Indian nationalism

“ I do not doubt for a moment that the young idealists who ask for Indian independence are very fine fellows; most young idealists are fine fellows. I do not doubt for an instant that many of our Imperial officials are stupid and oppressive; most Imperial officials are stupid and oppressive. But when I am confronted with the actual papers and statements of the Indian Nationalists I feel much more dubious, and, to tell the truth, a little bored. The principal weakness of Indian Nationalism seems to be that it is not very Indian and not very national. ”

“ The Indian Government is conscious of this, and some people think this is what is influencing the{222} policy of the Indian universities in tabooing the history of Modern Europe from the courses of studies.
American literature and American events are also playing their own part in the influences that are feeding Indian nationalism. The leaders are and have ever been close students of American literature and the history of the American Federation. Asia, however, is playing a greater part in moulding and influencing Indian nationalism. The Russo-Japanese War thrilled India to its core. ”

“ Not as a matter of justice, but as a matter of fact, the rapid development of the country puts before the Indians the stern alternative of civilization, or destruction by conflict. Wise and human statesmanship will see to it that the Indians do not stand in the way of that development, but become part of it, and benefited by it. This is the “Indian problem” in a nutshell. ”

“ Even fifty years ago, few Indians supposed that the wide Empire of India could be governed save under British guidance, or without the aid of British bayonets. The old habitual forces of disruption were too obvious; the distrust of one race for another was still too keenly felt to allow Indian politicians to imagine a united India under indigenous rule. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ They, the non-Indian nations, cannot have it because they cannot even pretend to be Indian ; they cannot even pass off the merging of their entities into India as an act of patriotism. The reason is they simply are not Indian. For if they were Indian, they wouldn't be fighting, like the Muslims, against being treated as Indian and for being recognized as Dravidians, Akhoots, Buddhs, Christians, Sikhs, and Parsis. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We cannot take the Indians out of the hands of the National Government; we cannot take the National Government into our own hands. Therefore we must work with the National Government in any large plan for the betterment of Indian conditions. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As an integral part of the Indian body politic they are entitled to all the consideration which they deserve by virtue of their intellectual or economic position. They should henceforth be Indo-British both in spirit and in name. They will find the Indians quite ready to forget the past and embrace them as brothers for the common prosperity of their joint country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While we find cause of satisfaction and encouragement in the adoption of an Indian policy for the future which will rectify our errors and wrongs, we must not imagine that we are thus to relieve a most serious and perplexing duty of its difficulties and embarrassments. The Indian question will be a troublesome one to our Government and people so long as there are Indians. ”

“ It is a base calumny, and a mean falsehood to say in reply, that they have been so from time immemorial,{87} that they have never been free, that they have never cared who ruled over them, that they have never been patriotic, or that patriotism and a feeling of nationality are new growths due to contact with the West, and that the Indian people do not sympathise with the aspirations of the nationalists. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ When a question concerning the welfare of India and of justice to Indians arises I am not only an Indian first, but an Indian next and an Indian to the last, an Indian and an Indian alone, favouring no community and no individual, but on the side of those who desire the advancement of India as a whole without prejudice to the rights and interests of any individual, much less of any community, whether my own or another. ”

“ The idea of Indian nationhood is now not only rooted in the public mind, as all recent utterances go to show, but accepted in Europe and acknowledged by the Government and the governing race. The new idea that should now lead us is the realisation of our nationhood not separate from, but in, the future scheme of humanity. ”

“ It is in no small degree the lack of such a spirit in the conduct of Indian affairs, which has rendered the efforts and expenditures of our government for the advancement of the race so ineffectual in the past ”

“ We must continue to govern India as the greatest of the dependencies of the British Crown, but we must do our utmost to satisfy Indians of all classes and castes and beliefs that we govern them as none of their race could govern them, with an equal and absolutely impartial regard for all law-abiding communities, with an intelligent appreciation of their peculiar interests, and with genuine consideration for all their ideas, so long as those ideas are compatible with the maintenance and security of British rule. ”

“ On the other hand, if the Indians think it more for their interest that the Americans should have possession of the posts, and be established in their country, they ought to declare it, that the English need no longer be put to the vast and unnecessary expense and inconvenience of keeping posts, the chief object of which is to protect their Indian allies, and the loyalists who have suffered with them. ”

“ 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. ”