SKETCHES
OF
SOCIAL LIFE IN INDIA.
BY
C. T. BUCKLAND, F.Z.S.
FATHER OF THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE IN 1881.
LONDON:
W. H. ALLEN & CO., 18 WATERLOO PLACE,
PALL MALL. S.W.
1884.
(_All rights reserved._)
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE. S.W.
PREFACE.
The first two chapters of this book were published more than a year ago
in the _Army and Navy Magazine_, and are reprinted with the kind
permission of the proprietors, Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co. The other
chapters were written about the same time, as articles for the same
Magazine, but not being sufficiently within the scope of a military and
naval periodical, it was resolved to produce them in the present form.
The author, in the course of a long career in the Bengal Civil Service,
has held nearly all the appointments which he has attempted to describe
in connection with that service, and he had many opportunities of
becoming acquainted with all the mechanism of Indian government, as seen
from Calcutta and the Lower Provinces of Bengal. In his attempt to give
a sketch of social life in India, it must be remembered that he is
writing chiefly of the Lower Provinces of Bengal. He has endeavoured to
avoid anything which might give personal offence, and he would gladly
adopt as his motto, “_Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?_” It is hoped
that this book may afford some entertainment to those who have been in
India, and that it may be of use and interest to those young men who are
thinking of devoting themselves to a professional career in India. It
only remains to observe that these papers were written before the recent
agitation in connection with the Ilbert Bill, but it has not been found
necessary to alter anything that had been written as regards either the
English residents or the native community.
20, ASHBURN PLACE,
_7th February, 1884_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.—THE VICEROY AND HIS COURT 1
CHAPTER II.—MEMBERS OF COUNCIL AND LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORS OF BENGAL 21
CHAPTER III.—ENGLISH COLONISTS IN BENGAL 48
CHAPTER IV.—THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE 77
CHAPTER V.—THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE—_cont._ 108
CHAPTER VI.—NATIVE LIFE IN INDIA 139
SKETCHES OF
SOCIAL LIFE IN INDIA.
CHAPTER I.
THE VICEROY AND HIS COURT.
There are two different classes of people who know very little about
India. First there is your old Indian, who fancies that he knows all
about the presidency, say Bombay, in which he spent his time, but is as
ignorant of the presidencies of Bengal and Madras as he is of China and
Japan. Secondly, there is your real rural Englishman, who has had no
relations or connections in India, and is, perhaps, still grieving over
the untimely fate of some old friend who went out and suddenly died in
India. There undoubtedly still exists in many English circles a
considerable amount of ignorance and a deep-rooted prejudice against all
things Indian. It is possible that this prejudice may be traced back to
the ways and manners of the East Indian Nabobs of the last century,
whose pompous display of wealth, suspected to have been acquired by
dubious practices, was an offence and a scandal to the quiet English
country gentleman, and, indeed, to all who did not contrive slyly to
make a profit out of the Nabob’s money. The Nabob himself was usually
shy and awkward, and almost always irritable and irascible, and
remarkable for his peculiar social manners; so that it came to pass,
that a general idea prevailed that the picture presented by the Nabob in
England was but a reflection and reproduction of the social manners
which he had acquired during his sojourn in the distant East. How far
this feeling was correct it is not our present purpose to inquire. The
race of Nabobs has come to an end. The pagoda-tree of fabulous memory no
longer bears its golden fruit. An enormous change has come over the
habits and manners of those Englishmen who now practically colonise
India. For though colonisation is usually spoken of in a different
sense, the British inhabitants of India are virtually a colony. The
individual colonists may change, but as fast as one man goes another
steps into his place; and thus it comes to pass that over the whole
length and breadth of India there is now a large and continually growing
colony of English families, who endeavour to maintain their old home
feelings and to keep all those old surroundings which remind them of the
land of their birth, to which they all hope in due course to return.
They treasure in their hearts a warm and kindly remembrance of their old
home, and they live in the fond belief that they may be well and kindly
thought of by those whom they have left behind.
