British Rule in India
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN was the Secretary of State of the United Sates of America 1913-1915 wrote a book called “ BRITISH RULE IN INDIA” I have included below some key parts of the book.
William J. Gaynor, Mayor of New York City 1910-1913 wrote a preface in the book:
The constant aggression of the West upon the peaceful and unwarlike East, instigated by commercial enterprise if not commercial greed, has been invariably in the name of Christianity. We have taken possession of their choicest provinces and their best ports. And now, in the progress of time, we called for universal peace. Whether it is within God’s Providence that the long-gathering resentment engendered by Europe’s trespasses on the Eastern nation can be allayed without war, unless amends and restitutions be first made, is a matter for sober thought -William J. Gaynor, the late Mayor of New York City.
Some key parts of William Jennings Bryan’s book: I read over the door of a Court House in Aligarh, India, the motto “Justice is the strength of the British Empire.”No empire, no government, no society can have any other source of permanent strength. Lord Salisbury is quoted by Indians leaders as saying “injustice will bring down the mightiest to ruin,” and we all believe it. Wendell Phillips expressed it as strongly and even more beautifully (I quote from memory: “You may build your capitals until they reach the sky, but if they rest upon injustice, the pulse of a woman will beat them down.”?
The trouble is that England acquired India for England’s advantage, not for India’s, and that she holds India for England’s benefit, not for India’s. She administers India with an eye to England’s interest, not India’s, and she passes judgment upon every question as a judge would were he permitted to decide his own case.
The officials in India owe their appointment directly or indirectly to the Home Government, and the Home Government holds authority at the sufferance of the people of England, not of the people of India. The officials who go out from England to serve a certain time, and then return, whose interest are in England rather than in India, and whose sympathies are naturally with the British rather than with the natives, cannot be expected to view questions from the same standpoint as the Indians. Neither can these officials be expected to know the needs of the people as well as those who share their daily life and aspirations.
While Mr. Naoroji, an Indian, goes to England and secures from a meeting of a Radical club the adoption of a resolution reciting that as “Britain has appropriated thousands of millions of India’s wealth for building up and maintaining her British Indian Empire and for drawing directly vast wealth to herself;” that as “she is continuing to drain about 30,000,000 Pounds Sterling of India’s wealth every year unceasingly in a variety of ways,” and that as “she has thereby reduced the bulk of the Indian population to extreme poverty, destitution, and degradation; it is therefore her bounden duty, in common justice and humanity to pay from her own exchequer the cost of all famines and diseases caused by such impoverishment,” and, further, “that it is most humiliating and discreditable to the British name that other countries should be appealed to or should have to come to Britain's help for relief of Britain's own subjects, and after and by her un-British rule of about 150 years”- while, I repeat, Mr. Naoroji was securing the unanimous adoption of the above resolution in England.
Sir Henry Cotton, now a member of Parliament, but for 35 years was a member of the Indian Civil Service, was preparing his book, “New India” iThe people of India are taxed, but they have no voice in the amount to be collected or in the use to be made of the revenue. They pay into their government nearly $225,000,000 a year and of this nearly $100,000,000 is expended upon an army in which Indians cannot be officers. It is not necessary to keep such an army nearly to hold the people in subjection if the Indians are really satisfied with English rule, and if the army is intended to keep Russia from taking India, as is sometimes claimed, why should not the British government bear a part of the burden? Would it not be wiser so to attach the Indian people to the British government that they would themselves resist annexation to Russia?
The Home Charges, as they are called, absorb practically one-third of the entire revenues. About $100,000,000 goes out of India to England every year; more than $15,000,000 is paid to European officials in the civil employ. What nation could stand such a drain without impoverishment? So great has been the drain, the injustice to the people, and the tax upon the resources of the country, that famines have increased in frequency and severity. I have more than once, within the last month, heard the plague referred to as a providential remedy for over population. Think of it! British rule justified because “it keeps the people from killing each other,” and the plague praised because it removes those whom the government has saved from slaughter! The poverty of the people of India is distressing in the extreme; millions live on the verge of starvation all the time, and one would think that their appearance would plead successfully in their behalf.
