The English in India

FIFTY years ago, oil November 1, 1858, at a great durbar at Allahabad, it was proclaimed that Queen Victoria had assumed the government of India. This fact is of more than mere historic importance, for it marks the beginning of the greatest experiment in government which the world has ever witnessed. Never before had so many of the human race been subject to a single foreign ruler. Cæsar, at the height of his power, ruled over only one hundred and twenty millions, while Edward, Emperor of India, is the supreme lord of three hundred millions. The history of India, therefore, during the last half-century, is of surpassing interest and importance to every student of the great world-problem of the present time, — how to rule an inferior race justly and wisely, that is, with the aim to lift it from its lower level, to develop in it the power of righteous selfgovernment, the noblest task which an enlightened people can undertake. Since nearly all the civilized nations, including the United States, have now this problem to solve, a knowledge of the governmental methods adopted by nations having colonial possessions is absolutely necessary, in order to profit by their successes and their failures.

Rightly to appreciate the nature of England’s task we must first free our minds from the common impression that India is, like China, for instance, one great nationality. It is a continent rather than a country, larger than all Europe with the exception of Russia, and having all the continental varieties of surface and climate, from the perpetual snows of the Himalayas to the tropical plains of Madras. Of the diversities of the inhabitants one may form some conception from the fact that the traveler from Bombay to Calcutta passes, in a thousand miles, through a country inhabited by peoples differing more in race, religion, and habits of life, than all those he sees in going twice the distance from Constantinople to London. The Indians are divided into fourteen distinct races, speaking one hundred and forty-seven different languages and dialects, and are separated as much by creeds and customs as by mountain-ranges, vast forests, trackless deserts, and great rivers. Some idea of the extent of what may be termed their political divisions may be gained from the fact that in addition to the two hundred and fifty-nine districts or units of administration in the provinces under the direct control of the English, there are six hundred and eighty native or feudatory states under their own rulers, varying in extent from a few square miles to a territory larger than Great Britain; while on the fifty-seven hundred miles of frontier separating India from Afghanistan and Central Asia live hundreds of wild tribes given to hereditary rapine.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the religious divisions, for they are common to all peoples; but the distinguishing characteristic of the Hindu race is the castes, which, according to the new official Indian Gazetteer, are two thousand three hundred and seventy-eight in number. These include every trade, profession, guild, tribe, and class, and are governed by unwritten laws of remotest antiquity, far more binding than any that are known in our western world. That which is regarded as most sacred and essential is the prohibition of mixed marriages. Consequently, three-fourths of the Indian people may be said to consist of separate strata in which there has been no fusion for ages. This, together with the degraded position of woman, is the greatest obstacle to progress and development, and offers the hardest problems for a government to solve which seeks the highest interests of the people governed. Every grade of civilization and intelligence is to be found there, from the naked hill-tribesman on a level with the Central African, to the refined metaphysical Brahman and the shrewd Parsee. Ninety per cent of the people live in the rural districts, two-thirds of them being cultivators of the soil, and the inertia, apathy, and ignorance of the peasant are too well known to need description.

Among such a people, so divided, it is hardly necessary to add that a national feeling has never had an existence. The average Indian knows nothing, and cares for nothing, practically, outside his own family and caste. How could there have been that community of feeling which we call national, considering the fact that, in addition to their caste divisions, until the English came India was never under one supreme ruler ? So far back as history goes, the different states waged perpetual war with one another, and through the two Himalayan gateways connecting the peninsula with Central Asia foreign invaders had streamed from time immemorial. In the eighteenth century alone there were six great inroads by the Afghans in twenty-three years, in one of which eight thousand men, women, and children were hacked to pieces one morning in Delhi. At harvest season the hill-tribes along the whole northern frontier poured down into the plains and raided the fields and villages. Consequently, there was a belt of territory from twenty to fifty miles in breadth, bordering on this region, which no one dared to cultivate. A total area of sixty thousand square miles of most fertile soil yielded no food for men, but teemed with wild beasts which nightly sallied forth to ravage the herds and hamlets in the country beyond. But perhaps nothing will better illustrate the condition which prevailed in ante-British times than a Hindu law promulgated two thousand years ago. It provided that, as a protection to a royal city or kingdom, a belt of wilderness twenty miles wide should be left all about it, in place of fortifications.