It is, however, certain that much ignorance, not unmixed with the old
anti-Nabob prejudice, still prevails regarding the ways and habits of
our countrymen in India. The most absurd inquiries are addressed to
people who have been in India, which doubtless sometimes provoke answers
more suited to the intellectual acquirements of the questioner than in
actual accordance with the real facts of the case. If your fair and
charming companion at a dinner-party persists in her conversation in
filling all Indian houses with snakes and scorpions, she will be much
more gratified to hear a few anecdotes which accord with her own
assertions, than she would be to learn that it is possible to live for
years in some parts of India without seeing either a snake or a
scorpion. When recent editions of popular Indian hand-books solemnly
inform the reader that rhinoceros hunting is an ordinary amusement in
the suburbs of Calcutta, it is much easier to acquiesce in that
information than to urge respectfully that alligators may sometimes be
found in the ornamental waters of Battersea Park.
One of the greatest changes that has come over India in the last thirty
years is to be found in the very great addition that has taken place to
the numbers of the non-official classes. Fifty years ago Indian society
consisted chiefly of the military and civil servants of the Indian
Government. In Calcutta the judges, barristers, and other legal
officials formed almost a separate set in the local society. Then came
the great merchants, the representatives of the few but famous old
commercial houses, whose names were from time to time mixed up with
fabulous wealth and hopeless insolvency. In the interior of the country
there were many parts where the face of a non-official European was
unknown, whilst in some districts a few hardy Englishmen and Scotchmen
were to be found engaged in the precarious cultivation of indigo or the
manufacture of sugar, or in managing and farming the lands of native
land-owners. But, taken all together, the non-official classes of
Englishmen were counted by hundreds, where now they are numbered by
thousands. In such a community the Governor-General and the members of
his Council were pre-eminently the makers and rulers of society; and as
in those days these great official people did not all run away to the
hills of Simla and other mountain stations as soon as the weather became
hot, the impress of their authority was never wanting in social life.
The great annual ball at Government House in Calcutta on the Queen’s
birthday (which is usually one of the hottest days of the year) was
looked forward to by all classes with the deepest interest and anxiety,
and it was on this occasion especially that the pretty half-caste girls
of Calcutta had an opportunity of making their _début_ in the grand
world, to make havoc of the hearts of the gay young civilians and cadets
and ensigns who were then amongst the acknowledged rulers of the society
in the capital.
But those were the days before the mutinies, and before the introduction
of railways. The steamers of the Peninsula and Oriental and other
companies had not then a monopoly of passengers, and people still went
out to India in sailing vessels round the Cape of Good Hope. There are
some warm-hearted politicians who imagine that the change of Government
in India, by the substitution of the name of the Queen for that of the
old East India Company, has conferred inestimable benefits on all people
who dwell in India. In one sense they are quite correct, because the
benefits referable directly to this cause are almost as inestimable as
they are invisible to the mind’s eye. But that a great change has come
over the land since 1857 is undeniable. The well-known Mr. John
Marshman, the historian of India, used to say that it was impossible to
do any good in a country like Bengal, or for a people like the Bengalis,
because, according to their national proverb, it was “impossible to
carve rotten wood.” But the introduction of railways has almost
falsified the national proverb. Wherever the iron road pervades the
country, it gives a new basis of strength and vitality on which a new
growth of life can arise. It is no exaggeration to say that this new
power has affected materially the whole European and native community,
and has worked and is working the most important social changes. By the
use of the railway, the Viceroy and the provincial governors are enabled
to resort without anxiety to the cool hill stations, from which the
electric telegraph flashes their orders to the labourers in the hot
vineyards of the plains. By the railway the wealthy and pious Hindoo
pilgrims are enabled to proceed in ease and comfort to remote sacred
shrines, and at such a moderate cost that their money-bags still contain
ample store to propitiate the priests in charge of the temples and their
idols. The wandering Caubul merchant no longer commits himself and his
caravan of camels to a tedious march of several months to reach
Calcutta, but stows himself, with his Persian cats and rugs and
pomegranates and other wares, in the third-class carriage of a railway,
and finds himself at his journey’s end in a few days, instead of months.
Within the last few years it happened that a distinguished political
officer was summoned from Quetta to Calcutta, a journey of about two
thousand miles by railway, to be consulted by the Viceroy. He had
scarcely returned to Quetta when a telegram came summoning him back to
Calcutta for a further consultation. So that in less than a fortnight he
twice traversed the whole continent of India without any great fatigue,
and with very little risk to his health.
