India And Britain A Moral Challenge Author:C F Andrews INDIA AND BRITAIN A MORAL CHALLENGE BY C F. ANDREWS Author of What I Owe to Christ, Sadbu Stmdar Sfngb etc, STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT PRESS 58 BLOOMSBURY STREET, LONDON, W. C1 First Publisked October f jj Print in Grri Britain TO THE NEW GENERATION OF MEN AND WOMEN IN INDIA AND BRITAIN To govern a country under responsibility to the people of t... more »hat country, and to govern one country under responsibility to the people of another, are two very different tilings. What makes the excellence of the first, is that freedom is preferable to despotism JOHN STUART MILL Representative Government chap, xviii PREFACE AT last, after many wanderings by sea and land, I have reached an Indian home where I can finish this book in peace, amidst the beauty of the Simla Hills. It is ideal for such a purpose, because my host and hostess are Indian Christians, who love their own country and love England also, where they spent their early days. They have thus been able to criticise and appreciate what I have written, not only from the Indian standpoint, but also from that of Great Britain. Other friends in Simla have done me a similar service. We have failed we of the older generation, who led Europe into the abyss in 1914, and have been laboriously building a house on the sands of suspicion ever since. Though we have not yet realised the fact, our greatest failure since the War has been in India. For in spite of long continued effort, worthy of sincere regard, we have neither given nor found peace. Our minds have remained nerve-racked by what has been happening in Europe, and we have not been able to give our undivided attention to Asia. Let no one, therefore, carry away the thought that the Constitution now offered to India will INDIA AND BKITAIN suffice, and that our debts are paid. The cyclic struggle is not yet over it has only just begun. A deadlock has been reached, and we have to seek its moral causes together with the will power needed to remove it. In crucial times like these the appeal must be made to a new generation to those men and women who have witnessed the effects of the world-cataclysm of 1914-18, but have not been shell-shocked by it. For this reason I have dedicated my book to them. C F. ANDREWS MANORVILLE, SIMLA, W. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ....... 7 CHAPTER I. THE ARGUMENT OF FORCE . . . n II. TAGORES APPEAL . . . . . 25 HI. THE BRITISH POINT OF VIEW ... 40 IV. THE MORAL EVIL OF SUBJECTION . . 56 V. ANGLO-INDIA 69 VI. THE LIBERAL PRINCIPLE .... 80 VII. IMPERIALISM 92 VH1. THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE . . . 106 IX. THE COLOUR BAR 121 X. INDIAN POVERTY 131 XI. THE PRICE OF FOREIGN RULE . . .146 XII. THE CULTURAL GAIN AND Loss . . 159 XHI. THE WAY TO PEACE .... 172 XIV. A GLEAM OF HOPE 177 NOTES A. ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THANKS . 182 B, BENGAL IN 1769 . . . .182 C WARREN HASTINGS ON THE GITA . 184 D. LIONEL CURTIS ON FOREIGN RULE . 184 E. THE SAHIB ATTITUDE . . 185 F. CHRISTMAS DAY . . .186 G. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . .188 INDEX 189 CHAPTER I THE ARGUMENT OF FORCE I HAD gone up to Oxford in order to speak on India at the Union Club in some College rooms at Balliol. The Society had been formed by undergraduates with the object of uniting East and West in friendship by frank mutual intercourse. Generous freedom of speech had been the keynote of the whole evenings dis cussion. My host took me back to his own rooms, and after a further talk round the fireside, I went to rest. But not to sleep. The evening had been far too exciting for me to forget it easily, and the discussion went on repeating itself in my brain during the long hours of the night. In the end, it suggested to me the form which this book might take, and I determined to pursue it. We should all talk freely, in its pages, and put our own case forward in the way that appealed to us most. None should be offended, even if bitter words were uttered. For we should honestly set out to face the truth, wherever it might lead us...« less