Indian Unrest

by Sir Valentine Chirol

The new Viceroy, who himself belongs to one of the most important branches of the British Civil Service, may be trusted to display in his handling of the British civilian the tact and sympathy required to sustain him in the performance of arduous duties which are bound to become more complex and exacting as our system of government departs further from the old patriarchal type. Our task in India must grow more and more difficult, and will demand more than ever the best men that we can give to its accomplishment. The material prizes which an Indian career has to offer may be fewer and less valuable, whilst the pressure of work, the penalties of exile, the hardship of frequent separation from kith and kin, the drawbacks of an always trying and often treacherous climate, will for the most part not diminish. But the many sided interests and the real magnitude and loftiness of the work to be done in India will continue to attract the best Englishmen so long as they can rely upon fair treatment at the hands of the Mother Country. If that failed them there would speedily be an end not only to the Indian Civil Service, but to British rule itself. For the sword cannot govern, only maintain government, and can maintain it only as long as government itself retains the respect and acquiescence of the great masses of the Indian peoples which have been won, not by generals or by Secretaries of State, or even by Viceroys, but by the patient and often obscure spadework of the Indian Civil Service—by its integrity, its courage, its knowledge, its efficiency, and its unfailing sense of justice.

Complaints of the aloofness of the British civilian very seldom proceed either from Indians of the upper classes or from the humbler folk. They generally proceed from the new, more or less Western-educated middle class whose attitude towards British officials is seldom calculated to promote cordial relations; and they are also sometimes inspired by another class of Indian who, one may hope, will before long have vanished, but whom of all others the civilian is bound to keep at arm's length. There are men who would get a hold upon him, if he is a young man, by luring him into intrigues with native women, or by inveigling him into the meshes of the native moneylender, or who, by less reprehensible means, strive to establish themselves on a footing of intimacy with him merely in order to sell to other Indians the influence which they acquire or pretend to have acquired over him. Cases of this kind are no doubt rare, and growing more and more rare, as social conditions are passing away which in earlier days favoured them. Less objectionable, but nevertheless to be kept also at arm's length, is the far more numerous class of natives known in India as umedwars, who are always anxious to seize on to the coat tails of the Anglo-Indian official in order to heighten their own social status, and, if possible, to wheedle out of Government some of those minor titles or honorific distinctions to which Indian society attaches so much importance.

In other branches of the public service selection has not always operated as successfully as the competitive system for the Civil Service. Men are too often sent out as lawyers or as doctors, or even, as I have already pointed out, to join the Education Department, with inadequate qualifications, and they are allowed to enter upon their work without any knowledge of the language and customs of the people. Such cases are generally the result of carelessness or ignorance at home, but some of them, I fear, can only be described as "jobs"—and there is no room in India for jobs. The untravelled Indian is also brought into contact to-day with an entirely different class of Englishman. The globe-trotter, who is often an American, though the native cannot be expected to distinguish between him and the Englishman, constantly sins from sheer ignorance against the customs of the country. Then, again, with railways and telegraphs and the growth of commerce and industry a type of Englishman has been imported to fill subordinate positions in which some technical knowledge is required, who, whatever his good qualities, is much rougher and generally much more strongly imbued with, or more prone to display, a sense of racial superiority. Nor is he kept under the same discipline as Tommy Atkins, who is generally an easy-going fellow, and looks upon the native with good-natured, if somewhat contemptuous, amusement, though he, too, is sometimes a rough customer when he gets "above himself," or when his temper is ruffled by prickly heat, that most common but irritating of hot-weather ailments. In this connexion the remarkable growth of temperance among British soldiers in India is doubly satisfactory.

On the whole, the relations between the lower classes of Europeans and natives in the large cities, where they practically alone come into contact, seldom give rise to serious trouble; and it is between Europeans and natives of the higher classes that, unfortunately, personal disputes from time to time occur, which unquestionably produce a great deal of bad blood—disputes in which Englishmen have forgotten not only the most elementary rules of decent behaviour, but the self-respect which our position in India makes it doubly obligatory on every Englishman to observe in his dealings with Indians. Some of these incidents have been wilfully exaggerated, others have been wantonly invented. Most of them have taken place in the course of railway journeys, and without wishing to palliate them, one may reasonably point out that, even in Europe, people, when travelling, will often behave with a rudeness which they would be ashamed to display in other circumstances, and that long railway journeys in the stifling heat of India sometimes subject the temper to a strain unknown in more temperate climates. In some cases, too, it is our ignorance of native customs which causes the trouble, and the habits of even high-class Indians are now and then unpleasant. A few months ago, I shared a railway compartment one night with an Indian gentleman of good position and pleasant address, belonging to a sect which carries to the most extreme lengths the respect for all forms of life, however repulsive. Had I been a stranger to India and ignorant of these conscientious eccentricities, I might well have objected very strongly to some of the proceedings of my companion, who spent a good deal of his time in searching his person and his garments for certain forms of animal life, which he carefully deposited in a little silver box carried for this special purpose. Nevertheless it must be admitted that there have been from time to time cases of brutality towards natives sufficiently gross and inexcusable to create a very deplorable impression. I have met educated Indians who, though they have had no unpleasant experiences of the kind themselves, prefer to avoid entering a railway carriage occupied by Europeans lest they should expose themselves even to the chance of insulting treatment. On the other hand, speaking from personal experience as well as from what I have heard on unimpeachable authority, I have no hesitation in saying that there are evil-disposed, Indians, especially of late years, who deliberately seek to provoke disagreeable incidents by their own misbehaviour, either in the hope of levying blackmail or in order to make political capital by posing as the victims of English brutality. But even when Englishmen put themselves entirely in the wrong, there is perhaps a tendency amongst Anglo-Indians—chiefly amongst the non-official community—to treat such cases with undue leniency, and it is one of the curious ironies of fate that Lord Curzon, whom the Nationalist Press has singled out for constant abuse and denunciation as the prototype of official tyranny, was the one Viceroy who more than any other jeopardized his popularity with his fellow countrymen in India by insisting upon rigorous justice being done where Indians had, in his opinion, suffered wrongs of this kind at the hands of Europeans.

