The Case for India | Page 9

Annie Besant

quickened the rate of evolution of the world, and no country has
experienced the quickening more than our Motherland.
THE AWAKENING OF ASIA.
In a conversation I had with Lord Minto, soon after his arrival as
Viceroy, he discussed the so-called "unrest in India," and recognised it
as the inevitable result of English Education, of English Ideals of
Democracy, of the Japanese victory over Russia, and of the changing
conditions in the outer world. I was therefore not surprised to read his
remark that he recognised, "frankly and publicly, that new aspirations

were stirring in the hearts of the people, that they were part of a larger
movement common to the whole East, and that it was necessary to
satisfy them to a reasonable extent by giving them a larger share in the
administration."
But the present movement in India will be very poorly understood if it
be regarded only in connexion with the movement in the East. The
awakening of Asia is part of a world-movement, which has been
quickened into marvellous rapidity by the world-war. The
world-movement is towards Democracy, and for the West dates from
the breaking away of the American Colonies from Great Britain,
consummated in 1776, and its sequel in the French Revolution of 1789.
Needless to say that its root was in the growth of modern science,
undermining the fabric of intellectual servitude, in the work of the
Encyclopædists, and in that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and of Thomas
Paine. In the East, the swift changes in Japan, the success of the
Japanese Empire against Russia, the downfall of the Manchu dynasty in
China and the establishment of a Chinese Republic, the efforts at
improvement in Persia, hindered by the interference of Russia and
Great Britain with their growing ambitions, and the creation of British
and Russian "spheres of influence," depriving her of her just liberty,
and now the Russian Revolution and the probable rise of a Russian
Republic in Europe and Asia, have all entirely changed the conditions
before existing in India. Across Asia, beyond the Himalayas, stretch
free and self-ruling Nations. India no longer sees as her Asian
neighbours the huge domains of a Tsar and a Chinese despot, and
compares her condition under British rule with those of their subject
populations. British rule profited by the comparison, at least until 1905,
when the great period of repression set in. But in future, unless India
wins Self-Government, she will look enviously at her Self-Governing
neighbours, and the contrast will intensify her unrest.
But even if she gains Home Rule, as I believe she will, her position in
the Empire will imperatively demand that she shall be strong as well as
free. She becomes not only a vulnerable point in the Empire, as the
Asian Nations evolve their own ambitions and rivalries, but also a
possession to be battled for. Mr. Laing once said: "India is the

milch-cow of England," a Kamadhenu, in fact, a cow of plenty; and if
that view should arise in Asia, the ownership of the milch-cow would
become a matter of dispute, as of old between Vashishtha and
Vishvamitra. Hence India must be capable of self-defence both by land
and sea. There may be a struggle for the primacy of Asia, for
supremacy in the Pacific, for the mastery of Australasia, to say nothing
of the inevitable trade-struggles, in which Japan is already endangering
Indian industry and Indian trade, while India is unable to protect
herself.
In order to face these larger issues with equanimity, the Empire
requires a contented, strong, self-dependent and armed India, able to
hold her own and to aid the Dominions, especially Australia, with her
small population and immense unoccupied and undefended area. India
alone has the man-power which can effectively maintain the Empire in
Asia, and it is a short-sighted, a criminally short-sighted, policy not to
build up her strength as a Self-Governing State within the
Commonwealth of Free Nations under the British Crown. The
Englishmen in India talk loudly of their interests; what can this mere
handful do to protect their interests against attack in the coming years?
Only in a free and powerful India will they be safe. Those who read
Japanese papers know how strongly, even during the War, they parade
unchecked their pro-German sympathies, and how likely after the War
is an alliance between these two ambitious and warlike Nations. Japan
will come out of the War with her army and navy unweakened, and her
trade immensely strengthened. Every consideration of sane
statesmanship should lead Great Britain to trust India more than Japan,
so that the British Empire in Asia may rest on the sure foundation of
Indian loyalty, the loyalty of a free and contented people, rather than be
dependent on the continued friendship of a possible future rival. For
international
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