Bombay Chambers of Commerce pledged themselves to make the new measure a "real success.'

Meantime Mr. Gandhi had united with certain other Hindus and with some Muslims in a "Khilafat Conference" which as the year went on raised considerable funds. In January a deputation from this body represented to the Viceroy the necessity for the preservation of the Turkish Empire, stating that the continued existence of the Sultan's Khilafat "as a temporal, no less than a spiritual, institution was the very essence of their faith." Lord Chelmsford's reply was very sympathetic; but in March Mr. Gandhi proclaimed his hope that the Hindus would realise that the Khilafat question overshadowed "the reforms and everything else." His manifesto concluded by recommending non-co-operation with Government. As a last resort the soldiers of the Indian Army would be advised to refuse to serve.

The Khilafat Conference despatched a deputation to England, which was received by the Prime Minister on March 17. But Mr. Lloyd George's reply to their representations was denounced as unsatisfactory; and when protracted negotiations between the Allies and Turkey ended in the publication of the peace-terms of May 1920, the Khilafat Conference refused to be consoled by the Government of India, declining to believe that the conditions announced had not been influenced by religious considerations. Their anger was voiced by Mr. Gandhi, supported by two Muslim brothers, Shaukat Ali and Muhammad Ali, who had been in 1915 interned by Lord Hardinge's Government at Chindwara in the Central Provinces, as an essential measure of precaution at a most critical time. In June 1919 they had been committed to jail for urging on Indian Muslims the desirability of assisting the Afghans in pending hostilities, but had been released in the following December, when they made haste to show that their spirit was unchanged. Muhammad Ali had taken a leading part in the Khilafat deputation which had gone to England and been received by the Prime Minister. Both brothers now, together with Mr. Gandhi, vigorously denounced the Turkish peaceterms. The political barometer was falling fast, when, on May 26, 1920, the Report of the Hunter Committee was published in India and England, together with the covering despatch of the Government of India and the orders of His Majesty's Government conveyed by the Secretary of State for India.1

1 See India in 1920, pp. 212-47.

The acute effect of these publications on racial tension was enhanced by the circulation of the report of the Congress Committee of Enquiry, which contained many wild allegations against servants of the Government who had borne the heat and burden of a bitter and painful day. Reports of the vigorous debates which took place in the Imperial Parliament on the subject of Amritsar and the treatment of General Dyer1 added fuel to the flame of a burning controversy. During the remaining months of the year Mr. Gandhi, his associates, and their agents stumped the country preaching "nonviolent non-co-operation." Agitators too visited Muhammadan cultivators in the North-west Frontier Province and in Sind, persuading many to sell their holdings and their goods, leave India, which was no longer a place for devout Muhammadans, and flee over the mountains into Afghanistan. About 18,000 obeyed the preachers, omitting to notice that those worthies did not propose to accompany them to the land of promise; and selling their lands and goods they wandered away with their families. Thousands returned, robbed, destitute, disillusioned; but very many died far from home. Those who came back found themselves homeless, with their property in the hands of those to whom they had sold it for a trifle. The Government did all that was possible to mitigate their sufferings; and the Khilafat agitators turned their attention to fresh fields of activity. A British district officer of high character was murdered by three of their disciples.

The unprecedented licence afforded to Mr. Gandhi and his coadjutors as they stumped the country sowing broadcast the seeds of hatred and revolt excited amazement. In November the Government, who were embarrassed by circumstances including Amritsar, declared their policy, which in action amounted to a decision to take at face-value the plea that the Khilafat-cum-non-co-operation movement, with its elaborate inculcation of race-hatred, enjoined abstention from violence. Repression was incompatible with the spirit of the times and with the dawn of a genuine parliamentary system. The remedial properties inherent in the reforms, organised exertions on the part of "sober-minded and moderate men," must be relied on to hold the pass and combat the dangers of the situation. Only in the last resort would the Government interpose, when indeed failure to take action "would be a criminal betrayal of the people."

1 General Dyer had been retired from the Army.

2 Government Resolution, November 1920.

"Sober-minded and moderate men" here and there acted in a firm and courageous spirit. The assaults of the nonco-operative party on schools and colleges, its boycott of the Council elections, attained very limited success. But fertile in expedients, and armed with money, Mr. Gandhi and his associates endeavoured to mould to their purposes the illiterate and impressionable masses. At the December political meetings the Congress creed was altered in such a fashion as to eliminate professed adherence of that body to the British connection, and a resolution was passed instituting village committees which would preach racial hatred and boycott of the British far and wide. Paid agents were employed; subscriptions were collected for a "swaraj" fund in memory of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who had died in the previous August.

The Moderates, on the other hand, formed a "National Liberal Federation" and held a conference at Madras.

