(1899) imperial rule in india: being an examination of the principles proper to the government of...

8/9/2019 (1899) Imperial Rule in India: Being an Examination of the Principles Proper to the Government of Dependencies

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IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIA


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CONSTABLE'S HAND ATLAS OF INDIA. Preparedunder the direction of J. ,G. BARTHOLOMEW, F.R.G.S. Inb ilf-moroccoj gilt top, I4s." It is tolerably safe to predict that no sensible traveller

will go to India in future without providing himsel" with'Constable's Hand Atlas of India/ INothing half so useful hasbeen done for many years to help both the traveller in Indiaand the student at home." A

Uniform with the aboveCONSTABLE'S HAND - GAZETTEER OF INDIA. Com-

piled under the direction of J. G. BARTHOLOMEW, F.R.G.S.Crown 8vo, half-morocco, IDS. 6d."A most useful reference book." Englishman.


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IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIABEING AN EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES

PROPER TO THE GOVERNMENTOF DEPENDENCIES

THEODORE MORISON

WESTMINSTERARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co.2 WHITEHALL GARDENS.

1899


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TO MY WIFE


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PREFACEALTHOUGH an author cannot pretend to dictatewhat use shall be made of the ideas he puts for-

ward, I should Tke at the outset to state explicitlythat my infention has not been to furnish reaction-aries with another argument against free institutions.Those who believe that popular government isthe highest form of political organization to whichmankind has yet attained, may still be compelledto recognise fhat certain peoples are not yet cap-able of managing their own affairs. Admirers ofrepresentative institutions have hitherto chiefly con-perned themselves with fully developed nationalities,and have not been to the trouble of explaininghow less perfectly homogeneous peoples are to fitthemselves for that form of government.

This book is intended to suggest how the transi-tion from one phase of political development toanother may be effected ; and from a passing refer-en^e to the subject in his "Liberty", I gather thatthe solution I have proposed would not have beenrepugnant to Mill himself. For people in this earlystage of development there is, he says, nothingbut implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charle-magne if they are so fortunate as to find one.M. A.-O. College,

Aligarh,N. W. P.


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CONTENTSCHAP. v PAGE

I THE FIRST POSTULATE OF INDIAN INDE7ENDENCE III PSEUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 12

III ON THE FORMATION OF NATIONALITIES .... 32IV THE EMPRESS OF INDIA 42V REGARDING SOME MAXIMS OF POPULAR GOVERN-

MENT 55VI PUBLIC OPINION IN INDIA. . . ' 68VII THE COLLECTOR 86yill THE PRESS IN INDIA 96IX EDUCATION 113X THE PART OF THE EMPRESS IN THE ADMINISTRA-

TION OF INDIA 133


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CHAPTER ITHE FIRST POSTULATE OF INDIAN INDEPENDENCE

IN the background of every Englishman's mindis probably to be found the conviction that it isour duty so to govern India that she may one daybe able to govern herself, and as an autonomousUnit take her place in the great confederation ofthe British Empire. This is the ultimate justificationof our Asiatic dominion, and a statesman who ven-tured to advocate the alternative policy that Indiashould be kept in a state of perpetual vassalage,as the milch cow of England, would be hootedfrom public life.No doubt the benevolent intentions of the Britishelectorate are vaguely conceived and liable to con-siderable modification in the future; no reasonableman supposes that the time for executing themhas come, or is likely soon to come, within therange of practical politics; but once convinced ofthS ultimate objective of their policy, I maintainthat it is the duty of the English people in whosehands lie the destinies of India, to examine, from


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2 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAtime to time, the general tendency of their admi-nistrative measures, and to consider whether thepolicy which their agents in the East are pursuing,is preparing the way for the eventual emancipationof India. The test of a truly liberal policy shouldbe that it tends eventually, and In the long run,to p'lt the people of India in a position to managetheir own affairs.I do not believe that the people of India are atpresent capable of erecting a government of theirown, nor do I think that if the present policy iscontinued they are on the way to become so ; andyet I recognise that the martial races of India arebrave and make excellent soldiers, that the nativecivilians are possessed of great intelligence andthat they have proved on the Bench of every HighCourt in India that they are capable of dischargingthe highest judicial functions. The general level ofeducation is no doubt much lower than in Franceor England, but in order to bring the autonomy ofIndia within the range of practical politics the stand-ard of civilization required is not that of Franceor England, but rather of Bulgaria or Mexico ; andIndia is not so far behind either of these nationsthat upon these grounds her emancipation can beindefinitely postponed.But India is wanting in the one qualificationessential to independence, inasmuch as she pos-sesses no sentiment of nationality. Where this sen-timent exists it is possible that a people in a


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THE FIRST POSTULATE 3comparatively low state of civilization may maintainan independent existence, but where it is absentneither bravery, intelligence nor civilization availsto keep off anarchy, which would lay the peopleat the feet of the first invader.

That India is neither a nation like France, nora collection of nations like Europe, hardly ne^dsdemonstration. If the strong hand of England werewithdrawn, the different races and creeds which arescattered up and down her towns and villages wouldnever agree to a common line of action. It is justconceivable th?t they might unite to throw off theEnglish yoke, but they would not consent for longto subordinate their racial and religious jealousiesto the common good; they might under greatprovocation form a strong opposition ; they nevercould frame an administration. It is true that thereare sentiments which possibly contain the germs ofnationality : the Muhamadans, the Sikhs, the Parsisand some Hindu castes are knit together by ties whichresemble in some ways the ties of nationality ; but theMuhamadans, the Sikhs and others are not congre-gated in definite localities, but are dispersed about thecountry, unassimilated fragments in a heterogeneousconglomerate. Hence it comes that in India suchnational sentiments as do exist are not associatedwith any territorial limits; there is no division ofthe Indian soil which the Muhamadan or Parsi cancall his own or in which he can claim an interest,to which another people has not as good a right.


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4 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAThe Muhamadans a/e in some ways the most definiteand homogeneous political unit in India; they areheirs of a common civilization and common tradi-tions of glory, and they are conscious to an extentunsurpassed in India of their corporate existence.If the 57 million Muhamadans of India were allcollected in one province or tract of country, iffor instance, the north of India frc.n Peshawar toAgra were inhabited exclusively by Muhamadans,a national spirit associated with those territoriallimits would already be in process of formation,which would suggest a partial solution of the presentproblem. But the Muhamadans are, as a matter offact, scattered in isolated groups all over the penin-sula, and in consequence such sentiment of natio-nality as they do possess, links them not withSikhs and Bengalis, with whom they share thesoil, but with their coreligionists wherever theyare found, be it in Arabia or Persia or withinthe frontiers of India. So little do the Muhamad-ans regard India as their own country that theirgreat poet, Hali, has compared his people to guestswho have outstayed their welcome, and lament-ed that they ever left their native homes forIndia :

" Morning and evening our eyes now beholdthat which we thought would be the end of thygracious reception." Quickly hast thou broken all thy promises and


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THE FIRST POSTULATE 5pledges; O India, we were tcld aright that thouwast faithless."From every side we hear thee say that theguest is unwelcome who tarries Jong."

"Hast thou ^ver beheld the men of Islam in thisplight before ? Was .his the Islam which we broughtwith us from Arabia?

" Oh Mill of revolving Time, thou hast ground ussmall; enough; have done; what boots it thee togrind us further ?"

" As the host of the Greeks turned back from thyborder (India), would that in like manner we hadturned back baffled from thy door. M

(Shikwah Hind V. M. Altaf Hosain Hali.)The views held by the Muhamadans (certainly

the most aggressive and truculent of the peoplesof India) are alone sufficient to prevent the esta-blishment of an independent Indian Government.Were the Afghan to descend from the north uponan autonomous India, the Muhamadans, instead ofuniting with the Sikhs and Hindus to repel him,would be drawn by all the ties of kinship andreligion to join his flag.


