THE RUIN THAT BRITAIN WROUGHT
K. M. M U N S H I
THE RUIN
THAT BRITAIN WROUGHT
PUBLISHED FOB
BHARATIYA VIDYA BHAVAN
BY
PADMA PUBLICATIONS LTD
BOMBAY
Rs. 2/8/-
CONTENTS
I. INDIA HUNGERS FOR SWARAJ .. 1
After a Century and Half .. 2
Industries Destroyed .. .. 3
Spoils of the Plunder .. ., 4
II. ROBBED OF COMMERCE, TRADE AND
SHIPPING 6
Building Britain on India’s Grave .. 7
Trade Mow Reserved .. .. 8
India’s Shipping Eliminated .. 10
The "Divine” Dispensation .. .. 12
HI. FROM PLENTY TO POVERTY UNPARAL¬
LELED .. .. .. 15
Contrasts in Incomes .. 16
Manipulation of Exchange .. 17
IV. IMPERIALIST WARS AT INDIA’S EX¬
PENSE 19
Armed forces for Britain’s Benefit .. 20
In the name of Defence .. .. 21
Oppressive Taxation .. .. 22
The Military: White Elephant .. 23
The Sterling Balances .. .. 25
V. THE DEATH GRIP OF INFLATION .. 27
Increasing Indebtedness .. .. 30
Soaring Prices .. 31
Black Markets .. .. .. 32
Currency Jugglery .. 33
VI. THE POVERTY WHICH BRITAIN
WROGHT 35
Everything except self-Rule .. 40
TIL AGRICULTURE IN RUINS .. .. 42
Declining Acreage .. 42
Village Economy Undermined ., 45
Decreasing Fertility .. .. 46
Diminishing Food Supply .. .. 49
The Bengal Famine .. .. 50
vii
VIII. DEPLETION OF VITAL NECESSITIES .. 51
Decline in Food Production .. 51
Arrested Developments .. .. 53
Inadequate and Ill-balanced Diet .. 55
Worse Than Convicts .. .. 57
IX. THE POPULATION MYTH .. .. 59
Over-burdened land .. .. 61
U.S.S.R. with self-Rule .. .. 63
India kept 150 years behind .. 64
Shortages all round .. .. 64
Half Naked India .. .. 65
X. RACE DETERIORATION .. .. 68
Death Rate .. .. .. 68
Infant Mortality .. .. 69
Maternal Mortality .. .. 70
In Tippu’s Times .. .. 71
Preventible Diseases .. .. 72
XI, THE DESCENT OF DARKNESS .. 76
No money for Education .. .. 78
Education in Russia .. .. 81
Hunger and Why .. 83
I
INDIA HUNGERS FOR SWARAJ
There is a hunger for Swaraj. That hunger
growing, growing till the stage where satisfaetic
cannot be denied.
This hunger is not a matter of sentiment, not ev<
the handiwork of, what at one time were dubbed, pesi
lential agitators. It is the work of the British. Th<
came to this land a hundred and seventy-five years ag
They mastered it, controlled it, dealt with it—for the
own good. They destroyed its industry, drained aw;
its resources, kept it under-developed, under-nourishe
backward—in their own interests. In the trial
Warren Hastings, Sheridan thus charged his peopl
“If my Lords, a stranger had at this time e:
tered the province of Oude, ignorant of what he
happened since the death of Sujah Dowlah—th
prince who with a savage heart and still gre;
lines of character, and who, with all his ferocii
in war, had, with a cultivating hand, preserved ■
his country the wealth which it derived from b
nignant skies and a prolific soil—if, observing tl
wide and general devastation of fields unclothe
and brown; of vegetation burned up and extii
guished; of villages depopulated and in ruin; <
temples unroofed and perishing; of reservoi;
broken down and dry, this stranger should as
“What has thus laid waste this beautiful and opi
lent land; what monstrous madness has ravage
1
with widespread war; what desolating foreign foe,
what civil discords; what disputed succession;
what religious zeal; what fabled monster has
stalked abroad, and, with malice and mortal en¬
mity to man, withered by the grasp of death every
growth of nature and humanity, all means of de¬
light, and each original, simple principle of bare
existence?” the answer would have been, “Not
one of those causes! No wars have ravaged these
lands and depopulated these villages! No desolat¬
ing foreign foe! No domestic broils! No disputed
succession! No religious, superserviceable zeal! No
poisonous monster! No affliction of Providence,
which, while it scourged us, cut off the sources
of resuscitation! No! This damp of death is the
mere effusion of British amity! We sink under the
pressure of their support! We writhe under their
perfidious grip! They have embraced us with their
protecting arms, and lo! these are the fruits of
their alliance?”
AFTER A CENTURY AND HALF
Today, after a century and a half of British rule,
we are poor, underfed, illiterate, backward in all res¬
pects where Government help was necessary,
thwarted in all matters where no such help was need¬
ed. This is neither mere logic, nor rhetoric; it is the
testimony of facts mostly found by Britishers.
All this deterioration, all the humiliation and
wretchedness through which we have been dragged,
has been the result of British trusteeship. I write in
no spirit of bitterness. I believe in Indo-British friend¬
ship as partners. I have never been happy when an
opportunity of cementing such a friendship has been
2
missed. I am putting forward these facts at this mo
ment to say how genuine is our hunger for Swaraj
No British bureaucrat who had the destiny of thi:
country in his hands and betrayed it need bewail like
the Governor-designate of Madras that his services—
or misservices—have not evoked gratitude.
The universal desire which has taken possessior
of the Indian mind to get rid of British Rule in Indie
is neither a sentimental urge nor a mere political am
bition; even if it were such, it would not be wrong
Indians are convinced that British Rule has been any¬
thing but pleasant. It would not be out of place tc
recapitulate the factual basis of this ardent desire
this hunger for Independence. These facts thougl
marshalled against British rule are of immense value
to any National Government to find what progress has
to be achieved in order to make good the all round
deficit which we are facing today as compared to other
advanced nations of the world.
INDUSTRIES DESTROYED
Industrially, India, as a land of cottage-industries,
was highly advanced in the pre-British period. Delhi
produced cotton cloth. Lahore produced fine white
cloth, coloured silk, embrodiery, carpets, woollen
goods, tents, saddles, swords, boots; Agra, cotton and
silk fabrics, lace gold and silver embroideries; Patna,
silk and cotton goods, shields, swords, artistic pottery,
salt petre; Benares, muslins, silk stuffs, embroideries,
belts, turbans; Srinagar, shawls, carpets, beds, trays,
boxes and woodenware; Dacca, finest and richest mus¬
lins and silks; Ahmedabad produced gold and silver
cloth, silks, gold and silver work and jewellery; ac¬
cording to De Lacet it was 'almost as large as London.’
Many other cities like Samana, Khairabad, Burhan-
pur, Rajmahal, Multan, Masulipatam, were noted for
their handicrafts.
“The fact is there is probably no great people in
the entire world among whom the practical things of
life, that is, the practical activities, occupations and
industries which accompany civilisation, have been
more fully developed than among the people of India
for two or three hundred years, upto the time of the
coming of the British..This is shown by the fact
that their wealth was so great. It was their wealth
that attracted the British. This wealth was created by
their best and varied industries.”
SPOILS OF THE PLUNDER
The epoch between 1600 and 1800, according to Ra-
dha Kamal Mukerjee, represented at once the golden
age of Indian trade and industry and the beginning of
her economic downfall that was as sudden as it was
complete and unprecedented. No wonder between the
battle of Plassey in 1757 and the Battle of Waterloo
in 1815 about 1000 million pounds were transferred
from Indian hoards to English banks. “Possibly since
the world began no investment has ever yielded the
profit of the spoils of Indian plunder, because for
nearly fifty years Great Britain stood without a com¬
petitor.” The historian H. H. Wilson in 1813 observed
to the same effect. “British goods were forced upon her
(India) without paying any duty and the manufac¬
turer employed the arm of political injustice to keep
down and ultimately strangle a competitor with whom
he could not have competed on equal terms.”
After the Battle of Plassey “the shower of wealth
fell copiously on the company and its servants. A sum
4
of 800 thousand pounds sterling, in coined silver, was
sent down to Fort William. Trade revival and the
signs of affluence appeared in every English house.”
Capital accumulation and Industrial Revolution in
England followed capital depletion and industrial de¬
volution in India. As Brook Adams rightly remarks
“In themselves inventions are passive, many of the
most important having lain dormant for centuries
waiting for a sufficient store of force to have accumu¬
lated to set them working... .Before the influx of the
Indian treasure and the expansion of credit which
followed, no force sufficient for this existed and had
Watt lived fifty years earlier, he and his invention
must have perished together.” In 1841 Labouchere,
British Chancellor of the Exchequer, stated “The Bri¬
tish have utterly destroyed the manufactures of India
by their manufactures. The district of Dacca, the
Manchester of India, has dwindled into insignificance.”
And with the aid of this loot, Britain vanquished
Napoleon and built her political supremacy in the
world.
II
ROBBED OF COMMERCE, TRADE
AND SHIPPING
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Bri¬
tt has robbed us of our commerce.
In pre-British times, on Travernier’s testimony,
dia’s exports fell into five categories, silks, cloth,
ttons, spices, drugs. Manufactures formed a large
oportion of exports. Under British rule, no doubt
e volume of trade has increased considerably, mainly
cause of the development of world trade in general,
it the character of Indian export and import trade
s fundamentally altered. 77 per cent of the imports
1909-14 were manufactured articles; it was over 68
r cent in the quinquennium preceding the present
ir.
Many contemporary authorities testify to Indian
dustrial and commercial products of the 17th and
th centuries. Some two hundred distinct items of
3th goods are mentioned as export specialities. Even
tout 1750, the East India Co., engaged the work of
r er 40,000 looms (about 50,000 weavers) in the South,
le total number of weavers in South India was over
tlf a million and in Bengal, a million. Philip Ander-
n said “The manufactures of England could not
mpete with those of India.”
6
BUILDING BRITAIN ON INDIA’S GRAVE
Britain unable to compete envied our manufac¬
tures. Milburn thus accounts for the English Prohi¬
bition and Sumptuary Laws of 1700-1730: “The upe of
printed Indian cloth and calicoes both in apparel and
household furniture was at this time so universal as
to be a great detriment and obstruction to the woollen
and silk manufactures of the kingdom. This had oc¬
casioned several riots and tumults of the weavers in
London. It was therefore found necessary to re¬
dress the grievance wherein so many were interested.
An Act of Parliament was in consequence passed to
preserve and encourage the woollen and silk manu¬
factures. It absolutely prohibited the wear of
Indian cloth under the penalty of £5 for each offence
on the wearer and £20 on the seller.” Britain now
need not get shocked if India, denied of Government
help, imposes a voluntary boycott to save her own
trade.
The total annual export of Indian handloom pro¬
ducts from Bengal alone was heavy. Holland took
6,000 to 7,000 bales of silk annually; the merchants
of Tartary took another 7,000 bales (each bale of 1,400
sq. yards). This was what Travemier estimated.
Moreland estimated the total yearly exports of Indian
handloom prodlucts by sea in the 17th ceintury at
about 60 milli on sq. yards, of which 32 million sq.
yards went to Europe.
In 1779 the import duties were raised in England
to £67-10-0 per cent on plain white calicoes. Prof.
H. H. Wilson writes: “It was stated in evidence in 1813
that the cotton and silk goods of India upto this pe¬
riod could be sold in the British market at a price from
50 to 60 per cent lower than those fabricated in Eng-
7
land.” Then Manchester came to be built on the grave
of India’s commerce. The author adds: “Had this not
been the case, had not such prohibitory duties and
decrees existed, the mills of Paesley and Manchester
would have stopped in their outset and could hardly
have been again set in motion, even by the power of
steam. They were created by the sacrifice of Indian
manufactures.
TRADE FLOW REVERSED
But Britain became the master of India and soon
destroyed her export trade. The Select Committee of
the House of Lords stated in 1831: “The chief manu¬
factures of India having been supplanted to a great
extent by the manufactures of England, not only the
market of this country but in that of India itself, it
has become an object of the deepest concern to im¬
prove the production of the soil.”
By 1846 the tables were completely turned. India
did not export any cotton goods at all, but had to
import from England 214 million yards of cloth as
compared with 5 million in 1835 and 8 lakhs yards in
1814.
In 1938-39 our export trade was 45 per cent raw
materials; 23 per cent foodstuffs, and 30 per cent semi¬
manufactured and manufactured articles. Import
trade in the same year had grown to about 70 per cent
manufactures, mostly finished consumption goods.
India has had to maintain a continual favourable
balance of trade by exporting raw materials to meet
the invisible items of imports, home charges, debt,
services, and payments, etc. Our exports being
mostly raw materials and other primary products,
balances of trade have been invariably against us.
8
Foreign Trade of India— Value in lakhs of Rupees
(Quinquennial averages)
Period.
Imports.
Exports.
Balance.
1864-65 to 68-69
3170
5586
2416
1869-70 to 73-74
3304
5625
2321
1874-75 to 78-79
3836
6032
2196
1879-80 to 83-84
5016
7908
2892
1884-85 to 88-89
6151
8864
2713
1889-90 to 93-94
'7078
10453
3386
1899-1900 to 1903-04
8468
12492
4024
1904-05 to 1908-09
11985
16544
4559
1909-10 to 1913-14
15125
22583
6658
1919-20 to 1923-24
26705
30638
3933
1924-25 to 28-29
25102
35351
10249
1929-30 to 1933-34
16114
19860
3746
1934-35 to 1938-39
14636
17645
3009
1939-40
16895
2X308
4413
1940-41
15700
19900
4200
1941-42
17300
25300
8000
1942-43
11000
19400
8400
These balances are not real, but fictitious. They
do not show the real gain to India. This apparent gain
is set off against the home charges, or, in ordinary
language, forced tribute paid by slave India to her
political master, Britain. The exports are not volun¬
tary, or arising out of real surplus, but an exaction
which has to be paid even by denying to ourselves
the necessities of life.
