My book, Young India, was written during the first year of the war and was finally revised and sent to the press before the war was two years old. It concluded with the following observation:

The events that have happened since have amply justified the above conclusion. India not only refrained from disturbing England while she was engaged in war with Germany, but actively helped in defeating Germany and winning the war. She raised an army of over a million combatants and supplied a large number of war workers, and made huge contributions in money and materials. She denied herself the necessities of life in order to feed and equip the armies in the field though within the last months of the war, when scarcity and epidemic overtook her, she lost six millions of her sons and daughters from one disease alone—influenza. This was more than chivalry. This was self-effacement in the interests of an Empire which, in the past, had treated her children as helots. How much of this effort was voluntary and how much of it was forced it is difficult to appraise. Great Britain, however, has unequivocally accepted it as voluntary and has attributed it to India’s satisfaction with her rule. That India was not satisfied with her rule she has spared no pains to impress upon the British people as well as the rest of the world. Reading between the lines of the report of the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy has established the fact of that dissatisfaction beyond the possibility of doubt, but if any doubt still remained it has been dispelled by the writings and utterances of her representative spokesman in India, in Great Britain and abroad. The prince and the peasant, the landlord and the ryot, the professor and the student, the politician and the layman—all have spoken. They differ in their estimates of the “blessings” of British rule, they differ in the manner of their profession of loyalty to the British Empire, they sometimes differ in shaping their schemes for the future Government of India but they are all agreed:

(1) That the present constitution of the Government of India is viciously autocratic, bureaucratic, antiquated and unsatisfying.

(2) That India has, in the past, been governed more in the interests of, and by the British merchant and the British aristocrat than in the interests of her own peoples.

(3) That the neglect of India’s education and industries has been culpably tragic and

(4) That the only real and effectual remedy is to introduce an element of responsibility in the Government of India.

In the report of the Secretary of State and the Viceroy, so often quoted and referred to in these pages, the truth of (1), (3), and (4) is substantially admitted and point (2) indirectly conceded. In the following pages an attempt is made to prove this by extracts from the report itself. Ever since the report was published in July, 1918, India has been in a state of ferment,—a ferment of enthusiasm and criticism, of hope and disappointment. While the country has freely acknowledged the unique value of the report, the politicians have differed in their estimates of the value of the scheme embodied therein. Yet there is a complete unanimity on one point, that nothing less than what is planned in the report will be accepted, even as the first step towards eventual complete responsible Government. This is the minimum. Even the ultra-moderates have expressed themselves quite strongly on that point. Speaking at the Conference of the Moderates held at Bombay on November 1, 1918, the President, Mr. Surendranath Banerjea, is reported to have said: “our creed is co-operation with the Government wherever practicable, and opposition to its policy and measures when the supreme interests of the mother-land require it.... I have a word to say ... to the British Government. I have a warning note to sound.... If the enactment of the Reform proposals is unduly postponed, if they are whittled down in any way ... there will be grave public discontent and agitation.” A little further in the same speech he asked if “by the unwisdom of our rulers” India was “to be converted into a greater Ireland.” In less than six months from the date of this pronouncement, the rulers of India gave ample proof of their “unwisdom” by actually converting India into a “greater Ireland” and in establishing the absolute correctness of the prognostication made by the present writer in the concluding sentence of his book Young India. The manifesto of the Moderate Party issued over the signatures of the Moderate leaders all over the country contained the following warning: “We must equally protest against every attempt, by whomever made and in whatever manner, at any mutilation of the Montagu-Chelmsford proposals. We are constrained to utter a grave warning against the inevitable disastrous effects of such a grievous mistake on the future relations of the British Government and the Indian people which will result in discontent and agitation followed by repression on the one side and suffering on the other side.” Little did they know when they uttered the warning that repression would come even before the Reform Scheme was discussed in Parliament and “mutilated” there. British rule in Ireland has been for the last twenty years a wearisome record of mixed concessions and coercions. Every time a concession was made it was either preceded or accompanied by strong doses of coercion. One would have thought that British statesmen were wiser by their experience of Ireland, but it seems that they have learnt nothing and that they have no intention of doing in India anything different from what they have been doing in Ireland. The history of British statesmanship in relation to Irish affairs is repeating itself almost item by item in India.