It would, perhaps, be difficult to find a stronger contrast in
illustration of the increased facilities of travelling which railways in
India afford, than is to be found in Bishop Heber’s celebrated journal,
written about 1824, and in Mr. James Caird’s letters describing his
recent visit to India in 1879. They both covered nearly the same ground,
though their routes lay in different directions. The Bishop started
eastwards by boat from Calcutta to Dacca. He took six weeks on his
journey, and his chaplain died of illness contracted on the way. By
railway and steamer Mr. Caird travelled from Calcutta to Dacca in about
twenty-four hours. The Bishop set out again in his boat from Dacca to
Allahabad, and accomplished the distance, which is about seven hundred
miles, in nearly three months. Mr. Caird was enabled to cover the same
distance by railway and steamer in three days. The Bishop went forth on
horseback from Allahabad with a military escort to protect his tents and
baggage, and made an erratic journey through the then independent
province of Oude, and to the hill-station of Almora, and eventually
through the principal cities of Rajpootana and Western India until he
reached Bombay. This pilgrimage necessarily lasted for several months,
as his progress was at the rate of about ten miles a day. Mr. Caird, by
the help of the railways, started from Bombay and reached Allahabad,
after visiting Oude, in about ten days. In fact a fortnight, or at the
longest a month, is now deemed amply sufficient time for the travelling
tourist to do India. And what is the result? In Bishop Heber’s journal
the reader will find a series of faithful and kindly observations on the
ways and manners of the people amongst whom he lived and journeyed day
after day, whilst his remarks on the state of the crops are sound and
intelligent, as being based on his own practical knowledge of the
cultivation of the glebe of his English parish. In the letters of Mr.
Caird and in other modern travellers, we find too many hasty conclusions
such as are usually formed from rapid and imperfect observation. Mr.
Caird’s knowledge of English agriculture may be unrivalled, but he had
about the same opportunity of forming an opinion on Indian agriculture
and the various measures necessary for its development, as the hero of
the old story in “Scholasticus,” who was expected to form an opinion of
a house from the inspection of a single brick.
With the improved facilities of communication with England, and also
between the various parts of India, a great change has necessarily come
over the social habits of Englishmen residing in India. The official
classes have lost a great portion of their social influence, whilst the
non-official classes have gained a corresponding advantage and position.
This is due to many causes, partly to the mere force of numbers, partly
to the different distribution of wealth and means, and in some places
individual character has, as usual, contributed considerably to the
change. We will endeavour to go into some detail as to the difference
which is shown in different stages and classes of society, and it will
be for our readers to judge whether the profit or loss, the gain or the
disadvantage, lies with the present or the past generation.
The Governor-General of India has always been the chief fountain of
honour, and the first pillar of the state and of all social influence.
His dignity is now still further enhanced, as, under the title of
Viceroy, His Excellency shines forth as the direct representative of his
sovereign. But as regards this high position, so much depends on
personal character and manners, that it would be difficult to arrive at
a decision when contrasting the quiet dignity of Lord Canning or the
genial presence of Lord Mayo with the haughty extravagance of Lord
Ellenborough or the solid and imperturbable majesty of Lord Dalhousie.
There is, however, a more persistent and successful endeavour under the
modern _régime_ to maintain the credit of Government House for
hospitality, and what is vulgarly called entertainment. There are now
ten people to be entertained where there was formerly only one. The
Viceroy lives for eight months of the year at Simla, and for the
remaining four months in Calcutta. At Simla the society is, to a great
extent, official, swollen by the numerous representatives of the army
with their families, who seek refuge at Simla from the fearful heat of
the plains of Northern and Central India. A weekly dinner at Government
House, and two or three State balls, suffice at Simla to provide for the
gratification of the visitors, whilst the staff and household of the
Viceroy, especially with Lord W. Beresford to guide them, used to
contribute not a little to keep the ball of amusement rolling in all
phases of society.
