THE ENGLISH RULE IN INDIA.
In reviewing the terrible scenes of the Mutiny, one cannot help asking
whether such scenes are likely to occur again; whether there will ever
be another Rebellion; and if so, what may be the chance of its
success? Will the people of India wish to rise? How are they affected
towards the English government? Are they loyal? We can only answer
these questions by asking another: Who are meant by the people of
India? The population is divided into different classes, as into
different castes. The great mass of the people are passive. Accustomed
to being handed over from one native ruler to another, they care not
who holds the power. He is the best ruler who oppresses them the
least. But among the high caste Brahmins, and especially those who
have been educated (among whom alone there is anything like political
life in India), there is a deep-seated disaffection towards the
English rule. This is a natural result of an education which enlarges
their ideas and raises their ambition. Some of the Bengalees, for
example, are highly educated men, and it is but natural that, as they
increase in knowledge, they should think that they are quite competent
to govern themselves. Hence their dislike to the foreign power that is
imposed upon them. Not that they have any personal wrongs to avenge.
It may be that they are attached to English _men_, while they do not
like the English rule. Every man whose mind is elevated by knowledge
and reflection, wishes to be his own master; and if ruled at all, he
likes to be ruled by those of his own blood and race and language.
This class of men, whether Hindoos or Mohammedans, however courteous
they may be to the English in their personal or business relations,
are not thereby converted to loyalty, any more than they are converted
to Christianity.
But however strong their dislike, it is not very probable that it
should take shape in organized rebellion, and still less likely that
any such movement should succeed. The English are now guarded against
it as never before. In the Mutiny they were taken at every possible
disadvantage. The country was almost stripped of English troops. Only
20,000 men were left, and these scattered far apart, and surrounded by
three times their number of Sepoys in open rebellion. Thus even the
military organization was in the hands of the enemy. If with all these
things against them, English skill and courage and discipline
triumphed at last, can it ever be put to such a test again?
When the Mutiny was over, and the English had time to reflect on the
danger they had escaped, they set themselves to repair their defences,
so that they should never more be in such peril. The first thing was
to reorganize the army, to weed out the elements of disaffection and
rebellion, and to see that the power was henceforth in safe hands. The
English troops were tripled in force, till now, instead of twenty,
they number sixty thousand men. The native regiments were carefully
chosen from those only who had proved faithful, such as the Goorkas,
who fought so bravely at Delhi, and other hill tribes of the
Himalayas; and the Punjaubees, who are splendid horsemen, and make the
finest cavalry. But not even these, brave and loyal as they had been,
were mustered into any regiment except cavalry and infantry. Not a
single native soldier was left in the artillery. In the Mutiny, if the
Sepoys had not been practised gunners, they would not have been so
formidable at the siege of Lucknow and elsewhere. Now they are
stripped of this powerful arm, and in any future rising they could do
nothing against fortified places, nor against an army in the field,
equipped with modern artillery. In reserving this arm of the service
to themselves, the English have kept the decisive weapon in their own
hands.
Then it is hardly too much to say that by the present complete system
of railroads, the English force is _quadrupled_, as this gives them
the means of concentrating rapidly at any exposed point.
To these elements of military strength must be added the greater
organizing power of Englishmen. The natives make good soldiers. They
are brave, and freely expose themselves in battle. In the Sikh war the
Punjaubees fought desperately. So did the Sepoys in the Mutiny. But
the moment the plan of attack was disarranged, they were "all at sea."
Their leaders had no "head" for quick combinations in presence of an
enemy. As it has been, so it will be. In any future contests it will
be not only the English sword, English guns, and English discipline,
but more than all, the English brains, that will get them the victory.
Such is the position of England in India. She holds a citadel girt
round with defences on every side, with strong walls without, and
brave hearts within. I have been round about her towers, and marked
well her bulwarks, and I see not why, so guarded and defended, she may
not hold her Indian Empire for generations to come.
But there is a question back of all this. Might does not make right. A
government may be established in power that is not established in
justice. It may be that the English are to remain masters of India,
yet without any right to that splendid dominion. As we read the
thrilling stories of the Mutiny, it is almost with a guilty feeling
(as if it betrayed a want of sympathy with all that heroism), that we
admit any inquiry as to the cause of that fearful tragedy. But how
came all this blood to be shed? Has not England something to answer
for? If she has suffered terribly, did she not pay the penalty of her
own grasping ambition? Nations, like individuals, often bring curses
on themselves, the retribution of their oppressions and their crimes.
The fact that men fight bravely, is no proof that they fight in a just
cause. Nay, the very admiration that we feel for their courage in
danger and in death, but increases our horror at the "political
necessity" which requires them to be sacrificed. If England by her own
wicked policy provoked the Mutiny, is she not guilty of the blood of
her children? Thomas Jefferson, though a slaveholder himself, used to
say that in a war of races every attribute of Almighty God would take
part with the slave against his master; and Englishmen may well ask
whether in the conflict which has come once, and may come again, they
can be quite sure that Infinite Justice will always be on their side.
