HOW THE NEWS FROM MEERUT WAS RECEIVED AT GUMILCUND
Of the days that followed the young rajah's entry into his capital but
little record remains. He ceased almost altogether to write in his
diary; Chunder Singh, being always reticent with regard to this period,
there was no one about him who could supply the deficiency; and, to
the deep distress of his English friends both at home and in India, he
gave up writing to them. When, preceded by Vishnugupta, and followed by
Chunder Singh, Hoosanee, and the foremost of the citizens of Gumilcund,
he went into the palace, he entered upon a seclusion which might have
been that of the grave.
But, though unheard of outside the state, he was busy within it. I
gather from hints scattered through his later writings that, as day
followed day tranquilly, he entered more completely into the life of
the city; and that the people--many of whom believed with Chunder
Singh and Hoosanee that in this comely stranger their own rajah had
returned to them--received him as one of themselves.
It was not a happy time; no period of transition can be altogether
satisfactory to oneself. Being highly strung by temperament, he felt
the mental strain more than others, while the complete severance with
the old life affected him painfully. Up to this there had always been
something to connect him with the past. Jung Bahadoor, Gambier Singh,
Dinkur Rao, and the Ranee of Jhansi had all spoken to him of England.
Wherever he had been he had seen English faces and heard the English
tongue; here he met no one but Indians. Even the Resident was absent.
Owing to the death of the late rajah, he had been on duty for some
time; his health, he said, was suffering; so, after welcoming the new
ruler, he had started with his family to take holiday in a hill-station.
At first Tom felt disposed to congratulate himself on this isolation.
He remembered what had been said to him on board the 'Patagonia'--that
between East and West a great gulf is fixed. If, as he would sometimes
imagine, he was to lay the first stone of a bridge to unite them, he
must learn to stand firmly on both sides. Then, too, he had little time
for vain regrets. He had begun to realise the magnitude of the task
that lay before him, and all the energies of his nature were bent on
preparing himself for it. The language, the religion, the laws, and
social customs of his new country had all to be made separate subjects
of study before he could presume to say that he understood its people;
while, in addition, there was the duty--peculiarly sacred to him--of
finding out what the aims of his predecessors had been, and of looking
for and examining any records they had left behind them.
But after those first few days, filled to the brim with hard and
unremitting toil, there came a sense of want. His old feelings might
be stifled, but they were not dead. A dull craving, which he could not
formulate, haunted him perpetually. During the night, which was his
only time of relaxation from mental labour, there would come to him
vivid visions of home, from which he would awake with a sick anguish
that brought tears to his eyes and throbs of pain to his heart. Like a
nightmare the sense of his isolation would weigh upon him; dear faces
from the past would gaze at him reproachfully, and he would stretch out
his arms to them with a bitter cry. He could not--he could not let them
go.
Meanwhile, with the passion born of despair, he clung to what remained
to him of his past life. He had brought away with him a little English
New Testament, his mother's last gift to him. In the silence of his
marble chamber, when everyone in the palace was asleep but himself, he
opened and read it. How different it was from the subtle philosophies
into which he was painfully working his way! Could it be only that the
words were familiar and therefore dear to him? Or was there indeed
some sweet majestic power in them, such as is to be found nowhere else
in all the world? With a trembling heart he read them over:--'He that
loveth his life shall lose it.' 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the
Father.' 'This is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.' 'Come unto Me, and I
will give you rest.'
They were not new to him; from his childhood up he had been instructed
in them. They were so familiar to his ears as almost to have lost their
sense to his heart. But now, coming fresh to him from these other
religions, they smote upon his mind with a new power and beauty.
From the utterances he turned to the record of the life, and his wonder
and enchantment grew. Its purity--he had never thought of this before,
for he had not seen how men build up their deities--its selfless love,
its courage, its devotion; these came upon him like a revelation. More
than once in these silent nights he asked himself if this might not be
the secret, this the reconciling element which, after these many ages
of ignorance and disunion, would blend the two continents together so
that they might move forward to a new era of blessedness. But as yet he
said nothing, even to Chunder Singh.
The sultry month of April ran its course; the heat continued to be
terrible; but the young rajah, in his large marble-lined rooms,
artificially darkened and cooled with flowing water and the spray of
fountains, suffered little inconvenience from it.
He heard daily of the outside world, and what he heard was reassuring.
In these latter days of April it seemed to the English in the
North-west Provinces--who were for the most part as ignorant of the
inner life of the people about them as the infant is of the feelings
of those who dandle it in their arms--that any danger which might once
have existed was over. The soldiers had been convinced by a variety of
telling examples that to fight against their salt would be the height
of folly; and the people, even if they were disaffected, as a few acts
of incendiarism, with a sullen demeanour towards the English, seemed to
indicate, could do nothing without the army.
May opened, and still they held on their way quietly, and the rajah's
heir began to hope that the fanatics were silenced by hard and stubborn
facts, and that the bitterness, so long foretold, had run its course.
