Evening Post MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1919. THE CHANGING EAST

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 98, 28 April 1919, Page 6

Evening Post MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1919. THE CHANGING EAST

The "unchanging East" continues1, to change at a pace which defies calculation, and gives some sort of retrospective justification to the hopes of those who looked to it for support in their designs against the liberation of the West. No-' tiling in . all the infallible calculations of the German General Staff was regarded as less open to cavil than the part which. India and Egypt were to play in the dissolution of Britain's ram- ■ shackle Empire. Lord Curzon's description of the British in India as "only a bit of fjoth upon an unfathomable .ocean" was accepted as an accurate summjng up of the whole political and military position. The great country which had been subdued by "a handful of clerks directing a few regiments of soldiers," and was held in much the same way, would rise as one man to greet its German deliverers. As the appearance'of a single Russian army corps was freely, prophesied, as sufficient' to shatter the long-drawn-out fraud of British rule in India,1 it seemed probable that Gerrriany would not need to send so large a force so far. in order to secure the same object. The proclamation of a Holy War by the Kaiser and the Sultan —the twin champions of Islam—would suffice to* turn the British out of Egypt, which to the German strategists, as to Napoleon,^ was the one place where Britain could be attacked and mortally wounded by land from Europe. The loss of Egypt would mean the dislodgemeht of ','the keystone of the Imperial arch," and by the sheer force of gravitation India and all the rest of the unwieldy structure would come toppling down. .» The manner in which 'these confident calculations were falsified is one of the neatest and completest things in history. Neither Egypt nor India was stampeded by the summons to a Holy War. Both turned a deaf ear to the enticing calls of Turkish piety and German freedom. Egypt remained calm while the Turks were hammering at her eastern gate and threatening the Canal, India helped to turn the^invader back and to carry the tide of war to Jerusalem and Damascus and Aleppo. She also guarded her own frontiers in the most effective manner possible by her share in the great campaign on the Euphrates and the Tigris, which delivered Bagdad \ and the whole of Mesopotamia from Turkish rule. For these and other campaigns further afield India sent a million men across the- seas and sustained a hundred thousand casualties. For nearly eighteen months some of her Mohammedan soldiers have been guarding the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem. The men who were summoned to a Holy War have first helped to, expeV from Jerusalem the Mohammedan Power which issued the summons, and now—the proudest of the soldiers of a Christian King—are protecting one of the most sacred shrines of .Islam from the profane intrusion of Christians and others. Seldom indeed has the irony of history received a nobler or more thrilling illustration. |

■ But the irony of history is a two-edged sword, and not'for the first time in this war '{we are finding that it cuts with a sublime impartiality at all alike. The Mohammedans of India have helped •the'" greatest' Mohammedan Power in , the world to destroy the second such Power,, regardless of the 'fact that the one is also a Christian Power while the other is ruled by men of their own faith: To the Mohammedan subjects* of the King no less than to his Christian subjects the real Holy War appeared to be the war that was being fought for the protection of their common liberties against a brutal despotism. Such was the common faith of the Empire while the great struggle lasted. Are the Mohammedans of India and Egypt going to fall away from this faith now that the battle has been won ? and are the followers of Islam in the countries which Ujey have helped to free, but whose freedom _► not yet' fully assured, suffering the same kind of relapse? If not, what is,the meaning of the trouble which is seething throughout tho whole "Islamic world, exciting the gravest apprehensions in India and Egypt, in Anatolia and Syria, and endangering life and property even where they were absolutely safe throughout the war '! . ■ The baffled Christina would be glut! to know how it strikss tho Indian'soldiers now oiomtt-

ing guard over the Mosque of Omar before pronouncing an opinion.

That in the East, as in the West, there are more causes than one at work may be inferred both from tho conflicting reports and from the general probabilities. But it is unfortunately clear that in India a new element of religious unrest has arisen among part of the population which has hitherto been conspicuously loyal to complicate the normal influences of discontent and agitation. Writing on "Indian Unrest" in the days before the war, Sir Valentine Chirol declared that the title of his book was almost a misnomer, because the 60,000,000 Mohammedans made practically no contribution to the subject.

Ifc is important (said Sir Valentine Chirol) to note- at the outset that the more dangerous forms cf unrest are practically confined to the Hindus, and afn'ongst them to a numerically small proportion of the vast . Hindu community. Not a single Mohammedan has been implicated in, though some have fallen victims to, the criminal conspiracies of tho last few years. Not a single Mohammedan of any account is to be found'in the ranks of disaffected politicians. For reasons, in fact, which I shall set forth later on, ifc may be confidently asserted that never before have the Mohammedans of India as „ whole identified their interests and thoir aspirations so closely as at the present day with the consolidation and permanence of British rule. It is almost a misnomer to speak of Indian unrest.

But the break up of the Turkish Empire now appears to be affecting the Moslems of India with qualms from which they did not suffer while the vile thing was in active life. For,- four years they loyally helped in the work of destruction, but the completion of the job fills them with vague and utterly baseless fears for the interests of their faith. In Egypt, on the other hand, the religious element is, to say the least, less conspicuous. As we pointed out on Tuesday, Christians Jiave been taking an active part in a movement which is much more alarming than its counterpart in India, and the head of the Egyptian Nationalist deputation to the Paris Conference declares that it is not religious, anti-foreign, or pan-Arabic. The patient himself may not be able to describe precisely the nature of his malady, but it is clearly not a matter to .be trifled with in either case. Firmness, patience, and enforced j rest are the common-sense prescription which may be expected to effect a cure.