BY DEWAN BAHADUR M. RAMACHANDRA RAO

The political situation in India to-day is dominated by a great struggle for Swaraj. The appointment of the Simon Commission, the choice of its personnel, and the deliberate exclusion of Indians therefrom, have stung India to the quick and have deeply hurt its self-respect. India cannot participate in the framing of its own constitution. Races which have been submerged for centuries like Czechs, Croats, Letts, Poles, Lithuanians, can all have 'self-determination,' but India cannot even have a voice in the shaping of her own destinies. This is the implication of the exclusion of Indians from the Royal Commission and of the denial to Indians of all opportunities of co-operation as members of the Commission. The better mind of India very deeply resents this insult and men of all shades of political opinion have unhesitatingly said so. Of India's indignation there could be no doubt whatever Sir John Simon, the British and the Anglo- Indian press, may say to the contrary. The moving impulse throughout India to-day is, therefore, without doubt the desire for freedom from foreign domination and at no period of her political history has this feeling been so strong as it is now.

Recent events have greatly intensified this feeling. India has no economic or financial freedom and cannot pursue any independent economic or financial policy to guard her own interests. The history of the Reserve Bank Bill and the way in which the Secretary of State interfered with the course of legislation in this country has fully brought this home to the people of India. India cannot also have a military organisation of her own for the formation of her National army. The rejection of the unanimous recommendations of the Indian Sandhurst Committee by the Government of India and His Majesty's Government for making a modest beginning for the Indianisation of the military services and the eventual nationalisation of the army, is another matter which has produced a wave of indignation throughout the country. The proposals for the starting of an Indian navy for the defence of the unprotected shores of India have culminated in a scheme for the creation of a predominantly British naval service in India. This again is another illustration of the helpless position to which India has been reduced. The culminating point was reached when we were told that the Indian Constitution can be revised only by men of the British race and that no Indian can serve as a member of the Commission appointed for the purpose. The fundamental difficulty and the fundamental evil lies, therefore, in the fact that India is not a free country: it is, politically, a "slave land ruled by foreigners." It is a 'dependency' and not a self-governing Dominion. It is for this reason that she is unable to protect her own interests or to inaugurate any measure for her own advancement irrespective of the wishes of her overlord. The present movement is a just awakening and protest of a long-suffering people, with a great and ancient civilisation, too long held in subjection.

During a recent debate in Parliament, Lord Birkenhead made a reference to the 'theory of trusteeship' of India and as to how that trust had been discharged during the 150 years of British occupation. He stated that when Britain approached India in a commercial guise, which has frequently been its earliest approach to future dominion, it found India 'a welter of anarchy,' and he confessed that the moment Parliament repudiated its responsibility, "India would be involved in the same kind of chaos as that from which Britain had rescued her." The British have been in India for over two centuries and they have been governing a great civilised people, who, for 3000 years before their advent had ruled for themselves and carried on great and well-regulated empires. The history of these ancient kingdoms and the exploits of the Moghul, Mahratta and Sikh leaders, show what a magnificent administrative and military organisation India possessed in those days. Now, after this period of British domination, Lord Birkenhead says that the people of India have become so emasculated, so demoralised and so degraded that, if left to themselves, they will fly at each other's throats. Instead of blushing with shame for reducing one-fifth of the human race to their present helpless position, Lord Birkenhead and other British statesmen perpetually refer to this fact in their public utterances, apparently with satisfaction, and with no great anxiety to bring about an improvement. "For us to abandon India would be, in effect, to hand her over to the most frightful anarchy." "If we English abandon India to-morrow, no organised Government would be formed. There would follow, not a despotism under Surendranath Banerji or another leader of the advanced party, but a prompt invasion from Afghanistan in the north-west and Nepal in the north, and wild tribes from the frontier of Assam in the north-east. The princes of the Native States would recommence their old internecine quarrels and would annex adjoining territories and there would be an orgy of murder and rapine." "India is a solemn trust which we cannot abandon in the interests of the toiling masses of India." Statements such as these are continually made by Englishmen in the press and platform all over the world and are accepted as the most convincing arguments for the indefinite continuance of Great Britain in the government of the country on its present basis. Lord Birkenhead wishes to imply that there is something inherently wrong with the Indian people and that they are suffering from a state of incurable incapacity and imbecility from which even the British cannot rescue them in a measurable distance of time. Has Great Britain done anything to bring about this emasculation, or has it taken any steps to train the people of India to look after the affairs of their own country? What has been its policy I in the past? The answer to these questions will be found in the military policy pursued since the time of the East India Company. That policy has been based on a deep distrust of the people of India which has been further accentuated by the Indian Mutiny, and every step since taken has been in the direction of reducing the military efficiency of the people.