When the Viceroy and his suite descend to Calcutta in November, the
usual notices are issued for a levee and a drawing-room. On several
occasions in recent years an attempt has been made to induce all the
ladies of Calcutta to appear at the drawing-room with trains and
feathers, but it has usually been left optional to them, the result
being that the trains and feathers which do appear sometimes afford a
sort of clue to the character and social position of the lady who wears
them. The ladies who have the private _entrée_ at Government House make
their bow first before the Viceroy’s wife, and then, with the gentlemen
of their families, stand on either side of the Viceroy’s throne, in a
sort of sacred semi-circle, in support of the Queen’s representative.
The ladies who have not the private _entrée_ are then admitted, and
presented in the order of their arrival. There are always a few
beautiful and graceful English women in Calcutta, who would be an
ornament to any European Court. Very few native ladies appear at the
drawing-room, but a stout and stately olive-complexioned East Indian
(half-caste) lady sometimes sweeps by, waving her ostrich plumes and
with a train of golden tissue twenty-four feet long; and she is,
perhaps, succeeded by a lady from Burmah, where the lower part of the
female costume scarcely amounts to a single petticoat. When the
drawing-room is over, the ladies who have been presented are ushered
into the upper drawing-room or ball-room of Government House, where they
can rejoin the gentlemen under whose escort they came in their carriages
to Government House. Long buffets are laid out with everything that is
needed to refresh them after their exertions, and the band plays for
about an hour, until they quietly disperse to their homes. This is an
excellent arrangement, as it affords the ladies a suitable opportunity
of displaying their dresses, and seeing their friends’ dresses, and
receiving the admiration to which they are entitled. About four hundred
ladies usually appear at the drawing-rooms in Calcutta.
The levee for men, which is held a day or two before or after the
drawing-room, is a much less interesting, but more fatiguing business.
Every man in Calcutta, European or Native, who can get the necessary
vouchers for his admission, seems to make it his duty and his pleasure
to attend. If he attends the levee, there is the chance that he may
receive an invitation to dinner at Government House, or, more probably,
to one of the great balls or “at homes” which are annually given by the
Viceroy. Therefore, every European assistant and every clerk in the
merchants’ offices, and banks, or in Government employment, strives for
admission to the levee. Every native gentleman, who can obtain letters
commendatory, is anxious to make his obeisance before the Viceroy. The
great people, such as the members of Council, the judges of the High
Court, the members of the Board of Revenue, and the secretaries of the
Government, with the several military chiefs and heads of departments,
who have the private _entrée_ to Government House, are first presented
to the Viceroy, and pay the penalty for their precedence by having to
stand during the whole levee on either side of the Viceregal throne. A
distant noise like the roaring of the sea is next heard, and there
presently appears a heated and excited party of the representatives of
the outside public, who have been successful in struggling to the front
places and in being admitted first through the series of barriers by
which the impatient crowd, numbering about twelve hundred, has to be
restrained. The struggle to get to the front is something fearful until
the protection of the first barrier is reached. Coat-tails are torn off,
swords in their scabbards broken, hats treated as foot-balls, as the
body of eager aspirants crushes forward. It is almost a comfort to find
a soft place on this occasion between two fat and portly native
gentlemen, who suffer grievously, but still gladly, for the honour and
glory which they presently hope to attain. Several of the early barriers
which have been already mentioned are kept against the crowd by
non-commissioned officers, but as the candidates approach the throne,
they come under the manipulation of the A.D.C.s and other officers on
the staff, whose brilliant appearance sometimes seems almost to
fascinate the mind of the uninitiated. At last the foremost comer is
bidden by the A.D.C. to advance, card in hand, to meet his Viceregal
master. He steps forward and hands his card to the Military Secretary,
who announces his name in a loud voice, and the next two paces bring him
in front of the Viceroy. Some men make a proper obeisance and pass on.
Some give a little sort of a nod to the Viceroy, and, looking
bewildered, try to retire by the way they had advanced, when an A.D.C.
promptly interferes. A difficult case sometimes arises, when the
Viceroy, on recognising someone to whom he desires to be gracious, puts
forth his hand to be shaken. This proceeding being observed by the man
who comes next, he cheerfully puts forth his hand to be shaken by the
Viceroy, but meeting with no reciprocity, he slinks off in dismay.
