than those which deal with Agra. Mr. Beglar's contribution to Vol. IV
of the _Archaeological Survey Reports_ is a little, but very little,
better than Mr. Carlleyle's disquisition on Agra in that volume. Sir
A. Cunningham's observations in the first and twentieth volumes of
the same series are of greater value, but are fragmentary and
imperfect, and scarcely notice at all the city of Shâhjahân.
Fergusson's criticisms, so far as they go, are of permanent
importance, though the scheme of his work did not allow him to treat
in detail of any particular section. Guide-books by Beresford Cooper,
Harcourt, and Keene, of which Keene's is the latest, and,
consequently, in some respects the best, are all extremely
unsatisfactory. Mr. H. C. Fanshawe's _Delhi Past and Present_ (John
Murray, 1902), a large, handsome work something between a guide-book
and a learned treatise, is not quite satisfying. The late Mr. Carr
Stephen, a resident of Delhi, wrote a valuable book on the
Archaeology of the city, but it has no illustrations, except a few
plans on a small scale. (8vo, Ludhiana, 1876.) A good critical,
comprehensive, well illustrated description of the remains of the
cities, said to number thirteen, all grouped together by European
writers under the name of Delhi, does not exist, and it seems
unlikely that the Panjâb Government will cause the blank to be
filled. No Government in India has such opportunities, or has done so
little, to elucidate the history of the country, as the Government of
the Panjâb. But it has shown greater interest in the matter of late.
The reorganized Archaeological Survey of India, under the capable
guidance of Sir J. H. Marshall, C.I.E., has not yet had time to do
much at Delhi beyond the work of conservation. A fourteenth Delhi is
now being built (1914).
30. _Ante_, chapter 53, [19].
31. These epistolary formulas mean no more than the similar official
phrases in English, 'Your most obedient humble servant', and the
like. The 'fortunate occurrence' of the Mutiny--for such it was, in
spite of all the blood and suffering--cut out many plague-spots from
the body politic of India. Among these the reeking palace swarm of
Delhi was not the least malignant.
32. Azraîl is the angel of death, whose duty it is to separate the
souls from the bodies of men. Isrâfîl is entrusted with the task of
blowing the last trump.
33. The resurrection, and the signs foretelling it, are described in
the _Mishkat-ul-Masâbih_, book xxiii, chapters 3 to 11. (Matthews,
vol. ii, pp. 556-620.)
34. The Hindoo 'ages' are (1) Krita, or Satya, (2) Treta, (3)
Dwâpara, (4) Kali, the present evil age. The long periods assigned to
these are merely the result of the calculations of astronomers, who
preferred integral to fractional numbers.
35. This kind of education does not now pay, and is, consequently,
going out of fashion. The Muhammadans are slowly, and rather
unwillingly, yielding to the pressure of necessity and beginning to
accept English education.
36. Imam Muhammad Ghazzâlî, who is also entitled Hujjat-ul-Islâm, is
the surname of Abu Hâmid Muhammad Zain-ud-dîn Tûsî, one of the
greatest and most celebrated Musalmân doctors, who was born A.D.
1058, and died A.D. 1111. (Beale, s.v. 'Ghazzâlî'.) The length of
these Muhammadan names is terrible. They are much mangled in the
original edition. See _ante_, chapter 53, note 10, and Blochmann
(Aîn) pp. 103, 182.
37. Khwâja Nâsir-ud-dîn Tûsî, the famous philosopher and astronomer,
the most universal scholar that Persia ever produced. Born A.D. 1201,
died A.D. 1274. (Beale.) See _ante_, loc. cit.
38. Especially the _Bûstân_ and _Gulistân_. Beale gives a list of
Sâdî's works. See _ante_, chapter 12, note 6.
39. This is a very cynical and inadequate explanation of the
prevalence of Conservative opinions among Englishmen in the East.
40. Ante, chapter 30, [6].
41. In the original edition the portrait of Akbar II is twice given,
namely, in the frontispiece of Volume I as a full-page plate, and
again as a miniature, dated 1836, in the frontispiece of Volume II.
42. The most secluded native prince of the present day could not be
guilty of this absurdity.
43. Bâbur was sixth in descent from Tîmûr, not seventh. Bâbur's
grandfather, Abu Sayyid, was great-grandson of Tîmûr. Bâbur, not
Bâbar, is the correct spelling.
44. This may be an exaggeration. The undoubted facts are sufficiently
horrible.
45. Tîmûr was a man of surpassing ability, and knew much 'else'. See
Malcolm, _History of Persia_, ed. 1859, chapter 11.
46. Tîmûr's 'historian and great eulogist' was Sharaf-ud-dîn (died
1446), whose _Zafarnâma_, or 'Book of Victories', was translated into
French by Petis de la Croix in 1722. That version was used by Gibbon
and rendered into English in 1723, Copious extracts from an
independent rendering are given in E. & D., iii, pp. 478-522. The
details do not always agree exactly with Sleeman's account.
47. The 'old city' was that of Kutb-ud-dîn and Îltutmish; the 'new
city' was that of Fîrôz Shâh, which partly coincided with the
existing city, and partly lay to the south, outside the Delhi gate.
48. In A.D. 1303.
49. Now in the Sahâranpur district.
50. This is a repetition of the statement made above. According to
_Encycl. Brit._, ed. 1910, Tîmûr returned to his capital in April not
May.
51. Bajazet, or more accurately Bayazîd I, was defeated by Tîmûr at
the battle of Angora in 1402, and died the following year. The story
of his confinement in an iron cage is discredited by modern critics,
though Gibbon (chapter 65) shows that it is supported by much good
evidence. Anatolia is a synonym for Asia Minor. It is a vague term,
the Greek equivalent of 'the Levant'.
52. Sebastê, also called Elaeusa or Ayash, was in Cilicia.
53. Otherwise called Sihôn, or Syr Daryâ.
54. Two autobiographical works, the _Malfûzât_ and the Tuzukât, are
attributed to Tîmûr and probably were composed under his direction.
The latter was translated by Major Davey (Oxford, 1783), and the
former, in part, by Major Stewart (Or. Transl. Fund, 1830). An
independent version of the portion of the _Malfûzât_ relating to
India will be found in E. & D., iii, pp. 389-477.
55. Alî Yazdî, commonly called Sharaf-ud-dîn, author of the
_Zafarnâma_ in Persian (see _ante_, chapter 68, note 46), Ibn
Arabshâh, in an Arabic work, describes Tîmûr from a hostile point of
view. (Encycl. Brit., 11th ed., s. v. 'Timûr').
56. It is impossible within the limits of a note to discuss the
problem of the origin of the gipsies. Much has been written about it,
though nothing quite satisfactory. The gipsy, or Romany, language
(_Romani chiv_, or 'tongue') certainly is closely related to, though
not derived from, the existing languages of Northern India. Some of
the forms are very archaic. A valuable English-Gipsy vocabulary
compiled by Mr. (Sir George) and Mrs. Grierson was published in _Ind.
Ant._, vols. xv, xvi (1886,1887). The author's theory does not tally
with the facts. Gipsies existed in Persia and Europe long before
Tîmûr's time. It is practically certain that they did not come
through Egypt. The article 'Gypsies' by F. H. Groome in Chambers's
_Encycl._ (1904) is good, and seems to the editor to be preferable to
Dr. Gaster's article 'Gipsies' in _Encycl. Brit._, 11th ed., 1910.
57. Before the Codes were passed (1859-1861) the criminal law
administered in India was, in the main, that of the Muhammadans, and
each judge's court had a Muhammadan law officer attached, who
pronounced a 'fatwa', or decision, intimating the law applicable to
the case, and the penalty which might be inflicted. Several examples
of these 'fatwas' will be found among the papers bound up with the
author's 'Ramaseeana'.
58. See Korân, chapter 2. [W. H. S.] The passage is the second
sentence in chapter 2. The wording, as quoted, differs slightly from
Sale's version.
59. See Korân, chapter 32. [W. H. S.]
60. Ibid., chapter 11. [W. H. S.] Sale's version, with trifling
verbal differences. The 'muftî's' reasoning has been heard in Europe.
61. See Korân, chapter 15. [W. H. S.] Sale's version, with
modifications.
62. 'This is a revelation of the most mighty, the merciful God; that
thou mayest warn a people whose fathers were not warned, and who live
in negligence. Our sentence hath justly been pronounced against the
greater part of them, wherefore they shall not believe. It shall be
equal unto them whether thou preach unto them, or do not preach unto
them; they shall not believe.' Korân, chapter 36. [W. H. S.] From
beginning of the chapter. Sale's version; a sentence being omitted
between 'believe' and 'It shall'.
63. I have never met another man so thoroughly master of the Korân as
the Muftî, and yet he had the reputation of being a very corrupt man
in his office. [W. H. S.]
64. Aleeoodeen; an unusual name; probably a misprint for Alâ-ud-dîn.
65. The 17th chapter of the Korân opens with the words, 'Praise be
unto him who transported his servant by night from the sacred temple
of Mecca to the farther temple of Jerusalem', 'from whence', as Sale
observes, 'he was carried through the seven heavens to the presence
of God, and brought back again to Mecca the same night'. The
commentators dispute whether the journey to heaven was corporeally
performed, or merely in a vision. 'But the received opinion is that
it was no vision, but that he was actually transported in the body to
his journey's end; and if any impossibility be objected, they think
it a sufficient answer to say that it might easily be effected by an
omnipotent agent.'
66. See Korân, chapter 15. [W. H. S.]
67. The Muhammadans believe that the Christians have tampered with
the Scriptures.
68. It would be difficult to give more vivid expression to the
eternal conflict between the theological and the scientific spirit.
Compare the remarks _ante_, chapter 26, note 11, on the attitude of
Hindoos towards modern science.
69. _Paradise Lost_, Book VIII. [W. H. S.] Line 167; from Raphael's
address to Adam.
CHAPTER 69
Indian Police--Its Defects--and their Cause and Remedy.
On the 26th[1] we crossed the river Jumna, over a bridge of boats,
kept up by the King of Oudh for the use of the public, though his
majesty is now connected with Delhi only by the tomb of his
ancestor;[2] and his territories are separated from the imperial city
by the two great rivers, Ganges and Jumna.
We proceeded to Farrukhnagar, about twelve miles over an execrable
road running over a flat but rugged surface of unproductive soil.[3]
India is, perhaps, the only civilized country in the world where a
great city could be approached by such a road from the largest
military Station in the empire,[4] not more than three stages
distant. After breakfast the head native police officer of the
division came to pay his respects. He talked of the dreadful murders
which used to be perpetrated in this neighbourhood by miscreants, who
found shelter in the territories of the Bêgam Samrû,[5] whither his
followers dared not hunt for them; and mentioned a case of nine
persons who had been murdered just within the boundary of our
territories about seven years before, and thrown into a dry well. He
was present at the inquest held on their bodies, and described their
appearance; and I found that they were the bodies of a news writer
from Lahore, who, with his eight companions, had been murdered by
Thugs on his way back to Rohilkhand. I had long before been made
acquainted with the circumstances of this murder and the perpetrators
had all been secured, but we wanted this link in the chain of
evidence. It had been described to me as having taken place within
the boundary of the Bêgam's territory, and I applied to her for a
report on the inquest. She declared that no bodies had been
discovered about the time mentioned; and I concluded that the
ignorance of the people of the neighbourhood was pretended, as usual
in such cases, with a view to avoid a summons to give evidence in our
courts. I referred forthwith to the magistrate of the district, and
found the report that I wanted, and thereby completed the chain of
evidence upon a very important case. The Thânadâr seemed much
surprised to find that I was so well acquainted with the
circumstances of this murder, but still more that the perpetrators
were not the poor old Bêgam's subjects, but our own.
The police officers employed on our borders find it very convenient
to trace the perpetrators of all murders and gang robberies into the
territories of native chiefs, whose subjects they accuse often when
they know that the crimes have been committed by our own. They are,
on the one hand, afraid to seize or accuse the real offenders, lest
they should avenge themselves by some personal violence, or by thefts
or robberies, which they often commit with a view to get them tumed
out of office as inefficient; and, on the other, they are tempted to
conceal the real offenders by a liberal share of the spoil, and a
promise of not offending again within their beat. Their tenure of
office is far too insecure, and their salaries are far too small.
