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THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
THE GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA

Jr RAMSAY MACDONALD

l(oC393
3 1. 3 - a i

LONDON
THE SWARTHMORE PRESS, LTD.
(FORMERLY TRADING AS HEADLEY BROS. PUBLISHERS, LTD.)

72 OXFORD STREET, W.l

 PREFACE
This book was written in all its substantial parts before the
Government took steps to meet the conditions which the
war had created in India. I venture to publish it, however,
because it indicates a different point of view from that which
appears to be animating the Government, though in some
respects their practical proposals do not materially differ from
— —
mine, but also and this is the chief reason because during the
time of transition upon which we are entering, and which the
Montagu-Chelmsford Report does no more than inaugurate, it is
important that we should understand the origin and evolution
of our Indian connections. India is a going concern, a problem
in organic politics. needs cannot be met by an adjustment
Its
here and an adjustment there ; they have to be viewed in
their wide sweep. This spirit will have to be maintained after
the Montagu-Chelmsford Report has produced its first harvest
of legislation.
I must acknowledge with gratitude the assistance I have
had from some of the worthiest men who maintain our best
traditions in the Government of India. Much of what is in
this book is
theirs, and in writing it I have always kept their
problems and their trials in mind. The effect of the war
upon publishing is responsible for a long delay in the appear-
ance of the book.

J. Ramsay MacDonald.
 CONTENTS
I'AGE

I Introductory ; The Rise of Nationalism . . 1

CHAPTER I
The Conquest 28

CHAPTER II
Parliamentary Control and the Secretary of State 37

CHAPTER III
The Viceroy 54

CHAPTER IV
The Executive Council 60

CHAPTER V
The Legislative Council 68

CHAPTER VI
Provincial Governments I—Heads
: of Provinces 79
vii
 viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII
FAGB
Provincial Governments (continued) : II —Legis-
latures 88

CHAPTER VIII
The Indian Civil Service 95

CHAPTER IX
The Native States . . . . . .114

CHAPTER X
Financial Policy : I —Tariffs . . . 123

CHAPTER XI
|
Financial Policy (continued) : II —The Land Tax . 135

CHAPTER XII
Financial Policy (continued): III —Expenditure . 145

CHAPTER XIII
Education 159

CHAPTER XIV
The Administration of Justice . . . .192

CHAPTER XV
India and the Empire . . . . . .213
 CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER XVI
The Press ........ MM
221

CHAPTER XVII
Religion and Nationalism 234

CHAPTER XVIII
1

Conclusion 264

APPENDIXES
I. The People of India ..... 273

II. Imperial and Provincial Revenues . . 277

III. The Co-operative Movement . . . .281

Index 285
 THE
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
INTRODUCTORY
THE RISE OF NATIONALISM
Public opinion in this country is like a sea upon which the
barques of Governments float in India, it is like a sea
;

beating against a coast, being rebuffed here and eating in its

way there. Here, public opinion touches and emanates from
the whole people, its sections represent conflicts in views
of national ends, and it is responsible in India opinion is
; ,

sectionalised in a totally different way. There is the public

opinion of the British community, which is mainly commercial,
and has in time come to be inspired by the mentality of a
foreign race in possession ; there is the public opinion of the
steadily increasing section of educated Indians, which is
not divided into Government and Opposition parties, but
which is itself the Opposition, not responsible but critical ;
the mental state of the great masses does not amount to a
public opinion, because it is concerned with the small local
interests of a population whose world is its village.
The public opinion of the British community presents no
great problems to the Government, except occasionally, as
in the case of the Ilbert Bill, when it displays all the dangers
of the opinion of a section in possession animated by two of
—
the most reactionary of all political impulses that of a superior
race and that of an economically exploiting community.
1
2 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
If its sense of security or its
political dominance is threatened,
it becomes vocal and then through its press and its con-
;

nections it becomes formidable, and can control the Govern-

ment. It is from the public opinion of the educated and
politically-minded Indian, however, that the great problems
of Indian Government arise. The voiceless state of the masses
imposes a responsibility upon the Government without pro-
viding it with clear guidance on political and diplomatic
problems.
The contact between Great Britain and India awoke India.
Educationalists like Hare, missionaries like Carey, adminis-
trators like Macaulay, taught the Indian Western modes of
thought. The Indian read the historical and political works
of the West, and they opened up a new world for him which
he very soon entered with bold feet. The long-drawn-out
swill of the French Revolution reached him, and he thought 1

as one to whom that Revolution was an inheritance. Now, the

political philosophy and axioms of the West are an essential
part of Indian life, and when its education came to India it
brought with it the politics of nationality, liberalism, freedom.
At first there was a revolt in social and religious custom.
Everything native from dress to food, from ritual to social
habits, was thrown off like a garment out of fashion. Every-
thing Indian was old, superstitious, in a neglected backwater.
At the same time the native newspaper and critical journal
made its appearance, first of all under missionary auspices.
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the political
harvest of this change began to ripen, and those men who
had been educated in the English schools, or had come into
close contact with British influences, began to take a definite
interest in thegovernment of their country. The period of
mere revolt and copying had ended, and that of orderly
assimilation and adaptation had begun. A dramatic little
story is told of the founding of the Brahmo Samaj. The
rebels had been worshipping for some time in a Unitarian
1
Life of Ramtanu Lahiri, by Sir Roper Lethbridge, p. 75.
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 3

"
chapel under an English minister. One Sunday evening,
as he (Rammohan Roy) was returning home from prayers
with his friends, Tarachand Chakravartti and Chandra Sikhar
Deb, the latter, in course of conversation, said to him,
'

Dewanjee, we now go to a house of worship where a foreigner

officiates. Should we not have a place where we might meet
and worship God in our own way ? " That impulse of " our
'

"
own way was the assertion of the quickening Indian nation-
alism asserting itself through Western influences, and this
was by and by to find still more complete and satisfactory
expression in politics.
The newspaper was freed in 1835, and the group of young
Indians who had been fighting for religious and social reform
began to think of an Indian press. Political fights with the
Government had hitherto been carried on by Europeans —
again commonly by missionaries. George Thomson, the anti-
slavery orator, came to India in 1842 with Dwarkanath
Tagore —the father of the poet
—and delivered political
addresses which stirred young and emancipated Calcutta,
and two years later the pilgrimage of youths from India to
receive education in England began. Criticism of the Govern-
ment continued through the press, at meetings, and by asso-
ciations like the Bombay Association, started in 1848. Some
of these associations collapsed in time, but left behind them
the soil from which successors sprang up. Lord Lytton's
tenure of office (1876-80) was attended by continued pro-
testsand attacks from vocal Indian opinion (when men like
Telang came to the fore as antagonists of the Government) ;

Lord Ripon's (1880-84) by equally vocal support (the Ilbert

Bill letting loose a flood which brought political agitation
in India to its highest level). Political currents were then

running strong, especially in the centres of Madras, Calcutta,

and Bombay. But the movement was not organised. In
1883 the Indian Association of Calcutta called a National
Conference at which representatives from Bengal, Madras,
1
Ramtanu Lahiri, p. 77.
4 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Bombay, and the United Provinces were present. That year
a circular was addressed to the students of Calcutta by Mr.
Allan Octavian Hume, asking them to devote themselves
to India, and as a result the Indian National Union was
formed and in 1884 a few gentlemen who had been attending
;

a Conference held in Adyar, Madras, by the Theosophical

Society, met and formed certain Provincial committees for
the purpose of calling without delay a conference of the
Indian National Union. This met in Bombay in December
—
1885 Poona, where it was to have met, having been visited
—
by the plague under the title of the Indian National Congress.
Since then it has met each year at Christmas in one or other of
the larger towns throughout India, and has been attended by
some thousand delegates, appointed in a somewhat loose
way by Provincial Committees. Since 1889 it has had a
Committee in London which itfinances and which publishes
the weekly journal India. Thus India became politically
articulate.
The resolutions passed from year to year at this Congress
are the best indications of what interests are stirring in the
mind of India. The first passed at the first Congress called
for theappointment of a Royal Commission to enquire into
the working of the Indian administration the second, for ;
"
the abolition of the Secretary of State's Council as being the
"
necessary preliminary to all other reforms the third ;

demanded an expansion of Legislative Councils the fourth ;

formulated the historical claim for simultaneous examina-

tions ;
the fifth protested against the increasing military
expenditure and asked Great Britain to guarantee the Indian
debt ; the sixth declared that Upper Burma ought not to
be added to India, but be made a Crown Colony the eighth ;

referred the resolutions passed to the Provincial political

associations.
Into a detailed history of the Congress I do not propose
to enter. At first it was received with no official disfavour,
and some officials actually attended it ;
but from the beginning
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 5

the Government as a whole was hostile to what the Times

"
correspondent described as the Indian nation meeting
together for the time."
first

When the Government was not sure in what

it started,

relations the new movement would stand to it. It might be

a consultative assembly which was to be a channel down
which grievances were to run to Government offices. If so,
it was to be countenanced. But it might be an Opposition,
speaking undoubtedly so that the Government could hear,
but acting as an independent political organ of Indian opinion.
In that case, the Government would, sooner or later, be hostile.
The matter was soon settled. It became an Opposition an —
inevitable development.
When Mr. Hume saw Lord Dufferin at Simla and considered
with him the project to bring together every year the leaders of
Indian opinion to discuss affairs, Lord Dufferin remarked that
as there could be no Parliamentary Opposition in India as in
Britain, the Government would welcome such a proposal
1
,

and when the second Congress met in Calcutta in 1886, the

Viceroy invited the members to a garden party, and Lord
Connemara repeated the invitation the following year when
the Congress met in Madras. Indeed, so cordial were the
relations between the heads of the Indian Government and
the promoters of the Congress that Lord Reay, then Governor
of Bombay, was suggested as President, and apparently only
considerations of official caution led to other arrangements
having to be made. The Government mind was then liberal.
Government officials attended and took some part
at first
in the discussions. 1 Speaking at a St. Andrew's Club dinner
in Calcutta in 1887, however, Lord Dufferin criticised the

Congress, and his attack was the subject of some scathing

sentences in a speech delivered by Mr. Telang at the Allahabad

1
Sir William Wedderburn indeed says that it was apparently on Lord
Dufferin's advice that the Congress dealt with political and not social matters
{Allan Oetavian Hume, pp. 59-60).
*
The Indian National Congress, Natesan, Madras, p. 4.
6 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Congress a few weeks later. The definite departure was made
"
at the third Congress at Madras, when the agitating policy
"
of the Anti-Corn Law League was approved, and in 1890
the Government of India officially stated that the Congress
belonged to that class of conference which private individuals
"
may legitimately promote, but from which Government
officials are necessarily debarred." The abler leaders like
l

Mr. Telang had no intention of confining the business of the

Congress or the tone and purpose of its discussions to those
limits which a gathering of a semi-official character would
have had to adopt. They were opposed to the Government,
and the resolution
demanding representative Provincial
Councils, adopted by the first Congress and developed in later
ones, indicated that purpose. Moreover, they had something
to say about policy, about taxation, and so on, which was
quite different in its intent from Lord Dufferin's original
notions. Every one of the earlier meetings of the Congress
gave it more and more of the character of an Opposition.
For that reason it associated itself quite openly with that

section of British opinion represented by Mr. Gladstone and

Mr. Bright, and with Indian policy of the character of that
of Lord Ripon ;
for that reason the Mohammedans declined
to associate with it, as their leaders preferred to follow the
suggestions made by Lord Dufferin and to remain in alliance
with the Government. For that reason
also, from the moment
that it first met
Bombay, the
in National Congress was bound
to fulfil the functions and services of an Opposition to the
Government—not a friendly, consultative Opposition, but an
Opposition which challenged the status and the authority
of the Government.
In taking up this position the Congress naturally met with
the opposition of the Government and of the British community.
From this arose the volume of charges of disloyalty, of designs