These figures representing balance of trade only
represent the export and import of commodities as
found in the records of the customs department. To
strike a real balance, invisible exports and imports
must also be taken into account. Pre-war Britain
would appear to be the poorest country in the world
because its custom house figures invariably indicated
an unfavourable balance. She was rich because of
her invisible income arising out of banking, shipping,
9
insurance and dividends earned on investments ab¬
road as also the savings of Britishers serving abroad.
In the pre-British period, India derived income
from all these invisible sources. Britain has seen
to it that all these sources are eliminated for all
practical purposes.
INDIA’S SHIPPING ELIMINATED
Indian shipping was a great factor in the world
till the British came and destroyed it.
In 1420, Nicole Conti described with admiration the
Indian skill in ship-building. “The natives of India
build some ships larger than ours, capable of contain¬
ing 2000 butts. Some ships are so built in compart¬
ments that should one part be shattered, the other
portion remaining, the same may accomplish the
voyage.”
A letter dated 16th December, 1670 from the fac¬
tory at Balsore to the Court of Directors in London
runs: “Many English merchants and others have their
ships and vessels yearly built_Very expert master-
builders there are several here. They build very well
and launch with as much discretion as I have seen
in. any part of the world.” Their skill was an example
for others to emulate. Even as late as in 1802, ships
and warships were built for England in India. England
borrowed plans and designs from Indian builders.
The vessel from Gogha, the Reheni, captured by
the Portuguese had a tonnage of 1,500 tons. In 1612,
Sir H. Middleton saw at Surat a ship that was 153 ft.
long, 42 feet broad, 31 feet deep and carried a burden
of 1,500 tons. And even so late as the beginning of
19th century 300-400 tons was considered the standard
for a fair-sized sea-going ship in England.
10
In the size of ships and in number also we excelled.
Lord Wellesley wrote: “The port of Calcutta con¬
tains about 10,000 tons of shipping built in India. From
the quantity of tonnage now at command, from the
state of perfection which the art of ship-building has
already attained in Bengal (promising a still more
rapid progress) it is certain that this port will always
be able to furnish the tonnage to whatever extent
may be required for conveying to the Port of London
the trade of the Private British merchants of Bengal.”
“Ships built at Bombay were executed one-fourth
cheaper than in the docks of England.” From a “Re¬
gister of ships built on the Hugli from 1781-1839” it
appears that the total number of ships built was 376.
The best building years during the period were 1801,
1813, 1876, when 10,079, 10,376 and 8,198 tons respect¬
ively were launched.
The British borrowed Indian models. In 1811, a
Frenchman, F. Baltazar Salvyus, in his Les Hindous,
testified, “In ancient times the Indians excelled in the
art of constructing vessels. . . . (They) can still offer
models to Europe so much so that the English, atten¬
tive to everything which relates to naval architecture
have borrowed many improvements from them which
they have adopted with success to their own shipping.
The Indian vessels unite elegance and utility and
are models of patience and fine workmanship.”
During the 18th century, India built up and main¬
tained considerable trade with the Near East, Persian
Gulf Region, Java, Sumatra, West and East Africa, etc.
Dr. Taylor says: “The arrival in the port of Lon¬
don of Indian produce in Indian built ships created
a sensation among the monopolists which could not
be exceeded if a hostile fleet had appeared in the
11
Thames. Ship-builders in the Port of London took the
lead in raising the cry of alarm. They declared that
their business was in danger and that the families
of all the shipwrights in England were certain to be
reduced to starvation.”
As a result, the British Parliament started a war
on Indian shipping and enacted in 1814 that no ship,
even British, could enter London which had not
aboard, three-fourths of its crew of British mariners.
“Thus.” says Radha Kamal Mukerjee, “has passed
out one of the great national industries of India after
a long and brilliant history, covering a period of more
than twenty centuries. It was undoubtedly one of
the truimphs of Indian civilisation, the chief means
by which that civilisation asserted itself and influenc¬
ed other alien civilisations. There can hardly be con¬
ceived a more serious obstacle in the path of her in¬
dustrial development than this almost complete ex¬
tinction of her shipping and ship-building.”
THE “DIVINE” DISPENSATION
And now I may turn to the period, to use the
words of our leaders of the last century, of the Divine
dispensation which sent Britain to India. Sir Herbert
Fitzherbert, Flag Officer, the Indian Navy, said in
1940: “At the present moment no ship building indus¬
try exists although, as everyone knows, in the past
India’s ship-building industry was world-famous. Such
an industry to be successful needs courage, enterprise,
forethought. That all these are present in India is a
fact that cannot be denied.”
, India has now the smallest mercantile marine.
While Britain’s foreign trade is about 5 times that of
India, Britain’s tonnage is 140 times as large. As the
12
Commerce Member of the Government of India put
it, India possesses “a distressingly small number of
deep sea ships.”!
Who is responsible for this grievous downfall?
All recent efforts to revive the industry have been
frustrated by Britain. 106 Indian Shipping Companies
with a nominal capital of 150 million pounds came into
existence in the last half a century. Less than 10 have
survived. The total tonnage of all these in 1938-39
was a meagre li lakhs of tons. Today there is no
place worth the name in the overseas trade for Indian
shipping and we have less than 25 per cent share even
in our own coastal traffic. Sir Alfred Watson says:
“Indian Company after Indian company endeavoured
to develop a coastal service has been financially shat¬
tered by the heavy combination of British interests.”
How the Scinda Steam Navigation Company sur¬
vived the competition of British companies is a matter
of recent history.
Our overseas and coastal trade is very large.
India’s coastline is over 4,000 miles. Our yearly coastal
trade is 7 million tons of coal, rice, oils, timber etc.
and 2 million passengers. Our overseas trade consists
of 25 million tons valued at Rs. 3,200 million a year
and a lakh of passengers every year between India
and foreign countries.
Assuming that India had 50 per cent share (over¬
all) in these trades the annual loss in freight alone
today is over Rs. 150,000,000,
Practically our whole sea-going traffic has passed
into British hands.
World’s Merchant Marine in 1939 in Millions of
Tons.
tJ.K. U.S.A. Germany Japan ' India*
18 13 4.5 5.6 0.13
13
And what is our share in our country’s sea-borne
trade and coastal traffic?
Sea-borne trade. . _ Coastal trade.
British vessels 66.6% British Cos, 80%
Foreign vessels 30.0% Indian Cos. 20%
British Indian 8.4%
Indian shipping was deliberately destroyed and
its growth in recent times stunted only in the interests
of Britain.
14
Ill
FROM PLENTY TO POVERTY
UNPARALLELED
Dr. Josiah Oldfield who visited India in a letter to
the “Daily News” bitterly commented upon the
poverty o f India:
“I have”, he said, “just returned from a study
of the Indian problems on the spot and cannot
urge too earnestly before your readers the intense
pathos of seeing village after village with all the
men, still more the women and the children, show¬
ing those pitiful signs of a daily struggle to live,
with only half enough to live upon... .1 have seen
the poverty of the English villages and the deso¬
lation of the London slums, but I have seen no¬
thing that haunts me more than the spectacle of
those brave, honest, hardworking economical peo¬
ple toiling on, week after week with only a piece
of coarse bajri or jowar bread.”
Several impartial foreign observers have pointed
out the increasing poverty of India under British Rule.
Hyndman, the Economist, stated years ago:
“Even as we look on, India is becoming feebler
and feebler. The very life blood of the great
multitude, under our rule, is slowly, yet ever
faster, ebbing away.”
Ramsay MacDonald, the late Prime Minister of
Britain, gave his impression of Indian poverty in these
words:
15
“The poverty of India is not an opinion; it is
a fact. For days and days one goes through the
land and sees nothing but thin bodies toiling, toil¬
ing, trudging, trudging. India is the home of the
poverty-stricken.”
According to him “the people are the most indus¬
trious in the world; much of their land is fertile and
yields rich crops.” But, he says, “We spend far too
much of the income of India on imperial purposes and
far too little on Indian development.”
Rushbrook Williams in 1923-24 charged. Britain
with gross neglect of India’s resources. He says: “the
real truth is that the undeniable poverty of India aris¬
es principally from the fact that the country is not
organised for the production of wealth.”
CONTRASTS IN INCOMES
This is not merely opinion evidence. It is based
on facts. Prof. K. T. Shah on an estimate made in
1921 said: “Two-thirds of the community get per head
half the average income while one per cent enjoy
more than one-third of the national wealth.” To give
the exact percentage “62.4 per cent of the people of
India earned 37.5 per cent of the national income;
32.9 per cent of them drew 31.8 per cent; while the
remaining 4.7 per cent enjoyed 30.7 per cent of the
total.”
When the world has grown richer, we have been
forced into increasing poverty. Lord Stamp prepared
a comparative estimate of national incomes in inter¬
national units. He defined an I.U. as “amount of goods
and services which one dollar would purchase in the
U.S.A. over the average of the period 1925-34.” Taking
16
this as a unit he calculated the national income as
follows:
TJ.S.A.
, ,
1381
I. TJ’s
Great Britain
,.
1069
I. TJ’s
Japan
..
353
I. TJ’s
U.S.S.R. ..
,,
320
I. TJ’s.
British India
..
200
I. U’s.
Since these calculations were made by Lord Stamp
U.S.S.R. has registered a phenomenal progress and
has caught up with the ILK. and U.S.A. while India
remains no better than she was.
The total wealth produced in British India in
1931-32 is estimated to be Rs. 1,690 crores with pri¬
mary production contributing a little over 52 per cent.
Famines have been more frequent and more intensive
than before. “India’s famines have been severer, and
more frequent, its agricultural poverty has deepened,
its rural population has become more hopelessly in
debt; their despair more desperate.”
MANIPULATION OF EXCHANGE
During World War I (1914-1918) India supplied
goods and services to Britain and acquired a large ba¬
lance of trade of about 400 crores. After the war
ended, British Government manipulated the currency
and exchange through the sales of Indian sterling
balances. The rupee rose to 35d. Within a short time
our well-earned balance of trade was wiped out. Ster¬
ling assets were frittered away, the Britishers making
money at India’s cost. The Rupee slumped from 19d.
to 18d. The 400 crores which we had earned in four
years were lost in one.
Despite a countrywide protest the ratio was fixed
at 18d. The result was that India made a loss of 12J
per cent on exports. Britain gained an advantage of
17
12 £ per cent on our imports. This process is continu¬
ing for the last two decades.
Then India was caught in the world-wide econo¬
mic depression, and being an agricultural country suf¬
fered the most. In spite of the country’s demand to
delink the Rupee from Sterling and expand the cur¬
rency in circulation, the demand was ignored. In
order to live India had to sell gold which was her
traditional insurance reserve built up for centuries.
Between 1931 and 1940 India’s nett export of distress
gold was about 11,65,69,144 tolas of gold valued at
Rs. 3,82,52,38,069. The average price at which Indian
gold was sold was thus Rs. 32-12-0 per tola.
During the last three years India bought about
2 crores tolas of gold, about l/5th of what we had
sold. But we were made to pay about Rs. 75/- per
tola when the official rate maintained was Rs. 42/- to
Rs. 43/- per tola. Thus we lost both ways.
18
IMPERIALIST WARS—AT INDIA’S
EXPENSE
We shed our blood and paid for our own enslave¬
ment. Since then we have been fighting Britain’s
wars in order that she may be powerful enough to
keep us in slavery. It is evidently the most immoral
aspect of all imperialisms.
The Committee appointed by the Indian National
Congress in 1931 to scrutinise the financial transactions
of the East India Company and the British Govern¬
ment in India and the so-called public debt of India
came to the conclusion that enormous war charges
have been unjustifiably debited to India.
Year.
Subject of claim Amount
(in Crores of Rs,)
Prior to 1857
External wars of the E. I. Cos.
35 \
50.12
Interest on Co’s capital
15.12/
1857
Cost of Mutiny-
40,0
1874
Interest on E. I. Coy’s, capital
Redemption of the Capital stock
10.081
22.08
of the E. I. Coy.
12.00 J
1857-1900
Cost of External wars.
37.5
1914-1920
European War gift
1891
359.0
Cost.
170 J
1857-1931
Miscellaneous charges
201
102.0
In respect of Burma
82 J
1916-1921
Reverse Council losses
Premium paid to Rly Cos. on
l
35.0
1916-21
acquisition by the State
J
50.0
(Jost of Strategic Railways.
33.0
Total Rs.
728.7
In addition to this, India has borne a share of the
normal military expenditure, which would properly
be debitable to the British Exchequer, Mr. Kumarappa,
a member of the Committee, computed this share at
about Rs. 540.13 crores upto 1913. This is about one-
fourth of the normal military expenditure. Ramsay
MacDonald himself suggested that half of this expen¬
diture should devolve on the British treasury.
By 1931 a sum of Rs. 1,050 crores was paid out as
interest to U.K. and a refund of Rs. 536.02 crores was
claimed back by the Congress.
Total as per above statement Rs. 729. crores
Share of annual military expenditure „ 540.13 „
Interest wrongly paid out „ 536.02 „
Rs 1805.15 crores
ARMED FORCES FOR BRITAIN’S BENEFIT
The army expenditure in India is mainly intended
to help Britain to retain her empire. Ramsay Mac¬
Donald said: “A large part of the army in India—cer¬
tainly one-half—is an imperial army which we require
for other than purely Indian purposes and its costs,
therefore, should be met from Imperial and not Indian
funds.”
Mr. Buchanan, a member of the Welby Com¬
mission, said: “In so far as the military defence of
India is concerned, India pays everything and the U.K.
nothing in discharging these imperial duties. India
has a fair claim that part of the burden should be
borne by the Imperial Exchequer. As to the equity
of the claim on the part of Lidia, there can be no
doubt.”
