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Valentine Chirol - Indian Unrest

V >> Valentine Chirol >> Indian Unrest




Such was the position when, on June 24, 1908, Tilak was arrested in
Bombay on charges connected with the publication in the _Kesari_ of
articles containing inflammatory comments on the Muzafferpur outrage, in
which Mrs. and Miss Kennedy had been killed by a bomb--the first of a
long list of similar outrages in Bengal. Not in the moment of first
excitement, but weeks afterwards, the _Kesari_ had commented on this
crime in terms which the Parsee Judge, Mr. Justice Davar, described in
his summing up as follows:--"They are seething with sedition; they
preach violence; they speak of murders with approval; and the cowardly
and atrocious act of committing murders with bombs not only meets with
your approval, but you hail the advent of the bomb into India as if
something had come to India for its good." The bomb was extolled in
these articles as "a kind of witchcraft, a charm, an amulet," and the
_Kesari_ delighted in showing that neither the "supervision of the
police" nor "swarms of detectives" could stop "these simple playful
sports of science," Whilst professing to deprecate such methods, it
threw the responsibility upon Government, which allowed "keen
disappointment to overtake thousands of intelligent persons who have
been awakened to the necessity of securing the rights of _Swaraj_."
Tilak spoke four whole days in his own defence--21-1/2 hours
altogether--but the jury returned a verdict of "Guilty," and he was
sentenced to six years' transportation, afterwards commuted on account
of his age and health to simple imprisonment at Mandalay.

The prosecution of a man of Tilak's popularity and influence at a time
when neither the Imperial Government nor the Government of India had
realized the full danger of the situation was undoubtedly a grave
measure of which a weaker Government than that of Bombay under Sir
George Clarke might well have shirked the responsibility. There were
serious riots after the trial. From the moment of his arrest Tilak's
followers had put it about amongst the mill-hands that he was in prison
because he was their friend and had sought to obtain better pay for
them. Some of his supporters are said to have declared during the trial
that there would be a day's bloodshed for every year to which he might
be sentenced by the Court, and, as a matter of fact, he was sentenced to
six years' imprisonment and the riots lasted six days. The rioting
assumed at times a very threatening character. The European police
frequently had to use their revolvers, and the troops had several times
to fire in self-defence. But rigorous orders had been issued by the
authorities to avoid as far as possible the shedding of blood, and both
the police and the military forces exercised such steady self-restraint
that casualties were relatively few, and the violence of the mob never
vented itself upon the European population of the city. The gravity of
the disturbances, however, showed the extent and the lawless character
of the influence which Tilak had already acquired over the lower classes
in Bombay, and not merely over the turbulent mill-hands. In the heart of
the city many Hindu shops were closed "out of sympathy with Tilak," and
the most violent rioting on one day occurred amongst the Bhattias and
Banias employed in the cloth market, who had hitherto been regarded as
very orderly and rather timid folk. The trouble in Bombay was certainly
not a sudden and spontaneous outburst of popular feeling. It bore
throughout the impress of careful and deliberate organization. By a
happy combination of sympathy and firmness Sir George Clarke had,
however, won the respect of the vast majority of the community, and
though he failed to secure the active support which he might have
expected from the "moderates," there were few of them who did not
secretly approve and even welcome his action. Its effects were great and
enduring, for Tilak's conviction was a heavy blow--perhaps the heaviest
which has been dealt--to the forces of unrest, at least in the Deccan;
and some months later one of the organs of his party, the _Rashtramat_,
reviewing the occurrences of the year, was fain to admit that "the
sudden removal of Mr. Tilak's towering personality threw the whole
province into dismay and unnerved the other leaders."

The agitation in the Deccan did not die out with Tilak's disappearance,
for he left his stamp upon a new generation, which he had educated and
trained. More than a year after Tilak had been removed to Mandalay, his
doctrines bore fruit in the murder of Mr. Jackson, the Collector of
Nasik--a murder which, in the whole lamentable record of political
crimes in India, stands out in many ways pre-eminently infamous and
significant. The chief executive officer of a large district, "Pundit"
Jackson, as he was familiarly called, was above all a scholar, devoted
to Indian studies, and his sympathy with all forms of Indian thought was
as genuine as his acquaintance with them was profound. His affection for
the natives was such as, perhaps, to blind him to their faults, and like
the earliest victims of the Indian Mutiny he entertained to the very
last an almost childlike confidence in the loyalty of the whole people.
Only a few days before his death he expressed his conviction that
disaffection had died out in Nasik, and that he could go anywhere, and
at any hour without the slightest risk of danger. That he was very
generally respected and even beloved by many there can be no doubt, and
there is no reason to question the sincerity of the regrets which found
expression on the announcement of his impending transfer to Bombay in a
series of farewell entertainments, both public and private, by the
inhabitants of the city. Only two days before the fatal 21st of
December, an ode in Marathi addressed to him at a reception organized by
the Municipal Council dwelt specially upon his gentleness of soul and
kindliness of manner.