They are often dismissed summarily by the magistrate if they send him
in no prisoners; and also if they send in to him prisoners who are
not ultimately convicted, because a magistrate's merits are too often
estimated by the proportion that his convictions bear to his
acquittals among the prisoners committed for trial to the sessions.
Men are often ultimately acquitted for want of judicial proof, when
there is abundance of that moral proof on which a police officer or
magistrate has to act in the discharge of his duties; and in a
country where gangs of professional and hereditary robbers and
murderers extend their depredations into very remote parts, and
seldom commit them in the districts in which they reside, the most
vigilant police officer must often fail to discover the perpetrators
of heavy crimes that take place within his range.[6]
When they cannot find them, the native officers either seize innocent
persons, and frighten them into confession, or else they try to
conceal the crime, and in this they are seconded by the sufferers in
the robbery, who will always avoid, if they can, a prosecution in our
courts, and by their neighbours, who dread being summoned to give
evidence as a serious calamity. The man who has been robbed, instead
of being an object of compassion among his neighbours, often incurs
their resentment for subjecting them to this calamity; and they not
only pay largely themselves, but make him pay largely, to have his
losses concealed from the magistrate. Formerly, when a district was
visited by a judge of circuit to hold his sessions only once or twice
a year, and men were constantly bound over to prosecute and appear as
evidence from sessions to sessions, till they were wearied and
worried to death, this evil was much greater than at present, when
every district is provided with its judge of sessions, who is, or
ought to be, always ready to take up the cases committed for trial by
the magistrate.[7] This was one of the best measures of Lord W.
Bentinck's admirable, though much abused, administration of the
government of India.[8] Still, however, the inconvenience and delay
of prosecution in our courts are so great, and the chance of the
ultimate conviction of great offenders is so small, that strong
temptations are held out to the police to conceal or misrepresent the
character of crimes; and they must have a great feeling of security
in their tenure of office, and more adequate salaries, better chances
of rising, and better supervision over them, before they will resist
such temptation. These Thânadârs, and all the public officers under
them, are all so very inadequately paid that corruption among them
excites no feeling of odium or indignation in the minds of those
among whom they live and serve. Such feelings are rather directed
against the government that places them in such situations of so much
labour and responsibility with salaries so inadequate; and thereby
confers upon them virtually a licence to pay themselves by preying
upon those whom they are employed ostensibly to protect. They know
that with such salaries they can never have the reputation of being
honest, however faithfully they may discharge their duties; and it is
too hard to expect that men will long submit to the necessity of
being thought corrupt, without reaping some of the advantages of
corruption. Let the Thânadârs have everywhere such salaries as will
enable them to maintain their families in comfort, and keep up that
appearance of respectability which their station in society demands;
and over every three or four Thânadârs' jurisdiction let there be an
officer appointed upon a higher scale of salary, to supervise and
control their proceedings, and armed with powers to decide minor
offences. To these higher stations the Thânadârs will be able to look
forward as their reward for a faithful and zealous discharge of their
duties.[9]
He who can suppose that men so inadequately paid, who have no
promotion to look forward to, and feel no security in their tenure of
office, and consequently no hope of a provision for old age,[10] will
be zealous and honest in the discharge of their duties, must be very
imperfectly acquainted with human nature, and with the motives by
which men are influenced in all quarters of the world; but we are
none of us so ignorant, for we all know that the same motives actuate
public servants in India as elsewhere. We have acted successfully
upon this knowledge in the scale of salaries and gradation of rank
assigned to European civil functionaries, and to all native
functionaries employed in the judicial and revenue branches of the
public service; and why not act upon it in that of the salaries
assigned to the native officers employed in the police? The
magistrate of a district gets a salary of from two thousand to two
thousand five hundred rupees a month.[11] The native officer next
under him is the Thânadâr, or head native police officer of a
subdivision of his district, containing many towns and villages, with
a population of a hundred thousand souls. This officer gets a salary
of twenty-five rupees a month. He cannot possibly do his duty unless
he keeps one or two horses; indeed, he is told by the magistrate that
he cannot; and that he must have one or two horses, or resign his
post. The people, seeing how much we expect from the Thânadâr, and
how little we give him, submit to his demands for contributions
without murmuring, and consider almost any demand trivial from a man
so employed and so paid. They are confounded at our inconsistency,
and say, 'We see you giving high salaries and high prospects of
advancement to men who have nothing to do but collect your rents, and
decide our disputes about pounds, shillings, and pence, which we used
to decide much better ourselves, when we had no other court but that
of our elders--while those who are to protect life and property, to
keep peace over the land, and enable the industrious to work in
security, maintain their families, and pay the government revenue,
are left with hardly any pay at all.'
There is really nothing in our rule in India which strikes the people
so much as this inconsistency, the evil effects of which are so great
and manifest; the only way to remedy the evil is to give a greater
feeling of security in the tenure of office, a higher rate of salary,
the hope of a provision for old age, and, above all, the gradation of
rank, by interposing the officers I speak of between the Thânadârs
and the magistrate.[12] This has all been done in the establishments
for the collection of the revenue, and administration of civil
justice.
Hobbes, in his _Leviathan_, says, 'And seeing that the end of
punishment is not revenge and discharge of choler, but correction,
either of the offender, or of others by his example, the severest
punishments are to be inflicted for those crimes that are of most
danger to the public; such as are those which proceed from malice to
the government established; those that spring from contempt of
justice; those that provoke indignation in the multitude; and those
which, unpunished, seem authorized, as when they are committed by
sons, servants, or favourites of men in authority.[13] For
indignation carrieth men, not only against the actors and authors of
injustice, but against all power that is likely to protect them; as
in the case of Tarquin, when, for the insolent act of one of his
sons, he was driven out of Rome, and the monarchy itself dissolved.'
(Para. 2, chapter 30.) Almost every one of our Thânadârs is, in his
way, a little Tarquin, exciting the indignation of the people against
his rulers; and no time should be lost in converting him into
something better.
By the obstacles which are still everywhere opposed to the conviction
of offenders, in the distance of our courts, the forms of procedure,
and other causes of 'the law's delay', we render the duties of our
police establishment everywhere 'more honoured in the breach than the
observance', by the mass of the people among whom they are placed. We
must, as I have before said, remove some of these obstacles to the
successful prosecution of offenders in our criminal courts, which
tend so much to deprive the government of all popular aid and support
in the administration of justice; and to convert all our police
establishments into instruments of oppression, instead of what they
should be, the efficient means of protection to the persons,
property, and character of the innocent. Crimes multiply from the
assurance the guilty are everywhere apt to feel of impunity to crime;
and the more crimes multiply, the greater is the aversion the people
everywhere feel to aid the government in the arrest and conviction of
criminals, because they see more and more the innocent punished by
attendance upon distant courts at great cost and inconvenience, to
give evidence upon points which seem to them unimportant, while the
guilty escape owing to technical difficulties which they can never
understand.[14]
The best way to remove these obstacles is to interpose officers
between the Thânadâr and the magistrate, and arm them with judicial
powers to try minor cases, leaving an appeal open to the magistrate,
and to extend the final jurisdiction of the magistrate to a greater
range of crimes, though it should involve the necessity of reducing
the measure of punishment annexed to them.[15] Beccaria has justly
observed that 'Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty
than by the severity of punishment. The certainty of a small
punishment will make a stronger impression than the fear of one more
severe, if attended with the hope of escaping; for it is the nature
of mankind to be terrified at the approach of the smallest inevitable
evil; whilst hope, the best gift of Heaven, has the power of
dispelling the apprehensions of a greater, especially if supported by
examples of impunity, which weakness or avarice too frequently
affords.'
I ought to have mentioned that the police of a district, in our
Bengal territories, consists of a magistrate and his assistant, who
are European gentlemen of the Civil Service; and a certain number of
Thânadârs, from twelve to sixteen, who preside over the different
sub-divisions of the district in which they reside with their
establishments. These Thânadârs get twenty-five rupees a month, have
under them four or five Jemadârs upon eight rupees, and thirty or
forty Barkandâzes upon four rupees a month. The Jemadârs are, most of
them, placed in charge of 'nâkas', or sub-divisions of the Thânadâr's
jurisdiction, the rest are kept at their headquarters, ready to move
to any point where their services may be required. These are all paid
by government; but there is in each village one watchman, and in
larger villages more than one, who are appointed by the heads of
villages, and paid by the communities, and required daily or
periodically to report all the police matters of their villages to
the Thânadârs.[16]
The distance between the magistrates and Thânadârs is at present
immeasurable; and an infinite deal of mischief is done by the latter
and those under them, of which the magistrates know nothing whatever.
In the first place, they levy a fee of one rupee from every village
at the festival of the Holî in February, and another at that of the
Dasehra in October, and in each Thânadâr's jurisdiction there are
from one to two hundred villages. These and numerous other
unauthorized exactions they share with those under them, and with the
native officers about the person of the magistrate, who, if not
conciliated, can always manage to make them appear unfit for their
places.[17]
A robbery affords a rich harvest. Some article of stolen property is
found in one man's house, and by a little legerdemain it is conveyed
to that of another, both of whom are made to pay liberally; the man
robbed also pays, and all the members of the village community are
made to do the same. They are all called to the court of the Thânadâr
to give evidence as to what they have seen or heard regarding either
the fact or the persons in the remotest degree connected with it--as
to the arrests of the supposed offenders--the search of their house--
the character of their grandmothers and grandfathers--and they are
told that they are to be sent to the magistrate a hundred miles
distant, and then made to stand at the door among a hundred and fifty
pairs of shoes, till _his excellency_ the Nâzir, the under-sheriff of
the court, may be pleased to announce them to his highness the
magistrate, which, of course, he will not do without a
_consideration_. To escape all these threatened evils, they pay
handsomely and depart in peace. The Thânadâr reports that an attempt
to rob a house by persons unknown had been defeated by his exertions,
and the _good fortune_ of the magistrate; and sends a liberal share
of spoil to those who are to read his report to that functionary.[18]
This goes on more or less in every district, but more especially in
those where the magistrate happens to be a man of violent temper, who
is always surrounded by knaves, because men who have any regard for
their character will not approach him--or a weak, good-natured man,
easily made to believe anything, and managed by favourites--or one
too fond of field-sports, or of music, painting, European languages,
literature, and sciences, or lastly, of his own ease.[19] Some
magistrates think they can put down crime by dismissing the Thânadâr;
but this tends only to prevent crimes being reported to him; for in
such cases the feelings of the people are in exact accordance with
the interests of the Thânadârs; and crimes augment by the assurance
of impunity thereby given to criminals. The only remedy for all this
evil is to fill up the great gulf between the magistrate and Thânadâr
by officers who shall be to him what I have described the patrol
officers to be to the collectors of customs, at once the _tapis_ of
Prince Husain, and the _telescope_ of Prince Ali--a medium that will
enable him to be everywhere, and see everything.[20] And why is this
remedy not applied? Simply and solely because such appointments would
be given to the uncovenanted, and might tend indirectly to diminish
the appointments open to the covenanted servants of the company.
Young gentlemen of the Civil Service are supposed to be doing the
duties which would be assigned to such officers, while they are at
school as assistants to magistrates and collectors; and were this
great gulf filled up by efficient covenanted officers, they would
have no school to go to. There is no doubt some truth in this; but
the welfare of a whole people should not be sacrificed to keep this
school or play-ground open exclusively for them; let them act for a
time as they would unwillingly do with the uncovenanted, and they
will learn much more than if they occupied the ground exclusively and
acted alone--they will be always with people ready and willing to
tell them the real state of things; whereas, at present, they are
always with those who studiously conceal it from them.[21]
It is a common practice with Thânadârs all over the country to
connive at the residence within their jurisdiction of gangs of
robbers, on the condition that they shall not rob within those
limits, and shall give them a share of what they bring back from
their distant expeditions.
