Appendices
I — Extracts From Sir Henry Cotton’s “New India.”
Feudatory Chiefs Powerless. “It would perhaps be ungenerous to probe too narrowly the dependent position and consequent involuntary action of the feudatory chiefs. They are powerless to protect themselves. There is no judicial authority to which they can appeal. There is no public opinion to watch their interests. Technically independent under the suzerainty of the Empire, they are practically held in complete subjection. Their rank and honours depend on the pleasure of a British Resident at their Court, and on the secret and irresponsible mandates of a Foreign Office at Simla” (page 34).
Gross Insults to Indians. “That intense Anglo-Saxon spirit of self-approbation which is unpleasantly perceptible in England itself, and is so often offensive among vulgar Englishmen on the Continent, very soon becomes rampant in India.
“There are innumerable instances in which pedestrians have been abused and struck because they have not lowered their umbrellas at the sight of a sahib on the highway. There are few Indian gentlemen even of the highest rank who have not had experience of gross insults when travelling by railway, because Englishmen object to sit in the same carriage with a native” (pages 68-69).
II — Some Opinions About British India
Industrial Ruin of India. Gokhale. “When we come to this question of India’s Industrial domination by England, we come to what may be described as the most deplorable result of British rule in this country. In other matters there are things on the credit side and things on the debit side.... But when you come to the industrial field, you will find that the results have been disastrous. You find very little here on the credit side and nearly all the entries on the debit side. Now this is a serious statement to make, but I think it can be substantiated.”
India a Mere Possession. Gokhale. “India formed the largest part of the Empire, but was governed as a mere possession of the British people. Three features showed that it had no part or lot in the Empire. In the first place, the people were kept disarmed; it was thought to be dangerous to allow them to carry arms. Secondly, they had absolutely no voice in the government of their own country; they were expressly disqualified from holding certain high offices, and practically excluded from others. Lastly, they were not allowed a share in the privileges of the Empire in any portion outside British India, except a limited one in the United Kingdom itself.”—Mr. Gokhale.
Masses Starved. Sir C. A. Elliott. “I do not hesitate to say that half our agricultural population never know from year’s end to year’s end what it is to have their hunger fully satisfied.”—Sir C. A. Elliott, one-time Lieut.-Governor of Bengal.
Sir W. W. Hunter. In 1880. “There remain forty millions of people who go through life on insufficient food.”—Sir W. W. Hunter.
William Digby. In 1893. The Pioneer sums up Mr. Grierson’s facts regarding the various sections of the population in Gaya: “Briefly, it is that all the persons of the labouring classes, and ten per cent. of the cultivating and artisan classes, or forty-five per cent. of the total population, are insufficiently clothed, or insufficiently fed, or both. In Gaya district this would give about a million persons without sufficient means of support. If we assume that the circumstances of Gaya are not exceptional,—and there is no reason for thinking otherwise—it follows that nearly one hundred millions of people in British India are living in extreme poverty.”
In 1901. “The poverty and suffering of the people are such as to defy description. In fact, for nearly fifteen years there has been a continuous famine in India owing to high prices.”
70,000,000 Continually Hungry People in British India. W. Digby. “Since Sir William Hunter’s remarks were made the population has increased (or is alleged to have increased) by nearly thirty millions. Meanwhile the income of the Empire has greatly decreased during this period. Wherefore this follows: that is, if with the same income, in 1880 forty millions were insufficiently fed, the additional millions cannot have had, cannot now have, enough to eat; this, again, ensues:—
40,000,000 plus, say, 30,000,000, make 70,000,000; and there are this number of continually hungry people in British India at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.”—William Digby, C. I. E.
Deaths from Famine or Consequent Diseases, 1891 to 1900 alone: estimated by a correspondent of the Lancet, 19,000,000.
Total area under cultivation. In the year 1911-12, the total area under food grains was over 195 million acres, plus 7.5, i.e. over 202½ million acres. In 1912-13, India exported foodstuffs of the value of over 260 million dollars.
In 1913-14 she exported about 216 million dollars’ worth of foodstuffs.
Famines of Money, not Food. Lord G. Hamilton. “The recent famines are famines of money, and not of food.”—Lord G. Hamilton, former Secretary of State.
Causes of Famines. 1. National industries deliberately crushed by the East India Co. cannot revive under existing conditions.
