India From Four Angles
India : The New Phase. By Sir Stanley Reed and P. R. Cadell. (Philip Allen. 3s. (id.) Living India. By Savel Zimand. (Longmaru3.)
IF literary output is an index to our interest in Indian affairs, they have never lain so near our hearts as they do to-day. Before the War, one readable book on India would have been an event in the publisher's year ; now we have a dozen in a month. Here is a bunch of four, picked almost hap- hazard from the groaning shelves, of which two are worth reading and two are eminently readable. The palm must unhesitatingly be given to Mr. Garratt's Commentary. Read with discrimination, it is one of the most enlightening of all the recent contributions to the Indian problem. With Mr. Garratt's conclusions, and with several of his verdicts, many will quarrel : and he has a bias towards detachment, which sometimes carries him too far, as, for example, in a semi-apology for inefficiency and graft. But his descriptive work is admirable. With first-hand knowledge and a fresh vision he throws new light on a number of hoary problems —the practical influence of caste, the real issues between Hindu and Moslem, the inwardness of Nationalism, the needs of the humble and the discontent of the rich. He illuminates the whole path towards the present impasse, and points with relentless finger to our own share in the responsibility for it. Our policy in India has been nothing but drift and tinkering. Had dyarchy been offered ten years earlier, it might have solved our problem : had the declaration of 1917 been only two years sooner, many of the calamities that followed might have been averted.
-The little volume which Sir Stanley Reed and Mr. Cadell have written for the Westminster Library of political hand- books is also valuable. It sets out the present situation with precision and sympathy.. Self-government, it admits, must be pursued ; but the 1919 Constitution has not been active in the chase, for " from the moment of its birth it was so rudely battered by forces outside the Act itself, that the miracle is not that it limps, but that any form of constitu- tional government survives." The ten years which Sir John Simon is now reviewing have produced no healthy party system,_but only a clash of personalities : they have evoked no responsibility of the legislature to the electorate : there has been a decline in administrative vigour, and an increase in corruption. Social reform, however, is moving, and communal discord is no worse, though more obvious, than it has been for centuries. India's greatest danger is a " sudden incursion into highly protected industry, with a neglect of agriculture, which would inevitably induce a decline of productive power and a rise in the cost of living which would be fatal to both industries."
Fresh from cudgelling Miss Mayo, Mr. Iyer turns in appeal " to the broad, deep heart of' England, to her courageous statesmen, not to cheese-paring bargainers, pinchbeck Empire- builders and political underlings." The appeal fills a stout volume, crammed with lengthy quotations, and not always conciliatory in tone. The writer chuckles over the dishing of the Moderates : he hints darkly at the terrible course which the Extremists mean to tread while they " await the next war, to strike the fatal blow " : and he describes his Moslem compatriots as a backward community who, if given special representation, " Will only deteriorate and demoralize the administration, make it incompetent and corrupt, dishonest and inefficient as in the days of Muslim misrule." We know at least-where we are with Mr. Iyer. The same cannot be said of Mi. Ziriland. He has worked at statistics and blue books with much industry, though he confuses polyandry with polygamy and writes-is if the permanent settlement in Bengal extended to -the Whole of India. But he draws his conclusions ready- made from Nationalist sources, and shows no critical faculty.
He never gets below the surface of things his history is commonplace, -his purple patches and even his photographs are commonplace. We 'may hope that the citizens of the U.S.A. will find a more informative guide to the Indian situation than Mr. Zimand offers them. In all these studies of Indian affairs, the chief interest at -the moment Ha in the suggestions they make for the future. Mr. Iyer, of course, slams down the entire Nationalist demand —immediate Dominion status for India, autonomy for the provinces, an indigenous army and navy, and no communal privileges. Nothing short of all this will abate agitation, says Mr. Iyer, or check racial estrangement. To Mr. Garratt, naturally enough, the solution is not so simple. To begin with, he would abolish communal electorates, and compensate by dividing up the present provinces into smaller and more homogeneous administrative units where the communal trouble would be less acute. He would then give universal suffrage, a curious proposal in view of his powerful description of the farcical working of the present restricted electorate. In the provinces he would hand over everything except the police and a sort of prefectoral system to Ministers. In the Central Government, for the present, the Army, the handling of the Princes and the general surveillance of the Provinces would be left under British control : all other departments being subordinate to a legislature composed of delegates from the provincial Governments and the States. As to the existing evils, social and economic, Mr. Garratt is sketchily optimistic : they would correct themselves in time if India is only left free to tackle them. Sir Stanley Reed takes a firmer stand on several of those points. He would sweep away the " sham democracy " of the present electorates, and have graded electoral colleges with the village as the ultimate unit. Before more drastic political changes are accepted, a wide programme of education, military training, social reform and economic advance should be declared : and a strong British element must be maintained, at least in the Central Govern- ment. On the composition and functions of the provincial Governments, Sir Stanley and his collaborator are reticent.
When even among those who are most anxious to advise honestly there is such immeasurable divergence of views, where can the Simon Commission find wisdom ? And who will penetrate, through the smoke-screen of Mr. Iyer's philippics, to the real mind and needs of the Indian people ? Never, surely, has the British nation been set so bewildering
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