Prior to the British conquest, political power and personal loyalties in India were focused on dynasties and on their rulers, who governed territories that ranged from small fiefdoms to large imperial systems. Nation-states with elected governments were still a thing of the future.
A different chapter opened when British arms and diplomacy placed two-thirds of the subcontinent under their own direct rule as “paramount power,” and the other one-third under “indirect rule” by British-sponsored Indian princes. Using lessons from the Mughals and their own experiments, the British constructed a relatively efficient administrative machinery. Gradually the sinews of this polity were strengthened by the introduction of printing and journalism, railroads, a postal and telegraph system, and the growth of an all-India economy centering in large modern cities accessible to oceangoing ships. Although there had been considerable internal and overseas trade for many centuries, these new methods of transport and communication made possible more effective interconnections.
This political and economic order attracted Indians who were anxious to improve their status and increase their wealth by entering its service, as well as businessmen in new commercial centers such as Bombay and Calcutta. A class of Indians, sometimes labeled “the new middle class,” mediated between the foreign rulers or traders and the mass of the people. Using their knowledge of English as the key to advancement, Indian clerks and functionaries found employment in government posts; Indian lawyers pleaded in British-style courts; Indian businessmen dealt with foreign firms; and Indian teachers imparted to their countrymen the language and culture of the conquerors. This rising middle class demonstrated a loyalty to the British that outweighed the angry discontent of older elites—both Muslim and Hindu. After the suppression of these elites in the Rebellion of 1857, the British enlisted members of both older and newer elites in institutions designed to make the Raj more secure.
But the English education that provided so many willing collaborators for the British in India eventually proved the undoing of their empire. For one thing, the members of the new middle class—whether from the south or the north, from Bengal or Maharashtra—could all communicate with each other through the medium of a common language. Equally important, their reading of the English classics instilled in them Western ideals of justice, freedom, and love of country that they blended with Indian ideas and beliefs. As their numbers grew they found good government jobs too few, especially since the best were reserved for Europeans. To economic frustration was added the bitter sting of racial discrimination, for the Rebellion of 1857 had sharpened British suspicions of Indian loyalty, and the late-nineteenth-century doctrines of Social Darwinism and aggressive imperialism combined to increase the white man’s feeling of inherent superiority over his darker-skinned subjects. Ignoring the sympathetic statements made in Parliament and the conciliatory proclamation of Queen Victoria in 1858, Britishers in India saw little reason to grant Indians a greater measure of control over their own affairs.
Under these circumstances, it was not long before the seed-idea of Indian nationalism implanted by their reading of Western books and their attachment to their native land began to take root in the minds of intelligent and energetic Indians. Educated Indians formed political associations in the Madras, Bombay, and Bengal Presidencies. Then leaders of these regional associations, assisted by a few foreigners such as Allan Octavian Hume (1829–1912), a Scotsman sympathetic to their aspirations, helped make possible the first meeting (in 1885) of the Indian National Congress. This was intended to serve as a forum for the discussion of political reforms and patriotic projects. From this beginning as a safety valve through which the upper and middle classes could air their grievances, the Congress transformed itself into an all-India nationalist organization.
The Moderates,1 the first men to come forward as leaders of the nationalist movement, shared a great many assumptions with those liberal Englishmen who encouraged them. They believed in the providential character of British rule and in the gradual evolution of India toward enlightenment and self-government under that rule. They regretted what they saw as the backwardness of Hindu society, and worked to bring about the reform of its grosser evils. The poverty of the people depressed them, and they therefore concerned themselves with plans for India’s economic improvement. Although they were not themselves devoid of religious faith, they accepted the divorce of religion from government; their secular view of politics contrasted markedly with the religious outlook of the Extremists, who later posed a serious challenge to their leadership.
Having become at least partially, as Macaulay had hoped, “English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect” (see chapter 2) the Indian Moderates gained certain advantages—but at the same time, ran certain risks—in guiding the nationalist movement. Their familiarity with British culture enabled them to appeal to the best instincts of their rulers, from whom they demanded the same rights and liberties that all Britons took for granted. Their knowledge of the gradual rise of democratic government in English history furnished them with useful ammunition, and they repeatedly harked back to the assurances given by Parliament and Queen Victoria that Indians would be allowed to compete freely with Europeans for positions in the Indian Civil Service.
In the long run, however, the position of the Moderates was bound to be somewhat vulnerable, for several reasons. Their heavy reliance on British good faith embarrassed them whenever the concessions they asked for were refused or postponed. Moreover, the more Anglicized they became in their thinking, the further they removed themselves from emotional rapport with the bulk of the population—the illiterate and poverty-stricken peasantry.
In one respect the Moderates did great service in expressing the grievances and needs of Indian society. Unwilling to attack British rule because of the political and social reforms it had introduced, they focused their attention on the obvious disparity between Britain’s prosperity and India’s poverty. Dadabhai Naoroji, an Indian businessman resident in London, placed the blame for his country’s plight on foreign rule, and in doing so was seconded by English socialist theoreticians. The Bengali leader Surendranath Banerjea accepted Dadabhai’s thesis, and M. G. Ranade sought a constructive solution in rapid industrialization under government auspices. Ranade’s disciple G. K. Gokhale left the theorizing to others, and bent his efforts to reducing the load of taxation burdening the Indian people. R. C. Dutt, through his economic writings, had a profound influence on the nationalist movement.
Those five men were among the outstanding Moderate leaders in the opening decades of the nationalist movement. It is significant that all were scholarly in temperament; several spent part of their early careers as teachers in colleges, imparting English education to Indian students. Each possessed an excellent command of the English language and was able to hold his own in debates with Englishmen. Four of them—Naoroji, Banerjea, Gokhale, and Dutt—made speaking tours in Great Britain in order to impress the British electorate with the importance of greater self-government for India. The same four also served terms as presidents of the Congress, and all five were deeply involved in its work. Like most educated Indians of the nineteenth century they were bicultural men, in touch with Indian and Western cultures, in a blend somewhat different in each case. Dutt, for example, wrote novels in Bengali while composing critiques of British economic policies in English.
Although the Extremist leaders who shortly emerged could muster far greater support by appealing to popular Hindu symbols and traditions, it is doubtful that they could have succeeded in freeing India without the patient, more diplomatic efforts of the Moderates. The greater willingness of the latter to cooperate with the British in instituting administrative reforms kept the nationalist movement from “going off the rails” into individual acts of violence, which could only lead to severe reprisals and political deadlock. Their contribution to the achievement of self-government has largely been forgotten by subsequent generations, but independent India’s dedication to parliamentary democracy, economic development, and social progress stands as mute testimony to their farsighted wisdom.
The five men mentioned above—Naoroji, Banerjea, Ranade, Gokhale, and Dutt—were outstanding figures; but they did not represent, even among the educated, a fair spectrum of Indian society. This group of five included no Muslims, women, or members of the lower castes. Among the Muslims, the most famous—though often controversial within his own community as well as outside it—was Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan. He called for his Muslim brethren to boycott the Congress and work to improve their own lot, in partnership with their British rulers. But there were some Muslims throughout the nationalist era who did work in the Congress, and among them two were early Congress presidents. Extracts from the presidential addresses of Badruddin Tyabji and Rahmatullah M. Sayani, answering Sir Sayyid’s views, are presented here with their arguments for joining the Congress.
The era of the Moderate reformers in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century also saw women speaking out, and even a few moving up. Among these were Rokeya Hossain, a Bengali Muslim woman, Cornelia Sorabji, a Parsi Christian from Bombay, and Sarojini Naidu, a Hindu of Bengali background who grew up in Hyderabad. Rokeya Hossain achieved literacy with the help of a brother and her husband. Left a widow at a relatively early age, she continued her work in education and as a writer. Her fantasy of a women’s paradise with the men in purdah is presented in the pages of Sultana’s Dream, written in the early twentieth century. Another Indian woman during this era who struggled to win her way into new arenas was Cornelia Sorabji. After a series of setback and successes, she qualified as a legal practitioner by passing exams in Oxford and Bombay that were previously open only to men, and then she began to work out her own unique career. Selections from her 1934 memoir, India Calling, demonstrate that women had to overcome much higher hurdles than men, but were slowly entering public life nevertheless. Sarojini Naidu speaks more directly about the role of women in society, an issue on which she worked throughout her life as a poet and then as a political leader. Without the voices of women such as these,2 our picture of ongoing Indian reform movements would be radically incomplete.
The rise of Indian nationalism would have been impossible without the strenuous efforts of national leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji, who drew up plans for, and laid the foundations of, India’s self-government.
This architect of Indian nationalism was neither Hindu nor Muslim, but a descendant of the followers of Zoroaster who had fled Persia after the Muslim conquest of that country in the seventh century and who had arrived in India in the tenth century. Settling as refugees along the western coast of India, the Zoroastrians, or Parsis (Persians), emerged as a group most willing to do business with European traders. They were bound neither by caste rules nor by prejudice against taking interest on loans, and as a minority group they had little to lose and much to gain by dealing with the Europeans. Through their trading contacts, the Parsis became the most Westernized, and the wealthiest, single community in India.
Dadabhai Naoroji was born in Bombay in 1825, the son of a Zoroastrian priest. His family name, Dordi, was little used; but the original meaning of the word (a twisted rope made of coconut husk) had a symbolic significance for Dadabhai, who was absolutely inflexible once he had made up his mind. “You may burn a dordi,” he once said, “but you can never take the twist out of it. So it is with me. When once I form a decision, nothing will dislodge me from it.”3
Tenacity of purpose was indeed his chief characteristic. He so distinguished himself in his studies at Elphinstone (Bombay’s leading college) that he became at twenty-seven its professor of mathematics—the first Indian to attain such an academic rank. At thirty he left India to become a partner in an Indian firm doing business in England. His aim in moving to London, the heart of the empire, was not to gain wealth, but to be able to appeal directly to the British public for a better understanding of India’s problems. For fifty years Dadabhai delivered papers on Indian subjects to numerous learned societies, submitted memoranda and petitions to British officials concerned with India, and agitated both privately and publicly, all in the service of a single cause: that Indians should be granted the same rights as other British subjects.
With his famous theory of “the drain” of India’s wealth to Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji sounded the keynote of Indian economic nationalism. But for all his bitter condemnation of the costliness of foreign government to his country, he never advocated violent action. His loyalty to the parliamentary system of government was rewarded in 1892 with his election to the British House of Commons on the Liberal ticket. The first Indian Member of Parliament, he served both his London constituency and the interests of India for three years, succeeding in his attempt to have a parliamentary commission investigate the financial administration of British India. He was also generous to young Indians who came to study in England in the 1860s, among whom were Surendranath Banerjea, W. C. Bonerjee, Romesh Chunder Dutt, and Badruddin Tyabji.
Dadabhai punctuated his long residence in England from 1856 onward with frequent visits to India. In 1873–1874 he served as chief minister to the Indian state of Baroda to prevent it from being annexed by the British crown (the usual penalty for misgovernment in the princely states). He took a prominent part in the first session of the Indian National Congress in 1885 and was thrice elected its president—in 1886, 1893, and 1906. The younger generation of nationalist leaders all looked up to the patriarchal patriot for advice, and both Gandhi and Jinnah revered him. He returned to India in 1907 for the last decade of his life and died in Bombay in 1917; to this day the affectionate title “the Grand Old Man of India” is associated with his name.
In the discussion following the presentation of a paper on India to a learned society in London in 1871, Dadabhai drew up an account of the advantages and disadvantages to India of British rule. It showed both his fairness in recognizing the good the British had done, and his persistent criticism of the crushing cost to India of their rule.
Credit—In the Cause of Humanity: Abolition of suttee and infanticide.
Destruction of Dacoits, Thugs, Pindarees,4 and other such pests of Indian society.
Remarriage of Hindoo widows, and charitable aid in time of famine.
Glorious work all this, of which any nation may well be proud, and such as has not fallen to the lot of any people in the history of mankind.
In the Cause of Civilization: Education, both male and female. Though yet only partial, an inestimable blessing as far as it has gone, and leading gradually to the destruction of superstition, and many moral and social evils. Resuscitation of India’s own noble literature, modified and refined by the enlightenment of the West.
The only pity is that as much has not been done as might have been in this noble work; but still India must be, and is, deeply grateful.
Politically: Peace and order. Freedom of speech and liberty of the press. Higher political knowledge and aspirations. Improvement of government in the native States. Security of life and property. Freedom from oppression caused by the caprice or avarice of despotic rulers, and from devastation by war. Equal justice between man and man (sometimes vitiated by partiality to Europeans). Services of highly educated administrators, who have achieved the above-mentioned good results.
Materially: Loans for railways and irrigation. (I have been particularly charged with ignoring this, but I consider it one of the greatest benefits you have conferred upon India, inasmuch as it has enabled us to produce more than we could before, though there is not yet enough for all India’s ordinary wants, and I have said this in my paper.) I cannot ascertain the exact amount of investments in irrigation works, but I take them to be about £10,000,000, making the total £110,000,000. The development of a few valuable products, such as indigo, tea, coffee, silk, &c. Increase of exports. Telegraphs.
Generally: A slowly growing desire of late to treat India equitably, and as a country held in trust. Good intentions.
No nation on the face of the earth has ever had the opportunity of achieving such a glorious work as this. … I appreciate, and so do my countrymen, what England has done for India, and I know that it is only in British hands that her regeneration can be accomplished. Now for the debit side.
Debit—In the Cause of Humanity: Nothing. Everything, therefore, is in your favor under this head.
In the Cause of Civilization: As I have said already, there has been a failure to do as much as might have been done, but I put nothing to the debit. Much has been done, or I should not be standing here this evening.
Politically: Repeated breach of pledges to give the natives a fair and reasonable share in the higher administration of their own country, which has much shaken confidence in the good faith of the British word. Political aspirations and the legitimate claim to have a reasonable voice in the legislation and the imposition and disbursement of taxes, met to a very slight degree, thus treating the natives of India not as British subjects, to whom representation is a birthright.
(I stop here … to say a word to Mr. Hyde Clarke … supposing that I desired the government of India to be at once transferred to the natives. In my belief a greater calamity could not befall India than for England to go away and leave her to herself.)
Consequent on the above, an utter disregard of the feelings and views of the natives. The great moral evil of the drain of the wisdom and practical administration and statesmanship, leaving none to guide the rising generation. (Here, again, have I been misunderstood. I complain not of Englishmen returning to their own country, but of the whole administration being kept entirely in English hands, so that none of the natives are brought up to and taught the responsibilities and duties of office, so that we have none amongst ourselves to guide us as our elders and to teach us our duties as citizens and as moral beings. …) The indifference to India, even of a large portion of those who have had an Indian career, and who are living on Indian pensions. The culpable indifference of a large portion of the people, the public press, and Parliament of this country to the interests of India; therefore, periodical committees of inquiry are absolutely necessary, for the knowledge that such will take place would be a check on careless administration. With regard to the native states, though their system is improving, it is most unjust that their cases should be decided in secret. The frequent change of officials is a constant source of disturbance in policy, and though it may be unavoidable, it is none the less hard upon India.
Financially: All attention is engrossed in devising new modes of taxation, without any adequate effort to increase the means of the people to pay; and the consequent vexation and oppressiveness of the taxes imposed, imperial and local. Inequitable financial relations between England and India, i.e., the political debt of £100,000,000 clapped on India’s shoulders, and all home charges also, though the British exchequer contributes nearly £3,000,000 to the expenses of the colonies. The crushing and economically rude and unintelligent policy of making the present generation pay the whole cost of public works for the benefit of the future, instead of making the political like all other machinery, and distributing the weight so as to make a small power lift a large weight by the aid of time. The results of trying to produce something out of nothing, of the want of intelligent adaptation of financial machinery, and of much reckless expenditure; ending in financial embarrassments, and deep discontent of the people.
Materially: The political drain,5 up to this time, from India to England, of above £500,000,000, at the lowest computation, in principal alone, which with interest would be some thousands of millions. The further continuation of this drain at the rate, at present, of above £12,000,000, with a tendency to increase. …
The consequent continuous impoverishment and exhaustion of the country, except so far as it has been very partially relieved and replenished by the railway and irrigation loans, and the windfall of the consequences of the American war, since 1850. Even with this relief, the material condition of India is such that the great mass of the poor people have hardly 2d. a day. …
The famines that were in their power to prevent, if they had done their duty, as a good and intelligent government. The policy adopted during the last fifteen years of building railways, irrigation works, etc., is hopeful, has already resulted in much good to your credit, and if persevered in, gratitude and contentment will follow.
Contra.—Increase of exports [without adequate compensation]; loss of manufacturing industry and skill. Here I end the debit side. …
To sum up the whole, the British rule has been—morally, a great blessing; politically peace and order on one hand, blunders on the other, materially, impoverishment (relieved as far as the railway and other loans go). The natives call the British system “Sakar ki Churi,” the knife of sugar. That is to say there is no oppression, it is all smooth and sweet, but it is the knife, notwithstanding. I mention this that you should know these feelings. Our great misfortune is that you do not know our wants. When you will know our real wishes, I have not the least doubt that you would do justice. The genius and spirit of the British people is fair play and justice. The great problems before the English statesmen are two. 1. To make the foreign rule self-supporting, either by returning to India, in some shape or other, the wealth that has been, and is being, drawn from it, or by stopping that drain in some way till India is so far improved in its material condition as to be able to produce enough for its own ordinary wants and the extraordinary ones of a costly distant rule. If you cannot feel yourself actuated by the high and noble ambition of the amelioration of 200,000,000 of human beings let your self-interest suggest to you to take care of the bird that gives the golden egg of £12,000,000 a year to your nation, and provisions to thousands of your people of all classes. In the name of humanity, I implore our rulers to make up their minds not to prevent the restoration of the equilibrium, after the continuous exhaustion by drain and by horrible famines. I do not in the least grudge any legitimate benefit England may derive for its rule in India. On the contrary, I am thankful for its invaluable moral benefits; but it is the further duty of England to give us such a government, and all the benefit of its power and credit, as to enable us to pay, without starving or dying by famine, the tribute or price for the rule. 2. How to satisfy reasonably the growing political aspirations and just rights of a people called British subjects to have a fair share in the administration and legislation of their own country. If the Select Committee solve these two problems, before which all other difficulties, financial or others, are as nothing, they will deserve the blessings of 200,000,000 of the human race.
