THE DISCONTENT IN INDIA

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2053, 13 April 1907, Page 1

THE DISCONTENT IN INDIA

The discontent, in India, which many believe is rapidly assuming a portentous aspect, forms the subject of an aide and important article in the National Review, which deserves all the greater attention because it emanates from the pen of an Indian writer, His Highness the Aga K]uin, G.C.I.E. He first of all shows that the discontent so loudly voiced by the vernacular press is what is thought of and talked about by the public, and that it. prevails most strongly among the hitherto “dumb” millions. It docs not spring from their poverty, because there is a “general and progressive increase of prosperity in India, even among the rural population. ”■ It appears to bo, largely a matter of sentiment, and the time has arrived when a remedy is urgently called for, because India, which is, politically speaking, “practically an island, will presently cease to be such, inasmuch as Germany will presently reach Bagdad, with her Anacolia railway; Russia will become a near neighbor on one side, and there is a possible awakening and development of China on another, and the vicinity of three great Powers like these must produce an “enormous effect on the Indian mind generally, and upon the disaffected classes more particularly. Now, as the writer tells us—and the truth is obvious enough—“it is necessary for England, to possess the affection, or at least to prevent the hostility, of her Indian subjects if she wishes to rule the country permanently.” Since 1858. although the schools have done wonders, the Indian native feels that he has been brought very little nearer than before to the level of his white ruler morally, and this is what he is chiefly, anxious should be done. But how is it to be effected? The Aga Khan answers, “only by assuring the natural, gradual, and healthy growth of political freedom in India, and uniting her for ever to England by sentiment, gratitude, and self-interest.” To this end he adopts the recommendation of the Gaiko war of Barodo, at the Bombay social reform conference —namely, “To change the constitution of the Government of India; to

abolish the political vice-royalty, and to institute a non-political regency, with a descendant of the sovereign as a permanent Prince Regent.” Under such a regency the writer of the article regards it as something like a certainty that “India can be governed for SO or 90 yours at least, without any political change in the real character of its Government, and with benefit alike to her own people and to the Empire.”