Dadabhai Naoroji 
 
YOUNG INDIA 
 
 AN INTERPRETATION AND A HISTORY OF 
 
 THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 
 
 FROM WITHIN 
 
 LAJPAT RAI ^ 
 
 FOREWORD BY J. T. SUNDERLAND 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 " The people of India are capable of administering 
 their own affairs and the municipal feeling is deep 
 rooted in them. The village communities, each of 
 which is a little republic, are the most abiding of 
 Indian institutions." 
 
 (Lord Lawrence, once Viceroy and Governor- 
 General of British India). 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH 
 
 1916 
 
Copyright, 1916, by 
 B. W. HUEBSCH 
 
 
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 Printed in U. S. A. 
 
 'aA438016 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMORY OF MY DEAREST FRIEND 
 
 THE LATE LAMENTED 
 
 DWARKA DASS, M. A. OF THE PUNJAB 
 
 WHO DIED OF A BROKEN HEART, AT THE 
 
 COLLAPSE OF PUBLIC LIFE IN 
 
 HIS NATIVE PROVINCE, 
 
 (OCTOBER 1912) 
 
 AS AN HUMBLE TRIBUTE TO HIS UNCOMPROMISING 
 
 ATTITUDE TOWARDS PUBLIC LIFE, HIS 
 
 LOFTY PRINCIPLES, AND HIS NOBLE 
 
 ADVOCACY OF THEM 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Mr. Lajpat Rai, the author of this book, is one of 
 the most widely known, most honoured and most in- 
 fluential public men in India. For more than twenty- 
 years he has been a leading member of the bar in 
 Lahore, the capital city of the large province of the 
 Punjab, and has long been prominent in public af- 
 fairs both local and national. 
 
 From almost the beginning of the National Indian 
 Congress he has been an active leader in that body, 
 which is the most important political organization in 
 the country. The last time I was in India (two and 
 a half years ago) I found that he was being widely 
 talked of for the Presidency of the Congress at its 
 approaching yearly meeting. 
 
 Conspicuous in Indian educational work and a 
 founder of the large and flourishing Anglo- Vedic 
 College in Lahore, he has for a dozen years or more 
 held the position of either Vice-President or Hon- 
 ourary Secretary of the College, and also that of 
 Lecturer in History. 
 
 He started The Punjahee, a leading paper in the 
 province, published in English, and has edited a 
 monthly magazine and a weekly paper printed in the 
 vernacular, besides writing for other Indian period- 
 icals and for reviews in London. 
 
 The Arya Samaj, an important, fast growing and 
 
 vii 
 
viii FOREWORD 
 
 influential movement of religious reform in India, 
 which rejects idolatry and caste and is active in pro- 
 moting education, social reforms and the elevation 
 of woman, counts Mr. Rai among its honoured 
 leaders. 
 
 He has organized relief work during periods of 
 famine in India, and has for some years led in an 
 extensive movement for the elevation of the " De- 
 pressed Classes," that is, the forty millions of " out- 
 casts " or " untouchables " whose condition is so 
 miserable. Several years ago I attended a National 
 Conference to promote this work, at which he pre- 
 sided and delivered a powerful address. 
 
 Mr. Lajpat Rai has made three or four extended 
 visits to England and three to America. In Eng- 
 land he has spoken in many cities as a delegate from 
 the National Indian Congress, for the purpose of 
 acquainting the British public with the real condi- 
 tion of things in India, and to urge upon the British 
 Government the granting to the Indian people of cer- 
 tain important political reforms. In America he has 
 made a careful study of our history and institutions, 
 our industrial and social movements, our political 
 and rehgiouslife, and especially our schools and uni- 
 versities, and our educational systems and methods. 
 He is impressed with the leadership which the United 
 States is attaining in the world of education, par- 
 ticularly education in scientific, industrial, techno- 
 logical and agricultural directions, and he finds much 
 here which he desires to see introduced into his own 
 country. 
 
 From the beginning of the New National Move- 
 
FOREWORD ix 
 
 ment in India, Mr. Rai has been one of its most 
 prominent leaders. He is an ardent patriot, is proud 
 of his country, her civilization, her literature and her 
 great place in the world's history, and he believes she 
 is destined to have a great future, commensurate 
 with her great past. But now she is a subject land, 
 ruled by a foreign power, her own people having 
 practically no voice in the direction of their own 
 national affairs or the shaping of their future des- 
 tiny. This deeply grieves and galls him, as it does 
 a large part of the Indian people. The Nationalist 
 Movement, of which he gives an account in this book, 
 is a protest against present political conditions, and 
 a demand for larger freedom and independence. 
 Indeed, its aim is self-rule; not necessarily severance 
 of connection with the British Empire, but partner- 
 ship in the Empire, — home rule inside the Empire 
 like that enjoyed by Canada, Australia and South 
 Africa. 
 
 The British Government of India frowns upon 
 this Nationalist Movement, tries to suppress it, and 
 places its leaders under ban. This is the way des- 
 potic governments always treat subject peoples as 
 soon as they grow restive in their bonds and try to 
 loosen them or throw them off. Mr. Lajpat Rai 
 has had to pay heavily for his patriotism. In 1907 
 he was seized by the Government and, without trial 
 or even being told what was his offence, was secretly 
 sent away to prison in Burmah, and kept there six 
 months. He was suspected of disloyalty and sedi- 
 tion, but not the slightest evidence was found against 
 him. His only crime was that he was a Nationalist, 
 
X FOREWORD 
 
 and was working in perfectly open and legal ways 
 to secure greater liberty for his country. After his 
 release from prison, he brought legal suits against 
 two newspapers, one in India and one in London, 
 that had published charges of sedition against him; 
 and, notwithstanding the fact that the powerful 
 influence of the Government was on the side of 
 the papers, he won both suits, — so clear was his 
 case. 
 
 For a full dozen years India has been seething 
 with unrest, seething with dissatisfaction over pres- 
 ent political conditions. During the past ten years 
 there has been not a little bomb throwing and not a 
 few signs of revolution. When the present Euro- 
 pean war broke out there were at once increased 
 outward expressions of loyalty; but the unrest has 
 remained. When the war is over what will happen ? 
 That will depend, Mr. Lajpat Rai believes, upon the 
 course pursued by the British Government. If the 
 Government in a generous spirit meets India's just 
 demands, there will be no revolution. If the Gov- 
 ernment blindly and obstinately refuses, the worst 
 may happen. 
 
 While Mr. Rai is an ardent and uncompromising 
 advocate of the Nationalist Cause, he has always 
 counselled procedure by evolutionary and not by 
 revolutionary measures, by vigorous and determined 
 agitation and not by bomb throwing. Throughout 
 his entire career he has striven by every means, 
 through speech and the press, in India and in Eng- 
 land, to move the British Government to prevent 
 revolution, in what he believes is the only possible 
 
FOREWORD xi 
 
 way, namely, by inaugurating and carrying out hon- 
 estly a policy of justice to the Indian people. 
 
 There is in sight an Indian Renaissance, There 
 is a " New India in the Making." Indeed the stir- 
 rings of new life in India are hardly less marked, 
 less profound or less revolutionary, than in Japan 
 or China. Of this the book gives a vivid and re- 
 liable picture, — and, what is of great importance, a 
 picture from the inside. 
 
 We have many books which portray Indian condi- 
 tions as foreigners see them, — particularly as they 
 are seen by Christian missionaries and by the British 
 rulers of the country. At last we have a book which 
 gives us the life, the experiences, the wrongs, the 
 sufferings, the hopes, the aims, the motives, and, 
 what at the present time is most important of all, 
 the political ideals and ambitions of the Indian peo- 
 ple themselves, portrayed by one of their own num- 
 ber, a leader who has been in the very heart of the 
 struggle from the beginning, and who has felt it all 
 in his own life and his own soul. 
 
 It is a message to every man and woman in 
 America, and in Great Britain, too, who loves justice 
 and hates oppression, and who wants to know about 
 one of the most heroic struggles for liberty now go- 
 ing on in the world. 
 
 My own intimate acquaintance with India for 
 many years gives me a greatly increased sense of the 
 value of Mr. Rai's book. Perhaps nothing in the 
 volume will be found more surprising or more in- 
 teresting to Americans than the overwhelming evi- 
 dence of the dissatisfaction of India with her pres- 
 
xii FOREWORD 
 
 ent political condition, and the fact that the Indian 
 people want home rule, want it more earnestly than 
 they want anything else, and that probably nothing 
 less than this will keep them loyal to Great Britain. 
 This feeling, which had been growing fast for years 
 before the war broke out, has since sprung into a 
 passion. And we may be sure that the flame will 
 not burn with less intensity when the soldiers return 
 who have been risking their lives for Great Britain 
 in Turkey and Egypt and France, and who have 
 been learning new lessons of self-reliance, freedom 
 and independence from their contact with the great 
 world. 
 
 It is hardly possible today to take up an Indian 
 periodical of any kind, Hindu or Mohammedan, secu- 
 lar or religious (I myself regularly subscribe for and 
 read nine, two of the number making a specialty of 
 a monthly summary of Indian press opinion), with- 
 out being brought upon some expression of this uni- 
 versal desire for self-rule. The people are dis- 
 posed to be patient and considerate, and make no 
 demands upon the Government that will be embar- 
 rassing so long as the war lasts. But everything in- 
 dicates that when peace comes they will be in no 
 mood to be treated like children and put off with the 
 usual vague and meaningless promises. 
 
 Since India has borne faithfully and loyally her 
 part in the war, one of the distinct stipulations in the 
 treaty of peace at the end should be the granting to 
 her of home rule. This is as much her right as is 
 autonomy the right of Belgium or Poland. This 
 right is recognized by not a few Englishmen; it 
 
FOREWORD xiii 
 
 should be recognized by the whole nation, and put 
 into effect generously, freely, without waiting for 
 struggle and bloodshed. The advantage to Great 
 Britain would be incalculable. It would remove 
 from her as a nation her most threatening danger, 
 and it would give to her Empire a solidity and per- 
 manent strength such as it cannot otherwise secure. 
 
 While India wants freedom to shape her own 
 affairs, her wisest minds do not desire separation 
 from England. They recognize many strong ties 
 between the two countries which they would not see 
 broken. While they are determined not much longer 
 to lie prostrate beneath England's feet, they would 
 gladly stand by her side, arm in arm with her, firmly 
 united for great ends of mutual welfare and mutual 
 strength. An Anglo-Indian Empire is one of the 
 splendid possibilities of the future, binding Britain 
 and her colonies and her great Asiatic possession 
 together into a powerful world-spanning federation 
 of free peoples. Something like this is the dream of 
 India's greatest leaders, as it is also the dream of 
 not a few of Britain's most far-seeing minds. 
 
 When this world-revolutionizing war is over. 
 Great Britain must reshape after a larger and more 
 adequate pattern her whole scheme of Imperial Gov- 
 ernment. She must become a Federated Empire. 
 There must be self-government at home, not only 
 for Ireland but also for Scotland, Wales and Eng- 
 land. And there must be self-government abroad, 
 not only for Canada, Australasia and South Africa, 
 but, as not less imperative and not less wise, for In- 
 dia also, to be followed in time, as conditions can be 
 
xiv FOREWORD 
 
 made favourable, by self-rule more or less complete 
 for all of Britain's more important dependencies. 
 
 The danger is that Britain may forget India or 
 thrust her aside, as in the past, to the position of a 
 mere dependency. If she does this she will plant a 
 cancer in the heart of her Empire, she will create a 
 volcano under her throne. It will take courage and 
 large statesmanship to give India home rule, as it 
 took large statesmanship and courage to give home 
 rule to South Africa. But the splendid venture must 
 be made. And, made in the right spirit, it will suc- 
 ceed as perfectly as it did in South Africa. 
 
 Has Great Britain statesmen sufficiently far- 
 sighted, with adequate genius and courage, to do to 
 India the splendid justice of giving her the home 
 rule which is her right, and then to create a world- 
 circling federation of free peoples with India a part- 
 ner in it, — a real Anglo-Indian Empire ? It would 
 be the most brilliant, constructive and noble work of 
 statesmanship known to the modern world. 
 
 Now that Canadians, Australians, New Zealand- 
 ers and South Africans as well as Englishmen, 
 Scotchmen, Welshmen and Irishmen have fought 
 side by side with the soldiers of India, shedding 
 their blood in a common cause, why should they not 
 all gladly welcome those heroic and loyal men of 
 the East to a place by their side in the Empire which 
 they have helped to save ? 
 
 Need England shrink from the risk? This is 
 her path of least risk. Under present conditions 
 India is her peril. The one thing that will trans- 
 form India from a source of ever-increasing danger 
 
FOREWORD XV 
 
 to a bulwark of strength, is to trust her as South 
 Africa has been trusted. She is certainly as worthy 
 of trust as South Africa was. Thus to trust her, 
 and to lift her up to a responsible place in the Em- 
 pire, will appeal to India's pride as it has never been 
 appealed to, will create in her an enthusiasm of loy- 
 alty equal to anything seen in any of the self -ruling 
 colonies, will bind her to Great Britain with bands 
 of steel. 
 
 Is it said that India is incapable of ruling herself? 
 That was said of South Africa; that was said of 
 Canada; that was said of the American Colonies 
 when they broke off from Great Britain and set up 
 a Government of their own; that is what England 
 has long been saying of Ireland. That is what every 
 nation that loves power always says of every section 
 of its people that wants more liberty. 
 
 The truth is, the safest Government in the world 
 for every people of any intellectual and moral de- 
 velopment at all (and India is advanced, both in- 
 tellectually and morally) is self-government. No 
 rule so completely destroys the fibre of a nation as 
 rule by a foreign power. India can rule herself far 
 better than any foreign nation can rule her. 
 
 If India is incapable of self-government today, 
 what an indictment is that against England! She 
 was not thus incapable before England came. Has 
 one hundred and fifty years of British tutelage pro- 
 duced such deterioration? India was possessed of 
 a high civilization and of developed Governments 
 long before England or any part of Central, West- 
 ern or Northern Europe had emerged from bar- 
 
xvi FOREWORD 
 
 barism. For three thousand years before England's 
 arrival in the Orient, Indian Kingdoms and Empires 
 had held leading places in Asia, and that means in 
 the world. Some of the ablest rulers, statesmen, 
 generals and financiers known to history, as well as 
 many of the greatest thinkers and writers of man- 
 kind, have been of India's production. How is it, 
 then, that she suddenly becomes imbecile and unable 
 to stand on her own feet or conduct her own affairs 
 as soon as England appears on the scene ? 
 
 To be sure, at the time when England came, India 
 was in a peculiarly disorganized and unsettled state ; 
 for it should be remembered that the Mogul Empire 
 was just breaking up and new political adjustments 
 were everywhere just being made, — a fact which 
 accounts for England's being able to gain political 
 power in India at all. But everything indicates that 
 if India had not been interfered with by European 
 nations, she would soon have been under competent 
 Governments of her own again. 
 
 A further answer to the assertion that India can- 
 not govern herself — surely one that should be con- 
 clusive — is the fact that, in parts, she is governing 
 herself now, and governing herself well. It is no- 
 torious that the very best Government in India to- 
 day is not that carried on by the British, but that of 
 several of the Native States, notably Baroda and 
 Mysore. In these States, particularly Baroda, the 
 people are more free, more prosperous, more con- 
 tented, and are making more progress, than in any 
 other part of India. Note the superiority of both 
 these States in the important matter of popular edu- 
 
FOREWORD xvii 
 
 cation. Mysore is spending on education more than 
 three times as much per capita as is British India, 
 while Baroda has made her education free and 
 compulsory. Both of these States, but especially 
 Baroda, which has thus placed herself in line with 
 the leading nations of Europe and America by mak- 
 ing provisions for the education of all her children, 
 may well be contrasted with British India, which 
 provides education, even of the poorest kind, for 
 only one boy in ten and one girl in one hundred and 
 forty- four. 
 
 The only ground at all that exists for the claim 
 that the Indian people are not able to govern them- 
 selves lies in the fact that the British Government 
 during all its history in the land has deprived them, 
 and still continues to deprive them, against their 
 constant protest, of practical experience in Govern- 
 ment management. They had such experience be- 
 fore the British came, but since that time they have 
 been robbed of it to their great injury. Of course, 
 under present conditions, if the British should leave 
 India in a day, with no body of men trained to take 
 their places, for a time there would be confusion, 
 just as there would be confusion in England if every- 
 body there accustomed to Government management 
 should leave that country in a day. 
 
 But the Indian people do not ask England to leave 
 India in a day, or to leave at all ; what they ask is 
 for England to associate with herself the competent 
 men of India in the government of their own coun- 
 try, and thus give them the experience in self-rule 
 which is their right and of which they never ought 
 
xviii FOREWORD 
 
 to have been deprived. With such opportunities for 
 practical experience extended to them for twenty 
 years, or even for ten years, they would be ready for 
 the full responsibilities of home rule. 
 
 Among the tens of thousands of India's educated 
 men, and men of natural capacity for leadership, 
 there is no lack of material to fill, and fill well as 
 soon as they are given experience, every kind of 
 official position. Many of the highest judgeships 
 are now filled with great efficiency by Indians. In 
 no department of the Government where Indians 
 have been adequately tried have they been found 
 wanting. 
 
 The truth is, not one single fact can be cited to 
 show that India cannot govern herself well if given 
 a chance. It would not be difficult to form an In- 
 dian Parliament today, composed of men as able 
 and of as high character as those that constitute the 
 fine Parliament of Japan. India has public men 
 who, if they lived in England and belonged to the 
 English race, would unhesitatingly be adjudged not 
 only of Parliamentary but of Cabinet rank. For 
 twenty years before his recent lamented death Mr. 
 Gokhale was confessedly the equal in intellectual 
 ability and in moral worth of any Englishman in 
 India, not excepting the three Viceroys under whom 
 he served. It is no exaggeration to declare that 
 Mr. Justice Renade had qualifications fully fitting 
 him for the position of Viceroy, or if he had lived 
 in England, fitting him for the position of Premier. 
 
 This is only another way of saying that among 
 the leaders of the various States and Provinces of 
 
FOREWORD xix 
 
 India there is abundant material to form National 
 and Provincial Governments little, if at all, inferior 
 in ability and in moral character to the Governments 
 of the Western world. 
 
 J. T. Sunderland. 
 New York, June, 191 6. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Foreword, by J. T. Sunderland vii 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 I. The General Viewpoint of the Indian Nationalist 67 
 
 First Invasion of India 68 
 
 Chandra Gupta and Asoka 69 
 
 India Practically Independent Up to the Twelfth Cen- 
 tury 70 
 
 Muslim Rule 71 
 
 Muslim Rule in India not Foreign 'jz 
 
 India Under the British 76 
 
 Political Disqualification of the Indians 78 
 
 Indians May not Carry Arms 8a^ 
 
 Loyalty of Ruling Chiefs 90 
 
 Middle Class Desires Political Freedom .... 92 
 
 II. India from 1757 to 1857 95 
 
 Conflict of French and English in India .... 96 
 How British Rule in India Was Established ... 96 
 Methods of Consolidation of British India .... 97 
 
 British Public Ignorant of Facts 98 
 
 Conquest of India Diplomatic, not Military . . . 100 
 
 The Great Indian Mutiny of 1857 loi 
 
 How the Mutiny Was Put Down 102 
 
 III. India from 1857 to 1905 109 
 
 Part. I. From 1857 to 1885. 
 
 The Bengalee Babu 109 
 
 Forces Resisting Denationalisation 114 
 
 Political Disappointments 115 
 
xxii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Lord Ripon ii8 
 
 Lord Dufferin 121 
 
 Part IL The Birth of the Indian National Congress. 
 Indian National Congress an English Product . . . 122 
 
 Hume, a Lover of Liberty 124 
 
 Congress to Save British Empire from Danger . . 126 
 The Congress Lacked Essentials of a National Move- 
 ment 138 
 
 Hume's Political Movement . 141 
 
 Congress Overawed 142 
 
 Congress Agitation in England 144 
 
 Causes of Failure of the Congress 145 
 
 Part III. The Birth of the New Nationalist Movement. 
 
 Swadeshi and Swaraj 148 
 
 Men Who Have Inspired the Movement . . . .152 
 
 Lord Curzon and Indian Education 156 
 
 Lord Curzon's Secret Educational Conference . . 158 
 Indians and Lord Curzon at Cross Purposes . . . 158 
 The Congress Deputation to England in 1905 . . . 159 
 
 The Congress of 1905 160 
 
 Object of the Passive Resistance Movement . . . 162 
 
 IV. The First Years of the Nationalist Movement 167 
 
 Partition of Bengal 167 
 
 Boycott of British Goods 167 
 
 Government's Reply 170 
 
 The Second Move of the Bengalees: The National 
 
 University 170 
 
 Arabinda Ghosh 172 
 
 The Nationalist Press 176 
 
 Military Measures against Boycotters 177 
 
 Lord Minto I79 
 
 Indian Press Gagged 180 
 
 Deportation of Lajpat Rai . 181 
 
 Disaffection Driven Underground 183 
 
 Lord Hardinge Bombed 184 
 
CONTENTS xxiii 
 
 CHAPTER ^^^^ 
 
 V. Types of Nationalists ^^ 
 
 The Extremists 187 
 
 A Few Nihilists 189 
 
 Religious Extremists 189 
 
 The Mother Worshippers iQO 
 
 •Vedantists i9i 
 
 Advocates of Organised Rebellion IQS 
 
 Har Dayal ^95 
 
 Hardayalism: Advocation of Full Swaraj . • . I99 
 Political Freedom the First Condition of Life . . .200 
 Arabinda Ghosh — Vedantist and Swarajist . . .205 
 
 Ganesh Vinayak Savarkar 210 
 
 The Terrorists 211 
 
 Advocates of Constructive Nationalisation . . . .212 
 
 Independence, but not at Once 212 
 
 Preparing the Nation for Freedom 213 
 
 Preparatory Work from Below 214 
 
 Brahmo Samaj ; Arya Samaj ; Ramakrishna Mission . 215 
 
 The Moderates 216 
 
 Gokhale 216 
 
 Congress Leaders 219 
 
 Passive Resisters 219 
 
 VL Indian Nationalism and the World-Forces . . 221 
 
 Inspiration through European Nationalism . . . .221 
 History of Modern Europe Tabooed in Universities . 221 
 
 Italian-Turko War 222 
 
 Interpretation of India to Western World . . . .223 
 Tagorism 223 
 
 VII. The Religious and the Communal Elements in 
 
 Indian Nationalism 225 
 
 Mohammedan Revulsion of Feeling against the Brit- 
 ish 226 
 
 Disaffectipjci .amo-ng the Sikhs 228 
 
xxiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 VIII. The Future 230 
 
 Change in Indian Life and Depth of NationaHsm . 230 
 Nationalism Fertilised by Blood of Martyrs . . . 232 
 
 Wave of Indian Nationalism is on 233 
 
 Propitiation and Petty Concessions Futile .... 234 
 Internal Division no Valid Plea for Continuance of 
 
 British Rule 235 
 
 Illiteracy the Fault of the British and no Bar to Self- 
 government 237 
 
 Internal Troubles 238 
 
 Unfitness of Orientals for Representative Institutions 238 
 
 Nationalism Has Come to Stay 238 
 
 Curzons, Macdonnels, Sydenhams, Responsible for 
 Bombs and Revolvers 240 
 
 A Short Bibuography of Books in English .... 241 
 
 Appendices 
 
 Feudatory Chiefs Powerless 243 
 
 Gross Insults to Indians 243 
 
 Industrial Ruin of India; Gokhale 244 
 
 India a Mere Possession; Gokhale 244 
 
 Masses Starved; Sir C. A. Elliot, Sir W. W. Hunter, 
 
 William Digby 244 
 
 Seventy Million Continually Hungry People in Brit- 
 ish India; William Digby 245 
 
 Total Area under Cultivation 245 
 
 Famines of Money; not Food; Lord George Hamilton 245 
 
 Causes of Famines 246 
 
 Drain ; Montgomery Martin and Digby 246 
 
 Enormous Foreign Tribute; Rev. J. T. Sunderland . 246 
 Government Assessment too High ; Sir W. Hunter . 246 
 
 The Ryot; Herbert Compton 246 
 
 Indian Plunder; Adam Brooks 247 
 
 Swami Abhedananda 247 
 
 \Ifred Webb ............. 247 
 
CONTENTS XXV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " Narrow and Shortsighted Imperial Policy ; " Sir A. 
 
 R. Colquehoun 248 
 
 Taxation; Lord Salisbury 248 
 
 Plague, Deaths from 249 
 
 Death Rate 249 
 
 Indian Finance . 249 
 
 Land Tax 249 
 
 Income Tax 250 
 
 Customs 250 
 
 Trade Figures for 1913 to 1914 251 
 
 Personnel of the Government 251 
 
 Figures About Education and Literacy 253 
 
 The Flogging of Political Prisoners ...... 253 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Ram Mohan Roy 
 
 Facing page 
 
 III 
 
 Swami Vivekananda 
 
 t( It 
 
 115 
 
 'Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak 
 
 it tt 
 
 162 
 
 ^Arabinda Ghosh 
 
 CC (t 
 
 172 
 
 Lajpat Rai 
 
 t( t( 
 
 181 
 
 ■ Har Dayal 
 
 €f (i 
 
 195 
 
 G. K. Gokhale 
 
 tc tt 
 
 216 
 
 XXVI 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 During my travels in the world, the one point 
 that has struck me most forcibly and most pain- 
 fully, is the lack of true knowledge about the affairs 
 of India among the " civilised " nations of the 
 globe. Even the best educated among them know 
 very little about India and what little they know is 
 not always right. The sources from which the or- 
 dinary stay-at-home Westerner derives his knowl- 
 edge about India are the following: (a) mission- 
 aries who have been to India, (b) English writers 
 of the class of Rudyard Kipling and Sir Valentine 
 Chirol, (c) British officials, (d) serious students of 
 Indian history or Indian literature like the late Pro- 
 fessor Max Miiller, the late Miss Noble, and the 
 late Professor Goldstucker. 
 
 Now unfortunately for India most of these peo- 
 ple, except those coming under the last heading, 
 have generally an axe to grind and can not be ac- 
 cepted as disinterested, well-informed, impartial au- 
 thorities. Their reading of Indian history is often 
 perverted and their observations of Indian life par- 
 tial and distorted. They go to India with definite 
 aims, look at persons and things from their own 
 particular angle, and pose as authorities on matters 
 far beyond the scope of their observations and 
 
2 INTRODUCTION 
 
 studies. With rare exceptions most of the West- 
 erners who go to India go with the presumption 
 that the people of India belong to an inferior level 
 of society; that they are heathens, worshippers of 
 stocks and stones; that they are hopelessly divided 
 into castes and classes; that these castes and classes 
 are always at each other's throats; that they have 
 never had a settled or civilised form of government ; 
 that the British have for the first time in their his- 
 tory given them a settled government; and that 
 India would go to pieces if British government were 
 to withdraw. 
 
 Writers about India may again be broadly sub- 
 divided into two classes : (a) those of British origin, 
 (b) those of non-British origin. Those of British 
 origin are in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred 
 tainted with the imperial bias. They can only look 
 at things from the imperial or British point of view. 
 Even the best and the most fair-minded of them do 
 not altogether succeed in freeing themselves from 
 this bias. The bias acts even against their will. 
 The second class of writers are affected by the 
 racial and the colour bias. Moreover, nine out of 
 ten amongst them are made to look at things from 
 the British point of view. As soon as they land at 
 an Indian port, they are taken in hand by the British 
 residents, officials and non-officials, and practically 
 the whole of their trip is arranged for them by the 
 latter. They only see things which the ruling com- 
 munity want them to see and they only hear and 
 know what these allow them to hear or know. The 
 few who resolutely refuse to be thus "pro- 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 grammed " do sometimes see things in their true 
 light, as the late Mr. Keir Hardie, M.P., and Mr. 
 H. W. Nevinson did. 
 
 In this connection I think the following remarks 
 of the latest American writer on India, Professor 
 Pratt of Williams College, Massachusetts, in his 
 book on " India and Its Faiths " are very pertinent. 
 Professor Pratt begins by warning the reader 
 against " the point of view of the native " himself, 
 as well as against " those European writers who 
 seek to give an ultra * sympathetic ' picture of In- 
 dia." But his observations about the other two of 
 the four sources of information mentioned by him 
 are extremely interesting. He says : 
 
 " Much greater is the danger that we, with our 
 Western ideals and customs so different from those 
 of India, should go to the other extreme and take 
 one of the two remaining points of view that I re- 
 ferred to above. One of these is that which char- 
 acterises a certain type (now happily decreasing) 
 of earnest but narrow-minded missionary." The 
 fourth source of information, which, according to 
 Professor Pratt, " one should regard with distrust," 
 comprises " the superficial tourist or the non-mis- 
 sionary European resident in India." In his opin- 
 ion this source is particularly dangerous, for " it is 
 so natural to suppose that one of our own race who 
 has travelled in India (and especially one who has 
 lived there 'twenty-two years') will be in a posi- 
 tion to know all about it. . . . The tourist's igno- 
 rance is not surprising, but it is not easy to under- 
 stand the ignorance of the average European resi- 
 
4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 dent in India." Professor Pratt's remarks about 
 the " average European resident," who has been 
 "twenty-two years" in India, are prefaced by an 
 eulogistic tribute to the British administration of 
 justice in India, which may be accepted with a little 
 salt. The administration of justice in India is im- 
 partial and as fair as it can be under the circum- 
 stances, except when one party is a native and the 
 other a Britisher. What concerns us here, is Pro- 
 fessor Pratt's opinion about the resident English- 
 man's knowledge of India. In his opinion "most 
 of the Englishmen " whom he met seemed to him 
 " singularly lacking in curiosity or interest " about 
 " Indian thought, religion, traditions and ways of 
 viewing things." " The Anglo-Indian," adds he, 
 " is surprisingly indifferent towards almost every- 
 thing native." Professor Pratt illustrates his con- 
 clusions by actual facts which came under his ob- 
 servation. One English gentleman who had lived 
 in Calcutta and other parts of the East for many 
 years, said to the professor : " The natives are all 
 just a lot of animals, don't you think so?" No 
 wonder that the professor had to say that his im- 
 pression was quite different. For him it was hard 
 to conceive how one " could stay any time among 
 them without finding them a truly lovable people, 
 and without imbibing genuine respect and admira- 
 tion for the simple dignity of their lives, the quiet 
 courtesy of their manners, their uncomplaining en- 
 durance of hardships, their unbounded hospitality, 
 and the feeling for spiritual value, which in spite of 
 gross superstitions is unmistakable in the Indian 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 atmosphere." Professor Pratt's " Englishman " 
 had never heard of a Dr. Bose, '' one of the greatest 
 botanists living," and he did " not think much " of 
 Tagore's poetry. " This lack of interest in native 
 life as such," continues Mr. Pratt, " and the proud 
 manifestation of conscious superiority that goes 
 with it, shows itself in the coarser natures in a con- 
 tempt for the ' black man ' and ' a constant swagger 
 of putting him in his place.' As a result of this 
 indifference to and contempt for the natives, most 
 of the Anglo-Indians that I know anything about 
 are very ignorant concerning the religions of India, 
 and decidedly prejudiced against them. Personally 
 I think that the opinions of nine Englishmen out of 
 ten on the subject of Indian religions are entirely 
 untrustworthy." ^ 
 
 Professor Pratt only speaks of the English resi- 
 dents' ignorance of Indian religion, but I am dis- 
 posed to add that the opinions of ninety-nine out 
 of every hundred Anglo-Indians on the nature and 
 effects of British rule in India and the capacity of 
 Indians to manage their own affairs are equally 
 '* untrustworthy." Hence the colossal ignorance 
 which prevails in the West about what is happening 
 in India politically and economically. Just think 
 of an honest, fair-minded British writer, like Lowes 
 Dickinson, presuming to write about political life 
 in India without discussing the economic effects of 
 British rule. 
 
 India being only a dependency, her affairs do not 
 attract that attention which they would if she were 
 1 The italics everywhere in this quotation are mine. 
 
6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 a self-governing country. The British Parliament 
 disposes of the Indian affairs by an annual discus- 
 sion of a few hours in an extremely thin house. 
 The last time the British House of Commons dis- 
 cussed an important measure affecting India, viz.: 
 one by which it was proposed to suspend the Indian 
 Civil Service examination pending the war and to 
 authorise the Secretary of State in Council to make 
 appointments by nomination, the maximum attend- 
 ance, it is said, never exceeded 28. This measure 
 was condemned by the unanimous voice of the In- 
 dian native press, yet there was nobody in the 
 House to give expression to their views in the mat- 
 ter. The author, himself, has attended the sittings 
 of the House in different years, when the India 
 budget was under discussion and can testify from 
 personal knowledge that the attendance was alzvays 
 very scanty and the speeches, often, poor. 
 
 Yet the fact that India is inhabited by about one- 
 fifth of the whole human race and that her trading 
 capacity is simply unlimited, entitles her to a fuller 
 consideration at the hands of the civilised world. 
 Leaving aside her past, it can not be doubted that 
 she is destined to play a great part in the develop- 
 ment of the near future. As such, the writer has 
 presumed that the following brief account of the 
 rise and development of the Indian Nationalist 
 Movement may not be devoid of interest to British 
 and American readers. The book is of course open 
 to the objection that it is written by a " native," 
 but in the eyes of impartial investigators that should 
 be its merit. The writer has been closely associated 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 with the movement for the last thirty-three years of 
 his life, in almost all its phases, religious, social, 
 educational, industrial and political. It was in 
 1888 that he joined the Indian National Congress, 
 the official organisation of the " constitutional " 
 nationalists, i.e., only four years after it was 
 started. 
 
 In the following pages he has tried to give as 
 faithful an account of the origin and progress of 
 the movement as is possible under the circumstances. 
 The one fact which qualifies him to interpret the 
 Indian Nationalist Movement is that his position 
 has always been more or less detached. He has 
 generally had the confidence of all sections as 
 far as the broad outlines of their policy were con- 
 cerned, without identifying himself with each and 
 every item of their respective programmes. When- 
 ever occasionally or incidentally he has happened to 
 know of any projected violence, without exception 
 he has used his influence toward restraint. By a 
 timely exercise of his influence he once (1908) 
 succeeded in saving the lives of one Lieutenant 
 Governor and one College Principal. The conduct 
 of the British in India and their denial of the funda- 
 mental rights of the people, however, continue to 
 add fuel to the fire and make it impossible for the 
 friends of the constitutional movement to stop or 
 effectually check the employment of physical force. 
 Personally the writer is disposed to agree with the 
 Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, who said the 
 other day, that open rebellion was morally less hei- 
 nous than a campaign of underhand violence by 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 bombs and revolvers ; but what the Lieutenant Gov- 
 ernor forgot to notice was that open rebellion by a 
 subject people must always, in the nature of things, 
 be preceded by secret propaganda and secret prep- 
 arations. Secret preparations in a country like 
 India, access to which is on all sides controlled by 
 the British, are bound to bring in the use of ex- 
 plosives and the taking of measures which might 
 paralyse the administration and weaken its hold on 
 the people. If a Government muzzles its people, 
 shuts out all open avenues of political propaganda, 
 denies them the use of firearms and otherwise stands 
 in the way of a free agitation for political changes, 
 it is doubtful if it can reasonably complain of secret 
 plots and secret propaganda as distinguished from 
 open rebellion. 
 
 The American press has of late been giving out 
 different versions of the political situation in India. 
 One version affirms that India is on the point of re- 
 bellion; the other that India is devotedly loyal. 
 Both statements are partially true and both are par- 
 tially false. India is not devotedly loyal, yet to all 
 appearances she is so. Nor is India on the verge 
 of rebellion, though she is full of rebellious spirit. 
 It is preposterous to contend that her expressions 
 of loyalty on the outbreak of the war are proof that 
 she is satisfied with British rule as it is. The anti- 
 British movement is spreading and gaining strength 
 every day, and it is impossible for the British Gov- 
 ernment without the aid of the Indian people to up- 
 root what the British are pleased to characterise as 
 *' Anarchism." 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 II 
 
 Among other criticisms, to which this book rnay 
 be subjected, I anticipate one or two on historical 
 grounds which I would like to answer beforehand. 
 It may be said that I have painted the early history 
 of India as ** a golden age"; that my references to 
 Chandra Gupta and Asoka show only the bright 
 side of the shield and that I have throughout as- 
 sumed that India is, and has always been, a political 
 unity. Now in considering this criticism, it should 
 be borne in mind that my sole object in referring 
 to the past history of India is to show to my reader 
 that India was not a barbarous country when the 
 British obtained possession of her, that she has had 
 a long and in some respects a glorious history; that 
 she was never before governed by foreigners from 
 without in the political and economic interests of a 
 nation not living within her territorial limits, as she 
 has been and is being governed under the British. 
 Whatever may be my personal opinions about an- 
 cient India and her civilisation, I have sufficient 
 knowledge of the Occident to understand that the 
 Western reader is liable to have some hesitancy 
 about accepting them in all cases as historical truths. 
 I have therefore carefully avoided making any state- 
 ments for which I can not cite good authority. 
 The statements made may be roughly divided into 
 three kinds: (i) those relating to pre-Buddhist 
 India, (2) those relating to India of 500 b. c. to 
 about 1000 A. D., (3) those relating to India of Mo- 
 hammedan domination. 
 
10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Now, as regards the first, we have no strictly his- 
 torical data and the statements are based on the 
 contents of the literature of the period, viz., the re- 
 ligious treatises, the law books of the Hindus, and 
 the epics. There is enough in this mass of litera- 
 ture to justify the modest statements made in the 
 first chapter of this book about that period of In- 
 dian history, and, if necessary, I would be able to 
 quote good authority for every statement made by 
 me. Coming to the next period, viz., from 500 b. c. 
 to 1000 A. D., we have enough historical data in the 
 writings of the Greeks, the Chinese and the Moham- 
 medans to justify the general statements made. It 
 may be that my statements about this period are not 
 complete, but that is because I am not writing a his- 
 tory of the period. I am only making an incidental 
 reference for the purposes of this volume. For 
 these purposes it is not necessary to trace the origin 
 of Chandra Gupta's rule, or to state his motives for 
 instituting a department of commerce or a depart- 
 ment of vital statistics. Chandra Gupta himself 
 may have been a " villain," but there is ample his- 
 torical data for an historian like Vincent Smith ^— 
 a retired Indian Civil Servant by no means partial 
 to India ^ — to conclude that " the foregoing review 
 of the civil and the military system of government 
 during the reign of Chandra Gupta proves clearly 
 that Northern India in the time of Alexander the 
 
 2 See Vincent Smith's " Early History of India," third edi- 
 tion, p. 135. 
 
 3 " Mr. Vincent Smith is always anxious to deprive India 
 of the credit of all her achievements in art and literature." 
 Indian Historical Studies by Prof. H. D. G. Rawlinson, p. 227. 
 
INTRODUCTION ii 
 
 Great had attained to a high degree of civilisation 
 which must have been the product of evolution con- 
 tinued through many centuries.'' ^ 
 
 As for Asoka, Vincent Smith has discredited the 
 stories of his having been guilty of excesses as- 
 cribed to his early career by other historians. In 
 any case, all historians are unanimous about the ex- 
 cellence of his administration. " The lofty moral 
 tone of these edicts" {i. e., Asoka's edicts), says 
 Rawlinson (page 2y of " Indian Historical Studies") , 
 " indicates clearly enough that India in the third 
 century b. c. was a highly civilised country ; it must, 
 indeed, have compared favourably v^ii?h the rest of 
 the world of the time; for Greece was sinking fast 
 into a state of corrupt decadence, and Rome, in the 
 throes of her struggle with Carthage, had scarcely 
 yet emerged from barbarism." No Indian need 
 make any higher claim than this for the India of 
 the third century b. c. Finally, as about the po- 
 litical unity of India in the past, let it be noted that 
 I do not claim that India was always united under 
 one political authority or even under one political 
 system. At the same time it is equally untrue that 
 India was never a political unity. Most of the 
 British writers are disposed to deny that there has 
 been or is any kind of unity in India. This may be 
 disposed of by the following quotation from Vin- 
 cent Smith's "Early History of India" (page 5) : 
 " 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 
 
 *The italics in the above quotation are mine. 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 civilisation, too, has many features which differ- 
 entiate it from that of all other regions of the 
 world, while they are common to the whole coun- 
 try, or rather sub-continent, in a degree sufficient to 
 justify its treatment as a unity in the history of the 
 social, religious and intellectual development of 
 mankind." ^ He adds, however, that *' the com- 
 plete political unity of India under the control of a 
 permanent power, wielding unquestioned authority, 
 is a thing of yesterday, barely a century old. The 
 most notable of her rulers in the olden time cher- 
 ished the ambition of universal Indian dominion, 
 and severally attained it in a greater or lesser de- 
 gree; not one of them, however, attained it com- 
 pletely." The point admits of great controversy 
 and anything like a proper discussion would add to 
 the bulk of this book so much as would be out of 
 proportion to its bearing on the main subject. Mr. 
 Vincent Smith admits that Asoka's Empire included 
 the whole of India proper except a tiny bit of the 
 Southern peninsula lying between Nellore and Cape 
 Comorin. (See map of Asoka's Empire in his his- 
 tory, between pages 162-163.) The exclusion of 
 this bit is based not on any positive evidence that 
 this part was not included within his empire, but on 
 the absence of positive evidence to the contrary. It 
 is as if men living two thousand years after our day 
 should expect it to be proved to their satisfaction 
 
 5 See also Mr. E. B. Havell's Ideals of Indian Art, pp. 11-12. 
 Mr, Havell's conclusion is : " We may see if we have eyes to 
 see, that all India is one in spirit, however diverse in race and 
 in creed." 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 by positive documentary evidence that every bit of 
 India v^as included in the British Empire under 
 Queen Victoria. Again, the fact that Asoka's Em- 
 pire did not include the Southernmost part of the 
 Indian Peninsula v^as more than compensated by 
 the inclusion of almost the whole of Afghanistan 
 and Beluchistan and Nepal in his dominions. The 
 territories comprising the kingdom of Nepal are not 
 included in the British Empire, although they con- 
 stitute a necessary part of India. Yet even Vincent 
 Smith does not doubt that India is a political unity 
 to-day. 
 
 Then again it is only very recently that he and 
 other historians have found out the data for a his- 
 tory of the Gupta Empire from 320 to 455 a. d., 
 about the extent of w^hich he says: 
 
 " The dominions under the direct government of 
 Samundra Gupta in the middle of the fourth cen- 
 tury thus comprised all the populous and fertile 
 countries of Northern India. . . . Beyond those 
 wide limits the frontier kingdoms of Assam and the 
 Gangetic delta as well as those on the southern 
 slopes of the Himalayas and the free tribes of 
 Malwa and Rajputana were attached to the Empire 
 by bonds of subordinate alliance; while almost all 
 the kingdoms of the South had been overrun by the 
 Emperor's armies and compelled to acknowledge 
 his irresistible might. 
 
 " Whatever may have been the exact degree of 
 skill attained by Samundra Gupta in the practice of 
 the arts which graced his scanty leisure, it is clear 
 
14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 that he was endowed with no ordinary powers ; and 
 that he was in fact a man of genius, who may fairly 
 claim the title of the Indian Napoleon. 
 
 " By a strange irony of fate this great king — 
 warrior, poet, and musician — who conquered 
 nearly all India, and whose alliances extended from 
 the Oxus to Ceylon — was unknown even by name 
 to the historians until the publication of this work.^ 
 His lost fame has been slowly recovered by the 
 minute and laborious study of inscriptions and 
 coins during the last eighty years." 
 
 It may be mentioned, in passing, that monarchs 
 of the Samundra Gupta type, who may be compared 
 easily with a Charlemagne, a Frederick or a Peter 
 the Great, have flourished in India almost every 
 second generation. Hindu folk-lore has known 
 them as Vikramadityas (Suns of Power) and has 
 invested their names with " the halo of Arthurian 
 romance." And this was a time in the history of 
 the world when Egypt and Babylon had already 
 passed away, when China was in a state of " an- 
 archy," when the Roman Empire was under the 
 heels of the barbarians, and when the Saracenic Em- 
 pire (Caliphate) had not yet come into existence. 
 England, France and Germany were simply non est. 
 
 Now, the history of India before looo a. d. has 
 not yet been completely constructed, and who knows 
 but that by future researches some other Samundra 
 Guptas may be discovered? But in any case, the 
 point is not so very important. In that sense even 
 now, India may not be called a complete political 
 
 « First Edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1905. 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 unity. It was not so in 1830 a. d. Up till 1849 
 the Punjab was independent and so were the other 
 provinces annexed by Lord Dalhousie. So Vincent 
 Smith's claim, that it has been so since 1818 a. d J 
 is not well founded. What is more important for 
 our purpose is the present and the future. It is 
 claimed that under the British, India is a political 
 unity though Nepal is still independent. 
 
 The critics of Indian aspirations are very unfair, 
 when they compare the India of the seventeenth or 
 the eighteenth or even of the nineteenth century 
 with Great Britain, Germany, France and United 
 States of the twentieth. They forget that the po- 
 litical nations known by these names are only the 
 growth of yesterday. India is as big as the whole 
 of Europe excluding Russia. Yet what was Eu- 
 rope before the nineteenth century? It was a big 
 camp of warring nations and warring religions, en- 
 gaged in exterminating and persecuting each other 
 alternately. India was more or less a political 
 unity when Great Britain was smarting under the 
 heels of the Romans. It took the British over 1600 
 years to establish their present political unity. 
 Compare the following account of " England under 
 foreign rule" (1013-1204), given by Green in his 
 " Short History of the English People," with the 
 condition of things in India from the time of Sa- 
 mundra Gupta onwards. 
 
 " Britain had become England in the five hundred 
 years that followed the landing of Hengest, and its 
 
 ■^ See footnote to p. 5, of his " Early History of India," 
 3rd ed. 
 
i6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 conquest had ended in the settlement of its con- 
 querors. . . . But whatever titles kings might as- 
 sume, or however imposing their rule might appear, 
 Northumbrian remained apart from West Saxon, 
 Dane from Englishman. 
 
 " Through the two hundred years that lie be- 
 tween the flight of Aethelred from England to Nor- 
 mandy and that of John from Normandy to Eng- 
 land our story is a story of foreign rule. Kings 
 from Denmark were succeeded by kings from Nor- 
 mandy, and these by kings from Anjou. Under 
 Dane, Norman, or Angevin, Englishmen were a 
 subject race, conquered and ruled by foreign mas- 
 ters; and yet it was in these years of subjection that 
 England first became really England. . . . The 
 English Lords themselves sank into a middle class 
 as they were pushed from their place by a foreign 
 baronage who settled on English soil." 
 
 " In 800 A. D.," says Mr. West, in his modern 
 history, revised edition, page 4, " Europe was still 
 sunk deep in the barbarism that followed the long 
 anarchy of the invasions, and the brief revival of 
 Charlemagne had not gone far toward restoring 
 civilisation. Schools and learning were almost ex- 
 tinct; commerce hardly existed; communication be- 
 tween district and district was almost impossible; 
 money was so scarce that revenue had to be col- 
 lected in produce; and manners and morals were 
 alike deplorable." There has been hardly any 
 period in the history of India about which anything 
 so disparaging can be said. Again says Mr. West, 
 " From 814 to about iioo, Europe had three cen- 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 turies of * Dark Ages/ caused by a new series of 
 barbarian invasions and continued by * feudal ' vio- 
 lence of the local military organisation that society 
 adopted to v^ard off these invasions/' In fact 
 Europe was in constant war right up to 1870, and 
 the idea of nationhood had not developed till late 
 in the nineteenth century. It is then not right to 
 taunt the Indians with the absence of a perfected 
 nationality in their country. Yet it can not be de- 
 nied that the idea of nationhood is being developed 
 pretty fast in India, even on modern lines. In fact 
 I maintain that fundamentally India has been a na- 
 tion for the last 2000 years, in spite of the fact that 
 at times it has been divided into several kingdoms 
 and principalities, sometimes under a common 
 empire and in other times independent of each 
 other. 
 
 But even if the worst happens and India is split 
 up into a number of political units, what then? To 
 me this does not appear to be so appalling as it may 
 seem to others. Some Indians think that in any 
 case it is better to be men fighting their own battles 
 than to be mere creatures always in the leading 
 strings of others. They have no faith in " peace at 
 any price " or in " peace under any circumstances." 
 
 Ill 
 
 This book was written when I was travelling in 
 the United States from January to May, 19 15. It 
 was ready for the press in June, 191 5. Its publica- 
 tion has been delayed by causes which need not be 
 stated. 
 
i8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Since then much has happened in India which 
 bears upon the subject and might briefly be referred 
 to here. 
 
