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THE NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NEIGHBOURS OF OURS: Scenes of East End Life. (Arrowsmith.)
IN THE VALLEY OF TOPHET: Scenes of Black Country Life. (Dent.)
THE THIRTY DAYS’ WAR: Scenes in the War between Greece and Turkey.
(Dent.)
CLASSIC GREEK LANDSCAPE AND ARCHITECTURE: Pictures by John
Fulleylove. (Dent.)
LADYSMITH: a Diary of the Siege. (Methuen.)
THE PLEA OF PAN. (Murray.)
BETWEEN THE ACTS: Scenes in the Author’s Experience. (Murray.)
ON THE OLD ROAD THROUGH FRANCE TO FLORENCE (French chapters):
Pictures by Mr. Hallam Murray. (Murray.)
BOOKS AND PERSONALITIES: Literary Essays. (John Lane.)
A MODERN SLAVERY: An account of the Slave Trade in the Portuguese
Colony of Angola and the Cocoa Islands of San Thomé and Principe.
(Harper.)
THE DAWN IN RUSSIA: Scenes in the Revolution of 1905-6. (Harper.)
THE REVOLT IN THE CAUCASUS: Scenes in the Rebellion, 1906-7.
(Harper’s Monthly, 1908.)
[Illustration: CONTEMPLATION.
(Statue of a SANYASI, by G. M. MHATTRE of Bombay.)
_Frontispiece._]
]
THE NEW SPIRIT
IN INDIA
BY
HENRY W. NEVINSON
[Illustration: Decoration]
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON AND NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS
45 ALBEMARLE STREET W.
1908
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
Summary of recent events—Lord Curzon appointed Viceroy, 1898—The
currency—Calcutta Municipality—Famine of 1900—Punjab
Land Alienation Act—Commission on Expenditure—Lord
Kitchener as Commander-in-Chief—Delhi Durbar—Reduction
of Salt Tax—Official Secrets Act—Universities
Act—Alleged exclusion of Indians from office—National
Congress in Bombay, 1904—Lord Curzon’s Convocation
Speech—Partition of Bengal, October 16, 1905—Swadeshi
movement—Lord Curzon’s resignation—Lord Minto appointed
Viceroy—Mr. John Morley appointed Secretary of
State for India—Trouble in Eastern Bengal—Sir Bampfylde
Fuller resigns—“Coronation” of Mr. Banerjea—Disturbances
in Eastern Bengal and the Punjab—Prosecution
of Indian papers—Riot at Rawal Pindi—Arrest of six lawyers—Deportation
of Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh—Public Meetings
Ordinance—The Risley Circular—Appointment of two
Indians to Indian Council—Proposed scheme of Reforms—Opium
Agreement with China—Anglo-Russian Agreement—Seditious
Meetings Act—Mr. Morley’s speech at Arbroath—Cases
of supposed failure of justice—Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji
retires to India 1
CHAPTER I
A SERVANT OF INDIA
Festival of Diwali at Poona—The plague—Mr. Gokhale’s Society
of “Servants of India”—His past history—Member of the
Viceroy’s Legislative Council—Rules of the Society—Social
and political aims—The British connection—Indians and
Anglo-Indians—Criticism of proposed reforms—Mr.
Gokhale’s suggestions—A Society dinner 31
CHAPTER II
RATS AND MEN
Plague and rats—Previous attempts to check plague—The rat-flea—War
on rats—Plague mortality—A plague hospital—Symptoms
of plague—Course of the sickness—Descriptions
of former plagues—Inoculation—A Government inoculator 48
CHAPTER III
THE EXTREMIST
The custom of garlanding—The fortress of Singarh—Mr. Tilak—Religion
and scholarship—Theory of the Vedas—His past
history—Breach at Nagpur—His statement of his party’s
aims and methods—“Self-reliance, not mendicancy”—The
boycott—Growth of Indian unity—Quotations from Mr.
Tilak’s speeches—His arrest and sentence in 1908 62
CHAPTER IV
THE RYOT’S BURDEN
Mr. Junshi on family worship—His passion for statistics—“Statistical
abstract”—Finance and population—Expenditure
on Army, Education, and official Christianity—The Land
Settlement—Its origin and proportion—Is it tax or rent?—Lord
Salisbury’s opinion—How the amount is fixed—Mr.
Vaughan Nash on the Settlement—The cultivator’s income—How
he clings to the land, even without profit—The
money-lender and the Government—Collection of assessment—Ryots
and zemindars—Permanent Settlement of Bengal—Suburbs
of Poona—Character of the Ryot—Government as
protector of the poor—Forest Department—Grazing and
timber—Arms Act and wild beasts—The tiger as scarecrow—A
village petition—A sacrifice to education 78
CHAPTER V
THE SOUTHERN CITY
The pride of Madras—Municipal labours—Decentralization Commission—A
student of philosophy—The religion of the
grave—The religion of healing—A temple of Vishnu—A
family ceremony—Missionaries in Madras—The benefit of
missions—Memory of good Governors—Sir Thomas Munro—Decline
of Anglo-Indian manners—Causes of this—Distrust
of British justice—Proposed separation of functions—Police—Drink
question and revenue—Forms of Swadeshi 103
CHAPTER VI
ON THE BEACH
Meeting on Madras sands—Release of Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh—Song
of “Bande Mataram”—Parody of Mr. Morley—Speeches—Audience—Absence
of sedition—A Sanyasi’s
speech 125
CHAPTER VII
THE FLOODS OF ORISSA
The country and government—Mountains, rivers, and plains—The
great flood of 1907—Brown skeletons—Officials and
figures—Settlement revision—Scene of flood and famine—Deposit
of sand—Price of food—Chief sufferers—Village
houses—Tax-collectors—Government action—Madhu Sudan
Das—A call on an official—An official order—A Rajah’s
breakfast 134
CHAPTER VIII
“LORD OF THE WORLD”
Pilgrims at Puri—Shrine of Juggernath—Legend of the car—Possible
origin of the god’s fame—Benefit of equality—Brother
and sister—Inequality in India—Its consequences on
Indian and English manners—Possible growth of equality 152
CHAPTER IX
THE DIVIDED LAND
Eastern Bengal—Its rivers—Its fertility—Ancient weaving
industry—Modern hand-looms—Growth of jute—Variable
prices—Jute or rice?—Settlement and zemindars—Boycott
on cotton and salt—Lord Curzon and the Partition—Alternative
scheme—Useless protests against Partition—The
Fast of Commemoration—Part cause of unrest—So-called
sentimental objections—Separation from Calcutta—Sorrows
of landlords—Conjunction with Assam—Fears of separation
from Calcutta High Court 160
CHAPTER X
SWADESHI AND THE VOLUNTEERS
Earlier forms of Swadeshi—The Swadeshi Oath—Effect of
the movement—Encouraged by women—Various Swadeshi
manufactures—Official encouragement—Congress resolutions—Boycott
and picketing—The Volunteers—Origin in early
Congresses—“Little Brothers of the Poor”—Protection to
women pilgrims—Encouragement of athletes—Sufferers
from boycott 178
CHAPTER XI
THE NAWAB
Dacca—City anchorite—Nawab Salimulla—His history and
position—Government loan—Support of Partition—Mohammedan
against Hindu—Nawab’s palace—His conversation—Views
on cooking, jewellery, women, and politics—His
happiness and confidence in Providence—Belief in
English education—Influence over Mohammedans—Characteristics
of Mohammedans—A letter to Layard—Favour
to Mohammedans—Petty persecution of Hindus—Espionage—How
far amusing, how far mean—Memories of Eastern
Bengal 189
CHAPTER XII
THREE BENGALIS AND THE PAPERS
The Kalighat of Calcutta—Worship of Kali—Her symbolism—Other
temple of Kali—Ramakrishna Society—Moti
Lal Ghose—His brother and religion—The _Amrita Bazar
Patrika_—Moti Lal’s opinions—Surendra Nath Banerjea—Past
history—Position in politics—Ripon College and the
_Bengalee_—His power as an orator—Manner of eloquence—_Bande
Mataram_—An Extremist paper—Arabindo
Ghose connected with it—His past career—His policy
of general Swadeshi and boycott of the Government and
everything foreign—His gratitude for Lord Curzon’s rule—Growth
of Indian nationality—Scheme for an Indian popular
assembly—Advocacy of national courage—Macaulay’s
accusation of cowardice—Religious tone of Bengali
Nationalists—Extract from Arabindo Ghose’s address in
Bombay—Violent language of Indian and Anglo-Indian
papers—Examples of style from the _Asian_ and the _Times of
India_—Insults to Mr. Keir Hardie and the Indians of
Bombay 206
CHAPTER XIII
A MAHRATTA SHOE
Journey to Surat—Dr. Rash Behari Ghose—Arrival at Surat—News
of attempted assassination of Mr. Allen—Separate