Lord Morley’s reforms were both preceded and followed by strong measures of repression and suppression. As if to prove that British statesmanship can never in this respect set aside precedent even for once, Mr. Montagu’s proposals have been followed by a measure of coercion unique even for India. Mr. Montagu’s proposals for the reconstruction of Government in India are yet in the air. They are being criticised and examined minutely by numerous British agencies both in India and in England as to how and in what respects they can be made innocuous. Certain other reforms promised by the report, such as the scheme for Local Self Government and the policy in relation to the Arms Act, have already been disposed of in the usual masterly way of giving with one hand and taking back with the other. Similarly the “great” scheme of opening the commissioned ranks of the Army to the native Indians has practically (for the present at least) ended in fiasco. But the policy underlying the Rowlatt laws has surpassed all. In the chapters of this book dealing with the Revolutionary movement the reader will find a genesis of the Rowlatt laws of coercion.

On the sixteenth of January in the Gazette of India was published a draft of two bills that were proposed to be brought before the Legislative Council of India (which has a standing majority of Government officials). These bills were to give effect to the recommendations of the committee presided over by Mr. Justice Rowlatt of the High Court of England, for the prevention, detection and punishment of sedition in India. Their introduction into the Legislative Council was at once protested against by all classes of Indians with a unanimity never before witnessed in the history of India. All sections of the great Indian population from the Prince to the peasant, including all races, religions, sects, castes, creeds and professions joined in the protest. Hindus, Mohammedans, Indian Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsees—all stood up, to a man, to oppose the measure. All the political parties, Conservatives, Liberals, Moderates and Extremists expressed themselves against it. The measure was opposed by all the non-official Indian members of the Legislative Council. All methods of agitation were resorted to in order to make the opinion of the country known to the Government and to warn the latter against the danger of defying the united will of the people. The press, the pulpit and the platform all joined in denouncing the measures, meetings of protest were held in all parts of the country and resolutions wired to the Government. A few days before the final meeting at which these bills were to be passed into law a number of prominent citizens, male and female, pledged themselves to passive resistance in case the measures were enacted. The passive resistance movement was inaugurated and led by Mr. M. K. Gandhi, a man of saintly character, universally respected and revered in India, the same who stood for the Government during the war and rendered material help in recruiting soldiers, raising loans and procuring other help for its prosecution. The following is the text of the pledge that was signed by hundreds and thousands of Indians belonging to all races and religions and hailing from all parts of the continent:

The passive resistance movement was not approved by the country as a whole, and influential voices were raised against it even in its early stages but the fact that Mr. Gandhi had taken the responsibility of initiating and leading it and that many women had signed the pledge should have opened the eyes of the Government as to the intensity of the feeling behind it. Besides this threat of passive resistance the Indian members of the Council showed their solid opposition to the measure by using all the historic obstructive methods so well known to the student of Parliamentary debates in the House of Commons as associated with the Irish Nationalist party under the leadership of Parnell. The debates in the Legislative Council of India do not ordinarily last for more than one day, consisting, at the most, of eight hours. The debate on this bill lasted for three days; one sitting lasted “from 11 o’clock in the morning ... until nearly half past one the following day with adjournments for luncheon and dinner.” The officials were determined to pass the bill at that sitting and so they refused to rise until the amendments on the agenda had been disposed of and the bill passed into law. The non-officials proposed no less than 160 amendments but by the application of closure methods they were all disposed of in three days and the bill passed (on the 18th of March). The Government made a few minor concessions but on the whole the bill remained as it had been drafted, a monument of Governmental shortsightedness and stupidity. The consideration of the other bill was postponed. As soon as the news reached Bombay that the first bill had become law “the market was closed as a protest” and “posters in English and the vernacular, were displayed throughout the city urging the non-payment of taxes and asking the people to resist the order of a tyrannical Government.” (London Times, April 2.) Similar manifestations of anger were made throughout the country and the movement for passive resistance was definitely inaugurated. It spread like wild fire. Thousands joined it and the relations between the people and the Government became very strained. However, no violence was resorted to, nor was any harm done to life and property. Several members of the Legislative Council resigned their offices. One of them a Mohammedan leader, wrote the following letter to His Excellency the Viceroy:

The leaders of the passive resistance movement declared 30th March as “the National protest day.” The protest was to be made by all the traditional methods known to India for ages, viz., by fasting, stopping business, praying, and meeting in congregations in their respective places of worship. The only Western method contemplated was passing resolutions and sending telegrams to the authorities in India and England. The 30th of March was thus observed as a national protest day throughout India and there was only one clash between the people and the Government, viz., at Delhi, the national capital.

