India’s Problem
Krishna or Christ
By
John P. Jones, D.D.
of Southern India, A. B. C. F. M.
New York, Chicago, Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
1903
CONTENTS
Dedication.
Preface.
Chapter I. The Land And The People.
1. The Physical Features of That Land.
2. The People.
3. Economic Conditions.
4. Social Life.
(_a_) The Family.
(_b_) Society.
5. The Educational System.
6. The Political Situation.
7. The Government of India.
8. The Mission of Great Britain in India.
Chapter II. The Religions Of India.
(_a_) Judaism.
(_b_) Mohammedanism.
(_c_) Parseeism.
(_d_) Buddhism.
(_e_) Jainism.
(_f_) Sikhism.
(_g_) Hinduism.
(_a_) Incarnation.
(_b_) Vicarious Atonement.
(_c_) Spirituality.
(_d_) Eschatology.
(_e_) The Doctrine of Faith.
Chapter III. Hinduism And Christianity Contrasted.
1. In their Initial Conceptions.
2. Their Ultimate Aim or Goal.
3. The Agency and Means Recognized and Appealed to by those Faiths
Respectively.
4. The Processes of These Two Religions.
5. The Ideals of the Two Faiths.
6. The Credentials of the Two Faiths.
7. Other Distinguishing Traits.
Conclusion.
Chapter IV. The Products Of The Two Faiths In India. The Hindu And The
Native Christian—A Study.
1. And First, The Hindu.
2. Let us Now Study The Native Christian.
Chapter V. The Women Of India.
Chapter VI. The History Of Christian Effort In India.
Chapter VII. The Missionary.
1. Physical Fitness.
2. His Methods of Life.
3. The Intellectual Ability and Educational Training of the Missionary.
4. Spiritual Qualifications.
5. The Missionary’s Attitude Towards the Non-Christian World.
6. The Relationship Which the Missionary Sustains to the Missionary
Society and the Churches Which Support Him.
7. The Missionary and the Mission To Which He Belongs.
8. The Relation of the Missionary to the People Among Whom He Lives.
Chapter VIII. Missionary Organization.
(_a_) The Evangelistic Department.
(_b_) Pastoral Work.
(_c_) The Educational Department.
Schools for Non-Christians.
Schools for Christian Children.
Training Institutions for Mission Agents.
(_d_) Literary Work.
(_e_) Medical Work.
(_f_) Work for Women.
(_g_) Work for the Young.
(_h_) Organizations for the Special Activities of the Native Christian
Community.
Chapter IX. Present Day Missionary Problems.
Chapter X. Missionary Results.
Chapter XI. Missionary Results—(Continued)
Index.
Footnotes
DEDICATION.
_To_
_ _
_ My Wife_
_ _
_ Without whom the following pages_
_ could not have been written._
[Illustration: A Typical Buddhist Priest.]
“Yes, it shall come! E’en now my eyes behold,
In distant view, the wish’d for age unfold,
Lo, o’er the shadowy days that roll between,
A wand’ring gleam foretells th’ ascending scene.
Oh, doom’d victorious from thy wounds to rise,
Dejected India, lift thy downcast eyes,
And mark the hour, whose faithful steps for thee
Through Time’s press’d ranks bring on the Jubilee!”
PREFACE.
The following pages are, practically, the result of a course of lectures
given, on the Hyde foundation, at the Andover Theological Seminary in the
fall of 1902. Some of the chapters were also used in lectures, delivered
during the year, at the Yale and Hartford Theological Seminaries and at
the Western Reserve University. Small portions have appeared in Reviews
and Magazines but have been much changed in the transfer. The cordial
welcome accorded the lectures, including an expressed desire that they be
published, has led to their appearance in this more permanent form.
India should be better known to Europe and America. I trust that the
following pages may help the student to understand the vast country and to
realise the greatness of the problems connected with Christian work in the
land; may they also stir within many a strong desire to present Christ to
that great people, and inspire a hope in the ultimate and speedy triumph
of our cause in the land of the Vedas.
I gratefully express my indebtedness to the Rev. J. L. Barton, D. D., for
his valuable suggestions and kindly sympathy, and also to the Rev. W. P.
Elwood for his kind help in proofreading.
John P. Jones.
_Pasumalai,_
_ So. India._
Chapter I.
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.
No country in the Orient is of greater interest to the West today than is
India. It is picturesque in its life, wonderful in its history, remarkable
in its present conditions and fascinating in its promise for the future.
It is a land most worthy of study both for what it has been, for what it
is and for what it is to become; as the arena for the greatest conflict
upon which our Faith and Civilization have ever entered; and for their
most magnificent triumph in the world.
Moreover, India is now peculiarly wedded to the Anglo-Saxon race. For good
or for evil the destiny of that country, socially, politically,
intellectually and religiously, is linked with that of the Anglo-Saxon;
and we, as a part of the Anglo-Saxon race, cannot, even if we would, shake
off our connection with, and responsibility for, it.
1. The Physical Features of That Land.
It is a very extensive land. More a continent than a country, it
stretches, from east to west, a distance of 1,900 miles; and it extends
the same distance from the Himalayas on the north to Cape Comorin on the
south. It covers an area equal to one-half of that of the United States.
It is physically divided into three portions. The first, on the north,
includes the Himalaya Mountains, which separate it from the rest of Asia
and which furnish an important element in the meteorological conditions of
the country. Then from the base of this mountain range extend the plains
of the great rivers which issue from the mountains themselves. Again, from
the southern boundaries of these plains gradually rises a very extensive
three-sided table-land reaching towards the coast on both eastern and
western sides, and extending to Cape Comorin on the south. There may be
added to this the narrow strips of coast-land on the east and west. In the
land are found some of the greatest and most wonderful rivers in the
world. The Ganges, which is the queen of Indian rivers, carries life and
fertility to a population greater than that of the whole United States.
After a course of 1,557 miles it empties, into the Bay of Bengal,
1,800,000 cubic feet of water per second, which is half as much again as
the water of the Mississippi, and nearly six times as much as that of the
Nile at Cairo.
It is a land wonderful in the variety of its climates. It is difficult to
imagine greater contrasts than those existing between the various climates
of India—from the eternal snows in the north to the fierce and constant
heat of the tropics in the south; from the practically rainless expanse of
the western plains of Sind to the 600 inches of rainfall which deluges the
eastern mountain slopes. No land is more extensively cultivated and none
gives more fruit in return for human labour than India. The Ganges, by the
abundant silt which it carries, brings fertility and fruitfulness to its
valleys. Even the plains of Sind, which are nearly rainless, are
transformed into life by large irrigation schemes.
