Indian independence movement

“ Just as others, including the United States, supported Indian independence, India championed the self-determination of peoples from Africa to Asia as they, too, broke free from colonialism. (Applause.) And along with the United States, you’ve been a leader in supporting democratic development and civil society groups around the world. And this, too, is part of India’s greatness.
Now, we all understand every country will follow its own path. No one nation has a monopoly on wisdom, and no nation should ever try to impose its values on another. ”

“ The truth is that the Indians are earning the right to be regarded as worthy fellow-subjects in more ways than one. The battle-field has always formed the short cut to an honourable equality among races. But the Indians are also proving their title to our respect by the slower and more difficult methods of civil life. There was a greater experiment made in the constitutional government of dependencies than the expansion of the Indian Legislative Council on a partially elective basis three years ago. ”

“ They could not conquer India except by playing on the fears of some and the hopes of others, and by seeking and getting the help of Indians, both moral and material. The record is as black as it could be; but nothing succeeds like success, and all that is largely a forgotten page so far as the present generation{101} of Indians is concerned. Only one feels disposed to smile when one hears of Indian nationalists being charged in British-Indian courts with attempting to subvert “the government established by law.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ In addition to the political, industrial, and speculative interests which will thus oppose the restoration of the policy of Indian seclusion from the shattered condition to which the events just recited have reduced it, three classes of persons may be counted on to lend their support to the plan of introducing the Indians, who have thus far been treated as "the wards of the nation," directly into the body of our citizenship. ”

“ There is to be an annuity paid until the Indians become self-supporting. With this last exception, they become settlers like other people. It is the abandonment of the old and vicious policy, and provides, as that did not, for the civilization of the Indians, and the disappearance of the “Indian question.” ”

“ They but forget we Indians owned the land
From ocean unto ocean; that they stand
Upon a soil that centuries agone
Was our sole kingdom and our right alone.
They never think how they would feel to-day,
If some great nation came from far away,
Wresting their country from their hapless braves,
Giving what they gave us—but wars and graves.
Then go and strike for liberty and life,
And bring back honour to your Indian wife. ”

“ In the past we have been very unjust, not to say cruel, to the Indian, and though naturally in some respects a high-natured race, have constantly denied him any political share in the government, and only in the very last few years grudgingly extended it to such Indians as renounce their tribe and adopt the habits and mode of life of the white man, or, as in early England, to such freeholders as acquire a quarter section of land. ”

“ It may be taken as an axiom that whatever Government might decree, the great British mercantile and other interests in India would refuse to allow any appreciable transfer of authority to the hands of Indians, and in face of their opposition it could not be done. That an Indian should rule Indians they would not mind perhaps, but that an Indian should rule Europeans, and that it should be to an Indian they looked for the maintenance of peace and order and for the administration of justice, criminal and civil, is unthinkable. ”

“ Though social reform has been checked, it has not been altogether arrested, nor can it be arrested so long as British rule, by the mere fact of its existence, maintains the ascendency of Western ideals. Happily there are still plenty of educated Indians who realize that the liberation of Indian society from the trammels which are of its own making is much more urgent than its enfranchisement from an alien yoke. ”

“ For it alone lends—and can within any measurable time lend—substantial reality to the mere geographical expression which India is. A few Indians may dream of a united India under Indian rule, but the dream is as wild to-day as that of the few European Socialists who dream of the United States of Europe. ”

“ However wide and earnest and impassioned the differences as to a wise Indian policy entertained by those who discuss the subject, one point in which they all heartily accord is this, — the Indian will never be reclaimed till he ceases to be a communist. He must give up his tribal relations so far as they involve and cover a merging of all his individual proprietary rights to territory, for a joint and common privilege in a vast and unimproved domain. ”

“ Whether, in such an event, the Indians, thus left to meet their fate by themselves, with reasonable provision by the government for their instruction in the arts of life and industry, will waste away in strength and numbers, is a question quite too large to be entered upon here. Popular beliefs and scientific opinion undoubtedly contemplate the gradual if not the speedy decline of Indian tribes when deprived of their traditional freedom of movement, pent up within limits comparatively narrow, and compelled to uncongenial occupations. ”

“ Small as are the requirements of the Indians, the steady growth of the population of India is such that certain outward movement is inevitable, and it is a movement that will increase. It is very desirable that our white fellow subjects in Africa should understand that there will, in all probability, be this current flowing from India, that it is perfectly within the rights of the British Indian to seek his subsistence at the Cape, and that he ought, in the common interest of the Empire, to be well treated when he comes there. ”

“ Speaking of the changed position of the Indians, he said recently, as quoted by the New York Tribune:
The Indian has long been the "ward" of the government. Our statesmen have found this to be a mistake, for it relieves him of all responsibility of providing for himself or of taking care of himself. This policy was found to pauperize him and to unfit him for the competitions of civilized life. In fact it left him as much of a heathen as when our forefathers first discovered him, wandering in the woods or over prairies, the monarch of all he surveyed. ”

