E. A. HORNE DESCRIBES PRESENT SITUATION IN INDIA

As a result of a report last night that a revolt has broken out in the state of Tonk, India, Professor E. A. Horne stated in a special interview to a CRIMSON reporter, that except for the fact that it showed the unrest which is prevalent throughout India it was of small consequence, since Tonk is a native state in whose internal affairs the British Government of India takes no hand. If the revolt gets beyond the control of the native authorities, however, the government will intervene. Nevertheless, the entire country is in a state in which a serious revolution may break out at any time.

Professor Horne left last fall from Patna, India, where he was Professor of Economics and Government in Patna University, to become a professor in the University. He is giving History 50, a half-course, on the History and Government of India.

"The British Government is experimenting with a system of government controlled largely by Indians in a final attempt to quiet the discontent which had arisen with British rule, while the Extremist Party is working more strenuously than ever before to stir up the people to a revolution which will wipe out British rule entirely. The outcome is in the balance, and both sides are striving to make it tip their way."

"The great reason for the importance of the present situation in India," said Professor Horne, "arises from the fact that the British Government is trying out a system of government there radically different from that which existed before 1920. This system has given over to the direct representatives of the people control of Education, Public Health, Excise, and Public Improvements, with a view to granting them more power as their capabilities increase, until finally India shall be a self-governing dominion like Canada."

Extremists Wish Free India

But it is in the very excellence of this new system of government that danger lies. There is a small but powerful party of Extremists who control the National Congress, the great political organization of India and whose purpose is an India not only freed entirely of English rule but purged of every trace of European civilization. This party realizes that if the people became contented with the present representative government, its chance for driving the English from India will be lost. Therefore the greater the prospect of success shown by the new system, the more desperate become the attempts to overthrow it. Satisfied people will not revolt, and the Extremist party wants a Revolution, although it has neither plans nor ideas as to what would follow were the revolution successful. When asked whether a revolution could succeed, Professor Horne said: "It most certainly could not. A revolt in India would be immediately put down by force, but it would be a severe check to the country's development and would set back the time for Indian self-government by many years."

Want a De-Westernized India

The Extremist party is composed of various elements all striving to gain their ends through an overthrow of British rule in India. One of the most influential of these is the Pan-Islam faction--Mohammedans, who, seeing in the break-up of the Turkish Empire the destruction of the center of their religion, are making India their last stand for a great Mohammedan country. With these are Socialists, Adventurers, men who want an independent India, and men who want a de-Westernized India. Gandhi, the leader of the Extremists, and the man who has the greatest influence over the masses, belongs primarily to the last group. He is a brilliant man, an idealist and an ascetic, who has given up everything for his cause, and in this light his words and his ideas carry great weight with the restless, uneducated class. His hatred of everything European leads him to advocate not only the defeat of British rule but the doing away with railways, mills. Western education and the use of a European language in India.

The methods used by the Extremist party to stir up discontent have so far been combaited successfully, but they grow more far-reaching and insidious as the people accept their new system of government. A boycott of the representative councils was the first of their attempts to create trouble. The Extremists tried to prevent the formation of the councils by deceiving or terrorizing both the voters and the nominees. "In my own province of Patna," said Professor Horne, "it was extremely hard to get the men to register because they feared they were subjecting themselves to a greater taxation." Nevertheless, the elections took place and the councils were formed.

The Extremists then turned to a different form of attack. The new councils had been given charge of education, therefore the Extremists planned a boycott of the schools receiving government aid, which includes practically all the schools in India. They turned their attention especially to two of the largest Indian centers of education, the Mohammedan college of Aligarh and the Hindu University at Benares. A good many men were actually persuaded to leave the former and a smaller number to resign the latter, and to attend an institution set up by the Extremists called the National University. But the results of the boycott went no further, and they failed in their second attempt.

Now, the Extremists, twice beaten and suffering the loss of many former adherents who have become disgusted with the methods employed, have been forced to use the most dangerous weapon in their power. They threaten to set on foot throughout India a movement advising the people not to pay taxes. As taxation has always been the particularly sore point with the large, ignorant class of India, this idea holds a strong appeal. If this threat is carried out and is successful, the outcome will be certain and fatal. The British Government in India will not trifle with disobedience.

Yet this new type of government with all its attendant perils was the only apparent way of escape from the impasse in which India has found herself for the past eleven years. The last series of reforms, proposed by Lord Morely in 1909, had given to India representative legislative bodies responsible to the people, and executive bodies responsible to the British Parliament. Whenever possible the executive bodies tried to carry out the wishes of the legislators, but if the latter's ideas were opposed to what the executives believed right, they were over-ruled.

India Loyal in World War

Under this government India was filled with a growing unrest. When the war broke out and India, contrary to the expectation of Germany, remained loyal, when self-determination was held out to the Arab States, and when Egypt had a prospect of independence, the Indian began to demand that his system of government be radically changed. Recognizing the seriousness of the situation the British government sent Lord Montagu to India in 1918 to study the country and return a report to Parliament advising what course to pursue. In June, 1918, Lord Montagu presented his report, which ranks with Lord-Durham's famous report on Canada, and which has led to the adoption of the present diarchial form of government in India. This report, however, was not enough to convince many Englishmen of the necessity for a change until the condition of the country was brought home to them with unpleasant force by the outbreaks in the Punjab in 1919.

Now the British government has taken a definite step towards making India a self-governing dominion. But although this step has won over to the side of British rule many of those Indians who were formerly opposed to it, it has caused those that remain to fight more violently. There have been reports of various agrarian disturbances in the last three months that show clearly the Extremist hand behind them. There is also in India the general unrest due to the War, that exists all over the world, the cost of living is very high, and strikes are frequent. Conditions are right for the people to nurse the ideas of race-hatred and revolt that the Extremists are spreading broadcast. If the cloud passes over, India will be well on her way to prosperous, peaceful, self-government: if the storm breaks it will shatter England's plans and put the idea of an India under her own government out of mind as impossible for many decades to come.