Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  This commission was followed after the war by a host of other commissions and committees. It was even suggested that Indian industries should be protected by duties or tariffs. All this was considered a great victory for Indian industry. And so, to some extent, it was. But a closer analysis revealed certain interesting features. It was proposed to encourage foreign capital, which meant in effect British capital, to come to India; and British capital poured in. It was not only predominant, but overwhelmingly so. The vast majority of the big concerns were financed by British capital. So that tariff duties and protection in India resulted in protecting British capital in India! The great change in British policy in India had not proved so bad after all for the British capitalist. He had got a good sheltered market to spread out in and make his dividends with the help of low wages to his workers. This proved to be advantageous to him in another way also. Having invested his capital in India, China, Egypt, and such countries, where wages were low, he threatened the English workers in England with a reduction of wages. He told them that he could not otherwise compete with the products of low wages in India, China, etc. And if the English workman objected to having his wages cut down, the capitalist told him that he would be regretfully compelled to shut up his factory in England and invest the capital elsewhere.

  The British Government in India also took many other steps to control industry in India. This is a complicated subject, and I do not propose to discuss it. But one thing I might mention. Banks play a very important part in modern industry, because big business often requires credit. The best of businesses may fail suddenly if these credit facilities are denied it. As the banks give this credit, you can appreciate what a lot of power they must have. They can make or mar a business. Soon after the war the British Government brought the entire banking system of the country under its control. In this way, and by the manipulation of the currency, the government can exercise vast power over Indian industries and firms. Further, in order to encourage British trade in India, they introduced “imperial preference”. This meant that if foreign goods are taxed for tariff purposes, British goods should be taxed less or not taxed at all, so that British goods may have an advantage over the others.

  The growing strength of the Indian capitalist classes and upper bourgeoisie during the war began to show itself in the political movement also. Politics gradually came out of the pre-war and early war lull, and various demands for self-government and the like began to be made. Lokamanya Tilak came out of prison after completing his long term. The National Congress then, as I have told you, was in the hands of the moderate group, and was a small uninfluential body having little touch with the people. As the more advanced politicians were not in the Congress, they organized Home Rule Leagues. Two such leagues were started, one by Lokamanya Tilak and the other by Mrs Annie Besant. For some years Mrs Besant played an important part in Indian politics, and her great eloquence and powerful advocacy did much to revive interest in politics. The government considered her propaganda so dangerous that they even interned her, together with two of her colleagues, for some months. She presided over a session of the Congress in Calcutta, and was its first woman president. Some years later Mrs Sarojini Naidu was the second woman president of the Congress.

  In 1916 a compromise was arrived at between the two wings of the Congress, the Moderate and the Extremist, and both of them attended the Lucknow session held in December 1916. The compromise was of short duration, for within two years there was another split, and the Moderates, now calling themselves Liberals, walked away from the Congress, and they have kept away ever since.

  The Lucknow Congress of 1916 marks the revival of the National Congress. From that time onwards it grew in strength and importance and, for the first time in its history, began to be really a national organization of the bourgeoisie or middle classes. It had nothing to do with the masses as such, and they were not interested in it till Gandhiji came. So that both the so-called Moderates and Extremists represented more or less the same class, the bourgeoisie. The Moderates represented, or rather were themselves, a handful of prosperous people and those on the border-line of government service; the Extremists had the sympathy of the greater part of the middle classes and had many unemployed intellectuals within their ranks. These intellectuals (and by this I mean simply more or less educated people) stiffened their ranks and also provided recruits to the ranks of the revolutionaries. There was no great difference in the objective or ideals of the Moderates or the Extremists. They both talked of self-government within the British Empire, and both were prepared to accept a part of it for the time being, the Extremist wanting more than the Moderate and using stronger language. The handful of revolutionaries of course wanted a full measure of freedom, but they had little influence with the leaders of the Congress. The essential difference between the Moderates and the Extremists was that the former were a prosperous party of the Haves and some hangers-on of the Haves, and the Extremists had a number of Have-nots also and, as the more extreme party, naturally attracted the youth of the country, most of whom thought that strong language was a sufficient substitute for action. Of course these generalizations do not apply to all the individuals on either side; for instance, there was Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a very able and self-sacrificing leader of the Moderates, who was certainly not a Have. It was he who founded the Servants of India Society. But neither the Moderates nor the Extremists had anything to do with the real Have-nots, the workers and the peasants. Tilak was, however, personally popular with the masses.

  The Lucknow Congress of 1916 was notable for another reunion, a Hindu-Muslim one. The Congress had always clung to a national basis, but in effect it was predominantly a Hindu organization, because of the overwhelming majority of Hindus in it. Some years before the war the Muslim intelligentsia, egged on to some extent by the government, had organized a separate body for themselves, called the All-India Muslim League. This was meant to keep the Muslims away from the Congress, but soon it drifted towards the Congress, and at Lucknow there was an agreement between the two about the future constitution of India. This was called the Congress-League Scheme, and it laid down, among other things, the proportion of seats to be reserved for the Muslim minorities. This Congress-League Scheme then became the joint programme which was accepted as the country’s demand. It represented the views of the bourgeoisie, who were the only politically minded people at the time. Agitation grew on the basis of this scheme.

