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Title: Gandhi and Anarchy
Author: Nair, Sir Chettur Sankaran
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Gandhi and Anarchy" ***
Transcriber's Note.
Variations in the spelling of words associated with the Muslim religion
have been retained. Other apparent typographical errors have been
corrected.
In the main body of the text (though not the appendices) paragraphs in
smaller font have been indented one space.
Italic font is indicated by _underscores_ and bold font by +plus signs+.
Small capitals have been replaced by full capitals. An 'oe' ligature has
been removed.
The tables in Appendix XXII were originally printed sideways. In order
to fit into the format of this edition the first three columns of each
table (that list the province, date, and place of each riot or incident)
have been combined.
GANDHI AND ANARCHY
BY
SIR C. SANKARAN NAIR
Published by
TAGORE & CO., MADRAS
_First Published March 1922_
_Second Edition July 1922_
_All Rights Reserved_
_Right of Translation not Reserved_
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface ix
His Philosophy 1
The Non-Co-operation Resolution 24
The Kilafat Question 29
The Punjab Atrocities 54
Swaraj or Home Rule 59
Education 66
Vakils and Courts 73
Boycott of Councils 74
Boycott of Foreign Goods 77
Non-Violent Non-Co-operation 96
Individual Civil Disobedience 109
APPENDIX I
Viceroy's Speech 129
APPENDIX II
Diabolical Atrocities 130
APPENDIX III
Malabar's Agony 132
APPENDIX IV
Proceedings of the Conference at Calicut 138
APPENDIX V
Petition of Malabar Ladies to Lady Reading 139
APPENDIX VI
Jayakar on Non-co-operation 145
APPENDIX VII
Extracts from the Speech of Sir H. Butler 151
APPENDIX VIII
Extracts from the Speech of Sir H. Butler 152
APPENDIX IX
Extracts from the Speech of Sir H. Butler 153
APPENDIX X
Statement by Sir L. Porter 156
APPENDIX XI
Barabanki Disorders 161
APPENDIX XII
Gorakpur Tragedy 164
APPENDIX XIII
Bengal Governor's Speech 166
APPENDIX XIV
Bengal Governor's Warning 171
APPENDIX XV
Extracts from the Speech of Sir H. Wheeler 175
APPENDIX XVI
Speech of Hon. Mr. Macpherson 179
APPENDIX XVII
Disgraceful Tyranny 189
APPENDIX XVIII
Demand for an Indian Republic 193
APPENDIX XIX
Government Replies Mr. Gandhi's Misstatements 204
APPENDIX XX
Non-co-operation resolution 209
APPENDIX XXI
Mr. Gandhi's Statements 212
APPENDIX XXII
Lists of Riots and Disturbances 218
APPENDIX XXIII
Speech of Sir William Vincent 252
THE TATA PRINTING
WORKS : : MADRAS
PREFACE
The struggle for Indian Home Rule which was started with the
inauguration of the Indian National Congress has many difficulties to
encounter, has strong and powerful opponents and has received many
checks. But its strongest opponent is Mr. Gandhi and perhaps the most
severe check it has received is the adoption by the National Congress at
his instance in Calcutta and Nagpur of the so-called-Non-violent
Non-co-operation. Non-co-operation as advocated by Mr. Gandhi may be a
weapon to be used when constitutional methods have failed to achieve our
purpose. Non-violence and passive suffering will lead to bloodshed or be
unfruitful of any satisfactory results. Moreover, nothing shows the lack
of statesmanship more than practically basing the claim for Swaraj upon
the Punjab and the Khilafat grievances. As representing Asia against
Europe, the fair against the white race, the Hindus regarded the Turkish
Empire with sympathy and were disposed to support the Mahomadens as
Asiatic representatives. But when by Gandhi and Khilafatist that claim
was abandoned; when the Arabs perhaps the noblest of the Mahomadan races
who fought as our allies and helped us to defeat Turkey were sought to
be brought under Turkish dominion, when other Asiatic races freed by the
war were asked to accept Turkish sovereignty on grounds based on the
Mahomaden religion which had already produced such baneful result in
India, the situation became entirely different. It was rightly realised
by many, and the sequel has proved that they were right, that the path
of the progress of the Gandhi movement fused with the Khilafat element
will be bloody. The claim for Indian Home Rule rests upon very different
grounds. The Hindus have nothing to do with the Khilafat agitation. The
Mahomadans themselves are not agreed as to the claims advanced on behalf
of the Calif. It is even questionable, to put it mildly, whether that
claim has the support of the majority of the Mahomadans. While the claim
itself rested on such slender grounds, the means first adopted to
enforce the claim were grotesque. The methods advocated by Mr. Gandhi
and the Congress are directed against Western civilization; against the
class which fought for and won the reforms; and the Montague reforms
scheme of constitutional progress. They have failed miserably and as was
natural more violent methods leading to direct conflict with the forces
of Government have been advocated which would in all probability have
been carried out but for the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Gandhi. He
belongs to a class of thought which has attracted some of the noblest
minds in this world, but in applying his the gospel of life to politics,
he has shown himself a babe and his interference has been generally
mischievous. In South Africa he is responsible for creating a situation
which makes a peaceful and satisfactory solution practically impossible.
His factious policy in India stands in the way of further reforms. The
opposition to Gandhi was however not strenuous. The so-called Moderates
only whispered their protests against his policy so as not to be heard
beyond a few feet. They are loud however, in their denunciation of
Government action to check the illegal activities of Mr. Gandhi and his
followers. It can hardly be doubted that their cautious attitude has
contributed to the growth of the Gandhi movement. But the inexplicable
conduct of a certain--I won't say class--body of gentlemen has still
more contributed to that result.
There is scarcely any item in the Gandhi programme which is not a
complete violation of everything preached by the foremost sons of India
till 1919; which has not been strongly even vehemently denounced by
those old respected members of the Congress who now follow Mr. Gandhi,
Pandit Malaviya, Messrs. Vijayaragavachari, Lajapat Rai, Natarajam, S.
Kasturiranga Iyengar, the Editor of the 'Hindu.' Mr. Gandhi's emotional
outbursts, fastings, penances, Sanyasi waist cloth, may carry away the
emotional masses, women and students. But whether this wave of
emotionalism submerged the men abovenamed I would not care to guess. No
one of course has any right to find fault with his genuine followers
like Mr. Prakasam, Editor, 'Swaraj' whose motives, however much we might
differ from his politics, no one will question. He is one of those
genuine patriots who believes in the efficacy of Mr. Gandhi's methods to
obtain Home Rule. By far the great majority however, follow him for
other reasons.
The severe simplicity and austerity of Mr. Gandhi's life combined with
his appeal to the principle of '_Ahimsa_' non-injury inherited from
Buddists and now ingrained in Hindu life, has secured him the support of
the Hindu masses and particularly vegetarians. His support of the caste
system has won over the higher classes and the reactionary elements of
Hindu society to his side. The caste system is entirely opposed to the
'Ahimsa' (Non-injury) principle. The former has dedicated one of the
main castes to death. Its function is to kill and be killed. It is also
the function of some of the sub-castes of the lowest caste or class to
slaughter animals. His indiscriminating support of the extreme Khilafat
demands has ensured the Mahomedan support. Islam is more opposed than
the caste system to "Ahimsa." The trouble with the Hindus over the
slaughter of cows is due to this difficulty. Some politicians who
naturally desire to use him and the influence he has acquired for
putting pressure on the Government to concede further reform, also have
joined him. But I am satisfied he is using them all to further his own
ends. An attempt in which he is bound to fail. His success _i.e._ the
success of the reactionary forces in India to obtain what they call
Dominion status or Home Rule, but, which really means their rule, will
not only lead to bloodshed and anarchy and the dismemberment of the
Empire; but to the triumph of a reactionary policy, social, moral and
economic, against which the democratic policy of the recent reforms and
the Legislative Councils is an emphatic protest. I have attempted in the
following pages to give my reasons for these conclusions.
Far more important than my narrative are the extracts published in the
appendix. They consist of speeches made by the Viceroy, and members of
Government in the Legislative Councils. I have on account of
considerations of space omitted speeches in many provinces. I have not
given any speech in full for the same reason. I have also given a list
of riots or disturbances. These give a fair idea of the activities of
Mr. Gandhi.
C. SANKARAN NAIR
GANDHI AND ANARCHY
HIS PHILOSOPHY
All of us are now striving for "Swaraj" or Home Rule. We wish to be
masters of our own destiny. We want sooner or later the representatives
of the people of the country to govern it. There are some amongst us who
consider that Home Rule, is an immediate necessity. Others believe that
Home Rule, at present without the fulfilment of certain preliminary
conditions would be attended with disastrous results. But all are agreed
that we should work for it. The practical difficulties in the way of its
attainment due, partly to the relations between the various communities
in India, partly to the opposition of powerful interests and the period
that must therefore elapse before we overcome them render the discussion
of time, ignoring or brushing aside those difficulties, only of academic
interest. Mr. Gandhi's great influence is due to the popular belief in
the efficacy of his leadership to attain immediate Home Rule. To me his
Non-Co-operation Campaign appears to be an egregious blunder for which
we are already paying dearly. A long line of illustrious statesmen,
Indian and English have just succeeded in leading us out of the house of
bondage. How long we shall have to wander in the deserts we do not know.
But it is certain that Mr. Gandhi is not leading his followers in the
direction of the promised land. He is not only going in the opposite
direction but instead of toughening our fibre by a life of toil and
struggle is endeavouring to entirely emasculate us and render us
altogether unfit for the glorious destiny that, but for him and others
like him, is awaiting us.
This will be clear once the nature of his agitation is realised. For
that purpose, it is necessary to understand his mentality and his real
views on the problems of life and the various questions now in debate.
These are given in various books which have been published and in his
paper "Young India", edited by him. His "Indian Home Rule", was first
published in 1908. In a publication of 1921, he says "I withdraw nothing
except one word of it and that in deference to a lady friend." The
reason is the indelicacy of the expression....
The book is in the form of a dialogue between a Reader and the "Editor"
the latter being Gandhi himself.
Mr. Gandhi wishes to know the necessity of driving away the English,
_Reader_:--"Because India has become impoverished by their Government.
They take away our money from year to year. The most important posts
are reserved for themselves. We are kept in a state of slavery. They
behave insolently towards us, and disregard our feelings."
_Gandhi_:--"Supposing we get Self-government similar to what the
Canadians and South Africans have, will it be good enough?"
_Reader_:--"That question also is useless. We may get it when we have
the same powers. We shall then hoist our own flag. As is Japan so must
India be. We must own our navy, our army, and we must have our own
splendour. Then will India's voice ring throughout the world."
_Gandhi_:--"You have well drawn the picture. In effect it means this:
that we want English Rule without the Englishman. You want the tiger's
nature but not the tiger; that is to say you would make India English
and when it becomes English, it will be called not Hindustan but
Englistan. _This is not the Swaraj that I want._"
Nothing can be clearer. He does not want
the dominion status of Canada or South Africa
for India. He does not claim the independence
of Japan for India as he points out a few lines
below, "What you call swaraj is not truly
swaraj."
What is then the real "Swaraj" according
to Mr. Gandhi? He proceeds to develop his
views by illustrations.
He gives his views on the poverty of India.
He says Railways, Lawyers and Doctors have
impoverished the country, so much so that, if
we do not wake up in time, we shall be ruined.
About railways he says as follows:--
"Man is so made by nature as to require him to restrict his movements
as far as his hands and feet will take him. If we did not rush about
from place to place by means of railways and such other maddening
conveniences, much of the confusion that arises, would be obviated. Our
difficulties are of our own creation. God set a limit to a man's
locomotive ambition in the construction of his body. Man immediately
proceeded to discover means of overriding the limit. God gifted man
with intellect that he might know his Maker. Man abused it so that he
might forget his Maker. I am so constructed that I can only serve my
immediate neighbours, but in my conceit, I pretend to have discovered
that I must with my body serve every individual in the Universe. In
thus attempting the impossible, man comes in contact with different
religions and is utterly confounded. According to this reasoning, it
must be apparent to you that railways are a most dangerous institution.
Man has gone further away from his Maker".
And he advises all his friends to go into the interior of the country
that has yet not been polluted by the railways and live there in order
to be patriotic.
I shall not insult the intelligence of my reader by attempting a defence
of the railways which have knit India together. I will only observe that
according to Mr. Gandhi, the construction and use of railways for
locomotion not possible for man in his natural condition, is an abuse of
God's gift. And why? Because if he comes into contact with different
natures, with different religions he might try to serve others than his
neighbour whom alone God intended him to serve!!!
As to lawyers, he will have none of them; without lawyers, courts could
not have been established or conducted and without them the British
could not hold India. He has yet to learn that there were courts both in
pre-British India and British India before lawyers. He thinks the
Hindu-Mahomedan quarrels have often been due to the intervention of
lawyers. He wants all people to settle their own quarrels; "men were
less unmanly if they settled their disputes either by fighting or by
asking their relatives to decide them. They became more unmanly and
cowardly when they resorted to the Courts of Law. It is a sign of
savagery to settle disputes by fighting. It is not the less so by asking
a third party to decide between you and me. The parties alone know who
is right and therefore they ought to settle it". Such is his opinion of
lawyers and of Courts.
He is even more harsh on doctors. His opinion is quoted below as any
statement of it in my own words might be regarded as travesty:--
"Let us consider; the business of a doctor is to take care of the body,
or, properly speaking, not even that. Their business is really to rid
the body of diseases that may afflict. How do these diseases arise?
Surely by our negligence or indulgence. I overeat, I have indigestion,
I go to a doctor, he gives me medicine. I am cured, I overeat again,
and I take his pills again. Had I not taken the pills in the first
instance, I would have suffered the punishment deserved by me, and I
would not have over-eaten again. The doctor intervened and helped me to
indulge myself. My body thereby certainly felt more at ease, but my
mind became weakened. A continuance of a course of medicine must,
therefore, result in loss of a control over the mind.
"I have indulged in vice, I contract a disease, a doctor cures me, the
odds are that I shall repeat the vice. Had the doctor not intervened,
nature would have done its work, and I would have acquired mastery over
myself, would have been freed from vice, and would have become happy.
"Hospitals are institutions for propagating sin. Men take less care of
their bodies, and immorality increases".
He says therefore that a doctor should "give up medicine, and
understand that rather than mending bodies, he should mend souls", and
he must also understand that "if, by not taking drugs, perchance the
patient dies, the world will not come to grief and he will have been
really useful to him".
There is no use in arguing with him and his dupes on this subject after
this. But his views must be borne in mind when we come to deal with the
present agitation.
About education, his views are equally remarkable. If, he says,
education simply means knowledge of letters it is merely an instrument
and an instrument may be well used or abused. He adds:--
"We daily observe that many men abuse it and very few make good use of
it".
He will not give any education to a raiyat or poor peasant:--
"The ordinary meaning of education is a knowledge of letters. To teach
boys reading, writing and arithmetic is called primary education".
"What do you propose to do by giving him a knowledge of letters? Will
you add an inch to his happiness? Do you wish to make him discontented
with his cottage or his lot?"
So much for primary education. As to higher education he says he has
learnt Geography, Astronomy, Algebra, Geometry etc., but neither has
that learning benefited him nor any body about him. As to knowledge of
English, it is only useful to enslave people:--
"The foundation that Macaulay laid of education", he says: "has
enslaved us. It is worth noting that by receiving English education, we
have enslaved the nation. Hypocrisy, tyranny etc. have increased;
English-knowing Indians have not hesitated to cheat and strike terror
into the people. Now, if we are doing anything for the people at all,
we are paying only a portion of the debt due to them".
I shall have to deal with this question of education later in connection
with this appeal to the boys to leave the schools and colleges.
After all this, it will not surprise any one to be told that we must
have nothing to do with machinery:--
"It was not that we did not know how to invent machinery, but our
forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after such things, we would
become slaves and lose our moral fibre. They, therefore, after due
deliberation, decided that we should only do what we could with our
hands and feet. They saw that our real happiness and health consisted
in a proper use of our hands and feet."
He would not therefore have mills for the reason that machinery is the
chief symbol of modern civilisation and it has already begun to desolate
Europe. In his opinion it were better for us to send money to Manchester
and to use flimsy Manchester cloth than to multiply mills in India. I
wonder why he does not ask Lancashire to pay him his crore of rupees.
Lancashire would no doubt do so in consideration of the monopoly of
supplying India with manufactured goods and India would, according to
Mr. Gandhi, get Swaraj. India does not want manufactured goods; he
asks:--
"What did India do before these articles were introduced? Precisely the
same should be done to-day. As long as we cannot make pins without
machinery, so long will we do without them. The tinsel splendour of
glassware we will have nothing to do with, and we will make wick, as of
old, with home grown cotton, and use hand-made earthen saucers for
Lamps". He finally adds: "I cannot recall a single good point in
connection with machinery."
Mr. Gandhi wrote his book in 1908 after a visit to England when the
Liberal and the Labour parties were carrying on their great campaign in
favour of the working men and against the capitalists and Lloyd George
was about to launch his great land campaign. He seems to have been
impressed with the horrors of the condition of the wage earners which
was then portrayed in dark colours in order to support that campaign.
His mind, emotional and ill balanced, seems to have been entirely upset
by the descriptions that he had then read. He is on the fringe of a
large question about which he seems to have been singularly ill
informed. In England there is not at this time and there was not when he
wrote, any question of the destruction of machinery which is a necessary
adjunct to the industrial system. The questions under debate are the
conditions of labour and the distribution of the wealth created by
machinery between capitalists and labour. These questions have been
under consideration now for some years; the condition of the labourers
is being slowly improved, a minimum wage has been introduced and there
is a prospect of a still more equitable distribution of the proceeds
between capital and labour. Mr. Gandhi says that he has read Dutt's book
on the decline of Indian industries but he does not seem to have learnt
the lesson inculcated therein--that it is necessary to improve our
industries not only to meet the needs of the people of the country, find
employment for our labouring population, but also not to force them to
compete with the cultivating classes. In India the same problem as in
England awaits us. We have to see that the condition of the labourers in
the mills and in the other industries is improved. In asking for the
ruin of all our manufacturing industries Mr. Gandhi is only playing into
the hands of our opponents. He will find strong support in this respect
from Lancashire who will, according to some Indian publicists, only be
too willing to take any steps to effect the destruction of our competing
industries. If he had directed half the energy of his non-co-operation
campaign to improving the conditions of the workmen in all our
industries he might possibly have succeeded in getting rid of many of
those evils which in his opinion require elimination of all machinery
and of all industrial undertakings. The other reason for the deplorable
condition of the industrial workmen in England is the congestion and
overcrowding, in the industrial centres. This is due to a great extent
to the action of the landlords who will not allow any expansion of those
industrial centres in order to increase the value of their land and thus
to exploit the community. In India we have not got that trouble. There
is ample room for extension except in Bombay, in all the industrial
centres and even in Bombay the difficulty is not due, so far as I am
informed to the action of landlords but to natural conditions arising
out of the geography of Bombay. Machinery is essential to the creation
of wealth by manufacturing industries. The evils that have been
portrayed by Mr. Gandhi can be and are being removed by patient effort.
His tirade against machinery and mill industries on account of the evils
he has witnessed in the West, is due to his ignorance; a little
knowledge in his case has proved a dangerous thing. It is this feeling
which has led him to advocate the universal use of spinning wheel in
India. This might be useful as a cottage or home industry. It might find
work for some who would otherwise be idle. But he is living in a fool's
paradise if he considers it a substitute for or will supplant, machinery.
It is unnecessary to say that he hates Parliaments:--
"The condition of England at present is pitiable. I pray to God that
India may never be in that plight. That which you consider to be Mother
of Parliaments is like a sterile woman and a prostitute. Both these are
harsh terms, but exactly fit the case. That Parliament has not yet of
its own accord done a single good thing; hence I have compared it to a
sterile woman. The natural condition of that Parliament is such that
without out-side pressure it can do nothing. It is like a prostitute
because it is under the control of ministers who change from time to
time. To-day it is under Mr. Asquith; tomorrow it may be under Mr.
Balfour."
"If the money and the time wasted by Parliament were entrusted to a few
good men, the English nation would be occupying to-day a much higher
platform. The Parliament is simply a costly toy of the nation. These
views are by no means peculiar to me. Some great English thinkers have
expressed them.
"That you cannot accept my views at once is only right. If you will
read the literature on this subject, you will have some idea of it. The
Parliament is without a real master, under the Prime Minister, its
movement is not steady, but it is buffeted about like a prostitute. The
Prime Minister is more concerned about his power than about the welfare
of the Parliament. His energy is concentrated upon securing the success
of his party. His care is not always that the Parliament shall do
right. Prime Ministers are known to have made the Parliament do things
merely for party advantage. All this is worth thinking over."
It is no wonder that he called upon all his followers to boycott the
Indian Councils. I shall deal with this when dealing with the boycott
question.
After all this one would naturally think that if we expel the English
from India we would be happy. Not a bit, says Mr. Gandhi whose views
about independence are peculiar. Look, he says, at Italy. He thinks that
Italy has not gained anything by independence of Austrian domination. He
adds:--
"If you believe that because Italians hold Italy, the Italian nation is
happy, you are groping in darkness. What substantial gain did Italy
obtain after the withdrawal of the Austrian troops? The gain is only
nominal. You do not want therefore to reproduce the same conditions in
India. India to gain her independence can fight like Italy only when
she has arms and in order to gain her independence India has to be
armed and to arm India on a large scale is to Europeanise it. Then her
condition will be just as pitiable as that of Europe. This means in
short, that India must accept European civilisation ... but the fact is
that the Indian nation will not adopt arms and it is well that she does
not."
She must not therefore use force to fight the English.
But what is it she has to do. She must obtain Swaraj or Home Rule by
'soul force'. What is it?:--
"When we are slaves we think that the whole universe is enslaved.
Because we are in an abject condition, we think that the whole of India
is in that condition. As a matter of fact, it is not so, but it is as
well to impute our slavery to the whole of India. But if we bear in
mind the above fact we can see that if we become free, India is free.
And in this thought you have definition of 'swaraj.' It is 'swaraj'
when we earn to rule ourselves. It is therefore in the palm of our
hands. Do not consider this 'swaraj' to be like a dream. Hence there is
no idea of sitting still. The 'swaraj' that I wish to picture before
you and me is such that, after we have once realised it, we will
endeavour to the end of our lifetime to persuade others to do likewise.
But such 'swaraj' has to be experienced by each one for himself."
The assumption made by a few persons that Mr. Gandhi is only condemning
parliamentary government for its inutility is unfounded. The extracts
already given might lend some colour to that view. But such is not the
fact. In England Parliamentary government is denounced by certain
persons on the ground that it will always be under the influence of a
capitalist Press and therefore unable to redress the evils from which
the people of the country other than the capitalists are suffering. Mr.
Gandhi's objection is not based on any such ground; he is against not
only Parliamentary Government but practically against any Government in
any form as is apparent from the extracts given above. The doctrine that
Governments have very little to do with our happiness which depends upon
self-control or 'soul force' has many advocates, but to deduce it as a
doctrine from the alleged failure of Parliamentary Government in England
is ludicrous. I shall not stop here to justify Parliamentary government
which has justified itself by its results; it is only ignorance of the
work that has been done which is responsible for opinions like those to
which Mr. Gandhi has given expression.
Towards the end of the book he says:--
Before I leave you, I will take the liberty of repeating:--
1. Real Home Rule is Self Rule or control;
2. The way to it is Passive Resistance; that is soul force or love
force.
In my opinion, we have used the term "Swaraj" without understanding its
real significance. I have endeavoured to explain it as I understand it,
and my conscience testifies that _my life henceforth is dedicated to
its attainment_.
Such is the real Gandhi. Railways, lawyers, courts, doctors, education
on Western lines, machinery of every kind or manufacturing industries,
parliamentary government should disappear. He is singularly ill informed
on every one of the questions he has discussed. 'Soul force' alone
should be relied upon. No resistance should be offered to violence. No
resistance should be offered to robbery and the robbers are to be left
to cut one another's throats. No resistance to be offered to murderers
or to those who might want to enslave you. Briefly, no protection is to
be given by laws and their administrators to person and property.
There is no harm perhaps as long as such fantastic visionaries restrict
the application of these principles to themselves, to their own persons
or properties. But it becomes a serious matter when their general
application is sought for.
These are the sentiments he expressed in 1908, and it was with these
sentiments that he came to India. As it is well to be definite and
clear, I will quote from a letter addressed by him in 1909 to a friend
in India:--
"Bombay, Calcutta and the other chief cities of India are the real
plague spots".
"If British rule were replaced tomorrow by Indian rule based on modern
methods, India would be no better, except that she would be able then
to retain some of the money that is drained away to England; but then
India would only become a second or fifth nation of Europe or America".
"Medical science is the concentrated essence of black magic. Quackery
is infinitely preferable to what passes for high medical skill".
"Hospitals are the instruments that the devil has been using for his
own purpose, in order to keep his hold on his kingdom. They perpetuate
vice, misery and degradation and real slavery".
"India's salvation consists in unlearning what she has learnt during
the past fifty years. The railways, telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers,
doctors, and such like have all to go, and so called upper classes have
to learn to live consciously and religiously and deliberately the
simple peasant life, knowing it to be a life giving true happiness".
But he soon found that it was hopeless to carry out his theories in the
face of the determination of the people of India to attain Home Rule
preached by the Indian National Congress and the Indian politicians. He
had accordingly to put on a new garb. Therefore, in 1917, the year of
the famous declaration made by the British Government about the
progressive realisation of self government, he found it necessary, to
obtain a hearing, to accept the Home Rule programme. In his Presidential
address at the First Gujarat Political Conference in 1917 he said that
without going into the merits of the scheme of reforms approved by the
Congress and the Muslim League he will do all that is necessary to get
it accepted and enforced. Though the scheme itself is not 'swaraj', he
admitted it was a great step towards 'swaraj'. At the same time he said
that though he is acting on the propriety of the current trend of
thought it does not appear to him to be tending altogether in the right
direction as the 'swaraj' put forward is one of Western type.
Nevertheless as India is being governed in accordance with the Western
system and without Parliament we should be nowhere, he does not hesitate
to take part in the Parliamentary swaraj movement and the programme that
he sketched out for himself may be described thus in his own words
written in 1921:--
"But I would warn the reader against thinking that I am to-day aiming
at the Swaraj therein (spiritual swaraj as described in his 'Indian
Home Rule'), I know that India is not ripe for it. It may seem an
impertinence to say so. But such is my conviction. I am individually
working for the self-rule pictured therein. But to-day my corporate
activity is undoubtedly devoted to the attainment of Parliamentary
Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India. I am not
aiming at destroying railways or hospitals, though I would certainly
welcome their natural destruction. Neither railways nor hospitals are a
test of a high and pure civilisation. At best they are a necessary
evil. Neither adds one inch to the moral stature of a nation. Nor am I
aiming at a permanent destruction of law courts, much as I regard it as
'a consummation devoutly to be wished for,' still less am I trying to
destroy all machinery and mills. It requires a higher simplicity and
renunciation than the people are to-day prepared for".
He also admitted that his acceptance of Parliamentary Swaraj required
some modification of his theory of using violence or force. He admitted
that though there is no scope for violence or force in spiritual swaraj,
and military training is intended only for those who do not believe in
it, he was prepared to accept the view that the whole of India will
never accept Satyagraha. He added:--
"Not to defend the weak is an entirely effeminate idea, everywhere to
be rejected. In order to protect our innocent sister from the brutal
designs of a man we ought to offer ourselves a willing sacrifice and by
the force of Love conquer the brute in the man. But if we have not
attained that power, we would certainly use up all our bodily strength
in order to frustrate those designs. The votaries of soul force and
brute force are both soldiers. The latter, bereft of his arms,
acknowledges defeat, the former does not know what defeat is".
It was a consequence of this acceptance of Parliamentary Swaraj that he
should try to work the Montagu Chelmsford Council reforms. Though these
reforms may be inadequate yet for one who accepts the goal of
Parliamentary Government it was his bounden duty to avail himself of the
available Parliamentary scheme to carry out those reforms which were
then possible and to take the necessary steps to enlarge the scope of
the scheme to carry out the further reforms that might be needed.
Accordingly at the Amritsar Congress in December 1919, he resolved to
co-operate with the country in working the Reform Scheme.
I have already pointed out that he entirely disagreed with the system of
Parliamentary government and his acceptance was one of necessity. At the
earliest opportunity at the special sessions of the Indian National
Congress held at Calcutta in September 1920 and at the National Congress
held at Nagpur in December 1920 he took steps to destroy the Montagu
Reform Scheme of Parliamentary Swaraj and everything else to which he
had given a reluctant assent and to bring the country to adopt his wild
theories already stated by me and in order to do so, he brought into
prominence forces entirely opposed to his own principles which he proved
himself unable to control with disastrous consequences and had to resort
willingly or unwillingly to dishonest methods.
What was the reason for his throwing overboard the Montagu Reform
Scheme? The following resolution which at his insistence was passed by
the National Congress at Calcutta and practically re-affirmed at Nagpur
will explain the situation as then developed.
THE NON-CO-OPERATION RESOLUTION
"In view of the fact that on the Khilafat question both the Indian and
Imperial Governments have signally failed in their duty towards the
Musalmans of India, and the Prime Minister has deliberately broken his
pledged word given to them, and that it is the duty of every non-Moslem
Indian in every legitimate manner to assist his Musalman brother in his
attempt to remove the religious calamity that has over taken him:--
"And in view of the fact that in the matter of the events of the April
1919 both the said Governments have grossly neglected or failed to
protect the innocent people of the Punjab and punish officers guilty of
unsoldierly and barbarous behaviour towards them and have exonerated
Sir Michael O'Dwyer who proved himself directly or indirectly
responsible for the most official crimes and callous to the sufferings
of the people placed under his administration, and that the debate in
the House of Lords betrayed a woeful lack of sympathy with the people
of India and showed virtual support of the systematic terrorism and
frightfulness adopted in the Punjab and that the latest Viceregal
pronouncement is proof of entire absence of repentance in the matters
of the Khilafat and the Punjab.
"This Congress is of opinion that there can be no contentment in India
without redress of the two afore-mentioned wrongs, and that the only
effectual means to vindicate national honour and to prevent a
repetition of similar wrongs in future is the establishment of
Swarajya. This Congress is further of opinion that there is no course
left open for the people of India but to approve of and adopt the
policy of progressive non-violent non-co-operation until the said
wrongs are righted and Swarajya is established.
"And inasmuch as a beginning should be made by the classes who have
hitherto moulded and represented opinion and inasmuch as Government
consolidates its power through titles and honours bestowed on the
people, through schools controlled by it, its law courts and its
legislative councils, and inasmuch as it is desirable in the
prosecution of the movement to take the minimum risk and to call for
the least sacrifice compatible with the attainment of the desired
object, this Congress earnestly advises:--
(_a_) surrender of titles and honorary offices and resignation from
nominated seats in local bodies;
(_b_) refusal to attend Government Levees, Durbars and other official
and semi-official functions held by Government officials or in their
honour;
(_c_) gradual withdrawal of children from Schools and colleges owned,
aided or controlled by Government and in place of such schools and
colleges in the establishment of National Schools and Colleges in the
various Provinces;
(_d_) gradual boycott of British Courts by lawyers and litigants and
establishment of private arbitration courts by their aid for the
settlement of private disputes;
(_e_) refusal on the part of the military, clerical and labouring
classes to offer themselves as recruits for service in Mesopotamia;
(_f_) withdrawal by candidates of their candidature for election to the
Reformed Councils and refusal on the part of the voters for any
candidate who may despite the Congress advice offer himself for
election; and
(_g_) the boycott of foreign goods.
"And inasmuch as non-co-operation has been conceived of as a measure of
discipline and self-sacrifice without which no nation can make real
progress, and inasmuch as an opportunity should be given in the very
first stage of non-co-operation to every man, woman and child, for such
discipline and self-sacrifice, this Congress advises adoption of
Swadeshi in piece goods on a vast scale, and inasmuch as the existing
mills of India with indigenous capital and control do not manufacture
sufficient yarn and sufficient cloth for the requirements of the
nation, and are not likely to do so for a long time to come this
Congress advises immediate stimulation of further manufacture on a
large scale by means of reviving hand-spinning in every home and hand
weaving on the part of the millions of weavers who have abandoned their
ancient and honourable calling for want of encouragement."
The Khilafat question first, the Punjab wrongs next are given as the two
grounds for discarding the Reform Scheme and demanding Swarajya or
immediate Home Rule for the prevention of similar wrongs in future. For
the attainment of such Swarajya or immediate Home Rule a policy of what
is called non-violent non-co-operation is advocated and as a beginning
the people are advised to take certain steps which are therein referred
to. Though discarding the Montagu Chelmsford Reform Scheme of Home Rule
by certain stages, Mr. Gandhi says he is working for immediate Home Rule
in accordance with the Resolution, to me it seems clear what he is
really aiming at is not Home Rule of any kind or form _i.e._
Parliamentary Government with absolute powers, but Swarajya or Home
Rule, as he himself has outlined it in his Indian Home Rule, the purport
of which I have briefly given above, _i.e._ anarchy and soul force. I
shall now attempt to show that there were no adequate reasons to discard
the Reform Scheme of Home Rule for a scheme of immediate Home Rule and
that the steps proposed to be taken are not calculated to attain Home
Rule of any kind or form but are steps intended for Gandhi Swarajya
which means anarchy or soul force.
In considering these questions the object of this movement must not be
lost sight of. In Mr. Gandhi's own words "Non-co-operation though a
religious and strictly moral movement deliberately aims at the overthrow
of the Government." Prima facie therefore all steps taken in pursuance
of this resolution are intended for this purpose.
I propose first of all to take up the Khilafat question which stands
first in the Resolution.
THE KHILAFAT QUESTION
With reference to this Khilafat agitation it is important to bear this
in mind. After the armistice of 1918, there were two memorials presented
on behalf of Turkey by the Muslim residents in England, one in January
1919 soon after the armistice, which included the names of His Highness
the Aga Khan, Abbas Ali Baig, Rt. Hon. Ameer Ali, Messrs: Yusaf Ali, H.
K. Kidwai etc.; and one at the end of the year in December 1919, the
signatories thereof included such Mahomedans as the following: H. H. Aga
Khan, Rt. Hon. Ameer Ali, Hon. Mr. Bhurgi, Mr. M. H. Kidwai. Both
included many non-Mahomedans, some of them of great influence and
position. They claimed for Turkey, Constantinople, Thrace, Anatolia
including Smyrna. There was no claim for the countries occupied by those
who were not Turks.
The Indian Mahomedan claim went much further. By the deputation to the
Viceroy towards the end of that year and by the subsequent deputation to
the Prime Minister and others the claim was advanced for the restoration
of Turkey to the pre-war state, giving Home Rule if necessary to the
Armenians or the Arabs etc. under Turkish sovereignty. This of course
was an impossible demand. The Arabs are entitled to as much
consideration as the Turks. Mahomad Ali and Shaukat Ali are really
responsible for this claim.
Another claim advocated in the Council of State in India was to let
Turkey have Anatolia and Thrace; full independence be given to the Arabs
and the countries inhabited by them without any control by any
non-muslim power. Whether the evacuation of Aden is included in this, I
am unable to say.
The Indian Mahomedan agitation has become a danger to the State on
account of the failure of the Secretary of State and Government of India
to tell the Indian Mahomedans that they, the Government have nothing to
do with the Khilafat question; that their responsibility is confined to
representing to the British cabinet the feelings of the Indian
Mahomedans, and the ultimate decision will depend upon what is good for
the Empire as a whole.
But so far as Gandhi was concerned the position is quite clear. He puts
forward whichever is the most extreme demand made by the Khilafat party
without any enquiry as to their reasonableness. He relies upon a
'promise' made by Lloyd George in favour of Turkey about their home
lands and Thrace discarding at the same time the limitation contained in
the promise to the subject races that they will not again be placed
under Turkey. He relies upon another statement made by Lloyd George that
after this, recruitment went up. The fact is that the recruitment of non
Mahomedans also went up and both were due to Sir Michael O'Dwyer. Though
he now denies having insisted upon the evacuation of Egypt by England as
a necessary condition of satisfaction of the Khilafat claim, he insists
upon the withdrawal of the Indian troops. For what purpose he does not
explain nor does he say whether he wants England to evacuate Egypt. He
knows, I presume, that Egypt has repudiated the Caliph's authority. He
was not apparently aware that the Arabs will not recognize the supremacy
of any Turkish power. But this is no difficulty to him. For if that
turns out to be the case he says the Arab Chief who held sway over Mecca
and Medina might become the Khalif. That Syria is not under England did
not matter. He wants the non-co-operators to be satisfied by England
that she was not in any way responsible for the French occupation or
retention of Syria, in which case he is willing to excuse her. He fails
to appreciate the weight of what appears to be an insuperable objection
that the Turks and their Khalif do not want any domination over Arabia
but, as they said in their deputation in January-February, 1919, after
the armistice, only wanted to be left alone with economic and political
independence in their own ethnological area. Neither Mr. Gandhi nor the
Khilafat advocates show any realisation of this fact. With a light heart
they maintain that the question is not Turkish but Mahomedan and
therefore Turkish opinion alone cannot decide the question. Palestine,
of course, according to Mr. Gandhi, must be under Turkish sovereignty.
It is enough for him that the prophet of Arabia has so willed it. The
prophets of Israel or the founder of Christianity, Jewish or Christian
sentiments, are as nothing in the balance. The real truth of course is
that in the case of the Khilafat agitation Mr. Gandhi and some of its
most active and prominent leaders want to use the agitation to destroy
the Government and not to effect a real settlement of the question. The
most energetic of the promoters of the movement were Mohomed Ali and
Shaukat Ali. They were active members of the Muslim League advocating
Mahomedan interests in opposition to the Hindus in the old days of the
Bengal Partition agitation. In their public speeches they emphasised the
identity of the interests of the Indian Mahomedans with the interests of
the Mahomedans elsewhere in Tripoli and Algeria in preference to those
of the Hindus, though living under the same Government with them. Since
the Balkan wars, however, on account of their intense hatred towards the
British Government for their failure to assist their co-religionists in
the West, they found it politic to approach the Hindus. Then followed
the internment of the brothers which naturally still more embittered
their feelings towards the Government. During the internment they did
not cease to preach sermons of virulence against the Government, and
even after their release they did not cease their propaganda of hatred
against the British Government. The independence of India--no doubt as a
preliminary step towards a subsequent Mahomedan domination in India--was
as much their object as the full restoration of the Khilafat domination
to its pre-war condition. This was avowed by the Ali Brothers
themselves. Mr. Shaukat Ali said in April 1920:--
"We do not embark on this step without fully realising what it means.
