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 I I * *'
 
 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
 
 THE GOVERNMENT 
 OF INDIA 
 
 BY 
 
 J. RAMSAY MACDONALD 
 
 LONDON 
 THE SWARTHMORE PRESS, LTD. 
 
 (FORMERLY TRADING AS HEADLEY BROS. PUBLISHERS, LTD.) 
 
 72 OXFORD STREET, W.I
 
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 M33
 
 PEEFACE 
 
 THIS book was written in all its substantial parts before the 
 Government took steps to meet the conditions which the 
 war had created in India. I venture to publish it, however, 
 because it indicates a different point of view from that which 
 appears to be animating the Government, though in some 
 respects their practical proposals do not materially differ from 
 mine, but also and this is the chief reason because during the 
 tune of transition upon which we are entering, and which the 
 Montagu-Chelmsford Report does no more than inaugurate, it is 
 important that we should understand the origin and evolution 
 of our Indian connections. India is a going concern, a problem 
 in organic politics. Its needs cannot be met by an adjustment 
 here and an adjustment there ; they have to be viewed in 
 their wide sweep. This spirit will have to be maintained after 
 the Montagu-Chelmsford Report has produced its first harvest 
 of legislation. 
 
 I must acknowledge with gratitude the assistance I have 
 had from some of the worthiest men who maintain our best 
 traditions in the Government of India. Much of what is in 
 this book is theirs, and in writing it I have always kept their 
 problems and their trials in mind. The effect of the war 
 upon publishing is responsible for a long delay in the appear- 
 ance of the book. 
 
 J. RAMSAY MACDONALD.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGH 
 
 INTRODUCTORY : THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 1 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CONQUEST ....... 28 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL AND THE SECRETARY OF STATE 37 
 
 CHAPTER in 
 THE VICEROY 54 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 60 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 68 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS : I HEADS OF PROVINCES 79 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PAGB 
 
 PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS (continued) : II LEGIS- 
 LATURES 88 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE . . . . .95 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE NATIVE STATES 114 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 FINANCIAL POLICY : I TARIFFS . . . .123 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 FINANCIAL POLICY (continued) : II THE LAND TAX . 135 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 FINANCIAL POLICY (continued) : III EXPENDITURE . 145 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 EDUCATION 159 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE . . . .192 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 INDIA AND THE EMPIRE 213
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE PRESS 221 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM . . . . .234 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 CONCLUSION ........ 264 
 
 APPENDIXES 
 I. THE PEOPLE OF INDIA . . . . .273 
 
 II. IMPERIAL AND PROVINCIAL REVENUES . . 277 
 III. THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT . . . .281 
 
 INDEX 285
 
 THE 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 
 
 PUBLIC opinion in this country is like a sea upon which the 
 barques of Governments float ; in India, it is like a sea 
 beating against a coast, being rebuffed here and eating in its 
 way there. Here, public opinion touches and emanates from 
 the whole people, its sections represent conflicts in views 
 of national ends, and it is responsible ; in India, opinion is 
 sectionalised in a totally different way. There is the public 
 opinion of the British community, which is mainly commercial, 
 and has in time come to be inspired by the mentality of a 
 foreign race in possession ; there is the public opinion of the 
 steadily increasing section of educated Indians, which is 
 not divided into Government and Opposition parties, but 
 which is itself the Opposition, not responsible but critical ; 
 the mental state of the great masses does not amount to a 
 public opinion, because it is .concerned with the small local 
 interests of a population whose world is its village. 
 
 The public opinion of the British community presents no 
 great problems to the Government, except occasionally, as 
 in the case of the Ilbert Bill, when it displays all the dangers 
 of the opinion of a section in possession animated by two of 
 the most reactionary of all political impulses that of a superior 
 race and that of an economically exploiting community. 
 1
 
 2 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 If its sense of security or its political dominance is threatened, 
 it becomes vocal ; and then through its press and its con- 
 nections it becomes formidable, and can control the Govern- 
 ment. It is from the public opinion of the educated and 
 politically-minded Indian, however, that the great problems 
 of Indian Government arise. The voiceless state of the masses 
 imposes a responsibility upon the Government without pro- 
 viding it with clear guidance on political and diplomatic 
 problems. 
 
 The contact between Great Britain and India awoke India. 
 Educationalists like Hare, missionaries like Carey, adminis- 
 trators like Macaulay, taught the Indian Western modes of 
 thought. The Indian read the historical and political works 
 of the West, and they opened up a new world for him which 
 he very soon entered with bold feet. The long-drawn-out 
 swill of the French Revolution reached him, 1 and he thought 
 as one to whom that Revolution was an inheritance. Now, the 
 political philosophy and axioms of the West are an essential 
 part of Indian life, and when its education came to India it 
 brought with it the politics of nationality, liberalism, freedom. 
 At first there was a revolt in social and religious custom. 
 Everything native from dress to food, from ritual to social 
 habits, was thrown off like a garment out of fashion. Every- 
 thing Indian was old, superstitious, in a neglected backwater. 
 At the same time the native newspaper and critical journal 
 made its appearance, first of all under missionary auspices. 
 Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the political 
 harvest of this change began to ripen, and those men who 
 had been educated in the English schools, or had come into 
 close contact with British influences, began to take a definite 
 interest in the government of their country. The period of 
 mere revolt and copying had ended, and that of orderly 
 assimilation and adaptation had begun. A dramatic little 
 story is told of the founding of the Brahmo Samaj. The 
 rebels had been worshipping for some time in a Unitarian 
 
 1 Life of Ramtanu Lahiri, by Sir Roper Lethbridge, p. 76.
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 3 
 
 chapel under an English minister. " One Sunday evening, 
 as he (Rammohan Roy) was returning home from prayers 
 with his friends, Tarachand Chakravartti and Chandra Sikhar 
 Deb, the latter, in course of conversation, said to him, 
 ' Dewanjee, we now go to a house of worship where a foreigner 
 officiates. Should we not have a place where we might meet 
 and worship God in our own way ? ' " That impulse of " our 
 own way " was the assertion of the quickening Indian nation- 
 alism asserting itself through Western influences, and this 
 was by and by to find still more complete and satisfactory 
 expression in politics. 
 
 The newspaper was freed in 1835, and the group of young 
 Indians who had been fighting for religious and social reform 
 began to think of an Indian press. Political fights with the 
 Government had hitherto been carried on by Europeans 
 again commonly by missionaries. George Thomson, the anti- 
 slavery orator, came to India in 1842 with Dwarkanath 
 Tagore the father of the poet and delivered political 
 addresses which stirred young and emancipated Calcutta, 
 and two years later the pilgrimage of youths from India to 
 receive education in England began. Criticism of the Govern- 
 ment continued through the press, at meetings, and by asso- 
 ciations like the Bombay Association, started in 1848. Some 
 of these associations collapsed in time, but left behind them 
 the soil from which successors sprang up. Lord Lytton's 
 tenure of office (1876-80) was attended by continued pro- 
 tests and attacks from vocal Indian opinion (when men like 
 Telang came to the fore as antagonists of the Government) ; 
 Lord Ripon's (1880-84) by equally vocal support (the Ilbert 
 Bill letting loose a flood which brought political agitation 
 in India to its highest level). Political currents were then 
 running strong, especially in the centres of Madras, Calcutta, 
 and Bombay. But the movement was not organised. In 
 1883 the Indian Association of Calcutta called a National 
 Conference at which representatives from Bengal, Madras, 
 
 1 Ramtanu Lahiri, p. 77.
 
 4 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Bombay, and the United Provinces were present. That year 
 a circular was addressed to the students of Calcutta by Mi. 
 Allan Octavian Hume, asking them to devote themselves 
 to India, and as a result the Indian National Union was 
 formed ; and in 1884 a few gentlemen who had been attending 
 a Conference held in Adyar, Madras, by the Theosophical 
 Society, met and formed certain Provincial committees for 
 the purpose of calling without delay a conference of the 
 Indian National Union. This met in Bombay in December 
 1885 Poona, where it was to have met, having been visited 
 by the plague under the title of the Indian National Congress. 
 Since then it has met each year at Christmas in one or other of 
 the larger towns throughout India, and has been attended by 
 some thousand delegates, appointed in a somewhat loose 
 way by Provincial Committees. Since 1889 it has had a 
 Committee in London which it finances and which publishes 
 the weekly journal India. Thus India became politically 
 articulate. 
 
 The resolutions passed from year to year at this Congress 
 are the best indications of what interests are stirring in the 
 mind of India. The first passed at the first Congress called 
 for the appointment of a Royal Commission to enquire into 
 the working of the Indian administration ; the second, for 
 the abolition of the Secretary of State's Council as being " the 
 necessary preliminary to all other reforms " ; the third 
 demanded an expansion of Legislative Councils ; the fourth 
 formulated the historical claim for simultaneous examina- 
 tions ; the fifth protested against the increasing military 
 expenditure and asked Great Britain to guarantee the Indian 
 debt ; the sixth declared that Upper Burma ought not to 
 be added to India, but be made a Crown Colony ; the eighth 
 referred the resolutions passed to the Provincial political 
 associations. 
 
 Into a detailed history of the Congress I do not propose 
 to enter. At first it was received with no official disfavour, 
 and some officials actually attended it ; but from the beginning
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 5 
 
 the Government as a whole was hostile to what the Times 
 correspondent described as " the Indian nation meeting 
 together for the first time." 
 
 When it started, the Government was not sure in what 
 relations the new movement would stand to it. It might be 
 a consultative assembly which was to be a channel down 
 which grievances were to run to Government offices. If so, 
 it was to be countenanced. But it might be an Opposition, 
 speaking undoubtedly so that the Government could hear, 
 but acting as an independent political organ of Indian opinion. 
 In that case, the Government would, sooner or later, be hostile. 
 The matter was soon settled. It became an Opposition an 
 inevitable development. 
 
 When Mr. Hume saw Lord Dufferin at Simla and considered 
 with him the project to bring together every year the leaders of 
 Indian opinion to discuss affairs, Lord Dufferin remarked that 
 as there could be no Parliamentary Opposition in India as in 
 Britain, the Government would welcome such a proposal *, 
 and when the second Congress met in Calcutta in 1886, the 
 Viceroy invited the members to a garden party, and Lord 
 Connemara repeated the invitation the following year when 
 the Congress met in Madras. Indeed, so cordial were the 
 relations between the heads of the Indian Government and 
 the promoters of the Congress that Lord Reay, then Governor 
 of Bombay, was suggested as President, and apparently only 
 considerations of official caution led to other arrangements 
 having to be made. The Government mind was then liberal. 
 Government officials at first attended and took some part 
 in the discussions. 8 Speaking at a St. Andrew's Club dinner 
 in Calcutta in 1887, however, Lord Dufferin criticised the 
 Congress, and his attack was the subject of some scathing 
 sentences in a speech delivered by Mr. Telang at the Allahabad 
 
 1 Sir William Wedderburn indeed says that it was apparently on Lord 
 Dufierin's advice that the Congress dealt with political and not social matters 
 (Allan Octavian Hume, pp. 59-60). 
 
 * The Indian National Congress, Natesan, Madras, p. 4.
 
 6 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Congress a few weeks later. The definite departure was made 
 at the third Congress at Madras, when " the agitating policy 
 of the Anti-Corn Law League " was approved, and in 1890 
 the Government of India officially stated that the Congress 
 belonged to that class of conference which private individuals 
 may legitimately promote, but from which " Government 
 officials are necessarily debarred." ' The abler leaders like 
 Mr. Telang had no intention of confining the business of the 
 Congress or the tone and purpose of its discussions to those 
 limits which a gathering of a semi-official character would 
 have had to adopt. They were opposed to the Government, 
 and the resolution demanding representative Provincial 
 Councils, adopted by the first Congress and developed in later 
 ones, indicated that purpose. Moreover, they had something 
 to say about policy, about taxation, and so on, which was 
 quite different in its intent from Lord Dufferin's original 
 notions. Every one of the earlier meetings of the Congress 
 gave it more and more of the character of an Opposition. 
 For that reason it associated itself quite openly with that 
 section of British opinion represented by Mr. Gladstone and 
 Mr. Bright, and with Indian policy of the character of that 
 of Lord Eipon ; for that reason the Mohammedans declined 
 to associate with it, as their leaders preferred to follow the 
 suggestions made by Lord Dufferin and to remain in alliance 
 with the Government. For that reason also, from the moment 
 that it first met in Bombay, the National Congress was bound 
 to fulfil the functions and services of an Opposition to the 
 Government not a friendly, consultative Opposition, but an 
 Opposition which challenged the status and the authority 
 of the Government. 
 
 In taking up this position the Congress naturally met with 
 the opposition of the Government and of the British community. 
 From this arose the volume of charges of disloyalty, of designs 
 
 1 This was the rule till 1916, when Sir James Meston, Lieutenant- Governor 
 of the United Provinces, officially visited the Congress meeting that year 
 at Lucknow.
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 7 
 
 to end the British connection, and so on. None of these had 
 ever any substance or foundation, but were the ordinary 
 expedients which are adopted in political life to embarrass 
 an opponent and make his work unpopular. A certain section 
 of people in the end believe in them, and they are added to 
 those errors and prejudices which, like barnacles and weed 
 on the bottom of a ship, retard progress. 
 
 A really serious matter was the attitude of the Moham- 
 medans to the Congress. Taking the two communities as a 
 whole, there was no confidence, but a good deal of hostility, 
 between Hindus and Mohammedans. Mohammedans had 
 fallen behind in education and push, and to fight side by 
 side with the Hindus they feared would result in their per- 
 petual subordination. Their leaders therefore decided that 
 their community would do best for itself if it kept out of 
 any movement to organise an Opposition to the Government, 
 and they adopted the policy of representation by deputation 
 and concession by private influence. 
 
 The Mohammedan community had not been subject to 
 such a revolt as disturbed Hinduism at the beginning of last 
 century, when English schools were established in Calcutta 
 and young Hindus threw off the restraints of their religion 
 and customs. The Mohammedan offered a more sullen 
 resistance to missionary effort, and indeed, later on, made it 
 one of the causes of the Mutiny, and his mulvis kept a firm 
 grip upon his education. His opposition to the Government 
 was military and historical rather than political. But he 
 was surrounded by a new life which increased in vigour, 
 and which would have stifled him had he not accommodated 
 himself to it. He mutinied, and was crushed ruthlessly after 
 his short orgy of triumph. Then he sank again and slowly 
 emerged, terribly handicapped by his long neglect of chances. 
 Hindus have a long gallery of leaders in their early struggles 
 for influence ; Mohammedans have but one Sir Syed Ahmed 
 Khan, and this remarkable man was responsible for the 
 attitude taken up by his people.
 
 Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was born in Delhi on April 17th, 
 1817, and could trace his ancestry to Mohammed on both sides. 
 He was educated at home by his mother, who was one of 
 those able women full of worldly capacity and of no mean 
 learning who, in spite of European notions, are not un- 
 common in secluded Mohammedan households. At the age 
 of eighteen he entered the service of the East India Company, 
 and in his private relationships held intimate intercourse with 
 the Mohammedan literary circles of Delhi. He was Munsif 
 in 1841, wrote a volume on the architecture and tombs of 
 Delhi, and his interests were divided between literature and 
 law. When the Mutiny broke out, he spent himself in the 
 service of the Company, and when it was over, in protecting 
 his people from the horrors of massacre and unjust judgment 
 which followed. He declined an offer made to him by the 
 Government to become proprietor of a wealthy estate forfeited 
 by a rebel chief. When peace was secured, he was possessed 
 by the terrible prospect which faced his people. They were 
 distrusted, they were ignorant, they were poverty-stricken. 
 He determined to change all that. In 1858 he wrote his 
 pamphlet on the causes of the Indian Mutiny to try to 
 remove some of the prejudices against Mohammedans. The 
 fundamental fault, he argued, was the division between the 
 governed and the governor. There was nothing existing in 
 Indian government " to warn us of the dangers before they 
 burst upon us and destroyed us." He asked that native 
 opinion should be represented on Legislative Councils. In 
 particular he pleaded that the Mohammedan faith should be 
 kept pure, and that officers of the Government should be dis- 
 couraged from pursuing a policy, upon which they were said 
 to have been very keen after the Mutiny, of openly support- 
 ing the preaching of missionaries and of giving official sanction 
 to Christian propaganda. This was destroying all attempts 
 by the State to educate the people, because the school suspected 
 of proselytising was held in disfavour by Mohammedans. 
 The colleges were equally suspected. The studies which the
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 9 
 
 Mohammedan considered almost sacred dropped out of college 
 curricula. Whilst this state of mind lasted, the Mussulman 
 sulked in his tent. Such was Sir Syed's line of argument. 
 
 Sir Syed desired to establish a working agreement between 
 East and West, and he appealed to the Mohammedan to 
 become educated. He began in 1861. As the years went on 
 he became less and less of a religious reformer and more and 
 more of an educationalist whose aim was to reform and vivify 
 the whole life of his community. In 1863 he formed a society 
 to translate standard English works into Urdu, so that the 
 Mussulman might come in contact with European thought 
 and culture, and that Islamism might become liberalised by 
 that contact. In 1870 he set about the establishment of a 
 paper which disturbed the conservative equanimity of his 
 people as Hindu papers had stirred Hinduism thirty or forty 
 years before. Thus to some extent he led his people on the 
 path which Raja Rammohan Roy had led his. But he did 
 not go so far. His work gradually matured until the foun- 
 dation-stone of Alighur was laid in 1877. Sir Syed had no 
 English education, but it was whilst he was in England, study- 
 ing our English institutions, that the characteristics of Alighur 
 formed in his mind. The reasons for the separate college were : 
 (1) There were few Mohammedans in Government schools and 
 colleges. (2) Government education was suspected of being 
 anti-Mohammedan. (3) Mohammedans desired a separate 
 college. 
 
 Sir Syed was no sycophant in his politics, however. In 
 1866 he took an active part in forming the British Indian 
 Association, which is rightly regarded as the forerunner of the 
 National Congress, and he appealed to Indians to be more 
 honestly outspoken as regards their political grievances and 
 more assiduous in interesting the Imperial Parliament in the 
 affairs of their country. He himself was a member of the 
 Legislative Council from 1878 to 1883. There he opposed 
 the election of representatives on Indian public bodies on 
 the ground that minorities in race, creed, and caste would be
 
 10 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 crushed out ; but still he felt the catholic nationality of India, 
 and he said in 1884 : " We [Hindus and Mohammedans] 
 should try to become one heart and soul, and act in unison. 
 If united, we can support each other. . . . We must each and 
 all unite for the good of the country which is common to all." 
 Of the Bengalis he wrote about the same time : "I assure 
 you that Bengalis are the only people in our country whom we 
 can properly be proud of, and it is only due to them that 
 knowledge, liberty, and patriotism have progressed in our 
 country. ... In the word Nation I include both Hindus and 
 Mohammedans, because that is the only meaning which I 
 can attach to it." And yet, when the Congress met in 1885, 
 he was lukewarm. For three years he watched, and then 
 came out in definite opposition. It was " not moderate and 
 reasonable in its aspirations," nor sufficiently careful about 
 the interests of " minorities, and very far from respectful 
 or fair in its tone " to the Government. It believed too 
 much in the " principles of government borrowed from the 
 West into the East without regard to the safeguards required 
 by the different circumstances " 1 of India. 
 
 Sir Syed's attitude decided that of the bulk of Mohammedans, 
 tended to widen the gulf between them and the Hindus, and 
 strengthened the position of the conservative elements amongst 
 them. It also had, for some time, an unfortunate influence 
 on the Government, and not only encouraged it to harden its 
 attitude to the Congress, but to take opportunities to pacify 
 Mohammedan leaders and use them against the Hindu leaders. 
 If, with Parliamentary thoughts in mind, we speak of the 
 Congress as an Opposition, we may aptly say of the Moham- 
 medan that he took his seat on the benches below the gang- 
 way on the Government side. 
 
 Yet this could not abide. It was shortsighted politics ; 
 Sir Syed's great educational work was turning out a young 
 generation of Mohammedans moulded in the same intellec- 
 
 1 Statement by Nawab Mushtaque Husain in explanation of Sir Syed's 
 position.
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 11 
 
 tual moulds as the Hindu leaders ; and there were from the 
 very beginning some Mohammedans who did not share Sir 
 Syed's later views and who associated themselves with the 
 Congress. 
 
 The President of the third Congress was a Mohammedan, 
 Mr. Budrudin Tyabji, and he paid some attention in his 
 address to the attitude which the Mohammedans took to the 
 gathering. He said : "I must honestly confess to you that 
 one great motive which has induced me in the present state 
 of my health to undertake the grave responsibilities of pre- 
 siding over your deliberations, has been an earnest desire on 
 my part to prove, as far as my power lies, that I, at least, 
 not merely in my individual capacity, but as representative 
 of the Anjuman-i-Islam of Bombay, do not consider that there 
 is anything whatever in the position or the relations of the 
 different communities in India be they Hindus, Mussul- 
 mans, Parsees, or Christians which should induce the leaders 
 of any one community to stand aloof from the others in their 
 efforts to obtain those great general reforms, those great 
 general rights, which are for the common benefit of all, and 
 which, I feel sure, have only to be earnestly and harmoniously 
 pressed upon Government to be granted to us." Mr. Tyabji 
 spoke for the more educated Mohammedans in the urban 
 areas like Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta ; but he did not 
 speak for the mass of his people in those districts where they 
 were in the majority and had not been brought under Western 
 political and social influence. There, Sir Syed Ahmed ruled. 
 
 For some years the Mohammedan pressed his own claims 
 for education, office, and representation. The pace was un- 
 doubtedly made by Congress and the movement which it 
 focussed, and the Mohammedan saw to it that he had his 
 share in the advance. Through all the troublous times which 
 followed, he was blamed for being the tool of the Government, 
 and the disputes between him and the Hindu, especially in 
 Lord Curzon's time, were frequent and bitter. When the 
 Councils Act was put on the Statute Book and the represen-
 
 12 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 tation of communities secured, the storm rapidly subsided. 
 The advocates of communal representation had justified 
 themselves not by the fruits which they expected, but by 
 uniting Hindu and Mohammedan on common tasks of endeavour 
 and criticism. 
 
 Sir Syed Ahmed had done his work. His community had 
 bestirred itself, had regained importance, and it began to feel 
 that it could not act for ever the part of the mendicant. The 
 facts about Indian nationalism to which Sir Syed had given 
 expression came up like a new regiment into the field. Con- 
 gress kept raising issues which Mohammedans could not oppose, 
 kept appealing to feelings to which Mohammedans could not 
 help responding ; and the Hindus on the Legislative Councils 
 drew their Mohammedan colleagues to them in the same way. 
 When all was said and done, they were Indians, they had to 
 face the same problems, agree and disagree with the same 
 Government, and look in the same direction for the goals 
 where they expected to find satisfaction. The masses of the two 
 communities below might remain opposed in their ignorance, 
 and might riot against each other at their religious festivals ; 
 the educated people at the top constantly found themselves 
 comrades in the same battle where common interests counted 
 for much, where differences counted for little, and where 
 separatist superstitions were reduced to formalisms remote 
 from practical political issues. 1 
 
 Alighurhad sent out its educated men, and they found their 
 roads converging upon those where the educated Hindus 
 stood a generation before. A Moslem Congress party arose, 
 inspired by educated Mohammedans, and papers were pub- 
 
 1 This is only what might be expected from the experience of certain 
 Native States. In Mysore, for instance, the most cordial relations between 
 Indians and Mohammedans are the rule. There one reads of Mohammedans 
 agreeing to close their cemeteries for sanitary reasons, approaching Hindus 
 at festival times stating that they have no objection to music being played 
 whilst processions are passing mosques, giving vegetarian feasts to their 
 oo- religionists at times of rejoicing. In this State the tradition carefully 
 nurtured by practice is that the two communities shall co-operate and share 
 in the public life^of the State.
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 13 
 
 lished on Congress lines. In 1912 the Moslem League was 
 founded. At first it sniffed at the Congress ; it did homage 
 to Sir Syed ; like the devotee who feels heresy sprouting in his 
 heart, it proclaimed its orthodoxy with loud fervour ; but 
 its drift inevitably was towards the Congress. In 1913, at a 
 public meeting at Cawnpore, the Hon. Mazar-ul-Haque, a 
 leading Mohammedan, said : " The Anti-Congress Mussulman 
 is fast becoming an extinct species and will have soon to be 
 searched for in some archaeological museum." 
 
 When a Mohammedan press of critical politics appeared 
 like the Comrade, it found it had no possible line open for it 
 except that upon which the organs of Hindu Nationalism were 
 running. The end was only a matter of time. 
 
 In 1916 the leaders of the two movements came together 
 and discussed agreements, with the result that a common 
 manifesto was issued containing the following points : 
 
 1. That Provincial Legislative Councils should consist of 
 four-fifths elected and one-fifth nominated members ; that 
 the franchise should be as broad as possible, and that Mo- 
 hammedans should be separately elected to a fixed propor- 
 tion of seats ; that the President should be elected by the 
 Council ; that the Council should have wide legislative powers. 
 
 2. That Provincial Governors should not belong to the 
 Indian Civil Service ; that there should be Executive Councils 
 in each Province upon which members of the Civil Service 
 should not sit, but half of which should be elected by the 
 Legislative Council. 
 
 3. That four-fifths of the Imperial Legislative Council 
 should be elected from the same registers as were used for 
 the Provincial Councils, and that one-third should be Mo- 
 hammedans ; that the President should be elected by the 
 Council itself ; that it should have freedom in legislation and 
 authority in finance, including powers over tariffs and com- 
 mercial legislation. 
 
 4. That the Governor-General should be head of the Govern- 
 ment, and should have an Executive Council half of which
 
 14 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 should be Indian and be elected by the Imperial Legislative 
 Council ; that in legislative and administrative affairs the 
 Government of India should be free from interference by 
 the Secretary of State, and should not interfere with powers 
 delegated to the Provincial Governments. 
 
 6. That the Council of the Secretary of State should be 
 abolished and his salary put on the British estimates; that 
 he should hold the same position to India that the Secretary 
 for the Colonies does to the Dominions ; and that he should 
 have two Under-Secretaries, one of whom should be an Indian. 
 
 6. That India should be represented on all Imperial Com- 
 mittees, and that the British citizenship of Indians should be 
 recognised in all parts of the Empire. 
 
 7. That in all Imperial military and naval services Indians 
 should be treated on an equality with other British subjects, 
 and be allowed to enlist as volunteers. 
 
 8. That the Judiciary should be separated from the Execu- 
 tive. 
 
 This is another joining of the waters, and the stream of 
 Indian Nationalism now runs in greater force and volume. 
 Hinduism and Mohammedanism are not political distinctions. 
 They divided Indian society so long as that society was not 
 political. But the last of these old generations is dying out, 
 and the young men respond to other calls. 
 
 In tracing the evolution of nationalism amongst the Mo- 
 hammedans, I have overrun the course of events in the Con- 
 gress, and as they are important, I must return to them. 
 
 The Congress had met, resolved, and demonstrated for 
 twenty years, and the results of its labours so far had been 
 disappointing. A left wing of impatient men grew, and both 
 the optimism and the authority of the old Congress leaders 
 were challenged. It was felt that the mild methods of Con- 
 gress, with its deputations to London and its annual declara- 
 tions of needs, would never compel the governing bureaucracy 
 to listen, and never gather behind them such a force of public 
 opinion as would make the organisation a political power in
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 15 
 
 India. Nor was that the only fault. The younger men were 
 not satisfied with the Congress spirit. They wanted some- 
 thing more strenuous, something more thorough ; they wanted 
 a crusade that would stir the heart of India, something with 
 more self-respect and independent challenge. In their own 
 hearts, India had revived. It is all but impossible for the 
 governing race to understand the feeling of a youth suddenly 
 aware that it belongs to a subject race ; it is difficult for the 
 people of that race who accept the comforts of the rulers 
 to realise it. But to one who looks on as a keenly critical spec- 
 tator, seeing everything in an uncoloured light and trying to 
 understand what he sees, the extraordinary revival of Indian 
 Nationalism from 1905 appears to be a miracle. The partition 
 of Bengal produced a new Bengali a man who could organise, 
 fight, assassinate. For the darker extremes of suppressed 
 nationalism also began to appear, and in 1908 the first act 
 of terrorism took place. 
 
 The weak handling of Lord Elgin and the masterful rule 
 of Lord Curzon had, each in its own way, bred extremism 
 among Indian Nationalists. Lord Curzon did not stay long 
 enough in India to feel the blast he was releasing, and which 
 his two successors had to endure. 
 
 In the early winter of 1905 a Liberal Government was 
 formed at home, and Mr. (afterwards Lord) Morley became 
 Secretary of State. His appointment put India on expectant 
 tiptoe. " Now," the Congress leaders said, " we shall have 
 our reward." But Mr. Morley found the burden heavy, and 
 however valiant a shoulder he put to it, he could barely move 
 it. The Secretary of State for India is not his own master. 
 The extremists made the most of the opportunities which 
 Mr. Morley' s difficulties gave them, and the slow lumbering 
 of the coach enabled them to jeer as Elijah jeered at the false 
 prophets. With renewed vigour they attacked the " mendi- 
 cant policy " of the Congress, and found heroes and models 
 in the Nihilists, who felt that nothing but the bomb would 
 burst the bonds of the common people of Russia. That,
 
 16 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 however, was only a small section of extremists. The other 
 and by far the larger section remained a left wing of the 
 Constitutional movement. It is always hard to do justice 
 to men in the midst of the storms they have raised, and their 
 opponents are rarely chivalrous or just enough to strive to 
 do them justice. In another chapter of this book I describe 
 the recent Hindu reaction, and most of the Constitutional 
 extremists belonged to that school. They believed in India 
 and did not believe in Europe. They believed in their own 
 civilisation and not in ours. Their ideal was an India sitting 
 on her own throne, mistress of her own destiny, doing homage 
 to her own past. They shook the Government more than it 
 has been shaken since the Mutiny. 
 
 At the Benares meeting in 1905 there was trouble. At 
 Calcutta, in 1906, the Extremists, as they had come to be called, 
 went from the meeting, but the places they left vacant were 
 hardly visible. Nevertheless they represented a great body of 
 young and aggressive opinion. In fact, Lord Curzon's admin- 
 istration was alienating in a wholesale way Indian educated 
 opinion on account of its supine disregard of Indian feelings 
 and thoughts. For the time being, the conditions of the 
 peaceful government of an acquiescing people were rapidly 
 departing from India. The Congress itself had to move, and 
 at Calcutta it so far reflected vigorous opinion outside as to 
 pass resolutions in favour of self-government such as is 
 enjoyed by the Dominions, a national system of education, 
 and the creation of native industries and the boycott of 
 imported goods that competed with Indian manufactures. 
 Self-government was no new item of the Congress programme, 
 but it was reaffirmed at Calcutta with an emphasis and in 
 circumstances which threw down the gauntlet with some 
 force ; the education resolution was aimed at the policy then 
 pursued of officialising the Universities and of making higher 
 education a kind of Government nursery ; the others were 
 economic replies to political grievances. 
 
 The twelve months which followed were ruffled by agita-
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 17 
 
 tion and unsettlement. The Congress gained no influence ; 
 the left wing grew both in authority and activity. The 
 1907 meeting was to have been held at Nagpur, but the con- 
 flict which awaited the gathering disrupted the Congressmen 
 of that district and Surat was fixed upon. Garrulous rumour 
 was busy. The Congress was to be guilty of surrender on 
 this point and on that, precious to the Extremists. The 
 assembling delegates went into two camps pitched some miles 
 from each other. Over one Mr. Tilak ruled ; over the other, 
 Dr. Rashbehary Ghose, the elect President. There was to 
 be a contest for the Presidency, but Mr. Lajput Rai declined 
 the Extremist nomination. Negotiations went on ; depu- 
 tations came and went between the two camps, and excite- 
 ment rose. Before the opening of the Congress enthusiasts 
 addressed their followers assembled early in the tent. The 
 tension reached breaking-point before it was time for the official 
 actors to appear. At the very opening the storm burst, and 
 the sitting was suspended, leaving Mr. Surendranath Banerjea 
 overwhelmed by the hostile demonstration. On the follow- 
 ing day matters were worse. Within a few minutes of the 
 opening a serious riot raged within the tent, and the sittings 
 were suspended sine die. After a day's interval a remnant of 
 900 delegates the original delegation numbered 1,600 met 
 and decided to remit to a committee the framing of a con- 
 stitution for the Congress. Indian nationalism had received 
 a heavy blow at the time it might have been its death-blow. 
 Its old leaders, though a majority was still behind them, 
 were nevertheless shorn of their glory, and the Congress was 
 discredited. 
 
 This happened at a most unfortunate time. The spirit of 
 the administration was changing, Mr. Morley was about to 
 produce his Councils Bill, and the most formidable of all 
 Indian political organisations was crippled just when Indian 
 unity was most required and a concentration of Indian public 
 opinion would have been most useful. 
 
 Outside, Bengal in particular and Bombay to some extent 
 2
 
 18 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 were seething with discontent. Papers like the Bande Mataram 
 were suppressed ; the National Education Association was 
 formed to supply a college education apart from the Govern- 
 ment ; the industrial boycott was raging ; Arabindo Ghose, 
 Har Dayal, Bipin Chandra Pal, Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak were 
 busy with their propaganda of various kinds of Extremism, 
 and the disturbed emotions were undoubtedly going deeper 
 into Indian society than the Congress had ever reached. 
 
 The committee decided upon at Surat met, and a consti- 
 tution protecting Congress against Extremists was drafted. 
 At Madras that year the new Congress met, peaceful but 
 weak, united but small. Congress was no longer a meeting- 
 ground of all independent opinions and all Indian policies. 
 Nationalism was defined and limited. A section, hailing 
 chiefly from Bengal, asked that the new rules be submitted 
 to Congress for approval, but it was held that the drafting 
 committee had absolute powers of settlement. That led to 
 further trouble. In 1912 the chiefs of the Congress yielded, 
 the rules were so modified, and a section returned again to 
 the fold. But the Congress remained crippled. 
 
 In the meantime new channels had been cut along which 
 Indian agitation might run, and new responsibilities imposed 
 upon Indian politicians. In 1909 the Morley reforms were 
 passed, and the Legislative Councils became Congress plat- 
 forms. Thus ended the conditions under which the old 
 Congress lived and moved and had its being. The Oppo- 
 sition to the Indian Government was to be found in the seats 
 of the Legislative Councils, and new political conditions arose 
 giving the Congress a new role to fill. Of course the trans- 
 formation did not take place all at once. Indian opinion still 
 required to be voiced by a political organisation, and in these 
 feebler years the Congress was not without its triumphs. 
 It compelled the Government to undo Lord Curzon's par- 
 tition of Bengal, and it received the homage of imitation from 
 the Mohammedans, who, in 1912, founded the Moslem League. 
 It was an essential platform for Indian nationalism.
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 19 
 
 Then came the war and the new life. A Home Rule League 
 was started, firmer and more definite in its demands than the 
 Congress had been, and the younger and more vigorous 
 elements of nationalism were attracted to that. But the Con- 
 gress still remained the Congress, and at Calcutta in 1917 
 the Home Rule Leaguers and the younger elements forced 
 upon the more conservative elements Mrs. Besant as Presi- 
 dent. The unity of the Congress was sorely strained, but 
 it held for the meeting and a month or two later. Then 
 upon the question of the attitude to the Montagu-Chelms- 
 ford Report, it broke. 
 
 This was inevitable. The new conditions of Indian politics 
 and the growth of a new generation with changed minds 
 uprooted old trees under the shades of which the older men 
 had rested. The old Congress leaders like Mr. Gokhale, Sir 
 Pherosesha Mehta,Mr. Surendranath Banner jea, have naturally 
 passed into the ranks of statesmen. For them the mills of re- 
 form were grinding steadily. The others had no such reverence 
 and no such faith. Congress had taught India to think and 
 act politically ; the Morley reforms had obliterated the great 
 non-political distinction between Mohammedan and Hindu 
 but had made a breach in Indian public opinion between 
 progressive and moderate. This is not a calamity such as 
 the Surat split was. It is the natural evolution of things, 
 and if it marks the end of the Congress as we knew it, that 
 will not be regretted when it is seen that the Congress did 
 not end thus until the political conditions of India into 
 which it fitted had already ended. 
 
 The Indian Government ought to see that it is now faced 
 with Indian opinion, and should begin its new task by throw- 
 ing away all useless defences. It should change its angle 
 of vision, for the nature of its work has changed. It is no 
 longer that of a government of civil servants, but of states- 
 men ; its problems are no longer office and administrative 
 problems, but political and legislative ones ; it can no longer
 
 20 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 be a committee of Civil Service heads of departments, it must 
 be a Cabinet. And the change has come from without owing 
 to the growth in Indian merit and self-confidence, owing to 
 the strengthening of Indian opinion. Whilst we sat in our 
 chairs of office, the halls and courtyards became full of people 
 animated by a new will. The relation of our imperialist 
 power to their obedience had been revolutionised. Our power 
 now knows its weakness, their will its strength, and we need 
 no writing on the wall to tell us that such things belong to 
 the nature of freedom, and their fulfilment should be the 
 pride of the nation that has done its work so well. They 
 close ancient chapters, but do not end histories ; they change 
 relationships, but not allegiance. 
 
 We must not make the mistake of meeting the demand 
 for more legislative authority in the same dilatory, niggardly, 
 and grudging way as we met the demand for more adminis- 
 trative places for Indians. On that road lies ruin or, at 
 best, baffling entanglement. 
 
 One of the pleas hitherto liberally employed by the Govern- 
 ment has been that educated political India did not represent 
 the India of the masses and that the European administrator 
 entered more sympathetically into the needs of the people 
 than the Indian who had been to Oxford, who was a lawyer, 
 a journalist, a Bombay manufacturer, or a Bengal zemindar. 
 The point was not without its force had it been used rea- 
 sonably, had it not been employed as an excuse for Govern- 
 ment maintaining its fortified citadels against the movements 
 of Indian public opinion. There is not much in it now. The 
 citadels which it defended have all but been forced, and yet, 
 in view of the immediate future, both because of the con- 
 troversy that still remains and of the settlement which has 
 yet to come, the point cannot be dismissed without a passing 
 examination. 
 
 Who compose the Congress ? This is the answer given by 
 a Frenchman who voices the opinion of an influential section 
 of officials (much smaller now, however, than when he wrote
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 21 
 
 his book) : " This so-called National Party is really a party 
 of privilege, a concourse of the representatives of the high 
 castes and the rich classes, which is really a stranger to the 
 nation on whose behalf it professes to speak. . . . The little 
 group of ambitious members of the upper classes." l This 
 description is neither enlightened nor just, though it has a 
 superficial truth about it. Any one professing to be a student 
 of political conditions must know that such a description 
 could have been aptly applied to the earlier stages of every 
 Liberal movement. M. Chailley sneers at the only proof 
 that could ever be given that India is awake politically. In 
 the nature of things, political agitation could be begun only 
 by the educated ; when it was undertaken by the masses it 
 was the Mutiny ; and the educated were bound to be the 
 professional classes either having come from these classes 
 or having moved into them. In the sense of having amongst 
 its delegates all castes, all grades, and all industrial classes, 
 the Congress is not representative ; but the Congress is not 
 the last but the first word in how to make Indian public 
 opinion politically effective. In time, the bodies representing 
 Indian opinion will be able to submit to more thorough tests 
 than the Congress and then the description applied to 
 them will probably be : "a little group of ambitious members 
 of the lower classes." The true representative is not one who 
 belongs to his constituency or who has personal interests 
 similar to those of his constituency, but who understands it 
 and sympathises with it. That is the claim which the bur- 
 eaucracy makes for itself, and it is open to Congress, though 
 composed of " the high castes and the rich classes," to 
 make it on its own behalf, and do its best to justify it. 
 
 Self-government is demanded first of all by those in strong 
 social or economic positions. It was so in Great Britain, where 
 the Liberal movement was middle class, rich and professional. 
 The working classes come in later with their new causes of 
 difference and tests of representation. The Indian movement 
 
 1 Administrative Problems of British India, by Joseph Chailley, pp. 164-6.
 
 22 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 is still in the first stage, and if the Congress satisfies that, it 
 justifies itself. The lack of education and of self-confidence 
 mainly owing to caste amongst the masses will make the 
 transition from the first stage to the second in India far more 
 difficult than it was here, but that does not excuse us for 
 quarrelling with the first stage itself, or for refusing to see 
 that that and that only could be the characteristics of the 
 commencement of the conflict. 
 
 The economic resolutions of the Congress do reflect the 
 interests of the middle class and those in economically strong 
 positions. For instance, if its views on land taxation and 
 ownership had been carried out, the ultimate effect would not 
 have been to benefit the cultivator, but to increase the amount 
 of Indian rent enjoyed by private people and the ease with 
 which creditors could seize the land of the agriculturists. 
 Its commercial views have been generally those of manu- 
 facturers, and working-class needs have rarely absorbed the 
 thoughts of these Christmas gatherings. We have to remem- 
 ber, however, that the Congress has been a Nationalist move- 
 ment as well as a Liberal one, and when Nationalist issues are 
 at stake, as history so abundantly shows, all other political 
 considerations are in the background. 
 
 Congress, however, like our own middle-class Liberal move- 
 ment, has been behind every attempt made to educate the 
 people, and it has opposed the Salt Tax and drawn attention 
 to the impoverishing effects of certain other forms of taxation. 
 This also is a characteristic of parties in the Liberal stage 
 of a country's evolution. Liberty has not received at their 
 hands an ample programme, oppression has not been dis- 
 covered in the many places where it has its authority ; but 
 homage is paid to the one and war declared on the other. 
 Therefore we can let things take their course. Speaking 
 generally, Congress opinion is to find its way first of all into 
 authority in India. It will create reactions, as all political 
 movements in authority do, as indeed is seen in the Congress 
 itself; it will look at India perhaps too much from its own
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 23 
 
 point of view and in the light of its own interests. What 
 party in power in India or anywhere else does not ? The 
 cure for that is not to keep an adult India in tutelage, but to 
 hasten on a more general awakening and to form a more 
 representative Indian opinion and will. 
 
 It must be observed that the more recent radical move- 
 ments in Indian Nationalism that headed by Mr. Tilak, for 
 instance have gone deeper down into the strata of Indian 
 society than the old Congress movement did, and the villages 
 are now being stirred by Nationalist propaganda. In this 
 respect, again, the Indian movement is following the lines of 
 our own Liberal, Radical, and Labour evolution. 
 
 A Nationalist movement, however, can never find full 
 expression in a political party, because its liberty relates to 
 the mind and not merely to the law. It must return to 
 historical traditions ; it must give out its soul in happiness 
 and devotion ; it must speak as its nation has spoken and 
 dance as its kindred have danced. In Ireland we have in 
 recent years witnessed the revival of a Nationalist language, 
 a Nationalist literature, a Nationalist stage, a Nationalist 
 economic policy, and as these the true tests of nationality 
 have been developing, they have carried with them an 
 impatient condemnation of a political movement inspired 
 by the expediencies of Parliament and reduced to compromise 
 and manipulation for success. India shows similar growths, 
 and if the National Congress is somewhat neglected and 
 looks like a plant losing its sap, that is partly because the 
 political side of Nationalism must always be somewhat hard 
 and its political policy hampered, circumscribed and unin- 
 spiring, whereas the more spiritual life of a national renais- 
 sance is of exalted and unlimited vision, is free, buoyant 
 and creative, using the medium of art for interpretation and 
 the subtleties of imagination for propaganda. The political 
 leader, however free he may imagine himself to be, is bound 
 to the thing he would destroy ; he who sings songs, tells tales,
 
 24 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 puts dramas on the stage, lives in a world of liberty and is 
 apt to despise the bondsmen. Nationalism, however, needs 
 both. 
 
 I shall deal later on with the religious movements of Nation- 
 alism. They may be regarded as conservative, as reactions 
 away from enlightenment, as galvanisings of dead bodies 
 into a false appearance of life. 1 That may be the attitude of 
 the critical observer ; that is not how it strikes the devout 
 Nationalist. And if we judge the matter impartially as a 
 historical phenomenon, we shall not be content with regarding 
 it as a movement in itself, and apart by itself, but shall con- 
 sider it as an incident in a process. If India is to go forward 
 as India, it must go back first of all to get in touch with the 
 broken Indian tradition. However we may regard this as 
 moralists, as students of historical processes, it should cause 
 us neither surprise nor regret. It is the spirit of progress 
 swerving to find refreshment, a base for a start, and an open 
 road. The revival of the historical consciousness of India 
 involves not merely a new historical school at the Univer- 
 sities, but a religious reaction which will, however, soon 
 disentangle itself and in the end lead to the purification of 
 Hinduism. 
 
 This reaction in religion has been accompanied by a return 
 in art and literature to Indian inspiration. The revival of 
 Persian, Mogul and Hindu art, though in inferior hands 
 it is copying, in others, like the Tagores and Gangulis, it is 
 a spirit and a genius. In the Tagore school of art one finds 
 not only the style and subjects, but the feeling of the noon- 
 day of Indian painting, and one has only to walk from a 
 " Royal Academy " annual exhibition in Calcutta to that 
 of the India Society to understand what is going on. The 
 West, which used to dominate the East, still empties its 
 
 1 For instance, in the attempt to make the mythology of the Vedas sym- 
 bolical of modern knowledge, soma, the food of the gods, has been identified 
 with petroleum, and we have been told that in order to understand the Soma 
 Pavamana hymns properly, we must know about " the oil fountains of 
 Baku."
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 25 
 
 paint-tubes on to its paper and canvas, and strives in vain 
 to capture that reposeful mastery which is like a presiding 
 presence in all great art ; the other in a totally different 
 world of thought and inspiration puts the pleasures and the 
 attractions of its soul into form and colour, and fills its exhi- 
 bitions not merely with frames and paintings, but with an 
 atmosphere and a life. You have moved from one world to 
 another, from Camden Town to Udaipur, in the space of a 
 few hundred yards and in a few minutes of time in going from 
 one exhibition to the other. And yet, let me note in passing, 
 so great is the divorce between our Government and the 
 Nationalists of India that when the former proposed to dispose 
 of some of the Western daubs shown at the Calcutta School 
 of Art to make room for true Indian work, the latter cried 
 out that it was a dark plot to keep them ignorant. When 
 the Government proposes to do good it is suspected of bad 
 motives. 
 
 The same contrast is felt as regards the stage, although 
 here the Indian has not produced genius. And yet, in 
 spite of crudities in acting generally amounting to terrible 
 amateurishness, the difference between an English and an 
 Indian play is striking. I have seen both done by the same 
 company and during the same entertainment. The Abbey 
 Theatre of Dublin has roused keen interest amongst those 
 Indians interested in the drama and the drama has always 
 played an important part in Indian life and the Indian fol- 
 lower of Kalidasa and Krishna Miora returns to his own life 
 for his subjects, stimulated by Sinn Fein. Dramatic societies 
 are legion, and the programme of one before me whilst I write, 
 announcing the production in the Punjab of a play by Lady 
 Gregory along with two original plays of Indian life, is typical 
 of many. I am sure they played Lady Gregory very badly, 
 and to do homage to her did violence to themselves, and I 
 am equally sure they played their own work with more 
 success. 
 
 The fame of Rabindranath Tagore relieves me of the
 
 26 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 necessity to do much more than remind my readers of what 
 they know regarding him. To the revival of Indian culture 
 in all its activities Rabindranath has imparted the chief 
 stimulus. Music, poetry, fiction, politics, have been enriched 
 by his many-sided activities, and he is India without a spot 
 or blemish. He has assimilated the West, but has at the 
 same time transmuted it so that it is no longer West. There 
 have been Indian poets before Tagore who struck a note of 
 great distinction, like Toru and the other Dutts, but whilst 
 their subjects may have been Indian, their demeanour and 
 song were not. This one simple expression from the Gardener 
 proclaims the culture to which it belongs, and transports one 
 to India, its thought, its emotion, its method of worship. 
 The imagery must recall to any one who has it stored in his 
 memory the whole Indian scene : 
 
 " How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may touch T " 
 
 No mind of purely Western culture can ever fathom that 
 sentence to its uttermost depth, or create from it the vision 
 which the poet had when he wrote it. Bankim Chandra 
 Chatterji was a great novelist debased under the influence of 
 the West, and doomed in his later work to traverse a world 
 of fantastic romance and tinsel-decked heroes and heroines. 
 Still he wrote the banned song, Bande Mataram. Tagore 
 returns to where Chatterji went astray, and Bande Mataram 
 is in every line of his stories. 
 
 I might embody this movement of the Indian spirit and 
 intelligence in a list of distinguished names which, in addi- 
 tion to the four Tagores in philosophy, art and letters, would 
 include Arabinda Ghosh as a religious teacher, Sir R. N. 
 Mukerji and Sir Ratan Tata in industry, Dr. Ray and Dr. 
 Bose in science, Munshi Ram and Principal Rudra in educa- 
 tion/Mr. Gokhale in politics, Mr. Gandhi as a power over men. 
 In law and journalism the names are too embarrassing in 
 number and distinction for selection. In short, in all those 
 activities which give distinction to a nation, and which
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 27 
 
 express vitality, Indians are engaged and are doing work 
 of importance. 
 
 Thus Indian Nationalism proves its claim to be a national 
 renaissance, and gives a plain warning that it is much more 
 than the agitation of political coteries. It is the revival 
 of an historical tradition, the liberation of the soul of a people.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE CONQUEST 
 
 IN an opening page of his book on India, Sir John Strachey 
 wrote : " This is the first and most essential thing to learn 
 about India that there is not and neVer was an India pos- 
 sessing according to European ideas any sort of unity, physical, 
 social, political, or religious ; no Indian nation, no ' people 
 of India ' of which we hear so much." l In one sense the 
 warning is true, but I would say that "the first and most 
 essential thing to learn about India " is that the statement 
 is very misleading, especially if used for political purposes. 
 
 India, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, from the 
 Bay of Bengal to Bombay, is naturally the area of a single 
 government. One has only to look at the map to see how 
 geography has fore-ordained an Indian Empire. Its vast- 
 ness does not obscure its oneness ; its variety, its unity. The 
 Himalayas and their continuing barriers frame the great 
 peninsula off from the rest of Asia. Its long rivers, connect- 
 ing its extremities and its interior with the sea, knit it together 
 for communication and transport purposes ; its varied pro- 
 ductions, interchangeable with each other, make it a con- 
 venient industrial unit, maintaining contact with the world 
 through the great ports to the East and to the West. Political 
 and religious tradition has also welded it into one Indian con- 
 sciousness. Even those masses who are not aware of this, 
 offer up prayers which proclaim it and go on pilgrimages 
 which assume it. 
 
 This spiritual unity dates from very early times in Indian 
 
 1 India : its Administration and Progress, p. 6. 
 28
 
 THE CONQUEST 29 
 
 culture. An historical atlas of India shows how again and 
 again the natural unity of India influenced conquest and 
 showed itself in empires. The realms of Chandragupta and his 
 grandson Asoka (305-232 B.C.) embraced practically the 
 whole of the peninsula, and ever after, amidst the swaying 
 and falling of dynasties, this unity was the dream of every 
 victor and struggled into being and never lost its potency. 
 The Pathans sought it, but it shrank in their grasp ; the 
 Moghuls pursued it, but it fled from their hands. The arm 
 which stretched from the throne to the utmost limit of the 
 dominions was enfeebled by its length. Military conquest 
 could not consolidate. Then the British came, and the in- 
 evitability of a united India defied their modest proclama- 
 tions and led them from province to province until they 
 reached the seas and the mountains. 1 In this respect a 
 study of the historical maps of India resembles a study of fate, 
 or of the attack of a mighty natural force like the sea upon 
 something which, resisting sullenly, is doomed to subjection 
 by stages. Any empire in India smaller than the whole 
 peninsula is unstable and must extend. 
 
 When Elizabeth was on the throne in 1600, the English 
 invaders came, as chartered traders, to barter and make 
 profits. Empire had never entered their heads. Even trade 
 settlements had never occurred to them. They were to be 
 partners in the profits of voyages. But they had embarked 
 upon a venture which, like an open road, led to greater ven- 
 tures, and there was no stopping-place on the journey. The 
 project expanded, and at last they asked for powers to estab- 
 lish and conduct a permanent trade with India. In due 
 time they established factories where Bombay, Madras, and 
 Calcutta now stand, but they found both French and Portu- 
 guese merchants there before them, and rivalry could not 
 be confined to the bazaar and the counting-house. Under 
 
 1 For instance, in the Queen's Proclamation of 1858, when assuming the 
 sovereignty of what were the Company's territories, this was said : " We 
 desire no extension of our present territorial possessions."
 
 30 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Indian conditions trade and politics could not be kept apart. 
 Political designs were thrust upon the traders. Their trade 
 competition became the concern of their Governments. The 
 warehouse was a political outpost ; the merchants had to 
 become courtiers ; the business reports had to assume the 
 likeness of a State paper. The trading history of the Company 
 is a history of Court manipulation and influence conducted by 
 a remarkable progression of men bold, stubborn, self-asser- 
 tive, acquisitive men who could face danger and trouble, 
 who were not cowed by native rulers and not discouraged by 
 towering adversity men who believed in the might of their 
 country and their own call to exploit and rule without being 
 too particular as to methods and tools. In due course, the 
 political powers which they manipulated became transferred 
 to themselves. The clerk became the tax-gatherer and the 
 soldier, and the Company became a sovereign authority and 
 passed under the fateful law that whoever governs India 
 must govern it all. 
 
 The characteristic feature of this conquest was that the 
 Company did not enter upon it until it had secured an economic 
 grip upon the country. As alien as Alexander's army, it did 
 not impose political authority until it had acquired economic 
 authority. It insinuated itself into Indian life before it seized 
 Indian government. Its first concern was nothing more than 
 to secure " a free trade, a peaceable residence, and a very good 
 esteem " with the native rulers. 1 From that everything else 
 followed. 
 
 As the red patches advanced over the map of India, sections 
 pulled themselves together to resist, but no power then exist- 
 ing could develop that Indian cohesion which was necessary 
 if the new trading invader was to be hurled back. We were 
 not accepted, but we could not be resisted. India challenged, 
 but could not make her challenge good. It was a new method 
 of conquest. Unlike previous conquerors, we did not come 
 
 1 Chaplain Terry's description of what Sir Thomas Roe accomplished at 
 the Moghul Court before he left for England in 1619.
 
 THE CONQUEST 31 
 
 in through a narrow neck of land so that our force was spent 
 before it filled the peninsula ; we came from the sea. We 
 spread over the south from Madras, over the west from 
 Bombay, over the east from Calcutta, and the united forces 
 flowed into the narrowing plains of the north-west. More- 
 over, we were not a military conquering power imposing 
 tribute and hastening hither and thither in our conquests. 
 The stability of trade was always in our minds. 1 The invasion 
 was not of hordes of men seeking new settlements, nor of 
 military captains seeking spoil, but of capital seeking invest- 
 ment, of merchants seeking profit. It was necessarily slow ; 
 it divided to rule, and enlisted Indians to subdue India. It 
 assimilated as it went. It presents to the student of history 
 an interesting contrast in the methods and efficiency of con- 
 quest by economic penetration compared with conquest by 
 military victory, though the former always merged into 
 the latter in the end. 
 
 Representations had to be made to Courts and interests 
 secured there. At first the traders acted behind their Govern- 
 ment and used Government Ambassadors like Sir Thomas 
 Roe to promote their interests. But that became unsatis- 
 factory. Something more direct was required. India was 
 falling to pieces. Rebellion and anarchy were spreading. 
 The Moghul Empire was hastening to its end in Aurangzib. 
 Since 1626 the Company had enjoyed territorial political 
 privileges at its fort at Armagon, and with foreign rivals on 
 one hand and a disrupted Indian sovereignty on the other, 
 it had either to protect itself by controlling in some measure 
 
 1 In dispatches sent to the Company the following explanation is offered 
 of the welcome given to the traders by the ruler of Madras : " First, he 
 desires his Country may nourish and grow rich which he Conceives it will 
 by Draweinge Merchants to him. Secondly, hee desires for his money good 
 Horses from Persia. Thirdly, that yearly upon our Shipps hee may send a 
 servant into the Bay Bengalis to buy him Hawks, Apes, Parratts and such- 
 like babies. . . . And lastly, the fort, being made substantial and strong, may 
 bee able to defend his person on occasion against his insul tinge Neighbours " 
 (Love, Vettiget of Old Madras, i. p. 20).
 
 32 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 territorial sovereignty or to give up its struggle for life. The 
 latter it had no intention of doing. By 1686 its mind was 
 made up on that, and next year it declared its intention to 
 "establish such a polity of civil and military power, and 
 create and secure such a large revenue ... as may be the 
 foundation of a large, well-grounded, sure English dominion 
 in India for all tune to come." It is not my task to trace 
 the fortunes of the Company itself. Were it so I should 
 have to use these mighty words as an introduction to failure 
 in India and strife at home, and to a period when the Company 
 had to return to the peaceful commerce and the dependence 
 upon the Ambassadors of the Home Government which this 
 declaration threw on one side. That, however, was but 
 for a tune. Indian conditions forced a policy of political 
 activity upon the Company, and the conquest proceeded. 
 Some rulers had to be supported, some opposed, the responsi- 
 bilities of others had to be assumed. In every case the 
 end was the same conquest and empire. 
 
 The struggle between Portuguese, Dutch, Prussian, French, 
 and English traders in India throbbed to every European 
 quarrel, and at length, when the French war of 1744 broke out, 
 the last act in this section of the drama was staged, and when 
 it ended sixteen years later, the Company was in possession 
 and again proceeded to evolve its conquests and extensions. 
 
 All our rivals had failed. The most brilliant, the French, 
 formidable in war, were less formidable in trade and dip- 
 lomacy, and less doggedly supported by Paris than the Com- 
 pany was by London. France started the policy of inter- 
 fering in Indian politics in order to found a French Empire 
 in India, but Clive happened to have been born ; our economic 
 resources were greater and so was our sea-power. We were 
 steadier in pursuing the policy of dominion arising out of 
 trade, and, when the time came to make the critical trans- 
 formation, we were even better prepared for it in tempera- 
 ment and resources than were the French. The Portuguese 
 were soldiers and priests rather than traders, and their pro-
 
 THE CONQUEST 33 
 
 gramme of conquest was from the beginning as impossible as 
 Alexander's was. The Dutch pursued a trade policy of 
 monopoly which required for its support a military and naval 
 backing which the Netherlands could not afford. Other rivals 
 were of little consequence. So in the end we remained the sole 
 power in India owing to our economic stability, the character 
 of our traders and captains, our fleet, and we were left to face 
 our Indian responsibilities and fulfil the law of Indian conquest. 
 Now it was the Mahratta, now the Sikh, now the Burmese 
 rule that shrivelled and disappeared at our approach, and the 
 unification of India proceeded apace. In due time the 
 merchant had done his work, and in the course of it he had 
 transformed himself into a governor. Then he was sup- 
 planted by the Crown. 
 
 The expansion of the British Empire in India was like in- 
 flowing water filling the bed of a lake. Whilst there is anarchy 
 in India, the diversity in tongue and people may mean 
 diversity in the State, and Sir John Strachey's warning may 
 be of political importance ; but when that anarchy gives place 
 to order, the boundary of the Indian sovereignty is the sea 
 and the mountains indeed, Indian law and order depend 
 upon that being the boundary. The sects may be legion 
 the tongues innumerable, the customs varied and antagonistic, 
 but he who is most aware of these diversities and who gives 
 them a most important place in the peculiar complexity of 
 the Indian problem, is also aware that moulding them 
 together into a unity and imposing some kind of coherence 
 upon them is the only policy which fulfils India's destiny. 
 
 Hence it is that whoever would study Indian problems 
 with any profit must begin with a recognition of two appar- 
 ently contradictory facts : India is divided ; India is united. 
 The latter is the predominating creative factor in Indian 
 politics. It may be that the central Government should be a 
 federation of States and provinces, each enjoying wide privi- 
 leges of self-government. That is a matter of machinery and 
 political convenience. All I am concerned with here is to 
 3
 
 34 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 point out, at the very threshold of this study, that the pre- 
 dominating tendencies in Indian life are not diverse rites 
 and tongues, but the unification of all into one sovereignty. 
 That is the great influence that has made the history of the 
 British occupation, and that now presents it with its greatest 
 problem. 
 
 It is true that the economic origin of our settlement in India 
 has meant that we have used our political powers there for 
 economic purposes. Nothing more conclusive has been 
 written on that than the criticism passed on the Company 
 by Adam Smith. " As sovereigns, their interest is exactly 
 the same with that of the country which they govern. As 
 merchants, their interest is exactly opposite to that interest." 
 That criticism, somewhat altered in its literary form, but un- 
 touched in its substance, always holds good of foreign States 
 governing peoples as we govern India but that in passing. 
 It may be true, as some say, that economic considerations 
 rule political policy. But in the government of subject 
 peoples by sovereign States, economic considerations influence 
 both sides and create political movements amongst the subject 
 as well as amongst the ruling peoples. Moreover, a subject 
 people that is being educated and that is breathing the air 
 of liberty will be purchased by no economic price and will 
 sacrifice advantage in order to enjoy self-government. Thus 
 neither the sovereign nor the subject nations can avoid the 
 troubles and the problems of political liberty, which must 
 always be both the judge and the goal of all policy. 
 
 As I have indicated, at a very early time the British nation 
 regarded the transactions of the merchants in India as being 
 something more than trading affairs. We felt we were under- 
 taking political responsibilities, and consequently the long- 
 drawn-out history of the relations of the Company and the 
 Government tells the story of how the nation's sense of its 
 obligations to India overshadowed the original purpose of 
 the Company, and political intentions and ideas supplanted
 
 THE CONQUEST 35 
 
 those of trade. We regarded the people as wards, and we 
 governed as trustees. The Indian political problem has not 
 been one of how to keep a subject people in subjection, but 
 of how to lead a broken people into greater liberty. That, 
 at any rate, has been the professed intention of the governors 
 for generations. When the Mutiny broke out and challenged 
 our occupation, so firmly had that policy been established 
 that, despite the passions raised by some of its events and 
 the ruthless hand by which it was suppressed, the nation did 
 not change its purpose. 
 
 Because that was our policy we could boast that our army 
 of occupation was comparatively insignificant in its numbers, 
 and that the military had little or no influence on the govern- 
 ment of the country. India has not been kept by the sword, 
 but by the law ; not by fear, but by trust in Parliament. 
 Until but yesterday, when the foreign plant of anarchism 
 took feeble root in it, force has not challenged us since the 
 Mutiny, and Indian movements for a greater freedom have 
 been purely political. The statesman alone has ruled. His 
 problems (which he has faced with the uncertain vision which 
 is all that honest men can claim as a guide, and with the 
 mingled success and disappointment, consistency and incon- 
 sistency, which alone are possible in this world) have been 
 those of how to ascertain public opinion, to develop the 
 country, to make the people content, and to lead them to 
 freedom. It has been the problem of a people ruled by another 
 people in whose political philosophy a subject nation is regarded 
 as a blot, but which has been compelled by its history to accept 
 such a subject nation as an inheritance. Our political task in 
 India has been akin to the biological process of transmutation. 
 At no time has the ideally perfect been possible, so that at no 
 time could we be absolutely consistent. We have had to 
 swerve now and again. The pressure of circumstances has 
 occasionally driven our representatives from the principles 
 which, through the generations, we believed we were carrying 
 out, and they have sometimes met with regret and opposition
 
 36 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 the evidences of India's awakening ; but these uncertainties 
 have been but incidents on the way. As the trading station 
 inevitably became the political capital, so, with equal inevita- 
 bility, unless the British political genius is to change funda- 
 mentally for the worse, the British conquest is to issue in Indian 
 liberty and self-government.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL AND THE SECRETARY 
 
 OF STATE 
 
 I PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL 
 
 THE powers under which the Company worked not only 
 allowed it to trade without rivals, but to fortify its settlements, 
 maintain both land and sea forces, fight for its rights and 
 establish courts. Thus it proceeded not only to do business 
 but to acquire territory, and by the end of the seventeenth 
 century its political aspect was so important to it that in one 
 of its resolutions 1 it draws attention to the fact that the Dutch 
 Companies of a similar nature " write ten paragraphs concern- 
 ing their government, their civil and military policy, warfare, 
 and the increase of their revenue, for one paragraph they 
 write concerning trade," and suggests that the London Com- 
 pany should apportion its attentions accordingly. It also 
 states that the increase of its political revenue had become as 
 much its concern as the increase of its trade, and refers to its 
 task of " making us a nation in India." In this respect, as 
 in many others, Cromwell showed the prevision of a great 
 Imperial statesman and asked that " a national interest " 
 should be taken in India. As early as his time it was seen that 
 the Company was in reality a political body, and that its 
 existence was involving the whole nation in responsibility. 
 
 The Revolution of 1688 swept away the right of the Crown 
 to grant these trading monopolies, and when the Company, 
 putting its Charter privilege into force, detained a ship in the 
 
 1 1688. 
 37
 
 38 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Thames because it suspected that the cargo was to be used 
 to compete with its East India trade, Parliament stepped in 
 and declared against charters issued by the Crown giving 
 exclusive trading rights. There end and begin clearly marked 
 stages in the history of our conquest of India. At this point 
 the Company became a thing of Parliament and not of the 
 Crown, and subsequently, in renewing and amending its 
 charters, Parliament interfered more and more with the 
 conduct of the Company's business. For the next century 
 and a half the history of the Company is one of territorial 
 expansion in India with a progressive contraction of its in- 
 dependent governing authority and a growing control by 
 Parliament. 
 
