Indian nationality

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Introduction

We have in these days suddenly come to a crucial stage in the impact of western ideas and western methods upon the ancient civilisation of India. For in the midst of innumerable other claims upon our thought, we are called upon to form a judgment upon the vital question in what ways and under what conditions the political system and methods of the West can be made applicable to the needs of India. That is no easy question. It is not a mere question of political machinery. It strikes far deeper than that ; for the concepts of modern political liberalism must inevitably produce in India, as in all countries in which they have been applied, a profound and far-reaching social revolution. How deep the question goes may best be appreciated if we ask ourselves what have been the dominant and operative political conceptions of the West, especially during the last century, and how far they are in accord with the deep-rooted convictions and habits of thought of India.

I take it that these dominant conceptions have been four. The first is the idea of Individuality as something supremely valuable, something possessing such an inherent sanctity and such inalienable rights that all formal restraints upon its self-expression not necessary for the safeguarding of other individualities should be jealously regarded. Now, although this high valuation of individuality has its roots deep in the history of western civilisation, though it is present in the thought of ancient Greece, and is, indeed, inherent in Christianity, the religion of western civilisation, it has always had to viii INTRODUCTION

struggle against other and powerful conceptions : against the strength of ancient customs which tended to fix a man's life and duties in accordance with his birth, against the traditions of the feudal order, against the doctrines of religion preaching self-immolation as the highest of duties, against the claims of the State demanding the utter subordination of the individual. Even to-day there are many and healthy protests against the more extreme expressions of individuality ; in one aspect Socialism is such a protest, though in another its claim is that the communal organisation of the material circumstances of life is primarily needful as a means of giving more real freedom to the individual. Nevertheless the worship of Individuality is one of the chief factors in the political life of the West ; it has always been so, but most potently since the French Revolution. In the West, we think of Society as a complex of individuals ; we assume that, as units in Society, each individual must be regarded as of equal value ; we trust to individual energy for the main driving force in our economic and intellectual life ; and we are eager to do all we can to release this potent force from all needless restraints.

The second dominating political conception of the West is the conception of the Laws which hold Society together, not as something imposed by external authority, but as representing the will and conscience of the mass of individuals of whom Society is composed, and as therefore properly subject to be changed by their will ; and we hold that those laws which govern the relations of individuals with one another, and with the State, should be the same for all. This conception also has its roots far back in the history of western civilisation; it has always been more or less clearly one of that civilisation's differentiae. Nevertheless this conception has had to struggle, through the centuries, against other views of Law, and against many hostile forces ; and it was only during the nineteenth century that it won its triumph.

INTRODUCTION ix

The third dominating conception of the West is the conception of the Nation as the surest foundation for the organisation of the State ; and the Nation we think of as a body of people bound together by such a multitude of common interests and common thoughts that they easily and naturally understand one another, that they are conscious of ' belonging together,' that they readily accept and submit to a common body of laws and a social order, and that they will be ready, as if by instinct, to subordinate all merely sectional interests or ambitions to the common welfare in case of need. The ' patriotism ' of the Nation is for us the cement that holds the State together without the application or threat of brute force, which is always necessary in non-national States. The conception of the Nation is the latest-born and also the least obvious and natural of the distinctive conceptions of western civilisation. It is quite modern in its development ; the theory of it only began to be expounded in the nineteenth century. It is a mode of political organisation which has been unknown over the greater part of the earth's surface and during the greater part of human history ; for it could not arise except in those societies in which the unifying conditions necessary for its existence had already grown up — a common or dominating language with the body of ideas which it conveys ; a sense of racial unity, or at least the absence of any fixed and formal barriers between one section of the community and another ; a common body of fundamental ethical ideas ; above all a common body of traditions, formed by a long habit of co-operation in success or in disaster. And these factors of nationhood do not naturally or inevitably grow up together.

Out of these three distinctive features of western civilisation there has gradually grown up, as the best mode of expressing them all, the system of national self-government through representative assemblies, which is the fourth of the distinctive political conceptions of the West. Such a mode of government can only function well x INTRODUCTION

in a society which is effectively united as a nation, since only a body of men fundamentally homogeneous can be effectively represented, as in a microcosm, by a small assembly, or can have what Rousseau calls a General Will. It loses much of its meaning unless the idea of Law as representing the will of the community, capable of being altered by that will, and applicable to every member of the community equally, is generally accepted. And it must be largely unreal unless, in the society which adopts it, the individual (whose vote is the foundation of the whole system) is regarded as the real unit and basis of society. Consequently the system of national self-government has been a thing of very recent development, and has a long history only in that nation in which the national sense was longest-rooted — the English nation.

