Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  Zaghlul Pasha had been released some time after his arrest in 1919. In December 1921 he was again arrested, and was deported. But this did not improve the situation in Egypt from the point of view of the British, and they were compelled to take some action to conciliate the Egyptians. All attempts at compromise had failed, although Zaghlul was far from being an uncompromising extremist. Indeed, an actual attempt at assassinating Zaghlul was made once by some people who accused him of betraying his country by trying to make weak compromises with the British. But the real reasons for the failure of the British Government and the Egyptian nationalists to agree were then, and still continue to be, fundamental. They are similar to the reasons which prevent a compromise in India. The Egyptian nationalists did not wish to ignore all British interests in Egypt. They were perfectly prepared to discuss these and to make allowances for Britain’s special interest in her imperial trade and strategic routes and other matters, but they would discuss these questions only after their full independence was acknowledged and without prejudice to that independence. England, on the other hand, thought that it was her business to say exactly how much freedom was to be given, and this freedom was to be subject to her own interests, which must first be protected.

  So there was no common ground for agreement. But the British Government felt that something had to be done soon, and so, even without an agreement, they made a declaration on February 28, 1922. They stated that in future they would recognize Egypt as an “independent sovereign State”, but—and this was a big but—four matters were reserved for further consideration. These were:

  Security of the communications of the British Empire in Egypt.

  Defence of Egypt against all foreign aggression or interference, direct or indirect.

  Protection of foreign interests in Egypt and the protection of minorities.

  The question of the future of the Sudan.

  These reservations bear a family likeness to their cousins in India; we call them “safeguards”, and their brood is far more numerous here. These reservations were not accepted, for, simple and innocent as they looked, they meant that there would be no real independence either in domestic or foreign matters. So that the declaration of independence of February 28, 1922, was a one-sided act of the British Government which was not recognized by Egypt. What even independence can mean with reservations or safeguards in favour of Britain has been amply demonstrated in Egypt during the years that followed.

  In spite of this “independence”, martial law under British officers continued for a year and a half more. It was only ended after the Egyptian Government had passed an Act of Indemnity—that is to say, a law freeing all officials from all liabilities for illegal acts committed by them during the martial law period.

  The new “independent” Egypt was presented with a most reactionary constitution with great powers in the hands of the King —King Fuad, who was imposed on the poor Egyptians. King Fuad and the British officials got on excellently together; they both disliked the nationalists, and they both objected to the idea of freedom for the people, or even of real parliamentary government. Fuad considered himself the Government, and did much as he pleased, dismissed Parliament and ruled as a dictator, relying on British bayonets, which never failed him.

  The first altruistic action of the British Government after their declaration of Egyptian independence was to demand enormous sums as compensation for the officials who were retiring under the new regime. King Fuad, as the Egyptian Government, readily agreed, and the huge sum of £6,500,000 was thus paid out—one high official getting as much as £8,500. And the interesting part is that some of these officials, who were so heavily compensated for retirement, were immediately re-engaged under special contracts. Remember that Egypt is not a big country, and that it has a population of less than one-third that of the United Provinces.

  The Egyptian constitution bravely lays down that “all power emanates from the nation”. As a matter of fact ever since the new constitution came into force, the Egyptian Parliament has had a very thin time. So far as I know, not a single parliament has lived to the end of its normal term. Again and again it has met with sudden death at the hands of King Fuad, who has suspended the constitution and ruled as an autocratic monarch.

  The first elections to the new parliament were held in 1923, and Zaghlul Pasha and his party, now known as the Wafd Party, swept the country. They gained 90 per cent of the votes and 177 out of 214 seats. An effort was made to come to terms with England, Zaghlul going to London for the purpose. The two viewpoints could not be reconciled, and the negotiations broke down over several questions, one of these being that of the Sudan. The Sudan is a country south of Egypt; it is very different from Egypt; the people are different, and so is the language. Through the Sudan flows the Nile in its upper regions. The river Nile has been from the beginning of recorded history—and that means 7000 or 8000 years—the life-blood of Egypt. The whole of Egyptian agriculture and life have revolved round the annual Nile floods which brought the rich soil from the highlands of Abyssinia and thus converted a desert into a rich and fertile land. Lord Milner (of the commission that was boycotted) wrote about the Nile as follows:

  It is an uncomfortable thought that the regular supply of water by the great river, which is to Egypt not a question of convenience and prosperity, but of life, must always be exposed to some risks as long as the upper reaches of the river are not under Egyptian control.

  The upper reaches of the Nile are in the Sudan; hence the vital importance of the Sudan to Egypt.