The conditions in other parts of the peninsula do not appear to have been much better. The sea, instead of being a natural defense, was, like the mountains, a source of danger. On the Bay of Bengal Burmese pirates sailed up the great rivers, burning the villages, massacring the inhabitants, or carrying them off into slavery. In the early part of the eighteenth century there was a tract of one thousand square miles on the seaboard bare of villages— “ depopulated by sea robbers,” as a survey map of that time records. On the western coast piracy was conducted on a grander scale. Wealthy rajahs kept up luxurious courts upon the extortions which their pirate fleets levied from trading vessels and from the villages along the coast. Then, in the interior, there were more than a hundred predatory castes compelled by them inviolable laws to live by plunder alone.

From this rapid survey of the conditions it will readily be seen that there is not a conceivable problem of any importance relating to the government of an oriental people which has not been presented to the British rulers in India for solution. Consequently, a knowledge of their methods, with their successes and their failures, is of unsurpassed importance at the present time. This knowledge it is perfectly easy to acquire, such is the wealth of material in official documents, histories, biographies, travelers’ experiences, missionary letters and journals. Every point of view can be found presented, from that of the viceroy to that of the educated native; from that of those who will present any subject in the most favorable light, to that of those who will show the profoundest hostility to the foreign raj; from the plea of the missionary, who sees in the continuance of the present rule the only hope of the Indians, to the rabid outpourings of the native vernacular press, which lives upon its denunciations of the British for their rapacious tyranny. In this great mass of evidence the sincere searcher after the truth will find little difficulty in discovering the fundamental principles upon which the Indians have been and are still being governed. For the history of the last fifty years is a record of true growth, of gaining, and acting upon, wisdom from the grievous mistakes as well as from the great administrative successes of the previous hundred years.

The grand underlying principle, I have no hesitation in asserting, though the statement would be vehemently denied by members and supporters of the Indian congresses, is to govern in the interests of all the people, the peasant as well as the rajah. It is, in other words, to raise those three hundred millions to the same level upon which the self-governing Christian peoples stand, where the rights of the lowest are as sacred as those of the highest. This is a distinction which it is well to bear in mind, for the natives who clamor for independence are not men who have the interests of the low-born peasant at heart, but men who simply desire to perpetuate and strengthen the power of the native ruling classes, — those who have kept the peasant for ages in practically hopeless servitude. This principle was asserted eloquently by Lord Curzon in the last speech which he made as viceroy, in Bombay, November 16, 1905. He entreated the Englishmen in India to “ remember when the Almighty has placed your hand on the greatest of his ploughs in whose furrows the nations of the future are germinating and taking shape, to drive the blade a little forward in your time, to feel that somewhere among these millions you have left a little justice or happiness or prosperity, a sense of manliness or moral dignity, a spring of patriotism and dawn of intellectual enlightenment or sense of duty where it did not before exist. That is enough. That is the Englishman’s education in India. It is good enough for his watchword while he is here, for his epitaph when gone. I worked for no other aim, let India be ray judge.”

This fundamental principle is shown in the policy which distinguishes English colonial administration from that of France and Germany, — the ruling so far as possible through the native forms of government which ages have developed and to which the people are accustomed. The aim is to continue the present régime, exercising only the supreme power of preventing war, of prohibiting customs contrary to natural rights, as suttee, and to endeavor to secure justice between man and man. With this end in view, strict neutrality in regard to religions has been maintained from the first. Oriental methods are not violently superseded by occidental, even though these may be better. Reforms are instituted slowly, and mainly on the initiative of the natives themselves, as, for instance, in respect to infant marriage. In other words, the aim is to interfere with the freedom of the native as little as possible. The extent to which it is carried out is shown by the simple fact of the existence of the six hundred and eighty feudatory states, which are independent in every respect, except that they are not permitted to make war or peace, or to send ambassadors to one another or to foreign powers. Them military force has a certain specified limit, and a ruler may be deposed for misconduct or absolute inefficiency. The Maharajah of Mysore, a state as large as Maine, with a population of five and a half millions, was deposed in 1831 for excessive misrule, but in 1881 a member of his family was placed upon the throne, and, after fifty years of direct British rule, the native dynasty was restored and governs at the present time.

This policy of education in self-government is shown also in the endeavor not only to rule through native methods, but also through the natives themselves. This has been a distinguishing characteristic of the British policy from the beginning. Sir Thomas Munro, one of the most noted of the early governors, distinctly enunciated the principle when he said in a public address nearly a century ago that the aim of the government was to lessen the number of Europeans employed in the civil service and to educate natives for every office. A fatal mistake in the educational system first established by the government, but since partially corrected, — the making its basis to be instruction in the English language,— was due to the strong desire to open official careers to the Indian students.