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6 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAThe sentiment of nationality in which India is

wanting is likely to be of greater importance inthe future than it has ever been in the past. Thepresent developrrent of the world seems to be inthe direction of states which are firmly knittogether by the bonds of nationality, and Indiamav find herself surrounded by powers which aremore compact and homogeneous *han herself byreason of the possession of this sentiment. In astruggle with these states India, loosely and imper-fectly united, would inevitably succumb. * Thedevelopment of a national sentiment is an exampleof the "integration of the organism which is theresult of the struggle for survival ; in an earlierstage of development states were able to do withoutit, because they were brought in contact only withstates as imperfectly homogeneous as themselves,but in the future those states, which are alsonations, will in the struggle for existence destroyand absorb those which are not permeated withthis invigorating sentiment.

If then India is ever to govern herself, it canonly be on condition of developing a sense ofnational unity, and the disinterested beneficence ofour rule may be tested by considering whetherany such sentiment is being produced in India.

Although the truth is hidden from our eyes bythe very stability of British rule, by the TaxBritannica of political posters, India has made noprogress in this direction at all. It is commonly


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8 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAgrating tendency. The next chapter will showhow the progress of India has been arrested byprematurely introducing the principles of populargovernment.

It would, however, be inconsiderate to close thischapter without some reference to those politicianswho contend that India is a nation and that theyare her chosen representatives. Thr Indian NationalCongress is a political organisation which held its1 4th annual meeting during the Christmas holidaysof 1898. These politicians have seen that thenatives of India have some interests in common asagainst their English conquerors. The obvious factthat our dominion is founded on the supremacyof the English race has no doubt created a broadand simple line of division between the Englishand the natives of the soil; but these politiciansforget that the combination of independent factionsagainst the government may make a strong op-position, but will not form a united party. In itsearlier years the Congress achieved very considerablesuccess; it obtained a great deal of notoriety, andmany of the people of India watched its successwith secret satisfaction even if they did not sym-pathise with the political programme to which itwas pledged, because they were naturally pleasedto see the natives of the soil making headagainst the English. Mr. Bradlaugh was responsiblefor a phrase to the effect that the Congress wasthe anvil upon which an Indian nationality was


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THE FIRST POSTULATE 9being hammered into being, at%d the promoters ofthe movement took to calling themselves and thenatives of the soil, " Indians ". * The success of theNational Congress did certainly indicate, in a veryominou^ way, that the dissatisfaction caused byour reserving all: substantial political privileges toourselves was widespread, and that the people werewilling to sympathise with any movement whichaimed at curtailing* our monopoly. Like all Op-positions composed of mutually hostile groups, theCongress came to grief in framing a programme.The Congress is deeply pledged to the introductionof representative institutions into India. As soon asthis was realised the entire Muhamadan community,being to the Hindus in a minority of one to four,declared against the movement. Latterly otherhostilities have broken out, which prove that eventhe loose union necessary for an Oppositio*! is notyet possible among the different sections of Indiansociety; orthodox Hindus of the old school havebeen offended at the pretensions of the Congresspoliticians to represent Hindu society, seeing thattheir manners and methods of political agitationare flagrantly foreign to Indian ideas. The con-sequence is that the movement now only representsa clique in which the general public is losing all*iThis is a term which- 1 should be very loth to apply to the

natives of India, because the usage of the English language hasmade the word Indian (when used as a substantive) synonymouswith savage.


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io IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAinterest ; even in Bengal, the country of its origin,the Congress seems to be held in scant esteem.The Bangovasi, the most influential vernacular paperin Bengal, said on June i8th, 1898:" With Englishmen political agitation is a sacredduty.... but what is our political agitation like?It is, we feel ashamed to say, an annual merry-making extending over 3 days, a periodical gather-ing of English educated Babus, bent on enjoyinga holiday. In three days in the year they makethemselves merry, deliver cut and dried speeches,pass foolish resolutions, and gather materials forequally foolish writing for a whole year and thendepart home and then what then? All thisranting and blustering and speech-making, all thiswaste of money ends as it must, like a dream, innothingness/'

But the reader must not suppose that thesepoliticians do not take their labours seriously. Injustice to the Congress I will close with an extractfrom one of its most ardent supporters :

"It was feared, even a couple of days beforethe meeting of the Congress, that many leaders,owing to the plague and divers other causes,would not be able to attend the present session.Almost all, however, were there at the right mo-ment. One prominent Congressman, before leavingfor Amraoti, wrote to Mr. Mudholkar, Secretaryto the Reception Committee, to the following effect :'I come more dead than alive, as I am suffering


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THE FIRST POSTULATE ndreadfully from a bad pain all over my body.Remain prepared to read the burial service overmy grave/ The delegate kept his word, thoughill, and to the relief of Mr. Mudholkar, he had notto read the burial service over his grave. BabuBoikantha Nath Sen of Berhampur was actuallysuffering from fe/er and a bad cold, and his wifeseriously ailing when he started for Amraoti BabuAmbica Charan Mozamdar of Faridpur, who hadcome to Calcutta with the object of proceeding toBerar, received an urgent telegram to the effectthat his wife had been dangerously ill : he returnedto FarMpur, fnade some arrangements for the treat-ment of his wife, and then ran for Amraoti, leavingher to the care of God, for the purpose of servingfiis country. Babu Bhupendra Nath Bose had anattack of diarrhoea and severe toothache, and yetstarted with the other delegates amidst the earnestprotests of his near and dear ones. Some of theBombay and Poona delegates as they had been inquarantine, had to spend a number of days in theSegregation Camp. Mr. W. C. Bonerjee himselfwas also detained while coming direct from Englandto Amraoti, as he had to pass through Bombay:he was, however, released after a detention of sixhours. There is yet hope for India when ourleaders are prepared to make these sacrifices forthe welfare of their dear, though ill-fated country. "


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CHAPTER IIPSEUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA

OUR dominion in India is contemporaneous withthe triumphant progress of Democracy over Europe,and since the English electors have acquired theultimate control of our Indian policy they haveconsistently pressed the Government of India toadopt a policy in harmony with their own sym-pathies. We have found it impossible to giveIndia a completely democratic constitution, but wehave given her what are usually considered theattributes of a free government. I believe that themodern tendency towards further disintegrationhas been caused by these free institutions. Theprincipal of them are: a free press, the right ofpublic association and debate, trial by jury, andthe tentative introduction of the principle of repre-sentation on the provincial councils and munici-palities.The inevitable result of free institutions is toencourage the growth of parties, and in a countryin which there is no sentiment of national unity,parties will be formed along the lines of cleavage


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PSEUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 13already existing. In India the lines of cleavageare principally those of race and religion, and itis upon these lines that parties are nowadaysforming themselves; the result is to accentuatethose v'ery antipathies and jealousies which preventIndia from becorring a nation. The division betweenthe Hindus and Muhamadans represents the deepestline of cleavage in the Indian people, and conse-quently the two principal parties of contemporaryIndian politics are the Hindu and the Muhama-dan; and the disputes on what are called politicalquestions are in reality but phases of a religiousfeud wfiich is always on the verge of becomingcivil war. English politicians, who cannot realizethat there may be countries in which there is nosentiment of nationality, are apt to fancy that theyrecognize in the dissensions of the Hindus and theMuhamadans only the harmless rivalry of partieswith which they are familiar at home. As a matterof fact the movements which have received realpopular support in recent years have not beenmerely manifestations of a healthy interest inpublic affairs, but rather the outcome of deep-seatedhatreds which have before now deluged the countrywith blood, and which would do so again were itnot for the fear of British bayonets. I will firstattempt to show the true character of the contestbeftveen the Hindus and the Muhamadans, in orderto prove that these are dissensions which makefor the destruction of an Indian nationality, and


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i4 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAwhich it is therefore our duty to stifle; in thesecond place I shall point out that popular institu-tions stimulate these ancient feuds, for conductingwhich they provide scope, and that existing animos-ities are envenomed by mutual recriminations onthe platform and in the press.The most important popular movement of recentyears was undoubtedly the agitation organised bythe Hindus against the slaughter of kine whichthey consider sacred. A society, with branches indifferent paits of India, was formed for the Protec-tion of the Cow. Lecturers were appointed whotravelled from town to town and village to village ;pamphlets and leaflets called "The Cry of the Cow "etc. were distributed broadcast, and public meetingswere held which were reported in the newspapers.A Rajah told me that he also received privateletters urging him to further the agitation, in thepostscript of which was added that if he left thisduty undischarged it would be considered as heinous"as the murder of 500 cows." The result of themovement was to excite the hostility of the Hindusagainst the two beef-eating peoples of India, theEnglish and the Muhamadans. The object of someat least of the agitators was to provoke ill-willagainst the English; I was told by an EnglishCommissioner who had seen a copy, that a colouredplate was circulated among the people, in whichthe Hindu Gods were represented punishing a red-faced monkey for maltreating the cow. The monkey


