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Bureaucratic Policy
THE
policy of the bureaucracy at the
present moment would be a curious study to any dispassionate observer of
politics. It is not an unmixed and fearless policy of repression, yet the
repression, wherever entered on, is as thoroughgoing, ruthless and without
scruple as the most virulent advocate of the strong hand could desire. It is not
a policy of frank and wise concession, though concessions of a kind are fitfully
made with no very apparent rhyme or reason. A Coercion Act is put upon the
Statute-book of the most thoroughly Russian severity; it is supposed to be
passed in hot haste to meet a crisis of an exceptional kind and to be urgently
and imperatively demanded by the Chief Bureaucrats of three provinces who
decline to be responsible otherwise for the preservation of peace and the
British rule within their respective jurisdictions; yet when it has been passed,
it is only applied to a single district in the whole of India. The protests of
Moderate politicians against the deportations and their urgent pleas for the
release of the prisoners in Mandalay are brushed aside with contempt, yet the
very next news is that Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh are released and on their way
homeward. Simla, vowing it will ne'er consent, has consented. On the other hand
Liakat Hossain is pursued with relentless severity, a politically-minded High
Court Bench discharges with a contemptuous impatience the appeals brought before
it in political cases, and the wholesale persecutions of young men in the
mofussil centres and the campaign against the Nationalist Press does not relax.
The official explanation given by the Englishman is that the Extremists
have collapsed, Sir Pherozshah Mehta is once more master of the situation, the
Moderate Party has come suddenly by its own and the Government recognising its
own victory and the victory of its friends, is willing and can afford to be
generous. With all respect to Hare Street we will offer another explanation
which we think will be found nearer to the mark.
The policy of the Anglo-Indian
bureaucrats has always been
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checked by their strong sense of the
weakness of their position in India. They know perfectly well that if the whole
population of India gets to be infected by the enthusiastic beliefs and
insurgent spirit of Nationalism, their present absolute sway over the country
will at once become an impossibility. They know that the almost universal
conversion of the educated class to Nationalism is a contingency of the near
future and that Nationalism having once taken possession of the educated class
must immediately proceed to invade the masses; such a consummation is sure to be
immensely hastened by a policy of unflinching repression which will alienate the
whole educated community. The bureaucracy have indeed no love for the educated
class, and the policy dearest to their hearts would be to create in the masses a
counterpoise to the intellectuals, such as another bureaucracy once hoped to
create in Russia. It is not likely that they will fix any permanent hope, still
less their main hope, on the policy of setting Hindu and Mahomedan by the ears
by an unstinted pampering of the latter community, however thoroughly they may
have resorted to that expedient in the terror of the moment; for by doing so
they will not only help to weld the Hindu population into a homogeneous whole,
but they will be creating a new and dangerous power in the country in a
Mahomedan community excited by new hopes and eager to recover their old
ascendency. On the other hand, the masses under present circumstances are not
easily accessible to a foreign and unsympathetic handful of aliens chiefly known
to them through a corrupt, brutal and cruelly oppressive police, while the work
of educating them into loyalty will take a long time and may be no less a
failure in the end than the old plan of creating a permanently loyal middle
class as a support to foreign rule against the regrets of the aristocracy and
the possible fanaticism of the masses. Awaiting therefore the launching and
success of their experiment with the masses the bureaucrats would like to keep
the more pliable portion of the educated classes as long as possible in their
own hands and set them against Nationalism. But they are not prepared to purchase
this support at the sacrifice of any least fragment of their absolute
authority and irresponsible power; they are only willing to appease the rising
unrest by sham concessions or any
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temporary and isolated step which will not
affect their prestige or their authority. The difficulty is that with the
exception of the Loyalist section of the Moderate Party led by men like Sir
Pherozshah Mehta, no one would be satisfied with apparent concessions sufficient
only to meet the claims of the wealthier upper ten of the educated community to
titles, honour and position; the more advanced section which places patriotism
before loyalty demand in addition such a substantial concession as would in
their opinion pave the way for complete self-government in the future; but this
the bureaucracy are not prepared to concede. Yet the Loyalists are precisely
those whose support is least worth having. Really strong in commercial centres
like Bombay and Surat, wearing an appearance only of strength, in other parts
where Nationalism has not yet put forth a strength, it is a waning force
constitutionally prone to inertia and incapable of exciting enthusiasm.
