The Problem of India
Must England Lose India ? By Lieutenant-Colonel Osburn, D.S.O. (Alfred A. Knopf. 7s. 6d.)
Loyal India, a Survey of Seventy Years. By Percy H. Dumbell. (Constable. 12s.)
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL OSBURN worked, he tells us, as a
doctor in India, and he has added another book to those now appearing on the Indian situation. But his view of the facts is too partial and passionate for his book to bring much illumina- tion for the problems before us. In India he came across cases in which Englishmen treated Indians with gross rudeness and contempt, and such things now fill the whole field of his vision. All that other Englishmen have done for India in conscientious service, or in self-sacrificing devotion is effaced for him. He can see nothing in British rule but brutal bully- ing. One would gather from his book that it is the usual thing for the English in India to thrash their servants. No one would guess how risky the existing law actually makes it for any Englishman who wishes to thrash his servants to do so. Colonel Osborn has also been much stirred by Miss
Mayo's book. Just as he can see little but evil on the English side, he can see little but good on the Indian side. Even for the custom of temple prostitution, of which the
better _ spirits among Indians themselves are thoroughly ashamed, and which they are labouring honourably to suppress, Colonel Osborn has words of palliation. If, how- ever, it is true that Miss Mayo gave a misleading picture because she put together only the evil things in India and left out the good, Colonel Osborn commits the opposite mistake. He expresses himself with emphasis and confidence on the religious question raised by attempts to spread the Christian faith in India, although his observations do not indicate that he has ever given any systematic study to the documents of the Christian religion or the history of religions
generally. He talks very often of" odium theologium " (sic) no, it is not a misprint ; it comes over and over, again.
But behind: the-- misconclocf" of the British in India
Colonel Osburn_ sees something- more extensive which excites his hatred; and that the_ nglishPuhlic _School.
Here is the source of evil. It must be admitted in this case again that bullying does sometimes occur at Public Schools, and that the Public School spirit, while it fosters certain virtues, is liable to exclude others. But just as the incidental evils - in 'British rule fill Colonel Osburn's vision when he looks at India, so the incidental evils in their mode of life fill his vision when he looks at English Public Schools. His caricature in this case is so extravagant that for those English. readers who know what Public Schools actually are it may be useful, as warning them what value is to be attached to his picture of British rule in India.
In the end he comes out with his practical proposals for dealing with the Indian problem, and after all he has said about the British in India they seem extraordinarily tame— Englishmen before proceeding to India should be obliged to pass an examination in Indian History and religion ; it should be impressed upon them by Army Orders and Govern- ment instructions that they should be more amiable, and so on. The proposal, indeed, that taxation should be reduced and, at the same time, a much larger sum devoted to the services of Health and Education, seems to show a deficient appreciation of the practical difficulties of a Budget. But if British action in India has been, as a whole, what Colonel Osburn represents, how can he have the face to make proposals for continuing British control ? How can he let his book have such a title as Must England Lose India? He ought to be crying out for the connexion of England and India to cease. His proposals show no real understanding of the problem as it is to-day. It is not any incidental evils of British rule which make educated Indians demand swami or "Dominion status " ; it is foreign rule in itself which they want to get rid of. Many Indians take a much more favourable view than Colonel Osburn does of the conduct of the English in India, and would yet find his proposals utterly inadequate. The problem would still be there if all the English in India showed the maximum of amiability and could pass the stiffest examinations in Hinduism and Mohammedanism with flying colours. No doubt the rude or brutal conduct of a certain number of individual Englishmen, though only a minority, has done immense harm, and if Colonel Osborn had written a book likely to check such conduct in the future, he would have done a great service. Unfortunately, this book is not likely to have that effect. The distortion of its picture will make those whom it is most important to impress re- pudiate it altogether : carefully qualified and temperate state- ment is in this case far more powerful than violent statement. On the other hand, it is desirable that Indian readers should have their attention drawn to other things than the unhappy incidents which, as it is, probably occupy too large a part of their consciousness. If the book has an effect at all, it can hardly be any other than that of further envenoming a con- troversy already sufficiently inflamed.
We pass to a strangely different atmosphere in Mr. Percy Dumbell's Loyal India. The book does not require a long notice, since it contains no new observations or proposals, hut is a collection of documents, or extracts from documents, bearing on India, from Queen Victoria's Proclamation in 1858 to Lord Irwin's statement in 1927. It has obviously been a labour of love for someone whose work has brought him into close association with Englishmen like Lord Morley, who saw the relation of England and India in the light of a great ideal. By " loyal " India Mr. Dumbell no doubt means the body of Indians who desire the connexion with England to continue, and it is well to be reminded that such an India has existed in the past and has not altogether ceased to exist even to-day.
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