Sketches of social life in India

by C. T. Buckland

With regard to the people of Asia Minor, Cicero writes that the province is composed first of that kind of allies who, of all the human race, are the most humanised, and in the next place, of those Roman citizens who are, either farmers of the public revenue or have become rich by trade. Yet, he observes, “even among these men serious disputes exist, many injustices are committed, and great contentions are the consequence.” Here, then, we have a sort of parallel with the people of India. The natives themselves are proud of a civilisation which dates back to a period long anterior to our own. There are English merchants and planters and jute manufacturers settled in India, some of whom become rich, and are also, unhappily, not free from disputes between themselves and with the natives.

Cicero warns his brother to be careful that the inhabitants are not alarmed at his journeys, that they are not frightened by his approach; that there should be the utmost rejoicing, both public and private, wherever he goes; that every town should seem to receive him as its guardian, not as its tyrant. Do not these remarks call to mind the progress of great Indian officials with their large camps and retainers innumerable, who are only too apt to prey upon the people of the country through which they pass, unless the most vigilant supervision is maintained? Even the smallest civilian who goes out into camp in his district will find that unless he himself sees that everything is paid for, his servants and followers will endeavour to live at free quarters in the name of their master.

Cicero says to his brother: “Let all the province be sensible how dearly you prize the welfare, the children, the fame and the fortunes of all who are under your command. Let it be notorious that you will be equally the enemy of the man who gives a present as of him who receives it; for no one will give when it is clearly perceived that those who pretend to have the greatest interest with you are accustomed to obtain nothing from you. It is not that I would have you treat your dependants in a too severe and suspicious manner. If you have got any person who has been thoroughly admitted to your intimacy, consider how far you ought to trust him—not but that there may be many worthy men amongst the provincials, this it is lawful to hope but dangerous to determine; for every man’s nature is concealed with many folds of disguise and covered with various veils. His nature, his brows, his eyes and his countenance are deceitful; and his speech is most commonly a lie. Where can you find one who will sincerely love you, a mere stranger to them, and not merely pretend to do so for his own advantage? It would seem to me strange, as these men seldom pay any regard to private men, while they invariably attach themselves to the prætors. If amongst such men you should find one (for the thing is not impossible) who loves you more than he does his own interests, enrol him as a friend; but if you do not perceive this, there is no class of acquaintance more to be avoided; because they know all the arts of getting money, they do nothing but for money, and they are indifferent about the opinion of any man with whom they are not to continue to live. For the Greeks in general are deceitful and treacherous, and trained up by perpetual subjection in the art of sycophancy. All of them should be liberally treated, and the best of them received into friendship; but too close intimacies with them are not very safe, for though they dare not oppose your wishes, yet they are jealous not only of our countrymen, but even of their own. Though they dare not fly in the face of a Roman magistrate, yet at the bottom they hate not only us but their own countrymen.”

Those who have been invested with the official authority which a civilian exercises during his career in India can most easily tell how much there is in the warnings of Cicero which comes home to their feelings. Accustomed to receive every outward token of respect and affection, they are hardly willing to ask themselves the question why it was that such regard to themselves as public officers was paid by the men who seldom show much regard to any private men. Have they never felt, when circumstances caused them to be transferred from one district to another, how indifferent their former admirers soon became towards the man with whom they were no longer to continue to live?

From the very beginning of his career the civilian is put in a peculiar position as to his native surroundings. He has no difficulty in obtaining domestic servants. He will do well to understand that in India, as perhaps in other countries, although the master fancies that he is selecting a servant, it is in reality the servant who chooses his master. The master is a sort of speculation into which the servant enters, if it suits his convenience and is likely to pay. A young civilian is certain to have a good income and a respectable expenditure, out of which the servant may make a profit. The young civilian will also exercise official authority, and the servant speculates that he will make some pickings out of it. A civilian in high authority once remonstrated with his servant, who professed to complain of too much work, and asked him why, if he was dissatisfied, he did not take service with some rich Calcutta merchant whose whole day was spent at his office. “Sir,” replied the man, “they have no visitors.” Whenever a native gentleman comes to call at the house of a high official, the native servants always expect a fee. The visitor pays it, for the amount is not large, and he does not know what might happen if he did not pay. There are many petty slights, or really insults, which the servants could pass upon him with impunity if he did not render the accustomed tribute. And thus it comes to pass that a civilian has no difficulty in obtaining and keeping his native servants, provided that he treats them with reasonable kindness and due consideration for their shortcomings towards himself. The native servants who surround a young man at the beginning of his career sometimes have a considerable influence on his subsequent demeanour towards all other natives. It usually happens that a young man is delighted with some of his first native servants, whom he finds so intelligent and attentive and desirous of pleasing him. The servant rises to the occasion, and is not slow to attempt to help his master in matters which ought not to be a subject of communication between them. But the cause and effect are very natural. The master returns home weary from his office, and has no one to speak to but his servant. He casually mentions something that has happened in office during the day, or perhaps tries to ascertain from his servant if he has rightly understood some explanation given to him in the course of business. The servant is not slow to profit by such an opportunity. When his master has gone to bed the servant speeds off to the native town, and soon finds out the particular case to which his master must have alluded. He is thus in a position to make the parties interested in the case believe that he can influence his master on the subject, and the possession of such a power is, of course, equivalent to a mine of wealth. We can vouch for the truth of a story regarding the head-servant of an officer, who never exchanged a word with him on any official business. But the servant was sufficiently clever to make outsiders believe that he had great influence with his master, and the time came when he gracefully retired from his master’s service, and went home to his native village to figure as a landed proprietor, with a herd of several hundred head of cattle! Well might Cicero warn the proprætor of Asia Minor against putting too much confidence in his own domestics, or in permitting them to abuse the show of his authority.

