The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 26, 1913. ORGANISED SEDITION IN INDIA

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1759, 26 May 1913, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 26, 1913.

ORGANISED SEDITION IN INDIA

The unrest in India- is at present receiving a good deal of attention from the British authorities. In December last the Empire was startled by an, attempt to assassinate the Viceroy (Loud Hap.dinge) while he was making a ceremonial entry into Delhi, and now we are told in a cablegram which appeared in Saturday's Dominion that a widespread seditious organisation has been working through the schools and other educational establishments. The assailant of Lord Hardinge has not yet been brought to justice. The opinion, was freely expressed at the time that the outrage was the work of some isolated individual, probably more or less demented, and that there was nothing to show that it was a deliberately organised blow at British rule. Others, however, thought that the Vicerov's assailant was one of the participants in a deliberate conspiracy, and this seems to have been the view taken by the Indian authorities, for the Delhi crime was followed, in February last, by the introduction of-a Conspiracy Bill assimilating the provisions of the Indian penal code to those of the English law on the subject. In _ a memorandum published with the Bill reference was made to the existence of dangerous conspiracies, and it wits stated that the existing law was inadequate to <opc with crimes of this character. Discussing the measure in the Indian Legislative Council in March, Sin Heginai.d Ckaiidock (Home Minister) declared that the Council must accept the Government's statement that conspiracies did exist, and that the necessity for urgent legislation was patent to all well-wishers of the Stale. The Bill was passed on March 10 with the approval of a large number of the Indian r;embcrs of the Council, only two opposing it. The Home Minister expressed the hope that it

would have a strong preventive and punitive effect in the future.

From the point of view of those Englishmen who favour a policy of democratic reform in India, one of the most unsatisfactory features of the prevailing unrest is the fact that the trouble exists mainly among those Indians who have'had tho doubtful advantage of education on European lines. In this connection the writer of a well-informed article in The Bound Table on "Political Crime in India," oontends that the education system that has been established in India is responsible for a good deal of the mischief which has to be repressed. The system "has produced in thousands a class of young enthusiasts bred up on text books of European politics and science.Their faith in the old order of things has been destroyed, and they have been given in its place "no new moral guidance beyond the cold ethical precepts of Spencer or Emerson." The writer in The llouncl Table proceeds as follows: —

Suppose that our typical Indian student, over-stuffed with book learning that lie has faithfully memorised but only half understands, with 110 ethical guidance beyond a chilly philosophic phrase, with no practical example ot citizenship but those derived from conditions immeasurably unlike his own—suppose such a lad, overdone by the strain of incredible .study and possibly privations beyond these of Glasgow and Aberdeen, and weakened in all likelihood as well bv the temptations of life in a. city boardinghouse,' ccmes to disaster in his final examination, and sees the remunerative career which was to support his brothers vanish like the bursting of a bubble. It is a story not of tons, but of hundreds, These '[ire tho men to whose number we are adding every day: and they are the natural community from whom the Indian Anarchist is recruited.

The above outline of the position receives strong confirmation from the statement in Saturday's cablegram that the promoters, of sedition have been working through the educational establishments.

Though the political conspirators and their friends and sympathisers form but a small part of India's great population, their actions cannot fail to have a disturbing effect; and if they arc not dealt with in a firm and decisive manner a lot of trouble will be stored up for the future. It is not only actual violence that must be suppressed, but open and sccrct incitements to sedition by voice and pen. In the background there arc people who are making use of disappointed students and the like, and who, as the writer before quoted tells us, "corrupt others rather than faco the peril themselves." There are various kinds of professional men "who have been deliberately at work preaching the gospel of rebellion and murder to excited pupils." The Government must find means to get at these men, who arc infinitely worse than their deluded tools,_ and when their guilt is established it would be a great mistake to show them any mercy.- It is not that British rule is in danger—that is secured both by its own strength and prestige and by the fact that the population is divided up into a number of hostile races and tribes and religions, none of which can trust the others—but unpunished crime is a bad thing for any country, and unless more determined efforts are made to _ stamp out political offences in India, rcspcct for authority may, in the course of time, be undermined. The recent outbreaks of sedition, conspiracy, and murder tend to make the best friends of India doubt the wisdom of granting any further political concessions; for people who will not obey the law cannot safely 1m entrusted with powers of selfgovernment.