THE INDIAN VILLAGE
The village Panchayat; a rough and ready tribunal; its
decisions. Magisterial trial of offences on the spot. The
Christian Panchayat; its doubtful results; fans the spirit
of discord; undesirable reiteration of incidents. Want of
wholesome reserve. Knowledge of evil. Out-caste villagers no
longer servile; disposal of dead carcases; burial of
strangers. Mahars growing prosperous.
In Indian villages there is what is called a Panchayat, or committee
of five, for the settlement of disputes, although of late years many
of the Panchayats have become practically moribund. The members of
this council are chosen from the leading men of the village. All kinds
of disputes can be submitted to this court of arbitration, from cases
of cattle trespass, or doubtful land boundaries, to breaches of Hindu
religious custom. It is the Panchayat which has the power to out-caste
a man--a dreaded punishment--which means that his relations and
friends will no longer hold intercourse with him; no one will hand him
food or water; shopkeepers may refuse to serve him; and if he dies,
none of his own people will bury or cremate him, but his body will
be left to be disposed of by the scavengers.
[Illustration: MRS SALOME ZADHAW.]
The Panchayat is only a rough and ready way of settling disputes, or
punishing minor offences. Much of the evidence in the cases which come
before it is either false or else grossly distorted. The members of
the Panchayat are already probably prejudiced either for or against
the offender, and make no attempt to rise above their prejudices. Any
one of them will side with the party who will make it worth his while
to do so.
The final decision may, or may not, be in accordance with the facts of
the case. The guilty person, if an offence has been committed, may
escape; and an innocent person, who has few friends and little to
offer, may get punished. Men who are poor and unpopular sometimes get
sorely bullied, and even ill-treated, in an Indian village.
Nevertheless, at present the Panchayat has its use in Hindu India, and
the prospect of being brought under its power is a wholesome terror.
When India has progressed a stage further this primitive mode of
procedure, already a good deal discredited, will no doubt be
superseded altogether.
Unfortunately, even in more august tribunals where the desire to be
true and just is uppermost, false evidence is so rife that there has
to be a good deal of guesswork, and calculations of probabilities,
when trying to come to a right decision. It has lately been advocated
that magistrates should, when practicable, hold their preliminary
trial of offences in the village where the misdemeanour is alleged to
have taken place. The witnesses under these circumstances are more
disposed to give a true account of what has happened. They are
surrounded by neighbours who know, to some extent, whether they are
speaking the truth or not, and are apt to betray them in case of
falsehood. But if the inquiry takes place at a city police-court, the
witnesses come in contact with the false witnesses, and bad
characters, and petty lawyers (or "pleaders" as they are called), who
hang about in the vicinity, and the usual result is that having been
tampered with by some interested person, all hopes of an honest
narrative are at an end.
There is a laudable desire to adapt Indian customs to the needs of
Indian Christians. The result has not always been the success which
was hoped for. The truth is, that what may be advantageous in the
heathen world may be quite otherwise when applied to the circumstances
of the Christian community. Because it was the old custom in Hindu
villages to settle difficulties, secular and religious, by a
Panchayat, it was thought that it would be advantageous to exercise
discipline in the Church in the same way. It was well to give it a
trial, but many begin to doubt its applicability. The Indian often is,
like many others, a man of strong prejudices, and even Christianity is
not altogether successful in uprooting this fault. His likes and
dislikes are pronounced, and are not always according to reason.
Certain excellent people will side with a pronounced wrongdoer, for no
apparent cause; not necessarily from a charitable desire to give him
another chance. Also, the pleasing Indian characteristic of regard for
family relationship, which is so strong, leads to an anxiety to
belittle the wrongdoings of anyone who can claim kinship, and this may
be carried even to the verge of distortion, or suppression of the
truth. Anyhow, the conclusions of the Christian Panchayat are, not
unfrequently, singularly at variance with what would appear to be the
right verdict.
There is another reason why the Panchayat, as applied to Christian
congregations, is not altogether wholesome. The true spirit of charity
is a difficult virtue to acquire. When two people quarrel, unless they
quickly forgive, they are generally anxious to air their grievance.