Rice, wheat and millets are the three staples of the country. In the
north, wheat furnishes sixty per cent. of the cultivated area. This total
area under wheat cultivation in India is estimated to be equal to that of
all the wheat-fields of the United States. One-fourth of the population of
India lives on rice; and various kinds of millets represent fifty-two per
cent. of the whole cultivation of the land. Though the methods of
cultivation there are primitive and the implements used inadequate for
best results, yet through the rich climatic conditions and the persistent
efforts of the people the land normally yields an abundance of good things
for the support of its inhabitants.
2. The People.
The people of India number, according to the census of 1901,
291,236,000—about one-fifth of the inhabitants of the globe. This
population represents more races than are found in the whole of Europe.
Besides many small tribes, it has eleven nations, the least of which
numbers 2,250,000 souls. Of these nations seven are of Aryan, and four of
Dravidian, extraction; and they differ in physique, temperament and
language. Between the sturdy Aryan on the north and the degraded primitive
people on the plains of the south there is a great gulf. Between the
clever and subtle Baboo of Bengal and the war-like Marahtta of the west,
the bold, spirited Pathan in the north and the passive but enduring
Dravidian in the south, there are many intermediate classes which furnish
wonderful diversity of character and temperament. Among these people there
is not, and cannot at present be, a sense of oneness. Until recently their
whole civilization tended to emphasize their divergence, to broaden the
breach between them and to cultivate a perpetual, mutual jealousy and
hatred.
The languages spoken by these people are, according to the census of 1891,
seventy in number.(1) Of these the Sanskrit is the oldest, and may truly
be called the mother tongue of the country. It is one of the most ancient
languages in the world, with a history of more than 3,000 years. It is
strong, pliant, expressive—a worthy vehicle of noble thought and religious
aspiration. Though not spoken today by any tribe or people, it is not a
dead language, for it is the religious tongue of India. The best thought,
the deepest philosophy, the highest religious aspiration, the laws,
customs and legends of the people are treasured in that tongue. All who
would know the religious life and thought of India at its best and in its
sources, should study Sanskrit. From it have sprung many of the languages
of Modern India. In the northern and northwestern parts, the Aryan tongues
find supremacy. Although these languages differ greatly among themselves,
their source and vocabulary is mainly Sanskrit. Of all Indian languages,
the one most widely spoken is the Hindi—88,000,000 people use it as their
mother tongue. Forty-one millions speak Bengali, 18,000,000 speak Punjabi,
19,000,000, Marathi, 11,000,000 speak Gujurathi.
The Dravidian languages of South India are entirely separate from the
Aryan group, their source and character being Turanian. These languages
are Tamil, Telugu, Kanarese and Malayalam. Fifty-three million people
speak these tongues alone.
The inhabitants of India are an ancient people. When thirty centuries ago
our ancestors were grovelling in the lowest depths of primitive savagery,
our fellow-Aryans of India were enjoying a civilization of their own,
which was, in its way, unique and distinguished. Their philosophy shows
testimony to their ancient glory. It may truly be said that their chief
glory is to be found more in ancient than in modern times. It is a people
whose progress has, in some respects, been backward rather than forward,
and whose boast is rightly of what they have been rather than of what they
are.
It is a conservative people. India is a land where custom is deified—the
past is their glory. Today, we are living, they say, in the iron age (Kali
Yuga), in which righteousness is all but lost. Hindu law has conserved the
past—it exalts past observances above those of the present. Under such a
system all innovations are out of place, individual ambitions are crushed.
To resemble their ancestors is the _summum bonum_ of their life.
The inhabitants of that land are a rural people. Unlike western countries,
India has very few large towns. Nine-tenths of the whole population live
in villages of less than 5,000, four-fifths live in villages of under
1,000 inhabitants. The average village of India today contains 363
inhabitants. During the last few years the tendency has been towards
towns. But the large increase in the population is still to be seen in
rural regions. In India two-thirds of the villages have less than 200
inhabitants each, while 1,000 have from 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants.
Notwithstanding this fact, the population, in some parts of the country,
is very dense. The whole of Bengal furnishes 360 persons to the square
mile, and in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh the total per square
mile rises to 416.
Owing to modern methods of sanitation, to peace and to general prosperity,
the population has grown and is growing rapidly.(2) There is already one
person to every two acres of land in the country; and under the British
Government the prosperity of India is largely measured by the growth of
the population; and this in turn seriously increases the difficulty of
providing for the wants of the people. Indeed it has become one of the
hardest problems which confronts the Indian government; and the difficulty
is considerably enhanced by the religion of the country which demands that
every man and woman marry and add to the population, regardless of any
question as to health or even sanity. In India the first privilege and
duty of man and woman is supposed to be the propagation of their kind.
3. Economic Conditions.
One of the most marked characteristics of India is its poverty. The
people, as a whole, have always been extremely poor. There has been some
wealth in the land; but it has not been evenly distributed. While a few
nabobs have enjoyed immense treasures, the people, as a whole, have
grovelled in the lowest depth of penury and want. There is better
distribution of wealth today than ever before; and yet the poverty of the
masses continues to be a serious feature of the land. “Its finance lies at
the base of every difficulty connected with our Indian Empire,” is the
remark of Sir Charles Dilke. And at the base of the finance difficulty
lies the poverty of the people. It is a well known and lamentable fact
that one-fifth of the population, say sixty millions, are insufficiently
fed even in ordinary years of prosperity. They are the ever ready prey of
the first drought, distress or famine that may happen. It is a not
uncommon experience of the ryot (or farmer) to retire at night upon an
empty stomach. The average income of the common labourer in India is
between four and five rupees, or, say, $1.50 per month.
Most of this evil which the people endure is self-imposed. They reveal a
combination of blind improvidence, reckless expenditure and an
unwillingness to shake off impoverishing customs. For instance, the debt
incurring propensity of the native is akin to insanity. All the poor
people with whom I am acquainted are bound hand and foot by this terrible
mill-stone. And the interest paid upon loans is crushing. Two and three
per cent. per month is an interest commonly received. It is rare that a
poor farmer who gets into the clutches of the money lender regains his
freedom. It usually leads to the loss of all property and means of
support. Under the ancient Hindu law no money lender could recover
interest upon a loan beyond the amount of the principal which he had
advanced; under the present rule he can recover to any extent, sell the
tenant’s crops and even take possession of the land under a judgment
decree. It is one of those instances where justice in law is made to
minister unrighteousness and cruelty in life. The people moreover are
given to the most extravagant expenses at marriages and funerals. It is
frequently the case that a man spends upon the marriage of his son or
daughter, the latter especially, more than a whole year’s income. I know
of many who are overwhelmed by debts incurred for the marriage of their
children; and the saddest thing about it is that they have little option
in this expense; for it is prescribed by caste custom.
