Whatever may be the motive behind the error of the
Argentine representative, there is no doubt whatever about the motive of
Englishmen. It is unnecessary to think that these people are very bad to
believe that they are not quite pleased with the Hindu population of India.
India fed numerous English households which now have lost this source of
livelihood. This they might justly attribute in a large measure to the Hindu.
When Mahatma Gandhi was in England, he was asked to visit the textile labour
area and shown the suffering which his khaddar programme had caused. The
Mahatma’s answer was that even after the reduction his programme had caused the
labour population in England had more and better food than the corresponding
class in India. But each wearer is keenly alive to the pebble in his own shoe
and the English today should be definitely the worse off for the loss of this
country from their possessions.
The loss would be felt by the labour class as well
as by the capitalist class. That is why practically all England voted for the
partition of India into two Dominions and a possibility of the Indian States
wishing to remain outside both the Dominions. Pakistan might give them a
foothold and the States might give some more. There should have been a
suggestion in subtle ways to various States to claim independence and the right
to standout of the Indian Dominion. Mysore took some time to join. Travancore
claimed independence. Kashmir joined India only when hard pressed by Pakistan’s
unsympathetic attitude. Hyderabad stood out to the bitter end. All of them are
one with India now and can only be the better and the happier for it. But to
the people who believed that it was their rule that made India one, and that
when that rule ended it should in the nature of things fan into bits and call
for their help again, the Unity that has been achieved should be the cause of
sore disappointment. What a pity, they will be thinking, that after all that
was done; India was divided into only two pieces and not more!
This and nothing else can explain the attitude that
Mr. Bevin took up on India’s police action against the Razakar outrages in
Hyderabad! India, it seems, developed a ‘warlike spirit’ in this context.
Hindus and non-Razakar Muslims of Hyderabad in any number might suffer any
amount of horror for any length of time at the hands of Razakars. There may be
a flight of any number of refugees from Hyderabad to Indian Territory. Razakars
might make raids into Indian-Union territory and loot and molest populations.
Trains may be held up, passengers robbed and outraged. Three ministers, who by
no means were unfriendly to the then existing regime, might be so moved by the
excesses of the Razakars and the unwillingness of their Muslim fellow-ministers
to take action against these that they resigned their offices in protest.
Still, India should have been patient and just looked on. Would the influx of
refugees into Union territory create problems to the Union administration? Why,
they should even meet them. Might some Hindu population in the Union lose its
head and injure Muslim citizens in its midst? Why, preach patience to them; if
they do not learn it, give them a beating. Allow the innocent population in
India to run any risk, but do not lift up a finger against ruffians on the run.
“Who calls you cowards?
breaks your pate across?
Plucks off your beard and blows it in your face?
Tweaks you by the nose, gives you the lie in the
throat.
Zounds, you should take it.”
And why? Because you should show patience and not a
warlike spirit.
Anything more fantastic it would be hard to
imagine. This is not how England dealt with such difficulties when she had
charge of India. Not only after paramountcy was established did the British
authorities intervene to restore order and ensure security to person and
property in Indian States. They did it from the very beginning; in his book, Our
Indian Protectorate, dealing with the policy in regard to Indian States,
Tupper, once of the Indian Civil Service, freely illustrates the manner of this
intervention. The fundamental basis of the intervention was that “Indian States
are not nations.” (Page 7)
“Within the frontiers of India, the law of nations
does not determine the respective rights and duties either of the British
Government and the continental Native States, or of those States among
themselves.”
“The power of intervention in internal affairs very
variously exercised by the British Government does not rest on any virtual
sovereignty in particular cases but upon the fact that the sovereignty is, it
must be granted in very different proportions, shared in every case without any
exception whatsoever.” (Page 4)
No Native State could be allowed to use outside
help to injure Indian tranquillity. One of these administrators observed:
“With respect to the French the whole course of
their policy has for its object the subversion of the British empire in
India…it is absolutely necessary for the defeat of these designs that no Native
State should be left to…exist in India which is not upheld by the British
power, or the political conduct of which is not under its absolute control.”
(Page 33).
The ruler of the rest of India could not be
indifferent to anarchy in a State.
“In 1817 it became the established principle of our
policy to maintain tranquillity among the States of India; and we cannot be
indifferent spectators of anarchy therein without ultimately giving up India
again to the pillage and confusion from which we then rescued her.”–Sir
Charles Metcalfe. (Page 55)
“Leave all the Native States alone to follow their
own devices without guidance and without warning, and many would speedily blot
themselves out by sheer force of misgovernment, to the ultimate disturbance, as
we may now believe, of the political equilibrium of the Empire.” (Page 57)
“Interference of the most drastic kind was forced
upon us by the pressing necessities of self-preservation:’–Gwalior Case.
(Page 59)
“Oudh was annexed solely for the purpose of ending
misgovernment in all interior affairs; misgovernment which has lasted inspite
of censure, remonstrance, warnings, and threats, for a period of forty years.”
