Young India An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within

Mr. Lajpat Rai, the author of this book, is one of the most widely known, most honoured and most influential public men in India. For more than twenty years he has been a leading member of the bar in Lahore, the capital city of the large province of the Punjab, and has long been prominent in public affairs both local and national.

From almost the beginning of the National Indian Congress he has been an active leader in that body, which is the most important political organization in the country. The last time I was in India (two and a half years ago) I found that he was being widely talked of for the Presidency of the Congress at its approaching yearly meeting.

Conspicuous in Indian educational work and a founder of the large and flourishing Anglo-Vedic College in Lahore, he has for a dozen years or more held the position of either Vice-President or Honourary Secretary of the College, and also that of Lecturer in History.

He started The Punjabee, a leading paper in the province, published in English, and has edited a monthly magazine and a weekly paper printed in the vernacular, besides writing for other Indian periodicals and for reviews in London.

The Arya Samaj, an important, fast growing and influential movement of religious reform in India, which rejects idolatry and caste and is active in promoting education, social reforms and the elevation of woman, counts Mr. Rai among its honoured leaders.

He has organized relief work during periods of famine in India, and has for some years led in an extensive movement for the elevation of the “Depressed Classes,” that is, the forty millions of “outcasts” or “untouchables” whose condition is so miserable. Several years ago I attended a National Conference to promote this work, at which he presided and delivered a powerful address.

Mr. Lajpat Rai has made three or four extended visits to England and three to America. In England he has spoken in many cities as a delegate from the National Indian Congress, for the purpose of acquainting the British public with the real condition of things in India, and to urge upon the British Government the granting to the Indian people of certain important political reforms. In America he has made a careful study of our history and institutions, our industrial and social movements, our political and religious life, and especially our schools and universities, and our educational systems and methods. He is impressed with the leadership which the United States is attaining in the world of education, particularly education in scientific, industrial, technological and agricultural directions, and he finds much here which he desires to see introduced into his own country.

From the beginning of the New National Movement in India, Mr. Rai has been one of its most prominent leaders. He is an ardent patriot, is proud of his country, her civilization, her literature and her great place in the world’s history, and he believes she is destined to have a great future, commensurate with her great past. But now she is a subject land, ruled by a foreign power, her own people having practically no voice in the direction of their own national affairs or the shaping of their future destiny. This deeply grieves and galls him, as it does a large part of the Indian people. The Nationalist Movement, of which he gives an account in this book, is a protest against present political conditions, and a demand for larger freedom and independence. Indeed, its aim is self-rule; not necessarily severance of connection with the British Empire, but partnership in the Empire,--home rule inside the Empire like that enjoyed by Canada, Australia and South Africa.

The British Government of India frowns upon this Nationalist Movement, tries to suppress it, and places its leaders under ban. This is the way despotic governments always treat subject peoples as soon as they grow restive in their bonds and try to loosen them or throw them off. Mr. Lajpat Rai has had to pay heavily for his patriotism. In 1907 he was seized by the Government and, without trial or even being told what was his offence, was secretly sent away to prison in Burmah, and kept there six months. He was suspected of disloyalty and sedition, but not the slightest evidence was found against him. His only crime was that he was a Nationalist, and was working in perfectly open and legal ways to secure greater liberty for his country. After his release from prison, he brought legal suits against two newspapers, one in India and one in London, that had published charges of sedition against him; and, notwithstanding the fact that the powerful influence of the Government was on the side of the papers, he won both suits,--so clear was his case.

For a full dozen years India has been seething with unrest, seething with dissatisfaction over present political conditions. During the past ten years there has been not a little bomb throwing and not a few signs of revolution. When the present European war broke out there were at once increased outward expressions of loyalty; but the unrest has remained. When the war is over what will happen? That will depend, Mr. Lajpat Rai believes, upon the course pursued by the British Government. If the Government in a generous spirit meets India’s just demands, there will be no revolution. If the Government blindly and obstinately refuses, the worst may happen.