The Indian Army is in fact a predominantly Bri¬
tish Army. Just prior to World War II the sanctioned
20
strength of the army was 144,000 Indian and 52,000
British soldiers. But of the 7,200 officers, as many as
6,900 were British. This was because of a set policy.
A Royal Commission after the Great Revolt of 1857
recommended that an irresistible force of British
troops should be retained in India while a later Com¬
mission proposed that artillery should be mainly a
European force.
Officers are mostly British. In spite of war deve¬
lopments, the proportion of Indian to British officers
is still 1:4. The Indian Navy was established in
1934, and a part of the burden, so far borne by the
British Naval budget, was transferred to Indian
shoulders. By 1941 the R.I.N. had grown six times,
but there was not even a single cruiser in the Navy.
‘The first R.I.A.F. squadron was formed in 1933 but
was completed in 1939, after six years.
The- Indian land army, actually the Indian part
of it, is antiquated, lacking most of the latest weapons
and is officered mostly by the British. Our R.I.N. and
R.I.A.F. are a mockery even in 1946.
IN THE NAME OF DEFENCE
Expenditure of imperial expeditions has always
been borne by India. Between 1838 and 1920 the
Indian army was engaged outside India for Imperial
purposes on nineteen occasions. A large part of the
expenditure incurred by these expeditions was borne
by the Indian taxpayer.
In 1904 Sir E. Ellis stated frankly: “I think it is
undoubted that the Indian army in future must be a
main factor in the maintenance of balance of power
in Asia.”
21
Egypt Expedition (1882), Frontier Wars (1882-92),
Burma War (1886), and Bhutan War (1863) added to
the Indian public debt a burden of about Rs. 100 crores.
In the time of Lord Wellesley we bore the expenditure
of expeditions to Ceylon, Moluccus, Singapore, Isle of
France, Cape Colony and Egypt; and to Java in Lord
Minto’s time. We also bore the cost of the wars with
Nepal; of Burmese wars (1824-26 and 1852-53); of
Afghan wars; of wars with Persia and China (upto
1858). At our cost and with the blood of Indian sol¬
diers Britain consolidated her imperial position in
Asia. We continued to be slaves in .peace and cannon
fodder in war. We have lived only so that Britain’s
power may flourish. And the tragedy of it, the help
we gave to Britain was itself the instrument of our
subjection.
A comparative statement of proportion of the ex¬
penditure on defence to the total public expenditure
(1927-28) is an illuminating commentary on British
trusteeship of India.
Japan
26.6
Italy
23.5
France
19.8
U.S.A.
16.1
U.S.S.R.
16.0
U. K.
14.7
Germany
7.2
Australia
6.5
India
45.3
OPPRESSIVE
TAXATION
In India, for most people, there is little margin
over subsistence. Taxation has, therefore, to be judg¬
ed not from absolute tax figures. What has to be con¬
sidered is the proportion which is appropriated by the
public authorities from the net national income and
the incidence of this tax burden on individuals in dif-
22
ferent income groups. Taxation must be examined
in the context of the margin that is left over the basic
minimum national dividend required for the neces¬
sities and reasonable comforts of life. If in that con¬
text it is oppressive, it retards the growth of the
country.
In free countries, a tax, as it is said, like the sun
absorbs moisture from one spot and gives it to an¬
other, public expenditure benefits the taxpayers them¬
selves. But in India most of the taxation is only in¬
tended to keep India safe for Britain, fight Britain’s
wars, and exact tribute. Indian public expenditure
on creative social services is very little, while most
of the tax collections are expended on defence and
other security and administrative services.
THE MILITARY. WHITE ELEPHANT
(in crores of rupees)
1891-95
1911-15
1921-25
1936-37
Debt Charges . *
4.4
2.3
19.3
16.3
Law & Justice ..
3.9
6.1
7.9
7.1
Policet
3.9
7.4
12.3
11.2
Education
1.5
4.3
9.9
11.0
Agriculture
,, ,,
0.8
2.0
2.0
Public
1.9
3.5
5.9
5.6
Defence ..
25.1
30.5
60.6
47.4
In 1938-39, that is the last pre-war year, total Cen¬
tral and Provincial expenditure on revenue account
was Rs. 208 crores. Of this expenditure, Defence ser¬
vices claimed Rs. 52 crores, while total expenditure
on security functions was 86 crores of rupees, i.e., 41
per cent. Expenditure on social services was Rs. 34
crores or 16 per cent. Out of this Rs. 12.5 crores were
spent on education; Rs. 4 crores on medicine; Rs. 2
crores on public health; Rs. 2 crores on agriculture
and a crore only on industrial development.
28
The proportion of development expenditure is
extremely low.
% of total expenditure per
head.
Rs.
U. K. 27 77
U. S.A. 1931-32 (Federal) 24 24
India 1938-39 16 1
Local bodies, in addition, spent in U.K. (1936-37)
Rs. 135 crores on education and in U.S.A. Rs. 368
crores. In India the sum so spent was Rs. 4 crores, in
1938- 39.
If the Central and Provincial expenditure is taken
together the per capita expenditure on the head is
insignificant.
Education Medical Public Health
(in lakhs of Rupees)
1937-38 1192.7 375.1 189.1
1939- 40 1303.8 401.7 186.5
Per capita (1939-40) 070 020 010
But when we look to Defence Expenditure we see
how the burden on India is heavy.
% of Total Tax % of Direct Tax Revenue
Revenue to total Exp. to total tax
on defence. tax revenue
U.K.
50
Pre-war
56
1942-43.
64
U.S.A.
26
50
73
Canada
50
37
64
India
55
24
61
By 1931, therefore, Britain, had taken advantage
of her position as the imperial slave owner of India
and under this head alone wrongfully appropriated to
herself Rs. 1800.55 crores for becoming a world power.
These wars were all fought by Britain without
India’s consent, and all were imperialist wars from
beginning to end. Incidentally, they served to
keep India in subjection.
24
The following figures show how the defence ex¬
penditure has piled up from 1938-39.
Defence Expenditure
(Revenue Account)
Year. Crores of Rs. Year Crores of Rs.
1938- 39 46.18 1941-42 103.93
1939- 40 49.54 1944-45 397.23 {RevisedEstimate)
1940- 41 73.61 1945-46 394.23 (Revised Estimate)
Capital portion 1944-45 59.4 crores.
Total defence expenditure including capital ex¬
penditure was Rs. 1610 crores, Defence expenditure
per day (1944-45) was 109.5 lakhs (Revenue account).
THE STERLING BALANCES ■
The non-budgeted war burden is still greater.
The sterling balances and the prevailing inflation
in India are the result of the British policy of fighting
her wars at India’s cost. During the last six years
from 1939 to 1945 the British Government in India
acquired for World War II the fruits of the labour of
400 million people, toiling all day and half the night.
In addition, millions of Indians supplied services to
Britain.
In fact, a large portion of the sterling balances to¬
day represent goods acquired at controlled rates in
order to meet the emergency of World War II. These
goods were acquired by Britain at a price much below
the parity price of the said goods in Britain. Control
of prices was introduced in India. Was it for India’s
good? Certainly not. So Britain for its war and allied
purposes acquired goods from us at artificially control¬
led low prices and considerable part of them were
sold through the quasi-officially conducted U.K.C.C. at
very high prices, depriving India of the benefit, and
enriching Britain to that extent. On the other hand
25
for our day to day needs we had to pay higher price
for the same goods in the black market. Thus Britain
for her war acquired Indian goods at an artificial low
price since 1943; we had to pay an artificially higher
price in order to subsist during a war not exactly our
own.
For all these materials and services supplied by
India what has Britain given in exchange? Britain
has transferred to Indian ownership about £360 mil¬
lion capital invested by Britain before the war. In
addition to this amount the Reserve Bank of India has
received a credit of 1300 million paper sterlings. The
sterlings are in ordinary language I.O.U. promissory
notes passed by a bankrupt Britain to a starving credi¬
tor India.
India was dragged into the war without her con¬
sent. She was made to part with men and materials
under compulsion. At the same time she was forced
to accept I.O.U.s of Britain because debtor Britain is
the political master of India.
26
V
THE DEATH GRIP OF INFLATION
From 1942 Britain took goods and services against
her LO.U.s and gave us cartloads of currency notes.
This sent up prices sky-high and produced a false
sense of wealth. The inflation spiral which has been
at work can be shown at a glance by the following
table:
If July If Aug.
1924 1939
prices are prices are
Period Notes in Sterling Rupee taken at taken at
circulation securities, securities. 100 Calcutta 100*
index of Economic
whole sale Adviser’s
prices. Index.
(In Crores of rupees)
1939-40
208.9
78.3
37.4
115
126*
1940-41
241.6
130.0
48.6
119
115
1941-42
308.5
165.5
75.6
144
137
1944 Dec.
560.6
388.3
126.1
238
185
1945 Apr.
677.6
501.5
127.7 272
(March) 214
1-2-1946
1181.5
11.35
57.8
(1943)
307
(1945
Jan.)
299
Balance held abroad Rs.
547.3 crores.
The real volume of notes in circulation is not
1181.5 but about 250 crores more representing one
rupee notes and coins issued on the liability of the
Government of India. The total of currency in cir¬
culation, therefore, is roughly 1,450 crores.
* (Last 7 months of 1939-40.)
27
During the decade starting froih 1930 the defla¬
tionary movements had created indebtedness in the
country on account of ruinous low prices of farm pro¬
ducts. The irony of it was that the producer had
nothing to maintain his staying power. Whatever he
had, he gave away in heavy interest charges, in land
revenue and in meeting indirect taxation all of which
were based on high price-levels of farm products. Bri¬
tain took full advantage of this situation.
After World War II began, circumstances became
favourable for the Indian farmer. Then he was denied
the compensation.
The way in which this indebtedness has been in¬
creased is, to say the least, economically unjustifiable
and morally scandalous. Britain wanted to foist her
sterling I.O.U.s on India. There were enough Indian
princes, zamindars, bankers, capitalists and industrial¬
ists who live on British support who could have been
forced to take up sterling loans. But Britain took ad¬
vantage of an innocent provision of the Reserve Bank
of India Act by issuing paper currency against sterling
securities. The British Government used this legal
device to such an extent that the sterling securities
against currency aggregated to Rs. 1135 crores. Cost of
living went up; people were starved. This is the Gov¬
ernment that now wants to mobilise moral indignation
of the uninformed against the middle and upper
classes in India who happened to hold high denomina¬
tion notes.
When and how will this debt be paid?
At the time of the Round Table Conference India
was indebted to Britain, Britain was the creditor. And
as a creditor, it demanded manifold commercial safe¬
guards against India. Now that Britain is indebted to
28
India, there is no suggestion of any safeguard in the
interest of India against Britain. On the contrary there
is the talk of scaling down Britain’s indebtedness.
If might is right, this is right. If justice and
fairplay between nations has any meaning these
proposals are a cruel mockery.
It is an iniquitous proposal to scale down Britain’s
sterling indebtedness to India. The iniquity is an un¬
justified use of political domination. Britain the debtor,
so far as India is concerned has valuable assets in this
country as well as abroad. She still holds in India
substantial rupee assets in the form of properties,
equities and securities. Why should not these be uti¬
lised first to pay Britain’s debt? The debtor, the ave¬
rage Briton, is 33 times richer than the creditor, the
average Indian. Why should a rich debtor refuse to
pay a poor creditor—a creditor whom the debtor has
impoverished and whom an accident has placed in an
advantageous position?
British Government has been the parent of this
gross inflation. This inflation, as I have pointed out,
has been the result of unscrupulous use of an obvious¬
ly innocent provision of the Reserve Bank of India
Act. And although the War is now over, this provi¬
sion is being exploited as an instrument for further
inflation. Who produces cart-loads of currency even
now? Why was this potent seed of uncontrollable in¬
flation sown in this country?
In September 1939 the currency notes circulating
in India were Rs. 182,13,17,000. In the beginning of
January 1946 the total of the currency notes in circu¬
lation had risen to Rs. 1,218,34,58,000. This is an in¬
crease of about 600 per cent.
29
The increase in this currency circulation is
achieved by lodging sterling securities and issuing
rupee notes. On the 2nd of September, 1939, the ster¬
ling securities were worth Rs. 59,50,11,000. In the
beginning of this year they stood at Rs. 1,120,32,89,000.
Inflation, therefore, is purposely introduced
in this country to lend money to Britain against
the growing pile of her I.O.U.S. There is an y
amount of talk about scaling down a substantial por¬
tion of this debt but not a finger is raised against this
compulsion, to use the words of the recent manifesto
of Indian economists, ‘on a poor famine-stricken coun¬
try by lending through currency inflation large sums
to a country which is among the richest in the world.’
One would have naturally expected that the first
and foremost elementary anti-inflationary measure
would be to stop issuing rupee notes against I.O.U.S.
of Britain at a time when the debtor wants to
scale down his indebtedness by virtue of being in mili¬
tary occupation of this country. But the Government
of India cannot do anything so obvious. The public
would very much like to know what the Indian Direc¬
tors of the Reserve Bank have to say about what the
manifesto describes as “unjustifiable negligence of
India’s legitimate interests.”
INCREASING INDEBTEDNESS
The debt position of India is also a cruel comment¬
ary on the way in which Britain has administered
India’s finances. In 1858 the public debt of India was
£112 millions. By March 1937 it had risen to Rs. 1,208
crores. About 30 per cent of this debt was held out¬
side India. Out of a total of Rs. 1199.7 crores, 483.1
crores were held in England, 485.87 in India. In addi-
80
tion there was an unfunded debt of 219.9 crores and a
deposit of Rs. 20.82 crores. Thus the total held in
India was Rs. 706.6 crores.