On the Ganges and the Indus the Briton, in spite of his many noble qualities and his large contributions to the world's advancement, has demonstrated, as many have before, man's inability to exercsie with wisdom and justice, irresponsible power over helpless people. He has conferred some benefits upon India, but he has extorted a tremendous price for them. While he has boasted of bringing peace to the living he has led millions to the grave; while he has dwelt upon order established between warring troops he has impoverished the country by legalised pillage. Pillage is a strong word, but no refinement of language can purge the present system of its inequity.
William J. Gaynor, Mayor of New York City 1910-1913 wrote a preface in the book:
The constant aggression of the West upon the peaceful and unwarlike East, instigated by commercial enterprise if not commercial greed, has been invariably in the name of Christianity. We have taken possession of their choicest provinces and their best ports. And now, in the progress of time, we called for universal peace. Whether it is within God’s Providence that the long-gathering resentment engendered by Europe’s trespasses on the Eastern nation can be allayed without war, unless amends and restitutions be first made, is a matter for sober thought -William J. Gaynor, the late Mayor of New York City.
Key Parts of the Book
The trouble is that England acquired India for England’s advantage, not for India’s, and that she holds India for England’s benefit, not for India’s. She administers India with an eye to England’s interest, not India’s, and she passes judgment upon every question as a judge would were he permitted to decide his own case.
The officials in India owe their appointment directly or indirectly to the Home Government, and the Home Government holds authority at the sufferance of the people of England, not of the people of India. The officials who go out from England to serve a certain time, and then return, whose interest are in England rather than in India, and whose sympathies are naturally with the British rather than with the natives, cannot be expected to view questions from the same standpoint as the Indians. Neither can these officials be expected to know the needs of the people as well as those who share their daily life and aspirations.
While Mr. Naoroji, an Indian, goes to England and secures from a meeting of a Radical club the adoption of a resolution reciting that as “Britain has appropriated thousands of millions of India’s wealth for building up and maintaining her British Indian Empire and for drawing directly vast wealth to herself;” that as “she is continuing to drain about 30,000,000 Pounds Sterling of India’s wealth every year unceasingly in a variety of ways,” and that as “she has thereby reduced the bulk of the Indian population to extreme poverty, destitution, and degradation; it is therefore her bounden duty, in common justice and humanity to pay from her own exchequer the cost of all famines and diseases caused by such impoverishment,” and, further, “that it is most humiliating and discreditable to the British name that other countries should be appealed to or should have to come to Britain's help for relief of Britain's own subjects, and after and by her un-British rule of about 150 years”- while, I repeat, Mr. Naoroji was securing the unanimous adoption of the above resolution in England.
Sir Henry Cotton, now a member of Parliament, but for 35 years was a member of the Indian Civil Service, was preparing his book, “New India” iThe people of India are taxed, but they have no voice in the amount to be collected or in the use to be made of the revenue. They pay into their government nearly $225,000,000 a year and of this nearly $100,000,000 is expended upon an army in which Indians cannot be officers. It is not necessary to keep such an army nearly to hold the people in subjection if the Indians are really satisfied with English rule, and if the army is intended to keep Russia from taking India, as is sometimes claimed, why should not the British government bear a part of the burden? Would it not be wiser so to attach the Indian people to the British government that they would themselves resist annexation to Russia?
The Home Charges, as they are called, absorb practically one-third of the entire revenues. About $100,000,000 goes out of India to England every year; more than $15,000,000 is paid to European officials in the civil employ. What nation could stand such a drain without impoverishment? So great has been the drain, the injustice to the people, and the tax upon the resources of the country, that famines have increased in frequency and severity. I have more than once, within the last month, heard the plague referred to as a providential remedy for over population. Think of it! British rule justified because “it keeps the people from killing each other,” and the plague praised because it removes those whom the government has saved from slaughter! The poverty of the people of India is distressing in the extreme; millions live on the verge of starvation all the time, and one would think that their appearance would plead successfully in their behalf.
On the Ganges and the Indus the Briton, in spite of his many noble qualities and his large contributions to the world's advancement, has demonstrated, as many have before, man's inability to exercsie with wisdom and justice, irresponsible power over helpless people. He has conferred some benefits upon India, but he has extorted a tremendous price for them. While he has boasted of bringing peace to the living he has led millions to the grave; while he has dwelt upon order established between warring troops he has impoverished the country by legalised pillage. Pillage is a strong word, but no refinement of language can purge the present system of its inequity.
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