FACTS ABOUT INDIA

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 56, 8 March 1922, Page 7

FACTS ABOUT INDIA

A MOSAIC OF RACES

SIR M. O'DWYER'S CRITICISM

SELF-GOVERNMENT MEOTS

DISASTER.

(won oim own cobrbspo!(oeni.)

LONDON, 20th January. \

Sir Michael O'Dwyer, late Lieutenant-' Governor of the Punjab, was the first- | to deliver a lecture, under the auspices of the Overseas dub, in their new;: | headquarters at Vernon House. "Sir 1 [ Michael, it will be remembered, figured:; very, prominently in the discussions inT regard to the Amritsar riots, and, as. the chairman remarked when introducing the lecturer, he stood manfully hyp the. soldier (General Dyer) who ha-' thought had done his duty. The popular conception of India, said!* Sir Michael, was that it was a very big,; and hot country, inhabited by many mil-i lions of people, and divftled into two' great races—-Hindus and ■ Mohammedans —who were- formerly fighting eachc ' other, and who had now settled down! and were working together • in harmony,: for the good of their Motherland; thaft i these two races now "wished to take their destiny in their own hands, and that it was for us, in the sacred iiame of self-, determination, to concede what they asked, and to clear out of tile country)-, as soon as possible. That was a common' conception of our Imperial responsibiU-^ ties as regards India. ' " AN ALIEN SYSTEM. If that description were true, India would be only a magnified Ireland. There might be an artificial resemblance between India and Ireland, but therewas no | xeal parallel. In Ireland we had been endeavouring to restore a system of government which existed /down; to the Union. In India, on the other hand, we had been endeavouring to establish a system which had hitherto been alien to ail Oriental people and hadl never succeeded. We were trusting to the genius of the British race to mako it succeed in India, as elsewhere. That/' demanded much confidence. The difficulties met with in Ireland were multiplied: a hundredfold in India, because of the diversity of race, civilisation,: religion,, and language. „ He denied that India was ready for Dominion status. How important it was, he said, that the question of. capaj city for self-defence should be considered as part of the question of the capacity for self-government. When pointing to thepart India took in the late war it should be remembered how specialised in race and caste the soldiers from India were. ■ It should be remembered that the educated and literary class looked down upon fighting as something beneatlA their dignity, and it was this class which was most desirous of self-government. Owing to the cleavage of races, religions, and civilisation, India never had been, and could not be, a nation. All that could be said was that there was great possibility of something being done under a strong central Government. So for as the Government of India Act was concerned, a very small body of politicallyminded Indians —perhaps 2 per cent, of the population—whose co-operation thiscountry relied upon for the success of the scheme, was at present divided into three classes. There was Gandhi's party, who would have nothing to do with the British Government, and who had' stigmatised ifr as a Satanic Government.- That party was frankly separatist—clearly heading straight for chao3 and ' revolution. If must be remembered that once the idea spread in India that the Government was afraid of you, your prestige was gone.; Gandhi was admittedly the cause of tba Punjab rebellion in 1919, and of the: Moplah rebellion, which was still unrepressed, which had caused the .loss of 5000 lives and an. infinity of misery andloss to 1,500,000 people. After the outbreak in Bombay the.Government was' compelled to (take action, which, un-, fortunately, it had delayed in taking.;; Ten thousand people all over India were ) arrested and brought to trial for their, •> connection with that terrorist movement.:; In his belief if, a year ago, ten persons had been arrested it would not have been necessary to arrest ten thousand ten; day. -

WEAKENING OF BRITISH

AUTHORITY. - j The next section were those sensiblef, and reasonable men—who would be mora numerous if they received more encouragement—who accepted the reform scheme, its conditions and qualifications, •. and were moving in their own quiet andi steady wav on the lines of safe constitu- ■ tionai progress. These men, however, ' though loyal and patriotic, were rather, apt to be outnumbered and out-voted byi the third class—those politicians whowished^to keep in the limelight, and who .realised that,, the -easiest way "to do so was to connect themselves, with violent' agitation: Therefore, the third class . was the most vocal in the council, on the platform,, and in the press. They, resented every Government attempt to repress disorder. They said the remedjr. for the present unrest was to grant complete autonomy to the provinces at once, and complete Home Rule to India in:. 1929. The real point was that the object of the class of politicians who clamoured for immediate Dominion Homa Rule was to get rid of British control and British officials as soon as possible. It was the weakening of British author--ity and rale which had; allowed appalling ' disasters and bloodshed to, tako place in, India. India was a mosaic of faces andi ■ religions and a babel of tongues. We were told that a good diplomat must be able to lie efficiently in six languages. A good servant of the Government of India must be able to got at the truth i six languages, and that was no easy] : matter. There were in India fifty million people whom the caste system had' degraded into outcasts. "Were the bulk of the people of India ready to admit equality and brotherhood? Were they ready to recognise these fifty million ofi outcasts as human beings and _granfc them the ordinary privileges of citizens? It seemed to him that until they, did this, they had no right to claim equality of treatment in those British countries where they had settled. DEMOCRACY IMPOSSIBLE. O'nly one man in sixteen, said: Sitl , Michael, could read and write, andi only,'. one woman in sixty had these accomplish-;.' meut& This fact might be held to ra- ' fleet on British policy in India, but we had heen so busy with! the problems relating to the restoration of peace an<J- : order, and securing better condiitons o£ life, that we had nofc had time for educational matters. The Moriey-Mrato reforms made the first attempt to intreW ,-duco representative institutions to India^ and when the war came a new angle was given to our vision, and. the principle o£j self-determination was bronght in as af politica.l policy. There was a complete!, absence of the democratic spirit in India, and he maintained that the polittcal institutions that were suited to Great Britain and the Dominions could! not bo successfully transferred! to India..,Any success the English, rule had. hadl in India had been the work of administrators, and not of politicians. If In dial were left to govern herself the country). would become a- paradise for military ad-.., venturers, and, instead of a. democracy.,, we should find in the shortest possible ' time a ruthless autocracy like that ia } Russia, ,io.-<ta^ ' ■.■