the villages and crowd into the cities for this new kind of work, coming back to their homes only for festivals. The glitter of city streets at night dazzles these simple peasants, just as it dazzles the Slav girls and boys whom we may see on Saturday night parading through the streets of our New England mill towns. Indian working women, intoxi- cated by the novelty of having money in their own hands, are buying tawdry jewelry, and all the cheap manufac- tured baubles with which cities abound — and going with- out food and shelter to pay for them. India may find inspiration and courage in the fact that her transition is taking place in a day when all civilization has been roused to make the world safe for democracy. The industrial excesses of the first days of machine production have passed, and the civilized world has learned — it is to be hoped — certain lessons in the process. Sweatshops, fifteen-hour working days, child labor, unrestrained competition — these are all part of the factory system’s Stone Age. The British Labor Party in England, and progressive groups everywhere, are working for legislation to correct such industrial de- bauchery. There is ground for hope that the theme of democracy which ran through the war may serve to reenforce their demands, and that the example of progress in the Occident may avail to save India some of the slow travail of learning all the lesson by experi- ence. Americans who accept without qualification President Wilson’s magnificent definitions of democracy cannot doubt that the only hope for India, as for all the world, lies in a democratic reconstruction of her economic and FIELDS AND FACTORIES 6l social life from the bottom up. In this reconstruction, not only economic abuses must go, but the social also — caste, the subjugation of women, child marriage, and the segregation of a community of fifty million outcastes. It is a big program — ambitious as the process of evo- lution itself. It is evolution. But it is only by an or- ganic evolution from the Middle Ages of religious super- stition, industrial slavery, and social flunkeyism that India can build for herself a foundation of integrity, four-square, which shall make her eligible to the great company of democratic nations of the future. IV OLD ORDERS AND NEW Caste and woman are the two storm centers of social reform in India. Their status is a survival from that tenth-century India which both the war and modern life have jostled severely. The Hindu community is divided into what have been called four “ water-tight compartments,” four castes which in orthodox circles maintain the most rigid social barriers against each other. There is no intermarriage, interdining, or personal relationship between them. A low-caste person may not be a personal servant in the house of a higher caste because his touch would contami- nate the latter. In Southern India, where caste has been most strictly enforced, even the shadow of a lower caste man defiles, and there is a graduated scale of distances which the lower castes must observe. The Kammalan group — masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, and leather workers — pollute at 24 feet, toddy-drawers at 30 feet, pulayan or Cheruman cultivators at 48 feet, and Pariahs — beef-eaters — at 64 feet. If a low caste crossing a bridge sees a higher caste approaching the other end, he must. run back and stand to one side at the prescribed distance until his superior has passed. Men have frequently died in famines rather than accept food from lower castes. Original castes were based on the occupational divi- sions which go to make class distinctions in every coun- try. After twenty-five centuries, by incorporating itself into the religious system, caste has become tremendously 62 OLD ORDERS AND NEW 6 3 powerful. There were according to the Census 2,378 main castes in 1901. The sub-castes and divisions under these are innumerable. Many are a result of personal differences, quarrels over leadership or policy, when the overruled minority withdrew and started a new caste. The majority are formed by occupations. The four original castes were the Brahman or priest, the Kshatriya or warrior, the Vaisya or farmer, and the Sudra or tradesman. Divine authority for this division is found in the Rig- Veda. The Vedas are the oldest of the Hindu scriptures, and Hindus assert that they ex- isted “ from before time ” — or, to be tediously exact, at least since b. c. 3000. As the V edas were memorized and handed down by word of mouth until 1500 a. d., when they were first put in writing, there are no evi- dences of inscription or parchment on which archaeolo- gists may base an estimate of their age. It is generally admitted that the Vedas, if not the very oldest, are among the earliest of books. The Vedic story of Cre- ation runs : “ The embodied spirit has a thousand heads, A thousand eyes, a thousand feet around, On every side enveloping the earth. Yet filling space no larger than a span. He is himself this very Universe. He is whatever is, has been, shall be. He is the Lord of T mmortality. All creatures are one fourth of him, three fourths Are that which is immortal in the sky. When they divided him, how did they cut him up? The Brahman was his mouth, the kingly soldier Was made his arms, the husbandman his thighs. The servile Sudra issued from his feet.” 1 1 Sir M. Monier-Williams’ translation. 6 4 inlia’s silent revolution This takes caste back to the beginning of the world, and makes it part of the scheme of creation. Punish- ments prescribed in the Code of Manu for offenses against caste are much more rigorous than for other of- fenses. For stealing grain a man must go back and be a mouse in his next life: for stealing brass, he is reborn a gander; but if a Brahman breaks or neglects his caste rules, he must be born again a vomit-eating demon. A Kshatriya or warrior breaking caste will be reborn a demon feeding on excrement and dead bodies, and a farmer becomes a demon feeding on putrid carrion. The laws fencing off each caste from those above are also severe. If a Sudra, or member of the lowest caste, listens intentionally to a recitation of the Veda, his ears shall be filled with molten tin. If he recites Veda texts, his tongue shall be cut out. If he remembers them, his body shall be split in twain . 1 Apologists for caste emphasize the similarity between caste lines and the class distinctions of European and American life. The essential difference — and it is this which gives caste such a fundamental place in Hindu life — is that, whereas in Christian communities religion is opposed to class distinctions, and at least theoretically ignores them, in India caste is one of the basic facts of religion. Western class lines, with all their faults, are based on rather indefinite lines of birth, wealth, and some- times intellectual achievement. The vagueness of these lines in the course of generations gives the social life they dominate a certain elasticity. On the contrary, caste divisions are absolutely rigid. No man who was not born a Brahman may become one. 1 Gautama Dharmasutra. OLD ORDERS AND NEW 65 Men were created intrinsically different, just as the horse differs from the tiger. 'Enshrined in their religion, caste has put itself “ beyond good and evil,” leaving no mar- gin for the shifting of evolution. The Abbe Dubois commented, “. . . Hindus hold all their customs and usages to be inviolable, for being essentially religious they consider them as sacred as religion itself.” In defense of caste, it is argued that it provides a basis for solidarity within each group, offering a natural unit of mutual assistance and comradeship. Sir Bampfylde Fuller attributes to her caste organization India’s power of resistance to famine. “ Indeed it might perhaps be argued that caste owes its extraordinary development to apprehension of famine. Caste certainly establishes some such responsibility for relief as was thrown upon English villages by the Poor Law settlement.” 1 The trouble with these natural units is that about 95 per cent, of the well-to-do are segregated in the two upper groups, where comparatively few calls are made upon them, leaving the other 300 millions dependent on people who are, in the main, no better off than themselves. Such a system is opposed to the whole modern theory of the brotherhood of man. We might as well reply when they solicit money for starving Europe, “ Let Belgians feed the Belgians, and let Armenians feed Armenians.” Caste is also justified as a primitive sort of trade guild with the advantages growing out of a craft spirit handed down through generations, as well as with the benefits of trade organizations in a small way, — surely in a very small way, with 90 to 95 per cent, of the population of 1 “ Studies of Indian Life and Sentiment,” p. 202. 66 India’s silent revolution India employed in agriculture. As for their efficiency, if they are at all responsible for the wages and standard of living prevalent among the lower castes, India would be well rid of them. Another defense of caste is the theory that each group constitutes a perfect democracy in itself. The two higher castes, though monopolizing the prestige and most of the privileges of life, are not exclusively men of wealth. Each caste counts its capitalists, bourgeoisie, and pau- pers. Because wealth does not have the same signifi- cance in India as in other countries, a wealthy landowner marries his daughter to the son of the poorest member of his caste rather than go outside of its bounds. It is absurd, however, to attempt to find any real democracy in a society divided and subdivided into 2,378 main seg- ments, calling each of these a perfect little democracy. It is a misuse of the word democracy. The mischief of the caste system is so obvious that, as William Archer says, “ it is like beating at an open door to demonstrate its evils.” Perhaps its most per- vasive injury is the hatred it engenders in the human heart. It makes the upper caste hate the lower because of his injustice in taking this gross advantage of the acci- dent of birth. The hero of Tolstoi’s “ Redemption,” thinking back over the sins of his life, realized that he hated his wife because of the brutal wrongs he had done her and that he loved the gipsy Mascha because he had played fair with her. The Brahman hates the Sudra because, subconsciously, he resents the knowledge in his own heart of being so willfully in the wrong. And the Sudra hates the Brahman because it is only human to hate those who bully and take unjust advan- tage of the weak, whether they take it by force as pirates OLD ORDERS AND NEW 67 and highwaymen or under guise of such higher sanction, as the divine right of kings, and Droit de Seigneur, or by those modern canons, the law of supply and demand and survival of the fittest. Caste has proved itself abundantly in the wrong. If it were a valid system, it would raise a constantly increas- ing majority to a better standard of living and to a higher plane of life. Instead, its conspicuous result is to cheapen human life and submerge increasing multitudes in degradation. William Archer has summed up the evils of the caste system briefly and comprehensively : “ It has enfeebled India politically by substituting class exclusiveness for solidarity, class vanity for patriotism. It has impov- erished her physically by fostering a marriage system which is thoroughly unhealthy, both in its obligations and in its restrictions. It has corrupted her morally by making insensate arrogance a religious and social duty. It has paralyzed her intellectually by forcing her to occupy her mind with infantile rules and distinctions and to regard them as the most serious interests in life.” 1 The British Government maintains a neutral attitude, yet, strange to say, there are sometimes individual en- dorsements of caste by government officials. Sir Michael O’Dwyer, Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, in a recent speech before the students of the Punjab University en- larged on caste “ as a means of reform.” 2 Commenting on this speech, the editor of the Indian Social Reformer wrote : “To lean upon the bureaucracy for help against orthodoxy is as foolish and futile as to 1 “ India and the Future,” p. 84. ? Indian Social Reformer, December 30, 1917. 68 India’s silent revolution lean upon orthodoxy for help against bureaucracy. The pujari at the temple and the pujari at the secretariat are blood brothers. The one is as bad an idolator as the other, though the one worships stocks and stones and the other worships sealing wax, red tape, and an endless num- ber of codes.” The Indian Year Book, 1917, while commenting harshly on the status of women in India, has gentle words for the caste system, describing it as “ a democracy in which the poor and lowly have always the upper hand over the rich and high-placed.” Reports from the province of Cochin complain that caste tyranny is increasing. Ezhavas must observe “ dis- tance pollution,” may not send their children to school, nor use the government hostels, post offices, nor the roads. They add that a large number of new signs forbidding the use of the public roads have recently been put up by government officials. 1 The influences working against caste are numerous and inevitable. The common sense of an Indian people, in- convenienced by the archaic demands of these old customs battling against the necessities of modern civilized life, constitutes the most powerful antagonist to caste. Hin- dus love to travel, to make pilgrimages to the shrines of their gods. But they are poor and must travel cheaply. So the third-class carriages of Indian trains are usually jammed to suffocation. In flaming turbans and flowing draperies, loaded down with bedding, food, dishes, water jugs and babies, they pack close together into the third- class carriages in a degree of democracy never before witnessed in India. Bronze Pariahs clad in a loin cloth, 1 Indian Social Reformer, November 4, 1917. OLD ORDERS AND NEW 69 dignified Gurus in saffron robes with golden beads and ivory and silver staves, ghostly purdah women completely swathed in white sheets, with glass holes for their eyes, austere Brahmans in the sacred dignity of their triple cord, all stow themselves away in an economical con- fusion, breathing the same air, rubbing shoulders with outcastes, looking out through the same windows — win- dows whose panes are tinted to protect the eyes against the glare of the Indian sun. There is still an incongruous effort to carry out the old rules. If in the midst of this undignified welter, a European or low caste happens to brush against a Brahman’s water jar in passing, the Brahman with magnificent contempt steps to the door and throws out the polluted water, preferring to go thirsty for the rest of his hot, dusty trip. Even so, the fringes of the system must be frayed when one remembers that outcastes were not even permitted to enter certain villages during the daytime, lest they cast a shadow which might fall across a Brahman. As a con- cession to this modern spirit, there is appearing a new classification of traveling necessities, bottled soda-water, ice, and biscuits in tins, which are non-carriers of ritual- istic infection. These the “ twice born ” may buy and consume en route. Politics too is working against caste. Elections are no respecters of castes. An occasional outcaste educated in a mission school and possessed of that indomitable genius which carries through terrific handicaps, is elected to a provincial council, where he sits next to the higher castes and in the routine of business passes on papers, books, and exhibits, as they make their way round the table from hand to hand. The upper castes dismiss this as of no importance ; they keep up no social relations with 70 India’s silent revolution him. Outside the council room, they explain, it is a mere matter of business. But it is an entering wedge. The war has been an irresistible influence against caste. All the soldiers at the front broke caste in crossing the water, and in the emergencies of warfare they have fre- quently been obliged to break caste in eating and in mat- ters of ritual. If the Hindu priests dare not attempt to enforce the rules of penance and purification upon the thousands of soldiers returning from the war, vic- torious heroes, this laxity on the priest’s part will also have its effect. Reform influences working against caste are mainly two : missionaries and progressive Hindus whose organ- ization platforms usually include anti-caste planks. The missionaries have opposed caste from their earliest days in the country. The private diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, chief Dubash or factotum under the French Governor in Pondicherry, 1736-1761, gives quite casually a description of the struggle against caste even then. This diary, naively confidential in tone, by the ranking Indian official under Governor Dupleix, the most im- portant Colonial Governor ever sent to India by the French, gives a fascinatingly direct and vivid sense of those early days of colonial adventure. P ; llai who was not a convert to Christianity, wrote : “ Saturday, October 16, 1745. “ At 8 this morning the church was the scene of a re- markable occurrence. The priest of Karikal, who is on a visit to Pondicherry, noticed the distinction made be- tween the Pariahs and caste Christians when attending to perform their devotions. A wall has been erected, as a barrier, on the northern side of the interior of the OLD ORDERS AND NEW 7 1 church. On one side of this, the Pariahs collected for worship, and on the other, caste Christians, Eurasians, and Europeans, assembled during the service. This privi- lege was obtained by the Native Christians at some former time; and the distinction of castes has been maintained up to now. The priest of Karikal, however, was offended at this and instigated the Pariah Christians living at the Panni Paracheri, the Big Paracheri, the Burning-ground Paracheri, and the Ozhandai Paracheri ; and also the other Pariah and toti, or village Pariah Christians, to remon- strate. They all went in a body to His Reverence the senior priest, and complained in these words: ‘ If we are really your disciples, it behooves Your Reverence to treat us all alike. The Lord makes no distinction amongst his worshippers. The caste Christians have, however, thought fit to keep us without the pale, and you have acceded to their demand. We submit that this is a partial proceeding, and we request an explanation at the hands of Your Reverence.’ The priest, having lis- tened to all this, declared that their complaint was just, and immediately ordered the demolition of the barrier wall. Addressing the assembled people, he said : ‘ You are all my children ; you may, at your pleasure, mingle with the rest of the congregation, and attend divine wor- ship.’ So saying, he dismissed them with his blessing. “ An evening service was held to-day in the church. No distinction of caste was made, but Pariahs, Eurasians, Europeans, and Tamilians, all mingled together, and at- tended it. Native Christian females also came. The wife of Asarappa Mudall went to the church, decked with all the ornaments that are worn by the women of her caste, and arrayed in muslin gauze, which was perfumed. She approached the altar where the senior priest was 72 India’s silent revolution ministering, knelt down, and was absorbed in listening to his exhortations. As soon as he smelt the sweet odor diffused by the lady’s clothes, he stopped preaching, held his nose, thrust the cane which he had in his hand into her hair-knot, and angrily addressed her thus : ‘ Art thou not a married woman ? Art thou a dancing woman ? Has thy husband no sense of shame? Can chaste ladies appear at church, dressed in muslin gauze, and exhibit their limbs, bosoms, and the very hair on their bodies? Thou art a blessed woman indeed ! Thou hast attended divine service quite enough! Rise, and begone to thy house ! ’ Having thus spoken, he commanded her to go away. Afterwards, he summoned all the caste Chris- tians, and enjoined on the women that hereafter they should not dress themselves in thin clothes, that they should not deck themselves with ornaments of the kind worn by the Tamilians, that they should not use any per- fume. Thereupon, the Christians went in a body to the church, and argued the matter with him. Gavinivasa Mudall came forward, and opposed any change being made in the old order of things. He said that the recent orders were not agreeable to the entire body of the com- munity. Directions to expel this speaker by force were then given ; when these were about to be carried out, he stepped forward, seized the priest by the cloak, used abusive language, and then departed saying : ‘ We will not hereafter enter your church.’ The Christian people then complained to Kanakaraya Mudall. He pacified them, and went to see the priest, to whom he explained the difficulties of the case, and he consented to allow things to remain as they were. After Kanakaraya Mu- dall had left, however, the priest went to the Governor and told him that the Christians were rebelling against OLD ORDERS AND NEW 73 his authority, were meeting in large numbers, and were setting him in defiance. He begged that an order com- pelling them to attend the church might be issued. The Governor sent for Krimasi Pandit, the subordinate chief of the peons, and commanded him to arrest and imprison any Christians whom he might find assembling in a body of four or more persons, and talking with each other. Thenceforward, crowds ceased to gather in the streets.” A modern parallel to this old story is the case of a group of Indian Christians who were determined to have the exclusive use of a section of the church for their caste. The bishop refused to permit it, and they finally went to court, seeking an injunction against the bishop’s order . 1 The indirect influence of Christianity on caste is rather curious. It is a truism that an idea, gradually permeating the social order is more powerful than fiat. There is an Indian pastor in Bikaner who came originally from the scavengers, lower than the lowest caste — one of that body of outcastes, or untouchables, which hides away in the shadows and outskirts of India. As a boy he was edu- cated in a mission school, and, possessing that native gift of personality and wit which, given half a chance, tran- scends all castes and courts, he became pastor of an impor- tant church in Bikaner. During the dozen years of his pastorate he has baptized about 2,000 parishioners, most of them members of the higher castes, not one of whom, need- less to say, objected to the touch of his outcaste hands. This man took me through the Maharajah’s palace in Bikaner, and presented me to the King’s brother. Con- versation turned to a medal which had recently been con- 1 Indian Year Book, 1917, p. 387. 74 India’s silent revolution ferred upon the Maharajah by the King-Emperor. The brother of the Maharajah, motioning to the Indian preacher, casually asked him to bring it from the next room that I might see it. In the old days, this outcaste’s shadow on the floor in passing would have defiled the whole room, and they would have torn it out and built anew. To-day, he is worthy to handle a decoration con- ferred by the King-Emperor himself. The Aryan Brotherhood has made an interesting effort against caste. It gives public dinners to which members of all castes are deliberately invited. Names of those at- tending are printed in the papers. Compromising with the revolt against old laws, the priesthood have been quite willing to ignore a quiet breaking of caste rules, but such defiance has been an open challenge. In some cases the diners have afterward lost their courage and submitted to the prescribed rituals readmitting them to caste. Others have held out under the crudest pressure. Inconvenient as many of these caste customs are, com- plete and terrible ostracism follows any effort to revolt against them. The fact that many of the progressive Hindu organizations of to-day are campaigning against caste means not that caste has lost its hold, but rather that these are men of high courage, willing to pay by personal sacrifice for their convictions. A man who per- sists in breaking rules is disowned by family and friends. His business associates frequently refuse to continue re- lations with him. As family ties are especially strong in India, this involves great suffering. One young man who had broken with his caste used to slip back home at night to see his mother secretly. His father discovered it, and hired men to lie in wait for his son and beat him as he left the house. OLD ORDERS AND NEW 75 At a conference of Hindus in Bombay, presided over by the high caste rajah of one of the richest native states, one of the speakers gave an eloquent and comprehensive summary of the evils of caste. He said : “ Caste has produced disunion and discord. It has made honest manual labor contemptible and retarded progress. It has brought on physical degeneracy by con- fining marriage within narrow circles. It has suppressed individuality and independence of character, and, while affording the opportunity of culture to the few, it has caused the degradation of the masses. The social sys- tem and the whole tone of religious thought with its philosophy of fatalism is against the individualistic self- assertion necessary to sucess in the struggle for existence. It is opposed to cooperation for civic ideals, and it pro- motes indifference to life.” Because it intrudes upon every phase of life, caste is the conspicuous center upon which all reform agencies concentrate their efforts. But there are several other abuses against which they make common cause. Chief among these are the enormous proportion of illiteracy and the degradation of Indian women. They are also trying to eliminate obscene and degrading elements in the ceremonial rites of their religion. An attendant abuse is the custom of dedicating little girls to the temples in infancy, where they are brought up nominally as danc- ing girls for the gods, but really as prostitutes. A recent resolution by the Nizam of Hyderabad (one of the native princes) states that while the Nizam has no intention of interfering with the religious practices of his people he will not tolerate any person’s employing a minor girl for immoral purposes leading to his own gain under a reli- gious pretext; and that the excuse will not be accepted 76 India’s silent revolution that a girl under sixteen had been dedicated to a temple. Abuses in the great religious festivals or melas invite change. There are two types of mela. Every district has its annual mela, and every twelve years there is a Maha Mela (great mela), in which all India joins. There are numerous local fairs at the shrines of favorite deities. The annual mela is not unlike the primitive religious festival found in many parts of the world. Men and women act out stories of the Vedas, impersonating gods and goddesses on the bank of a stream, or in the natural amphitheater of some hillside. They prepare elaborate costumes and properties for these plays. Huge, gro- tesque beasts on a framework of laths covered with gaudy paper and tinsel represent celestial chargers and wild ani- mals, and take part in Gargantuan hunting scenes. The Mohammedans have their religious festival every fall. They build castles and thrones of brilliantly col- ored tissue paper with floating streamers of paper ribbon and tinsel. These cardboard castles, symbol of the pomp and vanity of life, and of all the rainbow and tinsel allurement of sin, are carried in solemn procession out into the woods, to the bank of a stream, where, with the utmost ceremony and decorum, they are burned, bear- ing away with them into the flames all the sins and re- grets of the community for the past year. There is a naivete in this simple congregational method of burn- ing up one’s sins that is very appealing. It is a charm- ingly direct expression of the instinctive human conscious- ness of sin, and aspiration toward perfection. Very different from the unpremeditated spontaneity of these annual melas is the Maha Mela. I was in Allah- abad for the great mela in January, 1906, and it stands out symbolic of all the hideous power of primitive super- OLD ORDERS AND NEW 77 stition and priestcraft for ignorance and obstruction. Allahabad, at the