The Passing of Empire

by H. Fielding

The old district officers were known personally by name and by reputation all through their districts. The people looked to them for help and understanding, and protection as much against the rigidity and injustice of the laws as against other ills.

But nowadays, except the Government officials and headmen, I don't believe anyone in a district knows who the head is. At all events, it makes practically no difference, because the application of the laws is supervised and enforced, and the district officer must "fall into line." If any personality has survived his schooling it must now be killed.

Few men, I think, learn anything except from two motives—a natural driving desire or necessity. But a natural desire to study the people round you is scarce, and the necessity of other days has passed away. A district officer can now do his work quite to the satisfaction of Government and know next to nothing of the people. In fact, sometimes knowledge leads to remonstrance with Government, and it doesn't like that.

Again, there has crept into secretariats a cult of "energy" and "efficiency," and a definition of these words, which acts disastrously upon the district officer, both when he is under training and subsequently.

Now, the proper meaning of an "efficient officer" is, I take it, one who sees the right thing to do and does it quickly and effectively; and probably Government really has this in its mind when it uses the word. This is what it wants; but very often what it gets is almost the opposite, and it is as pleased with this as if it got what it expected. In fact, it does not seem to know the difference. An example will explain what I mean.

There is, we will say, in a district a good deal of cattle theft going on, and the thieves cannot be detected. Cattle graze in Burma in the fields, and in the jungle on their outskirts; they roam about a good deal, and it is easy enough to steal them; detection is difficult.

But there is in Burma, as in parts of India, a provision of the Village Regulation which is called the Track Law, and it is substantially as follows:

If cattle are missing their tracks can be followed. When they pass out of the area under the jurisdiction of the village wherein the owner lives and enter another village lands, that village becomes responsible. The tracker calls the headman of that village and shows him the tracks, which he must follow up and demonstrate that they have not stopped in his jurisdiction but gone on. In this way the tracks can be followed till they are lost, when the village in whose land they are lost is considered as being the village of the thief, and is therefore responsible for the lost cattle. It can be fined, and the owner of the lost bullock indemnified.

This Act is taken from a very old custom common once in most of India, and also, I believe, in places of Europe. For several hundred years ago, when villages were widely separated by jungle, it had some sense.

There was then a presumption either that the stolen bullock had been taken to that village, or that some of the villagers had seen it pass. The thief would probably have stopped there for food or rest, as it was a long way on. But nowadays, in most of the country, village fields are conterminous, with little or no jungle between; there are many roads, and except where the tracks actually go into the village gate the presumption does not arise. Cattle are common, and the villagers are not expert trackers. Moreover, there is a very strong premium on dishonesty, or at least carelessness in keeping to the right tracks. Suppose the right track lost in a wet place, or a dry bare place, why not pick up some other? Most cattle tracks are very similar. The owner wants his compensation.