From Adam's Peak to Elephanta

by Edward Carpenter

There is no doubt that great fortunes have been and are being made in this cotton business. It can hardly be otherwise, for as long as Manchester is in the market the goods of Bombay are in a line as to price with the products of English manufacture; but they are produced at very much less cost. I suppose the average wage for adults in one of these mills is not more than 8d. a day (if so much), and the difference between this and 2s. 8d. a day say as in England, gives 2s. per diem saved on each employee. In the mill that I visited there are 1,100 hands—say 1,000 adults; that gives a saving of 1,000 × 2 shillings, or £100, a day; or £30,000 a year. Against this must be set the increased price of coal, which they get all the way from England (the coal of the country being inferior) at Rs. 15 to 17 per ton—say 25 tons a day at 20s. added cost to what it would be in England—i.e., £25 a day, or £7,500 a year. Then it is clear that despite this and some other drawbacks, the balance in favor of production in India is very great; and the dividends of the cotton-mills at Bombay certainly show it, for they run at 20, 25, 50 and even 80 per cent., with very few below 20.

It is clear that such profits as these are likely to draw capital out to India in rapidly increasing degree, and we may expect a vast development of manufacturing industry there during the next decade or two. The country—or at any rate the town-centres—will be largely commercialised. And as far as the people themselves are concerned, though the life in mills is wretched enough, still it offers a specious change from the dull round of peasant labor, and something like a secure wage (if only a pittance) to a man who in his native village would hardly see the glint of coin from one year’s end to another; the bustle and stir of the town too is an attraction; and so some of the same causes which have already in England brought about the depletion of the land in favor of the congestion of the cities, are beginning to work in India.

Then beside the manual employment which our commercial institutions provide there are innumerable trading posts and clerkships, connected with merchants’ houses, banks, railways, post-offices, and all manner of public works, all of which practically are filled by natives; and some of which, with the moderate salaries attached, are eagerly sought after. One hardly realises till one sees it, how completely these great organizations are carried on—except for perhaps one or two Englishmen at the head—by native labor; but when one does see this one realises also how important a part of the whole population this section—which is thus ministering to and extending the bounds of modern life—is becoming. And this section again is supplemented by at least an equally numerous section which, if not already employed in the same way, is desirous of becoming so. And of course among both these sections Western ideals and standards flourish; competition is gradually coming to be looked on as a natural law of society; and Caste and the old Family system are more or less rapidly disintegrating.

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Such changes as these are naturally important, and indeed in an old and conservative country like India strike one as very remarkable—but they are made even more important by the political complexion they have of late years assumed. In the National Indian Congress we see that not only the outer forms of life and thought, but the political and social ideas which belong to the same stage of historical development, have migrated from West to East. The people—or at least those sections of it of which we are speaking—are infected not only with Darwin and Huxley, but with a belief in the ballot, in parliaments and town-councils, and in constitutionalism and representative government generally. The N. I. C. brings together from 1,000 to 1,500 delegates annually from all parts of India, representing a variety of different races and sections, and elected in many of the larger towns with the utmost enthusiasm; and this by itself is a striking fact—a fact quite comparable in its way with the meetings of the Labor Congresses in late years in the capitals of Europe. Its conferences have been mostly devoted to such political questions as the application of the elective principle to municipal and imperial councils, and to such social questions as that of child-marriage; and these subjects and the speeches concerning them are again reviewed and reported by a great number of newspapers printed both in English and the vernacular tongues, and having a large circulation. Certainly it is probable that the Congresses will not immediately lead to any very striking results—indeed it is hard to see how they could do so; but the fact of the existence of the N. I. C. movement alone is a pregnant one, and backed as it is by economical changes, it is not likely—though it may change its form—to evaporate into mere nothingness.

In fact—despite the efforts of certain parties to minimise it—it seems to me evident that we are face to face with an important social movement in India. What the upshot of it may be no one probably can tell—it may subside again in time, or it may gather volume and force towards some definite issue; but it certainly cannot be ignored. The Pagetts, M.P., may be ponderously superficial about it, but the Kiplings merry are at least equally far from the truth. Of course in actual numerical strength as compared with the whole population the party may be small; but then, as in other such movements, since it is just the most active and energetic folk who join them, their import cannot be measured by mere numbers. It is useless again to say that because the movement is not acknowledged by the peasants, or by the religious folk, or because it is regarded with a jealous eye by certain sections, that therefore it is of no account; because similar things are always said and always have been said of every new social effort—in its inception—however popular or influential it may afterwards become.

The question which is most interesting at this juncture to any one who recognises that there really is something like a change of attitude taking place in the Indian peoples, is: How do the Anglo-Indians regard this change? and my answer to this—though given with diffidence—since it is a large generalisation and there may be, certainly are, many exceptions to it—is: I believe that taken as a whole the Anglos look upon it with a mingled sentiment of Fear and Dislike. I think they look upon the movement with a certain amount of Fear—perhaps not unnaturally. The remembrance of the Mutiny of ’57 is before them; they feel themselves to be a mere handful among millions. And I am sure they look upon it with Dislike, for as said above there is no real touch, no real sympathy, between them and the native races. However it may be for the liberalising Englishman at home to indulge in a sentimental sympathy with the aspiring oyster, the Britisher in India feels that the relation is only tolerable as long as there is a fixed and impassable distinction between the ruler and the ruled. Take that away, let the two races come into actual contact on an equality, and ... but the thought is not to be endured.

And this feeling of race-dislike is I think—as I have hinted in an earlier chapter—enhanced by the fact that the Britisher in India is a “class” man in his social feeling. I have several times had occasion to think that the bulk-people of the two countries—though by no means agreeing with each other—would, if intercourse were at all possible, get on better together than the actual parties do at present. The evils of a commercial class-government which we are beginning to realise so acutely at home—the want of touch between the rulers and the ruled, the testing of all politics by the touchstone of commercial profits and dividends, the consequent enrichment of the few at the expense of the many, the growth of slum and factory life, and the impoverishment of the peasant and the farmer, are curiously paralleled by what is taking place in India; and in many respects it is becoming necessary to realise that some of our difficulties in India are not merely such as belong to the country itself, but are part and parcel of the same problem which is beginning to vex us at home—the social problem, namely. The same narrowness of social creed, the entire decadence of the old standards of gentle birth without their replacement by any new ideal, worthy to be so called, the same trumpery earmarks of society-connection, etc., distinguish the ruling classes in one country as in the other; and in both are the signals of coming change.

At the same time it would be absurd to assume that the native of India is free from serious defects which make the problem, to the Anglo-Indian, ever so much more difficult of solution. And of these probably the tendency to evasion, deceit, and underhand dealing is the most serious. The Hindu especially with his subtle mind and passive character is thus unreliable; it is difficult to find a man who will stick with absolute fidelity to his word, or of whom you can be certain that his ostensible object is his real one; and naturally this sort of thing creates estrangement.

To my mind this social gulf existing between the rulers and the ruled is the most pregnant fact of our presence in India—the one that calls most for attention, and that looms biggest with consequences for the future. Misunderstandings of all kinds flow from it. “When this want of intercourse,” says Beck in his Essays on Indian Topics, “between the communities or a reasonable number of people of each, is fixed on my attention, I often feel with a sinking of the heart that the end of the British Indian Empire is not far distant.”