In October 1908, a brilliant article discussing India’s new nationalist movement appeared in The Atlantic. A summary follows; read the whole article at “Source” above.
BOSTON, USA, January 1908: What is India’s Nationalist Movement? What has brought it into existence? What does it portend for the future of India, and the future relations between India and Great Britain?
India is a subject land. She is a dependency of Great Britain, not a colony. Britain has both colonies and dependencies, and the difference is great. Britain’s free colonies, like Canada and Australia, though nominally governed by the mother country, are really self-ruling in everything except their relations to foreign powers. But dependencies, like India, are granted no self-government, no representation; they are ruled absolutely by Great Britain, which is not their “mother” country, but their conqueror and master.
Britain’s dependencies seem to have no natural place among British political institutions. Britons call their flag the flag of freedom. They speak of the British Constitution, largely unwritten though it is, as a constitution which guarantees freedom to every British subject in the world. Cromwell wrote on the statute books of the English Parliament, “All just powers under God are derived from the consent of the people.” Since Cromwell’s day this principle has been fundamental and undisputed in British home politics–but it took a little longer to get it recognized in colonial matters. The American Colonies in 1776 took their stand upon it, affirming that “Just government must be based on the consent of the governed” and “There should be no taxation without representation.” Britain lost those colonies because she did not remain true to those principles. When Britain nearly lost Canada in the same way, she extended these principles to her colonies–a policy she has maintained ever since.
But what are we to do with this principle when we come to dependencies? Is a different principle to be adopted here? Are there peoples whom it is just to rule without their consent? Is justice one thing in England and Canada, and another in India?