It is unnecessary to refer at length to the various measures which Great Britain has taken all these years to make and keep the Indian people as weak and helpless as possible. These have been referred to in detail on more than one occasion by that distinguished statesman, Sir P. S. Sivaswamy Iyer, to whom India owes a debt of gratitude for his continual advocacy of the problem of the self-defence of India. In the first place, the strength and proportion of British troops in India since the Mutiny has considerably been varied. On the eve of the Indian Mutiny, the Indian troops in India outnumbered the British by eight to one. The present ratio approximately is 1 British to 2.25 Indians. The precise data on which this ratio has been arrived at is not known. But nearly 1/3 of the British troops in India are stated to be required for the maintenance of internal security and for the purpose of putting down civil disturbances in the country. The present ratio in regard to internal security troops is 1.24 British to 1 Indian. While in all other countries the function of maintaining internal security is primarily the duty of the police, nearly a third of the regular army in India is maintained for the purpose of quelling riots and other disturbances. In the second place, the admission of Indians to the Volunteer Corps was refused for several years and the Indian Arms Act was worked so rigorously in all parts of the country that the people were deprived of the means of defending themselves against dacoits, robbers and wild animals. Indians were not admitted into any branch of the army requiring any high degree of scientific or technical knowledge, nor were they freely admitted to any arms, like the Artillery, a training in which might prove a source of danger to the Government, if the army should be disaffected. It was one of the recommendations of the Peel Commission that the Artillery should be mainly a European force, exception being made .for such circumstances as were peculiarly detrimental to the health of European troops. They were of opinion that, as tar as possible, Indians should not be employed in the scientific branches of the services, but that a corps of Pioneers should be formed for the purpose of relieving European Sappers from duties entailing exposure to the climate.

All opportunities for the growth of any spirit of capacity or leadership in the Indian soldiers or officers were denied to them. And in fact, the lack of initiative was sedulously fostered by the system of training adopted. Care was taken also to prevent too great a sense of solidarity among the Indian troops, and the object was sought to be achieved by the formation of what are known as 'Class Companies.' The growth of a sense of nationality among Indians and the drawing together of different, classes and creeds, which is one of the results of the consolidation of British rule, were sources of apprehension and misgiving to those responsible for Indian military policy. In the fighting services, Indians were admitted only into the lower ranks of the Cavalry, Infantry, Pioneers and Sappers and Miners. They were not admitted into the Tank Corps and Armoured Car Companies. In the Artillery, they were not admitted as gunners in the Royal Horse Artillery or Field Artillery, or in the Medium Artillery. They were admitted as Gunners only in the Pack Artillery, in the Frontier Garrison Artillery and in the Indian Coast Artillery. Indians were not eligible for the King's Commission till 1918, when 10 commissions were thrown open to Indians to be filled up every year by cadets from Sandhurst. They were admitted, however, only in the Cavalry and Infantry. In the ancillary services, such as Supply and Transport, Medical, Veterinary, Ordnance and Clothing, Remounts, Military Training and Educational, Indians were not eligible to any King's Commissions. In regard to the non-regular forces also, the same policy of distrust has been pursued. While the auxiliary force constituted for the benefit of the Europeans and Eurasians has most of the arms of the regular army, the Territorial Force has only one arm i.e. the Infantry. The members of the Auxiliary Force were eligible to the King's Commissions but the members of the Territorial Force were eligible only to the Viceroy's Commissions. The recruitment of Indians in the higher ranks of the army, facilities for military training in India, and the working of the Indian Arms Act, these three questions fill a large space in the political discussions of India ever since the establishment of the Indian National Congress. All these disabilities have continued up to the present day though in an attenuated form.

