'I NEW INDIA OR INDIA IN TRANSITION NEW INDIA OR INDIA IN TRANSITION BY SIR HENRY JOHN STEDMAN COTTON K.C.S.I. NEW AND REVISED EDIT J ON LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER, & CO., Ltd. Dryden House, Gerrard Street, W. 1904 ..**^ V^"' X \^The rights of ti-anslatio7i and of 7-ep7-oduction are reserved.'\ PREFACE My object in writing this book is to draw atten- tion to the great changes which are taking place in India — changes political, social, and religious — and to the spirit which, in my judg- ment, should inspire our policy in relation to them. The political situation demands decisive treat- ment. The conditions of our occupation combine to show increased difficulties in administration ; a waning enthusiasm on the part of English officials, occasioned by a livelier consciousness of the drawbacks of Indian life ; and a greater friction between the governors and the governed, attributable to many causes, but especially to the arrogance in thought and language of the ruling race, which has been brought out into stronger relief by the extension of education and the growth of independence and patriotic feeling among the people. Able and energetic Indians, enlightened and educated by ourselves, expanding with new ideas and fired by an V 513200 Preface ambition to which English education has given birth, make demands which are continually more and more reasonable and more irresistible. The waves of the ocean of Indian progress are dash- ing against the breakwater of English prejudice. The members of the Anglo-Indian community, like the courtiers of Canute, call loudly on the Government to restrain the advancing tide. The Government, insufficiently attuned to the requirements of the situation, unlike Canute, is not yet strong enough or wise enough to turn a deaf ear to their advice. India's political problem is the growth of an Indian nation ; her economic problem is the poverty of her people. The solution of the pro- blems lies in the sympathetic and systematic encouragement of legitimate aspirations and spontaneous tendencies, A constructive policy is needed which shall not only guide and control events during the period of transition, but shall also when necessary abstain from interference. The difficulty is to pass from the old to the new order without disturbance. In their religious and social aspect the changes taking place are not less considerable. The function of Government in this case is to pre- serve, as far as possible, the existing basis of order by a policy of wise conservation, vi Preface I have confined myself to the discussion of general questions, avoiding detail as much as possible, principally because details are unsuited to the English reader for whom this book is primarily intended. If I appear to have written strongly, it is because I feel strongly. I am profoundly convinced of the importance of the changes which are taking place. No one is in a better position than I am to appreciate the benefits which our rule has conferred on India. I have served for thirty-five years as a member of the Indian Civil Service. My father and grandfather were members of that service before me for sixty years. My son is now employed in that service. It is my pride that I am, as it were, a hereditary member of the administration, and I have never been deficient in respect and loyalty to the Government. A spirit of devotion to the people of the country is not inconsistent with, and has never obliterated, my sense of official duties. But while I am not slow to recognise the valuable qualities of our English rule, I am equally assured that the benefits we have conferred will never receive their due fulfil- ment, unless we can raise ourselves above associa- tions of the official groove, and prepare ourselves for the exercise of higher functions than those of mere administration. The Government has Preface deliberately infused new life into the Indian nation, and must not shrink from the responsi- bilities which are involved in giving full effect to this policy. What these responsibilities are, and what our future line of policy should be, are subjects which I have deemed it right to place before the consideration of the public. H. J. S. COTTON. Ja)tua7y 1904. Note. — The first edition of this book appeared in 1885. It has been out of print for many years, and is now republished in a revised and enlarged form. Although it has been rewritten for the most part, there is no change in the method of treatment or in the substance of the original work. CONTENTS J 1. INDIA'S POLITICAL PROBLEM 2. INDIAN OPINION AND ASPIRATIONS 3. THE INCREASED BITTERNESS OF FEELING 4. INDIAN LAND PROBLEMS . 5. INDIA'S ECONOMIC PROBLEM ^ 6. ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM . ^ 7. ENGLAND AND INDIA 8. POLITICAL RECONSTRUCTION 9. THE SOCIAL AND MORAL CRISIS 10, THE RELIGIOUS TENDENCIES OF INDIA PAGE I 36 68 88 119 160 182 204 225 APPENDIX THE HINDOO JOINT FAMILY SYSTEM '■43 NEW INDIA OR INDIA IN TRANSITION INDIA'S POLITICAL PROBLEM The test of a nation is that its members, among all kinds of partial differences, do, in the main, work together as fellow-citizens, linked by common memories and associations and common objects. Neither race nor language nor religion nor geographical boundary nor sub- jection to a common government is sufficient in itself to constitute a nation. It is not every population which constitutes a nationality, and the nations of the world are populations united in a very special way and by very special forces. By this test let India be judged. It is a trite saying that there is no Indian Nation. But apply the touchstone, and it will be seen that that statement is no longer true, and that there is at the present moment a New India rising I I New India before our eyes, a nation in the real sense in actual formation, with common sentiments of interest and patriotism. India in transition is New India, and the political problem in India is the growth of an Indian Nation. We have done more under our rule than was ever attempted by our predecessors to make a nationality possible. India is a vast assemblage of different races, divided into numberless castes, classes, and creeds. The British Government is a supreme power separate and distinct from all the units which acknowledge its sway. But unsympathetic as the subject races may be among themselves — and my experience is that we grossly exaggerate their want of sympathy — our Government is even more unsympathetic with all of them, and a probability therefore always exists that they will consent to merge their own minor differences and unite in their attitude towards the common head. An organi- sation only is wanted, around which the elements of a nationality may cluster. We have ourselves established the basis of such an organisation. In accordance with a noble and liberal policy, we have extended to India the inestimable boon of education. It is education, and education according to English methods and on the lines of Western civilisation, India's Political Problem that has served to unite the varying forces among the Indian populations. No other bond of unity was possible : the confusion of tongues was an insuperable obstacle. But now the English language is the channel through which the fire-worshippers of Bombay and the Baboos of Bengal, the Brahmans of Madras and the Mahrattas of Poona, the Pathans and Rajpoots of Upper India and the Dravidian races of the other extreme end of the peninsula, are able to meet on one common platform, and to give expression to their common interests and aspira- tions. At the same time the railways, the steamships, the post-office, and the telegraph have played their part in connecting the gap that used to keep the different provinces of India asunder. The germ of a national organisation on the basis of English education has long existed, but it has sprung into its present vigour in very recent times. Its present development is due to causes intended to produce a very different effect. The Anglo-Indian agitation against Lord Ripon's government, of which we once heard so much, the protests which asserted that " the only people who have any right to India are the British," the whole attitude, in brief, of Englishmen in regard to Indian interests, have 3 New India tended far more to advance the true cause of Indian unity than any action or legislation on the lines contemplated by that Viceroy could have accomplished. That humble measure known as the Ilbert Bill — which was designed to supplement Lord Macaulay's so-called " Black Act" of fifty years before and to remove all distinctions of race in respect of criminal juris- diction — if it had been allowed to pass without opposition, would have proved innocuous and comparatively ineffective in any direction. But the unreasonable clamour and rancour of its opponents and the unexpected success which attended their efforts gave rise to a counter- agitation of the most far-reaching character. Clamour was met by clamour, and a national agitation, published and disseminated by means of the English language, was carried on through- out the length and breadth of India. The very object was attained which the Anglo-Indian agitators, if they had been wise in their genera- tion, would have spared no labour to prevent. The people of India were not slow to follow the example set to them by Englishmen : they have learnt their strength, the power of combination, the force of numbers ; and there has now been kindled in all the provinces of India a national movement which is destined to develop and 4 India's Political Problem increase until it receives its fulfilment in the systematic regeneration of the whole country. The earliest evidence of a national organisa- tion manifested itself in the extraordinary enthusiasm with which the natives of India, of all races and creeds, united to honour Lord Ripon on the occasion of his departure from India. Such demonstrations in honour of a retiring Viceroy are altogether a novel pheno- menon. The homage that was tendered to Lord Ripon was never before offered to any foreign ruler. The spectacle of a whole nation stirred by one common impulse of gratitude was never before witnessed in Indian history. No de- monstration could have been more characterised by both unanimity and spontaneity. No sign could show more clearly that the germ of a nationality had already sprung into adolescence. That was nearly twenty years ago, and the movement advances by leaps and bounds. The unmistakeable yearning for nationality finds its utterance through a newspaper press, now becoming a potent factor in Indian politics, and in the annual meetings of the Provincial and National Congresses. The Indian press has grown in one generation, from struggling, obscure, and fitful efforts, into an organ of great power, criticising the measures 5 New India of Government with remarkable independence and vigour, continually checking the abuses of executive authority, and permeating all classes of the community, who are animated by its energy and proud of the ability and patriotism with which it is conducted. The newspaper press in India is now recog- nised as a kind of constitutional opposition, and with the growth of this recognition its import- ance is assured. It has also acquired new strength from the reactionary tendencies of our present rule. Legislation designed to curtail the liberty of the press and speech ; the crusade against so-called sedition, which has wisely been allowed to die out ; the attempt to abolish trial by jury ; the forcible introduction of harsh plague regulations, subsequently withdrawn ; the blows that have been dealt at local self-govern- ment, especially in Calcutta, where, in utter disregard of repeated and emphatic expressions of public opinion, a long-standing and successful system of municipal administration has been swept away ; the systematic discouragement of popular institutions; the deliberate encourage- ment of provincial segregation ; the practical declaration of race disqualification for public offices ; the proposals for fettering unaided colleges and schools, and the general sinister drift 6 India's Political Problem in favour of officialising all branches of education — these and other measures have had their effect in galvanising the opposition into fresh life. This is always the result of reaction, and in every campaign of agitation the power and influence of the Indian press have been augmented. The unanimity of this press is as marked as the increase of its influence. The same tone characterises its utterances in Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lahore, and Lucknow. The whole of its influence is in the direction of nationalisation. A single note is struck. In every large town in India newspapers are now published, identical in their spirit and in their common object, all aim- ing and converging at the formation of a single political ideal. Side by side with the Indian press there is working the organisation known as the National Congress. This organisation is avow- edly national in its name and scope. The Provincial Congresses, which meet in every pro- vince for the discussion of provincial matters, unite together in a National Congress, which is held annually at a chosen centre, for the further- ance and discussion of national interests. These Congresses have sat for nineteen annual sessions. A Congress consists of from five hundred to one thousand delegates from every part of India, 7 New India comprising representatives of noble families, land-owners, members of council, members of local boards and municipalities, honorary magis- trates, fellows of universities, and professional men, such as engineers, bankers, merchants, shopkeepers, journalists, lawyers, doctors, priests, college professors, and others. They are as representative in regard to religion as to rank and profession. Their deliberations are char- acterised by acumen and moderation. The principal items of the Congress propaganda at the present time constitute a practical programme displaying insight and sagacity and covering most of the political and economic problems of the Indian Empire. The impressions recorded by an English gentleman who was a spectator of the eighteenth meeting of the Indian National Congress, held at Ahmedabad in December 1902, are well worthy of reproduction. Mr Swinny writes : — The Congress I found extremely interesting. Anglo- Indians represent it as a place where men of no political weight meet for idle declamation. I attended every sitting, and found the proceedings moderate and business-like throughout. There were a few foolish speeches and many wise ones. Eloquence there was in plenty, and it was difficult to believe that the speakers were speaking in a tongue that was not their own. The great tent in which the meetings India's Political Problem were held, capable of holding some six thousand persons, was packed to hear the President's speech, and glowed with the varied colours of the turbans worn. Every community was represented. Learned Pandits from the North sat beside graduates of the English universities. Hindus from Madras met those of Sindh : Mahrattas, Bengalees, native Christians, Jew doctors, Parsees, Mahomedan traders fresh from South Africa, all were there. The resolutions had a wide range. The economic situation, the threatened increase of military expenditure, the revenue from salt, and the Report of the Universities Commission — for India, too, has her education question — were among the subjects dealt with. But in reality the speeches and the resolutions were not the whole or even the greater part of the business. The Congress is the meeting -place of the political leaders of all parts of India. By it they have become able to work in concert. Through it a common public opinion has become possible. This is a result which no failure in their projects and no neglect of their advice can nullify. The growth of a national spirit marks the revolution to which India has been subjected in its political aspect. It proceeds hand in hand with the social and moral revolution, and is due to the same initial cause. But whereas in the one case it is not in the power of the authorities to exercise a beneficial interference, in the other it is not only within their power, but it is 9 New India incumbent on them to act in co-operation with the people in furthering the changes already commenced. The danger is that by too tardy an acknowledgment of these changes A^e may drive the educated classes to force their oppor- tunity before the country is ripe for such a consummation. At times of crisis differences settle themselves roughly, and those who have not advanced beyond the transition period will always be apt to be borne away by the violence of the stream. The leaders will not allow them- selves to lag behind the enthusiasm of their foremost followers. At such a moment true statesmanship will be evinced not only by care and caution, but also by wise encouragement. There is fortunately no reason for apprehend- ing the introduction of any anarchical element in the continuity of India's political progress. The signs of change are from within, but there is no sign of any rupture with the past. The shadow of danger which casts itself over the future exists only in the attitude of Englishmen and in the policy of the British Government. It is not literally true that India is governed by the sword. If this were true, it would mean that the people are continually in a position of antagonism to the Government, and that it is force alone that keeps them down. But whoever India's Political Problem knows the facts knows that this is not so. The sword has no occasion to come into play, for there is no resistance. The real state of things would be better described by calling the Govern- ment of India a government by the sufferance of the people. The declaration of the late Professor Seely that " English rule cannot sur- vive the erection of India into a true nation" rests too much on this fallacy of the sword. There can be no doubt that English rule in its present form cannot continue. But the leaders of the national movement assume, and assume rightly, that the connection between India and England will not be snapped. The English language, while it is the means of enabling the different populations of India to attain unity, binds them also to Great Britain. It is from England that all the ideas of Western thought which are revolutionising the country have sprung ; the language of Shakespeare and Milton has become the common language of India ; the future of India is linked with that of England, and it is to England that India must always look for guidance, assistance, and protection in her need. It is well to familiarise ourselves with the conception which the realisation of a national spirit in India involves. It was the dream of John Bright, and he indulged in no mere mystic 1 1 New India prophecy when he foresaw that India would fulfil her ultimate destinies by a process of evolu- tion, out of which she would emerge, not through force or violence as an independent state, or torn from us or abandoned to England's enemies, but as a federated portion of the dominion of the great British Empire. As philosophic observers we may see the future of India unfold itself before us. As practical statesmen we may assist and encourage its evolution. We may assert with con- fidence that India will no more break from its connection with England than it will from the Hindoo or Mahomedan periods of its history. We may anticipate a time when the existence of healthy relations will be guaranteed by the estab- lishment of a federation of free and separate states, placed on a fraternal footing with our great self- governing colonies, each with its own local auto- nomy and independence, under the immediate supremacy of England. And we may venture to look for the basis of internal order to the recogni- tion of that organisation which from time immf^ mo- rial has existed in India — a patrician aristocracy of indigenous growth, trained by past associations to control and lead the lower orders of the people. This is the forecast of a future, dim and distant though it be, the gradual attainment of which it is the privilege of Government to regulate. 12 India's Political Problem It demands from our Indian Government a capacity for reconstruction, for guidance and sympathy during a period of transition, for energy and action when it is necessary to advance, for masterly inactivity and watchful repose when it is more necessary to look to the encouragement of spontaneous development. It calls for the qualities of statesmanship, rather than of administrative ability. It is easy to administer uprightly the affairs of a docile and subject people ; it is easy, with the power of British bayonets at our back, to coerce refrac- tory rajahs, and to settle by secret diplomacy the conflicting interests of native states ; it is easy to lead our victorious armies among imperfectly armed and semi-savage nationalities, to annex provinces, and by despotic rule evolve order out of chaos. It is a sublimer function of imperial dominion to unite the varying races under our sway into one empire, " broad-based upon the people's will " ; to fan the glowing embers of their national existence ; to wait upon, foster, and protect their instinctive tendencies ; to afford scope to their political aspirations, and to devote ourselves to the peaceful organisation of their political federation and autonomous in- dependence as the only basis of our ultimate relationship between the two countries. INDIAN OPINION AND ASPIRATIONS Nothing is more difficult than for an English- man to probe the real meaning of Indian opinion, or to gauge the true character of Indian sentiments towards our rule. Obstacles of colour, of physique, of race, of religion, of language, of prejudice, present themselves at every turn to frustrate any real intimacy with the inhabitants of the country. It is very rarely that Indians will be found to express themselves with openness to a European. Were there no other reason, the peculiar official relationship would explain this. But independently of any official relations, the attitude of Englishmen to Indians is not of a character to inspire con- fidence. Englishmen never know natives in their homes. Native gentlemen are therefore naturally exclusive and reserved. The longer we have occupied India, the less almost do we seem to know of the life of the people. The tendency, instead of being towards intercom- 14 Indian Opinion and Aspirations munion, is rather in the direction of increased divergence. We derive, moreover, the most false impressions of Indian thought from the Indians with whom we do come in contact. The best type of Indian gentlemen do not usually come in contact with us at all ; and it is hardly the language of hyperbole if I say that the real leaders of opin- ion are (with a few exceptions) men of whose existence even we are unconscious. Those whom we do meet are either officials or else gentlemen of property and position, with whom it is a traditional duty to pay their respects to those in authority over them. The Rai Bahadoors and the Rajahs and Nawabs who are honoured by a private audience with the Viceroy and the Lieutenant-Governors of provinces are not the mouthpiece of the people. They are men of rank and dignity, and are therefore entitled to honourable consideration, but they are not re- presentatives of the nation. Their conversation is not the echo of popular views and sentiments. Their voice strikes no responsive chord among the educated classes. Still less are those Indians in any degree representative whose highest pleasure it appears to be to fawn upon and flatter the members of the ruling race. There is no more satisfactory token of the higher New India standard of thought which has accompanied English education than the spirit of disappro- bation with which these men are regarded by the stronger and more restless and independent among their fellow-countrymen. There are wealthy Indian gentlemen who court the company of officials, and do not scruple to dispose of their Indian guests with scanty ceremony, while they reserve the grandest display, the richest luxuries, and the choicest amusements for the delectation of their European guests. At such entertainments, where Viceroys have been spectators, I have seen caricatures of Indian life presented on the stage for the amuse- ment of Europeans. These caricatures are amusing, no doubt, but for the Englishmen who behold them they only afford material for satire, and for increasing the contempt with which the natives are already regarded. The spirit of self-abasement which degrades itself to giving such an entertainment excites indignation in nobler minds ; and yet English officials, from the Viceroy downwards, who are held to honour such spectacles by their presence, believe that by so doing they ingratiate themselves with the Indian community, and bridge the gulf between the races. Vain delusion ! They foster the pushing, the cringing, the slavish instinct among i6 Indian Opinion and Aspirations the natives, which needs no encouragement. The really best men among the natives of India, who influence opinion and lead society not less by their intellectual accomplishments than in virtue of the moral qualities of honesty and independ- ence, are naturally of a more retiring disposition and somewhat proud. They do not care to make the acquaintance of Government officials if they can help it, and they do not thrust them- selves on the Government. They are not to be found on railway platforms to receive officials or bid them good-bye ; they do not attend meetings with the sole object of picking up in- fluential acquaintances. They do not dedicate books to officials, organise ovations for them, or seek to perpetuate their names by public buildings, roads, and so forth. Wise in their own reticence, dignified in their self-respect, the true leaders of Indian opinion pursue their own course with as little communication with Europeans as is consistent with the exercise of their full influence. Englishmen hear little of them, and the Government, as a rule, knows them not ; but their names are household words among the homes of the people. The public opinion of India is moulded in the metropolis, and takes its tone almost en- tirely from the educated community which 1.7 2 New India centres in the chief towns. Except in regard to their own local affairs, the masses of the people are indifferent, not as to the manner in which, but as to the hands by which, the powers of government are exercised over them. They look to their educated countrymen for guidance. Calcutta is now more to Bengal than Paris is to France. Madras and Bombay are no less forward than Calcutta in the dissemination of political thought and action. No one can pre- tend to possess any knowledge of native feeling who does not keep his finger on the pulse of opinion in the Presidency towns. There is a growing unanimity of opinion throughout India, based on the increased solidarity of native thought and the spread of English education. The people of India cannot but act and think as that section of the community which monopolises the knowledge of politics and administration may instruct them. The educated classes are the voice and brain of the country. The highly- trained, wealthy, and energetic Zoroastrians of Bombay have pushed themselves to the front in every department of life in that Presidency, and mould its destinies alike in commerce and intellectual pursuits. The brilliant and patriotic Mahrattas, full of pride in their past and in the glory of their ancestors, unite with the t8 Indian Opinion and Aspirations Parsees in all their political aspirations, and exercise a wider influence by virtue of the living Hinduism which lies at the heart of their national existence. The Brahmans of Madras, with their keen and subtle intelligence and a knowledge and mastery of the English language unsurpassed, have stirred a wave of thought which has swelled into every corner of Southern India. The Baboos of Bengal have done even more. They now rule public opinion from Peshawur to Chittagong ; and although the natives of North-Western India are immeasurably behind those of Bengal in education and in their sense of political independence, they are gradually becoming as amenable as their brethren of the lower provinces to intellectual control and guidance. A few short years ago and there was no trace of this ; the idea of any Bengalee influence in the Punjab would have been a conception incredible to Lord Lawrence, to a Montgomery or a Macleod ; yet I remember the tour of a Bengalee lecturer, lecturing in English in Upper India, assuming the character of a triumphal progress ; and at the present moment the name of Surendro Nath Banerjea excites as much enthusiasm among the rising generation of Mooltan as in Dacca. In former times the native masses, so far 19 New India as they were represented at all, depended on the English officials of the country for support. Such representation was obviously of the most imperfect description, but it existed to some extent, and served at least to protect the people from oppression at the hands of the non-official or 'interloper' European element. The early effects of English education did not disturb this state of things ; on the contrary, the tendency among the educated natives, who were imbued with Western ideas, was rather to hold themselves aloof from the people. They were highly educated in comparison with the masses, and all their new associations induced them to separate from their own countrymen. But now their attitude is changed. The edu- cated natives, as they increase in number, become more and more the rivals of Englishmen, and especially of the official class, who stand between them and the prizes of their ambition. As their numbers increase they become less isolated among themselves, and fall back more and more on the community to which they belong. One of the healthiest impulses which can be traced in Hindoo society is the corresponding change which has come over the masses of the people, who have now learnt to transfer their allegiance to the educated classes as their natural and best representatives. 20 Indian Opinion and Aspirations I cannot too strongly protest against the fashion of deriding this movement as a mere schoolboy agitation. It is untrue that the leaders of Indian thought are comparatively young, or that their followers are to a large extent mere students of our colleges. The movement has become national in its character, and is representative of educated Indian opinion in all parts of the country. But I am not blind to the powerful influence that is exercised by the enthusiasm of the rising generation. I do not forget that the student class has been largely instrumental in the formation of public opinion in Europe, and I am not surprised that the students in India should be active in the dissemination of opinion in that country. The vitality of the movement and the surest guaran- tee of its persistence are to be found in the fact that it is taken up by those who have all the vigour and energy of youth. No wise states- man in any country, and least of all in India, where education, which has roused all this move- ment, is still young, and New India, to which the movement has given birth, is still in its infancy, will venture to despise the public opinion which emanates from youthful agitators and patriots. For it is these men, the striplings of the present generation, who are the fathers of the next. 21 New India The attitude of Anglo-Indians is an indica- tion of the unsympathetic relations which exist between the two races. For the most part it is an attitude of complete indifference. English- men in India are blind to the real and obvious meaning of the great changes which are taking place before their eyes. They know not the machinery which works the change, and they see not the change itself. They live and behave, as far as possible, as though they were not in India at all. The mercantile community, immersed in its own affairs, possesses neither the leisure nor the inclination to associate with the educated class of natives any further than may be necessary for the transaction of business. Its members acquire the usual pre- judice against natives, which seems almost inseparable from our position in the East, but they gain with it no knowledge whatsoever of Indian affairs or of the Indian character. Their estimate is nothing more than a traditional prejudice inherited from a preceding generation, and never put to the test of experience. The officers of the army are with a few exceptions wholly ignorant of all classes of the people except the soldiers under their immediate command. The members of the Civil Service and the other civilian subordinates of Govern- 22 Indian Opinion and Aspirations ment enjoy, no doubt, a wider perception of the social and political revolution, but for the most part their experience is confined to outlying tracts and provincial towns, and the changes effected come therefore comparatively little under their observation. They are deceived also by the glamour of their position, and by the sycophancy with which they are usually pursued by natives, whose first object is naturally to stand well with those in power. They are predisposed by all their associations, interests, and antecedents to deny the possibility of any radical change. Even when they are compelled to acknowledge the existence of any considerable social movement, they will generally be found to depreciate its significance. Lastly, it must be added that the Government itself is not in a position to grasp the true meaning of the situation. Far removed in the serene Himalayan heights, it is not susceptible to the influences to which it would be subjected in the great capitals ; and it labours under this disadvantage, that it is surrounded by advisers whose experi- ence has been gained elsewhere than in the metropolis, and otherwise than by association with the real leaders of native thought. He would be a bold man who would unhesi- tatingly affirm that the people of India are 23 New India friendly to the British Government. If outward manifestations are of any avail, there ought to be no doubt of the loyalty of the great chiefs who from time to time have offered to place, and actually have placed, their armies at the disposal of Government, who have visited England to testify their allegiance to their Sovereign, and have taken their part in the pomp and ceremony of the Delhi Durbar, and have there rendered their personal and humble obeisance to the representative of the Crown ; of the Indian press and of the Indian National Congress, who have always been unanimous in their protestations of loyalty ; and of the popular leaders who have set on foot a movement for the enlistment of Indian volunteers who desire to serve shoulder to shoulder with Englishmen in the defence of their country. But I must caution my readers not to be carried away unduly by these mani- festations. Their meaning is different if we consider the different classes from which they come. It would perhaps be ungenerous to probe too narrowly the dependent position and consequent involuntary action of the native chiefs. They are powerless to protect themselves. There is no judicial authority to which they can appeal. There is no public opinion to watch their 24 Indian Opinion and Aspirations interests. Technically independent under the suzerainty of the Empire, they are practically held in complete subjection. Their rank and honours depend on the pleasure of a British Resident at their Court and on the secret and irresponsible mandates of a foreign office at Simla. It is impossible to imagine a more sensitive body than our Indian feudatories. They are consumed by petty jealousies among themselves, by questions of precedence, of salutes, of the strength of their armies. The example of one chief is infectious, the others cannot be outdone, and thus they vie with one another in their enthusiastic receptions of the Viceroy on his occasional visits, and in the display of those barbaric attributes of loyalty which are the surest passport for recognition and favour from the Government. They know that the annexation policy of Lord Dalhousie is still cherished among the Indian services, and that the proposal is unceasingly made that their troops should be disbanded. But the maintenance of their armies is a point of honour vital to their integrity as independent chiefs. It was a self-preserving instinct, rather than any sentiment of loyalty, which placed their soldiers at the disposal of the paramount power, and thereby warded off the ignominy of New India disbandment at any future time. There was little spontaneity ; but they risked and could have risked nothing by their action, and have gained much. They have won the reputation of loyalty. I do not imply by these remarks that there are not powerful and loyal princes whose attachment and devotion to the Crown is heartfelt and sincere. I have no doubt that the martial spirit, which our present policy has done much to encourage, tends unmistakeably to kindle in the younger chiefs a glow of ambition and pride in the Empire in which they play their part. I am convinced that a Russian conquest would be as abhorrent to the native princes of India as it undoubtedly would be to the people generally ; but I do say that the real motive power for the outward and visible signs of loyalty which have been so effusively displayed of late is due far less to their love or admiration for the British Government than to the peculiar helplessness of their position, and in no small measure to a keen perception of political opportunity, from which they have not failed to score a diplomatic advantage. If the native princes of India are to be inspired with a real sense of loyalty, it can only be done by humouring and conciliating them and taking every care not to offend their 26 Indian Opinion and Aspirations susceptibilities or lower their prestige. Their rule may not be an ideal one, but it is far more humane, sympathetic, and popular than we are apt to think. It is not a wise policy to be always lecturing them and posing as their pedagogue in public. They do not require to be reminded of the might and majesty of the suzerain power : that reminder is always at their side in the Agent to the Governor-General or the Resident. The policy of the Delhi Durbar in respect of these great feudatories was the subject of common discussion at the Durbar itself and in the columns of the native newspaper press throughout India. It was said that they were humiliated by the loss of their prestige and the public parade of their subject position. If the King had been present in person, or if the Duke of Connaught had been deputed to preside, there would have been neither reluctance felt nor humiliation. But the idea of a subject of the Crown receiving their obeisance and their homage, while the brother of the King was forced into the background, and the plebeian spectators held up their heads and clapped their hands and looked on as if they were the occupants of a seat in a circus or theatre, was as unintelligible to them as it was degrading and distasteful. In this manner was it proclaimed V New India to the world that they were no longer indepen- dent princes in alliance with His Majesty, but mere vassals of the Empire. We are told that their degradation was deeply felt by them ; and it is hardly to be supposed that their loyalty could have been stimulated by their inclusion in Lord Curzon's triumph after the fashion in which the captives of old accentuated the power of Rome by marching behind the chariot of the victorious consul. It is not agreeable to our imperial vanity to acknowledge that the attitude of the native princes — their loyalty and their homage — is not primarily animated by spontaneous and unselfish motives complimentary to our rule ; but it is better to recognise the truth, and avoid thereby the grave political blunder into which we should otherwise fall. Similarly, it is well that we should realise in its full measure the undercurrent of bitterness and discontent which so widely prevails among the members of the educated and English- speaking community, and not attach undue im- portance to the newspaper utterances and other expressions of loyalty of which so much has been made. These men also are prudent in their generation. I do not doubt the genuineness of their manifestations. They are based upon a 28 Indian Opinion and Aspirations fervent and wise desire to maintain the material basis of existing order in its integrity, to avoid premature change, and to preserve the status quo until modifications can be introduced with greater advantage. The horror of Russian invasion is a sentiment universal among all classes. The people of India do not like the English dominion, but they do not wish to see a change of masters. The educated classes like the dominion of England least of all ; but the educated classes most of all desire that there may be no sudden change. They fear lest a worse thing should befall them. They know that the abolition of English dominion would be accompanied by in- calculable disaster. They know that if we were voluntarily to retire from India, without guarantee of any kind for peace or order, they would instantly be subjugated by fierce and unlettered warriors. They know perfectly well that if the English were driven out of India by the Russians an imperial Russian Government would prove less disinterested and philanthropic than an imperial British Government. They know at least that if the Russians were to come to India all the advantages which they have so laboriously acquired through English education would be lost. Their knowledge of Russian administra- tion and Russian policy is very imperfect, and 29 New India being tainted in every particular by English prejudices which they have derived from their English education, their dislike and dread of Russia is (with better reason, no doubt) even greater than that of Anglo- Indians, whose language and style in speaking of Russia they imitate. I apprehend, therefore, that the expres- sion of their sentiments against Russia, and of their desire to support and even fight for England in her need, is undoubtedly genuine. But it is somewhat exaggerated also. Many of the Indian newspapers, with shrewd instinct, do not fail to perceive the advantage of writing up Indian loyalty, and of thereby vindicating a claim to greater confidence and to a larger share in the administration. It is impossible to admit the loyalty and deny the claim. If the Govern- ment will take no higher grounds, it will perhaps concede something to native aspirations in con- sideration of the loyalty of its native subjects. The truth, however, of all the manifestations on the part of the educated native community is, as I have already indicated, that they are evidence, not of the zeal of the natives of India in support of our Government, but of their anxiety that that Government may not be re- placed by a worse one. They are signs neither of loyalty nor disloyalty. The use of such 30 Indian Opinion and Aspirations words as loyalty and disloyalty is meaningless when applied to the natives of a dependency like India. They are loyal in that they ap- preciate the advantages of British rule, and are grateful to the British Government for the benefits which have been conferred on them.