Discontent of the Natives--Successful administrators
--Paternal despotism--Money-lenders and the Press--Faddists
--Cardinal points
The India of to-day is altogether a different country from the
India of 1857. Much has been done since then to improve the civil
administration, and to meet the legitimate demands of the Native
races. India is more tranquil, more prosperous, and more civilized
than it was before the Mutiny, and the discipline, efficiency, and
mobility of the Native army have been greatly improved. Much, however,
still remains to be done, and a good deal might with advantage be
undone, to secure the contentment of the Natives with our rule.
Our position has been materially strengthened by the provision of main
and subsidiary lines of communication by road and railway; by the
great network of telegraphs which now intersects the country; and by
the construction of canals. These great public works have largely
increased the area of land under cultivation, minimized the risk of
famine, equalized the prices of agricultural produce, and developed a
large and lucrative export trade. Above all, while our troops can now
be assembled easily and rapidly at any centre of disturbance, the
number of British soldiers has been more than doubled and the number
of Native soldiers has been materially reduced. Moreover, as regards
the Native equally with the British army of India, I believe that
a better feeling never existed throughout all ranks than exists at
present.
Nevertheless, there are signs that the spirit of unrest and discontent
which sowed the seeds of the Mutiny is being revived. To some extent
this state of things is the natural result of our position in
India, and is so far unavoidable, but it is also due to old faults
reappearing--faults which require to be carefully watched and guarded
against, for it is certain that, however well disposed as soldiers the
men in our ranks may be, their attitude will inevitably be influenced
by the feelings of the people generally, more especially should their
hostility be aroused by any question connected with religion.
For a considerable time after the Mutiny we became more cautious and
conciliatory in administrative and legislative matters, more intent
on doing what would keep the Chiefs and Rulers satisfied, the masses
contented, and the country quiet, than on carrying out our own ideas.
Gradually this wholesome caution is being disregarded. The Government
has become more and more centralized, and the departmental spirit
very strong. Each department, in its laudable wish for progress and
advancement, is apt to push on measures which are obnoxious to the
Natives, either from their not being properly understood, or from
their being opposed to their traditions and habits of life, thus
entailing the sacrifice of many cherished customs and privileges. Each
department admits in theory the necessity for caution, but in practice
presses for liberty of action to further its own particular schemes.
Of late years, too, the tendency has been to increase the number of
departments and of secretariat offices under the supreme Government,
and this tendency, while causing more work to devolve on the supreme
Government than it can efficiently perform, results in lessening
the responsibility of provincial Governments by interference in the
management of local concerns. It is obvious that in a country like
India, composed as it is of great provinces and various races
differing from one another in interests, customs, and religions, each
with its own peculiar and distinct necessities, administrative details
ought to be left to the people on the spot. The Government of India
would then be free to exercise a firm and impartial control over the
Empire and Imperial interests, while guiding into safe channels,
without unduly restraining, intelligent progress.
In times of peace the administration is apt to fall too exclusively
into the hands of officials whose ability is of the doctrinaire type;
they work hard, and can give logical and statistical reasons for the
measures they propose, and are thus able to make them attractive to,
and believed in by, the authorities. But they lack the more perfect
knowledge of human nature, and the deeper insight into, and greater
sympathy with, the feelings and prejudices of Asiatics, which those
possessed in a remarkable degree who proved by their success that they
had mastered the problem of the best form of government for India.
I allude to men like Thomas Munro, Mountstuart Elphinstone, John
Malcolm, Charles Metcalfe, George Clerk, Henry and John Lawrence,
William Sleeman, James Outram, Herbert Edwardes, John Nicholson, and
many others. These administrators, while fully recognizing the need
for a gradual reform, understood the peculiarities of our position
in the east, the necessity for extreme caution and toleration, and a
'live and let live' policy between us and the Natives. The sound and
broad views of this class of public servant are not always appreciated
either in India or England, and are too often put aside as
unpractical, obstructive, and old-fashioned.