Military uniform and the ordinary evening dress of civilians are the
principal costumes. But the native gentlemen who appear present every
variety of dress, more or less national or fanciful, according to their
taste. A great deal of misunderstanding exists, unfortunately, on the
subject of native dress. It is the present fashion with educated natives
to despise the old simple national costume, and to profess to regard it
as typical of servile submission to a conquering race. A young educated
Bengali would not condescend to wear a robe of fine white muslin and a
white turban (containing, perhaps, a hundred yards of the finest
muslin), in which dress his father and grandfather were so becomingly
arrayed. A new kind of turban has been invented for them of some
coloured stiff material, and their body-dress is a long sort of
single-breasted Noah’s Ark garment, of cloth or silk, reaching nearly
down to the ancles. White stockings and patent-leather shoes or boots
are considered very correct, and sometimes cloth trousers are visible
above the boots, but not unfrequently this portion of European costume
is wanting, and the native garment called a _dhooti_ lurks beneath the
Noah’s Ark coat. Thus arrayed, the wealthy young Bengali presents
himself before the Viceroy. A comparatively recent fashion for educated
native gentlemen is to appear in their college caps and gowns, which
indicate the high degrees that they have taken in the local
universities. But, perhaps, really the proudest man among them is he who
assumes a regular English evening costume, with his head bare like a
Briton, his beautiful black hair richly oiled and curled, and a white
tie round his neck, and white kid gloves on his hands. From this it is
evident to all the world that his mind and body have really achieved
practical independence, and that he is on perfect equality with his
foreign rulers.
But the levee must come to an end. The officers of the Volunteer corps
who have been engaged on duty are presented to the Viceroy, and,
finally, the native officers of the native regiments which have been on
duty are brought up and go through the very graceful ceremony of
proffering the hilts of their swords to His Excellency. The hundreds who
have attended the levee then disperse to their homes, no refreshment
being provided after the levee, although, as has been mentioned, the
ladies, after the drawing-room, are more kindly treated. Every man,
therefore, seeks the earliest opportunity of quenching his thirst at his
own house or club, and the pipe of peace probably consoles him for all
the loss of temper and damage of apparel which he sustained in
struggling into the presence of the Viceroy. It is only fair to admit
that it is reported in the Indian papers that at Lord Ripon’s levees a
successful attempt has been made to prevent all the crushing and
struggling among the men for priority, which had been so disgracefully
prevalent at previous levees.
It has been mentioned above that most of the men who go to the levee, do
so in the hope of getting an invitation to dinner at Government House,
or, at least, to one of the balls, or “at homes,” or garden-parties,
which are given by the Viceroy in the course of the season. With regard
to the dinner invitations, there are always one or more experienced
A.D.C.’s on the Staff who are careful to weed the dinner-list
judiciously; but with huge weekly or bi-weekly dinners of sixty or
eighty persons, the Viceroy generally manages to gratify the vanity, and
satisfy the appetite of most of his ambitious visitors and their wives
in the course of the season. Doubtless much heart-burning exists on the
part of those who are not invited to these feasts, especially when they
know that any friends of their own immediate circle are invited, and
find themselves omitted. The A.D.C.-in-waiting sometimes has to receive
an irascible visitor who wants to know the reason why he and his spouse
have not been invited to dinner; and letters of remonstrance on this
subject are believed to be by no means uncommon. But “a mild answer
turneth away wrath,” and there is no instance on record of the A.D.C.
having ever suffered from the much-threatened horsewhip.
There are very few native gentlemen who care to meet their European
brethren at the dinner-table, and they, therefore, seldom appear at the
Government House dinner-parties. It is not that our native friends,
especially of the wealthy and educated classes, do not appreciate a
dinner in the English or European style, but, for reasons which it is
not easy to explain satisfactorily, they seem to prefer to indulge
themselves with such meals in the privacy of their own houses. It has
also been considered advisable, of late years, not to invite native
gentlemen to the balls at Government House. The reason for this can be
put in a very simple form. The native gentleman does not bring his wife
or daughters to the dance, and he himself does not dance. Therefore his
presence in a ball-room is unnecessary. This explanation does not cover
the whole of the case, but it is sufficient for our present purpose.