Add to this the rank growth of religious mendicancy, under the fostering
care of religious teaching and superstition. There are five and one-half
millions of such lazy, worthless fellows encumbering that land today. The
mass of them are sleek in body and pestilential in morals. Whenever a man
finds work too hard, he dons the yellow cloth of the religious mendicant
and becomes an immediate success. But alas for the community! Hindu
charity is proverbial, but it is blinder than love itself. Such a body of
worthless consumers would tax even a wealthy land. To India it is a
dreadful burden and drain.
Add to this the insane passion for jewels which consumes both high and
low. Millions of rupees’ worth of gold flows into the country annually,
and most of it is melted and converted into personal adornments for women
and children. For this purpose nearly one-half million goldsmiths,
according to the last census, are employed and make a comfortable living
at an annual expense of ten million dollars. This is a much larger force
of workmen than that of all the blacksmiths in the land.
The litigious spirit of the people is also phenomenal. It is doubtful if
any other people on earth spend, relative to their means, more in legal
processes than the Hindus. In view of all these facts, Sir W. W. Hunter’s
statement that “The permanent remedies for the poverty of India rest with
the people themselves” is eminently true. It is further emphasized by the
remarks of Sir Madhava Rao, K. C. S. I., one of the very few statesmen
whom India has produced among her own children: “The longer one lives,
observes and thinks,” he says, “the more deeply does he feel there is no
community on the face of the earth which suffers less from political evils
and more from self-inflicted, self-accepted, or self-created, and
therefore avoidable, evils than the Hindu community.”
Famine is an oft-recurring and most perplexing evil with which India has
always been familiar. In times past, it was the gaunt Avenger which
decimated the people and which kept down the population within the range
of tolerable existence. The god of dirt and insanitation carried away the
unneeded residue left by famine. Famine is one of the very few evils
before which human power stands helpless. The government has done very
much by irrigation schemes and by the building of railways to mitigate
this evil. By famine funds and relief works it strives, as it did the last
famine, to reduce the mortality and suffering arising from these seasons
of drought. But the constant penury of the people, and the fact of their
always living upon the verge of hunger and want, make it almost impossible
to save many from the terrible result of such visitations. Perhaps there
is no other thing, at present, which occupies more of the time and thought
of the Imperial Government than this; but, to drive entirely away this
hideous demon from a land which is peculiarly liable to drought, and while
the people are chronically unprepared to meet the least extra drain, is
more than can be expected from any government.
The railroads of the land are manifestations of the material progress
which meet one on all sides. In the extent of its railroads India is the
fifth country in the world. Already the splendid railway system, upon
which travel is as comfortable as, and perhaps cheaper than, in any other
country in the world, has extended 23,000 miles and reaches the remotest
parts of the land. These throbbing arteries carry life and enterprise to
all portions of India; and many regions not yet made thus accessible will
soon listen to the neigh of the iron horse and feel the pulsations of new
life thereby. Three hundred million pounds sterling have been expended in
this work alone.
But better, if possible, than these roads is the rapidly developing
irrigation system which brings security of life and works prosperity
wherever it reaches. Nearly 14,000,000 acres are now cultivated under this
system. This includes fourteen and eight-tenths per cent. of all
cultivated land in India. One great enterprise in this line is the “Peryar
Project” of South India which was large in its conception, perfect in its
execution and is rich in its blessings. It consists in the diversion of a
large river which vainly poured its treasures down the western
mountainside into the Arabian Sea, and causing its waters to flow into the
eastern plains to fertilize the thirsty land as far as the Bay of Bengal.
It embraces the second largest dam in the world, a tunnel one and
one-fourth miles through the mountain, and many miles of distributing
channels. It will irrigate at least 150,000 acres for rice cultivation and
will feed 400,000 people. I live in the heart of the region thus
fertilized and refreshed, and know the joy of the residents who also stand
astonished before the magic power of these white people who do for them
what, they say, even their gods failed to accomplish. It is well to
remember that these irrigation schemes, now found in India, are much the
most extensive in any country.
Looking at her commerce during the Victorian reign alone, we see a growth
of 1,000 per cent. in the imports and exports of India. The export of tea
has risen from nothing to 70,000 tons, and that of cotton from nothing to
220,000 tons. There are now in the land 150 cotton-mills with 150,000
labourers. Three million tons of coal are annually mined, and gold mines
yield £1,000,000 sterling every year. It may, indeed, be said that India
has now, for the first time in its history, taken a place as a land of
manufactures, trade and commerce.
4. Social Life.
The contrast between the social life of the East and that of the West is
marked. Problems that today stir this land to its depth have no existence
in India. The conservatism of India is proverbial. The Hindu people have
been kept back from all progress, so that questions arising about human
rights and liberty have not begun to be mooted there. The thousand
problems of our land are the direct result of the emphasis which our
civilization has given to human rights and individual freedom and the
equality of men. India has thus far denied to the individual those rights
and liberties which are deemed elementary and fundamental in the West. Its
emphasis has always been upon the rights and privileges of Society as a
corporate body. It has ignored entirely the claims of the individual and
has prevented him from enjoying his inalienable rights in any division of
society. This may be seen in the two great departments of life in that
land.
(_a_) The Family.
The family systems of the East and of the West are essentially different.
In India the Joint Family System prevails. According to this system
members of a family for three generations live together and have all
things in common. No member of the family can claim anything as his own.
It is the old patriarchal system and emphasizes the rights of the family
as a whole, and denies to any individual member separate possession or
privileges. This system has had a long day in India; but, as western ideas
are spreading, dissatisfaction is manifestly increasing, especially among
the educated classes. The recent introduction to the Madras Legislature of
the so-called “Gains of Learning Bill” is the first serious attack made
upon that system. By means of this bill, which was introduced by an
orthodox Hindu, but which is not yet passed, an educated man could claim
exclusive right to ownership of all properties acquired by him through his
education. Thus, for the first time in India an individual might claim,
apart from the family, that wealth which was acquired by himself. This
bill has brought opposition from the public, because it conflicts with the
rights of the joint family, and is a serious blow to all the old Hindu
family privileges. The Hindu joint family system, while it has been a
source of some blessing to the land, has also been a serious curse in that
it has fostered laziness, dissension and improvidence, and has put a ban
upon individual initiative and ambition.
Child marriages have been an unfailing source of evil to the land. Of this
Sir John Strachey says: “It would be difficult to imagine anything more
abominable than the frequent consequences of child marriages by which
multitudes of girls of ten to twelve or less are given over to outrage;
or, if they belong to the higher class of Hindus, are doomed to lives of
degraded widowhood.”
