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THE CASE FOR INDIA

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Casefor
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WILL DURANT
I N D IA
The Story of Philosophy (1926)
Transition (1927)
The Mansions of Philosophy (1929)
Philosophy and the Social Problem WILL DURANT
(1916 and 1927) ~

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1930

Simon and Schuster, New York


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To

JOHN HAYNES HOLMES

and

JABEZ T. SUNDERLAND,

The Bravest Friends of India in America.

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


OOPYRIGHT, 1930, BY WILL DURANT
PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SOHU8TER, INO.
386 FOURTH AVE., NEW YORK
PRINTED AND BOUND IN U. S. A. BY HADDON CRAFTS-
HEN, INC., CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE
" A NOTE TO THE READER. . .,.'. ',' . . . .. Dc

OHAPTERI
FOR INDIA
I. Personal ..'....................... 1
II. A Perspective of India. . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
III. The Rape of a Continent. .......... 7
IV. The Caste System in India. . . . . . . . . . 17
v. Economic Destruction. ............. 31
VI.SocialDestruction ........ 44
VII.TheTriumphof Death'C".. . . . . . . . . 50

CHAPTER II

GANDHI
I. Portrait 57
II. Preparation , 63
III. Revolutionby Peace. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 69
IV. Christ Meets John Bull. . . . . . . . . . . . 79:
v. The Religion of Gandhi, . . . . . . . . . .. 84
VI. Gandhi's Social Philosophy. .. .. .. .. 95
VII. Criticism 104
VIII. An Estimate .,.~ 115
vii

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Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE
CHAPTER III
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A NOTE TO THE READER
THE REVOLUTION u

I. Origins 119 I' I went to India to help myself visualize a people


II. A Stroke of Politics. . . . . . . . . . . . ... 123 ~ whose cultural history I hail been studying for
III. A Whiffof Grapeshot .. . . ".'. . . . . . .. 131 The Story of Civilization. I did not expect to be
IV. The Revoltof 1921 .. . . H . . . . . . . . .. 136 attracted by the Hindus, or that I should be swept
v. BetweenRevolutions.. . . .. . . . . . . . .. 141
into a passionate interest in Indian politics. I
VI.The SimonCommission... . . . . . . ... 144 ~

merely hoped to add a little to my material, to look


VII. 1930 , .149 .
H with my own eyes upon certain works of art, and
then to return to my historical studies, forgetting
CHAPTER

THE CASE FOR ENGLAND


IV
I this contemporary world.
~ But I saw such things in India as maile me feel
I. England Speaks 163 that study and writing were frivolous things in the
1. The Nietzschean Defense. . . . . . .. 163 presence of a people-one-fifth of the human race
2. British Contributions to India. . .. 167
-suffering poverty and oppression bitterer than .
3. The Key to the White Man's Power. 176 ~ any to be found elsewhere on the earth. I was hor-
II. India Answers , 179
rified. I had not thought it possible that any gov-
1. Morals in India 179
I ernment could allow its subj,ects to sink to such
2. The Decay of Caste 186 \II '.
11 mtSery.
3. Greek Gifts "",""",""-"'" 190
I came away resolved to study living India as
CONCLUSION well as the India with the brilliant past; to learn
more of this unique Revolution that fought with
WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE 203
~ suffering accepted but never returned,' to reail the
NOTES .~ ' ~ 212
Gandhi of today as well as the Buddha of long ago.
ix
I
x .A. NOTE TOT HER E .A.D E R

And the more I read the more I was filled with


astonishment and indignation at the apparently
CH.A.PTER ONE
conscious and deliberate bleeding of India by Eng-
land throughout a hundred and fifty years. I began FOR INDIA
to feel that I had come upon the greatest crime in
all history. - I. Personal
And so I ask the reader's permission to abandon
for a while my researches into the past, so that I I wish to speak, in this chapter, with
may stand up and say my word for India. I know unaccustomed partiality and passion. I am poorly
how weak words are in the face of guns and blood; qualified to write of India: I have merely crossed
how irrelevant mere truth and decency appear be- it twice between east and west, and once from
side the might of empires and gold. But if even north to south, and seen hardly a dozen of its
'"
one Hindu, fighting for freedom far off there on cities. And though I have prepared myself with
the other, side of the globe, shall hear this call of
the careful study of a hundred volumes, this has
mine and be a trifle comforted, then these months all the more convinced me that my knowledge is
of work on this little book will seem sweet to me. trifling and fragmentary in the face of a civiliza-
For I know of nothing in the world that I would tion five thousand years old, endlessly rich in
rather do today than to be of help to India. philosophy, literature, religion and art, and in-
WILL DURANT finitely appealing in its ruined grandeur and its
October 1, 1930. weaponless struggle for liberty. 1£ I write at all it
Note. This book has been written without the knowledge or is not only because I feel deeply about India, but
co-operation, in any form, of any Hindu, or of any person because life cannot wait till knowledge is com-
acting for India.
plete. One must speak out, and take sides before
the fight is over.
I have seen a great people starving to death be-
fore my eyes, and I am convinced that this exhaus-
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2 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 3

tion and starvation are due not, as their bene- Britain officially declared: "We believe that the
ficiaries claim, to overpopulation and superstition, time has come when our brothers in all parts of
but to the most sordid and criminal exploitation of India are capable (not will be some time but are
one nation by another in all recorded history. I ;:! now) of controlling their own affairs equally along
propose to show that England has year by year with South Airica and other British Dominions;
been bleeding India to the point of death, and that and we hereby pledge ourselves to assist in every
sel£-government of India by the Hindus could not, way possible to bring about this much desired
within any reasonable probability, have worse re- reform.,,2
sults than the present form of alien domination. I I have the honor to agree with the British Gov-
shall limit mysel£ in this chapter to presenting the ernment; I argue only for Home Rule. I speak not
case for India, knowing that the case against her as an American only, but as a member of the
has been stated all too well in what may be long family of the English-speaking peoples; I rest my
remembered as the unfairest book ever written.l* case above all on the evidence of Englishmen; I
Nevertheless, lest I should merely repeat and re- write, I think, in harmony with the fine traditions
verse that crime, I shall in a later chapter outline of English liberalism from Burke and Sheridan
the case for England in India as strongly as I can. and Fox to Bertrand Russell, Ramsay MacDonald,
. In the London Daily Herald of October 17, and Bernard Shaw. I like and honor Englisllmen,
1927, Ramsay MacDonald, now Prime Minister but I am not fond of the British; the English are
of England, declared that further so-called the best gentlemen on earth, the British are the
"tutelage" of India for sel£-rule was useless; she worst of all imperialists. The English gave the
should have self-government at once. He affirmed world liberty, and the British are destroying it. I
that India was already fit for self-government, and confess that I am prejudiced in favor of liberty.
that the only training she required was that of her
own experience in liberty. Shortly before its re- II. A Perspective of India
cent coming to power, the Labor Party of Great Let us remember, first, that India is not a little
.. Reference notes will be found beginning on page 212. island, nor a continent sparsely inhabited by