They [_scil._ the gangs] go out ostensibly in search of service, on
the termination of the rains of one season in October, and return
before the commencement of the next in June; but their vocation is
always well known to the police, and to all the people of their
neighbourhood, and very often to the magistrates themselves, who
could, if they would, secure them on their return with their booty;
but this would not secure their conviction unless the proprietors
could be discovered, which they scarcely ever could. Were the police
officers to seize them, they would be all finally acquitted and
released by the judges--the magistrate would get into disrepute with
his superiors, by the number of acquittals compared with convictions
exhibited in his monthly tables; and he would vent his spleen upon
the poor Thânadâr, who would at the same time have incurred the
resentment of the robbers; and between both, he would have no
possible chance of escape. He therefore consults his own interest and
his own case by leaving them to carry on their trade of robbery or
murder unmolested; and his master, the magistrate, is well pleased
not to be pestered with charges against men whom he has no chance of
getting ultimately convicted. It was in this way that so many hundred
families of assassins by profession were able for so many generations
to reside in the most cultivated and populous parts of our
territories, and extend their depredations into the remotest parts of
India, before our System of operations was brought to bear upon them
in 1830. Their profession was perfectly well known to the people of
the districts in which they resided, and to the greater part of the
police; they murdered not within their own district, and the police
of that district cared nothing about what they might do beyond
it.[22]
The most respectable native gentleman in the city and district told
me one day an amusing instance of the proceedings of a native officer
of that district, which occurred about five years ago. 'In a village
which he had purchased and let in farms, a shopkeeper was one day
superintending the cutting of some sugar-cane which he had purchased
from a cultivator as it stood. His name was Girdhârî, I think, and
the boy who was cutting it for him was the son of a poor man called
Madârî. Girdhârî wanted to have the cane cut down as near as he could
to the ground, while the boy, to save himself the trouble of
stooping, would persist in cutting it a good deal too high up. After
admonishing him several times, the shopkeeper gave him a smart clout
on the head. The boy, to prevent a repetition, called out, "Murder!
Girdhârî has killed me--Girdhârî has killed me!" His old father, who
was at work carrying away the cane at a little distance out of sight,
ran off to the village watchman, and, in his anger, told him that
Girdhârî had murdered his son. The watchman went as fast as he could
to the Thânadâr, or head police officer of the division, who resided
some miles distant. The Thânadâr ordered off his subordinate officer,
the Jemadâr, with half a dozen policemen, to arrange everything for
an inquest on the body, by the time he should reach the place, with
all due pomp. The Jemadâr went to the house of the murderer, and
dismounting, ordered all the shopkeepers of the village, who were
many and respectable, to be forthwith seized, and bound hand and
feet. "So", said the Jemadâr, "you have all been aiding and abetting
your friend in the murder of poor Madârî's only son." "May it please
your excellency, we have never heard of any murder." "Impudent
scoundrels," roared the Jemadâr, "does not the poor boy lie dead in
the sugar-cane field, and is not his highness the Thânadâr coming to
hold an inquest upon it? and do you take us for fools enough to
believe that any scoundrel among you would venture to commit a
deliberate murder without being aided and abetted by all the rest?"
The village watchman began to feel some apprehension that he had been
too precipitate; and entreated the Jemadâr to go first and see the
body of the boy. "What do you take us for," said the Jemadâr, "a
thing without a stomach? Do you suppose that government servants can
live and labour on air? Are we to go and examine bodies upon empty
stomachs? Let his father take care of the body, and let these
murdering shopkeepers provide us something to eat." Nine rupees'
worth of sweetmeats, and materials for a feast were forthwith
collected at the expense of the shopkeepers, who stood bound, and
waiting the arrival of his highness the Thânadâr, who was soon after
seen approaching majestically upon a richly caparisoned horse.
"What," said the Jemadâr, "is there nobody to go and receive his
highness in due form?" One of the shopkeepers was untied, and
presented with fifteen rupees by his family, and those of the other
shopkeepers. These he took up and presented to his highness, who
deigned to receive them through one of his train, and then dismounted
and partook of the feast that had been provided. "Now", said his
highness, "we will go and hold an inquest on the body of the poor
boy"; and off moved all the great functionaries of government to the
sugar-cane field, with the village watchman leading the way. The
father of the boy met them as they entered, and was pointed out by
the village watchman. "Where", said the Thânadâr, "is your poor boy?"
"There," said Madârî, "cutting the canes." "How, cutting the canes?
Was he not murdered by the shopkeepers?" "No," said Madârî, "he was
beaten by Girdhârî, and richly deserved it! I find." Girdhârî and the
boy were called up, and the little urchin said that he called out
murder merely to prevent Girdhârî from giving him another clout on
the side of the head. His father was then fined nine rupees for
giving a false alarm, and Girdhârî fifteen for so unmercifully
beating the boy; and they were made to pay on the instant, under the
penalty of all being sent off forty miles to the magistrate. Having
thus settled this very important affair, his highness the Thânadâr
walked back to the shop, ordered all the shopkeepers to be set at
liberty, smoked his pipe, mounted his horse, and rode home, followed
by all his police officers, and well pleased with his day's work.'
The farmer of the village soon after made his way to the city, and
communicated the circumstances to my old friend, who happened to be
on intimate terms with the magistrate.[23] He wrote a polite note to
the Thânadâr to say that he should never get any rents from his
estate if the occupants were liable to such fines as these, and that
he should take the earliest opportunity of mentioning them to his
friend the magistrate. The Thânadâr ascertained that he was really in
the habit of visiting the magistrate, and communicating with him
freely; and hushed up the matter by causing all, save the expenses of
the feast, to be paid back. These are things of daily occurrence in
all parts of our dominions, and the Thânadârs are not afraid to play
such 'fantastic tricks' because all those under and all those above
them share more or less in the spoil, and are bound in honour to
conceal them from the European magistrate, whom it is the interest of
all to keep in the dark. They know that the people will hardly ever
complain, from the great dislike they all have to appear in our
courts, particularly when it is against any of the officers of those
courts, or their friends and creatures in the district police.[24]
When our operations commenced, in 1830, these assassins [_scil._ the
Thugs] revelled over every road in India in gangs of hundreds,
without the fear of punishment from divine or human laws; but there
is not now, I believe, a road in India infested by them. That our
government has still defects, and great ones, must be obvious to
every one who has travelled much over India with the requisite
qualifications and disposition to observe; but I believe that in
spite of all the defects I have noticed above in our police System,
the life, property, and character of the innocent are now more
secure, and all their advantages more freely enjoyed, than they ever
were under any former government with whose history we are
acquainted, or than they now are under any native government in
India.[25]
Those who think they are not so almost always refer to the reign of
Shâh Jahân, when men like Tavernier travelled so securely all over
India with their bags of diamonds; but I would ask them whether they
think that the life, property, and character of the innocent could be
anywhere very secure, or their advantages very freely enjoyed, in a
country where a man could do openly with impunity what the traveller
describes to have been done by the Persian physician of the Governor
of Allahabad? This governor, being sickly, had in attendance upon him
_eleven physicians_, one of whom was a European gentleman of
education, Claudius Maille, of Bourges.[26] The chief favourite of
the eleven was, however, a Persian, 'who one day threw his wife from
the top of a battlement to the ground in a fit of jealousy. He
thought the fall would kill her, but she had only a few ribs broken;
whereupon the kindred of the woman came and demanded justice at the
feet of the governor. The governor, sending for the physician,
commanded him to be gone, resolving to retain him no longer in his
service. The physician obeyed; and putting his poor maimed wife in a
palankeen, he set forward upon the road with all his family. But he
had not gone above three or four days' journey from the city, when
the governor, finding himself worse than he was wont to be, sent to
recall him; which the physician perceiving, stabbed his wife, his
four children, and thirteen female slaves, and returned again to the
Governor, who said not a word to him, but entertained him again in
his service.' This occurred within Tavernier's own knowledge and
about the time he visited Allahabad; and is related as by no means a
very extraordinary circumstance.[27]
Notes:
1. January, 1836.
2. The tomb of Safdar Jang, or Mansûr Alî Khân, described _ante_,
chapter 68 [4]. The bridges over the Jumna are now, of course,
maintained by Government and the railway companies.
3. The main highways approaching Delhi are now excellent metalled
roads.
4. By the term 'the largest military station in the empire', the
author means Meerut. At present the largest military station in
Northern India is, I believe, Râwal Pindi, and the combined
cantonments of Secunderâbâd and Bolarum in the Nizam's dominions
constitute the largest military station in the empire.
5. Comprising parts of the Meerut and Muzaffarnagar districts of the
North-Western Provinces, now the Agra Province in the United
Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The Bêgam's history will be discussed in
chapter 75, _post_.
6. The members of the reformed police force, constituted under Act V
of 1861, generally on the model of the Royal Irish Constabulary, have
no reason to complain of insecurity of tenure. It is now very
difficult to obtain sanction to the dismissal of a corrupt or
inefficient officer, unless he has been judicially convicted of a
statutory offence.
7. Ordinarily there is for each district, or administrative unit, a
separate Sessions and District Judge, who tries both civil and
criminal cases of the more serious kind. Occasionally two or three
districts have only one judge between them, who is then usually in
arrear with his work. Sessions for the trial of grave criminal cases
are held monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly, according to
circumstances. In some districts, and for some classes of cases, the
jury system has been introduced, but, as a rule, in Northern India
the responsibility rests with the judge alone, who receives some
slight aid from assessors. Capital sentences passed by a Sessions
Judge must be confirmed by two Judges of a High Court, or equivalent
tribunal.
8. The historian Thornton (chapter 27) went so far as to declare that
Lord William Bentinck has 'done less for the interest of India, and
for his own reputation, than any who had occupied his place since the
commencement of the nineteenth century, with the single exception of
Sir George Barlow'. The abolition of widow-burning is the only act of
the Bentinck administration which this writer could praise. Such a
criticism is manifestly unjust, the outcome of contemporary anger and
prejudice. The inscription written by Macaulay, the friend and
coadjutor of Lord William, and placed on the statue of the reforming
Governor-General in Calcutta, does not give undeserved praise to the
much abused statesman. Sir William Sleeman so much admired Lord
William Bentinck, and formed such a favourable estimate of the merits
of his government, that it may be well to support his opinion by that
of Macaulay. The text of the inscription is:
TO
WILLIAM CAVENDISH BENTINCK,
who during seven years ruled India with eminent prudence,
integrity, and benevolence;
who, placed at the head of a great Empire, never laid aside
the simplicity and moderation of a private citizen;
who infused into Oriental despotism the spirit
of British freedom;
who never forgot that the end of Government is the happiness
of the governed;
who abolished cruel rites;
who effaced humiliating distinctions;
who gave liberty to the expression of public opinion;
whose constant study it was to elevate the intellectual and
moral character of the nation committed to his charge,
THIS MONUMENT
was erected by men
who, differing in race, in manners, in language and in religion,
cherish with equal veneration and gratitude
the memory of his wise, reforming, and paternal administration.
(_Lord William Bentinck_, by D. Boulger, p. 203; 'Rulers of India'
series.)
9. A European District Superintendent of Police, under the general
supervision of the Magistrate of the District, now commands the
police of each district, and sometimes has one or two European
Assistants. He is also aided by well-paid Inspectors, who are for the
most part natives of India. Measures have recently been taken,
especially in the United Provinces, to improve the pay, training, and
position of the police force, European and Indian.
10. Police officers and men now obtain pensions, like public servants
in other departments.
11. In some provinces the highest salaries of magistrates are much
lower than the rates stated by the author, which are the highest paid
to the most senior officers in certain provinces; and, in all
provinces, officiating incumbents, who form a large proportion of the
officers employed, draw only a part of the full salary. The fall in
exchange has enormously reduced the real value of all Indian
salaries.
12. Another popular view of this subject, and, I think, the one more
commonly taken, is expressed in the anecdote told _ante_, chapter 58
following [10]. Well-paid Inspectors of Police, drawing salaries of
150 to 200 rupees a month, are often extremely corrupt, and retire
with large fortunes, I knew many cases, but could never obtain
judicial proof of one.
