by A K Bhagwat
Even Pandita Ramabai complained to the papers about the utter indifference and neglect of the patients in the Poona plague hospitals and to all this the government turned a deaf ear. Ramabai’s eyewitness account was termed “grossly inaccurate and misleading”. The vernacular press headed by the Kesari cried itself hoarse and was termed seditious and disloyal. Fair-minded English journals were quick to lay the blame at the doors of the indiscretion of the government in employing European soldiers. Thus the Daily News (London) wrote: “If everything was done at Poona, as at Bombay, to consult the religious and social sentiments of the natives, why was there disaffection at Poona and not at Bombay? Mr. Rand himself directed that native women should no longer be examined in the streets of Poona to see whether they had the plague. If they had not been so treated where was the necessity for the prohibition? If they had been, the practice is surely hard to justify, or again,” it was pointed out, “self-complacency and enormous contempt for the natives mar a good deal of our administrative work in India” Sir Lepel Griffin was quoted by the Manchester Guardian as saying, “The English soldier does not understand native ways and prejudices and unintentionally gives offence and becomes unpopular; while the work would have been as well done by native troops and police, whose unpopularity was a matter of no importance.” The paper continues: “There were no outrages but there was tactlessness.” References were made to the irrepressible sense of humour of Tommy Atkins which was apt to be resented by the Poona population.
Matters reached a crisis and the nerves of the people of Poona were on edge. Tilak sounded a note of warning; but among other things he also wrote certain things, not directly connected with the plague but which later were construed to have led to the murder of European officers. Tilak was presiding over a lecture by Prof. Bhanu on Shivaji. Prof. Bhanu had referred to the killing of Afzalkhan and had said that no blame attached to Shivaji in this. This theory he had already propounded in an article contributed to the Deccan College Quarterly in April 1896. In his speech, as reported in the Kesari of the 15th June 1897, Tilak said,9 “There is no need to find out new historical information regarding the assassination of Afzalkhan. Let us proceed on the assumption that Shivaji killed Afzalkhan by a preconceived plan. The question — is this act of the Maharaja good or bad? — is to be faced not from the standpoint of the Penal Code, nor of the Smritis of Manu and Yajnavalkya, nor is it to be considered in the light of moral principles enunciated by both occidental and oriental systems. Laws regarding the regulation of society are for the observance of us common people. No one cares to investigate the family origin of the Rishis, nor does anyone attempt to stick a crime on the person of a King. Great men are above the common principles of (Shastra) law. The view of these principles falls short of the plane in which great people stand. In killing Afzalkhan did Shivaji sin? The answer to this question is in the Mahabharat itself. In the Bhagwadgita, Shrikrishna has counselled the assassination of even one’s elders and blood-relations. There is no blame when you do actions without wishing for their fruit. Shri Shivaji Maharaj did nothing in order to further his own interest. He killed Afzalkhan with the righteous objective of the public good. If thieves enter one’s house, and one’s wrists have no strength to drive them out, one may without compunction shut them in and burn them standing. God Almighty did not give a charter engraved on a copper plate to the foreigner (Mlenchha) to rule India. The Maharaja strove to drive them out of his fatherland, and there is no sin of covetousness in that.”
Professor Bhanu clarified his stand in the Times of India of July 8th, 1897, that he had given the same address as the one at the History Club held in the Deccan College, Poona, under the presidentship of Professor Bain. Professor Bain had thrown the hint that “supposing Shivaji to have been on the aggressive, students of history cannot impeach him for violating rules of ordinary morality. His conduct could be defended on the ultra-moral grounds.” Professor Bhanu says that he only amplified this hint by giving evidence and concluded with a reference to the present day’s political situation.
On June 30th, 1897, Tilak wrote to the Times clarifying his position and explaining the nature of his work, under the caption “Sedition or Prejudice”. J. Chaudhari, Bar-at-Law, of Calcutta, writes10 how Tilak’s counsels, two Calcutta barristers Messrs. Pugh and Garth, “expressed great admiration for Tilak’s command over the English language, and the close and logical reasoning by which he controverted the charges brought against him and his political activities. Mr. Garth was a conservative in politics and his interest in other things seldom went beyond his profession and horses. Yet he got so enthusiastic over Mr. Tilak’s correspondence in the columns of the Times of India that he obtained some extra copies for taking them home so that he might show them to his father, Sir Richard Garth, the ex-Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court.”
According to Tilak, the continued malicious remarks about him and the journals published by him compelled him to write the letter. He expected the Times to be at least fair; but it had grossly misrepresented the matter. He goes on to explain how he had supported ‘stringent measures’ and had also urged upon ‘the leaders of the people’ to assist the government. He had called upon them to form committees to work for the people, his slogan being ‘Do not complain but work.’ If this is sedition, he says, then the Anglo-Indian vocabulary must be more comprehensive than common English!