 Early in 191 5 something Hke organised anarchy 
 and disorder broke out in the Southwestern districts 
 of the Punjab, resulting in the free looting of many 
 villages in several districts. This lawlessness was 
 due to war. It is said that the police and the offi- 
 cers were overtaken by panic and order was not re- 
 stored until strong measures were taken from the 
 headquarters. About 4000 persons were arrested 
 in connection with these disturbances and some 800 
 of them were sentenced to different terms of im- 
 prisonment, the rest being acquitted for want of evi- 
 dence. 
 
 Towards the end of 19 14 and in the first few 
 months of 191 5 the Punjab was the scene of many 
 dacoities and murders, committed by and under the 
 inspiration of Indians who had returned to India 
 from abroad to take advantage of the war situation 
 for political purposes. Some of these persons had 
 gone from Canada; some from China; and some 
 from the Pacific Coast of the United States. 
 Amongst them were a large number of those who 
 had been refused admission into Canada by the Ca- 
 nadian authorities and who had suffered enor- 
 mously by their trip to Canada and back. The first 
 clash between the latter and the Government took 
 place at Budge Budge,^ in Bengal, where the re- 
 turned emigrants from Canada landed in order to 
 proceed to their homes in the Punjab. The Gov- 
 
 8 A town on the Eastern Coast of India. 
 
INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 ernment wanted to restrict their freedom of move- 
 ment and would not let them go to Calcutta, 
 whither a number of them wanted to proceed. 
 These persons had concealed arms in their posses- 
 sion, and it appears that there was a free fight be- 
 tween them and the police, resulting in fatal casual- 
 ties on both sides. About this time or a little later, 
 the Government of India passed a special law, au- 
 thorising officials to intern or imprison any person 
 or persons in British India without trial, on mere 
 suspicion of his or their being dangerous to the 
 tranquillity of the country. Under this law they 
 began to intern a large number of those who had 
 returned from Canada and the United States and 
 other places outside India, until the number reached 
 to thousands. Most of them, perhaps, were kept 
 only under surveillance. Yet a good many of 
 them managed to put themselves into communi- 
 cation with the revolutionary party in India and 
 eventually organised a " widespread conspiracy " to 
 subvert British rule. The Government discovered 
 this conspiracy by means of spies, who entered into 
 the designs of the conspirators as ''agents provo- 
 cateurs/' It appears from the evidence subse- 
 quently given before the special tribunal appointed 
 to try those who were arrested in connection with 
 this conspiracy, that their plans were laid out on 
 a comprehensive scale, with everything organised 
 in a perfect way; that full provision had been made 
 for finances as well as arms, and that the army had 
 been approached with more or less success at dif- 
 ferent places in Northern India. At first a batch 
 
20 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of about 65 were placed for trial before the special 
 tribunal consisting of two English judges and one 
 Indian. This tribunal was formed under the spe- 
 cial law referred to above, and its decision was to 
 be final in the sense that no appeal could be made 
 from it to any other superior court. The tribunal 
 eventually found that the conspiracy was seditious 
 in its nature, and but for its timely discovery would 
 have resulted in " widespread disaster." The pro- 
 ceedings of the tribunal were not open to the public 
 nor to the press. A brief report of the proceedings 
 was issued from day to day under the authority of 
 the tribunal. Some of the accused could not be 
 found. Out of the 61 charged, only 4 were ac- 
 quitted, 6 were sentenced to various terms of im- 
 prisonment, 27 to transportation for life,® and 24 
 to death. ^^ Commenting on this trial, the Lieuten- 
 ant Governor of the Punjab observed in the course 
 of a speech made in the Punjab Legislative Council 
 held on September 25, 191 5, that " these crimes did 
 all over the Central Punjab from November, 19 14, 
 to July, 191 5, create a state not only of alarm and 
 insecurity, but of terror and even panic, and if they 
 had not been promptly checked by the firm hand of 
 authority and the active co-operation of the people, 
 would have produced in the province as was in- 
 tended by the conspirators a state of affairs similar 
 to that of Hindustan in the mutiny ^^ — paralysis 
 
 ® Some of these sentences have been reduced. 
 
 10 In 16 cases these sentences have been commuted to life- 
 long imprisonment not out of mercy as the Viceroy has him- 
 self officially pointed out, but in consideration of the evidence. 
 
 1^ The great mutiny of 1857, of which more hereafter. 
 
INTRODUCTION 21 
 
 of authority, widespread terrorism and murder not 
 only of the officers of the Government but of loyal 
 and well disposed subjects." What is significant 
 is, that the leader, Rash Behari Bose, a Bengalee, 
 who had organised several such conspiracies, es- 
 caped. Commenting upon the same trial, the Times 
 of India, an influential Anglo-Indian paper pub- 
 lished in Bombay, remarked: 
 
 "If this conspiracy had been disclosed in or- 
 dinary times there might have been a tendency to 
 regard the members as representative of a consider- 
 able class of India . . . but, as it is, the revolu- 
 tionary party stands out a mere fraction of the 
 population, a dangerous and determined section of 
 the population perhaps, yet so small that it can not 
 command any chance of success while the sentiment 
 of the country remains what it has been so splen- 
 didly proved to be." 
 
 Commenting upon the severity of the sentences 
 inflicted, the Indian press took occasion to point out 
 the grievous wrongs under which the country suf- 
 fered at the hands of the British. After the con- 
 clusion of this case, over 100 persons more were in- 
 dicted at Lahore ^^^ and a very large number at Be- 
 nares, in connection with the same conspiracy. Be- 
 sides, a number of men belonging to the military 
 were tried and convicted in different stations in 
 Northern India. 
 
 In Bengal political crime was rampant in a viru- 
 
 iia Six of them have been sentenced to death, 45 to transpor- 
 tation for life, some to imprisonment and some have been 
 acquitted. 
 
22 INTRODUCTION 
 
 lent form throughout 191 5. The Bengalee revolu- 
 tionaries have kept the Government pretty busy all 
 along the line, murdering police officials, looting 
 treasuries, and committing dacoities, sometimes 
 under the very nose of the pohce in the heart of 
 the metropolis, resulting occasionally in so-called 
 pitched battles between the police and the revolu- 
 tionaries. Numberless trials have been going on 
 in special tribunals constituted under the Defense of 
 India Act, as well as in the ordinary courts. Large 
 numbers of persons have been punished and equally 
 large numbers are still undergoing trial. 
 
 There was a serious rising in Singapore, which 
 was eventually put down with the help of the Japa- 
 nese and French troops, and in connection with 
 which a good many European lives were lost. 
 Similarly, men smuggling arms and seditious litera- 
 ture, or attempting to smuggle arms, or otherwise 
 carrying on anti-British propaganda, have been dis- 
 covered, arrested and held in Burma, Singapore, 
 Hongkong, Shanghai and Ceylon. A large number 
 of Indians are in internment in Hongkong. Two 
 Indian revolutionaries were deported from Japan, 
 at the instance of the British Government, and sev- 
 eral have been, I hear, interned in Java by the or- 
 ders of the Dutch Government. Har Dayal and 
 several others have been active in Europe and Asia 
 Minor. The Hindu revolutionaries in the United 
 States have also been busy in their propaganda. It 
 is said that the Germans have been helping the In- 
 dians with funds and arms. How far they did 
 render any substantial help in this matter is not 
 
INTRODUCTION 23 
 
 known, but the conclusion of the Lahore Special 
 Tribunal, that it was known to the leaders of the 
 " Gadar " party in San Francisco in 19 14, that a 
 war between the British and Germans was on the 
 tapis in August of that year, appears to be without 
 foundation. The Indians who left the United 
 States in 19 14 to organise a rebellion in India, were 
 neither financed nor otherwise inspired by the Ger- 
 mans. They went of their own accord, with their 
 own money and on their own hook. Some of them 
 were men of means. It may be true, however, that 
 the Germans have helped the Indian revolutionaries 
 with money and arms since. So much about the 
 revolutionaries. 
 
 IV 
 
 Now something about the activity of the other 
 wing of the Indian nationalists. When the war 
 started, all of them declared for England, some sin- 
 cerely, others for reasons of expediency. All were 
 influenced by hopes of advancing their cause. For 
 a time the appreciation in England — in and out of 
 Parliament — amply justified their expectations. 
 The first shock came when the British War Office 
 refused to accept the offers of the Indian students 
 in British universities to enlist in the army or as 
 volunteers. The same fate met the offers of edu- 
 cated Indians in India. The offers made by some 
 native princes and in a few cases by other members 
 of the aristocracy for personal service were ac- 
 cepted, otherwise no relaxation in favour of any 
 Indian was made in the rules for enlistment in the 
 
i4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 regular army or in the volunteers. The following 
 extracts from the two leading Indian dailies of Cal- 
 cutta and Allahabad will explain what I mean. The 
 Bengalee of Calcutta said : 
 
 " When the war suddenly broke out in Europe 
 there was a great outburst of feeling in India to 
 serve the Empire in any capacity. There was a 
 widespread desire among the more ardent spirits in 
 this country to fight in defence of the Empire, and 
 in Bengal, at any rate, there was an eager rush to 
 enlist as volunteers. These young men were will- 
 ing to cast aside their attitude of aloofness from 
 what was primarily England's concern. They set 
 before themselves a new ideal, the ideal of national 
 self-realisation. By their participation in this 
 struggle they felt they would be fighting the battles 
 of their own freedom. It was the highest tribute 
 the Government could expect from the people of 
 this country of their loyalty and devotion to the 
 throne. But the chill air of official scepticism 
 nipped the scheme in the bud. We were told at the 
 time not to embarrass the Government in any way; 
 but we still lived in hopes that some means might 
 be devised which would enable our young men to 
 participate in this struggle so that from comrade- 
 ship in arms there might arise comradeship in life 
 leading to the necessary elevation of our status in 
 the Empire. But a bureaucracy, with its instinctive 
 disregard of others' feelings and interests, not only 
 threw cold water on this salutary scheme but ap- 
 plied its mind to forging new fetters of repression. 
 Thus the Defense of the Realm Act came to be 
 
INTRODUCTION 25 
 
 passed, which is far more drastic and stringent than 
 the similar statute in England. Internments have 
 since become the order of the day. The whole 
 thing offers a painful illustration of the psychology 
 of the bureaucratic mind in its endeavour to breed 
 loyalty and prevent disaffection. For while the 
 spontaneous offer of our people, which was the out- 
 come of a generous impulse and of genuine senti- 
 ments of loyalty and devotion, has been refused, 
 fresh doses of repression are being applied to the 
 wound thus inflicted on the minds of the people. 
 But the crisis is not yet over, nor has the rising tide 
 of feeling in this country completely subsided. 
 There is a demand for men, always for more men, 
 at the front. It seems we can not have too many 
 men or too much of munitions if we desire a crush- 
 ing victory. All the factories of England — and 
 every available factory has been utilised for the 
 manufacture of munitions of war — are working 
 at top speed for the production of powder and 
 shells for cannon. As regards men, volunteers are 
 pouring forth from Canada, Australia, New Zea- 
 land and the mother country itself, in fact from all 
 parts of the British Empire, except India. Can any 
 one say why this invidious distinction is yet main- 
 tained? Why, while gifts of every sort from us 
 are gladly accepted, the most precious gift of all, 
 that of personal service with all the attendant risk 
 that it implies, continues to be so unwelcome? 
 Lord Kitchener is still calling for men. Mr. Bonar 
 Law's recent speech at Shrewsbury indicates that 
 even conscription may have to be resorted to. Why 
 
26 INTRODUCTION 
 
 not then accept the offers of our men? The regu- 
 lar troops in the fighting Hne have earned no end of 
 praise from the highest authorities for the display 
 of their martial qualities. The Ambulance Corps 
 shows the latest potentialities in our young men that 
 are capable of development under proper guidance 
 and training. We have not the slightest doubt that 
 our volunteers would prove themselves equally fit 
 and capable, no matter what the duties they are 
 called upon to discharge. This war is said to be a 
 war of democracy against militarism and autocracy, 
 a holy war of justice and righteousness against the 
 violation of international morality and the inde- 
 pendence of small nations. Are these assertions 
 strictly consistent with the refusal of our loyal offer, 
 which also amounts to a denial of our equality of 
 status with the rest of the Empire? If, during the 
 heat of the war and in the midst of the crisis, there 
 be yet observed and maintained this patent inequal- 
 ity of treatment and this assertion of racial su- 
 periority, how can we expect that they will be alto- 
 gether forgotten or cast aside after the war when 
 the readjustment comes to be made? Repression, 
 we repeat for the hundredth time, is a disintegrat- 
 ing force. It alienates sympathies, destroys union 
 and throws people into camps. Co-operation on 
 the other hand is a healing and a cementing prin- 
 ciple. But without equality of treatment there can 
 not be any co-operation, and without co-operation 
 there can not be any prospect of permanent peace. 
 By accepting our offer the Government may give an 
 earnest of future reforms and concessions. It will 
 
INTRODUCTION 27 
 
 sensibly ease and improve the situation both here 
 and at the front. But bureaucracy has so far failed 
 to realise the situation and avail itself of the op- 
 portunity. Let not the words * too late ' be w^ritten 
 by the future historian, regarding the action of the 
 bureaucracy in this chapter of the history of India. 
 . . . India wants equality of status with the rest of 
 the Empire, and as a means to this end her sons 
 want to fight as volunteers in this war; and if what 
 Burke has said be true of Englishmen, neither the 
 one nor the other of India's claims can be justly de- 
 nied to her." 
 
 In its issue of September 8, 191 5, the Leader, of 
 Allahabad, said: 
 
 " The not unkindly critics of John Bull have 
 often remarked that he has got a stolid tempera- 
 ment and an unemotional nature. The occasions 
 are few and far between when he allows himself to 
 be swayed by any strong outburst of passion. One 
 such exception to this general course of conduct was 
 furnished last year at the outbreak of the war. . . . 
 When Lord Hardinge wired to England the mes- 
 sage of India, her ungrudging and whole-hearted 
 response to the call of the hour, its announcement 
 in the House of Commons touched the deepest 
 chords in the hearts of Englishmen. Then, for 
 once, they let themselves go. There was almost a 
 storm of English emotion. Even the Times 
 thought that it foreshadowed a great change in the 
 relations of India and England. * Asiaticus ' joined 
 the chorus and swelled the psean of the praise of 
 Indian loyalty. He recanted his words of former 
 
28 INTRODUCTION 
 
 days. He even praised Mr. Tilak. Mr. Roberts 
 spoke of a change in the angle of vision. Other 
 statesmen and other papers uttered the same lan- 
 guage of joy and hope. All this naturally raised 
 the hopes of India. Some, more imaginative than 
 others, conjured up visions of glory. They imag- 
 ined they could see the distant gleam of self-gov- 
 ernment. Others again, with a less imaginative 
 nature, thought that even if self-government was 
 still a far-off dream, they might yet see better days. 
 The landing of Indian troops on the European soil 
 was the signal for the outburst of another demon- 
 stration of feeling. Their heroic deeds, their un- 
 questioning devotion to duty, formed the theme of 
 sketch writers and leader writers in the English 
 press. And yet to any one who has closely fol- 
 lowed the course of events during the last six or 
 seven months and studied the writings of the Eng- 
 lish press and the utterances of notable Englishmen 
 in England and India, nothing is more clear than 
 that an ominous reserve has again overtaken the 
 English mind. Mr. Bonar Law talks of a consulta- 
 tion with the colonies, and forgets the very exist- 
 ence of India. Mr. Austen Chamberlain, since the 
 day he assumed his office, has put a seal on his lips, 
 and, whatever may flow beneath the surface from 
 Downing Street to Delhi or Simla, nothing has 
 fallen from his lips that can inspire confidence or 
 kindle hope. The House of Lords have already 
 given their reply to a sympathetic Viceroy, when, 
 in the name of avoiding controversial issues, they 
 
INTRODUCTION 29 
 
 shelved the question of an Executive Council for 
 these provinces, which is another way of saying that 
 they strangled it. Lord Curzon, Lord MacDonnel 
 and Lord Sydenham are not likely to learn the wis- 
 dom which the force of events would teach to more 
 plastic minds. If Indian students in England ap- 
 proach the higher authorities with a prayer that they 
 may be admitted to the Officer's Training Corps, 
 they are told to wait — indefinitely. If Sir George 
 Scott Robertson, with imprudent enthusiasm, sug- 
 gests the creation of an Indian guard, he is roundly 
 told that he is impatient. * Asiaticus ' has again 
 frankly gone back upon his short-lived liberalism, 
 and Sir Valentine Chirol is no better. Conven- 
 ience suggests the postponement of discussion of the 
 Indian Budget, and the statute allows it. Out here 
 in India the doctrine of unconditional loyalty is 
 held up to us. We are told that it is a folly, if not 
 a crime, to talk of what may come to India when 
 the time for readjustment comes. Meanwhile In- 
 dian speculation, so natural to a nation of specula- 
 tors, is roaming free. Hopes spring up only to give 
 place to fears. . . . 
 
 " There are not wanting men among us also who 
 have only one counsel to give, and that is, wait and 
 see. No doubt the virtues of patience are great, 
 but we think that so far as patience alone is con- 
 cerned India may easily throw out a challenge to 
 any nation in the world. If India will not help 
 herself she will have little reason to grumble if 
 others will not help her. Let us distinctly tell Eng- 
 
30 INTRODUCTION 
 
 land that the time for half measures and gingerly 
 reform has gone and that for bold and courageous 
 steps has come." 
 
 The Indian National Congress, the official or- 
 ganisation of the constitutional party, held its an- 
 nual session at Madras in December, 1914. In the 
 course of his speech, the President remarked : 
 
 " If English rule in India meant the canonisation 
 of a bureaucracy, if it meant perpetual domination 
 and perpetual tutelage, and increasing dead-weight 
 on the soul of India, it would be a curse to civilisa- 
 tion and a blot on humanity." 
 
 Again he asks complainingly : 
 
 ** The right to carry arms, the right to bear com- 
 missions in the Army and lead our men in the cause 
 of the Empire, the right to form volunteer corps in 
 the defence of hearth and home, how long will these 
 be denied to the Indian people? How long will 
 India toddle on her feet, tied to the apron-strings 
 of England? It is time she stood on her own legs. 
 If England were obliged, as was Imperial Rome in 
 her day, to abandon India in the hour of some great 
 danger, what could be more humiliating to England 
 and to India alike, than for India to be left unarmed 
 and untrained in the use of arms, as her civil popu- 
 lation now is, a prey to internal anarchy and ex- 
 ternal aggression? What a commentary would it 
 be, on 150 years of British rule in India, that Eng- 
 land found the people strong though disunited and 
 left them helpless and emasculated? " 
 
INTRODUCTION 31 
 
 At Christmas, 191 5, the Congress again met 
 under the presidency of Sir S. P. Sinha, who was 
 in 1908 the first Indian appointed to be a mem- 
 ber of the Governor General's Executive Council, 
 the British Cabinet in India. In the words of an 
 Indian magazine, the speech delivered by him as 
 coming from a man who has obtained *' wealth, high 
 position and honour " from the British connection 
 and who has been " in the inner Councils of the 
 Government," is most significant in its ideals as 
 well as demands. His ideal of a government 
 for India has been borrowed from Abraham Lin- 
 coln of the United States, viz., ** Government of 
 the people, by the people, for the people." He 
 says : 
 
 " What I do say is that there should be a frank 
 and full statement of the policy of Government as 
 regards the future of India, so that hope may come 
 where despair holds sway and faith where doubt 
 spreads its darkening shadow, and that steps should 
 be taken towards self-government by the gradual 
 development of popular control over all depart- 
 ments of Government and by removal of disabilities 
 and restrictions under which we labour both in our 
 own country and in other parts of the British Em- 
 pire." 
 
 Among the definite reforms and remedial and 
 progressive measures which he demands are: 
 
 "Firstly — The grant of commissions in the army 
 and military training for the people. 
 
 " Secondly — The extension of local self-govern- 
 ment. 
 
32 INTRODUCTION 
 
 " Thirdly — The development of our commerce, 
 industries and agriculture." 
 
 Regarding the first he goes into details as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 " 1st. We ask for the right to enlist in the 
 regular army, irrespective of race or province or 
 origin, but subject only to prescribed tests of physi- 
 cal fitness. 
 
 '' 2nd. We ask that the commissioned ranks of 
 the Indian army should be thrown open to all classes 
 of His Majesty's subjects, subject to fair, reason- 
 able and adequate physical and educational tests, 
 and that a military college or colleges should be 
 established in India where proper military training 
 can be received by those of our countrymen who 
 may have the good fortune to receive His Majesty's 
 commission. 
 
 " 3rd. We ask that all classes of His Majesty's 
 subjects should be allowed to join as volunteers, 
 subject of course to such rules and regulations as 
 will ensure proper control and discipline, and 
 
 " 4th. That the invidious distinctions under the 
 Arms Act should be removed. This has no real 
 connection with the three claims, but I deal with it 
 together with the others as all these disabilities are 
 justified on the same ground of political expedi- 
 ency." 
 
 As to the reasons why we should have self-gov- 
 ernment, he said : 
 
 " A British Premier early in this century very 
 truly observed, ' Good government can not be a 
 substitute for self-government.' Says a recent 
 
INTRODUCTION 33 
 
 writer in a well-known British periodical, * Every 
 Englishman is aware that on no account, not if he 
 were to be governed by an angel from heaven, 
 would he surrender that most sacred of all his 
 rights, the right of making his own laws. . . . He 
 would not be an Englishman, he would not be able 
 to look English fields and trees in the face, if he had 
 parted with that right. Laws in themselves, have 
 never counted for much. There have been benefi- 
 cent despots and wise law-givers in all ages who 
 have increased the prosperity and probably the con- 
 tentment and happiness of their subjects but yet 
 their government has not stimulated the moral and 
 intellectual capacity latent in citizenship or fortified 
 its character or enlarged its understanding. There 
 is more hope for the future of mankind in the least 
 and faintest impulse towards self-help, self-realisa- 
 tion, self-redemption, than in any of the laws that 
 Aristotle ever dreamt of}^ The ideal, therefore, 
 of self-government is one that is not based merely 
 on emotion and sentiment, but on the lessons of 
 history." 
 
 What is, however, most significant, is his reply 
 to the criticism often made by ignorant and preju- 
 diced Englishmen and others as to what would be 
 the fate of India if England were to withdraw from 
 India and as to the Indians' fitness to manage their 
 affairs or to fight their battles. He observes : 
 
 " I take leave to point out, therefore, that it is not 
 correct, at any rate at the present time, to assert 
 of any sections of the Indian people that they are 
 
 12 The italics are mine. 
 
34 INTRODUCTION 
 
 wanting in such physical, courage and manly virtues 
 as to render them incapable of bearing arms. But 
 even if it were so, is it not the obvious duty of 
 England so to train them as to remove this inca- 
 pacity, especially if it be the case, as there is some 
 reason to believe, that it is English rule which has 
 brought them to such a pass? England has ruled 
 this country for considerably over 150 years now, 
 and surely it cannot be a matter of pride to her at 
 the end of this period that the withdrawal of her 
 rule would mean chaos and anarchy and would 
 leave the country an easy prey to any foreign ad- 
 venturers. There are some of our critics who 
 never fail to remind us that if the English were to 
 leave the country to-day, we would have to wire 
 to them to come back before they got to Aden. 
 Some even enjoy the grim joke that were the Eng- 
 lish to withdraw now, there would be neither a 
 rupee nor a virgin left in some parts of the country. 
 I can conceive of no more scathing indictment of 
 the results of British rule. A superman might 
 gloat over the spectacle of the conquest of might 
 over justice and righteousness, but I am much mis- 
 taken if the British nation, fighting now as ever for 
 the cause of justice and freedom and liberty, will 
 consider it as other than discreditable to itself that 
 after nearly two centuries of British rule India has 
 been brought to-day to the same emasculated con- 
 dition as that of the Britons in the beginning of the 
 fifth century ^^ when the Roman legions left the 
 English shores in order to defend their own coun- 
 ts The italics are mine, 
 
INTRODUCTION 35 
 
 try against the Huns, Goths and other barbarian 
 hordes." 
 
 The reader may well compare this with the fol- 
 lowing observation made by the present writer in a 
 pamphlet ^'^ recently issued by him on the political 
 situation in India. 
 
 " The whole world is free to keep arms and use 
 arms. Every civilised nation is interested in giv- 
 ing a military training to her boys and citizens and 
 in teaching them the use of arms and other military 
 tactics. Some countries do this by conscription, 
 others do it on a voluntary basis. No government 
 entitled to be called sane thinks of denying arms to 
 such of its people as want to use them for legiti- 
 mate purposes. The free possession of arms and 
 free training in military tactics for purposes of in- 
 dividual and national defence is the birthright of 
 every son of a mother. Even the Amir of Kabul 
 does not deny that to his people. Nations are 
 vying with each other in their military preparations 
 and in giving military training to their citizens. 
 Even China is thinking of introducing conscription. 
 In Japan military training is compulsory. In some 
 places even the girls learn the use of arms and prac- 
 tise fencing. In the United States as well as in the \ 
 other States of America the negroes and the Ameri- 
 can Indians can keep arms and receive military 
 training. But the Indians of India can not keep 
 arms. Every nation is interested in the manufac- 
 ture of arms and ammunition and in inventing 
 
 1* Some Reflections on the Political Situation in India, by 
 La j pat Rai, pp. 24-27. 
 
36 INTRODUCTION 
 
 effective methods of dealing with their enemies. 
 Governments give every encouragement to those 
 who invent new arms or improve old ones. All 
 this is denied to the Indians.^^ Why? Because 
 they are a subject people. Their government can- 
 not trust them. The strength of the native army 
 in India cannot exceed a certain proportion of the 
 British army; they cannot handle the artillery; and 
 numerous other restrictions are imposed upon the 
 possession and use of arms by them. Why? Are 
 they not fit to handle arms? Are they not brave? 
 Are they intemperate? None of these things can 
 be said of them. Yet no Indian can get a commis- 
 sioned rank, however high by birth or social posi- 
 tion, however fit by education. No Indian can be 
 admitted into a military college in India or in Great 
 Britain. Why? Are they unfit, or intellectually 
 and physically imbeciles? The truth is that the 
 Government of India, not being their own govern- 
 ment, they cannot be trusted. They can be en- 
 rolled as mere soldiers and that only in certain 
 numbers. Beyond that they cannot get any mili- 
 tary training or military rank. Nor can the civil 
 population be trusted to keep arms, much less to 
 
 15 The ludicrous extent to which the prohibition to keep and 
 use arms has been carried will be better illustrated by the fol- 
 lowing incident reported by the Bengalee of Calcutta. 
 
 " A five year old boy of Munshi Ganj Road, Kidderpore, had 
 a toy pistol purchased for one anna. On the 8th of August 
 last the child was playing with it but could not explode the 
 paper caps. A thirteen year lad showed him how to do it. 
 The boy was at once arrested by a beat constable and marched 
 off to the Wat Ganjthana with the fire arm. The boy was 
 eventually sent up for trial at Alipur and the Court fined him 
 three rupees." 
 
INTRODUCTION 37 
 
 manufacture them. Much fuss has been made 
 over the Indians having been allowed to participate 
 in the European War. The Indians have gone mad 
 over the incident, as if that were the greatest boon 
 that could be conferred on them. The truth is that 
 the step was actuated by and taken purely in British 
 interests. Without the Indian contingent Great 
 Britain could not send a decent expeditionary force 
 to France. The whole of the white army could not 
 be removed from India. In removing large num- 
 bers of them, it was necessary to remove propor- 
 tionately large numbers of the native army also. 
 The British Government is always distrustful of 
 the native army. No amount of false statements 
 and fallacious reasoning can conceal the fact that 
 the British in India cannot allow the Indians to 
 manufacture or carry arms, cannot give them a 
 military training, cannot even keep a large native 
 army (more than double the strength of the perma- 
 nent British garrison) because, being foreigners, 
 they cannot trust them. They fear that some day 
 the arms or mihtary training given them may be 
 used against themselves. Looking at it from their 
 point of view, perhaps, it cannot be said that they 
 may not be right. But then, why ask the Indians 
 to accept the pretence that the Government is na- 
 tional, and that they are the equal subjects of the 
 crown; why hide the truth and make false and 
 hypocritical declarations to the contrary? The 
 British know the weakness of their rule in India, 
 and in the disarming of the people they see the best 
 guarantee of the continuance of their own rule and 
 
38 INTRODUCTION 
 
 power. In the matter of arms, the present situa- 
 tion in India is this. One may steal arms ; one may 
 smuggle them; one may illicitly purchase them, 
 from those who have the freedom of possessing, for 
 the purpose of committing crime, but one cannot 
 have them for defending his life and property, or 
 the life and honour of his family (wife, mother, 
 sisters, and daughters ).^^ 
 
 *' It is this which gives awful power to the law- 
 less portions of society and which explains the 
 losses and hardships of those who have suffered 
 from the depredations of the latter and are suffer- 
 ing from dacoities and robberies and murders in 
 Bengal and Punjab and elsewhere. There are 
 plenty of arms in the country for the criminal, but 
 none for the peace-loving (who only want them for 
 defensive purposes). All this because the Govern- 
 ment of India is a foreign government which cannot 
 trust its subjects and which does not believe in their 
 loyalty. In the light of this fact, all talk about 
 the extraordinary outburst of loyalty becomes stale. 
 So long as this state of things continues, it is use- 
 less for the Government to expect that the people 
 can accept it and treat it as if it was their own 
 national government. Never before, since the in- 
 troduction of British rule in India, was the sense 
 of helplessness, that arises out of the consciousness 
 
 16 Commenting on the annual report of the issue of licenses 
 the Indian press have made similar statements. The Pun- 
 jabee says " while the ruffians bent on crime have been 
 able to secure fire arms by foul means, the law abiding section 
 of the community have for the most part continued helpless 
 owing to the difficulties of obtaining licenses for fire arms." 
 See also Bengalee of the 6th Oct. 1915. 
 
INTRODUCTION 39 
 
 of being a disarmed people, brought home to the 
 people of India so vividly and strongly as dur- 
 ing the war. A new fear has dawned on the pub- 
 lic mind. Suppose the British lose, we are lost, 
 says the Indian. The Germans may come or the 
 Russians or even the Amir of Kabul, we can- 
 not even make a show of resistance. A people so 
 helpless and dependent deserve to be despised by 
 the world. The war has made the Indian feel that, 
 as a British subject, he is really a despicable crea- 
 ture entitled to no consideration at the hands of 
 the other people of the world. Even the negroes 
 (whether in Africa or America) are much better 
 placed than he is. The prayers of Indian C. I. E.'s 
 and Rai Bahadurs and Khan Bahadurs notwith- 
 standing, the British cannot be invincible forever. 
 The time is to come when their prowess in arms 
 will decay. What will then be the fate of India 
 and Indians? Will they be transferred like sheep? 
 If they are not actually transferred by agreement, 
 the nation replacing the English as the world 
 power will take possession of India. The very idea 
 is disquieting and crushingly humiliating. But this 
 is not the only circumstance which constantly re- 
 minds the Indian people that their Government is 
 an alien Government, whose interest in them is only 
 secondary.*' 
 
 I will give one more quotation on this subject, 
 and this time from the speech of a Parsi gentleman 
 of extremely moderate views. Says Mr. Wacha: 
 
 " In connection with this war there is one seri- 
 ous disappointment to which I cannot refrain from 
 
40 INTRODUCTION 
 
 making reference in this place. Many an enlight- 
 ened and intelligent person, irrespective of caste 
 and creed, in every province of the Indian Empire, 
 has applied, from the very date of the declaration 
 of war, to go to the front and fight side by side 
 with the soldiers of the regular Indian army. 
 Even to-day thousands on thousands are willing 
 and ready to take up arms in the great cause for 
 which the Allies are fighting. But unfortunately, 
 the permanent bureaucracy of the land has sternly, 
 if politely, refused those applications, the why and 
 the wherefore of which has never been made known. 
 It is this attitude of the Government, in the midst 
 of the great tragic crisis, that has caused the bit- 
 terest disappointment to which many a leading 
 organ of public opinion has given full expression. 
 Russia, which has millions of population but less 
 numerous than that of India, has already raised 
 and is still raising a popular army full of ardour 
 and patriotism to overcome the forces of the mod- 
 ern Vandals who are such enemies of liberty and 
 freedom. The British Colonies are similarly raising 
 corps after corps to give succour to the mother 
 country, but strange to say, that while millions in 
 India are on the qui vive to offer their services, a 
 kind of proscription has gone forth from the 
 governing authorities that they shall not be en- 
 rolled. This is indeed an un-English attitude 
 which is unreconcilable with the entire policy of 
 British administration in every other part of the 
 Empire. I am only echoing the universal senti- 
 ments and feelings of my countrymen when I ven- 
 
INTRODUCTION 41 
 
 ture to say in this place that the Rulers of India 
 still seem to mistrust the people." 
 
 Comparing the policy of the British with Im- 
 perial Rome, Mr. Wacha concludes : 
 
 " We all devoutly hope that profiting by this 
 great achievement, Great Britain will not deny any 
 further to the Indian people the exercise of arms, 
 the want of which for so many years has led to their 
 emasculation/' '^'^, 
 
 This word " emasculation " affords the key to the 
 situation in India from the purely Indian point of 
 view. Political, physical and economic " emascu- 
 lation " is the keynote of British rule there, and 
 however they may cloak it with wrappings of pleas- 
 ant and golden words, and however they may con- 
 ceal it in finely woven sentences, like the cloven 
 feet it emerges at almost every step. The Modern 
 Review puts it well when it says: 
 
 " Under bureaucratic rule, India is the poorest, 
 the most unhealthy and the most ignorant among 
 civilised countries, and her poverty and unhealthi- 
 ness are not diminishing, and education is spread- 
 ing at a slower pace than that of the snail. The 
 remedy is Home Rule." 
 
 There is another brief quotation which I will 
 give, from the speech of the President of the last 
 session of the Indian National Congress, viz., the 
 one relating to the poverty of India. He says: 
 " Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to 
 whether India is growing richer or poorer under 
 the British rule, there is none with regard to her 
 1^ The italics are mine. 
 
42 INTRODUCTION 
 
 extreme poverty. And there can never be political 
 contentment without material prosperity, shared in 
 by all classes of the people. What the District Ad- 
 ministration Committee of Bengal quotes with ap- 
 proval as regards Bengal, that our industrial back- 
 wardness is a great political danger, applies in 
 reality to the whole of India. 
 
 *' No one will be disposed to question the fact 
 of this amazing backwardness. Rich in all the re- 
 sources of nature, India continues to be the poorest 
 country in the civilised zvorld." ^^ 
 
 VI 
 
 I do not propose to burden this preface with 
 other complaints which the Indian pohticians make 
 against the British Government, but I can not re- 
 frain from giving one more quotation from my 
 own pamphlet on the question of Education: 
 
 " Let us look at education in India. India has 
 been under British rule now for a century and a 
 half in some parts, for over a century in others, and 
 for at least 65 years in the Punjab. Yet the per- 
 centage of illiteracy is well nigh 95 per cent, tak- 
 ing the whole of India. Greatest ignorance pre- 
 vails among the peasantry and the military classes, 
 the two great bulwarks of British rule in India. 
 What has the Government done to educate these 
 classes? Nothing. Some maintain that they have 
 been deliberately kept out of education because, 
 once educated, they may no longer be such willing 
 tools as they are now. 
 
 18 The italics are mine. ' 
 
INTRODUCTION 43 
 
 "Agriculture in India, as elsewhere, is the least 
 paying of industries, and it is not at all strange that 
 large numbers of sturdy Punjabees prefer to labour 
 in other countries rather than rot on their farms 
 in the Punjab. In the early years of British rule 
 the educated and the trading classes flourished and 
 became prosperous, but now they are thoroughly 
 discontented. The native traders are no longer 
 happy under British rule, (i) because the railways 
 and foreign import and export offices dealing di- 
 rectly with the producer and the consumer have 
 ruined their business, (2) because the facilities 
 available to them in the early days of British rule 
 have disappeared, (3) because the bureaucracy is 
 always inciting the agricultural and military classes 
 against them and heaping insults on their devoted 
 heads both by word and deed. In almost every 
 province, special legislation has been enacted pro- 
 fessedly in the interests of the agricultural classes 
 but really directed against the Indian trader or 
 money lender. On the other hand, what has the 
 Government done to open non-agricultural pursuits 
 to them? Nothing. In the whole length and 
 breadth of the country there is not a single tech- 
 nological institute. The private or aided techno- 
 logical institutes are called by that name only by 
 courtesy. In these days of international trade 
 there is no provision in any of the Indian uni- 
 versities for the teaching of modern languages. 
 While Germans, Austrians, Italians, Americans and 
 Japanese can learn Hindustanee and English in 
 their own countries in order to further their trade 
 
44 INTRODUCTION 
 
 with India, the Government of India has never 
 given a thought to the necessity of making a pro- 
 vision for the teaching of German, French, Jap- 
 anese, &c., to the Indians and of encouraging In- 
 dians to learn these languages. The best part of 
 a boy's student life is compulsorily spent in acquir- 
 ing excellence in the use of the English language. 
 Indians are not supposed to know other languages 
 or to trade with other countries, because the Eng- 
 lish do it for them. It is not the concern of the 
 British to encourage the native to have direct com- 
 mercial transactions with foreign countries. There 
 is not a single place in India where an Indian stu- 
 dent can do research work in chemistry or other 
 sciences. While the country is full of mines, there 
 is no place to learn mining. Hundreds of steamers 
 come and go from Indian ports, but there is no 
 place in India where an Indian youth can qualify 
 himself even for the merchant marine, not to speak 
 of the navy. In the whole of India with its splendid 
 resources, there is not a single place where ships 
 can be built. The Indian Government has never 
 given a thought to these questions because they do 
 not concern them, because they are not interested 
 in the development of the indigenous industries and 
 in raising the status of the people. They have done 
 a lot to encourage the produce of raw materials 
 necessary for their industries or for their food 
 (cotton, wheat, oil, seeds, etc.), but almost nothing 
 to encourage manufacturing industries. Origi- 
 nally they wanted to preserve the Indian markets 
 for themselves only, but their policy of free trade 
 
INTRODUCTION 45 
 
 stood in the way, and latterly the Germans and now 
 the Japanese are sharing that market with them. 
 But to teach the Indian to manufacture for his own 
 consumption has never entered the thought of those 
 responsible for the administration of India. Per- 
 haps it is not right to say that it never entered their 
 thought. They are too intelligent and shrewd not 
 to know that they had not done their duty to India 
 in these matters, but the interest of their own peo- 
 ple was paramount and that they could not set 
 aside. 
 
 " The British Government in India can not go 
 in for universal elementary education, as there is 
 danger of even greater disaffection resulting there- 
 from; they can not give technical education of a 
 high order, as that might interfere with British in- 
 dustries; they can not protect Indian industries for 
 the same reason ; they can not provide for real high 
 class commercial education with a teaching of for- 
 eign languages and a knowledge of seafaring and 
 navigation, as they do not want the Indians to di- 
 rectly engage in oversea trade and contract relations 
 with other nations. They can not protect and sub- 
 sidise Indian industries, as that is opposed to free 
 trade and detrimental to British industries. Yet 
 they want the Indians to believe that the British 
 Government in India is primarily conducted in the 
 interests of India. 
 
 " The people of India must remain ignorant, 
 illiterate and industrially and commercially depend- 
 ent because that benefits England and is for the ad- 
 vantage of her people. 
 
46 INTRODUCTION 
 
 " But that is not all. The Government of India 
 can not even provide for high class education in 
 sciences, in engineering, and in medicine, for the 
 simple reason that the higher positions in these 
 professions they want to reserve for their own peo- 
 ple. Of late the number of Indians, educated and 
 trained in these departments of knowledge in Brit- 
 ish and other foreign universities, has so increased 
 as to become rather embarrassing to the Govern- 
 ment of India. They can not utilise them without 
 reducing the number of Britishers in these services. 
 This they do not desire. The result is that there 
 are numbers of trained Indians in India with high 
 class British and European qualifications who have 
 to be contented with subordinate positions under 
 Britishers of lesser qualifications, and perhaps, at 
 times, of no qualifications. The competitive ex- 
 aminations for higher services are held in England, 
 which in itself is a great injustice; but this year on 
 account of the war, there being fewer qualified Brit- 
 ishers to compete for these services, the Govern- 
 ment has resolved to discontinue ^^^ some of the ex- 
 aminations, for fear lest a larger number of In- 
 dians than is desirable might get into them. Can 
 they still say that the Government of India is as 
 good as or perhaps better than a national govern- 
 ment ? The truth is that they do not want a larger 
 number of Indians in the higher services because 
 
 18a The examinations have not been discontinued but statu- 
 tory provision has been made for a large proportion of the 
 appointments formerly filled by examination to be now filled 
 by nomination. 
 
INTRODUCTION 47 
 
 they can not trust them. For the same reason they 
 distrust private educational institutions and insist 
 upon the employment of Britishers as inspectors of 
 schools and as professors in the educational service. 
 They will allow a certain number of Indians in the 
 higher offices but that number must not be so large 
 as to make it even remotely possible for them to 
 create trouble for the Government. The same fear 
 underlies the administration of local bodies and the 
 constitution and powers of the Councils. It is 
 simply begging the question to argue that Indians 
 are not yet ready or fit for representative institu- 
 tions. The real question is the dread of power 
 passing from the Britishers into Indian hands.^^ 
 It is this dread that is the dominating influence in 
 the policy of the British Government in India. 
 India is a possession and a dependency and must be 
 administered in the best interests of the master. 
 Many credulous Indians talk of the liberty-loving 
 traditions of the British democracy, but they for- 
 get that the application of these traditions to India 
 would make such big holes in their safes, purses, 
 and incomes, that they as men swayed by self-in- 
 terest and love of power and glory, can never think 
 of enforcing these principles in India. The British 
 are good people. In all personal dealings they are 
 honest, frank, and reliable. But when national in- 
 terests are at stake and when the interests of the 
 
 1^ Mr. Lowes Dickinson, an English Professor who has 
 largely travelled in India, has practically admitted the truth of 
 this remark. (P. 23, An Essay on the Civilisation of India, 
 China, and Japan. See also pp. 27 and 28.) 
 
48 INTRODUCTION 
 
 nation dictate a different line of policy, they can not 
 help following the latter, however much injustice 
 and hardship they may inflict upon others in doing 
 so. The English political moralist and thinker be- 
 lieves and preaches that the state exists for the 
 people, that state and people are really interchange- 
 able words, and that the teachings of Treitschke, 
 that the state is greater than the people and that the 
 latter exists for the former, is immoral and vicious. 
 In Great Britain and the Colonies the British act 
 as they believe, but in India they follow the doc- 
 trines of the German professor. The state in 
 India is an authority imposed from without and is 
 therefore distinct from and independent of the 
 people. ^^ The state in India is the British people, 
 and therefore the interests of the latter must over- 
 ride those of the Indian people. Everything in 
 India is judged by that standard. The English 
 may be good, benevolent, just, kind, and fair- 
 minded, but all these virtues are dominated by the 
 supreme test mentioned above. All the real 
 troubles of India arise from this circumstance. 
 Everything connected with India is looked at from 
 this angle. Unless this angle changes there is no 
 possibility of any such changes taking place in the 
 system and the policy of the Government of India 
 as are likely to satisfy the self-respect of the Indian 
 or to remove the disadvantages from which the 
 country suffers." 
 
 20 The Pioneer of Allahabad, a semi-official organ of the 
 Anglo-Indians, has in a recent issue said that " The safety of 
 the State is and must be of far greater importance than the 
 rights of the individuals." 
 
INTRODUCTION 49 
 
 VII 
 
 The most significant development of National- 
 ism, however, that has taken place in the last year, 
 is the unity between the Hindus and the Moham- 
 medans on the question of self-government. It is 
 remarkable how the war has united the Hindus and 
 the Mohammedans, not only in their expressions of 
 loyalty to the Government, but also in their demand 
 for Home Rule and in their dissatisfaction with 
 the prevailing political conditions in India. For 
 the first time in the history of Indian Nationalism, 
 the Indian National Congress and the All-India 
 Muslim League have met in the same city. This 
 was opposed with the whole of their might by the 
 Ultra-Loyalists among the Mohammedans under 
 the inspiration of their Anglo-Indian masters. The 
 younger generation of the Mohammedans, however, 
 is so thoroughly filled with the idea of National- 
 ism that they carried the day and succeeded in hold- 
 ing a very successful session of their league at 
 Bombay in the same week in which the Indian Na- 
 tional Congress was holding its session in that city. 
 The result was that the members of both organisa- 
 tions met, compared notes, exchanged civihties, and 
 found out that there was practical unity among 
 them on all the important questions bearing upon 
 their relations with the Government. The Muslim 
 League President made pronouncements demand- 
 ing self-government, free compulsory education, 
 governmental help in industrial development, re- 
 moval of restrictions against the progress of, In- 
 
50 INTRODUCTION 
 
 dian industries, in almost the same terms and with 
 the same emphasis, if not even greater, than the In- 
 dian National Congress did. Both the organisa- 
 tions appointed a joint committee to draw up a 
 scheme of Home Rule which would meet the needs 
 and the approval of both the great religious com- 
 munities inhabiting that great country. 
 
 During the last year a scheme has been floated 
 by Mrs. Annie Besant, the president of the Theo- 
 sophical Society, a woman of great ability and of 
 world-wide fame, who has adopted India as her 
 home, but who at the same time is a patriotic Eng- 
 lishwoman, to organise a Home Rule League for 
 India, separate from and independent of both the 
 Indian National Congress and the All-India Mus- 
 lim League. This proposal has met with the ap- 
 proval of the advanced members of both the Hindu 
 and Mohammedan communities. Some leaders of 
 the Indian National Congress, however, see a dan- 
 ger to their Congress in the growth and develop- 
 ment of the Home Rule League. But it is won- 
 derful how the idea has caught hold of the public 
 mind. Practically the whole of the Nationalist 
 press and the Nationalist platform, with a few 
 minor exceptions, have declared in favour of the 
 proposal. The supporters of the Home Rule 
 League met at Bombay to formally decide the ques- 
 tion of giving practical effect to the idea which has 
 received the joint support of both the Hindus and 
 the Mohammedans. Mrs. Besant, however, her- 
 self, has shrunk from organising it just now, out 
 of deference to the opinions of some of the leaders 
 
INTRODUCTION 51 
 
 of the Indian National Congress, pending the re- 
 port of the joint committee formed to formulate a 
 scheme of Home Rule suited to India. Indian Na- 
 tionalism has thus advanced very much during the 
 last year. We have the two movements — one 
 representing force, the other peaceful agitation — 
 side by side, as has been the case in the history of 
 similar movements in other countries. One move- 
 ment represents the more virile section of the popu- 
 lation who believe in force, violence and terror- 
 ism; the other, those who depend upon appeal to 
 reason, justice and conscience. The combined 
 force of both, however, produces a momentum 
 which is sure to become irresistible in the course 
 of time. What is extremely hopeful is the entirely 
 changed attitude of the Mohammedan community. 
 The British wished for and tried to create an Ulster 
 among the Mohammedans of India. They had 
 well nigh succeeded, but the last three or four years 
 have brought about a complete change. The Mo- 
 hammedan masses had really never joined the edu- 
 cated Mohammedan Separatists, but even the latter 
 have now found out that the policy of separation 
 from the Hindus which was in their minds for some 
 time, can not eventually bring any lasting good to 
 their community. With their Hindu countrymen 
 they feel that India must occupy the first place in 
 their affections and thoughts, and that it was not 
 inconsistent for them to be Mohammedans in re- 
 ligion and Indians in politics. Similarly, the 
 Hindu sentiment, that was growing somewhat anti- 
 Mohammedan on account of the Mohammedan sen- 
 
52 INTRODUCTION 
 
 timent of separation, has been greatly softened. 
 The Mohammedans have begun to feel that they 
 can share in the ancient glory of India without an 
 outrage to their Mohammedanism. The Hindus 
 have come to realise that after all the Mohammedan 
 rule in India was not so bad or tyrannical and op- 
 pressive as they were told it was by interested his- 
 torians. The Mohammedans feel that they can be 
 as proud of the Hindu heroes, Rama and Krishna, 
 of the Hindu Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahab- 
 harta, of Hindu science and Hindu philosophy, as 
 the Hindus themselves are, without being false to 
 their religion or to their community. Similarly the 
 Hindus feel that they can be as proud of a 
 Sher Shah and an Akbar and a Shah Jahan, of 
 Alberuni, of Ibn Batuta, of Abul Fazal, Faizi and 
 Galib, as the Mohammedans can be. Nay, they can 
 go a step further and say that even Aurangzeb was 
 not, after all, so bad as they had supposed him to be. 
 The Hindus and Mohammedans have discovered 
 that they can take part in their respective festivals 
 and take pride in their respective past, without in 
 any way being traitors to their respective religions 
 and communities. 
 