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PPEUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 15is an ill-famed beast in India^ and the equivalentof a term oi abuse, and the rubicund countenanceascribed to him is an obvious allusion to Englishcomplexions. But the peace of the country wasmore seriously disturbed by the strife which thismovement bred between the Hindus and the Muha"madans. The Miihamadans were enraged at theattempt to deprive them arbitrarily of their suppliesof beef which, being cheap and in small demand,constitutes almost the only meat consumed by thepoorer classes of Muhamadans. They accordinglyretaliated by slaughtering an increased number ofcows, sometimes in the prescribed slaughter-houses,and sometimes, when zeal outran discretion, insuch a conspicuous manner as was best calculatedto outrage Hindu sentiment. Some Muhamadandivines began to favour the opinion that thesacrifice of cows was peculiarly grateful to theDeity, and there was a tendency to substitute themfor goats and sheep which had hitherto been foundsufficient to appease his wrath. It is not surprisingthat this agitation was followed by what were knownas Cow-killing Riots, in which blood was freelyshed; in many cases the police were unable tocope with the infuriated mobs, and the military hadto be called out. Had the movement been allowedto reach its natural conclusion, it would haverekindled the fire which set all India ablaze in thedays of Aurangzeb. And this agitation, with itsdisastrous consequences, owed its success to the


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16 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAuse of free institutions. The press, the platform, thedistribution of polemical literature, in fact the wholeparaphernalia of a political campaign were employedto spread dissensions between peoples who mustlive in amity if India is to become a nation.

In March 1898 another controversy in the papersshowed that the Hindus and the Muhamadans arenot divided upon political principles properly socalled, but solely by religious or racial animosity. TheHindus of the North West Provinces approachedthe Lieutenant-Governor with a petition that thecourt records should be kept in Hindi (their nationalalphabet) instead of the Persian or Muhamadancharacter, as had hitherto been the case ; this wasfiercely resented by the Muhamadans, who saw init an attempt to disqualify them for one branchof the public service; the question in debate in-volved no political principle at all, but it excitedmen's passions because it was an incident in thestruggle in which one community attempts to over-reach or discredit the other.

There is indeed one question of political principleupon which the Hindus and the Muhamadans havetaken opposite sides, and that is the question ofrepresentative institutions, but this too is only aninstructive example of the way in which partyprinciples are formed in India. The Muhamadansoppose the introduction of the principle of repre-sentation because they are in the minority andare well aware that the elections would always be


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PSEUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 17contested on racial and religious lines, and thattherefore Muhamadans would always be defeatedat the poll.When such is the rancour of racial ill-will, isit wise on our part to allow the two communitiesto form themselves into parties and to give themfree scope to attack and vilify each other? Ifcontinental critics were aware of the exttat towhich we have introduced free institutions in India,they would say that we have acted on the cynicalmotto " Divide et impera " ; for these free institutionshave fomented the dissensions among the conqueredpeople Snd diminished the likelihood of their unit-ing against us. Indeed natives of India who areaware of the growth of ill-will between the Hindusand Muhamadans of recent years, have often saidthat these quarrels have been promoted by us forour own ends. The Jami Ul Ulum said on the2 ist March, 1897: " For some time past the Govern-ment has been secretly pursuing the policy ' Divideand Rule* by showing favour to the Hindus andMuhamadans alternately.'* As that accusation stands,it is not true; the district officers do their best topatch up the quarrels of the two peoples, and anofficer would be thought badly of by his superiorswho allowed such animosites to reach an acutestage; but though our collectors have attemptedto Icheck the feeling in detail, the general tendencyof our policy in recent years has embittered therelations of Hindus and Muhamadans.


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i8 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIATo deal first of all with the press : a gener-

ation which can remember how often the nationsof Europe have been goaded to the verge ofwar by irresponsible journalists, will not needmany illustrations to be convinced of the harmwhich a free press can do in India. The nationsof Europe, however, enjoy some natural safe-guards against the evils of journalism; theyspeak different languages and therefore one peopleis not compelled to hear all the evil spoken of itby another , they inhabit separate quarters of theearth and are not chafed by daily contact withirritating national characteristics. But Hindus andMuhamadans inhabit the same towns and the samestreet; the Hindu is infuriated by seeing the Muha-madan purchase his beefsteak for dinner ; the Muha.madan is disturbed in his prayers to the one Godby the sound of heathenish music accompanying aHindu idol down the street. To these nationalgrounds of dislike are added purely personal ani-mosities. The Brahmin remembers how MuhamadKhan had him beaten with a scavenger's broom,and the Muhamadan bears a grudge against that"dog of a Kaffir", Kishan Chand, who cheated himover the mortgage. The Muhamadan takes up anewspaper conducted by Hindus, and finds his ownpeople bespattered with abuse, and the Hindurobber, who treacherously murdered a Muhamauangeneral, extolled as a national hero ; he goes roundwith the article in his pocket to a Muhamadan


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PSEUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 19editor and helps him to compose a coarse attackupon the chastity of Hindu women. Here is thechronicle of a typical little affair between the com-munities, as reported in their papers:The Hindu "Hitavadi" leads off on April 3Oth,1897, as follows:"Out of spite against some Hindu milkman whohad refused to supply him with milk for a Toast,Syed Ali Ullah, a respectable Mussalman gentlemanof Kushtia, killed 25 cows near a public road."Next week (May 8th, 1897,) the Muhamadan"Mihir O Sudhakkar" retorts:

" The fgarden in which the cows were slaughteredis enclosed on all sides, but still the slaughteroffended the Hindu who oppressed and annoyedthe Mussalmans in various ways. Many of theinvited Mussalmans were prevented from going tothe feast or taking part in its management onApril 25th, an attempt was made by the Hindusto set fire to the Syed's house, and the attempthas not yet been given up. The Hindu students ofthe local school refuse to sit with the Mussal-man students. Syed Ali Ullah's bearers, washermen,barbers, have struck work: the Hindu pleaders ofthe local bar have resolved not to take his casesat fees less than 10 Rs."

This is followed by a; scandalous attack uponHindu women, which is reproduced (for the betterirritation of the public) in the Hindu "Hitavadi"on May I4th, as follows:


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20 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIA11 There are few widows in Hindu households who

have not had 2, 3, 4, 5, foetuses destroyed: it isclearly proved by the case instituted by Sandamini,at Benares, that Hindu widows do not incur socialblame by committing adultery ; there is slight troubleonly if foetuses cannot be destroyed. "Next week (May 22nd, 1897,) another Hindu paper,

the" Bangovasi," joins the fray to say : " In this hot

country, beef-eating cannot suit the Mussalmans:they eat beef out of spite against the Hindus."The irritation between the two communities wasapparently dying down in Bareilly in 1898, butthe newspapers tried to fan it into flauie again.The "Vedic Dharma M (quoted by the Muhamadan" Rohilkand Gazette " on 8th March, 1898) warned theHindus against cultivating friendship and affectiontowards the Mussalmans, who are their "enemies,oppressors, and murderers/*A month later a Muhamadan paper follows inthe same strain:"Hindus are very enthusiastic in other mattersalso. They beat down Mussalmans even in racefeeling. Just think how all the 'pot-bellied 1 ones(i.e. Hindus) were stirred up in connection withMr. Tilak's case and, raising the cry of ' Sympathy !Sympathy ' 1 collected thousands of rupees for thedefence of 'an enemy of the country 1 like him.The writer has heard of the recent reconciliationand concord between the Hindus and Muhamadansat Bareilly. But it is all bosh. A libel suit was


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PSFUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 21instituted against the Mussalman editor of the *Ro-hilkand Gazette

',and several Hindus gave evidenceagainst him. Is this what is meant by concord

between the two communities in that town? Thecontinuance of a tension of feeling between themwould on such an occasion have been much betterthan the so-called amity. In the former case someMuhamadans wo^ld have, from race feeling, espousedthe cause of the poor Muhamadan editor against the(prosecuting) Hindu. The fact of the matter is thatthose Mussalmans who seek concord with the Hindus,are downright fools. Hindus will never be faithful,however much friendship you may cultivate withthem."

