Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  The Japanese victory, therefore, was a great pick-me-up for Asia. In India it lessened the feeling of inferiority, from which most of us suffered. Nationalist ideas spread more widely, especially in Bengal and Maharashtra. Just then an event took place which shook Bengal to the depths and stirred the whole of India. The British Government divided up the great province of Bengal (which at that time included Bihar) into two parts, one of these being Eastern Bengal. The growing nationalism of the bourgeoisie in Bengal resented it. It suspected that the British wanted to weaken them by thus dividing them. Eastern Bengal had a majority of Muslims, so by this division a Hindu-Muslim question was also raised. A great anti-British movement rose in Bengal. Most of the landholders joined it, and so did Indian capitalists. The cry of Swadeshi was first raised then, and with it the boycott of British goods, which of course helped Indian industry and capital. The movement even spread to the masses to some extent, and partly it drew its inspiration from Hinduism. Side by side with it there arose in Bengal a school of revolutionary violence, and the bomb first made its appearance in Indian politics. Aurobindo Ghose was one of the brilliant leaders of the Bengal movement. He still lives, but for many years he has lived a retired life in Pondicherry, which is in French India.

  In western India, in the Maharashtra country, there was also a great ferment at this time and a revival of an aggressive nationalism, tinged also with Hinduism. A great leader arose there, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, known throughout India as the Lokamanya, the “Honoured of the People”. Tilak was a great scholar, learned alike in the old ways of the East and the new ways of the West; he was a great politician; but, above all, he was a great mass leader. The leaders of the National Congress had so far appealed only to the English-educated Indians; they were little known by the masses. Tilak was the first political leader of the new India who reached the masses and drew strength from them. His dynamic personality brought a new element of strength and indomitable courage, and, added to the new spirit of nationalism and sacrifice in Bengal, it changed the face of Indian politics.

  What was the Congress doing during these stirring days of 1906 and 1907 and 1908? The Congress leaders, far from leading the nation at the time of this awakening of the national spirit, hung back. They were used to a quieter brand of politics in which the masses did not intrude. They did not like the flaming enthusiasm of Bengal, nor did they feel at home with the new unbending spirit of Maharashtra, as embodied in Tilak. They praised Swadeshi but hesitated at the boycott of British goods. Two parties developed in the Congress—the extremists under Tilak and some Bengal leaders and the moderates under the older Congress leaders. The most prominent of the moderate leaders was, however, a young man, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a very able man who had devoted his life to service. Gokhale was also from Maharashtra. Tilak and he faced each other from their rival groups and, inevitably, the split came in 1907 and the Congress was divided. The moderates continued to control the Congress, the extremists were driven out. The moderates won, but it was at the cost of their popularity in the country, for Tilak’s party was far the more popular with the people. The Congress became weak and for some years had little influence.

  And what of the government during these years? How did it react to the growth of Indian nationalism? Governments have only one method of meeting an argument or a demand which they do not like—the use of the bludgeon. So the government indulged in repression and sent people to prison, and curbed the newspapers with Press laws, and let loose crowds of secret policemen and spies to shadow everybody they did not like. Since those days the members of the C.I.D. in India have been the constant companions of prominent Indian politicians. Many of the Bengal leaders were sentenced to imprisonment. The most noted trial was that of Lokamanya Tilak, who was sentenced to six years, and who during his imprisonment in Mandalay wrote a famous book. Lala Lajpat Rai was also deported to Burma.

  But repression did not succeed in crushing Bengal. So a measure of reform in the administration was hurried up to appease some people at least. The policy was then, as it was later and is now, to split up the nationalist ranks. The moderates were to be “rallied” and the extremists crushed. In 1908 these new reforms, called the Morley-Minto reforms, were announced. They succeeded in “rallying the moderates”, who were pleased with them. The extremists, with their leaders in gaol, were demoralized and the national movement weakened. In Bengal, however, the agitation against the partition continued and ended with success. In 1911 the British Government reversed the partition of Bengal. This triumph put new heart in the Bengalis. But the movement of 1907 had spent itself, and India relapsed into political apathy.

  In 1911 also it was proclaimed that Delhi was to be the new capital— Delhi, the seat of many an empire, and the grave also of many an empire.

  So stood India in 1914 when the World War broke out in Europe and ended the 100-year period. That war also affected India tremendously, but of that I shall have something to say later.

  I have done, at long last, with India in the nineteenth century. I have brought you to within eighteen years of today. And now we must leave India and, in the next letter, go to China and examine another type of imperialist exploitation.

  114

  Britain Forces Opium on China

  December 14, 1932

  I have told you, at considerable length, of the effect of the Industrial and Mechanical Revolutions on India, and of how the new imperialism worked in India. Being an Indian, I am a partisan, and I am afraid I cannot help taking a partisan view. But I have tried, and I should like you to try, to consider these questions as a scientist impartially examining facts, and not as a nationalist out to prove one side of the case. Nationalism is good in its place, but it is an unreliable friend and an unsafe historian. It blinds us to many happenings, and sometimes distorts the truth, especially when it concerns us or our country. So we have to be wary, when considering the recent history of India, lest we cast all the blame for our misfortunes on the British.

