Day .34- JAWAHARLAL NEHRU - The Discovery of India (Continued)

Contradictions of British Rule in India

Ram Mohan Roy. The Press

Sir William Jones. English Education in Bengal

One remarkable contradiction meets us at every turn in considering the record of British rule in India. The British became dominant in India, and the foremost power in the world, because they were the heralds of the new big-machine industrial civilization. They  represented a new historic force which was going to change the world, and were thus, unknown to themselves, the forerunners and representatives of change and revolution; and yet they deliberately tried to prevent change, except in so far as this was necessary to consolidate their position and help them in exploiting the country and its people to their own advantage. Their outlook and objectives were reactionary, partly because of the background of the social class that came here, but chiefly because of a deliberate desire to check changes in a progressive direction, as these might strengthen the Indian people and thus ultimately weaken the British hold on India. The fear of the people runs through all their thought and policy, for' they did not want to and could not merge with them, and were destined to remain an isolated foreign ruling group, surrounded by an entirely different and hostile humanity. Changes, and some in a progressive direction, did came, but they came in spite of British policy, although their impetus was the impact of the new west through the British. Individual Englishmen, educationists, orientalists, journalists, missionaries, and others played an important part in bringing western culture to India, and in their attempts to do so often came into conflict with their own Government. That Government feared the effects of the spread of modern education and put many obstacles in its way, and yet it was due to the pioneering efforts of able and earnest Englishmen, who gathered enthusiastic groups of Indian students around them, that English thought and literature and political tradition were introduced to India. (When I say Englishmen I include, of course, people from the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, though I know this is improper and incorrect. But I dislike the word Britisher, and even that probably does not include the Irish. My apologies to the Irish, the Scots, and the Welsh. In India they have all functioned alike and have been looked upon as one indistinguishable group.) Even the British Government, in spite of its dislike of education, was compelled by circumstances to arrange for the training and  production of clerks for its growing establishment. It could not afford to bring out from England large numbers of people to serve in this subordinate capacity. So education grew slowly and, though it was a limited and perverted education, it opened the doors and windows of the mind to new ideas and dynamic thoughts.The printing press and indeed all machinery were also considered dangerous and explosive for the Indian mind, not to be encouraged in any way lest they led to the spread of sedition and industrial growth. There is a story that the Nizam of Hyderabad once expressed a desire to see European machinery and thereupon the British Resident procured for him an air pump and a printing press. The Nizam's momentary curiosity having been satisfied,these were stored away with other gifts and curiosities. But when the Government in Calcutta heard of this they expressed their displeasure to their Resident and rebuked him especially for introducing a printing press in an Indian state. The Resident offered to get it broken up secretly if the Government so desired.But while private printing presses were not encouraged, Government could not carry on its work without printing, and official presses were therefore started in Calcutta and Madras and elsewhere. The first private printing press was started by the Baptist missionaries in Serampore, and the first newspaper was started by an Englishman in Calcutta in 1780. All these and other like changes crept in gradually, influencing the Indian mind and giving rise to the 'modern' consciousness. Only a small group was directly influenced by the thought of Europe, for India clung to her own philosophic background,considering it superior to that of the west. The real impact and influence of the west were on the practical side of life which was obviously superior to the eastern. The new techniques—the railway train, the printing press, other machinery, more efficient ways of warfare—could not be ignored, and these came up against old methods of thought almost unawares, by indirect approaches, creating a conflict in the mind of India. The most obvious and far-reaching change was the break-up of the agrarian system and the introduction of conceptions of private property and landlordism. Money economy had crept in and 'land became a marketable commodity. What had once been held rigid by custom was dissolved by money.' Bengal witnessed and experienced all these agrarian, technical,educational, and intellectual changes long before any other considerable part of India, for Bengal had a clear half-century of British rule before it spread over wider areas. During