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4 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 5
Darn have revealed a civilization 3500 B.C. with
savages, but a vast territory containing 320,000,-
000 souls-three times as many as in the United great cities and industries, comfortable homes, and
States, more than in North and South America luxuries ranging from bathrooms to statuary and
combined, more than in all Europe, west of Rus- ~ jewelry; "all betokening a social condition. . .
sia, combined; all in all, one-fifth of the world's superior to that prevailing in contemporary Baby-
population. Let us remember, further, that in the lonia and Egypt.77SWhen Alexander the Great in-
northern and more important half of India the vaded India in 326 B.C., his historian, Megas-
people are predominantly of the same race as the thenes, recorded his amazement at finding on the
Greeks, the Romans, and ourselves-i.e., "Indo- Indus a people quite as civilized and artistic as
Europeans" or "Aryans"; that though their skin the Greeks, who were then at the height of their
curve.'
has been browned by the tireless sun, their fea-
tures resemble ours, and are in general more reg- At no time in history has India been without
ular and refined than those of the average civilization: from the days of Buddha, in the fifth
European; that India was the mother-land of our century, who is to the East what Christ is to the
race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's lan- West; through the time when Asoka, the most hu-
guages; that she was the mother of our philosophy, mane of emperors, preached the gentle creed of
mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathe- Buddha from pillars and monuments everywhere;
matics, mother, through Buddha, of the ideals em- down to the sixteenth century, when culture,
bodied in Christianity, mother, through the village wealth and art flourished at Vijayanagar in the
community, of self-government and democracy. south, and a still higher culture, and still greater
Mother India is in many ways the mother of wealth and art, flourished under Akbar in the
us all.* north. It was to reach this India of fabulous riches
that Columbus sailed the seas. The civilization
Let us remember, also, in order that we may see
the problem in perspective, the age and variety of that was destroyed by British guns had lasted for
India's civilization. Recent excavations at Mohenjo a fifteen centuries, producing saints from Buddha
* The first volume of the author's Story of OiviZization to Ramakrishna and Gandhi; philosophy from
will substantiate this in detail.
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6 THE CASE FOR INDIA
FOR INDIA 7
hand should be ruined like Rheims. Who then
the Vedas to Schopenhauer and Bergson, Thoreau
and Keyserling, who take their lead and acknowl- were the civilized ~ The British conquest of India
edge their derivation from India (India, says
was the invasion and destruction of a high civiliza-
tion by a trading company utterly without scruple
Keyserling, "has produced the profoundest meta-
physics that we know of"; and he speaks of "the
or principle, careless of art and greedy of gain,
aosolute superiority of India over the West in overrunning with fire and sword a country tem-
porarily disordered and helpless, bribing and mur-
philosophy"5); poetry from the Mahabharata,
containing the Bhagavad-Gita, "perhaps the most dering, annexing and stealing, and beginning that
beautiful work of the literature of the world",a career of illegal and "legal" plunder which has
down to Sarojini N aidu, greatest of living women now gone on ruthlessly for one hundred and
seventy-three years, and goes on at this moment
poets, and Rabindranath Tagore, who, writing a
local dialect in a subject land, has made himself
while in our secure comfort we write and read.
the most famous poet of our time. And how shall
we rank a civilization that created the unique and III. The Rape of a Continent
gigantic temples of Ellora, Madura and Angkor,
and the perfect artistry of Delhi, Agra and the When the British came, India was politically
Taj Mahal-that indescribable lyric in stone ~ weak, and economically prosperous. The Mogul
This, evidently, was not a minor civilization, dynasty, which had so stimulated art, science and
literature in India, came to the u.sual fate of
produced by an inferior people. It ranks with the
highest civilizations of history, and some, like
monarchies in 1658, when Shah J ehan, builder of
Keyserling, would place it at the head and summit
the Taj Mahal, was succeeded by his fanatical son,
of all. When, in 1803, the invading British be- Aurangzeb. For almost fifty years this Puritanic
sieged the Fort at Agra, and their cannon struck
emperor misgoverned India; when he died his
near the beautiful Khass Mahal, or Hall of Pri- realm fell to pieces, and petty princes set up their
vate Audience, the Hindus surrendered at once, rule in numlJ.erlessdivided and "sovereign" states.
lest one of the most perfect creations of the human It was a simple matter for a group of English bue-

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;'8 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA ~


caneers, armed with the latest European artillery business men, great bankers and financiers.
Not only was she the greatest ship-building
and morals, to defeat the bows and arrows, the nation, but she had great commerce and trade
elephants and primitive musketry of the rajahs, by land and sea which extended to all known
and bring one Hindu province after another un- civilized countries. Such was the India which
the British found when they came.7
der the control of the British East India Company.
Those who have seen the unspeakable poverty It was this wealth that the East India Company
and physiological weakness of the Hindus to-day proposed to appropriate. Already in 1686 its
will hardly believe that it was the wealth of eight- Directors declared their intention to "establish
eenth century India which attracted the commer- . . . a large, well-grounded, sure English domin-
cial pirates of England and France. "This ion in India for all time to come."s The company
wealth," says Sunderland, rented from the Hindu authorities trading posts
was created by the Hindus' vast and varied at Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, and fortified
industries. Nearly every kind of manufacture theJ;D.,without permission of the authorities, with
or product known to the civilized world- troops and cannon. In 1756 the Rajah of Bengal,
nearly every kind of creation of Man's brain
and hand, existing anywhere, and prized resenting this invasion, attacked the English Fort
either for its utility or beauty-had long, long aWilliam, captured it, and crowded one hundred
been produced in India. India was a far and forty-six English prisoners into the "Black
greater industrial and manufacturing nation
than any in Europe or than any other in Hole" of Calcutta, from which only twenty-three
Asia. Her textile goods-the fine products of emerged alive the next morning. A year later
her looms, in cotton, wool, linen and silk- Robert Clive defeated the Bengal forces at
were famous over the civilized world; so were
her exquisite jewelry and her precious stones Plassey with the loss of only twenty-two British
cut in every lovely form; so were her pottery, killed, and thereupon declared his Company the
porcelains, ceramics of every kind, quality, owner of the richest province in India. He added
color and beautiful shape; so were her :fine
works in metal-iron, steel, silver and gold. III further territory by forging and violating treaties,
She had great architecture-equal in beauty by playing one native prince against another, and
to any in the world. She had great engineer-
ing works. She had great merchants, great by generous bribes given and received. Four mil-
10 THE CASE FOR INDIA
FOR INDIA 11
lion dollars were sent down the river to Calcutta
and hanged Hindus for forging documents.14
in one shipment. He accepted "presents" amount-
Clive had set up Mir J afar as ruler of Bengal for
ing to $1,170,000 from Hindu rulers dependent
$6,192,875; Clive's successors deposed him and
upon his favor and his guns; pocketed from them,
set up :1Iir Kasim on payment of $1,001,345;
in addition, an annual tribute of $140,000; took
three years later they restored Mir J afar for
to opium, was investigated and exonerated by Par-
$2,500,825; two years later they replaced him
liament, and killed himself. "When I think," he
with Najim-ud-Daula for $1,151,780.15 They
said, "of the marvelous riches of that country, and
taxed the provinces under the Company so ex-
the comparatively small part which I took away,
orbitantly that two-thirds of the population fled ;16
I am astonished at my own moderation."9 Such
defaulters were confined in cages, and exposed to
were the morals of the men who proposed to rbring
the burning sun; fathers sold their children to
civilization to India.
meet the rising rates. It was usual to demand 50%
His successors in the management of the Com-
of the net produce of the land. "Every effort, law-
pany now began a century of unmitigated rape on
ful and unlawful," says a Bombay Administration.
the resources of India. They profiteered without
report, written by Englishmen, "was made to get
hindrance: goods which they sold in' England for
II ~he utmost out of the wretched peasantry, who
$10,000,000 they bought for $2,000,000 in In-
were subjected to torture, in some instances cruel
dia.lO They engaged, corporately and individually,
and revolting beyond all description, if they
in inland trade, and by refusing to pay the tolls
would not or could not yield what was de-
exacted of Hindu traders, acquired a lucrative
manded.11l7 Warren Hastings exacted contribu-
monopoly,u The Company paid such fabulous divi-
tions as high as a quarter of a million dollars from
dends that its stock rose to $32,000 a shareP Its
native princes to the treasury of the Company;
agents deposed and set up Hindu rulers according
he accepted bribes to exact no more, exacted more,
to bribes refused or received; in ten years they
and annexed the states that could not pay;18 he
took in, through such presents, $30,000,000.13
allowed his agents to use torture in extorting con-
They forged documents as circumstances required,
tributions ;19 he helped the N awab of Oudh to rob
FOR I N D I A 13
12 THE CASE FOR. INDIA
the captured and plundered territories as a colony
his mother and grandmother in order to pay the
of the Crown; a little island took over half a
Company $5,000,000 ;20he occupied the province
continent. England paid the Company handsomely,
of Oudh with his army, captured it, and then sold
and added the purchase price to the public debt of
it to a prince for $2,500,000; he "lent" a British
India, to be redeemed, principal and interest
army to a Hindu rajah for $2,000,000, and made
(originally at 10% %), out of the taxes put upon
no complaint when it was used to slaughter and
the Hindu people.24 All the debts on the Com-
be slaughtered for savage purposes.21 "Everybody
pany's books, together with the accrued interest on
and everything," says the Oxford History of In-
these debts, were added to the public obligations
dia, "was on sale."22And Macaulay writes:
of India, to be redeemed out of the taxes put upon
During the five years which followed the
departure of Clive from Bengal, the misgov- the Hindu people. Exploitation was dressed now
ernment of the English was carried to such a in all the forms of Law-i.e. the rules laid down
point as seemed incompatible with the ex- by the victors for the vanquished. Hypocrisy was
istence of society. . . . The servants of the
Company. . . forced the natives to buy dear added to brutality, while the robbery went on.
and to sell cheap. . . . Enormous fortunes The British conquest brought certain advan-
were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, ~ages to India. In 1829, Lord William Bentinck
II
while thirty millions of human beings were
reduced to the extremity of wretchedness. decreed the abolition of suttee-the immolation
They had been accustomed to live under of widows with their dead husbands-and ac-
tyranny, but never under tyranny like this. knowledged handsomely the aid given him by na-
. . . Under their old masters they had at
least one resource: when the evil became in- tive reform organizations. The Portuguese had
supportable, the people rose and pulled down abolished the custom in their Indian possessions
the government. But the English Government t.
was not to be so shaken off. That Government, three hundred and nine years before.211 Men like
oppressive as the most oppressive form of Bentinck, Munro, Elphinstone and Macaulay car-
barbarian despotism, was strong with all the ried into the administration of India something of
strength of civilization.23
the generous liberalism which for a time controlled
By 1858 the crimes of the Company so smelled
England in 1832. The English put an end to the
to heaven that the British Government took over