^ If this constitutes loyalty, they are loyal. They do not demand that the British ascendancy should be subverted. But they are embittered, deeply embittered, at their exclusion from power, at the deliberate neglect of assurances in their favour solemnly made and repeatedly renewed, at the contemptuous manner in which they are treated by Europeans, and at the insolence with which their legitimate aspirations are spurned and set aside. If it is disloyalty to attempt to wring concessions from the Government by all fair means within their power, they are disloyal. If it is disloyalty, when excluded from office themselves, to watch and censure, often in no ^ This feeling is well expressed by a native writer in the columns of the Indian Nation, a paper ably conducted and most appropriately designated: — ''An enlightened administration of justice, especially in criminal cases, religious toleration, liberty of the press, liberty of holding meetings and petitioning — these are rights which we in this country have so easily acquired that we are in danger of undervaluing them. We have secured by a few strokes of the pen of beneliccnt legislators, advantages which Englishmen have had in their own country to buy with their blood." New India measured terms, the abuses of the authority exercised over them by EngHshmen, they are disloyal. In the formation of public opinion they place themselves in opposition to the ruling race, and in vindication of their own rights criticise freely the policy of their governors and the action of the executive and judicial officers of Government. If this constitutes disloyalty, then they are disloyal. But they are not disloyal if disloyalty consists in the feeling that they would wish to see the English Government driven from India. That is not the feeling of the educated classes, and it is not the feeling of the nation. They tolerate the existence of our Government as an irrevocable necessity, which has done immense service to them in the past, but which they are determined to modify until it adapts itself to changes which, under its own impulse, have come into existence outside its constitution. They claim that the Government should repose confidence in them, and not shrink from raising them to the highest posts in civil and military life. They demand real, not nominal, equality, a voice in the government of their own country, and a career in the public service. We have been turning out year by year and month by month from our universities and schools streams of men with the best education 32 Indian Opinion and Aspirations that the Engh'sh Government could give them. We have been throwing open to them English ideas and English thoughts, and have awakened in their minds many an aspiration, and kindled in their hearts legitimate ambition. Is it pos- sible to turn round on these men and say to them, — we will not give you any opening for those aspirations with which we have inspired you ; we will not afford you any means for the satisfaction of that ambition which we have created ? Right well might Lord Ripon de- clare ^ that to make such an answer seemed to him the height of political folly. Right well too was it for him to quote the words of Macaulay in the House of Commons, when he said : " Are we to keep these men submissive ? or do we think we can give them knowledge without awakening ambition ? or do we mean to awake ambition and provide it with no legiti- mate vent ? Who will answer any one of these questions in the affirmative ? Yet one of them must be answered in the affirmative by every person who maintains that we ought per- manently to exclude the people of India from high office. I have no fears. The path of duty is plainly before us, and it is also the path of ^ Speech of Lord Ripon at the banquet given to him at the Leeds Liberal Club in 1885, 33 3 New India wisdom, of national prosperity, and of honour." I can indeed conceive no more ignoble or un- worthy poHcy than that a great power like England should avowedly continue to govern the Indian people with the deliberate intention of holding them in perpetual subjection, and with a set purpose of preventing their advance to freedom. This was the policy enunciated by Lord Ellenborough in his evidence before Parliament in 1853. It was re-echoed by the whole Anglo-Indian community in their opposi- tion to Lord Ripon in 1883. It still reverberates in every nook and corner of the Anglo-Indian press and of Anglo- Indian society. Nothing is more deplorable than the unwillingness of the English community in India to recognise the signs of the times, and their inability to review a position which the march of events has rendered no longer tenable. The immediate outlook, therefore, is not a bright one. Anglo- Indians are almost unanimous in their virulent persecution of Lord Ripon because he was able to discern — what they in their long residence in the East had failed to perceive — the rapid changes that education and Western civilisation had brought about among the natives of the country, and the irresistible political necessity for moulding the policy of Government in 34 Indian Opinion and Aspirations accordance with the changes made. The members of the Anglo-Indian community have shown themselves incapable of appreciating these new political forces, and their bitterness of dislike towards the members of the subject races has been aggravated by this incapacity. No help, therefore, is to be expected from them. Even the great majority of the officials employed under Government are in complete accord with non-officials in this respect, and are as directly opposed as non-officials can be to giving effect to a policy of general sympathy and encourage- ment of all national and popular aspirations. 35 THE INCREASED BITTERNESS OF RACE FEELING The remarks contained in the previous chapter lead me to further reflections regarding the existing relations between Englishmen and the natives of India. The subject is a painful one, but I cannot avoid it in these pages. I cannot say that the relations have ever been of a healthy character. Never at any time was there any real sympathy between the races, any sign of intercommunion, or of blending the two nations into one. There has always been a sense of dislike. Sir Walter Scott expresses the prevailing sentiment of race feeling, fostered by religious prejudice, very neatly in 5/ Ronan's Well, by the mouth of Captain Mac- Turk, where he says : " Py Cot ! and I can tell you, sir ! ... . Cot tamn ! Compare my own self with a parcel of black heathen bodies and natives that never were in the inner side of a kirk whilst they lived, but go about worshipping 36 Bitterness of Race Feeling stocks and stones, and swinging themselves upon bamboos, like peasts, as they are ! " Even so great a man as Lord Macaulay, with his liberal ideas, was not free from violent anti- native prejudice ; and his description of the Bengalee character, which has tended to in- fluence injuriously the attitude of thousands towards the Bengalee race, may be said to undoubtedly reflect the feeling of his con- temporaries. When such sentiments were openly expressed, the relations cannot have been healthy. But generally speaking, I gather that in olden times the feeling of the ruling race towards the subject people was characterised by an absence of that bitterness which is now its most marked feature. The tone of feeling was rather one of lordly superiority and of contemptuous indifference. This is the inherent attitude of Englishmen in regard to all coloured races. It would be too much to affirm that it is their attitude in regard to all other races than their own ; but in re- spect of the so-called backward races there can be no doubt. Mr Bryce^ has gone so far as to say : " It needs something more than the virtue of a philosopher, it needs the tenderness of a saint to preserve the same courtesy and respect ' Romanes Lecture delivered at Oxford in 1902. o7 New India towards the members of a backward race as are naturally extended to equals." I resent this conclusion as an unworthy reflection on our higher culture and on the nobler instincts of our nature ; but it is an indication of frailty which finds expression in all quarters of the globe,^ and is a melancholy evidence of unwholesome racial conditions which are as permanent in their type and normal in operation as they are ineradicable in their tendency to prevent as- similation between the denizens of the East and West. There is a prejudice against a dark skin. " I cannot stand these natives : I think they are such rank outsiders." Such is the curious emanation of opinion which a stranger within the gates does not hesitate to apply to the people of the country. ^ The attitude of the American branch of the Anglo-Saxon race in regard to the negroes in the States is well known, and receives characteristic illustration in the following paragraph, which is going the round of the press while I write : — " Mr Booker T. Washington, the eminent coloured professor, whose invitation to lunch with President Roosevelt raised such an uproar in the Southern United States, has had another object lesson in the higher virtues of the white race. Some time back, while staying at an hotel in Indianapolis, one of the chambermaids refused to make up his bed, whereupon she was very properly discharged. The sequel of the story, which has now come to hand, is that ever since she has been receiving letters containing gifts of money from all parts of the South. The total amounts to 3500 dollars, of which 1000 dollars came from one enlightened inliabitant of New Orleans." 38 Bitterness of Race Feeling The average Anglo-Indian view of the diffi- culties of inter-racial intercourse in India was not inadequately expressed by Sir Lepel Griffin, at a meeting of the East Indian Association in London, when he said that " so long as the Hindoo would not dine with an Englishman, so long as the Indian refused to bring his ladies into the common society, the difficulty of social intercourse between East and West would remain. The root of the matter is caste and race differences." This is a favourable state- ment of the Anglo-Indian view of the case ; but no view could be more superficial. The Hindoo does not dine with the Mussulman or with the Indian Christian, or with the Hindoo who has visited Europe; the different Hindoo castes do not dine together, nor can they intermarry with one another ; and yet the relations between them are not strained, and the caste system has never stood in the way of social intercourse between the different races and castes of India. The social relations between Hindoos and Mahomedans are of the most cordial character ; and yet Hindoo and Mahomedan ladies never appear in society, and are strangers to those social amenities in which their male relations take part. The Mogul conquerors mixed freely and intimately with Hindoos, and racial dif- 39 New India ferences have never interfered with the social relations of their descendants. The Parsees are another people who find no difficulty in estab- lishing intimate relations and friendship with the old inhabitants of the country. There is, in fact, no race in India except the European which is marked by its social isolation from other classes of the community. Again, if we regard the case from another aspect, we find that there are a considerable number of educated Indian gentlemen in India, many of whom have been to England and have associated on terms of equality with Englishmen : these gentlemen have no caste and are often willing to take their ladies into society, and yet there is no more social intercourse between them and Anglo- Indians than between Anglo-Indians and the rest of the Indian people. It does not matter whether natives of India live in English style or whether they do not, but they are not allowed admission into English society, or into Anglo- Indian clubs. What Anglo-Indian is there who cannot recall the scandals which have taken place in Government House when Indian gentle- men, albeit of the highest position, men whom in England we should be proud to meet, have been officially told off to take English ladies in to supper? Even one of my own secretaries, a 40 Bitterness of Race Feeling Cambridge graduate and a barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple, a gentleman of high attain- ments and marked amiability of character, was not allowed access to our station club. It would be easy to multiply such cases. It is narrated by Lieutenant-Colonel Graham in his Life of Sir Syed Ahmed, on the authority of the late Mr Justice Mahmood, that when that distinguished judge, during a visit to Madras, was taken by the then Chief Justice, Sir Charles Turner, to the Madras Club, a member promptly came up and told the Chief Justice to Mr Mah- mood's face that " no native was allowed in the club," and both Sir Charles and Mr Justice Mahmood had at once to leave the club premises. In the light of facts of this nature, it is impossible to believe in any theory that " the caste whims and prejudices of our Indian fellow-subjects stand in the way of friendship to an extent that renders all other difficulties altogether insignificant by comparison." Sitting at meals together may add to sociability, and ladies' society will give a charm to what may otherwise be lacking in friendly relations, but the " root of the matter " lies deeper than in caste and race differences : it is buried in the foundations and sunk in the framework of human weakness, deep in the prejudices of a 41 New India ruling race, and inherent in the unsympathetic and arrogant attitude of white men in contact with a coloured people. The warning which the late Marquis of Salis- bury, when he was Secretary of State for India, as long ago as 1875, gave to the students at Cooper's Hill College is as true now as when it was uttered. " No system of government," he said, " can be permanently safe where there is a feeling of inferiority or of mortification affecting the relations between the governing and the governed. There is nothing I would more earnestly wish to impress upon all who leave this country for the purpose of governing India than that, if they choose to be so, they are the only enemies England has to fear. They are the persons who can, if they will, deal a blow of the deadliest character at the future rule of England." They are indeed the truest and most loyal servants of the British Government who exercise whatever influence they possess to soften asperities, to inspire confidence and respect, and to insist on moderation. The security of our Raj in India depends more on the existence of sympathy and good-will than on British bayonets, and those are the real friends of India whose successful administration is due to sym- pathy. They are the real enemies of the British 42 Bitterness of Race Feeling Raj, and not its friends, who do but weaken our hold on the country by their unsympathetic treatment of its people. The warning of Lord Salisbury was a wise one. But he continued, with words of misplaced assurance, that he was convinced that all would take a better and higher view of their responsibility, and that as time went on the body of students who were turned out from England would go forth " feeling their position as missionaries of civilisation and fully recognising the responsibility that lay upon them of drawing tighter the bonds between England and that splendid Empire with which it is our vast responsibility to deal." Noble words ! but the spirit of optimism by which they are dictated is sadly at variance with the realities of experience. The danger to our rule remains with us, and far from diminishing, has increased with time and changing influences and the altered conditions under which our officials are now employed. It were idle to deny that the sympathies of the two races are less kindly now than they were in the days of a past generation. Formerly English officials, notwithstanding their occasional sacrifice of self-respect, did succeed in some measure in identifying themselves with the people. Their devotion to India was not diverted into other 43 New India channels. Their home became their adopted country. Now things are changed ; their suc- cessors, regarding their functions as disagreeable and temporary, seize every opportunity to escape from them by frequent furloughs to Europe or by retiring as soon as possible. The English- man in India has become less Indian and more English in his habits and feelings. It has been shrewdly said : " The Suez Canal has brought England and India closer together only to separate them the more." With stronger ties attaching them to England and increased facil- ities for visiting England, English officials grudge every hour of Indian service which keeps them from the West, where they have their real home. The feeling of impatience of their position, of anxious looking forward to the time when they can resign, is on the increase. Their sojourn in India bears more and more the character of an exile, and the exile sighs for home. Home yearnings, instinctively right in themselves, thus interrupt an active outflow of sympathy for their dark-skinned fellow- subjects. The greater number of Englishmen who now find their way to India is also a reason for their greater alienation from the natives of the country. When they were few, isolated, and 44 Bitterness of Race Feeling scattered, they were constrained by the force of circumstances to associate with the people. Now, in proportion as they are able to find companions among their own kinsfolk, they shrink from all avoidable communication with others, and their ignorance of the natives which results thereupon insensibly increases the bitter- ness of race feeling. Even the most narrow- minded members of the Anglo-Indian com- munity do not dislike the natives with whom they are intimately associated, but those only with whom they have little or no ac- quaintance. Other influences are also in operation. The official mind is embittered by the increased worry of administering new taxes, and of yield- ing vastly more work under more arduous con- ditions. The abuse of power, which has always been dangerously stimulated by the peculiarities of our position, is now restrained by the ex- pression of public criticism, which has, as it were, sprung suddenly into existence, and officials who have hitherto been practically irresponsible are irritated by the curtailment of their authority, and in many cases by its delegation to local boards and committees. It is a common com- plaint that officials nowadays have less consider- ation for the feelings of Indian gentlemen than 45 New India in iormer times. Fresh from their studies, placed almost at once in a position calling for the exercise of a statesman's qualifications, with no knowledge of men or the habits of Indian social life, often without the smallest amount of tact for ruling or leading men, they surrender themselves habitually, when in the society of natives, to an insolent demeanour of assumed superiority. A young magistrate who can main- tain the dignity of his office with courtesy and conciliation is always respected ; and in such a case it will invariably be found that the adminis- tration of local interests by means of native co-operation is a marked success. But in the majority of cases — and unfortunately they are the majority — the proceedings of committees, benevolently designed by Government to bring together Europeans and Indians as much as possible for the management of business, are con- ducted throughout with hectoring language and in a bullying tone ; and a native commissioner who ventures to evince any independence of character, or to oppose an opinion of the chair- man, may consider himself lucky if he escapes without personal contumely or insult. Indian gentlemen go away silently; they rarely say what they feel ; they would be horrified at any- thing like a scene, but they think and talk 46 Bitterness of Race Feeling among themselves, and their feelings, we may be sure, are the reverse of respectful to our vaunted rule. At the same time we find in private life an almost universal use of irritating expressions in regard to natives, which are not the less offensive when they proceed from persons who hold a responsible position, and have in other respects the outward seeming of English gentle- men. Among women, who are more rapidly demoralised than men, the abuse of" those horrid natives " is almost universal. Among men how often do we hear the term "nigger" applied, without an}' indication of anger or intentional contempt, but as though it were the proper designation of the people of the country ! Even with those who are too well informed to use this term, the sentiment that prompts its use is not wholly set aside. I cannot omit one feature of race prejudice which is rapidly developing into a source of embarrassment to the administration. Assaults on natives by Europeans have always been of frequent occurrence, and it occasionally happens that they are attended with serious and some- times fatal consequences. The trial of these cases, in which Englishmen are tried by English juries, too often results in a failure of justice not falling short of judicial scandal. During the 47 New India past half-century there have been only two cases in which capital punishment has been inflicted on a European for the murder of a native, and in both these cases no stone was left unturned by Anglo-Indian agitation to obtain a reversal of the sentence. The character of such agitation affords one of the most painful mani- festations of the bitterness of race feeling. If a tea-planter is charged with an outrageous assault upon a helpless coolie, he is tried by a jury of tea-planters, whose natural bias is in his favour ; but if, in any circumstances, such as by the inter- ference of the High Court, or otherwise, a convic- tion should ensue, the whole volume of English opinion finds expression in denouncing the verdict, the Anglo-Indian newspapers add fuel to the flame and give free vent to this protest in their columns, public subscriptions are raised to pay the expenses of the culprit, and influen- tially signed memorials are addressed to the Government praying for his release. An Anglo- Indian Defence Association has been organised in Calcutta for the express purpose of defending such cases. A paragraph is published in the newspapers headed " A Planter in trouble," and forthwith all the flood-gates of passion and pre- judice are let loose. Civilian magistrates even are not unaffected by race feeling. Their position is 48 Bitterness of Race Feeling certainly a very difficult one, and it is impossible for them to be altogether uninfluenced by their environment and natural feelings towards their fellow-countrymen ; but this renders it all the more necessary for them to be on their guard against any display, or apparent display, of partiality. I am glad to acknowledge that in many conspicuous instances they discharge their invidious duties with exemplary firmness and courage ; but there is an undoubted tendency to inflict severe sentences when natives of India are concerned, and to impose light and some- times inadequate punishment upon offenders of their own race. It is impossible to read the record of these trials and not to feel that justice is not always well and duly administered between man and man. In the meantime a feeling of resentment and indignation is excited among the members of the Indian community, and the representative press on both sides runs riot in a violent and uncontrolled torrent of mutual recrimination. We are confronted by a problem of extreme administrative difficulty, in which the elements of race antagonism are vigorously reflected, and the most dangerous passions are roused. It is not easy to suggest a remedy, and for my part I do not know that any better or simpler scheme can be devised than the 49 4 New India institution of special courts for the trial of cases in which Europeans are charged with the com- mission of serious offences. This remedy may not be wholly adequate, but it seems to afford the easiest solution. I can unreservedly applaud Lord Curzon's policy in this matter. He has spoken out plainly on the great question between man and man, and, although he has quailed more than once before the storm of English race feeling, it is the merest justice to say that nothing has more distinguished his administration of our Indian Empire than his overpowering detestation of injustice, and resolve to vindicate uprightness and punish wrong-doers.^ ^ The Anglo-Indian press attacks Lord Curzon's sense of justice in the most virulent manner. A leading weekly paper writes as follows in October 1903 :— " Here in India the white population are much exercised about the ' Bain ' case. They feel that they have as a ruler a man utterly devoid of sympathy, and without any of those British instincts which go to make a real statesman. They feel that racial animosity is being stirred up, instead of oil being poured upon the troubled waters. We would recommend to the consideration of Lord Curzon these words : ' He who stands by his own order need never fear the crowd'"; and concludes its article by saying: — "If a white man offends against the laws of this country he should undoubt- edly be punished, but in our opinion the punishment should not take the form of lowering him in the eyes of the native community, and if it is necessary to send him to prison, he should be imprisoned in Port Blair, or outside India. The spectacle of a white man being treated as an ordinary Indian convict does 50 Bitterness of Race Feeling It is a grave symptom that the official body in India has now succumbed as completely as the non-official to anti-native prejudices. I write in general terms, always remembering that there are many among my old colleagues and suc- cessors who rise above all prejudice and most honourably fulfil their obligations towards our Indian fellow -subjects; but speaking generally, my statement calls for no further qualification. The time has passed away when non-official Englishmen formed one party in India and the Indians another, while the Government officials were charged with the function of protecting native interests ; and instead thereof we now see a state of things in which the Indian community exists alone on the one side, while both classes of Englishmen, official as well as non-official, are united on the other. It is indeed a grave position to which we have drifted, for the change is complete and the tension acute. The non -official community is naturally, in- stinctively, as it were, placed in a position of antagonism to the people of the soil. This more to destroy the prestige of the British in India than any- thing we can conceive." These extracts illustrate the length to which racial prejudice will go, and the necessity of maintaining a strong and firm policy to curb it. 51 New India fact is well brought out by John Stuart Mill,^ who wrote more than forty years ago in language which might have been uttered yesterday : — If there be a fact to which all experience testifies, it is that when a country holds another in subjection, the individuals of the ruling people who resort to the foreign country to make their fortunes are, of all others, those who most need to be held under power- ful restraint. They are always one of the chief difficulties of the Government. Armed with the prestige and filled with the scornful overbearingness of the conquering nation, they have the feelings inspired by absolute power without its sense of responsibility. Among a people like that of India, the utmost efforts of the pubhc authorities are not enough for the effectual protection of the weak against the strong ; and of all the strong European settlers are the strongest. Wherever the demoralising effect of the situation is not in a most remarkable degree corrected by the personal character of the individual, they think the people of the country mere dirt under their feet; it seems to them monstrous that any rights of the natives should stand in the way of their smallest pretensions; the simplest act of protection to the inhabitants against any act of power on their part, which they may consider useful to their ' Chapter xviii. of Considerations on Representative Govern- ment, which treats "of the government of dependencies by a free stale." 52 Bitterness of Race Feeling commercial objects, they denounce and sincerely regard as an injury. So natural is their state of feeling in a situation like theirs, that even under the discouragement which it has hitherto met with from the ruling authorities it is impossible that more or less of the spirit should not perpetually break out. The Government itself, free from this spirit, is never able sufificiently to keep it down in the young and raw even of its own civil and military officers, over whom it has so much more control than over the independent residents. In former times the civilian element in India was the self- constituted champion of native rights, and the people of the country alv^ays felt that the members of the Civil Service might be relied on to protect them from oppression at the hands of the English settlers. During the agitation which accompanied the passing of Macaulay's so-called Black Act — of which an instructive account will be found in Sir George Trevelyan's Life — when the whole non-ofificial world was banded together to prevent what it conceived to be the injustice of allowing native judges to exercise civil jurisdiction over British- born subjects, the Civil Service as a body re- mained firm and supported the Government. During the indigo disturbances of forty years ago the civilians were the staunch friends and protectors of the natives against the indigo- 53 New India planters, and incurred thereby an extraordinary- amount of odium and obloquy. In those days it was the practice to blackball an official at the Bengal Club, whither men connected with indigo do most resort, merely because he was an official. There was little prospect then of the amalgamation of the two classes of Europeans, or of any identity of interests which would induce them to combine in a spirit of self- assertion against the natives. The change is due partly to the enormously increased influence which the non- official European community now exercises. Their numbers have augmented, their interests in industries like jute and tea, coal and cotton, have extended, and the Chambers of Commerce at the Presidency towns are now a power which is able to withstand the Government, and too often leads and dictates its policy. The position of officers scattered throughout a province, where the unofficial Europeans are the principal social force with which they are in contact, becomes one of increasing difficulty, and it is small wonder if they no longer display the independence and courage which were the attribute of their predecessors. The Govern- ment has grown too weak or is too demoralised to accord them its support. Few things are 54 Bitterness of Race Feeling more remarkable in contemporary history in India than the sinister growth of this com- mercial influence over the executive administra- tion. Individual independence is now swept away by the pressure brought to bear upon it, and a John Peter Grant or an Ashley Eden who in these later days may venture to attempt to redress the wrongs of the weak and oppressed, does so at his peril. The identification of interests of all classes of Europeans in India has been Lord Curzon's consistent endeavour. To the tea- planters of Assam he said:^ "I look upon all Englishmen in this country as engaged in different branches of the same great under- taking. Here we are all fellow-countrymen, comrades, and friends. The fact that some of us earn our livelihood or discharge our duty by the work of administration, and others by culti- vating the resources of the soil, does not differentiate us one from the other. These are merely the subdivisions of labour ; they are not distinctions of object or purpose or aim." And again on another occasion in addressing the mine-owners he declared:- "My work lies in administration, yours in exploitation ; but both are aspects of the same question and of the ' Speech at Cachar, November 1901. - Speech at Biirrakur, January 1903. 55 New India same duty." There is no word of the obligation on English officials to devote themselves to the duty of championing the cause of their suffering fellow- subjects, or of protecting them from oppression ; no word of the duty of the strong to protect the weak. The warnings of John Stuart Mill are forgotten. The English in India must be either administrators or exploiters. The ideal of the far-off future is the perfection of the country by the twofold agency of British administration and British exploiting : all are alike engaged in the country's advancement. There is no sign of any appreciation of the capacities and claims of the Indian people, or any thought of the place they are to occupy after generations of foreign administration and exploitation. And yet the thought is one that must be always with us. The prosperity of a country has no meaning apart from that of the human beings who are born and dwell in it. To Englishmen the country may mean the soil of India, with all that is above and below it. To Indians it can only mean the people. This theory of identic British interests denotes, no doubt, the advancement of Englishmen, but it does not connote the welfare and happiness of the children of the soil. On the one side it has directly led to the formation of a solid phalanx 56 Bitterness of Race Feeling of opinion in acute antagonism to Indian aspira- tions. On the other it has stirred the nascent spirit of Indian opposition, and the bitterness of race feeling has been accentuated by the constant iteration of a policy in which the Indians have no part or share. They have learnt by experience that exploitation spells economic serfdom, and that British interests are hostile to their own. There are other causes also at work set deeper in the very foundations of the structure upon which is based the fabric of India's evolution. This great change — the gradual amalgamation of opinion and interests among all classes of Englishmen, in contradistinction to the wishes and welfare of the Indian people — is due not only to the fulfilment of an economic policy, powerfully as that cause has operated, but even more largely to the universal tendencies upon which I have already so fully dwelt. The change was inevitable with the spread of English education. The Indian people have now found their voice, and their principal demand is, as might have been expected, for a larger share in the loaves and fishes of the administration. A struggle is thereby generated with the official classes, and the sense of rivalry thus occasioned has created a more effective 57 New India barrier between Indians and officials than that which has always been felt to exist between Indians and the non-official community. Both classes of Europeans are equally reluctant to admit the natives to equality, and the official class is especially aggrieved because the natives are invading preserves which have hitherto been free from any intruder. The result of education has tended to equalise the races, and the nearer the equality the stronger the disHke. The more Anglicised an Indian is, the more he is disliked by Englishmen. The sense of jealousy becomes greater. Whatever may be professed, Englishmen are ready to encourage the natives who speak broken English more than those who speak good English, those who are subject to Hindoo prejudices more than those who have renounced them, and generally those who are far removed from English habits of thought and life more than those who have made a very close approach to them. They are more pleased with the backward Hindoo than with his advanced compatriot, because the former has made no attempt to attain equality with themselves. This abhorrence of equality rankles in the mind of all Anglo-Indians, and especially of officials. It is the peculiarity of residence in 58 Bitterness of Race Feeling the East to develop sentiments of intolerance and race superiority. It is painful to observe the habitual and almost universal exhibition of race insolence displayed by our fellow-country- men as soon as they come in contact with a lower scale of civilisation. It may not need " the tenderness of a saint," but it is not the attribute of white men to display consideration and courtesy to the members of a coloured race. That intense Anglo-Saxon spirit of self- approbation which is unpleasantly perceptible in England itself, and is so often offensive among vulgar Englishmen on the Continent, very soon becomes rampant in India. Officials in India are far from being exempt from that weakness of human nature which is tickled by flattery and nourished by servile obsequiousness. Our Oriental subjects have pandered to this weakness, and, in accordance with the custom of Eastern countries, practise the profoundest adulation and abasement towards those set in authority over them. English officials, although they pretend to dislike this attitude, are secretly pleased at it, and do not hesitate to give open expression to their annoyance at its non- observance. There are innumerable instances in which pedestrians have been abused and struck because they have not lowered their 59 New India umbrellas at the sight of a sahib on the high- way. There are few Indian gentlemen even of the highest rank who have not had experience of gross insults when travelling by railway, because Englishmen object to sit in the same carriage with a native. This form of insolence generally takes the shape of forcible ejection with all goods and chattels. In a recent Times review of the Leaves from the Diaries of a Soldier and Sportsman, by Sir Montagu Gerard, I read as follows : — " We have never read a book which shows more pertinently how the ruling caste, from sheer carelessness or from inbred contempt for the coloured races, lay themselves out to court unpopularity. Take two of his instances. A subaltern gets into a railway carriage, where, to his disgust, he finds a couple of Hindoo gentlemen. He quietly waits till the train is in motion, and then, as he expresses it, ' fires them out of the door.' A petty Rajah, going on a state visit to Agra, takes his seat in a first-class compartment, with a magnificent send-off by his loyal subjects. On his return he sneaks out of the third-class and explains to the ex- pectant crowds that on the former occasion he had been boxed up with a couple of sahibs, muddy from snipe-shooting, who had made 60 Bitterness of Race Feeling him shampoo them all the way." This story of the Indian Rajah, who was called upon to unlace the boots and shampoo the weary legs of a British officer, is corroborated by Sir David Barr, the Resident at Hyderabad, and would be incredible if it were not vouched for by such high authority. One does not know whether to marvel most at the insolence of the young subaltern or at the miserable spirit of the Rajah, which induced him to submit to such abasement. But the incident illustrates the length to which British arrogance will go. It is but too common an outrage to assault re- spectable residents of the country because when passing on the road they have not dismounted from their horses in token of their inferiority. I have known a case in which an unfortunate old man died from the effects of blows so re- ceived. The great shoe question, as it is called, has convulsed official society a hundred times. The comparative independence of the lads of the rising generation has excited in countless instances the ire of the officials who come in contact with them, and a crusade against the muslin-coated students of Bengal has culminated in more than one unjust and ludicrous pro- secution before a magistrate. It is with the extremest jealousy — notwithstanding their pro- 6i New India testations in preference of a spirit of indepen- dence — that the official community has tolerated the omission by the natives of the country of any one of the extravagant signs of respect and humility to which it has hitherto been accus- tomed. But with the wide dissemination of English education and the growth of Western ideas it has been compelled to accept a change. " Men who speak better English than most Englishmen, who read Mill and Comte, Max Miiller and Maine, who occupy with distinction seats on the judicial bench, who administer the affairs of native states with many millions of inhabitants, who manage cotton mills and con- duct the boldest operations of commerce, who edit newspapers in English and correspond on equal terms with the scholars of Europe — these can no longer be treated as an inferior breed." ^ They assert and exercise independence. They claim a position of equality with the ruling race. They demand to participate to an ever-increas- ing extent in the administration of their own affairs. They neglect to salaam to an English- man when they meet him in the street, and they do not take off their shoes in his presence. ^ It is a pleasure to me to quote this paragraph from my brother's monograph on Inaia, in the English Citizen Series (Macmillan, 18S3). 