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I.

2.

INDIAN POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

Modern India. By V. H. RUTHERFORD, M.B. Labour Publishing
Company. 1927.

Modern India. By R. PALME Dutt. Communist Party of Great
Britain. 1927.

A feature of British politics which astonishes foreign observers

is the pleasure which many British publicists seem to find in defaming their own country by painting its policy in the most unfavourable light. No other country produces in such profusion the types known as "the friends of our enemies" and "the enemies of our friends." To-day our actions in India and China supply the most popular fields for the activities of these gentry, and the "Entente Cordiale " between the anti-British sections in those countries and the anti-British elements here is steadily exploited to discredit our own country and play into the hands of our enemies.

The two recent publications noted above illustrate the procedure followed. Mr. Rutherford, once a Liberal M.P. but now wearing the colours of the Labour party, on the strength of a superficial acquaintance with India, assails British policy there with a virulence which even the ignorance of the writer, obviously exploited to the full by his Indian extremist friends, cannot extenuate. The book has been aptly described by Lord Meston, one of the most ardent advocates of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, as" a monstrous diatribe against everything that England has done in India, an ingenious suppression of whatever stands to our credit."

An English member of the Labour party having set the pace, an Indian extremist, under the auspices of the Communist party here, makes the running in a book under the same title. Mr. Dutt is a frank advocate of that revolutionary communism which is to-day being sedulously spread all over the East by the Red International, aided by British allies such as Tom Mann in China and Mr. Saklatvala, M.P., in India. He repeats most of the slanders and fallacies-political and economic-which are the common stock of the Communists and of a strong section of the Labour party. But he will have nothing to do with such halfmeasures as Dominion status for India or Mrs. Besant's futile

Commonwealth of India Bill, to which the Labour party has given its support. These, to his mind, savour of Imperialism; he wants the full-blooded Moscow programme, an independent Indian Republic, realizing Bolshevist ideals, including that land nationalization which, after ten years of ruthless tyranny, they have failed to impose on the Russian peasantry. Perhaps the most significant passage in this collection of falsehoods and fallacies is the quotation from Karl Marx (“Future of British Rule in India,” 1853), with which the book begins and ends :

The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new society, scattered among them by the British bourgeoisie, till in Great Britain itself the ruling classes shall have been supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the Indians themselves shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke altogether.

Here we have a clear enunciation of the policy for which Marx's disciples are working so vigorously. Mr. Saklatvala, the Communist M.P., has been preaching this doctrine steadily during his recent tour in India. His frothy fulminations are not taken very seriously here or in India, although the Swaraj majority in the Calcutta Corporation honoured him with an address which they refused to the Viceroy. But, apparently, Moscow thinks more highly of him, and the Pravda has recently published a full report, and the Third International a special memorandum, on his Indian activities. His speeches are to be utilized as material for intensive propaganda in various Indian dialects, and for a special course on "Indian Revolutionary Preparations" in the Moscow University.

Now that Moscow's subversive campaign in Great Britain has been checked, we may count on more active hostility in the East, especially in India. The watchword is " the West is waiting for the East to rise, and in the East all the preparations have been made." Sensible men might laugh at such follies, were it not that the movement receives encouragement from powerful forces here. Mr. Maxton, M.P., presiding at the recent conference of the Independent Labour party, is reported to have said :—

Here you have in Russia, China and India—all increasingly under the influence of the Third International-a tremendous proportion of the human race, and the attempt is going on to divide that half from the other half, as people to be kept down. But we say these are all our fellow-workers, with whom we need to unite to fight the tremendous

power of international capital and to build up the international socialism we hope to create (The New Leader, April 22, 1927).

Clearly there is very little between the Independent Labour party and the Third International. Our British extremists rightly pride themselves on being international. They go to the German Jew, Marx, for their policy; to the Russian Jews, Zinovief and Trotsky, for their methods-they themselves are barren. But they play the role assigned to them by their foreign task-masters, by broadcasting the libellous attacks with which it is sought to discredit British rule in India; they exploit the ignorance of the British electorate and arouse the hostility of the simple, credulous Indian masses. These attacks, based on the perversion of historical and economic facts, have now become stereotyped into "the Litany of Lies." The most common line of argument is somewhat as follows:

The Indian nation was united, civilised and prosperous under its indigenous rulers. Then the British wolf found his way into the fold and struck down the helpless flock. The British, by treachery or ruthless force, strangled the independence of India, made her free people slaves, bled them white by excessive taxation, ruined their trade and industry to benefit Britain's commerce, made them powerless and unmanly by prohibiting the use of arms, maintain a costly mercenary army at India's cost for the service of the British Empire and, to strangle Indian patriots by cruelties such as the " Punjab atrocities" and the "Amritsar massacre of 1919, exploit the immense resources of India for the benefit of Britain, deny India's sons their rightful place in the administration of their own country and that independence which is their birthright.