Extremist camp—Questions of the Calcutta resolutions—Attitude
towards Bombay Moderates—Sir Pherozeshah
Mehta—Lajpat Rai as peacemaker—Vain negotiations—First
day’s meeting of the Congress—Demonstration against
Mr. Banerjea—Suspension of meeting—Alteration of Calcutta
Resolutions discussed—Crux of the Boycott resolution—Further
vain negotiations—Second day’s meeting—Election
of President—Mr. Tilak’s action—Storm in the
Congress—The Mahratta Shoe—Meeting breaks up in disorder—Free
fight in the pavilion—Meeting of Convention
of Moderates next day—Lajpat Rai on the platform—Meeting
of Extremists—End of the Congress—Temporary
unpopularity of the Moderate leaders 233
CHAPTER XIV
A CITY OF GOD
Scene by the river at Benares—A pilgrim of the Ganges—How
a man’s soul is absorbed into the universal soul—Whether
the crowd desire such absorption—How indifference
to this transitory life may be obtained—The benefit of
symbolism even to the ignorant—The advantage of overcoming
earthly desires—The example of Janaka—How far
removed we of the common people are from it 263
CHAPTER XV
THE PATIENT EARTH
Why an Indian official slept in the cold—Famine near
Allahabad—Description of country—Wells and tanks—Sir
John Hewett and relief—Sympathy of officials in famine—Test
works—A state of famine—Wages and rations—Recruiting
stations—Roads and dams as relief works—How
dams are made—How the people lived—Sir John Hewett on
numbers and loss—Financial Statement on the year’s famine—General
increase of prices—Probable increase of poverty
in certain classes—Various reasons attributed—Comparison
of peasants and town workpeople—Peasant incomes—Village
labourers and artisans—Wages of Bombay mill-hands—Conditions
of labour and housing—Village conditions—Ignorance
and monotony—Burdens on the land 270
CHAPTER XVI
THE ARYA SAMAJ
A Vedic service—The Samaj at Lahore—Its founder Dayananda—Growth
and objects—Two divisions—Lajpat Rai’s
connection with Samaj—His past history—Devotion to
social and religious reform—Visit to England and America—Effect
of Liberalism—Causes of neglect of India—He
advocates self-reliance—Grievances of the Punjab—His
deportation—Suspicion of Arya Samaj—Its avoidance of
politics—The Gurukula near Hardwar—System of education—Isolated
boyhood—Daily life—Study of Sanscrit—Method
of teaching in India criticized—Cost of secondary
education at boarding-schools 291
CHAPTER XVII
A FESTIVAL OF SPRING
The palace at Baroda—Vasantha—Maharajah and Resident—Honours
to the Empire—Dust of flowers—Life of a Native
Ruler—Administration of Baroda—Alleged errors—Measures
of reform—Social reform—The Maharani 312
CHAPTER XVIII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Our government of India—Danger of withdrawal to ourselves
and India—Our probable successor if we withdrew—Signs of
new spirit in India—Our contributions to new spirit—External
causes of unrest—Suspicions of our justice and benevolence—How
far inconsiderate—Plague, famine, and the drain of
money—Where the Congress movement has failed—Our
disregard of grievances has encouraged new methods—Extension
of Swadeshi principle to all sides of life—The line
of most resistance—To check “moral poverty”—But hopes
of Moderate policy continue—Immediate reforms demanded—Change
of heart essential but slow—Crisis calls for generous
and definite reform—New spirit in India cannot be checked—Our
own reputation for freedom at stake 320
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
CONTEMPLATION _Frontispiece_
A STREET IN POONA 32
MR. GOKHALE 34
A HEALTH CAMP 50
IN A VILLAGE 50
A VILLAGE STREET 58
A STREET IN PLAGUE 58
MR. TILAK 64
THE RYOT’S HOME 92
CARRYING LEAVES FOR FUEL 92
ON THE CAUSEWAY 96
A VILLAGE HEADMAN 96
A TEMPLE TANK, MADRAS 102
A SERVANT OF VISHNU 106
THE END OF MAN 108
OFFERINGS TO THE DEAD 108
DANCE OF HIGH CASTE GIRLS IN MADRAS 122
HUNGER 136
MY ELEPHANT 140
A VILLAGE CROWD 140
THE TEMPLE OF EQUALITY 152
ON THE BRAHMAPUTRA 160
A TEMPLE TANK 186
A TEMPLE OF SHIVA 186
A TEMPLE OF SIKHS 200
A MOHAMMEDAN MOSQUE 200
THE KALIGHAT 206
PILGRIMS TO KALI 206
ENTRANCE TO THE PANDAL AT SURAT 258
THE LINE OF RETREAT 258
THE SACRED RIVER 262
ON THE BANK 264
THE BURNING-PLACE 266
THE RIVER WALLS 266
A PLACE OF PRAYER 268
A BULLOCK WELL 272
GOING TO WORK 274
RELIEF SHELTERS 274
ON THE RELIEF WORKS 276
SWADESHI WEAVERS IN BOMBAY AND MADRAS 284
WORKMEN’S DWELLINGS, BOMBAY 286
BOMBAY MILL-HANDS 288
LALA LAJPAT RAI 296
AN ARYA SAMAJ TEACHER 304
A STREET IN HARDWAR 306
HARDWAR STRAND 306
IN THE GURUKULA 310
MAKING YARN 318
A VILLAGE PANCHAYAT 318
A DESERTED CITY 334
THE NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA
INTRODUCTION
SUMMARY OF RECENT EVENTS
Although politics are not the only subject of this book, it may be of
assistance if I summarize very briefly the chief political events of
the few years preceding the winter of 1907-8 when I was in India.
No hard-and-fast line can be drawn in history, but the arrival of
LORD CURZON AS VICEROY on December 30th, 1898, marks a fairly strong
and natural division. He had previously been Under-Secretary for
India (1891-92), and Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (1895-98),
and he was well known for the distinction of his Oxford career and
for his travels in Central Asia, Persia, and the Far East. In the
House of Commons he had further won a high reputation for industry,
knowledge, and self-reliance.
The first year of his office (1899) was marked by a change in the
CURRENCY, by which a gold standard was introduced, gold and currency
reserves instituted, and a permanent rate of exchange fixed at
sixteen pence to the rupee, or fifteen rupees to the pound sterling—a
higher value than the rupee had reached in the fluctuations of the
five previous years. Before the closing of the mints, it had sunk to
13·1 pence.
In the same year Lord Curzon began his policy of efficiency by
reducing the CALCUTTA MUNICIPALITY from seventy-five to fifty,
cutting out twenty-five of the elected members, in spite of strong
protests on the part of the Indian electors.
He also began to earn an enviable unpopularity among certain classes
of Anglo-Indians for his characteristic vigour in denouncing a
British battalion, some privates of which were believed to have
outraged a native woman to death in RANGOON and remained undetected.
The year 1900 was a season of terrible FAMINE, especially in the
Central Provinces. About 5,500,000 people came on relief works, and
famine was followed by cholera.[1] At the same time the Punjab LAND
ALIENATION ACT was passed, forbidding the transference of land to any
but agriculturists, the intention being to prevent the expropriation
of peasants by money-lenders.
LORD WELBY’S COMMISSION on Indian Expenditure issued their reports,
but the majority report suggested no important changes of taxation
beyond the transference of charges amounting to £293,000 a year to
the Imperial Exchequer. Their recommendation that England should
contribute £50,000 to the expenses of the India Office was not
carried out.
In 1901 the NORTH-WEST FRONTIER PROVINCE was created, and in the
following year LORD KITCHENER was appointed Commander-in-Chief, the
Education Commission, presided over by Sir Thomas Raleigh, published
its Report (Sir Guru Das Banerjee writing a Note of Dissent), and the
POLICE COMMISSION began to sit under Sir Andrew Fraser (afterwards
Lieut.-Governor of Bengal).
In the same year Lord Curzon increased his unpopularity among the
class of Anglo-Indians above mentioned, by punishing the 9TH LANCERS,
because at Sialkot two privates were believed to have beaten to death
a native cook who refused to procure a native woman for them; they
remained undetected.
The next year (1903) opened with a great DURBAR AT DELHI, the
estimated cost of which was £180,000, and the real cost probably at
least £200,000, apart from the local expenses of provinces and Native
States. The TIBET expedition started in the same year.
