Indian Unrest | Page 7

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 its native servants in every branch of the public service; it is amongst them also that are chiefly recruited the liberal professions, the Press, the schoolmasters--in fact all those agencies through which public opinion and the mind of the rising generation are most easily moulded and directed. That it is amongst them also that the spirit of revolt against British ascendency is chiefly and almost exclusively rife constitutes the