Indian policy

“ 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. ”

“ A Government slavishly dependent upon the expressed will of the people has no incentive to enforce a sustained, consistent Indian policy opposed to local interests, although in accord with the perfectly well understood, but unexpressed, sentiment of the great body of the American people. ”

“ We have underscored the last two sentences, because they express in forcible and just language, the experience of the American government, in relation to the subject, after an experiment of fifty years, dating from ’75, and lie, indeed, at the foundation of the present Indian policy. It is also the experience of sound and calm observers, who have watched the operation of our laws and customs upon the isolated Indian communities in the States. Every year has exemplified the futility of raising them up to the European standard in industry, in intelligence or character, while thus situated ”

“ While all activity is paralysed by dissensions, foreign nations, not over-friendly to Indian interests, are pursuing their policy of exploitation and consolidation of their claims on India’s resources. The peaceful penetration will inevitably lead to forceful occupation and division of India into different spheres of influence. There lies India’s great peril. ”

“ It has been said that the responsibility for this niggardly policy in the matter of admitting Indians to the Commissioned ranks of the army rests with the Home Government and that the Indian Government’s recommendations were much more liberal. Now, as practical men, we fully realize that for some time to come, at least until British suspicion of India’s desire to get out of the Empire is completely removed by the grant of responsible government to India, India’s military policy and the Indian army must be controlled by the British executive. ”

“ The Government of India have no easy job in protecting the interests of Indian settlers in these various parts of His Majesty’s dominions. They will be able to do so only by following the firmest and the most consistent policy. ”

“ It practically puts the free and indentured Indians in the same scale. (d) Taking out for a moment the question of policy as the principle of the Bill, which seems to have developed but lately, the Bill seems to lay down that India has not at the present moment any Indian who is fit to exercise the privilege of franchise and that there is such a wide difference between a European and an Indian that contact with the former, even for any length of time, does not fit him for the exercise of the precious privilege. ”

“ The policy of His Majesty's Government, with which the Government of India is in complete accord, is that of the increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the Indian Empire. ”

“ If, then, we may assume that Indian civilization is not altogether impossible, let us inquire what should be the policy of the government towards the Indian tribes when they cease to be dangerous to our frontier population, and to oppose the progress of settlement, either by violence or by menace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the present volume shall, in any degree, contribute to awaken the public mind to a sense of the wrongs inflicted upon the Indians, and to arouse the Christian statesmen of this land, to the adoption of a more liberal, upright and benevolent course of policy towards them, something will have been gained to the cause of humanity and of national honor. ”

“ She has indeed no foreign policy, nor any native states within her borders; but in agriculture, the management of natives, administration of justice, and in Mofussil life generally, the difficulties to be encountered are practically the same. Indian problems have to be solved by a non-Indian government. ”

“ No true friend of the Indian will hesitate to choose the latter line of policy as one in entire accord with substantial justice, humanity, the civilization and welfare of the red men and the general interests of the country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They admit that:
“If responsible government is to be established in India there will be a far greater need than is even dreamt of at present for persons to take part in public affairs in the legislative assemblies and elsewhere; and for this reason the more Indians we can employ in the public services the better. Moreover, it would lessen the burden of Imperial responsibilities if a body of capable Indian administrators could be produced. We regard it as necessary, therefore, that recruitment of a largely increased proportion of Indians should be begun at once.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The power and influence of the United States are to be directed in protecting them from the whites; in preserving peace among the different tribes, and in stimulating them, by rewards and emoluments, in acquiring the habits of civilized life. The efforts of the benevolent to carry christianity among them, if made in conformity with the regulations of the territory, are to be cherished. These are the leading features of the new system of Indian regulations, established by government for the civilization of the Indians. ”

“ It is a matter of no great difficulty to write out a scheme or plan of government, plentifully bestrewed with personalities and accusations; there have been many such; but the calm judgment of men filling different ranks in life, and conversant with different aspects of Indian character, can alone insure the embodiment of a scheme calculated to benefit both India and England. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The same fear underlies the administration of local bodies and the constitution and powers of the Councils. It is simply begging the question to argue that Indians are not yet ready or fit for representative institutions. The real question is the dread of power passing from the Britishers into Indian hands. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have already said that we have no share in laying down the policy upon which India is ruled. Have we any share even in the different Services of the country? Are we allowed to serve our own land and the Empire to the best of our capacity and ability? ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ Good management on the one hand and the good sense of the better class of Indians on the other hand, at certain points led to remarkable results; but a forward move along the whole line of the Indian population is not to be looked for till they shall have the same motives to industry that other men have and that all men need. Agencies, reservations and rationing are and long will be a necessity, lessening only as by wise use of public bounty, and by proper legislation and care, the Indians shall approach self-support and citizenship. ”

“ Those who know about India will have no doubt as to the consequences. And what if India—irritated, mortified and humiliated—should become an unwilling and refractory partner in the great Imperial concern? Surely it would be the beginning of the end of the Empire.
These, briefly, are the reasons why this question of "the British indians in the Transvaal" is a great Imperial question and not one of mere internal administration of a self-governing Colony in which the Mother Country has neither right nor reason to interfere. ”

“ The effort should be to save these Indians from the consequences of their own mistakes and improvidence and to secure to the real Indian his rights as against intruders and professed friends who profit by his retrogression. ”

“ And I have never yet met anyone who did not think that ultimately the British must let the Indian nations control their own destinies. There are really not two opposite opinions about the destiny of India, but only differences of opinion as to the length of time in which that destiny is to be achieved. Many Indians think (and I agree with them) that India might be a confederation of sovereign states in close alliance with the British Empire and its allies within the space of fifty years or so. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Congress desires that Indians be enrolled as volunteers; the Government says no. It is not desirable to give military training to the Indians. They might use it against the Government. It is not desirable to have companies of volunteers composed of Indians only, as they might conspire against the reigning power. It is equally undesirable to force them on European and Eurasian companies against their wishes, as that would wound their social and imperial susceptibilities. The Congress politician wants to protect Indian industries; the Government says no. ”