2. Annual drain of India.
3. Lack of such education as will enable people to develop their resources.
Drain. Montgomery Martin. “The annual drain of £3,000,000 from British India has mounted in thirty years, at 12 per cent. (the usual Indian rate) compound interest, to the enormous sum of £723,900,000 sterling.”—Montgomery Martin. (In 1830.)
Digby. “During the last thirty years of the century the average drain cannot have been far short of £30,000,000 per year, or, in the thirty years, £900,000,000, not reckoning interest!”—Sir William Digby.
Enormous Foreign Tribute. Rev. J. T. Sunderland. Rev. J. T. Sunderland in his work “The Causes of Famine in India,” like all impartial writers, has conclusively proved that neither “failure of rains” nor “over population” is the cause of famines in India. He has stated that the real cause of famine is the extreme, the abject, the awful poverty of the Indian people caused by “Enormous Foreign Tribute,” “British Indian Imperialism” and the destruction of Indian industries.
Government assessment too high. Sir W. Hunter. “The government assessment does not leave enough food to the cultivator to support himself and his family throughout the year.”—Sir William Hunter, K. C. S. I., in the Viceroy’s Council, 1883.
The Ryot. Herbert Compton. “There is no more pathetic figure in the British Empire than the Indian peasant. His masters have ever been unjust to him. He is ground until everything has been expressed, except the marrow of his bones.”—Mr. Herbert Compton in “Indian Life,” 1904.
Hindustan is an extensive agricultural country and the average land produces two crops a year, and in Bengal there are lands which produce thrice a year. Bengal alone produces such large crops that they are quite sufficient to provide all the population of Hindustan for two years.
Indian Plunder. Adam Brooks. Adam Brooks says, (“Laws of Civilization and Decay,” page 259-246) “Very soon after the Battle of Plassey (fought in 1757) the Bengal Plunder began to arrive in London and the effect appears to have been almost instantaneous. Probably since the world began, no investment has yielded the profit reaped from the Indian plunder. The amount of treasure wrung from the conquered people and transferred from India to English banks between Plassey and Waterloo (57 years) has been variously estimated at from $2,500,000,000 to $5,000,000,000. The methods of plunder and embezzlement, by which every Briton in India enriched himself during the earlier history of the East India Company, gradually passed away, but the drain did not pass away. The difference between that earlier day and the present is, that India’s tribute to England is obtained by “indirect methods,” under forms of law. It is estimated by Mr. Hyndman that at least $175,000,000 is drained away every year from India, without a cent’s return.”
Swami Abhedananda. “India pays interest on England’s debt, which in 1900 amounted to 244 millions sterling, and which annually increases. Besides this, she pays for all the officers, civil and military, and a huge standing army, pensions of officers, and even the cost of the India Building in London, as well as the salary of every menial servant of that house. For 1901-2 the total expenditure charged against revenue was $356,971,410.00, out of which $84,795,515.00 was spent in England as Home Charges, not including the pay of European officers in India, saved and remitted to England.—Swami Abhedananda (“India and Her People”).
Alfred Webb (late M.P.): “In charges for the India Office (in London); for recruiting (in Great Britain, for soldiers to serve in India); for civil and military pensions (to men now living in England, who were formerly in the Indian service); for pay and allowances on furloughs (to men on visits to England); for private remittances and consignments (for India to England); for interest on Indian debt (paid to parties in England); and for interest on railways and other works (paid to shareholders in England), there is annually drawn from India and spent in the United Kingdom, a sum calculated at from £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 (Between $125,000,000 and $150,000,000).”
“Narrow and Shortsighted Imperial Policy.” Sir Archibald R. Colquehoun. “The present condition of affairs undoubtedly renders the struggle for existence a hard one, as may be realized when it is considered that a vast population of India not only from the inevitable droughts which so frequently occur, but also from a narrow and shortsighted imperial policy which places every obstacle in the way of Industrial development and imposes heavy taxes on the struggling people. According to various authorities, Russia’s demand upon landowners in her Central Asian possession are not so exacting as ours in India, for the British Government insists on a fifth of the produce, making no allowance for good or bad years; while Russia is said to ask only a tenth and allow for variation of production.” (Pages 135-6, “Russia Against India,” by Sir Archibald R. Colquehoun, Gold Medalist, Royal Geographical Society.)