 At first, Parliament was in the position of an uncomfortable 
 spectator seeing its recalcitrant and pushful subjects commit- 
 ting it to obligations against its will whilst it was powerless 
 to call a halt. "Forasmuch," said the Act of 1784, renew- 
 ing the Charter and voicing the long-held unhappy feelings 
 of the Government, "as to pursue schemes of conquest and 
 extension of dominion in India are measures repugnant to the 
 wish, the honour, and the policy of this nation, it shall not be 
 lawful for the Governor-General in Council to declare war 
 . . . without express command and authority " from the 
 Home Government. Parliament declared its authority, but 
 was in no position to enforce it. 
 
 In 1765 Clive returned to India to complete the task which 
 he had begun eight years before when he fought the battle of 
 Plassey, and created a condition of affairs which in a few years 
 led to the Company becoming possessed of the Diwani of 
 Bengal, Bihar and Orissa another landmark in the Conquest. 
 The history of the years was a strange mingling of great 
 honour and dishonour, when every quality which is the pride 
 of an Englishman has to be told of side by side with deeds that 
 are a disgrace to him. Within two years Clive was back in 
 England, having put the East India Company in possession 
 of the revenues of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and having taken
 
 PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL 39 
 
 the first step which finally transformed the trading Company 
 into an Imperial authority. However proud the country 
 was of Clive's wonderful achievements, and however generous 
 it desired to be in judging his conduct, there were faults in him 
 and his work which it could not overlook, which it could 
 not excuse, and which, if it had allowed to continue, would 
 have amounted to gross national neglect. 1 Moreover, the 
 affairs of the Company were in a bad way, and when it was 
 about to take charge of Bengal it was bankrupt, and had to 
 appeal in 1773 to Parliament for a loan of 1,400,000. It was 
 too soon for the nation to make itself directly responsible 
 for the government of the territories which had fallen under 
 the control of the Company, but it was not too soon for it 
 to begin imposing such conditions upon the Company as 
 would confine it in its transactions to ways approved by the 
 national sentiment. 
 
 It had, however, become evident that Parliament sooner 
 or later would have to supersede the Company. Lord 
 Chatham, in 1767, said: "No subjects could acquire the 
 sovereignty of any territory for themselves, but only for 
 the nation to which they belonged." But that was not to 
 be the first stage. Discussions in Parliament took place upon 
 what the Company and its officers had done the Company 
 had been slightly interfered with, as in 1767 and Select Com- 
 mittees enquired into its ways. In 1773 the East India Com- 
 pany Act now known as the " Regulating Act " was passed * 
 " for the better management of the said united Company's 
 affairs in India." It decreed the appointment of a Governor- 
 General with a Council of four in Bengal ; it gave the Governor- 
 General in Council a constitutional authority and placed him 
 supreme over the other Presidencies ; in particular it made 
 
 1 For instance, the Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons 
 in 1773 reported that between the beginning of 1767 and the end of 1766 
 the princes and other magnates of Bengal had distributed 5,940,987 
 amongst the servants of the Company. 
 
 * Whoever wishes to follow the legislation relating to the administration 
 of India must consult Sir Courtenay llbert's The Government of India.
 
 40 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 him the authority who alone could declare war ; it imposed 
 upon the Governor-General the duty of keeping in close 
 touch with the Court of Directors at home and taking orders 
 from them ; it provided for the establishment of a Supreme 
 Court appointed by the Crown ; it forbade the taking of 
 bribes or presents by the Governor-General, the members 
 of his Council, or the Judges ; it enacted that all rules and 
 ordinances promulgated by the Governor-General in Council 
 were to be sent to a Secretary of State at home, who, in the 
 name of the Crown, could communicate disapproval to the 
 Court of Directors, when the rule or ordinance objected to 
 became null and void ; and it provided for indictments against 
 the Governor-General, the Judges, and the chief officials 
 being laid and tried before the King's Bench in England. 
 
 This marks another departure. The political State was 
 taking charge of the politics of the trading Company. That 
 was the first step towards the Chatham ideal. It was an 
 attempt to divide trade from politics, to secure the adminis- 
 tration of justice, and to create a watchful eye with which 
 to examine the Company's proceedings. 
 
 In 1784 a further step was taken. The previous Act had 
 led to considerable difficulties. Party feeling at home ran high 
 and India was thrown into the whirlpool of home political 
 rivalries. Warren Hastings was not an easy man to control, 
 and when he had to please both his Court of Directors and 
 the Ministry, when he had to work with a Council the majority 
 of which opposed him, and face conflicts between his Council 
 and the Supreme Court of Calcutta, his task was no enviable 
 one and his stiffness of neck was not made more flexible. 
 He was never out of quarrels in Calcutta and criticisms at 
 home. Parliament continued to enquire and to be indignant. 
 It kept on protesting that it was not willing that the Com- 
 pany's directors should govern Indian States, but it was not 
 prepared to take the job on itself. It made up its mind to 
 lay a guiding hand as well as keep a watchful eye upon Indian 
 administration, and so it adopted the inevitable blundering
 
 PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL 41 
 
 compromise of creating a special Board of Control for which 
 a Minister was to be responsible to Parliament. The Com- 
 pany nominally ruled, but Ministers controlled. The Board 
 was to " superintend, direct, and control " the political work 
 of the Company. It could write or alter despatches and 
 compel the Company to accept its decisions. The Regulating 
 Act imposed rules ; this made an attempt to see that they 
 were steadily carried out. India was put under dual control, 
 and to this day we have not been able to rid ourselves 
 completely of this system. 
 
 Meanwhile the tide of annexation and conquest flowed on. 
 Wellesley, continuing and concluding Clive's work, was 
 responsible for making the drift into a conscious purpose of 
 dominion and " turned the East India Company, in spite 
 of itself, from a trading corporation into an imperial power." * 
 And during all this time the Company got into deeper and 
 deeper water. The forward policy of Lord Wellesley imposed 
 heavy financial and political burdens upon it. The part of 
 its work which belonged to the nation increased, that which 
 was its own dwindled. The House of Commons appointed 
 its usual committees of enquiry preparatory to renewing the 
 Charter in 1813. In the end, the Company's monopoly of 
 trade, except as regards tea, was taken from it. It was 
 becoming more and more evident that this trading company 
 on the one hand had to become a governing authority, and 
 on the other was of no use as such. After the usual interval 
 of twenty years, the Government of India Act, 1833, was 
 passed another conspicuous landmark in this period of 
 transition. Truly did Palmerston say that the Company 
 had then become " a phantom of its original body." ' In 
 its preamble the Act declared that " the United Company 
 of Merchants in England trading to the East Indies" were 
 willing to put their authority and property at the disposal 
 of Parliament. The Company's Charter was to be renewed 
 
 1 Lord WeUealey : Rulers of India (p. 206). 
 Hansard, February 12th, 1858.
 
 42 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 until 1854, and meantime it was to hold its property in trust 
 for the Crown and use it for the governing of India. All 
 trading monopoly was taken away, and the Company was 
 deprived of its commercial liberties. The Board of Commis- 
 sioners was to have absolute control of these governmental 
 properties and rights, and all letters and documents from 
 the Directors on Indian policy were to be submitted to it. 
 By this time only the dismissal of certain servants and the 
 Home establishment remained outside the control of the 
 Board. The Act also provided in very specific terms that 
 colour or race or religion should be no bar to the employment 
 of Indians in Government service. This Act was the begin- 
 ning of the end, the signal that the curtain was to drop and 
 close for ever that wonderful scene where masterful men 
 venturing after profits founded an Empire. The signal was 
 repeated in 1853, and the emphatic declaration made that 
 the administration of India was " too national a concern to 
 be left to the chances of benevolent despotism." 
 
 But before the curtain actually did drop, a wild act of 
 tragedy had to be gone through. India resented an intrusion. 
 She was broken and powerless, but she made one frantic 
 effort to throw us off. When Dalhousie arrived in Calcutta, 
 his predecessor bade him farewell with the assurance that no 
 gun need be fired in India for seven years. " The peace of 
 the country rests on the firmest and most permanent basis," 
 wrote the Friend of India that January (1848). In three 
 months the Punjab was in arms. The policy of Lord Welles- 
 ley to protect the princes of decaying States was ripening 
 into its inevitable harvest of annexation, for protection could 
 not be separated from responsibility. The Wellesley policy 
 of protection was the mother of the Dalhousie policy of 
 annexation. And so this administration which opened so 
 calmly became one of the most tempestuously difficult, and 
 led up to the supreme challenge of the Mutiny. No Company 
 could survive that. British rule in India had to be British 
 rule and become part and parcel of British responsibility
 
 PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL 43 
 
 shouldered by British sovereignty without any intermediary. 
 The process of the assimilation of the Company by Parliament 
 was complete. The Company ended and the Crown took its 
 place and the monarch being constitutional, the Crown 
 meant Parliament. 
 
 The intention of Parliament at the time is evident, and 
 appears in the debates on the Bills of 1858. Lord Palmerston, 
 introducing the first Bill of that year, stated that the time had 
 come to place " the executive functions of the government 
 of India at home . . . under the direct authority of the Crown, 
 to be governed in the name of the Crown by the responsible 
 ministers of the Crown, sitting in Parliament and responsible 
 to Parliament and the public." l Over the Council, its 
 President, being a member of the Cabinet, was to be the final 
 authority. He maintained that what improvement had been 
 made in India in late years " has been entirely the result 
 of debates in this and the other House of Parliament." * The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir G. C. Lewis, said : " I wish 
 to see the responsibility for Indian administration concen- 
 trated within a narrow sphere ; I wish to see that responsi- 
 bility under the clear control of this House." * On the third 
 and final Bill, Lord John Russell said : " We give to a Secre- 
 tary of State for India the power of directing and controlling 
 the affairs of that portion of the Empire." * 
 
 I regret that it must be admitted that Parliament has not 
 been a just and watchful steward. It holds no great debates 
 on Indian questions ; it looks after its own responsibilities 
 with far less care than it looked after those of the Company ; 
 its seats are empty when it has its annual saunter through 
 the Indian Budget, and even this homage of formal polite- 
 ness to India was neglected during the war ; it is aware of 
 India only when it is troubled by cotton duties, or when 
 something else arises which makes their constituencies remind 
 members that India is a British possession. And yet surely 
 
 1 Hansard, February 12th, 1858, p. 1282. 3 Ibid. pp. 1348-9. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 1291. * Ibid. July 8th, 1858, p. 1092.
 
 44 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 there is some pathos in the undoubted fact that India is kept 
 not by force, not by the excellence of its Civil Service, but 
 by its trust in the British Parliament. 
 
 II THE SECRETARY ol 1 STATE 
 
 The question of what is the real part played in the Govern- 
 ment of India by the Secretary of State is difficult to answer. 
 As a member of his political Party, he has a bias in certain 
 directions. He makes frontier wars alluring or reforms 
 interesting according to the known predilections of his political 
 creed. He imposes a fiscal policy also in accord with the 
 views of the Home Cabinet and the interests it has to serve. 
 He and his Council with the Viceroy and his Council are 
 undoubtedly together an Indian Executive, but in normal 
 tunes I think the truth is that the Secretary is quiescent except 
 for office work, and that the Indian part of the Executive is 
 the active part, except in so far as Indian affairs are aspects 
 of Home interests. India is really governed by the Civil 
 Service of India, whatever the constitutional facts may be. 
 The voluminous correspondence with Lord Minto which Lord 
 Morley has published in his Recollections shows a Secretary 
 with a policy gently but firmly piloting it along narrow rock- 
 bound channels ; but in that case, as indeed in regard to the 
 Montagu-Chelmsford proposals as well, the start is made by 
 agreement in both Whitehall and Simla that something must 
 be done, and the rest is the story of a bargain. The more 
 that self-Government is developed in India, the less will the 
 Secretary of State count. He is generally distrusted by the 
 bureaucracy because he represents Parliament and a little 
 of democracy, and for a short time after his appointment he 
 is an object of curiosity to Indians. When he has a will 
 and ideas, he has power and can exercise it. His constitu- 
 tional position is therefore less important for practical pur- 
 poses than his personality. 
 
 Still, there can be no question about the supremacy of 
 Parliament and none about the responsibility of the Secretary
 
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE 45 
 
 of State. And yet the Secretary is in a position constitution- 
 ally different from any other Secretary of State. His salary 
 is not paid from British revenues, and he has to act with a 
 Council. Both of these peculiarities are survivals from Com- 
 pany rule, the one reminding us that the Company paid for 
 the Indian government and India House out of Indian revenue, 
 and the other that Parliament's power was once limited to 
 checking Indian administration. A habit has more influence 
 upon an Englishman than a reason. 
 
 The Secretary of State's salary is paid from Indian revenues, 1 
 and his policy consequently cannot be reviewed in the House 
 of Commons, as is the case when Supply for other Depart- 
 ments is being discussed. This is why reformers every year, 
 in connection with the Indian Budget debate, used to discuss 
 a resolution to put the Secretary of State's salary upon the 
 estimates and pay it from Home resources. The effect of 
 this change would be formally to announce the control of 
 Parliament over Indian affairs. That he is in fact fully 
 responsible to Parliament is nevertheless true, as was shown 
 by Mr. Austen Chamberlain's resignation in consequence of 
 the exposure of the scandal connected with the lack of supply 
 of medical stores to the army operating in Mesopotamia in 
 1915-16. This limitation of Parliamentary control, though 
 it would be convenient if it were removed, is of no substantial 
 importance, as, in spite of it, Parliament can question the 
 Secretary and can exercise control over him, whenever it 
 comes to discuss his conduct, by one of the several ways pro- 
 vided, in addition to voting his salary. 
 
 The other limitation is more serious, and provides the 
 Secretary with a double allegiance and responsibility which 
 not only makes him less than the servant of Parliament, but 
 enables him to shield himself from Parliamentary criticism 
 and puts him in a position which tends to weaken Parlia- 
 mentary control.* 
 
 1 Government of India Act, c. 6. 
 
 1 Writing to Lord Minto after the long discussions on the Reform Scheme
 
 46 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 The original of the Secretary of State's Council was the 
 Board of Control created by the Act of 1784. Our Colonies, 
 being, from their origin, constitutionally possessions of the 
 Crown, came to be governed (apart from the realities of 
 Parliamentary control, and subsequently of their own con- 
 stitutions) by the King in Council that is, the Privy Council ; 
 whereas our Empire in India, being the creation of a trading 
 Company which at an early stage Parliament held to be 
 responsible to it, came to be governed not by the King in 
 Council, but by a Secretary of State in Council, and thus 
 historical forms were preserved and the Board of Control 
 idea survived in a new body adapted to the new constitu- 
 tion. It is too often a characteristic of our methods of govern- 
 ment that we continue to work with old machinery after it 
 has ceased to have any meaning, or when the effect of its 
 working has been altered. It seems to be a safeguard against 
 revolutionary change. In reality it is a survival of the useless, 
 and leads to inefficiency, if not to greater evil. 
 
 The Board, which at first consisted of not more than six 
 Privy Councillors, of whom the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 and a Secretary of State had to be two, was modified in its 
 composition from time to time. Since 1811 the President 
 of the Board had been a member of the Cabinet, and when 
 Parliament supplanted the Company, the Act of 1858 retained 
 the Board, called it a Council, and fixed its membership at 
 fifteen. Ten members required as a qualification that they 
 had served or resided in India at least ten years, and had 
 not left India for more than ten years. The membership is 
 now fourteen, and ten of the members must have been in 
 India for ten years and have left it for not longer than five 
 
 were over, Lord Morley remarks with reference to the powers which agree- 
 ments between Councils in Simla and Whitehall give : " When Whitehall 
 and Simla come to an agreement, the matter is practically over, whereas a 
 Cabinet has to fight its Bill through the two Houses " (Recollections, ii. 
 p. 322). Thus the settlement of great Indian affairs now takes place out- 
 side Parliament, which, assuming the superior knowledge of the expert Councils 
 generally, agrees to their agreement.
 
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE 47 
 
 years. They are appointed by the Secretary of State, and 
 hold office for seven years, but may be reappointed for 
 another five, in which case a memorandum justifying the 
 reappointment must be laid before both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment. 1 Members may be removed from office by the Crown 
 on an address from both Houses. No member of the Council 
 may be a Member of Parliament. Lord Morley wished to 
 appoint Lord Cromer, but could not because he was a Member 
 of the House of Lords.* The salary attached to the office 
 is 1,000 per annum. Five members must be present when 
 business is transacted. Meetings must be held at least once 
 a week, and the Secretary of State presides as a rule. For 
 the transaction of business the Council is divided into Com- 
 mittees which concern themselves with different branches of 
 work, but attempts made to departmentalise the work by 
 giving members a portfolio have wisely been frustrated hither- 
 to. Except when secrecy is required, all orders and communi- 
 cations must be submitted to the Council, but the Secretary 
 of State may override the opinion of a majority of the Council 
 except as regards the expenditure of Indian revenues, the 
 disposal of property, and such financial matters. This power 
 is, however, of little use. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the Council is not merely an advisory 
 body. It has authority. It has not only to be consulted, 
 it has to agree. The awkwardness of the situation which 
 would be created if the Secretary forced his desires in the 
 teeth of the opposition of his Council, even when he has con- 
 stitutional authority for doing so, limits his authority in 
 practice more than it is limited by law. On the one hand, 
 there is the Secretary of State, who comes and goes with 
 political majorities in the House of Commons, who conse- 
 quently is appointed to bring to bear upon the Government 
 of India influences congenial to public opinion and to the 
 political principles of the party which he represents, and who 
 
 1 Government of India Act, 1915, s. 3. 
 1 Recollections, ii. 233.
 
 48 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 is responsible to the House of Commons for his policy, and 
 to the Cabinet, of which he is a member. On the other hand, 
 his action is limited by a Council which is more of the nature 
 of a body of civil servants, but which has the power in the 
 most essential matters of government to hamper the Secretary 
 of State in doing what he thinks he ought to do. 1 And this 
 Council is non-representative ; it acts of its own untrammelled 
 will ; it is not directly responsible to Parliament. This 
 constitutional anomaly could not have existed for a genera- 
 tion if Parliament had taken an active interest in Indian 
 affairs. 
 
 The intention of Parliament in maintaining the Board of 
 Control was to recognise that the Government of India required 
 special knowledge. When the Company administered, public 
 opinion and political responsibility had to watch it ; when 
 Parliament became responsible, expert knowledge had to 
 guide it. Parliament decided that it had to receive infor- 
 mation hence the Annual Report on the Material and Moral 
 Progress of India and the statutory Financial Statements * 
 and it established the custom of an annual debate on the 
 Indian Budget not always observed, however. But for 
 the details of the administration it did not leave the Secre- 
 tary for India as it left the Secretary for the Colonies, and so 
 it adopted, as I have explained, the method of dual control. 
 
 Obviously there are all the elements, on paper at any rate, 
 of a serious clash of authority in this arrangement, and very 
 soon after it was adopted, the position of the Council was 
 the subject of discussion in Parliament. In 1869 the matter 
 was debated in the House of Lords, when lawyers took hope- 
 lessly conflicting views. But the Duke of Argyll laid down 
 the common-sense political doctrine. He held that the Council, 
 
 1 Lord Morley, writing to Lord Minto whilst discussing the projected 
 Reform scheme, said : " There was always the off-chance that something 
 might go wrong, first in Cabinet, second in my Council, and third, and most 
 dangerous, in the H. of C." (Recollections, ii. 216). He was " relieved " 
 at not having to overrule his Council (ibid. ii. 317). 
 
 * Government of India Act, 1858, s. 53.
 
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE 49 
 
 though a quasi-Parliament for certain matters, and instituted 
 by Parliament as its deputy, was yet subject to Parliament. 
 " It ought to be clearly understood that the moment the 
 House steps in and expresses an opinion on a subject con- 
 nected with India, that moment the jurisdiction of the Council 
 ought to cease." The point, however, is not so much what 
 such a body would do on the occasion of open conflict with 
 the Secretary of State, the Cabinet, or Parliament itself 
 (as when the House of Lords challenged the financial authority 
 of the House of Commons in 1909), but what its influence 
 is in the ordinary conduct of Indian affairs. Constitutional 
 definitions are rarely the subject of high dispute. The Council 
 is there day by day, a perpetual influence, a presence that is 
 felt and that is its importance. 
 
 Attempts have been made from time to time to reconstruct 
 the Council, and the Government in 1914 proposed, in a Bill 
 which was mainly consolidating, that the Secretary could 
 appoint Committees of the Council to take " departments " 
 of business in charge. This is an old proposal and is made 
 by those who wish to strengthen the authority of the Council. 
 It is alleged that specialisation would mean more definite 
 responsibility and more thoroughness in work. It might, 
 but it proceeds on the assumption that important authority 
 ought still to be exercised from London, and that the Secre- 
 tary for India should have a divided responsibility between 
 Parliament and his Council. Not a few who advocate the 
 change also wish to strengthen the Council against both the 
 Secretary and Parliament. For these very reasons, the pro- 
 posal strikes at both Parliamentary control and self-govern- 
 ment, and ought to be opposed. For reasons which I now 
 proceed to give, the Council should be weakened and abolished 
 rather than strengthened and fixed in the Indian Constitution. 
 
 Since 1860 things have changed greatly. The authority 
 of government has gone more and more to India itself, and 
 the opinion which guides it cannot be reproduced by Anglo- 
 Indians or Indians sitting in Whitehall, but only by Indians 
 4
 
 50 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 living in India and by Indian institutions. If the Secretary 
 requires any guidance here it ought to be given by a Parlia- 
 mentary Advisory Committee which will watch Indian affairs 
 lest haply light can be thrown upon them by our own experi- 
 ences. An Indian as Under-Secretary at Whitehall would be 
 desirable, 1 but the appointment to the Council of Indians 
 separated from India and living in a foreign atmosphere of 
 thought and interest does not amount to much, and certainly 
 can never justify the existence of such an authority. It is 
 a cumbersome machine of check and counter-check if it has 
 any use at all. It destroys real Parliamentary interest with- 
 out giving Indian control or expert political advice. It 
 prevents such a reorganisation of the India Office duties as 
 will put that Office into proper relationship with the Indian 
 Government on the one hand, and British representative 
 institutions on the other. It is not government or advice by 
 the expert, but by the official. It is an adjunct to bureau- 
 cracy, not to Indian opinion. It is a Civil Service imposed as 
 a check upon a Legislature, and it becomes more and more 
 anomalous as representative institutions in India are estab- 
 lished and broadened. 
 
 At the moment, the machine works, but the relation of its 
 parts is ill defined. The intention of Parliament in 1868 was 
 apparently to give the power of initiative to the Government 
 in India, that of examination and revision to the Secretary 
 of State's Council, that of veto to the Secretary himself. But 
 that did not suit a Home Cabinet, which had views of its 
 own on certain Indian affairs, especially economic ones, 
 and in 1870 the Duke of Argyll in correspondence with Lord 
 Mayo, the Viceroy, issued an order that the Government 
 in India was part of the Home Executive and subordinate 
 to the Cabinet , and that official members and the Viceroy should 
 take instructions from home. This point was raised later 
 on by Lord Salisbury when he insisted upon being con- 
 sulted on all legislative proposals of importance ; and when, 
 1 Since this was written this has been done.
 
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE 61 
 
 in 1875, the Government of India passed a Tariff Bill impos- 
 ing duties upon cotton, angry correspondence followed, and 
 Lord Salisbury issued his order that the duty would have 
 to be removed as quickly as possible. Upon this, the 
 Viceroy resigned. It has also been laid down by a Secretary 
 of State that the Council can be independent in its criticism 
 only so long as the Cabinet allows it. But these high 
 pronouncements do not disturb the normal working of the 
 machine. The Government in India holds the administrative 
 initiative; the Secretary of State holds the legislative and 
 constitutional initiative provided he carries his Council with 
 him ; the control of Parliament is in reserve to be used when 
 required. 
 
 Thus we understand how the control of Parliament has 
 always remained obscure, and in recent times the doctrine 
 has become fashionable in some quarters that it hardly exists. 
 We have been told that the Government in India is the only 
 Indian Government. That, however, has no legal nor his- 
 torical countenance. It is the doctrine of a ruling class. 
 Let us not put the value of Parliamentary control too high, 
 however. The democratic theory of Parliamentary control 
 rests on the fact that a representative Parliament has as its 
 judge and arbiter the people who experience its rule ; but 
 obviously a Parliament acting as a trustee for people not 
 represented in it, has none of the characteristics of a repre- 
 sentative authority, and is only subject to the public opinion 
 of the trustee constituencies on matters relating to the people 
 held in wardship. Now, British opinion on Indian affairs 
 does not exist except on odd events at odd times. Parliament 
 therefore controls Indian affairs, as a matter of actual fact, 
 only in so far as the very few British subjects in Parliament 
 or out of it take a continuous interest in, or have a real know- 
 ledge of, Indian matters. What little this amounts to is 
 seen in the deserted House of Commons when the Indian 
 Budget is under discussion. Accepted British moral or 
 political standards cannot be violated without Parliamentary
 
 52 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 challenge, but it is difficult to get that interest and knowledge 
 in the constituencies or in Parliament to say when they are 
 violated, and the rule is that the Government in India, so 
 far as Parliament is concerned, has things pretty much in 
 its own hands. Besides, the fact that a large proportion 
 of members of both Houses interested in India are men who 
 have been in one or other of the Indian Services reduces the 
 value of Parliament as a controlling authority. 
 
 Thus we have to face this difficulty. The control of Parlia- 
 ment over India cannot in the nature of things mean the 
 same thing as the control of Parliament over Home affairs ; 
 a bureaucratic Government in India can never be trusted with 
 arbitrary powers, because such arbitrariness would be more 
 objectionable than a Moghul tyranny, which was, in the last 
 resort, curbed by rebellion or poison ; therefore, whilst Par- 
 liamentary control is an enormous advance upon Company 
 rule, and is a constitutional fact which should be strenuously 
 preserved and not allowed to lapse into practical desuetude, 
 there is a stage beyond it when the real control of Indian 
 government should rest with those who benefit or suffer 
 from that government. Parliament must be careful, however, 
 not to abandon its control in a transition stage when certain 
 Indian interests and classes are enfranchised and have power 
 (whether they use it or not does not matter) to oppress other 
 interests and classes not yet enfranchised. The period of 
 trusteeship is not ended until India can be responsible for 
 its own government as Australia, Canada, and South Africa are. 
 
 The changes now required are that the Secretary of State's 
 salary, like that of the Colonial Secretary, should be put upon 
 the British Estimates ; that, as has been done recently, the 
 Under-Secretary should be an Indian whenever possible indeed 
 there is no reason why, if an Indian with the requisite know- 
 ledge of and position in British politics should exist, he should 
 not be the Secretary of State ; the Council should be abolished 
 and its place taken by a Departmental Advisory Committee 
 appointed each session from Members of Parliament this
 
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE 63 
 
 last being created not owing to any special circumstances 
 connected with the India Office, but as part of a great scheme 
 to associate Parliament more intimately than it now is with 
 the administration of Departments ; there should steadily 
 be kept in view the end when Parliamentary control over 
 Indian affairs will fade to the intangible shadow which it 
 now is over Dominion affairs.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE VICEROY 
 
 THE supreme head of the Government in India is the Viceroy ; 
 but however high the pinnacle upon which he sits may soar 
 above the Himalayan heights of the rulers of India, it comes 
 decidedly short of the august peaks of kingship. The Viceroy 
 is surrounded by pomp and awe ; ceremony walks behind 
 and before him, and does obeisance to him. But everyone 
 seems to be conscious that he comes and goes, and that when 
 the guns have fired their parting salute on his leaving Bombay 
 at the end of five years, he steps down from his summit and 
 returns to a meaner dwelling-place. In the minds of the 
 masses he is the great lord ; in those of the educated and 
 political sections he is the head of the administration, and 
 enjoys an authority which is great but limited and is not 
 altogether removed from controversy. 
 
 The viceroyalty is doomed to the limits of constitutional 
 government. Appointed by warrant under the Royal Sign 
 Manual, the Viceroy is required "to pay due obedience to 
 all such orders as he may receive from the Secretary of State," 
 and he is given advisers who are more than advisers. More- 
 over, he comes, knowing little about India, to work with a 
 powerful body of men knowing, in one sense, everything about 
 India, and he is a man of an exceptional will if he disagrees 
 with his advisers and reaches his own goals. He goes out 
 with an unformed mind ; it takes him at least a year to get 
 the hang of things ; he packs up during the last year ; he is 
 working all the time with a machine too big and too complex 
 for any man to control. 
 
 54
 
 THE VICEROY 65 
 
 The Viceroy came when the Company ended, and its vast 
 possessions passed to the Crown. In the first stage of the 
 Company its affairs, then trading only, were administered 
 from the three centres of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta by 
 a President acting with a Council of the senior servants of 
 the Company. These Presidents were directly subject to 
 the Board of Directors in London. But when the Company's 
 trade drove it into politics and politics drove it into war, an 
 organisation well enough adapted to keep ledgers and stores 
 and conduct the diplomacy of trade, was of no use. The 
 Company had established a market which was transformed 
 under its hands into an Empire, and in the transformation 
 men, surrounded by temptation and opportunity to amass 
 wealth, succumbed. The Company's finances fell upon evil 
 days ; the Company's servants returned with untold wealth. 
 So in 1773 Parliament had to step in and passed the Regu- 
 lating Act, the political purpose of which was to co-ordinate 
 the government of the Presidencies by placing Bengal at 
 their head. Madras and Bombay were not to be allowed to 
 make wars without the consent of Bengal. Thus the supremacy 
 of Bengal was established, its Governor was to be Governor- 
 General, and he, sitting in Council, was to be the supreme 
 political authority of the Presidencies. He was still to be 
 appointed by the Company, and was given a Council of four. 
 Warren Hastings was, however, named in the Act as the 
 first Governor-General, and the members of his Council were 
 also named, but further appointments were to be made by 
 the Directors. By the Act of 1784, however, the nomination 
 of the Governor-General by the Directors had to receive the 
 approval of the Crown. The first two Governors-General 
 belonged to the regime of Company servants, but Lord 
 Cornwallis went out in 1786, the first of the great political 
 Governors. 
 
 The transformation from trade to politics and from markets 
 to empires went on apace, and the Act of 1833 accepted the 
 change and was passed to meet its requirements. In this
 
 56 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Act words were used for the first time which implied that we 
 were governing India and not merely Bengal, Madras, Calcutta, 
 and Bombay ; the Governor-General was no longer " of 
 Bengal," but " of India." In 1854 the Governor-General 
 was relieved of his duties as the Governor of Bengal, and a 
 Lieutenant-Governor was appointed to that Province. In 
 1858 India was transferred to the Crown, and the Governor- 
 General became Viceroy and was appointed by Royal Warrant, 
 his term of office being five years. The term " Viceroy " 
 was used in the Proclamation of Lord Canning's appointment 
 in 1858, but has not appeared in constitutional documents. 
 It is in use for courtesy and ceremonial purposes only. The 
 seat of the Government of India remained, however, in Calcutta, 
 thus continuing its historical origin in the Governorship of 
 Bengal, until 1912, when it was transferred to Delhi, and all 
 traces of the day when the Governorship of Bengal carried 
 with it the Governor-Generalship of India disappeared. 1 
 
 The Viceroy has power as well as title and prestige. He 
 makes himself responsible for the foreign affairs of India 
 chiefly frontier matters and the relation of the Native States 
 to the Government of India as though he were head of that 
 Department, and he takes an active concern in every im- 
 portant piece of business done by any Department.* His 
 authority is derived from being "in Council," and he must, 
 as a rule, carry a majority of his Council with him. But 
 whilst that is a real check, it comes far short of an absolute 
 one. Saving in certain directions, each Viceroy makes his 
 own power. Lord Curzon did what he liked, his successor 
 did what other people liked, and his successor again took 
 the medium course of doing in his own way what he and other 
 people wished to do, and used the support of Indian opinion 
 
 1 The Durbar at which the change was announced was held at Delhi in 
 December 1911. 
 
 * The power of declaring peace or war or to make treaties ia expressly 
 withheld from the Viceroy and his Council, and reserved for the Home Govern- 
 ment.
 
 THE VICEROY 67 
 
 in doing some things of which his Council did not 
 approve. 
 
 The Viceroy performs three great functions. He personifies 
 the Crown, he represents the Home Government, he is the 
 head of the administration. 
 
 The first is now his proper function. He is the Crown 
 visible in India, the ceremonial head of the sovereignty, the 
 great lord. He is the seat of justice and mercy, and catches 
 up in himself, by virtue of his office, the historical traditions 
 and sentiments of rulership. The more this is isolated from 
 his other functions the better will be our system of rule in 
 India. 
 
 As representative of the Home Government he has his 
 origin in a political party, and though owing to changes in 
 the political wheel of fortune at home he may find himself 
 the representative of a party which is not his own as Lord 
 Minto did when the Liberals came into power at the end of 
 1905 he has to carry out its policy or resign as Lord Lytton 
 did in 1880 when a general election wiped out the Conservative 
 majority. Whilst performing this function he is really 
 subordinate to the Secretary of State. Lord Salisbury made 
 this perfectly plain to Lord Northbrook in 1875. 1 The amount 
 of this subordination, however, depends on the personality 
 of the Viceroy and the Secretary. Lord Salisbury made 
 this subordination apparent with his fist, Lord Morley with 
 his persuasiveness. On purely Indian affairs it scarcely exists, 
 though in such matters as police behaviour and frontier 
 politics the Viceroy has to consider British opinion and Par- 
 liamentary interest. It is most definite when British and 
 Indian interests conflict and when the Viceroy, believing 
 that those of India lie in one direction i.e. cotton duties 
 is yet forbidden to pursue it by the Home Government. His 
 subordination in this respect involves the subordination of 
 his Council, as Lord Lytton found when he took Lord North- 
 brook's place and proceeded to carry out the instructions 
 
 1 Cf. chap. ii. p. 51.
 
 58 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 which Lord Northbrook declined. Again, as custodian of the 
 Foreign affairs of India, he has to carry out the policy of the 
 Home Government in all matters of Imperial interest whether 
 for the good of India or not, but he is in a position like 
 Dalhousie to make certain developments necessary. The 
 rein that controls him is of necessity somewhat loose. In 
 his relations with the Native States he has a pretty free hand, 
 and the frontier policy he pursues must be determined by 
 what arises, but he must always remember the general 
 Imperial opinions of the party in power at home. Nominally 
 the power of declaring war is withheld from him; actually 
 he has the power of creating the conditions which lead to war. 
 In this respect the action of the India Office under Mr. Broderick 
 in revising and substantially altering, in 1904, the treaty 
 which the Indian Government made with Tibet emphasised the 
 subordination of the Viceroy as the mouthpiece and echo of 
 the Home Government, and the discomfiture of the wilful 
 Lord Curzon in his contest with Lord Kitchener was a further 
 demonstration of the subordination of the Viceroy to the 
 Secretary of State. Lord Morley introduced a gentler hand 
 but not a new policy. 
 
 As the head of the Indian administration the Viceroy has 
 much opportunity of acting as autocrat, as Lord Hardinge 
 sometimes did with good practical results. His minatory 
 warning to the South African Government when it was acting 
 tyrannically and oppressively to Hindus was made on his own 
 initiative when sojourning in Madras and without consulting 
 his advisers, it is said. In performing this function he is 
 limited by the India Office and the Secretary of State, and 
 by his Council, but an enlightened Viceroy like Lord Hardinge 
 will also take into account what he conceives to be Indian 
 public opinion and will act upon it and take the risks. But 
 he has to bear his share of any unpopularity which his Council 
 may receive, and in this position he, like a Prime Minister, 
 is at the head of a Government which, under the conditions 
 of India, has the country for an official Opposition.
 
 THE VICEROY 69 
 
 Obviously, it is undesirable that this union of functions 
 should last ; it cannot last after the political consciousness 
 of India has become awakened. The Viceroy should remain 
 the representative of the Crown and be endowed with the 
 dignity of that office. But he ought not to be the represen- 
 tative of the Home Government or the responsible head of 
 the Indian administration. The President of the Council 
 should be a separate functionary, and the Viceroy should be 
 kept in touch with the India Office and the Indian adminis- 
 tration as the Crown is kept in touch with the Cabinet and 
 Parliament. That change is necessary in the interest of the 
 Viceroy himself, and in that of India, and the development 
 of responsible government there demands that it should be 
 made without delay.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 
 
 THE affairs of the Company in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay 
 were administered by the President and a Council consisting 
 of the senior servants of the Company. Decisions were 
 arrived at by voting. Lord North's Regulating Act of 1773 
 appointing a Governor-General gave him a Council of four ; 
 eleven years later the number was reduced to three, of whom 
 the Commander-in-Chief was to be one ; nine years after- 
 wards it was decided that if the Commander-in-Chief should 
 sit on the Council he was to be an extra member; a fourth 
 member was added in 1833 for legislative purposes the Law 
 member but he was not to be allowed to take part in adminis- 
 trative business, and this limitation existed till 1853 ; in 
 1861 a fifth member was added to take charge of finance ; 
 in 1874 power was given to the Governor-General to add a 
 sixth member to look after Public Works, but the power was 
 not always used, and in 1904 such an appointment was 
 definitely provided for. 1 The members are appointed by 
 Royal Warrant ; they must at present be five, but, by the will 
 of the Crown, may be six, three of whom must have been, 
 at the time of appointment, at least ten years in the service 
 of the Crown in India, and one must be a barrister or advocate 
 of at least five years' standing. The Commander-in-Chief 
 
 1 The Bill which Mr. Disraeli introduced in 1858 to transfer the Govern- 
 ment of India to the Crown proposed that part of the Council should be 
 elected by holders of India Government and Railway stock resident in Man- 
 chester and other large towns, but the confusion of a Legislature and an 
 Executive combined with such an absurd franchise was laughed to scorn. 
 
 60
 
 61 
 
 may be appointed an extraordinary member, and when the 
 Council sits in a province which has a Governor, that Governor 
 is, for the tune being, also an extraordinary member. 
 
 The evolution of the Council is not without interest. The 
 Regulating Act established Committee Government and gave 
 the Committee a chairman. There was no attempt, as is 
 usual in the government of dependencies, to consult any 
 interest except that of the trading Company, and it is from 
 that beginning that we must always remember to trace the 
 evolution of Indian government if we are to understand it. 
 The next stage was that of individual rule after consultation 
 with a Committee, a Secretary of State standing behind to 
 check and correct if the ruler disagreed with his advisers. 
 
 The feud between Philip Francis, who was named in the 
 Regulating Act a Member of Council, and Warren Hastings 
 was conducted in India by two parties on the Council of 
 which the Francis party was the stronger. That ended 
 majority rule. Lord Cornwallis, who succeeded, insisted 
 upon being able to override a majority of the Council should 
 he feel it to be necessary to do so, and that remains the position 
 to-day. The rule is that the Viceroy should act with the 
 majority of his Council, but he may set aside that majority 
 if he disagrees with it on matters which he considers affect 
 " the safety, tranquillity, or interests of British India." Then, 
 however, if two members of the Council insist upon it, a 
 statement of the point in dispute, with minutes and explana- 
 tions, must be sent to the Secretary of State. 
 
 Then the next stage came. At first the Council was a Com- 
 mittee of similar members and not a gathering of departmental 
 heads. But as the work of administration became more 
 complicated, it had to be specialised. First of all came the 
 appointment of the Law member, and then the Finance 
 one was added, and when Canning's reforming hand re- 
 arranged Indian administration, to each member of Council 
 was assigned a special department for the working of which 
 he was to be responsible to the Governor-General. During
 
 62 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 the Governor-Generalship of both Lord Canning and Lord 
 Elgin this responsibility was real and rigid, but it gradually 
 slackened, as it was bound to do, though according to the 
 Report of the Decentralisation Commission " a large amount 
 of work " is still thrown on the Viceroy as the final authority 
 in all departmental affairs. 
 
 Then the Council became a Cabinet 1 such as we had in 
 the last generation when the Prime Minister listened to the 
 advice of his departmental heads and decided for himself.* 
 But it was more than a Cabinet, for it was really responsible 
 for the rules and regulations which the Governor-General 
 was empowered to issue as laws ; and though such regulations 
 had to comply with certain conditions and might be upset 
 by the King in Council, the authority which issued them was 
 a quasi-Legislature. Later on Legislative Councils appeared, 
 so limited in their powers, however, and so constituted that 
 to this day the Council has more legislative authority than 
 the Legislative Councils. The evolution is now tending to 
 weaken the Executive in this respect and strengthen the other 
 until in fact the latter becomes what it is in name, a Legis- 
 lative Council. 
 
 At present the Executive consists of the Viceroy, who 
 keeps, as I have said, in his own hands responsibility for 
 Foreign Affairs, including the control of the Frontier Province ; 
 the Commander-in-Chief , who is the head of the Military 
 Department ; and members in charge of Home ; Finance ; 
 Revenue and Agriculture ; Public Works ; Commerce and 
 Industry; Military Supply* ; Education and Legal Departments. 
 These offices are held for five years, and are filled by the 
 Crown, for the most part hitherto from members of the Indian 
 
 i Though the use of this word requires a warning that its strict employ- 
 ment ia in connection with Parliamentary Government, and not with a 
 bureaucracy of Civil Servants and Crown appointees. 
 
 1 Lord Curzon's statement (Indian Speeches, ii. p. 299) that " the Viceroy 
 haa no more weight in his Council than any individual member of it" ia 
 a fanciful exaggeration of the Viceroy's weakness. 
 
 * Under the control of the Commander-in-Chief.
 
 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 63 
 
 Civil Service. The Legal member is not a civilian, the Finance 
 member generally is taken alternately from the Home and 
 the Indian Civil Service ; the most recent appointment to 
 the Education Department Sir Sankaran Nair came from 
 the Madras Bench ; two Indians have been appointed to the 
 Legal Department, one a Hindu and the other a Mohammedan, 
 and it was assumed that the Law member would henceforth 
 be an Indian chosen alternately from the Hindu and the 
 Mohammedan communities, though it is said not to have 
 worked very well. It would have been unfortunate, however, 
 had any special office been ear-marked in this way, and an 
 Englishman was appointed in 1915. The Civil Service is 
 exceedingly jealous of any encroachment upon its rights to 
 fill these offices, which it considers belong to it as part of the 
 Service for which its members were recruited, and when 
 Mr. Clark (now Sir William) was sent from the Home Service 
 to take charge of Commerce and Industry in 1910, much 
 dissatisfaction arose in the Indian Service. 
 
 The members of Council control the administration of 
 their offices subject to the approval of the Viceroy, who has 
 to be consulted on certain eventualities, 1 and they meet 
 usually once a week as a Cabinet to discuss with the Viceroy 
 matters submitted to them. Each Department has a Secre- 
 tary corresponding to the Permanent Secretary to a Depart- 
 ment at home, and these Secretaries attend Council meetings 
 to give information. 
 
 The Governor-General presides over the Council, but when 
 he is absent, a member, generally the senior member, may 
 take his place and may otherwise act for him. During Lord 
 Hardinge's illness after he was hurt by the bomb at Delhi, 
 Sir Guy Fleetwood- Wilson, the Finance member, presided 
 regularly over the Council meetings. 
 
 1 " In the year 1907-8 no leas than 21 '7 per cent, of the cases which arose 
 in, or came up to, the Home Department required submission to the Viceroy " 
 (Report of the Decentralisation Commission, Cd. 4360, 1909, p. 11). From the 
 nature of ita work this proportion is much higher in this Department than 
 in any other.
 
 64 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 A Cabinet composed like this mainly of Civil Servants 
 and officials has obvious drawbacks. Members do not resign 
 upon policy, for they are an administrative Civil Service. 
 The scheme of Indian Government lacks the element of re- 
 sponsibility. As regards India, the Council is a superior will ; 
 as regards the Secretary of State, it is a superior knowledge. 
 At no place in the system of Indian administration does 
 public opinion come in with its fresh motives, ideals, and 
 purposes formed outside offices and nurtured on something 
 else than departmental files. From beginning to end, 
 the office and the official mind dominate Indian Government, 
 and thus the work of Delhi and Simla consists very largely 
 in imposing upon India what departmental offices and officials 
 consider to be advantageous. Hence the bureaucracy 
 becomes self-centred, the governing machine becomes polished 
 but unsympathetic, mechanical accuracy and efficiency are 
 its inspirations rather than a desire for freedom and experi- 
 ment. The official controls the policy as well as the working 
 of the policy. The result is admirable as an efficient adminis- 
 trative product, it gives great benefits to the people, but 
 the system lacks that adaptability and accommodation to 
 outside opinion which, it is true, the expert generally holds 
 in low esteem, but which is the secret of political wisdom. 
 It is strong in everything except the faculty of consulting 
 the people. It has not understood the truth that is in the 
 adage that wise government is self-government even if it be 
 not the most efficient government. 
 
 Now, a change is coming. Outside opinion, better organised 
 than ever, more representative, and with some authority on 
 the various Legislative Councils, is compelling the bureaucracy 
 to listen, and many members of the bureaucracy are listening 
 gladly. The expert is recognising the fact that his task is 
 getting more difficult as he has now to deal with a political 
 spirit, and he is preparing to meet his changed circumstances. 
 The appointment of Sir Sankaran Nair to the Education De- 
 partment was of far more significance than that of an Indian
 
 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 65 
 
 lawyer to the Law Department, because it was an appoint- 
 ment of an Indian to a Department of constructive policy 
 and not to one of technical knowledge ; but the time has now 
 come for a much bolder advance. The Legislature must be 
 joined to the Executive by the appointment of members of 
 the Legislature to some of the Departments. 
 
 This Cabinet of Civil Servants was inevitable. It had to 
 take possession of those high executive offices which are 
 political in their nature, because there were no politics in 
 India. The nominees of monarchs and rulers have always 
 filled these posts because India has been autocratically ruled, 
 and there has been none of those safeguards of democratic 
 administration like the separation of the legislative from 
 the administrative functions of the Government. The King 
 and his servants have been the administration, the Courts, 
 and the Legislature. The British compromise between its 
 own method of government and the conditions of India was 
 to send out a Viceroy who would have some political experi- 
 ence, or at any rate political opinions of a general character, 
 and who would be guided and advised by men who had spent 
 their lives in administering Indian districts. Thus the mind 
 of general intention and that of detailed knowledge were 
 mingled, and if the latter, from the circumstances of the case, 
 was almost uniformly the more powerful, it was honest and 
 devoted. If " superior " it was not corrupt, and its mogt 
 severe critic can attribute to it no vices excepting those 
 which belong to its own nature, and to the system of govern- 
 ment which it found established in India and from which it 
 derived its parentage. 
 
 The members of the Council sit as members of the Imperial 
 Legislative Council and have to answer questions and take 
 charge of the business of their various Departments. When 
 the Legislative Councils were established in 1853, the Vice- 
 roy's Council was embarrassed by questions and criticisms, 
 and had to be protected in 1861, by curtailing the power 
 of Legislative Councils, as I shall describe in the next 
 5
 
 66 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 chapter. But the movement so suddenly begun in 1853 
 cannot be kept back for ever. The India Councils Bill of 
 1909 transplanted the Executive Council into a new political 
 atmosphere. It had to face a body with very limited powers, 
 it is true, but with constituencies behind it, so that if the 
 Council itself is not the creation of public opinion it now has 
 to meet those who represent some of that opinion. It there- 
 fore found itself beset by two influences, the Viceroy with a 
 Home Government on the one hand, and the Legislative 
 Council on the other, and the impact of both upon it is pro- 
 ducing effects of a political kind. The Council will tend more 
 and more to become like a British Cabinet. Its members 
 who have political aptitudes for debate and co-operation 
 with others of dissimilar views will take more and more delight 
 in the changed circumstances under which they have to work. 
 For, when all is said and done, a Parliamentary life is richer 
 and more interesting than one spent in the administrative 
 service. 
 
 In time the new function of the Council will make changes 
 in its membership, and the work of Departments is already 
 so complicated that it ought to be redistributed and new 
 Departments formed. Men who have shown political capacity 
 of high order will be chosen to sit on it, and in the end it will 
 cease to be regarded as a section of the Civil Service, and will 
 become, as it ought to be, a branch of the Legislature. The 
 Legislative Council, rather than the administration, will 
 supply its recruits. But that is not yet, and some things 
 must happen before that change will be fully accomplished. 
 Moreover, it will not be made all at once. It may be that 
 the Council will be enlarged and the new Departments filled 
 by others than Civil Servants. Certainly a proposal which 
 is both bad and inadequate is that in the Montagu-Chelms- 
 ford report, to increase the Indian membership to two and 
 continue the present method of appointment. The first 
 thing is to limit the Civil Service appointments to what they 
 now are, terminate the rights of new recruits to regard these
 
 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 67 
 
 offices as belonging to the Civil Service, and establish as a 
 constitutional practice the appointment by the Crown of 
 members who have had legislative experience. But in what- 
 ever way events may happen, a complete change in the Execu- 
 tive Council is ultimately inevitable. One important circum- 
 stance will make it easy. The argument now is that the 
 Civil Service, with its overwhelming preponderance of British- 
 born men in its highest offices, is the only guarantee of British 
 responsibility, and that the Viceroy's Council in a special 
 way represents and emphasises the British supremacy. The 
 Council ought, therefore, according to this view, to be manned 
 mainly from the Civil Service. But when Indians share 
 more largely in the highest offices of the Service, this argu- 
 ment will be weakened. The Indian civilian will have no 
 better claims to a seat on the Council than a score of other 
 Indians who have proved their worth and capacity in other 
 ways. At the same time, the Legislatures will be becoming 
 more and more evidently the sources from which the Viceroy's 
 Council members should be drawn. That is in accordance 
 with the operation of things wherever British ideas of govern- 
 ment rule, and it is also in accordance with the evolution of 
 the Council's powers and composition. This democratic 
 conception of the relation between the Executive and the 
 Civil Service on the one hand, and the Legislative Councils 
 on the other, ought at once to begin to show itself in the 
 machinery of Indian government.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 
 
 Up to 1830 the Governor-General and his Executive Council 
 were both the Executive and the Legislature of the Indian 
 Government, but in that year a Law member was added for 
 purely legislative purposes, but with no right to sit or vote 
 during executive business, and thus began some differentia- 
 tion between the legislative and the executive functions and 
 organisation of the Government. In 1853 a further change 
 was made. The Law member became an ordinary member 
 of the Council, and two judges and four members of the Com- 
 pany's service appointed by the four provinces that then 
 existed were added. In a minute addressed to the India 
 Office, the Marquess of Dalhousie, who was responsible for 
 the change, describes it thus : "A Council was appointed 
 as the Legislature of India, which was no longer identical 
 with the Supreme Council, but included divers other members 
 and exercised its functions by separate and distinct pro- 
 ceedings of its own." That year another characteristic 
 essential to a Legislature, the publicity of its proceedings, 
 was provided by statute. The development of this Council 
 since then has been the most important feature in Indian 
 government. 
 
 The reforms in the Legislative Council effected in 1853 
 alarmed the Indian authorities. Whig principles were in 
 the ascendant at home. Parliamentary Government was 
 considered to be essential to liberty, and one of the necessary 
 functions of Parliament was to criticise and lead the Execu- 
 tive. This the new Legislative Council set about with a right 
 
 68
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 69 
 
 good will, and criticised the Executive. It " evinced an 
 inconvenient tendency to interfere with the Executive." * 
 But just as in a previous generation an independent judiciary 
 in the shape of a Calcutta Supreme Court was regarded as an 
 offence by the Executive, so the Legislature was now also 
 regarded, and in 1861, whilst its legislative authority was 
 extended, and its members increased, especially on the non- 
 official side, its powers were prescribed and limited to the dis- 
 cussion of legislative proposals only. These restrictions were 
 not modified until 1 892, when, under certain rules which had to 
 be drawn up by the Executive, discussion upon the Financial 
 Statement was to be permitted and questions to heads of 
 Departments allowed. At the same time, the power to 
 legislate was restored to the Councils of Madras and Bombay, 
 and legislative members added to the Executives there to 
 form a Legislative Council. Other Provinces might have 
 Legislative Councils on proclamation by the Governor-General. 
 Thus the legislative rights of the provinces that were with- 
 drawn in 1833 were restored, and the foundations of a separate 
 Legislature and of self-government for the Provinces were 
 laid anew. The unity of Indian government is preserved in 
 the official authority of the Governor-General to sanction 
 Provincial legislation and in the somewhat inconsistent power 
 of his Legislative Council to legislate for the whole of India, 
 no demarcation between Provincial and Imperial legislative 
 authority being made. 
 
 Finally came the historic change of 1909 for which Lord 
 Morley was responsible and with which his name will always 
 be associated. 
 
 In 1906, the Viceroy, Lord Minto, drew up a dispatch 
 summarising the reasons for a change. They can be con- 
 densed into the single sentence : the political spirit had 
 reached a stage in India when a further participation of the 
 political opinion of the country in its government could no 
 longer be resisted. The view that the mass of the Indian 
 
 1 Gazetteer of India, iv. p. 130.
 
 70 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 people took no interest in politics at all, that their concerns 
 were best served by an autocracy of benevolence rather than 
 by representatives responsible to interests and opinions 
 other than those of the masses, belonged to those considera- 
 tions which look formidable on paper, but which do not 
 differentiate between urgent vital issues and mere niceties. 
 The thinking, agitating, and critical sections of India had in 
 course of time become so important that the political problem 
 which their existence had created demanded attention. What- 
 ever considerations had to be kept in mind, the granting of 
 further political liberty had become an axiom for practical 
 statesmen. So after lengthy and voluminous correspondence 
 with India, Lord Morley introduced his Bill in the House of 
 Lords on February 17th, 1909, and on May 25th that 
 year it became an Act of Parliament. It was a compromise 
 between bureaucracy and democracy, 1 inevitably a short- 
 lived, if necessary, experiment. The Legislative Council now 
 consists of 33 nominated, and 27 elected members, and of 
 the 33, not more than 28 may be officials. It is definitely 
 provided that there must always be an official majority. Now 
 the Indian constitution is again in the melting-pot. 
 
 The Act did not endow Councils with much more power, 
 though it allowed them to discuss Budgets before they were 
 finally settled, to take divisions on financial proposals, to 
 debate matters of general interest and to put supplementary 
 questions, and it put the representative principle on a legal 
 basis. The authority which the Act added to the Councils lay 
 not so much in any new powers given to them as in their being 
 made more representative, an Act passed in 1892 having opened 
 the door to that principle without, however, giving it definite 
 constitutional sanction. It was allowed but not imposed. 
 
 The Councils Act of 1909 brought us a distinct stage nearer 
 the time when the problem will arise in a practical form of 
 
 1 Lord Morley specifically stated that he would have nothing to do with 
 the reforms if they " led directly or indirectly to the establishment of a 
 Parliamentary system in India."
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 71 
 
 the control of the Executive by the Legislature. That is 
 staved off for the moment by the constitutional limitations 
 imposed upon the Councils and the large element of official 
 and nominated members upon them, as hitherto determined 
 by the Regulations issued under the Act. On all the Councils 
 save the Governor-General's, where there is a majority of four 
 officials, the non-officials are in majorities which vary from 
 thirteen in Bengal to three in Burma. That does not mean that, 
 as yet, non-official opinion dominates the work of the Councils, 
 because the Government controls the action of the nominated 
 non-officials. But Indian Legislatures are still in a state of 
 evolution. They are young, grateful, and not independent. 
 They are approaching independence by stages, and no written 
 letter of the Constitution can stand against the vital growth 
 of a people. These Councils are re-elected every third year. 
 
 What is to be represented in the Legislature is a much more 
 complicated problem in India than at home, and the rules 
 determining this are not the same for every province. I 
 give two examples from the Rules of 1912, the last issued at 
 the time of writing this chapter, and I select Bengal and 
 Burma as typical of the difficulties that had to be encountered 
 by those who framed these schemes of representation. 
 
 The Bengal Council is limited to a membership of fifty-one, of 
 whom twenty-eight are elected : one to represent the Calcutta 
 Corporation, who must be a member of the Corporation ; one 
 the Calcutta University, elected by the Senate and Honorary 
 Fellows ; five, other municipalities with incomes of 5,000 rupees 
 and over, and another five, District and Local Boards ; four, 
 groups of landowners in specified constituencies covering the 
 province, one alternately by the Chittagong landholders and 
 municipalities ; five by the Mohammedans divided into five 
 constituencies and holding specified qualifications ; two by the 
 Bengal Chamber of Commerce, one by the Calcutta Trades 
 Association, one by the Commissioners of the Port of Chitta- 
 gong, one by Commissioners of Calcutta other than those 
 appointed by the Local Government, and one by the tea-
 
 72 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 planting community, the electoral roll being compiled from 
 managers of tea gardens. The Governor nominates twenty 
 members, not more than sixteen of whom may be officials, 
 and two must be non-official ; the Indian commercial com- 
 munity and the European commercial community, other than 
 tea planters, also nominate one each. 
 
 The Burma Council has a membership of fifteen. One is 
 elected by the Burma Chamber of Commerce and fourteen 
 are nominated by the Lieutenant- Governor with the consent 
 of the Governor-General ; but of these not more than six may 
 be officials and four must be Burmans, and one from the Indian 
 and another from the Chinese communities. 
 
 A general disqualification for candidates for all Councils 
 is that in the opinion of the Governor-General in Council 
 "the reputation and antecedents " of the person to be nomin- 
 ated are such as would make his election " contrary to the 
 public interest." 
 
 Neither the one nor the other of these schemes can be called 
 representative government in anything but the most primitive 
 sense, but it is worth noting that in their representation of 
 trade and commerce they unconsciously illustrate that move- 
 ment against geographical constituencies and masses of mixed 
 electors and in favour of economic interests which has recently 
 become a subject of controversy amongst ourselves, especially 
 amongst our more extreme political parties. For the note 
 of the provisions of these schemes is : " interests as apart 
 from a common national well-being," and it is left for the 
 Government nominations to secure the presence of spokesmen 
 for the general national life on the Councils. 
 
 The view taken by the Government of India is that the 
 Indian State is not sufficiently coherent to allow the creation 
 of constituencies such as we have here, and that education 
 and political intelligence have not permeated so far down 
 into the strata of Indian society as to make elections, such 
 as we know them, of value for reflecting public opinion or 
 guaranteeing political liberty. So, in these schemes no
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 73 
 
 attempt has been made to secure popular representation. 
 This is a real difficulty in Indian self-government. Not only 
 do the necessary educational qualifications not exist, not 
 only is there lacking that individual judgment on afiairs of 
 state which alone gives value to majority rule, but the want 
 of these things gives opportunity for the exercise of influences, 
 like bribery and corruption and other forms of undue pressure 
 and improper practice, which when it once becomes associated 
 with the governing processes of any State is hard to uproot. 
 An ignorant people are a subject people whatever the form of 
 their government may be. At the moment, and under 
 existing conditions, " popular representation " in India would 
 not indicate Indian opinion, but would give rise to practices 
 which would subvert that opinion and fill a field now barren 
 and waste however unfortunate that may be with tares 
 and weeds, but certainly not with wheat. 
 
 The Indian State being therefore of a form too rudimentary 
 and primitive below its upmost thin strata to allow demo- 
 cratic government, and yet at its top too enlightened to permit 
 its offering no challenge to the rule of any kind of autocracy, 
 we must consider what scheme of representation is possible 
 to fit such conditions. Obviously, it is always easier to 
 represent interest than opinion. Interest is always organised, 
 and has always spokesmen ready at hand. That is not true 
 of the masses, which to-day in the most advanced of States 
 are incoherent and divided because they do not know what 
 their interests are, or are still moved by their narrower and 
 more immediate interests fn the workshop and cannot grasp 
 their larger and more permanent ones in the State. 
 
 Then, in India, religion, particularly when it indicates 
 different historical conditions and origins, claims a place in 
 the State alongside of political opinion and interest, and so 
 the purpose of the rules of election is primarily to secure the 
 representation of these three elements in Indian Society. 
 University and municipal representation on the whole supply 
 the political opinion, that of Chambers of Commerce and
 
 74 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 landlords the interests ; that of Mohammedans the religious 
 differences. 
 
 But in this respect too we can see a change. Political 
 interest is tending to absorb all others, and this is best seen 
 in the use that is being made by the Mohammedans of their 
 special privileges. It is roughly true to say that Mohamme- 
 dans, having secured special representation to protect them- 
 selves, have used it to promote, with Hindus, Indian repre- 
 sentation. 
 
 Fifty years ago, and up to the end of the reign of Sir Syed 
 Ahmed (say 1912), the Indian Mohammedan was in India 
 but was not of it. As the Aga Khan has well expressed it, 1 
 he " looked upon himself as a member of a universal religious 
 brotherhood, sojourning in a land in which a neutral Govern- 
 ment, with a neutral outlook, kept law and order and justice. 
 His political and communal pride was satisfied by the fact 
 that his co-religionists in Turkey, Persia, Morocco, and (nomi- 
 nally at least) in Egypt, enjoyed independence and national 
 sovereignty." Accordingly, he formed his Moslem Leagues 
 as rivals to, and safeguards against, the encroachments of 
 a politically and educationally active Hinduism. But, as I 
 have shown in the introductory chapter, he has now 
 passed out of that stage and is uniting with his Hindu 
 fellow Indian upon an Indian platform. Here is the basis 
 of an Indian electorate. Whether the representatives of this 
 electorate should be direct or indirect does not seem to me 
 to be of great consequence for the moment, because, for the 
 reasons which I have already given, the difficulties of direct 
 election must remain very great for yet a while. 
 
 The Indian system of representation will have to remain 
 varied in its ways of election for a time, and will have to 
 reflect diverse methods of ascertaining public opinion, and 
 even a certain number of nominated persons may have to 
 be included in the Councils. Direct election can be resorted 
 to in constituencies formed to enable an educational test to 
 
 1 India in Transition, pp. 22 et seq.
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 75 
 
 be imposed, as is now done with the universities, but the 
 electors' roll must be increased, and institutions of a lower 
 status and tests of a lower standard than university examina- 
 tions must be recognised. Education is not book-learning 
 it is not even literary and a test much lower than the B.A. 
 could safely be resorted to for Indian electors. Interests 
 also may have to be represented, but in that case they must 
 not be confined to those of trade and commerce, and organ- 
 isations like co-operative societies should be brought in. 
 Then there is the vexed question of caste and religious com- 
 munities. Ought they to be recognised in representation ? 
 The Western at once rejects such an idea, and the Montagu- 
 Chelmsford Report gives it no countenance beyond a regretful 
 admission that Mohammedans being separately recognised 
 now, it would not be possible to go back upon that, and that 
 the Sikhs may also be able to establish a claim for themselves. 
 The more one examines the question, the more inclined is 
 one to favour the expedient if only as a temporary measure. 
 In any event, the Montagu-Chelmsford examination of the 
 subject is remarkably weak. This Report argues that the 
 system is opposed to history, that it perpetuates class division 
 and stereotypes existing relations. The argument on the 
 first count is that nations developing the arts of self-govern- 
 ment have always pressed for a united and not " a divided 
 allegiance " an argument of very doubtful validity, both 
 as to the actual description of what has taken place and of 
 the effect of community recognition. The State of composite 
 nationality and community, so far from having disappeared, 
 presents to modern statesmanship some of its most interesting 
 and pressing problems. What is called " a divided allegiance " 
 is a mere figment ; the problem is one of a co-operating 
 allegiance, separately recognised. The second count is also 
 a gratuitous assumption which does not correspond to experi- 
 ence ; and is certainly not borne out by what has happened 
 since separate Mohammedan representation was granted ; 
 whilst the substance in the third count consists in its verbal
 
 76 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 form. Are the existing relations already stereotyped ? Is 
 India in the near future likely to be without them ? The 
 irritating problems of the small nationality, of the type of 
 Ulster, included in a State of different nationality are likely 
 to be solved by constitutional rights being secured to the 
 minority; and there is very good reason for believing that 
 when minority rights are thus recognised, so far from a divided 
 allegiance being created or existing differences being stereo- 
 typed, unity will be promoted. Can Indian communities 
 and sections subordinate to other communities and sections, 
 in the way that subordination exists in India, ever receive 
 representative protection or gain in their own esteem or in the 
 esteem of others that dignity and respect which are necessary 
 for communal unity, better than by being recognised upon 
 terms of political equality with predominant communities ? 
 Theoretically, there is nothing to be said against the experi- 
 ment. Practically, we must recognise that much of the 
 bitterness between religious and social communities in India 
 like the organised opposition of the non-Brahmins in Madras 
 to the Brahmins is the opposition of injured inferiors to 
 superiors. I have changed my mind on this point, because 
 on careful consideration I see that certain communities that 
 ought to be represented will not be represented except by 
 special provision, that the representation of these communi- 
 ties will raise their status, and that it will bring them into 
 that national co-operation in the Councils which is bound to 
 issue not in division but in unity of interest and spirit. 
 
 As an alternative to this a scheme of Proportional Repre- 
 sentation might be adopted, because this system of election 
 is peculiarly adapted to such countries of diverse minorities 
 and communities as India, but this presupposes a large com- 
 posite register. It is preferable, however, to any other scheme, 
 if it could be worked, but failing it, it is impossible to erect a 
 body of valid objections to community representation. 
 
 On the other hand, the proposal for the direct representation 
 of trade through Chambers of Commerce has nothing to be said
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 77 
 
 in its favour from the point of view of sound political theory. 
 It is subversive of every conception of representative democracy 
 as the mirror of general good, and is designed to protect and 
 advance the interests of a class in India, and be some but- 
 tress to the dominant race. These interests may have to be 
 pacified, but if that be so, the Government has a duty to see 
 that membership of the Chambers shall be thrown widely open 
 to every one engaged in commerce, so that the representation 
 of a social function and not of an interested coterie is secured. 
 