[From Naoroji, Essays, Speeches, Addresses, and Writings, ed. Chunilal Lallubhai Parekh (Bombay: Caxton, 1887), 131–136.]
In 1886, fifteen years after the London paper, quoted above, Naoroji was elected president of the Indian National Congress. Hope in the Congress as a means for the future education and uplift of India imbued Naoroji with an optimistic air, and his assessment of British rule appears enthusiastic, even grateful.
The assemblage of such a Congress is an event of the utmost importance in Indian history. I ask whether in the most glorious days of Hindu rule, in the days of Rajahs like the great [ancient Indian king] Vikram, you could imagine the possibility of a meeting of this kind, where even Hindus of all different provinces of the kingdom could have collected and spoken as one nation. Coming down to the later empire of our friends, the Mahomedans, who probably ruled over a larger territory at one time than any Hindu monarch, would it have been, even in the days of the great Akbar himself, possible for a meeting like this to assemble composed of all classes and communities, all speaking one language, and all having uniform and high aspirations of their own?
Well, then, what is it for which we are now met on this occasion? We have assembled to consider questions upon which depend our future, whether glorious or inglorious. It is our good fortune that we are under a rule which makes it possible for us to meet in this manner. [Cheers.] It is under the civilizing rule of the Queen and people of England that we meet here together, hindered by none, and are freely allowed to speak our minds without the least fear and without the least hesitation. Such a thing is possible under British rule and British rule only. [Loud cheers.] Then I put the question plainly: Is this Congress a nursery for sedition and rebellion against the British Government [cries of “no, no”]; or is it another stone in the foundation of that stability of that Government [cries of “yes, yes”]? … But there remain even greater blessings for which we have to be grateful. It is to British rule that we owe the education we possess; the people of England were sincere in the declarations made more than half a century ago that India was a sacred charge entrusted to their care by Providence, and that they were bound to administer it for the good of India, to the glory of their own name, and the satisfaction of God. …
Let us speak out like men and proclaim that we are loyal to the backbone [cheers]; that we understand the benefits English rule has conferred upon us; that we thoroughly appreciate the education that has been given to us, the new light which has been poured upon us, turning us from darkness into light and teaching us the new lesson that kings are made for the people, not people for their kings; and this new lesson we have learned amidst the darkness of Asiatic despotism only by the light of free English civilization. [Loud cheers.]
[From Naoroji’s presidential address to second Congress session, 1886, in Naoroji, Essays, Speeches, Addresses, and Writings, 332–333.]
The frustration felt by the swelling ranks of educated Indians who were excluded from government positions is well expressed in Dadabhai’s memorandum of 1880. Note the veiled threat with which this selection concludes.
In this Memorandum I desire to submit for the kind and generous consideration of … the Secretary of State for India, that from the same cause of the deplorable drain, besides the material exhaustion of India, the moral loss to her is no less sad and lamentable.
With the material wealth go also the wisdom and experience of the country. Europeans occupy almost all the higher places in every department of government, directly or indirectly under its control. While in India they acquire India’s money, experience, and wisdom, and when they go, they carry both away with them, leaving India so much poorer in material and moral wealth. …
Every European is isolated from the people around him. He is not their mental, moral or social leader, or companion. For any mental or moral influence or guidance or sympathy with the people, he might just as well be living in the moon. The people know not him, and he knows not, nor cares for the people. Some honorable exceptions do, now and then, make an effort to do some good they can, but in the very nature of things, these efforts are always feeble, exotic, and of little permanent effect. …
The Europeans are not the natural leaders of the people. They do not belong to the people. They cannot enter into their thoughts and feelings; they cannot join or sympathize with their joys or griefs. On the contrary, every day the estrangement is increasing. Europeans deliberately and openly widen it more and more. There may be very few social institutions started by Europeans in which natives, however fit and desirous to join, are not deliberately and insultingly excluded. The Europeans are and make themselves strangers in every way. All they effectually do is to eat the substance of India, material and moral, while living there, and when they go, they carry away all they have acquired, and their pensions and future usefulness besides.
This most deplorable moral loss to India needs most serious consideration, as much in its political as in its national aspect. Nationally disastrous as it is, it carries politically with it its own nemesis. Without the guidance of elderly wisdom and experience of their own natural leaders, the education which the rising generations are now receiving is naturally leading them (or call it misleading them, if you will) into directions which bode no good to the rulers, and which, instead of being the strength of the rulers as it ought to and can be, will turn out to be their great weakness. The fault will be of the rulers themselves for such a result. The power that is now being raised by the spread of education, though yet slow and small, is one that in time must, for weal or woe, exercise great influence. In fact it has already begun to do so. However strangely the English rulers, forgetting their English manliness and moral courage, may, like the ostrich, shut their eyes by gagging acts or otherwise, to the good or bad influences they are raising around them, this good or evil is rising nevertheless. The thousands that are being sent out by the universities every year find themselves in a most anomalous position. There is no place for them in their motherland. They may beg in the streets or break stones on the roads, for aught the rulers seem to care for their natural rights, position, and duties in their own country. They may perish or do what they like or can, but scores of Europeans must go from this country to take up what belongs to them, and that, in spite of every profession for years and years past and up to the present day, of English statesmen, that they must govern India for India’s good, by solemn acts and declarations of Parliament, and above all, by the words of the August Sovereign Herself. For all practical purposes all these high promises have been hitherto, almost wholly, the purest romance, the reality being quite different.
The educated find themselves simply so many dummies, ornamented with the tinsel of school education, and then their whole end and aim of life is ended. What must be the inevitable consequence? A wild, spirited horse, without curb or reins, will run away wild, and kill and trample upon every one that came in his way. A misdirected force will hit anywhere and destroy anything. The power that the rulers are, so far to their credit, raising, will, as a nemesis recoil against themselves, if with this blessing of education they do not do their whole duty to the country which trusts to their righteousness, and thus turn this good power to their own side. The nemesis is as clear from the present violence to nature, as disease and death arise from uncleanliness and rottenness. The voice of the power of the rising education is, no doubt, feeble at present … but it is growing. Heaven only knows what it will grow to! He who runs may see, that if the present material and moral destruction of India continued, a great convulsion must inevitably arise, by which either India will be more and more crushed under the iron heel of despotism and destruction, or may succeed in shattering the destroying hand and power. Far, far is it from my earnest prayer and hope that such should be the result of the British rule.
[From Naoroji, Essays, Speeches, Addresses, and Writings, 465–467.]
The Hindu Renaissance, a cultural efflorescence in nineteenth-century Bengal, was accompanied by a gradual political awakening in that province. Modern-style participatory politics, however, came as a comparatively new category to Bengalis after centuries of domination by Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim rulers. Following the example set by Rammohan Roy, a growing number of men emerged from the English-speaking middle class, infused by their Western-style education with new ideals of patriotism, public service, and civic involvement.
To this group Allan Octavian Hume appealed with his letter of 1883, addressing the graduates of Calcutta University. “You are the salt of the land,” he wrote. “And if amongst even you, the elite, fifty men cannot be found with sufficient power of self-sacrifice, sufficient love for and pride in their country, sufficient genuine and unselfish heart-felt patriotism to take the initiative, and if needs be, devote the rest of their lives to the Cause—then there is no hope for India.”6
To one Calcutta University graduate, Hume’s appeal was entirely superfluous, for Surendranath Banerjea (1848–1925) had already cast himself into the stormy sea of national service. A Brahman and the son of a doctor, Surendranath had been one of the first Indians to be admitted to the select Indian Civil Service, the “steel frame” of British administration; but his failure to correct a false report prepared in his name by a subordinate had caused him to be dismissed—a punishment far more severe than English members of the I.C.S. received for similar oversights. Undaunted, Surendranath journeyed to London to appeal his case. When the appeal was denied, he appeared for the bar examination, only to be refused again. With the two swiftest roads to success—the civil service and the law—closed to him, Surendranath returned to Calcutta, convinced that “the personal wrong done to me was an illustration of the helpless impotency of our people” and determined to spend his life “redressing our wrongs and protecting our rights, personal and collective.”7
The rest of his long life was only the acting out of this resolve. Starting as a teacher, he soon founded a patriotic association, then a newspaper, then a college. Just as Keshab Chandra Sen had captivated audiences in many parts of the land with his revivalist sermons, so Surendranath used his oratorical gifts to rouse Indians, from Bengal to the Punjab, to a greater sense of loyalty to their country. When he was jailed for criticizing a British judge, he started the tradition of welcoming imprisonment in order to demonstrate the injustice of a governmental law or policy.
Surendranath’s career dramatizes the change of heart in countless educated Indians—from blind loyalty to British rule, to stubborn resistance against its evils. Despite his sufferings at the hands of the authorities, Surendranath insisted that only constitutional means be used in the struggle for self-government. When the Extremists cried for more drastic measures against the foreigner, he opposed them as firmly as he opposed the British. Twice president of the Congress, he left it in 1918 to head the All-India Liberal Federation when the younger Congress leaders threatened to obstruct the introduction of the important Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms. His persistence in his chosen course earned him the respect of Indians and British alike, and won him the aptly coined nickname of “Surrender-not” Banerjea.
Under the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, or Government of India Act of 1919, “diarchy” (the division of provincial departments into two categories) was implemented. In the transferred departments, Indian ministers were to be in charge. So Surendranath Banerjea, in his last years, became “Minister for Local Self-Government” and saw to the passing of the Calcutta Municipal (Reform) Act in 1923. This allowed one group of Indian nationalists, the Swarajists, who were trying to use the reforms for their purposes, to gain election to the mayor’s seat in the Calcutta Corporation (city government). Although Banerjea was now an opponent of these nationalists, led by C. R. Das, the former’s actions allowed Das to become the mayor of Calcutta. Shortly before his death in 1925, Banerjea completed his valuable autobiography, A Nation in Making.
Understanding between Hindus and Muslims formed a major plank in the Moderates’ platform. In one of Surendranath’s earliest speeches (in 1878) he exhorted the young men of the country to strive for unity as a patriotic duty.
Young men, whom I see around me in such large numbers, you are the hopes of your country; your country expects great things from you. Now I ask, how many of you are prepared, when you have finished your studies at the college, to devote your lives, to consecrate your energies to the good of your country? I repeat the question and I pause for a reply. [Here the speaker paused for a few seconds. Cries of “all, all” from all sides of the gallery.] The response is in every way worthy of yourselves and of the education which you are receiving. May you prove true to your resolve. …
Gentlemen, I have a strong conviction and an assured belief that there comes a time in the history of a nation’s progress, when every man may verily be said to have a mission of his own to accomplish. Such a time has now arrived for India. … Every Indian must now do his duty, or stand condemned before God and man. There was such a time of stirring activity in the glorious annals of England, when Hampden offered up his life for the deliverance of his own country, when Algernon Sydney laid down his head on the block to rid his country of a hated tyrant. … It is not indeed necessary for us to have recourse to violence in order to obtain the redress of our grievances. Constitutional agitation will secure for us those rights, the privileges which in less favoured countries are obtained by sterner means. But peaceful as are the means to be enforced, there is a stern duty to be performed by every Indian. …
In holding up for your acceptance the great principle of Indian unity, I do not lay claims to originality. Three hundred years ago, in the Punjab, the immortal founder of Sikhism, the meek, the gentle, the blessed Nanak preached the great doctrine of Indian unity and endeavoured to knit together Hindus and Musulmans under the banner of a common faith. That attempt was eminently successful. Nanak became the spiritual founder of the Sikh Empire. He preached the great doctrine of peace and good will between Hindus and Musulmans. And standing in the presence of his great example, we too must preach the great doctrine of peace and good will between Hindus and Musulmans, Christians and Parsees, aye between all sections of the great Indian community. Let us raise aloft the banner of our country’s progress. Let the word “Unity” be inscribed there in characters of glittering gold. We have had enough of past jealousies, past dissensions, past animosities. The spirits of the dead at Paniput8 will testify to our bloody strifes. The spirits of the dead in other battlefields will testify to the same fact. There may be religious differences between us. There may be social differences between us. But there is a common platform where we may all meet, the platform of our country’s welfare. There is a common cause which may bind us together, the cause of Indian progress. There is a common country. … Let us all, Hindus, Musulmans, Christians, Parsees, members of the great Indian community, throw the pall of oblivion over jealousies and dissensions of bygone times and embracing one another in fraternal love and affection, live and work for the benefit of a beloved Fatherland. Under English auspices there is indeed a great future for India. I am confident of the great destinies that are in store for us. … Let us all lead worthy, honorable, and patriotic lives, that we may all live and die happily and that India may be great. This is my earnest and prayerful request.
[From Banerjea, Speeches of Surendra Nath Banerjea (Calcutta: Indian Association, 1970), 48–50.]
Basic to the Moderates’ creed was faith that the British would grant self-government to India when she was prepared for it. Surendranath enunciated this creed in his presidential address to the Congress in 1895.
We feel that in this great struggle in which we are engaged, the moral sympathies of civilized humanity are with us. The prayers of the good and the true in all parts of the world follow us. They will welcome as glad tidings of great joy the birth of an emancipated people on the banks of the Ganges. For, have they not all read about our ancient civilization; how, in the morning of the world, before the Eternal City had been built upon the Seven Hills, before Alexander had marched his army to the banks of the Tigris … our ancestors had developed a great civilization, and how that civilization has profoundly influenced the course of modern thought in the highest concerns of man? Above all, we rely with unbounded confidence on the justice and generosity of the British people and of their representatives in Parliament. …
Nevertheless we feel that much yet remains to be done, and the impetus must come from England. To England we look for inspiration and guidance. To England we look for sympathy in the struggle. From England must come the crowning mandate which will enfranchise our peoples. England is our political guide and our moral preceptor in the exalted sphere of political duty. English history has taught us those principles of freedom which we cherish with our lifeblood. We have been fed upon the strong food of English constitutional freedom. … We have been brought face to face with the struggles and the triumphs of the English people in their stately march towards constitutional freedom. … Where will you find better models of courage, devotion, and sacrifice; not in Rome, not in Greece, not even in France in the stormy days of the Revolution—courage tempered by caution, enthusiasm leavened by sobriety, partisanship softened by a large-hearted charity—all subordinated to the one predominating sense of love of country and love of God.
We should be unworthy of ourselves and of our preceptors—we should, indeed, be something less than human—if, with our souls stirred to their inmost depths, our warm Oriental sensibilities roused to an unwonted pitch of enthusiasm by the contemplation of these great ideals of public duty, we did not seek to transplant into our own country the spirit of those free institutions which have made England what she is. In the words of Lord Lansdowne, a wave of unrest is passing through this country. But it is not the unrest of discontent or disloyalty to the British government, it is the unrest which is the first visible sign of the awakening of a new national life. It is the work of Englishmen, it is the noblest monument of their rule, it is the visible embodiment of the vast moral influence which they are exercising over the minds of the people of India. Never in the history of the world have the inheritors of an ancient civilization been so profoundly influenced by the influx of modern ideas. In this Congress from year to year we ask England to accomplish her glorious work. The course of civilization following the path of the sun has traveled from East to West. The West owes a heavy debt to the East. We look forward to the day when that debt will be repaid, not only by the moral regeneration, but by the political enfranchisement of our people.
[From Banerjea, Speeches, 142–144.]
In concluding his memoirs in his old age, Surendranath looked back at the changes that had taken place in Hindu society during his lifetime, and reiterated the faith in gradual reform that is one of the hallmarks of a Moderate.
I feel that, if we have to advance in social matters, we must, so far as practicable, take the community with us by a process of steady and gradual uplift, so that there may be no sudden disturbance or dislocation, the new being adapted to the old, and the old assimilated to the new. That has been the normal path of progress in Hindu society through the long centuries. It would be idle to contend that Hindu society is today where it was two hundred years ago. It moves slowly, perhaps more slowly than many would wish, but in the words of Galileo[,] “it does move,” more or less according to the lines of adaptation that I have indicated. The question of sea-voyage, or child-marriage, or even enforced widowhood, is not today where it was in the latter part of the last century. Fifty years ago I was an outcaste (being an England-returned Brahmin) in the village where I live. Today I am an honoured member of the community. My public services have, perhaps, partly contributed to the result. But they would have been impotent, as in the case of Raja Ram Mohun Roy for many long years after his death, if they were not backed by the slow, the silent, the majestic forces of progress, working noiselessly but irresistibly in the bosom of society, helping on the fruition of those ideas which have been sown in the public mind. Remarkable indeed have been, in many respects, the relaxations and the removal of restrictions of caste. Dining with non-Hindus, which was an abomination not many years ago, is now connived at, if not openly countenanced. A still more forward step towards loosening the bonds of caste has been taken within the last few years. The barriers of marriage between some subcastes have been relaxed, and marriages between hitherto prohibited subcastes of Brahmins and Kayasthas are not infrequent, and I have had some personal share in this reform. Beneficent are the activities of the Brahmo Samaj, but behind them is the slower but larger movement of the general community, all making towards progress.
[From Banerjea, A Nation in Making: Being the Reminiscences of Fifty Years in Public Life (1925; Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1963), 368–369.]
In chapter 3 Ranade was introduced as a social reformer. Here in chapter 4, we will consider his views on economic issues.
In his essay of 1892 on “Indian Political Economy,” Ranade showed that English laissez-faire doctrines were being challenged by more recent theories in political economy, and that the former were not necessarily relevant to India’s problems. He then continued with a diagnosis of the Indian economy and proposals for change.
This resumé of the past and contemporary history of the growth of Economic Sciences in England, France, Germany, Italy, and America will satisfy the student that modern European thought does not at all countenance the view of the English writers of the Ricardian School, that the Principles of the Science, as they have enunciated them in their Text Books, are universally and necessarily true for all times and places, and for all stages of Advancement. Modern Thought is veering to the conclusion that the Individual and his Interests are not the centre round which the Theory should revolve, that the true center is the Body Politic of which that Individual is a Member, and that Collective Defense and Well-being, Social Education and Discipline, and the Duties, and not merely the Interests, of men, must be taken into account, if the Theory is not to be merely Utopian. The Method to be followed is not the Deductive but the Historical Method, which takes account of the past in its forecast of the future; and Relativity, and not Absoluteness, characterizes the conclusions of Economical Science. There are those who seek to get over this difficulty by differentiating the Science from what they are disposed to call the Art of Economy. This divorce of Theory and Practice is, however, a mischievous error, which relegates the Science to the sterility of an ideal dream or a puzzle. … The subject itself … is best studied historically and not deductively, the actual Practice of the most Civilized Nations and the history of the growth of its Theory given above alike establish the Doctrine of Relativity, and the predominant claim of Collective Welfare over Individual Interests, as the principal features in which the highest minds of the present day chiefly differ from the Economical Writers of the Old School, with their a priori conclusions based on individual self-interest and unrestricted competition.