the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, Bengal therefore played a dominant role in British Indian life. Not only was Bengal the centre and heart of the British administration, but it also produced the first groups of English-educated Indians who spread out to other parts of India under the shadow of the British power. A number of very remarkable men rose in Bengal in the nineteenth century, who gave the lead to the rest of India in cultural and political matters, and out of whose efforts the new nationalist movement ultimately took shape. Bengal not only had a much longer acquaintance with British rule but it experienced it in its earliest phases when it was both harsher and more exuberant, more fluid and less set in rigid frames. It had accepted that rule, adapted itself to it, long before northern and central India submitted. The great Revolt of 1857 had little effect on Bengal, although the first spark appeared accidentally at Barrackpore near Calcutta. Previous to British rule Bengal had been an outlying province of the Mughal Empire, important but still rather cut off from the centre. During the early mediasval period many debased forms of worship and of Tantric philosophy and practices had flourished among the Hindus there. Then came many Hindu reform movements affecting social customs and laws and even changing somewhat the well-recognized rules of inheritance elsewhere. Chaitanya, a great scholar who became a man of faith and emotion, established a form of Vaishnavism, based on faith, and influenced greatly the people of Bengal. The Bengalis developed a curious mixture of high intellectual attainments and equally strong emotionalism. This tradition of loving faith and service of humanity was represented in Bengal in the second half of the nineteenth century by another remarkable man of saintly character, Ramakrishna Paramahansa; in his name an order of service was established which has an unequalled record in humanitarian relief and social work. Full of the ideal of the patient loving service of the Franciscans of old, and quiet unostentatious, efficient, rather like the Quakers, the members of the Ramakrishna Mission carry on their hospitals and educational establishments and engage in relief work, whenever any calamity occurs, all over India and even outside. Ramakrishna represented the old Indian tradition. Before him,in the eighteenth century, another towering personality had risen in Bengal, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who was a new type combining in himself the old learning and the new. Deeply versed in Indian thought and philosophy, a scholar in Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic,he was a product of the mixed Hindu-Moslem culture that was then dominant among the cultured classes of India. The coming of the British to India and their superiority in many ways led his curious and adventurous mind to find out what their cultural roots were. He learnt English but this was not enough; he learnt Greek,Latin, and Hebrew also to discover the sources of the religion and culture of the west. He was also attracted by science and the technical aspects of western civilization, though at that time these technical changes were not so obvious as they subsequently became.Being of a philosophical and scholarly bent, Ram Mohan Roy inevitably went to the older literatures. Describing him, Monier-Williams, the Orientalist, has said that he was 'perhaps the first earnest-minded investigator of the science of Comparative Religion that the world has produced'; and yet, at the same time, he was anxious to modernize education and take it out of the grip of the old scholasticism. Even in those early days he was in favour of the scientific method, and he wrote to the Governor-General emphasizing the need for education in 'mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy, and other useful sciences.' He was more than a scholar and an investigator; he was a reformer above all. Influenced in his early days by Islam and later, to some extent, by Christianity, he stuck nevertheless to the foundations of his own faith. But he tried to reform that faith and rid it of abuses and the evil practices that had become associated with it. It was largely because of his agitation for the abolition of suttee that the British Government prohibited it. This suttee, or the immolation of women on the funeral pyre of their husbands, was never widespread. But rare instances continued to occur among the upper classes. Probably the practice was brought to India originally by the Scytho-Tartars, among whom the custom prevailed of vassals and liegemen killing themselves on the death of their lord. In early Sanskrit literature the suttee custom is denounced. Akbar tried hard to stop it, and the Marathas also were opposed to it. Ram Mohan Roy was one of the founders of the Indian press. From 1780 onwards a number of newspapers had been published by Englishmen in India. These were usually very critical of the Government and led to conflict and the establishment of a strict censorship. Among the earliest champions of the freedom of the press in India were Englishmen and one of them, James Silk Buckingham, who is still remembered, was deported from the country.