 VIII 
 
 That the above statements are not mere creations 
 of my own brain, but are based on fact, will be 
 easily seen from the following extracts which I 
 make from the speech of the President of the last 
 session of the All-India Muslim League held at 
 Bombay in December, 191 5. 
 
INTRODUCTION 53 
 
 First, about the representative character of the 
 assembly, Mr. Mazhar-ul-Haq remarked: 
 
 " Please accept my sincere and heartfelt thanks 
 for the great honour you have done me by electing 
 me the President of the All-India Muslim League 
 this year. It is a proud privilege to preside over 
 and guide the deliberations of this distinguished 
 gathering, where representatives of seventy millions 
 of his Britannic Majesty's Indian Muslim subjects 
 are assembled in conference for the betterment of 
 their condition, and for counsel and consultation 
 together on the affairs of their country." 
 
 About the difficulties of the times he says : 
 
 *' Times are most unpropitious for expressing 
 views and convictions which, in normal times of 
 peace, there would have been no harm in frankly 
 and unreservedly putting before our community and 
 our Government. The present terrible conflict of 
 nations enjoins upon us the paramount duty of say- 
 ing or doing nothing which would embarrass or 
 weaken the hands of our Government by producing 
 undesirable excitement in the people, or lead to any 
 impression upon foreign nations that we are in any 
 way inimical or even indifferent to the best interests 
 of the Empire." 
 
 As to how Islam established itself in India, how 
 it spread and what is the present position of the 
 Mohammedans of India, he speaks as follows: 
 
 " The first advent of the Muslims in India was 
 along these very coasts ^^ in the form of a naval 
 expedition sent by the third Khali f in the year 
 21 The Western Coast. 
 
54 INTRODUCTION 
 
 636 A. D. This was more than four hundred years 
 before WiUiam the Conqueror defeated the Saxons 
 at the battle of Hastings. After many vicissitudes, 
 into the details of which it is unnecessary to go, the 
 Muslim Empire was firmly established in India. 
 These invaders made India their home and did not 
 consider it a land of regrets. They lived amongst 
 the people of the country, mixed with them freely 
 and became true citizens of India. As a matter of 
 fact they had no other home but India. From time 
 to time their number was strengthened by fresh 
 blood from Arabia, Persia and other Muslim lands, 
 but their ranks were swollen mainly by additions 
 from the people of the country themselves. It is 
 most interesting to know that out of the present 
 seventy millions of the Muslim population, those 
 who have claimed their descent from remote non- 
 Indian ancestors amount only to eight millions. 
 Whence have the remaining millions come, if not 
 from Indian ranks? The Muslims enriched the 
 hoary civilisation of India with their own litera- 
 ture and art, evolved and developed by their cre- 
 ative and versatile genius. From the Himalayas 
 to Cape Comorin the entire country is studded with 
 those gems of art which remind one of the glorious 
 period of Muslim rule. The result was a new 
 civilisation which was the outcome of the combined 
 efforts of all the peoples of India and the product of 
 the two great civilisations in the history of the 
 world. During Muslim times all offices were 
 equally opened to all, without any distinction of 
 class, creed or colour. The only conditions were 
 
INTRODUCTION 55 
 
 fitness and efficiency. So we have the spectacle of 
 a Hindu prime minister, a Hindu commander-in- 
 chief, a Hindu finance minister, and a Hindu gov- 
 ernor of Kabul. Ethnology and folklore of India 
 speak eloquently of manners and customs showing 
 the influence of one people upon the other. The 
 only link which the Muslims kept with the countries 
 outside India was the spiritual link of their religion. 
 This was under the circumstances inevitable. This 
 short historical retrospect may be succinctly ex- 
 pressed in two words which fully and clearly de- 
 scribe the elements and conditions of our existence 
 in India. We are Indian Muslims. These words, 
 * Indian Muslims,' convey the idea of our nation- 
 ality and of our religion, and as long as we keep 
 our duties and responsibilities arising from these 
 factors before our eyes, we can hardly go wrong. 
 
 " Indian Muslims are Indians first ! 
 
 " About what we owe to our non-Muslim fellow 
 subjects I have never concealed my opinion, and I 
 can only repeat here what I have often said. I am 
 one of those who have never taken a narrow and 
 sectarian view of Indian politics. When a ques- 
 tion concerning the welfare of India and of justice 
 to Indians arises I am not only an Indian first, but 
 an Indian next and an Indian to the last, an Indian 
 and an Indian alone, favouring no community and 
 no individual, but on the side of those who desire 
 the advancement of India as a whole without preju- 
 dice to the rights and interests of any individual, 
 much less of any community, whether my own or 
 another. 
 
S6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 " Policies and principles of a nobler kind may be 
 laid down by higher authorities, but their value is 
 determined by those who have to carry them out. 
 Thus it has often been the case in India that noble 
 intentions have degenerated into pious wishes and 
 even into harmful actions. If the Indian people 
 were real partners in the actual governance of the 
 country, the Indian point of view would have pre- 
 vailed, much that is now admitted to have been mis- 
 taken would have been avoided, the country would 
 have progressed and the ruling classes would have 
 been spared the bitter and sometimes undeserved 
 criticisms hurled against them. Unless and until 
 India has got a national government and is gov- 
 erned for the greatest good of the Indian people, I 
 do not see how she can be contented. India does 
 not demand * a place in the sun ' in any aggressive 
 sense, but she does require the light of the Indian 
 sun for her own children. 
 
 " Gentlemen, let us descend a little from the gen- 
 eralities into details and see how the policy of the 
 past has worked not only to our detriment, but to 
 the positive weakening of the British rule itself. 
 Let us see what small share we have in the larger 
 life of the Empire. I have already said that we 
 have no share in laying down the policy upon which 
 India is ruled. Have we any share even in the dif- 
 ferent Services of the country? Are we allowed to 
 serve our own land and the Empire to the best of 
 our capacity and ability? In every country the 
 three premier Services are considered to be the 
 Military, the Naval and the Diplomatic. 
 
INTRODUCTION 57 
 
 " Let us begin with the Mihtary. In spite of the 
 numerous martial races who inhabit India in mil- 
 Hons, no Indian can rise above the non-commis- 
 sioned ranks. We can not hope to gain a higher 
 position than that of a Subadar-Major or a Risal- 
 dar-Major. Every position that would give us an 
 independent command is closed to us. The regular 
 army is limited in number, no volunteers are taken 
 from our ranks and the general population is 
 rigorously disarmed. The Arms Act perpetuates 
 invidious distinctions on grounds of colour and 
 creed — distinctions most humiliating to the people 
 of the country. Going about their ordinary daily 
 occupations our people may be attacked by dacoits 
 and evilly disposed persons or even by wild beasts, 
 but they can not defend themselves. Even lathis ^^ 
 have been held by some judicial authorities to be 
 dangerous weapons. Newspapers and official com- 
 muniques tell us that ordinary Naiks of our Indian 
 Army have on the battlefield conducted themselves 
 most bravely and have led their companies with con- 
 spicuous gallantry and ability at times when all the 
 English officers were either killed or disabled. If 
 our men are capable of such initiative and valiant 
 deeds on the actual field of battle, why, Indians 
 naturally ask, should they not be trusted in the 
 piping times of peace? Had they only been trained 
 and allowed to serve, millions and millions would 
 have sprung to the side of England at her slightest 
 call in this, the hour of her need. Indeed, no other 
 nation of the world has such an inexhaustible 
 
 22 Heavy wooden sticks. 
 
58 INTRODUCTION 
 
 source of strength as Great Britain has in the teem- 
 ing masses of India, but India has been so maimed 
 and crippled in her manhood that she can help 
 neither herself nor Great Britain. The idea is 
 galling and humiliating that, if a time came when 
 India was in danger, her own sons would not be 
 able to save their hearths and homes, or the honour 
 and lives of their wives and children, but would 
 have to look to foreign nations like Japan and 
 Russia for help and succour. Peace and order are 
 the first requisites of a settled government and 
 without them there would be mere chaos; but un- 
 limited and long-continued peace has a tendency to 
 enervate and emasculate people. To make a living 
 nation, higher qualities are required. A spirit 
 which will not bow before any adverse wind, an 
 internal strength which will bear all toils and trou- 
 bles, a determination which will flinch from no task, 
 however impossible it may appear, a discipline 
 which will love and be happy in the service of the 
 country and the Empire, are qualities necessary for 
 the attainment of that life which I call a full life. 
 These moral forces can only come into play when 
 people are free and unrestricted in the exercise of 
 all their faculties. The profession of arms is per- 
 haps one which breeds this spirit and brings out 
 these potential forces more than any other. To 
 close it to any portion of humanity is to turn them 
 into lifeless machines. 
 
 " In the Navy, we cannot rise above the rank of 
 a lascar. Attempts are often made to keep us out 
 even of this lowly position. India has a vast sea- 
 
INTRODUCTION 59 
 
 board, peopled by seafaring nations. To refuse 
 them their birthright is to waste so much good ma- 
 terial which would have gone to increase the 
 strength of the Empire. Why not have a few In- 
 dian dreadnaughts and cruisers manned by Indians 
 and commanded by their own countrymen? It is 
 said that the Indians are not fit for the Navy. 
 Having not trained and tried them, it is not just 
 or fair to say so. Try them first and, if found 
 wanting, then you have a right to reject them. 
 The history of ancient India proves that naval ca- 
 pacity is here; but it lies dormant for want of suf- 
 ficient opportunity. 
 
 " Now I pass on to the Diplomatic Service. Here 
 we are conspicuous by our entire absence from it. 
 What prevents the Government from utilising the 
 intellect, the ability and the energy of our people in 
 this direction, I fail to understand. Why should 
 not some of the numerous posts of Political Resi- 
 dents and Agents of India be opened to them? 
 
 " In India, the Civil Service is considered to be 
 the premier public service of the country. Here, 
 too, we are circumscribed and hedged in by rules 
 and regulations which make it for our people, if not 
 altogether impossible, at least very difficult to enter. 
 The examination which is the only possible way of 
 entry for an Indian is held in London, 7,000 miles 
 away from his home. Those educated youths who 
 can not bear the cost and expenses of such a journey, 
 are entirely debarred from it, however brilliant they 
 may be. The fortunate few, who can afford to 
 compete with Englishmen, have to do so in a Ian- 
 
6o INTRODUCTION 
 
 guage absolutely foreign to them. Why the ex- 
 aminations should not be held both in England and 
 India to give the youths of both countries equal 
 chances is an anomaly which passes my compre- 
 hension. For a number of years the country has 
 been loudly demanding this much delayed justice, 
 but instead, we get the recent Indian Civil Service 
 Act which has entirely abolished the competitive 
 system. No doubt the operation of the Act is 
 temporary, but a wrong precedent has been created, 
 and no one knows to what further developments it 
 will lead. 
 
 " In the minor services of the country, such as 
 Police, Forest, Education, the higher places have 
 been reserved for Europeans and the children of 
 the soil have been told that the doors have been 
 shut against them. One would have expected that 
 at least in these minor places Indians would not 
 have failed, but all our protests and entreaties have 
 been of no avail so far. 
 
 " Gentlemen, I pass on now to the economical de- 
 velopment of the country. Let us see what prog- 
 ress we have made in this direction. Admittedly 
 India is an agricultural country and its real life and 
 strength is in the teeming millions of humanity who 
 live in the villages, principally by agriculture. Has 
 anything really been done to raise them from their 
 poverty-ridden and helpless condition? In spite of 
 the jugglery of figures in which the hearts of statis- 
 ticians delight, what is the state of the country and 
 its peasantry? Statistics are supposed to prove 
 every theory advanced by men anxious to prove 
 
INTRODUCTION 6i 
 
 their case, but our eyes are our best witnesses and 
 can not deceive us. India is a country rich in 
 natural resources — resources which are not in- 
 ferior to any other country in this wide, wide world. 
 Her land bears every variety of crops from cotton 
 and jute to wheat and mustard. Her mines pro- 
 duce every kind of metal from gold and iron ores 
 down to the best coal, and not excluding numerous 
 precious stones. She has a climate ranging from 
 the bitterest cold to the intensest heat. Her rivers 
 and forests are full of life and materials useful to 
 man. In short, India is a self-contained, miniature 
 world. In such a country what is the condition of 
 her inhabitants? No toil or trouble is spared for 
 the cultivation of their fields by the wretched and 
 over-worked peasantry. All that manual labour 
 can do is done, but because of the want of scien- 
 tific methods and other causes beyond their control, 
 the profits which ought to have been theirs are lost 
 to them. Side by side with green, minutely and in- 
 dustriously cultivated fields, we find tiny and di- 
 lapidated mud hovels thatched with old and rotten 
 straw. In these hovels there are neither windows 
 nor floor-cloths, and the only furniture that they 
 boast of is a few earthen vessels and perhaps a 
 chatai.^^ Human beings and cattle herd together 
 with no arrangements for sanitation. Such are the 
 conditions in which the great majority of our people 
 pass their miserable existence. 
 
 " In commerce and industry we are no better off. 
 Our old indigenous industries have been killed by 
 •23 ^ strja\y ^mat. 
 
62 INTRODUCTION 
 
 foreign competition and new attempts are crippled 
 in the interests of other peoples than those of India. 
 The instance of the cotton excise duties is before 
 us — duties which have been imposed in the inter- 
 ests of Manchester and Lancashire. 
 
 " I now pass on to two of the recent repressive 
 measures, the Press Act and the Defence of India 
 Act. These acts have worked harshly and told 
 heavily upon the persons and the properties of some 
 leaders of our community. Musalmans are in- 
 tensely agitated, and I should be grossly negligent 
 in the discharge of my duties as the spokesman of 
 Muslim India, if I failed to give voice to their feel- 
 ings on the subject. On principle and by sentiment 
 I object to repression and coercion, be it from the 
 Government or from any section of a disaffected 
 people. 
 
 " I remember well, how and under what condi- 
 tions the Press Act was passed. The members of 
 the Imperial Council gave their consent to the pass- 
 ing of the bill on the express understanding that the 
 law was intended for the anarchists and would 
 never be applied in the case of peaceful citizens 
 anxious to enlighten Government officers as to the 
 sentiments and feeling of the people. But what is 
 the result? All the independent Muslim papers 
 have either he en wiped out or are dragging on a 
 lifeless and miserable exist ence.^"^ The Comrade is 
 gone, The Hamdard has been strangled to death, the 
 Muslim Gazette ceased to exist long ago, Al-Hilal 
 is no more, the Zamindar is carrying on its colour- 
 
 2* The italics are mine. 
 
INTRODUCTION 63 
 
 less existence with a sword of Damocles always 
 hanging over its head. Whoever thought that the 
 Press Act would be applied in this fashion? Is it 
 possible for the people not to resent such treatment 
 and are their feelings to be treated so lightly? " 
 
 The reader will notice that there is nothing in 
 this book which is in any way stronger either in 
 language or in sentiments than what the President 
 of the All-India Muslim League has said in the quo- 
 tations given above. Along with these expressions 
 of discontent are also found in his address very 
 strong declarations of loyalty to the Government 
 and of appreciation of what they have done for 
 India. The task of appraising the exact value of 
 both kinds of statements may better be left to the 
 reader. 
 
 This is the dawn of a new day in India which the 
 British will have to reckon with. We know* that 
 they are very skilful in divide et impera, but the In- 
 dian people are now awake and that policy may not 
 succeed so well in the future as it has in the past. 
 
 The Indians have no desire to do anything which 
 might in any way injure or harm the position of 
 Great Britain as a world power. They would much 
 rather gain Home Rule in India by peaceful means 
 and remain a part of the British Empire than sub- 
 vert British authority in India by force or seek the 
 assistance of any other foreign power to gain their 
 end. But in case the British continue to trample 
 upon their rights and to humiliate them and to ex- 
 ploit them as they have done in the past, then there 
 is no knowing what they might not be tempted or 
 
64 INTRODUCTION 
 
 forced to do. What is clear is this, that the num- 
 ber of such Indians is growing larger and larger 
 every day who are willing and ready to sacrifice 
 their careers, their prospects, their happiness and 
 their life at the altar of what they consider to be 
 their duty to their country. 
 
 There are others who think that their patience 
 has been well nigh exhausted; who can not wait 
 and would strike for their liberty at once, saying 
 " Our trust is in God." 
 
 IX 
 
 Before concluding this introductory part of my 
 study of the Nationalist Movement in India, I de- 
 sire to tender my heartfelt thanks to Professor A. 
 U. Pope, of the University of California, for the 
 encouragement and advice he has given me in the 
 preparation of this book, and to Dr. J. T. Sunder- 
 land, of New York, for having read my manuscript 
 and written a Foreword for me. 
 
 The reader will, I hope, excuse me for certain 
 repetitions. They are unavoidable in a book of 
 this kind, where it is desirable to show that the 
 different communities and classes of the Indian 
 population think on the same lines in national af- 
 fairs. 
 
 Lastly, I have to beg the pardon of the reader 
 for certain personal references which may seem to 
 be self -laudatory. I have indulged in this weak- 
 ness only when it was absolutely necessary for the 
 continuance of the thread of the narrative. In one 
 chapter I have retained the third person singular so 
 
INTRODUCTION 65 
 
 as to avoid being understood that I was speaking of 
 myself. 
 
 I am also conscious of the meagreness of certain 
 chapters. The book is too short to be called a His- 
 tory of the National Movement. It is written 
 more with the object of drawing the attention of 
 the civilised world to what is happening in India, 
 than to prepare a complete record of the movement. 
 The foreign reader can not be expected to be inter- 
 ested in details. Moreover, he may never read a 
 long and expensive book. Hence the studied brev- 
 ity kept in view all through. Nor do I propose to 
 discuss the fitness of Indians for immediate self- 
 government as that would largely add to the bulk 
 of the book, but for a brief and able discussion of 
 the matter I may refer the reader to an article by 
 the Editor in the Modern Review of Calcutta for 
 February, 191 6. 
 
 Then again it is to be regretted that the illustra- 
 tions are so few. I would have liked to add many 
 more. Many prominent Nationalists find no place 
 for the simple reason that at the time of sending 
 the book to the press I have not been able to get 
 their pictures. Originally there was no idea of 
 having any illustrations. It is too late now to de- 
 lay the publication of the book pending the receipt 
 of pictures from India. Indeed the mail facilities, 
 just now, are so dubious that one can not be certain 
 of getting them at all so long as the war lasts. 
 
 La J PAT Rai. 
 
 Berkeley, California, U. S. A., 
 1st of March, 1916. 
 
YOUNG INDIA 
 
 AN INTERPRETATION AND A HISTORY 
 OF THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 
 FROM WITHIN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GENERAL VIEWPOINT OF THE INDIAN 
 NATIONALIST 
 
 Indian History rolls back to thousands of years 
 before the Christian Era. Much of it is still en- 
 veloped in mystery. What little is known has been 
 discovered and put in shape within the last hundred 
 years. The materials, from which the early His- 
 tory of India has been prepared, have long been in 
 existence, but little of them were known to the 
 Western people. 
 
 It can not be said that a complete history of 
 Ancient India has been fully and finally constructed. 
 What is known has been discovered bit by bit. 
 Much yet remains to be found and put in order. It 
 is quite unsafe, therefore, to dogmatise about the 
 deficiencies of Ancient Indian civilisation. Yet 
 this much can be said with certainty, that centuries 
 before the birth of Christ India possessed a mar- 
 vellous civilisation, a wonderful literature, a well 
 
 67 
 
68 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 organised social system, a conception of govern- 
 ment based on law and on the legal rights of sub- 
 jects inter se, as well as against the ruling monarch.^ 
 
 We have, besides, ample evidences in the ancient 
 literature of India, as translated and interpreted by 
 Western scholars, to the effect that democratic in- 
 stitutions were not unknown to Ancient India. ^ 
 Nor can it be said that the idea of universal sov- 
 ereignty over the whole of India under one per- 
 manent power was unknown to the Hindus. How 
 often it was realised and for how long, can not be 
 said with any certainty.^ 
 
 First Invasion of India. The first political and 
 military invasion of India known to history was 
 that of Alexander the Great in 326 b. c. Alex- 
 ander was no doubt victorious up to a certain point, 
 but he never conquered India, nor did he occupy it. 
 He did not reach even so far into the interior as 
 Delhi on the Jumna. He is said to have left be- 
 hind him some officers to administer the affairs of 
 the conquered province, but it is a well established 
 historical fact that in the conflict between Chandra 
 Gupta, the Hindu, and Seleucus, the Greek, who 
 was the chief ruling authority in Babylon after the 
 death of Alexander, Seleucus was practically 
 worsted and a peace was concluded by which the 
 independence of India was fully realised. Chandra 
 Gupta ruled over the whole of India north of 
 
 1 " The Raja {i. e., the king) was not above the law." See 
 Wilson's note on p. 203, vol. i of Mill's British India. 
 
 2 See Rhys David's " Buddhist India." 
 
 3 See an account of Yudhishthira's Rajsuya yajna in the 
 Mahabharata. 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 69 
 
 Vindhyachal. Bengal as far east as Assam, and the 
 Punjab as far west as Afghanistan, were among his 
 provinces. Fortunately for us, we have enough 
 independent testimony in the writings of Megas- 
 thenes, the Greek Ambassador at the court of 
 Chandra Gupta, and other contemporaneous Greek 
 writers, as to the state of India at that time. 
 
 Chandra Gupta and Asoka. Megasthenes' ac- 
 count of the Government of Chandra Gupta and 
 of the details of the administration under him, is 
 enough to fill every Indian with pride. Chandra 
 Gupta's organisation^ included almost every form 
 of governmental activity known to modern Europe. 
 There was a separate department of labour under 
 him, a separate registrar of births, deaths and mar- 
 riages, a minister who looked after public charities, 
 another in charge of trade and commerce, one in 
 charge of agriculture, and so on. He had a great 
 army, a currency and a navy. Even then the sys- 
 tem of commercial papers was well known to In- 
 dians, who had a great name for honesty and 
 truthfulness. Their word was better than a bond. 
 Chandra Gupta was followed by Asoka, perhaps the 
 greatest and noblest Emperor India has had during 
 the historical period. Under him the whole coun- 
 try was consolidated under one imperial sway. He 
 ruled not by force, but by love. His love extended 
 even to animals. He is known to have organised 
 hospitals for the treatment of animals. All this 
 happened before Christ was born. Between 326 
 
 * For an account of Chandra Gupta's Government see Early- 
 History of India by Mr. Vincent Smith. 
 
70 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 B. c. and the middle of the eighth century a. d., 
 India knew no foreign masters, in the sense that it 
 was never ruled for any length of time from with- 
 out. A few of the nomadic tribes of Central Asia 
 did penetrate into India, only to be absorbed and 
 assimilated by the mass of the Aryans already set- 
 tled and in power there. 
 
 The next foreign invasion of India, which was to 
 leave a permanent mark on the history and institu- 
 tions of India and with which starts an altogether 
 separate epoch in Indian history, was by Abul 
 Qasim in the middle of the eighth century. For 
 full 400 years the Mohammedans knocked at the 
 door of India before they could establish a kingdom 
 there. The first Mohammedan King of Delhi was 
 Kutb-ud-din Aibak, who established a dynasty in 
 1206 A. D. The Mohammedans were in possession 
 of some parts of Sindh and the Punjab between the 
 eighth and the twelfth centuries, but India was not 
 conquered nor the Hindus beaten until Prithvi Raj, 
 the last Rajput King of Delhi, was defeated by the 
 treachery of a brother Rajput chief in the year 
 1 193 A. D. 
 
 India Practically Independent up to the Twelfth 
 Century. It will be thus seen that India was prac- 
 tically independent up to the beginning of the thir- 
 teenth century a. d. By independent, I mean that 
 no foreign rule had been imposed upon it from 
 without. Some parts of the northwestern prov- 
 inces of the Punjab and Sindh had been for some 
 time under Muslim domination, but the main terri- 
 tory was under native rulers and native laws. As 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 71 
 
 said before, the tribes that overran the northwest- 
 ern parts of India between the invasion of Alex- 
 ander the Great and that of Abul Qasim, came to 
 settle. Once settled there, they adopted the re- 
 ligion and the social life of the country and were 
 merged with the natives. Thenceforth there was 
 no distinction between them and the other Indian 
 people. 
 
 Muslim Rule, The Mohammedan rule over 
 India lasted for six centuries with varying vicissi- 
 tudes of fortune. For three centuries, from the 
 thirteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 their rule was practically confined to Northern 
 India. Deccan, Rajputana and Central India were 
 always more or less independent until Akbar 
 consolidated the whole country under his flag; 
 though even he failed to vanquish Partap, the in- 
 vincible Rana of Udeypore (Rajputana).^ Partap 
 was defeated, was driven out of his capital, was 
 pursued and harassed, but he did not make his 
 submission to the Mogul. Akbar won over to his 
 side almost all the other Rajput chiefs, some by his 
 prowess, others by friendship, but the Sessodia® 
 chief would not bend his knee. His countrymen 
 simply worshipped him. So strong was the feel- 
 ing of patriotism and the love of independence 
 among the Hindus, even then, that when Akbar one 
 day announced in the Durbar that he had received 
 
 s It is true that parts of Deccan had been from time to time 
 overrun by the Mohammedans and at least one Muslim king- 
 dom had been founded there even before Akbar's time, but 
 still the general statement in the text stands good. 
 
 ^ The tribal name of the House to which Partap belonged. 
 
^2 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 a petition of submission from Partap, the Rajputs 
 present in the Durbar refused to beheve him. It is 
 well known how one of them, Prithvi Raj, a poet, 
 wrote to Partap of the indescribable grief the re- 
 port had caused them, and telling him that the 
 Hindu sun would set forever if Partap would 
 yield; and how he received an answer that the re- 
 port was wrong and that Partap would never yield 
 and would keep the flag flying. That shows how 
 a Hindu servant of Akbar, who had made his sub- 
 mission and accepted the service of the Mogul, felt 
 in the matter. Although beaten himself, he would 
 not acknowledge that the Hindus had been finally 
 beaten so long as Partap was resisting the Mogul 
 arms. It speaks very highly of the broad-minded- 
 ness of Akbar that, so far back as the sixteenth 
 century, he allowed one of his Hindu captives and 
 servants to speak out so boldly and plainly of his 
 love of Hindu independence. Akbar, we must re- 
 member, had succeeded in making alliances with 
 almost all the other important Rajput houses. The 
 proud Rahtores '^ had given him a daughter for a 
 bride, and the Kutchwahas^ Bikanir ^ and Boondi ^ 
 had also submitted. So Partap had to fight the 
 combined forces of Akbar and his own brother-Raj- 
 put chiefs, some of whom were related to him by 
 the dearest ties of blood and marriage. Yet single- 
 handed, for a quarter of a century, did he with- 
 stand the efforts of the mighty empire over which 
 Akbar ruled to force his submission. In the words 
 '^ Names of Rajput ruling families in Akbar's time. 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 73 
 
 of Colonel Tod, it is worthy " the attention of those 
 who influence the destinies of states in more fa- 
 voured climes to estimate the intensity of feeling 
 which could arm Partap to oppose the resources 
 of a small principality against the then most power- 
 ful empire in the world, whose armies were more 
 numerous and far more efficient than any ever led 
 by the Persians against the liberties of Greece." 
 
 On his deathbed Partap made his successor swear 
 to eternal conflict against " the foes of his coun- 
 try's independence." This was in the sixteenth 
 century, four hundred years after the first Muslim 
 king had ascended the throne of Delhi. But a 
 hundred years had hardly gone by after the event 
 when the Hindus again questioned Muslim suprem- 
 acy. The Sikhs in the Punjab, the Rajputs in Cen- 
 tral India, and the Mahrattas in the Deccan, had 
 started their campaigns before Aurangzeb died in 
 1707 A. D. The Muslim supremacy was destroyed 
 by the Hindus and not by the British. 
 
 Muslim Rule in India not Foreign. Yet it is 
 not right to say that the Muslim rule in India was 
 a " foreign rule." The Mushm invaders were no 
 doubt foreign in their origin, just as the Normans 
 and Danes were when they came to England, but as 
 soon as they settled in India, adopted the country, 
 made it their home, married and raised children 
 there, they became the sons of the soil. Akbar and 
 Aurangzeb were as much Indians as are to-day the 
 Moguls and Pathans in Delhi or elsewhere. Sher 
 Shah and Ibrahim Lodi were no more foreigners in 
 
74 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 India than were the descendants of William the 
 Conqueror or the successors of William of Orange 
 in Great Britain. When Timur and Nadir Shah 
 and Ahmad Shah Abdali attacked India, they at- 
 tacked a kingdom which was ruled by Indian 
 Muslims. They were as much the enemies of 
 the Mohammedan rulers of India as of the Hin- 
 dus. 
 
 The Muslims, who exercised political sovereignty 
 in India from the thirteenth up to the middle of the 
 nineteenth century a. d., were Indians by birth, In- 
 dians by marriage, and Indians by death. They 
 were born in India, they married there, there they 
 died, and there they were buried. Every penny of 
 the revenues they raised in India was spent in India. 
 Their army was wholly Indian. They allowed new 
 families from beyond the borders of Hindustan to 
 come and settle in India, but they very rarely, if at 
 all, employed people who were not willing to stay 
 in India for good and to make it their home. Their 
 bias, if any, against the Hindus was religious, not 
 political. The converts to Islam were sometimes 
 treated even with greater consideration than the 
 original Muslims. Akbar, of course, did away 
 with that distinction, but even the most bigoted and 
 the most orthodox Mohammedan ruler of India 
 was not possessed of that kind of social pride and 
 social exclusiveness which distinguishes the British 
 ruler of India to-day. If the racial question ever 
 came into prominence during Mohammedan su- 
 premacy in India, it was not between Hindus and 
 Mohammedans, but between Mohammedans and 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 75 
 
 Mohammedans, as for instance between Tuglaks 
 and Pathans, or between Moguls and Lodis.^ 
 
 In the reign of rulers Hke Sher Shah, Akbar, 
 Jehangir, and Shah Jahan, the Hindus were ehgible 
 for the highest offices under the crown next after 
 the princes of royal blood. They were governors 
 of provinces, generals of armies, and rulers of 
 districts and divisions. In short, the distinctions 
 between the Hindus and Muslims were neither po- 
 litical nor social. Looked at from the political and 
 the economic point of view, the Government was 
 as much indigenous as under Hindu rule. The 
 Muslims never attempted to disarm the population; 
 nor did they prohibit the manufacture or import 
 of arms. They did not recruit their servants from 
 Arabia, or Persia, or Afghanistan. They had no 
 Lancashire industries to protect, and were under no 
 necessity of imposing excise duties on Indian-made 
 goods. They brought their own language and 
 literature with them. For a time, perhaps, they 
 transacted all government business through that 
 language, but eventually they evolved a language 
 which is as much Indian as any other vernacular 
 spoken in India to-day. The groundwork of this 
 language, which is now called Urdu or Hindustani, 
 is purely Indian. The Muslim rulers of India had 
 no anxiety for, and were in no way concerned with, 
 the prosperity of the labouring classes of Persia or 
 Afghanistan. If any one sought their patronage, 
 he had to come to and settle in India. So their 
 
 8 The history of Europe up to the i8th century is full of 
 parallel disputes on racial and religious grounds. 
 
76 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 government was an Indian government and not a 
 foreign government. 
 
 History does not record a single instance of 
 India being ruled from without, by a people of 
 purely non-Indian blood and in the interests of 
 another country and another people, before 
 the British.^ India was always an empire by her- 
 self. She was never a part of another empire, 
 much less a dependency. She had her own army, 
 her own navy, her own flag. Her revenues were 
 spent for her own benefit. She had her industries 
 and manufactured the goods she consumed. Any 
 one wanting the privilege of trading with India 
 under special terms had to obtain the sanction of 
 her government, as the East India Company did. 
 There was no India Office in Arabia or in Persia 
 or in Kabul, to which the people of India looked 
 for initiative in the affairs of their native land. 
 
 INDIA UNDER THE BRITISH 
 
 India under the British is, however, entirely dif- 
 ferent.^^ For the first time in history she becomes 
 
 9 It is said that for a short time a small portion of North- 
 west India formed a province of the Empire of Darius and 
 paid tribute to that monarch, but the government was all the 
 same native. 
 
 10 " The Asiatic conquerors very soon abated their ferocity, 
 because they made the conquered country their own. They 
 rose or fell with the rise and fall of the territory they lived in. 
 Fathers there deposited the hopes of their posterity; the chil- 
 dren there beheld the monuments of their fathers. Here their 
 lot was finally cast; and it is the normal wish of all that their 
 lot should not be cast in bad land. Poverty, sterility, and deso- 
 lation are not a recreating prospect to the eye of man, and 
 there are very few who can bear to grow old among the curses 
 of a whole people. If their passion or avarice drove the Tar- 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST ^^j 
 
 a part of another empire. India to-day is not an 
 empire by herself, but a part of the British Empire, 
 as Britain once was a part of the Roman Empire. 
 For the first time in history she has been reduced 
 to the position of a dependency. For the first time 
 in her history she is ruled from the outside. For 
 the first time the Indians have been reduced to the 
 
 tar hordes to acts of rapacity or tyranny, there was time enough 
 even in the short life of man, to bring round the ill effects of 
 the abuse of power upon the power itself. If hoards were 
 made by violence and tyranny, they were still domestic hoards, 
 and domestic profusion, or the rapine of a more powerful and 
 prodigal hand, restored them to the people. With many dis- 
 orders and with few political checks upon power, nature had 
 still fair play, the sources of acquisition were not dried up, and 
 therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of 
 the country flourished. Even avarice and usury itself opera- 
 ted both for the preservation and the employment of national 
 wealth. The husbandman and manufacturer paid heavy in- 
 terest, but then they augmented the fund from whence they 
 were again to borrow. Their resources were dearly bought, 
 but they were sure, and the general stock of the community 
 grew by the general effect. 
 
 " But under the English Government all this order is re- 
 versed. The Tartar invasion was mischievous, but it is our 
 protection that destroys India. It was their enmity, but it is 
 our friendship. Our conquest there, after twenty years, is as 
 crude as it was the first day. The natives scarcely know what 
 it is to see the grey head of an Englishman ; young men, boys 
 almost, govern there, without society, and without sympathy 
 with the natives. They have no more social habits with the 
 people than if they still resided in England ; nor, indeed, any 
 species of intercourse but that which is necessary to making a 
 sudden fortune, with a view to a remote settlement. Animated 
 with all the avarice of age, and all the impetuosity of youth, 
 they roll in one after another, wave after wave, and there is 
 nothing before the eyes of the natives but an endless, hopeless 
 prospect of new flights of birds of prey and passage, with 
 appetites continually renewing for a food that is continually 
 wasting. Every rupee of profit made by an Englishman is lost 
 forever to India." (Edmund Burke in a speech made in the 
 House of Commons in 1783 a. d. The reflections are as good, 
 to-day, as they were then.) 
 
78 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 position of a subject people, governed by an alien 
 race residing in a different and far-off country. 
 For the first time she is ruled by a sovereign who 
 does not live in India, who sends out every five years 
 a viceroy to administer the affairs of the country 
 under the authority of a minister in a foreign land. 
 For the first time her affairs are managed by people 
 who come and go, under laws made outside of 
 India.^^ All the chief offices of state, the direction 
 and control of armies, the administration of reve- 
 nues, of divisions, of districts, the coining of money, 
 the administration of justice, the imposing of taxes, 
 etc., are generally in the hands of foreigners who 
 have absolutely no interest in the country except 
 as servants of the crown, persons whose interests 
 in the country cease with the expiration of their 
 term of service. These servants are recruited and 
 appointed out of India. Indians as such are vir- 
 tually ineligible for many of these offices. During 
 the 150 years of British rule in India, no Indian 
 has been appointed to the governorship of any prov- 
 ince. Indians are ineligible for commissions in the 
 army; they cannot be enrolled as volunteers. In 
 order to qualify for the Civil service of their own 
 country, they have to travel six thousand miles, to 
 take the chance of succeeding once in a while. 
 
 Political Disqualification of the Indians. For 
 the first time in the political history of India 
 it has become a political disqualification to be an 
 
 11 The constitution of the Government of India is settled by- 
 laws made by the Parliament of Great Britain, in which India 
 is not represented. 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 79 
 
 Indian. The offspring of an Englishman, domi- 
 ciled in India and married to an Indian lady, loses 
 in rank and status by that fact; nor does the issue 
 of an Indian gentleman from an Englishwoman 
 gain anything thereby. So the inferiority in both 
 ways lies in Indian blood and Indian origin. The 
 MusHm who married in India, or the Indian who 
 married a Persian or Afghan, were not affected 
 thereby in their political privileges in the Moham- 
 medan regime. An Indian convert to Christianity 
 is in no better position in India than a Hindu or a 
 Muslim. Thus it is not a religious inferiority or 
 a religious distinction, upon which the political dis- 
 abilities of an Indian are based, but the fact of his 
 being an Indian by blood and by birth. Never be- 
 fore was India governed by a handful of officers, 
 military and civil, who came to rule for a period, 
 going away when that period was over, only to be 
 replaced by another set equally temporary. India 
 thus loses all or most of what these receive in the 
 shape of money; she loses all the experience which 
 they gain in the different spheres of activity that 
 engages them during the period of their service in 
 India; last but not least, she is deprived of the satis- 
 faction and pride of claiming these men as her sons, 
 who would in their turn take pride in her and feel 
 as sons should for their mother. They come as 
 her rulers, and till the end remain the same. Their 
 sons and grandsons also may in their turn come as 
 rulers, but never as sons. The sons of India, who 
 gain the rank of officials, are only servants of the 
 British. Their position in the Indian services is 
 
8o YOUNG INDIA 
 
 generally that of drawers of water and hewers of 
 wood for their British masters. 
 
 All Europeans, Eurasians including Armenians 
 and Jews can carry arms free of license; not so the 
 Indians, In India, the Indians only are forbidden 
 to carry arms except by special permission of their 
 masters; and permission is of course granted very 
 sparingly and as a matter of favour, as a special con- 
 cession and not as a right. The highest, the noblest, 
 and the purest among the Indians has to be excepted 
 from the operation of the Arms Act, as an act of 
 mercy on the part of his foreign rulers. In the hills 
 of his own native country, where his parents, grand- 
 parents, and great grandparents before him were 
 born, where they perhaps ruled or held positions of 
 trust, where they died, where they fertilised the 
 soil with their blood, and where within less than a 
 century they enjoyed absolute freedom, he, their 
 immediate descendant, must not carry an umbrella 
 over his head to give him shelter from rain or sun 
 without the risk of being kicked to death or being 
 insulted by the lowest among the foreign masters 
 of his country. ^^ The hoary Himalayas, the be- 
 loved abode of his most respected divinities, are in 
 some places virtually shut against him because the 
 " white gods " have developed a fancy for them. 
 
 But that is not all. Even outside India he car- 
 ries the badge of political subjection with him. 
 The British colonies, more than any other country, 
 bang their doors on him. He is a pariah all over 
 
 12 See Sir Henry Cotton's New India (1907), pp. 68, 69 and 
 70. 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 8i 
 
 the world. Considering that this is his position in 
 his home, he could hardly be anything else outside. 
 The British Government does not like his going 
 abroad except as an indentured coolie to the Brit- 
 ish colonies. He may go to England on a pleasure 
 trip, but they do not want Indians there in any num- 
 bers. They particularly dislike his going to Amer- 
 ica and settling there. The reason is obvious. 
 Travelling abroad gives him opportunities of com- 
 paring British rule in India with the forms of 
 government prevailing in other countries. Free at- 
 mosphere and free environment raise aspirations 
 which are dangerous, at any rate inconvenient 
 to British supremacy in India. Moreover, they ef- 
 fectively break down the hypnotism which has so 
 far enthralled the Indian mind in its judgments re- 
 garding British character. On his return to India, 
 a travelled Indian becomes a centre of discontent. 
 In the course of their travels some Indians meet 
 the free-thinkers and revolutionaries of Europe and 
 learn their methods. All this is naturally disliked 
 by the British. 
 
 Therefore, of late, the British have been taking 
 steps to discourage foreign travelling on the part 
 of Indians. They have been trying to keep Indian 
 students out of Great Britain by imposing condi- 
 tions which are repellent. They have raised the 
 educational standards which had formerly secured 
 them admission into British universities and Brit- 
 ish Inns of Court. They have organised an official 
 bureau in London which, ostensibly acting as their 
 guardian and adviser, discourages them from enter- 
 
82 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 ing British universities, keeps a vigilant eye on their 
 movements, reports on their conduct to the authori- 
 ties at home, and insists upon their seeking admis- 
 sion to British educational institutions through it.^^ 
 At all Indian ports there are police officers present, 
 who note down the names of, and particulars re- 
 lating to, every Indian who leaves Indian shores. 
 Thenceforth two eyes are almost always watching 
 him, go wherever he may. 
 
 To him, the British embassies in the different 
 countries of the world mean nothing. He is afraid 
 of seeking their help, first for fear of getting a 
 rebuff and being insulted, second because he is 
 afraid of circumstances being created which might 
 force his early departure from that country. His 
 wrongs are nobody's wrongs. He may be as- 
 saulted, nay, even killed, or insulted, or robbed, or 
 ill-treated, yet he has no government to look to his 
 interests. The British Government does not resent 
 other countries' excluding him; they are rather 
 happy at it and in some cases are understood to 
 have exercised their influence against his entry into 
 foreign countries. The self-governing dominions 
 of the British Empire have built a solid wall of 
 most revolting and inhuman laws and regulations 
 against his entry into those dominions. He cannot 
 go there, even on a pleasure trip or for study, except 
 by submitting to impossible tests or most revolting 
 conditions. 
 
 13 In England this is the view of the bulk of the Indian 
 student community. The Government, of course, repudiates 
 that view. 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 83 
 
 In this respect he is much better treated by non- 
 British countries. Till recently he could come and 
 go there quite freely. No European country bars 
 his visits. Of late the United States, it is said, at 
 the instance of the British Government, has been 
 following a policy of exclusion. But once in the 
 country, all universities and institutions receive 
 him, provided he fulfils their conditions and com- 
 plies with their regulations. That much, however, 
 cannot be said of Great Britain. It is true that 
 Great Britain imposes no restrictions on his coming 
 and going, as she imposes no restrictions on any 
 one else's coming and going, but there are British 
 institutions which would not admit him as a stu- 
 dent, however high his social position or status may 
 be. Even those institutions which admit him for 
 study, discriminate against him in the matter of 
 military drill. They would not admit him into 
 their volunteer corps; nor would they take him as 
 a boy scout. A great many of the British clubs 
 would have nothing to do with him. The only 
 British club of note, which has a fairly good num- 
 ber of Indians on its rolls and which accords them 
 a welcome, is the NationaLLiberal Qub. This club 
 is a noble exception. 
 
 Now the British must be an extremely unimag- 
 inative people, if they think that all this does not 
 make the Indian feel the inferiority of his position. 
 The latter, naturally, ascribes all this to the fact 
 of his country's having no national government of 
 her own to protect him and to advance his interests. 
 All this reminds him most forcibly of the fact that 
 
84 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 he belongs to a subject race, that his country does 
 not count in the world because she is not free and 
 has no embassies, that she has no flag of her own, 
 nor consular representatives to back her sons, and 
 that in the great mass of civilised humanity he is 
 a mere cypher. All this naturally tells on his 
 nerves and he becomes an extremist. He feels that 
 anything would be preferable to this life of shame 
 and dishonor. 
 
 It is difficult for people who have never been 
 placed in a similar position to realise the sense of 
 humiliation and shame involved in this condition 
 of things. Let the British for a moment imagine 
 themselves under similar circumstances, and they 
 may then be in a position to appreciate the point of 
 view of an Indian nationalist. Let us suppose for 
 a moment that the Germans conquer England and 
 impose their rule on the British race. How would 
 the British like their country being administered by 
 a viceroy of the Kaiser selected by the German 
 Chancellor, with the help of a council consisting 
 of Germans and of a bureaucracy recruited almost 
 exclusively from Prussia, with only a sprinkling of 
 native Britishers? No one can question the effi- 
 ciency of the German system. The strong hand of 
 Germany might keep Ireland in peace and prevent 
 the suffragists and the socialists and the Roman 
 Catholics disturbing public tranquillity. They 
 might even employ a whole army of Britishers in 
 the subordinate posts, might pay them handsomely 
 for military and police duty, might confer decora- 
 tions and titles on them, might build even greater 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 85 
 
 engineering works for them than they had ever 
 done, and might let them retain their language for 
 elementary education or for religious or domestic 
 purposes. Would the English be satisfied and 
 would they be contented? Would they consider 
 German rule to be a blessing and judge it by trade 
 returns ? Never ! ^^^ Why then, should they ques- 
 tion the patriotism or good sense of the Indians 
 who want self-government for India? Did not 
 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman say that good 
 government could never be a substitute for self- 
 government ? 
 
 The fact is, that it is impossible for a free-born 
 citizen of a free country to put himself in the posi- 
 tion of a political subject and realise fully and 
 properly the sense of humiliation and shame in- 
 volved therein. The feeling is unknown to him, 
 and he has not sufficient imagination to place him- 
 self in that position. Why cannot a Britisher see 
 that every Indian, visiting foreign countries, has to 
 hang his head in shame ? 
 
 British statesmen, politicians, publicists and jour- 
 nalists all talk of the blessings of British rule in 
 India, of what the British have done there in estab- 
 lishing peace and order, in making railways and 
 canals, in imparting education, in stimulating trade, 
 in administering impartial justice, in fostering in- 
 
 13a In this connection we may refer the reader to an excellent 
 article published in the New Statesman (London) dated April 
 I, 1916, called, " If the Germans conquered England." With the 
 alteration of England for Germany and India for England the 
 article would make an excellent exposition of the position of 
 the Indian Nationalist. 
 
86 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 dustries, in organising the postal and the telegraph 
 systems, and in opening the country to the world. 
 They cannot see why the Indian should wish to get 
 rid of the British. The British have done so much 
 for him, have brought civilisation to his door, have 
 raised him from *' obscurity," have given him their 
 language and their institutions, have opened to him 
 the gates of knowledge, have provided for him 
 security from both domestic and foreign dangers, 
 and have put him on the road to ever-increasing 
 prosperity and *' happiness/' Let us assume for 
 the moment that all this is wholly true, but can it 
 compensate for the loss of manhood which is in- 
 volved in political bondage? Chains are chains, no 
 matter if gilded. Can the wealth of the whole 
 world be put in the scales over against liberty and 
 honour? What would it avail if one were to get 
 the sovereignty of the world but lose his own soul? 
 A subject people has no soul, just as a slave can 
 have none. Subjects and slaves are not even the 
 masters of their bodies. 
 
 An Indian leader, a high-class Bengali lawyer, 
 who is now one of His Majesty's judges in the 
 High Court of Calcutta, once said, while presiding 
 over a conference in Bengal before he became a 
 judge, that a subject people could have no politics. 
 A people who have no politics have no soul. A 
 man without a soul is a mere animal. A nation 
 without a soul is only a herd of " dumb driven cat- 
 tle," and such are the Indians of the present day. 
 It is a base calumny, and a mean falsehood to say 
 in reply, that they have been so from time imme- 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST Sy 
 
 morial, that they have never been free, that they 
 have never cared who ruled over them, that they 
 have never been patriotic, or that patriotism and a 
 feeling of nationality are new growths due to con- 
 tact with the West, and that the Indian people do 
 not sympathise with the aspirations of the nation- 
 alists. Of course, there are some people in India, 
 as elsewhere, who, through rolling in wealth, living 
 in purple, inheriting long pedigrees, carrying high 
 titles, bearing proud names, seem to be happy and 
 contented under the existing conditions. For them, 
 the security from molestation they have, the free- 
 dom of enjoyment they possess, the comforts and 
 luxuries which they command, the pleasure which is 
 born of inactive, lazy, parasitic, debauched lives, is 
 all in all. Any change may bring all this edifice 
 down; it may spell ruin to them and their children. 
 The immunity from work, which they at present en- 
 joy, may all disappear by a change of political con- 
 ditions. The British Government has guaranteed 
 them not only their possessions, but also their right 
 to live and thrive on the ignorance, the supersti- 
 tions, and the mental and moral slavery of their 
 followers and subjects. 
 
