Indian Unrest | Page 7

of many
valuable lives.
To imagine that Indian unrest has been a sudden growth because its
outward manifestations have assumed new and startling forms of
violence is a dangerous delusion; and no less misleading is the
assumption that it is merely the outcome of Western education or the
echo of Western democratic aspirations, because it occasionally, and
chiefly for purposes of political expediency, adopts the language of
Western demagogues. Whatever its modes of expression, its main

spring is a deep-rooted antagonism to all the principles upon which
Western society, especially in a democratic country like England, has
been built up. It is in that antagonism--in the increasing violence of that
antagonism--which is a conspicuous feature of the unrest, that the
gravest danger lies.
But if in this respect the problems with which we are confronted appear
to me more serious and complex than official optimism is sometimes
disposed to admit, I have no hesitation is saying that there is no cause
for despondency if we will only realize how strong our position in India
still is, and use our strength wisely and sympathetically, but, at the
same time, with firmness and consistency. It is important to note at the
outset that the more dangerous forms of unrest are practically confined
to the Hindus, and amongst them to a numerically small proportion of
the vast Hindu community. Not a single Mahomedan has been
implicated in, though some have fallen victims to, the criminal
conspiracies of the last few years. Not a single Mahomedan of any
account is to be found in the ranks of disaffected politicians. For
reasons, in fact, which I shall set forth later on, it may be confidently
asserted that never before have the Mahomedans of India as a whole
identified their interests and their aspirations so closely as at the present
day with the consolidation and permanence of British rule. It is almost
a misnomer to speak of Indian unrest. Hindu unrest would be a far
more accurate term, connoting with far greater precision the forces
underlying it, though to use it without reservation would be to do a
grave injustice to the vast numbers of Hindus who are as yet untainted
with disaffection. These include almost all the Hindu ruling chiefs and
landed aristocracy, as well as the great mass of the agricultural classes
which form in all parts of India the overwhelming majority of the
population. Very large areas, moreover, are still entirely free from
unrest, which, except for a few sporadic outbreaks in other districts, has
been hitherto mainly confined to three distinct areas--the Mahratta
Deccan, which comprises a great part of the Bombay Presidency and
several districts of the Central Provinces, Bengal, with the new
province of Eastern Bengal, and the Punjab. In those regions it is the
large cities that have been the real hot-beds of unrest, and, great as is
their influence, it must not be forgotten that in India scarcely one-tenth

of the population lives in cities, or even in small townships with more
than 5,000 inhabitants. Whereas in England one-third of the population
is gathered together in crowded cities of 100,000 inhabitants and over,
there are but twenty-eight cities of that size in the whole of India, with
an aggregate population of less than 7,000,000 out of a total of almost
300,000,000.
That a movement confined to a mere fraction of the population of India
has no title to be called a "national" movement would scarcely need to
be argued, even if the variegated jumble of races and peoples, castes
and creeds that make up the population of India were not in itself an
antithesis to all that the word "national" implies. Nevertheless it would
be equally foolish to underrate the forces which underlie this movement,
for they have one common nexus, and a very vital one. They are the
dominant forces of Hinduism--forces which go to the very root of a
social and religious system than which none in the history of the human
race has shown greater vitality and stability. Based upon caste, the most
rigid of all social classifications, Hinduism has secured for some 3,000
years or more to the higher castes, and especially to the Brahmans, the
highest of all castes, a social supremacy for which there is no parallel
elsewhere. At the same time, inflexibly as they have dominated
Hinduism, these higher castes have themselves preserved a flexibility
of mind and temper which has enabled them to adapt themselves with
singular success to the vicissitudes of changing times without any
substantial sacrifice of their inherited traditions and aspirations. Thus it
is amongst high-caste Hindus that for the last three-quarters of a
century English education has chiefly spread, and, indeed, been most
eagerly welcomed; it is amongst them that British administration has
recruited the great majority of