A FESTIVAL OF SPRING
The mango trees were all in bloom, and the air full of their smell.
It has just the touch of turpentine in it that makes the mango fruit
so pleasant, and is so refreshing in an English room that has been
spring-cleaned with furniture polish. The mango bloom is the Indian
“may,”—the sign that spring has come indeed, and that was why all
the great Sirdars, or landowners, of Baroda were gathered in the
palace hall at nine o’clock one morning, and sat in thick rows of
white-clad figures, with Mahratta turbans of red and gold on their
heads, and curved swords glittering across their knees. The Maharajah
had summoned them in durbar, to celebrate the festival of Vasantha,
or the Spring, and on the inlaid pavement below their seats a
nautch-girl from Madras danced without ceasing, to the inspiriting
noise of three or four pipes and a little drum. All the instruments
sounded their peculiar notes together, but apparently with random
independence, though the girl seemed to know what varied emotions
they would express. For she danced forward with gestures that she
felt to be suited to some imperceptible motive, her jewels flashing,
and the heavy gold of her sash swinging over her knees. Then, having
reached her limit of advance towards the empty throne, she walked
quietly backwards, softly clapping her little brown hands to some
imperceptible time.
Suddenly from the palace garden came the sound of the tiny old
guns which the British Government allows Native Rulers to retain
for saluting purposes, or to batter the mud walls of an occasional
village, as evidence of their regal power. To the roar of this
artillery the Maharajah entered, and, keeping step at his side, came
the British Resident, conspicuous in civilization’s clothing. Behind
them, stiff with scarlet and gold, stalked the British officers
of a regiment quartered upon the State by the terms of an ancient
treaty. Passing up the pavement between the rows of Sirdars, the
Maharajah took his seat upon the purple velvet sofa, having the
British Resident side by side upon his right, while the British
officers settled into the topmost chairs, like a patch of poppies
in a daisy field. All the time the pipes and drum never ceased,
and the dancing-girl continued to advance and retire with various
embellishments.
Attendants appeared, bearing garlands and silver sprinklers, and
trim little bunches of flowers tightly tied up. The heaviest garland
was selected for the British Resident, and he bent his comely head
submissively to receive it on his neck. It was made of white jasmine,
picked out with silver “fairy rain,” which I have mentioned before
as beautifying our Christmas-trees. He was also presented with a
tight bunch of flowers, and lavishly sprinkled with scent from the
silver vessels. Similar but smaller garlands were then placed round
the necks of the British officers; similar but smaller bunches were
presented to them, and they were sprinkled with scent, but less
lavishly, as became their inferior position in the representation of
Britain’s might. When the most junior subaltern had been sprinkled,
the Maharajah and the Resident rose, and the British contingent
marched out of the hall, the garlands flopping against their thighs,
as when of old Greek bulls went adorned for sacrifice.
So the rulers departed, and again the feeble old guns did their
utmost to voice the honours due to Imperial grandeur. Then the
Maharajah returned to his sofa, and a sigh of relief appeared to
pass through the hall. I thought I could even hear it from behind
the carved shutters of the gallery, where ladies stood watching in
seclusion, like the ladies behind the grill of our House of Commons.
The attendants again bore garlands, bouquets, and sprinklers into
the hall. The Maharajah was garlanded first, and then his son, the
heir to the sofa, who received his honours with a superior smile
that told of Oxford’s contamination. The most peculiar part of the
ceremony came next, when silver plates were brought in, heaped high
with vermillion powder and with yellow, to represent the fertilizing
dust of flowers in spring, and this dust was thrown in handfuls over
the Maharajah and his heir, and then over each Sirdar in turn.
Suddenly the white chests of all those loyal counsellors blazed with
patches of scarlet and gamboge, while pipes and drum pursued their
own wild will, and the dancing-girl danced up seductively. Then
the Maharajah rose, and the whole assembly followed him from the
hall. The climax had been reached, and the ceremony of spring was
over, except that for the rest of the day the street boys rejoiced
in “all the fun of the fair,” throwing red and yellow powder over
the passers-by. And if they mixed a little oil with the powder, the
passer-by would recall the flowers that bloom in the spring whenever
he put those clothes on again.
You would suppose that such a ceremony was but the childish
consolation of some wretched prince, whom we allow to retain on
sufferance the pomps and vanities of barbaric splendour, just as
an idiot heir is allowed a rocking-horse and wooden sword by his
trustees. And that is partly true. It is in the spirit of interested
trustees for idiot children that the British Government gives the
Maharajah that artillery to play with, and arms his handful of
troops with ancient muzzle-loaders that I had despaired of ever
seeing in use. An ordinary and enfeebled ruler might thus solace
himself with pretty shows for a life of miserable impotence, just
as Napoleon’s son played at soldiers in the Austrian palaces. Such
is the end of most of those who are born to rule our Native States.