More important than either of these events for the history of India
was the REDUCTION OF THE SALT TAX, or more properly, the reduction of
the price of salt under the Government monopoly. Between this year
and 1907 it was reduced from 2 rupees 8 annas per maund to 1 rupee (a
maund = 82·29 lbs.).[2]
Lord Curzon’s office was now renewed for a further uncertain term,
believed to be two years. But before his departure for six months’
leave in 1904, he had already reduced his popularity among the
educated classes of India. By the OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT, he extended
the Acts of 1889 and 1897 so as to include information upon civil
affairs and matters of fact among the offences, as well as military
secrets and newspaper criticism, “likely to bring the Government or
constituted authority into suspicion or contempt.” As the burden of
proof was thrown on the accused, and it was unnecessary to establish
criminal intention for conviction, this Act limited newspapers to the
supply of such information as the Government pleased.
In the same year an attempt was made to raise the standard of higher
education by the UNIVERSITIES ACT. The main object was to induce the
five Universities of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lahore, and Allahabad
to undertake instruction and supervision as well as examination, to
which their function had been limited at first. It was laid down
that all students at a University must be members of an affiliated
college, and changes were introduced into the constitution of the
Senates, which were now to be largely composed of the Chancellor’s
nominees and _ex-officio_ members—High Court Judges, Bishops,
members of Executive Councils, the provincial Directors of Public
Instruction, and professors of Government and missionary colleges. It
was complained that these provisions destroyed the independence of
the Universities, and, owing to the increased expense, much reduced
the number of students able to compete for degrees. On the other
hand, it is maintained, and I believe justly, that the standard of
learning in its higher branches has been considerably advanced since
the Act among the affiliated colleges.
A few sentences may be quoted from Lord Curzon’s BUDGET SPEECH in
March of this year (1904), as showing his general attitude towards
educated Indians and their demands:—
“I sympathize most deeply with the aspirations of the Indians
towards greater national unity, and with their desire to play a
part in the public life of the country. But I do not think that
the salvation of India is to be sought on the field of politics
at the present stage of her development.... The highest ranks
of civil employment in India must as a general rule be held by
Englishmen, for the reason that they possess, partly by heredity,
partly by up-bringing, and partly by education, the knowledge of
the principles of government, the habits of mind, the vigour of
character, which are essential for the task, and that, the rule
of India being a British rule, and every other rule being in the
circumstances of the case impossible, the tone and standard should
be set by those who have created and are responsible for it.”[3]
He further went on to maintain that on salaries of £800 a year and
upward, 1263 government servants were Europeans, 15 Eurasians, and
92 Indians; while on salaries between £60 and £800, there were 5205
Europeans, 5420 Eurasians, and 16,283 Indians. These figures were,
however, severely analysed by Mr. Gokhale in his Budget speech of
1905.
It was held by educated Indians that a Government Resolution of May
24, 1904, carrying this statement of policy into effect, tended to
exclude Indians from the higher branches of the service, and stood in
contradiction to QUEEN VICTORIA’S PROCLAMATION for India in 1858, in
which occur the following two clauses:—
“We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories
by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our
other subjects; and those obligations we shall faithfully and
conscientiously fulfil.
“And it is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects,
of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to
offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified,
by their education, ability, and integrity, duly to discharge.”
Accordingly, at the meeting of the National Congress in Bombay at
the end of this year, the first resolution was in protest against
the EXCLUSION OF INDIANS from the higher grades of the Service.
The other resolutions, showing the tendency of the time, included
protests against the increasing military expenditure, especially upon
the Tibet expedition, and demands for wider education, technical
schools, a Permanent Land Settlement, police reform in accordance
with the Commission of 1903, the separation of judicial and executive
functions throughout the Civil Service, simultaneous examinations
for the Service in England and India, and part payment by England
of the cost of the India Office in Whitehall. SIR HENRY COTTON,
Chief Commissioner of Assam from 1896 to 1902, was President of the
Congress that year, and he was deputed to lay the resolutions before
the Viceroy in person. But Lord Curzon refused to receive him.
On February 11, 1905, Lord Curzon addressed the CONVOCATION OF
CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY with a dissertation upon truthfulness and other
virtues—
“I hope I am making no false or arrogant claim,” he said, “when
I say that the highest ideal of truth is to a large extent a
Western conception. I do not thereby mean to claim that Europeans
are universally or even generally truthful, still less do I mean
that Asiatics deliberately or habitually deviate from the truth.
The one proposition would be absurd, the other insulting. But
undoubtedly truth took a high place in the moral codes of the West
before it had been similarly honoured in the East, where craftiness
and diplomatic wile have always been held in much repute. We may
prove it by the common innuendo that lurks in the words ‘Oriental
diplomacy,’ by which is meant something rather tortuous and
hypersubtle. The same may be seen in Oriental literature. In your
epics truth will often be extolled as a virtue; but quite as often
it is attended with some qualification, and very often praise is
given to successful deception practised with honest aim.”
The Viceroy, addressing his Bengali audience, went on to say that “he
knew no country where mare’s-nests were more prolific than here”;
and he warned them especially against flattery and vituperation, and
afterwards against eloquence.
“In India,” he said, “there are two sets of people, the reticent
and the eloquent. I dare say you know to which class the people in
this part of the country belong. I am sometimes lost in admiration
at the facility with which they speak in a foreign language, and I
envy the accomplishment. All I say to you is, do not presume upon
this talent.”
Towards the conclusion of the speech, he introduced the following
sentences:—
“Learn that the true salvation of India will not come from
without, but must be created within. It will not be given you
by enactment of the British Parliament, or of any Parliament at
all.... Be true Indians—that is the prompting of nationality.... In
India I see the claim constantly advanced that a man is not merely
a Bengali, or an Uriya, or a Mahratta, or a Sikh, but a member of
the Indian nation. I do not think it can yet be said that there is
any Indian nation, though in the distant future some approach to it
may be evolved. However that may be, the Indian is most certainly a
member of the British Empire.”[4]
Neither these contradictory remarks on nationality, nor the Viceroy’s
well-intentioned exposition of the national tendency to deceit, were
received by the audience and their friends in a properly chastened
spirit. But the _Amrita Bazar Patrika_, next to the _Bengalee_,
perhaps the most influential Indian paper in Calcutta, contented
itself with the following extract from Lord Curzon’s book, called
“Problems of the Far East” (p. 155 of the edition quoted), where,
writing of his conversation with the President of the Korean Foreign
Office, he said:—
“Having been warned not to say I was only thirty-three, when he
put me the straight question, ‘How old are you?’ I unhesitatingly
responded, ‘Forty.’ ‘I presume you are a near relative of the Queen
of England?’ (asked the President). ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I am not.’
But I was fain to add, ‘I am, however, as yet an unmarried man,’
with which unscrupulous suggestion I completely regained the old
gentleman’s favour.”
The quotation was regarded as apt, but the passage was only a joke,
and it must be remembered that Lord Curzon had not claimed that
Europeans are universally or even generally truthful. He had called
that proposition absurd.
The speech itself would probably have been soon forgotten if it
had not been connected in the popular mind with the greatest and
most disastrous of Lord Curzon’s schemes for promoting his ideal of
efficiency—the PARTITION OF BENGAL.
It had long been evident that the Province of Bengal, if the
large outlying districts of Orissa, Behar, and Chota Nagpur were
included, was too large for one administration. It contained close
upon 80,000,000 souls. But of this amount Bengal Proper counted for
only 43,000,000. The next largest of the districts was Behar, with
21,500,000. Two things were possible and would have been gladly
accepted—either to form a new province out of the western districts
of Behar, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa, with a capital at Patna or
Ranchi, relieving Bengal of a population of about 33,000,000; or
to have elevated Bengal into a Governorship on the same standing
as Bombay and Madras, under a Governor appointed directly from
England instead of a Lieut.-Governor appointed out of the Indian
Civil Service; and at the same time to have organized the outlying
districts as Commissionerships, responsible either to the Crown, or
to the Governor of Bengal. Either of these two main schemes would
have been accepted without question by the enormous majority of the
inhabitants, and the chief principles of the second were favoured by
Mr. Brodrick (Lord Midleton), at that time Secretary of State for
India.