Delhi has been the national capital of India from times immemorial. It was the chief capital city of the Moguls. It has a mixed population of Hindus and Mohammedans, almost evenly divided. The European population there is not very large. There is a British garrison stationed in the Mogul fort. Besides being the capital of British India, Delhi is a very important trade center and the terminus of several railway lines. All business was stopped, shops closed and the city gave an appearance of a general strike. A mass meeting attended by 40,000 people, according to British estimates, and presided over by a religious ascetic, passed resolutions of protest and cabled them to the Secretary of State for India in London. It was at Delhi and on this day as already stated that the first clash occurred between the authorities and the people. It is immaterial how it came about but it may be noted that rifles and machine guns were freely used in dispersing the mobs at the railway station and other places. According to official estimates fourteen persons were killed and about sixty wounded. The non-official estimates give larger figures. Evidently nothing serious happened between March 30th and April 6th which last was observed as a day of mourning throughout British India from Peshawar to Cape Comorin and from Calcutta to Karachi and Bombay. People held meetings, made speeches, marched in processions, took pledges of passive resistance, closed shops, suspended business, bathed in the sea, joined in prayer and fasted. No violence of any kind was reported. In the words of a correspondent of the London Times, “the distinguishing feature of many of these demonstrations [meaning thereby passive resistance demonstrations] made on the 6th of April, specially at Delhi, Agra, Bombay and Calcutta, is the Hindu and Moslem fraternization, Hindus being freely admitted to the mosques, on occasions occupying the Mihrab (the niche indicating the direction of Mecca).” In a message dated April 7th the same correspondent cabled “an unprecedented event in the shape of a joint Moslem-Hindu service at the famous Juma Masjed at Delhi, at which a Hindu[1] delivered a sermon.” The Juma Masjed is one of the jewels of Mogul architecture and probably the biggest mosque in India.

On April 9th Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, dwelt with pride on the fact that the province ruled by him with an iron hand for the last five years “had raised 360,000 combatants during the war.” “Dealing with the political situation he declared that the Government of the province was determined that public order which was maintained during the war, should not be disturbed during peace. Action had therefore been taken under the Defence Act against certain individuals who were openly endeavoring to arouse public feeling against the Government.” It was this action, viz., the summary arrest of leaders at Amritsar and the order of prohibition against Mr. Gandhi’s contemplated visit to the Punjab, that set fire to the accumulated magazine. It exasperated the people and in a moment of despair the intense strain of the last few weeks found relief in attacks on Government buildings and stray persons of European extraction. What actually happened in different places no one can definitely tell just at this stage but it is clear that at places so widely distant as Amritsar and Lahore in the Punjab and Viramgam in the Gujerat (Western Presidency) railway stations, telegraph offices and some other public buildings were burned, railway traffic interrupted, tram cars stopped and some Europeans killed and attacked. At Amritsar three banks were burnt down and their managers killed. Telegraphing on April 15th and again on the 16th of April, the correspondent of the London Times remarked that “the Punjab continued to be the principal seat of trouble” which was probably due to the extremely brutal methods which the Punjab Government had followed in repressing and suppressing not only the present ‘riots’ but also all kinds of political activity in the preceding six years. It appears that in about a week’s time almost the whole province was ablaze. The Government used machine guns in dispersing meetings, showered bombs from aeroplanes and declared martial law in several towns, extended the seditious meetings prevention Act and other emergency laws in districts, marched flying military columns from one end to the other, accompanied by travelling courts martial to try and punish on the spot all arrested for offences committed in connection with the passive resistence movement. Leaders were arrested and deported without trial of any kind; papers were suppressed and all kinds of demonstrations prohibited.

Among the leaders arrested are the names of some of the most conservative and moderate of the Punjab public men—men whose whole life is opposed to extremism of any kind. Those men were subjected to various indignities, handcuffed and marched to jail. They have been held in ordinary prison cells and all comforts have been denied to them as if they were criminals. Counsel engaged for them from outside the Province have been refused admission into the Province. Machine guns and aeroplanes have been used in dispersing unarmed mobs and crowds were fired at in many places. At Lahore the General Officer Commanding gave notice “that unless all the shops were re-opened within 48 hours all goods in the shops not opened will be sold by public auction.” As to the causes of the upheaval, the Anglo-Indian view is contained in a telegraphic message to the London Times bearing date April 20th. Below we give a verbatim copy of this message:

As usual the message is a mixture of truth and imagination. At most it is a partisan view. Be the causes what they may, the events in our judgment amply justify the following conclusions:

(a) That India is politically united in demanding a far reaching measure of self-determination.