(Mashir-i-Sultanat, 3rd May, 1898.)Rich as is the vocabulary of parliamentary in-vective in Europe nowadays, it is not yet custom-ary for one party to accuse the ladies of the otherof unchastity, a charge which is often bandied betweenHindus and Muhamadans. Indeed the characteristicdifference between the political scurrilities of Europeand .India is this, that Hindu or Muhamadanpoliticians do not confine themselves to abusing indivi-dual popular leaders (in which case they could pro-bably find in Europe a precedent for the mostoffensive accusations), but scatter their aspersionsover a whole community, a sufficient indication thatthey are moved by racial and not by politicalfeeling.

Another very obvious line of cleavage in Indiais the division between Englishmen and natives of


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22 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDI\the country, and wherever popular institutions givethe opportunity, these two have been constitutedinto opposite factions. Each section of the peopleis continually wounding the other's feelings in thepress, not by difference of opinion, but by offensivereflections upon the national characteristics of theother. I am inclined to think that the English news-papers are the worst offenders in fhis case, for theyoften betray the insolent contempt of conquerorswithout being aware of it. Written principally forthe Anglo-Indian community, they give vent tofeelings which it is useless to hope can ever bewholly overcome, but which ought never to bepublicly expressed, and which are reproduced andcommented on in the vernacular press. It cannever serve any good purpose to contrast onepeople's virtues with another's shortcomings; andone evil consequence may be seen in the discussionwhich occupies considerable space in native news-papers upon the comparative chastity of Englishand native women ; these discussions which inflictwounds that can never be forgiven,, constitute atremendous indictment against the liberty of thepress in India.

I will take but one case which occurred only ayear ago, and in which the spark that set thewhole native press in a blaze of anger was dropped,accidentally I believe, by an Englishman. Sir E.Collen is reported to have said in the discussionon the Cantonments Act Amendment Bill, that


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PSFUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 23" India was a land where prostitution is not i egard-ed otherwise than as an ordinary condition of life,and where the profession of a prostitute is notlooked upon as one of unqualified shame." WhatSir E. Collen meant by these words I have nospecial means of knowing, but it is obvious thatthey can bear a meaning which is no slur upon thewomen of Indi?, and it was in that sense that Iunderstood them when I first saw the report of hisspeech. In the native press, however, (both Englishand vernacular,) a tempest of indignation was letloose. I cannot here attempt to reproduce the manyarticles written on this subject; I must ask the readerto accept the following extract as typical of whathe ^ would have seen in almost any vernacularpaper :

"It is probable that Sir E. Collen while he wasuttering the fearful libel against Indian womenwas with closed eyes seeing visions of the Londondivorce courts and of some convivial gatheringsin England. The chastity and purity of Indianwomen and the veneration in which religion is heldin India are things which cannot enter into theconception of a man like the Hon. Military Member.* *

"In England the injured husband sues his faithlesswife and her paramour in a law-court and partswith 'his conjugal love for money.* * *

" In England a woman whose adultery has been


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24 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDI4proved in a law-oourt finds lots of men eager forher hand, as if the highest conjugal happiness isattained by marrying an adulteress. It is the heightof insolence for a people accustomed to such sightsto call in question the purity of Indian women."(Basumati, July 29th, 1897.)Next to the free press, representative institutionshave most tended to envenom existing jealousies.The principle of popular election has been par-tially introduced into the Municipal and DistrictBoards, two-thirds of the Commissioners beingelected by the rate-payers and one-third nominated.Could any reasonable man expect the communitieswhich are at daily and hourly strife with eachother to sink their ill-will at the time of the electionsand contest the elections upon political principles?The majority of the rate-payers of Calcutta areHindus, and accordingly, in the Annual Statementexhibiting the " Moral and Material Progress andCondition of India," 1896 97, we find in the reportupon the Calcutta Municipality the following :"The general body of the 75 Commissionershad gradually deprived the executive of power anddevoted itself to debating rather than to acting,and the Commissioners are perhaps too much domin-ated by a clique in which Trade interests, theMoslem community and the European inhabitantsare practically unrepresented" (p. 5). In the in-terior of Bengal we find that in 27 municipalities"the Government in consequence of the backward-


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PSEUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 25ness of the locality or of the intensity of partyfeeling exercises the power of nomination.

"(p. 6.)In Europe the intensity of party feeling denotes

a healthy interest in public affairs ; in India itparalyses self-government; the report should havesaid race feeling not party feeling. It is needlessto multiply instances: wherever the population isdivided between the two communities in proportionssufficient to make a fight, the municipal electionsare conducted upon the lines of racial or religi-ous hostility and the ill-will between the twois exasperated. I was present in 1896, at arepresentative gathering of Muhamadans from allparts of Upper India, and we had an informal dis-cusgion upon politics. The grievance of which almostall complained and for which they were seeking aremedy was the oppression they suffered at thehands of the Hindus on the Municipalities ; the onlyexceptions were from those towns in which the Go-vernment has secured the representation of the Mu-hamadan minority by law.The untoward results of free institutions in Indiaare best illustrated by the history of the NationalCongress. That body is an advocate of represen-tative institutions, and by the operation of its ownprinciples has notably added to the bitterness ofracial antipathies. India, say these politicians, isripe * for popular Government, and the NationalCongress plays the part of a constitutional Oppo-sition. If this position is conceded it cannot be


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26 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAdenied that one of the legitimate functions of anOpposition is to criticise and even to discredit theGovernment, with a view sooner or later to takingits place. Now the present Government of Indiaconsists principally of Englishmen, and I cannotsee that the Congress is illogical in attempting todiscredit, firstly, the Government, and in the secondplace, Englishmen in India generally ; it is therecognised way of imparting to the world thecharge that all Oppositions bring, viz., that thepresent ministry has not the confidence of thecountry, that it has grossly mismanaged publicaflfairs and that the statesmen of the Oppositionwould do much better. I do not blame the Con-gress newspapers for consistently misrepresentingthe most benevolent Government measures, for de-claring that Lord Elgin was indifferent to the deathof " millions of India's children" during the famine,or for dwelling at inordinate length on individualinstances of English haughtiness ; these papers arebut consistently carrying out the principles uponwhich popular government is everywhere conducted.But I do unhesitatingly blame a policy, which,when pushed to its logical conclusion, has broughtabout the deplorable state of feeling at presentexisting between the English and the educatedclasses of Bengal.The Municipal elections have set strife betweenthe Hindus and Muhamadans; the popular move-ments conducted through the press and on the


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PSEUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 27platform have estranged the English and the mosteducated classes of native society, and have addedto the bitterness of Hindu and Muhamadan rivalry ;it has been left to the English to bring discrediton the most venerable of free institutions, and toprove how unsuitable trial by jury is to a countryof mixed nationalities. The people of India com-monly say that no Englishman has yet been hangedfor the murder of a native. It is an ugly factwhich it is no use to disguise that the murder ofnatives by Englishmen is no infrequent occurrence.In one issue of the Amrita Bazar Patrika of thismonth (August i ith, 1898,) three contemporary casesare dealt with, in none of which have the prison-ers paid the full legal penalty for murder. Icannot pretend to an opinion whether in these orprevious cases there has been an actual miscarriageof justice, but I do unhesitatingly assert that veryfew Englishmen in India believe that an Englishjury, as juries are at present constituted, wouldeven on the clearest evidence convict one of theircountrymen of the murder of a native. The pickof Anglo-Indian society is either not qualified orexempted from serving on a jury ; juries in Europeancases are therefore empanelled from among Englishshopkeepers or railway employes of the big towns ;this is the very class in which the arrogance of acentering race is most offensively strong, and theirmoral sense does not endorse the legal theory thatan Englishman should atone with his life for killing


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28 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAa " nigger ". When three artillery men were sen-tenced by the Chief Justice to seven years' rigorousimprisonment for having brutally caused the deathof a respectable practitioner (Dr. Suresh Chandra) inBarrackpore, an English military officer wrote ano-nymously to one of the native papers approvingthe verdict and declaring that in any other partof the world but India, the three artillerymenwould have been hanged. Upon this, one of theEnglish papers, "The Morning Post", retorted : " Weshould Iik3 to have the name of this individual.Without it, we must decline to believe that thereis any Britisher in this country, so degenerate asto subscribe to such sentiments" (The italics aremine.)