Lord Curzon, however, was determined to cut Bengal Proper and
the Bengali-speaking community in two, giving 25,000,000 of the
population to the new Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam with a
new capital at Dacca, and 18,000,000 of the population to a Province
still to be called Bengal, with the old capital of Calcutta, and
bound up with the outlying districts of Behar, Chota Nagpur, and
Orissa, all of which differ from Bengal in race, language, and
civilization, as does Assam. Under this division, the populations of
the two new Provinces are approximately 54,000,000 in Bengal, and
31,000,000 in Eastern Bengal and Assam.[5]
When Partition on these lines was first proposed, it excited
strong protest, not only among the Hindu population of Bengal, but
among many Civil Servants and Anglo-Indian papers, also among the
Mohammedans of Eastern Bengal, who are Bengalis by race, but number
three-fifths of the population, and, therefore, might be expected to
welcome the change, especially as they were promised considerable
advantages under the new administration. Large numbers of public
meetings were held throughout Bengal to protest against the
measure, and petitions were sent to the British Parliament. As the
British authorities paid no attention to these representations, the
“Swadeshi” (literally “Our own Country”) movement was started for the
exclusive use of native productions, in the hope that a boycott on
British goods might at last induce public opinion in England to take
notice of an Indian grievance. As Mr. John Morley said, when speaking
as Secretary of State for India in the House of Commons, February 26,
1906: “I am bound to say, nothing was ever worse done in disregard to
the feeling and opinion of the majority of the people concerned.”
Nevertheless, Lord Curzon accomplished the Partition by an unexpected
PROCLAMATION from Simla on September 1, 1905, appointing Sir Andrew
Fraser Lieut.-Governor in Calcutta, and Sir Bampfylde Fuller
Lieut.-Governor in Dacca, both being entire strangers to Bengal. The
Partition came into force on October 16, 1905—a day observed as a
fast of humiliation and prayer throughout the Provinces.
In the same month MR. GOKHALE and LALA LAJPAT RAI came to England as
Congress Delegates, to lay the demands of the constitutional reform
party before English audiences. Lala Lajpat Rai also visited America.
Before the Partition was proclaimed, Lord Curzon had submitted his
RESIGNATION (August 12, 1905), owing to a difference of opinion
with Lord Kitchener over the appointment of a new “Military Supply
Member” to the Viceroy’s Council; and, in reality, over the position
of the Commander-in-Chief and the Military Supply Member with regard
to the Governor-General in Council. The difference does not concern
us, except that, as the Conservative Home Government supported Lord
Kitchener’s view, and thus drove Lord Curzon to resign, it was widely
believed that Mr. Brodrick accepted the Partition the more readily as
a salve to Lord Curzon’s feelings.[6]
The EARL OF MINTO was at once appointed to succeed, but Lord Curzon
remained to nearly the end of the year, partly in order to welcome
the Prince and Princess of Wales on their visit to India. In his
farewell speech at Simla (September 30, 1905) he said:—
“If I were asked to sum up my work in a single word, I would
say ‘Efficiency.’ That has been our gospel, the keynote of our
administration.”[7]
No one has questioned his industry and personal devotion. During his
seven years’ tenure, he instituted Commissions on plague, famine,
irrigation, universities, and police; he organized departments of
Commerce and Industry, and of Imperial Customs; he endeavoured to
introduce elasticity into the Land Assessment; he revolutionized
our Frontier policy; and he did more for the preservation of
Indian history, architecture, and ancient memorials than any of
his predecessors. All this in addition to the other changes and
undertakings mentioned above.
The appointment of MR. JOHN MORLEY to the India Office (December,
1905) was received with the utmost enthusiasm by the country, but,
unfortunately, Lord Curzon’s industrious devotion to efficiency,
without consideration of the prejudices or reasonable desires of
the people concerned, had sown the seed for the irritation and
disturbances of the next two years. The first signs of unrest
naturally appeared in Eastern Bengal, where the SWADESHI movement had
been instituted as a protest against the Partition. SIR BAMPFYLDE
FULLER found himself at once involved in difficulties about the
boycott of foreign goods, public meetings, and the participation of
schoolboys and students in the political questions that occupied
all minds. On April 14, 1906, the Bengal Provincial Conference
was dispersed with violence by the police at Barisal. Bodies of
punitive police and Gurkhas were quartered in several small towns
and villages at their expense. Schools were deprived of their grants
and the right to compete for scholarships. A circular was issued
curtailing the right of public meeting, and suppressing processions
and the cry of “Bande Mataram.” In another circular Sir Bampfylde
Fuller laid it down that a fixed proportion of Government posts
should be reserved for Mohammedans, and, until that proportion had
been reached, no qualified Mohammedan candidate should be rejected
in favour of a Hindu candidate, merely because the latter had
superior qualifications (May 25, 1906). Finally, owing to some petty
disturbances by schoolboys at Serajganj, in the Pabna district
(November 15, 1905), the Lieut.-Governor who had already severely
punished the two schools in the place, and posted punitive police
there, demanded that they should be disaffiliated from Calcutta
University. The Government asked him to reconsider the case, and he
resigned (August 4, 1906), being succeeded by Sir Lancelot Hare.
The next month was marked by a characteristic description of a
simple incident by Calcutta correspondents to the English press. On
September 5th MR. SURENDRA NATH BANERJEA, twice President of the
National Congress and now editor of the _Bengalee_ newspaper in
Calcutta, was honoured by a common Indian ceremony of “benediction”
in a private house. It was an affair of an umbrella, a chaplet,
garlands, and the recitation of verses from the Vedas. It is almost
impossible for even a casual visitor to India to escape a score of
very similar performances. Yet the correspondents on whom England
chiefly depends for Indian news described this as a solemn CORONATION
of Mr. Banerjea as India’s Emperor, as if to rouse the suspicions and
rage of the English people into sensational panic.
In the spring of 1907, local disturbances occurred in Eastern
Bengal and the Punjab. Meetings to protest against the Partition
had been continually held in Eastern Bengal, and in the first week
of March the Nawab Salimulla of Dacca visited the small town of
COMILLA in order to encourage counter-demonstrations on the part of
the Mohammedans, over whom he claimed great influence. During his
visit small riots took place between Hindu and Mohammedan crowds;
a Mohammedan was killed and one or two Hindus. By one means or
another, the report was circulated through the country that the
Indian Government was favouring the Mohammedan population and would
inflict no punishment for the looting of Hindu shops or the abduction
of Hindu women, especially widows. Accordingly, shops were looted,
Hindu widows abducted, and the cases of outrage upon women by gangs
increased in number.
In the third week of April further disturbances broke out at
JAMALPUR, another small town in Eastern Bengal, where the Hindus,
during a festival, were set upon by Mohammedan rowdies, who
desecrated a temple and maintained panic in the district for the next
few weeks.
The troubles that arose in the PUNJAB, about the same time, were
largely agricultural in origin. There had been a large increase in
the land-assessment, together with a sudden rise in the irrigation
rates, especially on the Bari-Doab canal. The Punjab Legislative
Council had also brought forward a COLONIZATION BILL altering the
agreements by which colonists held reclaimed land, especially in the
Chenab Colony, under the Act of 1893. Many relations of these tenants
were enlisted in Sikh and other Indian regiments, and ultimately
Lord Minto withheld his consent from the Bill. The question of the
irrigation dues was also postponed for a year.
Meantime, Indian opinion was constantly irritated by the abuse and
ridicule poured upon educated Indians in the “CIVIL AND MILITARY
GAZETTE,” the leading Anglo-Indian paper of Lahore. They were spoken
of as “babbling B.A.’s,” “base-born B.A.’s,” “an unhonoured nobility
of the school,” “serfs,” “beggars on horseback,” “servile classes,”
“a class that carries a stigma,” and so on. When petitioned twice to
put an end to this kind of journalism as stirring up strife between
the races, Sir Denzil Ibbetson, at that time Lieut.-Governor of the
Punjab, regretted the tone of the articles but refused to prosecute.
On the other hand, two Indian papers in Lahore were
prosecuted—“INDIA” for republishing a letter from America containing
a seditious appeal to the native troops, and the “PUNJABEE” for its
comments on a case of “Begar,” or forced labour, which was supposed
to have led to the death of two villagers compelled to work for an
official. In the case of _India_, the proprietor and editor, Pindi
Das, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, and the printer, Dina
Nath, to two years. In the _Punjabee_ case, the proprietor, Lala
Jaswant Rai, was sentenced, on appeal, to a fine of 1000 rupees and
six months’ imprisonment, and the editor, K. K. Athavale, to a fine
of 200 rupees and six months’ imprisonment.
After the judgment of the Chief Court on appeal was given in the
_Punjabee_ case (April 16, 1907), the prisoners on their way to gaol
were met by an enthusiastic crowd, and there was some disturbance,
for which three young men were arrested.
This disturbance was followed by a more serious riot at RAWAL PINDI,
the greatest military cantonment of the north-west district of India
(May 2nd). In the previous February a young and then unknown Indian,
named AJIT SINGH, had started an “Indian Patriots’ Association,”
chiefly to deal with the agricultural grievances above mentioned.