It means a movement for absolute independence."
In fact, to those who know them or who have read the proceedings of
their trial no evidence of this kind is required.
At the Khilafat Conference in Karachi--of which they were the guiding
spirits--held on the 9th of July 1921 the following resolution calling
upon the Mohomedan sepoys to desert in the name of religion was passed:
"The meeting clearly proclaims that it is in every way religiously
unlawful for a Mussalman at the present movement to continue in the
British Army or to induce others to join the army, and it is the duty
of all the Mussalmans in general and Ulemas in particular to see that
these religious commandments are brought home to every Mussalman in the
army and that if no settlement is arrived at before Christmas regarding
our campaign an Indian republic will be declared at the Ahmedabad
sessions of the Congress."
The two brothers were tried and convicted by the ordinary civil courts,
and the judge pointed out that however lawful and constitutional the
Khilafat committee may have been in its origin, however permissible the
agitation carried on in its earlier stages, those who were controlling
it soon began to rely on dangerous religious propaganda. About them he
said: "They had seen them in Court, heard their statements in the Lower
Court and their speeches here, and they could have no doubt that with
the exception of accused No. Six (a Hindu) they openly gloried in their
hatred of the Government of India and the British name. They justified
the above resolution by the religious law of the Koran which they said
the Mussalmans are bound to follow even when opposed to the law of the
land. All the Mohamedans in this case including Mohamad Ali and Shaukat
Ali maintained, 'first, that their religion compels them to do certain
acts, secondly, that no law which restrains them from doing those acts
which their religion compels them to do has any validity, and thirdly,
that in answer to a charge of breaking the law of the land it is
sufficient to raise and prove the plea that the act which is alleged to
be an offence is one which is enjoyed by their religion.'"
It is impossible to believe that Gandhi and his adherents are not aware
that this claim of the Mahomedans to be judged only by the law of the
Koran, is a claim which is the _fons et origo_ of all Khilafat claims of
whatever kind. It is as well to be clear about this, for not only does
the acceptance of the claim mean the death knell of the British Empire
or Indo-British commonwealth, whatever name we may care to give to the
great fraternity of nations to which we belong, but specifically as
regards India it means a real denial of Swaraj. For it involves
Mahomedan rule and Hindu subjection or Hindu Rule and Mahomedan
subjection. Let there be no mistake about this, no camouflage. Whatever
the Hindus may mean by the Hindu Muslim entente, and I believe they mean
a true equality, and whatever the more enlightened Mussalmans may mean,
Mohamad Ali, Shaukat Ali, and those of their persuasion, mean a
Mussalman dominion pure and simple, though they are of course clever
enough to keep the cat in the bag so long as the time for its emergence
is yet unripe. They protest, it need hardly be said, that they are
animated by no _arriere pensee_, no sectarian spirit, only by the most
loving goodwill towards the Hindu brethren. But there are some of us who
are too experienced to be caught by this mischievous and pernicious
chaff and must sound the warning to those less experienced and more
gullible. Considering the high character of some of the men who follow
Gandhi, I can only believe that this realization came to them so late
that it was difficult for them to withdraw.
As pointed out in the Karachi trial, these movements at first appear
innocuous, then grow dangerous.
The Khilafat associations throughout the country were intended to carry
on the "non-violent non-co-operation" campaign against Government. The
process of evolution from ostensible non-violence at first to violence
is so well described by Mr. Macpherson speaking, in the Legislative
Council that I have quoted it (App. XVI). It applies to all
organisations, but with greater force to Khilafat for reasons arising
out of Islam which will be shortly explained. There is no judicial
description of this development in Malabar, the most notorious instance.
I shall content myself, therefore, with giving a summary of the judgment
convicting certain persons for a riot in Malegaon in April, 1920. So
early had lawlessness in this form begun to show itself. It will also
explain the methods adopted.
A political movement began in Malegaon on the 15th March 1920, when a
"Khilafat Committee" and a body of "volunteers" were formed. The
Committee's activities took the shape of lectures and "wazas". The
lectures were political and the "wazas" are said to have been religious
sermons. In January, 1921, Shaukat Ali visited the town and lectured on
the Khilafat movement. It was shortly after this visit that political
activity became intensified.
The two Mahomedan schools, the Beitulullum and the Anjuman school, used
to receive grants-in-aid from Government. Money was raised to enable the
two State-aided schools to refuse the Government grant-in-aid in
pursuance of the non-co-operation movement, and a few Hindus were
members of the party. The collections were to be made by means of a
"paisa" fund, an old idea. Every person selling a "sari", that is all
the weavers in Malegaon, were required to pay a "paisa" or quarter of an
anna to the fund.
The system left practically no option to the weavers who objected to pay
the "paisa". Objecting buyers were encountered by persecution. The fund
Committee called a public meeting on the 27th February, at which it was
resolved that the buyers refusing to make the collections as directed
should be commercially boycotted. The commercial boycott of the
recalcitrant buyers was enforced by picketing their shops with
volunteers and their business was stopped. The former had appealed for
protection to the authorities by applications and petitions, but so long
as nothing actually illegal was done these were powerless actively to
interfere.
Meanwhile lectures and "wazas" were being continually held in the open
spaces in the town and excitement was running high. On the reports made
to him the District Magistrate came to the conclusion that in a place
like Malegaon which is ill-lighted the carrying of swords and cudgels at
public meetings at night by volunteers was likely to lead to a breach of
the peace. He therefore issued a proclamation on the 30th March
prohibiting the practice. It was a breach of the terms of this
proclamation and its enforcement by prosecutions which was the immediate
excuse for the riot.
But the local authorities had also tried to allay the friction and
excitement in other ways. The Sub-Divisional Officer, had called a
meeting on the 13th March with a view to find a method of collection of
the Fund which might put an end to the trouble about it and stop
enforced contributions. Collection boxes were recommended, but nothing
definite was agreed to by the other side.
Some of the leaders were persuaded to issue a manifesto which was signed
by eleven persons. This manifesto quotes Mr. Gandhi's dictates to
non-violence and exhorts the volunteers not to carry cudgels and
recommends that only peaceful methods should be used in collecting the
Funds.
It clearly had little effect. One of the men who signed it, on the 4th
April (it had been issued on the 1st April) at a public meeting
apologized for it on his own and the other signatories' behalf and they
were pardoned for having signed it. Meanwhile the boycotting and
picketing of the shops of the Anti-Fund people was continued. On the
15th prosecutions were instituted against 24 volunteers for a breach of
the District Magistrate's proclamation of the 30th March. On the 24th
April, the day before the hearing of these cases, a meeting was again
called at night at which a leading Mahomedan is reported to have used
the following words:--
"They must not be afraid of Government or of the police and that the
volunteers would see about the cases brought against them and may God
give the volunteers strength to promote their religion." The next day
April 25th twelve of these cases came on for hearing before Mr. Thakar
the Resident Magistrate. They ended in the conviction of the 6
volunteers and their being fined Rs. 50 each with the alternative of 4
weeks' simple imprisonment. The fines were not paid.
On the result being known the mob that had collected gave vent to their
feelings by loud cries of "Alla-ho-akbar," the war cry used by the mob
throughout the riot, assaulted all the police to be found in the town of
Malegoan, burned a temple, killed the Sub-Inspector of Police, not the
only one killed and threw his body into the fire and looted the houses
of all who were opposed to the Khilafat movement, the owners themselves
having fled in the meantime.
This illustrates the 'non-violent' methods followed by the Khilafat
committees and volunteers. I give another instance in full for
illustration Barabanki (App. XI) which shows perhaps more forcibly the
violent fanaticism supporting the movement. More instances can be easily
given.
The development from an apparently peaceful to a revolutionary attitude
is strikingly illustrated in the Khilafat agitation not only by
revolutionary activities but by open declaration. The resolution of the
Karachi Conference showed the Mahomedan intention to declare
independence and proclaim an Indian Republic at the following Congress
at Ahmedabad in December 1921. A resolution for absolute independence
was actually passed in the Subjects Committee of the Khilafat Conference
at Ahmedabad, but was not passed at the Conference itself only because
the President ruled it out of order. But immediately after the meeting
formally closed, the motion was passed by the members of the Conference
at the instance of the President of Muslim League whose speech as
President will amply repay perusal (App. XVIII). He was in effect only
carrying out at the Khilafat Conference the intention of the Karachi
Conference of which the Ali Brothers were the moving spirits. In his
speech he points out, what in effect is apparent to all, that Islam is
opposed to non-violence and, as he said in the course of one of his
speeches, the Mussalmans accepted it on the promise of Mr. Gandhi to
secure Swaraj within a year. It was a legitimate move therefore to
proclaim a rebellion. Another difference in principle was pointed out
which is productive of frightful consequences and must alienate Hindus
from Mahomedans. The Ali Brothers had already said that if the Afghans
invaded India to wage a holy war the Indian Mahomedans are not only
bound to fight them but also to fight the Hindus if they refuse to
co-operate with them. When therefore Gandhi and his followers
fraternised with the Khilafatists, the latter had no doubt of their
support if eventually it came to rebellion. They were confirmed in this
by Gandhi's attitude on the questions in issue between them and the
Hindus. He advises the latter Hindus--to submit themselves to Mahomedan
dictation. He begs them not to insist on the prohibition of the cow
slaughter by Mahomedans and to rely upon Mahomedan forbearance to afford
them relief in that direction. On the other hand he advises the Hindus
to refrain from irritating the Mahomedans by insisting on carrying their
processions past the mosques on their religious occasions. He advises
them to study Hindustani as against Hindi; in fact complete submission
to the Muslim feelings in all matters in controversy between them. His
attitude towards the Mopla outrages shows the extent of his surrender.
His alliance with the Khilafat movement has led to frightful results in
Malabar. Relying on the assurance of Gandhi and his followers, of Hindu
support for the Khilafat movement, and supported by the teaching that
the Hindus may be treated as foes on failure to support them in a holy
war, the Moplas when they rose against the British Government were
furious at the Hindu attitude of loyalty to England. The result was,
themselves, armed and organised they took the Hindus unawares and
committed atrocities too well known, to need recapitulation
here--butchered them and inflicted injuries on them far worse than death.
For sheer brutality on women, I do not remember anything in history to
match the Malabar rebellion. It broke out about the 20th of August. Even
by the 6th of September the results were dreadful. The Viceroy's speech
made on that date deserves careful attention (App. I).
The atrocities committed more particularly on women are so horrible and
unmentionable that I do not propose to refer to them in this book. I
have selected a few accounts out of literally hundreds that might be
selected from the English and vernacular papers (App. III). One
narrative is by Mrs. Besant. The resolution passed at a meeting presided
over by the Zamorin Maharaja at which, many of the leading Hindus in the
District were present enters a strong protest against the attempts made
by interested persons to minimize the gravity of the occurrence (App.
V). The moving appeal signed by many ladies headed by the senior Rani
of Nilambur who belongs to one of the wealthiest families and were
rulers in ancient days shows the nature of the atrocities and the
apprehensions still entertained after the rebellion is quelled (App.
IV). I do not think it advisable to publish any more but I would point
out in addition to those mentioned in these articles two other forms of
torture credibly reported as having been resorted to in the case of
men--flaying alive, and making them dig their own graves before their
slaughter. It is now ascertained that the Mahomedans had held frequent
meetings in their mosques and, had made all preparations for a rising.
Hence it was difficult for the Hindus in these tracts to make any
defence or escape. The horrid tragedy continued for months. Thousands of
Mahomedans killed, and wounded by troops, thousands of Hindus butchered,
women subjected to shameful indignities, thousands forcibly converted,
persons flayed alive, entire families burnt alive, women it is said
hundreds throwing themselves into wells to avoid dishonour, violence and
terrorism threatening death standing in the way of reversion to their
own religion. This is what Malabar in particular owes to the Khilafat
agitation, to Gandhi and his Hindu friends. The President of the Indian
Moslem League, following the Ali injunction, justified the Mahomedan
atrocities as an act of war against the Hindus and the Government.
Gandhi too pleaded for the Mahomedans. All this was too much even for
their dupes who have entered a spirited protest (App. III). It is
impossible after all I have said above that there can be any sympathy
with the Khilafat agitation. The future may be envisaged. Gandhi and his
dupes have led Khilafatists to understand that the Hindus will stand by
them in any contingency, impliedly assuring them, as they believed in
Malabar, of support even in resistance to British rule. This Islamic
consciousness which looks to a brotherhood beyond India and beyond the
Empire does not support the claim for early concession of Home Rule, for
Home Rule means Home Rule within the Empire, not outside it--the Home
Rule enjoyed by the self-governing constituents of the commonwealth. The
Empire, it will be reasonably urged, cannot afford to place great power
in the hands of a party which would subordinate the interests of the
Empire and of India to the interests of a large body outside the Empire
who actually stand in opposition to it. The introduction of this
religious element in this manner is fatal to the well-being of the
Empire, and unless some other basis can be found for the Hindu-Mahomedan
entente, it must go. The extent to which Mr. Gandhi is prepared to go in
support of the Khilafat claim is stated in this extract:--
"What will the Imperial Government do if France were to attempt to
deprive England of Dover and India were secretly to help France or
openly to show indifference or hostility to England's struggle to
retain Dover? Can Indians be expected to sit idle when the Khilafat is
vivisected?"
It is one thing to ask the Empire or India to go to war in favour of an
oppressed class--but to ask her to do it in the interests of
co-religionists of a community living outside the Empire is very
different.
What is the present position? I shall describe it in the words of one of
Mr. Gandhi's dupes, a secretary of a District Congress Committee, Mr. K.
Madhavan Nair of Calicut, who writes on January 4th as follows:--
Now the position is this:--
The Hindus and Mohamedans have been waging a common war with
non-violence as the fundamental creed. It has to be noted however, that
there is a party led by the Maulana that advocates violence for the
achievement of their object. Suppose to-morrow that party takes to
violence and the other remains non-violent, what will be the fate of
the non-violent party if Maulana's views are pushed to their logical
conclusion? Is freedom worth having if in the attainment of it you have
to loot, murder and outrage your innocent neighbour who does not agree
with you or approve of your methods and is Swaraj possible of
achievement and the Khilafat likely to be righted by such means?
Maulana's views make those who have absolutely no faith in violence to
think over these facts deeply and anxiously.
The Indian Non-Mahomedans, did not trouble themselves about the Khilafat
claims. Mr. Gandhi and his followers took it up as an anti-British
movement to secure Mahomedan support to his non-co-operation movement.
Even that non-Mahomedan sympathy with the Khilafat movement, has
vanished. That movement acquired its strength on account of such
unfortunate statements that the Secretary of State and the Government of
India are in hearty sympathy with the Moslim demands; statements like
those reported to have been made by His Highness Aga Khan that Mr.
Montagu is doing as much as it is possible to support the Mahomedan
claim and Gandhi himself could not have done more. I doubt whether any
influential newspaper or any publicist in America, England or the
continent support the Khilafat claim as advanced by Indian Mahomedans or
by Gandhi. However, the reputed sentiments of Mr. Montagu and the
Government of India have influenced even moderate Mahomedans and Hindus
to support them against the cabinet in starting and supporting an
agitation, which has now assumed dangerous proportions.
The Khilafat movement does not want, and Mr. Gandhi is not for, any
reasonable settlement of the Mahomedan grievance or for Home Rule. They
wish to get rid of the British Government. Such being the objective
naturally the Khilafat Indian agitators have put forward demands which
the Turks themselves recognise as outside practical politics. They have
hampered the efforts of their friends for a revision of the treaty of
Sevres. Everybody now realises that this attitude of the Khilafat
movement under the guidance of Gandhi and Mahomed Ali stood in the way
of any reasonable settlement. It is a futile endeavour of the Indian and
British Governments to satisfy Mr. Gandhi or the Khilafat agitators led
by the Ali brothers. Gandhi and his followers have greatly encouraged
the growth of Indian Pan Islamism which will in future be always opposed
to other Religions and civilizations. I can well understand the adherent
of large numbers of Mussulmans to the idea of Pan-Islamism. It must
naturally have a fascination for devotees of Islam by reason of the
splendour of its promise that Mussulmans the world over shall one day be
united under one flag, but we have to take the world as it is and to
take into the consideration the forces actually at work in
reconstruction. The world has passed the stage of religious empires. It
has gone beyond the stage of religious crusades. We are on the threshold
of an era of a brotherhood transcending religious differences,
transcending even national differences and of which one of the dominant
notes is a unity of purpose in which religious differences of race and
customs are to be merged and harmonised. Pan-Islamism or
Pan-Christianity or Pan-Budhism--one can hardly speak of
Pan-Hinduism--belong to the world that is dead and not to the world that
is living. They mean destruction, proselytisation, the assertion of
superiority the world war was waged to destroy. This also shows the
dangerous foundation on which the Gandhi movement rests. Home Rule or
Swaraj is claimed not as an end in itself but for the purpose of
righting the alleged wrongs sustained by foreigners. We know Gandhi's
principles which I have set forth above. Swaraj or political
independence is not what he really wants. It is not the Caliph
grievances that have led him to claim political independence. He wants
to destroy the British Government, as a hater of all Governments.
The attitude of the Government towards the people of the Punjab and the
Punjab officials is stated in the Congress Resolution as the second and
the only other reason for this non-co-operation campaign against the
Government.
THE PUNJAB ATROCITIES
No one feels for the Punjab more than I do. I doubt whether anybody was
in a position to know more of it than I was. Even now with all the
enquiries made by the Hunter Commission and by the Congress
Sub-Committee many deplorable incidents as bad as any, worse perhaps,
than any reported have not been disclosed. At this distance of time it
is best that they should remain so. It is with a full knowledge of this
that I make the following remarks.
The conditions now have entirely changed. Before the Reforms under a
Lieutenant-Governor, a single individual, the atrocities in the Punjab
which we know only too well, could be committed almost with impunity.
Now instead of one man the Government of the Punjab consist not only of
a Governor who no doubt is an Englishman, but of an Executive Council
consisting of an Englishman and an Indian, who was a non official before
appointment to his seat in the Council and for all practical purposes
two Indian Ministers who are also consulted in all important matters.
Though, therefore, a repetition of the old incidents may be possible, it
is unlikely. The Government of India again, which then consisted of only
one Indian, now includes three Indian members, a powerful contingent.
Above all, it will be remembered that it was necessary to pass an Act of
Indemnity to save the delinquents from proceedings in civil and criminal
Courts. Such an Act of Indemnity would scarcely be possible now, with a
Legislative Assembly consisting of a majority of elected members under
the new constitution. The trouble in the Punjab arose out of the Rowlat
Act which is repealed. Many high handed proceedings were taken under the
Regulations of 1818 the provisions of which were applied for purposes
for which they were never intended. The regulations are now repealed so
far as the matters are concerned. Many of these proceedings were taken
under the Defence of India Act and they also have gone so that for the
future at any rate our position is very different from what it was in
the past. In such circumstances what is it that one would expect? If it
is an honest endeavour that is being made to solve the difficulties
which arose out of the Punjab, one would expect a demand for any further
guarantees that may be necessary against a repetition of such
occurrences and the punishment of those who have acted not under an
error of judgment and not in good faith. But the demands now made are of
a very different kind. They do not seek for further guarantees, at least
none are formulated.
I realise that the eulogium passed by the English Cabinet on Lord
Chemsford and Sir Michael O'Dwyer was an outrage on Indian public
opinion. I believe also that the Government of India committed a great
political blunder in not publishing their proceedings, punishing the
subordinate officials in accordance with the orders of the Cabinet. I
agree further that it was an egregious mistake to pass the Indemnity Act
when India was so excited. The Government should have waited for the
result of the proceedings in Civil or Criminal Courts, when they might
have pardoned those who acted in good faith reimbursing their expenses.
But that is not the question now. Mr. Gandhi and his party want certain
persons to be punished on the strength of the report submitted by the
Congress Committee who made an _ex parte_ enquiry of their own without
hearing the other side. This is not right. Moreover every where it is
recognised that the security of the subject, person and property,
requires that the punishment of the guilty should be in the hands of the
Courts and not within the discretion of an Executive Council. If these
officers whose punishment is called for are guilty it is the Courts that
ought to punish them, and I speak with knowledge when I say that no
steps open to them have yet been taken by those who carry on the
agitation to vindicate justice. Is it possible, then, to maintain that
the Punjab question in any way justifies the tremendous agitation that
is being carried on for the dismemberment of the Empire. Besides how is
it possible for any reasonable man to say that this affords any
justification for not utilizing the Legislative Councils to help the
Punjab and to carry out the reforms of which the country is urgently in
need. Besides it must be remembered that some of the Punjab political
leaders have failed in their duty. During the crisis they refused to
come forward to substantiate their complaints of maladministration of
Martial Law, even of those matters within their personal knowledge. They
did not give a chance to the Government of India to control the
Government of the Punjab or the administration of Martial law. _The real
truth, of course, is that the Punjab grievances are only a pretext for
this agitation, by the violent section headed by Mr. Gandhi. It is
really not the redress of the Punjab grievances or prevention of the
repetition of atrocities that is sought for, so much as the expulsion of
the British Government from India._
SWARAJ OR HOME RULE
The Resolution says that on account of the failure of Government to
redress these grievances we must have 'Swaraj.' It is important to
remember that long before these occurrences Mr. Gandhi had come to the
conclusion that we must have Independence. It would accordingly seem
dishonest on his part to say that these events led him to the demand for
Swaraj or Home Rule.
In his scheme of "Home Rule for India" Mr. Gandhi said:--
"Now you will have seen that it is not necessary for us to have as our
goal the expulsion of the English. If the English became Indianised we
can accommodate them. If they wish to remain in India along with their
civilisation, there is no room for them. It lies with us to bring about
such a state of things."
Then in reply to the question that it is impossible that Englishmen
should ever become Indianised, he says:--
"To say that is equivalent to saying that the English have no humanity
in them. And it is really beside the point whether they become so or
not. If we keep our own house in order only those who are fit to live
in it will remain. Others will leave of their own accord."
It is something that he gives a loophole to the Englishman to remain in
India. To the question that there may be chaos and anarchy on account of
the Hindu Mahomedan position he states:--
"I would prefer any day anarchy and chaos in India to an armed peace
brought about by the bayonet between the Hindus and Musalmans."
When it was pointed out to him that the dissensions amongst the Hindus
themselves may cause the same result he is not dismayed. He says:--
"We are not to assume that the English have changed the nature of the
Pindarries and the Bhils. It is therefore better to suffer the Pindarri
peril than that some one else should protect us from it and thus render
us effeminate. I should prefer to be killed by the arrow of the Bhil
than to seek nominal protection."
When it was pointed out to him that for Home Rule at this stage we have
not got an army for our own protection he said the other day:--
"I am here to confess that we are fully able to take charge of all
military dispositions in the country and that we feel able to deal with
all foreign complications." The worst that may happen is he continued
that we may be blotted out from the face of the earth for which he was
prepared so long as he can breathe the free atmosphere of India.
The following report is interesting; we give it below from the "Daily
Express."
Q:--Are you anxious to take over the whole control of the army at once
or would you make an exception of that object?
A:--I think we are entirely ready to take up the whole control of the
Army which means practically disbanding three fourths of it. I would
keep just enough to police India.
Q:--If the army were reduced to that extent, do you not apprehend
anything aggressive from the frontier territories?
A:--No.
Q:--My information, derived from Military sources, is that there are
over half-a-million armed men on the frontier.
A:--You are right, I agree.
Q:--These tribes have frequently attacked India hitherto. Why do you
think they will refrain from doing so when India possesses Home Rule?
A:--In the first instance, the world's views have changed and secondly
the preparations that are now made in Afghanistan are really in support
of the Khilafat. But when the Khilafat question is out of the way, then
the Afghan people will not have any design on India. The warrior tribes
who live on loot and plunder are given lakhs of rupees as subsidy. I
would also give them a little subsidy. When the Charka comes into force
in India, I would introduce the spinning wheel among the Afghan tribes
also and thus prevent them from attacking the Indian territories. I
feel that the tribesmen are in their own way God-fearing people.
But for the fact that he is well known to be a Saint and Mahatma, I
would have had no hesitation in saying that his last observations about
meeting the Afghans show him to be either a fool or a knave.
He said on the 16th February 1921:--
"There must be complete independence, if England's policy is in
conflict with the Moslim sentiment on the Khilafat question or with the
Indian sentiment in the Punjab."
And in his recent speech at the congress opposing the resolution for
Independence it was said that if the Punjab and Khilafat demands are
complied with, Independence is not necessary. Well, he knows or ought to
know they are impossible demands. The implication is plain and taken in
conjunction with what has been said above as to the Western civilisation
and the Indianisation of the English people, the conclusion that he is
really aiming at Independence is inevitable. To certain Boy Scouts on
the 23rd March he was quite plain. He said:--
"No Indian could remain loyal in the accepted sense to the Empire as it
was at present represented and be loyal to God at the same time. An
Empire that could be responsible for the terrorism of the martial law
regime, that would not repent of the wrong, that could enter into
secret treaties in breach of solemn obligations could only be reckoned
as a Godless Empire. Loyalty to such an Empire was disloyalty to God".
These have to be borne in mind when we consider the question of the
Swaraj that he has put forward. The Swaraj that he works for is thus
described:--
"Swaraj means full Dominion status. The scheme of such swaraj shall be
framed by representatives duly elected in terms of the Congress
constitution. That means four anna franchise. Every Indian adult, male
or female, paying four annas and signing the Congress creed will be
entitled to be placed on the electoral list. These would elect
delegates who would frame Swaraj constitution. This shall be given
effect to without any change by the British Parliament".
A more preposterous demand cannot be imagined. He excludes all those who
do not belong to his Congress. Those who do not pay annas four and sign
the congress creed form the majority of the population. Again to ask the
British Parliament to accept the scheme framed by his party however
absurd, without examination of the same is absolute nonsense. If Mr.
Gandhi and his party can frame a scheme of Swaraj for the consideration
of the rest of India, have it discussed with others modified if
necessary after such discussion, it may be, and it ought to be placed
before the Government and Parliament. But this is the last thing he will
do, for various reasons. Mr. Gandhi himself will never do it because I
doubt whether he has any correct idea of the Dominion status and all
that it involves. Mr. Gandhi is not a student but an impulsive fanatic
indifferent to facts but obsessed by phantasmagoria. He jumps to what he
calls conclusions but which have in fact no premises. Again he will not
see it done because what he really desires is not an honest settlement
which will give India a further instalment of Swaraj but as the
preceding extracts show what he wants is really absolute independence
according to his professions but really anarchy or soul force. If he
were honest in his desire to secure Swaraj he and his followers would
not have boycotted the Councils but would have entered them to take
further steps towards its attainment.
I am therefore satisfied that Mr. Gandhi does not aim at a fair
settlement of the Punjab difficulties. He does not want an equitable
peace satisfying the just claims of the Mahomedans. He does not want
Parliamentary Swaraj or Home Rule. But for tactical purposes he is
putting them forward to destroy the English Government, in order to
attain his object of a society outlined in his "Indian Home Rule," some
features of it I have set forth above.--A society without Government,
Railways, Hospitals, Schools, Courts, etc. His programme is therefore
put forward to clear the way to obtain his object. This Swaraj is to be
attained by, in the words of the Resolution, non-violent
non-co-operation with Government. And among others the following steps
were recommended for adoption: (1) Boycott of Government aided schools
and colleges and establishment of National schools and colleges, (2)
Boycott of British Courts by Lawyers and Litigants (3) Boycott of
Reformed Councils (4) Boycott of Foreign goods and use of spinning
wheels. Out of these I shall naturally take up the question of the
boycott of Government and aided institutions and the nature of education
sought to be imparted by Mr. Gandhi.
EDUCATION
The system of Education which Mr. Gandhi apparently wants to introduce
has already been tried in some parts of India. The results of a teaching
confined to Eastern classics and vernaculars has already been apparent.
It has produced a mentality amongst Hindus and Mahomedans which has
divided them from one another. It has separated still further the
Brahmins from non-Brahmins, the caste Hindus from the noncaste Hindus.
It has again produced amongst those who have received that education a
vague longing for speculative theories and a distaste for experiment and
research by which, theories may be tested. Of course Mr. Gandhi does not
know these results. His speeches and writings do not show that he ever
cared to enquire into these questions. He does not want education to be
imparted to the masses and Western education to be imparted to anybody
for the reason that it would make them discontented with their present
lot in life, _i.e._ in other words he wants each class to remain in its
present condition, the lower castes, slaves of their masters--the higher
classes. This consequence follows from his acceptance of the caste
system. He says "Varanashram (caste system) is inherent in human nature
and Hinduism has simply reduced it to a science. It does attach by
birth. A man cannot change his Varna by choice. Prohibition against
intermarriage and interdining is essential for a rapid evolution of the
soul." He would relegate those Hindus outside the pale of caste, the
panchamas or the so-called degraded classes, by whatever name they are
called, to degradation for the service of the higher castes. His
writings or speeches do not show any knowledge of Indian History and
having spent the main portion of his life in a far-off country the evils
of the system perhaps never came to his knowledge. Otherwise he would
have learnt the following facts. It is this caste system which has
brought about the conquest of India by the Mahomedans and the
Englishmen, both of whom were always supported by the lower castes
against the higher. It is responsible for the large conversions to
Christianity and Mahomedanism. It is responsible for a degradation of
humanity for which no parallel can be found in slavery, ancient or
modern. It is responsible for a good deal of Hindu-Mahomedan, Brahmin
non-Brahmin problem and stands in the way of our social, economical and
political progress. Yet Mr. Gandhi supports the system, though he
advocates the removal of one or two blots which hardly affect the main
structure. He enters on an elaborate disquisition on the benefits and
necessity of caste which will not do credit to Macaulay's fourth form
schoolboy. He shows no knowledge of the vast literature on the subject
or of the main arguments against it. He is supporting the caste system
to secure the support of the higher castes, without whose financial
support his agitation must collapse. One of his own followers would have
told him that caste has killed all the arts and science in this country.
Sir P. C. Ray points out in his history of Hindu chemistry:--"the fear
of losing caste was thus responsible for the loss of the faculty of
independent enquiry and hence for the decline and decay of all the arts
and sciences for which India was once so famous." Of course he does not
want that education which is indispensable for those who occupy the
higher Government offices in the country. He does not want that
education which is essential for the development of Indian manufacturing
industries and development of mineral resources.
Mr. Gandhi accordingly made his wicked attempt to destroy the National
Hindu University of Benares and the Mahomedan University of Aligarh.
They combined Eastern and Western learning. The attempt was happily
unsuccessful. Strong pressure was put upon the students to leave the
Schools and Colleges. Looking to the final results as disclosed in the
Report of the Congress Secretary reviewing the work of 1921, Government
have reasons to congratulate themselves. By far the majority of the
aided institutions in Bengal have been recognised by the Educational
Authorities to be very inefficient and they have been attempting either
to disaffiliate them or reduce their numbers to give more efficient
instruction to those who remain, as a good number of them were
institutions started for commercial purpose. It is remarkable that the
great majority of the students who obeyed the Congress cause belonged to
these aided institutions. Those who left the Government Schools and
Colleges with better discipline and more efficient teaching were very
few if any. I would refer the reader for further information as to the
results of the education campaign to the speech of the President of the
Thana conference, a genuine patriot who happens, however, to be one of
Gandhi's followers (App. VI).
Mr. Gandhi asked all the boys to withdraw now from the schools on the
pretence that until the Government punishes the Punjab offenders in the
manner advocated by him and satisfies the claims of the Khilafatists we
should no longer associate with the Government, and we can there-by
hasten the advent of Swaraj. This is a mere pretext. He advocated the
substitution of the national kind of education as outlined by him in
favour of the present system of education long before there was any
Punjab or Khilafat questions. He advocated them in 1908 in his book "The
Indian Home Rule." To say now that he advocated them on account of those
reasons is sheer hypocrisy. The step will not hasten but might retard
Swaraj. Even if the Punjab wrongs are redressed in the manner suggested
and even if the Khilafatists are satisfied and Parliamentary Swaraj
obtained, he will still be an advocate of the abstention from English
Schools in favour of the system of national education as above set forth.
VAKILS AND COURTS
The same is the case about his propaganda about the Vakils and the
Courts. It never had any chance of success. I shall not dwell however
upon this but would refer to Thana President's speech to which in
connection with education attention has been already drawn (App. VI). He
now puts them forth ostensibly for the purpose of compelling the
Government to redress the Punjab and other wrongs. As a fact he
advocated them long before that in 1908, as I have already pointed out
above. Here again it is sheer hypocrisy to say that they are advocated
not as an end in themselves but as a means for the redress of the Punjab
and Khilafat wrongs. He dare not openly advocate this as desirable in
itself as he would then be laughed at.
BOYCOTT OF COUNCILS
The other step that he advocates is abstention from the new councils.
His followers generally have not voted at the elections or have stood
for election. His reason given at the Calcutta Congress in September
1920 when he moved his resolution on non-co-operation is this. "I now
come to the burning topic _viz._ the boycott of the councils. Sharpest
difference of opinion existed regarding this and if the house was to
divide on it, it must divide on one _viz._ whether Swaraj has to be
gained through the councils or without the councils. If we utterly
distrust the British Government and we know that they are to-day
unrepentant now can you believe that the councils will lead to Swaraj
and not tighten the British hold on India"? I can only ask him to read
the history of the Parliamentary struggle for freedom in England which
will show how freedom is won from reluctant monarchs and privileged
classes. Even in India the subsequent history of the Legislative
councils has shown that the Government is willing to meet the councils
half way and almost every question taken up by the councils has been
advanced nearer solution. But I doubt whether there is any use of
arguing with Mr. Gandhi. The real truth is as he has candidly avowed in
his "Indian Home Rule" that Parliamentary Government is in itself bad
and India should not strive after it as it will stand in the way of his
spiritual Swaraj. I need not argue this point so far as the followers of
Gandhi are concerned as they are heartily sorry that they boycotted the
councils. I refer on this point also to the Thana Conference President's
speech (App. VII). They feel ashamed of themselves the majority of them
desire the dissolution of the present councils and a re-election so that
they might utilize these councils for more powerful Parliaments. Perhaps
I should add that considering the undisciplined fanaticism of the
non-co-operator and his total ignorance of development of political
organization, it is probably just as well that the councils were in
their inception preserved from such a calamitous invasion. The council
and the assembly have even in the short duration of their existence,
achieved good results which are carrying us far and quietly on that true
road to Home Rule from which Mr. Gandhi seeks to divert us. Had the
Non-Co-operators been members of these councils and had they acted in
their present temper, they might well have wrecked the Reforms and have
set back the clock of India's progress even more than they have done
already. The boycotting is therefore in all probability a blessing
though designed as a curse. Still the fact remains that the Councils
might have done even more had Mr. Gandhi been endowed with the wisdom to
see that India's interests would best be served by using the councils
and the assembly as levers to obtain further freedom on sane, safe, and
constitutional lines.
BOYCOTT OF FOREIGN GOODS
There is not only no objection to the Charka but it is very much to be
commended. It is very useful as a cottage or home industry and will find
an occupation to many who might otherwise be idle. But it will not
displace foreign goods at least without the aid of mills by foreign
machinery.
All these with other minor ones are only steps to be taken to carry out
the policy of non-violent non-co-operation for the attainment of Swaraj
and Mr. Gandhi asks every body, in fact the people of India, to carry on
non-violent non-co-operation with the Government so as ostensibly to
attain Swaraj but really I have no doubt as an end in itself.
I have already pointed out that non-violent submission to suffering and
the consequent attainment of self-control over oneself which he called
Swaraj was the end which he had in view. He found that there was no use
in directly advocating it. He therefore puts it forward as the chief
instrument for obtaining the Parliamentary Swaraj which the people of
India wanted. He based his appeal to the Hindus on the well known
doctrine of "Ahimsa". I will not stop here to discuss how far suffering
for the purpose of inducing another to follow a particular line of
conduct is included in the scope of Ahimsa. I myself believe it is not
only not so included but is totally inconsistent with it. I will merely
point out that this principle has already been condemned by the Penal
Code which makes it a crime for a creditor to realise his debt by
Dharna. For my purpose it is only necessary to say that this principle
of non-violence if accepted in practice generally will lead to chaos and
anarchy. If applied to Government alone by refusal to recognise the
jurisdiction of the courts it will lead to the same results. How it will
lead to 'Parliamentary Swaraj' it is impossible to see. Mr. Gandhi says
if all the people of India adopted it the machinery of Government is
bound to come to a standstill. But that all will adopt it without
leaving sufficient men with the aid of those who will be imported from
England and elsewhere to carry out the administration is only the
fantasy of a diseased imagination. Non-violence is a guarantee on the
part of those who carry it out that the Government has nothing to fear
from physical force. If they use force then they abandon the weapon of
non-violence. Mr. Gandhi and his followers, are agreed that physical
force is now out of the question on ground, according to Mr. Gandhi,
that we will be crushed. I cannot help thinking that when we take this
aspect of the matter along with others already mentioned that Mr. Gandhi
himself does not consider this as any effective step towards the
attainment of the 'Parliamentary Swaraj,' but only to attain his
"Spiritual Swaraj." This explains what he is so fond of reiterating that
when Lajpatrai, Motilal Nehru, and C. R. Das and others were arrested
and went to Jail without complaint, or resistance denying the
jurisdiction of the courts, in pursuance of the policy of non-violent
non-co-operation, though Parliamentary Swaraj was not attained, the
spiritual 'Swaraj' of which he was in search has been attained to his
intense satisfaction. If he had advocated abstention from schools,
boycott of Councils and Courts, non-violence as a means of attaining his
(spiritual) Swaraj, giving up Punjab Khilafat and Parliamentary Home
Rule, no one would perhaps have any right to complain, and it would have
been a straightforward and honest course. But he has adopted underhand
methods which appear to me, unless a satisfactory explanation is given,
little short of dishonest and fraudulent.
But it may be asked whether anybody would have accepted a policy of
non-violent non-co-operation in the circumstances of the case unless
there was some reasonable prospect of success within any measurable
time. Here we come to the most sinister aspect of the matter. In moving
his resolution on non-co-operation in the National Congress held at
Calcutta in September 1920, he said, "If there is sufficient response to
my scheme I make bold to reiterate my statement that you can gain
Swarajya in the course of an year" and he laid down certain conditions,
the more important of which have been mentioned. That period has been
extended subsequently by a few months. Even that extended period has
elapsed. When charged with his failure to attain Parliamentary Swaraj
within the period asked for by him he had effrontery to state that the
conditions mentioned by him have not been complied with. A political
leader has no right to put forward before the country any scheme under
conditions which he has no reasonable belief of being likely to be
complied with. Did he honestly believe that those conditions named by
him would be complied with and Parliamentary Swaraj obtained within the
time mentioned by him? Looking to the nature of the conditions I do not
think he believed that they would be complied with, not only in one year
but at any time; and even if complied with I have no doubt he did not
believe that Swaraj would come though he might assert the contrary. He
put the lure forward simply for the purpose of persuading the Congress
to make an important change in the policy which the country had hitherto
adopted. The National Congress, carried away by its hostility towards
Government, accepted his programme. Some of the younger men may have
believed in it. The older and the most experienced I have no doubt never
believed in its possibility but considered it a means, of rousing the
people of the country from their political lethargy, to put pressure on
the Government for further and more extensive reforms. They may also
have felt that this might be a means of Mahomedan co-operation for their
policy. I do not deny that according to English political life this is a
perfectly legitimate manoeuvre though none of those leaders believed in
the soundness of the policy put forward by Mr. Gandhi and many of them
said so.
