WHAT IS INDIA
ALTHOUGH the mind of the British public is for the moment absorbed with problems nearer home, the question of the future government of India will shortly become urgent. Mr. Montagu is going to India within a few months to discuss political reforms on the spot, and as a preliminary to his mission Mrs. Besant, the leader of the Indian Home Rule movement, has been released from internment. She has already been elected to preside over the National Indian Congress in December, a fact which alone furnishes a proof that this Congress is certainly not national in the European sense of the word. If a real Indian nation existed, it would not have to choose for its leader a foreigner who has passed through almost every phase of religious belief—always with equal dogmatism—and taken part in almost every type of political agitation. It is worth while in passing to note that Mrs. Besant was interned on the authority of a distinguished Liberal, Lord Pentland, the Governor of Madras, for refusing to give an undertaking that she would not continue to carry on a seditious agitation. One feature of that agitation was the enlistment of school- boys in the Madras Presidency to assist in a movement which, whatever the motives of its leaders may be, is in effect, as construed by the young mind, anti-British and deliberately seditious. Proof of this statement is to be found in the adventure of some Punjabi students, who in the earlier days of the war ran away from college to Afghanistan, hoping to get through to Turkey, and in some way co-operate with the German enemies of the British Empire. This, of course, was an act of high treason. These youthful victims of a olitical agitation were finally captured by the Russians and
dad over to the British authorities in India. The Punjab Government have mercifully, and probably wisely, pardoned them ; but the feet that Indian boys can be so led astray is a sufficient argument against permitting any politicians to carry on an agitation amongst schoolboys, at any rate during the war.
When we pass to the broader problem of what is called " Home Rule " for India, the question which ought at once to be asked by every Englishman who wishes to form a sound opinion is : " What is India ? " People who have never been in India cannot easily liberate their minds from the habit of thinking of India as a compact country like France or Italy or Great Britain. Yet it is impossible to set foot for a day in India without realizing the grotesque absurdity of such a comparison. India is not one country, but a multitude of countries. There is no common language, no common religion, no common race. Take, for example, this small point reported as a commonplace piece of news in Indian papers recently to hand—that a controversy is now in progress in the Bombay Presidency about the script to be used in official documents. lu this single province of India .there are already no less than six official scripts—Arabic, Sindhi, Gujerati, Marathi, Kanarese, and English. That is a sufficiently interesting fact. The details of the pending controversy do not concern us. Beyond this language difficulty, which experience has proved to be one of the most insuperable bars to national unity, is the religious difficulty. The main and most patent religious division in India is between Hindus and Mohammedans. This is far deeper and more fundamental than the division between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. The fact that the Moslem League and the National Indian. Congress are in political co-operation is no proof whatever that this funda- mental difference can be ignored, for both these political bodies consist of English-educated Indians, who draw their political views not from India but from Great Britain, or in many cases from Ireland.
But this is only one of the fundamental religious differences in India. Almost equally far-reaching, and in many ways far more cruel, is the distinction between the different castes of Hindus. Until recent years the Brahmins were almost the only vocal element of the Hindu community. They monopo- lized all native learning ; they alone to an appreciable extent had learnt English ; and they filled most of the Government posts. The theological tyranny which they had previously exercised was reinforced by a bureaucratic tyranny. In recent years in Southern India the non-Brahmins have begun to organize themselves. They maintain an evening paper called Justice, serving the ordinary functions of a newspaper, but specially devoted to the interests of the non-Brahmins. It is almost exactly the same size as the Evening Standard. From copies of this paper recently arrived we will make a few extracts which show how the non-Brahmins of Madras regard what is called the Home Rule movement. One writer speaking of Mrs. Besant says :—
" Naturally, she pleads the cause of the Brahmins, and the Brahmins extol her to the skies. What is the meaning of Rome Rule 1 More appointments for Brahmins, more Brahmin collectors and more district judges. An Ulsterman has said ' Horne Rule means Rome Rule.' Here Home Rule means Brahmin Rule " This appeal to Irish conditions has been constant in India, to the personal knowledge of the present writer, for over thirty years, and recently some at any rate of the most active Indian agitators have been drawing inspiration from Sinn Feiners in Dublin. Like most other comparisons between widely sepa- rated countries, it fails in many essentials. The Ulstermen who oppose Home Rule for Ireland are an intellectually active and commercially prosperous minority of the population, whereas the non-Brahmins of Madras who oppose Home Rule for India consist of subordinate castes making up an overwhelming majority of the population of the province. The true analogy would be the position of the Roman Catholics in Ireland in the old days of the Protestant ascendancy. People who have not lived in India have no conception of the social and theological ascendancy which Brahmins wield. A non-Brahmin may not even say Brahmin prayers. Several of the lowest castes are treated as altogether outside the human pale. They are significantly known as the " Untouchables." In native States in Southern India inferior castes some years ago were not even allowed to cross the line of vision of Brahmin officials on their way home from the Courts. A. crier went ahead to clear the, road. Some of the Brahmins themselves are conscious of the intolerable tyranny which they exercise. One of the correspondents of Justice writes :— "I am a Brahmin myself, but I have no hesitation to denounce Brahmins who wish to beguile others, giving a religious colour to their selfish preachings."
