NATIVE REPRESENTATION IN INDIAN GOVERNMENT
It is rare indeed that an Englishman looks at India as Francis Newman
looked at it. Fifty years ago--probably longer--he put his finger on
exactly the spot which to-day is the crux which most puzzles and baffles
politicians. In social and intellectual questions his were the clear-
sighted, far-focussed eyes that reached beyond the measures of most men's
minds. He saw clearly, fifty years ago, that India was drawing ever closer
and closer to an inevitable terminus. That she was beginning to recognize
--every year more definitely--her ultimate destination: was beginning to
realize, too, that her foreign rulers were aware also of that terminus,
but were not very anxious that she should reach it. Nay, were practically
rather jogging her elbow to prevent her becoming so conscious of the
direction in which the tide of affairs was drifting.
Nevertheless it is becoming more and more patent to everyone who really
studies the question impartially that things are not what they were fifty
or sixty years ago; that a critical juncture is drawing ever nearer and
nearer--a juncture which inevitably will mean great changes for the
governed and the governors.
Even the slow-moving East does move appreciably in half a century, when
centres of education are doing their best to train Indians in European
ideas of civilization, in European ideas of government, and of the
authority which learning gives. We cannot expect to educate and yet leave
those we educate exactly where we find them; for with education comes
invariably, inevitably, the growth of ideas planted by it--their growth,
and no less invariable fruition. To show someone all that is to be gained
by reaching forward, and then to expect him not to reach, but to remain
quiescent, is the act of a fool.
We have, as a nation, so taken it for granted that India is our own to do
as we like with, that it is perhaps not a pleasant reminder which faces us
as we cast our thoughts back to the initial steps taken by ourselves in
the days which preceded the formation of the Honourable East India
Company. It bids us realize that at first, as Francis Newman says in his
_Dangerous Glory of India_, "neither king, statesmen, nor people ever
deliberately planned from the beginning or desired such an empire. It
began as a set of mercantile establishments which took up private arms for
mere self-defence.... The Honourable East India Company was glad to
legitimate its position by accepting from the Grand Mogul the subordinate
position of a rent-collector; indeed, from the beginning to the end of its
political career it was animated by a consistent and unswerving
disapproval of aggression and fresh conquest."
Since that time, however, the English dominion spread rapidly. Since that
time we became more and more aware of what a splendid field lay ready for
occupation by our surplus population. Since that time we have moved
forward through a vast country that formerly, through lack of European
ways of civilization and co-operation, practically lay at our feet. It is
true that we have done much--very much for India. It is impossible for
anyone to deny that. We have brought to her doors European civilization;
modern points of view; the miracles of new discoveries in science;
inventions for making the wheels of life move easier; opportunities for
cultivating and selling her land's produce, and for its quick transport.
We have lifted her up--yes, but here is where the mental shoe pinches--we
have insisted on preventing her from reaching her full stature. We have
trained her sons to be able to work side by side with ourselves in various
official duties; and then when they are desirous--as is indeed only the
inevitable consequence of their education--of entering the lists side by
side with Englishmen, they find there is no crossing the rubicon which
officially divides the two nations.
It is true that many Anglo-Indians stand aghast at this idea that they
should cross it, but it is only those who are unaware that, as a general
rule, education and environment combined come out as top dog over heredity
in most instances in which it plays a part. It is only those who, when
they go out to India, take, as it were, England with them, and fail to
recognize how far Indian points of view and power of dealing with things
have progressed. It is only those who have forgotten--if indeed they ever
truly realized it--that it is a point of honour that such a proceeding
should be carried out, if we, as Englishmen, remember all that the notable
charter of 1833 bound us to do.
For the charter of 1833 [Footnote: During Lord Grey's ministry.]
definitely promised that native Indian subjects of the English Government
were to be admitted on equal terms with English subjects _to every office
of State_, except that of governor-general or commander-in-chief. Not only
that, but the solemn proclamation of the late Queen was issued in 1858,
pledging the word of Sovereign and Parliament that the "sole aim of
British rule in India was the welfare of the Indian people, and that no
distinction would be made between Indians and Europeans in the government
of the country, on the grounds of race, or creed, or colour."
As Francis Newman says very clearly, it is a "task which we have
voluntarily assumed-to rule India, which means" (the italics are his) "_to
defend it from itself in infancy, to train it into manhood_.... It
presupposes that the people gradually get more and more power until, like
a son who comes of age, the parental control is discontinued.... We cannot
take the last steps first, nor can we abruptly and recklessly resign our
post...."
