As early as 1920-21 the Party was approached from various quarters in an attempt to bring it into touch with liberationist movements in other countries. It was on the lines of the much advertised “Association of Oppressed Nations”. They consisted chiefly of repre¬ sentatives of certain Balkan States, also some from Egypt and India, who impressed me as being chatter¬ ing busybodies, with nothing behind them. But there were quite a few Germans, especially among the Nationalists, who let themselves be taken in by those jabbering Orientals and imagined that any Indian or Egyptian student who happened to turn up was a genuine “representative” of India or Egypt. They never troubled to inquire, nor did they realize that these were people with nothing behind them and without authority from anyone to conclude any sort of agreement ; so that the result of dealing with such characters was just nil and mere waste of time.
I well remember the childish and incomprehensible hopes which arose suddenly in 1920-21 in Nationalist circles. England was supposed to be on the verge of collapse in India. A few mountebanks from Asia (they may have been genuine fighters for freedom in India, for all I care), who ran round Europe, had managed to inspire quite reasonable people with the fixed idea that the British world Empire, with its pivot in India, was just about to collapse there. That the wish was father to the thought never occurred to them.
It is childish to assume that in England the impor¬ tance of the Indian Empire for the British world union is not appreciated. And it is a sad proof of refusal to take a lesson from the World War and to realize the determination of the Anglo-Saxon character when people imagine that England would let India go. It also proves the complete ignorance prevailing in Ger¬ many as to the methods by which the British administer that Empire. England will never lose India unless she gives way to racial confusion in her machinery of administration or unless she is forced to do so by the sword of a powerful enemy. Indian risings will