The Passing of Empire
9781465623584
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
We do not hear so much of the discontent in India now as we did three or four years ago. There are no reports of seditious meetings, incendiary propaganda, or disloyal tendencies. The attempt upon the Viceroy is declared to be an isolated act, springing from no general cause; a sporadic outbreak of crime which has no importance. No special measures have to be taken, nor special legislation passed, though the old repressive legislation is not repealed. In the English daily papers there is little said of India, and no news is said to be good news. Therefore in public estimation India has fallen back from her temporary fever into the immemorial apathy of the East. She is content, and no one need trouble himself about her. The sedition was but a froth upon the surface, it had no deep-lying causes; it was temporary, local, unimportant. We need trouble ourselves no more about it. There could be no greater nor more fatal mistake. There may have been outbursts of irritation like that over the Bengal partition which have passed because the cause was removed; we may be now in the trough and not upon the crest of a wave, but that is all that can be said. The discontent has not passed, nor will it, nor can it pass. It is deep-rooted in the very nature of things as they are now. It is not local, nor is it confined to one or two strata of society, nor is it directed against one or two acts of Government. It is universal, in all provinces, in all classes, directed not against this act or that act, but against the Government as a whole. This is very evident to those upon the spot, has been evident for many years. The reason more has not been said about it is the absurd notion that talking of the discontent will tend to increase it, as if real discontent ever arose from words, or as if it could be understood unless it were talked about. It should also be evident to those not upon the spot who reflect on causes and effects. For instance, could the partition of Bengal have raised such a sudden flame had there been peace before? People in neither the East nor the West are roused into such sudden and fierce anger by an administrative change even if the change is not to their tastes. For there was no real change of government, nor substantive hardship. The hardship was sentimental hardship at the worst, not the less a real hardship for that.