Yet this was the man whom the fanatical champions of Indian Nationalism
in the Deccan singled out for assassination as a protest against British
tyranny. The trial of the actual murderer and of those who aided and
abetted him abundantly demonstrated the cold-blooded premeditation which
characterized this crime. Numerous consultations had taken place ever
since the previous September between the murderer and his accomplices as
to the manner and time of the deed. It was repeatedly postponed because
the accomplices who belonged to Nasik were afraid of rendering active
assistance which might compromise them, though they were ready enough to
arm the hand of the wretched youth from Aurungabad who had volunteered
to strike the blow. Ready as he was to kill any Englishman, he himself
had some misgivings as to the expediency of selecting a victim whose
personal qualities were so universally recognized, and these misgivings
were only allayed by the assurance that all that was mere hypocrisy on
poor Jackson's part. It was the news of Jackson's approaching departure
for Bombay that finally precipitated the catastrophe. The murderer
practised carefully with the pistol given to him and other precautions
were taken so that, even if the first attempt was foiled, Jackson should
not escape alive from the theatre--the native theatre which he had been
asked to honour with his attendance. So the young Chitpavan Brahman,
Ananta Luxman Kanhere, waylaid the Englishman as he was entering, shot
him first in the back, and then emptied the contents of his revolver
upon him, as he turned round. Mr. Jackson fell dead in front of the
friends who were accompanying him, two young English ladies and a young
civilian of his staff, who had only joined a month before from England
and faced without flinching this gruesome initiation into the service.
It all happened in a moment, and the native Deputy Collector, Mr.
Palshikar, who leapt forward to Mr. Jackson's assistance, was only able
to strike down the murderer and tear from him the second weapon with
which he was armed. Thanks also to Mr. Palshikar's presence of mind,
information was at once sent to the railway station, and the escape of
some of the accomplices prevented, whose confessions materially helped
in promoting the ends of justice.

But besides the facts which were brought out in evidence during the
trial at Bombay, there are some features connected with the crime to
which attention may be usefully directed, as they lie outside the
province of the Law Courts. In the first place, it must be noted that
not only the murderer but the majority of those implicated in the crime
were Chitpavan Brahmans, and at the same time they were the strange
products both of the Western education which we have imported into India
and of the religious revivalism which underlies the present political
agitation. They were certainly moral, if not physical, degenerates, and
most of them notoriously depraved, none bearing in this respect a worse
character than the actual murderer. I happened, when at Nasik, to see
the latter whilst he was performing his ablutions in front of the
Government building in which he was confined. Four policemen were in
charge of him, but he seemed absolutely unconcerned, and after having
washed himself leisurely, proceeded to discharges his devotions, looking
around all the while with a certain self-satisfied composure, before
returning to his cell. His appearance was puny, undergrown, and
effeminate, and his small, narrow, and elongated head markedly
prognathous, but he exercised over some of his companions a passionate,
if unnatural, fascination which, I have been told by one who was present
at the trial, betrayed itself shamelessly in their attitude and the
glances they exchanged with him during the proceedings. Distorted pride
of race and of caste combined with neuroticism and eroticism appear to
have co-operated here in producing as complete a type of moral
perversion as the records of criminal pathology can well show.

What are the secret forces by which these wretched puppets were set in
motion? Their activity was certainly not spontaneous. Who was it that
pulled the strings? There is reason to believe that the revolver with
which the murder was committed was one of a batch sent out by the Indian
ringleaders, who until the murder of Sir W. Curzon-Wyllie, had their
headquarters at the famous "India House," in Highgate, of which Swami
Krishnavarma was originally one of the moving spirits. Upon this and
other cognate points the trial of Vinayak Savarkar, formerly the London
correspondent of one of Tilak's organs and a familiar of the "India
House," and of some twenty-five other Hindus on various charges of
conspiracy which is now proceeding in the High Court of Bombay, may be
expected to throw some very instructive light.

