One of Britain's Children
ONE OF BRITAIN'S CHILDREN T^HOSE who have tried to study the Simon Report ¦^ with some impartiality may not agree with President Nicholas Murray Butler that it is "broadminded, constructive...
...and the ravages of the caste tradition, which has established more than 2,000 separate Hindu groups...
...The rise of Soviet Russia, the second factor, has served to foster the militant spirit among nationalistic extremists throughout Asia...
...India is held to be too vast for one government to rule...
...There is little doubt that if it could be put into effect Gandhi's nationalism would become scarcely more than a provincial political ideal with social implications...
...To some extent this movement is a plea for elemental human rights, too frequently spurned by the invading imperialist...
...But it is also based upon the rise of Japan to a power fully rivaling that of European nations and able to wrestle skilfully with industrial problems, and upon the Orient's contact with the West through travel and education...
...the predominance of primitive agricultural pursuits, three-fourths of the population working plots of ground which average five acres in extent and dwelling in villages most of which know nothing of railroads or macadamized highways...
...Even in the United States, we need to remember, education in the life of democracy was first received in a relatively small nation very conscious of local problems and opportunities...
...Here are many truths far too frequently ignored: the extraordinary diversity of religions, races, castes and languages...
...the tendency among landless Indians to congregate in industrial towns, where one room normally houses four or five persons...
...But true they are, not merely because they have been written into the Simon Report but because they have long since been vouched for, at least in large measure, by those great students of India who could be accused neither of affection for Great Britain nor of humanitarian romanticism...
...But it is also true that, in a country like India, self-government is far more practicable on a small than on a large scale...
...Certain rights are reserved for the executive power, most of them extraordinary and having to do with the use of the territorial army both for the suppression of disorder and the defense of the northwest border...
...The commissioners outlined, in their second volume, a greatly detailed method of reform by which it is hoped that preparation for self-government may be achieved...
...Add to this the complexities of the existing administrative system, and you have a country in which simple political panaceas look more than usually like nostrums...
...India and the rest of the world correctly feels that such assurances ought to be transferred to practice as speedily as possible...
...This declaration was solemnly reiterated in 1919 and is endorsed by the Simon Report...
...In some respects this program seems more astute than generous...
...And in so far as India is concerned, the important question now is the outcome of the struggle between the government and the resurgent nationalists...
...The first volume of the Report is, indeed, an indispensable summary of the facts about India...
...In order to preserve peace in the dominions and to facilitate the enlistment of native troops, Great Britain held out promises accepted quite generally at their face value...
...This battle, now raging throughout the Orient, is the most engrossing conflict of our time and may safely be termed a ferment of the greatest significance for the future...
...It is, of course, easy to overestimate the influence of Moscow on peoples inured to tradition and securely walled in by religious beliefs and family, or caste, divisions...
...Burma is seen as a properly independent nation...
...Provincial legislatures and executives, dependent upon a more widely distributed popular vote than has obtained hitherto, will (so it is planned) function in a federality of provinces unified by a central legislature and governor...
...It is a pleasure to see this feeling reflected in the radio address which Sir John Simon delivered: "We Britishers should never forget that it is the teachings of our own political philosophy, the spread of a knowledge of our own literature, and the deliberate declarations of our own statesmen which have developed the powerful forces in India which go by the name of the Nationalist movement...
...It would be a still finer achievement to contribute our own experience and our own constructive statesmanship to the progress of India...
...but the propagandists schooled in the famous "University of the Orient" are by no means negligible...
...But what can be done...
...Three factors have been isolated as causes...
...The third and possibly the most important factor of all was the war...
...All speculation about the future of the Simon Report is, however, rather pointless...
...One is sorry that all these things are true...
...The first has been called a shift of consciousness—a profound change of mind—whereby the eastern peoples, accustomed to concede the superiority of the westerner, have now come to claim equality for themselves...
...Montague stated that "the policy of His Majesty's government" was "the increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration, and for the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in British India as an integral part of the Empire...
...Thus the declaration made in the House of Commons on August 20, 1917, by Mr...
...Nobody knows whether it will prove acceptable to the British themselves...
...ONE OF BRITAIN'S CHILDREN T^HOSE who have tried to study the Simon Report ¦^ with some impartiality may not agree with President Nicholas Murray Butler that it is "broadminded, constructive and liberal," but will surely admit that the commissioners have based an impressive argument upon vast quantities of unimpeachable evidence...
Vol. 12 • July 1930 • No. 11
