l'HE PEACE OF 1NDIA.—L S INCE the cataclysm of the great
Mutiny, which for a time threatened the collapse of British Rule, Indian affairs have received far too little consideration in this country. We have not sufficiently regarded, or sought to meet, the growing needs of the people of India as the leaven of Western thought slowly worked among them, creating a new consciousness and new aspirations. And now, in the throes of a life-and-death struggle against a gigantic Rad long-prepared German conspiracy to destroy our Empire as the necessary first step to world dominion, we have failed to mark the gathering forces which imperil the future of India.
The opportunities which our intense preoccupation offered have been turned to full account by the least scrupulous of Indian poli- ticians, and by showing lamentable weakness we have played into their hands. Indian soldiers under British leading have fought gallantly in every theatre of war. The Indian Princes and Chiefs have given lavishly in men and treasure to the Imperial cause, and loyal Indians of every degree have generously supported war work by contributions or personal service. At a time when India is exceptionally prosperous, and when at home measures of all kinds were held in abeyance, it would have been easy to proclaim that no consideration could be given to the demands of the little band of Indian agitators until the end of the wax. Instead, the Secretary of State quitted his post to perambulate the country, to receive endless deputations and memorials, and to attempt in a few weeks to master the intensely complex problems of India. The natural result has been to stimulate a most insidious agitation, to alarm and discourage the stable portion of the population, and to spread unrest broadcast throughout the land. The incautious and irre- sponsible utterances of the Secretary of State before he accepted office have been carefully treasured and expanded so as to entangle him in the meshes of intrigue. He is now assumed to be com- mitted to drastic changes of some kind, and, as it is obviously impossible to accept the revolutionary proposals formulated by amateur constitution-mongers seeking ends of their own, a situation fraught- with grave danger to the interests of India has been gratuitously created.
Throughout the period of the war there have been ominous symptoms, which have escaped public notice. The grealest plot since the Mutiny has been discovered. Imparts of Bengal lawless- ness has prevailed, and robbery with murder has been frequent. Last year an organized attack by Hindus upon inoffensive Moham- medan villagers in Bihar was accompanied by shameful outrages over an area of three thousand square miles and required military force for its suppression. Disaffection has shown itself in several Mohammedan regiments. In San Francisco and elsewhere measures for promoting a general rising in India have been concerted with German assistance. Such warnings may not be ignored, and there has never been a time when strong government was more needed.
Meanwhile the political party has devoted its energies to under- mining British authority by a propaganda of reckless mendacity, and industrial troubles have been diligently fomented. The National Indian Congress, which in the early days addressed itself under good guidance to questions of social reform, quickly became a purely political organization aiming at power for a little group of Brahmins, lawyers, and journalists. The proceedings of a violent wing, which advocated assassination with success in language scarcely veiled, led to a rift in the ranks culminating in a free fight at Surat in 1908, when both parties invoked the intervention of British police. Subsequently the Moderates controlled the Con- gress and the extremists pursued their objects independently. It was the great achievement of Mrs. Besant to bring back the ex- tremists into the fold, and they have since dominated its councils in alliance with the so-called All-India Moslem League, which represents a small coterie of " advanced " Mohammedans. This lady had undergone a most remarkable change of opinions following certain law proceedings at Madras, which caused her to be repudiated by some American theosophists. A few years earlier she had announced her convictions as to the kind of government suited to India in words which may well be recalled,:- " An absolute monarch surrounded by well-informed counsellors directly responsible to him, not to the people . . . such was the Hindu ideal. It is one obviously adapted to present conditions, and it can be made to appeal to the heart of the people, as never can appeal an exotic system aiming at popular constitutional government and delegates alien from all their habits and in antagonism to all their past."
She clinched the matter by pointing out that while "a certain number of Western-educated youths had begun to talk of liberty and equality,of the value of agitations to obtain reforms, of the rights of man, of self-government and so on . . . a Hindu, educated according to has Shastras, could never be a rebel, nor even an agitator."
Flinging her previous beliefs to the winds, Mrs. Besant placed herself at the head of rebels and agitators, striving to outvie them in violence of language and in impracticable demands. The Viceroy, addressing a deputation of the so-called Press Association of India on March 5th, 1917, quoted from her paper New India and stated that
" excitable young men animated, and not unnaturally, by the same ideals which the writer ascribes to the assassins . . . arc practically told that the assassins are piirsuing the same ideals as themselves with singular courage and disregard of self, and that such criminals should not be punished but convinced of the folly of their ways."
Id the pages of New India, Mrs. Besant revelled in vilification of her countrymen, and in attributing to British Rade the conversion of India from a " perfect paradise " to the " perfect hell " that followed the golden age of five thousand years of prosperity and
happiness which her historical studies had revealed. She could— after the trials at Madras—no longer pose as a religious teacher, and henceforth she exerted her whole energies and expended her eloquence upon extremist agitation and organization of a peculiarly dangerous kind. By allowing herself to become the tool of the most disloyal men in India, who will dispense with her when she has done their work, she was able alike to give a certain cachet to the Home Rule movement, to encourage its most reactionary tendencies, and to attract the sympathies of persons at home who are totally ignorant of the essential conditions of India, and also of facts well known in theosophical circles in America.
While the Government of India, by graceful concessions to clamour, was seeking to diffuse an " atmosphere " favourable to the visit of the Secretary of State, the agitation advanced by leaps and bounds. Sane and sober Indian opinion was everywhere alienated, and intimidation in the many forms that the Indian social system renders available became rampant. The Moderates either got them to their tents, or—according to Eastern habit— joined the ranks of the party which seemed to be in the ascendant The situation with which Government will have to deal when the Secretary of State returns is not unlike, but infinitely more serious than, that which has been permitted to take form in Ireland. At least three hundred millions of Indians have not the remotest idea of what Home Rule means ; but no effort has been spared by the agitators to spread far and wide the impression that some- thing is impending which will diffuse prosperity throughout India. By such means, the revolt of the Mandi with all the slaughter it entailed was brought about, and the annals of the East contain many similar warnings. While the leaders of the political party claim self-government within the Empire, the complete overthrow of British Rule is designed in some quarters, with the assistance of conspiracies in many parts of the world backed from Berlin. At home a subsidized paper has long been occupied in attempts to mislead public opinion, and deputations of extremists started to come to England to assist the process, but have wisely been stopped by the Home Government. Already, at the Nottingham Conference, a resolution sent from Hull in favour of Home Rule for India was passed in a few seconds without even a show of hands or a word of explanation. There is nothing that the British workers, if they knew the truth, would so bitterly oppose as the handing over of the helpless masses of India to a little oligarchy controlled by the classes which have been their cruel oppressors for centuries and which represent everything that Labour professes to detest. The incident would be ludicrous if it did not illustrate the perils of ignorance. Only British Rule stands between the oppressed masses of India and the hereditary foes of their liberties and advancement. Much still remains to be done in the direction of teaching them to use the rights of citizenship, and among the Indian politicians who glibly use the catchwords of democracy in order to hoodwink the British people at home are men who have consistently obstructed measures for the benefit of the Indian working classes and have visibly retarded the progress of India.
Such are in brief the conditions with which we are now faced, and upon the decisions which must be taken before long the whole future of India will depend. The organized revolutionary forces have been able to obtain a long start, and to exercise an influence which might well seem far beyond the powers of a little body of wirepullers wholly unrepresentative of the vital interests of India. Other forces have, however, begun to come into play which may yet avert disaster if the British people, upon whom tremendous responsibilities rest, have ears to hear. SYDENIled.
(To be concluded.)
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