Having attained his purpose by a representation, the truth of which I
cannot help thinking he did not believe, and could not have believed,
and having committed the Congress to a certain course of action, he is
now able to carry the Congress with him for revolutionary action, as it
finds it has gone too far on this course to revert to its own natural
methods of progress. But as a matter of fact he went further than this.
On 29th December, 1920, _i.e._ three months after the change of
programme, he said, "my experience during the last months fills me with
the hope that within the nine months that remain of the year in which I
have expected Swaraj for India we shall redress the two wrongs and we
shall see Swaraj (Parliamentary) established in accordance with the
wishes of the people of India." But I do not think for a moment he
believed what he said. He used these words to dupe the people of India
to follow him yet a step further and to pay him money. After about a
month on the 21st of January 1921--he again confirmed his previous
statement. He said: "Four months of this one year have already gone by
and my faith has never burnt as brightly as it burns tonight as I am
talking to the young men of Bengal." And he added "that in case of his
death before the expiry of eight months he is satisfied that the people
of India will secure Swaraj before the year is out." Is this not a
definite statement that the Indian people are going to get Swaraj? A few
days later the purpose comes out. In a public address to the merchants
of Calcutta on the 30th January, 1921, he said:--
"What I purposed to do I can accomplish in a certain line. I Must
attain Swaraj. If thirty crores of people say that they are not with me
yet I shall do my work and win Swaraj.... If you wish to accomplish
work of thirty crores of men then come out with your money. Try to have
money and ask me to give an account of the same. I appoint some one
treasurer.... If you know that you yourself can not attain Swaraj +then
help one with money+. If you do not help with money Swaraj will be
difficult but not impossible to attain. If the students of India do not
help, me it does not matter. If the pleaders do not help, it does not
matter."
The old conditions of the boycott of schools and of the courts as
conditions indispensable for the attainment of Swaraj are dropped. And
he promises Swaraj and asks for money for getting it in nine months. He
collected money on the faith of that representation. Earlier on the same
day he got ten thousand rupees, and on the spot a large sum is said to
have been collected. On the same date in addressing the students he
said: "If the response continues as it has begun there is no doubt of
Swaraj coming within the time prescribed". On the 23rd February 1921 he
again said: "Last five months experience has confirmed me in the
opinion. I am convinced that the country has never been so ready for
establishing Swaraj as now." To me only one conclusion is possible that
he was collecting the money from the people who understood him to say
that Swaraj will be attained within the period mentioned by him. In
March he said:--
"The last Congress has given a constitution whose working in itself
calculated to lead to Swaraj. It is intended to secure in every part of
India representative committees working in conjunction with, and under
willing and voluntary submission to a central organisation--The all
India Congress Committee. It establishes an adult suffrage open to men
and women subject only to two qualifications signing of the creed and a
nominal payment of four annas. It is intended to secure due
representation of the parties and communities, if then, it is honestly
worked, and commands confidence and respect, it can oust the present
Government without the slightest difficulty. For, the latter has no
power except through the co-operation willing or forced, of the people.
The force it exercises is almost through our own people. One lac of
Europeans, without our help, can only hold less than one seventh of our
villages each and it would be difficult for a man even when physically
present, to impose his will on, say four hundred men and women--the
average population of Indian village."
He said that we have therefore to concentrate our attention up to the
30th of June on getting:--
(1) One crore of rupees for Tilak Swaraj Fund.
(2) One crore members on the Congress register.
(3) The spinning wheel introduced in twenty lacs of homes.
He added, however:--
"This programme does not mean cessation of the other activities of
Non-co-operation. They go on. Drink and untouchability must vanish. The
education movement is steadily going forward. The National institutions
that have sprung up will, if they are efficiently managed make headway
and attract students who are still hesitating. The pleaders, always a
cautious and calculating class by training, will, as they see the
movement progressing more and more, fall in line with the rest of the
country. Boycott of law courts by the public is making fair progress.
These things do not now require concentration of universal effort. They
apply to special classes. But the three things mentioned by me are the
most essential: they must be done now and without them the movement, as
a mass movement must be pronounced a failure." _"Young India" 30th
March._
After this it is impossible to rely upon boycott of schools &c. as
conditions for Swaraj within a year. It is now admitted and the
Secretaries report that the money demanded has been collected. Such
money was paid on the fraudulent representation of Swaraj within the
year. Judged by ordinary standards Mr. Gandhi's whole procedure with the
promises, the persuasions, the evasions, the subterfuges and all the
other manoeuvres, would be characterised by men of the world and of sane
judgment in language, I hesitate to reproduce, for the simple reason
that I believe that Mr. Gandhi is honest in his self hypnotisation. I
believe he does not really know what he is doing. At least this is the
only possible charitable assumption when we watch his feats of political
acrobatics which have the power of deluding such vast numbers of people
making them passionately intolerant, violently intolerant often, of the
slightest criticism of their hero.
When the Congress was asked in September to change its policy, Mr.
Gandhi's idea to start an organisation to supercede the existing
Government was not brought before them. It is the first direct step in
the path of revolution. His followers have been by this time brought to
a proper frame of mind. The use of the money to be collected was, as
stated on the 13th April, to be as follows; "The only activity involving
financial obligations is that of spinning, organising national service,
in some cases supporting lawyers, who might have suspended practice and
cannot be included in the national service as for supporting national
educational institutions." It will now be understood why some lawyers
were willing to suspend practice. Before the expiry of one year period
however other conditions were imposed which would put off Swaraj
practically for a very long time to come, the removal of untouchability
of the lower classes in India without which it was said Swaraj would be
a meaningless term. This means, as I have no doubt, Mr. Gandhi knew, he
was putting off Swaraj indefinitely. If this had been mentioned as
condition when the Congress was asked to change its policy it is very
doubtful whether he would have got the Congress to agree with him. As to
these two conditions themselves they are admirable. With a little tact
the Government might turn the tables on Mr. Gandhi. If proof of
untouchability consists only in the admission of the boys of these
classes to schools of higher classes, it does not mean much, though it
is a notable advance. If a contact with a low class person is placed on
the same footing as contact with caste man it may be said that we have
got rid of untouchability. But this will not come throughout the greater
portion of India for years. On these questions the education of Mr.
Gandhi has only commenced. He will find that without abrogating the
ceremonial law on which the caste system rests there will be no
practical reform. He is apparently not aware of the far more heinous
custom of distance pollution, _i.e._ not only pollution by touch but by
approach within a certain distance. This far from being a move against
Government would support the Government contention against reform.
About temperance also the move is salutary. If the system of picketing
adopted by the volunteers is abandoned and peaceful persuasion alone is
attempted no one has any right to complain. What all this has to do with
Parliamentary Swaraj or Home Rule one finds it difficult to understand.
But they are necessary for the 'Gandhi Swaraj' advocated in his 'Indian
Home Rule', and I have little doubt that like his other proposals they
were intended to attain that object.
It is admitted in the Report of the Secretaries that the crore of Rupees
which was required to be collected, as stated above, has been realised.
About the middle of July he said he still looked forward before the next
meeting of the Congress for the satisfaction of his demands about the
Punjab and the Khilafat and full immediate Swaraj in accordance with the
wishes of her chosen representatives. August and September were devoted
to the campaign of burning foreign cloth which in his view was an act of
non-violent non-co-operation with the Government. This step appeared
unintelligible and inaccurate to his followers who believed bona fide
that he was striving for political control. But it is quite consistent
with and in pursuance of his scheme of spiritual swaraj of sacrifice and
self-control. On the 27th of October Mr. Gandhi speaks of his "threat to
seek the shelter of the Himalayas should violence become universal in
India, and should it not have engulfed me."
As _New India_ points out: "that would be interesting to know when this
threat was made. We all know that Mr. Gandhi said that if there was
violence he would go to the Himalayas. There was a riot, but he did not
go, but excused himself by saying that if it occurred a second time, he
would go. A second riot occurred; he said nothing but did not go. Now
we hear that he had made a threat to go, should it become universal in
India. When and where was this said?"
Towards the end of the month the _Times of India_ observed:--
"Writing in the latest issue of Navajivan, his Gujarati newspaper, Mr.
Gandhi makes the interesting announcement that if Swaraj is not
obtained by December, he will either die of a broken heart or retire
from public life, leaving the heedless people of India to their
resources. Were so clear a pronouncement by any other politician, we
could say definitely that when the new year dawns Mr. Gandhi will no
longer be actively engaged in politics!"
Can there be any possible doubt that all these statements were made by
him in order to impress upon his dupes the fact that they were going to
get Swaraj within a year and to deceive his followers to follow him and
finance him. Yet what was the situation! Almost every item in his
programme has been tried and found useless to attain Home Rule. I would
again draw attention to the speech of the President of the Thana
District conference for a review of the situation as it then stood in
the opinion of one of his prominent followers, (App. VI). This is the
opinion of most of his prominent supporters who have been opposing Mr.
Gandhi's programme from the very beginning and accordingly the programme
was practically shelved and at the Congress held at the end of the year
it was resolved to suspend all the activities of the Congress on which
stress was much laid. The programme of the volunteer organisation
throughout the country was to be carried out on a more extensive scale
and the laws of the country were to be defied by disobeying the
notifications issued by Government. The Congress also recommended civil
disobedience as the only civilised and effective substitute for an armed
rebellion and recommended individual disobedience as well as mass civil
disobedience when the mass of the people have been sufficiently trained
in the practice of non-violence. And the activities of the Congress were
to be suspended for that purpose (App. XX). "Offensive civil
disobedience herein recommended is thus defined. _Offensive civil
disobedience means deliberate and wilful breach of State made non-moral
laws--that is, laws the breach of which does not involve moral
turpitude--not for the purpose of securing the repeal of, or relief from
hardships arising from obedience to such laws, but for the purpose of
diminishing the authority of, or overthrowing, the State."_
What took place at the Congress itself was remarkable. The President of
the Moslem League, Moulana Hajrat Mohini, who was also a member of the
National Congress, proposed his resolution for complete independence. He
is reported to have said that although last year they have been promised
Swaraj, the redress of the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs within a year,
they had so far achieved nothing (App. XVIII for his view). Mr. Gandhi
denied that there was any limitation of one year when the creed was
accepted in Nagpur and Calcutta. The special representative of the
Congress organ, the _Bombay Chronicle_ says: "The feeling in general
appear to be in favour of Moulana Hajrat Mohini's resolution" though it
was not carried on account of the passionate appeal of Mahatma Gandhi
against it. It is instructive to read the resolutions (Appendix XX) that
were then passed. Thus Swaraj was to come on September 1-1921, October
31-1921, December 13-1921. At the Congress in December, 1921, Mr. Gandhi
gave up fixing any date for the attainment of Swaraj.
The resolution passed in September, 1920, was seditious. The resolution
passed in December, 1921, is openly revolutionary, and in fact Gandhi
made no secret of it. He says: "Lord Reading must clearly understand
that the non-co-operators are at war with the Government. They have
declared rebellion against it in as much as it has committed a breach of
faith with the Mussalmans. It has humiliated the Punjab and insists upon
imposing its will upon the people and refuses to repair the breach and
repent for the wrong done in the Punjab" (_Young India_). Mr. Gandhi
also said: "The Government want to goad us into violence or abject
surrender. We must do neither. We must retort by such civil disobedience
as would compel shooting." The volunteer organizations were pledged to
act accordingly. Yet when the Government notified those illegal
associations and punished those who defied them, the rebels indignantly
remonstrate against what they call coercion and interference with the
liberty of person and security of property. They want to be in the
limelight to evoke the admiration of America and Europe for their
patriotism in rebelling against a Satanic Government. But they are
wanting in the redeeming features of these rebels elsewhere--their
contempt of danger and death. That is left here to the ignorant
masses--the dupes of these men who seek to protect themselves from
danger by their doctrine of non-violence.
NON-VIOLENT NON-CO-OPERATION
How on earth is it possible to imagine that all activities would be
non-violent when those who are carrying them on proclaim themselves
rebels against constitutional authority and are bent upon destroying it;
when they say that they must commit civil disobedience of a character
that would compel the officials to shoot them! when we know that one
large section of it, the Mahomedans, follow a militant religion which
not only sanctions but requires them to use force to vindicate what they
consider to be their religious law. When we consider further the nature
of the activities of those who carry on the Non-co-operation movement
there can be still less room to doubt that riots ending in bloodshed are
bound to follow. In order to carry out the Non-co-operation campaign
India is divided into various Congress provinces. Congress committees
are formed consisting of members who are also pledged to carry out the
Congress principles: there are also volunteer organizations formed. The
function of these bodies is to impress upon the people of the country
the enormity of Government's crime with reference to the Punjab and the
Khilafat and the consequent necessity of Home Rule or Swaraj. For
attaining such Swaraj they advocate progressive non-co-operation by
"peaceful" methods. Such methods consist of various steps which are
described in the speech of Mr. Macpherson, extracted below. Starting,
perhaps, peacefully they soon exhibit a tendency to violence and when
Mahomedan sentiments are involved, when appeals are made to Mahomedan
religious feelings, that tendency becomes almost irresistible in their
case. Opposition to constituted authority inflames them into violence
and instead of submitting to violence at the hands of authorities
according to the dictates of Gandhi--a counsel of perfection--they
retort--and murder is the result. The process is so well put by Mr.
Macpherson in the Behar Legislative Council that I take the liberty of
quoting the following extract from his speech:--
"It is necessary to consider what is the essence of the
non-co-operation movement, what are its ultimate objects and what are
its methods. From the moment Mr. Gandhi first unfolded his plan of
campaign--that was, I think, at a Benares or Allahabad Conference in
1920--there has never been any doubt in my mind that the objects of the
movement were entirely unconstitutional, that its methods were illegal
and that its prosecution to the bitter end is bound to result in
violence, disorder and anarchy, however much non-violence may be
proclaimed as the watchword of its leaders. The movement cannot be
judged by its earlier and comparatively innocuous stages, as if these
stood by themselves. I refer to the resignation of titles, the boycott
of Government schools and colleges, the abandonment of their profession
by legal practitioners and other such manifestations of
non-co-operation, although all these items in the programme have done
an infinite amount of harm, especially to the youth of the country, and
even these earlier stages have been marked by repeated outbursts of
violence, by a concerted system of intimidation and social boycott, and
by the excitement of racial hatred which has had deplorable results in
individual cases. No, the plan of campaign must be taken as a whole,
and judged by its closing stages, the enforcement of civil disobedience
towards the laws of the country, interference with the police and the
judicial administration, the invasion of police stations, picketing of
Courts, the seduction of the troops from their allegiance, and the
refusal to pay taxes or rent or revenue. The movement must indeed be
judged by its ultimate object, which is the paralysis and subversion of
the existing Government and by its inevitable result, general disorder
and bloodshed and widespread misery amongst all classes and
communities. If pursued to the bitter end, it will assuredly have this
result, whether it succeeds or fails, and should it (which God forbid)
succeed, the end can only be a state of chaos which will make India the
prey of the violent tribes that dwell around her borders or the hungry
hordes of Central Asia who, in the course of history, have more than
once invaded India. _The object of the movement being what it is, the
overthrow of the existing Government in India, what is the use of
telling us that either its leaders or its followers have signed a
pledge of non-violence? The pledge is a farce, it has already been
broken a hundred times over, and the longer the movement continues and
the further it advances, the more it will be broken._"
That this has been the case is illustrated by almost all the riots which
have taken place. Malabar stands first in its unenviable notoriety.
There the Congress committees were formed; the Khilafat committees also
were formed; Gandhi and Shaukat Ali visited Malabar, preached their
sermons and the usual result followed. With Mahomedans Swaraj was only
their secondary aim, their principal object being the redress of the
Khalif's wrongs and the establishment of a Khilafat kingdom in the
country. When, therefore, the British Government interfered with the
activities of some of the Khilafat leaders the Mohomedan population as a
whole rose in rebellion and invited the Hindus to join them. The Hindus
as a body remained loyal; and the results were disastrous both to the
Mahomedans and to the Hindus, more than two thousand Mahomedans killed
by troops according to official estimates, thousands more in other ways;
far larger numbers wounded; the number of Hindus butchered in
circumstances of barbarity, flayed alive, made to dig their own graves
before slaughter, running into thousands; women and purdah women too,
raped, not in a fit of passion but systematically for months passed from
hand to hand and with calculated revolting and horrible cruelty for
which I have not been able to find a parallel in history. Thousands were
forcibly converted. All this done in the name of, and to enforce, the
Khilafat movement: all this due directly to the visit of Gandhi and
Shaukat Ali and to the organization of Khilafat associations. They
carried on their activities openly without any obstruction by the
authorities; the Government of Madras was prevented from interfering
with Khilafat agitators by the Government of India who are therefore as
responsible as if they had directly ordered all this frightfulness.
I take the United Provinces next and will refer not only to the
activities of the volunteers but to the entire situation as it developed
itself from the commencement of the year 1921. That will also show the
earnest efforts which were made by the Government to co-operate with the
constitutional party to work the Reform Scheme in a sympathetic spirit.
In welcoming the Legislative Council on the 22nd of January, 1921, Sir
Harcourt Butler drew attention to the great efforts which were being
made by Mr. Gandhi's party to achieve their objects, to their aim, to
their failure till that time to achieve any appreciable success (App.
VII). By March the situation had become worse and he narrated the
circumstances which compelled him to extend the Seditious Meetings Act
to some of the districts (App. VIII). By the end of the year the
situation became intolerable. Sir Harcourt Butler has described the
efforts of the Non-co-operators, and the success they have achieved, in
his speech on the 17th December 1921 (App. IX).
And finally Sir Ludovic Porter, a member of the Government, described
the whole situation, including the various efforts that were being made
by the Non-co-operators on the 23rd of January 1922 (App. X). This will
explain also the nature of the associations of volunteers formed under
the Resolution of the Congress already referred to, their efforts and
their illegal character. And more recently we now hear of far more
serious disturbances in Gorakhpur where a mob of volunteers and
villagers about 2000 in number led by the former killed 21 policemen and
chowkidars (App. XII) and at Rai Bareilly where there was a serious
collision. In order to understand the _modus operandi_ I give an
official narrative of the events at Barabanki (App. XI). About Behar we
have the speech of Mr. Macpherson, a member of Council, in which he
refers to the plans of the non-co-operation party to win Swaraj, gives
the organization of the national volunteers describes how the Government
offices were to be taken possession of, civil disobedience was to be
started, gives the deplorable conditions in various districts brought
about by the non-co-operation campaign and describes the revolutionary
character of the movement in that province (App. XVI). The chief
secretary, Mr. Hammond, in his speech gives various instances of tyranny
practised by the non-co-operation volunteers, a practical speech which
proves his contention (App. XVII). In Bengal, on Nov. 20 Lord Ronaldshay
drew attention to the nature of Gandhi Swaraj and Turkish administration
(App. XIII). In Nov. 1921, he spoke about the intended boycott of the
Prince of Wales (App. XIII). In another speech he pointed out the lies
that were being spread about the bombardment of Mecca (App. XIII). In
Dec. 1921, he described the activities which led to the interference of
Government. A brief extract will be found in (App. XII). Finally, in
Feb. 1922, he made a lengthy reference to the political outlook (App.
XIII). In the Legislative Council Sir Henry Wheeler a member of
Government described the situation (App. XV).
In the Legislative Assembly also the matter was fully discussed in Jan.
1922. Sir William Vincent summed up the situation, various instances of
their activities among which will be found a particularly revolting
statement about the corpse of a diseased person who was loyal to the
Government, and therefore obnoxious to Gandhi's party, being dug out of
the grave (App. XXIII).
This completes my review of the situation. Considerations of space have
compelled me to exclude many speeches which would throw further light on
the situation.
I will, therefore, content myself with giving a list of the disturbances
and riots throughout India, due to Gandhi's movement supplied to me by
the Legislative Department of the Government of India (App. XXII).
In February 1922 Mr. Gandhi issued an ultimatum to the Government of
India that if within a certain period of time his demands formulated in
his ultimatum were not conceded he would start what is called mass civil
disobedience at Bardoli, that is to say, the people of Bardoli would be
asked to refuse to pay taxes etc. The Government of India issued a
communique in reply in which reviewing the situation they pointed out
the grave dangers that would follow such civil disobedience and gave him
a stern warning (App. XIX).
This attitude no doubt surprised him. The Government he thought was on
the run, when they had submitted meekly to his contemptuous refusal for
a conference at Calcutta and he had apparently therefore expected them
to beg for an armistice. There was a remarkable change. He or rather the
working committee of the Congress suspended mass civil disobedience
having found a pretext in the occurrence of a riot about this time at
Gorakhpur. So far as the campaign against the Government is concerned
the following are the important resolutions:--
"The working Committee of the Congress resolves that mass civil
disobedience contemplated at Bardoli and elsewhere be suspended and
instructs the local Congress Committees forthwith to advise the
cultivators to pay the land revenue and other taxes due to the
Government and whose payment might have been suspended in anticipation
of mass civil disobedience and instructs them to suspend every other
preparatory activity of an offensive nature." "The suspension of mass
civil disobedience shall be continued till the atmosphere is so
non-violent as to ensure the non-repetition of popular atrocities such
as at Gorakhpur, or hooliganism such as at Bombay and Madras
respectively on the 17th November, 1921 and 13th January last. In order
to promote a peaceful atmosphere the working Committee advises till
further instruction, all Congress organisations to stop activities
specially designed to court arrest and imprisonment, save normal
Congress activities including voluntary hartals wherever an absolutely
peaceful atmosphere can be assured, and for that end all picketing
shall be stopped save for the bona fide and peaceful purpose of warning
the visitors to liquor shops against the evils of drinking. Such
picketing to be controlled by persons of known good character and
specially selected by the Congress Committee concerned."
"The working Committee advises, till further instructions, the stoppage
of all volunteer processions and public meetings merely for the purpose
of defiance of the notification regarding such meetings. This, however,
shall not interfere with the private meetings of the Congress and other
committees or public meetings which are required for the conduct of the
normal activities of the Congress".
The working Committee advised all Congress organisations to be engaged
in the following activities:--
"To enlist at least one crore of members of the Congress. The workers
should note that no one who does not pay the annual subscription can be
regarded as a qualified congressman."
"To continue the Swaraj fund and to call upon every Congressman or
Congress-sympathiser to pay at least one hundredth part of his annual
income for the year 1921. Every province to send every month 25 per
cent of its income from the Tilak Memorial Swaraj fund to the All-India
Congress Committee."
The above resolutions were directed to be placed before the All-India
Congress Committee for revision if necessary. They were accordingly
brought before the All-India Congress Committee whose Resolution runs
thus.
"The All-India Congress Committee have carefully considered the
resolutions passed by the Working Committee at its meeting held at
Bardoli on the 11th and 12th instant, confirms the said resolutions
with the modifications noted herein and _further resolves that
individual civil disobedience whether of a defensive or aggressive
character, may be commenced in respect of particular places or
particular laws, at the instance of, and upon permission being granted
therefore, by the respective provincial Committee_.
"Provided that such civil disobedience shall not be permitted unless all
the conditions laid down by the Congress or the All-India Congress
Committee or the Working Committee are strictly fulfilled.
"Reports having been received from various quarters that picketing
regarding foreign cloth is as necessary as liquor picketing, the
All-India Congress Committee _authorises such picketing_ of a bona fide
character on the same terms as liquor picketing mentioned in the
Bardoli resolutions.
"The All-India Congress Committee wishes it to be understood that the
resolutions of the Working Committee do not mean an abandonment of the
original Congress programme of non-co-operation or the permanent
abandonment of mass civil disobedience, but considers that an
atmosphere of necessary mass non-violence can be established by the
workers concentrating upon the constructive programme framed by the
Working committee at Bardoli. The All-India Congress Committee holds
civil _disobedience to be the right and duty of the people to be
exercised and performed whenever the State opposed the declared will of
the people_."
INDIVIDUAL CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
Note.--Individual civil disobedience is disobedience of orders or laws
by a single individual or an ascertained number or group of
individuals. Therefore, a prohibited public meeting where admission is
regulated by tickets and to which no unauthorised admission is allowed,
is an instance of individual civil disobedience whereas a prohibited
meeting to which the general public is admitted without any
restriction, is an instance of mass civil disobedience.
Such civil disobedience is defensive, when a prohibited public meeting
is held for conducting a normal activity although it may result in
arrest. It would be aggressive, if it is held, not for any activity,
but merely for the purpose of courting arrest and imprisonment.
This shows that there is practically no change in the situation. This
may be read with the resolution of the congress 28th Dec. 1921 (App.
XX). Gandhi's agitation continues revolutionary.
For more than thirty years the constitutional Reform party have been
fighting for various indispensable reforms in the administration of the
country with but moderate success. At last however, in 1919 they
obtained a Reform scheme which brought India directly on to the path
leading to Home Rule. In fact the Reform Act made Home Rule inevitable
within a comparatively short time, and indicated the nature of the
constitutional methods of its early attainment. Mr. Gandhi was in India
for some years before that date. He scarcely lent any assistance to the
Reform party. Considering his principles he could not. After having
obtained the Act, the Reform party proceeded to work it, to carry out
the administrative reforms needed, to educate the masses to enable them
to claim and exercise larger political powers, in order to claim at as
early a date as possible that further instalment of Reform provided for
and contemplated in the act itself. Mr. Gandhi is standing right athwart
their path, thus preventing or at least retarding and dangerously
imperilling the indispensable reforms, regardless of the sufferings of
the people entailed thereby, in order to carry out his own wild
principles which have not the slightest chance of acceptance provided
they are understood by the people of the country for what they are,
emotional speculations without any considered relation to existing
conditions. Mr. Gandhi, to take him at his best is indifferent to facts.
Facts must submit to the dictates of his theories. The only difficulty
in his way is that they don't. Will o'the wisp politics are not of use
to a people who have to live in a world which, from long and bitter
experience, has at last come to realise that dreams of distorted brains
are not the stuff of which contented Nations are made. Gandhi in fact is
seeking not only to destroy the fruits of the long endeavour of the
constitutional reformers, but blast for ever any hopes of Indian
regeneration.
To push forward the working of the Act has been the work before the
Reform party which he is thus so perniciously thwarting. They had to
take up in the Legislative Councils the question of the redress of the
grievances under which the people suffered, not only to agitate for
their removal, but to show the people that by constitutional agitation
sooner or later they can get what they want. The most important question
with which the constitutional Reformers had to deal was one concerning
the great poverty of the country. For this it is necessary to consider
the question of the Land Tax--its nature, incidents, relation to other
taxes, its necessity, the distribution of the land produce between the
Government and the classes that own the land. This is a question in
which the landholding classes are very much interested. They would have
understood the arguments addressed to them and therefore it would have
served as a means of political and social education. The Councils have
already been dealing with it, and, considering the conditions,
satisfactorily. The Government have been meeting them in a sympathetic
spirit and are trying to give effect to their proposals as much as
possible. What is Mr. Gandhi's advice? He does not seek to co-operate to
make the tax less oppressive. He would have the people pay no land tax
to Government. Only the dreadful consequences that would ensue prevent
him in this case, from giving full effect to his intentions. In any
case, it is not the oppressive nature of the tax that he relies on, nor
is it alleged that it is an innovation of the British Government, which
of course it is not. He objects to the tax, not for itself, but because
it is another weapon with which to destroy the Government.
A cognate question is that which arises between the landlords and
tenants. In this also all the landholding classes are deeply interested,
and a discussion of the nature of the distribution of the produce
between the landlord, farmer and agricultural labourer would have been
of great educative value. The Legislative Councils are dealing with the
question. Government in this matter also are showing the greatest
possible consideration for the feelings of the people of the country.
Yet Mr. Gandhi and his friends would not only take no part in the
deliberations of the council but would prevent an amicable settlement by
steps which have produced riots between the classes interested in the
land, with the object of discrediting the Reform Scheme and paralysing
the Government of the country.
Closely connected with this is the question of Indian manufactures,
industries and the development of mineral resources, which, besides,
conferring other benefits, will relieve undue pressure on the land. Our
industries have been destroyed by English competition and constitutional
reformers are determined to take all the steps necessary to enter into
healthy competition with English industries in Indian interests and to
develop their own mineral and other resources. In so doing they have to
take care that the conditions which accompanied the rise of industrial
prosperity in the West are not reproduced in India. They have to see
that wage earners received adequate protection. What are the tactics of
Mr. Gandhi and his friends? All these industries are to him the
devil's-own agency to destroy the soul. He says they cannot add an inch
to India's moral stature. Starvation due to the absence of industries
may destroy the body and certainly hinders the development of the soul.
But to him this does not matter. He and his followers would taboo
machinery, without which competition or development is hopeless. Without
attempting to promote an amicable settlement between English capitalists
and Indian labourers they have on the contrary been responsible for a
deliberate widening of the chasm between the races.
The administration of justice is another matter in which all are
interested; and already the Legislative Councils are dealing with the
question of the separation of Judicial and Executive functions. The
Government again are not only not standing in their way but are
rendering every assistance towards the solution of the problem. This is
also the case with reference to the removal of discriminations between
Europeans and Indians in the administration of justice. The people of
the country understand this question well as they are deeply interested
in it. Mr. Gandhi is asking the people of the country to avoid all
courts and thus not to interest themselves in the improvement of
judicial administration.
I might take many other questions relating to finances, army, etc., and
show the baneful influence of his propaganda. In all these Mr. Gandhi's
campaign against Government has hampered the reformers who would
otherwise have made the redress of these grievances a more effective
plank in their platform; these questions would have been more widely
discussed throughout the country. But such discussion is now almost
impossible with the result that these questions are not settled as
satisfactorily as they might otherwise be. But it is as regards
education that the reformers have most felt the want of that popular
support necessary to carry out the reforms needed.
Mr. Gandhi will never be forgiven by all true lovers of sound National
Education for India for the campaign he has carried on against real
education. The education that has been hitherto imparted had been as
everybody, including Mr. Gandhi also recognised, lamentably defective.
The reformers had to insist on the imparting of suitable primary
education to the masses, to the workers, to the labouring men and
others, to enable them to improve their condition, because no class can
generally rise except under the ultimate stress of its own will and
ability. They had to demand suitable higher education, which was
required not only in the interests of the culture but also for the
industrial regeneration of the country and for the development of
India's natural resources. In the laboratories of Europe, America and
Japan students are devoting themselves to discover means for the
alleviation of misery and pain. Nay, higher claims are advanced, for it
has been declared by scientists that we are on the eve of discovery of
means for a practically indefinite prolongation of life under certain
conditions which make us intensely expectant to know whether they are
the same as described in our ancient books as efficacious for that
purpose, descriptions which have hitherto been contemptuously discarded
as worthless. Archaeologists are almost every day unveiling to us
ancient remains and writings which give us a different and a startling
conception of ancient History and Civilisation. Indian History is being
rewritten. When we hear of the Marconi wireless, our young men turn to
our own ancient descriptions of the training of human body and mind
which make these fit to receive and convey messages regardless of space
and distance and they show eagerness to take part in experiment and
research. When we find rays penetrating solid matter, our young
scientists wonder whether after all the stories of great seers whose
vision, not of the material eye, is not bounded by time or space or
distance, may not be true and wonder whether we should not now take up
the training prescribed to attain those results. Researches are made in
the laboratories to control the forces of nature, to increase human
comforts and happiness, to increase productivity in all directions.
Researches have already attained brilliant results. The lessons of the
survey of the regions above by the telescope, of all below by the
microscope, and generally speaking all these marvels of science which
lend fresh light and new significance to the lesson of ancients as to
the all pervading of the universe are all anathema to Mr. Gandhi.
He wants to hold back our boys from the Universities and post-graduate
studies and research that they may go back to their ploughs while the
Universities of the Western world are sending their delegates all over
the world to take stock of what has been done and to devise means for
the intellectual and moral uplift of the Nations.
The constitutional reformers and the Councils have the great task before
them of reconciling the Hindus and Mahomedans on a basis for their unity
other than the one which arose out of the Mahomedan fury against the
British Government for its failure to support Mahomedan interests in the
West. They have also to promote goodwill between the Hindus and the
Mahomedans on the one side and the Europeans on the other, both in India
and in the colonies. They have to face the rising antagonism between the
dark, the fair and the white--an antagonism which threatens in course of
time to engulf the whites with all that modern civilisation, whatever be
its faults, is standing for. The Reform party want India to take her
rightful place in the Indo-British commonwealth, the first place, in
fact, to which her natural genius and her resources entitle her, with
all its responsibilities. The conditions are all favourable to India.
Governorships of Provinces are thrown open to Indians. There are Indians
in the Viceroy's and other Councils. But Mr. Gandhi and his friends will
not only do practically nothing in that direction but they have created
what threatens to be a permanent gulf between the Mahomedans and
non-Mahomedans, and they are dangerously widening the gulf between the
Indians and Europeans. The reformers have to improve the conditions of
women both amongst the Mahomedans and the Hindus, as without such
improvement India is not entitled to take her place among civilised
nations. They have practically to get rid of the caste system as with
such a cancer political progress is impossible. Mr. Gandhi, on the other
hand, panders to Mahomedan vanity and justifies the racial differences
as between different classes of Hindus. He insists upon the necessity of
our going back to our own caste system, which is responsible for the
condition of our women and of the lower classes. He has given a handle
to those who want to maintain the repressive laws, and is really
responsible for the retention of them. He has not only thrown doubts as
to our fitness for Self-Government but has rendered it possible for our
opponents to urge with plausibility that danger would accrue to the
Empire and to India itself by granting Home Rule to India. He has thus
to the best of his sinister ability attempted to prevent all reforms and
has tried to paralyse all the efforts of the reformers in every
direction, fomenting racial and class differences, as I have already
explained.
Everywhere we see a class of narrow thought in the white world raising
the colour sentiment against the Asiatics, and against Indians in
particular, proclaiming that there is no place for Indians in British
Empire on terms of equality. These are not the intellectual leaders of
the white races, nor are they those who set the best standards of
morality. On the other hand, we see the noblest of them proclaiming and
striving with all their might, with varying degrees of success, to
enforce the opposite ideal. We know also that in India the question is
only one of time and within a short period absolute equality in every
respect will be carried out. We see further that our countrymen
elsewhere are weak and comparatively helpless, and till we in India
attain our manhood they must continue at the mercy of the white races.
What is it, then, that not only Religion, Universal morality, or good,
but also policy and prudence, dictate? There can be only one answer. We
must strengthen the hands of those who are fighting for race equality
and give no opportunity to those who maintain that the Indians are a
peril to the white race. What is Mr. Gandhi doing? He is doing
everything possible to increase racial and class hatred.
We see the wonderful phenomenon of Australian ladies begging pardon for
the atrocious treatment of their Indian sisters by a few Englishmen in
Fiji and elsewhere. We see the Universities and Professors, ashamed of
themselves for their aberration during the great War, hastening to make
amends by trying to bring together all classes and races of men. We see
white women trying to band themselves and other women of whatever colour
and creed into one sisterhood, without any difference, to throw
themselves into all social and political movements for sex
enfranchisement and uplift; to work for the good not only of themselves
but of children in particular, and generally to devote themselves to all
activities of mercy. We find various Nations calling to one another
across seas, deserts and mountains to join in a common fellowship, not
to work in opposition to one another. Every where, after the fearful
cataclysm through which we have passed, there is wistful yearning for
fellowship and brother-hood to carry out in practice the teachings of
the ancient prophets and seers, Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, the seers
of the Upanishads, Christ, Mahomed, in opposition to the Churches and
the dogmatic religions identified with their names. And is it not
extraordinary, we see this man, uninfluenced by this tremendous
intellectual and moral up-heaval, waging a bloody and racial struggle
for what? that if successful Indians may not take part in any of these
movements, shun them all, since God has not created man with his limited
means of natural locomotion to labour for general good, and may
therefore, retire to their village to lead a solitary life.
If he had followed this advice for himself, or had retired to the
Himalayas to live a mahatmaic life he would have saved the lives
literally of thousands, prevented horrible outrages worse than death,
saved thousands from incalculable misery. Instead of paying the penalty
themselves, he and his lieutenants stalk about the country dripping with
the blood of the victims of their policy.
Who is responsible for all this? The Government of India cannot divest
themselves of their responsibility and India will hold the Indian
members primarily responsible for the present situation. For no Viceroy
will venture to disregard their advice in a matter of this sort. They do
not seem to have strengthened the fibre of the Government. Nor have the
Legislative Councils who also must share the responsibility advanced the
claim for the transfer of the administration of justice to popular
control. The Gandhi movement will no doubt collapse by internal
disruption as it is composed of various elements, drawn from Tolstoy
Lenin communism, socialism, Rigid Brahmanism, militant Mahomedanism
mutually repellent and explosive when they come into contact with one
another and already producing the natural terrible results. But before
the final collapse comes it will have produced appalling misery and
bloodshed unless it is dealt with firmly and with statesmanship. The
Government should give Mr. Gandhi and some of his chief lieutenants who
accept the whole programme the rest, they sadly need. And the Congress
and the Khilafat associations must be treated as they themselves wish to
be treated as disloyal illegal associations.
Since the above lines were written Mr. Gandhi has been arrested, tried
and convicted. He pleaded guilty to the charges framed against him. His
statements are worthy of careful attention (App. XXI). He said "I wish
to endorse all the blame that the learned Advocate-General has thrown on
my shoulders in connection with the Bombay occurrences, Madras
occurrences and the Chauri Chaura occurrences. Thinking over these
deeply and sleeping over them night after night, it is impossible for me
to dissociate myself from the diabolical crimes of Chauri Chaura or the
mad outrages of Bombay." He is quite right when he says, that "as a man
of responsibility, a man having received a fair share of education,
having had fair share of experience of this world, I should have known
the consequences of every one of my acts. _I knew that I was playing
with fire. I ran the risk and if I was set free I would still do the
same._ I have felt it this morning that I would have failed in my duty,
if I did not say what I said here just now." A man who says that if set
free he would still pursue the same course though aware of the
consequences of his acts is not a safe leader. There are signs however
of a general recognition throughout the country that Mr. Gandhi's
theories are no longer suitable as a guide for political action. The
Maharashtra party have apparently resolved to seek admission into the
Legislative councils. The Central Provinces are also apparently of the
same opinion. A large section of Bengal represented by the Chitagong
conference apparently hold the same view. In Madras a considerable
section is inclined to agree. But there is little doubt that it would
take a long time to eradicate the feeling of hatred that has been roused
by Mr. Gandhi throughout the country.
