mgrrERs TO THE EDITOR.
THE SITUATION IN INDIA.
LTO TIER EDITOR Or TIIR "Sr iccrAToit."1
you allow one who has served for upwards of thirty years in India, and can fairly lay claim to considerable personal knowledge of natives of that country of all classes, to address a few words to you and your readers on the present situation ?
The present situation is undoubtedly serious. We are face to face with active sedition and disloyalty of the violent type on the part of the few, with a spirit of restless discontent and . carping criticism on the part of a larger section, with some- what apathetic support on the part of the moderate sections of the educated party, and, it is to be feared, with diminished content, confidence, and affection on the part of the great mass of the people. What are the principal causes of this .condition of affairs, and what are the remedies ?
I have no hesitation myself in saying that the most important factor of all has been education. I am not going to indulge in diatribes against the system of education adopted. It is now universally recognised that very serious mistakes have been made; but this is not altogether surprising. What, to my mind, has been the greatest mistake of all has been that, in offering to the people of India education of a very advanced Western type, we have quite overlooked the necessity of those restraints of discipline which surround the ,student in the. West. It is the absence of sound mental and physical discipline in the schools and colleges of India.wbich is the root of the whole evil. We must expect new desires for expansion, new aspirations, new ideas, and new thoughts to permeate the educated classes in India, as elsewhere, and we
must expect the aristocracy of intellect there, as elsewhere, to claim due recognition ; and I, for one, have no quarrel with such claims. But the training of the intellect, which has gone on without any counterbalancing moral training, has resulted in an arrogance, self-conceit, and presumptuous overestimate of self-importance which I take to be without parallel in the world's history. Our educational system has encouraged this attitude of mind, and I fear that our educational staff has not laid itself out to discourage it as it should have done. While this—to my mind by far the most important Indian movement of modern times—has been going on, the Government of India has been in the hands of a Service recruited entirely by open competition. Every individual in that Service owes his position to his mental powers only; interest, birth, wealth, avail him nothing.
Now we come to a very curious anomaly. One would, a priori, expect such a Service to favour, the claims of intellect and enterprise, for side by side with the advance of education has come a great increase in the importance of the commercial as well as the professional classes. But the exact opposite is the case. The Indian Civil Service as a whole has no special favour for the "educated" classes, but devotes all, or nearly all, its fostering care to the old aristocratic, the land-owning, and the land-cultivating classes. It has been the weakest point in the recent history of that great Service that, as a body, it failed to appreciate the growing importance of the educated professional and commercial classes; and it came as a rude awakening to most of us to find that a body had grown up which had not merely the power to make unpleasant remarks, but which had become a real force to be reckoned with. It has been the fashion of late years to legislate as if the feelings, wishes, and susceptibilities of these classes could be safely neglected altogether. Measures were passed- in the interests, or supposed interests, of the agriculturists—called, and correctly called, the backbone of the country—which amounted practically to the confiscation of existing rights, or the imposition of galling disabilities; and it was supposed that the classes affected by such legisla- tion were impotent and of no account. In my humble judgment, much of the present unrest is the result, not of definite dis- loyalty to the British rule, but of a strenuous desire on the part of these classes to prove to their rulers that they are of some account. The extreme and blatant section of the party has made itself detested, and in the ordinary course of human affairs the whole party will have to suffer. And in this case there is reason in it, for the Moderates are much to blame for their apathy and want of courage. But even now there is danger of the undue neglect of these forces. There is much written and said about calling in the "natural leaders of the people," who are assumed to be the territorial magnates. We shall do well to apply an old saying : " This ought ye to have done—but not to have left the other undone."
On the top of this want of due recognition of the existence and growth of new forces came some serious mistakes in dealing with agricultural interests. The educated agitator, some of whose class were also personally affected, saw his chance, and took it by stirring up discontent among the cultivators. Fortunately we had those at the helm who saw the error, and had the strength of mind to admit the mistake and correct it in one most noticeable instance.