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14 THE CASE FOB. INDIA FOR INDIA 15
t hundred and eleven wars in India, using for the
Thugs-an organized caste of robbers-and com-
pleted the abolition of slavery. They built railways most part Indian troops ;28millions of Hindus shed
for commercial and military purposes, introduced I their blood that India might be slave. The cost
factories, and promoted the growth of the popula- I1] of these wars for the conquest of India was met
" to the last penny out of Indian taxes; the Eng-
tion. They established a small number of schools,
brought the science and technology of the West to lish congratulated themselves on conquering India
India, gave to the East the democratic ideals of, without spending a cent.29 Certainly it was a re-
modern Europe, and pla~Ted an important part, markable, if not a magnanimous, achievement, to
through their scholars, in revealing to the world r steal in forty years a quarter of a million. square
the cultural wealth of India's past. miles, and make the victims pay every penny of
The price of these benefactions was consider- the expense.30 When at last in 1857 the exhausted
able. It included, to begin with, the expropriation Hindus resisted, they were suppressed with
of state after state from the native rulers by war "medieval ferocity" ;31 a favorite way of dealing
or bribery, or the simple decree of Lord Dal- with captured rebels was to blow them to bits from
housie that whenever a Hindu prince died with- the mouths of cannon.32 "We took," said the Lon-
out leaving a direct heir, his territory should pass don Spectator, "at least 100,000 Indian lives in
to the British; in Dalhousie's administration alone the mutiny.,,33 This is what the English call the
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eight states were absorbed in this peaceful way. Sepoy Mutiny, and what the Hindus call the War
Province after province was taken over by offer- of Independence. There is much in a name.
ing its ruler a choice between a pension and war.26 Let Englishmen describe the result. A report to
In the seventh decade of the nineteenth century I the House of Commons by one of its investigating
England added 4000 square miles to her Indian committees in 1804 stated: "It must give pain to
territory; in the eighth decade, 15,000 square an Englishman to think that since the accession
miles; .in the ninth, 90,000; in the tenth, 133,- of the Company the condition of the people of
000.27 John Morley estimated that during the . India has been worse than before."34 In 1826 the
nineteenth century alone England carried on one English Bishop Heber wrote: "The peasantry in
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16 THE CASE FOR. INDIA
FOR. INDIA 17
the Company's provinces are, on the whole, worse how greatly we have raised the revenue above
off, poorer, and more dispirited, than the subjects that which the native rulers were able to ex-
tort. The Indians have been excluded from
of the Native Princes. . . . I met with very few
every honor, dignity or office which the lowest
men who will not, in confidence, own their belief Englishman could be prevailed upon to
that the people are overtaxed, and that the country accept.5S
is in a gradual state of impoverishment."55 James Such was the method of the British acquisition
Mill, historian of India, wrote: "Under their de-
of India; this is the origin of the British claim to
pendence upon the British Government. . . the rule India today. And now, leaving the past, we
people of Oudh and Karnatic, two of the noblest shall examine the present, and show, point after
provinces of India, were, by misgovernment,
point, how English rule is at this very moment,
plunged into a state of wretchednes~ with which
with all its modest improvements, destroying
. . . hardly any part of the earth has anythin~ to Hindu civilization, and the Hindu people.
compare.m6 "I conscientiously believe," said Lt.-
Col. Briggs in 1830, "that under no Government
whatever, Hindu or Mohammedan, professing to IV. The Gaste System in India
be actuated by law, was any system so suppressive
The present caste system in India consists of
of the prosperity of the people at large as that four classes: the real Brahmans-i.e., the British
which has marked our administration.m1 F.J.
bureaucracy; the real Kshatryas-i.e., the British
Shore, British administrator in Bengal, testified
army; the real Vaisyas-i.e., the British traders;
as follows to the House of Commons in 1857:
and the real Sudras and Untouchables-i.e., the
The fundamental principle of the English Hindu people. Consider first the bureaucracy.
has been to make the whole Indian nation
subservient, in ev~ry possible way, to the in- Here even the irate lover of liberty will concede
terests and benefits of themselves. They have some measure of decency and progress since the
been taxed to the utmost limit; every succes-
Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919. One-fourth
sive province, as it has fallen into our pos-
session, has been made a field for higher ,r of India's population still remains under native
exaction; and it has always been our boast princes, who are free, with their councils, to gov-
FOR INDIA 19
18 THE CAS E FOR I N D I A
lower house or Assembly of one hundred and
ern their states in any manner satisfactory to the
forty-four members, thirty-one of them appointed
British Resident appointed to safeguard the inter-
by the Government, one hundred and four elected
ests of the Empire. Some of these native states,
by a franchise so restricted by property qualifica-
Mysore and Baroda in particular, have admirable
tiop.s that only One person out of two hundred and
constitutions, and are advancing more rapidly in
fifty is allowed to vote. The upper house, or
education and freedom than the British provinces
Council of State, has sixty members, twenty-seven
of India. Each of the latter has a legislature; 7°%
appointed by the Government, thirty-three elected
of the members are elected by a property-limited
by a still more restricted franchise. The voters vote
franchise, 25 to 30% are officials or nominees of
not as citizens of India, but as members of a given
the British Government. Above each legislature is
social or religious group; the Hindus are per-
a double ministry, or "dyarchy": an Executive
mitted to elect a specified number of Hindus, the
Council appointed by and responsible only to the
Moslems a number of Moslems, the Europeans a
British authorities, administering law and order
number of Europeans. The allotment of repre-
and the taxation of the land; and a lIEnisterial
sentatives is out of all proportion to population.
Council chosen by the Provincial Governor from
This, if we may believe the British, was required
the leaders of the legislature, responsible to the
to meet the fears of the Moslem minority, who
legislature, and managing "transferred" and harm-
number some 22 % of the population; in effect,
less subjects like education, excise, health, etc.
however, it intensifies and encourages the racial
At the head of each province is a governor ap-
and religious divisions which statesmanship would
pointed by the British Crown, responsible not to
seek to heal.
the legislature but to the Viceroy and the British
Above this central legislature, and acknowl-
Parliament, empowered to nullify any law passed
edging no responsibility to it/o stand the Viceroy
by the legislature, or to pass any law or tax re-
and his Executive Council, appointed by the
fused by the legislature, whenever it may seem to
him desirable.39 Crown. The Viceroy has,. and has repeatedly used,
the power to veto, even over a unanimous vote of
The central legislature, meeting at Delhi, has a
20 THE C.A S E FOR I N D I A.
FOR INDIA 21
the legislature, any bill which he considers detri- to one-fifth o£ the produce.44In many cases in the
mental to British interests; he has, and has often
past this land tax has amounted to hal£ the gross
used, the power to enact laws rejected by the produce, in some cases to more than the entire
legislature, and to collect taxes or make expendi- gross produce; in general it is two to three times
tures refused by it.41 The Simon Report recom- as high as under pre-English rule,45 The Govern-
mends the continuance o£ these powers. On many ment has the exclusive right to manufacture salt,
subjects the legislature is not permitted to vote; and adds to its sale-price a tax amounting to one-
on some it is not permitted to speak.42"Expendi- half a cent per pound. When we remember that
tures on defense, and in the political and eccle- the average annual income in India is only $33,
siastical departments, . . . and certain salaries
and recall the judgment of a missionary paper,
and pensions, need not be voted."48 Subject to the The Indian Witness, that "it is safe to assume that
British Parliament the Viceroy is omnipotent. 100,000,000 o£ the population o£ India have an
He is not omniscient. He is a political appointee, annual income o£ not more than $5.00 a head,"46
chosen for his executive ability as manager o£ a we begin to understand how oppressive even these
concern demanding high dividends out o£ poQr taxes may be, and how much they share in respon-
rolling stock. He is seldom selected for his knowl- . Ribility for the ill-health and emaciation o£ the
edge o£ India; sympathy with it would disqualify Hindus.
him, as it disqualified Lord Ripon. A£ter five A member o£ parliament, Cathcart Wilson,
years o£ service the Viceroy acquires some knowl- says: "The percentage o£ taxes in India, as re-
edge o£the people and the country, and is replaced. lated to the gross produce, is more than that o£
With a government responsible to England, not any other country."47 Until recently the rate was
to India, it is natural that the power o£ taxation twice as high as in England, three times'as high
should be freely used. Though before the coming as in Scotland. Herbert Spencer protested against
o£ the English the land was private property, the "the pitiless taxation which wrings from the poor
Government made itsel£ the sole owner o£ the soil
Indian ryots nearly half the product o£ their
and charged for it a land tax or rental now equal soil.,,48 Another Englishman, the late H. Y.
22 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 23

