Until now the European servants of the British Government have ruled India quite autocratically. The powers delegated to and the discretion vested in them have been so large that they could do almost anything they liked. They could make or mar the fortunes of millions; they could further their happiness or add to their misery by the simple fiat of their will. The only limitation on their power was their own sense of duty and justice. That some of them did let themselves go is no wonder. The wonder is that the instances of unbridled oppression and tyranny were not more numerous than they have actually been. Speaking of the European services generally, we have nothing but admiration for their general character. The particular branch of the Public Services that has been all along entrusted with the general administration of the country is known as the Indian Civil Service. It is recruited in England and is overwhelmingly European in personnel. On April 1, 1913, only forty-six of the 1319 civilians on the cadre were natives of India.
Speaking of the executive organizations that have so far ruled India, the eminent authors of the Report for the reorganization of the Government of India remark that it may “well be likened to a mere system of official posts, actuated till now by impulses of its own, but affected by the popular ideas which impinge on it from three sources—the British Parliament, the legislative councils and the local boards.” The sentence would have been correct if in place of “but affected” the authors had said “and affected but little.” “The system,” they add, “has in the main depended for its effectiveness on the experience, wisdom and energy of the services themselves. It has, for the most part, been represented by the Indian Civil Service which, though having little to do with the technical departments of government, has for over 100 years in practice had the administration entrusted to its hands, because, with the exception of the offices of the Governor General, Governors, and some members of the executive councils, it has held practically all the places involving superior control. It has been in effect much more of a government corporation than of a purely civil service in the English sense. It has been made a reproach to the Indian Civil Service that it regards itself as the Government; but a view which strikes the critic familiar with parliamentary government as arrogant is little more than a condensed truth.” [The italics are ours.]
The Indian Civil Service has thus developed all the characteristics, good and bad, of a caste. It has been a powerful bureaucracy, as exclusive, proud, arrogant and self-sufficient,—if not even more so,—as the original Brahmin oligarchy of the land, except that while the Brahmin oligarchy had ties of race, religion and culture with the rest of the population, the Indian Civil Service is almost entirely composed of aliens. The ancient Brahmins were, however, kept in check by the military caste. The mutual jealousies of these two castes afforded some kind of protection to the people in general. But in the case of the British Indian Civil Service, the military have given entire support to their civilian fellow-countrymen and have been completely under their will.
The Brahmins of India have left a monumental record of their labors. They produced great thinkers, writers, legislators, administrators and organizers. In their own time they were as wise, energetic and resourceful as any bureaucracy in the world has ever been or will ever be. Yet the system of life they devised cut at the roots of national vitality. It dried almost all the springs of corporate national life. It reduced the bulk of the population to a position of complete subservience to their will, of blind faith in their wisdom, of absolute dependence on their initiative. It deprived the common people of all opportunities of independent thought and independent action. It brought about a kind of national atrophy. And this, in spite of the fact that they began by imposing a rigorous code of self-denial on themselves and their class. For themselves they wanted nothing but a life of poverty and asceticism. Their economic interests were never in theory or in practice in conflict with those of the rest of the body politic.
A Brahmin was forbidden to engage in trade or otherwise accumulate wealth. His life was a life of strict self-abnegation. This cannot be said of the Indian Civil Servant. He receives a handsome salary for his services, expects and receives periodic promotion until he reaches a position which, from an economic point of view, is not unenviable. After retirement he is free to engage in trade and otherwise accumulate wealth. But over and above this, what distinguishes an Indian Civil Servant from an old Brahmin bureaucrat is the fact that in India he represents a nation whose economic interest may not always be in harmony with those of the people of India. He is thus supposed to be the guardian of the interests of his countrymen, and is expected to further them as much as he can without altogether endangering the safety of British rule in India. Looked at from this angle, we have no hesitation in saying that the work of the Indian Civil Service, too, has in its way, been monumental. As a rule, they have proved capable administrators, individually honest, hardworking and alert. They have organized and tabulated India in a way, perhaps, never done before. But after all has been said in their praise, it cannot be denied that they have done India even more harm than the Brahmin oligarchy in its time, did, by the support they lent to economic exploitation of the country by men of their own race and religion. Now, in this latter respect, we want to guard against being misunderstood. The Indian Civil Service has, in the course of about a century, produced a fairly good number of men who have honestly and fearlessly stood for the protection of Indian interests against those of people of their own race and religion. In doing so they have sometimes ruined their own prospects of promotion and advancement. Whenever they failed in their self-imposed task, and more often they failed than not, they failed because the authorities at the top were forced by considerations of domestic and imperial policy to do otherwise. On the whole, the defects of the bureaucratic administration were more the defects of the system than of the individuals composing it.
The Indian Civil Servant, like the old Brahmin, is autocratic and dictatorial. He dislikes any display of independence by the people put under his charge. He discourages initiative. He likes to be called and considered the Mai bap (mother and father) of his subjects. On those who literally consider him such he showers his favors. The others he denounces and represses. This has, in the course of time, led to national emasculation. That is our chief complaint against the Indian Civil Service. Of the other services we would rather not speak. They have by no means been so pure and high-minded as the I. C. S., nor perhaps so autocratic and dictatorial. The number of men who misused their powers and opportunities to their own advantage has been much larger in services other than the I. C. S. Yet they all have done a certain amount of good work for India; whether one looks at the engineering works designed and executed by them, or the researches they have made in the science of healing and preventing disease, or the risks they have run in preserving order or maintaining peace one cannot but admire their efficiency and ability. The grievances of the Indian Nationalists against the Public Services in India may be thus summarized:
(a) That the services monopolize too much power and are practically uncontrolled by and irresponsible to the people of the country.
(b) That the higher branches of the services contain too many foreigners.
(c) That these are recruited in England, and from some of them the Indians are altogether barred.
(d) That even when doing the same work Indians are not paid on the same scale as the Europeans.