Revolution is a fever brought about by the constant and reckless disregard of the laws of health in the government of a country.
David Lloyd George
“Causes and Aims of the War.” Speech delivered at Glasgow, on being presented with the freedom of that city, June 29, 1917.
The authors of the report remark:
“There exists a small revolutionary party deluded by hatred of British rule and desire for the elimination of the Englishman into the belief that the path to independence or constitutional liberty lies through anarchical crime. Now it may be that such persons will see for themselves the wisdom of abandoning methods which are as futile as criminal; though if they do not, the powers of the law are or can be made sufficient for the maintenance of order. But the existence of such people is a warning against the possible consequences of unrestrained agitation in India. We are justified in calling on the political leaders, in the work of education that they will undertake, to bear carefully in mind the political inexperience of their hearers; and to look for further progress not to fiery agitation which may have consequences quite beyond their grasp, but to the machinery which we devise for the purpose. In every country there will be persons who love agitation for agitation’s sake or to whom it appeals like an intoxicant. It is the duty of the leaders of Indian opinion to remember the effect on people not accustomed to weighing words of fiery and heated speeches. Where ignorance is widespread and passions are so easily aroused, nothing is easier than for political leaders to excite a storm; nothing harder for them than to allay it. Breaches of the peace or crimes of violence only put back the political clock. Above all things, when the future of India depends upon co-operation among all races, attacks upon one race or religion or upon another jeopardise the whole experiment. Nor can the condemnation of extremist and revolutionary action be left only to the official classes. We call upon all those who claim to be leaders to condemn with us and to support us in dealing with methods of agitation which drive schoolboys to crime and lead to religious and agrarian disturbance. Now that His Majesty’s Government have declared their policy, reasonable men have something which they can oppose successfully to the excitement created by attacks on Government and by abuse of Englishmen, coupled with glowing and inaccurate accounts of India’s golden past and appeals to race hatred in the name of religion. Many prominent Indians dislike and fear such methods. A new opportunity is now being offered to combat them; and we expect them to take it. Disorder must be prejudicial to the cause of progress and especially disorder as a political weapon.”
We are in general agreement with the sentiments expressed in this extract but we will be wanting in candour if we fail to point out that, though the revolutionary movement in India is mainly political, it is partly economic and partly anarchic also. In the first two aspects it is at present the product of purely local (Indian) conditions. In the last, it is the reaction of world forces. While we are hoping that the change in the policy, now announced, will remove the political basis of it, we are not quite sure that that will ensure the extermination of the party or the total destruction of the movement. The growth of democratic political institutions in India must inevitably be followed by a movement for social democracy. The spirit of Revolution which is now fed by political inequalities will, when these are removed, find its sustenance in social inequalities. That movement may not be anti-British; perhaps it will not be, but that it will have some revolutionary element in it may be assumed. The lessons of history make it clear that the most effective way to prevent its falling into channels of violence is to have as little recourse to coercion as may be consistent with the preservation of general order and peace. The preservation of order and the unhindered exercise of private rights by all citizens is the pre-requisite condition to good government. Every government must see to it. It is their duty to use preventive as well as punitive methods. There are, however, ways of doing these things. One is the British, the American and the French way.[1] The other is what was heretofore associated with the name of the late Czar. The third is the German way. We hope the lessons of Czarism will not be lost on either party. The governments have as much to learn from it as the peoples. The best guarantee against the abnormal growth of a revolutionary movement is to adopt and follow the British methods and to avoid scrupulously and without fail any approach to the discredited Russian or Prussian methods.
The Indian soil and the Indian atmosphere are not very congenial for revolutionary ideas and revolutionary methods. The people are too docile, gentle, law-abiding and spiritually inclined to take to them readily. They are by nature and tradition neither vindictive nor revengeful. Their general spirit is opposed to all kinds of violence. They have little faith in the virtues of force. Unless they are provoked, and that too terribly, and are face to face with serious danger they do not like the use of force, even when recourse to it may be legal and morally defensible.
One of the causes of the growth of the revolutionary movement in India has been the insolence and the incivility of the European Community towards the Indian Community. The charges of cowardice so often hurled against the Bengali have played no insignificant part in the genesis of the Bengal revolutionary. The distinguished authors have put it rather mildly:
“If there are Indians who really desire to see India leave the empire, to get rid of English officers and English commerce, we believe that among their springs of action will be found the bitterness of feeling that has been nurtured out of some manifestation that the Englishman does not think the Indian an equal. Very small seeds casually thrown may result in great harvests of political calamity. We feel that, particularly at the present stage of India’s progress, it is the plain duty of every Englishman and woman, official and non-official, in India to avoid the offence and the blunder of discourtesy: and none the less is it incumbent on the educated Indian to cultivate patience and a more generous view of what may very likely be no more than heedlessness or difference of custom.”
We admire the dignified way in which they have addressed their advice to the educated Indian. But we hope they do not ignore that except in a few scattered instances heretofore the chief fault has lain with the ruling class. The proceedings of the Royal Commission on the Public Services of India are full of that racial swagger which the authors of this report have mildly condemned in the above extract and it is an open secret that that spirit was one of the dearly cherished articles of faith with the bureaucracy. We hope the war has effected a great change in their temper and both parties will be disposed to profit from the advice given to them in the report.
