Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 Part 21

Indian magistrates have much to tell of the litigiousness of the people, their constant attempts to overreach each other, the carefully woven lies which they have daily to unravel, the trust put in bribes to influence decisions, and the deeply ingrained notion in the minds of native officials that they should get more for their services to the public than the bare pay, the _sookha tulub_--_dry wages_--as it is contemptuously called.

[Sidenote: THE POVERTY OF THE PEOPLE.]

The people of Northern India are mainly agricultural, and they are unquestionably poor. Our very success has in one aspect tended to their impoverishment. With very few exceptions they marry young, and during the many years of peace which have pa.s.sed over them, with the exception of the short sharp crisis of the Mutiny, the population has greatly increased. Whenever an epidemic breaks out, means are at once employed to check it. There is a vaccination department for the purpose of preventing the ravages of small-pox. Female infanticide, which had prevailed to a frightful extent among certain castes, has been diminished, though not, it is feared, wholly suppressed. It is well known that famines have been sadly destructive of life, but there is evidence that previous to our rule, when there were few roads and little communication between one part of India and another, famines were still more so. Among so vast a population directly dependent on the soil, in a country where rain is so indispensable, and is now and then a failure, we have too much reason to fear famines may yet recur; but such provision is now made against their ravages, that it is hoped the catastrophes of the past will be escaped.

It is believed that, as the result of the new order of things, India at the present time has by many millions a larger population than it ever had previously. Mention has been made of the improvement effected in the Province of k.u.maon; and other parts of India present instances of equally successful administration, but the area of new cultivation has not kept pace with the increase of population. It is sad that so many of the people should be underfed. In our own country and in Ireland this question of sufficient food for the entire population is one of the pressing difficulties of the day. Much is within the power of people themselves to improve their condition. We know it is so at home, and it is so in India. There, there is a vast body of st.u.r.dy beggars, under the guise of religious devotees, who feed on the people. Lending and borrowing go on at a most hurtful rate. If a person finds himself possessed of some twenty or thirty rupees, he either puts it into jewels for the female members of his family, or lends it at an exorbitant rate of interest. It has sometimes seemed as if creditors and debtors included the entire population. Debt, not by law but by custom, is hereditary, and a man is expected to pay the debts of his grand-parents.

Marriage expenses are so heavy, that very often a debt settles down on a man on his marriage day under which he lies till the day of his death.

Government has done much to induce leading men to bind themselves to a moderate expenditure on the occasion of marriages, in the hope that the example might prevent the unreasonable and pernicious profusion of the marriage season. If the habits of the people were changed the pressure of poverty would be greatly lightened.

[Sidenote: IMPROVEMENT.]

There is much room for improvement in the incidence of taxation. The land-tax, we may say the land-rent, is the main source of revenue, but it is alarming to think of dependence on the opium monopoly for the millions it contributes. Intoxicating drugs are largely used in India, and among them opium holds the favourite place. Permission to the people to grow and manufacture opium for themselves would be as hurtful as permission to distil whiskey and gin would be to our country. It is devoutly to be wished the present system may come to an end, and that in its place a fiscal system be adopted similar to that of England in reference to alcoholic drinks. In reference to spirits, every effort should be made to discourage their sale, however much the revenue may suffer in consequence. The salt-tax has been so productive that it has been kept up in a manner which has borne heavily on the people. It has been reduced, and it is hoped that it will be reduced still further.

Regarding some of the questions at present much discussed, I can only say that every friend of India, I may say every friend of justice, must desire that the people be largely entrusted with the management of their own affairs, that local government be encouraged, and every facility given to the admission of natives, so far as they are qualified, into the rank of administrators. Much is being done in this direction, and still more will be done in the future. The police has been improved, but it stands much in need of further improvement.

Happy changes were expected from the a.s.sumption by the Queen of the direct government of India. Progress has been made since that time, but I do not think it is in any large measure owing to the change. For some time previously increased attention was given to the sanitation of towns, the improvement of roads, the laying out of market-places, the planting of public gardens, the building of hospitals, dispensaries, and town houses. Many wealthy natives, stirred up by magistrates, have contributed liberally to these improvements. Of late years these works have been carried on with increasing zeal. In 1877 we saw some of the princ.i.p.al towns in Northern India, and were struck with the contrast they presented to their condition during the early years of our residence. The filthiest place in Benares, which almost sickened me every time I came near it, is now a beautiful garden, with a fine town-house attached to it. The very bulls of Benares have been got rid of. No longer are these brutes encountered in the streets.

My readers will observe that I am far from agreeing with those who describe our rule in India as an unmixed blessing to its inhabitants. It is undeniable that our rule, because foreign, lies under great disadvantages. I am still farther removed from agreement with the extremely pessimist views which are sometimes advanced. The history of India rebuts the a.s.sertion that we have acquired our sovereignty mainly by fraud; and whatever may be said of other parts of India, no one acquainted with Bengal and the North-Western Provinces can say that he has there seen "the awful spectacle of a country inhabited only by officials and peasants." When one thinks of the atrocious crimes, upheld by religious sanctions, such as suttee and infanticide, which we have put down in the face of determined opposition and even threats of rebellion from the most honoured cla.s.ses of the community, it is strange to be told that "before we went the people were religious, chaste, sober, compa.s.sionate towards the helpless, and patient under suffering,"

and that we have corrupted them. We are told that "while we have conferred considerable advantages, the balance is wofully against us."

As the result of long residence in India, and of reading about India, I have come to the conclusion the balance is immensely in our favour.

[Sidenote: WHENCE IS IMPROVEMENT TO COME?]