Universal as its triumph seems to be to-day, the system of national self-government is still insecure, and is everywhere the object of criticism. The chief sources of its insecurity are two. In the first place there is a tendency to go back upon the acceptance of the individual as the unit of society, and to regard economic groups as being for many purposes the real units which ought to be considered ; this tendency finds a crude expression in the Soviet system of Russia, of which there are less crude echoes in other lands. In the second place, there is in some quarters a reaction against the Nation as the essential basis of political organisation, and a tendency to assert that there is less real homogeneity between the various classes and interests in a single nation than between the members of the same class in different nations. Whether these forces hostile to the effective working of the parliamentary system will lead to its downfall or not, remains to be seen. We dare not prophesy; because the system itself is so recent, everywhere save in the English-speaking lands, that we have as yet insufficient experience of its working to justify dogmatism.

When we are called upon to consider how the political

INTRODUCTION xi

machinery of the West (which has grown up as a means of satisfying the fundamental political conceptions of the West) can best be applied to India, we are bound to ask ourselves how far India shares these fundamental political conceptions of the West ; and if, or in so far as, she does not share them, how this is likely to affect the working of a system which regards them as axiomatic.

To begin with, it is very manifest — the fact comes out clearly enough in Mr. Gilchrist's book, though it is not specifically dealt with — that individuality does not command, and has never commanded, such respect in India as it does in the West. Self-suppression, not self-expression or self-development, is still, as it has always been, the highest ideal of the best Indian minds : that is the real meaning in the statement that India is ' more spiritual ' than the West. The doctrine of the equal value of every individual (which even in the West is rather an aspiration than an expression of fact) is fundamentally inconsistent with the very basis on which Hindu society is organised, and is flatly contradicted by the one outstanding characteristic of the Hindu religion ; though it is entirely in accord with the teachings of Mohammedanism. Far from freeing individuality to the utmost practicable extent from restraints upon its expression, India dictates almost every detail of the individual's life in accordance with the rank into which he is born, and (as Mr. Gilchrist shows) life becomes all but impossible to any man who dares to defy these restrictions- Not freedom but inherited obligation is the key-note of that society ; and its real unit is not the individual, but the family, and that larger and strictly exclusive family, the caste. Individual initiative, in which the western world puts its trust, is in India restrained by a multitude of inhibitions ; and that is one main reason why India has been handicapped in competition with the West. On the economic side, the West emerged with difficulty from a stage in which occupational groups rather than isolated individuals were the real units, and, as we have xii INTRODUCTION

seen, there is in some respects a tendency to go back towards the occupational group as the real unit. In India the occupational group (in the form of caste) "has for many centuries been organised with a strictness never known in the West ; and in spite of the adaptability which the system has shown, it is to-day scarcely less rigid than it was in the past. Mr. Gilchrist has put together in an interesting way the relevant facts which bear upon this subject.

Again the western conception of Law as representing the common will, capable of being modified freely by that will, and applicable to every member of the community equally, has never been accepted in India — or, indeed, in the greater part of the world. Like the Saxon or the Bavarian in the sixth century, the Indian citizen is born into one body of law or another, and must always be judged by it in most of the relations of life ; and these distinct bodies of law are not open to be altered freely by any legislative authority. The body of Mohammedan law rests upon the will of God as declared in the Koran, and cannot be altered. The body of Hindu law, though it is more elastic and can be changed by interpretation, equally rests ultimately upon the sacred books, and cannot be changed in fundamentals. When Mr. Patel introduced his bill to legalise inter-caste marriages (that is to say, to allow the children of such marriages to be treated as legitimate), the whole argument turned upon the question whether the Sacred Books, truly interpreted, did or did not permit such marriages. That is the final determinant ; and both sides would agree that the edict of the early and divinely inspired lawgiver is final if its meaning is unmistakable. Hence in India there is, and there can be, no single body of uniform law in regard to social and personal relationships ; and in that vast sphere law-making in the western sense is unthinkable. No representative assembly whatsoever can conceivably legislate upon such matters. The most powerful despots in the past dared not attempt to do so. For Law in India is not the expression of the

INTRODUCTION xiii

will of the community as a whole ; it is something imposed from without, ultimately divine in its sanctions.