13. When 'sons, servants, or favourites of men in authority', in
India, no longer oppress their fellows, the millennium will have
arrived.
14. It is some slight satisfaction to a zealous magistrate of the
present day, when he sees a great and influential criminal escape his
just doom, to think that even the best magistrates many years ago had
to submit to similar painful experiences. India cannot truly be
described as an uncivilized or barbarous country, but, side by side
with elements of the highest civilization, it contains many elements
of primitive and savage barbarism. The savagery of India cannot be
dealt with by barristers or moral text-books.
15. The number of subordinate magistrates, paid and unpaid, has of
late years been enormously increased, and courts are, consequently,
much more numerous than they used to be. The vast increase in
facility of communication has also diminished the inconveniences
which the author deplores. In Oudh, and certain other provinces,
which used to be called Non-Regulation, the chief Magistrate of the
District has power to try and adequately punish all offences, except
capital ones. The power is useful, when the district officer has time
to exercise it, which is not always the case.
16. There is a Superintendent of Police for the Province of Bengal;
but in the North-Western Provinces his duties are divided among the
Commissioners of Revenue. [W. H. S.] By 'Superintendent of Police'
the author means the high officer now called the Inspector-General of
Police, under the present System each Local Government or
Administration has one of these officers, who is aided by one or more
staff officers as Assistant-Inspectors-General. The Commissioners in
the United Provinces have been relieved of police duties. The
organization of police stations has been much modified since the
author's time. 'Our Bengal territories', as understood by the author,
included, in addition to Bengal, the 'North-Western Provinces', now
the Province, of Agra, the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, now in
the Central Provinces, and the Delhi Territories. Oudh, of course,
was then independent; and the Panjâb was under the rule of Ranjit
Singh.
17. All these practices are still carried on; and experienced
magistrates are well aware of their existence, though powerless to
stop them. People will often give private information of
malpractices, but will hardly ever come into court, and speak out
openly. A magistrate cannot take action on statements which the
makers will not submit to cross-examination.
18. This is still a favourite trick. Every year Inspectors-General of
Police and Secretaries to Government make the same sarcastic remarks
about the wonderful number of 'attempts at burglary', and the
apparent contentment of the criminal classes with the small results
of their labours. But the Thânadâr is too much for even Inspectors-
General and Secretaries to Government. No amount of reorganization
changes him.
19. Mr. R., when appointed magistrate of the district of Fathpur on
the Ganges, had a wish to translate the 'Henriade', and, in order to
secure leisure, he issued a proclamation to all the Thânadârs of his
district to put down crime, declaring that he would hold them
responsible for what might be committed, and dismiss from his
situation every one who should suffer any to be committed within his
charge. This district, lying on the borders of Oudh, had been noted
for the number and atrocious character of its crimes. From that day
all the periodical returns went up to the superior court blank--not a
crime was reported. Astonished at this sudden result of the change of
magistrates, the superior court of Calcutta (the Sadr Nizâmat Adâlat)
requested one of the judges, who was about to pass through the
district on his way down, to inquire into the nature of the System
which seemed to work so well, with a view to its adoption in other
districts. He found crimes were more abundant than ever; and the
Thânadârs showed him the proclamation, which had been understood, as
all such proclamations are, not as enjoining vigilance in the
prosecution of crime, but as prohibiting all report of them, so as to
_save the magistrate trouble_, and get him a good name with his
superiors. [W. H. S.]
Great caution should always be used by local officers in making
comments on statistics. The subordinate cares nothing for the facts.
When a superior objects that the birth-rate is too low and the death-
rate too high in any police circle, the practical conclusion drawn by
the police is that the figures of the next return must be made more
palatable, and they are cooked accordingly. So, if burglaries are too
numerous, they cease to be reported, and so forth.
The old Superior Court was known as the Sadr Nizâmat Adâlat, on the
criminal, and as the Sadr Dîwânî Adâlat, on the civil side. These
courts have now been replaced by the High Courts, and equivalent
tribunals. In the author's time the High Court for the Agra Province
had not yet been established. Its seat is now at Allahabad, but was
formerly at Agra.
20. The gap has been filled up by numbers of Deputy Magistrates,
Tahsîldâr, &c., invested with magisterial powers, Honorary
Magistrates, District Superintendents, and Inspectors, and yet all
the old games still go on merrily. The reason is that the character
of the people has not changed. The police must have the power to
arrest, and that power, when wielded by unscrupulous hands, must
always be formidable.
21. A magistrate who can find in his district even one man, official
or unofficial, who will tell him 'the real state of things', and not
merely repeat scandal and malignant gossip, is unusually fortunate.
22. The Thugs were suppressed because a special organization was
devised and directed for the purpose, the English rules as to the
admissibility of evidence being judiciously relaxed. The ordinary law
and methods of procedure are of little effect against the secret
societies known as 'criminal tribes'. These criminal tribes number
hundreds of thousands of persona, and present a problem almost
unknown to European experience. The gipsies, who are largely of
Indian origin, are, perhaps, the only European example of an
hereditary criminal tribe. But they are not sheltered and abetted by
the landowners as their brethren in India are.
23. The magistrate, of course, was the author.
24. These motives all retain their full force, and are unaffected by
Police Commissions and reorganization schemes. Some people think that
the character of the police will be raised by the employment as
officers of young Indians of good family. I am sorry to say that I
found these young men to be the worst offenders. They are more daring
in their misdeeds than the ordinary policeman, and no better in their
morals.
25. This is quite true; and it is also true that our police
administration is the weakest part of our System. But the fault is
not entirely that of the police. In some provinces, especially in
Bengal, the action of the High Courts has almost paralysed the arm of
the Executive.
26. 'M. Claude Maille, of Bourges. As we shall see in Book I, chapter
18, a man of this name, who had escaped from the Dutch service, was,
in the year 1652, a not very successful amateur gun-founder for Mîr
Jumla; he had, after his escape, set up as a surgeon to the Nawâb,
with an equipment consisting of a case of instruments and a box of
ointments which he had stolen from M. Cheteur, the Dutch Ambassador
to Golconda. Tavernier throws no light upon his identity with this
physician.' (Tavernier, _Travels_, ed. Ball, vol. i, p. 116, note).
M. Maille befriended Manucci, who mentions him several times (Irvine,
_Storia do Mogor_, i, 92, &c.)
27. Ball's version of this horrible story (vol. i, p. 117) does not
differ materially from that quoted in the text. Tavernier does not
mention the name of the governor, though he observes that he was 'one
of the greatest nobles in India'. Tavernier visited Allahabad in
December, 1665, and then heard the story, the governor concerned
being at the time in the fort. I have no doubt that in the reign of
Shâh Jahân ordinary offences committed by ordinary criminals were
ruthlessly punished, and to some extent suppressed. But, under the
best Asiatic Governments, great men and their dependants have usually
been able to do pretty much what they pleased. The English Government
has the merit of refusing to give formal recognition to difference of
rank in criminals, and of often trying to punish influential
offenders, though seldom succeeding in the attempt. From time to time
a conspicuous example, like that of the Nawâb Shams-ud-dîn, is made,
and a few such examples, combined with the greater vigilance and more
complete organization of the English executive, prevent the
occurrence of atrocities so great as that described, without a word
of comment, by the French traveller. I have not the slightest doubt,
nor has any magistrate of long experience any doubt, that women are
frequently made away with quietly in the recesses of the 'zanâna'. I
have known several such cases, which were notorious, though incapable
of judicial proof. The amount of serious secret crime which occurs in
India, and never comes to light, is very considerable.
CHAPTER 70
Rent-free Tenures--Right of Government to Resume such Grants.
ON the 27th[1] we went on fifteen miles to Bêgamâbâd, over a sandy
and level country. All the peasantry along the roads were busy
watering their fields; and the singing of the man who stood at the
well to tell the other who guides the bullocks when to pull, after
the leather bucket had been filled at the bottom, and when to stop as
it reached the top, was extremely pleasing.[2] It is said that Tânsên
of Delhi, the most celebrated singer they have ever had in India,
used to spend a great part of his time in these fields, listening to
the simple melodies of these water-drawers, which he learned to
imitate and apply to his more finished vocal music. Popular belief
ascribes to Tânsên the power of stopping the river Jumna in its
course. His contemporary and rival, Birjû Baulâ, who, according to
popular belief, could split a rock with a single note, is said to
have learned his bass from the noise of the stone mills which the
women use in grinding the corn for their families.[3] Tânsên was a
Brahman from Patna, who entered the service of the Emperor Akbar,
became a Musalmân, and after the service of twenty-seven years,
during which he was much beloved by the Emperor and all his court, he
died at Gwâlior in the thirty-fourth year of the Emperor's reign. His
tomb is still to be seen at Gwâlior. All his descendants are said to
have a talent for music, and they have all Sên added to their
names.[4]
While Mâdhojî Sindhia, the Gwâlior chief, was prime minister, he made
the emperor assign to his daughter the Bâlâ Bâî in jâgîr, or rent-
free tenure, ninety-five villages, rated in the imperial 'sanads'
[deeds of grant] at three lâkhs of rupees a year. When the Emperor
had been released from the 'durance vile' in which he was kept by
Daulat Râo Sindhia, the adopted son of this chief,[5] by Lord Lake in
1803, and the countries, in which these villages were situated, taken
possession of, she was permitted to retain them on condition that
they were to escheat to us on her death. She died in 1834, and we
took possession of the villages, which now yield, it is said, four
lâkhs of rupees a year. Bêgamâbâd was one of them. It paid to the
Bâlâ Bâi only six hundred rupees a year, but it pays now to us six
hundred and twenty rupees; but the farmers and cultivators do not pay
a farthing more--the difference was taken by the favourite to whom
she assigned the duties of collection, and who always took as much as
he could get from them, and paid as little as he could to her.[6] The
tomb of the old collector stood near my tents, and his son, who came
to visit it, told me that he had heard from Gwâlior that a new
Governor-General was about to arrive,[7] who would probably order the
villages to be given back, when he should be made collector of the
village, as his father had been.
Had our Government acted by all the rent-free lands in our
territories on the same principle, they would have saved themselves a
vast deal of expense, trouble, and odium. The justice of declaring
all lands liable to resumption on the death of the present incumbents
when not given by competent authority for, and actually applied to,
the maintenance of religious, charitable, educational, or other
establishments of manifest public utility, would never have been for
a moment questioned by the people of India, because they would have
all known that it was in accordance with the customs of the country.
If, at the same time that we declared all land liable to resumption,
when not assigned by such authority for such purposes and actually
applied to them, we had declared that all grants by competent
authority registered in due form before the death of the present
incumbents should be liable on their death to the payment to
Government of only a quarter or half the rent arising from them, it
would have been universally hailed as an act of great liberality,
highly calculated to make our reign popular. As it is, we have
admitted the right of former rulers of all descriptions to alienate
in perpetuity the land, the principal source of the revenue of the
state, in favour of their relatives, friends, and favourites, leaving
upon the holders the burthen of proving, at a ruinous cost in fees
and bribes, through court after court, that these alienations had
been made by the authorities we declare competent, before the time
prescribed; and we have thus given rise to an infinite deal of fraud,
perjury, and forgery, and to the opinion, I fear, very generally
prevalent, that we are anxious to take advantage of unavoidable flaws
in the proof required, to trick them out of their lands by tedious
judicial proceedings, while we profess to be desirous that they
should retain them. In this we have done ourselves great
injustice.[8]
Though these lands were often held for many generations under former
Governments, and for the exclusive benefit of the holders, it was
almost always, when they were of any value, in collusion with the
local authorities, who concealed the circumstances from their
sovereign for a certain stipulated sum or share of the rents while
they held office. This of course the holders were always willing to
pay, knowing that no sovereign would hesitate much to resume their
lands, should the circumstance of their holding them for their
private use alone be ever brought to his notice. The local
authorities were, no doubt, always willing to take a moderate share
of the rent, knowing that they would get nothing should the lands be
resumed by the sovereign. Sometimes the lands granted were either at
the time the grant was made, or became soon after, waste and
depopulated, in consequence of invasion or internal disorders; and
remaining in this state for many generations, the intervening
sovereigns either knew nothing or cared nothing about the grants.