  In the past the Sudan was supposed to be under the joint control of England and Egypt. It was called the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. As Britain was actually ruling Egypt, there was no conflict of interests, and a great deal of Egyptian money was spent in the Sudan. Indeed, it was stated in the British Parliament by Lord Curzon in 1924 that the Sudan would be bankrupt if it were not for the financial expenditure undertaken by Egypt. When the question of leaving Egypt had at last to be faced by the British, they wanted to hold on to the Sudan. The Egyptians, on the other hand, felt that their existence was bound up with the control of the upper waters of the Nile in the Sudan. Hence the conflict of interests.

  In 1924, when the question of the Sudan was being discussed between Saad Zaghlul and the British Government, the Sudanese people showed their attachment to Egypt in many ways. For this they were severely punished by the British, who did just what they liked without consulting the Egyptian Government, in spite of the joint administration, for which Egypt had to pay a good deal.

  Another reservation made by Britain in the so-called declaration of Egyptian independence was the protection of foreign interests. What were these foreign interests? I have told you something about them in a previous letter. When the Turkish Empire was weakening, the great Powers had imposed various rules on it under which special treatment was to be given to their citizens in Turkey. These European foreigners were not to be subject to Turkish laws or courts, whatever offence they might commit. They were to be tried by their own consuls or diplomatic representatives, or by special courts consisting of foreigners. They had other privileges also, such as freedom from most kinds of taxation. These special and very valuable privileges of the foreigners were called “capitulations”, from capitulate, to surrender, as they were, to some extent, surrenders of sovereignty by the State concerned. Because Turkey had to put up with them, the various parts of the Turkish dominions had also to submit to them. Egypt, which was wholly under British rule, and where Turkey did not even possess nominal authority, was, however, in this respect made to suffer as a part of the Turkish Empire, and the capitulations were enforced there. Under these most fortunate conditions for them, important foreign settlements of businessmen and capitalists grew up in the cities. It was natural enough that they should oppose the abolition of a system which protected them in every way and allowed them to grow rich and prosperous without having to pay taxes even. These were the foreign vested interests which the British Gover
nment had undertaken to protect. Egypt could not possibly agree to a system which not only was wholly inconsistent with independence, but meant a tremendous loss of revenue to her. It was hardly possible to do anything on a big scale in the way of reform in social conditions if the richest people escaped taxation. During the long period of direct British rule, they had practically done nothing for primary education or the sanitation and improvement of village conditions.

  It so happened that Turkey, which had been the original cause of the capitulations, got rid of them after Kemal Pasha’s victory. I might mention here that China is also still struggling with something similar to these capitulations. Japan had them also for a short while in the nineteenth century, but as soon as she became powerful, she rejected them.

  Thus the question of foreign vested interests was another obstruction in the way of a settlement between Britain and Egypt. Vested interests are always in the way of freedom.

  With their usual magnanimity, the British Government had also decided to protect the interests of minorities, and this was also a reservation in the declaration of independence of February 1922. The chief minority was that of the Copts. These people are supposed to be the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, and are thus the oldest race in Egypt. They are Christians, and have been so from the early days of Christianity, before Europe became Christian. Instead of thanking the British Government for their great solicitude for the minorities, the Copts were ungrateful enough to tell them not to trouble about them. Soon after the British declaration of February 1922, the Copts gathered together at a great meeting and resolved “that they renounce all minority representation and minority protection in the interest of national unity and the attainment of the national aim”. This decision of the Copts was criticized by the British as a very foolish one! But, wise or foolish, it put an end to the British claim to protect them, and the question of minorities ceased to be a subject for discussion. As a matter of fact the Copts took a great part in the national struggle for freedom, and some of Zaghlul Pasha’s most trusted colleagues in the Wafd were Copts.

  Because of these opposing viewpoints and the actual conflicts of interests, the negotiations between Egypt, as represented by Saad Zaghlul and his colleagues, and the British, in 1924, broke down. The British Government was very angry at this. They were used to having their way in Egypt, and found the obstinacy of the new parliament in Cairo, and especially of the Wafd leaders, most irritating. They decided to teach a lesson, after their own imperialist manner, to the Wafd and the Egyptian Parliament. An opportunity came to them soon, and of the extraordinary way in which they seized it and profited by it, I shall tell you in my next letter. That remarkable incident, holding up as it were a mirror to the working of modern imperialism, deserves a letter to itself.

  164

  What Independence under the British Means

  May 22, 1933

  I told you in my last letter of the failure of the negotiations in 1924 between the Egyptian Government, as represented by the nationalists, and the British, and the anger of the British Government at this. Before I proceed to the remarkable developments that followed, I must remind you that, in spite of so-called independence, Egypt continued to be under British military occupation. Not only was the British army stationed there, but the Egyptian army was also under British control, and had an Englishman, with the title of the Sirdar of the Army, at its head. The chief police officials were also Englishmen, and, under the plea of protecting foreigners in Egypt, the British Government controlled the departments of Finance, Justice and the Interior; that is to say, they controlled every vital thing in the Government. The Egyptians were naturally insisting on the British giving up this control.

