The New Policy

A POLICY of conciliation, a policy of trust in the people, a policy liberal, progressive, sure if slow, –that was the forecast made by the Moderate astrologers when the Reform comet sailed into our startled heavens. The prophets and augurs of the Anglo-Indian Press friendly to Moderate India –friendly on condition of our giving up all aspirations that go beyond the Reforms –prophesied high, loud and often to the same purpose, and if, like the Roman augurs, they winked and smiled mysteriously at each other when they met, the outside world was not supposed to know anything of their private opinions. Even the disillusionment caused by the publication of the Councils Rules has not prevented this party of wise and able politicians from supporting by participation the Reforms which they condemned, and belauding the intention of the Anglo-Indian reformers while swearing dismally and violently at their practice. Bad as it is, we must co-operate so as to make the best of the new measure. To make the best of a bad measure is to make it a success and so prevent or delay the coming of a better. This at least is our idea of the matter, but we belong to a party not of wise and able politicians who take the full profit of that which they condemn as disastrous and injurious, but of men who have the misfortune still to believe in logic, principle and experience. To be logical is to be a mere theorist, to cling to principle is to be a doctrinaire and to be guided by experience, the world's and our own, is to be unpractical. Only those whose theory is confused and practice self-contradictory and haphazard, can be wise politicians and capable of guiding the country aright. From this standpoint the proclamation of all India as seditious is, doubtless, the first step in the new policy, the policy of conciliation and

Page-419

liberalism. It is the sign-manual of the great reformer, Lord Morley, upon his work, the loud-tongued harbinger of the golden Age.

No particular motive can be alleged for this sudden proclamation, nor is any alleged. The people are left to speculate in the dark as to the mystic motives of Lords Minto and Morley in this remarkable step forward, or to get what light and comfort they can from the speculations of our Anglo-Indian friends and advisers, who seem to be as much in the dark as ourselves and can only profess their blind religious faith in the necessity and beneficence of the measure and appeal to all patriotic Indians to co-operate in coercing the national movement into silence. If India had been full of meetings of a seditious or doubtful nature, the necessity of the measure could have been established. Even if the national life were pulsating swiftly though blamelessly, its "aetiology", –if we may use a word which may possibly be condemned by Mr. Petman or Mr. Grey as seditious, –could have been understood, though not its necessity. But at present, with the exception of an occasional scantily attended meeting in the Calcutta squares, the only political meetings held are those in which abhorrence of Terrorism is expressed or Vigilance Committees of leading citizens organised to patrol the E.B.S.R. at night even in this chilly weather, and those in which the Deccan Sabha drinks deep of the political sermons and homilies of Lord Morley's personal friend, Mr. Gokhale. Was it to stop these that the proclamation of all India became necessary?

It has been freely alleged that the prevalence of bombs and Terrorism in Bombay, Punjab and Bengal is the justification of the measure, on the ground that open sedition leads to secret assassination, Nationalism to Terrorism. It is obvious that to attempt to meet secret conspiracy by prohibiting public agitation is a remedy open to the charge of absurdity. The secret conspirator rejoices in silence, the Terrorist finds his opportunity in darkness. Is not the liberty of free speech and free writing denied to the Russian people by more rigorous penalties, a more effective espionage, a far more absolute police rule than any that can be attempted in India? Yet where do the bomb and the

Page-420

revolver, the Terrorist and the secret conspirator flourish more than in Russia? The conspirator has his own means of propaganda which the law finds it difficult to touch. The argument, however, is that it is only in an atmosphere of dissatisfaction, disaffection and sedition that the propaganda of the conspirator can be effective, and Nationalism creates that atmosphere. Criticism of the Government leads to dissatisfaction with the Government, dissatisfaction leads to the aspiration for a better form of Government, aspiration of this kind when baulked leads to disaffection, disaffection leads to secret conspiracy and assassination. Therefore stop all means of criticising the Government and the first cause being removed, the final effect will disappear. That this is the actual train of reasoning, conscious or unconscious, in the minds of those who advise, initiate or approve a policy of repression is beyond doubt. It is evident in all they say or write.

Unfortunately the statement of the premises in this chain is incomplete and the conclusion is therefore vitiated. The first premise may be granted at once. In a country well satisfied with its lot, a nation at ease and aware of prosperity and progress, the propaganda of the secret conspirator must necessarily fail. In India itself, if we are to believe the Times, secret societies have existed for upwards of forty or fifty years. How is it that they had no success and no one was aware of their existence until the reaction after Lord Ripon's regime culminated in the viceroyalty of Lord Curzon? Dissatisfaction is not created by public criticism, it is created by the adverse facts on which public criticism fastens, and it crystallises either in public criticism or in secret discontent. The public criticism creates public agitation, the secret discontent creates secret conspiracy. Both are born of the same circumstances, but the lines of development are entirely different, nor is there much sympathy between them. The public agitator dreads the secret conspirator, the secret conspirator despises the public agitator, even when they are moving towards the same end. The man most detested and denounced by the Indian revolutionary organisations now active at Paris, Geneva and Berlin, is Sj. Bipin Chandra Pal, the prophet and

