George Clarke, 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe



Sir George Sydenham Clarke, 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, GBE (4 July 1848 – 7 February 1933) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. He later wrote antisemitic and racist pamphlets for the British far right, as well as at least one novel in 1891.

Speech in 1921

 * https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1921/may/04/the-armyin-india#column_183
 * Quoted from J. Sai Deepak, India, Bharat and Pakistan - THE CONSTITUTIONAL JOURNEY OF A SANDWICHED CIVILISATION, 2022


 * The danger to the peace of India, internally and externally, was never so great as it is now. The Dobbs mission has been in Cabul for four months and apparently has accomplished nothing. That is a humiliating fact which must tell against our prestige throughout the whole of the East. It is admitted. It has been admitted in this House that the Afghans, while negotiating with our Mission, concluded a Treaty with the Bolsheviks.' Since then, according to the Manchester Guardian, a supplementary clause has been added to that Treaty providing for a subsidy of one million gold or silver roubles, and also the construction of a telegraph line from Kustk through Herat and Kandahar to Cabul, with any technical assistance which may be required. The object of that telegraph line is obvious. But it is also reported now that another Treaty has been made with the Nationalist Turks by the Afghans. So it seems that the Afghans are rapidly falling under the influence either of the Bolsheviks, or of Pan-Islam, or possibly of both.


 * Besides that, fighting is now constantly taking place on the frontier, as we read almost every day. With a hostile Afghanistan, or even an unfriendly Afghanistan, frontier warfare would be far more serious and more continuous than it was in the past. In 1897 we employed 120,000 troops on the frontier, though the Afghans at that time were quite friendly to us. In the spring of 1919 when the Afghans invaded India, we required over 200,000 troops on the frontier, or, with non- combatants, about 300,000 men, though only part of the tribes rose at that time. Is the Government sure that when the Army is reduced as proposed it will be able to deal with the much greater troubles that may at any time arise on the frontier and at the same time be sufficient to preserve order in India?


 * The internal situation, in my opinion, was never so menacing as it is to-day. I am most anxious not to seem to exaggerate the situation, but I must say that some of the reports we receive are really most fallacious. Latterly, I have seen it said that Mr. Gandhi is rapidly losing his influence with the educated classes and that his non-cooperation movement is breaking down. That may be true to some extent, but what is forgotten is that his appeal to the ignorant and fanatical masses has aroused a feeling of race hatred which may take years before it subsides, if, indeed, it ever does subside. He has followed Mrs. Besant's earlier efforts but with much greater effect, working upon the masses and upon the boys and students, to imbue them with dislike and contempt not only of the British Government, but of all British officials in India, and the strength of that appeal lies in its religious aspects. Mr. Ghandi and his myrmidons teach that British rule is satanic, that it is the duty of all religious Indians to get. rid of it. No one who has not lived in India can quite understand how dangerous such teaching is, especially when the teacher claims, and is conceded, supernatural powers and supernatural sanction.


 * The Moslem extremists are even more violent in their language than Mr. Gandhi himself, and the wildest falsehoods about our treatment of the holy places of Islam have been widely circulated amongst the fanatical classes in India. During the last month we have seen two shocking outbreaks of violence, one at Malegaon in the Bombay Presidency, and the other on the Bengal coalfield. The police were easily overpowered, and loss of life and destruction occurred because troops were not available in time to deal with these disturbances. Then the forces of Bolshevism are certainly being brought to bear upon parts of India at the present time. The objects of the Bolsheviks, of course, differ from those of Mr. Gandhi and his associates, but they reinforce each other, because they both agree in the determination to turn us out of India.