The year had been marked by bad harvests, high prices and many strikes. Abroad Mustafa Kemal at Angora was rallying Muslim sentiment to resist the Treaty of Sèvres. From Tashkent the Bolsheviks, who had occupied Bukhara, were conducting an energetic campaign of propaganda. Persia had declined to ratify the Anglo-Persian agreement; Afghanistan was wavering; but in October the Amir invited the despatch of a British mission to Kabul.

The frontier was much disturbed. An expedition against the Mahsuds had lasted from December 1919 to May 7, 1920. The tribesmen were found to be well armed with modern rifles and were seasoned by soldiers who had learnt much from the Great War. A very stubborn action had been fought on January 14, when 9 British officers had been killed and 6 wounded, whilst 10 Indian officers and 865 Indian other ranks had been killed or wounded. The expedition had eventually been brought to a successful conclusion. But it had not stood alone. The Wana Waziris had carried out many raids in Indian territory, robbing and murdering peaceful villagers. A column was despatched against them, and a central position in Waziristan was occupied and maintained. The North-west Frontier Province was seriously affected by the ferment among the tribes and by the reaction of conditions in India.

Non-co-operators spared no pains to procure a general boycott of the elections for the Reformed Councils, resorting freely to intimidation. In some places they attained con

siderable success, but on the whole they failed. The all-India proportions of voting were:

(a) for the Provincial Councils, 20 to 30 per cent.;

(b) for the Legislative Assembly, roughly 20 per cent.; (c) for the Council of State, 40 per cent.1

On December 31 the old order passed away. Like all human institutions, it had its defects. But its merits were attested in that time of supreme need when India, her Government and her various races, were faced with four years of the most terrible and widespread war ever fought upon this earth.

XXVI

THE NEW ORDER

ON January 9, 1921, it was announced at Delhi that Lord Chelmsford would be succeeded by Lord Reading, Lord Chief Justice of England. The appointment was generally welcomed. Lord Reading had, as Attorney-General, been a member of the Cabinet. He had been charged with a financial mission to the United States at a critical period of the war, and later on had held the position of High Commissioner and Special Ambassador at Washington.

On January 10 H.R.H. Arthur Duke of Connaught landed at Madras with his suite. He was to inaugurate the new order. Many years before he had served in India, first as a General officer and then as Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army and member of the Bombay Governing Council. Later on, together with H.R.H. the late Duchess of Connaught, he had attended the Coronation Durbar of 1903. Everywhere he had earned warm esteem and regard from all races and classes.

On January 12 His Royal Highness opened the new Madras Legislative Council, on the 31st the Bengal Legislative Council, on February 8 the Chamber of Princes at Delhi, on the following day the Council of State and the Imperial Legislative Assembly, and at the end of February the Bombay Legislative Council. He sailed from India on February 28. Throughout his visit he had been dogged by the surly obstruction of the non-cooperators; but by his earnest words and by his personal influence he had done much to secure a propitious beginning for the new era. He had also given a far-shining example of the unselfish devotion to duty which characterises his House.

See India in 1920, p. 66.

At Delhi, on February 9, His Royal Highness had read a message from His Majesty the King-Emperor, conveying congratulations to the Assemblies present and to all the new Provincial Councils. After reading the message he congratulated the Viceroy on the transition into life and reality of the scheme of political progress of which His Excellency and the Secretary of State were the authors. He finished with a personal appeal spoken with an evident emotion which communicated itself at once to his audience with visible effect. "May I claim your patience and forbearance while I say a few words of a personal nature? Since I landed I have felt around me bitterness and estrangement between those who have been and should be friends. The shadow of Amritsar has lengthened over the fair face of India. I know how deep is the concern felt by His Majesty the King-Emperor at the terrible chapter of events in the Punjab. No one can deplore those events more intensely than I do myself. I have reached a time of life when I most desire to heal wounds and to reunite those who have been disunited. In what must be, I fear, my last visit to the India I love so well, here in the new capital inaugurating a new constitution, I am moved to make you a personal appeal put in the simple words that come from my heart, not to be coldly and critically interpreted. My experience tells me that misunderstandings usually mean mistakes on either side. As an old friend of India, I appeal to you all, British and Indians, to bury, along with the dead past, the mistakes and misunderstandings of the past, to forgive where you have to forgive, and to join hands and to work together to realise the hopes that arise from to-day."

The Duke's visit encouraged assertion of loyal and responsible opinion. The Ruling Chiefs once more expressed their devotion to the Throne. The new Councils began work in peace and harmony. But away from the council-chambers, among the masses, among the youth of the educated classes, the sowers of racial hatred were scattering their seeds far and wide, suiting their appeals to the temper of each audience. Muhammadans were told to expect a restoration of Muhammadan rule brought about through Afghan or Turkish assistance. Sikhs were encouraged to anticipate the return of a Sikh kingdom. Factory and railway hands were incited to demand impossible wages. Landless labourers were promised land, cattle and the abolition of caste. Tenants were told that when English rule went, no rent would be payable. All were taught that the only obstacle to the attainment of Swaraj