(Page 64)
The recent circumstances of Hyderabad are covered
four-square by the following passages:
“The Government of Oudh was unable, without
assistance, to suppress even the gang of armed robbers who haunted the jungles
and made frequent and desperate inroads into British territory.” (Page 66).
“...the prince has, during all this period,
disregarded the most earnest remonstrances and the most solemn admonitions,
perpetually addressed to him, both by the British representative at his court
and directly by your Government.”–The Oudh Case, the Court of Directors’
Despatch. (Page 67).
“Colonel Sleeman reports a case in which the wives
and children of the landowners and cultivators of whole towns and villages were
driven off in hundreds like a flock of sheep to be sold into
slavery...Frightful tortures were common. There were numerous cases of men
being burnt on the body with hot ramrods;
…..In 1847 the following were amongst the crimes
committed by high Government official or their subordinates: in a gang-robbery
four men were Killed and a fifth was buried upto the neck in the ground and his
ears filled with powder, which was fired and killed him...” (Page 69)
“The sovereigns of Oudh, wrote Lord Dalhousie,
“have been enabled for more than half a century to persist in their course of
oppression and misrule. Their eyes have never seen the misery of their
subjects; their ears have never been open to their, cry. ..” (Page ~2)
“Any political risk which this (systematic
annexation)’ might involve would be preferable to the insupportable moral
responsibility of deliberately maintaining the misgovernment of millions. (Page
73).
Much has been made of the independence of Hyderabad
and its being in alliance with England and not subordination. These views are
not right.
“No King of Oudh, no ancestor of any King of Oudh
was ever an independent sovereign. The Nawabs of Oudh never threw off their
legal subordinate to the Moghul Emperor. The position of the Nawabs of the
Moghul Empire was no more than the position of a hereditary Viceroy.” (Page 74)
“It has never been imagined that it would have been
thought justifiable in the Moghul, if he had had at command the necessary
physical force, to neglect to relieve his Oudh subjects from the incorrigible
misgovernment of subedars. I am unable to see on what ground we, who stand in
the Moghul’s place, and who have at command the necessary physical force, can
doubt that we have the same right, and the same duty, as the Moghul, would have
had...”–Sir J. P. Grant. (Page 76)
“In the Indian Constitutional Statutes the States
which are under the government of native rulers, subject to the Paramount Power
of the Crown, are usually described as being in alliance, or in subordinate
alliance, with the East India Company or the Crown, as the case may be. There
is no great difference between the two expressions; for an alliance of any of
these States with the Paramount Power is necessarily a subordinate alliance.”
(Page 334)
Intervention is a duty in certain circumstances.
“One case, then, in which interference is necessary
is when the general peace of the country in endangered. Another case is when
misrule has reached such a pitch that rebellion would be morally justisble; and
there may be conditions of misgovernment, far short of that, when interposition
becomes a duty...”(Page 304)
“The lesson of the annexation of Oudh is a lasting
one, because political abstention which leads to anarchy is in itself a
mistake.” (Page 126)
The annexation of Nagpur and Oudh are thus defended.
The strongest part of Lord Dalhousie’s case for the
annexation of Nagpur was that which depended on the general interest of India.
The absorption of Nagpur State in the British dominions would, he pointed out,
extinguish a government having separate feelings and interests, absorb a
military power which, though no longer formidable, might be the cause of
embarrassment or anxiety...” (Page 97)
“ ‘It is difficult’ he (Mr. Irwin) says, ‘to rise
from the study of the blue book of 1856 without feeling that the motives which
led to the adoption of that measure” (i.e. the annexation of Oudh) “were not
mere vulgar lust of conquest or mere greed of pecuniary gain. There can be no
doubt that Lord Dalhousie and the members of his Council, and General Outram, were,
one and all, firmly convinced, that by assuming the administration of Oudh they
were acting in the interests of humanity.” (Pages 81-82)
Why was Hyderabad not annexed? Here is an
explanation:
“It was long ago said by Sir John Malcolm that if
we made all India into zillahs (or British districts), it was not in the nature
of things that out-Empire should last fifty years; but that if we could keep up
a number of Native States, without political power, but as royal instruments,
we should, exist in India as long as our Naval superiority in Europe was
maintained.”
Why was not Mysore wiped out or left to Tipoo’s
sons? Why was a part of Mysore given to the Nizam?
“A large portion of the conquered territory
(Mysore) was therefore divided between the Company and the Nizam. To have so
divided the whole would have afforded the Mahrattas grounds of jealousy, unduly
aggrandised the power of the Nizam, and involved the establishment of an
inconvenient frontier. There could be no hope that the dynasty of Tippoo would
ever entertain anything but enmity to the British cause. It was thus determined
to rescue the family of the old Hindu Rajas of Mysore from the obscurity and
durance in which they had been placed by the usurpation of Haider Ali, and to
set a child of that house upon the throne of a State entirely created by
British authority...” (Page 119)
Paramountcy, it has been stated, lapsed when the
British left. But how did it come into existence?
