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The issues that mattered most were
those that concerned the economy. Those who had the welfare of
India at heart were extremely uncomfortable with the manner in
which "the second Afghan War was embarked upon, for the
benefit of England but at the cost of the Indian taxpayer".
In the first
session of the Congress, a motion proposed by Sir Pherozeshah
Mehta protesting against the annexation of Upper Burma was
adopted. In the motion it was urged that, "if it must be
annexed, Burma should be treated as Crown colony and should not
be made a burden on Indian revenues." The author points out
that "history records that after the Indian taxpayer paid
the cost of three Burmese wars and finance the government of
Burma during its many years of deficit that country was
separated from India without any adequate financial
reparation." It would also surprise many to read that khaddar
as a mark of political protest was first used by Vishwanath
Narayan Mandlik when import duty on Lancashire textile was
abolished in the name of free trade.
Ironically,
public-spirited people were soon to be cast aside by the tidal
wave of aggressive Indian natinalism. Even more ironical is the
fact that this breed of politicians was to be cast in the
nomenclature of Liberals, which for all intents and purposes
stood for conservatism in politics. This phase of Indian
politics needs to be analysed. Herein lies the inability of our
polity to help two powerful and influential schools of political
thought to evolve.
A careful perusal
of the period shows that we were unable to address the role of
religion in public life. The religious fundamentalism that we
face today is but the unfinished business of the past though the
pen sketches of important leaders of different eras are
excellent, one suspects that while portraying Mahatma Gandhi,
the author has not been able to forget that he was responsible
for casting aside the liberals.
It is not without
significance that even T.N. Chaturvedi, presently a BJP
parliamentarian, in his introduction has noted that the author
questioned the ability of Mahatma Gandhi as a politician.
Surely, the success of the Mahatma as a politician cannot be
judged by his inability to attain Swaraj within twelve
months, as was his expressed intent. The Mahatma’s success
also does not depend upon the inability of the liberals to
comprehend the power of "non-violent, non-cooperation"
as a tool of attaining freedom and dispelling fear from the
heart of even the humblest Indian.
Different chapters
also contain notes and comments on the newspapers of the time.
The one on Tribune makes for interesting reading:
"When Sir Dennis Fitz Patrick was Lieutenant-Governor of
the Punjab, The Tribune was almost a power in the
province; so much so, that the local (Lahore) Anglo-Indian
paper, the Civil and Military Gazette once inquired
whether the province was being governed by Sir Dennis or by The
Tribune."
Finally, one
wishes that the publishers had retained the original spellings
and not Americanised them.
— H.S.
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FIRST
a word about the author of the book, Indian Politics Since
the Mutiny. C.Y. Chintamani, became an editor at the age
of 18, a legislator at 36 and a minister at 41. While
continuing to wield his pen like a sword, he dominated Indian
journalism in the first three decades of the 20th century. His
dominance and influence in public life is all the more
remarkable when we consider that at a very young age he
crossed the Godawari to make Allahabad his karamakshetra.
The present book is the result of a series of lectures
delivered by the author in Andhra University in 1935. The
seven-hour lecture traced the development of public life and
political ideas and institutions of India from 1858 to 1935,
and sketches and comments upon the polity, politicians and
newspapers of the times.