The Hon. M. G. K. Gokhale, in a keenly interesting paper read before the
East India Association in the summer of 1906, states very definitely the
point of view of educated Indians as regards our unfulfilled pledges of
nearly eighty years since. He says: "Until a few years ago, whatever might
have been thought of the pace at which we were going, there was no general
disposition to doubt the intention of the rulers to redeem their plighted
word. To-day, however, the position is no longer the same.... There is no
doubt that the old faith of the people in the character and ideals of
British rule has been more than shaken.... Half a century of Western
education, and a century of common laws, common administration, common
grievances, common disabilities, have not failed to produce their natural
effect even in India.... Whatever a certain school of officials in India
may say, the bulk of educated Indians have never in the past desired a
severance of the British connection.... "But, he adds: "It is a critical
juncture in the relations between England and India.... The educated
classes in India ... want their country to be a prosperous, self-
governing, integral part of the Empire, like the colonies, and not a mere
poverty-stricken bureaucratically-held possession of that Empire."
Fifty years ago Francis Newman was urging with all the force in his power
--and no one in his day was more farsighted in detecting just that social
reform which would make more and more insistent demand for a hearing, as
decade followed decade--that it was to our own interest as a nation, as
well as the only honourable course open to us, to open up public offices
in India to the educated native. It need not, he showed, be done otherwise
than with caution, and gradually "many variations" were "imaginable; many
different ways might succeed, if only the _right end in view_" was
"steadily held up, namely, to introduce, fully and frankly, _into true
equality with ourselves_" [Footnote: To "exclude natives from all high
office," Sir Charles Napier said once emphatically, "is what debases a
nation."] (again the italics are his) "as quickly as possible, and as many
as possible, of the native Indians whose loyalty could be counted on....
Lord Grey and his coadjutors, in renewing the charter of 1833, understood
most clearly that nothing but an abundance of black faces in the highest
judicature, and intelligent Indians of good station in the high police,
could administer India uprightly.... Every year that we delay evils become
more inveterate and hatred accumulates. To train India into governing
herself, until English advice is superfluous, would be to both countries a
lasting benefit, to us a lasting glory."
Now, what are the "evils" which "every year become more inveterate" in our
method of government in India? Perhaps one of the most palpable is the
strongly centralized bureaucracy. Another, is the constant change of men
in chief office every five years. Another, is that all competitive
examinations are held in London. Mr. Gokhale very rightly urges that it is
a great deal to require of an Indian that he should have to come all the
way to England for these examinations _on the chance_ of passing, and
suggests their being held simultaneously in India and in England. Another,
is that the field of law is the only officialdom open to the Indian, yet
that there he is found capable of rising to the highest post. Another,
that we have not pushed forward the education of the masses as far as we
reasonably might if we had worked hand in hand with the educated classes.
Mr. Gokhale tells us that to-day seven children out of eight are growing
up in ignorance, and four villages out of five are as yet without a
school-house.
There are other drawbacks to this system of foreign bureaucracy, which can
only be briefly touched on here, but certainly Newman was right when he
condemned that mistaken, high-handed measure of the autocratic East India
Company--their destruction of all the local treasuries, and the manner in
which these funds were diverted into the central treasury. Thus, as he
pointed out very clearly, no moneys were left for the repair of roads,
bridges, and tanks, etc. As he remarks, "In comparison with this monster
evil, all other delinquencies seem to fade away."
As everyone probably is aware, Newman lost no opportunity in pressing home
on the minds of his countrymen that it is decentralization that is so
urgently needed; and that not alone in India, but in our own country as
well. Repeatedly he urged that if Government is administered from one
central bureaucracy, it follows inevitably that the business to be dealt
with bulks so enormously that it is literally impossible to deal, in
detail and with complete understanding, with the rights and wrongs of
citizens at a distance in the provinces and remote parts of a big empire.
Consequently, he was always trying to show how far more successfully local
self-government--a local ward-mote, for instance--would deal with
provincial matters in England. That every town should be, as it were, a
little State, with all classes represented in it, and matters dealt with
locally should only come up to the Central Parliament for veto or for
sanction. In the same way he recommended strongly that in India every
facility should be given to "voluntary (limited liability) companies to
execute roads, works of irrigation, etc...." That country districts should
be given local treasuries, as well as towns.
In "English institutions and their most necessary reforms," Newman
declares and reiterates that this lack of local treasuries is a "hideous
blunder," and adds, "every coin in every province is liable to be spent in
some war." He urges other changes, which have come to pass in some
measure, such as a Viceroy, a "prince of the blood royal," sent out to
"receive their occasional homage." But there again lack of cooperation
with the natives, lack of real understanding between us and them, have, as
everyone is aware, worked havoc when a man [Footnote: It is impossible to
forget in this connection what the _Tribune_ called our "Curzonian
statescraft" in the recent past.] without the necessary insight and
sympathy into the people's points of view and ways of thought has been
sent to posts of supreme authority.
There have been men of splendid capabilities for understanding and
sympathizing with these points of view, men such as Sir James Outram, the
Bayard of India; Sir John Malcolm, Lord Elphinstone, Sir George Russell
Clerk, Lord Lawrence, Ovans, and many others, who helped forward the
better understanding between England and India very greatly; and of these,
Outram suffered grievous misrepresentations at the hands of his
Government, Clerk was put aside, and Ovans had to stand his trial in
England for an absolutely unjustifiable charge.
