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State authorities that should be tried for the sorrow
and misery that they have brought on their people.

The governments of the major States have been
apt pupils in some ways of British Imperialism.
Among other things they have learnt the art of utilis-
ing communal differences to check popular move-
ments. In Travancore a powerful people's move-
ment is opposed and sought to be discredited on the
plea that it is a communal movement, consisting
mainly of Christians; in Kashmir the popular move-
ment is called communal because it is largely Muslim
in composition; in Hyderabad it is said to be communal
because it is predominantly Hindu. The demands
put forward on behalf of these several movements
might be, as they indeed are, wholly national with no
communal tinge or bias in them, but some excuse has
to be found to discredit' and oppose them and the
plea of communalism is a useful one.

Hyderabad and Kashmir are the two premier
States in India and we might have hoped that they
would set an example to the other States by introduc-
ing free institutions and responsible government.
Unhappily both are exceedingly backward politically
and socially. Hyderabad is a predominantly Hindu
State with a Muslim tilling class; Kashmir is predomi-
nantly a Muslim State with a Hindu ruling class.
Both thus present the same type of problem, and both
have the same background of extreme poverty among
the masses, illiteracy, industrial backwardness and
undeveloped resources. In painful contrast with
this general poverty and wretchedness, the Rulers
of both are probably the two richest individuals in
India. Kashmir is slightly more advanced politically
as it has a kind of legislative assembly, but this has
little power, and the ordinances that obtain there are
monstrous in their severity. In Hyderabad we have