Juries in all countries are liable to be swayed bypassion or prejudice, but such a miscarriage ofjusticein India begets political evil ; the people are irritatedagainst the Government because they do not believethat the laws are evenly administered. A villageronce said to me: "How is it, sahib, that, if one ofyour people kills one of us, nothing is done to him ;yet if we but lift a stone against you we arepunished?'* And the evil is increased by the partisanspirit in which such cases are dealt with by thedifferent sections of the press, as the AmritaBazar Patrika (Aug. I4th, 1898) shows in the follow-ing extract, which seems to me both temperate andtrue: "Whenever a case of the murder of an Indianby a European is brought to notice, the Anglo-Indian


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3o IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAhastily termed " liberalism ", and he has found thatthe Germans, Magyars, Bohemians, Poles, Croatians,Italians and the rest have aggravated their preten-sions to separate national autonomy under the parli-amentary regime ; these pretensions are in the natureof things incapable of satisfaction, but men's mindshave been so embittered by mutual recriminationin the press and in the Chamber that it is doubtfulwhether they will resign them without civil war.Surely it is an abuse of words to apply the term" liberal " to a policy which leads directly to such acatastrophe as this. Unless its use as a partybadge has deprived the word of all honourable sig-nification, it would be more legitimate to apply theterm " liberal" to a policy which tends to create (notto destroy) a national sentiment within the circleof which self-government would be possible. Itwould, to my thinking, be legitimate to use theword in describing the policy which has done somuch for the progress of Mexico. u President Por-firio Diaz saw that what Mexico needed was strongpersonal rule to lift the country out of chaos.Worshippers of formulas will condemn every stepDiaz has taken : those who look at political andsocial results will justify most steps. We are notdealing, be it remembered, with a country of cen-turies of settled life and ordered institutions, butwith the vast regions which had to be reclaimedfrom ignorance, violence, and barbarism. Stern workwas needed to attain the end, and President Diaz


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PSEUDO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA 31did not shrink from it. He suppressed the news-papers, as Signor Crispi suppressed them in Italy,because they made for the disruption of a nation whichwas becoming compact and unified.'* (The Progressof Mexico, the Spectator", Feb. igth, 1898.)

It is apparently necessary for English politiciansto behold a country given up to anarchy beforethey can realise that popular institutions make forthe disruption of a nation which is not yet compactand unified. If they looked beneath the delusivecalm which the army maintains in India, chey wouldbehold all the passions which beget civil war, un-scotched *by a hundred years of unwilling peace.


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CHAPTER IIION THE FORMATION OF NATIONALITIES

I HAVE argued that if India is ever to governherself it can only be on condition that she growsinto a nation; it does not matter to my presentpurpose whether we should desire the creation ofone or two or several nationalities ; the importantthing is that the people who inhabit one localityshould be knit to each other by firmer bonds thanthe links of sympathy which unite them to theinhabitants of other countries; the continent ofIndia may be split up into as many nationalitiesas Europe and yet be self-governing in the sensethat a foreign yoke would not be indispensable tosave her from anarchy. What is important is thateach unit, such as Bengal or the Punjab, shouldbe conterminous with a national sentiment. Howis this sentiment to be generated?At the outset we are confronted with the difficultythat it is by no means easy to define what Con-stitutes a nation, A people may talk differentlanguages, come of different races and follow


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ON THE FORMATION OF NATIONALITIES 33different religions and yet form but one nation, asis evident from the anomalous case of Switzerland.Renan thought nationality sprang "from communityof historical antecedents"; it is true that the peoplewho have been associated with each other in thepast have generally ended by growing into onenation. Renan's definition does not in realityintroduce a fresh idea, but is rather a generalizationwhich includes various subordinate elements ofnationality ; a common language, for instance, gener-ally implies a common literature, and a literature,which is a common inheritance from the past, willmake the people conscious of a unity of historicaltraditions. But this definition fails us in the caseof those perplexing countries which, in spite of acommunity of historical antecedents, have shown notendency to evolve a national sentiment. Why, forinstance, is there no Austrian nationality? Whynone in the Ottoman Empire?

It must be conceded that different countries havearrived at the conception of nationality in differentways, and all ways are not equally practicable forIndia. The patriotism of the oligarchic states ofthe classical world was largely based on the mythof an eponymous ancestor, and religious zeal hasoften fused into one tribes that had previouslylived perpetually at war; but the senior membersat least of the Indian Civil Service will hardlythink themselves qualified to pose as divine law-givers; and for them the case of France offers a


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34 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAmore practical analogy. The most perfect nation-ality in the world has been" fashioned by quiteintelligible historic causes and in spite of geogra-phical difficulties as great as those of India. Thekings of France were the smiths who forged anation out of the diverse elements which distractedthe country, and it is instructive to consider whythey succeeded where the house of Hapsburgfailed. The aim of Louis XI or Louis XIV wasto be King of France, and they did not alter theirpretensions when they added new provinces to thekingdom. But the Hapsburgs were never contentto be Archdukes of Austria; they were hauntedby the phantom of world-wide supremacy to whichthe title of Emperor was a perpetual pretension;they would have derogated had they limited theirambitions to the glories of the kings of France ;they ruled indeed over a sufficiently well-definedarea, but in such a sort that their title was notimpaired, but rather bettered by the diversity ofthe subject peoples; for it was the diversity andnot the homogeneity of their subjects which bestaccorded with their pretensions. It is owing to asimilar ambition that the Sultan of Turkey hasfailed to evoke a sentiment of nationality in hissubjects. As titular head of the Muhamadan world,he claims the allegiance of Muhamadans outsidehis own frontiers, and he cannot be satisfied withthe obedience of the subjects over whom he rulesdirectly. Had he ever identified his glories with a


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ON THE FORMATION OF NATIONALITIES 35particular trac ' of country, the receding flood ofMuhamadan dominion would not now reveal theembryo nationalities of Eastern Europe in thesame condition as before they were overwhelmed.These cases point to the defect in Kenan's defin-

ition. Similarity ot historical antecedents does notof itself bind peoples together ; their association inthe past must have been of a nature to unite themfor common action and to move them to commonenthusiasm. The passive subjects of a common con-queror have similar historical associations, but therecollections of servitude suggest no inspiring me-mories. Yhere are possibly two cases in whichforeign conquest may promote the growth of nationalfeeling; the first is when the subject peoples uniteto throw off the stranger's yoke, in which case theyfound a nationality on the ruins of his empire ; thebond that knits them together is their associationin a glorious struggle. The second case is when theconqueror so identifies himself with the people hehas subjected that they take his glories as their own.India herself has once welcomed such a conqueror.Akbar induced the Rajput and the Pathan to resigntheir petty hopes of independent glory by offeringthem a share in a greater empire which they them-selves helped to build. This policy, short-lived thoughit was, (for it was reversed by his great grandsonAurangzeb,) bore splendid fruit; the northern halfof India, which was Akbar's empire in Hindustanstill cherishes the memory of the Moghul reign,


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36 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAand it is to-day more straitly unit d by commonassociations than the provinces of southern India.Akbar's example is both a warning and encourage-ment to us who are his successors. It is ridiculousto ascribe his success solely to his policy of toler-ation; people will not love a foreigner merely be-cause he lets them alone ; as a Bengali paper recentlysaid, the Hindus venerate the memory of Akbarbecause he made Hindus governors of provinces;in other words even the conquered races can takea pride in the glories of the Moghul Empire whichconferred lustre upon themselves as well as thehouse of Tamarlane.