Under our rule they became by degrees again cultivated and peopled,
and in consequence valuable, not by the exertions of the rent-free
holders, for they were seldom known to do anything but collect the
rents, but by those of the farmers and cultivators who pay them.
When Saâdat Alî Khan, the sovereign of Oudh, ceded Rohilkhand and
other districts to the Honourable Company in lieu of tribute in 1801,
he resumed every inch of land held in rent-free tenure within the
territories that remained with him, without condescending to assign
any other reason than state necessity. The measure created a good
deal of distress, particularly among the educated classes; but not so
much as a similar measure would have created within our territories,
because all his revenues are expended in the maintenance of
establishments formed exclusively out of the members of Oudh
families, and retained within the country, while ours are sent to pay
establishments formed and maintained at a distance; and those whose
lands are resumed always find it exceedingly difficult to get
employment suitable to their condition.
The face of the country between Delhi and Meerut is sadly denuded of
its groves; not a grove or an avenue is to be seen anywhere, and but
few fine solitary trees.[9] I asked the people of the cause, and was
told by the old men of the village that they remembered well when the
Sikh chiefs who now bask under the sunshine of our protection used to
come over at the head of 'dalas' (bodies) of ten or twelve horse
each, and plunder and lay waste with fire and sword, at every
returning harvest, the fine country which I now saw covered with rich
sheets of cultivation, and which they had rendered a desolate waste,
'without a man to make, or a man to grant, a petition', when Lord
Lake came among them.[10] They were, they say, looking on at a
distance when he fought the battle of Delhi, and drove the Marâthâs,
who were almost as bad as the Sikhs, into the Jumna river, where ten
thousand of them were drowned. The people of all classes in Upper
India feel the same reverence as our native soldiery for the name of
this admirable soldier and most worthy man, who did so much to
promote our interests and sustain our reputation in this country.[11]
The most beautiful trees in India are the 'bar' (banyan), the
'pîpal', and the tamarind.[12] The two first are of the fig tribe,
and their greatest enemies are the elephants and camels of our public
establishments and public servants, who prey upon them wherever they
can find them when under the protection of their masters or keepers,
who, when appealed to, generally evince a very philosophical
disregard to the feeling of either property or piety involved in the
trespass. It is consequently in the driest and hottest parts of the
country, where the shade of these trees is most wanted, that it is
least to be found; because it is there that camels thrive best, and
are most kept, and it is most difficult to save such trees from their
depredations.
In the evening a trooper passed our tents on his way in great haste
from Meerut to Delhi, to announce the death of the poor old Bêgam
Samrû, which had taken place the day before at her little capital of
Sardhana. For five-and-twenty years had I been looking forward to the
opportunity of seeing this very extraordinary woman, whose history
had interested me more than that of any other character in India
during my time; and I was sadly disappointed to hear of her death
when within two or three stages of her capital.[13]
Notes:
1. January, 1836.
2. Mr. Fox Strangways gives specimens of songs sung at wells in his
learned and original book, _The Music of Hindostan_ (Oxford, 1914,
pp. 20, 21).
3. Brij Bowla in the original edition. The name is correctly written
Birjû Baulâ or Baurâ. A legend of the rivalry between him and Tânsên
is given in _Linguistic Survey of India_, vi, 47. His name is not
included in Abûl Fazl's list of eminent musicians, or in Blochmann's
notes to it (Âîn trans. i, 612), and I have not succeeded in
obtaining any trustworthy information about him. Marvellous legends
of the rival singers will be found in _N.I.N. & Qu._ vol. v, para.
207.
4. Abûl Fazl describes Tânsên as being of Gwâlior, adding that 'a
singer like him has not been in India for the last thousand years'.
Nos. 2-5 and several others in Abûl Fazl's list of eminent musicians
in Akbar's reign are all noted as belonging to Gwâlior, which
evidently was the most musical of cities (Blochmann, transl. Âîn, i,
612). Sleeman appears to have been mistaken in connecting Tânsên with
Patna. But the musician must really have become a Musalmân, because
his tomb stands close to the south-western corner of the sepulchre at
Gwâlior of Muhammad Ghaus, an eminent Muslim saint. No Hindu could
have been buried in such a spot (_A.S.R._, vol. ii, p. 370).
According to one account Tânsên died in Lahore, his body being
removed to Gwâlior by order of Akbar (Forbes, _Oriental Memoirs_,
London, 1813, vol. iii, p. 32). The leaves of the tamarind-tree
overshadowing the tomb are believed to improve the voice marvellously
when chewed.
Mr. Fox Strangways notes that Hindu critics hold Tânsên 'principally
responsible for the deterioration of Hindu music. He is said to have
falsified the râgs, and two, Hindol and Megh, of the original six
have disappeared since his time' (op. cit., p. 84).
Akbar, in the seventh year of his reign (1562-3), compelled the Râjâ
of Rîwâ (Bhath) to give up Tânsên, who was in the Râjâ's service. The
emperor gave the musician Rs. 200,000. 'Most of his compositions are
written in Akbar's name, and his melodies are even nowadays
everywhere repeated by the people of Hindustân' (Blochmann, op. cit.,
p. 406). Tânsên died in A.D. 1588 (Beale).
5. Shâh Alam is the sovereign alluded to. Mâhâdajî (Mâdhojî or
Mâdhava Râo) Sindhia died in February, 1794. His successor, Daulat
Râo, was then a boy of fourteen or fifteen (Grant Duff, _History of
the Mahrattas_, ed. 1826, vol. iii, p. 86). The formal adoption of
Daulat Râo had not been completed (ibid., p. 91).
6. This observation is a good illustration of the tendency of
administrators in a country so poor as India to take note of the
infinitely little. In Europe no one would take the trouble to notice
the difference between £60 and £62 rental.
7. Lord Auckland, in March, 1836, relieved Sir Charles Metcalfe, who,
as temporary Governor-General, had succeeded Lord William Bentinck.
8. The resumption, that is to say, assessment, of revenue-free lands
was a burning question in the anthor's day. It has long since got
settled. The author was quite right in his opinion. All native
Governments freely exercised the right of resumption, and did not
care in the least what phrases were used in the deed of grant. The
old Hindoo deeds commonly directed that the grant should last 'as
long as the sun and moon shall endure', and invoked awful curses on
the head of the resumer. But this was only formal legal phraseology,
meaning nothing. No ruler was bound by his predecessor's acts.
9. This is not now the case.
10. 'It is difficult to realize that the dignified, sober, and
orderly men who now fill our regiments are of the same stock as the
savage freebooters whose name, a hundred years ago, was the terror of
Northern India. But the change has been wrought by strong and kindly
government and by strict military discipline under sympathetic
officers whom the troops love and respect.' (Sir Lepel Griffin,
_Ranjît Singh_, p. 37.)
11. Gerard Lake was born on the 27th July, 1744, and entered the army
before he was fourteen. He served in the Seven Years' War in Germany,
in the American War, in the French campaign of 1793, and against the
Irish rebels in 1798. In the year 1801 he became Commander-in-Chief
in India, and proceeded to Cawnpore, then our frontier station. Two
years later the second Marâthâ War began, and gave General Lake the
opportunity of winning a series of brilliant victories. In rapid
succession he defeated the enemy at Kôil, Alîgarh, Delhi (the battle
alluded to in the text), Agra, and Laswârî. Next year, 1804, the
glorious record was marred by the disaster to Colonel Monson's force,
but this was quickly avenged by the decisive victories of Dîg and
Farrukhâbâd, which shattered Holkâr's power. The year 1805 saw
General Lake's one personal failure, the unsuccessful siege of
Bharatpur. The Commander-in-Chief then resumed the pursuit of Holkâr,
and forced him to surrender. He sailed for England in February, 1807,
and on his arrival at home was created a Viscount. On the 21st
February, 1808, he died. (Pearse, _Memoir of the Life and Military
Services of Viscount Lake_. London, Blackwood, 1908.) The village of
Patparganj, nearly due east from Humâyûn's Tomb, marks the site of
the battle. Fanshawe (p. 70) gives a plan.
12. The banyan is the _Ficus indica_, or _Urostigma bengalense_; the
'pîpal' is _Ficus religiosa_, or _Urostigma religiosum_; and the
tamarind is the _Tamarindus indica_, or _occidentalis_, or
_officinalis_.
13. The history of the Bêgam is given in Chapter 76, _post_.
CHAPTER 71
The Station of Meerut--'Atâlîs' who Dance and Sing gratuitously for
the Benefit of the Poor.
On the 30th,[1] we went on twelve miles to Meerut, and encamped close
to the Sûraj Kund, so called after Sûraj-mal, the Jât chief of Dîg,
whose tomb I have described at Govardhan.[2] He built here a very
large tank, at the recommendation of the spirit of a Hindoo saint,
Manohar Nâth, whose remains had been burned here more than two
hundred years before, and whose spirit appeared to the Jât chief in a
dream, as he was encamped here with his army during one of his
_kingdom-taking_ expeditions. This is a noble work, with a fine sheet
of water, and flights of steps of 'pakkâ' masonry from the top to its
edge all round. The whole is kept in repair by our Government.[3]
About half a mile to the north-west of the tank stands the tomb of
Shâh Pîr, a Muhammadan saint, who is said to have descended from the
mountains with the Hindoo, and to have been his bosom friend up to
the day of his death. Both are said to have worked many wonderful
miracles among the people of the surrounding country, who used to see
them, according to popular belief, quietly taking their morning ride
together upon the backs of two enormous tigers who came every morning
at the appointed hour from the distant jungle. The Hindoo is said to
have been very fond of music; and though he has been now dead some
three centuries, a crowd of amateurs (atâlîs) assemble every Sunday
afternoon at his shrine, on the bank of the tank, and sing gratis,
and in a very pleasing style, to an immense concourse of people, who
assemble to hear them, and to solicit the spirit of the old saint,
softened by their melodies. At the tomb of the Muhammadan saint a
number of professional dancers and singers assemble every Thursday
afternoon, and dance, sing, and play gratis to a large concourse of
people, who make offerings of food to the poor, and implore the
intercession of the old man with the Deity in return.
The Muhammadan's tomb is large and handsome, and built of red
sandstone, inlaid with marble, but without any cupola, that there may
be no _curtain_ between him and heaven when he gets out of his 'last
long sleep' at the resurrection.[4] Not far from his tomb is another,
over the bones of a pilgrim they call Ganj-i-fann, or the granary of
science. Professional singers and dancers attend it every Friday
afternoon, and display their talents gratis to a large concourse, who
bestow what they can in charity to the poor, who assemble on all
these occasions to take what they can get. Another much frequented
tomb lies over a Muhammadan saint, who has not been dead more than
three years, named Gohar Sâh. He owes his canonization to a few
circumstances of recent occurrence, which are, however, universally
believed. Mr. Smith, an enterprising merchant of Meerut, who had
raised a large windmill for grinding corn in the Sadr Bâzâr, is said
to have abused the old man as he was one day passing by, and looked
with some contempt on his method of grinding, which was to take the
bread from the mouths of so many old widows. 'My child,' said the old
saint, 'amuse thyself with this toy of thine, for it has but a few
days to run.' In four days from that time the machine stopped. Poor
Mr. Smith could not afford to set it going again, and it went to
ruin. The whole native population of Meerut considered this a miracle
of Gohar Sâh. Just before his death the country round Meerut was
under water, and a great many houses fell from incessant rain. The
old man took up his residence during this time in a large sarâi in
the town, but finding his end approach, he desired those who had
taken shelter with him to have him taken to the jungle where he now
reposes. They did so, and the instant they left the building it fell
to the ground. Many who saw it told me they had no doubt that the
virtues of the old man had sustained it while he was there, and
prevented its crushing all who were in it. The tomb was built over
his remains by a Hindoo officer of the court, who had been long out
of employment and in great affliction. He had no sooner completed the
tomb, and implored the aid of the old man, than he got into excellent
service, and has been ever since a happy man. He makes regular
offerings to his shrine, as a grateful return for the saint's
kindness to him in his hour of need. Professional singers and dancers
display their talents here gratis, as at the other tombs, every
Wednesday afternoon.