  The Muslims had grown more politically minded, and had joined hands with the Congress largely because of their exasperation at the British fighting Turkey. Because of sympathy for Turkey and a vigorous expression of it, two Muslim leaders, the Maulanas Mohamad Ali and Shaukat Ali, had been interned early in the war. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was also interned because of his connections with Arab countries, where he was very popular owing to his writings. All this served to irritate and annoy the Muslims, and they turned away from the government more and more.

  As the demand for self-government grew in India, the British Government made various promises and started inquiries in India which occupied the people’s attention. In the summer of 1918 the then Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy presented a joint report—called, from their respective names, the Montagu-Chelmsford Report—which embodied certain proposals for reforms and changes in India. Immediately a great argument arose in the country over these tentative proposals. The Congress strongly disapproved of them and considered them insufficient. The Liberals welcomed them, and, because of this, they parted company with the Congress.

  So matters stood in India when the war ended. Everywhere there was a lively expectation of change. The political barometer was rising, and the mild and soothing, the somewhat apologetic and ineffective, whispers of the Moderates were giving place to the more confident, aggressive, direct, and truculent shouts of the Extremists. But both the Moderates and the Extremists thought and talked in terms of politics and the outward structure of government; behind them British imperiali
sm went on quietly strengthening its hold on the economic life of the country.

  155

  The New Map of Europe

  April 21, 1933

  After we had considered briefly the course of the World War, we went on to the Russian Revolution, and then to the state of India during war-time. Let us now go back to the Armistice, which put an end to the war, and see how the victors behaved. Germany was prostrate. The Kaiser had run away, and a republic had been proclaimed. Still, to make sure that the German army would become quite powerless, many hard conditions were laid down in the terms of the Armistice. The German army had to leave not only all invaded territory, but also Alsace-Lorraine and part of Germany up to the Rhine. The Allies were to occupy the Rheinland—the territory round about Cologne. Germany had also to surrender many battleships and all her U-boats, as her submarines were called, and thousands of heavy guns and aeroplanes and railway engines and lorries and other material.

  The Succession States

  On the spot where the Armistice was signed, in the forest of Compiègne in northern France, there is a monument now which bears this legend, “Ici le 11 Novembre, 1918, succomba le criminel orgueil de l’Empire Allemand vaincu par les peuples libres qu’il prétendait asservir”—Here, on November 11, 1918, succumbed the criminal pride of the German Empire, vanquished by the free peoples whom it had sought to enslave.

  The German Empire had gone indeed, outwardly at any rate, and Prussian military arrogance had been humbled. Even before this, the Russian Empire had ceased to be and the House of Romanoff had been marched off the stage where it had misbehaved so long. The war proved the grave of yet a third empire and ancient dynasty, the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Hapsburgs. But other empires still remained—they were among the victors—and victory did not lessen their pride or make them more regardful of the rights of other peoples whom they had enslaved.

  The victorious Allies held their Peace Conference in Paris in 1919. In Paris the world’s future was to be fashioned by them, and for many months this famous city became the centre of the world’s attention. To it there journeyed all manner of folk from far and near. There were statesmen and politicians, feeling vastly important, and diplomats, and experts, and military men, and financiers, and profiteers, all of them with hosts of assistants and typists and clerks. There was of course an army of journalists. There came representatives from peoples struggling for freedom, like the Irish and the Egyptians and Arabs and others whose names even had not previously been heard; and peoples from eastern Europe wanting to carve out separate States for themselves out of the ruins of the Austrian and Turkish Empires. And of course there were hosts of adventurers. The world was going to be divided anew, and the vultures were not going to miss this opportunity.

  Much was expected of the Peace Conference. People hoped that after the terrible experience of the war, a just and enduring peace would be devised. The tremendous strain was telling on the masses still, and there was great discontent among the labouring classes. The prices of the necessaries of life had risen greatly, and this added to the people’s suffering. There were many signs in Europe in 1919 of impending social revolution. The example of Russia seemed to be a catching one.

  This was the background of the Peace Conference which met at Versailles in the very hall where, forty-eight years before, the German Empire had been proclaimed. It was difficult for the huge conference to function from day to day, and so it was split up into many committees, which met in private and carried on their intrigues and quarrels behind a discreet veil. The conference was controlled by a “Council of Ten” of the Allies. This was reduced later to five, the “Big Five” as they were called: United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. Japan dropped out of this, and so a “Council of Four” remained; and lastly Italy dropped out, leaving the “Big Three”: America, Britain, and France. These three countries were represented by President Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau, and to these three men fell the great task of moulding the world afresh and healing its terrible wounds. It was a task worthy of supermen, demigods; and these three men were very far from being either. Men in authority—kings, statesmen, generals, and the like—are advertised and boomed up so much by the Press and otherwise that they often appear as giants of thought and action to the common people. A kind of halo seems to surround them, and in our ignorance we attribute to them many qualities which they are far from possessing. But on closer acquaintance they turn out to be very ordinary persons. A famous Austrian statesman once said that the world would be astounded if it knew with what little intelligence it is ruled. So these three, the “Big Three”, big as they seemed, were singularly limited in outlook and ignorant of international affairs, ignorant even of geography!