Taxation. Lord Salisbury. The British policy of bleeding Indian people. “The injury is exaggerated in the case of India where so much of the revenue is exported without a direct equivalent. As India must be bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where the blood is congested or at least sufficient, not to those already feeble for the want of it.”—Lord Salisbury.
III — Facts and Figures98
Plague, Deaths from. Plague deaths from 1897-1913: 7,251,257.
Death Rate. Death rate was: 34.28 for the year 1907-11; 32 for the year 1911, and 29.71 for the year 1912.
Rural from 41.8 to 23.5.
Urban from 47.6 to 22.7.
Indian Finance. The budget figures of the government of India for 1914-15 show the total estimated income for the year to be slightly over 85 millions sterling, of which more than 17 millions are given out as railway receipts and about 4½ millions for irrigation work, thus leaving the pure revenue to be about 63 millions.
Land Tax. The principal source of revenue is the land tax, which alone furnishes a little over 21½ millions of pounds, of which, if we deduct 9 millions shown as the “direct demand on the revenues” only 12½ millions are left for general purposes.
The military expenses alone are estimated at about 22 millions, which is even in excess of the gross total receipts from the land tax, and is more than one-third of the total revenues from all sources.
The figures for income are a little misleading, because out of a total of about 17 millions (17 millions and 33 thousand) shown as railway receipts about 13 millions (13,409,000) shown as paid for interest and other miscellaneous charges on the expenditure side, should be deducted. Similarly about 4½ millions are shown as receipts under the head of irrigation, and over 3½ millions are shown against that head as expenditure.
Among the other heads of income, excise brings slightly over 9 millions. Income tax is included under “Other Heads,” which show a total figure of slightly over 5 millions.
Income Tax. The income tax, which is levied on incomes other than those derived from agriculture, is only 6½d. in a pound on incomes of £133 or more, a year, and almost 5d. a pound on incomes below that figure. The minimum taxable income is £66 a year, which shows that all incomes of between 5-6 pounds a month, or between 25-30 dollars a month, are taxed. The large fortunes made by Europeans and Indians by trade, speculation, manufacture, and unearned increments of valuation, are thus easily let off. The principle burden of taxation falls on the poor ryot.
Income from agriculture is supposed to be taxed at the rate of 50 per cent. of the net income of the landlord, or at the rate of 20 per cent. of the gross produce of the ryot, under the ryotwari system. In some cases it exceeds these proportions and is as high as 65 per cent. (See Lord Morley’s reply to C. T. O’Donnell.)
Customs. Customs, which furnish the principal source of revenue in the United States and Germany, in India only yield about less than 7½ millions. The imports are charged ad valorem duty of 5 per cent. with special conditions as to textiles, and “a large free list.” The textile woven goods pay a duty of 3½ per cent. and Lancashire is protected by a corresponding excise duty on textile goods produced in the country. Iron and steel pay only a nominal duty of one per cent.
The other principal source of revenue is the drink traffic, from which the government of India makes an income of about nine millions sterling. How much loss in morals it inflicts thereby on the country may better be imagined. That however is another story.
Trade Figures for 1913 to 1914
| Imports (manufactured articles forming 80 per cent. of the total): | £127 millions |
| Treasure: | 29 millions |
| £156 millions | |
| Exports (chiefly raw produce and articles of food): | £163 millions |
The shipping is entirely in European hands and it would be interesting to enquire how much does India pay for the shipping of its imports and exports, and how much do the foreigners make by way of insurance and other charges. The exact gain to Great Britain and other European countries from Indian trade is simply incalculable. The great bulk of the foreign trade on both sides is in the hands of foreigners.
Personnel of the Government
Secretary of State and all Under Secretaries, as well as Assistant Under Secretaries:
| Council: | British | British Indians | Total |
| 8 | 2 | 10 |
All Office Establishment and Secretaries: British.
All salaries and other expenses paid by India.
Governor General and Council and staff (i.e., the British Indian Cabinet).
Members of the Executive Council: British 7; one only is an Indian.
Revenue and Agriculture Department: All Secretaries down to the Superintendent of the Office: British. (Total strength, 7.)
Finance Department: 21; all British except that one Assistant Secretary is an Indian, and one Superintendent is an Indian.
Foreign Department: 6; all British except that one Attaché is an Indian.
Education Department: 8; one Assistant Secretary is an Indian.
Legislative Department: 7; only one Legal Assistant an Indian.