The Indian government has endeavoured to remove this evil; but at all
points it has been opposed not only by conservative, orthodox Hindus, but
also by educated members of the community. No system can degrade the
womanhood of a race, nor, indeed, for that matter, its manhood, more than
that which marries its girls in childhood and which consigns millions of
them to wretched widowhood. One of the consequences is that girls of even
twelve years are known to become mothers in that land, while very few
attain the age of eighteen without bearing children. An increasing
population under these physical conditions cannot be a healthy or a
vigorous one.
(_b_) Society.
In India, Society is almost exclusively the product of the ancient caste
system. A more elaborate social system than this was never known in the
world. It is an order of social tyranny of the worst sort, whereby every
man is compelled to give up his own individuality and to be bound to the
iron will of an ignorant community: a will also which is based upon the
past and conforms to the rules and habits of peoples who lived in remote
antiquity. No greater millstone could be hung around the neck of any
people than that of the multitudinous caste rules of Manu and later
accretions which are the all in all of Hindu life. There may have been
good in this system in the past, and it may have conserved some blessings
of antiquity; but today it is the worst tyranny and the greatest curse
that has blasted the life of the people. It is the source of their
physical degeneracy, for it compels them to marry within narrow lines of
consanguinity. It has cursed the people with a narrow sympathy; for no man
in that system deems it his duty to bless or help those beyond his own
caste. It has sown poverty broadcast over the land; for it prohibits a man
from engaging in any work or trade which is not prescribed by caste rules
and customs; and thus has brought many to penury, want and famine. When
the caste-prescribed occupation or work is not available, the suffering is
very great.
It has brought stagnation to the people by restraining every man who had
ambition to move forward and improve his prospects in life. The whole
village regards as conceited a young man of the outcastes who seeks to
rise in life; they soon bring him low. Progress is impossible under the
caste system.
In like manner, it has fostered the pride and presumption of one class and
destroyed the ambition and aspiration of the other. No people on earth
today are more proud than the Brahmans; none more hopelessly abject than
the Pariahs and other outcastes.
It has also made national unity and the spirit of fellowship impossible in
the land; large corporate interests are impossible for the people. The
castes of the community are filled with jealousy and are mutually
antagonistic; each division having rules and ceremonies which make it
impossible for communion of interests with others. Many would like to see
it removed; but the system itself has created such abjectness of feeling
among them that they dare not come forward to stem its tide or oppose it.
5. The Educational System.
Ignorance still rests like a pall upon that land. According to the census
of 1891, out of a total population of 261,840,000, 133,370,000 were males.
Of these, 118,819,000 were analphabet. Including boys under instruction,
only 14,550,000 could read and write. Of the 128,470,000 females only
740,000 could read and write or were being instructed. In other words,
only eleven per cent. of the males and a little more than one-half of one
per cent. of the females were in any sense literate. In Madras, we find
the greatest progress; but even there eighty-five per cent. of the male
and ninety-nine per cent. of the female population are illiterate. In
Oudh, on the other hand, corresponding figures are ninety-four and very
nearly one hundred per cent. When it is remembered that the Brahmans, who
constitute only five per cent. of the total population, include seventeen
per cent. of the literate class and more than twenty per cent. of those
who know English, it can be understood that the illiteracy of the common
people is still greater than that indicated by the above figures.
Considerable effort has been made by the government to educate this
immense population. It is seriously handicapped in this endeavour by want
of funds. The State does not largely enter into the establishing of
schools of its own; its policy being to give grants in aid to private
bodies on the basis of results achieved. And it contents itself with the
establishing and conducting of relatively only a few schools of its own
which shall serve as models and as a stimulus to the private aided
institutions. More than three-fourths of the education of the land is thus
conducted by private bodies which are encouraged by the government through
its grants in aid. There still remain not a few indigenous or, so-called,
“piall” schools. Educationally, these schools are of little value, as
their training is both antiquated in kind and extremely limited in
quantity. They are interesting because they reveal to us the old
educational methods of the land. Schools on modern lines, however, by
coming under government surveillance, for the purpose of receiving grants
in aid, are conducted much more efficiently, and attain results worthy to
be compared with those of western lands. The chief feature of the
educational system, controlled, examined and aided by government, is the
emphasis given to an English training. From the second year of
instruction, the English language grows annually in importance in the
curriculum of studies. In the grammar school it becomes compulsory and in
the high school and college it is the sole medium of the communication of
knowledge. The English language is emphasized also because it is the test
for admission even into many of the lowest of the numberless offices in
connection with government service; so that the study of this language of
the West has become to young India practically a necessity and a craze.
People of the lowest conditions in life pawn and mortgage their property
and involve themselves in terrible debts for the sake of giving their sons
an English education.
Christian missions constitute one of the principal bodies which engage in
the training of Hindu youth. One-ninth of all the school children of India
are found in mission schools. This number includes 330,000 boys and nearly
100,000 girls. In the training of girls, Protestant missions have not only
been pioneers; they are also today much the most prominent and efficient
educators of the women of the land. Their girls’ schools and colleges are
not only the most numerous, but also the most efficiently conducted and
thoroughly managed of all institutions for women in India. The Madras
Christian College for boys and the Sarah Tucker Woman’s College of
Tinnevelly are among the best institutions for those classes in India. The
educational system of India culminates in the five Universities of
Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Allahabad and Lahore. These are not instructing,
but simply examining universities like the University of London. With
these the 140 colleges of two grades and of various degrees of efficiency,
are affiliated. In these colleges are found 18,000 students of whom more
than 5,000 graduate yearly. The city of Calcutta is a city of many
colleges and has more college students, relative to its population, than
almost any city of the West.
Though the masses of the people, and especially the women, are still, as
we have seen, grossly ignorant, yet every year encouraging progress is
being made in spreading the blessings of, and in creating a taste for,
education. Every year natives themselves enter more largely into the
educational work and find in it not only a living, but noble scope for
their activities. Among the higher and cultured classes there is a growing
body of young men, besides the ambitious few from the lower classes,
crowding into the higher institutions of the land. It is one of the
problems of the day to direct the mind of this increasing army of
university graduates to other professions than the overcrowded government
service. There is a persistent feeling among these youth that it is the
business of State to supply them with lucrative posts upon their
graduation. And it is the disappointed element of this class which
furnishes so many of the discontented, blatant demagogues who are almost a
menace to the land.
[Illustration: Madura Mission Hospital For Women.]
Yet this educational work is one of the potent, leavening influences of
the country, and is helping greatly in carrying quietly forward one of the
mightiest revolutions that have been witnessed in any land. In its train
follows closely the social elevation of the people. The relaxation of the
terrible caste system, the elevation of woman and her redemption from some
of the cruelties and injustice of the past, immediately attend that
expanding knowledge which results from the schools of the land.
Protestant missions are preëminent in their work of educating the
Christian communities gathered together by them.(3) Though these
communities are largely drawn from the lowest outcasts, yet they compare
favourably, in their educational equipment, with the highest classes. This
is a significant indication of their present, and a bright promise for
their future, position among the people of India.
