THE ANGLO-INDIAN AND THE OYSTER.
_Allahabad._--It certainly is a very difficult thing to see the real
India, the real life of the people. You arrive at a railway station,
give the name of a hotel, and are driven there. When you wake up in
the morning you find yourself in a region of straight shady avenues,
villa residences, hotels and churches, lawn-tennis and whisky pegs.
Except that the residences are houses of one storey instead of three,
and that the sun is rather glaring for February, you might just as well
be at Wandsworth or Kew. In some alarm you ask for the native city and
find that it is four miles off! You cannot possibly walk there along
the dusty roads, and there is nothing for it but to drive. If there is
anything of the nature of a “sight” in the city you are of course beset
by drivers; in any case you ultimately have to undergo the ignominy of
being jogged through the town in a two-horse conveyance, stared at by
the people, followed by guides, pestered for _bakshish_, and are glad
to get back to the shelter of your hotel.
If you go and stay with your Anglo-Indian friend in his villa-bungalow,
you are only a shade worse off instead of better. He is hospitality
itself and will introduce you cordially to all the other good folk,
whom (and their ways) you have seen more than once before at
Wandsworth and at Kew; but as to the people of the country, why, you
are no nearer them physically, and morally you are farther off because
you are in the midst of a society where it is the correct thing to damn
the oyster, and all that is connected with him.
The more one sees of the world the more one is impressed, I think, by
the profundity and the impassibility of the gulf of race-difference.
Two races may touch, may mingle, may occupy for a time the same land;
they may recognise each other’s excellencies, may admire and imitate
each other; individuals may even cross the dividing line and be
absorbed on either side; but ultimately the gulf reasserts itself, the
deepset difference makes itself felt, and for reasons which neither
party very clearly understands they cease to tolerate each other. They
separate, like oil and water; or break into flame and fierce conflict;
or the one perishes withering from the touch of the other. There are a
few souls, born travelers and such like, for whom race-barriers do not
exist, and who are everywhere at home, but they are rare. For the world
at large the great race-divisions are very deep, very insuperable.
Here is a vast problem. The social problem which to-day hangs over
the Western lands is a great one; but this looms behind it, even
vaster. Anyhow in India the barrier is plain enough to be seen--more
than physical, more than intellectual, more than moral--a deepset
ineradicable incompatibility.
Take that difference in the conception of Duty, to which I have
already alluded. The central core of the orthodox Englishman, or at
any rate of the public-school boy who ultimately becomes our most
accepted type, is perhaps to be found in that word. It is that which
makes him the dull, narrow-minded, noble, fearless, reliable man that
he is. The moving forces of the Hindu are quite different; they are,
first, Religion; and second, Affection; and it is these which make
him so hopelessly unpractical, so abominably resigned, yet withal so
tender and imaginative of heart. Abstract duty to the Hindu has but
little meaning. He may perform his religious exercises and his caste
injunctions carefully enough, but it is because he realises clearly
the expediency of so doing. And what can the Englishman understand of
this man who sits on his haunches at a railway station for a whole day
meditating on the desirability of not being born again! They do not and
they cannot understand each other.
Many of the I.C.S. are very able, disinterested, hardworking men, but
one feels that they work from basic assumptions which are quite alien
to the Hindu mind, and they can only see with sorrow that their work
takes no hold upon the people and its affections. The materialistic and
commercial spirit of Western rule can never blend with the profoundly
religious character of the social organisation normal to India. We
undertake the most obviously useful works, the administration of
justice, the construction of tanks and railways, in a genuine spirit
of material expediency and with a genuine anxiety to secure a 5 per
cent. return; to the Hindu all this is as nothing--it does not touch
him in the least. Unfortunately, since the substitution of mere open
competition for the remains of _noblesse oblige_, which survived in
the former patronage appointments to the I.C.S., and with the general
growth of commercialism in England, the commercial character of our
rule has only increased during the last thirty years. There is less
belief in justice and honor, more in 5 per cent. and expediency--less
anxiety to understand the people and to govern them well, more to make
a good income and to retire to England with an affluence at an early
date.