Indians in particular wish the whole matter gone into with
elaboration, so that, as they say, justice may be done. The Panchayat
gives exactly the opening which they crave. A quarrel between two
neighbours, which ought to have been quickly adjusted by mutual
forgiveness, becomes a subject of endless discussion. Many others get
dragged into it; and the spirit of discord, instead of being laid to
rest by the proceedings of the Panchayat, often finds a greatly
enlarged scope for mischief.
In bringing a case of immorality before this tribunal the evil is
intensified. The matter is gone into minutely, with much freedom of
expression. Nor does it end there. The members of the Panchayat return
to their homes, and, with the fullest detail, repeat to wife and
children the incidents that the inquiry has disclosed. For days it is
the all-engrossing subject of conversation. "There is no reserve
amongst us in the sense that you English people have it," said a
leading Indian Christian to me; "there is nothing which our children
do not know." Consulting an intelligent Christian Indian on the
difficult question as to how much might be said with safety when
warning the young on the subject of purity, he replied: "It is
impossible to teach them anything which they do not know already.
Other people talk to them, and the youngest know all that there is to
be known."
It should be added, that although with very few exceptions this is
certainly true, the knowledge of evil does not, as a matter of course,
produce evil, and there are many Indian Christian lads who, sustained
by the power of sacramental grace, are leading lives of exemplary
self-control, while living in circumstances of great temptation.
Whatever may have been the case in years gone by, the out-caste people
of a village are not now the downtrodden, servile folk such as they
are commonly supposed to be, although there are still instances of
individual oppression. Most of them are leading more wholesome lives
than those of the richer, self-indulgent men, and this is evidenced
by their more vigorous and manly frame. They are, to some extent, at
the beck and call of the chief men of the place, and more especially
of the _Patel_, but they are independent in their bearing, and obey
cheerfully without cringing. Some of their duties may sound unsavoury.
As, for instance, they are responsible for the removal of a dead
carcase found within the village boundary. But if it is the body of an
animal fit for food, such as a buffalo, sheep, or goat, they feast
upon it themselves, quite regardless of what disease it may have died
of.
A buffalo belonging to the Mission died from snake-bite, as it was
supposed, though that sometimes is only another name for wilful
poisoning. The disposal of its immense carcase seemed a perplexity.
But just as we were considering this point, we saw the buffalo
travelling away at a rapid pace on the shoulders of the village
Mahars, who took it as their natural perquisite, and did not think it
necessary to wait for leave. The horns, hoofs, skin, and bones are
marketable commodities, so that, besides the feast, they often make a
good thing out of agricultural tragedies.
The same class of men are responsible for any stray burials, which are
not at all uncommon in a country where there are many homeless
wanderers, some of whom, when weary and ill, just lie down by the
roadside and die. The Mahars of the nearest village bury the nameless
corpse. The clothes of the dead man are sufficient recompense for
hasty interment in a shallow grave, and the jackals the next night
probably discover, and make short work of, the corpse. I have seen the
body of some such poor wanderer, with scarcely a rag upon it, slung
upon a pole and carried like a dead dog by a couple of Mahars along
the high-road to a place of burial.
Many low-caste men have, of late years, grown prosperous and acquired
land of their own. In the neighbourhood of cities some of them get
well-paid posts as night-watchmen, and as they are often frugal
people, they gradually put by a good deal of money. The servants of
Europeans are also largely drawn from this class, and a capable
servant is able to secure wages which, together with pickings in the
shape of tips and perquisites, enable him to save. The low-caste
people of a village often present a brilliant appearance when they
turn out in holiday attire on some festal day, and the gold ornaments
of the women sufficiently indicate their prosperous condition. That
they have their own quarter, outside the village proper, does not
cause them any searchings of heart. They come into the village freely,
and talk and mix with the other people, and Mahar boys often play with
the other children. But when there is a village feast they have, of
course, to sit quite apart.
[Illustration: RAGU, THE NIGHT WATCHMAN.]
There are indications that the village low-caste people are beginning
to retaliate for whatever oppression they may have had to undergo, by
becoming rather insolent to their betters. Some of them are also
using the facilities for education which late years have put within
their reach with good effect, and have gradually risen to positions of
importance in Government and other service.