The first Indian owned and edited newspaper was issued (in English) in 1818, and in the same year the Baptist missionaries of Serampore brought out a Bengali monthly and a weekly, the first periodicals published in an Indian language. Newspapers and periodicals in English and the Indian languages followed in quick succession in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Meanwhile the struggle for a free press had already begun, to continue with many ups and downs till to-day. The year 1818 also saw the birth of the famous Regulation III, which provided

for the first time for detention without trial. This regulation is still in force to-day, and a number of people are kept in prison under this 126-year-old decree.Ram Mohan Roy was associated with several newspapers. He brought out a bi-lingual, Bengali-English magazine, and later,desiring an all-India circulation, he published a weekly in Persian, which was recognized then as the language of the cultured classes all over India. But this came to grief soon after the enactment in 1823 of new measures for the control of the press. Ram Mohan and others protested vigorously against these measures and even addressed a petition to the King-in-Council in England. Ram Mohan Roy's journalist activities were intimately connected with his reform movements. His synthetic and universalist points of view were resented by orthodox sections who also opposed many of the reforms he advocated. But he also had staunch supporters, among them the Tagore family which played an outstanding part later in the renaissance in Bengal. Ram Mohan went to England on behalf of the Delhi Emperor and died in Bristol in the early thirties of the nineteenth century.Ram Mohan Roy and others studied English privately. There were no English schools or colleges outside Calcutta and the Government's policy was definitely opposed to the teaching of English to Indians. In 1781, the Calcutta Madrasa was started by the Government in Calcutta for Arabic studies. In 1817, a group of Indians and Europeans started the Hindu College in Calcutta,now called the residency College. In 1791, a Sanskrit College was started in Benares. Probably in the second decade of the nineteenth century some missionary schools were teaching English.During the twenties a school of thought arose in government circles in favor of the teaching of English, but this was opposed. However,as an experimental measure some English classes were attached to the Arabic school in Delhi and to some institutions in Calcutta. The final decision in favour of the teaching of English was embodied in Macaulay's Minute on Education of February,1835. In 1857, the Universities of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay began their career.If the British Government in India was reluctant to teach English to Indians, Brahmin scholars objected even more, but for different reasons, to teach Sanskrit to Englishmen. When Sir William Jones,already a linguist and a scholar, came to India as a judge of the Supreme Court, he expressed his desire to learn Sanskrit. But no Brahmin would agree to teach the sacred language to a foreigner and an intruder, even though handsome rewards were offered.Jones ultimately, with considerable difficulty, got hold of a non-Brahmin Vaidya or medical practitioner who agreed to teach, but on his own peculiar and stringent conditions. Jones agreed to every stipulation, so great was his eagerness to learn the ancient language of India. Sanskrit fascinated him and especially the discovery of the old Indian drama. It was through his writings and translations that Europe first had a glimpse of some of the treasures of Sanskrit literature. In 1784 Sir William Jones established the Bengal Asiatic Society which later became the Royal Asiatic Society.To Jones, and to the many other European scholars, India owes a deep debt of gratitude for the re discovery of her past literature.Much of it was known of course throughout every age, but the

knowledge had become more and more confined to select and exclusive groups, and the dominance of Persian, as the language of culture, had diverted people's minds from it. The search for manuscripts brought out many a little-known work and the application of modern critical methods of scholarship gave a new background to the vast literature that was revealed.

The advent and use of the printing press gave a great stimulus to the development of the popular Indian languages. Some of these languages—Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Urdu, Tamil,Telugu—had not only long been in use, but had also developed literatures . Many of the books in them were widely known among the masses. Almost always these books were epic in form, poems,or collection of songs and verses, which could easily be memorized. There was practically no prose literature in them at the time. Serious writing was almost confined to Sanskrit and Persian, and every cultured person was supposed to know one of them. These

two classical languages played a dominating role and prevented the growth of the popular provincial languages. The printing of books and newspapers broke the hold of the classics and immediately prose literatures in the provincial languages began to develop. The early Christian missionaries, especially of the Baptist mission at Serampore, helped in this process greatly. The first private printing presses were set up by them and their efforts to translate the Bible into prose versions of the Indian languages met with considerable success.There was no difficulty in dealing with the well-known and established languages, but the missionaries went further and

tackled some of the minor and undeveloped languages and gave them shape and form, compiling grammars and dictionaries for them. They even labored at the dialects of the primitive hill and forest tribes and reduced them to writing. The desire of the Christian

missionaries to translate the Bible into every possible language thus resulted in the development of many Indian languages. Christian mission work in India has not always been admirable or praiseworthy,but in this respect, as well as in the collection of folklore,it has undoubtedly been of great service to India.