1 This was the rule till 1916, when Sir James Meston, Lieutenant-Governor
of the United Provinces, officially visited the Congress meeting that year
at Lucknow.
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 7

to end the British connection, and so on. None of these had

ever any substance or foundation, but were the ordinary
expedients which are adopted in political life to embarrass
an opponent and make his work unpopular. A certain section
of people in the end believe in them, and they are added to
those errors and prejudices which, like barnacles and weed
on the bottom of a ship, retard progress.
A really serious matter was the attitude of the Moham-
medans to the Congress. Taking the two communities as a
whole, there was no confidence, but a good deal of hostility,
between Hindus and Mohammedans. Mohammedans had
fallen behind in education and push, and
to fight side by
side with the Hindus they feared would result in their per-

petual subordination.Their leaders therefore decided that

their community would do best for itself if it kept out of

any movement to organise an Opposition to the Government,

and they adopted the policy of representation by deputation
and concession by private influence.
The Mohammedan community had not been subject to
such a revolt as disturbed Hinduism at the beginning of last
century, when English schools were established in Calcutta
and young Hindus threw off the restraints of their religion
and customs. The Mohammedan offered a more sullen
resistance to missionary effort, and indeed, later on, made it
one of the causes of the Mutiny, and his mulvis kept a firm
grip upon his education. His opposition to the Government
was military and historical rather than political. But he
was surrounded by a new life which increased in vigour,
and which would have stifled him had he not accommodated
himself to it. He mutinied, and was crushed ruthlessly after
his short orgy of triumph. Then he sank again and slowly
emerged, terribly handicapped by his long neglect of chances.
Hindus have a long gallery of leaders in their early struggles
for influence ;
—
Mohammedans have but one Sir Syed Ahmed
Khan, and this remarkable man was responsible for the
attitude taken up by his people.
8 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Syed Ahmed Khan was born in Delhi on April 17th,
Sir
1817,and could trace his ancestry to Mohammed on both sides.
He was educated at home by his mother, who was one of
those able women full of worldly capacity and of no mean
learning who, in spite of European notions, are not un-
common in secluded Mohammedan households. At the age
of eighteen he entered the service of the East India Company,
and in his private relationships held intimate intercourse with
the Mohammedan literary circles of Delhi. He was Munsif
in 1841, wrote a volume on the architecture and tombs of
Delhi, and his interests were divided between literature and
law. When the Mutiny broke out, he spent himself in the
service of theCompany, and when it was over, in protecting
his people from the horrors of massacre and unjust judgment
which followed. He declined an offer made to him by the
Government to become proprietor of a wealthy estate forfeited
by a rebel chief. When peace was secured, he was possessed
by the terrible prospect which faced his people. They were
distrusted, they were ignorant, they were poverty-stricken.
He determined to change all that. In 1868 he wrote his
pamphlet on the causes of the Indian Mutiny to try to
remove some of the prejudices against Mohammedans. The
fundamental fault, he argued, was the division between the
governed and the governor. There was nothing existing in
"
Indian government to warn us of the dangers before they
burst upon us and destroyed us." He asked that native
opinion should be represented on Legislative Councils. In
particular he pleaded that the Mohammedan
faith should be

kept pure, and that officers of the Government should be dis-

couraged from pursuing a policy, upon which they were said
to have been very keen after the Mutiny, of openly support-
ing the preaching of missionaries and of giving official sanction
to Christian propaganda. This was destroying all attempts
by the State to educate the people, because the school suspected
of proselytising was held in disfavour by Mohammedans.
The colleges were equally suspected. The studies which the
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 9

Mohammedan considered almost sacred dropped out of college

curricula. Whilst this state of mind lasted, the Mussulman
sulked in his tent. Such was Sir Syed's line of argument.
Sir Syed desired to establish a working agreement between
East and West, and he appealed to the Mohammedan to
become educated. He began in 1861. As the years went on
he became less and less of a religious reformer and more and
more of an educationalist whose aim was to reform and vivify
the whole life of his community. In 1863 he formed a society
to translate standard English works into Urdu, so that the
Mussulman might come in contact with European thought
and culture, and that Islamism might become liberalised by
that contact. In 1870 he set about the establishment of a
paper which disturbed the conservative equanimity of his
people as Hindu papers had stirred Hinduism thirty or forty
years before. Thus to some extent he led his people on the
path which Raja Rammohan Roy had led his. But he did
not go so far. His work gradually matured until the foun-
dation-stone of Alighur was laid in 1877. Sir Syed had no
English education, but it was whilst he was in England, study-
ing our English institutions, that the characteristics of Alighur
formed in his mind. The reasons for the separate college were :

(1) There were few Mohammedans in Government schools and

colleges. Government education was suspected of being

(2)
anti-Mohammedan. (3) Mohammedans desired a separate
college.
Sir Syed was no sycophant in his politics, however. In
1866 he took an active part in forming the British Indian
Association, which is rightly regarded as the forerunner of the
National Congress, and he appealed to Indians to be more
honestly outspoken as regards their political grievances and
more assiduous in interesting the Imperial Parliament in the
affairs of their country. He himself was a member of the
Legislative Council from 1878 to 1883. There he opposed
the election of representatives on Indian public bodies on
the ground that minorities in race, creed, and caste would be
10 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
crushed out ; but still he felt the catholic nationality of India,
"
and he said in 1884 : We
[Hindus and Mohammedans]
should try to become one heart and soul, and act in unison.
If united, we can support each other. We must each and
. . .

all unite for the good of the country which is common to all."
Of the Bengalis he wrote about the same time "I assure :

you that Bengalis are the only people in our country whom we
can properly be proud of, and it is only due to them that
knowledge, liberty, and patriotism have progressed in our
country. ... In the word Nation I include both Hindus and
Mohammedans, because that is the only meaning which I
can attach to it." And yet, when the Congress met in 1885,
he was lukewarm. For three years he watched, and then
came out in definite opposition. It was " not moderate and
reasonable in its aspirations," nor sufficiently careful about
"
the interests of minorities, and very far from respectful
"
or fair in its tone to the Government. It believed too
much in the " principles of government borrowed from the
West into the East without regard to the safeguards required
" l
by the different circumstances of India.
Sir Syed's attitude decided that of the bulk of Mohammedans,
tended to widen the gulf between them and the Hindus, and
strengthened the position of the conservative elements amongst
them. It also had, for some time, an unfortunate influence
on the Government, and not only encouraged it to harden its
attitude to the Congress, but to take opportunities to pacify
Mohammedan leaders and use them against the Hindu leaders.
If, with Parliamentary thoughts in mind, we speak of the

Congress as an Opposition, we may aptly say of the Moham-

medan that he took his seat on the benches below the gang-
way on the Government side.
Yet this could not abide. It was shortsighted politics ;

Sir Syed's great educational work was turning out a young

generation of Mohammedans moulded in the same intellec-

1
Statement by Nawab Mushtaque Husain in explanation of Sir Syed's

position.
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 11

tualmoulds as the Hindu leaders; and there were from the

very beginning some Mohammedans who did not share Sir
Syed's later views and who associated themselves with the
Congress.
The President of the third Congress was a Mohammedan,
Mr. Budrudin Tyabji, and he paid some attention in his
address to the attitude which the Mohammedans took to the
gathering. He said "I must honestly confess to you that
:

one great motive which has induced me in the present state

of my health to undertake the grave responsibilities of pre-

siding over your deliberations, has been an earnest desire on

my part to prove, as far as my power lies, that I, at least,
not merely in my individual capacity, but as representative
of the Anjuman-i-Islam of Bombay, do not consider that there
is anything whatever in the position or the relations of the

different communities in India —

be they Hindus, Mussul-
—
mans, Parsees, or Christians which should induce the leaders
of any one community to stand aloof from the others in their
efforts to obtain those great general reforms, those great
general rights, which are for the common benefit of all, and
which, I feel sure, have only to be earnestly and harmoniously
pressed upon Government to be granted to us." Mr. Tyabji
spoke for the more educated Mohammedans in the urban
areas like Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta ;
but he did not
speak for the mass of his people in those districts where they
were in the majority and had not been brought under Western
political and social influence. There, Sir Syed Ahmed ruled.
For some years the Mohammedan pressed his own claims
and representation. The pace was un-
for education, office,

doubtedly made by Congress and the movement which it

focussed, and the Mohammedan saw to it that he had his
share in the advance. Through all the troublous times which
followed, he was blamed for being the tool of the Government,
and the disputes between him and the Hindu, especially in
Lord Curzon's time, were frequent and bitter. When the
Councils Act was put on the Statute Book and the represen-
12 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
tation of communities secured, the storm rapidly subsided.
The advocates of communal representation had justified
themselves —not by the fruits which they expected, but by
uniting Hindu and Mohammedan on common tasks of endeavour
and criticism.
Sir Syed Ahmed had done his work. His community had
bestirred itself, had regained importance, and it began to feel
that it could not act for ever the part of the mendicant. The
facts about Indian nationalism to which Sir Syed had given

expression came up like a new regiment into the field. Con-

gress kept raising issues which Mohammedans could not oppose,
kept appealing to feelings to which Mohammedans could not
help responding and the Hindus on the Legislative Councils
;

drew their Mohammedan colleagues to them in the same way.

When all was said and done, they were Indians, they had to
face the same problems, agree and disagree with the same
Government, and look in the same direction for the goals
where they expected to find satisfaction. The masses of the two
communities below might remain opposed in their ignorance,
and might riot against each other at their religious festivals ;

the educated people at the top constantly found themselves

comrades in the same battle where common interests counted
for much, where differences counted for little, and where

separatist superstitions were reduced to formalisms remote

1
from practical political issues.
Alighurhad sent out its educated men, and they found their
roads converging upon those where the educated Hindus
stood a generation before. A Moslem Congress party arose,
inspired by educated Mohammedans, and papers were pub-
1 This is
only what might be expected from the experience of certain
Native States. In Mysore, for instance, the most cordial relations between
Indians and Mohammedans are the rule. There one reads of Mohammedans
agreeing to close their cemeteries for sanitary reasons, approaching Hindus
at festival times stating that they have no objection to music being played
whilst processions are passing mosques, giving vegetarian feasts to their
co-religionistsat times of rejoicing. In this State the tradition carefully
nurtured by practice is that the two communities shall co-operate and share
in the publio life of the State.
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 13

lished on Congress lines. In 1912 the Moslem League was

founded. At first it sniffed at the Congress it did homage ;

to Sir Syed ;
like the devotee who feels heresy sprouting in his

heart, it proclaimedorthodoxy with loud fervour

its but ;

its drift inevitably was towards the Congress. In 1913, at a

public meeting at Cawnpore, the Hon. Mazar-ul-Haque, a
"
leading Mohammedan, said : The Anti-Congress Mussulman
is fast becoming an extinct species and will have soon to be
searched for in some archaeological museum."
When a Mohammedan press of critical politics appeared
like the Comrade, it found it had no possible line open for it

except that upon which the organs of Hindu Nationalism were

running. The end was only a matter of time.
In 1916 the leaders of the two movements came together
and discussed agreements, with the result that a common
manifesto was issued containing the following points :

1. That Provincial Legislative Councils should consist of

four-fifths elected and one-fifth nominated members that ;

the franchise should be as broad as possible, and that Mo-

hammedans should be separately elected to a fixed propor-
tion of seats that the President should be elected by the
;

Council that the Council should have wide legislative powers.

;

2. That Provincial Governors should not belong to the

Indian Civil Service that there should be Executive Councils

;

in each Province upon which members of the Civil Service

should not sit, but half of which should be elected by the
Legislative Council.
3. That four-fifths of the Imperial Legislative Council
should be elected from the same registers as were used for
the Provincial Councils, and that one-third should be Mo-
hammedans ;
that the President should be elected by the
Council itself ;
that it should have freedom in legislation and
authority in finance, including powers over tariffs and com-
mercial legislation.
4. That the Governor-General should be head of the Govern-

ment, and should have an Executive Council half of which

14 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
should be Indian and be elected by the Imperial Legislative
Council that in legislative and administrative affairs the
;

Government of India should be free from interference by

the Secretary of State, and should not interfere with powers
delegated to the Provincial Governments.
5. That the Council of the Secretary of State should be

abolished and his salary put on the British estimates that

;

he should hold the same position to India that the Secretary

for the Colonies does to the Dominions and that he should
;

have two Under-Secretaries, one of whom should be an Indian.