 Such are some of the Nabobs and Maharajas of 
 India. Many of them might have to cut stones and 
 make roads to earn their living, if they were not 
 protected by British bayonets. Their harems con- 
 sisting of numerous innocent women doomed to 
 life-long imprisonment, to lives of barrenness and 
 shame and emptiness, their big cellars full of the 
 choicest and the oldest of whiskies, brandies, and 
 
88 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 champagnes, their stables full of the swiftest and 
 the noblest of race horses, their drawing rooms 
 decorated with gold, silver, silk and velvet, all that 
 money can buy and art can embellish, their dining 
 tables laden with all inviting dishes and delicacies 
 which the best paid cuisine in the world can pro- 
 duce, their ability to travel in special trains and 
 gorgeous saloons, and to command a new woman 
 and a new wine every day of the year, and to move 
 in the most fashionable circles, — all depend on the 
 continuance of the existing conditions. For them, 
 this is life. They do not know what honour is. 
 For them, struggle, strife, duty, political change, 
 mean a dislocation of everything dear to them. It 
 would be practical death to them. Yes, it may be 
 true that such people do not care for political lib- 
 erty, for freedom, for independence, for patriotism. 
 For them, their present life is bliss and they do not 
 want to be molested either by the politician or by 
 the patriot. 
 
 But their number is not large. Some of the rul- 
 ing chiefs may not speak out, but in their heart of 
 hearts many of them feel the humiliation of the 
 situation. A Maharana of Udeypore may not be 
 in a position to assert his independence and take the 
 chance of losing his State, but even he may not con- 
 sent to walk behind a Curzon in a coronation pro- 
 cession in honour of the King of England and the 
 foreign Emperor of India. A Gaekwar of Baroda 
 may be powerless as against the British army and 
 British navy, but even he, in a moment of exalted 
 self-respect, may forget to make an abject obeisance 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 89 
 
 to the King of England. Such men and even many 
 of less worth and nobility, cannot put up with a 
 Lord Curzon. It is good for their sense of self- 
 respect and also for the country at large to have a 
 Curzon for a viceroy. It reminds them, as nothing 
 else perhaps would, of their degradation and fall. 
 
 It is very interesting to observe how the Indian 
 Chiefs writhe and fret and foam when a Curzon 
 threatens their privileges, tries to limit their free- 
 dom, and otherwise trespasses upon their rights. 
 It is then that a wave of shame sweeps over them 
 and touches some lingering sense of self-respect and 
 pride in their hearts. But the infamous, lazy, de- 
 bauched lives which some of them have led make 
 it impossible for them to maintain this indignation 
 long enough for it to goad them to any sustained 
 effort to throw away their thraldom and assert 
 their manhood. The injecting of an electric cur- 
 rent may temporarily revive a dead body, may pro- 
 duce some kind of activity even in a parasite, but 
 it cannot put life into it. 
 
 But after all, as compared with the number of 
 people who are alive to the sense of self-respect and 
 honour, the parasitical crowned heads or priests or 
 noblemen (Nabobs, Rajas, and Maharajas) are 
 only a few. They are a mere drop in the ocean, 
 though they possess the means of keeping them- 
 selves in the public eye and of having their trum- 
 pets blown and praises sung by the press and from 
 the platform both in India and in England. The 
 British too are interested in keeping them at the 
 front, in parading their loyalty and devotion to the 
 
90 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 empire, and in magnifying their importance and 
 greatness. 
 
 There are few among the nobility of India who 
 command any real respect either from the educated 
 section of their countrymen in general, or even 
 from their own subjects and dependents. Of 
 course there are noble exceptions to this statement. 
 And yet it is true that a large number of ruling 
 chiefs are mere figureheads in their states. Their 
 policy is either dictated or guided or controlled by 
 the British Resident or the British Political Agent 
 through his creatures or through persons, who, 
 though not quite his creatures, are afraid of his 
 displeasure. In some states, the Resident inter- 
 feres in almost everything, and all the details of 
 administration pass through his fingers either di- 
 rectly or indirectly. In others, the Resident 
 watches the administration from a distance and lays 
 down the broad outlines of policy. There are few 
 native states, their number may be counted on one's 
 fingers, where the ruling chief has a will or capacity 
 to really assert himself, to stand on his dignity, and 
 to maintain his independence. Even the most en- 
 lightened and the most independent Prince is com- 
 pelled to consult the wishes of the Resident and the 
 wishes of the Government of India as expressed by 
 him. 
 
 Loyalty of Ruling Chiefs, It would be quite 
 wrong to conclude, as some people do, that all 
 the ruling chiefs are sincerely loyal to the British 
 supremacy, or that their acts displaying loyalty 
 are free and independent expressions of their minds 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 91 
 
 or their will.^* Some of them are devoid of 
 any real sense of honour, or are lost to it by habit- 
 ual submission or habitual debauchery. They are 
 quite contented to be left alone to enjoy. There 
 are others, however, who would be only too 
 glad to throw away the British yoke, if they could 
 only see a way of successfully doing so. They are 
 not prepared to take their chances. It should be 
 distinctly understood, therefore, that the National- 
 ist Party does not count upon their help or sympa- 
 thy. A good many perhaps sympathise with the 
 party of violence, and chuckle at their successes, but 
 none of them dare do anything to help them in any 
 shape. A few openly sympathise with the " con- 
 stitutional " party, but even they cannot and would 
 not give them any monetary or other kind of help 
 as it might easily be construed into an act of un- 
 friendliness towards the Paramount Power, and 
 might mar their relations with that. 
 
 The smaller fry, the wealthy banker, the great 
 landlord, the Bengal Zemindar, and the Oudh 
 Talukdar, are almost completely in the hands of 
 the British officials. The sympathy of the British 
 officials benefits them materially. Their antipathy 
 or dislike or aversion would ruin them financially. 
 The British collector or magistrate holds complete 
 sway over their souls. They would rather go out 
 of their way to propitiate him and win his pleasure, 
 than risk the slightest suspicion of an independent 
 attitude, or of any conduct which even by stretch 
 of imagination could be construed into independ- 
 1* See New India by Sir Henry Cotton, 1907, p. 34. 
 
92 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 ence. Yet there are some, in Bengal at least, who 
 do sympathise with, and give active help to, the 
 Revolutionary Party. There are others who sym- 
 pathise with, and give occasional monetary assist- 
 ance to, the Constitutional Party. The latter class 
 does not count for much in Indian politics, and any- 
 thing said or done by them cannot be said to repre- 
 sent the attitude of any very large section of the 
 Indian community. 
 
 Men of wealth and men of means have nowhere 
 led the revolutionary or the political movements in 
 the history of freedom in this world of ours. 
 Their interests as a class are opposed to change. 
 Sometimes there does arise from among their ranks 
 a man of courage, a man endowed with an adven- 
 turous nature or fired by ambition, who leads the 
 movement for change, in the hope of either estab- 
 lishing a dynasty, or otherwise leaving a name in 
 history; and sometimes one comes across a wealthy 
 man who, out of regard for principle, and from 
 conviction, is a patriot, and joins the patriotic party 
 deliberately, and risks his possessions and position; 
 but such instances are always few and far between 
 in all countries. 
 
 Middle Class Desires Political Freedom. The de- 
 sire for political independence, the sense of shame 
 and humiliation born of being a subject race, of 
 being a political pariah, must from the nature 
 of things be confined largely to the educated 
 middle class. Even the masses could not be ex- 
 pected to take a very deep interest in the movement 
 for political independence. Their ignorance, their 
 
VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST 93 
 
 illiteracy, but most of all the hard struggle they 
 have to carry on for barest existence, prevents them 
 from devoting time or thought to the question. 
 Their time and thought are given to the fight against 
 hunger and want, against disease and distress, 
 against misery and wretchedness. They are easy 
 to please. A slight act of kindness or of charity 
 or of consideration makes them happy. They are 
 easily confused on fundamental issues. This is 
 true even in Europe and America, where the com- 
 mon people have received the benefits of school edu- 
 cation, and where they have had a training in 
 democratic thought for a century or more. The 
 masses are easily led astray by governments or by 
 classes in league with governments. In every 
 country it is the educated middle class that leads the 
 movement for political independence or for politi- 
 cal progress. It is the strength of their convic- 
 tions, their earnestness, their capacity to suffer for 
 their convictions, their willingness to sacrifice them- 
 selves for principles and for truth, coupled with the 
 extent and amount of their influence over the 
 masses, which determines the fate of the movement 
 for liberty. 
 
 A movement of that nature never dies. " The 
 battle of freedom once begun is carried on from fa- 
 ther to son," is as good to-day as it ever was. Yet 
 the movement may be delayed, or its issue may be 
 confused, or the contrary, according to the wisdom 
 or the folly of its advocates, or the amount of earn- 
 estness they put in it, or the amount of influence they 
 have over the masses, as well as by the wisdom or 
 
94 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 shortsightedness or cunning of those who oppose it. 
 All the world over, progressive political movements 
 have had vicissitudes of fortune, stages of develop- 
 ment, times of reactions, defeats and reverses. 
 Governments always begin by ignoring such move- 
 ments. Then comes a period of ridicule, followed 
 by repression. But their efforts are futile. The 
 food on which the tender plant of liberty thrives is 
 the blood of the martyr. The rope of the hang- 
 man, the axe of the executioner, or the shot of the 
 gunner, extinguishes individual life, only to make 
 the desire for corporate life keener and stronger. 
 Banishments, deportations, imprisonments, tortures 
 and confiscations, are the usual weapons of the 
 tyrant to strangle liberty, to extirpate those that are 
 after it, but they have so far proved ineffectual to 
 kill it. Conciliation is sometimes more successful 
 than repression, but conciliation delayed or conces- 
 sions forced have been proved to be worse than use- 
 less. The Nationalist Movement in India has 
 passed through some of these stages, and is passing 
 through the rest. We presume it will be of some 
 interest and use to trace its development, and to 
 make a retrospective review of its successes and 
 failures so far.^'^ 
 
 15 It should be noted that the evils complained of in this 
 chapter are the evils of the system which, in the words of John 
 Stuart Mill, is unnatural, and the unnaturalness of which is 
 recognised in full by many fair-minded Britishers. It was 
 recognised so far back as 1835 by the British historian Wilson 
 in his concluding remarks in the last chapter of K,^ monumen- 
 tal History of British India. 
 
CHAPTER II , \ 
 
 INDIA FROM 1757 TO 1857 A. D. 
 
 AuRANGZEB, the 6th Mogul Emperor of India, 
 died in 1707 a. d. Within fifty years of his death, 
 the Mogul sovereignty in India was reduced to its 
 last gasp. The seeds sown by his bigotry, fanati- 
 cism, and suspicious nature were ripening and 
 bringing to his successors a harvest of dissensions 
 and discords, of rebelHons and revolts. In the 
 North as well as the South, forces had been gen- 
 erated which threatened the end of the Mogul rule. 
 The martyrdom of Guru Teg Bahadur, the Sikh 
 Guru, who was foully murdered at Delhi, where he 
 had gone on a mission of peace, had sunk deep into 
 the hearts of his followers, and his son, Guru 
 Govind Singh, was organising forces which were 
 destined to supplant Mogul rule in the Land of the 
 Five Rivers.^ In the Deccan, Sivaji's^ standard 
 and throne had become the rallying point of the 
 fighting forces of Southern India. 
 
 By 1757 A. D., the Sikhs in the Punjab and the 
 Mahrattas in the Deccan had succeeded in under- 
 mining the foundations of the Mogul rule, which 
 was now steadily disintegrating. The Nizam of 
 Hyderabad, and the Nawab of Mysore had asserted 
 
 iThe Punjab. 
 
 ? Sivaji was the founder of the Mahratta Empire in India. 
 
 95 
 
96 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 their independence and were disputing the mastery 
 of the Deccan with the iMahrattas. Similarly the 
 Nabobs of Bengal and Oudh owed only nominal 
 allegiance to the King of Delhi. The greater part 
 of the peninsula, Central India, was under the 
 iMahrattas. 
 
 Conflict of French and English in India. The 
 political fate of India was hanging in the bal- 
 ance, when a power arose to take advantage of 
 the disturbed conditions of things. The French 
 and the English both entered the arena, taking dif- 
 ferent sides, and began to shuffle their cards. They 
 sold their help to the highest bidder, and at the 
 conclusion of every game, or even in the midst of 
 it, changed partners as often as they could in the 
 interest of their respective masters. The first mili- 
 tary achievement of note, which gave decisive ad- 
 vantage to the British, was at the battle of Plassey 
 in 1757. That practically gave them the key to 
 the sovereignty of India. From 1757 to 1857 was 
 the century of struggle, both military and diplo- 
 matic. The one end kept in view was the making 
 of the Empire and the amassing of wealth. 
 
 Hozv British Rule in India zcas Established. 
 Hindus were played against the IMohammedans, 
 and vice versa, states and principalities against 
 states and principalities, Jats against Rajputs, and 
 Rajputs against Jats, ]\Iahrattas against both, Ro- 
 hillas against Bundelas, and Bundelas against 
 Pathans, and so on. Treaties were made and 
 broken without the least scruple, sides were taken 
 and changed and again changed without the least 
 
INDIA FROM 1757 TO 1857 A. D. 97 
 
 consideration of honour or faith. Thrones were 
 purchased and sold to the highest bidder. MiUtary 
 support was purchased and given Hke merchandise. 
 Servants were induced to betray their masters, sol- 
 diers to desert flags, without any regard to the 
 moraHty of the steps taken. Pretences were in- 
 vented and occasions sought for involving states 
 and principalities in wars and trouble. Laws of 
 all kinds, national and international, moral and re- 
 ligious, were all for the time thrown into the dis- 
 card. Neither minors nor widows received any 
 consideration; the young and the old were treated 
 alike. The one object in view was to loot, to 
 plunder, and to make an empire. Everything was 
 subordinated to that end. One has only to read 
 Mill and Wilson's "History of British India," 
 Burke's " Impeachment of Warren Hastings," Tor- 
 rens' " Our Empire in Asia," Wilson's " Sword and 
 Ledger," Bell's " Annexation of the Punjab " to 
 find out that the above is a bare and moderate state- 
 ment of truth. 
 
 Methods of Consolidation of British India. Poli- 
 cies (fiscal, industrial, religious, educational) were 
 all discussed and formulated from one point of 
 view, viz., the establishing of British authority, the 
 consolidation of British rule, and pecuniary gain 
 to the East India Company. If one were to pile 
 up " scraps of paper " which the British destroyed 
 or disregarded in the making of their Indian em- 
 pire, one could fill a decent sized box therewith. 
 The administrations of Wellesley and Dalhousie 
 alone would furnish sufficient material for the pur- 
 
98 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 pose. We do not know of anything in Indian his- 
 tory which could be compared with the deeds of 
 this century. It was a century of consistent, pro- 
 longed, and deliberate spoliation, subtle and scien- 
 tific sometimes, in the pursuance of which all laws 
 of morality, humanity, and fairness were tossed 
 aside, and the object in view was persistently and 
 doggedly kept in view and achieved. It was not 
 the doing of this man or that man, but, with some 
 noble exceptions, of the whole body of Administra- 
 tors sent by the East India Company to manage 
 their affairs in the East. The policies and doings 
 of the various rulers that were sent from England 
 to administer the affairs of India differed in degree 
 only. 
 
 British Public Ignorant of Facts. It is true that 
 the British people as a whole had no notion 
 of what was going on in India. They were as ig- 
 norant of it, then, as they are to-day of the 
 doings of their countrymen in that vast " conti- 
 nent." It sufficed for them to know that their 
 countrymen were carving an empire there, conquer- 
 ing provinces and bringing millions of alien people 
 under British rule; as it suffices for them to know 
 to-day that they have an empire in India. India 
 brought them wealth and material prosperity. In- 
 dividuals became fabulously rich and their wealth 
 filtered downward and filled the whole British 
 nation. The nation became rich by the dividends 
 of the East India Company, and by the enormous 
 profits which British manufacturers and British 
 traders made by the fact of British supremacy in 
 
INDIA FROM 1757 TO 1857 A. D. 99 
 
 India. That was enough for the nation. Even 
 when their moral sense was at times shocked by 
 certain disclosures, which by chance found their 
 way into the press or into the literature of the coun- 
 try, it was soon calmed and set at rest by the 
 speeches made by the statesmen at the helm of af- 
 fairs, who explained them away, excused their 
 authors on political grounds, and laid down in high, 
 grandiloquent terms that the general aim of British 
 rule in India was beneficent, and that this aim was 
 steadily being pursued. The impeachment of War- 
 ren Hastings by Burke should have opened the eyes 
 of the British public as to what was happening in 
 India; but the eventual acquittal of that famous 
 pro-consul set matters at rest. And Warren Has- 
 tings was by no means the worst offender. What 
 happened then is happening every day in India, only 
 in a different way and on a different scale. 
 
 Yet I am not disposed to criticise the British pub- 
 lic. Democracies have no time for the critical 
 examination of the affairs of other countries and 
 other people. They have their own trouble, enough 
 and to spare. They look to material benefits, and 
 their imagination is fired and their mind is thrilled 
 by the fact of so many millions being under their 
 rule. In the case of the British, both combined 
 make them proud of their countrymen, who rule 
 and administer India in their name. They have no 
 reason to be critical. Human nature is human 
 nature after all. Ordinary human nature is not 
 inclined to be critical at gains, especially when it 
 does not directly feel the iniquity of the methods 
 
100 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 by which those gains are made. But this is only 
 by the way. 
 
 To continue the thread of my narrative: the his- 
 tory of British *' conquest " of India from 1757 to 
 1857 A. D. is a continuous record of pohtical charla- 
 tanry, pohtical faithlessness, and political immoral- 
 ity. It was a triumph of British " diplomacy." 
 The British founders of the Indian empire had the 
 true imperial instincts of empire-builders. They 
 cared little for the means w^hich they employed. 
 Moral theorists cannot make empires. Empires 
 can only be built by unscrupulous men of genius, 
 men of daring and dash, making the best of oppor- 
 tunities that come to their hands, caring little for 
 the wrongs which they thereby inflict on others, or 
 the dishonesties or treacheries or breaches of faith 
 involved therein. Empires can only be conceived 
 by Napoleons, Bismarcks, Disraelis, Richelieus, and 
 IMachiavellis. They can only be built by Clives, 
 Hastings, Wellesleys, and Dalhousies. Burkes and 
 Gladstones cannot do that work, nor can Morleys, 
 though they may connive at others doing it, and 
 might accept it as fait accompli. 
 
 Conquest of India Diplomatic, not Military. The 
 British conquest of India was not a military 
 conquest in any sense of the term. They could not 
 conquer India except by playing on the fears of 
 some and the hopes of others, and by seeking and 
 getting the help of Indians, both moral and mate- 
 rial. The record is as black as it could be; but 
 nothing succeeds like success, and all that is largely 
 a forgotten page so far as the present generation 
 
INDIA FROM 1757 TO 1857 A. D. loi 
 
 of Indians is concerned. Only one feels disposed 
 to smile when one hears of Indian nationalists being 
 charged in British-Indian courts with attempting to 
 subvert "the government established by law." 
 One is inclined to ask " By what law ? " and " Who 
 made that law ? " 
 
 The Great Indian Mutiny of 18 jy. We have, 
 however, referred to this story in these few words 
 only to introduce the great Indian mutiny of 1857, 
 as the first Indian political movement of the nine- 
 teenth century. The movement was national as 
 well as political. The underlying causes and the 
 contributory forces were many. The union of the 
 Hindus and Mohammedans, the thoroughness of 
 the organisation which preceded the mutiny, the 
 stubbornness with which the mutineers fought, and 
 the comparatively few treacheries that characterised 
 the mutinous campaign, all point to the' same con- 
 clusion. 
 
 The mutiny, however, failed because the people 
 on the whole had no faith in the constructive ca- 
 pacity of the mutineers. The mutineers had no 
 doubt agreed to postpone the question of the con- 
 structive ends in view, until after they had turned 
 out the British, but the people could not. The peo- 
 ple's patience had been exhausted by the military 
 activities of the preceding century and the accom- 
 panying disorder and anarchy, and they saw before 
 them the possibility of a recurrence of the same in 
 the case of success attending the arms of the muti- 
 neers. They hated the British; the Indian nobility 
 and aristocracy, as well as the Indian people, hated 
 
102 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 them. They sympathised with the mutineers; but 
 they helped them only half-heartedly. They had no 
 faith in them. The ruling families of India, the 
 aristocracy and the nobility, were perhaps more 
 dreaded and hated by the people than were the Brit- 
 ish. There was no one to rally them to one 
 standard. 
 
 Hoiv the Mutiny was Put Doivn. Here again 
 it was British " diplomacy " that saved the British 
 situation. The British rallied to their support the 
 newly born aristocracy of the Punjab, — the Sikhs. 
 The Sikhs had been persecuted and oppressed by the 
 IMohammedans. They were not in a mood to look 
 favourably at the chance of IMohammedan suprem- 
 acy being re-established in India. They had had 
 enough of the " Turk," as they called every Mo- 
 hammedan; and they threw the whole weight of 
 their recently gathered virility on the side of the 
 British. They were told and they believed, that in 
 crushing the Mohammedan power, they were re- 
 venging themselves on the slayers of Guru Teg 
 Bahadur, the oppressors of Guru Govind Singh, and 
 the murderers of his sons. It w^as the thought of 
 Sirhind and the incidents associated wnth the name 
 of that cursed place, ^ that goaded them to the de- 
 struction of the last chance of Mohammedan su- 
 premacy in India. 
 
 The mutiny failed, but its course showed with 
 what intensity the mutineers hated the British. The 
 
 3 Sirhind is a small town on the road to Delhi, where the 
 Muslim governor of the time tortured the two minor sons of 
 Guru Govind Singh to death by placing them between two brick 
 walls. 
 
INDIA FROM 1757 TO 1857 A. D. 103 
 
 Indians are a very kind-hearted people ; they would 
 not injure even an ant, much less a human being, if 
 they could help it, but some of them were guilty of 
 the most cruel excesses during the mutiny. The 
 British, too, in their turn did not spare the Indians 
 in any way either during the mutiny or after it. 
 Innocent and guilty alike were placed before the 
 cannon and shot in lots.^ In their marches through 
 the country, British soldiers tortured men, women, 
 and children,^ and sometimes hung their heads or 
 
 *See Kaye and Malleson, vol. II, p. 367. "In respect to 
 the mutineers of the 55th, they were taken fighting against us, 
 and so far deserve little mercy. But, on full reflection, I would 
 not put them all to death. I do not think that we should be 
 justified in the eyes of the Almighty in doing so. A hundred 
 and twenty men are a large number to put to death. Our ob- 
 ject is to make an example to terrify others. I think this 
 object would be effectually gained by destroying from a quarter 
 to a third of them. I would select all of those against whom 
 anything bad can be shown — such as general bad character, 
 turbulence, prominence in disaffection or in the fight, disre- 
 spectful demeanor to their officers during the few days before 
 the 26th, and the like. If these did not make up the required 
 number, I would then add to them the oldest soldiers. All 
 these should be shot or blown away from the guns, as may be 
 most expedient. The rest I would divide into patches : some to 
 be imprisoned ten years, some seven, some five, some three." 
 
 5 History of Indian Mutiny, Kaye and Malleson, vol. II, p. 203. 
 " Martial law had been proclaimed ; those terrible Acts passed 
 by the Legislative Council in May and June were in full opera- 
 tion ; and soldiers and civilians alike were holding Bloody As- 
 size, or slaying natives without any Assize at all, regardless 
 of sex or age. Afterwards the thirst for blood grew stronger 
 still. It is on the records of our British Parliament, in papers 
 sent home by the Governor General of India in Council, that 
 the aged, women, and children, are sacrificed, as well as those 
 guilty of rebellion. They were not deliberately hanged, but 
 burnt to death in their villages — perhaps now and then ac- 
 cidently shot. Englishmen did not hesitate to boast, or to 
 record their boastings in writings, that they had ' spared no 
 one,' and that ' peppering away at niggers ' was very pleasant 
 pastime, 'enjoyed amazingly.' It has been stated in a book 
 
104 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 carcasses on the trees.^ Both sides vied with each 
 other in their cruelties. 
 
 The victors have immortahsed the reprisals (or 
 say, the iniquities) of the vanquished by building 
 
 patronised by high class authorities, that ' for three months 
 eight dead-carts daily went their rounds from sunrise to sunset 
 to take down the corpses which hung at the cross-roads and 
 market-places,' and that ' six thousand beings ' had been thus 
 summarily disposed of and launched into eternity." 
 
 ® See Kaye and Malleson's History of the Mutiny, vol. 11, p. 
 177. '* Already our military officers were hunting down the 
 criminals of all kinds, and hanging them up with as little com- 
 punction as though they had been pariah-dogs, or jackals, or 
 vermin of a baser kind. One contemporary writer has re- 
 corded that, on the morning of disarming parade, the first 
 thing he saw from the Mint was a ' row of gallowses.' A few 
 days afterwards the military courts or commissions were sit- 
 ting daily, and sentencing old and young to be hanged with in- 
 discriminate ferocity. On one occasion, some young boys, who, 
 seemingly in mere sport, had flaunted rebel colours and gone 
 about beating tom-toms, were tried and sentenced to death. 
 One of the officers composing the court, a man unsparing be- 
 fore an enemy under arms, but compassionate, as all brave 
 men are, towards the weak and the helpless, went with tears in 
 his eyes to the commanding officer, imploring him to remit the 
 sentence passed against these juvenile offenders, but with little 
 effect on the side of mercy. And what was done with some 
 show of formality either of military or of criminal law, was as 
 nothing, I fear, weighed against what was done without any 
 formality at all. Volunteer hanging parties went out into the 
 districts, and amateur executioners were not wanting to the 
 occasion. One gentleman boasted of the numbers he had fin- 
 ished off quite ' in an artistic manner,' with mango-trees for 
 gibbets and elephants for drops, the victims of this wild justice 
 being strung up, as though for pastime, in ' the form of a figure 
 of eight.'" 
 
 On mock trials see Holmes' History of the Sepoy War, p. 
 124. " Officers, as they went to sit on the court martial, swore 
 that they would hang their prisoners, guilty or innocent. . . . 
 Prisoners condemned to death after a hasty trial were mocked 
 at and tortured by ignorant privates before their execution, 
 while educated ofiBcers looked on and approved." " Old men 
 who had done us no harm, and helpless women with sucking 
 infants at their breasts felt the weight of our vengeance, no 
 less than the vilest malefactors." 
 
INDIA FROM 1757 TO 1857 A. D. 105 
 
 permanent memorials on the spots where they were 
 perpetrated ; their own, they have forgotten, and so 
 have perhaps the descendants of those who were the 
 objects thereof, though they are recorded in history. 
 
 Again see History of the Siege of Delhi quoted by Savarkar 
 in his " War of Indian Independence," p. iii, by an officer who 
 served there, how, on the way from Umbala to Delhi, thou- 
 sands were placed before a court martial in rows after rows 
 and condemned to be hanged or shot. In some places cow's 
 flesh was forced by spears and bayonets into the mouths of 
 the condemned. (All Hindus abhor cow's flesh and would 
 rather die than eat it.) 
 
 See Charles Ball's Indian Mutiny, vol. I, p. 257. " One trip 
 I enjoyed amazingly; we got on board a steamer with a gun, 
 while the Sikhs and the fusiliers marched up to the city. We 
 steamed up throwing shots right and left till we got up to the 
 bad places, when we went on the shore and peppered away with 
 our guns, my old double-barrel bringing down several niggers. 
 So thirsty for vengeance I was. We fired the places right and 
 left and the flames shot up to the heavens as they spread, 
 fanned by the breeze, showing that the day of vengeance had 
 fallen on the treacherous villains. Every day we had expedi- 
 tions to burn and destroy disaffected villages and we had 
 taken our revenge. I have been appointed the chief of a com- 
 mission for the trial of all natives charged with offences 
 against the Government and persons. Day by day, we have 
 strung up eight or ten men. W'e have the power of life in 
 our hands and, I assure you, we spare not. A very summary 
 trial is all that takes place. The condemned culprit is placed 
 under a tree, with a rope around his neck, on the top of a 
 carriage, and when it is pulled off he swings." 
 
 " In the Punjab, near Ajnala, in a small island, many a Sepoy 
 who had simply fled away from a regiment which was work- 
 ing under the reasonable fear of being disarmed and shot by 
 the Government for suspicion, was hiding himself. Cooper 
 with a loyal body of troops took them prisoner. The entire 
 number, amounting to two hundred and eighty-two, were then 
 conveyed by Cooper to Ajnala. Then came the question what 
 was to be done with them. There was no means of trans- 
 porting them to a place where they could be tried formally. 
 On the other hand, if they were summarily executed, other 
 regiments and intending rebels might take warning by their 
 fate, and thus, further bloodshed might be prevented. For 
 these reasons, Cooper, fully conscious as he was of the enor- 
 mous responsibility which he was undertaking, resolved to put 
 
io6 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 The Impression which a visit to these memorials 
 leaves on the mind of an English visitor can be 
 better realised by the following extract from an ac- 
 count published in The Outlook (the English jour- 
 nal) on the 3rd of April, 19 15, over the signature 
 of one F. G. A. Speaking of the mutiny memories 
 and monuments of Lucknow and Cawnpore, the 
 writer remarks : 
 
 " Their mutiny memories are quite distinct, as are 
 the impressions they leave on the pilgrim to these 
 shrines of heroism and devilry. The battered ruins 
 of Lucknow^ testifying to a heroism so splendid as 
 to rob even death of its sting, bring an inspiration 
 that is almost joyous. Every crumbling gateway 
 and every gloomy cellar has its tale of heroic endur- 
 
 them all to death. Next morning, accordingly, he brought 
 them out in tens and made some Sikhs shoot them. In this 
 way, two hundred and sixteen perished. But. there still re- 
 mained sixty-six others who had been confined in one of the 
 bastions of the Tahsil. Expecting resistance, Cooper ordered 
 the door to be opened. But not a sound issued from the room ; 
 forty-five of them were dead bodies lying on the fioor. For, 
 unknown to Cooper, the windows had been closely shut and the 
 wretched prisoners had found in the bastion a second Black- 
 Hole. The remaining twenty-one were shot, like their com- 
 rades. I — '8 — '57. For this splendid assumption of author- 
 ity, Cooper was assailed by the hysterical cries of ignorant 
 humanitarians. But Robert Montgomery unanswerably vindi- 
 cated his character by proving that he had saved the Lahore 
 division." — Holmes's History of the Indian Mutiny, p. 363. 
 
 " It is related that, in the absence of tangible enemies, some 
 of our soldiery, who turned out on this occasion, butchered a 
 number of unoffending camp-followers, servants, and others 
 who were huddling together in vague alarm, near the Christian 
 church-yard. No loyalty, no fidelity, no patient good service 
 on the part of these good people could extinguish, for a mo- 
 ment, the fierce hatred which possessed our white soldiers 
 against all who wore the dusky livery of the East." — Kaye 
 and Malleson's Indian Mutiny, vol. II, p. 438. 
 
INDIA FROM 1757 TO 1857 A. D. 107 
 
 ance and magnificent defence, and the final relief 
 of the beleaguered garrison wrote such a finis to the 
 story as erased much of its earlier bitterness. . . . 
 
 " None of this forgiveness is conceivable in those 
 v^ho visit Cawnpore. Even the sculptured angel 
 over the unspeakable Well bears, on one profile at 
 any rate, an expression of stern condemnation that 
 holds out no promise of pardon. The atmosphere 
 of historic Cav^npore is one of haunting horror and 
 a sadness that will not pass with the years. Time 
 seems powerless to heal this rancour. I care not 
 whether the pilgrim wanders through the beautiful 
 Memorial Gardens (in which, significantly, no native 
 is allowed to enter), feasting his eyes on the blaze 
 Bougainvillcca, or resting them in the shade of the 
 peepul and the banyan, or whether he lingers in the 
 strangely Italian-looking Memorial Church and 
 reads the roll of honour that fills a series of mural 
 tablets ; everywhere his soul will be filled with gloom 
 and will cry for eternal vengeance on the authors of 
 the massacre and on those who threw the dying with 
 the dead into the awful blackness of the pit. These 
 memories hold nothing but hate and horror, without 
 one redeeming chapter to leaven them with comfort 
 or forgiveness." '^ 
 
 The English are mistaken if they think that a 
 reading of the history of the mutiny and the excesses 
 and cruelties indulged in by the British does not ex- 
 cite similar feeling in the minds of the Indians. 
 
 7 It should be noted that this visit took place during the 
 present war and the observations recorded above were penned 
 after the "unique" outburst of loyalty on the part of the 
 Indians in connection with the Great War. 
 
io8 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 The British can express their feelings freely. The 
 Indians cannot ; their feelings must be repressed. 
 
 It would, however, be better for both parties to 
 try to wipe off the past in a spirit of mutual trust 
 and mutual good will, which is only possible if 
 England were to cease to pursue a policy of ex- 
 ploiting India and to establish her connection with 
 India on a basis of equality, honesty and justice. 
 That can only be done by treating her as a partner 
 in the Empire and not as a mere '* dependency " 
 or *' possession." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 INDIA FROM 1857 TO I905 
 PART I — FROM 1857 TO 1885 
 
 The mutiny was quelled. The ringleaders among 
 the mutineers were killed, hanged or shot, and with 
 them a lot of those who were innocent. Many of 
 the rank and file were pardoned, as no government 
 could shoot or hang all those who had taken part in 
 the mutiny. Their number was legion. The Brit- 
 ish Empire in India was saved, but the East India 
 Company was gone. The system of open pillage 
 was ended. The crown assumed the direct govern- 
 ment of India. The Queen's Proclamation and the 
 policy of '' mercy and reconciliation " inaugurated 
 by Canning calmed the country. 
 
 The Bengalee Babu. The only parts of the coun- 
 try which had received some education on modern 
 lines were the provinces of Bengal, Bombay and 
 Madras. The number of educated men even in these 
 provinces was small. In the work of settlement that 
 followed the mutiny, these educated men found 
 ample scope for their ambition. Men who knew 
 English had the advantage over those who did not. 
 Men with a knowledge of English were few. The 
 posts requiring a knowledge of that language were 
 many. Consequently, the English-knowing Indians 
 
 109 
 
no YOUNG INDIA 
 
 were in great demand and secured ample salaries to 
 make them " happy and loyal." The English-know- 
 ing Bengalees spread over the whole of Northern • 
 India, lately the scene of mutiny, and materially 
 helped in bringing about settled conditions of life. 
 They were the pioneers in every department of gov- 
 ernmental activity and were looked to, both by the 
 rulers and the people, for advice and guidance. 
 The Bengalee is a sentimental being. His position 
 under the Government filled him with pride and his 
 gratitude and loyalty were overflowing. The Brit- 
 ish also liked him because he was useful, intelligent, | 
 keen, shrewd, ready to serve, and willing to be of 
 use. He relieved the British ofhcer of much of his 
 intellectual work, and left him ample time for play 
 and rest. Many a departmental head ruled the 
 country with the brain of the " Bengalee Babu." 
 The Bengalee Babu worshipped the Feringhee ^ as 
 Mai Bap,^ and began to imitate him in his tastes. 
 He began to live as the Britisher lived; English life, 
 English manners and customs, became his ideal. 1 
 Gradually he became very fond of English literature 
 and began to think as an Englishman thought. The 
 Bengalees were the first to send their sons to Eng- 
 land for their education and to compete for the 
 I. C. S. (Indian Civil Service) and the I. M. S. 
 (Indian Medical Service). They with the Parsees 
 were the first to qualify for the English bar. In 
 England, they lived in an atmosphere of freedom. 
 
 ^ A native term equivalent for Europeans. 
 
 2 This is a native expression signifying the highest respect 
 of the speaker towards one whom he considers his superior. 
 Literally it means mother and father. 
 
1 
 
 r"^-^ • -*< 
 
 Ram Mohan Roy 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 11 1 
 
 With freedom in drinking and eating they also 
 learned freedom of thought and expression. 
 
 The first generation of the Bengalees was thus 
 Anglicised through and through. They looked 
 down upon their own religion; they thought poorly 
 of Indian society. They knew nothing of their own 
 past history, and they glorified in being " Sahibs." ^ 
 Some of them became Christians. Alarmed at this 
 transformation, Ram Mohan Roy and a few others 
 resolved to stem the tide. For a time they suc- 
 ceeded, but only partially. Be it said to the credit of 
 the Bengalees that a fairly good number refused to 
 be carried down-stream, and in spite of their Eng- 
 lish education stuck to their own religion and their 
 own customs. They saw a good deal in their society 
 which needed reform; but they declined to make 
 sweeping changes and would not imitate. These 
 veterans laid the foundations of the modern Ben- 
 galee literature. They wanted to pour their knowl- 
 edge, derived from a study of English language and 
 literature, into their own mother tongue, and in 
 order to enlarge the vocabulary of the latter for their 
 work, they had to study Sanskrit. Thus in spite of 
 the Anglification of the first generation of Ben- 
 galees, there grew up a class of men imbued with 
 nationalistic tendencies. Ram Mohan Roy, the 
 founder of Brahmo Samaj, was the first nation- 
 builder of Modern India. 
 
 For a time the field that was opened for the em- 
 ployment of English-educated Bengalees in Upper 
 India (in the then N. W. Provinces, in the Pun- 
 
 3 /. e., like the English. 
 
112 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 jab, in Behar, in Central India, in Rajputana, 
 even in Sindh) checked the growth of these tend- 
 encies. The feehng of gratitude and contentment 
 was supreme. The Bengalee was indispensable in 
 almost every department. The reins of practical 
 management were mostly in Bengalee hands, 
 whether it was a court of justice, or a Revenue Com- 
 missioner's office, or a commissariat depot, or an 
 adjutant's camp, or the department of land survey, 
 or education. The heads of departments were al- 
 ways English, but the heads of ministerial establish- 
 ments were generally Bengalees. The English could 
 not do without them. The former did not know the 
 language of the country, nor did they know the 
 character of the people. The Bengalees were thus 
 an absolute necessity. With the spread of a knowl- 
 edge of the English language, the first generation of 
 English-knowing Indians in every province came 
 to occupy an important position. While the old- 
 fashioned Pandit or Moulvie sulked, the English- 
 knowing Hindu or Mohammedan basked in sunshine 
 and flourished. The British laid down policies and 
 gave orders; the English-knowing Indian saw that 
 they were carried out. They thus came to enjoy 
 the confidence of their masters and imitated their 
 vices. 
 
 But what was most important was that they began 
 to think like their English masters. The English 
 read their newspapers; so the Indians started their 
 newspapers. The English met in clubs and 
 churches. So the Indians started Samajes and 
 Sabhas and debating clubs. For a time the English- 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 113 
 
 knowing Indian prided himself in imitating his 
 master. He took his dress, he took his cheroot and 
 pipe, and also his cup and beefsteak. He began to 
 live in houses built and furnished in the English 
 way. He detested Indian life and took pride in 
 being Anglicised. Everything Indian was odious 
 in his eyes. The Indians were barbarians ; their re- 
 ligion was a bundle of superstitions; they were dirty 
 people ; their customs and manners were uncivilised ; 
 they were a set of narrow-minded bigots who did 
 not know that man was born free. So the English 
 set the fashion for them in everything. If their 
 English masters went to church and read the Bible, 
 they did the same. If the English masters indulged 
 in free-thinking, they did the same. They wanted 
 to be like their English masters in every way. Their 
 ambition, however, soon met a check. They could 
 equal the British in drinking and in free-thinking, 
 but they could not aspire to his position and place in 
 the government of the country. Some of them de- 
 cided to try this in the case of their sons. They sent 
 them to England. A few passed the Indian Civil 
 Service and the Indian Medical Service examina- 
 tions, others became barristers. Both found out by 
 bitter experience that, however able and clever they 
 might be, whatever their intellectual acquirements, 
 no matter if they were Christians, or semi-Chris- 
 tians, or free-thinkers, there was a limit to their 
 aspirations both in service and out of it. That was 
 the first eye-opener. 
 
 In the meantime, the thoughtful among the In- 
 dians, who had not taken to English manners, were 
 
114 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 anxiously watching the flow of the current. They 
 saw the disintegrating and denationaHsing forces 
 that were at work ; they saw that their national edi- 
 fice was crumbHng down brick by brick ; everything 
 which they had valued and held sacred was being 
 devastated and treated with contempt and reduced to 
 ashes. Their own children were deserting the old 
 banners to which innumerable generations before 
 them had clung with love and reverence. They saw 
 all this; they were sorry; they wept tears of blood; 
 but they could do nothing. They were powerless 
 before the tide. They tried palliatives, but failed. 
 What was fatal to their pious wishes was that they 
 could not themselves resist the fruits which English 
 education brought in the shape of emoluments and 
 rank and position. They wanted these fruits with- 
 out the thorns. They soon found that that was im- 
 possible, and so they gave up the struggle in despair 
 and became reconciled to the inevitable. What they 
 failed to achieve was, however, brought about by a 
 combination of circumstances which we will briefly 
 enumerate below. 
 
 Forces Resisting Denationalisation, i. The Eng- 
 lish education imparted in schools and colleges estab- 
 lished by the British, and the Christian missions (in 
 some instances supplemented by Indian agencies), 
 opened the gates of Western thought and Western 
 literature to the mass of educated Indians. 
 
 2. Some of the British teachers and professors 
 who taught in the schools and colleges consciously 
 and unconsciously inspired their pupils with ideas of 
 freedom as well as nationalism. 
 
SWAMI ViVEKANANDA 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 115 
 
 3. The over-zeal of the missionaries in their at- 
 tacks upon Indian rehgions and Indian thought sug- 
 gested to Indian minds a closer and deeper study of 
 their own religion and thought. 
 
 4. In this they were materially helped by the 
 awakening of Europeans to the thought of the East. 
 The labours of the European savants and their ap- 
 preciation of Eastern thought kindled a fresh fire in 
 the bosom of Hindus and Mohammedans. 
 
 5. The writings of Ram Mohan Roy, Debendra 
 Nath Tagore, Rajendra Lai Mitra, in Bengal, those 
 of Ranade, Vishnu Pandit and others in Mahrash- 
 tra, of Swami Dayanand and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan 
 in Upper India, of Madam Blavatsky and the other 
 Theosophists in Madras, brought about a new awak- 
 ening, which afterwards received an even stronger 
 impetus from the writings and speeches of Mrs. 
 Annie Besant and Swami Vivekananda. This was 
 on the religious and social side mainly, but its na- 
 tional character was unmistakable. 
 
 Political Disappointments. The current produced 
 by these causes met another current, which was gen- 
 erated by political disappointments. The aspira- 
 tions of the educated Indian had met a check. The 
 few successes gained by Indians in the Indian Civil 
 Service examinations alarmed the British, and they 
 sought for means of keeping them out. One of the 
 means adopted was to require that the candidates 
 should not be more than 19 to 21 years of age at 
 the time of examination, an age so young as made 
 it impossible for Indians to come over to England 
 and successfully compete. This raised a howl and 
 
ii6 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 cry in Bengal, and the rest of the country followed 
 Bengal. Then came other measures like the Ver- 
 nacular Press Act of Lord Lytton, and the remission 
 of cotton duties,^ and so on. The generation edu- 
 cated in England had some experience of the meth- 
 ods of political agitation in that country, and they 
 soon began to organise on those lines. Political 
 agitation on modern lines thus became a fact of In- 
 dian life, and English-educated Indians began to 
 talk of liberty and self-government. 
 
 Thus were laid the foundations of the national 
 awakening, of which so much has been heard of late. 
 The methods of the English Government in India, 
 their educational system, their press, their laws, their 
 courts, their railways, their telegraphs, their post- 
 offices, their steamers, had as much to do with it as 
 the native love of country, of religion and nation, 
 which had received a temporary check by the crush- 
 ing defeat of the mutineers in 1857, and by the In- 
 dian people's too ready acquiescence in the political 
 and social domination of the foreigner which en- 
 sued. 
 
 This time, however, the movement was brought 
 into existence by those who had received their in- 
 spiration from Europe. Within less than twenty 
 years after the great mutiny, the Nationalist Move- 
 ment of India was born, almost at the same time and 
 place at which Lord Lytton was presiding at the 
 great Imperial Durbar, and announcing that the 
 great Queen of England was assuming the title of 
 Empress of India. The Durbar reduced the chiefs 
 
 4 In the interests of Lancashire goods. 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 117 
 
 of India from the position of allies to that of feuda- 
 tories, but it quite unconsciously and against the in- 
 tentions of its authors raised in theory the status of 
 the Indian subjects of the Queen to that of citizens 
 of the British Empire. Little did the authors of 
 that Durbar realise the inner significance of the move 
 they were making. That Durbar, we may say, 
 marked the beginning of the movement which filled 
 the educated Indian with the idea of obtaining his 
 rightful place in the Empire. He became articulate 
 and began to assert himself. He was no longer sat- 
 isfied with the minor positions which he held in the 
 Government of India. He claimed his country as 
 his own, and raised the cry of " India for the In- 
 dians." His cry gained strength when he found that 
 the India which he looked down upon in the fifties 
 or sixties, the system of thought and life which he 
 considered barbarous, primitive and old fashioned, 
 and the past which he despised, were after all not so 
 bad as he had thought. 
 
 The latter was the contribution of the Brahmo 
 Samaj, the Theosophical Society, the Society for the 
 Resuscitation of Sanskrit Literature, the Bengal 
 Sahitya Parishad, the Maharastra Sabha, the Arya 
 Samaj, the Sanatan Sabhas and other societies of a 
 similar nature. The Bengali and the Mahratta writ- 
 ers, who had carried on researches in Indian history 
 and unearthed valuable documents and written in 
 their respective vernaculars, contributed materially 
 to the growth of this feeling. The Theosophical So- 
 ciety began to praise and justify every Hindu insti- 
 tution and to find science in every custom. In fact, 
 
ii8 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 for a time, the thoughtful began to fear lest the 
 pendulum was swinging the other way and we were 
 in the midst of a wave of reaction. 
 
 Lord Ripon. India was in this state of fermenta- 
 tion, religious, social and political, when Lord Ripon 
 was appointed to the viceroyalty of India. Lord 
 Ripon was an exceedingly kind man and commanded 
 a broad outlook. He was very lucky in having come 
 on the heels of an exceedingly unpopular Viceroy 
 like Lord Lytton. Lord Lytton was a Tory of pro- 
 nounced imperial tendencies. Under the inspiration 
 of Disraeli, he had by an unworthy trick on the rul- 
 ing chiefs of India changed their position from that 
 of allies to that of feudatories; he had gagged the 
 vernacular press by his press legislation; he had 
 blundered into a bloody Afghan war and was re- 
 sponsible for several other reactionary measures. 
 Lord Ripon started by undoing most of what Lord 
 Lytton had done. He repealed the Vernacular Press 
 Act, which at once set the seal of popular approval 
 on his administration. The most important of his 
 achievements were, however, constructive. He for- 
 mulated a policy of local government, and thus laid 
 the foundations of representative institutions in 
 India; he substituted merit for patronage and job- 
 bery in filling public services, by organising com- 
 petitive examinations for filling a certain number of 
 posts in the higher branches of the subordinate serv- 
 ices; last but not least, he resolved to so alter the 
 criminal law as to place the European and the In- 
 dian on an equal footing in the matter of trials. 
 
 All this aroused the bitterest anger of the Anglo- 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 119 
 
 Indian officialdom. The Anglo-Indians opposed 
 every one of these measures. They ridiculed the 
 idea of introducing any measure of local self-govern- 
 ment in India, and predicted that that must be the 
 beginning of the end. They called the measure rash 
 and ill-advised and impracticable. The natives were 
 incapable of self-government, they said. Their re- 
 ligious and social differences made it impossible. 
 Officialdom was equally opposed to the filling of any 
 posts in government service by open competition. 
 This would bring in the " Babu,'* and the " Babu " 
 they had now begun to hate and look down upon. 
 The " Babu " was a " low-caste hybrid," who wrote 
 bad English and talked of liberty and equality, who 
 lacked in qualities of docility and submissiveness, 
 which had so far characterised persons appointed by 
 selection. This interfered materially with the pres- 
 tige of the Lord of the District, as people could now 
 get " high " appointments under the Government in- 
 dependently of him. Why should the people re- 
 spect him any more? His was a government by 
 prestige, and measures like these of Lord Ripon 
 would destroy it. So prophesied the heaven-born 
 " white Brahmins." But the worst offence of Lord 
 Ripon was the *' Ilbert Bill," ^ which aimed at plac- 
 ing the European and the Indian on an equal foot- 
 ing in the eyes of the law, and would remove the 
 disabilities of the Indian Magistrate in the matter 
 of the trial of the white men. " Shall we be judged 
 by the Nigger? " " shall he send us to jail? " " shall 
 
 5 Mr, Ilbert was the Law member of the Council of the 
 Governor General and the bill came to be named after him. 
 
120 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 he be put in authority over us ? Never ! It is im- 
 possible! Better that British rule in India should 
 end than that we be obliged to submit to such hu- 
 miliating laws." The whole tribe of the Anglo- 
 Indians (official and non-official) opposed the meas- 
 ure most vehemently, and attacked Lord Ripon as 
 never viceroy was attacked before by his own coun- 
 trymen in India. They called him insulting names, 
 passed resolutions condemning his administration 
 wholesale, proposed his recall before the expiration 
 of his period of office, and did everything possible 
 to make him feel that they hated him. 
 
