BRITISH POLICY IN INDIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18613, 8 July 1930, Page 9

BRITISH POLICY IN INDIA.

Round Table Conference. KING TO MAKE STATEMENT. British Official Wireless (Received July 7, 5.5 p.m.) RUGBY, July 5. It is expected that this week the terms of reference and details of the personnel of the Round Table Conference on India, due to open in London on October 20, will be announced simultaneously in London and India. The King will refer to the future of his Indian subjects, when on Tuesday he opens the India House at Aldwych. His Majesty’s speech, which will be broadcast, will be in reply to the address of welcome by the High Commissioner. The composition of the Round Table Conference, and its terms of reference, are awaited with great interest. The attendance at the Conference of all classes of representative Indian opinion, is desired, and the terms of reference are expected to be very wide. Suggestions that a free and open conference will virtually lead to the shelving of the Simon Report, are, however, emphatically denied in official circles, though it is probable that Mr Wedgewood Benn will make a statement on the situation, in response to Parliamentary questions, which will be addressed to him to-morrow. THE REAL ISSUE IN INDIA. DOMINION STATUS DEMANDED. It is difficult for the Westerner to appreciate the meaning of events in India, and the situation that has arisen unless the position taken up by the most prominent of the Indian leaders is understood, together with the influence they wield, and the reactions of the mass of the people to their teaching (writes Commander J. M. Ken worthy, M.P., in the “New York Times”). It has been well said that the British in India have been crew of a ship sailing on the surface of deep waters, unconscious of the movements and stirrings below. It was in order to examine into the real situation, and especially what Napoleon used to call the imponderables, that I revisited India this last spring, after a twenty years’ absence. While there I had opportunities of conferences, discussions, and personal conversations with representative Indian leaders of every section, and with prominent English officials, senior army officers, and experienced business men. I am the last British Parliamentarian who has been in India for this purpose, and the last to have speech with the leaders of the Indian national movement. And I was put in possession of all the facts and information I required. The first fact to be appreciated is that there is no “India” in the sense that we speak of the United States of America, of Australia, or even of Europe. That is to say, there is no homogenous population with the same ideas and outlook on affairs. In India there are over a score of principal languages and even more separate and independent races. Though Hinduism is the predominant religious and social system, the Hindus themselves are divided up into many distinct sects, castes, classes, and even races. A Brahmin is usually fairer in colour than a low-caste Hindu, and centuries of differentiation have created a gulf between them, the width and depth of which it is difficult for any non-Indian to appreciate.

Caste System Survives. There is a students’ movement to bring the castes together, and also to soften the differences between Hindus and Moslems. But among the masses of the people the caste system survives almost as rigidly as ever; while the communal differences between Hindus and Moslems, and in the Punjab between both communities and the Sikhs has increased and become more bitter in recent years. The intense bitterness between the two leading communities, for there are 80,000,000 Mohammedans, is a factor of the greatest importance in India to-day. In the villages and country districts the two communities live together with a fair amount of mutual toleration. But in the cities and in political circles, the communal hostilities are appalling. Now, what is the cause of this hostility? Superficially, there may not appear to be much racial difference between Moslems and Hindus, for the Moslem conquerors from the north were not very numerous, compared to the teeming millions of the peoples of the great peninsula, and they found their wives, for the most part, among the Hindus they conquered. But centuries of different customs, of different religions that enter tremendously into the daily life of the people, a different outlook on life, have produced two almost separate races. Mohammedans in India. The Mohammedans have neglected learning and also political organisation. They have a tradition of warfare, and most of the fighting races of India are Moslems. In competitive examinations they are hard put to it to hold their own with the Hindus. Under British rule they can be assured of fair treatment; but they fear Indian Swaraj (independence), which would mean Hindu domination. For, except in a couple of provinces, the Hindus would swamp them. Probably the ablest Moslem leader is Jinnah, a distinguished lawyer, a man of great intellect and character, and a member of the Legislative Assembly. He is a Home Ruler, and as patriotic, from the Indian point of view, as any of the other leaders. He ‘I and his fco-religionists fear, above all

things, a Hindu Government, elected on a common voting roll, supported and its laws enforced by British troops. In the opinion of the highest military authorities of the British Army, if the British withdrew and left the Mohammedans and Hindus to fight it out, as everyone expects they would do, the Mohammedans would win, and the end of the struggle to eject the British would be a Mohammedan Government, with the rule of the sword.