6. That India should be represented on all Imperial Com-

mittees, and that the British citizenship of Indians should be

recognised in all parts of the Empire.
7. That and naval services Indians
in all Imperial military
should be treated on an equality with other British subjects,
and be allowed to enlist as volunteers.
8. That the Judiciary should be separated from the Execu-
tive.
This is another joining of the waters, and the stream of
Indian Nationalism now runs in greater force and volume.
Hinduism and Mohammedanism are not political distinctions.
They divided Indian society so long as that society was not
political. But the last of these old generations is dying out,
and the young men respond to other calls.
In tracing the evolution of nationalism amongst the Mo-
hammedans, I have overrun the course of events in the Con-
gress, and as they are important, I must return to them.
The Congress had met, resolved, and demonstrated for
twenty years, and the results of its labours so far had been
disappointing. A left wing of impatient men grew, and both
the optimism and the authority of the old Congress leaders
were challenged. It was felt that the mild methods of Con-
gress, with its deputations to London and its annual declara-
tions of needs, would never compel the governing bureaucracy
to listen, and never gather behind them such a force of public
opinion as would make the organisation a political power in
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 16

India. Nor was that the only The younger men were
fault.
not satisfied with the Congress spirit. They wanted some-
thing more strenuous, something more thorough they wanted
;

a crusade that would the heart of India, something with

stir
more self-respect and independent challenge. In their own
hearts, India had revived. It is all but impossible for the

governing race to understand the feeling of a youth suddenly

aware that it belongs to a subject race it is difficult for the
;

people of that race who accept the comforts of the rulers

to realise it. But to one who looks on as a keenly critical spec-
tator, seeing everything inan uncoloured light and trying to
understand what he sees, the extraordinary revival of Indian
Nationalism from 1905 appears to be a miracle. The partition
—
of Bengal produced a new Bengali a man who could organise,

fight, assassinate. For the darker extremes of suppressed

nationalism also began to appear, and in 1008 the first act
of terrorism took place.
The weak handling of Lord Elgin and the masterful rule
of Lord Curzon had, each in its own way, bred extremism
among Indian Nationalists. Lord Curzon did not stay long
enough in India to feel the blast he was releasing, and which
his two successors had to endure.
In the early winter of 1905 a Liberal Government was
formed at home, and Mr. (afterwards Lord) Morley became
Secretary of State. His appointment put India on expectant
" "
tiptoe. Now," the Congress leaders said, we shall have
our reward." But Mr. Morley found the burden heavy, and
however valiant a shoulder he put to it, he could barely move
it. The Secretary of State for India is not his own master.
The extremists made the most of the opportunities which
Mr. Morley' s difficulties gave them, and the slow lumbering
of the coach enabled them to jeer as Elijah jeered at the false
prophets. With renewed vigour they attacked the " mendi-
"
cant policy of the Congress, and found heroes and models
in the Nihilists, who felt that nothing but the bomb would
burst the bonds of the common people of Russia. That,
16 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
however, was only a small section of extremists. The other
and by far the larger section remained a left wing of the
Constitutional movement. It is always hard to do justice
to men in the midst of the storms they have raised, and their
opponents are rarely chivalrous or just enough to strive to
do them justice. In another chapter of this book I describe
the recent Hindu reaction, and most of the Constitutional
extremists belonged to that school. They believed in India
and did not believe in Europe. They believed in their own
civilisation and not in ours. Their ideal was an India sitting
on her own throne, mistress of her own destiny, doing homage
to her own past. They shook the Government more than it
has been shaken since the Mutiny.
At the Benares meeting in 1905 there was trouble. At
Calcutta,in 1906, the Extremists, as they had come to be called,
went from the meeting, but the places they left vacant were
hardly visible. Nevertheless they represented a great body of
young and aggressive opinion. In fact, Lord Curzon's admin-
istration was alienating in a wholesale way Indian educated

opinion on account of its supine disregard of Indian feelings

and thoughts. For the time being, the conditions of the
peaceful government of an acquiescing people were rapidly
departing from India. The Congress itself had to move, and
at Calcutta it so far reflected vigorous opinion outside as to
pass resolutions in favour of self-government such as is

enjoyed by the Dominions, a national system of education,

and the creation of native industries and the boycott of
imported goods that competed with Indian manufactures.
Self-government was no new item of the Congress programme,
but it was reaffirmed at Calcutta with an emphasis and in
circumstances which threw down the gauntlet with some
force the education resolution was aimed at the policy then
;

pursued of officialising the Universities and of making higher

education a kind of Government nursery the others were
;

economic replies to political grievances.

The twelve months which followed were ruffled by agita-
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 17

tion The Congress gained no influence

and unsettlement. ;

the left wing grew both in authority and activity. The

1907 meeting was to have been held at Nagpur, but the con-
which awaited the gathering disrupted the Congressmen
flict

and Surat was fixed upon. Garrulous rumour

of that district
was busy. The Congress was to be guilty of surrender on
this point and on that, precious to the Extremists. The
assembling delegates went into two camps pitched some miles
from each other. Over one Mr. Tilak ruled over the other,
;

Dr. Rashbehary Ghose, the elect President. There was to

be a contest for the Presidency, but Mr. La j put Rai declined
the Extremist nomination. Negotiations went on ; depu-
tations came and went between the two camps, and excite-
ment rose. Before the opening of the Congress enthusiasts
addressed their followers assembled early in the tent. The
tension reached breaking-point before it was time for the official
actors to appear. At the very opening the storm burst, and
the sitting was suspended, leaving Mr. Surendranath Banerjea
overwhelmed by the hostile demonstration. On the follow-
ing day matters were worse. Within a few minutes of the
opening a serious riot raged within the tent, and the sittings
were suspended sine die. After a day's interval a remnant of
900 delegates— the original delegation numbered 1,600 met —
and decided to remit to a committee the framing of a con-
stitution for the Congress. Indian nationalism had received
—
a heavy blow at the time it might have been its death-blow.
Its old leaders, though a majority was still behind them,
were nevertheless shorn of their glory, and the Congress was
discredited.
This happened at a most unfortunate time. The spirit of
the administration was changing, Mr. Morley was about to
produce his Councils Bill, and the most formidable of all
Indian political organisations was crippled just when Indian
unity was most required and a concentration of Indian public
opinion would have been most useful.
Outside, Bengal in particular and Bombay to some extent
2
18 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
were seething with discontent. Papers like the Bande Mataram
were suppressed the National Education Association was
;

formed to supply a college education apart from the Govern-

ment the industrial boycott was raging Arabindo Ghose,
; ;

Har Dayal, Bipin Chandra Pal, Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak were
busy with their propaganda of various kinds of Extremism,
and the disturbed emotions were undoubtedly going deeper
into Indian society than the Congress had ever reached.
The committee decided upon at Surat met, and a consti-
tution protecting Congress against Extremists was drafted.
At Madras that year the new Congress met, peaceful but
weak, united but small. Congress was no longer a meeting-
ground of all independent opinions and all Indian policies.
Nationalism was defined and limited. A section, hailing
chiefly from Bengal, asked that the new rules be submitted
to Congress for approval, but it was held that the drafting
committee had absolute powers of settlement. That led to
further trouble. In 1912 the chiefs of the Congress yielded,
the rules were so modified, and a section returned again to
the fold. But the Congress remained crippled.
In the meantime new channels had been cut along which
Indian agitation might run, and new responsibilities imposed
upon Indian politicians. In 1909 the Morley reforms were
passed, and the Legislative Councils became Congress plat-
forms. Thus ended the conditions under which the old
Congress lived and moved and had its being. The Oppo-
sition to the Indian Government was to be found in the seats
of the Legislative Councils, and new political conditions arose
giving the Congress a new role to fill. Of course the trans-
formation did not take place all at once. Indian opinion still
required to be voiced by a political organisation, and in these
feebler years the Congress was not without its triumphs.
It compelled the Government to undo Lord Curzon's par-
tition of Bengal,and it received the homage of imitation from
the Mohammedans, who, in 1912, founded the Moslem League.
It was an essential platform for Indian nationalism.
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 19

Then came the w&t and the new life. A Home Rule League
was started, firmer and more definite in its demands than the
Congress had been, and the younger and more vigorous
elements of nationalism were attracted to that. But the Con-
gress still remained the Congress, and at Calcutta in 1917
the Home Rule Leaguers and the younger elements forced
upon the more conservative elements Mrs. Besant as Presi-
dent. The unity of the Congress was sorely strained, but
it held for the meeting and a month or two later. Then
upon the question of the attitude to the Montagu-Chelms-
ford Report, it broke.
This was inevitable. The new conditions of Indian politics
and the growth of a new generation with changed minds
uprooted old trees under the shades of which the older men
had rested. The old Congress leaders like Mr. Gokhale, Sir
Pherosesha Mehta, Mr. Surendranath Bannerjea, have naturally
passed into the ranks of statesmen. For them the mills of re-
form were grinding steadily. The others had no such reverence
and no such faith. Congress had taught India to think and
act politically the Morley reforms had obliterated the great
;

non-political distinction between Mohammedan and Hindu

but had made a breach in Indian public opinion between
progressive and moderate. This is not a calamity such as
the Surat split was. It is the natural evolution of things,
and if it marks the end of the Congress as we knew it, that
will not be regretted when it is seen that the Congress did
not end thus until the political conditions of India into
which it fitted had already ended.

The Indian Government ought to see that it is now faced

with Indian opinion, and should begin its new task by throw-
ing away all useless defences. It should change its angle
of vision, for the nature of its work has changed. It is no
longer that of a government of civil servants, but of states-
men ; its problems are no longer office and administrative
problems, but political and legislative ones ;
it can no longer
20 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
be a committee of Civil Service heads of departments, it must
be a Cabinet. And the change has come from without owing
to the growth in Indian merit and self-confidence, owing to
the strengthening of Indian opinion. Whilst we sat in our
chairs of office, the halls and courtyards became full of people
animated by a new will. The relation of our imperialist
power to their obedience had been revolutionised. Our power
now knows its weakness, their will its strength, and we need
no writing on the wall to tell us that such things belong to
the nature of freedom, and their fulfilment should be the
pride of the nation that has done its work so well. They
close ancient chapters, but do not end histories they change
;

relationships, but not allegiance.

