The Political Future of India

by Lala Lajpat Rai

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Village Government in British India, by John Matthai. Preface by Sidney Webb, p. xv.

[2] “The Indian Government compiles no statistics showing the distribution of wealth, but such incomplete figures as we have obtained show that the number of persons enjoying a substantial income is very small. In one province the total number of persons who enjoy an income of £66 a year derived from other sources than land is 30,000; in another province 20,000. The revenue and rent returns also show how small the average agricultural holding is. According to one estimate, the number of landlords whose income derived from their proprietary holdings exceeds £20 a year in the United Provinces is about 126,000, out of a population of forty-eight millions. It is evident that the curve of wealth descends very steeply, and that enormous masses of the population have little to spare for more than the necessaries of life.”

[3] See Punjab in Peace and War, by S. S. Thorborn, London, 1904.

[4] They are collected in England’s Debt to India, by the present author. New York, B. W. Huebsch, 1917.

[5] See Sir D. Hamilton, Calcutta Review, July, 1916.

[6] “Banya” in Hindustan means “trader.”

[7] In this connection the pertinent observations of the Aga Khan in his book India in Transition may be read (Chapter XXV), Putnam, New York.

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VI
THE PUBLIC SERVICES IN INDIA

The governing consideration, therefore, in all these cases [speaking of German colonies] must be that the inhabitants should be placed under the control of an administration acceptable to themselves, one of whose main purposes will be to prevent their exploitation for the benefit of European capitalists or Governments.

David Lloyd George

“The War Aims of the Allies.” Speech delivered to delegates of the Trades Unions, at the Central Hall, Westminster, January 5, 1918.

Until now the European servants of the British Government have ruled India quite autocratically. The powers delegated to and the discretion vested in them have been so large that they could do almost anything they liked. They could make or mar the fortunes of millions; they could further their happiness or add to their misery by the simple fiat of their will. The only limitation on their power was their own sense of duty and justice. That some of them did let themselves go is no wonder. The wonder is that the instances of unbridled oppression and tyranny were not more numerous than they have actually been. Speaking of the European services generally, we have nothing but admiration for their general character. The particular branch of the Public Services that has been all along entrusted with the general administration of the country is known as the Indian Civil Service. It is recruited in England and is overwhelmingly European in personnel. On April 1, 1913, only forty-six of the 1319 civilians on the cadre were natives of India.

Speaking of the executive organizations that have so far ruled India, the eminent authors of the Report for the reorganization of the Government of India remark that it may “well be likened to a mere system of official posts, actuated till now by impulses of its own, but affected by the popular ideas which impinge on it from three sources—the British Parliament, the legislative councils and the local boards.” The sentence would have been correct if in place of “but affected” the authors had said “and affected but little.” “The system,” they add, “has in the main depended for its effectiveness on the experience, wisdom and energy of the services themselves. It has, for the most part, been represented by the Indian Civil Service which, though having little to do with the technical departments of government, has for over 100 years in practice had the administration entrusted to its hands, because, with the exception of the offices of the Governor General, Governors, and some members of the executive councils, it has held practically all the places involving superior control. It has been in effect much more of a government corporation than of a purely civil service in the English sense. It has been made a reproach to the Indian Civil Service that it regards itself as the Government; but a view which strikes the critic familiar with parliamentary government as arrogant is little more than a condensed truth.” [The italics are ours.]

The Indian Civil Service has thus developed all the characteristics, good and bad, of a caste. It has been a powerful bureaucracy, as exclusive, proud, arrogant and self-sufficient,—if not even more so,—as the original Brahmin oligarchy of the land, except that while the Brahmin oligarchy had ties of race, religion and culture with the rest of the population, the Indian Civil Service is almost entirely composed of aliens. The ancient Brahmins were, however, kept in check by the military caste. The mutual jealousies of these two castes afforded some kind of protection to the people in general. But in the case of the British Indian Civil Service, the military have given entire support to their civilian fellow-countrymen and have been completely under their will.

