Great Britain and India
" Leave India To Her Fate ! "
The purpose of this page is to ventilate that moderate Indian opinion which, recognizing all the difficulties, yet believes in the continued association of Great Britain and India within the loose framework of the British Commonwealth of nations. We hope to include contributions from leading figures of the various sections of responsible opinion, Hindu,
Moslem and the Indian States.
[The Rt. Honble. V. S. Srinivasa Sastri, P.C., C.H., who has consented to write the first article of this series, has had many years of close association with the Government of India. First as Agent for that Government in South Africa, then through his tour of the British Dominions to maintain contact with Indians overseas, he has had special opportunities for examining the basis of the British-Indian connexion. What he writes is of peculiar significance at a time when the argument from the Army in India is being used as a pretext for opposition to Indian progress towards self-government.]
" LEAVE India to her fate ! " This seems to many Britishers, both here and in India, to be the only way out of the tangle. Some days ago it found expression even in the columns of so well-informed a paper as the Manchester Guardian. One hears it so often in influential quarters that one must take it seriously.
The sentiment may be taken in two ways. On the lips of some it is perhaps 'a threat intended to rally those Indians who seem to hesitate without realizing fully the disaster which a sudden withdrawal of the British would mean. Others contemplate it as the inevitable end of a novel upheaval which puzzles their statesmanship and subtly undermines
their prestige. In so far as it is a threat, it would soon over- reach itself. For it will meet on the other side a strong conviction that the salvation of India is not through British help but against British resistance. No fact in the situation is so prominent as that the present generation of Indians have shed their faith in the high mission of the British people in the Fast. Statesmen here must grasp this truth and another, viz., that the Civil Service in India can no longer hope to come between the intelligentsia and the common people of the land. To cherish either of these illusions is to precipitate the catastrophe.
But whence comes the ill-omened defeatism of so many earnest students of affairs ? Mr. Gandhi's character and his principles and methods of political agitation are out of the range of common experience. The wonted mode of dealing with rebels will not do. World opinion will not tolerate the continued employment of force against a people who demand what is in reality their own and has been, besides, promised over and over again by solemn engagements. And in spite of advocates of violence here and in India it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that the conscience of the British people will not sanction it. It is no good staying on in an atmosphere of ill-will which seems to admit of no cure. Gather up what you can and retreat. Leave India to her fate.
But what will become of her ? What about the trusteeship of civilization and the trusteeship of the dumb, helpless millions of India ? Before withdrawing, much must be done to enable India to defend herself. Acute and complicated problems, of which the real magnitude will appear in the pages of the Simon Commission's Report, must be solved or brought within the reach of solution before the country can be handed over to its proper and natural custodians. A period of transition is, therefore, to be provided for. Take only the question of the country's security. The Indianization of the present Army and the preparation of the citizens for the duty of self-defence are processes which require not only time but skill and delicacy of organization. In spite of urgent and repeated entreaties they have received so far nothing but perfunctory treatment. It would be a gross betrayal, nothing short of an infamy, if Britain were to leave India without liquidating this supreme obligation.
The question is asked, Is it right to expect the British soldier to guard India when her internal administration has passed entirely into Indian hands ? Knowing the mutual dissensions of the various religions and communities in India, would the Parliament of this country allow the sacrifice of British lives at the bidding of Ministers who are not its agents and whom it cannot call to account ? It is true that India at present pays for her army ; but that fact would only reduce the British officer and the British soldier to the status of mercenaries. That is one of the horns of the dilemma. The other horn is the continued maintenance of British control over the policy and the measures of the Government of India even during the period of transition—a course obviously impossible in face of the present posture of Indian nationalism.
Is the first alternative really impossible ? Here appears the direct consequence of Great Britain's neglect in the past. The need of Indianization side by side in the civil and military directions, though pointed out again and again, was not attended to. The British Parliament would be precluded by the equity of the case from putting forward the plea of im- possibility; even if its correctness were not largely negatived by what took place at the time that autonomy was granted to some other dominions. When the actual test comes, it is amazing how people are ready to decline from the exalted region of the moral mission and purpose of the Empire upon its gross material character. When Europeans in India are urged to live up to their own traditions and teach by their example the doctrines of democratic freedom, they turn round impatiently and ask, " Are we here to teach democracy to you ? We are here just to make money and guard our rights." The proposition that a British army has no business where there are no British interests and no British lives to protect may be true in the abstract, though the implications of the Covenant of the League of Nations cast serious doubts upon it. But the long history of the Indo-British connexion and the responsi- bilities, still undischarged, arising from it cannot be kept out of the discussion. If they were, the resplendent story of the Empire would have a lame and impotent conclusion. Perish the thought ! The united wisdom of Great Britain and India, some of us still hope, will find a way out of the present difficulty of better promise to their honour and prosperity and the benefit of the world at large.
V. S. SRINIVASA SASTRI.
[Dr. T. R. Venkatarana Sastri, C.I.E., will write on this page next week.]
A serious and significant presentment of our paramount problem—which is also India's problem—is provided by Sir Albion Banerji's new quarterly, Indian Affairs, of which the second (June) number (Edson, Ltd., 8-9 Essex Street, W.C.2, and W. H. Smith's, 5s.) has now been published. Here Muslims and Hindus meet on a common platform, just as we hope they may meet in the Spectator. The Editorial is a shrewd analysis of the reasons for the present deadlock in India. It echoes the conviction of every Englishman gifted with any imaginative sympathy that, whatever may be praise- worthy or blameworthy in the action of the Government of India itself, Lord Birkenhead's manner of introducing the Simon Commission to India was an initial error of judgment which has made one difficulty follow upon another. Sir Albion Banerji makes the interesting suggestion that in the present impasse H.M. The King should " announce his intention of visiting India to inaugurate a new constitution, and that the British nation, giving up precedent and prestige (our italics) should also aver through the medium of a Royal Proclamation their intention to give internal freedom to India by a treaty safeguarding the interests of the Indian States and minorities . . "
Articles on the Muslim viewpoint are included by Dr. Shafaat Ahmed Khan and A. Yussuf Ali. Mr. Hy. S. L. Polak writes on Indians overseas, and Dr. Sen Gupta discourses suggestively on India and the World Peace; The devoted social work of Her Highness Sunity Devee makes her article on "Mother India's Daughters" especially welcome. A survey of current opinion in India together with pregnant sayings from Indian leaders complete a well-edited publication, which deserves attention from all of us who are trying to get at first hand an understanding of the views of our fellow-subjects.
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