An illustrious son of India, a distinguished statesman, jurist and lawyer, the late Lord Sinha of Raipur, whose death was recently mourned all over the Empire, was never known to exaggerate his case or to have entertained any anti-British feeling. He was nurtured in British social and political institutions and had a lively and abiding sense of the value of the British connection. In speaking on the subject as the President of the Indian National Congress in 1915, Lord Sinha made a most scathing indictment against the results of British policy in the past to which attention may be called. He said:- "England has ruled this country for considerably over 150 years now, and surely it cannot be a matter of pride to her that, at the end of this period, the withdrawal of her rule would mean chaos and anarchy and would leave the country an easy prey to any foreign adventurers. There are some of our critics who never fail to remind us that if the English were to leave the country to-day, we would have to wire to them to come back before they got as far as Aden. Some even enjoy the grim joke that, were the English to withdraw now, there would be neither a rupee nor a virgin left in some parts of the country. For my part, I can conceive of no more scathing indictment of the results of British rule. A superman might gloat over the spectacle of the conquest of might over justice, and over righteousness, but I am much mistaken if the British nation fighting now, as ever, for the cause of justice, freedom, and liberty, will consider that as other than discreditable to itself in the highest degree that, after nearly two centuries of British rule, India has been brought to-day to the same emasculated condition as the British were in the beginning of the fifth century, when the Roman legions left the English shores in order to defend their own country against the Huns, Goths and other barbarian hordes. In asking, therefore, for the right of military training, we are only seeking to remedy the results I have described. We are only seeking to retain our self-respect and to strengthen our sense of civic responsibility. We are seeking to regain the right to defend our homes and hearths against possible invaders, should the strong protecting arm of England be ever withdrawn from our country. It is not sentiment that compels us to demand this inalienable right of all human beings, though sentiment has its undoubted place in the scheme of every Government. Some day or other, our right arm may be called upon to defend all that man holds most precious. For, who will venture to prophecy that, sooner or later, there may not be another such conflict as is now convulsing the world, when there may be new alliances and fresh combinations, and when England may not have the sat1le allies and advantages as she has now. There can be no true sense of citizenship where there is no sense of responsibility for the defence of one's own country. If there is trouble, others will quiet it down. If there is riot, others will subdue it. If there is danger, others will face it. If our country is in peril, others will defend it. When a people feel like this, it indicates that they have got to a stage when all sense of civic responsibility has been crushed out of them, and the system which is responsible for this feeling is not consistent with the self-respect of normal human beings." This pronouncement was made immediately after the commencement of the great war and truly reflected at the time the feelings and sentiments of his countrymen in regard to this vital question.

India resents this emasculation of her people as an undeserved and gratuitous stigma on the national competency of Indians for a military career. Throughout the period of the Moghul rule, the Army, in its higher ranks, afforded the most distinguished career to the sons of the soil, but after the establishment of the British Power, no Indian, whatever his rank, social position, or military worth, received the King's Commission till 1918. Asiatics and Africans obtained an honourable position in the armies of Russia and France, but after a century and half of British rule, Indians have not as yet obtained a dignified position in the military service of their own county. During the great war, the Indian army distinguished itself on the battle-fields of Europe for the first time in the history of India, and the hard solid work of the army in all the theatres of war received encomiums from all quarters. The Indian soldiers fought at Ypres side by side with the Canadians; they were with the Anzacs in Gallipoli; they fought against terrible odds in East Africa before General Smuts brought over his troops from South Africa. Their magnificent work in Mesopotamia, in spite of a most difficult situation, won for them great admiration from the military authorities. The heroism of Indian troops attracted a great deal of attention in the theatres of the war in all parts of the world. The Indian States have also done their best in the conduct of this war. In referring to the part played by the Indian troops in 1914 and 1915, Mr. Winston Churchill said "that they held positions for the holding of which no other resources were, at the time, available in the allied armies in the West. They fought with the utmost heroism and effect. They acquitted themselves admirably both in defence and in attack again and again, and yet again, against the enemy. There were Gurkhas at Gallipoli and at the foot of Sari Beir side by side with their Australian comrades, thereby creating a n impression throughout Australia which would never be forgotten." During this struggle, the Indian army was, however, led wholly by British Officers.