The ground all round these tombs is becoming crowded with the graves
of people, who in their last moments request to be buried (zêr-sâya)
under the shadow of these saints, who in their lifetime are all said
to have despised the pomps and vanities of this life, and to have
taken nothing from their disciples and worshippers but what was
indispensably necessary to support existence--food being the only
thing offered and accepted, and that taken only when they happened to
be very hungry. Happy indeed was the man whose dish was put forward
when the saint's appetite happened to be sharp. The death of the poor
old Bêgam has, it is said, just canonized another saint, Shâkir Shâh,
who lies buried at Sardhana, but is claimed by the people of Meerut,
among whom he lived till about five years ago, when he desired to be
taken to Sardhana, where he found the old lady very dangerously ill
and not expected to live. He was himself very old and ill when he set
out from Meerut; and the journey is said to have shaken him so much
that he found his end approaching, and sent a messenger to the
princess in these words: 'Ayâ torê, chale ham'; that is, 'Death came
for thee, but I go in thy place'; and he told those around him that
she had precisely five years more to live. She is said to have caused
a tomb to be built over him, and is believed by the people to have
died that day five years.
All these things I learned as I wandered among the tombs of the old
saints the first few evenings after my arrival at Meerut. I was
interested in their history from the circumstance that amateur
singers and professional dancers and musicians should display their
talents at their shrines gratis, for the sake of getting alms for the
poor of the place, given in their name--a thing I had never before
heard of--though the custom prevails no doubt in other places; and
that Musalmâns and Hindoos should join promiscuously in their
devotions and charities at all these shrines. Manohar Nâth's shrine,
though he was a Hindoo, is attended by as many Musalmân as Hindoo
pilgrims. He is said to have 'taken the _samâdh_', that is, to have
buried himself alive in this place as an offering to the Deity. Men
who are afflicted with leprosy or any other incurable disease in
India often take the samâdh, that is, bury or drown themselves with
due ceremonies, by which they are considered as acceptable sacrifices
to the Deity. I once knew a Hindoo gentleman of great wealth and
respectability, and of high rank under the Government of Nâgpur, who
came to the river Nerbudda, two hundred miles, attended by a large
retinue, to _take the samâdh_ in due form, from a painful disease
which the doctors pronounced incurable. After taking an affectionate
leave of all his family and friends, he embarked on board the boat,
which took him into the deepest part of the river. He then loaded
himself with sand, as a sportsman who is required to carry weights in
a race loads himself with shot, and stepping into the water
disappeared. The funeral ceremonies were then performed, and his
family, friends, and followers returned to Nâgpur, conscious that
they had all done what they had been taught to consider their duty.
Many poor men do the same every year when afflicted by any painful
disease that they consider incurable.[5] The only way to prevent this
is to carry out the plan now in progress of giving to India in an
accessible shape the medical science of Europe--a plan first adopted
under Lord W. Bentinck, prosecuted by Lord Auckland, and
superintended by two able and excellent men, Doctors Goodeve and
O'Shaughnessy. It will be one of the greatest blessings that India
has ever received from England.[6]
Notes:
1. January, 1836. The date is misprinted 20th in the original
edition.
2. _Ante_, chapter 56 [13].
3. 'Amongst the remains of former times in and around Meerut may be
noticed the Sûraj kund, commonly called by Europeans 'the monkey
tank'. It was constructed by Jawâhir Mal, a wealthy merchant of
Lâwâr, in 1714. It was intended to keep it full of water from the Abû
Nâla but at present the tank is nearly dry in May and June. There are
numerous small temples, 'dharmsâlâs' [i.e. rest-houses], and 'satî'
pillars on its banks, but none of any note. The largest of the
temples is dedicated to Manohar Nâth, and is said to have been built
in the reign of Shâh Jahân. Lâwâr, a large village . . . is distant
twelve miles north of the civil station. . . . There is a fine house
here called Mahal Sarâi, built about A.D. 1700 by Jawâhir Singh,
Mahâjan, who constructed the Sûraj kund near Meerut' (_N.W.P.
Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. iii, pp. 406,400). This information,
supplied by the local officials, is more to be depended on than the
author's statement.
4. 'The "dargâh" [i.e. shrine] of Shâh Pîr is a fine structure of red
sandstone, erected about A.D. 1620 by Nûr Jahân, the wife of the
Emperor Jahângîr, in memory of a pious fakîr named Shâh Pîr. An
"urs", or religions assembly, is held here every year in the month of
Ramazân. The "dargâh" is supported from the proceeds of the revenue-
free village of Bhagwânpur' (ibid., vol. iii, p. 406). The text of
the original edition gives the pilgrim's name as 'Gungishun', which
has no meaning.
5. An interesting collection of modern cases of a similar kind is
given in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., s.v. 'Samadhi'.
6. See _ante_, chapter 15, note l4. Dr. W. B. O'Shaughnessy
contributed many scientific papers to the _J.A.S.B._ (vols. viii, ix,
x, xii, and xvi).
CHAPTER 72
Subdivisions of Lands--Want of Gradations of Rank--Taxes.
The country between Delhi and Meerut is well cultivated and rich in
the latent power of its soil; but there is here, as everywhere else
in the Upper Provinces, a lamentable want of gradations in society,
from the eternal subdivision of property in land, and the want of
that concentration of capital in commerce and manufactures which
characterizes European--or I may take a wider range, and say
Christian societies.[1] Where, as in India, the landlords' share of
the annual returns from the soil has been always taken by the
Government as the most legitimate fund for the payment of its public
establishments; and the estates of the farmers, and the holdings of
the immediate cultivators of the soil, are liable to be subdivided in
equal shares among the sons in every succeeding generation, the land
can never aid much in giving to society that without which no society
can possibly be well organized--a gradation of rank. Were the
Government to alter the System, to give up all the rent of the lands,
and thereby convert all the farmers into proprietors of their
estates, the case would not be much altered, while the Hindoo and
Muhammadan law of inheritance remained the same; for the eternal
subdivision would still go on, and reduce all connected with the soil
to one common level; and the people would be harassed with a
multiplicity of taxes, from which they are now free, that would have
to be imposed to supply the place of the rent given up. The
agricultural capitalists who derived their incomes from the interest
of money advanced to the farmers and cultivators for subsistence and
the purchase of stock were commonly men of rank and influence in
society; but they were never a numerous class.[2] The mass of the
people in India are really not at present sensible that they pay any
taxes at all. The only necessary of life, whose price is at all
increased by taxes, is salt, and the consumer is hardly aware of this
increase. The natives never eat salted meat; and though they require
a great deal of salt, living, as they do, so much on vegetable food,
still they purchase it in such small quantities from day to day as
they require it, that they really never think of the tax that may
have been paid upon it in its progress.[3]
To understand the nature of taxation in India, an Englishman should
suppose that all the non-farming landholders of his native country
had, a century or two ago, consented to resign their property into
the hands of their sovereign, for the maintenance of his civil
functionaries, army, navy, church, and public creditors, and then
suddenly disappeared from the community, leaving to till the lands
merely the farmers and cultivators; and that their forty millions of
rent were just the sum that the Government now required to pay all
these four great establishments.[4]
To understand the nature of the public debt of England a man has only
to suppose one great national establishment, twice as large as those
of the civil functionaries, the Army, Navy, and the Church together,
and composed of members with fixed salaries, who purchased their
commissions from _the wisdom of our ancestors_, with liberty to sell
them to whom they please--who have no duty to perform for the
public,[5] and have, like Adam and Eve, the privilege of going to
'seek their place of rest' in what part of the world they please--a
privilege of which they will, of course, be found more and more
anxious to avail themselves as taxation presses on the one side, and
prohibition to the import of the necessaries of life diminishes the
means of paying them on the other.
The repeal of the Corn Laws may give a new lift to England; it may
greatly increase the foreign demand for the produce of its
manufacturing industry; it may invite back a large portion of those
who now spend their incomes in foreign countries, and prevent from
going abroad to reside a vast number who would otherwise go. These
laws must soon be repealed, or England must reduce one or other of
its great establishments--the National Debt, the Church, the Army, or
the Navy. The Corn Laws press upon England just in the same manner as
the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope
pressed upon Venice and the other states whose welfare depended upon
the transit of the produce of India by land. But the navigation of
the Cape benefited all other European nations at the same time that
it pressed upon these particular states, by giving them all the
produce of India at cheaper rates than they would otherwise have got
it, and by opening the markets of India to the produce of all other
European nations. The Corn Laws benefit only one small section of the
people of England, while they weigh, like an incubus, upon the vital
energies of all the rest; and at the same time injure all other
nations by preventing their getting the produce of manufacturing
industry so cheap as they would otherwise get it. They have not,
therefore, the merit of benefiting other nations, at the same time
that they crush their own.[6]
For some twenty or thirty years of our rule, too many of the
collectors of our land revenue in what we call the Western
Provinces,[7] sought the 'bubble reputation' in an increase of
assessment upon the lands of their district every five years when the
settlement was renewed. The more the assessment was increased, the
greater was the praise bestowed upon the collector by the revenue
boards, or the revenue secretary to Government, in the name of the
Governor-General of India.[8] These collectors found an easy mode of
acquiring this reputation--they left the settlements to their native
officers, and shut their ears to all complaints of grievances, till
they had reduced all the landholders of their districts to one common
level of beggary, without stock, character, or credit; and
transferred a great portion of their estates to the native officers
of their own courts through the medium of the auction sales that took
place for the arrears, or pretended arrears, of revenue. A better
feeling has for some years past prevailed, and collectors have sought
their reputation in a real knowledge of their duties, and real good
feeling towards the farmers and cultivators of their districts. For
this better tone of feeling the Western Provinces are, I believe,
chiefly indebted to Mr. R. M. Bird, of the Revenue Board, one of the
most able public officers now in India. A settlement for twenty years
is now in progress that will leave the farmers at least 35 per cent.
upon the gross collections from the immediate cultivators of the
soil; that is, the amount of the revenue demandable by Government
from the estate will be that less than what the farmer will, and
would, under any circumstances, levy from the cultivators in his
detailed settlement.[9]
The farmer lets all the land of his estate out to cultivators, and
takes in money this rate of profit for his expense, trouble, and
risk; or he lets out to the cultivators enough to pay the Government
demand, and tills the rest with his own stock, rent-free. When a
division takes place between his sons, they either divide the estate,
and become each responsible for his particular share, or they divide
the profits, and remain collectively responsible to Government for
the whole, leaving one member of the family registered as the lessee
and responsible head.[10]
In the Ryotwâr System of Southern India, Government officers,
removable at the pleasure of the Government collector, are
substituted for these farmers, or more properly proprietors, of
estates; and a System more prejudicial to the best interests of
society could not well be devised by the ingenuity of man.[11] It has
been supposed by some theorists, who are practically unacquainted
with agriculture in this or any other country, that all who have any
interest in land above the rank of cultivator or ploughman are mere
_drones_, or useless consumers of that rent which, under judicious
management, might be added to the revenues of Government--that all
which they get might, and ought to be, either left with the
cultivators or taken by the Government. At the head of these is the
justly celebrated historian, Mr. Mill. But men who understand the
subject practically know that the intermediate agency of a farmer,
who has a permanent interest in the estate, or an interest for a long
period, is a thousand times better both for the Government and the
people than that of a Government officer of any description, much
less that of one removable at the pleasure of the collector.