6. The Political Situation.
India today is politically a subject country. Though in one sense England
did not directly subjugate India, it is nevertheless true that its
inhabitants, though treated with large consideration, are today a subject
people—ruled by a foreign nation 7,000 miles away. Hence, it might be
expected that political rights and privileges would not prevail there as
among a self-governing, entirely independent, people. The existence of an
army of about 75,000 Britons in that land today is significant of the
situation and partly reveals one grip with which Great Britain holds India
and makes it a part of her great empire. I do not wish to minimize the
moral power with which also, and increasingly, Great Britain draws India
by sweet compulsion to herself; of this I shall speak later.
It should also be remembered that the genius of the Orient is not for
self-government; in the East, people have little taste for free
institutions; they have always craved, and found their greatest happiness
and chief welfare in, a strong paternal government. The ordinary Hindu
seeks for himself nothing higher than a government which, while not asking
for his opinion concerning its policy and acts, will at least dispense a
fair modicum of justice to him and his.
Notwithstanding all this, the Indian government has bestowed upon the
people a wonderfully large meed of power and privilege. Political progress
in the land is one of the marvels of the past century. Before the British
entered India that land had never enjoyed the first taste of
representative institutions. Today the query which arises in the mind of
disinterested persons who know and love India is, whether political rights
and liberties have not, of late years, been conferred too rapidly upon
them. It should not be expected that a people who, by instinct and
unbroken heritage, are the children of the worst kind of autocratic and
absolute government, should acquire, in one age or century, wisdom or
aptitude to rule themselves. The mass of Hindus love to be led and they
follow easily.
But there is a small and growing party of the soil who have aptly learned
many of the lessons taught them by the rulers. The best acquired of all
these lessons is that of the power of agitation and of the efficacy among
the Anglo-Saxon race of the cry for human rights. The only difficulty is
that one might suppose, from the language of some of these men that
England has not yet conceded to worthy Indians any of those political
privileges which every Anglo-Saxon citizen demands for himself. As a
matter of fact, we see in the municipalities of that land a form of
popular government such as even not all western countries enjoy. The power
of the franchise, in the election of municipal commissioners, is vested in
all those who are possessed of the least amount of property. Even women
enjoy the franchise; and it is a curious fact that the natives of South
India have recently protested in the newspapers against the granting of
this power to women, because, they say, the power is exercised only by
“dancing girls” and other public characters. To those who watch carefully
the working of this right of municipal franchise and see how easily and
speedily the natives have adopted all the vices and tricks of the system,
it does not by any means seem an unmixed good. And the hardest critics of
the system that I have met have been intelligent and loyal Indians who
believe that this meed of self-government is fraught with evil. The
District Boards also are composed almost entirely of native gentlemen, and
they have large powers in the administration of the internal affairs of
the land. Moreover these municipal and local bodies, together, elect
members for provincial legislative bodies where they enjoy recently
enlarged powers for interpellating the government—a power which, by
excessive use or abuse, they may soon forfeit.
To all this must be added the freedom of the press, which also has
recently been abused by the dissemination of disloyal and seditious
sentiments, but which adds immensely to the powers of the people.
Then the “National Congress” is a peculiar institution which, while it
gives scope to the political aspirations of many natives, adds, by its
very existence, to the lustre of the British Raj in the land. Just imagine
for a moment the existence of such a Congress under Russian rule! It is
true that this Congress, which meets annually in some great city of the
land, has no connection with government or legislative bodies and has only
that power and influence which inhere in its deliberations and
resolutions. It is also true that up to the present it has given itself
largely to the criticism and abuse of government. By this it has alienated
some of its best friends. Still, even as a public censor it has doubtless
done good, and offers to the discontented a wholesome vent for pent up
feelings. It is also a remarkable gathering in its numbers of cultured men
and illustrates one of the wonders which Great Britain has accomplished in
that land. To think, that out of the babel of Indian tongues there should
gather together in one place annually some 5,000 native gentlemen to
discuss questions of State, and to criticise one of the most modern of
governments in the pure English accents of Addison or of Macaulay! What a
wonderful object lesson of progress this!
Nor is Great Britain as remiss or as selfish as many would lead us to
believe in the distribution of the loaves of office. There are only
122,661 male Britishers in that land (including the army)—one to every
2,500 of the population. Of these, only 750 are found in the higher
offices of government. In the Provincial Services 2,449 natives are
employed in high judicial and administrative posts. It is a significant
fact that out of 114,150 appointments, carrying Rs.(4) 1,000 annually,
ninety-seven per cent, are in the hands of natives. To all offices, below
that of the Governor of the Province, natives are eligible. As Judges of
the High Court and as Members of the legislative bodies not a few Indians
are found; as they are also in the Indian Civil Service which was so long
exclusively filled by Anglo-Indians. It hardly appears how England can
hold that great land to herself, as a member of her empire, with fewer of
her own citizens than are now found at the helm. Nor does it yet appear
that a strong, efficient and acceptable government can be maintained there
by a large reduction of this force. I use the word “acceptable” advisedly;
and it is certainly the business of Great Britain to discover and consult
the wishes of the people—not of the hungry office seekers—in this matter.
After many years of observation and of living among the people, I am
convinced that nine-tenths of them are prepared any day to vote in favour
of the relative increase, and not the decrease, of the European official
force. The people have found them to be just and honest; they know that
they can be depended upon to administer justice with an even hand and that
they are incorruptible. In their own native officials they have no
confidence. They have found, alas, too often that justice is sold by them
to the highest bidder. The “middle men” who arrange such matters are too
commonly known as the accompaniments of the native courts of justice. It
is true that some native judges are above such venality. But I know how
general is the want of native confidence in native officials. Many a time
have I been importuned to use my influence to have cases transferred from
the jurisdiction of the native to the Englishman. And the reason
invariably given is that “The white man will not accept bribes and will
give justice.” Indeed, it may be said that the chief difficulty which
confronts the Government in its great work is that of saving the people
from low, mercenary and unprincipled native officials—especially those of
the lower and lowest grades.
The police department is corrupt to the core. The common people dread the
policeman as they do the highwayman; for the constable rarely touches a
case without making money out of the transaction; and he is expert in
manufacturing cases.
What India needs today, above all else, is an honest, faithful, efficient
class of officials. The presence of a few English dignitaries found there
is worth ten times its cost to the land, purifying and toning up the
service.
Considering the political situation as a whole, I confidently maintain
that the people of India enjoy political rights and privileges quite as
extensively as they are prepared wisely to exercise them. No people
anywhere enjoy larger privileges, relative to their ability to use them
wisely; and no subject people on earth have ever been treated with larger
consideration by their conquerors, or have been more faithfully trained to
enter upon an ever increasing sphere of opportunity and of
self-government. The political situation in India today—in the privileges
and rights which the people enjoy—is a marvellous testimony to the wisdom
and unselfishness of Great Britain in her Indian rule.