  On November 19, 1924, an Englishman, Sir Lee Stack, who held the office of Sirdar of the Egyptian Army and was also the Governor-General of the Sudan, was murdered by some Egyptians. Naturally this gave a shock to the British people in Egypt and in England; perhaps it gave an even greater shock to the leaders of the Egyptian nationalist party, the Wafd, for they knew that it would mean an attack on them. This attack came swiftly enough. Within three days, on November 22, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Lord Allenby, presented an ultimatum to the Egyptian Government, making the following immediate demands:

  An apology.

  The punishment of the criminals.

  Prohibition of all political demonstrations.

  Payment of an indemnity of £500,000.

  Withdrawal within twenty-four hours of all Egyptian troops from the Sudan.

  The removal of the limitations that had, in the interest of Egypt, been placed on the area to be irrigated in the Sudan.

  Withdrawal of all further opposition to the assumption by the British Government of the right to protect all foreigners in Egypt. This specially referred to the retention of British authority in the departments of Finance, Justice and Interior.

  Those seven demands are worthy of some attention. Because some people had murdered Sir Lee Stack, the British Government immediately, and without even the possibility of an inquiry, treated the Egyptian Government as a whole, that is the Egyptian people, as if they had been guilty of the murder. Further, they made a handsome financial profit out of the whole affair, and, most significant of all, made it the occasion to settle forcibly all the matters in dispute between themselves and the Egyptian Government, over which the negotiations had broken down in London only a few months before. As if this were not enough, they added that all political demonstrations should be prohibited, thus preventing even the normal public life of the country from continuing.

  Now, all this was rather an extraordinary development out of the murder, and it required a vigorous and fertile imagination to make a murder yield so much profit to the British. What makes it still more curious was that the two chief officials (nominally under the Egyptian Government) who might have been considered especially responsible for the prevention of crime and outrage, the Chief of Police of Cairo and the Director-General of the European Department of Public Safety, were both Englishmen. No one considered them responsible for the murder. But the poor Egyptian Government, which had immediately after the murder expressed its deep sorrow and regret, was made to feel the heavy, but coldly calculated and profitable, anger of the British Government.

  The Egyptian Government humbled itself to the dust. Zaghlul Pasha agreed to nearly all the conditions of the ultimatum, and even paid up the indemnity of £500,000 within twenty-four hours. Only about the Sudan the Egyptian Government said it could not waive its rights. Even this humility and apology were not enough for Lord Allenby and, because the Sudan conditions had not been accepted, he took forcible possession, on behalf of the British, of the customs house at Alexandria, thereby controlling the customs revenue. Further, in spite of Egyptian protests, he enforced these conditions in the Sudan and made the Sudan a British colony. There were revolts of the Egyptian troops in the Sudan, but they were suppressed with extreme severity.

  Zaghlul Pasha and his Government had immediately resigned as a protest against the British action and, also in that very month of November 1924, King Fuad dissolved Parliament. So the British had succeeded in driving out Zaghlul and his Wafd party from office and in putting an end to Parliament for the time being at least. They had also annexed the Sudan, and were thus in an easy position to strangle Egypt’s throat by controlling the waters of the Nile in the Sudan.

  The unhappy Egyptian Parliament had appealed to the League of Nations against “the exploitation of a tragic incident for imperialist purposes”, but the League is blind and deaf to complaints against the great Powers.

  From this time onwards there was a continuous struggle in Egypt, a tussle between the Wafd party, practically representing the whole nation, on the one side, and a combination of King Fuad and the British High Commissioner, backed by the other foreign interests and the hangers-on of the Court, on the other. Most of the time the country was ruled, in defiance of the constitution, by dictatorships, King Fu
ad acting as an autocratic monarch. Whenever Parliament was allowed to meet it demonstrated that nearly the whole country stood behind the Wafd party, and so it was dissolved. Fuad could not possibly act in this way if he did not have the backing of the British and the army and police under their control. Egypt, the “independent”, is treated more or less like an Indian State, with the British Resident, the real authority, pulling the strings.

  Parliament had been dissolved in November 1924. In March 1925 the new Parliament met. This had a big Wafd majority, and it immediately elected Zaghlul Pasha the president of the Chamber of Deputies. Neither the English nor King Fuad approved of this, and so on that very day, this brand-new, one-day-old Parliament was dissolved! For a whole year after this there was no Parliament, in spite of the constitution, and Fuad governed as a dictator, the real power behind him being the British Commissioner. The whole country resented this, and Saad Zaghlul succeeded in uniting all groups to oppose the combination of King Fuad and the English. In November 1925 there was even a meeting of the members of Parliament in defiance of the Government prohibition. The Parliament House itself was occupied by troops. So the members met elsewhere.