Another thing which characterizes the British administration is that the first duty impressed upon the Englishman entering the Indian civil service is that he shall endeavor to understand the people among whom his work lies. The official Gazetteer says that the collector or district magistrate must be accessible to, and intimately acquainted with, the inhabitants. He spends several months of the year in camp, oversees subordinate officials, receives visits from local magnates and village elders, settles local quarrels, helps in matters of assessment and general affairs. And it adds, he thus “gains their affections and his memory is kept green, and tales of his sagacity and good deeds will be told in remote villages long after he has passed away.” Though it is often said that there is little sympathy between the Englishman and the Indian, and that the Russian and the Frenchman assimilate more readily and completely with the people whom they govern, I do not believe that they understand so well the needs and aspirations of the people under their rule. Several of the English high officials have so impressed the natives with their uprightness that they have been worshiped during their lives as manifestations of the Deity. And this is not so strange when we consider the fact, and it is one which most exalts the British administration, that the first requisite for the high official is character. The moral qualities of the men chosen for these positions have ever been held to be more important than their intellectual attainments; and it would be hard to find a nobler body of men than those viceroys, governors, and district magistrates. One of the most noteworthy results of this principle has been recently stated by Sir Thomas Holdich, one of the best informed of Anglo-Indians: “ Tlie high standard of morality and integrity among native officials is due to the irreproachable integrity of the English employed in the highest ranks of the public service.”

What are some of the results of these methods of government ? What is the present condition of the country ? It is enjoying a peace which has been undisturbed for fifty years, so far as the main body of the people is concerned : a peace which, I have no hesitation in asserting, is not that maintained by force of arms, but which arises from pure contentment. Nowhere in the world is there exhibited such contentment by people under a foreign yoke. The ground for this statement, which is entirely contrary to that of the opponents of the British rule, one of whom recently wrote of the “ repressive policy of the British in governing and treating the natives of India with cannon gaping against their entirely disarmed bodies from all directions,” lies in the fact that the European military force in India consists of seventy-four thousand men, mostly stationed on the northern frontier, together with a native contingent of one hundred and fifty-six thousand. That is, for every four thousand of the natives there is one English soldier. If the force was proportionally as great as that with which we keep the peace in the Philippines, it would be four hundred and fifty thousand strong, or three million if it equaled that of the French in Algeria. It is a peace which has been accompanied by growth in every direction.

Notwithstanding the ravages of famine and plague, the population has increased forty-two millions in the last twenty years, while the increase of .the United States in the same period has been but twenty-six millions. This has naturally been accompanied by extensive material growth, especially in the amount of land cultivated, and in the number and value of the crops raised.

The strip of coast “ depopulated by sea-robbers ” is now thronged with villages, and nearly a quarter of the territory of the northern borderland, which formerly no one dared to cultivate, has been brought under the plough and yields an annual harvest valued at ninety millions of dollars. On fifty thousand square miles of what was till recently wilderness or desert, there are now to be found large towns surrounded by artificially irrigated fields, highly cultivated and bearing crops which add yearly over a hundred million dollars to the general wealth. The exports alone of cotton and tea, the cultivation of which was practically introduced by the English, were one hundred and fifty million dollars in 1905, while as a producer of wheat British India ranks fourth among the nations of the world.

In the ante-British times there were no roads, only bridle-paths. To-day there are more than one hundred and eighty thousand miles of road, and twenty-eight thousand miles of railway on which two hundred and forty-eight million passengers were carried in 1906. This fact means more than lies upon the surface. In times not very long ago the pilgrimages, which every Hindu endeavors at some time to make, were done mostly on foot. The rivers in their way were rarely bridged, and if they were swollen by the rains so that the customary fords were impassable, the multitudes going and returning from the shrine became congested on either bank. Their supplies were soon exhausted, and famine and its attendant diseases were the inevitable result. Even when there were no extraordinary difficulties to be overcome, the old and feeble, whose strength was exhausted by the journey merely, died in countless numbers by the way. For fifty miles from Juggernaut in every direction the paths were lined with the bodies of those who had perished in the attempt to prostrate themselves before the car of their god. The pilgrimages have not ceased, but the excessive mortality consequent upon them has.