Hyndman, after detailing the proof that taxation at Delhi, needlessly. alien in style to the architec-
in India was far heavier than in any other coun- ture of India; for seven months of every year it
try, though its population is poorer, entitled his transfers the Capital, with all its machinery and
book The Bankruptcy of India. Sir William personnel, to vacation resorts in the mountains, at
Hunter, former member of the Viceroy's Council; an expense of millions of dollars; and from time
said in 1875: "The Government assessment does to time it holds gorgeous Durbars, to impress the
not leave enough food to the cultivator to support people who provide tens of millions for the cere-
mony." It pays to be free.
himself and his family throughout the year."'> Mr.
Thorburn, one-time Financial Commissioner of the The result is that the national debt of India,
which was $35,000,000 in 1792, rose to $105,000,-
Punjab, said that "the whole revenue of the
000 in 1805; to $150,000,000 in 1829; to $215,-
Punjab. . . is practically drawn from the pro-
000,000 in 1845; to $275,000,000 in 1850; to
ducing masses."'. Since the enactment of the in-
$350,000,000 in 1858; to $500,000,000 in 1860;
come tax this is no longer true.
to $1,000,000,000 in 1901; to $1,535,000,000 in
I asked the guide at Trichinopoly how the peo-
1913, and to $3,500,000,000 in 1929.02 Let these
ple of India had found, three or four hundred figures tell the tale.
years ago, the money to build the vast temples
there and at Madura and Tanjore. He answered The second caste in India is the British army.
that the rajahs had been able to build these edifices The Indian forces number some 204,000 men;"
despite the fact that they had taxed the people 60,000 of them are British," including all officers;
much less severely than the English were doing. 1,874 are aviators55-the last resort of despotism.
Against this terrible blood-letting the Hindus have There are only a few Hindu officers, and no Hindu
no redress; their legislatures are impotent. And in is allowed in the air force or the artillery, but 70%
the midst of the heart-breaking poverty engendered of the common soldiery are natives. The Hindus
partly by this taxation, the Gove=ent treats it- are reputed by the British to be incapable of
self, at staggering cost, to gigantic officialbuildings self-defense, but no British Government has been
r
24 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 25
willing to believe this to the extent of allowing 64% of the total revenue of India was devoted
Hindus to learn the art of incorporated murder.
to this army of fratricides: Hindus compelled to
The expense of maintaining this army, whose func- kill Hindus in Burma until Burma consented to
tion is the continual subjection of India by bul-
come under British rule; Hindus compelled to
lets, shells and air-bombs, is borne by the Indian defend on the fields of Flanders the Empire which
people. In 1926 its cost was $200,735,660-a tax in every year, as will appear later, was starving
of 3 % on the scanty earnings of every man~ ten million Hindus to death. No other army in
woman and child in the land.
the world consumes so large a proportion of the
Wherever the Indian army sheds its (mostly na- public revenues. In 1926 the Viceroy announced
tive) blood, in Afghanistan or Burma or Mesopo- the intention of the Government to build a "Royal
tamia or France (for the government is free to Indian Navy"; the proposal added that this navy
send it anywhere), the expense is met not by th~ should be 'used wherever in the Empire the British
Empire which it enlarges or defends, but by In- Parliament tp.ight care to send it, and that the
dian revenues alone. When England had to send entIre cost of the navy should be met from the
British troops to India in 1857 it charged India revenues of India.58 It pays to be free.
with the cost not only of transporting them, main-
taining them in India, and bringing them back Under these British castes toil the real Pariahs
home, but with their maintenance in Great or Untouchables of India-the Hindu people. In
Britain for six months before they sailed.56Dur- 1833 the British Parliament decreed that "no na-
ing the nineteenth century India paid $450,000,- tive of our Indian Empire shall, by reason of his
000 for wars fought for England outside of India color, his descent, or his religion, be incapable of
with Indian troops. She contributed $500,000,000 holding office.moIn 1858 Queen Victoria, in an
to the War chest of the Allies, $700,000,000 in official proclamation, announced it as her "will
subscriptions to War loans, 800,000 soldiers, and that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever
400,000 laborers to defend the British Empire out- race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted
side of India during the Great War. 57 In 1922 to officesin our service, the duties of which they
26 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR I N D I A 2r
may be qualified, by their education, ability, and lishmen must be doubly paid to bear the heat of
India.
integrity, duly to discharge."6o
Nevertheless the actual policy of the British in Liberals like Elphinstone and Munro, Bentinck
India has been one of political exclusion and and Macaulay, Wingate and Ripon protested in
social scorn. Every year the Indian colleges gradu- vain against this refusal of function to the edu-
ate 12,000 students; every year hundreds of cated intelligence of India, this "decapitation of
Hindus graduate from universities in Europe or~, an entire people," as Lajpat Rai called it.65 "It is
America, .and return to their native land. But the commonest thing," says an American mission-
only the lowest places in the civil service are open ary, "to see Indian scholars and officials, of con-
to them. Not more than four per cent. of positions fessedly high ability, of very fine training, and
bringing over $4,000 per year are held by Hin- of long experience, serving under young English-
dus ;61 these berths are reserved for the British. men who .in England would not be thought fit to
Some of the invaders are capable executives, well fill a government or a business position above the
second or even third class."66 "Eminent Hindu
worth their high salaries; but most of them are
poorly rated by their countrymen. Lord Asquith physicians and surgeons," says Ramanandra Chat-
declared in 1909 that if high places were given to jerjee, "are compelled to spend the best years of
Hindus half as unfit as the Englishmen who then their lives in subordinate positions as 'assistant'
. occupied them in India it would be regarded as surgeons, while raw and callow youths lord it ove!'
a public scanda1.62 Sir Louis Mallet, formerly -
them and draw four t~ five times their pay."6T Sir
Under-Secretary of State for India, and Ramsay Thomas Munro, British Governor of Madras,
MacDonald, who studied India at first hand, ex- said, almost a century ago: "Under the sway. of
pressed similar opinions.6s Dr. V. A. Rutherford, every Mohammedan conqueror the natives of In-
M.P., says: "For every post held in India by Eng- dia have been admitted to all the highest dig-
lishmen, it would be quite safe to say that there nities of the State; it is only under the British
are five or ten Indians well qualified to discharge Government that they have been excluded from
its duties, and at less than half the cost."64 Eng- this advantage, and held in a condition, even when
28 THE CASE FQR. INDIA FOR. INDIA 29
employed in a public department, little superior setting up against them every aristocratic social
to that of menial servants.,,68"Since I am writing distinction, by treating them in every way as an
confidentially," said Lord Lytton, Viceroy of In- inferior race. Kohn describes this arrogance as
dia, in 1878, "I do not hesitate to say that both "known to no other colonizing nation."71 Sunder-
the Government of England and of India appear land reports that the British treat the Hindus as
to me, up to the present moment, unable to 'an- strangers and foreigners in India, in a manner
swer satisfactorily the charge of having~'taken Hquite as unsympathetic, harsh and abusive as
every means in their power of breaking to the was ever seen among the Georgia and Louisiana
heart the words of promise they have uttered to planters in the old days of American slavery"; and
the ear.,,69 he tells of several cases in which British soldiers
The final element in the real caste system of forcibly ejected from railway compartments edu-
India is the social treatment of the Hindus by cated Brahmins and courtly rajahs who had
the British. The latter may be genial Englishmen ,tickets for this space.72Savel Zimand corroborates
when they arrive, gentlemen famous as lovers of f him: "Many 'of the distinctions drawn against In-
fair play; but they are soon turned, by the exam- dians are like those made against the negroes in
ple of their leaders and the poison of irresponsible our south-minus lynching. I could fill a volume
power, into the most arrogant and overbearing with such instances."78 Sir Henry Cotton, long a
bureaucracy on earth. "Nothing can be more high British official in India;~declares that the
striking," said a report to Parliament, in 1830, government there is as complete a bureaucracy as
"than the scorn with which the people have been Russia's under the Czar; that it is as autocratic
practically treated at the hands of even those who in its methods, as reactionary in its spirit, as de-
were actuated by the most benevolent motives.mo termined as ever the Russian aristocracy was to
The English in India act as if they felt (as doubt- keep all power and advantage in its hands.74-1
less they do) that their superior position can be must add that I did not myself observe any im-
best maintained by asserting it at every step, by portant instances of this snobbishness, except in
avoiding participation in the life of the people, by the forgivable exclusion of the Hindus from Eng-
30 THE CASE FOR INDIA .F0R INDItA 31
reduced India to pauperism and emasculation. We
lish clubs. My critics will remind me of the nar-
rowness and brevity of my experience.
t have lost self-confidence.1177
The result is a pitiful crushing of the Hindu The British cha~e the Hindu with lack of man-
spirit, a stifling of its pride and growth, a stunting r liness; but it is the British who have driven it out
of genius that once flourished in every city of the of him by the accident of superior guns and the
land. Have we felt that the Hindu character is c
policy of merciless rule. If there is rebellion in
degraded, that it lacks virility and initiative ~ But India to-day let every true Briton be glad; for it
means that India is not quite dead, that the spirit
what people could have retained these qualities
under such ruthless alien rule ~ "Subjection to a of liberty is risen again, and that the Hindu can
~ be a man after all.
foreign yoke," says Professor Ross, "is one of the
most potent causes of the decay of nations."75 Said
Charles Francis Adams before the American His- V. Economic Destruction
torical Association in 1901: "There is not an in- i
The economic c~ndition of India is the in-
stance in all recorded history. . . where a
evitable corollary of its political exploitation.
so-called inferior race or community has been ele-
Even the casual traveler perceives the decay of
vated in its character, or made self-sustaining, or
,I' agriculture ,,"which absorbs 85% of the people),
self-governing, or even put on the way to that re- n and the destitution of the peasant. He sees the
sult through a condition of dependency or tutelage.
Hindu ryot in the rice-fields, wading almost naked
I might, without much danger, assert that the in the mud of a foreign tyrant's land; his loin-cloth
II
condition of dependency, even for communities of is all the finery that he has. In 1915 the Statistical
~
the same race and blood, always exercises an emas-
Department of Bengal, the most prosperous of
culating and deteriorating influence. I would un- India's provinces, calculated the average wage of
dertake, if called upon, to show that this rule is the able-bodied agricultural laborer to be $3.60
invariable.117a "The foreign system under which per month.78 His hut is of branches often open at
~
India is governed to-day," says Gandhi, "has ~ the sides, and loosely roofed with straw; or it is a
n
~r
~I
32 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 33

