BOOKS
1!1
be the result simply of that. To realize that national sovereignty is the
enemy of national freedom may be a great deal easier when you are not
being ruled by foreigners . It is not certain that this is so, since the most
nationalist of the Oriental nations, Japan, is also the one that has never
been conquered, but at least one can say that if the solution is not along
these lines, then there
is
no solution. Either power politics must yield
to common decency, or the world must go spiralling down into a night–
mare of which we can already catch some dim glimpses. And the neces–
sary first step, before we can make our talk about world federation sound
even credible, is that Britain shall get off India's back. This is the only
large-scale decent action that is possible in the world at this moment.
The immediate preliminaries would be: abolish the Viceroyalty and the
Indian Office, release the Congress prisoners, and declare India formally
independent. The rest is detail.*
But how are we to bring any such thing about?
If
it is done at this
time, it can only be a voluntary act. Indian independence has no asset
except public opinion in Britain and America, which is only a potential
asset. Japan, Germany and the British Government are all on the other
side, and India's possible friends, China and the U.S.S.R., are fighting
for their lives and have little bargaining power. There remain the peoples
of Britain and America, who are in a position to put pressure on their
own Governments if they see a reason for doing so. At the time of the
Cripps mission, for instance, it would have been quite easy for public
opinion in this country to force the Government into making a proper
offer, and similar opportunities may recur. Mr. Fielden, by the way, does
his best to throw doubt on Cripps' personal honesty, and also lets it appear
that the Congress Working Committee were unanimously against accept–
ing the Cripps proposals, which was not the case. In fact, Cripps extorted
the best terms he could get from the Government; to get better ones he
would have had to have public opinion actively and intelligently behind
him.
Therefore the first job is-win over the ordinary people of this
country. Make them see that India matters, and that India has been
shamefully treated and deserves restitution. But you are not going to do
that by insulting them. Indians, on the whole, grasp this better than
their English apologists. After all, what is the probable effect of a book
which irrelevantly abuses every English institution, rapturises over the
'wisdom of the East' like an American schoolmarm on a conducted tour,
and mix'es up pleas for Indian freedom with pleas for surrender to Hitler?
At best it can only convert the converted, and it may de-convert a few
of those. The net effect must be to strengthen British imperialism, though
its motives are probably more complex than this may seem to imply.
On the surface, Mr. Fielden's book is primarily a plea for 'spiritu-
*
Of course the necessary corollary would be a military alliance for the
duration of the war. But it is not likely that there would be any difficulty in
securing this. Extremely few Indians really want to be ruled by Japan or Germany.