Thirdly, the idea of the Nation never existed in India until it was rendered possible by the external unification brought about by British rule, and until the formulae of western nationalism were spread abroad. This is not to say that there is not .a real unity in India for which the term ' Nationality ' may (in the absence of any other word) form the most convenient expression. But it is a unity of an altogether different kind, and rests upon altogether different bases, from that homogeneity which is implied when we speak of a ' nation ' in the West. Almost all the elements which go to produce the homogeneity of nationhood in the West are lacking in India. There is no unity of language, except that which is provided by the use of a foreign tongue by the educated classes — a condition of things corresponding to the use of Latin in mediaeval Europe. There is an infinite multiplicity of races, far greater than in any European country, greater even than in Europe as a whole ; and while in Europe the obliteration of all formal barriers between the various elements of the nation has been the essential condition of nationhood, in India these barriers are elaborated and maintained by the system of caste to a degree unknown in any other region of the world. There is not even a fundamental unity of ethical conceptions, for the conflict of ideals between Hinduism and Mohammedanism is immeasurably sharper than any religious differences in the West. Hence the real unity which India possesses is of a wholly different order from the kind of unity implied by the term ' Nation ' in the West ; and, since that is so, the use of the same term to express it is apt to lead to confusion and loose thinking.

This is, no doubt, what is in the mind of Sir Rabindranath Tagore when he protests against the forcing of India into the mould of the nation : not only does he feel that India is not a nation in the western sense, but he dislikes (as do many Westerns), many aspects of western xiv INTRODUCTION

nationhood, and many ethical and political consequences which seem to flow from it. He is, in short, unwilling to admit that the western conceptions which I have tried to define have an absolute validity. He thinks of them as the outcome of purely western conditions. He sees that they are, in their full development, of very modern origin, and that they are by no means unquestioningly accepted even in the West. And he doubts whether any but ill consequences can follow an attempt to force the ancient and slowly changing society of India into the Procrustean moulds of the momentary western fashions. Now, when we are asked to consider — not whether the political machinery developed by the West to express its fundamental political conceptions can be applied in India, but — how and under what conditions they shall be applied, it would seem to be not unimportant that we should keep these deep differences between Indian and western conceptions in view. Is it best to act as if India were exactly like England, and to proceed accordingly, or is it best to accept the facts of India as it is, and to try to shape the institutions of a united India in accordance wi> these facts ? Ought we to assume that the individual is the unit in India as in the West, and therefore rest everything upon the individual voter f Or ought we to assume (as the European countries did when they organised their first parliaments on a communal basis, as assemblies of estates) that the religious and social groupings of India are facts of profound moment which statesmanship cannot afford to disregard, and which must be wrought into the political structure if that structure is to be stable and really representative of Indian life f Ought we to assume that India is a nation in the western sense ? Or ought we to admit that the very real unity of India is of quite a different order from that of a western nation, and try to find for it an appropriate form of expression ? These are very difficult and very important questions, not to be solved by the mere repetition of formulae drawn from the political theorists of the nineteenth century which

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are already beginning to be untrue even of western countries. It is not for me to try to answer them. But they have to be answered in practice, and that very promptly. The future welfare of one-fifth of the human race depends upon their being answered wisely. And what the answer shall be depends in part upon the people of England, who have next to no knowledge of Indian problems, and in part upon the educated classes in India, who have for two generations been concentrating all their best abilities upon the study of the West, and have shown for its methods and ideas an altogether exaggerated veneration.

In face of this tremendous responsibility which rests upon our generation, it is above all needful that we should know, and should ponder, the relevant facts which bear upon the problem. Every book which helps us to do that is a public service, and ought to be recognised as such ; and although I am but poorly qualified to deal with these momentous questions, I was glad when my friend Mr. Gilchrist asked me to write an introduction to his book, because the invitation gives me the chance of trying to show how important is the task which he has undertaken. He has dealt with the complex problems surrounding the question of Indian Nationality, and in doing so has necessarily touched upon the other aspects of the problem which I have tried to survey above. His work is, I believe, the first attempt to present in a single view the multifarious aspects of an extremely complex and vitally important subject, and thus to afford to intelligent readers the materials for forming a sane judgment upon it.