square of dried mud adorned with a cot of dried wage, and then their health breaks down. More
mud, and covered with mud and sticks and leaves. than half the factories
I use their employees fifty-
The entire house and furnishings of a family of four hours a week. The average wage of the fac-
six, including all their clothing, are worth $10.79 tory workers is sixty to seventy cents a day;
The peasant cannot afford newspapers or books, though allowance must be made for the inferior
entertainment, tobacco, or drink. Almost half~his skill and strength of the Hindu as compared with
earnings go to the Government; and if he cannot the European or American laborer long trained
pay the tax, his holding, which may have been in in the ways of machines. In Bombay, in 1922, de-
his family for centuries, is confiscated by the spite the factory acts of that year, the average
State. wage of the cotton workers was 33 cents. In that
If he is fortunate he escapes from the overtaxed same year the profit of the owners of those mills
land and takes refuge in the cities. Provided there was 125%. This was an "off-year";in better years,
are not too many other applicants, he may get the owners said, the profits were 200%. The work-
work in Delhi, the capital of India, carrying away man's home is like his wage; usually it consists of
the white master's excrement; sanitary facilities one room, shared by the family with various ani-
are unnecessary when slaves are cheap. Or he can mals; Zimand found one room with thirty ten-
go to the factory, and become, if he is very lucky, ants.81 Such is the industrial revolution that a
one of the 1,409,000 "hands" of India. He will British government has allowed to develop under
find difficulty in getting a place, for 33 % of the its control, despite the example of enlightened
factory workers are women, and 8 % are chil- legislation in America and England.
dren.8OIn the mines 34% of the employees are The people flock to the factories because the
women, of whom one-half work underground; land cannot support them; and the land cannot
16% of the miners are children. In the cotton support them because it is overtaxed, because it is
mills of Bombay the heat is exhausting, and the overpopulated, and because the domestic industries
II
lungs are soon destroyed by the fluff-laden air; with which the peasants formerly eked out in win-
men work there until they reach a subsistence ter their gleanings from the summer fields, have
34 THE CASE FOR INDIA FORI N D I A 35