We know to our cost that, as far as India is concerned, British statesmen, whatever be the political party to which they belong, have a habit of conceding the principle in platitudinous declarations but negativing the same in practice. The India Act of 1833 contained a statutory pledge that His Majesty's Indian subjects were eligible for employment in the public services of the country, irrespective of creed, class, or colour. The history of the Indianisation of the Civil Services all these years is a fitting example of the method in which this pledge was broken in practice. Various devices were adopted to perpetuate the dominance of the British bureaucracy in the country and the concentration of all controlling power in the administration in their hands. Though it is nearly 100 years since this declaration has been made, the governing service in the country, i.e. the Indian Civil Service, is still predominantly a British service at the present day, notwithstanding the appointment of Royal Commissions every twenty years. The exclusion of Indians from the commissioned ranks of the Indian army till very recently is one of the most galling disabilities imposed upon Indians, and the history of its removal reveals the same tale of obstruction and opposition as has been adopted in the case of the Civil Services. This matter has been under consideration for several generations and we have it on the authority of Lieutenant-General Sir George Macmunn that when His Majesty the King-Emperor came to India in 1911 for the Coronation Durbar, the Government were searching for boons which might be given to the Indian army to commemorate the occasion, and it was suggested that Indians may be admitted to the King's Commissions. But the mass of military opinion at that time was against the proposal and no announcement was made. His Excellency the Viceroy publicly stated in 1917 that the discussion of the question of commissions to Indians dated back to pre-historic times, that it has been the subject of discussion by government after government, and that years slipped by and nothing was done. He also announced that, as a beginning, nine commissions had been conferred on military officers who distinguished themselves in the war. The next step was the announcement in 1919 of the grant of ten commissions to Indians per annum. This was considered by the British military classes a very revolutionary step. The military correspondent of the London Times struck a note of warning at the time. "It is a change which, once begun, must extend and, because it must have the inevitable result of placing eventually British officers under the command of Indians, is not one to be lightly undertaken." This is still the predominating feeling of the Military Services and every proposal that has since been made is looked at from this angle of vision. If India is to attain a status similar to the Dominion status of Canada, Australia or South Africa in a reasonable period of time, and if the statesmen of Great Britain intend to carry out the intentions of the Declaration of August 1917 without any evasion or equivocation, they must make up their minds on this fundamental question of the self-defence of India. It will not do to play with the problem. The rejection of the very modest proposals of the Indian Sandhurst Committee clearly shows that those in authority do not wish to face the facts.

The Civil and Military Services in India have always been a formidable bulwark of opposition to every step of

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reform and progress in India and they have kept up their traditions on the present occasion. Immediately on the publication of the Indian Sandhurst Committee's Report, a wave of indignation passed through their ranks both in England and in India, and an intensive propaganda was undertaken denouncing the Committee's recommendations. The Report has been published with the imprimatur of the Chief of the General Staff in India who was the President of the Committee, and of an able British civil servant, the Secretary to the Government of India in the r Army Department, who was one of the members. These two British officers were bitterly attacked by the exponents of the Service interests in the British and the Anglo-Indian press. It was alleged that, in agreeing to these proposals of the Committee, both these officers surrendered their better judgement to the machinations of Indian politicians on the Committee. As a matter of fact, there were only three out of thirteen members who could come under the category of politicians. They are Mr. Mahammad Ali Jinnah, Pandit Motilal Nehru and myself. The Pandit resigned in the early stages of the enquiry and never took part in the deliberations leading up to the Committee's report. Of the other ten members, Major Zorawar Singh represented the Indian States, Risaldar Major and Honorary Captain Hajie Gul Mawaz Khan, Major Bala Sahib Dafle, and Capt. Hera Singh represented the Indian military classes, Nawab Sir Sahibzada Abdul Qaiyum and Sardar Jogendra Singh came from the N.W.F. Province and the Punjab. These provinces have furnished a considerable contingent of military recruits to the Indian Army. Capt. Banerji always took an interest in the promotion of military training in Bengal, and the Hon'ble Sir Pheroze Sethna, an able, patriotic and respected member of the Council of State was more devoted to commercial business in Bombay than to politics. In these circumstances, the plea that the politicians carried the day in the Committee is an unjust reflection on the sense of Justice and patriotism of the British and other members of the Committee, who came to unanimous conclusions under the wise guidance of the President, Sir Andrew Skeen. The campaign was opened at the East India Association in London, generally the meeting ground of the exponents of the British Services in India. Lieutenant-General Sir George Macmunn who held many important positions in the Indian Army delivered a lecture on the 'Romance of the Indian Army and its future.' He referred to the Indianisation of the army which he said must be 'slow' and must be 'experimental.' He asserted that the admission of Indian officers was a 'difficult problem' and that it was not too much to say that the difficulties of the situation had induced the Government in a somewhat Anglo-saxon spirit to shelve the question for many years, and that they must accept the blame for the present state of things. He graciously agreed that 'up to a point' and where that point is he cannot tell-a 'modicum' of Indianisation is possible. In a series of articles in the 'Times,' Sir Reginald Craddock criticised the recommendations of the Committee as an 'absolute leap in the dark.' In his opinion, there are plenty of brave men in India and there are plenty of men with brains, but the man who has both of these in combination, together with the instincts of a soldier and the requisite training has yet to be 'evolved' and that the British members of the Committee have been persuaded that Indian parents require a definite rate of Indianisation established before they could think of the army for their sons. He suggested that the scheme of Indianisation recommended by the Committee was outside their terms of reference and made many other statements of the same kind and contended that there was no analogy between the civil and military services in the matter of Indianisation and that the' saturation point' referred to by Sir George Macmunn, up to which Indianisation is possible, must be ascertained before any definite policy could be adopted.