Doubtless there will be many readers who (like myself) will not be wholly satisfied either by Mr. Gilchrist's conclusions or by his methods of presentment. That is inevitable in any discussion of a theme so thorny, and Mr. Gilchrist himself would scarcely hope, or indeed desire, that it should be otherwise. His aim is to challenge thought, and to present honestly the relevant xvi INTRODUCTION

materials for an intelligent opinion. And I am sure his readers will feel, as I do, that Mr. Gilchrist's book, on an extremely difficult subject, is honest ; that it brings together, in instructive collocation, a large body of relevant facts ; that it does not slur over difficulties, or doctor the facts in order to invite a predetermined conclusion ; and that it earnestly endeavours to present with fairness not only conflicting opinions, but conflicting tendencies in the life of the Indian peoples. A book of which so much can be said is a useful contribution to sound thinking based upon knowledge ; and there never was a time when English readers, or Indian readers, stood more in need of the help which such books can give.

RAMSAY MUIR.

Preface

The series of studies entitled ' Indian Nationality ' aims at setting forth the fundamental facts of Indian social, religious and political life, and their possible bearing on Indian responsible government. The subject is so wide, and its ramifications so many, that I make no claim to exhaustive treatment. The conclusions, like most conclusions on similar premisses, are tentative. Finality of judgment on such questions is possible only after the events have happened. My object is to give bases for judgment, not to lay down final laws. Such conclusions as I do give, I do not expect to find universal acceptance. The subject is difficult not only in itself, but also because it is liable to interpretation from preconceived ideas and racial, religious and political bias. But from whatever point of view the subject may be approached, one thing is certain — the need for exact thinking on exact facts. The Indian political atmosphere, for both Indians and Europeans, has for long been poisoned by inexact thinking, due either to ignorance of Indian conditions, or the wish to slur over unpalatable facts. On the one hand, there are the extreme Indian nationalists whose western theories of democracy too often conveniently forget the real character of the Indian population. On the other, there are the old bureaucratic Die-hards, whose loyalty to the service system or desire for efficiency forgets the necessary result of their own work. It would indeed be a poor commentary on our education if India did not show some signs of self-expression. Indian nationalism is really the result of the very efficiency which is the pride of the Indian services.

xviii PREFACE

The peculiar character of these studies may be explained by their origin. The main part of Chapter I was delivered as two Extension Lectures in Calcutta University in 1915-1916, and published in the Calcutta University Extension Lectures. They have been completely revised to harmonise with the times. The later chapters really arose from a suggestion thrown out when the first lectures were delivered — namely, that someone should work out the bearings of nationality on India. Later the subject was taken up by myself, with the intention of giving a series of lectures, an intention which was not carried out owing to my departure on furlough. The fact that the studies were all originally intended to be separate lectures delivered at considerable intervals will largely explain the construction, particularly the frequent repetition of salient points.

The substance of most of these studies has been published in the Calcutta Review, to the proprietors of which I am much obliged for permission to republish. For help in reading the proof-sheets, and for valuable suggestions ail the way through, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my wife, and to my friend, Mr. R. S. Knox, late Professor of English Literature in the University of Calcutta.

R N. GILCHRIST.

November 1919.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction ...... vii

Preface ....... xvii

Chapter I Nationality : Its Meaning, Applications And Value

I

Historical writers of future ages, especially historians of culture, will undoubtedly have to ascribe very considerable importance to the nineteenth century. Even contemporary observers, though their view is necessarily limited, can say with comparative safety that the nineteenth has contributed more to civilisation than any other century ; and granted that the view of a present-day writer cannot extend beyond that frontier of time which will not exist for posterity, nevertheless such a writer with a casual glance can bring before his mind a list of very notable contributions to culture made by that century, contributions which will have an essential part in giving guidance to the future development of society. If one were asked to select the most important and most abiding elements of development in the nineteenth century, one would not be far wrong in answering in one word — Revolutions. Every schoolboy nowadays is familiar with the phrase ' Industrial Revolution.' That revolution has, in the space of a few generations, completely transformed our ways of living. It has profoundly affected the greatest and the smallest, the most cultured and the most rude. That revolution, brought about by inventions and the use of machinery, with the resultant growth of big cities, huge industrial and commercial enterprises and easy trans-continental communication, is so familiar to us moderns that we readily forget that it is a modern development. It is an established fact, essentially a nineteenth-century product, and the modern world has been conditioned in most of its relations by it. The Industrial Revolution, too, has been a parent revolution — with a large and ever-increasing family of noisy, unruly small revolutions.