junction of two of India’s most sacred rivers, the Ganges and the Jumna, is an especially sacred spot and a favorite goal for pilgrimages. It is always desirable to bathe in the mingling water of these two sacred rivers, but on this particular day, every twelfth year, special benefits are conferred, and the hearts of millions of devout Hindus turn thither with yearning. In the triangle of land below the city where these two rivers converge stands an old stone fort, built in the days of Akbar. It is close to the bank of the Jumna, and about three or four hundred feet from the Ganges. Standing on the wall of this fort at sunrise, I watched a vast horde of pilgrims from all India pushing, struggling, forcing their way down this little neck of land, to bathe in the sacred waters. The crowd had been gathering for three days. Those in the front ranks had been standing there for forty-eight hours. They told me there were two mil- lion pilgrims. Allowing a hundred per cent, for Oriental exaggeration would still leave a million, reaching back across the sands, crowding the streets of Allahabad, a town of 170,000, and stretching on beyond the town — a dense, brilliantly colored mass of humanity, farther than the eye could see. Around the edges of the crowd, below the fort, a cordon of mounted police with leather and rope whips vainly tried to hold them in bounds. But this was something too big and powerful for human re- straint. It was a mob on a bigger scale than you may ever see outside of the Orient, for nowhere else is life so cheap, nowhere else are men and women content to suf- fer so complacently. Most of the younger women car- ried babies, hanging to them by a cloth tied around the mother’s neck and passed under the baby’s arm pits. 78 India’s silent revolution Fellahs standing out in the Ganges filled bullock skins with water, and, with a quick deft pressure of the left arm, squirted the water back over the crowd. Men and women in front, their lips dry and cracked, their tongues hanging out with agonizing thirst, reached up gaunt hands, and catching a few drops licked them up eagerly. The tension and hysterical emotion generated by such an impassioned mob resulted in a reaction and license which is beyond description. Standing above them, a sinister hoarse roar came up to me, composite of the shouts of camel drivers, the oaths of angry men, the groans of exhausted women, the crying of little babies. Because the crowd was packed so tight, it scarcely seemed to move. At scattered points there were sudden flurries, as an impatient pilgrim fought his way forward. If in this welter and shoving some one stumbled and fell, the chances were poor for his getting to his feet again. Before he could pick himself up he was likely to be trampled to death. Men and women fainting, fell back, and lay underfoot, until some one threw the body over against the wall of the fort. Stand- ing there on the wall, I held my watch in my hand for fifty minutes while I counted one hundred and twenty bodies of men, women, and babies picked up and thrown against the walls. Hideous as it is, the thing symbolizes the ruthlessness of the old heathenism, which marks an earlier stage in the evolution of the world. If you got in the way of it, it ground you to powder. Human life had no value, and that is the crucial point. It constitutes the most serious indictment of Hinduism. Unless a social order recog- nizes and builds upon the fundamental principle of de- mocracy, of civilization itself — the importance and value OLD ORDERS AND NEW 79 of human life — how can there be hope for development and growth? Over on the far bank of the Ganges, naked Hindu priests in procession mystified their people with weird ceremonies. Rows of yellow tents streaked the white sand, and in front of each tent sat a holy man, his dis- heveled hair matted with hemp, daubs of paint on his face, and the filth of his naked body mute evidences of his piety. Here were gathered those curious, ascetic freaks who strive to express transcendental heights of spiritual ex- perience by incongruous physical mutilation. Priests lay for hours stretched out on the sand, with no protection against the blazing sun, their heads completely covered over with sand, yet somehow managing to breathe, as the quiver of their ribs gave evidence. They seemed a curiously futile human adaptation of the ostrich instinct to bury its head in the sand. Other devotees of holiness built fires at the four cor- ners of little plots, some eight or ten feet square, and sat in the center, toasted on all sides and by the sun overhead, as though in training for a literal interpretation of fire and brimstone in the next world. Men who had held an arm stretched up above their heads until it withered and stiffened in the course of years were quite common, as were men who had not spoken for twenty and thirty years. The bed of spikes, a plain wooden bench with a surface of bristling iron spikes on which the priest sleeps by night and sits all day, was formerly very popular, but curiosity hunters may now pick them up for a trifle. When I first went to India they were hard to obtain. So devoutly does the Indian ryot believe in the sacred- 8o India’s silent revolution ness of this twelfth-year anniversary and in the efficacy of his priests, that it is not uncommon for him to sell his mud hut and all that he owns, in order to bring a fitting offering to lay at the feet of these priests. Then the ryot and his wife turn and tramp the long miles back to their village, collect their children from the neighbor with whom they left them, and homeless and penniless, pa- tiently begin life over again, apparently quite compen- sated by some inscrutable, spiritual ecstasy. Reform organizations have undertaken to mitigate some of the evils of these melas. Close beside the priests they erect their tents. They give elementary talks on scientific farming, sanitation, and kindred subjects. At melas, as everywhere else in India, most of the pil- grims carry their bedding and whatever food and dishes they need en route, under their arms. This gives the crowd a lumpy irregularity of appearance, not unlike a group of emigrants as they land at the Battery. They have, besides, a primitive reminder of our check-room system. A group leaves its joint belongings under a tree out beyond the city, with a watchman to guard it. This watchman is a quaint offspring of the caste system, for he is a member of the robber caste. The robber caste probably originated in the fact that when a man was caught stealing, he lost his social position and was out- casted. Such outcastes, banding together under their headman, formed a robber caste, which monopolized the right of stealing in that particular district. To-day, when a man wants his property guarded from theft, he calls in a member of the local robber caste and pays him to pro- tect it from his brother thieves. Many wealthy Indians employ night watchmen, who waken them at midnight with loud cries to prove that they are actively on the job. OLD ORDERS AND NEW 8l At first this idea of a robber caste may seem ridiculous, but it is not very different in principle from the police system of our more corrupt cities. We do not have melas in this country. But lest we arrogate too much credit to ourselves on that account, it may be wholesome to read an Oriental account of some of our more primitive religious manifestations. The Indian Social Reformer translates the following naive description of a Billy Sunday meeting from the Kaukab-l- Hind, a Hindustani paper published by the Indian Meth- odists. “ An account of the methods of Billy Sunday in his meetings may shock some people in this land, where any such display is considered derogatory to the dignity of our ministers. But those who are reconciled to the ways of the West and have seen the doings of Holy Rollers, Pentecostal Dancers, Burning Bush People, and others of that kind will find nothing unusual in his movements. With a single motion he fell flat upon the floor, face downwards, and crawling, snakewise, to the edge of the platform he looked over it and held a colloquy with the devil. With a single bound he was on his feet again; with another, he alighted on the top of the reading desk, and, poised upon the toes of one foot, in a Mercury-like attitude, he addressed the heavenly powers. The con- clusion of his gymnastic feat was greeted with circus-like applause, during which Mr. Sunday vigorously scrubbed his face, head and hands with a large bath towel, a cere- mony he observed at frequent intervals. He now made a personal appeal to his hearers to listen to his words. He besought them, ‘ not to wait until the undertaker is pumping the embalming fluid into them.’ Not far away a young woman laughed. He flashed at her a string of 82 India’s silent revolution slang adjectives, most of them unintelligible, though one recognized ‘ Fizzle-haired sissy.’ ” The British Raj has made it a policy not to interfere with national and religious customs. Yet its indirect influence as an agent of social reform in India has been all pervasive. Those devices of civilization which the English community has introduced into India for its own use and for the benefit of the Indian population, have been so completely assimilated that it is impossible to measure the degree of their influence. Upon this foundation, the missionaries and the indige- nous reform organizations have built their efforts. The missionaries must be given precedence, because they were first on the ground and because the Samajes and other organizations have either frankly or tacitly copied their methods. It was Lord Lawrence who said, “ I believe that, notwithstanding all that the English people have done to benefit that country (India), the missionaries have done more than all other agencies combined.” And it is impressive to notice the courteous respect with which nearly all writers on India refer to the work of mis- sionaries, some of them acknowledging that they went to India with a prejudice against missions which had to give way in the face of facts. “I brought with me, I confess,” writes William Archer in “ India and the Future,” “ a vague prejudice against the missionary and his calling, but it did not take me long to throw it off. . . . Christianity would be for India a half-way house to civilization — of that there is no doubt.” Because of the government policy of non-interference, initiative in matters connected with religion has had to come from Indians themselves. India’s native states are OLD ORDERS AND NEW 83 setting an encouraging precedent. The Baroda Caste Usages Bill, which is now law in the progressive state of Baroda, is an interesting example of applying law to an- cient custom. By this bill, a person who wishes to ignore or break some custom of his caste may obtain from the court a declaration that that particular restriction is not binding if he can prove to the satisfaction of the court that the custom is; first, opposed to public morals; or, second, restricts intermarriage ; or, third, is ruinously ex- pensive; or, fourth, needlessly checks travel; or, fifth, hinders the physical, material, or moral welfare of mem- bers of the caste; or, sixth, is disapproved by not less than one-fourth of the adult members of the caste. Such a decision of the court makes the person exempt from fine or excommunication by the heads of his caste. The native state of Indore has passed a new Civil Mar- riage Act, which allows any Indian who has resided in the state for fourteen days to contract a monogamous marriage with a member of a different caste. Indore may develop into a regular Gretna Green, as public opin- ion becomes educated on the subject. Of Indian reform organizations, the Brahmo Samaj is oldest. It w r as founded in 1828 by Ram Mohan Roy, a leader among men. Deeply religious, he rebelled against the mass of pharisaical observances which in time tend to obscure the truth of all religions. After a study of Hindu, Mohammedan, and Christian doctrines, he founded the Brahmo Samaj, which was primarily a reli- gious movement, opposed to polytheism and idolatry; an Oriental edition of the Unitarian creed — Brahmo mean- ing One God, and Samaj, society. Ram Mohan Roy did not limit his interests to religion, however. It was he who addressed the first remonstrance 8 4 India’s silent revolution to the British Government against the establishment of a Sanskrit college. He pleaded for an English education for the children of India, thereby antedating Macaulay’s famous minute by some twelve years. Roy was also pro- gressive in his views regarding the status of women and was influential in the passage of Lord Bentick’s Act for- bidding sati, or widow burning. Roy was more con- servative about caste. Himself a Brahman, he always continued to wear the triple thread which distinguishes the “ twice born,” and he wrote in defense of caste ob- servances. He even took a Brahman cook with him when he went to England, in order to maintain his caste stand- ing as far as possible. The Brahmo Samaj has suffered the usual history of schisms and unreconcilable minorities, breaking off and starting new organizations. To-day it is not a large organization, but it includes many thoughtful and intel- lectual Indian progressives. Rabindranath Tagore’s family, particularly his father, was associated with this society in its early days. This suggests an interesting explanation of the remarkable ideas expressed by this modern seer. The two younger branches of the Brahmo Samaj require members to break with caste before join- ing them. The Arya Samaj, founded in 1875, has grown rapidly to a leading position, and numbered, by the census of 1910, more than a quarter of a million followers. Like the Brahmo Samaj, it has a religious basis. Its motto is “ Back to the Vedas,” and it accepts the Vedas as infal- lible. It is an intensely nationalistic organization, em- phasizing Hindu culture, dwelling on the glories of In- dia’s past, and making every appeal to racial pride and self-respect. It makes no concession for superstitions OLD ORDERS AND NEW 85 ■ !itl false pride, however, and is a leader in all phases of -ocial and religious reform. In the words of Lajpat Rai, a leader in the movement, “ The Arya Samaj re- pudiates caste by birth ; it considers the artificial barriers which caste in India has created to divide men from their fellow men as pernicious and harmful.” 1 Briefly summed up, its creed is based on “ the Father- hood of God, the Brotherhood of man, equality of the sexes, and justice and fair play between men and men and nations and nations.” It sets the minimum marriage age for girls at sixteen years and for boys at twenty-five, encouraging celibacy to a later age among its members. The activities of the Arya Samaj are important. The extent and volume of its school work is exceeded only by that of the government and missionary forces. It or- ganized the first exclusively Indian Orphanage and Widows’ home, has its own primary schools in many vil- lages, and has been a pioneer in social service and reli- gious reform work. It also carried on extensive famine relief during the famines of 1897-1900. In contrast to the Brahmo Samaj, which has from the first acknowledged finding inspiration in the Christian philosophy and feeling kinship to Christian missionaries, the Arya Samaj repudiates Christianity and makes part of its program the reconversion to Hinduism of Hindu converts to Christianity. The strong nationalism of the Arya Samaj may ac- count for this antagonism. Educated Indians smart un- der the patronage and arrogance of a certain class of Anglo-Indians, the class of whom Lord Morley was thinking when he wrote, “ Bad manners, overbearing 1 The Arya Samaj, p. 137. 86 India’s silent revolution manners, are very disagreeable in all countries. India is the only country where bad, overbearing manners are a crime.” Unable to retaliate for these bad manners directly, the Arya Samajist builds up his own self-respect by be- littling whatever he may in the civilization of the master- ful Britisher. Lajpat Rai expresses it moderately. “ In our personal capacity as Indian and Hindu, and especially as Arya Samajist, we hope that the Hindus will be true to the faith of their forefathers, and will not change their national character so completely as would be involved by their becoming Christians.” 1 The first Social Reform Association, as such, was or- ganized in Sind in 1882, and the first National Social Conference was held the same year. There are now numerous provincial reform organizations, with local chapters representing single districts. An Indian Ladies’ Conference has met annually at the same time and place as the National Conference since 1904. The twentieth annual meeting of Madras Provincial Social Conference was held in the summer of 1918. The Indian Social Reformer, a weekdy, standing for social and political reform on admirably sane, broad lines, has been published in Bombay since 1890 by K. Natarjan. It is printed in English. The subjects covered by the numerous social confer- ences include a wide field. The Bombay Social Service League at its last annual meeting reported on the follow- ing activities : It attempts to spread education among the masses by free traveling libraries, standing libraries, lantern lectures, and night classes; providing text-books *Arya Samaj, p. 266. OLD ORDERS AND NEW 87 and scholarships for poor students in high schools and colleges. It conducts first-aid and home hygiene classes, and a charitable dispensary, a temperance club, educa- tional work in the two Bombay jails, and has a settle- ment house with three resident workers, and the usual classes, clubs, and lectures. Social conferences almost invariably pass resolutions condemning the evils of caste, child marriage, enforced widowhood, and the illiteracy of women. The Bombay Provincial Conference at its meeting this spring, in view of the visit of Mr. Montagu, urged the construction of a comprehensive program which should include reforms of caste, relations between employer and workman, re- marriage of widows, and “ the right of girls to remain unmarried if they choose to follow some other useful career.’’ It recommended the removal of the ban on sea voyages and the abolition of indentured labor in the British colonies. One of the most interesting organizations working for social reform is the “ Servants of India.” It was formed in 1905 by that greatest of modern Indians, the late G. K. Gokhale, and it reflects much of the simple austerity and high devotion of his life. Gopal Krishna Gokhale was born of poor Brahman parents of the highest caste in 1866. He was educated in Bombay and at a Hindu college in Poona, where for twenty years he held the chair of history and political economy. He early became active in politics, and in 1 895 'was elected secretary of the Eleventh National Con- gress (Hindu). He was later elected to the Bombay Council and to the Supreme Legislative Council of India. It is impressive to note the unanimity of respect and admiration with which writers of the most diverse opin- 88 INDIA S SILENT REVOLUTION ions speak of him. Conservatives and radicals join in paying him tribute. Sir Valentine Chirol, describing some of the leaders present at the first meeting of the en- larged Viceroy’s council after the passage of the Morley- Minto reforms, writes, “ More worthy of attention was the keen, refined, and intellectual face of Mr. G. K. Gokhale, the Deccan Brahman with the Mahratta cap, who by education belongs to the West quite as much as the East, and by birth to the ruling caste of the last domi- nant race before the advent of the British Raj.” 1 Wil- liam Archer describes him as “ a man of fine character and high ability, justly respected both by Indians and Englishmen. He will certainly be long remembered not only by Indians, but by all lovers of India as one of the most authentic heroes of his race.” 2 From his exile, under displeasure of the British Gov- ernment, Lajpat Rai writes of him in high praise, “ He was by far the noblest of the moderates. There is no one who is even half so good and noble as he was.” 3 H. W. Nevinson, correspondent for the Manchester Guardian in India, though he wrote while Mr. Gokhale was still alive and active, summed up his life most fit- tingly: “ For every day of his manhood, he has had no motive but his country’s service, from the day of his ap- pointment on a salary of sixty pounds a year as teacher of history and economics at the Fergusson College, up to his retirement in 1902 on a pension of twenty pounds a year, and onward through the last six years of labor, vilification, and heated controversy. Not a great speaker, and making no attempt at emotional eloquence 1 “ Indian Unrest,” p. 163. 2 “ India and the Future.” 3 “ Young India,” p. 218. OLD ORDERS AND NEW 89 at a time when oratory counted for much more in India than it does now — a man who has never even contem- plated any popular arts except his own inevitable polite- ness, he has won his influence upon his country’s future simply by unreserved devotion and integrity of life.” 1 Consistently with the rigor and magnanimity of his own life, Mr. Gokhale conceived the Servants of India in exalted and austere terms. He accepted only university graduates or men who had already distinguished them- selves in public service. A candidate for membership was admitted to the home of the order at Poona on pro- bation, and, if mutually acceptable, began his five years’ training at a salary of $10 a month. In these five years he must spend each year four months of residence in the home of the order, six months in field work, wherever he might be assigned, and two months in his own home. Celibacy is not demanded, but there is a strong monastic tendency. A man joining the organization takes seven vows, which, beside binding him to complete surrender of all personal interests, pledge him to ignore caste distinctions, to lead a pure personal life, to limit himself to the salary given by the society ($16.70 a month), using no part of his time in earning money for himself or his family, and finally to consecrate his life to the service of his country. Briefly, the object of the society is “ to train national missionaries for the service of India, and to promote by all constitutional means the true interests of the Indian people.” Politically, their ambition is for self-govern- ment within the empire, and the unification of India. To this end they stress the community of interest between New Spirit in India,” p. 35. 90 India’s silent revolution Hindu and Mohammedan, and the fact that India cannot develop as a nation until petty differences are submerged. It was a great satisfaction to Mr. Gokhale when he admitted the first Mohammedan as a member of the order. The program of work undertaken is all-inclusive: i, rousing public demand for elementary education; 2, ele- vation and education of Indian women by propaganda work and by building institutions; 3, spread of the co- operative movement among agriculturists and mill hands, and cooperative secretaries’ training class in Bombay; 4, relief work in public calamities, plague, famine and fire; 5, social purity; 6, organization of social reform in social service leagues and national conferences; 7, rous- ing public opinion as to indentured Indian labor in South Africa; 8, social sendee work among pilgrims at the great religious melas; 9, journalistic work, controlling two weeklies and a daily. The organization disburses about $15,000 a year, which they receive entirely in con- tributions. In renunciation of all personal ambition, and in aus- terity of daily life, the Servants of India demand an exaltation of loyalty which in general only religious or- ders have been able to command in the past. These orders have in turn promised rewards in another world to compensate. The Servants of India offer complete religious toler- ance, and each man is left free to worship God after his own heart. But religion has no official role in the pro- gram of the order. This raises an interesting question as to whether, deprived of the intimate rapture of reli- gious conviction, and chilled by the loss of Mr. Gokhale’s magnetic personality, even so poignant a motive as love OLD ORDERS AND NEW 91 of country will generate sufficient driving force to in- spire succeeding generations of members and keep the order alive. Whatever its future may be, the Servants of India’s present record makes it memorable. It suggests some- thing of what India, grafting the education and scien- tific realism of the West upon the mystical idealism of the East, may achieve in the future. Such a merging of the complementary qualities of East and West offers brilliant promise. It is character- istic of India, and it is only there that a merchant or pro- fessional man of middle age, having achieved worldly success and surrounded by a growing family, will one day suddenly lay aside all the cares and pleasures of this life, and, wrapping himself in a saffron robe, with a staff in his hand, take final leave of earthly ties, and set out to wander for the rest of his life from holy place to holy place, meditating on eternity, and achieving such degree of Yoga as he may prove capable. This is so common in India that it scarcely causes a comment. There is a beautiful self-abnegation about it, but it is marred to our western minds by a certain futility. Our practical and more realistic attitude toward life rebels. “ A primrose by the river’s brim, A yellow primrose was to him. And it was nothing more.” Prosaically we ask, what is the use ? What good does it do? Perhaps, however, it is this analytical attitude which enables us to demand results for our efforts, and achieve such constructive fulfillment as the conception and gradual working out of compulsory education, sani- tation, ultimate universal enfranchisement — in fact, the 92 India’s silent revolution very stuff of democracy. If so, the prosaic mind has justified itself. In a merging of the self-abnegation of the East with the practical purposefulness of the West lies the distinc- tion, not only of the Servants of India, but of the various Samajes and other progressive Hindu organizations. It is this fusion of the ideals of East and West that stimulates the imagination to the possibilities before the various organizations at work in India. There must be give and take on both sides. The missionary must give up his literal insistence on doctrine; his inherent concern over distinctions between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. The progressive Hindu must sacrifice his prejudices about caste and women and Christianity into a generous recog- nition of every instrument for the elevation of India. K. Natarajan, veteran editor of the Indian Social Re- former, acknowledged this community of interest in his presidential address before the Bombay Social Confer- ence of 1918 and appealed for closer cooperation between Indian and Christian forces. “ The fear of the Christian missionary has been the beginning of much social wisdom among us, and even the Depressed Classes movement is, perhaps, no exception to the rule. And let me say, in passing, that it is my earnest hope that more than the fear, the example of the Christian missionary, his devotion, his earnestness, his power of organization, may in the times to come increas- ingly inspire our social workers. And is it too much to hope that the day is not far distant when the Christian missionary and the Indian worker will be unhampered, the former by zeal for, and the latter by dread of, mere proselytism! ” It may be that in this constructive mingling of East The Yankee and the Indian make a good combination. Prin- cipal T. C. Badley of Lucknow College and an Indian Member of Faculty. Future statesmen for India are now seriously “ doing their sums ” OLD ORDERS AND NEW 93 and West a new element will be precipitated ; a new type of religious aspiration, modifying the ethics and customs of Christianity to the Oriental mold, weeding out of Hinduism the elements which seem to the Westerner wasteful and degrading. Although the Arya Samaj as an organization repudiates Christianity, the two have more in common than perhaps either of them realizes. In its watchword, “ Back to the Vedas/' it is rebelling against an organized and phari- saical expression of religion. Samaj ists emphasize the simple ethics of the Vedas; they insist upon purity of personal life; they devote themselves to altruistic work; they live their love for “ the least of these.” Whether consciously or unconsciously, they have really accepted and are carrying out the principles and ethics of Jesus Christ. Ignoring matters of doctrine, they are all, missionaries, Samajists, Servants of India, working toward the same end — the breakdown of caste, the elevation of woman, the spread of education — the material, mental and spir- itual advancement of India and her people. V TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES “ And in the lowest deep, a lower deep.” Lower than the Sudra, in a lowest deep of their own, lives a submerged mass of fifty-three million outcastes, or Untouchables, one-sixth of the entire population of India. They are prohibited the use of public roads, bridges, ferries, temples, and they are not allowed to live inside the village community. Their children may not attend the public school. Not only does their touch de- file, but they pollute everything they use, so they may not even draw water from the village well. In the tropics, where it is often ten or twelve miles to the next well, this is a cruel hardship. In the town of Kohat some five or six years ago, the two-year-old son of a well-to-do Hindu fell into the well in the court-yard of his father’s house. His father was away, and the women of the family, not daring to go down after the child, stood around the curbing, looking down into the well and screaming. An outcaste sweeper, cleaning the street outside, heard their cries, and, pitying their distress, offered to climb down the well and rescue the child. The women scornfully refused to permit it. Better to let the little boy drown than permit both well and boy to be forever polluted by the touch of this out- caste . 