Congress has hitherto fought shy of making Protection
a prominent plank of its platform, lest it should offend
its political friends in England. Yet as far
back as 1902 a politician as careful as Mr. Surendranath
Banerjee to avoid in his public utterances anything
that might alienate British Radicalism, declared in
his inaugural address at the 18th session of the Congress
that “if we had a potential voice in the government
of our own country there would be no question as to
what policy we should follow. We would unhesitatingly
adopt a policy of Protection.” This note
has been accentuated since the political campaign
in favour of militant Swadeshism, and when English
Radicals sympathize with the Swadeshi boycott
as a protest against the Partition of Bengal, they
would do well to recollect that, before Indian audiences,
the most violent forms of Swadeshi are constantly
defended on the ground that British industrial greed,
of which Free Trade is alleged to be the highest expression,
has left no other weapons to India for the defence
of her material interests. Mr. Lala Lajpat Rai,
who has the merit of often speaking with great frankness,
addressed himself once in the following terms to “those
estimable gentlemen in India who believe in the righteousness
of the British nation as represented by the electors
of Great Britain and Ireland, and who are afraid of
offending them by the boycott of English-made goods”:
If there are any two classes into which the British nation can roughly be divided they are either manufacturers or the working men. Both are interested in keeping the Indian market open for the sale and consumption of their manufactures. They are said to be the only friends to whom we can appeal against the injustice of the Anglo-Indian bureaucracy. Offend them, we are told, and you are undone. You lose the good will of the only classes who can help you and who are prepared to listen to your grievances. But, boycott or no boycott, any movement calculated to increase the manufacturing power of India is likely to incur the displeasure of the British elector. He is a very well-educated animal, a keen man of business, who can at once see through things likely to affect his pocket, however cleverly they may be put or arranged by those who hold an interest which is really adverse to his. He is not likely to be hoodwinked by the cry of Swadeshi minus the boycott, because, really speaking, if effectively worked and organized, both are one and the same thing.
That Swadeshi as understood by educated Indians of all classes and of all political complexions means in some form or other Protection was made clear even in the Imperial Council. The Finance Member, Sir Fleetwood Wilson, was himself fain to pay homage to it, but his sympathy did not disarm Mr. Chitnavis, an Indian member whose speech deserves to be recorded, as it embodied the opinions entertained by 99 out of every 1,000 Indians who are interested in economic questions and by a very large number of Anglo-Indians, both official and non-official:—