The reluctance of the East India Company to spread education was justified, for as early as 1830 a batch of students of the Hindu College of Calcutta (where Sanskrit and English were taught) demanded certain reforms. They asked for restrictions on the political power of the company and provision for free and compulsory education. Free education was well-known in India from the most ancient times. That education was traditional, not very good or profitable, but it was available to poor students without any payment, except some personal service to the teacher. In this respect both the Hindu and Moslem traditions were similar.While the new education was deliberately prevented from spreading, the old education had been largely liquidated in Bengal. When the British seized power in Bengal there were a very large number of muafis, that is tax-free grants of land. Many of these were personal, but most were in the shape of endowments for educational institutions. A vast number of elementary schools of

the old type subsisted on them, as well as some institutions for higher education, which was chiefly imparted in Persian. The East India Company was anxious to make money rapidly in order to pay dividends to its shareholders in England, and the demands of its directors were continuous and pressing. A deliberate policy was therefore adopted to resume and confiscate these muafi lands.Strict proof was demanded of the original grant, but the old sanads and papers had long been lost or eaten up by termites;so the muafis were resumed and the old holders were ejected, and the schools and colleges lost their endowments. Huge areas were involved in this way and many old families were ruined. The educational establishments, which had been supported by these muafis, ceased to function, and a vast number of teachers and others connected with them were thrown out of employment.This process helped in ruining the old feudal classes in Bengal,both Moslem and Hindu, as well as those classes who were dependent on them. Moslems were especially affected as they were, as a group, more feudal than the Hindus and were also the chief beneficiaries of the muafis. Among the Hindus there were far larger numbers of middle class people engaged in trade and commerce and the professions. These people were more adaptable and took to English education more readily. They were also more useful to the British for their subordinate services. Moslems avoided English education and, in Bengal, they were not looked upon with favour by the British rulers, who were afraid that the remnants of the old ruling class might give trouble. Bengali Hindus thus acquired almost a monopoly in the beginning in the subordinate government service and were sent to the northern provinces. A few Moslems, relics of the old families, were later taken into this service.English education brought a widening of the Indian horizon,an admiration for English literature and institutions, a revolt against some customs and aspects of Indian life, and a growing demand for political reform, The new professional classes took the lead in political agitation, which consisted chiefly in sending representations to Government. English-educated people in the professions and the services formed in effect a new class, which was to grow all over India, a class influenced by western thought and ways and rather cut off from the mass of the population. In 1852 the British Indian Association was started in Calcutta. This was one of the forerunners of the Indian National Congress, and yet a whole generation was to pass before the Congress was started in 1885. This gap represents the period of the Revolt of 1857-58,its suppression and its consequences. The great difference between the state of Bengal and that of northern and central India in the middle of the century is brought out by the fact that while in Bengal the new intelligentsia (chiefly Hindu) had been influenced by English thought and literature and looked to England for political constitutional reform, the other areas were seething with the spirit of revolt.