Whenever the question of co-operation and sympathy comes up, as from time
to time it does, between Englishmen and Indians, whether it is fifty or
sixty years ago, in Newman's day or now in the year of grace 1909, with a
few honourable exceptions, the answer is identically the same. It is
practically an unknown quantity. The East and West have not really met.
Still the ranks of the service are absorbed by Englishmen; still, as all
educated Indians protest, the "true centre of gravity for India is in
London"; still India is unrepresented in the Viceroy's Executive Councils,
and in Customs, Post, Survey, Telegraph, Excise, etc., and also in the
Commissioned ranks of the Army; still, because district administration is
to all intents and purposes not in existence, there is no compulsory
education for boys _and_ girls, though most educated Indians are very
strongly in favour of it.
It is not, it cannot be, because our eyes, as a nation, have been shut to
the fact of what the faults of our own administration have been in years
gone by. If no one else had trumpeted them abroad, at least one man spoke
out the whole truth and nothing but the truth about it in the last
century: Francis, the great Social Reformer--Francis Newman, who was no
time-server, no prophesier of smooth things; but, as much as in him lay,
desired more than anything else to lay the whole unvarnished truth before
his fellow men, things that concerned the weaker members of the community.
In lecture after lecture he turned things to the "rightabout-face" which
had hitherto been done _sub rosâ_ in India. He did in effect pull down the
very rose tree which had acted as such an efficient shelter. His bull's-
eye lantern always cast an uncompromising glare upon those sometimes very
"shady" doings of our countrymen which characterized their treatment of
natives in the early Victorian era, and--occasionally perhaps, even since.
No one has forgotten, for instance, the words of Mr. Halliday, Lieutenant-
Governor of Bengal, when he described our police as a curse to India in
1854.
Newman reminded his countrymen that in 1852 a petition had been sent to
the House of Commons from Lower Bengal, "among other grievous complaints,"
which "stated that by reason of the hardships inflicted on witnesses, the
population" were averse from testifying to the ill-doings and tyranny of
these police.
Again, as regarded the courts of law in India, Newman reminded us of the
revelations contained in that volume by the Hon. Mr. Shore concerning our
Government (the book which was withdrawn 1844).
It was there stated definitely that, until the days of Lord William
Bentinck, Persian was the only language used in these courts.
Consequently, as neither judge, nor clerk, nor litigating party, nor
person accused, nor his witnesses understood it, it constantly happened
that the case was a veritable _reductio ad absurdum_. No one knew what was
happening until at last the man--if it was a case of murder--was shown
that the case had gone against him by being shown the gallows!
It is true _nous avons changé tout cela_, in these days, and the
vernacular tongue is used instead, but now it is the judge who doesn't
always know accurately what is going on, for he cannot always understand
what the witnesses are saying! As Newman says very shrewdly: "If self-
confident, he trusts his own impressions; if timid, he leans on the
judgment of his native clerk; if formal and pedantic, he believes all
clear and coherent statements. His weaknesses are watched, and it is soon
understood whether he is to be better managed by fees to the clerk, or by
the forging of critical evidence, in cases for which it is worth while.
Very scandalous accounts have been printed in great detail ... and one
thing is clear, that those Englishmen who have looked keenly into the
matter and dare to speak freely, believe justice to have a far worse
chance in such tribunals than before native judges."
Francis Newman tells us that his own eyes were opened to the prevailing
state of things in those days, by "a very intelligent, and widely informed
indigo-planter." He told him that when he first began indigo-planting, his
partner had given this emphatic rule of conduct: "Never enter the
Company's Courts!" And to his own amazed question as to what course of
action was to be pursued when a difficulty arose, he clearly and openly
explained. "If a native failed to pay us our dues, we never sued him, but
simply publicly seized some of his goods, sold them by auction, deducted
our claim from the proceeds, and handed over to him the balance." There is
something almost humorous in this travesty of an _amende honorable_ for so
highhanded a measure!
One may in very deed be thankful that since the day of all these
happenings, Indians _have_, as Mr. Gokhale tells us, "climbed in the field
of law, to the very top of the tree," and can now deal out first-hand
justice to their fellow countrymen.
I think I cannot give a fitter close to this chapter than by quoting
Newman's suggestions as to measures of urgent importance with regard to
our Indian Empire, which were made a little over forty years ago.
"The establishment of an Imperial Court in India to judge all causes....
The mark of a 'tyrant' (according to the Old Greeks) was his defence by a
foreign body-guard: _we_ bear that mark of illegitimate sway at present.
"To make India loyal, to save the yearly sacrifice of health or life to
10,000 young men, now the miserable victims of our army system, is so
urgent an interest, that I put this topic foremost. Too much importance
can hardly be given to it. Each soldier is said to cost us £100; hence the
pecuniary expense also is vast. But until we restrain ourselves from
aggression, all attempts permanently to improve our millions at home must
be fruitless.... Our task is to rear India into political manhood, train
it to English institutions, and rejoice when it can govern itself without
our aid."