In 1941-42 the total public debt was Rs. 1,209
crores, of which 210.7 was external and 998.5 was
Indian. In the budget estimate of 1945-46 the total
interest bearing obligation is Rs. 2,206 crores against
1,848 crores in 1944-45. Of this debt Rs. 1,010 crores,
are covered by interest yielding assets. Cash and se¬
curities represent Rs. 547 crores. There is a further
non-covered debt of Rs. 650 crores as against a pre¬
war figure of Rs. 200 crores.
SOARING PRICES
The index numbers at the same time prove the
steep rise in wholesale prices. These prices have been
'stabilised* at about 245. If the base year ended August
1938-39 is taken at 100, the general rate of wholesale
price in October 1944 was 243.4; in October 1945, 244.1;
and in January 1945, 250.3.
The industrial and raw materials index shows a
similar rise.
September 1945 238.1
December 1945 251.0
19th Jan. 1946 263.6
The food index shows a similar tendency. If the
index for the week ended 26th of August 1939 is
equal to 100, the rise has been more than double:
September 1945 238.2
December 1945 238.8
The annual average for 1945 is 235.6 while the
index for the week ended 2nd February, 1946, indicate
240.4.
31
Inflation in the hands of a National Government
has many advantages; but as operated by Britain it
has harmed the man with the fixed income and not
benefited 85 per cent of the population which depends
upon agriculture.
BLACK MARKETS
The indices, however, are misleading. They are
calculated on the basis of official prices which are not
real. They do not take into account the black markets
which have come into existence as a result of short¬
age of supply and inefficient administration. Most of
the commodities, as we all know to our cost, are only
to be had at black market prices. The price levels,
therefore, are very much higher than what indices
indicate.
Britain has in this way walked into an impossible
position. Dr. Kumarappa, the well-known economist,
has described the Reserve Bank of India as “the im¬
perial pawn shop.” I do not like to use such a harsh
comparison. But what has the Reserve Bank done?
The Government of India have lent to Britain ster¬
lings by currency manipulation, Rs. 1,700 crores at a
nominal interest of less than 1 per cent. These 1,700
crores are made up of 1,135 crores sterling securities
in Issue Department and 542 crores held as balances
abroad.
What does the Government of India do? It bor¬
rows money from the public in India at 3 per cent.
What would be the state of an ordinary person if he
borrowed at 3 per cent and lent at less than 1 per
cent? It is bad bargain, bad business. It is an im¬
moral deal. It is scarcely surprising that the people
have no confidence in the loans issued by Govern-
82
ment. The “Commerce” of the 26th January, 1946 has
the following statement:—
“That a very substantial portion of the 2| per
cent. 1960 loan must have been taken by the Re¬
serve Bank of India is now clear from an increase
of no less than Rs. 8.05 erores in the Bank’s own
investment portfolio, as disclosed by its state¬
ment for the week ended 18th January, 1946. The
poor response from the public is also reflected in
the rise of over Rs. 10 erores in notes in circula¬
tion in the week in which the list for the new loan
opened. It is needless to add that, had the public
responded to the new loan in large amounts, the
expansion in notes in circulation would not have
been so heavy.”
CURRENCY JUGGLERY
Britain, through its agent, the Government ot
India, has caused inflation in this country by the mis¬
use of the power to issue rupee currency against ster¬
ling security given to the Reserve Bank of India. The
black marketeer is supplied with tons of paper money.
He is no doubt an anti-social criminal, but what about
the Government which lavishly provided the means
wherewith to carry on his nefarious trade?
The position has become wellnigh impossible.
First, Britain will not pay the large sterling debt;
Secondly, if it does not pay, it would lead to ex¬
treme bitterness between Britain and India.
Thirdly, if in exchange for these sterling debt,
Britain dumps unwanted and uneconomic manufac¬
tured goods, India’s industrial development would be
thwarted for a century.
Fourthly, if the sterling debt is scaled down with¬
out setting off the 600 crores of Britain’s rupee assets
in this country it will be a piece of robbery which will
never be forgiven by India.
fifthly, if inflation is sought to be controlled by
devices like the Demonetisation Ordinance whatever
credit the Government possesses will disappear; wage-
earners who have been thinking in terms of inflated
money will become disgruntled; a social and economic
crisis will follow. These results of currency jugglery
are moving like a Greek tragedy to a pre-ordained
catastrophe.
Out of the morass into which the financial jug¬
glery of Britain has landed India there is no escape for
Britain except to give India the bargaining power by
giving it a National Government. A National Gov¬
ernment alone can take a bold step, regulate the.re¬
payment of the sterling debt, and impose upon the peo¬
ple willing sacrifices in order to restore the credit of
the Government. The drastic measures which this
step involves cannot possibly be carried out by a dis¬
trusted foreign government.
34
VI
THE POVERTY WHICH BRITAIN
WROUGHT
In spite of a few spectacular fortunes in the hands
of a very small number of industrialists, British Rule
has definitely brought growing poverty to India Incon¬
trovertible figures establish the fact.
The present agricultural wages in Northern India
is worth only about one-half of the quantity of food-
grains available to the agricultural worker or day-
labourer on the prevailing scale of wages in Akbar’s
time. Both Pelsaert and De Laet mention that during
the Mogul times the lower classes were consuming
butter every day with khichri. Terry specifically men¬
tions “the great store of salt, abundance of sugar grow¬
ing in India.” Sugar, sold at 2d. per lb. (about 5 pies),
entered more commonly as an item of household con¬
sumption of the poorer classes than in modem India.
Blochmann observes that under the Moguls and be¬
fore, the use of woollens and, for the poorer classes,
blankets was much more general than now.
By about the nineteenth century, as Buchmann’s
survey shows, “the supply of milk, oil, sugar, vege¬
tables, pulses, salt and other seasoning was more
scanty and the people of Bihar and Bengal could not
afford the daily use of rice.”
35
Radha Kamal Mukherji has worked out the in¬
come of an industrial unskilled worker on the basis
of real wages taking base year 1600 at 100. The table
speaks volumes for what Britain has achieved in India.
(Index Numbers of Real Wages)
Yeais.
(Base year 1600=100)
Unskilled
workers.
Skilled
workers.
1600
100
100
1650
184.5
123.4
1729
62,04
53.5
1807
69.8
62.0
1820
36.0
24.0
1850
52.2
29.5
1870
43.1
25.0
1880
48.1
25.7
1890
36.5
21,9
1901-05
43.3
26.5
1911
40,1
25.9
1928
33.8
25.4
1938
49.1
45.3
The wages today, in substance, for an unskilled
worker are one-half or one-third, and for a skilled
worker one-fourth or one-fifth of what they respect¬
ively got in Akbar’s days. Under British rule, the
Indian worker has to live on one-third or one-fourth
of what he lived on before the British came to India.
William Digby estimates in his Prosperous British
India that the average Indian got 2d. a day in 1850,
lid. a day in 1880, and only id. a day in 1900.
Within fifty years of the Great Revolt of 1857
an Indian was forced to live on less than one-half
of his previous earnings.
Several income estimates have been made in India.
The following table will indicate the estimated income
per head in rupees:—
36
Estimated
Authority Year. income
per head
(in rupees)
Dadabhoy Naoroji.. .. 1867-70 20
Cromer and Barbour .. .. .. 1882 27
William Digby . 1898-99 17-8
Lord Curzon . 1900 30
Wadia & Joshi . 1913-14 44-8
K.T. Shah.1921 67
V. K. R. V. Rao . 1931-32 62
Sir James Grigg (1938 Budget speech) .. 1938 56
Some of these estimates have been prepared under
the directions of Government and a margin of error
of 6 per cent on both sides may be assumed.
But these figures are not proper indications of the
income estimates. They must be reduced to a com¬
mon denomination. For decades the value of pur¬
chasing power of the rupee has varied considerably as
a result of two factors: First, the fluctuations in the
price levels, and Second, the variations in the quantity
of money in circulation. In order to make a proper
comparison, therefore, the price indices must be taken
into account and the real income of the respective
years should be calculated. The results are startling:
Year
1882
1901
1921
Price Indices
Real income
Rs.
100
27
120
20-4
378
19-6
Thus we have the startling fact that since 1880
there has been in fact a steady decline in the per
capita income of India
But again, per capita estimates are misleading.
They are statistical abstractions and do not give the
real picture. For every man who makes an income
of over Rs. 62 some one or the other makes an income
which is less. Taking India as a whole, therefore, the
87
mlk of the people do not make anything like Rs. 19.6
>er head per year.
This annual per capita income may be compared
with those of other countries:
U.S.A. 1406
U.K. 980
Germany 603
Japan 218
British India 65
There is again the factor of inequality of income.
En 1931-32 the income of British India, classified under
the head of Rural and Urban is shown in the following
table:
\
Description. Total income Income per Income per
(in millions of Rs.) earner (Rs.) capita. (Rs.)
Rural 12,250 142 51
Urban 4,928 436 166
Inequality of income, therefore, fluctuates very
widely in this country. “If we take the urban classes,
nearly one-half of their total income belongs to less
than one-tenth of their total number. Inequality of
income is present in at least equally great measure
also among the agricultural classes.”
A factual survey of income figures collected from
50 villages revealed a per capita income of Rs. 14 per
annum. A survey of over 600 villages in C.P. dis¬
closed a per capita income of Rs. 12 per annum.
So that for a large mass of people inhabiting coun¬
tryside, a per capita income estimate of Rs. 12 to 20
would be in accord with facts.
The annual per capita income of U.K. was esti¬
mated in 1930 at £76. In India £5 would be a very
liberal figure.
There has been no improvement in the last decade.
The population of India has grown to 400 millions. The
38
total national income has also increased in figures. But
the per capita income today is the same as it was in
the thirties. The money income average today may
come upto over Rs. 150/- but if it is corrected to the
price level of 1931-32, the average income cannot pos¬
sibly be higher than the income in 1931-32. For,
prices today, as I have pointed out, have almost tre¬
bled since 1931-32, particularly during the war years.
The currency inflation is indicated by a rise in the
total notes from 181 crores on 1-9-1939 to 1,182 crores
on 1st February 1946.
During the last 11 years, therefore, poverty has not
been reduced to any significant level.
The delegation of the British Trade Union Con¬
gress to India in 1928 made the following observations:
“The vast majority of workers in India do not
receive more than about 1 sh. a day. In the pro¬
vince of Bengal which includes the large mass of
industrial workers, investigations declared that
as far as they could ascertain 60 per cent of the
workers were in receipt of wages of not more than
one shilling per day in the highest instance, scal¬
ing down to 7d. for men and 3d. in the case of
women and children. Upon these miserable pit¬
tance the workers are expected to keep body and
soul together and labour throughout the whole
working day (often in a vitiated atmosphere and
under the most irksome conditions) which on the
average cannot be less than one of ten hours.”
We have now less of everything than we want
normally.
We have today only 75 per cent of the food,
35 per cent of the milk, 25 per cent of housing
89
space, 20 per cent of the doctors that India’s popu¬
lation needs at the minimum.
Expert medical opinion has steadily condemned
the disquieting condition in which poverty under Bri¬
tish Rule is facing India’s life. Sir John Magaw, for¬
mer Director General, Indian Medical Service, states:
“All the available evidence goes to show that
the average duration of life in India is about half
of what it might be and that this abbreviated
existence is lived at a very low level of health
and comfort. There is some difference of opinion
as to whether, during the past 50 years, the con¬
ditions of life have improved or deteriorated; but,
even if some slight improvement may have taken
place, the existing conditions of life and state of
affairs are so profoundly unsatisfactory that they
demand investigation and redress. Even more
disquieting is the forecast for the future... .There
is a prospect of a steady deterioration in the state
of nutrition of the people.”
EVERYTHING EXCEPT SELF-RULE
This shows what British trusteeship has reduced
India to. And what an India! Next to U.S.A. it is the
biggest producer of farm products. Its annual esti¬
mated production of cotton is six million bales of
400 lbs. each. She has a monopqly of jute; she produces
nine million bales a year. She has abundant supplies of
wool. She is the largest producer of oil seeds, tobacco,
sugar, hides and skins too. She claims 1/3 of the
world’s cattle population. Her forests equal to 1/5 of
the total cultivated area and supply 100 million tons
of wood a year besides valuable commodities like lac.
40
Though her annual coal production is only 26 million
metric tons, the resources are estimated at about 55
million tons. India has the largest reserve of iron ore
of the rich variety; 3,600 million tons of ore are avail¬
able. She has the biggest reserves of manganese ore
and three-fourths world’s mica supplies. She is the
world’s biggest supply source of ilmenite, monazite,
and sircon.
The recent discoveries in Baluchistan show that
she has a large reserve of sulphur. Her power re¬
sources approximate 25 million kilowatt. Next to
China she produces the largest supply of tea. The
vast Indo-Gangetie plain is one rich, extensive alluvial
tract most suited to intensive farming for food pro¬
ducts. Its depth exceeds 1,600 feet below surface.
India’s human resources are illimitable. Though
numerically we are less than the Chinese, we are more
compact, better organised, of a richer efficiency. “A
nation’s true wealth lies not in its lands and waters,
not in its forests and mines, not in its flocks and herds,
not in its dollars, but in its healthy and happy men,
women and children” (Whipple).
India has everything except self-rule, and her
millions of men, women and children are unhealthy
and undernourished. Their lives are blighted by a
constant fear. Five giants, as Sir William Beveridge
called them, Want, Ignorance, Disease, Squalor, Idle¬
ness, have the Indian masses, in their grip more than
the people of any other land.
41
VII
AGRICULTURE IN RUINS
India has been the classic land of bumper crops
in the past. If Britain destroyed the Indian industry,
she has equally ruined the vitality and resilience of
our agricultural economy.
Millions and millions of rupees have been wasted
on foreign wars. Nothing, however, has been done to
organise this great national industry on which India’s
millions live. If year before the last, millions died of
famine in Bengal, if today there is a prospect of a
terrible famine ahead, it is because of the criminal
neglect of our agricultural economy.