62 Bitterness of Race Feeling Consciously or unconsciously, their attitude excites displeasure, and is characterised by the rulers of the country as one of growing arrogance. It is a common thing to hear an English civilian now say : " No one can have a more kindly feeling towards the natives of the country than I have ; I like the people ; I like the masses ; I like the up-country natives ; but I cannot endure the Baboos." This puts the whole case in a nutshell. It is the Baboos who are the product of English education and civilisation. The Indian Services as a body have no sympathy with the aspirations of the educated portion of the native community. The opposition to all proposals for the enlarge- ment of India's liberties is headed by members of the Civil Service, and the unanimity of opposition is almost as marked among magis- trates and judges as it is among planters, merchants, and members of other professions. The dislike to the educated natives of India is shared by all classes of Englishmen. I must add that the strength of dislike between the two races has always been greater on the side of the Englishman than on that of the native. Those who know the Indians best will be the first to acknowledge the natural affection and gratefulness of their disposition. 63 New India An Indian daily newspaper, published in Cal- cutta, contains some observations on this subject in a remarkable article entitled " Native attachment and gratitude to good, just, and noble-minded Englishmen," from which I make the following extract : — It is a practical commentary on the truth and justice of the charge brought against natives, that they bitterly hate the dominant race as a rule, that individual attachment to individual Englishmen should be so marked a trait in native character. It is hardly possible to travel over any part of India where some individual Englishman has not left the impress of his hand, whether for good or evil, on the locality and its people. And it reflects the highest credit and honour on the native races that, while the names of the bad and oppressive men have almost been forgotten, the memory of the good, just, or charitable EngUshmen has been preserved by tradition in perfect freshness — a perpetual tesdmony to the simplicity, forgiving spirit, and gratitude of the Indian character. To hate bitterly is not in native nature. The native heart is naturally kind, but the kindness becomes warmer when the object of it is a member of the dominant class. It is not always because we expect any return from him, but it is a peculiar feeling with us to be anxious to stand well with a race to whom we owe so many obligations as a fallen and subject people. If those obligations had been unmixed with quite as great wrongs, it is our fear 64 Bitterness of Race Feeling that Englishmen might have become objects of our idolatry, so enthusiastic is our regard and affection for all who really mean to confer or have conferred on us any great benefits. It seems to me that there is little or no exaggeration in these remarks ; and for my own part I must say that I have often been astonished at the ebullitions of Indian gratitude which are so frequently evoked when English officials, who draw the whole of their salaries from India, have literally done no more than their bare duty by the people of the country in whose service they are employed. The expression of real sympathy with natives is always, in my experience, repaid by a hundredfold degree of respect and gratitude. As the Indian Mirror again observes in the same article : — It is utterly false to say, as has been said, that natives hate Englishmen as such. It is quite true that they do hate Europeans who miss no opportunity to scorn, abuse, and degrade them, or to injure them ; but it is equally true that their respect and attachment to such men of Western races as do or mean to do them any good is almost unbounded. If there is any increase of dislike between the two races, I must place on record my conviction that the people of India are not responsible for this aggravation of sentiment. 65 5 New India It is due entirely to the changed circumstances in which the ruling race has found itself placed. It would be strange, however, if there were not a reciprocity of dislike. The organs of Anglo- India have lately resented with some ;\^armth the tendency of the English-speaking portion of the Indian community to speak and think of the British in India as " foreigners." The word strikes a jarring note and is naturally resented, but the tendency is undoubted. It is one symptom of the national awakening, of the rising spirit of patriotism, of the struggle for equality. The revolution which has been wrought by English influences and civilisation will always constitute the most abiding monu- ment of British rule. The change is as complete as that which was effected by the Renaissance in Europe. It is hundred-armed, and leaves no side of the national character untouched. But the Government is irresponsive : it remains the same, a monopoly of the ruling race, and so far from there being any real advance in the direction of popular concessions, a distinct reactionary impulse animates its counsels. There is no diminution of suspicion, distrust, and dislike of the national movement. The aim and end of the new Imperial policy is to knit with closer bonds the power of the 66 Bitterness of Race Feeling British Empire over India, to proclaim and establish that supremacy through ceremonies of pomp and pageantry, and by means of British capital to exploit the country in the economic interests of the British nation. The encourage- ment of Indian aspirations falls not within its ken. It would be strange indeed if the fire of a patriotic opposition were not kindled. A sense of political disabilities is the dominant note of discontent among the educated classes, and to this has been superadded the conscious- ness of the economic evil which the exploitation of the country by foreign capital and foreign agencies inflicts on it. Their anti- official sentiment is due to their practical exclusion from participation in the higher official life of their country ; the anti-commercial feeling is due to their practical exclusion from participation in the higher walks of industrial and commercial life. The burning embers are slowly rising into a flame. There is a growing spirit of antagonism not less to the commercial than to the official representatives of British rule ; the great gulf which separates Englishmen from Indians is widening, and the increased bitterness of race feeling is now reflected by Indian as well as by English prejudice. 67 INDIAN LAND PROBLEMS The bulk of the Government revenue in India is derived from the land, and there is no depart- ment of the Government to which more incessant and continuous attention is devoted. In no particular are we more ready. to contrast British rule with native rule so largely in our own favour, as in our dealings with the land. We point to our equitable assessments as enhanc- ing the value of landed property, to our agricultural experiments as increasing its pro- ductiveness, and to the benign protection of the British Government as enabling the ryot and his family to enjoy the fruits of their toil in unmolested quiet. But there is not one of these beliefs which is not delusive. Our dealings with the land have been more destructive of all ancient proprietary rights than were the old methods which preceded our own. Our rigid and revolutionary methods of exacting the land revenue have reduced the peasantry to the 68 Indian Land Problems lowest extreme of poverty and wretchedness, and the procedure of our settlement courts has been the means of laying upon them burdens heavier than any they endured in former times. Famine is now more frequent than formerly, and more severe, and it is the irony of fate that our statute-book is swollen with measures of relief in favour of the victims whom our administrative system has impoverished. The primary cause of this state of things is the excessive departmental centralisation against which Sir James Caird many years ago vainly protested. No more complete type of a bureaucracy exists than the Indian Government, and like all other bureaucracies, its members are driven to justify their own existence by extend- ing the sphere of their activity. In old days our predecessors in the administration of the country, with more practical sagacity than we possess, were always cautious in their interference, and instinctively favoured the adoption of conservative principles. At the present time, when enormous advance has been made in the expansion of education, in the growth of political ideas, and in national development, the dead weight of adminis- trative departments, needlessly multiplied, is prejudicial to real progress. Wise statesman- ship would rather consist in the preservation of 69 New India peace and order, and in the encouragement of spontaneous tendencies. What is needed is the decentralisation of the Government, the pervad- ing presence of a spirit of relativity, of a capacity to refrain from unnecessary action, of an ap- preciation of the wide differences between the East and West and between the different parts of India itself, and above all of a hearty sym- pathy with the wishes and interests of the governed. If these virtues are granted to our Indian rulers, we need not despair of seeing sound and healthy progress. But unfortunately these virtues are rare, and in their place a spirit is abroad breathing disturbance. Ambitious officials whose tenure of office is short are con- sumed with a fatal desire to distinguish them- selves by the enforcement of their own ideas, irrespective of the wishes and feelings of the people who are affected by them. I look with unconcealed misgiving on the restless proposals which are now so readily made by those who are responsible for our Indian Government. I greatly fear that in our zeal for progress and reformation we are drifting into a campaign of executive and legislative action, the benefits of which are uncertain, while the increased bitter- ness of race feeling throws a lurid light on our intentions which have been so much praised. 70 Indian Land Problems The experimental introduction of agrarian theories into a country altogether unripe for their application, where the existence of an aristocracy is still the material basis of order and the maintenance of an hereditary land- holding class is the corner-stone of internal political reconstruction, is evidence of a pro- found unfitness to appreciate adequately the necessities of the existing situation. Far from leading through any healthy channels to the settlement of disputes, experiments of this sort are calculated to produce nothing but disorder, by setting up class against class in vain opposi- tion to one another. The Indian tenancy laws, admirably framed as they are in many respects, are avowedly designed to subvert the old relations between zemindar and ryot, and to substitute a basis of contract for personal con- siderations. It is a common allegation that a large portion of the agrarian trouble existing in India is due to the old relations between land- lord and tenant. It is on this hypothesis that these laws have been enacted, and the Govern- ment of India has gone so far as to declare that " it would be failing in its duty to the future population of the country if, in order to secure the full development of its material resources twenty or fifty or even a hundred years sooner 71 New India than it would otherwise come about, it deliber- ately introduced, while having power to exclude, the relation of landlord and tenant." I do not hesitate to affirm that this is a most dangerous doctrine, and that there is little foundation for this hypothesis of agrarian trouble. The social aspects of the land-tenure system of India are not those of Ireland or England or of any country in Western Europe. The system is not a perfect one, but it is the guarantee of social order among the agricultural classes. The normal relations of landlord and tenant rest upon a personal basis, and are entirely independent of any conception of contract. It is true that rights are unadjusted, the balance of rent is undetermined, the current demand is not fixed, the area of cultivation is often unknown ; and yet it is not the case that the ordinary relations between zemindar and ryot are unfriendly. The narrow induction drawn by local officials from occasional disturbances which come to their notice misleads them and has misled Government into the delusion that general disaffection exists. The one or two cases of disaffection come prominently to notice ; the thousands and thousands of instances in which order and contentment prevail pass by unobserved. The occasional agrarian disturb- 72 Indian Land Problems ances to which so much importance has unduly been attached have for the most part been stirred up by the injudicious interference of zealous officials who are incapable of recognising the exigencies of the position in which they are placed. It cannot be too often repeated that a patrician aristocracy is the basis of internal order in India, to which the Government must always look for support and for the maintenance of its own duration and stability. The lower orders stand in urgent need of an aristocracy above them ; their ignorance and characteristic docility and want of firmness require the guidance and protection of more powerful superiors, and I am firmly convinced that the adoption of any policy to reduce the power of the dominant classes and to destroy distinctions in the different strata of society is fraught with danger to the State. In this connection the opinion of the late Sir Henry Lawrence is worthy of attention, and a deep interest attaches to the following expres- sion of his views, which is recorded in Sir Joseph Fayrer's manuscript diary of the siege of Luck- now (quoted by Mr Forrest in his Selections from Mutiny Despatches, vol. ii. p. 6^) : — During the time that Sir Henry Lawrence was in my house before his death he talked frequently in an impressive but excited way, and amongst other things 73 New India that he said, as his thoughts travelled from one subject to another, one which seemed to be most present to him was the causes of the Mutiny, and that which led to the troubles in which we were now involved. He spoke of the injudicious method in which native land-holders had been dealt with by the Government, and among other things he said more than once with emphasis: "It was the John Law- rences, the Thomasons, the Edmonstones (and others), who brought India to this." This I heard distinctly. It is essential to the prosperity of every country that there should exist within it not only a proletariat, the great body of the people v^^ho devote themselves to labour, but also a class of capitalists who provide the funds which enable labour to become reproductive. It is the combination of capital and labour which leads to wealth : capital without labour is sterilised, and it is only under the fertilising influence of capital that labour is productive. It is not to the advantage of any country that it should consist exclusively of petty agricul- turists whose rent is increased with increased production, and who will labour therefore neither for the improvement of the land nor for the extension of cultivation. It is not to the advantage of any people that they should be reduced to one dead level of a peasant proletariat 74 Indian Land Problems with no substantial middle class, such as forms the backbone of the nation in more favoured countries, and no upper class on whom they can lean for assistance during an emergency. The Government of India, when it rejects the inter- vention of middlemen, acts as a rent-receiver only ; it is unable to sympathise with individual cases of misfortune among its tenants ; it is not disposed to invest any portion of its revenues in agricultural improvement ; it does not acknow- ledge and it certainly does not fulfil the duties of a capitalist landlord. It does not allow the profits of the soil to be distributed through the various grades of the community between the cultivator and the State. They pass into the coffers of the Government direct, and the people are only permitted to share among themselves the subsistence margin that is left. One of the principal merits of the old native rule in India was the elasticity of its revenue system. The demand of rent or revenue was not rigid or fixed, but variable with the seasons and the distress or prosperity of the people. In a favourable year large collections would be made ; when the crops had failed the demand would be reduced accordingly. We see the same principle now governing the land -revenue administration of Native States, and it is a 75 New India common reflection, echoed by all Indian gentle- men who have had experience in the manage- ment of those States, that it tends to the establishment of sympathy and friendliness. The same principle still controls the relation between landlord and tenant in British India. It is only in the most prosperous years that a full demand of rent is ever collected from the tenantry, and it may be taken as an ascer- tained fact that 75 per cent, on the demand is a fair average proportion of realisation in zemindari estates. This is a striking contrast to the practice in Government estates, where a full cent, per cent, on the current demand is rigidly exacted. Nor does the Government system tend to develop the wealth of the peasantry by extension of cultivation. It was estimated by Lord Cornwallis that at the time of the permanent settlement of Bengal one -third of the culturable area of the province was waste and jungle. And yet within two generations, under the beneficent operation of that settle- ment, these waste lands were cultivated in every direction, and teeming agricultural wealth is now produced every year in tracts of country which formerly were wilderness or devastated by famine. These reclaimers of the jungle are all sub-tenure holders who have got land to clear 76 Indian Land Problems on favourable terms from the zemindars or landlords of the parent estate, and have acquired an indefeasible title to the land they occupy. With the aid of a fertile soil, rising prices, and a continually increasing demand for produce, this system has proved extraordinarily successful. Very different influences have been at work in provinces where the land is held directly by the State. The soil is not less fertile, and the cultivators have the same stimulus in respect of rising prices and the increasing demand for produce, but they are labouring under the burden of a system in which the land is periodi- cally settled with them by Government This system has not promoted the cultivation of the country, and the prohibition of sub-letting has proved fatal to the extension of land reclamation. So true is it that a proprietary tenure, if left in the hands of the people, will always be fruitful, but that if retained by Government it starves. Short settlements, an exacting demand, and an unbending severity in collecting rent have driven the simple husbandmen into the clutches of the money- lender, and are responsible for their share in intensifying the effects of famine. In a country like India, where almost the entire community is agricultural, all questions relating to land are 77 New India of the most engrossing interest to the people, and the attitude of Government for good or evil is the source of prosperity or the cause of suffering. Nothing is more needful than that we should forbear from casting about for every opportunity of exacting from the cultivators more and more of the fruits of their labour, and that we should desist from fanciful innovations, which always imply harassment and disturbance. Nothing is more urgently necessary than that there should be a reasonable, equitable, and intelligible limit to the State demand, and that greater elasticity, in accordance with the old Indian custom, should be allowed in the operations of the tax-gatherers. Under the viceroyalty of Lord Canning a bold attempt was made to effect improvement. But the pendulum of official opinion soon swung back, and the subsequent efforts of Lord Ripon in this direction were frustrated. More recently Lord Curzon has followed with some concessions for which we may be grateful, but they were bought too late at the cost of much suffering, and the newly-found toleration, which was forced on the Government by outside agitation, cannot be recognised as adequate. No pro- tection has been afforded against excessive assessment or undue enhancement. No attempt 78 Indian Land Problems is made to adjust the revenue or rent demand so that it may represent any fixed proportion of the produce of the land or of its letting value ; and the amount of the assessment to be imposed on an individual unit is determined chiefly by a consideration of the percentage of increase which can safely be exacted from the area under settlement. The limits placed by law on enhancements claimed by private landlords have not been extended to cases where the State is the landlord, and peasant proprietors paying revenue to the State have not been allowed the civil remedy which tenants of private landlords enjoy. "The true function of Government is to lay down broad and generous principles for the guidance of its officers, with becoming regard to the traditions of the province and the circumstances of the locality, and to prescribe moderation in enhancement and sympathy in collection." These are the admirable sentiments enunciated by Lord Curzon for the amelioration of the Indian system of land revenue policy. They should be engraved on tablets of brass over the council-chambers of India as the speech of the Emperor Claudius was engraved at Lugdunum. But alas, that practice should so lag behind the precept ! The ryots cry aloud for bread, and we have given them a statute- 79 New India book to comfort them. It is vain to appeal to our good intentions. The people can only judge of these intentions by their effect in practice. It is useless to affirm that where there is a civilised government you must trust that government to some extent. It is idle to point out that ours is "one of the fairest governments in the world." We are mistrusted by the people, and our motives are subjected to suspicion. It is a mockery to preach to them of "moderation in enhancement and sympathy in collection " when re-settlements and survey, with their symbols of oppression, the theodolite and compass, the initiation of incessant local inquiries for the assessment of land, however small, and the realisation of Government de- mands by summary process, are resorted to with no less frequence than formerly, and with no diminution of harshness or persistence. Not less injudicious is the policy of interfer- ence with old customs and economic conditions. Those conditions vary from one another as widely as ihe. petite culture of France differs from the system of large proprietary holdings and farms in England. And yet we insist on in- troducing one nomenclature, to which, like the bed of Procrustes, we adapt all tenures, holdings, and systems of settling the Government demand Indian Land Problems of revenue and rent. These administrative fictions, which proceed on the assumption that what is true of one part of a province must be applicable to the whole, are a prolific source of trouble. A blind adhesion to theoretic sym- metry will always lead to practical confusion. And so it has come to pass that the principal officers of the revenue department have been mobbed by despairing ryots in the streets of Calcutta, and compelled to revise settlements, reduce assessments, and remit revenue demands which ought never to have been made. I may be allowed to refer to a case of which I possess particular knowledge. For more than a cen- tury an invariable custom had been followed in the assessment of waste lands brought under cultivation in the Chittagong district, and during this long period the Government had concluded more than 50,000 settlements with individual tenure-holders on one consistent principle. But when that principle was completely reversed, and I protested against the change, I was called upon to show that Government was in any way pledged to follow the old procedure in future settlements. I replied then, as I reply now, that I was not concerned to meet the challenge. I claim that there should be some continuity in administration, and that present and future 81 6 New India Governments should show some respect for precedent, customs, and rights invariably recog- nised by their predecessors. I deprecate the shifts and changes to which it is so often pro- posed to subject our revenue policy, as inevitably exercising a most injurious effect upon the people who are the victims of our experiment. Is it to be supposed that such changes will play innocu- ously, so to speak, over the heads of the agricul- tural classes ? This is assuredly the only aspect with which true statesmanship would concern itself ; but by our revenue authorities it is too often wholly ignored, or buried in a multitude of circular instructions which lead only to the increasing harassment of an already overburdened peasantry. Even more serious cause for anxiety is the suppressed premise, which runs through all our revenue policy, that the soil of the country does not belong to the inhabitants of the country, but to the Government. There is no great harm in saying that the land belongs to " the State " when the State is only another name for the people, but it is very different when the State is represented by a small minority of foreigners, who disburse nearly one-third of the revenues received from the land on the remuneration of their own servants, and who have no abiding-place on the soil and no stake in the fortunes of the country. 8.: Indian Land Problems It is because we have acted on this principle all over India, with the exception of the permanently- settled districts, that we have reduced the agricultural classes to such poverty. By vigor- ously asserting the false position that a party of foreign occupiers who choose to call themselves " the State " have become the proprietors of the actual soil of India, we have destroyed all other rights of property therein, from the talookdar down to the ryot ; we have subverted the entire organisation of the village communities ; we have torn up by the roots the economic fabric by which the agricultural classes of the country were held together ; and we have substituted in its place a costly and mechanical centralisation. Our Mogul predecessors were content to levy the State demand by simple processes which had grown up imperceptibly with the administration, and were sanctioned by immemorial usage. The harshness and cruelty of the Mogul tax-gatherers, on which we are too prone to dwell, were tempered by the contingency of migration, which effectually acted as a check upon oppressive landlords. The rapacity of Oriental despotism was restrained by the self-interest of those who were employed on the assessment and collection of the taxes. The old records of our English Government are full of evidence that the fixed 83 New India and unbending system which we introduced in place of existing arrangements was profoundly disliked by the people.^ We aimed at an im- possible perfection and mastery of detail ; we have succeeded only in creating disturbance. It is only in Bengal, which for the most part has received the boon of a permanent settlement, and where a large and influential body of landlords intervenes between the Government and the people, that the peasantry are not impoverished and that measures of relief are not necessary. There remains the question of the improve- ment of agriculture. Whatever wealth there is in India is obtained from the soil, and the impor- tance, therefore, of making two blades of corn grow where one grew before is almost incalcul- able. It is mere justice to say that the Govern- ment of India has never been blind to this im- portance. We hear now, as we have often heard before, that a body of experts and chemists has been associated with the various agricultural 1 Take by way of illustration the following extract from Dr Buchanan's Statistical Survey, Book IV. chap, vii., on the dis- trict of Dinagepore, which is quoted in the Fifth Report (1812) : — " The natives allege that although they were often squeezed by the Mogul officers, and on all occasions were treated with the utmost contempt, they preferred suffering these evils to the mode that has been adopted of selling their lands when they fall into arrears, which is a practice they cannot endure. Besides, bribery went a great way on most occasions, and they allege that, bribes included, they did not actually pay one-half of what they do now." 84 Indian Land Problems departments, that an agricultural research laboratory is in preparation, and that in connection with the laboratory an agricultural college and a large experimental farm will be established, " so that the theory and science and practice of agriculture can be progressively taught." There is nothing new in these schemes ; they have been put forward a score of times, and experimental or model farms have again and again been multiplied in all parts of India, I can remember no period when this question has not engaged the attention of Government, and when active steps have not been taken for the development of agricultural inquiries and experiments. But all these attempts have been destined to fail. Elaborate and costly depart- ments have been created, but the indigenous methods of agriculture have not been improved one jot or tittle by official enterprise. The ryots of India possess an amount of knowledge and practical skill within their own humble sphere which no expert scientist can ever hope to acquire. Our attempts to teach the natives of India agriculture are based upon a forgetfulness of the essential elements of the case. The native culti- vators of India are too poor to be able to adopt the scientific improvements which English experience suggests. They are told to plough 85 New India deeper, to do more than scratch the soil. But it is forgotten that the cattle with which they plough are incapable of deep ploughing. We tell them to enrich their fields with manure, and that the produce of the land would be augmented by its use. No doubt it would. The ryots do utilise manure as much as they possibly can, in the way of simple forms of manure, such as cow-dung — which is, however, also an extremely useful article to the poor cultivator as a substitute for firewood — but they can no more afford to procure the expensive manures with which we are so familiar than they can afford to plough with elephants. It is not in the power of the Govern- ment to effect any improvement by experiments in agriculture, or by agricultural teaching, or by any form of departmental interference. I do not know whether the poverty of the people does not always obtrude as a permanent obstacle to improvement. But of this I feel sure, that all attempt to lead should be given up, and that our object should be little more than the arrangement of agricultural facts from which the awakened intelligence of the Indian community may in due course profit to its own advantage. If the agricultural departments succeed in laying a foundation of scientific knowledge and in enlist- ing the sympathy of Indian gentlemen in the 86 Indian Land Problems welfare of the agricultural classes by assisting them to better knowledge, they will not have been constituted in vain. The ambition of those departments should be to secure the active aid of members of the Indian community who are sincerely interested in agriculture.^ It is only through and by the Indian community that agri- cultural improvements can on any important scale be effected. There are landholders who have experience and facilities for extending improve- ments which no official can ever obtain, and many of them have capital available for investment in agricultural enterprise. They are familiar with the usages of the agricultural classes. They understand the existing systems of Indian agriculture, and are acquainted with the local reasons which justify practices that may seem strange and illogical to an English observer. They can therefore best guide the course of agricultural improvement with the least disturb- ance of existing circumstances, and develop the true policy of progress in improving and adding to indigenous conditions without that subversion of ideas and methods which inevitably accom- panies the introduction of exotic experiments. ^ These principles were enunciated in one of Lord Ripon's resolutions, dated 8th December i88i ; but they have not been acted up to. S7 INDIA'S ECONOMIC PROBLEM The greatest material boon which could be conferred on India would be the restoration of her industries. The greatest material calamity which can befall India is that which has been going on for so many years before our eyes — the continual contraction of her manufactures. The agricultural trade of India has expanded, but her manufactures have diminished : the imports of cotton piece-goods, which forty years ago were valued at 8| millions sterling, now exceed 20 millions ; the ancient weaving industry has been practically extinguished and the local manufactures of the country have been crushed out by British competition. The ten- dency of events for more than a century has been to turn the people more and more towards agriculture and less and less to manufactures. While the invention of steam engines and the development of machinery enormously cheap- ened the cost of production in England, the 88 India's Economic Problem operation of transit duties in India, amounting to iJ^450,ooo per annum, and of heavy and ruinous import duties in England, amounting to 6^ per cent., and more, on the value of cotton and silk goods, combined to repress all the exertions of local industry. These duties, which were deliberately imposed in order to enable English manufacturers to undersell the Indian artisan, have long ago been repealed, but they did their work. The introduction of Manchester goods has been accompanied by the collapse of indigenous industries. Mr Henry St George Tucker, a Director of the Honourable East India Company, wrote as long ago as 1823 : — What is the commerce which we have adopted in this country with relation to India? The silk manufactures and its piece-goods made of silk and cotton intermixed have long since been excluded altogether from our markets; and of late, partly in consequence of the operation of a duty of 67 per cent, but chiefly from the effect of superior machinery, the cotton fabrics, which hitherto continued the staple of India, have not only been displaced in this country, but we actually export our cotton manufactures to supply a part of the consump- tion of our Asian possessions. India is thus reduced from the state of a manufacturing country to that of an agricultural country, 89 New India Even more emphatic is the verdict of Professor Horace Hayman Wilson, the historian of India : — It was stated in evidence (1813) that the cotton and silk goods of India up to that period could be sold for a profit in the British market at a price from 50 to 60 per cent, lower than those fabricated in England. It consequently became necessary to protect the latter by duties of 70 and 80 per cent, on their value, or by positive prohibition. Had this not been the case, had not such prohibitory duties and decrees existed, the mills of Paisley and Manchester would have been stopped in their outset, and could scarcely have been again set in motion, even by the power of steam. They were created by the sacrifice of Indian manufactures. Had India been independent, she would have retaliated, would have imposed pro- hibitive duties upon British goods, and would thus have preserved her own productive industry from annihilation. This act of self-defence was not permitted her ; she was at the mercy of the stranger. British goods were forced upon her without paying any duty, and the foreign manufacturer employed the arm of political injustice to keep down and ultimately strangle a competitor with whom he could not have contended on equal terms. And yet the manufactures of India were once in a highly flourishing condition. The Mogul Courts encouraged large towns and urban enter- prise. European traders were first attracted to 90 India's Economic Problem India not by its raw products but by its manufactured wares. It was the industrial "wealth of Ormuz and Ind" that dazzled the eyes of Western nations and sent them in search of a passage to that land of fabulous prosperity. Large portions of the Indian population were engaged in various industries down to the close of the eighteenth century. In the palmy days of the Honourable East India Company a certain part of the revenues of the country was set aside to be employed in the purchase of goods for exportation to England, which was called the investment. But the commercial agents of the Company were not engaged in exploiting the resources of the soil, and the " upcountry investment " was entirely devoted to the purchase of manufactures. Nor was India at that time dependent on its maritime commerce. The inland trade was very consider- able. The fame of the fine muslins of Bengal, her rich silks and brocades, her harmonious cotton prints, had spread far and wide in Asia as well as Europe. " The Bengal silks, cloths, etc.," writes Mr Verelst, who was Governor of Bengal before Hastings, " were dispersed to a vast amount to the west and north, inland as far as Guzerat, Lahore, and even Ispahan." The Indian cities were populous and magnificent. 91 New India When Clive entered Murshidabad, the old capital of Bengal, he wrote of it : " This city- is as extensive, populous, and rich as the city of London, with this difference, that there are individuals in the first possessing infinitely greater property than in the last city." All the arts then flourished, and with them urban life. Now, out of a population of three hundred millions, only 7 per cent, live in towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants. In Ireland, that un- fortunate annexe of the British dominions, the proportion is 20'8, in Scotland it is 50*2, and in England and Wales it is 67-5. An over- whelming majority of the people of India live in rural villages, and the colonies of workmen who were settled in the large towns have been broken up. I will cite as an example the city of Dacca. It was during the time of the Mogul government that this city reached the zenith of its prosperity. When it passed under British administration the population was estimated at two hundred thousand souls. In 1787 the exports of Dacca muslin to England amounted to ;^300,ooo ; in 1 8 17 they had ceased altogether. The arts of spinning and weaving, which for ages afforded employment to a numerous and industrious population, have now become extinct. Families 92 India's Economic Problem which were formerly in a state of affluence have been reduced to penury : the majority of the people have been driven to desert the town and betake themselves to the villages for a livelihood. The present population of the town of Dacca is slowly increasing, but it is only 90,500. This decadence has occurred in all parts of India, and not a year passes in which the local officers do not bring to the notice of Government that the manufacturing classes are becoming impoverished. The most profit- able Indian industries have been destroyed and the most valuable Indian arts have greatly deteriorated. Dyeing, carpet-making, fine em- broidery, jewellery, metal-work, the damas- cening of arms, carving, paper-making, even architecture and sculpture have decayed. " There is no class," exclaims Sir James Caird, " which our rule has pressed harder upon than the native weaver and artisan." I doubt whether the public at large has any conception of the de- plorably small proportion of persons in India who are dependent on art or commerce or mechanical production, or working or dealing in mineral products. The figures cannot be ascertained with precise accuracy, but I work out the pro- portion at about 15 per cent, in India, against about So per cent, in the United Kingdom. 