The Passing of Empire

by H. Fielding

Now this is an instructive and interesting fact, for it was destroyed in ignorance, not by malice prepense.

Throughout India—and especially in Burma—you will find Government reiterating its conviction of the importance of preserving the village organism, repeating the conviction of its absolute necessity, and at the same time killing it. This is but an instance of much of the action of Government. It means well; it does actually see the end to be attained—it has no idea how to attain that end; but, instead, it renders it impossible.

If I explain what happened in Burma, the history, mutatis mutandis, of what has occurred throughout India will be clear.

In the first place, a "village" does not mean only one collection of houses; it is a territorial unit of from one to a hundred square miles. Originally, of course, there was in each unit one hamlet; but, as population grew, daughter hamlets were thrown off. They still, however, remained under the jurisdiction of the mother hamlet, and they all together formed one village. In each village there were a Headman and a Council of Elders. The headman was appointed or rather approved by the Burmese Government for life or good behaviour; the council was not recognised by law. Notwithstanding this, the council was the real power. It was not formally elected, it had no legal standing, but it was the real power. The headman was only its representative and not its master; he was but primus inter pares.

This headman and council ruled all village matters. They settled the house sites, the rights of way, the marriage of boys and girls, divorces, public manners; they put up such public works as were done, they divided the tax amongst the inhabitants according to their means, and were collectively responsible for the whole. There was hardly any appeal from their decision, but the power not being localised in an individual but in a council of all the elders, things went well. The village was a real living organism, within which people learned to act together, to bear and forbear; there were a local patriotism and a local pride. Within it lay the germ of unlimited progress.

The English Government on taking over Upper Burma recognised the extreme value of this organisation. In Lower Burma much of our difficulty arose from the fact that the organisation was wanting and that between Government and the individual there was no one. So one of the first efforts of Government in Upper Burma was to endeavour to preserve and strengthen this local self-government. Unfortunately every effort it made resulted in destroying it rather than consolidating it. A wrong view was taken from the beginning.

The council was ignored. How this happened I do not know, I can only suppose that it arose from ignorance. The only man recognised by the Burmese Government we replaced was the headman. They dealt directly with him and not with the council. They did not appoint the council or regulate it in any way. In law no council existed. Therefore, when we took over, the law was mistaken for the fact—a common mistake, due to seeking for knowledge in papers, and not in life—and the council was ignored. The following seems to have been the argument: Government appointed the headman, therefore he was an official. Government did not appoint or recognise any council, therefore there was no council. Anyhow, that was the decision arrived at and enforced.

There is on record a circular of the Local Government in which the headman of a village is described as a Government official; to be to his village what the District Officer is to his district. That is disastrous. A headman is not an official of the Government. His whole value and meaning is that he is a representative of the people before Government. He expresses the collective views of the village and receives the orders of Government for them as a whole. He is their head, not a finger of Government. He corresponded almost exactly to the mayor of an English town, who would be insulted if you called him a Government official. Yet this mistaken view was taken of the village headman, and this error has vitiated all dealings of Government with the village organisation and its headman. He is appointed by Government instead of being appointed by the people and approved by Government. He is responsible to Government, not to his village—as he ought to be—for the use or abuse of his powers. He is punished by Government for laxity. By the Village Regulation he can be fined by the District Officer.

There has grown up among Europeans in the East a custom of imposing fines. They fine their servants for breakages and innumerable other small matters, and then complain how scarce good servants are. The clerks in Government offices used to be subject to continual fines until Lord Curzon stopped it. Now headmen of villages can be fined by the District Officer; and they are fined; the proviso is no dead letter. It is a mark of the "energetic" officer to use it. Can there be anything more destructive? Imagine the headman, the mayor of a community of three or four thousand people, fined five shillings for the delay of a return, or set, like a schoolboy, to learn a code—with the clerks. I have seen this done often. What respect for Government, what from his own people, what self-respect, can he retain after such treatment?

Again, by ignoring the council and making the headman an official, Government set up a number of petty tyrants in the villages, free from all control but its own; consequently it has been forced to allow great latitude of appeal. This still further destroys his authority. He is under old custom, legalised by the Village Regulation, empowered to punish his villagers who disobey him in certain matters. The punishments are, of course, trivial. When approved by the council, as in old days, they were final; but now they can be appealed against—and are. A headman who endeavours to enforce his authority runs the risk of being complained against and forced to attend Headquarters, to waste days of valuable time and considerable sums of money to defend himself for having fined a villager a shilling for not mending his fence. One or two experiences of this sort and the headman lets things slide in future.