INDIA'S IGNOMINY.

NZ Truth, Issue 180, 28 November 1908, Page 1

INDIA'S IGNOMINY.

British Buipeiaucrats' Brutality.

It ifew- Zealanders had to depend entirely upon the information supplied to them by the N.Z; daily press as to what' is going on m India, they, would be .most" grievously misled. According to these daily grinders-out -flf plutocratic poppycock, the people of India have,nothing to complain of, and the only cause of the trouble m that country is that the Indians i are being over-educated, and m such great numbers that it. is- impossible to find room for them m the Indian Civil Service. The truth is, however,, that the' condition of .things is of such a character as to reflect , the utmost discredit upon the British Government, and amply \q account for the fact that India is" on the eve of another revolt, which may be of a much more danserous character than the -'.so-called "Mutiny." The people of India are, m truth, the victims of an odious tyranny, as bad as that which has led" to a state of per-, manent insurrection among a large number of the people of Russia. The Indians are "bled ' white;?'./' financially,' by the' British Government and ' by absentee bondholders, and there are parts of their country that are m a. state of chronic famine as the result of tbe ''blessings" af British' rule.

How revolutionary is ihe feeling of vast masses of the Indian people is, to some extent, indicatfti by the scenes' a.t the funeral of the (.assassin of a Government spy named tCiossaigi T,he Kanai, seenis to have played a similar part to this played U by; O'Donnell, the Irish revolutionist, ■ who assassinated James Oarey.'the fellow -that betrayed the Invincibles. The Indian betrayer was shot by Kanai; and the latter was then hang•d by the British Government. The handing over of the body of Kanai, the assassin c-f Gos'sain the approver, to his friends, resulted m a most impressive and important demonstration. The corpse was crowned with flowers, it was publicly blessed by a priest of the Brahmin religion, m which religion most Indians believe, and it was carried^ m public procession to the place where the body was cremated. On -the way. to the. cremationplace, the women- frequently stopped the procession m order that they mifJi . gaze admiringly upon the face of the dead man, whom they believed to be a hero. When ' the body «had been cremated, the mourners eagerly sought m the ashes for relics of him whom they regarded as a martyr. . '

The cablegrams tell us that the women who stopped the procession m order that they might gaze upon the face of him whom they believed to be a hero were ."ladies," and ; it is auucu that a large percentage of the mourners' "belonged to respectable Calcutta families." Moreover, it is proposed by. several Bengalis, we are told, that a block of marble shall be erected over the ashes of Kanai, and that on this block shall ,be placed, the words, i"He died, for 'his country." The authorities, who, like tyrants everywhere, 1 affect to regard themselves as benefactors of the race . over whom they tyrannise-, declare that .they did not expect what was about to occur. Had they possessed any suspicion, they would probably have had the body . disposed of privately,; for they say that the demonstration at the funeral of Kanai was a seditious manifestation of the most pronounced type.". A further indication of the hostility with which things and persons British are regarded m India is given by the fact that the statue of the late Vueen Victoria, standing m the public wardens at Nagpur has been found daubed with tar, the sceptre smashed, and the fingers and nose broken*" right. off the statue. :

All this sort of thing, the daily papers would have us believe, .to be entirely the outcome of the over-education of the Hindu. It is no doubt easier to pluader those who are ignorant than to humiliate, degrade, and governmeatally treat m the same manner those who have received an education, but it is not education that is at the root ol the profound dissatisfaction that exists m India. The cause of the trouble is that India Is treated as a conquered country, that its people are persistently insulted, and that they are ruthlessly plusdered. The "color line" is a thing that is less tolerable m India than it is m any other, country, lor tSe vast mass of the people of India are mgn of color, and governing them are a few white bureaucrats not superior m inMipci! to the people whom- they rule, and only maintained m positioßrby the

fact tkat most, of, the people of India are pacific peoples who kneiw nothing of the art of war. Because ol this want «>f -Huwledge, and of the fact, too, that the taltihg of- life is contrary to the religious belief of many natives' of India, the white bureaucracy is maintained m position by the British garrison. "Even a worm v.ill turn," however, and thus it is that ladia is now aflame with the spirit of revolt.

