The Daily News FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1930. THE INDIAN PROBLEM.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1930, Page 8

The Daily News FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1930. THE INDIAN PROBLEM.

So much has been heard of the application of Dominion status as a basic solution of the Indian problem of home rule that London files just to hand, containing very full details of the first volume of the Simon Commission’s report, should prove of much interest to the people of the Dominions. It is, however, probable that special attention may be concentrated on the concluding part of that volume, dealing with public opinion in India. Interest in politics in India, states the report, is still necessarily ' confined to .a small minority, chiefly found in the urban and educated population. The idea that the course of government should be affected or controlled by the opinion on political matters of himself and his fellow’s is wholly foreign to the traditions of the Indian peasant. Communal and sectional feeling’s are nearest to the surface, and it is inevitable they should take precedence over more general political conceptions. When the last census was taken, 90 per cent, of the 320,000,000 who were then i counted were found to be living in i the same district in which they had been born, and of the balance two out of three were found in a contiguous district. The members of the medical profession, the journalists, most of the school teachers and, above all, the lawyers are naturally concentrated in the towns, and here, too, are the universities, the students of which make themselves so prominent in Indian political movements. Political thought in British India to-day is, states the report, derived from Europe, . it I being remarkable how the theories and phrases of political science asexpounded in England and America have been adopted and. absorbed, with the result that this sudden impact of ideas drawn from the experience and conditions of other peoples in other climates has a disturbing effect. The fact is emphasised that in the last generation India has been swayed at one and the same time by the force of several conceptions I which in Europe has followeu a certain sequence. Thus the struggle for power between rival religious communities, the rise of an intense national spirit, the spread of toleration, the growth of democracy and the controversies of Socialism mark fairly well-defined epochs in European history. But in India these various influences are contending side by side for the allegiance of ‘the politically-minded. The growth 1 of national self-consciousness is retarded by communal separatism. The movement towards Western industrialism is countered by the return to the spinning wheel. The equality of Asiatic and European I is proclaimed, while the clash of .Brahmin and non-Brahmin, or caste and outcast, is intensified. Ultra - democratic • constitutions are propounded, although the long process which was a necessary antecedent to democracy in Europe —the breaking-down of class and communal and occupational barriers—has only just begun. Indian political thought finds it tempting to foreshorten history, and is unwilling to wait for the final stage of a prolonged evolution. The Commission declares that, with all its variations of expression and intensity, the political sentiment which is most widespread among all educated Indians is the expression of a demand for equality with Europeans and a resentment against any suspicion of differential treatment. It is not, therefore, surprising that while the experienced Indian members of the services will admit the benefits of the British Raj and realise the difficulties in the way of complete self-government, while the members of a minority community, putting the safety of the community first, will stipulate for safeguards; and while the moderates may look askance at extremist methods that they will not openly denounce, all alike are in sympathy with the demand for equal status with the European and proclaim their belief in selfdetermination for India. There is much to appeal to the advanced section of democracy in the Empire in the final paragraph of the volume. It is there stated that the British people, so long accustomed to self-government, are bound to sympathise with the movement in India for self-gov-ernment, even though many may deplore some of its manifestations. Britain is pledged to help India along her way, and constructive effort is needed. It is important to note that- the commission expresses the view that the most formidable of the evils of India have their roots in social and economic customs of long standing, which can only be remedied by the action of the Indian people themselves, and they desire to see the forces of public opinion conftpntiated upon

the practical work of reform. . It seems obvious that the Englishman must continue to have his essential place in the government of India, if only for the reason that in a land ridden by religious rivalries he is neutral. It is his detachment that enables him not merely to deal with racial troubles but more particularly to prevent them.