93 New India The economic problem of India is the poverty of her people. The development of petty occupations and menial employment, the estab- lishment of large industries capitalised by Englishmen, even the accumulation of silver, which has so depreciated in value, the increased use of brass pots, cheap cotton cloths, and umbrellas among the people, afford but a poor compensation for the variety of social and industrial life once spread through the country. The dimensions of Indian trade are not in- considerable, and yet no country is more poor. The economic conditions upon which material prosperity depends are lacking. An India supplying England with its raw products and in its turn dependent upon England for all its more important manufactures is not a spectacle which is likely to reconcile an Indian patriot to the loss of the subtle and refined Oriental arts, the very secret of which has passed away ; to the disappearance of innumerable weavers who have perished from starvation or have sunk for ever to the lot of agricultural labourers ; or to the sacrifice of that constructive genius and mechanical ability which designed the canal system of Upper India and the Taj at Agra. It is true that railways, cotton mills and jute mills, gold mining and coal mining, oil wells and 94 India's Economic Problem refineries, have lately come into existence. But with the exception of most of the cotton mills and a few of the coal mines, the operations are in alien hands : the capital is British and the profits do not remain in India. It is true also that in some minor trades and industrial pro- fessions there has been an increase in recent years. There are more shoemakers now, more carpenters, more tailors, more blacksmiths. The demand for shoes, furniture, clothes, iron- ware, and the like has increased. New wants have arisen, and facilities have been afforded for their gratification. The immense cheapening of cotton piece-goods and of other articles imported from Europe cannot be without its benefit to the country. But all this is not inconsistent with the growing poverty of the people to which the unanimous testimony of Indian observers bears witness. This has been the theme of every National and Provincial Congress for the past nineteen years. It is supported by the evidence of Indian merchants and traders, who are con- vinced from their business experience that the struggle for existence is greater than it was before. Official opinion admits this in regard to artisans, but denies it in respect of the great mass of the population, the agricultural classes. The official verdict affirms that the material prosperity of the 95 New India people generally has improved. This verdict is directly opposed to educated Indian opinion, and a battle royal rages between the contending camps. In any case, there is no question that the people of India are miserably poor. They are absolutely and relatively poor. It is enough to repeat Lord Curzon's estimate that the aggregate income per head of the population is about £2 per annum.^ For my part, I may be allowed to say that I believe in no general improvement. There has undoubtedly been improvement in some places ; in Eastern Bengal, for instance, where the people are favoured with a fertile soil and a permanent settlement, where the demand for jute is practically unlimited and the rainfall never fails ; in Burmah, where, with so much waste land, there has been a vast extension of rice cultivation ; and in tracts, such as those in the Punjab and elsewhere, which have been fertilised by irrigation. But I can find no signs of general improvement. The increasing number of famines and the terrible mortality * A general survey of the Empire led Sir Robert Giffen, in his address to the British Association in 1903, to consider "how vast must be the economic gulf separating the people of the United Kingdom and the self-governing colonies from India and like parts of the Empire occupied by subject races, when we find that forty-two millions of people in the United Kingdom consume in food and drink alone an amount equal to the whole income of three hundred millions of people in India." 96 India's Economic Problem which results from them, in spite of all the exertions of the Government and the heroic effort of individual officers, are — if there were no other evidence — an overwhelming demonstration that the capacity of the people to maintain themselves is on the decline. It is no argument to reply that there was heavy mortality from famine in ancient times. There was : the rains failed then as they fail now, the crops withered, and the people perished because there was no food to support them. There was then no means of conveying food to the afflicted province. But now, with improved communi- cations, there is never any deficiency in the supply of food. The failure of the rains no longer means famine, for grain can be and always is imported into the distressed tracts. Famine ensues because the people are too poor to buy food. We no longer hear the old story of crowds perishing with money in their hands. At the same time, owing to improved communi- cations, the reserves of food-grain have every- where been depleted. The old custom was for the peasantry to keep among themselves three- quarters of a year's supply. Now the surplus is always exported, and there are no stores to fall back upon in the hour of need. The deficiency is imported at a price the people cannot afford 97 7 New India to pay. The reason why famines are more frequent now than formerly, and more severe, is that the resources of the people are less able to resist them. The increasing poverty .of India is due to many causes, but primarily I trace it to the decay of handicrafts and the substitution of foreign for home manufactures. It is due also to the ex- tension of agriculture. Every exertion is made to augment the area under cultivation with staple crops, and the increase in the amount of agri- cultural produce exported is pointed to as irre- fragable proof of increased national prosperity. It is a proof of the reverse. Foreign markets are forced and commodities are sold at a lower rate — take tea, for example — and bought at a higher price than would otherwise be necessary. The export trade has indeed been developed at a great cost, and in the meanwhile the soil of the country has been impoverished by over- cropping, and the breed of cattle is deteriorating from want of pasturage. The blessing has been withheld from the parched fields. Nor, unfortun- ately, does the profit from increased exports find its way, as it should, to the pockets of the cultiva- tors. On the contrary, they receive but little of it themselves, for their crops are ordinarily mort- gaged before being harvested, and the profit goes 98 India's Economic Problem to middlemen. In all times, no doubt, the bulk of the Indian population has been agricultural, but formerly the cultivators were not wholly dependent on agriculture. They had home industries which employed their leisure when labour in the fields was useless ; there was the carrying trade, in which the bullocks used at other times for ploughing were employed — the railroads have very much ruined this trade ; and, above all, there was the weaving industry. The ryots are now reduced to the simple labour of their fields. ". No one," said Lord Ripon at the opening of the Exhibition of Industrial Arts in Calcutta in 1884, "No one who considers the economic condition of India can doubt that one of its greatest evils is to be found in the fact that the great mass of the people of the country are dependent almost exclusively upon the cultivation of the soil. The circumstance tends at one and the same time to depress the position of the culti- vators, to aggravate the evils of famine, and also to lower wages generally." I will add that it tends also to maintain them in the depths of ignorance in which they are sunk. It will always be found in all countries that the artisans are more highly educated than the peasantry. A further cause of the impoverishment of India is the drain from the country. Before the 99 New India Mutiny, the sums annually drawn from India by Great Britain amounted to two or three millions only. The Home Charges alone now exceed seventeen millions, of which nine millions and a quarter are on account of interest on funded and railway debt, and four millions three hundred and fifty thousand pounds are on account of pensions paid in England. But this grand total does not include the remittances on account of private gains from railways, banking, merchandise, the ocean and river carrying trade, tea and coffee planting, cotton and jute mills, indigo, coal mines, and the like, or the private savings of officials and others which are sent to England. Taking these into con- sideration, it is a moderate computation that the annual drafts from India to Great Britain amount to a total of thirty millions. The equivalent of this at the current rate of exchange is four hundred and fifty million rupees. It can never be to the advantage of the people of India to remit annually this enormous sum to a foreign country. The amount paid in pensions may be inevitable, but it is obviously a dead loss, for it is spent abroad ; and no country was ever a prosperous one in which the interest payable on its own capital expenditure, whether for military purposes or on reproductive public works, was 100 India's Economic Problem not distributed among its own people. Only lo per cent, of the public debt of India is held in India itself There is a constant drain from India to pay the interest on the remaining 90 per cent., which is held in the United Kingdom. There is a constant drain also to pay the profits which are remitted to England on account of the investment of British capital in India. Lord Curzon has very forcibly said in a speech delivered by him in November 1902, at Jaipore : " There is no spectacle which finds less favour in my eyes or which I have done more to discourage than that of a cluster of Europeans settling down upon a Native State and sucking from it the moisture which ought to give sustenance to its own people." Rem acii teiigisti, I exclaim ; but I add, in the words of the same old satirist, Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. Lord Curzon has lost sight of the fact that what is true of the Native States is true also of the whole of India. In a speech to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce at Calcutta in the ensuing February, he sneered at India's economic drain as a " copy-book fallacy " and as " a foolish and dangerous illusion." But how can it be denied that it would be vastly more beneficial to India if the wealth produced in the country were spent in the country ? India is the field where capital is lOI New India invested, but all the interest that is reaped there- from passes to the pocket of the investor, and he takes it to England. To say that it makes no difference to India whether the wealth made in India is taken away elsewhere or spent in the country itself is not the doctrine of economic science: nor is it the language of common-sense. India is not inhabited by a savage primitive people who have reared no indigenous system of industry or art, who are ignorant of their own interests, and who are incapable of advance in civilisation.^ They look back on their past with a just sense of pride, and under the influence of ^ I cannot refrain from reproducing the noble panegyric of Burke in the speech on the East India Bill : — "This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace, much less of gangs of savages like the Guaranies and Chiquitos who wander on the waste borders of the river of Amazon or the Plate ; but a people for ages civilised and cultivated by all the arts of polished life whilst we were yet in the woods. There have been (and still the skeletons remain) princes once of great dignity, authority, and opulence. There are to be found the chiefs of tribes and nations. There is to be found an ancient, venerable priesthood, the depository of their laws, learning, and history, the guides of the people whilst living and their consolation in death ; a nobility of great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities not exceeded in population and trade by those of the first class in Europe ; merchants and bankers who have once vied in capital with the Bank of England, whose credit has often supported a tottering State and preserved their governments in the midst of war and desolation ; millions of indigenous manufacturers and mechanics ; millions of the most diligent and not of the least intelligent tillers of the earth." 1 02 India's Economic Problem English education are stimulated with new aspira- tions and legitimate ambition. India is poor, and there are those who believe that in consequence of its political conditions it is becoming poorer : but the ambition of its people is to take their place among other nations in the future federa- tion of the world. They are convinced that the prosperity of their country depends on the diminution of its economic drain and on the conservation of its resources for ultimate de- velopment by indigenous agency. Their opposi- tion to the exploitation of their country by foreigners is based upon their conviction that this exploitation is a real obstacle to their progress and a source of present and future trouble to their nation. Another source of impoverishment is the artificial exchange which has been established in the Indian currency. While the silver value of the rupee remains at about tenpence, its artificial value has been fixed at a convertibility of one shilling and fourpence into gold. At the same time the purchasing power of the rupee, according to all the tests which can be applied in regard to its power of purchasing food-grains, has not increased, but on the contrary has declined. The total value of the annual exports of Indian merchandise exceeds a 103 New India thousand millions of rupees. But if the intrinsic or silver value of the rupee be taken, the value must be raised by 40 per cent., and to this extent the producers and factors are deprived of the legitimate price of their produce. No doubt in that case the purchasing power of the rupee would further fall, and every item of expenditure be ultimately forced up, but the process of depreciation is a slow one, and for a generation at least the producer in India would have been a gainer. The Government has profited im- mensely by the artificial raising of the rupee, as it is able to pay its interest on sterling loans at a lower rate of remittance ; the officials as a body and other persons who draw their salaries in silver have also profited; but on the other hand the bulk of the people and all classes of producers are injuriously affected by this cause — the European tea -planter as well as the grower of jute, oil-seeds, and food-grains. The masses of the community in India have also suffered in many other ways by the closure of the mints. The value of the rupee having been raised, the agriculturists pay a higher rent and the people generally contribute to the taxes of the country in an appreciated currency. It was this point the Hon. Mr Gokhale drove home in the memorable speech delivered by him in 104 India's Economic Problem March 1902 in the Viceroy's Council, at Calcutta, when he argued that the surpluses of the Indian revenues were due to the artificial currency policy of the Government, and that the present rate of taxation ought, therefore, to be reduced. There was no one who could answer him on that issue. What then is the remedy? It is easier to diagnose the disease than to cure it. I do not pretend to offer a panacea cut and dried for the solution of the difficulties of the economic revolution through which India is passing. But of one thing we may be assured : that they can never be overcome except by the systematic encouragement of indigenous arts and industries and by the introduction of mechanical appliances. These again can never be fully utilised until the children of the soil have been prepared for their use by technical education. The value of agitation in this direction is therefore evident. But I must add the essential caution that it is only one side of the question with which tech- nical education deals : that is only one of the agencies by which India will be assisted in recovering her economic equilibrium ; it must not be pressed prematurely. The clerical or literary professions are said to be overstocked. But there is still a large demand holding out 105 New India prospects of the most attractive employment in such professions as law, medicine, or Government service. The service of Government in parti- cular possesses potent charms which I at least have no cause to undervalue, and I have no sympathy with the practice so much in vogue of denouncing the natural aspiration of Indian students to obtain an appointment in the service of their own country. It is urged upon these students to drop their exclusive devotion to so-called liberal education and to devote themselves to a course of technical instruction. But it is the simple truth when I say that there is at present no prospect of employment or emolument for them, be they never so profoundly trained in the highest branches of science, or in the most elaborate technical accomplishments. We must look at these matters as practical men would look at them. The great drawback to technical education, as it is now being urged in India, is that it affords no sufficiently remuner- ative opening and no satisfactory outlet for an independent career. In the absence of capital, the only support which will give life to the current movement is the guarantee of Govern- ment employment. There is of course no such guarantee. The costly Polytechnic School at Baroda has proved a failure ; the Victoria 106 India's Economic Problem Jubilee Technical Institute of Bombay has met with very equivocal success. I have heard of the recent establishment of a Technical Institute in Ahmedabad, and of Scientific and Art Institutions in Calcutta and elsewhere. I heartily wish them success, but there are, I fear, little grounds for any sanguine expectation. I would not be understood to discourage the endowment of colleges of science, schools of art, and technological institutes. Far from it. The accumulation of capital would be paralysed if there were not this technical training to facilitate its use. But let us be careful that our zeal for these institutions does not lead us into the untenable position of stimulating a supply for which there is at present no natural demand. What is more necessary is to stimulate the demand, and how this can best be done is the problem for solution. The demand for technical education can only be expanded by the applica- tion of capital. But where is the capital to come from? India is a poor country, and the only rich men to be found are, as a rule, wealthy landlords, who are constitutionally indisposed to invest their money in industrial enterprise. From every point of view we are confronted with the staggering poverty of our Indian fellow -subjects. Mr Reginald Murray, a well- 107 New India known Calcutta banker, has been at the pains of getting together some figures showing the relative extent to which banking is carried on in England and in India. With a population of forty-two millions, there are in the 6025 offices of the United Kingdom deposits equal to a con- tribution per head of twenty pounds. India, with a population of three hundred millions, has only 127 banks, and the deposits per head of the population are twenty -four pence. For this the people themselves are to some extent to blame. There is no doubt that the progress of the country is greatly hampered by the national custom of hoarding. The quantity of this hoarded wealth has been enormously exagger- ated, and but little of it is available for useful purposes. A sense of distrust induces petty traders to shrink from depositing their money with bankers, and their resources are too scattered and distributed in too small quantities to be of much utility for profitable investment. Still, there is substantial foundation for the charge of wasted capital. Both silver and gold are hoarded in specie and converted into orna- ments to an extent altogether opposed to the best interests of the people ; and so long as individuals who understand the use of capital, as well as those who do not, permit themselves 108 India's Economic Problem and encourage others to sink their savings and even to borrow money for deposit in this unpro- ductive manner, it is a truism to declare that wealth decreases and prosperity decays. An urgent need in India, therefore, is the better disposition of hoarded wealth, of men who will not fritter away their money on marriage expenses or ceremonies, and are not unwilling to lay out capital on undertakings which will bring them neither titles nor official smiles. We do not want capital to be buried or squandered. But it is not only the perverse use of capital with which we have to contend : it is always the poverty of the country that is arrayed against us as our most formidable opponent. It is to labour-saving appliances, to the action of machinery, that we must look for any con- siderable advancement in technical skill. The standard of living among the labouring classes of India is, however, so low, that unless machin- ery is introduced in a somewhat wholesale manner, their very poverty will place them in a position to withstand its competition. The cost of production by manual labour is so cheap that the introduction of machines is rendered difficult. Above all, the workmen of India are themselves in the habit of raising their own small capital, and have never been accustomed 109 New India to work under large capitalists for bare wages after the manner of European labourers. The introduction of machinery will require a re- adjustment of the relations of capital and labour on a larger scale than accompanied the revolu- tion inaugurated by the discoveries of Watts and Arkwright. The problem is by no means easy. The most permanent remedy appears to be in industrial co-operation and organisation for the purpose of raising joint capital. This is a practical proposal, but it raises, I fear, a some- what distant prospect of realisation. I welcome the suggestions put forward for the establishment of village banks on the basis of co-operative credit, and am glad that some beginning in this direc- tion has already been made ; I rejoice that legis- lation for giving a legal status to village banks has at last been undertaken. Or we may turn to the establishment of a National Bank, and of subsidiary local banks on the lines which have been adopted with such success by Lord Cromer in Egypt. The relations of these banks with the State are few ; their rate of interest is low, and the aid of the Government is invoked only for the realisation of outstanding dues. If the Government of India were to follow the example which has been set to them in Egypt, there might be some hope of raising capital and no India's Economic Problem ameliorating the conditions of Indian industrial finance. Another proposal which is advocated with persistent vigour by the Indian press is that the Government should afford assistance to indigenous industries by Protection. We have lately seen the introduction of protective legis- lation in the interest of the tea industry, and both the tea and the indigo industries are being bolstered up by the State with money grants for the encouragement of scientific observation and teaching. So much for industries under the management of Europeans, and it is not surpris- ing that a cry should arise for the protection and encouragement of enterprises in which Indians take the lead. Why should Govern- ment undertake for the benefit of the planters to tax exported tea, with a view to placing funds at the disposal of the industry in order to push the sale of Indian tea: and refuse to impose a similar tax for the benefit of any other industry which may demand it ? Why, for instance, it is asked, should not the Indian tanners, who are gradually but surely losing their business in competition with the superior resources and energy of America, be assisted by a duty on the exports of raw skins, so that these may be retained in the country and tanned by local labour? The example of Denmark and Ger- New India many, and in particular of Belgium, is pointed to, to show how profitable the Government encouragement of local industries may be. But in all such cases there is a rivalry, direct or implied, between the encouragement of British and Indian capital, and an Indian newspaper I have lately seen observes with caustic bitter- ness and no small measure of truth that, "as there can be no revival of Indian industry with- out some displacement of British industry, we understand the difficulty of ruling India for the good of the people of India." This is in fact one of the most hopeless aspects in which the problem before us can be considered. In the great industrial conflict of the world, England is engaged in a life struggle against American and Continental competition, and against com- petition also with her colonies, and our own capitalists are keenly conscious of the fact that they are more and more dependent on their success in exploiting the vast population and natural resources of India to their own benefit. It is their aim to have a complete command of these through the importation of British capital into the country. The Government of Lord Curzon has identified itself with this policy; and, whatever may be possible in other direc- tions of fiscal enterprise, this at least is certain, 112 India's Economic Problem that, having regard to the economic revolution through which India has passed, no attempt can be made to encourage Indian industries or the investment of Indian capital by means of pro- tective legislation without a complete reversal of British policy and the sacrifice of the profits and aspirations of British capitalists. It is needless to say that any proposals for a customs union between Great Britain and our self-governing colonies have very little applica- tion to India, and it was inevitable that the debate in the House of Lords on the subject,^ which was introduced by Lord Northbrook and continued by three noble lords who had also held the office of Governor-General in India, should have pro- ceeded on unreal and academic lines. It was indeed suggested in that discussion that we could not refuse to India the power of protec- tion which was exercised in the self-governing colonies, and that as the resources of revenue in India were limited, there would be a natural desire to have recourse to import duties. Such a suggestion was a mere ballon dessai. A desire for protection exists, no doubt ; but it is equally certain that no proposal in this direction has been considered or ever will be seriously considered by the Indian Government. India is not a self- ' On the loth July 1903. 113 8 New India governing dependency, and its tariff policy, as Lord Elgin once declared from his place in Council, is determined by the mandate of the Secretary of State. Any proposals for fiscal protection in India — such as those which are in practice in the colonies — may be " economically inexpedient and politically dangerous," or they may " supply the party of agitation with a real grievance and with the materials for an indict- ment to which no reply is possible " ; but this at least is known to all — that no Government at home would venture or dream of venturing to authorise the Government of India to impose any form of protective tariff against the manufactures of the United Kingdom. The utmost that could result from any scheme of preferential tariffs, as far as India is concerned, would be to give some slight and inappreciable benefit to the producers of wheat, sugar, and tobacco in that country, and to impose in other respects a tax on foreign imports which would only have the effect of raising prices to the consumer and of disarranging the fiscal relations between India and other countries. I will not say that such a scheme, however fonli<;h it may be, might not be enforced ; but Liie Luiicesbiou ot the pnvilegt of discretionary protection, such as the self-governing colonies 114 India's Economic Problem enjoy, is not within the purview of practical politics. On the other hand, there is an undoubtedly growing tendency among the Indians to help themselves. In accordance with the nascent feeling of patriotism, there is already a certain amount of public sentiment in favour of using country products in preference to foreign imports. The spread of the cotton mill industry in Bombay, which is mostly financed by native gentlemen, affords some evidence of the willingness of Indian capitalists to launch their money in other ad- ventures. Unfortunately this industry is labour- ing under severe depression. Whether it is owing to the ^^ per cent, excise duty or not I cannot say — it is probably due at least as much to competition in China with Japanese enterprise and adverse exchange ; but many of these mills have been in liquidation, and others hardly earn enough to pay for depreciation and wear and tear of machinery. There has, however, lately been some improvement, and the industry main- tains its position as the largest in India. There are many other instances of industrial investment. Indian capital is being laid out in many places on a small scale on the manufacture of materials such as glass, paper, ink, cutlery and the like. A brass foundry was some years ago established in 115 New India the Nuddea district by a competent metallurgist who had been to England: I know not with what success. The opening of a soap factory has been advertised in Mymensingh. There are prospects of the development of a glass industry in Chota Nagpore, in the com- petent hands of Mr Wagle. A Jubilee Art Academy has been started in Calcutta. A great stimulus has been given by Lord Curzon to the restoration of Indian art by the establish- ment of the Art Exhibition which was held during the Durbar at Delhi. A scheme has lately been launched by some of the leading landholders in Bengal for starting an extensive store of indigenous art and industrial products in Calcutta on joint-stock principles. Above all there are the great schemes of the Indian millionaire and philanthropist, Mr Jamsetji N. Tata, of Bombay. The endowment of an Indian Institution of Research and Science at a cost of ^200,000— which I am glad to say has been liberally supplemented by the Government of India and by the enlightened Government of Mysore— was designed to deal with the widest range of practical studies which are capable of treatment by scientific methods. This has been somewhat shorn of its original scope, and has been reduced for a time, at least, to proposals in 116 India's Economic Problem connection with the experimental sciences of chemistry, physics, and biology. In any case, it is a grand conception. The same Indian capitalist has put forward a project for the exploitation of iron and copper mines in Central India which, if it succeeds, will inaugurate a new era in the industrial history of India. We have, I hope, entered upon times which offer a better prospect of attainment of the great object we have in view. Sir William Ramsay, who went out to India to report on Mr Tata's scheme, was impressed with two facts : first, that most of the population supports itself by agriculture, and that the relative proportion of manufacture to agriculture was insignificant; and second, that the raw products of India have either not been exploited or are in the hands of English companies, or are exported in an unmanufac- tured state. In these words Professor Ramsay sums up what I have been endeavouring to emphasise: our object must be to establish indigenous industries dealing with raw products in the country. An excellent address was delivered on this subject by His Highness the Gaekwar of Baroda on the occasion of the open- ing of the Industrial Exhibition at Ahmedabad. In inspiring accents he called upon his fellow- countrymen to think, to act, "to encourage and 117 New India assist the commercial development of the country, and so put it on the only possible road to progress, opulence, and prosperity." For the first time a great Indian Prince has had the courage to deliver himself of such weighty sentiments, and the stimulus of his enthusiasm cannot fail to rouse the energy and practical instincts of his countrymen. The difficulties are immense, and the essential difficulty always hinges on the absolute dependence of India on Great Britain. But I have confidence in the enterprise and persistence of the people of India, among whom the seeds of a liberal education have been firmly planted. The first steps of the movement have been taken and a start has been given by Indian capitalists. The beginnings are small — very small at present ; but, like the little cloud no bigger than a man's hand, they may grow and swell with a full promise of abundance. It rests with those who are most in sympathy with the movement, with the great body of the Indian educated community, with Englishmen who have the welfare of India at heart, to see that the present impetus does not flag, that the action taken is sustained, and that the rising interest in the subject does not dissipate itself in idle words. Ii8 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM The key-note of administrative reform is the gradual substitution of Indian for European official agency. This is the one end towards which the educated Indians are concentrating their efforts ; the concession of this demand is the only way by which we can make any pre- tence of satisfying even the most moderate of their legitimate aspirations. It is the first rnd most pressing duty the Government is called on to discharge. It is necessary as an economic measure. But it is necessary also on higher grounds than those of economy. I, indeed, am not a man to depreciate the administrative qualities of my own countrymen. In the words of Lord Lytton, I may say that " I speak of what I know by my own experience, and have seen with my own eyes. No body of men in the world ever conferred more splendid benefits upon any community." I have not hesitated to dwell upon their defects ; but I am not blind to their 119 New India merits. I have seen too much, been too long brought into contact with the admirable work done by my predecessors and colleagues, to feel any doubt of the energy, probity, and sincerity of our young English magistrates, or of the zeal with which they devote themselves to the public service. But from the essential circumstances of the case, due to the constitution of a foreign government and alien administration, the British officials labour under disqualifications for which the general excellence of their work can afford no compensation. It is apparent that, while natives of mature age will work for less pay than youthful Europeans, their knowledge of the language and customs of the country gives them in other respects an immense advantage. Natives of India do not require to take long furloughs to Europe to recruit their strength; their thoughts are not unceasingly distracted by interests and associations wholly foreign to their country and the work in hand ; they have, of necessity, a more perfect insight into the character and conduct of the people. However great the merits of European officers may be, they can never be so great as to counterbalance advantages like these.^ The superiority of the ^ " Few worse governments can be devised than one in which the governors are launched into office at an immature age ; 1 20 Administrative Reform natives of the country in administering law and justice to their own people is indeed a fact that cannot be seriously disputed. Many Indian gentlemen may be enumerated, who have sat as judges in the High Court, whose intellectual attainments and high moral virtues sufficiently vindicate the competence of natives to exercise the most responsible judicial functions. At the same time, the judicial appointments in the lower grades of the service are already filled by natives, and there is abundant testimony to show that they discharge their duties with integrity and ability. No authority on this subject could be and when years and practice have refined their judgment and qualified them for their task, they make way for others to renew the same process — make their mistakes, learn wisdom, and spend the wisdom acquired in an idle and objectless exist- ence in another sphere, or, in the best contingency, not in the service of those at whose expense they have acquired it. The constant change of governors and their unripeness are ever- recurring topics of remark in the discussions on our Government ; and I find the judgment of an acute and not unfriendly native statesman is to the effect that in the inability to settle in India lies the most insuperable objection to our rule. " He (Sir Salar Jung) thought, speaking of the great animosity against us, that the answer might partly be found in this — viz. ' that none of our predecessors ever were so utterly foreign to the country as we are ; that with all their faults they settled among and amalgamated themselves with the people, which we, with all our virtues, could never do. This, he seems to think, is the most insuperable of all the objections against our rule.'" {East Indian Systems of Government, p. 73. Quoted from Dr Congreve's pamphlet on India, published in 1857 and reprinted in 1872.) New India higher than that of a late Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Selborne, who testified as follows ^ from his place in Parliament : — My lords, for some years I practised in Indian cases before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and during those years there were few cases of any imperial importance in which I was not concerned. I had considerable opportunities of observing the manner in which, in civil cases, the native judges did their duty, and I have no hesitation in saying — and I know this was also the opinion of the judges during that time — that the judgments of the native judges bore most favourable comparison, as a general rule, with the judgments of the English judges. I should be sorry to say anything in disparagement of English judges, who, as a class, are most anxious carefully to discharge their duty ; but I repeat that I have no hesitation in saying that in every instance, in respect of integrity, of learning, of knowledge, of the sound- ness and satisfactory character of the judgments arrived at, the native judgments were quite as good as those of EngHsh judges. In the highest departments of the judicial service, as well as in the lowest, the employment of Indians is admitted to be a successful experi- ment. The principle, therefore, has already- been accepted : yet if any proposal be made to go further, to appoint Indians to the higher ^ As reported in the Times, loth April 1883. 122 Administrative Reform executive as well as to judicial offices, to appoint native district officers, as well as native civil judges, it is greeted with an outcry of disappro- bation. When recommendations are made for appointing Indians to judicial posts, there seems to be an idea underlying the proposal that this branch of the service chiefly demands those intellectual qualities in which Indians excel ; whereas the executive branch demands qualities other than intellectual, such as energy, decision, self-reliance, power of combination and organisa- tion, of managing men, and so forth, which are deemed to be qualities as yet imperfectly developed in natives. Therefore it seems to be thought better to refrain from placing natives in the higher class of executive posts, which, according to this view, ought to be reserved almost exclusively for Europeans. This is a fair statement of the argument of persons opposed to any reform in the present system. The natives of India are assumed to be unfit to have charge of districts ; it is convenient to assume that all Englishmen are cool and wise in danger, while no natives are so, and that consequently only Englishmen and no Indians are competent to be trusted with independent charge. By a process of the grossest self- adulation we persuade ourselves to believe that 123 New India natives are only useful as ministerial servants, but that the work of a district, if it is to be done at all, demands the supervision of an English officer. The truth, however, is that the Indians, as of course they must be, are the backbone of our administration. The burden and heat of the day are already borne by native subordinates, and in the event (as occasionally must be the case) of an incompetent European being in charge of a district, the whole of the work is done by his native deputies and clerks. It is, moreover, expedient that the accession of native officials to the ranks of the executive service should be encouraged, even at the cost of some temporary inefficiency of administration. Lord Ripon justly urged on behalf of his scheme of local self-government, that it would be an instrument of political education.