I As a natural result of all these events, the gulf between Europeans and natives of India, at any rate as regards certain classes, has widened and deepened. District officers have not the time and leisure which they once bad to make intimate acquaintance with the people of their districts, and the facilities afforded by railways and telegraphs of getting direct to headquarters have diminished the anxiety of the local magnates to get on terms with the local officials. " Secretariats," alas I have too often been guilty of encouraging this, and the result is that few of us know the people of any special locality as we once did; and the first necessity for good rule is that it should I be based on knowledge and sympathy. This is the position. The question which, as practical Englisla- I men, we must ask ourselves is,—W bat are we to do now? Well, in the first place let us try to clear our minds of illusions; and then let us avoid counsels of pessimism on the one hand, or of perfection on the other. First and foremost, let us try to know each other better. In my humble opinion, it is not true that we cannot hope for the affection of the people, and must be content with their respect, their esteem, and, let us be honest, their fear. The bulk of the people, in their present stage of development, care only to be well governed, and, subject to such government as is necessary, to be let alone to live their own lives in their own way. The Oriental is very like a child. He does not resent firm and reasonable discipline at all; he hates fussy interference, and his nature will respond to any sympathetic personality which tries to understand him. I say deliberately that, in my judgment, the official who makes up his mind that the affection of the Indian people is un- attainable must fail of his duty to the people, and, however great his abilities and attainments, must be a danger to the Empire. But let there be no illusions. There will be always those who hate us, and who, even if they are not actively seditious, will do all they can to make our position uncom- fortable and unsafe. But a large portion of the educated gentry of India are yearning for a greater rapprochement to us. I speak as one who can claim to know, and I say, in the face of all that has occurred in the last few years—and I have been in the midst of it—that this is so. But if we are to have the esteem and affection of our Indian fellow-subjects, we must entertain similar feelings towards them ourselves. We must not merely act as if we felt it; we must feel it. For the Oriental distin- guishes in a moment between the man who can feel himself to be his friend, irrespective of colour and race, and the man who tries to appear so from a sense of duty. But in order to become real friends we must recognise that we are different, and in the recognition of that fact make allowances for our racial and other peculiarities. It has been said, for instance, that native gentlemen feel their exclusion from our clubs. I claim the personal friendship of many native gentlemen on terms of perfect equality ; but I think that to introduce them into our clubs would be a fatal error. Our clubs are Western; I want my friends to remain Oriental, and not to assume the veneer of English club life, which does not suit them at all. Let us accept the position; let us seek out every possible means of frank intercourse in consultation with our Indian friends; but we shall best serve the purpose by recognising the necessary limitations, and by facing facts. We are not alike, and no good will come from pretending that we are.
One further point I wish to notice. No one has less desire to muzzle the Press or interfere with its legitimate freedom than I have. But here, again, let us face the facts. The mass of the people utterly fail to understand how a Press can be allowed to go on day by day vilifying the Government, libelling individual officials, and inveighing against the iniquities of foreign rule. They are ignorant, very slightly educated, and slow of thought; and they argue that either the things said against the Government and against individual officials are true, because if not 'true they cannot conceive how any sane Government can permit such lies to be published, or, they think, if not true, the Government are so much in dread of the seditious Press and the class who support it that they are afraid to interfere. It is grossly unfair to the ignorant peasant to allow his mind to be poisoned as it is, and it is equally unfair to the respectable Press. I would only advocate very mild measures, but it is essential that there should be some system of control devised which would leave all respect- able papers to criticise in the freest manner, but which would control the dissemination of inflammatory matter by die- reputable rage. The Act recently passed is a step in the right direction. Is it enough ?
The position is serious, but very far from hopeless. We most be stern and unflinching in the suppression of disorder at whatever cost; we must review our educational systems; we must never allow any class to think us afraid of them, or that anything is to be gained by violence; we must recognise the growth of new forges and the decay of old ones; and we must make ourselves first respected and then loved. The English- man can make himself respected without much difficulty any- where—it is his metier—but to make himself loved does not come to him so naturally. To gain or regain the affections of the Indian people will require an effort, sometimes a great one ; but it ie at this juncture the clear duty of every British subject in India, of whatever rank or position, to do his utmost to secure this, and I for one do not for a moment believe that it is impossible. Indeed, if we are to remain in India, it must be done.—I am, Sir, &c., SpiEs.
[All who are concerned for the welfare of our Indian Empire will, we feel sure, welcome the admirable tone and temper in which our correspondent writes. It is by keep- ing cool and keeping just, as well as keeping firm, that we shall surmount our difficulties. True justice has been defined as " a finer knowledge through love." Love in the sense in which it is used by Senea " means no wishy-washy sentimentality, no weak indulgence of the whims of those whom it is our duty to govern, no letting men do what they will because it is their will, but the insight and the sympathy which lead to true justice.—En. Spectator.]
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