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BRITISH FRIENDS
OF INDIA
The mutual impact of
Britain and India is a subject of absorbing interest. Some studies
have been made of its varied aspects – art, literature, philosophy,
religion, science and education. No attempt has, however, been made
to evaluate the contribution made by the liberal English statesman –
A.O. Hume, W.S.Blunt, Henry Cotton, Henry Yule, Charles Bradlaugh,
Wedderburn, H. M. Hyndman, John Bright, H. J. Laski, C. F. Andrews
and many others – to India’s struggle for freedom. Indian scholars
have written excellent biographies of Indian leaders – Gokhale,
Tilak, Gandhi, Jawaharlal, Dadabhai Naoroji, Badruddin Tyabji and
others. No Indian scholar has, however, yet attempted the task of
writing the biographies of A. O. Hume, Charles Bradlaugh and others.
The history of India’s struggle for freedom cannot be studied in its
true perspective if this important aspect of the nationalist
struggle is neglected. It is, therefore, only fair that the services
rendered to India by these liberal Englishmen should be properly
evaluate. It may, however, be mentioned that none of these English
statesmen ever visualized a completely independent India having full
sovereign rights. Even the most ardent advocates of the freedom of
this country – Henry Cotton, W. S. Blunt, Mrs. Annie Besant and
Charles Bradlaugh – thought only of self-Government or Home Rule for
India. It will be too much to expect that they should have agitated
for complete independence to India especially when our own leaders
such as Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), Surendranath Banerjee
(1848-1925), W. C. Bonnerjee (1844-1906) and Pherozeshah Mehta
(1845-1915) desired for their country only the status of a
self-governing country.
This paper is a broad
survey of the role played by some of the important liberal English
statesmen in our freedom struggle.
John Britain
Throughout the 19th
century, a number of noble Englishmen, inspired by the liberal and
democratic spirit of England, advocated courageously the cause of
India. Their “passionate eloquence” while pleading for justice and
fair play to the Indians and focusing attention on their grievances
made a profound impression upon the people of India. Since the time
of Edmund Burke scarcely a voice had been heard in England in favour
of the voiceless millions of India until John Britain sounded his
warning note against the injustices systematically being done to the
people of India. From 1847 to 1880 “he worked for India as none had
worked before him”. In the other famous debate on Sir Charles Wood’s
India Bill of 1853, Bright drew the attention of the House to the
“solemn and sacred trust” of the administration of India and held
that there was no settled policy with regard to India. He referred
to the abject poverty of the Indian people, the total neglect of the
Government to the employment of Indians in offices of trust and
responsibility and the unjust taxes. So great was his genuine
sympathy for India that, when on a certain occasion, a responsible
member in the House of Commons made unparliamentary observations
regarding the people of India. Bright indignantly observed: “I would
not permit any man in my presence without rebuke to indulge in the
calumnies and expression of contempt which I have recently heard
poured fourth without measure upon the whole population of India”.
In one of his last great speeches which he made in the House of
Commons on India, he pleaded for “mercy and justice” to the great
Indian people. “It is not possible”, he said, “to touch a chord in
the hearts of Englishmen to raise them to a sense of the miseries
inflicted on that unhappy country by the crimes and blunders of our
rulers here? If you have steeled your hearts against the natives, if
nothing can stir you to sympathy with their miseries, at least have
pity upon your own countrymen”. Two years before the establishment
of the Indian National Congress he was able to formulate plans for
the formation of an informal Indian Committee of the Members of the
British Parliament. About 50 MPs had agreed to serve on this
Committee which after a short interval was revived in 1889.
Henry Fawcett
Next to John Bright,
“Henry Fawcett was one of the greatest and truest friends of India
in England”. After he became a Member of Parliament in 1865, his
whole attention was directed to the welfare of the people of India.
His unremitting attention to the Indian affairs earned for him the
sobriquet of “Member for India”. Fawcett always maintained
that”natives of India should be given a fair share in the
administration of their country” and that the abler among them
should be provided with honourable careers in the public services.
In fact, he moved a resolution in the House of Commons in 1868 for
holding the Civil Service examinations simultaneously in India and
London. Many years later, Herbert Paul was able to get through
precisely the same resolution Fawcett fought for India’s cause
single-handed with a resoluteness of purpose, a sense of justice and
with such a mastery over facts that it won the admiration of even
his critics. In 1872, a huge public meeting was held in Calcutta to
express India’s deep gratitude to him. When he was defeated at the
General Elections in 1874, a subscription was raised in India and a
sum of $750 in two installments was remitted to England to enable
him to contest another seat at the earliest opportunity. Soon after
this Fawcett was returned to Parliament as a Member for Hackney.