The Brahmins of India have left a monumental record of their labors. They produced great thinkers, writers, legislators, administrators and organizers. In their own time they were as wise, energetic and resourceful as any bureaucracy in the world has ever been or will ever be. Yet the system of life they devised cut at the roots of national vitality. It dried almost all the springs of corporate national life. It reduced the bulk of the population to a position of complete subservience to their will, of blind faith in their wisdom, of absolute dependence on their initiative. It deprived the common people of all opportunities of independent thought and independent action. It brought about a kind of national atrophy. And this, in spite of the fact that they began by imposing a rigorous code of self-denial on themselves and their class. For themselves they wanted nothing but a life of poverty and asceticism. Their economic interests were never in theory or in practice in conflict with those of the rest of the body politic.

A Brahmin was forbidden to engage in trade or otherwise accumulate wealth. His life was a life of strict self-abnegation. This cannot be said of the Indian Civil Servant. He receives a handsome salary for his services, expects and receives periodic promotion until he reaches a position which, from an economic point of view, is not unenviable. After retirement he is free to engage in trade and otherwise accumulate wealth. But over and above this, what distinguishes an Indian Civil Servant from an old Brahmin bureaucrat is the fact that in India he represents a nation whose economic interest may not always be in harmony with those of the people of India. He is thus supposed to be the guardian of the interests of his countrymen, and is expected to further them as much as he can without altogether endangering the safety of British rule in India. Looked at from this angle, we have no hesitation in saying that the work of the Indian Civil Service, too, has in its way, been monumental. As a rule, they have proved capable administrators, individually honest, hardworking and alert. They have organized and tabulated India in a way, perhaps, never done before. But after all has been said in their praise, it cannot be denied that they have done India even more harm than the Brahmin oligarchy in its time, did, by the support they lent to economic exploitation of the country by men of their own race and religion. Now, in this latter respect, we want to guard against being misunderstood. The Indian Civil Service has, in the course of about a century, produced a fairly good number of men who have honestly and fearlessly stood for the protection of Indian interests against those of people of their own race and religion. In doing so they have sometimes ruined their own prospects of promotion and advancement. Whenever they failed in their self-imposed task, and more often they failed than not, they failed because the authorities at the top were forced by considerations of domestic and imperial policy to do otherwise. On the whole, the defects of the bureaucratic administration were more the defects of the system than of the individuals composing it.

The Indian Civil Servant, like the old Brahmin, is autocratic and dictatorial. He dislikes any display of independence by the people put under his charge. He discourages initiative. He likes to be called and considered the Mai bap (mother and father) of his subjects. On those who literally consider him such he showers his favors. The others he denounces and represses. This has, in the course of time, led to national emasculation. That is our chief complaint against the Indian Civil Service. Of the other services we would rather not speak. They have by no means been so pure and high-minded as the I. C. S., nor perhaps so autocratic and dictatorial. The number of men who misused their powers and opportunities to their own advantage has been much larger in services other than the I. C. S. Yet they all have done a certain amount of good work for India; whether one looks at the engineering works designed and executed by them, or the researches they have made in the science of healing and preventing disease, or the risks they have run in preserving order or maintaining peace one cannot but admire their efficiency and ability. The grievances of the Indian Nationalists against the Public Services in India may be thus summarized:

(a) That the services monopolize too much power and are practically uncontrolled by and irresponsible to the people of the country.

(b) That the higher branches of the services contain too many foreigners.

(c) That these are recruited in England, and from some of them the Indians are altogether barred.

(d) That even when doing the same work Indians are not paid on the same scale as the Europeans.

(e) That the Government has often kept on men of proved inefficiency and of inferior qualities.

(f) That, considering the economic conditions of India, the higher servants of the Government are paid on a scale unparalleled in the history of public administration in the world.

(g) That the interests of the services often supersede those of the country and the Government.

(h) And last, but not least, that by the gathering of all powers of initiative and execution in their hands they have emasculated India.

As regards (a) we have already quoted the opinion of the eminent authors of the report. The principle laid down in the announcement of August 20, and the scheme proposed are supposed to do away with the element of irresponsibility. It is obvious that with the introduction of the principle of popular control into the Government, the power of individual servants of the executive will not remain what it is now, or has been in the past. Much that is vested in and done by the service will be transferred to public bodies elected by popular vote. This will naturally affect (b) and (c) also. We will here stop to quote again from the Report:

“In the forefront of the announcement of August 20 the policy of the increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration was definitely placed. It has not been necessary for us, nor indeed would it have been possible, to go into this large question in detail in the time available for our inquiry. We have already seen that Lord Hardinge’s Government was anxious to increase the number of Indians in the public services, and that a Royal Commission was appointed in 1912 to examine and report on the existing limitations in the employment of Indians.... The report was signed only a few months after the outbreak of war, and its publication was deferred in the hope that the war would not be prolonged. When written, it might have satisfied moderate Indian opinion, but when published two years later it was criticised as wholly disappointing. Our inquiry has since given us ample opportunity of judging the importance which Indian opinion attaches to this question. While we take account of this attitude, a factor which carries more weight with us is that since the report was signed an entirely new policy toward Indian government has been adopted, which must be very largely dependent for success on the extent to which it is found possible to introduce Indians into every branch of the administration.”