1 1 St. Nihal Singh, Contemporary Review, March, 1913. 94 TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES 95 Outcastes, or Pariahs, live in a degree of poverty which surpasses any western imagining. The “ paracheri ” (place of Pariahs) outside the village is a little group of filthy, one-room hovels. They have little or no furniture, many of them do not even have straw mats or rags on which to sleep, but when the nights are cold they snuggle up against the sides of the bullock or cow with whom they share their home. The census of 1901 recorded 99.5 per cent, of them as unable to read and write. This means that not even one man in the community is able to protect their interests against the dishonesty of money lenders and tax collectors. In time of famine they are first to suffer. Some of their groups eat carrion and rats, and when an animal falls dead in the fields I have seen them swarming around the body, hacking off pieces of meat and carrying it home. Their willingness to eat meat is one of the customs that makes them most loathesome in the eyes of the Hindu castes. The children grow up like Topsies. They are rarely admitted to any school, but sometimes they are al- lowed to stand on the porch outside and listen through the window. Outcastes are permitted only a limited choice of occu- pations. They may be scavengers, street sweepers, cane chairmakers, oil-pressers, liquor sellers, leather workers and shoemakers. The sacredness of the cow reaches out to curse any one who traffics with her dead body. So leather workers are a particularly low type of outcaste, or were, until increasing intercourse with European and English civilization made the wearing of shoes quite common. To-day the shoe is only doctrinally expurga- torius. It ought not to be tolerated — and yet it is ! Excluded from the life of the Hindu, the outcaste is 96 India’s silent revolution also shut out of his religion. The humane Hindu con- soles himself with a comfortable explanation for the mis- ery and degradation of these fifty-three millions. Ac- cording to the doctrine of transmigration, these are the souls of men and women who were especially wicked in former incarnations and who are now expiating their sins. Hence, it is not right to pity them or attempt to help them. Each one must work out his own Karma, and only by draining his cup to the dregs can each outcaste earn his way back to a next life within the castes. The Pariah’s religion is -Animism, or spirit worship, rather than Hinduism. He believes in charms, signs, and voodoos. Evil spirits possess men and women, caus- ing illness and disaster to the entire community. Cholera, plagues, and famines are caused by offended gods and goddesses, who must be appeased by ritual and sacrifice. Ceremonies vary in each community, and have in common only the fact that they are all mainly an effort to pacify evil spirits and demons. Outcastes are of no one race. A majority are prob- ably descended from negrito aborigines who were living in India when the earliest immigrants came down from the North. The whole outcaste system may easily have risen from the instinct of Aryan and Dravidian invaders to forbid intermarriage with darker skinned aborigines. Isolated outcaste communities have, in the course of centuries, broken through into the lowest of the four Hindu castes, the Sudras. On the western coast of South India there are three outcaste groups of related stock, numbering nearly two millions, who stand out con- spicuously above the average. Sometime in the past they gained the right to study and practice the old Hindu medi- TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES 97 cine and astrology, and in some families a knowledge of Sanskrit has been handed down. 1 As a rule, however, they are held down strictly, and the castes resent any attempt to educate or have dealings with the Pariah groups who serve conveniently as serfs, to do the dirty and disgusting work of the community. Missionaries were the first to undertake organized work among these “ depressed classes.” At first upper- class Hindus only smiled, and said that they might as well undertake to convert the monkeys chattering in the trees. Patiently the missionaries worked along until about 1880, when their teaching began to meet such sen- sational success that it roused general interest and alarm among Hindus. The first recorded Christian work among the outcastes was that of a missionary named Schwartz, who, in the early 1800’s, baptized some 18,000 outcastes in southern India. About 1880, outcastes began to accept Christi- anity by villages, a mass movement they called it, and progressive Hindu organizations realized that if they did not undertake mission work of their own, the entire fifty-three million outcastes might be lost to the Hindu community. As Lajpat Rai puts it, “ The possibility of losing the Untouchables has shaken the intelligent section of the Hindu community to its very depths, and were it not for the long-established prejudices and deep-rooted habits, Untouchableness would soon be a thing of the past. . . . The Christian missionary is gathering the harvest, and no blame can attach to him for doing so. He is in this country with the message of his God, and if the Hindus forsake their own people, he, in any case, 1 Farquhar, “Modern Religious Movements in India,” p. 311. 9 8 India’s silent revolution will not fail them. The depressed classes, as I have said, have no desire to leave Hinduism if the latter make it possible for them to progress on humane lines: but if in its stupidity it hesitates and hesitates, they are not willing to follow in its train any longer.” 1 In the last few years the work of the missionaries in India has been on a colossal scale. Individual converts were persecuted so bitterly that, on their own suggestion, the work is now organized in mass movements. No one person is received into the church until his entire group is ready for baptism. The temperament and mental attitude of outcastes is such that it is more satisfactory to handle them en masse. The contempt and degradation into which they are born and which they accept from earliest consciousness robs them of natural initiative and courage. They are pe- culiarly victims of mob psychology. The actual working out of what is called “ the mass movement ” is rather unique. As the unit of Indian life is the village, so the unit of village life is the caste. Every village is a collection of wards or castes, and each caste has its mayor or headman, who acts as political, religious, and social dictator. Recently, attracted by the rapid spread of Christianity, mayors of lower castes and outcaste groups have been coming to the mission stations and inquiring about having their constituencies baptized. The mission stations organized training schools for vil- lage mayors, lasting two or three weeks. Groups of twenty-five to two hundred mayors attend and learn the elemental facts and principles of Christianity. A popu- lar method is learning hymns. The Indian Christian x “The Arya Samaj.” TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES 99 hymn is no dilettante matter. It is frequently two hours long, and sometimes covers Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection, winding up with a long series of observa- tions on what sort of life a Christian should lead. After training school is over, the mayors go back to their villages and teach their people these hymns. Later on, they report that their group is ready for baptism. I was present at a conference last winter, where 91,000 individuals, reported as requesting baptism, had to be re- fused because there were no teachers to train the villages after baptism. Protestant missionaries have consistently refused to go through India baptizing indiscriminately, and then leaving the people to their own devices. The work is definitely limited by the supply of teachers avail- able to live in each village and follow up baptism with practical instruction and advice. Evangelization and education is the principle. Statistics demonstrate the re- sult. In spite of the fact that 80 per cent, of Christian converts are from the illiterate, outcaste group, the census of 1911 reports that the Indian Christian community has the highest average for literacy in all India, higher even than among Brahmans ! The Christian community shows 22 per cent, literacy, as compared with an average of 6 per cent, for all India. The Year Book comments: “ Christians have in proportion to their numbers three times as many literate persons as Hindus, and more than four times as many as Mohammedans. The influence of Christianity is strikingly illustrated in the province of Bihar and Orissa where the proportion is seventy-six per mille as compared with only five per mille among their animistic congeners. It has to be remembered, moreover, that many of the Indian Christians had already passed the school-going age at the time of their conversion ; the IOO India’s silent revolution proportion who are able to read and write must be far higher amongst those who were brought up as Chris- tians.” The response to the mass movement has been over- whelming. A Methodist bishop, Frank W. Warne of North India, estimates that if he had the workers in his field he could bring two million people into the church in six years. Baptisms in American Methodist missions have reached the figure of 1,000 a week, and the average for the united Protestant constituency is about 15,000 a month. The Bishop of Madras (Church of England) says that with a sufficient force, ten million outcastes could be received into the Christian church in one gener- ation. Professor Samuel Higginbottom laments the fact that they are not equipped to meet the demand. “ There are districts in North India where there are 40,000 people on a waiting list of the missions, and there are individual churches with from 1,500 to 2,000 people waiting to be admitted. We are compelled to say to these people, ‘ Wait a bit ; do not come so fast ; we cannot take care of you.’ ” Patriotic Hindus, who resent the intrusion of Christi- anity, are inclined to disparage the conversion of out- castes on the ground that they are not an important ele- ment in the community. That the fear does agitate the Hindu community, however, is evidenced by a letter writ- ten in June, 1918, by the secretary of the All-India-Hindu- Sabha — an orthodox Hindu organization. He invites opinions on removing the untouchableness of certain classes who do not follow or have left the scavenging occupation, at the same time not altering the Roti and Beti (prohibition of interdining and intermarriage) with the castes. The letter, which was written on a resolution TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES IOI passed by the Sabha, says, “ The importance of this ques- tion is evident from the fact that according to the report of the Christian missionaries more than 10,000 Hindus belonging to these classes are leaving the fold of Hindu society, and embracing Christianity every month, whereby they all become Touchable in the eyes of Hindus.” 1 It is a curious fact that after outcastes have been bap- tized, Hindus themselves cease to regard them as Un- touchable, and they are received on the same footing as those who became Christians from within the castes. It has been inspiring to discover the ability and even genius latent among outcaste children. There was the case of a man I am proud to call my friend. I remember seeing his mother, a wrinkled old woman, gathering up the refuse from the streets of her village, to take it home and sift out the whole seeds of grain and use them for food. Her boy was a bright youngster, and the man in charge of the mission school put him in one of his classes. He did so well that, when he finished at the school, money was found to send him on to a higher school, until finally that little outcaste boy took a doctor’s degree on the Uni- versity of Edinburgh standard. To-day he is a prac- ticing physician in a leading Indian city, a respected citi- zen and a member of the Board of Health of the Prov- ince. The attitude of the Gaekwar of Baroda has been nota- bly radical in regard to outcastes. For years he has stood out conspicuously for their rights. Not only has he built separate schoolhouses for them, but in communi- ties where there were not enough to warrant a separate building he insisted that they be admitted to the regular Indian Social Reformer, June 9, 1918. 102 India’s silent revolution school, where they sit in a corner of the room reserved for them. He also issued strict orders that any teacher who refused to teach them or insulted them should be immediately dismissed. He organized special classes where outcaste men and women are trained as teachers for outcaste schools. Not only does the Gaekwar safe- guard their legal rights, but he receives them personally, giving receptions at his palace, to which outcaste students are invited. The ruler of another native state, the Dewan of Tra- vancore, himself a Brahman, has attacked caste aggres- sively as a chief obstacle to educational and social prog- ress. The depressed classes of Travancore have their own special representatives in the legislature, and many of the schools have been thrown open “ to all classes of H. H. the Maharajah’s subjects.” The Brahmo Samaj was first of the Hindu organiza- tions to undertake special work for the Depressed Classes. In 1870 it began a propaganda which culminated in the organization of the Depressed Classes Mission in 1906. Many workers in this mission are Brahmans and mem- bers of the upper castes. La j pat Rai, a leader of the Arya Samaj, was conspicuous in this work until his exile from India. The other Samajes also cooperate. The parent society of the Depressed Classes Mission in Bombay main- tains several schools, a boarding house, a bookbindery, a shoe factory, and a mission. They follow the usual lines of missionary and settlement work, visiting Pariahs in their homes, sending the children to school, securing medical attendance and nursing, teaching sanitation and cleanliness in the home, and holding classes for adult women in reading, writing, and sewing. The Depressed Classes Mission owes not only its name TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES IO3 to the missionaries, but its inspiration as well, as was quite frankly admitted in circular letters sent out when the mission was opened. “If the outcastes are not all to be gathered into the Christian fold,” the appeal read, “ it is high time that Hindus should bestir themselves and save them.” And, “If foreigners have done so much for our degraded fel- low-countrymen, we shall be disgraced before all the world if we continue to do nothing.” Work of the Arya Samaj among the outcastes has been sensationally unorthodox. By formal ritual they under- take to make the untouchables touchable, “ educating them to higher ideals, with a view to eventually raising them to social equality with other Hindus.” Candidates for promotion from untouchableness live on milk alone for three days. At a public meeting, the candidates make their profession of faith to the ten prin- ciples of the Arya Samaj ; ghee, or clarified butter, is burned in the fire, and Vedas are recited. As a token of the transformation, high-caste members of the Arya Samaj accept sweetmeats from the hands of the candi- dates. In some cases, Brahman members of the Samaj accompany new members to their homes where they eat food prepared by the initiate’s wives. Sarala Devi Chauhurani, wife of a Hindu Pandit, gives a vivid description of accompanying her husband while he performed these ceremonial purifications. Although she and her husband, a member of the Arya Samaj, must obviously be radicals to engage in this work, she betrays an instinctive contempt for that “ soulless animal,” the outcaste, which suggests that she is scarcely aware of her own scorn. She describes a vast mass of humanity, comprising 104 India’s silent revolution several thousand men, women and children, waiting pa- tiently for her husband on the wooded banks of one of the five rivers of the Punjab, “ unkempt, unclad but for a loin cloth and a short-sleeved kurta, a dirty piece of cloth wrapped round the head as a turban, not being permitted by the unwritten laws of their high caste neighbors to put on dresses as good or long or clean as those of their social superiors. They are waiting like herds of dumb animals for the loving hand that will lift them to the scale of humanity.” The ceremony was to take place in the district of a Rajput landlord whose ancestors had been on friendly terms with those of her husband “ for ages, counting from the days of the first Moghul.” In times of war, the women and children of one family were sent to the other for protection and shelter. “ Instead of words of welcome, my husband was greeted with words of abuse and threat for daring to upset centuries-old family relationship in this way by coming on his lands to disgrace him by making his un- touchable tenants touchable. His loud-voiced words of anger and abuse gathered an enormous crowd on the spot. The ladies of the family dared not take me inside the house but with veils drawn over their faces flocked to the roof and watched me silently waiting in the tonga. My husband bore everything patiently. But I had come to the end of my tether. After more than an hour's waiting in the zamindar’s compound, with my ears burn- ing with the abuses and threats of exchange of swords even with my husband, when the younger members of the family pressed me to enter the house and make my- self comfortable, I called my husband to my side and said, ‘ Let us go away from here; let us go to any poor TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES IO5 villager’s house. I will not take food offered by these people.’ My husband replied: ‘It will be the greatest blunder to leave at this juncture. Have patience. Here we must stay, accept the hospitality of this very man and bring him around to the cause. If we leave this minute we estrange him and his family from the cause forever. To-morrow he will come to his senses and will apologize to you and to me. The younger people are all with us. You go inside the house. I will win him over.’ “ So he did. By evening the man was all contrition and did not know how to show his face. The next morn- ing with the aid of his men and money the purification of his untouchable tenants was performed triumphantly. “ With the approach of the Master, the shaving of the men begins. The women simply bathe and put on new clothes. Then follows the initiation or the purification, as it is called, by fire and by the Gayatri Mantra. The Guru addresses them and the audience of the higher castes who are assembled to witness the ceremony. He exhorts the latter to receive their brethren with open arms when purified. The mantra of Omkar is given to the former. The forest resounds with the long-drawn, many-times- repeated sound of Om-Om-Om. After taking the vow of clean living and clean thinking, and pouring in his libation to the fire, the hour-before-human-shaped-soul- less animal rises up at the command of the teacher, meta- morphosed into a full-fledged human being, with a dis- tinctly perceptible light of the soul shining in his features. The high-caste men of the village take candies offered by his hands, lead him to the village well, and permit him to draw water out of it. The body, with its newly possessed soul, quivers at the unexpected indulgence and hesitates io6 India’s silent revolution for a moment ; but the fraternal encouragement of the whole village community gives him heart, and led by the Guru he walks up the steps of the well and pulls the rope. His centuries-old disabilities are removed by this one act, his self-respect is restored to him and his sense of hu- manity completed. For though a Sudra still, he is no longer untouchable, his touch pollutes no more.” 1 There was intense excitement the first time the Arya Samaj performed a purification ceremony in 1899. But the Aryas went right on emancipating groups of out- castes, and gradually the Hindu community has come to accept them as caste members. The Arya Samaj not only raises outcastes to be touchables, but in cases of merit it confers the sacred thread upon castes not entitled to wear it. Lajpat Rai made some brave and forceful speeches in connection with his work for the depressed classes. Extracts are given in his book on the Arya Samaj. “ No slavery is more harmful than that of mind, and no sin is greater than human beings in perpetual bondage. It is bad enough to enslave people, but to create and per- petuate circumstances which prevent them from breaking their chains and becoming free is infamous. ... I am a Hindu and a firm believer in Karma. I also believe that every man makes his own Karma, and is thus the arbiter of his own destiny. I therefore look at the question thus: the ancestors of the Hindus (or perhaps they them- selves in their previous existence) in the insolence of wealth and power maltreated people whom God had placed under them to protect and bless. The degrada- tion of the latter reacted upon them and reduced them 1 Indian Review, May, 1918. TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES IO7 to the subordinate position which has been their lot for so many centuries. . . . This double degradation has re- sulted in the loss of the manly instincts of the race. No amount of paper resolutions and no amount of talking on platforms will make us men unless we adopt the first prin- ciples of manhood, viz., of making the amende honorable to those of our own people whom we have wronged, and whom we continue to wrong under an entirely mistaken idea of our dignity and social position. Living in the midst of large classes of people not conscious of their manhood, we cannot hope to progress toward a better type. We therefore have to realize that the best and highest sacrifices we may put forth for our national ad- vancement cannot come to much so long as the depressed classes remain what they are. It is not a question of charity or good will but one of National self-preserva- tion.” Lajpat Rai gives figures showing the extent of the work carried on. In three years, the Arya Samaj ad- mitted an entire caste of 10,000 souls in the territories of the Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmere. In another district, it raised a caste of 36,000 members. In numer- ous districts the work runs into the thousands. It might seem that it would only be necessary to offer this opportunity for social enfranchisement to have all the outcastes of India come running. But a social sys- tem that has successfully controlled the lives of nearly one-sixth of the human race for twenty-five centuries may not be knocked over in a day. Outcastes have cow- ered for so many generations in fear and reverence of the upper castes, they are so convinced of their own degrada- tion, that it is not easy to reach them with a different message. They are also subject to persecution, which 108 India’s silent revolution makes it difficult and dangerous for them to listen to out- siders. Pariahs have been stoned and their clothes torn off because they ventured to appear in better clothes than they were accustomed to wear. A pariah who ventured to carry an umbrella — an almost necessary protection against the burning tropical sun — was set upon by caste members, his umbrella broken to bits, his clothing torn, and he was thoroughly beaten — to teach him his place. In some districts outcastes are not allowed to wear clothes at all, but only leaves, woven together with twigs. In others, they are required to make a moaning noise as they walk along the road, to give warning of their ap- proach so that no upper casteman may be polluted. 1 Out- castes seen talking to missionaries, or to members of the Samajes, are frequently beaten as a warning not to talk to them again. So arrogantly have the castes held the whip hand that the outcastes have been very slow in developing a spirit of revolt, but insurrection is gradually ripening. It is probable that the mission work of Christians and of Samajes has been even more valuable in creating a degree of tolerance among Hindus, and in stirring the outcastes themselves to self-consciousness and revolt, than in the actual number of individual Pariahs who have been reached and helped. It was in 1910 that some Pariahs opened a candy booth at a Punjab fair, and with delightful irony, wrote on the sign overhead, “ Let it be known to the High-born that Hindus and Mussulmen are prohibited to buy sweets here. Chuhras and all others are welcome.” 2 1 St. Nihal Singh, Contemporary Review, March, 1913. 2 Quoted by Farquhar from the Indian Social Reformer. TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES IO9 The first mass meeting of untouchables seemed incred- ibly presumptuous, but they are already a commonplace. At a meeting in the winter of 1917, two groups of out- castes in southern India determined to form a procession along certain roads which they had not been allowed to use. Supported by the Home Rule League of Palghat (a progressive caste organization) and the police, and bearing a portrait of the King-Emperor and the Union Jack, they paraded down the forbidden way. They met no active opposition, but non-Brahman residents inhabit- ing the Bazar near by sent a long memorial to the Gov- ernor of Madras protesting against having “ suffered the greatest indignity and pain.” The memorial admits that the roads are maintained out of public funds, into which, these depressed classes must pay their taxes, but they protest against breaking the old precedent of excluding outcastes from this road. The Governor had made no reply some months later. 1 A mass meeting of 5,000 untouchables was called in Bombay at the time of Mr. Montagu’s visit. Sir Nara- yan Chandavarkar, a high caste Hindu, presided. They drew up a memorial for the Secretary of State, saying that they were “ afraid that if home rule or self-govern- ment were granted to India at the present time, the gov- ernment would pass into the hands of a close oligarchy, unfit either by tradition or training for wielding political power, and thus the interests of the masses would suffer.” The meeting passed a resolution asking for separate representation in the Provincial and Imperial Councils, which was also forwarded to Mr. Montagu. Other reso- lutions demanded the immediate introduction of free and 1 Quoted from the Commonweal of Madras by the I. S. R. no India’s silent revolution compulsory primary education, and petitioned the Na- tional Congress for removal of disabilities regarding the use of schools, medical dispensaries, public wells, offices, roads and other public places. There was a special reso- lution of congratulation to Dr. Ambedjar, an outcaste sent to America to be educated by the Gaekwar, who had just returned to India after taking his master’s and doctor’s degree at Columbia University. A message of thanks was sent to His Highness the Gaekwar. 