Almost everyone knows that native ideas on the subject of dancing differ
almost entirely from our own. Perhaps it may be permissible to mention
one very notable exception to ordinary native habits in the matter of
dancing. We refer to a young Rajah, the ruler of a semi-independent
province, who has had the good fortune to be brought up under most
judicious and capable English tutors and guardians. This young prince is
equally good at polo and rackets and lawn-tennis, and most other
European sports. He is a first-rate shot and a very fair horseman. In a
ball-room his success is unmistakeable, and as he has the manners of an
English gentleman (than which we can offer no higher compliment), he is
also fortunate in having so mastered all the difficulties of waltzing,
that it is generally understood that he is accepted by the best dancers
in a ball-room as a very welcome partner. He wears a sort of
semi-military costume, with a velvet tunic slightly braided with gold,
and it would be difficult to find any man more thoroughly conversant
with all social etiquette, or more familiar with the colloquial niceties
of the English language.
In order, therefore, to suit the tastes of the great majority of the
native gentlemen who wish to display their loyalty, the Viceroy gives
several evening parties, which are known as “at homes”; and these are
varied by garden-parties in the gardens adjoining Government House,
which take place about sunset, and are continued until dark, when the
grounds and adjacent buildings are lit up with a brilliant illumination.
The “at homes” take place indoors, and as there is no dancing or music
they are not very lively entertainments; but an “at home” everywhere
depends chiefly on the capacity of those who are invited to entertain
themselves from their own resources, and this element is not strong
amongst our native friends. At a garden-party they are much more at ease
and happy. They can bring their little grand-children to the
garden-party and see the pleasure which the children enjoy, and the
admiration which they sometimes attract. This is rather a curious
feature in native society. The grandfather cannot bring out his wife or
his daughter, according to native usage, so he appears in charge of his
grand-children. The grandfather himself may be of the mature age of
forty-five. His married daughter is perhaps about twenty-five, and the
grand-children are usually under ten years of age. Little native girls
of that age are exceedingly picturesque, and often absolutely pretty,
but about that age they are married, and withdrawn from the gaze of the
outer world. Certainly the customs and habits of our native friends are
mysterious; but there is no occasion to pity them because they firmly
believe that though their ways are not as our ways, they are in every
respect much preferable and superior to those of the European strangers.
We may say one word, before parting, regarding the balls given by the
Viceroy at Government House in Calcutta. There are occasionally what are
called small dances, when about 150 or 200 of the “upper ten” are
invited; but a real _dignity-ball_ means the issue of above 1,200
invitations, which are intended to include all whose names are on what
is called “the Government House List.” It is a very pretty and
interesting sight when the room is crowded, about 10 o’clock, and the
Viceroy with his wife and their private friends, and staff, make their
appearance in procession and take their places for the opening
quadrille. A sacred space is corded off for the Viceroy’s quadrille, the
ends of the cords being held or guarded by some of the handsome young
privates of the Viceroy’s native body-guard, in their gorgeous scarlet
uniforms and plumed head-dresses. These body-guard men are quite a
study, as they stand gazing imperturbably on the dazzling scene. In the
early and crowded part of a Government House ball, it is usually
expedient to walk about with someone who is able to criticise the
appearance and dresses of the ladies. There are representatives of
nearly all nations, and some of the Armenian and Jewish ladies are
conspicuous for the splendid diamonds and gorgeous semi-oriental dresses
which they wear. The ball-room usually looks very bright with the
numerous military uniforms and political and diplomatic costumes, which
present a happy contrast to the ordinary civilian evening dress. It
might be deemed impertinent to go into detail regarding the dresses of
the ladies, but a critical eye can usually distinguish the fashions of
at least three years, the latest arrived belles exhibiting the modes of
the latest London season, whilst many are about a year out of date, and
a few still adhere to the dresses which were in vogue two years before.
However, the dancing is always carried on with much spirit, and there is
no lack of good partners for those pretty girls who are seen to dance
well. About 12 o’clock supper is announced, and a move is made to the
supper-room on the next floor, where there is never any want of all that
is needed to cheer the heart of man or woman. Usually the Viceroy
retires soon after supper, and probably has an hour of telegrams and
urgent business to get through before he can go to sleep. The rest of
the company carry on the ball until the programme is exhausted, and even
the most large-hearted _chaperones_ are obliged to ask the A.D.C.’s to
allow no more extra dances. And so, about 3 o’clock in the morning,
Government House relapses into silence and repose.