Charles Bradlaugh
In addition to Bright
and Fawcett, mention should also be made among these early pioneers
to the services of Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891), who supported the
Ilbert Bill, for and advocated the cause of India though out his
life. He was a member of Parliamentary Reforms League in 1866 and
was elected Member of Parliament in 1880. He was a great sympathizer
of the Congress and, in fact, drafted a bill on the reform of the
legislative council in India. He visited India and attended the
session of the Indian National Congress in 1890. Pherozeshah Mehta,
Chairman of the Reception Committee welcomed Charles Bradlaugh for
on him had descended the mantle of John bright and Prof. Fawcett. In
his reply to the address of welcome, Bradlaugh said in his
characteristic style, “For whom should I work, if not for the
people? Born of the people, trusted by the people, I will die for
the people. And I know no geographical or race limitations.” It was
at this session that he was requested to draft a skeleton scheme for
the enlargement of the council and he extension of its functions and
introduce it in the House of Commons. This Bill, however, was
dropped after the first meeting in 1890. He introduced another Bill
in the House of Commons. It was, perhaps because of Bradlaugh’s
initiative that Lord Cross, the Secretary of State for India,
introduced a Government measure in the Parliament which was
ultimately passed as the Indian Council’s Act of 1892. Bradlaugh’s
death in January, 1891 was regarded as a terrible loss in India for
during the last three years of his life he had been really a
spokesman of the Indian National Congress in the British Parliament.
Mrs. Annie Besant refers to his services in her autobiography: “His
services to India in the latest years of his life were no suddenly
accepted tasks. He had spoken for her; pleaded for her, for many a
long year, through press and on platform and his spurs as member for
India were won long ere he was Member of Parliament.”
Mrs. Annie Besant
Particular mention may
be made of the services rendered by Mrs. Annie Besant to India’s
struggle for freedom. She was an “extraordinary English woman who
having passed through different phases of her life and undergone
persecutions of no ordinary character”, had at last made India her
home and special interest. She was a dynamic force in Indian
politics and rendered valuable services to the cause of national
regeneration in India both from political and cultural points of
view. She worked with zeal and energy to make the idea of home Rule
popular in a large part of India. She was the first President of the
Indian National Congress who showed by action that the Presidency
“was not a passing show or a three day festivity” but involved
shouldering of responsibility throughout its succeeding year. She
made a significant contribution to the growth of Indian nationalism
by ardent advocacy of the ancient Indian culture.
Allan Octavian Hume
The contribution of
Allan Octavian Hume (1829-1912) is too well-known to need any
detailed reference. On retiring from Civil Service, he refused the
post of Lieutenant Governorship and devoted himself to the founding
of the Indian National Congress which “would form the germ of a
native Parliament if properly conducted, will constitute in a few
years an unanswerable reply to the assertion that India is still
wholly unfit for any form of representative institutions.” He was
the founder of the Indian National Congress and Gokhale rightly said
in 1913: “No Indian could have started the Indian National Congress.
Apart from the fact the anyone putting his hand to such a gigantic
task had need to have Mr. Hume’s commanding personality, even if any
Indian has possessed such a personality and had come forward to
start such a movement embracing all India, the officials would not
have allowed it to come into existence. If the founder of the
Congress had not been a great Englishmen, and a distinquished
ex-official sich was the distruct of political agitation in those
days that the authorities would have at once found some way or the
orher of suppressing the movement.” With zeal and devotion Hume
worked ceaselessly till the end of his life to keep alive th great
organization he had founded. His soul-inspiring letter to the
graduates of the Calcutta University (March 1, 1883) inviting them
to come forward and dedicate themselves to the service of the
country will ever remain a monument to his organizing ability and
deep sympathy. “If you, the picked men, the most highly educated of
the nation, cannot, scorning personal ease and selfish objects, make
a resolute struggle to secure greater freedom for yourselves and
your country, a more impartial administration, a larger share in the
management of your own affairs, then we, your friends, are wrong and
our adversaries right: then are Lord Ripon’s nobel aspirations for
your good fruitless and visionary; then, at present at any rate all
hopes of progress are at an end, and India truly neither lacks nor
deserves any better Government than she now enjoys.” He reminded
them that “whether in the case of individuals or nations,
self-sacrifice and unselfishness are the only unfailing guides to
freedom and happiness.” He was in despair when the Government
refused to heed to their friendly demands and instead resorted to
suppressing the movement (1888-1894). “It will now be for us”, he
declared,” to instruct the nations, the great English nation in its
island home and the far greater nation of this vast continent; so
that every Indian that breathes upon the sacred soil of this, our
motherland, may become our comrade and co-adjutor, our supporter and
if needs be, our soldier in the great war that we, like Cobden and
his noble band, will wage for justice for our liberties and rights.”
