Besant, A: Case for India

Excerpt from The Case for India: The Presidential Address Delivered by Annie Besant at the Thirty-Second Indian National Congress, Held at Calcutta, 26th December, 1917

The short service system recently introduced into the British Army has increased the cost and has materially reduced the efficiency of the British troops in India. We cannot resist the feeling that, in the introduction of this system, the interest of the Indian tax-payer was entirely left out of consideration.

The remark was certainly justified, for the short ser vice system gave India only five years of the recruits she paid heavily for and trained, all the rest of the benefit going to England. The latter was enabled, as the years went on, to enormously increase her Reserves, so that she has had men trained in, and at the cost of, India.

In 186 3 the Indian army consisted of men, with white officers. Great changes were made in 1 885-1905, including the reorganisation under Lord Kitchener, who became Commander-in - Chief at the end of 1902. Even in this hasty review, I must not omit reference to the fact that Army Stores were drawn from Britain at enormous cost, while they should have been chie¿y manufactured here, so that India might have profited by the expenditure. Lately under the necessi ties of War, factories have been turned to the produc tion of munitions; but this should have been done long ago, so that India might have been enriched instead of exploited. The War has forced an investigation into her mineral resources that might have been made forher own sake, but Germany was allowed to monopolise the supply of minerals that India could have produced and worked up, and would have produced and worked up had she enjoyed Home Rule. India would have been richer, and the Empire safer, had she been a part ner instead of a possession. But this side of the ques tion will come under the matters directly affecting mer chants, and we may venture to express a hope that the Government help extended to munition factories in time of War may be continued to industrial factories In time of Peace. The net result of the various causes above-mentioned was that the expense of the Indian army rose by leaps and bounds, until, before the War, India was expending 75 as against the f: expended by the United Kingdom, while the wealthy Dominions of Canada and Australia were spending only 1 - 5 and 121, millions respectively. (i am not forgetting that the United Kingdom was expending over on her Navy, while India was free of that burden, save for a contribution of half a million.)

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