The atmosphere of Nasik was no doubt exceptionally favourable for such
morbid growths. For Nasik is no ordinary provincial town of India. It is
one of the great strongholds of Hinduism. Its population is only about
25,000, but of these about 9,000 belong to the Brahmanical caste, though
only about 1,000 are Chitpavan Brahmans, the rest being mainly Deshastha
Brahmans, another great sept of the Deccanee sacerdotal caste. It is a
city of peculiar sanctity with the Hindus. The sacred Godavery--so
sacred that it is called there the _Ganga_--i.e. the Ganges--flows
through it, and its bathing _ghats_ which line the river banks and its
ancient temples and innumerable shrines attract a constant flow of
pilgrims from all parts of India. Indeed, many of the great Hindu
houses of India maintain there a family priest to look after their
spiritual interests. Nasik was, moreover, a city beloved of the Peshwas,
and, next to Poona preserves, perhaps, more intimate associations with
the great days of the Mahratta Empire than any other city of the Deccan.
But though no doubt these facts might account for a certain latent
bitterness against the alien rulers who dashed the cup of victory away
from the lips of the Mahrattas, just as the latter were establishing
their ascendency on the crumbling ruins of the Moghul Empire, they do
not suffice to account for the attitude of the people generally in
presence of such a crime as the assassination of Mr. Jackson. For if
murder is a heinous crime by whomsoever it may be committed, it ranks
amongst Hindus as specially heinous when committed by a Brahman. How is
it that in this instance, instead of outcasting the murderer, many
Brahmans continued more or less secretly to glorify his crime as "the
striking down of the flag from the fort"? How is it that, when there was
ample evidence to show that murder had been in the air of Nasik for
several months before the perpetration of the deed, not a single
warning, not a single hint, ever reached Mr. Jackson, except from the
police, whose advice, unfortunately, his blindly trustful nature led him
to ignore to the very end? How is it that, even after its perpetration,
though there was much genuine sympathy with the victim and many eloquent
speeches were delivered to express righteous abhorrence of the crime, no
practical help was afforded to the authorities in pursuing the
ramifications of the conspiracy which had "brought disgrace on the holy
city of Nasik"?

All this opens up wide fields for speculation, but there is one point
which a statement solemnly made by the murderer of Mr. Jackson has
placed beyond the uncertainties of speculation. In reply to the
magistrate who asked him why he committed the murder, Kanhere said:--

I read of many instances of oppression in the _Kesari_, the
_Rashtramat_ and the _Kal_ and other newspapers. I think
that by killing _sahibs_ [Englishmen] we people can get justice.
I never got injustice myself nor did any one I know. I now
regret killing Mr. Jackson. I killed a good man causelessly.

Can anything be much more eloquent and convincing than the terrible
pathos of this confession?[6] The three papers named by Kanhere were
Tilak's organs. It was no personal experience or knowledge of his own
that had driven Kanhere to his frenzied deed, but the slow persistent
poison dropped into his ear by the Tilak Press. Though it was Kanhere's
hand that struck down "a good man causelessly," was not Tilak rather
than Kanhere the real author of the murder? It was merely the story of
the Poona murders of 1897 over again.

Other incidents besides the Nasik tragedy have occurred since Tilak's
conviction to show how dangerous was the spirit which his doctrines had
aroused. One of the, gravest, symptomatically, was the happily
unsuccessful attempt to throw a bomb at the Viceroy and Lady Minto
whilst they were driving through the streets of Ahmedabad during their
visit to the Bombay Presidency last November. For that outrage
constituted an ominous breach of all the old Hindu traditions which
invest the personal representative of the Sovereign with a special
sanctity.

But in spite of spasmodic outbreaks, of which we may not yet have seen
the end, aggressive disloyalty in the Deccan has been at least
temporarily set back since the downfall of Tilak. The firmer attitude
adopted by the Government of India and such repressive measures as the
Press Act, combined with judicious reforms, have done much; but it was
by the prosecution of Tilak that the forces of militant unrest lost
their ablest and boldest leader--perhaps the only one who might have
concentrated their direction, not only in the Deccan, but in the whole
of India, in his own hands and given to the movement, with all its
varied and often conflicting tendencies, an organization and unity which
it still happily seems to lack.




CHAPTER V.

POONA AND KOLHAPUR.


