THE MEANING OF THE EMPIRE

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

 

THE MEANING OF THE EMPIRE

 

 

 The following circular has been issued by the Education Department: Teachers and educational officers of this Presidency should be asked to co-operate in bringing about a right understanding of the meaning of the Empire and in dispelling the idea that the Empire is based on force and militarism, by encouraging the parties concerned to look upon each other as brethren in advancement of the liberal aims and mutual friendship and sympathy particularly in India where a contrary feeling is gaining ground. It is dated at Poona the 1st instant. The circular in my opinion is a triumph of non-co-operation. We have been often told authoritatively that the Empire is based finally on force. When an attempt is being made to isolate this force, and to show by not meeting it by force that it is utterly useless when it is not backed by co-operation, conscious or unconscious, of the people, we have a circular calling upon the teachers to co-operate in showing that the Empire is based not on force or militarism but that it is based on mutual friendship.

This I consider a triumph of non-cooperation because force recedes into the background. Sir Michael O’Dwyer flaunted his brute force in the face of the nation, and terrorism reigned supreme for a time. It did not answer. Now it is to be covered under soft-sounding phrases. It too must fail. The circular is hypocritical. To talk of friendship and sympathy between terrorist and their victims is to add deception to tyranny. The way out is through non-co-operation. It is a vain attempt to expect to secure friendship by false pretensions. The best and only way to secure the real friendship of the people and to prove to them that the Empire is not based on force and militarism, is to withdraw the superfluous military force even at the risk of losing the Empire to trust the people, and for Englishmen in general to regard us in every way their equals in thought and indeed. This presupposes righting the khilafat wrong in accordance with the Mussulman sentiment and to give full reparation regarding the Punjab. But this seems impossible for the general body of Englishmen to do.

They have been brought up to work upon us as mere chattels. I invite the attention of the reader for the account of the treatment of our countrymen in New Zealand. I cannot conceive anything more wantonly brutal than the doings of the white men of New Zealand. It is not as if the colonists are depraved people. They are brave, generous, charitable and cultured in their own sphere. But they are thrown off their balance immediately they come in contact with us. We are their natural prey. And culture is no bar to their maltreatment of us even as culture is no bar to the killing even says of snakes by the majority of mankind. I have not used a far-fetched illustration. Thousands of Englishmen cannot bear the idea of an Indian claiming or living on terms of equality with them. White superiority, as Mr. Andrews has shown, has become a religion. President Kruger used to say that God had ordained Asiatics to be white men’s slaves. He even introduced the idea in his statute-book. He was frank and he avowed it. Others believe it, practice it, but would fain break its force by using euphemistic language or worse. It is not possible to blame anybody but we for this badge of inferiority and we alone can remove it by supreme effort.