14
REFORMS DESIRED.
CANADA AND INDIA
The first Indian National Congress assembled for busi- ness in the Tejpal Samskrit College, Bombay, on Decem- ber 28th, 1885. The deliberations of the congress were formulated in the shape of resolutions demanding from the administration certain concrete reforms. The first resolu- tion was for a Royal Commission to enquire into the work- ing of the Indian administration. The tribute from India was a heavy drain on the Indian taxpayer. They asked for simultaneous examination for the Indian Civil service la India and in England. Another resolution runs: "That this congress considers the reform and expansion of the Supreme and existing Local Legislative Councils by the admission of a considerable proportion of elected members essential, and holds that all budgets should be referred to these Coun cils for consideration, their members being, moreover, em- powered to interpellate the Executive in regard to all branches of the administration." These resolutions were sent to the proper quarters.
The next session of the congress met in Calcutta in Christmas week, 1886, and ever since then they have met every Christmas in nearly all the most important centres of India. The assembly has been presided over by men well-known for their probity and service. The congress movement has drawn to its fold such names as the late Mahadev Govind Ranade, Surendro Nath Banerjea ('the uncrowned King of Bengal"), Krishna Kumar Mitra, Moti- lal Ghosh (editor of the Amrita Bazar Patrika), Bal Gang- adhar Tilak, Dadabhai Naoroji, S. Sabramania Iyer, Pheroz- shah Mehta, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Lala Lajpat Rai, and the late Gopal Krishna Gokhale, founder of the Servants of India Society.
INDIA NOT PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD,
In welcoming the second congress in Calcutta, Dr. Rajindralal Mittra, the famous scholar, said: "We live not under a National Government, but under a foreign bureau- cracy; our foreign rulers are foreigners by birth, religion, language, habits, by everything that divides humanity into different sections. They cannot possibly dive into our hearts, they cannot ascertain our wants, our feelings, our aspirations. They may try their best, and I have no rea son to doubt that many of our Governors have tried hard to ascertain our feelings and our wants; but owing to their peculiar position they have failed to ascertain them."
BITTER POVERTY OF INDIA.
Hon. Dadabhai Naoroji, who later on sat in the Imperial House of Commons, was the president of this session. He laid stress on the bitter poverty of India. Mr. D. E. Wacha, who afterwards became secretary of the congress, said that the condition of the ryots, or peasants, had steadily de- teriorated since 1848, and that forty millions of people had only one meal a day, and not always that. The main cause is the tribute to Great Britain, exported to fructify there, and swell still further the unparalleled wealth of those distant isles, never in any shape to return here to bless the country from whose soil it was wrung, or the people, the sweat of whose brow it represents.
Another delegate spoke of the extortion of the revenue authorities.
INDIA SPEAKS.
Another resolution, and the most important, was moved by Raja Rampal Singh, a well-known public man from North India, appealing to the Government to sanction volunteering. The moral debasement caused by the dis- armament of the whole nation, was and is felt acutely. He said: "We are deeply grateful to the Government for all the good that it has done us, but we cannot be grateful to it when it is, no matter with what best of intentions, doing us a terrible and irreparable injury. We cannot be grateful to it for degrading our natures, for systematically crushing out of us all martial spirit, for converting a race of soldiers and heroes into a timid flock of quill-driving sheep. Thank God, things have not yet gone quite so far as this. There are some of us yet, everywhere, who would be willing to draw sword, and if needful lay down our lives, for hearth and homes, aye, and for the support and main- tenance of that Government to which we owe so much. But this is what we are coming to
and when we
once come to that, then I think that, despite the glories of the Pax Britannica, despite the noble intentions of Great Britain, despite all the good she may have done or tried to do us, the balance will be against her, and India will have to regret rather than rejoice that she has ever had anything to do with England.
"This may be strong language, but it is the truth; no- thing can ever make amends to a nation for the destruction of its national spirit, and of the capacity to defend itself and the soil from which it springs.