In Bengal one can see more clearly than elsewhere the early effects of British rule and western influence. The break-up of I-- the agrarian economy was complete and the old feudal classes

had almost been eliminated. In their place had come new landowners whose organic and traditional contacts with the land were far less, and who had few of the virtues and most of the

failings of the old feudal landlords. The peasantry suffered famine and spoliation in many ways and were reduced to extreme poverty. The artisan class was almost wiped-out. Over these

disjointed and broken-up foundations rose new groups and classes,the products of British rule and connected with it in many ways.There were the merchants who were really middlemen of British trade and industry, profiting by the leavings of that industry.There were also the English-educated classes in the subordinate services and the learned professions, both looking to the British power for advancement and both influenced in varying degrees by western thought. Among these grew up a spirit of revolt against the rigid conventions and social framework of Hindu society.They looked to English liberalism and institutions for inspiration.This was the effect on the upper fringe of the Hindus of Bengal.The mass of the Hindus there were not directly affected and even the Hindu leaders probably seldom thought of the masses. The

Moslems were not affected at all, some individuals apart, and they kept deliberately aloof from the new education. They had been previously backward economically and they became even

more so. The nineteenth century produced a galaxy of brilliant Hindus in Bengal, and yet there is hardly a single Moslem Bengali leader of any note who stands out there during this period. So far as the masses were concerned there was hardly any appreciable difference between the Hindus and Moslems; they were indistinguishable in habits, ways of living, language, and in their common poverty and misery. Indeed, nowhere in India were the religious and other differences between Hindus , and Moslems of all classes so little marked as in Bengal. Probably 98 per cent of the Moslems were converts from Hinduism, usually from the lowest strata of society. In population figures there was probably a slight majority of Moslems over Hindus. (To-day the proportions in Bengal are:53 per cent Moslems, 46 per cent Hindus, 1 per cent others.).

All these early consequences of the British connection, and the various economic, social, intellectual, and political movements that they gave rise to in Bengal, are noticeable elsewhere in India,but in lesser and varying degrees. The break-up of the old feudal order and economy was less complete and more gradual elsewhere.In fact that order rose in rebellion and even when crushed, survived to some extent. The Moslems in upper India were culturally and economically far superior to their co-religionists of Bengal, but even they kept aloof from western education.The Hindus took to this education more easily and were more influenced by western ideas. The subordinate Government services and the professions had far more Hindus than Moslems. Only in the Punjab this difference was less marked.The Revolt of 1857-58 flared up and was crushed, but Bengal was hardly touched by it. Throughout the nineteenth century

the new English-educated class, mainly Hindu, looked up with admiration towards England and hoped to advance with her help and in co-operation with her. There was a cultural renaissance

and a remarkable growth of the Bengali language, and the leaders of Bengal stood out as the leaders of political India. Some glimpse of that faith in England which filled the mind of

Bengal in those days, as well as of the revolt against old-established social codes, may be had from that moving message of Rabindranath Tagore, which he gave on his eightieth birth-day (May, 1941), a few months before his death. 'As I look back,' he says, 'on the vast stretch of years that lie behind me and see in clear perspective the history of my early development, I am struck by the change that has taken place both in my own attitude and in the psychology of my countrymen—a change that carries within it a cause of profound tragedy .'Our direct contact with the larger world of men was linked up with the contemporary history of the English people whom we came to know in those earlier days. It was mainly through their mighty literature that we formed our ideas with regard to these newcomers to our Indian shores. In those days the type of learning that was served out to us was neither plentiful nor diverse, nor was the spirit of scientific inquiry very much in evidence. Thus their scope being strictly limited, the educated of those days had recourse to English language and literature.Their days and nights were eloquent with the stately declamations of Burke, with Macaulay's long-rolling sentences; discussions centred upon Shakespeare's drama and Byron's poetry and above all upon the large-hearted liberalism of the nineteenth century English politics.'At the time though tentative attempts were being made to gain our national independence, at heart we had not lost faith in the generosity of the English race. This belief was so firmly rooted in the sentiments of our leaders as to lead them to hope that the victor would of his own grace pave the path to freedom for the vanquished. This belief was based upon the fact that England at the time provided a shelter to all those who had to flee from persecution in their own country. Political martyrs who had suffered for the honour of their people were accorded unreserved welcome at the hands of the English. I was impressed by this evidence of liberal humanity in the character of the English and thus I was led to set them on the pedestal of my highest respect. This generosity in their national character had not yet been vitiated by imperialist pride. About this time, as a boy in England, I had the opportunity of listening to the speeches of John Bright, both in and outside Parliament. The large-hearted radical liberalism of those speeches, overflowing all narrow national bounds, had made so deep an impression on my mind that something of it lingers even to-day, even in these days of graceless disillusionment.'Certainly that spirit of abject dependence upon the charity of our rulers was no matter of pride.What was remarkable, however, was the whole-hearted way in which we gave our recognition to human greatness even when it revealed itself in the foreigner. The best and noblest gifts of humanity cannot be the monopoly of a particular race or country; its scope may not be limited nor may it be regarded as the miser's hoard buried underground. That is why English literature which