In these sentences I have put the questions which occur to an American
travelling in India. Wherever he goes, he sees the English flag flying
on every fortress--the sign that India is a conquered country. The
people who inhabit the country are not those who govern it. With his
Republican ideas of the right of every nation to govern itself, he
cannot help asking: What business have the English in India? What
right have a handful of Englishmen, so far from their native island,
in another hemisphere, to claim dominion over two hundred millions of
men?
As an American, I have not the bias of national feeling to lead me to
defend and justify the English rule in India; though I confess that
when, far off here in Asia, among these dusky natives, I see a white
face, and hear my own mother tongue, I feel that "blood is thicker
than water," and am ready to take part with my kindred against all
comers. Even Americans cannot but feel a pride in seeing men of their
own race masters of such a kingdom in the East. But this pride of
empire will not extinguish in any fair mind the sense of justice and
humanity.
"Have the English any right in India?" If it be "a question of
titles," we may find it difficult to prove our own right in America,
from which we have crowded out the original inhabitants. None of us
can claim a title from the father of the human race. All new settlers
in a country are "invaders." But public interest and the common law of
the world demand that power, once established, should be recognized.
According to the American principle, that "all just government derives
its authority from the consent of the governed," there never was a
just government in India, for the consent of the governed was never
obtained. The people of India were never asked to give their "consent"
to the government established over them. They were ruled by native
princes, who were as absolute, and in general as cruel tyrants, as
ever crushed a wretched population.
No doubt in planting themselves in India, the English have often used
the rights of conquerors. No one has denounced their usurpations and
oppressions more than their own historians, such as Mill and Macaulay.
The latter, in his eloquent reviews of the lives of Clive and Warren
Hastings, has spoken with just severity of the crimes of those
extraordinary but unscrupulous men. For such acts no justification can
be pleaded whatever. But as between Clive and Surajah Dowlah, the rule
of the former was infinitely better. It would be carrying the doctrine
of self-government to an absurd extent, to imagine that the monster
who shut up English prisoners in the Black Hole had any right which
was to be held sacred. The question of right, therefore, is not
between the English and the people of India, but between the English
and the native princes. Indeed England comes in to protect the people
against the princes, when it gives them one strong master in place of
a hundred petty tyrants. The King of Oude collecting his taxes by
soldiers, is but an instance of that oppression and cruelty which
extended all over India, but which is now brought to an end.
And how has England used her power? At first, we must confess, with
but little of the feeling of responsibility which should accompany the
possession of power. Nearly a hundred years ago, Burke (who was master
of all facts relating to the history of India, and to its political
condition, more than any other man of his time) bitterly arraigned the
English government for its cruel neglect of that great dependency. He
denounced his countrymen, the agents of the East India Company, as a
horde of plunderers, worse than the soldiers of Tamerlane, and held up
their greedy and rapacious administration to the scorn of mankind,
showing that they had left no beneficent monuments of their power to
compare with those of the splendid reigns of the old Moguls. In a
speech in Parliament in 1783, he said:
"England has erected no churches, no palaces, no hospitals,
no schools; England has built no bridges, made no high
roads, cut no navigations, dug out no reservoirs. Every
other conqueror of every other description has left some
monument either of State or beneficence behind him. Were we
to be driven out of India this day, nothing would remain to
tell that it had been possessed, during the inglorious
period of our dominion, by anything better than the
orang-outang or the tiger."
This is a fearful accusation. What answer can be made to it? Has there
been any change for the better since the great impeacher of Warren
Hastings went to his grave? How has England governed India since that
day? She has not undertaken to govern it like a Model Republic. If she
had, her rule would soon have come to an end. She has not given the
Hindoos universal suffrage, or representation in Parliament. But she
has given them something better--Peace and Order and Law, a trinity of
blessings that they never had before. When the native princes ruled in
India, they were constantly at war among themselves, and thus
overrunning and harassing the country. Now the English government
rules everywhere, and Peace reigns from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas.
Strange to say, this quietness does not suit some of the natives, who
have a restless longing for the wild lawlessness of former times. A
missionary was one day explaining to a crowd the doctrine of original
sin, when he was roughly interrupted by one who said, "I know what is
original sin: it is the English rule in India." "You ought not to say
that," was the reply, "for if it were not for the English the people
of the next village would make a raid on your village, and carry off
five thousand sheep." But the other was not to be put down so, and
answered promptly, "_I should like that_, for then we would make a
raid on them and carry off ten thousand!" This was a blunt way of
putting it, but it expresses the feeling of many who would prefer that
kind of wild justice which prevails among the Tartar hordes of Central
Asia to a state of profound tranquility. They would rather have
Asiatic barbarism than European civilization.