"High and low, we are losing all knowledge of the use of arms, and with this that spirit of self-reliance which enables a man to dare, which makes men brave, which makes them worthy of the name of men.
"I might dwell on the fact that in the way the Arms Act is now worked in many localities, the people, their herds, their crops, are wholly at the mercy of the wild
October, 1915
beasts. I might dwell on the insult, the injustice, the viola- tion of the most sacred and solemn pledges by England to India, that are involved in the rules that permit Indian Christians, but do not permit Indian Hindus or Moham- medans to volunteer,” This resolution was carried, and yet 29 years later the Arms Act is still on the Statute Book, and no Hindus or Mohammedans are permitted to defend their hearths and homes. In this connection it is well to remember that although even in France and Russia the native Algerians and Moslem Russians and others can get commissions in the army and command regiments, no native of India can get a commission or ever join a military college in India, paid for and supported by the taxpayers of India. The congress has passed resolutions every year asking that commissions be granted to Indians, but to no purpose.
SELF-GOVERNMENT THE GOAL.
The first and foremost plank in the congress is of course Swaraj, or self-government. Indians are at every step re- minded of being a subject race. They want a Government national in spirit and an administration who will feel that India's interests are its first consideration. India wants to be governed by Indians, who will know the real senti- ments and desires of the people. The government of the people by the people and for the people is the watchword. If Canada for the Canadians holds good, why not India for the Indians! That does not mean hostility to anyone, but it does mean a fedarated India consisting of various autonomous provinces or States, under one whole. When Indians were harshly treated in South Africa and Canada things would have been far different if they had some repre sentatives to look after their interests in those countries.
"No taxation without representation" is the first com- mandment in the Englishman's political Bible; how can he falter with his conscience and tax us here, his free and educated fellow-subjects, as if we were dumb sheep or cattle? But we are not dumb any longer. India has found a voice at last in this great congress, and in it, and through it, we call on England to be true to her traditions, her instincts, and herself, and grant us our rights as free-born British citizens." So said the famous scholar, Pandit Mahan Mohun Malaviya, who long afterwards became one of the founders of the Hindu University of Benares.
Another plank in the platform of the congress is the separation of judicial and executive functions. In India
the police is the handmaiden of the bureaucracy, and very often the prosecutor and the judge are the same person, and not as in advanced countries, where the two offices are separate. The police, even according to the official class, is not exactly what it ought to be. For carrying out impartial justice It is absolutely essential that the two functions be not in the same hand.
SWADESHI AND PROTECTION,
The third great plank is Swadeshi or promotion, of home-made goods. In Canada there is the Made-in-Canada progremme, but not so with India. The authorities looked askance at this. Although Indian Industries are hampered at every step, e.g., there is a countervalling duty of 3% per cent on cotton goods manufactured in India herself. (One wonders if there is any country in the wide world which has this curious anomaly of imposing a tax on her own manufactures, and yet this la so in India.)
German and Austrian goods were dumped on India's shores. German and Austrian ships, fiying the flags of the Central Empires, called regularly at Bombay and other Indian ports, although Indian shipping, which was well- known all over the Orlent in the past, has on account of unfair competition been swept away. Swadeshi demands that home-made goods be given the preference to foreign manufactures, and as the Government of India fa not national, the Nationalists, if they had their day, would have protection for India's infant Industries, and are trying to do the next best thing, which is promoting the industries of India.
COMPULSORY EDUCATION ESSENTIAL.
The congress has, through the efforts of the late Mr. Gokhale, passed a resolution demanding free and complsory education. It seems strange that in a country like India, which has been under British control for over a century, education is not so advanced as in the Philippines, which during the last ten or fifteen years have made wonderful progress under American suzerainty. Even in States like Baroda, which is under an Indian prince, and where there is a purely Indian administration, the system of elementary education has been made free and compulsory both for boys and girls. Why not in India, with all her efficient admin- istration?