All friends of India desire the improvement of its government, and the increasing welfare of its people. Whence is the improvement to come? We are told "nothing is to be hoped for from the Indian official cla.s.s."

From whom is anything to be hoped for? From the Home Government? The leaders of our political parties have pa.s.sed measures beneficial to India, but they have again and again taken advantage of its helplessness to impose on it burdens to which it ought not to have been subjected.

Are we to look to the people at home for relief? How difficult is it to secure attention to the subject, or to make them understand it when their attention is gained! Are we to look to the non-official cla.s.s in India? I have nothing to say about the Ilbert Jurisdiction Bill, except that while officials have been divided about it, many of the most eminent being in its favour, non-officials almost to a man have been bitterly opposed to it. Where I have spent the greater part of my life, nothing has been more common than complaints by Europeans of injustice done to them by partiality shown to natives at their expense. Are we to look to the great landholders, bankers, merchants, shopkeepers, and well-to-do cla.s.ses in the cities of Bengal and the North-West, who have benefited most by our rule? What may be expected from them is ill.u.s.trated by the fact that when the finances were thrown by the Mutiny into confusion, many protested against an income tax, and some of high position proposed that the finances should be rectified by an increase of the salt-tax! In these influential cla.s.ses there are high-minded and benevolent individuals, but if we look at them in their collective capacity we shall be disappointed. When we look at the long roll of distinguished Indian officials, mark their achievements, hear their protests against what they deemed hurtful measures, and their advocacy of beneficial changes, I think we find in them India's warmest friends, who have done it the most signal service, and from whom more can be expected than from any other cla.s.s.

There are ample materials for arriving at correct views regarding the condition of India and the way in which it is governed. No Parliamentary Committee, no Royal Commission, is required to elicit the facts. The recently completed "Gazeteer" of India, in which Dr. Hunter and his a.s.sistants had been engaged for years, furnishes full and reliable information. The state of India is described in that imperial work with a frankness and fulness which leave nothing to be desired. If one of our great writers, who has secured the ears of our country, would set to the drawing up of a volume of moderate size, founded on the "Gazeteer,"

showing in a readable interesting form what has been done and what has been left undone, what has been done well and what has been done ill, and if the intelligent people of our country could be induced to give it a careful perusal, untold good would be done both to England and to India. Nothing would please Indian officials more than the eye of England being thus fixed on their doings and misdoings, that the whole truth might be known, and praise and censure be justly distributed, and still more that the changes most beneficial to the people might be effected.

[Sidenote: THE BEST GOVERNORS FOR INDIA.]

It is undeniable, as already said, that our rule because foreign lies under great disadvantages. When the ancestors of the present Hindus crossed the Indus and gradually made their way into the Continent before them, they subdued and to a great degree enslaved its inhabitants. For many a day their rule was foreign. This was also the case with the successive Muhammadan conquerors. Rule founded on the suffrages of the people remains to the present day unknown. There is, however, this difference between the previous rulers of India and the English, that they remained in the country, and gradually became amalgamated with its inhabitants, while we show no disposition to make India our home. As we do not, it would be far better if Hindustanees were the rulers of Hindustan, Bengalees of Bengal, the members of other Indian nations of their respective nations, provided they were qualified by character, attainments, and the estimate entertained of them by the ruled, with a strong central power to secure order throughout the Continent, while leaving unfettered the general administration. Towards this ideal strenuous efforts should be directed; but when we look at India as it is now, with its divergent and antagonistic elements, with the weakness induced by ages of superst.i.tion and despotism, what a long road has it to travel before it can reach this goal! The question, then, is not what is absolutely best, but what is practicable. Thus regarded, we are shut up to the continuance of our rule. Every friend of India must desire that it may be improved in every possible way, so that it may be in an increasing degree a blessing to its teeming population.

No one can predict the future of India. Within its borders there are many who for various reasons would be delighted with our overthrow, while I believe the vast majority in the parts of India I know best would deprecate our departure as a dire calamity. It is a notable fact that when our own native soldiers, sworn to uphold our rule, rose fiercely against us, and rebellion in many districts followed in the wake of mutiny, not a single native prince of the highest rank availed himself of the opportunity to throw off the suzerainty of our Queen.

The army of the Prince of Gwalior rose against us, but by doing so they rebelled against their own sovereign. When in 1877 we were in a native state in Rajputana, a gentleman, who knew well the temper of the people, said that if our control was withdrawn the Rajputs and Mahrattas would be at each other's throats in a month. Our army has something better to do than to uphold an alien government. It has to prevent the outbreak of war which would desolate India from one end to the other. Happily its prestige is sufficient to avert this terrible evil, but the prestige can only continue while the army exists. By the suppression of the Mutiny our prowess was shown in a manner which has made an indelible impression. It is scarcely conceivable we can again have to encounter a similar outbreak, though trouble may come from unantic.i.p.ated quarters.

Our immensely improved means of communication contribute largely to our security. Good government, the conferring of manifest benefits on the people, will do more to establish our rule than all other things combined. It is obvious to all who have any just conception of our position in India, that never was a nation charged with greater responsibilities, never was such a tremendous task committed to a people, and never was there a more urgent call for the highest qualities, if the duties devolving on us are to be worthily discharged.

Our Government cannot, and ought not, to undertake its evangelization, but if the work of government be rightly done, it will indirectly, but very effectually, help the Christian Church in giving the Gospel to the millions of India, which, when accepted by them, will purify and elevate their character, improve their condition, and fit them for true, healthy, national life, while securing their spiritual and eternal good.