We have next to consider the bearings of this enlarged view of the Science in its Indian aspects. The characteristics of our Social Life are the prevalence of Status over Contract, of Combination over Competition. Our habits of mind are conservative to a fault. The aptitudes of climate and soil facilitate the production of raw materials. Labor is cheap and plentiful, but unsteady, unthrifty, and unskilled. Capital is scarce, immobile, and unenterprising. Cooperation on a large scale of either Capital or Labor is unknown. Agriculture is the chief support of nearly the whole population, and this Agriculture is carried on under conditions of uncertain rainfall. Commerce and Manufactures on a large scale are but recent importations, and all industry is carried on, on the system of petty farming, retail dealing, and job working by poor people on borrowed capital. There is an almost complete absence of a landed gentry or wealthy middle class. The land is a monopoly of the State. The desire for accumulation is very weak, peace and security having been almost unknown over large areas for any length of time till within the last Century. Our Laws and Institutions favour a low standard of life, and encourage subdivision and not concentration of Wealth. The religious ideals of life condemn the ardent pursuit of wealth as a mistake to be avoided as far as possible. These are old legacies and inherited weaknesses. Stagnation and dependence, depression and poverty—these are written in broad characters on the face of the land and its people. To these must be added the economical drain of wealth and talents, which Foreign subjection has entailed on the country. As a compensation against all these depressing influences, we have to set off the advantage of a free contact with a race which has opened the Country to the Commerce of the world, and by its superior skill and resources has developed communications in a way previously unknown. If we wish to realize our situation fully, we may not overlook this factor, because, it represents the beam of light which alone illumines the prevailing darkness. It cannot well be a mere accident that the destinies of this Country have been entrusted to the guidance of a Nation whose characteristic strength is opposed to all our weaknesses, whose enterprise, chiefly in Commerce and Manufactures, knows no bounds, whose Capital overflows the world, among whom Contract has largely superseded Status, and Competition and Co-Operation play a predominant part, whose view of life is full of hope, and whose powers of organization have never been surpassed.
[Ranade next advanced several reasons why industrial enterprise should be encouraged, and urged government action to populate unfilled lands, protect peasants against excessive taxation, and prevent exploitation by landlords or moneylenders. He argued that the state should play a more active role in the economic development of the country.]
Lastly comes the great department of Governmental interference. The meddlesomeness of the Mercantile System provoked a reaction against State Control and Guidance towards the end of the last century in favor of Natural Liberty. The Doctrines of this Negative School have now in their turn been abused by a too logical extension of its principles. There is a decided reaction in Europe against the laissez faire system. Even in England, the recent Factory Legislation, the qualified recognition by law of Trades-Unionism, the Poor Law System, and the Irish Land Settlement, are all instances which indicate the same change of view. Speaking roughly, the province of State Interference and Control is practically being extended so as to restore the good points of the mercantile system without its absurdities. The State is now more and more recognized as the National Organ for taking care of National needs in all matters in which individual and cooperative efforts are not likely to be so effective and economic as National effort. This is the correct view to take of the true functions of a State. To relegate them to the simple duty of maintaining peace and order is really to deprive the Community of many of the advantages of the Social Union. Education, both Liberal and Technical, Post and Telegraphs, Railway and Canal Communications, the pioneering of new enterprise, the insurance of risky undertakings—all these functions are usefully discharged by the State. The question is one of time, fitness, and expediency, not one of liberty and rights. In our own Country the State has similarly enlarged its functions with advantage. The very fact that the Rulers belong to a race with superior advantages imposes this duty on them of attempting things which no Native Rulers, past or present, could as well achieve, or possibly even think of. This obligation is made more peremptory by the fact that the State claims to be the sole Landlord, and is certainly the largest Capitalist in the Country. While the State in India has done much in this way in the working of Iron and Coal fields, and in the experiments made about Cotton and Tobacco, and in Tea and Coffee and Cinchona Plantations, it must be admitted that, as compared with its resources and the needs of the Country, these attempts are as nothing by the side of what has been attempted with success in France, Germany, and other countries, but which, unhappily, has not been attempted in this country. Even if political considerations forbid independent action in the matter of differential duties, the pioneering of new enterprises is a duty which the Government might more systematically undertake with advantage. In truth, there is no difference of principle between lending such support and guidance, by the free use of its Credit and superior Organization, in pioneering Industrial Undertaking or subsidizing private Co-operative effort, and its guaranteeing minimum interest to Railway Companies. The building up of National, not merely State, Credit on broad foundations by helping people to acquire confidence in a free and largely ramified Banking system, so advantageously worked in Europe under different forms, has also not been attempted here. There is, lastly, the duty cast on it of utilizing indigenous resources, and organizing them in a way to produce in India in State Factories all products of skill which the State Departments require in the way of Stores. These are only a few of the many directions in which, far more than Exchange and Frontier difficulties, the highest Statesmanship will have a field all its own for consideration and action. They will, no doubt, receive such consideration if only the minds of the Rulers were once thoroughly freed from the fear of offending the so-called maxims of rigid Economical Science. It is time that a new departure should take place in this connection, and it is with a view to drawing public attention to this necessity that I have ventured to place before you the results of modern economic Thought. In this, as in other matters, the conditions of Indian life are more faithfully reproduced in some of the Continental Countries and in America than in happy England, proud of its position, strong in its insularity, and the home of the richest and busiest Community in the modern industrial World. If the attempt I have made leads to a healthy and full discussion of the change of policy I advocate, I shall regard myself amply repaid for my trouble.
[From Ranade, Essays on Indian Economics: A Collection of Essays and Speeches (Bombay: Thacker, 1898), 20–23, 31–34.]
In his speech to the Indian Social Conference of 1899, Ranade stressed the importance of religious toleration, suggesting that the members of each community avoid mutual recriminations; they should instead cooperate in the work of social reform.
If the lessons of the past have any value, one thing is quite clear, viz., that in this vast country no progress is possible unless both Hindus and Mahomedans join hands together, and are determined to follow the lead of the men who flourished in Akbar’s time and were his chief advisers and councillors, and sedulously avoid the mistakes which were committed by his great-grandson Aurangzeb. Joint action from a sense of common interest, and a common desire to bring about the fusion of the thoughts and feelings of men so as to tolerate small differences and bring about concord—these were the chief aims kept in view by Akbar and formed the principle of the new divine faith formulated in the Dini-ilahi. Every effort on the part of either Hindus or Mahomedans to regard their interests as separated and distinct, and every attempt made by the two communities to create separate schools and interests among themselves, and not to heal up the wounds inflicted by mutual hatred of caste and creed, must be deprecated on all hands. It is to be feared that this lesson has not been sufficiently kept in mind by the leaders of both communities in their struggle for existence and in the acquisition of power and predominance during recent years. There is at times a great danger of the work of Akbar being undone by losing sight of this great lesson which the history of his reign and that of his two successors is so well calculated to teach. The Conference which brings us together is especially intended for the propagation of this “din”9 or “dharma,” and it is in connection with that message chiefly that I have ventured to speak to you today on this important subject. The ills that we are suffering from are most of them self-inflicted evils, the cure of which is to a large extent in our own hands. Looking at the series of measures which Akbar adopted in his time to cure these evils, one feels how correct was his vision when he and his advisers put their hand on those very defects in our national character which need to be remedied first before we venture on higher enterprises. Pursuit of high ideas, mutual sympathy and cooperation, perfect tolerance, a correct understanding of the diseases from which the body politic is suffering, and an earnest desire to apply suitable remedies—this is the work cut out for the present generation. The awakening has commenced, as is witnessed by the fact that we are met in this place from such distances for joint consultation and action. All that is needed is that we must put our hands to the plow, and face the strife and the struggle. The success already achieved warrants the expectation that if we persevere on right lines, the goal we have in view may be attained. That goal is not any particular advantage to be gained in power and wealth. It is represented by the efforts to attain it, the expansion and the evolution of the heart and the mind, which will make us stronger and braver, purer and truer men. … Both Hindus and Mahomedans have their work cut out in this struggle. In the backwardness of female education, in the disposition to overleap the bounds of their own religion, in matters of temperance, in their internal dissensions between castes and creeds, in the indulgence of impure speech, thought, and action on occasions when they are disposed to enjoy themselves, in the abuses of many customs in regard to unequal and polygamous marriages, in the desire to be extravagant in their expenditure on such occasions, in the neglect of regulated charity, in the decay of public spirit in insisting on the proper management of endowments—in these and other matters both communities are equal sinners, and there is thus much ground for improvement on common lines. Of course, the Hindus, being by far the majority of the population, have other difficulties of their own to combat with; and they are trying in their gatherings of separate castes and communities to remedy them each in their own way. But without cooperation and conjoint action of all communities, success is not possible, and it is on that account that the general Conference is held in different places each year to rouse local interest, and help people in their separate efforts by a knowledge of what their friends similarly situated are doing in other parts.
[From C. Y. Chintamani, Indian Social Reform (Madras: Thompson, 1901), 2:122–124.]
The work of reform begun by Ranade was ably continued by his younger friend and colleague Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915). Sprung from the same proud Maharashtrian stock, both leaders clung to the policy of cooperation with the government and of moderate opposition to its evils. Gokhale, however, had to endure the merciless attacks of the Extremists during a stormy decade of Indian politics.
Gokhale dedicated his life to public service at the age of nineteen, on his graduation from Elphinstone College, by joining the Deccan Education Society in Poona. Members of this society took a vow of poverty for twenty years in order to devote their time exclusively to educating their fellow-countrymen. For his part, Gokhale became a teacher of English and mathematics in the Fergusson College, which was founded by the society in 1885. He soon met Justice Ranade and began his long and fruitful apprenticeship under him—examining documents, weighing evidence, analyzing fiscal data, and preparing comprehensive memoranda on public questions.
Gokhale attracted public attention with the sagacity of his carefully prepared speeches, and in 1899 was elected a member of the recently formed Legislative Council for the state of Bombay. When only thirty-six, he became the Indian representative of this state on the Imperial Legislative Council, which despite its limited powers was the highest law-making body in India. For the last thirteen years of his life he wore himself out with his efforts to secure government cooperation in granting much-needed financial and administrative reforms for India. “No taxation without representation” was the essence of his demand, and his annual speeches on the imperial budget wrung many concessions from harassed ministers of finance.
In 1905 Gokhale founded the Servants of India Society in Poona, modeling it after the lay and monastic orders of the Catholic Church. Famine relief, education, Hindu–Muslim unity, and the elevation of the lowest castes were among the fields in which it carried on the work begun by its founder. Gokhale also took great interest in the problems of Indian emigrants to South Africa, giving freely of his advice and encouragement to their leader, M. K. Gandhi. Although bitterly reviled by Tilak and other supporters of violent action to end foreign rule, Gokhale’s readiness to cooperate with the British in introducing gradual reforms helped to pave the way for the eventual peaceful transfer of power to an independent India.
Soon after taking his place in the Imperial Legislative Council, Gokhale made the first of his annual budget speeches. His attacks on the government’s taxation policy are representative of the Moderates’ preoccupation with the economic shortcomings of British rule.
Your Excellency, I fear I cannot conscientiously join in the congratulations which have been offered to the Hon’ble Finance Member on the huge surplus which the revised estimates show for the last year. A surplus of seven crores10 of rupees is perfectly unprecedented in the history of Indian finance, and coming as it does on the top of a series of similar surpluses realized when the country has been admittedly passing through very trying times, it illustrates to my mind in a painfully clear manner the utter absence of a due correspondence between the condition of the people and the condition of the finances of the country. Indeed, my Lord, the more I think about this matter the more I feel—and I trust Your Lordship will pardon me for speaking somewhat bluntly—that these surpluses constitute a double wrong to the community. They are a wrong in the first instance in that they exist at all—that government should take so much more from the people than is needed in times of serious depression and suffering; and they are also a wrong, because they lend themselves to easy misinterpretation and, among other things, render possible the phenomenal optimism of the Secretary of State for India, who seems to imagine that all is for the best in this best of lands. A slight examination of these surpluses suffices to show that they are mainly, almost entirely, currency surpluses, resulting from the fact that government still maintain the same high level of taxation which they considered to be necessary to secure financial equilibrium when the rupee stood at its lowest. …
A taxation so forced as not only to maintain a budgetary equilibrium but to yield as well “large, continuous, progressive surpluses”—even in years of trial and suffering—is, I submit, against all accepted canons of finance. … In India, where the economic side of such questions finds such scant recognition, and the principle of meeting the charges of the year with the resources of the year is carried to a logical extreme, the anxiety of the Financial Administration is not only to make both ends meet in good and bad years alike, but to present large surpluses year after year. … Taxation for financial equilibrium is what we all can understand, but taxation kept up in the face of the difficulties and misfortunes of a period of excessive depression and for “large, continuous and progressive surpluses” is evidently a matter which requires justification. … [It is] a result not of a normal expansion of fiscal resources but of a forced up and heavy taxation …, a clear proof of the fact that the level of national taxation is kept unjustifiably high, even when government are in a position to lower that level.
[From Gokhale, Speeches of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, 3rd ed. (1908; Madras: Natesan, 1920), 1–2, 6–8.]
One of Gokhale’s chief concerns in the realm of social reform was the lot of the “Untouchables.” The appeal launched in this 1903 speech was continued by Gandhi’s devotion to their cause.
Mr. President and Gentlemen: The proposition which has been entrusted to me runs thus—“That this Conference holds that the present degraded condition of the low castes is, in itself and from the national point of view, unsatisfactory, and is of opinion that every well-wisher of the country should consider it his duty to do all he can to raise their moral and social condition by trying to rouse self-respect in these classes and placing facilities for education and employment within their reach.”
Gentlemen, I hope I am not given to the use of unnecessarily strong language and yet I must say that this resolution is not as strongly worded as it should have been. The condition of the low castes—it is painful to call them low castes—is not only unsatisfactory as this resolution says, it is so deeply deplorable that it constitutes a grave blot on our social arrangements; and, further, the attitude of our educated men towards this class is profoundly painful and humiliating. I do not propose to deal with this subject as an antiquarian; I only want to make a few general observations from the standpoint of justice, humanity, and national self-interest. … It is absolutely monstrous that a class of human beings, with bodies similar to our own, with brains that can think and with hearts that can feel, should be perpetually condemned to a low life of utter wretchedness, servitude, and mental and moral degradation, and that permanent barriers should be placed in their way so that it should be impossible for them ever to overcome them and improve their lot. This is deeply revolting to our sense of justice. I believe one has only to put oneself mentally into their place to realize how grievous this injustice is. We may touch a cat, we may touch a dog, we may touch any other animal, but the touch of these human beings is pollution! And so complete is now the mental degradation of these people that they themselves … acquiesce in it as though nothing better than that was their due.
I remember a speech delivered seven or eight years ago by the late Mr. Ranade in Bombay, under the auspices of the Hindu Union Club. That was a time when public feeling ran high in India on the subject of the treatment which our people were receiving in South Africa. Our friend, Mr. Gandhi, had come here on a brief visit from South Africa and he was telling us how our people were treated in Natal and Cape Colony and the Transvaal—how they were not allowed to walk on footpaths or travel in first-class carriages on the railway, how they were not admitted into hotels, and so forth. Public feeling, in consequence, was deeply stirred, and we all felt that it was a mockery that we should be called British subjects, when we were treated like this in Great Britain’s colonies. … It was Mr. Ranade’s peculiar greatness that he always utilized occasions of excitement to give a proper turn to the national mind and cultivate its sense of proportion. And so, when every one was expressing himself in indignant terms about the treatment which our countrymen were receiving in South Africa, Mr. Ranade came forward to ask if we had no sins of our own to answer for in that direction. … [His exhortation] was “Turn the searchlight inwards,” or some such thing. … He began in characteristic fashion, expressing deep sympathy with the Indians in South Africa in the struggle they were manfully carrying on. He rejoiced that the people of India had awakened to a sense of the position of their countrymen abroad, and he felt convinced that this awakening was a sign of the fact that the dead bones in the valley were once again becoming instinct with life. But he proceeded to ask—Was this sympathy with the oppressed and downtrodden Indians to be confined to those of our countrymen only who had gone out of India? Or was it to be general and to be extended to all cases where there was oppression and injustice? It was easy, he said, to denounce foreigners, but those who did so were bound in common fairness to look into themselves and see if they were absolutely blameless in the matter. He then described the manner in which members of low caste were treated by our own community in different parts of India. It was a description which filled the audience with feelings of deep shame and pain and indignation. … This question, therefore, is, in the first place, a question of sheer justice.
Next, as I have already said, it is a question of humanity. It is sometimes urged that if we have our castes, the people in the West have their classes, and after all, there is not much difference between the two. A little reflection will, however, show that the analogy is quite fallacious. The classes of the West are a perfectly elastic institution, and not rigid or cast-iron like our castes. Mr. Chamberlain, who is the most masterful personage in the British empire today, was at one time a shoemaker and then a screwmaker. Of course, he did not make shoes himself, but that was the trade by which he made money. Mr. Chamberlain today dines with royalty, and mixes with the highest in the land on terms of absolute equality. Will a shoemaker ever be able to rise in India in the social scale in a similar fashion, no matter how gifted by nature he might be? A great writer has said that castes are eminently useful for the preservation of society, but that they are utterly unsuited for purposes of progress. And this I think is perfectly true. If you want to stand where you were a thousand years ago, the system of castes need not be modified in any material degree. If, however, you want to emerge out of the slough in which you have long remained sunk, it will not do for you to insist on a rigid adherence to caste. Modern civilization has accepted greater equality for all as its watchword, as against privilege and exclusiveness, which were the root-ideas of the old world. And the larger humanity of these days requires that we should acknowledge its claims by seeking the amelioration of the helpless condition of our downtrodden countrymen.