As I left the Government of India long before the campaign of
non-co-operation was launched, perhaps there is nothing inappropriate in
the few observations which I propose to make regarding the delay in
taking action against Mr. Gandhi and his followers. In September 1920
the Congress adopted the non-co-operation resolution. The Government
might then have taken action with the support of a large majority of
Indian politicians. After the final adoption of a non-co-operation
programme by the Nagpur Congress it was felt that the Government should
have stopped the activities of the party which from that moment had
openly declared their disloyalty. They maintained their silence however
even after Gandhi and the Congress party resolved on the recruitment of
volunteers and the organisation of a parallel Government. On the arrest
and trial of the Ali Brothers Mr. Gandhi challenged the Government to
arrest him as he maintained that the conduct of the Ali Brothers in
tampering with the loyalty of the Sepoys and uttering sedition was only
in pursuance of the policy adopted by himself and the congress. His
words are remarkable. "The National Congress began to tamper with the
loyalty of the sepoys in September last year, _i.e._ 1920 the Central
Khilafat Committee began it earlier and I began it earlier still, for I
must be permitted to take the credit or the odium of suggesting, that
India had a right openly to tell the sepoy and everyone who served the
Government in any capacity whatsoever that he participated in the wrongs
done by the Government."--"Every non-co-operator is pledged to preach
disaffection towards the Government established by law.
Non-co-operation, though, a religious and strictly moral movement,
deliberately aims at the overthrow of the Government, and is therefore
legally seditious in terms of the Indian Penal Code. But this is no new
discovery. Lord Chelmsford knew it. Lord Reading knows it" ... "we must
reiterate from a thousand platforms the formula of the Ali Brothers
regarding the sepoys, and we must spread disaffection openly and
systematically till it pleases the Government to arrest us." It will
hardly be believed that even after this no steps were taken against him.
Towards the end of the year he said "Lord Reading must clearly
understand that the non-co-operators are at war with the Government.
They have declared rebellion against it." It was after this that there
was an attempt to bring about a conference between him and the
Government which was contemptuously brushed aside by him. One of the
mopla leaders when tried for rebellion pleaded that he was under the
impression that the British Government no longer ruled the country and
had abdicated. There is very little doubt of the unfortunate fact that
there was a general belief that the Government was powerless and could
be safely defied by Gandhi and his congress.
APPENDIX I
VICEROY'S SPEECH.
"A few Europeans and many Hindus, have been murdered, communications
have been obstructed, Government offices burnt and looted and records
have been destroyed, Hindu temples sacked, houses of Europeans and
Hindus burnt, according to reports Hindus were forcibly converted to
Islam and one of the most fertile tracts of South India is faced with
certain famine. The result has been the temporary collapse of the Civil
Government, the offices and Courts have ceased to function and ordinary
business has been brought to a standstill. European and Hindu refugees
of all classes are concentrated at Calicut and it is satisfactory to
note that they are safe there. One trembles to think of the consequences
if the forces of order had not prevailed for the protection of Calicut.
The non Muslim in these parts was fortunate indeed that either he or his
family or his house or property came under the protection of the
soldiers and the police. Those who are responsible for causing this
grave outbreak of violence and crime must be brought to justice and made
to suffer the punishment of the guilty.
Effect of violent preaching
"But apart from direct responsibility, can it be doubted that when poor
unfortunate and deluded people are led to believe that they should
disregard the law and defy authority, violence and crime must follow?
This outbreak is but another instance on a much more serious scale and
among a more turbulent and fanatical people, of the conditions that have
manifested themselves at times in various parts of the country and,
gentlemen, I ask myself and you and the country generally what else can
be the result from instilling such doctrines into the minds of the
masses of the people? How can there be peace and tranquility when
ignorant people, who have no means of testing the truth of the
inflamatory and too often deliberately false statements made to them,
are thus misled by those whose design is to provoke violence and
disorder. Passions are thus easily excited to unreasoning fury.
The Leader of the Movement
"Although, I freely acknowledge that the leader of the movement to
paralyse authority, persistently, and, as I believe, in all earnestness
and sincerity, preaches the doctrine of non-violence and has even
reproved his followers for resorting to it, yet again and again it has
been showed that his doctrine is completely forgotten and his
exhortations absolutely disregarded when passions are excited as must
inevitably be the consequence among emotional people.
Its inevitable result
"To those who are responsible for the peace and good government of this
great Empire and I trust that to all men of sanity and common sense in
all classes of society, it must be clear that the defiance of the
Government and constituted authority can only result in widespread
disorder, in political chaos, in anarchy and in ruin."
APPENDIX II
DIABOLICAL ATROCITIES.
Calicut, Sept. 7--In my first article I dealt with the prime causes of
the present outbreak, the dangerous game played by the leaders of the
Khilafat and Non-Co-operation movements in Malabar which set the whole
of Ernad and Walluvanad ablaze, and the extent of plunders, murders and
forcible conversions committed by the Mopla rebels. In this article I
intend to confine myself to the nature of the atrocities committed by
them and other details.
The experiences I am about to relate will satisfy every Hindu endowed
with ordinary common sense that the Moplas resorted to most repugnant
fanaticism, which may be ascribed to nothing but selfishness, love of
money and love of power, which are the prominent features of the present
outbreak. Refugees narrate that, after forcibly removing young and fair
Nair and other high caste girls from their parents and husbands, the
Mopla rebels stripped them of their clothing and made them march in
their presence naked, and finally they committed rape upon them. In
certain instances, devoid of human feelings and blinded by animal
passion, the Moplas are alleged to have utilised a single woman for the
gratification of the carnal pleasures of a dozen or more men. The rebels
also seem to have captured beautiful Hindu women, forcibly converted
them, pierced holes in their ears in the typical Mopla fashion, dressed
them as Mopla women and utilised them as their temporary partners in
life. Hindu women were threatened, molested and compelled to run
half-naked for shelter to forests abounding in wild animals. Respectable
Hindu gentlemen were forcibly converted and the circumcision ceremony
performed with the help of certain Musaliars and Thangals. Hindu houses
were looted and set fire to, will not all these atrocities remain as a
shameful image of the Hindu Muslim "unity", of which we have heard much
from the Non-Co-operation Party and Khilafat-wallahs? The ghastly
spectacle of a number of Hindu damsels being forced to march naked in
the midst of a number of licentious Moplas cannot be forgotten by any
self respecting Hindu, nor can it be erased from their minds. On the
other hand, I have never heard of the modesty of a Mopla woman being
outraged by a Mopla rebel. "_Times of India._"
APPENDIX III
MALABAR'S AGONY.
By Annie Besant
It would be well if Mr. Gandhi could be taken into Malabar to see with
his own eyes the ghastly horrors which have been created by the
preaching of himself and his "loved brothers," Muhommad and Shaukat Ali.
The Khilafat Raj is established there; on August 1, 1921, sharp to the
date first announced by Mr. Gandhi for the beginning of Swaraj and the
vanishing of British Rule, a Police Inspector was surrounded by Moplas,
revolting against that Rule. From that date onwards thousands of the
forbidden war-knives ware secretly made and hidden away, and on August
20, the rebellion broke out, Khilafat flags were hoisted on Police
Stations and Government offices. Strangely enough it was on August 25th
825 A.D. that Cherman Perumal ascended the throne of Malabar, the first
Zamorin, and from that day the Malayalam Era is dated that is still in
use; thus for 1096 years a Zamorin has ruled in Calicut, and the Rajas
are mostly Chiefs who for long centuries have looked to a Zamorin as
their feudatory Head. These are the men on whom the true pacification of
Malabar must ultimately depend. The crowded refugees will only return to
their devastated homes when they see those once more in safety in their
ancestral places. Their lands, which they keep under their own control,
are largely cultivated by Moplas, who are normally hardy, industrious
agricultural labourers.
Our correspondent has sent accounts of the public functions connected
with my hurried visit to Calicut and Palghat, and that which I wish to
put on record here is the ghastly misery which prevails, the
heart-breaking wretchedness which has been caused by the Mopla outbreak,
directly due to the violent and unscrupulous attacks on the Government
made by the Non-Co-operators and the Khilafatists and the statements
scattered broadcast, predicting the speedy disappearance of British
Rule, and the establishment of Swaraj, as proclaimed by the N.C.O. and
Khilafat Raj as understood by the Moplas from the declarations of the
Khilafatists. On that, there is no doubt whatever, so far as Malabar is
concerned. The message of the Khilafats, of England as the enemy of
Islam, of her coming downfall, and the triumph of the Muslims, had
spread, to every Mopla home. The harangues in the Mosques spread it
everywhere, and Muslim hearts were glad. They saw the N.C.O. preachers
appealing for help to their religious leaders, naturally identified the
two. The Government was Satanic, and Eblis, to the good Muslim, is to be
fought to the death. Mr. Gandhi may talk as he pleases about N.C.O.s
accepting no responsibility. It is not what they accept; it is what
facts demonstrate. He accepted responsibility for the trifling bloodshed
of Bombay. The slaughter in Malabar cries out his responsibility. N.C.O.
is dead in Malabar. But bitter hatred has arisen there, as fighting men
from the dragon's teeth of Theseus. That is the ghastly result of the
preaching of Gandhism, of N.C.O. of Khilafatism. Every one speaks of the
Khilafat Raj, and the one hope of the masses is in its crushing by the
strong arm of the Government. Mr. Gandhi asks the Moderates to compel
the Government to suspend hostilities, _i.e._, to let loose the wolves
to destroy what lives are left. The sympathy of the Moderates is not, I
make bold to say, with the murderers, the looters, the ravishers, who
have put into practice the teachings of paralysing the Government of the
N.C.O.'s, who have made "war on the Government" in their own way. How
does Mr. Gandhi like the Mopla spirit, as shown by one of the prisoners
in the Hospital, who was dying from the results of asphyxiation? He
asked the surgeon, if he was going to die, and surgeon answered that he
feared he would not recover. "Well, I'm glad I killed fourteen
infidels," said the Brave, God-fearing Mopla, whom Mr. Gandhi so much
admires, who "are fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a
manner they consider as religious." Men who consider it "religious" to
murder, rape, loot, to kill women and little children, cutting down
whole families, have to be put under restraint in any civilised society.
Mr. Gandhi was shocked when some Parsi ladies had their saries torn off,
and very properly, yet the God-fearing hooligans had been taught that it
was sinful to wear foreign cloth, and doubtless felt they were doing a
religious act; can he not feel a little sympathy for thousands of women
left with only rags, driven from home, for little children born of the
flying mothers on roads in refuge camps? The misery is beyond
description. Girl wives, pretty and sweet, with eyes half blind with
weeping, distraught with terror; women who have seen their husbands
hacked to pieces before their eye, in the way "Moplas consider as
religious"; old women tottering, whose faces become written with anguish
and who cry at a gentle touch and a kind look waking out of a stupor of
misery only to weep, men who have lost all, hopeless, crushed,
desperate, I have walked among thousands of them in the refugee camps,
and some times heavy eyes would lift as a cloth was laid gently on the
bare shoulder, and a faint watery smile of surprise would make the face
even more piteous than the stupor. Eyes full of appeal, of agonised
despair, of hopeless entreaty of helpless anguish, thousands of them
camp after camp, "Shameful inhumanity proceeding in Malabar," says Mr.
Gandhi. Shameful inhumanity indeed, wrought by the Moplas, and these are
the victims, saved from extermination by British and Indian swords, For
be it remembered the Moplas began the whole horrible business; the
Government intervened to save their victims and these thousands have
been saved. Mr. Gandhi would have hostilities suspended--so that the
Moplas may sweep down on the refugee camps, and finish their work?
I visited in Calicut three huge Committee camps, two Christian, and the
Congress building and compound where doles of rice are given daily from
7 A.M. to noon. In all, the arrangements were good. Big thatched sheds,
and some buildings shelter the women and children, the men sleep
outside. They are all managed by Indians, the Zamorini's Committee
distributing cloths and money to all, except the Congress committee,
which work independently and gives food from its own resource. At
Palghat, similar arrangements are made by the Zamorini's Committee, and
the order and care in feeding are good to see.
Let me finish with a beautiful story told to me. Two Pulayas, the lowest
of the submerged classes, were captured with others, and given the
choice between Islam and Death. These, the outcaste of Hinduism, the
untouchables, so loved the Hinduism which had been so unkind a
step-mother to them, that they chose to die Hindus rather than to live
Muslim. May the God of both, Muslim and Hindus send His messengers to
these heroic souls, and give them rebirth into the Faith for which they
died. _New India, 29 November 1921._
* * * * *
Wilful murders of Hindus and arson were first begun in my own place by
Chembrasseri Thangal and his Lieutenant, another Thangal. You might have
read accounts written by me in the Malabar journal which was sent to you
last time. This contagion began to spread like wild fire and we began to
hear of murders daily. Within a fortnight cold-blooded murders of Hindus
became very common. From within the borders of Calicut and Ernad taluks
refugees come in large numbers with tales of murders and atrocities
committed by the rebels. At Puthur Amson in Ernad only 12 miles
northeast of Calicut--One day in broad daylight twenty-five persons who
refused to embrace Islam were butchered and put into a well. One out of
these who narrowly escaped death got out of the well when the rebels
left the place and ran to Calicut for life. He is now in the hospital.
So the accounts must be true as he himself was one of the victims.
During the last week news of numerous murders and forcible conversions
came from another quarter also, Mannur near Aniyallur and Kadalundi
railway station in Ernad taluk. This place also is only 14 miles away
from Calicut. Every train to Calicut was carrying with it daily hundreds
of refugees during the last week. If there were ten thousand refugees
fed by the Relief Committee last week, it must have fed fifteen thousand
this week. According to the statements given by them there must be at
least fifty murders and numerous cases of conversions and house-burning.
Can you conceive of a more ghastly and inhuman crime than the murders of
babies and pregnant women? Two days back I had occasion to read a report
given by a refugee in Calicut. A pregnant woman carrying 7 months was
cut through the abdomen by a rebel and she was seen lying dead on the
way with the dead child projecting out of the womb. How horrible!
Another: a baby of six months was snatched away from the breast of his
own mother and cut into two pieces. How heart-rending! Are these rebels
human beings or monsters? From the same quarters numerous forcible
conversions are also reported. One refugee has given statement that he
had seen with his own eyes that the heads of a dozen people were being
shaved by the rebels and afterwards they were asked to recite some
passages from the _Quran_. This he witnessed from a tree. I wonder what
is the authority of some people who contradict the news of murders, and
forcible conversions of Hindus. Let them come here and test the veracity
of these statements for themselves.
'Yesterday another report of murders came from a place very near
Kottakal. The report says that eleven Hindus (males and females), were
murdered by the rebels.
'A fortnight ago fifteen dead bodies of Hindus were seen under culvert
on the road between Perinialmanna and Melatur.'
Will you not be sick of these stories of murders? All these reports
are, as far as possible, proved also to be correct.
Words fail to express my feelings of indignation and abhorrence which I
experienced when I came to know of an instance of rape, committed by the
rebels under Chembrasseri Thangal. A respectable Nayar Lady at Melatur
was stripped naked by the rebels in the presence of her husband and
brothers, who were made to stand close by with their hands tied behind.
When they shut their eyes in abhorrence they were compelled at the point
of sword to open their eyes and witness the rape committed by the brute
in their presence. I loathe even to write of such a mean action. I thank
God that my family and relatives reached safe at Calicut without being
dishonoured by these brutes, though we sustained serious loss of
property and the loss of four lives (two servants and two
relatives,--More afterwards). This instance of rape was communicated to
me by one of her brothers confidentially. There are several instances of
such mean atrocities which are not revealed by people. _New India 6th
Dec. 1921._
* * * * *
Truth is infinitely of more paramount importance than Hindu-Muslim unity
or Swaraj, and therefore, we tell the Maulana Sahib and his
co-religionists and India's revered leader Mahatma Gandhi--if he too is
unaware of the events here--that atrocities committed by the Moplahs on
the Hindus are unfortunately too true and that there is nothing in the
deeds of Moplah rebels which a true non-violent non-co-operator can
congratulate them for. What is it for which they deserve congratulation?
Their wanton and unprovoked attack on the Hindus, the all but wholesale
looting at their houses in Ernad, and parts of Valluvanad, Ponnani, and
Calicut Taliques; the forcible conversion of Hindus in a few places in
the beginning of the rebellion and the wholesale conversion of those who
stick to their homes in its later stages, the brutal murder of
inoffensive Hindus, men, women, and children in cold blood, without the
slightest reason except that they are "Kaffirs" or belong to the same
race as the Policemen, who insulted their Tangals or entered their
Mosques, the desecration and burning of Hindu Temples the outrage on
Hindu women and their forcible conversion and marriage by Moplahs; do
these and similar atrocities proved beyond the shadow of a doubt by the
statements recorded by us from the actual sufferers who have survived,
deserve any congratulation? On the other hand should they not call forth
the strongest condemnation from all right-minded men and more especially
from a representative body of Mohamedans like the Khilafat Conference
pledged to non-violence under all provocation? Did the Moplahs, who
committed such atrocities, sacrifice their lives in the cause of their
religion?
(Sd.) +K. P. Kesahava Menon+,
Sec. Kerala Pro. Cong. Comit.
(Sd.) +K. Madhavan Nair+,
Sec. Calicut Dis. Cong. Comit.
(Sd.) +T. V. Mohamad+,
Sec. Ernad Khilafat Comit.
(Sd.) +K. Karunakara Menon+,
Treas. Kerala Pro. Comit.
(Sd.) +K. V. Gopal Menon.+
* * * * *
Maulana Mohani justifies the looting of Hindus by Moplahs as lawful by
way of commandeering in a war between the latter and the Government or
as a matter of necessity when the Moplahs were forced to live in
jungles. Maulana perhaps does not know that in the majority of cases,
the almost wholesale looting of Hindu houses in portions of Ernad,
Valluvanad and Ponani Taluques was perpetrated on the 21st, 22nd, and
23rd of August before the military had arrived in the affected area to
arrest or fight the rebels even before Martial law had been declared.
The Moplahs had not betaken themselves to jungles at the time as Moulana
supposes nor had the Hindus as a class done anything to them to deserve
their hostility. The out-break commenced on the 20th of August, the
police and the District Magistrate withdrew from Tirunangadi to Calicut
on the 21st and the policemen throughout the affected area had taken to
their heels. There was no adversary to the Moplahs at the time whom the
Hindus could possibly have helped or invited, and the attack on them was
most wanton and unprovoked.
MADHAVAN NAIR.
APPENDIX IV
Proceedings of the conference at Calicut presided over by the Zamorin
Maharaja.
VI. That the conference views with indignation and sorrow the attempts
made in various quarters by interested parties to ignore or minimise the
crimes committed by the rebels such as
_a._ Brutally dishonouring women;
_b._ Flaying people alive;
_c._ Wholesale slaughter of men, women and children;
_d._ Burning alive entire families;
_e._ Forcibly converting people in thousands and slaying those who
refused to get converted;
_f._ Throwing half dead people into wells and leaving the victims for
hours to struggle for escape till finally released from their
sufferings by death;
_g._ Burning a great many and looting practically all Hindu and Christian
houses in the disturbed area in which even Moplah women and children
took part, and robbing women of even the garments on their bodies, in
short reducing the whole non-muslim population to abject destitution;
_h._ Cruelly insulting the religious sentiments of the Hindus by
desecrating and destroying numerous temples in the disturbed area,
killing cows within the temple precincts putting their entrails on the
holy image and hanging the skulls on the walls and roofs.
APPENDIX V
Petition of Malabar Ladies to Lady Reading
TO
HER GRACIOUS EXCELLENCY
THE COUNTESS OF READING,
Delhi.
The humble memorial of the bereaved and sorrow-stricken
women of Malabar.
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACIOUS AND
COMPASSIONATE LADYSHIP.
We, the Hindu women of Malabar of varying ranks and stations in life who
have recently been overwhelmed by the tremendous catastrophe known as
the Moplah rebellion, take the liberty to supplicate your Ladyship for
sympathy and succour.
2. Your Ladyship is doubtless aware that though our unhappy district has
witnessed many Moplah outbreaks in the course of the last one hundred
years, the present rebellion is unexampled in its magnitude as well as
unprecedented in its ferocity. But it is possible that your Ladyship is
not fully appraised of all the horrors and atrocities perpetrated by the
fiendish rebels; of the many wells and tanks filled up with the
mutilated, but often only half dead bodies of our nearest and dearest
ones who refused to abandon the faith of our fathers; of pregnant women
cut to pieces and left on the roadsides and in the jungles, with the
unborn babe protruding from the mangled corpse; of our innocent and
helpless children torn from our arms and done to death before our eyes
and of our husbands and fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive; of our
hapless sisters forcibly carried away from the midst of kith and kin and
subjected to every shame and outrage which the vile and brutal
imagination of these inhuman hell-hounds could conceive of; of thousands
of our homesteads reduced to cinder-mounds out of sheer savagery and a
wanton spirit of destruction; of our places of worship desecrated and
destroyed and of the images of the deity shamefully insulted by putting
the entrails of slaughtered cows where flower garlands used to lie, or
else smashed to pieces; of the wholesale looting of hard earned wealth
of generations reducing many who were formerly rich and prosperous to
publicly beg for a piece or two in the streets of Calicut, to buy salt
or chilly or betel-leaf--rice being mercifully provided by the various
relief agencies. These are not fables.
The wells full of rotting skeletons, the ruins which once were our dear
homes, the heaps of stones which once were our places of worship--these
are still here to attest to the truth. The cries of our murdered
children in their death agonies are still ringing in our ears and will
continue to haunt our memory till death brings us peace. We remember how
driven out of our native hamlets we wandered starving and naked in the
jungles and forests; we remember how we choked and stifled our babies'
cries lest the sound should betray our hiding places to our relentless
pursuers. We still vividly realise the moral and spiritual agony that
thousand of us passed through when we were forcibly converted into the
faith professed by these blood thirsty miscreants; we still have before
us the sight of the unendurable and life long misery of
those--fortunately few--of our most unhappy sisters who born and brought
up in respectable families have been forcibly converted and then married
to convict coolies. For five long months not a day has passed without
its dread tale of horror to unfold.
3. Your gracious Ladyship's distracted memorialists have endeavoured
without exaggeration, without setting down aught in malice to convey at
least some idea of the indescribably terrible agonies which they and
thousands more of their sisters have been enduring for over five months
now through this reign of inhuman frightfulness inaugurated and carried
on in the name of the Khilafhat. We have briefly referred without going
into their harrowing details to our heartrending tale of dishonour,
outrage, rapine, and desolation. But if the past has been one of pain
and anguish, the future is full of dread and gloom. We have to return to
a ruined and desolated land. Our houses have been burnt or destroyed;
may of our breadwinners killed; all our property looted; our cattle
slaughtered. Repatriation without compensation means for us ruin,
beggary, starvation. Will not the benign Government come to our aid and
give us something to help us to begin life anew? We are now asked to
settle down as paupers in the midst of the execrable fiends who robbed,
insulted and murdered our loved ones--veritable demons such as hell
itself could not let loose. Many of us shrink from the idea of going
back to what there is left of our homes; for though the armed bands and
rebels have been dispersed the rebellion cannot be said to be entirely
quelled. It is like a venomous serpent whose spine has been partly
broken, but whose poison fangs are still intact and whose striking
power, if diminished, has not been destroyed. A few thousands of rebels
have been killed and a few more thousands have been imprisoned, but as
the Government are only too well aware many more thousands of rebels,
looters, savagely militant evangelists and other inhuman monsters yet
remain at large, a few in concealment, but most, moving about with
arrogance openly threatening reprisals on all non-moslims who dare to
return and resume possession of their property. Many refugees who went
back have paid for their temerity with their lives. In fact,
repatriation, if it is not to be a leap from the frying pan into the
fire, must mean for the vast bulk of your Ladyship's impoverished and
helpless memorialists and their families a hard inexorable problem of
financial help, and adequate protection against renewed hellish outrages
from which immunity would be utterly impossible as long as thousands of
men and even women and children of this semi-savage and fanatical race
in whom the worst instinct of earth hunger, blood-lust and rapine have
been awakened to fierce activity are free to prey upon their peaceable
and inoffensive neighbours who--let it be most respectfully
emphasised--because of their implicit trust in the power and the will of
a just and benign Government to protect them, had suffered their own art
and capacity for selfdefence to emasculate and decay.
4. We, Your Ladyship's humble and sorrow-stricken memorialists do not
seek vengeance. Our misery will not be rendered less by inflicting
similar misery upon this barbarous and savage race; our dead will not
return to us if their slayers are slaughtered. We would not be human,
however, if we could ever forget the cruel and shameful outrages and
indignities perpetrated upon us by a race to whom we have always
endeavoured to be friendly and neighbourly; we would be hypocritical if,
robbed of all our possessions we did not plead for some measure of
compensation to help us out of the pauperism now forced upon us; we
would be imbecile, if knowing the ungovernable, anti-social propensities
and the deadly religious fanaticism of the moplah race we did not
entreat the just and powerful government to protect the lives and honour
of your humble sisters who have to live in the rebel-ravaged zone. Our
ambition after all is low enough; sufficient compensation to save us and
our children from starvation, and enough military protection against
massacre and outrage are all that we want. We beseech Your Compassionate
Ladyship to exercise all the benevolent influence that you possess with
the government to see that our humble prayers are granted. But if the
benign Government does not consider it possible to compensate us and to
protect us in our native land we would most fervently pray that free
grants of land may be assigned to us in some neighbouring region which
though less blessed with the lavish gifts of nature may also be less
cursed by the cruelty and brutality of man.
We beg to remain,
Your Ladyship's most humble
and obedient servants,
APPENDIX VI
ON NON-CO-OPERATION
BY M. R. JAYAKAR
[We take the following extracts from the Presidential address of Mr. M.
R. Jayakar at the Third Thana District Conference. Mr. Jayakar is a
well-known Non-Co-operator who believes in the "principles and policy"
of the movement and who joined the movement because he realised that
"Our quarrel with the bureaucracy was far more substantial than our
differences with the Congress Programme."]
The Failure of the Programme
The principles and the policy of the movement (N.C.O.) are substantially
sound and have achieved unexpected success. But, with every month that
has passed, the need has been felt in many quarters of revising and
adjusting the programme in the light of previous experience. When
dispassionately judged by such experience it will be found that some
details of the congress programme have not achieved the desired success;
on the contrary, they have formed weak links in the main. When these
items were undertaken they evoked a large volume of adverse criticism in
the ranks of Congress workers. Many of them have, no doubt, subordinated
their differences, out of loyalty to the main cause, and quite a large
number, out of their esteem and regard for the personality of the
selfless and saintly promoter of the movement. But, notwithstanding this
admirable display of loyalty among Congress men, the fact remains and
has to be reckoned with, that many items have proved unsuccessful and
perhaps act, in consequence as a clog on the movement. The soreness,
which some of these details have caused, still remains and is operating
to undivide some from others and makes them lukewarm or unwilling to
throw their whole heart into this movement. If these co-workers of ours
could be placated by a revision of the Congress programme, so that most
of the earnest-minded workers for cause could substantially agree to its
adoption, it would be a great advantage. And herein perhaps, lay the
chief merit of the amendment moved by Mr. B. C. Pal, which was rejected
by the majority at Calcutta. Taken at its highest, our success has not
gone much beyond what that amendment would have made possible. It would
have had the further advantage of retaining within our ranks many of our
former associates, who are, at present, either lukewarm or hostile.
Experiment in youthful sacrifice
When once the necessity is recognized of revising the programme in the
light of these comments, which are being made throughout the country, it
will not be difficult to find out in what directions the programme has
not achieved the expected success and the reasons for the same. For
instance, the boycott of schools and colleges have not succeeded and
even persons, of known and undoubted loyalty to the cause, complain that
the action of Congress workers has caused more harm than good. They
concentrated too much on the disruption of existing institutions and
less on the creation and maintenance of new ones on "national" lines.
They forgot that a student cannot be left idle in the street and that,
if the Congress must call him out, it can only be after it has provided
for him a good substitute. In Bombay we let pass the psychological
moment when we could have founded and reared up an excellent college
with various branches. Public enthusiasm was ripe for it in the early
part of the year, but we let it evaporate in declamation and emotional
exaltation. Some went so far as to suggest that it was no part of the
Congress programme to start national Colleges though the terms of the
Congress Resolution specially provided for it. 50000 boys are out in
idleness, says Sir Ashutosh Mukherji, some may glorify in this
catastrophe, but there are many who regard this disruptive event with
sad dismay. We have experimented too much in youthful sacrifice. Our
youth have reciprocated with more love and tenderness than we have shown
for their welfare. The few good institutions which Congress workers have
created, are suffering from our neglect and apathy and dragging a weary
existence. The shadow of a name has, very often been pursued, to the
abandonment of the substance, and we now find a large number of boys in
the country, who are practically loafing in the streets, with a vague
ambition "to do something patriotic".
The Lawyer-Failure
Our ban on lawyers has, likewise, not attained much success. Few
lawyers, whose sacrifice of their practice has added strength to the
Congress cause, have responded to the call. The prestige of British
court in _civil_ Suits between an _Indian and Indian_ has not been
destroyed and can not be so easily destroyed; for, ordinarily this
variety of legal contests is not much colored with injustice, as
political trials are. If lawyers had been called out, because, being a
trained class of workers, the country wanted their undivided time and
attention at this critical hour, it would have been a different matter,
and, perhaps, if the call had been so made many, many more would have
responded to it. But it was put the wrong way, and the lawyer was made
to appear as if, in pursuing his profession, he was acting sinfully and
must atone for it by a complete withdrawal from practice. The result was
that, out of sheer self-respect, many really good lawyers have declined
to respond to the call. Many could not give up their practice for
pecuniary reasons and were too honest to adopt subterfuges calculated to
create a semblance of sacrifice. Lawyers have become "pariahs" of our
present political life. Some of them had borne the brunt of public
agitation for more than two decades; their place is vacant and no class
of workers of equal intelligence and keenness has come forward to take
it.
A Foul Atmosphere
This part of the Congress programme has created a foul atmosphere of
hypocrisy, intolerance, imposture and conceit in the Congress Camp, in
which modesty, self-respect, and honesty often time find it hard to hold
their place. In our enthusiasm, we forget that many lawyers value their
profession for the training it affords in courage, truthfulness, honor
and toleration. No other profession trains a young man so well to
withstand and expose injustice and to uphold the tradition of truth and
honor. Our past political history of thirty-three years is a brilliant
record of the services rendered by lawyers to the Congress cause. If a
greater sacrifice than before was needed now on their part, a direct
call on their self-respect and patriotism on this footing should have
been made, but no good has arisen from putting the lawyer under the ban
of ridicule and infamy. The call made upon them was singularly harsh. No
other class of public workers was required to give up his means of
livelihood. The importing merchant supports British prestige as much as,
if not more than the lawyer and yet he stalks unabashed in the Congress
camp without closing his shop. No ban was put on litigants, without whom
the lawyer cannot thrive. I am therefore, surprised that notwithstanding
so much hardship, so many lawyers have come out and are to be found in
the vanguard of the movement. The few courts of justice, we called into
existence have not had enough support and are a mockery.
Revise the Programme
The failure of these parts of the programme is now practically admitted
and they are now pushed into the background. It would be better if, in
revising the programme in the next Session of the Congress, these limbs,
which have ceased to function or respond to the laws of our growth, are
boldly amputated. In any event, they make clear the necessity of a
revision, so as to render the programme more effective, elastic and
practical.
Enter the Councils
The fight requires to be carried on in manifold ways. Some may carry it
in the Councils, face to face with the officials. Why cannot
"Non-Co-operation," in its proper sense, be practised in the Councils?
Sir P. M. Mehta, when he left the Council Hall with his colleagues on a
memorable occasion when he, face to face with the then home member,
mercilessly uncloacked the preposterous pretensions of the bureaucracy,
was fighting with weapons and a spirit which many Non-Co-operators of
the true and accredited brand may envy in these days. If
Non-Co-operation is an _attitude_ of the mind, as its eminent author
conceives it, and not so much a programme or a creed, a Council Hall is
as fitting a place for its display as a mass meeting in a Marwadi
Vidyalaya. The spirit resides in the mind and is independent of the
environment. It is no ground to say that, often times, the environment
frightens a weakling, for we do not build our doctrines only on the
possibility of men being weak and timid.
N.C.O. Concession
We have already departed from the original rigor of our programme in
this behalf. A Non-Co-operator can now compete at Municipal elections.
He can offer advice to Government in or outside private interviews.
Non-co-operator papers do report the proceedings of the Legislative
Bodies, comment on them, and suggest remedies for the benefit of the
Government. Scarcely a non-Co-operator now-a-days speaks without
referring to gubernatorial utterances and orders in Council. He comments
on the policies of Government, suggesting remedies as he goes on with
his comments. Several lawyers in Bombay, who are still in practice, are
now allowed to occupy prominent places as speakers at Non-Co-operation
meetings. This is as it should be, for we cannot afford to ignore or
despise, in the stinted state as our resources, the co-operation of any
honest workers, prepared to make a sacrifice commensurate with his
capacity. This is all done now silently and as a concession. My plea is
for making the programme so wide, elastic and natural, as to turn these
concessions into acknowledged rights. The Congress Creed calls upon us
to obtain Swaraj by all legitimate and peaceful means. All weapons, all
avenues of work and all manner of public workers are enjoined on us, for
the attainment of the common end. Why set up ascetic standards,
unpractical tests, and unnatural bans, which may often let in the
dishonest but keep out the honest man, whose co-operation, even with a
difference, is often worth loving. The programme may become
theoretically less perfect, perhaps logically less consistent, but it
will certainly be more natural, real and effective.
Suggested Modifications
The exact form of the modification must be left to future discussion. I
would, therefore, suggest as follows:
(1) That foreign propaganda, so summarily put an end to at the last
Congress, be resumed and if possible extended within proper bounds. The
Indian view has to be put forward before the civilised world. This is an
urgent need of the hour. The Government are doing it from their own
point of view, and we ought to do the same from ours.
(2) That the time limited be abandoned, for reasons mentioned in para 25
below.
(3) That the elections to Legislative Bodies, whenever a chance should
occur, should be contested perhaps with the limitation, that in the
Provinces, unless complete autonomy is introduced, Congressmen should
not accept office under the present system of Government. This may be,
if so desired, made conditional on Government agreeing to dissolve the
present Bodies.
(4) A large modification of the educational boycott, including the total
abrogation of the compulsory part of it. Attention should be
concentrated more on the creation of national institutions than on the
withdrawal of students as a set propaganda. When such institutions are
projected, and some of them actually in existence, and they compete
favorably with state aided institutions, I have no doubt that sufficient
impulses have been generated in the country to secure the exercise of
the option in favor of the former. Side by side with this, an intensive
propaganda should be carried on in the Councils and outside, having for
its object the popularisation of the Universities by a change of the Act
governing them, and also the "nationalisation" of the existing system of
state-aided education, so as to bring it into greater accord with the
present-day requirements and aspirations of the people. To me, it seems
to be such a pity that we have deserted this avenue of agitation, to be
feebly utilised by a few persons in the present Councils, struggling
against an unsuitable environment. Nine crores, which is nearly the
total output on State education, we are not in a position to despise,
and it seems wrong to wait for this reform till complete Swarajya is
attained, which may or may not be for some time yet. Considerable harm
has been done to the cause of education by the exclusion of this avenue
work from the programme of Congress activities. The fate of primary
education in the Bombay presidency will clearly illustrate the point I
am making.
(5) A large modification of the ban against lawyers, so as to admit of
several grades of sacrifice from complete abstention from practice to a
giving up of the entirety or a part of the earnings. A way should be
found for getting as many lawyers as possible to work in this movement
provided they are prepared to give the cause at least a part of their
time or money. The Congress ought to modify its call, so as to make it
possible for all honest-minded lawyers to bear the burden of the
country's cause, commensurate with their capacity to sacrifice.
Similarly, in the matter of conducting defences in British courts, some
curious departure have come to be made from the strict Congress rule.
These departures only indicate that, in its operation, the rule has been
found unpractical and irksome. Congressmen are not to engage pleaders
nor offer a defence with legal aid. They are simply to make a
"statement." A statement is as much an aid to the administration of
justice as a lawyer-made defence, and in so far, it equally supports the
prestige of British courts. Only, it has the disadvantage of being
prolix and unconvincing. It, therefore, fails of its mark more often
than a lawyer's defence.
Who can urge that the long and interesting statements made by the Ali
Brothers and their co-accused, in the trial at Karachi were out of
place? Yet they had all the features of a lawyer-made defence, as an aid
to the court. The evidence was discussed, legal objections raised,
relevancy commented on and the prosecution evidence answered. All this
assistance was given to the court, helping it to arrive at truth and
justice, precisely in the same way as a practising lawyer aids judicial
administration.
If a statement is permitted, why cannot a lawyer be employed in Court to
make it more convincing and exculpatory? A statement must be based on
facts, and these facts become material only when proved. On what
rational grounds can, therefore, a statement permitted and yet the
material evidence supporting it disallowed? It is no answer to say that
the statement is meant for the guidance of the _Swaraj_ Courts when the
same are established, for when that eventuality happens, a statement
supported by evidence will be any a better help to these Swaraj Courts
than a mere statement? It is obvious that no Swaraj Court will liberate
a man merely on his own statement, without further inquiry.
Civil Disobedience
We are on the eve of Mahatma Gandhi undertaking an important part of his
programme by starting Civil Disobedience in a district in Surat. It is
very difficult to offer any useful comment on this undertaking because
beyond the general lines, his programme in its detail is not yet before
the Country. We can only hope that the resistance to law will not be so
undertaken as to be widely interpreted as a sort of charter for general
lawlessness. That would be a catastrophe for which the country is not
prepared. This seems also to be Mr. Gandhi's opinion, for he has very
prudently circumscribed the practice of the resistance with very severe
restrictions, involving a moral and economic preparation. To disobey
specific orders of Government or their officials, which have no moral
sanction behind them or are illegal in their inception, is a
comparatively easy matter, fraught with no far-reaching harm to the
community. The disobedience, in such a case commands the moral approval
of the civilised community, and ends only by affecting the prestige of
the promulgator of the order. But when a campaign is undertaken
involving a wholesale and general defiance of order and authority,
forces may arise, which, in the hands of inexperienced and enthusiastic
associates or partisans, may reach extreme limits, involving the
community in chaos, disorder and possibly violence. The country has had
only a year's training in his (Mr. Gandhi) counsels of non-violent
resistance--far too short a period for his countrymen to imbibe his
spirit, in a manner worthy of his teaching. May we, therefore, hope that
in launching on this undertaking he will seriously consider this aspect
of the case? We shall of course, watch his experiment but with concern
and solicitude, feeling secure in the hope, created by his magnificent
personality, that in his hands the destinies of the country are
perfectly safe.