As for his own share in the work, Tilak narrates how he organised such committees and started a plague hospital, and gave meals at cheap rates to the people. It was, therefore, doing sheer injustice by representing that either he or his paper did anything to excite feelings of disaffection among the people. At the same time, he could not shut his eyes to complaints and grievances which he knew from personal knowledge to be well founded. Unnecessary stringency of the plague measures and not the writings of the native press, were, according to him, responsible for the feelings of dissatisfaction. In conclusion he said, “I may, however, say that it is extremely foolish to ignore all the work done by individuals and the good sense and the patience of a community as a whole, simply because a fanatic took it into his head to perpetrate a horrible deed, which, as I have said above, all of us equally deplore. Further discussion must, I think, be reserved for cooler times, when we shall be ready to look at men and things with unjaundiced eyes.”
Tilak also wrote three articles on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in the Kesari entitled “Glory to her Majesty the Queen Empress”.11 They are in his usual mixed strain. While giving all due credit to the British, Tilak utilised this occasion to ventilate the grievances of the people. The first of these articles refers to the prosperity of England under the Queen, who, in spite of the fact of having a good many prerogatives, never used them arbitrarily like the previous sovereigns.
In the second article,12 he makes a historical survey of the expansion of the British Empire. First, the extent of the Empire: “Fifteen longitudinal degrees make the difference of an honour, but no such fifteen degrees can be found on the surface of the globe which do not contain at least one island under the British rule”. This expansion of the empire was due to such qualities as pluck, intelligence, courage and enterprise shown by the British and the qualities have expanded because of the growth of the empire. Tilak concludes the article by saying: “We also participate in their joy as they are our rulers; only it cannot be said that we have prospered like them during the last sixty years.”
The third article is “Condition of India”13 Speaking about the change that has taken place in the condition of India during the same period, he refers to the contrast between the highly prosperous position of England and the poor lot of India. Looking to the latter he feels that this was the sixtieth jubilee of its decline! He refers to Ireland which he says was indifferent to the jubilee, though he also refers to a report that it was at the instance of the Queen that certain important improvements were made in the great Proclamation of 1858.
The concluding portion of the article refers to the duty that the rulers owed to the people of India of translating the principles and promises of the proclamation in to practice.
The Rand Murder
The harassment of the people of by the Poona plague officials still continued till the midnight of the 27th June 1898, when Mr. Rand, the chairman of the Plague Committee, and Lt. Ayerst were shot while returning from the jubilee banquet at Government House in Poona. Lt. Ayerst succumbed immediately to the wounds and Mr. Rand died a few days later in the hospital. A search of the road the next day revealed the two swords, a bottle and a stone, hidden under a bridge. A reward of Rs. 20,000 was declared by the government to anyone who would help to discover the assassin. The news sent a thrill of horror all over the country and the Anglo-Indian Press, headed by the Times of India, declared that the Poona Brahmins were hatching a plot to overthrow the British Government. Suggestions were also made to the government that Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code should be amended so as to bring within its scope offending journalists who incite the public to violence. The Times hinted that Tilak was responsible for the outrage. On June 28, Mr. Lamb, the Collector of Poona, convened a meeting of prominent residents of Poona and gave a warning and a threat. He asked them to range themselves unmistakably and actively on the side of law and order. “Those particularly among you, who enjoy the largest share of position and privileges, see to it that this position and these privileges are not placed in jeopardy by the violence and criminal folly of any member or section of the community. For if disloyalty and sedition, conspiracy and assassination go unchecked amongst you, I am here to solemnly warn you that what you prove yourselves unable to check, government will inevitably adopt stern measures to check for you”. This typically school-masterly attitude towards an errant member of a class of school-boys which he cannot control, shows the panic of the officials. Severe repercussions were to follow. The Governor imposed punitive police on Poona for two years at a cost of nearly three lakhs of rupees. Indian gentlemen were forbidden to enter the cemetery at the funeral of Rand and it was reported by the vernacular press that even Dr. Bhandarkar was stopped at the gate by the police.
Tilak was one of the guests at the jubilee banquet and commenting on the murders in the Kesari on the 29th June 1895, Tilak called them “the terrible happening of Tuesday night”. He refers to the acrimonious and malignant allegations of the Times of India and the speech of the Collector and wonders how such things were said when the whole matter was sub judice. He conjectured that the murderers must be habitual lawbreakers or discharged military men. He concludes, “This is not the first time that die Poona people have had to face such calumny. In 1876 when the Budhwar Palace was burnt similar accusations were made. But people should not lose heart and as far as possible continue to help the government as they have been doing now.”
Gradually, however, his tone became more and more heated as on the subject of the famine or plague administration. He indignantly asked on the 6th July 1897 if the government had its head in the right place. He condemned all attempts made by Anglo-Indian and government circles to lay the responsibility of die crime at the doors of the vernacular press, school boys led astray by English education or the Shivaji celebrations. On the 13th July 1897, he reminded the government that to rule is not to take revenge. He referred to the opinion of the Hon. Justice Badruddin Tayyabji who declared that he did not believe the suspicion against the Hindu community or a section of it. He urged the Governor, Lord Sandhurst, to curb the frenzy and the panic of the Anglo-Indian papers and also of the Collector.