Finally, gentlemen, this is a question of national self-interest. How can we possibly realize our national aspirations, how can our country ever hope to take her place among the nations of the world, if we allow large numbers of our countrymen to remain sunk in ignorance, barbarism, and degradation? Unless these men are gradually raised to a higher level, morally and intellectually, how can they possibly understand our thoughts or share our hopes or cooperate with us in our efforts? Can you not realize that so far as the work of national elevation is concerned, the energy, which these classes might be expected to represent, is simply unavailable to us? … I think that there is not much hope for us as a nation unless the help of all classes, including those that are known as low castes, is forthcoming for the work that lies before us. Moreover, is it, I may ask, consistent with our own self-respect that these men should be kept out of our houses and shut out from all social intercourse as long as they remain within the pale of Hinduism, whereas the moment they put on a coat and a hat and a pair of trousers and call themselves Christians, we are prepared to shake hands with them and look upon them as quite respectable?. …
This work is bound to be slow and can only be achieved by strenuous exertions for giving them education and finding for them honourable employment in life. And, gentlemen, it seems to me that, in the present state of India, no work can be higher or holier than this. I think if there is one question of social reform more than another that should stir the enthusiasm of our educated young men and inspire them with an unselfish purpose, it is this question of the degraded condition of our low castes. Cannot a few men—five percent, four percent, three, two, even one percent—of the hundreds and hundreds of graduates that the university turns out every year, take it upon themselves to dedicate their lives to this sacred work of the elevation of low castes? … I may well address such an appeal to the young members of our community—to those who have not yet decided upon their future course and who entertain the noble aspiration of devoting to a worthy cause the education which they have received. What the country needs most at the present moment is a spirit of self-sacrifice on the part of our educated young men, and they may take it from me that they cannot spend their lives in a better cause than raising the moral and intellectual level of these unhappy low castes and promoting their general well-being.
[From Gokhale, Speeches, 898–902.]
The charter of the Servants of India Society embodies Gokhale’s cherished aims for the uplift of his country.
For some time past, the conviction has been forcing itself on many earnest and thoughtful minds that a stage has been reached in the political education and national advancement of the Indian people, when, for further progress, the devoted labors of a specially trained agency, applying itself to the task in a true missionary spirit, are required. The work that has so far been done has indeed been of the highest value. The growth, during the last fifty years, of a feeling of common nationality, based upon common tradition, common disabilities, and common hopes and aspirations, has been most striking. The fact that we are Indians first, and Hindoos, Mahomedans, Parsees, or Christians afterwards, is being realized in a steadily increasing measure, and the idea of a united and renovated India, marching onwards to a place among the nations of the world worthy of her great past, is no longer a mere idle dream of a few imaginative minds, but is the definitely accepted creed of those who form the brain of the community—the educated classes of the country. A creditable beginning has already been made in matters of education and of local self-government; and all classes of the people are slowly but steadily coming under the influence of liberal ideas. The claims of public life are every day receiving wider recognition, and attachment to the land of our birth is growing into a strong and deeply cherished passion of the heart. The annual meetings of the National Congress and of provincial and other conferences, the work of political associations, the writings in the columns of the Indian press—all bear witness to the new life that is coursing in the veins of the people. The results achieved so far are undoubtedly most gratifying, but they only mean that the jungle has been cleared and the foundations laid. The great work of rearing the super-structure has yet to be taken in hand, and the situation demands, on the part of workers, devotion and sacrifices proportionate to the magnitude of the task.
The Servants of India Society has been established to meet in some measure these requirements of the situation. Its members frankly accept the British connection, as ordained, in the inscrutable dispensation of Providence, for India’s good. Self-government on the lines of English colonies is their goal. This goal, they recognize, cannot be attained without years of earnest and patient work and sacrifices worthy of the cause. Moreover, the path is beset with great difficulties—there are constant temptations to turn back—bitter disappointments will repeatedly try the faith of those who have put their hand to the work. But the weary toil can have but one end, if only the workers grow not fainthearted on the way. One essential condition of success is that a sufficient number of our countrymen must now come forward to devote themselves to the cause in the spirit in which religious work is undertaken. Public life must be spiritualized. Love of country must so fill the heart that all else shall appear as of little moment by its side. A fervent patriotism which rejoices at every opportunity of sacrifice for the motherland, a dauntless heart which refuses to be turned back from its object by difficulty or danger, a deep faith in the purpose of Providence that nothing can shake—equipped with these, the worker must start on his mission and reverently seek the joy which comes of spending oneself in the service of one’s country.
The Servants of India Society will train men, prepared to devote their lives to the cause of the country in a religious spirit, and will seek to promote, by all constitutional means, the national interests of the Indian people. Its members will direct their efforts principally towards: 1) creating among the people, by example and by precept, a deep and passionate love of the motherland, seeking its highest fulfillment in service and sacrifice; 2) organizing the work of political education and agitation and strengthening the public life of the country; 3) promoting relations of cordial goodwill and cooperation among the different communities; 4) assisting educational movements, especially those for the education of women, the education of backward classes and industrial and scientific education; and 5) the elevation of the depressed classes. The headquarters of the Society will be at Poona, where it will maintain a Home for its members, and attached to it, a library for the study of political questions. The following constitution has been adopted for the Society.
1. The Society shall be called “The Servants of India Society.”
2. The objects of the Society are to train men to devote themselves to the service of India as national missionaries and to promote … the national interests of the Indian people.
[Items 3 to 8 and 10 onward deal with organizational questions.]
9. Every member, at the time of admission, shall take the following seven vows:
(i) That the country will always be the first in his thoughts and he will give to her service the best that is in him.
(ii) That in serving the country he will seek no personal advantage for himself.
(iii) That he will regard all Indians as brothers, and will work for the advancement of all, without distinction of caste or creed.
(iv) That he will be content with such provision for himself and his family, if he has any, as the Society may be able to make. He will devote no part of his energies to earning money for himself.
(v) That he will lead a pure personal life.
(vi) That he will engage in no personal quarrel with any one.
(vii) That he will always keep in view the aims of the Society and watch over its interests with the utmost zeal, doing all he can to advance its work. He will never do anything which is inconsistent with the objects of the Society.
[From Gokhale, Speeches, 914–917.]
From his own experience as a government official in rural Bengal from 1871 to 1897, Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848–1909) felt deeply the poverty of India’s villagers. After taking an early retirement, he wrote two volumes on India’s economic history under British rule, denouncing those policies that had led, in his opinion, to the poverty of the vast majority of his countrymen.
Dutt was born in Calcutta, the son of a surveyor in government service, and started school at the age of four. He saw a good deal of Bengal’s countryside over the next eight years, since his father was posted from one rural town to another. He remembered that in 1858 “great cheers” and “cries of ‘Long live the Queen’ in English and Bengali rent the air” when Victoria was proclaimed Queen of India.11 The year after that his mother died, followed two years later by his father; an affectionate uncle raised him until his marriage was arranged at fifteen. At sixteen he entered college. At nineteen, he and a friend left their homes secretly at night, joined young Surendranath Banerjea, and all sailed to London to study for the prestigious Indian Civil Service. He came out near the top of the list and passed his bar exams as well; then he returned to India to take up his duties on a low rung of the civil service ladder.
By dint of hard work and good judgment he reached the post of divisional commissioner, the highest level an Indian had attained in the civil service. In 1895–1896 he had charge of the entire area that today is the State of Orissa. At intervals in this busy career he found time to write books about Bengal peasant life and Bengali literature, as well as two social and four historical novels in Bengali. In addition, he applied his literary skill to the task of making both his countrymen and the Western world more aware of the greatness of ancient India’s civilization. First he outraged orthodox Brahmans by rendering the sacred hymns of the Rig Veda into Bengali, then he published selections from them in English. He also wrote a three-volume History of Civilization in Ancient India (1899–1900) with a patriotic purpose in mind. As he stated in his introduction: “No study has so potent an influence in forming a nation’s mind, a nation’s character, as a critical and careful study of its past history. And it is by such study alone that an unreasoning and superstitious worship of the past is replaced by a legitimate and manly admiration.”12 In addition, he selected and translated into English verse narrative passages from the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyana.
Romesh Dutt’s services to his countrymen took new forms after retirement freed him to travel, give public speeches, and concentrate his writing on the relationship between India and Britain and how it might be improved. A series of terrible famines struck several areas of the country in 1896–1897 and 1900–1901, and Dutt’s concern about how such catastrophes could be averted in the future was reflected in his presidential address to the Indian National Congress in 1899 and in his books England and India (1895), Famines and Land Assessments in India (1900), The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule (1901), and India in the Victorian Age: An Economic History of the People (1904). In each he prescribed measures for making the government of India more sensitive to the needs of the peasantry, and for lessening the tax burdens on the poor.
In his last five years, from 1904 to 1909, he resumed his career as an administrator by entering the service of the Gaekwar of Baroda, an Indian ruler in Gujarat. There he introduced some of the reforms he had implored the British to adopt in British India. From 1906 to 1909 he reasoned with Lord Morley (then secretary of state for India), privately and persuasively, in person and by mail, urging greater Indian participation in the provincial and central governments, which Parliament embodied in the Government of India Act of 1909. Later in that year he died, remembered by those who know his work as Garib ka Dost (“Friend of the Poor”).
Romesh Chunder Dutt attributed India’s poverty to Britain’s failings on four counts: the discouragement of handwoven cloth production; heavy and unpredictable taxes on agriculture; the outflow of money from India to pay its foreign debt and some of its administrative costs; and the absence of Indian representatives at the highest levels of government. Although his arguments on the first and third counts were countered to some extent in The Economic Transition in India (1911) by Theodore Morison, who noted that the “industrial transformation” of Canada, Argentina, Japan, and so forth, was also accompanied by the decline of “archaic” modes of production and considerable foreign indebtedness, Dutt’s conclusion that India became impoverished under British rule remained a theme with all subsequent nationalist leaders.
Excellent works on the military and political transactions of the British in India have been written by eminent historians. No history of the people of India, of their trades, industries, and agriculture, and of their economic condition under British administration, has yet been compiled.
Recent famines in India have attracted attention to this very important subject, and there is a general and widespread desire to understand the condition of the Indian people—the sources of their wealth and the causes of their poverty. …
Englishmen can look back on their work in India, if not with unalloyed satisfaction, at least with some legitimate pride. They have conferred on the people of India what is the greatest human blessing—Peace. They have introduced Western Education, bringing an ancient and civilised nation in touch with modern thought, modern sciences, modern institutions and life. They have built up an Administration which, though it requires reform with the progress of the times, is yet strong and efficacious. They have framed wise laws, and have established Courts of Justice, the purity of which is as absolute as in any country on the face of the earth. These are results which no honest critic of British work in India regards without high admiration.
On the other hand, no open-minded Englishman contemplates the material condition of the people of India under British rule with equal satisfaction. The poverty of the Indian population at the present day is unparalleled in any civilised country; the famines which have desolated India within the last quarter of the nineteenth century are unexampled in their extent and intensity in the history of ancient or modern times. By a moderate calculation, the famines of 1877 and 1878, of 1889 and 1892, of 1897 and 1900, have carried off fifteen millions of people. The population of a fair-sized European country has been swept away from India within twenty-five years. A population equal to half of that of England has perished in India within a period which men and women, still in middle age, can remember.
What are the causes of this intense poverty and these repeated famines in India? Superficial explanations have been offered … and have been rejected. … It was said that the population increased rapidly in India and that such increase must necessarily lead to famines; it is found on inquiry that the population has never increased in India at the rate of England, and that during the last ten years it has altogether ceased to increase. It was said that the Indian cultivators were careless and improvident … but it is known to men who have lived all their lives among these cultivators, that there is not a more abstemious, a more thrifty, a more frugal race of peasantry on earth. It was said that the Indian money-lender was the bane of India, and by his fraud and extortion kept the tillers of the soil in a chronic state of indebtedness; but the inquiries of the latest Famine Commission have revealed that the cultivators of India are forced under the thraldom of money-lenders by the rigidity of the Government revenue demand. It was said that in a country where the people depended almost entirely on their crops, they must starve when the crops failed in years of drought; but the crops in India, as a whole, have never failed, there has never been a single year when the food supply of the country was insufficient for the people, and there must be something wrong, when failure in a single province brings on a famine, and the people are unable to buy their supplies from neighbouring provinces rich in harvests. …
It is, unfortunately, a fact which no well-informed Indian official will ignore, that, in many ways, the sources of national wealth in India have been narrowed under British rule. India in the eighteenth century was a great manufacturing as well as a great agricultural country, and the products of the Indian loom supplied the markets of Asia and of Europe. It is, unfortunately, true that the East Indian Company and the British Parliament, following the selfish commercial policy of a hundred years ago, discouraged Indian manufacturers in the early years of British rule in order to encourage the rising manufactures of England. Their fixed policy, pursued during the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth, was to make India subservient to the industries of Great Britain, and to make the Indian people grow raw produce only, in order to supply material for the looms and manufactories of Great Britain. This policy was pursued with unwavering resolution and with fatal success; orders were sent out, to force Indian artisans to work in the Company’s factories; commercial residents were legally vested with extensive powers over villages and communities of Indian weavers; prohibitive tariffs excluded Indian silk and cotton goods from England; English goods were admitted into India free of duty or on payment of a nominal duty.
The British manufacturer, in the words of the historian H. H. Wilson, “employed the arm of political injustice to keep down and ultimately strangle a competitor with whom he could not have contended on equal terms”; millions of Indian artisans lost their earnings; the population of India lost one great source of their wealth. It is a painful episode in the history of British rule in India; but it is a story which has to be told to explain the economic condition of the Indian people, and their present helpless dependence on agriculture. The invention of the power-loom in Europe completed the decline of the Indian industries; and when in recent years the power-loom was set up in India, England once more acted towards India with unfair jealousy. An excise duty has been imposed on the production of cotton fabrics in India which disables the Indian manufacturer from competing with the manufacturer of Japan and China, and which stifles the new steam-mills of India.
Agriculture is now virtually the only remaining source of national wealth in India, and four-fifths of the Indian people depend on agriculture. But the Land Tax levied by the British Government is not only excessive but, what is worse, it is fluctuating and uncertain in many provinces. …
It will appear from the facts stated above that the Land Tax in India is not only heavy and uncertain, but that the very principle on which it is raised is different from the principle of taxation in all well-administered countries. In such countries the State promotes the accumulation of wealth, helps the people to put money into their pockets, likes to see them prosperous and rich, and then demands a small share of their earnings for the expenses of the State. In India the State virtually interferes with the accumulation of wealth from the soil, intercepts the incomes and gains of the tillers, and generally adds to its land revenue demand at each recurring settlement, leaving the cultivators permanently poor. In England, in Germany, in the United States, in France and other countries, the State widens the income of the people, extends their markets, opens out new sources of wealth, identifies itself with the nation, grows richer with the nation. In India, the State has fostered no new industries and revived no old industries for the people; on the other hand, it intervenes at each recurring land settlement to take what it considers its share out of the produce of the soil. Each new [land tax] settlement in Bombay and in Madras is regarded by the people as a wrangle between them and the State as to how much the former will keep and how much the latter will take. It is a wrangle decided without any clear limits fixed by the law—a wrangle in which the opinion of the revenue officials is final, and there is no appeal to judges or Land Courts. The revenue increases and the people remain destitute.
Taxation raised by a king, says the Indian poet, is like the moisture of the earth sucked up by the sun, to be returned to the earth as fertilising rain; but the moisture raised from the Indian soil now descends as fertilising rain largely on other lands, not on India. Every nation reasonably expects that the proceeds of taxes raised in the country should be mainly spent in the country. Under the worst governments that India had in former times, this was the case. The vast sums which Afghan and Moghal Emperors spent on their armies went to support great and princely houses, as well as hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their families. The gorgeous palaces and monuments they built, as well as the luxuries and displays in which they indulged, fed and encouraged the manufacturers and artisans of India. Nobles and Commanders of the army, Subadars, Dewans, and Kazis,13 and a host of inferior officers in every province and every district, followed the example of the Court; and mosques and temples, roads, canals and reservoirs, attested to their wide liberality, or even to their vanity. Under wise rulers as under foolish kings, the proceeds of taxation flowed back to the people and fructified their trade and industries. …
For one who has himself spent the best and happiest years of his life in the work of Indian administration, it is an ungracious and a painful task to dwell on the weak side of that administration, the financial and economic policy of the Indian government. … The deep-seated cause of the poverty of the Indian people has to be explained. Place any other country under the same condition, with crippled industries, with agriculture subject to a heavy and uncertain Land Tax, and with financial arrangements requiring one-half of its revenues to be annually remitted out of the country, and the most prosperous nation on earth will soon know the horrors of famine. A nation prospers if the sources of its wealth are widened, and if the proceeds of taxation are spent among the people, and for the people. A nation is impoverished if the sources of its wealth are narrowed, and the proceeds of taxation are largely remitted out of the country. These are plain, self-evident economic laws, which operate in India, as in every other country, and the Indian statesman and administrator must feel that the poverty of India cannot be removed until Indian industries are revived, until a fixed and intelligible limit is placed on the Indian Land Tax, and until the Indian revenues are more largely spent in India. …
Nor are Indian administrators strong in the support of the Indian people. The Indian Government means the Viceroy and the Members of the Executive Council, viz., the Commander-in-Chief, the Military Member, the Public Works Member, the Finance Member, and the Legal Member. The people are not represented in this Council; their agriculture, their landed interests, their trades and industries, are not represented; there is not, and never has been, a single Indian member in the Council. All the Members of the Council are heads of spending departments, as was lately explained by Sir Auckland Colvin and Sir David Barbour before the Royal Commission on Indian expenditure. The Members are high English officials, undoubtedly interested in the welfare of the people, but driven by the duties of their office to seek for more money for the working of their departments; there are no Indian Members to represent the interests of the people. The forces are all arrayed on the side of expenditure … [and] none on the side of retrenchment. …
“The government of a people by itself,” said John Stuart Mill, “has a meaning and a reality; but such a thing as government of one people by another does not, and cannot exist. One people may keep another for its own use, a place to make money in, a human cattle-farm to be worked for the profits of its own inhabitants.”
