Self-govt is better than good govt

I THINK it was a philosopher or a statesman or both that laid down the dictum that the rule of one nation over another, however beneficent the rule might be, was essentially bad. The philosopher probably spoke from general principles and the statesman from his experience. Normally it may be a sound assumption that a philosopher makes a bad statesman and a statesman makes a bad philosopher. But so far as this particular dictum is concerned, we may safely agree with both. All history proves it. The Romans ruled over England and gave the English people protection from Celtic aggression, witness the great Roman Wall, good roads and taught them the urban, civilised way of life. When the Romans had suddenly to quit England on account of troubles nearer home, doubtless there must have been many Englishmen who regretted their withdrawal and the discontinuance of the benefits that Roman rule had conferred on England. But which Englishman now doubts that on balance it was good for England that its natives were left free to work out their own destiny?

Similarly there are good, patriotic Indians who regret that British administrative ties with India are being severed but all the same it is good for India that from 15th August onwards it is left free to look after itself. I have heard some gloomy predictions. There are persons who have told me that after the “appointed” day, a certain amount of laxity will creep into the day-to-day administration, the railway trains will become more unpunctual (nobody has the hardihood to claim that they run punctually how), the post offices will become even more lax in dispatching and delivering letters, the Government Secretariats will sleep over files even longer hours than they do now, the roads will deteriorate, and law and order will be treated with even less respect than they are today.

Even assuming that these prophets of woe are right, I still think that it is good for India to start governing herself. The essential injury which the rule of one nation over another causes is the injury to the self-respect of the subject nation. No amount of practical benefit can compensate the latter for this vital loss. Once a nation ceases to rule itself, a subtle psychological alteration begins to work in the minds of the individuals of that nation. In the processes of time they persuade themselves that in every respect, whether in the field of administration or outside it, they are inferior to the members of the ruling nation.

It is not good for the ruling nation either. They begin to believe that Providence has endowed them with a bigger brain and bigger character. Read Rudyard Kiplings’s “Plain Tales from the Hills” or the novels by lesser Anglo-Indian writers who are not to be mentioned in the same breath. Their implicit belief that “white blood” instinctively commands obedience from “brown blood” will be laughable if it were not so insolent…