We must not make the mistake of meeting the demand
formore legislative authority in the same dilatory, niggardly,
and grudging way as we met the demand for more adminis-
trative places for Indians. On that road lies ruin or, at
best, baffling entanglement.
One of the pleas hitherto liberally
employed by the Govern-
ment has been that educated political India did not represent
the India of the masses and that the European administrator
entered more sympathetically into the needs of the people
than the Indian who had been to Oxford, who was a lawyer,
a journalist, a Bombay manufacturer, or a Bengal zemindar.
The point was not without its force had it been used rea-
sonably, had it not been employed as an excuse for Govern-
ment maintaining its fortified citadels against the movements
of Indian public opinion. There is not much in it now. The
citadels which it defended have all but been forced, and yet,
in view of the immediate future, both because of the con-
troversy that still remains and of the settlement which has
yet to come, the point cannot be dismissed without a passing
examination.
Who compose the Congress ? Thisthe answer given by
is

a Frenchman who an
voices the opinion of influential section
of officials (much smaller now, however, than when he wrote
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 21

"
his book) This so-called National Party is really a party
:

of privilege, a concourse of the representatives of the high

castes and the rich classes, which is really a stranger to the
nation on whose behalf professes to speak.
it The little . . .

group of ambitious members of the upper classes." This

l

description is neither enlightened nor just, though it has a

superficial truth about it. Any one professing to be a student
of political conditions must know that such a description
could have been aptly applied to the earlier stages of every
Liberal movement. M. Chailley sneers at the only proof
that could ever be given that India is awake politically. In
the nature of things, political agitation could be begun only
by the educated when it was undertaken by the masses it
;

was the Mutiny and the educated were bound to be the

—
;

professional classes either having come from these classes

or having moved into them. In the sense of having amongst
its delegates all castes, all grades, and all industrial classes,
the Congress is not representative but the Congress is not
;

the last but the first word in how to make Indian public
opinion politically effective. In time, the bodies representing
Indian opinion will be able to submit to more thorough tests
—
than the Congress and then the description applied to
them will probably be "a little group of ambitious members
:

of the lower classes." The true representative is not one who

belongs to his constituency or who has personal interests
similar to those of his constituency, but who understands it
and sympathises with it. That is the claim which the bur-
eaucracy makes for itself, and it is open to Congress, though
"
composed of the high castes and the rich classes," to
make it on its own and do its best to justify it.
behalf,
Self-government is demanded first of all by those in strong
social or economic positions. It was so in Great Britain, where
the Liberal movement was middle class, rich and professional.
The working classes come in later with their new causes of
difference and tests of representation. The Indian movement
1
Administrative Problems of British India, by Joseph Chailley, pp. 164-6.
22 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
is still in the first stage, and if the Congress satisfies that, it

justifies itself. The lack of education and of self-confidence —

mainly owing to caste
—amongst the masses will make the
transition from the first stage to the second in India far more
difficultthan it was here, but that does not excuse us for
quarrelling with the first stage itself, or for refusing to see
that that and that only could be the characteristics of the
commencement of the conflict.
The economic resolutions of the Congress do reflect the
interests of the middle class and those in economically strong

positions. For instance, if its views on land taxation and

ownership had been carried out, the ultimate effect wculd not
have been to benefit the cultivator, but to increase the amount
of Indian rent enjoyed by private people and the ease with
which creditors could seize the land of the agriculturists.
Its commercial views have been generally those of manu-
facturers, and working-class needs have rarely absorbed the
thoughts of these Christmas gatherings. We
have to remem-
ber, however, that the Congress has been a Nationalist move-
ment as well as a Liberal one, and when Nationalist issues are
at stake, as history so abundantly shows, all other political
considerations are in the background.
Congress, however, like our own middle-class Liberal move-
ment, has been behind every attempt made to educate the
people, and it has opposed the Salt Tax and drawn attention
to the impoverishing effects of certain other forms of taxation.
This also is a characteristic of parties in the Liberal stage
of a country's evolution. Liberty has not received at their
hands an ample programme, oppression has not been dis-
covered in the many places where it has its authority but ;

homage is paid to the one and war declared on the other.

Therefore we can let things take their course. Speaking
generally, Congress opinion is to find its way first of all into
authority in India. It will create reactions, as all political
movements in authority do, as indeed is seen in the Congress
itself ;
it will look at India perhaps too much from its own
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 23

point of view and in the light of its own interests. What

party in power in India or anywhere else does not ? The
cure for that is not to keep an adult India in tutelage, but to
hasten on a more general awakening and to form a more
representative Indian opinion and will.
It must be observed that the more recent radical move-
—
ments in Indian Nationalism that headed by Mr. Tilak, for
—
instance have gone deeper down into the strata of Indian
society than the old Congress movement did, and the villages
are now being stirred by Nationalist propaganda. In this
respect, again, the Indian movement is following the lines of
our own Liberal, Radical, and Labour evolution.

A Nationalist movement, however, can never find full

expression in a political party, because its liberty relates to

the mind and not merely to the law. It must return to
historical traditions ;
it must give out its soul in happiness
and devotion it must speak as its nation has spoken and
;

dance as kindred have danced. In Ireland we have in

its
recent years witnessed the revival of a Nationalist language,
a Nationalist literature, a Nationalist stage, a Nationalist
—
economic policy, and as these the true tests of nationality
— have been developing, they have carried with them an
impatient condemnation of a political movement inspired
by the expediencies of Parliament and reduced to compromise
and manipulation for success. India shows similar growths,
and if the National Congress is somewhat neglected and
looks like a plant losing its sap, that is partly because the
political side of Nationalismmust always be somewhat hard
and its political policy hampered, circumscribed and unin-
spiring, whereas the more spiritual life of a national renais-
sance is of exalted and unlimited vision, is free, buoyant
and creative, using the medium of art for interpretation and
the subtleties of imagination for propaganda. The political
leader, however free he may imagine himself to be, is bound
to the thing he would destroy ;
he who sings songs, tells tales,
24 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
puts dramas on the stage, lives in a world of liberty and is
apt to despise the bondsmen. Nationalism, however, needs
both.
I shall deal later on with the religious movements of Nation-
alism. They may be regarded as conservative, as reactions
away from enlightenment, as galvanisings of dead bodies
into a false appearance of life. That may be the attitude of
1

the critical observer that is not how it strikes the devout

;

Nationalist. And if we judge the matter impartially as a

historical phenomenon, we shall not be content with regarding
it as a movement in itself, and apart by itself, but shall con-

sider it as an incident in a process. If India is to go forward

as India, it must go back first of all to get in touch with the
broken Indian tradition. However we may regard this as
moralists, as students of historical processes, it should cause
us neither surprise nor regret. It is the spirit of progress
swerving to find refreshment, a base for a start, and an open
road. The revival of the historical consciousness of India
involves not merely a new historical school at the Univer-
sities, but a religious reaction which will, however, soon

disentangle itself and in the end lead to the purification of

Hinduism.
This reaction in religion has been accompanied by a return
in art and literature to Indian inspiration. The revival of
Persian, Mogul and Hindu art, though in inferior hands
it is copying, in others, like the Tagores and Gangulis, it is
a spirit and a genius. In the Tagore school of art one finds
not only the style and subjects, but the feeling of the noon-
day of Indian painting, and one has only to walk from a
" "
Royal Academy annual exhibition in Calcutta to that
of the India Society to understand what is going on. The
West, which used to dominate the East, still empties its
1
For instance, in the attempt to make the mythology of the Vedas sym-
bolical of modern knowledge, soma, the food of the gods, has been identified
with petroleum, and we have been told that in order to understand the Soma
Pavamana hymns properly, we must know about " the oil fountains of
Baku."
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 25

paint-tubes on to its paper and canvas, and strives in vain

to capture that reposeful mastery which is like a presiding
presence in all great art ;
the other in a totally different
world of thought and inspiration puts the pleasures and the
and colour, and fills its exhi-
attractions of its soul into form
bitions not merely with frames and paintings, but with an
atmosphere and a life. You have moved from one world to
another, from Camden Town to Udaipur, in the space of a
few hundred yards and in a few minutes of time in going from
one exhibition to the other. And yet, let me note in passing,
so great is the divorce between our Government and the
Nationalists of India that when the former proposed to dispose
of some of the Western daubs shown at the Calcutta School
of Art to make room for true Indian work, the latter cried
out that it was a dark plot to keep them ignorant. When
the Government proposes to do good it is suspected of bad
motives.
The same contrast is felt as regards the stage, although
here the Indian has not produced genius. And yet, in
spite of crudities in acting generally amounting to terrible
amateurishness, the difference between an English and an
Indian play is striking. I have seen both done by the same
company and during the same entertainment. The Abbey
Theatre of Dublin has roused keen interest amongst those
—
Indians interested in the drama and the drama has always
—
played an important part in Indian life and the Indian fol-
lower of Kalidasa and Krishna Miora returns to his own life
for his subjects, stimulated by Sinn Fein. Dramatic societies
are legion, and the programme of one before me whilst I write,
announcing the production in the Punjab of a play by Lady
Gregory along with two original plays of Indian life, is typical
of many. I am sure they played Lady Gregory very badly,
and to do homage to her did violence to themselves, and I
am equally sure they played their own work with more
success.
The fame of Rabindranath Tagore relieves me of the
26 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
necessity to do much more than remind my readers of what
they know regarding him. To the revival of Indian culture
in all its activities Rabindranath has imparted the chief
stimulus. Music, poetry, fiction, politics, have been enriched
by his many-sided activities, and he is India without a spot
or blemish. He has assimilated the West, but has at the
same time transmuted it so that it is no longer West. There
have been Indian poets before Tagore who struck a note of
great distinction, like Toru and the other Dutts, but whilst
their subjects may have been Indian, their demeanour and

song were not. This one simple expression from the Gardener
proclaims the culture to which it belongs, and transports one
to India, its its
emotion,
thought, its method of worship.
The imagery must any one
recall to who has it stored in his
memory the whole Indian scene :

" How cam the body touch the flower which only the "
spirit may touoh T

No mind of purely Western culture can ever fathom that

sentence to itsuttermost depth, or create from it the vision
which the poet had when he wrote it. Bankim Chandra
Chatterji was a great novelist debased under the influence of
the West, and doomed in his later work to traverse a world
of fantastic romance and tinsel-decked heroes and heroines.
Still he wrote the banned song, Bande Mataram. Tagore
returns to where Chatterji went astray, and Bande Mataram
is in every line of his stories.
I mightembody this movement of the Indian spirit and
intelligence in a list of distinguished names which, in addi-
tion to the four Tagores in philosophy, art and letters, would
include Arabinda Ghosh as a religious teacher, Sir R. N.
Mukerji and Sir Ratan Tata in industry, Dr. Ray and Dr.
Bose in science, and
Munshi Ram
Principal Rudra in educa-
tion/Mr. Gokhale in politics, Mr. Gandhi as a power over men.
In law and journalism the names are too embarrassing in
number and distinction for selection. In short, in all those
activities which give distinction to a nation, and which
 THE RISE OF NATIONALISM 27

express vitality, Indians are engaged and are doing work

of importance.
Thus Indian Nationalism proves its claim to be a national
renaissance, and gives a plain warning that it is much more
than the agitation of political coteries. It is the revival
of an historical tradition, the liberation of the soul of a people.
 CHAPTER I

THE CONQUEST
In an opening page of his book on India, Sir John Strachey
"
wrote This is the first and most essential thing to learn
:

—
about India that there is not and never was an India pos-
sessing according to European ideas any sort of unity, physical,
'

social, political, or religiousno Indian nation, no people

;

'
of India of which we hear so much." In one sense the '

warning is true, but I would say that "the first and most
"
essential thing to learn about India is that the statement
isvery misleading, especially if used for political purposes.
India, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, from the
Bay of Bengal to Bombay, is naturally the area of a single
government. One has only to look at the map to see how
geography has fore-ordained an Indian Empire. Its vast-
ness does not obscure its oneness its variety, its unity. The
;

Himalayas and their continuing barriers frame the great

peninsula off from the rest of Asia. Its long rivers, connect-

ing its extremities and its interior v/ith the sea, knit it together
for communication and transport purposes its varied pro- ;

ductions, interchangeable with each other, make it a con-

venient industrial unit, maintaining contact with the world
through the great ports to the East and to the West. Political
and religious tradition has also welded it into one Indian con-
sciousness. Even those masses who are not aware of this,
offer up prayers which proclaim it and go on pilgrimages
which assume it.
This spiritual unity dates from very early times in Indian
1
India : its Administration and Progress, p. 5.

28
 THE CONQUEST 29

culture. An historical atlas of India shows how again and

again the natural unity of India influenced conquest and
showed itself in empires. The realms of Chandragupta and his
grandson Asoka (305-232 B.C.) embraced practically the
whole of the peninsula, and ever after, amidst the swaying
and falling of dynasties, this unity was the dream of every
victor and struggled into being and never lost its potency.
The Pathans sought it, but it shrank in their grasp the ;

Moghuls pursued it, but it fled from their hands. The arm
which stretched from the throne to the utmost limit of the
dominions was enfeebled by its length. Military conquest
could not consolidate. Then the British came, and the in-
evitability of a united India defied their modest proclama-
tions and led them from province to province until they
reached the seas and the mountains. In this respect a
1

study of the historical maps of India resembles a study of fate,

or of the attack of a mighty natural force like the sea upon
something which, resisting sullenly, is doomed to subjection
by stages. Any empire in India smaller than the whole
peninsula is unstable and must extend.
When Elizabeth was on the throne in 1600, the English
invaders came, as chartered traders, to barter and make
profits. Empire had never entered their heads. Even trade
settlements had never occurred to them. They were to be
partners in the profits of voyages. But they had embarked
upon a venture which, like an open road, led to greater ven-
tures,and there was no stopping-place on the journey. The
project expanded, and at last they asked for powers to estab-
lish and conduct a permanent trade with India. In due
time they established factories where Bombay, Madras, and
Calcutta now stand, but they found both French and Portu-
guese merchants there before them, and rivalry could not
be confined to the bazaar and the counting-house. Under

1
For instance, in the Queen's Proclamation of 1858, when assuming the
" We
sovereignty of what were the Company's territories, this was said:

desire no extension of our present territorial possessions."