The total area of British India is 1005 million
acres. In 1937-38, out of this total 281 million acres
only were sown with crops. Another 110 million acres
were cultivable waste and 58 million acres were fallow
land.
If we take all India figures 360 million crores were
sown; cultivable waste represent 170 million crores,
and fallow land another 80 million acres.
DECLINING ACREAGE
In British India only a meagre 0.86 acre of land
per head is cultivated. There again is the fact that
per capita acreage is declining. Despite the increase
in the total area cultivated, the rate of increase in po¬
pulation has reduced the area of cultivated land per
42
head of population dependent on agriculture. The po¬
sition is dangerous.
Even as things are there is no occupational equi¬
librium. And this lack of balance is growing worse:
Year 1901
1911
1931
1941
Acreage per head engaged 1.28
1.24
1,21
1.0
1881 1921 1931
1941
Variation Per
in period, cent
increase
1881-1941
Total popula¬
tion (Millions) 250.2 305.5 338.2 388.8 Plus 138.6 55.8
Urban „ 23.0 31.3 37.5 49.6 „ 26.6 117
Rural „ 227.2 274.2 300,7 339.2 „ 112.0 49.8
Between 1881 and 1941, therefore, there has been
55.8 per cent increase in the total population and only
50 per cent in the rural population. The acreage
per person engaged in agriculture, therefore, has come
down from 1.28 to 1. It is easy to lay the blame on
increasing population. But would any government in
these days of scientific treatment of agriculture be
forgiven if it did not provide new sources of satisfy¬
ing the needs of the increasing population?
Agriculture and animal husbandry all the world
over are the inseverable parts of a single industry.
The situation as regards the country’s cattle is still
worse.
Out of a total world stock of 700 million cattle,
India possesses about 190 million. Of the world stock,
about 125 million are superfluous and uneconomical.
Taking the provincial figures of cattle per 100
acres the figures for the different provinces are as
follows:
43
Bengal 100
U. P. 90
Madras 73
Punjab 58
Bombay 35
Bihar & Orissa 83
In each case more than 25 per 100 acres are super¬
fluous and uneconomical. The average comes to 67
cattle per 100 acres to sown area against 15 for China
and 6 for Japan. But in fact there are only 60 million
working cattle for about 300 million acres, a number
hopelessly inadequate for intensive farming.
Dr. Burns has made certain eloquent estimates to
show why cattle in India are growing uneconomical.
The total number of bovine adults in India is 167 mil¬
lion. The minimum feed requirements of cattle in
India are about 225 million tons of roughages and 17
million tons of concentrates. As against this minimum,
the total feed available is only 175 million tons of
Toughages and less than 4 million tons of concentrates.
Therefore there is a clear deficiency of 50 million tons
of roughages and 13 million tons of concentrates.
"When the cattle all over the world are improving, in
India, under the guidance of Britain, they are dete¬
riorating.
It must not be forgotten that India largely lives
on milk and milk products. The cow is not merely
an appendage of agriculture. She is really the mother
of the race. What has the British Government done
to maintain her capacity and yield?
The average yield of an Indian cow is a little over
2 lbs. a day. In Holland it is 20 lbs. a day, in U.K. it is
15 lbs. a day, in New Zealand 14 lbs. a day. In the
pre-war period, Germany, under a government which
is held up to the hatred of the whole world, had so
looked after its cattle that it produced the same quan-
44
tity of milk with 25 million cattle which we have with
our 200 millions. She had seen to it that every cow
in Germany was equal to 8 cows in India.
When the whole world is spending public money
on the improvement of agriculture and cattle what did
the British Government do? Money had to be spent on
imperial wars, not for the initial needs of the country.
What is more, the increase has been very little
since 1900. The position in 1937 was as follows:
Allotted to
Total Budget Livestock
Improvement.
Agricultural Dept. 1.18 crores. .07 crores.
Veterinary Dept. .47 crores. .47 crores.
Out of a total budget of 1.6 crores therefore for
the Agricultural Department and the Veterinary De¬
partment .54 lakhs are being spent for the improve¬
ment of livestocks. What generosity and what fore¬
sight! Science may have advanced elsewhere. Not in
India, thanks to the British.
VILLAGE ECONOMY UNDERMINED
The Indian village economy prior to 1850 was self-
contained. The money lenders and thp agriculturists
were mutually accommodating and helpful. British
Rule destroyed the village economy. Naturally rural
indebtedness began to weigh down the farmers in an
increasing measure. The following table would show
the increase in total indebtedness:
Year.
Total Indebtedness.
1875
Rs. 371 per occupant.
1895
„ 45 crores (total)
1911
„ 300 crores.
1925
„ 600 „
1928
jj 900 ))
1935
„ 1200 „
1937
„ 1600 „
1939
„ 1200 „
45
P. J. Thomas puts 1200 crores as rather a low
figure. He thinks that the burden must be about 2000
crores as there was a fall in prices of 50 per cent be¬
tween 1929 and 1934.
As a result of the gross neglect of village economy
the number of the landless is on the increase. In 1921
the landless labourers formed 1/5 of those engaged in
agriculture. In 1931 the proportion was 1/3. It has
increased considerably since then as the following
figures show:
Number of landless labourers.
(in millions)
1882 1921 1931
7.5 21.7 33.5
The process of driving the farmer out of his land
is continuing unchecked. Only a third of the land be¬
longs to those who actually cultivate it. On the other
hand in France 60 per cent of the cultivators own
land, in Switzerland 80 per cent, in Germany 88 per
cent.
As against this the percentage of population de¬
pendent on agriculture is increasing, as the following
table will show:—
1891
, .
61.1%
1901
..
65.5%
1911
..
72.2%
1921
..
73%
1931
75%
DECREASING FERTILITY
Britain, of course, or rather its agent in India, has
not raised his little finger to stop the progressive de¬
terioration of soil-fertility. In old days there were
traditional methods of restoring fertility to the land
in order to make up for what was taken away from it
year after year. These methods were neglected; no one
taught modern methods to us. The British Govern-
46
merit did nothing to arrest this downward progress.
It was only concerned with drawing more revenue, in
maintaining law and order and incurring war expendi¬
ture.
The Royal Commission on Agriculture came to the
conclusion that a stabilised condition is reached and
a low but permanent standard of fertility is establish¬
ed. It was an euphemistic way of stating that the soil
is so deteriorated that it cannot deteriorate any fur¬
ther.
The deterioration of the soil in India can be judg¬
ed from the comparative figures of the average yield of
wheat per acre in U.P.
Period.
Yield in lbs.
1600
,. 1555
1827-40
.. 1000 (irrigated)
620 (non-irrigated)
1917-21
.. 1200 (irrigated)
840 (non-irrigated)
1931
1000 (irrigated)
900 (non-irrigated)
What a record for a modern civilised government!
A comparative estimate of the area and yield of
principal crops in India for 1940-41 would show the
deterioration at a glance:
(In lbs. per acre)
RICE
1931-32
1940-41
j Decrease.
Bengal
961
652
309
Bihar
m t
912
519
393
C. P.
• *
718
419
299
WHEAT
1931-32
1940-41
Decrease.
Bombay
430
385
45
Bengal
..
525
451
74
C. P.
429
397
32
SUGARCANE
1931-32
1940-41
Decrease.
Bombay
6071
5782
289
Delhi
,,
3135
2531
604
U. P.
,.
1493
1096
397
What the civilised Governments in other parts of
the world did for the land and what has been left
undone by foreign rule in India will appear from the
comparative statistics of crop yield per acre in India
and abroad.
(In lbs. per acre)
Country.
Wheat.
Bice.
Maize. Sugarcane.
Cotton .
Tobacco .
Egypt
. 1918
2998
1891
70,302
535
Germany
. 2017
....
2828
113,570 (Java)..
2127
Japan
. 1783
3444
1392
47,534
196
1665
U. S. A.
. 1813
2185
1579
43,270
268
882
China
. 968
2433
1284
....
204
1288
Italy
. 1382
4508
2079
....
170
1139
India
. 660
1240
803
34,944
89
987
Who
is responsible
for
this criminal
neglect
which has resulted in our food deficiency?
Most of the land in India is still left exposed to
the vagaries of the monsoon. Only 23 per cent of the
total area sown is irrigated. In the Indian States it is
still less, only 16 per cent, i.e., 11 million out of 68
million acres. Since the Irrigation Committee’s Re¬
port of 1901 the progress in Irrigation has been little.
The progress, or the lack of it, made during the last 45
years appears from the following figures:—
(British India)
Year.
Crop area Total irrigated
cultivated. area.
(Millions of acres)
% of irrigated
area to sown
area.
1902-08
224.4
44.1
19.5
1939-40
244.0
54.9
22.5
48
In 38 years the total irrigated area rose by 10
per cent. The percentage of irrigated to the sown
area rose by 3 per cent.
DIMINISHING FOOD SUPPLY
The British officer at one time claimed to be the
Mdbaap of the poor people of India. We have only to
look at the result of the Mdbaap rule to see what it
has done. In 1911 the area sown per capita in British
India was 0.9. By 1941 it had declined to 0.72 acre,
by so much as 20 per cent. The decline has been in¬
creasingly rapid. It has been .02 acre per capita be¬
tween 1911 and 1921, 0.06 acre per capita between
1921-31, and 0.1 per capita between 1931-1941. We are
going down the incline.
Today we are faced with a terrible famine. Who
is responsible for it?
In 1800, on the authority of British experts, sur¬
plus was available to the farmers and others as re¬
serves of grain against draught. But a blind disregard
of the vital need for providing regular food supply
has characterised the British Government from the
beginning.
According to the Warren Hastings Report, the
famine of 1770 swept away at least one-third of the
inhabitants.
Period .
1775-1800
1800-1825
1825-1850
1850-1900
1942-43
No. of Famines. Estimated
mortality.
5
2
24
Bengal Famine
One million
Four lakhs.
32 millions.
3.5 million.
In 1878 the Famine Commission censored the Gov¬
ernment of Bengal and the Revenue Board for failing
to take notice of the signs of famine in time. But the
49
British Rulers were Bourbons. They forgot nothing;
they learnt nothing.
In the result famine has been taking a toll of
human lives in. India by millions on a progressive scale.
THE BENGAL FAMINE
In 1943 the same tragic story happened in Ben¬
gal. Men died by millions. The British officer never
thinks of the calamity that is coming.
The story of the Bengal famine is too recent to
need recapitulation. The Bengal famine cost India
lb million lives according to official estimates. The
Anthropological Department of the Calcutta Univer¬
sity estimated the number at about 3§ millions. Re¬
cently, Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar, speaking before the
United Nations Food Organisation, referred to the un¬
official estimate as 3 millions. And little, if anything,
was done to alleviate the distress on an organised
scale by the Central or the Provincial Government,
nor the highly placed criminals who were responsible
for this catastrophe brought to book. The Woodhead
Committee Report (1945) states: “We find it difficult
to avoid the conclusion that in 1880 the whole food
situation was in certain respects more favourable than
the situation with which we are faced today.”
What a tribute to the progress under British rule
from 1880 to 1945!
50
VIII
DEPLETION OF VITAL NECESSITIES
Since 1900 there has been an increasing food de¬
ficit in relation to the increase in population. Equally
there has been a deterioration in the quality of food-
grains.
DECLINE IN FOOD NECESSITIES
In spite of this writing on the wall, the Govern¬
ment simply refuses to take serious notice of the fact
that the total quantity of foodgrains in India is de¬
clining. But it is no use condemning the Britain’s
agricultural policy in India. The fact is they have
none worth the name. Attention, if at all, is always
paid to the improvement of commercial crop yields
rather than of food crops.
British India
Year.
Population.
Sown area.
Total food
grains.
(in million)
tons.)
Rice.
(in million
tons.)
1911-12
., 231.6 m.
150,6 m.
acres.
28.2
1921-22
.. 233.6 „
158.6 „
54.3
27.8
1931-32
.. 256.8 „
156.9 „
50.1
27.4
1941-42
.. 295,8 „
156.5 „
45.7
24.3
While the yield of rice per acre in other parts of
the world is on the increase, in India, the yield is
decreasing.
Year.
1909-13
1926-27
1930-31
1931-32
1935-36
1936-37
1938-39
Japan
.. 1000
1333
1413
1505
1469
America
.. 1827
2124
2053
2339
2276
India
982
851
829
861
728
51
The gross neglect of the Government becomes
patent when the yields in other lands are compared
with India’s.
(lbs. per acre.)
India .
China .
Japan.
U.S.A.
World
Yield .
Rice
988
2433
3070
1680
1440
Wheat
811
989
1350
990
840
Wheat production per hectare (in quintale).
India Germany U. K.
7 22-6 20.6
Rice production per hectare.
India . U.S.A. China . Italy.
13.9 24.5 25.1 51.2
With this low production it is not surprising that
there is deficiency in food in this country.
1936-37 Average yield per acre in British India in lbs.
gg
Mice* Wheat . Barley . Juar. Maize. Gram . Linseed .
939 774 872 575 939 685 345
Sugarcane .. 361
Cotton .. 127
India had only about 40 million tons out of the
necessary total food supply of 60 million tons. In
1941-42 rice production was only 25.6 million tons.
In fact it was less than the 1929-38 average of 30.8
million tons by about 5 million tons. Imports cut off
by the war were 2.4 million tons. Thus there was the
total deficit of 7.5 million tons. Net wheat deficit was
0.5 million ton. In 1942, therefore, there was no Indian
food supply for about 63 million people.
The total production of pulses in India is 8.5 mil¬
lion tons. Of this 7.5 million tons only are available
for consumption. As against this our total minimum
52
requirements are 9.4 million tons. There is, therefore,
a clear deficit of 2 million tons.