It was mainly because of his efforts that the Indian National
Congress survived in the earlier days in spite of all the repressive
measures adopted by the Government.
William Wedderburn
Sir William Wedderburn
(1838-1918) was closely associated with Hume in the great task of
strengthening the Congress Organization. Hume and Wedderburn often
had to spend money from their own pockets in order to carry on the
Congress propaganda in England. It was William Wedderburn who was
able, with the help of other supporters of the Congress, in getting
through a resolution in the House of Commons for holding
simultaneously Civil Service examinations in England and India. It
encouraged Wedderburn and he invited some of the leading independent
members of the House of Commons to a dinner in order to discuss the
formation of an Indian Parliamentary Committee “for the purpose of
promoting combined and well-directed action among those particularly
interested in Indian affairs.” He was elected President of the
Indian National Congress in 1889 and 1910. In 1903, when there was
demoralization among the Indian people, due to the repressive
measures of Lord Curzon, William Wedderburn took the initiative and
published a series of articles entitled,”A Call to Arms.” These
articles were meant to encourage the supporters and friends of the
Congress. He advised his friends not to give up the struggle but to
close their ranks and wait for the change of the ministry in England
which was soon expected. “With a fresh Parliament and a awakened
national consciousness, the cause of India would have a just
hearing. “For seven years since his return to the House of Commons
in 1893 he was a spokesman of the Congress in the British
Parliament. There was hardly any important Indian question on which
he did not speak. Though his success in the Parliament was far from
encouraging, Wedderburn remained undaunted. Hamilton’s letter shows
how greatly the Secretary of State for India was annoyed at the
criticism of the Government’s policy by these friends of India.” He
was so bitter that he declined to meet Wedderburn when the latter
expressed a desire to see him with a view to clearing up
misunderstandings. Hamilton use to call him and his friends
contemptuously as “Wedderburn and Company.” The Indian National
Congress paid a handsome tribute to Hume and Wedderburn at its
session held in 1908 under the chairmanship of Rash Behari Ghosh.
The Resolution which was moved by Gokhale said: “As the Reforms
announced by Morley were a partial frustration of the efforts made
by the Congress during the last 23 years, they must be a source of
great satisfaction to Hume, the Father and Founder of the Congress,
William Wedderburn has laboured for the Indian cause during the last
20 years and along with other members of the British Committee
deserves the thanks of the Congress on this happy occasion.”
Sir Henry Cotton
Sir Henry Cotton:
(1845-1915) and William Digby (1849-1904) were also ardent
supporters of India’s cause. Sir Henry Cotton wrote his book “New
India” or “India in Transition” while he was in Civil Service in
1885. in this book he strongly stressed the need for a change in
policy and called upon Englishmen to prepare themselves for “the
exercise of higher function than those of mere administration”. Sir
Henry Cotton was also the Chairman of the Indian Parliamentary
Committee (1905) which had about 200 MPs as its members. The
resignation of Sir Bompfylde Fuller, Lt. Governor of the newly
created province of Assam and Eastern Bengal (1905-06) was in no
small measure due to the agitation carried out by Sir Henry Cotton
Again, in the controversy regarding the singing of the Vande Matram,
he took an active part and wrote an article in the Daily News with
so English translation of the poem and tried to prove that it did
not contain anything seditious. It was under his Presidentship in
1904 that the Congress resolved that at least two persons should be
sent to the House of Commons from India; both the Supreme and
Legislative Councils should be enlarged and given a non-official
majority, Cotton strongly disapproved Sir Ramsey Macdonald’s grant
of separate electorates to please the minorities in India. He called
it trickery and divide et impera.
William Digby
William Digby
(1849-1904) was a journalist and Editor of The Madras Times.
He also became Editor of India (1890-92). He was a strong supporter
of the Indian National Congress and kept the British electorate
informed of the Indian grievances-economic, administrative and
personal. His book-Prosperous British India – Revelation-
tried to prove that as India was under foreign domination, her
wealth was being drained every year and that was a grave injustice.
