India Under British Rule from the Foundation of the East India Company

by James Talboys Wheeler

Regulation and non-regulation provinces.

During the generation that followed the mutinies, the administration of British India has been undergoing an important change. The old patriarchal rule of non-regulation provinces has been fading away. The distinction between regulation and non-regulation is being effaced. The Punjab and Oudh, the Central Provinces and British Burma, which for years had been exclusively controlled by the Foreign Office, are being brought more and more under the Home Office; and the same laws and forms of administration will soon prevail throughout every presidency and province of the Anglo-Indian empire.

Asiatic students: European masters.

§15. British India is a school for Asiatics in which Europeans are the masters. The teaching has hitherto been successful. Asiatic students are becoming monitors; some are under-masters; and some may in due course hope to be masters. The British government is appointing educated Asiatics to posts of responsibility and trust, which few European merchants and bankers have hitherto ventured to do. Accordingly, non-officials, as well as officials, are awaiting the results of an experiment that will serve to show how far the Asiatic has profited by his European education; and how far he may be entrusted with the higher duties of administration, or with the exercise of self-government and political power.

Hindu culture.

Hindus have many virtues. They are obedient to parents, polite to equals, respectful to superiors, and reverential towards priests and preceptors. But for ages they have lived under the despotism of caste, custom, and religion, which is slowly melting away from European capitals of India, but is still rampant in Asiatic towns and villages. British education is elevating their intellects and enlarging their experiences, but cannot change their nature, nor hastily emancipate them from the usages of ages. The result is that to this day, both Hindus and Mohammedans lack those political ideas of constitutional government and public life, in which Englishmen have been trained since the days of Queen Elizabeth.

Child marriages.

Hindus are married in their childhood, and are often husbands and fathers when British boys are still at school, or learning trades and professions, or competing at boating or cricket. All this while, and for years after they have attained manhood, the bulk of Hindus are living under the roof of their parents. Husbands are ruled by fathers as though they were still children, and wives are the victims of their mothers-in-law.

Temper and repression.

Occasionally Hindus will exhibit a petulance and passion like that which drove the sepoys into mutiny; but as a general rule, they are kept within bounds by the despotism and discipline which reigns supreme in Hindu families, as well as by the severe self-control, which Asiatics esteem as one of the highest virtues. Moreover, during a long course of ages, they have become more or less enervated by that depressing heat, which often shakes the nerve and loosens the muscle of Europeans. Consequently, they have little relish for active life, and generally prefer sedentary duties which do not involve physical exertion.