  Having seen how India was exploited in the nineteenth century by the industrialists and capitalists of Britain, let us go to the other great country of Asia, India’s old-time friend, that ancient among nations, China. We shall find here a different type of exploitation by the West. China did not become a colony or dependency of any European country, as India did. She escaped this, as she had a strong enough central government to hold the country together till about the middle of the nineteenth century. India, as we have seen, had gone to pieces more than 100 years before this, when the Moghal Empire fell. China grew weak in the nineteenth century, but still it held together to the last, and the mutual jealousies of foreign Powers prevented them from taking too much advantage of China’s weakness.

  In my last letter on China (it was number 94) I told you of the attempts made by the British to increase their trade with China. I gave you a long quotation from the very superior and patronizing letter written by the Manchu Emperor Chien Lung in answer to the English King George III. This was in 1792. This date will remind you of the stormy times that Europe was having then—it was the period of the French Revolution. And this was followed by Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars. England had her hands full during this whole period and was fighting desperately against Napoleon. There was no question thus of an extension of the China trade for her till Napoleon fell and England breathed with relief. Soon after, however, in 1816, another British embassy was sent to China. But there was some difficulty about the ceremonial to be observed, and the Chinese Emperor refused to see the British envoy, Lord Amhurst, and ordered him to go back. The ceremony to be performed was called the kotow, which is a kind of prostration on the ground. Perhaps you have heard of the word “kow-towing”.

  Britain and China

  So nothing happened. Meanwhile a new trade was rapidly growing— the trade in opium. It is not perhaps correct to call this a new trade, as opium was first imported from India as early as the fifteenth century. India had sent in the past many a good thing to China. Opium wa
s one of the really bad things sent by her. But the trade was limited. It grew in the nineteenth century because of the Europeans, and especially the East India Company, which had a monopoly of the British trade. It is said that the Dutch in the East used to mix it with their tobacco and then smoke it as a preventive against malaria. Through them opium-smoking went to China, but in a worse form, for in China pure opium was smoked. The Chinese Government wanted to stop the habit because of its bad effect on the people, and also because the opium trade took away a lot of money from the country.

  In 1800 the Chinese Government issued an edict or order prohibiting all importation of opium for any purpose whatsoever. But the trade was a very profitable one for the foreigners. They continued to smuggle opium into the country and bribed Chinese officials to overlook this. The Chinese Government thereupon made a rule that their officials were not to meet foreign merchants. Severe penalties were also laid down for teaching the Chinese or Manchu languages to any foreigner. But all this was to no purpose. The opium trade continued, and there was probably a great deal of bribery and corruption. Indeed, matters became worse after 1834, when the British Government put an end to the monopoly of the East India Company in the China trade, and threw this open to all British merchants.

  There was a sudden increase in opium-smuggling, and the Chinese Government at last decided to take strong action to suppress it. They chose a good man for this purpose. Lin Tse-hsi was appointed a special commissioner to suppress the smuggling, and he took swift and vigorous action. He went down to Canton in the south, which was the chief centre for this illegal trade, and ordered all the foreign merchants there to deliver to him all the opium they had. They refused to obey the order at first. Thereupon Lin forced them to obey. He cut them off in their factories, made their Chinese workers and servants leave them, and allowed no food to go to them from outside. This vigour and thoroughness resulted in the foreign merchants coming to terms and handing over to the Chinese 20,000 cases of opium. Lin had this huge quantity of opium, which was obviously meant for smuggling purposes, destroyed. Lin also told the foreign merchants that no ship would be allowed to enter Canton unless the captain gave an undertaking that he would not bring opium. If this promise was broken, the Chinese Government would confiscate the ship and its entire cargo. Commissioner Lin was a thorough person. He did the work entrusted to him well, but he did not realize that the consequences were going to be hard on China.

  The consequences were: war with Britain, defeat of China, a humiliating treaty; and opium, the very thing the Chinese Government wanted to prohibit, forced down their throats. Whether opium was good or bad for the Chinese was immaterial. What the Chinese Government wanted to do did not much matter; but what did matter was that smuggling opium into China was a very profitable job for British merchants, and Britain was not prepared to tolerate the loss of this income. Most of the opium destroyed by Commissioner Lin belonged to British merchants. So, in the name of national honour, Britain went to war with China in 1840. This war is rightly called the Opium War, for it was fought and won for the right of forcing opium on China.