C. F. Andrews
Rev. Charles Freer
Andrews (1871-1940) a great friend of Gandhiji devoted his life to
the service of the Congress. He was perhaps the first Britisher who
held the British Government in India responsible for the Jallianwala
Bagh tragedy and described the O’Dyer’s act as “a cold and
calculated massacre.” He contributed articles frequently to the
Manchester Guardian. The Natal Advertiser and The Toronto
Star regarding India’s struggle for freedom. He, however,
refused to join the Khilafat Agitation on the ground that to agree
to it was to agree to the Ottoman Empire and to agree to any kind of
Empire was to “cut the ground under the Indian demand for
independence”.
Keir Hardie
Keir Hardie (1856-1915)
and Eardley Norton also deserve mention. The former was the Chairman
of the Independent Labour Party and a Member of Parliament. He
visited India in 1907 to see for himself the extent of the agitation
being carried out for the annulment of the partition of Bengal. His
analysis was that “the partition was the root cause of all mischief
and that official repression had increased the unrest.” The official
opposition to swedeshi and patronage of Muslims was,
according to Hardie, the main cause of the agitation.
Eardley Norton
Eardley Norton of the
Madras Bar was an enthusiastic supporter of the Congress. In fact,
he was dubbed by his countrymen as a veiled seditionist for his
participation in the Congress, to which he replied:
“If it be sedition,
gentlemen, to rebel against all wrong, if it be sedition to insist
that the people should have a fair share in the administration of
their own country and affairs, if it be sedition to resist class
tyranny, to raise my voice against oppression, to mutiny against
injustice, to insist upon a hearing before sentence, to uphold the
liberties of the individual, to vindicate our common right to
gradual but ever advancing reform – if this be sedition. I am right
glad to be called a seditionist; and doubly, aye trebly, glad when I
look around me today to know and feel I am ranked as one among such
a magnificent array of seditionists.”
H. M. Hyndman
H. M. Hyndman, Editor
of the Justice took an active interest in the Indian affairs
and supported the Indian National movement. A man of wide and deep
reading, wielding most ably a singularly fascinating pen, he devoted
himself to India’s cause. Love for the people and sympathy for the
downtrodden remained the motto of his life. He wrote articles
entitled “Modern Pirates and their victims” criticizing the British
Government for their repressive policy in India. He published a book
The Truth about India in 1921 in which he condemned the
Muslim demand for separate representation. He alleged that the Simla
Deputation had been officially engineered. He severely criticized
the British Government for the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy in 1919.
Wedgewood Benn
Wedgewood Benn was
another statesman who took a sympathetic interest in Indian affairs.
As secretary of State in the Labour Government, he has tried to
impress upon the Viceroy the necessity of reconciliation with the
Congress. The die-hard British bureaucrats, however, foiled all his
efforts. He supported the Congress demand for a Constituent Assembly
in 1939 which was not acceptable to the Muslim League.
Josiah Wedgewood
Josiah Wedgewood
(1872-1943), Labour M. P. criticized Ramsay Mecdonald’s introduction
of separate electorates in India. The Hindu-Muslim communal riots
from 1921-1926, which resulted in much bloodshed were regarded by
Col. Wedgewood as “cutting of wisdom teeth.” About the Simon
Commission he wrote to Lala Lajpat Rai describing the official
policy as ‘deadly and stupid.’ He hoped that the Commission would be
boycotted and expressed pleasure at this prospect. He said: “There
is no need to stand in the witness box and be cross-examined by
persons of no great importance who had not shown any interest in
your views and feelings.”
W. S. Blunt
Wilfred Scawen Blunt
(1840-1922) took deep interest in Indian affairs and wrote three
works in India, viz. Ideas about India; India under Ripon;
and My Diaries. He visited India twice in 1879 and again
1883. “A man of wealth of connections, a minor poet, a
horse-breeder, a passionate orientalist and an anti-imperialist, he
was indeed a remarkable man.” His visit to India convinced him that
the Indians were capable of governing themselves far better than the
British. One of the chief defects of the British Indian
Administration was in Blunt’s view the growth of race prejudices.