There is more truth in this strongly worded statement than appears at first sight. History does not record a single instance of one people ruling another in the interests of the subject nation. Mankind has not yet discovered any method for safeguarding the interests of a subject nation without conceding to that nation some voice in controlling the administration of their own concerns. …
The wisest administrators in the past, like Munro, Elphinstone, and Bentinck, … sought to promote the welfare of the people by accepting the cooperation of the people, as far as was possible, in their day. What is needed today is a continuance and development of the same policy, not a policy of exclusiveness and distrust. What is needed to-day is that British rulers, who know less of India to-day than their predecessors did fifty years ago, should descend from their dizzy isolation, and should stand amidst the people, work with the people, make the people their comrades and collaborators, and hold the people responsible for good administration. …
The dawn of a new century finds India deeper in distress and discontent than any preceding period of history. A famine, wider in the extent of country affected than any previous famine, has desolated the country. In parts of India, not affected by this famine, large classes of people attest to semi-starvation by their poor physique; numbers of them suffer from a daily insufficiency of food; and the poorer classes are trained by life-long hunger to live on less food than is needed for proper nourishment. In the presence of facts like these, party controversy is silenced; and every Englishman and every Indian, experienced in administration and faithful to the British Empire, feel it their duty to suggest methods for the removal of the gravest danger which has ever threatened the Empire of India.
[From Dutt, The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule (London: Morrison and Gibb, 1901), v–ix, xi–xvi, xxi–xxii.]
Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (see chapter 2) opposed the Congress from its inception. The following speech was given two years after its founding in 1885, and lays out his position. As is evident from Sir Sayyid’s sarcastic language, British officials in India, and some educated Muslims as well, shared a stereotyped view of educated Hindu Bengalis as timid, ineffectual, and cowardly. The Rajputs, by contrast, were praised for being warlike, a quality that Sir Sayyid sought to present as shared by Muslims.
In this speech Sir Sayyid tried to walk a careful line, persuading his Muslim audience that as former rulers they were gallant and militarily dangerous, such that in the wake of 1857 the British rulers were right to distrust them; but at the same time they were loyal and trustworthy British subjects, who did not seek anything as foolish and unworkable as democratic self-government. Still, the final cure for all problems was, as always, education.
Gentlemen,—I am not given to speaking on politics, and I do not recollect having ever previously given a political lecture. My attention has always been directed towards the education of my brother Mohammedans, for from education I anticipate much benefit for my people, for Hindustan, and for the Government. But at the present time circumstances have arisen which make it necessary for me, I think, to tell my brother Mussalmans clearly what my opinions are. The object [here] … is to explain the attitude which the Mohammedan community ought to adopt with regard to the political movements of the time. … There has grown up in India a political agitation, and it is necessary to determine what action should be taken by the Mohammedan community with regard to it. … If it be useful, we must follow it, but if dangerous for the country or our nation, we must hold aloof.
Before I enter on this subject, let me briefly describe the methods of rule adopted by our Government, which has now been here for nearly a hundred years. Its method is this: to keep in its own hands all questions of foreign policy and all matters affecting its army. … Our interests will not suffer from these matters being left in the hands of Government. But we are concerned with matters affecting internal policy; and we have to observe what method Government has adopted for dealing with them. Government has made a Council for making laws affecting the lives, property, and comfort of the people. For this Council, she selects from all Provinces those officials who are best acquainted with the administration and the condition of the people, and also some Rais-es [nobles], who, on account of their high social position, are worthy of a seat in that assembly.
Some people may ask—Why should they be chosen on account of social position instead of ability? On this, gentlemen, I will say a few words. It is a great misfortune—and I ask your pardon for saying it—that the landed gentry of India have not the trained ability which makes them worthy of occupying those seats. But you must not neglect those circumstances which compel Government to adopt this policy. It is very necessary that for the Viceroy’s Council the members should be of high social position. …
The method of procedure in the Council is this. If any member introduces a subject of importance and difficulty, a commission is appointed which collects evidence and digests it. The matter is discussed in every newspaper, and memorials are invited from Associations. The Council then discusses the matter, every member speaking his views with great vigour and earnestness, more even than was displayed in the discussion on the third resolution of the Mohammedan Educational Congress, advocating what he thinks necessary for the welfare of the country. … I have had the honour of being in this Council. I do not recollect any matter of importance concerning which ten or twenty memorials were not sent in. A Select Committee was then appointed, which read through these memorials and discussed them at length, many of which on consideration turned out to be thorough nonsense. Extracts from Urdu papers were also considered. Although not in my presence, yet often amendments suggested by these memorials have been adopted. This is the method of our Government. After this the law is passed and sent to the Secretary of State, who is assisted by the Council of State, which consists of men of the highest ability, who have lived for a long time in India and have often held all offices, from that of Assistant Collector to Lieutenant-Governor. If they think it expedient it is passed, otherwise a short note of four lines cancels it. Often people make objections to the laws so passed, and in some cases they are perhaps right; but in the majority of cases, as far as my experience goes, those very people who sit in their houses and make objections would, if they had been on Viceroy’s Council, have supported them. … No one can say that Government acts independently of the wishes and opinions of its subjects. Often it adopts some of the views expressed in newspapers and memorials. …
There is now another great duty of Government. That is, that in whatever country Government establishes its dominion, that dominion should be made strong, firm, and secure. I believe that if any of my friends were made Viceroy, he would be as loyal to Her Majesty the Queen-Empress of India as is our present Viceroy, Lord Dufferin. … It is a first principle of Empire that it is the supreme duty of everyone, whether Hindustani or Englishman, in whose power it rests, to do what he can to strengthen the Government of Her Majesty the Queen. The second duty of Government is to preserve peace, to give personal freedom, to protect life and property; to punish criminals and to decide civil disputes. … Every one will admit that Government completely fulfils its duty in this respect.
Many people think that the laws have become too numerous and consequently that lawsuits have become more complicated, and thus, lead to disputes between the zamindar and the kashtkar [laborer]. But this is the opinion of the critics who sit in their houses, who if they sat on the Viceroy’s Council would change their views. The multiplicity of laws depends upon the condition of the country and of its people. New companies and new industries are springing into existence. New and unforeseen legal rights have arisen which are not provided for in the Mohammedan law. Hence, when the country is changing at such a rate, it is absolutely necessary that new laws should be brought forward to deal with the new circumstances. …
I come now to the main subject on which I wish to address you. That is the National Congress and the demands which that body makes of Government. … When the Government of India passed out of the hands of the East India Company into those of the Queen, a law was passed, saying that all subjects of Her Majesty, whether white or black, European or Indian, should be equally eligible for appointments. This was confirmed by the Queen’s Proclamation. We have to see whether, in the rules made for admission to civil appointments, any exception has been made to this or not; whether we have been excluded from any appointments for which we are fitted. Nobody can point out a case in which for any appointment a distinction of race has been made. It is true that for the Covenanted Civil Service a special set of rules has been made, namely, that candidates have to pass a competitive examination in England. …
I do not think it necessary for me on this occasion to discuss the question why the competitive examination is held in England, and what would be the evils arising from its transference to India. But I am going to speak of the evils likely to follow the introduction into India of the competitive principle. I do not wish to speak in the interest of my own co-religionists, but to express faithfully whether I think the country is prepared for competitive examination or not. What is the result of competitive examination in England? You know that men of all social positions, sons of Dukes or Earls, of darzies [tailors] and people of low rank, are equally allowed to pass this examination. Men of both high and low family come to India in the Civil Service. And it is the universal belief that it is not expedient for Government to bring the men of low rank; and that the men of good social position treat Indian gentlemen with becoming politeness, maintain the prestige of the British race, and impress on the hearts of the people a sense of British justice; and are useful both to Government and to the country. But those who come from England, come from a country so far removed from our eyes that we do not know whether they are the sons of Lords or Dukes or of darzies, and therefore, if those who govern us are of humble rank, we cannot perceive the fact. But as regards Indians, the case is different. Men of good family would never like to trust their lives and property to people of low rank with whose humble origin they are well acquainted (Cheers from the audience).
Leave this a moment, and consider what are the conditions which make introduction into a country of competitive examination expedient, and then see whether our own country is ready for it or not. This is no difficult question of political economy; everyone can understand that the first condition for the introduction of competitive examination into a country is that all people in that country, from the highest to the lowest, should belong to one nation. In such a country no particular difficulties are likely to arise. The second case is that of a country in which there are two nationalities which have become so united as to be practically one nation. England and Scotland are a case in point. … But this is not the case with our country, which is peopled with different nations. Consider the Hindus alone. The Hindus of our Province, the Bengalis of the East, and the Mahrattas of the Deccan, do not form one nation. If, in your opinion, the peoples of India do form one nation, then no doubt competitive examination may be introduced; but if this be not so, then competitive examination is not suited to the country. The third case is that of a country in which there are different nationalities which are on an equal footing as regards the competition, whether they take advantage of it or not. Now, I ask you, have Mohammedans attained to such a position as regards higher English education, which is necessary for higher appointments, as to put them on a level with Hindus or not? Most certainly not. Now, I take Mohammedans and the Hindus of our Province together, and ask whether they are able to compete with the Bengalis or not? Most certainly not. When this is the case, how can competitive examination be introduced into our country (Cheers from the audience).
Think for a moment what would be the result if all appointments were given by competitive examination. Over all races, not only over Mohammedans but over Rajas of high position and the brave Rajputs who have not forgotten the swords of their ancestors, would be placed as ruler a Bengali who at sight of a table knife would crawl under his chair (Uproarious cheers and laughter from the audience). There would remain no part of the country in which we should see at the tables of justice and authority any face except those of Bengalis. I am delighted to see the Bengalis making progress, but the question is—What would be the result on the administration of the country? Do you think that the Rajput and the fiery Pathan, who are not afraid of being hanged or of encountering the swords of the police or the bayonets of the army, could remain in peace under the Bengalis? (Cheers from the audience). This would be the outcome of the proposal, if accepted. Therefore if any of you—men of good position, Rais-es, men of the middle classes, men of noble family to whom God has given sentiments of honour—if you accept that the country should groan under the yoke of Bengali rule and its people lick the Bengali shoes, then, in the name of God jump into the train, sit down, and be off to Madras, be off to Madras [for the Congress meeting]! (Loud cheers and laughter from the audience).
The second demand of the National Congress is that the people should elect a section of the Viceroy’s council. They want to copy the English House of Lords and the House of Commons. The elected members are to be like members of the House of Commons; the appointed members like the House of Lords. Now, let us suppose the Viceroy’s Council is made in this manner. And let us suppose first of all that we have universal suffrage, as in America, and that everybody, chamars [Untouchables] and all, have votes. And first suppose that all the Mohammedan electors vote for a Mohammedan member and all Hindu electors for a Hindu member, and now count how many votes the Mohammedan members have and how many the Hindu. It is certain the Hindu members will have four times as many because their population is four times as numerous. Therefore we can prove by mathematics that there will be four votes for the Hindu to every one vote for the Mohammedan. And now how can the Mohammedan guard his interests?
In the second place, suppose that the electorate be limited. Some method of qualification must be made; for example, that people with a certain income shall be electors. Now, I ask you, O Mohammedans! Weep at your condition! Have you such wealth that you can compete with the Hindus? Most certainly not. Suppose, for example, that an income of Rs. 5,000 a year be fixed on, how many Mohammedans will there be? Which party will have the larger number of votes? I put aside the case that by a rare stroke of luck a blessing comes through the roof, and some Mohammedan is elected. In the normal case no single Mohammedan will secure a seat in the Viceroy’s Council. The whole Council will consist of Babu So-and-so Chuckerburty [a Bengali name] (Laughter from the audience). Again, what will be the result for the Hindus of our Province, though their condition be better than that of the Mohammedans? What will be the result for those Rajputs the swords of whose ancestors are still wet with blood? And what will be the result for the peace of the country?
Now, we will suppose a third kind of election. Suppose a rule is to be made that a suitable number of Mohammedans and a suitable number of Hindus are to be chosen. I am aghast when I think on what grounds this number is likely to be determined. Of necessity proportion to total population will be taken. So there will be one number for us to every four for the Hindus. No other condition can be laid down. Then they will have four votes and we shall have one. Now, I will make a fourth supposition. Leaving aside the question as to the suitability of members with regard to population, let us suppose that a rule is laid down that half the members are to be Mohammedan and half Hindus, and that the Mohammedans and Hindus are each to elect their own men. Now, I ask you to pardon me for saying something which I say with a sore heart. In the whole nation there is no person who is equal to the Hindus in fitness for the work. … Tell me who there is of our nation in the Punjab, Oudh, and North-Western Provinces, who will leave his business, incur these expenses, and attend the Viceroy’s Council for the sake of his countrymen. When this is the condition of your nation, is it expedient for you to take part in this business on the absurd supposition that the demands of the Congress would, if granted, be beneficial for the country? Spurn such foolish notions. It is certainly not expedient to adopt this cry—Chalo [Let’s go to] Madras! Chalo Madras!—without thinking of the consequences.
Besides this there is another important consideration, which is this. Suppose that a man of our own nationality were made Viceroy of India, that is, the deputy of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen-Empress. Could such a person grant demands like these, keeping in view the duty of preserving the Empire on a firm and secure basis? Never! Then how absurd to suppose that the British Government can grant these requests? The result of these unrealizable and impossible proposals can be only this, that for a piece of sheer nonsense the hearts of everybody will be discontented with Government. …
Everybody knows well that the agitation of the Bengalis is not the agitation of the whole of India. But suppose it were the agitation of the whole of India, and that every nation had taken part in it, do you suppose the Government is so weak that it would not suppress it, but must needs be itself overwhelmed? Have you not seen what took place in the Mutiny? It was a time of great difficulty. The army had revolted; some badmash es [bad characters] had joined it; and Government wrongly believed that the people at large were taking part in the rebellion. I am the man who attacked this wrong notion, and while the Government was hanging its officials, I printed a pamphlet, and told Government that it was entirely false to suppose that the people at large were rebellious. But in spite of all these difficulties, what harm could this rebellion do to the Government? Before the English troops had landed, she had regained her authority from shore to shore. Hence, what benefit is expected from all this for the country, and what revolution in the Government can we produce? The only results can be to produce a useless uproar, to raise suspicions in Government, and to bring back again that time which we experienced thirty or thirty-one years ago. … Will you kindly point out to me ten men among our agitators who will consent to stand face to face with the bayonets? When this is the case, then what sort of an uproar is this, and is it of such a nature that we ought to join it?
We ought to consider carefully our own circumstances and the circumstances of Government. If Government entertains unfavourable sentiments towards our community, then I say with the utmost force that these sentiments are entirely wrong. At the same time if we are just, we must admit that such sentiments would be by no means unnatural. … Think for a moment who you are. What is this nation of ours? We are those who ruled India for six or seven hundred years (Cheers from the audience). From our hands the country was taken by Government into its own. Is it not natural then for Government to entertain such thoughts? Is Government so foolish as to suppose that in seventy years we have forgotten all our grandeur and our empire? Although, should Government entertain such notions, she is certainly wrong, yet we must remember she has ample excuse. We do not live on fish; nor are we afraid of using a knife and fork lest we should cut our fingers (Cheers from the audience). Our nation is of the blood of those who made not only Arabia, but Asia and Europe to tremble. It is our nation which conquered with its sword the whole of India, although its peoples were all of one religion (Cheers from the audience). I say again that if Government entertains suspicions of us it is wrong. But do her the justice and admit that there is a reasonable ground for such suspicions. … If Government be wise and Lord Dufferin be a capable Viceroy; then he will realise that a Mohammedan agitation is not the same as a Bengali agitation, and he will be bound to apply an adequate remedy.
Our course of action should be such as to convince Government of the wrongness of her suspicions regarding us, if she entertains any. We should cultivate mutual affection. What we want we should ask for as friends. And if any ill-will exists, it should be cleansed away; I am glad that some Pathans of the N.W.P. and Oudh are here to-day, and I hope some Hindu Rajputs are also present. My friend Yusuf Shah of the Punjab sits here, and he knows well the mood of mind of the people of the Punjab, of the Sikhs and Mussalmans. … You should conduct yourself in a straightforward and calm manner. …
I come now to some other proposals of the Congress. We have now a very charming suggestion. These people wish to have the Budget of India submitted to them for sanction. Leave aside political expenses; but ask our opinion about the expenses of the army. Why on earth has Government made so big an army? … How ridiculous then for those who have never seen a battlefield, or even the mouth of a cannon, to want to prepare the Budget for the army!
A still more charming proposal is the following: When some people wrote articles in newspapers, showing that it was impossible to establish representative government in India, and bringing forward cogent reasons, then they came down a little from their high flight and said: “Let us sit in the Council, let us chatter; but take votes or not, as you please”; can you tell me the meaning of this, or the use of this folly?
Another very laughable idea is this. Stress is laid on these suggestions: that the Arms Act be repealed, that Indian Volunteers be enlisted, and that army schools be established in India. But do you know what nation is proposing them? If such proposals had come from Mohammedans or from Rajput brothers, whose ancestors always wore the sword, which although it is taken from their belts, yet still remains in their hearts, if they had made such proposals there would have been some sense in it. But what nation makes these demands? I agree with them in this and consider that Government has committed two very great mistakes. One is not to trust the Hindustanis and to allow them to become volunteers. A second error of Government of the greatest magnitude is this, that it does not give appointments in the army to those brave people whose ancestors did not use the pen to write with; no, but a different kind of pen—(Cheers from the audience)—nor did they use black ink, but the ink they dipped their pens in was red, red ink which flows from the bodies of men (Cheers from the audience). O brothers! I have fought the Government in the harshest language about these points. The time is, however, coming when my brothers, Pathans, Syeds, Hashmi and Koreishi, whose blood smells of the blood of Abraham, will appear in glittering uniform as Colonels and Majors in the army. But we must wait for that time. Government will most certainly attend to it; provided you do not give rise to suspicions of disloyalty. …
I will suppose for a moment that you have conquered a part of Europe and have become its rulers. I ask whether you would equally trust the men of that country. This was a mere supposition. I now come to a real example. When you conquered India, what did you yourself do? For how many centuries was there no Hindu in the army list? But when the time of the Mughal family came and mutual trust was established, the Hindus were given very high appointments. Think how many years old is the British rule. How long ago was the Mutiny? And tell me how many years ago Government suffered such grievous troubles, though they arose from the ignorant and not from the gentlemen? Also call to mind that in the Madras Presidency, Government has given permission to the people to enlist as volunteers. I say, too, that this concession was premature, but it is a proof that when trust is established, Government will have no objection to make you also volunteers. And when we shall be qualified, we shall acquire those positions with which our forefathers were honoured. …
In the time of Lord Ripon I happened to be a member of the Council. Lord Ripon had a very good heart and kind disposition and every qualification for a Governor. But, unfortunately, his hand was weak. His ideas were radical. At that time the Local Board and Municipality Bills were brought forward, and the intention of them was that everybody should be appointed by election. Gentlemen, I am not a Conservative, I am a great Liberal. But to forget the prosperity of one’s nation is not a sign of wisdom. The only person who was opposed to the system of election was myself. If I am not bragging too much, I may, I think, say that it was on account of my speech that Lord Ripon changed his opinion and made one-third of the members appointed and two-thirds elected. Now just consider the result of election. In no town are Hindus and Mohammedans equal. Can the Mohammedans suppress the Hindus and become the masters of our “Self-Government”? In Calcutta … there were eighteen elected members, not one of whom was a Mohammedan; all were Hindus. Now, he wanted Government to appoint some Mohammedans. … This is the state of things in all cities. In Aligarh also, were there not a special rule, it would be impossible for any Mohammedan, except my friend Maulvi Mohammed Yusuf, to be elected; and at last he, too, would have to rely on being appointed by Government. Then how can we walk along a road for which neither we nor the country is prepared?
