BY B. PATTABHI SITARAMAYYA

India calls,–calls in plaintive tones to her thirty-six crores of sons and daughters, to emancipate her from her thraldom. India calls them all to a new world of glory and greatness, a world too of plenitude and power. India calls for their help to rescue her from an age of polite indifference to moral standards and restore her once again the integrity and sacredness of her spoken word. India calls for an escape from the slogans of party voting and personal preferments passing under the name of democracy, into a pursuit of the sacrament of service to fellow-men. India calls for protection against the cult of the survival of the fittest and for rehabilitation of society on the basis of equal opportunities to all. Unto this end, India calls for the cessation of bitter and cruel jealousies, of hatred and strife, and the spread of the gospel of love to all. India calls for an early transition for an age of "greedy privileges and sullen poverty, of blatant luxury and curious envy, of rising palaces and vanishing homes, of stupid frivolity and idiotic public mania," to an age where every one will pay according to his capacity and receive according to his need. The "princes of finance shall not then buy protection from representatives of a fierce democracy," the Poor shall not be called upon to starve and pay for the luxuries of the rich. The cities shall not then be the tyrants that throttle liberty, nor the villages sink into that abjectness and servility under which they grow the wealth of the land only to enrich the cities. Time shall not then be money but time and money shall be lost in the spirit of service. Competition shall then yield place to co-operation, hurry to leisure, and the steering wheel to the spinning wheel. Production shall then be pursued for consumption and man shall be the master, not the servant of machinery–that today makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Let us however come down from these simmering heights of imagination and fancy to some facts of the earth, earthy–to the actualities of our work-a-day world so that we may concretize to ourselves our doctrinaire assertions and our dogmatic generalizations.

India is and bas been for centuries a single nation with a common culture, common historical tradition and common biologic descent. It is a well-defined territory having an area of 18 lakhs of square miles and possessing a population of 320 millions. Although it is customary for critics to speak of its 150 dialects, India has nevertheless only 15 Provinces with 15 well-developed languages having a literature of their own, of which Hindi alone commands 120 millions.

The population consists of Hindus and Mussalmans, the latter forming 24.9% of the whole in British India. The Sikhs are only a small community in the Punjab, akin to the Hindus in many respects, while the Christians are a few millions. The Parsees are but a lakh in number and these exhaust the recognlsed communities of India. The Mussalmans have enriched, by their culture. India’s culture and traditions, civilisation and philosophy, and have made India their home, so that today they live on the most amicable terms in the villages and towns of India and participate in the corporate life of the country. The occasional outbursts of violence amongst the communities are wholly sporadic and as much due to want of self-government as to any other cause.

India was till the year 1763 a self-contained nation. It rose to the position of a Confederacy of States and, left to herself, would have shared with Europe in the process of fostering the principle of Nationalism except for the intervention of European nationalities. She was, towards the end of the 18th century, in the position in which Europe finds herself today, with her 15 states possessing almost a common religion and culture and yet divided amongst each other by various commercial and trade rivalries. India fortunately possesses none of these, and her Provinces are closely welded together by a common aspiration, a common religion and a community of social institutions and civic organisation.

Since the advent of the European nations into India and the establishment of the supremacy of Britain. India’s national life has crumbled to pieces in its various aspects, agrarian, economic, social and cultural. Since the great Mutiny, famines have become a permanent feature of the land, the last famine of 1900 having covered 4,75,000 square miles in area and a population of 60 millions. In fact, between 1860 and 1900, the seven great famines that occurred in the country covered an area of 16,23,000 square miles and a population of 322 millions, that is to say, the whole area and the whole population. India which was largely a manufacturing country two centuries ago has become mainly agricultural, 73% of the population being engaged in agriculture while only 5% are traders. Indeed the poverty of India is appalling, so much so that Professor Rushbrook Williams, the late Director of Public Information, Government of India, stated in 1922-23: "A considerable proportion of the masses of the Indian population is still beset with poverty of a kind which finds no parallel in the history of the world." While India requires a food supply of 81 millions, she is able to grow only 48.7 million tons, and the deficit comes to about 34 to 40 per cent of the demand. The food supply to a Madras prisoner amounts to 741 pounds per year as compared with 2,664 pounds consumed by an average American. Yet India exports 40 crores worth of rice annually to foreign countries, while a fifth of its population goes on but one meal a day according to the estimates of administrators like Sir Charles Elliott and Sir William Wilson Hunter. It is regrettable to note that only 47 per cent of the arable land is cultivated. Even of this cultivated land, only 7% raises a second: crop. This country, which was self-contained in regars to its food and raiment before the advent of European nations, is obliged, while it has a deficit of 47% of the food supply, to import 72 crores of rupees worth of cloth and yarn, thus paying a poll-tax of 2.5 rupees per capita.