la this country we have proclaimed a belief m a White New Zealand, and have more strongly insisted ; upon this principle than the Americans have insisijed upon their "Monroe Doctrine" of America for republicans only. Yet the. basis of our insistence upon a White country is not any foolish prejudice" against the color of any person : it is a desire to maintain m our country certain conditions of life. At lie bottom of the White New Zealand tguesti6n is the Labor 'question. It is unfortunately th^ case that the natives of Asia..;&re people who have been governed despotically for so many centuries, their methods of producing and distributing wealth are so different, and their settlements so congested that they have become accustomed to living upon very much less than have the , peoples ... of the countries inhabited solely- by white peoples, The consequence is that,, under competition- > f or - employment, if Asiatics Were allowed free admission to .; this country, Obey-. would, very soon, wholly by selling their labor for much less than the amounts demanded by white people, have certain industries m their hands entirely, and the white people would be reduced to a still lower level than that of 'the "mean whites" m the southern parts of^ the United States.

Apart from the ; ; color> insult is the matter of religious discrimination. The Hindu, is not favorably inclined towards Christianity. Ifr he gives up Hinduism, he becomes, not a Christian, but either a Buddhist or a Mohammedan. The latter religion flourishes best among the most ignorant section of the population ; and it is worthy of note that the ignorant Mohammedans are the only Indian people inclined to favor British^ rule. There is no reason to believe that .they favor it, not because of any belief m British rule being better than Indian rule, but because they think that i a ■ Christian is, although m the opinion of a Mohammedan "an infidel dog," yet" a better man, from a religious standpoint, than a Hindu ; the Mohammedan's objection to a European is, "not that he believes m Christianity,, but that he does not .. believe m Mahomet. The European rulers ol India discriminate m a variety of ways against Indians who will not become Christians the great majority of the Indian people will not have anything to do with .Christianity. It is alleged that an order has been issued by. the Indian Government that no Government position, m the Indian service, the salary attaching to which is more than 100 a month, is to be given to an Indian unless he has become a Christian. Any Buddhist m the service who makes himself at all conspicuous m the encouragement of, believers of his religion is transferred to some outr lying station— generally undesirable and of ten-' unhealthy. This is particularly the case m Burma, where the national religion is Buddhism.

The Buddhists have a religious belief that has very many good points. Mercy 'and temperance are fundamental articles of the Buddhist religion. They even «go to extremes m these matters. The Buddhist must take no life ; he must not touch intoxicating drinks. This latter belief does not suij the Indian Government .; for lit derives lai'ge revenues from the sale of intoxicants. A visiting journalist writes : ■ One of the principal means employed for .the demoralisation of the Burmese people is the deliberate encouragement of the drink traffic by the Government. Spirit shops are established m the villages, with most disastrous ' results. These provide a source of revenue on the one hand, and, on the other, they tend to weaken the hold of Buddhism— whi.cn prohibits the use of intoxicants— on the people, and for this reason the Christian missions wink at them. It is notorious that the Asiatic Christian convert is, nine times out of ten, a drunkard, so that spiritous drink would appear, to be one of the instruments used for his spiritual regeneration. i was told of a Burman Government oflicial who, being an ardent Buddhist, was also an ardent teetotaller. He endeavored to put a stop to the drink traffic m his district, and was relieved of his position— on seme other pretext, of cofurse*

Tlien tiere is the Rightful load of taxation upon a race, many of whom are terribly poverty-stricken. There is a landtax, a salt-tax, ari opium-tax, and vast revenues are derived from duties of customs and excise. Considerably more than^ one-third of the revenue is expended, not m India, where it would give employment to Indians, but m , (treat Britain. Moreover, there is a great drain in'other Ways to Britain for which India receives np return. Certainly, the brown, peoples of India have to carry a. "burden" ; T it is the parasitical white man. The salt-tax is an abominable iniquity m a land m \. hich salt . is ope of the necessaries ol life for man and beast. The tax has been recently reduced; but the loss of revenue from salt has been\ compensated .for by the -increased revenue from opium. Great numbers of the Indian people die every year from, famine; yet these wretched creatures, when dying as a result 01. their . acute poverty, are expected to pay taxes ! .It is not surprising thai some Indians have ttirowi bombs ; it is not surprising /that they esteem as a martyr the killer of a common informer ; what is surprising is that they Have not, long ago r thrown off the rule of the handful of white bureaucrats, and declared their guiding governmental principle to be India for the Indians: '" ; v ' . ■ ;■.■■..'