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These arguments, addressed to impressionable minds, ignorant of the facts of history and economics, have been the chief inspiration of the revolutionary movements that during the last thirty years have led into conspiracy and futile revolt thousands of half-educated young Indians. They have never been told the truth, and their credulity has placed them at the mercy of unscrupulous extremists like Tilak or dangerous visionaries like Gandhi. Even to-day this travesty of facts is accepted as gospel by probably nine-tenths of the Indian students, many of them graduates from Indian universities, who have come to the Inns of Court, the English and Scottish universities, and various technical institutions to complete their education. One pities the ignorance of " Young India," but asks how it has come about and what is being done to remove it.

To give a satisfactory answer it would be necessary to examine the working of the Indian universities and of their bye-product, the Indian press. The case of the Calcutta University was examined by the Sadler Commission a few years ago, and no more damning indictment of the greatest educational institution in India ever saw the light. The situation is admirably summed up by Sir Valentine Chirol :-*

There were high schools and colleges which had become forcing houses of conspiracy, where some of the teachers systematically trained up their pupils (by perverting history and misrepresenting facts) to believe in murder as a patriotic duty. The revolutionary press treated murder as a culture to be scientifically developed in a religious medium.

Clearly this appalling state of affairs cannot be remedied unless the evil is tackled at its source, i.e., in the schools and colleges. The Sadler Commission's proposals indicate how this can be done; but, so far, the governing body of the Calcutta University has shown little disposition to take action. In the last resort it is for the Government of India to assert its responsibility.

In the past, both the central and the local governments thought that their duty was discharged when a prosecution followed an actual offence under the law. Following English precedent, they considered that propaganda to counteract false charges or misrepresentations was unnecessary. The Great War established the necessity of government publicity, and both the central and provincial governments now maintain publicity departments. But it is doubtful if they are effective for the above purpose. The reports of "Moral and Material Progress and Conditions in India," furnished annually to Parliament by the Government of India, are useful summaries of administrative activities and lengthy synopses of dreary legislative debates. But for nailing to the counter the libels against British rule that are being daily uttered, they are of little value.

One asks what action does the India Office take to counteract the campaign of misrepresentation in Great Britain? Its attitude is one of airy aloofness and of avoiding anything which might bring it into the arena of controversy or hurt the feelings of hostile critics. The result is that the case goes against the Indian Government by default; the campaign of calumny triumphs.

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Let us take one concrete case from the above list. From having the" Punjab atrocities " and the " Amritsar massacre "constantly dinned into their ears, people have come to regard both as established facts, and England's good name has suffered accordingly all over the world. Yet a British judge and jury, in the case O'Dwyer v. Nair, in 1924, found that these charges were absolutely unfounded, and the Indian politician who had repeated them in this country was cast in heavy damages and costs. As regards the "Amritsar massacre "—one of the main issues in the case Mr. Justice McCardie, after a hearing of five weeks, thus addressed the jury :—

Subject to your judgment, speaking with full deliberation and knowing the whole of the evidence given in this case, I express my view that General Dyer, in the grave and exceptional circumstances, acted rightly and, in my opinion, upon the evidence, he was wrongly punished by the Secretary of State for India. ... But that opinion is an opinion which you as a jury may say you disagree with and may take up another position in regard to the matter.

The jury, by a majority of eleven to one, unhesitatingly accepted the judge's view, both as regards General Dyer's socalled "Amritsar Massacre" and the " Punjab atrocities." The defendant did not appeal. But, so far from rejoicing at this vindication of their servants, the then Prime Minister (Mr. MacDonald) made a virulent attack in the House of Commons on the judge as having acted ultra vires in criticising the action of the Executive, while the Secretary of State (Lord Olivier) sent a despatch to India strongly dissenting from the judge's judicial opinion. A few weeks later the defendant was an honoured guest at a public reception given by Lord Olivier. Such is political expediency !

The Socialist Government went out of office soon after; but their successors have so far taken no steps either to repudiate the disgraceful attack on the judiciary, or to give effect to the verdict of the High Court by cancelling the unjust condemnation of a gallant soldier, who had done his duty in most trying conditions and had by his prompt action prevented widespread rebellion and bloodshed. Is it too late for the Government to do him justice, or must we agree that "they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong"? The failure to do justice encourages the enemies of Government to persist in their calumny; the

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