 30 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Indian conditions trade and politics could not be kept apart.
Political designs were thrust upon the traders. Their trade
competition became the concern of their Governments. The
warehouse was a political outpost the merchants had to
;

become courtiers ;the business reports had to assume the

likeness of a State paper. The trading history of the Company
is a history of Court manipulation and influence conducted by
—
a remarkable progression of men bold, stubborn, self-asser-
tive,acquisitive
— men who could face danger and trouble,
who were not cowed by native rulers and not discouraged by
—
towering adversity men who believed in the might of their
country and their own call to exploit and rule without being
too particular as to methods and tools. In due course, the
political powers which they manipulated became transferred
to themselves. The clerk became the tax-gatherer and the
soldier, and the Company became a sovereign authority and
passed under the fateful law that whoever governs India
must govern it all.
Thecharacteristic feature of this conquest was that the
Company did not enter upon it until it had secured an economic
grip upon the country. As alien as Alexander's army, it did
not impose political authority until it had acquired economic
authority. It insinuated itself into Indian life before it seized
Indian government. Its first concern was nothing more than
"
to secure a free trade, a peaceable residence, and a very good
esteem" with the native rulers. From that everything else
1

followed.
As the red patches advanced over the map of India, sections
pulled themselves together to resist, but no power then exist-
ing could develop that Indian cohesion which was necessary
if the new
trading invader was to be hurled back. We were
not accepted, but we could not be resisted. India challenged,
but could not make her challenge good. It was a new method
of conquest. Unlike previous conquerors, we did not come
1
Chaplain Terry's description of what Sir Thomas Roe accomplished at
the Moghul Court before he left for England in 1619.
 THE CONQUEST 31

in through a rieck of land so that our force was spent

narrow
before the peninsula
it filled we came from the sea. We
;

spread over the south from Madras, over the west from
Bombay, over the east from Calcutta, and the united forces
flowed into the narrowing plains of the north-west. More-
over, we were not a military conquering power imposing
tribute and hastening hither and thither in our conquests.
The stability of trade was always in our minds. The invasion
1

was not of hordes of men seeking new settlements, nor of

military captains seeking spoil, but of capital seeking invest-
ment, of merchants seeking profit. It was necessarily slow ;
it divided to rule, and enlisted Indians to subdue India. It
assimilated as it went. It presents to the student of history
an interesting contrast in the methods and efficiency of con-
quest by economic penetration compared with conquest by
military victory, though the former always merged into
the latter in the end.
Representations had to be made to Courts and interests
secured there. At first the traders acted behind their Govern-
ment and used Government Ambassadors like Sir Thomas
Roe to promote their interests. But that became unsatis-
factory. Something more direct was required. India was
falling to pieces. Rebellion and anarchy were spreading.
The Moghul Empire was hastening to its end in Aurangzib.
Since 1626 the Company had enjoyed territorial political
privileges at its fort at Armagon, and with foreign rivals on
one hand and a disrupted Indian sovereignty on the other,
it had either to
protect itself by controlling in some measure

1
In dispatches sent to the Company the following explanation is offered
of the welcome given to the traders by the ruler of Madras "
First, he
:

desires his Country may nourish and grow rich —

which he Conceives it will
by Draweinge Merchants to him. Secondly, hee desires for his money good
Horses from Persia. Thirdly, that yearly upon our Shipps hee may send a
servant into the Bay Bengalla to buy him Hawks, Apes, Parratts and such-
like babies. . .And lastly, the fort, being made substantial and strong, may
.

bee able to defend his person on occasion against his ins ul tinge Neighbours "
(Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, i. p. 20).
32 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
territorial sovereignty or to give up its struggle for life. The
latter it had no intention of doing. By 1686 its mind was
made up on that, and next year it declared its intention to
"
establish such a polity of civil and military power, and
create and secure such a large revenue ... as may be the
foundation of a large, well-grounded, sure English dominion
in India for all time to come." It is not my task to trace
the fortunes of the Company itself. Were it so I should
have to use these mighty words as an introduction to failure
in India and strife at home, and to a period when the Company
had to return to the peaceful commerce and the dependence
upon the Ambassadors of the Home Government which this
declaration threw on one side. That, however, was but
for a time. Indian conditions forced a policy of political
activity upon the Company, and the conquest proceeded.
Some rulers had to be supported, some opposed, the responsi-
bilities of others had to be assumed. In every case the
—
end was the same conquest and empire.
The struggle between Portuguese, Dutch, Prussian, French,
and English traders in India throbbed to every European
quarrel, and at length, when the French war of 1744 broke out,
the last act in this section of the drama was staged, and when
it ended sixteen years later, the Company was in possession
and again proceeded to evolve its conquests and extensions.
All our rivals had failed. The most brilliant, the French,
formidable in war, were less formidable in trade and dip-
lomacy, and less doggedly supported by Paris than the Com-
pany was by London. France started the policy of inter-
fering in Indian politics in order to found a French Empire
in India, but Clive happened to have been born our economic
;

resources were greater and so was our sea-power. We were

steadier in pursuing the policy of dominion arising out of
trade, and, when the time came to make the critical trans-
formation, we were even better prepared for it in tempera-
ment and resources than were the French. The Portuguese
were soldiers and priests rather than traders, and their pro-
 THE CONQUEST 33

gramme of conquest was from the beginning as impossible as

Alexander's The Dutch pursued a trade policy of
was.
monopoly which required for its support a military and naval
backing which the Netherlands could not afford. Other rivals
were of little consequence. So in the end we remained the sole
power in India owing to our economic stability, the character
of our traders and captains, our fleet, and we were left to face
our Indian responsibilities and fulfil the law of Indian conquest.
Now it was the Mahratta, now the Sikh, now the Burmese
rule that shrivelled and disappeared at our approach, and the
unification of India proceeded apace. In due time the
merchant had done his work, and in the course of it he had
transformed himself into a governor. Then he was sup-
planted by the Crown.
The expansion of the British Empire in India was like in-
flowing water filling the bed of a lake. Whilst there is anarchy
in India, the diversity in tongue and people may mean

diversity in the State, and Sir John Strachey's warning may

be of political importance but when that anarchy gives place
;

to order, the boundary of the Indian sovereignty is the sea

and the mountains —
indeed, Indian law and order depend
upon that being the boundary. The sects may be legion
the tongues innumerable, the customs varied and antagonistic,
but he who is most aware of these diversities and who gives
them a most important place in the peculiar complexity of
the Indian problem, is also aware that moulding them
together into a unity and imposing some kind of coherence
upon them is the only policy which fulfils India's destiny.
Hence it is that whoever would study Indian problems
with any profit must begin with a recognition of two appar-
ently contradictory facts India is divided
: India is united.
;

The latter is the predominating creative factor in Indian

politics. It be that the central Government should be a
may
federation of States and provinces, each enjoying wide privi-
leges of self-government. That is a matter of machinery and
political convenience. All I am concerned with here is to
3
34 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
point out, at the very threshold of this study, that the pre-
dominating tendencies in Indian life are not diverse rites
and tongues, but the unification of all into one sovereignty.
That isthe great influence that has made the history of the
British occupation, and that now presents it with its greatest
problem.

It is true that the economic origin of our settlement in India

has meant that we have used our political powers there for
economic purposes. Nothing more conclusive has been
written on that than the criticism passed on the Company
"
by Adam Smith. As sovereigns, their interest is exactly
the same with that of the country which they govern. As
merchants, their interest is exactly opposite to that interest."
That criticism, somewhat altered in its literary form, but un-
touched in its substance, always holds good of foreign States
—
governing peoples as we govern India but that in passing.
It may be true, as some say, that economic considerations
rule political policy. But in the government of subject
peoples by sovereign States, economic considerations influence
both sides and create political movements amongst the subject
as well as amongst the ruling peoples. Moreover, a subject
people that is being educated and that is breathing the air
of liberty will be purchased by no economic price and will
sacrificeadvantage in order to enjoy self-government. Thus
neither the sovereign nor the subject nations can avoid the
troubles and the problems of political liberty, which must
always be both the judge and the goal of all policy.
As I have indicated, at a very early time the British nation
regarded the transactions of the merchants in India as being
something more than trading affairs. We felt we were under-
taking political responsibilities, and consequently the long-
drawn-out history of the relations of the Company and the
Government tells the story of how the nation's sense of its
obligations to Indiaovershadowed the original purpose of
the Company, and political intentions and ideas supplanted
 THE CONQUEST 35

those of trade. We
regarded the people as wards, and we
governed as trustees. The Indian political problem has not
been one of how to keep a subject people in subjection, but
of how to lead a broken people into greater liberty. That,
at any rate, has been the professed intention of the governors
for generations. When the Mutiny broke out and challenged
our occupation, so firmly had that policy been established
that, despite the passions raised by some of its events and
the ruthless hand by which it was suppressed, the nation did
not change its purpose.
Because that was our policy we could boast that our army
of occupation was comparatively insignificant in its numbers,
and that the military had little or no influence on the govern-
ment of the country. India has not been kept by the sword,
but by the law ;not by fear, but by trust in Parliament.
Until but yesterday, when the foreign plant of anarchism
took feeble root in it, force has not challenged us since the
Mutiny, and Indian movements for a greater freedom have
been purely political. The statesman alone has ruled. His
problems (which he has faced with the uncertain vision which
is all that honest men can claim as a guide, and with the

mingled success and disappointment, consistency and incon-

sistency, which alone are possible in this world) have been
those of how to ascertain public opinion, to develop the
country, to make the people content, and to lead them to
freedom. It has been the problem of a people ruled by another
people in whose political philosophy a subject nation is regarded
as a blot, but which has been compelled by its history to accept
such a subject nation as an inheritance. Our political task in
India has been akin to the biological process of transmutation.
At no time has the ideally perfect been possible, so that at no
time could we be absolutely consistent. We have had to
swerve now and again. The pressure of circumstances has
occasionally driven our representatives from the principles
which, through the generations, we believed we were carrying
out, and they have sometimes met with regret and opposition
36 THE GOVERNMENT OP INDIA
the evidences of India's awakening ;
but these uncertainties
have been but incidents on the way. As the trading station
inevitably became the political capital, so, with equal inevita-
bility, unlessthe British political genius is to change funda-
mentally for the worse, the British conquest is to issue in Indian
liberty and self-government.
 CHAPTER II

PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL AND THE SECRETARY

OF STATE
I—Parliamentary Control
The powers under which the Company worked not only
allowed to trade without rivals, but to fortify its settlements,
it

maintain both land and sea forces, fight for its rights and
establish courts. Thus it proceeded not only to do business
but to acquire territory, and by the end of the seventeenth
century its political aspect was so important to it that in one
of its resolutions it draws attention to the fact that the Dutch
l

"
Companies of a similar nature write ten paragraphs concern-
ing their government, their civil and military policy, warfare,
and the increase of their revenue, for one paragraph they
write concerning trade," and suggests that the London Com-
pany should apportion its attentions accordingly. It also
states that the increase of its political revenue had become as
much its concern as the increase of its trade, and refers to its
"
task of making us a nation in India." In this respect, as
in many others, Cromwell showed the prevision of a great "
"
Imperial statesman and asked that a national interest
should be taken in India. As early as his time it was seen that
the Company was in reality a political body, and that its
existence was involving the whole nation in responsibility.
The Revolution of 1688 swept away the right of the Crown
to grant these trading monopolies, and when the Company,
putting its Charter privilege into force, detained a ship in the
1
1688.