“The ill feeling now existing in India”, he wrote “if it be not
allayed by a more generous treatment will in a few years make
continued connection between England and India altogether
impossible.” He declared; “The huge mammal, India’s symbol, is a
docile beast and may be ridden by a child. He is sensible, temperate
and easily attached But ill, treatment he will not bear for ever and
when he is angered in earnest, his vast bulk alone makes him
dangerous and puts it beyond the strength of the strongest to guide
him or control him.“ He criticized Syed Ahmad, the Aligarh leader
for his hostility to the Congress and his advice to the Muslims was
that “the policy of abstention recommended in opposition of my
advice by late Syed Ahmad of Aligarh and so long followed, should
cease. Much ground has been lost, I fear, by this long period of
inaction but it is a ground that can be recovered and I trust now to
see the Mohammedan body taking its full-shae in the movement for
self-government.” It will be interesting to note that when Madan Lal
Dhingra shot dad Sir Wyllie Curzon in London in 1909, Blunt defended
this young man whom he called a Mazzini. He admired his courage and
signed for 500 equally fearless men who could achieve freedom for
India. He was greateful to the authorities for having chosen his own
birthday, August 17 for Dhingra’s execution. After Dingra was
hanged, Blunt praised his great fortitude and severely criticized
the British public for its besotted refusal to acknowledge his
greatness and warned that “the day of reckoning was not far off”.
When he died on September 12, 1922, the Manchester Guardian
praised his campaign against the British Empire and wrote, “at most
periods in history, there have been English men who have been ready
to defend unpopular causes; Blunt belonged to that noble line and
added honour to its fine records.”
Harold Laski
The National Movement
in India found its most ardent supporters in the Labour Party. The
great thinker and philosopher Harold Laski (1893-1950) was an ardent
friend of India. He was the member and Chairman of the Labour Party
Executive Committee and author of many books. He criticized the
Simon Commission Report as it did not include proposals for
establishing India as a self-governing Unit in the Comonwealth of a
permanent basis. Laski asked for a fixed date about three years
after the end of the war for giving India Dominion Status and
declared that the Indians would work out their Constitution within
this period. He was sure that Jinnah and his friends would come to
terms with the Congress. He was always sympathetic to the Congress
cause and when the Round Table Conference failed in 1931 he put the
blame for the failure on the communal Muslims. He cursed religion as
a social disease and blamed Ramsay MacDonald’s weakness, vanity and
indecisivencess for not compelling an agreement.
Ramsay MacDonald
The role played by Sir
Ramsay Macdonald (1886-1927) in India’s struggle for freedom is
still to be analysed. He was Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1924
and again from 1929-35 and Leader of the Labour Party from
1911-1914. Such was his popularity in India in the earlier stages of
his career that he was invited to preside over the 1911 Session of
the Indian National Congress but was uable to do so on account of
his wife’s death. He was foremost among those who condemned the
Partition of Bengal. Later on he declared that the British
Government was prepared to recognize the all important principle of
executive responsibility to the legislature, except for certain
safeguards, notably Defence, External Affairs, the maintenance of
tranquility in the realm and the guarantee of financial stability.
He was, however, responsible for the introduction of separate
electorates; Gandhiji undertook a fast unto death in disapproval of
separate electorates given by Mac-Donald’s ‘Communal Award’ to the
depressed classes. MacDonald however, lamented that the “hope of
united India, an India conscious of a unity of purpose and destiny
seems to be the vainest of the vain dreams”. He played a notable
part in the appointment of the Simon Commission. It was measures
like these that prompted Stanley Baldwin to congratulate him for his
adoption of Conservatism. Winston Churchill tauntingly promised him
“his cordial cooperation in the Government’s self-imposed task of
carrying out the conservative policy of making the world wiser if
not safer for capitalism”. Lloyd George called the MacDonald “the
last of the conservatives”. Even Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was convinced
that the British Labour Government under MacDonald would not be of
any special benefit to the Indian National Movement.
H. N. Brailsford
H. N. Brailsford, a
labour journalist and an M. P. was another important supporter of
the Indian National Movement. He wrote frequently about Indian
affairs and “condemned partition of Bengal as an autocratic act and
clumsy one.” He was against the creation of Pakistan which he
thought was “wicked and a crime against civilization.” In 1936 he
favoured the handing over of all powers to the Congress who would
then win support of the Muslims by offering the presidency of the
Constituent Assembly to “the ageing and ambitious Jinnab.” The
creation of Pakistan was to him a “reactionary step implying a
reversion to some medieval conception of theocracy.”
Among those who helped
to further the Indian cause the names of Fenner Brockway, John
Bracket, Sir Henry Polik, Reginald Sorenson, and Miss Madeleina
Slade popularly known as Mira Behn may also be mentioned. This list
is however far from complete and many names will have to be added
when an exhaustive work is undertaken on this important project.
- Dr. P. N. Chopra
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