NO MUTUAL TRUST

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20088, 7 November 1939, Page 7

NO MUTUAL TRUST

INDIA’S DIFFICULTY

SELF-GOVERNMENT BAR

APPALLING INDISCIPLINE

ROTARY CLUB ADDRESS

“One of tlie lata! defects of the Indian psychology is reflected in tlie appalling indiscipline which intrude? largely into education and public life. It is one of the defects in tlie Indian character which will have to be overcome if India is ever to achieve satisfactory self-government,” said Miss M. Frengley, a member of the Gisborne High School staff, discussing before the Rotary Club to-day the difficulties which beset the path of self-government in India.

Tlie speaker recently spent fiy e years on the staff of the Lady Irwin College in New Delhi, the first homescience college established in India, and she prefaced her address to the Rotarians by stating that she had had adequate and sometimes uncomfortable opportunities for observing some of the characteristics of the Indian people which illustrate their disunity. Miss Frengley reminded her audience of the recent efforts of the Congress Party in India to secure from the Viceroy a promise of selfgovernment after the war, as the price of their aid in the conflict. The Congress Party was one of tlie two great militant political organisations among tlie Indian people, and swayed the opinions of tlie mass of Hindus, who comprised a majority ot Indians. Unfortunately for its object, the party could not fuse its supporters "into a unit, for even among the Hindus there was a great range of difference as between caste and caste, and between the inhabitants of one part of India and another.

Power of the Brahmins

The caste barriers were, of course, the most serious difficulty, for they represented the organisation on which the power of the Brahmins rested, and the Brahmins themselves fought every effort to relax the barriers. They stood at the head of the system, and at the bottom were the untouchables, whose existence was unforgettably miserable. So far as tlie Brahmins were concerned, the lower castes could perish of hunger or thirst, rather than that they should defile their “betters.” The Congress Party was Gan. cl in s creation, in the main, and lie icmained its guiding hand, though no longer a participant in its activities. He was all for non-violence, and but L - 0 v his restraint India would have seen many recrudescences of the terrorism campaigns of the past. The left-wingers of the Congress Party were militant, and they did not believe either in non-violence or in the return to simplicity which Gandhi advocated for the Indians. They were impatient to establish India as a self-governed country, standing beside other nations.

Active Minority

In a minority, but in an active and vociferous minority, were the Moslems, who formed the other great political party, and who were proBritish in general simply because the Congress Party were' anti-British They promised themselves a day of reckoning with the Hindus if ever the British Raj disappeared, and meanwhile they railed about Hindu atrocities, which appeared to consist of a truly political selection of pointees for posts in the gilt of Confess ministries, and the enioiced singing of a Congress hymn at their Gatherings. The hymn was extremely aggravating to the Moslems, and had caused much trouble, especially when used simply'to invite reprisals. The lot of the common people oi India was bad, Miss Frengley continued, but that of the common people in the native States was infinitely worse. "The rajahs and nawabs lived in princely style, often abroad, while their subjects writhed in abject poverty and under the lash of injustice The support given to Britain_ by the native rulers was largely baseu on the fact' that they needed Britain’s sup port themselves. The Parsecs were one of the smallest’ Indian neopies, but they controlled a great deal of wealth, and were* frankly pro-British. The Indian Christians were small in number, too. and were difficult to dear with; while the Anglo-Indians, being neither of one race nor the other, were especially unhappy in their political position. Lack of Common Language Difficuties of self-government for India were increased by the lack of a common language, the speaker continued. An effort to create a hybrid tongue had been spurned by both Hindus and Moslems, and English was still used as the common language, though many people hated it. The extraordinary contracts found in India between the standards of livling of one class and another, between the degrees of advancement shown in different directions, and in the attitude of the average Indian in the matter of self-discipline, should convince anyone that successful self-government was still a long way from realisation. This indiscipline, among young and old, was manifested in extraordinary ways, from strikes of students to the faking of ballots in the councils of the Congress Party itself. Not least important was the appalling prevalence of graft, which made putrid the founts of justice and entered into every contact between the Indian and officialdom.

“If Gandhi’s restraining hand were withdrawn, India might see rebellion stalking the land again. The awful indifference to discipline in the youth of India is especially signified when one remembers that the students who strike for trifling reasons to-day, and are hailed as heroes, are the men from whom the rulers of the country might be drawn in the days of India’s self-government,” concluded Miss Frengleye, who was accorded the thanks of the gathering, on the motion of Rotarian Chas. Bull.

The luncheon was presided over by Rotarian F. T. Robinson.