Fantastic palaces in every street, marble courts where fountains play
all the summer, bedizened elephants in lordly rows, bejewelled girls
beyond the dreams of Solomon, studs of horses ceaselessly neighing,
changes of golden clothes for every hour of the day and night, heaps
of golden coins piled high in treasuries, drink deep as wells,
exquisite foods selected from Paris to Siam—oh, but to be weak is
miserable!
But the ruler of Baroda has the strength that conquers power out of
weakness. Brought up among the temptations of princes, cheated with
the mockeries of authority, distrusted as seditious for the very
excellence of his reforms, he has raised his little State of some
two million souls to become the most advanced and best administered
district of India, with the possible exception of Mysore. I know the
worst that can be said against him. His land-tax is rather above the
average of British India, but at all events his entire income of just
under £1,000,000 a year is spent in the country itself, and does not
go to cherish the annuitants in Cheltenham or Whitehall. Like the
English aristocracy, he is fond of building more houses than one man
needs to live in. Like the late Lord Salisbury and Mr. Kruger, he
displays an exaggerated solicitude in providing for members of his
family, beyond the requirements of laudable thrift. And, worst fault
of all, he has been sometimes suspected of imitating the Anglo-Indian
authorities in favouring Europeans at the cost of fully qualified
Indians. On one occasion also, I believe, he conducted a punitive
expedition, on almost British lines, against some troublesome
villagers. I know all this is said, and much of it is very likely
true, for even in a hovel it is difficult to live above reproach.
But I have also heard that in the foolish Durbar at Delhi, when
other native rulers salaamed and prostrated themselves to earth, the
Maharajah of Baroda went up to Lord Curzon like a man, and shook him
heartily by the hand; and I think that story as likely to be true as
the others.
It is now over twenty-five years since he entered upon his power,
after a few years of tutelage under the British Government, which
had deposed his predecessor for overstepping the latitude granted to
native rulers in everything but politics. In that quarter-century,
by the help of carefully chosen Ministers, such as Mr. Romesh
Chandra Dutt, he has realized reforms in government and daily life
that are continually called impossible by ourselves. Throughout
his whole State he has absolutely separated the judicial from the
executive functions—a reform that we have acknowledged for years
to be essential for India, but are boggling over still. He has
restored the ancient village Panchayat, or parish council, by the
men whom villagers can trust, whereas, in our passion for rigid and
centralized power, we have almost destroyed the last vestige of this
national training in self-government.
After a careful experiment for fourteen years in one district, he
has now made primary education compulsory and universal throughout
his State. Whereas in British India the Government expenditure
upon primary education still stood in 1906-7 at about £200,000, or
considerably less than £1 per thousand of the population, in Baroda
the proportion was about £1 to every fifty-five, and the State counts
more educated girls, for its size, than any other part of India.
The latest step in constitutional reform has been the admission of
genuinely elected members into the Legislative Council, which was to
meet that year (1908) for the first time in its more democratic form.
Such reforms as the Indian Government had at that time proposed for
its Legislative Council, were only intended to frustrate what shadow
of democratic principle then existed in them.
[Illustration: MAKING YARN.]
[Illustration: A VILLAGE PANCHAYAT.]
But it is much harder to change a social custom than to legislate,
and the Maharajah’s greatest triumphs lay in the prevention of
child-marriages, the emancipation of ladies from the “purdah,” or
curtained life, and the breaking-down of caste barriers. In all
this he had been aided by the encouragement and example of his
Maharani, who had stood by his side like one of the heroic queens
of Mahratta history. In all India I suppose there was not another
man and woman who had done more for the happiness and advancement of
their people, or done more to disprove the common Anglo-Indian charge
that Indians are incapable of carrying out even their own reforms.
For their very success they were suspected and maligned by officials,
who had not the courage to imitate their methods. But when official
torpor and private malignity had said their worst, the Maharajah and
his queen remained among the royal souls of India. They had once
more established the old Roman paradox that it is possible to follow
virtue even in a palace, and there was something almost Aurelian in
their proud service to the Commonwealth.[71]
FOOTNOTES:
[71] For the development of Baroda, see the admirable series of
annual Administration Reports prepared up to 1907 by Mr. Romesh C.
Dutt, C.I.E., Revenue Minister of Baroda, and since then by his
successor, Mr. Kersasp Rustamji.