Army Department: 10; one Office Superintendent an Indian.
Public Works: 15; no Indian.
Commerce and Industry: 11; 3 Office Superintendents are Indians.
Railway Board: 4, no Indian.
Post Office and Telegraph Department: no Indian.
Indo-European Trade Department: no Indian.
Survey: no Indian.
Geological Survey: 5; no Indian.
Botanical Department: 5; no Indian.
Archæological Survey: 9; one Indian.
Miscellaneous Appointments: 39; one Indian.
The Indian Legislative Council:—
Total strength 67, out of which 35, besides the Governor General are always officials, only one of which is an Indian; of the remaining 32, 28 are Indian members, including 3 nominated by the Government, i.e., a total of 20 out of 67.
Provincial Government:
All Governors, Lieutenant Governors, and Chief Commissioners of Provinces are British.
In Provinces having Executive Councils of three or more, one is an Indian.
Secretaries and Heads of Departments are all Britishers. Of the large army of Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries, perhaps one in each Province is an Indian.
Services:
Army: No Indian is eligible to a commissioned rank.
Indian Civil Service: (on the first of April, 1913) out of a total cadre of 1318, only 46 were Indians.
Indian Medical Service: Little over 5 per cent. are Indians.
In Provincial Legislative Councils having very restricted powers of legislation, the elected Indians are in a minority everywhere.
Figures About Education and Literacy: (Figures Taken From the Year Book of 1914)
Area, 1,773,168 square miles.
Population, 315,132,537.
Universities in British India, 6.
| Number of High Schools for males | 1273 |
| Number of High Schools for females | 144 |
| Primary schools for males i.e., not even 1 for every 10 miles. | |
| Primary schools for females | 13,694 |
Literally.
Males, 106 per 1000, i.e., about 10½ per cent.
Females, only 10 per 1000, i.e., about 1 per cent.
All these figures are taken from the Indian Year Book, published by the Times of India Press, Bombay, for the years 1914 and 1915.
IV — The Flogging of Political Prisoners
(An extract from New India, a paper edited by Mrs. Annie Besant.)
The tragedy of Mr. Ramcharan Lal, the ex-editor of the Swaraj, continues. Mr. Macleod, the city magistrate of Nagpur, has sentenced him to an additional six months of rigorous imprisonment after his sentence has expired for ‘refusing to work.’ Our readers will remember the case. This unfortunate political prisoner—whose analogues in foreign countries have been welcomed and protected on British soil—under-going a sentence of imprisonment, was so brutally flogged for refusing to do work, which he says was more than he could do, that the prison doctor admits that he would have been unable to work for four days after the flogging, and six weeks after it the skin was still discoloured and two serious scars remained. Now he has a heavy sentence of six months’ additional imprisonment. Is this British treatment of a political prisoner? Why did Britons protest against the use of the knout on political prisoners in Russia? Is there no one in the House of Commons who will ask a question on this case, and demand an enquiry into the treatment of political prisoners in India?
Notes
1 The italics everywhere in this quotation are mine.
2 See Vincent Smith’s “Early History of India,” third edition, p. 135.
3 “Mr. Vincent Smith is always anxious to deprive India of the credit of all her achievements in art and literature.” Indian Historical Studies by Prof. H. D. G. Rawlinson, p. 227.
4 The italics in the above quotation are mine.
5 See also Mr. E. B. Havell’s Ideals of Indian Art, pp. 11-12. Mr. Havell’s conclusion is: “We may see if we have eyes to see, that all India is one in spirit, however diverse in race and in creed.”
6 First Edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1905.
7 See footnote to p. 5, of his “Early History of India,” 3rd ed.
8 A town on the Eastern Coast of India.
9 Some of these sentences have been reduced.
10 In 16 cases these sentences have been commuted to life-long imprisonment not out of mercy as the Viceroy has himself officially pointed out, but in consideration of the evidence.
11 The great mutiny of 1857, of which more hereafter.
12 Six of them have been sentenced to death, 45 to transportation for life, some to imprisonment and some have been acquitted.
13 The italics are mine.
14 The italics are mine.
15 Some Reflections on the Political Situation in India, by Lajpat Rai, pp. 24-27.
16 The ludicrous extent to which the prohibition to keep and use arms has been carried will be better illustrated by the following incident reported by the Bengalee of Calcutta.