If a conqueror practises a different religion to themajority of his subjects and is determined to reservethe privileges of command to the followers of hisown creed, his best policy will be to convert, byforce if necessary, all his subjects to that creed ;by that means he will secure a homogeneous empire.This was the great mistake of the Ottoman rulers,that they forbore from converting their Christiansubjects last century, when a little judicious pressurewould have herded them all into the Muhamadanfold. Two policies were open to the Sultan ofTurkey; he might have withdrawn all peculiarprivileges from the Muhamadans and placed him-self at the head of the Bulgarians, Greeks, andTurks within his borders, and contented himselfwith being the sovereign of one of the fairest coun-tries of the earth; or he might have ruled as a


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ON THE FORMATION OF NATIONALITIES 37Muhamadan r. onarch over a purely Muhamadankingdom and set himself to the extirpation ofheretics. As a matter of fact he maintained thespecial privileges of his co-religionists, but left un-molested the Christians who were to conspire withhis enemies in the day of his weakness. HisChristian Majesty, Ferdinand the Catholic, under-stood his trade better, and created special machinery,which proved extremely effective, for securing uni-formity of religious opinion in Spaife.We cannot of course obtain immunity irom reli-gious strife by forcibly converting all India toChristianity, and it may be mentioned parentheti-cally that such a course would not nowadays solve ourpolitical difficulties, because the love which Christ-ians bear to one another in India is not strongenough to overcome the prejudices of race. But thelesson to be learned from history is sufficientlyclear. The Government which wishes to create anational spirit must be based upon a principlewhich its subjects can reciprocate, it must placebefore the people a conception of Governmentwhich will evoke their enthusiastic loyalty. In acountry in which race, language and religion tendto divide, the people must be provided with acentral idea which will unite them all, to whichthey can all be equally loyal and round which thefeeble beginnings of nationality can cluster. Doesthe British rule in India provide the people withsuch an idea? Most emphatically, No.

3


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38 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAThe basis, both in theory and [ ractice, of our

Empire is the supremacy of the British race, andthis is not an idea for which anybody but ourselvescan feel any enthusiasm. The fact that our IndianEmpire is founded upon the domination of theEnglish race is so obvious as to need no demon-stration ; it is in all men's mouths, in all the papers,and it is the only principle upon which we actconsistently. The body wh'ch ultimately governsIndia is the Wou^e pf Commons, and the Houseof Commons represents the English people, thereforethe people of India are the subjects of the EnglishElectorate. In India itself there is no likelihoodof any one forgetting the ascendency of the Englishrace. "You are the conquerors and we are theconquered'*, is a phrase often on the lips of thepeople. "Yes", says the better class of Englishmen,"but we are all equal before the law". Englishmenof the baser sort say with considerable logicalconsistency : " Let Government take up a courageousattitude; we are the dominant race and intend toremain so; all the privileges of conquest shouldbe reserved for us." These are the men who willnot allow a native to carry an umbrella over hishead in their presence, and insist that every nativeshall salaam to them, though such men have rarelythe courtesy to acknowledge the salute. A caseacquired a certain notoriety of late, and is said tohave gone up to the Secretary of State, in whichan Englishman thrashed an old native schoolmaster,


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ON THE FORMATION OF NATIONALITIES 39not because le had neglected to salute him, butbecause the salaam was not performed with thatinclination from the vertical which the Englishmanthought was due to the dominant caste.

This is not a principle of Government which thepeople can reciprocate, and therefore we have failedto elicit any warm sentiment of loyalty. English-men like to argue that because we have conferredmany material benefits upon the people of India,because we have substituted good government foranarchy, therefore they ought to be loyal to us;and many who recognise the obvious fact that thepeople are not enthusiastically grateful to us, imaginethat it is due to certain abuses in our governmentat which the people are repining. It would be asufficient answer to say that the people do notacknowledge that our rule has been beneficial tothem. They do not vividly realize the miseriesof anarchy from which British rule has saved them ;and they are apt to idealize a time when a mancould feed himself and his family for a rupee ; whenthe rites of their own religion were celebrated withpomp and splendour, and to contrast this Iron Age,(Kali Yug) with the good days of old. The widelyread Bangavasi of 26th June, 1897, observed, "Thestately swan has ceased to disport himself on thecool and pellucid waters of the village pond, andpujas and festivals, dances and singing, pleasuresand amusements, and sky-rending laughter are allgone. Clad in another's clothes, holding umbrellas


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40 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAnot our own and supporting ourselvc s by begging,we are now leading the lives of slaves and beggars."As a survey of the economic condition in the pastand the present, I do not think the above of muchvalue. I believe that British rule has enormouslyincreased the material prosperity of India, but thathistorical fact will not make the people loyal unlessthey themselves believe that thev are better off.As a matter of fact the belief is almost uni-versal that India has been impoverished byBritish rule.

But even if we could convince the people thatthey are now better off than they were a centuryago and that the evils they are suffering from aredue to economic causes beyond the contro1 ofGovernment, would that belief make them loyal?Experience certainly does not support the ideathat people are loyal to a government in proportionto the material advantages which they derive fromit. The citizens of the United States are enthu-siastically loyal to a Constitution under which theirbusiness is shamefully mismanaged; the Royalistswho followed the House of Stuart into exile wereprobably under no illusions with regard to theadministration of Charles I, or the second James.Loyalty is essentially a generous sentiment whichinduces the nobler portion of mankind to sacrificelife and property for the sake of a particularfamily or cause, and it will not be evoked by astatistical comparison of the present with the past


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ON THE FORMATION OF NATIONALITIES 41even if the calculation shews a nett balance infavour of the present.My contention is that because our administrationis based upon the domination of the English race,a principle which can be inspiring only to English-men, it has failed to rouse in the people of Indiawarm devotion to our Empire ; whereas it was ourduty so to administer India as to beget a loyaltyfor the central government ardent enough to inducethe different sections of Indian society to associatein support of a common idea. By recognizing theobligation to an allegiance higher than the claimsof religion or kindred they would have grownfamiliar with a conception of public duty co-ex-tensive with the continent of India; this concep-tion of public duty, encouraged and strengthenedby immemorial tradition, might have one day beenfound to have developed into a sentiment of Indiannationality.

It remains for me to prove in the next chapterthat there is a principle which we might put forwardas the ostensible basis of our Empire, of which noEnglishman need be ashamed, and which wouldcommand the enthusiastic veneration of the peopleof India.


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CHAPTER IV

THE EMPRESS QF INDIAOWING to the ascendency of democracy in the

civilized world, the services which the institutionof monarchy has rendered to mankind u,re imper-fectly rocognised in modern speculations on theart of government ; yet the political value of theseservices can hardly be overrated. In unsettledcountries society has two needs which no otherform of government is so well fitted to satisfy asmonarchy. Primitive society needs firstly a bondof allegiance which shall be equally binding on allits heterogeneous members ; secondly, it is needfulin such a society that loyalty to the centralgovernment should be openly and assiduouslyfostered. Monarchy satisfies both these requirementsbecause, in the first place, devotion to the personof a sovereign is a simple and easily intelligiblesentiment to which almost all men are prone, andin countries in which men are divided by lace,language, and religion, obedience to the wishes ofone man is almost the only form of allegiance


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THE EMPRESS OF INDIA 43which appeaU strongly to all alike. This sentimentis starved in the self-governing communities ofWestern Europe, but those who were present atthe Jubilee and witnessed the hurricane of emotionwhich swept along the streets of London at thesight of the Queen will not readily believe that itis altogether dead in England. Yet we must go tounsettled countries where the sovereign is the onlyrefuge from anaichy to understand the proportionsto which this sentiment can attain. East of Suez,where, according to Mr. Kipling, " there ain't noten commandments", there lies upon the eyes andforeheads of all men a law which is not found inthe European Decalogue ; and this law runs :"Thou shall honour and worship the man whomGod shall set above thee for thy king; if hecherish thee thou shalt love him; and if he plunderand oppress thee thou shalt still love him, for thouart his slave and his chattel."The second advantage of monarchy is that it

directly fosters loyalty to the central government.The sovereign confers his favours upon his ownfriends and entrusts political power only to thosewhom he believes sincerely attached to his person.In democratic countries the public conscience isshocked at the " Spoils System" because the politi-cians who employ the resources of the common-wealth for the benefit of a faction profess to consultthe good of the universal people ; but where theking is the state, the highest public duty of his