 His unpopularity among the Anglo-Indians made 
 him popular among the Indians. The press and the 
 platform sang his praise. The country was ablaze 
 with excitement. Never before under British rule 
 had the country been so enthusiastic in political mat- 
 ters. In Lord Ripon, they thought, they had found 
 a political Messiah. They gave him addresses, un- 
 harnessed the horses from his carriage, in many 
 places, and otherwise showed their love and regard 
 for him, which exasperated the European community 
 beyond measure. The Europeans saw in all this a 
 menace to their power, and the beginning of the end 
 of imperial despotism in India. They thought they 
 were on the verge of losing India. In Lord Ripon 
 the Indians recognised the first British viceroy who 
 was prepared to make an honest attempt at giving 
 effect to the pledges given and the promises made 
 by Queen Victoria in her famous proclamation of 
 1858, when the administration of India passed into 
 the hands of the regular British Government. Lord 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 121 
 
 Ripon lost the battle on the particular measure which 
 had aroused the anger of the European community 
 more than anything else, viz., his proposed amend- 
 ment of the Criminal Procedure Code. A compro- 
 mise was made by which the principle of the bill was 
 really abandoned. But he had raised hopes and 
 aspiration which were, so to say, the beginning of 
 political life in India. On the expiration of his term 
 of office, the Indians agitated for an extension of his 
 term, which was not granted. However, they gave 
 him a farewell which still rings in the ears of the 
 older generation of Indians who took part in it, in 
 Calcutta, in Bombay, in Benares, and other places. 
 
 Lord Ripon left a permanent impression on the 
 minds of the Indians. Lord Hardinge has won a 
 great deal of popularity, but it is doubtful if he is so 
 universally loved and honoured as Lord Ripon 
 was. 
 
 Lord Dufferin. However, the point of the story 
 is, that when Lord Ripon left India, the country was 
 in a state of perturbation. There was a great deal 
 of tension still lingering between the Indian and the 
 European communities. The fire was still smoulder- 
 ing when Lord Dufferin took charge of the office of 
 viceroyalty. He had been brought up in diplomacy. 
 To him diplomacy was like mother's milk. He was 
 a diplomat by birth as well as by training. His mis- 
 sion was to appease the anger of the governing class 
 and in a quiet way to undo what Lord Ripon had 
 done. But he thought that perhaps it might be dan- 
 gerous to go at it straight. The cry of political 
 liberty and political equality had been raised. It 
 
122 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 was impossible to satisfy it; yet it might be danger- 
 ous to strangle it by force. It was impossible to re- 
 vive the Vernacular Press Act of Lord Lytton. It 
 was impossible to stifle political life which had 
 sprung up in the atmosphere created by Lord Ripon's 
 policy, and which was making a rather precocious 
 growth. The more it was opposed, ridiculed and 
 despised, the more it thrived. So he decided to 
 guide it and to make it as innocuous as it could be 
 without rousing the suspicions of those who were to 
 be the tools. 
 
 PART II. THE BIRTH OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL 
 
 CONGRESS 
 
 Indian National Congress an English Product 
 It is an undisputed historical fact, that the idea 
 of the Indian National Congress was a product of 
 Lord Dufferin's brain; that he suggested it to Mr. 
 Hume,^ and that the latter undertook to work it out. 
 We have no means of knowing whether Mr. Hume 
 communicated the fact to all the Indian leaders who 
 joined hands with him in organising it, but in all 
 probability he told some of them. It leaked out, 
 however, in Lord Dufferin's lifetime, was published 
 in the press, brought to his notice and never denied 
 by him. Nor did Mr. Hume, who died only in 
 1 9 12, ever deny it. It has since been admitted to be 
 true by his biographer, another veteran Congress 
 leader. Sir William Wedderburn.^ Sir William 
 
 6 Mr. Hume was an ex-secretary of the Government of India 
 who had retired from service. 
 
 7 Sir William Wedderburn is also a retired member of the 
 Government of Bombay, India. 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 123 
 
 says on page 59 of his life of Mr. Hume : " Indeed 
 in initiating the National Movement, Mr. Hume took 
 counsel with the viceroy. Lord Diifferin; and 
 whereas he was himself disposed to begin his reform 
 propaganda on the social side, it was apparently by 
 Lord Dufferin's advice that he took up the work of 
 political organisation as the -first matter to be dealt 
 with" We have no hesitation in accepting the ac- 
 curacy of the statement made by Sir WilHam Wed- 
 derburn as to what Lord Dufferin told Mr. Hume, 
 because we have no doubt of Mr. Hume's sincerity 
 of purpose. Lord Dufferin did evidently tell Mr. 
 Hume that " as head of the Government, he had 
 found the greatest difficulty in ascertaining the real 
 wishes of the people; and that for purposes of ad- 
 ministration it would be a public benefit, if there ex- 
 isted some responsible organisation through which 
 the Government might be kept informed regarding 
 the best Indian public opinion." Sir William Wed- 
 derburn assures us that " these kindly counsels {i. e., 
 those given by Lord Dufferin) were received with 
 grateful appreciation by all concerned," and " in- 
 deed so cordial were the relations " between the 
 officials and the Congress leaders that " Lord Duf- 
 ferin was approached with a view to the first Con- 
 gress being held under the presidency of Lord 
 Reay, then Governor of Bombay." We are told 
 that Lord Dufferin welcomed the proposal as show- 
 ing the desire of the Congress to work in complete 
 harmony with the Government, but he saw many 
 difficulties in accepting the proposal, and so the idea 
 was abandoned. " None the less the first Congress 
 
124 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 was opened with the friendly sympathy of the high- 
 est authorities." 
 
 So this is the genesis of the Congress, and this 
 alone is sufficient to condemn it in the eyes of the ad- 
 vanced Nationalists. There is no parallel to this in 
 the history of the world. Who has ever heard of a 
 movement for political liberty being initiated by a 
 despotic government, which is foreign in its agency 
 and foreign in its methods ? 
 
 Hume, a Lover of Liberty. It is obvious that 
 when Lord Dufferin expected a political organisa- 
 tion to represent the best Indian opinion, it was far 
 from his mind to suggest an organisation that would 
 demand parliamentary government for India, or 
 self-government even on colonial lines. What he 
 evidently aimed at was a sort of an innocuous asso- 
 ciation which should serve more as a " safety valve " 
 than as a genuine Nationalist organisation for na- 
 tional purposes. Mr. Hume may have meant more. 
 He was a lover of liberty and wanted political liberty 
 for India under the ccgis of the British crown. He 
 was an English patriot and as such he wanted the 
 continuance of British connection with India. He 
 saw danger to British rule in discontent going under- 
 ground, and one of his objects in establishing the 
 Congress was to save British rule in India from an 
 impending calamity of the gravest kind which he 
 thought was threatening it at that time. In his 
 reply to Sir Auckland Colvin,^ he admitted that " a 
 
 * Sir Auckland Colvin was the Lieutenant Governor of the 
 then North Western Provinces (now the United Province of 
 Agra and Oudh). 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 125 
 
 safety valve for the escape of great and growing 
 forces generated by " British " connection, was 
 urgently needed, and no more efficacious safety valve 
 than " the " Congress movement could possibly be 
 devised." This correspondence between Sir Auck- 
 land Colvin, then Lieutenant Governor of the United 
 Provinces, and Mr. Hume, reveals the whole genesis 
 of the Congress movement, and is so clear and 
 illuminating that no student of Indian politics can 
 afford to neglect it. 
 
 It leaves no doubt whatsoever that the immediate 
 motive which underlay the idea of starting the Con- 
 gress was to save the Empire from '' the danger " 
 that loomed ahead ** tremendous in the immediate 
 future," " the misery of the masses acted on by the 
 bitter resentment of individuals among the educated 
 class." In the words of Mr. Hume, " no choice was 
 left to those who gave the primary impetus to the 
 movement. The ferment, the creation of Western 
 ideas, education, invention, and appliances, was at 
 work with a rapidly increasing intensity, and it be- 
 came of paramount importance to find for its prod- 
 ucts an overt and constitutional channel for dis- 
 charge, instead of leaving them to fester as they had 
 already commenced to do, under the surface." Mr. 
 Hume further adds that though " in certain prov- 
 inces and from certain points of view the movement 
 was premature, yet from the most important point 
 of view, the future maintenance of the integrity of 
 the British Empire, the real question when the Con- 
 gress started, was, not is it premature, but is it too 
 late? will the country now accept it?" Indeed, by 
 
126 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 that test, the events have proved that the Indian 
 National Congress has been a great success, and 
 that either Mr. Hume's reading of the poHtical situ- 
 ation was exaggerated, or that his remedy has been 
 amply justified. 
 
 Congress to Save British Empire from Danger. 
 But one thing is clear, that the Congress was started 
 more with the object of saving the British Empire 
 from danger than with that of winning political lib- 
 erty for India. The interests of the British Empire 
 were primary and those of India only secondary, and 
 no one can say that the Congress has not been true to 
 that ideal. It might be said with justice and reason 
 that the founders of the Indian National Congress 
 considered the maintenance of British rule in India 
 of vital importance to India herself, and therefore 
 were anxious to do everything in their power, not 
 only to save that rule from any danger that threat- 
 ened it, but even to strengthen it ; that with them the 
 redress of political grievances and the political ad- 
 vance of India was only a by-product and of second- 
 ary importance. If so, the Congress has been true 
 to its ideal, and no one can find fault with it. 
 
 On the strength of an illuminating memorandum 
 found among his papers, Hume's biographer has 
 stated the nature of the evidence that " convinced " 
 Mr. Hume at the time (i. e., about 15 months be- 
 fore Lord Lytton left India) that the British were 
 " in immediate danger of a terrible outbreak/* We 
 will give it in Mr. Hume's own words. 
 
 " I was shown seven large volumes (correspond- 
 ing to a certain mode of dividing the country, ex- 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 127 
 
 eluding Burmah, Assam, and some minor tracts) 
 containing a vast number of entries; English ab- 
 stracts or translations — longer or shorter — of ver- 
 nacular reports or communications of one kind or 
 another, all arranged according to districts (not 
 identical with ours), sub-districts, sub-divisions, and 
 the cities, towns and villages included in these. The 
 number of these entries was enormous; there were 
 said, at the time, to be communications from over 
 thirty thousand different reporters. I did not count 
 them, they seemed countless; but in regard to the 
 towns and villages of one district of the Northwest 
 Provinces with which I possess a peculiarly intimate 
 acquaintance — a troublesome part of the country, 
 no doubt — there were nearly three hundred entries, 
 a good number of which I could partially verify, as 
 to the names of the people, etc." He mentions that 
 he had the volumes in his possession only for about 
 a week; into six of them he only dipped; but he 
 closely examined one covering the greater portion 
 of the Northwest Provinces, Oudh, Behar, parts 
 of Bundelkund and parts of the Punjab; and so far 
 as possible verified the entries referring to those dis- 
 tricts with which he had special personal acquaint- 
 ance. Many of the entries reported conversations 
 between men of the lowest classes,^ *' all going to 
 show that these poor men were pervaded with a sense 
 of the hopelessness of the existing state of affairs; 
 that they were convinced that they would starve and 
 
 ^ The quotations from Hume are taken out of W. Wedder- 
 burn's Allan Octavian Hume, the parts enclosed in parenthe- 
 sis are Wedderburn's. 
 
128 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 die, and that they wanted to do something^ and stand 
 by each other, and that something meant violence/' 
 (for innumerable entries referred to the secretion 
 of old swords, spears and matchlocks, which would 
 be ready when required. It was not supposed that 
 the immediate result, in its initial stages, would be 
 a revolt against the Government, or a revolt at all in 
 the proper sense of the word. What was predicted 
 was a sudden violent outbreak of sporadic crimes, 
 murders of obnoxious persons, robbery of bankers, 
 looting of bazaars). '' In the existing state of the 
 lowest half -starving classes, it was considered that 
 the first few crimes would be the signal for hundreds 
 of similar ones, and for a general development of 
 lawlessness, paralysing the authorities and the re- 
 spectable classes. It was considered also, that every- 
 where the small bands would begin to coalesce into 
 large ones, like drops of water on a leaf; that all the 
 bad characters in the country would join, and that 
 very soon after the bands obtained formidable pro- 
 portions, a certain small number of the educated 
 classes, at the time desperately, perhaps, unreason- 
 ably, bitter against the Government, would join the 
 movement, assume here and there the lead, give the 
 outbreak cohesion, and direct it as a national revolt." 
 
 To this. Sir William Wedderburn adds further 
 from his own personal knowledge : 
 
 " The forecast of trouble throughout India was in 
 exact accordance with what actually occurred, under 
 my own observation, in the Bombay Presidency, in 
 connection with the Agrarian rising known as the 
 Deccan riots. These began with sporadic gang rob- 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 129 
 
 beries and attacks on the money lenders, until the 
 bands of dacoits, combining together, became too 
 strong for the police; and the whole military force 
 at Poona, horse, foot, and artillery, had to take the 
 field against them. Roaming through the jungle 
 tracts of the Western Ghauts, these bands dispersed 
 in the presence of military forces, only to reunite 
 immediately at some convenient point ; and from the 
 hill stations of Mahableshwar and Matheran we 
 could at night see the light of their campfires in all 
 directions. A leader from the more instructed class 
 was found, calling himself Sivaji, the Second, who 
 addressed challenges to the Government, offered a 
 reward of 500 rupees for the head of H. E. Sir 
 Richard Temple (then Governor of Bombay), and 
 claimed to lead a national revolt upon the lines on 
 which the Mahratta power had originally been 
 founded." 
 
 So in the words of these two leaders, the immedi- 
 ate motive of the Congress was to save the British 
 Empire from this danger. There is, however, one 
 difficulty in believing outright that this was the im- 
 mediate reason of the birth of the Congress. Mr. 
 Hume is said to have seen this evidence at the time he 
 was in the service of the Government, viz., fifteen 
 months before Lord Lytton left India. Between 
 then and the first meeting of the Congress in 1885 
 intervened a period of about seven years. During 
 this time Lord Ripon was viceroy for five years. 
 The idea of starting a political organisation on the 
 lines of the Congress is said to have originated with 
 Lord Dufferin. 
 
130 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 This is a little inconsistent with the theory that 
 the Congress was founded out of fear of a political 
 outbreak and only in the nature of a safety valve. 
 Nor is the latter theory consistent with Mr. Hume's 
 first political manifesto addressed to the graduates 
 of the Calcutta University in March, 1883. This 
 document is so manly in its outspokenness, so true 
 in its principles, that we will quote the whole of it 
 (or at least as much of it as is given in Mr. Hume's 
 biography). Addressing the graduates of the uni- 
 versity, Mr. Hume said : 
 
 " Constituting, as you do, a large body of the 
 most highly educated Indians, you should, in the 
 natural order of things, constitute also the most im- 
 portant source of all mental, moral, social, and po- 
 litical progress in India. Whether in the individual 
 or the nation, all vital progress must spring from 
 within, and it is to you, her most cultured and en- 
 lightened minds, her most favoured sons, that your 
 country must look for the initiative. In vain may 
 aliens, like myself, love India and her children, as 
 well as the most loving of these; in vain may they, 
 for her and their good, give time and trouble, money 
 and thought; in vain may they struggle and sacri- 
 fice; they may assist with advice and suggestions; 
 they may place their experience, abilities and knowl- 
 edge at the disposal of the workers, but they lack 
 the essential of nationality, and the real work must 
 ever be done by the people of the country them- 
 selves." " Scattered individuals, however capable 
 and however well meaning, are powerless singly. 
 What is needed is union, organisation and a well 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 131 
 
 defined line of action ; and to secure these an associa- 
 tion is required, armed and organised with unusual 
 care, having for its object to promote the mental, 
 moral, social and political regeneration of the people 
 of India. Our little army must be sui generis in 
 discipline and equipment, and the question simply is, 
 how many of you will prove to possess, in addition 
 to your high scholastic attainments, the unselfishness, 
 moral courage, self-control, and active spirit of 
 benevolence which are essential in all who should en- 
 list?" 
 
 Even truer and nobler are the sentiments in the 
 final appeal which ended this letter and which runs 
 thus: 
 
 "As I said before, you are the salt of the land. 
 And if amongst even you, the elite, iifty men can not 
 be found with sufficient power of self-sacrifice, suf- 
 ficient love for and pride in their country, sufficient 
 genuine and unselfish heartfelt patriotism to take the 
 initiative, and if needs he, devote the rest of their 
 lives to the cause, then there is no hope for India, 
 Her sons must and will remain mere humble and 
 helpless instruments in the hands of foreign rulers, 
 for ' they who wovdd he free, themselves must strike 
 the blow' And if even the leaders of thought are 
 all either such poor creatures, or so selfishly wedded 
 to personal concerns, that they dare not or will not 
 strike a blow for their country's sake, then justly 
 and rightly are they kept down and trampled on, for 
 they deserve nothing better. Every nation secures 
 precisely as good a government as it merits. If you, 
 the picked men, the most highly educated of the na- 
 
132 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 tion, can not, scorning personal ease and selfish ends, 
 make a resolute struggle to secure freedom for your- 
 selves and your country, a more impartial admini- 
 stration, a larger share in the management of your 
 own affairs, then we, your friends, are wrong, and 
 our adversaries right ; then are Lord Ripon's aspira- 
 tions for your good, fruitless and visionary ; then, at 
 present, at any rate, all hopes of progress are at an 
 end, and India truly neither lacks nor deserves any 
 better government than she now enjoys. Only, if 
 this be so, let us hear no more factious, peevish com- 
 plaints that you are kept in leading strings, and 
 treated like children, for you will have proved your- 
 selves such. Men know how to act. Let there be 
 no more complaints of Englishmen being preferred 
 to you in all important offices, for if you lack that 
 public spirit, that highest form of altruistic devo- 
 tion that leads men to subordinate private ease to 
 the public weal, that true patriotism that has made 
 Englishmen what they are, then rightly are these 
 preferred to you, and rightly and inevitably have 
 they become your rulers. And rulers and task- 
 masters they must continue, let the yoke gall your 
 shoulders ever so sorely, until you realise and stand 
 prepared to act upon the eternal truth, whether in 
 the case of individuals or nations, self-sacrifice and 
 unselfishness are the only unfailing guides to free- 
 dom and happiness/' 
 
 The capitals and italics are, except in two cases, 
 ours. In the original there are only two italics, 
 ( I ) the word themselves in the sentence " they 
 who would be free, themselves must strike the 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 133 
 
 blow," and, (2) ''Men know how to act." Now 
 these are not the words of a diplomat, much less 
 those of a hypocrite. Mr. Hume was too noble not 
 to mean what he said, and the present writer has 
 no doubt but that Mr. Hume was absolutely sincere 
 in what he said. He had a passion for liberty. 
 His heart bled at the sight of so much misery and 
 poverty as prevailed in India, and which according 
 to him was preventable by good government. He 
 burned with indignation at the " cowardly " be- 
 haviour of his countrymen towards Indians, and he 
 could not help feeling ashamed at the way in which 
 pledges given and promises made were being ig- 
 nored. He was an ardent student of history and 
 knew full well that no government, whether na- 
 tional or foreign, had conceded to popular demands 
 without pressure from below. In the case of an 
 alien government, the chances were even still more 
 meagre. He therefore wanted the Indians " to 
 strike " for their liberty if they wanted it. The 
 first step was to organise. So he advised organisa- 
 tion. 
 
 Nor are we prepared to believe that men 
 like Ranade, Tilak, Naoroji, W. C. Bonner jea, 
 Ajudhia Nath, and Tyabji, were only tools in the 
 hands of the Britishers. No, we do not think so. 
 They were all true and good patriots. They loved 
 their country and they started the Congress with 
 the best of motives. It is possible that with some 
 British sympathisers, the interests of the British 
 Empire were primary, and they sided with the 
 Congress because they believed that thereby they 
 
134 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 could best secure the Empire ; but the writer of this 
 book knows from personal experience how deeply 
 the love of humanity and liberty is embedded in the 
 hearts of some Britishers, and he is compelled to 
 believe that at least some of those who showed their 
 sympathy with the Congress were of that kind. 
 
 The Imperialist Junker and Jingo calls such men 
 " Little Englanders," but the truth is that their 
 hearts are too big to be imperial. They believe in 
 humanity, and in liberty being the birthright of 
 every human being. In their eyes a tyrant, one 
 who robs others of their liberty, one who bases his 
 greatness on the exploitation of others, or deprives 
 them of their rights by might or clever diplomacy, 
 does not cease to be so by the fact of his being their 
 countryman. They are patriots themselves and 
 will shed the last drop of their blood in the defence 
 of their liberty, and in the defence of their coun- 
 try's liberty and independence, but their patriotism 
 does not extend to the point of applauding their 
 country's robbing others of theirs. Yes, there are 
 Britons who are sincere friends of the cause of lib- 
 erty all over the globe. They deplore that their 
 country should be ruling India at all, and if it were 
 in their power, they would at once withdraw from 
 India. Some of these sympathise with the Indian 
 Nationalists in all sincerity, and have done so ever 
 since the Indian National Congress was started, or 
 even from before that time. It is no fault of theirs, 
 if the Indian Nationalist Movement has not been 
 such a success as they would have wished it to be, 
 and if it has not been able to achieve anything very 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 135 
 
 tangible. The fault is purely that of the Indians, 
 and of the Indians alone, or of the circumstances. 
 
 Mr. Hume was quite sincere in his motives, but 
 he forgot that a political organisation started at the 
 instance or even with the approval of the rulers 
 whose power and emoluments it proposed to cur- 
 tail, whose despotism and principles it questioned, 
 in short, whom it proposed to displace and dethrone, 
 was an anomaly ; it was unnatural. In their desire 
 to have an easy and unopposed start, the Indian 
 founders of the National Congress forgot their his- 
 tory, and consequently ignored the truth that 
 " those who wanted to be free must themselves 
 strike the blow," and that it was monstrous to expect 
 those against whom the blow was aimed to bless 
 the striker and the striking. We do not agree with 
 Mr. Gokhale that " no Indian could have started 
 the Indian National Congress '* and that " if the 
 founder of the Congress had not been a great Eng- 
 lishman and a distinguished ex-official, such was the 
 official distrust of political agitation in those days 
 that the authorities would have at once found some 
 way or other to suppress the movement." 
 
 First, political agitation did not start with the 
 Congress. It had been started before and no at- 
 tempt to suppress it had succeeded. Second, the 
 distrust ' of political agitation in India was not 
 greater in those days than it is now and has been 
 during the life of the Congress. But if it be true 
 that the movement could not have been started by 
 an Indian or by the combined efforts of many In- 
 dians, all we can say is that that itself would be 
 
136 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 proof of its having been started before time and 
 on wrong foundations. 
 
 Had not Mr. Hume said that " whether in the 
 individual or the nation, all vital progress must 
 spring from within," and that it was " to her own 
 sons that the country must look for the initiative?" 
 Did not Mr. Hume say in his manifesto of 1883 
 that " in vain may aliens like myself love India . . . 
 in vain may they struggle and sacrifice . . . they 
 may assist with advice and suggestion, but they lack 
 the essential of nationality, and the real work must 
 ever be done by the people of the country them- 
 selves?" 
 
 These may be only truisms, but they are funda- 
 mental and any political effort made in defiance of 
 them must be futile and impotent. The Indian 
 leaders of the Congress have never fully realised 
 the absolute truth of these principles and the result 
 is the comparatively poor record of the Congress. 
 In his original manifesto issued in 1883, Mr. Hume 
 wanted fifty Indians " with sufficient power of self- 
 sacrifice, suf^cient love for and pride in their coun- 
 try, sufficient genuine and unselfish heartfelt patri- 
 otism to take the initiative and if needs be to devote 
 the rest of their lives to the cause." 
 
 Of course there were many times fifty men of 
 that kind in the country, even then, who were de- 
 voting their lives to the service of their country, but 
 not in the political line. It took the Congress and 
 the country, by working on Congress lines, more 
 than twenty years to produce fifty, many times fifty, 
 such men to devote their lives to the political cause. 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 137 
 
 But unfortunately these are neither in the Con- 
 gress, nor of the Congress. Barring Mr. Dadabhai 
 Naoroji and the late Mr. Gokhale, who among the 
 living Congress leaders can be said to have devoted 
 their lives, in the way Mr. Hume wanted them to 
 do, to the Congress cause? Within the last thirty 
 years India has produced many noble sons who have 
 given their all in the service of the Motherland. 
 They come from all provinces, all religions, all de- 
 nominations, and all castes. But very few of them 
 have ever been active in the Congress or for the 
 Congress. Within the same period many Indians 
 have given away many hundreds of thousands of 
 rupees, some the whole earnings of a lifetime, in 
 aid of education or for other public or charitable 
 purposes; but the Congress work has always lan- 
 guished for want of funds. The British Commit- 
 tee of the Indian National Congress, located in 
 London, have never had sufficient money to do their 
 work decently. The expenses of the British Com- 
 mittee have largely fallen on Sir William Wedder- 
 burn. He and Mr. Hume between them spent quite 
 a fortune on the movement. No single Indian is 
 said to have spent even a fraction of that. The 
 question naturally arises, — why has it been so? 
 The answer is obvious. The movement did not 
 appeal to the nation. The leaders lacked that faith 
 which alone makes it possible to make great sacri- 
 fices for it. 
 
 In the early years of the Congress there was a 
 great deal of enthusiasm for it among the English 
 educated Indians. So long as no attempts were 
 
138 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 made to reach the masses and carry on the propa- 
 ganda among the people, the officials expressed 
 their sympathy with the movement. Lord Duf- 
 ferin even invited the members as " distinguished 
 visitors " to a garden party at Government House, 
 Calcutta, when the Congress held its second session 
 in that city in 1886. In 1887 the Governor of 
 Madras paid a similar compliment to them at 
 Madras,^^ but in 1888 when Mr. Hume adopted the 
 methods and tactics of the Corn-Law Leaguers of 
 England, down came the hand of the Government; 
 and then the Congress movement at once adopted 
 an apcflogetic tone and abandoned the only method 
 by which it could make itself heard with effect. 
 Why? Because, in the words of Mr. Hume, there 
 were no *' men who could act." 
 
 The Congress Lacked Essentials of a National 
 Movement. Ever since then the Congress has cared 
 more for the opinion of the Government and the of- 
 ficials than for truth or for the interests of the coun- 
 try. Again the question arises, why ? And the reply 
 is, because the leaders had neither sufficient political 
 consciousness nor faith. They had certain political 
 opinions, but not beliefs for which they were will- 
 ing to suffer. They were prepared to urge the 
 desirability of certain reforms in the government 
 of the country, even at the risk of a certain amount 
 of official displeasure, but they were not prepared 
 to bear persecutions, or suffer for their cause. 
 
 10 These compliments have been renewed of late. The Con- 
 gress held at Madras in 1914 was attended by the British 
 Governor of the Presidency. 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 139 
 
 Either they did not know they had a cause, or they 
 were wanting in that earnestness which makes men 
 suffer for a cause. Or, to be charitable, they 
 thought that the country was not prepared for an 
 intense movement and considered it better to have 
 something than nothing. They perhaps wanted to 
 educate the country in political methods and bring 
 about a political consolidation of all the national 
 forces, before undertaking an intensified movement. 
 But with the greatest possible respect for the found- 
 ers of the Indian National Congress, or for those 
 who a few years ago took up the control of the 
 movement, we cannot help remarking that by their 
 own conduct they showed that their movement 
 lacked the essentials of a national movement. 
 
 A movement does not become national by the 
 mere desire of its founders to make it so. In the 
 opinion of the writer it is a mistake to start a na- 
 tional political movement unless those who start it 
 are prepared to make great sacrifices for it. A 
 halting, half-hearted political movement depending 
 on the sympathy and good will of the very class 
 against whom it is directed, consulting their wishes 
 at every step, with its founders or leaders trembling 
 for their safety and keeping their purse strings 
 tight, only doing as much as the authorities would 
 allow and as would not interfere in any way with 
 their own personal interests and comforts and in- 
 comes, is from its very nature detrimental to real 
 national interests. A political movement is mis- 
 chievous in its effects if its leaders do not put a 
 sufficient amount of earnestness into it to evoke 
 
I40 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 great enthusiasm among their followers, such as 
 would prepare them for great sacrifices for the 
 cause on the one hand, and on the other, produce 
 a certain amount of fear of unpleasant conse- 
 quences in those against whom it is directed. For 
 this it is necessary that the leaders should be pre- 
 pared to suffer for the cause. The sacrifice of 
 money is the least proof of earnestness which a be- 
 liever in any cause can give. 
 
 It is a fact that the English friends of the move- 
 ment showed more earnestness than many of the 
 Indian leaders. They spent their own money over 
 it and they incurred the displeasure of their coun- 
 trymen and the odium of being called traitors to 
 their own country. Mr. Hume was " in deadly 
 earnest." He started the movement with the good 
 will of the authorities and waited for results for 
 two years. When, however, he found that " the 
 platonic expressions of sympathy by the authorities 
 were a mockery," that nothing was done to lessen 
 the '* misery of the masses " and to relieve their 
 sufferings and redress their grievances, he decided 
 to put more intensity into the movement. He 
 undertook to instruct the Indian nation and rouse 
 them to a sense of their right and to a sense of the 
 wrong that was being done to them. In his opin- 
 ion, '* the case was one of extreme urgency, for the 
 deaths by famine and pestilence were counted not 
 by tens of thousands or by hundreds of thousands, 
 but by millions." ^^ He concluded that " in order 
 to constrain the Government to move, the leaders of 
 
 11 Mr. Hume's biography by Sir William Wedderburn, p. 62. 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 141 
 
 the Indian people must adopt measures of excep- 
 tional vigour, following the drastic methods pur- 
 sued in England by Bright and Cobden in their 
 great campaign on behalf of the people's food." 
 So, like Cobden, Hume decided that since the at- 
 tempt of the Congress leaders to instruct the Gov- 
 ernment had failed and since the Government had 
 refused to be instructed by them, the next step was 
 " to instruct the nations, the great English nation 
 in its island home, and also the far greater nation 
 of this vast Indian continent, so that every Indian 
 that breathes upon the sacred soil of this our moth- 
 erland, shall become our comrade and coadjutor, 
 our supporter and if need be our soldier, in the 
 great war that zve, like Cobden and his noble band, 
 will wage for justice, for our liberties and our 
 rights/' ^^ 
 
 Hume's Political Movement. Now these were 
 noble words, pointing out the only political weapon 
 that ever succeeds against autocratic governments. 
 We are told by Mr. Hume's biographer that " in 
 pursuance of such a propaganda in India, Mr. 
 Hume set to work with his wonted energy, appeal- 
 ing for funds to all classes of the Indian commu- 
 nity, distributing tracts, leaflets and pamphlets, 
 sending out lecturers and calling meetings both in 
 large towns and in country districts. Throughout 
 the country over one thousand meetings were held, 
 at many of which over five thousand persons were 
 present, and arrangements were made for the dis- 
 tribution of half a million pamphlets, translations 
 
 12 Mr. Hume's biography by Sir W. W., p. 63. 
 
142 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 into twelve Indian languages being circulated of two 
 remarkable pamphlets, showing by a parable the 
 necessary evils of absentee state landlordism, how- 
 ever benevolent the intention." ^^ 
 
 That was true political work, done with a real 
 political insight. If it had been persevered in, the 
 history of the Congress would have been different 
 and perhaps the revolutionary party would never 
 have been born or would have been born earlier. 
 In either case the country would have been farther 
 ahead in politics than it is now. What, however, 
 actually happened was that the Government was at 
 once moved to hostility. Lord Dufferin spoke of 
 the Congress in terms of contempt " as the infini- 
 tesimal minority," at a Calcutta dinner. Sir Auck- 
 land Colvin stirred up the Mohammedans, organ- 
 ised an Anti-Congress Association and denounced 
 the Congress in no measured terms, as mischievous, 
 disloyal, and much before the time. 
 
 Congress Overawed. Mr. Hume started to ex- 
 plain in an apologetic tone. It was at this time that 
 he came out with the " safety valve " theory. The 
 propaganda was at once abandoned, never to be re- 
 sumed in the history of the movement. The move- 
 ment in England failed for want of funds. The 
 movement in India collapsed for want of persever- 
 ance, vigour and earnestness. Here again we are 
 disposed to think that Mr. Hume's subsequent con- 
 duct was influenced more by the fears and half- 
 heartedness of the Indian leaders than by his own 
 judgment. If the Indian leaders had stuck to their 
 
 13 Biography, p. 63. 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 143 
 
 guns and pushed on their propaganda, the country 
 would have suppHed funds and would have rallied 
 round them. Perhaps there might have been a few 
 riots and a few prosecutions. But that would have 
 drawn the attention of the British public to Indian 
 conditions more effectively than their twenty-eight 
 years of half-hearted propaganda in England did. 
 The political education of the people would have 
 been more rapid and the movement would have 
 gained such a strength as to make itself irresistible. 
 It is possible, nay, probable, that the Government 
 would have suppressed the movement. But that it- 
 self would have been a victory and a decided and 
 effective step in the political education of the people. 
 The revolutionary movement would have come ear- 
 lier and the Government would have seen the wis- 
 dom of conciliating the moderates much earlier than 
 1909. What was given to us in 1909 might have 
 been given twenty years earlier. The Mohamme- 
 dans would have been happy to get in 1889 what 
 they got in 1909. The Indian leaders, however, 
 thought that they were not sufficiently strong and 
 that the movement stood the chance of being sup- 
 pressed. They gave in and abandoned the only ef- 
 fective weapon they had forged to get redress of 
 political grievances. 
 
 No nation and no political party can ever be 
 strong enough to make their voice effective, unless 
 and until they put forward a sufficient amount of 
 earnestness (not bluff) to convince their opponents 
 that in case their demands are trifled with, the con- 
 sequences might be serious to both parties. The 
 
144 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 history of political advance in self -governed coun- 
 tries like England, Germany, France, etc., amply 
 proves this. No political agitation need be started 
 unless those who are engaged in it are prepared to 
 back it by the power of the purse and the power of 
 conviction. 
 
 Congress Agitation in England. The Congress 
 overawed in 1888 and 1889, failed in both respects. 
 So far as the first is concerned, why, that has been 
 a theme of lamentation, appeals, and wailings from 
 year to year. Friends in England, whether in or 
 outside the British Committee, have lamented it in 
 pathetic terms. The Congress agitation in England 
 has never been effective. The Congress has had 
 precious little influence on English public opinion, 
 and although the British Committee of the Congress 
 have had an office and an organ in London for the 
 last 25 years or more, their influence in English 
 politics has been almost nil. But for the generosity 
 of Mr. Hume and Sir William Wedderburn, the 
 Congress of^ce in London might have been long ago 
 closed. The leaders of the Congress have talked very 
 much of their implicit faith in the English nation; 
 they have held out hopes of our getting a redress of 
 our wrongs if we could only inform the British peo- 
 ple of the condition of things prevalent in India ; yet 
 the efforts they have put forward to achieve that 
 end have been puerile and paltry. There is a party 
 of Indian politicians who do not believe in agitation 
 in England, but the leaders of the Congress and 
 those who have controlled the organisation in the 
 last 30 years do not profess to belong to that party. 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 145 
 
 We shall now try to explain why this has been 
 so. 
 
 Causes of Failure of the Congress, (i). The 
 movement was neither inspired by the people nor 
 devised or planned by them. It was a movement 
 not from within. No section of the Indian people 
 identified themselves with it so completely as to feel 
 that their existence as honourable men depended on 
 its successful management. The movement was 
 started by an Englishman, at the suggestion of an 
 English pro-consul. The Indians, who professed 
 to lead it, were either actually in government service 
 or in professions allied to government service and 
 created by the Government. A good many of the 
 latter aspired to offices under the Government or to 
 a recognition of their merit and public spirit by the 
 Government. They were patriotic enough to give 
 a part of their time and energy to the movement, so 
 long as it did not clash with their own interests, so 
 long as they were not required to mar their careers 
 for it, or so long as it did not demand heavy sacri- 
 fices from them. We do not question either their 
 motives or their patriotism, but it was not suffi- 
 ciently intense to induce them to stake their all on it. 
 
 (2). The movement lacked the essentials of a 
 popular movement. The leaders were not in 
 touch with the people. Perhaps they did not 
 even want to come in touch with them. Their 
 propaganda was confined to a few English-educated 
 persons, was carried on in English and was meant 
 for the ears of the authorities rather than for the 
 people. The leaders always felt shy of the masses. 
 
146 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 made no efforts to reach them, and systematically 
 discouraged the younger men from doing the same. 
 Some of them have openly opposed efforts in this 
 direction. 
 
 (3). The leaders failed to inspire enthusiasm 
 among the people, either by their own failure to 
 make sacrifices, or by the triviality of their sacri- 
 fices. Their ordinary life, their income, their pros- 
 perity, and their luxuries were in no way affected 
 by the movement. There were only two exceptions 
 to this, viz., Dadabhai Naoroji and Gokhale. The 
 sacrifices of Messrs. Hume and Wedderburn shamed 
 the people, but failed to appeal to their imagination. 
 In fact, they roused the anger of the people against 
 the leaders and created distrust. The spectacle of 
 leaders accepting high offices they were offered 
 under the Government added to this distrust. 
 
 (4). The movement was neither confined to a se- 
 lect few, nor open to all. While the people were 
 expected to add to the spectacular side of the show 
 by their presence in large numbers, by crowded 
 meetings, by cheers and applause, they were never 
 given a hand in the movement. Differences of 
 opinion were always discouraged and free discus- 
 sion was never allowed. It was neither a public 
 forum, nor a private meeting of the select few. In 
 the latter case it would have been less expensive 
 and would have saved money for work in England. 
 In the former case it would have been more effective. 
 
 (5). A national movement, demanding only a few 
 concessions and not speaking of the liberties of the 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 147 
 
 nation and of its ideals, is never an effective move- 
 ment. It is at best an opportunist movement. It is 
 mischievous in so far as it diverts attention from 
 substantial nation building and character making. 
 It brings fame without sacrifice. It opens oppor- 
 tunities for treacheries and hypocrisies. It enables 
 some people to trade in the name of patriotism. No 
 political movement can be entirely free from these 
 disadvantages, but the greatest mischief which a po- 
 litical movement lightly handled and led does, is 
 that it delays the development of the people on 
 normal lines by raising hopes which are baseless and 
 can never be realised by means recommended and 
 methods adopted. 
 
 PART III. THE BIRTH OF THE NEW NATIONALIST 
 MOVEMENT 
 
 The National Movement in India continued on 
 its placid and humdrum course until Lord Curzon's 
 ridicule of the movement convinced the people that 
 the political methods of the Congress were quite 
 powerless to bring them any relief against the 
 despotism that trampled upon all their rights and 
 sensibilities. This led to a deeper and a closer study 
 of the political problem on the part of men who had 
 convictions as distinguished from opinions, who had 
 faith as against opportunism, who wanted a soul for 
 their people, rather than a few more posts under the 
 Government. They discovered that the movement 
 had suffered not only by the adoption of wrong 
 methods and by want of sacrifice on the part of 
 
148 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 leaders, but by their failure to grasp principles and 
 to formulate ideals. Hence the cry of Swadeshi 
 and Swaraj?-'^ 
 
 Swadeshi and Szvaraj, No sooner was the cry 
 raised than the country was swept by a wave of po- 
 litical activity which deeply and intimately influ- 
 enced the proceedings of the Congress in 1905 and 
 1906. Calcutta might have witnessed in 1906 
 what Surat did in 1907, but for the sagacity and 
 patriotism of Dadabhai, who rose equal to the oc- 
 casion and blessed the cry for self-government. He 
 declared in the words of Sir Henry Campbell-Ban- 
 nerman, the British Premier, that good government 
 could never be a substitute for self-government. So 
 far good government had been the ideal of the Con- 
 gress. At the Calcutta session of 1906 it was 
 changed to self-government, — and from the mouth 
 of a man who had devoted his whole life to the po- 
 litical cause. That is the date of the birth of the 
 real National Movement in India. 
 
 The Surat Fiasco ^^ was, among other causes, 
 brought about by the fear that the so-called mod- 
 erate leaders wanted to go back past what had been 
 done in 1906. There is no doubt that they had 
 gone back in spirit, though perhaps not in letter. 
 The enthusiasm, created by popular propaganda of 
 the Congress in 1888, was killed by the reaction that 
 followed in subsequent years. The same thing 
 would have happened in 1907 but for the fact that 
 
 1* Swadeshi means country-made, and Swaraj means self- 
 government or self-rule. 
 
 15 The Congress session held at Surat in December, 1907, 
 ended in a split preceded by a disorderly meeting. 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 149 
 
 this time the movement was sufficiently intense to 
 claim its martyrs. 
 
 The high ideals embodied in Swadeshi and 
 Swaraj were the ideals worked out by the sons of 
 India : the miseries of the motherland had given an 
 impetus to the idea, but the idea itself stood on 
 higher ground. It was not the redress of griev- 
 ances that filled the mind of the people, but the de- 
 sire for liberty. It was not concessions they wanted, 
 but liberty. Liberty is not a thing of the earth, and 
 therefore it can neither be given nor accepted as a 
 gift. It has to be won. People felt that, and were 
 prepared to realise that in their lives. 
 
 After more than twenty years of more or less 
 futile agitation for concessions and redress of 
 grievances, they had received stones in place of 
 bread. Lord Ripon was succeeded by a Curzon. 
 People saw that a sort of mist, a deep, covering 
 fog, had prevented them from seeing ahead. They 
 had been wandering in pursuit of vain things. The 
 haven had been concealed from their vision and the 
 result was that their tiny bark had been following a 
 wrong course. The waters were stormy and the 
 sea was heavy, but no ship could reach its destina- 
 tion unless the mariners and sailors in charge knew 
 what their goal was, and unless they were prepared 
 to put forth all they had in them to carry the bark 
 through. So far, the bark had been sailing under 
 misleading stars, without a compass to guide the 
 captain. Now the compass was found and with the 
 finding of the compass the aspect changed. Ideas 
 inspire men. Ideals prepare them to breast mar- 
 
150 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 tyrdom. The ideal of Swaraj found men ready to 
 suffer for it, to meet death like martyrs. The new 
 movement has inspired a class of men whose life is 
 filled with that idea and that idea alone. They are 
 the worshippers of Swaraj ; they love their mother- 
 land above everything else. They do not want of- 
 fice, or incomes, or recognition, or applause. What 
 they want is liberty, not for themselves, because that 
 they might get perhaps by settling in other countries, 
 but for their beloved country. High Court Judge- 
 ships, Civil Service, Councils, mean nothing to 
 them. 
 
 The founders of the Indian National Congress 
 began their movement under inspiration of govern- 
 ment and under the shadow of the high offices they 
 held or aspired to under that government, but the 
 founders and inspirers of the National Movement 
 started their propaganda by boycotting government 
 and government patronage. The former wanted 
 high offices, the latter despised those who held them. 
 The former asked for concessions, the latter re- 
 jected them. The former wanted Councils, the lat- 
 ter would have nothing to do with them. The 
 former appealed to the British Government and the 
 British nation, the latter appealed to their own peo- 
 ple and to their own patriotism and to their God. 
 The former were led by the British, the latter by pure 
 Indians. The former would not do anything which 
 would mar their careers, the latter threw away their 
 chances like poisoned bread. The former lived in 
 bungalows, revelled in drawing rooms, velvet-cov- 
 ered chairs, were attended by liveried servants, ate 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 151 
 
 at well-furnished tables, entertained governors and 
 migistrates ; the latter gave up even the little com- 
 forts they had, changed trousers for dhotis, coats 
 for chapkans or kurtas (shirts), overcoats for 
 blankets, and boots for ordinary Swadeshi shoes. 
 The former owed their prosperity in life, their posi- 
 tions, and their comforts, to the British system, and 
 were therefore under obligation to the British; but 
 the latter chose the path of poverty and destitution 
 to avoid obligations. They threw away their 
 chances deliberately and with the conviction that 
 that was the right thing to do. The former cared 
 for wines, for children, and for home. The latter 
 gave up all, to devote themselves completely to the 
 cause and to the motherland. The former had pro- 
 duced only two full time workers for the cause in 
 the course of 22 years, the latter produced virtually 
 hundreds and thousands in less than two years. 
 The former worked under the best auspices, the lat- 
 ter started their work under overhanging clouds, 
 which soon burst and swept away many of them into 
 prisons. 
 
 Is it any wonder that under such inspiration the 
 movement spread like wildfire and assumed wide 
 proportions? Life met life. Forces met forces. 
 Conflict and clash resulted in fatal accidents to 
 either party. The casualties on the side of the Na- 
 tionalists have been tremendously heavy and out of 
 all proportion to their number, but judging the con- 
 flict by the resources, no one need hesitate in saying 
 that the moral victory lies with the Nationalists. 
 Within less than five years of their propaganda, 
 
152 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 they forced the hand of the Government to make 
 concessions which could not be even thought of in 
 1905. The Congress leaders claim credit for them- 
 selves and so does the Government; but the verdict 
 of impartial and unbiased historians will be other- 
 wise. 
 
 Lord Morley would rally the moderates because 
 there were extremists in the land. In the absence 
 of the so-called extremists, the moderates were ex- 
 tremists and the Government and its agents looked 
 down upon them. The Anglo-Indian statesman 
 and his confidant, the moderate Congress leader, say 
 that the extremists are few, that most of them are 
 those good-for-nothings, who could do nothing at 
 the universities, or with their lives; that they are 
 maniacs and men who have lost all sense of right 
 and wrong. 
 
 Men who have Inspired the Movement. But look 
 at the men who have inspired the movement, some 
 of whom are leading it even to-day. Is Arabinda 
 Ghosh a failure? Is Har Dayal a failure? Were 
 the nine deportees from Bengal failures? How 
 many high-class graduates have been hanged; how 
 many are in jail ! Look at their university records 
 and look at their prospects, and then say if you can 
 call them " malcontents " or men who have arisen 
 against the Government because they could not pros- 
 per under it. Their propaganda has compelled the 
 Government to adopt the severest repressive meas- 
 ures open to a foreign government. The penal 
 code has been amended to make the definition of 
 sedition more comprehensive. The criminal pro- 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 153 
 
 cedure code has been amended to facilitate convic- 
 tions and to accelerate trials. Provisions have been 
 added to enable magistrates to award summary im- 
 prisonment for failure to give security for good be- 
 haviour asked for on political grounds. A Sedi- 
 tious Meetings Act has been enacted to make open 
 propaganda impossible. An Explosives Act has 
 been placed on the statute book. A Press Law has 
 been passed to muzzle the press. Spies and detec- 
 tives have been employed out of number. Teachers, 
 professors, friends, pupils, class-fellows, parents, 
 have all been requisitioned to crush the movement. 
 The number of publications confiscated under the 
 Press Act, the convictions for sedition, for seditious 
 murders, for dacoities and for keeping arms, the 
 sentences for failure to find securities for good be- 
 haviour, all continue to grow. The cry is, " Still 
 they come ! " In prisons the political prisoner has 
 been subjected to horrible treatment; one committed 
 suicide and another lost his senses in the Andamans. 
 Many a tale of misery and wretchedness, of torture 
 and of insults comes from the prisons in India, but 
 still the movement is far from being crushed. 
 
 There is evidence that new recruits join the secret 
 propaganda every year and take the place of those 
 hanged or imprisoned. A number has exiled them- 
 selves and are carrying on their propaganda in dis- 
 tant lands under very discouraging and depressing 
 circumstances. The man who says that the move- 
 ment is dead or dying must be a liar or a fool. The 
 movement is alive and possibly as vigorous as it 
 ever was. It has captured the imagination of the 
 
154 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 younger generation. And at least 75 per cent, of 
 the students in India and in England sympathise 
 with this party. Almost all are Anti-Congress. 
 Even those who are not Nationalists do not like the 
 Congress and feel no obligation towards it, because 
 the Congress failed to communicate high principles 
 and lay down high ideals, and because it failed to 
 create that spirit of self-sacrifice, that willingness to 
 suffer, without which no national movement can 
 grow, prosper, and inspire. 
 