1 The depressed classes are now holding Untouchability Conferences at frequent intervals, which are attended by all classes from the Gaekwar of Baroda down. The Indian Social Reformer commented on the swing and enthusiasm of a conference in the spring of 1918, as being due to their having cut clear through to the heart of the problem, especially as compared with the waning success of the Aryan Brotherhood dinners. These din- ners, though they started out to be very radical, com- promised on the question of outcastes and now invite only guests from within the four castes. A conference of 2,000 of the most advanced and pros- perous members of the outcaste community, in Bombay in the spring of 1918, passed resolutions that they would not permit their girls to marry before they had reached puberty, nor the boys until they were able to support their wives and themselves ; that they would not give nor accept dowries, and limiting their outlay on marriages in proportion to their means. They pledged themselves not to use liquor, demanded government aid for universal primary education, endorsed the extension of cooperative saving societies, and vowed that they would live on terms 1 Times of India, November 15, 1917. TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES I I I of friendship with each other, ignoring all caste differ- ences. This last may sound ironical, but it was in the soberest good faith, for all these infinitely degraded people have their own sets and classes in miniature, with just as strict rules against intermarriage, interdining and other rela- tionships as those which fence off the Brahman from the rest of the world. This has been one of the chief diffi- culties in working with them, for not one has fallen too low to have taboos and inhibitions about permitting his children to go to school with children of some scavenger whom he considers even lower than himself. The Abbe Dubois describes a festival which nearly broke up in a riot because the Pariahs resented a shoemaker's wearing certain red flowers in his turban, flowers which his “ caste ” were not entitled to wear. The full significance of the list of resolutions quoted above only appears when one remembers just who con- stituted that audience. It is impossible for the western mind to exaggerate or even do justice to the degree of filth, poverty, and hunger, from which those people are climbing. They make up the bulk of the seventy mil- lions to whom Sir William Digby referred when he esti- mated that there were at least seventy million “ continu- ally hungry people in British India at the beginning of the twentieth century.” But so indomitably hopeful and courageous is this animal called man, that a few years of missionary work, a smattering of education, a slight loosening of the chains which bound him, and he is debonairly passing resolutions limiting his budget, and vowing to live on terms of friendship with his neighbors. Gradually these stirrings among the outcastes have 1 12 INDIA S SILENT REVOLUTION reached the conventional Hindu community. The Maha- rajah of Cassimbazar, presiding over a conference of a strong orthodox organization, the All-India Hindu Sabha, last winter, challenged conditions vigorously. He said : “ Gentlemen, do not let me be misunderstood. I do not appear before you to-day to condemn the system of caste. I personally believe in caste, and I do not think there is any nation in the world which has been able to do without it in some form or other. What I am anxious to insist is that while caste was intended in ancient India as a social insurance, it has degenerated in our day into a school of endless bitterness, hatred and hostility.” Similarly, Sir Subrahmanya Iyer, presiding at a meet- ing to commemorate a Tamil saint and poet of reputed Pariah parentage, attacked the “ folly and injustice of the existing custom.” He reminded his audience that the origin of caste lay in a natural desire of the early Aryan settlers not to mix and intermarry with such of the aboriginal inhabitants as were unclean, on sanitary and moral grounds. In time, this reason has been quite forgotten, and a false and evil pride of family and sta- tion has developed caste into an entirely different thing. He compared the transition to the story of the ancient guru who had a cat which used to bother him while he was performing his devotions. So he tied it up to keep it out of his way, and his neighbors, slavishly imitating, decided that there must be some special virtue about keep- ing a cat tied up while saying prayers, because this holy guru did it, and soon all the villagers had obtained cats which they solemnly tied up during their devotions! On an afternoon in March, 1918, a thousand sweeper women gathered in a hall in Bombay to witness the dis- He isn’t going to a masquerade ball in his great-grandfather’s dress coat; he is just on his way to school in a costume quite common among Indian boys Children with the look of to-morrow on their faces TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES II3 tribution of prizes to their schoolgirl daughters. These little outcaste girls, who a few years ago would not have been admitted to any schoolroom, were the star perform- ers. They held a dramatic conversation on the benefits of school instruction, sang patriotic songs, and received dresses and ribbons as prizes. If the ordinary American mother’s heart swells with pride as she watches the aston- ishing beauty and cleverness of her little girl-graduate at commencement, what must have been the mingled sense of unreality and ecstasy in the hearts of these outcaste mothers ! Memories of their own despised and hungry childhood must for once have found compensation in the glory of that afternoon. A country’s status is determined not by the culture of the few at the top but by the average of the entire popu- lation. The greatest task which confronts India to-day is to raise her average. The agitation for home rule has received wide publicity, but after all India can only campaign for an extension of representative government, and must then wait until the British Government chooses to act. The elevation of her depressed classes is something that India herself can do, and it is something she must do if she is to make any progress toward the goal that her Nationalists in company with the rest of the world are talking so much about to-day — Democracy. How can there be democracy in India with fifty-three million members of the community unable to read and write, unable to pass the most meager literacy test, un- fitted to take any intelligent part in representative govern- ment? The outcastes form a group half the size of the entire population of the United States. They are di- vided from the rest of India by mutual hatred, and they 1 14 India’s silent revolution are segregated by ignorance, poverty, disease, and arro- gant discrimination. India’s task of assimilating this great mass into the nor- mal current of her life is not unlike our Americanization problem in this country. War has brought us a new re- alization of the importance of this duty, and we are attacking it more definitely than ever before. We are or- ganizing night schools, part-time schools, clubs, commun- ity pageants, turning our public schools into social com- munity centers. We are spared that most difficult first step — we do not have to break down any codes of social discrimination. Our most aristocratic senators and news- papers are not ashamed to refer to the rail-splitter who be- came President, and equality of opportunity is our proud- est tradition. India faces this problem, not only as an abstract duty, but also as a practical exigency. The depressed classes are not going to remain a passive, inert mass forever. Already there are rumblings. The high-caste Hindu hears them, as some of the quotations already given testify. Traveling through India last winter I was im- pressed with a sense of subtle, inscrutable difference. I believe that it is not unlike the slow, vague stirrings and ripples which must have preceded the French Revolution and the Russian upheaval. A silent revolution is going on in India to-day. It is social even more than political. It is a revolt against the mediaeval arrogance and brutality of Brahmanism and the caste system. There are evi- dences that it is not entirely confined to the outcastes, but that it is spreading to some of the lower groups within the castes. Arthur Henderson, sketching the origin of the British Labor party, writes, “ A new social order is taking TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLES 115 shape even in the midst of the stress and peril of the time. This revolution is fundamental, for it touches the springs of action in the great mass of the common people.” 1 He is speaking of England, but his words apply exactly to India, and the same world stir which has precipitated the situation in England is responsible for the change at work in India as well. India’s silent revolution is fundamental, for it touches the springs of action in the great mass of the common people. Christian missionaries, concentrating on outcaste com- munities, will ultimately reach an enormous majority of the fifty-three millions. Not only will the outcastes have become Christians, but by force of education they will constitute the most progressive, most capable element in the community. This body of Indian outcastes offers a provocative field. Given a western education, they will combine the ingen- uity of the Indian mind, its agility in moving deftly in and out and around a subject, with the abrupt doggedness of the West. They will gain that quality, the lack of which is India’s great natural deficiency — initiative. They will have become so many million individuals. And what is going to become of Hinduism when it tries to sit on a rather fragile lid, holding down some fifty million ambitious individuals? 1 “ The Aims of Labor,” p. io. VI LIFTING THE PURDAH Brahman marriage ceremonies last for several days. The high-caste husband anoints his bride and himself, reciting verses and liturgies. She ascends a millstone, descends from it, and takes seven steps to the northeast. At last, after tedious hours of ritual, when in the night sky the bride sees the polar star and the seven Rishis, she breaks her long silence and says, “ May my husband live, and may I obtain children.” The sentence sums up her whole life; the submersion of all individuality in the lives of her husband and chil- dren. The orthodox Hindu husband never eats with his wife. She eats from his plate when he has finished. She may not utter his name, scarcely will she venture to look up into his eyes. One Indian wife told a woman missionary that she had never dared to look full into her husband’s face until after her second child was born. Oblivious of the changing position of women in the rest of the world, India keeps her women buried behind a mass of archaic tradition. Higher caste women are quite literally buried behind the purdah or curtain which divides the zenana or women's quarters from the rest of the house. In spite of all the madrigals and rondelays individual man has written to the charms of the fair sex, men have n6 LIFTING THE PURDAH II 7 an elemental and instinctive contempt for women which the more primitive societies do not attempt to conceal Female infanticide, frank discrimination in social cus- toms, and naively intolerant proverbs are some of the expressions of the Indian’s contempt. “ What is the chief gate to hell? ” asks the Hindu con- undrum, and artlessly answers, “ Woman.” “ The par- ents look after boys, and God looks after the girls,” has a sinister ring after reading census reports showing that the proportion of females to a thousand males in India is 954 as compared with 1068 in England and 1060 in this country. Perhaps it is due not to actual infanticide, but to the fact that the Indian father, counting up his family for the census taker, quite forgets to mention his daugh- ters ; they do not count. “ May you have one hundred sons,” is the politest of pleasantries to a newly married couple, but to wish them a hundred daughters — no one could be so cruel. The Code of Manu, one of the Hindu Holy books, dating back in its present form to at least 500 b. c., gives some quaintly interesting instructions for a Brahman in his choice of a wife. “ Let him not marry a girl with reddish hair, nor one with a superfluity of limbs (as for instance, one with six fingers), nor one who is sickly, nor one with either too little or too much hair, nor one who talks too much, nor one who is red-eyed ; nor one with the name of a bird, a snake, a slave, nor any frightful object. But let him marry a woman without defective or deformed limbs, having an agreeable name, whose gait is like that of a flamingo or elephant, whose teeth and hair are moderate in quantity, and whose whole body is soft.” The Abbe Dubois, a French priest who analyzed Hindu n8 India’s silent revolution life as he found it in the early i8oo’s with a delightful mixture of gossip and fact, quotes from the Padma Purana, part of the Hindu Holy Books, some Precepts for Married Women, which express the orthodox Hindu ideal of womanhood to-day. “ When her husband sings she must be in ecstasy. If he dances, she views him with delight. If he speaks of science, she is filled with admiration. . . . Her husband may be crooked,? aged, infirm, offensive in his manners. Let him also be choleric and dissipated, irregular, a drunk- ard, a gambler, a debauchee. Let him live in the world destitute of honor. Let him be deaf or blind. His crimes and his infirmities may weigh him down, but never shall his wife regard him as but her God. She shall serve him with all her might, obey him in all things, spy no defects in his character, nor give him any cause of disquiet.” This attitude is curiously inconsistent with the excep- tional reverence paid to women in the Hindu religion. The wives of the gods play an important part. Sita, the devoted wife of Rama, is known and loved in every Indian home. Kali, incarnation of female energy, of all the power and mystery of nature herself, and with all of nature’s inscrutable cruelty, is one of the most beloved and potent members of the Hindu pantheon. Through- out Bengal she is lovingly referred to as “ The Mother,” in spite of the fact that her statues represent her in de- structive mood, wearing a necklace of skulls, her four hands grasping weapons. India is always referred to as the Motherland, — “ Bande Mataram Hail Mother- land. The Institutes of Manu themselves contain lines which are most deferential to woman : LIFTING THE PURDAH 1 19 “Honor to the faithful woman Be by loving husband paid. Where woman is not honored Vain is sacrificial rite. Where women grieve and languish Perish men of fated race.” 1 Moreover, India is conspicuous among civilized states, perhaps indeed she is the only one, where “ matriarchy ” still survives. Down on the southernmost tip of the Indian continent at Cape Comorin woman is still the head of the family, and property follows her line, not the man’s. Women own property in their own right, and while the mother’s property passes on to her children, the father’s passes to his mother’s kin. In marriage the Nair woman has the privilege of choosing her husband and he comes to her house to live. Until recently, she could dismiss him when she tired of him. Divorce is now by mutual consent. Feminists may find support for their thesis in the fact that social conditions in this unique little state are far ahead of the rest of India. There is no child marriage, and the state has the highest percen- tage of literate women in all India. G. Lowes Dickinson tells of visiting “ a school of over 600 girls, ranging from infancy to college age, and certainly I never saw school girls look happier, keener, or more alive. Society clearly has not gone to pieces under the ‘ monstrous regimen of women.’ Travancore claims, probably with justice, to be the premier native state; the most advanced, the most prosperous, the most happy.” 2 1 “ Institutes of Manu,” III, 55-57. 2 G. Lowes Dickinson, “ Appearances,” p. 38. 120 India’s silent revolution The contrast in the religious attitude of Indian men and women is impressive. Many priests and gurus have a very lofty conception of theism. Individuals attain a high degree of spiritual insight through years of Yoga — renunciation and meditation. The Indian women’s reli- gion is peculiarly mean and groveling. Passing from the main temple into the women’s section, I have been struck with the sense of difference. There is something bestial and degrading about the forms they use, the very atmosphere of the place. Many of their observances and customs are so offensive to our western ideas that it is impossible to describe them. Hindu priests sometimes take western men through the women’s section of a tem- ple as a personal favor, but they never permit western women to enter. Passing through the outer courts of a temple one after- noon, I happened near a Brahman squatting in a corner selling puffed rice and peanuts. “ Back, back, please back,” he shouted at me in English. He feared that I would defile his wares by brushing against them as I passed. I backed away to oblige the old fellow, and as I did so, a handsome young Indian came up to me, and in perfect English apologized for the priest’s brusqueness. He was evidently high caste, tall and well built, in a long pongee robe, gold-colored turban, embroidered san- dals, his black hair sleeked back under his turban. To complete the Orientalism of the picture, he exhaled a del- icate fragrance of perfume in odd contrast to the virility of his bearing. With a perfection of accent which could only have been acquired in an English university he said, “ I hope you will pardon the discourtesy of the priest. He means no offense.” I laughed it off, and from that we fell into LIFTING THE PURDAH I 21 discussion of the Hindu religion. He was intelligent and open-minded, and I finally told him the thought that had been in my mind. I asked him how he could tolerate the position of women in India. Instantly his face froze. Curtly he replied, “ That is one thing you Occidentals can never teach us — your attitude toward woman. She belongs to the lower side of life.” And at that, without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away ! In addition to belonging to an inherently despised sex, there are other objections to being a little girl in India. By a curious working of the law of supply and demand, young men are able to command a good price in the Indian marriage market year after year. The various certificates and degrees which the schools and universi- ties grant are all sharply graded off on a rising scale of rupees. Caste, wealth, physique, and good looks are other determining elements. A poor man with several daughters is in an impossible dilemma. There was a tragic protest against the marriage dowry custom in Calcutta a few years ago. A Hindu had deter- mined to mortgage his house and put the rest of his life in pawn to secure the 800 rupees in cash and 1200 in jewelry which were demanded by his prospective son-in- law. Shortly before the marriage day the little fourteen year old bride, Snehalata, put on her wedding finery and, climbing out on the tile roof of her house, poured kerosene over her dress, and set herself on fire. She wanted to free her father of the burden of her marriage, and to record her death before the eyes of the community as a protest against the custom. She left a pathetic little note to her father : “ After I am gone, father, I know you will shed tears over my ashes. I shall be gone ; but the family will be 122 India’s silent revolution saved. . . . May the conflagration I shall kindle set the whole country on fire.” This incident attracted national attention and several other young girls followed her example. Their deaths had an appreciable effect. At the first session of the Madras Student Convention, an anti-dowry league was organized, and a small group of students joined it, pledg- ing themselves not to accept marriage dots with their brides. Occasionally an Indian paper mentions, in the account of a wedding, that there was no “ vankda money ” or dowry. It is the Hindu custom to celebrate a little girl’s reach- ing the age of puberty much as a western lad celebrates his twenty-first birthday. Under the old Hindu law a parent who has not secured a husband for his daughter before she attains puberty commits a serious sin. This urgency has led to the custom of infant betrothals, and even to the betrothal of the unborn, parents promising each other their next daughter or son as the case may be. The dynamiting effect of mixing a little western edu- cation with some of these archaic customs is illustrated in a story told by Kenneth S. MacDonald. Rukhmabi was a Hindu girl, educated in the Free Church Mission School, and afterward as a zenana pupil. She was clever and accomplished, and the man, Dadaji by name, to whom she had been married in infancy, being repulsive and illit- erate, she refused to live with him. He appealed to the law to compel her to do so. The case was carried from court to court, till the High Court ordered Rukhmabi either to live with Dadaji as his wife, or go to prison for six months. A compromise was effected. A sum of money sufficient to buy another wife was paid to Dadaji. LIFTING THE PURDAH 123 But it was decreed that according to Hindu law, Rukh- mabi must never marry. She went to London to study medicine, took the degree of M.D. and returned to India to take charge of a hospital for women. While no comment is made on the fact that Dadaji must “ buy ” another wife, it would suggest that he was so disgustingly ineligible that contrary to the usual custom of demanding a dowry, he was forced to pay for a wife. 1 In spite of legislation and agitation against it, infant and child marriage are very common. “ There are nine million girl wives between the ages of one and fifteen, of whom two and a half million are under eleven.” 2 Al- though Orientals mature somewhat earlier than we do, they themselves recognize that the vitality of both their men and women is drained by these early marriages, and they are trying to raise the legal marriage age. In 1890 the tragic death in Calcutta of a child wife, a little girl eleven years old, because of the treatment she suffered from her husband, a man of thirty, resulted in agitation which ultimately led the British Government to pass a law raising the age of consent from ten to twelve years. Hindus resented this interference with their cus- toms, and when the bill came up for passage there was intense excitement. Crowds paraded the streets day and night screaming, “ Our religion is in danger.” There was a day of fasting, and a monster mass meeting with an attendance estimated at 100,000. Speeches were deliv- ered from twelve platforms. Against this hysteria were ranged all the forces of reform in the country. Mission- aries, Samajes, and progressive Hindus joined in sending 1 Quoted by Farquhar, “ Modern Religious Movements in India.” 2 Speech of Mr. Montagu, then under-Secretary of State for India, on Indian budget, 1911. 12 4 India’s silent revolution representatives before the Viceroy’s Council to urge the passage of the bill. Since then, the native states have taken steps in the same direction. An Infant Marriage Prevention Act passed by the Gaekwar of Baroda in 1901 set the mini- mum age in his state for the marriage of boys at sixteen, and girls at twelve. Ten years later the Census Commis- sioner of Baroda published a review of the workings of the act. Some 22,218 applications for exemption were made in the ten years, and of these 95 per cent, were al- lowed. Over 23,000 marriages were performed in viola- tion of the Act, without applying for an exemption, thereby incurring fines of from a few to a hundred rupees. There were probably an equal number of violations not re- corded through giving false ages. “ The age returns are notoriously unreliable, but even thus there were 158 per thousand males and 277 per thousand females married and widowed under ten years of age.” 1 In Mysore, another native state, an Act forbids the marriage of girls under eight altogether, and forbids the marriage of girls under fourteen with men over fifty. In 1915, the Conference of All India Orthodox Hindus passed a resolution recommending that “ the minimum marriageable age of boys be fixed at eighteen years and that of girls at eight years.” 2 It is impossible from Oc- cidental standards, to characterize men who consider a minimum marriage age of eight years for girls as a re- form measure! Child marriages mean of course that Indian girls begin child-bearing very young. Men doctors are not permit- ted to attend them, and such unskillful midwifery as is 1 Times of India, quoted by Farquhar. 2 Indian Social Reformer, May, 1915. LIFTING THE PURDAH 125 available, together with the premature strain of child- bearing, results in a high mortality for both mothers and babies. Professor James Bissett Pratt of Williams Col- lege makes the statement that “ about 25 per cent, of Hindu women die prematurely through early marriages, and as many more become semi-invalids from the same cause.” 1 Not more than three million of the one hundred and fifty million women of India are within reach of compe- tent medical aid. Even before the war the shortage of women doctors was such that hospitals had been closed for lack of them. One shrinks from imagining the suf- fering which such figures imply. Indian infant mortal- ity figures tell the same story. The infant death rate per thousand live births average 21 1 for India as com- pared with 124 in the United States and 105 in England. It is estimated that one quarter of the infants born die in their first year. 2 The tragic need of Indian women for more adequate medical care has resulted in the rapid growth of medical missions, and the woman doctor paves the way for the zenana teacher and other liberal influences. The wives of two viceroys founded large funds, which have been augmented by private subscription and government aid for reaching the women of India with medical services. These funds provide training schools where Indian girls are trained as nurses and doctors. They also provide dispensary and hospital services. The Indian widow must drain the very dregs of bit- terness and desolation. When her husband dies her hair 1 “ India and Its Faiths,” p. 174. 