nourished our minds in the past, does even now convey its deep resonance to the recesses of our heart.'Tagore proceeds to refer to the Indian ideal of proper conduct prescribed by the tradition of the race. 'Narrow in them selves these time-honored social conventions originated an held good in a circumscribed geographical area, in that strip o land, Brahmavarta by name, bound on either side by the rivers Saraswati and Drisadvati. That is how a pharisaic formalism

gradually got the upper hand of free thought and the idea "proper conduct" which Manu found established in Brahmavarta steadily degenerated into socialized tyranny. 'During my boyhood days the attitude of the cultured and educated section of Bengal, nurtured on English learning, was charged with a feeling of revolt against these rigid regulations of society. . . .In place of these set codes of conduct we accepted the ideal of "civilization" as represented by the English term.'In our own family this change of spirit was welcomed for the sake of its sheer rational and moral force and its influence was felt in every sphere of our life. Born in that atmosphere, which was moreover coloured by our intuitive bias for literature, I naturally set the English on the throne of my heart. Thus passed the first chapters of my life. Then came the parting of ways,accompanied with a painful feeling of disillusion, when I began increasingly to discover how easily those who accepted the highest truths of civilization disowned them with impunity whenever questions of national self-interest were involved.'

The Great Revolt of 1857. Racialism

After nearly a century of British rule, Bengal had accommodated itself to it; the peasantry devastated by famine and crushed by new economic burdens, the new intelligentsia looking to the west and hoping that progress would come through English liberalism. So also, more or less in the south and in western India, in Madras and Bombay. But in the upper provinces there

was no such submission or accommodation and the spirit of revolt was growing, especially among the feudal chiefs and their followers. Even in the masses discontent and an intense anti-

British feeling were widespread. The upper classes keenly resented the insulting and overbearing manners of the foreigners, the people generally suffered from the rapacity and ignorance of the officials of the East India Company, who ignored their time-honoued customs and paid no heed to what the people of the country thought. Absolute power over vast numbers of people had turned their heads and they suffered no check or hindrance. Even the new judicial system they introduced became a thing of terror because of its complications and the ignorance of the judges of both the language and customs of the country.As early as 1817, Sir Thomas Munro, writing to the Governor-General, Lord Hastings, after pointing out the advantages of British rule, said: 'but these advantages are dearly bought.They are purchased by the sacrifice of independence, of national character, and of whatever renders a people respectable.... The 1 consequence, therefore, of the conquest of India by the British arms would be, in place of raising, to debase a whole people.I There is perhaps no example of any conquest in which the natives have been so completely excluded from all share of the government | of their country as in British India.'Munro was pleading for the employment of Indians in the administration. A year later he wrote again: 'Foreign conquerors have treated the natives with violence, and often with great cruelty, but none has treated them with so much scorn I as we; none has stigmatized the whole people as unworthy of trust, as incapable of honesty, and as fit to be employed only where we cannot do without them. It seems to be not only ungenerous, but impolitic, to debase the character of a people I fallen under our dominion [Quoted by Edward Thompson in 'The Making of the Indian Princes' (1943).]