  China could do little against the British fleet which blockaded Canton and other places. After two years she was forced to submit, and in 1842 the Treaty of Nanking laid down that five ports were to be opened to foreign trade, which meant especially the opium trade then. These five ports were Canton, Shanghai, Amoy, Ningpo, and Foochow. They were called the “treaty ports”. Britain also took possession of the island of Hongkong, near Canton, and extorted a large sum of money as compensation for the opium that had been destroyed, and for the costs of the war which she had forced on China.

  Thus the British achieved the victory of opium. The Chinese Emperor made a personal appeal to Queen Victoria, England’s Queen at the time, pointing out with all courtesy the terrible effects of the opium trade which was now forced on China. There was no reply from the Queen. Just fifty years earlier his predecessor, Chien Lung, had written very differently to the King of England!

  This was the beginning of China’s troubles with the imperialist Powers of the West. Her isolation was at an end. She had to accept foreign trade; and she had to accept, in addition, Christian missionaries. These missionaries played an important part in China as the vanguard of imperialism. Many of China’s subsequent troubles had something to do with missionaries. Their behaviour was often insolent and exasperating, but they could not be tried by Chinese courts. Under the new treaty, foreigners from the West were not subject to Chinese law or Chinese justice. They were tried by their own courts. This was called “extra-territoriality”, and it still exists, and is much resented. The converts of the missionaries also claimed this special protection of “extra-territoriality”. They were in no way entitled to it; but that made no difference, as the great missionary, the representative of a powerful imperialist nation, was behind them. Thus village was sometimes set against village, and when, exasperated beyond measure, the villagers or others rose and attacked the missionary, and sometimes killed him, then the imperialist Power behind swooped down and took signal reparation. Few occurrences have been so profitable to European Powers as the murders of their missionaries in China! For they made each such murder the occasion for demanding and extorting further privileges.

  It was also a convert to Christianity who started one of the most terrible and cruel rebellions in China. This was the Taiping Rebellion, started about 1850 by a half-mad person, Hung Hsin-Chuan. This religious maniac had extraordinary success and went about with the war-cry “Kill the idolaters”, and vast numbers of people were killed. The rebellion devastated more than half China, and during a dozen years or so it is estimated that at least 20,000,000 people died on account of it. It is not right, of course, to hold the Christian missionaries or the foreign Powers responsible for this outbreak and the massacres which accompanied it. At first the missionaries seemed to bless it, but later they repudiated Hung. The Chinese Government, however, continued to believe that the Christian missionaries were responsible for it. This belief makes us realize how greatly the Chinese resented missionary activities then and later. To them the missionary did not come as a messenger of religion and goodwill. He was the agent of imperialism. As an English author has said: “First the missionary, then the gunboat, then the land-grabbing—this is the procession of events in the Chinese mind.” It is well to bear this in mind, as the missionary crops up often enough in Chinese troubles.

  It is extraordinary that a rebellion led by a mad fanatic should have had such great success before it was finally suppressed. The real reason for this was that the old order in China was breaking up. In my last letter on China, I think I told you of the burden of taxation and the changing economic conditions and the growing discontent of the people. Secret societies were rising everywhere against the Manchu Government, and there was rebellion in the air. Foreign trade, the trade in opium and other articles, made matters worse. Foreign trade China had had, of course, in the past. But now the conditions were different. The big machine-industry of the West was turning out goods fast, and these could not all be sold at home. So they had to find markets elsewhere. This was the urge for markets in India as well as in China. These goods, and especially opium, upset the old trade arrangements, and thus made the economic confusion worse. As in India, the price of articles in the Chinese bazaars began to be affected by the world prices. All this added to the discontent and misery of the people and strengthened the Taiping Rebellion.

  This was the background in China during these days of growing arrogance and interference by the Western Powers. It is not surprising that China could do little to withstand their demands. These European Powers and much later Japan, as we shall see, took full advantage of China’s confusion and difficulties to extort privileges and territory from her. China, indeed, would have gone the way of India, and become the dependency and empire of one or more of the Western Powers and Japan, but for the mutual rivalry of these Powers and their jealousy of each other.

&n
bsp; I have strayed from my main story in telling you about this general background during the nineteenth century in China, of economic breakdown, Taiping Rebellion, missionaries, and foreign aggression. But one must know something of this to be able to follow intelligently the narrative of events. For events in history do not just happen like miracles. They occur because a variety of causes lead up to them. But these causes are often not obvious; they lie under the surface of events. The Manchu rulers of China, till recently so great and powerful, must have been amazed at the sudden change of fortune’s wheel. They did not see, probably, that the roots of their collapse lay in their own past; they did not appreciate the industrial progress of the West and its disastrous consequences on China’s economic system. They resented greatly the intrusions of the “barbarian” foreigners. The Emperor at the time, referring to these intrusions, used a delightful old Chinese phrase: he said that he would allow no man to snore alongside of his bed! But the wisdom and humour of the old classics, though they taught a serene confidence and a magnificent fortitude in misfortune, were not enough to repel the foreigner.