OUR JOB IN INDIA

Hokitika Guardian, 18 September 1926, Page 4

OUR JOB IN INDIA

(By Lieut.-Gen. Sir George MacMunn, formerly Quurterniaster-Genoi al in India.) Lord Reading lias just told us that dll is well with India, and yet almost daily come the telegraphic reports of continued hostilities in Calcutta and fierce outbreaks with loss of life all over the upper provinces. What does it all mean Is land Reading soothing us when lie shook. warn? , . , ' The answer is that he is not. He spoke of the settling down of the ieiment among the intelligen/.ia, winch threatened to wreck the British plans for Parliamentary Government. But Lord Beading must have made if he did not utter, obvious mental reservations —the principal one being that the people of India should s. k their racial and religious enmities and work for the public good. Jt was this feud that brought _ the British to power in India, and it U this that has kept them supreme. Ihe secret of their success has been then supreme aloofness and their uncanny impartiality. They have been as he ; man on the high steps at \\ i.nhledoii , umpires among eager jealous op- l poffeuts. 1 Three thousand years ago and nioie the Arvan invaders from the north swept into India, enslaving earl.ei races and bringing with them a spiritual faith which eventually crystnlliscd into Brahminism, a faith that brought the spirit of God into every daily act. This Brahminism evolved a supreme : contempt for this world and for all rvho were not of the twice-born Hindu 1 race. , Later the great faith of Islam spread . over the Eastern world. Over 900 ' years ago it poured in lroni Central 1 Asia and began a career of conquest 1 and conversion. Thenceforth till the 1 middle of the 18th century Moslem 1 kingdoms dominated and eventually ’ conquered practicnlly the whole land. The incomers and their converts actually' ruled with a. rod of iron the major portion of the land for many hundred ’ years, till finally the Turkish Mogul 1 Empire rose and waned. As it decayed the Hindus endeavoured to ho- . come masters of India; and into the , resulting tuiarchy came the British i by accident rather than by design. The British made the contending races take llicir hands trom each ' other’s throat. But the more virile - Moslems, who to this day do not num--1 her more than 70,090.000 of India s 1 820,000,000, never forgot that they 1 have ruled, sword in hand, for 800 1 years; and they four now that the i ballot-box, maintained by British • bayonets, will place them beneath the • Hindu majority, whose courage and ; flini* flnQnisP.

Hence this intense enmity and political intrigue. ‘Moslem and Hindu glare ncross the British tables at each other, and cruel riots have broken out. It is lie new thing, hut the British umpire on the steps used to prepale each year against it, and, supreme in his aloofness, could keep it in hand. In many places, to-day the umpire is at heart an enthusiastic supporter of one of the opponents. The British official is not on the umpire’s platform. It is easier than it was to throw a pig into Moslem shrine or to slay

a holy cow as a Hindu procession comes

along, and we have perhaps forgotten tint" it was his incorruptible impartiality. amid the welter ol conflicting (•rods' and races, that, gave the British official his sped. The results of weakening that spell are apparent, and it |,a S made many who hoped for better things sore at hetaiv. Yet there is so much that is promising in the Indian situation as • a whole that wo mayo hope, as Lord Beading hopes, that all will be well. The good or the evil is in India’s own hands, hut she must cease cherishing her enmities if she is to get on without the umpire in every court.