Side by side has gone another revolution. Its origins were almost contemporaneous with the origins of the machinery revolution, and its course has been interlinked, both in causes and effects, with the other. But it has not had the honour or benefit of being definitely christened, and therefore clearly demarcated from other revolutions. It may well be called the Political Revolution ; and this Political Revolution is nothing else than the introduction into the field of practical politics of the principle of nationality. Greek, Roman, English, and French Revolutions are mere incidents as compared with this master revolution. It has been practically a universal political earthquake, and the gigantic European struggle (as the physicists would say) was a semi-localised seismological disturbance of great magnitude. Revolutions, then, I think we are justified in saying, are the chief contributions of the nineteenth century to the course of culture : on the one side, the Industrial Revolution — machinery and its results — mainly material ; on the other, the Political Revolution — nationality and its results — mainly spiritual.

The active principle of nationality is little over a century old : but nationalities lived and fought before then. The peculiar geographical position of our own country led to national fusion centuries ago, though even to-day in the British nation are several clearly marked nationalities. Before the nineteenth century several modern nations had been established on a basis of nationality — notably France, Holland, and Spain. But till the end of the eighteenth century nationalities as such were completely ignored in high politics. Kingdoms were regarded as so much territory, transferable at will by the owner-monarch. The old mediaeval notions of Rulership and Ownership were conjoined in the dynastical wars of the eighteenth and previous centuries. Princesses carried monarchies as their wedding portions, with the result that under one monarch might be the most heterogeneous collection of races, creeds, and civilisations. Nationality — now a sacred spiritual principle — was then unborn ; we may almost say that before the nineteenth century nations were not born. State battled with state, but behind the states was not the spontaneity of unified will-power which really makes a nation. How then did the principle of nationality emerge ?

Besides the general rise in enlightenment and the growth of individual independence characteristic of the last two centuries, there are two historical events which may be marked out as bringing about this new idea. The one was the Partition of Poland : the other the French Revolution. Both of these movements were intimately connected with the rights and position of dynasties. Poland had an elective kingship, but the neighbouring states had autocratic hereditary monarchies, which were, as her neighbours considered, endangered by the close contiguity of the democratic principle of election. Poland was therefore divided by an act which stands out as one of the most immoral in history. The division was followed by oppression, and oppression in the case of the Poles (and in many other cases) merely fanned the flame of nationality. The French Revolution was not primarily a matter of nationality ; France was already settled on lines of nationality. The discontent was social primarily, but the national idea went hand in hand with the social. The Revolutionists showed scant respect for dynasties, testified by their beheading a king. They threw the old social order to the winds, and, in their new statement of principles of political life, they learned from Poland and declared for the rights of nationality. The theory of nationality in fact flowed directly from the theory of the Revolution. Rousseau's theory of the volonte generate implied the doctrine of the rights of nationality. John Stuart Mill held that one could hardly know what any portion of the human race should be free to do, if not to determine with whom to associate themselves in political union. Rousseauism gave impetus to both democracy and nationality, and the recognition of the triumph of democracy in France was at once a powerful fillip to nationality. At the time, the effects of the new spirit were meagre if not quite negative. Less than a generation later the Congress of Vienna re-mapped Europe with a ruler and set-square, irrespective of national boundaries. But France still led either by her own revolutions or by her sympathies. Greece, Bohemia, Italy, the Magyars fought, bled and won or lost on national principles. Though the national support for Italy and Greece especially could not be misjudged, England was a passive observer for years and years. In August 1914 the gospel of Mazzini was at last accepted in real earnest.

Before proceeding to the national issues of the recent war, I must first try to settle a very vexed question, viz., What is nationality \ Nationality is a very refractory term to bring within the limits of a clear definition. Several causes contribute to this difficulty. Firstly, the term is vague in itself. Nationality is not something fixed, something on which one can lay one's finger. Secondly, in scientific books and papers on the subject there is considerable confusion of terminology, especially regarding the words ' nation ' and ' nationality.' This long-standing confusion in English is, especially in text-books, often made more confounded by an additional source of trouble, which comes from Germany. In the German language there is a word nation which does not express the meaning of the same English word. The English equivalent for the German nation is nationality. The English word nation, in spite of the old casual practice and the argued persistence of some writers (e.g., Willoughby in his ' Nature of the State '), has definitely a political signification, which the Germans denote by the word volk, which is usually translated into English as people. The English word people (as also the French peuple) has its nearest German equivalent in nation, the English word nation having its parallel in the German word usually translated people. The Germans have etymology on their side in the ethnic sense of their word nation (from natus, born). But the English language has given nation and nationality distinct meanings, and there is no reason to confuse issues simply because of etymology. Science demands as exact definitions as possible, and if on the one hand popular usage is vague and often wrong, on the other hand there is no reason to divorce scientific from popular usage in words, except (as in the present case to a certain extent) when absolutely necessary.