37
38 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Thames because it suspected that the cargo was to be used
to compete with its East India trade, Parliament stepped in
and declared against charters issued by the Crown giving
exclusive trading rights. There end and begin clearly marked
stages in the history of our conquest of India. At this point
the Company became a thing of Parliament and not of the
Crown, and subsequently, in renewing and amending its
charters, Parliament interfered more and more with the
conduct of the Company's business. For the next century
and a half the history of the Company is one of territorial
expansion in India with a progressive contraction of its in-
dependent governing authority and a growing control by
Parliament.
At first, Parliament was in the position of an uncomfortable
spectator seeing its recalcitrant and pushful subjects commit-
ting it to obligations against its will whilst it was powerless
to call a halt. "Forasmuch," said the Act of 1784, renew-
ing the Charter and voicing the long-held unhappy feelings
of the Government, "as to pursue schemes of conquest and
extension of dominion in India are measures repugnant to the
wish, the honour, and the policy of this nation, it shall not be
lawful for the Governor-General in Council to declare war
. . without express command and authority " from the
.

Home Government. Parliament declared its authority, but

was in no position to enforce it.

In 1765 Clive returned to India to complete the task which

he had begun eight years before when he fought the battle of
Plassey, and created a condition of affairs which in a few years
led to the Company becoming possessed of the Diwani of
—
Bengal, Bihar and Orissa another landmark in the Conquest.
The history of the years was a strange mingling of great
honour and dishonour, when every quality which is the pride
of an Englishman has to be told of side by side with deeds that
are a disgrace to him. Within two years Clive was back in
England, having put the East India Company in possession
of the revenues of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and having taken
 PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL 39

the step which finally transformed the trading Company

first

into an Imperial authority. However proud the country

was of Clive's wonderful achievements, and however generous
it desired to be in judging his conduct, there were faults in him

and his work which it could not overlook, which it could

not excuse, and which, if it had allowed to continue, would
1
have amounted to gross national neglect. Moreover, the
affairs of the Company were in a bad way, and when it was
about to take charge of Bengal it was bankrupt, and had to
appeal in 1773 to Parliament for a loan of £1,400,000. It was
too soon for the nation to make itself directly responsible
for the government of the territories which had fallen under
the control of the Company, but it was not too soon for it
to begin imposing such conditions upon the Company as
would confine it in its transactions to ways approved by the
national sentiment.
It had, however, become evident that Parliament sooner
or later would have to supersede the Company. Lord
"
Chatham, in 1767, said No subjects could acquire the
:

sovereignty of any territory for themselves, but only for

the nation to which they belonged." But that was not to
be the first stage. Discussions in Parliament took place upon
what the Company and its officers had done the Company —
—
had been slightly interfered with, as in 1767 and Select Com-
mittees enquired into its ways. In 1773 the East India Com-
— "
pany Act now known as the Regulating Act
" —
was passed *
"
for the better management of the said united Company's
affairs in India." It decreed the appointment of a Governor-
General with a Council of four in Bengal it gave the Governor-
;

General in Council a constitutional authority and placed him

supreme over the other Presidencies in particular it made
;

1 For instance, the Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons

in 1773 reported that between the beginning of 1757 and the end of 1766
the princes and other magnates of Bengal had distributed £5,940,987
amongst the servants of the Company.
* Whoever wishes to follow the
legislation relating to the administration
of India must consult Sir Courtenay Ilbert's The Government of India.
 40 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
him the authority who alone could declare war it imposed
;

upon the Governor-General the duty of keeping in close

touch with the Court of Directors at home and taking orders
from them it provided for the establishment of a Supreme
;

Court appointed by the Crown ;

it forbade the taking of

bribes or presents by the Governor-General, the members

of his Council, or the Judges ;
it enacted that all rules and

ordinances promulgated by the Governor-General in Council

were to be sent to a Secretary of State at home, who, in the
name of the Crown, could communicate disapproval to the
Court of Directors, when the rule or ordinance objected to
became null and void and it provided for indictments against
;

the Governor-General, the Judges, and the chief officials

being laid and tried before the King's Bench in England.
This marks another departure. The political State was
taking charge of the politics of the trading Company. That
was the first step towards the Chatham ideal. It was an
attempt to divide trade from politics, to secure the adminis-
tration of justice, and to create a watchful eye with which
to examine the Company's proceedings.
In 1784 a further step was taken. The previous Act had
led to considerable difficulties. Party feeling at home ran high
and India was thrown into the whirlpool of home political
rivalries. Warren Hastings was not an easy man to control,
and when he had to please both his Court of Directors and
the Ministry, when he had to work with a Council the majority
of which opposed him, and face conflicts between his Council
and the Supreme Court of Calcutta, his task was no enviable
one and his stiffness of neck was not made more flexible.
He was never out of quarrels in Calcutta and criticisms at
home. Parliament continued to enquire and to be indignant.
It kept on protesting that it was not willing that the Com-

pany's directors should govern Indian States, but it was not

prepared to take the job on itself. It made up its mind to
lay a guiding hand as well as keep a watchful eye upon Indian
administration, and so it adopted the inevitable blundering
 PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL 41

compromise of creating a special Board of Control for which

a Minister was to be responsible to Parliament. The Com-
pany nominally ruled, but Ministers controlled. The Board
" "
was to superintend, direct, and control the political work
of the Company. It could write or alter despatches and
compel the Company to accept its decisions. The Regulating
Act imposed rules this made an attempt to see that they
;

were steadily carried out. India was put under dual control,
and to this day we have not been able to rid ourselves
completely of this system.
Meanwhile the tide of annexation and conquest flowed on.
Wellesley, continuing and concluding Clive's work, was
responsible for making the drift into a conscious purpose of
"
dominion and turned the East India Company, in spite
of itself, from a trading corporation into an imperial power." '

And during all this time the Company got into deeper and
deeper water. The forward policy of Lord Wellesley imposed
heavy financial and political burdens upon it. The part of
its work which belonged to the nation increased, that which
was its own dwindled. The House of Commons appointed
itsusual committees of enquiry preparatory to renewing the
Charter in 1813. In the end, the Company's monopoly of
trade, except as regards tea, was taken from it. It was
becoming more and more evident that this trading company
on the one hand had to become a governing authority, and
on the other was of no use as such. After the usual interval
of twenty years, the Government of India Act, 1833, was
—
passed another conspicuous landmark in this period of
transition. Truly did Palmerston say that the Company
had then become " a phantom of its original body." In
its preamble the Act declared that
"
the United Company
of Merchants in England trading to the East Indies" were
willing to put their authority and property at the disposal
of Parliament. The Company's Charter was to be renewed
1
Lord Wellesley : Rulers of India (p. 206).
1
Hansard, February 12th, 1858.
42 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
until 1854, and meantime it was to hold its property in trust
for the Crown and use it for the governing of India. All
trading monopoly was taken away, and the Company was
deprived of its commercial liberties. The Board of Commis-
sioners was to have absolute control of these governmental
properties and rights, and all letters and documents from
the Directors on Indian policy were to be submitted to it.
By this time only the dismissal of certain servants and the
Home establishment remained outside the control of the
Board. The Act also provided in very specific terms that
colour or race or religion should be no bar to the employment
of Indians in Government service. This Act was the begin-
ning of the end, the signal that the curtain was to drop and
close for ever that wonderful scene where masterful men

venturing after profits founded an Empire. The signal was

repeated in 1853, and the emphatic declaration made that
"
the administration of India was too national a concern to
be left to the chances of benevolent despotism."
But before the curtain actually did drop, a wild act of
tragedy had to be gone through. India resented an intrusion.
She was broken and powerless, but she made one frantic
effort to throw us off. When Dalhousie arrived in Calcutta,
his predecessor bade him farewell with the assurance that no
"
gun need be fired in India for seven years. The peace of
the country rests on the firmest and most permanent basis,"
wrote the Friend of India that January (1848). In three
months the Punjab was in arms. The policy of Lord Welles-
ley to protect the princes of decaying States was ripening
into its inevitable harvest of annexation, for protection could
not be separated from responsibility. The Wellesley policy
of protection was the mother of the Dalhousie policy of
annexation. And so this administration which opened so
calmly became one of the most tempestuously difficult, and
led up to the supreme challenge of the Mutiny. No Company
could survive that. British rule in India had to be British
rule and become part and parcel of British responsibility
 PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL 43

shouldered by British sovereignty without any intermediary.

The process of the assimilation of the Company by Parliament
was complete. The Company ended and the Crown took its
place
—and the monarch being constitutional, the Crown
meant Parliament.
The intention of Parliament at the time is evident, and
appears in the debates on the Bills of 1858. Lord Palmerston,
introducing the first Bill of that year, stated that the time had
"
come to place the executive functions of the government
of India at home . . . under the direct authority of the Crown,
to be governed name of the Crown by the responsible
in the
ministers of the Crown, sitting in Parliament and responsible
to Parliament and the public." Over the Council, its
'

President, being a member of the Cabinet, was to be the final

authority. He maintained
that what improvement had been
"
made in India in late years has been entirely the result
of debates in this and the other House of Parliament." The
'

"
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir G. C. Lewis, said I wish :

to see the responsibility for Indian administration concen-

trated within a narrow sphere I wish to see that responsi-
;

bility under the clear control of this House."

'
On the third
and final Bill, Lord John Russell said :
**
We give to a Secre-
tary of State for India the power of directing and controlling
the affairs of that portion of the Empire." 4
I regret that it must be admitted that Parliament has not
been a just and watchful steward. It holds no great debates
on Indian questions it looks after its own responsibilities
;

with far less care than it looked after those of the Company ;

its seats are empty when it has its annual saunter through
the Indian Budget, and even this homage of formal polite-
ness to India was neglected during the war it is aware of ;

India only when it is troubled by cotton duties, or when

something else arises which makes their constituencies remind
members that India is a British 'possession. And yet surely
» 3
Hansard, February 12th, 1858, p. 1282. Ibid. pp. 1348-9.
* *
Ibid. p. 1291. Ibid. July 8th, 1858, p. 1092.
44 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
thereis some pathos in the undoubted fact that India is kept

not by force, not by the excellence of its Civil Service, but

by its trust in the British Parliament.