been destroyed by British control of Indian tariffs' almost duty free. Lest Indian industries should
and trade. For of old the handicrafts of India nevertheless con~nue somehow to exist, an excise
were known throughout the world; it was manu- tax was placed on the manufacture of cotton goods
factured-i.e., hand-made--goods which European in India.84 As a British historian puts it:
merchants brought from India to sell to the Westn It is a melancholy instance of the wrong
In 1680, says the British historian Orme, the done to India by the country on which she
manufacture of cotton was almost universal in has become dependent. . . . Had lndili been
independent, she would have retaliated, would
India,82 and the busy spinning-wheels enabled the have imposed prohibitive duties upon British
women to round out the earnings of their men. goods, and would thus have preserved her
own productive industry from annihilation.
But the English in India objected to this com-
This act of self-defense was not permitted
petition of domestic industry with their mills at her; she was at the mercy of the stranger.
home; they resolved that India should be reduced British goods were forced upon her without
paying any duty, and the foreign manufac-
to a purely agricultural country, and be forced in
turer employed the arm of political injustice
consequence to become a vast market for British to keep down and ultimately strangle a com-
machine-made goods. The Directors of the East petitor with whom he could not have con-
tended on equal terms. 8~
India. Company gave orders that the production f
of raw silk should be encouraged, and the manu- And another Englishman wrote:
facture of silk fabrics discouraged; that silk- We have done everything possible to im-
winders should be compelled to work in the. Com- poverish still further the miserable beings
pany's factories, and be prohibited, under severe subject to the cruel selfishness of English
commerce. . . . Under the pretense of free
penalties, from working outside.83 Parliament dis- trade, England has compelled the Hindus to
cussed ways and means of replacing Hindu by receive the products of the steam-looms of
British industries. A tariff of 70-80% was placed Lancashire, Yorkshire, Glasgow, etc., at
merely nominal duties; while the hand-
upon Hindu textiles imported into free-trade Eng- wrought manufactures of Bengal and
land, while India was compelled, by foreign con- Behar, beautiful in fabric and durable in
trol of her government, to admit English textiles wear, have heavy and almost prohibitive

~
36 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR IN D I A 37

duties imposed on their importation into were built not for India but for England; not for
England. 86 the benefit of the Hindu, but for the purposes of
The result was that Manchester and Paisley the British army and British trade. If this seems
flourished, and Indian industries declined; a ,- doubtful, observ, their operation. Their greatest
country well on the way to prosperity was forcibly revenue comes, not, as in America, from the
arrested in its development, and compelled to be transport of goods (for the British trader controls
III
only a rural hinterland for industrial England. the rates), but from the third-class passengers-
The mineral wealth abounding in India's soil was the Hindus; but these passengers are herded into
almost barren coaches like animals bound for the
not explored, for no competition with England was
to be allowed.87The millions of skilled artisans slaughter, twenty or more in one compartment.
whom Indian handicrafts had maintained were The railroads are entirely in European hands, and
added to the hundreds of millions who sought sup- the Government has refused to appoint even one
port from the land. "India," says Kohn, "was Rindu to the Railway Board. The railways lose
transformed into a purely agricultural country, money year 'after year, and are helped by the
and her people lived perpetually on the verge of Government out of the revenues of the people;
starvation."88 The vast population which might these loans to date total over $100,000,000. The
have been comfortably supported by a combination Government kuarantees a minimum rate of inter-
of tillage and industry, became too great for the est on railway investments; the British companies
arid soil; and India was reduced to such penury who built the roads ran no risk whatever. No play
that to-day nothing is left of her men, her women or encouragement is given to initiative, competi-
and her children but empty stomachs and fleshless tion, or private enterprise; the worst evils of a
bones. state monopoly are in force. All the losses are
borne by the people, all the gains are gathered by
It might have been supposed that the building the trader.89 So much for the railways.
of 30,000 miles of railways would have brought a Commerce on the sea is monopolized by the
measure of prosperity to India. But these railways British even more than transport on land. The
38 THE CASE FOR INDIA
FOR INDIA 3i}
Hindus are not permitted to organize a merchant
European mercantile community, which are
marine of their own ;90 all Indian goods must be all remitted to England. 92
carried in British bottoms, as an additional strain
This is a general statement; let us fill it in.
on the starving nation's purse; and the building
Consider first the drain on India through trade.
of ships, which once gave employment to thousands
Not merely is this carried in British ships; far
of Hindus, is prohibited.91
Worse than that, there is an astounding surplus of
To this ruining of the land with taxation, this
exports over imports. In the happy years of the
ruining of industry with tariffs, and this ruining
Company there were such balances as $30,000,000
of commerce with foreign control, add the drain-
exports and $3,000,000 imports ;93 latterly the
age of millions upon millions of dollars from
indecency has been reduced, and the excess of
India year after year-and the attempt to explain j goods taken from India over goods brought into
India's poverty as the result of her superstitions
India is now a moderate one-third. In 1927, e.g.,
becomes a dastardly deception practised upon a
imports were $651,600,000, exports were $892,-
world too busy to be well informed. This drain
800,000; the excess of exports, $241,200,000.94
having been denied, it is only necessary to state
Where goes the money that pays for this excess?
Ithe facts, and to introduce them with a quotation
We are asked to believe that it takes the form of
from a docu~ent privately addressed by the Brit-
silver or gold imported and hoarded by the Hin-
ish government in India to the Parliament of
dus; but no man that has seen their poverty can
England.
believe so shameless a myth. Doubtless there is
Great Britain, in addition to the tribute some hoarding, above all by the native princes,
which she makes India pay her through the
for India cannot be expected to put full faith in
customs, derives benefits from the savings .0£
the service of the three presidencies (the a banking system controlled by foreign masters.
provinces of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay) But it is the officials, the merchants and the manu-
being spent in England instead of in India;
and in addition to these savings, which prob- facturers (most of whom are British) who take
ably amount to $500,000,000, she derives the great bulk of this profit, and return it to their
benefit from the fortunes realized by the countries in one form or another. As an East
!1
40 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 41
Indian merchant said in a Parliamentary report Consider, third, the drain through salaries and
in 1853, when this process -0£ bleeding was on a pensions derived from India and spent abroad. In
comparatively modest scale: "Generally up to 1927 Lord Winterton showed, in the House o£
1847, the imports were about $30,000,000 and Commons, that there were then some 7500 retired
the exports about $47,500,000. The difference is officialsin Great Britain drawing annually $17,-
the tribute which the Company received from the 500,000 in pensions from the Indian revenue ;91
country.,,95 Ramsay MacDonald put the figure at $20,000,000
Consider, second, the drain through fortunes, a year.98When England, which is almost as over-
dividends and profits made in India and spent populated as Bengal, sends its sons to India, she
abroad. The British come as officials or soldiers requires o£ them twenty-four years o£ service, re-
or traders; they make their money and return to duced by four years o£ £urloughs; she then retires
Great Britain. Let an Englishman, Edmund them for life on a generous pension, paid by the
Burke, describe them-and intensify his descrip- Hindu people. Even during their service these
tion to-day in proportion to the growth o£ British officials send their families or their children to
positions, manufactures and commerce in India. live for the most part in England; and they sup-
They have no more social habits with the .port them there with funds derived from India.99
people than i£ they still resided in England; Almost everything bought by the British in India,
nor indeed any species o£ intercourse but that except the more perishable foods, is purchased
which is necessary to make a sudden fortune.
. . . Animated with all the avarice o£ age, from abroad.loo A great proportion o£ the funds
and all the impetuosity o£ youth, they roll in appropriated' for supplies by the Government o£
one after another; wave after wave, and India is spent in England.
there is nothing before the eyes of the na-
tives but an endless, hopeless prospect o£ new As early as 1783 Edmund Burke predicted that
flights o£ birds of prey and passage, with the annual drain o£ Indian resources to England
appetites continually renewing for a food that without equivalent return would eventually de-
is continually wasting. Every rupee o£ profit
made by an Englishman is lost forever to stroy India.lol From Plassey to Waterloo, fi£ty-
India.96 seven years, the drain o£ India's wealth to Eng-
1J;