The British Services know the implications of the creation of a National Army in India. That they should raise an intensive agitation against such a step and obstruct the course of events is only to be expected. But that His Majesty's Government and the Government of India should have rejected the main recommendations of a 'responsible Committee appointed by themselves in regard to a question of such vital importance to a self-governing India, to the creation of which they are committed, shows that they have again yielded to the clamour of the Services, and that they have adopted on the present occasion the traditional method of conceding the principle of a further measure of Indianisation but denying its fulfilment in practice. The decision of His Majesty's Government to increase the direct vacancies at Sandhurst open to Indians from 10 to 20 and also to allot 8 places to Indians at Woolwich, was not come to on a consideration of the Sandhurst Committee's Report, but was arrived at before the Report was submitted, and was announced to the Sub-Committee of the Sandhurst Committee by the Army Council. We have the authority of Mr. Jinnah for this statement. Both the British Government and the Government of India have, therefore, paid very little attention to the labours of the Committee and its recommendations, and the announcement made by His Excellency in the Assembly was a mere reiteration of the decision of the Army Council above referred to. His Excellency also said that the 10 vacancies now offered did not, under the existing conditions, produce 10 King's commissioned officers, but does he believe that under the same conditions there will be enough of Indian cadets to fill the 20 vacancies now announced by him? In recommending the establishment of an Indian Sandhurst, the Committee referred to "the great difficulties which at present stand ill the way of the Indian boys being sent to Sandhurst and which could not at any time be removed, and that there are deterrents of a permanent character for any large number of boys proceeding to the British Sandhurst for qualifying themselves as cadets." These 'many deterrents' have been referred to by numerous witnesses and will be found in the 10 volumes of the evidence recorded by the Committee. His Excellency has hardly touched on any of these difficulties, and has either a very insufficient appreciation of them or has deliberately ignored them. He has only referred to the financial difficulty, but even apart from this, there are many others. Lieutenant-General Sir George Macmunn had to admit that: "It is generally a big proposition to ask young Indians to leave their parents and come here among a people of entirely different religion, and to lose their own religious influence at a critical age so as to be able to go through the course at Sandhurst. However kindly the reception, however careful the welfare-organization, it is a big thing and a great expense to put Indian parents to." The average Indian parent is very reluctant to send his son at an impressionable age to a distant foreign country and there is the fear that their boys would not be able to do their best in "an atmosphere swamped by an overwhelming majority of British boys with whom Indian cadets can, as a rule, have little in common. The problem of how the Indian boy should spend his holidays in great Britain has been considered at great length by the Lytton Committee on Indian Students, and there is the same problem in a much worse form in the case of the Indian cadet at Sandhurst. None of these difficulties can be got over and the Commander-in-chief made no reference whatever to them. As regards the cost of preliminary education and military training, the course of training at Dehradun College and at Sandhurst costs an Indian civilian parent 21 thousand rupees. This, the Committee found, is beyond the capacity of the average Indian parent belonging to the middle classes. The only solatium which the Commander-in-chief has offered in regard to the financial problem is that the State would undertake to pay the difference between the estimated cost of education at the Indian Military College and the actual cost at Sandhurst. This has yet to be ascertained but this cannot amount to much. In the United States, the Government grants the cadet while he is under training at West Point a rate of pay (1,072 dollars a year) sufficient to cover the cost of his training and subsistence, and to leave a margin from which to purchase his initial outfit when he obtains his Commission. In France the fees, in the case of boys at St. Cyr, are varied to suit the means of the individual parent, as well as being regulated by the services which the parent may have rendered to the nation. About 50 per cent of the parents pay no fees at all. In Canada, the cost of the training given at Kingston is fixed at a level fully 50 per cent lower than the cost of an education of corresponding standard at the Canadian University. The Sandhurst Committee expressed the opinion that, while they were opposed to any undue cheapening of education, they felt that the French or Canadian model is better suited than the English model to the circumstances of a relatively poor country like India, and they recommended that the fees at the Indian Military College, when it is established, should not exceed an amount which can be paid without hardship by parents of the classes which all provide most of the cadets, namely, the upper and middle classes. The Commander-in-chief does not say anything about these recommendations but wishes to ascertain the cost of education at an Indian Military College, without establishing it, for the purpose of compensating the parents.