It is not, after all, in British India (i.e., in that part of India
which we directly administer) that the Brahmanical and reactionary
character of Indian unrest, at any rate in the Deccan, can best be
studied. There it can always be disguised under the "patriotic" aspects
of a revolt against alien rule. To appreciate its real tendencies we
must go to a Native State of the Deccan about 100 miles south of Poona.
Kolhapur is the most important of the Native States under the charge of
the Bombay Government, and its ruler is the only ruling Mahratta chief
who can claim direct descent from the great Shivaji, the
"Shivaji-Maharaj" whose cult Tilak made one of the central features of
his political propaganda. He is the "Chhatrapati Maharajah," and is
acknowledged to be as such the head of the Mahratta Princes of India.
One would have thought that such a lineage would have sufficed in itself
to invest the Maharajah of Kolhapur with a certain measure of sanctity
in the eyes of Tilak and his followers. Far from it. His Highness is an
enlightened ruler and a man of great simplicity of character. He takes a
keen interest in the administration of his State, and has undertaken, at
no small cost to his Exchequer, one of the most important irrigation
works yet attempted in any Native State. But he committed what Tilak
and his friends regarded as two unforgivable offences: he fought against
the intolerance of the Brahmans and he is a faithful friend end ally of
the British _Raj_. Hence they set in motion against him, the descendant
of Shivaji, in his own State, exactly the same machinery of agitation
and conspiracy which they have set in motion against British rule in
British India.

It is a curious and most instructive story. There had been long
minorities in Kolhapur, and, especially during the more or less nominal
reign of the present Maharajah's predecessor, Shivaji IV., who
ultimately went mad, the Prime Minister, a Chitpavan Brahman of
Ratnagiri, acquired almost supreme power in the State, and filled every
important post with his fellow caste men, of whom he introduced more
than a hundred into the public service. Under Chitpavan rule the
interests of the people of the soil were systematically neglected in
Kolhapur, as they had been throughout the Deccan in the later days of
the Chitpavan theocracy at Poona, and privileges and possessions were
showered upon members of the favoured caste. On his accession in 1894
the present Maharajah appointed as his Prime Minister, with a view to
very necessary reforms in the administration, a Kayastha Prabhu, Rao
Bahadur Sabnis, who, though a high-caste Hindu, was not a Brahman. There
has long been great rivalry between the Brahmans and the Prabhus, who
belong mostly to the moderate progressive school of Hinduism. The
appointment of Mr. Sabnis, besides portending unpalatable reforms, was
therefore in itself very unwelcome to the Kolhapur Brahmans, amongst
whom one of the most influential, Mr. B.N. Joshi, the Chief Judge, was a
personal friend of Tilak. Consternation increased when the young
Maharajah announced his intention of promoting to positions of trust
such non-Brahmans as should be found capable of filling them and
actually started educating non-Brahmans for the purpose. In order to put
pressure upon their ruler, the Brahmans had recourse to one of the most
powerful weapons with which the semi-religious, semi-social structure of
Hinduism has armed them. They questioned his caste and refused to recite
at certain religious ceremonies in his family the Vedic hymns, to which
as a Kshatriya (i.e., as a member of the "twice-born" caste ranking
next to the Brahmans) his Highness claimed to be traditionally entitled.
The stalwart Brahmans of the Deccan allege, it seems, that in this _Kali
Yuga_, or Age of Darkness, there can be no Kshatriyas, since there is no
room or a warrior caste in the orthodox sense under an alien rule, and
that therefore the Hindus who are neither Brahmans nor pariahs can at
best be Shudras--a "clean" caste, but not even entitled to wear the
"sacred thread" reserved for the highest castes.

The Maharajah remained firm, for this insult, though aimed chiefly at
him, affected equally all high-caste Mahrattas who were not Brahmans. To
their credit be it said, several of the more progressive Brahmans,
braving the pressure of their fellow caste-men at Poona and in Kolhapur
itself, stood by his Highness. The dispute was aggravated when the
Rajpadhya--the family priest of the Kolhapur ruling family--himself
refused the Vedic ritual to his Highness, even when two Judges, both
Brahmans, who were appointed to form with him a committee of three to
decide the issue, pronounced in favour of the Maharajah's claim. His
Highness then took the case to the Sankeshwar Shankaracharya, the
highest religious authority with jurisdiction in such matters. But the
feud only grew the more bitter, as, owing to the death of the incumbent
of that high office, rival candidatures were put forward to the
succession by the Maharajah's supporters on the one hand and by Tilak
and his friends on the other. To the present day the feud continues, and
the present Shankaracharya is not recognized by the Poona school of
Brahmans. Nor is he likely to be, as he has had the unique courage
publicly to condemn as a Brahman the murder of Mr. Jackson by Brahmans.