42 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR IN D I A 43

land is computed by Brooks Adams at two-and-a- have done her no permanent injury if the wealth
half to five billion dollars. 102 He adds, what so taken had all been returned into the economy
Macaulay suggested long ago, that it was this and circulation of the country; but bodily with-
stolen wealth from India which supplied England" drawn from her as so much of it was, it has acted
with free capital for the development of mechan- like a long-continued transfusion of vital blood.
ical inventions, and so made possible the Industrial
t "So great an economic drain out of the resources
a
Revolution.1O3 In 1901 Dutt estimated that one- of the land," says Dutt, "would impoverish the
half of the net revenues of India flowed annually most prosperous countries on earth; it has reduced
out of the country, never to return.104 In 1906 Mr. India to a land of £amines more frequent, more
Hyndman reckoned the drain at $40,000,000 a widespread and more fatal, than any known be-
year. A. J. Wilson valued it at one-tenth of the fore in the history of India, or of the world.m07
total annual production of India.1O5 Montgomery . Sir Wilfred Scawen Blunt sums it up from the
Martin, estimating the drain at $15,000,000 a point of view of a true Englishman:
year in 1838, calculated that these annual sums, ~
India's famines have been severer and
retained and gathering interest in India, would more frequent, its agricultural poverty has
amount in half a century to $40,000,000,000.106 deepened, its rural population has become
more hopelessly in debt, their despair more
Though it may seem merely spectacular to juggle desperate. The system of constantly enhanc-
such figures, it is highly probable that the total ing the land values (i.e. raising the valua-
wealth drained from India since 1757, if it had all tion and assessment) has not been altered.
The salt tax. . . still robs the very poor.
been left and invested in India, would now . . . What was bad twenty-five years ago is
amount, at a low rate of interest, to $400,000,000,- worse now. At any rate there is the same
drain of India's food to alien mouths. En-
000. Allow for money reinvested in India, .and a
demic famines and endemic plagues are facts
sum remains easily equivalent to the difference no official statistics can explain away. . . .
between the poorest and the richest nations in the Though myself a good Conservative . . . I
world. The same high rate of taxation which has own to being shocked at the bondage in which
the Indian people are held; . . . and I have
bled India to perhaps a mortal weakness, might come to the conclusion that if we go on de-

,
'

:;.

44 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 45

veloping the country at the present rate, the tablished are not free, but exact a tuition fee
inhabitants, sooner or later, will have to re- which, though small to a Western purse, looms
sort to cannibalism, for there will be nothing
left for them to eat.lOB large to a family always hovering on the edge of
starvation.
VI. Social Destruction We have been told that the country schools do
r not grow more rapidly because women teachers
From such poverty come ignorance, supersti- cannot be found for them; and that these teachers
tion, disease and death. A people reduced to these refuse to go because they fear that they will be
straits cannot afford education; they cannot afford raped. But women are considerably safer in India
the taxes required to maintain adequate schools; than in New York; not to speak of the invariably
they cannot afford to spare their children from passive mood of the verb seduce. Every student of
productive employment during the years of public India knows that the country schools lag behind
instruction; every penny is taken from them that not for such lurid reasons, but simply because the
could have been used for proper education. r pay for new teachers is $5 a month, for a trained
When the' British came there was, throughout teacher $5.00 to $6.50 a month, for principals
India, a system of communal schools, managed by $7-10 a mo¥th. Until 1921 the pay for primary
the village communities. The agents of the East school teachers in the Madras Presidency was
India Company destroyed these village commu- $24-36 a year.ll2 (Some allowance must be made
nities, and took no steps to replace the schools; for the lower cost of commodities in India.) The
even to-day, after a century of effort to restore Government spends every year on education eight
them, they stand at only 66% of their number a centsa head ;113it spendson the army eighty-three
hundred years ago.lO9There are now in India cents a head.114
730,000 villages, and only 162,015 primary In 1911 a Hindu representative, Gokhale, in-
schools,11°Only 7% of the boys and 1%% of troduced a bill for universal compulsory primary
the girls receive schooling; i.e., 4% of the education in India; it was defeated by the British
whole,11lSuch schools as the Government has es- and Government-appointed members. In 1916

"
~----

FOR INDIA 47
46 THE CASE FOR INDIA

Patel introduced a similar bill, which was defeated i1 British took possession than it is now after a
If century and a half of British control ;118in several
by the British and Government-appointed mem-
bers;115 the Government could not afford to give of the states ruled by native princes it is higher
the people schools. Instead, it spent most of its than in British India. "The responsibility of the

eight cents for education on secondary schools and ~ British for India's illiteracy seems to be beyond
t question.m19 The excuse that caste interferes with
universities, where the language used was Eng-
lish, the history, literature, customs and morals education will not hold; caste did not interfere

taught were English, and young Hindus, after with the crowding of every Hindu class indis-
, criminately in railway coaches, tram-cars and
striving amid poverty to prepare themselves for
U factories; it need not have interfered with schools;
college, found that they had merely let themselves
in for a ruthless process that aimed to de-national- ~ the best way to conquer caste would have been
I! through schools. Is it any wonder that a people
ize and de-Indianize them, and turn them into
imitative Englishmen. The first charge on a mod- so stupefied with poverty and lack of education is
ern state, after the maintenance of public health, too ignorant to use birth-control, and practises
is the establishment of education, universal, c°!ll- superstitions worse even than those of the W est ~
pulsory and free. But the total expenditure for Instead of~encouraging education, the Govern-
education in India is less than one-half the educa- , ment encouraged drink. When the British came,
tional expenditure in New York State.116 In the India was a sober nation. "The temperance of the
H
quarter of a century between 1882 and 1907, while people," said Warren Hastings, "is demonstrated
t in the simplicity of their food and th,eir total
public schools were growing all over the world,
the appropriation for education in British India abstinence from spirituous liquors and other sub-
increased by $2,000,000; in the same period ap- stances of intoxication.m2O With the first trading-

propriations for the fratricide army increased by posts established by the British, saloons were
$43,000,000.117 It pays to be free. opened for the sale of rum, and the East India
Hence the 93 % illiteracy of India. In several Company made handsome profits from the trade.121
provinces literacy was more widespread before the When the Crown took over India it depended on

,
.tr:..
:.io

48 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 4~


the saloons for a large part of its revenue; the ture in 1921 passed a bill prohibiting the growth
license system was so arranged as to stimulate or sale of opium in India, and that the Govern-
drinking and sales. The Government revenue frf)m ment refused to act upon it ;123that from two to
such licenseshas increased seven-foldin the last ~
four hundred thousand acres of India's soil, sorely
forty years; in 1922 it stood at $60,000,000 an- needed for the raising of food, are given over to
nually-three times the appropriation for scho()ls the growingof opium/24 and that the sale of the
and universities. drug brings to the Government one-ninth of its
Miss Mayo tells us that Hindu mothers feed total revenue every year.125She does not tell us
opium to their children; and she concludes that that Burma excluded opium by law until the
India is not fit for Home Rule. What she says is British came, and is now overrun with it; that the
British distributed it free in Burma to create a
true; what she does not say makes what she says
worse than a straightforward lie. She does not demand for it ;126that whereas the traffic has been
tell us (though she must have known) that women stopped in the Philippines, England has refused,
drug their children because the mothers must at one WorId' Opium Conference after another, to
abandon them every day to go to wo~k in the fac- abandon it in India; that though she has agreed to
tories. She does not tell us that the opium is grown ,reduce the ~xport of opium by 10% yearly, she
only by the Government, and is sold exclusively has refused' to reduce its sale in India; that the
by the Government; that its sale, like the sale of Report of the Government Retrenchment Commis-
drink through saloons, is carried on despite the sion of 1925 emphasized "the importance of safe-
protests of the Nationalist Congress, the Indus- guarding opium sales as an important source of
trial and Social Conferences, the Provincial Con- revenue," and recommended "no further reduc-
ferences, the Brahmo-Somaj, the Arya-Somaj, the tion" ;127that when Gandhi by a peaceful anti-
Mohammedans and the Christians; that there are opium campaign in Assam had reduced the
seven thousand opium shops in India, operated by consumption of the drug there by one-half, the
the British Government, in the most conspicuous Government put a stop to his labors and jailed
places in every town ;122that the Central Legisla- forty-four of his aides.128She does not tell us that