I am now tired and have no further strength left. I can say no more. But, in conclusion, I have one thing to say; lest my friends should say that I have not told them … by what thing we may attain prosperity. My age is above seventy. Although I cannot live to see my nation attain to such a position as my heart longs for for it, yet my friends who are present in this meeting will certainly see the nation attain such honour, prosperity and high rank, if they attend to my advice. But, my friends, do not liken me to that dyer who, only possessing mango-coloured dye, said mango-coloured dye was the only one he liked. I assure you that the only thing which can raise you to a high rank is high education. Until our nation can give birth to a highly-educated people it will remain degraded; it will be below others, and will not attain such honour as I desire for it. … It was my duty to tell those things which, in my opinion, are necessary for the welfare of my nation … to cleanse my hands before God the Omnipotent, the Merciful, and the Forgiver of sins.
[From Sayyid Ahmad Khan, The Present State of Indian Politics: Speeches and Letters (Allahabad, 1888), in Bimal Prasad, Pathway to India’s Partition, vol. 1: The Foundations of Muslim Nationalism (New Delhi: Manohar, 1999), appendix 1, 261–271. Some paragraph breaks added by Frances Pritchett.]
Through its long history the Indian National Congress always had an active Muslim minority membership. The Congress insisted that it was an all-Indian and allcommunity organization representing “India.” Without minority members playing a vocal part, this would have been a harder claim to make, and it was disputed in any case.
During its first twelve years of meeting, the Congress had two Muslims as presidents of its annual sessions, Badruddin Tyabji (1844–1906) in 1887 and Rahmatullah M. Sayani (1847–1902) in 1896. Both were distinguished professional men, and both addressed, inter alia, the issue of Muslim participation, answering the questions raised by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan.
Tyabji’s father visited Great Britain in 1853 and had his children educated there. Then the younger Tyabji was called to the bar in 1867 (Middle Temple) and became the first Indian barrister in Bombay. In 1895 he accepted a judgeship and acted as chief justice in 1902. He granted bail to Tilak, when others had refused it, and would not accept denigrations of the Congress in his court. In 1871 he joined the agitation to make the Bombay Municipal Corporation an elective council, and was subsequently a member both of it and of the Bombay Legislative Council. He and an older brother were principally responsible for establishing the Anjuman-e Islam (“Islamic Association”) in Bombay (1876), but he campaigned against purdah and sent his daughters abroad for education. Although he lived in grand style at Somerset House, he also worked diligently for the educational advancement of poorer Muslims. An important organizer of the early Congress, he was prevented by ill health from attending the first two sessions; but he served as president of the third session in Madras.
Sayani came from a Khoja Muslim family in Cutch and graduated from Elphin-stone College in 1866; he gained a law degree, and became a solicitor in 1872. From the mid-1870s he was an active member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation, becoming president of the Corporation (1888) and sheriff of Bombay.14 He also served in the Bombay Legislative Council and the Imperial Legislative Council.
A keen critic of the government, he opposed the government’s efforts to amend the Indian Penal Code to enable it to deal more harshly with “seditious” writings, and pointed to injustices in taxation rates between British India and Great Britain. Like Naoroji he presented evidence for the economic “drain” in his legislative and Congress speeches.
Tyabji, aligned with Moderate, and later Liberal, opinion in political India, professed to be “loyal to the backbone” to the Raj. He also showed condescension toward the ignorant among his countrymen, and pride in being among the educated and potentially powerful in Indian society who might one day inherit the earth. Nevertheless, in his presidential speech he argued for full Muslim participation in the Congress.
Gentlemen, all the friends and well-wishers of India, and all those who take an interest in watching over the progress and prosperity of our people, have every reason to rejoice at the increasing success of each succeeding Congress. At the first Congress in Bombay, in 1885, we had less than 100 representatives from the different parts of India; in the second Congress, at Calcutta, in 1886, we had as many as 440 representatives; while at this Congress, I believe, we have over 600 delegates representing all the different parts and all the different communities of this great Empire. I think, then, Gentlemen, that we are fairly entitled to say that this is a truly representative national gathering. …
CONGRESS AND MUSALMANS
Gentlemen, it has been urged in derogation of our character, as a representative national gathering, that one great and important community—the Musalman community—has kept aloof from the proceedings of the two last Congress. Now, Gentlemen, in the first place, this is only partially true. … Gentlemen, I must honestly confess to you that one great motive, which has induced me in the present state of my health to undertake the grave responsibilities of presiding over your deliberations, has been an earnest desire on my part to prove, as far as in my power lies, that I, at least not merely in my individual capacity but as representing the Anjuman-i-Islam of Bombay, do not consider that there is anything whatever in the position or the relations of the different communities of India—be they Hindus, Musalmans, Parsis, or Christians—which should induce the leaders of any one community to stand aloof from the others in their efforts to obtain those great general reforms … for the common benefit of us all and which, I feel assured, have only to be earnestly and unanimously pressed upon Government to be granted to us.
Gentlemen, it is undoubtedly true that each one of our great Indian communities has its own peculiar social, moral, educational and even political difficulties to surmount—but so far as general political questions affecting the whole of India—such as those which alone are discussed by this Congress—are concerned, I, for one, am utterly at a loss to understand why Musalmans should not work shoulder to shoulder with their fellow-countrymen, of other races and creeds, for the common benefit of all. …
A CONGRESS OF EDUCATED NATIVES
Gentlemen, it has been urged as a slur upon our loyalty that this Congress is composed of what are called the educated natives of India. Now, if by this it is intended to be conveyed that we are merely a crowd of people with nothing but our education to commend us, if it is intended to be conveyed that the gentry, the nobility, and the aristocracy of the land have kept aloof from us, I can only meet that assertion by the most direct and the most absolute denial. To any person who made that assertion, I should feel inclined to say: “Come with me into this Hall and look around you, and tell me where you could wish to see a better representation of the aristocracy, not only of birth and of wealth, but of intellect, education, and position, than you see gathered within the walls of this Hall.” …
Gentlemen, I, for one, am proud to be called not only educated but a “native” of this country. And, Gentlemen, I should like to know where among all the millions of Her Majesty’s subjects in India are to be found more truly loyal, nay, more devoted friends of the British Empire than among these educated natives. … I should like to know who is in a better position to appreciate these blessings—the ignorant peasants or the educated natives? Who, for instance, will better appreciate the advantages of good roads, railways, telegraphs and post offices, schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, good laws and impartial courts of justice?—the educated natives or the ignorant peasants of this country? Gentlemen, if there ever were to arise—which God forbid—any great struggle between Russia and Great Britain for supremacy in this country—who is more likely to judge better of the two Empires? … It is we who know and are best able to appreciate, for instance, the blessings of the right of public meeting, the liberty of action and of speech, and high education which we enjoy under Great Britain. …
ARE THE EDUCATED NATIVES DISLOYAL?
No, Gentlemen, let our opponents say what they please, we the educated natives, by the mere force of our education, must be the best appreciators of the blessings of a civilized and enlightened Government and, therefore, in our own interests, the best and staunchest supporters of the British Government in India. But, Gentlemen, do those who thus charge us with disloyalty stop for a moment to consider the full meaning and effect of their argument,—do they realize the full importance and significance of the assertion they make? Do they understand that, in charging us with disloyalty, they are in reality condemning and denouncing the very Government which it is their intention to support. Gentlemen, when they say that the educated natives of India are disloyal, what does it mean? It means this: that in the opinion of the educated natives—that is to say, of all the men of light and leading, all those who have received a sound, liberal and enlightened education, all those who are acquainted with the history of their own country and with the nature of the present and past Governments, that in the opinion of all these—the English Government is so bad that it has deserved to forfeit the confidence and the loyalty of the thinking part of the population. Now, Gentlemen, is it conceivable that a more frightful and unjust condemnation of the British Government can be pronounced than is implied in this charge of disloyalty against the educated natives of India? …
Happily, however, Gentlemen, this allegation is as absurd as it is unfounded. … But though, Gentlemen, I maintain that the educated natives, as a class, are loyal to the backbone, I must yet admit that some of our countrymen are not always guarded, not always cautious, in the language they employ. I must admit that some of them do sometimes afford openings for hostile criticisms, and I must say that I have myself observed in some of the Indian newspapers, and in the speeches of public speakers, sentiments and expressions which are calculated to lead one to the conclusion that they have not fully realised the distinction between licence and liberty; that they have not wholly grasped the lesson that freedom has its responsibilities no less than its privileges. And, therefore, Gentlemen, I trust that not only during the debates of this Congress, but on all occasions, we shall ever bear in mind and ever impress upon our countrymen that, if we are to enjoy the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and liberty of the Press, we must so conduct ourselves as to demonstrate by our conduct, by our moderation, by the justness of our criticisms, that we fully deserve these—the greatest blessings which an enlightened Government can confer upon its subjects.
EUROPEANS AND INDIAN ASPIRATIONS
Gentlemen, it has been sometimes urged that Europeans in this country do not fully sympathise with the just aspirations of the natives of India. In the first place, this is not universally true, because I have the good fortune to know many Europeans than whom truer or more devoted friends of India do not breathe on the face of the earth. And in the second place, we must be prepared to make very considerable allowance for our European fellow-subjects, because their position in this country is surrounded by difficult and complicated questions, not merely of a political but of a social character, which tend more or less to keep the two communities asunder in spite of the best efforts of the leaders of European no less than of native society. Gentlemen, so long as our European friends come to this country as merely temporary residents, so long as they come here merely for the purpose of trade, commerce or of a profession, so long as they do not look upon India as a country in whose welfare they are permanently interested, so long it will be impossible for us to expect that the majority of the Europeans should fraternize with us upon all great public questions and it has, therefore, always seemed to me that one of the greatest, the most difficult, the most complicated and, at the same time, one of the most important problems to be solved is, how to make our European friends look upon India as in some sense their own country, even by adoption. For, Gentlemen, if we could but induce our retired merchants, engineers, doctors, solicitors, barristers, judges and civilians to make India permanently their home, what an amount of talent and ability, political experience and ripe judgement we should retain in India for the benefit of us all. All these great questions in regard to the financial drain on India, and those questions arising from jealousy of races and the rivalry for public employment, would at once disappear. And when we speak of the poverty of India, because of the draining away of vast sums of money from India to England, it has always seemed to me strange that so little thought should be bestowed upon the question of the poverty of our resources, caused by the drain of so many men of public, political and intellectual eminence from our shores every year.
CONGRESS AND SOCIAL REFORM
Now, Gentlemen, one word as to the scope of our action and deliberations. It has been urged—solemnly urged—as an objection against our proceedings—that this Congress does not discuss the question of Social Reform. … And I must confess that the objection seems to me strange, seeing that this Congress is composed of the representatives, not of any one class or community, not of one part of India, but of all the different parts, and of all the different classes, and of all the different communities of India. Whereas any question of Social Reform must of necessity affect some particular part or some particular community of India only—and, therefore, Gentlemen, it seems to me, that although we, Musalmans, have our own social problems to solve, just as our Hindu and Parsi friends have theirs, yet these questions can be best dealt with by the leaders of the particular communities to which they relate. I, therefore, think, Gentlemen, that the only wise and, indeed, the only possible course we can adopt is to confine our discussions to such questions as affect the whole of India at large, and to abstain from the discussion of questions that affect a particular part or a particular community only.
[From A. M. Zaidi, ed., Congress Presidential Addresses (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1985), 1:42–48.]
Like Tyabji, Sayani wanted educated Muslims to join forces with Hindus and others in the Congress, while at the same time supporting efforts to raise their own community through education and reform efforts within the community. In his well-articulated presidential address, he rejected Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s advice to Muslims to boycott the Congress and to place their trust in the government.
It is imagined by some persons that all, or almost all, the Musalmans of India, are against the Congress movement. That is not true. Indeed, by far the largest part do not know what the Congress Movement is. Education of any sort or kind is conspicuous by its absence amongst them, and their habitual apathy has kept them from understanding the movement at all. … It will be sufficient here to state that one infinitely small class of persons who have received liberal education through the medium of the English language, and another equally infinitely small class of persons who have received no education whatever through the medium of the English language, but who have acquired a smattering of what they are pleased to consider education through the Hindustani language, have considered it a fashionable thing to abuse the Congress and Congressmen as such. There being thus two different classes of malcontents, if they may be so-called, the grounds of their opposition are naturally different, nay even inconsistent, with each other. There is a third class, also a small one at present, who have recently risen from their apathy and are honestly endeavouring to educate themselves in the right direction and are destined soon to come to the front and, it may safely be surmised, will become as enthusiastic supporters of the Congress movement; … but this address will confine itself to the two classes first mentioned. … An advocate of the views of the first two classes might well be supposed, if he ever cared to put his views systematically, to place the case for the Mohamedans in the following way:
Before the advent of the British in India, the Musalmans were the rulers of the country. The Musalmans had, therefore, all the advantages appertaining to the ruling class. The sovereign and the chiefs were their co-religionists, and so were the great landlords and the great officials. The court language was their own. Every place of trust and responsibility, or carrying influence and high emoluments was by birthright theirs. The Hindu did occupy some position, but the Hindu holders of position were but the tenants-at-will of the Musalmans. The Musalmans had complete access to the sovereigns and to the chiefs. They could, and did, often eat at the same table with them. They could also, and often did, intermarry. The Hindus stood in awe of them. Enjoyment and influence and all the good things of the world were theirs. Into the best-regulated kingdoms, however, as into the best-regulated societies and families, misfortunes would intrude and misfortunes did intrude into this happy Musalman Rule. By a stroke of misfortune, the Musalmans had to abdicate their position and descend to the level of their Hindu fellow-countrymen. The Hindus who had before stood in awe of their Musalman masters were thus raised a step by the fall of their said masters and with their former awe dropped their courtesy also. The Musalmans, who are a very sensitive race, naturally resented the treatment and would have nothing to do either with their rulers or with their fellow-subjects. Meanwhile the noble policy of the new rulers of the country introduced English education into the country. The learning of an entirely unknown foreign language, of course, required hard application and industry. The Hindus were accustomed to this, as even under the Musalman Rule, they had practically to master a foreign tongue, and so easily took to the new education. But the Musalmans had not yet become accustomed to this sort of thing, and were, moreover, not then in a mood to learn, much less to learn anything that required hard work and application, especially as they had to work harder than their former subjects, the Hindus. Moreover, they resented competing with the Hindus, whom they had till recently regarded as their inferiors. The result was that so far as education was concerned, the Musalmans who were once superior to the Hindus now actually became their inferiors. Of course, they grumbled and groaned, but the irony of fate was inexorable. The stern realities of life were stranger than fiction. The Musalmans were gradually ousted from their lands, their offices; in fact, everything was lost save their honour. The Hindus, from a subservient state, came into the lands, offices and other worldly advantages of their former masters. Their exultation knew no bounds, and they trod upon the heels of their former masters. The Musalmans would have nothing to do with anything in which they might have to come into contact with the Hindus. They were soon reduced to a state of utter poverty. Ignorance and apathy seized hold of them while the fall of their former greatness rankled in their hearts. This represents the train of thought which preoccupies the mind of many who would otherwise be well disposed towards this movement; all will admit that though they might object to particular statements, on the whole there is an element of truth which explains the Mohamedan depression. …
The Government of India, that is, the English Gentlemen, both in England and in India, directly concerned in carrying on the administration of India, became alarmed at this state of things. The English people, generally, were grieved at the mistaken, yet noble, race of Indian Musalmans thus going fast to ruin. Despatch after despatch was sent to India to do something for the Musalmans. Special facilities were ordered. Some Musalmans were after all found willing to receive liberal education, and these in their turn organised themselves into a body to educate others, and thus arose the educated class of Musalmans. The Musalmans are noted for their gratitude. Some persons seem to have put it into their heads that Government as a body disapproved of their subjects criticising the measures of the administration. Hence that educated class, honestly, though mistakenly, opposes the Congress movement. As to the second class, their interest lies in keeping the Musalmans ignorant, so as to turn such ignorance and the consequent credulity to their own advantage.
ALLEGED MOHAMEDAN OBJECTION TO THE CONGRESS
The following appear to be the objections of the Musalmans to the Congress:
1. That it is against their religion to join the Congress, as by joining the Congress they will be joining the Hindus who are not Musalmans.
2. That it is against their religion to join the Congress, as by joining the Congress they will be joining a movement opposed to Government, a thing which is opposed to their religion, which directs obedience and loyalty to Government, albeit Government may not be treating them properly.
3. That it is against their religion to learn the English language.
4. That the success of the Congress would weaken the British Rule, and might eventually end in the overthrow of British Power and the substitution of Hindu Rule.
5. That Government is against the Congress movement; that in addition to the duty of loyalty, the Musalmans owe the duty of gratitude to Government for giving them a liberal education; therefore by joining the Congress, the Musalmans would be guilty of the sin of ingratitude towards Government.
6. That the Congress does not adequately represent all the races of India.
7. That the motives of the persons constituting the Congress are not honest.
8. That the aims and objects of the Congress are not practical.
9. That the Congress is not important enough to deal satisfactorily with the subjects it takes up.
10. That the modes of Government prevailing in the West, namely, examination, representation, and election, are not adapted to India.
11. That such modes are not adapted to Musalmans.
12. That the result of the application of Western methods to India would be to place all offices under Government in the power of the Hindus, and the Musalmans would be completely ousted from Government employment.