 The failures of the Congress evolved the Na- 
 tionalist Movement. The Congress did its work 
 that way. It brought conviction home that no 
 amount of prayers, resolutions, protests, memorials, 
 could move the autocratic bureaucracy in India, and 
 no amount of petitions were likely to make any im- 
 pression upon the people in England. The fact that 
 the Congress leaders would not make sacrifices for 
 the Congress cause, though they would give large 
 amounts of money for educational purposes and 
 other charities, forced people to think that they 
 themselves had no faith in the Congress propaganda 
 or in the Congress methods, though they lacked the 
 courage to say so or to change their methods. It 
 was perhaps unreasonable to expect that of the kind 
 of men that led the Congress. Most of them loved 
 their country and were public spirited; they had 
 given proof of it, good and sufficient, in other sides 
 of national activity, in the cause of social reform, 
 in the cause of public education, in industrial propa- 
 ganda. Outside the Congress they have done 
 enough to create an atmosphere which was bound to 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 155 
 
 bring about the development of the political move- 
 ment along the lines on which it eventually did 
 develop in 1905. 
 
 The Nationalist child was, so to say, brought up 
 on the lap of the old Congress man and fed on the 
 food provided by him ; though, strange enough, this 
 bringing up and this feeding produced results for 
 which the Congressman was not prepared and 
 which shocked him a bit. The first shock over, 
 some of them were happy to have lived to see the 
 day, and blessed the movement. Some made up 
 their minds to throttle it, but soon found that it was 
 not in their power to do so. The worst they could 
 do was to condemn it and to denounce it. All they 
 could achieve was to cut the new movement, shake 
 off all responsibility for it, and thus secure their own 
 safety. We do not say that they did it to save their 
 skins. But fortunately for them their convictions 
 led them the way their safety lay. In their heart 
 of hearts they blessed the new movement and were 
 heartily glad that it came. It acted and reacted on 
 their own movement. It made it possible for them 
 to put strength and force into their demands for 
 concessions. Whenever an extremist leader re- 
 canted or used compromising language, they were 
 sorry. They wanted the movement to continue and 
 to live, though they would not join it and though 
 they believed that it was harmful to the country in 
 some respects. They deplore the lack of enthusi- 
 asm and sacrifice in their own ranks, but they admire 
 the selflessness of the extremists and respect their 
 real leaders. An Arabinda Ghosh and a Tilak 
 
156 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 simply compel their admiration and respect. What- 
 ever the shortcomings of Har Dayal may be, he is a 
 unique personality. 
 
 We have stated wherein the new movement dif- 
 fered from the old, and we have also stated what 
 its dominant note is. We would now like to ex- 
 amine how it intended to proceed and how its hands 
 were forced to do the things it has done since. 
 
 Lord Curzon and Indian Education. We have al- 
 ready hinted that Lord Curzon's policy and his ut- 
 terances helped a great deal in the birth of the new 
 movement. When Lord Curzon came to India, he 
 formulated a rather ambitious programme of re- 
 forms to be introduced into the administration of 
 the country. One of these reforms related to edu- 
 cation. 
 
 Every one in the country, who has had anything 
 to do with education in India, was of opinion that 
 the country was very backward in education and that 
 the system of education there in vogue was de- 
 fective. It laid too great stress on the literary side 
 and did not fit people for the battle of life; it gave 
 undue importance to the English language and 
 Western modes of thought, at the cost of the ver- 
 naculars and the indigenous civilisation of the coun- 
 try ; it encouraged " cram " at the cost of real merit ; 
 it produced a class of imitators and left little scope 
 or none for originality; it invited third class men 
 from England to fill the highest positions in the edu- 
 cational service of the country, and placed the best 
 native intellect and talent under them to starve and 
 rot for want of opportunities; it did not recognise 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 157 
 
 the duty of the Government to look after the educa- 
 tion of the child from the beginning until he was fit 
 to fight his own way in the world. 
 
 The educational system of the country required 
 radical changes, but what was most needed was that 
 the Government should be prepared to spend ade- 
 quate sums of money for its spread and in order to 
 make it efficient. Lord Curzon's pronouncements 
 and programme therefore raised great hopes in the 
 minds of the people. His University Commission 
 was simply flooded with suggestions and statements 
 from Indians and Anglo-Indians. The two classes, 
 however, discussed the matter from entirely differ- 
 ent standpoints: The Indians wanted greater fa- 
 cilities for education, more schools, more colleges, 
 more masters, more stipends, an extension of pri- 
 mary school education, abler and better-paid teach- 
 ers, freedom of private enterprise, ample provision 
 for technical and industrial education ; but what they 
 wanted most and cared for most was that education 
 should be more nationalised and humanised. The 
 Anglo-Indians wanted a curtailment of the educa- 
 tional opportunities, a greater and stricter control of 
 private enterprise, a raising of university standards, 
 and a system of education which would curb the 
 rising generation and make them more easily amen- 
 able to discipline and obedience. 
 
 Lord Curzon did go into all these questions, but 
 the decision arrived at convinced the educated In- 
 dians that the motive which underlay Lord Curzon's 
 policy was the tightening of government control, the 
 strangling of all independence in matters educa- 
 
158 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 tional, and the eventual weakening of all national 
 movement and national sentiment. 
 
 Lord Curzons Secret Educational Conference. 
 The fact that he admitted no Indian to the meeting 
 of the Secret Educational Conference held at Simla, 
 when he formulated the government policy, strength- 
 ened that idea. His University Legislation shocked 
 the country beyond measure and left no doubt what- 
 soever that what he aimed at was a complete official 
 control of all education in India. Educated Indians 
 read between the lines and concluded that it was a 
 mistake to look to the Government to do things or 
 to follow a policy which might quicken the national 
 pulse, strengthen the Nationalist sentiment, or add 
 to the efficiency of the people so as to fit them to 
 stand on their legs and desire to get rid of the lead- 
 ing strings in which they were held by the British. 
 
 Indians and Lord Curzon at Cross Purposes. In- 
 dians saw that they and Lord Curzon were at cross- 
 purposes. They aimed at self-government and 
 freedom; Lord Curzon aimed at prolongation of the 
 period of their bondage and the permanence of the 
 existing political conditions. We wanted independ- 
 ence; he wanted us to be dependent on the British. 
 We wanted to quicken the pace of national advance ; 
 he wanted to slacken it. We wanted to be assertive 
 and self-reliant; he wanted us to be submissive and 
 in permanent control and tutelage. We wanted to 
 go forward, he mistrusted us. We wanted a policy 
 of honest confidence; instead of that he inaugurated 
 a policy of suspicion. We wanted unity, he pro- 
 ceeded to bring into existence fresh causes of fric- 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 159 
 
 tion between community and community. We 
 wanted the marshalling of our forces in the com- 
 mon cause, he proceeded to divide us and to keep 
 us apart. We wanted consolidation, and he started 
 active disintegration. We wanted an extension of 
 representative government. Lord Curzon did his 
 best to discredit the institutions that had been 
 granted and to set back the hands of the clock. 
 
 The Congress Deputation to England in 1905. 
 The leaders of the Indian National Congress saw all 
 this; they resisted Lord Curzon's policy rather 
 boldly; they spoke with courage; they sought his 
 patronage and sent their president to wait on him. 
 Lord Curzon refused to see him and thus slapped the 
 Congress in the face. He characterised their activi- 
 ties as the letting off of " gas." Their resolutions 
 he looked upon with contempt because, as he said, 
 nothing had ever come out of them. The leaders 
 felt offended, they fretted and foamed. But all 
 they resolved to do was to appeal to the British pub- 
 lic. So a deputation was sent to England in 1905 
 to place the grievances of India before the British 
 public. 
 
 This deputation was composed of Messrs. Gok- 
 hale and the writer of this book. They addressed 
 a large number of meetings in Great Britain, made 
 many friends, saw some politicians; but they were 
 not very hopeful as to the results. One of them on 
 his return (the present writer) struck an unmistak- 
 able note of despondency. He frankly told his peo- 
 ple that the British democracy was too busy with 
 their own affairs to do anything for them, that the 
 
i6o YOUNG INDIA 
 
 British press was not willing to champion Indian 
 aspirations, that it was hard to get a hearing in 
 England, and that the influence and the credit of the 
 Anglo-Indians was too strong to be met successfully 
 by the necessarily inadequate agitation which the 
 Congress could set up in England. On his return 
 to India the message which he brought to his people 
 was, that if they really cared for their country, they 
 would have to strike the blow for freedom them- 
 selves, and that they would have to furnish unmis- 
 takable proofs of their earnestness. 
 
 His message was in no way different from what 
 Mr. Hume had told the graduates of the Calcutta 
 University in 1883, or in his pamphlets "The Star 
 in the East " and the " Old Man's Hope." 
 
 The Congress of 1905. This was the first time 
 that an Indian publicist had spoken in that strain. 
 The szvadeslii and boycott had already been started 
 in Bengal during his absence from India. Even Mr. 
 Gokhale approved of the boycott as a political 
 weapon. So the message which he brought fell on 
 willing and sympathetic ears. The country was in 
 a mood to listen to it, and it did listen. The Con- 
 gress Session of 1905, held at Benares, ^^ gave an op- 
 portunity for comparing notes and for settling a 
 programme. The reception accorded to Mr. Gok- 
 hale and the rather uproarious meetings of the Sub- 
 jects Committee afforded ample evidence of the 
 temper of the people. Gokhale was cautious, care- 
 ful, but enthusiastic. His presidential address was 
 
 16 Presided over by the Honourable Mr. G. K. Gokhale, a 
 member of the Viceroy's Council, 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 161 
 
 inspiring, though strictly moderate. His Bombay 
 friends, however, would not let him go sufficiently 
 far. The very first night the Subjects Committee 
 sat, it appeared that a split was inevitable and the 
 proceedings could not be as unanimous and harmoni- 
 ous as was customary. The old Congress leaders 
 were accustomed to unanimity, but the younger 
 generation soon convinced them that unanimity on 
 the old lines was impossible. 
 
 When the meeting of the Subjects Committee 
 broke up after its deliberation on the first night, no 
 unanimity had been reached with regard to a resolu- 
 tion welcoming the visit of the Prince of Wales (the 
 present King) to India. The dissentionists threat- 
 ened to oppose it in the Congress. The reception 
 committee and the older leaders were all furious, 
 threatened all sorts of retributions, and predicted all 
 sorts of evil consequences, but the younger men 
 would not listen. The whole of the morning was 
 spent in efforts to induce them to withdraw their 
 opposition, but young Bengal refused to agree. 
 The meeting was delayed ; Gokhale then made a per- 
 sonal appeal to the Mahratta and the Punjab lead- 
 ers, and they prevailed on their Bengalee friends to 
 absent themselves from the meeting and let the reso- 
 lution be passed in their absence. The resolution 
 relating to Swadeshi,^^ boycott, and national educa- 
 tion, again evoked lively discussion resulting in com- 
 promise, wherein the principles for which the Na- 
 tionalists stood were conceded. 
 
 !'■ Swadeshi means the cult of home industries, i. e., the use 
 of the articles made in the country. 
 
i62 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 In the Congress camp, the younger generation had 
 met in open conference to discuss their future pro- 
 gramme. It was then that Mr. Tilak gave out the 
 idea of passive resistance. No formal resolutions 
 were passed, but the better mind of the people pres- 
 ent decided to inaugurate an era of self-help and 
 self-reliance based on an active boycott of govern- 
 ment service and of the semi-government institu- 
 tions. 
 
 Object of the Passive Resistance Movement, 
 The object was two- fold. ( i ) . To destroy the hyp- 
 notism that had caused the people and the country to 
 have faith not only in the omnipotence of their rul- 
 ers, but also in their altruism. In the words of one 
 of the leaders of the Nationalist thought (Babu B. C. 
 Pal,^^ " The Spirit of Indian Nationalism," page 
 42), the people had been hypnotised to believe in the 
 altruism of their foreign rulers : 
 
 *' Untrained in the crooked ways of civilised di- 
 plomacy, they had believed what their rulers had 
 said, either of themselves or of their subjects, as 
 gospel truth. They had been told that the people of 
 India were unfitted to manage their ov/n affairs, and 
 they believed it to be true. They had been told that 
 the people were weak and the Government was 
 strong. They had been told that India stood on a 
 lower plane of humanity and England's mission was 
 to civilise ' the semi-barbarous native.' The Na- 
 tionalist school took it upon themselves to expose the 
 hollo wness of all these pretensions. They com- 
 menced to make what are called counter-passes in 
 
 18 An eminent Bengalee writer. 
 
Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 163 
 
 hypnotism, and at once awoke the people to a sense 
 of their own strength, an appreciation of their own 
 culture." 
 
 In the second place, the object was to create a 
 passionate love of liberty, accompanied by a spirit 
 of sacrifice and readiness to suffer for the cause of 
 the country. This was to be done more by example 
 than precept. What the programme was may bet- 
 ter be stated in the words of the leader whom we 
 have quoted above : 
 
 " Boycott both economic and political, boycott of 
 foreign and especially British goods, and of all 
 honorary associations with the administration, na- 
 tional education implying a withdrawal of the 
 youths of the nation from the officialised universi- 
 ties and government-controlled schools and colleges, 
 and training them up in institutions conducted on 
 national lines subject to national control and calcu- 
 lated to help the realisation of the national destiny, 
 national civic volunteering, aiming at imparting a 
 healthy civic training to the people by the voluntary 
 assumption of as much of the civic duties, at present 
 discharged by official or semi-official agencies, as 
 could be done without any violation of the existing 
 laws of the country, — duties, for instance, in regard 
 to rural sanitation, economic and medical relief, 
 popular education, preventive police duties, regula- 
 tion of fair and pilgrim gathering, — settlement 
 of civil and non-cognisable, criminal disputes by 
 means of arbitration committees : — these were 
 the proclaimed methods of the Nationalist 
 school." 
 
i64 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 As to the objects of this scheme, we will again 
 quote the same writer : 
 
 " The evident object was to create in the first place 
 a strong civic sentiment in the people with the help 
 of co-operative organisations for the furtherance of 
 the common good, and thus to train them gradually 
 for the larger and heavier responsibilities of free 
 citizenship, and in the next place, to cover the whole 
 country with a net-work of active, political organisa- 
 tions which would place the leaders in direct and liv- 
 ing touch with the people, and enable them to bring, 
 from time to time, the irresistible pressure of or- 
 ganised public opinion to bear upon the Government, 
 helping thereby the gradual expansion of popular 
 rights." 
 
 Now it should be noted here in passing, that with 
 the exception of boycott and volunteering, every 
 other item in the above propaganda had been more 
 or less tried and with varying success in all parts of 
 the country, but more particularly in the Punjab and 
 Maharashtra before this. The Deccan education 
 Society and the Poona Fergusson College were the 
 offshoots of the desire to further the cause of educa- 
 tion by self-imposed sacrifices, with the underlying 
 motives of quickening the patriotic impulse and the 
 Nationalist spirit. Similarly Swadeshi, co-operative 
 organisations, and private arbitration courts had 
 been thought of and tried. The motives underlying 
 these attempts were absolutely patriotic, combining 
 an element of philanthropy in them. The private 
 colleges in Bengal, started by Vidyasagar and others, 
 were also due to the same impulse, and so was the 
 
INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 165 
 
 Pachaipiya College at Madras. Bombay had its 
 own schemes and was ahead of the rest of India in 
 purely Indian industrial and trade organisations. 
 Similarly in the Punjab the idea of swadeshi had 
 been started as early as 1877. The motives were 
 economic and patriotic. The idea of national edu- 
 cation had found expression in the D. A. V. 
 (Dayanand Anglo- Vedic) College, and that of na- 
 tional co-operative organisations in the "Punjab 
 National Bank," the " Bharat Insurance Company " 
 and other joint stock concerns. Religious and 
 philanthropic motives had brought into existence the 
 Hindu orphan movement, the famine relief move- 
 ment, and so on. A httle volunteering had also been 
 attempted in connection with the famine relief move- 
 ment and the Kangra earthquake relief movement. 
 Long before 1905, the Punjab had a network of 
 privately organised, privately financed, unaided 
 schools and other charitable institutions, over which 
 the Government had little effective control. Patriot- 
 ism and philanthropy were the underlying motives 
 of these institutions, but not politics}^ 
 
 The ruling bureaucracy did not quite like these 
 activities, but they could not suppress them. Indi- 
 vidual officers sometimes sympathised and even 
 helped these movements. So far Bengal had been 
 rather backward in the matter of national develop- 
 ment on these lines. So, when Lord Curzon pro- 
 claimed the partition of Bengal, attacked the 
 
 19 Moreover the keynote of these organisations was associa- 
 tion and co-operation with Government, and not independent 
 self-assertion. 
 
1 66 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 veracity of the orientals in his Calcutta University 
 convocation speech, and on other occasions called 
 them cowards, windbags, unpractical talkers, and 
 mere frothy patriots, the Bengalees awoke to a con- 
 sciousness of their weaknesses, and resolved to re- 
 venge themselves upon Lord Curzon, and prove to 
 the world at large that Lord Curzon was a liar. 
 What followed may be briefly stated in a separate 
 chapter. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE NATIONALIST 
 MOVEMENT 
 
 Partition of Bengal. It was on the i6th of Oc- 
 tober, 1905, that the old Province of Bengal was 
 partitioned by Lord Curzon. On that day " immense 
 numbers of people in the two divisions of the par- 
 titioned province abstained from lighting their 
 kitchen fire, went about barefooted, performed 
 ceremonial baths in rivers or sacred tanks,^ and tied 
 on one another's wrist the sacred rakhi, a piece of 
 silk or cotton thread, as a symbol of fraternal or na- 
 tional unity." On the 7th of August, 1905, the 
 leaders of Bengal, in public meeting assembled, in 
 the Calcutta Town Hall, under the presidency of 
 Maharaja Mannidra Chandra Nundy of Cossim- 
 bazar,^ had already declared " a general boycott of 
 British goods as a practical protest against the pro- 
 posed partition." 
 
 Boycott of British Goods, The original idea was 
 to resort to boycott as a temporary measure, and 
 therefore in the pledges drawn up in the early days, 
 a time limit was put in. The boycott was to last 
 until " the partition was withdrawn." In the words 
 
 1 These are signs of mourning in India. 
 
 2 An eminent nobleman and landlord of Bengal. 
 
 167 
 
i68 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 of a Bengalee politician, the idea was to cause pe- 
 cuniary loss to the British manufacturer and thus 
 enlist his sympathy and help for the purpose of get- 
 ting the measure cancelled. But it was soon dis- 
 covered that the boycott might be an effective 
 economic weapon, to be used as a measure of protec- 
 tion against the economic exploitation of the coun- 
 try by the foreigner. 
 
 To quote the same writer, " The pledges sent 
 from Calcutta came back, duly signed by large 
 numbers of people, but with the conditional sen- 
 tence, * until Partition is withdrawn,* scored 
 through. The boycott was a great success for some 
 time. * The Lucky Day ' of October, 1905, on 
 which generally a very large number of forward 
 contracts in Manchester goods are made at Calcutta, 
 passed without any business being done. Simul- 
 taneously with this decline in foreign goods, many 
 indigenous industries began to revive. There was a 
 boom in handlooms all over India. Provinces out- 
 side of Bengal did not adopt a policy of active boy- 
 cott, but the cry of Swadeshi ^ was taken up by all 
 the country, whereby a great impetus was given to 
 indigenous manufacturers. The significance of the 
 movement in Bengal, where it was rigorously pur- 
 sued, lay in the fact that prince and peasant, capitalist 
 and labourer, literate and illiterate, educated and un- 
 educated, all joined hands.'* For some time the 
 boycott was so effective that The Englishman, an 
 Anglo-Indian newspaper published in Calcutta, de- 
 clared : " It is absolutely true that Calcutta ware- 
 
 3 India made goods. 
 
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 169 
 
 houses are full of fabrics that can not be sold. In 
 the earlier days of the boycott it was the fashion to 
 assert that depression in piece goods trade was due 
 to this or the other economic cause. 
 
 " Many prominent Marwari ^ Firms have been 
 absolutely ruined and a number of the biggest Eu- 
 ropean import houses have had either to close down 
 their piece goods branch or to put up with a very 
 small business, where they previously had a large 
 one. As for stocks in warehouses, they tend to 
 grow larger, as Marwari and Indian buyers who had 
 given forward orders, now state that they can not 
 afford to take delivery. These facts are now so 
 well known that it is idle to attempt to hide them. 
 Indeed the time has come when all injuries inflicted 
 on trade by boycott should be made fully known. 
 There is no question of encouraging the boycotters, 
 as they need no encouragement. But there is the 
 question of thoroughly awakening the public at home 
 and the Government of India to the fact that in boy- 
 cott the enemies of the Raj have found a most ef- 
 fective weapon for injuring British interests in the 
 country." 
 
 The triumph of the boycotters was testified to by 
 the following remarks of The Englishman, with 
 which the article ended : " The question however 
 is, what is the Government going to do about it? 
 Boycott must not he acquiesced in, or it will more 
 surely ruin British connection with India than an 
 armed revolution." [The italics are ours.] 
 
 4 Wholesale piece goods merchants belonging to Upper India 
 are known in Calcutta by that name. 
 
170 YOUNG INDIA~ 
 
 Government's Reply. In reply to this move on 
 the part of the Bengalee leaders, — a move in which 
 all Bengal was united, including the present mod- 
 erates, — the Government started a crusade against 
 the students whom the boycotters had enlisted in 
 their service. The bureaucracy thought that the 
 more active part of the propaganda was carried on 
 by them. According to Mr. B. C. Pal, " the success 
 of the boycott, especially in the earlier stages before 
 the sentiment had time to settle down into the con- 
 science and consciousness of the people, depended 
 almost entirely upon picketing." Mr. Pal assures 
 us that "their method was uniformly intellectual 
 and moral," and that " there was no intimidation, 
 no violence, no appeal to physical fear, none of the 
 things that characterise picketing among the ro- 
 buster people of the West." 
 
 The British, of course, do not accept this state- 
 ment as true. But whatever its nature, the Govern- 
 ment did not like picketing. They thought they 
 could not stand by and let a movement of that kind 
 gain strength. " Their first move was to make it 
 penal for the young student population to participate 
 in any way in the nationalist activities. Students 
 who attended public meetings were threatened with 
 various punishments to the extent even of expulsion 
 from school, college, or university." 
 
 The Second Move of the Bengalees: The Na- 
 tional University. The Bengalee leaders then put 
 their heads together and resolved to start a National 
 University, wherein education would be given inde- 
 pendent of government control. The educational 
 
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 171 
 
 policy of Lord Curzon had already set people to 
 thinking along that line. The measures now 
 adopted to strike at the boycott movement by punish- 
 ing the students who participated therein ** accentu- 
 ated the need and called forth actual measures to 
 meet it." This movement also, like the boycott, met 
 the universal support of United Bengal. The 
 actual leadership of it fell on Sir Gurdas Banner] ea, 
 late Judge of the Calcutta High Court, who had been 
 vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University for some 
 time and whose loyalty and moderation had never 
 been questioned by friend or foe. Besides, he had 
 sat on the University Commission appointed by 
 Lord Curzon and had written a note of dissent from 
 the policy recommended by the majority of its mem- 
 bers. " Under his guidance, the Bengal Council of 
 National Education proposed to work, independent 
 of, but by no means in opposition to, the Govern- 
 ment Education Department. And this independent 
 activity was justified on the ground that the educa- 
 tion hitherto imparted under official supervision 
 lacked a vital reference to the thoughts, the senti- 
 ments, the traditions, the religions, and even the 
 outer physical and biological environments of the 
 people. The object of the new movement was to 
 organise a thoroughly national system of education, 
 both scientific and literary, as well as technical, on 
 national lines and under national control/' 
 
 Besides making an ample provision for literary, 
 scientific, and technical education, the National 
 Council of Education at once reduced English to the 
 status of a secondary language, the first place being 
 
172 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 given to Bengalee and Sanskrit, and in the case of 
 Mohammedans to Urdu, Persian, and Arabic. 
 
 The National Education Movement in Bengal was 
 in no v^ay an anti-government movement. Though 
 it owed its " initiation to the threats of the Govern- 
 ment to close the doors of the official schools and 
 colleges and universities against those who would 
 take any part in, even to the extent of simply at- 
 tending, any political meeting or demonstration, the 
 National Education Movement in Bengal sought to 
 avoid all open causes of friction with the authorities 
 and proposed to work independent of, but not in op- 
 position to, the Government. Political in its origin, 
 it tried to avoid all conflicts with the authorities by 
 assuming an absolutely non-political attitude." 
 
 Arahinda Ghosh. To this movement, Indian Na- 
 tionalism owes the emerging into prominence of a 
 quiet, unostentatious, young Hindu, who was till 
 then comparatively obscure, holding his soul in pa- 
 tience and waiting for opportunities to send currents 
 of the greatest strength into the nation's system. 
 He was gathering energy. His name was Arabinda 
 Ghosh. Arabinda had received first class education 
 in England. The headmaster of the school, where 
 he studied before joining the university, is reported 
 to have said that during the 25 to 30 years he had 
 been in charge of the school, Arabinda Ghosh was 
 by far the most richly endowed in intellectual capac- 
 ity of any of the students that had come under his 
 charge. 
 
 At Cambridge he distinguished himself in Eu- 
 ropean classics and took first class honours. He 
 
Arabinda Ghosh 
 
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 173 
 
 passed the Indian Civil Service examinations with 
 credit, but failed in the test for horsemanship. 
 Never did a failure prove more a blessing than in 
 his case. 
 
 He was in the service of His Highness, the Maha- 
 raja of Baroda,^ drawing a salary of about 500 
 pounds sterling, when his country's call came to him. 
 He listened to it readily, gave up his post and agreed 
 to be the principal of the National College on ten 
 pounds a month. We are told by one who worked 
 with him for some time that he did not support the 
 " declaration of the National Council of Education " 
 about their non-political attitude. He could not ap- 
 preciate this needless dread, as they thought, of 
 offending official susceptibilities. He, however, ac- 
 cepted the verdict of the majority and began his 
 work. But his position as ** the nominal head of 
 the National College, controlled by men " who " dif- 
 fered from him in their political views and opinions, 
 became almost from the very beginning anomalous." 
 This was rather unfortunate. Arabinda Ghosh had 
 received the best modern education that any man of 
 his country and generation could expect to have. 
 He had for some years been a teacher of youth in 
 Baroda and had acquired considerable experience in 
 his art. He had clearly realised the spirit and actu- 
 alities of the life of his nation, and knew how the 
 most advanced principles of pedagogy could be suc- 
 cessfully worked into a thoroughly national system 
 of education in India. He knew that the founda- 
 tions of national independence and national great- 
 
 ^ A ruling chief in the Bombay Presidency. 
 
174 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 ness must be laid in a strong and advanced system 
 of national education. He had a political ideal, no 
 doubt ; but politics meant to him much more than is 
 ordinarily understood by the term. It was not a 
 game of expediency, but a " school of human char- 
 acter " which acted and reacted on the life of the 
 nation. " Education could no more be divorced 
 from politics," in his opinion, " than it could be di- 
 vorced from religion and morals. Any system of 
 education that helps such isolation and division be- 
 tween the various organic relations of life is medi- 
 aeval and not modem." ^ 
 
 The monied leaders of the National Council of 
 Education movement, however, could not accept 
 Arabinda's principles. " They were not free from 
 the fear of possible official opposition, which, if once 
 aroused, would make their work, they thought, abso- 
 lutely impossible. They had a real dread of the 
 bureaucracy " whom they were not prepared to defy. 
 Experience has shown that they were quite mistaken 
 if they thought they could develop their scheme of 
 education without rousing the fears and the bitterest 
 opposition of the bureaucracy, even after declaring 
 the non-political character of their scheme. 
 
 Never before in the history of the human race 
 was it so well realised as now that the school is the 
 nursery of the man and the citizen. Lord Curzon 
 realised it in full and it was his aim to curtail or, if 
 possible, crush the nationalist influences in the 
 
 ® In my opinion there has never been any time in human 
 history when religion and morals were successfully divorced 
 from politics, either in Ancient India or anywhere else. 
 
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 175 
 
 schools and colleges managed and conducted by In- 
 dian agencies. It was his desire to introduce the 
 English element in all these institutions and to put 
 them under English control. He had invited Eu- 
 ropean missionaries to the Secret Educational Con- 
 ference at Simla, but not a single Indian, Hindu or 
 Mohammedan. He could not trust them (i, e., the 
 Indians) with his ideas. Hence the need of secrecy. 
 The National Council of Education was supposed to 
 be working against the spirit of his policy. He was 
 gone, but the bureaucracy who were identified with 
 his wishes, views and schemes, were there. It was 
 impossible that they would let the Bengalees, who- 
 ever they might be, build up a system of education 
 and a network of educational institutions, that not 
 only would owe nothing to the Government but were 
 also to be quite free of official or English control 
 and of English influence. 
 
 Then, the very circumstances under which the Na- 
 tional College was born and the National Schools 
 affiliated to it were opened, gave them a political 
 character. The Government and the bureaucracy 
 were opposed to the students taking any part in the 
 boycott movement; the Bengalee leaders wanted 
 them to do so, and hence the National College and 
 the National Schools. It was an open challenge — 
 a revolt. Arabinda Ghosh was identified with this 
 revolt, and with him were associated a whole group 
 of powerful writers and speakers, all men of high 
 individuality and lofty ideals and of pure character. 
 They accepted the decision of the majority about the 
 non-political character of the college, but no one 
 
176 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 could deprive them of the use of their pen and 
 tongue. Any attempt to do that might have been 
 fatal to the scheme. They started journals and 
 preached the gospel of political and economic and 
 educational independence in the clearest language. 
 They v^ere all men of education and knew their 
 history v^ell. They fully realised what the conse- 
 quences were likely to be, and they were prepared 
 for it. They were prepared to suffer for their 
 propaganda, but they were not yet prepared for vio- 
 lence. 
 
 The Nationalist Press. They started a number of 
 papers in Bengalee and also in English, in which 
 they gave their ideas to the people. The Sandhya 
 and the Bande MataraUj as two of the new papers 
 were called, became their classrooms. In a few 
 months the face and the spirit of Bengal was 
 changed. The press, the pulpit, the platform, the 
 writers of prose and poetry, composers of music and 
 playwrights, all were filled with the spirit of nation- 
 alism. Bande Mataram (Hail Motherland) was 
 the cry of the day. It was chanted in schools, in 
 colleges, in streets, in houses, in public squares, al- 
 most everywhere. Even the government offices and 
 the compounds of the private residences of Eu- 
 ropean officials resounded with it. 
 
 Sabhas and Samitis and Akharas'^ leaped into ex- 
 istence by hundreds, where the Bengalee young men 
 began to take lessons in fencing and other games. 
 This was their reply to those who taunted them as 
 cowards; for the famous, or rather infamous, re- 
 
 '' Societies, Associations and Gymnasiums. 
 
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 177 
 
 marks of Macaulay about Bengalees were often 
 hurled at their heads by the Anglo-Indians, or new 
 language was used to express the same thoughts. 
 
 The boycott had created an unheard of situation 
 in some of the districts in Eastern Bengal. In one 
 district — Barisal — the Superintendent of Police 
 and the Collector had both failed to be able to buy 
 a piece of Manchester shirting for one of their 
 friends, as no trader would sell it except by per- 
 mission of the gentleman who was the leader of the 
 boycotters. This leader happened to be a man who 
 had made his influence by his character and by 
 service. He was, so to say, the uncrowned king of 
 his district. That was a crusher to the bureaucracy. 
 No foreign bureaucracy could tolerate it. Sir 
 William Bamfylde Fuller, on whom had fallen the 
 first Lieutenant Governorship of Eastern Bengal, 
 was bewildered by the strength of the movement and 
 the new character which the Bengalees were de- 
 veloping. The people refused to show him the 
 customary honours. Even the presence of the Lieu- 
 tenant Governor in the town did not prevent the 
 people from giving ovations to anti-partition propa- 
 gandists and making anti-partition demonstrations. 
 At one place it is said that even the railway porters 
 refused to touch his baggage, which had to be car- 
 ried by police constables. This was more than he 
 could bear. 
 
 Military Measures against Boycotters. After 
 consultation with Lord Curzon, he resolved to use 
 force. The first step taken was the despatch of a 
 hundred Gurkha troops to Barisal, followed by a 
 
178 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 demand for the withdrawal of a circular issued by 
 the local leaders advising the people of the legality 
 of a peaceful boycott of British goods. It was evi- 
 dent that a refusal meant a physical conflict, which 
 the leaders were yet anxious to avoid. So the lead- 
 ers decided to withdraw and the governor was 
 mollified. The Gurkhas are said to have commit- 
 ted numerous outrages on the people, but the lead- 
 ers kept the latter under control, as they did not 
 want the Government to get a handle to crush the 
 movement by force. 
 
 In April, 1906, the Provincial Conference, which 
 was attended by the most prominent leaders of the 
 two Bengals, was broken up by order of the Magis- 
 trate " almost at the point of the bayonet." A 
 procession of some 800 or 900 delegates from the 
 different districts of the two provinces, " including 
 almost every prominent leader in the country, was 
 dispersed by the police, who made a free use of 
 their quarterstaffs and broke more than one head 
 under the very eyes of the District Superintendent 
 of Police." The people, however, did not retaliate. 
 So far, they were determined not to use force even 
 against force. With every display of force on the 
 side of the Government, the nationalist movement 
 gained ground in popularity and in strength, until 
 the masses, the women and children, all were satu- 
 rated with it. 
 
 This was the birth of a new life in Bengal, which 
 found its reflection in every phase of public activ- 
 ity, religious, social, economic, educational, or po- 
 litical. What was done in Bengal found its echo 
 
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 179 
 
 in the rest of the country. So far the NationaHst 
 party was united. The elder people, who had been 
 born and bred and had lived in a different atmos- 
 phere, were not in full accord with the younger 
 party and remonstrated with the latter, when they 
 indulged in intemperate language. Some people in 
 other provinces did not quite approve of the whole- 
 sale boycott, inaugurated and declared by the Ben- 
 galees, but otherwise the nation was united, and the 
 best mind of the nation was rather gratified at the 
 turn things had taken. 
 
 Lord Minfo. With the advent of Lord Minto 
 (in 1905), however, things began to assume a dif- 
 ferent shape. The first serious difference in the 
 Nationalist party occurred over the presidentship 
 of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta in 
 1906, but an actual split was avoided by a clever 
 and diplomatic move of the leaders of the new 
 moderate party, who obtained the consent of Mr. 
 Dadabhai Naoroji ^ to accept the presidentship, if 
 offered to him. The Congress session of 1906 was 
 rather an uproarious session, but eventually the 
 spirit of compromise and conciliation prevailed and 
 the so-called extremists practically gained all their 
 points so far as the principle of them was concerned. 
 
 But it was clear, even to a superficial observer, 
 that a split was inevitable; Lord Minto had suc- 
 ceeded Lord Curzon as Viceroy, and a visible 
 change was coming in the policy of the Government. 
 Lord Curzon was for a policy of repression ; Minto 
 
 8 A leader universally respected and loved by all classes of 
 people throughout India. See frontispiece. 
 
i8o YOUNG INDIA 
 
 inaugurated a reign of conciliation with repression. 
 The movement might have succumbed if the Gov- 
 ernment had been courageous enough to annul or 
 modify the Partition of Bengal, as they subse- 
 quently did in 19 12. But that was not to be. On 
 that point the Government would not yield, though 
 otherwise they were in favour of making conces- 
 sions. 
 
 Indian Press Gagged. The years 1905, 1906, and 
 1907 were years of passive resistance. The nation- 
 alists indulged in strong language, carried on a 
 vigorous anti-British propaganda by means of the 
 press and the platform, used their pen and tongue 
 rather freely, but did not think of using force. 
 Editor after editor, and publisher after publisher 
 was sent to prison without any diminution of the 
 campaign. The years 1906 and 1907 saw a regu- 
 lar " tug of war " between the Government on the 
 one side and the nationalists on the other. A large 
 number of prosecutions were launched against the 
 members of the press in Bengal and Bombay, Pun- 
 jab and the United Provinces, Madras and the Cen- 
 tral Provinces, and many persons were sentenced 
 to long terms of imprisonment. A complete boy- 
 cott, economic, political and social, was openly 
 preached, and picketing was again resorted to. 
 Some of the judicial trials were only farcical, the 
 judges being influenced by political considerations, 
 and convictions and sentences being foregone con- 
 clusions. Yet such was the people's regard for 
 law, that so long as the procedure of an open trial 
 was not attacked, they did not think of employing 
 
From a painting by Mrs. Richer, Berkeley, Cal. 
 
 La J PAT Rai 
 
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT i8i 
 
 force for purposes of revenge. Even ill-treatment, 
 either in lock-ups, during trial, or in prisons, after 
 conviction, failed to incite the people to force. Po- 
 litical prisoners v^ere applauded, glorified, and 
 otherwise supported and backed, but no thought of 
 revenge entered anybody's head. 
 
 Deportation of Lajpat Rai. The sudden depor- 
 tation of Lajpat Rai, however, in May, 1907, 
 changed the whole current of thought and action. 
 The nationalists concluded that the movement for 
 passive resistance required to be supported by secret 
 propaganda as well as the use of force against force. 
 In the words of the Honourable Mr. G. K. Gokhale, 
 in a speech delivered in the Council of the Governor 
 General after the deportation of Lajpat Rai, the 
 latter was a religious, social, and educational re- 
 former and was loved and respected by large classes 
 of his countrymen all over the country. He was 
 one of the persons whom the extreme Nationalists 
 claimed as their own, whom the moderate Nation- 
 alists also respected, and whom the populace " liked 
 for his philanthropic and educational activities." 
 The sudden capture of this man, without trial, with- 
 out charge, and without notice, drove the young 
 Nationalists to frenzy.^ Even the sober and the 
 thoughtful among the Nationalists were in despair. 
 
 The Anglo-Indian press all over the country, 
 however, was in jubilation. The leading semi- 
 official daily published at Lahore, the headquarters 
 
 ^ See Mr. H. W. Nevinson's New Spirit in India, p. 295 ; 
 also pp. 133, 233, etc.; see also Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald's 
 Awakening of India. 
 
i82 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 of Lajpat Rai, described him as the leader of a 
 deep-laid revolutionary movement, every detail of 
 which passed through his fingers. He was said to 
 have a following of " 100,000 desperadoes." The 
 Englishman, at Calcutta, charged him with having 
 tampered with the loyalty of the Indian army, and 
 having incited the King of Afghanistan to invade 
 India. As a result of adding, as they did, insult to 
 the injury of deportation, the country was ablaze 
 with indignation. The step was condemned by the 
 unanimous voice of the people. All differences of 
 opinion were forgotten and the whole country 
 joined in protest. The extreme wing of the nation- 
 alists, however, decided to take the next step. They 
 decided to use force and began to think of bomb 
 and revolver and of a guerilla warfare against the 
 established despotism. The older people, though 
 they sympathised, would not agree to take any part 
 in the movement using physical force, nor would 
 they give their sanction to such a course. 
 
 It is possible that some sort of secret organisation 
 existed in Bengal in 1906, but force did not enter 
 into their programme till after May, 1907, i. e., until 
 after the deportation of Lajpat Rai. The deporta- 
 tion decided them. Yet the first shot was not fired 
 until December, 1907, and the first bomb was not 
 thrown until April or May, 1908. The split ^^ at 
 Surat in December, 1907, irrevocably divided the 
 Nationalists into two parties, and confirmed the 
 younger party in their programme of force. The 
 
 10 For an account of this split see H. W. Nevinson's New 
 Spirit in India, Chap. XIII. 
 
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 183 
 
 extremists saw the hand of the Government in the 
 split. Within a few months almost all the leaders 
 were seized and thrown into prison. At Surat, 
 Lajpat Rai, having thrown in his lot with the mod- 
 erates, was for a time left alone, but Bal Ganga 
 Dhar Tilak, the Mahratta leader, was prosecuted 
 and sentenced to six years' transportation. Ara- 
 binda Ghosh was also seized and prosecuted for 
 conspiracy to wage war against the King, though he 
 was afterwards acquitted for want of evidence. 
 Bepin Chandra Pal was also seized and sentenced 
 to six months' imprisonment; Chidambaran Pillai, 
 a Madras leader, to six years ; a Mohammedan leader 
 of the United Provinces, Abul Hasan Hasrat Mo- 
 hani, to one year. In December, 1908, nine of the 
 Bengal leaders were seized in their homes and im- 
 prisoned by an administrative order without trial 
 and without charge. 
 
 Disaffection Driven Underground. These perse- 
 cutions and sentences exasperated the younger party 
 and drove disaffection underground. Undaunted 
 by the loss of leaders, they continued their propa- 
 ganda and made several attempts on the lives of 
 high officials. The life of the Lieutenant Governor 
 of Bengal was attempted no less than three times, 
 once in open daylight, when he was presiding at a 
 certain state function. The life of the viceroy, 
 Lord Minto, was also attempted, at Ahmedabad. 
 The political secretary of Lord Morley, then Secre- 
 tary of State, was shot in London; a collector was 
 murdered at Nasik, and many other *' outrages " 
 were. committed. Publications suppressed and con- 
 
i84 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 demned were published and circulated secretly ; arms 
 were smuggled and stolen ; and attempts were made 
 to wreck railways and otherwise terrorise the 
 Government. Throughout the year 1908 and 1909 
 the movement was kept up at high pressure. Then 
 in 19 10 there was a comparative lull, though the 
 revolutionary activities did come up to the surface 
 occasionally. 
 
 The year 191 1 was perhaps the dullest year from 
 the revolutionary point of view. That was the year 
 of the King's visit to India. The King modified 
 the Partition of Bengal and ordered the transfer of 
 the capital to Delhi. For a time there was a great 
 rejoicing in the country, not so much because the 
 Partition had been annulled, but because it was a 
 virtual triumph of the Nationalist agitation. 
 
 Lord Hardinge Bombed. In December, 19 12, 
 again, the revolutionary party gave conclusive evi- 
 dence of their existence and strength. A bomb was 
 thrown at Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy, when he 
 was passing in procession midst thousands of troops 
 and hundreds of thousands of spectators, making 
 his first state entry into the new capital of British 
 India, the Delhi of the Moguls. Lord Hardinge 
 was wounded, members of his entourage killed and 
 the procession broken up. The culprit escaped, and 
 in spite of offers of huge rewards ^^ and unprece- 
 dented police activity has remained undetected 
 up to the present time. This is considered to be 
 
 11 A reward of one hundred thousand Rupees equal to 33,000 
 dollars was offered for information leading to the arrest of the 
 culprit or culprits. 
 
THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 185 
 
 the supreme achievement of the revolutionaries. 
 Throughout 1913 and 1914 the revolutionaries were 
 active, and the scanty news that has filtered out 
 from India during the war gives ample reason to 
 think that they are very active now. 
 
 Within the last seven or eight years, the Govern- 
 ment has tried every form of repression, and has 
 also planned a programme of partial reconciliation, 
 but they have so far failed to crush the extreme 
 wing of the Nationalist party, the wing that believes 
 in force and that has taken to all the methods of 
 guerilla warfare against a foreign government 
 based on force. 
 
 The country is in such circumstances now that 
 every step which the Government takes to repress 
 and crush the movement or to punish the offenders, 
 strengthens the spirit of revolt, adds to the volume 
 and intensity of the desire for revenge, adds to the 
 number of those who are prepared to suffer or even 
 die for the cause. From the classes, the movement 
 has spread to the masses; from the non-fighting 
 masses it is now gaining ground and winning adher- 
 ents among the fighting classes. In 1907 the charge 
 of tampering with the army, laid at the door of 
 Lajpat Rai, was ridiculous. Perhaps there was a 
 certain amount of disaffection among the Punjab 
 regiments due to the Agrarian legislation under- 
 taken by the Punjab Government, which deeply and 
 detrimentally affected the classes from which the 
 army was recruited. When the legislation objected 
 to was vetoed, that cause of disaffection was re- 
 moved; but since then fresh causes have affected 
 
i86 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 at least certain sections of the army also, so that it 
 cannot be said that the whole army is free from 
 disaffection. The riot at Singapore, caused by the 
 revolt of one of the Indian regiments stationed 
 there, and certain happenings in the Punjab, amply 
 prove this. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 
 
 We will now see how many types of Nationalists 
 there are in India. From what follows in the chap- 
 ter, the reader should not conclude that the Indian 
 Nationalists are disunited. So far as the goal is 
 concerned there is practical unanimity in all ranks. 
 Even those who stand for complete independence 
 would be glad to have self-government within the 
 Empire, if that were promised in the near future. 
 As to methods, there is the usual cleavage to be 
 found in all struggles for freedom in all countries. 
 One party stands for the use of physical force, the 
 other for peaceful means. The Indian National- 
 ists, too, are divided into two parties, the physical 
 force party and the moderate party. The follow- 
 ing account of the types is intended to show the 
 different lines of their thinking. Complete unanim- 
 ity in principles and methods can only be expected 
 of a collection of machine-made clogs of wood. 
 
 The Extremists, ( i ) To take up the extremists 
 
 first: There are some who do not recognise the 
 
 British Government at all. They think that the 
 
 Government of the British in India is founded on 
 
 force and fraud. They have therefore no scruples 
 
 187 
 
i88 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 to use force as well as fraud against the Govern- 
 ment. In their eyes every one who is helping the 
 Government in India either by accepting their serv- 
 ice or otherwise by willing co-operation, abets the 
 crime of which the Britishers are guilty. They do 
 not recognise British laws nor their courts. They 
 have no respect or use for either. They believe that 
 their nationalism gives them the right of removing 
 every one who stands in the way of their propaganda, 
 whether by force or fraud. In their heart of hearts 
 they are against every one who supports the British 
 Government in India, but in the prosecution of their 
 object they do not desire to strike at all of them. 
 But if need be they are prepared to strike at any one. 
 They have declared war against the British Govern- 
 ment. Their leaders have assumed the right of 
 passing sentences against those who are of the 
 enemy. They judge and deal severely with those 
 whom they think guilty of treason against them. 
 They also consider themselves entitled to collect 
 taxes as they call them, and make impositions on 
 people in India. Acting on the principle that the 
 safety of the state is the first consideration for all 
 those who form the state, and that in case of neces- 
 sity the state has a right to use the property of 
 every private individual who is included in the body 
 politic, they are prepared to exact their impositions 
 by force. The fact that the British Government is 
 the enemy against whom they have declared war, 
 gives them the right to loot British treasuries and in- 
 jure their property wherever and whenever they can. 
 . The other principle stated above justifies in their 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 189 
 
 eyes the taking by force of the property or wealth of 
 those who would not give it willingly or voluntarily 
 for the safety of the state as conceived by them. 
 Hence the " dacoities." 
 
 A few Nihilists. The men engaged in those 
 dacoities are of two kinds : There are those who 
 have no moral or religious scruples. They are '' ni- 
 hilists/' But their number is exceedingly small. 
 They are not immoral people. For their own self 
 or for private persons, they would not do anything 
 which in any way contravenes the prevailing code of 
 morality; they would neither steal nor rob, nor kill 
 nor injure any person. But for the purpose of their 
 movement they would do anything. Their number 
 however is, as we said above, exceedingly small. 
 Then there are those who are extremely religious 
 and spiritual. Some of them are the followers of 
 the '' Kali " ^ cult as it is understood in Bengal ; 
 others are Vedantists. There are some who are 
 deists or theists. 
 
 Religions Extremists. In every case, however, 
 they believe that the British are the enemies of their 
 Motherland and also of their religion. They would 
 not touch one hair of any one simply because that 
 person belonged to a religion different from theirs; 
 but they would not scruple to kill any one who inter- 
 feres with their religion. They believe that they 
 owe their lives to the Motherland, whom they wor- 
 ship as the means of enabling them to be worthy of 
 the worship of the Supreme Mother of the Universe. 
 
 1 Name pi a religious sect. See Pratts' India and Its Faiths, 
 p. 13' 
 
190 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 We will once more quote Mr. Pal ^ to explain what 
 we mean, or rather how he puts the idea : 
 
 The Mother Worshippers. " The so-called idol- 
 atry of Hinduism," he says, " is also passing through 
 a mighty transfiguration. The process started 
 really with Bankim Chandra,^ who interpreted the 
 most popular of the Hindu goddesses as symbolic 
 of the different stages of national evolution. 
 Jagatdhatri — riding a lion which has the prostrate 
 body of an elephant under its paw, represented the 
 motherland in the early jungle-clearing stage. This 
 is, says Bankim Chandra, the mother as she was. 
 Kali, the grim goddess, dark and naked, bearing a 
 garland of human heads around her neck, — heads 
 from which blood is dripping, — and dancing on the 
 prostrate form of Shiva, the God — this, says Ban- 
 kim Chandra, is the mother as she is, dark, because 
 ignorant of herself; the heads with dripping blood 
 are those of her own children, destroyed by famine 
 and pestilence; the jackals^ licking these drippings 
 are the symbol of desolation and decadence of social 
 life, and the prostrate form of Shiva means that she 
 is trampling her own God under her feet. Durga, 
 the ten-headed goddess, armed with swords and 
 spears in some hands, holding wheat-sheaves in 
 some, offering courage and peace with others, riding 
 a lion, fighting with demons ; with Sarasvati, or the 
 goddess of Knowledge and Arts, supported by 
 
 2 The Spirit of Indian Nationalism, by Mr. B. C. Pal. p. 36. 
 
 * A great Bengalee writer of fiction who composed the well- 
 known nationalist song, " Bande Mat^r^im " or Hail Mother- 
 land. 
 