II —The Secretary of State

The question of what is the real part played in the Govern-
ment of India by the Secretary of State is difficult to answer.
As a member of his political Party, he has a bias in certain
directions. He makes frontier wars alluring or reforms
interesting according to the known predilections of his political
creed. He imposes a fiscal policy also in accord with the
views of the Home Cabinet and the interests it has to serve.
He and his Council with the Viceroy and his Council are
undoubtedly together an Indian Executive, but in normal
times I think the truth is that the Secretary is quiescent except
for office work, and that the Indian part of the Executive is
the active part, except in so far as Indian affairs are aspects
of Home interests. India is really governed by the Civil
Service of India, whatever the constitutional facts may be.
The voluminous correspondence with Lord Minto which Lord
Morley has published in his Recollections shows a Secretary
with a policy gently but firmly piloting it along narrow rock-
bound channels but in that case, as indeed in regard to the
;

Montagu-Chelmsford proposals as well, the start is made by

agreement in both Whitehall and Simla that something must
be done, and the rest is the story of a bargain. The more
that self- Government is developed in India, the less will the
Secretary of State count. He is generally distrusted by the
bureaucracy because he represents Parliament and a little
of democracy, and for a short time after his appointment he
is an object of curiosity to Indians. When he has a will
and ideas, he has power and can exercise it. His constitu-
tional position is therefore less important for practical pur-
poses than his personality.
Still, there can be no question about the supremacy of
Parliament and none about the responsibility of the Secretary
 THE SECRETARY OP STATE 45

of State. And yet the Secretary is in a position constitution-

ally differentfrom any other Secretary of State. His salary

is not paid from British revenues, and he has to act with a

Council. Both of these peculiarities are survivals from Com-

pany rule, the one reminding us that the Company paid for
the Indian government and India House out of Indian revenue,
and the other that Parliament's power was once limited to
checking Indian administration. A habit has more influence
upon an Englishman than a reason.
The Secretary of State's salary is paid from Indian revenues, 1
and his policy consequently cannot be reviewed in the House
of Commons, as iswhen Supply for other Depart-
the case
ments is This is why reformers every year,
being discussed.
in connection with the Indian Budget debate, used to discuss
a resolution to put the Secretary of State's salary upon the
estimates and pay it from Home resources. The effect of
this change would be formally to announce the control of
Parliament over Indian affairs. That he is in fact fully
responsible to Parliament is nevertheless true, as was shown
by Mr. Austen Chamberlain's resignation in consequence of
the exposure of the scandal connected with the lack of supply
of medical stores to the army operating in Mesopotamia in
1915-16. This limitation of Parliamentary control, though
it would be convenient if it were removed, is of no substantial

importance, as, in spite of it, Parliament can question the

Secretary and can exercise control over him, whenever it
comes to discuss his conduct, by one of the several ways pro-
vided, in addition to voting his salary.
The other limitation is more serious, and provides the
Secretary with a double allegiance and responsibility which
not only makes him less than the servant of Parliament, but
enableshim to shield himself from Parliamentary criticism
and puts him in a position which tends to weaken Parlia-
mentary control.*
1
Government of India Act, c. 6.
Writing to Lord Minto after the long discussions on the Reform Scheme
 46 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
The original of the Secretary of State's Council was the
Board of Control created by the Act of 1784. Our Colonies,
being, from their origin, constitutionally possessions of the
Crown, came to be governed (apart from the realities of
Parliamentary control, and subsequently of their own con-
stitutions)
—
by the King in Council that is, the Privy Council ;

whereas our Empire in India, being the creation of a trading

Company which at an early stage Parliament held to be
responsible to it, came to be governed not by the King in
Council, but by a Secretary of State in Council, and thus
historical forms were preserved and the Board of Control
idea survived in a new body adapted to the new constitu-
tion. It is too often a characteristic of our methods
of govern-
ment that we continue to work with old machinery after it
has ceased to have any meaning, or when the effect of its
working has been altered. It seems to be a safeguard against
revolutionary change. In reality it is a survival of the useless,
and leads to inefficiency, if not to greater evil.
The Board, which at first consisted of not more than six
Privy Councillors, of whom the Chancellor of the Exchequer
and a Secretary of State had to be two, was modified in its
composition from time to time. Since 1811 the President
of the Board had been a member of the Cabinet, and when
Parliament supplanted the Company, the Act of 1858 retained
the Board, called it a Council, and fixed its membership at
fifteen. Ten members required as a qualification that they
had served or resided in India at least ten years, and had
not left India for more than ten years. The membership is
now fourteen, and ten of the members must have been in
India for ten years and have left it for not longer than five

were over, Lord Morley remarks with reference to the powers which agree-
ments between Councils in Simla and Whitehall give " When Whitehall
:

and Simla come to an agreement, the matter is practically over, whereas a

"
Cabinet has to fight its Bill through the two Houses (Recollections, ii.
p. 322). Thus the settlement of great Indian affairs now takes place out-
side Parliament, which, assuming the superior knowledge of the expert Councils
generally, agrees to their agreement.
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE 47

years. They are appointed by the Secretary of State, and

hold office for seven years, but may be reappointed for
another five, in which case a memorandum justifying the
reappointment must be laid before both Houses of Parlia-
ment. Members may be removed from office by the Crown
1

on an address from both Houses. No member of the Council

may Member of Parliament. Lord Morley wished to
be a
appoint Lord Cromer, but could not because he was a Member
of the House of Lords.* The salary attached to the office
is £1,000 per annum. Five members must be present when
business is transacted. Meetings must be held at least once
a week, and the Secretary of State presides as a rule. For
the transaction of business the Council is divided into Com-
mittees which concern themselves with different branches of
work, but attempts made to departmentalise the work by
giving members a portfolio have wisely been frustrated hither-
to. Except when secrecy is required, all orders and communi-
cations must be submitted to the Council, but the Secretary
of State override the opinion of a majority of the Council
may
except as regards the expenditure of Indian revenues, the
disposal of property, and such financial matters. This power
is, however, of little use.

not merely an advisory

It will thus be seen that the Council is

body. It has authority. not only to be consulted,

It has
it has to agree. The awkwardness of the situation which
would be created the Secretary forced his desires in the
if

teeth of the opposition of his Council, even when he has con-

stitutional authority for doing so, limits his authority in

practice more than it is limited law. On the one hand,

by
there is the Secretary of State, who comes and goes with
political majorities in the House of Commons, who conse-
quently is appointed to bring to bear upon the Government
of India influences congenial to public opinion and to the

political principles of the party which he represents, and who

1
Government of India Act, 1915, a. 3.
1
Recollections, ii. 233.
48 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
is responsible to the House of Commons for his policy, and
to the Cabinet, of which he is a member. On the other hand,
his action is limited by a Council which is more of the nature
of a body of civil servants, but which has the power in the
most essential matters of government to hamper the Secretary
of State in doing what he thinks he ought to do. 1And this
Council is non-representative ;
it acts of its own untrammelled
will ;
it not directly responsible to Parliament. This
is

constitutional anomaly could not have existed for a genera-

tion if Parliament had taken an active interest in Indian
affairs.
The intention of Parliament in maintaining the Board of
Control was to recognise that the Government of India required
special knowledge. When the Company administered, public
opinion and political responsibility had to watch it when ;

Parliament became responsible, expert knowledge had to

guide it. Parliament decided that it had to receive infor-
mation —hence the Annual Report
on the Material and Moral
Progress of India and the statutory Financial Statements * —
and it established the custom of an annual debate on the
—
Indian Budget not always observed, however. But for
the details of the administration it did not leave the Secre-
tary for India as it left the Secretary for the Colonies, and so
it adopted, as I have explained, the method of dual control.
Obviously there are all the elements, on paper at any rate,
of a serious clash of authority in this arrangement, and very
soon after it was adopted, the position of the Council was
the subject of discussion in Parliament. In 1869 the matter
was debated in the House of Lords, when lawyers took hope-
lessly conflicting views. But the Duke of Argyll laid down
the common-sense political doctrine. He held that the Council,
1 Lord
Morley, writing to Lord Minto whilst discussing the projected
" There was
Reform scheme, said :"
always the off-chance that something
might go wrong, first in Cabinet, second in my Council, and third, and most
dangerous, in the H. of C." {Recollections, ii. 216). He was " relieved "
at not having to overrule his Council {ibid. ii.
317).
of India Act, 1858, s. 53.
* Government
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE 49

though a quasi-Parliament for certain matters, and instituted

by Parliament as its deputy, was yet subject to Parliament.
"
It ought to be clearly understood that the moment the
House steps in and expresses an opinion on a subject con-
nected with India, that moment the jurisdiction of the Council
ought to cease." The point, however, is not so much what
such a body would do on the occasion of open conflict with
the Secretary of State, the Cabinet, or Parliament itself
(as when the House of Lords challenged the financial authority
of the House of Commons in 1909), but what its influence
is in the ordinary conduct of Indian affairs. Constitutional
definitions are rarely the subject of high dispute. The Council
is there day by day, a perpetual influence, a presence that is
felt —and that is its importance.
Attempts have been made from time to time to reconstruct
the Council, and the Government in 1914 proposed, in a Bill
which was mainly consolidating, that the Secretary could
appoint Committees of the Council to take "departments"
of business in charge. This is an old proposal and is made
by those who wish to strengthen the authority of the Council.
It is alleged that specialisation would mean more definite

responsibility and more thoroughness in work. It might,

but proceeds on the assumption that important authority
it

ought still to be exercised from London, and that the Secre-

tary for India should have a divided responsibility between
Parliament and his Council. Not a few who advocate the
change also wish to strengthen the Council against both the
Secretary and Parliament. For these very reasons, the pro-
posal strikes at both Parliamentary control and self-govern-
ment, and ought to be opposed. For reasons which I now
proceed to give, the Council should be weakened and abolished
rather than strengthened and fixed in the Indian Constitution.
Since 1860 things have changed greatly. The authority
of government has gone more and more to India itself, and
the opinion which guides it cannot be reproduced by Anglo-
Indians or Indians sitting in Whitehall, but only by Indians
4
50 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
living in India and by Indian institutions. If the Secretary
requires any guidance here it ought to be given by a Parlia-
mentary Advisory Committee which will watch Indian affairs
lest haply light can be thrown upon them by our own experi-
ences. An Indian as Under-Secretary at Whitehall would be
1
desirable, but the appointment to the Council of Indians
separated from India and living in a foreign atmosphere of
thought and interest does not amount to much, and certainly
can never justify the existence of such an authority. It is
a cumbersome machine of check and counter-check if it has
any use at all. It destroys real Parliamentary interest with-
out giving Indian control or expert political advice. It
prevents such a reorganisation of the India Office duties as
will put that Office into proper relationship with the Indian
Government on the one hand, and British representative
institutions on the other. It is not government or advice by
the expert, but by the official. It is an adjunct to bureau-
cracy, not to Indian opinion. It is a Civil Service
imposed as
a check upon a Legislature, and it becomes more and more
anomalous as representative institutions in India are estab-
lished and broadened.
At the moment, the machine works, but the relation of its
parts is ill defined. The intention of Parliament in 1858 was
apparently to give the power of initiative to the Government
in India, that of examination and revision to the Secretary
of State's Council, that of veto to the Secretary himself. But
that did not suit a Home Cabinet, which had views of its
own on certain Indian affairs, especially economic ones,
and in 1870 the Duke of Argyll in correspondence with Lord
Mayo, the Viceroy, issued an order that the Government
in India was part of the Home Executive and subordinate
to the Cabinet, and that official members and the Viceroy should
take instructions from home. This point was raised later
on by Lord Salisbury when he insisted upon being con-
sulted on all legislative proposals of importance and when, ;

1
Since this was written this has been done.
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE 61

in 1875, the Government of India passed a Tariff Bill impos-

ing dutiesupon cotton, angry correspondence followed, and

Lord Salisbury issued his order that the duty would have
to be removed as quickly as possible. Upon this, the
Viceroy resigned. It has also been laid down by a Secretary
of State that the Council can be independent in its criticism

only so long as the Cabinet allows it. But these high

pronouncements do not disturb the normal working of the
machine. The Government in India holds the administrative
initiative the Secretary of State holds the legislative and
;

constitutional initiative provided he carries his Council with

him the control of Parliament is in reserve to be used when
;

required.
Thus we understand how the control of Parliament has
always remained obscure, and in recent times the doctrine
has become fashionable in some quarters that it hardly exists.
We have been told that the Government in India is the only
Indian Government. That, however, has no legal nor his-
torical countenance. It is the doctrine of a ruling class.
Let us not put the value of Parliamentary control too high,
however. The democratic theory of Parliamentary control
rests on the fact that a representative Parliament has as its

judge and arbiter the people who experience its rule but ;

obviously a Parliament acting as a trustee for people not

represented in it, has none of the characteristics of a repre-
sentative authority, and is only subject to the public opinion
of the trustee constituencies on matters relating to the people
held in wardship. Now, British opinion on Indian affairs
does not exist except on odd events at odd times. Parliament
therefore controls Indian affairs, as a matter of actual fact,
only in so far as the very few British subjects in Parliament
or out of it take a continuous interest in, or have a real know-
ledge of, Indian matters. What little this amounts to is
seen in the deserted House of Commons when the Indian
Budget is under discussion. Accepted British moral or
political standards cannot be violated without Parliamentary
52 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
challenge, but it is difficult to get that interestand knowledge
in the constituencies or in Parliament to
say when they are
violated, and the rule is that the Government in India, so
far as Parliament is concerned, has things
pretty much in
its own hands. Besides, the fact that a large proportion
of members both Houses interested in India are men who
of
have been in one or other of the Indian Services reduces the
value of Parliament as a controlling authority.
Thus we have to face this difficulty. The control of Parlia-
ment over India cannot in the nature of things mean the
same thing as the control of Parliament over Home affairs ;

a bureaucratic Government in India can never be trusted with

arbitrary powers, because such arbitrariness would be more
objectionable than a Moghul tyranny, which was, in the last
resort, curbed by rebellion or poison therefore, whilst Par-
;

liamentary control is an enormous advance upon Company

rule, and is a constitutional fact which should be strenuously
preserved and not allowed to lapse into practical desuetude,
there is a stage beyond it when the real control of Indian
government should rest with those who benefit or suffer
from that government. Parliament must be careful, however,
not to abandon its control in a transition stage when certain
Indian interests and classes are enfranchised and have power
(whether they use it or not does not matter) to oppress other
interests and classes not yet enfranchised. The period of
trusteeship is not ended until India can be responsible for
its own government as Australia, Canada, and South Africa are.