 As regards indirect representation, its basis should be local 
 governing bodies from the panchayets upwards to the great 
 municipalities. In order to bring in the very smallest of 
 these bodies, it might be well to elect electoral colleges in 
 the first instance such as is done at the American Presidential 
 Elections. Groups of these bodies might elect a member 
 to the Electoral College, which would meet and elect whoever 
 is to represent the District on the Legislature. Indirect re- 
 presentation of this kind is, however, a very bad expedient, 
 and should be countenanced only temporarily. 
 
 The Imperial Legislative Council should be wholly com- 
 posed of representatives of the Provincial Councils, with 
 perhaps a few nominated members limited in number and 
 named before the others are elected. I assume that no Province 
 is to be without its Council. The Imperial body should act as 
 a Second Chamber to the Provincial ones and the Viceroy 
 should have power to ask it to consider and decide upon 
 doubtful legislation passed in the Provinces. 
 
 The whole of this scheme is transitional. I believe it to be 
 the only practical machinery of representative government 
 that is possible in India at present, and to implant there in an 
 academic way forms of Western growth is to repeat the mis- 
 takes we have made again and again in assuming that India 
 was England, and that there was nothing that pertained to 
 good except what was English. Moreover, the democratic 
 methods which some recent converts to Indian self-govern- 
 ment are hastening to apply to India are being challenged at
 
 78 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 home by democrats on account of their shortcomings and 
 failures to secure true representative government. 
 
 There still remains the question of the position of the Ruling 
 Chiefs with their varying amounts of authority within their 
 States. It is difficult to fit them into a representative system. 
 Their personal dignity and the spirit of government which 
 they represent raise insuperable obstacles. 1 But in the first 
 place, their dignity depends upon ceremonial which can be 
 retained, and in the next a policy should be pursued of making 
 these States locally autonomous whenever possible. India 
 has everything to gain by a recognition of differences, so long 
 as these differences can be blended into a harmonious whole. 
 Beyond that, an annual Conference of these rulers attended 
 by the Executive and presided over by the Viceroy will 
 adequately meet the case. 
 
 In connection with the Imperial Legislative Council I have 
 discussed the whole question of representation, as that seemed 
 the most convenient procedure, leaving the questions of 
 function to be discussed when I deal with the Provincial 
 Councils. Although the political mind of educated India 
 has been moulded in Western ways of thought, it would be a 
 mistake to approach the problem of Indian representation 
 from Western standpoints alone. We have not said the 
 only, nor the last, word in democratic representation, and the 
 system that is to be applied to any country must be moulded 
 to suit the conditions of that country. Therefore, the Indian 
 system cannot be created on any one simple or consistent 
 theory. The practical problem is not to compile registers 
 which will be so big that they will represent India in the 
 same way that our registers represent Great Britain, but to 
 examine the interests that a good system of representation 
 would protect and co-ordinate and see that they have due 
 weight in the composition of the Councils. I believe that the 
 methods I have indicated will allow this to be done. 
 
 1 The Maharaja of Jaipur once sat on the Viceroy's Council, but there is 
 loaa disposition on the part of Ruling Chiefs to do so now than before.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS 
 
 I HEADS OF PROVINCES 
 
 FOR the purposes of administration India is divided into 
 fifteen Provinces : Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, having 
 governors appointed direct by the Sovereign ; the United 
 Provinces of Agra and Oudh, the Punjab, Burma, and Bihar 
 and Orissa with Lieutenant-Governors, and the Central 
 Provinces, Assam, and the North-west Frontier Province, 
 Delhi, Ajmere-Merwara, Coorg, British Beluchistan, and the 
 Andaman Islands with Chief Commissioners. Bengal was 
 divided in 1905 into Bengal and Eastern Bengal, but, owing 
 to a troublesome and continued agitation on the ground that 
 the division cut the Bengali people into two, it was redivided 
 at the time of the Delhi Durbar in 1911, and Bihar and 
 Orissa and Assam were created. 
 
 The origin of the Provinces is found in the early trading 
 settlements (called Presidencies because the chief officer 
 responsible for them to the Company was called the President) 
 of the East India Company at Bombay, Madras (Fort George), 
 and Calcutta (Fort William), which were, up to the Regulating 
 Act of 1773, independent administrations. As area after 
 area was added, it was at first attached to one or other of 
 these Presidencies. In 1833 the Presidency of Agra (called 
 then the North-west Provinces) was created from the long 
 stretch of territory that had been added to Bengal up the 
 valleys of the Jumna and Ganges, and a Governor was to be 
 appointed ; but in 1835 the Governorship, which had not been 
 filled, was changed into a Lieutenant-Governorship, and the 
 
 79
 
 80 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 officer was appointed by the Governor- General in Council. 
 Since then, no Governorships have been created, except that 
 of Bengal on the repartition of 1911. Boundaries have been 
 adjusted, however, and new Provinces created from time to 
 time, until the present arrangements were fixed. 
 
 Most of these new districts were governed at first as non- 
 Regulation Provinces by a Commissioner directly subject to 
 the Governor-General, 1 and hence arose the distinction between 
 a Regulation and a non-Regulation Province. In the Regu- 
 lation districts the administration was determined by regu- 
 lations issued by the Governor-General in Council, but in the 
 new districts it was found that these regulations could not 
 be applied with mechanical uniformity. A somewhat free 
 hand had, therefore, to be given to officers who, whilst adminis- 
 tering in the spirit of the Regulations, had to use personal 
 discretion. In the non-Regulation Province the adminis- 
 tration therefore approached to personal control ; and although 
 the assumption made by Governments was that their best 
 men should be sent to the Regulation districts, the non- 
 Regulation officer had a power and discretion which very often 
 produced in him such a capacity for dealing successfully with 
 the people as to mark him out for distinction amongst the 
 officers in the service.* 
 
 Governors are appointed by the Crown, but are in reality 
 chosen by the party which happens to be in power at home 
 for the time being, from amongst their own political supporters. 
 Sir Richard Temple, who was appointed Governor of Bombay 
 in 1877, chiefly on account of his famine relief work, is the 
 only exception to this rule. He had not been a Bombay 
 civilian, however, but had served in Bengal. 
 
 The appointment of a Governor from home, as opposed 
 to the promotion of a civilian in the Indian Service, as is the 
 case with Lieutenant-Governors, has much to commend it. 
 
 1 There were also districts within Regulation Provinces like the Santhal 
 Pergunnahs in Bengal which were non-Regulation districts. 
 1 Cf. The Little World of an Indian District Officer, pp. 223, etc.
 
 HEADS OF PROVINCES 81 
 
 Although it is true that an inexperienced mind coming without 
 preparation into the midst of Indian administration must 
 rely greatly upon the advice of the experts with whom he 
 is surrounded, and may become an echo of their opinions, 
 the remedy is not an appointment from the Indian service, 
 but such a change in the surrounding experts as will make 
 the Governor's advisers more representative than they are 
 of the various conflicting views and rival interests in Indian 
 life. 
 
 The theory that the Cabinet head of a Department at 
 home need not himself be an expert, but should be a person 
 of good ability and broad political common sense, guided in 
 his decisions by certain denned political principles determined 
 by his party allegiance, is sound regarding Indian Governors. 
 Their function is the general one of seeing that administration 
 satisfies the requirements of sound policy, the ways and 
 means and expediencies being left to be worked out by the 
 experts. A Civil Service as a government must be a passing 
 form of administration. It is essentially a bureaucracy, 
 not inspired, but only checked, by public opinion ; and as 
 self-government is developed through Legislatures, Civil Service 
 control becomes intolerable, irrespective of whether it has 
 done its work efficiently or inefficiently. 
 
 However honest, well-intentioned and able a central bureau- 
 cracy may be, it cannot escape the doom of its defects ; and 
 one of the great defects of Delhi stretching its hands and its 
 regulations from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas is a far 
 too rigid uniformity, and a ponderously complicated for- 
 mality which in time will crush under its weight every 
 officer in a responsible position. Indian government calls 
 for diversity, for spontaneity, for new ideas, for local impulses, 
 for a faith and purpose that have not become exhausted or 
 disillusioned by the great difficulties which bureaucratic 
 administrators have to face, difficulties which send home 
 some of the very best men discredited and disheartened. It 
 is not enough that the fresh minds should go into the governing 
 6
 
 82 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 cadre away back at its recruitment ; there must also be 
 infusions much later on. 
 
 I have found very few people who have tried to visualise 
 the drawbacks of this system. The real governing authority 
 in India is recruited from young men in Great Britain. They 
 go out into this alien country with all its for them unnatural 
 life, and their minds are shaped by their unnatural conditions 
 and work. However painstaking they may be to get into 
 touch with Indian conditions, they live a segregated life in 
 their own coterie. They belong to tiny settlements amidst 
 vast communities of alien civilisation and culture. One of 
 two things must happen. They ought to be allowed, as was 
 the case before the Suez Canal and the rapid transit to 
 England, to sink themselves in their new world, or their 
 critical alertness should be maintained by contact with Indian 
 opinion in authority on the one hand, and British opinion 
 fresh-eyed from home on the other. 
 
 It is only too occasionally that men of great capacity are 
 sent to fill these Governorships. They have been regarded 
 as glorified jobs for rich and vain followers, or as consolation 
 prizes for respectable but disappointed men, or as occupation 
 for men otherwise idle at home. This type of man fulfils 
 none of the requirements of an Indian Governor. These 
 Governorships offer to men desirous of facing some of the most 
 interestingly difficult problems of Imperial politics oppor- 
 tunities of usefulness and satisfaction which no other political 
 appointments afford. We must at once revise our view of 
 Indian Governorships and regard them as posts of great 
 importance and dignity. 
 
 The Governors are now subject to the Viceroy in Council, 
 though he does not appoint them, and though they have 
 the right of direct approach to the Secretary of State. This 
 right is a survival of the time before 1773, when they were 
 supreme in independent Presidencies formed by groups of 
 factories and subject only to the Court of Directors and ulti-
 
 HEADS OF PROVINCES 83 
 
 mately to Parliament. For a long time after the Governor- 
 General of Bengal was made supreme so as to unify policy 
 throughout, Governors were recalcitrant and were unwilling 
 to surrender their independence. Communication was slow 
 and jealousy was active. Warren Hastings found that the 
 Governor of Bombay did not consult him regarding the 
 Mahratta troubles in 1775. This friction was the subject of 
 negotiation and instruction as late as 1883, when it was dealt 
 with in the Charter Act and in a dispatch in the following 
 year from the Court of Directors to the Government of India. 
 Instructions regarding it were again given in a dispatch in 
 1838. The Decentralisation Commission reported l on the 
 relationship as it now is : " The essential point to be borne 
 in mind is thus that at present, even in matters primarily 
 assigned to the Provincial Governments, these (the Governors) 
 act as the agents of the Government of India, who exercise 
 a very full and constant check over their proceedings." 
 
 But the control of the central authorities, according to the 
 dispatch of the Court of Directors, was to be "a just control," 
 and not a " petty, vexatious, meddling interference." 
 
 The authority of the Governor-General in Council over 
 Lieutenant-Governors and Chief Commissioners is more 
 direct. The Lieutenant-Go vernor is appointed by the Governor- 
 General in Council with the approval of the Crown. He is 
 the result of an afterthought. When the Act of 1833 was 
 passed, it was a new Governorship that was proposed by it 
 to relieve the burden which annexation after annexation had 
 imposed upon Bengal, but the Government, as has been said 
 already, changed its mind, and in 1835 put a clause in a Bill 
 giving the Governor-General power to appoint a civilian of at 
 least ten years' standing as a Lieutenant-Governor of the 
 new North-west Provinces. This was a new constitutional 
 creation, an expedient to use men on the spot without im- 
 porting them from home, and also to retain the Viceroy's 
 
 1 Report, Cd. 4360, 1909, p. 21.
 
 84 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 control over the new Provinces and the right of the Civil 
 Service to supply the head of the administration. 
 
 The Lieutenant-Governor ought to occupy a place mid- 
 way between the Civil Service to which he belongs (Sir H. 
 Durand, appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab in 
 1870 is the only exception) and the representative of the 
 Crown for whom he acts. By habit, however, the Lieutenant- 
 Governorships have come to be regarded as posts in the Civil 
 Service. The Lieutenant-Governor has a delegated authority, 
 which is subject to the will of the Governor- General in Council 
 acting with the consent of the Secretary of State in Council. 
 That being his constitutional position, he required no Executive 
 Council to assist him ; but circumstances are changing, and 
 an Executive Council has been given to the Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Bihar and Orissa, and an attempt has been 
 made to give one to the United Provinces. When there was 
 a Lieutenant-Governor in Bengal he had an Executive Council. 
 The Lieutenant-Governor has no direct access to the Secretary 
 of State. Before appointment he must have served the Crown 
 in India ten years, but in practice that period is greatly 
 exceeded. 
 
 A Chief Commissioner is lower in rank than a Lieutenant- 
 Governor, though, owing to recent legislation, differences 
 between them l have been swept away, and both offices are 
 essentially of the same nature. The Chief Commissioner is 
 delegated by the Governor-General in Council to represent 
 him in the administration of a certain area denned by pro- 
 clamation, and he is entirely under the control of the Governor- 
 General, whose subordinate he is and who is responsible for what 
 the Chief Commissioner does. The office was created when new 
 territories were added to British rule which, whilst rendering 
 the Provinces to which they were attached unwieldy, were 
 not sufficiently advanced or coherent to be made Provinces 
 
 1 As, for instance, that a Lieutenant-Governor was part of a Legislature 
 and could be appointed only with a Legislative Council. Commissioners 
 may now have Legislative Councils.
 
 HEADS OF PROVINCES 85 
 
 with Lieutenant-Governors, but which from the nature of 
 their population necessitated individual energy and responsi- 
 bility. The designation was at first Commissioner, but 
 when, in 1853, John Lawrence was appointed the chief of 
 three Commissioners to bring the Punjab under British 
 administration, he was called Chief Commissioner a title 
 which has been given ever since. The government of a Chief 
 Commissioner is a transition form, although, as in the Central 
 Provinces to-day, it is sometimes continued long after it ought 
 to be. The anomalous position of the Chief Commissioner 
 of the Central Provinces has been emphasised since 1914, 
 when he was given a Legislative Council. Although the 
 constitutional position of a Chief Commissioner is very different 
 from that of a Lieutenant-Governor, in practice his powers 
 are substantially the same, and in his own Province his authority 
 and the respect paid to him do not suffer from his inferior 
 status in order of precedence and in the constitutional system. 
 
 Soon all these half-and-half stages must go except on the 
 frontiers. The work of Provincial administration is over- 
 whelming, and the advantage of Council government is patent. 
 No man can now govern an Indian Province. Whoever has 
 stayed with a Lieutenant-Governor and tried to find him 
 unoccupied except for the barest necessities of rest and food, 
 or to get up before him in the morning, or to go to bed later 
 than him at night, will have had an insight into what governing 
 an Indian Province means. Important work must be given 
 to the secretaries, must be decided without advice and dis- 
 cussion, must be delayed sometimes cannot be done. Nor 
 is there any guarantee of continuity. The Lieutenant-Governor 
 goes at the end of his fifth year, and, save for subordinate 
 secretaries, no authority outlasts his term of office. 1 
 
 1 The India Councils Bill of 1909 passed the House of Commons with a 
 clause enabling the Government of India, with the consent of the Secretary 
 of State, to create by Proclamation an Executive Council for any Lieutenant- 
 Governor, but the House of Lords deleted this clause. It was reinserted by
 
 86 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Further, the practice of appointing members of the Civil 
 Service to the political wardships of Provinces should be 
 stopped. They ought not to be debarred, but India has 
 everything to gain by direct infusion of home influences into 
 her government, men with fresh minds and eyes, men who 
 have not been moulded in Civil Service administration, men 
 whose abilities are of a different order from those developed 
 by magistracies, colleotorships, and secretaryships. The one 
 kind of ability ought not to be set over against the other 
 kind. India needs both, and she should be free to use them. 
 But if a civilian is appointed he should at once resign his 
 position in the Service and not be eligible for further employ- 
 ment as a civilian. 
 
 An immediate reform is to turn Lieutenant- Governorships, 
 and Chief Commissionershipe where the districts warrant it, 
 into Governorships, to give the Governors Councils sufficiently 
 large to be responsible for the different great branches of 
 
 the Commons, but was finally passed in a form which provided that the 
 Proclamation would have to lie on the table of both Houses and be dis- 
 allowed by a resolution of either. This provision was put into operation by 
 the House of Lords in 1915, when it was proposed to create a Council for 
 the United Provinces. A Council for this Province is urgently needed, 
 and indeed is long overdue. The status of the Province and the respon- 
 sibilities of the Lieutenant-Governor call for it. The matter had come 
 before the Legislative Council and a resolution in favour of an Executive 
 Council received the support of exactly half the Council. The Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor had to vote against, on the principle that the resolution, 
 having otherwise failed to carry, ought not to be passed by the President of 
 the Council, and also because it was the Government of India and not the 
 Legislative Council of the Province that had power to determine whether 
 there should be an Executive Council or not. The Lieutenant-Governor 
 was personally in favour of the resolution. The House of Lords passed a 
 resolution in opposition to the creation of a Council for the United Provinces, 
 and it is interesting to note how frequently in the debates reference of a 
 hostile character was made to the desire for a Council held by " certain 
 members [of the United Provinces Legislative Council] who are advanced 
 politicians in India" (Lord MacDonnell, Hansard, March 16th, 1915, p. 763. 
 See also Lord Curzon's speech, February 16th, 1915, ibid., p. 518 ; Lord 
 Sydenham's, ibid., p. 775, etc.). The action of the House of Lords in 
 refusing the Council was confessedly determined by the opposition of its 
 leading Indian members to the Indian nationalist movement.
 
 HEADS OF PROVINCES 87 
 
 administration, to appoint these Governors by the Crown, 
 to secure that at least alternately these Governors shall be 
 sent out from home, and to compose their Councils so that 
 there shall sit upon them men representing the opinions of 
 the Legislatures and not merely the mind of the Civil Service.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS (continued) 
 
 II LEGISLATURES 
 
 THE India Councils Act of 1861 consolidated and amended 
 the law relating to Councils. The Act of 1833, passed when 
 the idea of a united and centrally controlled India was upper- 
 most in men's minds, not only made Bengal the superior 
 province in India, but withdrew legislative powers from the 
 Councils of Madras and Bombay. These powers were restored 
 by the India Councils Act of 1861, when the vast complexities 
 and range of Indian administration and legislation had again 
 become apparent, and this Act further provided for the 
 creation of Councils wherever a Lieutenant-Governorship 
 was thereafter to be set up. Provincial Legislative Councils 
 were set up in Bengal in 1862, in the United Provinces in 
 1886, in the Punjab and Burma in 1898. In 1892 they were 
 enlarged, an elective element introduced, and a limited right 
 of questioning and of discussing budgets was given. Finally 
 came the Morley reform of 1909, the rules and regulations 
 for the carrying out of which were revised in 1912, and pub- 
 lished in a Blue book. 1 The Bengal Council under these 
 rules consists of 28 elected members and 20 nominated, of 
 whom not more than 16 may be officials and the others are 
 composed as follows : Bihar and Orissa, 21 elected and 19 
 nominated, of whom not more than 15 may be officials ; 
 Assam, 11 elected and 13 nominated, of whom not more 
 than 9 may be officials ; Madras, 21 elected and 21 nominated, 
 not more than 16 being officials ; the United Provinces, 21 
 
 1 Cd. 6714, 1913. 
 88
 
 LEGISLATURES 89 
 
 elected and 26 nominated, of whom not more than 20 may 
 be officials ; the Punjab, 8 elected and 16 nominated, of 
 whom not more than 10 may be officials ; Bombay, 21 elected 
 and 21 nominated, of whom not more than 14 may be officials ; 
 Burma, 1 elected and 14 nominated, of whom not more than 
 6 may be officials. It must be noted that these are all known 
 as " additional " members. Thus the original idea of adding 
 members to the Executive Council for legislative work still 
 obtains. The legislative members are in theory attached to 
 the Executives, the Executives are not committees of the 
 Legislatures. Indeed, the actual fact is that, though called 
 Legislatures, they are essentially Consultative Committees 
 attached to the Executives. 
 
 The volume of rules promulgated for the election of these 
 Councils also contains the regulations for the discussion of 
 the Annual Financial Statements, and of matters of general 
 public interest, and also for the asking of questions of the 
 Executive. No resolution on the Financial Statement may 
 criticise a decision of the Government of India, and any reso- 
 lution may be disallowed by the President of the Council. 
 Whatever resolutions are carried are only of the nature of 
 recommendations to the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor 
 in Council. No resolutions may be moved on the Budget, 
 and the Budget itself is not submitted to a vote of the Councils. 
 Resolutions on matters of general interest may also be dis- 
 allowed by the President on one of two grounds : that they 
 are not consistent with the public interest, or that they should 
 be moved on the Legislative Council of another Province or 
 of the Governor-General; and again, all resolutions carried 
 are of the nature of recommendations to the Governor in 
 Council, or the Lieutenant-Governor. Questions must be 
 handed in ten days before they are answered, and supplemen- 
 taries are allowed, but the President has the right to refuse 
 any question at his discretion. 
 
 The position of these Councils raises four important points 
 for settlement.
 
 90 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 The first is their constitutional status. The time has now 
 come for giving them a status independent of the Executive 
 Councils, and establishing them as the Legislatures of India. 
 Their relations to the Executive can be determined in one 
 of two ways. The Executive can be made to depend upon 
 them as in Great Britain, or, as a first step, partly depend 
 upon them ; or, as in America, the Executive can be an 
 independent body appointed by the Viceroy, who will be 
 expected to use discretion and common sense, and take all 
 the political circumstances into account when making his 
 choice of men. The latter would be most in accordance with 
 Indian traditions, though not most in accordance with the 
 political thought which is stirring in India arid creating the 
 demands for responsible and representative government 
 which we have now to meet. 
 
 I have therefore in this book assumed that the relations 
 between the Executive and Legislature ought to be determined 
 on the British rather than on the American model. The 
 American model, however, must not be dismissed without 
 being considered, as it may be found to suggest convenient 
 expedients for avoiding obvious difficulties which meet us at 
 this moment. It must be noted, however, that whereas the 
 American Colonies separated their Executive and Legislature 
 in order to weaken the Executive, the separation is advocated 
 for India for the opposite reason. 
 
 A study of the working of the American Constitution leads 
 me to the conclusion that the separation has been bad for 
 both, though the political genius of the people is such as to 
 get tolerable results from a bad machine. I do not believe 
 that an independent Executive in India will be any safeguard 
 either for British sovereignty or against Indian folly. Should 
 it acquire the mind of an alien body in authority checking 
 and watching the Legislatures, nothing but trouble is ahead 
 of it ; should it set itself up as an authority equivalent to the 
 Legislature, even if it avoids racial distinctions, trouble is 
 ahead of it. I fear it will be impossible for an independent
 
 LEGISLATURES 91 
 
 Executive to avoid being mixed up with the oppositions of the 
 moment which support it and object to it. In India that is 
 the conflict between bureaucracy and self-government. There- 
 fore, the wisest policy seems to be to place the Executive for 
 the time being midway between the British and the American 
 position. Let it be appointed by the Viceroy or the Governors 
 as the case may be, on the understanding that it includes 
 some of the legislative leaders, and then watch the develop- 
 ment of events. 
 
 But when it is appointed it ought to be a unity. The pro- 
 posal in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report that it should con- 
 sist of two sections, one owing allegiance to the Viceroy and 
 the other looking to the Legislatures for authority, is clumsy 
 and in every sense inexpedient. 
 
 The second point is how elections are to be conducted, and 
 what is to be represented in the Legislatures. With that I 
 have dealt in a previous chapter, and so pass on to the third 
 and fourth points which should be considered together the 
 relation of the Provincial Legislatures to the Delhi Legisla- 
 ture, and the powers they are to exercise : in other words, 
 what type of unity should the Indian Government show ? 
 
 Again one very properly thinks first of all of traditional 
 conditions, and here India presents the curious spectacle of 
 an extreme development of local autonomy in villages and 
 an equally strong central authority for financial purposes hi 
 particular. In later days the bureaucracy has developed 
 masterful centralising tendencies which one hears adversely 
 criticised in every Province. This cannot be avoided whilst 
 the strongest members of the Civil Service gravitate to 
 Delhi, and the India Office and Secretary of State invariably 
 support the Viceroy and his Executive always known and 
 thought of as " the Government of India " in any disputes 
 with Local Governments as to policy. The Report of the 
 Decentralisation Commission abounds in evidence of this 
 tendency, 1 and so does the history of Indian administra- 
 
 1 See, for instance, the memorandum complaining of Imperial inter-
 
 92 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 tion. Able men do not make good constitutional monarchs, 
 and a representative system in India cannot be based on an 
 efficient bureaucracy. 
 
 These currents flowing towards Delhi will be checked, 
 however, by representative government, and others will 
 begin to flow. There is, for instance, a very marked Madras, 
 Bombay, Bengal patriotism which, founding itself upon 
 history, shows itself in literature, speech, institutions, and 
 administration. Even the Imperial Civil Service is divided 
 into somewhat secure watertight Provincial compartments, 
 and representative government will undoubtedly demand a 
 firm Provincial foundation. This will be strengthened if 
 more heads of Provinces are sent out from home. 1 
 
 Still, no consideration can obscure the fundamental fact 
 that British administration has made India, and not the 
 Provinces, its centre, that the Indian political mind has 
 grown into the same way of thinking, and that therefore the 
 powers of Provincial Legislatures will have to be delegated 
 from the Imperial authority. That must be the principle. 
 It is indeed the existing Constitution, the position of Pro- 
 vincial Governments being that, with the concurrence of 
 the Imperial Government, they exercise power to do anything 
 not specifically withheld from them. 2 How much and what 
 
 ference addressed to the Decentralisation Commission by the Bombay Govern- 
 ment (Report, vol. viii., Cd. 4367 (1908), Appendix ii., pp. 229, etc.). The 
 Decentralisation Commission has detailed the means by which the Central 
 Government has acquired authority over the Provincial Governments as 
 follows : Financial rules, restrictions and conditions, the growth of powers to 
 check administration either by specifically granted legal powers or by adminis- 
 trative encroachments, the power to sanction Provincial legislation, the 
 passing of resolutions directing Provincial Governments, specific instructions, 
 the right to listen to appeal by persons against the acts of Provincial Govern- 
 ments. 
 
 1 For instance, in 1877 Lord Lytton found great difficulty in persuading 
 the Duke of Buckingham, then Governor of Madras, to adopt a famine 
 policy, aa he was unable " to force upon the Madras Government advice 
 which it will neither invite nor accept." 
 
 * Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, being Presidency Governments, have 
 inherited some authority from the old Company administration, and have 
 slightly more power than the other Provincial Governments.
 
 LEGISLATURES 93 
 
 is to be delegated is a question for consideration, and raises 
 nothing but matters of judgment and expediency, and the 
 same is true of the amount of " concurrence " that should be 
 required. Local Government and municipal affairs, educa- 
 tion, a limited amount of financial independence must 
 assuredly be amongst the transferred powers. But the com- 
 plicated and somewhat pettifogging network of entanglements 
 and checks proposed by the Montagu-Chelmsford Report 
 ought not to be considered. Far better is it that the powers 
 delegated should, to begin with, be strictly limited in extent 
 than that they should be wide and hampered in their exercise, 
 because by the one plan they can be extended as a natural 
 process upon experience ; by the other, the Imperial authori- 
 ties are being endowed with new powers of control and con- 
 tinued in old ones which, if effective, will be justified and 
 therefore continued, but if not effective will be irksome and 
 lead to trouble and division between the foreign and the 
 Indian administrations. 
 
 British policy in India has acquired the reputation of with- 
 holding with one hand what it gives with the other. One 
 hears in India a universal complaint that we deny to the 
 heart what we offer to the ear. Our fault has been to give 
 with reserve. It is a bad policy. We must give what we 
 do give without reserve. If we cannot give much, neverthe- 
 less let us give it and let further gifts be dependent upon the 
 way in which previous ones are used. This is true particu- 
 larly as regards finance. The Imperial Legislature must 
 protect itself by securing first claims upon such income as 
 the Land Tax, Customs duties, and so on; it must also retain 
 powers to co-ordinate Provincial finance in such a way that 
 poor Provinces may not be hampered by their poverty. But, 
 these safeguards laid down, the responsibility of providing 
 a Provincial Budget can be safely left, and ought properly 
 to be left, to the Provincial Legislatures, though I think a 
 very useful end would be served if all the Provincial Budgets 
 were made the subject of discussion at an all-India financial
 
 94 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 conference held each year before the Budgets are presented 
 to the Legislatures for consideration. These matters, how- 
 ever, relate to the art of government rather than to the system. 
 Here the question of checks has to be considered. The 
 Montagu-Chelmsford Report finds these in Viceroys, Governors, 
 and Executives. In no more inappropriate direction can 
 checks be looked for. Of course veto and suspension must 
 be powers held in reserve by Viceroys and Governors, but 
 these cannot be the habitually used parts of the mechanism 
 of government. The check must be within the representative 
 system itself, and in India there should be no difficulty in 
 devising this. The Provincial Legislatures are in direct 
 touch with electing bodies which are to be the best repre- 
 sentatives of Indian thought and need that can be devised. 
 But what of the Imperial Legislature '( No direct election 
 is possible for it. I believe that the bulk of its members 
 should be elected by the Provincial Legislatures as the American 
 Senate used to be elected, with, at first, a limited number of 
 members nominated to represent interests that are common 
 to India. If the expert bureaucrat can point out the com- 
 parative inferiority of such a body, the reply is both easy 
 and conclusive. We are now definitely encouraging the 
 development of self-government and we must make a begin- 
 ning, and in doing so we recognise quite frankly to ourselves 
 that we cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. This 
 body, in addition to its Imperial work, should have the power 
 of suspending Provincial legislation referred to it by the 
 Governor or Viceroy in Council. Nothing of any grievous 
 importance could get over such a check, provided we can 
 convince these Councils of their responsibility. There might 
 be a special Committee of the Imperial Legislature to con- 
 sider Provincial Legislature, or other means might be devised 
 to make the responsibility real. But again that belongs to 
 the art of government, and I am most concerned here with 
 its principles.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 
 
 IP the Viceroy is the ceremonial symbol of the British Crown 
 in India, it is the Collector who is the seat of authority so far 
 as the mass of the people is concerned. He is the great 
 sahib whose nod is to be obeyed, who gives and withholds, 
 who taxes and administers justice, before whom all the 
 great people of the village bunyas and policemen, headmen 
 and accountants, bow. He is the mighty one to whom the 
 most flowery language and ornate titles apply. In fact in 
 his care are the people of India. He, or those who obey him, 
 orders the life of the people, and next to the Creator and the 
 laws of nature, he comes in the hierarchy of arbitrary powers. 
 Those above him are too remote from the life of the people 
 to be anything but indefinite gleams, those below him are 
 outwardly and visibly his servants. 
 
 He is successor to the clerks sent out by the Company to 
 manage the factories, and his predecessors made enormous 
 fortunes by private trade and brought the word "Nabob," 
 which was applied to them, into disrepute. When Clive tried 
 to purge him of corruption he objected, and revolted against 
 the interference with his power and privileges, and the most 
 kindly of his critics have a suspicion that prestige and privilege 
 have not ceased to influence him perhaps a little too much 
 since. His latest manifesto against the Montagu-Chelmsford 
 Report is evidence that that tradition has not died down yet. 
 The title of " Collector " which he holds at one stage of his 
 service links him up with Warren Hastings, who appointed 
 him when the Company undertook the collection of revenue 
 
 95
 
 96 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, and also embodies the char- 
 acteristic of Indian administration that it is based historically 
 on fiscal responsibilities. 
 
 He is being shorn of some of his authority perhaps. In 
 the old days he ruled everything, but now there is subdivision 
 of power. The Forests, the Public Works Department, and so 
 on, have been taken from him, and he sometimes complains 
 on that account. Some people also want to take from him 
 his judicial authority on the ground that it is bad constitu- 
 tional practice to unite judicial with executive power. This 
 he resents still more. He comes of an official ancestry which 
 was indeed absolute. He lives in a society in which his office 
 concentrates in itself all the regal functions of the district, 
 and be it remembered that the area of an Indian District of 
 average size is 4,430 square miles. 
 
 He originated, as I have said, in 17 72 when Warren Hastings, 
 having to face the double problem of collecting revenue and 
 of organising some proper system for the administration of 
 justice in Bengal, appointed District Collectors for that 
 double purpose. The constitutional objection to the union 
 of these two functions in one officer was at once taken, and 
 Warren Hastings accepted its validity and separated them. 
 Then came difficulties. The courts were used against the 
 revenue authority, and the complementary functions became 
 antagonistic. Whatever the theory might be, the Executive, 
 put in the position of being the foreign administrator of 
 Bengal, was compelled to secure some uniformity of will 
 between itself and the judiciary, and when Lord Cornwallis 
 went out as Governor-General in 1786 he retraced the second 
 step of Warren Hastings and restored the Collector to his 
 double authority as chief magistrate and revenue official. 
 As chief magistrate he is responsible for the order of his 
 District and supervises the work of its courts even if he 
 does not do much magisterial work himself ; but, being 
 responsible for the order and peace of his District, he is 
 in command of the police and manages the jails. Though
 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 97 
 
 the creation of separate departments has relieved him 
 of direct responsibility for Forest, Public Works, Sanitation, 
 Education, and, to some extent, jail administration, his 
 peculiar position as executive head of the District keeps 
 him in touch with all these. On his way up through the 
 Service he determines the land assessment, and when on that 
 work he lives in the Districts and mixes freely with the people 
 if he is a wise man. This is one of the great attractions of 
 his life. He keeps an eye and a hand on municipal and 
 local government institutions and is, as a rule, chairman of 
 the District Board which maintains roads, public buildings, 
 and so on. He is the eye of the Government and its tongue. 
 He has to keep his finger on the pulse of his District, and nothing 
 of any importance is supposed to happen without his know- 
 ledge. A sparrow ought not to fall without the incident 
 coming to his ears. He manages estates, compiles returns of 
 prices and produce, adjudicates on rent, makes loans. Upon 
 him the burdens of famine relief fall. I have attended a 
 conference on famine measures and by the end of the day 
 found the Collector to be an unemployment committee, a 
 president of the Board of Trade, a railway director, a Minister 
 of Labour, an engineer. If he has a difficult District say, 
 one where Hindus and Mohammedans do not get on very 
 well together he requires to be a man of unusual tact, influ- 
 ence, and resource. At best, he is apt to be overwhelmed 
 in an oppressive network of details and overborne by endless 
 perplexities and ceaseless cares. Should famine or plague 
 descend on him, the torrents of adversity fall upon him and 
 day and night are as one to him. If he gets irritable, if he 
 becomes a cynic and takes to the philosophy that all life is 
 drudgery, and no drudgery rewarded, who can blame him ? 
 In old days this life was toned by some freedom. He could 
 do things off his own bat. He was more of the people, he 
 chose consoling wives from them, he was isolated, he was 
 anything but a clerk ; but now there is a string about his 
 leg which is frequently pulled, he is becoming more and more 
 7
 
 98 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 a reporting agent, his desk work is greatly on the increase, 
 the drudgery gets harder. He has to combine the qualities 
 of a great politician with the patience and abilities of a 
 first-rate clerk, and he finds it difficult to do so. 
 
 I have seen him in the steaming heat of a Lower Bengal 
 District sitting hour by hour at his desk reducing the bulk 
 of great files piled in front of him, not one of which contained 
 matters that would awaken his jaded mind to a living interest, 
 whilst on his walls were the mouldy stains of the terrible 
 damp of the season of rain. I have been with him in camp, 
 and have seen the same thing, files, files, files. I have looked 
 on whilst local magnates, district boards, deputations of 
 all kinds, the aggrieved, the suppliant, the office seeker, 
 came to see him. I have felt pleased to drag him away for 
 an hour's change in the forest, or some temple, or for a walk 
 before darkness (knowing, perhaps, he would have to suffer 
 for it), and whilst a recipient of his generous (his generosity 
 often made me ashamed) hospitality I have wasted his tune 
 (in the hope that I was really not wasting it) by leading his 
 thoughts away from his drudgery. The District Officer is 
 indeed the tortoise which supports the elephant upon which 
 Indian government rests. 
 
 He probably comes of a family that has been connected 
 with India for generations, or India and the Indian Civil 
 Service allured him. Heaven pity him if he came here because 
 he had to eat bread and could not get the post he wanted at 
 home. I fancy that the best men came out under the enchant- 
 ment of India and the Service. They were tested by a stiff 
 examination, but for the rest they were thrown upon chance. 
 The restless mind of man has always been hankering for 
 a better test than written answers to questions which can 
 be crammed questions which ingenious professional crammers 
 who charge high fees can often anticipate. There have been 
 suggestions that moral character, physique, personal address, 
 athletic records, captaincies of school teams, education at a 
 public school, attendance at residential colleges, should be
 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 99 
 
 valued and the marks awarded added to those won on exam- 
 ination. The fact is that the real intention of these schemes 
 is to make the Service select rather than efficient, and a 
 study of the Indian Civil Service List shows that nothing is 
 an improvement on the test of ability and application imposed 
 by a competitive examination. It is essential that any test 
 applied to applicants for such posts as those of the Indian 
 Civil Service should be uniform, and these character tests 
 are capricious and uncertain, the certificates and records 
 being of unequal value according to the schools to which they 
 refer and the masters and other referees who give them ; 
 they should also be such as every one possessing the qualities 
 which they are supposed to reveal has an equal chance of 
 being able to meet, whereas many admirable men were never 
 school captains, and in early life were deprived of the oppor- 
 tunity of attending certain types of schools (the virtues of 
 which, by the by, are by no means universally accepted) ; 
 further, the qualities tested should not be those which are at 
 varying stages of development in young men of the same 
 age, as, for instance, self-confidence, the finest and best forms 
 of which often show themselves later than the period when 
 men have to undergo the ordeal of competitive examination. 
 Once, when I was pursuing inquiries on this subject in India, I 
 put the question to a head of a Province and two of the 
 admittedly ablest men in the Service of the Province whether 
 they thought they would have done well in any such supple- 
 mentary system of tests ; and they all agreed they would not, 
 one being quite definite in his opinion that had he been scrutin- 
 ised for the purpose of discovering signs of these qualities 
 when he passed into the Service, he was so shy and unused 
 to social companionship that he probably would have been 
 rejected. The examination test may not be fully satisfactory. 
 The papers set are too often mere book papers, and too rarely 
 searching tests of original ability and intellectual common 
 sense. In this respect our Civil Service Commissioners have 
 not done their work particularly well. But when improved in
 
 100 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 ways that are obvious to any one who studies a series of those 
 papers, they remain the fairest test to the competitors and 
 the most satisfactory to the State. 
 
 When the examination has been successfully passed, the 
 future Civilian undergoes a further training at the expense 
 of the State. To this day this does not seem to be satis- 
 factory, and has been frequently changed. Before going to 
 India the Civilian should know something of Indian life and 
 civilisation so as to sharpen his curiosity and enlighten him 
 regarding the people whom he is to help to govern ; he should 
 be taught something impartial about their politics as they 
 will present themselves to him in India, and in his studies 
 he should be protected against the prejudices and errors 
 which will surround him like an atmosphere so soon as he 
 sets foot in India ; he should acquire some knowledge of the 
 classical language of the country both for his use and his 
 culture ; he should be made to master the details of the 
 machinery of government in which he is to find a place. 
 During this stage he should be taught these subjects not as 
 though he were attending a trade school, but as though he 
 were at a university. And yet he should be taken out of 
 an academic atmosphere and taught by his surroundings to 
 acquire the condition of mind of a man who has already gone 
 out into the world. There is far too much of the mere univer- 
 sity in this part of the Civilian's training. I say nothing of 
 studies in law and its practice. Only very general principles 
 should be taught during his training. The young Civilian 
 ought not to be put too soon to magisterial duties, and with 
 proper tutelage on the spot he can acquire enough knowledge 
 of law to serve his purpose. If he desires to pursue a career 
 upon the judicial side, he should return to England for detailed 
 training. 
 
 When he arrives in India, he is posted to a district for 
 training as an Assistant Collector, and in due course holds 
 a responsible post. Then the world is before him. It is 
 a hard, but by no means an unpleasant one if his heart is
 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 101 
 
 in it. He is a great man, he has power, there are prizes 
 for the winning, his pay is certainly not mean. As self- 
 government develops he will enjoy more and more the de- 
 lightful stimulus of the statesman ; he has many of those 
 difficulties to surmount which call for good judgment and 
 bring their rewards of satisfaction to the able man. His 
 work is not to be compared for a moment in its interest and 
 variety to that of a Government office at home. If he wants 
 routine he should stay at home ; if he wants life he should 
 go to India making sure first of all that India calls him, and 
 also making sure that he now understands that a still greater 
 change is impending which will rob the Service of its character- 
 istics of a dominating governing authority. 
 
 But the Indian Civil Service is more than a collection of 
 individuals. It is a bureaucracy with a corporate life, a 
 machine, a free masonry. It moulds the raw recruit into its 
 own image. It has to work as a whole. When communi- 
 cation was difficult and Indian conditions resisted centralisa- 
 tion, the individual had freer play. He was a human being 
 in touch with human beings, but, though that may still be 
 retained, too many officers become wheels in a mechanism 
 working by rule and regulation. The machine reduces its 
 parts to mechanisms. The tendency has been to centralise 
 the working, and that was the fundamental fault of Lord 
 Curzon's rule. The machine of government has become a 
 thing apart, and by separating itself from the organic life 
 of India it has over-emphasised the fact that India is ruled 
 by foreigners. The evolution of such a system is inevitable. 
 I have described its results in the work of its represen- 
 tatives. Secretariats become all-powerful; not a sparrow 
 falls but is recorded, reported, and re-recorded, docketed, 
 initialed, and minuted ; not a suggestion emanates from be- 
 low but is regarded with suspicion or hostility as something 
 of a foreign origin ; not a thing is done without involving 
 the whole machine in the doing of it. Then, it is the 
 Government on one side, and the people on the other. Such
 
 102 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 is both the mechanism and the psychology of the Service, 
 and the one cannot be separated from the other. All this 
 is unhealthy, is bad government, cannot last. It must end 
 both in a revolutionary decentralisation and in a much closer 
 association of the people with the government. 
 
 One of the great problems of the Civil Service is how far 
 and upon what conditions the Indian should be employed 
 in it. To the Indian, the Royal Proclamation of 1858 is a 
 kind of Magna Charta, a Bill of Rights. He is never tired 
 of quoting the pledge of the Queen : " And it is our further 
 will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or 
 creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our 
 service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their 
 education, ability, and integrity duly to discharge." As 
 early as 1833 a clause was inserted in the Government of India 
 Act providing that no native shall be debarred from any office 
 solely on account of his " religion, place of birth, descent, or 
 colour." But twenty years later, when Parliament again 
 reviewed the government of the Company, it was found that 
 the clause had been a dead letter, and that the Company 
 intended that it should so remain. John Bright said : l 
 " From that time to this no person in India has been so em- 
 ployed who might not have been equally employed before 
 that clause was enacted ; and ... it is clear that this most 
 objectionable and most offensive state of things is to con- 
 tinue." 
 
 The Act of 1853 imposed competitive examination as the 
 way of entry to the Civil Service, and an attempt was then 
 made to have examinations in India simultaneously with 
 those held in England. There was an interesting debate on 
 the subject opened by Mr. Rich.* The proposal was sup- 
 ported by Lord Stanley, Mr. Bright, and others, but failed to 
 carry. When after the Mutiny the Government passed to 
 
 1 Hansard, 127, p. 1184, June 3rd. 
 
 * Ibid., 129, July 22nd and July 25th, 1853.
 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 103 
 
 the Crown, the Secretary of State appointed a Committee 
 to inquire into the subject of the employment of Indians, 
 and, having decided that they should be employed " to as large 
 an extent as possible consistently with the maintenance of 
 British supremacy," it pointed out that, though there was no 
 legal bar, ''practically, however, they are excluded," owing to 
 *' the difficulties opposed to a native leaving India and residing 
 in England for a time." The Committee had " no hesitation " 
 in recommending simultaneous examinations. The Civil 
 Service Commissioners concurred and did " not anticipate 
 much difficulty in arranging for this." But nothing was 
 done, and this report of 1860 seems to have dropped out of 
 the records of the Government of India and has not been 
 reproduced amongst the papers that have been published 
 officially on the subject. 
 
 Meanwhile the subordinate or Uncovenanted 1 Service was 
 being recruited by Indians, though in 1870 the Duke of Argyll, 
 then Secretary of State for India, complained in a dispatch 
 that the superior appointments in that Service were being 
 filled by Englishmen. In 1870 an Act was passed requiring 
 the Governor-General to frame regulations by which Indians 
 who had not passed an examination might be put into the 
 Covenanted Service. But the Government of India would 
 not move. Reminded again and again by the Secretary of 
 State of the provision of the Act, it took four years to respond, 
 and when the regulations were sent to London for approval 
 they were found " to place too narrow a construction upon 
 the statute." In a note written by Lord Lytton on 
 
 1 The Services became known as Covenanted and Uncovenanted, because 
 the higher posts were reserved to the Indian Civil Service by statute (1861), 
 or were the subject of a covenant. The Uncovenanted Service ranged from 
 Deputy Collectors and Extra Assistant Commissioners down to Tahsildars 
 and Myooka, and on the judicial side included subordinate Judges and Munsifs. 
 A Service with such an inferior bottom was bound to be degraded. As the 
 result of the recommendations of the Public Service Commission of 1886-87 
 the Uncovenanted Service was classed as the Provincial Service, to which 
 were assigned the superior subordinate posts and the subordinate Service, 
 and the Covenanted Service became the Indian Civil Service proper.
 
 104 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 May 30th, 1878, to a disgraceful dispatch sent by the Govern- 
 ment of India that year proposing to close the Covenanted 
 Service to Indians, the whole of this sorry story is reviewed, 
 and this is the summary of it : " Since I am writing confi- 
 dentially I do not hesitate to say that both the Government 
 of England and of India appear to me, up to the present 
 moment, unable to answer satisfactorily the charge of having 
 taken every means in their power of breaking to the heart the 
 words of promise they had uttered to the ear." The dispatch 
 was rejected with something like contemptuous anger. 
 
 A puny system of scholarships for Indians to come and study 
 in England was established and then withdrawn, and in 1879 
 rules were at last framed, and upon them the " Statutory " 
 section of the Service was built up, beginning in 1880. A 
 proportion of new appointments not to exceed one-fifth was 
 to be filled by Indians nominated by the Governor-General 
 in Council from nominations made by the local governments, 
 a condition being that the nominees were to be of good family 
 and social standing. Altogether 69 places were filled in 
 this way ; but as the men had not the educational qualifica- 
 tions or the general ability to perform their tasks, the scheme 
 was foredoomed to failure and fell into disfavour. It had 
 never met with the approval of Indians, and it strengthened 
 the opposition as in some quarters it was meant to do of 
 the British elements to any infusion of Indians into the higher 
 Service. 
 
 The Public Service Commission of 1886-87 opened the next 
 phase. It recommended that Indians who had done specially 
 good work in the lower Service should be promoted to posts 
 in the higher Service. In consequence of this, and after the 
 usual delay which has caused so much damage in India, rules 
 were issued in 1 892 by which certain posts held by the superior 
 Service were listed and were made available for promotions 
 from below. There are now 61 such posts for the whole 
 of India. This is known as the system of " listed posts." 
 Men thus promoted do not enter the higher Service, but
 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 105 
 
 simply hold these poets and are paid salaries equal to two- 
 thirds paid to Europeans. 
 
 This is the system in force at the moment of writing, and 
 the history of its growth reflects no credit on the Government 
 of India. It has yielded better results than the " Statutory " 
 Service, but it is far from satisfactory and the Commission 
 which reported in 1917 proposed to abolish it. Its great 
 drawbacks are : (1) the men appointed to listed posts do 
 not pass into the higher Service, and therefore always remain 
 inferior ; (2) the men appointed are too old to fill their places 
 with energy ; (3) the men have fallen into the grooves of the 
 Provincial Service and have lost self-confidence and initiative. 
 In a sentence, it is not for the good of the State, and it will 
 not be accepted as satisfactory by Indians, that posts in the 
 higher Service should be set aside as prizes for old men. Every 
 man in the higher Service must feel himself to be a member 
 of the Service, must feel in himself its spirit, and must be held 
 by his colleagues on terms of trust and equality. 
 
 Meanwhile the English door was being used by some Indians 
 who were fortunate enough to be able to come to England and 
 attend an English University. One passed in in 1878, the 
 second in 1882, two in 1885; from 1888 there has been an 
 unbroken stream, the largest number passing in any one year 
 being seven in 1899. 
 
 The position may be seen in this way. In 1913 there were 
 2,501 posts under the Indian administration carrying a salary 
 of over 800 rupees per month ; 2,153 were held by Europeans, 
 106 by Anglo-Indians, 242 by Indians including Hindus and 
 Mohammedans. There were 11,064 posts with salaries of 
 200 rupees per month and upwards, 4,898 being held by 
 Europeans and 1,593 by Anglo-Indians. Or again, the 
 position may be stated thus : of the 200-rupees posts and 
 upwards 42 per cent, were held by people of unmixed Asiatic 
 descent ; of those of 500 rupees and upwards only 19 per 
 cent. ; of those of 800 rupees and upwards only 10 per cent. ; 
 of those of 1,000 rupees and upwards only 8 per cent. It
 
 106 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 is true that these percentages are increasing, but the pace is 
 terribly slow. On the assumption that teaching the Indian 
 how to govern himself is an essential part of our work in 
 India, the record I have just been giving is more than dis- 
 appointing. 
 
 The Provincial Service is now practically altogether in the 
 hands of Indians and Anglo-Indians, Europeans being appointed 
 only with the sanction of the Government of India, and all 
 the recruitment is made in India. In 1913 only 56 Europeans 
 were in this Service of 2,432 posts, 54 in the Executive and 
 two in the Judicial Branch. None were employed in Madras, 
 the United Provinces, and Punjab, one judicial officer in 
 Bombay, eleven executive officers in Bengal, fifteen in Bihar 
 and Orissa, nineteen on the Executive and one on the Judicial 
 branches in Burma, three executive officers in the Central 
 Provinces and six in Assam. As Deputy Collectors and 
 Assistant Judges these men do the greater part of the detailed 
 work of Indian administration ; and though everything they do 
 is subject to supervision, they require to be men of ability 
 and probity. A race could not carry these responsibilities 
 if it were fit to do that and nothing more. Many of these 
 men put young into the superior Service would work in that 
 Service as well as they do in the lower one. 
 
 We have to admit without any cavil that the Government 
 of India has been opposed to the general employment of 
 Indians. The politicians at home have regarded India as a 
 political problem, the Governors in India have regarded it 
 as an administrative one. They have been unwilling to 
 surrender or share authority, and so when Acts and resolu- 
 tions have been passed by Parliament liberalising the adminis- 
 tration of India, their application has been delayed and their 
 intention twisted. Nothing has ever been fully carried out. 
 The Act of 1833 was not carried out at all ; the Proclamation 
 of 1858 when translated into Government of India resolu- 
 tions was pruned until it was a mere stump ; the Act of 
 1870 lay useless for nine years, and then when the Govern-
 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 107 
 
 ment of India was forced to act upon it, it was not faithfully 
 carried out; the Report of the Commission of 1887 was 
 not touched for three years and then the Government used 
 it to limit the privileges which previous discarded statutes 
 and dispatches had given to the Indians. In this resistance 
 we see several influences. There is the very human one of a 
 Service knit together in race and dignity unwilling to welcome 
 aliens in custom, habit, and race into its midst, even if these 
 aliens are the natives of the governed country ; there is the 
 feeling that efficiency will suffer if the Service is not kept as 
 it is, and the unsatisfactory methods hitherto taken to put 
 Indians into it gave that feeling some appearance of reason ; 
 there is the assumption that whilst the British occupation 
 of India remains, a nucleus of British administrators is 
 necessary, and that the best form for that nucleus is a 
 comparatively small superior Service retaining in its hands 
 District supervision and legislative authority. 
 
 With the House of Commons at home passing liberal measures 
 and the Indians welcoming these manifestations as the 
 dawning of new days, the Government in India could not 
 state definitely and emphatically what its feelings were, 
 except in dispatches more or less private like that of 1878 to 
 which Lord Lytton wrote the angry note from which I have 
 quoted. All it could do was to delay and prune. But its 
 great bulwark was the English examination, not only its 
 place, but its nature. It would be a long time before Indians 
 would or could go to England in sufficient numbers to take 
 many places in the examinations, and the examination itself 
 was so Western, more particularly in its languages, whether 
 classical or modern, and Oxford so dominated the minds of 
 the Civil Service Commissioners, as was seen by the scheme of 
 marking the examination papers, that nothing but a whole- 
 sale breakdown in British intellect or a complete destruction 
 of the attractions of the Indian Service to university graduates 
 could enable Indian candidates to secure very many places. 
 As India had become the possession of the Indian Civil Service,
 
 108 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 so Oxford endeavoured to secure the Indian Civil Service as 
 its perquisite. 
 
 To put an end to this and to make Government pledges 
 effective, Indians asked for simultaneous examinations. At 
 first there was little formulated opposition The expedient 
 was supported by an official committee in 1860, the House 
 of Commons passed a resolution in favour of it in 1893, 
 and this resolution was accepted on behalf of the Secretary 
 of State. 1 Then the opposition was formulated. It had a 
 great margin of trivialities. On account of the variation of 
 time, it was impossible to have the examinations simultaneous, 
 and examination papers could be sent by cable from where 
 they were first disclosed, and candidates in, say, Calcutta 
 could see them before going inside the examination rooms ! 
 And so on. Two objections, however, were not absurd. If 
 there were an open competition in India there would be no 
 guarantee that any British candidates would be returned at 
 all, and the British nucleus would disappear ; further, the 
 examination would not be good for Indian education, as its 
 influence in India would be to make university education 
 conform to the Civil Service examination papers. The second 
 objection was, curiously enough, urged by men interested in 
 British Universities, though Oxford in particular has always 
 been anxious to have these Civil Service examinations attached 
 to itself. The theory of the examination is that the papers 
 should test a good university education, and that view is shared 
 by the Civil Service Commissioners. That is forgotten by 
 those who make this objection. It was also the view expressed 
 in the famous memorandum drawn up by the Committee 
 which sat in 1845, of which Lord Macaulay was chairman 
 and Dr. Jowett a member. If for British purposes this 
 examination is a test of sound university education, why is 
 its influence in India to be to degrade university education ? 
 Our educationalists who are also interested in Indian education 
 cannot have the argument both ways. If they vary it, as 
 
 i Hansard, 17, p. 1035, 1893.
 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 109 
 
 they sometimes do, and say that examinations are now an 
 unhealthy influence in Indian education, they may be right, 
 but that does not justify the continuation of a system of 
 admission into the Civil Service which is unfair to India and 
 defeats the declared purpose of Acts, resolutions, and dis- 
 patches passed and written by Parliament and the Secretary 
 of State for nearly three-quarters of a century. It may, and 
 does, suggest that there is something wrong with Indian 
 education, which, however, is to be put right only by a change 
 in the spirit of the system. 
 
 The first argument is the one of real substance. But it 
 has been met by Indians, like Mr. Naoroji, who propose that 
 limits should be fixed to the recruitment in India, and the 
 Commission which reported in 1917 unanimously recommended 
 that nine places should be competed for in India every year. 
 Thus the principle underlying simultaneous examinations 
 is conceded, and the educational argument against them is 
 set aside. Nine may not be a sufficient number, but it may 
 be increased in tune, and the English door is still open as 
 well. 
 
 The real problem which the recruitment of the Civil Service 
 raises is, must there be a British superior Civil Service if the 
 British connection is to be maintained ? and the answer 
 will depend largely upon what view one takes of the nature 
 of that connection. If one assumes not only that India is 
 to remain subject to the British Crown, but subject to British 
 administrative authority, one must conclude that there ought 
 to be a sufficient number of British in the higher governing 
 posts to give direction and tone to the whole of the Govern- 
 ment. Comparatively few are required to do this, but that 
 few must be maintained at all costs. If one, however, assumes 
 that India may remain subject to the British Crown and yet 
 govern itself with a genius and efficiency all its own, the 
 importance of the British nucleus in the Civil Service is not 
 so great. British Governors will then remain as in the
 
 110 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Dominions, but their position will be ceremonial and sym- 
 bolic rather than administrative. 
 
 This divergence of view is only the indication of a deeper 
 divergence. Are we to look upon India as a nation which is to 
 be moulded, as the generations pass, in Western or in Indian 
 moulds ? Is the transformation of India into a Britain the 
 service we are rendering mankind by our work there ? Or 
 can we not render a better one, and regard our mission in India 
 as being one for the liberation of the Indian genius ? We 
 found it crushed by its own errors and tyrannies, weakness 
 and disorders ; we came to restore authority to it, to give 
 it back its rights and power of self-government. That cer- 
 tainly was our ideal during most of last century. If that be 
 our ideal still, it is best to let India gain power first of all 
 in Legislatures and gradually supply her own administrators. 
 For the Legislature is the will, the administration the hand- 
 maiden of the will. The administrator is the expert who, 
 taking his instructions from the will, works out details and 
 applications efficiently. The faculty to administer well 
 comes after that of forming opinion and expressing it. So 
 that in the interests of self-government in India, the country 
 would be well advised to keep its legislative powers ahead 
 of its administrative authority, for it is more important 
 for it that efficient Europeans should supervise the edicts 
 of an Indian public opinion than that Indian administrators 
 should carry out British instructions. That thought, I 
 believe, should guide India in determining the general features 
 of the reform it is now to demand. 
 
 In any event we are coming very near to the limit to which 
 it is safe to reduce the British nucleus if we have no intention 
 of welcoming India as an Indian State under the Crown. 
 And that at once suggests difficulties. The nucleus must 
 be one of exceptionally good men, for its number is of less 
 importance than its qualities. There never has been any 
 marvel in the fact that a thousand or two able and well- 
 trained Britishers, glorified by prestige and backed by a
 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 111 
 
 powerful hidden authority, were sufficient to administer the 
 public affairs of hundreds of millions of Indians. The marvel 
 would have been had it been otherwise. 
 
 But India is losing some of its glamour. The discontent 
 of the Service is known in Oxford colleges, and educational 
 changes have obstructed the flow of the vigorous youths 
 who used to go from Scotland and Ireland, and were amongst 
 the sturdiest pillars of the Service. Some of the complaints 
 are peevish and do a great injustice to the Service, but others 
 are well founded. The material rewards of the Indian Ser- 
 vice are not so good as they were ; and with the opening up 
 of other attractive avenues of employment to university men, 
 India has to meet a keener competition. This is affecting 
 all the Services, but conspicuously so the Civil and Medical 
 Departments. The blunder committed by the Civil Service 
 Commissioners in merging the Home and Indian examina- 
 tions has added to the difficulties of the situation, and men 
 are now going out who openly confess that they are taking 
 India because their place in the competition did not allow 
 them to choose the posts they coveted at home. This has not 
 gone very far yet, and can be stopped if wisely dealt with. 
 But the canker is there, and once such evil influences come 
 into play their effects suddenly become critical. I am not 
 sure but that they have become critical on the medical side. 
 
 This is a problem of the first consequence to those who 
 can see no chance of safeguarding Imperial interests in India 
 except by a British bureaucracy. They must do something 
 to maintain the threatened standard of Indian recruitment. 
 They must face the problem of pay, of privileges, of pen- 
 sions, and they must in this way produce a material attrac- 
 tion for service in India which will eclipse similar attractions 
 at home or elsewhere. They must supplement this with 
 social attractions which will restore some of the vanished 
 satisfaction and contentment to the hearts of Indian Civilians. 
 Above all, they must produce in the minds of those from whom 
 they wish to draw their candidates an interest in India, so
 
 112 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 that they may hear the call of India. Upon this depends 
 the decision as to the age at which they should oatch their 
 men. University convenience is not good enough. That must 
 be studied in relation to the aim. 
 
 In making these schemes and devising these plans for a 
 better recruitment, they would be under no delusion as to 
 what they are up against. They will have to meet the Indian 
 opposition which will grow, which has been greatly increased 
 by the events and emotions of the war, to an administrative 
 British bureaucracy, to the great increase in the expense of 
 Indian government ; they will have to surmount the dangers 
 of an increasing political and legislative power possessed by 
 Indians whilst they rigidly maintain a British-manned adminis- 
 tration ; they will have to remember that the economic value 
 of the men they want is likely to be very high in other walks 
 of life, and that by offering them greater rewards they are only 
 putting up the market against themselves. We have now 
 reached a point when foresight and farsight are essential 
 if we are to do justice to ourselves in India. The war compels 
 us to survey the future and revise our policy with remote but 
 inevitable ends in view, and whatever conclusions the govern- 
 ing authorities may adopt, let them be definite, let them be 
 systematised, and let them take into account all the factors. 
 For myself, I have come to take the other view. I believe 
 that the Imperial connection can be kept by a self-governing 
 India enjoying, with the appropriate modifications, Dominion 
 privileges of Home Rule. I believe our ancestors were wise 
 when they decided that if Indians showed themselves capable 
 of filling the administrative posts of their own Government, 
 no obstacle should be put in their way. Mere polished 
 efficiency is not the end of our custodianship of India ; a 
 pax Britannica is not the end ; the end is Indian life, abun- 
 dant, responsible, spontaneous. 
 
 I was a member of a Commission which inquired into 
 the Public Services and made certain recommendations on 
 the subject, but the new conditions created by the war made
 
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 113 
 
 the report obsolete before it was published. Our conception 
 of the functions of the Service must now be altered. I then 
 thought of the possibilities of twenty years from 1914. The 
 twenty years have gone and twenty have been added to them. 
 The Indian Civil Service must conform far more to the con- 
 ditions and status of the Home Service, and must no longer be 
 recruited for the higher posts of the Executive. In the cir- 
 cumstances it is far better to institute simultaneous examina- 
 tions in India and Great Britain than pursue the scheme of 
 electing proportions here and there, for the reduced attrac- 
 tions of the Indian Service to Britons may be expected to 
 reduce the quality of the men recruited here. On this sub- 
 ject, the discussion and proposals in the Montagu-Chelmsford 
 Report are altogether perfunctory and inadequate. If that 
 Report becomes the basis of legislation, the contention of the 
 Indian Civil Service that its status will be revolutionised is 
 unquestionably true. That Service will no longer rule India, 
 and the posts from which it now does the ruling will be taken 
 from it or will lose their prestige. It may be consulted, but 
 it will not decide. It will act not of its own will, but through 
 that of bodies elected in India ; and as this is not the time 
 for confused systems and undefined authority, with whatever 
 regret and misgiving we may contemplate the change, the 
 change is inevitable. The seat of authority in India is being 
 removed from the Civil Service to the Legislature, and we must 
 build up the system of government accordingly. Wisdom 
 compels us to see not very far off the end of the Civil Service 
 as we have known it, and that being so it also compels us to 
 begin without delay to create a new service which will carry 
 us through the transition stage from a British to an Indian 
 administration. To Indianise the Civil Service has become 
 necessary.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE NATIVE STATES 
 
 THE Native State is a sovereignty in which the Crown shares 
 .to a varying extent, but in every case the foreign relations 
 of the State are the concern of the British Government. Also 
 the internal administration of the State would at once become 
 a matter of Imperial interference were it to be considered 
 subversive to the interests of either British or native subjects, 
 or were its tranquillity to be threatened either by bad govern- 
 ment or turbulence. It cannot make war ; it cannot bind 
 itself to its neighbours. If its subjects are aggrieved against 
 a foreign power, that is a matter for the British Government, 
 not for the Native State. The protecting authority both of 
 the subjects of Native States abroad and of those of Foreign 
 States in the Native States is the British Government. The 
 degree to which the Native sovereignty extends has been 
 determined by no general principle, but by historical accident, 
 the size and importance of the States themselves, the terms 
 of the treaties made between the Imperial Government and 
 the Native rulers, other agreements and usages. 
 
 The Nizam of Hyderabad is the first of these rulers and 
 exercises the maximum of power. He issues his own coinage, 
 has a free hand as to taxation, and has absolute powers of 
 life and death. Some of the rulers of the smaller States have 
 little more than minor judicial powers and immunity from 
 British taxation. 
 
 As a symbol and embodiment of British sovereignty and its 
 responsibilities, there are political officers and residents in 
 every Native State, and cantonments of troops are stationed 
 
 114
 
 THE NATIVE STATES 115 
 
 at suitable places. These complicated relationships also 
 necessitate judicial arrangements which vary considerably 
 from State to State. On the other hand, the rulers have 
 accepted obligations to provide a certain force of troops which 
 could be used for purposes of Imperial defence. Before the 
 war broke out there were about 22,000 of these troops and 
 they were placed unreservedly at the disposal of the Imperial 
 authorities. 
 