Various meetings were held, and at Lyallpur (March 22nd) LALA LAJPAT
RAI, who had no connection with the Association, but was well known
in Lahore as a religious and social reformer in the Arya Samaj,
addressed an agricultural audience, in a speech in which he ventured
to declare that officials are servants of the public. Ajit Singh also
spoke, and this was the only occasion on which the two men were on
the same platform.
Meetings were held at Rawal Pindi, on April 7th and 21st. On the
latter day Ajit Singh made a violent attack upon the increase of
land assessment, calling on the peasants to cease cultivation until
the amount was reduced. Mr. Hansraj Sawhny, a prominent pleader, in
the chair, checked the speaker, who went away in a rage. But shortly
afterwards, Mr. Agnew, the Deputy Commissioner, summoned the chairman
and two other lawyers, for an enquiry into the matter. On the very
morning of the enquiry, the proceedings were postponed, owing to a
telegram from Sir Denzil Ibbetson, and the large crowd which had
collected, instead of dispersing, swept down a main road, destroyed
and burnt some furniture from a mission house and church, and damaged
some gardens and houses of Europeans, together with a Hindu workshop,
where the men were on strike. The police did not appear, but troops
patrolled the town later.
For this riot, six prominent lawyers were arrested and kept in gaol,
no bail being allowed, through the hot weather from May 3rd to
October 1st, when they were acquitted and discharged, the magistrate
declaring the evidence was fabricated. In consequence of this
unmerited imprisonment, one of them has since died.
About sixty other persons were arrested, and five were condemned,
three of them to seven years’ imprisonment for riot and arson. The
trial took place before Mr. A. E. Martineau, Sessions Judge of Delhi,
as Special Magistrate, and the terms of his judgment did much to
restore Indian confidence in British justice.
THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY (May 10th),
had been fixed by some Anglo-Indian journalists as the date for a
probable rising against the British, and, owing to their warnings,
preparations were made for withdrawing the British residents,
especially in the Punjab towns, into the forts. But in spite of all
that prophecy could do, no outbreak occurred.
However, on May 9th, Lala Lajpat Rai was suddenly DEPORTED from
Lahore without notice, charge, or trial, and conveyed to the fort in
Mandalay. Ajit Singh was similarly deported from Amritsar.
When questioned in the Commons as to this breach of “Habeas Corpus,”
Mr. John Morley pleaded the powers of deportation granted by a
REGULATION OF 1818, under which thirty-two persons were at the moment
detained in restraint.
On May 11th, Lord Minto issued a PROCLAMATION limiting the RIGHT OF
PUBLIC MEETING in parts of the Punjab and Eastern Bengal. Under this
Ordinance seven days’ written notice was required before a meeting,
the meeting might be prohibited by a magistrate, and the police were
to attend.
On May 27th, the Viceroy refused his assent to the Punjab
Colonization Bill above described.
Meantime, on behalf of the Home Department of the Government of
India, SIR HERBERT RISLEY issued a CIRCULAR with regard to the
political behaviour of schoolboys, teachers, students, and professors
(May 6th). It ordained that where schoolboys associated themselves
with political movements grants-in-aid should be withdrawn from the
school, and the privilege of competing for scholarships withheld;
universities were not to recognize the school, nor to admit its
candidates to matriculation. Schoolmasters were allowed by the
Circular “to have a right to their own opinions as much as any one
else,” but should be visited by “disciplinary action” if their
utterances endangered the orderly development of the boys, or were
subversive of their respect for authority. In the case of colleges,
students were allowed to attend meetings, but if they became active
in politics, the privileges of affiliation should be withdrawn.
Professors were permitted more latitude, but if they encouraged
students to attend political meetings, the university or the
Government should intervene.
The BUDGET for the year 1907-8 was estimated at £75,012,800 revenue,
and £74,238,100 expenditure, giving a surplus of £774,700. In his
Budget speech of June 6th, Mr. John Morley made the important
announcement that TWO NOMINATED INDIANS were to be added to the INDIA
COUNCIL in Whitehall, and gave the names of Mr. K. G. Gupta, as
representing the Hindus, and Mr. S. H. Bilgrami, as representing the
Mohammedans.
At the same time he announced a SCHEME OF REFORMS, proposed by the
Indian Government at Simla, to be submitted to the Local Governments
for criticism. In brief, the scheme included:—
(1) The institution of an “Imperial Advisory Council,” consisting of
about sixty members, all appointed by the Viceroy, including twenty
ruling chiefs, “with a suitable number of territorial magnates of
every province where landholders of sufficient dignity and status
are to be found.” This council was to be summoned at the Viceroy’s
pleasure, and to hold nothing but private, informal, and confidential
meetings, having no legislative powers of any sort.
(2) Provincial Advisory Councils—apparently seven—of smaller size,
but consisting of the local Imperial Councillors and representatives
of lesser landholders, industry, commerce, capital, and the
professional classes, all nominated by the head of the Local
Government; their functions also to be entirely consultative.
(3) The enlargement of the Viceroy’s Legislative Council from
twenty-four to fifty-three by the inclusion of more Viceroy’s
nominees, two representatives of the Chambers of Commerce, two
Mohammedans elected by rotation from Mohammedan districts, seven
landholders elected by the landed magnates, and seven instead of
four members elected by the non-official members of the Legislative
Councils. The last point may appear like a concession to popular
representation, but seven out of fifty-three is not so powerful a
fraction as four out of twenty-four.
(4) The enlargement of the Provincial Legislative Councils, but this
proposal was left vague, beyond a few suggestions.
Some miscellaneous points in the history of the year remain to be
noticed.
The official return of deaths from PLAGUE during the first four
months of the year (1907) amounted to 642,000, and the total deaths
from plague since its first appearance in 1896 up to April, 1907,
were 5,250,000.
On August 7th, and again on October 2nd, disturbances arose in
College Square and Beadon Square in Calcutta, and in the same city a
popular speaker named BEPIN CHANDRA PAL was sentenced to six months’
imprisonment (September 11th) for refusing to give evidence in the
prosecution of the Indian paper, _Bande Mataram_. When summoned as
witness before the magistrate, Mr. Kingsford, he replied:—
“I have conscientious objections against taking part in a
prosecution which I believe to be unjust and injurious to the cause
of popular freedom and the interests of public peace.” (August 26.)
Two special commissions were instituted in the autumn—a
DECENTRALIZATION COMMISSION, under Mr. Charles Hobhouse, at that time
Under-Secretary for India, and a FACTORY LABOUR COMMISSION, under Mr.
W. T. Morrison of the Bombay Civil Service. They sat in various parts
of India during the winter.
In July an agreement was announced with China, by which it was
ultimately arranged that China should regard 51,000 chests of OPIUM
exported from India as a standard amount, this amount to be decreased
yearly by one-tenth from 1908 till it disappeared in ten years,
provided that China made similar reductions in her produce.
On August 31st an ANGLO-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT was signed, dividing Persia
into Russian and British spheres of influence, with a neutral zone
between; Afghanistan was recognized as outside Russian influence,
and both Powers agreed not to send representatives to Lhassa. In
some quarters it was hoped that this Agreement would warrant a large
reduction in the military expenditure of India.
In October SIR GEORGE CLARKE, lately Secretary to the Committee of
Imperial Defence, arrived from England as new Governor of Bombay. In
the same month MR. KEIR HARDIE, ex-leader of the Labour Party in the
Commons, visited Eastern Bengal, where his private statements and
conversation were misrepresented by correspondents to the English
newspapers and agencies as seditious speeches.
On November 1st a SEDITIOUS MEETINGS ACT was passed by the Viceroy in
Council at Simla, giving Local Governments the power to “proclaim”
the whole or part of their provinces, in which case seven days’
notice in writing must be given of every public meeting, including
the assembly of twenty persons or over in a private house; the
District Magistrate, or Commissioner of Police was given power to
prohibit such a meeting, or to direct that police should be present.
Mr. Gokhale and Dr. Rash Behari Ghose spoke strongly in opposition
to the Bill as Indian representatives on the Council, and the Tikka
Sahib of Nabha, a Sikh representative of the Punjab, joined them in
voting against the measure, which was carried by a majority of nine
British against three Indians, no other members of Council being
able to attend, as the session was in Simla contrary to precedent
for important legislation.
The next week brought the full text of Mr. John Morley’s speech
to his constituents at Arbroath, in defence of his Indian policy.