Questions were asked in the House of Commons by Mr. Bhownagree, M.P., whether the government did not consider the articles and speeches of Mr. Tilak seditious, to which Lord George Hamilton gave the reply that it was a matter of law upon which the Bombay Government had not yet arrived at a final opinion.
On the 20th July 1897, Tilak commented on the proposed amendment to Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code. He quotes from the speech by the Hon. Justice Badruddin Tayyabji, who gave the opinion that the present law was quite sufficient to bring to book any seditious or inflammatory writings in newspapers. Tilak pointed out that under the existing law criticism of the government, however severe, could not be termed seditious unless it directly incited the people to acts of violence or unlawful overthrow of the government. Tilak outlined the policy that the Kesari had all along been following. “Our main task is to make use of the knowledge that we have obtained from English education, to make people conscious of their lawful rights and teach them how to agitate constitutionally for their fulfilment. It is not our desire that the British rule should disappear or that it should be insulted. It is our ardent desire that under the aegis of the British rule we should get more rights, that we should not be oppressed and that we should prosper.”
The campaign of virulent attacks opened by Anglo-Indian papers was soon taken up by British papers. Here is a typical attack in the Daily Mail: “There is nothing fanatic about the Poona murder. Poona is the centre of much of the sedition and mutiny hatching of the whole country. The Poona Brahmin is notorious throughout the whole of India, and the educated among them particularly so. By their newspapers, by their secret messengers and signs, they are endeavouring to stir up a revolt against the British power.”
The British papers had another opportunity of coming down with all their might and main on the Indian press and the Indian leaders, by an echo of the plague affair in London. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who was then in London to give evidence before the Welby Commission, gave an interview to a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. In it, he made very serious allegations against the British soldiers. The report of the interview appeared in the Manchester Guardian of July 1897: “I saw what was taking place before I came away. I have read the detailed accounts of oppression which the Poona newspapers, avoiding general declamation, have been printing during the past three months, and since I arrived in London, I have received many private letters from Poona, giving fresh instances of atrocious outrage, and begging me to move in the matter. What has happened is briefly this. When I left Poona on March 5th, the work of inspecting, fumigating and lime-washing the houses and searching for plague-stricken persons had been entrusted to British soldiers. Most of the people who were at all well-to-do had already left the place, and the arrival of the soldiers spread panic among the poor people who remained. All who could leave Poona promptly ran away. Those who stayed had, for the most part, suffered tremendously through the famine and it was upon this highly inflammable material that the soldiers were let loose. Nowhere else had they been employed upon such work. Ignorant of the language and contemptuous of the customs, the sentiments and the religious susceptibilities of the people, they gave offence in a score of ways which an Englishman could only with difficulty understand. But the nature of many of their excesses is intelligible enough. In defiance of the rules of the Plague Committee, they entered kitchens and places of worship, contaminating food and spitting upon idols or breaking them and throwing them into the street. They destroyed the little property of the unhappy people in a wanton manner, not merely confiscating the clothing and the bedding of persons suffering from the plague but breaking open boxes, appropriating jewellery and burning furniture. One of the soldiers appears to have said that it was good fun to have so many bonfires every day and they seem to have regarded the whole matter as a joke. But that was not the worst; women were dragged into the streets and stripped for inspection, under the pretext that there was not light enough in the houses and my correspondents, whose words I can trust absolutely, report the violation of two women, one of whom is said to have committed suicide rather than survive her shame. Petition after petition was sent to the Plague Committee, calling attention to the disregard of their own rules, and praying that the method adopted in Bombay where General Gatacre dealt with a more difficult task with conspicuous success might be extended to Poona. But it was all to no purpose. T
he complaints were unheeded. A deputation to Mr. Rand, the Plague Commissioner, was snubbed and when an appeal was made to the Government of Bombay, the fatal regard for what is called in India ‘prestige’ prevented the reversal of a policy once started upon. The soldiers accordingly remained to do the work of inspection in Poona until it was finished.”
Questions were again asked in Parliament and Lord Hamilton, the Secretary of State for India, dubbed the charges of Gokhale as a malevolent invention. Gokhale hoped to substantiate his allegations by referring to his own friends whom, he said, he had known for years but unfortunately this evidence was not forthcoming and Gokhale in his anxiety to shelter his informants had to withdraw his more serious allegations and tender a public apology. As an alternative to substantiating his allegations, Gokhale took the only course open to a gentleman; but there is no doubt that the apology coming as it did at that time was an irrecoverable blow to India’s national prestige. Tilak, commenting later on the incident, remarked to Dr. Munje that it was a mistake on the part of Gokhale to take back his remarks; for it would have been possible to bring forward evidence in support of his allegations, had occasion arisen.