India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947; India -- Politics and government -- 1765-1947
effects of such a grievous mistake on the future relations of the
British Government and the Indian people which will result in discontent
and agitation followed by repression on the one side and suffering on
the other side." Little did they know when they uttered the warning that
repression would come even before the Reform Scheme was discussed in
Parliament and "mutilated" there. British rule in Ireland has been for
the last twenty years a wearisome record of mixed concessions and
coercions. Every time a concession was made it was either preceded or
accompanied by strong doses of coercion. One would have thought that
British statesmen were wiser by their experience of Ireland, but it
seems that they have learnt nothing and that they have no intention of
doing in India anything different from what they have been doing in
Ireland. The history of British statesmanship in relation to Irish
affairs is repeating itself almost item by item in India.
Lord Morley's reforms were both preceded and followed by strong measures
of repression and suppression. As if to prove that British statesmanship
can never in this respect set aside precedent even for once, Mr.
Montagu's proposals have been followed by a measure of coercion unique
even for India. Mr. Montagu's proposals for the reconstruction of
Government in India are yet in the air. They are being criticised and
examined minutely by numerous British agencies both in India and in
England as to how and in what respects they can be made innocuous.
Certain other reforms promised by the report, such as the scheme for
Local Self Government and the policy in relation to the Arms Act, have
already been disposed of in the usual masterly way of giving with one
hand and taking back with the other. Similarly the "great" scheme of
opening the commissioned ranks of the Army to the native Indians has
practically (for the present at least) ended in fiasco. But the policy
underlying the Rowlatt laws has surpassed all. In the chapters of this
book dealing with the Revolutionary movement the reader will find a
genesis of the Rowlatt laws of coercion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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