^ And it may ' Paragraph 5 of a resolution published by the Government of India in May 1882 observes: "At the outset the Governor- General in Council must explain that in advocating an extension of local self-government, and the adoption of this principle in the management of many local affairs, he does not suppose that the work will be, in the first instance, better done than if it remained in the sole hands of the Government district officers. It is not primarily with a view to improvement in administration that this measure is put forward and supported ; it is chiefly desirable as an instrument of popular political education. His Excellency in Council has himself no doubt that, as local know- ledge and interest are brought to bear more fully upon local administration, improved efficiency will in fact follow. But at starting there will doubtless be many failures calculated to 124 Administrative Reform be as truly said, that if we desire to eventually establish an independent government, we can only do so by training the people to a sense of self-help and self-reliance through familiarity with the details of executive work. It may be added that as judicial functions are superior to administrative duties, so it is im- portant that the powers of the administrator should be entrusted to natives before those of the judge. I am careful to affirm the necessity of keeping in the hands of the judiciary the power of check and control, revision and appeal ; and this may be used as an argument in favour of the cautious delegation of judicial authority to Indians ; but there is no corresponding reason why all the real business of administration should be retained in the hands of Englishmen. On the contrary, it is desirable that, during the period of transition upon which we are now fairly launched, the English Government should at every possible opportunity invest the native officials with executive duties, and so educate them onwards to undertake higher responsi- bilities. The gradual withdrawal of our inter- discourage exaggerated hopes, and even in some cases to cast apparent discredit upon the principle of self-government itself." These remarks have been sneered at as sentimental and ill- judged rhetoric ; they seem to me to be the utterance of sound statesmanship. 125 New India ference in Indian affairs should rather be marked by our systematic resignation of executive functions than by the relinquishment of judicial appointments which carry with them the right of appellate and revisional jurisdiction. A worldly-wise policy would also induce the Government to entrust executive duties to native hands. The existing system of administration presents the somewhat anomalous appearance of executive work done by officials of the ruling race, while the natives of the country sit in judgment on the work so done, and naturally subject it to free and often hostile criticism. Great friction is occasionally caused by the exercise of this right of criticism ; and, although on the whole its influence is beneficial, it cannot be denied that it is one of the means which serve to alienate British officialism and the Indian public. How obvious seems the suggestion to transfer the duties which excite so much anim- adversion from Europeans to Indians, and to leave the native press to sit as a tribunal over the official peccadilloes, not of Englishmen, but of its own countrymen ! This aspect of the case is well considered in a pamphlet which was published in Calcutta by the late Sir Henry Harrison, an eminent member of the Civil Service. He wrote : — 126 Administrative Reform The Indian community, in tastes, in interests, in in- tellectual attainments, in desire for progress, is broken up into countless divisions and subdivisions ; and as soon as its members are entrusted with the powers and responsibilities of administration, all these diver- sities and rivalries at once come to the surface. Politi- cally the true role of Englishmen in the India of the future should be that of arbitrators between rival sections and interests of the native community — a role which by their natural qualities they are well qualified to discharge. Who that has any experience of dealing with native gentlemen charged with adminis- trative functions has not seen numerous occasions on which the opinions of one or two Europeans present are eagerly sought for, and allowed to turn the scale at once between contending parties ? As the natives of India gain a larger and larger share in the administra- tive work of the country, the fire of criticism, which is now concentrated on the European functionaries, will be directed against one another, and they will fall into groups and parties as numerous as are the separate interests involved, all of which may, if wisely handled, be permeated by a common devotion to a common country. Repress educated natives, distrust them, let them see that the policy of India for the Indians and of training them to administer their own country is a fiction, and you weld them all into one solid phalanx, united by the common bond of despair and hatred towards Europeans. Can any policy be more insensate than this ? But open the door to their ambitions, and you at once let in all the emulations, class interests, 127 New India sectional friction, which, if not in themselves good, are at any rate a necessary element in a healthy state of society, and instead of a solid phalanx you have a crowd of aspirants competing with one another under conditions which the Government will prescribe and in a race of which it will be the umpire and the distri- butor of the prizes. These excellent observations afford, I con- ceive, the strongest common-sense argument in favour of the delegation of executive and adminis- trative power to natives. It is necessary to do so on grounds of economy, it is necessary as a concession to the reasonable and natural aspira- tions of the natives of the country, and it is no less necessary from a common-sense point of view^, in furtherance of a wise and harmonious administration. I am compelled to add that under the Govern- ment of Lord Curzon there has been a regret- table reaction in this direction as well as in others. The merits of Lord Curzon's rule are many. He has displayed indefatigable energy in grappling with the details of administration. He has not spared himself in his efforts to become personally acquainted with all corners of the Empire. I yield to no one in my admira- tion for his talents, culture, imagination, and unswerving purpose. I respect, if I do not always admire, the uncompromising manner in 128 Administrative Reform which he crushes out all opposition to his own policy. Especially I applaud his firm determina- tion to put down military lawlessness and to assert the claims of justice irrespective of all racial considerations. But the higher my appreciation of Lord Curzon's ability and character, the keener is my disappointment at the measures of his Government. He has shown that he can use his strength in various beneficent ways, but he has lamentably failed to satisfy the expectations which had been formed of his masterful personality. He has placed the seal upon a great change in our relations with the independent princes of India, who have now been relegated to the position of vassals of the Viceroy. He has arrested the progress of education and has set back the dial of local self-government in the metropolis of India. His confidence in the capacity of a bureaucratic administration of foreigners to solve political problems of any degree of complexity is un- bounded, and amounts to a prejudice which has proved most detrimental to popular and national aspirations. Centralisation is his foible and departmentalism his weakness. It is not too much to say that he has convinced himself that no official business can be efficiently transacted unless it is controlled by a department of T29 9 New India officials with Englishmen at their head. It is in this spirit that he has fallen back on the policy of inquiry through commissions, which have been absolutely dominated in all cases by the official element. His imperial prepossessions have led him to subordinate all considerations to the advancement of British interests, openly avowing that the commercial exploitation of India by Englishmen and the administration of the country by Englishmen are aspects of the same question and of the same duty, without distinction of object or purpose or aim. In the furtherance of these views he has deliberately sacrificed the interests of the Indian people, and in particular refused to adopt the most urgent and simple measures for ameliorating the lot of the voiceless toilers in the tea-gardens of Assam. Above all, the trend of his policy has been to exclude the children of the soil from positions of trust and responsibility, to deny them the opportunities of acquiring the qualifications necessary for their success in the posts mono- polised by Englishmen, and to limit the avenues of their employment in the public service. There has been a perceptible tendency during the past few years for the Government to recruit a larger number of its well-paid officers from England ; and this tendency has been noticeable not in one 130 Administrative Reform department only, but in all. However great may be Lord Curzon's energy and his activity in working through an official agency, it is the more to be deplored that he lacks the higher genius of educating the people by making them work for themselves, of evoking their powers by affording them opportunities for their exercise, and of raising them from a condition of mere passive subjection to a capacity for the discharge of higher responsibilities. A nation is the best administered which can manage its own concerns with the least aid from Government ; and no system of administration can be progressive or beneficent which crushes out the self-reliance of the people, and blights their legitimate aspira- tions to realise their destiny through their own exertions. Another administrative reform which has now become a burning question is the separa- tion of the judicial from the executive service. Under existing arrangements the district magis- trate is at one and the same time the head of the police and the head of the magistracy, and it is his duty to watch the police investigation of the more important cases, to instruct in- vestigating officers, to read police reports and papers as they come in, and finally to decide whether a case should or should not be sent up 131 New India for trial before himself or one of his subordinates. He is also in a position to exercise control over the trial of these cases by his subordinates. I cannot imagine that serious doubt can be felt by anyone who is acquainted with the practical administration of justice in India that the combination of executive and judicial functions in the same person does actually lead to practical abuse. It is a matter of universal knowledge that subordinate magistrates, whose position and promotion are dependent on the district magis- trate, cannot, in such circumstances, discharge their judicial duties with that degree of indepen- dence which ought to characterise a court of justice. To furnish evidence of this would be an easy task. Mr Monomohun Ghose's famous twenty cases ^ are typical of others," and the ' A Compilation of Cases illustrating the Evils of the Union offudicial and Executive Functions in Bengal, by Monomohun Ghose, barristei-at-law, 1896. ^ The following amusing, but painfully instructive and sugges- tive, notes were published by the late Rai Bahadur Parbati Charan Roy, one of the most distinguished and able Indian officers in my time, after his retirement, in 1898, in illustration of the relations which existed between himself, a subordinate deputy magistrate, and Mr B., the magistrate of the district in which he was serving : — Case No. i. Parbati Bu, — If the facts found by you are correct, the sentence passed is utterly inadequate. Government has expressly directed that when an accused person is convicted of bringing a false charge 132 Administrative Reform experience of every judge, magistrate, and counsel could add to their number, but as they stand they are enough to show that mischief has resulted. It must be remembered also that a very small proportion of cases in which inter- ference has been exercised comes to notice, for discreet officers will always keep their inter- ference and control in the background. The fact remains that, however indirectly the power (except in exceptional circumstances) he shall be punished severely. The sentence you have passed is not more than the complainant would have received had the charge of theft been true. It should have been at least four times as much. I am very much dissatisfied at this, and so will the L. G. be, if the case comes before him. What explanation have you to offer ? 16.1.92. (Sd.)E. N. B. I do not consider the sentence (six months) to be at all inadequate. I have awarded what I considered to be the proper punishment. The accused charged the complainant with the theft of a Garu (brass jug), valued at Rs. 14, for which the punishment might have been two weeks. 16. 1.92. (Sd.) P. C. R. Parbati Bu,— The sentence is utterly inadequate. If this occurs again I shall report your misconduct to Government. The tone of your remarks is also insubordinate and improper. Please clearly understand that I shall not tolerate this kind of thing for a moment. 18.I.Q2. (Sd.)E. N. B. Gasp: No. 2. Parbati Bu, — You told me yesterday that there were reasons for the delay in this case. I find no reasons whatever on the record. The delay from the 5th to 14th is much too long. Why were not arguments heard on the same day ? New India may be exercised, the union of police prosecutor and judge in the same hands leads to results which are as objectionable in practice as they are anomalous in theory. At the same time I recognise that the nature and degree of the evil vary greatly, and that the application of a practical remedy raises problems of difficulty and complexity which do not admit of summary solution. The Government of India Why was the application from the first party acceded to ? You do not seem to understand the necessity of disposing of these cases at the earhest possible date. Very bad. (Sd.) E. N. B. Case No. 3. Parbati Bu, — In this case the right of cross-e.xamination seems to have been abused. You must check this. 3.4.92. (Sd.) E. N. B. Case No. 4. Parbati Bu, — This is a most inadequate and unsuitable sentence. The constable was wantonly assaulted without provocation in the discharge of his duties, and you say that the offence is not at all a serious one. Why not ? The accused should have been sentenced to two months' rigorous imprisonment. Your judgment is careless and slovenly, and does not state the facts. If it were not that you were about to retire, I should hand the case up to Government as a specimen of inefficiency. (Sd.)E. N. B. As I have said, the injuries were slight, and considering the age (20) of the accused and the circumstance that the assault was not a premeditated one, I awarded fine and not imprisonment. I have no objection to the magistrate of the district handing this or any other case of mine to Government. It is not certain that I shall soon retire. 12.4.92. (Sd.) P. C. Roy. Administrative Reform is complicated by the fact that the vast popula- tion over which it rules consists of elements so dissimilar as to render it impracticable to place them under any one system of administration. They exhibit, to quote from the words of a well- known official report, every stage of human progress and every type of human enlightenment and superstition — from the highly educated classes represented by the gentlemen who distinguish themselves at the Universities or the Inns of Court to the hill chieftain who a few years ago sacrificed an idiot on the top of a mountain to obtain a favourable decision in a Privy Council appeal. The natural and constant tendency is towards advance. It may be true, as Sir Frederick Halliday declared in 1856, that the Oriental idea of provincial government is to unite all powers into one centre, and that nothing can be more opposed to the Oriental plan of administration than the entire separa- tion of judicial from executive duties. What Lord Canning wrote in 1857 was no doubt also true at a time when no Indian university had been established, and the government of the country was still carried on by the Honourable East India Company. He wrote: — We behave that what has been called the patriarchal form of government is in the present con- 135 New India dition of the people of Bengal most congenial to them and most understood by them ; and as regards the governing power, the concentration of all responsibility upon one officer cannot fail to keep his attention alive and stimulate his energy in every department to the utmost, whilst it will preclude the growth of those obstructions to good administration which are apt to spring up where two co-ordinate officers divide the authority. But there have been many changes in India since the Mutiny, and it is the province of statesmanship, v^^hile taking occasion by the hand, to make such modifications in the form of administration as the altered conditions of the country from time to time and in different locaHties may indicate. The key-note of the policy vi^hich should nou^ be follovi^ed is struck in the follow^ing remarks in a published letter from Lord Hobhouse dated the 7th January 1896. His Lordship writes: — It has always seemed to me that the substitution of a fixed impersonal law for the personal view of the ruler for the time being, and in the particular case, is one of the most important advances in good govern- ment that can be made in any country ; and again, that this advantage cannot be secured unless the law is declared by a separate staff of functionaries. How far the separation shall be carried, so as to secure the utmost amount of independence in the judiciary 136 Administrative Reform that is consistent with the unity and stability of govern- ment, is a question of statesmanship, depending on the condition of the country. I beUeve that under Asiatic rulers the principle of independence was so merged in that of unity as to be very weak, even if perceptible, and I have always claimed for our countrymen that we have either introduced it or made it a living thing. In the course of my work as Law Member of Council I held many conversations and discussions with Bengal zamindars and with nobles and landholders in other parts of India, and, rightly or wrongly, I came to the belief that they had grasped the principle of judicial independence firmly, and put a true value upon it, and looked upon it as a great safeguard. Lord Hobhouse acquired his experience of India more than a quarter of a century ago, but he was able even then to perceive how firmly the idea of a reign of law based on British models of jurisprudence had been established in India by the British Government. It is the experience of nearly all competent observers since his time that this conception has grown more and more securely rooted among the people. In the face of this conception it is idle to argue any longer in favour of " the Oriental view that all power should be collected in the hands of a single official, so that the people of the district should be able to look upon one man in whom the various branches of authority are centred, and who is 137 New India the visible representative of Government." It is true that this is the Oriental view, but we have deliberately destroyed it by the introduction of an Occidental system of jurisprudence. It dies hard among the official classes who proclaim it, but it has no longer any vitality except among backward communities. I doubt whether it can be said that in any other direction the contact between West and East has had any real effect in de-orientalising the Indian people. But in this direction the influence of Western thought has been allowed the fullest scope, and the idea of personal government has given way to the reign of an impersonal law. The time has come when this condition of things should be officially recognised, and a complete separation of judicial from executive functions is imperatively called for in the advanced provinces in India. It would be desir- able to introduce the separation gradually, and, in the first instance, into the most advanced portions of these provinces only. But the sooner a beginning is made the better, and it would naturally be in the metropolitan districts that the new system would be inaugurated. Our policy should be a cautious one, for it is a fatal error to make concessions which it is after- wards necessary to withdraw. Lord Hobhouse 138 Administrative Reform justly points out that the adoption of the new policy must depend on the condition of the country. In many parts of India it would be an act of folly to introduce any change, and in such places, whatever abuses may be inherent in the present system, there can be no doubt that the balance of advantage would be altogether in favour of leaving the existing arrangements undisturbed. The original system everywhere in India was in accord with the concentration of power in the hands of a single individual. In many parts of India which are still fitly administered on primitive lines, it will be necessary for many a long day to maintain such concentration. But India, as a whole, does not mark time, and methods which are appropriate to such tracts, and were appropriate one hundred years ago — or even fifty years ago — in Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, are no longer applicable to the advanced portions of those provinces. It is surprising how little change there has been in the form of administration in India during the past century. The constitution of the Indian Civil Service is theoretically un- changed. It is a fine old service, and has enrolled within its ranks men of whom the mother country may well be proud. An appointment in that service implies a position of 139 New India trust and influence, the exercise of power and responsibility, a capacity for good or evil alto- gether beyond the range of ordinary mortals in workaday life. It was organised with consum- mate skill by our early administrators. The arrangement of districts with a population of from one to three million inhabitants, and of an area of from two thousand to ten thousand square miles, over which a single officer presides — in whom all authority is centralised ; by whom the working of all departments is controlled and brought to a common action ; to whom the civil surgeon, the district superintendent of police, the engineer, and a large staff of assistants and deputies exercising magisterial, executive, and revenue functions are all care- fully subordinated with almost martial precision ; who is himself the hand and eye of Government ; upon whose resource, efficiency, and presence of mind may often depend the happiness of multi- tudes of human beings — this is indeed a vigor- ous and attractive administrative conception, a monument to the organising ability of those who devised it. It is, however, a form of administration adapted only to autocratic rule. It has been perceptibly dying out from its inherent inapplicability to an environment where changes are becoming rapid. I can remember 140 Administrative Reform several desperate attempts to galvanise it into life, — especially by the ablest of our recent administrators, Sir George Campbell, Sir John Strachey, and Sir Charles Elliott. But they failed, as everyone must fail who tries to with- stand the advancing tide. For my part, I think that even in its executive aspect we ought to acknowledge that the government should now find expression in a form of administration more representative and less concentrated in indivi- duals, and would point out that if subordinate executive officers were chosen more largely from permanent residents of the locality, it would obviate that habit of constant transfer and change which is the bane of the present system. But it is in the judicial branch of the service that reorganisation is most urgently required. The members of the Civil Service, when very young and very ignorant of the language, are vested with magisterial powers beyond com- parison greater than those possessed by corre- sponding functionaries under any civilised government, and, being uncontrolled by public opinion, and with little judicial experience, it would be strange if they were not led into occasional errors, and sometimes into abuse of power. Their faults are for the most part the faults of youth. It is the system that is to 141 New India blame. It is a marked defect under our present administration that native officers are also vested with magisterial powers at too early an age. Considerations of climate render it imperative that Englishmen should go to India while they are young, but there can be no excuse for the appointment of natives of the country as magis- trates at an unripe age. Yet this is almost invariably done, and there is a rule that no native who is not already in Government service shall be eligible for the appointment of deputy magistrate if he is above the age of twenty- five years. In this respect, it seems that we are blinded by the false analogy of the Civil Service, which is a body of foreigners, the defects of whose organisation should be corrected and not copied when officers who are not foreigners are concerned. There is no reason why, over the greater part of India, important judicial functions should any longer be discharged by persons of immature years, and it is a crying reform in regard to the administration of justice (in all but backward tracts, where the patriarchal system must still prevail) that only those persons should be vested with judicial powers whose age, training, and experience affi^rd a guarantee for the proper exercise of authority. The remedy lies in the complete separation of 142 Administrative Reform the judicial from the executive service. The Indian Civil Service should be recruited for executive offices only, and judicial appointments should be reserved, as they are in other countries, for members of the legal profession, who are trained to undertake the duties attaching to them. In no other way would the separation be really complete, and by no other process of selection is it possible to secure the proper discharge of judicial functions. The whole training of an Indian civilian unfits him for judicial work. Patience and discrimination, respect for the forms of the law, rigid impervious- ness to rumour and to outside report — these are some of the qualifications which are the essential attributes of the judicial office. There is no stage in the career of a civilian which affords him the opportunity for their acquisition. It is not surprising that we should find " executive judges" among the judiciary, when we see that young civilians are taken straight from the Financial Department or the Settlement Camp and placed upon the bench. The civilian judge has never had a proper grounding in law, and he never knows up to the day of his appointment whether he is to be a judicial officer. But his training has been all along on executive lines. He can say, like Horace's sarcastic god : — 143 New India Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum, Cum faber incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum, Maluit esse deum, deus inde ego ! I have seen a High Court judge promoted to be a Chief Commissioner and another to be Foreign Secretary, and the promotion of High Court judges to be members of the Executive Council is not an uncommon spectacle. This I mention as typical of another abuse which will never be cured so long as the judiciary is chosen from the ranks of the Civil Service. The judiciary ought to be subordinate to the highest judicial authority, and there ought to be no promotion from judicial to executive posts or vice versa. There can be no real independence on the part of the judicial service so long as judges are dependent for promotion and transfer on the will of the executive government. I do not say that the power of transfer is now abused, but it is cer- tainly open to abuse. It is an essential feature therefore, of the scheme for the separation of executive and judicial functions that subordinate judicial officers of whatever grade should be placed under the control and orders of the High Court. There is another grave hardship which can only be remedied by the appointment of magistrates who have no concern whatever 144 Administrative Reform with executive work. It is a great practical grievance among persons whose misfortune takes them into court that the magistrate who tries their case may, for all they know, fix the hearing of it in camp. Magistrates who are executive officers, and especially magistrates who are in executive charge of subdivisions, are required to spend a considerable portion of the year on tour. It may readily be imagined how parties are harassed by such an arrangement. Apart from personal inconvenience, they are put to the greatest difficulty in obtaining legal advice and assistance away from headquarters. The executive and judicial hierarchies should be completely distinct from one another. The whole of the executive administration should be in the hands of the Indian Civil Service. The executive head of the district should no longer be described as a district magistrate ; he should be designated as district officer or deputy com- missioner of the district. In his hands should rest the entire control over the police and the responsibility for all branches of the revenue administration. He should be the controlling authority over municipalities and local boards, and would still be, as he is now, the hand and eye of the executive government in his district. But neither the district officer nor any officer 145 10 New India subordinate to him should exercise judicial functions. Under this scheme it would be possible to get rid of the superior police service, thus effecting a substantial economy, while at the same time simplifying the administration. I would not listen for a moment to the argument that this rearrangement would result in a loss of prestige to the district officer. If at present he derives any prestige from his power of inter- ference with judicial work, it is desirable that this stumbling-block should be removed from his way. But I deny that his prestige would suffer, and consider that his position as executive head of the district, especially as direct head of the police, would rather endow him with increased influence and give him ample authority. While full executive power would thus rest with the civilian district officer, the whole of the judicial administration of the district would be under the district and sessions judge, who would be directly subordinate to the High Court. To preside over the local courts there would be, as now, the district and session judge, sub- ordinate judges, magistrates, and munsifs. But appointments to all these offices would be made by the High Court, and the selection would be made from among advocates and pleaders and other members of the legal profession. Very 146 Administrative Reform highly qualified material is available for the purpose. There are many experienced English barristers now in India who would make admir- able judges, and discharge the duties far better than the average civilian. Gradually, no doubt, the number of Indian judicial officers would increase, and this result I would welcome in the interests of both efficiency and economy. These proposals contemplate a reduction in the rate of recruitment for the Indian Civil Service, and it is to be regretted that the practice has been adhered to of recruiting for this service exclusively on actuarial principles, without regard to changes of constitution which sooner or later are inevitable. The excessive recruitment of recent years has rendered it difficult to give practical effect on an early date to any reform. A large phalanx of junior civilians remains, and will for some time remain, who have to be provided for in the higher judicial as well as in executive posts, and they have claims and rights which it is not possible to disregard. But in calculating for future recruitments we should be prepared to exclude judicial appointments in increasing number from the cadre of the service. In any case the Indian Civil Service as at present constituted is doomed. It is a form of administration both bureaucratic and autocratic, 147 New India and is an organisation suited only to a govern- ment of foreigners. It will pass away after a prolonged period of magnificent work, to be replaced by a more popular system which shall perpetuate its efficiency while avoiding its defects. Representation in the English sense of election by vote is not so much what is wanted as the selection of representative members of the community who will possess the highest possible qualifications for the discharge of local duties. The principles of administration for which we are indebted to Lord Ripon have paved the way for this reform, and centralisation is already giving way to local self-government. In the natural course of things administrative officers will be chosen more and more from the per- manent residents of the locality. The injurious custom of constant transfers and changes will gradually cease. The interests of efficiency and economy will alike be served by the appointment of Indians on the spot to perform functions for which we now import foreigners from Europe, and Indians brought from every other part of the province than that in which they are employed. The people of India possess an instinctive capacity for local self-government which centuries of misrule have not eradicated. The inhabitants 148 Administrative Reform of an Indian village under their own princes formed a sort of petty republic, the affairs of which were managed by hereditary officers, any unfit person being set aside by popular judgment in favour of a more acceptable member of his family. It is by reason of the British adminis- tration only that the popular authority of the village headman has been sapped, that the responsibility of the village accountant and record- keeper has been destroyed, and the judicial powers of the Punchayet, or Committee of Five, subverted. A costly and mechanical centralisation took the place of a system of local self-government and local arbitration. The old order can of course never be restored in its in- tegrity, but the development of local institutions which Lord Ripon's policy inaugurated was designed to reconcile if possible the traditional forms of a native authority with the wants of a modern civilisation. It was a decisive advance in the right direction, of delegating the adminis- tration of local affairs to local bodies, who, however inferior they may be to the district officers in knowledge of the principles of admin- istration, have the compensating advantage of a far more direct interest in the result. The administration has been localised, and the trading, manufacturing, and banking classes, no less than 149 New India the agricultural, have been endowed again with corporate life. As it is the development of local independence and self-government which, more than anything else, has given stability to the political institutions of England, so it is by a system of localised administration that we may hope for improve- ment and stability in the political institutions of India. We have sown throughout the Empire the seeds of representative government, and it remains to foster their growth. It is not only in the direction of land administration that I deprecate a policy of bureaucratic interfer- ence. Speaking generally on this subject of State intervention, I will say that the proper procedure is to wait, and in the most con- servative spirit watch over and encourage in- digenous effort, to restore life from within, to infuse in this way confidence among the people, and then to build up a political order upon existing foundations which shall eventually be able to stand by itself with increasing firmness. These remarks are of easy application to particular cases, but especially they apply to the local self-government laws which have been passed by Government. The extension of local self-government was not wisely initiated in all cases. The extension ought to have been 150 Administrative Reform made gradually, to selected areas first, and after- wards to others, but in all cases with perfect confidence, and in an ungrudging spirit. To enforce the principle wholesale in all places, and then to impose on it close and intolerable restrictions, was to court its failure. I would not be understood to imply that failure has followed ; far from it ! It is sufficient to say that the success of Lord Ripon's scheme was gener- ously and fully acknowledged by Lord Elgin ; but it has succeeded in spite of the conditions with which it was unwisely fettered. Freedom from official tutelage is essential to healthy and independent growth. This principle cannot be enunciated too often or too distinctly, and it is the more necessary to dwell upon it as, from the nature of the case, its application is very repugnant to the rising, ambitious, and energetic advisers of Government. To officials zealous for improvement it is trying to see important schemes, calculated to confer great benefit on a large community, postponed or marred from ignorance, or apathy, or indifference. But patience is necessary in the conduct of all public affairs, and those whose favourite projects are thwarted and opposed should remember that the establishment, development, and practical work- ing of self-government is not only an end to be 151 New India pursued, but a great object of political education to be attained. It is better that even useful reforms should be postponed for a time, and ultimately carried out with the consent of local bodies, and in the form most acceptable to them, than that they should be enforced at once, with a disregard of the feelings of the local body. We should respect the independence of such bodies ; we should retain sufficient control over them to see that they do not permanently, obstinately, or slothfully neglect their duty to- wards their fellow-citizens ; but having planted this small tree of self-government, we ought not always to be pulling it up to look at its roots in order to see how far they have got down into the ground. It is hopeless to expect any real development of local self-government if local bodies are subjected to check and interference in matters of detail. The assistance and support of Government should be given — in Lord Ripon's words — "in the manner best calculated to pre- serve the Commissioners' freedom of action within the limits of their attributions, and not to weaken their sense of self-reliance." These are the principles of local self-government as they were enunciated by their sponsor in the Government of India, and we cannot too loudly join in the denunciation of a policy which not T52 Administrative Reform only deviates from them, but is designed, if we may judge from its outward and visible mani- festation in special cases, to crush every spon- taneous formation as it arises, while at the same time professing to encourage local initiative. The greatest of the administrative reforms which has been effected in India since Lord Ripon's time is the reconstitution of the Provincial Legislative Councils on a representa- tive basis. No measure was ever more amply discussed or more urgently pressed upon the Government by the insistence of popular opinion. After seven years of preparation and considera- tion the law was passed, and a memorable step was taken, for which the educated Indian public will always be grateful as a concession to their just demands. It was not an adequate concession, but it was a great and decisive recognition of their claim to some independent representation in the councils of Government. In these eloquent words Mr Gladstone described the effect which had been produced on his mind by this measure for enlarging the liberties of the Indian people: — I believe we are justified in looking forward not merely to a nominal but to a real living representation of the people of India. The great nation to which we belong has undoubtedly had to do most difficult 153 New India tasks in the government and in the foundation of the institutions of extraneous territories. But all the other parts of the British Empire have presented to us a simple problem in comparison with the great problem presented to us by India. Its magnitude, its peculiarity, is such that the task of Great Britain in this respect is far greater than that which any other country has attempted, and far greater than that which it has itself attempted beyond the sea in any of the dependencies of the Empire. I rejoice to think that a great and real advance has been made both before and especially since the direct transfer of the Indian Government to the immediate superintendence of the executive at home and to the authority of the Imperial legislature. The progress thus made has been effected by the constant application to the Government of India of the minds of able men acting under a strong sense of political responsibility. All these things induce us to look forward cheerfully to a great future for India, and to expect that a real success will attend the genuine application, even though it may be a limited one, of the elective principle to the government of that vast and almost immeasurable community. If this attempt be success- ful, it will be the accomplishment of a task to which it would be difficult to find a parallel in history. This reform dates from 1 892. I was a member of a Provincial Legislative Council for some years before the change was made and for some years afterwards, and am therefore in a favourable posi- tion to judge of its operation. Not only was the 154 Administrative Reform constitution of the Councils changed, but their functions also were modified to some extent. The right of interpellation and of calling for papers was allowed, and the right of exercising some financial control was admitted. These privileges have not been abused. On the contrary, the provisions of the new law have operated to the general satisfaction of the public, and to the advantage of the Government. The Indian Councils Act has worked well; but it was not a perfect measure, and it labours under defects on the surface which no amount of tactfulness or happy give-and-take on the part of provincial governors or elected members could obviate. It is impossible to give adequate representation to a province containing more than seventy millions of inhabitants in a Council of only twenty members. But the number of councillors is limited under the present law to twenty. It is necessary, therefore, to enlarge the Councils. It is expedient also, in order to secure their stability and dignity, to provide a certain ex -officio qualification for membership. This ex -officio element should consist not of officials only, but also of noblemen whose position and status in the country entitle them to be recognised as legislators. We ought never to lose sight of the fact that India, in 155 New India spite of all its changes, is and always has been an aristocratic and conservative country, and that any attempt to democratise Indian in- stitutions is calculated to result in failure. The Council should comprise the principal Indian dignitaries in the province; and as it is advisable to draw a precise line, it may be said that all Maharajah Bahadurs, Maharajahs, and Nawab Bahadurs, as well as all Indian gentle- men who have been honoured with the decoration of Knight Commander of the Star of India, or Knight Commander of the Indian Empire, should be ex-officio life members. Such recognition is due to their rank, to their stake in the country, to the respect in which they are held by the people, and to the influence they exercise. It is desirable on all grounds to en- courage them to take an active part in the administration of public business. They take little or no part at present ; but their inclusion in Council and their participation in legislation and the affairs of state would immensely strengthen the hands of Government. All who have thought on the subject have felt the wisdom of some such provision as this ; and it has been suggested, considering the present limited number of councillors, that the noblemen of the province should be invited to elect a member from among 156 Administrative Reform themselves. Such a proposal is, however, not only inadequate, but it would be distasteful to their sentiment and lowering to their prestige. The difficulty cannot be met except by a proportionate increase of the numbers of the Council. The official ex-officio members should be limited to ten, and the nobility, though the number would vary in different provinces, would ordinarily contribute about twenty life-members. The political instincts of these noblemen would furnish the necessary counterpoise, if any is needed, to the large infusion of middle-class representation which every system of election must introduce. It would be left, as it is now, to the elected members to constitute what may be called the "opposition." The electoral bodies would continue to be the District Boards and Municipalities, the Presidency Corporations, the Chambers of Commerce and Trade, and the Universities. It is impossible to allow less than thirty members for the real representation of such bodies. The Council would then be supplemented by Government nominees, selected to represent official interests and other sections of the community — such as the European, Mahomedan, or Parsee — which might not otherwise be sufficiently provided for. This right of nomination is necessary for several i57 New India reasons : in order that the Government itself may be fully represented ; in order that a fair representation of minorities may be secured ; and (although in less degree) in order that in- dividual members who are truly representative and worthy to serve on the Council, but who for some cause or other have not been elected, or it may be have not stood for election, may be appointed. I would fix the limit of Government nominees at fifteen, or one-half of the number of elected members. The whole Council would then consist of about seventy members. If this number appears large in comparison with the present number, it must be admitted that it is not large when compared with the size and population of the provinces, or with the constitution of representative chambers in other countries. There is a prejudice against a large Council on the ground that numbers will create confusion and hinder the despatch of work. But in this matter we have experience to guide us, and no objection to a large Council will be found to derive any support from the proceedings of the Presidency Corporations, or of the Senate of the Universities. I have always found in my own observation that the larger the meeting the greater is the common -sense of the assembly, the sounder is the decision arrived at, and 158 Administrative Reform the more amenable the whole gathering is to the influence of authority. The varying and conflicting interests of those concerned, the respect for duly constituted authority which is inherent in Orientals, and their desire to stand well with Government, are considerations which effectually restrain them from identifying themselves as a body with any factious opposition. In an enlarged Council the Govern- ment would run no risk of defeat. It is only by the adoption of such a scheme that the Councils can be established on a really repre- sentative basis. Its adoption would not only aflbrd satisfaction to the educated classes of the community, but it would gratify and conciliate the nobility and secure for the conservative and aristocratic elements of the country a share in the responsibilities of empire commensurate to their rank. Far from impairing the executive administration, it would prove to be a source of strength in all measures for the welfare of the people. 