It is a lamentable fact that, amongst Indians, the greatest bitterness with regard to the social relations between the two races often proceeds from those who have been educated in England. There is, first of all, the young Indian who, having mixed freely with the best type of Englishmen and Englishwomen, finds himself on his return to India quite out of touch with his own people, and yet has to live their life. Cases of this kind are especially pathetic, when, having imbibed European ideals of womanhood, he is obliged to marry some girl chosen by his parents, with whom, however estimable she may be, he has nothing in common. Such is the contrariety of human nature that he usually visits his unhappiness, not on the social system which has resumed its hold upon him, but on the civilization which has killed his belief in it. Then there is the very mischievous type of young Indian who, having been left to his own devices in England, and without any good introductions, brings back to India and retails there impressions of English society, male and female, gathered from the very undesirable surroundings into which he has drifted in London and other large cities. It is he who is often responsible for one of the most deplorable features in the propaganda of the seditious Press—namely, the scandalous libels upon the character of English domestic life, and especially upon the morality of English womanhood—by which it is sought to undermine popular respect for and confidence in the Englishman. But our own responsibility must also be very great, so long as we allow the young Indian who comes to England to drift hopelessly, without help or guidance, among the rocks and shoals of English life. Men of our own race, and carefully picked men, come from our oversea Dominions to study in our colleges, and we have a special organization to look after their moral and material welfare. For years past we have allowed young Indians to come and go, and no responsible hand has been stretched out to save them from the manifold temptations of an entirely alien society in which isolation is almost bound to spell degradation and bitterness.

Considering, however, the many inevitable causes of friction and the inherent imperfections of human nature, whether white or coloured, one may safely say that between Englishmen of all conditions and Indians of all conditions there often and, indeed, generally exist pleasanter relations than are to be found elsewhere between people of any two races so widely removed. They are never closer than when special circumstances help to break down the barriers. The common instincts and the common dangers of their profession create often singularly strong ties of regard and affection between the sepoy of all ranks and his British officers—especially on campaign. In domestic tribulations, as well as in public calamities, Indians, at least of the lower classes, will often turn more readily and confidently for help to the Englishman who lives amongst them than to their own people. I need not quote instances of the extraordinary influence which many European missionaries have acquired by their devoted labours amongst the poor, the sick, and the suffering, and in former times, perhaps more than in recent times, even with Indians of the higher classes. In ordinary circumstances we have to recognize the existence of both sides of obstacles to anything like intimacy. Many Indian ideas and habits are repugnant to us, but so also are many of ours to them. Indians have their own conceptions of dignity and propriety which our social customs frequently offend. If Englishmen and Englishwomen in high places in India would exert their influence to invest the social life of Europeans in the chief resorts of Anglo-Indian society with a little more decorum and seriousness, they would probably be doing better service to a good understanding between the two races in social matters than by trying to break down by sheer insistence, however well meant, the barriers which diametrically opposite forms of civilization have placed between them.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.

In the very able speech in which, on July 27, Mr. Montagu, the new Under-Secretary of State for India, introduced the Indian Budget in the House of Commons, one passage referred to the relations between the Secretary of State and the Viceroy in terms which have deservedly attracted very great attention[23]. Differences of opinion, sometimes of an acute character, have at intervals occurred between Secretaries of State and Viceroys as to their relative attributions. Mr. Montagu's language, however, would seem to constitute an assertion of the powers of the Secretary of State far in excess not only of past practice but of any reasonable interpretation of legislative enactments on the subject. After congratulating Lord Minto on the completion of, a "difficult reign," Mr. Montagu said:—

The relations of a Viceroy to the Secretary of State are intimate and responsible. The Act of Parliament says "That the Secretary of State in Council shall superintend, direct, and control all acts, operations, and concerns which in any way relate to or concern the government or revenues of India, and all grants of salaries, gratuities, and allowances, and all other payments and charges whatever out of or on the revenues of India." It will be seen how wide, how far reaching, and how complete these powers are. Lord Morley and his Council, working through the agency of Lord Minto, have accomplished much…. I believe that men of all parties will be grateful that Lord Morley remains to carry out the policy he has initiated.