Anti-India propaganda

JUDGING from the papers received by the last foreign mail, an anti-India propaganda of an unprecedented magnitude is just now being carried on by an influential section of the British Press under the pretext of educating the bulk of the electorate, with whom, it should be remembered, rests the ultimate responsibility for a good government in the Indian Empire. The real object underlying this campaign of misrepresentation is not far to seek. It is to rally all the saner elements in the British political life, meaning in common language the die-hards and other professed enemies of legitimate Indian aspirations in one big effort to resist the demand put forward by politically articulate India for an immediate revision of the Government of India Act with a view to the granting of Dominion Home Rule at the earliest possible date. The British voters are being frightened into the belief that India is in a very serious state, and that it will be foolish to underestimate the full gravity of the problems that England has to face in this ‘dependency.’ It may be that there is enough in the political situation in this country that will be viewed with ‘grave concern’ by British statesmen, but it is a foul calumny to proclaim, as some of the writers in England are doing, that while only 20 years ago an Englishmen’s life was ‘sacred’ to Hindus and Mahomedans alike, nowadays murder of an Englishman is a ‘common crime’. The Times, which is always guarded in its statements, does not go so far but does recognise that the entry into the councils of extremists is seriously impeding their action.