The vast bulk of the population has, therefore, undergone perpetual fragmentation so that the patta has become but a fraction of the cultivable unit. The land itself has become impoverished on account of the absence of manures, applied scientific knowledge to agriculture, and transport facilities, with the result that the yield per acre of rice is only 14.4 quintals in India as compared with 32.1 in Japan, that of wheat is only 7.2 quintals in India, 16.3 in Germany, 28.8 in Great Britain, 24.3 in Belgium, while that of cotton is only 9 quintals in India as against 2 quintals in U.S.A., 2.4 in China and 4.3 in Egypt. In fact, in respect of the efficiency of agricultural production, India stands 22nd in rank amongst the principal countries of the world, with an index figure of 85 as against a 227 in Belgium.

The ryot population in India has for these various reasons been not only reduced to poverty but immersed in indebtedness, so much so that the total agricultural indebtedness of the country is estimated at about 700 crores of rupees. No serious effort has been made to grapple with the problem of this chronic debt, while 238 crores of gold, silver and securities, being paper currency and gold standard exchange reserves, are allowed to lie in England and are made available to the British merchant, as loans for commercial purposes on short-term credit, at an interest of 2 to 3 per cent per annum, while the Government of India borrows at 4 to 6 per cent in English and Indian markets.

India which was resorted to by the Western nations for the export of its magnificent fabrics in the 17th and even the first half of the 18th century, has become an importer of cloth and yarn to the extent of 72 crores annually. Her arts and crafts which are the index of a nation’s civilisation have thus decayed, and the village as the unit of national life has been disorganised by the exodus of the rural population to the urban areas and all the evils attendant thereon. The policy of the Government of India has all along been favourable to railways as against irrigation. The receipts from the railways in 1925-26 aggregate to 344,340,759 leaving a net yield of 5.5 crores, while irrigation cost only 3.25 crores but left a net yield of over two and one-third crores. Indian shipping carries 1.6 per cent of the total Indian shipping freights and India occupies in a pictorial representation the 24th place and very nearly the apex of the pyramid, with but one and a half lacs of tons to its credit, as against Great Britain which occupies the base, with its 19 millions of tons. The recent efforts of the Viceroy to compose the differences between Indian and British shipping companies have failed, and a study of the causes shows that British vested interests have stood in the way of a settlement. Indian commerce, notably Indian exports, have almost entirely passed into the hand of the European commercial houses who receive adequate help from British Banks and Insurance Companies, and who by a clever combination of shipping and railway interests, as well as the influence of these mercantile firms upon, if not in most cases an identity of interest with, that of the administrative dignitaries, have managed to gain the upper hand in regard to the Indian trade. In addition, the vicissitudes of currency and coinage have made India a helpless witness and victim to the manipulations of trade interests adverse to India by an imperceptible but undoubted combination of Governmental and mercantile interests duly consolidated through the State. In 1922 alone this country lost 60 crores of its reserves in England by the sale of Reverse Councils at a time when the exchange rose to 2sh. 6d.

That India has been dwarfed during the last century and half in her physical life no less than in its moral and material welfare is evidenced by the following indisputable facts.

India’s death rate stands at 32.98 while the average death rate is 42.5, being twice that of Japan and more than twice that of England. Her infantile mortality, of children below one year of age, rose as high as 666 per mille in Bombay in 1921 and has never gone down below 410 per mille in that city. It only remains to be pointed out that the corresponding figure for New York is 71, London 80, and Paris 95. The average infantile mortality varies from 286.63 in Lucknow to 484.30 in Cawnpore, and the total number of deaths in India of children under 10 years comes to 30 lakhs a year. Every minute we are losing six children. Between 1915 and 1924 the deaths of such children aggregated to 3,42,88,690. According to the census in 1921, one-fifth of the children in British India die below the age of one year. While this is so, it is no wonder that the longevity of the Indian stands at 24.47 years, while that in England is 51.5, and Germany 47.4 and France 48.5. Thus in 42 years, from 1872 to 1921, the population of India has grown only to 20 per cent as compared with 47 per cent in Europe. Even today the density of the population in India is only 68 per square kilometre as compared with 256 in Belgium, 230 in Holland, 189 in Great Britain, 154 in Japan, 134 in Germany and 72 in France.

As if to intensify the havoc created by these unnatural conditions, the Government in India have adopted an attitude of utter callousness in regard to its drink and drug policy. The estimated drink and drug bill paid by Madras in 1928-29 was nearly 17 crores in round figures, while the revenue got out of it was a little over five crores, leaving a net waste of 11.25 crores. The net yield to the Government of India by excise on liquors and drugs in 1925-26 was 172,900,000 while opium gave a yield of over 2 crores and the salt over 5 crores. These three sources constitute the sin money of the Government of India. But the greatest of these, though seemingly the least striking, is the salt tax of which Blunt says:

"It is only the very poor who are obliged to stint themselves in salt; but the very poor are unfortunately the rule in Southern India. In the Deccan, moreover, its pressure is galling because natural salt lies on the ground and the people are, therefore, starved of it as it were, in spite of plenty. In several villages, which I passed, the ryots told me that they had been reduced to driving the cattle by night to the places where salt is found, that they might lick it by stealth; but the guards impound them if they are caught infringing them, and latterly orders have been given that the police should collect in heaps and destroy all salt whatever found in its natural stage above ground. In other parts I heard of a kind of leprosy attacking persons deprived of this necessary article of diet. The price of salt sold to the people by the Government is reckoned at from 1200 to 2000 per cent on cost value."