Amongst the causes which have produced discontent of late years,
I would mention our forest laws and sanitary regulations, our
legislative and fiscal systems--measures so necessary that no
one interested in the prosperity of India could cavil at their
introduction, but which are so absolutely foreign to Native ideas,
that it is essential they should be applied with the utmost gentleness
and circumspection.
I think, also, that the official idea of converting the young Princes
and Nobles of India into English gentlemen by means of English tutors
and English studies should be carried out with great care and caution.
It has not hitherto invariably succeeded, and the feeling in many
States is strongly opposed to it. The danger of failure lies in the
wholesome restraint of the tutor being suddenly removed, and in the
young Prince being left at too early an age to select his advisers and
companions. The former, perhaps not unnaturally, are interested
in proving that the training of their young Ruler by his European
governor or tutor has not resulted in good either to himself or his
people, while the latter are too often of the lowest class of European
adventurers.
The proceedings and regulations of the Forest Department, desirable
as they may be from a financial and agricultural point of view, have
provoked very great irritation in many parts of India. People who have
been accustomed from time immemorial to pick up sticks and graze their
cattle on forest lands, cannot understand why they should now be
forbidden to do so, nor can they realize the necessity for preserving
the trees from the chance of being destroyed by fire, a risk to which
they were frequently exposed from the Native custom of making use of
their shelter while cooking, and of burning the undergrowth to enrich
the grazing.
The action taken by the Government in sanitary matters has also
aroused much ill-feeling and apprehension. Sanitary precautions are
entirely ignored in eastern countries. The great majority of the
people can see no good in them, and no harm in using the same tank
for drinking purposes and for bathing and washing their clothes. The
immediate surroundings of their towns and villages are most offensive,
being used as the general receptacles for dead animals and all kinds
of filth. Cholera, fever, and other diseases, which carry off hundreds
of thousands every year, are looked upon as the visitation of God,
from which it is impossible, even were it not impious to try, to
escape; and the precautionary measures insisted upon by us in our
cantonments, and at the fairs and places of pilgrimage, are viewed
with aversion and indignation. Only those who have witnessed the
personal discomfort and fatigue to which Natives of all ages and both
sexes willingly submit in their struggle to reach some holy shrine on
the occasion of a religious festival, while dragging their weary limbs
for many hundreds of miles along a hot, dusty road, or being huddled
for hours together in a crammed and stifling railway carriage, can
have any idea of the bitter disappointment to the pilgrims caused
by their being ordered to disperse when cholera breaks out at such
gatherings, without being given the opportunity of performing their
vows or bathing in the sacred waters.[1]
Further, our legislative system is based on western ideas, its object
being to mete out equal justice to the rich and poor, to the Prince
and peasant. But our methods of procedure do not commend themselves
to the Indian peoples. Eastern races are accustomed to a paternal
despotism, and they conceive it to be the proper function of the local
representatives of the supreme Power to investigate and determine on
the spot the various criminal and civil cases which come under the
cognizance of the district officials. Legal technicalities and
references to distant tribunals confuse and harass a population which,
with comparatively few exceptions, is illiterate, credulous, and
suspicious of underhand influence. An almost unlimited right of
appeal from one court to another, in matters of even the most trivial
importance, not only tends to impair the authority of the local
magistrate, but gives an unfair advantage to the wealthy litigant
whose means enable him to secure the services of the ablest pleader,
and to purchase the most conclusive evidence in support of his claims.
For it must be remembered than in India evidence on almost any subject
can be had for the buying, and the difficulty, in the administration
of justice, of discriminating between truth and falsehood is thereby
greatly increased. Under our system a horde of unscrupulous pleaders
has sprung up, and these men encourage useless litigation, thereby
impoverishing their clients, and creating much ill-feeling against our
laws and administration.
