The Indian Tragedy
WE have endeavoured since the beginning of the year to emphasize the need for Englishmen to acquire—or to try to acquire—a new mental outlook on India. The two countries are now reaping the conse- quences of the basic psychological conflict to which far too little attention is paid by the champions on either side. It is no comedy that we have here, but an unut- terable tragedy, for is that not the essence of the tragic, when high principle is pitted against high principle, sincere conviction against equally sincere conviction, and a logical course of action is entirely misunderstood or misrepresented because of essentially divergent premises ?
The strength of Mr. Gandhi does not lie, as so many Englishmen believe, in his own hypnotic personality.
To arrest or not to arrest him is merely a question of expediency which we can safely leave in the hands of the Viceroy. But Mr. Gandhi is a supreme symbol of the relentless 'urge for unimpeded self-expression which is the strength and force of awakened India. Self-determina- tion, we so often forget, is a spiritual principle, not merely the political twin of democracy. This, which is true of the 'West, is still more true of the East, especially of a country like India, which can point to a proud and ancient civilization.
Wherever Judo-British relations are discussed, you find among Indians to-day, at the best, an exasperated sense of loyalty, and at the worst; a" grievance complex," both of them springing from an attitude of mind which is well-nigh unintelligible to the ordinary Englishman. The Englishman, consciously or unconsciously, is always a pragmatist. He is thinking all the time in terms of government, of practical politics, in the highest sense of the term. Having conceded the principle that the goal Of Indian development is to be Dominion Status, he cannot understand that responsible Indian leaders should not be content with such a growing measure of self-government as seems to him compatible with India's good—trans- lated, especially by distinguished former British officials in India, to mean good and efficient government. He is honest1S, convinced that for this country to hasten the process foreshadowed in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report would be to plunge India into a state of anarchy: And the peaceful, order-loving Englishman cannot conceive any state worse than that. Nevertheless, to silence any lingering doubts in his mind, he gives rein to his puritanical sense of duty, and talks by and large of "our responsibility to the dumb masses of India" whom, he avers, the Indian Nationalists are woefully leading astray. Finally, the Englishman inherits a fetish-like respect for Parliament which makes him say, in season and out of season, that Parliament alone can decide India's destiny.
Now, this is said generally by those who start from the assumption that the Montagu-Chelmsford Report did no more than prescribe an experimental period of ten years, during which certain " reforms " (in the direction of responsible Government) were to be tried out. On this assumption, too, the same persons looked upon the Simon Commission as the only body that could be properly constituted (i.e., under Parliament), to examine -the whole situation, to see how the reforms were working, and what modifications might be necessary to meet new circumstances. The Indians, almost without exception, start on the assumption that the British Government in 1917 gave a pledge that India should, as soon as a practical scheme of government could be worked out to the satis- faction of both parties, attain the status of a Dominion. They have seen- that status defined and illustrated in the ease of Canada, Australia, South Africa, toe., by the Imperial Conference of 1926 (the British Government did not wait until they could be considered ready for self- government), and they demand that the British Govern- ment shall live up to its professions.
The present Government gave evidence of good inten- tion by its decision to arrange a Round Table Conference following upon publication of the Report of the Statutory Commission. It -is obvious, however, that Indian sus- picion of British policy has not been allayed. Nor, indeed, has comment in this country during the last few months encouraged those of us who realize the urgent. need for disarming Indian suspicion. We would refer our readers to a telling statement of the present issue in the second number of the Political Quarterly. One of the conditions of co-operation was what Mr. Gandhi calls "a change of heart " in the British Government, to be signalized, in 'fact, by the Round Table Conference being called to formulate a constitution on a Dominion status basis. Did not Mr. Wedgwood Benn, in the House of Commons On December 18th, refer to the "free and voluntary association of a great self-respecting nation in partner- ship with the British Commonwealth for the promotion of the good of the world " ? Mr. Gandhi and his friends, remembering no doubt that at Party Conferences the establishment of the Indian constitution on a permanent 'basis was accepted as the policy of a future Labour Government, expected that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's Government would act up to its promises, blithely ignoring the 'fact that it is now a minority Gov- ernment. And then, Lord Irwin, in his speech at Devali, fearful of the storm at home, insisted on the "undoubted right" of the British Parliament to take the ultimate decision. The moment was ill-chosen for a reinforcement of that very British mental outlook which seems to the Indians a permanent obstacle to their aspirations. - Nevertheless, we consider that as soon as the Simon Report is published, the Secretary of State for India should make it clear beyond a peradventure that the purpose of the Round Table Conference is to establish the constitution of India on a permanent basis, and that British representatives are proposing to discuss with Indian representatives the ways- and means of fulfilling the Government's pledge. By so doing we shall disarm the bulk of the opposition in India.
Half the discussions about Indian questions are unreal simply because of the psychological inhibition which we have tried to indicate. It is our con- viction that when once Englishmen have come to realize the necessity for bridging the psychological gulf—and Indians on their side, too,—there will be in all parties a sufficient number of men of good will and faith to sup- port an act of statesmanship comparable to that of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman's Government with regard to South Africa. In this question, as in all international political questions, the only positive factors are co-opera- tion and confidence. For all their mysticism and senti- ment, Indians are not blind to the practical difficulties of moving towards self-government. They have learnt from General Smuts himself the lesson that there is an essential difference between equality of status and equality of function. What they insist upon—and this is the essence of the Nationalist cause in any country—is that India's right to self-determination (i.e., unimpeded self- expression) be recognized, the right to "go to the- devil in their own way." We can safely rely on their enlisting British governing experience to lead them rather towards the 'earthlyparadise which is the stuff of their dreams,
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