British dominion was extended to the Punjab by 1850 after two Sikh wars. Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who had held and I extended the Sikh state in the Punjab, had died in 1839. In 1856 Oudh was annexed. Oudh had been virtually under British rule l for half a century, for it was a vassal state, its nominal ruler being both helpless and degenerate, and the British Resident all-powerful.It had sunk to the very depths of misery and illustrated all the I evils of the subsidiary state system.In May, 1857, the Indian army at Meerut mutinied. The I revolt had been secretly and well organized but a premature outburst rather upset the plans of the leaders. It was much

more than a military mutiny and it spread rapidly and assumed the character of a popular rebellion and a war of Indian independence.As such a popular rebellion of the masses it was confined to Delhi, the United Provinces (as they are now called), and parts I of central India and Bihar. Essentially it was a feudal outburst,[headed by feudal chiefs and their followers and aided by the [widespread anti-foreign sentiment. Inevitably it looked up to [the relic of the Mughal dynasty, still sitting in the Delhi palace,I but feeble and old and powerless. Both Hindus and Moslems took full part in the Revolt.This Revolt strained British rule to the utmost and it was ultimately suppressed with Indian help. It brought out all the linherent weaknesses of the old regime, which was making its [last despairing effort to drive out foreign rule. The feudal chiefs

Ihad the sympathy of the masses over large areas, but they were |incapable, unorganized and with no constructive ideal or community of interest. They had already played their role in history

and there was no place for them in the future. Many of their number, in spite of their sympathies, thought discretion the better part of valour, and stood apart waiting to see on which side victory lay. Many played the part of quislings. The Indian princes as a whole kept aloof or helped the British, fearing to risk what they had acquired or managed to retain. There was hardly any national and unifying sentiment among the leaders and a mere anti-foreign feeling, coupled with a desire to maintain their feudal privileges, was a poor substitute for this.The British got the support of the Gurkhas and, what is much more surprising, of the Sikhs also, for the Sikhs had been their enemies and had been defeated by them only a few years before It is certainly to the credit of the British that they could win over the Sikhs in this way; whether it is to the credit or discredit of the Sikhs of those days depends upon one's point of view. It is clear,however, that there was a lack of nationalist feeling which might have bound the people of India together. Nationalism of the modern type was yet to come; India had still to go through much sorrow and travail before she learnt the lesson which would give her real freedom. Not by fighting for a lost cause, the feudal order,would freedom come.The Revolt threw up some fine guerrilla leaders. Feroz Shah,a relative of Bahadur Shah, of Delhi, was one of them, but, most brilliant of all was Tantia Topi who harassed the British for many months even when defeat stared him in the face. Ultimately when he crossed the Narbada river into the Maratha regions, hoping to receive aid and welcome from his own people,there was no welcome, and he was betrayed. One name stands out above others and is revered still in popular memory, the name of Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi, a girl of twenty years of age, who died fighting. 'Best and bravest' of the rebel leaders, she was called by the English general who opposed her.British memorials of the Mutiny have been put up in Cawnpore and elsewhere. There is no memorial for the Indians who

died. The rebel Indians sometimes indulged in cruel and barbarous behaviour ; they were unorganized, suppressed, and often angered by reports of British excesses. But there is another side] to the picture also that impressed itself on the mind of India,and in my own province especially the memory of it persists in town and village. One would like to forget all this, for it is ghastly and horrible picture showing man at his worst,, even according to the new standards of barbarity set up by nazism and modern war. But it can only be forgotten, or remembered in a detached impersonal way, when it becomes truly the past with nothing to connect it with the present. So long as the connecting links and reminders are present, and the spirit behind those events survives and shows itself, that memory also will endure and influence our people. Attempts to suppress that picture do not destroy it but drive it deeper in the mind. Only by dealing with it normally can its effect be lessened.A great deal of false and perverted history has been written about the Revolt and its suppression. What the Indians think about it seldom finds its way to the printed page. Savarkar wrote 'The History of the War of Indian Independence' some thirty years ago, but his book was promptly banned and is banned still. Some frank and honourable English historians have occasionally lifted the veil and allowed us a glimpse of the race mania and lynching mentality which prevailed on an enormous scale. The accounts given in Kaye and Malleson's 'History of the Mutiny' and in Thompson and Garrett's 'Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India' make one sick with horror. 'Every Indian who was not actually fighting for the British became a "murderer of women and children"... a general massacre of the inhabitants of Delhi, a large number of whom were known to wish us success,