“A five year old boy of Munshi Ganj Road, Kidderpore, had a toy pistol purchased for one anna. On the 8th of August last the child was playing with it but could not explode the paper caps. A thirteen year lad showed him how to do it. The boy was at once arrested by a beat constable and marched off to the Wat Ganjthana with the fire arm. The boy was eventually sent up for trial at Alipur and the Court fined him three rupees.”
17 Commenting on the annual report of the issue of licenses the Indian press have made similar statements. The Punjabee says “while the ruffians bent on crime have been able to secure fire arms by foul means, the law abiding section of the community have for the most part continued helpless owing to the difficulties of obtaining licenses for fire arms.” See also Bengalee of the 6th Oct. 1915.
18 The italics are mine.
19 The italics are mine.
20 The examinations have not been discontinued but statutory provision has been made for a large proportion of the appointments formerly filled by examination to be now filled by nomination.
21 Mr. Lowes Dickinson, an English Professor who has largely travelled in India, has practically admitted the truth of this remark. (P. 23, An Essay on the Civilisation of India, China, and Japan. See also pp. 27 and 28.)
22 The Pioneer of Allahabad, a semi-official organ of the Anglo-Indians, has in a recent issue said that “The safety of the State is and must be of far greater importance than the rights of the individuals.”
23 The Western Coast.
24 Heavy wooden sticks.
25 A straw mat.
26 The italics are mine.
27 “The Raja (i.e., the king) was not above the law.” See Wilson’s note on p. 203, vol. I of Mill’s British India.
28 See Rhys David’s “Buddhist India.”
29 See an account of Yudhishthira’s Rajsuya yajna in the Mahabharata.
30 For an account of Chandra Gupta’s Government see Early History of India by Mr. Vincent Smith.
31 It is true that parts of Deccan had been from time to time overrun by the Mohammedans and at least one Muslim kingdom had been founded there even before Akbar’s time, but still the general statement in the text stands good.
32 The tribal name of the House to which Partap belonged.
33 Names of Rajput ruling families in Akbar’s time.
34 The history of Europe up to the 18th century is full of parallel disputes on racial and religious grounds.
35 It is said that for a short time a small portion of Northwest India formed a province of the Empire of Darius and paid tribute to that monarch, but the government was all the same native.
36 “The Asiatic conquerors very soon abated their ferocity, because they made the conquered country their own. They rose or fell with the rise and fall of the territory they lived in. Fathers there deposited the hopes of their posterity; the children there beheld the monuments of their fathers. Here their lot was finally cast; and it is the normal wish of all that their lot should not be cast in bad land. Poverty, sterility, and desolation are not a recreating prospect to the eye of man, and there are very few who can bear to grow old among the curses of a whole people. If their passion or avarice drove the Tartar hordes to acts of rapacity or tyranny, there was time enough, even in the short life of man, to bring round the ill effects of the abuse of power upon the power itself. If hoards were made by violence and tyranny, they were still domestic hoards, and domestic profusion, or the rapine of a more powerful and prodigal hand, restored them to the people. With many disorders and with few political checks upon power, nature had still fair play, the sources of acquisition were not dried up, and therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of the country flourished. Even avarice and usury itself operated both for the preservation and the employment of national wealth. The husbandman and manufacturer paid heavy interest, but then they augmented the fund from whence they were again to borrow. Their resources were dearly bought, but they were sure, and the general stock of the community grew by the general effect.
“But under the English Government all this order is reversed. The Tartar invasion was mischievous, but it is our protection that destroys India. It was their enmity, but it is our friendship. Our conquest there, after twenty years, is as crude as it was the first day. The natives scarcely know what it is to see the grey head of an Englishman; young men, boys almost, govern there, without society, and without sympathy with the natives. They have no more social habits with the people than if they still resided in England; nor, indeed, any species of intercourse but that which is necessary to making a sudden fortune, with a view to a remote settlement. Animated with all the avarice of age, and all the impetuosity of youth, they roll in one after another, wave after wave, and there is nothing before the eyes of the natives but an endless, hopeless prospect of new flights of birds of prey and passage, with appetites continually renewing for a food that is continually wasting. Every rupee of profit made by an Englishman is lost forever to India.” (Edmund Burke in a speech made in the House of Commons in 1783 A. D. The reflections are as good, to-day, as they were then.)
37 The constitution of the Government of India is settled by laws made by the Parliament of Great Britain, in which India is not represented.
