Indian Unrest. Sir Valentine Chirol

he knew how to apply through the Press to the tepid and the recalcitrant, just as his gymnastic societies sometimes resolved themselves into juvenile bands of dacoities to swell the coffers of Swaraj. Not even Mr. Gokhale with all his moral and intellectual force could stem the flowing tide of Tilak's popularity in the Deccan; and in order not to be swept under he was perhaps often compelled like many other Moderates to go further than his own judgment can have approved. Tilak commanded the allegiance of barristers and pleaders, schoolmasters and professors, clerks in Government offices—in fact, of the large majority of the so-called educated classes, largely recruited amongst his own and other Brahman castes; and his propaganda had begun to filter down not only to the coolies in the cities, but even to the rayats, or at least the head-men in the villages.

      More than that. From the Deccan, as we have already seen in his relations with the Indian National Congress, his influence was projected far and wide. His house was a place of pilgrimage for the disaffected from all parts of India. His prestige as a Brahman of the Brahmans and a pillar of orthodoxy, in spite of the latitude of the views which he sometimes expressed in regard to the depressed castes, his reputation for profound learning in the philosophies both of the West and of the East, his trenchant style, his indefatigable activity, the glamour of his philanthropy, his accessibility to high and low, his many acts of genuine kindliness, the personal magnetism which, without any great physical advantages, he exerted upon most of those who came in contact with him, and especially upon the young, combined to equip him more fully than any other Indian politician for the leadership of a revolutionary movement.

      The appeal which Tilak made to the Hindus was twofold. He taught them, on the one hand, that India, and especially Maharashtra, the land of the Mahrattas, had been happier and better and more prosperous under a Hindu raj than it had ever been or could ever be under the rule of alien "demons"; and that if the British raj had at one time served some useful purpose in introducing India to the scientific achievements of Western civilisation, it had done so at ruinous cost, both material and moral, to the Indians whose wealth it had drained and whose social and religious institutions it had undermined, and on the other hand he held out to them the prospect that, if power were once restored to the Brahmans, who had already learnt all that there was of good to be learnt from the English, the golden age would return for gods and men. That Tilak himself hardly believed in the possibility of overthrowing British rule is more than probable, but what some Indians who knew him well tell me he did believe was that the British could be driven or wearied by a ceaseless and menacing agitation into gradually surrendering to the Brahmans the reality of power, as did the later Peshwas, and remaining content with the mere shadow of sovereignty. As one of his organs blurted it out:—"If the British yield all power to us and retain only nominal control, we may yet be friends."

      Such was the position when, on June 24, 1908, Tilak was arrested in Bombay on charges connected with the publication in the Kesari of articles containing inflammatory comments on the Muzafferpur outrage, in which Mrs. and Miss Kennedy had been killed by a bomb—the first of a long list of similar outrages in Bengal. Not in the moment of first excitement, but weeks afterwards, the Kesari had commented on this crime in terms which the Parsee Judge, Mr. Justice Davar, described in his summing up as follows:—"They are seething with sedition; they preach violence; they speak of murders with approval; and the cowardly and atrocious act of committing murders with bombs not only meets with your approval, but you hail the advent of the bomb into India as if something had come to India for its good." The bomb was extolled in these articles as "a kind of witchcraft, a charm, an amulet," and the Kesari delighted in showing that neither the "supervision of the police" nor "swarms of detectives" could stop "these simple playful sports of science," Whilst professing to deprecate such methods, it threw the responsibility upon Government, which allowed "keen disappointment to overtake thousands of intelligent persons who have been awakened to the necessity of securing the rights of Swaraj." Tilak spoke four whole days in his own defence—21–½ hours altogether—but the jury returned a verdict of "Guilty," and he was sentenced to six years' transportation, afterwards commuted on account of his age and health to simple imprisonment at Mandalay.

      The prosecution of a man of Tilak's popularity and influence at a time when neither the Imperial Government nor the Government of India had realized the full danger of the situation was undoubtedly a grave measure of which a weaker Government than that of Bombay under Sir George Clarke might well have shirked the responsibility. There were serious riots after the trial. From the moment of his arrest Tilak's followers had put it about amongst the mill-hands that he was in prison because he was their friend and had sought to obtain better pay for them. Some of his supporters are said to have declared during the trial that there would be a day's bloodshed for every year to which he might be sentenced by the Court, and, as a matter of fact, he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment and the riots lasted six days. The rioting assumed at times a very threatening character. The European police frequently had to use their revolvers, and the troops had several times to fire in self-defence. But rigorous orders had been issued by the authorities to avoid as far as possible the shedding of blood, and both the police and the military forces exercised such steady self-restraint that casualties were relatively few, and the violence of the mob never vented itself upon the European population of the city. The gravity of the disturbances, however, showed the extent and the lawless character of the influence which Tilak had already acquired over the lower classes in Bombay, and not merely over the turbulent mill-hands. In the heart of the city many Hindu shops were closed "out of sympathy with Tilak," and the most violent rioting on one day occurred amongst the Bhattias and Banias employed in the cloth market, who had hitherto been regarded as very orderly and rather timid folk. The trouble in Bombay was certainly not a sudden and spontaneous outburst of popular feeling. It bore throughout the impress of careful and deliberate organization. By a happy combination of sympathy and firmness Sir George Clarke had, however, won the respect of the vast majority of the community, and though he failed to secure the active support which he might have expected from the "moderates," there were few of them who did not secretly approve and even welcome his action. Its effects were great and enduring, for Tilak's conviction was a heavy blow—perhaps the heaviest which has been dealt—to the forces of unrest, at least in the Deccan; and some months later one of the organs of his party, the Rashtramat, reviewing the occurrences of the year, was fain to admit that "the sudden removal of Mr. Tilak's towering personality threw the whole province into dismay and unnerved the other leaders."

      The agitation in the Deccan did not die out with Tilak's disappearance, for he left his stamp upon a new generation, which he had educated and trained. More than a year after Tilak had been removed to Mandalay, his doctrines bore fruit in the murder of Mr. Jackson, the Collector of Nasik—a murder which, in the whole lamentable record of political crimes in India, stands out in many ways pre-eminently infamous and significant. The chief executive officer of a large district, "Pundit" Jackson, as he was familiarly called, was above all a scholar, devoted to Indian studies, and his sympathy with all forms of Indian thought was as genuine as his acquaintance with them was profound. His affection for the natives was such as, perhaps, to blind him to their faults, and like the earliest victims of the Indian Mutiny he entertained to the very last an almost childlike confidence in the loyalty of the whole people. Only a few days before his death he expressed his conviction that disaffection had died out in Nasik, and that he could go anywhere, and at any hour without the slightest risk of danger. That he was very generally respected and even beloved by many there can be no doubt, and there is no reason to question the sincerity of the regrets which found expression on the announcement of his impending transfer to Bombay in a series of farewell entertainments, both public and private, by the inhabitants of the city. Only two days before the fatal 21st of December, an ode in Marathi addressed to him at a reception organized by the Municipal Council dwelt specially upon his gentleness of soul and kindliness of manner.

      Yet this was the man whom the fanatical champions of Indian Nationalism in the Deccan singled out for assassination as a protest against British tyranny. The trial of the actual murderer and of those who aided and abetted him abundantly demonstrated the cold-blooded premeditation which characterized this crime. Numerous consultations had taken place ever since the previous September between the murderer and his accomplices as to the manner and time of the deed. It was repeatedly postponed because the accomplices who belonged to Nasik were afraid of