13. That Government employment should be conferred not on the test of examinations, but by selection on the ground of race, position of the family, and other social and local considerations.
14. That public distinctions, such as seats on the Legislative Councils, Municipal Boards, and other public bodies should be conferred not by the test of election, but by nomination based on the ground of race, and social influence and importance.
15. That inasmuch as the Congress is a representative body, and inasmuch as the Hindus formed the majority of the population, the Congress will necessarily be swamped by the Hindus, and the resolutions of the Congress will, to all intents and purposes, be the resolutions of the Hindus, and the Musalmans’ voice will be drowned, and, therefore, if the Musalmans join the Congress, they will not only not be heard, but will be actually assisting in supporting Hindus to pass resolutions against the interest of the Musalmans, and to give colour to such resolutions as the resolutions of Hindus and Musalmans combined, and thus aiding in passing resolutions against themselves and misleading Government into believing that the Musalmans are in favour of such resolutions.
16. That Musalman boys have to learn the languages appertaining to their religion before joining schools; they are, therefore, at a disadvantage in the start for English education as compared with the Hindus. That the result is, that the Hindus pass the examinations, and as Government employment is given upon the test of examinations, the Musalmans are necessarily ousted from Government employment, and it follows that the test of examination is not a fair test.
17. That as employments are given on the test of examinations, the result is that Hindus get such employment, and even in districts where the majority of the population are Musalmans, the Hindus form the subordinate officialdom.
That the Hindus being hostile to the Musalmans, lord it over them, and the Musalmans are naturally grieved to be lorded over by the Hindus, that in many cases these Hindus are from the lower strata of society, and in that case they tyrannise the more and thus aggravate the harsh treatment of the Musalmans. That the result is that the Musalmans, and amongst them Musalmans descended from royal and noble families, are mortified at being not only ruled over, but even molested by and tyrannised over, in all manner of ways by Hindus, and Hindus of the lowest orders.
ANSWERS TO MOHAMEDAN OBJECTIONS
1. Musalmans in the past—Musalmans not in name only but orthodox true Musalmans—constantly travelled in foreign lands and mixed with all the nations of the world. The Mussalmans in India are the descendants of the Musalmans who thus travelled to and settled in India, and of the Hindus whom such Musalmans converted to Islam. All the Musalmans in India have always lived side by side with the Hindus and mixed with them and even cooperated with them, both during the period of the Musalman Rule, as also since then. In fact, both the Musalmans and the Hindus, as also older races residing in this country, are all equally the inhabitants of one and the same country, and are thus bound to each other by ties of a common nativity. … Both the Musalmans and the Hindus are subjects of the same sovereign and living under the protection of the same laws, and are equally affected by the same administration. The object of the Congress is to give expression to the political demands of the subjects, and to pray that their political grievances may be redressed and their political disabilities may be removed. … It is a most meritorious work, a work of the highest charity. … The only question is whether there should be two separate organisations, Musalman and non-Musalman, both simultaneously doing the same work … or whether there should be a joint organisation. Obviously, the latter is preferable, especially as the Congress has no concern whatever with the religion or the religious convictions of any of its members.
2. It is not true that the Congress movement is a movement in opposition to Government. It is a movement for the purpose of expressing the grievances of the subjects to Government in a legal and constitutional manner, and for the purpose of asking Government to fulfil promises made by Government … ; it is the duty of all truly loyal subjects—subjects desirous of seeing the Government maintained in its power—to inform Government of their own wants and wishes as it is also the duty of Government to ascertain the wants and wishes of subjects. …
3. Language is but the medium of expression. Orthodox and true Musalmans have in their time learned the Greek, the Latin, and other languages. There is, therefore, nothing against learning any language. In fact, many Musalmans of India, indeed, most of them learn and speak languages other than the language of their religion. The objection, therefore, against learning the English language, which is moreover the language of our rulers, is so absurd on the face of it, that it need not be further adverted to.
4. The object of the Congress has already been stated. The success of the Congress, as has also been stated, instead of weakening Government, will only contribute towards the greater permanence of British rule in India. …
5. It is the duty of all good boys, who have by the liberal policy of their fathers been enabled to receive a liberal education, to repay the kindness of their fathers, by assisting their fathers in the management of their affairs with the aid of such education and by contributing to the maintenance and welfare of the family by all honest means in their power. Similarly, it is the duty of those subjects who have received a liberal education with the aid of Government, to repay the kindness of Government by assisting Government in the proper discharge of its high functions by informing Government of the shoals and rocks lying ahead in its path. …
6. If the Congress does not, as is alleged, adequately represent all the races, surely the fault lies, not on the shoulders of the Congress leaders who invite all the races, but on the shoulders of those races themselves who turn a deaf ear to such invitation, and prefer not to respond to it. It is the duty of such races, in response to such invitation, to attend the Congress and not blame the Congress when, in fact, they ought to blame themselves.
7. All public bodies, assembled in public meetings, desirous of giving every publicity to their proceedings and even keeping a public record of its transactions, ought to be judged by their sayings and doings. It is not right or proper to attribute to such bodies improper motives, unless such motive can be fairly and reasonably inferred from their sayings or doings or both. …
8. As to the aims and objects of the Congress not being practical, it is a well known fact that public attention has been drawn to the demands of the Congress, and not only the classes but even the masses have already been awakened to a sense of their political grievances and disabilities. Government has also been pleased to take into its favourable consideration the demands of the Congress, and has partially conceded the expansion of Legislative Councils and introduced the element of election therein. …
9. As to the Congress not being important enough to deal with the subjects it takes up, it will not be denied that the Congress contains in its ranks some of the most educated, most wealthy and most influential men of the day, some of whom have occupied—and occupied honourably—public offices of trust and importance, and most of whom are leaders of their respective centres. In fact, in the Congress camp one comes across legislators, municipal councillors, rich zamindars, extensive merchants, renowned lawyers, eminent doctors, experienced publicists, indeed, representatives of every industry and every profession in the land. …
10. As to the modes of government prevailing in the West not being adapted to India, the position stands as follows: In a primary state of society, whilst a particular small nation, confined to a narrow strip of territory, is governed by a single ruler, who generally belongs to that nation and is residing in that territory, as the nation is not a numerous one and the territory not a large one, the ruler is necessarily in daily and constant touch with his subjects. … As the nation, however, increases in numbers, as the territory is enlarged and the needs of society become more numerous and more complicated, the number of the posts to be filled becomes greater, and the qualifications required for the proper performance of the posts grow higher and are of diverse character. The touch of the ruler with each one of the ruled gets less and less, and the ruler cannot possibly keep himself personally abreast of a knowledge of the increased and complicated needs of the people. He becomes, in fact, less qualified to properly fill up all the posts, and he is compelled to delegate this part of his duty to others.
In course of time, he discovers that it is not a very satisfactory thing to nominate to posts by means of deputies and that some definite method of selection must be substituted. … Thus it happens that all other qualifications such as of family, standing and position and others come to be dispensed with, and the test of public examinations, that is, of personal merit alone, as tested by such examinations, is substituted. It may be conceded at once that it is not a perfect or infallible test. It is a choice of evils.
In order, however, to guard so far as possible against the evil of dispensing with the other considerations, a certain proportion of the posts is reserved to be filled up by the original method of nomination and the examination test is resorted to for filling up initial posts alone, and promotion is guided by seniority and merit combined. The circumstances above set forth are not peculiar to any particular country or climate, but are equally applicable to all, and it is not correct to say that the above method is a peculiarly Western method and not applicable or adapted to India. In fact, in China, which is peculiarly an Eastern country, the same method has been of universal application for many centuries past. …
11. As to the modes of government prevailing in the West not being adapted to Musalmans, the observations in answer to objection No. 10 also apply to this objection. The Musalmans may be reminded that our Holy Prophet did not name a successor. He left it to the believers to elect one for themselves. The Caliph or the successor was originally freely chosen by the free suffrages of the believers and was responsible to them for his acts. In later times this practice was altered, and the Caliphs were made hereditary; but this was done by the confidence and the consent of the believers. … According to Musalman Law, if the Caliph departs from these traditions, the body of the learned (Ulema) is armed with the right of remonstrating, and is even able to depose him. Amongst these traditions, there is one which makes it obligatory on the Caliph not to do, or even to resolve on, any act without first seeking the advice of the chiefs of the tribes and the doctors of the law—a principle very characteristic of Representative Government. According to Muslim Law, the Caliph is bound to be just, to respect the liberties of the people, to love his subjects, to consider their needs and listen to their grievances. …
Election and Representation as also Universal Brotherhood are the characteristics of Islam and ought not to be objected to by Musalmans. All Musalmans are equal, and if they want any employment, they must, like the rest, pass public examinations. If they want any position of rank, they must endeavour to be fit for such position and resort to election like the rest. …
In fact, even in India we find that when Musalmans do really take to liberal education, they generally equal, if not even surpass, the other races, and that Musalmans are good not only in matters requiring muscle and valour, but also mental powers and intellectual vigour, and the Musalman community of India can produce distinguished and deeply learned scholars, … and here it may be remarked in passing that if Musalmans in India have a few more leaders of educational advancement, of the calibre and energy, and persistence and devotion, of the type of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan … Musalman education is bound to prosper. The Musalmans may further contend that in elections they will be swamped. All that may be said here is that they are mistaken in thinking so. They have simply to try, and they will find that they will have no reason to complain. …
Objections 12, 13, 14 and 16 have already been answered.
15. It does not follow that, because the Hindus form the majority of the Congress, that the Resolutions of the Congress will be the Resolutions of the Hindus. It is a standing rule of the Congress, solemnly passed and recorded that if any proposal is disapproved of by the bulk of either the Hindus or the Mussalmans, the same shall not be carried. … Again, so long as the Congress leaders happen to be men of education and enlightenment, men of approved conduct and wide experience, men, in fact, who have a reputation to lose, the Congress will never be allowed to run its course for the benefit of sectional, private or party purposes. Again, if the Mussalmans attend Congress meetings, surely the Congress shall be bound to hear and to give careful consideration to Mussalman views, and arguments founded on facts and reason are bound to prevail. …
The Mussalmans, however, instead of raising puerile and imaginary objections from a distance, should attend Congress meetings and see for themselves what is going on in such meetings; indeed, they will find that even when one member puts forward cogent reasons in opposition to the proposal, such proposal is eventually dropped.
17. If the complaint in regard to the conduct referred to in the objection be correct, it may be mentioned that such conduct is not popular to any particular race.
It is in the nature of things that persons of low origin, born and brought up in the atmosphere of low morals, should, on finding themselves suddenly clothed with the authority of the Sircar, get their heads turned and be led into playing the tyrant. The less the education they have received, and the smaller the emoluments their posts carry, the greater their superciliousness, the more marked their contempt for others. Cringing to superior authority, and lording it over the people who have anything to do officially with them, are the distinguished traits of these posts of society. Persons of high birth and culture, who have seen better days and better society, may sometimes be naturally inclined to give to these supercilious tyrants a sound thrashing so as to make them remember it to the end of their days and prevent them from reverting to their evil ways. But persons of high birth and culture naturally recoil from doing anything which may savour of vulgarism, and hence their silent sufferings. … But no Government, however watchful and however anxious it may be, can possibly completely eradicate the evil, the true remedies for the removal of which are as follows: The standard of education required of candidates for subordinate official posts should be gradually raised higher and higher so as to compel the candidates to have better education, better culture, in order to make them forget the evil surroundings of their previous life and to take to a better appreciation of the moral law of nature. At the same time education should be disseminated all over the land, and the standard of education of the masses, should be gradually and steadily raised, so that the masses, armed with the weapon of education, may not have meekly to submit to petty tyrannies, but may know how to protect themselves against them and to bring the offenders to a proper sense of their puniness and the impropriety of their conduct by means of union and the agitation of their grievances, and in legally provocable cases by bringing the culprits to their well-deserved punishment.
[From A. M. Zaidi, ed., Congress Presidential Addresses, 1:318–320, 322–335.]
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880–1932) was an innovator in three significant respects: she was the first important feminist of Bengali Muslim society; her feminist utopia predates by ten years the better-known work by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland; and her collection of vignettes describing the life of secluded women is the first book written in Bengali by a Muslim Bengali woman.
Hossain grew up in an elite Urdu-speaking Muslim household in Rangpur district. She and her sister defied their father by learning Bengali in secret; her sister was discovered and married off prior to her fifteenth birthday, a fate that horrified Rokeya. Her older brother aided her aspirations by teaching her English and Bengali late at night; her husband, to whom she was married at age sixteen, also encouraged her literary education, as well as her mixing, outside the confines of purdah, with Hindus and Christians. After his early death in 1909, she founded a girls’ school in Calcutta, formed the Muslim Women’s Association (Anjuman-e Khavatin-e Islam), and wrote a number of essays and books on the problems of Muslim women in Bengal—many of which derived, she felt, from the lack of education due to enforced seclusion. Hossain believed that social reform remained crucial to women’s lives, in spite of the fact that the political climate of India had changed by the early twentieth century, away from reformist platforms and toward radical political action. Indeed, Muslim men had been almost completely silent on the condition of Muslim women until her publications forced them to comment and react. Her girls’ school still functions in Kolkata.
Sultana’s Dream was first published in 1905 in an English periodical based in Madras, and then in 1908 as a book from a Calcutta press. Although Hossain wrote it to show off her proficiency in English to her husband, the significance of the work lies in her challenge to the existing patriarchal social order, which she satirized by the creation of a woman-centered utopia in which men are not absent, but rather are secluded, and fit only for looking after the children. Sister Sara, the narrator’s guide through Ladyland, asks Hossain incredulously how it is that in Hossein’s own society men, who are insane, are allowed outside.
One evening I was lounging in an easy chair in my bedroom and thinking lazily of the condition of Indian womanhood. I am not sure whether I dozed off or not. But, as far as I remember, I was wide awake. I saw the moonlit sky sparkling with thousands of diamondlike stars, very distinctly.
All on a sudden a lady stood before me; how she came in, I do not know. I took her for my friend, Sister Sara.
“Good morning,” said Sister Sara. I smiled inwardly as I knew it was not morning, but starry night. However, I replied to her, saying, “How do you do?”
“I am all right, thank you. Will you please come out and have a look at our garden?”
I looked again at the moon through the open window, and thought there was no harm in going out at that time. The menservants outside were fast asleep just then, and I could have a pleasant walk with Sister Sara.
I used to have my walks with Sister Sara, when we were at Darjeeling. Many a time did we walk hand in hand and talk lightheartedly in the botanical gardens there. I fancied Sister Sara had probably come to take me to some such garden, and I readily accepted her offer and went out with her.
When walking I found to my surprise that it was a fine morning. The town was fully awake and the streets alive with bustling crowds. I was feeling very shy, thinking I was walking in the street in broad daylight, but there was not a single man visible. …
“I feel somewhat awkward,” I said, in a rather apologizing tone, “as being a purdahnishin [secluded] woman I am not accustomed to walking about unveiled.”
“You need not be afraid of coming across a man here. This is Ladyland, free from sin and harm. Virtue itself reigns here.”…
I became very curious to know where the men were. I met more than a hundred women while walking there, but not a single man.
“Where are their men?” I asked her.
“In their proper places. Where they ought to be.”
“Pray let me know what you mean by ‘their proper places.’”
“Oh, I see my mistake, you cannot know our customs, as you were never here before. We shut our men indoors.”
“Just as we are kept in the zenana?”
“Exactly so.”
“How funny.” I burst into a laugh. Sister Sara laughed too.
“But dear Sultana, how unfair it is to shut in the harmless women, and let loose the men.”
“Why? It is not safe for us to come out of the zenana, as we are naturally weak.”
“Yes, it is not safe so long as there are men about the streets, nor is it so when a wild animal enters a marketplace.”
“Of course not.”
“Suppose that some lunatics escape from the asylum and begin to do all sorts of mischief to men, horses, and other creatures: in that case what will your countrymen do?”
“They will try to capture them and put them back into their asylum.”
“Thank you! And do you not think it wise to keep sane people inside an asylum and let loose the insane?
“Of course not!” said I, laughing lightly.
“As a matter of fact, in your country this very thing is done! Men, who do or at least are capable of doing no end of mischief, are let loose and the innocent women shut up in the zenana! How can you trust those untrained men out of doors!”
“We have no hand or voice in the management of our social affairs. In India man is lord and master. He has taken to himself all powers and privileges and shut up the women in the zenana.”
“Why do you allow yourselves to be shut up?”
“Because it cannot be helped as they are stronger than women.”
“A lion is stronger than a man, but it does not enable him to dominate the human race. You have neglected the duty you owe to yourselves, and you have lost your natural rights by shutting your eyes to your own interest.”
“But my dear Sister Sara, if we do everything by ourselves, what will the men do then?
“They should not do anything, excuse me; they are fit for nothing, only catch them and put them into the zenana.”
“But would it be very easy to catch and put them inside the four walls?” said I. “And even if this were done, would all their business—political and commercial—also go with them into the zenana?”
Sister Sara made no reply. She only smiled sweetly. Perhaps she thought it was useless to argue with one who was no better than a frog in a well. …
[From Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Sultana’s Dream, and Selections from The Secluded Ones, ed. and trans. R. Jahan (New York: Feminist Press, 1988), 7–10.]
The Secluded Ones (Avarodhbasini) is a collection of forty-seven nonfictional anecdotes about Muslim and Hindu purdah customs over north India. First serialized in 1929 and then published as a book, The Secluded Ones demonstrates Hossain’s clear antipathy toward purdah, an attitude that engendered strong reactions from her readers, ranging from embarrassment to stinging critique. Three of her reports are excerpted here.
REPORT EIGHT
Once, a house caught fire. The mistress of the house had the presence of mind to collect her jewelry in a handbag and hurry out of the bedroom. But at the door, she found the courtyard full of strangers fighting the fire. She could not come out in front of them. So she went back to her bedroom with the bag and hid under her bed. She burned to death but did not come out. Long live purdah!
REPORT FOURTEEN
The following incident happened about twenty-two years ago. An aunt, twice-removed, of my husband, was going to Patna from Bhagalpur; she was accompanied by her maid only. At Kiul railway junction, they had to change trains. While boarding the train, my aunt-in-law stumbled against her voluminous burqa and fell on the railway track. Except her maid, there was no woman at the station. The railway porters rushed to help her up but the maid immediately stopped them by imploring in God’s name not to touch her mistress. She tried to drag her mistress up by herself but was unable to do so. The train waited for only half an hour but no more.