38 See Sir Henry Cotton’s New India (1907), pp. 68, 69 and 70.
39 In England this is the view of the bulk of the Indian student community. The Government, of course, repudiates that view.
40 In this connection we may refer the reader to an excellent article published in the New Statesman (London) dated April 1, 1916, called, “If the Germans conquered England.” With the alteration of England for Germany and India for England the article would make an excellent exposition of the position of the Indian Nationalist.
41 See New India by Sir Henry Cotton, 1907, p. 34.
42 It should be noted that the evils complained of in this chapter are the evils of the system which, in the words of John Stuart Mill, is unnatural, and the unnaturalness of which is recognised in full by many fair-minded Britishers. It was recognised so far back as 1835 by the British historian Wilson in his concluding remarks in the last chapter of his monumental History of British India.
43 The Punjab.
44 Sivaji was the founder of the Mahratta Empire in India.
45 Sirhind is a small town on the road to Delhi, where the Muslim governor of the time tortured the two minor sons of Guru Govind Singh to death by placing them between two brick walls.
46 See Kaye and Malleson, vol. II, p. 367. “In respect to the mutineers of the 55th, they were taken fighting against us, and so far deserve little mercy. But, on full reflection, I would not put them all to death. I do not think that we should be justified in the eyes of the Almighty in doing so. A hundred and twenty men are a large number to put to death. Our object is to make an example to terrify others. I think this object would be effectually gained by destroying from a quarter to a third of them. I would select all of those against whom anything bad can be shown—such as general bad character, turbulence, prominence in disaffection or in the fight, disrespectful demeanor to their officers during the few days before the 26th, and the like. If these did not make up the required number, I would then add to them the oldest soldiers. All these should be shot or blown away from the guns, as may be most expedient. The rest I would divide into patches: some to be imprisoned ten years, some seven, some five, some three.”
47 History of Indian Mutiny, Kaye and Malleson, vol. II, p. 203. “Martial law had been proclaimed; those terrible Acts passed by the Legislative Council in May and June were in full operation; and soldiers and civilians alike were holding Bloody Assize, or slaying natives without any Assize at all, regardless of sex or age. Afterwards the thirst for blood grew stronger still. It is on the records of our British Parliament, in papers sent home by the Governor General of India in Council, that the aged, women, and children, are sacrificed, as well as those guilty of rebellion. They were not deliberately hanged, but burnt to death in their villages—perhaps now and then accidently shot. Englishmen did not hesitate to boast, or to record their boastings in writings, that they had ‘spared no one,’ and that ‘peppering away at niggers’ was very pleasant pastime, ‘enjoyed amazingly,’ It has been stated in a book patronised by high class authorities, that ‘for three months eight dead-carts daily went their rounds from sunrise to sunset to take down the corpses which hung at the cross-roads and market-places,’ and that ‘six thousand beings’ had been thus summarily disposed of and launched into eternity.”
48 See Kaye and Malleson’s History of the Mutiny, vol. II, p. 177. “Already our military officers were hunting down the criminals of all kinds, and hanging them up with as little compunction as though they had been pariah-dogs, or jackals, or vermin of a baser kind. One contemporary writer has recorded that, on the morning of disarming parade, the first thing he saw from the Mint was a ‘row of gallowses.’ A few days afterwards the military courts or commissions were sitting daily, and sentencing old and young to be hanged with indiscriminate ferocity. On one occasion, some young boys, who, seemingly in mere sport, had flaunted rebel colours and gone about beating tom-toms, were tried and sentenced to death. One of the officers composing the court, a man unsparing before an enemy under arms, but compassionate, as all brave men are, towards the weak and the helpless, went with tears in his eyes to the commanding officer, imploring him to remit the sentence passed against these juvenile offenders, but with little effect on the side of mercy. And what was done with some show of formality either of military or of criminal law, was as nothing, I fear, weighed against what was done without any formality at all. Volunteer hanging parties went out into the districts, and amateur executioners were not wanting to the occasion. One gentleman boasted of the numbers he had finished off quite ‘in an artistic manner,’ with mango-trees for gibbets and elephants for drops, the victims of this wild justice being strung up, as though for pastime, in ‘the form of a figure of eight.’”