 * Or the foreign exploiters. 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 191 
 
 Ganapati, the god of Wisdom, on her one side, and 
 Lakshmi, the goddess of Wealth, protected by Karti- 
 keya, the leader of the Heavenly army, on the other 
 side — this, says Bankim Chandra, is the mother as 
 she will be. This interpretation of the old images 
 of gods and goddesses has imparted a new meaning 
 to the current ceremonialism of the country, and 
 multitudes, while worshipping either Jagatdhatri, or 
 Kaliy or Durga, accost them with devotion and en- 
 thusiasm, with the inspiring cry of Bande Mataram. 
 All these are the popular objects of worship of the 
 Indian Hindus, especially in Bengal. And the trans- 
 figuration of these symbols is at once the cause and 
 the evidence of the depth and the strength of the 
 present movement. This wonderful transfiguration 
 of the old gods and goddesses is carrying the mes- 
 sage of new nationalism to th^ women and the 
 masses of the country." 
 
 Vedantists. " Behind this mighty transfiguration 
 of the old religious ideas and symbols of the country 
 stands, however, a new philosophy of life. Strictly 
 speaking, it is not a new philosophy either, but rather 
 a somewhat new application of the dominant philo- 
 sophical speculations of the race. Behind the new 
 nationalism in India stands the old Vedantism of 
 the Hindus. This ancient Indian philosophy, di- 
 vided into many schools, has one general idea run- 
 ning through it from end to end. It is the idea of 
 the essential unity of man and God. According to 
 this philosophy. Substance is one though expressed 
 through many forms. Reality is one though ap- 
 pearances are multitudinous. Matter, in the eye of 
 
192 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 this philosophy, is not material, but essentially spir- 
 itual, the thought of God concretised. Man is the 
 spirit of God incarnated. The meaning of cosmic 
 evolution is to be found, not in itself, but in the 
 thought of the Absolute. It is, to adopt the Hegel- 
 ian dictum, the movement of the Self away from 
 itself, to return to itself, to be itself. The Absolute, 
 or Brahman, is the beginning, the middle, and the 
 end of this evolutionary process. He is the Regu- 
 lative idea. He is cosmic evolution. He is pro- 
 gressively revealing himself through the v^orld 
 process. In man, the Divine idea, or the Logos, 
 comes slowly to consciousness of itself. The end 
 of human evolution is the fullest realisation of man's 
 unity with God. Long, especially in what may be 
 called the middle ages in India, this essential unity 
 between God and man was sought to be realised 
 through metaphysical abstractions, by negation of 
 the social and civic life. There w^as an undue em- 
 phasis on the Subjective and the Universal to the 
 neglect of the realities (however relative they might 
 be) of the Objective and the Particular. Protests 
 had, however, been made from time to time against 
 these monkish abstractions, but in spite of these ab- 
 stractions the dominant note continued to be that of 
 Abstract Monism. Neo-Vedantism, which forms 
 the very soul and essence of what may be called Neo- 
 Hinduism, has been seeking to realise the old 
 spiritual ideals of the race, not through monkish 
 negations or mediaeval abstractions, but by the 
 idealisation and the spiritualisation of the concrete 
 contents and actual relations of life. It demands, 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 193 
 
 consequently, a social, an economic, and a political 
 reconstruction, such as will be helpful to the highest 
 spiritual life of every individual member of the com- 
 munity. The spiritual note of the present National- 
 ist Movement in India is entirely derived from this 
 Vedantic thought. 
 
 " Under the influence of this Neo-Vedantism, as- 
 sociated to a large extent with the name of the late 
 Swami Vivekananda, there has been at work a slow 
 and silent process of the liberalisation of the old 
 social ideas. The old bigotry that anathematised 
 the least deviation from the rules of caste, or the 
 authority of custom, is openly giving way to a spirit 
 of new tolerance. The imperious necessities of na- 
 tional struggle and national life are slowly breaking 
 down, except in purely ceremonial affairs, the old 
 restrictions of caste. In the new movement, old and 
 orthodox Brahmins are rendering open obeisance 
 to the heterodox and non-Brahmin teachers. There 
 is an evident anxiety to discover spiritual and tra- 
 ditional authority for even the outrages that some of 
 these have committed against the old social and 
 sacerdotal order. And where no such authority 
 could be found, their personal freedom of thought 
 and action is being condoned on the principle that 
 those who are to be the saviours of their nation 
 stand, like the mendicant and the holy man, above 
 all law. And all this is a proof of the strange hold 
 that the new nationalist propaganda has got on the 
 real mind and soul of the people." 
 
 To these two classes, the Mother worshippers, 
 and the Vedantists, belong the great bulk of the Ben- 
 
194 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 gal Nationalists. They are neither " nihilists " nor 
 " anarchists." They are patriots who have raised 
 their patriotism to the pitch of a religion. Their re- 
 ligion remarkably fits in with their patriotism and 
 makes the latter indescribably intense and alive. 
 Their whole life is permeated with it. They realise 
 their " duty " every moment of their life and they 
 are prepared to do anything and take any and every 
 risk in the performance of that duty. They live on 
 little; their food is abstemious; they scrupulously 
 avoid liquor; they clothe themselves scantily; lux- 
 ury they do not know. They can fast for days and 
 go without sleep for days. Generally they are men 
 of their word, men of honour, imbued with a strong 
 idea of self-respect, true to their vows; men who are 
 not swayed by lust or passion. 
 
 To this class belonged most of the Maniktolah 
 party, Barendra and his friends. But it is evident 
 that there are some theists among them, i, e,, theists 
 in the Western sense of the term. The man who 
 shot Gossain, the first approver^ in Bengal, was a 
 
 5 It was in the first half of the year 1908 that the first bomb 
 was thrown at Muzaffarpur, Behar. It was meant for a 
 Magistrate who had been passing sentences of whipping on 
 nationahst youths, but by mistake it struck a quite innocent 
 person. The investigation of this case resulted in the dis- 
 covery of a big conspiracy. The trial of this conspiracy is 
 known by the name " Maniktolah Bomb Case " from the fact 
 that the headquarters of this conspiracy were alleged to have 
 been in the Maniktolah gardens, Calcutta. One of the con- 
 spirators Narendra Nath Gossain became an approver. After 
 the case had been committed for trial before the Sessions 
 Court and when the approver and the accused were both 
 lodged in jail at Alipore, one of the leaders of the con- 
 spiracy shot the approver dead with a rifle which had been 
 smuggled into the jail premises by their friends. 
 
Har Dayal 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 195 
 
 Brahmo (member of the Brahmo Samaj). They 
 have some Mohammedans and some Christians, too, 
 among them. Brahm Bhandu Bandhopadhyai ^ was 
 a Christian at one time. These people have follow- 
 ers and adherents throughout India, in the Punjab, 
 in the United Provinces, in Maharastra, in Gujrat, 
 in Behar, in Rajputana, even in Madras. 
 
 Advocates of Organised Rebellion. (2) Next in 
 order come those who differ from the first in so far 
 as they do not believe in individual murders or 
 dacoities. For traitors and approvers even they 
 have no mercy, but they would not murder indi- 
 vidual British officers or Indians in the service of the 
 Government; nor would they rob private persons. 
 They are for organised rebellion, for tampering with 
 the army, for raising the standard of revolt, and for 
 carrying on a guerilla war. For the purposes of 
 this rebellion or war they may do and will do any- 
 thing that is necessary to be done ; but otherwise they 
 would neither murder nor loot. 
 
 Har Dayal. To this class, I think, belongs Har 
 Dayal. It is very interesting to note the develop- 
 ment of this man. He comes from a Kayastha 
 family of Delhi and received his education in a mis- 
 sion school and a mission college under Christian in- 
 fluence. He was a member of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association when he graduated. Then he 
 came to Lahore and joined the government college 
 there, as a stipend holder, where he took his Master 
 of Arts degree in 1903, standing at the top of the 
 list. His subject was " English language and litera- 
 
 6 A great Nationalist leader of Bengal, now dead. 
 
196 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 ture " and so thorough was his mastery of the lan- 
 guage that in some papers he obtained full marks. 
 He continued there for another year and took his 
 M.A. degree a second time in History. All this 
 time he was a cosmopolitan, more of a Brahmo than 
 a Hindu or a Nationalist. Then he left for Eng- 
 land, having secured a Government of India schol- 
 arship, and joined the St. John's College at Oxford. 
 It is needless to say that even here he maintained his 
 reputation for brilliant scholarship, but what is re- 
 markable is, that it was here that he became a Na- 
 tionalist. He is a man of strong impulses. For 
 him, to believe is to act. It appears that within a 
 short time he developed ideas of a rather extreme 
 type. He came to believe that the English were un- 
 dermining Hindu character; that their educational 
 policy and methods had been designed to destroy 
 Hinduism and to perpetuate the political bondage of 
 the Hindus, by destroying their social consciousness 
 and their national individuality. He studied the 
 history of the British rule and British institutions in 
 India from original documents, parliamentary blue 
 books and varied other sources, and came to the con- 
 clusion that the British were deliberately Anglicising 
 the Indians with a view to destroying their national- 
 ism and to impressing them with the inferiority of 
 their institutions, so that they might value the British 
 connection and become Britishers. He thought it 
 wrong to study in their institutions, take their de- 
 grees, and otherwise benefit from anything which 
 they did as rulers of India. As we have said above, 
 for him to believe was to act. As soon as he formed 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 197 
 
 the above opinions, he made up his mind to resign 
 his stipend, give up his studies, and return to India, 
 which he did towards the end of 1907. Even before 
 he reached India, he gave up EngHsh dress and began 
 to eschew all the peculiarities of English life. He 
 took to Indian shoes, Indian cap, Indian Kurta 
 (shirt), Indian Pajama (trousers) and wrapped 
 himself in an Indian shawl. He would not even 
 mix with Mohammedans and Christians. For a 
 time he was a strict Hindu in form, though not in 
 religion. When his old master, Principal Rudra of 
 the Delhi St. Stephen's College, called on him at La- 
 hore, he would not shake hands with him nor offer 
 him a seat on his mat, because he was a Christian 
 (he had no chairs). His cult at that time was a 
 wholesale and complete boycott of British govern- 
 ment and British institutions. He aimed to estab- 
 lish an order of Hindu ascetics to preach his ideas 
 and to spread his propaganda. With that view he 
 collected about half a dozen young men about him, 
 who, under his inspiration, left their studies as well 
 as their homes and showed their readiness to do as 
 he would wish them to do. He lived a life of purity 
 and wanted others to do the same. At that time 
 he did not believe in or preach violence. He dis- 
 cussed, argued, preached, and wrote for the press. 
 His writings began to attract attention, and so did 
 his activities, and it was feared that the Government 
 would soon find some means of putting him out of 
 the way. So he decided to leave the country, and 
 in the beginning of the second half of the year 1908 
 left India for good. He went to England, with the 
 
198 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 idea of preaching his gospel among the Indian stu- 
 dents in England. He stayed there for some time 
 and found out that there was not much scope for 
 his type of nationalism. He also feared that the 
 British Government might arrest him. So he left 
 England and for about two years travelled, to and 
 fro, to find a place where he could live very cheaply 
 and without fear of molestation from the British 
 Government and carry on his propaganda. He was 
 for over a year in France, where he came in contact 
 with the best political thought of Europe. Here he 
 made friends with Egyptian nationalists and Rus- 
 sian revolutionists. His knowledge of the French 
 language was good. He could not only speak that 
 language fluently, but could compose in it. He used 
 to write occasionally for the French press. He can 
 use the German language also. Eventually he came 
 to America and settled here. The contributions 
 that he made to the Indian press during the first year 
 of his sojourn in the United States did not indicate 
 any very great change in his views on Nationalism, 
 but a year after he was quite a different man. His 
 political nationalisrn remained the same, but his 
 views on social questions, on morality, on Hindu 
 literature and Hindu institutions, underwent a com- 
 plete metamorphosis. He began to look down upon 
 everything Hindu and developed a great admiration 
 for Occidental ideas of freedom. There is, how- 
 ever, one thing about him that has stuck fast, and 
 that is his hatred of British rule in India. His pres- 
 ent cult is to dissuade Indians from engaging in any 
 work except that of political propaganda. We are 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 199 
 
 told by him (that was what he said to American 
 journaHsts at the time of his arrest in San Fran- 
 cisco as an undesirable alien) that he is not an 
 anarchist and that he does not advocate the use of 
 bomb and of revolver for private murders or for 
 the murders of individuals. We have no reason to 
 disbelieve him. Nobody, however, knows what 
 changes are yet to take place in his views. He is a 
 quite uncertain item. He is an idealist of a strange 
 type. He is simple in his life and apparently quite 
 indifferent to the opinions of others about him. He 
 does not court favour at the hands of any one and 
 would go out of his way to help others. He is loved 
 and respected by hundreds and thousands of his 
 countrymen, including those who do not agree with 
 his views or his propaganda or his programme. 
 Even the late Mr. Gokhale admired him. 
 
 Hardayalism. Har Dayal is an advocate of open 
 rebellion ; he does not advocate the use of the bomb 
 or the revolver for killing individuals, but he ad- 
 mires and glorifies those who have risked their lives 
 using the same.*^ 
 
 Neither of these classes is prepared to make any 
 compromise with the British. They stand for abso- 
 lute independence; full Swaraj. They know, per- 
 haps, that they have a very difficult task before them, 
 but they have confidence in themselves and believe 
 that the difficulties are not insuperable. They do 
 not believe that in order to gain Swaraj, India 
 
 '^ One of his followers in San Francisco has told me that this 
 description of him, viz., that he does not advocate the use of 
 the bomb or the revolver is not correct. 
 
200 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 should have more widespread education, or that 
 social reform and social consolidation must precede 
 political freedom. They consider that these are all 
 fads, ideas with which the British have inoculated 
 the Indians in order to keep them busy with non- 
 poHtical activities and to keep down their manhood. 
 It is a part of the imperial game that the rulers 
 should manage to fill the ruled with the idea of their 
 own incompetence to manage their affairs, of their 
 inability to unite, of many differences and divisions 
 among them, and of their incapacity to win their 
 freedom. These nationalists deprecate communal 
 or sectional activities. They do not countenance the 
 organisations engaged in religious and social reform. 
 In their opinion all these so-called reform organisa- 
 tions are doing positive mischief in keeping the na- 
 tion engaged in less important matters and in 
 directing the nation's mind from the all important 
 question of national freedom. They want to con- 
 centrate the nation's mind on this one point. 
 
 Political Freedom the First Condition of Life, 
 According to them life in political bondage or in 
 political subjection is a negation of life. Life signi- 
 fies power and capacity to grow and progress. A 
 slave, a bondsman, is not free to grow. His inter- 
 ests are always subordinate to those of his master. 
 He must give the best in him to the service of the 
 latter. His will must always be under his master's 
 will, who is practically his conscience's keeper. No 
 man can grow to the full stature of his manhood ; no 
 man can rise to the best in him; no man can make 
 the best use of his faculties and opportunities; no 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 201 
 
 man can develop either his body or his soul accord- 
 ing to his liking, under these circumstances. What- 
 ever he does, he does for his master, in his name and 
 in his interest. The credit and the glory and the 
 benefit of it, all accrue to him.^ If this is true of an 
 individual slave, it is equally true of a nation in 
 political bondage. 
 
 As a proof of the truth of their statements, they 
 point to the history and activities of the Indian Na- 
 tional Congress. The Congress people ask for Uni- 
 versal Primary Education ; the Government says no. 
 They can not find money for it ; " the country is not 
 prepared for it; nor is it good for the people at 
 large." If the masses are educated, they might be- 
 come discontented and create trouble for the Gov- 
 ernment. The Congress wants a repeal of the Arms 
 Act; the Government says no. The people might 
 use the arms against the Government, and that is a 
 calamity to be avoided. The Congress desires that 
 Indians be enrolled as volunteers; the Government 
 says no. It is not desirable to give military training 
 to the Indians. They might use it against the Gov- 
 ernment. It is not desirable to have companies of 
 volunteers composed of Indians only, as they might 
 conspire against the reigning power. It is equally 
 undesirable to force them on European and Eurasian 
 companies against their wishes, as that would wound 
 their social and imperial susceptibilities. The Con- 
 gress politician wants to protect Indian industries; 
 
 8 This is illustrated in Indian official life day in and day out. 
 It is not a rare occurrence that the British heads of the De- 
 partments get credit for what has been achieved by the genius, 
 intelligence and labour of their Indian subordinates. 
 
202 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 the Government says no. That will injure Lanca- 
 shire. The Congress wants more of technical edu- 
 cation; the Government says, the country does not 
 need it and they can not spare funds for it. The 
 Congress wants national schools and national uni- 
 versities ; the Government says no, " you may misuse 
 them." The keynote of the situation is, that India 
 must exist in the interests of England and English- 
 men ; or at any rate England and English politicians 
 know what is good and useful for India, how much 
 she should and how much she should not have; in 
 what line she should advance and in what she should 
 not. India and Indians have no right to think for 
 themselves. Anything they think or decide to do 
 must be tested by Englishmen according to their 
 standards and in the way they think it is likely to 
 further the interests of their empire. 
 
 These nationalists therefore maintain that the 
 first condition of life, — life with respect and honour, 
 life for profit and advantage, life for progress and 
 advancement,— is political freedom. Life without 
 that is no life. It is idle therefore to think of mat- 
 ters which are manifestations or developments or 
 embellishments of life. 
 
 Education can only profit a living being. A 
 human being instructed on the lines on which certain 
 beasts or animals are instructed, can, like the latter, 
 only respond to the calls of his master. The mas- 
 ter wants them to salute; they salute. The master 
 wants them to dance; they dance. The master 
 wants them to do any other job for him ; they do it. 
 Their will and intellect are always subordinate to the 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 203 
 
 master. Independent of the master, they have 
 neither will nor intellect. Education under these 
 circumstances, they maintain, is a degrading of 
 human faculties, and a travesty. In their opinion it 
 would be best for their people to remain uneducated, 
 rather than be educated only for the benefit and use 
 of their masters. 
 
 Similarly they think that all the schemes for social 
 reform, for sectarian advancement, for commercial 
 interests, are nothing more than so many devices for 
 dividing the nation and keeping them engaged in 
 never-ending internecine quarrels. They consider 
 this to be a misplaced dissipation of energies and a 
 misuse of opportunities. They wish that every man 
 and woman in India should for the present think of 
 nothing else but political freedom. The first thing 
 is to get rid of the foreigner. Who will rule India 
 and how, what shape will the government of the 
 country take, how will the different religions and 
 different interests be represented therein ? — these 
 and other cognate questions do not trouble them. 
 They believe that as soon as England leaves India, 
 some one will rise sphinxlike who will establish 
 some form of national government. The time will 
 produce the man. It would be then time to think 
 and discuss how to improve it. They do not mind 
 if the Hindus or the Mohammedans or the Sikhs or 
 the Gurkhas rule India ; nor whether it is the Maha- 
 raja of Nepal or that of Odeypore, or that of Baroda, 
 or that of Patiala, or the Nawab of Hyderabad, or 
 that of Bhawalpore, who becomes supreme; nor 
 whether the form of government is monarchical or 
 
204 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 oligarchic, or republican. These questions do not 
 trouble them. They do not, of course, want any 
 foreign government, but if the way of eventual na- 
 tional freedom lies that way, they do not mind even 
 that. Anything would be better than the present 
 government. The British Government is slowly 
 dissolving the nation. If they have to die, they 
 would rather die of plague or cholera, than of ty- 
 phoid or consumption. The apprehensions of dis- 
 turbances of peace do not frighten them. They are 
 sick of peace. Peace under existing conditions has 
 unmanned the nation ; it has emasculated the people 
 and sapped their manhood. Anything rather than 
 peace at such price. The desire for peace on any 
 terms, has been the curse of British rule. It has 
 done them more harm than disorder or anarchy ever 
 did. Blessed was the disorder that preceded the rise 
 of the Mahratta power or the establishment of the 
 Sikh commonwealth. Blessed were the conditions 
 of life that produced a Partap, a Sivaji, a Durga 
 Dass, and a Govind Singh.® Cursed are the condi- 
 tions of peace that can only produce Daffadars and 
 Jamadars or at the most Risaldars ^^ or Kaiser- 
 Hind-medallists. 
 
 This is Hardayalism. Most of the Nationalists 
 of the two classes described above belong to this 
 school, but there are some among them who do not 
 wholly fall in with this view. They are prepared to 
 agree that the political question must always be in 
 the forefront, and that nothing should be done which 
 
 8 Indian heroes. 
 
 10 Non-commissioned officers of the native Indian army. 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 205 
 
 may in any way overshadow this or relegate it to a 
 secondary position ; but they do not beheve that poli- 
 tics alone should usurp the whole thought and life 
 of the nation. It would not be right to conclude 
 from the above description that the Indian National- 
 ists have no constructive programme for the future, 
 but it is obvious that in the absence of freedom and 
 opportunities to discuss it openly, opinions on the 
 subject can not be crystallised. 
 
 Arahinda Ghosh — Vedantist and Swarajist. It 
 is difficult to say to which of these classes, if to either 
 at all, Arabinda Ghosh belonged or still belongs. At 
 one time it was believed that he belonged to the first 
 class, to which most of the other Bengalee extrem- 
 ists belonged, but whether that belief was right and 
 whether he still thinks on the same lines, it is difficult 
 to say. One thing is certain, that he was and is 
 quite unlike Har Dayal in his line of thought. In 
 intellectual acumen and in scholastic accomplish- 
 ments he is perhaps superior to Har Dayal, but above 
 all he is deeply religious and spiritual. He is a wor- 
 shipper of Krishna and is a high-souled Vedantist. 
 Even simpler and more ascetic in his life and habits 
 than Har Dayal, he is for an all-around development 
 of Indian Nationalism. His notions of life and 
 morality are pre-eminently Hindu and he believes in 
 the spiritual mission of his people. His views may 
 better be gathered from an interview, which he re- 
 cently gave to a correspondent of The Hindu, of 
 Madras. We quote the interview almost bodily and 
 in the words of the interviewer. 
 
2o6 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 " But what do you think of the 19 14 Congress and 
 Conferences? ** I insisted. 
 
 He spoke almost with reluctance but in clear and 
 firm accents. He said : " I do not find the pro- 
 ceedings of the Christmas Conferences very inter- 
 esting and inspiring. They seem to me to be mere 
 repetitions of the petty and lifeless formulas of the 
 past and hardly to show any sense of the great 
 breath of the future that is blowing upon us. I 
 make an exception of the speech of the Congress 
 President which struck me as far above the ordinary 
 level. Some people, apparently, found it visionary 
 and unpractical. It seems to me to be the one prac- 
 tical and vital thing that has been said in India for 
 some time past.'' 
 
 He continued : " The old, petty forms and little 
 narrow, make-believe activities are getting out of 
 date. The world is changing rapidly around us and 
 preparing for more colossal changes in the future. 
 We must rise to the greatness of thought and action 
 which it will demand from the nations who hope to 
 live. No, it is not in any of the old formal activi- 
 ties, but deeper down that I find signs of progress 
 and hope. The last few years have been a period of 
 silence and compression, in which the awakened 
 Virya ^^ and Tejas of the nation have been concen- 
 trating for a greater outburst of a better directed 
 energy in the future. 
 
 " We are a nation of three hundred millions," 
 added Mr. Ghosh, " inhabiting a great country in 
 which many civilisations have met, full of rich ma- 
 
 11 Force, energy and vitality. 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 207 
 
 terial and unused capacities. We must cease to 
 think and act like the inhabitants of an obscure and 
 petty village." 
 
 "If you don't like our political methods, what 
 would you advise us to do for the realisation of our 
 destiny? " 
 
 He quickly replied : " Only by a general intel- 
 lectual and spiritual awakening can this nation fulfil 
 its destiny. Our limited information, our second- 
 hand intellectual activities, our bounded interests, 
 our narrow life of little family aims and small 
 money getting have prevented us from entering into 
 the broad life of the world. Fortunately, there are 
 ever-increasing signs of a widened outlook, a richer 
 intellectual output and numerous sparks of liberal 
 genius which show that the necessary change is 
 coming. No nation in modern times can grow great 
 by politics alone. A rich and varied life, energetic 
 in all its parts, is the condition of a sound, vigor- 
 ous national existence. From this point of view 
 also the last five years have been a great benefit to 
 the country." 
 
 I then asked what he thought of the vastly im- 
 proved relations that now exist between the Briton 
 and the Indian in our own country and elsewhere. 
 
 " It is a very good thing," he said, and he ex- 
 plained himself in the following manner: "The 
 realisation of our nationhood separate from the rest 
 of humanity was the governing idea of our activities 
 from 1905 to 1910. That movement has served its 
 purpose. It has laid a good foundation for the 
 future. Whatever excesses and errors of speech 
 
2o8 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 and action were then disclosed, came because our 
 energy, though admirably inspired, lacked practical 
 experience and knowledge. 
 
 " The idea of Indian nationhood is now not only 
 rooted in the public mind, as all recent utterances go 
 to show, but accepted in Europe and acknowledged 
 by the Government and the governing race. The 
 new idea that should now lead us is the realisation 
 of our nationhood not separate from, but in, the 
 future scheme of humanity. When it has realised 
 its own national life and unity, India will still have 
 a part to play in helping to bring about the unity of 
 the nations.'* 
 
 I naturally put in a remark about the Under-Sec- 
 retary's " Angle of Vision." 
 
 " It is well indeed," observed Mr. Ghosh, " that 
 British statesmen should be thinking of India's 
 proper place in the Councils of the Empire, and it is 
 obviously a thought which, if put into effect, must 
 automatically alter the attitude of even the greatest 
 extremists towards the Government and change for 
 the better all existing political relations. 
 
 " But it is equally necessary that we, Indians, 
 should begin to think seriously what part Indian 
 thought, Indian intellect, Indian nationhood, Indian 
 spirituality, Indian culture have to fulfil in the gen- 
 eral life of humanity. The humanity is bound to 
 grow increasingly on. We must necessarily be in 
 it and of it. Not a spirit of aloofness or of jealous 
 self-defence, but of generous emulation and brother- 
 hood with all men and all nations, justified by a sense 
 of conscious strength, a great destiny, a large place 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 209 
 
 in the human future — this should be the Indian 
 spirit." 
 
 The oneness of humanity is a topic dear to the 
 heart of Babu Arabinda Ghosh and when I (1. e., the 
 interviewer) suggested to him that Vedantic ideas 
 would be a good basis for unity, his reply was full 
 of enthusiasm: 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, " I am convinced and have 
 long been convinced that a spiritual awakening, a re- 
 awakening to the true self of a nation is the most 
 important condition of our national greatness. The 
 supreme Indian idea of the oneness of all men in 
 God and its realisation inwardly and outwardly, in- 
 creasingly even in social relations and the structure 
 of society is destined, I believe, to govern the prog- 
 ress of the human race. India, if it chooses, can 
 guide the world." 
 
 And here I said something about our " four thou- 
 sand " castes, our differences in dress and in " caste 
 marks," our vulgar sectarian antipathies and so 
 on. 
 
 " Not so hard, if you please," said Mr. Ghosh 
 with a smile. " I quite agree with you that our social 
 fabric will have to be considerably altered before 
 long. We shall have, of course, to enlarge our fam- 
 ily and social life, not in the petty spirit of present 
 day Social Reform, hammering at small details and 
 belittling our immediate past, but with a larger idea 
 and more generous impulses. Our past with all its 
 faults and defects should be sacred to us. But the 
 claims of our future with its immediate possibilities 
 should be still more sacred." 
 
210 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 His concluding words were spoken in a very sol- 
 emn mood : 
 
 " It is more important," he said, " that the thought 
 of India should come out of the philosophical school 
 and renew its contact with life, and the spiritual life 
 of India issue out of the cave and the temple and, 
 adapting itself to new forms, lay its hand upon the 
 world. I believe also that humanity is about to en- 
 large its scope by new knowledge, new powers and 
 capacities, which will create as great a revolution in 
 human life as the physical science of the nineteenth 
 century. Here, too, India holds in her past, a little 
 rusted and put out of use, the key of humanity's 
 future. 
 
 " It is in these directions that I have been for 
 some time impelled to turn my energies rather than 
 to the petty political activities which are alone open 
 to us at the present moment. This is the reason of 
 my continued retirement and detachment from ac- 
 tion. I believe in the necessity at such times and 
 for such great objects, of Tapasya,^^ in silence for 
 self-training, for self-knowledge and storage of 
 spiritual force. Our forefathers used that means, 
 though in different forms. And it is the best 
 means for becoming an efficient worker in the great 
 days of the world." 
 
 Ganesh Vindyak Savarkar. At this stage we 
 might mention the name of another Nationalist, who 
 exercised a vast influence on young Indians in Eng- 
 land for a number of years and is now serving a life- 
 12 Life of meditation and self-denial. 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 211 
 
 term in the Andamans. We mean Ganesh Vinayak 
 Savarkar. In the simplicity of his Hfe he was of the 
 same class as Arabinda Ghosh and Har Dayal. In 
 the purity of his life he was as high as either. In 
 politics he fell in the first category minus their re- 
 ligious fervour. In his general views he was more 
 or less what Har Dayal is, minus his denunciation 
 of those who are engaged in non-political activities. 
 Savarkar had extremely fine qualities of a leader. 
 He has been caught because he was reckless; he 
 never cared about his personal safety; he had the 
 dash of the old warrior who always put himself in 
 the post of danger. Har Dayal keeps himself in the 
 background and avoids danger. Arabinda stands 
 midway between the two. 
 
 The Terrorists. (3) The third class of Na- 
 tionalists consists of those who would like absolute 
 independence, but who do not believe that it is pos- 
 sible in the near future. They approve of the occa- 
 sional use of bomb and revolver for terrorist 
 purposes ; especially now when no other method has 
 been left of carrying on a propaganda of freedom. 
 The press has been gagged; the platform has been 
 dismantled. Any vigorous political propaganda, in- 
 cluding strong criticism of the Government and its 
 methods, is out of the question, No one can point 
 out the political and economic disasters of foreign 
 rule, much less discuss it with reference to actual 
 facts and figures. There is no other way of remind- 
 ing the people at home and abroad of the standing 
 and colossal wrong which the British Government is 
 guilty of in keeping India under her yoke. In their 
 
212 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 opinion, the occasional use of the bomb and the re- 
 volver is the only way to assert their manhood and 
 their desire for freedom, and to announce their dis- 
 satisfaction and discontent. It attracts attention 
 all over the world. It makes people think of India. 
 At home it reminds people of the wrongs they have 
 suffered and are suffering at the hands of the Gov- 
 ernment. At first it shocks the people, but then it 
 stirs them to think. The bomb has entered Indian 
 life, perhaps never to leave it. They abhor it, but 
 they are getting accustomed to it. They do not now 
 think so badly of those who use the bomb as they 
 once used to. 
 
 Advocates of Constructive Nationalisation. (4) 
 In the fourth class are comprised those who want in- 
 dependence, but not at once. They would rather 
 consolidate the nation, raise its intellectual and moral 
 tone, increase its economic efificiency, before they 
 raise the standard of revolt. They do not believe 
 that England will ever free them or give them even 
 Colonial Self-Government except under very great 
 pressure. They do not believe that nations let 
 things go out of their grip or hold if they can help it, 
 and unless their own safety demands it. In their 
 opinion the Congress as well as the bomb have come 
 rather early. They would have the nation apply 
 herself wholeheartedly to the work of education and 
 consolidation. 
 
 Independence, hut not at once. They do not want 
 the British to go until the people of India are suffi- 
 ciently strong to turn them out by force, and are 
 able to protect themselves and to maintain their in- 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 213 
 
 dependence and their liberties against the outside 
 world. They recognise the force of the argument 
 that the British may never allow them to grow so 
 strong as to be able to win their liberty, and by 
 waiting they might lose all conscious desire for 
 political freedom and might become permanent para- 
 sites. They, however, think that they can guard 
 against such possibilities by keeping their national- 
 ism alive and by occasionally suffering for it. 
 Driven to this corner, they admit that now that the 
 Congress and the bomb have come, they might stay. 
 In the opinion of some both are useful in their own 
 way. They would not advocate the use of the bomb 
 and the revolver; in fact they might in all serious- 
 ness dissuade people from using them, but when they 
 are used, they would not give up the offenders even 
 if they knew who they were. They would approve 
 the use of the bomb and the revolver against indi- 
 vidual tyrants or against people who insult Indian 
 manhood and womanhood, as in the present state of 
 racial and political feeling in India no other way is 
 open to bring them to book and get justice against 
 Englishmen, but they do not like the use of the bomb 
 and the revolver for general political purposes or for 
 terrorising. These people believe in a propaganda 
 of selfless social service. The people must be ap- 
 proached and won over by service and love, before 
 any political upheaval is attempted. 
 
 Preparing the Nation for Freedom, Nothing can 
 be achieved without the help of the people. " We 
 must have the people with us," say they. '' And in 
 order to win the people to our side, we must show 
 
214 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 them conclusively that we have their interests at 
 heart, that we love them perhaps more than we love 
 ourselves, that we are disinterested and public spir- 
 ited and that we are in every respect better and more 
 honourable than the foreign rulers. Our moral su- 
 periority over the agents of the foreign government 
 must be ever present in the minds of the people in 
 order to enable them to support us and back us in 
 the coming political struggle." In their eyes the 
 Congress propaganda has no other value but educa- 
 tional. They have no faith in the benevolence of 
 British statesmen and they do not believe that the 
 Congress would achieve anything substantial. They 
 are very uncertain about the future, and therefore to 
 them, the best course open is to engage in educa- 
 tional and social work. They are neither dreamers 
 nor idealists, but practical patriots, who are content 
 to do the spade work and sow the seed. They con- 
 fess that they can not see far ahead and are therefore 
 afraid of the demoralising influences of the bomb 
 and the revolver. Nor can they justify political 
 robberies and dacoities. They think that, this time, 
 independence should come never to be lost again, 
 and in their judgment that is only possible if inde- 
 pendence is not won by a few but by the whole united 
 nation. In the meantime they would wait and build 
 up their nation. 
 
 Preparatory Work from Below. The Congress 
 has failed, they say, because it has been trying to get 
 political concessions from above. The right policy 
 is to work from below. They do not believe in 
 " mendicancy " ; nor do they place any reliance in 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 215 
 
 " benevolence and philanthropy in politics." On the 
 other hand, they differ from the extremists in their 
 methods, as they believe in a steady development of 
 the national mind and the national will and have no 
 faith in heroic remedies. They do not care to run 
 the risk of " relapses." They contain in their num- 
 ber some of the noblest sons of India, whose life is a 
 record of continuous selfless service in the field of 
 social work. They should not be confounded with 
 the *' resolution " patriots of the Social Conferences 
 or other conferences; nor should they be judged by 
 the length of their speeches or their fluency or capac- 
 ity to deliver long orations in English. They are 
 generally modest people who do not claim erudite 
 scholarship or great statesmanship. They do not go 
 in for any recognition, whether from the Govern- 
 ment or from the people. The satisfaction of their 
 own conscience and undisturbed work are the only 
 rewards they seek. 
 
 Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mis- 
 sion. They are to be found in all sections of the 
 great Indian nation, in all religions, and in all com- 
 munities. They live simply on simple fare, in 
 simple and scanty garments and in simple houses. 
 They earn in order to give. They live in order to 
 serve. To this class belong some of the Bengalee 
 deportees, and to this class belong a great many 
 members of the Brahmo Samaj, the Arya Samaj, 
 and the Ramakrishna Mission. They have large 
 followings, but yet their number is by no means 
 great. They are well known in their respective 
 circles, but are not so well known outside, as the 
 
2i6 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 " extremists " and " moderates " are. The C. I. D. 
 (Criminal Investigation Department) of the Gov- 
 ernment keeps a close watch over them ; the govern- 
 ment officers keep themselves informed of their 
 movements and doings. They want to be left alone 
 and allowed to do their work quietly and unostenta- 
 tiously, but the Government will not leave them 
 alone and suspects them of deep designs and secret 
 propaganda. 
 
 The Moderates, (5) We now come to the mod- 
 erates. There are some who would not advocate the 
 use of the bomb or the revolver, but who do not de- 
 sire the total disappearance of the extremist party; 
 and the occasional use of the bomb and the revolver 
 gives a point to their organisation which they 
 would not lose. Lacking the intelligent support of 
 the masses in their propaganda, being too lazy to 
 court it by legitimate means, or too self-centred to 
 run the risk involved therein, they are heartily glad 
 of the existence of a party in the country which has 
 raised their importance in the eyes of the Govern- 
 ment and the British public. Of course they do not 
 say so and their abhorrence and detestation of the 
 bomb and the revolver is quite genuine, yet they 
 would be very sorry if the extremist party were ex- 
 tirpated altogether. 
 
 Gokhale. The noblest and the best of the Con- 
 gress type from the Nationalist point of view was 
 represented by Mr. Gokhale. Mr. Gokhale loved his 
 country quite sincerely and lived and worked for it. 
 With the exception of Dadabhai Naoroji, he was 
 the only Congressman of reputation and name that 
 
G. K. GOKHALE 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 217 
 
 lived for his country only and gave his all to her 
 service. His life was fairly simple; his patriotism 
 was of the highest type; yet he was not the type of 
 man fitted to be a hero. He had the qualities of 
 statesmanship, but lacked those of generalship. He 
 objected to people designating his policy as one of 
 mendicancy, or questioning his political ideals. He 
 used to remonstrate and say in the most touching 
 way : " Do you think, my friend, we are so devoid 
 of self-respect and so base as to be happy at our 
 country being under foreign domination; do you 
 think we wish that it should always remain under 
 foreign yoke? No, you do us great injustice if 
 you think so. I would have my country be free 
 to-day if that were possible. But is it possible? 
 Can we work on that basis? In politics you must 
 consider what is practical and what is unpractical. 
 We can in no way bind the future generations. 
 Who are we to bind them irrevocably? We are 
 doing what we in our own times consider best and 
 practicable. We are not beggars and our policy is 
 not that of mendicancy. We are ambassadors of 
 our people at a foreign court, to watch and guard 
 the interests of our country and get as much for her 
 as we can. That is our position.'* Mr. Gokhale 
 believed in the work of consolidation and in the 
 work for increasing the social eFi'^ncy of the peo- 
 ple of India regardless of caste, creed, or colour. 
 He had a great deal in common with class number 
 (4). But he had great faith in political agitation 
 on moderate lines. He was fully conscious of the 
 weakness of the Congress methods and extremely 
 
2i8 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 disliked the behaviour of some of the leaders. He 
 quite bemoaned their lack of enthusiasm, their want 
 of self-sacrifice, their intolerance, the lack of spirit 
 of true comradeship in them, their self-sufficiency 
 and, last but not least, their luxurious lives. He 
 often compared the type of human material which 
 found its way into the Congress with those who 
 joined the ranks of the extremists. He admired 
 the spirit of the latter, their devotion to the cause, 
 their asceticism and their selflessness. He wished 
 he had some of that stuff to work for the Congress. 
 He admired Arabinda and Har Dayal. He used to 
 say that he could not see very far ahead and there- 
 fore he preferred to work for the immediate future. 
 A few days before his departure from England he 
 said to two of his most intimate friends (husband 
 and wife) that India would be free in 25 years. 
 What he meant by freedom we do not know. 
 Probably he meant " as free as the self -governed 
 colonies." Of late he was losing faith in English 
 liberalism. He noticed the lack of great minds 
 among the liberals, but he said they were the only 
 people with whom we could work. His experiences 
 on the Royal Commission for Public Services sad- 
 dened the last days of his life. He could not bear 
 the insults that witness after witness (from among 
 the Anglo-Indians) heaped on his countrymen, their 
 character, their honesty, and their capacity. He 
 objected to the extremists calling themselves na- 
 tionalists to the exclusion of the people of his ways 
 of thinking. He said we were all nationalists. He 
 was by far the noblest of the moderates. There is 
 
TYPES OF NATIONALISTS 219 
 
 no one who is even half so good and noble as he 
 was. 
 
 Congress Leaders, A great many Congress lead- 
 ers are true patriots, but they have such an abnormal 
 love of peace and luxury, that they can not even 
 think of methods which might even remotely result 
 in disturbances of peace, in riots, and in disasters. 
 Hence their detestation of the extremist methods 
 and their distrust of carrying on a propaganda 
 among the masses. They would proceed very, very 
 slowly. Of course, there are some among them 
 who are cowards, some who are self-seekers, who 
 hanker after judgeships, memberships, knighthoods, 
 and so on, but we do not count them as nationalists, 
 and history knows of no political party which was 
 absolutely free from such weaknesses. There are 
 some among the Congressmen who are moderates 
 by profession, but extremists in their ways of think- 
 ing, lacking the courage of identifying themselves 
 with the latter; just as there are some who are Con- 
 gressmen in name, but are really out and out loyal- 
 ists seeking opportunities of advancing their own 
 interests. Then there are some who favour con- 
 stitutional agitation, but want to make the Congress 
 more self-assertive and self-sufficient. They would 
 pass resolutions on current topics but would have no 
 petitioning or praying or memorialising. 
 
 Passive Resisters. There are others who would 
 go even farther and inaugurate a campaign of 
 passive resistance and boycott. The Congress thus 
 claims as many types of nationalists as the extrem- 
 ists. The Passive Resisters are likely to come to 
 
220 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 the front if Mr. Gandhi, the great Hindu Passive 
 Resister, undertakes to organise them. 
 
 For obvious reasons we can not classify the living 
 Indian Nationalists in India by name. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 INDIAN NATIONALISM AND THE WORLD-FORCES 
 
 Inspiration through European Nationalism. 
 There can be no doubt that Indian nationalism is re- 
 ceiving a great deal of support from the world- 
 forces operating outside of India. On the political 
 side it has been inspired and strengthened by the 
 forces of European nationalism — the struggles and 
 successes of the English proletariat, the sufferings 
 and the eventual triumph of the French revolution- 
 ists, the efforts and victories of the Italians, the con- 
 tinued struggle of Russians, Poles, Finns, Hun- 
 garians, and others. The Indian nationalist is an 
 ardent student of the history of Modern Europe, 
 of England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, 
 Russia, Austria, and last but not least, of Turkey 
 and the Balkan States. The Nationalist Calendar 
 of great men followed by young India contains such 
 names as those of Washington, Cavour, Mazzini, 
 Bismarck, Kossuth, Emmet, Parnell, by the side of 
 Partap, Ram Das, Guru Govind Singh, Sivaji, Tipu 
 Sultan, and the Rani of Jhansi. 
 
 History of Modern Europe tabooed in Universi- 
 ties, The Indian Government is conscious of this, 
 and some people think this is what is influencing the 
 
 221 
 
222 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 policy of the Indian universities in tabooing the his- 
 tory of Modern Europe from the courses of studies. 
 
 American literature and American events are also 
 playing their own part in the influences that are 
 feeding Indian nationalism. The leaders are and 
 have ever been close students of American literature 
 and the history of the American Federation. Asia, 
 however, is playing a greater part in moulding and 
 influencing Indian nationalism. The Russo-Japa- 
 nese War thrilled India to its core. The recognition 
 of Japan as a great power by the Concert of Europe 
 is regarded by Young India as the potent factor in 
 Indian Nationalism. An awakening current passed 
 through the country electrifying the most inert, in- 
 articulate and otherwise unapproachable sections of 
 the populations. Then came the events in Turkey, 
 in Russia, and in China. 
 
 Italian-Tiirko War. Turkey's war with Italy, 
 followed by her struggle with the Balkan States, has 
 done wonders in nationalising the Indian Moham- 
 medans. At the present moment the Moham- 
 medans perhaps feel even more intensely than the 
 Hindus. 
 
 Indian patriots travelling abroad study the cur- 
 rent problems of the various countries through 
 which they pass, and note their bearing on their own 
 national problems. But what is most important is, 
 that they seek and get opportunities of meeting and 
 conversing with the nationalists of other countries. 
 Some of them are in close touch with the Egyptian 
 and Irish nationalists, others with Persians, and so 
 on. Indian nationalism is thus entering on an in- 
 
NATIONALISM AND WORLD-FORCES 223 
 
 ternational phase which is bound to strengthen it 
 and bring it into the arena of world forces. 
 
 Interpretation of India to Western World. In- 
 dian thought, Indian history, and Indian culture are 
 receiving a great deal more attention now than they 
 ever did before. There is hardly an important con- 
 tribution to the thought of the world which does not 
 notice and consider the Indian view of the matter 
 under discussion. But India is seen by the world 
 only through Western spectacles. Some Indians 
 are doing valuable work in interpreting India to 
 the Western world, and their work is attracting no- 
 tice; but a great deal yet remains to be done and 
 Indian scholars should make it an item of their pro- 
 gramme to open India and Indian thought to the 
 outsiders and thus bring India into the vortex of 
 world forces. 
 
 Tagorism. While Rabindra Nath Tagore is to 
 some degree losing in the estimation and affection 
 of his own countrymen by somewhat sacrificing na- 
 tionalism to art, he is gaining in world reputation. 
 Tagorism is becoming a cult and he is at the present 
 moment perhaps the most popular and most widely 
 read and widely admired literary man in the world. 
 It was a mere chance that his work attracted the 
 notice of the trustees of the Nobel prize trust. He 
 himself did nothing to attract their notice. 
 
 The Indian publicist has so far lived in a world 
 of his own. He has ignored or paid very scanty 
 attention to the forces operating in the world for 
 progress, for liberty, and for advance in democratic 
 ways. The leaders of the National Congress have 
 
224 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 never tried to enlist sympathy for their cause any- 
 where outside England. They have never realised 
 the value of the world forces and the great sensi- 
 tiveness of the English as to what the world thinks 
 and says of them. 
 
 The Indian Nationalist would do well to note 
 this. He should begin to think and act interna- 
 tionally. It is impossible to separate India alto- 
 gether from the rest of the world, however the 
 British might try and whatever they might do. For 
 her sons to try to do that is to strengthen their 
 chains and add to the weight which is crushing their 
 country. Nothing could be more suicidal or more 
 short-sighted. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS 'AND THE COMMUNAL ELEMENTS 
 IN INDIAN NATIONALISM 
 
 For a time the Mohammedan minority was the 
 hope of the British Government in India. As far 
 back as 1888, Lord Dufferin ^ and Sir Auckland 
 Colvin had successfully appealed to their fears, and 
 won them over by promises of preferential treat- 
 ment. That policy has been consistently followed 
 since then, and so far has been a great success. The 
 bulk of the educated Mohammedans has opposed the 
 Congress, in order to please the Government and 
 win their gratitude ; they also opposed the Swadeshi 
 Movement, although the success of the Swadeshi 
 was likely to benefit them very materially, since the 
 handloom industry was principally in their hands. 
 In return, they received substantial benefits in the 
 shape of large grants of money for educational pur- 
 poses, a larger percentage of posts in government 
 service, a larger number of titles and honours, a 
 separate and larger representation in the councils, 
 and so on. Lord Morley confirmed this policy of 
 preference by making it a special feature of his Re- 
 
 1 Lord Dufferin was the Governor General of India and Sir 
 A. Colvin was the Lieutenant Governor of what were then the! 
 Northwestern Provinces, now the United Provinces of Agra 
 and Oudh. 
 
 225 
 
226 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 form scheme in 1908. So the Mohammedans were 
 in very high spirits in 1908. The NationaHst party 
 in Bengal had a large number of friends and sym- 
 pathisers among the Mohammedans, but as com- 
 pared with the Separatist party, their number was 
 very small and meagre. In its inception and for 
 some time thereafter the Nationalist movement in 
 India was thus a pre-eminently Hindu movement. 
 
