Slandering a nation

Lahore, Friday, August 15, 1924

IN spite of the ingenious defence that has been set up by the Anglo-Indian Press, we are constrained to say that the Dacca speech of Lord Lytton, which has caused a feeling of profound indignation in Bengal and, in fact, all over India, does amount to a libel both on the womanhood and manhood of India. The words of His Excellency — we hope our readers will forgive us for publishing this slander just once — ran as follows: “The thing that has distressed me more than anything else since I came to India is to find that hatred of authority can drive Indian men to induce Indian women to invent offences against their own honour merely to bring discredit upon Indian policemen.” On the face of it, this is a racial generalisation which is even more offensive and insulting than that in which Lord Curzon allowed himself to indulge in a famous convocation speech against which Bengal recorded its protest by a meeting in the Calcutta Town Hall, presided over by Dr Rash Behari Ghosh. If Lord Curzon impugned India’s standard of veracity, which is dear to her heart, Lord Lytton has gone one better and impugned the honour of her women, which is still dearer to her. It is all very well to say that his Excellency’s remarks do not refer to all Indian men and women. Of course, they do not. But neither did Lord Curzon say that the standard of veracity of every single Indian or Asiatic was inferior to that of every single European. That, in fact, is not the way of the racial generaliser at all. He knows his business far too well to make so palpably obvious a mistake.