While Mr. Rai is an ardent and uncompromising advocate of the Nationalist Cause, he has always counselled procedure by evolutionary and not by revolutionary measures, by vigorous and determined agitation and not by bomb throwing. Throughout his entire career he has striven by every means, through speech and the press, in India and in England, to move the British Government to prevent revolution, in what he believes is the only possible way, namely, by inaugurating and carrying out honestly a policy of justice to the Indian people.

There is in sight an Indian Renaissance. There is a “New India in the Making.” Indeed the stirrings of new life in India are hardly less marked, less profound or less revolutionary, than in Japan or China. Of this the book gives a vivid and reliable picture,--and, what is of great importance, a picture from the inside.

We have many books which portray Indian conditions as foreigners see them,--particularly as they are seen by Christian missionaries and by the British rulers of the country. At last we have a book which gives us the life, the experiences, the wrongs, the sufferings, the hopes, the aims, the motives, and, what at the present time is most important of all, the political ideals and ambitions of the Indian people themselves, portrayed by one of their own number, a leader who has been in the very heart of the struggle from the beginning, and who has felt it all in his own life and his own soul.

It is a message to every man and woman in America, and in Great Britain, too, who loves justice and hates oppression, and who wants to know about one of the most heroic struggles for liberty now going on in the world.

My own intimate acquaintance with India for many years gives me a greatly increased sense of the value of Mr. Rai’s book. Perhaps nothing in the volume will be found more surprising or more interesting to Americans than the overwhelming evidence of the dissatisfaction of India with her present political condition, and the fact that the Indian people want home rule, want it more earnestly than they want anything else, and that probably nothing less than this will keep them loyal to Great Britain. This feeling, which had been growing fast for years before the war broke out, has since sprung into a passion. And we may be sure that the flame will not burn with less intensity when the soldiers return who have been risking their lives for Great Britain in Turkey and Egypt and France, and who have been learning new lessons of self-reliance, freedom and independence from their contact with the great world.

It is hardly possible today to take up an Indian periodical of any kind, Hindu or Mohammedan, secular or religious (I myself regularly subscribe for and read nine, two of the number making a specialty of a monthly summary of Indian press opinion), without being brought upon some expression of this universal desire for self-rule. The people are disposed to be patient and considerate, and make no demands upon the Government that will be embarrassing so long as the war lasts. But everything indicates that when peace comes they will be in no mood to be treated like children and put off with the usual vague and meaningless promises.

Since India has borne faithfully and loyally her part in the war, one of the distinct stipulations in the treaty of peace at the end should be the granting to her of home rule. This is as much her right as is autonomy the right of Belgium or Poland. This right is recognized by not a few Englishmen; it should be recognized by the whole nation, and put into effect generously, freely, without waiting for struggle and bloodshed. The advantage to Great Britain would be incalculable. It would remove from her as a nation her most threatening danger, and it would give to her Empire a solidity and permanent strength such as it cannot otherwise secure.

While India wants freedom to shape her own affairs, her wisest minds do not desire separation from England. They recognize many strong ties between the two countries which they would not see broken. While they are determined not much longer to lie prostrate beneath England’s feet, they would gladly stand by her side, arm in arm with her, firmly united for great ends of mutual welfare and mutual strength. An Anglo-Indian Empire is one of the splendid possibilities of the future, binding Britain and her colonies and her great Asiatic possession together into a powerful world-spanning federation of free peoples. Something like this is the dream of India’s greatest leaders, as it is also the dream of not a few of Britain’s most far-seeing minds.

When this world-revolutionizing war is over, Great Britain must reshape after a larger and more adequate pattern her whole scheme of Imperial Government. She must become a Federated Empire. There must be self-government at home, not only for Ireland but also for Scotland, Wales and England. And there must be self-government abroad, not only for Canada, Australasia and South Africa, but, as not less imperative and not less wise, for India also, to be followed in time, as conditions can be made favourable, by self-rule more or less complete for all of Britain’s more important dependencies.

The danger is that Britain may forget India or thrust her aside, as in the past, to the position of a mere dependency. If she does this she will plant a cancer in the heart of her Empire, she will create a volcano under her throne. It will take courage and large statesmanship to give India home rule, as it took large statesmanship and courage to give home rule to South Africa. But the splendid venture must be made. And, made in the right spirit, it will succeed as perfectly as it did in South Africa.