As to the duty of the educated leaders in the matter of suppressing the growth of the revolutionary movement in future, we beg to point out that all depends on how much faith the governing classes place in the professions of the popular leaders. Open public speeches and meetings appealing to racial or religious animosities have not played any important part in the development of the revolutionary spirit. It is not likely that the educated leaders will in any way consciously and voluntarily digress from the limits of reasonable criticism of Government policy, nor have they very often done so in the past. What has so far prevented the educated leaders from exercising an effective check on the growth of the revolutionary movement is their inability to associate on terms of friendship with the younger generation. This has been due partly to a false idea of dignity and partly to the fear that any association with hot-headed young men might bring discredit on them or might land them in hot water if, sometime or other, any one of their friends might do anything violent. Public speeches denouncing the revolutionary propaganda and the revolutionary activities or public condemnation of the latter in the press are good in their own way, but they are not quite effective. The revolutionist may ascribe it to fear, timidity, or hypocrisy. What is needed is that educated leaders of influence should be free to mix, socially and otherwise, with the younger generation so as to acquire an intimate knowledge of their trend of thought and bent of mind. It is in these intimate exchanges of views that they can most effectively exercise their powers of argument and persuasion and use their influence effectively. They will not succeed always, but in a good many cases they will. This cannot be done, however, unless the Executives and the Police relax their attentions toward them.
The bureaucrats’ want of confidence in any Indian leader reached its limit in the attentions which the agents of the secret service bestowed on such men as the late Mr. Gokhale. It is an open secret that the secret service records have assigned a particular number to every public leader in India. Religious preachers and teachers of the type of Lala Hansraj and Lala MÛnshi RÁm receive as much attention in the records as the writer of this book or Mr. B. G. Tilak or Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal. The “Servants of India” are as much the objects of solicitation on the part of the secret service men as the members of the Arya Samaj. Of course, agitators are agitators. All the great progressive souls of the world have had to agitate at one time or another in their lives. Agitation is the soul of democracy. There can be no progress in a democracy without agitation. Sir Denzil Ibbetson could pay no greater compliment to the Arya Samaj than by his remark in 1907 that, according to his information, wherever there was an Arya Samaj it was a centre of unrest. We hope the Governments are now convinced that the Arya Samaj has never been revolutionary. It is one of the most conservative, restraining forces in the social life of the country. Yet it cannot be denied that its propaganda has been and will continue to be one of the most disturbing factors in the placid waters of Indian life. The bureaucracy could not look upon it with kindness. Any attempt to persist in this kind of control or check or persecution will be fatal to the success of the appeal which Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford have addressed to the public men of India in the extract given above.
In our judgment the most effective way to check the growth of the revolutionary movement is by freeing the mind of the leaders of the fear of being misunderstood if they should mix freely with the younger generation and yet fail to prevent some of them from becoming revolutionists. A revolutionary prospers on exclusiveness. Secrecy is his great ally. Cut off a young man from open, healthy influences and he will be attracted by the mystery of secrecy. Thenceforth he is doomed. After that he may be weaned only by kindness and friendliness and not by threats or persecution. Most of the youths attracted by revolutionary propaganda have proved to be quite ignorant of the real conditions of their country. No attempt has been made to instruct them in politics. They have been fed on unsound history and unsound politics. Reactionary Imperialism has harmed them more than exaggerated nationalism. They have had few opportunities of discussion with people who could look upon things in right perspective. They could not open their minds to their European teachers. In the few cases in which they did they repented. Somehow or other, the free confidential talks they had with their professors found an entry in the police records. It brought a black mark against their names, to stand and mar their careers forever. The Indian teacher and professor is afraid of discussing politics with them. So they go on unrestrained until the glamour of prospective heroism, by a deed of violence, fascinates one of them and he is led into paths of crimes of a most detestable kind. Unscrupulous advisors lead him toward falsehood, hypocrisy, treachery, treason and crime by dubious methods. One of the things they preach is that morality has nothing to do with politics. They insinuate that the violence of militarism and Imperialism can be effectively met and checked only by violence. Poor misguided souls! They enforce their advice by the diplomatic history of Europe. They forget that once a youth is led into the ways of falsehood and unscrupulousness he may as easily use it against his friends as against his enemies. If he has no scruples about killing an enemy he may have none about killing a friend. If he has no scruples about betraying the one, he may have none about betraying the other. Once a man starts toward moral degeneration, even for desirable or patriotic ends, there is no knowing whither his course might take him. The most idealistic young men starting with the highest and purest conceptions of patriotism have been known to fall into the most ignoble methods of attacking first their enemies and then their friends. When they reach that stage of moral corruption they can trust no one, can believe in the honesty of no one. Their one idea of cleverness and efficiency is to conceal their motives from everyone, to give their confidence to no one, to suspect and distrust everyone and to aspire toward the success that consists in imposing upon all.
The remedy against this lies in encouraging an open and frank discussion of politics on the part of the younger generation, with such indulgences as are due to their youth and immaturity of judgment; a systematic teaching of political history in schools and colleges; a free and open intercourse with their teachers on the clearest understanding that nothing said in discussion or in confidence will ever be used either privately or publicly against them, and an equally free and intimate intercourse with the leaders of thought and of public life in the country. These latter must be freed from the attentions of the secret service if it is intended that they should effectually coÖperate in counteracting revolutionary propaganda. Besides, the younger generation must be brought up in habits of manly and open encounter with their adversaries, in a spirit of sport and fair play. Repression, suppression, and suspicion do not provide a congenial climate for the development of these habits and they should be subordinated as much as possible in the present condition of chaotic conflict between social interests and social ideals.
[1] By this we do not mean those that were adopted during the war.