On mock trials see Holmes’ History of the Sepoy War, p. 124. “Officers, as they went to sit on the court martial, swore that they would hang their prisoners, guilty or innocent.... Prisoners condemned to death after a hasty trial were mocked at and tortured by ignorant privates before their execution, while educated officers looked on and approved.” “Old men who had done us no harm, and helpless women with sucking infants at their breasts felt the weight of our vengeance, no less than the vilest malefactors.” Again see History of the Siege of Delhi quoted by Savarkar in his “War of Indian Independence,” p. 111, by an officer who served there, how, on the way from Umbala to Delhi, thousands were placed before a court martial in rows after rows and condemned to be hanged or shot. In some places cow’s flesh was forced by spears and bayonets into the mouths of the condemned. (All Hindus abhor cow’s flesh and would rather die than eat it.)
See Charles Ball’s Indian Mutiny, vol. I, p. 257. “One trip I enjoyed amazingly; we got on board a steamer with a gun, while the Sikhs and the fusiliers marched up to the city. We steamed up throwing shots right and left till we got up to the bad places, when we went on the shore and peppered away with our guns, my old double-barrel bringing down several niggers. So thirsty for vengeance I was. We fired the places right and left and the flames shot up to the heavens as they spread, fanned by the breeze, showing that the day of vengeance had fallen on the treacherous villains. Every day we had expeditions to burn and destroy disaffected villages and we had taken our revenge. I have been appointed the chief of a commission for the trial of all natives charged with offences against the Government and persons. Day by day, we have strung up eight or ten men. We have the power of life in our hands and, I assure you, we spare not. A very summary trial is all that takes place. The condemned culprit is placed under a tree, with a rope around his neck, on the top of a carriage, and when it is pulled off he swings.”
⁂
“In the Punjab, near Ajnala, in a small island, many a Sepoy who had simply fled away from a regiment which was working under the reasonable fear of being disarmed and shot by the Government for suspicion, was hiding himself. Cooper with a loyal body of troops took them prisoner. The entire number, amounting to two hundred and eighty-two, were then conveyed by Cooper to Ajnala. Then came the question what was to be done with them. There was no means of transporting them to a place where they could be tried formally. On the other hand, if they were summarily executed, other regiments and intending rebels might take warning by their fate, and thus, further bloodshed might be prevented. For these reasons, Cooper, fully conscious as he was of the enormous responsibility which he was undertaking, resolved to put them all to death. Next morning, accordingly, he brought them out in tens and made some Sikhs shoot them. In this way, two hundred and sixteen perished. But, there still remained sixty-six others who had been confined in one of the bastions of the Tahsil. Expecting resistance, Cooper ordered the door to be opened. But not a sound issued from the room; forty-five of them were dead bodies lying on the floor. For, unknown to Cooper, the windows had been closely shut and the wretched prisoners had found in the bastion a second Black-Hole. The remaining twenty-one were shot, like their comrades. 1—8—’57. For this splendid assumption of authority, Cooper was assailed by the hysterical cries of ignorant humanitarians. But Robert Montgomery unanswerably vindicated his character by proving that he had saved the Lahore division.”—Holmes’s History of the Indian Mutiny, p. 363.
“It is related that, in the absence of tangible enemies, some of our soldiery, who turned out on this occasion, butchered a number of unoffending camp-followers, servants, and others who were huddling together in vague alarm, near the Christian church-yard. No loyalty, no fidelity, no patient good service on the part of these good people could extinguish, for a moment, the fierce hatred which possessed our white soldiers against all who wore the dusky livery of the East.”—Kaye and Malleson’s Indian Mutiny, vol. II, p. 438.
49 It should be noted that this visit took place during the present war and the observations recorded above were penned after the “unique” outburst of loyalty on the part of the Indians in connection with the Great War.
50 A native term equivalent for Europeans.
51 This is a native expression signifying the highest respect of the speaker towards one whom he considers his superior. Literally it means mother and father.
52 I. e., like the English.
53 In the interests of Lancashire goods.
54 Mr. Ilbert was the Law member of the Council of the Governor General and the bill came to be named after him.
55 Mr. Hume was an ex-secretary-of the Government of India who had retired from service.
56 Sir William Wedderburn is also a retired member of the Government of Bombay, India.
57 Sir Auckland Colvin was the Lieutenant Governor of the then North Western Provinces (now the United Province of Agra and Oudh).
58 The quotations from Hume are taken out of W. Wedderburn’s Allan Octavian Hume, the parts enclosed in parenthesis are Wedderburn’s.
