India
Good Will in India
BY DURGA DAS.
[The writer is a well-known Indian publicist, holding a detached, non-political position as Editor of the Associated Press of India at New Delhi.] As I was travelling through the Continent my first contact with Englishmen from England was in a train from Vienna to Dresden. Two enterprising seed merchants, one from Ormslcirk and another from Poulton-le-Fylde, talked frankly of what they had been taught to believe of India. In a couple of hours they said, "You have thrown a different light," and ended by inviting me to visit them. The next contact was with an English couple in a train from Harwich to London, and after an hour's talk one of them said : "I had a lot of prejudice against Gandhi, but I see the problem now." And he, a parish councillor at Oxted, also ended by extending me a welcome to visit his parish. These were genuine gestures of good will which touched me much. I do not claim that they were converted to a different view ; that was not my aim ; but they have understood the problem so that when they cast their vote for any solution in future they will do it with full knowledge of the background.
In London the thinking about India is too much on con- stitutional lines—on the mechanical aspect of safeguards— and in this respect all the three political parties seem more or less to agree in essentials. The Friends of India's Freedom League, who address meetings at Hyde Park, however sincere, hardly improve matters by trying to show how England will not suffer materially by granting political freedom to India. But the line the Spectator took recently is so fundamentally correct, and the need for its propagation so great, that I do not hesitate to join the lists and state why good will is the sole anchor for future relationship between India and England, and why this is the psychological hour either to win or lose it.
India to-day is economically down, commercially disturbed, Indian government financially ruined, Indian social ties weakened and her political machine entirely shaken. There is in India to-day universal loss of faith in the existing system of government, though there still remains universal respect for British character. But when faith is lost in a ruling class it does not take long to lose faith in the character of the individuals who constitute it. Again, to-day, behind all the cry for independence there is fundamental belief in the ideal of a commonwealth, but six months' constitutional wrangle might mean a different story. And why ?
In her basic life, India of to-day is not different from India of ages ago, because the philosophy of her thought—the philosophy of a never-ending life—is her real inspiration. Her social institutions may alter, her political power may change hands, but not the spiritual background of her life : that you are reaping the reward of your action of yesterday and that to-day is to influence your life of to-morrow. With this philosophic background India has lived for centuries under a system which is socialist in its conception of family life, communist in its application to village life, trade unionist in relation to social divisions, and fascist in its con- ception of political and national life. Do you now wonder why so many "isms" that to-day infect the West do not bother her, and that her 500,000 self-contained villages give her a guarantee against chaos which few countries can claim ? As I travelled through Europe I felt very strikingly that while in the material aspect of life there was unity in European States there was no unity of culture or of thought. On the other hand, below the bewildering diversities of the outward life of India, her customs, her modes of living and her lan- guages, there is unity of thought, culture and ideal in that vast country. I say this only to bring out the point that when you consider the problem of India in its political aspect you must remember the Indian background. For the purpose of the present article I must rule out any explanation of the family organization, village life and social divisions, and will confine myself to the Indian conception of political power in its application to daily life.
India, through the centuries, has never been worried with the outward form of government. Her people believe that the
intellectuals must rule the world from whatever class or area they come, and whatever sanction they create behind them, and that the best test of a government is whether it permits a free life to enable social and economic factors to be directed to the advantage of the community, and whether it promotes the development of science and art. That is why for hundreds of years Muslim rule was tolerated, because it gave peace and order and led to national advancement. When it did not, it collapsed. The conquest of India by foreigners has always been the conquest of the towns, but a rule lasted just to the extent to which it secured and kept the good will of the people of India, the people who live in the villages. This has been the basis of British rule hitherto ; you cannot substitute another. And why ?
The people of India-350 millions—live mostly in their 500,000 villages, and these villages being self-contained, government to them means peace, communications and justice. But the ultimate judgement on a rule is passed by the capacity of the people to sell their produce better, to buy their needs cheaper, and to possess the necessary credit to raise their crops. Is there any wonder that the British rule for the first century became a byword as God's best blessing ? The first builders of the Empire believed that material pros- perity of India must be promoted for mutual benefit, but their successors thought too much in terms of rule, of administra- tion, and gave up the leadership of the nation to become their policemen.
Again, is it any wonder that in a world where American cotton prices and Australian wheat quotations affect the remotest village in India, where Indian wheat produced by the cheapest labour in the world is undersold by wheat pro- duced by a much costlier labour thousands of miles away : is it any wonder that government should lose allegiance for its machine ? The prices of land produce in India to-day are those that prevailed in the days of our great-grandfathers, and, what is more fatal, the circle of credit has been destroyed. All through the ages, Indian villages have had a most stable system of credit. The villager always kept his savings in silver coin or silver ornament, and used them for raising credit. This saving amounted roughly to GOO million pounds' worth of silver. What has happened now ? For the first time in India's history silver has become a commodity with fluctuating price, and the Indian producer gets only a third for his produce, and, further, his savings have depreciated to less than half their original value, and he can raise only a third of his credit, while the cost of other necessities of life, which he must buy, remains correspondingly high. This has at a stroke changed his allegiance from the existing system of government, and he is sitting in a meditative mood enquiring : "I cannot have this government, but is my misfortune due to having the British in India ? " He has not yet found an answer. Here is a psychological hour. He will not wait too long, and when he has found the answer none can change it till another revolution takes place.
This is the deadly issue. If, therefore, Britain throws herself, here and now, heart and soul into the joint task of re- building Indian India with Indian inspiration, Indian outlook and Indian interest, she gets such a wave of good will as an eastern country alone is capable of yielding. But you cannot secure that good will by appealing to our national magnanimity in the abstract. It is always expressed through a national hero—a leader, a spokesman. Do you now wonder why Mr. Wedgwood Benn and Lord Irwin, disregarding the advice of trained administrators, made a direct approach to Gandhi in search for this good will ? They merely stopped the onrush of disaffection, but the embankment they built can hardly stand the pressure much longer.
But if Britain fails it will be the failure of the West to befriend the East ; but live the East will, for it is less perishable than the West. India wants British friendship in a partner- ship. Will it come about ? Yes, if there is good will.
Previous page
