Disloyalty in India.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 19, 4 November 1908, Page 9

Disloyalty in India.

SUBSIDIARY CAUSES OF THE PRESENT UNREST. BY WENTON STERNE, in “London Daily Express.” The riots in Bombay, following the bomb-throwing in Bengal, and coinciding with the trials of many of the leaders of native life and thought for stirring up sedition, prove puzzling to those who have no personal acquaintance with the subtle East. They find it hard to understand that any peoples, nations, and languages—for India, recollect always, contains many of all three —can fail to appreciate the blessings of British rule or be blind to the advantage conferred by regular and systematic administration of justice. We have so often listened to the praises of the Indian Civil Service from the lips of those in high authority, and we are so generally confident in the lofty moral characteristics that we like to believe the birthright of our race, that it io difficult for us to put ourselves for a. moment in the position of people who know fully as little about us as we do about them, and heartily dislike the little that they know. There are certain classes among the three hundred and odd millions of persons who inhabit our Indian Empire who are distinctly loyal and in favour of the continuance of British rule. They are the great rajahs, or princes, and the landholders to whom the Government of India practically guarantees the peace-

fill enjoyment of their possessions. We have also on our side the great majority of those who are directly in our service, that is, the native army, the police, and all such of our employees as consider themselves adequately paid and have no desire to forfeit their salaries. THE FORCES OF UNREST. On the other hand, we find arrayed against us what r.iay lie almost described as the brains of India. The legal and commercial classes are largely in opposition. The native newspapers and educational institutions are nearly all hostile. They are reinforced by the vast army of the discontented and underpaid, who naturally hope to catch some fish if the waters can be sufficiently disturbed. These gentlemen have various grievances to air. They are all irresponsible. They are all eloquent. Many of them have been in England, and the stories they tell about their sojourn here do not make for heightening of our prestige in India. They spy out the nakedness of the dominant country, and they have no hesitation in describing it. Azimnllah Khan, the envoy of Nana Sahib, did precisely the same in his day. His coloured version of the decadence and impotence of the British had much influence in provoking the outbreak of the great Mutiny. THE CRITICAL MASSES.

Meanwhile the main body of our Indian fellow-subjects wait and watch. They have heard much about the strength of the Sahib. They have heard much also of his weakness. They will now see which of the two stories is true. For themselves, they regard us as an evil sent on them from Heaven, or elsewhere, for reasons which it is idle to inquire into and doubtless impossible to discover. Our ways of life and habits they view with a tolerant contempt. Our amusements they consider only worthy of lunatics. Our more serious ambitions they have no desire or leisure to appreciate. Our food habits and our boasted cleanliness they would prefer not to discuss. If keenly questioned, they will admit that meat-eating pleases many of them about as much as cannibalism eharms us, and that they could not personally quite see their way to using the same toothbrush for weeks at a time and retaining the same clothes for months. It will come as something of a revelation, even to many Anglo-Indians, when they first hear that the Indian considers that the very smell of a European is offensive and objectionable! It has long been a common complaint the other way. But the compliment is fully returned. PERSONAL DIGNITY. In old times, when all our people in India were really Sahibs, there were fewer causes of daily friction than there are to-day. The development of commerce and industry has necessarily taken out to India a class of Europeans who are not conspicuous for tact, forbearance, or courtesy’. Even the Indian Civil Service, since the days of competitive examinations set in, has somewhat deteriorated in personnel. It is, perhaps, unavoidable, but it is much to be regretted. The clergy of all denominations create a fresh awkwardness. The Oriental misunderstands them, and views their rather clumsy efforts to descend to his supposed intellectual and social level with amused scorn. Meanwhile he looks with scarcely veiled contempt on the incessant dances, bridge parties, gymkhanas, picnics, and the like. A judge dropping potatoes into a bucket, or a Commissioner taking part in private tlieatricals, is to him a spectacle that makes for mirth rathen than reverence. He considers that the old generation of Sahibs, whose very vices were a pattern of personal dignity, has passed away for ever, and he lends a ready ear to the agitator who would persuade him that a general insanity has afflicted Great Britain, if which these performances arc merely symptoms. THE ONLY REMEDIES. To restore our prestige in India and to secure our rule on the foundations of respect and gratitude, we must take steps to remove the present causes of offence. The unseemly frivolities and wasteful extravagances of the governing class must bo sternly put away. Every resident European should be compelled to learn the chief language at least of the particular province in which his lot is east. Much evil is now the outcome of misunderstandings which produce undue touchiness on one side and half-terrified inability on the other. IMalovalty either

in act nr speech must >«• vigorously suppressed. Vonduct likely to irritate racial antagonism must be regarded as an offence in a European a* welt as in a native. The system of education, which Iras resulted in such fiascos, must be radically- altered. But. above and beyond all else, our |s‘ople must be and behave like Sahibs, and learn to respect the feelings and susceptibilities of ravel. many of which in the dawn of history sprang from the same ancestry as our own.