The building of roads has also added vastly to the amount of land cultivated and to the intensity of cultivation. Formerly the peasant only raised sufficient crops for the support of his family and for the payment of his land-tax. If the old system of regarding him, not as the owner, but as an hereditary tenant of the state, of land which by immemorial custom and unwritten law was inalienable, had prevailed, his poverty would not have been what it now is. But it was one of the mistakes of the British that they made land private property, in the expectation that by this means the position of the peasant proprietor would be improved and taxation placed on an equitable basis. The immediate effect was a sudden rise in the value of land and the enrichment of the peasant-farmer. But it was soon found that the village money-lender was the one who profited most by the new system. The natives, untrained to habits of thrift and unused to the possession of money, found themselves after a brief season of extravagant spending, dispossessed of the fields which they and their ancestors had cultivated for untold ages, and driven forth to become homeless wanderers and daylaborers, or, if they remained, hopeless serfs to their creditors. The rates of interest demanded were so high that even small debts became a terrible burden, as is shown by the following instance taken from an official report: “A small farmer borrowed ten rupees, and after paying one hundred and ten found himself in ten years still owing two hundred and twenty rupees on the loan.” So far as our knowledge goes this is the only cause of the impoverishment of the Indian which can be charged directly to the British government. An encouraging fact in this connection is that in 1905 more than a million people had $44,690,043 deposited in the Post-Office Savings-Banks alone, an increase of nearly eleven millions in five years. That the wealth of the country at large is increasing is shown by the fact that out of a total value of a billion dollars for the seaborne commerce in 1906, the value of the exports exceeded that of the imports by one hundred and eleven millions. On the other hand the value of the treasure brought into India in the last two fiscal years exceeded that carried out by one hundred and thirtyone millions. It is interesting to note in this connection that India’s trade with the United States for the first ten months of 1906 was over fifty-six million dollars, which was an increase of twenty millions over the corresponding period of the previous year. Seven-eighths consisted of exports from India to this country.

From the fact that ninety out of every hundred Indians live in the rural districts the general educational progress has been slow. It has also been hampered by the grievous mistake of making English the language through which instruction, even in the primary schools, was given. The higher education has also had till recently for its exclusive aim the preparation of men for the civil posts, and many more have been graduated from the colleges than could obtain positions; consequently a most dangerous element has been planted among the people. This is recognized by the Indians themselves, as is shown by a speech in July, 1907, by the Maharajah of Kashmir. He said that “ the chief cause of disloyalty was the educational system which sent out students with university degrees, but without occupation. The remedy lay in education in the arts and sciences, and this was the policy” which he intended to follow. This conviction of the need of technical and especially medical training characterized Lord Curzon’s educational policy; and institutions having these ends in view, together with commercial and agricultural schools, and normal schools for training teachers, have been established throughout the land.

The fundamental aim of the British rulers, however, has been the education of the people in self-government. What progress has been made in this direction ? In 1905 there were seven hundred and forty-six municipalities with a population of over sixteen millions governed by committees, the majority of whom are natives, and in many cases all are natives, elected by the ratepayers. These bodies have the care of the roads, water-supply, markets, and sanitation; they impose taxes, enact by-laws, make improvements, and spend money, but the sanction of the provincial government is necessary before new taxes can be levied or new by-laws brought into force. For many rural communities there are similar elected bodies having in charge roads, district schools, and hospitals. There are also representative assemblies or parliaments in two of the great native states. According to the latest statistics within my reach there are twenty-one thousand seven hundred and three natives holding civil appointments with salaries above three hundred dollars, the English numbering a few over a thousand. Two of the ten members of the council of the Secretary of State for India are Indians, and they are to be found in considerable numbers on the councils of the Governor-General and the provincial governors. Indians also hold commissions in the British army.

But perhaps the strongest evidence of the growth of the ability to govern themselves is the discontent which prevails among a certain section of the people in different parts of the country. It is so far from being universal or even general, however, that nine-tenths of the natives are absolutely ignorant of its existence; that is, it has not reached the rural peasantry. A few, consisting almost entirely of the educated class known as Baboos, demand absolute freedom from British rule, — independence. The wiser, and better informed, including the representatives of the sixty-two million Mohammedans, simply ask for a larger share in their own government. This request Mr. Morley, speaking for his countrymen, has promised shall be granted as speedily as possible; and the taking of two natives into his Council was a first and most important step in that direction. This Swadeshi movement, as it is locally known, is not a sudden and unexpected event. When it was announced nearly a hundred years ago that the aim of the government was to raise the Indian people to a condition in which true self-government should be possible, there were numerous warnings that such a policy would inevitably lead to revolutions. But the spirit in which these warnings were received then as well as now is shown in the memorable speech of Macaulay in 1833. After an eloquent prophecy that under the present system of government the public mind of India would expand until it had outgrown the system, and that at some future age their Indian subjects might demand European institutions, he added, “Whenever the day comes it will be the proudest day in English history.”