Charles Freer Andrews

“ Sir John Seeley has been discussing the well-known historical maxim, that revolutions do not occur when people are at the lowest depth of misery, but only when they are looking up and recovering hope. He then goes on as follows;—
"But if India does begin to breathe as a single national whole—and our own rule is perhaps doing more than ever was done by former governments to make this possible—then no such explosion of despair, even if there was cause for it, would be needed. For in that case the feeling would gain ground in the native army, and on the native army ultimately we depend. ”

“ But the moment a mutiny is but threatened which shall be no mere mutiny, but the expression of a universal feeling of nationality, at that moment all hope is at an end, as all desire ought to be at an end, of preserving our Empire. For we are not really conquerors of India, and we cannot rule her as conquerors ”

“ The rule of the British in India is regarded as parallel to that of the Romans in Britain in ancient times. When the Romans left the shores of Britain, the wretched inhabitants, we are told, gazed longingly after them as the Roman ships departed, being themselves too weakened by foreign government to have any powers of self-defence left. Even so, Sir John Seeley appears to think, the people of India have so lost the powers of self-government and self-defence, that it would be a crime to leave them to themselves. ”

“ Non-violence is the underlying principle which has been put forward by Mahatma Gandhi in the clearest possible manner and with the clearest possible conviction. It is the very essence, the very centre of the whole movement. ”

“ And, in very truth, though in many directions progress has been made since Sir John Seeley’s days, and even since the year 1907, yet in one direction no improvement whatever has taken place. National India is as defenceless as ever she was before. And, I am afraid, an impartial historian would have to relate that national deterioration has been going on apace, in spite of Indian awakening and in spite, of Indian progress in certain directions. I, for one, have come to believe that the state of the peasantry in India, under the crushing burden of military expenditure, is growing steadily worse. ”

“ Is not every year that passes only adding to national deterioration?
There then is one terrible fact of history to be faced. Any further remaining in a state of dependence within the British Empire would appear to mean an increasing measure of national deterioration. We must, therefore, at once awake and shake ourselves free.
The second of the two historical maxims presented by Sir John Seeley forces Indians into a dilemma from which there appears to be no escape. He faces the ultimate question of the withdrawal of the British Government from India. ”

“ But to Indians themselves, his words about national deterioration and national defencelessness ought to burn like fire. The inevitable result of the present state of things, according to Seeley, is that India is becoming every year more and more helpless, more and more unable to defend herself, more and more unable to evolve out of her own resources a stable form of government, more and more incapable of depending on anything else except the British power. ”

“ Let us suppose—not even that the native army mutinied—but simply that a native army could not any longer be levied. In a moment the impossibility of holding India would become manifest to us. For it is a condition of our Indian Empire that it should be held without any great effort. As it was acquired without much effort on the part of the English state, it must be retained in the same way. We are not prepared to bury millions on army upon army in defending our acquisition. ”

“ It is this fact, and not some enormous superiority on the part of the English race, that makes our Empire in India possible. If there could arise in India a nationality movement similar to that which we witnessed in Italy, the English power could not even make the resistance that was made in Italy by Austria, but must succumb at once. For what means can England have, which is not a military state, of resisting the rebellion of two hundred and fifty millions of subjects? ”

“ There, in Mahatma Gandhi, we have a volcanic personality, a moral genius of the first order, who has revealed to us all the hidden power of a living freedom from within, who has taught us to depend, not on any external resources, but on ourselves. ”

“ Much pulling down will be witnessed before the building up can be seen. But the essential factor after all is the new atmosphere, the new spirit, the new life-urge from beneath which has forced its way to the surface. ”

“ But the more deeply I studied the history of India, and went to impartial historians, like Seeley, for my information, the more I found out that a violent revolution was not needed. India had not been conquered by British arms, but by the employment of Indian mercenary troops under British direction. ”

“ God knows, there has been national deterioration enough! The last thing that we should wish is that it should go on any longer. We cannot sit down at ease, while this root-malady strikes down still deeper into the vitality of the nation. ”

“ We could subdue the mutiny of 1857, formidable as it was, because it was spread through only a part of the army, because the people did not actively sympathise with it, and because it was possible to find native Indian races who would fight on our side. ”

“ Such a period is surely ‘a long time.’ Therefore, if Seeley’s maxim is true, every year that India remains in subjection to England in the future will only drive the national deterioration deeper and deeper. How much longer, then, is India to go on in this state of dependence? ”

“ We do not want pleasant things said to us: we need the truth. It is in the sense of the awakening of these days and of the need of facing unflinchingly the facts, that I shall try to write, at a time when writing is very difficult on account of ill health. ”

“ For of the army by which it is garrisoned, two-thirds consist of native soldiers. Imagine what an easy task the Italian patriots would have had before them, if the Austrian government which they desired to expel had depended not upon Austria but upon Italian soldiers! ”

“ The Esher Report, which is already being acted upon in important details, shows the limit of Indian helplessness. A military budget which exhausts nearly half the national income in a country so desperately poor as India, reveals still further the deadlock reached in Indian affairs. ”

“ Indians were defenceless and they must be protected even against themselves. The one thing needed was the Pax Britannica. Anything else could only end in the Pathans and Afridis and Afghans coming over the frontier. ”