The Washington Herald, 1909

"The Reign of Terror in India"

"An Account of the Movement to Shake Off British Rule"

By Saint Nihal Singh

"A murder case was being tried. The prisoner, charged with culpable homicide, was an Englishman. So was the judge, the counsel for the defense, and the prosecuting attorney... the murdered man was a dark-skinned Hindoo, an employee of the English prisoner..."

"who had been engaged at $2 a month to pull, night-long, the punkah-- a big fan-- so that the Englishman could sleep in comfort, untroubled by the sweltering heat of the Indian summer."

"One night, in the midst of his watch, the Hindoo coolie accidentally dozed. The big fan stopped its monotonous swinging Pretty soon the irate Englishman awoke with beads of perspiration on his brow."

"In his pajamas, he marched to the verandah outside the bedroom door, where the brown-visaged native was still napping. The white man seized the Hindoo by the back of the of the neck, jerked him violently to the ground, slapped his face, kicked him a number of times..."

"then adjourned to his bed chamber, with an injunction to the 'son of a swine' to discharge his duties more effectively. The half-dead Hindoo gave three pulls at the punkah-- then he fell backwards with a thud, his mouth bleeding..."

"The youthful Englishman, powerfully built and of robust physique, had done to death the fifty-year-old, emaciated Hindoo coolie"

"The English prosecuting attorney related the circumstances of the murder to the English judge. The English barrister, engaged to defend the English murderer, made his plea in court. The dead native, pleaded the defense, had an enlarged spleen and an infirm body."

"His failure to faithfully discharge the duties for which he was retained provoke the sleepy, English master. The punishment he had received at the hands of his employer was not sufficient to kill him..."

"It was the ruptured spleen that killed him, dramatically asserted the counsel for the defense. The English judge listened to the plea entered by a countryman of his, in behalf of another country man. He revolved in his mind how much the life of a 'ni**er' was actually worth"

"and cooly imposed a fine of $33 and one month's imprisonment upon the English murderer. Thirty-three dollars and one month's term in the penitentiary for the life of a human being-- but this is an exceptionally severe sentence in a case where the murderer is an Englishman"

"and the victim a native of India. More often the English murder of a Hindoo goes scot free. Only in a minority of cases does he pay a fine of $30 or $50. Every Hindoo who is stuck by an Englishman and dies, invariably is found to have an enlarged spleen"

"What is a Hindoo's Life Worth?"

"After all is said and considered, what value has a native's life in teh eyes of an Englishman? The story is told in India of a judge who returned to his court, which had been left in the judicial care of a young and inexperienced magistrate..."

"during his absence, A case had been tried in which an Englishman was accused of killing a native.

'What did you decide?' asked the older judge. 'I sentenced the murder to two years in the penitentiary,' replied the younger jurist"

"'Two years in the penitentiary!' shouted the judge, angrily. The young man quailed. He felt that he must have been indiscreet-- that he ought, perhaps to have hung the defendant, or at least sentenced him to priso for life"

"'Two years in the penitentiary for killing a ni**er,' repeated the judge. 'That is entirely too great a punishment for so slight an offense'"

There being 298,000,000 East Indians in the country, an Englishman cannot see that it matters much if one of them is kicked to death once in a while, and the Hindoo's life appears cheap"

"Then, in killing a native, the Britisher may be rendering him a service, for if he is not done to death by the white man, probably a worse destiny awaits him. he may be fated to die of starvation or fall victim to plague, cholera, or malaria"

"In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, five famines, with 1,000,000 deaths; in teh secon quarter, two famines, with a half million deathsl in the third quarter, six famines with 5,000,000 deaths; and in the last quarter, sixteen famines, with 25,000,000 deaths"

"these awful, gruesome figures but partially record Hindustan's death roll from abnormal causes during a single century of British rule. Every year during the last decade, a half million Hindoos have perished from plague...."