2 Pramanath Banerjea, “A Study of Indian Economics,” 1916, P- 34- 126 India’s silent revolution is cut off, and for the rest of her life she must keep her head shaved like a convict. Her jewels are taken away by her husband's family and her glass bracelets are broken from her arms and thrown away. The story goes that when some princes die, they have to bring the broken bracelets away from the palace in cart loads ! A widow may never marry again on the theory that the woman must keep herself inviolate for her husband in the next life, a bit of sentiment which would be more appealing if it worked both ways. Needless to say, it does not. Widowers remarry, as a matter of course, and if a man’s first wife is barren, or “ bad tempered,” he may take another wife at his pleasure during her lifetime. It is quite customary for rajahs and princes to have sev- eral wives. Infant betrothals are considered as binding as mar- riage, so that little baby girls have actually been born into the world widowed. Little girls are frequently married to old men of fifty and sixty, and the death of these men while their wives are still young further augments the vast number of Indian widows. There are about twenty-six million widows, of whom 112,000 are under ten years of age and about 300,000 additional are under fifteen. According to the Year Book, some 17 per cent, of the women of India are wid- ows, as compared with a normal average of 9 per cent, in Europe. As these widows, married while still children, are uneducated and unfitted to earn a living, they are usually obliged to live with the family of their dead hus- band. They are looked down upon because their unlucky star was responsible for his death, and they must earn their keep by the most menial work. Naturally youth LIFTING THE PURDAH 127 rebels, and the anomalous position of these girls results in many tragedies. One winter when cholera was raging in the United Provinces, I walked through a village whose homes had been practically wiped out by the. plague. In a jungle beyond the village I found, lying across the path, two women with shaven heads, widows. They were uncon- scious. My companion and I picked them up and carried them to a dispensary. They were old women and had been widowed when young. For years they had lived with their husbands’ families, doing all the heaviest and most disagreeable work. When plague came to the vil- lage, it was decided that they being women of ill omen, were responsible for it. To drive the devil out, the ryots beat these women into insensibility and then dragged them out of the village. In an orphanage I saw a young cripple. His father had died before his birth, and as soon as he was born, his mother was driven out of her village. With the baby in her arms she tried vainly to find work, to beg food. The days passed and she saw her little boy starving to death in her arms, for no one would pity an accursed widow. Finally in desperation, she put horse chestnuts against the boy’s hip joints and bound them down with a wet cloth. She left them there until the joints had bruised and festered into open sores. Then, unbinding the little suffering body, she held him in her arms, and begged for her cripple baby. Passersby pitied them, and her terrible tragic ruse succeeded. But the boy will al- ways be lame. Agitation in favor of the remarriage of widows is mak- ing headway, and progressive Indian papers record oc- 128 India’s silent revolution casional remarriages. A recent notice of the remar- riage of a Brahman widow “ according to orthodox rites ” mentioned that “ the marriage was attended by several influential men of the town ” (giving their names), “ and by a number of students.” The groom was twenty and the widowed bride — fourteen. Many progressive In- dians however still feel that only virgin widows should be remarried. Since the very beginning of work for women by women missionaries, Christian missions have established widows’ homes where the women are educated and trained to earn their living. In 1887 Hindu social reformers took up the work, with the establishment of their first home in Calcutta. Since then such homes have multiplied rap- idly. The Arya and Deva Samajes and numerous indi- viduals have built homes. Some of them are aided by government appropriations. Notice of the marriage of a widow at the premises of the Hindu Widows’ Home, conducted by the Bombay Social Reform Association, ended with the words, “ this is the fifth marriage cele- brated under the auspices of the Hindu Widows’ Home.” In the old days sati provided a way out for many wid- ow’s. This was the custom of the widow’s throwing her- self into the flames of her husband's funeral pyre. In 1829 the Viceroy issued an order forbidding sati. As there w r as already a strong sentiment against the custom among progressive Indians, the custom is to-day prac- tically obsolete, though there are still isolated cases. The New Times of Karachi reported in April, 1918: “ A young Hindu widow, whose husband died in the last plague, burnt herself to death with kerosene oil. It is said that she ceased talking with anybody from the day her husband passed away.” Such individual cases may LIFTING THE PURDAH I29 amount to no more than the occasional suicide of grief- stricken widows in any country. The orthodox Hindu’s only alternative to finding and paying for a husband for each daughter has been to dedi- cate her to the gods at birth. Devadasi, they call her, a servant of the gods. We translate it dancing girl. Groups of these girls live in the important temples, and are nominally wives of the gods, dancing and singing at all important religious, political, and social functions. They are the only women who are allowed to learn to sing and dance. The more promising girls are educated, serving as courtesans to the priests and public ; they cor- respond on a lower scale of culture to the Hierodouloi of ancient Greek civilization. Complete segregation of the Hindu wife from her husband’s social life leaves a large gap for the nautch or dancing girls to fill. A high-caste Hindu woman of orthodox circles never appears when her husband en- tertains in his own home. As a group of men cannot amuse themselves with eating and talking indefinitely, it has been customary to bring dancing girls into private homes for practically all parties. Formerly they took part at marriages and all other ceremonies, and as a mark of respect they accompanied prominent men on formal and state calls. The British Governor of Madras in the early nineties was the first official who refused to attend parties where nautch girls appeared, a precedent which is now generally accepted. This official attitude, combined with the work of missionaries and of Hindu societies, is producing a wholesome effect; but even to-day motion picture con- cerns still advertise in Indian newspapers : “ Exhibitors before Rajas and Princes of India, their Excellencies 130 INDIA S SILENT REVOLUTION Lord and Lady Willingdon. Work undertaken at mar- riage, nautch and evening parties.” The Government policy of refusing to interfere with social and religious customs, as enunciated by Queen Victoria in her proclamation of 1858, has been in the main wise. The gradual evolution worked by education and by the example of the European and missionary com- munities accomplishes its reforms slowly but more surely than could be hoped for by enforced legislation. Only a few times has Government departed from this rule, first with its act against sati in 1829, again in 1856 with an act legalizing the marriage of Indian widows, and in 1891 with an age of consent law. Educating a woman is, according to the old Hindu fable, like putting a knife in the hands of a monkey. Women as a sex are considered incapable of learning. As for the exceptional woman, “ even though one par- ticularly brilliant was found,” runs the old saying, “ to teach her would be like feeding a serpent milk; she would merely turn her education into poison.” Child marriage has made education almost impossible for women, because little girls who must assume all the responsibilities of womanhood at eight and ten years of age are too preoccupied to be apt scholars. It is not un- common in the village mission schools to see three gen- erations of women studying the same lessons side by side. Everywhere one sees child mothers, their babies at their breasts, their young faces shaded by a wistful maturity that is pathetic. The result of forcing premature responsibility upon generations of women is evidenced in any gathering of men and women. In villages among the lower castes, the seclusion of women is not enforced. Men and LIFTING THE PURDAH I3I women frequently gather in the little open square which forms the village meeting place, women sitting one side, men on the other. I remember attending a meeting of a village council, or panchaiyat, called to honor a member of their village, an outcaste who had just been decorated by the Government for heroic service in plague relief. Sikhs with long white whiskers, select men in white robes and scarlet and vivid green turbans, made a dignified and impressive body. The outcastes, sitting on the edge of the groups, bareheaded, a piece of cloth tucked about their hips, though not particularly dignified, were inter- ested and absorbed in what was going on. Over on the women’s side it was constant restlessness and giggling. A woman reached for a grasshopper, missed it, and they all tittered. In repose their eyes were dull and listless. When they lighted it was only with a vacant stare. There was no sign of their giving intelligent attention, or fol- lowing the speeches with any interest. The moment the meeting was over, what a change. Then came the part of life that was her affair. Reaching out for her baby — for they all have babies — each woman set him astride her hip, and hurried off to the little clay oven against the wall of her house, to resume her work. Indian women are devoted and faithful mothers, and their sons appreciate it. Much as the Indian despises women as a sex, he always speaks of his mother with ex- travagant devotion. He is even beginning to realize the disadvantages to himself of debarring women from all education and culture. It is dawning upon him that, though Indian women may possess instinctively all the most ideal maternal qualities, illiterate, superstitious women are incapable of creating the home atmosphere of a woman who is educated and intelligent. It is the old, old 132 India’s silent revolution argument as to whether it is worth while to educate women. It has been threshed out all over the world, and everywhere women ultimately win. India is still thresh- ing it out, or, rather, she is just beginning. In the coun- tries of the world about three times as many men com- mit suicide as women. In India more women take their own lives than men. It is ironically appropriate that in this land where women have suffered so much bitterness, the most extrav- agantly beautiful and precious building of the entire country should have been built in memory of a woman, a shrine to commemorate the love and devotion that one man bore his wife. “ Fabric of enchantment, hewn From lucent quarries of the moon.” The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jehan, sorrowing over the death of his favorite wife. Shah Jehan was a grand- son of that greatest figure in Indian history, Akbar the Great, the first Mogul Emperor of Hindustan. It was about 1630 that Mumtaz-i-Mahal (Chosen of the Palace) who had been the Shah's favorite wife for fourteen years, died in bearing her eighth child. Although the shah had many other wives to console him, he mourned for her all his life, and swore that she should have the most perfect and wonderful tomb in the world. He kept 22,000 men at work in night and day shifts for twenty years carving lace-like traceries of marble screens, and inlaying the precious mosaics of floor and ceiling. After he had reigned for thirty years, one of his sons rose up and deposed him, and when at last it came Shah Jehan's time to die, he was a lonely old man, imprisoned in a tiny room of what had been his palace, with only one of his LIFTING THE PURDAH 133 wives left to wait upon him. When the end came his last request was that his bed should be moved to a window where he could see the Taj Mahal, and the old man died gazing upon this marble jewel that held the body of the woman he had loved w r hen he and the world were young. Stories that come down through the years suggest that Mumtaz-i-Mahal was something more than a favorite wife, that she was a real person. When Jehan led his armies out to fight the enemy, she used to follow secretly with her retinue, and when darkness fell, she and her women worked all night long on the battlefield, minis- tering to the wounded and dying, “ pouring oil on their wounds and wine between their lips.” When she died, and it was noised abroad that Shah Jehan was building her a magnificent tomb, all India sent gifts to the building of it, because she was universally loved. Jeypore, the wonderful rose colored city, sent marble, and Mysore and Hyderabad sent gold. Copper for the magnificent doors came from the Himalayas, and diamonds, emeralds, rubies, jasper and onyx from the mines of southern India. Coming down through the years, the name and achieve- ment of a woman in every generation or two stands out, eloquent of the latent capacity of the women of India, and of an indomitable instinct to rise despite all handicaps. There was the young girl Toru Dutt, of whose verses Ed- mund Gosse the English critic wrote, “ It is impossible to exaggerate what we have lost in the premature death of Toru Dutt. Literature has no honors which need have been beyond the reach of a girl who at the age of twenty- one had produced so much of lasting worth.” The poem which first attracted Gosse’s attention to Miss Dutt is well worth quoting : 134 India’s silent revolution “ Still barred the doors. The far east glows, The morning wind blows fresh and free. Should not the hour that wakes the rose Awaken also thee? “All look for thee — love, light, and song: Light in the sky, deep red above, Song in the lark of pinions strong, And in my heart, true love.” Conspicuous among the women who have taken the lead in the education and elevation of women in India is Pandita Ramabai. She was the daughter of a Hindu scholar. Her parents died of famine, and she was left a widow when very young. Instead of being crushed, these trials only roused in her an unconquerable spirit. Alone, young and without precedent, she set out as a cru- sader in behalf of the women of India. She sprang into prominence in 1882 when her evidence on women’s edu- cation before the Indian Education Commission revealed her as a woman of marked ability. She was educated in England, and returning to India she founded at Poona a home for Indian widows, which was partially financed by friends she had made during a visit to the United States. The famine of 1900 brought 2,000 orphans to her home, in addition to her previous work. With fine resourcefulness and administrative ability, she has carried on her work through staggering difficulties. She is head of a home of 1,000 widows at Kedgaon near Poona, and has organized a splendid in- dustrial school there, fitting these widows to leave the home and go out to earn their own living. They make the finest laces, boxes of wood and cardboard, weave car- pets and Oriental rugs, and do fine embroidery. They have a contract for supplying the Government with the An Indian barrister and his progressive family Starting for the Baby Health Show LIFTING THE PURDAH 135 embroidered devices which the railroad conductors and guards wear on cap and arm. She also has a farm, run on scientific methods, where women are taught truck farming. It was the early missionaries who first undertook con- structive work for women. The missionaries’ wives be- gan by visiting the women in the zenanas, and as they made friends they organized classes in reading, writing, and household arts. There was prejudice against per- mitting western women to enter the women’s apartments at first, but the Hindu women themselves enjoyed it, and soon there came an increasing demand for women mis- sionaries to carry on work among women. Early in the nineteenth century, the Brahma and Arya Samajes took up the crusade for improving the status of women. The Government has made no aggressive efforts in this direction, but is offering increasing facilities for the education of women as the demand grows. Only 2 per cent, of the girls of school going age were in school in 1902, but this average trebled in ten years, and there are now 6 per cent. To-day agitation on the sub- ject of education for women is widespread. The exper- ience of teachers, as to the actual demand, varies. The Director of Education writes: “ As usual, the reports give varying accounts of the enthusiasm or indifference displayed as regards girls’ education. The Director in Bombay says that outside of Bombay and Poona, secondary schools for girls would not exist without the help of missions and those that do exist have very few girls in them. “ The Director in Bengal says that the education of girls of the Hindu middle class up to a certain standard has become a practical necessity : that even the orthodox 136 India’s silent revolution Hindu parent is beginning to realize the advantage of a well-conducted school over home instruction, and that parents of this class are now ready to pay for their girls’ instruction. “ Everywhere in India there is demand for more women teachers, and to meet this need training schools for widows have been founded and it is hoped to use them widely as teachers for women.” 1 Colleges for women are springing up all over the coun- try. There are two in Madras — the Government Col- lege for Women and Union Christian Women’s College. India's first university for women has opened in Poona, and graduates its first class in 1919. As the most beau- tiful memorial in all India was built bv a man for a woman, so, too the most lavish and splendid gift made in recent years is from a man for many women. The Ma- harajah Kumar of Tikari has given his entire estate val- ued at $7,000,000 to found an institution for the educa- tion of Indian women. The school will be open to girls from five to eighteen years old, and there will be no dis- tinctions of caste or creed. This magnificent gift was inspired by the Maharajah’s wife to whom he was de- voted. The Maharajah was educated in England, and spent two years fighting with the Allies in France. The site for the school is the gift of another man, a promi- nent Indian lawyer. The pioneer of all these institutions is the Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow, which was built by a group of American Methodist women, thirty-six years ago. It was the first institution of college grade, exclusively for women, anywhere in the Orient. This group of Ameri- 1 Annual Report, Education Department, 1914-15. LIFTING THE PURDAH 137 can women had faith in the future of education of women. It was a bold adventure to build this college at a time when colleges for women in their own country had not passed an experimental stage, and when cartoons of Miss Blue Stocking with spectacles and a Boston bag were still the height of humor. Not at all intimidated by the difficulty of their task, Indian feminists now and then show a delightful audacity. Mrs. K. D. Rukmanianna, Superintendent of the Mahar- ani’s College, Mysore, in a recent speech criticized se- verely the specialized curriculum which Indian educa- tional authorities are framing for Indian girls. Una- bashed by the fact that there are only thirteen literate women per thousand in India, Mrs. Rukmanianna de- mands for her sex the same type of education as is given to boys. Her reasons are reminiscent of those we heard advanced against old-school educators in this country not many years ago. The curriculum had been framed with special reference to the “ needs of the girl in the home,” as they phrased it, and included chiefly a study of do- mestic arts, how to cook, sew, darn, and keep the house clean. “ This is what I may term the domestic ideal of woman’s education, and a very ancient ideal no doubt,” said Mrs. Rukmanianna, and added scornfully, “ It may satisfy the men, but it does not at all represent mod- ern ideals of women’s education. If it is so necessary to train these girls to be ‘ good wives and mothers,’ may I ask what efforts are being made to train the boys to be good husbands and wise parents? ” It seems scarcely accurate to speak of a woman’s move- ment in India when only 1 per cent, of the women can read and write. And yet there is a tremendous potential restlessness among them. “ Women must solve the prob- 138 India’s silent revolution lems of humanity,” is the quotation from Ibsen which dedicates a book written a couple of years ago by the Ma- harani of Baroda, astute wife of that progressive states- man, the Gaekwar. It is a guide book for a nation of women in captivity, pointing to them a w r ay out. Sys- tematically it records the variety of occupations followed by women in England, Europe, and the United States, with adaptations to local conditions, and with emphasis on the types of work which seem most easily accessible. There are a number of Indian women in literary and journalistic work. The Maharani of Bhavnager edits a weekly paper in Gujarati, and is vice-president of the Society of Women Journalists. She is the author of a life of Lord Kitchener, who was her friend. Her High- ness, the Begum of Bhopal, is a progressive and influen- tial woman. Her state ranks high for its progressive legislation. There are numerous important names in private life; Mrs. Sarojini is an eloquent speaker, and a leader in political and educational subjects. Mrs. Ram- abai Ranade and Pandita Ramabai are conspicuous in social work, and the Sorabji sisters in education. The thirteen year old granddaughter of Sir Dinsha Wacha has written an account of the causes and events of the war. It is illustrated by a series of war cartoons which she drew, and was published for charity! Evidently India too has her little girl prodigies. Mohammedan, Hindu, and Parsi ladies are heads of numerous industrial homes and institutions for promoting women’s education, and they hold frequent public meet- ings and conferences. In response to their agitation a park has been set aside in Calcutta for the exclusive use of women and children. Here in the desolating heat of midsummer, when all the Europeans have fled to the LIFTING THE PURDAH 139 hills, the wilting purdah women of the city may escape from their crowded and ill-ventilated homes for a breath of air. The Seva Sedan is a lay sisterhood, with headquarters in Bombay, which devotes itself to social service activities among all classes. There are resident women doctors and nurses, and sisterhoods are maintained for Hindu, Parsi, and Mohammedan women. There are other sim- ilar organizations. The annual conferences of the numerous social-service organizations perform a valuable office in keeping reso- lutions and speeches on social conditions affecting women constantly before the public. Last year the Sind Pro- vincial Conference was broken up, owing to violent op- position among orthodox Hindu members against letting a woman appear on the platform to move a resolution relating to the education of women. The conference answered the challenge by this year making her their presiding officer. And so far had public opinion traveled in a single year that the conference was held undis- turbed. Incidentally, it passed a resolution condemning the heavy prices being paid for bridegrooms in that province ! The All-India Muslim Ladies’ Conference meeting in Lahore recently passed a resolution denouncing the evils of polygamous marriages, and pledging themselves not to give their daughters as plural wives. This stirred up a storm among the men, who resent feminine inter- ference with their prerogatives. The Bombay Social Service League at its 1918 confer- ence passed a resolution urging that the franchise be ex- tended to women on the same terms as to men, and a large audience applauded the resolution enthusiastically, 140 India’s silent revolution after it had been interpreted. For this audience included many cultivators, artisans, and petty traders, who re- fused to allow the speakers to use English, so they had to have a series of speakers in vernaculars, one after the other. It was at this conference which was held in Bom- bay in May, 1918, that the two hundred chairs reserved for ladies was not nearly enough, and more had to be brought in, while nearly half the platform was filled with women. The suffrage resolution came up as the result of a petition signed by one hundred prominent Indian ladies of Bombay. It was at the Madras Provincial Social Conference in the same month that Mrs. Sarojini Devi made a stirring speech on a resolution recommending that intermarriage be allowed to all professing the Hindu religion, irre- spective of race or creed. Mrs. Devi urged that the only way to achieve that national unity to which all India aspires is for the women themselves to consummate a unity of province with province, of caste with caste, of tradition, race and thought through obliterating all lines of discrimination by the very fusion of human blood. Taking the mass of illiterate Indian women as a class, there is no doubt that they are more conservative than the men. Like the fishes in the dark cave, who lost their eyes because for many generations they had never used them, these women have lost all ambition for the priv- ileges and responsibilities of normal life. In educating and liberating the women of India, the greatest difficulty will be to break down the prejudices and inhibitions of the women themselves. Indian men realize this fact. In a discussion not long ago, of how to break down purdah, one man wrote to an LIFTING THE PURDAH I4I Indian paper advising others not to attempt to bring their wives into public life too suddenly, as it proves too great a shock. He suggested as easy steps that the woman should first be persuaded not to observe purdah before the male members of the family, however remote their relationship. Next, the husband should take his wife on a trip to some city where they were both un- known, and “ after she has experienced a little freedom among strangers, she could easily be induced to meet her husband’s friends.” From then on it is simpler. “ If X introduces Mrs. X to Y, Y will feel himself under social as well as moral obligation to introduce Mrs. Y to X.” Finally he recommends beginning with the daugh- ters, because they afe young and have not so much to unlearn and overcome in the way of tradition and habit. Another correspondent, commenting on the praise which had been given in a previous issue to a father who refused to accept dowry money for his son, said that the man did not deserve so much praise because he was a widower, and had no grown daughters or sisters to exert pressure on him ! It is marvelous that in a country where such ugly and vulgar things are thought and said about women, a woman’s movement should be stirring, and that its im- portance should be recognized by individual men. K. Natarjan, editor of the Indian Social Reformer, a man peculiarly happy in phrasing thoughts whose realization lies in the future, stated the importance of educating Indian women in a recent speech : “ I would give the first place in a program of social reform to universal free and compulsory education. And in education, I would give the first place to the ed- 142 India’s silent revolution ucation of girls. The education of a single girl means the uplifting of a whole family, and in a larger and truer sense than the education of a single man.” The vital importance to India of the education of her women has been given recognition by another man re- cently, a man whose opinions carry weight, no less a per- son than the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Mon- tagu. In his joint report with the Viceroy on proposed constitutional changes for India, he devotes a section to education, and there is an important and significant paragraph in regard to the education of women. It reads : “ As regards the limited diffusion of education, we also take into account the conservative prejudices of the coun- try. It is not very long since the advocates of the higher education of women in Europe were regarded as unprac- tical and subversive theorists; and in India social cus- toms have greatly multiplied the difficulties in the way of female education. Upon this question opinion is slowly but surely changing, and educated young men of the mid- dle classes are beginning to look for literate wives. But so long as education is practically confined to one sex, the social complexion of the country must react upon and re- tard political progress; and for this reason we regard the great gulf between men and women in respect of edu- cation as one of the most serious problems which has to be faced in India.” 