Two Unusual Books

To hark a little in the political history of India, the Montagu-Chelmsford Report seemed to promise India some delegation of powers, while the Rowlatt Report, published soon after, brought in measures which were awfully repressive. It was the period when Gandhiji’s Swaraj movement was feeling its way. Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule was published in 1919 (I will quote from the edition of 1922). In this book Gandhiji wanted to project his gospel of love in place of that of hate. “It replaces violence with self-sacrifice. It pits soul force against brute force.” Gandhiji adds, “But I would warn the reader against thinking that I am today aiming at the Swaraj described therein. The only part of the programme which is now being carried out in its entirety is that of non-violence.”

We would learn later that Swaraj would come to mean political liberty, but whatever Gandhi might have meant by Swaraj at the time, his major thesis in Hind Swaraj seems to be that Indian civilization was the best that the world possessed and that modern technology was rather unnecessary for our country. Gandhi was conscious of critics. He writes, “I offer these comments because I observe that much is being quoted from the booklet to discredit the present movement. I have even seen writings suggesting that I am playing a deep game, that I am using the present turmoil to foist my fads on India, and making experiments at India’s expense.”

I have brought in Hind Swaraj just to introduce Gandhism-cum-Non-co-operation Exposed going under the name of Argus (1921) and published by Siva Prasad Baruah, M. L. C., Assam. Who was this Argus? Professor S. K. Bhuyan, educationist and historian, told me that the author was Iswar Prasad Baruah, who was in the Assam administration. Jitendranath Bujarbarua, who gave me this rare book, tells me that once he had asked Iswar Prasad Baruah if he had been the author. Baruah had said, “No, I didn’t write the book. It was written by a tea­garden Sahib, though published by Siva Prasad Baruah. Siva Prasad Baruah, incidentally, was a leading tea-planter.

Even if we do not know who the author was, Gandhism-cum-Non-co-operation Exposed seems to have considerable historical and academic interest. The keynote of the book is set in the Foreword in this manner: “A moment’s reflection ought to suffice to convince every level-headed Indian that the bright hopes of India are blended with the existence of British India.”

The book contains thirty-two chapters and covers a wide range of subjects. Swaraj, the Non-co-operation War, Caste and Untouchability, Strikes and Hartals, the Punjab Affairs, the Khilafat Question, Hindu-Muslim Unity, Gandhian Non-co­operation in actual performance (Doctrine of soul force and non-violence in words, speeches, deeds and thoughts in actual practice by the non-co-operators), England and India (Non-­co-operation a direct menace to the glorious co-operative future), and so on.

The author has taken pains to focus on Gandhi’s statements and activities and pick holes in them. For instance, “Although the original objective of the non-co-operation war was to put pressure on the Imperial British Government through the Govern­ment of India with the view of securing better peace terms for Turkey, consistent with Indian Mussalmans’ sentiments and demands, it has subsequently transformed as the weapon for fighting with the Bureaucracy to secure full Swaraj at once or within one year, and both the Khilafat and the Punjab grievances became wholly subordinate and secondary to it.” (p. 7). The author’s arguments are often striking. On p. 9 he writes, “The bare catch-word non-co-operation does not by itself indicate any constructive line of work. In its essence, the idea of non-co-operation is political asceticism. The difference, however, between spiritual asceticism and this new cult of political asceticism is that the former wants nothing but gives up everything, whereas the latter is assertive in its character and that under the garb of Sannyasa or asceticism it aims at political aggrandisement.

The book refers to persons like C. R. Das, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Bepin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai, and often quotes them, thus lending the book some documentary value. But the author’s attitude is clear: “The Martial Law Regime in the Punjab in 1919 which follows the horrors and outrages perpetrated by the people themselves has now become one of the principal pegs on which the non-co-operation agitation is kept hanging”. There is appendix detailing the Legislative Debates, dated 23rd March, 1921, on a resolution on repressive measures moved by one Dr. Nanda Lal.

Many happenings occur before our very eyes, but it is difficult for a contemporary to assess their long-term effects – to judge which of them would have force enough to turn the wheel of history. A historian like Michael Edwardes opines that in British-Indian relations the massacre at Amritsar was a turning-­point even more decisive than the Mutiny. “Henceforth, the struggle was to permit of little compromise, and the good faith of British concessions was always to be held in doubt.” The Punjab troubles, the Amritsar massacre and other repressions have been well documented by a pro-Indian British journalist, B. G. Horniman, once attached to the Bombay Chronicle. Horniman’s Amritsar and Our Duty to India (1920), and contrast to Argus’s Gandhism Exposed, and a book we have perhaps lost sight of, was published in England and ran into two prints in the very year of its publication.

Horniman’s attitude is unambiguous. On p. 8 he writes, “It is impossible to believe that the people of England could even be persuaded that a British General was justified in, or could be excused for, marching up to a great crowd of unarmed and wholly defenceless people and, without a word of warning or order to disperse, shooting them down until his ammunition was exhausted and then leaving them without medical aid; or that justification could be shown for indiscriminate and promiscuous bombing on unarmed civilian crowds from aeroplanes, or forcing all and sundry to crawl through a street as an act of retaliation, or public floggings, or enclosing suspects in a public cage – to mention only a few of the measures carried out by the men who administer­ed Martial Law in the Punjab.”

Horniman’s work may be termed “investigatory journalism.” He writes: “As it is clear that the report of the Hunter Committee (which enquired into the matter) cannot place the public in this country (England) in the possession of all knowledge that is essential to a full understanding of a matter of which they are largely ignorant, I propose to set before them as fairly and as briefly as I can in the following pages:

1. CAUSES OF UNREST

The general causes, and, in particular, the policy of the Government which produced so great a ferment in India in the early part of last year.

2. THE ROWLATT ACT AGITATION

An explanation of the Rowlatt Act and the reasons for which it was regarded by the people of India with feelings of apprehension amounting to terror.

The obduracy and provocative policy pursued by the Government of India in forcing such hated legislation through the Imperial Council, in the face of a united national protest.

The aggressive measures adopted in the Punjab which were the immediate cause of the disturbances.

3. THE REIGN OF TERROR

The horrors of Sir Michael O’ Dwyer’s “Reign of Terror” during the administration of Martial Law, and his deliberate plan of concealment carried out with connivance of the Government of India.

4. RESPONSIBILITY

The facts regarding the responsibility of:

1. The Secretary of State 2. The Viceroy and the Govern­ment of India. 3. Sir Michael O’ Dwyer and his Martial Law administration.

Horniman builds up his thesis not only on the findings of the Hunter Committee but also on the evidence collected by the Indian National Congress and other sources. He points out how the military officers who had executed the Martial Law brazened out while giving out their evidence before the Hunter Committee. In regard to bombing in the Gujranwala area, he quotes from the official Report and then comments: “The public are asked to believe that this promiscuous dropping of bombs and the firing of altogether 255 rounds of 2 machine-guns apparently at close quarters, into crowds of people, resulted in the killing of nine and wounding of only about sixteen people!”

Unlike Assam’s Argus, Horniman pleads at the end of the book thus: “And if the British people believe that their own interests and safety are inseparable from the Indian connection, let them realise that the only assurance of that connection lies in the full recognition of India’s right to responsible government now, and without equivocation; for nothing is more certain than that the road to infinite trouble in India and ultimate separation lies along the tedious way of half-hearted reforms and the claim to determine for India from time to time what she is entitled to determine for herself – the sortof Govern­ment under which she is to live.”

The book contains several photographs, two on public flogging. Amritsar deserves reprint, even if to remind us of the humiliating experiences that Indians had to face in their march to freedom.