The Dominion. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1912. THE OUTRAGE AT DELHI.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1632, 26 December 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1912. THE OUTRAGE AT DELHI.

The attempted assassination of the. Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, on the occasion of the State entry into the new capital at Delhi will not only come as a great shock to .those in authority in India, but must also have a most disquieting influence generally. Fortunately so far as Loud Hardinge is concerned the attempt on his life failed, but the fact that such an outrage should have occurred at all is in itself sufficient to give rise to widespread uneasiness as to the state of mind of the unruly element of the native population. At the time .of the visit of King George to India discontent was very prevalent, especially in the. Bengal province, and on the occasion of the great Durbar at Delhi special precautions were resorted to to safeguard his Majesty _ against any possible attempt at violence. Nothing, however, happened, and the Kino's visit is stated to have resulted in the removal of a number of grievances amongst the natives, and a more satisfactory state of things has ,'since prevailed. _ That there was amploroom for improvement, however, is-very ■ clear. Sin Basifylde Fuller, writing in the September number of. the Nineteenth Century, remarked that Loud Hardinge could not be expected to tolerate the unruliness which had been allowed to gather head in Bengal: additional police were employed in largo numyet political crimes were disturbingly frequent. But while the Government was very successful in bringing about a more satisfactory state of affairs, to quote Sir B. Fuller's own words, "it scored, so to speak, by tricks than by honours; and it is uncertain whether the Bengalis have learnt that outrages are not the most effective means of attracting the indulgent attention of the authorities."

Amongst the measures adopted to placate a disturbing element in India it will be recalled was the removal of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi, for this is what the establishing of a separate capital adjoining Delhi really amounted to. This it was stated, while pleasing enough to _ the Moslem population was very objectionable to the Hindu section. It may be merely a coincidence that the attempt on the life of the Viceroy was associated with the State entry into the new Capital. Sir B. Fuller, referring to the transfer of the capital commented as follows: It claimed that tho move is a pleasing tribute to popular sentiment. But this may reasonably be doubted. The connexion of Delhi with the palmy days of Hindu history is legendary in tho extreme,' for the Mohammedans' Delhi was tho seat of the Moghal Empire, but it was also its' prison and its grave. Indeed, within the last six centuries Delhi has witnessed tho extinction of many dynasties and there was some populaf surprise that the .British Government should bo associating itself with so ominous a locality.

Mr. S. M. Mitra, a Hindu himself and a well-known writer on Indian affairs, in an_ article published last month, nlso discussed the unwisdom of tho change of capital. Ho was viewing the matter mainly from tho point of view of the necessity of preserving the balance between the Mohammedan and Hindu sections of the population—"playing them off" against one another, to put it bluntly—and he emphasised particularly the religious aspect of the change.

But recently, ho wrote, the British nti : (.hovitics have again upset the HinduMoslem balance in India by an action which, perhaps, they never imagined earable of such religious significance—l mean the transfer of the capital io Delhi. Neither Lord Crowe's dispatches nor the Curzon-Crowc debate in the House of Lords gave the British render any idea how England, by removing the capitnl to Dolhi, has placed herself more within tho- nwftj of Moslem. influent* than tho

authorities would caro to admit. Dolhi litis boon iv Moslem stronghold, und occiisioitally a fanatical ocntre, for several oentunos, and in tho groat masjid there is a strong Indian focus of the power of tho Crescent, second only to Hyderabad. . . . Now Delhi has no .Hindu shiino whoso power might bo set over against tho influonoe of its great Moslem mosgue. And so tho Hindu section, which outnumbers the Moslem by three- to one, is offended, and a new ground of grievance croated. Whether the change has been responsible for the outrage, which has resulted in the wounding of the Viceroy and the death of others, can only bo guessed at. We are equally in the dark as to whether the attempted assassination was merely the work of a few fanatics or the outcome of the plotting of one of the political organisations which from time to time assume ah undesirable prominence in Indian affairs. In any case its seriousness is such as ■to lend further omphasis to the difficulties of the task of Government in 'India and the possibilities of serious trouble arising at any moment through carelessness or incompetence on the part of thfise in authority. ■,: .• ".'■■-,