HOPEFUL FOR INDIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 232, 1 October 1928, Page 8

HOPEFUL FOR INDIA.

RIGHTS OF SUBJECT

RACES.

OPTIMISM OF A MISSIONARY.

EXTENSION OF POWERS LIKELY,

"As long as Britain treats India generously and recognises the right of a subject people to determine their own destiny there will be no trouble in governing India." This is the view of the Rev. H. W. Whyte, of the London Missionary Society, who has spent 20 years in South India, and is now visiting Auckland.

In reviewing the events of the past ten years in India, Mr. Whyte expressed the opinion that had Gandhi, the leader of tho Swarajist movement, been a more practical statesman, the political ideas and the aspirations of India would have found clearer expression. "'To-day," he said, '"it is diflicult to know exactly what India wants, and even more difficult to know what she is capable of doing in regard to her national life."

"The destructive tactics of the Swarajists," said Mr. Whyte, 'have largely robbed the 1919 reforms of their educative opportunities, and even the moderate parties have united in recent months in the outcry against the British Government. In the midst of all this there has been evident a growing class consciousness amongst the various groups such as the non-Brahmins, the Mohammedans and even the out caste multitudes. Indeed, British statecmanship has been put to a severe test to keep the peace between these great communities, especially in Northern India."

Mr. Wliyte said that the growing selfconsciousness of the great mass of outcasts who have been deprived of their political rights by Hinduism had been evident in their approach to the Symon Commission, and in the expression of their own claims to a very distinct place in any measure of self-rule that might be granted. These "depressed classes" recognised that opportunities that had come to them in recent years had come under the protecting hand of the British Government, and they had no desire to return to the domination of the Brahman and other caste people. The claim.s of these people, said Mr. Whvte, had been recognised as a matter of policy by most of the outstanding leaders in Indian political life. Mr. Gandhi, disappointed by the results of his political campaign, had turned entirely from politics to social reforms, and the first plank in his platform was the removal of "untouchability," as it was called, so far as it concerned the great mass of G0.000.000 people, who were deprived of the elementary rights of citizenship.

This and other social questions, the visitor added, were receiving more and more attention from political leaders, as they were coming to realise that such difficulties were in the way of the attainment of full Dominion status. "The Empire connection must, of course, continues," he adde, "since India at present is in no position to maintain the country against outside invasion or even the peace of the country against all the warring factions internally. Apart from the question of British rule there is the complicated problem of the native states, which number 700, and which, of course, do not at present come into the question of Swaraj."

"I think there is 110 doubt," added Mr. Whyte, '"that some extension of power will be given to the people of India, but with such safeguards as will ensure the position of those classes who might otherwise be brought once more into the position nf inferiority from which they have been "reed, and to which thgy themselves are determined they will not return. Yes. I am confident that providing Britain continues to deal with India generously and sympathetically there will be no serious trouble in that portion of the Empire."