Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  May 14, 1933

  The first phase of the non-co-operation movement ended when civil disobedience was suspended in 1922, but this suspension gave great dissatisfaction to many Congressmen. There had been a great awakening, and about 30,000 civil resisters had gone to gaol. Was all this to count for nothing and the movement to be suddenly suspended in mid-career before it had achieved its object, simply because some poor excitable peasants had misbehaved? Freedom was still far off and the British Government was functioning as before. In Delhi and in the Provinces there were Legislative Councils, but with no real power; the Congress had boycotted them. Gandhi was in gaol.

  There was much argument in the Congress ranks about the next step and a party, called the Swaraj Party, was formed to advocate a change in the policy of the Congress. They suggested that while the fundamental non-co-operation programme should be adhered to, it should be varied in one particular. The boycott of the Legislative Councils should be ended. This led to a split in the Congress, but ultimately the Swaraj Party had its way.

  Congressmen entered the Councils and made brave speeches and refused supplies. But their resolutions and votes were ignored by the Government and the Viceroy certified the Budget, which the Assembly had thrown out. These activities of Congressmen in the Legislatures were good propaganda for a while, but they meant a lowering of the tone of the movement. They led to a divorce from the masses and to unsavoury compromises with reactionary groups.

  Let us try to understand some of the different forces and movements which were stirring India in these nineteen twenties. Dominating almost everything else was the Hindu-Muslim question. Friction was increasing, and riots had occurred in many places in northern India over petty questions like the right of playing music before mosques. This was a strange and sudden change after the remarkable unity of the non-cooperation days. How did this occur, and what was the basis of that unity?

  The basis of the national movement was largely economic distress and unemployment. This gave rise to a common anti-British Government feeling in all groups and a vague desire for Swaraj or freedom. This feeling of hostility formed the common link, and thus there was common action, but the motives of different groups were different. Swaraj had a different meaning for each such group—the unemployed middle class looked forward to employment, the peasant to a relief from the many burdens imposed on him by the landlord, and so on. Looking at this question from the point of view of religious groups, the Muslims had joined the movement, as a body, chiefly because of the Khilafat. This was a purely religious question affecting Muslims only, and non-Muslims had nothing to do with it. Gandhi, however, adopted it, and encouraged others to do so, because he felt it his duty to help a brother in distress. He also hoped in this way to bring the Hindus and Muslims nearer each other. The general Muslim outlook was thus one of Muslim nationalism or Muslim internationalism, and not of true nationalism. For the moment the conflict between the two was not apparent.

  On the other hand, the Hindu idea of nationalism was definitely one of Hindu nationalism. It was not easy in this case (as it was in the case of the Muslims) to draw a sharp line between this Hindu nationalism and true nationalism. The two overlapped, as India is the only home of the Hindus and they form a majority there. It was thus easier for the Hindus to appear as full-blooded nationalists than for the Muslims, although each stood for his own particular brand of nationalism.

  Thirdly, there was what might be called real or Indian nationalism, which was something quite apart from these two religious and communal varieties and, strictly speaking, was the only form which could be called nationalism in the modern sense of the word. In this third group there were, of course, both Hindus and Muslims and others. All these three kinds of nationalism happened to come together from 1920 to 1922, during the non-co-operation movement. The three roads were separate, but for the moment they ran parallel. The British Government was greatly taken aback by the mass movement of 1921. In spite of the long notice they had had, they did not know how to deal with it. The usual direct way of arrest and punishment was ineffective, as this was the very thing wanted by the Congress. So their secret service evolved a technique to weaken the Congress from within. Police agents and Secret-Service men entered Congress Committees and created trouble by encouraging violence. Another method adopted was to send secret agents as sadhus and faqirs to create communal trouble.

  Similar methods are, of course, always adopted by governments ruling against the will of the people. They are the stock-in-trade of imperialist Powers. The fact that these methods succeed indicates the weakness and backwardness of the people, and not so much the sinfulness of the government concerned. To be able to divide other people and make them clash with each other, and thus weaken them and exploit them, is in itself a sign of better organization. This policy can only succeed when there are rifts and cleavages on the other side. To say that the British Government created the Hindu-Muslim problem in India would be patently wrong, but it would be equally wrong to ignore their continuous efforts to keep it alive and to discourage the coming together of the two communities. In 1922, after the suspension of the non-co-operation campaign, the ground was favourable for such intrigue. There was the reaction after a strenuous campaign which had suddenly ended without apparent results. The three different roads which had run parallel to each other began to diverge and go apart. The Khilafat question was out of the way. Communal leaders, both Hindu and Muslim, who had been suppressed by the mass enthusiasm of the non-co-operation days, rose again and began taking part in public life. The unemployed middle-class Muslims felt that the Hindus monopolized all the jobs and stood in their way. They demanded, therefore, separate treatment and separate shares in everything. Politically, the Hindu-Muslim question was essentially a middle-class affair, and a quarrel over jobs. Its effect, however, spread to the masses.