 Mohammedan Revulsion of Feeling against the 
 British. The world events of the last four years, 
 however, have changed the whole aspect of affairs 
 in India. The events in Turkey, in Tripoli, in 
 Egypt and in Persia have affected the Moham- 
 medans deeply and have brought about a revulsion 
 of feeling against the British. The Muslims are 
 a virile and proud people. The attitude of Britain 
 towards Turkey has offended their deepest suscepti- 
 bilities and they have begun to think that the British 
 in India wanted to bribe them into silent acqui- 
 escence in what was happening to the Muslim people 
 in the other parts of the globe. For the last four 
 years the Muslim press has been carrying on a 
 strong, vigorous pan-Islamic propaganda. The Mo- 
 hammedan classes as well as masses are full of veiled 
 and subdued hatred of the British. Sometimes this 
 finds expression on the platform, in the press, and 
 in permanent literature also. In the last Balkan 
 war and during Turkey's conflict with Italy about 
 Tripoli, the Mohammedan mosques rang with loud 
 prayers for the victory of Turkey, and with strong 
 and open denunciation of their Christian enemies. 
 There is a perceptible and clear change in the po- 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 227 
 
 litical pronouncements of the Muslim League,^ but 
 the political influence of the Muslim League among 
 the people was, so far, little as compared with the 
 influence of the Pan-Islamic party. This Pan- 
 Islamic party is the extreme wing of the Moham- 
 medan Nationalists. 
 
 The number of forfeitures of the Moslem papers 
 and publications under the Press Act, the nature of 
 those publications and the continued support given 
 to the papers that have been more than once for- 
 feited and punished by the Government, the change 
 in the tone of the Moslem papers in their comments 
 on government measures, and the newly born en- 
 tente between the Hindus and Mohammedans, of 
 which there is unmistakable proof in the press as 
 well as in actual life, all point in the same direction. 
 There is every chance of the Hindu extremists and 
 Muslim extremists making an alliance and joining 
 hands, while even the Mohammedan moderates are 
 coming nearer the Hindu moderates.^ The former 
 may not actually join the Congress in large numbers, 
 but they are thinking and acting the same way. The 
 Mohammedan moderates are wiser than the Hindu 
 moderates. They use their extreme party as a 
 trump card in their negotiations with the Govern- 
 ment more effectively than the Hindus do or have 
 ever done. The Mohammedan extremist receives 
 more substantial support and sympathy from his 
 moderate co-religionist than the Hindu extremist 
 does from the Hindu moderates. The Moham- 
 
 2 The organisation of the Pro-British Muslims. 
 
 3 See the Introduction. 
 
228 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 medan moderate is more outspoken in his criticism 
 of government measures that injuriously affect the 
 Mohammedans; he is less lavish in his praises of the 
 British Raj ; he is a more skilful negotiator and a 
 decidedly better and more successful diplomat. 
 
 The educated Mohammedans, outside India, are 
 almost to a man identified with Indian Nationalism. 
 So the Indian Mohammedan's changed sentiments 
 towards the British are likely to be a source of great 
 strength to the national cause and make the situa- 
 tion more hopeful from the point of view of Indian 
 Nationalism. 
 
 Disaffection among the Sikhs. But the Moham- 
 medans were not the only people whom the British- 
 ers had succeeded in keeping aloof from the Hindu 
 Nationalists. The Sikhs had also so far kept aloof. 
 The treatment of the Sikhs in Canada, the Komagata 
 Maru ^ incident and the influence of Har Dayal and 
 the Gadar party on the Pacific Coast of America 
 formed by him, have affected a great change of feel- 
 ing among the Sikhs also. The Government may 
 try to win them back by making concessions and 
 conferring preferments, but a move like the one 
 recently made in giving Mr. K. G. Gupta's seat on 
 the Secretary of State's Council in London to Sir- 
 dar Dal jit Singh, a Sikh nobleman, is likely to make 
 them look even more ridiculous than before. The 
 
 * Komagata Maru is the name of a Japanese steamer, which 
 a number of Sikh emigrants chartered in Hong Kong in 
 1914 A. D. in order to take them to Canada. They were not 
 allowed to land and were forced to return to India, under 
 circumstances which have created a bitter anti-British feel- 
 ing among the Indians all over the world. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 229 
 
 Britisher's lack of imagination is colossal, but we 
 did not know that the war was likely to affect even 
 his sense of humour. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FUTURE 
 
 It is both difficult and risky to predict, especially 
 concerning a country situated as India is to-day. 
 It is always the unexpected that happens in human 
 affairs. This is particularly true where human af- 
 fairs are so complicated and complex as in India. 
 It is perhaps easier to predict the future of America 
 or England, than that of India. The Indian nation- 
 alists of the nineties, or even of the early days of 
 the new century, could hardly have imagined the 
 developments of the last fifteen years. It is true 
 that India is rather immobile; its masses are rather 
 inert; and perhaps of all peoples the least affected 
 by changes in the outside world. They have been 
 under the benumbing influence of a philosophy of 
 life which keeps them contented even under adverse 
 circumstances, even when they are starving and 
 have no clothes to hide their nakedness. 
 
 Change in Indian Life and Depth of Nationalism, 
 But this is only partially true of modern India. 
 There is a great deal of exaggeration about the im- 
 mobility of Indian people. There may be millions 
 in India who are as unaffected by modern conditions 
 of life and modern ideas as they were fifty years 
 ago, but then there are millions who have con- 
 
 230 
 
THE FUTURE 231 
 
 sciously awakened. Their strength is not to be 
 judged by the attendance at Congresses and confer- 
 ences or other pubHc meetings or demonstrations, 
 nor by the circulation of newspapers or books. 
 Popular demonstrations organised in honour of 
 popular leaders, and the increase in the circulation 
 of newspapers give indications of a great change in 
 Indian life, but the actual change is even much 
 greater. Read the poetry of the country or its 
 prose, read the rough versifyings of the half -edu- 
 cated or even uneducated men and women (includ- 
 ing some who are even illiterate), listen to the talk 
 in the village park or square or other meeting 
 places, see the games which the children of rustics 
 and the poorest classes play, attend to the patterings 
 of children, examine the popular songs or the music 
 that is now in demand, then you will see how deeply 
 nationalism has pervaded Indian life and what a 
 strong hold it has gained in the thoughts of the 
 people. No foreigner can realise that; only an In- 
 dian can properly understand it. Examine the ver- 
 nacular press — the most sober and the most loyal 
 papers, and underlying the expressions of deepest 
 loyalty, you would assuredly come across genuine 
 tears of blood, shed for the misfortune of the coun- 
 try, its decline, its present wretched and miserable 
 condition. From the Indian press we hear a never- 
 ceasing lamentation. Listen to the utterances of 
 the most wanton chief, and the most callous million- 
 aire, bring him out from his isolation or retirement, 
 put him on the public platform, and you will notice 
 a vein of nationalism in his thoughts and in his 
 
22,2 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 words. But if you can know what he talks in pri- 
 vate to friends from whom he keeps no secrets, you 
 will see and notice a great deal more. The writer 
 has not so far met a single Indian of any class — 
 he has met Indians of all classes and of all shades of 
 opinions, educated, uneducated, prince and peasant, 
 moderate and extremist, loyalist and seditionist, — 
 who was genuinely sorry at the outbreak of this war. 
 A number of Indians are fighting at the front. 
 They are sincerely loyal and true to their oath of 
 allegiance. They would leave nothing undone to 
 win, but in their heart of hearts lurks something 
 which in moments of reflection or when they are off 
 duty, reminds them of the wrongs which they and 
 their countrymen are suffering at the hands of Eng- 
 land. Nationalism is no longer confined to the 
 classes. It promises to become a universal cult. 
 It is permeating the masses. Only those Indians 
 realise it who mix with the people and do not 
 derive their knowledge from works written by 
 Englishmen or by other arm-chair politicians. No 
 foreigner, however kind and sympathetic, however 
 great his knowledge of the language of the country, 
 can ever realise it fully. Even the dancing girls are 
 affected by it. They will sing political or national 
 songs if you so wish. Even the wandering minstrel 
 with his rude, one-stringed instrument, knows the 
 song that is likely to bring him help. 
 
 Nationalism Fertilised by Blood of Martyrs. No 
 amount of repression or espionage can stop it. No 
 amount of official terrorism and no devices, invented 
 or followed to inculcate loyalty, can stop or check 
 
THE FUTURE 233 
 
 the flow of the new feeling of patriotism and na- 
 tionalism which is being constantly fed by the sen- 
 tences of death and transportation that the British 
 courts are passing on beardless youths. The Gov- 
 ernment can not help it. They must punish the of- 
 fender and the criminal. They must hunt up the 
 seditionist. They would not be a government if 
 they would do otherwise, but India is now in that 
 stage and Indian nationalism is in that condition 
 when repression, death sentences, and imprisonments 
 are more beneficial to it than otherwise. The more 
 it is repressed and suppressed, the more this spirit 
 grows and spreads. It is a seed that is richly ferti- 
 lised by the blood of martyrs. The people do not 
 argue, they do not reason, they do not analyse ; they 
 feel that good, well-connected, healthy, beautiful 
 boys are dying in the country's cause and to get a 
 redress of the country's wrongs. When a bomb is 
 thrown, the people genuinely condemn the bomb 
 thrower, are sincere in their detestation, but when 
 he is hanged or transported, they are sorry for him. 
 Their original abhorrence changes into sympathy 
 and then into love. They are martyrs of the na- 
 tional cause. They may be misguided, even mad, 
 but they are martyrs all the same. The moralist 
 and the legalist and the loyalist and the constitu- 
 tionalist, all condemn their deeds, but the doers 
 themselves, they adore, and their names they en- 
 shrine in their hearts. 
 
 Wave of Indian Nationalism is on. Such is 
 human psychology, and such is the psychology of 
 nations in the making. The Indian mind has en- 
 
234 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 tered on that phase. No amount of sweet speeches 
 by the Viceroy or by the Lieutenant Governors or 
 by the commissioners or deputy commissioners, no 
 amount of honours and titles or rewards to indi- 
 viduals, no amount of preferment of one community 
 as against another, no amount of canal-making or 
 railway-developing, can change the tide that has 
 begun to flow, or retard the sweep, much less turn 
 it to ebb. 
 
 Propitiation and Petty Concessions Futile. This 
 is the supreme fact of Indian life which every one 
 who has anything to do with India, official or non- 
 official, statesman or layman, politician or publicist, 
 must recognise and face. Nations and individuals, 
 filled with their own importance, drunk with power 
 and resources, accustomed to mould things and 
 forces in their own way, determined to keep what 
 they have got, may not see things which are unpleas- 
 ant to look at or to think about. But facts are facts 
 and do not wait for their action on the pleasure of 
 those who do not like them. Canute-like they may 
 command the waves, but the waves will not listen to 
 them. The wave of Indian nationalism is on and 
 no amount of tinkering with Indian administration, 
 or sweet phrases, or promises can check it. " We 
 are the subjects of the same sovereign," ** citizens of 
 the same empire," " brothers in arms," " comrades," 
 and so on, — these are kind words spoken by people 
 who perhaps mean well. But in the light of past ex- 
 perience they do not carry much weight; they may 
 befool some soft-hearted people, but they would not 
 affect the general mind of the nation so long as they 
 
THE FUTURE 235 
 
 remain unaccompanied by deeds. An Executive 
 Council for the United Provinces, a High Court for 
 the Punjab, a High Court and a University for 
 Behar, a Charter to the Hindu University, liberal 
 grants to Islamic schools and colleges, may please 
 some barristers and pleaders, but they will not sat- 
 isfy the nation, so long as the Arms Act is on the 
 statute book, so long as the Indian Councils are a 
 farce, so long as the fiscal policy is laid down in 
 the interests of Lancashire, and so long as hundreds 
 and thousands of Indian boys fail to earn a decent 
 living, while the country is being ruled and ex- 
 ploited by the few fortunate foreigners. Indians 
 want to go to Canada, to South Africa, to the United 
 States of America, because the wages to be earned 
 in India are so low, because the life at home is so 
 miserable, so helpless and so hard and so humiliat- 
 ing. Even abroad the Indian is kicked and insulted 
 at almost every step, but then that is more easily 
 borne than the kicks and insults of Englishmen in 
 India. 
 
 Internal Division no Valid Plea. India has and 
 can produce enough to feed her own children,^ nay 
 to spare, provided she were free to make her own 
 laws, spend her own revenues, and protect her in- 
 dustries. Those who plead that Indians are too 
 hopelessly divided into religions, communities, sects, 
 castes, and languages, to be able to form a govern- 
 ment of their own, forget that the English have been 
 in India only for the last century and a half and that 
 
 1 During her most dreadful famines hundreds of thousands 
 of tons of foodstuffs were shipped out of India. 
 
236 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 before that India governed herself. The India of 
 to-day is in no way happier than it was before pre- 
 British days. The India of Akbar was happier than 
 the England of Elizabeth and even more prosperous. 
 The India of Asoka was infinitely happier and more 
 prosperous than the England of Alfred the Great. 
 The India of Aurangzeb may perhaps have been 
 miserable, but surely not more miserable than the 
 England of Henry VIII, or the England of James I, 
 or the Scotland of Mary, or the Ireland of Crom- 
 well, or the France of Henry IV, or the Holland of 
 Philip. We have the testimony of English his- 
 torians and observers that subjects of the East In- 
 dia Company were in no way happier or more pros- 
 perous than when they were under Native rule,^ and 
 the subjects of Native States in India governed by 
 Natives are on the whole in no way worse off than 
 British subjects under the direct rule of the British. 
 Look at the United States, how the varied races, 
 sects, religions, and communities have merged their 
 differences and live under one national government ; 
 look at the number of languages spoken in the 
 United States — in their schools and in their fac- 
 tories. Look at Switzerland, what a tiny little 
 country it is! How many languages are spoken 
 and taught in its schools and how many languages 
 are spoken and used in its councils, and how many 
 religions are professed by the people of the country! 
 
 2 See Mill's History of British India, Vol. VI, pp. 149, 150, 
 Vol. VII, p. 388, and p. 393, Vol. IX, pp. 207, 209. See Bishop 
 Heber's description of India in 1824 quoted in Mill and Wil- 
 son's History of India, Vol. IX, p. 376. Also that of Mr. 
 Shore in 1833. 
 
THE FUTURE 237 
 
 The same remarks may be made about the dual 
 monarchy of Austria-Hungary, where the form of 
 government is largely representative in spite of the 
 diversity of races, sects and languages. 
 
 The number of religions, sects and languages in 
 India has been grossly exaggerated. With every 
 census the number goes up by hundreds, though the 
 country and the people are the same. 
 
 Illiteracy the Fault of the British and no Bar to 
 Self-government. Again it is sometimes said that 
 India cannot be self-ruling because of its illiteracy. 
 This argument does not come with good grace from 
 the Britishers because it is they who are responsible 
 for the appalling illiteracy of the Indian population. 
 In Japan, where the work of education was begun 
 late in the last century, 28 per cent, of the children 
 of school age were at school in 1873; by 1902-1903 
 the percentage had risen to 90. In India, after 150 
 years of British rule, the percentage is 19.6. The 
 Indian Nationalists have for a number of years 
 been asking for compulsory universal education, 
 but the Government would not listen. The late 
 Mr. Gokhale's Compulsory Elementary Education 
 Bill was strongly opposed by the Government and 
 thrown out. But what is even worse is that the 
 Government would not let the people open their own 
 schools and colleges because of the unreasonably 
 high standard set up by the Department for their 
 recognition as public schools. 
 
 However, universal literacy of the people is not 
 an indispensable pre-requisite of self-rule. In 
 Japan, where 50 years ago representative govern- 
 
238 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 ment was set up, only the Samurai were literate. 
 In India, too, the higher classes are educated to a 
 considerable extent. 
 
 England has enjoyed parliamentary government 
 for centuries, but universal education was only in- 
 troduced in 1870. 
 
 Internal Troubles. As for internal troubles fol- 
 lowing the withdrawal of the British or the grant 
 of self-government we ask, " Is there any country 
 on the face of the earth which is free from internal 
 troubles?" Even Great Britain is not; much less 
 are the self-governing colonies. Yet nobody ques- 
 tions their right to govern themselves. Only the 
 other day President Wilson considered the existence 
 of internal disorder in Mexico to be no justification 
 for the United States interfering in its affairs. 
 
 Unfitness of Orientals for Representative Insti- 
 tutions. As for the unfitness of Orientals for 
 democratic institutions, why the ancient history of 
 India refutes it almost conclusively. India was the 
 home of democratic institutions long before Eng- 
 land and France had any notion of what democracy 
 implied. But if any further proof of the absurdity 
 of this plea was needed that has been furnished by 
 Japan. 
 
 Nationalism has come to Stay. Let England try 
 an experiment by repealing the Arms Act and giv- 
 ing a parliamentary government to India and see 
 if these considerations effectively stand in the way 
 of progress. Be that as it may, however, one thing 
 seems to be assured and certain, that Indian nation- 
 
THE FUTURE 239 
 
 alism can neither be killed nor suppressed by repres- 
 sion, nor by minor concessions. Nationalism has 
 come to stay and will stay. What will be the up- 
 shot is only known to the Gods. England may win 
 or lose in the great war in which she is engaged. 
 Indian nationalism will gain in either case. We 
 need not consider how India will fare if England 
 loses. She may come under Mohammedan domi- 
 nation, or the Germans may take possession of her; 
 the English would be gone and then India would 
 enter upon a new life. India does not want it. She 
 will resist it with all her strength. But if it 
 comes she can't help it and Great Britain would be 
 responsible for having brought it. In case, how- 
 ever, England wins, as she is likely to, the Indian 
 nationalism will still gain. There will be a de- 
 mand for political advance, for a change in the 
 political status of the country and in its relations 
 towards England and her colonies. From what we 
 know of English temper, of English political ma- 
 chinery, of English political methods, of English 
 ways and of English history, that demand is sure to 
 be refused. Some minor, petty concessions may be 
 made, but they would be disproportionate to the 
 sacrifices of men and money that India is making in 
 the war. They will not satisfy the country. Dis- 
 affection and discontent will grow and that is the 
 kind of food on which nationalism thrives and pros- 
 pers. So long as there are Curzons, Macdonnels, 
 and Sydenhams in the English Parliament, Indian 
 nationalism will not starve for want of congenial 
 
240 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 food. And we have no reason to think that these 
 dignitaries of the British Government are likely to 
 disappear. 
 
 CursonSj Macdonnels, Sydenhams, responsible 
 for Bombs and Revolvers. These persons are di- 
 rectly responsible for the appearance of bombs and 
 revolvers in Indian political life. The young men 
 who use them are mere tools of circumstances. If 
 any persons deserve to be hanged for the use of 
 these destructive machines by Indian nationalists, it 
 is they. It is a pity that while the latter are dying 
 by tens on the scaffold, the former should be free to 
 carry on their propaganda of racial discrimination, 
 racial hatred, and social preferment. But the ways 
 of Providence are inscrutable. It is perhaps some 
 higher dispensation that is using these miserable 
 Junkers for its own purposes. Indians have faith 
 in Providence and they believe that what is happen- 
 ing is for the best. The Indians are a chivalrous 
 people; they will not disturb England as long as 
 she is engaged with Germany. The struggle after 
 the war might, however, be even more bitter and 
 more sustained. 
 
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS IN 
 
 ENGLISH 
 
 Books by Englishmen 
 
 ■" New Spirit in India" by H. W. Nevinson. 
 
 •"The Awakening in India" by J. Ramsay MacDonald, 
 
 M.P. 
 " India, Impressions and Suggestions " by J. Keir Hardie, 
 
 M.P. 
 "New India" by Sir Henry Cotton (once an M.F.), late 
 
 of the Indian Civil Service. 
 " Allen Octavian Hume " by Sir W. Wedderburn, late of 
 
 the Indian Civil Service (once an M.P.). 
 " Prosperous British India " by Mr. William Digby, CLE. 
 " India and the Empire " by Mrs. Annie Besant. 
 ^' Indian Nationalism " by Edwyn Bevan. 
 "Bureaucratic Government" by Bernard Houghton (late 
 
 of the Indian Civil Service). 
 " Lord Curzon a Failure." by C. J. O'Donnell (late of the 
 
 Indian Civil Service). 
 " Causes of Indian Discontent " by C. J. O'Donnell (late 
 
 of the Indian Civil Service). 
 " The Indian Ryot " by Sir W. Wedderburn. 
 " The Skeleton at the Jubilee Feast " by Sir W. Wedder- 
 burn. 
 "Congress Green Books" (84, 85, Palace Chambers, 
 
 Westminster, London). 
 
 " The New Nationalist Movement in India," by Dr. J. T. 
 Sunderland. 
 
 " Indian Famines and Their Cause " by Dr. J. T. Sunder- 
 land, 423 West I20th Street, New York. 
 
 241 
 
242 YOUNG INDIA 
 
 Books by Indians 
 
 ** Poverty or Un-British Rule in India " by Dadabhai 
 
 Naoroji. 
 " India Under Early British Rule " by R. C. Dutt, CLE. 
 " India in the Victorian Age " by R. C. Dutt, CLE. 
 " Famines and Land Assessment " by R. C Dutt, CLE. 
 "England and India" (Indian Progress, 1785-1885) by 
 
 R. C Dutt, CLE. 
 " The Civilization of India " by R. C Dutt, CLE. 
 " Speeches of the Honourable Mr. G. K. Gokhale." 
 " The Swadeshi, a Symposium." 
 " Recent Indian Finance " by Wacha. 
 " The National Evolution " by A. C Mazumdar. 
 " The Indian National Congress." 
 " Speeches of Sir P. M. Mehta." 
 " The Story of My Deportation " by Lajpat Rai. 
 " The Alipore [Bomb Case] Trial." 
 
 Periodicals 
 
 The Modern Review (monthly). Calcutta. 
 The Indian Review (monthly). Madras. 
 The Hindustan Review (monthly). Allahabad. 
 India (the British Organ of the Indian National Con- 
 gress, weekly). London. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM SIR HENRY COTTON'S 
 ''NEW INDIA." 
 
 Feudatory Chiefs Powerless. " It would perhaps be un- 
 generous to probe too narrowly the dependent position 
 and consequent involuntary action of the feudatory chiefs. 
 They are powerless to protect themselves. There is no 
 judicial authority to which they can appeal. There is 
 no public opinion to watch their interests. Technically 
 independent under the suzerainty of the Empire, they 
 are practically held in complete subjection. Their rank 
 and honours depend on the pleasure of a British Resi- 
 dent at their Court, and on the secret and irresponsible 
 mandates of a Foreign Office at Simla" (page 34). 
 
 Gross Insults to Indians, " That intense Anglo-Saxon 
 spirit of self-approbation which is unpleasantly percep- 
 tible in England itself, and is so often offensive among 
 vulgar Englishmen on the Continent, very soon becomes 
 rampant in India. 
 
 " There are innumerable instances in which pedes- 
 trians have been abused and struck because they have 
 not lowered their umbrellas at the sight of a sahib on 
 the highway. There are few Indian gentlemen even of 
 the highest rank who have not had experience of gross 
 insults when travelling by railway, because Englishmen 
 object to sit in the same carriage with a native" (pages 
 68-69). 
 
 243 
 
244 APPENDICES 
 
 II 
 SOME OPINIONS ABOUT BRITISH INDIA 
 
 Industrial Ruin of India. Gokhale. " When we come 
 to this question of India's Industrial domination by Eng- 
 land, we come to what may be described as the most 
 deplorable result of British rule in this country. In other 
 matters there are things on the credit side and things 
 on the debit side. . . . But when you come to the in- 
 dustrial field, you will find that the results have been 
 disastrous. You find very little here on the credit side 
 and nearly all the entries on the debit side. Now this is 
 a serious statement to make, but I think it can be sub- 
 stantiated." 
 
 India a Mere Possession. Gokhale. " India formed 
 the largest part of the Empire, but was governed as a 
 mere possession of the British people. Three features 
 showed that it had no part or lot in the Empire. In the 
 first place, the people were kept disarmed; it was 
 thought to be dangerous to allow them to carry arms. 
 Secondly, they had absolutely no voice in the govern- 
 ment of their own country; they were expressly dis- 
 qualified from holding certain high offices, and prac- 
 tically excluded from others. Lastly, they were not al- 
 lowed a share in the privileges of the Empire in any 
 portion outside British India, except a limited one in 
 the United Kingdom itself." — Mr. Gokhale. 
 
 Masses Starved. Sir C. A. Elliott. " I do not hesi- 
 tate to say that half our agricultural population never 
 know from year's end to year's end what it is to have 
 their hunger fully satisfied." — Sir C. A. Elliott, one- 
 time Lieut.-Governor of Bengal. 
 
 Sir W. W. Hunter. In 1880. " There remain forty 
 millions of people who go through life on insufficient 
 food."— Sir W. W. Hunter. 
 
 William Digby. In 1893. The Pioneer sums up Mr. 
 Grierson's facts regarding the various sections of the 
 
APPENDICES 245 
 
 population in Gaya: "Briefly, it is that all the persons 
 of the labouring classes, and ten per cent, of the culti- 
 vating and artisan classes, or forty-five per cent, of the 
 total population, are insufficiently clothed, or insufficiently 
 fed, or both. In Gaya district this would give about a 
 million persons without sufficient means of support. If 
 we assume that the circumstances of Gaya are not ex- 
 ceptional, — and there is no reason for thinking other- 
 wise — it follows that nearly one hundred millions of 
 people in British India are living in extreme poverty." 
 
 In 1901. " The poverty and suffering of the people 
 are such as to defy description. In fact, for nearly fifteen 
 years there has been a continuous famine in India owing 
 to high prices." 
 
 70,000,000 Continually Hungry People in British India. 
 W. Digby. " Since Sir William Hunter's remarks were 
 made the population has increased (or is alleged to have 
 increased) by nearly thirty millions. Meanwhile the in- 
 come of the Empire has greatly decreased during this 
 period. Wherefore this follows: that is, if with the 
 same income, in 1880 forty millions were insufficiently 
 fed, the additional millions cannot have had, cannot now 
 have, enough to eat ; this, again, ensues : — 
 
 40,000,000 plus, say, 30,000,000, make 70,000,000; and 
 there are this number of continually hungry people in 
 British India at the beginning of the Twentieth Century." 
 — William Digby, C. I. E. 
 
 Deaths from Famine from 1891 to 1900 alone: 19,- 
 000,000. 
 
 Total area under cultivation. In the year 1911-12, the 
 total area under food grains was over 195 million acres, 
 plus 7.5, i. e. over 2023/2 million acres. 
 
 In 19 1 2-13, India exported foodstuffs of the value of 
 over 260 million dollars. 
 
 In 1913-14 she exported about 216 million dollars' 
 worth of foodstuffs. 
 
 Famines of Money, not Food. Lord G. Hamilton. 
 " The recent famines are famines of money, and not of 
 
246 APPENDICES 
 
 food." — Lord G. Hamilton, former Secretary of 
 State. 
 
 Causes of Famines, i. National industries deliberately 
 crushed by the East India Co. cannot revive under ex- 
 isting conditions. 
 
 2. Annual drain of India. 
 
 3. Lack of such education as will enable people to 
 develop their resources. 
 
 Drain. Montgomery Martin. " The annual drain of 
 £3,000,000 from British India has mounted in thirty years, 
 at 12 per cent, (the usual Indian rate) compound interest, 
 to the enormous sum of £723,900,000 sterling." — Mont- 
 gomery Martin. (In 1830.) 
 
 Dighy. " During the last thirty years of the century 
 the average drain cannot have been far short of £30,- 
 000,000 per year, or, in the thirty years, £900,000,000, not 
 reckoning interest ! " — Sir William Digby. 
 
 Enormous Foreign Tribute. Rev. J. T. Sunderland. 
 Rev. J. T. Sunderland in his work " The Causes of 
 Famine in India," like all impartial writers, has con- 
 clusively proved that neither " failure of rains " nor 
 " over population " is the cause of famines in India. 
 He has stated that the real cause of famine is the ex- 
 treme, the abject, the awful poverty of the Indian people 
 caused by " Enormous Foreign Tribute," " British In- 
 dian Imperialism " and the destruction of Indian indus- 
 tries. 
 
 Government assessment too high. Sir W. Hunter. 
 " The government assessment does not leave enough food 
 to the cultivator to support himself and his family 
 throughout the year." — Sir William Hunter, K. C. S. 
 L, in the Viceroy's Council, 1883. 
 
 The Ryot. Herbert Compton. " There is no more 
 pathetic figure in the British Empire than the Indian 
 peasant. His masters have ever been unjust to him. 
 He is ground until everything has been expressed, ex- 
 cept the marrow of his bones." — Mr. Herbert Compton 
 in " Indian Life," 1904. 
 
APPENDICES 247 
 
 Hindustan is an extensive agricultural country and the 
 average land produces two crops a year, and in Bengal 
 there are lands v^^hich produce thrice a year. Bengal 
 alone produces such large crops that they are quite suf- 
 ficient to provide all the population of Hindustan for two 
 years. 
 
 Indian Plunder. Adam Brooks. Adam Brooks says, 
 (" Laws of Civilization and Decay," page 259-246) " Very 
 soon after the Battle of Plassey (fought in 1757) the 
 Bengal Plunder began to arrive in London and the effect 
 appears to have been almost instantaneous. Probably 
 since the world began, no investment has yielded the 
 profit reaped from the Indian plunder. The amount of 
 treasure wrung from the conquered people and transferred 
 from India to English banks between Plassey and Water- 
 loo (57 years) has been variously estimated at from $2,- 
 500,000,000 to $5,000,000,000. The methods of plunder and 
 embezzlement, by which every Briton in India enriched 
 himself during the earlier history of the East India Com- 
 pany, gradually passed away, but the drain did not pass 
 away. The difference between that earlier day and the 
 present is, that India's tribute to England is obtained by 
 " indirect methods," under forms of law. It is estimated 
 by Mr. Hyndman that at least $175,000,000 is drained 
 away every year from India, without a cent's return." 
 
 Swami Abhedananda. " India pays interest on Eng- 
 land's debt, which in 1900 amounted to 244 millions 
 sterling, and which annually increases. Besides this, she 
 pays for all the officers, civil and military, and a huge 
 standing army, pensions of officers, and even the cost of 
 the India Building in London, as well as the salary of 
 every menial servant of that house. For 1901-2 the 
 total expenditure charged against revenue was $356,971,- 
 410.00, out of which $84,795,515.00 was spent in England 
 as Home Charges, not including the pay of European 
 officers in India, saved and remitted to England. — Swami 
 Abhedananda (" India and Her People "). 
 
 Alfred Webb (late M.P.) : " In charges for the India 
 
248 APPENDICES 
 
 Office (in London) ; for recruiting (in Great Britain, 
 for soldiers to serve in India) ; for civil and military 
 pensions (to men now living in England, who were for- 
 merly in the Indian service) ; for pay and allowances on 
 furloughs (to men on visits to England) ; for private 
 remittances and consignments (for India to England); 
 for interest on Indian debt (paid to parties in England) ; 
 and for interest on railways and other works (paid to 
 shareholders in England), there is annually drawn from 
 India and spent in the United Kingdom, a sum calculated 
 at from £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 (Between $125,000,- 
 000 and $150,000,000)." 
 
 "Narrow and Shortsighted Imperial Policy." Sir 
 Archibald R. Colquehoun. " The present condition of 
 affairs undoubtedly renders the struggle for existence a 
 hard one, as may be realized when it is considered that 
 a vast population of India not only from the inevitable 
 droughts which so frequently occur, but also from a nar- 
 row and shortsighted imperial policy which places every 
 obstacle in the way of Industrial development and im- 
 poses heavy taxes on the struggling people. According 
 to various authorities, Russia's demand upon landowners 
 in her Central Asian possession are not so exacting as 
 ours in India, for the British Government insists on a 
 ■fifth of the produce, making no allowance for good or 
 bad years; while Russia is said to ask only a tenth 
 and allow for variation of production," (Pages 135-6, 
 " Russia Against India," by Sir Archibald R. Colque- 
 houn, Gold Medalist, Royal Geographical Society.) 
 
 Taxation. Lord Salisbury. The British policy of 
 bleeding Indian people. " The injury is exaggerated in 
 the case of India where so much of the revenue is ex- 
 ported without a direct equivalent. As India must be 
 bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where 
 the blood is congested or at least sufficient, not to those 
 already feeble for the want of it." — Lord Salisbury. 
 
APPENDICES 249 
 
 III 
 FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 Plague, Deaths from. Plague^ deaths from 1897-1913: 
 7,251,257. 
 
 Death Rate, Death rate was: 34.28 for the year 
 1907-11 ; 32 for the year 191 1, and 29.71 for the year 1912. 
 
 Rural from 41.8 to 23.5. 
 
 Urban from 47.6 to 22.7. 
 
 Indian Finance. The budget figures of the government 
 of India for 1914-15 show the total estimated income for 
 the year to be slightly over 85 millions sterling, of which 
 more than 17 millions are given out as railway receipts 
 and about 41/2 millions for irrigation work, thus leaving 
 the pure revenue to be about 63 millions. 
 
 Land Tax. The principal source of revenue is the 
 land tax, which alone furnishes a little over 213^ mil- 
 lions of pounds, of which, if we deduct 9 millions shown 
 as the " direct demand on the revenues " only I2}4 millions 
 are left for general purposes. 
 
 The military expenses alone are estimated at about 22 
 millions, which is even in excess of the gross total re- 
 ceipts from the land tax, and is more than one-third of 
 the total revenues from all sources. 
 
 The figures for income are a little misleading, be- 
 cause out of a total of about 17 millions (17 millions 
 and 33 thousand) shown as railway receipts about 13 mil- 
 lions (13,409,000) shown as paid for interest and other 
 miscellaneous charges on the expenditure side, should be 
 deducted. Similarly about ^y^ millions are shown as re- 
 ceipts under the head of irrigation, and over 3}^ millions 
 are shown against that head as expenditure. 
 
 Among the other heads of income, excise brings slightly 
 
 iWe do not mean to say that British Rule in India is re- 
 sponsible for the plague, but with better management of re- 
 sources, i.e., better sanitation, the plague could have been 
 prevented or eradicated sooner than has been attempted. 
 
250 APPENDICES 
 
 over 9 millions. Income tax is included under " Other 
 Heads/' which show a total figure of slightly over 5 mil- 
 lions. 
 
 Income Tax, The income tax, which is levied on in- 
 comes other than those derived from agriculture, is only 
 6V2d. in a pound on incomes of £133 or more, a year, 
 and almost 5d. a pound on incomes below that figure. 
 The minimum taxable income is £66 a year, which shows 
 that all incomes of between 5-6 pounds a month, or be- 
 tween 25-30 dollars a month, are taxed. The large for- 
 tunes made by Europeans and Indians by trade, specula- 
 tion, manufacture, and unearned increments of valua- 
 tion, are thus easily let off. The principle burden of tax- 
 ation falls on the poor ryot. 
 
 Income from agriculture is supposed to be taxed at the 
 rate of 50 per cent, of the net income of the landlord, or 
 at the rate of 20 per cent, of the gross produce of the 
 ryot, under the ryotwari system. In some cases it ex- 
 ceeds these proportions and is as high as 65 per cent. 
 (See Lord Morley's reply to C. T. O'Donnell.) 
 
 Customs. Customs, which furnish the principal source 
 of revenue in the United States and Germany, in India 
 only yield about less than 73^ millions. The imports are 
 charged ad valorem duty of 5 per cent, with special con- 
 ditions as to textiles, and " a large free list." The textile 
 woven goods pay a duty of y/2 per cent, and Lancashire 
 is protected by a corresponding excise duty on textile 
 goods produced in the country. Iron and steel pay only 
 a nominal duty of one per cent. 
 
 The other principal source of revenue is the drink 
 traffic, from which the government of India makes an 
 income of about nine millions sterling. How much loss 
 in morals it inflicts thereby on the country may better be 
 imagined. That however is another story. 
 
APPENDICES 251 
 
 TRADE FIGURES FOR 1913 to 1914 
 
 Imports (manufactured articles forming 
 
 80 per cent, of the total) : £127 millions 
 
 Treasure: 29 millions 
 
 £156 millions 
 Exports (chiefly raw produce and articles 
 
 of food) : £163 millions 
 
 The shipping is entirely in European hands and it would 
 be interesting to enquire how much does India pay for 
 the shipping of its imports and exports, and how much do 
 the foreigners make by way of insurance and other charges. 
 The exact gain to Great Britain and other European 
 countries from Indian trade is simply incalculable. The 
 great bulk of the foreign trade on iDoth sides is in the 
 hands of foreigners. 
 
 PERSONNEL OF THE GOVERNMENT 
 
 Secretary of State and all Under Secretaries, as well as 
 Assistant Under Secretaries: 
 
 British 
 Council: British Indians Total 
 
 82 10 
 
 All Office Establishment and Secretaries: British. 
 
 All salaries and other expenses paid by India. 
 
 Governor General and Council and staff (i.e., the Brit- 
 ish Indian Cabinet). 
 Members of the Executive Council: British 7; one 
 only is an Indian. 
 
 Revenue and Agriculture Department: All Secre- 
 taries down to the Superintendent of the Office: 
 British. (Total strength, 7.) 
 
 Finance Department: 21; all British except that one 
 Assistant Secretary is an Indian, and one Superin- 
 tendent is an Indian, 
 
252 APPENDICES 
 
 Foreign Department: 6; all British except that one At- 
 tache is an Indian. 
 
 Education Department: 8; one Assistant Secretary is 
 an Indian. 
 
 Legislative Department: 7; only one Legal Assistant an 
 Indian. 
 
 Army Department: 10; one Office Superintendent an 
 Indian. 
 
 Public Works: 15; no Indian. 
 
 Commerce and Industry: ii; 3 Office Superintendents 
 are Indians. 
 
 Railway Board: 4, no Indian. 
 
 Post Office and Telegraph Department: no Indian. 
 
 Indo-European Trade Department: no Indian. 
 
 Survey: no Indian. 
 
 Geological Survey: 5; no Indian. 
 
 Botanical Department: 5; no Indian. 
 
 Arch^ological Survey: 9; one Indian. 
 
 Miscellaneous Appointments: 39; one Indian. 
 
 The Indian Legislative Council: — 
 Total strength dy, out of which 35, besides the Gov- 
 ernor General are always officials, only one of which 
 is an Indian ; of the remaining 32, 28 are Indian mem- 
 bers, including 3 nominated by the Government, i.e., 
 a total of 20 out of 67. 
 
 Provincial Government: 
 All Governors, Lieutenant Governors, and Chief Com- 
 missioners of Provinces are British. 
 In Provinces having Executive Councils of three or 
 
 more, one is an Indian. 
 Secretaries and Heads of Departments are all British- 
 ers. Of the large army of Under Secretaries and As- 
 sistant Secretaries, perhaps one in each Province is an 
 Indian. 
 
 Services : 
 Army: No Indian is eligible to a commissioned rank. 
 Indian Civil Service: (on the first of April, 1913) out 
 of a total cadre of 1318, only 46 w^re Indians. 
 
APPENDICES 253 
 
 Indian Medical Service: Little over 5 per cent, are 
 Indians. 
 
 In Provincial Legislative Councils having very re- 
 stricted powers of legislation, the elected Indians are 
 in a minority everywhere. 
 
 FIGURES ABOUT EDUCATION AND LITERACY: 
 
 (Figures taken from the Year Book of 1914) 
 
 Area, 1,773,168 square miles. 
 Population, 315,132,537. 
 Universities in British India, 6. 
 
 Number of High Schools for males 1273 
 
 Number of High Schools for females 144 
 
 Primary schools for males ii3»955 
 
 i.e., not even i for every 10 miles. 
 Primary schools for females 13,694 
 
 Literally. 
 
 Males, 106 per 1000, i.e., about 10% per cent. 
 Females, only 10 per 1000, i.e., about i per cent. 
 
 All these figures are taken from the Indian Year Book, 
 published by the Times of India Press, Bombay, for the years 
 1914 and 1915. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE FLOGGING OF POLITICAL PRISONERS 
 
 (An extract from New India, a paper edited by Mrs. 
 
 Annie Besant.) 
 
 The tragedy of Mr. Ramcharan Lai, the ex-editor of 
 the Swaraj, continues. Mr. Macleod, the city magistrate 
 of Nagpur, has sentenced him to an additional six months 
 of rigorous imprisonment after his sentence has expired 
 Jor * refusing to wprjc/ Qur readers will remember the 
 
254 APPENDICES 
 
 case. This unfortunate political prisoner — whose ana- 
 logues in foreign countries have been welcomed and pro- 
 tected on British soil — under-going a sentence of im- 
 prisonment, was so brutally flogged for refusing to do 
 work, which he says was more than he could do, that the 
 prison doctor admits that he would have been unable to 
 work for four days after the flogging, and six weeks after 
 it the skin was still discoloured and two serious scars 
 remained. Now he has a heavy sentence of six months' 
 additional imprisonment. Is this British treatment of a 
 political prisoner? Why did Britons protest against the 
 use of the knout on political prisoners in Russia ? Is there 
 no one in the House of Commons who will ask a question 
 on this case, and demand an enquiry into the treatment 
 of political prisoners in India? 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abul Fazal, 52 
 
 Abul Qasim, 70 
 
 Ahmad Khan (Sir Syed), 115 
 
 Akbar, 71, n, 73, 74 
 
 Alberuni, 52 
 
 Alexander the Great, 68 
 
 Al-Hilal, 62 
 
 Asoka, 9, II, 12, 69 
 
 Aurangzeb, 52, 73, 95 
 
 B 
 
 Ball, Charles (Indian Mu- 
 tiny), 105 
 Bankim Chandra, 190, 191 
 Bannerjea (Sir G.), 171 
 Bonnerjea, W. C, I33 
 Barendra, 194 
 Bengalee (newspaper), 24 
 Besant, Annie, 50, 115 
 Blavatsky, 115 
 Burke, Edmund, 76, 77, 99 
 
 Chamberlain Austen, 28 
 Chirol (Sir V.), I, 29 
 Colvin (Sir A.), 1^4 
 Comrade, 62 
 
 Curzon (Lord), 29, 88, 89, 
 147, 156, 158, 159, 239, 240 
 
 D 
 
 Dalhousie, 97 
 
 D. A. V. College, 165 
 
 David, Rhys, 68 
 
 Dayal, Har, 152, 156, 195 to 
 
 199, 211 
 Dayanand (Saraswati), 115 
 Dickinson (Lowes), 5 
 Dufferin (Lord), 121, 122, 
 
 138, 142 
 
 Englishman (The), 168, 169, 
 182 
 
 Faizi, 52 
 
 Fergusson College, 164 
 
 Fuller (Sir W. B.),i77 
 
 Gaekwar (Baroda), 88 
 
 Galib, 52 
 
 Ghosh, Arabinda, 152, 155, 
 
 172 to 175, 183, 205, 209, 211 
 Gokhale, G. K., i35» ^37. i59 
 
 to 161, 181, i99» 216, 237 
 Gossain (Narendra), I94 
 Govind (Singh), 95, 102 
 Greece, 11 
 Gupta Empire, 13 
 Gupta, Chandra, 9, 10, 68, 69 
 Gupta, Samundra, i3, 14 
 
 H 
 
 Hamdard, 62 
 
 Hardinge (Lord), 121, 184 
 
 Hastings, Warren, 99 
 
 Havell. E. B., 12 
 
 Holmes (History of the 
 
 255 
 
256 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sepoy War), 104; (History 
 of the Indian Mutiny), 105 
 Hume (A. O.), 122, 124 to 
 127, 130, 135, 137, 140, 144 
 
 Ibn, Batuta, 52 
 Ilbert (Bill), 119 
 
 K 
 
 Kali, 189, 190 
 
 Kaye (History of the Mu- 
 tiny), 103, 104, 106 
 Kipling, Rudyard, i 
 
 Lancashire, 62, 75 
 Law, Bonar, 28 
 Leader (newspaper), 27 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 31 
 Lytton, Lord, 116, 118 
 
 M 
 
 Macdonald, J. Ramsay, 181, 
 
 182 
 Macdonnel, Lord, 29, 239, ^40 
 Malleson (History of the 
 
 Mutiny), 103, 104, 106 
 Manchester, 62 
 Mazhar-ul-Haq, 53 
 Megasthenes, 69 
 Mill (History of Br. India), 
 
 68 
 Minto (Lord), 179 
 Mohani, Abul Hasan Hasrat, 
 
 Miiller, Max, i 
 Muslim League, 49, 52 
 Muslim Gazette, 62 
 
 N 
 
 Naoroji Dadabhai, 133, 137, 
 179 
 
 Nath, Ajudhia, 133 
 
 National Council of Educa- 
 tion, 171 
 
 National Congress, Indian. 
 122-145 
 
 National College, 173 
 
 Nepal, 13 
 
 Nevinson, H. W., 181, 182 
 
 Noble, Miss, i 
 
 Pal, B. C, 162, 183, 190 
 Partap, Rana, 71, 72, 73 
 Pillai, Chidambaran, 183 
 Plassey, 96 
 Pratt, 3 
 Prithvi, Raj, 70 
 
 R 
 
 Rai, La j pat, 181, 183 
 Ramakrishna Mission, 215 
 Ranade, 115, 133 
 Rawlinson, 10, 11 
 Reay, Lord, 123 
 Ripon, Lord, 119 to 122 
 Roberts (Charles), 28 
 Robertson, Sir G. Scott, 29 
 Roy, Ram Mohan, iii 
 
 Samaj, Arya, 117, 215 
 
 Samaj, Brahmo, iii, 215 
 
 Savarkar, 210, 211 
 
 Seleucus, 68 
 
 Sher Shah, 5^, 73 
 
 Shah Jahan, 52 
 
 Sikhs, 73, 102 
 
 Sinha, Sir S. P., 31 
 
 Smith, Vincent, 10, 11, 12, 13, 
 
 15 
 Sivaji, 95, 129 
 Surat, i^ 
 Swadeshi, 148, 168 
 Swaraj, 148 
 Sydenham, Lord, 29, 239, 240 
 
INDEX 
 
 257 
 
 Tagore, 5 , 
 
 Teg, Bahadur Guru, 95, 102 
 Theosophical Society, 117 
 Tilak (Bal Ganga Dhar), 28, 
 
 133, 155, 162, 183 
 Tod, Colonel, 73 
 Tyabji, 133 
 
 Vikramadityas, 14 
 Vivekananda, 115, I93 
 
 W 
 
 Wacha, 39, 4i ^. ,,, . 
 Wedderburn (Sir W.), 122, 
 
 128, 137, 144 
 Wellesly, Lord, 97. ^ ,. ^ 
 Wilson (History of India), 
 
 94 
 
 Victoria, Queen, 13 
 Vidyasagar, 164 
 
 Zamindar (newspaper), 62 
 
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR {IN ENGLISH) 
 THE ARYA SAMAJ 
 
 An account of its origin, doctrines and activities, with a Bio- 
 graphical Sketch of the Founder. With an Introduction by 
 Professor Sidney Webb, LL.B., of the London School of Eco- 
 nomics and Political Science (University of London.) With 
 10 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. pp. xxvi-\-305, price, $1.75 net. 
 Professor Sidney Webb in the Preface which he has written 
 to this book says— "I believe that this is the first book dealing 
 with what may possibly prove to be the most important re- 
 ligious movement in the whole of India." The author, Mr. 
 Lajpat Rai, gives a biographical account of the Swami Dayan- 
 anda, who was the founder of the Arya Samaj, and died in 
 1883. Since then the organization which Dayananda founded 
 has increased enormously, and numbered 243,000 members 
 in 191 1, having more than doubled since 1901. 
 
 The Arya Samaj aims at a thorough reformation of the 
 religion of Hinduism. It advocates the abolition of the wor- 
 ship of Idols and desires that the Hindu religion should be 
 restored to the pure and lofty Monotheism of the Vedas 
 which it believes to be the sole source of religious truth. Mr. 
 Blunt, I.C.S., in the census report for the United Province 
 for 191 1 calls it "the greatest religious movement in India 
 of the past half century." 
 
 New York Times: — It is quite impossible for any one pos- 
 sessed of imagination to close this book without feeling 
 that it has introduced him to a movement of very great 
 importance ... (a) fascinating book. 
 Unity:—}. T. Sunderland, D.D. "An interesting, well writ- 
 ten, reliable book." 
 Journal of Religious Psychology :— A very interesting account. 
 Boston Transcript:— Y try remarkable book. 
 Christian Intelligence: — Fascinating in style and matter. 
 Literary Digest: — More interesting to Americans. 
 Outlook: — It (the Arya Samaj) deserves wide attention. 
 Christian W^or^.-— "Carefully thought out and selected ma- 
 terial" framed "into well-expressed phrases." 
 London Times: — A remarkable book. 
 London Daily News: — An indispensable book. 
 London "India": — A historic book. 
 
 Very favorable reviews given by the (London) Nation, 
 the (London) New Statesman, the Pall Mall Gazette and 
 other English and American papers i n lengthy notices. 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 
 
 IN INDIA A pamphlet, 25 cents. 
 To be had of the author, care of B. W. Huebsch, 225 
 Fifth avenue, New York. 
 
 THE STORY OF MY DEPORTATION 
 
 Second Edition in Course of Preparation