was openly proclaimed.' The days of Timur and Nadir Shah were remembered, but their exploits were eclipsed by the new terror, both in extent and the length of time it lasted. Looting

was officially allowed for a week, but it actually lasted for a month,and it was accompanied by wholesale massacre.In my own city and district of Allahabad and in the neighbourhood, General Neill held his 'Bloody Assizes.' 'Soldiers and civilians alike were holding Bloody Assize, or slaying natives without any assize at all, regardless of age or sex. It is on the records of our British Parliament, in papers sent home by the Governor-General in Council, that "the aged, women, and children are sacrificed as well as those guilty of rebellion." They were not deliberately hanged, but burnt to death in villages—perhaps now and then accidentally shot.' 'Volunteer hanging parties went into the districts and amateur executioners were not wanting to the occasion. One gentleman boasted of the numbers he had finished off quite "in an artistic manner," with mango trees as gibbets and elephants for drops, the victims of this wild

justice being strung up, as though for pastime, in the form of figures of eight.' And so in Cawnpore and Lucknow and all over the place.It is hateful to have to refer to this past history, but the spirit behind those events did not end with them. It survived, and whenever a crisis comes or nerves give way, it is in evidence again.The world knows about Amritsar and Jallianwala Bagh, but it does not know of much that has happened since the days of the Mutiny, much that has taken place even in recent years and in our time, which has embittered the present generation. Imperialism and the domination of one people over another is bad, and

so is racialism. But imperialism plus racialism can only lead to horror and ultimately to the degradation of all concerned with them. The future historians of England will have to consider how far England's decline from her proud eminence was due to her imperialism and racialism, which corrupted her public life and made her forget the lessons of her own history and literature.

Since Hitler emerged from obscurity and became the Fuehrer of Germany, we have heard a great deal about racialism and the nazi theory of the herrenvolk. That doctrine has been condemned and is to-day condemned by the leaders of the United Nations. Biologists tell us that racialism is a myth and there is no such thing as a master race. But we in India have known

racialism in all its forms ever since the commencement of British rule. The whole ideology of this rule was that of the herrenvolk and the master race, and the structure of government was based upon it; indeed the idea of a master race is inherent in imperialism.There was no subterfuge about it; it was proclaimed in unambiguous language by those in authority. More powerful than words was the practice that accompanied them and, generation after generation

and year after year, India as a nation and Indians as individuals were subjected to insult, humiliation, and contemptuous treatment. The English were an imperial race, we were told,

with the god-given right to govern us and keep us in subjection;if we protested we were reminded of the 'tiger qualities of an imperial race.' As an Indian, I am ashamed to write all this, for the memory of it hurts, and what hurts still more is the fact that we submitted for so long to this degradation. I would have preferred any kind of resistance to this, whatever the consequences, rather than that our people should endure this treatment. And yet it is better that both Indians and Englishmen should know it, for that is the psychological background of England's connection with India, and psychology counts and racial memories are long.One rather typical quotation will make us realize how most of^the English in India have felt and acted. At the time of the Ilberty Bill agitation in 1883, Seton Kerr, who had been Foreign

Secretary to the Government of India, declared that this Bill outraged 'the cherished conviction which was shared by every Englishman in India, from the highest to the lowest, by the

planter's assistant in his lowly bungalow and by the editor in the full light of the Presidency town—from those to the Chief Commissioner in charge of an important province and to the

Viceroy on his throne—the conviction in every man that he belongs to a race whom God has destined to govern and subdue [ Quoted in 'Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India', Edward Thompson and G. T.Garrett (London, 1935).]