The Begum’s body was smashed—her burqa torn. A whole stationful of men witnessed this horrible accident—yet none of them was permitted to assist her. Finally her mangled body was taken to a luggage shed. Her maid wailed piteously. After eleven hours of unspeakable agony she died. What a gruesome way to die!
A doctor from Lahore has thus described his experience of purdah:
Whenever he went to visit a patient in a purdah house, he would find two maidservants holding a thick blanket in front of the bed. He would put his hand below the blanket and extend it to the other side of the blanket. The patient would then put her wrist in his hand to enable him to take her pulse. (A certain non-purdah lady asked me once, “If there was no woman doctor available, how would you let a male doctor examine your tongue? You could not possibly make a hole in the blanket and protrude your tongue through that hole?”)
[The doctor told me:] “A certain Begum was down with pneumonia. I said, ‘the condition of the lungs will have to be examined. I could examine it from the back.’ The nawab [head of the family] ordered, ‘ask the maid to put the stethoscope wherever necessary.’ Of course, it is common knowledge that the stethoscope has to be shifted in various positions before any diagnosis is possible. Yet I had to comply with the nawab’s commands. The maid took the end of the stethoscope inside the blanket and put it in place. After a few minutes I was getting really worried at not hearing any sound. For once, I decided to be audacious and lifted the corner of the blanket nearest me. To my consternation and disgust, I found the stethoscope resting on the Begun’s waist. I was so irritated that I left the room immediately. The nawab Sahib had the gall to ask me what I made of the case! What the—, did he expect me to be omniscient?”
[From Sultana’s Dream, and Selections from The Secluded Ones, 26–27, 28–29.]
Cornelia Sorabji (1866–1954) was a remarkable and energetic woman who by force of intellect and tenacity made her way into the Indian and British legal profession. She was born in Nasik in the Bombay Presidency to a Parsi Christian father and mother who were committed to British religious, educational, and social reforms. Educated at mission schools, she showed great promise, and gained backing from influential Britishers in India and Great Britain to continue her education as far as she could go. She was the first female graduate of Bombay University. In the later nineteenth century there were serious limitations on women’s paths into higher education and the professions. Teaching was possible, and medicine was slowly opening up. But the law was closed.
She received a scholarship to enter Somerville College at Oxford, where she passed the Bachelor of Civil Laws examination in 1892, and she returned home to India in 1894, full of enthusiasm for the British project of “civilizing” women and Indian society. She accepted an invitation from the Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda to survey the success of compulsory education recently introduced in his state; this launched her long career with the princely states and the legal rights of their “Purdahnashins,” women confined to the zenana and excluded entirely from the gaze of all strange men.
Hoping to gain legal recognition, Sorabji took the LLB examination of Bombay University in 1897 and the Pleader’s examination of the Allahabad High Court in 1899. But despite her successes she was not recognized as a barrister until the English law that barred women from practicing was changed in 1924, at which point she became India’s first female barrister, in Calcutta. Even then, however, she was confined to preparing opinions, rather than presenting cases before the court.
An Anglophile and supporter of the Raj, Sorabji went back and forth between India and Great Britain many times, and had friends in high places in both countries. She even traveled to the United States to speak about the virtues of the British Raj, at the request of government officials. Consistent with such views, she was not in favor of Gandhian politics; she found Gandhi a misguided idealist and felt that India’s best hope for the future lay in its protection by the Empire. Sarojini Naidu criticized Sorabji for arguing against the universal franchise for women (Sorabji argued that many women were not ready for such a public role), and Annie Besant and Lajpat Rai asserted that she did not understand the Hindu traditions that she was attempting to undercut. Her nephew, Richard Sorabji, well articulates her contribution, as seen from the vantage point of the early twenty-first century: “Although Cornelia was on the wrong side of history, failing to recognize the greatness of Gandhi and of the Congress movement, her approach to welfare has seemed to me still very relevant to modern India. … Her gradualism in the political sphere might have been mistaken, but in the social sphere it may still have a lot of values.”15
In her autobiography, India Calling, Sorabji recounts her life from her early childhood until the 1930s. The selections below are incidents from 1894 and 1897, and focus on her struggle to enter the legal profession in India.
On my return to my parents’ home … I found my foot upon “the next step.” My Mother and I had just come in from a drive one evening when a woman appeared from behind the Croton bushes in the garden and threw herself at my Mother’s feet.
“We are in trouble, and they say you have a ‘Ballister’ daughter. Will she help us?”
(Bazaar and servants’ gossip know nothing of legal distinctions, and the title is not to be taken as sanctioned by anyone in the family.)
She told her story. She was of a woodcutter’s family. She and her sister-in-law lived together. Her brother was murdered. The Police said that his wife had killed him: and the Magistrate had committed her for trial.
“But truly she had not done that dreadful thing. Who should know, if not I? We were together all day, and my sister-in-law was cooking her husband’s food at the time that they say she was killing him. … Save her!” and she fell to weeping.
“Can you help her?” asked my Mother.
“I do not know. I will discover.”
So we told the woman to return later. The trial was to be at the approaching Sessions: and I wrote to Mr. Crowe, the District and Sessions Judge, asking if I might defend the woman, not as having any legal qualification, but as a “person for the defense of the accused”—the Statutory Law of British India, read with the definitions section, allowed an accused any “person” for his defense, and “person” was defined as male or female.
He said he must refer the question to the High Court of Bombay, as it had never before arisen.
The High Court said, I believe, “Have we indeed left women that loophole!” but could not deny that “the Law allowed it.”
The week of the trial was, without comparison, the most exciting and the most exhausting of my entire life. …
I believed my Client innocent: and I lay awake at night contemplating the rope which my inefficiency would put round her neck: for of course my glooms refused to consider any “lifer” alternative.
The Prosecution was on its mettle. “A woman indeed for the defense!” and though the Hindu male of those days had a profound contempt for any woman straying into male preserves, he nevertheless took precautions. The pick of the Hindu local bar, with leading Counsel from Bombay (a friend of the Public Prosecutor’s), confronted a humble “person” as she timidly found her way to Counsel’s table on the opening day. …
The story of the Prosecution was indeed well supported. The police had found the body and the various pools of blood the morning after a murder supposed to have been committed at eight o’clock the previous night. Moreover, it was committed with a cutting instrument which was, in fact, my client’s (a gadget used in the preparation of vegetables for the pot); and there were not a few villagers who swore to convincing details.
My own story included the fact that the murdered woodcutter lived in perfect harmony with his wife in a hut on the edge of a sloping wood. The murdered man had lent a considerable sum of money to a brother woodcutter with whom he used to go to work in clearings about a mile distant from their several huts.
He had occasion the week previous to his death to ask the borrower for return of the money. Also, the day before the murder, the debtor had begged the loan of a vegetable cutter from the accused, saying that his wife had broken hers.
The night of the murder there was a terrific monsoon storm, the woodcutter did not return in the cowdust hour, as he was wont to do, and after waiting for him till far into the night the women ate their own meal and went to bed, thinking he had taken refuge from the storm in the hut of some brathari—other woodcutters who lived near the clearing.
Early the next morning the police rapped on the door, and arrested the accused, showing her the body of her murdered husband lying not far from the hut. The debtor was with the police and had identified the woman.
The only witness I had of my version of the tale was the sister-in-law, not much use, even though cross-examination of the debtor had been helpful.
But that storm gave me an idea. I put in plans of the location, and evidence of the state of the barometer on the night of the murder. We all knew the violence of the Monsoon in the Western Ghats.
The hut was on such a sheer slope that the storm would not only have washed those well-measured pools of blood clean into a drain below, but would also have carried the body a considerable distance towards it.
For the first time, through the trial, I saw a flicker on the immobile faces of the Jurymen … the rope of my bad dreams untightened—a little.
The Judge made (inter alia) my point about the storm all right in his summing-up to the Jury. But the twenty minutes of their absence seemed to me as many years.
And how slow they were in answering his questions when they did come back!
“Gentlemen of the Jury, have you considered your verdict?”
“Yes! We are unanimous.”
Then a long pause.
“What is your verdict?”
“Not Guilty!”
I could have hugged the dear old Foreman!
I turned to my Client and said in her own tongue:
“Those Gentlemen say you have not done this thing.”
She looked at me with the reproachful eyes of a trapped gazelle—
“I always knew that I had not done it,” she said.
[Cornelia Sorabji, India Calling: The Memories of Cornelia Sorabji, Indian’s First Woman Barrister, ed. Chandani Lokugé (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 48–52.]
About this time my Brother had returned to India from his long sojourn in the West. … He was a barrister and had decided to practice at the Allahabad High Court, United Provinces.
I went up North to help him settle into his house: and a thought which had for long been with me arrived at maturity. The work I was doing as a roving and privileged Practitioner of the Law was without doubt interesting: but it did not amount to beating out a path which other women could follow. It was too personal; privilege might be withheld from my successors, curiosity sated; and to what practical purpose was the beginning of work so well worth doing, if provision were not made for others to carry on?
In the interest of professional posterity, then, a recognized title to practice at the Bar seemed a necessity; and to obtain this in British India would mean the best recommendation to confidence. …
As a Bachelor of Laws of the Bombay University I was entitled to be enrolled as a Vakil [Graduate of Law, of the Universities of any Presidency], and I made an application to this effect in 1897.
After consideration by the entire Bench … I was told that as the University door was not their own special High Court door, the Court hesitated to make an innovation on the ground that I had cited. But if I would do the High Court Pleader’s examination (their own creation), they would have power to act.
By this time I was sick to death of examinations, and this new one included proficiency in Shikasta. Now Shikasta (lit. “broken writing,” or writing “in ruins”) is the running-hand of the Persian character, and a nightmare to decipher. Dots and strikes, both so essential to the distinguishing of letter from letter, with other characterizations, are omitted: and letters are joined which are only recognizable apart.
Shikasta is used in Court documents, though the language of the Courts is now Urdu: and its inclusion in the tests for this special High Court Examination was obvious.
Yes—I was thoroughly sick of examinations; but there could be no question of my not complying with the new condition—“one more river to cross”—and I buckled to the re-study of Hindu and Mahommedan Law, of the rubbish-heap of codified British–Indian law, and the acquisition of Shikasta.
The bright spot of the adventure was my dear old Moslem Munshi who taught me Persian, Urdu, and the reading of Court documents.
He was a character, and deserves a monograph. In due course I passed my Examination: but the High Court said, most shame-facedly, that “on reconsideration” they felt it would be impertinent of an Indian High Court to admit women to the Rolls before England had given the lead.
It was a bad jar, and I could have said much in protest. After all, in matters of this kind, the advantage of India lay in the very newness to which I suppose the Court referred; in having, that is to say, unlike England, no traditions to outrage. She was therefore herself in the position of Leader; and it would have been fun if that particular Court had recognized this!
But protest would have been no use. I was a single individual. At that time I could not produce even one other woman student of the Law: and I had no assurance that other women would want to follow my Profession.
There was nothing for it but to continue being a “rover,” working from the end of a need to be met, not from that of an equal title with men to the reward of legal work.
And with this intention I set myself to collecting the opinions of experienced judges, lawyers, and administrators all over India.
I wrote first to such as I knew personally. I had found, said I, this or that—not stating my worst cases—instances where although the most efficient of men lawyers were indeed available, Purdahnashins had no possible means of access to or contact with them, the result being needless hardship and injustice.
I kept the lights as low as possible.
The answers were most gratifying:
“Oh, but we know worse …” They also added instances where the seclusion of women had prevented important evidence from being put before the Court, e.g. in property cases where the rights of women were in question.
Purdahnashins of the highest status, in strictest seclusion, are excused attendance as witnesses in Court. Their evidence is taken at their homes by a Commission. Judges and Lawyers both expressed a doubt on occasions as to the identity of the witness thus examined. The men might not see her for themselves. Again, how did they know that the witness spoke freely? They could not tell who were shut in with her behind the purdah: or what fears and coercions assailed her.
They might not even hear her voice—a third person being the medium of both question and answer.
When the witness attended Court, there was the like difficulty; she came in a palanquin accompanied by a male (claiming to be a relation) who acted as “carrier” during her examination, speaking to her through a slit in the doors of the palanquin and broadcasting her answers to the Court.
One of my correspondents, a Parsee Judge from Bombay (the least secluded of Provinces), told me an amusing story in this connection.
He had his suspicions during the progress of a certain case about the witness in a palanquin, and ordered the palanquin to be taken to his chambers for examination of the occupant by the matron of a hospital.
“You are quite safe,” said the Matron, the palanquin duly deposited in the Judge’s Chambers behind closed doors. “Come out now.”
She pushed back the palanquin shutters, and drew the curtain—a bearded old man stumbled to his feet and confronted her!
[Cornelia Sorabji, India Calling, 77–80.]
Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) was a Congress leader, poet, champion of equality of the sexes, and spokesperson for Hindu–Muslim amity. Her views on many political and social issues differed greatly from those of Cornelia Sorabji, though the two were contemporaries. Sarojini came from a highly cosmopolitan family; her father, Aghorenath, a scientist and Bengali Brahman, served as principal of Nizam College in the princely state of Hyderabad. Sarojini was the eldest of eight children in one of the most cosmopolitan and talented families in modern India. In 1901, at age twenty-one, her younger brother, Virendranath, went to England and joined the international communist movement, eventually dying (or being killed) in Stalin’s USSR in 1937. Several other siblings had distinguished careers in education, accountancy, and the arts. The youngest son in the family, Harindranath, became a poet, famed actor, and communist Member of Parliament, while the youngest daughter, Suhashini, became a communist firebrand and advocate of feminism in Bombay.
Sarojini was first recognized for her poetic gifts while she was a teenager attending college in Great Britain. She mingled with the London literati and published a collection of poems in 1905, including her famous “Indian Love Song.” In 1912 she sent a second collection to Edmund Gosse, and it too was published in England. Then in 1914 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She also fell in love with Govindarajulu Naidu during her student years, and married him in 1898. Returning to India, she continued to write poetry until 1917, but was increasingly drawn to politics. After meeting Gokhale in 1906, she became active in politics, the early women’s movement, and work with students.
While abroad a second time, recovering from ill health, she met Jinnah and began to champion Hindu–Muslim unity. Then in 1915, she met Gandhi, forging a lifelong friendship and political bond. Naidu was a powerful public speaker, and was elected Congress president in 1925. On numerous occasions she undertook missions for Gandhi: to the United States in 1928, to South Africa twice in the 1920s, and to Great Britain with him for the Second Round Table Conference in 1931.
Based in Bombay from 1920, she was a member of the Congress inner circle from the 1920s to her death in 1949. To her, as to Gandhi and many others, the division of India on the basis of religion was a terrible blow. Her last assignment was as governor of Uttar Pradesh after Independence. She was close to Gandhi and to Jawaharlal Nehru. Naidu held high the torch of equality of the sexes and of communal harmony throughout a tumultuous and fulfilling life.
A speech from 1918 about the equality of the sexes and the desirability of giving the franchise to women is given below; another on Hindu–Muslim unity is included in chapter 7; comments on Gandhi are in chapter 6.
Men of India—… the demand made in the resolution I deem to be the primal right to womanhood. This resolution can be treated from the standpoint of practical politics or from the standpoint of national ideals. No matter in which way one deals with the question, I still claim that sex so far from being a disqualification to a primal right of franchise is a human right and not a monopoly of one sex only. I put it before you not from practical consideration, not from economic consideration, but rather from the standpoint of National ideal of India. We Indians have always boasted that we were followers of the Goddesses of our land. Our teachings always inculcated the worship of the mother even before the worship of the father. What is the psychology and interpretation of that inculcation, of that doctrine, of that practice. Woman makes the Nation, on her worthiness or unworthiness, weakness or strength, ignorance or enlightenment, her cowardice or courage lies folded the destiny of her sons. … Is it possible, is it rational, I ask you, that the duty of a woman ends with the physical agony that she endures for the sake of her sons? Are you not aware that in every Indian house, it is the woman that is the centre of life waiting for the dawn? She is the servant of the household, she is the daily sacrifice, every day of her life of her labours, of her love and devotion to the family. Then being the servant of the family, being the high priestess of the home, being the true legislator of the destinies of India, is it logical I ask you, is it worthy of you to say that she shall face death with no courage to face life, that she shall sacrifice for the sustenance of the family within the walls of her home and yet be not afforded that primal right which is as much hers as it is yours, because she is co-responsible with you for the honour and prosperity of your country? It has been said that to give women franchise would be to rid them of feminine grace. … Our young men imbued with the ideals of modern thought say that woman must be given franchise because they are comrades of men. … I do not think that any male need have apprehension that to extend the horizon of woman’s labours is to break all her power in the home. I do not think that there need be any apprehension that in granting franchise to Indian womanhood, that Indian womanhood will wrench the power belonging to man. Never, never, for we realise that men and women have separate goals and separate destinies and that just as a man can never fulfil the responsibility of a woman, a woman cannot fulfil the responsibility of man. Unless she fulfils the responsibility within her horizon and become worthy and strong and brave, there can be no fullness and completeness of National life. We ask for franchise, we ask for vote, not that we might interfere with you in your official functions, your civic duties, your public place and power, but rather that we might lay the foundation of National character in the souls of the children that we hold upon our laps and instil them with the ideas of Nationality. … We want the franchise to say that our education shall not be the imitation of unsuitable and alien things but rather that our Nationality shall be for enlightening our National traditions and that our National characteristics shall be the outcome of our own needs and capacities. Gentlemen, will you not show your chivalry which is justice, your nobility which is gratitude by saying to them “you, who within the shelter of our homes are Goddesses, high priestesses, the inspire[r]s of our faith, sustainers of our hopes, the flower of joy upon our breasts, O! mothers, O! sisters, O! wives, we have our feet set upon the path of freedom, we have our own vision, the distant vision of glory, light the torch in your form and then accompany us to that distant goal to be the inspiration of progress and the reward of all our hope.”
[Speech to Bombay Special Congress, Sept. 1, 1918, moving the resolution: “Women possessing the same qualifications … shall not be disqualified on account of sex.” From Verinder Grover and Ranjana Arora, eds., Great Women of Modern India (New Delhi: Deep and Deep, 1993), 3:57–59.]