  The Hindus were on the whole the better-off community. Having taken to English education earlier, they had got most of the government jobs. They were richer also. The village financier or banker was the bania who exploited the small landholders and tenants and gradually reduced them to beggary and himself took possession of the land. The bania exploited Hindu and Muslim tenants and land-holders alike, but his exploitation of the Muslims took a communal turn, especially in provinces where the agriculturists were mainly Muslim. The spread of machine-made goods probably hit the Muslims harder than the Hindus, as there were relatively more artisans among the Muslims. All these factors went to increase the bitterness between the two major communities of India and to strengthen Muslim nationalism, which looked to the community rather than to the country.

  The demands of the Muslim communal leaders were such as to knock the bottom out of all hope of true national unity in India. To combat them on their own communal lines, Hindu communal organizations grew into prominence. Posing as true nationalists, they were as sectarian and narrow as the others.

  The Congress, as a body, kept away from the communal organizations, but many individual Congressmen were infected. The real nationalists tried to stop this communal frenzy, but with little success; and big riots occurred.

  To add to the confusion, a third type of sectional nationalism arose— Sikh nationalism. In the past the dividing line between the Sikhs and the Hindus had been rather vague. The national awakening also shook up the virile Sikhs, and they began to work for a more distinct and separate existence. Large numbers among them were ex-soldiers, and these gave a stiffening to a small but highly organized community, which, unlike most groups in India, was more used to action than to words. The bulk of them were peasant proprietors in the Punjab, and they felt themselves menaced by the town bankers and other city interests. This was the real motive behind their desire for a separate group recognition. To begin with, the Akali movement, so called because the Akalis formed the active and aggressive group among the Sikhs, interested itself in religious questions, or rather in the possession of property belonging to shrines. They came into conflict with the G
overnment over this, and an amazing exhibition of courage and endurance was seen at the Guru-kabagh near Amritsar. The Akali jathas were beaten most brutally by the police, but they never retreated a step, nor did they raise their hands against the police. The Akalis won in the end and gained possession of their shrines. They then turned to the political field and rivalled the other communal groups in making extreme demands for themselves.

  These narrow communal feelings of different communities, or group nationalisms, as I have called them, were very unfortunate. And yet they were natural enough. Non-co-operation had stirred up India thoroughly, and the first results of this shaking-up were these group-awakenings and Hindu and Muslim and Sikh nationalisms. There were also many other smaller groups which gained self-consciousness, and especially there were the so-called “Depressed Classes”. These people, long suppressed by the upper-class Hindus, were chiefly the landless labourers in the fields. It was natural that when they gained self-consciousness a desire to get rid of their many disabilities should possess them and a bitter anger against those Hindus who had for centuries oppressed them.

  Each awakened group looked at nationalism and patriotism in the light of its own interests. A group or a community is always selfish, just as a nation is selfish, although individuals in the community or nation may take an unselfish view. So each group wanted far more than its share and, inevitably, there was conflict. As inter-communal bitterness increased, the more extreme communal leaders of each group came to the front, for, in moments of anger, each group chooses as its representative the person who pitches his group demands highest and curses the others most. The conflict was aggravated in a variety of ways by the Government, especially by their encouraging the more extreme communal leaders. So the poison went on spreading, and we seemed to be in a vicious circle from which there was no obvious way out.

  While these forces and disruptive tendencies were taking shape in India, Gandhi fell very ill in Yeravada prison and had to undergo an operation. He was discharged from prison early in 1924. He was greatly distressed by the communal troubles and, many months later, a big riot shocked him so much that he fasted for twenty-one days. Many “unity” conferences were held to bring about peace, but with little result.

  The effect of these communal wranglings and group nationalisms was to weaken the Congress as well as the Swaraj Party in the Councils. The ideal of Swaraj went into the background, as most people thought and talked in terms of their groups. The Congress, trying to avoid siding with any group, was attacked by communalists on every side. The principal work of the Congress during these days was one of quiet organization and cottage industries (khaddar), etc., and this helped it to keep in touch with the peasant masses.

  I have written at some length about our communal troubles, because they played an important part in our political life during the nineteen twenties. And yet we must not exaggerate them. There is a tendency to give them far more importance than they deserve, and every quarrel between a Hindu boy and a Muslim boy is considered a communal quarrel, and every petty riot is given great publicity. We must remember that India is a very big country, and in tens of thousands of towns and villages Hindus and Muslims live at peace with each other, and there is no communal trouble between them. Usually this kind of trouble is confined to a limited number of cities, though sometimes it has spread to the villages. It must also be remembered that the communal question is essentially a middle-class question in India, and because our politics are dominated by the middle classes—in the Congress, in the Councils, in newspapers, and in almost every other form of activity—it assumes an undue prominence. The peasantry are hardly articulate; they have only begun to function politically in recent years in the village Congress Committees and in some Kisan Sabhas and the like. The town workers, especially in the big factories, are a little more wide awake, and have organized themselves into trade unions. But even these industrial workers, and far more so the peasantry, look for leadership to individuals drawn from the middle classes. Let us now consider the condition of the masses, the peasantry and industrial labour, during this period.