"The researches of a corps of renowned EAst Indian studeitns of history conclusively prove that in pre-British days famines never afflicted India with their present frequency"

"Today India is the permanent home of famine. but is a money famine, not a food famine, which ceaselessly devastates Hindustan. At the same time the fame is extorting its tribute of millions of human lives in India, millions of bushels of wheat, rice, and pulses..."

"are being shipped to England. The food-stuffs are right there in India; but alien exploitation has so impoverished the people that they are unable to buy the simplest necessities of life."

"With food of all kinds in sight, they die of starvation-- a lingering, heart-rending death-- the death of a rat"

"The spirit of the times, however, is livening the people of India, and as if by magic, an educated community, inspired by the desire for self government, is fast coming into being."

"One section of educated East Indians is in favor of joining forces with the English to help the aliens to properly govern the land. This political faction is known as the 'moderate' party, and its leading men, headed by Dr. Rash Behary Ghose, an eminent lawyer..."

"A faction of educated East Indians has seceded from the Indian national congress. This section of Indians don't believe in leaning on foreign crutches-- governmental or otherwise. It appeals to the new manhood and womanhood that is coming into being in India today..."

"to cast aside differences of caste and creed and create an Indian nation, imbued with community of interest and ready to sacrifice anything in order to see India governing itself. This political faction is styled 'the extremist' party..."

"and some of its extreme members have been resorting to bomb-throwing to rid Hindustan of the English"

"The genesis of the 'extremist' part in India, with its gospel of doing without occidental cooperation, is interesting. Its foundation principle is that since the English went to India as a commercial corporation, merely attracted by the prospect of lucre..."

"the British government of India cannot be administered strictly in the interests of East Indians. Such an awakening has been forced upon the people by hard kicks...."

"The East Indian immigrants to the British colonies in Australia, South and east Africa, and Canada, have demonstrated to themselves and to he people of Hindustan that their status as members of the British Empire did not avail them in the least."

"Recent occurrences in India, such as the wholesale prosecution of scores of newspaper editors and native lecturers who advocated 'India for the Indians'; the passage of the Seditious Meetings bill... the deportation of several Indian patriots without trial..."

"amongst them Lala Lajpat Rai, the renowned leader of the Punjab; have convinced the wide-awake East Indians that England is endeavoring to tighten the rivets that hold Indian slavery to the little European island nation"

"The agreement made by the English with the Japanese four years ago, one essential condition of which is that Japan shall help quell any internal disturbance in India, also has opened the eyes of the enlightened East Indians to the fact that..."

"they are absolutely off their land in their own country and paying rent to foreigners or their native allies"

"Years ago Meredith Townsend, an Englishman, wrote in his book, 'Asia and Europe': 'There are no white servants, not even grooms, no white policeman, no white postmen, no white anything, if the brown man struck for a week..."

"the empire would collapse like a house of cards, and every ruling man would be a starving prisoner in his own house."

"The time is fast approaching when the brown man will strike. Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the renowned Indian leader of the father of the Indian nationalist movement, who has just been exiled from India for six years by the ruling power..."

"on account of his espousal of the cause of his country-people, recently chalked out the following program for the natives of India to follow..."

"We shall not give the government assistance to collect revenue and keep peace. We shall not assist them in fighting byeond the frontier or outside India with Indian blood or money. We shall not assist them in arryung on the adminsitration of justice...."

"We shall have our own courts, and if the time comes, we shall not pay any taxes."

"An intense hatred for being contemptuously treated by the arrogant whites; the denial of the inalienable right, no taxation without representation..."

"and the misappropriation of billions of east Indian dollars have alienated the educated Indians from their English rulers and imbued them with a volcanic desire to substitute themselves in place of the despised aliens"

For more on the author of the piece, Saint Nihal Singh, check out the below: https://scroll.in/global/976357/how-a-runaway-from-punjab-with-little-knowledge-of-english-became-a-coveted-writer-for-us-papers