Another point worthy of consideration is the extent to which, under
the protection of our legal system, the peasant proprietors of
India are being oppressed and ruined by village shop-keepers and
money-lenders. These men advance money at a most exorbitant rate of
interest, taking as security the crops and occupancy rights of the
cultivators of the soil. The latter are ignorant, improvident, and
in some matters, such as the marriage ceremonies of their families,
inordinately extravagant. The result is that a small debt soon swells
into a big one, and eventually the aid of the law courts is invoked to
oust the cultivator from a holding which, in many cases, has been
in the possession of his ancestors for hundreds of years. The
money-lender has his accounts to produce, and these can hardly be
disputed, the debtor as a rule being unable to keep accounts of his
own, or, indeed, to read or write. Before the British dominion
was established in India, the usurer no doubt existed, but his
opportunities were fewer, his position more precarious, and his
operations more under control than they are at present. The
money-lender then knew that his life would not be safe if he exacted
too high interest for the loans with which he accommodated his
customers, and that if he became too rich, some charge or other would
be trumped up against him, which would force him to surrender a large
share of his wealth to the officials of the State in which he was
living. I do not say that the rough-and-ready methods of Native
justice in dealing with money-lenders were excusable or tolerable, but
at the same time I am inclined to think that, in granting these men
every legal facility for enforcing their demands and carrying on their
traffic, we may have neglected the interests of the agriculturists,
and that it might be desirable to establish some agency under the
control of Government, which would enable the poorer landholders to
obtain, at a moderate rate of interest, advances proportionate to the
security they had to offer.[2]
Another danger to our supremacy in India is the license allowed to
the Native press in vilifying the Government and its officials, and
persistently misrepresenting the motives and policy of the ruling
Power. In a free country, where the mass of the population is well
educated, independent, and self-reliant, a free press is a most
valuable institution, representing as it does the requirements and
aspirations of important sections of the community, and bringing to
light defects and abuses in the social and political system. In a
country such as Great Britain, which is well advanced in the art of
self-government, intolerant and indiscriminate abuse of public men
defeats its own object, and misstatements of matters of fact can be
at once exposed and refuted. Like most of the developments of
civilization which are worth anything, the English press is a plant
of indigenous growth, whereas in India the Native press is an exotic
which, under existing conditions, supplies no general want, does
nothing to refine, elevate, or instruct the people, and is used by its
supporters and promoters--an infinitesimal part of the population--as
a means of gaining its selfish ends, and of fostering sedition, and
racial and religious animosities. There are, I am afraid, very few
Native newspapers actuated by a friendly or impartial spirit towards
the Government of India, and to Asiatics it seems incredible that we
should permit such hostile publications to be scattered broadcast over
the country, unless the assertions were too true to be disputed, or
unless we were too weak to suppress them. We gain neither credit nor
gratitude for our tolerant attitude towards the Native press--our
forbearance is misunderstood; and while the well-disposed are
amazed at our inaction, the disaffected rejoice at being allowed to
promulgate baseless insinuations and misstatements which undermine our
authority, and thwart our efforts to gain the goodwill and confidence
of the Native population.
Yet another danger to the permanence of our rule in India lies in the
endeavours of well-intentioned faddists to regulate the customs and
institutions of eastern races in accordance with their own ideas.
The United Kingdom is a highly civilized country, and our habits and
convictions have been gradually developed under the influences of our
religion and our national surroundings. Fortunately for themselves,
the people of Great Britain possess qualities which have made them
masters of a vast and still expanding Empire. But these qualities have
their defects as well as their merits, and one of the defects is a
certain insularity of thought, or narrow-mindedness--a slowness to
recognize that institutions which are perfectly suitable and right for
us may be quite unsuited, if not injurious, to other races, and that
what may not be right for us to do is not necessarily wrong for people
of a different belief, and with absolutely different traditions and
customs.