Assuming that the daily average caloric require¬
ment of the Indian is 2800 calories, 48 million average
men have no food, or there is an average deficit of
423 calories in each man’s food! At the Hot Springs
Conference, the British representative admitted that
one-third of the Indian people are habitually underfed
in normal times on account of 10 to 20 million tons of
shortage in cereals.
In 1937-38 it was found that a deficit of 15 per cent
in food supply was diminished further by 7 per cent
since 1910-15—“a striking deterioration in recent years
but which left the Government unshaken out of its
criminal indifference.”
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
The stupid man blames fate for his mishaps. The
British administration in India blames the growing
population. But Kate L. Mitchell says: “It is true that
the present production of food is wholly inadequate..
But... .there is every reason to believe that by making
full use of her resources, India can support a far larger
population than at present. The cause of Indian
poverty is not the rate of population growth but the
fact that India is a case of arrested economic develop¬
ment.”
Every civilised Government has a food drive, but
the British Government has never attempted any.
During the war years, Great Britain began a vi¬
gorous food drive. In 1939 U.K. produced only 40 per
cent of her food requirements. In 1942 it was 60 per
cent self-sufficient; In 1943, nearly 75 per cent. The
British Exchequer granted alluring subsidy of £200
53
millions a year. After the cessation of the World
War II the present Government raised it to £300
millions.
Dr. Hugh Dalton, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
moving his first post-war budget stated with reference
to the subsidy that he had decided to hold the present
cost of living steady until further notice even if this
meant an increase in the subsidies. He believed that
in the near future price stabilisation would be even
more important than during the war. These subsi¬
dies had been and were mostly a timely grant-in-aid
to every household budget in the land and helped
to restrain any disproportionate increase in the wage
rates which might have disturbed the whole balance
of Britain’s economic life and sucked her into the
fatal whirlpool of inflation.
In India it is the other way about. The proportion
of land under food crop is growing less. The touring
officers are more concerned with pay, pension and
leave and their henchmen busy acquiring titles for
war work. What results can follow a soulless admi¬
nistration?
In 1913-14, 81.9 per cent of the area was under
food crops. In 1940-41 the proportion was 80 per cent.
Index numbers showing increase in area.
Year.
Food.
non-food.
Cotton & Jute,
1913-14
100
100
100
1927-28
101
107
95
1940-41
104
119
153
Area in millions
of acres.
Year.
Food crops.
Non-food .
Cotton & Jute „
1913-14
190
42
19
1927-28
192
45
18
1940-41
198
50
29
54
INADEQUATE AND ILL-BALANCED DIET
The average Indian’s diet is inadequate and ill-
balanced. “Normal nutrition and health cannot be
maintained on many of the diets now used by millions
of the people of India,” according to Sir Robert
McCarrison. If the consumption standard of countries
are compared it will clearly show how the Indian lacks
the necessities of life.
Clothing
Yd . per yr.
Shoes (pairs)
per year .
U. S. A.
64
3.37
Germany .. 34
2.08
Japan
21-4
..
India
16.1
0.09
World
42.0
Food
Calories .
German workman
3055
American
3500
English
3400
Indian peasant
2400
Cawnpore Labourer
1900
Women in cottage industry 1200
So there we are. Compared to an American work¬
man an Indian workman has half the food, one-fourth
the clothing and less than one-half of a shoe to wear!
Milk supply is hopelessly inadequate. Our per
capita milk production according to Dr. Wright, is
not more than 7 oz. per day. Dr. Aykroyd’s estimate
is 5 oz. This production is against the average mini¬
mum consumption which should be one pound per
individual.
In this land of milk and honey, Indians have no
milk worth the name. The following table will show
the difference between what other governments have
done and what the Government of India has left
undone.
55
Country. Daily production per Daily consumption
head of population per head of population
(iaoz.) (in oz.)
New Zealand .. 244 36
Sweden .. 69 61
TJ. S. A. ..37 35
Great Britain 14 39
India ,. 8 7
In most provinces, however, per capita consump¬
tion is less than 2 oz. a day. The highest consumption
is in the Punjab, 9-9 oz. It is less than 2.62 in 4 pro¬
vinces including Madras and Bengal.
Our totail production of milk is 6200 lakhs of
maunds (22 million tons) of which about 19 million
tons is available for consumption. This works out at
4J to 5 oz. a day per head. Of this hardly 30 per cent
or less than 2 oz. is taken in liquid form. The rest is
used for ghee, dahi, etc.
According to the estimates of Dr. Wright the total
production of milk in India is 690 million maunds. Of
this 215 million maunds are consumed as liquid milk
(31.2 per cent), and the rest, 475 million maunds (69.8
per cent) is utilised for the making of ghee (364
million maunds) khoa, curds, etc. The United Nations
Pood and Nutrition Conference recommends that an
individual should ^drink at least 21 ozs per day. An
Indian, however, trader British rule is condemned to
only 2 oz per day.
A study of the influence of income level on milk
consumption also shows the terrible plight of India
in relation to this essential source of nutrition.
Values per family* per month.
Income group . Consumption of Expenditure on Expenditure on
** milk. milk. ghee.
Rs. 30 1 lb. 0-3-1 0-4-6
Rs. 50-60 .. 4 lbs. 0-14-6 0-9-8
All incomes .. 3.9 lbs. 0-13-9 0-9-11
* Average size of the family 4 to 8.
56
Sugar is another food essential. India is the
largest producer of sugar cane in the world. But we
are the smallest consumer. A Britisher consumes 112
lbs of sugar per year, an American 103 lbs, a Japanese
29 lbs, an Indian only 20 lbs. per year inclusive of gur.
Our total production of sugar, refined and unrefined, is
5.3 million tons.
An overall picture will still better illustrate the
position of food supply in British India.
Yield of food
(in million tons.)
nice .
Wheat.
All food grains
and pulses .
(1931)
Population.
1620-30
. 25.5
8.0
49.1
256.9 mn.
1939-40
% of increase
. 24.6
8.9
47.2
295.8 „
or decrease .
. —3.7
..
—3.9
+15.2
While population increases, food supply decreases.
The area under grains and pulses has been on the
increase but the quantity of foodgrains and pulses
per head has decreased.
Area under Grains
(million acres.)
Year.
Hice.
Wheat.
All.
1929-30
66.5
24.7
155.9
1939-40
70.1
26.1
158.2
% of increase ..
+5.6
+5.5
+1.5
WORSE THAN CONVICTS
A comparative study of the daily consumption of
food per adult male in the homes of free industrial
workers and in prisons in Bombay will show that the
consumption standard of an industrial worker in Bom¬
bay is lower than that of convicts in jail.
57
Industrial workers' Textile . Convicts in Bombay prisons
(in lbs.)
Bombay
Madras .
Light Labour . Hard Labour
Cereals
1.29
1.18
1.38
1.5
Pulse
.09
.07
.21
.27
Meat
.03
....
.04
.04
Salt
.04
.05
.03
.03
Oils
.02
.03
.03
.03
Food adjunct
.07
.09
....
....
1.54
1.37
1.69
1.87
Who said India is a jail? It is worse.
The Imperial Council of Agricultural Research in
its Memorandum published in 1944 estimated the per¬
centage increase in the production of various foods
necessary for providing a suitably balanced diet in
minimum quantity for all.
Cereals .. 10%
Pulses .. 20%
Fats and Oils .. 250%
Fruits .. 50%
Vegetables .. 100%
Milk .. 300%
Fish and Egg .. 300%
58
IX
THE POPULATION MYTH
Hie problem of our population has also to be con¬
sidered. 73 per cent of the population, directly de¬
pends upon agriculture; a further 10 per cent indirect¬
ly. Since the 17th century, when approximate figures
are available, there has been a rapid increase in India’s
population.
1700
100 millions.
1750
130
1850
150 „
1881
254
1931
353 „
1941
..
388
It is a fallacy to attribute our difficulties to the
growth of our population. It is in the first instance
incorrect to say as some British authorities do, that
the rate of population growth has been the highest in
India.
Percentage increase of population in India
1871-81
1.5
1881-91
9.6
1891-1901
1.4
1901-1911
6.4
1911-1921
1.2
1921-31
10.6
1931-41
15.0
Between 1870 and 1030, therefore, the population
increase was 30.7 per cent. Other peoples in the
world are multiplying much faster. Europe exclud-
59
ing Russia in the same period has grown by 64 per
cent; Germany by 60; Italy by 60; Japan by 113; U.K.
by 77. Russia has increased by 115 per cent. It has been
estimated that since the year 1650 the population of
the White races has increased from 100 millions to
750 millions (1930). If Moreland’s estimate of India’s
population in 1606 at the time of Akbar’s death is ac¬
cepted, the increase of population in India in about the
same period is less than half the increase of the Euro¬
peans.
Dr. Kingsley Davis says: “The population increas¬
ed about 54 per cent during the period from 1872 to
1941.” The U.K. during the same period increased by 56
per cent and if we take the seventy year period from
1821 to 1891 (perhaps more compatible with India’s
last 70 years) we find the increase by 81 per cent. Si¬
milarly Japan, during 70 years from 1873 to 1942, ex¬
perienced a growth of approximately 136 per cent.
This leaves out of account the migrations to other
lands. Compared to many other countries India’s
population has not increased with much rapidity.
Any other dutiful Government would have en¬
couraged industrial development of the country to
meet the growing demand of the population. But
not the British Government of India, which has acted
throughout in the interests of British industry. This
is established by two facts. First, the industrial
population as compared to other countries is very
small, and Second, even the percentage of that popu¬
lation is falling.
There are hardly 4£ million men in large-scale
organised industries. The percentage of workers in
industries has declined from 11.27 in 1911 to 9.27 in
1931 and in trade from 5.7 to 5.4. Even the proportion
60
of industrial workers to rural population has steadily
decreased.
Year.
% °f population de- % of population
pendent on agri - engaged in industry .
culture.
1891
61.1
1911
66.5
5.5
1921
72.2
4.9
1931
73.0
4.3
1941
74.0
4.2
India is
not over-populated.
It is over-populated
only in the sense, as Car Saunders puts it, that ‘There
are too many people in relation to the whole set of
facts.” The British Government’s acts of omis¬
sion and commission are responsible for the result.
OVER-BURDENED LAND
The rural-urban ratio in population has remained
almost the same.
Census year .
Rural .
Urban.
1872
91.28
8.72
1881
90.59
9.41
1891
90.54
9.46
1901
90.65
9.35
1911
90.65
9.35
1921
89.70
10.30
1931
89.00
11.00
These facts show that people prefer to over-bur¬
den the land as there is no scope for the industrial
worker.
And the land thus over-burdened is deteriorating
for want of governmental effort to increase the agri¬
cultural yield.
The proportion of working population to persons
engaged in industries will also prove the hopelessness
on the situation.
61
19X1
(a) Population (inn) .. 315
( b) Working Population 149
(c) Persons engaged in
industries .. 17.5
Percentage of e to b 11.0
Percentage of c to a 5.5
The number of workers in large-scale industries
are increasing but very slowly.
Year.
Mines .
(In lakhs)
Factories. Plantations. Railways.
Total.
1901 ..
0.88
4.70 6.38
3.70
15.66
1911 ..
3.07
7.90 7.41
5.43
23.12
1921 ..
3.55
12.30 10.02
7.49
31.19
1931 ..
3.45
15.20 10.80
7.37
35.81
The total number of people dependent on indus-
tries has steadily decreased.
(in millions)
34.3
34.2
33.2
32.9 (Census Report)
A comparative study of distribution of population
in occupations in other countries would show how
India has been kept back from progressing towards
industrial development.
1901
1911
1921
1931
1921
1931
1941
1911-41
%variaiion
319
353
389
+23.5
146
154
170
+13.4
15.7
15.3
16.3
- 6.3
11.0
10.0
9.6
—12.7
4.9
4.3
4.2
-23.6
Percentage of working population engaged in occupations.
(1931)
U.K.
U. & A.
Japan
India
Agriculture , Industry
fishing , db mining,
etc.
Trade & Liberal
transport, professions.
Others.
7.0
47.3
20.7
4.4
20.6
22.0
31.7
24.5
7.0
14.8
50.3
19.5
20.2
10.0
67.2
10.2
6.6
i*5
14.5
The per capita production of goods vital 'to indus¬
trial progress are as follows:
62
U.S.A.
U.K.
India
(Per ton)
Iron
..
.005
.2
.3
Steel
..
.003
.3
.4
Coal
..
.007
5.2
3.0
U.S.S.R. WITH SELF-RULE
And if one compares with what U.S.S.R. has been
able to do, the difference is remarkable.
The total number of workers and employees in
Soviet Industry, trade and agriculture has grown,
since 1919, nearly three times, from lli million to 32
millions. Women represented 45 per cent of all indus¬
trial workers in November 1940. The urban popula¬
tion has increased from 26.3 millions in 1926 to 55.9
millions in 1939.
In U.S.S.R. the 1939 census reveals that, of a total
population of 170 millions, workmen in towns and vil¬
lages (including family members) were 55 millions
or 32.2 per cent. Non-working population was hardly
0.04 per cent. Employees formed only 17.54 per cent.
Industrial output of U.S.S.R.
(gross figures in milliards of roubles 1926-27 values).
1913
1933
1939
1941 (plan)
Total
.. 16.2
45.7
123.9
162.0
Capital goods
.. 5.4
24.5
73.7
103.6
Consumer goods
.. 10.8
21.2
50.2
58.4
Total agricultural production
(in millions of roubles of 1926-27 value)
1913
12,607
63
1929
14,745
1938
20,123
These figures of population disposals have a direcl
bearing on the output.
No wonder U.S.S.R. evokes universal admiration.
INDIA KEPT 150 YEARS BEHIND
Taking the world as a whole probably about five-
sevenths of the working population are engaged in
agriculture. In U.S.A. 140 years ago over 80 per cent
of the occupied population were agriculturists, while
now about 20 per cent supply a more varied and rich¬
er dietary and in addition, raw materials like cotton.