59 These compliments have been renewed of late. The Congress held at Madras in 1914 was attended by the British Governor of the Presidency.
60 Mr. Hume’s biography by Sir William Wedderburn, p. 62.
61 Mr. Hume’s biography by Sir W. W., p. 63.
62 Biography, p. 63.
63 Swadeshi means country-made, and Swaraj means self-government or self-rule.
64 The Congress session held at Surat in December, 1907, ended in a split preceded by a disorderly meeting.
65 Presided over by the Honourable Mr. G. K. Gokhale, a member of the Viceroy’s Council.
66 Swadeshi means the cult of home industries, i.e., the use of the articles made in the country.
67 An eminent Bengalee writer.
68 Moreover the keynote of these organisations was association and co-operation with Government, and not independent self-assertion.
69 These are signs of mourning in India.
70 An eminent nobleman and landlord of Bengal.
71 India made goods.
72 Wholesale piece goods merchants belonging to Upper India are known in Calcutta by that name.
73 A ruling chief in the Bombay Presidency.
74 In my opinion there has never been any time in human history when religion and morals were successfully divorced from politics, either in Ancient India or anywhere else.
75 Societies, Associations and Gymnasiums.
76 A leader universally respected and loved by all classes of people throughout India. See frontispiece.
77 See Mr. H. W. Nevinson’s New Spirit in India, p. 295; also pp. 133, 233, etc.; see also Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald’s Awakening of India.
78 For an account of this split see H. W. Nevinson’s New Spirit in India, Chap. XIII.
79 A reward of one hundred thousand Rupees equal to 33,000 dollars was offered for information leading to the arrest of the culprit or culprits.
80 Name of a religious sect. See Pratts’ India and Its Faiths, p. 13.
81 The Spirit of Indian Nationalism, by Mr. B. C. Pal. p. 36.
82 A great Bengalee writer of fiction who composed the well-known nationalist song, “Bande Mataram” or Hail Motherland.
83 Or the foreign exploiters.
84 It was in the first half of the year 1908 that the first bomb was thrown at Muzaffarpur, Behar. It was meant for a Magistrate who had been passing sentences of whipping on nationalist youths, but by mistake it struck a quite innocent person. The investigation of this case resulted in the discovery of a big conspiracy. The trial of this conspiracy is known by the name “Maniktolah Bomb Case” from the fact that the headquarters of this conspiracy were alleged to have been in the Maniktolah gardens, Calcutta. One of the conspirators Narendra Nath Gossain became an approver. After the case had been committed for trial before the Sessions Court and when the approver and the accused were both lodged in jail at Alipore, one of the leaders of the conspiracy shot the approver dead with a rifle which had been smuggled into the jail premises by their friends.
85 A great Nationalist leader of Bengal, now dead.
86 One of his followers in San Francisco has told me that this description of him, viz., that he does not advocate the use of the bomb or the revolver is not correct.
87 This is illustrated in Indian official life day in and day out. It is not a rare occurrence that the British heads of the Departments get credit for what has been achieved by the genius, intelligence and labour of their Indian subordinates.
88 Indian heroes.
89 Non-commissioned officers of the native Indian army.
90 Force, energy and vitality.
91 Life of meditation and self-denial.
92 Lord Dufferin was the Governor General of India and Sir A. Colvin was the Lieutenant Governor of what were then the Northwestern Provinces, now the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.
93 The organisation of the Pro-British Muslims.
94 See the Introduction.
95 Komagata Maru is the name of a Japanese steamer, which a number of Sikh emigrants chartered in Hong Kong in 1914 a. d. in order to take them to Canada. They were not allowed to land and were forced to return to India, under circumstances which have created a bitter anti-British feeling among the Indians all over the world.
96 During her most dreadful famines hundreds of thousands of tons of foodstuffs were shipped out of India.
97 See Mill’s History of British India, Vol. VI, pp. 149, 150, Vol. VII, p. 388, and p. 393, Vol. IX, pp. 207, 209. See Bishop Heber’s description of India in 1824 quoted in Mill and Wilson’s History of India, Vol. IX, p. 376. Also that of Mr. Shore in 1833.
98 We do not mean to say that British Rule in India is responsible for the plague, but with better management of resources, i.e., better sanitation, the plague could have been prevented or eradicated sooner than has been attempted.