  President Woodrow Wilson came with a vast reputation and popularity. He had used so many beautiful and idealistic phrases in his speeches and notes that people had begun to look upon him almost as a prophet of the new freedom that was to come. Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, was also a weaver of fine phrases, but he had a reputation for opportunism. Clemenceau, the “Tiger” as he was called, had no use for ideals and pious phrases. He was out to crush France’s old enemy Germany, crush her and humble her in every way so that she might not be able to raise her head again.

  So these three struggled with each other and pulled each his own way, and each in his turn was pulled and pushed by numerous other people in the Conference and outside. And behind them all lay the shadow of Soviet Russia. Russia was not represented at the Conference, neither was Germany; but Soviet Russia’s very existence was a continuing challenge to all the capitalist Powers assembled in Paris.

  New Countries of Europe

  Clemenceau won in the end, with the help of Lloyd George. Wilson got one of the things he was very keen on—a League of Nations—and having got the others to agree to this, he gave in on most other points. After many months of argument and debate, the Allies at the Peace Conference at last agreed to a draft treaty, and, having agreed amongst themselves, they summoned the German representatives to hear their commands. The enormous draft treaty of 440 articles was hurled at these Germans, and they were called upon to sign it. There was no argument with them, no opportunity was given them to make suggestions or changes. It was going to be a dictated peace; and they must either sign it as it was or take the consequences. The representatives of the new German Republic protested, and, on the very last day of grace, signed this Treaty of Versailles.

  Separate treaties were drawn up and signed by the Allies with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The Turkish treaty, though agreed to by the Sultan, fell through because of the splendid resistance of Kemal Pasha and his brave companions. But that is a story I must tell you separately.

  What changes did these treaties bring about? Most of the territorial changes were in eastern Europe, western Asia, and Africa. In Africa the German colonies were seized by the Allies as spoils of war, England getting the choicest morsels. By adding Tanganyika and other territories in East Africa, the British succeeded in realizing a long-cherished dream of a continuous strip of empire right across Africa, from Egypt in the north to the Cape in the south.

  In Europe the changes were considerable, and quite a large number of new States appeared on the map. Compare an old map with a new one, and you will see these great changes at a glance. Some of the changes were the result of the Russian Revolution, as many of the peoples who lived on the borders of Russia, and were not themselves Russian, broke away from the Soviet and declared their independence. The Soviet Government recognized their rights of self-determination and did not interfere. Look at the new map of Europe. One big State, Austria-Hungary, has disappeared entirely, and in its place have risen several small States, which are often referred to as the Austrian Succession States. These are: Austria, reduced to a tiny fragment of its former self and with a great big city like Vienna as its capital; Hungary, also much reduced in size; Czechoslovakia, which includes the old Bohemia; part of Yugo
slavia, which is our old and unpleasant acquaintance; Serbia, swollen out of all recognition; and parts have gone to Rumania, Poland, and Italy. It was a thorough dissection.

  Farther to the north there is another new State, or rather an old State has reappeared—Poland. This was fashioned out of territories from Prussia, Russia, and Austria. In order to give Poland access to the sea, quite an extraordinary feat was accomplished. Germany, or rather Prussia, was cut into two and a corridor of land leading to the sea was given to Poland. So that in order to go from West to East Prussia one has to cross this Polish corridor. Near this corridor is the famous city of Danzig. This has been converted into a free city—that is, it belongs neither to Germany nor to the Polish State; it is a State by itself, directly under the League of Nations.

  North of Poland are the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland, all successors of the old Tsarist Empire. They are small States, but each is a distinct cultural entity with a separate language. You will be interested to know that the Lithuanians are Aryans (like many others in Europe) and their language bears quite a close resemblance to Sanskrit. This is a remarkable fact, which probably many people in India do not realize, and which brings home to us the bonds which unite distant people.

  The only other major territorial change in Europe was the transfer of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine to France. There were some other changes also, but I shall not trouble you with them. Now you have seen that these changes resulted in the creation of many new States, most of these being quite small ones. Eastern Europe now resembles the Balkans, and therefore it is often said that the Peace treaties have “balkanized” Europe. There are many more frontiers now, and there is frequent trouble between these petty States. It is amazing how much they hate each other, especially in the Danube valley. A great deal of the responsibility for this lies on the Allies who divided up Europe all wrong, and thus created many new problems. Many national minorities are under foreign governments which oppress them. Poland has got a large territory which is really part of Ukraine, and the poor Ukrainians in this area have been subjected to all manner of atrocities in an attempt to “polonize” them forcibly. Yugoslavia and Rumania and Italy have all got foreign minorities in this way, and they ill-treat them. Austria and Hungary, on the other hand, are cut down to the bone, and most of their own people have been taken away from them. All these areas under foreign control naturally give rise to national movements and continuous friction.