Government can always get more revenue from a village under the
management of the farmer; the character of the cultivators and
village community generally is much better; the tillage is much
better; and the produce, from more careful weeding and attention of
all kinds, sells much better in the market. The better character of
the cultivators enables them to get the loans they require to
purchase stock, and to pay the Government demand on more moderate
terms from the capitalists, who rely upon the farmer to aid in the
recovery of their outlays, without reference to civil courts, which
are ruinous media, as well in India as in other places. The farmer or
landlord finds in the same manner that he can get much more from
lands let out on lease to the cultivators or yeomen, who depend upon
their own character, credit, and stock, than he can from similar
lands cultivated with his own stock; and hired labourers can never be
got to labour either so long or so well. The labour of the Indian
cultivating lessee is always applied in the proper quantity, and at
the proper time and place--that of the hired field-labourer hardly
ever is. The skilful coachmaker always puts on the precise quantity
of iron required to make his coach strong, because he knows where it
is required; his coach is, at the same time, as light as it can be
with safety. The unskilful workman either puts on too much, and makes
his coach heavy; or he puts it in the wrong place, and leaves it
weak.
If government extends the twenty years' settlement now in progress to
fifty years or more, they will confer a great blessing upon the
people[12] and they might, perhaps, do it on the condition that the
incumbent consented to allow the lease to descend undivided to his
heirs by the laws of primogeniture. To this condition all classes
would readily agree, for I have heard Hindoo and Muhammadan
landholders all equally lament the evil effects of the laws by which
families are so quickly and inevitably broken up; and say that 'it is
the duty of government to take advantage of their power as the great
proprietor and leaser of all the lands to prevent the evil by
declaring leases indivisible. 'There would then', they say, 'be
always one head to assist in maintaining the widows and orphans of
deceased members, in educating his brothers and nephews; and by his
influence and respectability procuring employment for them.' In such
men, with feelings of permanent interest in their estates, and in the
stability of the government that secured them possession on such
favourable terms, and with the means of educating their children, we
should by and by find our best support, and society its best element.
The law of primogeniture at present prevails only where it is most
mischievous under our rule, among the feudal chiefs, whose ancestors
rose to distinction and acquired their possessions by rapine in times
of invasion and civil wars. This law among them tends to perpetuate
the desire to maintain those military establishments by which the
founders of their families arose, in the hope that the times of
invasion and civil wars may return and open for them a similar field
for exertion. It fosters a class of powerful men, essentially and
irredeemably opposed in feeling, not only to our rule, but to settled
government under any rule; and the sooner the Hindoo law of
inheritance is allowed by the paramount power to take its course
among these feudal chiefs, the better for society. There is always a
strong tendency to it in the desire of the younger brothers to share
in the loaves and fishes; and this tendency is checked only by the
injudicious interposition of our authority.[13]
To give India the advantage of free institutions, or all the
blessings of which she is capable under an enlightened paternal
government, nothing is more essential than the supersession of this
feudal aristocracy by one founded upon other bases, and, above all,
upon that of the concentration of capital in commerce and
manufactures. Nothing tends so much to prevent the accumulation and
concentration of capital over India as this feudal aristocracy which
tends everywhere to destroy that feeling of security without which
men will nowhere accumulate and concentrate it. They do so, not only
by the intrigues and combinations against the paramount power, which
keep alive the dread of internal wars and foreign invasion, but by
those gangs of robbers and murderers which they foster and locate
upon their estates to prey upon the more favoured or better governed
territories around them. From those gangs of freebooters who are to
be found upon the estate of almost every native chief, no
accumulation of movable property of any value is ever for a moment
considered safe, and those who happen to have any such are always in
dread of losing, not only their property, but their lives along with
it, for these gangs, secure in the protection of such chief, are
reckless in their attack, and kill all who happen to come in their
way.[14]
Notes:
1. This phrase is meant to include America.
2. Money-lenders naturally have flourished daring the long period of
internal peace since the Mutiny. They vary in wealth and position
from the humblest 'gombeen man' to the millionaire banker. Many of
these money-lenders are now among the largest owners of land in the
country. Under native rule interests in land were generally too
precarious to be saleable. The author did not foresee that the growth
of private property in land would carry with it the right and desire
of one party to sell and of another to buy, and would thus favour the
growth of large estates, and, to a considerable extent, counteract
the evils of subdivision. Of course, like everything else, the large
estates have their evils too. Much nonsense is written about sales of
land in India, as well as in Ireland. The two countries have more
than the initial letter in common.
3. Theorists declare that it is right that the tax-payers should know
what is taken from them, and that, therefore, direct taxes are best;
but practical men who have to govern ignorant and suspicious races,
resentful of direct taxation, know that indirect taxation is, for
such people, the best.
4. This illustration would give a very false idea of modern Indian
finance.
5. They have no duty to perform as creditors; but as citizens of an
enlightened nation they no doubt perform many of them, very important
ones. [W. H. S.] The author's whimsical comparison between
stockholders and Adam and Eve, and his notion that the creditors of
the nation may be regarded as officials without duties, only obscure
a simple matter. The emigration of owners of Consols never assumed
very alarming dimensions.
6. The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846, and the shilling duty which
was then left was abolished in 1869. Considering that the author
belonged to a land-owning family, his clear perception of the evils
caused by the Corn Laws is remarkable.
7. By the 'Western Provinces' the author means the region called
later the North-Western Provinces, and now known as the Agra Province
in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, with the Delhi Territories,
which latter are now partly under the Government of the Panjâb, and
partly in the new small Province, or Chief Commissionership of Delhi.
8. At the time referred to, the provincial Government had not been
constituted.
9. Fifty per cent. may be considered as the average rate left to the
lessees or proprietors of estates under this new settlement; and, if
they take on an average one-third of the gross produce, Government
takes two-ninths. But we may rate the Government share of the produce
actually taken at one-fifth as the maximum, and one-tenth as the
minimum. [W. H. S.]
It is unfortunately true that in the short-term settlements made
previous to 1833 many abuses of the kinds referred to in the text
occurred. The traditions of the people and the old records attest
numerous instances. The first serious attempt to reform the system of
revenue settlements was made by Regulation VII of 1822, but, owing to
an excessive elaboration of procedure, the attempt produced no
appreciable results. Regulation IX of 1833 established a workable
system, and provided for the appointment of Indian Deputy Collectors
with adequate powers. The settlements of the North-Western Provinces
made under this Regulation were, for the most part, reasonably fair,
and were generally confirmed for a period of thirty years. Mr. Robert
Mertins Bird, who entered the service in 1805, and died in 1853, took
a leading part in this great reform. When the next settlements were
made, between 1860 and 1880, the share of the profit rental claimed
by the State was reduced from two-thirds to one-half. Full details
will be found in the editor's _Settlement Officer's Manual for the N.
W. P._ (Allahabad, 1882), or in Baden Powell's big book, _Land
Systems of British India_ (Clarendon Press, 1892).
10. Since 1833 the people whom the author calls 'farmers' have
gradually become fall proprietors, subject to the Government lien on
the land and its produce for the land revenue. For many years past
the ancient custom of joint ownership and collective responsibility
has been losing ground. Partitions are now continually demanded, and
every year collective responsibility is becoming more unpopular and
more difficult to enforce.
11. This judgement, I need hardly say, would not be accepted in
Madras or Bombay. The issue raised is too large for discussion in
footnotes.
12. The advantages of very long terms of settlements are obvious; the
disadvantages, though equally real, are less obvious. Fluctuations in
prices, and above all, in the price of silver, are among the many
conditions which complicate the question. Except the Bengal
landowners, most people now admit that the Permanent Settlement of
Bengal in 1793 was a grievous mistake. It is also admitted that the
mistake is irrevocable.
13. These two suggestions of the author that the law of primogeniture
should be established to regulate the succession to ordinary estates,
and that it should be abolished in the case of chieftainships, where
it already prevails, are obviously open to criticism. It seems
sufficient to say that both recommendations are, for many reasons,
altogether impracticable. In passing, I may note that the term
'feudal' does not express with any approach to correctness the
relation of the Native States to the Government of India.
14. The evils described in this paragraph, though diminished, have
not disappeared. Nevertheless, no one would now seriously propose the
deliberate supersession of the existing aristocracy by rich merchants
and manufacturers. The proposal is too fanciful for discussion.
During the long period of peace merchants and manufacturers have
naturally risen to a position much more prominent than they occupied
in the author's time.
CHAPTER 73
Meerut--Anglo-Indian Society.
Meerut is a large station for military and civil establishments; it
is the residence of a civil commissioner, a judge, a magistrate, a
collector of land revenue, and all their assistants and
establishments. There are the Major-General commanding the division;
the Brigadier commanding the station; four troops of horse and a
company of foot artillery; one regiment of European cavalry, one of
European infantry, one of native cavalry, and three of native
infantry.[1] It is justly considered the healthiest station in India,
for both Europeans and natives,[2] and I visited it in the latter end
of the cold, which is the healthiest, season of the year; yet the
European ladies were looking as if they had all come out of their
graves, and talking of the necessity of going off to the mountains to
renovate, as soon as the hot weather should set in. They had
literally been fagging themselves to death with gaiety, at this the
gayest and most delightful of all Indian stations, during the cold
months when they ought to have been laying in a store of strength to
carry them through the trying seasons of the hot winds and rains. Up
every night and all night at balls and suppers, they could never go
out to breathe the fresh air of the morning; and were looking
wretchedly ill, while the European soldiers from the barracks seemed
as fresh as if they had never left their native land. There is no
doubt that sitting up late at night is extremely prejudicial to the
health of Europeans in India.[3] I have never seen the European, male
or female, that could stand it long, however temperate in habits; and
an old friend of mine once told me that if he went to bed a little
exhilarated every night at ten o'clock, and took his ride in the
morning, he found himself much better than if he sat up till twelve
or one o'clock without drinking, and lay abed in the mornings. Almost
all the gay pleasures of India are enjoyed at night, and as ladies
here, as everywhere else in Christian societies, are the life and
soul of all good parties, as of all good novels, they often to oblige
others sit up late, much against their own inclinations, and even
their judgements, aware as they are that they are gradually sinking
under the undue exertions.
When I first came to India there were a few ladies of the old school
still much looked up to in Calcutta, and among the rest the
grandmother of the Earl of Liverpool, the old Bêgam Johnstone, then
between seventy and eighty years of age.[4] All these old ladies
prided themselves upon keeping up old usages. They use to dine in the
afternoon at four or five o'clock--take their airing after dinner in
their carriages; and from the time they returned till ten at night
their houses were lit up in their best style and thrown open for the
reception of visitors. All who were on visiting terms came at this
time, with any strangers whom they wished to introduce, and enjoyed
each other's society; there were music and dancing for the young, and
cards for the old, when the party assembled happened to be large
enough; and a few who had been previously invited stayed supper. I
often visited the old Bêgam Johnstone at this hour, and met at her
house the first people in the country, for all people, including the
Governor-General himself, delighted to honour this old lady, the
widow of a Governor-General of India, and the mother-in-law of a
Prime Minister of England.[5] She was at Murshîdâbâd when Sirâj-ud-
daula marched from that place at the head of the army that took and
plundered Calcutta, and caused so many Europeans to perish in the
Black Hole; and she was herself saved from becoming a member of his
seraglio, or perishing with the lest, by the circumstance of her
being far gone in her pregnancy, which caused her to be made over to
a Dutch factory.[6]
She had been a very beautiful woman, and had been several times
married; the pictures of all her husbands being hung round her noble
drawing-room in Calcutta, covered during the day with crimson cloth
to save them from the dust, and uncovered at night only on particular
occasions. One evening Mrs. Crommelin, a friend of mine, pointing to
one of them, asked the old lady his name. 'Really, I cannot at this
moment tell you, my dear; my memory is very bad,' (striking her
forehead with her right hand, as she leaned with her left arm in Mrs.
Crommelin's,) 'but I shall recollect in a few minutes.' The old
lady's last husband was a clergyman, Mr. Johnstone, whom she found
too gay, and persuaded to go home upon an annuity of eight hundred a
year, which she settled upon him for life. The bulk of her fortune
went to Lord Liverpool; the rest to her grandchildren, the Ricketts,
Watts, and others.
Since those days the modes of intercourse in India have much altered.