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44 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAservants consists in consolidating hr's power, andhis ministers will not be blamed if they use theinfluence which their position in the state givesthem to promote the interests of his friends and todiscourage those who wish to upset his government.And as the favour of the king is the principalavenue to dignity and wealth, the most ambitiousand able men of the country will gravitate towardsthe court ; those who find favour In the king's eyeswill rise to positions in which they can influencepublic opinion; whereas those who, like Mons. deMontespan, cannot endorse the king's view of hisown behaviour, are banished from cour* and sinkinto insignificance. In this way the court not onlybecomes the natural home of loyalty, but at thesame time the capital of the kingdom, the intellect-ual centre from which the ideas start that eventuallypermeate public opinion throughout the country.Thus tne partiality of the king in the choice ofhis servants, which is the natural result of autocracy,tends, if it is not grossly abused, to render popularand so strengthen the central government withoutwhich a nation can hardly come into being. Whenthe ablest and most influential men of the countryare to be found in the king's ^ourt, the court leadspublic opinion in the country, .and a court is neces-sarily loyal because those who contend for the king'ssmile are not likely to find fault with his administrationor to disapprove of a policy which he has sanctioned.Monarchy has from its very essence this advantage


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THE EMPRESS OF INDIA 45over democracy, that whereas the demagogue wins topower by expatiating to the sovereign people uponthe multitude of their grievances which the existinggovernment has failed to redress, even the most oppo-site factions at court will vie with each other in pro-testing their satisfaction with the existing constitution.

India is a country in which the advantages ofa monarchical form of government are brought intothe clearest relief; it would be impossible to findany general principle of coherence, other thanmonarchy, which would unite all the sections ofIndian society. There are white men, and brownmen, and black men in India; there are fire-worshippers and Muhamadans, Christians and Hindus,Sikhs and Jains; there is a very jungle of languageswith a bewildering undergrowth of dialects, andnot only does each considerable tract of countryspeak a distinct language, but almost every languagehas an alphabet of its own. What political formulacan be devised that would cover them all? It isonly in obedience to one great master that all canunite without heart-burning. And as monarchy isthe only form of government suitable to India, itis also the only form of government for which shehas shewn any aptitude. The history of India issingularly barren in political ideas; a small Greekstate was richer in speculation on political principlesthan the whole continent of India has ever been.The one elevating conception which gives a patheticinterest to the weary tale of bloodshed which is


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46 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAknown as Indian history, is the faithfulness of thefollowers to the hand that gives them salt. Thememory of the Moghul Empire after a hundredand fifty years of anarchy and foreign dominion,still lives in the hearts of the people. I have seena wandering puppet-show representing the courtof Akbar, in which, by a quaint anachronism, EnglishMem Sahibs and Padres joined with Indian Rajahsand the Sultan of Rum (Constantinople,) in doinghomage to the Great Moghul. For about a centurythe house of Tamerlane claimed the allegiance oftheir Indian subjects irrespective of race or creed;after this the policy of Akbar was uversed byAurangzeb, whose puritanical zeal re-opened theold wounds. But in this brief period they succeededin creating an impression upon public opinion,comparable to the effect produced on men's mindsby the long line of Roman Emperors. As theImperial purple continued to cast its spell on theminds of the barbarians who had carved themselvesprincipalities out of the Roman Empire, so thetradition of the Empire of Delhi lingered ; and theEmperors, though reduced to impotence, remainedthe fountain of legality from which English traders andJat plunderers were glad to draw a title to theirbooty. I have been told that, in the days of LordEllenborough, a certain Hindu Rajah sent a notablewrestler in his service to wrestle before the Emperorof Delhi, then a pensioner of the East India Com-pany; the Emperor was so pleased with his per-


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THE EkPRESS OF INDIA 4?formance that, with his own hands, he fastened aband of gold upon his head. When the wrestlercame back, the Rajah and his court rose to dohonour to the man who carried a token of theimperial favour, and each in turn did obeisance tothe band which hacl been touched by the handsof Akbar's successor.The native states illustrate the value of monar-chical institutions in ^ India. It can hardly be

contended that an overwhelming proportion of thenative chiefs of to-day are born leaders of men ; inthe regularity of their lives and in their sense ofpublic duty they certainly have no advantage overthe collectors and commissioners of British India.But the native chiefs have achieved success in oneof the most important functions of statesmanship,in which the highly educated Civil Service hasfailed : they have won the loyalty of their pgople.This cannot be attributed to the fact that they arenatives of the soil, for, in the states where loyaltyis most conspicuous, the chiefs are foreigners whodo not talk the language of the people. Holkar,Sindhia, and the Gaekwar are Mahrattas ; they andtheir courts speak Mahratti which is not intelligibleto the majority of their subjects. The Nizam is aMuhamadan who speaks Urdu ; whereas his subjectsare chiefly Hindus whose native tongue is Telegupr Canarese or Mahratti. Nor have any of thesedynasties an older title than ourselves to the homageof the people of India; they and almost all the


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48 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAreigning chiefs won their thrones in the anarchywhich followed the downfall of the Moghul Empire.That they have succeeded in winning the loyaltyof their people is solely due to the natural advan-tages of the monarchical form of government inIndia. They have not asked their subjects to assentto any general principle of government, for noneof universal application could have been found,but they have claimed their fealty to the personof the monarch. And in the second place they havenever pretended to be neutral upon political ques-tions, but have employed all the resources of thestate in support of a particular set of views; thispolicy gives one party such an ascendency in thestate that a conflict is out of the question. I onceasked a very experienced Political Agent what hebelieved to be the reason why "cow-killing riots"never occur in native states, and the answer hegave contains, I think, the true explanation. Thereason is that, upon this question, the chief himselfalways holds a very decided opinion, and all theforces of the state are arrayed upon one side orthe other; a Muhamadan chief of course allowsthe slaughter of kine, a Hindu Rajah of courseprohibits it; so the question is settled.

That the native chiefs do possess the affection oftheir subjects to a very remarkable degree cannot bedoubted by any one who has ever resideJ in anative state. If any tourist who comes to study theEast on a three months' trip, wishes to enter into


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THE EMPRESS OF INDIA 49the political ideas of the people of India ard atthe same time to see one of the most picturesquesights which India has still to show, let him paya visit to any petty chief in Rajputana or Bundel-khand, and, when the glare of day has softened toa golden haze and the dusty droves of cattle arereturning to their stalls, let him accompany theRajah on his evening ride. From the gateway ofthe fort, the Rajah's elephant, in long housings ofvelvet and cloth of gold, comes shuffling down thesteep declivity; on his back, in a silver howdah,sits the Rajah, laden with barbaric pearl and goldbehind him clatter his kinsmen and retainers onbrightly caparisoned horses; these horses are, forthe mcst part, pink-nosed, squealing brutes, butthey are controlled by a standing martingale anda spiky bit, and make a brave show. As thecavalcade winds down the narrow streets the menpick up their swords and hurry forward ; the womenand children rush to the doors of their houses, andall the people gaze upon their prince with anexpression of almost ecstatic delight ; as the elephantpasses, each man puts one hand to the groundand shouts " Maharaju Ram Ram". The most indo-lent tourist cannot fail to notice the joy upon allthe people's faces; and when the cavalcade windshome and he realises the intensity of delight whichthe mere sight of their prince has caused the sub-jects, he will begin to understand the suitabilityof monarchy to certain phases of social evolution.