7. The Government of India.
The government of India is perhaps the most elaborate in the world; the
highest powers of statesmanship have been manifested by the successive
rulers during more than a century in the development of a State which is
extraordinary no less in the complication of its provisions and details
than in the wise adaptation of human laws to meet the multitudinous
exigencies of this great conglomeration of peoples. It should also be
remembered that British statesmen in their work of legislation in India,
and in their coordination of laws, have not only had to consider the
manifold character of the different portions of the population of the
land; what is more difficult still, they have been compelled to ingratiate
themselves with the Indians by conserving, so far as possible, those
myriads of ancient laws and customs which obtain there. The laws of Manu
and of other writers of twenty-five centuries ago have been handed down by
this people through the ages and have accumulated authority and reverence
with increasing time, until today all Hindus regard them as divinely given
and as possessing irresistible claim upon them for all time. So that,
while it may be said on the one hand that the laws of India are largely
built upon western foundations, and savour of Christian principles and
modern ideas; it should also be remembered, on the other hand, that the
_dicta_ of ancient Hindu lawgivers find a large place in the legal codes
of that land.
Yea, even more than this is true. There are a host of caste rules and
customs which have no further sanction than the fact that they have become
customs, and yet which have been dignified with the authority of law. This
is of course due chiefly to the fact that most customs in India have a
religious basis and interpretation, and therefore draw to themselves that
sanctity and claim which belong to things religious. Thus, for instance,
every caste in South India has its own marriage customs. Most of these are
highly incongruous with modern ideas and rights, and most of them
absolutely disregard the rights of the wife. And yet it has been deemed
wise by the State to conserve and to give the sanction of law to these
multitudinous marriage customs which are enough in themselves to
constitute an extensive code.
Some conception of the magnitude of the work carried on by the Indian
Government may be gathered from the following description by Bishop
Thoburn:—“With a population greater than that of the five great powers of
Europe put together; with a revenue exceeding $350,000,000; with a foreign
commerce worth $768,000,000 annually; with a standing army 230,000 strong,
more than two-thirds of which are composed of native soldiers; with a
drilled police force of more than 150,000 men; with a code of laws in many
respects superior to those found on the statute books of European
countries; and with courts of justice as impartial and as faithfully
conducted as any to be found in the world, India may well claim a place
among the great empires of the present era.”
The British Government has respected the possessions of native chiefs in
whose hands still remain about one-third of the country. But these so
called native territories are so largely under English control and
guidance that we may well regard them as essentially a part of the British
Domain.
The Secretary of State for India has practically the control of British
Indian affairs. He, with his council in London, has the final word in
Indian matters of paramount importance. Nevertheless, the Indian
Government finds this power rarely antagonistic in matters whereon it has
firmly made up its mind.
The British possessions in India are distributed into twelve governments,
each separately organized and yet all of them constituting parts of the
Supreme Government of India. This Supreme Government is administered by a
Governor-General or Viceroy with whom is associated a Council of six
members. This Council constitutes the Viceroy’s Cabinet and each one has
charge of a separate department of the government.
Of the Provincial Governments of India, the principal ones are the
Province of Bengal with 71,000,000, under a Lieutenant-Governor; United
Provinces of Agra and Oudh, with a population of 47,000,000, under a
Lieutenant-Governor; Presidency of Madras, with 35,500,000, under a
Governor; Presidency of Bombay, with 18,800,000, under a Governor; and the
province of Punjab, with 20,800,000, under a Lieutenant-Governor.
The unit of government in India is the District. The whole of India is
divided into 235 Districts. At the head of a District is placed an officer
known as Collector, Senior Magistrate, or Deputy Commissioner, who is
practically ruler of that division. He is the administrative
representative of the government. In each District there is also a
District Judge and a few other officers at the head of various
departments. These Districts vary in size and population, covering areas
from 14,000 to 1,000 square miles, and containing from 3,000,000 to
250,000 population. The average population of a District is 800,000.
Nothing impresses the careful observer more than the large amount of
responsibility and the multifarious duties which devolve upon these
District officers. During recent years, however, authority has been
withheld increasingly from Collectors and centralized in the Provincial
Governments; for at the head of every Province also there is a government
patterned somewhat after the Supreme Government in Calcutta.
[Illustration: Maharajah Of Travancore.]
[Illustration: Rajah Of Ramnad.]
No greater mistake can be made than to think that India is either crudely
or poorly governed. Owing to the great poverty of the land it is extremely
difficult to maintain so costly and elaborate a régime as the present one;
and many claim that for the support of so expensive a luxury the people
are taxed beyond their ability and resources. The taxation imposed by a
government on its people is rightly considered, both in its extent and
character, as a measure of the wisdom of the State. The critics of the
Indian government are prone to dwell upon the alleged injustice of its
taxes. It is, however, difficult to understand why this matter should be
pressed unless it be on the ground, apparently maintained, that the
poverty of the people should exempt them from _any_ of the burdens of
taxation—a theory beautifully generous to the people but fatal to the
maintenance of any government. The salt tax does certainly seem cruel in
its severe pressure upon the very poor; and yet it is the only one whereby
this very large part of the community can be reached at all, and made to
contribute its mite to the State which protects it.
Comparing present taxes with those of the past, we should certainly expect
heavier imposts now, because the government furnishes today, as an
equivalent of protection and blessing, infinitely more than former
dynasties did. And yet Sir W. Hunter has ably shown from a comparison of
taxes levied by the present government and by the Moghul government that
the modern Hindu is vastly better off than was his ancestor of two and
three centuries ago. Today, five and one half per cent. is collected in
land tax; under the Moghul rule they had to pay from thirty-three per
cent. to fifty per cent. Besides this, the Mohammedan imposed various
other taxes, many of them upon non-Mohammedans as a religious penalty. Nor
were the Hindu governments one whit better off; and even today the native
states are much harder upon the people than is the British Raj.
The famine commission is the highest authority on the subject. In its
exhaustive report of 1880 it writes:—“In the majority of native
governments the revenue officer takes all he can get, and would take
treble the revenue we should, if he were strong enough to exact it.”
If we pursue the comparison to that of European peoples, Indian taxation
would seem but a trifle. Placing even English taxes side by side with
India’s, we shall find instruction. The average income in the United
Kingdom is £40, while the tax assessed is 44_s_, or five and one-half per
cent. In India, alas, the average income is only 36_s_. But then the tax
is only 1_s_, 9_d_ per capita which is a trifle smaller per capita than
that for England. Here again we are impressed with the reasonableness of
the tax imposed.