The authors of the Report then proceed to state the limitations of the process, subject to the general remark that at the present moment there are few Indians (we do not admit this) trained in public life, who can replace the Europeans, and thus to alter the personnel of a service must be a long and steady process. They admit that:

“If responsible government is to be established in India there will be a far greater need than is even dreamt of at present for persons to take part in public affairs in the legislative assemblies and elsewhere; and for this reason the more Indians we can employ in the public services the better. Moreover, it would lessen the burden of Imperial responsibilities if a body of capable Indian administrators could be produced. We regard it as necessary, therefore, that recruitment of a largely increased proportion of Indians should be begun at once.”

In the next paragraph they state why, in their judgment, it is necessary that a substantial portion of the services must continue to be European. Their reasons may be gathered from the following:

“The characteristics which we have learned to associate with the Indian public services must as far as possible be maintained and the leaven of officers possessed of them should be strong enough to assure and develop them in the service as a whole. The qualities of courage, leadership, decision, fixity of purpose, detached judgment and integrity in her public servants will be as necessary as ever to India. There must be no such sudden swamping of any service with any new element that its whole character suffers a rapid alteration.”

On these grounds they make the following recommendations:

“I. That all distinctions based on race be removed, and that appointments to all branches of the public service be made without racial discrimination” (Paragraph 315).

“II. That for all the public services, for which there is recruitment in England open to Europeans and Indians alike, there must be a system of appointment in India, ... and we propose to supplement it by fixing a definite percentage of recruitment to be made in India.”

“III. We have not been able to examine the question of the percentage of recruitment to be made in India for any service other than the Indian Civil Service. The Commission recommended that 25 per cent. of the superior posts of that service should be recruited for in India. We consider that changed conditions warrant some increase in that proportion, and we suggest that 33 per cent. of the superior posts should be recruited for in India, and that this percentage should be increased by 1½ per cent. annually until the periodic commission is appointed which will re-examine the whole subject.... We have dealt only with the Indian Civil Service, but our intention is that there should be in all other services now recruited from England a fixed percentage of recruitment in India, increasing annually.”

Now we must admit that this is certainly a distinct and marked advance on the existing situation. The Indian Constitutional party, however, wants to have the percentage of recruitment in India fixed at 50 per cent., retaining at the same time the annual increase suggested. In our opinion, this difference is not material, provided the number of posts to which the rule of percentage is to be applied is substantially reduced. We may state our position briefly.

We are of the opinion that the system of administration in India is much more costly than it should be, considering the sources and the amounts of Indian revenues. Unless the industries of the country are developed we can see no new sources of increased taxation. Consequently, to us, it seems essential that some economy should be effected in the various departments of the administration. The only way to effect that economy is to substantially reduce the number of posts on which it is considered necessary to retain a certain percentage of Europeans. In speaking of the machinery of the Government of India, the authors of the Report say:

“We think we have reason for saying that in some respects the machinery is no longer equal to the needs of the time. The normal work of the departments is heavy. The collective responsibility of the Government is weighty, especially in time of war. There is little time or energy left for those activities of a political nature which the new situation in the country demands. A legislative session of the Government of India imposes a serious strain upon the departments, and especially on the members in charge of them. But apart from the inevitable complexities of the moment, the growing burden of business, which results from the changing political conditions of the country, is leading to an accumulation of questions which cannot be disposed of as quickly as they present themselves. We find the necessity for reforms admitted, principles agreed upon, and decisions taken, and then long delays in giving effect to them. Difficulties are realized, enquiries are started, commissions report, and then there is a pause. There is a belief abroad that assurances given in public pronouncement of policy are sometimes not fulfilled. On this occasion, therefore, we have taken steps to guard against such imputations, and to provide means for ensuring the ordered development of our plans.”