File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎364r] (375/1080)

Appendix II.
tc Pravda” published at Moscow^ November 3rd, 1921.
IN INDIA.
The nationalist movement in India has, of late, moved very far
forward. In the opinion of imperialist diplomatists this movement is
beginning to play an increasingly important role in world politics. Only
hopeless bourgeois blockheads or those whom it will advantage, can see in this
movement the ec roots and filaments” of “Bolshevik agitation.” Breed from
the watchful tutelage of the metropolis, since the war India has considerably
developed her native industries. Bor her, 1918 was a grievous year for,
according to official statistics, up to six millions perished from the epidemic of
“ Spanish influenza.” In that year some thirty millions succumbed to famine
and epidemics which, in India, seem to be an unavoidable product of colonial
exploitation.
Up to the time of the conquest of India, famines bore only a local
character, but with the advent of European “ kultur ” they became universal
and of more frequent occurrence.
The war which separated economic India from the metropolis plainly
proved to the bourgeois-national element, to the educated classes, and to the
mass of the public, that the root of the evil and the cause of the poverty of
everybody in the richest peninsula of Asia is to be found in the colonial regime
which deprives the many million mass of the surplus products of their toil for
the benefit of foreign capital.
The war prepared the ground for a far flung national movement. The
awakening of other nations of the East gave an impetus along the road of a
fight for freedom—-the road on which the masses of India have started.
The most noteworthy feature of this new national movement seems to be
its universality and the fusion therein of such diverse Indian elements as
Mussalmans and native Hindus. In Mussalman India the movement progres
ses under the watchword of the rehabilitation of Turkey and under the banner
of the Khilafat. Moreover, both Muslims and Hindus are unanimous in the
demand for Swaraj—the independence of India.
The national movement is developing in a most original form which cannot
be understood at the first glance. It will be sufficint to quote as an example
the universal burning of European articles of dress on the public squares. A
boycott of foreign productions and of textiles is in progress and a national fund
is in process of formation.
In many places the people have already turned to the compilation of
constitutional rules for their own organs of self-government.
Above all, this struggle is against foreign imperialists and is for the
economic and political independence of India. Moreover pasi passu with the
expansion of the movement throughout the masses other forces are seen to be in
being and these are of an agrarian-revolutionary character. Of such is the
cruelly suppressed insurrection of the Mussalmans on the Malabar coast wdiich
has been directed against foreign rule, the zamindars, former tax collectors, the
metamorphosed English administration, and the landlords.
To cope with the movement, the Government’s “ anti-Revolution League ”
is being organized but popular feeling is certainly not on its side. Supporting
it are the docile, moribund, native liberals, for the most part officials—
“ moderates.” Their ambitions are comprised in a demand for independent
provinces.
The official leader of the national movement is Gandhi and his position
is binary. The representatives of the Mussalman wing, the Ali brothers, are
more radical in politics.
The National Congress will begin to function in December and its
operations will assume the greatest significance.