Page-421

first preacher of passive resistance. Yet the object of both is almost identical, the Nationalist agitator insisting on perfect autonomy, the revolutionist on separation, both being merely different forms of independence. The question for the authorities is whether they will try to ignore or silence the public criticism or remove the cause of dissatisfaction. If they ignore without silencing public criticism, the dissatisfaction grows in volume until it becomes the aspiration for a better form of Government. They must then either satisfy that aspiration or silence it, they can no longer ignore it. This game of ignoring the obvious is, like the first crude attempt of Nationalism in India to ignore the Government, foredoomed to failure; it only postpones and intensifies the problem, it does not get rid of it. Yet this was the policy long followed by the Indian Government towards the Congress movement. On the other hand, they may silence the public criticism or trample on it. If they trample on it, the aspiration becomes disaffection not necessarily to the sovereign, but to the form and system of Government then obtaining, with a cry for absolute transformation. This was what happened in India in 1905. Trampling on public opinion without silencing its expression is mere madness; it leads to the genesis of great revolutionary movements, injures the Government, endangers public peace and order, and helps nobody. This method does not even postpone the necessity of a solution, it hastens it by intensifying the problem to breaking-point. Yet this was the policy of Lord Curzon. He not only permitted the expression of public discontent, but he fostered it by arguing with and trying to persuade it; yet he invariably trampled on the thing he permitted. It is statesmanship of this kind which ruins empires and destroys great nations. There is another kind of policy, and that is to play with the monster of discontent, to chide it, whip it and yet throw it sops while taking advantage of the monster's preoccupation with the sop to wind the chain round its neck tighter and tighter. This is also bad policy. The whip enrages, the sop does not soothe but irritates, the tightening of the chain only shortens the distance between the tamer and the brute; –for the difficulty is that, the tamer has to hold the chain, he

Page-422

cannot tie it to something else and get out of springing distance.

Eventually, either discontent has to be satisfied or silenced. If it is satisfied, the whole difficulty disappears and perfectly amicable relations are restored. That was the policy pursued by England with regard to its colonies after the severe lesson learned in America, with the result that the bond between the colonies and Great Britain still defies the efforts of Time and Circumstance to loosen or snap them. But if discontent is not to be satisfied, the question then for the ruler is whether he prefers it to crystallise in public agitation and peaceful but possibly effective resistance, or in secret conspiracy, terrorism and eventually armed insurrection. It must be one of the two, for to expect an immense impulse like the national impulse to sink to rest without being either crushed or satisfied, is to expect impossible miracles. The Anglo-Indian appeal to the political leaders to be satisfied and cease from agitation is a singularly foolish and futile one. If the political leaders were to comply, even the most popular and trusted of them, they would cease to be leaders the next day. The dwindling numbers that attend the Convention sittings are a signal proof of this very obvious fact; that diminution has been effected, it must be remembered, without public agitation, without any organisation or activity of the Nationalist party, by the mere operation of a law of Nature. The aspiration, however created, is there and it is a fire mounting out of the bowels of the earth, which no man's hand can extinguish. The political leaders know that they cannot quench it, if they would; the Government thinks it can. And the method it seems to favour, if the extension of the Seditious Meetings Act and the prosecutions of papers and publications or their leaders all over India are any sign, is to silence public criticism.

If our view of the question is right, it is evident that to paralyse public agitation is to foster Terrorism, and we can only suppose that the Government think Terrorism easier to deal with than public agitation. This seems to us a grievous error. If experience shows anything, it is that Terrorism is never extinguished except by the removal of its causes. The difference between Terrorism and open rebellion is that open rebellion

Page-423

often effects its object, but can easily be crushed, while Terrorism does not effect its object, but cannot be crushed. The only thing that Terrorism can do is to compel the Government to satisfy partially the more moderate demands of peaceful agitation as the lesser of two evils, and this is a result which the Terrorist looks on with contempt. He is always extreme and fanatical and will not be satisfied with anything less than immediate freedom gained by violence. He is confident of his result, he is passionately and intolerantly attached to his method. Irish Terrorism only disappeared because of the expectation of Home Rule by the alliance with British Liberalism; Russian Terrorism is still kept alive by the impotence of the Duma; Anarchism flourishes because the Governments of Europe have not found any way of circumventing it. Terrorism may perish of inanition; coercion is its food and its fuel.

The policy now being followed by Lord Minto's Government has neither immediate justification nor ultimate wisdom. It is the old futile round which reluctant authority has always trod when unable to reconcile itself to inevitable concession. It is a wasteful, ruinous and futile process. For if the Government were to declare tomorrow that it would no longer tolerate public opposition and deport all the leaders of public and peaceful agitation in the country, it would only stimulate more formidable and unscrupulous forces and substitute a violent, dangerous and agonising process for one which, even if a little painful, is helpful, economical and constructive.

Page-424