APPENDIX VII
Extracts from the speech delivered by His Excellency Sir Harcourt
Butler, Governor of the U. P. of Agra & Oudh, at the opening of the U. P.
Legislative Council,
_Lucknow, 22nd January, 1921_
Mr. President and Members of the Legislative Council,
"Great efforts have been made to draw away young men from schools and
colleges and to induce professional men to give up their careers. Great
efforts have been made to prevent voters from going to the polls. But
these efforts have met with little success. The elections have
undoubtedly given the province a really representative legislative
council. The chief opponents of the reforms have shown by word and act
that their aim is not the ordered development of political institutions
in India but the expulsions of Western civilization from India--a course
involving the reversion to the condition of disorder, lawlessness and
internecine strife such as prevailed in the unsettled times before the
advent of British rule."
"The tenantry were widely stirred up. The criminal classes took
advantage of the occasion and serious trouble ensued in which there was
regrettable loss of life. A full report on the Rae Bareli disturbances
will be published within a few days. It was fortunately possible to
restore order without calling in military aid from outside, and for this
I have already congratulated the local authorities and others concerned.
Statements, I may say that all reports from both Rae Bareli and Fyzabad
indicate that the tenantry are actuated by no hostility to Government or
to Europeans. The agitators have endeavoured to stir up such hostility."
"As for my Government I have chosen as colleagues without favour strong
and independent men. They will have my complete confidence in all
matters, and it is my desire that we should work together as far as
possible as one Government. I shall endeavour to secure that we all,
Europeans and Indians, work together on harmonious lines as
brother-subjects of the King-Emperor; and I pray that the Reforms Scheme
which we are commencing to-day will and largely and effectively to the
well-being and happiness of this ancient land of Hindustan."
APPENDIX VIII
Extracts from the speech delivered by His Excellency Sir Harcourt Butler
at a meeting of the United Provinces Legislative Council
_28th March 1921_
Mr. President and Members of the Legislative Council,
"The recent disorder in Rae Bareli has necessitated a further
reconsideration of the question. Whereas the former disorders in Rae
Bareli were largely agrarian in origin the recent disorders were mainly
political in origin and wholly revolutionary".
"The result of the disorders has been an unfortunate loss of life, for
which the agitators are directly responsible, and a feeling of
insecurity which if unchecked may spread with untoward results,
affecting innocent and guilty alike. Confronted with an elemental
question as to the maintenance of order, my Government came unanimously
to the conclusion that it was necessary to stop the campaign of
unconstitutional agitation and lying, _propaganda_ which has been
carried on the four south-eastern districts of Outh--Rae Bareli,
Partabgarh, Sultanpur and Fyzabad. We therefore applied to the
Government of India to extend the Seditious Meetings Act to those four
districts. This has been done".
"I believe that this action will have the support of this Council and of
responsible people generally in this province. With the non-co-operators
we can have nothing to do beyond meeting their mischievous activities.
Their movement is a revolutionary movement playing on passion and
pandering to ignorance but the mass of people are loyal and all their
interests are bound up with the maintenance of order."
APPENDIX IX
Extracts from the speech by His Excellency Sir Harcourt Butler at a
Durbar held at Lucknow
_17th December 1921_
GENTLEMEN,
I am glad to have this opportunity of meeting you to-day, in formal
assembly, and to outline to you the policy of the Government.
My Government was accused some months ago of being repressive. I have
met that charge completely with facts and figures and proved that the
Government has acted with due patience in spite of deliberate and
repeated provocation. It has dealt with agitation under the ordinary law
and has maintained order and security with reasonable success. Of late
the agitators, whose openly avowed object is to make Government
impossible, have entered on a campaign of increased activity. Quite
recently the Government received reports from several quarters
foreshadowing lawlessness and disorder. The Collector of Meerut reported
that civil disobedience had been openly preached at the District
Congress at Garhmukhtesar, that cloth shops were picketed, that
agitation was plainly on the increase, and that everything looked like
working up to a climax at an early date. The Commissioner of Fyzabad
reported that the situation was menacing in the Bara Banki district
where the Deputy Commissioner could not appear without being hooted and
the loyal section of population were frightened and disheartened. A
speech was delivered in which the audience was asked by a political
fanatic whether they would agree to murder the Deputy Commissioner and
they replied with one voice that they would. The Commissioner also
reported that things were menacing in the Tanda sub-division of the
Fyzabad district. At Gonda regular volunteer corps had been instituted
with officers. From Cawnpore and Etawah reports came of a recrudescence
of criminal intimidation. In Ballia the people were asked to prepare
themselves for killing and being killed. Alarming reports were also
received from Saharanpur, Aligarh and Gorakhpur.
Now all these reports reached the Government within three or four days.
It was quite clear that we were on the verge of serious and widespread
trouble. The Government decided, and decided unanimously, to apply the
Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 1908, part II, to the whole province at
once and to issue instructions to Commissioners and District Officers to
take all measures under the law necessary for the preservation of order
and protection of loyal and peaceful citizens. This was followed by an
open defiance to the Government signed by over seventy individuals in
the _Independent_ newspaper. As you are aware the ringleaders have been
arrested. I do not propose to deal with individual cases; some of them
are still under trial. I will only say this, that all the reports I have
received from different parts of the province show that the action taken
has had excellent result and has restored confidence to loyal and
peaceful people. Indeed, there is a feeling of general relief. The
Commissioner of Fyazabad reports "There has been a great improvement
since I last wrote. The police who had resigned are now applying to be
taken back." The Commissioner of Agra writes "The present Government
policy appears to be generally welcomed." The Commissioner of Gorakhpur
says "There is no doubt that the moderate party not only welcome the
arrests but in some cases are jubilant over them." The Commissioner of
Meerut reports that the action taken had "been hailed by all loyal
persons with the greatest relief." He adds "our friends and the much
harried police are in much better hearts and non-co-operator is no
longer looked upon with dread by them." The Commissioner of Lucknow
attributes the settling down of the Hindu population and especially the
cultivating classes largely to the recent action of Government. A
re-assuring report has come from Aligarh. The situation is still
critical; but, I think, that it is well in hand, and I am convinced that
if a policy of firmness is pursued and pursued steadily for some time we
may reasonably hope to break the back of a conspiracy which openly avows
its intention of trying to do away with Government and openly defies the
law of the land.
Consider the position, gentlemen; What have the Congress and _Khilafat_
movements done? _Satyagraha_, which Mr. Gandhi himself pronounced to be
a "Himalayan blunder" ended in disgrace. The attempt to boycott colleges
and schools failed signally. It did not affect in this province one per
cent of the students and scholars. The attempt to boycott the law courts
was wholly unsuccessful. The appeal to surrender titles given by and
offices held under the Government fell on deaf ears. The efforts to
seduce soldiers and policemen were almost in vain. But with each
successive failure, they have sown wider the seeds of racial hatred and
the spirit of lawlessness. The results cry out against them and their
work. Their hands are dripping with innocent blood; and the cries of
ruined homes and ravished women have gone up to heaven. This is the end
of the idea of self-Government attained by non-violent revolution, an
idea wholly fantastic and chimerical.
As is usual when Government takes vigorous action, there is a body of
critics who have no experience or sense of government and who are
frightened by action. They seem to think that law and order keep
themselves. The truth is far otherwise. Law and order are mainly kept by
force, and that with difficulty. They are very easily upset. You have
had experience of disorder in southern Oudh, in which there was an orgy
of violence, rape, rapine and arson. I do not hesitate to tell you that
if the Government trifled with the present situation you would probably
soon find your lives, your property and your honour in danger. The
objection that action has been taken with warning is quite unfounded.
More than once I have publicly declared that this Government would not
tolerate disorder or intimidation. The aggressors are those who violate
the law.
APPENDIX X
STATEMENT BY SIR L. PORTER
We have been vilified bitterly, every kind of abuse has been showered on
us by non-co-operators, every form of insidious agitation has been
tried, and we have stayed our hands.
Violent Agitators
I will mention the case of one of the men who has now been arrested and
is undergoing imprisonment as a first-class misdemeanant. He made at
least ten speeches up and down the country which our legal advisers
informed us were clearly actionable. I allude to Mr. Jawahir Lal Nebru.
His final effort was a speech, somewhere in the west of the Province, in
which he quoted word by word the sedition section, _i.e._, the promotion,
of disaffection against the Government as by law established and the
section which deals with promoting hatred between classes of His
Majesty's subjects, and he said that the object of his life was to carry
out this promotion of sedition and disaffection. Still we did nothing.
You may well ask why. We thought that the forces of reason and sobriety
would re-establish their sway. We hoped that the great body of moderate
opinion of the Provinces would be sufficiently powerful to assuage this
movement and to stop the dissemination of poison. We were wrong. So far
from losing any strength I do not hesitate to say that the movement has
gone on gaining strength. Then came the time in November when we were
confronted with reports from our trusted officers all over the provinces
which left no doubt whatever in our minds that the situation had very
greatly developed, and that there was imminent possibility (I would go
further and say probability) of an outburst of violence in more than one
district. I have here a big folio of reports. It is quite impossible for
me in debate like this to quote them all. There are copies of reports
from districts as wide apart and representative as Meerut, Cawnpur,
Fyzabad, Etawah, Balia, Barabanki and the peaceful district of Aligarh,
which, according to its member, Thakur Manak Singh, is now the scene of
this campaign of repression. I should like, as a typical instance, to
read out the description of the procedure which was adopted in the
Barabanki district. The Barabanki district, as my friend on my right
will bear me out, is a particularly difficult one. It is full of a class
whom religious fanaticism particularly affects and when it once gets out
of hand it is very difficult to deal with. I remember when I first came
to India, there was tremendous outbreak of dacoity and violent crime in
that and adjacent districts, which it took months to put down, at the
cost of immense suffering to the population. This is one of the
districts, which was selected as a focus in work on by these (what
should I call them?) advocates of soul force.
Soul Force
Their main activities were directed to stirring up religious fanaticism.
In mosques, in bazars mendacious stories were told regarding the
bombardment and desecration of the Sacred Places of Islam. They were
told that Hindu and Mahomedan women had been outraged and that medicines
issued from dispensaries were mixed with wine and that the fat of cows
and pigs was used in the manufacture of cloth. There was boycott and
intimidation to prevent foreign cloth sellers from importing any more
cloth, and to force them to sign a pledge not to do so. This went on
until November and the beginning of December when the picketing of
schools started. That is a typical report from a district which takes
very little to set it ablaze. What has recently happened there you have
already read in the papers. There are many other instances which strike
me, but there is one typical instance from Etawah. There is a fair which
has been held there for many years. It was picketed. People were
prevented from coming in by open intimidation and finally attempts were
made to blacken the face of a Maulvi on his way to the Islamia High
School, of which he is manager. I can multiply these instances, and, if
any member of the Council wishes to know the representations which were
received from these districts, I am perfectly willing to let him see the
reports in order that he may satisfy himself as to what the real
condition was.
Pandit Radha Kant Malviya: Will the Hon. Member read the report from
Allahabad.
Sir Ludovic Porter: We had a report from the Commissioner of Allahabad,
on whose judgment I place great reliance, just before we enforced this
Act. He expressed his reasoned opinion that if we allowed matters to
drift any further, there would be a widespread disaster. He also stated
that from information he had received, the whole camp of non-co-operators,
in Allahabad were particularly cheerful with regard to the outlook, and
they thought great developments in their favour were shortly going to
take place. Well that was our position. As to the nature of this
non-violent non-co-operation, we had no delusions.
Criminal Intimidation
We know that criminal intimidation had been practised on the widest
scale in many districts. I may say that the majority of districts where
these associations existed, criminal intimidation of a subtle kind,
namely to attack a man in his religious opinions or to attack him in his
social relations, had been widely practised. We had an example here in
Lucknow of ordinary intimidation. A member of the Council himself
witnessed the unfortunate driver of an ekka being dragged off his ekka
and beaten because he ventured to ply for hire on the 17th of November.
I know myself the case of a shop which was kept open for two or three
days. The shopkeeper was surrounded by a howling mob, and he was told
what would happen to him, if he did not shut up his shop. In Fatehpur
they kept a blackboard, which was exhibited publicly, to show up the
people, who ventured to buy foreign cloth. This is also a form of subtle
and most cruel intimidation involving social boycott. You all know
perfectly well the difficulties that exist in India in getting victims
of this kind of tyranny to come forward and seek their legal redress in
the ordinary courts of law. The difficulty of proving criminal
intimidation is accentuated by the fact that it is not cognizable by the
police, and, consequently the complainant has to go to court, but, owing
to the difficulty of getting witnesses to prove his case, he usually
compromises. Well that is the position which confronted us. There was a
system of widespread intimidation. So far from the movement being on the
verge of collapse, as certain optimists stated to-day, it was increasing
in vigour. There was the usual lip service of non-violence, a profession
which in me produces a feeling of nausea. Practice and precept, as we
said in a letter to the Government of India, which they quoted in the
debate "were poles as under." There were also, as my friend Kunwar
Jagdish Parshad in his eloquent speech this morning has stated, constant
endeavours to seduce Government servants from their duty. A great deal
of pity has been showered on the non-co-operators by certain speakers
to-day, but they never spared a moment to think what the police have
gone through. Here in Lucknow Chauk, sub-inspectors and the rank and
file of your own fellow countrymen have been grossly insulted, abused
and their family life rendered intolerable. Are we not going to support
them when such facts are brought to our notice? We are bound to support
our loyal servants, who, through all these troubles, have served us
faithfully. I am only asking for some recognition of the difficulty to
which they are exposed in performing their duties, and in their daily
life. With these facts before us we came to the conclusion--the
Government as a whole came to the conclusion--that the Criminal Law
Amendment should be extended to these Provinces. I think there can be no
doubt that the whole Council are unanimous that law and order must be
enforced. They may differ from us as to the method which we took.
The Arrests
I now come to the arrests which followed. The great majority of arrests
were effected by the local authorities under the powers delegated to
them. In one instance only so far as my memory serves, the
Governor-in-Council issued orders for certain arrests, and that was for
the leaders of Allahabad and Lucknow. What are the facts in regard to
these particular arrests? These associations had been declared to be
illegal. Immediately after their proclamation a manifesto was published
on the 6th December with a pledge which was signed by 75 persons, I will
read the terms of that manifesto. "Having read and thoroughly understood
the Government notification, etc., and knowing full well the
consequences of not obeying them, we, etc., hereby pledge ourselves
civilly to disobey without any objection all such Government orders and
laws as may be determined from time to time by the Provincial Congress
Committee, or by a committee appointed by or in this behalf. We further
pledge ourselves to obey, in utter disregard of the consequences, all
orders of the volunteer corps relating to such disobedience." Now
gentlemen, what does that mean? It means that at the bidding of an
irresponsible autocrat in Bombay, the members of this association
pledged themselves blindly to disobey any law of the land. If that is
not the essence of anarchy I do not know what is. We were told this
morning in the very moderate speech of my friend Mr. Zafar Husain, that
he did not think that this Act was enacted with a view to the present
juncture. Of course it was not. Nobody could forsee this madness which
has come over India during the last two years. It was enacted to meet an
outbreak of anarchy in Bengal. Could there be anything worse than the
present position, that a body of men numbering thousands, totally
irresponsible, very many of them now of a dangerous character, (not at
first, but they are steadily deteriorating) pledge themselves to disobey
any law when they were asked to do so by a gentlemen in Bombay, for this
is what this pledge means? How could any Government carry on, that would
not accept that challenge? In consequence of this, we issued orders for
the arrest and production of a certain number, not all, of the leaders.
In doing so we have now the support and authority of the Government of
India. The Government has informed us that they agree with us in holding
that the persons who deliberately organise associations, avowedly
intended to break the law, or associations the members of which are
pledged blindly to disobey any laws, are liable to criminal prosecution.
Following on that came the meeting at Allahabad, at which the
Superintendent of Police, who had been deputed to execute a search
warrant, was present. This meeting deliberately reaffirmed this pledge
in his presence. Now, I think if we analyse the objections that have
been taken to the prosecutions they very largely centre round those
persons, the leaders and members of this meeting, who have been
prosecuted and convicted. In all they number, I, think, something like
100. I have stated the facts, and I accept the responsibility. I see no
other way out. As long as any Government exists they have to deal with
men who offer a challenge like that, in the method in which we did.
APPENDIX XI
BARABANKI DISORDERS
_Lucknow, 18th January_
In a view of the various rumours that were current regarding the
situation at Barabanki....
A lengthy official communique has just now been issued based on the
report of the Deputy Commissioner....
At the same time, with effect from the 23rd November 1921 the Criminal
Law Amendment Act was applied to the Province. Its immediate effect was
good, and several volunteers who had been parading in uniform doffed
their sashes and were disbanded.
Khilafat Agitators
Unfortunately, however, Khilafat agitators, who had publicly announced
in the press of the 18th November that Barabanki Tahsil was being
prepared for civil disobedience by the end of November, considered this
act a suitable one to infringe. They redoubled their efforts and
collected considerable sums, mainly for the Angora Fund, both through
members of the 46 Khilafat committees established in this district and
by itinery volunteers, who were paid for their services, either by fixed
monthly salaries or by a percentage on collections. Between the 19th and
24th December, four volunteers were arrested under Section 7 (1) and 17
(2) of the Act, and these arrests were reported to have had a temporary
beneficial effect. By the 3rd January, when the District delegates
returned from the Ahmedabad conference, the leaders decided to take
action openly. On the 4th it was reported to me that large numbers of
volunteers would march into the city under the command of their zemindar
leaders. No precise information however, could be obtained as to their
intentions. On the morning of the 7th January batches of volunteers
began to issue chiefly from the Congress Office from which was hung a
Khilafat flag and a large notice calling on people to enlist as
volunteers. These volunteers were mostly from outside villages and were
headed by petty zemindars. They were all Mahomedans and had been worked
up to a high pitch of religious enthusiasm. Many of them had their
Qurans slung round their necks. They had apparently been incited to a
state bordering on religious frenzy by exhortations from their leaders,
that their religion was being destroyed by the British Government. They
were wild in their abuse of Government, officials and specially the
Police. The whole religious street in front of the Congress office
resounded with religious shouts and cries of "Victory to Islam". The cry
of "Allah ho Akbar" was uttered as a war cry with fanatical zeal,
specially when any arrests were made.
The Arrests
I had deputed Mr. Colton, Superintendent of Police, and Babu
Ambikanandan Singh, Sub-Divisional Officer to take up a position
opposite the Congress office and to arrest the ring leaders and the most
truculent of the volunteers as it did not appear to be safe to allow
them to remain at large, specially as fresh volunteers continued to pour
into the city. Those selected were marched down under an escort to the
Jail....
The procession was accompanied by noisy music and the usual shouts of
non-co-operation were raised. He (Chaudhari Athar Ali) refused to go
before the Deputy Magistrate as requested but mounting the steps of the
Congress office delivered a speech. After reciting certain words from
the Qoran he addressed the crowd, and in a loud voice, declared that
this tyrannical Government or tyrannical race (both versions are given)
should be destroyed. The crowd, which was in a state of fanatical
frenzy, replied, "_Amin_, it will be destroyed immediately". He exhorted
the crowd to "become volunteers, enrol volunteers and fill the
jails--victory to Islam". The cry was taken up by the crowd. Seeing that
the speech was causing great excitement, the Deputy Magistrate directed
the police to produce him before him. He refused to go to the jail in
the _Ekka_ provided by the Deputy Magistrate, but insisted on going on
foot, taking a circuitous route at the head of the procession of 500 or
1,000 men. He stopped the procession at various places and at these
halts the usual _jais_ were raised. The police were abused and
Government servants were called dogs and pigs. On this day ten
volunteers were arrested. On this date also there was the same commotion
in the city, but the number of volunteers decreased.
Throughout the four days the volunteers created disturbances. It was
obvious that the movement was entirely a Mahomedan one. Not a single
Hindu volunteer appeared. The Mahomedan volunteers and the crowd which
cheered them on were filled with religious enthusiasm and hatred of the
British Government. The intention of their leaders apparently, was to
provoke the Police to acts of violence against them, and also to prove
that they could insult the Government official with impunity, and were
not afraid to go to jail. The following remark made in jail by Nawab
Ali, an ex-vakil, a few minutes after his sentence, in the presence of
two magistrates and a large number of pleaders, is significant. "By
imprisonment people would get accustomed to the horrors of jail. By
shooting they would learn to bare their breasts to rifle shots and
bayonets. Men ready to be shot should now be enlisted." The accused have
been convicted.--_The Pioneer January 20, 1922._
APPENDIX XII
THE GORAKHPUR TRAGEDY
_Gorakhpur, 7th February_
From early morning on Saturday a large number of volunteers were noticed
arriving at Chauri Chaura and collecting on the Gorakhpur side of the
railway station. They then proceeded towards the Bhapa Bazar, and formed
a procession. They said that they were going to picket the bazar, and
they proceeded towards the bazar through the police station grounds,
although this was not their direct route. The procession consisted
roughly of 3,000 people, and was headed by four or five volunteers in
khaddar uniform. Some of them had swaraj flags in their hands. After the
main body of the procession had gone on, there were a few stragglers
with whom the police, it is alleged, had some interchange of remarks. It
is also stated that one or two of the stragglers were hustled by some of
the chowkidars.
The Mob breaks Loose
It is impossible to say exactly what happened next but at any rate the
stragglers shouted out and main procession came back and started
throwing kanker at the Police. For some time the attack was confined to
vicious kanker throwing, in which thousands of volunteers were engaged.
The sub-inspector, finding that the affair was taking a more serious
turn, asked the rioters to desist, but they would not take any heed, and
attacked the police with lathies. The sub-inspector, in order to
frighten the mob, fired a few shots in the air. This infuriated the mob,
who made a rush towards the thana with lathies and spears. A few
policemen were knocked down, and the remainder of the police went inside
the thana buildings for protection. One or two policemen must have fired
on the mob in earnest, as some of the rioters had received gunshot
wounds, but whether the firing took place before the rush or after it is
not known yet. By this time several of the policemen had been killed
outside the police buildings, and one party fetched oil and straw and
set fire to the thana at various points. This drove the entire police
force out of the buildings.
They were immediately set upon by the mob and done to death in the most
brutal manner. Their heads were battered with hinges torn from the doors
of the thana, and then the bodies were soaked in oil and burnt. The
charred remains were recovered, some in front of the thana, others in
the thana compound and one at the back of the thana. Some of the armed
policemen had obviously been battered to death by their own muskets.
There was a certain amount of money in the thana and it is suspected
that the rioters, having killed the policemen, looted the thana and then
set fire to the buildings. The sub-Inspector's family quarters, it is
believed, were also looted, and cash and jewellery were removed, but the
inmates were not interfered with. The family quarters also bear marks of
violence. The windows have been removed, and there are wide apertures in
the roof. After having completely destroyed the police station the
rioters dismantled the railway line in two places, and cut the telegraph
wires. They threatened to kill the railway station master and the post
master of Chauri Chaura if they sent any messages to the authorities at
Gorakhpur. In all 22 policemen, including two Sub Inspectors, one head
constable, 15 constables, four chowkidars and a servant of the
Sub-Inspector were killed. Among the dead were found two of the rioters.
A constable, and a chowkidar, who were at the police station during the
attack escaped, and these men have been traced, and it is believed that
their statement will throw considerable light on the whole affair.
Complete quiet has now been restored. The Commissioner, the Magistrate
and the Superintendent of Police visited the scene immediately on
receipt of information, and restored confidence among the village people
and the railway and telegraph lines were quickly repaired. Mr. Sands,
the Deputy Inspector General of Police, attended the funeral of the dead
policemen. The authorities immediately after the incident, invited three
prominent gentlemen of Gorakhpur, one of whom is a non-co-operator, to
visit the scene of the tragedy.--_The Pioneer February 9, 1922._
APPENDIX XIII
BENGAL
His Excellency's Speech at the St. Andrew's Day Dinner, on 30th November
1920
GENTLEMEN,
Among other things non-co-operation is to achieve is swaraj in one year.
Mr. Gandhi has said so himself. The question is--do the people of Bengal
want this particular form of swaraj? Being a shrewd and intelligent
people they will doubtless wish to satisfy themselves first of all as to
what precisely this swaraj is. Fortunately we are able to answer that
question with authority, because Mr. Gandhi had issued a very clear
explanation of what he means by swaraj in a small manual entitled
'Indian Home Rule', a new edition of which was published by Messrs.
Ganesh & Co., of Madras, last year. I earnestly commend a perusal of it
to all who are interested in the future of the land we live in....
Very well, if this is the sort of thing that people want by all means
let them adopt non-co-operation. But I do not believe for a moment that
this is what people want. And that, no doubt, is why we find so many
other reasons advanced for adopting non-co-operation. It is claimed for
it for example, that it is a saintly weapon in the hands of an oppressed
people engaged in a righteous struggle against a tyrannous and
unrighteous Government. Let us examine its credentials so that we may
see to what extent the claim to righteousness can be sustained. In its
earliest phase, when it was known as _Satyagraha_, its result were
admittedly evil. The Hunter Committee was unanimous in its opinion that
its effect was to engender "a familiarity and sympathy with disobedience
to laws" and "to undermine the law abiding instincts which stand between
society and outbreaks of violence at a time when their full strength was
required." And, indeed, Mr. Gandhi himself confessed himself sorry that
when he embarked upon a mass movement "he under-rated the forces of
evil, and that he was obliged to pause and consider how best to meet the
situation." Then again another object of the non-co-operators is to
re-impose Turkish Administration upon the non-Turkish peoples who have
so long suffered under it. The fact that under Turkish administration
calculated attempts have been made to exterminate the Armenian
people--one of the most horrible chapters in the whole history of
crime--is ignored, a matter for surprise, surely, in view of the innate
abhorrence of violence professed by the originator of the movement.
Indeed, any one making a comprehensive survey of the non-co-operation
movement could scarcely be blamed if he came to the conclusion that the
only password required to give admission to the non-co-operation camp
was "race-hatred." And is Bengal going to tolerate a movement based upon
hatred, and, therefore, rooted in evil? Surely the world has had its
fill of hatred. Cast your eyes over the past six years, and what do you
see? A world in agony. The peoples of this earth trailing their spectral
way across a blood-soaked scene of destruction and desolation--a ghastly
phantasmagoria of human suffering; a hideous calvary. Humanity in
torment, scourged with sorrow, losing its hold upon hope, drifting
derelict in a terrifying ocean of despair. That is what hatred has done
for mankind. And is mankind going to tolerate those who would
deliberately and of malice aforethought perpetuate this grisly tradition
of hatred among men? Let us have the answer of the people of this
country to that question. For myself I have faith in the better mind of
the people of Bengal. Not for nothing did Job Charnock lay the
foundations of this great city. The finger of destiny was even then
tracing the future of Great Britain and India upon the rock of doom. For
better or for worse our paths lie side by side. The policy of Great
Britain has been fairly and frankly stated. We are inviting the people
of India to co-operate with us in making and travelling over that road
which will lead to an India fashioned in so far as its internal affairs
are concerned in ever-increasing accordance with the genius of its
peoples, and filling a position of ever increasing pride and honour in
the great confederation of the British Empire. Can any one who has faith
in the existence of an eternal and immutable principle of justice and
right doubt what the final choice of the people of India will be? Surely
not. And it is with an unshakeable faith in its future that I give you
the toast of "The Land We Live in."
His Excellency's Speech at the St. Andrew's Dinner, on 30th November 1921
India to-day is honoured by another distinguished guest--the most
distinguished, indeed save only one, whom the citizens of the British
Empire could welcome, namely, the heir to the Empire's Throne--His Royal
Highness the Prince of Wales. He has come with words of sympathy upon
his lips and with feelings of affection in his heart for the "Land we
live in." Can it be doubted, then that from all communities and all
creeds he will receive a royal welcome? I confess that it was with
amazement that I learned that there was a small section of people, in
this land of all lands, who had so far forgotten the dictates of
courtesy as to urge the boycott of the Royal visitor. The promoters of
this movement claim, I believe, to represent the fine flower of the
ancient culture and civilisation of India. Well one lives and learns. I
had always been brought up to believe that courtesy towards a guest was
a deep-rooted tradition with the Indian people. And so I still believe
it to be, though there may be some who have forgotten it. I do not
believe that this attitude represents the real mind of India. Indeed, I
know that it does not--for it was an Indian gentleman whose patriotism
is beyond all possible question, who said to me when he read of the
proposal "now must we bow our heads in shame for in showing rudeness to
a guest we have touched the lowest depths of national humiliation and
degradation." That, I believe, represents the best and, indeed, the real
mind of India, for in India it has always been realised that discourtesy
injures those who are guilty of it rather than those against whom it is
practised, for it lowers them in the eyes of all right thinking men and
indeed is sooner or later found by the man who is guilty of it to be a
wound gnawing at his own self-respect...
Already long strides have been taken along the path towards the ultimate
goal. Indian and European have come closer together--mutual
understanding and goodwill are springing up between them. How much more
could be achieved in this direction were it not for the black cloud of
anger and hatred which has been brought into being by the apostles of
revolution. From my experience of the past 12 months I have no
hesitation in saying that a wonderful new era would have dawned for
India already, had it not been for the wild passions which have been let
loose upon the land by those who have pinned their faith to revolution.
They call the Government "Satanic". Have they then a monopoly of
righteousness? The wild lawlessness and bloodshed at Giridih, Malegaon,
Alighar, Malabar, Bombay and many other places--do these things not
savour of the work of Satan? These are, indeed, but the heralds of red
revolution. Let them look deep into their hearts and ask themselves in
all seriousness if the salvation of India lies along such lines....
His Excellency replying to the deputation of the representation of the
people in the mufassal, held in Government House Calcutta on 2nd July
1921, said:--
Let me, therefore, repeat what I said a year ago. The facts are these:
The Turkish troops in the fort at Mecca, in their attempts to overcome
the Arabs who had rallied round the Sheriff bombarded the mosque
containing the Kaaba. One of the Turkish shells actually struck the
Kaaba, burned a hole in the holy carpet and killed nine persons who were
kneeling in prayer. These are the facts. The outrage was committed by
the Turks, and I solemnly and categorically affirm that the British had
nothing whatsoever to do with it. This being so, can you or any one
suggest any other motive for the propagation of such falsehoods except
the desire to create hatred against the British?...
His Excellency's speech at the Legislative Council on 19th December 1921
GENTLEMEN,
I will not go further back than October last. At the beginning of that
month a manifesto, signed by Mr. Gandhi and a large number of other
prominent non-co-operators, laid it down that it was the duty of every
Indian soldier and Civilian to sever his connection with Government.
There followed two important developments--an intensive campaign to
undermine the loyalty of the police and a rapid development in the
activities of "volunteer" corps. Alongside of these two significant
developments was to be observed a rapid increase in open lawlessness and
defiance of constituted authority. There were breaches of the peace in
Howrah and Calcutta which are within the recollection of all. But such
episodes were not confined to Calcutta. All over the Presidency persons
were moving, stirring up dissatisfaction among the masses. This process
was assisted by an intensive campaign of highly inflammatory speeches
which had been in progress for some months past. Between the beginning
of June and the middle of November, I received reports of no less than
4,265 meetings held in different parts of the province. I could quote
passages from these speeches which are so inflammatory, so violent in
their abuse that they would shock the Council. I refrain from doing so
for the sole reason that I do not want to excite feeling unnecessarily.
But I can assure the Council that, addressed, as in nine cases out of
ten these speeches have been, to audiences made up of the illiterate and
emotional masses, they could have but one result, namely that of
spreading broadcast feelings of hatred and disaffection and of goading
the people to violence. And that, indeed, has already been the actual
result. Assaults on Settlement Officers have taken place. Government
servants have been threatened and boycotted. Now let me return to
Calcutta; and I take the events of November 17th to illustrate the state
of affairs which had been reached. The life of city was paralysed. Were
the police provocative? Certainly not. On the contrary the almost
universal complaint made to me was that the police remained inactive and
refrained from making arrests....
I have now to inform the Council of the discovery on the night of
December 8th of a number of sinister weapons concealed in an untenanted
house in the heart of the town. The nature of these weapons left little
doubt as to the sort of use to which they were intended to be
put--swords ingeniously concealed in the handles of umbrellas, daggers
of a peculiarly vicious type, tulwars and jars of acid. Very well, then
I would lay stress upon this--that with so many recent outbreaks of
rioting in the streets of the city fresh in one's mind, and with these
further evidences of the sort of activities which were in progress at
the movement, it was not unreasonable as a precautionary measure to have
recourse to a limited number of military patrols.
Only three days ago an Urdu manuscript leaflet was found posted up in
the city of which the following is a translation:--
"What are you thinking about only? Just come face to face with your
opponent. Let yourself be cut to pieces, even to death but do not let
any loss come to the Khilafat. Do not look towards Bagdad, neither do
you look towards the Army, but kill your enemy right and left. Do not
let any of your enemy to be left unkilled if you see him, and do not
think that you are alone, because you are being helped by Imam Mehdi,
who is standing in front of you. Call him, just fly a flag in your hand
and cry out Khoda, Khoda, beat a drum in the name of Din Muhammad
throughout the lanes."
APPENDIX XIV
Governor's Warning
_Calcutta, February 11_
Speaking at the Trades Association dinner in Calcutta, Lord Ronaldshay,
the Governor of Bengal, made a lengthy reference to the political
outlook.
It would be the height of unwisdom, said His Excellency, to close one's
eyes to the gravity of the situation with which not only the Government
but society in the widest meaning of that term is now faced. It seems
desirable to call attention to this because there still appear to be
quite a number of people who in spite of all that has happened, in spite
of the resort to violence which has characterised the Non-co-operation
movement in Malabar, Malegaon, Giridih. Aligarh, Bombay and many other
places have not yet grasped the seriousness or the nearness of the
danger, with which the country is threatened.
Take the case of the Non-co-operation volunteers. We are told by some
that we ought to withdraw our notification under the Act of 1908
declaring these volunteer corps to be unlawful association. A
recommendation to that effect has quite recently been made to the
Government by the Legislative Council. It is true that under the
existing constitution, we are still responsible to Parliament for the
maintenance of law and order and though it would no doubt save us much
trouble and anxiety if we were able to transfer the responsibility from
our own shoulders to those of the Legislative Council, we cannot do so.
Nevertheless I have always regarded it as my duty to consider with the
utmost care any recommendations which the Council makes and in this case
I am calling for special reports as to the nature and extent of the
present activities of these volunteers in different parts of the
province in order that I may have the fullest and most up-to-date
information before me.
On the Defensive
In considering the matter in the meanwhile, I would point out to the
public at large something which, judging by the criticism to which we
are subjected, had been overlooked, namely, that from the very beginning
of the Non-co-operation movement right up to the present time, the
Government have been on the defensive. It is the Non-co-operators who
have always attacked and by so doing have compelled the Government to
take up weapons for its defence.
For example I have heard it suggested that the Government have goaded
the Non-co-operators into Civil Disobedience by the measures which they
have recently taken. Nothing could be further from the truth. The policy
of civil disobedience was accepted by the All-India Congress Committee
at the beginning of November and it was not until towards the end of
that month that action against the volunteers was taken. Mr. Gandhi
himself, in moving the civil disobedience resolution on November 4th
defined civil disobedience as a civil revolution, which, wherever
practised would mean the end of the Government's authority and open
defiance of the Government and its laws.
Well, that seems to be explicit enough and it seems a little
unreasonable, surely, that those who profess to be opposed to such a
revolution, should seriously urge the Government to lay aside the
weapons, which it has only taken up to protect itself against, to use
Mr. Gandhi's words once more "the destruction of its authority and the
open defiance of its laws". Do those who object to these
volunteer-corps being declared to be unlawful associations realise what
these corps have been brought into existence for? They have no excuse
for not knowing, because Mr. Gandhi has himself explained quite frankly
the object, for which they are being recruited. He declared at the
conference held in Bombay on January 14th that, even if a round table
conference was to be held he would not stop the enlistment of volunteers
for a single moment. Why, because the enlistment was a preparation for
civil disobedience.
The Critics Answered
There can be no doubt on that point at all, for we have also the letter
written by Pandit Kunzru to Mr. Jinnah, in which he states that Mr.
Gandhi declared explicitly at the conference that the enrolment and
training of volunteers for starting civil disobedience must be
continued. Very well then, what we are asked to do is this: To declare
that the volunteer corps enrolled and trained for civil disobedience are
lawful associations. Do those who urge us to take this step regard civil
disobedience as a lawful form of political activity? If they do not, by
what process of reasoning, do they argue that the agency by which civil
disobedience is to be carried out should be declared by Government to be
a lawful agency?
Now let us consider for a moment what the Non-co-operators mean by civil
disobedience in its most developed form. It has been explained by Mr.
Dip Narayan Singh a leading Non-co-operator of Behar. The procedure is
to be as follows;--The chief civil officer in the area selected for its
operation is to be given seven days to hand over the district to the
Non-co-operators. The residents in the area are then to be ordered to
disobey all the orders and laws of the Government and to refuse to pay
taxes, register documents, and so on. At the same time the police
station and courts are to be surrounded and the officials to be told to
deposit their uniforms and other badges of office. The police stations
and courts will then be treated as Swaraj property.
You well see that this bears out to the full declaration made by Mr.
Gandhi, in moving the civil disobedience resolution at the meeting of
the All-India Congress Committee on November 4th, that his programme of
civil disobedience constitutes a civil revolution, which, wherever
practised, will mean the end of the Government's authority and the open
defiance of Government and its laws. Again I would ask, to those who
wish these volunteers to be declared to be lawful wish to see this
programme put into operation without a resort to violence, which will
drench the country in blood?
The Lesson of Chauri Chaura
Even the milder forms of Non-co-operation activity such as
picketing,--which is often claimed by the Non-co-operators to be
peaceful pastime though even this claim is no longer maintained by Mr.
Gandhi as I shall show in a moment--result in wild orgies of violence as
we have been painfully reminded again, within the last few days by the
horrible crime at Chauri Chaura in the United Provinces. This outbreak,
in which 21 police men and chaukidars were violently beaten to death was
deliberately organised, we are told, in the report from the
Commissioners, by the volunteers, and if picketing results in orgies of
murder and destruction of this kind what are likely to be results of
attempts to put into operation the full pledged programme of Civil
Disobedience to which I have already referred?
