Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/15

 ALLAN OCTAVIAN HUME

(1829 TO 1912)

purpose of this brief memoir is to set forth the work and teaching of a man experienced in Indian affairs, who combined political insight with dauntless courage and untiring industry. The problem before him was, Can the continuance of British rule be made conformable to the best interests of the Indian people? And his answer was full of hope. Being firmly convinced that the interests of the Indian people and the British people were essentially the same, he believed that under a government in touch with popular feeling, the administration of India, within the British Empire, might be conducted with equal benefit to East and West, developing all that was best in the two great branches of the Aryan race.

But at the same time he realized with increasing anxiety, that the existing government, administered by foreign officials on autocratic lines, was dangerously out of touch with the people. He did not blame the men : the fault was in the system. There existed no recognized channel of communication between the rulers and the ruled; no constitutional means of keeping the official administrators informed regarding the condition, and