India and the Indians

by Edward Fenton Elwin

The Panchayat is only a rough and ready way of settling disputes, or punishing minor offences. Much of the evidence in the cases which come before it is either false or else grossly distorted. The members of the Panchayat are already probably prejudiced either for or against the offender, and make no attempt to rise above their prejudices. Any one of them will side with the party who will make it worth his while to do so.

The final decision may, or may not, be in accordance with the facts of the case. The guilty person, if an offence has been committed, may escape; and an innocent person, who has few friends and little to offer, may get punished. Men who are poor and unpopular sometimes get sorely bullied, and even ill-treated, in an Indian village. Nevertheless, at present the Panchayat has its use in Hindu India, and the prospect of being brought under its power is a wholesome terror. When India has progressed a stage further this primitive mode of procedure, already a good deal discredited, will no doubt be superseded altogether.

Unfortunately, even in more august tribunals where the desire to be true and just is uppermost, false evidence is so rife that there has to be a good deal of guesswork, and calculations of probabilities, when trying to come to a right decision. It has lately been advocated that magistrates should, when practicable, hold their preliminary trial of offences in the village where the misdemeanour is alleged to have taken place. The witnesses under these circumstances are more disposed to give a true account of what has happened. They are surrounded by neighbours who know, to some extent, whether they are speaking the truth or not, and are apt to betray them in case of falsehood. But if the inquiry takes place at a city police-court, the witnesses come in contact with the false witnesses, and bad characters, and petty lawyers (or "pleaders" as they are called), who hang about in the vicinity, and the usual result is that having been tampered with by some interested person, all hopes of an honest narrative are at an end.

There is a laudable desire to adapt Indian customs to the needs of Indian Christians. The result has not always been the success which was hoped for. The truth is, that what may be advantageous in the heathen world may be quite otherwise when applied to the circumstances of the Christian community. Because it was the old custom in Hindu villages to settle difficulties, secular and religious, by a Panchayat, it was thought that it would be advantageous to exercise discipline in the Church in the same way. It was well to give it a trial, but many begin to doubt its applicability. The Indian often is, like many others, a man of strong prejudices, and even Christianity is not altogether successful in uprooting this fault. His likes and dislikes are pronounced, and are not always according to reason. Certain excellent people will side with a pronounced wrongdoer, for no apparent cause; not necessarily from a charitable desire to give him another chance. Also, the pleasing Indian characteristic of regard for family relationship, which is so strong, leads to an anxiety to belittle the wrongdoings of anyone who can claim kinship, and this may be carried even to the verge of distortion, or suppression of the truth. Anyhow, the conclusions of the Christian Panchayat are, not unfrequently, singularly at variance with what would appear to be the right verdict.

There is another reason why the Panchayat, as applied to Christian congregations, is not altogether wholesome. The true spirit of charity is a difficult virtue to acquire. When two people quarrel, unless they quickly forgive, they are generally anxious to air their grievance. Indians in particular wish the whole matter gone into with elaboration, so that, as they say, justice may be done. The Panchayat gives exactly the opening which they crave. A quarrel between two neighbours, which ought to have been quickly adjusted by mutual forgiveness, becomes a subject of endless discussion. Many others get dragged into it; and the spirit of discord, instead of being laid to rest by the proceedings of the Panchayat, often finds a greatly enlarged scope for mischief.

In bringing a case of immorality before this tribunal the evil is intensified. The matter is gone into minutely, with much freedom of expression. Nor does it end there. The members of the Panchayat return to their homes, and, with the fullest detail, repeat to wife and children the incidents that the inquiry has disclosed. For days it is the all-engrossing subject of conversation. "There is no reserve amongst us in the sense that you English people have it," said a leading Indian Christian to me; "there is nothing which our children do not know." Consulting an intelligent Christian Indian on the difficult question as to how much might be said with safety when warning the young on the subject of purity, he replied: "It is impossible to teach them anything which they do not know already. Other people talk to them, and the youngest know all that there is to be known."

It should be added, that although with very few exceptions this is certainly true, the knowledge of evil does not, as a matter of course, produce evil, and there are many Indian Christian lads who, sustained by the power of sacramental grace, are leading lives of exemplary self-control, while living in circumstances of great temptation.

Whatever may have been the case in years gone by, the out-caste people of a village are not now the downtrodden, servile folk such as they are commonly supposed to be, although there are still instances of individual oppression. Most of them are leading more wholesome lives than those of the richer, self-indulgent men, and this is evidenced by their more vigorous and manly frame. They are, to some extent, at the beck and call of the chief men of the place, and more especially of the Patel, but they are independent in their bearing, and obey cheerfully without cringing. Some of their duties may sound unsavoury. As, for instance, they are responsible for the removal of a dead carcase found within the village boundary. But if it is the body of an animal fit for food, such as a buffalo, sheep, or goat, they feast upon it themselves, quite regardless of what disease it may have died of.

A buffalo belonging to the Mission died from snake-bite, as it was supposed, though that sometimes is only another name for wilful poisoning. The disposal of its immense carcase seemed a perplexity. But just as we were considering this point, we saw the buffalo travelling away at a rapid pace on the shoulders of the village Mahars, who took it as their natural perquisite, and did not think it necessary to wait for leave. The horns, hoofs, skin, and bones are marketable commodities, so that, besides the feast, they often make a good thing out of agricultural tragedies.

The same class of men are responsible for any stray burials, which are not at all uncommon in a country where there are many homeless wanderers, some of whom, when weary and ill, just lie down by the roadside and die. The Mahars of the nearest village bury the nameless corpse. The clothes of the dead man are sufficient recompense for hasty interment in a shallow grave, and the jackals the next night probably discover, and make short work of, the corpse. I have seen the body of some such poor wanderer, with scarcely a rag upon it, slung upon a pole and carried like a dead dog by a couple of Mahars along the high-road to a place of burial.