159 ENGLAND AND INDIA It should be a source of unfeigned satisfaction to persons interested in India when closer atten- tion is given in England to Indian affairs. This closer attention exercises a valuable influence : our own moral sense is awakened by increased knowledge ; more adequate knowledge of actual facts is accompanied by a livelier consciousness of deficiency and of increased responsibility. On the other hand, our Indian fellow-subjects are clear gainers from the stimulus which their rulers receive from the beneficial action of public opinion in Europe. I am not disposed to overrate the value of such influence, and I am free to admit that the most active manifestations of English opinion have often been actuated by race animosity. But even in such cases English opinion is able to exercise a beneficial influence in comparison with Anglo-Indian opinion in India. It finds utterance in more temperate and decorous lan- i6o England and India guage. No vulgar abuse of Indians,^ such as sometimes sweeps over India, would be tolerated in any newspapers or public meetings in this country. Distance from the scene enables men to judge of events with less excitement and irrita- bility. There is greater moderation, and the growth of opinion advances on irresistible lines in increasing sympathy with the Indian people and an increased sense of England's responsi- bility for India's welfare. Every year there is an addition to the number of authorities who avow doctrines which were formerly condemned as unpatriotic and unreasonable, and who in their appeal to a higher tribunal than national self- love are gradually leavening the tone of public opinion by their persistent enthusiasm, and pro- foundly modifying existing conceptions. ^ In order that my readers may be able to form some idea of the language which Anglo-Indian journals have not been ashamed to use, I give below an extract from a newspaper which appeared at a time when the Ilbert Bill agitation may be supposed to have died out : — " Baboo Lai Mohun Ghosh has decided toacceptthe invitation of the Deptford 400 to become the Liberal candidate for the representation of their new borough. It is not too much to say that this rabid, worthless mob of four hundred is more fit for the inside of a lunatic asylum than for catering for the political well- being of our native land. If a Bengalee Baboo can enter Parlia- ment, it will soon become a favourite resort for Aryans. In an insensate, idiotic thirst for novelty, where will an English mob stop? Could a chimpanzee be trained to stand for a borough, doubtless he would be found to have an excellent chance with a 161 ir New India Some of the best books about India have been written by men who have had no official con- cern with the country, who have perhaps never even visited it, and who derive all their know- ledge of it from indirect sources. Such books will often contain more valuable reflections on the nature of our administration of India, on the constitution of our Empire, on the effects of our rule, and on the dangers (external and internal) which may befall it, and they offer also more valuable suggestions in regard to the future of India, than are usually to be found in similar books put forth by Indian officials of the widest experience. There is an advantage in being untrammelled by official antecedents. The opinions of those who have passed long years of service in India are unconsciously weighed down and narrowed by a bias derived from their whole life and environment. Many ad- county constituency. And perhaps a chimpanzee would be a cleverer animal than this Ghosh Baboo, whose publicly uttered sentiments in Dacca obtained for him the distinguishing title of polecat. Thank Heaven ! four hundred do not represent an English constituency, and the Baboo may find to his cost that at the last moment the English nationality has revived. In such a case his insolence and presumption in seeking a seat in Parliament would be fitly rewarded by an infuriate crowd of roughs !" The accomplished Indian gentleman to whom the above remarks refer was President of the Indian National Congress held at Madras in 1903. 162 England and India mirable books about India have, indeed, been written by Anglo- Indians, officials and non- officials ; but the tendency of officials is to exalt unduly the excellence of the work on which they have been themselves engaged, and err on the side of excessive self- laudation. It results from this unfortunate but natural tend- ency, that it is necessary to make a wide allowance for the optimistic character of most Anglo-Indian writers ; and the higher the official rank of the authority, the more sure is he to be an apologist, or perhaps biographer, of his own administration, and the more needful it is to discount his conclusions. The exceptions of such men as Lobb, Osborn, and Geddes, who died before they could accomplish their work, or of many living officers who, in their retirement, devote their unflagging energies to the true interests of India, do not affect the general truth of my statement. The fact remains that it is not in the volumes annually pub- lished by Anglo- Indian administrators that we may look for any glimmer of insight into that utter derangement of economic and social conditions which our conquest has wrought, and which is the chief cause of the pauperisation of the people. Nor is it likely that in these volumes we shall find any percep- 163 New India tion of the deteriorating effect wrought upon both conquerors and conquered by the anoma- lous relations existing between them. These are elements of cardinal importance in considering whether, on the whole, our presence in India has been for good or for evil ; and yet their very existence is commonly ignored in the writings of official apologists. The pessimist writers who have the courage and ability to express their opinions, discharge, therefore, a useful function, which will continue to be necessary so long as officials like Mr Justice Stephen and Sir John Strachey continue to maintain that our Indian Government is the most beneficent, most perfect, and most unalterable that can be imagined. Unfortunately their work is for the most part critical only ; it may wither and destroy, but it does not replace. The real need of India is reconstruction ; and it is the special value of such utterances as those of Osborn, Caird, and Blunt — and particularly of Dr Congreve's pam- phlet on India, and the treatise on India in the " English Citizen " series,^ both written by gentle- men who have no personal knowledge of India — that being composed without prejudice, and with an adequate appreciation of the facts of 1 Colonies and Dependcmies, Parti., " India," by J. S. Cotton (Macmillan, 1883). 164 England and India the case, they lead directly to the formation of administrative principles on which a reconstruc- tive policy can be based. I would mention the names of Messrs Hyndman and William Digby with respect, though I cannot agree with all their conclusions. Mr Digby has rendered a valuable service by drawing the attention of the British public to India's poverty. Sir James Caird's book is full of useful and practical suggestions. Ideas about India, which were reprinted by Mr Wilfred Scawen Blunt from the Fortnightly Review^ are conspicuous illustrations of keen insight into the real relations between England and India. The outburst of indignation they excited among Anglo-Indians is an instructive contrast to the impression they created among the Indian community, which was briefly one of mingled surprise and gratification that an Englishman who had only travelled in India for a few months should be able so thoroughly to understand and represent their feelings. Our obligations are due to the late Sir William Hunter, whose unquenchable optimism impairs but does not destroy the value of his vivid interpretations of India to the English reader. Mr Romesh Dutt, with great erudition and exemplary industry, has devoted himself to the 165 New India elucidation of elaborate studies on the economic and historic aspects of Indian life. Mr Dadabhai Naoroji, Sir William Wedderburn, the late Messrs Fawcett and Bradlaugh, and the late Mr Caine, whose premature death all India mourns, have devoted their great influence, both in and out of Parliament, to the interests of India in this country. I may cite greater names who have wrought still more in the formation of public opinion in England on India, Edmund Burke will always be pre-eminent for his pro- found sympathy with the people of India and for the extraordinary knowledge of the country he acquired. The eloquence of his utterances has made them household words among us, and ensures their influence for all time. The writ- ings and speeches of Macaulay have rendered inestimable service by popularising and establish- ing on a broad basis the application of liberal principles in practical administration and policy. The noblest and most eloquent of modern statesmen also, Mr Gladstone and Mr Bright, have stirred the heart of Englishmen, and deservedly earned the gratitude of the people of India by recalling England to a sense of her duties to her great dependency. The essential importance of English opinion in regard to India will be best appreciated if we 166 England and India measure what the effect of such opinion has been in regard to Irish reform. Internal agita- tion in Ireland has always been useless ; it was only when Irish agitation was supplemented by a powerful phalanx of opinion in England that any concessions were allowed to the sister island. And so it is in the case of India. There is, I am persuaded, no reason to justify the fears of those who look on the peaceful solution of the Indian problem as a mere speculative contin- gency altogether outside the sphere of practical politics. But we know that internal pressure is powerless ; it leads to repression only, the ultimate outcome of which must be a national outbreak. The experiment of a "firm and resolute government" in Ireland has been tried in vain, and the adoption of a similar policy in India is inevitably destined to fail. The remedy for both countries is the same. The opportunity of a peaceful solution rests in both cases with the English people, who alone have it in their hands to effect a material modification in the attitude of Government through the pres- sure of public opinion from the mother country. The powerlessness of any action which may originate in India itself is illustrated by the history of Lord Ripon's administration. It is 167 New India impossible that I can mention Lord Ripon's name in terms of too high praise. From the moment he landed in India to the day he left it he laboured for the native population. His tenure of office will always be a memorable one. He will be known in history as the author of a progressive and enlightened policy, as a states- man of wide and sincere sympathy with the people of the country, above all others " the Friend of India"; and it will be the proudest honour of his successors if their names are handed down to posterity with that of Ripon. Yet he was able to accomplish little. It is true that the political revolution now taking place in India is largely attributable to his exertions — although by the irony of fate it is far more largely attributable to the blind fanaticism of those who opposed him — but the actual results of his administration as shown upon the statute- book are not very great. I recognise the diffi- culties by which he was surrounded, and it may be that he was encompassed by other difficulties of which I have no knowledge. He was harassed and hampered in an inconceivable degree by the bigotry and race feeling of his own fellow- countrymen. He was paralysed from want of support, and neither he nor any man in his position single-handed could have overcome 168 England and India the dead wall of opposition by which he was confronted. I take this opportunity (before I allude further to Lord Ripon's policy) of linking the present with the past, and of invoking for his pre- decessors and successors their due tribute of acknowledgment. I do this advisedly, for I am able to bear testimony to the good which has been done; and I think there is too great a tend- ency among those who are impressed with the injustice of the English conquest to look with jaundiced eyes on all features of Indian administration. We may condemn the conquest (as animated by unworthy motives, for which no adequate justification has ever been brought forward), but we need not blind ourselves to the advantages which have followed from it. If it has been the case that, almost without exception, every Governor-General has extended the area of British territory, it is also the case that every Governor-General has taken his part in consoli- dating a peaceful administration over the territory so acquired. If the external policy of Govern- ment has been one of systematic aggression, it is also true that the internal policy has been one of continual progress. To Lord Cornwallis we owe the foundation of the present form of the civil administration, the purification of the Civil 169 New India Service, and the priceless boon of a permanent land settlement in Bengal. To Lord William Bentinck we owe the establishment of the principle that no natives of India are to be excluded by reason of their birth from any appointments under Government.^ We owe to Lord William Bentinck, under the inspiration of Macaulay, the foundation of an educational system which has revolutionised India. To Lord Dalhousie we owe the initiation of a policy for developing the resources of the country which is now bearing fruit. The memory of Lord Canning will always be cherished by the Indian people for his justice, his firmness and courage at the time of a great crisis, and for his clemency. To Sir John Lawrence we owe the municipal- 1 As long ago as 1833 it was provided by Act of Parliament "that no native of the said territories, nor any natural-born subject of her Majesty resident therein, shall, by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, colour, or any of them, be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment under the said Com- pany." The same assurance was conveyed by the Queen's pro- clamation of 1858, when the Government of India was transferred from the Company to the Crown. And so it was observed by Lord Northbrook in the House of Lords, "Whether it was Lord Dalhousie with his imperial instincts, or Lord Canning with the responsibility laid upon him of dealing with the Mutiny, or Lord Lawrence with his great knowledge of the internal organisation of the country, or Lord Mayo, associated from childhood with the Conservative party,— all alike held that there should be no distinction of class or race, and that there should be one law for all classes of her Majesty's subjects." 170 England and India isation of the large towns ; ^ to Lord Mayo the decentralisation of the finances. To the humanity of Lord Northbrook we are indebted for the definite and practical assertion of the principle that it is the first duty of the ad- ministration during famine to preserve life. To Lords Dufferin and Lansdowne we owe the establishment of Legislative Councils upon a more or less popular basis. There is not one of the Governor-Generals of India whose name we may not associate with large and enlightened measures for the welfare, education, or political training of the people. I venture, therefore, to think that the progress already made is a fit subject for commemoration. It is well to remember that a policy of consolida- tion has proceeded hand in hand with a career ^ The following utterance of Sir John Lawrence, on 31st August 1S64, distinctly foreshadows our present policy : — " Great public benefit is to be expected from the firm establishment of a system of municipal administration in India. Neither the central Government nor the local governments are capable of providing either the funds or the executive agency for making the im- provements of various kinds in all the cities and towns of India which are demanded by the rapidly developing wealth of the country. The people of India are quite capable of administering their own affairs ; the municipal feeling is deeply rooted in them. The village communities, each of which is a little republic, are the most abiding of Indian institutions. Holding the position we do in India, every view of duty and policy should induce us to leave as much as possible of the business of the country to be done by the people." 171 New India of conquest, that the estabhshment of order is always essential to any real progress, and that the united and continuous efforts of previous genera- tions are the necessary introduction to all great measures of reform. If the war epoch has at last drawn to a close, if the conquest of India is complete, and our future proconsuls may sigh with Alexander that they have no more worlds to conquer, if all the energies of the Indian Government may now be devoted to the encour- agement of national reconstruction — the vantage position we thus occupy is entirely due to the labours of our predecessors. It is they who have prepared the way for the pending changes which are about to affect every portion of the Empire. It is well to acknowledge that great progress has been already made in imparting civilisation, education, and order, and that the mechanism of one of the most remarkable movements ever known in the world has been set going by the hand of Government. The policy of Lord Ripon was thus described by an acute but hostile critic in the House of Lords : " It is the policy of gradually transfer- ring political power in India from European to native hands." " Does it not mean," asked Lord Lytton,^ " nay, ought it not to be taken as mean- ^ As reported in the Times, loth April 1883. 172 England and India ing, that we, the English Government in India, feel ourselves in a false position, from which we wish to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible ? We must no doubt hold office for a certain time, in order to train up you natives to take our places ; but this is our only object. As soon as it is accomplished (and the sooner the better), we shall retire, and leave India to be governed by what- ever body her native representative assemblies may see fit to entrust with the task of govern- ment." This is Lord Lytton's language, not mine ; it is a paraphrase uttered by a politician who had himself been Viceroy, with a full sense of responsibility and knowledge that his words were not likely to be forgotten. They are, indeed, but the echo of a sentiment which has made itself widely felt among the Anglo-Indian community in India. The organisation in Calcutta of a European and Anglo-Indian Defence Association, which comprises among its members nearly all the unofficial magnates in Bengal, which is largely supported by the active sympathy of officials, and which, according to the Englishman newspaper, " inaugurates a new era in the history of British India," is a phenomenon only to be understood in the light of Lord Lytton's gloss on Lord Ripon's policy. It is true that Lord Ripon himself was careful to 173 New India abstain from any such outspoken avowal, and that his friends and supporters were but too ready to offer the excuse that the proposals which excited so much bitter and violent op- position were really isolated in character and individually of small importance. It is true that the language of Lord Lytton was at once deprecated by Her Majesty's Ministers in that half-hearted manner in which the Liberal Govern- ment is too apt to protest against conclusions which must ensue from the conscientious appli- cation of its professed principles. It would there- fore be incorrect to say that either the Liberal Ministry at home or Lord Ripon in India had consciously identified themselves with the policy which Lord Lytton enunciated on their behalf. On the contrary, it is probable that Lord Ripon was, in the first instance, as unconscious of the inevitable tendency of his own measures as he was admittedly unprepared for the tre- mendous opposition their introduction provoked. At the same time it would be unjust to deny to Lord Ripon the most ample credit for a great work. He was the instrument at whose hands a long and elaborate preparation at last received its due fulfilment. But he was a great deal more than a mere instrument. The policy which he espoused is indeed the logical development of 174 England and India principles which all previous Viceroys — even Lord Lytton himself — had been ripening to maturity. But it was Lord Ripon who took action far more decided than any of his pre- decessors, who by his own personal enthusiasm infused life into the dry bones of the dull office machine, and by the vigour of his example stimulated the subordinate governments to give practical expression to his views. Already the benevolent despotism of an autocratic adminis- tration is merging into a system of free repre- sentation and municipal and local independence. The way is being gradually prepared for the emancipation of the Indian people. There has been no change in the power of Government, which is still as supreme as that of the Czar of Russia. The Government of India is still characterised by its absolutely despotic consti- tution. But it is in the spirit and disposition with which supreme power is now exercised that a change is visible. We have seen the complete reversal of an aggressive policy on the North-West Frontier. After having been for nearly fifty years under British rule, the province of Mysore was lately restored to its here- ditary prince, and for the first time in the history of India the red line of British possessions has receded. The Guicowar of Baroda was restored 175 New India to his dominions. In spite of unprecedented pro- vocation, the little State of Manipore was not annexed, A system of provincial representation has been introduced into the local legislatures. A comprehensive scheme of local self-government has been organised. An Indian judge has been appointed more than once to officiate as Chief Justice of the High Court. The" enforcement of civilisation irrespectively of the wishes or feelings of the people " under which legislation and taxes have been augmented until the imposition of a new fiscal duty becomes a question rather of policy than of finance ; the " establishment of a scientific frontier " absorbing for military purposes all the proceeds of additional taxation which had been expressly levied as an insurance against future famine ; the " inherent overwhelming tur- pitude of native character," that Anglo-Indian dogma so freely and unwarrantably postulated by subordinate officials and litterateurs — these are phrases which I am glad to think are discredited and past. At least they are no longer avowed as the basis of our Indian policy. We may observe among exceptional members of the official hierarchy manifestations of a wise and liberal attitude and of a wider grasp of the meaning of political events. The admirable independence and courage which were displayed by men like T76 England and India the late Sir Henry Harrison and Mr Geddes inspire us with a confidence that others situated in their position may be emboldened to follow in their footsteps. Even among the highest author- ities of Government there are those who are alive to changes unrecognised by most of those habituated to residence in the country. The period of Lord Ripon and his immediate successors has been well described as the Golden Age of Indian reformers, when the aspirations of the people were encouraged, education and local self-government were fostered, and the foundations of Indian nationality were firmly laid. The natural trend of Anglo-Indian opinion has been to assert itself in a reactionary outburst against this development, disparaging the vantage-ground acquired in the past. In the Imperialism of Lord Curzon these reaction- ary tendencies have found a too willing mouth- piece. We are told that the weakness and limitations of the newly educated classes are now more clearly perceived, and that the complexities of the problems of Oriental politics are more distinctly realised. But it is not by indulgence in such vague generalities that the current of advance can be stemmed. Tempor- ary spasms of reaction are inevitable. They pass away like footprints on the sand, and we 177 12 New India need not trouble ourselves too much with these vexatious aberrations from the path of progress. They will be quickly forgotten. In the mean- time the old principles of administration, al- though they are discredited, cannot be formally destroyed until they are replaced ; and for the Government to accomplish this is no easy task. It is not every Viceroy in India who is able to resist the pressure brought to bear on him by his own countrymen. It requires the assurance of a strong moral support from home, support not from the English Government only, but from the English people. It is a common complaint that the politics of India find no echo in the life and interests of Englishmen. Nothing short of a great famine or a great Durbar, a victory or a defeat, will attract attention to our vast dependency. The complaint is just, and it is perhaps inevitable that it should be so. But the spirit of indifferentism is hardly less dangerous than the spirit of the new Im- perialism. England is a great nation with vast responsibilities, unique and unparalleled in their wide -reaching influence and operation. It is our privilege, the privilege of her people, to assist and determine action and to formulate policy. I do not deny that English opinion may be profitably exercised on particular sub- 178 England and India jects, but it is of even greater importance that it should be directed to moulding general principles. I remember the words of Mr Gladstone when he spoke in the House of Commons ^ of the relations between Parliament and the Indian Government. He said : " It is not our business to advise what machinery the Indian Government should use. It is our business to give to those representing Her Majesty's Government in India ample informa- tion as to what we believe to be sound principles of government. It is also the duty and function of this House to comment upon any case in which we think the authorities in India have failed to give due effect to those principles ; but in the discharge of their high administrative functions, or as to the choice of means, there is no doubt that that should be left in their hands." These words were wise. It is not by attempting to rule directly a country like India that we can do our duty to that distant territory. The details of administration must be left in the hands of those who possess a competent knowledge of Indian affairs, upon whom must always rest the personal responsibility of giving effect to a reconstructive policy without disturb- ance. For them there is good and noble ' Debate on the Indian Councils Bill, June 1892. 179 New India work remaining to be done. The difficulties accompanying the present epoch of excitement can only be successfully overcome by the cordial co-operation of Indian officials during the crisis. By the exercise of personal influence, which in virtue of their position is almost indescribably great, by the force of a strong example of tolerance, courtesy, and good-will, they have it in their power to do much to temper prestige and pride, and to establish a more kindly relationship with the people. For us, our duties lie in a different direction. Busied with the ordinary affairs of life, it is not possible for us to familiarise ourselves with the details of Indian administration. Our interests are nearer home. But our responsibilities remain. The white man's burden is on us. A policy of indifferentism is one of the greatest calamities that could befall India. Our duty is to make ourselves acquainted far more nearly than we do at present with the current events and history of India — so much, indeed, is easy — but, above all, on the basis of such acquaintance to form convictions on the general policy which should guide the Government, and to labour in the creation of a popular opinion which shall share those convictions and stimulate and strengthen the authorities in putting them into practice. 1 80 England and India Those, at least, who think as I do need not hesitate to offer such aid as they can give. We have no cause for hesitation. We are already armed for the encounter, and, inspired by the belief we profess, have no difficulty in formulat- ing the principles which we think should be followed. We accept the fundamental doctrine of modern social life, the subordination of politics to morals. We claim to test our political action by moral considerations, allowing that for the State as well as for individuals it is the question not of rights but of duties that must take precedence. These are the new principles we have to offer in substitution of the worn-out ideas which have provisionally been employed. This, therefore, is our policy of reconstruction. The policy of the future — which is based alike on the duty of England and on the need of India, on the devotion which is due from a strong nation to a weak and subject people — must be a policy of national self-sacri- fice, voluntary restitution, and disinterested moderation. i8i POLITICAL RECONSTRUCTION There are, I suppose, not many reflecting persons who will maintain that our occupation of India, as we hold it, can be of a permanent character. The emancipation of India has become inevitable ever since a system of English education was established and the principle of political equality accepted. The great upheaval which has revolutionised all departments of Indian thought, inspired the aspirations of diverse communities, and infused the sense of nationality throughout a vast and surging empire can only find its peaceful fulfilment in the wise and prescient recognition of changes imminent in the situation which the British Government itself has created. The Right Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone wrote as long ago as 1850 : — I conceive that the administration of all the departments of a great country by a small number of foreign visitors, in a state of isolation produced by 182 Political Reconstruction a difference in religion, ideas, and manners, which cuts them off from all intimate communion with the people, can never be contemplated as a permanent state of things. I conceive also that the progress of education among the natives renders such a scheme impracticable, even if it were otherwise free from objection. It might, perhaps, have once been possible to have retained the natives in a subordinate condition (at the expense of national justice and honour) by studiously repressing their spirit and discouraging their progress in knowledge ; but we are now doing our best to raise them in all mental qualities to a level with ourselves, and to instil into them the liberal opinions in government and policy which have long prevailed in this country, and it is vain to endeavour to rule them on principles only suited to a slavish and ignorant population. These w^ords are a lasting tribute to the sagacity of the old Anglo-Indian statesman v^^ho had lived for thirty years in India, who had ruled as Governor of Bombay for eight years, to whom the Governor -Generalship of India was twice offered, and who in honoured retire- ment in the evening of his life had lost none of his sympathetic interest in the country he had served so well. The experience of more than half a century since they were written merely confirms their truth. India is indeed a tutelage unexampled in 183 New India history, and we have incurred liabilities on its account not lightly to be set aside. England should no more break from its past than should India break from the traditions of its history. An abrupt retreat would, as has been well said, be to act like a man who should kidnap a child, and then in a fit of repentance abandon him in a tiger jungle. The deplorable opposition which was kindled in India against Lord Ripon's measures is evidence of the difficult and delicate character of the work which lies before us. I do not say that the process of reconstruction can be effected otherwise than by slow and gradual means. Many years must elapse, generations may pass away, before we can expect the consummation of the policy I ad- vocate. But it is a policy which we should always keep before our eyes, and to which all our efforts should converge. Sooner or later India must again take her own rank among the nations of the East, and our action should be devoted to facilitating her progress to freedom. Not in mere vague talk, but strenuously and of set purpose, it should be the principal object of our Indian Government to address itself to the peaceful reconstruction of native administra- tions in its own place. The task is not so stupendous as at first 184 Political Reconstruction appears. The difficulty is not so much to organise internal administration as to provide for the existence of healthy relations between separate and independent states. But even in this respect the difficulties are exaggerated. It would ill become Englishmen who are actu- ally engaged in a daily policy of dangerous repression to confess themselves incapable of political reconstruction. The best solution of the problem is apparently to be found in the proposal to place India on a fraternal footing with the colonies of England. A constitutional relationship of this kind, as though England were the parent country and India its colony, would form a material guarantee for the peaceful attitude of the Native States. England will always have a stake in India suffi- cient to call forth interference if necessary, and in the event of a civil war in India the military interposition of England would be required in the interest of both countries. England herself, therefore, will continue to afford the principal guarantee of peace. Autonomy and not assimilation is the key- note of England's true relations with her great colonies. It is the key-note also of India's destiny. The circumstances of Russia afford no parallel. In itself historically and geographi- 185 New India cally more of an Oriental than a Western power, Russia has without much effort or deliberate policy absorbed the border tribes on its eastern frontier, and all its extensions eastward have been conterminous with its own natural and ever-widening boundaries. In this way it has by a sure and almost unconscious process assimilated vast areas of Northern and Central Asia up to the confines of the Pacific. Assimi- lation has been complete, but there is no autonomy, for Russia has none to give. The relations of England with India are in striking contrast to those of Russia with Central Asia. We have not simply overstepped our borders, and our contact with the East is not the incor- poration of neighbouring states. There can be no assimilation between Englishmen and the natives of India, separated from us by many thousand miles of land and sea. But in accord- ance with an august and liberal policy we have extended to India the inestimable boons of education, political equality, and representation. The dawn of the day has risen which Macaulay declared ^ in the House of Commons would be ^ The eloquent and prophetic utterance of Lord Macaulay in the House of Commons in 1833 ought always to be ringing in our ears : — "The destinies of our Indian Empire are covered with thick darkness. It is difficult to form any conjecture as to the fate 186 Political Reconstruction the proudest day in England's history. The full development of autonomy is still in a distant future, but the beginnings have been laid and the paths have been made straight. The claim for representation in the Government of Great Britain is frequently put forward in the advanced organs of Indian thought, and Indian candi- dates have often stood for Parliament. This need not excite our wonder when we consider how the glamour of a Parliamentary career dazzles men's eyes. But it would be more fitting and I am sure more gratifying to the ambition reserved for a state which resembles no other in history and which forms by itself a separate class of political phenomena. The laws which