“ With sublime faith that God intended all men to be free and equal, all men without restriction, without qualification, without limit, let us listen to their appeal, and respond with the best help in our power to contribute.
Never before in the history of this country has there been such an awakening in behalf of the Indian. Never before such healthy sentiment for justice and fair play for the original owners of the soil over which our fifty millions of prosperous people unfurl the flag of the free. The Indian question, like the Ghost of Banquo, is at every banquet. ”

“ What an impossible prospect for India herself! It seems inevitably to imply perpetual dependence and subjection.
Thus we have come to an impasse, in following out Sir John Seeley’s closely reasoned argument. The situation is as follows: If dependence and subjection to the foreign rule of the British Empire continue, then national deterioration of India is likely to increase. Yet, along with this, withdrawal of India from the British Empire is becoming more and more difficult because the dependence of Indians on the British Empire for support and protection is becoming more and more necessary. ”

“ There can never be between Englishmen and Indians the same community of historical traditions, of racial affinity, of social institutions, of customs and beliefs that exists between people of our own stock throughout the British Empire. The absence of these sentimental bonds, which cannot be artificially forged, makes it impossible that we should ever concede to India the rights of self-government which we have willingly conceded to the great British communities of our own race. ”

“ The Indian must be made to feel that he is in the grasp of a superior, whose aim is to bring out his own manhood, and to give him self-reliance. In our loose and lenient way of exercising authority over the Indians, even when they consent to submit to it, we seem to have forgotten what a large and essential part of control and government in the most civilized communities is of the very essence of compulsion, almost of arbitrariness. ”

“ The fact is, however, that this condition of things is one unavoidably growing out of the clashing of adverse interests—the Indians being anxious to check, we to extend our dominion and power as a people; and the causes existing now, were in being nearly a century ago, and will, in all probability, continue until all vestige of Indian existence shall have passed utterly away. ”

“ The other current of opinion is that the Indians, even as they now are, must at once be relieved of all restraints to which white people are not subjected, and must, without further preparation, be accorded the enjoyment and exercise of all the rights which the civilized citizens of this country enjoy and exercise. This view is entertained and advocated most warmly in that part of the country which is farthest removed from the ground upon which the Indian problem has to be solved. ”

“ He talked about India with great apparent frankness, saying, that naturally the Indians desired national independence, but were too much divided amongst themselves to be likely to attain it in our time. ”

“ The rapacity of our people, for their peltries and their land, the feeble execution of laws made for their protection, and the loose morality which has governed our general intercourse with them, have wasted their numbers, debased their character, and tarnished the honor of that nation, which, from the very organization of its government, has claimed to be their benevolent protector.
The plan of removing the Indians beyond the limits of the United States is not new. ”

“ But to evade a difficulty is only to postpone it. Though the constitutional reforms are confined, in their immediate application, to British India, measures of such far-reaching importance must react more or less directly upon the whole of our Indian Empire. Is it therefore politic, or, indeed, possible, to leave out of account the Native States, which occupy altogether about one-third of the total area of India and have an aggregate population of over 68 millions, or to ignore the rulers charged with their administration? ”

“ Under the English India is more united than she ever was before. But even so, there is no Indian nationality. There are different religions and different languages. Islam and Hinduism neutralise each other, and thereby create a sort of equilibrium. For eight hundred years before the advent of the British the Indians were under oppressive foreign despots; the British rule has at least been benevolent and humanising. After centuries of misrule and oppression the country is at rest and enjoying to the utmost the blessings of peace, order, and civilization. ”

“ The fixed belief of the founders of the British Empire in India had been, that the Native States must inevitably, and in their own defence, be either openly or secretly hostile to our rule. They held that by good government and a scrupulous respect for the religions, customs, and rights of the people, they might attach the population of the British Provinces. But the Independent or Feudatory Native Powers in India must, in their opinion, for ever remain a menace to our sway. ”

“ They are more lightly taxed; the pace of the administration is less urgent and exacting; their sentiment is gratified by the splendor of a native court and by the dominion of an Indian government. They feel that they do things for themselves instead of having everything done for them by a cold and alien benevolence.” (Italics are ours)
But after all that is favourable to the Native States of India has been said, their existence in their present form remains a political anomaly. ”

“ If, therefore, the world sees the spectacle of an indignant India in revolt against the English rule, it should not be surprised. It is only natural that the English should resent the attempts of the Indians to secure their independence. It is hoped, however, that the other nations of the world will not feel hostile against the battle cry of the Indians against the British oppression in their country. ”

“ Their love of freedom and valorous [Pg 73] defense of priority of ownership of our domain have caused them to be swept from the face of the earth. Had they possessed intelligence with their more than Spartan courage, the wave of extermination could never have rolled over them forever. As a man I admire the unconquerable heroism and fortitude of the Indian. So brave a race of people were worthy a nobler and a happier destiny. As an American citizen, I feel it born in my nature to share in fullest measure all that is American. ”

“ But we cannot help remarking that so far they have exercised quite a disproportionate influence in the decisions of the Government of India. Those of them who are domiciled in the country are our brothers and no Indian [Pg 94] has the least desire to do anything that will harm them in any way. Their importance must, in future, be determined not by their race or colour or creed but by their numbers, their education and their position in the economic life of the country. They must no longer lord it over the Indians simply because they are of European descent. ”