EUROPEANS IN INDIA

EUROPEANS in India, in which class are included not only European officials but also the Anglo-Indian and domiciled communities have in most cases been opposed to the granting of any substantial constitutional reforms to this country. The plea of maintaining the status quo is based on all sorts of grounds. Sometimes, it is in the name of the general mass of the population that objection is taken to the transference of political power from the bureaucracy to the people. Sometimes, the fear is expressed that the interests of law and order would suffer if the “steel-frame” were touched. At other times, the agitation for more constitutional reforms is opposed on the ground that it is premature and the people are not yet fit to govern themselves. Now and then, one also hears of the obligations of the government to the Indian states and the European capitalists who have made India the field for their economic and industrial exploitation. All these apprehensions have, however, one common end in view — the withholding of their birth right of liberty from the people of the country; it is generally the European and Anglo-Indian community which poses as the champion of all those whose interests, it is represented, will suffer on account of India coming into her own. The latest instance of this inveterate opposition to India’s political aspirations is the speech of the President of the last annual meeting of the European Association held in Calcutta a few days ago, to which we have already referred in these columns. In that speech, this worthy well-wisher of India refers in a most contemptuous manner to the recent constitutional changes made in the Government of this country and says that they are fraught with danger.