We next come to the civilian in his public office, where by the necessity of the case he is surrounded and assisted by native subordinates of various ranks and degrees of authority. These native subordinates are to the English civilian in India somewhat in the same position as the permanent clerks in an English Government Office to the temporary ministerial secretary. The civilian changes office only too frequently. He is transferred from one district to another. To-day he is an assistant at Dacca, to-morrow he is joint-magistrate at Patna. The next day he is collector at Calcutta. But wherever he goes he finds himself introduced to a set of grave, white-robed native officers, from whom he must try to learn much of what has gone before, and through whom he must conduct the business of the office in which he presides. Many of these men have no want of ability or experience. They have received some education, and now-a-days are more or less conversant with the English language. But their salaries are small, and though they are much higher than the salaries of former times, they are still insufficient to meet the ever-increasing wants of modern civilisation and expenditure. Each of these men will do his best to ingratiate himself with his civilian superior. They try to help him in all his difficulties, and are ready to devote themselves to the execution of all his orders. Hence it very naturally follows that their superior takes a lively interest in them and welcomes their aid; but it also very frequently follows that some of them succeed in gaining a greater amount of favour than their fellows. Not unfrequently one man becomes his master’s special favourite and adviser. The sahib learns to see everything through his favourite’s spectacles, and to be guided, however unconsciously, by his suggestions and promptings. The result is inevitable. Those who have failed to gain favour combine and intrigue against the favourite—but their machinations fail. There is however, a Nemesis in store. The civilian is transferred, and another officer takes his place. The old favourite makes a struggle to maintain his position and authority with the new man, but probably in vain. The mere fact that he was a favourite with Mr. A—— is sufficient to discredit him with Mr. B——; and it sometimes, on the other hand, happens that the native officer whose influence with Mr. A—— was supreme finds himself utterly indisposed and unwilling to render the same allegiance to Mr. B——, however much Mr. B—— may have been inclined to appreciate him.

The next grade of native officials with whom the young civilian comes in contact are the officers styled deputy collectors and deputy magistrates, who exercise a very large amount of authority, and constitute the chief administrative staff of each district. These gentlemen are usually men of large practical experience, and if the young civilian has the good fortune to make a friendly acquaintance with any of them he will find them most valuable and useful friends and allies. He can consult them with confidence in any matters that are new to him, and they will gladly help him in his official anxieties. But whilst the native deputy demeans himself with due consideration and respect to all those who are or may be in authority over him, there are some of them who do not always lay their hearts open to the advances of a young civilian. The old-fashioned deputy who had risen from the ranks of practical experience, and had never troubled himself with the study of the English language, was usually a trustworthy friend. But in recent times the graduates of the Calcutta university, with their English accomplishments and classical diplomas, have filled the office of deputies, and they are not unusually of opinion that they could do all the official work of the country much better than the young Englishmen who are sent out to manage the districts and practically rule the country. It is much to be deplored, but it is unfortunately the fact that an education in the English-teaching schools and colleges does not ordinarily generate a sense of affection for the English Government or its representatives. The result is not unnatural. They have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and find that they are naked. They see their English rulers in the enjoyment of the best things which they naturally think should have fallen to their lot, and they are not disposed to be content with the good things which they have obtained under the English Government. They see that their English rulers are always ready to improve their position, and (not to put too fine a point on it) to increase their pay. So they constantly agitate for more pay and more power, and renewed concessions have only the effect of producing increased demands. Whether any concessions will satisfy them is quite another question. When the subordinate native judges, some years ago, had their pay increased from £600 to £1,200 a year, one of them called on a civilian judge, who proceeded to congratulate him on his good fortune. “I am quite disgusted, Sir!” replied the native gentleman. “I wanted to be appointed to the Patna district, and the Lieutenant-Governor has appointed me to Hooghly.” He did not pretend to care for the increased pay which he had obtained, but he still wanted something more. With regard to almost any officer in this position of well-paid independence, it might safely be predicated that if there had been no English Government to provide him with employment his paternal acres would have seldom yielded him an income of £50 a year, and possibly, as the retainer of some great man, he might have earned another £20 a year by some sort of service. But under no form of oriental native government would he have dreamt of a salary of £1,200 a year to be followed by a retiring pension of £600 a year. Very few people are aware of the very great strides by which the salaries of native officers have increased. We could name four able men, members of a middle class but talented native family, who before 1850 were collectively drawing pay which gave them £400 a year, and they were not discontented. In 1870, these same four men had so floated upwards with the stream that their united income was not less than £4,000 a year, and still they were hoping for more.