 Of these States there are nearly 700, they occupy territory 
 of 675,267 square miles, or well over one-third of the whole 
 country, and their population is 70,000,000 or about two- 
 ninths of the total for India. Their population is in no way 
 different to that of British India ; they are simply the remnants 
 of the estates held by the rulers which for one reason or another 
 we attached without annexing as we spread from the sea to 
 the mountain barriers. Our friends we protected, our enemies 
 we absorbed. The Dalhousie policy of annexation was heroic, 
 but really neither side wanted it. It was in the interest of 
 the Native ruler to make peace with us ; it was in our interest 
 to leave him responsible for the administration of his State, 
 provided he did not conspire against us and did his work of 
 ruling tolerably well. We kept as a power in the background, 
 and well in the shade out of sight. We had our represen- 
 tatives at the courts, and they were consulted by and advised 
 the princes, reported to the Government and took instruc- 
 tions from it. But the dignity of the princes was main- 
 tained and their responsibility was real, even when they 
 were too lazy and too self-indulgent to exercise it. That was 
 a definite policy, and so, when the Queen assumed the title 
 of Empress of India, Mr. Gladstone was particularly anxious 
 to receive from Mr. Disraeli a pledge that the new regal dignity 
 would in no way detract from that of the Indian princes, 
 and the pledge was given. 
 
 The Indian prince did not always respond satisfactorily 
 to the new conditions of luxurious security in which he found 
 himself under our wing. Nothing drew from him energy
 
 116 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 and activity. He was secure in his State, he had an ample 
 income, he had prestige and authority amongst his subjects, 
 he had a bad upbringing and a deteriorated and deteriorating 
 entourage, he had no traditions of public usefulness to spur 
 him. He did not belong as a rule to a very old family, and 
 his State had come to him by conquest or favour. His con- 
 ception of himself was that of a tax-receiver surrounded by 
 plotters and schemers, by flatterers and traitors ; that of a god 
 ministered to by hangers-on. He could not understand that 
 there was any difference between the income of his State and 
 his own. It was his private possession managed by agents. 
 His court was too often a maze of crookedness and sensuous- 
 ness, in which women generally played the leading part, and 
 through which he sank into physical, mental, and moral decay. 
 The peace and protection of Britain brought the Native State 
 to the condition of a fever-stricken morass where diseased 
 nature was prolific and gorgeous to the eye, but rotten at the 
 core and feeding on corruption. And British interests and 
 influence not infrequently increased the corruption. Such 
 was the parlous transition stage through which the Native 
 State had to pass whilst its rulers were being taught their 
 duties and responsibilities as the heads of their people and 
 the vassals of British rule, and whilst we were deciding whether 
 we should take it from them or teach them better ways. 
 
 Recently there has been a great change for the better. British 
 policy has been directed to pressing the Chief to make himself 
 responsible for the government of his State, and a new type 
 of Native ruler is arising. In him there is still a love of the 
 pomp and luxury of the past, but his mind has been moulded 
 and his outlook changed by contact with the education of the 
 West and its conceptions of the good ruler and good govern- 
 ment. The Chiefs' Colleges at Ajmeer, Rajkot, Indore and 
 Lahore have played their part (though on the whole a dis- 
 appointing one), but of much more importance has been the 
 general political atmosphere of India, the known views of 
 the British Government, the personal contact between Delhi
 
 THE NATIVE STATES 117 
 
 and the Native rulers. Whoever looks at the reports of 
 administration issued from such States as those of Hyderabad, 
 Mysore and Gwalior will see on every page, not only the stamp 
 of the West, but the hand and mind of the East. 
 
 Saving for a short relapse during Lord Curzon's vice- 
 royalty, the Native rulers are being encouraged more and 
 more to do their own work, in accordance with the spirit of 
 the British sovereignty no doubt, but as people sharing that 
 spirit and believing in its wisdom. In this connection, Lord 
 Minto said some pacificatory things to undo the evil that 
 Lord Curzon had left behind him, but his successor Lord 
 Hardinge widened the Minto declarations into principles of 
 policy. At Jodhpur, for instance, when, as almost one of 
 the last acts of his rule, he invested the Maharaja of Jodhpur 
 with ruling powers, he said: "We have recognised that if a 
 State is to be ruled justly and well, and to be a source of 
 real help to the British Empire, it is only through the ruler 
 himself supported by his sardars and people that these results 
 can be obtained. Irksome restrictions on the exercise of 
 sovereign powers are apt to chafe and irritate a proud and 
 sensitive spirit, with results disastrous not only to the ruler 
 and his people, but also to the Empire at large. We have, 
 therefore, made it our aim to cultivate close and friendly 
 relations with the ruling princes, to show by every means 
 that we trust them and look on them as helpers and colleagues 
 in the great task of Imperial rule, and so to foster in them 
 a spirit of responsibility and pride in their work which no 
 external supervision can produce. Trust begets trust and I 
 rejoice to say that in my dealings with the ruling princes in 
 India I have never found my confidence misplaced." 
 
 These are wise words, and they indicate the policy which 
 has been pursued quite definitely since Lord Curzon left 
 India. One of the reasons why Lord Hardinge was attracted 
 to Delhi as his capital and why in the building of the new 
 Imperial city he urged plans and expenditure on what seemed 
 to be a scale of only too characteristically oriental extrava-
 
 118 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 gance, was that he might be nearer to the Native States and 
 thus be more frequently in their minds, and that the seat 
 of government might appeal to them as truly Indian in its 
 grandeur. One has only to look at a political map of India 
 to see how Delhi lies in the midst of what is still native in 
 India, and that when the British Government went there it 
 seemed to cut itself off from the alien settlements of British 
 race and merge itself in the dreams, in the ruins, in the tradi- 
 tions that to the great mass of the people are India. It may 
 be that the bureaucracy will defy the dreams, spoil the ruins, 
 and enslave the traditions ; but this in any event is certain, 
 that, supposing by some miracle there were established in 
 India an Indian Government sensitive to the thoughts of 
 the people and wishful to regenerate them, it could not make 
 the great coast cities its home : from its very nature it would 
 seek prestige, authority, and appropriateness in Delhi or in 
 some similar place where the spirit of India still broods though 
 it be amongst tombs. 
 
 The problem presented by these States is not an easy one 
 to settle. Some, like Hyderabad, are as large as a European 
 State ; some, like Mysore and Baroda, are almost as enlight- 
 ened in their government ; some, like Gwalior, show a complete 
 identification of ruler and people on a liberal basis equal 
 to that of not a few Western Governments ; some, like the 
 Rajput States, are far more ancient than any existing European 
 monarchy and have preserved a dignity and a pride which 
 bankrupt those of any reigning European house. 
 
 Obviously, whoever tries to piece into a system the whole 
 administration of India must begin his work by endeavouring 
 not only to preserve these States, but to make their auton- 
 omy more complete. The very widespread British opinion 
 that the Native State is a backward and inefficient Govern- 
 ment is sheer vanity. In Hyderabad, a Mohammedan shows 
 how to reconcile Mohammedan and Hindu loyalty, and 
 in Gwalior a Hindu ruler does the same ; in Baroda, Bikanir, 
 Travancore, and elsewhere, we have magnificent pioneering
 
 THE NATIVE STATES 119 
 
 work done in education ; in Mysore, experiments in education 
 and popular government have outstripped our own. Some 
 have more enlightened marriage laws, some have gone farther 
 than we have in protecting the judiciary from undue execu- 
 tive influence, some have shown us the way to establish a 
 flexible system of Income Tax. All teach us wisdom in land 
 taxation, the patronage of the arts (whatever their mistakes 
 may be, they have not made the unpardonably fatal one of 
 crushing or starving out the arts), industrial progress. None 
 of any consequence are opposed to political progress (except 
 in one instance or two where the rulers are old, and I know 
 of no case where their successors will be adverse to change) 
 certainly none will resist a good British example in this respect ; 
 and the most enlightened of them very justly complain that 
 we have held them back. All, within recent years, have 
 shown great advances in the purity of their administration. 
 It is certainly a profound mistake to identify the survival of 
 a gorgeous ceremony and a court ritual of dazzling trappings 
 with the politics of the times when personal power and 
 tyrannical wills expressed themselves in that way. This 
 truth was borne in upon me with great force one day whilst 
 staying at one of these courts. I had seen much of the ruler 
 and we had discussed every Western political movement 
 from women's suffrage to Socialism. He was interested in 
 them all and held opinions upon them which showed that 
 none of them were new to him. But one fine morning there 
 was a State ceremony. The velvets and the jewels, the gold 
 and the silks, the scimitars and the headgear were brought 
 out, and the mind which was discussing Socialism the night 
 before was animating a body clothed in the pomp of ancient 
 days, ancient authority, and ancient ideas. This is the incon- 
 gruity of India, but let no cynical or superficial mind imagine 
 that the incongruity goes very far below the surface. 
 
 The head of the Native State is just as likely to be progres- 
 sive nowadays as the British bureaucracy, but, quite apart 
 from that, the advantages of indigenous government are so
 
 120 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 apparent, and the freedom and confidence which indigenous 
 administration enjoys things, for instance, can be done by 
 Indian rulers which would not be tolerated at the hands of a 
 foreign authority are so useful that not only ought the Native 
 State to be preserved, but, were that at all possible, it ought to 
 be multiplied, and, subject to their administration responding 
 in a general way to the changes that must be made in Indian 
 administration, the existing States should have more powers 
 of self-government. In any event, far greater care should 
 be taken in selecting Residents those representatives of the 
 Imperial authority who reside in the capital cities of these 
 States and act as tutors and guardians, as well as mere advisers, 
 to their Chiefs. These men too often are devoid of the qualities 
 which fit them for the delicate and difficult office which they 
 fill, and their influence tends to stifle both initiative and sense 
 of responsibility in Chiefs who perhaps at best have but little 
 of either, but who under certain types of Residents lose what 
 little they have. 1 
 
 It is quite absurd to say that self-government is incom- 
 patible with the status of Chiefs in these States in view of 
 the oft-expressed views or practices of the rulers of Mysore, 
 Baroda, Alwar, and others. Indeed, Indian self-government 
 would receive the hearty support of these personages. What, 
 then, ought to be the relation between these States and the 
 Indian Government, between the Chiefs and their Durbars 
 and Councils on the one hand, and the Viceroy and the Indian 
 Legislature on the other ? 
 
 The States are at different levels of political evolution, 
 and that for the moment bars a uniform treatment. But 
 considering how much the Indian Legislature influences 
 Native State policy the States, for instance, have no 
 tariff liberty, no separate system of posts and telegraphs, 
 
 1 " The attitude of the political officer, while ordinarily deferential in form 
 (though even that is sometimes lacking), is the attitude of a servant who 
 directs his nominal master, haughty, polite, impertinent, and ironical " 
 (ChaUley, Problem* of British India, p. 259).
 
 THE NATIVE STATES 121 
 
 and so on the States should be represented, at any rate for 
 advisory purposes, on the Imperial Indian Legislature as 
 federated communities, and, where they have Legislatures 
 and Councils themselves, these Legislatures or Councils should 
 select the representatives. 
 
 It would be a mistake to put the Chiefs into organic relations 
 with the Indian Government. That could only be done by 
 either lowering their dignity or confusing the nature of the 
 Government. Rather, the Chiefs together with the Governors 
 of Provinces should meet in consultative Council, say once 
 a year, to discuss matters of common interest and co-ordinate 
 policy, so far as that is advisable, but not to come to any 
 binding decisions. Their meeting should be like that of the 
 crowned heads of Europe, and every encouragement should 
 be given to individual Chiefs to meet and consult at other 
 times. This should be done without waiting for represen- 
 tations on the Imperial Legislative Council, as that for the 
 moment may not be practical. Full recognition should be 
 given to these rulers in all matters of Imperial concern, and 
 their status of dignity and responsibility should be put in an 
 unquestionable place in the minds of the Indian Government. 
 
 Two important matters arise, however, in connection with 
 these proposals. The first is, that they modify the theory 
 that these States secure their independence only by refraining 
 from interfering in the affairs of British India ; the second 
 is a presupposition that the States are sufficiently large and 
 important to justify the distinction proposed for them and their 
 Chiefs. 
 
 The first point is really not one of substance. The Govern- 
 ment of India cannot do anything without influencing these 
 States, and it is far better to recognise the fact formally. The 
 Imperial Legislature will not deal with strictly Provincial 
 matters, and the presence upon it of several State represen- 
 tatives will increase rather than confuse its efficiency for the 
 work it has to do, even if it may be desirable to withhold 
 the power of voting on certain classes of subjects from these
 
 122 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 representatives. It would be impracticable for each State 
 to be represented, but the States could form an electoral 
 college for the choice of a certain number of representatives 
 for the life of each Legislature. 
 
 The second point is one of greater difficulty. The status 
 of States now varies enormously. Some have direct access 
 to the Government of India, some have not ; the relations 
 of some are with the Indian, of others with the Provincial, 
 Government ; some are clearly independent, others are as 
 clearly not ; there is the Old India party and the New India 
 party ; Chiefs who still live in the Middle Ages and Chiefs 
 up to date in habits, dress, religion, and political ideas ; there 
 is Udaipur and Baroda, there is the State of Nablia and the 
 State of Gwalior ; there are rulers educated at English Uni- 
 versities, and rulers educated in the female quarters. Obvi- 
 ously there must be a classification and grading of States. 
 This, indeed, ought to be made in any event, and should be done 
 by a Committee upon which the States are themselves repre- 
 sented by a Committee which will be directed to pursue 
 the federal idea and to improve the status of States, wherever 
 that is possible. When this is done and not until this is 
 done many of the fears which disturb the minds of the 
 ruling Chiefs that they are to lose their authority, that the 
 strained interpretations put upon treaties by the Indian 
 Government when dealing with weak rulers may be extended 
 to all, and similar suspicions which are now perfectly justified, 
 will be removed for good. The continued liberty of the 
 Native State and of its ruler does not depend upon a loose 
 connection, but upon a constitutionally defined relationship 
 within a federated India.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 FINANCIAL POLICY 
 
 I TARIFFS 
 
 WHEN one tries to imagine what would be the policy of an 
 India in the government of which ascertainable public opinion 
 would have substantially more influence than it has now, one 
 of the first subjects which presses for attention is finance and 
 fiscal policy, and in this connection we must remember what 
 the nature of the representative authority will be for some 
 time to come. Its most prominent features and interests 
 will be nationalist and capitalist. The Universities and 
 Colleges and the greater Municipalities that will be represented 
 will give tone to the Legislatures, and the class from which 
 candidates will have to be drawn will be in the main that of 
 lawyers and business men. In the very first Legislatures 
 provision should be made for the representation of working- 
 class, cultivator, and co-operative interests, but I do not see 
 how, to begin with at any rate, this can be very effective. 
 It will in time gather authority as it goes through its appren- 
 ticeship, but in the meantime it will find some of the main 
 lines of Indian political development set for it by the classes 
 prepared straight away to make full use in their own interests 
 of their political powers. The new India will be started by 
 nationalist and commercial minds, and so far as fiscal policy 
 is concerned they will agree. They will follow precisely 
 the same line of action as our own Dominions have done. 
 The economics of the nationalist are those of self-supply 
 and foreign exclusion ; the taxation policy of the commercial 
 classes is that revenue should be found as much as possible 
 
 123
 
 124 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 by customs imposts which, whilst protecting Indian industry 
 and securing for it high profits, will at the same time 
 supply revenue and ease the burden of income tax. Indeed, 
 as has been quite evident in recent financial debates in the 
 Legislative Council, these interests rather shirk the duty of 
 imposing direct taxation, are inclined to resort to loans, and, 
 like a French Budget Committee, fail in courage to make ends 
 meet. 
 
 The system of Indian taxation is an inheritance from past 
 political conditions modified by the methods of the British 
 rulers. The Hindu conception of the King's revenue was that 
 it should be levied from the income of his subjects in varying 
 proportions, and in fines and fees. A Collector-General 
 supervised the tax gathering, and he appointed local repre- 
 sentatives. The foundation of the system is to be found 
 in the Laws of Manu. Traders' profits are to be taxed. One- 
 fiftieth part of cattle, one-eighth of grain (or a sixth or twelfth), 
 one-sixth of trees, ghee, honey, fruits, hides, earthern vessels, 
 belong to the king. And so on. At its best, the Hindu 
 system was excellent and surprisingly modern in its theory ; 
 at its worst, in practice, the tax-gatherer levied what he could 
 and practised corruption and oppression. The barbarous 
 splendour of the Courts which Sir Thomas Roe 1 and other 
 visitors have described was the result of tribute and taxation 
 outside the bounds of tax-gathering, and was made possible 
 owing to the theory that State revenue was the personal 
 possession of the ruler. 
 
 When the Company came, its first income was profit from 
 trade, but by and by it received political revenues. 8 At first 
 it collected these revenues in the name of the Indian ruler. 
 " They held their territories as vassals of the throne of Delhi ; 
 they raised their revenues as collectors appointed by the 
 Imperial Commission ; their public seal was inscribed with 
 
 1 Journal, Hakluyt Society (series ii. vols. i. and ii.). 
 J The turning-point came in 1765 when Clive procured a grant of the 
 Diwani of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa from Shah Alam.
 
 TARIFFS 125 
 
 the Imperial titles ; and their mint struck only the Imperial 
 coin." The inevitable evil of such a system is the dark thread 
 which runs through the story of Warren Hastings and Nun- 
 comar, and tarnishes the biographies of the great men and the 
 history of the great deeds which meet us at the beginning 
 of our Indian connection. The income of the State was to 
 yield profit to the shareholders, and Warren Hastings, " with 
 an empty treasury, with an unpaid army, with his own salary 
 often in arrears, with deficient crops, with Government tenants 
 often running away, was called upon to remit home another 
 half-million without fail." x 
 
 For a time there was a confused jumble between the financial 
 policy of the Company as a trading concern and as a political 
 State. It sacrificed national interests in order to make profits. 
 It ordered the ploughing up of fields of poppies when its 
 stock of opium was sufficient and it did not want to depress 
 prices ; at another time, and for the same business reason, 
 it decreed the planting of poppy crops instead of grain. And 
 what was even more fatal to revenue, its servants on the 
 spot traded in their own interest and made fortunes on markets 
 which they manipulated and by bribes which they exacted. 
 Adam Smith's account of the procedure remains the classical 
 criticism of the faults of such a form of government. 2 It is 
 cold ; but the heat which would arise from a political con- 
 demnation of such a system was blown with hearty good-will 
 into the orations of Burke until they glowed like furnaces. 
 In the end, State revenue had to be separated from trading 
 profits, and this was finally done by the Act of 1813. 
 Twenty years later the Company was compelled to end its 
 trading transactions altogether. 
 
 But in the Budget, as elsewhere, the Company and the sys- 
 tems to which it had become heir still survive. If we take 
 a Financial Statement of the Government of India we can see 
 
 1 Macaulay's Warren Hastings. 
 
 1 Wealth of Nations, bk. iv. chap. vii.
 
 126 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 how the revenue is derived and shall appreciate the problems 
 connected with it. That of 1915-16 showed a revenue of 
 54,855,000, 21,000,000 of which came from the land; 
 3,000,000 from salt ; 5,600,000 from Customs ; 8,000,000 
 from Excise ; 2,000,000 from Income Tax ; and 5,000,000 
 from the Posts and Telegraphs, Railways and Canals. On 
 the Expenditure side out of a total of 56,000,000, 22,000,000 
 was for military purposes and 24,500,000 for the cost of 
 government, including the collection of revenue. 
 
 Passing the Land Revenue for the moment, three things 
 strike one in this statement of revenue the Salt Tax, the 
 Income Tax, and the Customs. The Salt Tax has long been 
 regarded as a blemish on our Indian fiscal system. It is light 
 (when it was lowest, from 1907, it stood at 1 rupee per 82| Ib. 
 and meant a tax of about 3%d. per head per annum), but 
 still it is no mean proportion of the income of Indian families. 
 Though salt taxation was known in India before, its present 
 history dates from the imposition of Clive and Warren Hastings 
 when the Company was hard up. It has been retained on 
 the ground that it is well that every Indian should feel the 
 cost of government. As a matter of fact he feels nothing of the 
 kind : he just knows that the price of his salt is high, though 
 salt is a necessity. But supposing there was something in this 
 notion of making everybody feel the cost of administration 
 (and there is nothing), it would only apply to a self-governing 
 people who may rightly be taught the financial consequences 
 of political acts. It requires a highly trained intelligence 
 to decide what are the consequences of political policy and what 
 are not, what consequences are worth bearing and what are 
 not, and so on through many other processes of accurate 
 reasoning. We know in this country what an appeal for 
 reduced rates and taxes generally amounts to. It is as a rule 
 an appeal to personal selfishness and shortsightedness against 
 a wise social policy. If the cost of government were to be 
 made a safeguard against folly, nations would be undone, 
 because bills come after the events and people show less
 
 TARIFFS 127 
 
 forethought in reckoning up the cost of great follies than in 
 demanding an estimated cost of cold wisdom. 
 
 In India, where the Government is a bureaucracy, even 
 this theoretical justification for the Salt Tax does not exist. 
 If the Indian salt consumer had all the wisdom necessary to 
 come to sound conclusions upon the cost of his government, 
 he has no power to alter it by one farthing. The Salt Tax 
 is exaction and oppression ; and if the people understood it, 
 it would only breed discontent. It is a survival of the general 
 exploitation of India's poverty by a profit-making Company. 
 The argument for its retention illustrates the error so prevalent 
 in India, of assuming that the political wisdom of a Western 
 self-governing State is also political wisdom in an autocrati- 
 cally or bureaucratically governed one, and that a bureaucracy 
 has the same right to impose burdens on a people that a 
 representative Legislature has. The payers of the Salt Tax 
 have no more to say in Indian policy than the man in the 
 moon, and the price of their salt has no more influence on the 
 bureaucracy than the cost of their weddings. 
 
 On the other hand there is the Income Tax, levied first of 
 all temporarily to relieve the charges of the Mutiny, but im- 
 posed as a regular part of Revenue in 1884. It is the repre- 
 sentative of the trade taxes imposed by the Moghuls, so that 
 those not engaged in agriculture should not elude the tax 
 collector altogether. Before the war, it stood at about 6Jd. 
 in the , but in 1916 it was raised to from l\d. to 1*. 3d. by 
 a sliding scale determined by the amount of income. The 
 yield of the tax has risen steadily, but that it is evaded in 
 a wholesale way is shown not only by the small sum which 
 it produces, but by the further fact that the yield from Govern- 
 ment salaries is about one-fifth * of the total. The import of 
 private merchandise by sea has risen from 64,500,000 in 1 904-5 
 to 122,000,000 in 1912-13, the exports from 105,000,000 
 to 166,000,000 ; bank deposits have doubled ; the paid-up 
 capital in Joint Stock Companies registered in the country 
 
 1 1914-15.
 
 128 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 has increased from 26,782,000 to 50,698,000. But during 
 the same time the yield of the Income Tax has increased from 
 1,260,000 to 1,936,000. It is true that the accumulation 
 of wealth which these figures indicate has been confined to a 
 comparatively small section of the people, but that is all the 
 more reason for a much greater State revenue being obtained 
 from it. This is one of the pressing financial problems of 
 India : how to get at the wealth of the richer people and how 
 to make them yield a juster amount to the national revenue. 
 Indian revenues have always been taken far too much from the 
 poor, and the rich have got off far too lightly. It took us 
 a long time here to stop up the back doors by which Income 
 Tax was evaded, and we have not completely succeeded yet. 
 But in India we have hardly begun the task and are using its 
 difficulties as an excuse why we should not begin. 
 
 In the mind of the Indian manufacturer, the alternative 
 to a proper Income Tax is a tax upon imports. If Indian 
 commercial opinion determined fiscal policy, India would 
 be a highly protected State, and this would come about from 
 the ordinary human motives of doing one's best for one's 
 own advantage. This is specially the case with the cotton 
 trade. But financial interest is here mixed up with national- 
 ism as it is in Ireland. The Indian is told tKat in days gone 
 by England deliberately ruined his manufactures in order to 
 find a market for its own, and up to 1918 he has had " proof " 
 of his opinions in the arrangement by which, " in the interest 
 of Lancashire," his native products have had to pay an excise 
 duty equivalent to the customs duty imposed upon cotton 
 imports. 
 
 For a long time the fiscal policy of India has been the 
 subject of conflicts between the Government sometimes one 
 is not very sure whether it was the Home or the Indian Govern- 
 ment and the manufacturing and nationalist sections of Indian 
 opinion. The contest centred round cotton imports. Cotton 
 is the one great machine industry in Indian hands, jute being 
 under British control. But Lancashire has important interests
 
 TARIFFS 129 
 
 in the Indian open door. From 1904-5 to 1913-14 inclusive, 
 the value of the manufactured cotton goods, including twist 
 and yarn, sent to India from the United Kingdom was no 
 less than 288,000,000 ; in the first of those years it was 
 23,700,000 and in the last 39,800,000.' The Home Govern- 
 ment could not, in its political interests, afford to neglect 
 a stake such as that which these figures indicate, and it hap- 
 pened to believe in principles of international trade which 
 coincided with Lancashire's interests. As is usual, when 
 principles and interests coincide the world accepts the more 
 ungenerous explanation that the interests are the real ex- 
 planation of conduct. 
 
 When cotton production began to be of some importance 
 in India, about 1870, Lancashire cotton manufacturers became 
 alarmed lest the 5 per cent, ad valorem duty they then had 
 to pay 2 might prove to be a protective tax for Indian pro- 
 ducts ; and they moved at home to get Free Trade principles 
 applied to India. Free Trade held unchallenged sway 
 over the minds of British statesmen at the time, and it was 
 not only easy for them to listen to Lancashire, but to do what 
 it wanted in the honest belief that it was not to Lancashire 
 they were giving ear, but to the best interests of India 
 itself. To offer any explanation except the latter one was 
 described by Lord Hartington in the House of Commons 
 in 1882 as putting the matter " on a false issue." In 1874 
 the Manchester Chamber of Commerce urged the Indian Sec- 
 retary to end the duty on cotton goods as it was disadvan- 
 tageous both to India and Great Britain, and a few months 
 later referred to the competition of Bombay mills that had been 
 started under protection. After an inquiry, the Government 
 
 1 Statistical Abstract (1916). 
 
 1 In 1858 when the Crown became responsible for the Government of 
 India, a 5 per cent, ad valorem cotton duty was in existence. This was 
 raised in 1859 to 10 per cent., and reduced again in 1864 to 7i per cent., 
 and in 1871 to 5 per cent. 
 
 9
 
 130 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 decided that 5 per cent, was not a protective duty, and it was 
 right. 
 
 In 1878 Indian finances were overhauled, and an attempt 
 was made to differentiate between raw and manufactured 
 articles, between duties which were convenient forms of in- 
 direct taxation upon consumers and those which acted as 
 protection to native industries. The customs were pruned 
 and engrafted by Free Trade minds, and those kinds of 
 Lancashire cotton which had to meet the competition of 
 Indian mills were admitted free not only, be it repeated, 
 to give Lancashire a chance on Indian markets, but in the 
 interests of Indian consumers. 
 
 The circumstances made it difficult for the Indian manu- 
 facturers to see the beneficence of the change, and it was warmly 
 criticised in India, the majority of the Viceroy's Council 
 protesting against the influence which Lancashire was having 
 on Indian policy. Indeed, that side of the Free Trade mind 
 of Lancashire appeared to be hypocritical, and the later events 
 in the story of cotton duties have only added to the Indian 
 doubts. In 1882 the cotton duties were completely removed, 
 but when the exchange value of the rupee fell, and the Indian 
 exchequer was again in great straits, the old 5 per cent, on 
 imports had to be reimposed in 1894-5. Lancashire became 
 active l and in response to its agitation some details of the 
 Budget were altered, involving a loss of revenue to India, 
 and an arrangement come to by which an excise duty similar 
 to the customs duty had to be paid. That has been the rule 
 since. But the exigencies of war finance compelled the Govern- 
 ment to reopen the question in 1917, when, partly owing to 
 the desire of the Tariff Reform members of the Government 
 
 1 Cf. Hansard, September 3rd, 1895. Philip Stanhope: "If there was 
 any thing more patent than another in the late appeal to the Constituencies, 
 it was the stern resolve of the people of Lancashire that this matter should 
 not be allowed to sleep." Lord Salisbury's despatch of 1871 on the subject, 
 together with this debate embody the facts and the arguments of the con- 
 troversy.
 
 TARIFFS 131 
 
 to get a contribution made to their policy, partly to unwilling- 
 ness to offend the nationalist interests of India during the war, 
 the House of Commons sanctioned an arrangement by which 
 British cotton imports should pay in India a duty of 4 per cent, 
 for which there should be no countervailing excise. 
 
 This is only a small beginning in the destruction of a system 
 which the Indian manufacturer has never accepted. It has 
 always seemed to him that, under the guise of Free Trade, 
 we have been upholding the old pernicious practice of mer- 
 cantilism and have been using dependencies for the purpose 
 of providing markets for our goods. The nationalist move- 
 ment took the same view. It felt quite accurately that the 
 financial policy of India was devised to suit British ideas 
 and sometimes British interests, that in any event it was 
 not always even the policy of the Indian Government, to say 
 nothing of India itself, but was sent out from home. 
 
 When Lord Morley increased the representative character 
 of the Indian Councils, the old position could not be main- 
 tained for long. Indian financial policy had to be devised 
 in India, even if, in the opinion of the Home Government, 
 India was wandering from the paths of economic wisdom, and 
 Lancashire interests were being damaged. So no one was very 
 much surprised to find that the Finance member, in intro- 
 ducing his second war Budget (that for 1916-17), announced 
 the inevitable departure. It was not to be taken then because 
 when the war was over the whole question of fiscal relationships 
 for the Empire itself, and for it in relation to the world, would 
 have to be considered, but a pledge was given that the old 
 policy was dead and that Indian opinion would influence 
 Indian fiscal arrangements in a way which had hitherto been 
 denied to it. 1 
 
 By the following year India had offered to us a contribution 
 
 1 The words vised by Lord Hardingo in his Budget speech to the Imperial 
 Council just before he left India were : " We are all unanimous, I think, 
 as to what the best interests of India in connection with the cotton duties 
 may be, and I regard this declaration that I and my Government have been
 
 132 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 of 100,000,000 to our war expenses, and part of the financial 
 scheme by which it was to be raised proposed an extra 4 per 
 cent, duty on imported cotton. Lancashire challenged the 
 departure, but was beaten, 1 and I do not believe that the 
 decision then taken can ever be reversed. 
 
 A revision of the fiscal policy of India will be one of the first 
 acts of a Legislature representative of active nationalist opinion, 
 and the result will be a tariff in the interests of capital. Cotton 
 will be protected first of all on account of its financial influence, 
 and the 4 per cent, difference will probably be increased. 
 In a normal year the import of manufactured textiles will 
 be little short of 50,000,000 in value at pre-war prices. This 
 is the highest value of any group of imports. The next is 
 that of iron and steel and metals, which may be put down at 
 15,000,000, most of which would be subject to a protective 
 duty. Then there is a considerable miscellany of manu- 
 factures, varying from matches to umbrellas, in which Indian 
 manufacturers are interested and which is not likely to escape 
 the eye of Tariff Reformers. On the other hand, India is in 
 a specially strong position for imposing export duties on some 
 of its raw products like jute, which it will send abroad to the 
 value pre-war rates of perhaps 20,000,000 per annum. 
 There is undoubtedly opportunity here for raising a consider- 
 able revenue, for easing the burdens of capital, for giving an 
 artificial impetus to industry, for meeting the demands of 
 nationalist economics and swadeshi. 
 
 Such a policy will provide some money for the Exchequer, 
 but not nearly enough to meet the increased expenditure 
 which India will have to face as the result of the programmes 
 of representative Legislatures. It will not be to India's 
 permanent advantage, and I am sure if the excessive influence 
 
 authorised to make in the name of his Majesty's Government as a far-reach- 
 ing pronouncement of statesmanship and full of hope and promise, implying 
 as it does the possibility, or I may even say the probability, of a broad re- 
 consideration of the fiscal interests of India from a new angle of vision." 
 Hansard, March 14th, 1917.
 
 TARIFFS 133 
 
 of the rich classes of Indians engaged in commerce were 
 counterbalanced by the political activity of the common 
 people, the Indian demands for a tariff, especially on cotton, 
 would not be so conspicuous as they are. One thing is quite 
 evident. A tariff will not re-establish the old hand industry 
 of India nor help to revive village handicrafts. Factory and 
 machine production, native to India itself, will throttle them 
 as effectively as that of Lancashire and Birmingham has done 
 in the past. Protection is asked for the Indian capitalist of 
 Bombay, Ahmedabad, Calcutta, not for the artisan of the 
 mofussil. Its one certain effect will be to increase the pace 
 by which India is to become a great manufacturing nation, 
 and it ought not to be granted without concurrent legislation 
 protecting the wage-earners both in their factory and in their 
 housing conditions. Whoever has visited the working-class 
 districts of Bombay, with their squalid overcrowding, their 
 filthy dens of disease, their insanitary puddles and stinks, 
 will pause before welcoming or aiding any rapid strengthening 
 of the economic influences which maintain them, until, at any 
 rate, a public opinion and body of legislation have been created 
 to protect the people whose labours will be necessary for the 
 new factories. Social and labour legislation is so backward 
 in India that any policy of rapid economic development can 
 only enrich a few at the cost of the very lives of the masses. 
 India ought to prepare itself by dealing with the human pro- 
 ducts of the factory system before the Government abandons 
 itself to a policy whose sole object is to extend factories as 
 though they were a sufficient end in themselves. 
 
 This policy of protection must therefore be considered in 
 relation to the industrial development of India and its bearing 
 on politics. To imagine the backward Indian labourers 
 becoming a conscious regiment in a class war, seems to be 
 one of the vainest dreams in which a Western mind can in- 
 dulge. But I sometimes wonder if it be so very vain after all. 
 In the first place, the development of factory industry in India 
 has created a landless and homeless proletariat unmatched
 
 134 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 by the same economic class in any other capitalist community ; 
 and to imagine that this class is to be kept out, or can be 
 kept out, of Indian politics is far more vain than to dream 
 of its developing a politics on Western lines. Further than 
 that, the wage-earners have shown a willingness to respond 
 to Trade Union methods ; they are forming industrial associa- 
 tions and have engaged in strikes ; some of the social reform 
 movements conducted by Indian intellectuals definitely try 
 to establish Trade Unions and preach ideas familiar to us 
 in connection with Trade Union propaganda. A capitalist 
 fiscal policy will not only give this movement a great impetus 
 as it did in Japan, but in India will not be able to suppress 
 the movement, as was done in Japan, by legislation. As 
 yet, the true proletarian type of wage-earner, uprooted from 
 his village and broken away from the organisation of Indian 
 society, is but insignificant. It is growing, however, and I 
 believe that it will organise itself rapidly on the general lines 
 of the proletarian classes of other capitalist countries. So 
 soon as it becomes politically conscious, there are no other 
 lines upon which it can organise itself ; self-government 
 will make it politically conscious ; a capitalist fiscal policy 
 will draw from it a programme and a policy which will repro- 
 duce amidst the wage-earning population of India all the fea- 
 tures of what is known in Socialist quarters here as the class 
 struggle, and will create, if it is not granted to begin with, 
 effective representation on the Legislatures of proletarian 
 opinion and deprive the capitalist and professional sections 
 of a monopoly of power. To-day, economic political opinion 
 concerns itself with tariffs ; under self-government it will 
 also concern itself with social reform.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 FINANCIAL POLICY (continued) 
 
 II THE LAND TAX 
 
 IN all discussions of Indian Revenue, the Land Tax has oc- 
 cupied a special place. The tax, like so many other features 
 of Indian government, has a past dating long before the Com- 
 pany sent a servant to help it to make profits out of India. 
 The grain heaps of the people had to pay tribute to the needs of 
 the king, and the contribution was made in kind. Akbar levied 
 it in cash ; and during the last century, when British financial 
 administrators were importing order and certainty into the 
 Indian revenue, the method of fixing the land tribute was 
 the subject of much consideration when every local custom 
 was taken into account by men, however, who unfortunately 
 did not understand them. 
 
 To-day two methods are in force. One recognises the 
 ownership of landlords typified best in the Comwallis settle- 
 ment of Bengal, commonly known as the " Permanent 
 Settlement"; the other proceeds upon the assumption that 
 the land is State property for which the cultivator pays 
 rent. The Land Tax of the former method is a true tax, 
 though a most unscientific one ; the Land Tax of the latter 
 is not a tax at all, but a rent, and its amount is not the subject 
 of legislative enactment like an Income Tax or a Customs 
 Duty, but of valuation and arbitration. 
 
 When the Company became responsible for the adminis- 
 tration of Bengal, the Land Tax was subject to an annual 
 revision, no system of imposition was fixed, and the chaos 
 and uncertainty were made greater by the fact that between 
 
 135
 
 136 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 the Government and the people was a set of tax farmers who 
 could impose their burdens pretty much as they wished. 
 The Court of Directors determined to end this, and, going 
 back to the Akbar method, decreed a ten years' settlement. 
 When the period ended, Lord Cornwallis reported that the 
 whole of the facts of the assessment had been ascertained, 
 and that it would be best then to fix a perpetual and unvarying 
 impost. That was done, the effect being that people who 
 had been tax farmers became landowners, and cultivators 
 who had been in reality landowners paying Crown dues be- 
 came landlord tenants. The reason why this change, with 
 all its unfortunate errors, was made was that Lord Cornwallis 
 and his investigators knew next to nothing of the customs 
 and systems with which they were dealing, and only under- 
 stood the English land system with which most of them were 
 directly connected. They read the Bengal position as though 
 Bengal were Sussex or Yorkshire, and produced the " Per- 
 manent Settlement " and the Zemindar landowner. In time, 
 the security of tenure which occupiers enjoyed under the 
 Government was lost. They were exposed to the will and 
 whim of landowners, and the condition of Bengal ryots and 
 Bengal rents became such that a series of Land Acts had to 
 be passed protecting the cultivator in the enjoyment of the 
 soil and the reward of his labour, and undoing to some extent 
 what Lord Cornwallis had done in his ignorance. Meanwhile, 
 the revenue ceased to enjoy any part of the increasing rents, 
 and the settled tax ceased to bear any relation to the capacity 
 of the land to bear a share of the cost of government. The 
 Bengal Zemindar became enormously wealthy on income 
 which ought to have been kept by the State, and when the 
 Income Tax was introduced he escaped it on the ground that 
 his income was derived from the land and was presumably 
 mulcted already by the tax which he paid. This system 
 holds good in " about five-sixths of the present Province of 
 Bengal, 1 one-eighth of Assam, one- tenth of the United 
 1 Since then Bengal has been reportioned.
 
 THE LAND TAX 137 
 
 Provinces, and a quarter of Madras, representing in all about 
 one-fifth of the area of British India." l 
 
 Viewed from any standpoint except that of the perhaps 
 privileged Zemindar, the Bengal system is unjust. It is, 
 however, as I have said, in accord with the notions of our 
 English landed governing class, and in 1862 the Secretary of 
 State decided that it should be made universal in India. 
 But the practical difficulties in the way were so great, the 
 sacrifice of State rights and the handing over to private pockets 
 as a gift what belonged to the Indian nation were so obvious, 
 that a combination of simple justice and common sense 
 thwarted the Secretary of State, and in 1883 Lord Kimberley 
 declared against the extension of the Bengal system. Ever 
 since then enlightened opinion has rejected it, and were it 
 possible it should be undone. It is not now possible, but 
 Zemindar incomes in " Permanent Settlement " districts 
 ought to be subject to Income Tax. 
 
 There is another great objection to freeing the land of India 
 and allowing it to be regarded as personal possession. The 
 cultivator has always been the prey of the moneylender, 
 and though the development of co-operative Credit Societies 
 is reducing this evil rather substantially, it is still in existence. 
 The history of the Punjab land legislation is an admirable 
 illustration of how this works, though the case of the Deccan 
 cultivators might equally well be cited. 
 
 When the Punjab was annexed, the lands were given back 
 to the peasants and a very low Land Tax was fixed. But, 
 largely owing to the rigidity of the annual payment and the 
 happy-go-lucky disposition of the peasant no doubt the 
 product of generations of unsettlement the moneylender had 
 to come in to help over the lean years. His grip tightened 
 year by year, until, in 1894, when an inquiry was held in 
 one district, 20 per cent, of the cultivated areas had either 
 been sold or was seriously encumbered with debt, and in 
 other districts the percentage was even higher. Between 
 
 1 Imperial Gazetteer, vol. iv. p. 229.
 
 138 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 1892 and 1896, over 50,000 acres had been sold to money- 
 lenders and as much to non-peasant purchasers, and these 
 sales had grown to 120,000 acres in 1899-1900, whilst nearly 
 300,000 acres were under mortgage. Thus the agricultural 
 basis of the Punjab was being undermined. To accelerate 
 this, the moneylender was adopting various slim devices 
 such as that of " conditional sale," by which he became pos- 
 sessor of the mortgaged land were interest not paid within 
 a specified time. The conditions of the loans were in most 
 cases extortionate to the highest degree, and could not possibly 
 be fulfilled. But the Courts enforced them until public opinion 
 was roused and the Government had to decide, in 1900, to 
 prevent the sale of agriculturalists' land to non-agriculturalists. 
 Into the merits of the law I do not enter ; upon the extra- 
 ordinary agitation against it I make no reflections. I draw 
 attention to the fact that land in India enfranchised from 
 Government control tends to pass into the hands of money- 
 lenders, lawyers, non-agriculturalists, or to become so weighted 
 by mortgages that the cultivator sinks to slavery, and I put 
 that down as the explanation of how widely spread in certain 
 classes is a demand for a landlord system and an opposition 
 to land legislation. On the other hand, the Government 
 no doubt has its own selfish ends to promote. But whoever 
 speaks in the interest of the cultivator, whatever his views 
 may be upon the weight of the land tax, will not propose 
 to alter the system of land tenure or leave the cultivator 
 exposed to moneylenders and forced sales. 
 
 Under the system of temporary settlement the tax is usually 
 fixed for a period which may be as much as thirty years, with 
 variations in the payments should crop conditions necessitate 
 abatements. 1 The cultivator is then a permanent tenant 
 of the Crown and his right of occupancy is both heritable and 
 transferable. 
 
 The assessment requires a careful cadastral survey, and a 
 
 1 As the system of assessment gets more complete, seasonal variations 
 in the impost become more practicable and in fact more common.
 
 THE LAND TAX 139 
 
 map is kept in each village showing in detail the extent and 
 boundary of each field. A list is also kept of those who have 
 rights over each field, indicating the person responsible for 
 paying the tax and containing in some provinces, such as 
 Burma, the most complete information regarding tenures, 
 rights, and mortgages. This record has to be constantly 
 kept up to date. 
 
 The proportion of produce taken varies. Obviously where 
 irrigation is efficient the proportion is higher than where it 
 is not, for the rent of fertile lands is not only higher than that 
 of poor soil, but represents a higher percentage of the yield. 
 In estimating the tax which the land ought to bear, not only 
 is the cost of cultivation taken into account, but that of 
 marketing, the productivity of the soil, the effect of existing 
 settlements, the value of tenants' improvements, the character 
 of the seasons, and so on, and it is upon the net value thus 
 arrived at that the tax proportion is fixed. Throughout 
 the whole of last century there has been a steady lowering 
 of the proportion of the net product taken. Thus in Orissa 
 in 1822, 83-3 per cent, was taken ; in 1833 it fell to 70-75 per 
 cent. ; in 1840 to 65 ; in 1916 it was 54. 1 Fifty per cent, may 
 be taken to be the general rule. A mathematical standard 
 is the basis, but it is, or ought to be, applied with " judg- 
 ment and sound discretion." Schemes are also in operation 
 preventing sudden increases as would take place upon 
 reassessment after a long period of years when the value of 
 productivity is increasing. 
 
 The sums levied in this way appear to be colossal, but the 
 principle is sound, and its apparent oppressiveness disappears 
 when the real economic nature of the impost is understood. 
 It represents precisely what land reformers in this country and 
 elsewhere are now endeavouring to persuade our governments 
 to institute, not because they wish to oppress the cultivator, 
 but because they wish to help him, and because they believe 
 that they can prove that a system of private ownership of 
 
 1 Imperial Gazetteer, vol. iv. p. 221.
 
 140 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 rents is bad for tenants and evil for the State. It provides 
 revenue which, if justly assessed, does not enhance prices 
 nor affect the standard of living. The same amount of revenue 
 raised in any other way would add to the poverty of the 
 people. 
 
 In any event this is clear. The " permanent settlement " 
 of Bengal and elsewhere was unjust to the general Indian 
 tax-payer and was no benefit to the cultivator as such. The 
 condition of things which compelled the Government to pass 
 the Bengal Tenancy Acts, in order to save the ryot from 
 robbery and ruin, are an unanswerable argument against 
 those who wish us to believe that the Land Tax is the cause 
 of the poverty of the Indian cultivator. A rack rent is an 
 oppressive rent, but a true rent is not oppressive, and it had 
 always better be a State revenue than a private income. 
 
 Indian Nationalist opinion has never taken kindly to this 
 rent tax, and if it had a chance it would probably try to modify 
 it. The motive for this is complicated, and self- and class- 
 interest are not altogether absent. But apart from that, the 
 tax, when considered erroneously and simply as a tax, does 
 look oppressive, and in a complete indictment of British 
 administration and exploitation it does look formidable. I 
 defend it stoutly in principle, but I think it has been raised 
 too often oppressively, and that is where the Nationalist 
 attack cannot be rebutted. The error lies here. In theory, 
 the tax is a rent ; in practice, a rent should be fixed on an 
 open market by competition between competitors of a decent 
 standard of living and in relation to the amount, above that 
 standard, the land competed for will yield; in other words, 
 it should be assessed with that standard as its first charge. 
 The habit of the Government, very often under the pressure 
 of an all too limited exchequer, has been to exact from the 
 cultivator the uttermost farthing, over and above a standard 
 of life which has been much too low. In theory again, the 
 annual fixed revenue was supposed to be an average in which 
 both good and bad years were computed ; but whilst this
 
 THE LAND TAX 141 
 
 assumed that the cultivator would average his own annual 
 expenditure, as a matter of fact he did not do so, and in bad 
 years he did not go to his savings, but to the moneylender. 
 Over-assessment and the rigidity of the payments, therefore, 
 have undoubtedly tended to impoverish the people, and a 
 system of revenue collection thoroughly sound in theory, and 
 meeting the requirements of unassailable economic doctrine, 
 has, in practice, become a grievous method of oppression 
 and the subject of formidable attack. The Government has 
 only illustrated the dictum that the owner of rents tends to 
 become the possessor of rack rents, and in this respect India 
 shows results remarkably similar to those of Ireland. The 
 power to exact rent has been used in both countries to keep 
 down standards of living, and the ryot and the cottar have 
 been doomed to illustrate how economic law is no respecter 
 of persons. The Punjab and Connemara have been suffering 
 from the same disease. The Indian Government and Irish 
 absentee landlords have been proving that there are no races 
 and creeds in economic law. 
 
 Against two forms of complaint we must be specially wary. 
 We hear much of the excessive " taxation " of India, and we 
 are frequently asked to condemn the way in which the Land 
 Tax is levied because its total yield steadily increases. The 
 substance of both complaints needs to be critically scrutinised. 
 
 Taxation averages are always misleading, and in the case of 
 India, as I have already shown, large sums which are really rent 
 (probably 21 ,000,000 out of a total of 54,855,000) are included 
 in what is called Indian " taxation." Again, a Land Revenue 
 yield, as it is a rent, ought to increase automatically as culti- 
 vation widens and improves. If, in this country, a proportion 
 of rent had found its way regularly into the Treasury, an in- 
 crease in the yield year by year would have been a measure 
 of national prosperity, not of excessive Government imposts. 
 The real point of attack upon the levy of the Land Revenue 
 is not that it exists, but that it is more than a fair rent and 
 that it has been levied in such a way as to prevent a steady
 
 142 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 heightening of the standards of life which would have tended 
 to absorb a part of the increasing productivity into the wages 
 and salaries of cultivators. 
 
 It is often said, and as a statement of historical fact it is 
 true, that our destruction of social custom in India by the 
 imposition of Western legal methods marked the beginning 
 of a new severity of oppression on the part of moneylenders, 
 lawyers, and other classes useful within well-defined limits, 
 but predatory when they overpass those limits. It was 
 alleged, for instance, during the agitation against the Punjab 
 Land Bill, that the banya, as the beast of prey, was created 
 by English methods. We destroyed the old psychology 
 and relationships, and we put in their place the new legal 
 relations between man and man ; we destroyed the community 
 and put in its place the law. So, it is argued that if we had 
 some kind of Permanent Settlement of the Land Tax, the 
 moneylender and the lawyer will return to their old functions. 
 That will never happen again. The change has taken place, 
 and the only way to meet its evils is to carry the system to 
 its logical conclusion with the appropriate legal safeguards 
 under whose shelter a new moral and commercial relation- 
 ship will grow up. So, if, as regards the Land Revenue, 
 self-government were to follow the lines of Nationalism in 
 opposition (a consistency which the history of political parties 
 shows to be any thing but inevitable), India would be put more 
 completely than ever under the hand of the exploiter, and the 
 Indian cultivator would be turned more rapidly than ever into a 
 landless man driven into the plague-infested chawls of Bombay 
 and Calcutta and compelled to swell the ranks of a proletariat 
 whose industrial conditions cannot be matched for evil 
 amongst the most miserable wage-earners in any quarter of 
 the globe. 
 
 This, however, must be said in extenuation of the attitude 
 which some of the leading Nationalists have taken up on this 
 question. The details of the Bills proposed have often been 
 bad those of the Punjab Bill certainly were ; they all em-
 
 THE LAND TAX 143 
 
 bodied ideas of social relationship alien to the Indian mind ; 
 they were the proposals of Governments who were held respon- 
 sible for the evils they proposed to cure. If the Nationalists' 
 opposition has been tinged with some shade of class and per- 
 sonal interest, some desire to leave the land and the cultivator 
 open to capture, it is to be hoped that when they have to 
 settle with themselves the moral obligations of responsibility 
 in a way they have not yet had to do, nothing but the 
 sternest considerations of public policy will determine their 
 decisions, and that they will regard consistency as all 
 honest men do as a very valuable possession, but not quite 
 so valuable as to be bought by the sacrifice of justice. 
 
 If the financial policy of self-government would make the 
 Land Revenue a real rent on the principles I have indicated, 
 it would be all to the good ; if it is to set up a new claim to 
 proprietorship it will be all to the bad. The following points 
 may be stated categorically as they indicate the policy which 
 ought to be pursued : 
 
 1. The Permanent Settlement typified in Bengal was wrong 
 not only politically, but economically, because it was neither 
 a State rent nor had it the advantages of a flexible tax. 
 
 2. The periodic valuation of land for the purpose of fixing 
 a State rent-tax is sound economically, because it aims at 
 securing for the State values which have not been created 
 by the labour of the cultivator. The tax, however, should 
 never exceed an economic rent. 
 
 3. Whilst mistaken impositions may impoverish the culti- 
 vator, that is not a necessary consequence of the Land Tax ; 
 and the cultivator is more impoverished under the Bengal 
 system unless it is guarded by a code of land legislation, and 
 even then his economic position as a tenant is not so good 
 as it is when he is an occupier under the State. 
 
 4. The Land Tax requires elasticity of imposition and its 
 changes should be gradual. 
 
 5. Irrigation justifies a larger percentage of the net pro- 
 duce being taken, because it is not what is taken, but what
 
 144 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 is left, which determines whether the cultivator is justly 
 done by. 
 
 6. The gross yield of the Land Tax ought to increase as the 
 agricultural prosperity of India advances, and as prices rise. 
 
 7. The economic condition of India is such that rent paid 
 into the public funds is necessary unless taxation of an oppres- 
 sive kind is to be imposed on consumers and paid from 
 the incomes (in the form of high prices) of the very poorest 
 grades of the people.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 FINANCIAL POLICY (continued) 
 
 III EXPENDITURE 
 
 TURNING to the Expenditure side of the Indian Budget, the 
 first set of figures which arrests our attention is the cost of 
 government under the heading of " Salaries and Expenses 
 of Civil Departments." This opens up a wide field for con- 
 sideration. It is an item which rises steadily, for India has 
 by no means produced a complete system of government 
 and for a long time prices have been going up. In 1903-4 
 it was 10,000,000 ; in 1913-14 it was 18,000,000, not in- 
 cluding pensions nor superannuation and furlough allowances 
 which added, in the former years, a further sum of 3,300,000 
 and in the latter, one of 4,000,000. This is a very large item 
 equal to two-fifths of the amount raised by taxation. It must 
 be admitted that the government of India is an expensive 
 affair. 
 
 The Indian Civil Service has been regarded for many years 
 as the most attractive of all civilian employment under the 
 Crown. It was something apart in its great distinction and 
 responsibility, and also in its ample remuneration. The time 
 when the nabobs returned gilt with gain, acquired by means 
 which did not bear the clear light of day, to purchase seats 
 in Parliament and dominate a country-side, ended with the 
 trading days of the Company, but the traditions and allure- 
 ments of power, importance, and wealth of those who governed 
 in the almost mythical land of India lingered. In all soberness 
 salaries were fixed high by the Government when it deter- 
 mined to allow no more perquisites, and when salaries ended 
 
 10 145
 
 146 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 pensions began. Though money has sadly dropped in value 
 both in India and at home, and is still dropping, and though 
 the Indian Civil Service is no longer separated from other 
 services by such a wide gulf as formerly, it is still an expensive 
 service. It costs India much, and its own traditions of ex- 
 penditure are such that the ample salary has to be scattered 
 by the open hand. 
 
 In the early days of the Indian National Congress, one of 
 the most frequently used arguments in favour of more Indians 
 being admitted to the Indian Civil Service was that the British 
 demanded salaries far in excess of Indian standards. I fear 
 the habit of high standards has become so prevalent that this 
 consideration has no longer any influence. When Indians 
 appeared in the higher service of course they were paid the 
 same rates as their British colleagues. The scale was fixed not 
 for the race, but for the office ; and by and by when it began to 
 be hinted that the expenses which an Englishman incurred 
 when he helped to govern India were so great that only an 
 imposing salary could meet them, the Indian produced a rival 
 catalogue of his special expenses, such as his enormous family 
 obligations, to prove that he too required a great income. 
 The evidence taken by the Royal Commission on the Public 
 Services is full of this. British standards of pay have un- 
 doubtedly become part of the inducements which public 
 service offered to Indians. 
 
 What these standards are may be seen by comparing them 
 with similar posts at home. The pay of a civilian member of 
 the Viceroy's Council is 5,336 per annum, whilst that of the 
 Secretary of State for India is 5,000 ; a member of a Governor's 
 Council gets 4,265, the Minister at the head of one of the 
 minor departments at home gets 2,000 ; the average pay of 
 a man holding a superior executive post is 2,000, a principal 
 clerk to the Treasury rises to 1 ,200 ; a professor in the Indian 
 Educational Service rises to 800 with allowances extra, his 
 work (it varies very much) is done at home for anything be- 
 tween 200 to 500 ; the Chief Factory Inspector in Bombay
 
 EXPENDITURE 147 
 
 gets 1,200 with allowances, the highest-paid Deputy Chief 
 Inspector at the Home Office rises to 900 ; and so on. 
 
 It may be justly said that the expenses of men in India must 
 be greater than are those of the men at home. Our officers 
 have to keep up prestige, which is expensive, and their open- 
 handed hospitality is unmatched anywhere in the world, as 
 every one who has had the privilege of being their guest 
 knows. 1 The nabob was not merely a man who made money, 
 but who spent it, and as some gleam of his glory lingered 
 in the salary when originally fixed, so too it remained in the 
 expenditure which his successor had to maintain. But that 
 only proves that the methods we have adopted to govern the 
 country are necessarily expensive to the people of the country. 
 A foreign Government is always a dear Government even 
 if it is worth its price. 
 
 One simple conclusion, however, ought to be laid down. 
 We should bend our energies to prevent these high standards 
 of pay from becoming more common. Money is not so cheap 
 as it used to be in India, and therefore existing rates of pay 
 may have to be slightly augmented in some cases, but the 
 abundant supply of indigenous ability which is now available 
 ought to be used to keep down unnecessarily high salaries. 
 An economical Government is one of the necessities of a country 
 like India, where practically the whole of the people live at 
 bare subsistence levels. The traditional glamour of the 
 nabob is rather old now, and at no time did it belong to the 
 eternal fitness of things. 
 
 Every branch of the public service should have as its standard 
 of pay an Indian and not a foreign level, and the allowances 
 that have to be given to foreign administrators should be 
 liberal, but be regarded as extra, so as not to affect normal 
 scales. The pay we give to our administrators is purely 
 artificial from the point of view of India (whatever it may be 
 
 1 Whoever looks only at the salaries paid does a grave injustice to the 
 officers who receive them, and I wish to make it clear that I have some con- 
 ception of the expenditure which they have to meet.
 
 148 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 from our own). Thus far we have wrought India much harm, 
 and this is a reform which self-government would do well 
 to make. 
 
 But the expense of a foreign Government is not only great 
 as regards its salaries, but also great, and far more grievous, 
 as regards its pensions. Upon civil and military pensions alone 
 the Indian tax-payer has to find for claimants living in England 
 something like 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 each year. And these 
 dead charges under a foreign Government are doubly serious, 
 for they are not only drawn from Indian production, but 
 are withdrawn from India itself. The pension paid to a Pro- 
 vincial officer who retires to his native village, or lives in Cal- 
 cutta or Bombay or Madras, is one thing. The people of India 
 have to find it, but it does not reduce the wealth of India. 
 The pension paid to an Imperial officer who retires to London, 
 or to one of the places where Anglo-Indians gather to wait 
 for death, is a totally different thing. The people of India 
 have to find that too, and it does reduce the wealth of India. 
 It withdraws from a fertilising stream a very considerable 
 amount of necessary water, and means impoverishment. 
 
 What I have just written may be taken as a fitting intro- 
 duction to the more general subject of what is known as " the 
 drain," about which we used to hear more than we have 
 done recently, which used to be the subject of many dis- 
 cussions at the National Congress and of many speeches and 
 pamphlets in this country. To explain and condemn it was the 
 purpose of a book which Mr. Digby, that very devoted friend of 
 Indian reform, wrote in 1901 a book which had considerable 
 influence at the time. 1 The argument is admirably summarised 
 in the evidence which Mr. Naoroji presented to the Welby 
 Commission on Indian Finance (1900). It runs as follows: 
 The British rule India in such a way as to exploit it. A large 
 part of the incomes of the rulers is not spent in India, but in 
 England ; pensions are spent in England ; taxation is so heavy 
 that it destroys the powers of India to accumulate capital for 
 1 " Prosperous " India : A Revelation from Official Records.
 
 EXPENDITURE 149 
 
 itself ; capital comes from England and its profits return to 
 England, so that India does not benefit from its own develop- 
 ment ; there is a steady export of raw material from India 
 to pay its debts. Thus there is " a drain " reducing the wealth 
 and capital of the land. Mr. Naoroji was subjected to a severe 
 cross-examination before the Welby Commission, and he did 
 not emerge altogether scathless from the ordeal. But he was 
 not utterly destroyed, and the complaint he was then voicing 
 is far from being silenced. It will have to be re-examined 
 and discussed, and what is substantial and curable in it 
 must be dealt with. 
 
 The Indian financial dilemma, so far as the Government 
 is concerned, is this : India needs a greatly increased ex- 
 penditure upon its own improvement, e.g. sanitation and 
 education, but the masses are poor. Taxation can be imposed 
 wisely only upon the difference between the cost of decent 
 living and income, and that margin in India does not exist 
 for nine-tenths of the population. 
 
 The official apologists keep reminding us of the low taxation 
 of India, but that has nothing to do with the matter. The 
 question is what is the taxable capacity of the Indian people, 
 and as regards the great mass the answer must be : " Practi- 
 cally nil." Englishmen may be taxed, on the average, 10 a 
 head and Indians only one shilling, and the Indian impost 
 be heavier than the English one. While prosperity is far from 
 general in India, the Indian Government will not be able to 
 raise its income very substantially without lowering the 
 standard of life of the people and crippling the economic 
 life of the country ; and prosperity cannot be widespread if 
 the exported tribute is heavy. 
 
 When all is said and done and a balance of advantage and 
 disadvantage struck, I think there can be no doubt that India 
 suffers greatly because so much of its created wealth is spent 
 and fructifies outside itself. Indian exports are not those of 
 the exchange of a free market. To illustrate the point simply : 
 India does not export tables in order to satisfy its needs by
 
 150 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 an equivalent import of chairs ; India exports tables in order 
 to pay debts. Now, there are debts and debts. There are 
 debts which fructify and are paid for by a proportion of their 
 own productiveness, but there are debts that are dead weights 
 upon income, and India's debts are betwixt and between 
 these extremes. If these interests, incomes, and pensions were 
 spent in India by way of immediate consumption or were 
 invested as capital for the economic development of the 
 country, the case would not be so bad. It would only amount 
 to an uneconomic diversion of part of the national income. 
 But whilst it is true that the British officials spend liberally 
 in India and necessitate the maintenance of a great staff of 
 people who spend the whole of their lives in the country, 
 the vast mass of that staff is paid little above subsistence 
 rates on the one hand, and, on the other, the export of salaries 
 is very considerable. When considering the Exchange Com- 
 pensation Allowance, the Government of India assumed that 
 one-half of the salaries up to 1,000 a year was likely to be 
 exported. 1 This is too high a proportion, but it may be put 
 down nearer to one-fourth. We may also assume that all 
 pensions, both civil and military, paid in Great Britain by the 
 Indian Government are spent in Great Britain, and they 
 amount to well over 3,000,000 per annum. This is to all 
 intents and purposes a dead loss to the country. Then 
 there are loans for public works and the great amount of 
 foreign industrial capital the interest on which is exported. 
 This is by no means all a dead loss, but a considerable part 
 of it is. Moreover, the sums paid out of India in this way 
 are increasing. The grand total of the charges upon Indian 
 Revenues paid in England was 20,000,000 per annum at 
 the outbreak of the war ; in 1835 they were 3,000,000 ; in 
 1850 they were under 3,500,000. 
 
 Every debtor country of course complains that it has to 
 pay interest to foreign shareholders, and looks forward to 
 the time which it often tries to hasten by legislative means 
 
 1 Resolution, August 18th, 1893.
 
 EXPENDITURE 151 
 
 when it will wipe off its debts and trade on its own capital. 
 But whilst it is a debtor it has no true grievance, unless, being 
 under a foreign authority, that authority deliberately rules 
 it in such a way as to continue it in its position of economic 
 subjection. The very fact that India is so poor and that it 
 is impossible to raise by taxation vast sums to construct 
 public works, which are of pressing importance and are to 
 be immediately productive, like irrigation canals and rail- 
 ways, compels the Indian Government to go upon the London 
 market for loans ; and the inability of India to provide the 
 capital and experience for some large industries like jute, 
 at the moment when these industries could be planted in India, 
 opens the door for foreign capital and management. The 
 balance of good in the transaction remains with India. What 
 drawbacks there have been were inherent in the conditions 
 of India, not plotted and planned by an alien Government. 
 Young Australia and the Argentine were in the same position. 
 At the moment this drain in the main falsely so called in 
 this respect amounts to about 2,000,000 for interest on 
 Government debt, 9,000,000 for State railway charges, and 
 other smaller sums. The drain from private business is un- 
 known, but the whole transaction, lumped with all the other 
 balances in exchange, is seen in the figures of Indian export 
 and import, which show in money values an adverse balance 
 of from 20,000,000 to 30,000,000. What part of this is a real 
 drain can be decided only after a very patient examination 
 of all the items, some of which, however, are not published. 
 I doubt if it will amount to more than a half. 
 
 Even the items must be carefully scrutinised. Take rail- 
 ways as an example. When railway building began in 1850, 
 the State had to make a bad bargain with British capital 
 in order to attract it, and Indian revenues were burdened 
 for many years in consequence. Later on, the State borrowed 
 money itself and constructed its own lines. But, from the 
 borrowed capital, railway and other works were executed 
 which were devised in War Offices and not in counting houses,
 
 152 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 and military expenditure became masked as railway develop- 
 ment. 1 The matter was repeatedly discussed in the House 
 of Commons when Westminster was more interested in Indian 
 questions than it now appears to be, and the system of borrow- 
 ing to pay interest on unproductive works was condemned 
 and stopped. But once again a sound financial policy was 
 confronted by Indian limitations, and it was found that if 
 Government had to expand the railway system only from 
 revenue or from Public Works Loans, India would have to 
 wait a long time for necessary railways. Private capitalists 
 were again called in, and Indian capitalists were encouraged 
 to help. The business of the railways is now settling down. 
 India bears a debt of 233,000,000 * on account of them upon 
 which it makes a net profit of just over 2,000,000.* But for 
 the purpose of estimating the drain which has been caused 
 by the methods of railway construction and financing which 
 were adopted, railway figures are exceedingly complicated. 
 
 In this vicious spiral of effect becoming cause we must not 
 overlook the fact that the justification for borrowing out of 
 India namely the lack of capital in India is, as I have in- 
 dicated, one of the results of " the drain," so that it perpetuates 
 the very conditions which keep it going. Nor must it be 
 forgotten from our own national point of view that this tribute, 
 however it may enrich individuals, has an evil economic 
 effect upon the nation, because it is an import for which no 
 corresponding export is sent. Its general effect upon the 
 
 1 Large sections of the railways have, however, been planned for purely 
 civil convenience even from the beginning. This interesting statement, 
 for instance, appeared in The Wednesday Review on January 7th, 1914 : 
 " The pious pilgrim to Rameswaram may now feel at ease and loll nonchalantly 
 in the railway carriage, unmindful of the sullen silence or the defiant roar 
 of the sea right below his feet. That is a big boon to the pilgrims which they 
 will not fail to appreciate. . . . They can now step into the sea, so to say, 
 straight from the railway train. What the new route means those alone 
 can realise best, and in the recesses of their hearts they will bless the agency 
 which placed within their reach the means of obtaining the salvation of 
 their souls." 
 
