India under Ripon: A Private Diary

by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

“Ghulam Mohammed Munshi called. He has spent twenty years, he tells me, trying to get up a Mohammedan school at Bombay, and has at last succeeded. He seems a good old man, though apparently a follower of Seyd Ahmed. He was the first organizer, too, of the Anjuman i Islam here, and was sent to see me by Abd-el-Latif, who had telegraphed to him. He gave me some particulars about the Bombay Mohammedans. Agha Khan has 30,000 followers who count as Shiahs, but they are hardly Mohammedans, as they neither pray nor read the Koran nor fast. They are called Khojas, and the sect began not in Persia, but in Kutch, being originally poor; they are now rich and prosperous traders and shopkeepers. The late Agha Khan kept them very strictly, forbidding them to attend the public schools. The rest of the community are Sunnis. The original Mohammedans of Bombay are called Kokhnis. They are Shafites, as they were converted by the Arabs, and are shopkeepers. The rest are descended from northern immigrants, and are mostly Hanafites. He tells me the Mulvis are very much averse to education, but they are all coming to the Anjuman meeting on Friday, when there will be about five hundred persons present.

“Dined at Mr. Gonne’s, where I had some talk with Sir William Wedderburn, a very superior man indeed. We discussed the agricultural question, and agreed, I think, on every point, except that he seems to hope for more good from Lord Ripon’s local self-government scheme than I do. He said: ‘The village is the unit. What we want is to have one village, only one village, really examined, and the fact ascertained that it does not pay the cost of its cultivation.’ Agriculture in India does not suffice to keep the people alive. In old days it was an accessory only; now it is their sole resource. Formerly they were weavers, mechanics, carriers, as well as farmers, and now these trades are stopped, and they cannot live on the land. He agreed with me about the necessity of a permanent settlement everywhere. He said: ‘The assessment is not merely a land tax, nor merely a rent. It is more than both of these. It is a poll tax, and a tax on labour, for it takes more than the whole agricultural profit, the excess being levied on wages received for other than agricultural work done.’ This is a good description of the facts. I told him what Gordon had said to me about the hopelessness of expecting anything being done for the Indian people until they had made a revolution; perhaps if the Government went bankrupt it would do as well. But he said it was incredible how long governments could go on after they were practically insolvent. We are to have another talk to-morrow.

“24th Feb., Sunday.—A visit from Sir Jamsetji Jijibhoy who called to invite us to see the Towers of Silence with him. He is a young man of great simplicity and apparent honesty, who seems to do his duty in public matters, but rather to avoid politics. There is, however, nothing more absurd than to suppose that the Parsis are not on the native side of the quarrel with the Anglo-Indians. Their position was well explained later by the editor of the ‘Rast,’ Kaikhosna Norrosji Kabraji, with whom I had a very long conversation. He said that the Parsis came originally from Persia, twelve centuries and more ago, having been driven out by the Moslems. The Hindus had received them, but on certain conditions. They were to abstain from cow’s flesh especially, and to use certain Hindu forms in their marriage ceremonies. They were persecuted constantly, and repressed, and were in danger of dying out when the English came to Bombay. For this reason they have always supported the English raj, and would support any Imperial Government which should succeed the English. They had become very prosperous and wealthy, and education had brought them a wish to take part in public affairs. They were now with the Hindus in the struggle going on for Home Rule, though they had no wish to weaken the connection with England, which was all to their advantage. I asked him about their priests, and he told me they were very ignorant, that their ritual was in Zend, which few of them understood. It was a language closely allied to Sanskrit, a good Sanskrit scholar being able to read Zend, but few knew either. The richer Parsis, however, had taken full advantage of public education, though they complained, like the Mohammedans, of a lack of religious instruction. He did not think education in England a good thing for Parsis, though he had sent his son there to read for the Civil Service Examination. He only knew one Parsi who had returned improved from England. That was one of the Wadia family. Most were spoilt by it. One had ended by marrying his aunt. Others had stayed in England altogether. He had been instrumental in getting up the ‘God save the Queen’ movement with Canon Harford, having translated it into Gujerati. I explained to him the Egyptian and Soudan situations, and he has already begun to write in his journal against sending Indian troops. I also explained the political situation in England, and promised to see his son and give him good advice.

“Ali Hamid Bey also called, and we are to dine with him on Friday, before the Anjuman meeting. I like the young man.

“At 4 o’clock Sir William Wedderburn called, and we had a long talk. He considers that the chief reforms to be looked to are: 1. To have a fixed sum allotted for the Civil List, so as to make the multiplication of offices impossible. At present, sons and nephews and cousins of Members of Council are stuck into the uncovenanted Civil Service ad libitum. They get posts of two or three hundred rupees a month, and cannot live on it, and so do their work badly. It is just two and three hundred rupee places that would form the prizes of the native Civil Service. Sir William thinks the English civilians should be few and well paid. They are now multiplied needlessly. 2. To do away with the Indian Council in London. They are now made a Court of Appeal, but they are all members of the old covenanted clique, and so are incapable of unprejudiced decision. 3. He is in favour of a permanent settlement everywhere at one-sixteenth of the net produce. 4. He would have an option of paying in kind or in money. 5. He would have agricultural banks.