We began this paper by protesting against the incompetence of an Englishman to give a satisfactory account of the natives of India. But we will now give a special reason for this. The women of the country are a sealed book to the stranger. He has no opportunity of seeing them or speaking to them, and he can learn very little about them. Let anyone imagine the case of a native Indian gentleman coming to England, or France, or America, and having his eyes closed to the whole of the female population. In India, as long as a woman has any youth and beauty she is kept in strict seclusion from the public gaze. In large towns in certain quarters a few painted Jezebels may be seen looking down from their upper stories, but otherwise an European visitor might believe that youth and beauty did not exist in the land. And not only does the eye never behold the best portion of the female sex, but a rigid etiquette must be observed in conversation with a native gentleman in even alluding to the female members of his household. But it is not to be supposed that women in India do not exercise a considerable influence upon the men. They are doubtless good mothers, good wives, and affectionate sisters. They have their strong religious feelings, and are seldom negligent of the duties connected with the domestic worship of their household gods. But to the foreigners they are practically unknown. One might as well attempt to give an account of the terrestrial system, recognising the power of the sun, but utterly ignoring all the more genial influences of the moon. Perhaps the time may come when the women of India may assert themselves more publicly, and insist on the enjoyment of those privileges which their European sisters have as their birthright; but until that time comes, how can any Englishman venture to write about the real people of India? A civilian has no more true knowledge of the female portion of the native population than a native has of the members of the English peerage. Even in his court, as a magistrate, women are seldom brought forward, either as criminals or witnesses, though occasionally some sort of she-wolf is arraigned for having murdered some unfortunate child for the sake of its ornaments. Or it may be that some quarrel about a woman has led to a murderous dispute, and perhaps a muffled bundle of clothes said to contain a female is produced as a witness in the case before him. But it is exceedingly difficult even to understand the language as spoken by a woman, and he would certainly be a bold person who would venture to generalise on the national female character from such specimens as he may casually see from time to time in court.

Still we are unwilling not to record a grateful reminiscence of the many kindnesses which we have received at the hands of many influential and wealthy native friends. How could our official duties have been performed with any amount of satisfaction or success, without the able and intelligent assistance so freely and zealously rendered by those over whom we were set in authority? And how can we forbear from acknowledging the long and unwearying faithful services of successive generations of native servants, who so often anticipated our wishes and carried out our orders to the best of their ability!

It is the privilege of every civilian officer to have the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the principal native gentlemen of the district in which he is employed. Soon after his arrival at a new station they come to call on him; whilst those who live within a convenient distance, and are inclined to be sociable, repeat their visits at intervals. There are, unfortunately, some native gentlemen who seem to think it unnecessary or undesirable to make such calls; and as the ways and habits of different civilians differ considerably, there are some officers who do not encourage such visits, so that their successors have some difficulty in making it known that they will gladly receive visitors. It is unnecessary to analyse too minutely the particular object which each visitor has in calling; but it is much better for a civilian to run the risk of any abuse of the opportunity by his visitor, than to shut his door upon a mere suspicion. Most native gentlemen are far too honourable to attempt any allusion in the course of their visit to any subject which it would be unbecoming to mention; and if any such attempt were made, it is easily in the power of the officer receiving the visit to put the subject aside with due regard to his own dignity. But the benefit, and pleasure, and information which are to be derived from such visits far outweigh any inconvenience or annoyance that may possibly arise from them. It is true that a portly native gentleman, whilst uttering the usual formal compliments of introduction, does not always remember to suppress those ebullitions which are considered amongst his own people to be indicative of his having enjoyed his breakfast; it is true that the language of polite flattery is sometimes rather over-strained; but when the first effervescence of such frothy nothings has subsided, the time will come when the visitor will work down to his natural powers of conversation, according to the capacity which he possesses. It is to be observed that two native gentlemen calling at the same time prefer to be received separately, unless, of course, they have some common object in calling; but, on the other hand, an officer in a high position will often find his advantage in having his visitors admitted simultaneously, especially if he has one day of the week particularly set apart for the reception of his native visitors.