An Open Letter to the Right Honorable David Lloyd George: Prime Minister of Great BritainLajpat Rai, Lala
History
An Open Letter to the Right Honorable David Lloyd George: Prime Minister of Great Britain
Lajpat Rai, Lala
India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947
(f) To convey any threat of injury to a public servant, or to
any person in whom the public servant is believed to be
interested, with a view to inducing that person to do any act or
to forbear to do any act connected with the exercise of his
public functions the Local Government may, by notice in writing
to the keeper of such printing press, stating or describing the
words, signs or visible representations which in its opinion are
of the nature described above, declare the security deposited in
respect of such Press and all copies of such newspaper, book, or
other document wherever found to be forfeited to His Majesty.
EXPLANATION I: In clause c the expression disaffection includes
disloyalty and all feelings of enmity.
EXPLANATION II: Comments expressing the disapproval of the
measures of the Government of any such native Prince or Chief as
aforesaid with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means
or of the administration or other action of the Government or
any such native Prince or Chief or of the administration of
Justice in British India without exciting or attempting to
excite hatred, contempt, or disaffection, do not come under the
scope of clause c.
Can any people make headway in the art of self-government who are
governed by a foreign bureaucracy aided by an army of Indian Czars
regulating the very minutest details of their life? You know that this
over government of India is a direct result of your rule. Before you
came the Indian village was a self-governed unit. (See statements of
Monroe, Elphinstone, Metcalfe, and Lawrence.) Even now the people in the
Native States are in this respect better off than the people of British
India. The Education Minister of your Cabinet, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher has,
after a visit to India, placed it on record that "the inhabitants of a
well governed Native State are, on the whole, happier and more contented
than the inhabitants of British India. They are more lightly taxed; the
pace of the administration is less urgent and exacting. They feel that
they do things for themselves instead of having everything done by a
cold and alien benevolence." Yet if an Indian leader were to point this
out and ask the Indian masses to improve their lot by demanding and
winning for themselves the right to manage their own affairs, and by
driving out those influences that stand in their way, he would be
persecuted and imprisoned or transported.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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