I quote the following sentences on account of the attention they
attracted:—
“Does any one want me to go to London to-morrow morning and to
send a telegram to Lord Kitchener, and tell him to disband the
Indian Army, and send home as fast as we can dispatch transports
the British contingent of the Army, and bring away the whole of the
Civil Servants?... How should we look in the face of the civilized
world if we had turned our back upon our duty and upon our task?
How should we bear the savage stings of our own consciences when,
as assuredly we should, we heard through the dark distances the
roar and scream of confusion and carnage in India?”
Speaking of Mr. Keir Hardie and one of his reported sayings in
Eastern Bengal, Mr. Morley said:—
“I am not at all sure that he said this, but it does not matter,
because many other people have said it—That whatever is good in
the way of self-government for Canada must be good for India. In
my view that is the most concise statement that I can imagine, and
the grossest fallacy in all politics.... You might just as well say
that, because a fur coat in Canada at certain times of the year is
a most comfortable garment, therefore a fur coat in the Deccan of
India is a sort of handy garment that you might be very happy to
wear.”
A few sentences further on he added:—
“I hope that the Government of India, so long as I am connected
with it and responsible for it to Parliament and to the country,
will not be hurried by the anger of the impatient idealist. The
impatient idealist—you know him, I know him, I like him; I have
been one myself. He says, ‘You admit that so and so is right, why
don’t you do it? why don’t you do it now?’ Ah, gentlemen, how many
of the most tragic miscarriages in human history have been due to
the impatience of the idealist?
“... You would not have me see men set the prairie on fire without
arresting the hand. You would not blame me when I saw some men
smoking their pipes near powder magazines—you would not call me an
arch-coercionist if I said, ‘Away with the men, and away with the
powder.’”
In answer to those who said India was astonished at the licence
extended to newspapers and speakers, he continued:—
“Orientals, they say, do not understand it. But we are not
Orientals; that is the root of the matter. We English, Scotch,
and Irish are in India because we are not Orientals.... We
are representatives, not of Oriental civilization but Western
civilization, of its methods, its principles, its practices; and I
for one will not be hurried into an excessive haste for repression
by the argument that Orientals do not understand this toleration.
“Anybody who has read history knows that the Extremist beats the
Moderate by his fire, his fiery energy, his very narrowness and
concentration. But still we hold that it would be the height of
political folly for us at this moment to refuse to do all we can to
rally the Moderates to the cause of the Government, simply because
the policy will not satisfy the Extremists. Let us, if we can,
rally the Moderates, and, if we are told that the policy will not
satisfy the Extremists, so be it; our line will remain the same.
“... Some of them (the leaders of unrest) are angry with me. Why?
Because I have not been able to give them the moon. I have got no
moon, and if I had I would not give them the moon.
“... I am not surprised that these educated Indians who read these
great masters and teachers of ours (Milton, Burke, Macaulay, and
Mill) are intoxicated with the ideas of freedom and nationality and
self-government which these great writers promulgate. Who of us can
wonder who had the privilege in the days of our youth, at college
or at home, of turning over these golden pages and seeing that
lustrous firmament dome over our youthful imaginations—who of us
can forget the intoxication and rapture with which we made friends
with these truths?... I only say this to my idealist friends,
whether Indian or European, that for every passage they can find in
the speeches or writings of these great teachers of wisdom, I will
find them a dozen passages in which, in the language of Burke, the
warning is given—‘How weary a step do those take who endeavour to
make out of a great mass a true political personality!’”
After referring to a saying about Sir Henry Lawrence, that “no one
ever sat at his table without learning to think more kindly of the
natives,” Mr. Morley added:—
“India is perhaps the one country—bad manners, overbearing manners
are very disagreeable in all countries—India is the only country
where bad and overbearing manners are a political crime.”
Towards the end of the summer there had been some local riots and
disturbances in Southern India because at COCANADA, on the coast
north of Madras, an Englishman was accused of having beaten a Hindu
boy for shouting “Bande Mataram.” He was sentenced to a small fine
(£10, including damages), and was acquitted on appeal. But this
autumn, unhappily, Indian opinion was further inflamed by the results
of two trials in private cases held before British juries in the
Punjab. In LAHORE a British journalist was accused of having shot his
bearer dead, after kicking him out of the house, revolver in hand,
and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, the jury finding that
death was accidental. In the other case, at RAWAL PINDI, a British
assistant station-master and a Mohammedan porter admitted to having
in turn outraged a Hindu woman, who was waiting for a train and
was enticed into the stationmaster’s room by threats and pretended
information about a telegram. Both were acquitted by the jury on a
plea of “consent.”
In November of this year, Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, veteran champion
of India’s cause before the English people, returned to spend his
last days in a quiet place on the coast near Bombay. Born a Bombay
Parsi in 1825, he had first gone to live in England just before the
Mutiny, but had often returned to official or other work in Baroda
and Bombay. He was a member of the first Indian National Congress
at its inauguration in Bombay (1885), and in the next year stood as
Liberal candidate for Holborn, on which occasion Lord Salisbury told
the electors he could not believe they would vote for a “black man.”
Nevertheless, he was Liberal member for Central Finsbury from 1892
to 1895, being the first Indian in the House of Commons. In 1892 he
was President of the Congress held at Lahore, and in 1906, in spite
of his great age, he consented to be President of the Congress held
at Calcutta, because it was felt that the reverence with which he
was regarded by all Indians would avert the danger of open rupture
between the moderate and extremist parties.
This bare summary of events may, perhaps, be useful for reference,
and I think it will enable readers of the following pages better to
understand the subjects of public interest that were occupying the
attention of educated Indians and of Anglo-Indians when I arrived
at Bombay in October, 1907, as correspondent for the _Manchester
Guardian_ and other papers.
I owe my hearty thanks to all Anglo-Indian and Indian officials
and friends who gave me ungrudging assistance during my visit, and
especially to Mr. S. K. Ratcliffe, lately editor of the _Statesman_
in Calcutta, for reading my proofs and giving me the advantage of his
exceptional knowledge.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For an eye-witness’s account see “The Great Famine,” by Mr.
Vaughan Nash, at that time correspondent of the _Manchester Guardian_
(Longmans: 1900).
[2] The revenue from salt in 1907-8 was £3,336,900 against £4,362,706
in 1906-7, but the consumption of salt went up in 1907-8 to
44,289,000 maunds, compared to an average of 36,445,000 maunds for
the ten previous years.
[3] “Lord Curzon in India;” selection from his speeches; with
Introduction, by Sir Thomas Raleigh. Pp. 142, 143.
[4] “Lord Curzon in India,” pp. 491, 498-9.
[5] Figures in Lord Curzon’s Proclamation of July 19, 1905.
[6] “Lord Midleton, the Secretary of State at that time, made a
reference to the Partition of Bengal in one of his telegrams which
undoubtedly led to the inference in that country that that measure
had been thrown as a sop to soothe my wounded feelings rather than
on grounds of political propriety or expediency.”—Lord Curzon in the
House of Lords, June 30, 1908.
[7] “Lord Curzon in India,” p. 564.
CHAPTER I
A SERVANT OF INDIA
It was the Indian festival of Diwali, held at Poona on Guy
Fawkes’ Day, and celebrated with innumerable flames, like our own
thanksgiving for the protection of King and Parliament. But, in
feeling, the Diwali comes nearer to Christmastide, for it has no
political significance, and the flames are not lighted as a defiance
to the Pope of Rome, but in honour of Lakshmi, the goddess of family
prosperity, who provides wealth sufficient for us, and holds a baby
to the breast above her heart.
So brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, cousins to the tenth
removal, were gathered together in the joy of a kinship that regards
the smallest trace of common blood as absolute and unquestioned claim
to lifelong support under a common roof. No Workhouse or Industrial
School for them! As long as one of the kin has pancakes and a cow,
there is always a certainty of a crumb and a sup of milk all round.
In honour of such riches and family love, the ceilings of the rooms
and the verandahs fluttered with pink and yellow flags; the windows
and doors were hung with festoons of orange marigolds on a string;
upon the entrance pavement neat patterns in whitewash were drawn
by hand-rollers; and, as the streets turned blue with evening, the
children, draped in all the gorgeous crimsons and golds their mothers
could afford, lighted the tiny oil lamps on window-sill and doorstep,
or threw the spurting fires under the very noses of sacred bulls that
wander for their living from shop to shop. To be sure, other helpful
powers beside Lakshmi have a share in the honour (for who can tell
under which form he loves God best?), and it is the temples of Durga
and Vishnu, of Siva and Parvati, lady of the far-off mountain snow,
that make the sacred hill of Parbati outside the city sparkle like an
illuminated birthday cake, for at least one night during the Diwali
feast of brotherhood.
