Indian Unrest

by Sir Valentine Chirol

SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL RELATIONS.

On few subjects are more ignorant or malevolent statements made than on the attitude of Englishmen in India towards the natives of the country. That social relations between Englishmen and Indians seldom grow intimate is true enough, but not that the fault lies mainly with Englishmen. At the risk of being trite, I must recall a few elementary considerations.

The bedrock difficulty is that Indian customs prevent any kind of intimacy between English and Indian families. Even in England the relations between men who are excluded from acquaintance with each other's families can rarely be called intimate, and except in the very few cases of Indian families that are altogether Westernized, Indian habits rigidly exclude Englishmen from admission into the homes of Indian gentlemen, whether Hindu or Mahomedan. Intercourse between Indian and English ladies is in the same way almost entirely confined to formal visits paid by the latter to the zenana and the harem, and to so-called Purdah parties, given in English houses, in which Indian ladies are entertained as far as possible under the same conditions that prevail in their own homes—i.e., to the total exclusion of all males. So long as Indian ladies are condemned to a life of complete seclusion the interests they have in common with their English visitors must necessarily be very few. On the other hand, it is not surprising that Englishmen, knowing the views that many Indian men entertain with regard to the position of women, do not care to encourage them to visit their own houses on a footing of intimacy that would necessarily bring them into more or less familiar contact with their English wives and sisters and daughters. There is very much to admire in the family relations, and especially in the filial relations, that exist in an Indian home, whether Hindu or Mahomedan, but it is idle to pretend that Indian ideas with regard to the relations between the sexes are the same as ours. In these circumstances any social fusion between even the better classes of the two races seems to be for the present out of the question.

Very sincere and creditable efforts are now, it is true, being made on both sides to diminish the gulf that divides English and Indian society, and I have been at various gatherings which were attended by Englishmen and Englishwomen and by Indians, among whom there was sometimes even a sprinkling of Indian ladies. But the English host and hostess invariably found it difficult to prevent their Indian guests forming groups of their own, and each group seemed to be as reluctant to mingle with other Indian groups of a different class or caste as with their English fellow-guests. Indian society has been for centuries split up by race and caste and creed distinctions into so many watertight compartments that it does not care for the Western forms of social intercourse, which tend to ignore those distinctions. It is Indians themselves who regard us, much more than we regard ourselves, as a separate caste. Moreover, for the ordinary and somewhat desultory conversation which plays so large a part in Western sociability the Indian has very little understanding. He always imagines that conversation must have some definite purpose, and though he has far, more than most English men, the gift of ready and courteous speech, and often will talk for a long time both discursively and pleasantly, it is almost always as a preliminary to the introduction of some particular topic in which his personal interests are more or less directly involved. A question which causes a good deal of soreness is the rigid exclusion of Indians from many Anglo-Indian clubs. But though a little more elasticity as to the entertainment of Indian "guests" might reasonably be conceded to Indian susceptibilities, a club is after all just as much as his house an Englishman's castle, and it is only in India that any one would venture to suggest that a club should not settle its rules of membership as it thinks fit. In the large cities at least there should, however, be room for clubs which, like the Calcutta Club at Calcutta, serve the very useful purpose of bringing together by mutual consent the higher classes of Indians and Englishmen, official and non-official. Yet even there the exigencies of caste observances, especially in the case of Hindus, militate against the more convivial forms of intercourse which the Englishman particularly affects. There are not a few Hindu members who will talk or play bridge with their English fellow-members into the small hours of the morning, but who consider themselves bound in conscience not to sit down to dinner with them; whilst some will doubtless feel obliged to perform ceremonial ablutions when they go home. Others again, for similar reasons, would decline to join any European club. They are no more to be blamed than Englishmen who prefer to reserve membership of their clubs to Europeans, but the fact remains and has to be reckoned with.

The best and most satisfactory relations are those maintained between Englishmen and Indians who understand and respect each other's peculiarities. No class of Englishman in India fulfils those conditions more fully than the Indian Civil Service. It is, I know, the bête noire of the Indian politician, and even Englishmen who ought to know better seem to think that, once they have labelled it a "bureaucracy," that barbarous name is enough to hang it—or enough, at least, to lend plausibility to the charge that Anglo-Indian administrators are arrogant and harsh in their personal dealings with Indians and ignorant and unsympathetic in their methods of government.