 1914-15. Ibid.
 
 EXPENDITURE 163 
 
 exporting country is described by John Stuart Mill in these 
 words : "A country which makes regular payments to foreign 
 countries, besides losing what it pays, loses also something more 
 by the less advantageous terms on which it is forced to exchange 
 its production for foreign commodities." 
 
 However views may differ regarding the volume of the 
 dram, it is there, but only in part because of the foreign Govern- 
 ment, and certainly not to such an extent as a mere process 
 of subtraction applied to import and export figures would 
 seem to indicate. A more liberal employment of Indians 
 in the public service, a more generous treatment of India 
 by the Imperial Treasury, a greater use of Indians for military 
 purposes, and an international settlement of armament ques- 
 tions will reduce it so far as government charges are concerned. 
 In private business, the establishment of Indian banks and the 
 supply of Indian capital will also reduce it. For this last, 
 two things are essential industrial co-operation and a readjust- 
 ment of taxation so that the rich may pay more and the share 
 of the cultivator in his product be increased. The problem 
 of hoarding should be faced, especially by guaranteed savings 
 banks and a direct propaganda, and a well-considered policy 
 of encouragement of native industry on sound economic lines 
 again I emphasise co-operation should be launched. 
 
 That policy is intimately bound up with self-government, 
 the only part in doubt being a proper system of taxation for 
 the rich. But revenue cannot be raised in any other way, 
 and Indian financiers, wherever their interests lie, will be 
 driven to it. For, though I have written of saving in certain 
 directions, the unsatisfied needs of India on education alone 
 for instance will prevent Budgets under self-government 
 being less in amount than they are now. 
 
 The expenditure under military headings, amounting to 
 about 21,000,000 in ordinary years of peace, with periodical 
 fluctuations but with a steady average increase, is also an old 
 subject of controversy. Undoubtedly, India has not been
 
 154 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 dealt with fairly in this respect. It has had to bear the ex- 
 pense of operations that have been mainly Imperial. There 
 are two Indias. There is the India which is a self-contained 
 unit of government with both internal and external problems 
 of law and order, and there is the India which has a relation- 
 ship to the whole British Empire, and which has to face pro- 
 blems both of offence and defence which arise, or are presented 
 on an extended scale, because it is part of this Empire. It 
 is quite impossible to classify into well-defined compartments 
 these two responsibilities, but certain rough lines can be 
 drawn. A military force is necessary to secure India, not 
 only in our possession, but as India to protect it against 
 invasion and internal disorder. That is very properly an 
 Indian charge. Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji once admitted that 
 40,000 soldiers might be required for this, 1 and if that was so 
 twenty years ago, the military will not admit that fewer will 
 be sufficient now. The strength of the army in India before 
 the war was 77,500 of our regular army and 159,000 native 
 troops. What is the proper charge for India to bear for this 
 military occupation ? A large part of the army in India 
 certainly one-half is an Imperial army which we require 
 for other than purely Indian purposes, and its cost, therefore, 
 should be met from Imperial and not Indian funds. When 
 we stationed troops in other parts of the Empire, we did not 
 charge them upon the Colonies, but in India we have the 
 influence of the dead hand. When the Company ruled, it 
 hired troops from Great Britain, and not only maintained them 
 when in India, but paid the cost of their transport. When the 
 Company surrendered to the Crown, the habit of " lending " 
 troops was kept up, as a fiction convenient to the Treasury 
 of Great Britain. Owing to the report of the Financial 
 Commission in 1900, the Home Government now pays 130,000 
 per annum, which is supposed to be about one-half of the cost 
 of transport, and 100,000 is charged to the Home Treasury 
 for half the military costs of Aden. That is\ll. India pays 
 
 1 Speeches and Writings, Appendix A, p. 74.
 
 EXPENDITURE 155 
 
 the rest. Thus India is treated as an independent State, 
 which, however, we rule and whose military policy we control, 
 while it "borrows" from us a certain number of troops for 
 which it pays. The arrangement is most unsatisfactory. 
 
 It may be said that if India were an independent State its 
 military expenditure would be much higher. But then, 
 India is not an independent State, and is entitled to claim 
 some privileges of Empire ; its weakness ought not to subject 
 it to a more expensive military arrangement than Canada or 
 Australia. 
 
 A self-governing India would no doubt insist upon bearing 
 some definite share in defence, but like the Dominions it 
 would settle how much it ought to bear: it would adjust 
 the cost to its means, and it would decide in what form 
 it was to make its contribution perhaps an Indian-recruited 
 army. In any event the present plan, by which India pays for 
 the Imperial army stationed there, without in any way deter- 
 mining policy, is as bad as it can be. If the existing system of 
 military defence is to last, the whole cost of the British army 
 stationed in India should be borne by the Imperial Exchequer. 
 
 The Commission which reported in 1900 put an end, it is 
 to be hoped, to a still greater grievance. Frontier wars and 
 wars of annexation, like the Burmese Wars, as well as the 
 Abyssinian Expedition, were all paid for by the Indian tax- 
 payer. Only 5,000,000 of the 21,000,000 which the Afghan 
 war cost was found by the Imperial Exchequer. These ex- 
 peditions are in reality events in Imperial policy and should 
 not be an Indian charge at all. Mr. Gokhale once described 
 the position thus : " England has in the past borrowed troops 
 from India for expeditions undertaken from considerations 
 of Imperial policy, such as the expedition to China and Persia, 
 the Abyssinian Expedition, and others, and on all these oc- 
 casions all the ordinary expenses of these troops have been taken 
 from India, England defraying their extraordinary expenses 
 alone. On the other hand, when India had to borrow troops 
 from England, as on the occasion of the Sind Campaign of
 
 156 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 1846, the Punjab Campaign of 1849, and the Mutiny of 1857, 
 every farthing of the expenses of these men, ordinary and extra- 
 ordinary, including even the expenditure on their recruitment, 
 was extorted from India." The Commission's Report met this 
 particular grievance, but self-government would completely 
 end unjust dealing and charge the Imperial Exchequer with 
 expeditions that are Imperial. 
 
 On the civil side, there are several payments objectionable 
 to a degree which cannot be measured merely by the amount 
 of the charges. The cost of the Secretary of State's establish- 
 ment in London is charged to Indian revenues. The Colonial 
 Office is not so charged to the Colonies. Royal visits to India 
 and visits of the Secretary of State l are also paid for by the 
 Indian tax-payer. These items, which now amount to about 
 four hundred thousand pounds, are steadily growing. They 
 are all Imperial costs and, in the main, are fixed apart from 
 the Indian Government. Their appearance in the Indian 
 Budget is mean and is altogether unworthy of us. 
 
 One other item in Indian expenditure calls for notice on 
 account of its unfairness to India. For a long time the value 
 of the rupee was in relation to gold as one to ten, e.g. the rupee 
 in Great Britain exchanged for 2s. In 1873-4 it began to fall 
 and lost 2%d. ; it went down slowly but steadily, every drop 
 of a penny meaning the addition of a crore of rupees to Indian 
 indebtedness, which had to be met on a gold basis. In 1895 
 it had fallen to Is. Id. ; the mints were closed and the policy 
 begun which created a token rupee, bearing the conventional 
 value of Is. 4oL Officers who had to send home money were 
 badly hit; from 1893 additions were made to salaries of most 
 Europeans, called " exchange compensations allowances," 
 and in 1912, owing to the settlement of the value of the rupee, 
 the Government issued a decision to add to European salaries 
 
 1 " An expenditure of 8,800 arises in connection with the visit of the 
 Secretary of State to India and the establishment of a Trade Commis- 
 sioner's office in London" (Financial Statement and Budget, 1918-19, 61, 
 p. 213).
 
 EXPENDITURE 157 
 
 amounts equal to these exchange allowances. 1 This again 
 is unfair to the Indian tax-payer. Certainly the officer ought 
 not to suffer, but the fact that exchange considerations affect 
 his real salary is not an Indian affair at all, but an Imperial 
 one, and these extra emoluments should be found by the 
 British Treasury. 
 
 Indeed, the question is wider than this. When the Indian 
 exchanges were being so grievously disturbed, the disturbance 
 was common to all " silver " countries. But British policy 
 in India was responsible for a good deal of the Indian un- 
 settlement, and India's obligations to Great Britain seriously 
 increased the difficulties. The controversy on the exchange 
 is voluminous, complicated and obscure in some of its points, 
 but since this country was responsible for the policy which 
 brought the rupee problem to a critical head, it ought 
 not to have left India to pay the whole expense of the 
 depreciation, least of all that part involved in the payments 
 made to the Government in London and its own servants 
 in India. 
 
 The war has of course imposed upon India, as it has upon 
 practically every nation in the world, new permanent burdens, 
 and has laid them upon every kind of consumer as well as 
 on the tax-payer. But it is important that I should emphasise 
 that, until the war broke out, Indian Budgets, though in- 
 creasing in amount, were not adding to the oppression of 
 the people. They were not removing burdens, but the official 
 mind was beginning to understand the meaning of Indian 
 taxation and was adopting towards it a more sympathetic 
 attitude. India's power to bear taxes was increasing, and that 
 affords much consolation for responsible legislators in view of 
 the increased expenditure which they will have to face. The 
 extra war expenditure, however, whilst necessitating a better 
 distribution of burdens, will prevent such a thorough revision 
 as was possible before it was incurred. 
 
 1 The operation of this was deferred because a Royal Commission had 
 been appointed to inquire into the whole position of the Public Services of India.
 
 158 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 In ten years up to 1913-14 the Land Revenue increased 
 by 2,000,000, not owing to increased assessments, but to 
 widened areas and irrigation ; Salt decreased by 2,000,000 
 (it would be better if it disappeared), Stamps went up by 
 1,750,000 (a sign of prosperity), Excise went up by nearly 
 4,000,000 (an increase upon which the Government cannot 
 congratulate itself), Customs by 3,500,000 (the result of a 
 policy accepted by Nationalists, whatever it may mean in 
 taxation to the poorer people), Assessed Taxes by only 700,000 
 (the weak spot in Indian taxation at the present moment 
 and certainly no measure or indication of economic stagnation). 
 The total increase of about 6,500,000 from revenue in these 
 ten years is not the result of increased burdens. If the Empire 
 would readjust the burdens which it imposes upon Indian 
 finance, and if that were done and nothing more, the Indian 
 Government could inaugurate great reforms which would 
 increase Indian wealth, and could meanwhile wait, on pretty 
 much the existing basis of taxation, for the augmented yield 
 of revenue to the State which would result from that increase. 
 Only by such an expedient can I see the Indian Government 
 avoid the dilemma India needs more State expenditure : 
 India cannot stand an increase in the burden of taxation.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 EDUCATION 
 
 I AM not to write in this chapter a history of education in India, 
 I am only to discuss what problems our educational work 
 there has raised. Nor am I to attempt to go into details of 
 a reconstructed system ; I can only make some explanations 
 of the existing chaos and give some general indications of 
 how I think self-government will raise upon Indian culture 
 an educational system which will enrich India from its own 
 genius. 
 
 An education system in India is as old as Hindu ritual and 
 was originally connected with it, and the life of the student was 
 the first stage in the great pilgrimage to his being's accomplish- 
 ment. The relation of teacher and pupil was as close and 
 tender as that of father and son ; the young man who sought 
 instruction was praised and he found schools and teachers 
 available. In time, science, mathematics, logic, philosophy 
 and the other ways to knowledge were differentiated and 
 studied, colleges were opened, great names were made, and 
 the busy and subtle brain of the Hindu thought, disputed, 
 taught from generation to generation. But with the break 
 up of Indian government after Aurungzeb, misery and anarchy 
 submerged education, and it sank to such a low level that it 
 ceased to have any influence on the country. Still, the 
 tradition survived, and if it cannot be said that education 
 flourished, schools existed in very large numbers. 
 
 In the Madras Presidency between 1822 and 1826 it was 
 officially estimated that just under one-sixth of the boys 
 
 159
 
 160 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 of school age were at school of some kind (there is now just 
 twice that proportion). In Bombay the numbers were one 
 in eight, whilst in Bengal one-fifth of the whole population 
 could read. The teaching was very deficient, but the demand 
 for it was there to attest to a widely spread desire on the part 
 of Indian parents to give their children something that might 
 be called education. 1 
 
 When the British came the care of schools did not at first 
 concern them ; but by and by they began to feel responsibility 
 for the general condition of the people. They accepted their 
 call to govern and they began to enquire into the condition 
 of the nation. 
 
 The need for education was borne in upon the Company 
 first of all because it required native clerks and subordinate 
 officers. Warren Hastings opened a school at his own expense 
 at Calcutta in 1782, to meet a complaint made by Moham- 
 medans that the literary Hindu was monopolising appoint- 
 ments under the Company. In 1791 the Company opened 
 a Sanskrit College at Benares to supply itself with Hindus 
 for judicial appointments and to encourage Sanskrit scholar- 
 ship. The College was grossly mismanaged, the first Rector 
 having been declared by the Chairman of the College Committee 
 to be " the greatest villain he ever saw." 
 
 Conspicuous amongst the pioneers of general education 
 was Sir Charles Grant, who ultimately became a director of 
 the Company, Member of Parliament for Inverness-shire, and 
 one of the Clapham sect. From an intimate personal ac- 
 quaintance with the people he began, in 1792, to write his 
 Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of 
 Great Britain, which five years later he dispatched to London. 1 
 Of the condition of Bengal he wrote that, though the Bengali 
 did not engage in open combat, " robberies, thefts, burglaries, 
 
 1 For an interesting account of Ancient Indian Education, see a book with 
 that title by the Rev. F. E. Keay. 
 
 * This was not published until it appeared as an appendix to a Blue book 
 in 1832.
 
 EDUCATION 161 
 
 river piracies, and all sorts of depredations when darkness, 
 secrecy, or surprise can give advantage, are exceedingly 
 common." Thieving was a caste profession. Zemindars 
 harboured bands of these scoundrels and shared their booty 
 with them. This was common in town and village. Venal 
 justice had done much to encourage such a state of things, 
 but the roots of disorder went deeper down. They were 
 nurtured in the disordered life of the people, while a religious 
 fatalism prevented the benign operation of the fear of punish- 
 ment even of death. Education was the only way of reform, 
 and the education must consist first of all in teaching English. 
 " The first communication, and the instrument of introducing 
 the rest, must be the English language." Much would follow 
 from this, but " the most important . . . would be the knowledge 
 of our religion. . . . Thence they would be instructed in the 
 nature and perfection of the One True God, and in the real 
 history of man: his creation, his lapsed state and the means 
 of his recovery " ; " the most awful sanctions " and " the most 
 interesting motives " would be given to moral conduct. He 
 discussed the possibility of political complications arising in 
 consequence, and mentioned such demands as that for self- 
 government, independence, the admission of natives to com- 
 missioned rank in the army, and so on. But that risk was, 
 he thought, no justification for keeping India ignorant. He 
 also foresaw that the spread of English education might 
 necessitate the control of the press by the Government, " which 
 would not be very favourable to our character for consistency." 
 Other servants of the Company referred to the same matter 
 in frequent minutes and dispatches. One thing was clear. 
 Education was required for India's regeneration, and India 
 wished to be educated. Children were going to school, but 
 the education was bad. The problem was first of all how to 
 improve it and then how to extend it. 
 
 In 1813 Parliament agreed to a grant of one lakh of rupees 
 per annum for the " revival and improvement of literature 
 and the encouragement of learned natives of India," and for 
 11
 
 162 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 the spreading of a " knowledge of the sciences among the 
 inhabitants of the British territories of India." Lord Moira's 
 historical minute, discussing the condition of the village ver- 
 nacular schools and proposing improvements, appeared in 
 1815. But other agencies of regeneration, inspired by the 
 same spirit as Grant's, were at work. Schools were opened 
 by missionaries l for propaganda purposes, and private philan- 
 thropy moved David Hare to begin, in 1817, his work in 
 Calcutta for the improvement of vernacular schools. In the 
 same year the Calcutta School Book Society was formed to 
 provide books, and the next year came the Calcutta School 
 Society to provide encouragement for promising youths to 
 pursue their studies with a view to becoming teachers. This 
 latter Society also opened model schools, employed inspectors, 
 and undertook the supervision of schools. The activities of 
 the former Society put an end to manuscript books and in- 
 troduced printed ones. 
 
 Then a new difficulty arose. Through what medium was the 
 education to be given ? The controversy between Orientalists 
 and Anglicists flamed for some years with extraordinary 
 fury, divided educationalists into two enraged camps, and 
 postponed work. The money voted in 1813 was not appro- 
 priated until 1823, when a General Committee of Public 
 Instruction was appointed from the Civil Service to supervise 
 its expenditure. Upon this Committee was a majority of 
 Orientalists, but the Court of Directors influenced, it is said, 
 by James Mill, who presumably wrote the dispatch of 1824, 
 which anticipated the minute of Macaulay of eleven years 
 later leaned to Anglicism . This delayed progress , but practice 
 was settling theory and the demand for English instruction 
 grew. Both in Bombay and Madras schools giving an English 
 education were opening. It was the time when awakened 
 India was casting off all its old garments, and when British 
 
 1 The two great modern bodies for missionary propaganda by education, 
 the London Missionary Society and the Christian Knowledge Society, opened 
 their first schools in 1819 and 1822 respectively.
 
 EDUCATION 163 
 
 reformers were seeking to re-create the world, independently 
 of historical and traditional inheritances. 
 
 Macaulay had declined to take his place as Chairman of 
 the Committee of Public Instruction whilst it was doubtful 
 as to its policy. In order to settle the matter he drafted 
 his famous minute as member of the Viceroy's Council, and 
 for the guidance of the Viceroy. 
 
 The minute is dated February 2nd, 1835, and ran full tilt 
 against the practices and assumptions which, in his language 
 of picturesque exaggeration, withheld the title of " a learned 
 native " from a Hindu familiar with " the poetry of Milton, 
 the metaphysics of Locke, and the physics of Newton," but 
 awarded it to those who had " studied in the sacred books of 
 the Hindus all the uses of cusa-grass, and all the metaphysics 
 of absorption into the Deity." With this smack of satis- 
 faction, Macaulay bared his sword. In substance his literary 
 flourish was cheap and absurd, but it was an opening which 
 gave confidence to the assault. The expression of ideas and 
 facts through the vernacular, he went on, was so limited that 
 intellectual improvement " can only at present be effected 
 by means of some language not vernacular." Though, he 
 continued, " I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic," 
 he had read translations and had conversed with men 
 proficient in Eastern tongues. " I have never found one 
 among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good 
 European library was worth the whole native literature of 
 India and Arabia." He took it as an axiom that it was 
 in poetry that Eastern writers stood highest ; in the recording 
 of facts and observations they were nowhere. 1 In his 
 
 1 It is very interesting to compare this fiery memorandum with the para- 
 graphs in the fifty-second chapter of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, in which 
 Arab learning and culture are discussed. The different spirit and the superior 
 scientific caution of the older writer are well displayed in the sentences of 
 which this is the first : " Our education in the Greek and Latin schools 
 may have fixed in our minds a standard of exclusive taste ; and I am 
 not forward to condemn the literature and judgment of nations of whose 
 language I am ignorant."
 
 164 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 eleventh paragraph he burst out like a psalmist into 
 praise of English. The extract is long, but it is delicious, 
 and I give it. '* The claims of our own language it is hardly 
 necessary to capitulate. It stands pre-eminent even among 
 the languages of the West. It abounds with works of imagina- 
 tion not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to 
 us with models of every species of eloquence, with historical 
 compositions which, considered merely as narratives, have 
 seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles 
 of ethical and political instruction , have never been equalled, 
 with just and lively representations of human life and human 
 nature, with the most profound speculations on metaphysics, 
 morals, government, jurisprudence, trade, with full and correct 
 information respecting every experimental science which tends 
 to preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to expand 
 the intellect of man. Whoever knows that language has 
 ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth which all the 
 wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the 
 course of ninety generations." The full orchestration of words 
 sinks after this. English was also the official language. 
 If we did not teach its science we should " countenance, at 
 the public expense, medical doctrines that would disgrace 
 an English farrier, astronomy that would move laughter 
 in girls at an English boarding school, history abounding 
 with kings thirty feet high and reigns thirty thousand years 
 long, and geography made of seas of treacle and seas of butter." 
 Let us bless India with a revival of learning similar to that 
 of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe. English 
 to India was what Latin and Greek were then to us. Moreover, 
 " the languages of Western Europe civilised Russia. I cannot 
 doubt that they will do for the Hindu what they have done 
 for the Tartar." 
 
 At this point, however, his foot touches more solid ground. 
 There was a demand amongst students for English. They 
 paid for that ; they had to be paid for attending classes in 
 Sanskrit and Arabic. " The state of the market is the decisive
 
 EDUCATION 165 
 
 test." Books in Sanskrit and Arabic were printed at the Govern- 
 ment's expense and were not sold ; the School Book Society 
 was making a profit of 20 per cent, on its sales of English books. 
 Then he turns back upon a false conclusion. Because the 
 students of the latter learning had petitioned Government 
 for places, their learning was useless. These poor scholars 
 actually asked the patronage of Government to make smooth 
 their path through life. Therefore, " bounties and pre- 
 miums, such as ought not to be given even for the propagation 
 of Truth, we lavish on false taste and false philosophy." Even 
 in law, the work of the Law Commission ought to put Hindu 
 and Mohammedan rules and customs on the scrap heap ; 
 and as regards religion, could we decently bribe young men 
 from State revenues by teaching them how " to purify them- 
 selves after touching an ass or what texts of the Vedas they 
 are to repeat to expiate the crime of killing a goat ? " (sic). 
 Finally, to teach in English was practicable, in spite of what 
 had been urged to the contrary. " Less than half the time 
 which enables an English youth to read Herodotus and 
 Sophocles ought to enable a Hindu to read Hume and 
 Milton." If his views were not to be accepted, he would 
 retire from the chairmanship of the Education Committee. 
 
 To read Lord Macaulay's confused thinking in virile and 
 dashing English is enlivening, to study it is melancholy. It 
 mixed up subjects to be taught with the language in which they 
 ought to be taught, and it displayed no appreciation of the fact 
 that the Indian mind was a product of history and not a blank 
 sheet of paper upon which anything could be written by any 
 teacher. The minute stands a curious monument to the total 
 lack of the historical mind in one who was to be labelled 
 "historian" in the pigeon holes of future generations. It 
 ended indecision, however. Henceforth, Indian education was 
 to be on English lines, and under English direction, with the 
 English language as the medium for instruction and Western 
 civilisation as the nourishment for its roots. 
 
 An interesting revival of the discussion took place in con-
 
 166 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 nection with the project to found a University for the Punjab. 
 In 1865 an education society had been formed in the Province 
 for the purpose of diffusing knowledge through the vernacular. 
 Its promoters were of opinion that the State education as 
 hitherto given had neglected the " historical, traditional, and 
 religious " roots of all real culture, and was far too uniform 
 in its methods. Sir Donal McLeod, the Lieutenant- Governor, 
 supported the movement, and from it the demand for an 
 Oriental University arose. " The classical languages of India 
 were the sources not only of the languages spoken at the present 
 day, but also of the traditions, religion, and ancient history 
 of the Indian nation. No system which ignored Arabic or 
 Sanskrit could hope to meet with respect, popularity, or support 
 from the people of India, while any errors in scientific teaching 
 which the ancient literature might contain could easily be 
 eliminated or corrected by the light of modern European 
 knowledge." l Proposals on these lines were laid before the 
 Lieutenant-Governor in 1865, and received his support. But 
 the execution hung fire. Indians were themselves divided, 
 and, in the end, an institution lower in status than a University 
 was recognised by Government, where the instruction had to be 
 given in English as a rule and the examinations conducted in 
 English. 
 
 The time when Macaulay wrote his minute was one of great 
 revolutions and liberal faith. The West glowed like a land 
 of promise. The flame of reason was to purify the world. 
 " Enlightened " Indians took that view. As I have said, 
 some of them had gone to Western extremes and saw nothing 
 in their own past but ignorance and superstition ; the mis- 
 sionaries, bold men of single-minded purpose and faith un- 
 clouded by doubt, held that nothing in life mattered but 
 Christian conversion, and were firm in the conviction that 
 native ignorance alone stood in their way. To them English 
 education was the open door to belief, so they set up their 
 printing presses, turned out their books, and started their 
 1 Syed Mahmood, A History of English Education in India, p. 91.
 
 EDUCATION 167 
 
 schools. The demand was for English, and none would do 
 reverence to Indian culture. The views of Mill and Macaulay 
 therefore won an easy victory in the end. The Governor- 
 General in Council decided that in future Government funds 
 should be spent in teaching Indians " a knowledge of English 
 literature and science through the medium of the English 
 language," and the Committee set about its new task. 
 
 What that task was it saw quite clearly. It was to be " a 
 system of really national education which shall in time embrace 
 every village in the country." Qualified schoolmasters were 
 to be provided and an adequate series of textbooks in the ver- 
 nacular was to be produced. But it was a revolutionary 
 rather than a reforming spirit that was abroad, and revolutions 
 generally destroy too much. The self-same spirit which 
 applauded Macaulay killed the indigenous schools of Bengal, 
 scrapped the whole system of Bengal elementary education, 
 and began a new system, the purpose of which was to educate 
 the middle and literary classes on English models, in the 
 expectation that " through the agency of these scholars the 
 reformed education would descend to the rural vernacular 
 schools." 
 
 This, in my view, was the fatal departure. The difficulty 
 was real. On the one hand was the desire for mass education, 
 on the other the zeal for spreading Western culture amongst 
 those who could come into touch with it. At first the autho- 
 rities meant to build upon the village schools. Inquiries were 
 ordered upon them, but delay took place. There were wars 
 to fight and settlements to effect, and meantime the primary 
 school was left to decay, except by missionaries who used it 
 for propaganda purposes, and whose views of a universal 
 religion unconsciously aided the politics of a universal culture. 
 The humble vernacular village schools with their poorly paid 
 and imperfectly equipped teachers were neglected. To develop 
 and transform them was to be a slow process, and everybody 
 was in a great hurry. The college policy was begun with the 
 intention of leavening the lump from above with a totally
 
 168 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 new leaven. It has failed to reach its higher purposes, as it 
 was bound to fail. It has not got down to the elementary 
 school. It has produced men, it has created a class, it has 
 destroyed certain evils, but it has not raised and enlightened 
 India. The Indians in haste to be "educated " thought only 
 of colleges. It was the college they wanted. They saw a 
 Paradise whose gates were shut against them, they knew of 
 the keys that were used by the Western races for opening the 
 gates ; they demanded the keys. And behold, strait has been 
 the gate and narrow has been the way ; many have missed 
 both, and few there have been who have entered in thereat. 
 And all the while the education system of India has failed 
 to make a foundation for itself, and to co-ordinate and pro- 
 portion its grades. 
 
 The enthusiasm and devotion which British educators in 
 India showed were undoubted, and the influence which the 
 teachers who laboured in the early days exerted upon young 
 Indians, keen to acquire knowledge, was great and good. 
 But one must doubt if they pursued ways which really led 
 to the goals intended. The Christian teachers assumed that 
 Christian faith and Western education were bound up together. 
 The obstacles in the way of their main propaganda were ignor- 
 ance and superstition, and when these were removed, they 
 argued, the way to the enlightenment of the soul would also 
 be opened up. India could be saved only by the destruction 
 of Indian tradition and culture. What I have written on the 
 Macaulay minute shows the secular view of the same subject. 
 
 The fault of the educationalists was not that they had 
 ungenerous intentions regarding India the very opposite 
 is true but that they mistook the nature of education ; 
 and the blame, if blatoe there was, lay with the thought of 
 their times, not with their intentions. The reforming radi- 
 calism of that generation wrote history like a contemporary 
 political pamphlet and devised its schemes on a priori principles, 
 overlooking historical differences and the organic continuity
 
 EDUCATION 169 
 
 and unity of national life and thought. Education to them was 
 a teaching, whereas it is a culture : it was like filling a bag 
 with treasures, whereas it is like producing a harvest from long- 
 prepared soil. Its methods, its subjects, its implements, 
 are made for it by the past of the people for whose benefit 
 it is being devised. Men's minds and habits are not blank 
 sheets of paper upon which any legend or faith can be written, 
 or any rule of conduct engraved. The methods and subjects 
 taught in one civilisation have not the same value and result 
 when taught in another civilisation. For instance, our school 
 system rests upon our family life, but the Indian family is 
 poles asunder from the English one. Nothing is truer, or 
 is being proved with more conclusiveness in our own experience 
 during the past two generations than this : education cannot 
 come from above and without ; it must come from below 
 and within. Even as regards weeds in the mind, the problem 
 is not really how to uproot them, but how to transform them. 
 The errors we have committed in our own schools, because 
 we have never fully recognised that the whole conception of 
 education had to be transformed and not merely refitted with 
 a new apparatus of thought and conduct, we have multiplied 
 a thousand-fold in India. We have been seeking to transfer 
 Western civilisation into the Indian mind gutted of its Indian 
 traditions. We have tried to transplant Oxford and Eton 
 into India. We have imposed a school discipline and a school 
 psychology which are English , and then have wondered at our 
 failure. The French, German, and American systems are not 
 English because France, Germany, and America are not 
 England, but we have assumed that India is England. The 
 task we set before us was an impossible one. We aimed at 
 destroying Indian culture. We put impediments in the way 
 of Indian thought by compelling the Indian student to express 
 himself in English, and, what added to our failure, for gene- 
 rations we took no pains to see that the English was 
 properly taught. Some of the men who used it in examina- 
 tions never could speak it really or think in it. The language
 
 170 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 weapon was never comfortably grasped by the mental 
 personality of those who used it. 
 
 This, as I say, is partly owing to bad teaching, but the error 
 lies deeper than that. Most of those who acquired a collo- 
 quial knowledge of the tongue, or an easy and natural use 
 of it, did so only comparatively late in life when the spontaneity 
 of youth was going. Their speech, like all tongues acquired 
 through classics, retains a stilted and grandiloquent form. The 
 Eastern lingual habit does not go ; it remains to exaggerate the 
 flowers and flourishes of Burke and Macaulay. A florid ex- 
 pression means a florid thought, and those who are responsible 
 for having created this, object to it when they meet with it 
 in the Indian in real life. 
 
 Language enshrines thought. It is an instrument evolved, 
 moulded, and fashioned by the mind that uses it. How, for 
 instance, can we separate the German mind from the German 
 tongue ? When used by a culture other than that which 
 fashioned it, it makes thought superficial and artificial. It 
 twists it and cramps it. Because this is true, Indian college 
 education has become largely a matter of memory, a veneer 
 upon a different substance. From this have come nine- 
 tenths of the just complaints that can be made against this 
 education. Not touching the life of the people, it becomes a 
 mechanical affair. 1 
 
 1 The weakness of our educational methods may be illustrated in a concrete 
 form. In 1916, out of 4,732 candidates who sat for the Madras Uni- 
 versity Intermediate Examination, 65 '8 per cent, failed in English. On the 
 one hand, it was complained that the English examination was too stiff ; 
 on the other, that colleges were putting up students whose education did 
 not reach the requisite standards. Six out of 34 from Hyderabad, 37 out 
 of 237 from Trichinopoly passed. At a meeting of the Senate it was urged 
 that this meant ruin to parents (!), and it was moved, though not carriedt 
 that the adjudication of the examiners be set aside and that candidates be 
 passed who obtained 30 per cent, in English and 35 per cent, of the total 
 possible for the whole examination. An influential Indian paper, comment- 
 ing on the result, demanded that examinations should be conducted by those 
 " who can correctly appreciate local conditions and approximate their 
 actions with practical ideals"! The reports must have been saddening 
 reading to many Indian educationalists.
 
 EDUCATION 171 
 
 But the organic damage has been greater than that. In 
 one's wanderings in India one too frequently comes across a 
 regal palace glowing in white marble, beautiful in all the 
 traceries and designs of Moghul architecture, whose great 
 halls, however, are furnished with cracked furniture from 
 Tottenham Court Road, and whose vast walls are hung with 
 dirty pictures from the Salon. That is what we have done 
 to the Indian mind. We have not only made it despise its 
 own culture and throw it out ; we have asked it to fill up the 
 vacant places with furniture which will not stand the climate. 
 The mental Eurasianism that is in India is appalling. Such 
 minds are nomad. They belong to no civilisation, no country, 
 and no history. They create a craving that cannot be satis- 
 fied, and ideals that are unreal. They falsify life. They 
 deprive men of the nourishment of their cultural past, and 
 the substitutes they supply are unsubstantial. 
 
 In the larger centres of population like Calcutta and 
 Bombay, Indians thus educated, successful in business or the 
 professions, and surrounded by a Western society and being 
 part of it, conquer all the impediments which they have to 
 meet and can vindicate in every way their claim to equality 
 with the best. They have assimilated Western culture, they 
 have adapted themselves to Western business methods. They 
 could not do England more credit if they were Englishmen 
 in fact they are more akin to us than are the Englishmen 
 deteriorated by a long residence in the East. But their 
 success is not the solution of the problem of Indian educa- 
 tion. The Oriental Club in Calcutta is not India God 
 forbid that it should become India. The Indians who have 
 been at Oxford and Cambridge, London or Edinburgh, and 
 who spend the rest of their lives on special plots of Indian 
 soil amidst special products of British education, are too 
 often a community by themselves, in India but not of it. 
 Living in India, not the geographical expression but the 
 Motherland of a people and the atmosphere of a race, they 
 are not at home there. Not able to join in the organic life
 
 172 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 of their community, they tend to become parasitical and to 
 live on it. They have to create new ways of living, from 
 multiplying legal cases to quack doctoring ; and, when this 
 is observed by critics, the Indian is condemned, whereas the 
 blame lies very largely with those who have placed false 
 ideals before him, and have led him in mistaken ways. We 
 sought to give the Eastern mind a Western content and 
 environment ; we have succeeded too well in establishing 
 intellectual and moral anarchy in both. 
 
 This is sometimes justified on the assumption that Indian 
 tradition had to be reduced to chaos before liberty came to 
 dwell in the Indian mind. The argument and expectation 
 are the same as those of the political anarchists. If they are 
 wrong as regards the more superficial affairs of State, how much 
 more wrong are they as regards the much more deep-seated 
 affairs of the mind ? 
 
 Moreover, the first enthusiasm of the educators has gone. 
 Disillusionment treads on the heels of error, and weariness 
 on those of disillusionment. The Duffs and the Grants belong 
 to a past generation. They could pursue a bad system be- 
 cause their personality, and not their teaching, was what 
 educated their pupils. Now with the crowds of students, 
 the numbers of colleges, the formalising of the institutions 
 by the Government, men of first-rate ability as educationalists 
 do not go to India. Colleges attached to missions like St. 
 Stephen's, Delhi, still get them because they listen to the call 
 of religion, but the Government colleges do not get them. 
 Discipline has deteriorated because respect has been under- 
 mined. 1 An opposition between students and professors has 
 grown up and has led to frequent outbursts of riotous behaviour 
 
 1 The colossal blunder which has put and kept Indian teachers of un- 
 disputed attainments, and of whom students are proud, in a class inferior to 
 Englishmen of less experience and lower attainments has tended to destroy 
 the esprit de corps of colleges, and to make students recalcitrant. This is 
 caused by the grading of the Education Service by which newly imported 
 professors from Great Britain are given a higher status than distinguished 
 Indian scholars and teachers.
 
 EDUCATION 173 
 
 such as disgraced the Presidency College, Calcutta, in 1916, 
 and led to the resignation of the Principal. It is also a cause 
 of the political sedition which has spread in colleges during 
 recent years. A moan which wanders through all the 
 surveys of Indian education and all treatises on the habits 
 of Indian youth has swelled into greater amplitude since the 
 youthful college students have run after anarchy and political 
 crime, and have shown restiveness under discipline. What, 
 it is asked, is the moral significance of this education ? Is 
 it only freeing the youth from the control of the old beliefs 
 without putting them under the yoke of any other system 
 of moral order ? Whatever may be said against our system 
 of education in India, the blame for the lack of discipline in 
 the youth does not lie at its door. What does lie at its door 
 is a charge that those responsible so misunderstood this 
 Indian malady that their treatment of it tended to aggravate 
 it rather than cure it, and that their latest prescriptions are 
 as mistaken as their earlier ones. 
 
 One finds only too. commonly in India the opinion that 
 " little manuals of religious sentiment and ethical maxims," l 
 or religious education imparted in a dogmatic and class-book 
 style, is the proper antidote for this poison. It is urged that 
 Indian education should be held together by a religious (that 
 is, a Christian) framework, and the Government is blamed 
 for an educational policy which, respecting Hindu suscepti- 
 bilities, concerned itself exclusively with secular subjects 
 and was absolutely independent of faith and creed. 
 
 This is a mistaken view. It is perfectly true that the social 
 system of law and order to which any community spontaneously 
 responds is based either upon tradition of a political kind, like 
 that expressed in the English rhyme : 
 
 God bless the squire and his relations 
 And keep us in our proper stations, 
 
 or upon a religious sentiment, or, and this is most common, 
 
 1 Lord Moira's Minute (1815).
 
 174 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 upon both. British education and the general British political 
 tradition are inimical both to the political and social and the 
 religious traditions of India and are bound to weaken them. 
 But it is not really there that the evil lies. That is an inevit- 
 ability which it would be waste of time either to deplore or 
 argue about. India could not be guarded from the disturbing 
 influences of the West by any efforts of any Government 
 or other authority. 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, this loss of moral restraint 
 was deplored before an English school was opened. We 
 find that simultaneously with the first movements for a 
 better education in India, sad reports were made of the de- 
 terioration of Indian social morals and manners indeed in 
 these days that very deterioration was used as an argument 
 why English education should be given. Sir C. Grant's memor- 
 andum shows that, and Lord Moira wrote, in the minute to 
 which I have referred : " The unceasing wars which had 
 harassed all parts of India left everywhere their invariable 
 effects a disorganisation of that framework of habit and 
 opinion which enforces moral conduct and an emancipation 
 of all those irregular impulses which revolt at its restraint. 
 The village schoolmasters could not teach that in which they 
 themselves had never been instructed ; and universal de- 
 basement of mind, the constant concomitant of subjugation 
 to despotic rule, left no chance that an innate sense of equity 
 should in those confined circles suggest the recommendation 
 of the principles not thought worthy of cultivation by the 
 Government." Lord Moira put his finger upon the spot. 
 The social and moral unsettlement of India belongs to the 
 historical unsettlement of India. The one is the result of 
 the other. The military conquest of an enormous area of 
 territory and a huge mass of people ; the government of the 
 tax-collector rather than of the law-giver and the judge ; the 
 social disruption which comes from political disruption, these 
 would have put obstacles in the way of the very best system 
 of education, and any curriculum of instruction designed
 
 EDUCATION 175 
 
 to keep the young docile, reverent, and subordinate. The 
 administrators in India and the students of Indian problems 
 must not mistake the nature of the difficulty. It is to be solved 
 by the establishment of an Indian order, and will hardly be 
 touched by the inclusion of religion, either Hindu or Christian, 
 in Indian education. It is to be the final proof of the settle- 
 ment of India, not the result of the work of the schoolmaster 
 or the professor. 
 
 But even though it be true that moral restraint is primarily 
 a product of social order, an educational system has great 
 influence upon it. A system which breaks with a historical 
 past disturbs without pacifying ; it pulls up anchors without 
 providing rudders and compasses which are of use, and so it 
 leaves the vessels to drift and bump together and become 
 stranded. Moral restraint must be a habit, not a precept, 
 and habits come from traditions. It belongs to the axioms 
 upon which men act without thinking, not to the conclusions 
 and conduct of an active reason. At that point, and at that 
 point alone, is education vulnerable to the charge that it 
 has aided moral unsettlement. We have deliberately severed 
 the ties which bound Indian society together rather than 
 strengthened them, by picking out the strands weakened by 
 superstition and ignorance and putting in their places new 
 ones spun on Eastern minds from Western enlightenment. 1 
 
 I admit that the religious faiths of India are woven into 
 the social fabric far more intimately than they are here, that 
 they pervade the whole life of India, and that, in consequence, 
 the case for the recognition of religious instruction there is 
 
 1 One has to note that the Government is beginning to be aware of the 
 truth embodied in this criticism. In an address to the Calcutta University 
 sent by the Viceroy in the name of the King in 1912, the following passages 
 occur : " It is to the Universities of India that I look to assist in that gradual 
 union and fusion of the culture and aspirations of Europeans and Indians 
 on which the future well-being of India so greatly depends " ; and, " you 
 have to conserve the ancient learning and simultaneously push forward 
 Western science." But we still wait for the changes which are to give effect 
 to these wise words.
 
 176 THE GOVERNMENT OP INDIA 
 
 much stronger than it is here. With that I shall deal in the 
 chapter on religion, but I note here that one must watch 
 with interest the experiment of the Hindu university just 
 begun at Benares. It will succeed only as it acquires a place 
 and spirit for itself. Its education in the sacred books will 
 be of spiritual value only in so far as its atmosphere is truly 
 Indian and it gathers up into itself the mind of India. Alighur, 
 the Mohammedan college, is a place where Mohammedans 
 are educated, not where Mohammedanism is breathed. I 
 fear these attempts to recreate the past will fail, but if they 
 could only catch up the past as a broken thread and weave 
 it into the future, they would be doing the best work possible 
 for India. " I hope," said Dr. P. C. Bay, in an address at 
 the laying of the foundation stone of the Hindu university, 
 " the starting of this university will inaugurate a new era, 
 and I trust it will be a sacred confluence of ideals of the East 
 and the West." That is what will give India that social 
 and spiritual harmony from which the social and spiritual 
 conduct of the individual springs. But, I repeat, to political 
 order we must trust more in these days for moral restraints 
 than to ethical doctrines taught in schools. We have to 
 establish a national harmony of which education is of course 
 an essential part, but only a part. 
 
 Now I proceed to expose another fault which ought to be 
 removed from Indian education. The danger of utilitarianism 
 has for generations beset Indian education and the policy 
 of the Government has increased it. There is something 
 like an Indian tradition that the ruler provides for the scholar, 
 and when the Company first and the Crown afterwards edu- 
 cated men for public service in one or other of the many de- 
 partments of Indian government, they encouraged the college 
 youth to look to Government service as his future career. 
 This, as well as the rushing tide of revolt from Indian tradition, 
 determined the issues of the contest between Orientalists 
 and Anglicists in Macaulay's day. Obviously this expecta-
 
 EDUCATION 177 
 
 tion could be fulfilled only whilst the colleges turned out year 
 by year a comparatively small number of men. When the 
 number exceeded the Government's power of absorption, 
 men with academic degrees and training were like the landless 
 man after the Black Death in England. The Bar provided 
 counter-attractions, but the number of lawyers became ex- 
 cessive too, and the lower types began to manufacture cases 
 for a living. The other learned professions either gave no 
 field for ambitious men, or had to be pursued under conditions 
 for which the students had been unfitted. Here, again, 
 Indian education, even from a utilitarian point of view, had 
 been pursued without reference to the life of the country. 
 The road through the college led too often into the wilderness. 
 All the while, education was pursued by the Indian in a 
 blind sort of way. He treated it as practically an end in 
 itself. He pursued its badges and its degrees. When the 
 lists of examination results were published, fathers with 
 unmarried daughters hovered around to pick up the boys 
 who had done best. To pass an examination was held to 
 be the tangible proof of success, the open sesame to life. To 
 sit but fail became in time a distinction of itself. Examina- 
 tions were multipled. They were the events which won the 
 chaplets. Subjects were taken up not because they interested 
 the student, but because they were necessary for marks (not 
 by any means an exclusively Indian fault) , and when the ex- 
 amination was over, memory threw off its impressions or they 
 were covered up. That is true in all countries, but it is tragi- 
 cally true in India. 1 In this terrible problem of the deteriora- 
 
 1 Speaking in the Calcutta University Senate, Dr. Fennor, of the Geo- 
 logical Survey, gave his experience as a member of a certain committee to 
 examine candidates for an appointment as to their educational fitness. Most 
 of these were Calcutta B.A.s or B.Sc.s. " All those who sat failed to satisfy 
 a single test in their own subject, although they had obtained degrees but 
 a year before. The physicists had forgotten their physics, the geometricians 
 their geometry, the mathematicians their mathematics and failed in simple 
 addition, and ultimately the candidate selected was one who had not gone 
 through a course of University education" (Indian Review, January 1916, 
 p. 10). 
 12
 
 178 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 tion of the spirit of education and of the prospects of the college 
 youth, India was receiving but little guidance. She was being 
 allowed to drift. Something would turn up. There would 
 come a bend in the road with a new prospect ahead. If you 
 asked when and why, you were told that it would be sure to 
 come. The unhappy people went on with their work, Indian 
 education became perverted by examinations, and Indian 
 intelligence sharpened to secure marks for answering questions. 
 We set out to educate, but we missed our way and found 
 ourselves in the realms of utilitarianism and not of culture. 
 
 Now we are on the verge of self-government and it behoves 
 us to resurvey the way we have come to see where we have 
 gone wrong, to make good our errors if happily it be not too 
 late, to reorientate our policy. Obviously what we should 
 aim for is the creation of India, the historical Motherland, 
 holding a place of honour in the modern world, surrounded 
 by her children bound to her in a spiritual and political allegi- 
 ance. 
 
 Therefore let us begin by restating the century-old problem 
 which the early educationalists had to face. Lord Macaulay 
 and his friends discussed whether India should continue to 
 receive an education in " what was known 2,000 years ago," 
 or be taught Western up-to-date knowledge ; but in reality 
 that was not the problem at issue. To abandon India to a 
 literary Oriental education and a scientific one, the textbooks 
 of which were centuries old, was impossible. She had to go 
 to the West to bring her up to date. She was like a person 
 who had been wandering in a far land and who on returning 
 home had to be told what had happened in the meanwhile. 
 The fabric of her education had crumbled and it had to be 
 rebuilt. During the rebuilding she had to be helped. 
 Practically no one sought to wrap up India in the mummy 
 cloths of dead science. Sir Charles Wood's Dispatch of 1854, 
 far more accurately than Macaulay's minute, states the 
 problem. It lay in this : How could Western knowledge 
 best be used to enrich the mind of India ? Ought it to be
 
 EDUCATION 179 
 
 engrafted on Indian roots, or ought it to be transplanted 
 from England as a full-grown tree ? 
 
 The depreciation of Indian achievements and culture, after 
 the manner of James Mill and Macaulay, was true neither 
 psychologically nor historically. India has at its command 
 a literature, a philosophy, and a religion in its undebased form, 
 which touch the most inspiring chords of human nature. It 
 has a past of trade, enterprise and prosperity, and of technical 
 skill which can convince every intelligent Indian that the 
 Creator did not confine economic and industrial power to 
 nations of the West ; and though the history of India, as 
 taught to us, deals only with India's decline and anarchy 
 and that not very accurately told India had its Golden Ages 
 when it was quite as well governed as we were ourselves, and 
 was certainly as prosperous. No one who knows anything of 
 India's past and who has read its sacred books, or has come 
 into contact with their wisdom, no one who has done more 
 than spend a day in the art and industries section of the 
 Indian Museum in Calcutta, no one who knows anything of 
 the architecture of India, can doubt but that in its life lies 
 a great reservoir of culture and skill, inspiration and pride. 
 It is a circumstance upon which British and Indians alike 
 may look back upon with bitter regret that, whilst these 
 riches were lying neglected and the people's eyes turned 
 deliberately from them, we were putting nothing but dead 
 school books in their place. 
 
 In spite of all the talk about it, the material for 
 Western culture in India is really so meagre as hardly to 
 exist. There is not a decent university library in India, 
 and such as there is gives no opportunity for original work. 
 Where is there an inspiring example of Western art ? I 
 have searched India and still put the question to my friends : 
 What does stand for Western culture in India ? On the other 
 hand, such Oriental libraries as that at Bankipur, such 
 museums as those of Calcutta and Madras, provide ample 
 beginnings for the higher studies of Indian literature, art, and
 
 180 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 history. Fortunately the growth of Indian nationalism has 
 created a reaction towards Indian culture. Magazines like The 
 Modern Review give the artistic, the historical, and the literary, 
 as well as the political, activities of the new Indian school 
 a platform and an expression. Such works as that on Indian 
 shipping by Radhakumud Mukerji show the directions in 
 which the historical school is to move ; in science, the Chemical 
 Department of the Presidency College need bow its head before 
 few such departments in the world : the work of its head and 
 his students is universally known, and at the same College, 
 the Professor of Physics, Dr. Bose, has gathered round him 
 a band of assistants and pupils equal to any working elsewhere 
 with a gre&t student and investigator. The Tagores, in art 
 and poetry, are vitalising other parts of Indian life ; the Hindu 
 university, if properly managed and kept sufficiently free 
 from the numbing grip of the Government, should result in 
 a quickening all round ; schools like those near Hardwar 
 and Bohlpur should give a new impetus to proper Indian 
 teaching. Generally, there is evidence everywhere that Indian 
 educationalists are applying to Indian needs the more modern 
 conceptions of organic sociology and psychology, and are be- 
 ginning to undo the mistakes of the preceding generation 
 guided by the individualist psychology of the Radical reformers. 
 This point has been well brought out by an Indian writer : 
 *' It does not seem even now recognised by many that the 
 educational methods adopted by the Indian universities 
 have been only one-sided in their character, in that they have 
 not hitherto sufficiently taken note of indigenous traditions 
 as contributing to the forces of social order and stability, 
 but on the other hand, have, either consciously or unwittingly, 
 but always in the name of progress and enlightenment, set 
 themselves to the task of undermining the very fabric of Indian 
 society, by weakening its traditions without being able in 
 the meantime to foster and promote and create other traditions 
 which would serve as a social cement." l 
 
 1 The Dawn Magazine, July-August 1913.
 
 EDUCATION 181 
 
 The return of young and nationalist India to Hinduism 
 is seen in nothing better than in the project for a Hindu 
 university, to which reference has been made already. This 
 was a desire akin to that of Catholic Ireland to have a univer- 
 sity of its own. " True Hindus, true Mussalmans, and true 
 Christians are wanted," wrote an advocate of this university, 
 " and they cannot, we have sufficient ground to believe, come 
 out from any College or other educational institution unless 
 it is strictly directed according to their respective faiths, 
 traditions, and religions." I doubt if the substantives which 
 end this sentence are well chosen. I should substitute one 
 which is more comprehensive than they, one freer from 
 error, one that indicates better the changing content of Truth 
 the word " culture." The Government may grant a charter, 
 the university may be residential, it may have plenty of 
 money that is nothing. It will not produce men, Hindus. 
 " Paul may preach and Apollos may water, but it is God who 
 giveth the increase." The West has done all it can for India. 
 The Indian must turn back upon his own culture and must 
 enrich it by fertilisation with other cultures. " Revive the 
 Hindu spirit, endeavouring your very best to keep it in order. 
 This should be the aim of the Hindu university, there being 
 nothing nobler than that. And if efforts are not made in 
 this direction, better have no university at all." Here we 
 have the feeling that education must be organic to a 
 people. It must be Indian. That is unassailable truth. 
 
 If in this critical survey I have been lamenting that Western 
 education in India has missed its mark, it must not be supposed 
 that I mean that education in India has been a complete 
 failure. It has not. Whatever its faults may have been, 
 it has kept a light shining upon the Indian mind. It has built 
 and endowed schools, colleges, and universities, and that alone 
 is something. It has brought to India a few men of wonderful 
 influence who have taught the youth of India ideals of use- 
 fulness, of rectitude., of discipline, and given them an interest
 
 182 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 in their country and their race which otherwise they would 
 not have known or felt. A Ranade, a Telang, a Ghokale 
 each is a product of Western influence upon an Indian mind. 
 It has also unified India. A college system stretching from 
 Madras to Lahore, and from Calcutta to Bombay, has a greater 
 influence in one generation in making India a community, 
 in giving it a political nationalism, than a century of govern- 
 ment centring in a capital city. It moreover breaks down 
 those artificial barriers which an old-time necessity raised 
 between class and class, and which religious custom riveted 
 upon India. Even the use of English has its advantages, 
 however heavy is the price that has to be paid for it. In the 
 future, India may look back upon these years and grieve over 
 some of the havoc they have wrought, but at the same tune 
 it will be able to console itself with the good they have done. 
 The Hares, the Duffs, the Grants will retain an honoured 
 place amongst the great benefactors of India. 
 
 Further, if Indian education is willing to be judged by the suc- 
 cess which it has attained as regards a purpose which was candidly 
 avowed by some of its founders, it has provided the Govern- 
 ment with a great mass of officials ranging from village clerks 
 to District Magistrates, from Forestry officers to assistant sur- 
 geons, and that is an achievement of considerable political value. 
 
 It remains to outline what reforms are now necessary to 
 put the education of India on a more scientific footing. 
 
 But before doing this, let there be no doubt about one thing. 
 We cannot draw the pen through the Macaulay Minute and 
 begin afresh. We must take what has been done and improve 
 upon it, modify it, make it our point of departure. It has 
 been embedded in Indian life. A large part of our reforming 
 work will consist therefore not in making new departures, 
 but in filling up and amplifying what has been done, and in 
 putting into operation recommendations made long since, 
 and intentions declared three-quarters of a century ago as 
 for instance in Sir Charles Wood's Dispatch of 1854. That 
 being clearly understood I may proceed to proposals.
 
 EDUCATION 183 
 
 We must abandon completely the idea that Indian education 
 has to be controlled by Englishmen. They are necessary 
 for teaching some subjects like English literature and may be 
 employed as special lecturers, but they are not necessary 
 in order to impart characteristics to the system itself. Only 
 so long as the system is alien will aliens be required to run 
 it ; an educational system is essentially part of national life. 
 Sir Sankaran Nair, as Education Minister, Principal Rudra, 
 as head of St. Stephen's College, can do more for Indian 
 education than Englishmen who may be their superiors as 
 educationalists at home ; Bohlpur and Hardwar have more 
 influence on India than the nearest approach to Eton that can 
 ever be founded there. Of course a great educationalist 
 is a blessing to a country irrespective of whether it is the country 
 of his own origin or not. A Chinaman could do well in England , 
 but, speaking of teaching generally, a good teacher must know 
 his country and be one in mental make-up with his pupils, 
 and so Indians will educate India better than Britons can. 
 Therefore, the policy of supplying professors from Great Britain 
 must be changed. We are at the end of the period when 
 Indian professors for no other reason except that they are 
 Indian were ranked in a lower grade of the Service than 
 Englishmen. That system has played havoc in the minds 
 of the students and is deeply resented by them. Nor has the 
 English professor in later years been successful. His quali- 
 fications as a teacher have not been good, even when his place 
 in his university examination has been satisfactory. He has 
 not known how to handle his pupils. He has not been their 
 guru and he has not taken the trouble to understand them. 
 In class he has too frequently made rude remarks to them, 
 and nearly all the college strikes and riots have arisen from 
 this. 1 We have certainly not succeeded in finding the right 
 men to go to Government colleges. India must produce 
 
 1 Cf . the report of the Committee appointed by the Government of Bengal 
 to inquire into the assault committed upon Professor Oaten by students of 
 the Presidency College, Calcutta, May 1916.
 
 184 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 its own professors, and if they are not ready prepared all 
 at once we must begin to look for them and see that the 
 education system is not a barrier against them. 
 
 The Government must allow more freedom to Universities. 
 To-day it regards them as a Department of State and inter- 
 feres with them too much. In Madras, contrary to good tradi- 
 tion, the member of the Executive Council responsible for 
 education has been made Vice-Chancellor of the University. 
 The Government hcts irritated Senates by repeatedly trying 
 to influence examinations. For instance, the Bombay 
 University has been for thirty years at loggerheads with it 
 about the Matriculation Examination, and even if we were to 
 grant that the Government view in this respect is right, the 
 long duration of the controversy only shows how fundamen- 
 tally wrong government educational methods are. Its present 
 policy of checking and controlling only encourages University 
 Boards to kick over the traces. They tend to become a sort 
 of " opposition to the Government," whereas if they were 
 made responsible they would be influenced far more by 
 purely educational considerations, and would themselves check 
 the evil tendencies of examinations, and end the other causes 
 which lower the value of Indian instruction and prevent 
 it in so many cases from becoming education at all. The 
 freeing of education from Government management has been 
 in some way or other recommended by every commission 1 
 that has inquired into Indian education. 
 
 The two great educational needs of India are elementary 
 schools and teachers. The idea that India can be educated 
 from above, from colleges, must be abandoned. It not only 
 means that students find themselves " above " when they 
 are not educated sufficiently to be there, but that the lower 
 schools and colleges and their pupils concentrate their attention 
 upon getting " above." A system of elementary education 
 covering the villages, based upon Mr. Gokhale's Bill, with an 
 element of compulsion in it, should be devised, and it should 
 
 1 Cf. the Report of the 1882 Commission.
 
 EDUCATION 185 
 
 be adapted to the needs of the people, 1 for all higher education 
 depends on sound lower education. At present the Indian 
 college system is founded upon an untrustworthy foundation 
 which is both too narrow and too shallow. The condition of 
 the more primary institutions is disgraceful. Mr. Hornel, 
 Director of Public Instruction in Bengal, has written as follows 
 in The Calcutta Review * of the Calcutta Schools : " What 
 in fact happens is something like this. I am thinking for 
 the moment of schools for Indian children and not of schools 
 for Europeans or Anglo-Indians. Schools are started very 
 largely as private ventures in response to demands real or 
 supposed. Those who start them house them wherever 
 or howsoever they can, and in the case of a high English school, 
 if a certain number of pupils can be got together and the 
 standard of accommodation and general efficiency is not 
 made too exacting, the running cost may be met and even 
 a profit made. In the case of the primary schools the state of 
 affairs is even more chaotic. A pandit or a maulvi appears 
 and he sets himself to establish a primary school. He looks 
 about for a habitat, and having found some building which 
 is sufficiently cheap, he gets together a few pupils, and if 
 he can retain these pupils for a certain time he goes to the 
 Deputy Inspector and possibly to the Municipality and obtains 
 a grant. In 1905 the Government of Bengal pointed out to 
 the Municipality that the primary schools of the town were 
 a disgrace, being dark, ill-ventilated, damp and unhealthy, 
 and in most cases too small to accommodate the number of 
 children attending them. A scheme was at the time proposed 
 by which the Municipality with the help of Government should 
 construct some forty-five model primary schools ; but this 
 
 1 I have been anxious to avoid making this chapter a mere summary of 
 facts like the valuable Quinquennial Education Reports issued by the Indian 
 Government. For statistics of literacy and illiteracy and such things, readers 
 must go to these Reports. It is enough for me to say that primary education 
 in India is in a miserably low condition. Only a little over 2 per cent, of the 
 population attend schools of any kind. 
 
 1913, p. 308.
 
 186 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 scheme was not carried into effect and the condition of the 
 primary schools in Calcutta continues to be absolutely de- 
 plorable. The condition of secondary schools is very little 
 better. Very few schools are situated in houses of their own, 
 and practically none of them are accommodated in buildings 
 constructed for schools." 
 
 The recommendations in the very earliest reports on the 
 education of the masses have not yet been adopted by the 
 Government. 1 But they are the basis of everything. The 
 greatest efforts, supported by finance and a propaganda of 
 opinion, should be made in conjunction with such societies as 
 that of the Servants of India and with college authorities 
 to get college youths to become teachers. Again, this will not 
 succeed unless the system is devised with a large amount of 
 freedom. The Government Inspector working on English 
 models is not the man to do it. The Gurukul and the Bohlpur 
 models are far better. Baroda results in compulsory atten- 
 dance may be criticised, but they are worth sympathetic study. 
 In India the teacher should feel his freedom and importance 
 and not be constantly reminded of the hand of Government. 
 India outside the large towns, outside the courts, outside the 
 district magistrate's compound, is too diffuse and intangible 
 to be inspired by a bureaucracy. The rebuilding of an educa- 
 tion system in India must come from village councils, pan- 
 chayets, local bodies, and all the difficulties and drawbacks 
 of that must be faced and patiently overcome. 
 
 So long as efficient elementary education is lacking, Higher 
 Schools will be crowded by pupils not fit to benefit by them 
 
 1 Mr. Howell in his Education in British India, written in 1872, commenting 
 upon the Dispatches of 1854, 1859, and 1870 emphasising the need of primary 
 education, says : " But so strongly opposed is this view to the traditional 
 policy of the preceding forty years, that it has not yet in any Province been 
 sufficiently realised. ... It is not that the educational policy prescribed 
 from England has been directly opposed ; it simply has not been carried out, 
 partly, I venture to think, owing to the strong tradition of former years, 
 and partly perhaps owing to the direction given by the Education Depart- 
 ments recruited as a rule from men of English university distinction." Very 
 little modification is required to bring this statement up to date.
 
 EDUCATION 187 
 
 pupils who whilst there, and subsequently whilst at College, 
 drag down standards and defeat the best of teachers. When 
 technical education was begun in London the same difficulties 
 were experienced as the early reports of the Technical Educa- 
 tion Board show, and in that comparatively small area, with 
 plenty of money and institutions, with committees of the most 
 enlightened educationalists, it has taken nearly a generation 
 to master the problem. 
 
 The technical school should also be in the main a local 
 institution linked up with Provincial colleges, and extended 
 by scholarships sending promising men to Europe. But here 
 again definite ideas are necessary. It is no use training men 
 in the arts and crafts of Western industry unless the capital 
 and organisation are forthcoming in India to provide scope 
 for these men when they have finished their training. Do 
 not let us repeat in technical training what we did in literary 
 instruction, and encourage education to run away out of touch 
 with India. Education and a country are companions. When 
 they cease to keep in touch with each other they wander 
 uselessly. We see year after year the spread of the large 
 industry in India, but for many years to come it will not only 
 be confined to one or two trades like jute and cotton, but 
 will be an insignificant proportion of the whole volume of 
 Indian production and consumption. 1 For generations the 
 best technical work we can do for India is to revitalise her 
 arts and crafts centred in her villages. The way to do this 
 is obviously through the Co-operative Societies, which in places 
 like Conjeeveram ! are struggling to bring village industry 
 to a new birth. Then there is agriculture, by far and away 
 the premier industry in India, the most handed over to tradi- 
 
 1 One of the results of regarding India as subordinate to foreigners in every- 
 thing is the unwillingness to give Indians a fair chance even in Indian in- 
 dustry. For instance, frequent complaints are made that Indians of proved 
 capacity are not trusted in the great Tata iron works. 
 
 * I mention this because I have seen it, and was much struck by the weaving 
 workshop there.
 
 188 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 tion and Providence, and the most difficult to improve by 
 scientific practice. Here again what one has to say to the 
 Government is : Decentralise and liberate ! Devise an in- 
 dustrial policy to keep step with your educational one ! 
 
 When one ultimately arrives at the college and university, 
 one enters a stage of the controversy where the opportunity 
 to reform is not quite so clear. It is difficult to scrap or even 
 radically reform existing institutions, and the action of Govern- 
 ment has so raised suspicion, and the educated Indian is so 
 jealous of what he has secured, that a thorough university 
 reform would meet with opposition, not on its merits or de- 
 merits, but because it was a change brought about by a Govern- 
 ment which has given good reason for being treated as suspect. 
 That was the case in 1904, when an Act full of sound proposals 
 was prejudiced by Lord Curzon's injudicious conduct and 
 speeches connected with it. The system of the federated 
 college, part of which reaches one standard and part another 
 standard, is bad ; putting the teaching and professorial staff 
 of a college into a Civil Service cadre is bad ; making professors 
 inspectors, and putting masters of one subject to teach another 
 in order to suit departmental convenience, is bad ; 1 mixing 
 up in one bureaucratic service men of the most varied functions, 
 and creating distinctions in title which represent no difference 
 in work or attainments, is bad ; the iron hand of the Govern- 
 ment controlling colleges is bad ; the division of staffs into 
 
 1 One who has specialised in history should not be made " a lecturer in 
 English philology, or a man who is believed to know physics, a lecturer in 
 metaphysics." Evidence of P. T. Srinavas lyengar Avayal, M.A., Principal 
 of the M.A.V.N. College, Vizigapatam, to the Royal Commission on the 
 Public Services of India. This is the self-confessed record of one of the English 
 professors who was examined by this Commission : He took a second-class 
 Classical Tripos at Cambridge and studied at Bonn and Paris. He was 
 private secretary to a member of the Cabinet at home and went to India 
 as head master of a public school. He was then made Professor of English, 
 but had done the work of Professor of History and Economics, and had only 
 taught Economics. He had no special training in Economics, but had read 
 it in Aristotle. His evidence is not given in full in the official report. 
 Appendix to the Report of the Commissioners, Education Department. Cd. 7908, 
 1916.
 
 EDUCATION 189 
 
 Imperial and Provincial grades is bad. Universities should be 
 in the hands of free educationalists and not of Civil Servants, 
 even if the latter are educationalists. There should be a 
 sifting out of education which is not of a university 
 standard from that which is, but that can be done only when 
 there is a complete system built up from below. At present 
 the first two years of a student's time at college are " devoted 
 to what is really school work." But at whatever cost, the 
 authorities should rigidly refuse to honour with a university 
 stamp education which is clearly nothing more than higher 
 elementary. There will be disappointment and opposition 
 at first and the change cannot be made to-morrow. But if 
 the authorities could only gain the confidence of the Indian 
 educated community as regards their educational policy, 
 they would receive its support in making the necessary changes. 
 This can only be done under a system of self-government. 
 