“He described the state of things at the end of Lytton’s reign as bordering on revolution. Armed bands were beginning to go about, having the sympathy of the people. They were put down with great difficulty. In the Bombay Presidency, Sir Richard Temple contributed much to this state of things. Lytton’s policy of show corrupted them all, and Temple exaggerated it. Temple was a man without principles, good or bad, and his idea of getting on was to head every cry popular with the Anglo-Indians. Thus, during the famine, when the cry was ‘Save life at any cost,’ he had immense heaps of grain collected conspicuously in every station, much of which rotted and was lost, and he issued a minute to the effect that two pounds of grain should be the daily ration. Then came a reaction. It was found that the country was being ruined by this wholesale distribution, and he issued another minute that one pound was a quite sufficient ration, the truth being that one and a half was about the reasonable portion. He was answerable, too, for the severity of the forest laws. Because it was a popular cry that timber should be preserved, he issued a minute confiscating whole districts to this purpose.

“Dined at Sir Frank Souter’s. Abd-el-Rahman and Kamr ed Din Tyabji and a couple of Parsis were there, Sir Frank having what is considered here great sympathy with the natives. But it seemed to me that without intending it, he was insulting them in nearly every word he said, although he is evidently a most kind-hearted man. These mixed native and Anglo-Indian parties are colourless things, and the conversation is all unreal, neither side speaking its real thoughts. I suppose, if the truth had been told, it would have been something of this sort. Souter: ‘You are welcome to my house and honoured guests, because I am an English gentleman, and I think it right that natives should be civilly treated. But I know that you are still half savages, and hope you will take no liberties.’ The native guests: ‘We come to dine with you because it is a good thing to stand well with those in power. But you grow rather brutal after your sixth glass of champagne.’ It is astonishing the amount of liquor consumed here in India.

“25th Feb.—Malabari called, and I had a long talk with him about my plans and ideas, and he has promised to help them on all he can. He is going to get up a small meeting of Hindus and Parsis, but I told him I would sooner not make a speech for fear of saying too much. We lunched with Mr. L., a typical Anglo-Indian, at the Yacht Club,—a tall, dry man, Judge of the High Court, who has carried on through life the recollection that he was a sixth form boy at Eton, and in the cricket eleven. He would like to see Afghanistan annexed, and himself sent to administer justice there. With him General H., who, just as Sir James Fergusson quoted his chuprassi, quoted his native troopers as authorities for the contempt with which the Mahdi was regarded by Mohammedans in India.

“To the stables, where we spent a pleasant hour talking and making arrangements with Eid el Temini about visiting Nejd next winter. We decided it would be best to start from Bussora and Koweit, and we agreed to meet him there about the 1st of December. Dined at Dr. Blane’s, and sat between Lady S. and Miss T. The former complained of the shabby way the Anglo-Indian officials were treated by Government, and thought it hard India should not be governed entirely for their benefit. They all hated India so much that they ought to be handsomely treated for being obliged to live there. What would India do without them, and what would England do without India? How could England ever have conquered Afghanistan without Indian troops? How could she have conquered Egypt? This is a sincere woman. Miss T. is a serious person. She would see the agricultural condition of the Indian ryot raised by inducing him to plant fruit trees and keep market gardens. She has been four months in India, but has not yet gone beyond Bombay.

“26th Feb.—The Diwan of Kolapur, a Mahratta Brahmin, called. He confirmed Sir William Wedderburn’s estimate of Sir Richard Temple, but added that he was the best informed of any Governor they had had. It was not from ignorance that he erred, but because he only looked to his own advancement. I asked him about the land revenue of Kolapur, and he said it was about twenty per cent. of the gross produce, the same as in Bombay, but the districts varied. The Bombay Deccan was very poor land, not so good as Kolapur, and there might be some districts as highly assessed as one-third. I asked him if he thought Indian finance in a satisfactory state. He said the agricultural revenue will diminish, because the land is becoming impoverished, but they may make up in other ways by opium and salt taxes. The salt tax was much complained of, both on the sea coast, where it interfered with the fishing industry, and inland, where the cattle were suffering from want of it. He could not explain why, in Northern India, they should not give salt to their cattle, but supposed they were able to give them better food. He was on the Famine Commission and spoke very highly of Sir James Caird, though he said that from want of time he had not been able to understand certain questions, and so had made mistakes. He seemed to think that Wedderburn was too kind to the ryots, and doubted the success of his bank scheme, at any rate financially. He had, of course, a very high opinion of him, both as an honest man, and as one who knew. He likes Fergusson, but says he knows nothing that is going on. Wrote multitudinous letters, among others to Amir Ali and Abd-el-Latif, exhorting them each to unite with the other over this university scheme. But I hardly expect they will.