That the English civilian goes out to India with a tolerably high intellectual and moral equipment can hardly be disputed, for he represents the pick of the young men who qualify for our Civil Service at home as well as abroad, and in respect of character, integrity, and intelligence the British Civil Service can challenge comparison with that of any other country in the world. Why should he suddenly change into a narrow-minded, petty tyrant as soon as he sets foot in India? A great part at least of his career is spent in the very closest contact with the people, for he often lives for years together in remote districts where he has practically no other society than that of natives. He generally knows and speaks fluently more than one vernacular, though, owing to the multiplicity of Indian languages—there are five, for instance, in the Bombay Presidency alone—- he may find himself suddenly transferred to a district in which the vernaculars he has learnt are of no use to him. Part of his time is always spent "in camp"—i.e. moving about from village to village, receiving petitions, investigating cases, listening to complaints. Perhaps none of the ordinary duties of administration bring him so closely into touch with the people as the collection of land revenue, for it is there that his sense of fairness comes most conspicuously into play and wins recognition. Hence, for instance, in Bengal one of the bad results of the "Permanent Settlement" of the land revenue, which leaves no room for the Collector's ordinary work, has been that the people and the civilian know generally less about each other than in other parts of India. Few Indians venture to impugn the Englishman's integrity and impartiality in adjudging cases in which material interests are concerned, or in settling differences between natives; and nowhere are those qualities more valuable and more highly appreciated than in a country accustomed for centuries to every form of oppression and of social pressure for which the multitudinous claims of caste and family open up endless opportunities. As he has no permanent ties of his own in India, it does not matter to him personally whether the individual case he has to settle goes in favour of A or of B, or whether the native official, whom he appoints or promotes, belongs to this or to that caste. The people know this, and because they have learned to trust the Englishman's sense of fair play, they appeal, whenever they get the chance, to the European official rather than to one of their own race. But it is especially in times of stress, in the evil days of famine or of plague, that they turn to him for help. Nowhere is the "sun-dried bureaucrat" seen to better advantage than in the famine or plague camp, where the "bureaucrat" would come hopelessly to grief, but where the English civilian, not being a "bureaucrat," triumphs over difficulties by sheer force of character and power of initiative. It is just in such emergencies, for which the most elaborate "regulations" cannot wholly provide, that the superiority of the European over the native official is most conspicuous. If "Padgett, M.P.", would go out to India in the hot rather than in the cold weather, and instead of either merely enjoying the splendid hospitality of the chief centres of Anglo-Indian society, or borrowing his views of British administration from the Indian politicians of the large cities, would spend some of his time with a civilian in an up-country station and follow his daily round of work amidst the real people of India, he would probably come home with very different and much more accurate ideas of what India is and of what the relations are between the Anglo-Indian official and the natives of the country.

Far from having flooded India, as is often alleged, with a horde of overpaid officials, we may justly claim that no Western nation has ever attempted to govern an alien dependency with a smaller staff of its own race, or has admitted the subject races to so large a participation in its public services. The whole vast machinery of executive and judicial administration in British India employs over 1,250,000 Indians, and only a little more than 5,000 Englishmen altogether, of whom about one-sixth constitute what is called par excellence the Civil Service of India. Not the least remarkable achievement of British rule has been the building up of a great body of Indian public servants capable of rising to offices of great trust. Not only, for instance, do Indian Judges sit on the Bench in the High Courts on terms of complete equality with their European colleagues, but magisterial work all over India is done chiefly by Indians. The same holds good of the Revenue Department and of the much, and often very unjustly, abused Department of Police; and, in fact, as Anglo-Indian officials are the first to acknowledge, there is not a department which could be carried on to-day without the loyal and intelligent co-operation of the Indian public servant. There is room for improving the position of Indians, not only, as I have already pointed out, in the Educational Department, but probably in every branch of the "Provincial" service, which corresponds roughly with what was formerly called the "Un-covenanted" service. As far back as 1879 Lord Lytton laid down rules which gave to natives of India one-sixth of the appointments until then reserved for the "Covenanted" service, and we have certainly not yet reached the limit of the number of Indians who may ultimately with advantage be employed in the different branches of the public service; but few who know the defects as well as the good qualities of the native will deny that to reduce hastily the European leaven in any department would be to jeopardize its moral as well as its administrative efficiency. The condition of the police, for instance, is a case in point, for any survival of the bad old native traditions is due very largely to the insufficiency of European control. Mr. Gokhale has himself admitted as one of the reasons for founding his society of "Servants of India" the necessity of "building up a higher type of character and capacity than is generally available in the country." For the same reason we must move slowly and cautiously in substituting Indians for Europeans in the very small number of posts which the latter still occupy. That the highest offices of executive control must be very largely held by Englishmen so long as we continue to be responsible for the government of India is admitted by all but the most "advanced" Indian politicians, and it is to qualify for and to hold such positions that the Indian Civil Service—formerly the "Covenanted" service—is maintained. It consists of a small élite of barely I,200 men, mostly, but not exclusively, Englishmen, for it includes nearly 100 Indians. It is recruited by competitive examinations held in England, and this is one of the chief grievances of Indians. But in order to preserve the very high standard it has hitherto maintained, it seems essential that Indians who wish to enter it should have had not only the Western education which Indian Universities might be expected to provide, but the thoroughly English training which India certainly does not as yet supply.