regulate its growth and its decay are still unknown to us. It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown our system ; that by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government ; that having become instructed in European knowledge, they may in some future age demand European institutions. Whether such a day will ever come I know not. But never will I attempt to avert or retard it. Whenever it comes, it will be the proudest day in England's history. To have found a great people sunk in the lowest depths of slavery and superstition, to have so ruled them as to have made them desirous and capable of all the privileges of citizens, would indeed be a title to glory all our own. The sceptre may pass away from us. Unforeseen accidents may derange our most profound schemes of policy. Victory may be inconstant to our arms. But there are triumphs which are followed by no reverse. There is an empire exempt from all natural causes of decay. Those triumphs are the pacific triumphs of reason over barbarism ; that empire is the imperishable empire of our arts and our morals, our literature, and our laws." 187 New India and energies of these able and cultivated Indians if they were afforded a larger and more appro- priate outlet in the administration of their own country. A certain measure of representation has already been accorded to the Indian people in the local legislatures. It is in its further development, in the increase of their power and influence in India itself, and not in representa- tion in England, that we shall find the appro- priate and natural prize and legitimate goal for Indian aspirations. In the face of the bloated armaments of Europe it may seem useless to speculate about the re- duction of the English army in India. But with a proper reorganisation of the native army it should be possible to effect a material diminu- tion in the number of English troops required. There are only two ways of governing a con- quered country ; there is no safe standing-point between absolute suppression and absolute equality. The last is the goal to which we tend, and in military no less than civil reconstruction it is necessary to identify the interest of indivi- duals with the State. The native army is, how- ever, now organised on a mercenary basis. It is more and more replenished by rude and ignorant recruits from the borders of our frontier or beyond it, and the martial spirit of our own Indian 1 88 Political Reconstruction subjects is gradually dying out. " Tribes," writes Sir Richard Temple, " which fifty years ago were notoriously attached to arms are now compara- tively unwarlike. With training and discipline the troops will still behave very well ; but with the masses of them there is hardly now the pre- dilection for the fight, the instinct of physical contention, that there used to be." The Mogul emperors adopted heartily and completely the policy of trust ; Akbar's greatest generals and most devoted adherents were children of the very men his grandfather had conquered ; the Rajput chivalry was the main bulwark of the Mogul throne. The British Government, on the con- trary, has adopted a policy of suspicion ; the non- commissioned officers of our native army are only old soldiers, promoted from the ranks, who in virtue of their longer services draw larger pay, and are permitted to sit down in the presence of an English subaltern. We can expect no assistance from such men, and we get none. The Russians can get from the territories they have absorbed in Central Asia an Alikhanofif or a Loris Melikoff. We can only produce men who rise to the rank of Naik, Havildar, or Resaldar, or to some other subordinate post, the name of which perplexes the English public. The first step towards the reorganisation of the native 189 New India army is to augment the power of the native officers, to afford some scope to their abilities and ambition, and to raise them to a level with ourselves. Lord Curzon has already moved in this direction. His commendable object is to attract into our armies the gentlemen and aristo- cracy of the country. This in itself will afford a powerful impetus towards the conversion of the native mercenary army into a national force. A further step is required. The decentralisation (if it may so be called) of the native army is the logical complement of Lord Curzon's policy. The establishment of provincial army corps, with an esprit and traditions of their own, recruited from the common people, and officered by the native gentry of the provinces in which they are to serve, would prove both a safeguard against internal disorder and a protection against attack from without. Just as the Rajputs and Mussul- mans under the Moguls formed separate armies with their national chiefs, and inspired by rivalry distinguished themselves by feats of valour which are still remembered ; so the provincial armies of the future, animated by a similar emulation, would display equal valour and hardi- hood in fighting for a common cause. The native remedy — the permission to volun- teer — is another proposal which tends in the same 190 Political Reconstruction direction of the gradual disbandment of mer- cenaries and English soldiers. The agitation in favour of volunteering has been set on foot and is sustained entirely by educated natives of the country. It is primarily the outcome of an honourable feeling that as they ask for a larger share in the administration, and to be allowed to exercise the privileges and rights of citizens, so they ought not to shrink from their national duties. But this feeling is also allied with others equally honourable. As the late Sir Henry Harrison, in the pamphlet I have al- ready quoted, well says : ^— The desire to be enrolled as volunteers arises (i) from a wish for political equality, a desire not to be regarded as helots, while other sections of the com- munity are regarded as Spartans ; (2) from a conviction that those who claim their share in the prizes of administration must show their willingness to bear their share of the burdens of the citizenship ; (3) from a knowledge that the Bengalees and other Indian races are physically degenerate, and a desire to do something, however little, to make them less effemin- ate ; (4) from a pride in association with a noble empire like that over which Her Majesty presides, and a desire to share in its glories by being numbered among its defenders; (5) from a conviction that a struggle may be imminent in India between the forces of retrogres- 1 Ought Natives to be welcomed as Volunteers? p. 22. 191 New India sion led by Russia and those of progress led by England, and that their sympathies and their fortunes must unhesitatingly and unwaveringly be thrown in with the latter. The enthusiasm which the educated natives evinced on this subject was very remarkable, and it was echoed by the native press with singular earnestness and unanimity. The Government repressed it with a cold refusal ; but if persistence will bear any proportion to the determination expressed, it is a movement calculated to exercise a considerable influence in modifying the future constitution of our armies, and in keeping alive the military spirit of the country. In civil administration the need of a similar policy is more evident and has made more way. The tendency towards decentralisation, though momentarily discouraged, is firmly established, and is eventually destined to resolve itself into a federated union such as prevails in the Federa- tion of Australia and in the Canadian Dominion. Provincial representative government will grad- ually lead to the development and definition of the peculiar idiosyncrasy of each federated state. It is a noble and exalted duty that is reserved to our fellow-countrymen who are responsible for the destinies of India. It is theirs to guide and 192 Political Reconstruction facilitate the transition. The ideal of political reconstruction is a federation of states under the supremacy of England, with provincial national armies gradually replacing the standing army of Great Britain. The careful conservation of existing social institutions is the essential supplement of this reconstruction. The country recoils from such a social revolution as our Western civilisation has thrust upon it. It still needs the hierarchical leadership of caste. The tendency to reduce the power of the dominant classes and to destroy, if possible, all distinction between the different strata of society is much in vogue among headstrong administrators, who are too apt to transplant the radical associations of our democracy into a country altogether unsuited to their growth. But there is no more patrician milieu in the world than that which has for centuries flourished in India and still is vigor- ous, in spite of attacks upon it. Lord Lytton, at the time of the " Kaisar-i-Hind Durbar" at Delhi, appointed a few of the principal chiefs in India to be Councillors of the Empire, but the sound instinct which marked his action has not been revived, and these " pillars of state " have never been invited to take their part in Imperial deliberations. Lord Curzon, who is endowed with no small measure of Oriental insight, might 193 13 New India have been expected to appreciate the value of this association of the Government with the aristocracy of the Empire. But he has shown no sign. It is not, however, too late for him to attract to the nation's councils the great noble- men of India. This would be a great step in political reconstruction. The sympathetic and systematic encourage- ment of the government of Native States is another natural link in the same direction. Some of these States — such as Mysore, Travancore, and Baroda — have shown that, in the hands of their enlightened chiefs, models of administration may be looked for under indigenous rule. The names of Sir Dinker Rao, Sir Madhava Rao, and Sir Salar Jung — not to mention other ministers of equal ability, although perhaps of less fame — are sufficient evidence of the aptitude and skill with which the affairs of large and important independent territories have been administered. What is required, in the absence of an emascul- ating foreign army, is an organisation of small States, each with a prince at its head, and a small body of patrician aristocracy interposing between him and the lower order of working men. For such an arrangement the country appears to be eminently adapted ; the United States of India should be bound together by 194 Political Reconstruction means of some political organisation other than the colonial supremacy of England. The basis of internal order is to be found in the recogni- tion of a patriciate accustomed by hereditary associations to control and lead. Even the Mahomedan community is largely influenced by caste practices derived from its long contact with the Hindoo system. The Mahomedans as well as the Hindoos are thus well fitted for an aristocratic form of govern- ment. The difference between the Hindoo and Mahomedan religions would not at all stand in the way of the establishment of a similar form of government in both cases. The difference in religion is, however, one of the greatest practical difficulties in any scheme of reconstruction. I do not forget that the principal officers of state under the great Akbar were Hindoos ; that the chief officers under Hyder Ali were also Hindoos ; and that the ablest prime minister of Runjeet Singh, the man who kept his policy straight, was a Mahomedan, These instances give ground for hope that a principle of social unity between the chiefs and aristocracies of the Hindoo and Mahomedan classes may some day be established. At the same time it is impossible to be blind to the general character of the relations between 195 New India Hindoos and Mahomedans ; to the jealous)'' which exists and manifests itself so frequently, even under British rule, in local outbursts of popular fanaticism ; to the inherent antipathy with which every devout follower of Islam cannot but regard the idolatrous worship of Kali and Krishna. There are good reasons, therefore, for saying, as has been said, that the leaders of either community would find it insupportable to live under the domination of the other. Certainly I, for one, do not think that any amalgamation is probable, or that it would be possible to find from either community a common head with equal sympathies for both. The leaders of the people have, mdeed, to a considerable extent already agreed to a separa- tion, and in many parts of India the Mahomedan aristocracies are so distributed geographically that they will be able to avoid a collision with their Hindoo rivals. It appears desirable that the British Government should extend a help- ing hand to assist this natural tendency. The lower orders, fortunately, will remain unaffected by such a separation, and to the bulk of the people the difficulties of assimilation do not apply. The delta of Bengal, for instance, is peopled for the most part by quiet and in- offensive races, whether Mussulman or Hindoo, 196 Political Reconstruction between whom, from long association, a close affinity exists. The followers of Islam, who constitute an undoubted majority of the popula- tion, differ little in language, customs, or occupation from the older inhabitants of the country. In this division of the country the difficulty does not present itself; but in other parts of India it will generally be found that the Mahomedans are still, as they were under their own dynasty, the principal members of the community, and that they have established among themselves a religious and fanatical exclusiveness from the infidels with whom it is their lot to live. With these men and with the leaders of the Hindoo community, who are divided from them by unsympathising, not to say hostile, relations, the difficulties of assimilation are very great, and it is only in the distant future that we can venture to predict a time when fundamental differences shall sub- side under the impulse of a common faith and purpose. The future of the European settlers and of the Eurasian community demands a similar but somewhat easier solution. The tendency of Eurasians to imitate the attitude of Europeans in regard to Indians is a source of growing disturbance, inasmuch as their claims to social 197 New India supremacy cannot be admitted by the more strictly called native community. These claims arise only from blood and language relations with British -born subjects, who, however, on their part hold the Eurasians at a distance in consequence of their relationship with the natives. Excluded on both sides, their condi- tion is extremely anomalous, and if England were to abandon India it is probable that as a class they would sink to the level of the Mahomedan proletariat. But if England does not break off from India, as we know she will not, it seems that the welfare of the Eurasians as well as of Europeans can be best secured by the formation of separate little settle- ments at suitable localities, resembling the free cities of Germany or the city republics of Venice and Genoa. Such cities would then contain the European and Eurasian community who may choose to reside in the country. This is a state of things which is now, in fact, actually growing up. All the important civil and military stations in India comprise what is called a European quarter, and the municipal administration of such places is a source of endless misunder- standing between the native and Anglo-Indian populations. Complete separation, both by geographical limits and pohtical institutions, is 198 Political Reconstruction apparently the only means of putting an end to irritation which in times of political trouble may easily become a source of serious danger. Their protection, if protection were necessary, will be afforded by the prestige and power of England. But it is not necessary. It has been acutely suggested by one of my Indian friends — a friend to whom I am indebted for other suggestions on this subject — that the alarm so often raised by Anglo-Indians on the ground of hostility from the natives means nothing more than a con- sciousness of their own hostile inclinations towards the natives. Indians may be irrational and uncompromisingly exclusive, but they are not aggressive. And the alarms of the Anglo- Indians, seemingly so innocent and so entirely on the defensive, are designed only to rouse the sympathies of Englishmen at home, so that they may send forth succour which the Anglo-Indians know very well will serve them also for purposes of aggression. Even if all military support from England were withdrawn, the withdrawal would not be injurious to Anglo-Indians, who, when conveniently located in separate places and with separate political constitutions, would be con- strained in their own self-interest to adopt a more conciliatory demeanour towards the people of the country. 199 New India Turning now to the question of foreign in- vasion, on which I must say a few words, I think most persons will be found to agree that there need be no apprehension of such invasion from Asiatic Powers ; if there be, it may be presumed that the various states and free cities would be strong enough to resist any attack. But it will be alleged that the real fear of foreign invasion is from European Powers, and probably from Russia. There are persons to whom Russia is a constant dread, a kind of demon of infinite capacity, possessed by a malignant and unceasing desire to wrest India from our hands. It is a curious phenomenon, this prejudice against Russia ; but it is a preju- dice, in my opinion, as baseless as it is hard to explain. The Russophobist labours under a strange hallucination. I, for my part, believe with Mr Bright " that Russia has no more idea of crossing the frontier of India into the Indian Empire than we have of crossing the frontier of India and invading the Asiatic possessions of Russia." With Lord Salisbury I would advise the victims of a baseless scare to buy large-sized maps, and learn how insuperable are the obsta- cles which Nature has placed between the land of the Czar and the Indian dominions of the British Crown. With Lord Beaconsfield " I 200 Political Reconstruction think that from the period of the conquest of Tashkend, some ten years ago/ every one must have felt that it was almost inevitable that all of these khanates would be conquered by Russia. Some gentlemen think that this advance of Russia ought to be nipped in the bud. But nipping it in the bud means that the English Power should have proceeded beyond our Indian boundary, and should have entered on a most hazardous and, I should say, most unwise struggle. I am not of that sort which views the advance of Russia in Asia with deep misgivings." These remarks of Lord Beacons- field indicate with prescient sagacity that the simplest, safest, and cheapest way of solving the so-called Central Asian difficulty is by trusting to the natural defences of India as the best protection of that country. The war parties in England and Russia alike are equally a curse to the progress and prosperity of man- kind. Aggression on the part of Russia into India would be as suicidal in her case as the aggression on the part of England towards Herat would infallibly result in the destruction of any army despatched thither. War, of course, may result from the folly and wickedness of the rulers of either country, but the invasion of ^ This was said in 1S76. 201 New India India by Russia appears to me one of the most improbable of contingencies. In any case our surest safeguard is the existence of a federated and contented nation to which the largest con- cession of political rights has been accorded and the amplest justice rendered. Russia would be as powerless against a united India as Europe has shown itself to be against China. Professor Seeley has shown that in the proper sense of the word India was never conquered by England. The people of India never united to oppose the English. Whenever one Indian state has been overthrown, it has almost invariably been with the help of some other Indian state. There was no Indian nation, and there has therefore been no real English conquest of India. No foreign Power could conquer India if she were a true nation. The present form of British ad- ministration cannot survive the fulfilment of those national tendencies which we have our- selves brought into existence. But India is bound to England as England is to India. The future of India will be a federation of independent states cemented together by the authority of England. India so constituted will afford from its own resources the most powerful check against aggression for all time. The close connection of England with India, the attitude 202 Political Reconstruction of the foster-mother country under the proposed colonial relations, and of the free cities, which must always be English in tone and spirit, will not only tend to prevent a short-sighted jealousy, but will materially strengthen the United States of India in presenting an unbroken front of opposition to a common foe. In any case it may be argued that it would not be difficult for England on the withdrawal of her own standing army to secure treaty rights for India from the European Powers. Such rights would be the easier to negotiate for if it were seen that England were honestly giving up its policy of self- aggrandisement. The evidence of honesty of purpose so recog- nised would inexpressibly benefit the cause of peace and future progress. 203 THE SOCIAL AND MORAL CRISIS It has been justly said that the India of the present is no more like the India of Lord Ellen- borough than the England of to-day is like the England of Queen Anne. This remark is equally true in respect of moral, social, and intellectual advancement as in regard to material affairs. But, morally and socially at least, the change is far greater than this analogy would imply. In England there has been evolution, not revolu- tion. The change has been the result of natural spontaneous progress brought about by the action of internal forces. In India the change has been artificial and forced from without. It is the product of the relationship between two civilisations at an unequal stage of develop- ment in immediate contact with one another. The question in India, therefore, is not one of progress only ; the movement, so far as it has gone, is revolution pure and simple : in other words, it is the introduction of the complex 204 The Social and Moral Crisis machinery of Western civilisation into the simple society of the East. The moving spirit of this revolution is Eng- lish education. Under its solvent influence the old organisations are crumbling up, and the Indian races have entered upon a long career of transition preparatory to the establishment of a new order. The immediate inevitable result of this is disturbance. Our admiration for Western civilisation would be blind indeed if we were not able to see that grave evils are likely to attend upon its transplantation to Indian soil. The actual Hindooism of the pre- sent has behind it a polytheistic past of thirty centuries or more, which must inevitably mould and colour its future, whatever the form it may hereafter take. The effect of English education is to break this continuity. The habits and opinions of the people are modified, and even their mode of life is changed, but the hereditary tendencies by which the progress of the race must ultimately be determined are left un- touched. There is no power of guidance or consolidation. It is possible for government to exercise an ennobling influence upon a people with whom it is completely homogeneous. But where this homogeneity does not exist, the influence of the governors is of a very different 205 New India character. It is not possible to effect permanent good by educational establishments which are in the hands of an alien power, and therefore of men who cannot fully sympathise with the wants of the people. It is not possible to successfully disseminate Western ideas through an official channel. The Roman prefects of old were all unequal to the task of Christianising the Empire ; far less is the de-polytheising of India a task reserved for officials to undertake. Such a change can only be effected by volun- tary efforts, partly foreign and partly indigenous, the doctrine coming in its main features from the West, but being moulded into appropriate forms by Eastern intellects. It is certain that the regenerating doctrine must arise in the West. The vanguard of Humanity is in the West ; and, the development of the race everywhere being due to the same fundamental laws, must correspond in its main features with the earlier development of its most advanced portion. But if we look at the West as it actually is, we find a state of utter con- fusion in every department of human energy. Nations, Churches, and classes are at war with one another, and disunited among themselves. It is a serious symptom of insufficiency that there should be found among us those who hope 206 The Social and Moral Crisis to establish a national organisation upon the dis- organised forces of Christendom. It is even more deplorable that any should advocate the whole- sale importation into India of European civilisa- tion in its most material and anarchical form, without any moral safeguards. The present anarchy which prevails in Europe characterises the transitional epoch between the repressive policy of the old Catholic regime and that healthier policy of the future which is destined to rest upon the basis of a stable and progressive public opinion. But what does such anarchy become when transplanted to the East ? There it is the natural product of no such period of transition ; it is a disintegrating force intruding into an alien order of things ; it is an agent of destruction, of which the disastrous effects will have to be carefully eliminated at some future period. The West must be itself united before it can expect to produce a salutary influence upon the less advanced populations. Any pre- sent movement is premature. Such as was the dominion of Rome in the East, such must be that of Great Britain in India ; and with England as with Rome the simple keeping of the peace must be the main object. The principal end of our government should be to maintain the status quo until modifications can be introduced which 207 New India shall enable the passage from the old to the new order to be accomplished with the least percep- tible disturbance. We may be thankful that our action affects ?it present only a small portion of the community, and that the vast bulk of the people of India is still unmoved by any of the moral or civilising influences which contact with the missionaries or the efforts of the Department of Public In- struction might be expected to impart. Nothing but disaster could ensue from unsettling the beliefs and prejudices of the multitude at too early a stage of its development. It will be time enough when the elite of the Hindoo com- munity is thoroughly initiated into the civilisa- tion of the West to consider how changes can be best introduced among the masses of the people. Still more cause for thankfulness is there in the fact that the preliminary period of the revolution, during which the educational machinery has been under the direct control of a foreign Government, is drawing to a close. Official interference was unavoidable in the first instance — in no other way could a beginning have been made — but the educational movement in India now stands in need of no such stimulus. The sense of utter dependence on Government 208 The Social and Moral Crisis for support has given way before the progressive, enlightened, and independent spirit to which English education itself has given birth. The cry for English education which rings through all the Presidencies is sufficient evidence that there exists in India, as well as in Europe, a worthy instinct among the people, a popular craving for education demanding satisfaction, and not an obstinacy requiring that it should be thrust upon them. Educational institutions, unaided by Government or by missionary socie- ties, independent in the strictest sense of the word, are now flourishing with hundreds of English-speaking scholars, and set an example in instruction, discipline, and moral training which the older schools and colleges may well envy. It is in matters of education more than any other that the people of the country have become ripe for local self-government. The fact that large and high-class educational insti- tutions can be effectually managed by native agency alone no longer admits of doubt. Sys- tematic education is already falling into the hands of private enterprise. The time has come for the Government to transfer its educational endowments to the custody of those who have been educated in them. The present system of University administration, which is most 209 14 New India unsatisfactory in all respects, should be recon- stituted on a representative basis. The policy of Lord Curzon, which proposes to knit to- gether still tighter the bonds of official control, is absolutely retrograde. It has been con- demned by every section of Indian opinion ; and though it may temporarily prevail, it will be as evanescent as it is unsound. The problem of grafting Western ideas on to an Oriental stock is now ready for solution in the only way in which a successful solution is possible — by means of Orientals who, having been thoroughly imbued, under our present system of education, with a knowledge of Western civilisation, have at the same time not lost sight of the traditions of their past. It is no longer possible for the Government to exercise any beneficial interference in this direction. Its function is exhausted, and its chief end in view should be to maintain order while the remaining period of transition is in the hands of those who may be able to control the movement. The true attitude, for some time to come at least, should be one of con- servation and the encouragement of a system of protection. Its wisest policy will be to refrain from any action which leads directly to collision with the old theocratic organisation. The old 210 The Social and Moral Crisis Hindoo polytheism is a present basis of moral order, and rests upon foundations so plastic that it can be moulded into the most diverse forms, adapting itself equally to the intellect of the subtle metaphysician and to the emotions of the unlettered peasant. It combines in itself all the elements of intensity, regularity, and permanence. Its chief attribute is stability. The system of caste, far from being the source of all the troubles which can be traced in Hindoo society, has rendered the most important ser- vices in the past, and still continues to sustain order and solidarity. The admirable order of Hindooism is too valuable to be rashly sacrificed before any Moloch of progress. Better is order without progress, if that were possible, than progress with disorder. Hindooism is still vigorous, and the strength of its metaphysical subtlety and wide range of influence are yet instinct with life. In the future its distinctive conceptions will be preserved and incorporated into a higher faith ; but at present we are utterly incapable of replacing it by a religion which shall at once reflect the national life, and be competent to form a nucleus round which the love and reverence of its votaries may cluster. The task now before us is to preserve order as far as may be practicable, and not to excite 211 New India unnecessary disturbance. This duty is para- mount in its political aspect, but it is, if possible, even more incumbent on us in its social and moral relations. The existing social order demands, therefore, our first attention, and to this end I can find nothing more essential than a careful study and correct appreciation of the Hindoo caste system. That system has its defects undoubtedly, but they are defects more than counterbalanced by the services it renders. Those reformers who are in the habit of describ- ing caste as the root of all evils in Hindoo society overlook the impossibility of uprooting an in- stitution which has taken such a firm hold on the popular mind. They forget that the attempt to abolish caste, if successful, would be attended with the most dangerous consequences, unless some powerful religious influence were brought to bear upon the people in its place. They forget also that caste is still stronger as a social than as a religious institution, and that many a man who has entirely lost his belief in his religion is zealous and tenacious of his position as a high- caste man, and scrupulously performs all cus- tomary rites and ceremonies. Caste is now the framework which knits together Hindoo society ; it is the link which maintains the existing religious system of Hindooism in its present 212 The Social and Moral Crisis order. The problem of the future is not to destroy caste, but to modify it, to preserve its distinctive conceptions, and to gradually place them upon a social instead of a supernatural basis. The Christian missionary condemns caste because he finds it hard to destroy a priesthood which receives a support from the people when nothing in the shape of spiritual assistance is rendered in return. The British administrator condemns the institution because he cannot on account of it override the internal discipline of a subject community, and finds himself ranked by them, for all his authority, with their veri- est outcasts. I remember well the impression created in my own mind on my first arrival in India, when, on walking out in the evening with a Brahmin subordinate, the Hindoos whom we might meet would accost me with the respectful gesture they will always accord to official rank, while they would prostrate themselves and rub their foreheads in the dust before my companion. To him they rendered a genuine obeisance ; to me they showed a sign of artificial respect only. The sense of official relationship was entirely swallowed up by the stronger feeling of social subordination. It is not only the lower orders that are inspired by this feeling ; all are affected 213 New India by it. Caste still exercises a predominant in- fluence among all classes of the community. Educated Hindoos are puzzled to make out what they owe to their society, and why they render to caste their tribute of submission when there is nothing to compel their obedience. Nevertheless, the institution is as powerful among those who disregard many of its rules as it was with their fathers who rigidly observed them all. They find it as hard to bear excom- munication themselves, and are as disposed to inflict that punishment upon wrong-doers of their community, as was the case with their ancestors in the past. They find it as desirable to cling to their caste-fellows, despite many dis- agreeable features in their life and character, as their predecessors may have done. Even those who are outside the pale of Hindoo caste seem anxious to organise an institution resembling caste among themselves. The Eurasian com- munity seems to have already formed into a caste, and the native converts to Christianity, as well as the more self-assertive portion of the Brahmo community, appear to be in the course of forming into new castes. Even a Khalsa Sikh will be found after a time to assume an attitude of marked respect towards Brahmins, and to entertain the most delicate scruples on 214 The Social and Moral Crisis the subject of caste. Even Mahomedans have been so far infected that they have broken up into separate castes with the jus connubii as distinct as it is amongst Hindoos. Caste is thus the existing basis of social order, as the Brahminical polytheism is of Hindoo morality. Supplemented by such sister institu- tions as the joint family and the village com- munity (both of which are also in transition and have been greatly changed), it has already been subjected to modifications, and is destined to be still further modified by the external in- fluences which are brought to bear on it. Its future must, however, remain a mere speculation so long as the Hindoo nation cannot assume the responsibility of working out its own social evolution. In their presentcondition the Hindoos cannot possibly have an ideal of their own. Bereft of political independence, their ideas of col- lective action cannot bear that impress of sound logic and morality which collective action alone can impart to them. A considerable degree of unity in thought and action has lately been estab- lished in political matters, and it may be hoped, therefore, that there will shortly be a similar mani- festation in regard to moral and social questions. The problem is a difficult one, and in proportion to its difficulty will be the merit and the reward 215 New India of those who succeed in solving it. There is neither difficulty nor merit in merely cutting the Gordian knot, which is the method of pro- cedure pursued by Government. The necessary changes must be wrought by the people them- selves, arising from national aspirations and emanating from a spontaneous impulse. The changes effected by an alien and benevolently despotic administration are spasmodic and arti- ficial, and they cannot be of permanent value because they are not spontaneous. The truth is that the moral and social reformation of India, as of every other country, if it is to be effective, must result from the action of internal forces. Its tendencies must be moulded by the accumulated influences of the past and by the direct action of the present. It cannot disconnect itself from the associations which have grown up around the family for generations. It must begin among the domestic lares and penates. And this is why civilisation through a foreign government, the popularisation of Western ideas through official insistence, a system of education through officials employed under the Department of Public Instruction, must always fail. Education will never be in a healthy condition so long as the teaching of the home is at utter variance with the teaching 216 The Social and Moral Crisis of the school or college. Anyone who is acquainted with the conditions of an ordinary Hindoo family at its home must have been struck with the bewildering contrast between the domestic environment of the young Hindoo, amidst which his active life is spent, and the intellectual atmosphere he breathes during his college hours. The domestic life of the Hindoo is indeed in itself not more immoral than that of a European home. Far from it ; there is so much misconception on this point that it is desirable to state what the facts actually are. The affection of Hindoos for the various mem- bers of the family group is a praiseworthy and distinctive feature of national character, evinced not in sentiment only, but in practical manifes- tations of enduring charity ; the devotion of a parent to a child, and of children to parents, is most touching. The normal social relations of a Hindoo family, knit together by ties of affection, rigid in chastity, and controlled by the public opinion of neighbouring elders and caste, command our admiration, and in many respects afford an example we should do well to follow.