 The three main grades of education, primary, secondary (in- 
 cluding technical) , and university, are not merely one coherent 
 whole, but each grade has its own separate justification and 
 completion contained within itself. A primary school should 
 not call itself a high school nor a high school a college, and 
 the various grades of teachers should understand and accept 
 the importance and independence of their work. That is 
 not the case in India, where the college dominates everything 
 and where college badges and certificates are the only edu- 
 cational prizes that are sought for. During education a man 
 must find absorbing pleasure amongst the treasures in the 
 midst of which he wanders for the time being, and not be 
 a long-distance runner whose eyes see only the far-away prize 
 and applause, and who knows no lingering place short of that 
 goal. This true educational psychology will never be that of 
 India so long as its educational system is, as at present, an 
 inverted pyramid resting on its college apex. 
 
 In the Benares Hindu university, to which I must again 
 refer, the Government retains throughout the right of veto 
 on most important matters, though it has surrendered its
 
 190 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 nominated majority on the syndicate and does not retain, 
 as in Calcutta for instance, its right to veto the appointment 
 of professors. The powers of the Visitor, who is the Lieutenant- 
 Governor of the United Provinces ex officio, are extensive, 
 but the important thing is that the University is to be governed 
 by people who are not official representatives of the Govern- 
 ment. It is to be national. It is to teach its own students, 
 who are to be resident. Its religious atmosphere is to be Hindu. 
 There can be no doubt that if this university is fortunate 
 in its beginning, it will become the great seat of learning in 
 India. Not the Government colleges, but this, will attract 
 the Indian youth piously seeking knowledge, and the scholar 
 piously teaching it. Here India has its chance of showing 
 what is in it. But it must remember certain things from 
 the very beginning. A university must not be brought down 
 to low levels in order to accommodate youths who would like 
 to have degrees, but whose education cannot carry them. A 
 university must be bold even against Governments in form- 
 ing its own life and in claiming its intellectual independence. 
 A university must not be a golden gateway to office so much 
 as a temple where men go for refreshment and guidance and 
 equipment for living. A university must have a tradition, 
 it must be a commune whose sovereignty is accepted by its 
 students through life. And finally, a university is a place 
 not where men are examined, but where they are educated. 
 The Hindu University, of all Indian universities, has the best 
 chance of following high ideals. 
 
 Then there is the question of women's education. The 
 outside world assumes that woman is a negligible influence 
 on Indian society. She is supposed to be ignorant, secluded, 
 passive. She is nothing of the kind. She is either active 
 with progress or active with reaction. She is either an en- 
 couraging help or a heavy handicap. She is never a mere 
 nothing one way or the other. In India she is advancing 
 fast and will go far, for in the generations of her apparent 
 subordination she developed a very pretty will of her own.
 
 EDUCATION 191 
 
 It is significant that in Indian tales the woman is so often the 
 predominant partner, the emancipated person, or the inspiring 
 force. " There are more suffragettes in our homes than you 
 imagine," said a Madras Brahmin to me. 
 
 The Indian woman will more and more demand education, 
 for two reasons, both equally good, and the Government should 
 support the demand for a reason which is also good. Women 
 will ask to be educated because they desire to be educated, 
 and because they wish to enter certain professions, chiefly 
 those of nursing and medicine and teaching. So we have 
 medical schools for women like the Lady Hardinge Hospital 
 at Delhi, and the University for Women at Poona, supported 
 by the Hindu Widows' Home Association. The Government 
 must support these adventures not only because an educated 
 womanhood will be good for India, but because it requires 
 their help in both medical and teaching work. There is 
 always a considerable demand for women teachers, and that 
 ought to grow. Much of the private medical work in the more 
 enlightened parts of the mofussil, especially the tending of 
 women, must depend on women doctors, and upon the supply 
 of competent women teachers will depend to a great extent 
 how rapidly primary schools multiply. 
 
 Meanwhile the higher schools and colleges for women 
 increase their number of students, and the women of certain 
 sections of the community, like the Parsees, are beginning to 
 rival the men in their education. The movement has started ; 
 it will not fail. The shortcoming is teachers it is teachers, 
 always teachers. 
 
 Thus India returns to itself like a wanderer who has roamed 
 far but has found no rest.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 
 
 THE British Constitution is commonly assumed to rest upon 
 law. The Legislature declares it, the Executive has then 
 to accept it, and the Judiciary administers it. In this scheme 
 the various functions remain independent, otherwise justice 
 would not be done. In her symbolic representation, Justice 
 is blindfold so that outside influences may not weigh with her. 
 She is possessed of a mind apart from the world of convenience 
 and passing motives. If she gava eye or ear to the Executive 
 she could be impartial no longer, but would become a serving 
 maid, and no one who entered a court would be sure of finding 
 uprightness there. 
 
 In India, as elsewhere, justice rested in the King, who was 
 enjoined by the law books to spend from a quarter to hah* 
 of his time in the judgment seat, and who was specially charged 
 to hear all cases concerning his own dignity and the State's 
 security. He had also his judges, who acted in his name in 
 a series of courts down to that over which the village headman 
 presided, and these were supplemented by tribunals of cor- 
 porations, trade guilds, and families with appropriate juris- 
 diction. The law, however, was not Statute Law, but a some- 
 what confused body of religious and secular rules supplemented 
 by social custom, and in its administration the common sense 
 or the whim of the judge, whether Chief Justice or village 
 headman, played an important part. The judgments were 
 largely of the nature of equity judgments. In a Golden 
 Age of civil peace and political wisdom such a system would 
 yield a maximum of justice, but in the ordinary world of 
 
 192
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 193 
 
 prejudice, interest, and falsehood it is both precarious and 
 unjust. When we arrived, India was undergoing a general 
 deterioration owing to political anarchy which we first of 
 all fostered and then took advantage of, and the adminis- 
 tration of justice suffered with every other social function. 
 
 Our own beginnings as magistrates and judges were not 
 very happy. The early Charters of the Company show the 
 factories in India to be extra-territorial as regards the ad- 
 ministration of justice. Every one residing within the areas 
 of Company jurisdiction was amenable not to the courts of 
 sovereign authority, but to those of the Company, which were 
 charged to administer justice based upon English law ; but 
 the Charter of 1753 provided that the Mayors' Courts, as 
 the British courts were called, should judge Indians only if 
 their disputes involved Europeans or if the Indians of their 
 own free will submitted themselves. 
 
 When the Company began to rule, and Parliament to watch, 
 the administration of justice was seen to be the point where 
 a check upon Company faults and failings could be most 
 conveniently and effectively made. Justice was then under 
 the real control of the Company and therefore subject to 
 the general work of the administration. Clive, after having 
 secured the Diwani grant, put civil justice into the hands of 
 the British administrators, whilst criminal justice remained 
 in those of the Nawab. Then Hastings came. He placed 
 Europeans to preside over the Civil Courts, giving them 
 Hindu and Mohammedan assessors, and he created a system 
 of appeals. At the same time he established Criminal Courts 
 of his own. Obviously this was an offence to the legal minds 
 at Westminster. It was justice subordinate to the commer- 
 cial interests and the peace of mind of the Company. 
 
 An independent judiciary was necessary, it was argued. 
 So the Regulating Act set up the High Court at Calcutta as 
 a Supreme Court of Appeal, a court which was admittedly 
 to check the administration of the Company. The theory 
 was admirable ; the practice displayed that lack of insight 
 13
 
 194 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 into realities which was then preparing for us all our troubles 
 in America with the loss of the Colonies. The history of the 
 world that has still to be written contains the secret of what 
 the end is to be, but the history that has been finished shows 
 that when the English mind sets out to construct with a 
 conscious and definite end in view, it is purely subjective in its 
 thought, incapable of objective imagination, and innocent of 
 any suspicion that what has worked in England may not work 
 elsewhere, or that other nationalities have an evolution of 
 their own. The success of the British consists in working 
 unsystematised compromises and adaptations without much 
 thought of to-morrow, and it may be that we are in conse- 
 quence the chosen people amongst the earth's rulers. Our 
 people's qualities cost them their American Colonies, however, 
 and led them to pass the judicial clauses of the Regulating 
 Act, which may be taken to be the beginning of the substitu- 
 tion of English court methods the word " justice " must 
 not be used, because " justice" is not a process but a con- 
 clusion in India. 
 
 I dispute neither the necessity nor the value of the Calcutta 
 High Court. Its work since its establishment has been a 
 conspicuous vindication of the latter ; its conflicts with a 
 Government which has again and again sought political judg- 
 ments and wished by its powers and the anathemas hi the 
 columns of its newspapers to inform the judges that, in its 
 opinion, its censures ought to be taken as judgments and 
 its convenience as law, have proved the former. But on its 
 establishment, the High Court was set into an imperfect 
 political constitution, and when asked to limit the political 
 authority of the Company within constitutional bounds 
 and the decision of its courts within law, neither the bounds 
 nor the law had been adequately defined. The Company, 
 however, was not a committee of British colonists ruling 
 on the spot. It was itself a remote authority. The people 
 of the country had not the least interest in constitutional 
 blunders and they were spectators and not actors, so the
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 195 
 
 mistakes of the Court worked themselves out in friction and 
 not in revolution. The newly appointed judges held high 
 revelry in the china shop of Indian custom and Company 
 interest. 
 
 Thus our first attempt to establish an independent Judiciary 
 in India brought misfortune. A Supreme Court appointed 
 by and responsible to the Crown, lower courts under the 
 control of the Company, the Company and Parliament little 
 short of being at constant loggerheads, was a condition of 
 things bound to produce friction and opposition and not merely 
 judicial independence. The Supreme Court began by assuming 
 that it had been created to check the tyranny and injustice 
 of the Company ; it also assumed something that was much 
 less well founded and might have led to serious trouble : that 
 English law, and English law alone, was good enough for 
 everybody on the face of the earth. Hence it is that the first 
 chapter in the history of the independent Supreme Court 
 at Calcutta is taken up wholly with the contest between itself 
 and Warren Hastings, and it ended in discomfiture for the 
 Judiciary owing to its own folly. The Company's adminis- 
 tration including all matters concerning the raising of revenue 
 was withdrawn from the Supreme Court, which was also 
 instructed to judge Hindus and Mohammedans in accordance 
 with their own laws when they were involved. The Company's 
 Courts were recognised and two independent judicial systems 
 therefore existed side by side, the Supreme Court being all 
 the time in the unhappy frame of mind which came from the 
 consciousness that it had not the power which properly be- 
 longed to it. It was isolated ; the lower Courts and the 
 machinery of justice were largely outside its influence ; it 
 had a too limited jurisdiction over British subjects ; it was 
 therefore not only jealous, but aggressive. Finally, when the 
 Crown took over India, the judicial systems were merged into 
 one. The Supreme Courts became High Courts, but to this 
 day they retain the condition of mind and the reputation, 
 especially in Calcutta, that they should set a watch upon
 
 196 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Executive action, and one is constantly hearing complaints, 
 in connection with political cases in particular, that the High 
 Courts are not sufficiently sympathetic with government diffi- 
 culties. In India there is some confusion of mind on this 
 constitutional point, and a great section of officials supported 
 by Anglo-Indian opinion cannot understand why the persons 
 who sit on the bench should take no account of government 
 difficulties, and should refuse to stretch the process of justice 
 so as to admit the influence of political opinion. They cannot 
 understand why the thief-catcher with his full knowledge 
 of the thief should be disqualified from being the judge in 
 the case he knows so well, and why he should not use his 
 general knowledge to supplement the evidence before him 
 in deciding whether an accusation is well founded or not. 
 
 The greater number of judges, justices, and magistrates 
 are Indians. The lower courts are exclusively manned by 
 Indians the munsifs, the subordinate judges, the deputy 
 magistrates, and so on, through a variety of titles differing 
 in different provinces, but all included in what, at the time 
 when this is written, is called the Provincial Services. 1 The 
 superior judicial appointments mainly belong to the Indian 
 Civil Service. The collector, in addition to his revenue and 
 administrative duties, exercises general control over the police, 
 and he also supervises the work of the Courts in his district, 
 and acts as District Magistrate. In fact, on him is focused 
 all the authority which deals with law and order in his District, 
 and he has to see, both on the criminal and the civil side, to 
 the smooth running of the mechanism of justice. Above all 
 are the High Courts with an appeal to the Privy Council. 
 On the bench of these Courts must be at least one-third bar- 
 risters of England or Ireland, or members of the Faculty of 
 Advocates of Scotland, at least one- third members of the Indian 
 Civil Service, and the others must be qualified persons who 
 
 1 The Royal Commission on the Public Services of India has recommended 
 that this designation should be used no longer.
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 197 
 
 have held subordinate judicial positions and who have prac- 
 tised at the Bar of the High Court. Throughout the whole 
 of these higher judicial services, Indians are to be found. 1 
 There used to be a considerable number of Europeans practising 
 at the Indian Bar, but they tend to disappear. They find 
 that Indians have gained possession and keep possession. 
 The best Indian mind is a subtle instrument which makes 
 the most out of the human frailty which every law-maker's 
 work must show. It is really too ingenious. It often confuses 
 rather than persuades, but it is never at a loss for excuses 
 or explanations. I sometimes think that the real explanation 
 of the way in which the Indian youth took to the Bar as a 
 post of high honour and emolument is the natural delight of 
 the young Indian in verbal art. And yet when we check 
 our impressions of the popularity of the Bar by figures, we 
 see how easy it is to get exaggerated notions into our heads. 
 There are fifty-three million persons returned in the last Indian 
 census (1911) as being engaged in the professions and liberal 
 arts. " Religion accounts for rather more than half, letters 
 and the arts and science for more than a sixth, instruction 
 and medicine for one-eighth, and law for one-eighteenth," 
 but only a little over one-half of these are lawyers, the re- 
 mainder being clerks, petition writers, law agents, etc. At 
 
 1 The Royal Commission on the Public Services in India elicited interesting 
 information as to the position of Indians in the Judicial Service. In the 
 Presidency of Madras, four out of the ten High Court judges are 
 Indians ; of twenty-two District and Session judges outside the town of 
 Madras, six are Indians ; the twenty-four subordinate judges are all Indians. 
 " Practically the whole of the original civil suits of the country up to Rs. 2,500 
 in value and six-sevenths of the original suits above that value, and con- 
 siderably more than half of all the civil appeals, were disposed of by Indians. 
 On the other hand, the bulk of the highest criminal work is still in the hands 
 of Europeans, the proportion being about three-fourths of the Session cases 
 and nearly four-fifths of the higher Criminal Appeals " (Madras Evidence, 
 Cd. 7293, p. 5). It will always be a matter of profound regret to Englishmen 
 that the English in India passionately opposed every attempt to repose 
 confidence in Indian judges ; and it should be a warning to us, so long as 
 our faithlessness needs it, that when that confidence was imposed upon them, 
 none of our fears ever came true.
 
 198 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 the bottom end, the lawyer shades off into a low type of his 
 profession and makes his living by encouraging litigation, 
 and often employs agents to procure him business. Above 
 that, and especially at the top, he is as good an example of 
 his profession as is to be found anywhere. When he becomes 
 a judge he does his work well and his conduct has long ago 
 removed any suspicion of corruption which used to stick to 
 him. 1 
 
 Something akin to a tradition has grown up in India that 
 the Executive influences or would like to influence the 
 Courts, and the expressed opinions of some executive officers 
 give an excuse for that view. In the days of the Company 
 the Company's courts were Company's tools. In the House 
 of Commons, General Burgoyne said of Company justice 
 " The laws of England have been mute and neglected, 
 and nothing has been seen but the arbitrary caprice of 
 despotism." 2 To this day that frame of mind has not 
 altogether departed from the Executive. The red-tape of the 
 Judiciary often thwarts its political projects. It cannot see 
 why the political mind should not be on the Bench as it has 
 to be at the Secretariat. The executive officer makes up 
 his mind about a man not on proof alone, but on what seems 
 to him to be likelihood or possibility. His business is not to 
 adjudicate upon what has been done or what has happened, 
 but upon what is likely, in his opinion, to be done or to happen. 
 The judge knows but little of likelihood. He has to make 
 up his mind about evidence and he has to interpret and apply 
 the law. He has to approach a case with a mind free from 
 all the impressions regarding it which must be stamped deeply 
 
 i " The Lord Chancellor did not give the Native judges too high a character 
 when he said in the House of Lords in 1883, as the result of his experience 
 of Indian cases appealed to the Privy Council, that in respect of integrity, 
 of learning, of knowledge, of the soundness and satisfactory character of 
 the judgments arrived at, the judgments of the Native judges were quite 
 as good as those of the English" (Strachey, India, p. 162). Sir John 
 Strachey goes even farther than that in his own praise. 
 
 Hansard, 1772, p. 535.
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 199 
 
 on the mind of the executive officer. His outlook and function 
 make him regard society as static ; the outlook and function 
 of the executive officer make him regard society as dynamic. 
 Thus, apart from any taint of corrupt dealing or of any desire 
 on the part of the Executive to rule tyrannically or to use 
 the Judiciary as its tool, or of any question as to whether 
 the executive officer can be properly trained for, or have time 
 to give to, judicial work, the executive and judicial mind are 
 at enmity. 
 
 Here we see unfolded what is the source of the long-drawn- 
 out controversy upon the separation of the Judiciary from the 
 Executive in India. In India the District is the unit of 
 administration, and all the strings of that administration 
 are gathered up in the hands of that wonderful functionary, 
 the Collector-Magistrate. He represents the political govern- 
 ment. He looks after land and other revenue, and local 
 government ; he keeps the general machinery of government 
 going. He is accepted as the ruling sahib of his little Empire. 
 He is the chief magistrate with control over all subordinate 
 courts, with power to try original and appeal cases himself, 
 to transfer cases from one court to another, and to take what 
 steps he likes to prevent or suppress crime and disturbance. 
 He, as magistrate, can discipline and punish those with whom 
 he has come into conflict as political executive officer. These 
 are his powers. In a memorial sent in 1899 to Lord George 
 Hamilton and signed by Lord Hobhouse and several other 
 judges of Indian experience, the Collector's powers are described 
 as " the strange union of constable and magistrate, public 
 prosecutor and criminal judge, revenue collector and appeal 
 court in revenue cases." He may not exercise them, indeed 
 he has less and less tune to do so, and his criminal work dimin- 
 ishes. His magisterial decisions are also subject to the Session 
 judge, and he himself to the High Court. But none of these 
 considerations affect the real issue. It is very short-sighted 
 wisdom to endow an office with powers which, if used, would 
 be dangerous, but which are given or retained on the ground
 
 200 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 that they will not be, are or not being, used. It is plainly 
 the duty, as it is in accord with the habits, of the British 
 Government to give Indian officers powers for the use of which 
 they are responsible ; to revise from time to time the nominal 
 duties of officers ; to clear away rotten wood ; to prevent 
 duplication and conflict of functions and to adjust the 
 machinery and administration to changing circumstances. Nor 
 is it enough to provide for an appeal. If the system is wrong 
 every decision may be wrong, so that justice demands that 
 every decision should be tested by an appeal. Under such 
 circumstances the original decision might as well not have 
 been given, and the case should have been brought to the Appeal 
 Court in the first instance. 
 
 The union of executive and judicial functions in the Collector 
 does not mean the same thing in every province, nor has it 
 always existed in British India. It exists no longer in the 
 Presidency towns. In Madras, the separation of the two 
 functions has been effected in the lower grades ; in Bengal, 
 it now obtains in the provincial service, and special deputies 
 are being appointed to try certain land and other suits ; in 
 Burma, the growth of judicial and executive duties has led 
 to differentiation and separation. This differentiation owing 
 to the amount of work to be done is showing itself generally. 1 
 When Warren Hastings had to handle the problem of how 
 to turn the Company into a Government and its servants 
 into rulers, obviously the first necessity was to give his district 
 officers all the authority of an oriental potentate. Divided 
 power was to be avoided. The governing will could not risk 
 being checked or revised. It had to be free to come to its 
 own conclusions and also to enforce them. So Hastings 
 united executive and judicial authority in one officer the 
 District Collector. The House of Commons, however, was 
 watching. It approached such a phenomenon as the Ex- 
 ecutive-Judge not merely with the principles of the British 
 Constitution in mind, but jealousy of the Company as well, 
 
 1 Report on the Public Services of India, 1917, pp. 194-196.
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 201 
 
 and its view was that whilst the Company might be allowed a 
 revenue to conduct the general affairs of political administra- 
 tion, the Crown ought to see that justice was done. Ac- 
 cording to this view, not only should there be a division 
 between the Executive and Judiciary, but the Judiciary 
 should keep a watchful eye upon the self-willed Executive. 
 As has been stated, Hastings won in the conflict, and, 
 like so many great men, he saw the other man's point of 
 view. Therefore, when he had established his mastery 
 he proceeded to show that he saw his mistakes and separated 
 the Collector's functions. It was too soon, however. Cir- 
 cumstances were against him. A system of balances, of checks, 
 of brakes, can be worked only if in every one concerned there 
 is a sincere desire to work it, or if the opportunities it gives to 
 create confusion or deadlocks are not taken. It was otherwise 
 in India. Checks and counter-checks were worked by people 
 at enmity against each other, and when Lord Cornwallis went 
 out he had instructions from the Court of Directors to go 
 back upon the system which Hastings had latterly adopted, 
 and concentrate power in the hands of the Collector. Thus 
 once more the Collector became revenue officer, political 
 administrator, magistrate, and civil judge. Then this did not 
 work, and civil judicial work was taken from the Collector. 
 From that time there have been changes backwards and for- 
 wards, 1 but there have steadily emerged the principles that 
 civil judicial authority should be taken from the Collector, 
 as it was really not of any advantage to him as ruler to 
 exercise it, but that criminal and magisterial authority should 
 remain with him so that he might keep full control of every- 
 thing concerned with law and order. 
 
 For a long time the Government of India frankly confessed 
 that the union of the two functions was only a temporary 
 expedient, and the opinions now so prevalent in the service, 
 that it is good in itself, are of comparatively modern 
 
 1 For a history of these changes see The Question of Judicial and Executive 
 Separation, pt. 1, by P. C. Miller, M.A., D.L.
 
 202 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 growth and are not even now held by some of the most dis- 
 tinguished administrators. 1 The view that the Collector is 
 ruler over a district for the order, as well as good government, 
 of which he is responsible, and that therefore he should retain 
 the authority of a magistrate controlling the police force and 
 the criminal courts of his District, is the best that can be 
 taken in favour of the union of the two functions. But it 
 supports the union only up to a point. It affords no reason 
 why the Collector should have judicial powers, though it may 
 decide that he should be at the head of the police. Indeed, 
 it is most objectionable that the officer responsible for collect- 
 ing evidence and prosecuting through the police should be 
 the judge who tries the case, 2 or that the head of the police 
 should be a magistrate who is also the head of the district 
 criminal courts. 
 
 Underlying this argument, however, is the feeling that 
 some kind of general authority is necessary for the Collector's 
 " prestige." We are always being told that the " East " 
 needs this, that, and the other extraordinary conduct in 
 order that it may understand things. The " East," however, 
 changes, and the political habits and practices of the old time 
 of personal and despotic rule have become as historical as 
 our own trial by ordeal. Great masses remain in that his- 
 torical condition, but these masses do not determine the 
 modes of modern government, provide a public opinion as a 
 foundation for it, vindicate it when it is attacked, support it 
 
 1 For instance, during the debate on the Police Bill in 1860, Sir Bartle 
 Frere, who was in charge of the Bill, said that he personally would be only 
 too pleased to have made " a still more complete severance of the police and 
 judicial functions," and the Committee which in 1881 revised the Code of 
 Criminal Procedure reported that the Bengal Government had asked it to 
 omit the section conferring police powers on Bengal magistrates. The Com- 
 mittee said on its own behalf : " We consider that it is inexpedient to invest 
 magistrates with such powers." Finally, in 1908, Sir Harvey Adamson, 
 as Home member of the Viceroy's Council, promised to separate the two 
 functions in Bengal and Eastern Bengal, but the promise was not fulfilled. 
 
 1 This point was specially emphasised by the Police Commission which 
 reported in 1860. See paragraph 37 of its report.
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 203 
 
 against criticism. The Government must protect these pas- 
 sive masses, but it must adopt methods of doing so which do 
 not lay it open to the assaults of that active body of public 
 opinion which can fight it with its own weapons. Sir Harvey 
 Adamson's conclusion is correct. Discussing the prestige 
 argument, he said in 1908 : " The combination of functions in 
 such a condition of society (when ordinary legal processes are 
 possible) is a direct weakening of the prestige of the Execu- 
 tive." 
 
 We must assume that magistrates belonging to an inde- 
 pendent branch of the administration will be as inspired as 
 executive officers to stamp out crime, and though they may not 
 be willing to consider suspicion or probability as proof, and 
 to use their authority to prevent something evil from happen- 
 ing before the proof that it is to happen is established, that, 
 on the balance, will probably add to the amount of justice 
 done, and consequently to public tranquillity. There can be 
 no doubt but that the present condition invites suspicion and 
 gratuitously puts stones into the slings of Indian critics. As 
 Sir Harvey Adamson again said during that Budget debate in 
 1908 : "The inevitable result of the present system is that 
 criminal trials affecting the general peace of the district are 
 not always conducted in the atmosphere of cool impartiality 
 which should pervade a court of justice. Nor does this com- 
 pletely define the evil, which lies not so much in what is done, 
 as in what may be suspected to be done ; for it is not enough 
 that the administration of justice should be pure ; it can 
 never be the bedrock of our rule unless it is also above sus- 
 picion." 
 
 It is contended that the separation will impose a heavier cost 
 upon Indian revenues. Even supposing this were true 1 and 
 that the expense would be so great as to make a real differ- 
 ence, cheapness cannot justify a bad system. If suspicion 
 
 1 Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt, whilst District Magistrate, drew up a scheme 
 which, by a reorganisation of the staff, secured all that was wanted without 
 any extra expense. Other similar schemes have been devised.
 
 204 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 about judicial decisions can be removed at the cost of a few 
 thousand pounds a year, the end will be cheaply bought. 
 
 This is an old problem. It has been inquired into and 
 reported upon again and again ; 1 it has been debated times 
 without number ; it has been the subject of innumerable 
 resolutions. It is in reality the battle-ground of those who 
 regard justice as being no justice at all unless it is without 
 suspicion, and those who relate justice to expediency and 
 connect judicial authority with the political ends of an execu- 
 tive. Consequently the accumulation of cases of injustice 
 done owing to the system is important, but is not decisive. 
 On the one hand, some injustice is done under the best of 
 systems ; on the other hand, the failure to prove that in- 
 justice has been done under an obviously bad system does not 
 make a reform of the system unnecessary. So I will not 
 burden my pages with the charges that have been made 
 against the Collector as District Magistrate. 2 Replies have 
 been made to them, and counter-replies made again. That 
 the subordinate magistrates are controlled by executive 
 officers, that judicial promotion depends upon the good- will 
 of officers who are frequently parties to suits, is a bad system, 
 and if it has enough luck to avoid indictment by the production 
 of a great array of instances of miscarriages of justice, that 
 is no matter ; it remains a system that will not be accepted, 
 will not emerge from its enveloping cloud of suspicion, and 
 ought to be changed. 
 
 1 Report of Committee upon Bengal Police, 1838 ; Police Commission, 1860, 
 etc., etc., also The Question of Judicial and Executive Separation, by P. C. 
 Miller, M.A., D.L. 
 
 1 In an appendix to the memorial presented to the Secretary of State in 
 1899, signed by some of the most eminent Englishmen who had served on the 
 Indian Bench, including men who had been Chief Justices of Bengal and Bom- 
 bay, and Lord Hobhouse, who had been Law Member of the Viceroy's Council, 
 some of these cases of palpable injustice are given, " cases which, it is thought, 
 illustrate in a striking way some of the dangers that arise from the present 
 system." Various Indian lawyers and organisations have also published 
 from time to time collections of such cases. That they have been numerous 
 and have been in the main attributable to the system is not open to doubt.
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 205 
 
 Nor has another kind of argument, still based upon ex- 
 pediency, any value. It is said that the executive officer 
 during his dozen years' apprenticeship comes into the very 
 closest personal contact with the life of the people and gains 
 such a thorough knowledge of their habits and ways that 
 it would be a waste of this knowledge if Government did not 
 use it on the bench. Assuming the statement to be true, 
 which I do only for argument's sake, what is its meaning ? 
 We send men out to administer Indian affairs, and we start 
 them as subordinates in country districts where they get 
 to know something of the people. In the course of their 
 apprenticeship they develop an interest in the administration 
 of the law and have peculiar opportunities for becoming wise 
 judges. To that there is no objection. Let them become 
 judges if they are fit. Whether or not civilians should be 
 able to pass into the Judiciary at an early period of their 
 service is the only question that this argument raises, and it 
 has little to do with the union of the Executive and Judiciary 
 at certain points and in certain officers. 
 
 Nor has a much more important matter very much to 
 do with it that there should always be a number of civilians 
 on High Court benches. A man of common sense and logical 
 faculty who has some knowledge of the law can make a great 
 judge and dispense justice. In India he will perhaps be 
 troubled by barristers of unusual subtlety of intellect, but if 
 he is firmly placed on his common sense he need not fear that. 
 So there have been great civilian judges and magistrates. 
 It is the custom at home to select the Bench from the Bar, 
 but if it had been otherwise, and other walks of life giving 
 chances for judicial qualities had also been tapped for this 
 purpose, probably the result on the whole would not have been 
 bad. But the question that we ask of the Indian Judiciary 
 is : why must Civil Servants sit on the High Court Bench ? 
 And the only real answer is that in the interests of the service 
 it has been so decreed. The service must have its offices 
 and its dignities. Once again, it is not necessary to prove
 
 206 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 inefficiencies l (though these are frequently alleged) ; we need 
 only prove that it is not in the fitness of things, that it is 
 something done by decree which of itself is not natural, that 
 it is suspect because it introduces upon the Bench interests, 
 points of view, frames of mind, methods and associations 
 which at once suggest, to the unsophisticated mind, bias and 
 aims and purposes other than those of a blindfolded justice. 
 
 Naturally in India there is much opposition from the Bar 
 to the existing arrangement. It alleges that the civilian has 
 not enough legal training to entitle him to be a judge or 
 magistrate, that he has less respect for the law as such than 
 a desire to secure political aims, that the system is a violation 
 of that which has made British justice what it is. The case 
 is difficult to reply to. Even if the civilians have the making 
 of great judges in them, they should make a more respectable 
 beginning on the Bench than muddling through the lower 
 judicial offices. 
 
 No one can well resist the conclusion that it is desirable 
 that the separation should take place, and the Civil Service 
 should become purely executive in its work. Perhaps for the 
 first year or two of service it may be possible for a man to 
 choose whether his later life is to be spent on either the 
 executive or judicial side. He should then, however, have to 
 choose early and undergo the proper training if he takes the 
 latter. We should be wrong to assume that the British method 
 of taking judges from the Bar comparatively late in life is the 
 only satisfactory one. It has many advantages, but it has 
 some disadvantages, and the method of putting younger 
 men on the Bench and promoting them to higher responsi- 
 bilities has much to be said for it. But that is not involved 
 in this old topic of controversy. When there was no efficient 
 Bar in India, when there was no critical legal opinion there, 
 when there was one man in the midst of a great district which 
 he had to govern of his own will, the union of the two great 
 
 1 The list of bad judges on our own Bench is not a short one and every 
 generation makes additions to it.
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OP JUSTICE 207 
 
 functions of government the executive and judiciary in 
 one service was not only possible, but may have been impera- 
 tive. India has now outlived those conditions, however. 
 
 This, important though it be, both in its judicial and 
 its political aspects, is not the only big question raised by the 
 administration of British law in India. We have codified 
 the law, we have introduced a legal method with a tolerable 
 amount of certainty in its working, we have purified the 
 Bench and have made bribery a thing of the past at any rate 
 in the higher grades. But we have destroyed native Indian 
 justice in precisely the same way as we destroyed native 
 Indian education, and if we say that both were bad we are 
 not really answering the charge, because both education and 
 justice belong to the culture of a people and foreign systems 
 cannot be transplanted with impunity. 
 
 The Hindu is said to have been litigious always, and judicial 
 statistics are really appalling. There are over 2,000,000 
 civil suits every year, about three-fourths of which arise over 
 money and movable property affairs, and one-fifth relate to 
 rent. No less than 290,000 suits relate to sums of ten rupees 
 and under, and well over a million are disputes about fifty 
 rupees and under. About one-tenth of the cases go to appeal. 
 The Indian regards the courts as some people regard Monte 
 Carlo. It is difficult for English people to understand the 
 Indian psychology as regards this, and in consequence it is 
 difficult to get them to see what has happened as a result of 
 the introduction of our legal methods. In our historical 
 evolution, the court has come to be the place where one 
 seeks justice, not where one pursues chances ; and as we are 
 a people in whose solid minds justice means something real 
 in respect to our relationships with each other, the function 
 of the court is to vindicate and secure. If we, however, can 
 imagine a people in whose minds a sense of justice is more 
 rudimentary (say a society of usurers) and only a keen intelli- 
 gence dominates certain classes of relationships (say borrowings
 
 208 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 and debts), or if we can imagine a people accustomed to 
 regulate their affairs by accommodation and convenience less 
 than by contract and obligation, it is easy to see that courts in 
 such a Society would not perform exactly the same function as 
 in ours, and that the security of right would not be so much 
 in evidence formally taken, and in law interpreted in the letter 
 by lawyers and judges, as in a much rougher process of equity 
 based upon common knowledge and common sense. This is 
 an explanation of what has taken place in India. The officers 
 in touch with the people felt this difference between India 
 and England, and proposed to maintain a system of justice 
 which was of course anathema to legal minds both British 
 and Indian working on the assumptions of the West. These 
 latter minds prevailed, because, however true was the insight 
 of the conservatives, they, as aliens and as representatives of 
 a system of which Western courts were an indissoluble part, 
 occupied a weak position and could make their case good 
 only by attacking some of the essential assumptions of Western 
 administration in India and of Indian minds trained in Western 
 ways. So the British courts and British legal processes were 
 transplanted, and behold, the society into which they came 
 being very different to that from which they came and into 
 which they fitted, they did not fit and they did not function 
 as with us. They had to accommodate themselves and to be 
 accommodated to the alien society in which they were to work. 
 I have referred to the first false start of the Supreme Court 
 when it decided to apply its British law to all Indians. That 
 was a gross error, and consequently could easily be corrected. 
 But there were more subtle things which had to be done 
 and could not be corrected. For instance, the relationship 
 between borrower and moneylender in India was a historical 
 product of custom and depended on the fact that it was 
 defined by custom. When this became a legal relationship 
 and the subject of definitions so precise that they could be 
 enforced in courts, and be applied not in customary ways 
 but legally, obviously what happened was not a mere
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 209 
 
 formal transference of customary habit to written law, but a 
 complete revolution in the relationship of borrower to money- 
 lender, and, as this relationship very largely kept cultivation 
 going throughout India, the revolution affected the working of 
 Indian society. 
 
 This can best be illustrated in the case of land legislation. 
 It used to be that the village bunnia was nothing but the 
 financial agent of the cultivator who took his crops at a price 
 and advanced him what he wanted to meet his obligations. 
 As the cultivator had no realisable property, the bunnia re- 
 garded him as a going concern and his security was the next 
 harvest. Therefore he had no interest in allowing his client 
 to run into debt or to ruin him. All that changed, however. 
 British legal ideas not only established the cultivator on a 
 more definite relationship to his land, but introduced also a 
 more definite relationship between him and his bunnia. The 
 vakil, or country lawyer, came in to interpret that relation- 
 ship because it had become technical; and the moneylender, 
 knowing probably what had happened at the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century when Bengal moneylenders acquired the 
 Orissa estates upon which they had issued mortgages, and in 
 any event feeling the common land hunger, proceeded to 
 employ British justice to acquire landed property. I do not 
 concern myself with his tricky methods, with the amount of 
 his interest or the provisions of his mortgage deeds. I con- 
 cern myself with the legal and judicial changes of which he 
 took advantage and which altered village relationships as 
 completely and as unfortunately as the Permanent Settlement 
 changed relationships in Bengal. 
 
 Again and again the operation of strict legal processes has 
 brought whole communities to the verge of ruin and the 
 State to the edge of serious disorder. This was the case in the 
 Deccan when the Agriculturalists' Relief Act had to be passed 
 in 1879, and again in the Punjab when the Land Alienation 
 Act had to be passed in 1900, amidst a fury of conflicting 
 views and interests. The story is interesting. When the 
 14
 
 210 
 
 Punjab was annexed the land was restored to the people and 
 a reasonable land revenue was fixed. The land of the 
 Punjab was to be the nursery of brave soldiers. But the 
 brave men were thriftless men, as brave men so frequently 
 are ; our Revenue was a rigid impost ; the moneylender 
 became essential to both the cultivator and the Government. 
 But we, in the justice of our heart, protected the debtor by 
 providing that debts that were to be recoverable after three 
 years and up to six had to be registered. This introduced 
 the lawyer, first of all, for registration itself, and, later on, 
 for the court proceedings that followed. When the land 
 surveys were completed and local courts were set up conse- 
 quent upon the creation of a chief court for the Province, 
 all the definitions and the precisions necessary for litigation 
 and seizure were complete and the machinery was ready to 
 operate. The lamb had been supplied with a wolf to help 
 it. Our officers began to see what was happening, but the 
 Government could not understand how a pure and mechani- 
 cally equitable system of justice could do anything but punish 
 the wrongdoers and protect the oppressed. As a matter of 
 fact both law and lawlessness are alike in this : they side with 
 those who can take the best advantage of them. 
 
 The Punjab courts became blocked with business and 
 supplementary ones had to be established. But the bigger 
 the output, the more was the demand. The game went fast 
 and furious, and the bunnias jostled each other and blocked 
 the courts in their haste to become landowners. In 1886 an 
 official inquiry was ordered, and it revealed an alarming 
 state of indebtedness and an alarming number of sales. It 
 took fourteen years to get legislation, and then it came only 
 because there was a usurious scandal brought to light, and 
 because the threatened cultivators were getting out of hand 
 and were dealing with the bunnias in the old extra-legal way 
 by assault and battery. In the end, non-agriculturalists 
 were prohibited from acquiring land from agriculturalists. 
 
 Whoever surveys in a broad sweep the results of our judicial
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 211 
 
 system in India will therefore not see the unqualified opera- 
 tion of a mechanism of protection for the innocent, but a 
 complete transformation of social relationships. And if in 
 his sweep he includes the criminal courts he will find similar 
 results. The corruption of the police, the manufacture of 
 evidence, the concoction of accusations, have too often 
 made the courts weapons in the hands of the evildoer, who, 
 so far from regarding them as a terror, has annexed them 
 as a weapon. To strike at any enemy by falsely accusing 
 him in court, and providing witnesses to support the accusation, 
 is by no means a rare thing in India. That which concerns 
 itself with matters of justice may also be used to deal out 
 injustice ; and the abuse does not necessarily depend on the 
 character of judges (which for a long time has been quite 
 good in India), but upon the possibility of manipulating the 
 processes adopted. Every advantage is taken of this. A 
 specially low type of advocate and agent has arisen, extra- 
 ordinarily high charges are piled up, every permissible process 
 of application and appeal is resorted to, and the law drags 
 on its snail-like pace to its uncertain end. " I fancy few of us 
 Government officers," wrote a specially competent member 
 of the Service, " realised what a fearful advantage our system 
 of law courts gave to the rich man over the poor. It placed 
 the poor man at the rich man's mercy." l In the end, the 
 court of law comes to be looked at from a totally different 
 angle of vision to what it is here. So it cannot be said 
 that British justice is really appreciated in India, and any 
 one who visits Indian courts as I have done must feel how 
 different they are to our own. The Indian has a suspicion 
 that much of his poverty and his land trouble is due to them, 
 and he would be quite content to accept decisions come to 
 much more simply and would probably question them much 
 less ruefully in his heart. 
 
 But we cannot return to what has been destroyed. The 
 traditions have been broken and the alien methods have now 
 
 1 The Little World of an Indian District Officer, by B. Carstairs, p. 92.
 
 212 THE GOVERNMENT [OF INDIA 
 
 fixed themselves into Indian life, and it is one of the real 
 dangers of an enfranchised and politically dominant educated 
 class under self-government that the system will be developed 
 on its bad side, and full advantage taken of its opportunities 
 to exploit the cultivator and reduce him to the status of a 
 mere tenant at will. A truly great Indian ruler would 
 judiciously withdraw from the entangling nets of courts and 
 court processes the greater proportion of those petty cases by 
 which they are now stuffed, and the numerous disputes between 
 the bunnia and the ordinary cultivator, and leave them to be 
 dealt with by village tribunals like panchayets, whilst, by 
 developing co-operative credit and enterprise, he would seek 
 to remove the evils which the adaptation of British judicial 
 methods to India has done so much to intensify. Then he 
 could cheapen and hasten justice without running the risks 
 of increasing litigation. Then would the great blessing of 
 honesty in administration which the British connection has 
 contributed to the Indian Judiciary remain to receive the 
 gratitude of the people.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 INDIA AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 THE Indian is proud to belong to the British Empire. Its 
 greatness appeals to his love of pageantry, and its very remote- 
 ness from him endows it with a majesty which in all soberness 
 does not belong to it. We pride ourselves on the peace and 
 justice we have given to India, but they form only a barren 
 soil for gratitude. The Empire appeals to the Indian's im- 
 agination and creates in him the spirit of loyalty. To be a 
 citizen of such an Empire supplements and modifies his ideas 
 of nationality. But to him British citizenship means more 
 than the circumstances warrant. He regards the Empire as a 
 homogeneous whole, governed from a centre, with common 
 liberties and rights of citizenship. South Africa and Aus- 
 tralia, he thinks, ought to be as much his native political soil 
 as Madras or Burma. I was in India during the troubles 
 between Indians and the Union Government of South Africa 
 in 1913, and I found that this assumption of Imperial homo- 
 geneity, with Parliament as the supreme authority, was uni- 
 versally made. It not only did service on platforms, but 
 in private conversation. To try to correct it seemed to be 
 robbing the Indian of one of his most treasured possessions 
 and wounding him in his most sensitive parts. Immediately 
 after the Indian trouble in South Africa came the high-handed 
 deportation from that country of certain labour leaders, and 
 the revelation of the impotence of the House of Commons in 
 protecting the liberties of white men in the Dominions made 
 an understanding of the constitutional position easier to 
 Indians. Up to then there was a widespread opinion in India 
 
 213
 
 214 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 that the Home Government was careless of Indian rights and 
 shared the prejudices of South Africa, but the deportations 
 showed that a mere neglect of Indian interests and a dis- 
 regard of Indian sensitiveness were not the cause of Imperial 
 impotence in the control of Dominion policy. The Indians 
 were taught that British citizenship was not what they im- 
 agined it to be. 
 
 That Indians wish to claim a full Imperial citizenship is 
 shown by the case of the Komagata Maru. This ship was dis- 
 patched with 400 Indians on board from Shanghai in 1914 to 
 deposit its passengers at Vancouver and thus challenge the 
 validity of the Canadian immigration laws and test the right 
 of Indians as British subjects to land in Canada. The pro- 
 moters of the expedition were characterised by the Viceroy 
 in the Legislative Council * as " culpably responsible," but, 
 whether that is so or not, this is surely a case where motives 
 count for everything, and here the motive was wholly reason- 
 able and praiseworthy. It was precisely the same motive as 
 was making India at the time rally to the Empire's standard 
 in the European war. The Canadian Courts upheld the law, 
 the Indians were deported, and after suffering and trouble 
 got home aggressively discontented. 
 
 The self-government enjoyed by our Dominions limits the 
 scope and meaning of British citizenship. Economic and geo- 
 graphical circumstances have led the Dominions to adopt 
 certain protective policies directed to securing the purity of 
 the white race and a high standard of living, and this double 
 intention has produced a series of immigration laws which 
 must offend the Indian. 
 
 I was in British Columbia shortly after the first batch of 
 Indian emigrants mostly Sikhs landed there in 1905, and 
 I remember the disturbed feelings which then existed. But 
 it was said they would not be a success. They were manual 
 labourers chiefly engaged, if I remember aright, as wood 
 porters, and it was supposed that the work was too hard for 
 
 i September^Sth, 1914.
 
 INDIA AND THE EMPIRE 215 
 
 them. But they stayed, and their numbers reached 6,000 in 
 about a year. They became agriculturalists too, and began 
 to amass property. By 1907 British Columbia became 
 alarmed, and pressed the Dominion Government to take action. 
 Next year, Mr. Mackenzie King, the Deputy Minister for 
 Labour at Ottawa, came to London to discuss with the Im- 
 perial authorities the question of further Indian immigration. 
 The points he urged were that Indians were not suited for 
 Canada, and could not really settle there without much suffering 
 and privation, and that their presence in Canada as low-paid 
 workers might reduce white standards of living and lead to 
 trouble. In the end, in 1910, Orders in Council were issued 
 prohibiting the landing of Asiatics in Canada unless they 
 possessed of their own right 200 dollars, and had come direct 
 and on a ticket issued in the country of their birth or citizen- 
 ship. This is one of those politically crooked ways of doing 
 something which one does not wish to do straightforwardly. 
 There is no direct communication between India and Canada, 
 so the effect of the Orders was to prohibit further Indian 
 immigration. The wives and children of emigrants already 
 settled in Canada were subject to the Orders. The result has 
 been that the Indian population has fallen from 6,000 to 4,500. 
 Whilst this has been going on, Chinese and Japanese have 
 entered Canada under treaty rights and less restrictive legis- 
 lation. The Japanese can enter if possessed of 50 dollars ; 
 the Chinese, on paying a tax of 500 dollars. They can take 
 wives and children with them, but only three Indian women 
 have been allowed in as an act of grace. The position is 
 summed up by a writer in an Indian review as follows : 1 " The 
 result is that the Japanese and Chinese, who are the subjects 
 of a foreign Government, are admitted on easy terms, while 
 Indians, who own allegiance to the same King-Emperor, are 
 in practice entirely excluded. It is a cruel irony of fate 
 that British citizenship should be a disqualification in 
 Canada." Out of these circumstances arose the Komagata 
 
 1 The Indian Review, February 1915.
 
 216 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Maru case, and then the war stifled the agitation for the 
 time being. 
 
 The South African case was the most famous, as it not 
 only brought the Indians of South Africa into serious conflict 
 with the Government, but called for the employment of great 
 diplomatic and official skill in its settlement. Indians went to 
 South Africa first of all in 1860 as indentured labourers on 
 Natal sugar plantations, and when their indentures expired 
 they settled in the country and began to engage in petty 
 trade. They were not only made welcome, but it was recog- 
 nised that without them important Natal industries could not 
 be carried on. The opposition which, however, speedily grew 
 up against them was both racial and economic, the first being 
 most conspicuous in the Transvaal, where the most degrading 
 requirements were demanded of them, and where they were 
 " classed with thieves, prostitutes, and other undesirables." 
 The economic opposition was the moving impulse in Natal. 
 When I was in Durban in 1902, complaints were loud against 
 their presence, and invariably the reason given was that they 
 were ousting their white competitors in trades like those of 
 dealing in fruit and fowls. Similar complaints made in the 
 Transvaal were used to justify the passing of the restrictive 
 legislation of 1885, which was held up to our ill-informed 
 people at home as one of the justifications for the Boer War. 
 In the autumn of 1906 the passive resistance movement 
 began in South Africa owing to the introduction of a grievous 
 Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance, and over 2,500 Indians 
 were speedily sent to prison. Devastation seemed to have 
 fallen on the community. Men of substance cheerily suffered 
 ruin, women stood by the men, families were broken and 
 homes destroyed. But with a courage and determination 
 which have not yet received due praise, the Indians stood to 
 their oath and their fellows. Europeans who backed them 
 shared in their prosecutions. Then negotiations opened, 
 promises were made by the Government, and the Indians con- 
 sented to resume their usual avocations and wait a redress of
 
 INDIA AND THE EMPIRE 217 
 
 grievances. The promises were broken. A Bill embody- 
 ing them was drafted but never passed. There were squabbles 
 as to the conditions of the promise. Then Mr. Gokhale visited 
 South Africa, and there were again squabbles as to what had 
 been said to him. The Immigration Act of 1913, to which 
 the Indians took strong exception, reopened the conflict, and 
 there was nothing for it but that the Indians should again 
 resort to resistance. The usual prosecutions and persecutions 
 followed and serious rioting broke out. The scandal was too 
 disgraceful to be borne. South Africa was carrying its right 
 of self-government to lengths which were offensive to British 
 notions. A brave and opportune pronouncement on the 
 subject by Lord Hardinge, much censured at the time in some 
 quarters and certainly employing a freedom of criticism 
 hitherto unknown, allayed the feeling in India, and a Commis- 
 sion was appointed to report upon the whole matter. 1 Ulti- 
 mately legislation was carried, aided by the changed feelings 
 which came with the war, and there is now peace. 8 
 Australia also prohibits the free entry of Indians.* 
 The exclusion policy of our Dominions was felt all the more 
 keenly by Indians because it was also being pursued by the 
 United States, and the Imperial Government could not object 
 to a foreign Government doing what its own Dominions were 
 doing. 
 
 Just as the last century was closing, Indian labourers 
 appeared on the American Pacific Coast. They had wandered 
 eastwards through Burma, the Malay Straits, China, and the 
 
 1 Report of the Indian Inquiry Commission, Cd. 7265, 1914. 
 
 8 As this book goes to the press, it looks as though the trouble were to 
 break out again. The European competitors in trade never accepted the 
 settlement, and in June 1919 a Bill was introduced into the Union Parliament, 
 making it illegal for Indians to acquire gold-properties unless they held them 
 on May 1, 1919, and also extending the provisions of the Oppressive Act of 
 1 885 so that not only individual Asiatics were forbidden to hold real property, 
 but companies in which Asiatics " have a controlling interest." The second 
 provision was in the end omitted, but the whole controversy, including the 
 question of the good faith of the Government, has apparently been reopened. 
 
 3 In round figures there are 3,000 Indians in Canada and 5,000 in Australia; 
 8,000 were annually recruited under indenture for colonies.
 
 218 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Philippines, and when they came to America at last, they 
 found an anti-Chinese and -Japanese agitation on foot. The 
 American workmen regarded the first Indian arrivals as the 
 pioneers of a new invasion of cheap labour and low living 
 standards. For years opposition grew, inspired by the Trade 
 Unions, and at length in 1907 rioting broke out in the State 
 of Washington, and attempts were made to rule Indians out 
 of the benefits of American citizenship. This has been prac- 
 tically done. 
 
 Elsewhere, as in Trinidad and British Guiana, Jamaica and 
 Fiji, an utterly pernicious system of indentured coolie labour 
 has prevailed, devastating to the bodies and the souls of 
 Indians, attended in particular by wholesale prostitution. 
 This has been the subject of several important official and 
 unofficial reports which have roused the greatest resentment 
 in India, with the result that indentured emigration has now 
 been prohibited. 
 
 These impediments and prohibitions are, as a matter of 
 fact, and are keenly felt by Indians to be, a grievous insult to 
 their race. Since the war began, certain colonial newspapers 
 have been wiiting in a more reasonable tone about Indian 
 immigration, but I doubt if the prejudices and the arguments 
 against it have been allayed in any great measure in conse- 
 quence of anything that has happened during the war. The 
 emotion of a white Australia, the fears of highly paid labour, 
 racial antagonism, are all likely to persist and to make them- 
 selves felt in the future as they have done in the past. If 
 India had a sufficient power of self-government to deal with 
 the matter itself, it would settle it in its own way and would 
 probably devise some scheme of economic retaliation against 
 offending States, whilst prohibiting emigration under improper 
 conditions. The whole question, however, broadens itself out 
 into a conflict between the Asiatic and the European races, 
 and the champion on the Asiatic side will be Japan and not 
 India the actual problem will be the Chinaman and not the 
 Hindu. Into what proportions it is to develop, who can say ?
 
 INDIA AND THE EMPIRE 219 
 
 Regarding the conflicts which it is to raise, who can prophesy ? 
 This, however, no one who knows the facts can doubt. Asia 
 will not submit to exclusion from the North American Con- 
 tinent and the islands of the Pacific Seas, and therefore ex- 
 clusion is as short-sighted as it is unjust. It is accumulating 
 a weight of resentment which will one day be let loose and 
 perhaps be the signal for the greatest conflict which the world 
 has ever known. 
 
 So far as our Empire is concerned, the recognition of India 
 as a partner in Imperial Conferences 1 and the grant of a 
 measure of real self-government are the first steps toward a 
 solution of this problem. It will never be solved by " the 
 good offices " of Downing Street, but by the independent 
 authority of an India which enjoys in the Empire the same 
 dignity and respect as one of the British-populated Dominions. 
 That it must enjoy such a position is inevitable from one fact 
 alone. So long as the Imperial governing authority was the 
 ancient Home Country and the historical British Parliament, 
 India might have been consoled in its subjection because it 
 held in high honour the sovereign power. But so soon as there 
 was an Imperial partnership of Home Country and Dominions, 
 India felt the change in its heart. It has grievances against 
 the Dominions ; * it will not pay homage to them. Subjection 
 to Great Britain in the Empire was tolerable ; subjection to 
 the Empire is intolerable. So India must be a partner, must 
 sit on the Board of Directors, must have a voice and a vote 
 in Imperial Councils. 
 
 Thus the British Empire expands in its significance. The 
 alliance with Japan since 1902 began the new order of niter- 
 racial agreement on terms of equality, and now the Empire 
 
 1 India was represented in a consultative capacity at the Imperial Con- 
 ferences of 1907 and 1911, and more fully at the various Imperial War 
 Conferences held since 1914, and also at the Paris Peace Conference. 
 
 ' For instance, much evidence was given by Indian leaders before the 
 Commission on the Indian Public Services appointed in 1913, that Colonial- 
 born British subjects should, owing to the treatment of Indians in the Domin- 
 ions, be disqualified for service in India.
 
 220 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 itself, begun and long existing as a combination of people of 
 one nationality, is to become a federation of diverse races 
 enjoying within the bounds of a common allegiance liberty 
 for self-expression and self-development. It is a new con- 
 ception for which at present but few minds are prepared, but 
 the impelling force of events drives us into new conditions, and 
 the change will be made before we know its meaning. The 
 Dominions have not said their last word to India, nor India 
 its to the Dominions. The policy of mere exclusion will, how- 
 ever, have to be abandoned, and some agreement reached 
 which, whilst giving the Dominions the legitimate protection 
 they desire, will not be insulting to India. 
 
 One conspicuous badge of emancipation I should give to 
 India. I should try it with the responsibility of being tutor 
 to some of the East African peoples under the care of the 
 League of Nations. It would be a great experiment. If it 
 failed, the failure would soon be detected, and would produce 
 no great harm ; if it succeeded, as I believe it would, it would 
 stamp India with an authority which would command for it 
 a position of unquestioned equality amongst the federated 
 nations of the Empire.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 THE PRESS 
 
 THE press in India has always been a thorn in the side of the 
 Government. The memorandum on education written by Sir 
 C. Grant, to which I have referred, 1 shows that a critical press 
 was foreseen to be an inevitable consequence of the opening 
 of schools, and the newspaper has played such a part in 
 British politics that it was bound to appear with political 
 activity in India. 
 
 The first paper printed in the vernacular was issued by 
 the missionaries of Serampore in 1818, and was called ,by the 
 attractive title of the Mirror of Intelligence ; and when the 
 censorship rules were relaxed next year, against the wish of 
 the directors, but in accord with Lord Hastings's liberal policy, 
 and newspaper articles had no longer to be submitted to a 
 Government official before being published, steps were at 
 once taken to found a press " conducted by natives, printed 
 and circulated in Bengalee and English." The limits of 
 political criticism and religious controversy were still rigidly 
 prescribed, but these were the chief topics dealt with. On 
 December 4th, 1821, the first native paper appeared the 
 Sarnbad Kaumudi The Moon of Intelligence, edited by Raja 
 Rammohan Roy. It was strongly critical of Christianity, 
 discussed social reform, and appealed to the common folk. 
 Rammohan Roy and his friends then projected a journal ad- 
 dressed to the more educated classes, and, on its appearance 
 in 1822, it discussed politics both Indian and Imperial (an 
 early issue contained an interesting article on Ireland, and 
 another set forth the merits of the Great War of Indepen- 
 
 1 p. 161. 
 221
 
 222 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 dence) and religion. The Government had no pleasure in an 
 independent critical press, and curiously enough, when Lord 
 Hastings's liberal administration ended, the first editor to be 
 struck at was an Englishman, Mr. Buckingham, who was in 
 charge of The Calcutta Journal, and who was deported for 
 writing that Mr. Bryce, head of the Presbyterian Church, had 
 lowered the dignity of a minister of the gospel by accepting 
 the office of Clerk of the Stationery to the India Company. 
 This was followed by the deportation of his successor, Mr. 
 Arnott, who was sent home on a troopship. Since then there 
 has been an incessant struggle between the press and the 
 Government, sometimes very fierce and active and carried on 
 by repression, as in Lord Canning's time after the Mutiny, 
 and more recently in Lord Lytton's time ; sometimes more 
 passive and of a waiting and watching character, occasionally 
 brought to a standstill when liberal administrators like Sir 
 Charles Metcalfe, who removed the censorship in 1835, were 
 in responsible positions. 1 Of the position to-day I shall speak 
 presently. During the whole time the vernacular press was 
 virulent in its fault-finding and spared neither the Government 
 nor the missionaries. In the end, the Anglo-Indian press, 
 which was at first an irritating critic of the Government, 
 following Anglo-Indian opinion, ranged itself completely on 
 the side of the administration and in opposition to native 
 Indian opinion, the last of these papers to capitulate being 
 The Statesman of Calcutta, a few years ago. A change also 
 crept over the native press, which, until about the middle of 
 the nineteenth century, was largely given over to religious 
 controversy, but which has now become mainly political and 
 in most cases much subdued in tone. The great daily papers 
 are owned and staffed by Englishmen, though The Bengalee, 
 The Punjabee, the Amrita Bazar Patrika, The Indian Patriot, 
 are owned and edited by Indians, and The Bombay Chronicle 
 
 1 Sir Charles Metcalfe wrote thus : " If India could only be reserved 
 as a part of the British Empire by keeping its inhabitants in a state of ignor- 
 ance, our domination would be a curse to the country and ought to cease."
 
 THE PRESS 223 
 
 is controlled by Indians though edited by an Englishman. 1 
 The great bulk of the native press is weekly. They are very 
 cheap productions and their circulation is not large, though 
 their influence is considerable. 
 
 The position to-day is as follows. The English-owned 
 papers in varying degrees of aggressiveness are pro-English 
 in the sense that they maintain the British ascendancy with 
 all its privileges and are vigilantly anti-Nationalist. They 
 attack the administration with candour when it seems to be 
 yielding to Nationalist claims, and carry on an anti-Indian 
 propaganda which causes much offence and which frequently, 
 in the case of some papers, oversteps the bounds of public 
 policy. In a land subject to a severe press law these papers 
 ought to have been dealt with, for their tone and temper have 
 undoubtedly added to that feeling of resentment which has 
 been played upon by the agents of disorder and political 
 crime. Their criticism, too often takes the form of insults, 
 and Indian papers pursuing the same recklessly mischievous 
 course would undoubtedly have had the law applied to them. 
 On the other hand, the native press may be said to be under 
 the influence of the Indian National Congress, though some 
 of its more obscure issues voice more extreme views and in- 
 dulge in more violent criticism. Government Departments 
 keep a watchful eye upon the papers, and translations from 
 them are circulated through the Secretariats. 
 
 Most of the India papers belong to Hindus, but the Moham- 
 medans have an active press too, especially in the Punjab 
 and the United Provinces. The rapprochement between the 
 Moslem League and the Indian National Congress has had 
 considerable effect upon the Mohammedan press, and The 
 Comrade, published in Delhi to voice the opinions of the 
 younger Mohammedan party, was written with unusual ability 
 and expressed Nationalist views, but was suppressed for 
 articles on Turkey and Mohammedanism shortly after the 
 war broke out. 
 
 1 Since thia was written, he has been deported.
 
 224 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 The style in which the papers are written varies as the poles. 
 The English papers are ably edited and are equal to the best 
 published here, and the same is true of papers like The Ben- 
 galee, though all the native productions suffer from that literary 
 wordiness which comes from acquiring English from the works 
 of its wealthy literary wizards like Burke and Macaulay. The 
 second grade of native paper published in English is up to the 
 level of our own average second-rate provincial press, and 
 the moral standards of their discussions and news are as high 
 though they are much complained of as those of our own 
 popular press. On their critical side they are extreme in the 
 main, but the British view is more fairly represented in the 
 Indian papers than the Indian view in the English ones with 
 perhaps one exception. Hardly a day passes but the two 
 are attacking one another openly or by implication. From 
 the second-grade papers downwards, the lack of ability of the 
 editors, or the consciousness that they are appealing to a 
 credulous and unreflecting public, is shown hi a reckless and 
 frequently scurrilous criticism based too often upon falseness 
 of statement or an obvious contortion and misrepresentation 
 of truth. They show the vibrating suspicions and dislike 
 which, like lakes of molten lava, lie beneath the surface of 
 Indian life, and which every now and again burst out in erup- 
 tion through the crust. The circulation of those inferior 
 papers is generally very small, and their letterpress is atrocious 
 and is full of errors. The proprietor is very often his own 
 editor, manager, advertising canvasser, and " reader." The 
 great majority of them do not pay, or yield but a bare living 
 which means an infinitesimal profit to their owners and 
 editors. 1 
 
 Press laws are directed against two classes of papers : first 
 of all against those which, belonging to the last class, play 
 
 1 " My own experience confirms this ; I could mention many newspapers 
 which are run at a loss, and I have had no personal experience of any which 
 were a source of profit " (Sir Theodore Morison, Imperial Rule in India, 
 p. 101).
 
 THE PRESS 225 
 
 upon Indian suspicion and susceptibility either for the pur- 
 pose of making a circulation from it or of doing mischief ; and 
 in the next place, against those whose opinions are so incon- 
 venient to the Government that the Government tries to 
 prevent their public expression. The law now in force was 
 passed in 1910 when the Government was faced with the 
 most serious conspiracy since the Mutiny, and when certain 
 papers were undoubtedly inciting to murder and revolt. It 
 puts the whole Indian press at the mercy of the Executive. 
 It provides that persons keeping printing presses shall deposit 
 with the Government sums of from R.500 to R.2,000 as a 
 guarantee which is to be forfeited if they publish anything 
 which in the opinion of magistrates incites to murder, or per- 
 sonal injury, or disaffection of any kind, and publishers of 
 newspapers .are put under the same regulations. Forfeiture 
 may also be decreed, but in that case an appeal may be taken 
 to the High Court. 1 Copies of all papers issued must be sent 
 to the Governments. The Government may put this Act 
 into operation without giving any but very general reasons, 
 like "during the last six months " you published "articles and 
 words " in " various issues." 2 The Indian members of the 
 Council, whilst warning the Government, as one of them did, 
 that " Austrian authorities and the policy of the Chancellor 
 of Germany are the least calculated to secure popular support 
 to the measure : Indians are the citizens of the British 
 Empire," J accepted the word of the Government that such a 
 law was necessary and did not vote against it. It was the 
 first important Bill brought before the enlarged Council after 
 
 1 The High Court decided, however, in the cas of The Comrade, that the 
 Act was so drafted that the court had no power to question or upset the 
 decision of the Government. Two of the High Courts have declared that orders 
 issued under the Act were illegal, but that they had no power under the Act 
 to set them aside. 
 
 * These words are from the indictment against The Star of Utkal, published 
 in Cuttack. 
 
 3 The Hon. Mr. Dadabhoy, The Indian Press Act 1910, and Proceedings 
 of the Legislative Council of the Governor-General of India relating thereto, p. 19, 
 
 15
 
 226 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 the Morley Reforms, and that of itself explains the complying 
 attitude of the Indian members. Moreover, the Law Depart- 
 ment was then under Mr. Sinha (now Lord Sinha), who, 
 though not in charge of the Bill, spoke in favour of it. 
 
 The objection to a Press Act and to such repressive legis- 
 lation generally is not, however, its intention, but its adminis- 
 tration and its effect upon Governments. At times of crisis, 
 no Government yet known has refrained from adopting re- 
 pression. Then equitable administration is abandoned, and, 
 in the interests of the established authority, the innocent 
 have to suffer injustice so that the disturbers of the peace 
 may be caught with them. The net is thrown wide in order 
 that the evil ones may be caught, and accurate individual dis- 
 crimination is impossible. Let there be no mistaking of the 
 meaning of this, however. It is tyranny and injustice jus- 
 tified by a crisis and by the establishment of conditions which 
 end it. Its continuance as a potential power, sanctioned by law 
 held in abeyance, can never be justified. It is a weapon which 
 must be forged when it is required and not one kept in the 
 armoury of Government ready for use whenever it chooses 
 to resort to it. Here lies the fault of the Indian Government. 
 Its Press Act of 1910 and its Criminal Law (Amendment) Acts 
 of 1919 are contrary to freedom of peoples and responsibility 
 of Governments, and ought to appear on the statute books of 
 no free country. 
 
 In the first place a power of repression habitually enjoyed 
 tends to develop a habit of mind in the Government * which 
 regards all effectively troublesome criticism as sedition, and 
 it allows a Government which is always partly responsible 
 itself for seditious conspiracy to avoid its own share of the 
 
 1 The Press Act of 1910 was passed for the express purpose of dealing 
 with the seditious movement which started in Bengal owing to the mistaken 
 way in which the Government partitioned that Province, but it has been 
 used, as in the New India case six years later, for a purpose which was not 
 in any one's mind when the Act was passed, and which the Government 
 dared not have asked powers to deal with in that way.
 