Another correspondent of the paper writes, after referring to the " Untouchables," who form a very considerable body of the population :-
" Let us hope that the Government of Great Britain will not he so inconsiderate as to entrust the destiny of the smaller classes, though greater in number, of India to the care of the few Brahmin masters who have for ever been notorious in their history for monopolizing all knowledge of religion, letters, and science for themselves."
A more completely characteristic Indian letter contains the following paragraph :- "Hark ! ye non-Brahmins ! Nestle yourselves together to bring about a unity which shall be the pride of the parental British Raj. May God bless the Union Jack to flutter forth with grace and power from the heights of theHimalayas to the depths of Kanniyalonneri, snatching the trodden ones from the tread, the cruel tread of the miscreant, and give him the Magna Charts of liberty."
The columns of Justice are also thrown open to Mohamme- dans and to Indian Christians. The latter are rather numerous
in the Madras Presidency. " A Mohammedan " writes bitterly attacking the Indian Forest administration since Indian officials were substituted for Englishmen, and complaining that it is impossible for poor people now to obtain justice. An " Indian Christian Brother " writes a long and erudite letter on the history of the Brahmins, pointing out how in the past they were the only learned classes, and thus commanded respect and influence, but " as this sort of thing continued Satan, the embodiment of evil, infused selfishness into the hearts of these learned people, and they began to plan a net- work to secure this felicity not only to themselves, but also to their posterity."
Of the practical aspects of Brahmin supremacy many complaints are made. One correspondent, for example, complains that the municipal franchise is so limited that the municipal bodies are dominated by Brahmins, who focus all their attention " on the sanitation of their own streets, and care little for the non-Brahmin streets." This segregation of Brahmins from non-Brahmins occurs in every shape. For example, special hostels have been established in Trichinopoly by private enterprise for the convenience of non-Brahmins. In Trichinopoly, again, an active controversy is in progress because the entrance to one of the bathing ghats for ladies is strictly prohibited to non-Brahmin ladies, and a constable has been posted to watch the entry : " The Brahmin police sub-inspector supervises him daily." Another correspondent deals with what he calls the stock phrases of Home Rulers, such as " Freedom is our birthright," Home Rule has long been overdue," &c., and after a lone letter, with historical references to Aurungzeb, Timur, " and a host of other tyrants," he comes to the conclusion that all the talk about Home Rule only means that " the Brahmin wants all power in his hands ; he is a special creation of Brahma ; lie has a birthright to lord it over others."
There is now in Madras a definite League called " The South Indian People's Association," championing the cause of non-Brahmins, and Justice is its organ. Nor is it only in Madras that there is a definite propaganda against what is paradoxically called Home Rule for India. Justice contains the report of an important meeting of Rajas and zemindars (landowners) in the United Provinces, who sign their names and " deprecate in the strongest possible terms the demand for self-government for India." They add : " In this period of strain every energy should be directed solely towards bring- ing about a successful termination of the war. Finally, both as a sample of the somewhat highfalutin language in which Indians habitually write and of the spirit of the non-Brahmin movement in Madras, we quote the following extract from a letter by " A amina Graduate "
Such being the domineering spirit and arrogance of the Home Ruler, it is really inconceivable as to how he can administer even- handed justice between man and man of different sects and views, when the administration of the country is entrusted to him under the Home Rule Parliament. That the Almighty Creator may avert the catastrophe of the destinies of the toiling and voiceless millions being handed over by the benign British Government to the tender mercies of such reckless saviours of India is the fervent prayer of the undersigned."
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