THE INDIAN UNREST

Otago Witness, 1 June 1910, Page 12

THE INDIAN UNREST

At all-too-frequent intervals the cables tell us that some Indian patriot has been imprisoned for offences against the law, which in essence are smaller or greater rebellions against British rule in India. Much of this unrest is unintelligble to us, and the multitude of interpreters has simply added confusion.

In the Nineteenth Century for April E. Armine Wodehouse, late Professor of Philosophy at Deccan College, Poona, has an illuminating article on " Racial Feeling in India." Professor Wodehouse is not a gobe-trotter, and he knows Inda. The trouble in India, the Professor thinks, is "a mere antagonism of race." Those English officials who have fallen victims to the anarchical movement have suffered simply because they were Englishmen and not Indians. In their treatment of. and relatoin with, Indians they followed the highest and most generous traditions of their race. It was hoped that this class of official, which was seeking to adapt itself to a changing environment and entering into the Indian spirit in its many-sidedness, would have smoothed away many difficulties. But " if this class is to be rejected by the consciousness of India, and if those who belong to it are to be considered enemies of the country, it must be confessed that there remains obviously no hope of ever arriving at a settlement of current problems." The antagonism between the two races must grow if this idea fails, and the future of India causes the deepest apprehension. The recent events are so grave that "optimism of any kind becomes truly difficult." Nevertheless Professor Wodehouse sees light. The crime and outrage must not be accepted as conclusive evidence of a widely-spread and universal racial hatred. The hatred exists in certain places, and it is a tremendous danger. But it is not universal. " Such a feeling is neither natural to the Indian temperament nor is it in any way representative of the consciousness of the race." Generally there is a remarkable absence of insistence upon elemental considerations of race. A contrary opinion can only work injury because of it« injustice. " The justice required of the Englishman in connection with India is not merely a matter of the mechanical justice of the law courts " : it is rather a general justic© of attitude in all things. " One aspect of this will consist in a careful discrimination between good and bad and an avoidance of generalised condemnations." This is easier for those in close contact with Indian affairs than for those at a distance. The memory of the Mutiny is a mischievous one. The sensationalism of the press is another dangerous element. The trouble is largely a huge _ misunderstanding between nationalities—a mutual distrust. " Suspicion has bred suspicion, hasty judgments have product bantv ""laments, pud in this way

things have in many places arrived at a purely artificial state of complication which has little to do either with the English or the Indian character as they really are." The mischief must be undone. We had rather dwell on what is best than what is worst in India. " Instead of sporadic outrages we should note rather the remarkable racial tolerance shown for so long by the people of India, the spirit of friendliness and hospitality which an Englishman may everywhere meet in that country, and the ready allowances made for the many fundamental differences of habit, temperament, and outlook upon life which separate the European from the Oriental." The Professor believes that the whole misunderstanding could be outlived to the benefit of both nations. The clash of ideas is admitted, but here is a fact of the profoundest importance : —" It is soon seen by experience that this opposition has little reference to the concrete Englishman or to the concrete relationship between the races. Bring the extremist writer and the official Englishman into personal contact, enable them to meet, substitute a human relationship for an abstract relationship, and,. if things are at all normal, they will get on admirably together, and possibly become the best of friends. It is the abstract relationship, the abstract Englishman, that are detestable to many Indians in these days. It is the idea of British rule a.s contrasted with and opposed to the idea of self-government which makes the aspiring Indian patriot the enemy of the former."

The relationship between ruler and ruled has become a cold., dead relationship. It is government by abstraction, and the Indian revolts against it. Harmonise the ideals of nationhood in government, humanise the relationships between the two peoples, and the Indian problem is solved. A great danger lies in " condemning a whole people for the ems of a few, and of so being, even though unconsicously, unjust. Moreover, experience has shown how deeply, very often, such injustice is felt, and to what an estrangement of feeling it not infrequently leads." It seems more than possible that after all the years of association the Englishman has failed to understand the All things considered, such a failure is not surprising.