 THE PRESS 227 
 
 blame and impose the whole upon the shoulders of its oppo- 
 nents. A Government which has to justify repression in rela- 
 tion to any given crisis is not only careful to see that its case 
 is overwhelming when it asks for powers, but, what is of much 
 greater importance, it is first of all careful to prevent, by poli- 
 tical sagacity, the development of the crisis. As arms make 
 for wars, so the possession of coercive powers makes for tyranny. 
 The power and policy of repression do not make for tranquillity, 
 but for repression and nothing more. The hand which im- 
 poses the punishment is also the hand which has helped to 
 make the punishment necessary, and such a hand can never 
 be just, and ought not to have absolute authority at tunes 
 when justice ought to be the rule of the State that is, in 
 normal tunes. This is specially true in States like India where 
 the magistrate is in such close contact with the executive 
 authorities that he is practically their mouthpiece and servant. 
 The very fact that if a Press Act exists at all it cannot be 
 effective if every move which the Government makes under 
 it may be debated, and every reason for putting it into opera- 
 tion argued out in court, is a reason why every such law 
 should be passed not as a part of the body of ordinary legis- 
 lation but to apply to a particular condition which makes 
 special powers necessary and in regard to which alone the 
 Government receives a free hand. Every foolish Government 
 would like to be able to exercise absolute authority when, in 
 its own opinion, it thinks it ought to do so, but no people with 
 any regard for liberty will give its Government such power. 
 
 The practical effect of the Press Act of 1910 in statistics is 
 not very striking. Up to the end of 1913 there were 208 
 prosecutions under the Act, the busiest year being 1913, when 
 there were 77. That year, in the Punjab, which had been 
 rather troublesome, four deposits were forfeited, two presses 
 were closed, eleven were prevented from starting because they 
 could not make the necessary deposits, eleven that would have 
 been published but for the deposit could not appear, and 
 eleven again were warned for publishing articles that might
 
 228 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 stir up strife between the religious communities, and one for 
 sedition. Statistics, however, do not reveal the oppressive 
 effect of such a law, but as it is the record is neither imposing 
 nor satisfying. After the outbreak of war several other 
 papers were suppressed especially Mohammedan organs 
 under the Defence of India Act. Regarding the suppression 
 of these newspapers in Bengal the following suggestive com- 
 ment was made by another Mohammedan paper : " The 
 readers of the Tarjuman and the Ekdam were mostly the 
 Urdu-speaking masses in Calcutta and other places. They 
 used to get correct news correct, if the Renter's news re- 
 ceived through the censors be so considered from those 
 papers, and now in their absence wild rumours have the 
 opportunity of playing upon the gullibility of the simple folks. 
 It is a pity that the Government seems to be totally blind to 
 this aspect of the question." 
 
 The Press Act is only one of the provisions which the Indian 
 Government uses for repressive purposes. In her little book 
 on India : A Nation, 1 Mrs. Besant gives a list of the measures 
 which she would classify under this heading. They are : the 
 lettres-de-cachet system embodied in Regulation III of 1818 
 (Bengal), Regulation II of 1819 (Madras), Regulation XXV 
 1827 (Bombay), Act XXXIV of 1850, and Act III of 1858. 
 The State Offences Act, XI of 1857, only applying to any dis- 
 trict that is or has been in a state of rebellion, and providing 
 for trials of persons charged, should either be repealed or 
 the clause which excepts European-born natural subjects of 
 the Crown should be expunged. The laws as to the Punitive 
 Police XXIV of 1859 (Madras) and V of 1861 should be 
 repealed. So also the Indian Arms Act, XI of 1878, passed 
 in panic under the " influence of the Afghanistan War. It is 
 not only felt to be a constant humiliation, but it leaves the 
 people at the mercy of armed deceits and a prey to wild 
 beasts. . . . The whole group of panic legislation in 1907- 
 1910 must go," and she also enumerates the Prevention of 
 
 1 Pp. 78-9.
 
 THE PRESS 229 
 
 Seditious Meetings Act, VI of 1907, the Press Laws, VII of 
 1908, and I of 1910, the Explosive Substances Act, VI of 1908, 
 and the Criminal Law Amendment Act, XIV of 1908. In any 
 event the Government should make a thorough revision of 
 all these Acts and Regulations, removing from them every- 
 thing which has been or can be used for repression in ordinary 
 tunes, and trust courageously to those powers which all 
 Governments have to protect themselves and their States from 
 anarchy, sedition, and disorder. Governments should be 
 compelled to meet the growth of sedition by political wisdom 
 and not allowed to burden other people with their mistakes, 
 as the Indian Government does when it seeks to maintain 
 order by its Press Laws and Rowlett Acts. The Indian 
 Government has been too often content to create a special 
 class of evildoers those whose opinions are inconvenient to 
 it and in the history of Indian repressive legislation this class 
 occupies a prominent and distinguished place. The case of 
 Mr. Buckingham, to which I have already referred, belongs to 
 it ; in our own time that of Mr. Tilak largely belongs to it 
 (a number of papers are on the border line between spiteful 
 and malicious evildoing and honest, if strong, criticism) ; 
 those of Mrs. Besant and the papers, The Comrade and New 
 India, wholly belong to it. Whilst in the midst of one of her 
 several troubles as editor of New India, and after having had 
 to deposit a guarantee of R. 2,000 for having written an article 
 advocating Home Rule, Mrs. Besant issued the following 
 statement which exposes the partiality with which all such 
 legislation must be administered, and deprives the " crimes " 
 created by such laws of a serious character and even of a 
 definite meaning : " Under the rule of the bureaucrat it is 
 safer to conspire than to seek for reforms in an open, law- 
 abiding, constitutional way. For if a man is found out in a 
 conspiracy he has at least a trial, and may be acquitted, whereas 
 if he carries on a constitutional agitation his liberty may be 
 taken away and his property confiscated without any more 
 formality than the turning of a magistrate from his normal
 
 230 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 business of punishing thieves into a licensed plunderer. . . . 
 The Madras Government, for the first time, attack a newspaper 
 of the first rank, which has never spoken one word of violence, 
 which has loyally stood by the English connection, which 
 has used only constitutional and law-abiding means to bring 
 about reforms which are absolutely necessary if that connec- 
 tion is to be preserved. Loyal as India is, The Madras Mail 
 states that she must not be allowed to volunteer lest she 
 should turn her arms against the English ; this atrocious 
 article is passed by the Government, which does not care to 
 protect its Indian subjects from the grossest insult. The 
 Madras Mail, despite the war, takes the treasonable line of 
 abusing the Coalition Government in a way which would 
 land its editor in gaol if he were in England ; but here the 
 Government never dreams of checking it, although it holds 
 up His Majesty's Government to hatred and contempt. It 
 keeps the vials of its wrath for a paper which has dared to 
 demand Home Rule, and has demanded it so effectively that 
 the whole country rings with the cry. New India is assailed 
 because it has started a constitutional and law-abiding move- 
 ment for self-government in India, with the view of keeping 
 India within the Empire. ... I have nothing to apologise 
 for, nothing to regret, in all that I have written in New India." 
 Every one who has followed the prosecutions and repressions 
 under the Press Act, and who has also followed the per- 
 nicious but unpunished editorials of papers typified by the 
 Anglo-Indian journal named, must admit that Mrs. Besant's 
 criticisms are fully justified. 
 
 Sometimes it is observed in a spirit of disappointment that 
 no Indian newspaper of any value is on the side of the Govern- 
 ment in the sense that newspapers here are on the side of 
 political parties. It would be most extraordinary, however, 
 if such a paper were to exist if it did, its support would be 
 bought. For, however much a Government is appreciated, 
 there can be no Government " party " unless its responsi- 
 bilities are shared by others than the bureaucracy. The
 
 THE PRESS 231 
 
 wisest and best of rulers governing an educated community 
 autocratically can never hope to receive the support of a press 
 outside their own official Gazette. 1 The Anglo- Indian press 
 supports the Government only in so far as the Government is 
 the instrument of British rule in India. The link between 
 them is not an agreed policy, but interest and racial prestige. 
 On the other hand, I have never failed to observe in Indian 
 papers due appreciation often expressed in exaggerated 
 terms of gratitude of Government actions approved by 
 Indians. It is not true to say that the Indian press is anti- 
 Government. It is more accurately described as independent, 
 and in this respect does not differ from the Anglo-Indian 
 press. Each looks after its own interest and supports or 
 opposes the Government accordingly. 
 
 But there is a point of still greater importance. In this 
 country we know that an Opposition is essential to good 
 government. A House of Commons without an Opposition 
 becomes futile. That is a general truth, the force of which 
 has been renewed by recent experience. Governments 
 always create Oppositions, and hi India the Opposition is still 
 in the main outside Legislatures and is to be found in National 
 Congresses and the press. That is really the view that the 
 great Indian liberal statesmen have taken. Macaulay's opinion 
 was that the function of the Indian press was to bring to the 
 notice of the Government grievances which would otherwise be 
 hidden from its eyes, and though he was unwilling that his 
 sister should read these papers owing to the personal attacks 
 they made upon himself, he was instrumental in relieving 
 them of the censorship. He grasped the true meaning of 
 political power. 
 
 And yet the limits of press freedom consistent with 
 bureaucratic government are narrowly defined. Grievances 
 
 1 This has been tried in India and has failed. Governments have also 
 subsidised newspapers (in 1915-16 the Punjab Government spent R.I 7,000 
 in circulating an Anglo-Indian and Mohammedan journal), and that is only 
 to waste public money.
 
 232 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 may be ventilated, and the Government may even be attacked 
 in language which ought not to meet the eyes of the sisters of 
 its members. Still no harm is done : indeed, the Govern- 
 ment may be all the better for the jolting it gets. It thereby 
 knows the nature of the road it is travelling. But it is quite 
 another thing when public opinion, supported by a powerful 
 press, does not merely ventilate grievances, but criticises 
 policy, or goes the length of demanding that the bureaucracy 
 itself should cease to exist and a freer form of government 
 take its place. A representative Government successfully 
 attacked by the press changes a minister or resigns ; repre- 
 sentative government sways in the breezes of public opinion 
 as a tree does in the winds, but its roots remain. A bureaucracy 
 so assailed can change nothing because it cannot be expected 
 to change itself; it cannot resign, and if it were to do so 
 that would be a revolution in the form of government. 
 Free discussion, the witness of representative government, is 
 the destruction of a bureaucracy. This is a fundamental 
 difference with many attending consequences. The present 
 form of Indian government cannot exist in the midst of a 
 vigorous public opinion. It may be well intentioned, but it 
 cannot be obedient. It cannot allow, if it can prevent it, a 
 determined campaign to be conducted demanding for the 
 people that badge of liberty self-government. That is 
 sedition so soon as it goes beyond the stage of an interesting 
 debate and reaches that of a serious demand. And this is the 
 case even when political opinion here in the sovereign State is 
 in favour of the change asked for by public opinion in India, 
 but opposed to, and by, the bureaucracy. For instance, there 
 can be little doubt but that the opinions which have been 
 prosecuted in India during the past few years have had the 
 support of the people of this country. The Indian Govern- 
 ment is in this dilemma. It may be doomed and its successor 
 may be almost ready : still, it has to govern till the day of 
 its death : therefore, it cannot tolerate the heralds and fol- 
 lowers of the new order near to its own throne. The Indian
 
 THE PRESS 233 
 
 reformer is in this dilemma. He must agitate for the revolu- 
 tionised Government, for he knows he will never get it other- 
 wise : he is well aware that this necessary agitation will make 
 the bureaucracy more obdurate and its trust in repressive 
 legislation more certain. Of course in actual practice it is 
 possible to avoid these dilemmas by the exercise of broad- 
 minded common sense and practical sagacity, but a bureau- 
 cracy of Civil Servants who have become old in authority must 
 find it difficult, as the Indian Government undoubtedly has, 
 to unbend itself and humour the powers which it cannot 
 subdue. These considerations and not the existence of 
 sedition and other political crime in India, however much of 
 that there may have been, are the true reasons why the 
 Indian codes and statutes are disfigured with so much re- 
 pressive power. The Indian press, though its function may 
 be to act as part of the constitutional Opposition to the 
 Government, cannot do this work in the full way that papers 
 in this country do, until there is a really free press in India, 
 but Press Acts will never finally disappear there, though both 
 their contents and their administration may vary in strin- 
 gency, whilst the Government is a bureaucracy. To demand 
 the complete abolition of the Press Acts is equivalent to de- 
 manding that the Government itself should be put on a more 
 liberal foundation. The problem of the Indian press is at 
 root that of the inherent conflict between a bureaucracy and 
 public opinion. The last chapter in the history of bureau- 
 cracies is repression. They pass away like an old monarch 
 driven from his throne, hurling accusations of sedition against 
 his approaching successor.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 
 
 IT has become a threadbare truism to say of India that its 
 religion is its life. There in sober truth the unseen is lord of 
 the seen. All its political and social origins are in its sacred 
 books. Hinduism as a way of life is the trunk on to which 
 everything else is engrafted and from which everything else 
 draws its sap. It is therefore important to understand the 
 currents now running in Indian religion always remembering 
 that in the bulk it is immobile. 
 
 When, early in the nineteenth century, missionary propa- 
 ganda and educational influence created a revolution on the 
 surface of Hinduism, the sections affected were small. Only 
 a few were really converted to Christianity ; the bulk of those 
 influenced retained their Hinduism and joined in the resis- 
 tance offered to the new proselytising. Hinduism was re- 
 formed in their minds, not overthrown. It was purged of 
 some of its grosser practices, prejudices, and superstitions, its 
 gods became transformed, but it itself became active in self- 
 defence. The Brahmo Samaj was founded because in his heart 
 the Hindu was unwilling to desert Hinduism, but was quite 
 willing to become liberal and respond to the impact of 
 Western faiths. If one were to say that the grand effect of 
 Christianity and of Western education in India has been 
 to throw Hinduism back on its purer origins, one would not 
 be very far wrong, though the statement would not be quite 
 accurate. 
 
 The change took several forms. Amongst the less emo- 
 tional people of the north-west it was one of doctrine and of 
 a kind of puritanical activity ; in Bengal it was more idealistic 
 
 234
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 235 
 
 and led to the study of the poetical and spiritual expressions 
 of the religion, like the Gita, and to symbolising the temple 
 worship ; elsewhere it ran into various movements, some of 
 them, like the Order of Ramakrishna which Vivekananda 
 founded, being pure Hinduism ; others, like Theosophy, being 
 a mingling of Hinduism with other philosophies ; others, like 
 the Servants of India, concerning themselves with social 
 reform and service. 
 
 Perhaps it was only a drop in the ocean. Hinduism believes 
 and worships as before, its millions living and dying all uncon- 
 scious of any change. But still, the revolution is to be in- 
 fluenced profoundly by these movements, and they have all 
 contributed to its birth. The West has created the Nationalist 
 movement in India not only by feeding the Indian mind on 
 Western liberal politics, but by driving back that mind upon 
 the entrenchments of its own patriotism. 
 
 First amongst Hindu revivals is the Arya Samaj, founded 
 by Swami Dyananda Saras wati, the son of a Gujarat! 
 Brahmin, born in 1824. A dramatic little story is told of how 
 the light came to Dyananda. When he was fourteen years 
 of age his father took him to the temple to keep the Shivaratri 
 fast, which entailed a night being spent in prayer to Shiva. 
 As the night wore on the worshippers slept, but the boy 
 kept awake. A mouse came out and crawling round the 
 base of the image nibbled at the offerings. This struck the 
 sensitive mind of the lad. If this image was Shiva, why did 
 the god allow such sacrilege ? Awakening his father, he put 
 his doubts to him, and finally received as his answer that the 
 image was not Shiva, but that the devout praying to it found 
 grace from Shiva. The boy would have none of this refine- 
 ment, returned home, broke his fast, went to bed and slept. 
 Henceforth there were no more idols for him, and the anni- 
 versary of this night is kept as a feast by his followers. Then 
 death came into his family, and filled his heart with a yearn- 
 ing to fathom the mystery of being and not-being, of coming 
 and going ; and in 1845 he ran away from home, and for
 
 236 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 fifteen years wandered in search of the teacher who would 
 reveal to him what his soul wanted to know. After years of 
 pilgrimage in search of truth, during which his greatest dis- 
 covery was the debasement of Hinduism, he fell in with the 
 blind Swami Virjananda, to whom he became pupil, and 
 who, when he had taught him all he knew, exacted the guru's 
 fee which it was customary for the Brahmchari to pay, in 
 the shape of a pledge that he would " devote his life to the 
 dissemination of truth, to the waging of incessant warfare 
 against the falsehood of the prevailing Puranic faith (faith 
 based on the Puranas), and to establish the right method of 
 education, as was in vogue in pre-Buddhist times." He went 
 out into the world again, teaching and disputing, his call 
 being : " Back to the purity of the Vedas." At a great 
 meeting presided over by the Maharajah of Benares he met 
 the pandits of Benares, and they claimed the victory and 
 practically excommunicated him. But Dyananda was not 
 a man to be overawed by the frowns of censuring pandits. 
 His doctrine was that there is one God who is to be known, 
 obeyed, and worshipped, who has never been incarnate and 
 who cannot be approached by the worship of any deity but 
 himself. Caste is a political and not a religious creation. In 
 1875, after the Swami had come into contact with the leaders 
 of the Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta, the Arya Samaj was founded 
 in Bombay. But it took healthiest root in the Punjab, where 
 Lahore may now be regarded as its capital city, and in the 
 United Provinces. 
 
 This was a purely internal Hindu reform, a pruning of all 
 the engrafted shoots upon the Vedas, a return to the authorita- 
 tive doctrine. The most robust and prolific of these debase- 
 ments of Hinduism were the claims of the Brahmin. These 
 the Arya disallowed. The Vedas were a closed book to the 
 people. That the Arya opened, imitating in this respect the 
 restoration of our own Bible by the Reformation. Hindu- 
 ism was a condition of birth. That the Arya denied, and 
 threw wide its doors to any one who cared to enter.
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 237 
 
 In his defence of the Vedas as a sufficient basis for faith, 
 the Swami came into conflict with Christianity, and thus 
 gave the Arya its first tinge of aggressiveness which made it 
 an expression of Indian nationalism. India was combating 
 the world outside ; Indian religion was defending itself and 
 rebutting rival claims. It had been an indefinite and inde- 
 finable collection of precepts and beliefs ; the Arya attempted 
 to give it precision, at the same time enhancing its claims to 
 great antiquity. The effect was to stop many Hindus from 
 going over to Christianity and to anger missionaries accord- 
 ingly. Nine-tenths of their attacks upon Hinduism did not 
 apply to the Hinduism of the Arya Samaj. But the new 
 Society carried the war of defence into one of offence, and 
 conducted a propaganda against Christianity. Dyananda 
 was no smooth-tongued controversialist, and his attacks upon 
 our faith have been quoted to our annoyance and the detri- 
 ment of his Society. He created passion as well as contro- 
 versy. In a most interesting defence of the Society, written 
 by Munshi Ram, the head of the Gurukul at Hard war, and 
 Ram Deva, of the Arya College at Lahore, a considerable 
 number of pages are devoted to extracts to show that Chris- 
 tians themselves have not been too polite in the attacks made 
 upon the faith of each other or upon that of other people. 1 
 In any event, the Arya claims not only to have stopped con- 
 version in certain districts, but to have drawn back converts 
 from the Christian fold. 
 
 Herein lies the Arya's strength and the contribution it has 
 made to the Indian spirit. It is aggressive. It makes no 
 apologies. It challenges and fights. That is why, when it 
 began to influence the Nationalist movement, as it was 
 bound to do, the combative independence with which it con- 
 ducted itself made it so detested by official minds. To 
 belong to the Arya was to carry the badge of a seditious dis- 
 position. 
 
 It is, however, in its social and educational work that it has 
 
 1 The Arya Samaj and its Detractors : A Vindication,
 
 238 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 maintained Hinduism most effectually. From its foundation 
 it has opposed child marriages, and has countenanced the 
 remarrying of widows ; l it has been sympathetic with the 
 outcaste and has sought to raise him ; and it has been speci- 
 ally interested in schools. In its educational schemes it has 
 always sought to provide for women. Its chief living cham- 
 pion has admitted that " English education and Western 
 ideas have played an important part in bringing about this 
 change, but an equally great, if not even greater part has 
 been played by an appeal to ancient Hindu ideals of woman- 
 hood and to the teachings of the ancient Hindu religion in the 
 matter of the relations of the sexes." 2 
 
 Its educational work is concentrated in two great institu- 
 tions, the Dyananda Anglo- Vedic College in Lahore and the 
 Gurukul in the neighbourhood of Hardwar. The former is 
 associated with the Punjab University, the other is quite 
 independent of Government control, either direct or indirect, 
 but both are intensely national in spirit. Whoever, walking 
 through the D.A.V. College, sees its rooms, the pictures and 
 texts on the walls of its offices, talks with its officials and 
 teachers, who are all Indians, cannot fail to feel how different 
 is the atmosphere there from any of the other colleges in 
 Lahore or elsewhere. At every point he is impressed by 
 the fact that this is an Indian effort, and the reason for it is 
 stated quite definitely in its literature and reports. " To 
 secure the best advantages of education, it is necessary to 
 make it national in tone and character." The present system 
 of education in India " tends to loosen these ties [of nation- 
 ality] or obstructs the beneficent influence of education from 
 being fairly extended to, and beneficially operating upon, the 
 uneducated," and is therefore " partial, and, from the public 
 point of view, undesirable." " Foreign education has pro- 
 duced a schism in society which is truly deplorable." " This 
 
 1 It has not exactly approved of this, but does not condemn it. In any 
 event the Arya in this as in other rules treats men exactly as it does women. 
 ? Lajpat Bai, The Arya Samaj, pp. 144-5
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 239 
 
 result, sad in itself, is the inevitable consequence of the one- 
 sided policy of education imparted through a foreign agency, 
 for whom it was simply impossible to appreciate the indigenous 
 wants, and to apply a suitable method." The task of the 
 founders of the college, therefore, has been " to make pro- 
 vision for the efficient study of the national language and 
 literature, and carefully to initiate the youthful mind into 
 habits and modes of life consistent with the national spirit 
 and character." These are extracts from the opening pages 
 of the first report of the college, and there is much more in the 
 same strain. They make the purpose of the venture per- 
 fectly obvious. 
 
 Since 1886, the institution has been at work and has been 
 served by teachers and officials who are wholeheartedly with 
 its purpose, and who have accepted salaries very much less 
 sometimes nothing at all than are paid in similar schools and 
 colleges. 
 
 Even this college, with its determined Indian spirit, does 
 not fully satisfy many of its supporters. Mr. Lajpat Rai, 
 speaking at a college meeting on Founder's Day in 1914, 
 remarked : " But the discipline enforced and the life lived 
 at the Gurukul at Kangri is more in accordance with genuine 
 Hindu ideals than those in the college." This Gurukul to 
 which Mr. Lajpat Rai refers is an offspring from the D.A.V. 
 college. Its founders believed that the connection of the 
 college with the Punjab University hampered it in its work, 
 made it think too much of university examinations (in which 
 it has had much success) and too little of sound national 
 education, and prevented it from pursuing such a curriculum 
 of studies as Indian Educationalists would devise were they 
 free to do so. After being a dissentient minority on the 
 college committee they decided to begin work of their own. In 
 conversation with the head of the Gurukul, Munshi Ram, I 
 had the following explanation of how he came to start the 
 school. He had been a successful lawyer, but the spirit of 
 religion came upon him and he shook the sins of law off his
 
 240 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 soul and sought peace in training youth. He had seen how 
 English hampered the education of his own sons and so he 
 desired a new method of instruction ; he was a devoted child 
 of India and he cast out Western methods and returned to the 
 ancient models. So in the jungle by the Ganges near Hard- 
 war he began his Gurukul in 1902. When I was there 300 
 pupils were at the school. 
 
 The Gurukul has been the subject of much suspicion in 
 Government quarters, and it has roused great opposition in 
 missionary and other circles of Anglo-India. But its posi- 
 tion is perfectly clear. In so far as the spirit of an indepen- 
 dent India, declining to put itself unreservedly in the hands 
 of the British, determined to preserve its own life and tradi- 
 tions, refusing to acquiesce in a denationalising educational 
 system, is a menace to the Government, these Arya institu- 
 tions are a menace ; but in so far as the ultimate purpose of 
 Great Britain in India is consistent with the growth and 
 nurture of a pure Indian conscience and intellect, these in- 
 stitutions are not only legitimate, but are experiments which 
 the Government should watch with vigilant sympathy and 
 copy if need be with grateful care. 1 There are now several 
 Gurukuls in existence. 
 
 Of course, there must be political results from these in- 
 stitutions. Teachers, students, and ex-students must appear 
 from time to time in Nationalist agitation and must contri- 
 bute (as every denominational and government college in 
 India does) to the ranks of " political undesirables." But the 
 danger into which the Government ran in those trying years 
 at the close of Lord Curzon's rule and the opening of his suc- 
 cessor's was that it would classify everything that was pro- 
 
 1 The visit of Sir James Meston, the Lieutenant-Governor of the United 
 Provinces in 1913, not only dispelled the official cloud under which the school 
 was lying, but did a great deal to prove to the Indians that the Government 
 had not altogether forsaken the many liberal declarations which it had made 
 since the Crown became responsible for India. His kindly recognition of 
 this school was one of many marks of wisdom which characterised Lord 
 Har dingo's rule.
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 241 
 
 Indian as anti-British. Whilst it was running into that 
 danger it insisted upon regarding the Arya and its works as 
 dangerous political propaganda, and, unfortunately, it was 
 encouraged in its error by biased and unbalanced critics who 
 had an entry to journals of great influence in India and Great 
 Britain. The years from, roughly, 1905 to 1910, will always 
 be studied by statesmanlike Englishmen both in India and at 
 home, as years of warning as to what British policy in India 
 ought not to be ; and the terrible blunders into which officials 
 and their friends fell regarding the nature of the Arya Samaj 
 and the problems which it created will also be studied as 
 illustrations of how easy it is for the best intent ioned of people, 
 afraid to face the liberating consequences of their work and 
 to accept the changing circumstances for which they are re- 
 sponsible, to try, during a short time of thoughtless panic, to 
 undo everything they have done. In one of Balzac's night- 
 mare tales Don Juan he tells how a son anointing the dead 
 body of his father with a magical fluid which was to bring 
 him to life again, became terror-stricken with the return of 
 the dead to life, and how, when only the head and arm were 
 anointed, he dropped the phial and spilt the liquid, and the 
 servants who rushed in saw a young, living head on an old, 
 dead, decrepit body. The work of the British Government 
 in India cannot end in such a horrible tragedy. 
 
 This virile, masculine, propagandist sect now numbers half 
 a million adherents. Amongst Christians, amongst Moham- 
 medans, as well as amongst Hindus, it works, drawing the two 
 first to its energetic monotheistic faith, the last to its purified 
 conception of Indian worship, inspiring them all with a patri- 
 otism which it never dissociates from its religion. The Arya 
 is India armed against aggression India solicitous for its own 
 soul. " Nemo me impune lacessit," it might take as its 
 motto, did it not disdain to use a foreign tongue for such a 
 purpose. 
 
 In the Punjab we find the more " dour " type of Hindu, 
 serious, stubborn. He does not ascend into flights. His 
 16
 
 242 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 mind runs in channels of " the law and the gospel." In 
 Bengal it is different. The Bengali is more impulsive and 
 volatile, more poetical and imaginative, in religion more of a 
 ritualist. The revival of Hinduism there has therefore taken 
 a different form. Dealing less with creed, it has gone into 
 literature and ritual, and has been attracted by the more 
 ceremonial and sacrificial aspects of Hinduism. It has taken 
 the Gita as its typical gospel, and Sri Krishna as its charac- 
 teristic deity, and it has lit the fires of its heart from the 
 flaming emotions of this song and the seductive abandon of 
 this hero. The Gita expresses heroic action as the Sermon 
 on the Mount expresses heroic passivity. It is very curious 
 that the most beautiful poetry in the sacred books of the East, 
 the temperament of which is always supposed to be contem- 
 plation, deals with battle and knightly sacrifice, whilst that 
 in the sacred books of the West, the temperament of which 
 is supposed to be bustling action, upholds the virtue of turn- 
 ing the other cheek. 
 
 What wells of the purest spiritual draughts and most in- 
 vigorating refreshment lie amidst the tangled, weedy growths 
 of Hinduism. Who is there who has read the beautiful con- 
 templations of Sri Sankaracharya on man's soul the indi- 
 vidual Self and the universal Self can fail to do homage to 
 the religion contained therein, the devout attitude of the 
 seeker who has to remain in the outer courts, and, from the 
 glimpses seen there of the Eternal within, fashion hymns of 
 faith and creeds of satisfaction ? If religious philosophy must 
 always at a point move from the mastery of reason into the 
 music of emotion, where is there to be found a more chaste 
 transformation than in these hymns ? If religious action 
 must in the end lead to the triumph of sacrifice, defeat, and 
 death, where are its energies enshrined in more fitting emo- 
 tions than in the finer chapters of the Gita ? What I may 
 call the neo-missionaries, like Mr. Farquhar, 1 may urge the 
 incompleteness of Hinduism and the superiority of the Chris- 
 
 1 The Crown of Hinduism.
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 243 
 
 tian faith in relation to a liberal civilisation, but the Indian 
 who has a bias in favour of creeds which belong to his own 
 history finds in his own religious books enough spiritual 
 energy and ennobling thought to serve him as a patriot, to 
 guide him as a citizen, and purify him as a man. In any 
 event, just as it was in Japan, the Indian national movement 
 has reacted upon creeds, and the young Nationalist inspired by 
 the conceptions of Indian self-government has also responded 
 to a revival of national religion, sometimes in the crude form 
 that the revival of the Ganpati festival at Poona took, some- 
 times in the more spiritual forms which were followed by men 
 like Arabinda Ghose and Bipin Chandra Pal. 
 
 The revolutionary movement in Bengal has been based upon 
 a return to Hinduism. A few agnostics, the products of 
 English education and Western philosophy, led in it, but its 
 strength did not lie in them. Even they, in garb and out- 
 ward habit, returned to India. When Har Dayal was as far 
 removed from religious Hinduism as I am, he discarded Eng- 
 lish dress and appeared, even in England, in kurta and dhoti. 
 Most of the extreme left of the movement performed their 
 temple duties with scrupulous devotion and regarded their 
 political action as part of religious duty. The dirt of super- 
 stitious ages had gathered upon their idols, but they set about 
 to restore and idealise them. Their worship symbolised life 
 in its bounties and shortcomings, in its promises and failures, 
 and their writing is full of this renaissance. Bipin Chandra 
 Pal's The Soul of India may be taken as a guide to this re- 
 vival. " All these old and traditional gods and goddesses,'* 
 he writes, 1 " who had lost their hold upon the modern mind, 
 have been reinstalled with a new historic and nationalist 
 interpretation in the mind and soul of the people. Hundreds 
 of thousands of our people have commenced to hail their 
 motherland to-day as Durga, Kalee, Jagaddhatri. These are 
 no longer mere mythological conceptions or legendary persons 
 or even poetic symbols. They are different manifestations 
 
 1 Pp. 187, etc.
 
 244 THE GOVERNMENT OP INDIA 
 
 of the Mother. This Mother is the Spirit of India. This 
 geographical habitat of ours is only the outer body of the 
 Mother. . . . Behind this physical and geographical body, 
 there is a Being, a Personality the Personality of the Mother. 
 . . . Our history is the sacred biography of the Mother. . . . 
 We her children know her even to-day as our fathers and 
 their fathers had done before, for countless generations as a 
 Being, a manifestation of Prakriti, as our Mother and the 
 Mother of the Race. And we have always, and do still, wor- 
 shipped her as such." It is easy to blow these words about 
 like thistledown before the breath of Western materialist 
 philosophy and " common sense " ; but for historical pur- 
 poses, and for purposes of understanding the mind of Bengal, 
 they stand. This strong back current towards Hinduism 
 floats most of nationalist extremism on its surface. It is the 
 creation in the minds of enthusiasts of an India which is 
 a goddess demanding everything from her sons that has 
 given the Government of India so much trouble recently. 
 It is necessary to sift the husk from the corn in this move- 
 ment and to understand what is good in it as well as censure 
 what error it may contain. The intense consciousness that 
 they are subordinate and subject cannot be plucked out or 
 beaten down in the Bengalis' minds, and this creates a re- 
 action to tradition. The return to Hindu culture cannot be 
 stopped. Indeed, so unlovely and barren would India be 
 under an unchallenged and undiluted Western culture that 
 the reversion to native roots and types ought to be welcomed. 
 Our task is to help towards purification, trusting again to the 
 natural procession of consequences to lead the Indian to some 
 satisfactory goal. It is easy for a people to deify a land 
 which they think is oppressed ; it is natural for a people like 
 the Indians, who are born hero-worshippers, to embody their 
 spirit in gods and goddesses. Then, persecution does not 
 suppress error and extravagance ; it only intensifies them. 
 Meanwhile this religious reawakening in Bengal seizes upon 
 everything which adds honour to India and cherishes it like
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 245 
 
 a jewel. Places of honour at examinations in Oxford and 
 Cambridge, the achievements of a Dr. Bose or a Dr. C. P. 
 Ray in science, the work of Indians in the administration, 
 the winning of V.C.'s at the front, the sacrifices of youths on 
 the scaffold, are all treasured for laying at the feet of the 
 Mother and enriching her. In the Punjab there is a belief in 
 India ; in Bengal a worship of India. 
 
 Such movements at their best can often be most profitably 
 explored by a study of the work of a man. and such a man 
 exists in Bengal. Rabindranath Tagore is known to the 
 West almost solely as a poet. But Tagore's poetry is India. 
 It is the product of his devotion to Indian culture ; it belongs to 
 a revival in Bengali literature which comes from the heart of 
 Bengal far more purely than Chatterji's fiction. It is of the 
 soul of a people, not merely the emotion of a man ; a syste- 
 matic view of life, not merely a poetic mood; a culture, not 
 merely a tune. Its counterpart is those burning sentences 
 in which he has time and time again contemned the civilisa- 
 tion of the West ; its companion is the work of his nephew, 
 Gogendranath Tagore, who has revived Indian art with the 
 devotion and soul of a worshipper. And just as in the Pun- 
 jab the D.A.V. College and the Gurukul proclaim that educa- 
 tional systems spring out of the national spirit, so in Bengal, 
 Rabindranath Tagore has expressed that fact, too, in his 
 school at Bholpur which meets in the ashram and the gardens 
 where his father retired for rest and contemplation. This 
 again is characteristically Bengali and has none of the rigidities 
 of the Punjab spirit. Its classes are open to English teachers, 
 and there are two there now. There is not the same Puritan 
 following of the ancient ways as in the Punjab, but it is 
 Indian and independent, and its worship is the ancient wor- 
 ship of the people. I have spent a few days there as a guest 
 of the school, and its atmosphere and demeanour are as 
 different as can be conceived from those of British-managed 
 institutions. 
 
 In Madras there has been little upheaval. Its educated
 
 246 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 people have responded to the Nationalist movement as poli- 
 ticians, not as devotees. It is of the south. But there is a 
 purifying process going on. It has responded especially to 
 theosophy, which has its head- quarters at Adyar on the out- 
 skirts of the city. 
 
 I need not enter into the controversies which the work of 
 the Theosophical Society has raised. Its influence has been 
 great in the awakening of India, and that influence has been 
 described by Mrs. Besant as " the revival of the Eastern 
 faiths, the checking of the destructive effects of missionary 
 zeal, the establishment of an Indian ideal of education, the 
 inspiring of self-respect in Indians, of pride in their past, 
 evoking hope in their future, and the creation of the national 
 spirit now throbbing throughout the land." x From the 
 annual meeting of the Society held at Adyar, the Society's 
 head- quarters, in 1884, came the inception of the Indian 
 National Congress, and since the Society has passed under 
 Mrs. Besant' s influence it has become far more Hindu in its 
 inspiration than in the days of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel 
 Olcott. From its activities have come the Hindu College in 
 Benares on the one hand, and the Home Rule League on the 
 other. 
 
 In Bombay, the religious side of the revival has not been 
 very marked (though Mr. Tilak bases himself upon religious 
 Hinduism) and has been overshadowed by its political side. 
 I have always found it difficult to get an emotional grasp of 
 spiritual life in Bombay, whereas a political and historical 
 grasp is easily attained. The Nationalist movement on this 
 side of India has been kept largely in the hands of men who 
 were politicians first like the Parsis Sir Pherosescha Mehta 
 and Dadabhai Naoroji, the Brahmins Tilak and Gokhale, the 
 Mohammedans Tyabji and Jinnah. The new spiritual forces 
 which have revivified India in the Punjab and Bengal have 
 hardly disturbed Bombay, though they have made themselves 
 felt. The Tilak religious movement, however, shows none 
 iJThe Indian Review, October 1913.
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 247 
 
 of that new life which recreates the gods whilst it preserves 
 them. It is only a revival of the ceremonies of orthodox 
 Hinduism Ganpati festivals prompted, his enemies say, 
 much less by religious fervour than by political designs. Gloomy 
 and resentful historical events are still too clearly impressed 
 upon the minds of the Bombay Hindu leaders to allow the 
 spirit of a purified religion to inspire the Nationalist move- 
 ment. 
 
 But taken in the mass, the religious and heroic tales, creeds, 
 and conceptions of India lend themselves admirably to a 
 Nationalist revival whether conducted on legitimate or ille- 
 gitimate lines, and the day has gone by it was never any- 
 thing but an interlude of reaction when Western modes of 
 thought and habits of life stood out in the sight of Indians as 
 perfections to copy. 1 India has returned upon herself and is 
 finding guidance from, and pride in, her own past. 
 
 I must now turn to the more direct results of Christian 
 propaganda and try to estimate their place in Indian life. A 
 few sentences will suffice for its purely destructive and nega- 
 tive effects which are found amongst the educated and partly 
 educated classes. 
 
 When a creed is attacked as Hinduism has been, not only 
 by a new culture, but also by the direct assaults of a rival 
 faith, the attack is evidenced not merely by an awakened 
 allegiance to the spirit of the old creed and the conversions 
 to the new one, but also by the destruction of all credal belief. 
 I was once shown round a Khalee temple, famous for its rites, 
 one of the most frequented outside sacred cities like Benares, 
 by a Hindu dressed in a compromise Eastern- Western garb, 
 who had been at a university and had a superficial smattering 
 of Western knowledge. He discussed what was being shown 
 to me with a semi-cynical detachment, certainly with no 
 devotional attitude. Much to my surprise I found afterwards 
 that he was one of the priests. Too much importance must 
 
 1 When the Brahmo Samaj became cosmopolitan under the influence 
 of its great and only leader, Keshub Chunder Sen, it ceased to appeal to India.
 
 248 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 not be put upon this, however, as religion has always sat 
 lightly on many Hindus, especially of the priestly caste, 
 but some reading of Herbert Spencer and Reynolds's novels, 
 together with some knowledge of Christian criticism, had 
 eaten into the foundations of this man's creed, without 
 supplying him with a new one, and in this he was typical of a 
 considerable section of his fellow-countrymen who had been 
 taught the absurdity of seas of treacle without being led to a 
 belief in rivers of crystal. The mentality of these men re- 
 mains Indian, but they have been emancipated from Indian 
 beliefs. They have creeds, but iconoclasm has shattered 
 faith. Amongst them, Christian activities have been merged 
 in the sum total of Western influence. They belong to a 
 separate group of hybrids, the future of which is doubtful. 
 They are struggling to find a new spiritual soil and certainly 
 have not yet succeeded in their quest. Amongst the masses 
 the case is different. 
 
 Christianity in India has not only a long history, but one 
 which begins in myth and fable. St. Thomas himself is said 
 to have been the first missionary, and the quaint little Catholic 
 settlement at the Little Mount outside Madras includes the 
 cavern church where he is said to have worshipped, and is the 
 place of his reputed martyrdom. On the western coast of 
 Southern India are Christian populations whose conversion 
 came by Syriac apostles and whose Christian rites and social 
 habits are twisted and gnarled by age and the pressure of 
 native circumstance and superstition. There are Brahmin 
 Christians who wear the sacred thread and practise Hindu 
 ceremonies ; there are Hindu Christians who maintain the 
 habits of caste as rigidly as the most orthodox ; to-day the 
 Christian Church, especially in the south, is divided as to 
 whether the outcaste should be baptized from the same font 
 and in the same place in the church as the man of caste, and 
 should sit with him at worship and Communion. In some 
 villages there are different churches for different castes. 
 Christian Hindus often perform ceremonies forbidden by one
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 249 
 
 or other of their creeds, and they then close the doors of the 
 temples or cover the faces of their gods lest the divinities 
 that would be offended might see. They sin, as they think, 
 securely behind the backs of their gods, Christian and Hindu 
 alike. Christian Hindus have been known, when migrating 
 from one village to another, to take with them the image of 
 the goddess which protects them from cholera, to build 
 temples for Hindu gods and employ priests to minister unto 
 them out of mission funds. " Near Negapatam," says Mr. 
 Sharrock, 1 " the Roman Catholics have a famous image called 
 the Potter's Virgin, who is specially noted for her miraculous 
 powers and is visited by thousands of pilgrims, Hindu and 
 Muslim, as well as Christian. The Roman congregation at 
 
 A determined to get the Virgin also to their village, and 
 
 so erected a wooden cross to which she was supposed to be 
 transferred, and this was put next to Karumbayi's stone [the 
 cholera goddess] and surrounded by a number of minor 
 deities. Karumbayi, however, signified her disapproval of 
 the symbol of a cross in her neighbourhood, and so it 
 had to be placed elsewhere. They say that the two god- 
 desses are sisters, and St. Thomas and St. Anthony are 
 brothers, while prayers are offered to all four indifferently." 
 Famine and pestilence bring worshippers who bear testimony 
 to their Christian faith just as the Hindus under similar 
 stress bear testimony to their belief in their gods. 8 
 
 The propaganda of the Christian missionaries is not exactly 
 what many people at home imagine it to be. The vision of 
 an earnest and faithful man preaching, preaching, preaching 
 the evangel of Christ with all its superimposed creeds and 
 theologies of Catholicism, Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, and 
 so on, is but an imperfect vision of Indian mission propaganda. 
 Sir William Hunter writes in The Old Missionary : "I asked 
 why he laid so much stress on teaching, as compared with the 
 
 1 South Indian Missions, p. 291. 
 
 3 We find a similar thing in Eastern Bengal, where the people are Moham- 
 medans by profession, but Hindus by superstition.
 
 250 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 preaching which formed the popular idea of a missionary's 
 work. The reply was : ' I have never forgotten John Law- 
 rence's parting words to me when he passed through Calcutta 
 on sick leave in 1840 : " The only way that will bring the 
 natives to truer and more enlightened ideas is the gradual 
 progress of education." John Lawrence's words have been 
 adopted as the motto of Indian missions. Of course one has 
 to remember that in mission work, as in everything else in 
 India, there must be variety according to circumstances. The 
 problem of a missionary working amongst the educated youth 
 of Calcutta is not the same as that of one working amongst the 
 Ghonds of the Central Provinces. The clash between philo- 
 sophic Christianity and Hinduism which occupies the thoughts 
 of the missionary faced with the Brahmo or the Arya Samaj 
 implies a propaganda quite different from that which is to 
 appeal to the outcaste in Bombay or the Santal in Seoni. But 
 even amongst these latter the propaganda is becoming more 
 and more indirect. Amongst the ignorant peoples whose 
 religion is really not even Hinduism as taught in the Vedas 
 or anywhere else, but the survival of far more ancient beliefs 
 and ceremonies, the missionary comes less as a preacher than 
 as a friend and protector. He cures the sick, he defends the 
 oppressed. Through the doors of friendship comes the Chris- 
 tian creed. The physician preaches the gospel and the friend 
 of the friendless catechises about its creeds. It is not the 
 dogmatic way of opening the doors to heaven, but it opens 
 them all the same. One has only to drop in to one of those 
 humble mission churches on a Sunday evening to see that in 
 some hearts the good seed has fallen and germinated. The 
 spiritual light in these churches may be dim, but they seem 
 to come up close to you in their smallness and bareness. The 
 worshippers sit on the floor and they cannot forbear to look 
 around and be lively and take a homely interest in a stranger. 
 The hymns and scriptures are in an unknown tongue and yet 
 bring into memory the familiar worship at home. There is 
 devotion, and there is happiness in these tiny places. But
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 251 
 
 the missionary is far more than a preacher. He is the father 
 and ruler of his flock, who before he came amongst them had 
 not a champion in the world. Some of the older type of 
 Scottish missionaries, the men who came from the bench or 
 the workshop originally, with their hearts full of " love and 
 pity for the heathen," filled this r61e of ruler as well as preacher 
 with a gifted power. Stern, rugged men, with a rich endow- 
 ment of common sense and an overbearing and commanding 
 personality, they turned the mission into a State. That type 
 is disappearing, though in the outlying districts it has still 
 much work to do. But in the towns, the football university 
 Christian is taking the place of the workman missionary. Hin- 
 duism is not now to be stormed by a rival system ; it is to be 
 dwarfed and dwindled by a new atmosphere or it is to be 
 transformed out of itself into Christianity by its own internal 
 forces of growth, quickened by the influences which Chris- 
 tianity has brought to bear upon them. 1 Thus the mission 
 lays more and more weight on education, not only that Chris- 
 tians may be able to read, but because the subtle and creative 
 atmosphere which is most congenial to Christian influence is 
 suffused by education ; and it is not so much the Christian 
 creed that is propagated (though of course this is done all 
 the time) as the social implications of Christianity which 
 Hinduism cannot satisfy. The Church thus ceases to be 
 Christ's body and becomes Christ's spirit. So it can be said : 
 " Government officials, from the Viceroy to the lowest sub- 
 ordinate, stand side by side with the missionary in this sacred 
 and holy ministry. 8 I know how fine are the men who are 
 at this work, but I wonder if they can succeed. Particularly 
 do I wonder if they do not lose sight of India, because their 
 little group of converts and would-be converts stands so 
 close round about them. All the while, however, they are 
 creating India because they are not making converts so much 
 
 1 J. N. Farquhar, The Crown of Hinduism. 
 
 8 Lucas, Our Task in India : Shall we Proselytise Hindus or Evangelise 
 India t
 
 252 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 as emancipating men's minds, breaking down old social divi- 
 sions, and purifying old faiths. At one Christian college I 
 came across a bright attractive-looking Mohammedan lad 
 who told me he was studying under Christian influences in 
 order to be " a good Mohammedan." I am not sure that they 
 are aware of the full significance of this new missionary 
 method, though it is felt by men like Mr. Andrews who used 
 to be at St. Stephen's College, Delhi. They are grafting their 
 new cultures on Indian stocks and in their own minds a 
 curious Indianising process is at work. They are converting 
 and being converted at the same time. 
 
 The statistical results of centuries of proselytising are not 
 very massive, but no one would ever think of measuring the 
 effect of missions in this way alone. 
 
 There are 4,000,000 Christians in the Indian population of 
 about a hundred times as many, and they are mostly drawn 
 from the outcastes and the lower social classes. 1 Progress is 
 slow, and of the 4,000,000 a large number can hardly pass 
 muster. They are poor dear children of dim and uncertain 
 light, but they have been baptized. By no means have they 
 all been converted individually. Economic motives have 
 often determined their profession of faith, and the great col- 
 leges founded and maintained by missions have yielded but 
 scanty harvests in converts. Few missionaries are happy 
 about the result, and there is a perceptible movement in favour 
 of closing miscellaneous colleges, making these institutions 
 purely Christian, and specialising missionary activities upon 
 residential halls where students may congregate. The resi- 
 
 1 " Of the whole Christian community in India 90 per cent, have come 
 from the depressed classes, or the outcaste community. Of the remaining 
 tenth of the community, about four-fifths are from the respectable Sudra 
 classes. Of the remaining one-fiftieth, most are from the Muslim faith ; 
 of these again the majority were originally members of the Hindu community, 
 but they passed through Mohammedanism into Christianity. Probably 
 not more than one in a thousand (of the whole Christian community in India) 
 comes from the Brahmin Caste" (Year Book of Missions in India, 1912, 
 pp. 203, etc.).
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 253 
 
 dential college and college hall are, for the time being, the 
 new toy of the Indian educationalist. It is a good toy, but 
 as I have walked through it I felt that its story would ulti- 
 mately be read in the history of the disappointments of well- 
 meaning men who have striven " to bring from afar good to 
 India." Its success will depend upon how it is worked. I 
 could name some of these institutions which I have visited and 
 carefully scrutinised, and they will fail and fail badly ; I have 
 seen others which may succeed in supplying an atmosphere 
 of reverence, of culture, of education to the Indian student. 
 
 But I write of the Christian mission here as at once the 
 creator and the settler of great political problems. So soon 
 as education penetrates to the very bottom strata of Indian 
 society and political ideas follow it, the outcaste will become 
 a mighty Indian problem. A few educated and intelligent 
 outcastes with some determination and strength of will could 
 raise that problem in a pressing form. For the challenge 
 which a handful of such men could throw at Indian society 
 would find that society unable to resist and would alter at 
 any rate its political expression. One man breaks down a 
 barrier and in his footsteps all men may tread. Here is the 
 real revolutionary effect of missions. 
 
 This mission field is of immense width, and no friend of 
 missions need be disturbed because his successes are " only 
 amongst the outcastes." Paradoxical though it may seem, 
 it is really one of the plainest and simplest of truths, that 
 whoever emancipates the outcaste emancipates India. In 
 India there are 50,000,000 outcastes (divided amongst them- 
 selves by caste divisions) scattered throughout the country, 
 whose very shadow is a pollution, who live outside villages or 
 in town districts under conditions unspeakably bad. The 
 outcaste's lot is worse than that of the beasts who do not 
 understand ; his religion is of the most primitive kind, his 
 superstitions are appalling. Fear lurks to greet him in every 
 corner, and terror comes with every unusual occurrence. 
 Pestilence dwells in his midst. Often sold with the land on
 
 254 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 which he works, often pawned for debts, he is not treated as 
 a human being at all. He is known by a name which is 
 applied to everything outside the pale of kindness and con- 
 sideration. He eats filth, his drinking habits are disgusting. 
 The most respectable labour to which he can put his hand is 
 work on the fields, and when that is not to be had, he becomes 
 road-mender, scavenger, or anything that no one else will 
 do on account of its nature or of prejudice against it. In the 
 eyes of the law the outcaste is equal to a Brahmin, but the 
 law is only a sentiment. He may acquire property, but it 
 is constantly encroached upon ; he must be servile in all his 
 attitudes ; sometimes he may not even approach a public 
 place like a post-office. He is habitually in debt and pays 
 without murmur most extortionate interest. The caste man 
 has no scruples against fleecing him. Twenty-five per cent, 
 per annum, not always honestly levied, is a common rate of 
 interest to impose upon him. Yet he manages to be happy. 
 You meet him smiling. He is said to have a good sense of 
 humour and he is fascinated by rhythmic beatings of tom- 
 toms. He accepts his lot. I have written of him as if he were 
 all alike, but that is, in reality, not the case. He varies, but 
 these are his typical characteristics. 
 
 Yet, in some districts, he is the descendant of ruling 
 dynasties and the remnant of an imperial and conquering 
 race. Sindh was once ruled by Sudras. 1 The masterpiece 
 of Tamil literature was written by a pariah ; in the south of 
 India, Sivaites worship the deified Nanda, who was a pariah. 
 Even to-day, in spite of the accumulated disadvantages of 
 many generations of neglect and outlawry, many able men 
 are included amongst the outcastes, and their children do well 
 at school. The aboriginal converts in the Chota Nagpur dis- 
 trict have made such progress in education that a college has 
 been established for their boys. Of the Indian Christians 
 
 1 " In one country we hear of high-caste Hindu princes receiving the tilak, 
 or mark of investiture, from Bhil or Mina tribesmen " (Baden-Powell, The 
 Indian Village Community, pp. 89-90 j.
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 255 
 
 who do so well at Madras University many are of outcaste 
 descent, and such men are to be found in colleges teaching 
 Brahmin youths. But if they are appointed to a public office 
 the responsible officer is generally threatened with all sorts of 
 disapproval. Many who claim the benefits of the Queen's 
 Proclamation that no favour will be shown in appointing any 
 of her Indian subjects to public office assume that it does not 
 apply to the pariah in any event they have no intention of 
 applying it to him. 
 
 The effect of Christian propaganda is to bring within the 
 pale of the political community this class, enormous in num- 
 bers, not altogether mean in capacity, but weakened in will 
 and self-confidence by long generations of servility. As they 
 are taught to lift up their heads so will they become of some 
 political importance, but that is a slow process. Still, the 
 beginning is made, and with it the most serious assault yet 
 delivered against caste, and the most doughty blow yet struck 
 for the liberation of Indian genius and intelligence. 
 
 Caste is by far and away the most predominating influence 
 on Indian life. Begun to protect the higher civilisation of 
 the invading Aryan from Dravidian and other aboriginal 
 contamination, it has developed both in theory and hi practice 
 into a rigid religious and social organisation, the breach of 
 which is attended with the direst consequences. Amongst 
 the more educated sections its rigidity is slackening, but its 
 spirit remains ; amongst the masses its power has hardly been 
 weakened. In fact, to-day, amongst the masses of the people, 
 so ingrained is the spirit of caste that new castes are being 
 formed. Communities, trades, and other groups seek social 
 distinction and privilege by declaring that they belong to a 
 caste, and they can usually get their claims sanctioned by 
 some accommodating Brahmin who supplies them with a 
 pedigree of race for a fee in the same way that the College of 
 Heralds supplies an upstart at home with a coat of arms. 1 
 It perhaps matters not. Caste can be broken either by being 
 1 There is even a caste of train thieves.
 
 256 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 destroyed or by being made universal, as the glory of titles 
 may be dimmed either by republicanism or sycophancy, by 
 their abolition or their extension, after the manner of recent 
 Honours Lists. 
 
 Some of the Hindu communities, like the Arya Samaj, 
 dispute the authority of caste, but even amongst Christians it 
 retains its power. " Striking as has been the success of 
 Christian missions, it must be admitted that this great success 
 has been nullified and vitiated to a great extent by the ad- 
 mission of caste into Christianity." * The caste mind is not 
 only fenced round with social advantage, but with religious 
 faith, and heroic indeed is the man who defies it. All the curses 
 of the cruel hundred and ninth Psalm fall upon his head. He 
 is cut off from his kin and his inheritance, his children are left 
 un wedded. In the bazaar no one will trade with him ; he 
 must not cross the threshold of his temples. When he dies 
 no one will carry his body to the burning-place. He is out- 
 cast upon earth and debarred from heaven. Turned away 
 from his own door in life, none of the rites which light his way 
 through the darkness of death may be done for him. 
 
 The spread of education and the prevalence of foreign 
 travel have modified caste rigidities. In the north they are 
 less observed than hi the south. The rules of exclusive eating 
 are being widened, tea is not considered as a meal, and in 
 Madras I was once invited to partake of a real meal with a 
 company of Brahmins who remained in caste. The ceremony 
 of purification is not only being applied to circumstances in 
 which but a few years ago it would hardly have been 
 held applicable, but the ceremony itself is being neglected in 
 cases where it strictly ought to be resorted to. In whole 
 classes and those of the higher castes caste is becoming not 
 much more than the social exclusiveness which is prevalent in 
 our own society, and its evils are becoming, in numerous social 
 reform societies, the subject of condemnation. 8 
 
 1 Sharrock, Hinduism Ancient and Modern, p. 177. 
 
 1 It is interesting to note that the Lutheran and other German missionaries
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 257 
 
 This division of Indian society has been a source of great 
 trouble to Indian missions. Caste keeps the Brahmin a Hindu 
 when he has ceased to believe in the doctrines of Hinduism, 
 and for the people generally it means that Christianity loses 
 its influence when it has destroyed the old faiths. It destroys 
 but cannot replace. The new inspiration is parched out of 
 existence by the social power of the organisation of the old 
 faith. 1 At the same time, and for the same reason, Christian 
 India, being outside the pale of Hindu India, finds its influence 
 on the intimate life of the people very limited. The Christian 
 is a foreigner to his own family, and that is true whether he 
 has been a Brahmin or an outcaste. This is one of the ex- 
 planations of mass conversion. It is much easier for a whole 
 village than for an individual to be baptized, and whilst the 
 religious value of the change may be doubtful (in accordance 
 with the view one holds of what religious conversion really 
 is) its political possibilities are very great. 
 
 This mass conversion is one of the most interesting move- 
 ments in India from a political point of view, because it arises 
 very largely from economic causes and from revolts against 
 oppression which in time are bound to have political conse- 
 quences of no mean importance. 8 Then the whole of a com- 
 munity goes over to Christianity, sometimes taking into Chris- 
 tianity its gods, its ceremonies, its superstitions, and its preju- 
 dices. The famine which lay upon the land from 1876 to 1879 
 brought thousands of outcastes to baptism. As a result of 
 the secular work done by the missionaries, two Anglican 
 
 and the Roman Catholics coming from societies where social caste is strongly 
 marked have accepted and explained caste in India as though it were practi- 
 cally the same social practice which they knew at home. The analogy is 
 not complete. A more complete analogy is the refusal of white men to have 
 social intercourse and sanction alliances with coloured people in communities 
 like the American Southern States. 
 
 1 " The history of South Indian missions ia very largely a history of caste 
 troubles and caste relapses " (Rev. J. A. Sharrock, World Missionary Con- 
 ference, 1910, vol. ii. p. 370). 
 
 * Cf. Census Report, 1911, vol. i. part i. p. 137. 
 
 17
 
 258 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 Societies at Tinnevelly baptized, in 1880, 19,000 people. This 
 began the great mass movement of pariahs in the south to- 
 wards Christianity. The north followed later. Here the 
 American Missions are powerful, and it is said they take less 
 precautions than others as regards baptism ; but, be that as 
 it may, Indian Christians have increased in the Punjab in ten 
 years (1901-11) by 43 r 6 per cent., and the gains are shared 
 by all the missionary societies at work in the district. The 
 moving cause of this must be put down to the fact that the 
 missionaries got the Government to allot large areas of newly 
 irrigated land for Christian settlement. Thus the Chuhras, 
 who have hitherto been agricultural labourers and skin dealers, 
 if they became Christians could for the first time in their lives 
 become land-holders. 1 Gross cases of systematic persecution 
 of pariahs come under the notice of missionaries, and even 
 if they are not remedied at once, the sympathetic advice 
 given awakens corresponding sympathy in the mind of the 
 little community. A new light begins to dawn upon it and a 
 new interest to awaken in it. When this is amplified by the 
 feeling that at last the pariah has protection within the law 
 and in his possessions, he becomes a new man in a new world. 
 His whole community changes its social allegiance by accept- 
 ing baptism. But the change does not end there. The im- 
 provement in his social status lets light into his mind. He is 
 taught self-respect; he becomes more cleanly in his habits. 
 He does give some proof of having been " born again." " It 
 is just as true in the Punjab as in South India that, while 
 the origin of the movement is mainly social, there is a strong 
 spiritual force at work within it." * As was the case of the 
 Shanars of Tinnevelly, whose oppression by Brahmin tyranny 
 led to mass conversion, the revolt of dignity precedes the 
 religious change and is the reason for it, and, the new allegiance 
 having been made, it carries certain spiritual consequences 
 with it. 
 
 1 International Review of Missions, October 1914, p. 653. 
 
 * Bishop of Madras, International Review of Missions, July 1913.
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 259 
 
 We must not assume, therefore, that mass conversion is 
 something that is not conversion. The missionaries can 
 defend it as missionaries and not merely as reformers. I deal 
 with it here, however, mainly as one of the great movements 
 in the emancipation of the Indian spirit. Men are influenced 
 naturally in masses. Every evangelist campaign in Great 
 Britain is an example of mass conversion and shows the 
 characteristics of a mass psychology. It starts from personal 
 influence. Schwarz acquired his hold over the Shanars of 
 Tanjore because of his personality, and Ringeltaube laid the 
 foundations of Christian missions in Travancore in the same 
 way. The Christian movement amongst the Chuhras in the 
 Punjab originated in the conversion of a hide-buyer of great 
 propagandist zeal. But the personal influence is of an illumi- 
 nating kind, and when it champions as well as persuades, and 
 when it deals with people accustomed to common action in a 
 community, a mass response is the result. Truly the method 
 ia like casting a net into the sea and hauling in every fish that 
 gets entangled. This is good for the Church if the Church 
 has the power and capacity to discipline the baptized; in 
 any event it is good for India because it has put men on their 
 feet. Nor must the sneer that the motives are economic be 
 taken at too high a valuation. It may be so, but economic 
 desires are very often the vehicles by which mental awaken- 
 ings show themselves and find a fuller expression. The spirit 
 needs a body ; the free man needs possessions, and if these 
 masses of outcastes are moved by a revolting spirit to seek 
 justice and human right and testify to the change which has 
 taken place within them in the only way open to them a 
 profession of what their champion considers to be all-impor- 
 tant and an association with him in the worship of his God 
 who with any appreciation of the workings of the human 
 mind will have the hardihood to say that what takes place 
 can be described in terms of personal gain ? It has a sig- 
 nificance far deeper than that. 
 
 The areas where these mass conversions are prevalent lie
 
 260 THE GOVERNMENT OP INDIA 
 
 mainly in the extreme south of India, in Madras from the 
 Mysore border to the middle of Hyderabad, amongst the 
 Santals in Bengal, and north-westwards through the United 
 Provinces and the Punjab from Bareilly and Meerut, in the 
 Khasi Hills in Assam, in the region of Jubbulpore in the 
 Central Provinces. 
 
 In addition to the Christian missions, other agencies are at 
 work in India for the reclamation of the outcaste. Within 
 recent years Hindus themselves have been active, and chief 
 amongst them have been the Arya and the Brahmo Samaj. 
 For in the Ayra Samaj in particular and amongst Hindus in 
 general is a keen determination not to allow the untouch- 
 ables to be considered as anything but Hindus. The Hindu 
 requires these people to keep up the numbers upon which 
 he bases his political claims. If they slip from his fold he is 
 weakened. So from this point of view, missionary activity 
 is a grand attack upon his power and he must sacrifice some 
 tradition to enable him to meet it. When the Gait circular 
 threatened the Hindus that in the census of 1911 the out- 
 castes might not be classified as Hindus, great was the con- 
 sternation of Hindu society. " The Gait circular had a quite 
 unexpected effect and galvanised the dying body of orthodox 
 Hinduism into sympathy with its untouchable population, 
 because that was so necessary to avert its own downfall." * 
 
 True to its own tenets, the Arya admits outcastes to mem- 
 bership, allows them to perform rites like Homa, invests them 
 with the sacred thread. These admissions sometimes are also 
 of the nature of mass conversion when, as in the territories of 
 the Maharajah of Jummu and in Kashmere, 10,000, and in 
 the district of Sialkote 36,000, have been admitted en bloc 
 into the Samaj. The Rajput Suddhi Sabha, formed by the 
 Arya for the purpose of reconverting to Hinduism Moham- 
 medan Rajputs, is said to have won for the Arya the con- 
 version of as many as 370 in one day. Between 1907 and 
 1910 it reconverted 1,052. It is estimated that nearly two- 
 
 1 Lajpat Rai, The Arya Samaj, pp. 227-8.
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 261 
 
 thirds of the Arya members in the Punjab were of the de- 
 pressed classes. There has been opposition from the orthodox, 
 but the Arya Samaj is too strong to be cowed or to be turned 
 from its deliberate purpose. It backs up its work by educa- 
 tion and other kinds of reforming social effort. The Brahmo 
 Samaj with less enthusiasm and on a smaller scale is doing 
 similar work. It has, however, helped by both precept and 
 example to interest orthodox Hindus hi a Mission to the 
 Depressed Classes. On such thorny questions as whether the 
 converts of this Mission are to be absorbed into caste Hin- 
 duism or not questions which the Arya Samaj has definitely 
 answered in the affirmative the Brahmo is divided. In this 
 as in other things the Brahmo is well intentioned but feeble. 
 The Servants of India and various other Social Reform Societies 
 are working at the same problem, whilst no single leader of 
 the Indian people has failed to acknowledge the responsibility 
 of the higher castes to uplift the lower. 
 
 On the other hand, Mohammedan missionaries have met 
 with some success particularly in the Punjab where they have 
 made specially marked headway amongst the Chuhras who 
 have yielded so many converts to Christianity. The outcaste 
 turning Mohammedan becomes fully enfranchised at once in 
 his new community in some respects more than if he became 
 a Christian. Thus, the long stagnant waters of Indian life 
 are being stirred to the very bottom. 
 
