INDIAN SITUATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 74, 30 March 1910, Page 3

INDIAN SITUATION.

"XO REAL UNREST." A REMARKABLE EXPLANATION. ANGLO-INDIAN AUTHORITY SPEAKS. A very remarkablo denial of the rumours that trouble is pending in India was given to the Sydney Morning Herald by an authority peculiarly qualified to speak on the subject. This is Colonel Pollen, lately of the Indian Civil Service, who, by reason of his present position as secretary of the East India Association, has been brought probably as intimately into touch with the clique from which the agitators are drawn as any Englishman can be. He has also a particularly intimate knowledge of some of the men who have been the victims of these outrages. "Poor Jackson who was assassinated j the other day was at one time my assistant," he said. "Ho was a fine man — a fine upright considerate humane man, a thorough gentleman and a good friend to the natives. He was one of those men who went amongst them and studied them more than most. You could tell the sort of man he was by tiie place where he happened to be when he was' killed. It is only a man that studies the natives who goes to the native theatres. It is strange how the men who commit theee crimes always seem to pick on the men who are their best friends — juit as in Russia they blew up the very Tsar who liberated the serfs. "Curzon Wyllie, who was shot by a young Indian at the Imperial Institute, was another good friend to the natives. I waa there at the time. In fact it is a wonder he did not shoot me, bei cau&o I was engaged in very much the j same sort of work as secretary of the East India Association — charged with the furtherance of ull objects connected with the people of India." AN ACCEPTED RISK. Colonel Pollen went on to give a most interesting and evenly expressed I explanation of the feeling of the natives of India towards tne British in India at the present moment. "They do not like us," he said. "We know that ; we have known that all along. And we carry our lives in our hands in India — we know that. We have always carried our lives in our hands there, and we have always been aware of it. But we accept that, we do not mind it — it is not going to make us swerve a hair's breadth. I have looked up the papers of 30 and- 40 years ago, when Norman and Mayo about the . bume time were assassinated ; and exactly the same things were said then as are being said now. We know individually that we take the risk, and it has never made the least difference. "But that is not the point. The point is that the deep-seated general popular unrest which people out here suspect to exist in India does not exist. The movement is very much on the surface. It i» solely the result of the work of agitators who have stirred at few unfortunate young men educated in Europe to commit in a fever-heat crimes oi intrigue and assassination on the common European anarchistic lines which arc utterly foreign and detestable to the native population. "The movement is confined to agitators. These agitators are men with n | grievance. Tho facts are not all widely known. But I will give you two caees : — HOW KRISHNA VARMA BECAME AGITATOR. "You liavo heard of Krishnavarma — the agitator now living in Paris. This is Krishnavarma's story. He was a «on of a weaver of Cutch. He was sent as a boy to the high schools of Bombay. Ho would be under native masters at school there, and would be taught classics and mathematics — would yet a good education. I tfcink ho went to Bombay University next. There he would have come under some English professors and some native ones. "From there he went to Balliol College, Oxford. He u&ed to do some coaching there in his leisure hours — coaching men who were going into the India Civil Service in the Indian languagen. He was so good a scholar of Sanscrit that Professor Menier Williams wanted him to succeed himself when ho retired from tho Chair of Sanscrit at Oxford. He was generally known as the 'Pundit* there, and was always up to then looked «pon as a loyal man. "Well, the Oxford authorities gave the appointment to an Englishman, lhat was Krishnavarma's first grievance. It was a private grievance. He went back to India and became Prime Minister of certain native states. He was rather suddenly expelled from there, and came back to London with money saved. In London he started as an agitator. He found that the role of agitator paid j well. The money comes to theso agitators from India — from rich discontented natives with some grievance against the Government. Then he set up India House at Highgato in London. He represented to tho young Indian student*. in London and Oxford and elsewhere that we British were draining India to death, draining it of its lifcblood for oar own gain. He told the boys that it" was an abominable thing to have the English rule over India. "YOU CAN'T BLAME THE BOYS." "Well, Krishnavarma, when tho English Government began to take steps t» enquire into his proceedings, fled to Paris, wiiere he itill is, and issued from there his paper, 'The Indian Sociologist,' which was taken in by tbe students in England, and which precched the same doctrines. Tho majority of these students are fine young fellows, and true, loyal lads— l know them well. But they are suffering from what they look upon as a social grievance— that the English profess to receive them on terms of equality, and really do not do so. There is a real difficulty in this, a difficulty for' which it looks sometimes almost hopeless to find a solution. "Added to this, a number of the boys come over with insufficient means to get on with. They get hopelessly stranded. I have come upon them again and again, and have given them what help I could. Some of these stranded lads fall deeper and deeper ; and it is out of these that there arises that class of brooding boys which is worked upon to become agitators. They are not really to blame — they are really maniacs. They are infected with a type of common anarchistic intrigue of the European sort — a delicate plotting and scheming of assassinations which is utterly opposed to the native ethics, and abominable alike to them and to us. THE GRIEVANCE OF GHOSE. "The case of Arabinda Ghose, another agitator you have heard of, is precisely similar. He went to the university in England, and some years ago passed the examination for the India Civil Service, and was one of the selected candidates. After the written examination, it ia necessary to pass a test in riding ; and it has been commonly reported that tho examiners had reasons for not wishing to Ist Aiabinda Ohosc through, and chose the riding te*t as a convenient chance of plucking him. I happen to know what the real facts were. Arabinda Ghose, for some reason, objected Io the necessity of the riding test. He had tome peculiar opinion*, and he maint*i*eil Jjlut it ottgh.t got (o -be ae.ee*a»ry

