Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from David Hardiman’s ‘The Non-Violent Struggle For Indian Freedom’ published by Penguin India.
Following the end of the First World War, the British had granted a limited devolution of power in the Government of India Act of 1919. This measure was projected as being a step on the path towards what Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, held to be ‘the progressive realisation of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire.’ Some less-important governmental departments in the provinces were to be placed under the control of elected members—a system known as ‘dyarchy’. The first elections under an enlarged franchise were to be held in 1920. The aim of the British was to co-opt Indian nationalists within the system, deflecting the challenge that had come from the Home Rule Leagues of Besant and Tilak. What this imperial strategy failed to consider was a strong mood of popular dis- content, brought about in part by the severe economic difficulties caused by the war, and in part by a new spirit of defiance that was encouraged by an awareness of the deficiencies of imperial systems that were tearing each other apart in Europe. The revolution in Russia appeared for many to provide a beacon towards a new world free from such empires.
The British certainly saw revolutionaries everywhere at that time; the Governor of Bombay described Gandhi during the Kheda protest of 1918 as ‘honest, but a Bolshevik and for that reason very dangerous.’ Demobilised soldiers who returned to India in large numbers appeared to have carried this new spirit of assertion with them— particularly to Punjab, which was the chief recruiting ground for the Indian Army.
It was in this explosive atmosphere that the British introduced parallel measures to the Government of India Act, namely legislation that was designed to counter radical extremists through detention for up to two years without trial, coupled with the establishment of secret tribunals to try such cases. This had been recommended by a ‘sedition committee’, headed by Sir Sidney Rowlatt, that was appointed by the Government to investigate ‘criminal conspiracies connected with the revolutionary movement in India’ and to recommended legislation to deal with this threat.5 In its report of 1918, the committee set out an exhaustive account of the plans and actions of extremist nationalists in all parts of India since the late nineteenth century, with a particular focus on‘revolutionary crime in Bengal.’The overall effect was to magnify the activities of people who were generally marginal to the nationalist movement, giving an impression that the movement was being carried forward by violent seditionists who threatened the very stability of India.
As Yuval Noah Harari has pointed out, states in modern times have tended to inflate the threat posed by terrorist groups out of all proportion to any actual danger posed by their isolated acts of violence.This is because ‘the legitimacy of the modern state is based on its promise to keep the public sphere free of violence.’ In pre-modern regimes, there were many different groups that retained the ability to settle disputes through armed conflict, without the overall ruler feeling any need to intervene. In such a world, ‘terrorism’ was not a meaningful category, as armed groups used terror routinely to enforce their will. In contrast, modern centralised states refuse to tolerate any political violence that is out of their own control. ‘Consequently, even sporadic acts of political violence that kill a few dozen people are seen as a deadly threat to the legitimacy and even survival of the state.’ Because of this, acts by small clandestine organisations may succeed by spreading fear and confusion.
Unlike actual warfare in which material losses to troops and infrastructure determines victory or defeat, terrorists are poorly armed and pose no actual military threat. Their strategy is, rather, to carry out conspicuous attacks directed against symbolic targets such a prominent leader or state official, a well-known public building, or vehicle such as a railway train or aircraft. ‘Terrorists don’t think like army generals; they think like theatre producers.’The spectacle is designed to cause outrage and provoke overreaction in a way that polarises the civil population.The state takes on authoritarian powers that are excused supposedly by the need to protect the populace. Atrocities may be committed in a state- led ‘war on terrorism’, with fresh ‘martyrs’ being created. All of this can provide fertile ground for recruitment to the cause.The game is, for the terrorist, a high-stakes one—the possibility of defeat and death is high,and only in some instances will state counter-terrorism provoke the anticipated wider alienation.
In India, the government responded in such a way to the miniscule security threat posed by the revolutionary nationalists.They did it as a sop to conservative politicians in Britain and bureaucrats in India who resented the forthcoming reforms and had long demanded ‘strong’ measures be made available to tackle extremist plots and violence that were viewed as a threat to the Empire. As Edward Snowden has pointed out: ‘politicians are more fearful of the politics of terrorism—of the charge that they do not take terrorism seriously—than they are of the crime itself.’7 The most notorious hardliner of this sort in India who had to be satisfied was the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab from 1912 to 1919, Sir Michael O’Dwyer. He headed an administration that took a deeply alarmist view of Indian nationalist activity, believing that the constitutional reforms would give unwarranted power to scheming middle-class Indians at the expense of the salt of the earth—the peasantry.
When Montagu met O’Dwyer on his tour of India in 1917–18, he commented that ‘he is determined to maintain his position as the idol of the reactionary forces, and to try to govern by the iron hand…’ O’Dwyer had already managed to persuade the Government of India to implement an emergency measure during the First World War that enabled the suspension of due legal processes in the case of suspected radical nationalists, and he then acted as the chief spokesman for the demand that these powers be made permanent once the war had ended. Already, he had taken a leading role in crushing the Ghadar movement, in which émigré Punjabis and some extremist nationalists from Bengal and Maharashtra had tried to link up with the Germans and foment an army revolt in India (particularly Punjab) on a par with that of 1857.
The plot was discovered before it could be implemented in early 1915, and the plotters were arrested. After trials in Lahore, 42 were executed, 114 transported for life, and 93 jailed. Ironically, these harsh measures left the radical nationalists in a state of severe disarray that continued well into the 1920s. Draconian measures, known popularly as the Rowlatt Acts, were being taken for what was, by then, a largely non-existent problem. Imperial officials of a more liberal bent of mind were concerned about this, as they knew that the legislation could be used oppressively by die-hard imperialists who had always believed that Indian nationalists should be crushed rather than parleyed with.They feared that if this happened, moderate nationalists would be alienated and the constitutional reforms would be jeopardised.
Gandhi, whose reputation as an agitator had soared after the Champaran and Kheda protests, was approached by some radical young Home Rule League activists of Bombay City early in February 1919 and asked to lead a campaign. He examined the two pieces of legislation carefully, and concluded that they abandoned some of the basic principles of British justice, such as the need for the prosecution to prove guilt, rather than for the accused to prove his or her innocence. The arbitrary powers that were being granted by them could be applied to curb almost all free speech in India:
“…even the members of the new Councils with enlarged powers which are to come into being will tremble while making any comments and be able to avail themselves of their nominal freedom only by turning them- selves flatterers. If this is true as regards members of the Legislature, what will be the condition of the defenceless, ignorant people?”