(b) That she will not be satisfied with paltry measures of political reform which do not give her power to shape her fiscal policy in her own interests, independent of control from London.

(c) That it is useless to further harp on the “cleavages” of race, religion and language, in dealing with the problem of India.

(d) That the country is no longer prepared to let measures of coercion pass and take effect without making their protest and dislike known to the authorities in a manner, the significance of which may not be open to misunderstanding.

The Indian members of the Legislative Council while opposing the Rowlatt Bills spoke in sufficiently clear and strong language of the grave situation the Government was creating by its ill-considered policy. They knew their people. The bureaucracy evidently dismissed it as bluff or, if it knew what was likely to happen, encouraged it in the hope that the outbreak might justify their opposition to, and dislike of, the Montagu-Chelmsford scheme. In doing that they have had to hatch the eggs they themselves laid. These events have, besides, proved (a) that the lead of the country has passed from the hands of the so called “natural leaders,” the aristocracy of land, money and birth; (b) that even the moderate leaders have considerably lost in prestige and influence; (c) that the lead has definitely passed into hands that openly and frankly stand for self-determination and self-government within the Empire and are prepared for any sacrifice to achieve that end; (d) that the old methods of governing India must now be discarded once for all and the charge of provinces taken away from sun-dried bureaucrats of the type of Sir Michael O’Dwyer and Sir Reginald Craddock.

The bloodshed in the Punjab, which outdid all other Provinces in sending help during the war both in men and money, pointed to the administration or mal-administration of Sir Michael O’Dwyer as responsible for the nature and intensity of the outbreak. If ever there was a British ruler of India who deserved impeachment it is Sir Michael O’Dwyer. He was not only a tyrant and a snob of the worst order but he was incompetent also. One of the two things must have happened: Either he was out of touch with public feeling in the province or he deliberately provoked this disaster by a policy of strength. In either case he deserves to be publicly impeached and condemned for incompetence or brutality or possibly for both.

The following Summary of the orders passed by the officer commanding shows the nature of the martial law administered in the “most loyal” province in India, a province which has so far been considered to be the right arm of British RÁj in India.

I have italicised some words and sentences for special attention. The reader I hope will note the exceptions in favor of the Europeans and the Indian servants in the employ of the Europeans and also the reasonableness of the other orders, threatening punishment upon the owners of certain properties and requiring “all students,” and all male persons belonging to private Colleges in Lahore to attend four times a day at a particular place for roll call. Order No. 14 is a gem of great brilliance.

I have omitted order No. 6 as unimportant. Orders from 8 to 12 inclusive are not available. What has been given above, however, is quite sufficient to show the nature of the martial law that has been applied to the Punjab, after five years of unquestioned and unrivalled loyalty to the British Empire, in the period of greatest danger that had overtaken it. Such is the reward of “loyalty.”

Just as I am writing these lines I learn from the London Times that the reports of the two committees that were sent to India to inquire into (a) questions connected with the franchise and (b) the division of functions between the Government of India and local governments, and between the official and the popular elements in the local governments, have been published in Great Britain. In one of the Appendices is given a rather brief and inadequate summary of the recommendations of these committees published by the London Times. At this stage it is impossible to make any[Pg xxviii] comments except that the franchise is by no means as broad as it could have been, the restriction of local residence on candidates for the provincial Legislative Councils extremely unreasonable, and the strength of the Provincial Councils very meagre. The recommendations are unsatisfactory in other respects also, specially the power granted to the Governor to dismiss ministers.

The question, however, is, “Will the Cabinet stand by these recommendations or will they allow them to be whittled down?” Mr. Montagu’s bill, which is promised to be introduced in the House of Commons early in June, will answer the question.

In conclusion, I have to tender my thanks to my friend Dr. J. T. Sunderland for having read my proofs.

June 2, 1919.

Lajpat Rai

[1] This Hindu happened to be the leader of a section of the Arya Samaj—an organization known for its bitter attitude towards Mohammedanism.