I have already remarked with reference to the Nasik tragedy that, if
murder is a heinous crime by whomsoever committed, it ranks amongst
Hindus as specially heinous when committed by a Brahman; and I have
asked several Brahmans how it is that instead of outcasting the murderer
many Brahmans continue more or less secretly to glorify his crime. Some
have admitted that there is a strong case for the public excommunication
of Brahmans guilty of political murder, some have regretted that no such
action has ever been taken by the caste authorities, some have argued
that caste organization has been so loosened that any collective action
would be impracticable. Only in Kolhapur has a Brahman, qualified to
speak with the highest religious authority in the name of Hindu sacred
law, been found to have in this respect the courage of his convictions.
This Brahman was no less a personage than the Shankaracharya of the
Karveer Petha, who took the very noteworthy step of issuing a
proclamation solemnly reprobating the murder committed by a Brahman "in
the holy city of Nasik" as "a stain on the Brahmanical religion of mercy
emphatically preached by Manu and other law-givers." After paying a warm
tribute to Mr. Jackson's personal qualities and great learning, and
quoting sacred texts to show that "such a murder is to be condemned the
more when a Brahman commits it," and renders the murderer liable to the
most awful penalties in the next world, the proclamation proceeded to
declare that "his Holiness is pleased to excommunicate the wicked
persons who have committed the present offence, and who shall commit
similar offences against the State, and none of the disciples of this
Petha shall have any dealings with such sinful men."

Amongst the majority of Brahmans in Kolhapur and elsewhere this
proclamation, I fear, found no echo, for their hostility towards their
own Maharajah had often assumed or encouraged criminal forms of
violence. It had certainly not remained confined to the spiritual
domain, and it became absolutely savage when, in 1902, his Highness
declared that he would reserve at least half the posts in the State for
qualified men of the non-Brahman communities. Under the constant
inspiration of Poona, the Tilak Press waged relentless war against his
Highness, preaching disaffection towards his Government, just as it
preached disaffection towards the British _Raj_; and the agitation in
Kolhapur itself was reinforced by the advent of a large number of Poona
Brahmans who, in consequence of a recrudescence of plague, fled from
that city to the Maharajah's capital. They flung themselves eagerly into
the fray, and had the audacity even to start a mock "Parliament." But
the Maharajah was determined to be master in his own State, and in Mr.
Sabnis he had found a Prime Minister who loyally and courageously
carried out his policy for the improvement of the administration and the
spread of education amongst the non-Brahman castes. The Maharajah
realizes that Brahman ascendency cannot be broken down permanently
unless the non-Brahman castes are adequately equipped to compete with
them in the public services. Amongst these there is plenty of loyalty to
the ruling chief, for his Mahratta subjects have not wholly forgotten
the tyranny of Chitpavan Brahman rule either under Shivaji IV.'s Prime
Minister or in the less recent times of the Poona Peshwas. One of the
most interesting institutions in Kolhapur is a hostel specially endowed
for non-Brahman, Mahratta, Mahomedan, and Jain youths who are following
the courses of the Rajaram College. The control of education plays in
Kolhapur as conspicuous a part as at Poona in the struggle between the
forces of order and disorder, and it is amongst the Kolhapur youth that
the latter have made their most strenuous exertions and with the same
lawless results.

The first organization started at Kolhapur in imitation of Poona was a
Shivaji club, with which were associated bands of gymnasts, Ganpati
choirs, an anti-cow-killing society, &c., all on the lines of those
founded by Tilak. It was suppressed in 1900 as several of its members
had been implicated in the disturbances at Bir, where a young "patriot"
had proclaimed himself Rajah and collected a sufficient number of armed
followers to require a military force to suppress the rebellion. The
disturbances at Bir were, in fact, the starting point of that new form
of political propagandism which takes the shape of dacoities or armed
robberies for the benefit of the "patriotic" war-chest. After the
suppression of the Kolhapur Shivaji Club, many of its leading members
disappeared for a time, but only to carry on their operations in other
parts of India, where they entered into relations with secret societies
of a similar type. Three years later the club had been practically
revived under the new name of "Belapur Swami Club," so called in honour
of the late Swami of Belapur, to whose wooden slippers the members of
the club were in the habit of doing worship, whilst his shrine was used
as a sanctuary for sedition-mongers and a store-house for illicit
weapons. "Political" dacoities were soon in vogue again, and in 1905
there was an epidemic of house-breaking in and around Kolhapur, which
enriched the club with several thousands of rupees and a few arms. Seven
members were finally arrested and some made full confessions. All of
these except one were Brahmans and mostly quite well connected. But even
those who were convicted got off with light sentences, and the campaign,
which clearly had powerful aiders and abettors both inside Kolhapur and
outside, was only temporarily checked.

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