  The rapid growth of Indian industry, which the war had brought about, continued for some years after the peace. British capital poured into India and a great number of new companies were registered to work new factories and industries. The larger industrial concerns and factories especially were financed by foreign capital, and thus big-scale industry was practically controlled by British capitalists. A few years ago it was estimated that 87 per cent of the capital of companies working in India was British, and probably even this is an under-estimate. Thus the real economic hold of Britain over India increased. Big towns grew up, at the expense of smaller towns, and not of the villages. The textile industry grew especially, and so also mining.

  There were many committees and commissions appointed by the Government to consider the new problems of growing industrialization. These recommended that foreign capital should be encouraged, and generally favoured British industrial interests in India. A Tariff Board was appointed protecting Indian industries. But this protection meant, as I have told you, protecting in many cases British capital in India. The price of these protected goods naturally rose in the markets, and this helped in raising to that extent the cost of living. So that the burden of protection fell on the masses or the purchasers of these goods, and the factory-owners got a sheltered market from which competition had been removed or lessened.

  With the growth of factories, there was naturally a growth in the numbers of the industrial wage-earning class. The Government estimate, as long ago as 1922, was that there were as many as 20,000,000 in this class in India. The landless unemployed of the rural areas drifted to the industrial towns to join this class, and they had to put up as a rule with shameful conditions of exploitation. Conditions which had existed in England 100 years earlier, in the beginnings of the factory system, were now found in India—terrible long hours of work, miserable wages, degrading and insanitary living conditions. The class of factory-owners had one end in view: to make the most of the boom period by piling up profits; and they did so with great success for some years, paying huge dividends, while the condition of the workers remained miserable. The workers had no share in these mighty profits which they had created, but later, when the boom period was followed by a slump and trade declined, the workers were asked to share in the common misfortune by accepting lower wages.

  As the workers’ organizations, the trade unions, grew, the agitation for better labour conditions, shorter hours of work, and higher wages grew with them. Influenced by this partly, and partly by the general world demand that labour should be treated better, the government passed a number of laws, improving the lot of the factory-worker. I have told you already, in a previous letter, of the Factory Act that was passed. In this it was laid down that children from twelve to fifteen should not work more than six hours a day. There was to be no night work for women and children. For grown-up men and women a maximum of eleven hours a day, and sixty hours a week (a working week consisting of six days) was fixed. This factory law, with some subsequent amendments, still holds.

  An Indian Mines Act was passed in 1923 to give some protection to the unhappy workers who have to labour in the mines, chiefly coal-mines, underground. Children under thirteen were prohibited from working underground, but women continued doing so, and indeed formed nearly half the total number of workers. For grown-ups the maximum of work fixed for a week of six days was: for above-ground work, sixty, and for underground work, fifty-four. The maximum hours for a day are, I think, twelve hours. I am giving you these figures of hours of work to give you some idea of labour conditions. Even with their help you can have only a very partial idea, for in addition you must also know many other things, like the amount of wages, living conditions, etc., before a real idea is formed. We cannot go into such matters here. But it is something to realize how boys and girls and men and women have to work as long as eleven hours a day in the factories for a
paltry wage which just keeps them alive. The kind of monotonous work they do in the factories is terribly depressing; there is no joy in it; and when they go home, dead tired, a whole family has usually to crowd into a small mud hovel with no sanitary conveniences.

  Some other laws were also passed which were of help to the workers. There was a Workmen’s Compensation Act in 1923, which laid down that in case of accidents, etc., some compensation had to be paid to the injured worker. And there was a Trade Union Act in 1926, dealing with the formation and recognition of trade unions. The trade-union movement grew in India with some rapidity during these days, especially in Bombay. An All-India Trade-Union Congress was formed, but after a few years of existence this split up into two groups. All over the world, ever since the war and the Russian Revolution, labour has been pulled in two different directions. There are the old orthodox and moderate trade unions attached to the Second International (about which I have told you previously), and there is the new and powerful attraction of Soviet Russia and the Third International. So, everywhere, the moderate and usually better-off factory-workers incline towards safety and the Second International, and the more revolutionary towards the Third. This pull took place in India also, and at the end of 1929 there was a split. Ever since then the labour movement in India has been weak.

  Of the peasantry I cannot add much here to what I have already written in previous letters. Their condition worsens, and they are getting more and more hopelessly involved in debt to the moneylender. The smaller landlords, the peasant proprietors and the tenants, all get caught in the clutches of the money-lender, the bania, the sahukar. Gradually, as the debt cannot be paid up, the land passes to this money-lender, and the tenant becomes doubly his serf, both as the landlord and as the sahukar. Usually this bania landlord resides in the city, and there are no intimate contacts between him and his tenantry. His continuous attempts are directed to getting as much money as is possible from the starving peasantry. The old zamindar, living in the midst of his tenantry, might have shown some pity occasionally; the banker-zamindar, living in the city and sending agents for collections, hardly ever shows this weakness.