But it seems, as I have already remarked that Mr. Gandhi no longer
maintains that all picketing is peaceful, for writing in his newspaper,
"Young India" a short time ago, he says that in connection with the
proposal for a round table conference his suggestion was that all
picketing, except bona-fide peaceful picketing should be suspended
pending the result of the conference. Clearly then, in Mr. Gandhi's
opinion picketing is of two kinds, bona fide peaceful picketing on the
one hand, and picketing which is not bona fide and peaceful on the
other. Very well then, Mr. Gandhi knows that picketing is not peaceful.
He must know that the more drastic forms of civil disobedience, which he
is now determined to embark upon, must lead to violence.
The Issue
Is it possible under these circumstances to come to any conclusion other
than that reached by the Government of India, that the issue is no
longer between this or that programme of political advance, but between
lawlessness and all its dangerous consequences on the one hand, and on
the other hand, the maintenance of those principles, which lie at the
root of civilised Governments.
In Bengal civil disobedience has already taken the form in a number of
districts of a refusal to pay the "chaukidari" tax, and I have already
received complaints from landholders that tenants are refusing to pay
their rent throughout the province.
A general spirit of contempt for authority and defiance of law and order
is being fostered. Well, respect for lawful authority and a general
willingness on the part of the people to observe the law are the pillars
upon which the very existence of society rests. If these be cut away,
society fall into the abyss of anarchy and is shattered. It is recorded
of a famous figure in history that he fiddled while Rome was burning.
The story is one which is not without its moral for the present day.
APPENDIX XV
Extracts from the speech of the Hon'ble Sir Henry Wheeler, Member in
charge of Political Department
What is the situation with which we are faced? It is the outcome of a
movement which, in pursuit of certain political aims, has resulted in
every province in India in bloodshed, disorder and confusion. A concise
picture of the all India situation is contained in the report of the
committee which recently inquired into the working of certain laws at
Simla, and from it I quote their conclusion:--
Taking into consideration all the evidence we have received and the
points to which we have adverted and bearing in mind the still
prevailing economic discontent, we cannot dismiss as improbable the
danger of sudden sectarian, agrarian or labour disorder on a large scale
culminating in riots.
They give instances of what they call 34 notable cases of disorder which
have occurred in India during the current year. That is, most briefly,
the position in India as a whole.
Let me now give a few illustrations of the position in Bengal, with
which we are more particularly concerned, for it is perhaps apt to be
overlooked that the whole problem does not centre round Calcutta alone.
There is outside this city this vast Presidency of 40 millions people,
and the difficulties in the _mufussal_ are just as acute as here. To
cite an example--in the district of Rangpur we have lately had reported
an organisation of volunteers under a district captain and four
vice-captains, definitely named, supported by two subordinate officers
in each thana and a regular budget and funds, which, in addition to the
better known objects of the non-co-operation movement, had set before
itself the following five aims.--
(1) The organisation of volunteers to be ready for civil disobedience;
(2) the preparation of the people to abstain from payment of chaukidari
and union board tax;
(3) the preparation of the tenants to refrain from paying rents;
(4) the preparation of the people to boycott the thana and the law
courts;
(5) to boycott higher grade police and other officers especially with
regard to foodstuffs, and if as a result of this the Government start
their own store and make local arrangements it is felt that it will be
possible to place difficulties in the way of transport.
This last line has in fact been taken and the Collector had to improvise
supplies of food to various thanas and registration office. The Council
will have noticed the use of the term "civil disobedience," and in two
other districts--namely, Noakhali and Faridpur--we have had the usual
phenomena of a little knot of men forming themselves into a committee
and saying: "We will have civil disobedience." What is civil
disobedience understood to mean? Lest it be thought that it is merely an
abstract subject for discussion, say, in a newspaper article, let me
refer to an interesting definition of the term which we have recently
had from a neighbouring province. The president of a meeting there
lately outlined civil disobedience in the following terms:--
A notice calling upon Government to grant Swaraj within seven days will
first be served upon the chief civil officer present in the locality
selected for civil disobedience. Subsequently the residents of the
particular locality will be directed to disobey all orders and laws of
Government and to refuse to pay taxes, register documents, etc. At the
same time police stations and courts will be surrounded and the
officials told to deposit their uniforms and other badges of office.
Thereafter police-stations and courts will be treated as Swaraj
property. That is a position which, I put in to the Council, can be
summed up in one word, "anarchy." That is the civil disobedience which
is being preached, and which, if we are to believe the three speeches
which we have just heard, is a little excitement which, in the words of
one speaker, can be disposed of by a "flick of a handkerchief."
Now, Sir, I could carry on these examples from the _mufassal_ to
Chittagon, which has been in a state of disturbance and agitation since
April last, and to Howrah where disturbances have been intermittent
throughout the year, culminating in firing in the streets and in the
death of a policeman. But the chronicle is too long, and I pass to
Calcutta, where the remarks of His Excellency have fortunately shortened
my task. We are all aware that the incessant stream of inflammatory
oratory and agitation in Calcutta culminated on the 17th November in a
paralysis of the life of the city and I was even surprised, when
refreshing my memory as to those events, to see how openly what was done
was gloried in by the leaders of the non-co-operation movement as having
been done by their orders and direction. They were good enough to define
in their instructions who might go about the streets and who might not,
I have seen the statement that by the kindness of the Congress and the
Khilafat committees certain shops would be allowed to open at 12 noon.
There has never been any attempt to conceal the fact that the town was
at that time, in the view of the non-co-operators, subject to their
orders--subject by the processes of intimidation with which we are well
acquainted.
Now if that was the position--and I submit that this is a correct
statement of the position--Government was obviously confronted with the
question of what they were to do. Was this state of affairs to continue
or was it to be checked? We were approached on all sides, in this
Council and by such responsible bodies as the British Indian
Association, to intervene and to restore some measure of law and order
in a condition of things which was fast drifting to chaos. In these
circumstances we took the measures of which the Council is well aware,
namely, to declare certain associations to be illegal, to introduce the
Seditious Meetings Act in one district and prohibit by order of the
Commissioner of Police, meetings and processions in Calcutta. I put it
to the Council that short of these measures it would not have been
possible to comply with the urgent requests so reasonably made to us
from so many quarters to intervene in the interests of decent
administration. That is the issue which is before the Council. Is it or
is it not a fact that on the 17th of last month the people of this city
were disgusted with the state of affairs and the prevailing terrorism?
Is it or is it not a fact that constant pressure was brought to bear on
Government by all sections of the people to bring about a better state
of affairs? Can it in truth be said that the action of Government in
attempting to curtail the activities of the gentlemen to whom the
excitement is due has gone beyond the necessity of the case? If so, what
is the alternative which the Council would place before Government? Of
that, however we have heard singularly little, except from Babu Surendra
Nath Mallik, who advises us to withdraw all our orders, release
prisoners, reduce sentences and place on their trial the military and
the police--a solution which, I trust, will not commend itself to the
better sense of the Council....
APPENDIX XVI
BEHAR AND ORISSA
The Speech of the Hon. Mr. Macpherson, Member of Government, at the
meeting of the Legislative Council Patna,
_24th January 1922_
Sir, I desire to intervene at this stage of the debate, because I think
it is proper that the House should know what the facts of the situation
are before they make speeches and commit themselves to views which I
hope they will be prepared to change after they know what the facts of
the situation really are. I must ask your indulgence, if I find that
what I have to say on this important occasion will take me beyond the
usual time limits.
This is not the first occasion on which the Government of Behar and
Orissa have explained to the public their attitude towards the
non-co-operation movement and their reasons for the action taken on the
10th December last, which forms the subject of this Resolution. As the
council is well aware, His Excellency the Governor received, a few days
after that date, an influential deputation of Council Members and
explained to them under what circumstances Government had been forced in
defence of the public safety to take action under the criminal Law
Amendment Act. An account of that deputation was published in all the
newspapers which are commonly read in this Province and I trust it has
been carefully perused by all the members of Council. I shall be
pardoned if, when I come to discuss the expediency of action taken by
Government, I go over again the ground covered by the communique which
was issued on that occasion.
What was the position with which the Local Government were faced in the
beginning of that month? During the past twelve months they have seen
these associations growing in number and boldness, spreading unrest
throughout the public life of the Province, poisoning and confusing the
minds of simple people, interfering with liberty of action, and not
infrequently having to resort to force in order to compel obedience to
their mandates. I have here a long list of cases in which persuasion was
supplemented by force, sometimes force of a very disgraceful kind but I
will not worry the Council by citing instances. This Province was not
alone in these experiences, the organization of a volunteer
revolutionary army was proceeding apace in neighbouring provinces also.
The danger was being gradually realized by the Government of India and
by other Local Governments, and before the end of November action under
the Criminal Law Amendment Act had been taken by the Governments of the
Punjab, the United Provinces Delhi, Bengal, and Assam. The Government of
Bihar and Orissa stayed their hand till further inaction would have been
criminal folly. The two circumstances which brought matters to a head in
this province were
1 the immediate imminence of the introduction of the civil disobedience
movement, particularly in the Tirhut Division, and,
2 the intensive preparations which were being made to organize a
hostile _hartal_ in Patna City against the visit of His Royal Highness
the Prince of Wales on the 22nd and 23rd December. I know that certain
local non-co-operation leaders have denied that there was any intention
to start the civil disobedience movement within the Province during the
month of December or even up to the present date, and we have been told
that the Patna _Hartal_ was a spontaneous movement on the part of the
citizens. I think the Council will not be deceived by either of these
assurances. After all Government had to follow the evidence at their
disposal. There is one well-known leader of the local non-co-operation
camp, called Mr. Dip Narayan Singh. At a meeting held at Bhagalpur on
the 16th November this gentleman outlined the programme which the
leaders intended to follow. According to him a notice calling upon
Government to grant _Swaraj_ within seven days would first be served
upon the chief civil officer present in the locality selected for civil
disobedience, subsequently the residents of the particular locality
would be directed to disobey all orders and laws of Government and to
refuse to pay taxes, register documents, etc. At the same time police
stations and courts would be surrounded and the officials told to
deposit their uniforms and other badges of offices. Thereafter police
stations and courts would be treated as _Swaraj_ property. On the top
of this declaration of policy, the Local Government had information
that the first experiment would be made with the Basantpur police
station in the Chapra District. Now this has been denied by the
Congress party but the intention was an open secret. I was told about
it after our last session by a member of this Council, who shall be
nameless, and apart from our police reports, we had it on the authority
of the _Motherland_ dated the 26th November, that Chapra had been
selected as the first object of attack. This is what the _Motherland_
of November 29th, 1921, says. The heading is--
"+Civil Disobedience in Behar.+"
And the message runs:
"A meeting of the Provincial Congress Committee was held at Patna on
Sunday last. 33 delegates were elected for the coming session of the
Indian National Congress at Ahmadabad. It was also resolved upon to form
a volunteer corps in pursuance of the resolution of the All India
Working Committee. The matter of selecting a suitable area for preparing
it for Civil Disobedience was referred to the Provincial Working
Committee which met on Monday last and decided in favour of Chapra in
preference to the claims of Katra Thana in the district of Muzaffarpur,
which were backed up by Muhammad Shafi."
The _Motherland_ is a local organ of the revolutionary party and the
property of Mr. Mazharul Haqq, who is the one of the shining lights in
that camp, and presumably is in the confidance of the party. We know
also from the public press that the previous volunteer associations, our
old friends, the 'Khilafat' the 'Congress' and the 'Swaraj' volunteers
were to be replaced by a new organization to be called the "National
Volunteers" and we knew from our own reports that the particular name to
be affected by the new organization of non-violent volunteers in Behar
was the _Qaumi Sebak Dal_. Perhaps members of this Council would like to
know something about the organization of this Behar _Sebak Dal_. This is
what we heard about its organization.
Each squad was to consist of 20 volunteers. 20 squads would make a
company _Maha Dal_, in this there would be 400 volunteers. Each squad
would be under an officer.
Over 20 assistants there would be a higher officer. What he would
dictate all the four hundred volunteers would have to observe.
The Bihar _Sebak Dal's_ duty would be "Revolution" even if they had to
sacrifice their lives.
And this is what we were told about their plans of campaign:
It was first to attack all the police-stations of the district and to
take them into their possession, after removing the Inspectors, Jamadars
and the Police.
When the thana had been taken possession of, then the _Kachahri_ would
have to be taken possession of and the _Hakims_ would be removed.
Civil disobedience would commence in Chapra District from village
Basantpur, in Muzaffarpur from thana Katra, and then Sitamarhi.
Such then was the information on which the Local Government had to act.
Does the Council still wonder that action of the nature taken was taken?
To those who protest that the information held by Government was
unreliable I can only reply that it has been fully corroborated not only
by what has happened in other Provinces and by published documents of
the non-co-operation movement but also by what has happened under our
very noses in this Province. The non-co-operators say that it was never
in contemplation to make an attack on Basantpur police-station on the
10th December. We believe that this particular experiment was nipped to
the bud by the Notification of the same date, which found the leaders
assembled at Chapra and threw them into consternation. But how do they
explain the raids which were actually made at a somewhat later date on
the police-station of Sonbarsa, Raghupur and Mahua in the District of
Muzaffarpur, or the attempt to picket the Gaya Civil Courts on the
opening day after the X'mas holidays, which was only frustrated by the
despatch of troops from Patna to Gaya on the previous evening? Were all
these fortuitous and accidental? Do all these evidences of intention
exist only in the heated imagination of the police? I shall have
occasion later to tell the Council what effect these raids have had on
the internal condition of the Muzaffarpur District. My present object is
only to prove that when the Local Government took action under the
Criminal Law Amendment Act on the 10th December, they were fully
justified in believing that the civil disobedience movement would be
started at a very early date in the Tirhut Division.
I do not wish to weary the Council by going into details regarding the
Patna _hartal_. It seemed to Government, and with good reason, that
efforts were being made to impose an intolerable tyranny on the citizens
of Patna at a time when the representatives of the people, who sit in
this Council, had extended to his Royal Highness a most cordial welcome
and had voted a special grant to make that welcome worthy of the
occasion. The object of the non-co-operators was to substitute for the
welcome the same kind of deliberate insult that had been attempted to be
offered to the Royal visitor at Benares and Allahabad. Government, I
say, would have been open to the gravest reproach if it had made no
effort to counteract that mean and wicked project, which was so foreign
to the innate hospitality and reverence of the Indian people, and
particularly repugnant, one would imagine, to the sturdy loyalty of
Bihar. Under this double compulsion then Government decided that the
time had come to follow the example of its neighbours. Members of
Council know as well as I do what followed. There was, as Government
expected there would be, much excitement in the city--the stirring of a
hornet nest always has this sort of reaction.
Sir, let not this Council be deceived by any cry of repression, by any
false appeal for the freedom of association and the freedom of speech.
This Government is not out for repression. It has no desire to interfere
with political activity or freedom of speech. When Mr. Gandhi and his
friends use these phrases, what they mean is license to preach sedition,
and liberty to foment rebellion and revolution. Let us see how the
system works in practice. I will read to the Council a recent report on
condition of the Muzaffarpur District. It is dated the 5th January:--
"The Muzaffarpur District still continues to be in very disturbed state
particularly the Sitamarhi Subdivision, where it is reported that law
and order are decreasing daily and Magistrates are even insulted in
their own Courts. The Sitamarhi Sub-jail is said to be practically in a
state of mutiny, the prisoners shouting and singing all day until about
10 P.M., while on one occasion a warder was rushed and knocked down.
Additional police have been asked for this subdivision and are badly
required. The Masses in this district are said to have no longer any
dread of going to jail owing to the inducements held out to them that
they will be treated as political prisoners and fare better than in
their own homes. The police have come in for more than their fair share
of attention from the non-co-operators during the week and the
Superintendent of Police is of opinion that his force has become
exasperated almost beyond endurance by the gross insults and abuse that
has been heaped upon them.
"On the 26th December 1921, about 200 volunteers escorted by a large and
noisy mob forced their way into the Sonbarsa Thana compound in the
Sitamarhi Subdivision, carrying swaraj flag and repeating the Delhi
fatwa. The thana police were told that to remain in Government service
was for a Hindu equivalent to eating cow's flesh and for a Muhammadan to
eating pig. Later the crowd became more insulting and abusive and though
seven of the ringleaders were arrested, the crowd did not disperse until
nearly midnight. Following this incident the whole of the thana staff
were boycotted, the services of the barber, washermen and even supplies
of food were stopped, until the divisional inspector succeeded in
intervening.
"At Raghupur Police-station in the same district, 300 volunteers
appeared and told the sub-inspector that on the 1st January they would
plant the swaraj flag in the compound and take possession of the
police-station. At Mahua Police-station, the Police were also grossly
abused and insulted and similar reports have been received by the
Superintendent of Police from other police stations in the district.
"Mention was made in last week's report of a fracas in the Court
compound at Hajipur where alms were being distributed to the poor. This
was followed on the same day by a parade of 100 Sevak Dal volunteers in
front of the Hajipur police-station who shouted _Sarkar ki nokri karna
haram hai_ and grossly abused the Police.
"Reports received from factories also indicate a serious state of unrest
in the Mufassal. Mr. G. P. Danby writing from Bowarrah factory mentions
that noisy shouting bands of volunteers are moving about the country
making themselves a general nuisance and that to all appearance mob law
prevails. The Belsand Factory in this district is reported to have been
surrounded on the 4th January by a large mob shouting _Gandhi ki jai_.
Europeans and loyal Indians are expressing their disappointment that
Government did not continue strong measures against the non-co-operation
movement."
That is a police report, and lest the Council may think it is highly
coloured I will read a shorter note of the Divisional Commissioner, Mr.
Scroope, who is a man of sober judgment.
Mr. Mansfield, Subdivisional Officer Sitamarhi, came to see me yesterday
before I left for Bankipur. He is a level-headed officer and in no sense
an alarmist. He informed me that the police are no longer able to deal
with non-co-operators in Sitamarhi town. The latter are practically in
possession of the liquor shops which they now picket with impunity. They
also haunt the neighbourhood of the Court and create much noise and
disorder during the trial to political cases. They ask to be arrested
and some of them who have been placed under trial under section 290,
Indian Penal Code have been grossly insulting to the Magistrate. The
journeys to and from Court of persons under trial for a political
offence are made regular occasions for noisy demonstrations and abuse of
Government. Mr. Mansfield's considered opinion is that non-co-operators
are now entirely out of hand, that the existing police force is quite
unequal to the task of keeping them in check and that law and order have
practically ceased to exist in Sitamarhi town.
The sub-jail can only be described as in a state of mutiny. It is much
overcrowded containing about 90 inmates (I am not certain of the exact
number; almost all are under trials) and certain influential
non-co-operators under trials have been preaching defiance and
insubordination to their companions. The result is a total absence of
discipline; the undertrials sing and shout at the top of their voices
throughout the day and most of the night and any attempts on the part of
the warders to enforce order and obedience are wholly ignored.
Here is a latter report of the doings of one of these roving bands of
whom mention is made in the police report. The Superintendent of Police
writes on the 21st January.
At the same time I received a telegram from Mr. Gray, Meanchupra.
"All roads here stopped by volunteers. No carts or servants allowed
works. Come if possible, position critical".
I left at 2 P.M. and arrived Meanchupra at about 3 P.M.
About 500 yards on the road west of Meanchupra I found some volunteers
sitting on a culvert guarding the road. On arrival at the Bungalow I
found Mr. and Mrs. Gray and their three children absolutely shut off and
isolated by three volunteers. All the Factory work had been stopped as
the jamadar peons and coolies were not allowed to enter the factory so
that there was no one to cut the sugarcane etc. All carts had been
stopped, volunteers cutting the ropes of the bullocks and driving them
away. Even the house servants had been stopped from going to the
bungalow from their village. There was no bearer, cooks _mashalchi_,
_dhobe_, garden coolies or even _murgiwala_. Mrs. Grey had to dig up the
potatoes in the garden, cook the food, wash up the dishes, etc., and her
ayah asked her (as well she might) if it was true that the British Raj
was over.
Sir, these are the facts which have already compelled Government to post
a force of additional police to the Sitamarhi subdivision, and I do not
disguise from the Council that they may force us at no distant date to
take even sterner measures to preserve the peace of the district, and of
other districts that are similarly threatened. If Government find it
necessary later to present to Council a bill of costs which will not be
at all to their liking, let them thank their non-co-operation friends
for the gift.
I know we shall be met with the old cry of repression, but in this case
it is a stupid cry. No Government of this country wants repression for
repression's sake, and least of all the Government of Bihar and Orissa,
which includes within its number three distinguished Indians who have
never been accused of any lack of political independence. For my own
part I claim that no one welcomed more keenly than I did the
inauguration of the new reforms era in India. I had the confident hope
(and in this matter I speak also for my hon'ble colleague, Sir Havilland
Le Mesurier) that we had before us a great and inspiring task of
friendly co-operation with educated Indians, which would at no very
distant date place this country in the forefront of the common-wealth of
nations. Sir, this great task has for the moment been heavily
handicapped and hampered by the poisonous cult of non-co-operation, a
cult which has embittered and clouded the political life of India and
caused discouragement to all the friends of reform. It has made life a
burden and weariness to all ranks of Government officers, to the
responsible agents of Government in districts and to the directing staff
at headquarters but I have still hope that the better sense of India
will prevail and that the clouds will clear away. It is to you, members
of the Council, that Government look to give a lead to the public which
you represent, in the fight against this great danger which menaces
India. The danger is not one which threatens only the officers of
Government, professional men, and men of wealth and property. The
interests of the common people, the patient cultivators and the toiling
workmen, are just as much at stake. It is they who will suffer most, if
revolution comes, as the same classes are suffering to-day in Russia
where they are perishing in millions as a result of the disintegration
of ordered Government. I call therefore upon the representatives of all
classes in this assembly to consider what is their duty, their solemn
duty, on this occasion. The choice is between the orderly progress of
India towards a future of brightest promise and the perilous path of
revolution which leads to darkness and death. There is no midway between
them. I appeal to you, gentlemen of the Council, to put aside any
pre-conceived notions or prepared speeches with which you may have
entered this hall to-day and to look at the position in all its naked
truth. The question you have to decide for yourself is whether you stand
for orderly Government or revolution. I trust that the hon'ble mover
himself will realize his responsibility in the light of these remarks
and withdraw his resolution now that it has served its purpose of
securing a full discussion of the political situation.
APPENDIX XVII
Disgraceful Tyranny
The following is taken from the speech delivered by the Hon. Mr.
Hammond, the officiating Chief Secretary of the Bihar and Orissa
Government, during the recent debate in the Provincial Council on the
political situation. _The Pioneer 1st February, 22._
Has the hon. member read what has just happened in Guntur, in Madras,
where rents are being withheld? Is he aware that not in one but in two
or three districts in the Province there have been refusals to pay
chaukidari taxes; that we have read not one but several speeches
advocating this refusal? May I tell the Council that barely three or
four days ago, in the district of Puri, a Panch assessor was murdered
while endeavouring to collect chaukidari tax? Swami Vidyanand and others
who followed and desclaimed against repressive laws enquired what have
the "volunteers" done? It is a pertinent question, and, with your
permission, Sir, I will give a few instances by way of answer. Time does
not allow me to go through all their nefarious activities, but if Hon.
members want to know what the "volunteers" have done, apart from
enforced _hartal_ and the ordinary common forms of secret intimidation,
ask the widow of the Mahomedan, Mazir Ali Kalal, whose corpse was
exhumed in Ranchi, thrown upon the public road and the face beaten in
with a brick; ask Gopi Khar at Chatra, who on the 3rd January was beaten
and taken with his face blackened through the town because his wife
committed the foul crime of selling food to those who visited liquor
shops. Is that persuasion? Is this _Ahimsa_? ask the woman of Kateya,
Mussammatt Paremia Koerin, near Siwan, who was stripped naked and driven
through the village by a howling mob. She complained as well she might
to the Government police officer, who, when he went to hold an enquiry
was attacked by a mob--a demonstration in force of soul-force! A speaker
later in the debate declaimed against those, the Planters and the
police, whose courage, he said, "took the form of delight in tyrannising
over the poor and of oppressing their fellow-countrymen." I ask in all
sincerity what are these cases I have related but a disgraceful
tyranny; are they not, indeed, 'oppression of the poor?' "What right?" I
shall be asked "have you to lay these crimes at the doors of the
non-co-operation party?" The answer is, that when men publicly oppose
the funeral it is not irrational to believe that they are concerned with
the subsequent exhumation of the corpse. In the other cases I have
mentioned evidence has been taken and there is the judicial finding.
North and South of the Ganges
Another member asked me to explain the difference between the positions
north and south of the Ganges. Let us take this town of Patna. The hon.
member did not, as some do, deny _in toto_ that, there had been
intimidation. I say there is in fact but little difference. In Tirhut
the crime manifest and overt, and in Patna it is suppressed. Have the
Council heard of those poor beggars who received tickets entitling to go
to Gulzarbagh on the morning of the 22nd December and get blankets? Do
they know that these people were asked by "volunteers" on their way to
show their tickets which were then taken and torn up, that the same day
some of the beggars when returning from Gulzarbagh were deprived of the
blankets which they had been given which were burnt, and the beggars had
to be content with such warmth, as they could derive from the glow of
enforced patriotism. The difference between this side of the Ganges and
the other is that in Patna such things do not unfortunately in a large
city attract much attention.
Oh! the shame of it, a blind beggar woman deprived of her blanket, but
no violence of course was used, only soul-force. Babu Ganesh Dutt
appealed to justice and sympathy. Do these beggars deserve no sympathy?
Is there to be no justice done on their oppressors? I shall be told that
the leaders of the movement disavow such action; that they deplore them
as much as we do. Sir, we cannot separate the methods from the ideals of
the revolutionary movement. I am prepared to believe that some of the
leaders deplore violence and would try to restrain it, but I maintain,
and I challenge, any hon. member here to disprove it that, conducted on
the lines as it is, admitting such members as it does to its ranks, the
non-co-operation movement must inevitably result in violence.
The Giridih Riots
Let us take the case to which reference had been made before in this
Council, the serious riots which occurred at Giridih, and which ended in
an attack upon the sub-jail and the thana and the burning of the
records. From what did that originate? It is a simple story. A sold B a
cow and said that she would yield 1-1/2 seers of milk. B took the cow
away and found that he did not get the guaranteed amount of milk.
Lawyers here know that the law of warranty is a somewhat difficult and
intricate matter. However the local self constituted Panches decided
that, A should take back the cow and refund the money. He declined to do
so; and then as sanction to enforce the orders of this local court
applied that cruel engine of oppression, social boycott. In all
civilised communities the black-mailer is regarded with disgust and
condemned. It has been for the non-co-operation party to use social
blackmail as the basis of sanction to its ideals. The inevitable result
of such a sanction is violence.
What are the "volunteers" doing? They are fishing in troubled waters.
They tried--let us once again come back to Patna--to get the domestic
servants to strike: they succeeded in persuading some of the motor-car
drivers to desert their masters when their services were most required.
What are the "volunteer's" doing? They are persuading raiyats to
withhold rent. I know the case of a wealthy zamindar who had to borrow
money from the bank to pay his Government revenue. I maintain, sir, that
though honest men amongst the non-co-operators speak of non-violence the
movement must inevitably lead to violence.
Take an instance from private life--let us again quote from Patna. A
gentleman returning from Calcutta, a man well acquainted with the law of
the land, found that his servant had, at the bidding of one gentleman
who is an active recruiting officer of "volunteers," decided to break
the contract made with his master. I have the best authority for saying
this breach of contract resulted in righteous indignation which took the
form of personal violence. What are these "volunteers" doing? They are
provoking violence; they are picketing; they are intimidating; they are
interfering between the master and servant, between landlord and tenant,
between the railway and its employees.
"Volunteers" Recruited from Criminal Classes
I know it will be said that efforts have been made to purify the ranks.
It was found, for example, in Chapra, that _doms_, registered as
criminal tribes, were enlisted in the ranks of the national
"volunteers." From the other districts, too, came reports of ex-convicts
and persons of the "C" class register not only being enrolled but being
welcomed. The efforts to remove these members and to purify the movement
does not seem likely to be successful if we may judge from a leader's
experience in the Bhagalpur Division, at Banka, in the district of
Bhagalpur. There I am informed, when he visited some villages with a
view to expelling the undesirables, he was himself expelled and told to
mind his own business. I submit, sir, for the earnest consideration of
this Council that you can not separate principles from methods or the
ideals from the agents who are employed. Lastly, we have had an appeal
that this Council should share the responsibility for maintenance of law
and order. We have been solemnly advised by some of the speakers that
Government should abdicate from the duty imposed by Statute of
maintaining law and order in favour of these "volunteers" who were, so
we are asked to believe, inaugurated solely to prevent a recurrence of
the scenes that occurred in Bombay--to stop women being stripped of
their clothes in the streets, to stop murder and loot. Can Government
for a moment, in view of the activities I have related, contemplate
handing over the duty, the primary and essential duty of the police, to
the Kanmi Sevak Dal? The question has only to be asked to show its
absurdity.
The question of Counter-Propaganda
The only piece of practical advice we received from Mr. Madan was that
propaganda should be met by counter propaganda. But there are
difficulties.
First how many of the hon. members would be willing to take up the task
of propaganda? Secondly, how many of them would be listened to if they
did? How many of these would be able to obtain a hearing? I confess it
seems to me, when Hon. members have protested that Government do not
publish all the facts, that the time may come when every district and
Sub-Divisional Magistrate ought to be his own publicity officer. In the
last week we should have had stories in the papers of ladies being
insulted in Monghyr, pushed into the road, and spat upon. We should have
read of the wife of a settlement Officer, with her sister-in-law, being
insulted by school-boys one of the ladies having her head cut with a
stone; and from many districts we should have heard that pitiful tale of
little children whose lips can hardly lisp the popular war cry being
taught to shout it, not as a tale of admiration for an ascetic idealist,
nor as reverence for a person of mystic magnetism, but as a mark of
racial hatred, a hymn of hate. We could have published instances from
Muzaffarpur and Champaran of the insults to Europeans, of mob roaming
about shouting and committing mischief. Hon. members would have heard of
Magistrates unable to hold trials because of the noise in the Court
compounds. All these and more should have been done in the way of
counter propaganda, exposing the methods of what is in fact a
revolutionary movement, but would much good have been done thereby? Is
it not more important to take steps to prevent such things happening? I
ask the hon. members to remember that every vote given in favour of this
resolution is a direct encouragement to the non-co-operation party they
profess to abhor.
APPENDIX XVIII
DEMAND FOR AN INDIAN "REPUBLIC"
Mr. Hazrat Mohani's Address
AHMEDABAD, DEC. 30--The following is the full text of the
authorised translation of the address, which Moulana Hazrat
Mohani delivered this afternoon and which was, from the beginning
to the end a plea for the declaration from the 1st January, 1922, of
an Indian Republic called the United States of India to be attained
by all possible and proper means, including guerilla warfare in
case Martial Law was proclaimed.
GENTLEMEN--While thanking you for electing me to preside over this
session of the All-India Muslim League I wish to say in all sincerity
that the importance of this session of the League, in which the faith of
Hindustan is to be decided required the choice of a person abler than
myself, such as Moulana Muhammed Ali, Dr. Kitchlew or Moulana Abdul
Kulam Azad to preside over its deliberation but, unfortunately, the
Government has forcibly taken away the first two gentlemen from us, I
express my inability to accept the responsibility. Consequently, as the
proverb goes, "if thou dos't not accept it willingly, it will be forced
on thee" this great duty was placed on my weak shoulders. I wish to
discharge it to the best of my ability. Success is in the hand of God.
The Aims of the League
The present condition of the League appears to be very weak, indeed, but
this does not in the least derogate from its real importance for it was
the All-India Muslim League which actually realised. The first and the
most essential condition of Indian independence is the Hindu-Muslim
unity, and now that it has been achieved it is the duty of the League to
maintain it also. Besides, it is on the platform of the League that all
sections of political opinion amongst the Musalmans, Extremists or
Moderates, have so far been and in future will, probably, be brought
together. Before going into the causes of the weakness of the League, it
will be better to enumerate the aims and object of the League. These are
(1) the attainment of Swaraj by the people of India by all peaceful and
legitimate means; (2) to protect and advance the political, religious
and other rights and interests of the Indian Musalmans; (3) to promote
friendship and union between the Musalmans and other communities of
India and (4) to maintain and strengthen brotherly relations between the
Musalmans of India and those of other countries.
The League an Old Calendar
The first of these is also known to be the creed of the Congress.
Therefore, so long as the word Swaraj is not defined in consonance with
Muslim desire and the means for its attainment are not amplified, it is
only natural that Muslim interests in League should be clear. The third
object, Hindu-Muslim unity, is the common object both of the League and
the Congress. The fourth object, the unity of Muslim world, which has
been, along with other questions, connected with the Khilafat has been
specially taken up by the Khilafat Committee. There remains only the
second object that is the protection of the special interest of the
Muslmans. As to this, so long as a much greater and more important
object, that is, the attainment of Swaraj still remains unachieved,
people would rather direct their united efforts against the common enemy
than look after their special interests. They will be attended to when
the time comes for it. As if these causes were not sufficient in
themselves, to decrease Muslim influence in the League, its rules and
regulations were, unfortunately, so framed that, while public opinion
has developed at a rapid pace most members of the League have not moved
an inch from their first position. As a result, the League remains
nothing more than an old calendar. It is very necessary to remove the
causes of the weakness of the League and to remove them immediately, for
in proportion as we approach nearer and nearer to the goal of Swaraj the
need of the League will be felt more and more, because questions of
special Muslim rights will rise again with greater importance when India
is free.
An Indian "Republic"
Our first duty, therefore, should be to reduce the fee for the
membership of the League and thus increase its members, who will choose
their representatives of the League every year. The members to the
Council of the Provincial and the All-India Muslim Leagues should be
chosen as in the case of the Congress every year. But the most pressing
necessity of all is a change in the first object of the League to suit
the changed Muslim conditions. Everyone of us knows that the word Swaraj
has been definitely left vague and undefined in the creed of the
Congress. The object of it has been that, if the Khilafat and the Panjab
wrongs, are settled on the lines of our demands, then Swaraj within the
British Empire will be considered sufficient; otherwise efforts will be
directed towards the attainment of complete independence. But, gentlemen
from the Muslim point of view it is not enough that we should stand for
complete independence alone. It is necessary to decide upon the form
that it should take and in my opinion it can only be an Indian Republic
or on the lines of the United States of India.
Besides this, the term "peaceful", which defines and restricts the scope
of the legitimate means for the attainment of Swaraj in the Congress
creed, is opposed to the nature and religious aspirations of the
Musalmans. Therefore, in the creed of the League the words "possible"
and "Proper" should be substituted for the words "Legitimate" and
"Peaceful". I will explain the matter in detail. The Musalmans should
understand clearly that they derive a two-fold advantage from the
establishment of an Indian Republic, firstly, the general benefit which
they will undoubtedly share along with their Indian brethren as citizens
of a common State and secondly, the special advantage which the
Musalmans will derive from it is that, with every decline in the
prestige and power of the British Empire, which, to-day is the worst
enemy of Muslim countries, the Muslim world will get breathing time and
opportunity to improve its conditions. Gentlemen, in spite of the
present Hindu-Muslim unity, there still exists many serious
misunderstandings and suspicions between these two great communities of
Hindustan, and it is of primary importance that we should grasp the true
nature of these misunderstandings. The Hindus have a lurking suspicion
that given an opportunity, the Musalmans will either invite their
co-religionists from outside to invade India or will, at least help
them, in case they invaded to plunder and devastate Hindustan, and these
misunderstandings are so deep-rooted and widespread that, so far as my
knowledge goes, no Indian statesman has escaped it, except the late
Lokamanya Tilak. On the other hand, the Musalmans suspect that on the
achievement of Self-Government, the Hindus will acquire greater
political powers and will use their numerical superiority to crush the
Musalmans. Gentlemen, it is quite clear that these misunderstandings can
only be won over by a compromise discussion and mutual and intimate
knowledge, and it is an essential condition of this mutual understanding
that the third party should not come between them.
Hindus and Muslims
The generality of Musalmans, with few exceptions, are afraid of the
numerical superiority of the Hindus and are absolutely opposed to an
ordinary reform scheme as a substitute for complete independence. The
primary reason for this is that in a merely reformed, as contrasted with
an independent Government they will be under a double suspicion, first,
a subjection to the Government of India, which will be common to Hindus
and Musalmans, secondly, a rejection by a Hindu majority, which they
will have to face in every department of the Government. On the other
hand, if the danger of the English power is removed, the Musalmans will
only have the Hindu Majority to fear. Fortunately this fear is such as
will be automatically removed, with the establishment of the Indian
republic for, while the Musalmans, as a whole, are in a minority in
India, yet Nature has provided a compensation, for the Musalmans are not
in a minority in all Provinces. In some Provinces, such as Kashmere, the
Punjab, Sind, Bengal and Assam, the Musalmans are more numerous than the
Hindus. This Muslim majority will be an assurance that in the United
States of India the Hindu majority in Madras, Bombay and the United
Provinces will not be allowed to overstep the limits of moderation
against the Musalmans. Similarly, so long as a completely liberated
India does not come into the hands of the Hindus and Musalmans
themselves, the Hindus will be always suspicious that, in case of a
foreign invasion, the Musalmans will aid their co-religionist invaders,
but on the establishment of the Indian Republic, which will be shared in
common by the Musalmans and Hindus there will be no possibility of such
a suspicion, for no Musalman will desire that the power of even a Muslim
foreigner should be established over this country.
The Mopla Rebellion
Gentlemen, I have just stated it as a necessary condition of the
Hindu-Muslim compromise that the third party, the English, should not be
allowed to step in between us. Otherwise, all our affairs will fall into
disorder. Its best example is before you in the shape of the Mopla
incident. You are probably aware that Hindu India has an open and direct
complaint against the Moplas and an indirect complaint against all of us
that the Moplas are plundering and spoiling their innocent Hindu
neighbours, but probably, you are not aware that the Moplas justify
their action on the ground that at such a critical juncture, when they
are engaged in a war against the English, their neighbours not only do
not help them or observe neutrality, but aid and assist the English in
every possible way. They can, no doubt, contend that, while they are
fighting a defensive war for the sake of their religion and have left
their houses, property and belongings and taken refuge in hills and
jungles, it is unfair to characterise as plunder their commandeering of
money, provisions and other necessaries for their troops from the
English or their supporters. Gentlemen, both are right in their
complaints, but so far as my investigation goes, the cause of this
mutual recrimination can be traced to the interference of the third
party. It happens thus, whenever any English detachment suddenly appears
in the locality and kills or captures the Moplas inhabitants of the
place, rumour somehow spreads in the neighbourhood that the Hindu
inhabitants of the place had invited the English army for their
protection, with the result that after the departure of the English
troops the Moplas or their neighbours do not hesitate to retaliate and
consider the money and other belongings of the Hindus as lawful spoils
of war taken from those who have aided and abetted the enemy. Where no
such events have occurred, the Moplas and Hindus even now live
peacefully side by side, Moplas do not commit any excesses against the
Hindus, while the Hindus do not hesitate in helping the Moplas to the
best of their ability.