There is also another difficulty of a more compelling character. The Army Council has informed the Sandhurst Committee that it is their considered opinion that 5 per cent is the absolute limit up to which Indians could be admitted at Sandhurst and that there is, in every educational institution, a limit beyond which acceptance of foreign students is not desired for fear lest the character of the institution may be changed. In speaking on the Indian students at the British Universities, Sir Theodore Morison stated: "A University is a corporate body with traditions and a certain characteristic tone; it has a personality which is distinctive, of which it is proud, and which it desires to retain. This personality would be destroyed or distorted by the influx of a large number of strangers, and no University would tolerate this transformation." It is even more true of an institution like Sandhurst than of any university. This is one of the main grounds which induced the Sandhurst Committee to recommend the establishment of an Indian Sandhurst as early as possible. The Government have brushed aside all these considerations and apparently believe that the supply of candidates from India will never exceed the limit fixed by the Army Council, which would be about 30 cadets per annum. The Committee believed that the establishment of a Military College in India would be a decisive factor in stimulating the supply of Indian cadets to the Indian Army and that there is good potent material in India which the efforts of the Government have not as yet succeeded in reaching. They went thoroughly into the history of the present methods of selection and made various recommendations to modify the same, and the whole set of their proposals was intended to stimulate a regular flow of Indian cadets to the army. By rejecting these proposals and by merely increasing the number of vacancies available to Indians at Sandhurst, the Government have practically put a check upon the Indianisation of the higher ranks of the army. What more convincing proof is necessary to make out that the necessary material is not forthcoming in India than the triumphant fact that the 20 vacancies offered to Indians at Sandhurst have not been fully filled up any year! His Excellency the Commander-in-chief has stated that the Government had not the means of predicting the number of candidates that may come forward in any particular year and could not therefore fix a definite date for the establishment of an Indian Sandhurst. That so responsible a man as the Commander-in-chief should have assigned such a reason is indeed a matter of surprise, The whole scheme of the Sandhurst Committee for slightly increasing the vacancies yearly has been characterised as a mere time-table arrangement from 1929 to 1952. Government have acted on Lord Birkenhead's famous dictum that the British nation are not the slaves of dates, but they are evidently not in a mood even to consider any reasonable rate of progress, however slow. The fact is that those responsible for the rejection of the Committee's scheme shut their eyes to the obvious fact that the schemes was intended to stimulate the recruitment of Indian officers and to remove the existing checks upon the flow of candidates. The Government are not evidently anxious to take these steps and one can draw his own inference from their action. There are now about 7000 officers holding King's Commissions in India and Burma, and deducting 3000 as the probable number of officers attached to British units, there would be about 4000 officers attached to Indian units. Without some such scheme providing for an annual increment, there is no possibility whatever of India ever having the National Army foreshadowed by the Commander-in-chief. It is not to be assumed that we in India desire an army less efficient in any way than the one already existing.

I must now refer to the decision of His Majesty's Government to continue the 8 units scheme. This part of the announcement has caused most painful surprise throughout the country. Before dealing with the reasons assigned by the Commander-in-chief for the continuance of the scheme, a brief explanation about the origin and the scope of the scheme is necessary. In making a beginning for the Indianisation of the army in 1923, the late Lord Rawlinson announced that 2 regiments of Cavalry and 6 regiments of Infantry would be wholly Indianised and Indian Officers holding King's Commissions in the Indian Army would be transferred to the Indianising units, and all future officers qualified for the King's Commission passing out of Sandhurst will be posted to these regiments. It was explained that, in taking this step, the Government were anxious to give Indians a fair opportunity of proving that units officered by Indians would be efficient in every way. These 8 regiments were subsequently selected and Indian officers attached to various regiments were transferred to them. It was urged that, if in a time of crisis, Indian officers were mixed up in units with British officers, any shortcomings they possessed might be concealed, while if they were put to the test by themselves, they would have to stand and fall on their own merits, and that they would have an opportunity of demonstrating that complete reliance could be placed in them. The bonafides of the scheme brought into force in 1923 were questioned by the Indian cadets almost from the very beginning and the general public also looked upon the scheme with great suspicion for very good reasons. It was clear to everybody that no British cadet will be posted to these regiments and that he would not be liable to serve under the command of an Indian officer in the Indianised units, and it was suspected that one of the main objects of that scheme was to prevent Indian officers from having British cadets under their command. This suspicion was strengthened by a lecture delivered at the R.M.C. Sandhurst in 1925 by a British military officer with a view to stimulate recruitment of the British boys to the Indian Army. The fact that such a lecture was delivered was mentioned by some of the Indian cadets who passed out of Sandhurst, in their evidence before the Sandhurst Committee. This was indignantly denied by the military authorities in India, but the sub-committee of the Indian Sandhurst Committee found out from the Sandhurst authorities that the lecture was as a matter of fact delivered to the British cadets. A summary of the lecture as delivered has been secured and printed as appendix 3 to the Report of the Indian Sandhurst Committee. The committee has found that the lecture is not capable of any another interpretation than that placed by the Indian cadets who heard it delivered. Though the Committee did not believe that it was the intention of the Government that the 8 units scheme should have the result claimed for it by the lecturer, it is clear that in actual practice under this scheme, no British cadet will ever serve under the command of an Indian. This form of 'segregation' in certain selected regiments of the bulk of the Indian Officers holding the King's Commission has been unpopular not only with the Indian Officers concerned, but also with most of the Commanding Officers of the Indianising units. The Indian Officers feel that they should have the same chances of selecting their regiments as the British Officers. Several Indian Officers who now qualify for the King's Commission have family connections extending over many years, and their fathers and grandfathers have held the Viceroy's Commission in certain regiments and it is only laudable that they should continue their family traditions. In the case of the British Officers, such a tendency to serve in regiments with which the officer's family is concerned is definitely encouraged.