“The Paramount Power of that Government is not
derived from the law of nations or from the Moghuls or, indeed, from any of the
potentates who maintained a fluctuating and often nominal suzerainty over
different parts of the country in former times; it rests on conquests,
agreement; and usage, and the necessity, in the general interest, of keeping
the peace.” (Page 60)
The meaning of saying that paramountcy lapsed is
that Britain cannot perform the functions of the Paramount Power. With the
privileges that went with paramountcy the duties it entailed also go. England
cannot take responsibility for maintaining peace in India. But that does not
mean that that responsibility devolves on no one.
Influential sections of the English people no doubt
desired that this responsibility should not be taken by the Indian Union, and
that soon, in consequence, England’s aid would be required in settling the
country. Tupper’s book has revealing passages on this aspect of the question.
“The alternative which is usually discussed in the
case of the great self-governing colonies is that they should become
independent federations or States. That alternative in the case of India is
impossible….If we were to relinquish our Indian Supremacy the probability is
that either Russia or France, or both, would attempt to seize the prize….But
suppose that both Russia and France were to hold aloof ‘Independently,’ says
Sir Henry Maine (International Law p.5) of any other benefits which the Indian
Empire may confer on the collection of countries which it includes, there is no
question that, were it to be dissolved or to fall into the hands of masters
unable to govern it, the territories which make it up would be deluged with
blood from end to end’…..As before, nearly all over the country, numbers of
hereditary chieftains, numbers of freebooters and adventurers, would set up for
themselves...Is it imagined that in this great game for power, our countrymen
would not be invited to cut in? Is it supposed that they would decline, or
accept and play worse than their predecessors? Surely our countrymen in the present
generation are not less bold and enterprising and adventurous than our
countrymen and Frenchmen of a century and a half ago? What was done by Clive
and Watson in Bengal would be done by English, Irish or Scotch. It would be
done in all probability both better and more quickly, even if no one had the
genius of Clive. Does our experience of former achievements go for nothing?…To
my mind it seems quite idle to contemplate the relinquishment of British
Supremacy in India. If we could imagine the British nation guilty of so weak,
so cruel, so foolish a. repudiation of its responsibility, considerable
territorial power would once more be acquired by British adventurers;
Parliament would not leave the sovereignty we have won; and in the end the
British Empire in India after a period of war and anarchy and great misery to
the people would be established for a second time.” (Page 386-8)
No disclosure of motives could be more naive. Allow
for the changes in political circumstances that have occurred in the last fifty
years, and the passage indicates what with slight modifications Tupper’s
descendants expected to happen in India in 1947-48. When Travancore and
Hyderabad claimed independence and Sydney Cotton flew without authority from
Karachi to Hyderabad with, contraband arms camouflaged as medical stores, they
merely worked according to the schedule that Tupper and his like had drawn up.
Fortunately the schedule has failed after the first
few details. The adventurer who can do more than Clive though not possessed of
his genius may be there, but the Indian States and the Muslims of India have
belied the hopes of all his class. There is no likelihood of England having to
come back to take care of us. But there is the danger of the United Nations’
Organisation blundering under the guidance of present day counterparts of
Tupper of ‘Our Indian protectorate’ and of even well-meaning Englishmen like
Mr. Bevin moved by memories of power recently relinquished. If this guidance is
supplemented by such swash buckling for peace as the Argentine representative
on the Security Council of the U.N.O. has exhibited in the last few days, the
position of an honest nation like India will be truly uncomfortable. But this
is dangerous to the U.N.O. as much as to any one nation. In its handling of the
Indonesian and South African questions, the Organisation has shown itself a
true follower of Dogberry and let rogues show themselves for what they are by
allowing them to steal away. By being firm with those who are not rogues it
will only prove how fully it has imbibed Dogberryan principles as the town
watch of Cosmopolites and fulfil its task of maintaining peace no better than
its unlamented predecessor in that role, the League of Nations. That indeed
would be a pity but perhaps it is not the inevitable end. A South American may
learn, though slowly, that India is not a land of violence like South American
countries, that the Indian Union and Hyderabad are not in two different rent
continents like Italy and Abyssinia nor, like Germany and Austria, merely
contiguous to each other, and that the people of Hyderabad are of a piece with
the people of India. Even conservative Englishmen may relent when they realise
that the only ruler whom they expected to play the part of an ambitious Oriental
potentate has found out for himself the danger of dancing to their tune. In any
case patience is sovereign with India and this and the facts which are open to
any impartial observer to see may still bring the Hyderabad issue to the
conclusion that alone is safe and satisfactory. Hyderabad is to India bone of
her bone and flesh of her flesh and no amount of repetition of the Untruth, and
by never so many persons on or off the Security Council of the U.N.O., can make
it a separate nation and an Independent State.