,
.ail.
50 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 51
the health, courage and character of the Hindu bare legs from the ankles to the knees. In the
people have been undermined through this ruthless cities 34% of them are absent from work, on any
drugging of a nation by men pretending to be day, from illness or injury. They are too poor to
Christians. afford foods rich in mineral salts; they are too
On July 10, 1833, Lord Macaulay addressed .poor to buy fresh vegetables, much less to buy
the House of Commons as follows: meat. The water-supply, which is usually the first
obligation of a government, is in primitive condi-
It was. . . the practice of the miserable
tyrants whom we found in India, that when tion, after a century or more of British rule;
they dreaded the capacity and spirit of some dysentery and malaria have been eliminated from
distinguished subject, and yet could not ven- Panama and Cuba, but they flourish in British
ture to murder him, to administer to him a
daily dose of the pousta, a preparation of India. Once the Hindu was known to be among
opium, the effect of which was in a few the cleanest of the clean ;180 and even to-day he
months to destroy all the bodily and mental
bathes every morning, and washes every morning
powers of the wretch who was drugged with
it, and turn him into a helpless idiot. That the simple garment that he wears; but the increase
detestable artifice, more horrible than assas- of poverty has made social sanitation impossible.
sination itself, was worthy of those who em-
ployed it. It is no model for the English Until 1918 the total expenditure on public health,
nation. We shall never consent to administer of both the central and the provincial governments
the pousta to a whole community, to stupefy combined, was only $5,000,000 a year, for 240,-
and paralyze a great people.129
000,000 people-an appropriation of two cents
These words were spoken almost a century ago. per capita.181
Sir William Hunter, once Director-General of
VII. The Triumph of Death Indian Statistics, estimated that 40,000,000 of
the people of India were seldom or never able to
The last chapter is disease and death. satisfy their hunger.182 Weakened with malnutri-
The emaciation of the Hindus sickens the tion, they offer low resistance to infections; epi-
traveler; closed fingers can be run up around their demics periodically destroy millions of them. In
52 THE CASE FOR INDIA
FOR INDIA 53

1901, 272,000 died of plague introduced from in India, lies such merciless exploitation, such
abroad; in 1902,500,000 died of plague; in 1903, unbalanced exportation of goods, and such brutal
800,000; in 1904, 1,000,000.188 In 1918 there collection of high taxes in the very midst of
were 125,000,000 cases of influenza, and 12,500,- famine/8" that the starving peasants cannot pay
000 recorded deaths.184 what is asked for the food that the railways bring
them. American charity has often paid for the
We can now understand why there are famines
relief of famine in India while the Government
in India. Their cause, in plain terms, is not the
was collecting taxes from the dying. "There has
absence of sufficient food, but the inability of the
never been a single year," says Dutt, "when the
people to pay for it. Famines have increased in
food-supply of the country was insufficient for the
frequency and severity under British rule. From
people.m8sLet the late President of Union Theo-
1770 to 1900, 25,000,000 Hindus died of starva-
logical Seminary, Dr. Charles O. Hall, speak:
tion; 15,000,000 of these died in the last quarter
The obvious fact stares us in the face that
of the century, in the famines of 1877, 1889, 1897,
there is at no time, in no year, any shortage
and .1900.185Contemporary students 186estimate of food-stuffs in India. The trouble is that
that 8,000,000 will die of starvation in India dur- the taxes imposed by the British Government
being 50% of the produce, the Indian starves
ing the present year. It was hoped that the rail- that India's annual revenue may not be
ways would solve the problem by enabling the diminished by a dollar. 80% of the whole
rapid transport of food from unaffected to affected population has been thrown back upon the
soil because England's discriminating duties
regions; the fact that the worst famines have come have ruined practically every branch of na-
since the building of the railways proves that the tive manufacture. . . . We send shiploads of
grain to India, but there is plenty of grain
cause has not been the lack of transportation, nor in India. The trouble is that the people have
the failure of the monsoon rains (though this, of been ground down till they are too poor to
course, is the occasion), nor even overpopulation buy it. Famine is chronic there now, though
the same shipments of food-stuffs are made
(which is a contributory factor) ; behind all these, annually to England, the same drainage of
as the fundamental source of the terrible famines millions of dollars goes on every year.189

J~
54 THE CASE FOR INDIA FOR INDIA 55
The final item is the death-rate. In England the order and peace, and thankful for the security
death-rate is 13 per 1000 per year; in the United which their policing of the world's waters has
States it is 12; in India it is 32.140Half the chil- given to every traveler. I left India feeling that its
dren born in Bengal die before reaching the age awful poverty is an unanswerable indictment of
of eight.l4l In a recent year (1921) the infant its alien government, that so far from being an
mortality in Bombay was 666 per 1000; in one- excuse for British rule, it is overwhelming evi-
room tenements it was 828 per 1000.142 Lt.-Ool. dence that the British ownership of India has
Dunn, of the Indian Medical Service, says that
one-half of the death-rate is preventable; if we
been a calamity and a crime. For this is quite un- .
like the Mohammedan domination: those invaders
doubt this we need only study the case of Cuba,
came to stay, and their descendants call India
which under Spanish rule was ridden with ma-
their home; what they took in taxes and tribute
laria, typhus and cholera, and had one of the
they spent in India, developing its industries and
world's highest death-rates, while now, under free-
resources, aaorning its literature and art. If the
dom, it has become one of the healthiest of coun':
British had done likewise, India would to-day be
tries, and its death-rate is among the lowest
a flourishing nation. But the present plunder has
known.143 But in India ten are born that three, or
now gone on beyond bearing; year by year it is
six, or eight of them may die within a year.
destroying one of the greatest and gentlest peoples
This is the conclusion of the play: taxation, ex- of history.
ploitation, starvation, death.
The terrible thing is that this poverty is not
And now, having quoted authorities sufficiently a beginning, it is an end; it is not growing less,
to guard against relying on my own too brief ex- it is growing worse; England is not "preparing
perience, I may be permitted, despite that India for self-government," she is bleeding it to
limitation, to express my own judgment and feel- death. "Even as we look on," said another loyal
ing. I came to India admiring the British, mar- Englishman, H. M. Hyndman, "India is becoming
veling at their imperial capacity for establishing feebler and feebler. The very life-blood of the

~t~
56 THE 0 ASE FOR IN D I A

great multitude under our rule is slowly, yet ever


faster ebbing away.m44
Any man who sees this crime, and does not OHAPTER TW 0
speak out, is a coward. .Any Englishman or any
American, seeing it and not revolted by it, does GANDHI
not deserve his country or his name.
1. Portrait

Picture the ugliest, slightest, weakest


man in Asia, with face and flesh of bronze, close-
cropped gray head, high cheek bones, kindly little
brown eyes, a large and almost toothless mouth,
larger ears, an enormous nose, thin arms and legs,
clad in a loin-cloth, standing before an English
judge in India, on trial because he has preached
liberty to -his countrymen. Picture him again
similarly dressed, at the Viceroy's palace in Delhi,
in conference on equal terms with the highest rep-
resentative of England. Or picture him seated on
a small carpet in a bare room at his Satyagra-
hashram, or School of Truth-Seekers, at Ahmeda-
bad; his bony legs crossed under him in Yogi
r fashion, soles upward, his hands busy at a spin-
ning-wheel, his face lined with the sufferings of
his people, his mind active with ready answers
to every questioner of freedom. This naked
weaver is both the spiritual and the political
57

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