1 Before criticizing India too severely for her treatment of her women, America must take thought of the very inflamed moat in her own eye, that little group of willful men in our Senate who, with the eyes of the nation upon them, persistently refuse to remove some of the disabil- 1 “ Indian Constitutional Reforms,” 1918, p. 151. LIFTING THE PURDAH T 43 ities which still hang over American women. Those of us who believe that there can be no true democracy until all the citizens of a country, irrespective of sex, share in making its laws and electing its representatives, watch eagerly the first stirrings of a woman’s movement in India. For we believe that India cannot achieve her goal until she has raised the status of her women. The women of India constitute another and more nu- merous depressed class. They are a potential element in her silent revoltion. There are fifty-three million Un- touchables. There are three times as many illiterate, im- prisoned women, each one exerting upon the men of her family a force of reaction, ignorance, and superstition until education and freedom shall reach her and set her free. That the women of India are not organized into an ag- gressive movement comparable to those in European and other countries is quite immaterial. The fact that slaves rarely have the courage and initiative to rise up and free themselves does not at all affect the abstract right and wrong of slavery, nor does it alter the injurious effect which slavery as a system works upon a community. Not the least of the achievements of this war in defin- ing democracy and centering the thought of the world upon it, has been the impetus it has given to the progress of women all over the world. A majority of English- women of voting age have already been enfranchised. Women in many of our states vote, and President Wilson appeared before the Senate to urge the passage of a Na- tional Suffrage Bill as an essential war measure. In India, too, the achievement of democracy and of fitness for that greater measure of responsible government within the empire to which she aspires, must be largely condi- 144 India’s silent revolution tioned upon her capacity for recognizing the undemo- cratic and mediaeval conditions of her two great depressed classes, and by the statesmanship she shows in working out their emancipation. VII EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY School, to any one who has traveled in the Orient, sug- gests a great bare room, with dozens of little figures squatting solemnly on the floor, swaying back and forth to the rhythm of a sing-song drone as they memorize page after page of the sayings of Confucius or Buddha or Mohammed, or whoever the Lord of the land may be. In India, the village school is sometimes stone, some- times a tumble of mud wall and grass thatch, and some- times it is just the space under the shade of a big tree. There are blackboards on the wall, or against the tree, and when his back is turned, a quick rough caricature of “ Teacher ” blossoms forth here just as magically as on blackboards in the United States. The floor is strewn with sand which the children use as a big slate, learning to trace their letters in it with little brown fingers. The furniture consists of a chair for teacher, and sometimes a few benches. Ever since England took over the administration of India, a dispute has waged as to the merits of educating Indian children in the English language versus the ver- naculars. It involves more than language. It has been a question of attempting to impose western philosophy and habits of thought upon Oriental minds. Aside from the policy, there is the question as to whether it may be done successfully. Archaeologists find that the skull shape of the Egyptian fellaheen is identical to the last 145 146 India’s silent revolution millimeter in proportion and shape with the skull of his mummy ancestor who lived and died 6000 years ago. Sir James Brooke, the clever Englishman whom the wildmen of Borneo accepted as their Rajah, said it was his ambition to make his people good Malays, not yellow Englishmen. Whereas Macaulay, who was appointed chairman of the Committee of Public Instruction in 1835, supported and put through the policy that “ our efforts ought to be directed to make the natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars.” Ram Mohan Roy, founder of the Brahmo Samaj, pro- testing in 1823 against the establishment of a Sanskrit college, argued that an English education would contrib- ute to Oriental culture those complementary qualities which it lacks. The Indian is instinctively a philosopher and a mystic. He needs the scientific point of view and the accurate training of the Occident. Roy argued that pupils in a Sanskrit College would study the culture of 2000 years ago with the addition of “ vain and empty sub- tleties since produced by speculative men, such as is al- ready taught in all parts of India.” The Macaulay Minute of 1835 is generally accepted as the beginning of English education in India. With its sweeping and sometimes intolerant assertions, it put a quietus on controversy and precipitated action. “ I never found one among them ” (the Orientalists) “ who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia,” wrote Macaulay with intemperate vigor. But he ended the long dispute as to whether the lakh of rupees appro- priated by the British government should be spent in printing Sanskrit books or in building up the foundation of an English educational system. EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY 147 One month after the appearance of Macaulay’s Minute, the Governor-General issued a resolution that “ the great object of the British Government ought to be the promo- tion of European literature among the natives of India, and that all the funds appropriated for the purpose of education would be best employed on English education alone.” By the end of the year, seven new educational institu- tions had been started, and six more were under way. By 1837 there were forty-eight institutions with an en- rollment of 5,196 pupils and an average monthly expen- diture of over $8,000 (Rs. 25,439). The year 1854 is the second important date in the his- tory of education in India. The dispatch of 1854 out- lines a national system of education which in all essen- tial details is still in force, and has not yet in fact been completely carried out. This dispatch shows a broader tolerance of the vernaculars, especially for teaching young children in the lower grades ; a policy which they have only begun to apply in the last few years. It was in 1854 that the system of grants-in-aid began, whereby Govern- ment agreed to subsidize private schools both Indian and missionary, which came up to a certain standard and ac- cepted certain conditions. At this time there were about 12,000 students in government schools and nearly 50,000 in missionary schools. The Commission of 1882 marked a set-back for educa- tion. It advanced a policy of transferring schools and colleges from government to private ownership, and, in order to encourage private ventures, advised these institu- tions to charge lower than government fees. The result was a mushroom growth of small institutions with in- competent and poorly paid teachers, unsanitary buildings, 148 India's silent revolution and crowded, unventilated classrooms. There was also a division of government teaching forces into European and Indian with discrimination against Indian teachers, which lowered the morale of that force. The annual crop of B.A.’s multiplied itself again and again, but the standard of scholarship steadily lowered till the degree made to have little value, and its owner was ill-fitted for any occupation. The Indian student’s ambitions had been roused until he was not contented with the humble clerkships which he could obtain, but his education had given him no competence to fill higher positions. Education became a mere competition in cramming ; the fellow with the best memory won. There was no effort to teach students to think and reason, no attempt to recognize and encourage originality as dis- tinguished from parrot-like memorizing. There have been two main channels of education in India — the British Government and missions. Prac- tically all writers on India agree that missionaries have been an incalculably important influence in the educa- tional progress of the country. Professor Pratt, of Williams College, in his scholarly “ India and its Faiths,” writes : “ One is uncertain whether to admire most the missionary hospitals or the missionary schools and colleges, both of which have been brought to such a remarkable development.” 1 William Archer writes : “ The influence of Christian- ity is traceable in all the intellectual movements of modern India, in every reform indeed which does not proceed directly from the Government, and in many which do. But this merely means that Western enlightenment has 1 “ India and Its Faiths,” p. 425. In Madras Christian College young Indian men are learning to fight the battle against ignorance, caste, prejudice and atheism EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY 149 come to the East in such close association with Chris- tianity that it is impossible to distinguish between the one influence and the other.” The history of missionary influence in the education of India begins with William Carey and the English Bap- tists. The British Government was so opposed to mis- sionaries that Carey had to slip into India in 1793 as an indigo planter. He carried on his mission work as a side issue. Seven years later, when Lord Wellesley founded his college in Calcutta, Carey was the only man available to teach Sanskrit and Bengali. British officials were obliged to wink at the fact that after spending his morn- ing lecturing in the college he devoted his evenings to preaching on the street to the poor and outcaste. For some years, owing to opposition of the Govern- ment, further educational work by missionaries was lim- ited to individual efforts. It was not until 1813, when the charter of the East India Company was renewed by Parliament, that missionaries received full freedom to settle in India. The man who stands out most conspicuously in the early history of missions and education is Alexander Duff, who opened a school for teaching English in Cal- cutta in 1830. Sir Valentine Chirol pays glowing tribute to Duff’s importance in those early days. He credits him with “ at least as large a share of influence as Macaulay’s in determining the policy of English education for India,” with “ inspiring the prohibition of suttee and other meas- ures ” ; and with exerting decisive influence on Lord Hardinge’s Educational Order of 1854, which threw a large number of posts in the public service open to Eng- lish-speaking Indians without distinction of race or creed. In regard to the status of mission work at that time. 150 India’s silent revolution Chirol writes: “The Christian missions were at that time the dominant factor in Indian educational work. In 1854, when there were only twelve thousand scholars in all the Government schools, mission schools mustered four times that number, and the rights they acquired un- der the Orders of 1854 to participate in the new ‘ grants- in-aid ’ helped them to retain the lead which in some re- spects, though not as to numbers, they still maintain.” Dr. Duff’s work was closely paralleled in the schools started by Dr. John Wilson in Bombay and John Ander- son in Madras. The Indian Year Book of 1917, in a summary of mis- sionary work, credits missions with exerting important influence on the educational life of India to-day, “ which lends itself only incompletely to any sort of tabulation.” There were in 1912, 585,000 children in 16,204 elemen- tary schools conducted by missions, and mostly situated in villages. This represents one-ninth of the total ele- mentary schools throughout the empire. Missions also had 283 middle and high schools with 287,000 pupils, and 38 colleges affiliated to universities with 10,488 male and 120 female students. The majority of children in these schools are non-Christian. Industrial and vocational education, has been taken up with especial interest in India because it exactly fits the needs of the country. All criticism of British rule, and all complaints of the status of the Indian, gradually circle round, back to the ryot’s unimaginable poverty. This, on final analysis results from the enormous preponderance of agricultural laborers to the exclusion of all industry. The curriculum of a board of education cannot be a mercurial thing responding easily to barometric changes. But industrial education has found expression in the re- EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY I5I ports of the Director of Education. He writes: “ The weaving institute near Calcutta is regarded as having passed the experimental stage and shows promise of de- velopment. The applications for admission to the higher and artisan classes have increased, and numbers could be doubled were accommodations available.” 1 He also records progress in the centers for mining in- struction and in the artisan classes. Attendance at the Sydenham College of Commerce has increased, but the principal complains that it is encumbered with youths who have no aptitude for a business career and mistak- enly suppose that they can gain a degree more easily than at an arts college, or will somehow obtain easy employ- ment. It sounds like the principal of an American com- mercial high school in a moment of discouraged frank- ness. But the new industrial awakening will quicken youthful ambition and application. Forestry and veterinary education, engineering and sur- veying schools, and agricultural colleges are also men- tioned in the report. The Director reports a total of 13,570 students in technical and industrial schools, “an utterly inadequate total when it is considered that there are over 47,000 pupils in art and professional colleges, and over a million pupils in secondary schools. Few facts about education in India are so important and sig- nificant as the comparative paucity of those who are pre- paring for a technical career.” A new survey class was opened in Bihar and Orissa, designed for fifty pupils, but only fourteen were admitted. Mr. Montagu in his Joint Report, previously quoted, refers this disproportion of technically trained students, and to criticism of the British Government in having fos 1 Annual Report, Educational Department, 1915-16. 152 India’s silent revolution tered such a system. He writes : “ The charge that Government has produced a large intelligentsia which cannot find employment has much substance in it. It is one of the facts that lie at the root of recent political dif- ficulties. But it is only of late years and as part of the remarkable awakening of national self-consciousness, that the complaint has been heard that the system has failed to train Indians for practical work in manufactures, com- merce, and the application of science to industrial life. The changing economic conditions of the country have brought this lesson home, and in its acceptance lies much of our hope for the future. “ But it must be remembered that many of the par- ticular classes which eagerly sought higher education de- manded also that it should be of a literary character, and were hereditarily averse from, if not disdainful of, anything that savored of manual toil ; and also that when the universities of India were founded, the idea of sci- entific and technological instruction had not dawned upon universities in England.” 1 In spite of the fact that 95 per cent, of the population are engaged in agriculture, or perhaps because of it, ag- ricultural education is urgently needed. The primitive make-shift farming tools which Adam devised shortly after being turned out of the Garden of Eden are still the stock-in-trade of the Indian farmer. He plows with a crooked stick, and reaps with a scythe of the Father Time type. Women winnow the grain in sieves by hand. The bullock has not yet been displaced by the tractor. There are at present five Government agricultural col- leges and two schools with a total of 448 pupils. The curriculum is being revised to meet the needs, the three- 1 Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms, 1918, p. 150. EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY 1 53 year course has been shortened to two years, and there is an effort to popularize the work. The Indian Year Book, reviewing the work of the Ag- ricultural Departments, mentions the introduction of mod- ern implements and machinery as one of their chief func- tions and remarks, “ In some provinces iron plows are be- coming very popular.” Harrows, cultivators, and clod crushers have also been introduced. Mr. James McKenna, Director of Agriculture in Burma, in a review of agricultural progress during the last ten years, mentions the substantial work accomplished in such important crops as wheat, cotton, rice, sugar-cane and tobacco. He estimates that the work of the De- partment has already produced an increase of at least $1 1,000,000 a year in the value of India’s crops. Public-spirited landholders have taken the initiative on their own account in bringing new methods into India. There are scores of young Indians in America to-day, studying at our agricultural colleges. A Bengalese, who owns several thousand acres, sent his son to the Univer- sity of Illinois, where he made a special study of agricul- ture. The son is now back at home managing an ex- periment farm, where he tries out improved methods and tests new crops for their adaptability to Indian soil. For the benefit of his peasant neighbors he has a farm laboratory, with a small-scale county fair exhibit of fruits, vegetables, and grains under varying conditions. At first peasants are very skeptical about these new fangled notions, but their curiosity is piqued. They pot- ter about evenings, and in their spare time, examining the innovations with that slow, ambling scrutiny of the prim- itive mind. A side hill plow or a thresher will hold their attention for weeks. Results are too much for them. 154 India’s silent revolution When before their eyes they see the quality of product and the rate of speed and economy of the new methods, they gradually surrender. The Maharajah of Gwalior allows Samuel Higginbot- tom a budget of $25,000 a year for his work in that state, and a government farm of 275 acres serves as an experi- ment and demonstration station. Higginbottom insists on absolute democracy in his school, and young nobles, outcastes, and landowners sit side by side. A wealthy In- dian prince came bringing a retinue of servants and a pri- vate secretary to take notes for him. Higginbottom set the prince to work carrying fodder to the silage cutter. Saint Nihal Singh in an article on “ Recent Educational Progress in India ” 1 gives the most recent statistics avail- able on the subject of education. He says that the Brit- ish Government is now spending only 1^/2 cents per head on the education of children in India; that four in every five villages lack educational facilities of any kind; that 80 per cent, of the children of school age are receiv- ing no instruction. He asserts that the native states are much further ad- vanced than the British provinces, and gives figures to prove the point. In Mysore, with a population of six million, and an annual revenue of $9,500,000, the Maha- rajah has granted an educational budget of $785,000 for 1916-17. There are 5,436 public institutions in the state, including six colleges for men and one for women. There are 214,397 pupils, of whom 26,371 are in the secondary schools, and 934 in colleges. Using the Brit- ish estimate of 15 per cent, of the population to find the number of school children, this would give nearly 24 per 1 Contemporary Review, January, 1918. EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY 1 55 cent, of the children of this state in school as compared with 18 per cent, in the British provinces. Mr. Singh refers w'ith pride to the Indian-ruled prov- inces of Cochin and Travancore in southern India, which have the highest percentage of literacy in the country with 15 per cent, of their four million inhabitants able to read and write. Two policies in colonial education stand out in sharp contrast. An administration undertaking the education of an illiterate nation may begin by educating a few of the brightest pupils found in the easily accessible upper classes, fitting them for posts of minor importance in a scale gradually rising in dignity, and trusting that this education sprinkled over the top will gradually sift though to the layers beneath. Or it may begin at the bottom with as nearly universal free compulsory education as the financial system will per- mit, and with main emphasis on the extension of this ele- mentary campaign, to wipe out illiteracy, before the finer details of university training are added. Universal, free, compulsory education is our American ideal. We have tried to apply it in the Philippines, and though in the sixteen years from the creation of Amer- ican commission government in the Islands until the passage of the Jones Bill we had not been able to work it out completely, we made good progress. The British in India, while referring to this principle from time to time, have followed quite the opposite method. Emphasis has been placed on universities and the winning of degrees. British practice in colonial ed- ucation was fairly phrased by Lord Milner waiting of “ England in Egypt,’’ when he said, “ Even now, a great crowd of scholars is not the thing to aim at, but rather 156 India’s silent revolution the thorough training of a limited number. The Gov- ernment is still far from being in a position to offer a decent education to the majority of the inhabitants. . . . Egypt has yet to create a native professional class. When these urgent needs have been supplied it will be time enough to think of general public instruction.’’ 1 As opposed to this, American policy is fittingly summed up in a sentence by Judge Charles Burke Elliott of the Philippine Commission : “ A country reflects its national ideals in its methods of colonization. The American pol- icy rests on the principle that the solution of economic and political problems will be found in the general edu- cation of the mass of people. An ignorant people will always be an incapable, inefficient and an oppressed peo- ple. The higher education of the select few will never save a democracy.” 2 Results in the two countries offer an interesting com- parison. In the sixteen years of our commission gov- ernment in the Philippines, from 1900 to the passage of the Jones Bill in 1916, 50 per cent, of the children in the Philippines had been put to school. In India to-day, after an administration of over a century, only 20 per cent, of Indian children are in school. 3 There is but one school for every seven towns and villages. India is of course a tremendously larger problem than the Philippines. There are less than a million and a half children of school-going age in the Islands, against some forty-seven million in India. It is more than a difference of policy between the two countries, however; it is a dif- ference of philosophy. 1 Alfred Milner, “England in Egypt,” p. 373. 2 “ The Philippines to the end of Commission Government,” p. 219. 3 Government Report on Education, 1915-16. EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY l S7 Even to-day, thoughtful Britishers question the ex- pediency of general elementary education, and they pro- test vehemently against making it free. If a child’s parents are not sufficiently interested in his education to pay for it, the answer is, don’t educate him. Lord Ellenborough Viceroy of India in 1842, phrased the extreme conservative attitude in the matter when he said that he regarded “ the political ruin of England as an inevitable consequence of the education of the Hindu.” Eighteen forty-two is a long time ago. But plenty of present-day reactionaries are still living in that era. Compulsory and universal elementary education is the question of the hour in India to-day. Progressive Indians have grasped its importance, and are arguing it pro and con. As far back as 1913, the late Mr. Gokhale introduced a resolution before the Viceroy’s council for establishing free and compulsory education by local bodies. Government opposed it, and it was suggested that the matter be taken up by local provincial councils. That shelved the matter temporarily, but it has recently been revived by the Bombay Legislative Council who have passed an Act making education compulsory for boys and girls from six to eleven years of age. This act has been modified by the Government to permit any mu- nicipality to make primary education free, but not com- pulsory, provided it will meet one-half the expense, Gov- ernment to meet the other half. In the main, audible Indian opinion endorses the ex- tension of compulsory elementary education. Nearly all conferences and conventions pass resolutions in its favor, and even outcastes talk about it at their meetings. There is Indian opposition to deal with, however ; the selfish op- position of vested economic, social, and religious interests. India’s silent revolution 158 A petition lately presented to the government of Behar and Orissa, protesting against a primary education bill introduced in the last session of their legislative council, is signed by 11,000 persons, including the Maharajah of Durbhunga, one of the wealthiest landholders in India, the Maharajah of Hutwa and other powerful landlords. They protest first on the ground that it would interfere with the employment of children for agricultural labor, “ thus seriously affecting the economic condition of the people.” Of course they do not add that wages to adults for the work the children are now doing would have to come out of their own pockets, a fact which is the obvious cause of the huge petition. Caste and purdah are also obstacles. They argue that it would be impracticable to provide separate schools for the untouchables in every area, and that it would be “ repugnant to the social customs and religious scruples of the people ” to permit their children to attend a mixed school. In strict purdah homes, little girls are not al- lowed to go out of their houses after they are seven years old ; “ they cannot therefore attend purdah schools, even if established in the same village in which they reside. Further, it will be quite impossible to arrange for the com- pulsory education of such girls at home.” In conclusion, they fall back upon the good old principle of democracy, and protest against compulsion with transparent insincer- ity. “ Neither landlords nor tenants like the idea of compulsion in education, not because they do not appre- ciate the advantages of education, but because in the con- servative conditions of Behar, universal compulsion would be resented by the people, and regarded as an in- terference with their social and religious life.” Caste is a tremendous obstacle to advance. In south- EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY T 59 ern India where feeling runs highest, separate schools have sometimes been provided, but this is not encouraged. Youth itself is often reactionary. The young men of Tipon College last year managed to have their dining hall partitioned off so that the castes would not have to eat together, and this is in a college founded by Surendra- nath Banerjea, a leading Indian reformer, twice pres- ident of the National Congress! Similar incidents occur constantly. A defense of caste recently published in the Pall Mall Gazette called forth an apt quotation of Huxley’s state- ment of educational ideals which is most applicable to India. Harendranath Maitra wrote praising caste as compared with the class distinctions of the West, “ based on money and power instead of on learning, discipline, and spiritual wisdom. By caste India solved the prob- lem of the mingling of various races which the West solved by extermination or slavery.” In reply, a “ Mod- erate Indian ” objected that learning, discipline, and spir- itual wisdom are not open to all India — that if a Sudra recites Vedas his tongue is to be cut out. He added, “ that is quite different from the principle that is upheld in the materialistic west where, according to Professor Huxley, * our business is to provide a ladder reaching from the gutter to the university, along which every child in the three kingdoms should have the chance of climbing as far as he is fit to go.’ ” In spite of all handicaps of caste and prejudice, the na- tive states where initiative must come from Indians them- selves, make a favorable showing on the question of com- pulsory education. The Gaekwar of Baroda — stock example of Indian progress — was a pioneer in the mat- ter. In 1905 he passed an act extending free compul- i6o India’s silent revolution sory education to all parts of his state, excepting certain very backward tracts. In 1910 he gave his educational department orders to open primary schools wherever it was possible to gather together fifteen children. In Mysore, another native state, elementary education has been made compulsory in nearly 100 centers, and is being steadily extended, inadequacy of accommodations being the only obstacle. The Begum of Bhopal (a woman ruler) made the following statement early in 1917: “No country or community can aspire to a re- spectable place in the scheme of things unless education filters down to the masses. I have therefore resolved to introduce free and compulsory education in the State at as early a date as possible.” The native princes of Bahore and Indore are also introducing compulsory ele- mentary education. The most recent statement of the British Government’s position is to be found in the education sections of the Joint Report on Constitutional Reforms by the Secretary of State and the Viceroy. This is not only the most im- portant and authoritative utterance on education, but it is probably the most general official report ever made on the subject. The authors admit criticism of British policy with disarming frankness, and undertake to answer it. “ Government is charged with neglect, because after 60 years of educational effort, only 6 per cent, of the pop- ulation is literate, while under 4 per cent, of the total pop- ulation is undergoing instruction. It is charged, on the other hand, with having fostered education on wrong lines, and having given to those classes which welcomed instruction a system which is divorced from their needs, in being too purely literary, in admitting methods of un- intelligent memorizing, and of cramming, and in pro- EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY l6l during, far in excess of the actual demands of Indian conditions, a body of educated young men whose training has prepared them only for government service or the practice of the law. “ It is sometimes forgotten that the system of English education was not forced upon India by the Government, but established in response to a real and insistent de- mand, though a demand that proceeded from a limited class. Some of the most difficult factors of the present situation would have been avoided if in good time steps had been taken to prevent the wide divorce which has oc- curred between the educated minority and the illiterate majority. “ The main defect of the system is probably the want of coordination between primary and higher education . . . while the improvement of primary and middle schools is the first step to be taken, very much remains to be done in reorganizing the secondary teachers and in- suring for the schoolmaster a career that will satisfy an intelligent man.” 1 It is significant that nowhere does this report commit itself specifically in regard to extension of primary edu- cation, merely saying that the main defect of the system is its lack of coordination with higher education, and that it should be improved and developed. The general quinquennium report on education in the United Provinces for 1918 puts an emphasis on the ex- tension of primary education which suggests that the Provincial Government has quietly determined on action rather than words. The report begins: “ In this quinquennium, attention was directed chiefly 1 Report of Indian Constitutional Reforms, p. 149. 162 India’s silent revolution to primary education. The whole system of primary education has been revised with the object of making the full primary course the aim of all children who undergo primary education at all. Every district in the province has been divided up exhaustively into a number of pri- mary circles, each of which is ultimately to contain a school meeting the full primary course.” British opinion has not in the past been receptive to the theory of educating “ the masses.” Vastly more pro- gressive minds than Lord Ellenborough’s have questioned the policy of turning education loose upon an illiterate people. Anglo-Indians are wont to explain away all In- dian unrest as the result of unassimilated education on a younger generation. William Archer writes: “ Surely not without reason have I called it a sublime inconsistency which in one breath complains of the results of education already given, and proposes to extend it to the scores of millions as yet untouched by it. . . . It is nothing short of madness. If a little knowledge of Eng- lish has begotten the agitator and the anarchist, is it not clear that a widespread ability to read the vernacular lan- guages will enormously increase the influence of the mak- ers of political mischief? ” 1 Even H. R. James, author of an enlightening and lib- eral book “ Education and Statesmanship in India,” and himself principal of the Presidency College, Calcutta, questions the desirability of universal education : “ The success of the great expansion of higher education since 1857 ... is not in all aspects so clear and undoubted that we can go on lightheartedly to take in hand a prob- lem of far vaster magnitude and potentialities. Some of 1 “India and the Future,” p. 264. EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY 1 63 the results of higher education have been unanticipated, and have taken its well wishers by surprise. We did not know what the economic results of higher education would be; we did not know what the political results would be. Are we sure we can gauge all the conse- quences of universal mass education and that, if we could, we should welcome them all ?” 1 These writers seem to forget the adage, “ A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” If education has really augmented discontent and rebellion in India, it may be more logical to find the cause in the superficiality of the education given rather than in quarreling with the in- tegrity of education itself. War-time England created a different temper. Her- bert Fisher’s education bill, introduced in the House of Commons in August, 1917, provided, among other things, for universal, compulsory education from the completion of the elementary school course to the age of eighteen ! This is going the republican United States one better, for even here we only make school compulsory up to fourteen years. What the Britisher has been wont to call education above a man’s station in life is something perilously akin to what the American considers one of the fundamental privileges of democracy. Our old declaration that all men are created equal has been by pretty general consent interpreted to read, all men ought to have an equal start and opportunity. And in the United States, though the war has revealed to us the disheartening fact that we still have five million illiterates in this country — four million of whom are native-born — it is our ideal not to let the 1 “ Education and Statesmanship in India,” p. 98. 164 India’s silent revolution accident of birth make any more difference than can be helped in the running start we give a boy or girl. This does not at all mean educating a person above any position in life. It does mean giving a new dignity to labor and equipping each one to take an intelligent in- terest in his work. As Samuel Gompers, arguing for a liberal rather than a purely vocational education for chil- dren of the working class, said: “ The girl whose job is to work day after day at one power machine needs the fortifying influence of this previous training to save her soul from becoming dwarfed and stunted and in- growing as a result of that specialized kind of work.” The revolution of all standards set in motion by the war, has brought this matter of compulsory elemen- tary education to world-wide attention. The Commis- sioner of Education for the United States in his annual report wrote : “ A world-wide movement to perfect the whole scheme of public education is resulting from the war. The fact that this movement is being carried forward even while the nations are engaged in the exhausting conflict shows the changed conception of the social worth of education. The time is past when education could be considered a na- tional luxury ; it is now regarded as a primary necessity of national life, and the most striking illustrations of this new conception are offered by the events that have taken place during the war. “ France and England are engaged in a simultaneous reorganization of their respective systems of public edu- cation, and the continuation school projects now pending in the parliament at Paris and London are essentially identical. They both introduce universal compulsory continuation schooling of general and vocational charac- Instead of staying home behind closed doors the new woman rides forth by her husband’s side on the snorting motor cycle While the modern school trains the mind and wakes the soul, it also develops the physique EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY 165 ter. The English bill provides in addition, for an exten- sion and perfection of elementary school compulsion.” 1 Its children are the paramount interest of any nation. They are its principal resource. By the time a generation is old enough to think very consciously about itself, it is practically past help. “ Shades of the prison house ” are already closing in. It may well concentrate its efforts upon those who are to follow. India stands in pressing need of many social, economic, and religious reforms. But the most hopeful and con- structive task before her lies in giving the babies of to- day a fair start, and as nearly as this life will permit — an equal start. They are to come to manhood and woman- hood in a new world, a world cleansed and purified by the great winds of democracy and freedom, at the cost of gi- gantic sacrifice. It would seem a small thing in com- parison with the billions which have been so unhesitat- ingly poured out for destruction and defense, to draw up a program of universal elementary education for all those countries which have shared the burdens of ridding the world of the great powers of autocracy and barbarism. In this at least, all India meets on a common plane. Outcastes, women, Brahmans, all — their hope of prog- ress and achievement is conditioned upon that privilege which should be an inalienable human right — the great gift of education. 1 Report Commissioner Education, 1917, vol. I, p. 71. VIII MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE It was President Wilson who christened the war for democracy. Eagerly the nations of the Old World took up the term, and when Russian autocracy collapsed, giv- ing the Allies more consistent title to the phrase, it be- came in truth a ranging of the democratic powers of the world against the great surviving tyranny. Even before the war, a movement toward more repre- sentative government was under way throughout the Orient. It is significant that in 1905, the year memor- able for Japan’s victory over Russia, China appointed a commission to study governments in other countries, and a few years later threw out her ancient dynasty in favor of a republican form of government. About the same time the Young Turks deposed their sultan and seized the government, and a little later the Shah of Persia was overthrown. The King of Siam has as his confidential adviser — an American. Even Japan, in spite of her au- tocratic reputation, is represented by higher and lower houses and, much as in England, her ministry practi- cally depends on majority support. Premier Hara is a self-made man, having begun life as a newspaper re- porter. America’s experience with the Philippines has been closely watched throughout the Orient, and it has come to wield an important influence. For American colonial 166 MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 167 policy as worked out in the Philippine archipelago is a new thing under the Oriental sun. It was just sixteen years from the end of martial law in the Islands to the passage of the Jones Bill. In those sixteen years, Ameri- can Commission Government paved the way for the Jones Bill, which gives to the Filipinos popular election of both their upper and lower houses, except for half a dozen Senators representing a small group of uncivilized and remote islands, whose inhabitants are still practically savages. The Governor-General and Justices of the Supreme Court are still appointed by the President. But the Filipino legislature has power to carry a measure over the Governor's veto by a two-thirds majority, when it must be referred to the President for final action. The Fili- pino legislature also has advisory power in appointments made by the Governor-General, and has direct control of all departments except that of Public Instruction, which includes the Bureaus of Education and Health. Retention of schools in the hands of the American Gov- ernor-General is significant. The United States feels that the consistent development of her educational policy is so vital to the progress of the Islands, that in that re- spect she is not willing to allow even a chance of tamper- ing with the present system. Her educational policy is the secret of the United States’ rapid achievement in the Philippines. Education has been a primary consideration, and education that be- gan, not at the top to train a small office holding oligarchy, but one that began at the bottom and worked up. The process of adjustment to war problems brought it home to our Allies, more especially to Great Britain, that this title of fighting for democracy involved broad respon- 1 68 India’s silent revolution sibilities, not only in guaranteeing self-determination to small nations, but in extending democracy within her own Empire. It was, perhaps, prevision of all this which speeded up consideration of constitutional reform in India by the British Government. The last reforms were the famous Morley-Minto measures of 1909. These were the first important changes in the Indian Constitution since 1858, the year following the Indian Mutiny, when the Crown took over the government of India from the East India Company with its “ Act for the Better Government of India." Lord Morley includes in his “ Recollections ’’ many of the letters which he as Secretary of State for India, the final authority, under the King on the administration of Indian affairs in London, wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Minto, Governor-General in India. These letters cover- ing the years from 1905 to 1910 follow the course of his reforms from the first nebulous suggestion of their timeli- ness to the final triumphant announcement that they were safely through both Houses. In spite of the liberal repu- tation which Lord Morley earned for his administration of Irish affairs, he is associated with sternly repressive measures in India — deportations without trial, and a stringent muffling of the press during those years of vio- lent reaction which followed Lord Curzon’s regime. His letters, beside giving a fascinating inside glimpse of the wheels going round in very high places — as high as Windsor Castle, with familiar references to “ H. M.” (King Edward) — also give a new sense of humanity and fresh enthusiasms to our notion of statesmanship. For, however charming and delightful he may be per- sonally, the illustrious statesman is almost sure to present MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 1 69 to the public the official austerity of a cold cog in a bureau- cratic machine. Vividly Lord Morley describes the Scylla and Charyb- dis which awaits every proposal of reform — a touchy “horde of old Anglo-Indians who pounce down with alarmist letters ” on one side, and. on the other, all the subtle shades of Indian special interest, the Mohammedan and the Hindu, high caste and low caste, jealousies be- tween provinces and native states. And over all, the su- preme task of suiting both the aristocratic House of Lords and the democratic House of Commons with the same measure. “ Nobody,” Lord Morley writes to the Viceroy, com- menting on the third reading of the bill, “ nobody could possibly have produced a scheme that was open to no ob- jections and criticisms, and that would please everybody. If we had satisfied the Lords at every turn, we should certainly have been laying up trouble for ourselves in the Commons. You will laugh at me as a horrible double- faced Janus for having in one House to show how mod- erate we are, now in the other to pose as the most ultra- reformers that ever were. Such are what we call tactical exigencies.” 1 Between the lines, one catches a winning picture of Lord Morley splendidly absorbed in “ putting across ” his ideas ; sounding Lord Minto as to how far he will go, preparing public opinion, cajoling it, not daring to risk antagonizing it by running too far ahead. And yet for all his liberal record in Ireland, and his more liberal vi- sion than his Indian office predecessors, Lord Morley un- consciously demonstrated the huge difficulties of his situa- 1 “ Lord Morley’s Recollections,” p. 301. 170 India’s silent revolution tion by rather inconsistently dictating a policy of cen- tralizing the final control of Indian affairs in his own Secretary of State's office in London. The tendency to- day is to make India more independent of London, put- ting the Secretary of State's salary on the home estimate, and increasing local Indian responsibilities from the top down. Most of the difficulties which confronted Lord Morley in 1909 face Mr. Montagu, the present Secretary of State, in his contemplated reform. “ That nervous per- sonage (naturally nervous), the Anglo-Indian,’’ to quote Lord Morley, is still nervous, but Lord Morley broke the ice and proved that liberalizing the constitution was not suicidal. Conservative opinion, both in England and in India, cannot be quite as pessimistic over further reforms, instinctive as their antagonism may be. The difficulties which confront Mr. Montagu are not all of Anglo-Indian origin, however. The greatest diffi- culties are in India herself. For India has her Ulster versus South of Ireland problem on a far more widely diffused and complicated scale. India is split and stratified by numerous conflicting ele- ments. Nationalists object to the statement that India lacks unity. The Indian press has an apt name for it — the fissiparous tendencies of Indian life. The important split politically, which corresponds most nearly to the Ulster situation, is the colony of sixty million Mohamme- dans, constituting a unit quite independent of the Hindus. The Hindu community itself is by no means a unit. It is crisscrossed by innumerable stratifications and divisions, like a piece of crackle china. India rivals the Tower of Babel for diversity of lan- guages. Excluding dialects and patois, there are, ac- MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 171 cording to Professor Pratt of Williams College, eighty- seven vernaculars so distinct that they may be classified as separate languages. The Encyclopedia Britannica gives a list of one hundred and forty-seven vernaculars. As the Government has required English in the schools and made it the official language, it is the one common medium of expression, and when Indians meet in congress or conference they usually speak English rather than at- tempt to interpret the various vernaculars. Caste lines divide the orthodox Hindu community into innumerable exclusive segments. India’s variety of re- ligions causes another divergence of interest. India has been called the Mother of Religions. In spite of intoler- ance between castes, the Hindu shows a philosophical tolerance of alien philosophies which has made India friendly ground for harboring foreign systems of thought. Two of the most important creeds in history were created in India, and from there have spread out all over the world — Hinduism and Buddhism, together numbering some three hundred and fifty million follow- ers, or about one quarter of the population of the world. Jainism is also an indigenous religion. In addition there are in India several millions each of Mohammedans, Christians, Sikhs and Animists, and smaller communities of Jews and Parsis. Mohammedans living in India were confronted by a uniquely difficult position at the beginning of the war. Never before in all history had a Muslim fought against his own people. Germany having Turkey on her side, counted on causing England great embarrassment through a Holy War propaganda. From the beginning, Indian Mohammedans did not waver in their allegiance to the Crown. In fact, owing to internal politics, the 172 India’s silent revolution British can usually rely upon Muslim loyalty more im- plicitly than Hindu. For Mohammedans being the mi- nority body, fear the results of increasing home rule in India, and assumption of greater power by the Hindus. The actual degree of antagonism between these two groups is a debated question. Nationalists deny its im- portance. and claim that trivial friction has been magni- fied, in order to foment discord, and prevent their putting up a united front for home rule. The Hon. J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., in his “Awakening of India/' men- tions the “ suspicion that sinister influences have been at work, that the Mohammedan leaders were inspired by certain Anglo officials, and that these officials pulled wires at Simla and in London, and of malice aforethought sowed discord between the Hindu and Mohammedan communities by showing the Mohammedan special fa- vor.” 1 As demonstrating the harmony really existing. Nation- alists point to the election in 1916 of a prominent Moham- medan as President of the Hindu National Congress, and to recent joint meetings of this Congress and the All- India Moslem League. At a luncheon given by the Mos- lem League in London to the Indian representatives of the Imperial War Council, which included both Hindus and Mohammedans, Sir S. P. Sinha (now Lord Sinha) gave special emphasis in his speech to the solidarity of the two. He said that the luncheon itself was a testi- mony to the practical solidarity of Hindus and Moham- medans in political matters, and he added that it was a commonplace of Indian politics that India could have no 1 “ Awakening of India,” p. 283. MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 173 future as a nation unless the two great communities united in whole-hearted cooperation. The history of India does not record much unity of control in her past. Back in the year one, when our an- cestors were savages roaming through the forests of Eu- rope, India had a matured civilization, with wealthy cities, monastic orders and flourishing institutions. Two thou- sand years b. c. Indian astronomers made fairly correct calculations of the solar year, her mathematicians had devised a system of notation including both fractions and algebra, she had a system of medicine, with hospitals and dissecting rooms. Her great epic, the Mahabharata, comes down from the year 1200 b. c. By 500 B. c. there was a well-authenticated philosophical system, and an art of music with its seven notes. A Sanskrit grammar had been compiled in b. c. 350. 1 But even then, and through all the gory, succession of invasions, conquests and rebel- lions since India has been the fighting ground of rival chieftains and hordes of invaders. India’s Nationalists love to hark back to her Golden Age, and she has achieved heights of splendid grandeur. But she has known little unity as a nation. Perhaps the most consistently important associations of India’s past are grouped around her capital city, Delhi. It was the very heart of her ancient grandeur, and around it center for the patriotic Indian a wealth of associations and a pride of pomp, such as we with our puny little his- tory reaching back less than two centuries can scarcely imagine. It was a most strategic move when the King- Emperor, at the time of his coronation transferred the capital back to Delhi. All India responded with a thrill 1 Price Collier, “ The West in the East,” p. 136. 174 India's silent revolution of pleasure and pride. It was a tribute to her past, a recognition by the British Raj of her ancient splendor when the Chadni Chauk (Silver Street) was famous as the richest street in the world, and the glittering Peacock Throne inlaid with diamonds and rubies and precious stones to the value of thirty million dollars, was a by- word to the very edges of the civilized world. In that Golden Age of the Past, Delhi was the capital of a suc- cession of kingdoms, and her broad streets ran rivers of blood as each monarch in his turn went down before a new invader. Calcutta has always been an essentially British capital, imposed upon India as a matter of British convenience. The province of Bengal stretches too far to the east to be either in position or in spirit an integral part of India. Moving the capital back to Delhi in the heart of India was a gracious concession, and a clever means of appro- priating the prestige and sentiment clinging round an illustrious and revered name. India’s present administration is itself crossed by fis- sures, for not all of India is under direct British rule. In this land which equals about half the territory of the United States, but has three times our population, there are still some 700 native states, under the nominal author- ity of native Nabobs, Rajas and Begums. An English official called the Resident, who acts as advisor to the rul- ing Prince, keeps each state in close touch with the Im- perial Government. There they are, however, these na- tive states, covering over a third of the area of India and with a population of seventy million. They consti- tute, at least potentially, a very separate element in the life of India, though their large number, and the degree of power concentrated in the hands of the Resident, makes MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 1 75 the danger of their ever uniting in any political plot neg- ligible. Sydney Brooks sums up these fissiparous tendencies in sweeping terms, and with no qualifications. He says that there is no such thing as an Indian nation, an Indian people, or an Indian consciousness of unity and solidarity ; “ among its 300,000,000 are races as antagonistic to one another as the Pole and the Prussian, or the mongoose and the snake. The forty-three distinct nationalities or races, the nine main religions and the one hundred and eighty-five languages and dialects are only a hint of the endless mosaical complexities of India’s structure. All these lines of division are themselves divided and sub- divided again by the 2500 castes and their offshoots.” 1 Not all authorities agree with Mr. Brooks. William Archer in his very interesting “ India and the Future ” names one of his chapters “ The Unity of India,” and argues that her “ chief misfortune may be found to have lain in the very fact of her indisputable unity, coupled with her huge and unwieldy size. Every potentate, na- tive or foreign, who achieved a certain measure of strength within her borders, was irresistibly tempted to extend his sway over the whole area.” He compares India with Italy, geographically similar in its peninsular isolation, but which a half century ago was considered a hopeless hotch-potch of invading races, “. . . that the Neapolitan could not understand the Venetian, the Cala- brian, the Piedmontese, and that local jealousies would always frustrate the purely factitious aspiration toward unity. Events have shown that geographical unity means much more than the theorists were willing to al- low.” 1 North American Review, April, 1916. 176 India’s silent revolution Vincent Smith, whose “ Early History of India ” is a standard work, writes : “ India, encircled as she is by seas and mountains, is indisputably a geographical unit, and as such, is rightly designated by one name. Her type of civilization, too, has many features which differ- entiate it from that of all other regions of the world, while they are common to the whole country in a degree sufficient to justify its treatment as a unit in the history of the social, religious, and intellectual development of mankind.” 