The Case for India | Page 3

for money, rejected men. And, slowly, educated India
sank back, depressed and disheartened, and a splendid opportunity for
knitting together the two Nations was lost.

Early in the War I ventured to say that the War could not end until
England recognised that autocracy and bureaucracy must perish in
India as well as in Europe. The good Bishop of Calcutta, with a
courage worthy of his free race, lately declared that it would be
hypocritical to pray for victory over autocracy in Europe and to
maintain it in India. Now it has been clearly and definitely declared that
Self-Government is to be the objective of Great Britain in India, and
that a substantial measure of it is to be given at once; when this promise
is made good by the granting of the Reforms outlined last year in
Lucknow, then the end of the War will be in sight. For the War cannot
end till the death-knell of autocracy is sounded.
Causes, with which I will deal presently and for which India was not
responsible, have somewhat obscured the first eager expressions of
India's sympathy, and have forced her thoughts largely towards her
own position in the Empire. But that does not detract from the immense
aid she has given, and is still giving. It must not be forgotten that long
before the present War she had submitted--at first, while she had no
power of remonstrance, and later, after 1885, despite the constant
protests of Congress--to an ever-rising military expenditure, due partly
to the amalgamation scheme of 1859, and partly to the cost of various
wars beyond her frontiers, and to continual recurring frontier and
trans-frontier expeditions, in which she had no real interest. They were
sent out for supposed Imperial advantages, not for her own.
Between 1859 and 1904--45 years--Indian troops were engaged in
thirty-seven wars and expeditions. There were ten wars: the two
Chinese Wars of 1860 and 1900, the Bhutan War of 1864-65, the
Abyssinian War of 1868, the Afghan War of 1878-79, and, after the
massacre of the Kabul Mission, the second War of 1879-80, ending in
an advance of the frontier, in the search for an ever receding "scientific
frontier"; on this occasion the frontier was shifted, says Keene, "from
the line of the Indus to the western slope of the Suleiman range and
from Peshawar to Quetta"; the Egyptian War of 1882, in which the
Indian troops markedly distinguished themselves; the third Burmese
War of 1885 ending in the annexation of Upper Burma in 1886; the
invasions of Tibet in 1890 and 1904. Of Expeditions, or minor Wars,

there were 27; to Sitana in 1858 on a small scale and in 1863 on a
larger (the "Sitana Campaign"); to Nepal and Sikkim in 1859; to
Sikkim in 1864; a serious struggle on the North-west Frontier in 1868;
expeditions against the Lushais in 1871-72, the Daflas in 1874-75, the
Nagas in 1875, the Afridis in 1877, the Rampa Hill tribes in 1879, the
Waziris and Nagas in 1881, the Akhas in 1884, and in the same year an
expedition to the Zhob Valley, and a second thither in 1890. In 1888
and 1889 there was another expedition against Sikkim, against the
Akozais (the Black Mountain Expedition) and against the Hill Tribes of
the North-east, and in 1890 another Black Mountain Expedition, with a
third in 1892. In 1890 came the expedition to Manipur, and in 1891
there was another expedition against the Lushais, and one into the
Miranzal Valley. The Chitral Expedition occupied 1894-95, and the
serious Tirah Campaign, in which 40,000 men were engaged, came in
1897 and 1898. The long list--which I have closed with 1904--ends
with the expeditions against the Mahsuds in 1901, against the Kabalis
in 1902, and the invasion of Tibet, before noted. All these events
explain the rise in military expenditure, and we must add to them the
sending of Indian troops to Malta and Cyprus in 1878--a somewhat
theatrical demonstration--and the expenditure of some £2,000,000 to
face what was described as "the Russian Menace" in 1884. Most of
these were due to Imperial, not to Indian, policy, and many of the
burdens imposed were protested against by the Government of India,
while others were encouraged by ambitious Viceroys. I do not think
that even this long list is complete.
Ever since the Government of India was taken over by the Crown, India
has been regarded as an Imperial military asset and training ground, a
position from which the jealousy of the East India Company had
largely protected her, by insisting that the army it supported should be
used for the defence and in the interests of India alone. Her value to the
Empire for military purposes would not so seriously have injured at
once her pride and her finances if