In the eyes of the disaffected Indian politician the really unpardonable sin of the Civil Service is that it constitutes the bulwark of British rule, the one permanent link between the Government of India and the manifold millions entrusted to their care. I have already had occasion to show, incidentally, how unfounded is the charge that, through ignorance and want of sympathy, the British civilian is callous to the real interests and sentiments of the people in dealing with the larger problems of Indian statesmanship. The contrary is the case, for to him belongs the credit of almost every measure passed during the last 50 years for the benefit of the Indian masses, and passed frequently in the teeth of vehement opposition from the Indian politician. Nor is it surprising that it should be so. For the Indian politician—generally a townsman—is, as a rule, drawn from and represents classes that have very little in common with the great bulk of the people, who are agriculturists. The British civilian, on the other hand, often spends the best years of his life in rural districts, seldom even visited by the politician, and therefore knows much more about the needs and the feelings of the people among whom he lives and moves. In the best sense of the word he is in fact the one real democrat in India. The very fact that he is a bird of passage in the country makes him absolutely independent of the class interests and personal bias to which the politician is almost always liable. Moreover, the chief, and perfectly legitimate, object to which the Anglo-Indian administrator is bound to address himself is, as Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal once candidly admitted, to capture "the heart, the mind of the people … to secure, if not the allegiance, at least the passive, the generous acquiescence of the general mass of the population." To make his meaning perfectly clear, Mr. Pal instanced the rural reforms, the agricultural banks and other things which had been done in Lord Curzon's time, "to captivate the mind of the teeming masses," and he added that "he is a foolish politician in India who allows the Government to capture the mind of the masses to the exclusion of his own influence and his own countrymen." Mr. Pal is from his point of view perfectly logical, and so were the writers in the Yugantar, who, when they elaborated their scheme of revolutionary propaganda, declared that the first step must be to undermine the confidence of the people in their rulers and to destroy the spirit of contentedness under an alien yoke. But could there be a more striking tribute to the intelligent and sympathetic treatment of the interests of the Indian masses by their British rulers than such admissions on the part of the enemies of British rule?