Curious that we have the same problem of race-difference still
utterly unsolved in the United States. After all the ardor of the
Abolitionists, the fury of civil war, the emancipation of the slaves,
the granting of the ballot and political equality, and the prophecies
of the enthusiasts of humanity--still remains the fact that in the
parts where negroes exist in any numbers the white man will not even
ride in the same car with his brother, or drink at the bar where he
drinks. So long does it take to surpass and overcome these dividing
lines. We all know that they have to be surpassed--we all know that the
ultimate and common humanity must disentangle itself and rise superior
to them in the end. The Gñáni knows it--it is almost the central fact
of his religious philosophy and practice; the Western democrat knows
it--it is also the central fact of _his_ creed. But the way to its
realisation is long and intricate and bewildering.
We must not therefore be too ready to find fault with the Anglo-Indian
if he only (so to speak) touches the native with the tongs. He may
think, doubtless, that he acts so because the oyster is a poor
despicable creature, quite untrustworthy, incapable, etc.--all of
which may be true enough, only we must not forget that the oyster has
a corresponding list of charges against the Anglo--but the real truth
on both sides is something deeper, something deeper perhaps than can
easily be expressed--a rooted dislike and difference between the two
peoples. Providence, for its own good reasons, seems to have put them
together for a season in order that they may torment each other, and
there is nothing more to be said.
And, putting race-difference aside, it is obvious that the
circumstances of our presence in India make any fusion of the two
parties very difficult. Certainly the spectacle of our domination of
this vast region is a very remarkable one--something romantic, and
almost incredible--the conquest and subjection of so many tribes and of
such diverse elements under one political rule and standard, the mere
handful of foreigners holding the country at such a vast distance from
home and from their base of operations, the patience and pluck with
which the problem has been worked out, the broad and liberal spirit of
administration with less of rapine than perhaps ever known in such a
case before, and even an allowance and tenderness for native customs
and institutions which are especially remarkable considering the
insular habits of the conquerors--all this makes one feel how wonderful
an achievement the thing has been. But as far as intercourse between
the two peoples goes, the result has been inevitable. We came to India
as conquerors, we remain there as a ruling caste. There is a gulf to
begin with; how can it be bridged over?
A young man at the age of twenty-two or twenty-three comes out to
join the official ranks. He finds two societies existing, quite
sundered from each other. He cannot belong to both. He may have the
most cosmopolitan ideas; he might even _prefer_ to associate with the
subject race, but that would be obviously impossible; he must join his
own people--which means the use of the tongs when a native gentleman
calls. As a mere lad, even though of strong character, it is impossible
for him to withstand the tremendous pressure which the Anglos will
bring to bear on him. When he is forty, he will have accommodated his
views to his position. Thus the gulf remains as wide as ever.
Then the people themselves are the conquered, and _they_ have learned
their lesson only too well. Walking through an Indian city is as bad as
walking through a Devonshire parish, where the parson and the squire
have done their deadly work, and the school-children curtsey to you
and the farm-laborer pulls his forelock and calls you “Sir,” if you
only ask the way. I have walked alone through a crowded city in this
part of India for two or three hours without seeing a single white
face--one among scores of thousands--and the people officiously pushing
each other out of the way to make room for me, the native police and
soldiers saluting and shouldering arms as one went by, and if one
chanced to look too straight at a man he covered his face with his
hands and bowed low to the ground! This does not happen fortunately
in the great centres like Bombay and Calcutta, but it does in some of
the up-country cities; and it is a strange experience, impressing
one no doubt with a sense of the power of the little mother-country
ten thousand miles away, which throws its prestige around one--but
impressing one also with a sinister sense of the gulf between man and
man which that prestige has created. It may be imagined that a long
course of this kind of thing soon convinces the average Anglo-Indian
that he really does belong to a superior order of being--reacting
on him just as the curtseys and forelock-pulling react on the
class-infatuation of squire and parson--and so the gulf gets wider
instead of lessening.
At dinner last night I met a dozen or so of the chief officials here,
and thought them a capable, intelligent and good-hearted lot--steeped
of course in their particular English class-tradition, but of their
class as good a sample as one could expect to meet. Talking with
a Bengali gentleman who was present--one of the numerous Bannerji
clan--he reiterated the usual complaint. “The official people,” he
said, “are very good as long as the governed submit and say nothing;
but they will neither discuss matters with individual natives nor
recognise the great social movement (National Congress, etc.) that is
going on. Their methods in fact are those of a hundred years ago.”