With peace between States, England has established order in every
community. It has given protection to life and property--a sense of
security which is the first condition of the existence of human
society. It has abolished heathen customs which were inhuman and
cruel. It has extirpated thuggism, and put an end to infanticide and
the burning of widows. This was a work of immense difficulty, because
these customs, horrid as they were, were supported by religious
fanaticism. Mothers cast their children into the Ganges as an offering
to the gods; and widows counted it a happy escape from the sufferings
of life to mount the funeral pile. Even to this day there are some who
think it hard that they cannot thus sacrifice themselves.
So wedded are the people to their customs, that they are very jealous
of the interference of the government, when it prohibits any of their
practices on the ground of humanity. Dr. Newton, of Lahore, the
venerable missionary, told me that he knew a few years ago a fakir, a
priest of a temple, who had grown to be very friendly with him. One
day the poor man came, with his heart full of trouble, to tell his
griefs. He had a complaint against the government. He said that Sir
John Lawrence, then Governor of the Punjaub, was very arbitrary. And
why? Because he wanted to bury himself alive, and the Governor
wouldn't let him! He had got to be a very old man (almost a hundred),
and of course must soon leave this world. He had had a tomb prepared
in the grounds of the temple (he took Dr. Newton to see what a nice
place it was), and there he wished to lie down and breathe his last.
With the Hindoos it is an act of religious merit to bury one's self
alive, and on this the old man had set his heart. If he could do this,
he would go straight to Paradise, but the hard English Governor,
insensible to such considerations, would not permit it. Was it not too
bad that he could not be allowed to go to heaven in his own way?
Breaking up these old barbarities--suicide, infanticide, and the
burning of widows--the government has steadily aimed to introduce a
better system for the administration of justice, in which, with due
regard to Hindoo customs and prejudices, shall be incorporated, as far
as possible, the principles of English law. For twenty years the
ablest men that could be found in India or in England, have been
engaged in perfecting an elaborate Indian Code, in which there is one
law for prince and pariah. What must be the effect on the Hindoo mind
of such a system, founded in justice, and enforced by a power which
they cannot resist? Such laws administered by English magistrates,
will educate the Hindoos to the idea of justice, which, outside of
English colonies, can hardly be said to exist in Asia.
The English are the Romans of the modern world. Wherever the Roman
legions marched, they ruled with a strong hand, but they established
law and order, the first conditions of human society. So with the
English in all their Asiatic dependencies. Wherever they come, they
put an end to anarchy, and give to all men that sense of protection
and security, that feeling of personal safety--safety both to life and
property--without which there is no motive to human effort, and no
possibility of human progress.
The English are like the Romans in another feature of their
administration, in the building of roads. The Romans were the great
road-builders of antiquity. Highways which began at Rome, and thus
radiated from a common centre, led to the most distant provinces. Not
only in Italy, but in Spain and Gaul and Germany, did the ancient
masters of the world leave these enduring monuments of their power.
Following this example, England, before the days of railroads, built a
broad macadamized road from Calcutta to Peshawur, over 1,500 miles.
This may have been for a military purpose; but no matter, it serves
the ends of peace more than of war. It becomes a great avenue of
commerce; it opens communication between distant parts of India, and
brings together men of different races, speaking different languages;
and thus, by promoting peaceful and friendly intercourse, it becomes a
highway of civilization.
Nor is this the only great road in this country. Everywhere I have
found the public highways in excellent condition. Indeed I have not
found a bad road in India--not one which gave me such a "shaking up"
as I have sometimes had when riding over the "corduroys" through the
Western forests of America. Around the large towns the roads are
especially fine--broad and well paved, and often planted with trees.
The cities are embellished with parks, like cities in England, with
botanical and zoological gardens. The streets are kept clean, and
strict sanitary regulations are enforced--a matter of the utmost
moment in this hot climate, and in a dense population, where a sudden
outbreak of cholera would sweep off thousands in a few days or hours.
The streets are well lighted and well policed, so that one may go
about at any hour of day or night with as much safety as in London or
New York. If these are the effects of foreign rule, even the most
determined grumbler must confess that it has proved a material and
substantial benefit to the people of India.
Less than twenty years ago the internal improvements of India received
a sudden and enormous development, when to the building of roads
succeeded that of railroads. Lord Dalhousie, when Governor-General,
had projected a great railroad system, but it was not till after the
Mutiny, and perhaps in consequence of the lessons learned by that
terrible experience, that the work was undertaken on a large scale.