Mr. Ramsay Macdonald says:

"Salt tax is exaction and oppression, and if the people understood it, it would only lead to discontent. It is a survival of the general exploitation of India’s poverty by a profit making company."

All these details appertain to the economic drain that is devitalising Indian life. Let us pause for a moment and consider the fundamental drain through the military expenditure of the country, through purchases of stores abroad, through pensions, interest on debt and dividends on foreign investments in India. In 1915-26 the profits made by Britishers in Jute industry alone in India amount to 30 crores of rupees. The interest paid on foreign capital in India excluding Government borrowings was 39 million pounds in one year or nearly 55 crores of rupees. The remittances of money from India on private account by European employees, come to nearly 60 crores of rupees while the Home Charges each year account for another 30 crores. India’s military expenditure covers 60 crores of rupees annually and compares very unfavourably with that of

Whilst out of the 3,600 officers only 61 are Indians, India maintains an army of occupation of 81,000 British soldiers who are all bought by India from Britain at a cost of £25 each, and are given training for 7 years at India’s expense, only to discharge them when they become full-blown soldiers. All the while the Indian boys in Universities and schools receive no military training worth the name. It is sad to note that between 1882 and 1907, military expenditure increased by 150 million rupees, civil by 80 million, and educational by 1 million.

The relative extravagance of India’s military expenditure may be judged by comparing the income of an Indian with that of a citizen of various other countries: British India, Rs. 44 or £ 3; U. S. A, £ 72; Australia, £ 54; United Kingdom, £ 50; Canada, £ 40; France, £ 38; Germany, £ 30; Italy, £ 23; Japan, £ 6.

Great Britain having 17 times the per capita income of India spends only three times India’s military expenditure. U.S.A. having 24 times the income spends again only three times what India does, while France having 15 times the income spends only double what India spends.

In the domain of the ministrant functions of the State, as opposed to the constituent, the Government’s attitude has been anything but just–let alone generous. Sir Thomas Munro giving evidence in 1813 declared that "there were schools in every village in India and people were well-versed in the three R’s." While England gets 10 to 20 per cent of its taxes for education, India gets but 2 per cent. British India compares un-favorably even with a State like Baroda in the domain of education, for while Baroda shows that 47.6 of the school-going girls are at school, and spends 13 cents per capita, British India shows but 4 per cent and spends 2 cents (figures for 1907). The literacy in India has been estimated at 7 per cent after 150 years of British rule, whereas in Bengal alone there were 80,000 schools at one time before the advent of the British rule. In the sphere of co-operation there are but 70,000 rural credit societies and that leaves 6,50,000 villages without a credit society at all.

How the Rupee of Indian expenditure is distributed may be seen from the following diagram prepared by Sir Daniel Hamilton: Military services, Per cent in the rupee .28, Rs. 0-4-4; Public hea1th .01, Rs. 0-0-2 ; Irrigation .02. Rs. 0-0-4; Forest, .02, Rs. 0-0-4; Land Revenue .02, Rs. 0-0-4; Superannuation allowances and pensions .03, Rs, 0-0-6; Education .05, Rs. 0-0-10; Civil Works .05, Rs, 0-0-10; General administration .06, Rs. 0-1-0; Police, Jails, Justice .10, Rs, 0-1-7; Debt services .10, Rs. 0-1-7; Other heads .12, Rs. 0-2-0; Railways .14, Rs. 0-2-2; Total, Re. 1-0-0.

But far the most devitalising effect of British rule in India lies in the silent conquest of the mind of the English educated people of India, who have been taught through the Universities the glories of the West and have imbibed that way a spirit of contempt for their own culture, philosophy and religion. In a country where learning was wedded to poverty and was only a means of service to society, it has been made a means to accumulate wealth, and today the intelligentsia have become bond-slaves of Western ideals and outlook on life. In the domain of physical power, the nation stands emasculated and the British harp on the necessity for the presence of an army of occupation to guard her frontiers. India has now realised that her progress towards nationalism, and her entity as a great Asiatic power, have little chance of realisation unless she is the master of her own household. While she realises the advantages of international fellowship, she feels that any such prospect is possible only if she is a self-governing nation herself, is conditioned by her possessing the full chances of development as a nation herself first, and has accordingly interpreted her Swaraj as a complete National Independence with the power to set her own house in order, to sketch her own plans of uplift and self-realisation. ¹