1 Geographically and naturally, India is undoubtedly a unit. But when it comes to the three chief forms of hu- man relationship — religion, society and government — India is fundamentally divided. There is no reason for supposing that India cannot develop unity in the future. In fact, this is just what the war has done for her. It has shocked her into a consciousness of her division, and on this new realization she can build a firm and perma- nent structure of national development. In the United States of America we should be able to imagine more sympathetically than anywhere else in the world the difficulties with which India and Mr. Montagu are confronted. For we know something of the diffi- culty of federalizing our strip of North America. Al- though we are a melting pot to-day, we had no such divi- sions of race, language, and customs in our colonial days, and yet we had to come through the bloody struggle of the Civil War to achieve the unity of our United States. We are still struggling with rivalry between state’s rights and Federal control every time a question of national importance arises, such as child labor, woman suffrage, or prohibition. 1 “ Early History of India,” p. 5. MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 177 The situation in India is further complicated by one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world. This is used as a principal argument against giving India further re- sponsibility in her government. To appreciate the in- tellectual status of India, one must consider more than actual statistics. Practically every one — except the out- castes — knows and can repeat long extracts from the Vedas. They learn them from the sannyasi, the Hindu monk, who, clad in a saffron robe, and a rosary, and carrying a brass begging bowl, wanders over the coun- try, reciting endlessly in a low sing-song the wisdom of the Vedas, and receiving in return scraps of food, a few grains of wheat or rice, and perhaps a copper coin, all thrown indiscriminately into his bowl. Besides the real sannyasi, there are a horde of sadhus, self- styled holy men who put on a yellow robe because they are too lazy and good for nothing to work. The census of 1901 numbered these wandering singers of the Vedas at 5,200,000, a terrific burden of able-bodied men for the common people of India to feed and support. But at least they offer plenty of opportunity to learn the Scrip- ture. The Indian Nationalist argues that extension of re- sponsibility in government will stimulate the community and raise all standards. His critic argues that what- ever the defects of the system, if the Indian had wanted to read and write badly enough, he would have found a way, and that until he appreciates literacy he is not capable of taking any greater part in the administration of his own affairs. A dramatic contrast to the great body of 300,000,000 illiterates is the little group of Indian university grad- uates for whom there are never enough jobs. Because i/8 India's silent revolution there are few cities, meager native industries, and a con- siderable number of Englishmen in the government posi- tions, there are not many opportunities left for ambitious, educated young Indians. It is increasingly the proper thing for progressive families to send their sons to col- lege. Many of these families are poor, and make the most extreme sacrifices to put their boys through. So much is a university degree prized that unsuccessful students frequently append to the semi-professional shin- gle outside their door the title, “ Failed B.A.,” as though even the attempt at a degree gave prestige. The results of this smattering of education form one of the stock jokes in India. The babu or clerk especially loves to string together long words and unfamiliar phrases. One of them is quoted as describing the hur- ried flight of a friend from impending danger as having “ become sauve qui pent on the spur of the moment.” The ticket agent in a railroad station near Bombay, tele- graphing to traffic headquarters after a wreck, wrote: “ Much wreckage. Fireman ejected outwards. No lives lost, thank God, except conductor’s left eye.” The classic explanation of Indian unrest is to point out this group of disgruntled youths who, chafing over their failure to win civil service positions, have turned agitator. The “ Failed B.A.” may provoke a laugh, but there is more pathos than humor about him. Critics of the Gov- ernment suggest that it would be the part of statesman- ship, having created the system which turns out these B.A.’s failed and passed, to organize uses for them, espe- cially if there is anything in the opinion that it is from these out-of-jobs young men that the discontent and un- rest of India is recruited. We have then in hasty outline, the high lights of the MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 179 complexities which confronted Mr. Montagu as he began his undertaking to frame constitutional reforms in the autumn of 1917. All this network of cross purposes, these divisions of language, religion, race, and caste pro- vided a confusing medley against which to work. The most constructive note coming out of India is the new spirit of nationalism, which has grown at a tremen- dous rate in the last decade, largely created by the very influences and culture which the British themselves have introduced. When the British Raj decreed that all edu- cation should be in the English language, it opened the covers of a literature full of aspiration toward democracy, and a history of the achievement of representative gov- ernment by nations all over the world. The young In- dian has responded promptly. Lists of popular-priced books advertised in current In- dian magazines show what is happening. There are occasional thrillers, “ The Virgin’s Kiss ; or, the Bronze Statue,” printed in “ big type ” ; but the majority are of a solider sort: Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” Burke’s “ Impeachment of Warren Hastings,” Henry George’s “ Progress and Poverty ” and John Stuart Mill’s “ Po- litical Economy.” It is only in the last few years that newsstands have made their appearance at all the important railroad sta- tions of India. Before that, there was not enough of a reading public to support them. One of the best-sellers of the Indian traveling public is a popular five-cent edi- tion of biographies of all the prominent Indian political leaders, as well as of the great patriots of other lands, especially those who have led rebellion against oppres- sion, as Mazzini, Kossuth, and Garibaldi. The Morley-Minto reforms of 1900 created a precedent i8o INDIA’S SILENT REVOLUTION for a speedy demand for more reforms. The British themselves realize quite well that much of the spirit of unrest in India has been fostered by just the degree of democracy and self-realization which they have so far permitted. And the liberal-minded Englishman philo- sophically realizes that this is inevitable. But the bureau- crat sighs and declaims violently for shutting off all rep- resentative government, all privileges, even education it- self, and reducing India to an abject submission, where everything shall be very efficiently and expeditiously ad- ministered for India’s benefit by an uninterfered-with white man's machine. The fact that the Nationalist movement owes as much as it does to British liberalism does not, however, par- ticularly simplify the situation for liberals to-day, sand- wiched as they are between an Oliver Twist-like India and a rather sluggish British public opinion, which is in the main indifferent ; the small informed and interested element being chiefly Anglo-Indians, who are opposed to change. The history of the Nationalist movement in India goes back to the organization of the National Congress in 1885. It was started under the auspices of a Mr. Hume, an ex-Secretary of the Government of India, who was in the confidence of the Viceroy, Lord Dufiferin. In the be- ginning it stood for an extension of representative gov- ernment within the Empire, and it has never come out as a radical movement. In 1905, at the time of Lord Curzon’s partition of Bengal, when all India was arguing the adoption of a British boycott as a reprisal, Congress split in two over the question, and a more radical left wing was created. MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 181 To-day, the Indian National Congress stands as a mod- erate party, supporting British Government in India, and gently urging along whatever step of reform may seem opportune. The Nationalists have become a more rad- ical body. Mr. Montagu, the new Secretary of State, because of his challenging speeches in the House of Com- mons, just prior to his appointment in the summer of 1917, immediately became the most conspicuous figure on the Indian horizon. An inexpensive, paper-covered edi- tion of his speeches was published in the fall at fifty-five cents, and has sold by the thousands on all the newsstands. His words disparaging the old order have been reprinted and repeated infinitely, and have called up vivid hopes and wild dreams in Indian hearts. In his famous House of Commons speech, he said : “ I tell this House that the statutory organization of the India Office produces an apotheosis of circumlocution and red tape beyond the dreams of any ordinary citizen. ... I am positive of this, your great claim to continue the illogical system of Government by which we have governed India in the past was that it was efficient. It has been proved not to be efficient. It has been proved to be not sufficiently elastic to express the will of the Indian people; to make them into the warring nation they wanted to be. . . . Believe me, Mr. Speaker, it is not a question of expediency. It is not a question of desirability. Unless you are pre- pared to remodel in the light of modern experience this century-old and cumbrous machine, then I believe, I verily believe that you will lose the right to control the destinies of the Indian Empire. “ You cannot reorganize the Executive Government of India, remodel the Vice-royalty, and give the Executive 1 82 India’s silent revolution Government more freedom from the House of Commons and the Secretary of State unless you make it more re- sponsible to the people of India.” Imperial endorsement of the need for constructive change in India's constitution was given in the summer of 1917, not only by Mr. Montagu’s appointment but later by an official definition of the “ goal of Indian pol- icy ” which has since become a classic quotation : “ The policy of His Majesty’s Government with which the Government of India are in complete accord, is that of increasing the association of Indians in every branch of the administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progres- sive realization of responsible government of India as an integral part of the British Empire.” 1 In this pronouncement the phrase “ responsible gov- ernment ” became the catch word. Never before had a Secretary of State used words which gave latitude for such optimistic imaginings. Significance was also given to a message from the King-Emperor to the Indian peo- ple, calling for their cooperation, in which he implied a promise. “ The Empire’s need is India’s opportunity ” were his words. Mr. Montagu and his party reached India in Novem- ber, 1917, for a personal tour of investigation prior to drawing up a plan of constitutional reform. He de- scribes in his report how he set about his task: “We began work at Delhi, and then visited in turn Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, receiving deputations at each of these places, and giving interviews to representative men. Efforts have been made to ascertain all shades of opin- 1 Statement issued by Secretary of State, August, 1917. George Gordon, with a Lloyd George smile. Prof. H. Devadassan, B.A., who stands for in- He is the energetic leader of ten thousand for- creased Indian responsibility in both church and ward-looking outcastes state MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 183 ion. . . . On our return to Delhi a continuous series of conferences began; there were meetings of the Secretary of State and those associated with him and the Govern- ment of India; meetings with all the heads of provinces; with a committee of the ruling princes; of committees to consider details, and frequent private interviews and informal discussions.’’ The deputations received and consulted by Mr. Mon- tagu may be briefly classified in four groups. They were : 1, the Mohammedans, of whom there are sixty mil- lions in India; 2, the high caste Hindus; 3, the de- pressed classes, the fifty-three million Untouchables ; 4, the domiciled Anglo-Indian. This term applies to the Englishman living in India, whether officially as part of the government or unofficially in connection with private enterprise. He is usually a pretty stiff Imperialist at heart. Whatever his attitude when he lands, he grad- ually becomes intolerant of most native aspirations. He alone has taken a scornful and cynical view of Mr. Mon- tagu's mission. The London Times referred editorially to “the British (in India) view of him as a sinister herald of changes which may undermine British rule.” Disregarding richly pensioned rajas, quite complacent as to the status quo and, at the other extreme, the Bol- shevik school of Nationalists who demand complete inde- pendence, the current of Indian discontent centers round ambition for a greater degree of representation in the administration of Indian affairs, and progress toward equality with Australia, Canada, and the other British dominions. Among the host of petitions and memorials presented to Mr. Montagu, two programs of constitutional reforms 184 India’s silent revolution stood out conspicuously. The pioneer in all these re- form schemes was Mrs. Annie Besant, famous as a theosophist, whose enthusiasm for Hindu culture has led her into taking an increasingly active part in the Home Rule movement. While Lord Hardinge was Viceroy she seemed to enjoy immunity. But no sooner had Lord Chelmsford succeeded him, than in June, 1917, Mrs. Besant was interned for disloyal utterances and held un- til September. She was released on the understanding that she would refrain from further agitation while Mr. Montagu was making his investigation. It is largely, if not entirely, as a result of her internment that Mrs. Besant became so conspicuous a figure that she was elected President of the Hindu National Congress in the Decem- ber following. Three years ago Mrs. Besant drew up a tentative scheme of reform for India. This draft, as well as others by Mr. Gokhale and other prominent Indians, antedated the creation of Mr. Montagu’s commission. Undoubt- edly they served as straws in helping to bring the matter to consideration. When Indian reform came under offi- cial attention the authors of these previous drafts all subscribed to a joint program drawn up by the Hindu National Congress, and the All-India Moslem League. This was the first of the two important programs pre- sented to Mr. Montagu. Its weakness was that it was really only an extension of the political changes made by the Morley-Minto reforms. It was a natural lead to follow, and one that might logically be expected to find favor with British authority. But the trouble is that the Morley-Minto reforms lead up a blind alley. Lord Mor- ley tacitly admitted as much in his statement: “If it could be said that this chapter of reforms led directly MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 1 85 or indirectly to the establishment of a parliamentary sys- tem in India, I, for one, would have nothing at all to do with it.” 1 The present Secretary of State seems to have no compunctions about breaking away from prece- dent, but is willing to create a precedent of his own for Indian affairs. The Congress League scheme was fur- ther weakened by an appended resolution asking the Gov- ernment to fix a definite date within which it contem- plated granting Home Rule to India. The policy an- nounced by the Government was based on “ gradual de- velopment and progressive realization ” conditioned upon the response of Indians themselves to the measures granted. The second memorial of importance was a joint address signed by a group of Indians and non-official Europeans resident in India. It took more heed of Government policy by making the phrase “ responsible government ” its text. When the official report, so much anticipated finally appeared, there was both relief and disappointment. It by no means came up to the radicalism of some of Mr. Montagu’s speeches in Parliament, and conservatives drew a sigh of relief. Sir Valentine Chirol calls the report the first authoritative review of Indian affairs since the Mutiny. In an involved sentence he praises the very feature of the report which has proven a disappointment to others: “ Whilst it does not shrink from recommend- ing great changes, its masterly exposition of existing con- ditions in India, which are the result of her historical evolution from remote ages to the present day, must con- vince even the most enthusiastic believer in the saving 1 Quoted in the Official Report by Secretary Montagu and Lord Chelmsford. 186 India’s silent revolution virtues of democratic institutions that they can only be slowly acclimatized there.” The most important recommendation in the Report is the bifurcation of the Viceregal council which, in an advisory capacity to the Viceroy, stands at the head of the administration in India. Formerly in his Council of sixty members the Viceroy has had a majority of six nominated members — 33 to 27. This majority is to be abolished, and the Council which will hereafter be called the Legislative Assembly of India will number 100 mem- bers, with two-thirds to be elected by the people them- selves. Of the one-third whom the Viceroy nominates at least one-third must be non-official. The second and smaller chamber, corresponding in a way to our Senate, will retain an official majority, with twenty-nine members nominated and twenty-one elected. It will be the final legislative body. The addition of this final safety brake is a great dis- appointment to radicals. Even Lord Sinha qualifies his commendation of the Report : “ While responsible gov- ernment is not to be granted at once, we have the pledge that substantial steps in that direction shall be taken as soon as possible,” adding, “ if the scheme is carried out and some of its over cautious checks and counter checks eliminated, it will, in my opinion, certainly give general satisfaction in India.” There is to be an extension of provincial autonomy — “ complete popular government in local bodies and an in- creasing degree of responsibility is to be given in the provinces.” They are to have “ the largest measure of independence — legislative, administrative and financial — compatible with due discharge by the Government of India of its own responsibilities.” Devolution of the MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 1 87 former highly centralized authority is achieved by giving responsibility in certain subjects to be known as trans- ferred subjects, namely those “ affording most oppor- tunity for local knowledge and social services, those wherein Indians have shown themselves to be keenly in- terested, those wherein mistakes which might occur would not be irremediable, and those which stand in most need of development.” Herein lies the really constructive element in the re- port, for these local bodies will serve as training schools of politics, in preparation for subsequent increase of re- sponsibility. It is difficult for any one short of an expert on con- stitutions to judge the actual value of these recommenda- tions until they have been demonstrated in action. It is safe to say that the report marks a complete reversal in England’s policy toward India. In spirit it is genera- tions in advance of the trend and humor of Lord Cur- zon's policy. Far from wanting to extend representa- tive government, he even abolished it where it already existed, as in Calcutta, at that time capital of India. Since 1876 the Municipal Council of Calcutta had con- sisted of seventy-five members, with a majority of twenty-five elected by the people. Lord Curzon reduced the elected members from fifty to twenty-five, thereby giving the Viceroy’s nominated party, with their official chairman's deciding vote, a permanent majority. The reception given to the report has varied. Lord Morley has endorsed it from his retirement, Lord Cur- zon is opposed to it — naturally. A group of Bengal landowners, including seventeen maharajahs and rajas, and the leading citizens of the community met in Cal- cutta early in September and warmly endorsed its pro- 1 88 India’s silent revolution posals. Two former presidents of the Indian National Congress issued a memorandum expressing satisfaction with the scheme as a whole. They said that “ the dis- tinguished authors of the reform proposals deserve cor- dial congratulations. We frankly admit that their scheme for provincial reconstruction and progress is su- perior to the Congress-League scheme in conception and design, and possesses the merit which the latter entirely lacked, of introducing at the start the idea and begin- nings of responsible government." The Indian Legisla- tive Council also endorsed the proposals. The Indian National Congress does not take as friendly an attitude. A special session was called to demand extensive changes in the scheme. The Congress felt that the report showed skepticism of the capacity of the people of India, anxiety lest the powers of the executive be impaired, and that in some cases it increased the powers of the heads of central and provincial governments. The attitude of the Indian press varies from apprecia- tive hopefulness to abuse. In a symposium of com- ments from twenty-nine papers printed by the Indian So- cial Reformer, eleven endorse the report more or less warmly, nine are doubtful or non-committal, and nine are frankly opposed and disappointed. The Hindu, Madras, considers that “ the report ren- ders futile the pledges given by His Majesty’s Govern- ment in their pronouncement of last August, and it gives an insulting response to the Indian National demands.” The Servant of India, Poona, appeals for a tolerant atti- tude : “ People should remember that it is a rare oppor- tunity they have. To throw it away would be madness. Mr. Montagu has taken uncommon interest in the ques- tion of Indian reforms, and must be enabled by our sym- MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE 189 pathetic and reasonable attitude to complete the stu- pendous task that he has begun. . . . What does it mat- ter that it departs altogether from our scheme? It sub- stantially embodies our basic principles at the start and will effectuate them in full at the culmination.” The moderation of this comment recalls that famous paragraph in the constitution of The Servants of India written by Mr. Gokhale, in which he “ frankly accepts the British connection as ordained in the inscrutable dis- pensation of Providence for India’s good.” The satiric tang of that inscrutable dispensation was, according to those who knew Mr. Gokhale, quite unintentional. The Times of India, a semi-official publication, en- larged upon the audacity of an attempt to “ lay the foundations of true responsible government in India,” and calls it a Great Adventure such as has never before been attempted in all Asia. It was rumored that failure to let the bill come up for discussion in Parliament during the summer of 1918 was due to bitter opposition among Conservatives. The House of Commons’ announcement that it was too busy with the war to consider the plan came as rather an awkward anti-climax to the resolutions passed in the same month “ consenting ” to India’s paying a larger share of the cost of the Indian military forces, and after the opening of a new War Loan in India. Mr. Montagu bridged the gap with the appointment of a subsidiary committee to work out the question of electorates and transferred subjects. In whatever direction Parliament may ultimately inch along, the appointment of Mr. Montagu and his work in drawing up the program shows a progress which India and India’s friends should not underestimate. Fiery 190 India’s silent revolution critics of Mr. Montagu, disappointed that he did not in- clude more radical reforms, should face the fact that the present program is having its difficulties in getting past Parliament, and that anything more drastic probably would not have received serious consideration. Mr. Montagu earned the support of all friends of India by the ringing sincerity of his Apologia for what- ever of radicalism and real progress may be found in his recommendations. “ Our reason is the faith that is in us. We have shown how, step by step, British policy in India has been steadily directed to a point at which the question of a self-governing India was bound to arise; how impulses, at first faint, have been encouraged by education and opportunity; how the growth, quickened nine years ago, was immeasurably accelerated by the war. We believe profoundly that the time has now come when the shel- tered existence which we have given to India cannot be prolonged without damage to her national life; that we have a richer gift for her people than any we have yet bestowed on them ; that nationhood within the Empire represents something better than anything India has hitherto attained; that the placid, pathetic contentment of the masses is not the soil on which such Indian nation- hood will grow, and that in deliberately disturbing it we are working for her highest good.” Such words from the Secretary of State for India commit the Government he represents to a considerable degree. It would seem impossible to step back, espe- cially after the decisive victory of the Allies. For after all, whatever may have been her traditional attitude to- ward India, and whatever her pet prejudices, Great Brit- ain has been a leader among the Allies, that group of MOVING TOWARD HOME RULE I9I nations who solemnly and earnestly entered into the most terrific struggle in all history to make the world safe for democracy. To-day India’s future looks brighter than at any pe- riod in her history. No one can go to India with an open mind and remain unconscious of the silent changes which are at work beneath the surface, slowly preparing India to slough off the old skin of superstition and ig- norance. Simultaneously the great war opened the hearts and minds of men all over the world to a new vision of democracy. Whitehall has given evidence of its willingness to turn a corner in the administration of Indian affairs. The Montagu-Chelmsford program is not merely a step in advance of previous reforms. It is something quite new and different. If Parliament ap- proves and India accepts the principles expressed and the plans outlined in the program, the foundation for representative government for India will have been laid deep and strong. It will mark an epoch in Indian his- tory. Of course the program may have to be modified as to method, but the temper of the times will make it utterly impossible to satisfy either England or India, ex- cept by legislation of this character. The boldness of the task requires that each side meet the other with sympathy and generosity, with free ex- pression of opinion and with honest intention to under- stand and to play fair. Changes are already at work in both countries. The breaking up of caste, the education of women, extension of universal primary education, re- adjustment of the economic system, and, as a result of all these, a stiffening up of the will power and initiative of the individual Indian, will make a much less difficult problem on the one side, while the liberalizing influence I 192 India’s silent revolution of the war and the discredit attaching to a selfish Impe- rialism insure a much less difficult situation on the other side. A prophetic paragraph in one of President Wilson’s messages phrasing allied purposes, applies to India with particular felicity. “ The Allies are fighting for the liberty, the self-gov- ernment and the undictated development of all peoples, and every feature of the settlement that concludes this war must be conceived and executed for that purpose.” It will not be possible during the years that lie ahead for the Allies to discriminate in their application of democracy, demanding it for the Occident and denying it to the Orient. It is a world ideal, which knows neither racial nor territorial boundaries. Enfranchised alike by the silent and inevitable revolution within her own life and by the cooperation of the new world created by the war, India may well look confidently and hopefully into the future. 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