 The view is very commonly held, both by Indians and 
 English, that the Christian missions in' India thwart the 
 Nationalist movement not only by openly opposing it, as 
 some missionaries do, but still more effectively by implanting 
 in the minds of the people thoughts which lead them away 
 from Indian leadership and ideas. The results of a propa- 
 ganda, however, are not always what they are intended to be ; 
 the harvest to be reaped is not in the keeping of the sower of 
 the seed. It is true that the older missionaries appear on 
 the whole to have been anti-Nationalist and to have led their 
 people on roads other than Indian, and that opposition to
 
 262 
 
 Nationalism has come from some of their converts. This, 
 however, is changing. The younger school of missionaries 
 are not anti-Nationalist ; 1 Indian Christians have shown 
 some degree of national independence in church government ; 
 the vitality of Indian life is bound to draw to itself the minds 
 and movements awakened by missionary propaganda. The 
 Christian mission may tend to bind the native Christian to the 
 sovereignty of the conqueror by giving him the faith of the 
 power in possession, but that is not antagonistic to Nationalism. 
 " Jesus Christ," a leading Nationalist is reported to have 
 said, " was hopelessly handicapped by his connection with 
 the West." 8 But Jesus Christ is universal and is not Himself 
 Western, and a Christian Church in India will, as it grows in 
 strength, become Indian in spirit. The essential point to keep 
 in view is that the missions are educating the people. In India, 
 the highest percentage of literate men is amongst the Christians 
 with the exception of the Brahmins, and also of literate 
 women with the exception of the Parsis. This is bound to 
 break down the barriers which separated the outcaste from 
 humanity. As a result of this education, the outcaste is 
 thinking for himself and is acting for himself. He becomes 
 a personage in his own eyes and not a servile encumbrance 
 on the face of the earth. He is forming his own communities, 
 his own co-operative societies, his own rudimentary forms of 
 self-government, and, though it will take him as a class some 
 time to rise out of the deep muddy ruts into which he has 
 fallen, his past shows that he has genius and ability. The 
 instinct for self-control which an educated people have is even 
 shown in the community of Indian Christians by an opposi- 
 tion to missionary tutelage. Raja Sir Harman Singh com- 
 plained in a Presidential address delivered to an Indian 
 Christian Conference that missionaries showed too much racial 
 prejudice and too great a desire " to keep all power and 
 authority in the missionaries' own hands," and he claimed 
 
 1 Andrews, Renaissance in India, pp. 164-8. 
 
 * World Missionary Conference Report, 1910, ii. p. 346.
 
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 263 
 
 that Indian advice should be sought and taken in the manage- 
 ment of the Church. He went on to say that " the Indian 
 Christian community must ever keep before itself the national 
 idea " and co-operate with non-Christian Hindus. So we 
 have the National Missionary Society started and a native 
 Indian Church organising itself. For some years there was 
 an agitation amongst Anglicans for an Indian Bishop, and 
 this was successful when the Rev. V. S. Azarian himself of 
 outcaste origin was consecrated for the diocese of Madras 
 a few years ago. In other walks of life, the educated out- 
 caste is taking a part in the Nationalist agitations appropriate 
 to his interests and experiences, and as was the case with the 
 Mohammedans so will it be with the Christians : sharing in the 
 life of India, they will give back to it their energy, begotten 
 of their ideals and their discontents, their claims and their 
 resentments. It is a strange phenomenon, this struggle for 
 the control of the minds and souls of the 50,000,000 outcastes. 
 It means that Indian society at the very bottom as well as at 
 the top is being educated and is being taught self-reliance, and 
 that, both above and below, political self-government and 
 personal ambition are fermenting. It may be long ere this 
 ferment produces its inevitable changes, but that it will do so 
 is not open to doubt. One thing will hasten matters. Repre- 
 sentative government must sooner or later, and in some degree, 
 be given to India, and the outcaste will not be left out. His 
 recognition is necessary for the Hindus to enable them to 
 keep up their proportion of the Indian population, and his 
 missionary champions are not likely to let him be excluded 
 in the cold. Moreover, a sufficient section of the community 
 is now too wide awake to allow an Indian Government to be 
 established in which they have no share or lot,
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 WHEN the war burst upon Europe, India was in a state of 
 great political unsettlement. The troubles with the South 
 African and Canadian Governments had stirred up ugly feel- 
 ings in India. " Anarchism " had become threatening. 
 Centres of disaffection and revolutionary propaganda had 
 been established in Europe and America, and the bomb had 
 appeared. Political dacoities were prevalent in some dis- 
 tricts, particularly in Bengal ; youth was throwing off re- 
 straint, and students now at this college, now at the next 
 showed an ominous ferment of conduct. But the forces 
 making for creative change were to be found elsewhere. 
 These incidents and signs only hampered those forces, filled 
 the authorities with apprehension, but also with obstinacy, 
 and confused the evolutionary tendencies native to Indian 
 politics. A new generation had been born. The National 
 Congress leaders found that a tide of opinion had risen out- 
 side which had submerged their old landmarks. At first, as 
 was human, they looked on with regret and unwillingly 
 accepted the facts. But the circumstances were too strong 
 for them. The Surat split was healed ; the demand for 
 " Home Rule " was taken up ; the old programme for de- 
 tailed reforms was merged in a general claim for self-govern- 
 ment. Indian politics were about to take a quick march 
 forward. 
 
 Upon this the war came and suddenly the whole world 
 seemed to be transformed. Comradeship in danger promised 
 to wipe out past divisions, and facing a common foe to dispel 
 
 264
 
 CONCLUSION 265 
 
 lack of confidence in each other. Those critics of the Indian 
 Nationalist movement who saw in its demands nothing 
 but sedition and in themselves nothing but perfection, had 
 long been misreading the signs of the times and misleading the 
 British public at home and the British Administration in 
 India. With the outbreak of the war, the mischievous errors 
 of these critics were revealed. 1 India was proud to send 
 soldiers to fight as companions with white troops on European 
 soil 8 ; rich and poor gave, each after his kind, to India's 
 offering ; at home we began to talk of turning over a new leaf 
 and of governing India differently. By and by from the field 
 came stories of Indian valour ; coveted V.C. badges were pinned 
 on Indian breasts ; India felt that her blood was washing 
 out her colour. She even talked of saving the Empire from 
 ruin. The exploits of Japan had been giving the East cour- 
 age ; the employment of Indian troops in the war gave 
 India pride. Then there was a lull and a back-set. India's 
 enthusiasm was not encouraged ; her recruits were not ac- 
 cepted ; her ambulance corps were disbanded ; the adminis- 
 
 1 How grievously these people misread the nature of the Nationalist move- 
 ment is known to everybody who has spent any time in mastering its purposes. 
 The surprise felt when India demanded a share in the war only showed how 
 little our people understood India. This sentence from a speech delivered 
 in Bombay in March 1894, by Mr. A. O. Hume, the founder of the National 
 Congress, is remarkable only for the accuracy of its description of what 
 happened, not for the exceptional nature of what is said in it. "A great 
 war will be India's opportunity opportunity of proving that if in periods 
 of peace she clamours at times somewhat angrily for equal civil rights, 
 in the hour of war she is ever ready and anxious to accept equal military 
 risks." The report records that this was followed by " prolonged applause." 
 
 1 It is of some importance to note the precise direction in which the thoughts 
 of Indians turned in those days, and that is shown in the speeches made in 
 the Legislative Council on September 8th, 1914. Raja Sir Muhammad Ali 
 Muhammad, Khan of Mahmudabad, said : " The decision [to employ Indian 
 troops] has made the British Government more national than any measure 
 of reform of recent years " ; and Rai Sitanath Ray Bahadur said : "It 
 has not only satisfied the just pride of the several martial races that inhabit 
 India, it has not only enhanced their sense of self-respect, but has also estab- 
 lished, and proved before the world at large, their common citizenship with 
 the inhabitants of other parts of this great Empire."
 
 266 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 tration became timorous at the spectre of an aggressive 
 nationalism. The lips spoke good things ; the eyes glanced 
 suspiciously at the audience. There was a reaction towards 
 the old views that the East was destined to be governed and 
 to yield huge profits to Western capital was a place where 
 the childhood of the world still lingered as if protected by 
 some magic was unable to look after itself in the bustle and 
 turmoil of this earth. 
 
 Suddenly in the midst of this came the Report of the Com- 
 mission appointed to inquire into the conduct of the Meso- 
 potamia campaign. It revealed neglect, miscalculation, lack 
 of foresight and forethought ; but above all, it revealed a 
 broken machinery, an inelastic system of government, an 
 effete political method. The problem of Indian administra- 
 tion was brought before the nation with a dramatic force 
 and an insistence which could not be denied. A change of a 
 fundamental character in Indian administration must take 
 place. Mr. Chamberlain resigned an office in which his heart 
 was never set, I believe, and Mr. Montagu succeeded and 
 declared for a thorough reform in the Indian Government. 
 He then proceeded to India to consult with the Viceroy and 
 representative parties, and in due time the Report christened 
 after the Secretary of State and the Viceroy appeared. The 
 bulk of this book was written before the Report was published 
 indeed, long before the Mesopotamia blunders were revealed 
 but the conclusions come to in it have required no modification 
 by what has happened or what has been published since. 
 Without the Report my conclusions would have appeared to 
 be extreme and might have remained for years a desirable, 
 perhaps, but certainly a distant goal. And yet, the Report 
 dealt with a system of government spent before the war. The 
 war revealed, but did not make, the cracks in it. Before 
 Indian troops marched within sound of battle in Europe, the 
 bureaucracy was shattered more completely than any anarchist 
 bomb could do the work, but Indian Victoria Crosses and 
 Mesopotamia Reports shortened its years of apparent utility.
 
 CONCLUSION 267 
 
 In the inevitable reconstruction we must be guided by a 
 fundamental fact. The system of Indian government which 
 has come to an end was a historical growth, arising out of 
 conquest and subjection. The Indian was inferior and had 
 to be governed ; in so far as he took part in his government 
 it was as a subordinate with very limited powers. Nominally, 
 the ideal of self-government as a goal was always before us, 
 but in the transition from a subordinate to a self-governing 
 state there must be a break, because the conceptions of the 
 one, even when liberally held, are different in kind to those 
 of the other. An administration like that of India may be 
 reformed ; its civil service thrown open to its sons ; a generous 
 infusion of native members upon all the governing authorities 
 made. But there still remains the citadel of the foreign 
 Government, limited in its proud authority and narrowed in 
 its empire maybe, yet untaken and dominating all else. 
 When that citadel opens its gates a revolution, however peace- 
 ful and constitutional, has taken place, and it is just that 
 last event in the evolution of liberty which it is so hard to 
 bring about. The fundamental fact to which I have referred 
 is that no mere reform of the existing system will be of avail 
 because the conception of India's place in the Empire which 
 that system embodied has changed and now no longer exists. 
 
 We must now begin with self-government set clearly before 
 us as our definitely pursued goal, and in reconstructing 
 Councils and Civil Services we must grant powers which give 
 Indians a responsible share in their own government. When 
 that break is made, the future can be left to look after itself, 
 but until it is made we shall be creating administrative systems 
 which will not evolve, and applying confusions which will keep 
 us in the dark. 
 
 The most important of the changes required are indicated 
 in the preceding chapters, and both their necessity and the 
 difficulties attending them are discussed. Regarding them, 
 a word of warning is necessary. The change cannot be made 
 without great risks, some unsettlement, and the exercise of
 
 268 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 the most commanding statesmanship. It is a task of enor- 
 mous magnitude and its ultimate success will depend as much 
 upon the spirit in which it is done as upon the first fashion- 
 ing of details. It must be approached in no niggling frame 
 of mind. Whoever does it will be faced by an array of 
 paralysing facts, failures, disappointments. In countless secret 
 documents there are records of how unsatisfactory Indian 
 commissioners and magistrates have been ; in countless hearts 
 there are secret fears of consequences kept alive by many 
 tales of troubles ; in countless psychologies there are racial 
 antagonisms. These ought not to be pooh-poohed, nor ought 
 they to befog the minds of those who wish to do justice to 
 India. 
 
 Part of them are the products of the present system, and 
 if they are to set bounds to our future policy that system 
 will remain stifling and contorting the genius of India ; if, 
 however, we regard them as evil effects and courageously set 
 about removing their causes, they will disappear, and happier 
 experiences and more generous appreciations will take their 
 place. Part of them may be put down to " human nature," 
 and will continue to trouble us. During the readjustment, 
 Indian administration may have to suffer in certain respects, 
 for you cannot teach a people a subordinate mentality and 
 expect to find that the fruits of that mentality are those of a 
 responsible self-governing race. We have done all we can for 
 India ; we must now carry on our work with India. 
 
 I therefore lay the greatest stress upon the personality of 
 the Viceroy and the Governors sent out from home. Those, 
 in the reconstruction years, ought to be men of the highest 
 political intelligence, who will associate with themselves the 
 best Indian capacity available, who, believing in liberty, will 
 not be frightened should its first appearance be threatening, 
 and who understand that liberty, and not repression, is the 
 safeguard of both rulers and States. When the first storm 
 bursts, he who runs away will desert the nation, he who 
 stands firm will save it.
 
 CONCLUSION 269 
 
 The first points to attack are the Legislative Councils and 
 the Viceroy's Council. The former must have more authority 
 especially in finance the latter must be made more rep- 
 resentative. A Viceroy more distinctly the eyes, the ears, 
 and the mouth of India, Councils more authoritative and 
 representative that is the foundation of everything. But I 
 repeat here, to emphasise it, what I have already written: 
 we must remember that the democratic forms of the West are 
 not the only forms in which Democracy can take shape, and 
 in the Indian reconstruction it will not be enough, after con- 
 sidering, say, Western constituencies as a basis of representa- 
 tion and discovering that such cannot exist in India, to 
 conclude, therefore, that representative government is impos- 
 sible. 1 India is not a nation of equal citizens so much as an 
 organisation of co-operating social functions. So that I doubt, 
 even if in India every adult was educated, and the vast 
 majority took an intelligent interest in what business is 
 transacted at Delhi or Simla, whether a General Election after 
 the British manner is the only way to give a mandate to the 
 Imperial or Provincial Councils, and elicit what Indian public 
 opinion is. The forms of Democracy which we use and the 
 methods we adopt to keep them going presuppose not only 
 general education and political interests, but two other things 
 a population compassable in numbers and a land compas- 
 sable in size. And even as I write our old assumptions re- 
 garding Democracy and its expression by elections and through 
 Parliaments are being assailed by critical attacks more for- 
 midable and better armed by reason and experience than we 
 have been accustomed to think were possible. 
 
 1 Some grave defects have already shown themselves in the way elections 
 are conducted in India and in the results of the unimaginative transportation 
 of our democratic machinery to India. On these, The Hindu Review for 
 February 1913 makes this sensible comment. " The failure of these new in- 
 stitutions [District and Local Boards] is due to the fact that they did not 
 grow naturally from within the people themselves, but were imposed upon 
 them from without. This failure does not prove our incapacity for self- 
 government, but only the unsuitability of these to our genius and traditions.'
 
 270 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 India may not accommodate itself to our conditions. But 
 it has its governing organs from the village panchayet to the 
 Viceroy's Council, graded up through District and Municipal 
 Boards and Provincial Legislatures. It has its men of poli- 
 tical experience and ability, and though they may be confined 
 rather much to landowning and the law, every one who knows 
 them must admit that their outlook is a civic one and that 
 their political ambitions are based upon thoughts of their 
 municipality, their Province, and their country. Growing up 
 around them is a class of successful manufacturers and men 
 engaged in commerce and industry, and these, when the 
 interest and honour of public life are presented to them, will 
 appear on the representative bodies. The same class of man 
 as was available for Parliament in England in 1832 is avail- 
 able now in India, and, if it be that only the blinded optimist 
 sees no dangers and difficulties ahead, it is equally true that 
 only the paralysed pessimist can refuse to admit that all the 
 risks must be taken and the Indian trusted with a distinct 
 measure of self-government. 
 
 Moreover, the first buds of a new democratic epoch also 
 appear in two characteristic forms. The first is the Social 
 Reform movement, which takes many shapes, from the Ser- 
 vants of India to the societies for raising the depressed classes. 
 The second is the growth of the economic conflict between 
 Capital and Labour. Whoever has visited the industrial dis- 
 tricts of Bombay or Calcutta with their slums and filthy 
 tenements slums and tenements which make the very worst 
 I have seen in Europe desirable dwelling-places or whoever 
 has studied factory conditions in the jute mills of Bengal or 
 the cotton mills in Bombay, must have seen that, if this 
 conflict is not soon organised and produces comprehensive 
 programmes of legislation, municipal administration, and 
 trade-union action, India is doomed to pauperism, disease, 
 and degradation. But the trade union has appeared and the 
 strike is known the strike which has evoked the loyal 
 support of great masses of workpeople both men and women,
 
 CONCLUSION 271 
 
 which has been conducted with persistence and determination 
 and been rewarded with success. 
 
 Equally hopeful and essential to a self-governing India is 
 a social reform movement, and that now exists with vigour. 
 The best of the reform societies is the Servants of India, founded 
 in 1905 by the late Mr. Gokhale and inspired by him. The 
 society is frankly Nationalist, but seeks to serve India by the 
 disinterested work of its members in everyday concerns, and 
 particularly those which relate to the downtrodden classes. 
 Its membership is small because it calls for much sacrifice and 
 renunciation, but its spirit is far spread. 
 
 In Bombay, too, there is a very promising Social Service 
 League which has organised free travelling libraries of books 
 meant to be read by working people, evening classes, and 
 lantern lectures. Its libraries are done up in boxes of from 
 twenty-five to fifty books, the custodians of the boxes make 
 provision for their use, and where there are illiterate people 
 in the chawls, literates are encouraged to gather them round 
 and read aloud to them a familiar Indian scene. A genuine 
 educational work is carried on by the book-box campaign. 
 The books are in Marathi and Gujarati, and are used most 
 encouragingly by members of the depressed classes and by 
 women. The subjects of the lantern lectures range from 
 " Co-operative Stores " to " The Human Body," from " Tem- 
 perance " to " Astronomy." University extension lectures 
 are also given, and teaching in hygiene, first aid, nursing, house- 
 hold management undertaken. Co-operative Credit too is a 
 cardinal work of this League. I have seen that part in opera- 
 tion, and the financial benefits it has conferred upon those 
 who have converted their debts into indebtedness to it, have 
 been most striking. For the first time in their lives some of 
 its members know what it is to be practically free of usurious 
 extortion. I pause to give these details because this Society 
 is one of many, and I wish to give assurance that the work 
 done is well thought out and of a practical kind. 
 
 All a drop in the bucket of Indian life ! That is so. But
 
 272 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 where the drops have fallen the muddy waters are already 
 clearing, and those who work and watch are encouraged to go 
 on, whilst those engaged in the wider fields of politics know 
 they have reliable allies. 
 
 Thus political India evolves. No people can be freed from 
 chains unless it has done something to strike them off, unless 
 it feels their weight and their dishonour in its heart, unless its 
 attainments in intelligence and in the things which create 
 and uphold dignity have won the sympathy of men. India 
 has met these tests. 
 
 Since the early days of the war when many felt that 
 
 not less than Gallic zeal 
 
 Kindled and burned among the sapless twigs 
 Of my exhausted heart, 
 
 there has been a retrogression, and 
 
 history, time's lavish scribe, will tell 
 How rapidly the zealots of the cause 
 Disbanded or in hostile ranks appeared. 
 
 The Montagu-Chelmsford Report has been scrutinised and its 
 flaws discovered. Slowly there has gathered an opposition 
 to it ; manifestos against it have been issued by officials and 
 ex-officials ; in an unfortunate hour the Legislative Council 
 has passed Acts grievously menacing liberty and still more 
 grievously destroying confidence and good feeling. As I 
 write these last sentences, eyes shade themselves from the 
 light, hearts harden, and the minds of men long accustomed 
 to wield authority return to their old moods, their old fears, 
 their old narrowness. But the way of Britain is clear ; the 
 war has illuminated it. Heavy will be the responsibility and 
 terrible the fault of those who obstruct or darken it ; boun- 
 tiful will be the reward and ample the justification of those 
 who respond to the more generous and trustful emotions which 
 possessed them when Indian troops rode into Flanders.
 
 APPENDIX I 
 THE PEOPLE OF INDIA 
 
 THE distribution of population, its density, and the pursuits of the 
 people have a very direct bearing on the question of enfranchise- 
 ment and elections, and Indian census Reports (amongst the most 
 interesting publications issued by the Indian Government) afford 
 elaborate information on this point. 
 
 The numbering of the people of India presents extraordinary 
 difficulties on account of the size of the country, the varieties of 
 government within it, the large numbers of people on the move 
 at any given time, the backward state in civilisation and educa- 
 tion of large masses, and their religious and superstitious prejudices. 
 The first attempt was made between 1867 and 1872, but not until 
 1881 was any census carried out on systematic lines. Then it 
 was but a first experiment, and every tenth year since, it has 
 been done with greater accuracy and completeness. The bigness 
 of the task can be estimated from the fact that about two million 
 people were engaged upon it when it was last taken. The census 
 of 1911 gave British India, with an area of 1,093,074 square miles, 
 a population of 244,267,542, and the Native States, with an area 
 of 709,583 square miles, one of 70,888,854. In the whole of India 
 the population density is 175 persons to the square mile ; in 
 British India it is 223, and in the Native States 100. The popula- 
 tion is massed mainly in the Ganges Valley and Punjab, on the 
 western shore of the Bay of Bengal, in the south below the towns 
 of Madras and Mysore, and on the coast districts south of Bombay 
 between the hills and the sea. The chief factor in determining 
 this density, in addition to physiographic configuration, is the 
 climate, and a map of the rainfall follows in general features a 
 18 273
 
 274 APPENDIX I 
 
 map of the distribution of the people. But, in addition, we see 
 the traces of invasion and insurrection, of disease and famine, of 
 irrigation J and of drainage. The development of commercial and 
 industrial enterprise is hardly seen yet in the density of population 
 outside Calcutta and Bombay, and in small localities like the 
 mining district of Manbhum. India remains agricultural and the 
 laws which determine the settlement of an agricultural popula- 
 tion hold an almost unmodified sway. It has appeared to some 
 observers 2 to be curious that in districts where rents are high and 
 the cultivator is poor, population should be as dense as where 
 rents are lower and the cultivator better off. That is, however, 
 what we should naturally expect. In the one case, population is 
 attracted to the soil by certain economic advantages, and in the 
 other it is kept there by its caste cohesion, the weight of its poverty, 
 and by the lowness of its standard of living. Generally it is true 
 that whatever makes for successful cultivation makes for density 
 of an agricultural population, and that law has to be supplemented 
 by the other that a low standard of life also makes for a high 
 density especially in a country like India where obstacles are put 
 in the way of a free circulation of the people. 
 
 The importance of the agricultural population in India can be 
 seen at once by the figures. The census of 1911 showed that 9 '5 
 per cent, lived in towns. In Assam only 3 per cent, are urban, 
 in Bengal, 6 per cent. only 4 per cent, if Calcutta be not taken 
 into account ; in Bihar and Orissa, 3 '4 per cent. ; in Bombay, 18 
 per cent. ; in Burma, 9 '3 per cent., but the town here is often an 
 extended village and its population can hardly be accepted as 
 urban in its characteristics ; in the Central Provinces and Berar, 
 8 per cent. ; in Madras, 11*7 per cent., but here again the official 
 town is not always a town, but a village founded on the economy 
 of a village ; in the Punjab, 10'6 per cent. ; in the United Pro- 
 vinces, 10 '2 per cent. In Baroda, the proportion of the urban 
 population has actually declined, but in every case the figures are 
 not absolutely reliable owing to the prevalence of plague when 
 the census was taken having caused an exodus from towns. 
 
 1 In the Lyallpur district, for instance, a wheat-growing population of 
 272 to the square mile is maintained solely by irrigation on what used to be 
 a desert. 
 
 1 Census Report, 1911, Part I. p. 26.
 
 THE PEOPLE OF INDIA 275 
 
 With the exception of Bengal, where there is a large Mo- 
 hammedan agricultural population, the trading propensities of 
 Mohammedans draw them to urban areas, and the proportion of 
 town-dwelling Mohammedans is therefore larger than town-dwell- 
 ing Hindus. Parsis are town dwellers, and Christians are also 
 largely found in great centres of population. Where there is an 
 immigrant population, as the Hindus in Burma and the Hindus 
 and Sikhs in the North-West Province, it is to be found in towns 
 because it has come for trading purposes. It is found generally 
 that the Mongoloid peoples of the East are attracted by towns 
 more than the Dravidians, and the comparative largeness of the 
 city populations of the North-W T est is owing to the fact that the 
 walled city there was important for the fighting races which ruled 
 and built capitals, and that has created a habit amongst the people. 
 The racial proportions in towns do not correspond, therefore, with 
 those of the country as a whole. The same is true of religious 
 proportions. 
 
 Moreover, recent census figures show how steadily railway com- 
 munication is changing the town geography of India. The old 
 capitals and trading centres are being deserted. They are now 
 remote from the paths of men on the banks of deserted rivers, 
 or on roads and routes once full of a stream of traffic which no 
 longer flows upon them. 
 
 With a direct bearing upon electoral arrangements is also the 
 distribution of the educated population. In this respect, Burma 
 easily holds the premier place. Three hundred and fourteen per 
 thousand over the age of fifteen (the male proportion being 376) are 
 literate, and they are scattered over the country ; in Bengal and 
 Madras, the figure is 77 and 75 ; at the bottom of the graded list 
 are the United Provinces and the Central Provinces with Berar, 
 boasting of 34 and 33 respectively. Taking India as a whole, the 
 distribution of the literate population is three times as many males 
 and nine times as many females in the cities as in the general 
 population. Distributed amongst religions the Parsis come first 
 with 711 per thousand literates, or 831 of persons over fifteen years 
 of age. Of Buddhists, one in four is able to read and write, and 
 the Christians come close upon that. The significant feature of 
 Christian education, however, is that it is found to such a degree 
 amongst aborigines and outcastes that the proportion of literate
 
 276 APPENDIX I 
 
 people amongst these is three times as high as it is amongst Hindus, 
 and four times more than amongst Mohammedans. One in four 
 Indian Christian males is able to read and write. At the bottom 
 of the grade are the Mohammedans, only 69 per thousand of 
 whose males are literate.
 
 APPENDIX II 
 IMPERIAL AND PROVINCIAL REVENUES 
 
 THE subordination of local to central authority is best seen when 
 one studies the Indian system of finance. In 1833 the financial 
 administration of India was put absolutely into the hands of the 
 Central Government. But in 1870 Lord Mayo began a system 
 of decentralisation by handing over to the major Provinces con- 
 trol of police, jails, medical services, roads, education, and a few 
 other activities together with a fixed sum from which the charges 
 were to be met. Excesses in cost were to be found from savings 
 or from provincial taxes, and powers, very limited and entailing 
 much reference to the Central Government, were given to the 
 Provincial Governments to employ the necessary staffs. Lord 
 Lytton was responsible for a further step in advance, beginning 
 in 1877. The responsibilities of Provincial Governments were 
 extended ; and in order to induce them to practise economy and 
 develop their taxable resources, certain sources of income were 
 placed under their control. The Imperial Government kept the 
 total income from certain revenues, divided others with the Pro- 
 vincial Governments, and surrendered others altogether. But 
 each fifth year the arrangements were revised. In 1904 the system 
 was again revised, and the present one of " quasi-permanent 
 settlement" instituted. The theory of the present arrangement 
 is as follows. First of all, the Indian Government retains control 
 of the services which it thinks necessary, and the revenues required 
 to enable it to carry on its work opium, railways, posts and 
 telegraphs Provincial Governments look after what remains, and 
 receive a definite share of the revenues which they collect. Thus 
 the Provincial Exchequers receive all the income from the spend- 
 ing departments which they administer, they share equally with 
 the Indian Government the land revenue, excise, stamps, and 
 forest receipts, they have a share in the income of the larger ini- 
 
 277
 
 278 APPENDIX II 
 
 gation works and the total receipts from the minor provincial 
 ones. This system, designed for the purpose of throwing back 
 the Provincial Governments upon their own resources and of 
 encouraging them to develop their own incomes by improving 
 their Provinces, has been supplemented by substantial doles from 
 the Indian Exchequer to enable the Provinces to effect certain 
 improvements (as in police, agriculture, and education) without 
 delay. Minor changes that did not affect the general system 
 were made in 1912. 
 
 The method here explained is objectionable. The general con- 
 trol of the Central Government must, of course, remain so as to 
 co-ordinate the work of the Provincial Governments, but Pro- 
 vincial revenues should be mainly under the control of the Pro- 
 vinces, the contributions to the Central Government being more 
 and more of a tribute, whilst the system of doles and large grants 
 for specific purposes, which may be nothing more than a passing 
 hobby of some powerful member of the Executive Council of the 
 Governor-General, should be ended. It is liable to be wasteful 
 and is not always in accord with the most pressing needs of the 
 Provinces, and it allows the Central Government to exercise a 
 control on local administration which is properly resented in the 
 more progressive Provinces. 
 
 The changes that have been made have all tended to create 
 an independent provincial financial system, but the Central Govern- 
 ment has preserved its position as the sole budgeting authority. 
 There has been much to be said for this hitherto, although Provincial 
 Legislative Councils naturally object to it. Provincial autonomy 
 must be consistent with a policy of Indian development, and this 
 cannot be secured without central financial control. At present 
 there is friction, but I can see emerging from present conditions 
 of dispute an agreed and accepted settlement of existing diffi- 
 culties in administration when the Provinces will have secured in 
 practice a financial freedom which will not sacrifice the necessary 
 central co-ordination, and which will place them independent of 
 doles and so free them from unnecessary interference. 
 
 At the same time, it cannot be expected that self-respecting 
 Provincial Governments will surrender the right to pass their own 
 Budgets and be content to send them to the Government of India 
 to be incorporated into an Imperial Budget. So long as the
 
 IMPERIAL AND PROVINCIAL REVENUES 279 
 
 Executive Councils of the Provinces and of India are composed of 
 civilians belonging to the same service, and the official element on 
 the Provincial Councils is so strong, this objection may not be 
 felt very much ; but immediately the official power is weakened, 
 the representative bodies will want more financial liberty. The 
 solution that ought to be aimed at is, I think, such a modification 
 of the present system as will provide that Provincial Budgets 
 shall be submitted to the central financial authorities as advisors 
 whose powers of disallowance and modification shall be strictly 
 defined, and then returned for discussion and approval to the Pro- 
 vincial Legislatures. On the other hand, the Imperial revenue 
 should be derived from profitable services, like the railways, supple- 
 mented by demands upon the Provinces imposed in proportions to 
 be fixed from time to time between Province and Province. This 
 would put an end to the system of divided revenues, which has not 
 much to commend it. The Indian Government should continue 
 to be the authority for prescribing forms of accounts, methods of 
 levying taxation, borrowing on the open market, and for dealing 
 with all arrangements affecting the general financial administra- 
 tion, including customs and excise of India. 
 
 But when principles are settled, there are problems arising out 
 of their application. I see no valid objection at all to a system 
 by which the Imperial Government, having estimated the income 
 from its own resources, distributes amongst the Provinces their 
 share of the deficit and presents to them a rescript for the amount. 
 It is done in Local Government here, and can be adopted in India. 
 But there are certain revenues which come from impositions which, 
 in the interests of the whole of India, ought not to be varied from 
 Province to Province. The Land Tax, for instance, is a purely 
 provincial matter, and there is no necessity for it to be a uniform 
 proportion of product from one end of India to another. It is a 
 rent and should respond to the economic laws of rent. That is 
 not the case, however, with the Income Tax, which is a tax and 
 not a rent, and therefore should be uniform. Commercial Stamp 
 Duties are of the same nature. These latter ought to be imperial 
 revenues, and so the question arises how they can be collected. 
 If Imperial collectors may be regarded as out of the question, 
 there are still two methods open. The first is to make some grades 
 of provincial officers responsible and arrange with the Provinces
 
 280 APPENDIX II 
 
 for costs of collection, and the second is to make the Provinces 
 responsible and allow them a commission. The first seems the 
 better way. But in any event these are only matters of ways and 
 means. The important thing is to settle that Provincial finance 
 will be put upon an unassailable provincial basis, and that the 
 Imperial Government, instead of being the dispenser of financial 
 benefits, shall receive from the Provinces the means necessary to 
 make both sides of its Budget balance ; further, that the Provinces 
 shall be free to develop their 'own resources with a superimposed 
 control not for the purpose of hampering policy, but of securing 
 the necessary uniformity and equity and even that may soon be 
 dispensed with.
 
 APPENDIX in 
 THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT 
 
 THE growth of co-operation in India is phenomenal, though in 
 every sense of the word the movement is still in its infancy. In 
 fact, in some places it seems to have spread through the atmo- 
 sphere. It has been regarded as a panacea, like one of the many 
 drugs which cure everything, advertised in the Indian press. This 
 does not discredit the movement or throw any doubt upon its 
 stability. It has not only come to stay, but to cure, and no country 
 in the world can give a more sincere welcome to the co-operative 
 spirit than India. The Indian leans upon his family, his village, 
 his community. From the moment of his birth till that of his 
 death, he is under obligations of a social and personal character. 
 To him the virtues of co-operation and the spirit of interdepen- 
 dence are an inheritance and not an acquired habit. But the 
 co-operation of Indian life has degenerated. The wide world 
 market has destroyed the co-operative organisation of the village, 
 and the moneylender has more and more individualised credit. 
 Commercialism has split up the co-operative life of the people 
 into separate transactions of profit-making. But the soul of the 
 people has not gone. Their traditional modes of life are still 
 natural to them, and these, impelled by the pressure of exploita- 
 tion which is upon them, make them turn readily to the co- 
 operative promise. 
 
 The chief quarry from which information about co-operation is 
 to be dug is the annual reports issued by the Governments. 
 Figures are striking, but convey only an imperfect idea of what the 
 movement means. A few will, however, enable one to understand 
 both its size and its stability. In Bengal the societies of all kinds 
 increased in 1913-14 from 1,123 to 1,663, the members from 56,889 
 to 90,363, the working capital from Rs.4,607,301 to Rs.8,940,803. 
 In the United Provinces the report for 1914-15 records difficulties 
 
 281
 
 282 APPENDIX in 
 
 owing to crop failures, and the work of the year was not con- 
 spicuously successful. But the number of agricultural societies 
 increased from 2,560 to 2,716. The amounts borrowed from the 
 societies, totalling 27 lakhs of rupees, show their utility, as by that 
 much did they save cultivators from moneylenders. In the same 
 year the societies in the Central Provinces and Berar increased 
 from 2,213 to 2,297 ; the membership from 40,415 to 44,085, and 
 the working capital from 65 to 72 '5 lakhs of rupees. Here, again, 
 there were failures in crops to contend with. The Punjab, also 
 under difficulties, showed no increase in the number of societies 
 or of members, but did show an increase in working capital of 
 7 '25 lakhs of rupees. The stability which the Punjab Societies 
 evidenced is very gratifying, for the crisis through which they 
 passed was severe. 
 
 I studied the movement a little more closely in Madras. There 
 in 1905-6 there were only 27 societies with 2,733 members, a working 
 capital of Rs. 107,651, and a meagre reserve of Rs.689 ; in seven 
 years there were 1,078 societies, 82,713 members, Rs.9,548,750 
 capital, and Rs.443,000 in reserve. It is also noteworthy that 
 whereas in the first of these years 32 per cent, of the members were 
 agricultural, in the latter the percentage was 59. In this Province 
 we also see the tendency to use these societies as Savings' Banks, 
 for the deposits of non-members in the first year were 7 per 
 cent, of the capital, whereas in the latter year they were 26 per 
 cent. At first the Madras societies were helped by loans from 
 both the Imperial and the Provincial Governments, but these have 
 been discontinued because they are no longer required. To supply 
 the needs of the societies and to organise their credit are two 
 central banks the Madras Central Urban Bank, a joint-stock 
 society dealing only with registered Co-operative Societies, but 
 neither managed nor controlled by them ; and the Madura- 
 Ramnad Co-operative District Bank, Ld., which is a banking union 
 of societies in the district. Banks of the latter type will in time 
 control the grand finance of the movement so that the whole work 
 will be put upon a self-contained basis of self-government. 
 
 The societies themselves show different modes of working, and 
 greater uniformity is desirable. Some are of limited liability, others 
 are not some work with a large proportion of capital paid up, 
 others are not so particular ; but that they all supply a need is
 
 THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT 283 
 
 seen by the loans they have paid one hopes that in every case 
 it is a real need. In 1908-9 the agricultural societies alone gave 
 6,951 loans ; in 1912-13 they gave 27,835 the sum loaned in the 
 former year being Rs.694,462, in the latter Rs.2,306,447. The 
 non-agricultural societies gave in the same years 2,362 and 6,981 
 loans, of Rs.269,759 and Rs.842,764 respectively. 
 
 The Indian cultivator undoubtedly spends money and has no 
 notion of keeping out of debt. It was therefore feared that co- 
 operative credit, instead of being used to improve agriculture and 
 the lot of the peasant, would only widen the margin of credit and 
 be a new incentive to expenditure, and the Government tried, by 
 regulations defining the purposes for which loans were to be 
 granted, to protect the cultivator and the societies against this. 
 The result has been good. Fifty-six per cent, of the loans issued 
 in Madras in 1912-13 were for production purposes, 41 per cent, 
 to clear off old debts most of which bore usurious rates of interest, 
 and only 3 per cent, for non-productive expenditure. That is for 
 the agricultural societies. For the non-agricultural societies the 
 figures are almost as good, being 49, 38, and 13 respectively. The 
 non-productive borrowings were mainly for marriages, the ex- 
 penses for which in India (until there is a revolution in habits) 
 are not only essential, but cannot be cut down. 
 
 The redemption of old debt it most important, though some of 
 the superficial critics of the movement always seize upon the 
 figures under this heading to try to diminish the importance of 
 co-operation. Thus, not only is the income of the cultivator re- 
 lieved of heavy usurious charges sometimes up to nearly 40 
 per cent. not only is it possible for Him to pay off his borrowings 
 with interest on a considerably lower charge than his interest alone 
 used to impose, 1 but he becomes a freer man altogether, and, so far 
 from teaching him more extravagance, this freedom gives him a 
 chance of learning what economy means. In one of his reports 
 the registrar of the Punjab societies says regarding the conver- 
 sion of bunnia indebtedness into co-operative-society indebtedness : 
 " It will thus be seen that members have replaced one form of 
 
 1 " At a low computation, we save the agriculturists of India from an 
 absolutely unnecessary burden of at least 10 lakhs of rupees on every crore 
 of rupees lent out by the Co-operative Societies " (Sir E, Maolagan, Regi- 
 strars' Conference, 1912).
 
 284 APPENDIX III 
 
 indebtedness amounting to at least 30 lakhs by another amounting 
 to 72 lakhs, and they are still further this much to the good in 
 so far as the interest they pay on the new form of debt is very 
 much lighter than what they paid on the previous form, while 
 they have recovered cultivating possession of valuable ancestral 
 lands amounting to no less than 8,000 acres." That is a very strik- 
 ing statement showing the back-breaking oppressiveness of the 
 moneylender upon the Indian cultivator. 
 
 Whoever visits Conjeeveram to see its famous temples would do 
 well to direct his steps to the workshops of the Co-operative Pro- 
 ductive Society. It is for weavers. The people one meets there 
 are imbued with the co-operative idea exactly like the workmen 
 in a similar factory here. The society supplies looms, raw material, 
 and capital ; it buys the products of its members and sells them 
 to the best advantage. It divides its profits between its reserve 
 funds, its management, and its weavers, and it employs the attrac- 
 tions of a bonus to encourage regularity in habits and excellence 
 in work. It has had its ups and downs, but the time I spent 
 looking round it and hearing from its moving spirits what their 
 hopes and fears were was full of the most lively interest. 
 
 There are also co-operative trading societies, but I found these 
 still in a struggling infancy, experimenting to find a field and a 
 method, and complaining of the hardness of their task. But of 
 the future I have no doubt, whatever disappointments may inter- 
 vene between now and final success. In time, the usurious money- 
 lender will go, the parasitic middleman will go, and co-operation 
 will take their place in the interests! of the cultivator and the 
 craftsman.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Adamson, Sir Harvey, on Judicial and 
 
 Executive Separation, 202 fn., 
 
 203 
 Administration of justice in India, 
 
 192-212 
 
 Aga Khan, the, 74 
 Agriculture, Indian, 274 ; and see 
 
 Land Tax 
 Agriculturists' Relief Act (1879), 209, 
 
 210 
 
 Ahmed Khan, Sir Syed, 7, 12, 74 
 Akbar, land tax of, 135, 136 
 Alighur, foundation of 9, 12, 176 
 American colonies, loss of the, 194 
 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 222 
 Ancient Indian Education (Rev. F. E. 
 
 Keay), 160fn. 
 Andrews, author of Renaissance in 
 
 India, 262, 262 fn. 
 Argyll, Duke of, on the Council, 48, 
 
 49, 50 
 Arnott, Mr. (editor Calcutta Journal), 
 
 deportation of, 222 
 Art, Indian, 24, 25, 26, 180, 245 
 
 in Native States, 119 
 Arya Samaj, the, 235-41, 250 
 official misunderstanding of, 241 
 
 and caste, 256, 260, 261 
 Lajpat Rai on, 260 fn. 
 Azarian, Rev. V. S. (Indian Bishop 
 
 of Madras), 263 
 
 Baden -Powell, author of The Indian 
 
 VUlaqe Community, 254 fn. 
 Bande Mataram, 18, 26 
 Banerjea, Surendranath, 17, 19 
 Bank, Indian, 205-6 
 Bar, the Indian, 197, 197 fn. 
 Benares, Hindu University, 176, 181, 
 189, 190 
 
 sacred city, 247 
 Bengalee, The, 222, 224 
 Bengal, revival of Hinduism, 242 
 
 revolutionary movement in, 243 
 
 Bengal Tenancy Acts, 140 
 
 Besant, Mrs., 19; India; a Nation 
 
 quoted, 228, 229 
 the Theosophical Society, 246 
 Bipin Chandra Pal, 18 
 Board of Control, the, 46 
 
 made a Council (q.v.), 46 
 Bombay Association, 3 
 Bose, Dr., 26, 180, 245 
 Brahmo Samaj, the, 2, 234, 236, 
 
 247 fn., 250 
 and caste, 260, 261 
 Bright, John, on equality of Indians, 
 
 102 
 Broderick, Mr. (Secretary of India), 
 
 58 
 Buckingham, Duke of (Governor of 
 
 Madras, 1877), 92 fn. 
 Buckingham, Mr. (editor, Calcutta 
 
 Journal), deportation of, 222, 
 
 229 
 
 Budget Committee, French, 124 
 Budget, the Indian, 43, 45, 51, 125, 
 
 134 
 East India Company and, 125 
 
 expenditure, 145-98 
 Land Tax, 134-44 
 Imperial and Prov. Revenue, 277- 
 
 84 
 Burgoyne, General, on Company 
 
 justice, 198 
 
 Burke, Edmund, on Company Govern- 
 ment, 125 
 
 effect on Indian writing, 224 
 Burma, 71, 72, 79, 88, 275 
 
 Calcutta Corporation, 71 
 
 High Court, 193, 195, 199, 205-7 
 housing, 142 
 Indian Museum in, 179 
 Oriental Club, 171 
 Trades Association, 71 
 University, 71, 173, 175fn., 183, 
 190 
 
 285
 
 286 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Calcutta Journal, deportation of 
 
 editors, 222, 229 
 Canada and Indian immigration, 214, 
 
 215, 216 
 Canning, Lord (Viceroy, 1858-62), 
 
 56, 61, 62, 222 
 Capital and Labour, conflict in, 
 
 270 
 
 Carey, 2 
 Carstairs, R., " Little World of an 
 
 Indian district officer," 211 fn. 
 Caste, dominating influence in Indian 
 
 life, 255 
 
 formation of new, 255 
 modified by education, 256 
 and missionaries, 256 fn., 257 
 and mass conversion, 257 
 Chailley, Joseph, on the Congress, 
 
 21, 120 fn. 
 
 Chakravarrti, Tarachand, 3 
 Chamberlain, Austen, 45, 266 
 Chandra Sikhar Deb, 3 
 Charter Act (1883), 83 
 Chatham, on India, 39 
 Chatterji, Bankim Chandra, 26 
 Christianity in India, 247-63 
 mass conversion, 257-60 
 among the outcastes, 252, 252 fn., 
 
 255-60 
 statistics, 252 
 and Education, 276, 275 
 Civil Service, the Indian, 44, 63-6, 
 
 95-113 
 
 provincial control, 81, 82, 86, 87 
 examination test for, 98-113 
 Indians in, 102-13 
 covenanted and uncovenanted ser- 
 vices, 103 
 
 " listed posts," in, 104, 105 
 and Montagu- Chelmsford Report, 
 
 113 
 
 cost of, 145-50 
 and the administration of justice, 
 
 196-207 
 
 Clark, Sir Wm., 63 
 Class struggle in India, 133, 134, 
 
 270 
 
 Clive, 32, 38, 41, 95, 124 fn., 126 
 Collector, the, 95-101 
 
 manifesto against Montagu -Chelms- 
 ford Report, 95 
 and the administration of justice, 
 
 196, 199-204 
 Colleges, Chiefs, 116 
 Commander-in-Chief, the, member 
 of Council, 60, 62 
 
 Comrade, 13, 223, 225 fn., 229 
 
 Connemara, Lord, 5 
 
 Co-operative movement, the, 137, 
 
 187, 281-4 
 Cornwallis, Lord, first political 
 
 governor, 55, 61, 96 
 permanent settlement, 135, 136 
 and the collector, 201 
 Cotton duties, 43, 51, 57, 128-34 
 Council, the Executive, 60-7, 269 
 argument for abolition, 49-52 
 cotton duties in, 131 
 Duke of Argyll on, 48 
 in Montagu-Chelmsford Report, 
 
 66 
 Legislative, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68-78, 
 
 124, 131, 269 
 
 Lord Morley on, 45 fn., 48 fn. 
 pay of members of, 47, 52, 146 
 Criminal Law (Amendment) Acts 
 
 (1919), 226, 229 
 Cromer, Lord, 47 
 
 Cromwell, India a " national inter- 
 est," 37 
 
 Curzon,Lord( Viceroy, 1899 1904-5), 
 11, 15, 16, 56, 58, 85 fn., 188,240 
 centralisation under, 101, 117 
 Customs, Indian, 126-34 
 
 Dadabhoy, Hon. Mr., on the Indian 
 
 Press Act (1910), 225 fn. 
 Dalhousie, Lord, and annexation, 
 
 42, 58, 68, 115 
 Deb, Chandra Sikhar, 3 
 Debt, Indian, 149, 150, 151 
 Decentralisation Commission Report, 
 
 62, 63 fn., 83, 91 and fn. 
 Delhi, seat of Indian Government, 
 
 1912, 56, 56 fn., 117, 118 
 Digby, Mr., on " the drain," 148 
 Disraeli, Bill of (1858), 60 fn. 
 
 and Empire of India, 115 
 " Drain," the, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153 
 Dufferin, Lord (Viceroy, 1884-8), 5 
 Durand, Sir H. M., Lt.-Gov. of 
 
 Punjab, 84 
 
 Dutch trade policy, 33, 37 
 Dutt, Romesh Chunder, 203 fn. 
 Dyananda A-V College (Lahore), 238 
 Dyananda Saraswati (founder of 
 
 the Arya Samaj), 235, 236, 237 
 
 East India Company, trading history, 
 29-33
 
 INDEX 
 
 287 
 
 East India Company (contd.) : 
 
 Adam Smith on, 34, 125 
 
 Parliamentary control, 38-43 
 
 Chatham on, 39 
 
 Wellesley on, 41 
 
 Palmerston, 41 
 
 finance of, 124-6, 235 
 
 and justice, 193-8 
 Economic penetration, 31 
 Education, Indian, 159-91, 178-9,275 
 
 and self-government, 159, 189 
 
 as franchise for, 74, 75 
 
 college discipline, 172, 173 
 
 Education in British India (Howell), 
 186 
 
 education of women, 190-1 
 
 elementary schools, 167, 184, 185 
 
 future of English methods, 1 69 seq. 
 
 in Native States, 119 
 
 James Mills's dispatch, 162 
 
 Lord Moira's minute, 162, 173fn. 
 174 
 
 Macaulay's minute, 1 63-7 
 
 Sir C. Grant on, 160-2, 172, 174, 
 182, 221 
 
 Sir D. McLeod on, 1 66 
 
 Sir C. Wood's dispatch, 178, 182 
 
 the college system, 181 seq. 
 
 the examination fetish, 177 seq. 
 
 under the E. I. company, 160 
 Ekdam, suppression of, 228 
 Elections in India, 269, 269 fn. 
 Elgin, Lord (Viceroy, 1894-9), 15, 62 
 Emigration, Indian, to S. Africa, 213, 
 216-17, 217 fn. 
 
 to Canada, 214-6 
 
 to U. States, 217, 218, 219 
 
 to Australia, 217, 218 
 
 indentured, 218 
 
 and self-government, 219, 220 
 Examinations, simultaneous, 4, 102, 
 
 103, 108, 113 
 Executive and Judiciary, 193-207 
 
 argument for separation, 199-207 
 
 Sir Harvey Adamson on, 202 fn., 
 203 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere, on, 202 fn. 
 
 P. C. Miller on, 201 fn., 204 fn. 
 
 R. C. Dutt on, 203 fn. 
 Executive and Legislature, relations 
 of, 65, 67, 68, 71, 90, 91 
 
 in Montagu -Chehnsford report, 91, 
 
 93, 94 
 Expenditure, 145-58 
 
 cost of Government, 145-8, 150 
 military, 126, 153-6 
 
 Extra-territoriality of Indian factories 
 under the E. Indian Company, 
 193 
 
 Factory system in India, 132, 133, 193 
 Farquhar, J. N., The Crown of 
 
 Hinduism, 242, 251 fn. 
 Finance, 47, 48, 61, 62, 63, 89, 123-58 
 
 tariffs, 123-34 
 
 Hardinge on " new angle of vision," 
 136fn. 
 
 the dilemma of, 158 
 
 expenditure 144-58 
 
 revenue increase, 158 
 Fiscal Policy, Indian, 128-34 
 
 Nationalist, 132, 133 
 Fleetwood- Wilson, Sir Guy, 63 
 Francis, Philip, 61 
 French, in India, 29, 32 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, on judicial and 
 executive separation, 202 fn. 
 
 Gait Circular, the, 260 
 
 Gandhi, Mr., 26 
 
 Ghose, Dr. Rashbehary, 17 
 
 Ghose, Arabinda, 18, 26, 243 
 
 Oita, The, 235, 242 
 
 Gladstone, Mr. and Indian Princes, 
 
 115 
 Gokhale.Mr., 19,26, 155-6, 182, 185, 
 
 217, 246 
 Government of India Act of 1833, 
 
 41, 42, 55, 102, 106 
 of 1858, 43, 46 48 fn. 
 of 1870, 106 
 of 1914, 49 
 
 Grant, Sir Charles, pioneer of educa- 
 tion in India, 160, 161, 162, 172, 
 174, 182, 221 
 Gregory, Lady, performance of her 
 
 plays in the Punjab, 25 
 Gurukul (at Hardwar), 237, 238, 239, 
 240, 245 
 
 Hamilton, Lord George, Memorial to, 
 
 1899, 199, 204 fn. 
 Har Dyal, 18, 243 
 Hardinge, Lord (Viceroy , 1 9 1 0- 1 5- 16 ), 
 
 59^63, 117 
 and Indians in Canada, 214; in 
 
 S. Africa, 217 
 and cotton duties, 131 fn. 
 and Delhi, 117
 
 288 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hare, David, 2, 162, 182 
 Harman Singh, Raja Sir, 262 
 Hartington, Lord, and Indian Free 
 
 trade, 129 
 Hastings, Lord, and the Indian press, 
 
 221 222 
 Hastings, Warren, 40, 55, 61, 83, 95, 
 
 96, 125, 127, 160, 193, 195, 200 
 Hobhouse, Lord, Secretary of State, 
 
 Memorial on Indian justice, 199, 
 
 204 fn. 
 
 Home Rule League, 19 
 Hornel, Mr., on primary education, 
 
 185 
 Horniman, Mr., editor of Bombay 
 
 Chronicle, deportation of, 223 fn. 
 Housing in Bombay and Calcutta, 
 
 133, 142, 270 
 Hume, Allan Octavian (founder of 
 
 National Congress), 4, 5, 265 fn. 
 Hunter, Sir William (The Old Mis- 
 sionary], 249, 250 
 Hyderabad, Nizam of, 114 
 
 IlbertBill, 1,3 
 
 Ilbert, Sir C. P. The Government of 
 
 India, 39 fn. 
 Imperial Conferences, India at, 219, 
 
 219 fn. 
 Income Tax, 126, 127, 128 
 
 in Native States, 119 
 
 evasion of, 127, 128, 136 
 
 alternative to, 128, 129 
 India (weekly journal), 4 
 India and the Empire, 213-20 
 
 and S. Africa, 213 
 
 and League of Nations, 220 
 
 population, 273-76 
 India Councils Act (1909), 11, 17, 66, 
 70, 70 fn., 85 fn. 
 
 (1861), 88 
 
 Indian Finance (Welby Commis- 
 sion), 1900, 148, 149, 155, 156 
 Indian Patrol, The, 222 
 Indian National Congress, 3, 19, 22 
 
 and Indian Civil Service, 146 
 
 Government attitude to, 5, 6 
 
 Mohammedan attitude, 7, 8-13 
 
 left wing, 16 
 
 extremists in, 15, 17 
 
 effects of war, 19 
 
 and Montagu-Chelmsford, 19 
 
 and the Press, 223-232 
 
 Japan, fiscal policy, 134 
 
 Japan (contd.) : 
 
 and Eastern immigrants, 217 
 Anglo- Japanese Alliance, 218 
 
 Jinnah (Mr.), Nationalist leader, 246 
 
 Judicial statistics, 207 
 
 Jute, 128, 133, 151, 187 
 
 Keshub Chunder Sen, 247 fn. 
 Kimberley, Lord, opposes extension 
 
 of Bengal Land Taxation system, 
 
 137 
 King, W. L. Mackenzie, and Indian 
 
 immigration to Canada, 215 
 Kitchener, Lord, 58 
 Komagata Maru Case, 214, 215, 216 
 Lord Hardinge on, 214 
 
 Lajpat Rai, 17, 238 fn., 239 
 Lancashire and the Indian open door, 
 
 128, 129, 130, 130 fn., 131 
 Land Alienation Act (1900), 209, 210 
 Land Legislation, effect of British, 
 
 209,210,211 
 Land Taxation, in Native States, 119, 
 
 126, 134-44 
 
 land tax a rent, 135, 140, 141 
 Bengal system, 136, 137 
 Nationalist opinion, 140, 141 
 proposals for reform, 143, 144 
 increased yield, 1 58 
 Lawrence, Sir John, 85, 250 
 Lewis, Sir G. C., on Parliamentary 
 
 control of India, 43 
 Lytton, Lord (Viceroy 1876-80), 3,57, 
 92 fn., 103, 105, 222 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 2, 108, 125 fn. 
 minute on Indian Education, 163-7, 
 
 182, 176, 178, 179, 224 
 on Indian Press, 231 
 
 MacDonnell, Lord, 86 fn. 
 
 Maclagan, Sir E., on Co-operative 
 Finance, 283 fn. 
 
 Madras Mail, 230 
 
 Madras, separation of executive and 
 judicial functions, 200 
 
 Mayo, Lord (Viceroy, 1869-72), cor- 
 respondence with Duke of 
 Argyll, 50 
 
 McLeod, Sir Donald, on Indian 
 Education, 166 
 
 Mehta, Sir Pherosesha, 19, 246 
 
 Mesopotamia Report, 45, 266 
 
 Meston, Sir James, 6 fn., 240 fn.
 
 INDEX 
 
 289 
 
 Metcalfe, Sir Charles, and the Indian 
 
 Press Censorship, 222 
 Mill, James, dispatch on Indian 
 
 Education, 162, 167, 179 
 Mill, J. S., economic effect of foreign 
 
 tribute, 163 
 
 Miller, P. C., on Judicial and Execu- 
 tive separation, 201 fn., 204 fn. 
 Minto, Lord (Viceroy, 1905-10), 44, 
 
 48 fn., 57, 69, 117 
 Mirror of Intelligence, first vernacular 
 
 paper, 221 
 Missionaries, Christian, in India, 2, 
 
 8, 242, 249-53 
 and caste, 257 
 and the Nationalist Movement, 
 
 261, 262, 263 
 
 younger school of, 242, 262 
 Mohammedan, in the Punjab, 261 
 Modern Review, The, 180 
 Moghul Empire, 29, 31 
 
 trade taxes, 127 
 
 Mohammedans (see Religion and 
 
 Nationalism), and the Mutiny, 7 
 
 attitude to National Congress, 7, 8, 
 
 10, 11 
 
 education, 8, 9, 10, 276 
 relation to Hindus, 7, 10,11,12 fn., 
 
 13, 74, 75, 97, 118,264 
 press, 13 
 missionaries, 261 
 illiterates among, 276 
 Moira, Lord, minute on Education 
 
 (1815), 162, 173 fn., 174 
 Moneylenders, 137, 138, 142, 208, 209 
 Montagu- Chelmsford Report, i 67, 272 
 and the Congress, 19, 44 
 and the Legislative Council, 66 
 and basis of representation, 75, 76 
 and the relation of Executive and 
 
 Legislature, 91, 93 
 checks, 93-4 
 
 Collectors' manifesto, 195 
 and the Civil Service, 113 
 Moon of Intelligence, first native 
 
 paper, 221 
 Morison, Sir Theodore, Indian papers 
 
 run at a loss, 224 
 Morley, Lord, Secretary for India, 15, 
 
 17, 18, 44, 46 fn., 47, 48 fn., 57, 
 58, 66, 70, 70 fn., 131 
 
 reforms, 226 
 Moslem League (founded 1912), 13, 
 
 18, 74 
 
 and Indian National Congress, 223 
 Mukerji, Sir R. N., 26, 180 
 
 19 
 
 Munshi Ram, 237, 239 
 
 Mutiny, Indian, 7, 16, 21, 35, 42, 102, 
 
 127, 156, 222, 225 
 Mysore, Hindus and Mohammedan* 
 
 in, 12 fn., 
 education in, 119 
 
 Nair, Sir Sankaran, 63, 64, 183 
 
 Naoroji, Dadabhai, 109 
 on the " Drain," 148, 149 
 on Indian defence, 154, 246 
 
 Nationalism, Indian, and tariff 
 
 policy, 132, 133 
 rise of, 1-27 
 and the press, 223 
 and education, 180 seq., 238-40 
 a religious movement, 24, 234-63 
 in art and literature, 24-5 
 and Land Taxation, 140, 141 
 
 Native judges, 196, 198, 198fn. 
 
 Native States, 12 fn., 58, 44-122 
 Congress of rulers, 78, 121 
 under Curzon, 117 
 Hardinge policy, 117, 118 
 choice of Residents, 120 
 self-government and, 120 
 
 New India, case of, 226 fn. 
 Mrs. Besant on, 229, 230 
 
 North, Lord (Regulating Act of), 60 
 (see Regulating Act, 1773) 
 
 Northbrook, Lord (Viceroy, 1872-6), 
 57, 58 
 
 Nuncomar, 125 
 
 Outcastes, the, 250, 252 fn., 263 
 and the Arya Sainaj, 260, 261 
 effect of Gait circular, 260 
 education and, 262, 263 
 and representative government, 2 63 
 
 Pal, Bipin Chandra, 18, 242 
 Palmerston, Lord, on the Act of 1 833 
 
 41 
 
 on the Bill of 1858, 43 
 Parliament, India in, 37-53 
 Partition of Bengal, effect of, 15, 18, 
 
 79 
 
 Pensions, cost of, 145, 146, 150 
 Police Commission Report (1860), 
 
 202 fn., 204 fn. 
 Bengal, Committee on, Report 
 
 (1838), 204 fn.
 
 290 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Presidencies, origin of Provinces, 79 
 Press, Indian, 3, 13, 221-33 
 control of, 161 
 and self-government, 232-3 
 censorship, 221, 222, 224-30 
 deportation of editors, 222, 223, 
 
 229 
 attitude of Anglo-Indian papers, 
 
 222, 223 
 
 native press and National Con- 
 gress, 223 
 repression, 224-31 
 Macaulay on, 231 
 Press law, Indian (1910), 224, 226, 
 
 225 fn., 226-31, 233 
 prosecutions under, 227, 228 
 Proclamation of 1858, 56, 102, 106 
 Protection, see Cotton duties 
 Provinces, the, 79-94 
 
 civil service control of, 81, 82 
 Governors, 79-87 
 the Lieutenant- Governor, 83, 84, 85 
 legislatures, 88-94 
 Chief Commissioners, 85 
 Provincial services, the, 196 
 Public services, Indian, Report on 
 
 (1917), 200 fn. 
 Public Service Commission, 1886-7, 
 
 104, 107 
 1912, 1 12, 1 13, 146, 157 fn., 196 fn., 
 
 197fn., 219fn. 
 Punjab, annexation of, 137 
 mortgaging of land, 138 
 Pttnjabee, The, 222 
 
 Railways, Indian, 161, 152, 152 fn., 
 
 275 
 
 Ram Deva, 237 
 Rammohan Roy, 3, 9, 221 
 Ramtanu Lahiri (Life of), 2 fn., 3 fn. 
 Ray, Dr. P. C., 26, 176, 245 
 Reay, Lord (Governor of Bombay), 5 
 Regulating Act (1773), 39, 55, 60, 61, 
 193, 194 
 
 (1784), 65, 60 
 
 Religion and Nationalism, 24, 234-63 
 Representation, on Legislative 
 Councils, 71, 131 
 
 system of, in India, 72, 73 
 
 of Mohammedans, 74, 75 
 
 tests for, 75 
 
 of trade, 73, 76, 77 
 
 proportional, 76 
 Revenue, Indian, 126 
 
 the Land Tax, 135-44 
 
 Revenue (contd.) : 
 
 and cotton duties, 128-34 
 and cost of district justice, 203, 204 
 Imperial and Provincial, 276-80 
 and secretary's salary, 45 
 Reynolds, novels of Mr., 248 
 Rich, Mr., on simultaneous ex- 
 aminations, 102 
 
 Ripon, Lord (Viceroy, 1880-84), 3, 6 
 Roe, Sir Thomas, 30 fn., 31, 124 
 Rowlatt Acts (see Criminal Law 
 
 (Amendment Acts) 
 Rudra, Principal, 21, 183 
 Rupee, exchange value of, 130, 156-8 
 exchange compensation allow- 
 ance, 150, 156, 157 
 Russell, Lord John on 1858 Bill, 43 
 
 Salaries, Secretary of State's, 45, 47 
 
 range of Indian, 146 
 Salisbury, Lord, 50, 51, 57, 130 fn. 
 Salt Tax, 22, 126, 127, 158 
 Secretary of State, the, 44-53, 61 
 his salary, 45, 47 
 Parliamentary control, limitation 
 
 of, over, 45 
 his Council, 46-50, 52 
 Self-government, 231-3, 262, 263, 
 
 267-72 
 
 and education, 159, 189 
 and emigration, 219, 220 
 and military defence, 155, 156 
 and the " Drain," 153 
 and the press, 231-3 
 attitude of chiefs, 120 
 basis of representation, 73, 123 
 Dominion Home Rule, 112 
 Fiscal Policy and, 123 
 progress towards, 19, 36 
 Servants of India, The, 261 
 Settlement, the Permanent, 135, 136, 
 
 140, 143,209 
 Sharrock, Rev. J. A., author of 
 
 South Indian Memories, 249 
 and of Hinduism Ancient and 
 
 Modern, 256 
 on caste, 257 fn. 
 Sinha(Lord), and the 1910 Press Act, 
 
 226 
 
 Smith, Adam, on Company Govern- 
 ment, 34, 125 
 Social legislation, backwardness of, 
 
 133 
 
 Social Reform movement in India, 
 270, 271
 
 INDEX 
 
 291 
 
 Social Reform (contd.) : 
 
 and outcastes, 256 
 Social Service League (Bombay), 271 
 S. Africa and Indian immigration, 
 
 58, 213, 216, 217, 217 fn. 
 Spencer, Herbert, read by Hindus, 248 
 Sri Krishna, 242 
 Sri Sankaracharya, 242 
 Stanhope, Philip, on Lancashire 
 
 cotton duties, 130 fn. 
 Stanley, Lord, 102 
 Statesman, The, 222 
 Strachey, Sir John, on the unity of 
 
 India, 28, 33 
 
 on native judges, 1 98 fn. 
 Sydenham, Lord, 85 fn. 
 Syed Ahmed Khan (Sir), 7, 12, 74 
 
 Tagore, Dwarkanath, 3 
 Tagore, Gogendranath, 245 
 Tagore, Babindranath, 26, 26, 245 
 Tagore School of Art, 24, 180 
 Tarjuman, suppression of, 228 
 Tata, Sir Ratan, 26 
 Telang, Mr., 5, 6, 182 
 Temple, Sir Richard, Governor of 
 
 Bombay, 80 
 Thomson, George, 3 
 
 Tilak, Mr., 17, 18, 23, 229, 426 
 Trade Unionism in India, 134, 271 
 
 and fiscal policy, 134 
 Treaty with Tibet, 58 
 Tyabji, Budrudin, 11, 246 
 
 United Provinces, Council for, 85 fn. 
 
 Viceroy, the, 54-9, 94 
 his Council, 60-7, 269 
 and Provincial governors, 82, 83, 84 
 importance of, in reform, 269 
 
 War, effect on Indian politics, 1 9, 264, 
 
 265 
 
 on tax-payer, 157 
 and Finance (cotton duties, 130), 
 
 131 
 and the National movement, 265, 
 
 265 fn. 
 
 employment of Indian troops, 265 
 Wealth, growth of, 127, 128 
 Wedderburn, Sir William, 5 fn. 
 Wellesley, Lord, forward policy of, 
 
 41, 42 
 
 Wood, Sir Charles, on Indian educa- 
 tion, 178, 182
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD. 
 LONDON AND AYLESBXJBY.
 
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