Society at all the stations beyond the three capitals of Calcutta,
Madras, and Bombay, is confined almost exclusively to the members of
the civil and military services, who seldom remain long at the same
station--the military officers hardly ever more than three years, and
the civil hardly ever so long. At disagreeable stations the civil
servants seldom remain so many months. Every newcomer calls in the
forenoon upon all that are at the station when he arrives, and they
return his call at the same hour soon after. If he is a married man,
the married men upon whom he has called take their wives to call upon
his; and he takes his to return the call of theirs. These calls are
all indispensable; and being made in the forenoon, become very
disagreeable in the hot season; all complain of them, yet no one
forgoes his claim upon them; and till the claim is fulfilled, people
will not recognize each other as acquaintances.[7] Unmarried officers
generally dine in the evening, because it is a more convenient hour
for the mess; and married civil functionaries do the same, because it
is more convenient for their office work. If you invite those who
dine at that hour to spend the evening with you, you must invite them
to dinner, even in the hot weather; and if they invite you, it is to
dinner. This makes intercourse somewhat heavy at all times, but more
especially so in the hot season, when a table covered with animal
food is sickening to any person without a keen appetite, and
stupefying to those who have it. No one thinks of inviting people to
a dinner and ball--it would be vandalism; and when you invite them,
as is always the case, to come after dinner, the ball never begins
till late at night, and seldom ends till late in the morning. With
all its disadvantages, however, I think dining in the evening much
better for those who are in health, than dining in the afternoon,
provided people can avoid the intermediate meal of tiffin. No person
in India should eat animal food more than once a day; and people who
dine in the evening generally eat less than they would if they dined
in the afternoon. A light breakfast at nine; biscuit, or a slice of
toast with a glass of water, or soda-water, at two o'clock, and
dinner after the evening exercise, is the plan which I should
recommend every European to adopt as the most agreeable.[8] When
their digestive powers get out of order, people must do as the
doctors tell them.
There is, I believe, no society in which there is more real urbanity
of manners than in that of India--a more general disposition on the
part of its different members to sacrifice their own comforts and
conveniences to those of others, and to make those around them happy,
without letting them see that it costs them an effort to do so.[9]
There is assuredly no society where the members are more generally
free from those corroding cares and anxieties which 'weigh upon the
hearts' of men whose incomes are precarious, and position in the
world uncertain. They receive their salaries on a certain day every
month, whatever may be the state of the seasons or of trade; they pay
no taxes; they rise in the several services by rotation;[10]
religious feelings and opinions are by common consent left as a
question between man and his Maker; no one ever thinks of questioning
another about them, nor would he be tolerated if he did so. Most
people take it for granted that those which they got from their
parents were the right ones; and as such they cherish them. They
remember with feelings of filial piety the prayers which they in
their infancy offered to their Maker, while kneeling by the side of
their mothers; and they continue to offer them up through life, with
the same feelings and the same hopes.[11]
Differences of political opinion, which agitate society so much in
England and other countries where every man believes that his own
personal interests must always be more or less affected by the
predominance of one party over another, are no doubt a source of much
interest to people in India, but they scarcely ever excite any angry
passions among them. The tempests by which the political atmosphere
of the world is cleared and purged of all its morbid influences burst
not upon us--we see them at a distance--we know that they are working
for all mankind; and we feel for those who boldly expose themselves
to their 'pitiless peltings' as men feel for the sailors whom they
suppose to be exposed on the ocean to the storm, while they listen to
it from their beds or winter firesides.[12] We discuss all political
opinions, and all the great questions which they affect, with the
calmness of philosophers; not without emotion certainly, but without
passion; we have no share in returning members to parliament--we feel
no dread of those injuries, indignities, and calumnies to which those
who have are too often exposed; and we are free from the bitterness
of feelings which always attend them.[13]
How exalted, how glorious, has been the destiny of England, to spread
over so vast a portion of the globe her literature, her language, and
her free institutions! How ought the sense of this high destiny to
animate her sons in their efforts to perfect their institutions which
they have formed by slow degrees from feudal barbarism; to make them
in reality as perfect as they would have them appear to the world to
be in theory, that rising nations may love and honour the source
whence they derive theirs, and continue to look to it for
improvement.
We return to the society of our wives and children after the labours
of the day are over, with tempers unruffled by collision with
political and religious antagonists, by unfavourable changes in the
season and the markets, and the other circumstances which affect so
much the incomes and prospects of our friends at home. We must look
to them for the chief pleasures of our lives, and know that they must
look to us for theirs; and if anything has crossed us we try to
conceal it from them. There is in India a strong feeling of mutual
dependence which prevents little domestic misunderstandings between
man and wife from growing into quarrels so often as in other
countries, where this is less prevalent. Men have not here their
clubs, nor their wives their little coteries to fly to when disposed
to make serious matters out of trifles, and both are in consequence
much inclined to bear and forbear. There are, of course, on the other
hand, evils in India that people have not to contend with at home;
but, on the whole, those who are disposed to look on the fair, as
well as on the dark side of all around them, can enjoy life in India
very much, as long as they and those dear to them are free from
physical pain.[14] We everywhere find too many disposed to look upon
the dark side of all that is present, and the bright side of all that
is distant in time and place--always miserable themselves, be they
where they will, and making all around them miserable; this commonly
arises from indigestion, and the habit of eating and drinking in a
hot, as in a cold, climate; and giving their stomachs too much to do,
as if they were the only parts of the human frame whose energies were
unrelaxed by the temperature of tropical climates.
There is, however, one great defect in Anglo-Indian society; it is
composed too exclusively of the servants of government, civil,
military, and ecclesiastic, and wants much of the freshness, variety,
and intelligence of cultivated societies otherwise constituted. In
societies where capital is concentrated for employment in large
agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing establishments, those who
possess and employ it form a large portion of the middle and higher
classes. They require the application of the higher branches of
science to the efficient employment of their capital in almost every
purpose to which it can be applied; and they require, at the same
time, to show that they are not deficient in that conventional
learning of the schools and drawing-rooms to which the circles they
live and move in attach importance. In such societies we are,
therefore, always coming in contact with men whose scientific
knowledge is necessarily very precise, and at the same time very
extensive, while their manners and conversation are of the highest
polish. There is, perhaps, nothing which strikes a gentleman from
India so much on his entering a society differently constituted, as
the superior precision of men's information upon scientific subjects;
and more especially upon that of the sciences more immediately
applicable to the arts by which the physical enjoyments of men are
produced, prepared, and distributed all over the world. Almost all
men in India feel that too much of their time before they left
England was devoted to the acquisition of the dead languages; and too
little to the study of the elements of science. The time lost can
never be regained--at least they think so, which is much the same
thing. Had they been well grounded in the elements of physics,
physiology, and chemistry before they left their native land, they
would have gladly devoted their leisure to the improvement of their
knowledge; but to go back to elements, where elements can be learnt
only from books, is, unhappily, what so few can bring themselves to,
that no man feels ashamed of acknowledging that he has never studied
them at all till he returns to England, or enters a society
differently constituted, and finds that he has lost the support of
the great majority that always surrounded him in India.[15] It will,
perhaps, be said that the members of the official aristocracy of all
countries have more or less of the same defects, for certain it is
that they everywhere attach paramount or undue importance to the
conventional learning of the grammar-school and the drawing-room, and
the ignorant and the indolent have everywhere the support of a great
majority. Johnson has, however, observed:
'But the truth is that the knowledge of external nature and the
sciences, which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the
great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide
for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing,
the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and
wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and
with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by
events the reasonableness of opinions.[16] Prudence and justice are
virtues and excellences of all times, and of all places--we are
perpetually moralists; but we are geometricians only by chance. Our
intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations
upon matter are voluntary and at leisure. Physiological learning is
of such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life,
without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or
astromony; but his moral and prudential character immediately
appears. Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that
supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and
most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served
by poets, orators, and historians' (_Life of Milton_).
Notes:
1. In India officers have much better opportunities in time of peace
to learn how to handle troops than in England, from having them more
concentrated in large stations, with fine open plains to exercise
upon. During the whole of the cold season, from the beginning of
November to the end of February, the troops are at large stations
exercised in brigades, and the artillery, cavalry, and infantry
together. [W. H. S.] The normal garrison of Meerut in recent years
has consisted of one British cavalry regiment, one battalion of
British infantry, one native cavalry regiment, and one battalion of
native infantry, with two batteries of horse and two of field
artillery. The cantonment was established in 1806, from which date
the town grew rapidly in size and population. The civil staff has
been largely increased since Sleeman's time by the addition of
numerous officers belonging to irrigation and other departmental
services which did not exist in his day. The offices of District
Magistrate and Collector have been united as a single person for many
years.
2. The cantonments suffered severely from typhoid fever for several
years in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
3. Few Anglo-Indians will dispute the truth of this dictum.
4. The late Earl of Liverpool, then Mr. Jenkinson, married this old
lady's daughter. He was always very attentive to her, and she used
with feelings of great pride and pleasure to display the contents of
the boxes of millinery which he used every year to send out to her.
[W. H. 8.] The author came out to India in 1809. Mr. Charles
Jenkinson was created Baron Hawkesbury in 1786, and Earl of Liverpool
in 1796. His first wife, who died in 1770, was Amelia, daughter of
Mr. William Watts, Governor of Fort William, and of the lady
described by the author. Their only son succeeded to the earldom in
1808, and died in 1828. The peerage became extinct on the death of
the third earl in 1851. (Burke's _Peerage_.) It was revived in 1905.
5. Lord Liverpool, the second earl, became Prime Minister in 1812,
after the murder of Perceval. Mrs. Johnson (not Johnstone) was not
'the widow of a Governor-General of India'. Her history is told in
detail on her tombstone in St. John's churchyard, Calcutta, and is
summarized in Buckland, _Dictionary of Indian Biography_ (1906). She
was born in 1725, and died in 1812. She had four husbands, namely (l)
Parry Purple Temple, whom she married when she was only thirteen
years of age; (2) James Altham, who died of smallpox a few days after
his marriage; (3) William Watts, Senior Member of Council, and for a
short time Governor or President of Fort William in 1758; (4) in 1774
Rev. William Johnson, who became principal chaplain of Fort William
in 1784, and left India in 1788. She was known as 'the old Begum ',
and her epitaph asserts that she was when she died 'the oldest
British resident in Bengal, universally beloved, respected, and
revered'. Mr. A. L. Paul kindly communicated the full text of the
inscription on her tomb, with some additional notes. The author met
her in 1810, when she was about eighty-five years of age.
6. The tragedy of the Black Hole occurred in June, 1756.
7. Of late years the rigour of the custom exacting midday calls has
been relaxed in some places.
8. Moat people would require some training before they could find
this very abstemious regimen 'the most agreeable'.
9. It will, I hope, be admitted that this observation still holds
good.
10. When the author wrote the rupee was worth more than two
shillings, the members of the Indian services were few in number, and
mostly well paid, while living was cheap. Now all is changed. The
rupee has an artificial value of 1_s_. 4_d_., the members of the
services are numerous and often ill paid, while living is dear. The
sharp fall in the value of silver, and consequently in the gold
equivalent of the rupee, began in 1874. 'Corroding cares and
anxieties' are now the lot of most people who serve in India. They
now have the privilege of paying taxes.
11. This perfect religious freedom, still generally characteristic of
Anglo-Indian society, is one of its greatest charms; and the charms
of the country do not increase.
12. The author probably had in his mind the famous lines of
Lucretius:-
Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
Non quia vexari quemquam 'st jucunda voluptas,
Sed, quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave 'st.
(Book II, line 1.)
13. This delightful philosophic calm is no longer an Anglo-Indian
possession; nor can the modern Indian official congratulate himself
on his immunity from 'injuries, indignities, and calumnies'.
14. There are now clubs everywhere, and coteries are said to be not
unknown. Few Anglo-Indians of the present day are able to share the
author's cheery optimism.
15. In this matter also time has wrought great changes. The
scientific branches of the Indian services, the medical, engineering,
forestry, geological survey, and others, have greatly developed, and
many officials, in India, whether of European or Indian race, now
occupy high places in the world of science.
16. Compare Bolingbroke's observation, already quoted, that 'history
is philosophy teaching by example'.