“It is a great pity,” he continued, “because in a few years the
growing movement will insist on recognition, and then if that leads
to altercation and division the future will be lost, both for the
English and the native. The people of India are _most_ friendly to the
Government, and if the official classes would stretch out a hand, and
give and take so to speak, they would be loyal to death.”
With these last expressions I am much inclined to agree, for having
talked with oysters of all classes on this subject--from the lowest
to the highest--I have always found but one sentiment, that of
satisfaction with the stability and security which our rule has brought
to the country at large--not of course without serious criticisms
of our policy, but with the general conviction, quite spontaneously
expressed, that a change of government--as to that of Russia--or even a
return to the divided rule of native princes, would be a decided change
for the worse. While however thus gladly and unasked expressing their
loyalty, my interlocutors have (I think in every case) qualified their
remarks by expressing their dissatisfaction at the personal treatment
they receive from the English. As one friend mildly expressed it, “The
English official calls upon you, and you of course take care to return
his call; but he takes care to confine the conversation to the weather
and similar topics, and makes you feel that it is a relief when the
visit is over, and so there is not much cordiality.”
No doubt as rulers of the country and inheriting, as I have said, a
tradition of aloofness and superiority over the ruled, it is difficult
for our Anglo-Indian folk to act otherwise than they do. Some of them
I think feel really grieved at the estrangement. One of the officials
here said to me in quite a pathetic tone, “There is a gulf between
us and the people which it is very difficult to bridge.” The native
gentleman on the other hand is, very naturally, extremely sensitive
about his dignity, and not inclined--under such conditions--to make
advances; or, if not sensitive, tends in some cases to be a toady
for his own ends; in either case further estrangement results. If the
English are to keep India together (supposing that really is a useful
object) they must _rule_ no doubt, and with a firm hand. At the same
time the rapidly growing public opinion beneath the surface _has_ to
be recognised, and will have to be recognised even more in the future.
I myself am inclined to think that timidity has a good deal to do with
the policy of the English to-day. Conscious that they are not touching
the people’s hearts, and cut off from them so as to be unable to fathom
rightly what is going on in their minds, they magnify the perils of
their own position, and entrenching themselves in further isolation and
exclusiveness, by so doing create the very danger that they would avoid.
_Aligurh._--This place affords a striking example of a _rapprochement_
taking place between the rulers and the ruled. It is the only place
in India which I have visited where I have noticed anything like a
cordial feeling existing between the two sections; and this is due
to the presence here of the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College, run by
Englishmen whose instincts and convictions lie a little outside the
Anglo-Indian groove. And the fact shows how much might be done by even
a few such men scattered over India. Our friends Theodore Beck and
Harold Cox, both Cambridge men, and the latter a decided Socialist in
opinion, being connected with the college at its first start a few
years ago, naturally made a point of cultivating friendly relations
not only with the boys but with their parents--especially those who
might happen to be residing in the place. Being also, naturally, on
friendly terms with the Anglo-Indians and officials of Aligurh, they
(and the college) became a point of contact between the two sections
of the community. At cricket matches, prize-givings, supper-parties,
etc., the good people of both sides met and established comparatively
cordial relations with each other, which have given, as I say, a quite
distinctive flavor to the social atmosphere here.
Last night (Feb. 17th) I came in for a dinner-party, given in
the college reception-room by one of the Mahomedan _taluqdars_,
or landlords, of the neighborhood--a little grey timid man with
gold-braided cap and black coat--somewhat resembling the conductor of a
German band. Very amusing. Gold caps on beaked and bearded faces, and
gorgeous robes; speeches in Hindustani by Englishmen, and in English
by Mahomedans; a few Hindus present, sitting apart so as not to eat
at the table with us; healths enthusiastically drunk in tea, etc.!
and to crown it all, when the health of the Mahomedans and Hindus
present was proposed, and the English--including officials, collector,
and all--stood up and sang, “For they are jolly good fellows”--the
astonishment of the natives, hardly knowing what it all meant and
unaccustomed to these forms of jollification, was quite touching.
