The Political Future of India

by Lala Lajpat Rai

These observations raise an apprehension in our mind that it is proposed to add to the strength of the services under the Government of India. We, for ourselves, do not see how it can be otherwise. With the steady admission of the popular element into the Government of India the activities of the latter are likely to increase rather than diminish; the secretarial work of the different departments will expand rather than contract. The question of questions is how to meet the increased cost.

The remedy is the same as was suggested many years ago by Sir William Hunter, the official historian of India. He said:

“If we are to give a really efficient administration to India, many services must be paid for at lower rates even at present. For those rates are regulated in the higher branches of the administration by the cost of officers brought from England. You cannot work with imported labor as cheaply as you can with native labor, and I regard the more extended employment of the natives, not only as an act of justice, but as a financial necessity. If we are to govern the Indian people efficiently and cheaply, we must govern them by means of themselves, and pay for the administration at the market rates for native labor.”

Now, whatever may be said about the necessity of maintaining a strong European element in the departments which require initiative, courage, resourcefulness and all the other qualities of “leadership” they are certainly not a sine qua non for efficiency in secretarial work. We can see no reason why, then, the different secretariats of the Government of India cannot be manned mainly, if not exclusively, by Indians. Their salaries need not be the same as those now paid to the Europeans engaged in these departments. May we ask if there is any country on earth where such high salaries are paid to the secretarial heads of departments as in India? Secretaries to the Government of India in the Army and Public works and Legislative departments receive 42,000 Rs. each ($14,000, or £2800 a year); Secretaries to the Government of India in the Finance, Foreign, Home, Revenue, Agriculture, Commerce and Industry and Education departments get Rs. 48,000 a year each ($16,000 or £3,200); Educational Commissioners from 30 to 36,000 Rs. ($10,000 to $12,000).

These secretarial officers are not of Cabinet rank. Besides their salaries they get various allowances, and the purchasing value of the rupee in India is much higher than that of 33 cents in the United States or of 16d. in the United Kingdom, the exchange equivalents of an Indian rupee. The same remarks may be made about Provincial Secretariats. We do not ignore the fact that a European who cuts himself away from his country and people for the best part of his life cannot be expected to give his time, energy and talents for the compensation he might accept in his own country, nor that, if the best kind of European talent is desired for India, the compensation must be sufficiently attractive to tempt competent men to accept it. In Paragraphs 318 to 322, both inclusive, the Secretary of India and the Viceroy have put forward a forceful plea for improvement in the conditions of the European Services by (a) increment in their salaries, (b) expediting promotions, and (c) grant of additional allowances, and also by bettering the prospects of pensions and leave. We are afraid the only way to obtain the concurrence of Indian public opinion in this matter, if at all, is by restricting the number of posts which must be held by Europeans. The cadre of services to which the rule of percentage is to apply must be reduced in strength, and if Europeans are required for posts outside these they should be employed for short periods and from an open market. For example, it seems inconceivable to us why professional men like doctors, engineers and professors should be recruited for permanent service. Nor is there any reason why the recruitment should be confined to persons of British domicile. The Government of India must be run on business principles. With the exception, perhaps, of the higher posts in the I. C. S. and in the Army, all other offices should be filled by taking the supply on the best available terms for short periods and from open market. By reducing the number of higher posts to which the rule of percentage should apply, the Government would be reducing the number of Indian officers who could claim the same salary as is given to their European colleagues. In our humble opinion, the latter claim is purely sentimental, and the best interests of the country require that the administration should be as economical as is compatible with efficiency. The strength of the different permanent services should be reduced as much as possible and the deficiency made up by the appointment of the best persons available at the price which the administration may be willing to pay, whether such persons be European, Indian or American. Take the Indian Educational Service, for example. The members start with a salary of 6000 Rs. a year ($2000 or £400) and rise to about 24,000 Rs. a year ($8000 or £1600). In the United States, to the best of our knowledge, few professors, if any, get a salary higher than $7000 or 21,000 Rs. a year. High-class graduates of Harvard, Yale and Columbia start their tutorial careers at $2000 to $3000 a year, many at $1500 a year. These men would refuse to go to India on a similar salary. On the other hand, if a salary of $4000 to $10,000 were offered to a select few, the services of the men at the top might be had for a short period. Surely, in the best interests of education, it is much better to get first-class men on high salaries for short periods than permanently to have third-class men beginning with smaller salaries and eventually rising to high salaries and ensuring to themselves life long pensions. What is true of the Educational Service is similarly, if not equally, true of the Medical, the Engineering and other scientific services. At the present time we have men in these technical services who received their education about twenty or twenty-five years ago and whose knowledge of their respective sciences is antiquated and rusty. Apothecaries, absolutely innocent of any knowledge of modern surgery, are often appointed to the post of Civil Surgeons. No sensible Indian desires that the present incumbents should be interfered with, except where it is possible to retire them under the terms of their service. All engagements should be met honorably. What is needed is that in future there should be a radical departure in the practice of appointing non-Indians to responsible posts in India. We do not want to deprive ourselves of the privilege of being guided in our work by European talent, nor should we grudge them adequate compensation for their services. What we object to is (1) racial discrimination; (2) excessive power being vested in individual officers; (3) the employment of more than a necessary number of persons of alien origin; (4) the crippling of the country’s resources by burdening its finances with unnecessary pensions and leave allowances; (5) the continuance of men on service lists long after their usefulness has disappeared; (6) the filling of appointments by jobbery, as is now done in the so-called non-regulation provinces. We, in the Punjab, have been “blessed” by the rule of several generations of Smiths, Harrys and Jones. Those who failed to pass the I. C. S. joined the cadre by the back door and received the same emoluments as those who entered it by competition. It is they who block the avenues of promotions and not the sons of the soil.

COST OF ADMINISTRATION

On the subject of the cost of administration it will be instructive to compare the annual salaries allowed to the highest public servants in India, the United States and Japan.

The President of the United States, who ranks with the great royalties of the world in position, gets a salary of $75,000, without any other allowance. The Prime Minister of Japan gets 12,000 yen, or $6000. The Viceroy and the Governor General of India gets 250,000 rupees, or $83,000, besides a very large amount in the shape of various allowances. The Cabinet Ministers of the United States get a salary of $12,000 each, the Japanese 8000 yen or $4000, and the Members of the Viceroy’s Council, $26,700 each.

In the whole Federal Government of the United States there are only three offices which carry a salary of more than $8000. They are:

The President of the General Navy Board	$13,500
Solicitor General	$10,000
Assistant Solicitor General	$9,000