[Illustration: A STREET IN POONA.
[_Face p. 32._
]
The sad thing was that in the beautiful streets where Mahratta nobles
had built their simple palaces under the Peshwas a century ago, many
of the houses now stood dark and empty, in terror of the plague.
Hardly eleven years had passed since the pestilence first appeared,
imported from Hongkong as people thought, and in those eleven years
it had killed nearly six millions of India’s inhabitants. Six
millions out of three hundred millions may not sound very much; it is
only two in every hundred spread over eleven years. But the loss
was not equally distributed, and when I was told that within those
eleven years the inhabitants of Poona had been reduced to nearly
one-third, I knew why so many homes were dark on a night of lamps
and family affection. At the time, the plague was striking down from
twelve to fifteen, or at the highest twenty, so that its visitation
was regarded as light. But I remember the panic when a single case
was reported in London, or even at the more comfortable distance of
Marseilles, and so it was natural to find that many families had gone
to live on selected open spaces outside the city. There among rocks
and withered grass they kindled their little lamps and celebrated
family joy in any hut of wicker, matting, canvas, petroleum
tins, old boxes, boards, or branches which they and the Imperial
Government could manage to rig up between them. Many shopmen had even
transferred their little stores of grain, sweets, and cottons to this
countrified scene, and the general effect was like a scrappy Derby
Day without the races.
Having crossed a bridge, to the left of which thin columns of smoke
still rose from the smouldering bodies of yesterday’s dead, I passed
through one of these Health Camps, as official language fondly
calls them, and found before me a partly finished building of solid
stone—unfinished, but with something already monastic and grave in
its straight-roofed hall and line of cloistral habitations. It was
the rising home of the “Servants of India Society,” and in front of
his own small house the founder and “First Member” of the Society was
standing to receive me.
Mr. Gopal Krishna Gokhale is one of the very few Indians whose name
is known in England to a certain number of people outside the score
or two that pay attention to Indian affairs. Born a Mahratta Brahman
of the highest caste and of ordinary poverty in the small town of
Kolhapur, he threw away the caste and retained the poverty. While
a student at the Elphinstone College in Bombay, he came under the
influence of Justice Ranade, also a Mahratta Brahman and judge of
the High Court, famous already for social reform, and at that time
combining with others to establish the National Congress, which held
its first meeting in 1885. Mr. Gokhale had taken his degree the year
before. Lord Ripon had just left the country, honoured and regretted
among Indians as no other Viceroy has been, and the air was full of
schemes for political emancipation under the favour and encouragement
of British statesmen. Among the reformers of that time, when all
were moderate, Ranade was distinguished for moderation, and when Mr.
Gokhale in his student days chose him as his “guru,” or spiritual
guide, he fixed for life his own characteristics of moderation, and a
certain sweet reasonableness, not only of manner, but of aim.
[Illustration: MR. GOKHALE AND SERVANTS OF INDIA.
[_Face p. 34._
]
It is common to say of a dead politician that he was devoted heart
and soul to the service of his country, and, happily, it is sometimes
true, even though that devoted service has been crowned by honours,
fame, and riches. But of Mr. Gokhale who is still alive, I would
say that for every day of his manhood he has had no motive but his
country’s service, from the day of his appointment on a salary of £60
a year as teacher of history and economics at the Fergusson College
in Poona up to his retirement in 1902 on a pension of £20 a year, and
onward through the last six years of labour, vilification, and heated
controversy. Not a great speaker, and making no attempt at emotional
eloquence at a time when oratory counted for much more in India than
it does now—a man who has never even contemplated any popular arts
except his own inevitable politeness, he has won his influence upon
his country’s future simply by unreserved devotion and integrity of
life. At a moment of intense excitement during the plague riots in
Poona, when Mr. Rand and Lieut. Ayerst were shot by Damodar Chapekar
and his brothers as they drove into the city from Government House
(June 22, 1897), he, being then in England, published charges against
the method of plague-observation by British soldiers, which on his
return he discovered were not supported by the promised evidence, and
he offered an open apology to Lord Sandhurst and the Army. Amidst
an infuriated public opinion, which believed the charges to be not
only true, but below the truth, few could have lived down such a
retractation. But Mr. Gokhale lived it down.
When the National Congress met at Benares in December, 1905, just
after the partition of Bengal, he was elected President as the safest
guide in a crisis of extreme difficulty and increasing indignation.
Mr. John Morley had just received his appointment to the India
Office, and a few lines from Mr. Gokhale’s presidential address may
be quoted to show the hopes and fears of the time:—
“Large numbers of educated men in this country feel towards Mr.
Morley as towards a Master, and the heart hopes and yet trembles.
He, the reverent student of Burke, the disciple of Mill, the friend
and biographer of Gladstone, will he courageously apply their
principles and his own to the government of this country, or will
he too succumb to the influences of the India Office, and thus
cast a blight on hopes which his own writings have done so much to
foster? In any case his appointment indicates how favourable to our
cause the attitude of the new Ministry is.”
For two or three years past Mr. Gokhale had represented the
Presidency of Bombay as one of the elected Indians upon the Viceroy’s
Legislative Council, and when I first met him at Poona, as I have
described, he had just returned from the Council at Simla, in
which the Seditious Meetings Bill was approved.[8] Before the
Viceroy and the rest of the British majority, he had opposed the
Bill with a restrained but overwhelming plea for the common rights
of freedom, as English people understand them. In one significant
passage, after referring to “the malignant activity of certain
unscrupulous correspondents” who had recently been trying to lash the
British public into a panic by false versions of events and private
utterances, he added:—
“The saddest part of the whole thing is that the Secretary of State
for India has fallen a victim to these grievous misrepresentations.
Possessing no personal knowledge of the people of this country,
and overwhelmed with a sense of the vast responsibilities of his
office, he has allowed his vision to be obscured, and his sense of
proportion to be warped. From time to time he has let fall ominous
hints in the House of Commons, and more than once he has spoken as
though some great trouble were brewing in India and the country
were on the eve of a dark disaster. My Lord, in these circumstances
the passing of a Bill like the present, and in such hot haste,
is bound to have the effect of confirming the false impression
which has been already created in England, and this cannot fail
to intensify and deepen still further the sense of injustice and
injury, and the silent resentment with which my countrymen have
been watching the course of events during the last few months.”
Here, on the edge of the rocky country west of Poona, close beside
the Fergusson College for Indians, with which he had been so long
connected, he had laid the foundation of his “Servants of India
Society” two years before, and in the two-roomed cells about a dozen
Knights of the Order were already living. They were men prepared,
in the language of the Society’s rules, “to devote their lives to
the cause of the country in a religious spirit, and to promote,
by all constitutional means, the national interests of the Indian
people.” The object of the Society is to train the Servants as
national missionaries, ready to visit any part of India at the order
of the First Member and Council, in the hope of creating a deep
and passionate love of the country, organizing political teaching,
promoting goodwill among the different races, assisting education,
especially of women, and raising the people who live below even the
lowest caste.
Each Servant of India remains under close training for five years,
but out of the five years he spends two in visiting various parts of
India, so as to know the people’s needs at first hand. Even when his
novitiate is complete, he is required to live two months every year
in the Headquarters, and, like the Monastic Orders, all the members
take vows—to give their best to the service of the country; to earn
no money for themselves and seek no personal advantage; to regard
all Indians as brothers, without distinction of caste or creed; to
engage in no personal quarrel; and to lead a pure personal life. In
this Order, as in other similar societies throughout India, there
is a growing tendency to celibate consecration, like the Roman
priesthood’s. But the last vow does not exclude marriage. In fact,
there is a provision that every member under training shall have his
personal expenses borne by the Society, but be granted £2 a month
for his family, if he has one, and that after his novitiate the full
member shall bear the expenses of himself and family out of a grant
of £3 6_s._ 8_d._ (Rs. 50) a month, with an extra allowance for the
insurance of each child as it comes.
The merely learned side of the Order is represented by a large
library, already containing rows on rows of the many great books
that Indians and Englishmen have written on India, together with a
selection from the history of liberty in all countries. That is the
library’s distinction. Beginning with England herself, and passing
right down the glorious roll to the Russia of 1905, it has here
collected the long record of man’s gradual and hard-won conquest of
freedom.
Social reform is certainly one side of the Society’s work. To
free the laborious peoples of India from the bondage they lay on
themselves in harassing ritual, immature marriages, exclusion from
life’s decencies of some fifty millions, who eat dead animals and
think they commit mortal sin if their shadow touches a Brahman—to
free the common people gradually from these obsolete ways, and to
spread among them the first inkling of knowledge, for which the
Government does not yet afford the money—these are objects common to
most Indian reformers, and natural under the tradition of Ranade.