But the influence of Sir Syed Ahmed here must of course not be
overlooked. He is the originator and founder of the M.A.O. College, and
one of the leading Mahomedans of India, as well as a confidant of the
British and of the Government--a man of considerable weight, courage,
and knowledge of the world, if a little ultra-Mahomedan in some of
his views and in his contempt of the mild Hindu. He was a member of
Lord Ripon’s Council and opposed Lord Ripon with all his might in the
matter of the proposed system of popular election to Local Boards and
Municipal Councils. The Mahomedan is poles asunder from the modern
Radical, and Carlylean in his contempt of voting machinery. His fingers
still itch, even in these degenerate days, to cut the Gordian knot of
politics with the sword. He hates the acute and tricky Bengali, whom he
cannot follow in his acuteness, and whom he disdains to follow in his
tricks, and cannot away with his National Congress and representative
reforms. But all this perhaps recommends him the more to Anglo-Indian
sympathies. There is something in the Mahomedan, with his love of
action and dogmatic sense of duty, which makes him more akin to the
Englishman than is the philosophical and supple-minded Hindu. And one
can easily understand how this race ruled India for centuries, and
rejoiced in its rule.
Yet to-day it seems to be the fact that the Mahomedan population
is falling into considerable poverty, which--according to some
opinions--must end either in the extinction of their influence or their
adoption of Western ideas and habits. With the advent of commercialism
the stiff-necked son of Islam finds himself ousted in trade by the
supple chetty or Brahman. Hence the feud between the two races, which
to a certain extent in the country parts was scarring over with mere
lapse of time, seems likely now in the more advancing districts and
commercial centres to break out afresh. “In Bundelkhand,” says Beck in
his _Essays on Indian Topics_, “where society is very old-fashioned,
the Rajas are quite Islamized in their customs and thoughts; while in
Calcutta, where English influence has been longest, the anti-Mahomedan
feeling reaches its greatest height.” That is to say, that in Calcutta
and such places the English have brought with them commercialism
and a desire among the Hindus for political representation, both of
which things have only served to enrage the two parties against each
other--Hindu against Mahomedan, and Mahomedan against Hindu.
When a man of authority and weight could make such a jingo speech as
that of Sir Syed Ahmed at Lucknow in 1887--who in the extremity of
his contempt for the Hindu said, “_We_ do not live on fish; nor are
we afraid of using a knife and fork lest we should cut our fingers
(cheers). Our nation is of the blood of those who made not only Arabia
but Asia and Europe to tremble. It is our nation which conquered with
its sword the whole of India, although its peoples were all of one
religion”--one realises how deep-set is the antagonism still existing.
Though forming a minority, fifty or sixty million descendants of a
powerful race sharing such sentiments cannot be ignored; and it is
obvious that the feud between the two races must for a long period yet
form one of the great difficulties and problems of Indian politics.
A few years ago the Hindus tied a pig at night-time in the midst of
the Jumma Mosque at Delhi, where it was found in the morning by the
infuriated Mahomedans. They in retaliation cut up a brahman cow and
threw it into a well used by Hindus. Street fights and assassinations
followed and many people were killed--and the affair might have grown
to a large scale but for the interference of British troops. Such
little amenities are not infrequent, at any rate in certain districts.
* * * * *
There is a big horse-fair going on here just now. A hundred booths
or more arranged in four little streets in form of a cross, with
decorations. All round, bare sandy land with horses tied up for sale.
The Cabulees--great tall men with long hair and skin coats, fur
inside, and ramshackle leggings and shoes--ride in with their strings
of horses, 300 or 400 miles from the frontier--where they are obliged
to pile their arms until they return, as they would play the deuce in
the country if they were to bring their guns with them. They look tidy
ruffians, and no doubt would overrun the country if not held back by
the English or some military power.
Outside the fair is a wrestling arena, with earth-banks thrown up
round it, on which a motley crowd of spectators was seated to-day.
Saw several bouts of wrestling. The Aligarh champion’s challenge was
accepted by a big Punjaubee, a fellow from Meerut, over sixty years of
age, but remarkably powerful--burly, with small nose, battered ears,
and huge frontal prominences like some African chieftain or Western
prize-fighter--good-humored too and even jolly till accused of unfair
play, when he raged among the mob, and the meeting broke up in insane
noise and blows of sticks--a small whirlwind of combatants eddying
away for some distance over the plain. It was characteristic though,
that when they had had enough of fighting, the two parties came back
and appealed for fair play to Beck and me--the only two Englishmen
present--though there did not seem the least reason why they should,
and we were quite unable to afford them any proper satisfaction.