Then, like a flash of lightning flaming across the blue of a cloudless
sky, came the news of the revolt at Meerut.
There are many still living who will remember the horror and sickening
dismay which flew from station to station as the story, discredited
at first, pressed itself home to the minds of the conquering race.
We had heard unpleasant rumours before, here and there a mutinous
regiment, bungalows set on fire, outrages committed, muttered insults
in the public highways; some of us, indeed, had been visited with vague
apprehensions. But there was always some one of experience at hand
to point out how foolish it was to be afraid either of the people or
the soldiers, and we were only too glad to be reassured. So much the
greater was the shock of this terrible intelligence. It is true that
it was nothing like so dreadful as what we were to hear later. The
mutineers were young in crime and fearful of punishment. As a fact, it
was rather a herd of frightened wild creatures that rushed madly out of
the burning station on that awful Sunday night than a victorious army
triumphing in its first success. But this we did not know. All we saw
and understood was the extraordinary audacity of this first definite
move. Through the breathless days that followed we were momentarily
expecting to hear of the mutineers being pursued and punished. Our
servants looked at us strangely. Native officers and soldiers, who, in
the first flush of surprise, had passionately sworn to be faithful,
began to lift up their heads. Old English commanders, of the type
of General Elton, who was away from home on a tour of inspection in
the outlying districts, gnashed their teeth with impotent fury, and
wondered what the people at Meerut were about. For the news we expected
never came. The next distinct intelligence was that flashed from the
telegraph station at Delhi by the young signaller, who, with the
messengers of death yelling in his ears, was working his instrument
quietly: 'The Sepoys have come in from Meerut, and are burning
everything; we must shut up.'
Not till then did the full magnitude of the disaster that had come to
us break upon our minds. Ah! what a change it was! Few of us can have
any conception of its horror. From a life that is quiet, simple, and
secure, to be plunged all in a moment into the dark, strenuous world of
tragedy, nerves strung up, senses on the alert, affection made lurid by
passion, heart-consuming anxiety the companion of our solitude. Can we
imagine it? If so, we shall have a faint picture of the experiences of
many of us in that terrible May and June.
When the Rajah of Gumilcund heard of the uprising, his brain seemed
to reel with the shock. His impulse was to go to Meerut himself, but
Chunder Singh dissuaded him. 'The English,' said this wise minister,
'have troops enough to defend themselves; and if my lord were stopped,
as he well might be, for the roads will be infested with evil
characters, of what profit will that be to his friends? My advice is
that we take time to consider, that we look to ourselves, that we
strengthen our defences and provision the city.'
'You are right. Yes, I acknowledge it. You are wiser than I am. Call
the people together! Let us have a public council!' cried the young
rajah, springing up. 'If the people side with me now, they have my
affection and gratitude for ever.'
'They will,' said Chunder Singh.
In the beautiful Dwan-i-Khas, or public hall of audience, which was
a large pillared pavilion, standing in the midst of an open court,
surrounded by an arcade or corridor, all the principal people of the
city were gathered together that evening. The court was literally
packed. Within the pavilion, on a marble platform ten feet high, stood
the young rajah, with Chunder Singh on his right hand, and Vishnugupta
on the left.
Chunder Singh, to whom, as chief minister, it fell to open the
proceedings, was deeply anxious. His voice trembled as he stood out and
announced, in a few brief words, the calamity that had happened, with
the rajah's orders that his people should attend to what he had to say
upon the subject. But, in a few moments, his anxiety was gone, and he
looked out before him with radiant confidence.
The young rajah's speech was admirable. Fortunately for himself, he had
studied not only the religion and philosophy of this people, but their
history. He stood before them, his mind stored with pictures out of the
past. Better than anyone in that crowd he knew what the life of the
peninsula had been before the strong hand of the English, guided by
their orderly, methodical minds, had undertaken to weld the great chaos
of contending states into one peaceful empire.
Of the internecine warfare that led to Mogul and Tartar invasions, of
the brief prosperity that, however, did not penetrate to the smaller
states, when the Moslem empire became consolidated under wise rulers,
of the selfish and cynical policy of Aurungzebe that broke up the
empire, of the horrors that accompanied its disintegration--piratical
incursions on peaceful coasts, sackings of wealthy cities, forced
contributions from those who, through industry and shrewdness, had
attained to comfort, languishing in a slavery worse than death of
hundreds of innocent people, fields ravaged, harvests swept away, and
monuments of antiquity destroyed by a brutal soldiery--of these the
young rajah spoke. He spoke quietly; but there was a repressed power
in his voice and manner that told upon everyone in the assembly. Then,
when their hearts were hot with passionate memories, and a tremor of
vague apprehension was running through them, he told, in a few brief
words, of the Power that, for these hundred years and more, had been
growing up amongst them.