The congress has in most of the Provinces a Provincial Committee, holding a conference every year, where the Nationalist sentiment finds expression. The head offices for the All-India National Congress are at Madras, there being two secretaries, Nawab Sayed Mohammed and Mr. Subba Row. G. A. Natesan & Co., of Madras, have published some interesting literature on the congress. They also issue every year a book giving the proceedings of the congress,
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October, 1915
CANADA AND INDIA
INDIAN ASPIRATIONS TO-DAY.
In a pamphlet dealing with India and the war, Mr. Bhupendra Nath Basu, ex-member of the Imperial Legisla tive Council of India and President of the Indian National Congress, held in Madras at Christmas, 1914, writes:
"There is in India a spirit of frank recognition of the benefits of British rule and of its immense potentialities for good, if carried on under the lead of the British demo- cracy and free from the trammels of constant tutelage, which certain Anglo-Indian administrators would like to impose upon it. Several generations in India were born and lived during the reign of Queen Victoria. To her, as their great Queen and Mother, from whom emanated the great charter of their rights and liberties, the Indian people were passionately attached and devoted. This feeling of personal attachment and devotion has been greatly stimu- lated and strengthened by the visits to India of members of the Royal Family. They knew how to say and to do the right thing at the right moment, and by their inbred courtesy and geniality of manner they have helped to soften the atmosphere of aloofness which some British off- cials, under the erroneous sense of dignity and prestige, at times surround themselves.
INDIAN DEMAND FOR EDUCATION.
The visit of the King and Queen, as the visible embodi ment of sovereignty, and the generous and noble utter- ances of the King in his various addresses in India, did much to hearten the people in their faith in the ultimate fulfilment of the great Proclamation of Queen Victoria, for hopes deferred had made them falter. The Indian people justly demand a great extension of education among the masses, for it is the foundation of all progress, and the words of the King in his reply to the address of the Uni- versity of Calcutta have been taken by them as a fresh land- mark in the development of education in India. His Ma- Jesty said: "It is my wish that there may be spread over the land a network of schools and colleges, from which will go forth loyal and manly and useful citizens, able to hold their own in the industries and agriculture and all the vocations in life. And it is my wish, too, that the homes of my Indian subjects may be brightened and their labour sweetened by the spread of knowledge with all that follows in its train, a higher level of thought, of comfort, and of health. It is through education that my wish will be fulfilled, and the cause of education in India will ever be close to my heart."
WANTS CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS.
These are precious words to the Indian people as the declaration by the Sovereign of a policy which must be carried out. Great and far-reaching as have been the bene- fits of British rule in India, it has not yet risen to the full height of the British people in whose name and on whose behalf it is administered, nor of the people, heirs to an ancient civilization, for whose benefit the great Queen asked Divine help to administer her rule. Important ques- tions, such as the right to carry arms, to enlist as volun- teers, to enter the commissioned ranks of the Army, the recognition of equal citizenship in British colonies, the better administration of justice, a more equitable participa- tion in the government of the country, still await solution, and India has necessarily felt at times sore and heart- sick; but there never has been any desire to break away. India has definitely set herself to forge ahead.
WORKING FOR SWARAJ.
She has never doubted. Her heart has been wholly with British rule; the foundations of her faith and loyalty have been too well and firmly lafd to be lightly disturbed; all that she desires is that British rule in India should be compatible with the self-respect of her people, growing in education, knowledge, and experience; that it should develop into a rule by the people as part of the British Empire as was foreseen and foretold by the great states- men who moulded her destinies in the early part of the nineteenth century. And India has been working towards this goal; she realizes it must be a slow and laborious process,
INDIAN NATIONALISM AND THE WAR. Mr. John Matthai. in a recent pamphlet on "Indian Na- tionalism and the War," says: "The effect of the war will for the present be confined to the educated class in India, whose importance however, is not to be measured by their number. It has shown them to be a loyal body, willing to co-operate with the Government. At the same time it will strengthen the spirit of nationalism among them. The primary cause of the hostile element in Indian Nationalism is the extent to which Indians are shut out of the higher offices; to remedy this is the immediate necessity. In the meantime the question of elective Government and the es- tent of its possible application must be carefully weighed and thought out before any large committal is made. Од the positive side, nationalism will be prompted under the
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Influence of the war to devote itself more than before to the condition of the masses. This added sense of social needs will strengthen the desire for security and peace, it will also lead to a deeper cultivation of the ancient spirit- uality of the race.