The opium and liquor traffic in India is one which has drawn forth much
criticism. From the moral standpoint the critics have a very strong case.
The evil which the opium traffic of India has inflicted upon China—against
her will too—has been enormous. The large army of opium eaters which it
has created, only to destroy with a terrible death, has long been an
argument to which no nation of England’s position and pretensions can
render satisfactory reply.
In like manner, the State monopoly of the drink traffic is neither
honourable nor wise. It not only gives unwonted and unwarrantable dignity
to a disreputable business, it also involves the State in the business of
making a large army of drunkards in the land. To take up a traffic like
this, for the revenue there is in it, is to trifle with the higher
interests of the subjects and to become instrumental in the corruption and
misery of the people whom it is bound to protect. It is questionable
whether any other civilized government has involved itself in such
unworthy means of creating a revenue. Doubtless, opium and drink
represent, morally, the weakest part of this government. Of course, the
all important defense lies in the revenue thus acquired. These two items
of revenue flow more easily than any others into the depleted treasury of
State. To give these up in behalf of what is termed sentiment, would
necessitate the imposition of other heavy taxes. This is an aspect of the
question which too easily silences and secures the acquiescence of the
people of India. But, its evil is great and is spreading.
The drink curse is rapidly becoming one of the trying problems of India.
It was slanderously remarked some years ago that if the English then left
that country the only monuments left behind of their life would have been
broken whiskey bottles! There is indeed ground today for the fear that if
England were to abandon the land, it would leave, as the saddest monument
of its past, an immensely increasing army of drinkers; and this evil is
further enhanced by the mean ideal of life which the ordinary Englishman
sets before Hindus by his passion for the cup. Half a century ago an
Englishman died while on duty in the jungles in South India, and his body
was there buried in the wilderness. The natives soon erected a shrine over
his grave and, for a long time, offered, in true sobriety, whiskey and
cheroots to appease his thirsty and unsatisfied spirit! It is not strange
that the natives should recognize a continuity of spirit-taste in the here
and the hereafter of the Sahib!
The recent utterance of the Archbishop of Canterbury on this subject
should be heeded by the State. “The true principle of morals,” he says,
“is to have nothing whatever to do with that which is shown to be
necessarily productive of evil. The English nation caused the opium evil
in China and we are responsible for that evil. I also protest against the
principle of raising revenue by temptations to evil. It might be right for
a government to pause before interfering with private trade; but, in this
case we ourselves are carrying on the evil trade. Such a thing on the part
of a great government is, I think, without a parallel in the whole world.”
The Army in India is a necessary but great evil in the expense which it
involves to the government, no less than in the evil life which it leads
among, and the evil example which it sets, the native community. Its
influence is deplorable. It is the most vulnerable to attack of all
departments of government, both on the score of expense and character.
“Tommy Atkins” is the greatest trial to the Hindu, and brutally rides
rough-shod over all his sensibilities. If he could only be left at home
with safety to British interests in the land, it would help largely to
improve the situation between the two races. It would also save England
from the terrible disgrace of immorality which the army is instrumental in
carrying as a plague wherever it goes. Awful indeed is the prevalence of
the social vice in the native community itself; but the English Army
spreads the demoralization in a most disgraceful way.
Considering the government as a whole, then, it is wonderful, both in the
extent of its operation and in its numberless activities and agencies. Its
purpose is generally noble, and its wisdom, both in the framing of laws
and in general administration, has been most marked. The occasion of most
of its failings and weaknesses is the poverty of the people whereby the
government has, at times, been driven to subterfuges to avoid bankruptcy.
8. The Mission of Great Britain in India.
The British people are only today beginning to realize fully the wonderful
mission which, under God’s providence, they are called to fulfill in that
great land of the Vedas. For nearly a century the commercial motive was
not only paramount but was practically the only motive which impelled the
Anglo-Saxon in his contact with India. Everything Indian had value in his
eyes in proportion as it added to his revenues. For many years he excluded
the Missionary of the Cross from his domains in the East, lest that good
man should, by teaching the people, disturb the revenue of the Honourable
East India Company. As the domains of this great company extended and its
powers multiplied, the English nation gradually came to realize their own
responsibility as a people to the land; and the Indians thus were brought
within their influence. This contact and communion of interests became to
them the voice of responsibility and of obligation to impart their
blessings to them as well as to take their material resources from them.
The dawn of the new altruistic sense towards its subject people, though
long deferred, rapidly grew into full daylight; and Great Britain today
feels, as no country has felt before, its privilege and duty to bestow
upon its dependency in the East the highest and best which it can furnish.
The difficulty of England’s mission in India is greatly enhanced by the
difference which amounts almost to a contrast between her own people and
the inhabitants of India. The striking difference of type and character
existing between the Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu facilitates all sorts of
misunderstanding between them, and aids perceptibly in making the path of
the British Raj a very thorny one in the land. It would perhaps be
impossible to find two peoples who are farther removed from each other in
temperament and training—whose nature and antecedents are more
irreconcilable at all points. While the Anglo-Indian is bold, frank and
just, even to harshness, the Hindu is subtle, affable, practiced to
dissimulation, with ready susceptibilities to temporize and to barter
justice for expediency. On the one side, we see the Westerner haughty,
unyielding and unwilling to conciliate; on the other we behold the
Oriental willing to be trampled upon when it seems necessary, and to smile
with apparent gratitude under the process; but, withal, possessed of a
large inheritance of ineradicable prejudices, which make a contact with
his too domineering Western lord an unceasing trial to him.
There is another point at which the two races are antipodal. The Briton is
progressive to the core. He only needs to be assured that a certain course
is right and for the best interests of the community, in order to adopt
it. His face ever looks upward and his ambition is ever to go forward.
But, in India he lives among a race whose chief divinity is custom and the
gist of whose decalogue is, “Hold fast to the past.” As they approach a
proposed enterprise their first and last question concerning it is not
whether it is right and best, but whether it is in a line with the past
and would be approved by their ancestors. The whole country has been
anchored for the last twenty-five centuries to a code of social laws and
customs which are more unyielding than the laws of the Medes and Persians.
With them conservatism is the acme of piety and propriety. All progress
has been practically forced upon the country from without, and in the
teeth of their most sacred institutions and their most earnest
protestation and opposition. Thus the great difference between the two
peoples has been a serious hindrance to the realization of British designs
in that land.
Notwithstanding all this, Great Britain has patiently, persistently and
doggedly carried on her work and pursued her highest ideals for India.
And what have been the ideals and blessings which she is seeking to
achieve for that great land?
The first is that of Western culture and civilization. In these two
particulars, England has introduced into India a perpetual conflict.