From this point of view nothing but good should result from the larger opportunities given by the recent reforms for the discussion of Indian questions in the enlarged Councils, so long as the Indian representatives in these Councils are drawn, as far as possible, from the different classes which, to some extent, reflect the different interests of the multitudinous communities that make up the people of India. The British civilian will have a much better chance than he has hitherto had of meeting his detractors in the open, and, if one may judge by the proceedings last winter, when the Councils met for the first time under the new conditions, there is little reason to fear, as many did at first, that he will be taken at a disadvantage in debate owing to the greater fluency and rhetorical resourcefulness of the Indian politician. It was not only in the Imperial Council in Calcutta that the official members, having the better case and stating it quite simply, proved more than a match for the more exuberant eloquence of their opponents. On the contrary, the personal contact established in the enlarged Councils between the Anglo-Indian official and the better class of Indian politician may well serve to diminish the prejudices which exist on both sides. It is, I believe, quite a mistake to suppose that the British civilian generally resents the recent reforms, though he may very well resent the spirit of hostility and suspicion in which they were advocated and welcomed in some quarters, as if they were specially directed against the European element in the Civil Service. A practical difficulty is the heavy call which attendance in Council will make upon Civil servants who have to represent Government in these assemblies. Already for many years past the amount of work, and especially of office work, has steadily increased and without any corresponding increase of the establishment. Hence the civilian has less time to receive Indian visitors, and he is often obliged to curtail the period he spends during the year in camp. Hence also the growing frequency of transfers and of officiating or temporary appointments. There are, in fact, to-day barely enough men to go round, and, obviously, the more frequently a man is moved, the less chance he has of getting thoroughly acquainted with the people among whom he has to work in a country such as India, where within the limits of the same province you may find half a dozen widely different communities speaking different languages and having different creeds and customs. Perhaps, too, for the same reasons, there is a tendency towards over-centralization in the "Secretariats" or permanent departments at the seat of government, whether in Simla or in the provincial capitals, and the less favoured civilian who bears the heat and burden of the day in the mofussil is both more dependent upon them and more jealous of the many advantages they naturally enjoy. Posts and telegraphs and the multiplying of "regulations" everywhere tend to weaken personal initiative. Nor can it be denied that with the increased facilities of travel to and from Europe civilians no longer look upon India quite so much as their home. The local liaisons, not uncommon in pre-Mutiny days, are now things of the past, and the married man of to-day who has to send his children home for their education, and often his wife too, either on account of the climate or to look after the children, is naturally more disposed to count up his years of service and to retire on his pension at the earliest opportunity. The increased cost of living in India and the depreciation of the rupee have also made the service less attractive from the purely pecuniary point of view, whilst in other ways it must suffer indirectly from such changes as the reduction of the European staff in the Indian Medical Department. The substitution of Indian for European doctors in outlying stations where there are no European practitioners is a distinct hardship for married officials, as there is a good deal more than mere prejudice to explain the reluctance of Englishwomen to be treated by native medical advisers. Nor is it possible to disguise the soreness caused throughout the Indian Civil Service by the recent appointment of a young member of the English Civil Service to one of the very highest posts in India. No one questions Mr. Clark's ability, but is he really more able than every one of the many men who passed with him, and for many years before him, through the same door into the public service and elected to work in India rather than at home? No Minister would have thought of promoting him now to an Under-Secretaryship of State in England, and apart from the grave reflection upon the Indian Civil Service—- and the belief generally entertained amongst Indians that it was meant to be a reflection upon the Indian Civil Service—his appointment to a far higher Indian office implies a grave misconception of the proper functions of a Council which constitutes the Government of India.

None of these minor considerations, however, will substantially affect the future of the Indian Civil Service if only it continues to receive from public opinion at home, and from the Imperial Government as well as from the Government of India, the loyal support and encouragement which the admirable work it performs, often under very trying conditions, deserves. An unfortunate impression has undoubtedly been created during the last few years in the Indian Civil Service that there is no longer the same assurance of such support and encouragement either from Whitehall or from Simla, whilst the attacks of irresponsible partisans have redoubled in intensity and virulence, and have found a louder and louder echo both on the platform and in the Press at home. The loss of contact between the Government of India and Anglo-Indian administrators has been as painfully felt as the frigid tone of many official utterances in Parliament, which have seemed inspired by a desire more often to avoid party embarrassments at Westminster than to protect public servants, who have no means of defending themselves, against even the grossest forms of misrepresentation and calumny, leading straight to the revolver and the bomb of the political assassin. The British civilian is not going to be frightened by one more risk added to the vicissitudes of an Indian career, but can you expect him to be proof against discouragement when many of his fellow-countrymen exhaust their ingenuity in extenuating or in casting upon him the primary responsibility for the new Indian gospel of murder which is being preached against him? Mr. Montagu was well inspired in protesting against such "hostile, unsympathetic, and cowardly criticism" as was conveyed in Mr. Mackarness's pamphlet; but this pamphlet was mere sour milk compared with the vitriol which the native Press had been allowed to pour forth day after day on the British official in India before any action was taken by Government to defend him.