द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

STORMY 1930 203 must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or complete independence. 'India has been ruined economically. The revenue derived from our people is out of all proportion to our income. Our average income is seven pice (less than two- pence) per day, and of the heavy taxes we pay, 20 per cent. are raised from the land revenue derived from the peasantry, and 3 per cent. from the Salt Tax which falls most heavily on the poor. 'Village industries, such as hand-spinning, have been destroyed, leaving the peasantry idle for at least four months in the year, and dulling their intellect for want of handicrafts; and nothing has been substituted, as in other countries, for the crafts thus destroyed. 'Customs and currency have been so manipulated as to heap further burdens on the peasantry. The British manu- factured goods constitute the bulk of our imports. Customs duties betray clear partiality for British manufactures, and revenue from them is used not to lessen the burden on the masses but for sustaining a highly-extravagant adminis- tration. Still more arbitrary has been the manipulation of the exchange ratio, which has resulted in millions being drained away from the country. 'Politically, India's status has never been so reduced as under the British regime. No reforms have given real political power to the people. The tallest of us have to bend before foreign authority. The rights of free expres- sion of opinion and free association have been denied to us, and many of our countrymen are compelled to live in exile abroad and cannot return to their homes. All adminis- trative talent is killed, and the masses have to be satisfied with petty village offices and clerkships. 'Culturally, the system of education has torn us from our moorings and our training has made us hug the very chains that bind us. 'Spiritually, compulsory disarmament has made us unmanly, and the presence of an alien army of occupation, employed with deadly effect to crush in us the spirit of resistance, has made us think that we cannot look after ourselves or put up a defence against foreign aggression, or even defend our homes and families from the attacks of thieves, robbers and miscreants.