At the end of the 17th century, in Great Britain, 80
per cent of the population were engaged in agricul¬
ture. In 1930 the percentage of farmers was only 6
per cent. So that in occupational distribution we are
today where ILK. and the U.S.A. were 150 years back!
But again these calculations are faulty. The gov¬
ernment has given no statistics of the milli ons of un¬
employed in the country who are either drags on
society or live but to die. They will, on a rough cal¬
culation, be 20 per cent totally unemployed and 20
per cent partially unemployed. And no one thinks in
terms of this colossal wastage of human power, of the
will and energy to work.
SHORTAGES ALL ROUND
The country has been kept at the lowest margin
of undevelopment, compared to its resources, man¬
power and intelligence. Whitley Commission on labour
says “97 per cent of the working classes in Bombay
live in one-room tenements with 6 to 9 persons per
room. In Ahmedabad the areas occupied by the work¬
ing class present pictures of terrible squalor. Nearly
92 per cent of the houses are one-roomed.” According
64
to 1931 Census, there were 4865 persons per 1000
houses. In 1941 the number increased to 5116.
In India, hardly 13 per cent of the population live
in towns as compared with 50 per cent in U.S.A., in
1930, and even this little urbanisation had created such
congestion that in Bombay City 74 per cent of the peo¬
ple (1931) that is, 8 lakhs lived in 2 lakhs single-roomed
tenements that is, 4 to a room. Mr. Sorely tells us in
a recent Report that some of the conditions of housing
in Bombay City “must be more reminiscent of the
Black Hole of historical memory than of any modern
city pretending to sanitary living conditions.”
Rent Inquiry Committee (Bombay) recently esti¬
mated that 74 per cent of the population lives in one-
room tenements.
The minimum floor space required per individual
is 100 square feet. The Bombay labourer has only
27.5 square feet.
HALF-NAKED INDIA
In the whole year 1945, production of cloth was
hardly 4700 million yards; a small fall from 1944
figures. Before the war, mill production was 3800 mil¬
lion yards; hland-loom production 1600 million
yards; and imports were 950 million yards; in
all 6350 yards. Exports were 150 million yards; so
that the net quantity available for home consumption
was 6200 million yards. During the war years exports
and defence requirements took away 1500 million yards
a year. Imports have been practically cut off. The
available yardage is less than 4000 million yards or
about 10 yards per head. Scant wonder, India has to
go about clothless.
65
A comparative view of the consumption of cotton
cloth per head shows an equally sad state:
U. S. A. 64 sq. yds.
D. K. 35 „ „
Japan 21 linear yds.
India 16 99 99
(only 10 or 12 in 43-44)
Per capita consumption of coal in U.S.A. is 4.72 tons:
in Great Britain 2.6 tons; in India, however, it is only
0.07 tons.
Railway mileage in India is 41,000 (with a capital
investment of Rs. 850 crores) that is, 35 miles per 100
sq. miles against 100 in U.S.A. and 200 in U.K. Still, all
broad-gauge locomotives have to be imported and till
lately, even wagons. In 1943-45 estimated imports
were of 900 locomotives.
It must not be forgotten that the railways in
India were constructed not for national development
but for military purposes. Some of the major Railway
Companies were floated by British businessmen who
were guaranteed a certain percentage of profits on
their investments. As a result, these railways were
worked in a manner so as to result in losses over
several decades all of which were made good by the
Indian tax-payer.
We have 35 miles of Roads per 100 sq. miles of
territory while the corresponding figures of other
countries are:—
Japan
300
U. S. A.
200
Great Britain
110
In a total area of 1,580,000 sq. miles there are only
85,792 miles of metalled roads. Of this, total mileage,
of roads with cement or bituminous surface is only
9680. The Nagpur Conference of Chief Engineers
66
of Provinces and States estimated a minimum figure of
400,000 miles of roads to meet our requirements, at
least half being “all-weather” roads.
In 1938-39 we had hardly 5 motor trucks for every
lakh of population as against 1200 in U.K. and 3300 in
U.S.A. In U.S.A. one in every five persons own an
automobile; in United Kingdom one in every twenty
persons of the population; in India one in every 2000!
If we are one hundred and fifty years behind
U.S.A. and U.K. in the general development of
our resources, it means no real progress has been
made since the British came. Britain came;
stopped the clock of progress; and we were kept
as we were, seeing the world pass us by.
CHAPTER X
RACE DETERIORATION
Novalis said “There is but one temple in the world,
and that temple is the body of man.” And this shrine,
so far as India is concerned, has been allowed to be
desecrated in the British period.
DEATH HATE
The average expectation of life in U.K. and Ger¬
many is 63 years, in Japan 47 years, but in India it
is only 27 years.
The expectation of life at birth for the average
German increased, between 1870 and 1935, from 35
years to 58; that of the average Englishman, from 41
years to 56. In India it was 25.54 in 1891 and was only
26.46 in 1941. The reason is clear. As Sir Robert
McCarrison puts it, “Normal nutrition and health can¬
not be maintained on many of the diets now used by
millions of the people of India.”
Mean expection of life in India
1881 1891 1901 1911 1931
Males. 23.67 24.59 23.63 22.59 26.91
Females .. .. 25.88 25.54 23.96 23.31 26.56
Nothing has been done to reduce the mortality
rate in India which is higher than in any other
country. *
Birth and Death Rates (per thousand)
1885-90 1890-01 1901-11 1911-21 1921-31 1931-35
Birthrate .. 36 34 38 37 35 3135
Death rate ..26 31 34 34 26 24
68
Death rate in 1901-10 and in 1911-20 was recorded
as 34 per thousand. In 1939 it was 22 per thousand.
Infant mortality since 1920 has also fallen from 190 to
160. But the death rate compared to other countries
is shocking.
Survivors of 100,000 infants at the end of 50 yeai s.
U.K. Japan India.
Male .. .. 59,903 52,629 18,658
Female .. .. 64,742 51,794 19,714
This death rate has a close relation to the poverty
in the country, as a comparison between the death rate
per 1000 of population and income in International
Units (LUs) per head would show:
(I’ Us.)
Death rate
Country
per capita
income.
per 1000
U.S.A.
1381
10.9
U.K. ..
1089
12.2
Germany
648
11.0
Japan ..
353
18.1
India ..
200
23.8
INFANT MORTALITY
Fifty per cent of the deaths recorded in India in
any given year occur in children below ten years of
age. The comparative percentage in U.K. is only 12
per cent. Four children die in India to one in U.K.!
The figures for infant mortality in India are a
disgrace to any government. They are 48 per thou¬
sand in London against 201 per thousand in Bombay,
which is one of the healthiest towns in India.
U.K. and U.S.A. have in recent years made rapid
strides in reducing infant mortality.
Infant deaths per 1000 live births
1900-02 1910-12 1920-22 1930-32
New York .. .. 130 110 80 55
United Kingdom .. 150 110 80 60
69
Expectation of life
New Zealand. Australia. U. K. & Japan India
Germany
Years 67 63 63 47 27
Comparative Vital statistics for 1937
(Rate per 1000 of population)
Country Death rate. Birthrate. Infant mortality
India. 22.4 34.5 162
Australia .. .. .. 9.4 17.0 38
U.S.A. . 11.2 17.0 54
U. K. 12.4 14.9 58
Japan. 17.0 30.6 106
Rate of infant mortality per thousand for three
quinquennia from 1921 would indicate that while in
every other country the rate of infant mortality is
not only low, but is declining rapidly, in
rate is high and remains almost constant.
India the
Country.
1921-25
1926-30
1931-35.
U. K.
78
70
65
Sweden
60
58
51
Norway .
52
49
47
Germany .
122
94
76
U.S.A.
74
68
59
India.
182
178
171
In Great Britain for instance the mortality for
children between the ages of one and five years fell
from 4.59 per 1000 living in 1939 to 3.34 in 1943.
MATERNAL MORTALITY
Another] distressing element is the high death rate
among women during the reproduction period between
the ages of 15 and 45 years. Estimates of maternal
mortality in different parts of the country range from
16 to 24 per 1000 births. Highest maternal mortality
rate, 24 per thousand, was estimated by Sir John
Megaw in 1933. The estimate of 20 deaths to 1000
live births is made by the Central Advisory Board of
Health Special Committee (1937).
70
Sir John Megaw’s estimates show a total of ma¬
ternal death rate per year at 200,000.
This state of things may be compared with the
maternal mortality rate in other countries.
ILK.
2.6 per thousand births
Holland
2.4
France
2.5
Sweden
2.6
Denmark
2.7
Italy
2.9
Japan
3.0 „
Switzerland
4.5
New Zealand
4.7
The maternal mortality rate per 1000 total births
fell in U.K. from 3.10 in 1939 to 2.30 in 1943. Ten
mothers die in India as compared to one in U.K.!
There is no greater condemnation of British rule
than the fact that India neither has nor had an ade¬
quate benefit of the progress in medical sciences.
“India almost lacks effective social or economic mea¬
sures for the maintenance of health.” In 1912 more
people died in India due to influenza than the total
of all persons who died in first World War. In
1918-19 again one crore and forty lakhs of human be¬
ings died of influenza in India.
Sir John Megaw says “In India 13 million people
suffer from venereal diseases, 2 million from tuber¬
culosis, 6 million are victims of night blindness due to
bad diet, 6 million are totally blind, 2 million have
rickets due to deficiency in diet.
IN TIFPU’S TIMES
Look upon this picture of British rule and upon
that of pre-British days.
Anqetil du Perron speaking about Maharashtra
says: “When I entered the country of the Maharattas,
71
I thought myself in the midst of simplicity and hap¬
piness of the golden age-misery was unknown_
the people were cheerful, vigorous and in high health.”
Lt. Col. Moore (a traveller,) testifies to conditions in
the eighteenth century, “When a person travelling
through a strange country finds it well cultivated,
populous, with industrious inhabitants, cities well
founded, commerce extending, towns increasing and
everything flourishing so as to indicate happiness, he
naturally concludes the form of government congenial
to the people”. This is a picture of Tippu’s government.
PREVENTIBLE DISEASES
And now disease reigns supreme
Mortality per 100,000 {1935-37 averages) ‘Health of India.’
Calcutta
Bombay
New York
London
T.B.
270
170
47
87
Dysentery", etc. ..
436 (Madras)
252
nil
nil
Typhoid ..
90
40
0.2
0.4
Comparison with other Asiatic colonial countries.
Dutch
Br. Burma Japan. Philli- Indo- East
India pines China Indies.
Small-pox ..24,4 0 0.02 0 2 0
Cholera ..46.2 26 0 .01 13 2
The toll of malaria in India would have shaken
any government out of its self-complacence, but not
the British. It directly causes every year no less than
one million deaths.
Over 10 crores suffer every year from malaria
lit.Col. J. A. Sinton, the late Director, Malaria Survey
of India says: “Malaria gives rise to the greatest eco¬
nomic problem... .financial losses not less than
Rs. 11,000 lakhs-While it is not possible to evaluate
with any degree of accuracy the immensity of
these direct and indirect losses, there is little reason
72
to doubt that they must run into unbelievable millions
of sterling each year.” If a 100 million suffer every
year from malaria, about 25 to 75 millions more suffer
from morbidity due to malaria.
“In Bengal, in 1937, over 60 per cent of the popu¬
lation suffered from malaria and about 1000 died every
day of the year.” Major Norman White stated before
the Industrial Commission of 1918 that “malaria,
hookworm, and tuberculosis are the most potent
causes of industrial inefficiency.” Conditions have
scarcely improved since then. Total deaths from ma¬
laria in 1901-1921 numbered 18.5 million. What a
commentary on the country’s administration that the
positive checks mentioned by Malthus on population
growth should actually be operative in India!
The remarks of the Famine Inquiry Commission
are significant. “The possibility may also be men¬
tioned that average height and weight have fallen as
a result of deterioration in diet; that is, there has been
a process of physical adaptation to a decreasing per
capita food supply.
“Existing standard of nutrition are thoroughly
unsatisfactory. The population is indeed being fed, but
fed at a low level. Under-nutrition and mal-nutrition
are wide-spread.”
It is this inadequate and ill-balanced diet (under¬
nutrition) that impairs the powers of resistance to in¬
fection. Medical service all the world over where self-
rule prevails, is not only curative but also preventive.
In India there is no positive policy to promote health.
And the State remedial services are hopelessly inade¬
quate. Remedial measures if taken are halting
and tardy. To take but one instance, the average con¬
sumption of quinine is 2 lakhs lbs. against our require-
78
ments of over 6 lakhs lbs. And the Government has
the monopoly of cinchona.
Medical services in India are hopelessly inade¬
quate. The total number of hospitals and dispensaries
throughout British India is less than 7,000. Each serves,
therefore, on an average 13,000 persons in urban and
53,000 people in rural areas. There are only 226 spe¬
cial women’s hospitals. That is, there is only one
hospital for 43,000 persons and one bed for 4,000.
There are about 42,000 doctors, of whom two-
thirds are licentiates; one doctor for 50,000 people!
This total is less than Japan’s whose population is
about the same as that of Bengal. If we are to have
one doctor per 2,000 of population, India would require
200,000 doctors, that is 5 times the present number.
In U.K., in 1938, there were 3,261 welfare centres
and a staff equivalent to the whole time services of
2,900 health visitors for a population of 41 millions. In
India, in 1939, for a ten-fold population, there were
only 1,020 centres, a mere apology!
The total number of trained nurses in the country
is 6,130 and the number of women doctors with special
training in maternity and child-welfare work through¬
out India is less than 50.
In India, the first medical school was opened in
1822. Medical Colleges in Madras and Calcutta were
started in 1835. Midwifery training in Madras was
Started in 1854. And these are the results to date. As
against this in Great Britain there were 110,000 nurses
and 61,500 doctors, that is, two nurses to each doctor
and a doctor for every 775 people.