Apart from these objections, it has been pointed out by the Sandhurst Committee "that the test as formulated by the military authorities is an unfair one and too severe to impose upon the first generation of Indian King's Commissioned Officers who have sufficient disadvantages of other kinds to overcome." The Sandhurst Committee also found that the scheme is in conflict with the principles of co-operation between British and Indians which is applied in every other sphere of Indian administration. The scheme has been universally condemned by all the Commanding Officers of the Indianised units, by the Indian cadets, and by almost every witness that appeared before the Committee, whether military or civil. Among the military men of the highest rank, I may mention that Lieutenant- General Sir John Shea, Adjutant-General in India, said that from his own point of view as an officer responsible for providing efficient personnel to the army, he would far sooner see in the intermediate stage Indian cadets mixed throughout the Indian units with British Officers. He said that if Indian boys were to be mixed freely with British Officers, they would more quickly learn the qualities of leadership, their character would be developed, and they would become fine officers. Looking to the efficiency of the Indian Army, he thought, "that we shall have a far more efficient army if a mixture of Indian and British boys in the same unit is permitted than by totally Indianising certain units." It is unnecessary to refer in detail to the evidence of the other military witnesses examined before the Committee, most of whom expressed more or less the same view as Sir John Shea.

After a review of the whole evidence, the Sandhurst Committee carne to the conclusion, "that both for psychological and practical reasons, the continuance of the scheme I can, in their opinion, only conduce to failure." They said: "With Indianisation proceeding in the army in any measure, the only means of ensuring successful Indianisation and, concomitantly, the maximum degree attainable of military efficiency, is to allow Indian Officers to serve shoulder to shoulder with British Officers, each learning from the other in every unit of the Indian Army. This was the original plan and, as we believe, the correct one. There is one other practical consideration to which we attach importance. The Indian King's Commissioned Officer is still a new element in the Indian Army to, which that most conservative body of men, the Indian rank and file, have not yet become fully accustomed. By the method which we advocate, this new element can be absorbed with the least degree of questioning and the least derangement of the existing system of the Indian Army taken t as a whole." Notwithstanding this weighty opinion of the Committee based upon most important evidence, the decision to continue the 8 units scheme is a serious blow to all chances of successful Indianisation. It cannot be a matter of surprise if uncharitable people draw the inference that those responsible for this decision do not want to give the Indian cadets all fair chances of success.

