Another important point which, according to Hartog,
emerged during his interview was that Gandhiji ‘had not accused
the British Government of having destroyed the indigenous
schools, but [that] they had let them die for want of encour-
agement.’ To this, Hartog’s reply was that ‘they had probably let
them die because they were so bad that they were not worth
keeping.’
In the meantime, Hartog had been working and seeking
opinion, advice and views of the historian Edward J. Thompson.
Thompson agreed with Hartog that Gandhiji could not possibly
be right; and that he himself also did not ‘believe we destroyed
indigenous schools and indigenous industry out of malice. It was
inevitable.’ He felt nonetheless that, with regard to general
education, ‘we did precious little to congratulate ourselves on
until the last dozen years.’^70 In a further letter, Thompson
elaborated his views on the subject: on how little was done until
after 1918; that the ‘very hopelessness of the huge Indian job
used to oppress’ even those who had often ‘first class record of
intellect’ in places like Oxford ‘before entering the ICS.’ He noted
further: ‘I am reading old records by pre-mutiny residents, they
teem with information that makes you hope that the
Congresswallah will never get hold of it.’ Somehow the
correspondence between Hartog and Edward Thompson ended
on a sour note. Perhaps, it did not provide Hartog the sort of
intellectual or factual support he was actually looking for. At any
rate, after the interview with Gandhiji, Hartog finally despatched
his rebuttal of Gandhiji’s statement (as intended from the
beginning) for publication in International Affairs.^71 In this he
concluded that ‘the present position is that Mr Gandhi has so far
been unable to substantiate