India under Ripon: A Private Diary

by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

“We then went out to pay our respects to the Maharajah at Ahmednagar, crossing the river in a boat. The Palace at Ahmednagar is certainly one of the most striking buildings in the world. The Maharajah received us most kindly. He is a really ‘grand old man,’ blind with a cataract, but delighted to ‘see’ us. We had a rather long conversation with him, touching on religion and the disadvantage of a too-English education for men of the East. In which opinion we cordially agreed. He had his little Court of old servants round him, as he sat on the sofa, smoking his hookah, and his son, an amiable youth, sat in front on a chair, translating for him our conversation into Urdu. There was nothing of the new world in all this. He also talked about various Englishmen he had known, Sir John Strachey among others, whom he laughed at for his airs of grandeur. On one occasion he had come to pay a visit and had taken offence because the servants were not all at the door to receive him, and so had gone home. I told him he would laugh more if he could see Sir John Strachey in England, glad of anybody who would take the trouble to say ‘how do you do’ to him. This caused a chorus. Yet the officials fancy the ‘natives’ rate them at their own pretensions.

“After seeing the temple and the tank and the various sights of the Palace, we were rowed down the river in a barge, a really splendid sight, stopping once or twice to be shown the insides of houses. Bagdad must have been like this in its great days. But, what is strange at Benares, there is not a single house south of the river. Holkar’s house, which has slipped bodily into the Ganges, shows how all that is solid on the river front will one day go, leaving, as at Bagdad, only the mud huts they now screen. The temples here are insignificant compared with those of the South. It has been a pleasant day of comparative rest after all the talking we have lately done.

“10th Jan.—Calling accidentally at the Post Office, we found important letters from England; and, amongst other good news, I find my Colombo letter is published in the ‘Times’; also I am informed that orders were sent to Lord Ripon not to receive me at Government House.

“We were taken again on the river, which is a still more wonderful sight in the morning than it was in the evening, and, through the Maharajah, we had arranged to pay a visit, without which our Mohammedan tour would have been incomplete, namely, to the last representative of the Moguls, an elderly gentleman who lives in an old palace on the river, on a pension, he told us, of 649 rupees, 6 annas, and 3 pice a month, paid him in lieu of his Indian Empire by Her Majesty. He had had another 249 rupees with his wife, but she died last year, and now he wanted his case laid before the public. He was immensely pleased with our visit, for it seems no one ever thinks of paying him any attention, because he is poor; but we inundated him with compliments and courtesies, and he was moved to telling us of his descent from Arungzeb through the Emperor of Delhi, whose eldest son was his grandfather, and who, being disinherited by his father, left Delhi and settled at Benares. Sad old relic perched in a half ruinous house, like a sick eagle, looking down on the river and the crescent-shaped city, with his little group of tattered servants. We were pitying him from our hearts, melted at his pedigree, when he suddenly changed his tragic tone, and asked whether we would like to see a cock fight, and, when we assented, jumped briskly on his legs and led the way to the palace yard, where cocks had already been brought in crowing. The cock fight, as a cock fight, was a delusion. The birds were evidently too precious to be allowed to hurt each other, and their spurs were carefully swathed in bandages, so that no harm was done. This innocent amusement kindled him for a minute or two, and then he relapsed into his old listlessness. Wreaths were brought for us and perfumes, and we bade him farewell, and went on our way. I would not have missed this visit to the last of the Moguls for millions.

“We went on to Allahabad in the afternoon, and are staying with Lyall[10] at Government House. There were a large number of Mohammedans to meet us at the station; among them Ferid-ed-Din, quite hilarious with the recollection of the row at the Patna station. We were hurried off, however, to Government House, where there was a large dinner of uninteresting officials. How dull Anglo-Indian society is! But when everybody was gone, I unfolded to Lyall my ideas of Mohammedan reform, and the university scheme, which last, to my astonishment, he cordially approved, promising, if it was started in his province, to aid it with a public grant. He also suggested Jonpore or Rampore as suitable places.

“Ferid-ed-Din came to settle about the presentation of the address and the lecture, but, after consultation with Lyall, it has been agreed that the latter is to be abandoned. Ferid-ed-Din suggested asking him to it, but this Lyall declined to do. I don’t quarrel with him for this. But it is painful to see what terror he inspires in the ‘natives.’ Ferid-ed-Din, in spite of his boldness, was struck speechless in his presence, and stood before him barefooted. I told Ferid-ed-Din to put his shoes on, but Lyall said he had better stay as he was. Yet Lyall is very far from being a narrow-minded man, and we have discussed the most burning questions without reserve. Talking of the Ilbert Bill, he said it was, as far as the Anglo-Indians were concerned, a local Bengal measure. It was quite true the Assam planters regarded it as an attempt to do away with their right of beating their own niggers. The jury system could not work there, as it would leave them free to do exactly what they chose. We discussed the chances of revolution. He would not agree that it would come in five years, but perhaps in twenty. But the people of India were a weak race, and would never be able to stand alone. They would be a prey to seafaring nations on their seaboard, and to the Russians and Chinese on their land frontier.

“We played lawn tennis, at which Lyall is good, in the afternoon; and after dinner we went to the Mayo Hall, a public place where about three hundred Mohammedans presented us with an address of an effusively loyal nature, to which I replied in a carefully moderate tone. Everything went off well, but the thing was tame compared with the Patna meeting, for the fact of our being at Government House has raised, in spite of us, a barrier between us and the people. They dare not come to see us there, and dare not talk openly anywhere. I feel suddenly shut out from all light, as when one goes through a tunnel on a railway journey.

“In England all seems going well. Churchill has made a grand speech at Edinburgh about Egypt, and I am glad to see advocates moral principles of government according to the programme I sketched for him. Gladstone’s mantle of righteousness, which has slipped off his shoulders, may be picked up now by anybody. Also I have several letters about my Colombo letter in the ‘Times.’ It was published on the 13th, as Churchill’s speech was made on the 16th. From Egypt, however, there comes news less good. Sherif has indeed resigned, but Nubar is in his place, and there is talk of increasing the staff of English employés, and prolonging the occupation for five years.

“12th Jan.—Akbar Huseyn and his brother came in the morning, and we wrote out an account of the meeting last night, and sent it to the ‘Pioneer.’ In the afternoon there was a garden party, and I talked to Sir Donald Stewart, the High Court Judge, about the Patna business. It surprised him, as it surprises every Englishman, and fails to surprise every native. He said the only similar case he had brought before him in his twelve years of judgeship, was one in which certain native pleaders had been insulted in their robing room in Court. This, however, does not affect the question of such things happening, because it shows only that no native ever dreams of complaining, or would have a chance of having his complaint inquired into if he did. On the other hand they have been settling a case this very day, in which a Hindu railway clerk beat an Englishman, and have sentenced the clerk to ten months imprisonment. Several of our Mohammedan friends were at the party, among them Ferid-ed-Din, but I noticed that they mixed with none of the English, talking only to each other or to certain Hindus.

“At dinner there were several intelligent people, especially a Mr. Patterson, who is on good terms with the natives, and spoke of them as I have not yet heard an Englishman speak. But he served with Garibaldi in Italy, and so has ideas of liberty the rest have not. The other was a young Strachey, son of Sir John, a true chip of the old block, with his father’s way of sitting with his head on one side like a sick raven, and the same spectacles and soft voice, a clever youth. I had another long talk with Lyall about the prospects of a Mohammedan reformation, and he reminded me of our dinner at the Travellers in the summer of 1881, with Morley and Zohrab, and of how I was then looking for a prophet in Arabia to proclaim him Caliph. He thinks Egypt will certainly now be annexed.