Scarcely any effective social and economic mea¬
sures are adopted for the maintenance of health.
74
A table composed from the memorandum of the
Government of C.P. to the Royal Commission on La¬
bour shows the comparative body weight of a spinner
in mills and prisoner in jails.
Province.
Average wt.
of spinner
Average ivt.
of a prisoner
Difference
Bombav
.. 102.9
112.12
10.3
C. P.
.. 100.92
110.45
9 .55
Burma
.. 117.U
125.70
S . 50
U.P.
.. 107.01
115,08
8 .07
Bengal
.. 107.93
115.05
7.12
Punjab
.. 113.08
115.05
1 .97
Madras
.. 118.04
114.3$
0.75
Again, India is not a jail, but worse than one.
Modem Governments with a conscience have
begun to plan for the welfare of their people
from ‘womb to the tomb.’ The British Govern¬
ment has never applied its mind seriously to any
problem except preparing reports cm the ‘tombs’
which its policy, or the want of it, has brought
into existence.
XI
THE DESCENT OF DARKNESS
i
About 1800 before the British took charge of
India’s education “each village had its own school.”
A foreign observer speaking of indigenous village
educational institutions remarked about 1830, “my re¬
collections of the village schools of Scotland do not
enable me to pronounce that the instruction given in
them has a more direct bearing upon the daily inte¬
rests of life than that which I find given or professed
to be given in the humbler village school of BengaL”
On the authority of Max Muller, Keir Hardie stated
that prior to the coming of the British there were as
many as 80,000 schools in Bengal alone, there was
one school for every 400 persons, and that in most
villages, majority of the people could read and write.
Dr. Latiner, Director of Public Instruction in the
Punjab, also subscribes to this view.
Macaulay’s famous minute on Education was a
frank plea for destroying indigenous education, in the
interest of British domination. “We must at present
do our best to form a class who may be interpreters
between us and the millions we govern—a class of per¬
sons Indian in blood and colour but English in taste,
in opinions, in morals, in intellect.”
In 1835 Lord Bentick published a resolution
which ran as follows: “His Lordship is of opinion that
the great object of the British government ought to be
76
the promotion of European literature and science
amongst the natives of India and therefore all the
funds appropriated for the purposes of education
would be best employed to English education alone.”
Indigenous educational institutions, neglected and
shorn of all state support and guidance, withered
away and were replaced by the half-hearted, imitative
and sterile education of the present day.
And what a fall by 1900!
Lord Curzon stated, “Four villages out of five are
without school. Only one girl in 40 attend any school.”
In 1813, the magnificent sum of Rs. one lakh was
allotted to education in the Central budget and this
sum was not fully utilised for a decade! In 1907, only
36 lakhs out of 180 lakhs of boys of school-going age
were actually at school; that - is, 80 per cent had no
schooling whatever. Gokhale’s modest demand in 1910
that a beginning should be made in the direction of
making elementary education free and compulsory
was turned down by British votes. The Compulsory
Education Bill was defeated by 31 votes against 13.
1941 census places the percentage of the illiterates at
85 per cent.
“Just going to school” hardly means anything. The
Hartog Commission focussed attention on the wastage
in our educational system. As an instance, primary
schools of Bengal showed a wastage of over 90 per
cent.
Only 7 per cent of those who start learning get
to class IV. Naturally there is a very slow increase in
the number of literates. In this case too there is a race
with population growth. Percentage of ‘literacy’ has
77
increased from 3: 5 in 1881 to 8 per cent in 1931 and
only to 14 per cent in 1941.
On the other hand in 40 years, U.S.A. has raised
the percentage of literacy in the Philippines from 2 to
55 per cent. And Russia with its patriotic govern¬
ment has raised literacy from 20 per cent to more
than 93 per cent in 20 years. If India only had a
government of its own during the last 20 years!
H. V. Hampton of Indian Education Service says:
“It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the Indian
high school is much the same as it was in 1904 and but
little changed from what it was as far back as 1884.”
Literacy is very uneven even as it is. Only 120
out of a thousand are now ‘literate’ in our land. From
the point of literacy, Travancore occupied the highest
place in India with 47.9 per cent. Cochin comes next
with 35.4, Delhi has 25.7 and Baroda 23. Among the
provinces, Madras, Bombay and Bengal, have per¬
centages of 13, 19.5 and 16.1 respectively.
NO MONEY FOR EDUCATION
Public expenditure on education is disgracefully
low. We spend only Rs. 90 million annually on edu¬
cation, from all sources. On the other hand a very
conservative estimate of the total recurring (apart
from capital) expenditure on a national primary edu¬
cation alone will be about Rs. 350 million.
Our per capita public expenditure at present is
less than Rs. 10. In 1938-39, U.K. spent for education
Rs. 33-2-0 per head and India only Rs. 0-8-9 per head.
We were 66 times worse than United Kingdom from
an educational point of view!
The Wood despatch of the Board of Directors over
92 years back stated: “The importance of female edu-
78
cation in India canot be over-stated.” Yet in 1941, the
comment in the Census Report is iw £ven now. how¬
ever, the percentage of literacy among women is only
20 per cent.” Importance is stressed; costly diagnosis
is made; the cure remains as far away as possible.
Technical education is particularly backward. A
very small percentage of technically qualified people
come from the Universities.
There are now only IT schools of art. 29
medical schools, about 19 engineering institutions
and less than 20 agricultural schools in this vast
country.
For a population of 300 million, serving an area
of about 1.5 million sq. miles, there are in India IS
Universities (3 of them being in Indian States), with
aii enrolment of about 120,000. The number of colleges
is about 300 including 80 professional colleges. There
are only about 3,500 high schools with a total enrol¬
ment of 1.2 million students including 1.5 lakhs of girls.
187,000 primary schools cater to the needs of primary
education, while there are 678,000 villages in India.
Out of over 40 million children of primary school¬
going age, hardly 11 million attend school. Of every
100 that so attend, less than 8 reach the eighth stand¬
ard. In fact, only 5.5 per cent of the entire population
is receiving instruction today.
Attention and money are being wasted in learning
English, the language of foreign rulers, stifling thought
and expression and the indigenous village institutions
have faded out of existence in most places.
Number of literates in English per 1000 aged 5 and
over All India
Males. Females. All persons.
212 27 120
TO
In 1940-41 out of a total expenditure on education
of about Rs. 30 crores in British India, Rs. 17£ crores
came from public funds. Against this the annual net
cost of a national system of education, when in full
working order, will amount to Rs. 277 crores. This
expenditure is based on pre-war standards in regard
to population and cost of living. Of this sum, about;
200 crores would be the cost of Basic (Primary and
Middle) education.
The Sargent Committee Report maintains with all
seriousness... .“even if all the funds required were
available it would be impossible to give complete effect
to the proposals which it contains in a period of less
than 40 years.” We are offered the consolation that
we may hope to reach where Great Britain, U.S.A.,
U.S.S.R., and other leading countries stand today as
regards education in another 50 years. But by then,
they would be far, far ahead of us. So according to
Sargent we may hope to reach them—never!
In Great Britain, a White Paper has been recently
presented to the Parliament containing proposals for
post-war educational expansion. Says the White Pa¬
per “upon the education of the people of this country,
the fate of this country depends.” Of no other country
in the world is this more true than of India. And if
Sargent is'a true prophet, our fate is sealed, unless
British rule ends.
The meagreness of our education can be judged
from the enrolment in the Universities in India (1941-
42).
80
No. of students.
All Universi¬
ties in Br.
Universities
in Indian
Total
India.
States
(India)
Intermediate class ..
85,072
32,972
8571
93,643
Undergraduate (Arts)
1359
34,331
Undergraduate (Science)
10,770
1350
12,120
Post Graduate (Arts)
6,085
90
6,175
Post Graduate (Science)
1,347
57
1,404
Research Students (Arts) .
336
22
358
Research Students (Science)
164
20
184
For professional degrees.
Medicine
6531
340
6871
Law.
, 7555
311
7866
Engineering
2278
441
2719
Education
2779
158
2936
Agriculture.
1194
....
1194
Commerce
6326
164
6490
Total Males .
148410
11575
159,985
Females .
14998
1308
16,306
163.408 12883 176.291
A Chinese Proverb says:—
“If you are planning for one year, plant grain;,
If you are planning for ten years, plant trees;
If you are planning for a hundred years, plant
men.”
Yes, that is what is needed. If men are to be
‘planted’ firmly, in India, their education, their health,
their nourishment, their work should all be of the
highest type. Adequate provision for education fa¬
cilities is the first charge on the country’s resources.
The British naturally are not much concerned with
this side of our development.
EDUCATION IN RUSSIA
U.S.S.R. is a very big country. It was a back¬
ward country like India twenty years ago. But its
recent educational achievements might well furnish
a standard comparison. Of those living within the
81
1939 borders of the U.S.S.R. no fewer than 76 per cent
were illiterate in 1897. In 1917 over 50 per cent of
the males and 80 per cent of the females were illite¬
rate. In 1939 the change was magical. Over 90 per
cent of all males and 72 per cent of women were lite¬
rate despite their multiplicity of minorities and langu¬
ages.
Literate? over 9 years old
Dt/c. *26 Jan. ‘39
5 1.1 8 1.2
Literates among persons aged over 9 years
T’rban rural
districts. districts.
r>{l * ‘O ±K 90
89.5% 76.S° 0
Number of Students
High Schools in them
91 124,000
TOO 600,000
Number of books printed
1913 86 million.
1939 701 million.
1914 1929 1938 1939
Libraries .. .. 12.6 28.9 70.0 77.6 (in 1000s)
Editions of books and
journals .. .. 80.7 568.1 949.0 .. (millions)
In 1928-32 the engineering colleges in U.S.S.R.
produced altogether 67,000 “industrial officers.” In
the 1932-37 five year period, the number of such gra¬
duates rose to 211,000. In 1939, no less than 90 per
cent of all students were maintained by State bursa¬
ries. As late as 1937 about 20 per cent of the whole
State expenditure was allocated to education nearly
as much as to defence. And no one can say that Rus¬
sia pays no attention to defence.
U.S.S.R. pays special attention to social insurance.
1921.
1939
1919
1940
82
Expenditure on social insurance.
I in millions of roubles)
1928 1938 mi (plan)
1.038 8323 9998
1914 1929 1938 1939
Theatres .. .. 133 .. 702 787
Beds in hospitals .. 173.5 246.8 672 (thousands)
Doctors .. .. 19783 63162 110,000
U.S.S.R. in twenty years has almost come upto
the level of UK. and U.S.A. India has been doomed
to darkness. Why? Because we are not our own
masters.
HUNGER AND WHY?
The claim is made that Britain has given peace to
India. Has she? If she disarmed us, it was to see that
exploitation was not resisted by us. If she introduced
law and order, it was to train up a large Indian Police
force under British officers whose principal function
was to keep India safe for Britain; their protection
had, more often than not, to be purchased by the peo¬
ple by bribery on an almost universal scale. Our will
to resist, even in self-defence or in defence of our
property,— which is considered sacred—has been dis-
troyed.
It is further claimed that Britain gave us modem
education. This is scarcely a place to discuss the qua¬
lity of education which the British has given us. But
broadly speaking in Pre-British days, the leaders of
society consisted of men devoted to learning, teaching
and religious instruction; of men who formed the mi¬
litary aristocrasy. small and big; of men who traded or
formed the artisan class. The British destroyed the
social organisation completely and created by their
support only two classes of instruments.
88
The First class consisted of the British edu¬
cated who were British instruments for adminis¬
trative purposes, men who as officers bullied their
own people and played flunkeys to their foreign
masters.
The Second class consisted of a small British
created mercantile class standing aloof from their
people in the pride of new-gotten wealth which
was unknown to the rich of the Pre-British
period; the unconscious middlemen! of British
business who flourished on the leavings which
remained in their hands after the bulk of India’s
wealth passed into British hands.
The man of learning, who stuck to the older edu¬
cation, the martial races, which clung to the old tradi¬
tion, the artizans who formed the strength of the old
cottage industries, and the farmers, the backbone of the
society were forced down the scale of life; their skill,
vitality and strength were reduced to utter helpless¬
ness. Struggle for existence in consequence has been
rendered terrific in a land of plenty. The joy and
contentment which were ours in pre-British ages
has gone.
And that is why there is universal bitterness
against Britain, and an equally acute and universal
hunger for Swaraj.
But it would be scarcely fair to attribute to Bri¬
tain a sinister deep laid design to destroy India car¬
ried through a century and a half. From 1787 to
1857 was a period of unstinted loot at the hands of
the shameless successors of Drake. Since 1857 there
was a change. Rapacity gave place to a two-fold
process: a pious attempt to raise India and a deter-
84
mined effort not to slow down the process of enrich¬
ing Britain. The British public were at the zenith
of their Mid-Victorian Liberalism thinking in terms of
being the apostles of a new world order. Indian po¬
licy was therefore directed towards two objectives:
First, to impose on an ancient and highly complex
culture and society which the Britishers considered
inferior, the outward semblances of a crude European
culture.
Second, to concentrate all political power in the
hands of the governing Corporation, the civil service
composed of the British and their Indian instruments,
who were allowed a free hand only so long as they
earned heavy dividends for Britain and did nothing
to shock the British conscience.
Third, to carry out imperialistic ambition but
never to the edge of a revolutionary precipice.
The British Imperialism may be more humane than
others in history; an individual British Civil servant
may be a hardworking, honest man; the British public
opinion may be at times highly sensitive to demo¬
cratic ideas. But these factors made very little differ¬
ence to the steady exploitation of the country and the
utter unfitness of the governing corporation to acquire
the outlook and energy of a national government.
Britain’s was a cold-blooded rule. And no won¬
der India was bled white. Now that a new^era of
friendship between India and Britain is dawning
India has a right to look forward to Britain help¬
ing her to make up for what she has lost under
Britain’s self-imposed trusteeship.
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