Such purposes are missionary in the ordinary sense, like the efforts
of our missionary societies or university settlements. Only those who
are dubious about all missionary efforts could criticize them. I am
dubious myself, only because no one has ever deliberately missionized
me without driving me further into sin, if only as a relief from his
presence. For I keep in my mind that saying of Thoreau’s:—
“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with
the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life as
from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts, called the
simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust
till you are suffocated, for fear I should get some of his good
done to me—some of its virus mingled with my blood.”
But I think the cause of all this peril and terror really lies,
not in the good that might be done to myself, but in a certain
disintegration in the missionary nature, an over-maturity or
staleness of virtue that rots the good before I get it. If it were
possible for the missionary spirit to move on the same insecure plane
of pitfalls with me, unconscious of any salutary purpose beyond its
own difficult salvation, one might possibly escape its virus without
running in the opposite direction.
That is why the frankly political side of the Society is so welcome.
Politics, being less intimate to the soul, appear less dangerous for
a teacher than social reform or philanthropy, in which some kind of
moral or class superiority is nearly always assumed. Regarding the
Society’s attitude towards the British Government, I had better quote
from its own little book of rules:—
“Its members frankly accept the British connection, as ordained,
in the inscrutable dispensation of Providence, for India’s good.
Self-government on the lines of the English colonies is their goal.
This goal, they recognize, cannot be attained without years of
earnest and patient work and sacrifice worthy of the cause.”
Many have smiled over that “inscrutable dispensation of Providence.”
Naturally, I took it for irony myself, though I felt that irony was
out of tune with the Society’s regulations. But it is not irony.
Mr. Gokhale’s nature is too direct, his purpose too simple in its
intensity, for the ironic bypaths.
I was dining that night with such of the Servants of India as had not
gone home for the family festival. Mr. Paranjbye was there too—Senior
Wrangler of his year, Fellow of St. John’s, present Head of the
Fergusson College close by, famous among European mathematicians, and
almost tolerated in the Anglo-Indian society of Poona for his skill
at lawn tennis. Mr. Kelkar had come as well—editor of the _Mahratta_,
a leader in the Extremist camp, Mr. Tilak’s vigilant captain. And
a few more Brahmans and others sat with us, not too sacrificial
in purity to eat beside a carnivorous European. That “inscrutable
dispensation” was discussed amid laughter, but Mr. Gokhale retained
his accustomed serenity. He had written the words with entire
seriousness. The dispensations of Providence were inscrutable, but
still he believed the British connection was ordained for India’s
good. It had secured various things which any one could count, but
above all it had instilled into the Indian nature a love of freedom
and a self-assertion against authority that Indians used to lack, but
English people often possess in enviable abundance.
I remember quoting the common opinion that Anglo-Indians have lost
sympathy with Indians because they no longer make India their home,
but keep one eye on England and are always on the flit. But Mr.
Gokhale disagreed. He thought it an advantage that fewer English
people now settled in the country. The fairly permanent residents,
like shopkeepers and planters, were as a rule the worst mannered
and most domineering, and they took hardly any part in public life.
The standard of manners in general, he thought, had gone down. It
might be that, in old days, the Englishman found it easier to be
sympathetic with natives whom he could treat as dear good things. But
educated Indians had come to detest such sympathy as only fit for pet
animals, and both races were beginning to notice the change. For his
part, he thought that since Lord Ripon left India in 1884, the type
of Englishman that came out had slowly been declining.
“It is unfortunate,” he said, “that our Congress movement should
have coincided with the past twenty-two years of violent reaction
and Imperialism in England. You can hardly imagine how intolerable
our life became at the time of the Boer war. The insolence of
Anglo-Indian papers, like the _Englishman_ or the _Civil and
Military Gazette_ towards our people goes beyond all bounds. Yet
the _Civil and Military Gazette_, which is the worst offender, has
only received a mild remonstrance from the Lieut.-Governor of the
Punjab, while the editors of Indian papers are in gaol.[9] Such
treatment, however, is the inevitable penalty of a conquered race,
and, I think, within the last year manners have mended a little.
Lord Minto, at all events, is very much the gentleman himself.
“During the last three years of Lord Curzon’s time,” he continued,
“we were kept in a state of perpetual irritation. Then came our
high hopes from the Liberal Party, and our violent disappointment.
The worst of all is that many people are beginning to lose faith
in English integrity and sense of justice—the two main qualities
that could be used for the maintenance of your power. It is a new
thing, but our young men are beginning to ask what is the good
of constitutional agitation if it only results in insult and the
Partition of Bengal? That is how Extremists are created. There are
two schools of them now, one here in Poona, the other in Bengal
itself, and Anglo-Indians are always calling upon us to denounce
them. But we are not likely to denounce a section of our own people
in face of the bureaucracy. For, after all, they have in view the
same great object as ourselves.”
For himself, I discovered many months afterwards that Mr. Gokhale
hated the name of Moderate, as, I suppose, all beings of flesh and
blood needs must. But, for brief, one has to call by some such name
the party which continues in patience and hope to believe that
appeals to justice and reason may still induce the English people to
grant reform.
For the Simla scheme, recently put out by Mr. Morley for
criticism,[10] no Indian whom I met had anything to say, except Mr.
Gokhale alone, who thought he detected one or two minor points that
might possibly be of advantage. He condemned the Imperial Advisory
Council entirely, as sure to produce a body of half-educated ruling
chiefs and territorial magnates, powerless to stand against any
Government proposal, and unlikely to be summoned except to discuss
a royal visit, a statue, a famine, or the plague. But from the
Provincial Advisory Councils he thought something might possibly be
gained, if at least half the members were elected on a high franchise
and were bound to meet for the discussion of definite local subjects
so many times a year.
The attempt to clutch at any possible chance of good was
characteristic of the man. With all his power he repels the
temptation to sulky aloofness, always a strong temptation to
enthusiasts in opposition. It is true he could find nothing to say
for the Simla proposal of enlarging the Viceroy’s Legislative Council
from twenty-four to fifty-three, by packing it with representatives
of Chambers of Commerce, Mohammedans, and landowners. Such a scheme
was too obviously only an attempt to crush down the influence of the
education which has been one of England’s greatest gifts to India. It
was a reversal of all British policy, which had hitherto set itself
to depress the landlord gentry and men of wealth who “have a stake in
the country,” and to stand as protector of the poor. The whole thing
was too evidently framed in the spirit of fear and not of progress.
But nevertheless, in Mr. Gokhale’s own scheme of reforms, an
enlargement of the Legislative Councils is a prominent clause. That
and some genuine control over the Budget by representative Indians on
the Viceroy’s Council would start the reform of political machinery.
In other departments the old cry for complete separation of judicial
and executive functions must be listened to, so that even the lower
officials in districts should never act both as prosecutor and judge.
In the same public services, Indians should be granted an improved
position in accordance with Queen Victoria’s Proclamation,[11] and,
above all, the teaching of children should be gradually extended till
it became free and compulsory, even in villages. There were a few
other points in Mr. Gokhale’s programme of immediate reform. But in
none could I discover a trace of that vagueness and impracticable
demand, that “crying for the moon,” of which Mr. Morley and other
critics of Indian demands were then complaining.[12]
I met Mr. Gokhale many times again—in Poona itself, Surat, Bombay,
and London—and his reasonable and open-hearted personality will often
re-appear in this record. But to myself I still picture him on that
Diwali evening in the refectory where the Servants of India were
gathered round him, together with friends from both the main Parties
of the time. In concession to my outlandish habits, I was allowed
a table, chair, and spoon at dinner. But the sons of the country
sat on boards level with the floor, their backs against the walls,
and in front of each of us was laid half a plantain or banana leaf,
neatly studded round the edge with little piles of rice, beans and
other seeds, flavours, sauces and other condiments, together with
thin wheaten cakes. Which when we had eaten, and drunk clean water
from round brazen vessels such as all Indians carry when they walk,
we washed up by burning the plantain leaves, rinsed our hands, and
continued the discussion over pomegranate seeds, orange cloves, and
pan-leaves concealing beetel-nut and various spice. Serene, modest,
definite in aim and in knowledge, he continued to discourse with us,
until the full moon rolled westward, and under her obscure silence
I returned to the city of the plague, where the oil lamps were now
extinguished, and the children asleep.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] See Introduction, p. 25.
[9] See Introduction, p. 17.
[10] Introduction, p. 22.
[11] Introduction, p. 6.
[12] Introduction, p. 28.