Here he appealed to the more intelligent amongst his audience, the
wealthy merchants, and clever artificers, who had made Gumilcund what
she was, and the reasonableness of his words impressed them.
He did not, he said, seek to deny that it was the lust of gain which
had first brought the English to their shores. Other nations had come
on the same quest, come and gone so far as their influence on the
national life of India was concerned. But this nation had stayed. Why?
In answer he bade them follow him while he showed how the conscience
of a great nation had been struggling with its cupidity, and how
conscience had conquered, so that by degrees the majesty of might
became the majesty of right, till the English name was a watchword
for those who strove to live righteously, and the English power was
a refuge for the oppressed. Even the late annexations, the wisdom
of which so many called in question, had been made in the spirit of
mercy, and to stave off the anarchy which would surely have resulted
from the continuance in the peninsula of selfish and oppressive
governments. And what, he asked, were the men who had been set over the
annexed provinces? Had England sent from her superfluous population
men who desired only to enrich themselves? No: she had given India
of her best. Brave, true, strong and noble, denying themselves, and
thinking sternly and simply of their duty, were the citizens whom
she had sent to govern India. 'I speak what I know,' cried the young
rajah, 'for though I belong to you now, none of you are ignorant of
the fact that England has been the home of my childhood. I am English
and I am Indian, in a sense which it would be impossible for me to
explain, and I speak with a full knowledge of the political position
of both countries, when I say that England and India are necessary
one to the other. I need not urge this upon you, my people, who are,
I believe, deeply conscious of the benefits which have come to us
from a strong and unselfish Imperial government. It is our desire
that this power should be strengthened rather than weakened, and set
on a broader rather than a narrower basis. But I would that my voice
could resound through the land. I would that every citizen of this
great empire could, at this awful crisis which some of us believe to
be impending, see on which side his interest and safety lie. Then the
army, which is being led astray by fanatics, would swiftly return to
its allegiance, and peace and security would again reign amongst us.'
He paused for a moment, and then his voice rose, and a passion of
prophetic woe seemed to tear, him, as he cried, 'I know the English;
they are fierce when they are roused, they are dogged when their hearts
are set upon an object, and if they seem to fall back it will only be
for a moment. They will triumph, and the vengeance they will exact
will be in proportion to their consciousness of rectitude. Thousands
will die the death of felons. Thousands will lose their all. Thousands
will wander homeless through the land, cursing those who betrayed
them. But that is not all. That is not even the worst, for death and
the flight of years will dissipate the anguish upon which we may
have to look. The disturbers of our peace will pass away, and a new
generation will arise. But the sore left behind by the struggle will
remain. The new civilisation, which we so fondly hoped to establish,
will be thrown back. The seeds of a mutual distrust will be sown, and
the union between East and West, to which my predecessors looked as
enshrining the secret of the future, and holding within it the promise
of a peace and happiness greater than the world has ever known, will
be indefinitely delayed. For this,' cried the young orator, his voice
rising and his frame seeming to expand, 'that the calamity which I
foresee might be averted. I could wish that our little Gumilcund was a
million-fold stronger and greater than she is. To take the van in the
great contest which we see coming, to make for order against anarchy,
to force upon others the views which we hold ourselves, and which we
believe to be beneficial to us all, to cure the blood-fever which has
seized upon the heart of these unhappy peoples, and to lead them back
into the paths of reason and quietness--this we would do if we had
the strength. We know that we have not. By the Supreme Spirit, which,
call it by what name we will, every one of us acknowledges, our place
amongst the nations has been allotted to us. We are to this people as a
single grain in a heaped-up storehouse, as a little one in a multitude.
But we can do something, and what we can do we will. We can be faithful
to our convictions; we can make sacrifices for our faith; we can govern
ourselves; we can be wise, prudent, firm and watchful. This, which I
ask of myself, I ask of you.' His voice dropped, and there crept into
its tones a curiously soft inflection as he went on. 'I am new to you,
the tumult of your welcome is still ringing in my ears. I came to you
an unknown man, and you received me with an honour and distinction
such as are seldom accorded to a stranger. That I owe this not to my
own merits, but to the merits of those who went before me, I am well
aware; and when I say that it is in response to this welcome I venture
to come forward as your leader, you will not mistake me. I am speaking
in the name and by the power--present, as I believe, at this moment
amongst us--of your late rajah, done foully to death by the hands and
heads that are plotting this rising. Tell me then what your desire is.
Let us confer together about the measures we should take for the proper
defence of this city. Let us agree to open our gates to the fugitive
and to shut them to the oppressor; and, whatever may be in the future,
we shall have our reward, for we shall have within us what a Western
scripture would call "the answer of a good conscience towards God and
towards men," or, in the not less striking words of the Bhagavad Gita,
the sacred lore, the divine wisdom, "worshipping by the performance
of our duties Him from whom is the endeavour of men, we shall attain
perfection."'