for a man to pass an examination in riding. He refused to go up for it. The examiner explained to him that it would not be necessary to ride skilfully — he need only stick on for a turn or so — but he entirely refused. He thought the rule should be modified in his favour. "He failed, for that reason, *o get into the India Civil Service; and from that time he, too, had- a grievance. He served the Gaikwar in Baroda for a time, and thence came to Calcutta, where ho got into trouble, but was acquitted. "These people are the agitators. They are, all men with an English education. Their methods ait- anarchistic and opposed to Indian ideas. But they have the loudest voices and lungs, and they have command of tho native press. Most natives do not read these newspapers. But what does happen is that a copy goes to the villago, and will be read out to tho bystanders by a man sitting in some corner. In that way they get to a great number of people. "Another means they have of stirring up disaffection, which the Government has taken no steps to control, is the native drama. They often use it in that way. * "But in spile of this the agitation and disaffection do not go deep. It is most difficult to know whether we do right to give them a European education. But I myself believe it- is on the right course io throw all examinations open to them. I often say that the Brahmins of Bombay and the babus of Bengal are our most loyal people there, because they know very well what would happen if by any chancewe withdrew even for a- time. The re&t of the people — I don't know that they appreciate the faot that we have. turned deserts into gardens, and so oh. I They do not like vs — they do not like any rulers. But they certainly hurI hour no deep feelings or concerted designs against us for the grievances the agitators speak of." A HIGH FAITH. Colonel Pollen, after touching on the difficulty of the solution of the social question, finished by stating his grounds of simple faith that trouble was not coming m India in very remarkable terms. He simplifies out the whole tangled situation under one clear rule — that so long as the place is fairly and honestly ruled things cannot go far wrong. "I believe this agitation ,will die down and disappear," he said. "I believe it on tthe simple ground thart. there is no real grievance behind it. There is no drain uoon India. There is no blood-letting of India. For the last 80 years the government has been conducted only for the good of the people of India. My motto in dealing with the natives would be always 'Be just and fear nought,' and bo as conciliatory as you possibly can. The native resents condescension as much as haughty exclusiveness. I have always treated the native of India as a gentleman, and he is a- gentleman. And if you do that you are not very far wrong.'' Colonel Pollen is expected to arrive ir. Wellington to-day.