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So IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIATrue to their political traditions, the people of

India have fastened upon the one aspect of Englishrule which is in harmony with their own ideals,and have invested the name of the Empress ofIndia with a halo of love and veneration. TheQueen has never set foot in India, and her influenceover the administration of the country is but sha-dowy and nominal; and yet the educated classes,the only people, that is, vho think upon politicalquestions at all, feel for her person a warmth ofloyalty which it would be hard to match in England.The loyalty felt in England for the Queen is aneminently reasonable feeling; it is a mixture ofesteem for the virtues of an Qcalted personage andpatriotic pride in the greatness of England. TheQueen is to Englishmen a symbol of their world-wide Empire ; and the lustiness with which they swellthe chorus of "God save the Queen" is at leastpartly due to its being their National Anthem.But Indian loyalty is not tainted by any selfishfeeling of national glorification. I can best charac-terize it as a tender personal affection. The nearestapproach to it in England is to be found in thearmy, which has naturally preserved many of thetraditions of a monarchical state of society. Theold Colonel, who murmurs "The Queen, God blessher!" over his port, does entertain a sentimentwhich is similar in kind to that which her Indiansubjects feel; it is a personal, I almost said aprivate, affection.


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THE EMPRESS OF INDIA 51If it be remembered that in India, loyalty means

devotion to the sovereign, I do not think there isany serious exaggeration in the contention of the" Dainik-o-Somochar Chundrika", that "the Indianpeople are by naturet and by virtue of their religiousprinciples more loyal than Englishmen. Indianloyalty is a hundred times deeper and sincererthan English loyalty. In England the Queen isonly a constitutional monarch : in India she is aGoddess incarnate."

Although articles to this effect may be found asthick as blackberries in the vernacular press, I donot think that I should materially strengthen mycase by lengthy quotations from the newspapers.Papers in India cannot be trusted to reflect publicopinion, and I have only quoted them where I cancorroborate their contentions out of my own expe-rience. Moreover, upon this question the journalistactually misrepresents the sentiments of the people,as, while acknowledging the feeling, he generallyattempts to find a reason for it in the benefits theQueen has conferred on India; but loyalty isproperly a sentiment which is recognised intuitionally,and it gains as little as the cause of virtue by theadvocacy of utilitarian reasoning. Perhaps I maybe allowed one quotation which is free at leastfrom this error. The Jubilee number of the "Chin-sxra Vkrtavaha" contained the following : (20 June,1897.)"Come, gods and goddesses, come. Join us in


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52 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAthis universal rejoicing and festivity. India has,so to speak, been turned into heaven, and we areas happy as the immortal gods. We are in factoverpowered with joy on this auspicious occasion,and our heart is full to overflowing. We are singingthe praises of Mother Victoria, and let the godsshower flowers on us. Shall we ever see a returnof this happy occasion? Shall we ever get sucha kind-hearted, benevolent, and generous ruler?Queen Victoria protects us as the Divine Mother.She is more than a human being. She is a goddess.So many virtues can dwell in a goddess, and in agoddess alone."We are often accused of want of loyalty. Weare blamed for continually harping on oi 1 ^ griev-

ances. But, Mother, is it disloyalty to representour grievances? You have asked us to lay ourgrievances before you, and this makes us boldenough to complain of oppression and highhand-edness when they become really unbearable. Inyour eyes all your subjects are equal. Mother,when your white children oppress us, shall we notcomplain against them? 11The House of Commons directs the Queen'sministers to conduct the administration of India inconformity with the political principles which haveproved beneficial in England, and it has neverbeen to the trouble of considering whether theceprinciples are equally acceptable to the people ofIndia. But the continuity of history can never


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THE EMPRESS OF INDIA 53be safely disregarded. We have not based ourdominion upon principles which commend them-selves to the political instincts of the people, andhence our government has failed to take root inthe country; it rests upon the top of the peopleand, by its massive weight, keeps them in theirplaces and prevents commotion, but it draws nonourishment from the soil, and the people havenot come to look upon it as a part of themselves.If a great statesman ever had the opportunity ofremodelling the constitution of India and, likeNapoleon, of constructing the whole edifice ofgovernment afresh, he would assuredly seize uponthe loyalty of the people

to the Queen as thecardinal fact upon which to found the fabric ofEmpire; he would recognize that the Queen isbeyond all comparison the greatest political forcein India. If anarchy were again let loose in Indiaand all the possible candidates made a bid forsupreme power, the Prince of Wales, commissionedby the Queen, would raise a larger force than anyantagonist; adherents would flock to him from allparts of the country as soon as he landed in India,and the moral sense of the people would every-where be on his side ; their consciences would admithim as the only rightful claimant.A statesman who was devising a constitutionsuitab'e to India's particular needs would also bebound to recognize that the only conception ofcivic duty which is deeply impressed upon the

4


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54 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIAIndian conscience, is the obligation of fidelity tothe hand that gives them salt. Owing perhaps toits supreme value to society in a country so divided,faithfulness to the salt has been elevated to therank of a cardinal virtue in India; namak haram,(faithless to the salt,) is a term expressive of thegreatest infamy in a society in which the taking ofbribes to pervert justice is considered venial.Here then is the general principle of which weare in search. Loyalty to the Empress is a senti-ment which suggests no humiliating consciousnessof subjection to a foreign yoke, a sentiment bywhich men of the most opposite creed" and racesare equally moved, a sentiment peculiarly in accordwith the genius of the people of India, and, whatis more important than anything else, a sentimentwhich is already in existence.


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CHAPTER VREGARDING SOME MAXIMS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENTAs the Queen of England is already Empress

of India, it may be objected that our Empire inthe East is already placed upon the right foundation,and therefore on my own showing no change isrequired. This objection is not likely to come fromanybody who has lived long in India ; our dominionis universally recognised as depending on thesupremacy of the British race; even in officialdocuments the Queen's name occurs but rarely;hardly any administrative act, except the Procla-mation of 1858, is understood to be the expressionof her wishes. A machine called Government, ofwhich the principal parts are Englishmen, directsthe business of the country according to certainrules and regulations, and the subject who longsfor a human personality to love and follow isunable to discover that this machine has any sym-pathies or antipathies. The natives of India have,so to say, discovered the Queen in our admistra-tion for themselves from their inherent love of a


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56 IMPERIAL RULE IN INDIApersonality and by an instinctive perception oftheir own requirements. If a part of statesmanshipconsists in suiting the Government to the temperof the governed, our proper policy would havelain in entrusting the whole direction of Govern-ment to the Empress of India.

But before discussing in detail the changes whichwould nowadays follow upon the substitution ofthe supremacy of the Crown for .he supremacy ofrace, I must consider the essential difference betweenthe political principles which should govern a mo-narchy and a modern popular government; forunless this is done I shall be pulled up at everyturn by the objection that the changes which Iam suggesting are opposed to the most fundamentalaxioms of English politics.The political principles of monarchy differ fromthose which guide popular governments, becausethe two forms of government are appropriate todifferent phases in the evolution of society. Thegreat need of primitive society is a central authorityto curb the centrifugal forces and promote the uni-fication of the State ; and primitive states have almosteverywhere adopted monarchy because it was theinstitution which best satisfied this need. The ser-vices which monarchy rendered to European societyconsisted in crushing aspirants to local indepen-dence and in breaking up the groups which rerstedassimilation. The kings of Europe succeeded increating a bond which united the various peoples


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REGARDING SOME MAXIMS 57of their realm and in inducing their subjects toaccept it in place of those other bonds which, likereligion, do knit men together, but in methodsless advantageous to society. This process wasperhaps conducted with needless brutality and atthe expense of some valuable elements of civiliza-tion, yet it was on the whole a salutary process,and Western Europe may to-day be grateful thatit has been accomplished. But the institution whichmost assisted the evolution of the organism at anearly stage of development became useless whenthe State was unified and compacted by a nationalsentiment running through all its parts; and whenan institution has become superfluous its retentionis generally harmful and an obstacle to furtherdevelopment. Monarchy having completed in Euro-pean countries the task for which it was speciallyadapted, was generally sloughed off and its placetaken by institutions more suitable to a later phaseof evolution. This constitutional transformation wasaccompanied by throes and convulsions which havenot yet entirely subsided, and our political viewsare still deeply coloured by reminiscences of thestruggle against absolutism. The political maximsby which Europe is governed to-day, are not inreality immutable principles of universal application,but generalizations from contemporary society, towhich the political history of the last two centurieshas given currency and a certain stamp of intrinsicmerit. In the latter half of the eig

(1899) imperial rule in india: being an examination of the principles proper to the government of...

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