Western ideas, processes of thought, points of aspect and ideals of beauty
and of life have been gradually supplanting the very different ones of the
East. Western life in India today is a constant challenge to the people to
study, admire and appropriate its many features of thought and conduct;
and India is not insensible to this call. The railroads and hospitals, the
schools and sanitary projects which have been introduced by the West into
that land are markedly transforming the sentiment and the life of the
people. The contrast between the people of India today and of a century
ago is all but complete in this respect. While the educational
institutions of the land are revolutionizing the thought, the more
material elements of civilization are transforming the outer life of the
people.
England also is imparting to India the Anglo-Saxon conception of right, of
law and of justice. In order to know how widely apart the East and West
were in this respect, one should live in India a few years. The idea of
equal rights to all the people, of freedom of speech, of liberty of
conscience and of other similar rights which are regarded as elementary
and fundamental in the West, was all but foreign to India when England
established her power there. That the government itself should treat high
and low, the poor ryot and the wealthy rajah, the ignorant Pariah and the
cultured Brahman as one in their claim for right and protection, for
justice and for favour, seemed to the Hindu absurd. It is one of the best
commentaries on British justice and administration in India, that the
people have now come not only to regard it with satisfaction, but also as
an indispensable condition of their life.
The blessings of peace also are among the greatest which England has
conferred upon India. “Pax Britanica” is equally known and loved today in
India and in the British Isles. From time immemorial India had been torn
asunder, not only by internecine wars, but also by numerous attacks from
the peoples of other countries. India has always been a prey both to the
decimating wars of her own unjust and ambitious tyrants, and mutually
antagonistic castes and tribes; she has also been the easy victim of any
hardy, enlightened, ambitious people who sought to invade her. The
presence of Great Britain in India has been a voice commanding peace to
its troubled and exhausted people. With a strong hand she has put down
injustice of tribe against tribe and made impossible inter-tribal wars and
raids. She has brought rest such as India never before enjoyed and has
given safety to the most harmless and innocent classes, as she has peace
to the most warlike and aggressive in the land. This great land of the
East has thus had opportunities to grow and to develop in many of the most
essential characteristics of individual and national progress. These
blessings would have been impossible apart from the peace which Great
Britain assured and wrought out for the land.
In connection with this we need to emphasize the various forms of progress
which are an essential part of British blessing to India. We have seen
that India was a stagnant land, that its people were preëminently
unprogressive and ultra-conservative. England has helped her to break down
many of these barriers of the past. Though India is obstinately slow in
her acceptance of the spirit and blessings of progress, England has thrust
upon her many of the conditions, and compelled her to enter into some of
the paths of progress which will bring inestimable benefits into her life.
In like manner, the mission of England has been and is a religious one.
Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, upon assuming authority in the land, issued a
proclamation to the effect that under her reign all the inhabitants of
India should enjoy perfect right to worship as they please and whom they
please. It is true that too many of the representatives of the British
Government in India today are so impressed with the importance of a
government that is absolutely neutral in religious matters, that they have
both ceased themselves to manifest any religious preference in their life
and are scrupulously careful to see to it that Christians get just a
little less of right and of protection than the adherents of other faiths.
This they consider to be true altruism added to breadth of religious
sentiment!
Notwithstanding this, nothing is more manifest in India today than that
the very fact of the rulers of the land being nominally Christians adds to
the prestige of Christianity in the land. The people naturally come to
regard it as the State religion. What is more significant, however, is the
fact that, at the basis of modern laws in that land and of the multiplying
institutions of the country, distinctively Christian principles are
universally recognized. Should the government of India resolve to be
_absolutely_ neutral in all religious matters, it would have to renounce
those laws and institutions which have furnished it with all its success
in the land and which today crown its efforts with largest usefulness. To
the government, and unconsciously to the masses of the people, Christian
thought and truth and method necessarily characterize most of the laws,
institutions and processes of India. They are all a part of the work of
Great Britain in that land and such a part as she could not dispense with
if she would. It is a part of her unconscious Christian heritage.
Thus the work of Great Britain in India has been attended with a large
degree of success; it has lifted the land out of a condition of
semi-savagery and placed it among the civilized nations of the world. It
has cut it asunder from its anchorage to the past and brought it almost
abreast of the times. There is still much to be done and much to be
desired. We shall be glad to see the day when radical steps in progress
shall be taken voluntarily by the people and through the initiative of
their own leaders, rather than that they should wait to have them thrust
upon them, as in the past, by the progressiveness of the foreigner among
them.
The people, on the whole, appreciate the blessings of British supremacy in
the land. If they are not demonstratively loyal to the government, they
certainly do rest satisfied in the progress which has been achieved for
them.
The well known political leader of Bengal, Babu Surendra Nath Banerji,
recently expressed, in the following eloquent words, the sentiment of the
most thoughtful and influential natives of the country.
“Our allegiance to the British rule,” he says, “is based upon the highest
considerations of practical expediency. As a representative of the
educated community of India—and I am entitled to speak on their behalf and
in their name,—I may say that we regard British rule in India as a
dispensation of Divine Providence. England is here for the highest and the
noblest purposes of history. She is here to rejuvenate an ancient people,
to infuse into them the vigour, the virility and the robustness of the
West, and so pay off the long-standing debt, accumulating since the
morning of the world, which the West owes to the East. We are anxious for
the permanence of British rule in India, not only as a guarantee for
stability and order, but because with it are bound up the best prospects
of our political advancement. To the English people has been entrusted in
the Councils of Providence the high function of teaching the nations of
the earth the great lesson of constitutional liberty, of securing the ends
of stable government, largely tempered by popular freedom. This glorious
work has been nobly begun in India. It has been resolutely carried on by a
succession of illustrious Anglo-Indian statesmen whose names are enshrined
in our grateful recollections. Marvellous as have been the industrial
achievements of the Victorian era in India, they sink into insignificance
when compared with the great moral trophies which distinguish that epoch.
Roads have been constructed; rivers have been spanned; telegraph and
railway lines have been laid down; time and space have been annihilated;
Nature and the appliances of Nature have been made to minister to the
wants of man. But these are nothing when compared to the bold, decisive,
statesmanlike measures which have been taken in hand for the intellectual,
the moral and the political regeneration of my countrymen. Under English
influences the torpor of ages has been dissipated; the pulsations of a new
life have been communicated to the people; an inspiriting sense of public
duty has been evolved, the spirit of curiosity has been stirred and a
moral revolution, the most momentous in our annals, culminating in the
transformation of national ideals and aspirations, has been brought
about.”
Great Britain has not been, and is not now, without failings in her work
in India; and her line of progress is studded with many errors. But she
has been faithful to her trust and has carried it out in no selfish way.
The warm and deep loyalty of India bears testimony to this; for native
sentiment everywhere reveals marked appreciation.