^ There is nothing radically wrong in the young ' The existing Hindoo family system is an organisation in transition along with other national institutions. I publish in an Appendix a letter I addressed on this subject to a Hindoo friend in l88l. 217 New India Hindoo's home associations. But the life he leads does present a painful contradiction where, to take an ordinary type, the family idols are tended by the mother and the other female members of the family at sunrise and sunset with flowers and ablutions and ceremonial ob- servances; and in the meantime the midday occupation of the student consists in analysing, it may be, Milton's A reopagitica, a favourite text- book in my day, or some other scathing ex- position of priestcraft and idolatry. The pro- fessors of the Educational Department deliver their lectures and discourse on Milton or Mill in the same spirit as a magistrate dispenses justice in his cutcherry. They do their official duty, but they make no attempt to exert a moral influence over their pupils, to form their sentiments and habits, or to control and guide their passions. The moral character is left to be wholly moulded by the associations amidst which the young are placed at home, without any endeavour to modify or improve it. There is thus a great gulf fixed between the relative position of the intellectual and of the moral culture. Collegiate impressions are at present, like a tinselled outdoor decoration, discarded by their possessor as a superfluity in private. And in the majority of cases they are, at all 218 The Social and Moral Crisis times, apparent rather than real ; for though the educated natives lose their belief in Hindooism as an intellectual system, it still continues in a marked degree to mould their social and moral prejudices. The result is an anarchy for which the Government is responsible and which it is powerless to remedy. A tendency to look to the State for assistance, a disposition to exaggerate the power of political action over social events, is natural ; but while in some cases no doubt the evils felt fall legitimately within the scope of politics, in others — and these are the vast major- ity — the Government is powerless to effect a cure, or can at best employ but palliative measures. Government can do little more than hold the purse and keep the peace, and put down practices like Suttee which are positively murderous ; but even in a case like this, it cannot eradicate the sentiment upon which the practice depends. The situation is now one of extreme social anarchy, and although the disturbance is not widespread, but prevails only among a limited section of the people, the mere existence of a disorganised class within the community is in itself no small evil. I am not blind to the defects of this class. I count among its mem- bers innumerable friends of sterling merit, and of a high order of probity and ability. No 219 New India English official has been more indebted than I have been for Indian aid and co-operation most generously accorded at all times. I would be the last to speak unkindly of friends, colleagues, and comrades in a distant country. And yet I cannot but observe that the class as a whole labours under defects which are not less serious because they are the result of circumstances over which it has little or no control. The class is educated — highly educated as compared with the mass of the people : who can wonder that it should be conceited ? The class is de- barred from holding the highest offices under Government : who can wonder that it should be discontented ? The class is an artificial and exotic product : who can wonder that it should be internally torn by a life of self-contradiction more or less in almost every individual instance ? Such are the penalties which the early pio- neers of English education in India have had to pay for the knowledge and power they have acquired. The strength of national associations and social sentiment has fortunately sustained them for the most part with their own personal character untainted by demoralisation. It is true that they have not altogether escaped the vices of the West ; but the virtues of the West, which they have successfully assimilated, im- 220 The Social and Moral Crisis measurably turn the scale. The difficulties under which they labour are occasioned by the abrupt departures from old habit and custom, the domestic discords, the social dissensions, the re- ligious confusion, the tenebrous rationalism which insufficiently supplies the place of a belief in the old theology, the bitter and increasing sense of political discontent, the growing irritation arising from the existence of racial disability and preju- dice, and the very life of concealment and even of self-deception which as individuals they are so often compelled to lead. The gravity of these difficulties it is almost impossible to exaggerate. Enough, however, of such criticism. It is not my object to depreciate the importance of pass- ing events. I have shown no desire to extenuate the difficulties through which India must pass during this revolutionary transition, or to mini- mise the troubles of the existing crisis. It is certain that when the State endeavours to impart higher instruction, and thereby, as is implied, to direct and mould the national mind, it deviates from its proper sphere, and inflicts injury upon intellectual and moral progress. The unavoidable symptoms of social disorder created by such interference are readily recog- nisable, and have often been the occasion of unfriendly comment. But when I bring the evil 221 New India done into comparison with the good : when I take into consideration not only the actual benefits received, but the potential good which must ultimately extend to the whole popula- tion : when I recall that English education has burst upon the natives of India for a period of two generations only : when I observe its effects on all sides and weigh them in the balance, I cannot hesitate to affirm that, notwithstanding drawbacks of all and whatever kind, the dis- semination of Western ideas has proved of inestimable advantage to the country. The beneficial tendency of this revolution is undoubted. In ever -widening circles it must gradually extend among classes of society at present undisturbed, and as natural forces are encouraged to take the place of artificial development, the demoralisation inseparable from change will become less apparent. And if its injurious tendency is also undoubted, it must be remembered that periods of transition are always accompanied by more or less dis- turbance. To me, indeed, it seems more notice- able that the community affected should have passed in so large a measure unscathed through the ordeal than that it should have been de- moralised so far as to allow in some respects the vices of Europe to supplant virtues of a 222 The Social and Moral Crisis distinctly Oriental type. If we may observe in the minds of many educated natives an undis- guised contempt for the simple faith of their forefathers, if we must admit the existence of a tendency to exaggerate the value of modern at the expense of ancient achievements, if we can- not deny that one effect of our education has been to undermine the social feelings of attach- ment, obedience, reverence for age, and respect for ancestors — if these are evils which English education has encouraged — I make bold to say that among the leaders of the Indian community and among the mass of the people who follow their guidance there is little or no sympathy with these tendencies. The vast majority of Hindoo thinkers have formed themselves into a party of reaction against the voice of a crude and empirical rationalism which seeks only to decry the social monuments raised in ancient times by Brahmin theocrats and legislators, to vilify the past in order to glorify the present, and to sing the shallow glories of an immature civilisation with praises never accorded to the greatest triumphs of humanity in the past. The innate conservatism of the nation is beyond the power of any foreign civilisation to shatter. The stability of the Hindoo character could have shown itself in no way more conspicuously 223 New India than by the wisdom with which it has bent itself before the irresistible rush of Western thought, and has still preserved amidst all the havoc of destruction an underlying current of religious sentiment, and a firm conviction that social and moral order can only rest upon a religious basis. 224 THE RELIGIOUS TENDENCIES OF INDIA One of the earliest and best established prin- ciples of British administration in India is that of religious neutrality. The Government of India, as between its subjects and itself, does not assume the truth or falsehood of any religion. It allows perfect freedom and liberty to the professors of all creeds. In accordance with this principle, the various provisional phases of religious speculation (the intuitive outcome of Western thought) which are to be found in more or less restless activity among the educated classes of India have not been subjected to any form of official interference. The Government is, perhaps, open to reproach for using its power unduly to advance Christianity when it supports bishops, archdeacons, and a considerable staff of Anglican and Presbyterian chaplains out of revenues almost wholly raised from Hindoos and Mahomedans. There are cases in which high 225 15 New India officials have injudiciously identified themselves with the promotion and propaganda of their Christian creed. Still it is undoubtedly the case that, like the Roman prefects of old, our Indian administrators have in general been careless about spiritual matters. The Government has, broadly speaking, exercised no influence what- ever to induce the natives to become Christians, and the natives have responded to their indiffer- ence by showing no desire whatever to become converts to the State religion. When Hindooism ceases to be a living power in the minds of the young men who frequent our English schools and colleges, Christianity rarely, if ever, takes its place. The very fact of its profession by the foreign rulers of the country has been represented to me by Indian gentlemen as a valid reason for their aversion to it. The strong missionary body, which is more of an educating than a proselytising force, offers some substitute for the beliefs which it destroys. Our State colleges are content with chaos ; their results are subversive only ; the old belief is thrown off, the consequent disturbance issues in no real substitute, and the mental and moral state suffers from the negation. The missionary scheme does contemplate the establishment of an order. It is to the credit of the missionaries Religious Tendencies of India that they have ever held the right end in view, viz. the substitution of a definite social and religious conception for the old Hindoo polity, the downfall of which they foresaw. In the main they have done a good work, and done it bravely. But their failure has been complete. Far be it from me to depreciate the wonderful moral efficacy of Catholicism and the remarkable example of self-sacrifice it once set in a portion of Southern India. But a retrospect of the past no longer presents a promise of any successful proselytism in the future. Wherever there is a highly organised religious creed, Christianity fails to make conversions on any large scale. It is absolutely powerless when brought face to face with Islam ; and among Hindoos its in- fluence is confined almost exclusively to the very lowest classes,! where the mental development has ^ It has been shrewdly remarked by a competent Catholic writer on this subject, that " at the very outset of missionary enterprise, the progress of Christianity among the lower castes only, tended to augment tenfold the repugnance and hostility of the Brahmins and other high-caste Hindoos. It cannot be too often insisted on that caste is a social as well as a religious distinction. Christianity thus not only appeared in the eyes of Hindoos as a religious innovation, but as the creed of socialism and license which allied itself with all that was lowest and most infamous in the country. In propagating opinions of any kind it is always hazardous to ignore the natural leaders of a community, and attempt to win over the multitude without their co-operation." — Dublin Quarterly Review, October 1868. I cordially endorse 227 New India not advanced much beyond the earliest stage. Though here and there an educated native may have been brought to Christianity, the educated natives, as a body, have not been slow to perceive that the intellect of Europe is drifting away from the traditional religion. Whatever change may eventually be effected, the change from Hindooism to Christianity is perhaps the most improbable ; the people will not accept it. The remarks of Dr Congreve on the prospects of Christianity in India, and on the relations between Christianity and Hindooism and Islam, are so apposite that I cannot do better than quote them in this place. He writes : — We have two religious systems to deal with in India, the Mahometan and the Brahminical. Both are yet powerful — on neither can we make any impression. If in his contact with Brahminism the missionary puts forward the philosophical side of Christianity, the subtle mind of the Brahmin delights in the combat, and meets him with a counter-philo- sophy. There is matter for endless dispute, but there is no result. If more wisely advised, the missionary rests on the simple statements of Christianity, on the facts of its history and its appeals to the conscience of men ; he spares himself personally the annoyance these remarks, which exhibit a thoroughly just appreciation of the course to be pursued in all important social or religious movements. 228 Religious Tendencies of India of defeat in argument, or the pain of seeing his argu- ments make no impression, but for his cause the eflFect is the same. For the reHgious system of India leaves its worshippers no sense of want, that primary con- dition of the acceptance of a new religion. The contest is not such as it was with the polytheistic systems of Greece and Rome, which were profoundly undermined by the philosophic culture of the edu- cated, by the moral dissatisfaction of the multitude. In India such would not seem to be the case ; and when you add to the absence of this the force of traditional associations and long organisation, the power of which was tested in the case of the Greek and Roman world, and not broken but by four centuries and a barbarian conquest, you have then the measure of the missionary's difficulties in dealing with Brahminism ; you may form an estimate of the hopelessness of his task. For the second great religious system with which we are in contact, little need be said. The verdict of history is definite and unimpeachable. On Mahometanism Christianity has made no impression, has tacitly renounced the attempt to make any. The rival Monotheisms met in the middle ages. The issue of the struggle was not doubtful. Greek Chris- tianity succumbed. Latin Christianity waged success- fully a defensive war. More than this it was unable to accomplish. Each of the rivals claims for itself an exclusive possession of the religious belief of man- kind. Both alike are rejected by the other. They rest side by side, convincing monuments of the exaggeration of their respective claims. 229 New India And so Comte writes in his preface to the Catechism these striking words : — Five centuries have passed since Islam renounced the conquest of the West, and Catholicism aban- doned to its eternal rival even the tomb of its pretended founder. In vain did the two religions aspire to spread themselves over the whole territory comprised within the dominion of the Roman Empire. That territory is divided with an almost equal division between the two irreconcilable Monotheisms. Again, Colonel Osborn, speaking of the mis- sionary failure from another point of view, observes with equal truth : — The chief obstacle which besets the missionary is that occasioned by the peculiar relationship which exists between Englishmen and natives. The English are not merely the rulers of the country, but rulers in whose inner life, as individuals, the people are of no account — that is to say, the English in India form no attachments, no friendships with the people of the country. A few among them may associate with the natives from a sense of duty, but for their mental and moral needs their own countrymen are sufficient, and not one Englishman in a thousand, when the hour comes of leaving India for good, is sensible of a wrench, of a void being created in his life by the separation from any native whom he has known. No greater obstacle in the way of missionary work can be conceived than a state of mind such as 2. SO Religious Tendencies of India this. It denotes the want of that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin, and yet it is a defect from which the English missionary is, of neces- sity, as little exempt as the English official Contrast this attitude of aloofness with the feelings of the Apostlf Paul towards individual members of the churches which he had founded, and we shall find little difficulty in understanding why Christianity in India does not spread and develop as in the days of Imperial Rome. To these remarks I only w^ish to add that there is now within my own observation an in- creasing opposition to Christianity among the educated classes, a greater repugnance to its doctrines, and a more effective desire to prevent it spreading in any way among the rising gener- ation. The spread of education has enabled the people to bind together with more cohesion and unity against a form of proselytism they so much dislike, and conversions to Christianity, otherwise than among the very lowest classes of the people, who are attracted to Christianity because it raises their position in the social scale, among famine remnants who have been taken over in large numbers by missionary bodies, and among the aboriginal tribes, are far less fre- quent than was formerly the case. During my long residence in India, I can scarcely recall New India the conversion of a respectable Indian gentle- man to Christianity. Nevertheless, although the educated Hindoos do not become Christians, they do not as a rule get rid of their belief in a supreme government. The Hindoo mind naturally runs in a religious groove of thought, and recoils from any solution of its present difficulties which does not arise from the past religious history of the nation. And therefore the vast majority of Hindoo thinkers do not venture to reject the supernatural from their belief. They adopt Theism in some form or other, and endeavour in this way to give permanence and vitality to what they conceive to be the religion of their ancient scriptures. At the same time they manage to reconcile with this teaching the ceremonial observances of a strictly orthodox Polytheism. They argue that these rites are embedded in the traditions and customs of the people, that they are harmless in themselves, and that their observance tends to bridge over the chasm which otherwise separates the educated classes from the bulk of the popu- lation. Their action is thus animated by a spirit of large-hearted tolerance. And there is nothing in it inconsistent with itself. For there is no direct antagonism between a belief in one supreme being ruling over a number of inferior 232 Religious Tendencies of India powers, and a belief in several co-ordinate deities, each exercising sovereignty within certain vaguely defined limits. At best, however, their attitude is but a compromise between Rational- ism and Hindooism, It is liable to misconcep- tion and abuse. And therefore it is distasteful to certain ardent minds which revolt altogether from compromise, and deem it obligatory to purge themselves from all taint of idolatry or superstition by entering a solemn protest against the popular creed, which they regard as at once false and mischievous. It is to such minds that Brahmoism owes its origin and development, I have no prejudice against the Brahmos as a body ; on the contrary, I have the highest personal respect for many of their number, and especially for their distinguished leaders, who have been endowed with no ordinary share of those gifts which enable their possessors to become teachers of the people, I have been myself a witness at the Brahmo services of the remarkable degree of religious intensity of which the Hindoo mind is capable. I have no question that Brahmoism has proved a haven to many who would otherwise have been cast adrift upon the troubled waves of doubt, and that it has afforded them a religion which satisfies their aspirations and ennobles their mode of life. But I find it 233 New India impossible to regard Brahmoism as a definite belief. It is altogether an esoteric doctrine, not materially distinguishable from the Theism or Unitarianism of Europe. It appeals to the in- dividual, and requires not only a minute process of self-examination, but also a concurrence among individuals in their interpretations of self- consciousness. Its metaphysical dogmas may assist its propagation among a certain class of minds. But that class must always be a limited one. Men in general are so constituted that they prefer to take their beliefs upon trust and not to work them out independently : they require teachers, men who speak with authority, as themselves divine, or as direct missionaries of a higher power, or as interpreters of the know- ledge slowly accumulated by Humanity in the past. Even granting that each individual would consent to examine himself in order to elicit the requisite first truths, there is no guarantee that the process would be correctly performed in every case, or that the same conclusions would be invariably arrived at. So far as individuals can be induced to agree in their interpretations of self-consciousness, to that extent Brahmoism offers a basis of organisation ; but it is obvious that such agreement must always be confined to a comparatively narrow circle of believers. 234 Religious Tendencies of India The masses require a less abstract creed, and one that contains a larger infusion of the human element. There are already indications of a modification in this direction ; and however much the philosophical party among the pro- gressive Brahmos may disclaim any wish to depart from a purely theistic type of worship, it is certain that such success as they have obtained is at the expense of their theological metaphysics. Instead of trying to controvert this fact, it would be better if they faced it boldly and acknow- ledged the paramount necessity of grafting the human upon the divine. It is only by accepting such principles and adopting the most liberal modifications, both in doctrine and practice, that Brahmoism can ever hope to spread among the lower or less educated classes. In its present profession it has made no way among the masses of the people. In its present attitude it will never even form a transitional religion enabling the nation to pass through its present crisis : much less will it ever prove a formidable rival to any of the older creeds. Somewhat similar in its individualistic char- acter is the metaphysical conception of Theosophy which has lately been exercising a transitory influence. The subtleness of its teaching, and the degree of scope which the supernatural 235 New India interference of spiritual, or so-called astral, phe- nomena afford to the imagination, are features peculiarly congenial to the Hindoo intellect, A belief in the doctrines of Theosophy is consistent with the tenets of Brahmoism, and even with the professions of orthodox Hindooism. The Indian mind has also been able to see that in some occult manner, but with a definiteness and force quite unmistakable, the European adherents of the system have been elevated by a kind of moral regeneration from indifferentism, and sometimes from positive dislike, into sincere and hearty sympathy with the people of the country. The conditions have, therefore, been very favour- able to the spread of Theosophy among natives. Tossed to and fro by every blast of vain doctrine, they have rallied round the new-fangled ideas of this weird and obscure system with an eagerness which shows the need among them of a more rational and satisfying belief. But already the enthusiasm of the movement has spent itself The public exposure of some of the directors of the new cult proved a severe shock to its votaries, and many of them have renounced their allegiance. Although they are full of faith and trust, to an extent which Englishmen of the twentieth century are almost incapable of understanding, they cannot but 236 Religious Tendencies of India refuse to remain permanently enslaved by a belief in phenomena which are not only in- capable of demonstration, but are alleged on credible testimony to be propped up by fraud. More valid than these metaphysical tend- encies is the advance which has been made, especially in Upper India, of the position and prospects of the Arya Samaj. This movement is the direct outcome of the conservative and reactionary Hindoo feeling which sighs for the visionary Golden Age, and finds the remedy for the defects of modern Hindooism, tainted by its contact with Western civilisation, in the inspiration and glories of the past. It is based, like the Brahmo Samaj, on pure Monotheism, but appeals more strongly to the intellectual Hindoo by its adherence to the philosophy and cos- mogony which are familiar to him, while it attracts the masses by its maintenance of the inspired character of their ancient scriptures. " Back to the Vedas " was the persistent cry of Dayanund Saraswati,and the belief in an inspired scripture is a living force to those who are unable to find adequate moral or religious sustenance in the eclectic principles of Ram Mohun Roy or Keshob Chunder Sen. The strength of the movement lies in its indigenous source, with its roots in the past, adhering to the ancient ritual ^^7 New India and a modified caste system, and retaining a not unfamiliar attitude in respect of pantheism and idol-worship : its weakness lies in its strained and unnatural interpretation of the sacred books, and above all in its complete alienation from Western thought. There is no blend, or sign of blending, between Aryas and the followers of any other creed, Eastern or Western, thus fundamentally differing from the Theism of the Brahmo Samaj ; and their attitude towards Christianity and Islam is distinctly hostile. It may be in consequence of this attitude that the doctrines of the new sect have rapidly spread, and are already exercising a powerful influence, socially and politically, among large numbers of the people. It is certain that, in spite of its dogmatism, the Arya Samaj is working as a remarkable force for the ameliora- tion of India, and the history of the movement is one of the most important and interesting chapters of modern Hindoo thought. Absolute Nihilism, Brahmoism, Theosophy, Theism which conforms to Hindooism, and, lastly, Christianity, these generally are the varying creeds which among Hindoos survive the wreck of their early faith. As a rule the Hindoos retain their religious instincts ; but there are no signs at present of the predominance of any creed. Wandering hither and thither like sheep Religious Tendencies of India without a shepherd, they beat the air in the vain pursuit after religious truth. We cannot tell what the future — and doubtless it is a far distant future — is destined to bring forth. But I for one cannot bring myself to doubt that the Eastern nations will some day be brought with the rest of the world under one common faith, towards which all discordant religions will eventu- ally converge. I cannot doubt that by distinct but equivalent courses the great nations of the East will rise by natural progression to the definitive level of the West, and embrace the final universal and human religion which has its roots in man's moral nature — the same in all ages and climes — while it will not fail in each case to reflect the national life and give expression to its distinctive aspirations. Although the prospects of moral progress in India are threatened by gathering clouds, I derive encouragement from a con- templation of the brilliant success attained by evangelists of an earlier generation. No bene- ficial impulse is likely to be produced by the mere official experiments of a Government which is alien to the people, and which, from no fault of its own, is necessarily unsympathetic with caste and polytheism. The Educational Depart- ment possesses no adequate force for revolution- ising the thoughts and manners of the people. 239 New India The missionary bodies are now as incapable as laymen of sympathising with the special idiosyn- crasies of the Hindoo intellect. But the admir- able efforts of the Jesuit missionaries in China and in Southern India have shown the possibility of surmounting obstacles at first sight fairly in- superable. Had they possessed a more tractable dogma, they would doubtless have overcome the moral difficulty for themselves. Even in their failure they accomplished a great work, and have set an example of procedure that succeeding missionaries must follow. It is to the labours of St Francis Xavier during the sixteenth century that Indian Christianity is chiefly indebted for its distinctive characteristics. He addressed his teaching almost exclusively to the lower orders, and made no systematic attempt to gain over to his side the aristocracy of Hindooism. A more decisive step was taken in the beginning of the seventeenth century when the celebrated Jesuit, Robert de Nobili, well knowing how important it was to receive the co-operation of the upper classes, commenced his labours, after the manner of St Paul, by becoming a Brahmin to the Brahmins. He and his colleagues assumed Hindoo names and introduced themselves as Brahmin priests of a superior order from the Western world. 240 Religious Tendencies of India " Tiiey renounced all riches, dignities, honours, friends and kindred ; they desired to have nothing of this world ; they scarcely took the necessaries of life; attention to the body, even when needful, was irksome to them. "They were given as an example for all religious, and ought more to excite us to make good progress than should the number of the lukewarm make us grow slack. " Their footsteps remaining still bear witness that they were right holy and perfect men, who waging war so stoutly trod the world under their feet." Their success was due to their wonderful power of sympathy, and their rare facility of adaptation to unaccustomed modes of thought and action. They possessed in an eminent degree the apostolic faculty of being all things to all men without compromising the funda- mental principles of their creed. Like skilful pilots, they steered clear of an absolute enforce- ment of doctrine, and instinctively adopted a theory of relativity in all their dealings with the social customs and religions of the Eastern world. They displayed, on the one hand, that 241 16 New India just conciliation which is the key-note of the principles they had to offer in dealing with other modes of thought ; and, on the other, that life of example of which the effect is beyond all precept, and without which all precept is in vain. The evangelists of the future, with all the enthusiasm they may derive from a religion which shall inspire a loftier ideal and a more human goal, will find no nobler exemplars than St Xavier and De Nobili in their genuine zeal and self-sacrificing spirit in the propagation of a new faith. 242 APPENDIX. Being a Letter addressed to an Indian Friend on the Hindoo Joint Family System. United Service Club, Calcutta, /z^«^ 24, 1881. My dear Sir, — Your long and interesting letter^ of May 16 deals with the most important principles of the Hindoo Social System, and raises difficult questions which I am very im- perfectly prepared to answer. Moreover, as you are aware, I have little leisure to give to the subject. I venture to offer you only the follow- ing observations. We are accustomed to the conditions of a Hindoo Joint Family differing from those of a family which we look on as the unit of society. The Hindoo Family System is the result of a past history to which Europe presents no ' The substance of that letter was reproduced in an article entitled " Our Joint Family Organisation," and published in the Calcutta Review for October 1 88 1. 243 New India parallel. Taking its remote origin from the same sources as caste, it has been largely modi- fied by the existence of the tribal gotra, which may be described as a caste within a caste, the members of which are of equal rank, but are precluded from intermarriage, until it has developed into its present phase of coparcenary relationship with all the members of the same family. It is unnecessary that I should follow you in your inquiries into the antiquity of the system. I take it as you describe it in its normal type as consisting of seven generations of agnates, who are entitled to a common mess, to common worship, and to a share in the common estate. Only, I may add, that in practice other relations join the family who are not entitled to commensality, but who are admitted to the enjoyment of their share by charitable considerations. From the nature of the case, therefore, the Hindoo Joint Family System consists of a large number of persons, many of whom depend upon it for their general support, and, as you point out, joint families certainly serve to maintain a number of idle mouths. This I look upon as an evil. The climate of India is enervating, while the necessities of life are very easily and cheaply obtained ; and there is a tendency in consequence among a great mass of the population to become idlers, and to rest content with the support they receive from the charity of the central family. 244 Appendix These drones of society are, in fact, a very numerous class in India. It is this state of things which I condemn as a bad one. It is desirable to encourage among individuals not only a sense of self-reliance, but a desire to be independent, and a feeling of shame in receiving support from the charity or labour of others without the return of any corresponding equivalent. It is only the sick and infirm, women and children, and, for special reasons, the priesthood, who are rightly supported by the labour of others. The able- bodied man must work, and the necessity of work is a principle which, above all others, requires to be implanted in the mind of the Oriental, whose home is in a hemisphere where the bounty of nature seems almost to remove every physical stimulus to exertion. The dignity of labour is a faint glimmering light even in Western Europe ; but in India such an idea is not only unknown but repellent, and it is considered disgraceful in a man to work for his livelihood by the labour of his hands. Therefore I believe that in India any system of social life which indirectly or directly may be said to afford encouragement to sloth is injurious, and that we should do our best to modify or eradicate it. At the same time I agree with you in recognising the value of the Hindoo Joint Family System even in this particular aspect. Too much stress cannot be laid on the import- ance of encouraging the charitable sentiments to 245 New India which it gives occasion. These sentiments, you truly remark, evoke a large measure of kind- ness on one side and reverence on the other. I can, however, by no means admit that the system affords a practical solution to the difficulties of the pauper question in India. I think you somewhat unnecessarily assume that if the family drones were bereft of family support they would sink into the condition of paupers, and become a burden upon the general com- munity. This argument may be unduly pressed. For there is indeed little or no analogy between the problem of pauperism in Europe and of poverty in India. In ordinary times — famine and other similar calamities apart — the pauper of India is not like the pauper of England, for whom sustenance can only be found at the public cost ; and the reason of this is that the necessities of life in an inclement country like England are so immeasurably greater and more expensive than they are in India. In ordinary times I should have no fear of the pauperisation of India if the Hindoo Joint Family System ceased to exist. There is no pauperisation among Mahom- edans with whom no such system prevails. In times of crisis the charity of the joint family dries up unavoidably, and the misery and starva- tion among the idle mouths dependent on it for their support is even greater than it would have been if they had previously been in the habit of endeavouring to support themselves. These 246 Appendix drones are paupers already. They should be compelled to work, but the existence of the Family System removes the necessity. Only in time of famine it is that they are cast out, a useless number of mouths to feed, who in no inconsiderable degree enhance the difficulty of the problem of famine administration. My principal objection to the influence of the Hindoo Family System is based on these grounds. But there are other objections which at first sight may appear even stronger than these. You do not hesitate to draw prominent attention to them when you write : — A family like this cannot dispense with the Purda System.^ A numerous group like our joint family, between whom the bonds of natural affection are very unequal, cannot, I fear, be allowed the fullest social intercourse, and that within the seclusion of the home, without serious danger to their moral purity ; and the Purda being thus necessary within the family, it cannot be dispensed with in respect of outsiders. The Purda, as well as the subordinate organisation oi\h.&Zetiatia System, requires that the newly married wife should be trained to the habits and ways of the society she enters into. To this end infant marriages are indispensable more or less. I am not competent to say, with reference to the above remarks, whether you are justified ' Purda means a curtain. The Purda System means the system under which women are secluded in the Zenana or women's apartments. 247 New India in assuming that the fullest social intercourse between the sexes within the seclusion of their homes is calculated to endanger their moral purity. There is a great difference between Eastern and Western homes in this respect. In the mere construction and disposal of the rooms, an English dwelling-house affords complete privacy to the women of the family ; while, at the same time, the men and women meet together in the discharge of their daily domestic duties with perfect freedom, and without the faintest sense or trace of any impropriety. But an Indian home is different: the fewer rooms and comparative absence of privacy, the larger and more varied elements of the household, even the character and limited quantity of clothing of both sexes necessi- tated by the exigencies of climate — these reasons, it may be, lead to the imposition of some restric- tions as a wise arrangement. But, if so, the result is to be deplored, and I can never be persuaded to look upon the Purda System as consistent with the relationship which should exist between the members of a family. It consigns women to a condition of subordination and subjection which experience shows us is inseparable from a life of domestic servitude. It is based upon a coarse view of life, which has no other bond of union between the sexes than a mere sensual idea, and, as you are forward to admit, it is entirely in- compatible with the important functions which Western civilisation prescribes for women. 248 Appendix The Purda and Zenana Systems you describe as indispensable complements of the Hindoo family as it at present exists, and, this being so, you add that infant marriages are also indispens- able, more or less. I am obliged to accept your statement of this part of the case ; but, if the facts are so, it is almost unnecessary to adduce any other evidence to show that the conditions of a Hindoo Joint Family are'irreconcilable with the ideal requirements of a Family System. I have never heard any sound argument adduced in favour of the institution of infant marriage. It is intended, no doubt, as a preventive of immorality. But even from this aspect it is a failure, for it allows boys and girls a free scope for indulgence in their passions, at an age when they have reached neither their physical nor mental maturity, and when the observance of chastity ought to have been enforced on them as a moral discipline. I need add nothing about the physical deterioration in the offspring of such marriages : it is a notorious fact, too patent to be ignored. I will only point out another evil result of the practice, in that early marriage often leads to early widowhood, and the abund- ance of young widows in India, as the police annals of the country amply testify, is a fruitful source of immorality and crime. There is some- thing, no doubt, to be said for the Purda and Zenana systems, but nothing, that I can see, for infant marriage ; and, looking to its effects in 249 New India the domestic circle as well as more generally in society, both in its present influences and future results, I can but declare that the institution is one which should be unreservedly condemned condemned in the same category as polygamy, for instance. I have already said that my principal objec- tion to the Hindoo Family System is the opportunity it affords to a large proportion of the able-bodied population of the country to live in idleness : without your authority I should never have been prepared to admit that the seclusion of women and infant marriage were essential concomitants of the system. I regret that the system should be held responsible for having done something more than accord to these evil customs its baneful sanction. For I am not blind to the excellencies of your family organisation ; and I desire to especially ac- knowledge the admirable domestic influence it exercises upon its members. As an English- man, with my home in a country where the family tie is comparatively lightly regarded, and the members of a family tear themselves asunder as a matter of course and almost without compunction, and settle apart from one another in all the quarters of the globe, I cannot but appreciate the immense affective superiority of the organisation you enjoy. Properly speaking, it is only by the natural cultivation of the family affections that a man is able instinctively 250 Appendix to call into existence dispositions calculated to fit him individually for public life. In your family arrangements you possess, therefore, through a process of progressive development, the necessary panoply of life, and I trust that this high recognition of the urgency of domestic sympathy will never be forgotten, whatever may be the vicissitudes the Hindoo Joint Family System is destined to experience. In conclusion, I will only add, as you have pointed out in your letter, that the whole force of the British administration has been directed to break up the existing social order; and though the influence of a foreign domination is superficial in most respects, it has been able at least to undermine the foundations of the Hindoo Joint Family System, which, partly from this cause and partly from its own inherent defects, I cannot but look upon as a doomed institution. I am not inclined to overrate the force of Government as a solvent power in any social direction, but in this case the action of Government is, so far as I can judge, in conson- ance with a natural and even healthy tendency of events. The interference of Government in this case is therefore not altogether matter for regret, and, in my opinion, it only remains for the leaders of the Hindoo community, by gentle and judicious guidance, to control the period of transition, so that it may be passed over with the least possible disturbance, and, after 251 New India rejecting the environments which prejudice and disfigure the present system, to reorganise the excellent materials which are available for their purpose upon a sound basis. I am, my dear Sir, Yours very sincerely, H. J. S. Cotton. To Baboo .... 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