The government guaranteed five per cent. interest for a term of years,
and the capital was supplied from England. Labor was abundant and
cheap, and the works were pushed on with unrelaxing energy, till India
was belted from Bombay to Calcutta, and trunk lines were running up
and down the country, with branches to every large city. Thus, to
English foresight and sagacity, to English wealth and engineering
skill, India owes that vast system of railroads which now spreads over
the whole peninsula.
In no part of the world are railroads more used than in India. Of
course the first-class carriages are occupied chiefly by English
travellers, or natives of high rank; and the second-class by those
less wealthy. But there are trains for the people, run at very low
fares. There are huge cars, built with two stories, and carrying a
hundred passengers each, and these two-deckers are often very closely
packed. The Hindoos have even learned to make pilgrimages by steam,
and find it much cheaper, as well as easier, than to go afoot. When
one considers the long journeys they have been accustomed to undertake
under the burning sun of India, the amount of suffering relieved by a
mode of locomotion so cool and swift is beyond computation.
Will anybody tell me that the people of India, if left alone, would
have built their own railways? Perhaps in the course of ages, but not
in our day. The Asiatic nature is torpid and slow to move, and cannot
rouse itself to great exertion. In the whole Empire of China there is
not a railroad, except at Shanghai, where a few months ago was opened
a little "one-horse concern," a dozen miles long, built by the
foreigners for the convenience of that English settlement. This may
show how rapid would have been the progress of railroads in India, if
left wholly to native "enterprise." It would have taken hundreds of
years to accomplish what the English have wrought in one generation.
Nor does English engineering skill expend itself on railroads alone.
It has dug canals that are like rivers in their length. The Ganges
Canal in Upper India is a work equal to our Erie Canal. Other canals
have been opened, both for commerce and for irrigation. The latter is
a matter vital to India. The food of the Hindoos is rice, and rice
cannot be cultivated except in fields well watered. A drought in the
rice fields means a famine in the province. Such a calamity is now
averted in many places by this artificial irrigation. The overflow
from these streams, which are truly "fountains in the desert," has
kept whole districts from being burnt up, by which in former years
millions perished by famine.
While thus caring for the material comfort and safety of the people of
India, England has also shown regard to their enlightenment in
providing a magnificent system of National Education. Every town in
India has its government school, while many a large city has its
college or its university. Indeed, so far has this matter of education
been carried, that I heard a fear expressed that it was being
overdone--at least the higher education--because the young men so
educated were unfitted for anything else than the employ of the
government. All minor places in India are filled by natives, and well
filled too. But there are not enough for all. And hence many, finding
no profession to enter, and educated above the ordinary occupations of
natives, are left stranded on the shore.
These great changes in India, these schools and colleges, the better
administration of the laws, and these vast internal improvements, have
been almost wholly the work of the generation now living. In the first
century of its dominion the English rule perhaps deserved the bitter
censure of Burke, but
"If 'twere so, it were a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it."
England has paid for the misgovernment of India in the blood of her
children, and within the last few years she has striven nobly to
repair the errors of former times. Thus one generation makes atonement
for the wrongs of another. She has learned that justice is the highest
wisdom, and the truest political economy. The change is due in part to
the constant pressure of the Christian sentiment of England upon its
government, which has compelled justice to India, and wrought those
vast changes which we see with wonder and admiration.
Thus stretching out her mighty arm over India, England rules the land
from sea to sea. I say not that she rules it in absolute
righteousness--that her government is one of ideal perfection, but it
is immeasurably better than that of the old native tyrants which it
displaced. It at least respects the forms of law, and while it
establishes peace, it endeavors also to maintain justice. The
railroads that pierce the vast interior quicken the internal commerce
of the country, while the waters that are caused to flow over the
rice-fields of Bengal abate the horrors of pestilence and famine. Thus
England gives to her Asiatic empire the substantial benefits of modern
civilization; while in her schools and colleges she brings the subtle
Hindoo mind into contact with the science and learning of the West. At
so many points does this foreign rule touch the very life of India,
and infuse the best blood of Europe into her languid veins.
With such results of English rule, who would not wish that it might
continue? It is not that we love the Hindoo less, but the cause of
humanity more. The question of English rule in India is a question of
civilization against barbarism. These are the two forces now in
conflict for the mastery of Asia. India is the place where the two
seas meet. Shall she be left to herself, shut up between her seas and
her mountains? That would be an unspeakable calamity, not only to her
present inhabitants, but to unborn millions. I believe in modern
civilization, as I believe in Christianity. These are the great forces
which are to conquer the world. In conquering Asia, they will redeem
it and raise it to a new life. The only hope of Asia is from Europe:
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay;"
and the only hope of India is from England. So whatever contests may
yet arise for the control of this vast peninsula, with its two hundred
millions of people, our sympathies must always be against Asiatic
barbarism, and on the side of European civilization.