Such is the position which the
bureaucrats have to face, and once we realise it their policy becomes quite
coherent and intelligible. They have to be prepared against the possibility of
the flood of Nationalism submerging the whole country in spite of all the dams
they may erect, and for this reason they are arming themselves with
extraordinary powers which will enable them to check its future expansion and
crush it where it has already established itself. At the present moment they
hope to get it under without persisting in a general repression which would
drive the whole educated community into the Nationalist camp. They have got
Bepin Pal and Liakat under lock and key, Brahmabandhab is dead, Aswin Dutta may
be paralysed by a rigorous enforcement of the new Act in Backergunge, and of all
the more powerful Nationalist speakers and writers one or two only have so far
escaped the attack made upon them. The bureaucracy may well hope that the back
of the movement is broken and relax their legal thumbscrew, at least until
they have seen what Sir Pherozshah can do at Surat. Any fresh development of
Nationalism they are prepared to meet by ruthless repression. Wherever they see
it spreading itself by open propaganda, they will forthwith apply the Gagging
Act; wherever it spreads by its own force without the aid of the platform they
will attack it
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through the young men as at Rangpur,
Dinajpur, Dacca and Midnapur, and whatever leader or active propagandist comes
forward, they will find some pretext to thrust into prison. Meanwhile they
will pursue their policy of isolating the movement, locally by crushing it where
it is bold and vehement while they will play with and indulge it for a time
where it is milder and more cautious, politically by setting all other forces in
the country against it.
This is their second line of
defence, to find for themselves as many points of support as possible against
Indian Nationalism amongst the Indians themselves. Their first hope is in the
Mahomedans whom they will encourage enough to buy their hostility to the Hindus,
but not enough to make them really powerful or give an impetus to a Mahomedan
revival. Their second hope is in the landed aristocracy whom they broke and
ground into the dust with the aid of the newly created middle class and would
now call in in their turn to help in crushing that very middle class grown too
powerful for its creator. Their third hope is in the masses whom they expect to
dominate partly by a carefully-conceived primary education, partly by
decentralising their administration sufficiently to give the District Officer
direct touch with and autocratic control over the peasantry and partly by
creating in officially-controlled Panchayets instruments of check and
supervision among the masses themselves. Their fourth point of support is in the
Loyalist-cum-Moderate Party in the Congress. It is to keep the way open for a
reconciliation with that party that Lajpat Rai has been released, the Gagging
Act kept in abeyance outside Backergunge and overtures made in the demi-official
Press, notably in such foul-mouthed revilers of all educated India as the C.
M.
Gazette and the Englishman to the more sensible and sober elements
in the Congress. The word has gone round to rally the Moderates to the
Government and that party is notified by act and word that if they will accept
the olive branch, be even temporarily satisfied with Mr. Morley's reforms and
dissociate themselves from Boycott, Swaraj and Extremism, the bureaucracy will
not confound them in one common ruin with the Extremists, but on the contrary
give them its paternal blessing and a fair number of new playthings.
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Such is the complete Minto-Morley policy
as it now stands developed, and nobody will deny that, subject to the incurable
defects of the bureaucratic position in India and the overruling decrees of
Providence, it is a well-planned and skilful policy. The question is "what
chance has it of success? and what should be the line taken by the Nationalist
Party to frustrate this curious mixture of force and guile?" That is the chief
problem to which we have now to turn our attention.
Bande Mataram,
November 19, 1907
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