A National Parliament.
I have wandered far from my purpose, I meant to emphasise that, in the
first clause dealing with the aims and objects of the League, the word
"Swaraj" should be defined as complete republic. Otherwise, there is a
danger that in the presence of a third party, Self-Government within the
British Empire, instead of being beneficial, might actually prove
injurious. The second amendment necessary is that the methods for the
attainment of Swaraj should be amplified. In the place "peaceful" and
"legitimate" means "possible" and "proper" should be permitted. Thus, on
the one hand, the opportunity of joining the League will be given to
those who do not honestly believe Non-Co-operation alone as the sole
path of salvation, recognising the possibility of other methods and
adopting them also. On the other hand, the amendment will remove the
complaint of those who believe the Non-Co-operation can under no
circumstances, remain peaceful to the last, and while subscribing to the
creed of the Congress and the first clause of the section dealing with
the object of the League as a matter of policy and expediency, refuse to
admit it as a faith for all times and circumstances or to remain
non-violent even in intention.
Gentlemen, there are only two possible means of replacing one Government
by another one, the destruction of the Government by sword and the
establishment of another in its place, a method which has been followed
in the world thus far. The second alternative is to sever all connection
with the present Government, and to set up a better or organised
Government: parallel to it and improve and develop it till the old
order is dissolved and the new takes its place. Friends, to achieve this
object, we must immediately set upon a separate and permanent foundation
our courts, schools, arts, industries, army, police and a national
parliament. Non-violent Non-Co-operation can only help to paralyse the
Government, but cannot maintain it. The question now is, can such a
parallel Government be established only through non-violent
non-co-operation of course, provided the rival Government does not
interfere with its establishment, a condition which is obviously
impossible. The rival Government will certainly interfere. We might
contend that we will proceed on with our work silently and quietly and in
spite of governmental interference as is being done at present. A stage
will, however, be reached ultimately when action on peaceful lines will
absolutely become impossible, and then we will be forced to admit that a
parallel Government can be started, but not continue to the last through
peaceful means.
Governmental Policy
The example of Governmental repression is before your eyes. First, it
attempted through Karachi trials to prevent the Musalmans from openly
proclaiming the articles of their faith, when the people, undaunted by
this decision of the Government, preached through the length and breadth
of India that it was unlawful to serve in the army. The Government
slowly overlooked those activities fearing lest a mere repetition of the
Karachi resolution might lead to disaffection in the Army, and in order
to divert the attention of the people from those activities, it
suddenly, but deliberately declared the enrollment as unlawful. That
might get an opportunity of striking at the Non-Co-operators. Like the
moths that gather to sacrifice their lives round lighted candle, the
advocates of civil disobedience swarmed to break this declaration of
Lord Reading and cheerfully went in their thousands to gaol. This is
undoubtedly an example of self-sacrifice and self-effacement which will
rightly move Mahatma Gandhi to ecstasy, but we detect another truth
hidden in this demonstration of happiness and joy. It reveals to our
eyes the last stage of both the repression of the Government and the
patience of the people. The people are, no doubt, prepared to bear and
suffer gladly the hardships of a few days of imprisonment but on the
declaration of Martial Law the non-violent Non-Co-operation movement
will prove totally insufficient and useless. Amongst the Musalmans, at
least there will hardly be found a man who will be prepared to sacrifice
his life uselessly. A man can only have one of the two feelings in his
heart, when faced by the barrel of a gun, either to seek refuge in
flight or to take advantage of the law of self-preservation and despatch
adversary to hell. The third alternative of cheerfully yielding up one's
life to the enemy and considering it to be the one real success will
remain confined to Mahatma Gandhi and some of his adherents and fellow
thinkers. I, on my part, fear that in general the reply to the Martial
Law will be what is commonly called guerilla warfare, or in the words of
the Quran "kill them wherever you find them." The responsibility lies
with the representatives of the Musalmans. The members of the All-India
Muslim League, should consider it their duty either to refrain from
adopting Non-Co-operation as their creed or free it from the limitation
of keeping it, either by violence or non-violence, for it is not in our
power to keep Non-Co-operation peaceful or otherwise. So long as the
Government confines to the use of chains and fetters, Non-Co-operation
can remain peaceful as it is to-day, but if things go further and the
Government has recourse to gallows or machine guns it will be impossible
for the movement to remain non-violent.
Duty of Muslims
At this stage, some people would like to ask how is it that, while the
Hindus are content to adopt non-violent non-co-operation as the means
for attaining independence, that the Musalmans are anxious to go a step
further. The answer is that the liberation of Hindustan is as much a
political duty of Musalmans as that of a Hindu. Owing to the question of
Khilafat it has become a Musalman's religious duty also.
In this connection I should like to say just one word. The glories of
Ghazhi Mustapha Kemal Pasha and the conclusion of the recent
Franco-Turkish Treaty might create an idea in some people's minds that
the evacuation of Smyrna by the Greeks is certain, and the restoration
of Thrace to the Turks if not certain is within the bounds of
possibility. Consequently they might entertain the hope that the
struggle in the Near East is coming to a close. I want to warn all such
people that the claims of the Musalmans of India are founded more on
religious than political principles. So long as the Jazirat-ul-Arab
(including Palestine and Mesopotamia) are not absolutely freed from
non-Muslim influence, and so long as the political and military power of
the Khilafat is not fully restored the Musalmans of India cannot suspend
their activities and efforts.
The Muslim Demands
The Muslim demands as regards the Khilafat are these:--(1) that in the
pursuance of the promise of Mr. Lloyd George, Thrace and Shayrna, along
with the city of Smyrna, should remain purely under Turkish control, so
that the political status of the Khilafat Musalman, which is essential
for the Khilafat should suffer no diminution, (2) all non-Turkish
control should be removed from Constantinople, the shores of Marmora and
the Dardanelles in order that the Khilafat at Constantinople may not be
under non-Muslim control, which is essential for the Khilafat; (3) all
naval and military restrictions imposed on the Khilafat should be
removed, as otherwise, he would have no power to enforce the orders of
the Khilafat; (4) the Jazirat-ul-Arab, including the Hedjaz, Palestine,
and Mesopotamia, should be free from all non-Muslim influence and not be
under the British mandate, as it was the death-bed injunction of the
prophet. It should be noted that in the fourth demand we wish the
English to give up their mandate of Mesopotamia and Palestine and remove
their influence from the Hedjaz. As to the question whether the Arabs
will acknowledge the Sheriff of Mecca or the Sultan of Turkey as their
Khilafat, or whether the Arab Government of Hedjaz, Mesopotamia and
Palestine will be independant or under the suzerainty of the Khilafat,
they will be decided by the Musalmans. We do not want non-Muslim advice
and assistance.
A Compact Between Congress and League
In my opinion, gentlemen, the most pressing necessity of Hindustan is
the immediate conclusion of a definite compact between the Congress and
the League. The Congress should not enter into any negotiations with the
Government concerning Swaraj (1) until the minimum Muslim demands with
regard the Khilafat are satisfied; (2) on the other hand, the Muslim
should definitely bind themselves that even though their demands with
regard to the Khilafat are satisfied, they, the Musalmans of India, will
stand to the last by the side of their Hindu brethren for the attainment
and preservation of Indian independence. Such a compact is necessary for
the work because there are signs of the enemies of Indian independence,
and we have to confess with regret that a number of deceitful Indians
working with the foreigners are concentrating all their efforts to wreck
the Hindu Muslim unity and create distrust and misunderstanding between
the two communities. On the one hand, the Musalmans are being enticed by
false hopes with regard to the Khilafat question. On the other some show
toys of political concessions are being prepared as a gift for the
Hindus even before the stipulated period of ten years. It is intended
that in simplicity, the Musalmans should consider the return of Smyrna,
etc, as the satisfaction their Khilafat demands, and slacken their
efforts for the attainment of Swaraj, while the Hindus should be misled
into believing a further instalment of reforms as the Swaraj itself, or
at least, its precursor and begin to consider the Khilafat as an
irrelevant question. There can be only one solution for all these
problems. Hindus and Musalmans after mutual consultation, should have
Indian independence declared by Mahatma Gandhi, and that in future
neither the English might have an opportunity of deceiving nor India of
being deceived. After the declaration of independence, the Congress and
the League will have only one object left; that is preservation of
Swaraj. The 1st January, 1922, is the best date for the purpose because
we would thus have fulfilled the promise that we made to attain Swaraj
within this year, and the people of India will achieve success in the
eyes of God and man.
APPENDIX XIX
GOVERNMENT REPLIES.
Mr. Gandhi's Misstatements.
"_Mass civil disobedience is fraught with such danger to the State that
it must be met with sternness and severity._"
_So says the Government of India (Home Department) in the communique
published below in reply to Mr. Gandhi's manifesto offering a
postponement of civil disobedience on certain conditions which
Government regard as impossible._
_The Government statement makes it clear that the issue is between
lawlessness and the maintenance of civilised government._
The manifesto issued by Mr. Gandhi on the 4th February justifying his
determination to resort to mass civil disobedience contains a series of
misstatements. Some of these are so important that the Government of
India cannot allow them to pass unchallenged. In the first place they
emphatically repudiate the statement that they have embarked on a policy
of lawless repression and also the suggestion that the present campaign
of civil disobedience has been forced on the non-co-operation party, in
order to secure the elementary rights of free association, free speech
and of a free press. The Government of India desire to draw attention to
the fact that the decision to adopt a programme of civil disobedience
was finally accepted on the 4th November, before the recent notification
relating either to the Seditious Meetings Act or the Criminal Law
Amendment Act, to which Mr. Gandhi unmistakeably refers were issued. It
was in consequence of serious acts of lawlessness, committed by persons
who professed to be followers of Mr. Gandhi and the non-co-operation
movement, that the Government were forced to take measures, which are in
strict accordance with the law for the protection of peaceful citizens
in the pursuit of their lawful avocations.
A new and dangerous situation
Since the inauguration of the non-co-operation movement the Government
of India actuated by a desire to avoid anything in the nature of the
repression of political activity, even though it was of an extreme
character, have restricted their action in relation thereto to such
measures as were necessary for the maintenance of law and order and the
preservation of public tranquility. Up to November no steps, save in
Delhi last year, were taken against the volunteer associations. In
November, however, the Government were confronted with a new and
dangerous situation. In the course of the past year, there had been
systematic attempts to tamper with the loyalty of the soldiers and the
police, and there had occurred numerous outbreaks of serious disorders,
directly attributable to the propaganda of the non-co-operation party
amongst the ignorant and excitable masses. These outbreaks had resulted
in grave loss of life, the growth of a dangerous spirit of lawlessness,
and increasing disregard for lawful authority. In November they
culminated in the grave riots in Bombay, in which 53 persons lost their
lives and approximately 400 were wounded. On the same date dangerous
manifestations of lawlessness occurred in many other places, and at this
period it became clear that many of the volunteer associations had
embarked on a systematic campaign of violence, intimidation and
obstruction, to combat which proceedings under the Penal Code and the
Code of Criminal procedure had proved ineffective.
More drastic Measures
In these circumstances the Government were reluctantly compelled to
resort to measures of a more comprehensive and drastic character.
Nevertheless, the operation of the Seditious Meetings Act was strictly
limited to a few districts in which the risk of grave disturbance of the
peace was specially great, and the application of the Criminal Law
Amendment Act of 1908 was confined to associations, the majority of the
members of which had habitually indulged in violence and intimidation.
It is impossible here to set out in detail the evidence which justified
the adoption of these measures in the different provinces. Abundant
proof is, however, to be found in the published proceedings of the
various legislative bodies, in the _Communiques_ of the different local
Governments, and in the pronouncements of the heads of the provinces.
While resolute in their determination to enforce respect for law and
order and to protect loyal and peaceful subjects of the Crown, the
Government have at the same time taken every precaution possible to
mitigate where desirable the conditions of imprisonment and to avoid any
action which might have the appearance of vindictive severity. Ample
proof of this will be found in the orders issued by the local
Governments. Numerous offenders have been released, sentences have been
reduced and special consideration has been shown in the case of persons
convicted of offences under the Seditious Meeting's Act or the Criminal
Law Amendment Act. There is thus no shadow of justification for the
charge that their policy has been one of indiscriminate and lawless
repression.
A statement disproved
A further charge, which has been brought to Mr. Gandhi is that the
recent measures of Government have involved a departure from the
civilised policy laid down by His Excellency at the time of the apology
of the Ali brothers, namely, that the Government of India should not
interfere with the activities of the non-co-operators so long as they
remained non-violent in word and deed. The following citation from the
_communique_ of Government of India issued on the 30th May, conclusively
disproves this statement:--
"After explaining that in view of the solemn undertaking contained in
the statement over their signature it had been decided to refrain from
instituting criminal proceedings against Messrs. Mahammad Ali and
Shaukat Ali, the Government of India observed, it must not be inferred
from the original determination of the Government to prosecute for
speeches inciting to violence that promoting disaffection of a less
violent character is not an offence against the law. The Government of
India desire to make it plain that they will enforce the law relating to
offences against the State, as and when they may think fit against any
persons who have committed breaches of it."
The proposed conference
It remains for the Government of India to deal with the allegation that
His Excellency summarily rejected the proposal for a conference,
although the terms put forward by the conference at Bombay and accepted
by the Working Committee of the Congress were quite in keeping with His
Excellency's own requirements as indicated in his speech at Calcutta.
How far this is from being the case will manifest from a comparison of
his Excellency's speech with the terms proposed by the conference. His
Excellency in that speech insisted on the imperative necessity, as a
fundamental condition precedent to the discussion of any question of a
conference of the discontinuance, of the unlawful activities of the
non-co-operation party. No assurance on this point, was, however
contained in proposals advanced by the conference. On the contrary,
whilst the Government were asked to make concessions which not only
included the withdrawal of the notifications under the Criminal Law
Amendment and Seditious Meetings Acts and the release of persons
convicted thereunder but also this release of persons convicted of
offences designed to affect the loyalty of the army; and the submission
to an arbitration committee of the cases of other persons convicted
under the ordinary law of the land, there was no suggestion that any of
the illegal activities of the non-co-operators other than hartals,
picquetting and civil disobedience should cease. Moreover, it was
evident from the statements made by Mr. Gandhi at the conference, that
he intended to continue the enrolment of volunteers in prohibital
associations and preparations for civil disobedience. Further, Mr.
Gandhi made also it is apparent that the proposed round table conference
would be called merely to register his decrees. It is idle to suggest
that terms of this character fulfilled in any way the essentials laid
down by His Excellency or can reasonably be described as having been
made in response to the sentiments expressed by him.
Impossible Requests.
Finally, the Government of India desire to draw attention to the demands
put forward in the concluding para of Mr. Gandhi's present manifesto,
which exceeded even the demands made by the Working Committee of the
Congress. Mr. Gandhi's demands now include: (1) the release of all
prisoners convicted or under trial for non-violent activities; (2) a
guarantee that Government will refrain absolutely from interference with
all non-violent activities of the non-co-operation party, even though
they fall within the purview of the Indian Penal Code, or in other words
an undertaking that Government will indefinitely hold in abeyance in
regard to the non-co-operators the ordinary and long established law of
the land. In return for these concessions he indicated that he intends
to continue the illegal and seditious propaganda and operation of the
non-co-operation party and merely appears to postpone civil disobedience
of an aggressive character until the offenders now in jail have had an
opportunity of reviewing the whole situation. In the same paragraph he
re-affirms the unalterable character of the demands of his party. The
Government of India are confident that all right thinking citizens will
recognise that this manifesto constitutes no response whatever to the
speech of His Excellency at Calcutta and that the demands made are such
as no Government could discuss, much less accept.
Issue--Law versus lawlessness
The alternatives that now confront the people of India are such as
sophistry can no longer obscure or disguise. The issue is no longer
between this or that programme of political advance, but between
lawlessness with all its dangerous consequences on the one hand, and on
the other the maintenance of those principles which lie at the root of
all civilised Government. Mass civil disobedience is fraught with such
danger to the State, that it must be met with sternness and severity.
The Government entertain no doubt that in any measures which they may
have to take for its suppression, they can count on the support and
assistance of all law-abiding and loyal citizens of His Majesty.
APPENDIX XX
N.C.O. RESOLUTION
_Ahmedabad, December 28._
The following was put by Mahatma Gandhi. "Whereas since the holding of
the last National Congress, the people of India have found from actual
experience that by reason of the adoption of non-violent
non-co-operation the country has made great advance in fearlessness,
self-sacrifice and self-respect, and whereas the movement has greatly
damaged the prestige of the Government, and, whereas, on the whole the
country is rapidly progressing towards Swaraj, this Congress confirms
the resolution adopted at the Special session of the Congress at
Calcutta and reaffirmed at Nagpur, and places on record the fixed
determination of the Congress to continue the programme of non-violent
non-co-operation with greater vigour than hitherto, in such manner as
each province may determine, till the Punjab and the Khilafat wrongs are
redressed and Swaraj is established, and the control of the Government
of India passed into the hands of the people, from that of an
irresponsible corporation, and whereas the reason of the threat uttered
by his Excellency the Viceroy in recent speeches and the consequent
repression started by the Government of India, in the provinces by way
of disbandment of Volunteer corps and forcible prohibition of public and
even committee meetings in an illegal and high handed manner, and by the
arrests of many Congress workers in several provinces, and whereas this
repression is manifestly intended to stifle all Congress and Khilafat
activities and deprive the public of their assistance, this Congress
resolves that all activities of the Congress be suspended, as far as
necessary, and appeals to all quietly and without any demonstration to
offer themselves for arrest by belonging to the Volunteer organisations
to be formed throughout the country in terms of the resolution of the
Working Committee, arrived at in Bombay, on the 23rd day of November
last, provided that no one shall be accepted as Volunteer who does not
sign the following pledge:--
The Pledge
"With God as witness, I solemnly declare that (1) I wish to be a member
of the National Volunteer Corps; (2) So long as I remain a member of the
Corps, I shall remain non-violent in word and deed, and shall earnestly
endeavour to be non-violent in intent, since I believe that as India is
circumstanced non-violence can help the Khilafat and the Punjab and
result in the attainment of Swaraj and consolidation of unity among all
the races and communities of India, whether Hindu, Mussalman, Sikh,
Parsi Christian or Jew; (3) I believe in and shall endeavour always to
promote such unity; (4) I believe in Swadeshi as essential for India's
economic, political and moral salvation, and shall use handspun and
hand-woven Khaddar to the exclusion of every other cloth; (5) as a
Hindu, I believe in the justice and necessity of removing the evil of
untouchability and shall on all possible occasions seek personal contact
with, and endeavour to render service to, the submerged classes; (6) I
shall carry out the instructions of my superior officers and all the
regulations not inconsistent with the spirit of this pledge prescribed
by the Volunteer Boards or the Working Committee or any other agency
established by the Congress; (7) I am prepared to suffer imprisonment,
assault, or even death for the sake of my religion, and my country,
without resentment; (8) in the event of my imprisonment, I shall not
claim from the Congress any support for my family or dependants.
Volunteer corps
"This Congress trusts that every person of the age of 18 and over will
immediately join the Volunteer organisations. Notwithstanding the
proclamation prohibiting public meetings, and inasmuch as even Committee
meetings have been attempted to be construed as public meetings, this
Congress advises the holding of Committee meeting in enclosed places and
by tickets and by previous announcements, at which as far as possible
only speakers previously announced shall deliver written speeches, care
being taken, in every case, to avoid the risk of provocation and
possible violence by the public in consequence.
"This Congress is further of opinion that Civil Disobedience is the only
civilized and effective substitute for an armed rebellion, whenever
every other remedy for preventing arbitrary, tyrannical and emasculating
use of authority by individuals or corporations, has been tried and,
therefore, advises all Congress workers and others who believe in
peaceful methods and are convinced that there is no remedy save some
kind of sacrifice to dislodge the existing Government from its position
of perfect irresponsibility to the people of India, to organise
individual Civil Disobedience, and massed, when the mass of people have
been sufficiently trained in the methods of non-violence, and otherwise
in terms of the resolution therein of the last meeting of the All-India
Congress Committee held at Delhi, this Congress is of opinion that in
order to concentrate its attention upon Civil Disobedience, whether mass
or individual (whether of an offensive or defensive character) under
proper safeguards, and under instructions to be issued from time to time
by the Working Committee or Provincial Congress Committee concerned, all
other Congress activities should be suspended whenever and wherever, and
to the extent to which it may be found necessary.
Mahatma the dictator
"This Congress calls upon all students of the age of 18 and over,
particularly those studying in the national institutions and the staff
thereof, immediately to sign the foregoing pledge and become members of
National Volunteer Corps.
"In view of the impending arrest of a large number of Congress workers,
this Congress, whilst requiring the ordinary machinery to remain intact
and to be utilised in the ordinary manner whenever feasible, hereby
appoints until further instructions Mahatma Gandhi as the sole Executive
authority of the Congress and invests him with the full powers of the
All-India Congress Committee including the power to convene a special
session of the Congress or of the All-India Congress Committee or the
Working Committee, and also with power to appoint a successor in
emergency.
"This Congress hereby confers upon the said successor and all subsequent
successors appointed in turn by their predecessors, all this aforesaid
power provided that nothing in this resolution shall be deemed to
authorise Mahatma Gandhi or any of the aforesaid successors to conclude
any terms of peace with the Government of India or the British
Government without the previous sanction of the All-India Congress
Committee to be finally ratified by the Congress specially convened for
the purpose, (and provided also that the present Creed of the Congress
shall in no case be altered by Mahatma Gandhi or his successors except
with the leave of the Congress first obtained).
"This Congress congratulates all those patriots who are now undergoing
imprisonment for the sake of their conscience or country, and realises
that their sacrifice has considerably hastened the advent of Swaraj."
APPENDIX XXI
Mr. M. K. Gandhi's Statement
Before reading his written statement Mr. Gandhi spoke a few words as
introductory remarks to the whole statement. He said: Before I read this
statement, I would like to state that I entirely endorse the learned
Advocate-General's remarks in connection with my humble self. I think
that he was entirely fair to me in all the statements that he has made,
because it is very true and I have no desire whatsoever to conceal from
this Court the fact that to preach disaffection towards the existing
system of Government has become almost a passion with me. And the
learned Advocate-General is also entirely in the right when he says that
my preaching of disaffection did not commence with my connection with
"Young India" but that it commenced much earlier and in the statement
that I am about to read it will be my painful duty to admit before this
Court that it commenced much earlier than the period stated by the
Advocate-General. It is the most painful duty with me but I have to
discharge that duty knowing the responsibility that rested upon my
shoulders.
And I wish to endorse all the blame that the Advocate-General has thrown
on my shoulders in connection with the Bombay occurrence, Madras
occurrences, and the Chouri Choura occurrences thinking over these
things deeply, and sleeping over them night after night and examining my
heart I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible for me to
dissociate myself from the diabolical crimes of Chouri Choura or the mad
outrages of Bombay. He is quite right when he says that as a man of
responsibility, a man having received a fair share of education, having
had a fair share of experience of this world, I should know the
consequences of every one of my acts. I knew them. I knew that I was
playing with fire. I ran the risk and if I was set free I would still do
the same. I would be failing in my duty if I do not do so. I have felt
it this morning that I would have failed in my duty if I did not say all
what I said here just now. I wanted to avoid violence. Non-violence is
the first article of my faith. It is the last article of my faith. But I
had to make my choice. I had either to submit to a system which I
considered has done an irreparable harm to my country or incur the risk
of the mad fury of my people bursting forth when they understood the
truth from my lips. I know that my people have sometimes gone mad. I am
deeply sorry for it; and I am, therefore, here to submit not to a light
penalty but to the highest penalty. I do not ask for mercy. I do not
plead any extenuating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit to
the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a
deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a
citizen. The only course open to you, Mr. Judge, is, as I am just going
to say in my statement, either to resign your post or inflict on me the
severest penalty if you believe that the system and law you are
assisting to administer are good for the people. I do not expect that
kind of conversion. But by the time I have finished with my statement
you will, perhaps, have a glimpse of what is raging within my breast to
run this maddest risk which a sane man can run.
WRITTEN STATEMENT
I owe it perhaps to the Indian public and to the public in England to
placate which this prosecution is mainly taken up that I should explain
why from a staunch loyalist and co-operator I have become an
uncompromising disaffectionist and non-co-operator. To the court too I
should say why I plead guilty to the charge of promoting disaffection
towards the Government established by law in India.
My public life began in 1893 in South Africa in troubled weather. My
first contact with British authority in that country was not of a happy
character. I discovered that as a man and an Indian I had no rights. On
the contrary I discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an
Indian.
But I was not baffled. I thought that this treatment of Indians was an
excrescence upon a system that was intrinsically and mainly good. I gave
the Government my voluntary and hearty co-operation, criticising it
fully where I felt it was faulty but never wishing its destruction.
Consequently when the existence of the Empire was threatened in 1899 by
the Boer challenge, I offered my services to it, raised a volunteer
ambulance corps and served at several actions that took place for the
relief of Ladysmith. Similarly in 1906 at the time of the Zulu revolt I
raised a stretcher-bearer party and served till the end of the
'rebellion'. On both these occasions I received medals and was even
mentioned in despatches. For my work in South Africa I was given by Lord
Hardinge a Kaiser-i-Hind Gold Medal. When the war broke out in 1914
between England and Germany I raised a volunteer ambulance corps in
London consisting of the then resident Indians in London, chiefly
students. Its work was acknowledged by the authorities to be valuable.
Lastly in India when a special appeal was made at the War Conference in
Delhi in 1917 by Lord Chelmsford for recruits, I struggled at the cost
of my health to raise a corps in Kheda and the response was being made
when the hostilities ceased and orders were received that no more
recruits were wanted. In all these efforts at service I was actuated by
the belief that was possible by such services to gain a status of full
equality in the Empire for my countrymen.
The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt Act a law designed to
rob the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to lead an
intensive agitation against it. Then followed the Punjab horrors
beginning with the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and culminating in
crawling orders, public floggings and other indescribable humiliations.
I discovered too that the plighted word of the Prime Minister to the
Mussulmans of India regarding the integrity of Turkey and the holy
places of Islam was not likely to be fulfilled. But in spite of the
foreboding and the grave warnings of friends, at the Amritsar Congress
in 1919 I fought for co-operation and working the Montagu-Chelmsford
reforms, hoping that the Prime Minister would redeem his promise to the
Indian Mussulmans, that the Punjab wound would be healed and that the
reforms inadequate and unsatisfactory though they were, marked a new era
of hope in the life of India.
But all that hope was shattered. The Khilafat promise was not to be
redeemed. The Punjab crime was white-washed and most culprits went not
only unpunished but remained in service and some continued to draw
pensions from the Indian revenue, and in some cases were rewarded. I saw
too that not only did the reforms not mark a change of heart, but they
were only a method of further draining India of her wealth and of
prolonging her servitude.
I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had
made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and
economically. A disarmed India has no power of resistance against any
aggressor if she wanted to engage in an armed conflict with him. So much
is this the case that some of our best men consider that India must take
generations before she can achieve the Dominion status. She has become
so poor that she has little power of resisting famines. Before the
British advent India spun and wove in her millions of cottages just the
supplement she needed for adding to her meagre agricultural resources.
The cottage industry, so vital for India's existence, has been ruined by
incredibly heartless and inhuman processes as described by English
witnesses. Little do town-dwellers know how the semi-starved masses of
Indians are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they know that
their miserable comfort represents the brokerage they get for the work
they do for the foreign exploiter, that the profits and the brokerage
are sucked from the masses. Little do they realise that the Government
established by law in British India is carried on for this exploitation
of the masses. No sophistry, no jugglery in figures can explain away the
evidence the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have
no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town-dwellers of India
will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against
humanity which is perhaps unequalled in history. The law itself in this
country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased
examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to believe that
at least ninety-five per cent of convictions were wholly bad. My
experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion that
in nine out of every ten the condemned men were totally innocent. Their
crime consisted in love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of
hundred justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the
Court of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience
of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my
opinion the administration of the law is thus prostituted consciously or
unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter.
The greatest misfortune is that Englishmen and their Indian associates
in the administration of the country do not know that they are engaged
in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many
English and Indian officials honestly believe that they are
administering one of the best systems devised in the world and that
India is making steady though slow progress. They do not know that a
subtle but effective system of terrorism and an organised display of
force on the one hand and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation
or self-defence on the other have emasculated the people and induced in
them the habit of simulation. This awful habit has added to the
ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators. Section 124-A
under which I am happily charged is perhaps the prince among the
political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the
liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by
law. If one has no affection for a person or thing one should be free to
give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not
contemplate, promote or incite to violence. But the section under which
Mr. Banker and I are charged is one under which mere promotion of
disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under
it, and I know that some of the most loved of India's patriots have been
convicted under it. I consider it a privilege therefore, to be charged
under it. I have endeavoured to give in their briefest outline the
reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill-will against any
single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection towards the
King's person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a
Government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any
previous system. India is less manly under the British rule than she
ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to
have affection for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for
me to be able to write what I have in the various articles tendered in
evidence against me.
In fact I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by
showing in non-co-operation the way out of the unnatural state in which
both are living. In my humble opinion, non-co-operation with evil
is as much a duty as is co-operation with good. But in the past,
non-co-operation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the
evildoer. I am endeavouring to show to my countrymen that violent
non-co-operation only multiplies evil and that as evil can only be
sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete
abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to
the penalty for non-co-operation with evil. I am here, therefore, to
invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be
inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears
to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you,
the Judge and the Assessors, is either to resign your posts and thus
dissociate yourselves from evil if you feel that the law you are called
upon to administer is an evil and that in reality I am innocent, or to
inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and
the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this
country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the public weal.
M. K. GANDHI.
APPENDIX XXII
_List of Riots or Disturbances since the year 1919._
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Province | Brief description.
Date |
Place of Disturbance. |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bombay | A leading wealthy member of the Gandhi
26th May 1919 | community was celebrating the marriages of some
Godhra, Panch Mahals. | of his sons and nephews. It appears that
| feeling was running high between the two
| sections of the community as some of the brides
| had previously been betrothed or promised to
| persons of the other party. The trouble began
| when one of the party let off potash bombs. The
| Gandhis then began to assemble and an
| altercation ensued which ended in a fight in
| which broken bricks and pieces of wood were
| freely used. The police on the spot finding
| that the fracas became serious, had to resort
| to firing. On arrival of more police, the crowd
| dispersed. The District Magistrate succeeded in
| getting both the parties reconciled to each
| other.
|
| Two rioters were injured; six policemen
| received injuries from bricks.
|
Bombay | Some military sepoys on duty purchased liquor,
11th June 1919 | and when the police constable on duty demanded
Deesa Cantonment. | the name of the purchaser in accordance with
| the Cantonment Magistrate's orders, they
| refused to give the name and beat the
| constable. When one sepoy was arrested, the
| others interfered and attacked the constable.
| Three sepoys were then arrested and put in the
| lock up. The Sub-Inspector of Police persuaded
| about 200 of the men to leave the bazaar but
| not before the lock up was broken, the
| prisoners released and several policemen were
| injured.
|
| Six policemen were injured, two of them being
| in a serious condition.
|
Bombay | One Sania Dipsing of Kanoda was terrorizing the
18th June 1919 | neighbourhood, committing robbery, frequently
Kanoda, Panch Mahals. | though mostly of trivial articles. When
| warrants were issued for his and his brothers
| arrest he openly defied the authorities and
| even threatened to kill the police or anyone
| who tried to arrest him with a _dharaia_. As
| he could not be persuaded to surrender the
| District Magistrate ordered the arrest of the
| brothers, by using force if necessary. Sania's
| brothers and parents all armed with
| _dharaia_, clubs and pickaxes, and Sania
| armed with a gun resisted the arrest. The
| police were compelled to fire in self-defence
| with fatal results.
|
| Sania's mother and two brothers were killed.
| Sania himself was wounded.
|
Madras | In an attempt to enforce a decree obtained in
22nd September 1919 | the civil court the Hindus with police
Nellore. | protection took a procession with music through
| the main bazar where there are mosques. They
| and the police were attacked by the Muhammadans
| and the police compelled to fire.
|
| Two Muhammadens killed and two wounded.
|
Bombay | Abnormal conditions in Bombay due to general
20th January 1920 | strike of mill-hands and other industrial
Bombay. | unrest.
|
| One striker killed. One seriously wounded, 8
| policemen, 1 police officer, 1 lorry driver and
| a Magistrate injured. One private individual
| killed and one woman injured by strikers
| stoning trams.
|
Do. | Renewed attack made by strikers, police were
26th January 1920 | compelled to fire.
Do. |
| One striker was wounded.
|
Do. | A police party was engaged in protecting a
30th January 1920 | faction in the village against the attacks of
Nandvaji village Bijapur | the rival faction when it found itself in the
district. | presence of a large body of rioters with
| sticks, axes and stones and fearing attack on
| themselves the police fired two shots in the
| air and one on the men in front.
|
| Three wounded.
|
Do. | During the strike of mill-hands at Sholapur
16th February 1920 | some 8,000 mill-hands who had struck work
Sholapur. | surrounded the District Magistrate and refused
| to disperse when ordered to do so, by the
| District Magistrate. They became violent and
| began to stone officers and troops. The
| District Magistrate was compelled to order
| firing. It was only after the military arrived
| that the disturbance ceased.
|
| Four killed. Huzur Deputy Commissioner was
| injured.
|
Bihar and Orissa | A general strike of the workers at the Tata
15th March 1920 | iron and steel Works, Jamshedpur began on the
Jamshedpur. | 24th February and continued for nearly a month.
| As the strike proceeded, the attitude of the
| strikers grew more hostile, those men who
| wished to work were intimidated, the gates of
| the works were picketed and the guards at the
| gates more than once stoned. The local
| Government despatched a large body of armed and
| military police to the spot for the protection
| of life and property and were compelled also to
| obtain assistance of regular British troops
| from Calcutta. On the 15th March the strikers
| obstructed the railway lines between the works
| and Tatanagar Railway station and made a most
| determined attack on the armed police sent out
| to clear the obstruction. The police were
| compelled to fire in self-defence and to fall
| back towards the works.
|
| Killed 5, wounded 23.
|
Bombay | A fracas took place in the Hur Criminal Tribes
14th April 1920 | settlement of Jalalai Nawabshah, Sind, in the
Jalalani Nawabshah. | course of which one Fatu Mari was attacked by a
| number of Hurs who belaboured him with lathis
| and blows. As his wife was in danger a
| Sub-Inspector ordered the mob to stop. The
| crowd made an attempt to attack the
| Sub-Inspector who finding his own life in
| danger ordered firing in self-defence and also
| with the object of quelling the disturbance.
|
| Six wounded.
|
Madras | The attempt to register the kallars under
April 1920 | Criminal Tribes Act brought about a serious
Perungamanallur, | collision between them and the police. On
Madura distt. | account of their defiant and aggressive
| attitude, the police had to open fire.
|
| Eleven killed.
|
Do. | A Hindu marriage procession passing a mosque
May 1920 | came into conflict with the Muhammadans. A
Muthupet in Tanjore | fight ensued and to clear the street the police
district. | had to open fire.
|
| One man was slightly wounded.
|
Do. | During a strike in the Burma Oil Company some
17th May 1920 | Pathans were brought from Bombay to carry on
Madras. | the work. An altercation between them and the
| local coolies resulted in a riot which required
| the presence of the armed police reserve to
| quell it.
|
| One Pathan was killed; there was also minor
| casualties on both sides.
|
Bombay | On 29th May an affray took place between the
29th May 1920 | police and certain Jagiranis near Durbar in the
Dubar Sukkur District. | Sukkur district, Sind. The police received a
| complaint that two buffaloes had been stolen by
| some Jagiranis. A Police party went in search
| of the criminals and having found them seized
| and arrested the offenders. On their return
| journey they were attacked by about 30
| Jagiranis two of whom were armed with guns.
| Those guns were fired at the police party and
| the Jagiranis closed in with their
| _lathis_. A general free fight ensued and
| the police seeing that they were overwhelmed by
| weight of numbers, fired in self defence. The
| Jagiranis then ran off, leaving their wounded.
|
| One killed, one wounded, also five policemen
| injured.
|
North-West Frontier | At Kachagarhi a collision occurred between
Province | troops and Muhajarins.
8th July 1920 |
Kachagarhi. | Killed one Muhajir.
|
Punjab | The Khilafat party asked a theatrical company
25th August 1920 | to give the proceeds of their last performance
Kasur. | to the Khilafat Fund. The company declined and
| was attacked at night. The police arrived on
| the Scene and used fire-arms.
|
| One killed and two wounded.
|
United Provinces | During the Muharram festival an attack was made
23rd September 1920 | on a Hindu temple at Pilibhit. The police fired
Pilibhit. | a few rounds in the air.
|
| One wounded who subsequently died.
|
Madras | Buckingham Mills. Perambur. The police lorry
9th December 1920 | which was taking the coolies from the mills to
Madras. | the harbour was subjected to persistent and
| violent stoning by strikers. The police opened
| fire.
|
| Sixteen persons were wounded, two of whom died.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
_List of Riots or Disturbances and disturbances since the year 1921_.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Province | Brief description.
Date |
Place of Disturbance. |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
United Provinces | Agrarian disturbances in Rae Bareilly and
7th January 1921 | Fyzabad Districts accompanied by extensive
Rae Berilli Distt. | looting.
|
United Provinces | District Rae Barielly. Police party besieged in
24th January 1921 | a house after one of their number was killed.
... |
|
Punjab | Serious riot at Tarn Taran.
26th January 1921 |
Tarn. | Killed 3
| Wounded 14
|
Bombay | A riot occurred between two parties of
9th January 1921 | Muhammadans in the Kolaba district during the
Kolaba Distt. | course of a flag procession. The sub-Inspector
| of Police who was in charge lost his head and
| fired in the air.
|
| No casualities.
|
United Provinces | A large crowd held up a train with the object
29th January 1921 | of rescuing a man arrested for his complicity
Goshaingunj Railway | in the agrarian riots. The police who were
Station, Fyzabad Distt. | attacked, fired wounding one man, several
| others were hit with stray pellets.
|
| One rioter wounded.
|
Bengal | An affray took place between a Muhammadan and a
4th-5th February 1921 | Gurkha Durwan of a Jute Mill resulting in a
Naihati. | General fracas between Muhammadan coolies of
| the Mill and Gurkha durwans in which a few
| Gurkhas were killed and other injured. It was
| considered doubtful whether there was any
| political significance.
|
Bihar and Orissa | Strikes at the East India Railway Colliery,
7th February 1921 | Giridih, District Hazaribagh, Bihar and Orissa.
