The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1907. THE UNREST IN INDIA.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 6, 2 October 1907, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1907. THE UNREST IN INDIA.

To those interested in the greater political questions of the British Empire, there is not one that at the present moment oilers a more fascinating study than the future of the British rule iu India. Even to. the untravelled man of British birth, the romance and/ glamour attached to the idea of a handful of Englishmen, ruling year by year the countless hordes of our Eastern dependency, must appeal strongly, and to those who have lived there the spectacle of that great administrative machine ruling so equitably that conglomeration of races is one that stirs strongly the pride of race • in an Englishman's heart. The great interest of the present time, however, is caused by the fact that during the last three years the tide of unrest and sedition has noticeably risen, and is considered by many competent observers to be rapidly assuming alarming proportions, bringing back uneasy recollections of the great Indian Mutiny of 1557. There is one important difference between the present situation and that at the time of the Mutiny, and that is that at present religious questions do not seem to enter into the matter, whereas the Mutiny was brought about, at any rate to a large extent, by a supposed intolerarice of the religious scruples of the natives. This is an exceedingly important point when the naturally religious character of the native of India is considered. Another point of difference is that the present unrest is chiefly located among a race naturally. peaceful, the Bengalee, while in 1857 the trouble was caused by born fighters trained to the use of arms.

The foremost reason for the commencement of the present acute stage of the agitation must be traced hack to the act of Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, who, in 1905, brought about the partition of Bengal, thereby creating the new , Prov/ince of Eastern Bengal and ■Assam, having a LieutenantGovernor and a Council, and being entirely independent of Bengal proper. The wisdom of this, step from the point of view of the general good of the country has been amply proved, as before the partition the country lying east of the rivers Meghna and Brahmaputra was 'being neglected by the authorities of .Bengal in Calcutta. Now, however; the whole of the country on the Eastern frontier, from the northernmost to the southernmost point, is under one Government. The partition will also be greatly beneficial to the tea planters, both of Assam and those living in the Caehar and Sylhet districts of Bengal;. The Assam-Bengal Railway, a .Stale guaranteed line, which runs from the north of Assam southward to the Bay of Bengal at Cliittagong, will also derive beneftl from being under one Government, while the Port of Chittngong, a coming rival to Calcutta, and the natural outlet of the tea and jute of the new Province, will have a greater chance of expanding than under the care of Calcutta authorities, who arc naturally more interested in their own port than iu a possible rival.

These excellent reasons for tlse partition, however, did not appeal to the Hindu of Bengal, who chose to believe that it was. a deliberate attempt to split the Bengalee-speaking Hindus into two purls, thus stamping out what they were pleased to call the rising national spirit of their race. On the other hand the Mohammedans, under the leadership of the Is awnb of Dacca, one of the leading noblemen of Bengal, welcomed the innovation warmly, being aware that in the falling out of favour of

the keener Hindus, naturally resulting from the agitation, their own less intellectual youth would, in all probability, stand a much better chance of gaining the much coveted billets in the Civil Service and commercial houses, previously practically monopolised by the Hindus. While, of course, the difference of opinion between the two religions has been the cause of disturbances, it lias proved a safeguard to the European community in preventing a united and serious outbreak being engineered by the professional agitators in Calcutta, such as, for example, Surendra Natli Banerjee, the leader of the Swadeshi, movement, whose arrest on a charge of seditious speech-making was notified in yesterday's cables. Through the same means, too, the attempted bojxott of English-made goods has, to a great extent, failed, as Mohammedan shopkeepers have continued to sell English cloths, which are both better and cheaper than the na-tive-made article.

It is doubtful whether there is any really deep-seated feeling against the partition of Bengal iu the minds of the Bengaleespeaking Hindus, but it has been seized upon by seditionmongers as being a more likely question with which to inflame the minds of the ignorant ryot than any other act of the Indian Government of recent years. As to the more deeply-seated causes, which in the course of nature are bringing about changes in our Indian Empire, doubtless one of the most important has been the long period of peace, with its absence of inter-racial wars, bringing .about a diminution of the old hatreds and rivalries. The spread of Western education throughout the whole of the country; the greatly increased facilities for travel' within its borders; the mixing of the various races on tlie common meeting ground of commerce, and last, but not least, the slow spread of the. Christian doctrine ,of equality and brotherhood are all factors 'tending towards a feeling of common nationality, which must effect great changes in the future. The rapid" rise of Japan, both as a military and commercial nation, has been closely watched by the subjects of the King-Emperor in India, while the .'influx of increasing of Europeans, of a class hardly calculated to keep up the prestige of the ruling race, lias not been without its effect on the native mind. For the Westerner to phophesy on matters Oriental is a difficult, if not impossible, task. However, we cannot fail to recognise that the great masses of India have a genuiu'e faith in the justice of the British Raj, and realise, to a great extent, the benefits they' have derived from the Pax liritannica. With very few exceptions, the native has not proved himself a capable administrator, so that any serious effort to obtain a free and united India need hardly enter into present calculations.