Young India (1916)/Chapter 7

by Lala Lajpat Rai

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CHAPTER VII

THE RELIGIOUS AND THE COMMUNAL ELEMENTS

IN INDIAN NATIONALISM

For a time the Mohammedan minority was the hope of the British Government in India. As far back as 1888, Lord Dufferin^[1] and Sir Auckland Colvin had successfully appealed to their fears, and won them over by promises of preferential treatment. That policy has been consistently followed since then, and so far has been a great success. The bulk of the educated Mohammedans has opposed the Congress, in order to please the Government and win their gratitude; they also opposed the Swadeshi Movement, although the success of the Swadeshi was likely to benefit them very materially, since the handloom industry was principally in their hands. In return, they received substantial benefits in the shape of large grants of money for educational purposes, a larger percentage of posts in government service, a larger number of titles and honours, a separate and larger representation in the councils, and so on. Lord Morley confirmed this policy of preference by making it a special feature of his Reform scheme in 1908. So the Mohammedans were in very high spirits in 1908. The Nationalist party in Bengal had a large number of friends and sympathisers among the Mohammedans, but as compared with the Separatist party, their number was very small and meagre. In its inception and for some time thereafter the Nationalist movement in India was thus a pre-eminently Hindu movement.

Mohammedan Revulsion of Feeling against the British. The world events of the last four vears, however, have changed the whole aspect of affair in India. The events in Turkey, in Tripoli, in Egypt and in Persia have affected the Mohammedans deeply and have brought about a revulsion of feeling against the British. The Muslims are a virile and proud people. The attitude of Britain towards Turkey has offended their deepest susceptibilities and they have begun to think that the British in India wanted to bribe them into silent acquiescence in what was happening to the Muslim people in the other parts of the globe. For the last four years the Muslim press has been carrying on a strong, vigorous pan-Islamic propaganda. The Mohammedan classes as well as masses are full of veiled and subdued hatred of the British. Sometimes this finds expression on the platform, in the press, and in permanent literature also. In the last Balkan war and during Turkey’s conflict with Italy about Tripoli, the Mohammedan mosques rang with loud prayers for the victory of Turkey, and with strong and open denunciation of their Christian enemies. There is a perceptible and clear change in the political pronouncements of the Muslim League,^[2] but the political influence of the Muslim League among the people was, so far, little as compared with the influence of the Pan Islamic party. This PanIslamic party is the extreme wing of the Mohammedan Nationalists.

The number of forfeitures of the Moslem papersand publications under the Press Act, the nature of those publications and the continued support given to the papers that have been more than once forfeited and punished by the Government, the change in the tone of the Moslem papers in their comments on government measures, and the newly born entente between the Hindus and Mohammedans, of which there is unmistakable proof in the press as well as in actual life, all point in the same direction. There is every chance of the Hindu extremists and Muslim extremists making an alliance and joining hands, while even the Mohammedan moderates are coming nearer the Hindu moderates.^[3] The former may not actually join the Congress in large numbers,but they are thinking and acting the same way. The Mohammedan moderates are wiser than the Hindu moderates. They use their extreme party as a trump card in their negotiations with the Government more effectively than the Hindus do or have ever done. The Mohammedan extremist receives more substantial support and sympathy from his moderate co-religionist than the Hindu extremist does from the Hindu moderates. The Mohammedan moderate is more outspoken in his criticism of government measures that injuriously affect the Mohammedans; he is less lavish in his praises of the British Raj; he is a more skilful negotiator and a decidedly better and more successful diplomat.

The educated Mohammedans, outside India, are almost to a man identified with Indian Nationalism. So the Indian Mohammedan’s changed sentiments towards the British are likely to be a source of great strength to the national cause and make the situation more hopeful from the point of view of Indian Nationalism.

Disaffection among the Sikhs.But the Mohammedans were not the only people whom the Britishers had succeeded in keeping aloof from the Hindu Nationalists. The Sikhs had also so far kept aloof. The treatment of the Sikhs in Canada, the Komagata Maru^[4] incident and the influence of Har Dayal and the Gadar party on the Pacific Coast of America formed by him, have affected a great change of feeling among the Sikhs also. The Government may try to win them back by making concessions and conferring preferments, but a move like the one recently made in giving Mr. K. G. Gupta’s seat on the Secretary of State’s Council in London to Sirdar Dal jit Singh, a Sikh nobleman, is likely to make them look even more ridiculous than before. The Britisher’s lack of imagination is colossal, but we did not know that the war was likely to affect even his sense of humour.

1. Lord Dufferin was the Governor General of India and Sir A. Colvin was the Lieutenant Governor of what were then the Northwestern Provinces, now the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.
2. The organisation of the Pro-British Muslims.
3. See the Introduction.
4. Komagata Maru is the name of a Japanese steamer, which a number of Sikh emigrants chartered in Hong Kong in 1914 a d in order to take them to Canada. They were not allowed to land and were forced to return to India under circumstances which have created a bitter anti-British feeling among the Indians all over the world.