Giridih. |
|
United Provinces | Strike on the Oudh and Rohilkhand Railway,
10th February 1921 | Punjab Mail stoned and Magistrate assaulted.
... |
|
Bengal | Riot in Kalighat section of Calcutta Tramway by
18th February 1921 | strikers.
Calcutta. |
|
Bihar and Orissa | District Sarat, Bihar and Orissa. Police while
18th February 1921 | investigating complaint against locally
Saran. | self-constituted panchayet were assaulted.
|
Punjab | Nankana Sahib affair in Punjab.
19th-20th February 1921 |
Nankana. |
|
Central Provinces | Disturbances of Nagpur arising out of
21st-25th February 1921 | temperance campaign of non-co-operators.
Nagpur. |
|
Bengal | Strike accompanied by rioting at Lillooah
March 1921 | workshops.
Lillooah. |
|
Bombay | Hartal at Karachi accompanied by violence of
March 1921 | mob.
Karachi. |
|
Central Province | Rioting during excise sales. Five liquor shops
March 1921 | Cracked. Mob fired on by police, one policeman
Nagpur. | killed and 15 injured, 9 rioters killed and 14
| wounded.
|
United Provinces | In the course of the riots which took place on
20th and 21st March 1921 | the 20th March, the police were compelled to
Karhaiya, Rae Barelli | fire on two occasions. The riot started by the
District. | arrest of two men who had been prohibited from
| speaking and who were haranguing the crowd.
|
| Killed 4
| Wounded 12
|
Assam | Halem Tea Estate, Assam. Strike by tea garden
21st March 1921 | labourers who assaulted officials of tea
... | garden.
|
Bengal | Outbreak in Rajshahi Jail in Bengal.
24th March 1921 |
Rajshahi. |
|
Madras | Riots at Kumbakonam due to labour strikes.
3rd April 1921 |
Kumbakonam. |
|
Punjab | Riot at Kamalia, Montgomery District, Punjab,
6th April 1921 | owing to dispute over Prem Sati Gurdwara.
Kamalia. |
|
Bengal | Ghusuri Jute Mill Bengal. Riot accompanied by
15th April 1921 | violence; manager seriously injured.
Ghusuri. |
|
Bombay | Riot at Shikarpur, Bombay, when
19th April 1921 | non-co-operators interfered with yearly meeting
Shikarpur. | of Pritman Dharma Sabha.
|
Bihar and Orissa | Owing to trial of a non-co-operation
25th April 1921 | volunteer, 10,000 people at Giridih, District
Giridih. | Hazaribagh, endeavoured to storm sub-jail,
| looted police station and burnt records.
|
Bombay | Disturbances at Malegaon, Bombay, arising
25th April 1921 | out of trial of Khilafat Volunteers.
Malegaon. | Sub-Inspector of Police and four constables
| killed.
|
Madras | Disturbance at Ottapalam, Madras; fight between
26th April 1921 | Reserve Police and khilafat volunteers.
Ottapalam. |
|
Bihar and Orissa | S.D.O. Sitamarhi, (District Muzuffarpur, Bihar
May 1921 | and Orissa) compelled to leave Mela; public
Sitamarhi. | intimidated.
|
Bengal | Riot in Kanchrapara workshops, Eastern Bengal
11th May 1921 | State Railway. Several thousands took part in
Kanchrapara. | riot caused by strikers of Eastern Bengal State
| Railway workshops, Kanchrapara.
|
Bengal | Riot accompanied with violence occurred at
16th May 1921 | Kaloj Valley Tea Estate, Darjeeling District.
Kaloj Valley. |
|
Assam | Trouble at Chandpur in connection with tea
19th-20th 1921 | garden labourers leaving Assam.
Chandpur. |
|
United Provinces | Serious affray in Mahagaon, District Allahabad.
22nd May 1921 |
Mahagaon. |
|
Bombay | Disturbances at Tata Mills Limited, Dadar,
26th June 1921 | Bombay.
Bombay. |
|
Bombay | Riots at Dharwar, Bombay, arising from liquor
1st July 1921 | shop picketing.
Dharwar. |
|
Madras | Strikes in Buckingham and Karnatic Mills,
July 1921 | Madras, began accompanied by wide-spread arson.
Madras. |
|
United Provinces | Riot at Aligarh arising out of trial of a
5th July 1921 | non-co-operators.
Aligarh. |
|
United Provinces | Serious riot at Bariha village, District
13th July 1921 | Lucknow.
Bariha. |
|
Bengal | Disturbances and disorders occurred in Bengal,
July 1921 | both in Calcutta and at Chittagong, during
Chittagong. | trial of non-co-operators.
|
Bombay | Disturbances at Matiari arising out of
21st July 1921 | interference by non-co-operators with an Aman
Matiari. | Sabha meeting.
|
Bombay | Picketing of liquor shops at Karachi caused
July 1921 | cases of obstruction and assault; one leading
Karachi. | agitator rescued by crowd from police; when
| convicted mob threw stones at Police and
| passers by; various Europeans and Indians were
| hurt.
|
Bengal | Riot at Jamalpur workshops of the East Indian
1st August 1921 | Railway resulting from _hartal_.
Jamalpur. |
|
Bombay | Two British soldiers had an altercation with a
1st August 1921 | Musalman in a hotel and when they came out were
Karachi. | assaulted by a mob. One soldier was severely
| injured. The affray was not due to political
| feelings.
|
Bombay | Some 7,300 employees of the Great Indian
17th August 1921 | Peninsula Railway Workshops at Parel demanded
Bombay. | increased wages struck work. They stoned the
| time-keeper's office and afterwards set it on
| fire together with the records; the office of
| the workshops' Manager was also wrecked. Some
| members of the Auxiliary Force who were
| employed in the Works succeeded in quelling the
| riot and dispersing the mob.
|
22nd August 1921. | One man was wounded in the thigh with a
| bayonet.
|
Do. | Strikes in the Jacob and E. D. Sassoon Mills.
25th August 1921 | This terminated on 8th and 12th September.
... |
|
United Provinces | There was an affray between police and British
September 1921 | soldiers. A Sub-Inspector and a British officer
Kailana, Chakrata U. P. | were killed. All the British soldiers and
| officers were tried and were acquitted.
|
Madras City | A serious riot occurred between the Hindus and
5th October 1921 | the Anti-Dravidas which necessitated the
... | opening of fire by the police. The
| Anti-Dravidas were responsible for insulting a
| Muhammadan funeral procession, and attacking a
| Hindu procession.
|
Beneres | An attempt made by a sub-inspector to search a
October 1921 | cloth-shop in the village whereupon a
... | disturbance arose and he ordered his escort to
| fire in the air. The Ahirs concerned seized the
| opportunity to attack police whilst their guns
| were empty. The police fled, the sub-inspector
| as far as Meerut. A second sub-inspector came
| to the rescue. A melee ensued in which a
| constable was killed by a lathi blow; two
| villagers were wounded by gun-shot wounds.
|
Darrang District, Assam | Strike of tea garden coolies. The European
14th October 1921 | Managers as well as the Superintendent of
... | Police were assaulted and some of the Indian
| members of the garden staff were injured.
| Fifty-two arrests were made.
|
Ahmedabad | Thirty one out of 47 mills closed down
26th October 1921 | demanding higher wages; but this soon ended.
Bombay. |
|
Bengal | The conviction of Mr. J N. Gupta on a charge of
26th October 1921 | picketing led to a slight disturbance on his
Chitagong. | way to the Jail. A crowd gathered and assaulted
| the Gurkha Guard who dispersed them and
| assaulted butts of their rifles.
|
Bengal | Two persons wearing Khilafat badges were
24th October 1921 | arrested. They resisted the Police. A crowd
Calcutta. | quickly gathered. A number of arrests were made
| the men being conducted to the police station
| amidst a shower of brickbats.
|
Bengal | Strike of tramway employees.
25th October 1921 |
Calcutta. |
|
Bihar and Orissa | Serious trouble occurred at Bagaha Police
October 1921 | Station, West Champaran, the Chatawar Factory
Champaran. | was burnt down and three persons were killed.
|
Punjab | On the afternoon of the 30th October 1921 a mob
30th October 1921 | of between 150 and 200 convicts made a
Lahore. | determined and evidently a preconcerted attempt
| to break out of the Lahore Central Jail. They
| overpowered the guard of the inner gate and
| forced their way to the outer gate where they
| succeeded in breaking the lock of the wicket.
|
| The Jail officials had to fire at this point
| and succeed in driving back the convicts. Three
| of the convicts were killed and thirty-three
| wounded.
|
Bengal | Processions were formed at night after a
4th November 1921 | Khilafat meeting had been held on the Howrah
Howrah. | maidan. One of these attacked the police on
| duty and forced them to retire on the thana.
| Armed police were requisitioned from Sibpore
| and, though attacked _en route_, succeeded
| in relieving the thana. During the disturbances
| some shots were fired.
|
| One constable was killed and several wounded.
| Five rioters were killed.
|
Bengal | An attempt was made to withhold food supplies
November 1921 | from the Settlement Officer, Mr. McPherson who
Bogra. | was assaulted when he visited the _hat_ for
| the purpose.
|
Bengal | A serious riot occurred in Howrah Town after a
4th November 1921 | Khilafat meeting when processions were formed.
Calcutta. | One of these attacked the Police who retired to
| the thana. Armed police were requisitioned from
| Sibpore and were attacked _en route_. They,
| however, succeeded in relieving the
| thana. Some shots were fired by the Police and
| two rifles were lost. One constable was killed
| and several were wounded and whilst the
| Assistant Magistrate was injured on the head.
|
Bengal | An attempt was made to renew the tramway
14th November 1921 | service in Shambazar with the result that a
Calcutta. | serious disturbance occurred at the Balgachia
| Depot. The police force being insufficient, the
| military were summoned but before this the
| Assistant Commissioner of Police Mr. Bartley
| was seriously assaulted and about 20 police
| injured and so were several rioters.
|
Coorg | Following on arrest of six Mahomedans on charge
17th November 1921 | of unlawful assembly a mob numbering thousands
Bangalore. | surrounded Broadway Police station, prevented
| removal of prisoners who had refused bail to
| judicial lock-up in Bangalore Central Jail. As
| Police force was inadequate, military aid was
| requisitioned. As detachment of military
| reached Police station, determined rush was
| made on rear. In the melee four or five shots
| were fired. Officer Commanding was individually
| attacked by man with a stick. There was heavy
| stone throwing.
|
| Two rioters were killed and six injured; 16 men
| of the Dorset Regiment were injured.
|
Burma | Serious riot occurred on 13th night due to
17th November 1921 | attempt by large number of Burmese monks to
Rangoon. | obtain free entrance to the Pwes in Shwedagon
| Pagoda during pagoda festival.
|
| Not known. One unknown Burman killed. Among the
| police there were three serious and many minor
| casualties.
|
Bombay | People returning from seeing the arrival of the
17th-20th November 1921 | Prince were molested. On 18th rioting became
Bombay. | general. Europeans and Parsis were attacked and
| liquor shops, etc, were set on fire. Military
| aid was requisitioned.
|
| Two Europeans, one American and two Parsis were
| killed. Three Europeans and an unknown number
| of Parsis were wounded. Eighty-three police
| were wounded. Of the rioters 53 were killed and
| 298 wounded. Not all the deaths from gunshot
| wounds were due to the police and military, as
| several dead and wounded men were found in
| localities where the authorities had not opened
| fire.
|
Madras | On the 4th December 1921, a number of
4th December 1921 | Moplah-convicts and under-trial prisoners in
Cannanore. | the Cannanore Central Jail, ultimately
| numbering about 150, began rioting and
| attempted to break out of the Jail. Breaking
| open a tool shed they armed themselves with
| chisels, iron bars, etc., and attacked warders
| who attempted to obstruct their escape. As the
| prisoners disregarded warnings, firing had to
| be ordered to prevent their overpowering the
| guard by force of number.
|
| Seven of the prisoners were killed outright and
| four wounded by the firing. Two of these
| subsequently died. One prisoner died of a
| fractured skull and nine were wounded otherwise
| than by firing.
|
Punjab | A determined attempt was made by a mob to
23rd December 1921 | rescue 12 non-co-operators who were arrested
Fezorepur. | for having recourse to violence. The police
| were forced to fire on the 24th a large number
| assembled to renew the attack, but Alwar troops
| and Reserve Police dispersed them.
|
| Three rioters were killed and several wounded.
|
Bengal | Owing to disturbed state of locality,
28th December 1921 | thirty-two armed Police were sent to
Rungpur. | Nilphamari. A halt was made in the bazar during
| a route march, and an altercation took place
| between a policeman and a servant of a local
| gentleman. A crowd speedily collected and began
| throwing missiles. March was continued followed
| by crowd who became increasingly menacing and
| broke through ranks of police. Some shots fired
| in the air.
|
| Eight policemen were injured. Eight of public
| were also injured.
|
United Provinces | On the 30th December 21, 32 inmates of Bareilly
29th December 1921 | Juvenile Jail refused to work on the grounds
Bareilly. | that a certain political prisoner had been
| removed from their midst. (He had been sent to
| hospital in consequence of illness.) Owing to
| influence of political prisoners the youths,
| who numbered about 190, were completely out of
| hand. They broke open almirahs, took out tools,
| broke open locks and gates and attempted to
| scale walls. It was necessary to call up the
| armed guard and to order firing. Sixteen shots
| were fired, several of them in the air. None of
| the gunshot wounds are serious, an inquiry by
| District Magistrate shows that no unnecessary
| violence was used. (This account is taken from
| a communique published in the Press, as no
| official report has been received from the
| United Provinces Government.)
|
| Eight of the prisoners were injured by gunshots
| mostly in the legs, and nine with batons.
|
Madras | On the occasion of the arrival of His Royal
13th January 1922 | Highness the Prince of Wales in Madras there
Madras. | were disturbances in Madras City. An official
| report has not yet been received, but from
| accounts in the Press it appears that the
| excesses of the mob were such that it was
| necessary to call out the military and to
| resort to firing.
|
| According to Press accounts, five or six
| rioters were killed. Other casualities not
| known.
|
Burma | A party of police were despatched to prevent a
15th January 1922 | buffalo fight. They were attacked on arrival by
Hokyobo Kwin, near Mada | a crowd of between three hundred and five
village, Thingangyan. | hundred. The police made six arrests but the
| crowd attacked them with sticks, stones and
| bottles and they had to let their prisoners go
| and to retreat towards the police station.
| Later the villagers again attacked the police
| and one villager cut a head constable with a
| _dah_ on the fore-arm and attempted to seize
| his carbine. Another head constable came
| to the rescue and in the scuffle the carbine
| went off and the original assailant was shot in
| the abdomen. As villagers continued to attack,
| a head constable fired twice into the crowd.
| The police then made good their escape.
|
| One villager killed, two severely wounded,
| seven slightly wounded; one head constable cut
| on forearm, one head constable incised wound on
| head, two constables slight cuts about arms and
| several hit by missiles.
|
Bengal | The Superintendent of police while touring in
21st January 1922 | his car was met with a shower of brick-bats and
Noakhali. | the S.D.O. was attacked by about 200 men.
|
Sub-division, Patna | A sub-inspector and 3 constables attempted to
Do. | arrest three volunteers who were picketing some
Sirajgung. | liquor shops. A crowd gathered and succeeded in
| separating and beating the constables. The
| sub-inspector fled. The mob then went in search
| of the excise sub-inspector and having failed
| to find him, they looted the ganja and liquor
| shop. In the course of this incident one rifle
| was lost by the police.
|
| Several instances of vigorous picketing
| occurred in this neighbourhood through which
| the D.M. and Superintendent of Police decided
| to have a route march. They arrived at
| Salangahat with two head constables and 23
| constables of armed police. A number of
| volunteers had collected here and as the Deputy
| Magistrate received complaints of interference
| several were arrested. A crowd of about 2,000
| then gathered and pelted the police. Every
| effort was made to disperse the crowd.
| Eventually after the Deputy Superintendent of
| Police had been hit with a lathi the Magistrate
| ordered fire to be opened first with buckshot,
| and when this proved unavailing, with ball. The
| crowd then dispersed leaving 4 dead and 6
| wounded.
|
Dacca District | Certain bad characters attacked the police in
23rd January 1922. | the course of effecting some arrests; the
| latter fired killing one volunteer.
|
Titagarh Jute Mills | Three mill hands were wanted in connection with
26th January 1922. | an assault on the Manager and Assistant
| Manager. Two arrests were made which resulted
| in the collection of a threatening crowd who
| hemmed in the police against the wall of the
| mill. After failing to get in touch with the
| Sub Divisional Magistrate over the telephone
| the Deputy Superintendent ordered first one and
| then several of his men to fire. One man was
| killed and another died subsequently.
| Altogether 40 were reported to have been
| wounded, seven were sent to hospital.
|
United Provinces | An attempt to picket Muderwa bazar and prevent
1st February 1922 | sales of fish, drugs and liquor had been
Chauri Chaura. | frustrated by police. Also an Ahir (gowli
| caste) Government pensioner, who was a previous
| convict and had become volunteer, was called up
| and threatened with loss of his pension. The
| volunteers, determined on Saturday, that is the
| next bazar day, to forcibly picket the bazar
| and overawe all opposition by their numbers.
| The owner of the bazar is a loyal zaminder. The
| volunteers proceeded to the bazar through the
| police station grounds. They attacked the
| police station with kunkars and bricks.
| Eventually the police fired in the air. The
| attack was renewed with greater force. The mob
| rushed the police and they fled, some into the
| fields and some into the buildings. A few
| police must have fired on the mob in earnest,
| but it cannot be said whether it was before the
| rush or not. Buildings were set on fire and all
| the force there except one constable and one
| chaukidar, who escaped were brutally beaten to
| death and then burnt. Also a little boy servant
| of the Sub Inspector was murdered. Resistance
| to the mob was, I fear, badly organised. Then
| the mob tore up two rails on the line, cut
| telegraph wires and scattered.
|
| Twenty-one police and chaukidars killed & two
| rioters.
|
Bihar and Orissa | Two Indian boys quarrelled in Railway Works,
3rd February 1922 | Jamalpur. One as result being rendered
Jamalpur. | unconscious. Action taken by Railway
| authorities who dismissed two men did not
| satisfy popular demand for removal of head
| maistry and on 10th an attempt was made to
| assault him in office which was stoned. Works
| manager asked men in foundry either to work or
| leave and as they refused to do either they
| were locked out on 11th and stoned men
| arriving. Crowd at Jamalpur was dispersed but
| many workmen came in by local trains from
| outside where trains were held up and line
| tampered with. District Magistrate regards
| situation as serious and fears sabotage.
| Military police arrived on evening 11th.
| Trouble expected 13th when shops re-open.
|
United Provinces | A defiant challenge was given this morning in
5th February 1922 | the city by about 5,000 volunteers who went out
Bareilly. | in procession despite prohibition. The
| processions were dispersed flags seized and the
| bands silenced. The volunteers and crowd
| rallied at the Town Hall. The police seized the
| Congress office, tore down and burnt the flags.
| Later a crowd which was reinforced by outside
| help attempted to seize Town Hall and a charge
| by the police met with vollies of brickbats.
| The situation with the number of men available
| was impossible to hold.
|
| By the District Magistrate's orders fire was
| opened by the police and the attack repelled.
| The crowds remained hostile. With military
| assistance the situation in now in hand. No
| firing was done by the military. The District
| Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police
| were wounded in the face by brickbats. So far
| as known two are killed and five wounded. The
| city is in the hands of the military. The
| District Magistrate personally satisfied
| himself that the firing was absolutely
| justified. Six men have been arrested including
| Abdul Wadeed, Trebeni Sahai, Moti Singh Vakil
| and Damodar Sarup. All is quiet now.
|
| One man killed on the spot, two since died in
| hospital five wounded now in hospital including
| one woman.
|
Assam | A riot occured at Jamumamukh on the 15th among
15th February 1922 | Khilafat Volunteers and Sylhet settlers.
Jamumamukh. | Convicted prisoners were forcibly released and
| a mail train was held up by the removal of
| sleepers and stoned.
|
Do. | Commissioner, Surma Valley, who is in camp at
16th February 1922 | Kanaighat was dispersing forbidden meeting when
Sylhet. | a large body of Lathials attacked the Police
| from behind. Armed Police turned to meet them
| when in spite of warning they came right on
| Commissioner who was hit on head by clods of
| earth and was narrowly missed with lathies. He
| called on the police to fire; several rounds
| were fired, resulting in about 8 casualties. As
| soon as firing stopped men swarmed back in
| great numbers. Police force then returned to
| thana. One rifle was lost. It is reported that
| reinforcements from Auxiliary Force stationed
| at Sylhet and Karimganj are proceeding to spot.
|
| Three police constables killed and three
| wounded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX XXIII
The Honourable Sir William Vincent's Speech at the Legislative Assembly,
18th January 1922
I say, Sir, from that time we have always avoided systematically and
steadily any excessive severity _vis a vis_ this movement. Later, there
were a number of seditious speeches, including incitements to violence,
particularly by Mr. Muhammad Ali and his brother, and Government were
prepared to take action against them. What ensued is well known to the
Members of this Assembly. There were meetings between Mr. Gandhi and His
Excellency, and later Muhammad Ali and his brother offered to the public
certain undertakings on which the Government withdrew the prosecutions
against them. In a letter of June, 1921, addressed to Local Governments
after this undertaking we indeed expressed some hope that it might be
possible to reduce the number of prosecutions. We were anxious not to
force the pace and although we always maintained our determination to
keep order, we sought to avoid over-drastic action against the less
dangerous or less violent adherents of the movement. At the same time we
indicated to Local Governments that they were not to prosecute persons,
the prosecution of whom might have great effect outside the province,
without consulting the Government of India. In that letter, further, we
invited Local Governments to give certain other convicted persons the
same _locus poenitentiae_ which had been given to Muhammad Ali and his
brother. We have throughout avoided very carefully any suggestion, any
action which might create the impression that we desire to interfere
with a legitimate political movement. I defy any Member of this Assembly
to say otherwise. We have indeed frequently been reproached with
weakness on this account. I maintain that it was not weakness but
patience. At the same time, we made every effort to meet the legitimate
wishes of educated opinion in this country. I have no time to-day to
recapitulate all we have done but I should like to mention such matters
as the compensation to persons injured in the Punjab disorders, the
further review of the Punjab sentences, the Committee on the Press Act,
the results of which will be before this Assembly very shortly; again,
the Committee on repressive measures and the Committee to inquire into
racial distinctions in criminal proceedings. In fact, there was no
question that came before us in which we did not honestly seek to meet
moderate Members of the Assembly in order to consolidate the moderate
party into a great working power in the country for good. What has been
response of Mr. Gandhi and his followers? I maintain that it has been
one steady stream of sedition, one steady attempt to subvert Government,
one method of promoting this object being adopted after another.
Sometimes it has been the boycott of piece goods in order to injure
British trade, although Mr. Gandhi had himself I believe, at one time
said that 'boycott' was a word that was entirely inconsistent with his
principle of 'Ahimsa'. Later this movement took the form of attempts on
the loyalty of our troops attempts on the police and there were constant
incitements to disorder. These have resulted in serious outbreaks of
violence in many parts of the country, the most important of which was
the Moplah outbreak. Sir, there has recently been some attempt to
minimise the cruelties committed by the Moplahs in Malabar. I refer in
particular to the remarks of Mr. Abdul Bari and Mr. Husrat Mohani on
this subject. Mr. Abdul Bari spoke of the pure spirit of the Moplahs and
denied the veracity of the accounts of their atrocities. Mr. Husrat
Mohani justifies them in the following words:
"At such a critical juncture when they are engaged in war against the
English, their Hindu neighbours not only do not help them or observe
neutrality but aid and assist the English in every possible way. They
can indeed contend that, while they are fighting a defensive war for the
sake of their religion and have left their houses, property and
belongings, and taken refuge in the hills and jungles, it is unfair to
characterise as plunder their commandeering of money, provisions and
other necessities for their troops from the English and their
supporters."
Many of us, however, have, I believe, some knowledge of the atrocities
committed by these men, atrocities which I am certain in my mind that
every Mussalman in this House deplores as deeply as I do, and they will
appreciate what a misrepresentation of the facts this is. The
barbarities of the Moplahs have been indefensible. I will cite one
instance '_New India_' in support of what I say. Writing of a
respectable Nair, an article in this paper states:
'When on the 26th he threatened other steps, the rebels forced their way
into his house, dragged him out, along with his wife and two children
carried them to the mosque and bathed all four and compelled them to
recite verses from the Koran and dress as Moplahs. At mid-night they
were led home and imprisoned. Next day the deponent's head was shaved
and ten days later a certain notorious criminal (now in custody)
forcibly circumcised the deponent. Three weeks later he and his family
and other converts (some being Christians) escaped to Shoranur.'
Sir, I am one of those who have been to Malabar, I have seen myself
refugees, a thousand in one refuge, hungry, homeless, lacking clothes,
and I can assure Members of this Assembly that it was a pitiable sight
to see. I only mention the facts because this attempt has been made and
because this rising, these acts of cruelty and murder are one of the
direct results of the Khilafat movement. I do not put it (I never have
put it) that Mr. Gandhi is responsible for this directly, but I do say
that his supporters--his Muhammadan supporters--were the cause of this
terrible loss of life. Indeed you have only got to read, Mr. Hasrat
Mohani's speech to see what the character of the rising was. Now, if the
Moplah outbreak had been an isolated instance of disorder, as I said in
the last Session, the Government might not have been forced to take
action against this non-co-operation movement. It might well have been
argued that the circumstances were exceptional. But have Members of this
Assembly read the report which is attached to the Repressive Measures
Committee? Have they read the appendix setting out a list of 34
outbreaks of disorders of a serious character within a year? Sir, we
have been told that after the declaration of policy by this Government
in March last, the non-co-operation movement was dying down. I think
that I am correct in making this statement; and I hope I am not
misrepresenting anybody. Is there any foundation for it? Does not every
Member of this Assembly know that that is absolutely inaccurate? Does
not every Member here know that the movement of disloyalty to the Crown,
intended to paralyse Government, intended to subvert the administration,
has been growing day by day throughout the year? Can any man here say
that actually the movement was losing strength? Do not these disorders
tell a different story--these outbreaks which culminated in the riots in
Bombay on the 17th November? Before I come to that however, I want to
deal with another point. May I inform this Assembly that, during the
present year, it has been necessary to call out the military to suppress
serious disorder no less than 47 times? May I tell them that, during the
last three months, military assistance has had to be invoked--I have
here the figures from His Excellency the Commander in-Chief--no less
than 19 times? Does that look as if the forces of disorder were losing
strength before the Government took this action?
And now, Sir, I want to turn to the rioting in Bombay in which the
lawless tendencies of those who follow Mr. Gandhi--not of Mr. Gandhi
himself--culminated. Bombay is a city in which Mr. Gandhi is supposed to
exercise the greatest influence. He himself was present there on the
17th November. The occasion was one, one would have thought, when at
least every loyal citizen of the Crown, whatever his political views,
would have avoided any disorder or riot. It was the occasion of the
landing of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, the heir to the
Throne of England. That was the occasion chosen by the non-co-operators
in Bombay for an outbreak of violence which, I believe, has not been
paralleled in that city for many many years, and what was the object of
those who embarked upon this campaign of violence? I say the object was
vengeance, vengeance on those who dared to go forth to welcome His Royal
Highness the Prince of Wales in spite of Mr. Gandhi's direction--that
was the sole crime of the unfortunate people so maltreated. That Sir, is
the result of non-violent non-co-operation. Was Mr. Gandhi able to
exercise any influence to stop the demand? Why, it was pathetic to read
his words next day. He was full of sorrow, but he had not thought of the
consequences of his act before. After all he had warning on previous
occasions. Well, Sir, I do not know that I need go through the events of
these terrible days. You have heard from my Honourable friend, Mr.
Dwaraka Das, how women were assaulted in the public streets; you have
read in the papers how harmless Europeans and Indians, including many
Parsis, were murdered, or assaulted, how one unfortunate engine driver,
going home from his work, a harmless individual, was suddenly attacked
and murdered by a cruel mob. All this was the result of this non-violent
movement. The reports say that it began in intimidation and that was not
checked, those who had been guilty of intimidation thought they could
proceed with impunity to violence. The damage done to property also--the
property of private individuals--was very great. I read in one report,
of 137 shops being looted and that is an under statement of all the
damage.
Now, let us see what was happening in other places on that day? In Delhi
there was _hartal_ enforced by systematic threats and intimidation. And
I assert here, and I dare any one to contradict me, that intimidation
was practised by men posing as volunteers; men dressed as volunteers who
paraded the streets and interfered with the liberty of law-abiding
citizens in a manner that is intolerable in any civilised community. Is
it surprising that we received many complaints actually of absolute want
of any Government control at the time? In Calcutta, again there was
_hartal_ promoted by general intimidation and violence on the part of
volunteers. It is idle for any one to deny it. Mr. Abdul Kasem and other
Members were in Calcutta and they know the facts. The Government of
Bengal, writing on the 26th November, reported that an incessant stream
of seditious speeches was being poured forth, that money was being
freely spent in the employment of paid agents; and here I may tell the
Assembly that many of these volunteers,--I do not say all of them
because that would be wrong,--but many of these volunteers are merely
paid men, paid a rupee a day, and, in fact when the supply of money
dries up,--and there have been places where this has happened,--the
supply of volunteers has run short. We were also told by the Bengal
Government that on the 17th there was general suspension of activities
of all kinds and the riff-raff of the city, under the guise of
volunteers, was abroad, terrorising and abusing law-abiding folk, and
there were numerous instances of molestations of Europeans and Indians.
The authority of Government was openly flouted; and law abiding citizens
were depressed because of Government's failure to protect them, I have
got instances here of the different kinds of speeches made in Bengal. I
do not think I need cite them except to mention that one of them says:
'That the Bengalees had discovered the death-arrow of the English.
Remember Kanai and Khudiram Bose and others of Bengal.'
I do not suppose the Members of this Assembly know who they were; they
were prominent murderers; some, if not all of them, were hanged. Well,
Sir, the whole effect of the activities was that, on the 17th of
November in Calcutta there was an absolute effacement of the authority
of Government, and general intimidation throughout the whole of the
city. I am told now that we exaggerated all this: There was a _hartal_,
it is true, but there was nothing more than a voluntary one. Well, the
_Amrita Bazar Patrika_, itself stated on the morning of the 18th a most
significant fact--I cite it because it is testimony coming from an
adversary--it said on the 18th 'Writ large on the _hartal_ of Calcutta
is revolution'. Now I ask the Assembly to ponder those words.
I may say that throughout all this period the most desperate efforts
were made to create racial animosity. Those who were in Calcutta in
December last--I was there--know how true this is and it was a very
dangerous factor in the situation. There was also at that time every
reason to believe that if the activities of these so-called volunteers
were not curtailed, we should have a repetition in Calcutta of what we
had in Bombay. Now the total deaths in Bombay were 53 people killed, and
I think something like 400 injured went to the Hospital. The problem
before the Government, therefore, was: are you going to sit quietly, or,
as my Honourable friend said, 'with folded hands' and watch with apathy
and inertia this slaughter of innocent people, or are you going to take
action while there is yet time? The Assembly remember also that
previously, on the 14th of November, there had been already a dangerous
riot in Calcutta at Belgatchia, in which over 5,000 people had been
engaged. Now, I maintain that, in such circumstances, the Bengal
Government were fully justified in taking the action. We have abundant
testimony that, whatever be the professions of those who inaugurate
these volunteer movement, their practice and precept are poles apart.
You may say that they enter into a solemn vow of non-violence, but in
practice they are repeatedly constantly and persistently, guilty of
intimidation and violence. Let me turn to another province. I have got a
report here from the Bihar Government. We called for these reports to
see on what grounds they had proceeded against these associations. The
replies show that Local Governments were satisfied that the members of
the proscribed associations went in systematically for this class of
offence. To return to Bihar, on the 10th of December, I received a
report from the Local Government which says that these volunteers had
been guilty of intimidation, violence and other forms of criminal action
on no less than 122 occasions reported in the last year. One of the
incidents is worthy of special mention, indeed many of them are. The one
to which I refer was the case of a poor Muhammadan who had the
misfortune to be a law-abiding subject of the Crown. He died in Ranchi
and his funeral had to be performed. But the non-co-operators said: "No,
he shall not be buried by Muhammadans." Well, some over-daruni spirit
said: 'Oh, his was not so great an offence that we should allow this
oppression; men who differ from other in their political views are
entitled to a little toleration.' So they took the body to the graveyard
with police protection and buried it. What was the next action of the
extremists? The non-co-operation volunteers dug up the corpse and
dishonoured it, ('Shame.') Well that is the conduct of these non-violent
non-co-operation volunteers. Again, on the 17th in Calcutta, there were
unfortunately two Muhammadans who died in Ballygunge of natural causes
and those who wished to bury them could not procure the necessary
assistance: they were unable to procure bearers or _Khatias_ or anything
else and the bodies remained unburied for the whole of that day. There
was many a sick man and woman in Calcutta on the 17th who could not
procure medical attendance. No conveyances for medical practitioners,
and when doctors walked to the patients and attended on them, they would
not get medicine, because the dispensaries were not allowed under the
strict orders of the non-co-operators to sell medicine even to save life
on that day. Now, is that intimidation or is it not? I have been told
that Government interferes with the liberty of the subject in
proscribing these associations. I am amazed at the audacity of those who
make such an accusation, whether it comes from the Members of this
Assembly or from those who are of different political opinions, and I
include Mr. Gandhi. Who in reality has interfered with the liberty of
the subject to the same extent as members of his party? Who is it that
will not allow those who wish to welcome the Prince to do so? Who
prevents reasonable respect being shown to the dead! Who boycots and
intimidates those who venture to serve the Crown or wish to sell or buy
foreign piece goods? Who will not allow any member of the Assembly to
address a public meeting without interruption? ('Hear, hear'.) Who,
then, is it that is really guilty of interference with the liberty of
the subject? What extremist can make, with justice, this accusation
against the Government? What has the Government done in this matter?...
And now, Sir, I wish to turn to our instructions of 24th November, in so
far as the Criminal Law Amendment Act goes. They were to the effect that
where associations practised intimidation violence and obstruction, it
was necessary to suppress those activities and that the Act of 1908
should be used for that purpose. I believe, up to a certain point at any
rate, it has been successful. What followed? A number of young men--many
of them in Calcutta, hired from the mills--joined these associations as
volunteers for a money reward. Many are doing it in Delhi now and a
rupee a day is the price. They join the volunteers in defiance of all
orders and then complain bitterly and pose as patriots, if they are
arrested. In Delhi, when the movement first started and arrests took
place, the authorities were anxious not to impose too severe penalties
on accused and the consequence was, they were sentenced simple
imprisonment. Many of them were quite pleased; they were able to get
free meals and had nothing to do, so later it was found necessary to
sentence others to rigorous imprisonment. At once there was a general
feeling that this was very unfair, though it was really a very natural
consequence. Throughout, however, the Government have been very anxious
to avoid any appearance of undue severity; to avoid any appearance of
unreasonable harshness we have made various suggestions to the Local
Governments with which I will deal later. Apart from this, however, His
Excellency was never unmindful of the dangers of a purely regressive
policy and, as every Honourable Member knows he received a deputation on
the 21st December in Calcutta and listened to their views on the action
of Government and the possibility of a conference between different
sections of the community and Government. And I should like to read to
Honourable Members one or two words from His Excellency's reply to that
deputation because, to my mind, his words breathe a lofty tone of
statesmanship and indicate a deep desire to find a solution of the
problem of all the difficulties with which the Government are faced. He
spoke words over which every Member of this Assembly would do well to
ponder. Referring to a suggestion that Government should cease making
use of measures now enforced and release prisoners convicted under the
law, he said:
'I cannot believe that this was the intention, of the deputation, when
originally suggested, for it would mean that throughout the country
intimidation and unlawful oppression and other unlawful acts should be
allowed to continue, whilst Government action to maintain order and
protect the law-abiding citizen would be largely paralysed. I need
scarcely tell you that no responsible Government could even contemplate
the acceptance of such a state of public affairs. I wish with all my
heart, that it had been possible to deal with these problems in a large
and generous spirit, worthy of such on occasion in the history of India.
Had there been indications to this effect before me to-day in the
representations which you have made in your address on the part of the
leaders of non-co-operation, had the offer been made to discontinue open
breaches of the law for the purpose of providing a calmer atmosphere for
discussion of remedies suggested, my Government would never have been
backward in response. We would have been prepared to consider the new
situation in the same large and generous spirit I would have conferred
with Local Governments for this purpose.'
Sir, now what was Mr. Gandhi's reply to this? This is what Mr. Gandhi
said:
'I am sorry that I suspect Lord Reading of complicity in the plot to
unman India.'
I would ask Honourable Members of this Assembly if they would take that
view. He proceeded to say:
'I am forced to conclude that Lord Reading is trying to emasculate India
by forcibly making free speech and popular organization impossible.'
In another article he said:
'I was totally unprepared for what I most respectfully call his
mischievous misrepresentation of the attitude of the Congress and the
Khilafat organisations in connection with the visit of His Royal
Highness the Prince of Wales.'
This country is, in truth, faced with a very grave crisis: we have civil
disobedience looming before us. We have threats of organised violence
from an influential section of the Mussalman population. We have had
outbreaks of violence of a dangerous character showing what may happen
in a more extended degree in future. We have had the most terrible
bloodshed and loss of life. We are face to face with a situation in
which there may be, I fear, greater loss of life and greater bloodshed.
It is for the Assembly to say whether they are now going to encourage
the forces which make for ruin and disorder. It is for them to say
whether, consistently with their oath of allegiance to the Crown, most
solemnly sworn here, they can conscientiously and deliberately encourage
those who intend to overthrow this Government by any means that is
possible. Lastly, it is for them to ponder their responsibility not only
to the Assembly, not only to the Government and to the country, but also
to themselves. It is for them to say whether they will take such a
course as will facilitate a real and very grave danger to their own
properties, to their own lives, to their own honour.
[Illustration]
THE TATA PRINTING WORKS, 5, THAMBU CHETTY ST., MADRAS.
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