In explaining the policy of His Majesty's Government and that of the Government of India, His Excellency the Commander-in-chief said :- "The object which we all seek to achieve, is to fit Indians to undertake the defence of India. As constitutional advance progresses, the question will continually be asked how far the military side of Indian Swaraj has kept pace. Government contemplates that, as India progresses towards full self-government within the Empire, there may be, in the process of development, an army of the same character as the Dominion armies organised on a national basis, and office red by Indians holding their own distinctive national form of commission. That is our policy of Indianisation. The process of development will naturally be contingent on the success achieved in the various stages of the experiment." Now if this policy is to be carried out in letter and in spirit, the first step is the establishment of all the necessary training institutions in the country to impart military education in all its branches, equipped and staffed by the best available men. This has been demanded in India for over 40 years and the Indian Sandhurst Committee came to the conclusion, "that it would be consonant with the general policy of administration, as that is now conceived, that India should have a Military College of her own and thus be self-sufficient in respect of the most important of her national needs. It was universally recognised that the establishment of an Indian Sandhurst was ultimately inevitable." The Government is apparently determined to delay the inevitable as long as possible. Is this a wise policy? The Commander-in-chief foreshadowed that the Indian Army of the future will be of the same character as the Dominion armies. How did the "Dominions solve the problem of the training of their military officers? Do they send all their cadets to foreign countries for military training? The Royal Military College at Kingston in Canada was established in 1886 for the purpose of imparting complete education in all branches of the military profession. The feeling in the Dominions for the establishment of their own institutions was so strong that their Governments had to take steps immediately in the matter. The institution at Kingston is, in the opinion of some of the witnesses, superior to Sandhurst in several respects. The Military College at Duntroon in Australia was also established with the same object. Why should India be denied the liberty of establishing the requisite institutions for military training in India itself? Another weighty reason has been overlooked. After an exhaustive investigation into the military training systems of other countries, the Committee came to the conclusion, that the civil educational system in India is at present defective and cannot be so improved in the near future as to ensure that the generality of cadets, when they first arrive at the Military College, can be turned into efficient officers after a short period of military training." They therefore recommended that the course at the Indian Military College should be longer than the course at Sandhurst to enable them to improve their general education and their knowledge of colloquial English. The three years' course recommended by the Committee was accordingly designed to meet the present Indian conditions. The Commander- in-chief does not evidently care to give the best training to Indian Officers and would compel the Indian cadets to go to Sandhurst with defective preliminary education and thus increase their chances of failure. There is no other country in the world which depends upon another country for the military education of her peoples except India.

What India has really asked in the past, and is asking to-day, is a change of heart on the part of Great Britain. It asks Great Britain to definitely and honestly train India's sons to undertake the duties of citizenship and to revive the sense of civic responsibility which has, in the words of Lord Sinha, been crushed out of them. Almost ever since the establishment of the Indian National Congress, the country has demanded a better position in the Military Services for the sons of the soil. In 1887, at the third Indian National congress held at Madras, the resolution adopted was in these terms; "that in view of the loyalty of His Majesty's Indian subjects, this Congress considers it desirable that the Queen's Proclamation should be given effect to, that the Military Service in its higher grades should be practically opened to the natives of this country and that the Government of India should establish military colleges in this country, whereat the natives of India as defined by Statute, may be educated and trained for the military career as officers of the Indian Army." It is now forty years since this resolution was passed and succeeding Congresses, Conferences, and Federations have been asking for the establishment of military academies in India for the highest instruction in the military art, and to train the races of India on a system of military service, India demands a change of the pre- sent policy of concentrating the defensive services of the country in the hands of the British and to transfer that burden as rapidly as possible, consistently with efficiency, to Indian shoulders. Our inability to defend ourselves at this moment is often cast in our teeth as a serious impediment to the attainment of responsible government, though the past policy of Great Britain is the main cause for this impediment. The goal of British policy in India having now been set out, the formulation of a new military policy vis-a-vis the people of the country, and the transfer of the defence of the country to their shoulders is a necessary concomitant of the new status of India. A standing European army and a military organisation under the control of British military officers, are absolutely inconsistent with the development of India into a self- governing Dominion. She must be given the place of a real partner, a place of as true freedom and as perfect equality with other partners in the Empire as that of Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Canada. The more thoughtful men of India greatly value a place for India as an equal partner in the British Empire. If this is delayed or impeded, Great Britain will be breeding in India a race of irreconcilables of the same class as those who have made the government of the Irish Free State so difficult and who would perhaps adopt somewhat different methods.

The relation of empires to subject communities is, in fact, a great seed-ground for those states of mind which Professor Gilbert Murray has compendiously grouped under the name of Satanism. The spirit of unmixed hatred towards world-order is increasing. It is felt to some extent against all ordered Governments, and Professor Murray thinks that it is chiefly directed against Imperial governments and it is directed more widely and intensely against Great Britain than against any other power. From the point of view of the British Commonwealth, the possible remedy for these evils is, in his opinion, that the British statesmen must first think carefully what their principles are, and secondly they must sincerely carry them out. The British have repeatedly said that they are in India, not for their own profit, nor to use Indians as food for cannon, but to enable India to govern itself. If this is their ideal, Great Britain must carry it out honestly and faithfully. Let there be no hypocrisy, conscious or unconscious, about the matter.