Gradually the form of Government in the United Kingdom has become
representative and democratic, and it is therefore assumed by some
people, who have little, if any, experience of the east, that
the Government of India should be guided by the utterances of
self-appointed agitators who pose as the mouth-pieces of an oppressed
population. Some of these men are almost as much aliens[3] as
ourselves, while others are representatives of a class which, though
intellectually advanced, has no influence amongst the races in whom
lies the real strength of India. Municipal self-government has been
found to answer well in the United Kingdom, and it is held, therefore,
that a similar system must be equally successful in India. We in
England consume animal food and alcoholic liquors, but have no liking
for opium; an effort has accordingly been made to deprive our Asiatic
fellow-subjects, who, as a rule, are vegetarians, and either total
abstainers or singularly abstemious in the matter of drink, of a small
and inexpensive stimulant, which they find necessary to their health
and comfort. British institutions and ideas are the embodiment of
what long experience has proved to us to be best for ourselves; but
suddenly to establish these institutions and enforce these ideas on
a community which is not prepared for them, does not want them, and
cannot understand them, must only lead to suspicion and discontent.
The Government of India should, no doubt, be progressive in its
policy, and in all things be guided by the immutable principles of
right, truth, and justice; but these principles ought to be applied,
not necessarily as we should apply them in England, but with due
regard to the social peculiarities and religious prejudices of the
people whom it ought to be our aim to make better and happier.
It will be gathered from what I have written that our administration,
in my opinion, suffers from two main defects. First, it is internally
too bureaucratic and centralizing in its tendencies; and, secondly, it
is liable to be forced by the external pressure of well-meaning but
irresponsible politicians and philanthropists to adopt measures which
may be disapproved of by the authorities on the spot, and opposed to
the wishes, requirements, and interests of the people. It seems to me
that for many years to come the best form of government for India will
be the intelligent and benevolent despotism which at present rules the
country. On a small scale, and in matters of secondary importance,
representative institutions cannot perhaps do much harm, though I am
afraid they will effect but little good. On a large scale, however,
such a system of government would be quite out of place in view of
the fact that ninety-nine out of every hundred of the population are
absolutely devoid of any idea of civil responsibility, and that the
various races and religious sects possess no bond of national union.
In reply, then, to the question, 'Is there any chance of a Mutiny
occurring again?' I would say that the best way of guarding against
such a calamity is--
By never allowing the present proportion of British to Native
soldiers to be diminished or the discipline and efficiency of the
Native army to become slack.
By taking care that men are selected for the higher civil and
military posts whose self-reliance, activity, and resolution are
not impaired by age, and who possess a knowledge of the country
and the habits of the peoples.
By recognizing and guarding against the dogmatism of theorists and
the dangers of centralization.
By rendering our administration on the one hand firm and strong,
on the other hand tolerant and sympathetic; and last, but not
least, by doing all in our power to gain the confidence of the
various races, and by convincing them that we have not only the
determination, but the ability to maintain our supremacy in India
against all assailants.
If these cardinal points are never lost sight of, there is, I believe,
little chance of any fresh outbreak disturbing the stability of our
rule in India, or neutralizing our efforts to render that country
prosperous, contented, and thoroughly loyal to the British Crown.
[Footnote 1: Few acts have been more keenly resented than the closing
of the great Hurdwar Fair in the autumn of 1892, on account of a
serious outbreak of cholera. It was looked upon by the Natives as a
direct blow aimed at their religion, and as a distinct departure from
the religious tolerance promised in Her Majesty's proclamation of
1858. The mysterious mud marks on mango-trees in Behar have been
attributed by some to a self-interested motive on the part of certain
priests to draw the attention of Hindus to the sanctity of some temple
outside the limits of British jurisdiction, where the devotees would
be at liberty to assemble in any numbers without being troubled by
officious inspectors, and where they could remain as long as they
pleased, irrespective of the victims daily claimed by cholera, that
unfailing avenger of the neglect of sanitary laws in the east.]
[Footnote 2: The proposal would seem to be quite a practical one, for
I read in the _Times_ of the 28th November, 1894, that the Government
of New Zealand invited applications for Consols in connexion with the
scheme for granting loans at a reasonable rate of interest to farmers
on the security of their holdings.]
[Footnote 3: I allude to the Parsis, who came from Persia, and whose
religion and customs are as distinct from those of the Natives of
India as are our own.]
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