"If these considerations are at all valid, it may be added that there is nothing in them to alarm or to alienate either people. There is much to give hope and confidence to both. There have been things la the past to hurt and wound. They need not have been. But it seems we have decided to forget the things of the past. In the face of the un- speakable tragedy which is enacted before our eyes, in which men of many nations are mingling their blood for a common cause, we can afford to fix our eyes away from the past across this vale of tears, on the love and hope and abiding peace of the future. There was no black and brown and white in the blood which flowed from Calvary. Nor is there in the warm, precious, human blood which flows over the battle-fields of Europe. All of it is red alike, and every drop of it, without distinction of race, betokens the sob of a broken mother-heart. Therefore, while this great elemental struggle is driving us back to a sense of eternal values, let us put back-all of us, both those who won and those who lost, those who laughed and those who wept-let us put back the things that divide and hold fast to the things that bind,"
DR. BOSE AT CALCUTTA.
Dr. Jagdish Chandra Bose, D.Sc., C.S.I., C.I.E., the famous Hindu scientist, has arrived in India after his travels in Europe, America, Japan, and the Far East. The other day an address of welcome was presented to him at Madura, and recently a reception in his honour was held at the Ram Mohan Library at Calcutta.
Inspired by his visits to the ancient universities of India at Taxila, at Nalanda, and at Conjeevram, Dr. Bose had the strongest confidence that India would soon see a revival of those glorious traditions. There will soon rise a Temple of Learning where the teacher, a real sanyasin, would go on with his ceaseless pursuit after truth, and, dying, hand on his work and enthusiasm to his disciples.
ECONOMIC DANGER IN INDIA.
Dr. Bose referred especially to the economic danger in India, and the revival of Indian industries cannot be too highly appreciated. That is the question in India to-day. The tocsin of alarm raised by him ought to go straight Into the hearts of both the people and the Government. If India is to be saved from the disastrous effects of the in- creasing poverty, her commerce and industry must be revived. And this is her opportunity now that the great war has driven Germany from her markets.
But what do we find? Instead of that, Japan has cap- tured all our Industrial markets. Dr. Bose assures us that she has made gigantic preparations for that purpose. Within a few decades she has even surpassed her past master Germany in developing her manufactures and shipping. One of the methods employed by her, Dr. Bose tells us, is to practically exclude all foreign manufactured articles from her soll by prohibitive tariffs, The coast-wise and foreign shipping of India is in alien bands. Japan is more and more encroaching upon this preserve.
PROTECTION THE RIGHT POLICT.
Why should not the Government of India follow Japan in this respect? It is free trade which has ruined India commercially. It is free trade which is really at the bot- tom of the economic state, forcing a Sikh from North India to seek his fortune in lands where he is unwelcome. If protective duties had been imposed upon imported articles, India would have long ago become one of the great manufacturing countries of the world, and to which she is rightly entitled, producing as she does such a large variety of raw materials. Germany and Austria would have never made a footing in our markets if free trade principles had not been allowed to rule supreme in India. Java has killed our sugar industry completely. When &
small countervailing duty on foreign sugar was levied in India such a howl was raised against it by the advocates of free trade in England that it had to be given up.
HINDU MINISTER OF EDUCATION. When Sir Sankaram Nair joins the Viceroy's Executive Connell this month, the Departments of Education, Local Government, and Sanitation will, for the first time in the history of British India, pass under Indian control. The significance of the event cannot be exaggerated. It is in these three directions that progress is especially demanded at the present moment; and the order in which we have placed the departments exactly represents their respective importance. Not only is the spread of education abso- lutely necessary to the establishment of a genuine system of local government and to the due understanding of the principles of sanitary science. The very continuance of the British connection depends largely upon the same factor.-India,
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