The changes now required are that the Secretary of State's

salary, like that of
the Colonial Secretary, should be put upon
the British Estimates ; that, as has been done recently, the
—
Under-Secretary should be an Indian whenever possible indeed
there is no reason why, if an Indian with the requisite know-
ledge ofand position in British politics should exist, he should
not be the Secretary of State the Council should be abolished
;

and its place taken by a Departmental Advisory Committee

appointed each session from Members of Parliament this —
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE 53

last being created not owing to any special circumstances

connected with the India Office, but as part of a great scheme
to associate Parliament more intimately than it now is with
the administration of Departments ; there should steadily
be kept in view the end when Parliamentary control over
Indian affairs will fade to the intangible shadow which it
now is over Dominion affairs.
 CHAPTER III

THE VICEROY
The supreme head of the Government in India is the Viceroy ;

but however high the pinnacle upon which he sits may soar
above the Himalayan heights of the rulers of India, it comes
decidedly short of the august peaks of kingship. The Viceroy
is surrounded by pomp and awe ceremony walks behind
;

and before him, and does obeisance to him. But everyone

seems to be conscious that he comes and goes, and that when
the guns have fired their parting salute on his leaving Bombay
at the end of five years, he steps down from his summit and
returns to a meaner dwelling-place. In the minds of the
masses he is the great lord in those of the educated and
;

political sections he is the head of the administration, and

enjoys an authority which is great but limited and is not
altogether removed from controversy.
The viceroyalty doomed to the limits of constitutional
is

government. Appointed by warrant under the Royal Sign

"
Manual, the Viceroy is required to pay due obedience to
all such orders as he may receive from the Secretary of State,"
and he is given advisers who are more than advisers. More-
over, he comes, knowing little about India, to work with a
powerful body of men knowing, in one sense, everything about
India, and he is a man of an exceptional will if he disagrees
with his advisers and reaches his own goals. He goes out
with an unformed mind it takes him at least a year to get
;

the hang of things he packs up during the last year he is

; ;

working all the time with a machine too big and too complex
for any man to control.
54
 THE VICEROY 55

The Viceroy came when the Company ended, and its vast

possessions passed to the Crown. In the first stage of the

Company its affairs, then trading only, were administered
from the three centres of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta by
a President acting with a Council of the senior servants of
the Company. These Presidents were directly subject to
the Board of Directors in London. But when the Company's
trade drove it into politics and politics drove it into war, an
organisation well enough adapted to keep ledgers and stores
and conduct the diplomacy of trade, was of no use. The
Company had established a market which was transformed
under its hands into an Empire, and in the transformation
men, surrounded by temptation and opportunity to amass
wealth, succumbed. The Company's finances fell upon evil
days ;
the Company's servants returned with untold wealth.
So in 1773 Parliament had to step in and passed the Regu-
lating Act, the political purpose of which was to co-ordinate
the government of the Presidencies by placing Bengal at
their head. Madras and Bombay were not to be allowed to
make wars without the consent of Bengal. Thus the supremacy
of Bengal was established, its Governor was to be Governor-
General, and he, sitting in Council, was to be the supreme
political authority of the Presidencies. He was still to be
appointed by the Company, and was given a Council of four.
Warren Hastings was, however, named in the Act as the
first Governor-General, and the members of his Council were

also named, but further appointments were to be made by

the Directors. By the Act of 1784, however, the nomination
of the Governor-General by the Directors had to receive the

approval of the Crown. The first two Governors-General

belonged to the regime of Company servants, but Lord
Cornwallis went out in 1786, the first of the great political
Governors.
The transformation from trade to politics and from markets
to empires went on apace, and the Act of 1833 accepted the
change and was passed to meet its requirements. In this
 56 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Act words were used for the first time which implied that we
were governing India and not merely Bengal, Madras, Calcutta,
and Bombay; the Governor-General was no longer "of
Bengal," but "of India." In 1854 the Governor-General
was relieved of his duties as the Governor of Bengal, and a
Lieutenant-Governor was appointed to that Province. In
1858 India was transferred to the Crown, and the Governor-
General became Viceroy and was appointed by Royal Warrant,
" "
his term of office being five years. The term Viceroy
was used in the Proclamation of Lord Canning's appointment
in 1858, but has not appeared in constitutional documents.
It is in use for courtesy and ceremonial purposes only. The
seat of the Government of India remained, however, in Calcutta,
thus continuing its historical origin in the Governorship of
Bengal, until 1912, when it was transferred to Delhi, and all
traces of the day when the Governorship of Bengal carried
with it the Governor-Generalship of India disappeared. 1

The Viceroy has power as well as title and prestige. He

makes himself responsible for the foreign affairs of India —
chiefly frontier matters and the relation of the Native States
—
to the Government of India as though he were head of that
Department, and he takes an active concern in every im-
portant piece of business done by any Department.
1
His
authority is derived from being "in Council," and he must,
as a rule, carry a majority of his Council with him. But
whilst that is a real check, it comes far short of an absolute
one. Saving in certain directions, each Viceroy makes his
own power. Lord Curzon did what he liked, his successor
did what other people liked, and his successor again took
the medium course of doing in his own way what he and other
people wished to do, and used the support of Indian opinion

1 The Durbar at which the

change was announced was held at Delhi in
December 1911.
1
The power of declaring peace or war or to make treaties is expressly
withheld from the Viceroy and his Council, and reserved for the Home Govern-
ment.
 THE VICEROY 57

in doing some things of which his Council did not

approve.
The Viceroy performs three great functions. He personifies
the Crown, he represents the Home Government, he is the
head of the administration.
The first now
his proper function.
is He is the Crown
visible in India, the ceremonial head of the sovereignty, the
great lord. He is the seat of justice and mercy, and catches
up in himself, by virtue of his office, the historical traditions
and sentiments of rulership. The more this is isolated from
his other functions the better will be our system of rule in
India.
As representative of Home Government he has his
the
origin in a political party, and though owing to changes in
the political wheel of fortune at home he may find himself
the representative of a party which is not his own as Lord —
Minto did when the Liberals came into power at the end of
—
1906 he has to carry out its policy or resign as Lord Lytton —
did in 1880 when a general election wiped out the Conservative
majority. Whilst performing this function he is really
subordinate to the Secretary of State. Lord Salisbury made
this perfectly plain to Lord Northbrook in 1875.
1
The amount
of this subordination, however, depends on the personality
of the Viceroy and the Secretary. Lord Salisbury made
this subordination apparent with his fist, Lord Morley with
his persuasiveness. On purely Indian affairs it scarcely exists,
though in such matters as police behaviour and frontier
politics the Viceroy has to consider British opinion and Par-
liamentary interest. It is most definite when British and
Indian interests conflict and when the Viceroy, believing
that those of India lie in one direction i.e. cotton duties — —
is yet forbidden to pursue it by the Home Government. His
subordination in this respect involves the subordination of
his Council, as Lord Lytton found when he took Lord North-
brook's place and proceeded to carry out the instructions
1
Cf. chap. ii. p. 51.
58 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
which Lord Northbrook declined. Again, as custodian of the
Foreign affairs of India, he has to carry out the policy of the
Home Government in all matters of Imperial interest whether
for the good of India or not, but he is in a position like —
Dalhousie —to make certain developments necessary. The
rein that controls him is of necessity somewhat loose. In
his relations with the Native States he has a pretty free hand,
and the frontier policy he pursues must be determined by
what arises, but he must always remember the general
Imperial opinions of the party in power at home. Nominally
the power of declaring war is withheld from him actually;

he has the power of creating the conditions which lead to war.

In this respect the action of the India Office under Mr. Broderick
in revising and substantially altering, in 1904, the treaty
which the Indian Government made with Tibet emphasised the
subordination of the Viceroy as the mouthpiece and echo of
the Home Government, and the discomfiture of the wilful
Lord Curzon in his contest with Lord Kitchener was a further
demonstration of the subordination of the Viceroy to the
Secretary of State. Lord Morley introduced a gentler hand
but not a new policy.
As the head of the Indian administration the Viceroy has
much opportunity of acting as autocrat, as Lord Hardinge
sometimes did with good practical results. His minatory
warning to the South African Government when it was acting
tyrannically and oppressively to Hindus was made on his own
initiative when sojourning in Madras and without consulting
his advisers, it is said. In performing this function he is
limited by the India Office and the Secretary of State, and
by an enlightened Viceroy like Lord Hardinge
his Council, but
will also take into account what he conceives to be Indian
public opinion and will act upon it and take the risks. But
he has to bear his share of any unpopularity which his Council
may receive, and in this position he, like a Prime Minister,
is at the head of a Government which, under the conditions
of India, has the country for an official Opposition.
 THE VICEROY 59

Obviously, it is undesirable that this union of functions

should last it cannot last after the political consciousness
;

of India has become awakened. The Viceroy should remain

the representative of the Crown and be endowed with the
dignity of that office. But he ought not to be the represen-
tative of the Home Government or the responsible head of
the Indian administration. The President of the Council
should be a separate functionary, and the Viceroy should be
kept in touch with the India Office and the Indian adminis-
tration as the Crown is kept in touch with the Cabinet and
Parliament. That change is necessary in the interest of the
Viceroy himself, and in that of India, and the development
of responsible government there demands that it should be
made without delay.
 CHAPTER IV
THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
The affairs of the Company in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay
were administered by the President and a Council consisting
of the senior servants of the Company. Decisions were
arrived at by voting. Lord North's Regulating Act of 1773
appointing a Governor-General gave him a Council of four ;

eleven years later the number was reduced to three, of whom

the Commander-in-Chief was to be one nine years after-
;

wards it was decided that if the Commander-in-Chief should

sit on the Council he was to be an extra member; a fourth

member was added in 1833 for legislative purposes the Law —

—
member but he was not to be allowed to take part in adminis-
trative business, and this limitation existed till 1853 ; in
1861 a fifth member was added to take charge of finance ;

in 1874 power was given to the Governor-General to add a

sixth member to look after Public Works, but the power was
not always used, and in 1904 such an appointment was
definitely provided for.
1
The members are appointed by
Royal Warrant they
; must at present be five, but, by the will
of the Crown, may be six, three of whom must have been,
at the time of appointment, at least ten years in the service
of the Crown in India, and one must be a barrister or advocate
of at least five years' standing. The Commander-in-Chief
1 The Bill which Mr. Disraeli introduced in
1858 to transfer the Govern-
ment of India to the Crown proposed that part of the Council should be
elected by holders of India Government and Railway stock resident in Man-
chester and other large towns, but the confusion of a Legislature and an
Executive combined with such an absurd franchise was laughed to scorn.
60
 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 61

may be appointed an extraordinary member, and when the

Council sits in a province which has a Governor, that Governor

is, for thetime being, also an extraordinary member.

The evolution of the Council is not without interest. The
Regulating Act established Committee Government and gave
the Committee a chairman. There was no attempt, as is
usual in the government of dependencies, to consult any
interest except that of the trading Company, and it is from
that beginning that we must always remember to trace the
evolution of Indian government if we are to understand it.
The next stage was that of individual rule after consultation
with a Committee, a Secretary of State standing behind to
check and correct if the ruler disagreed with his advisers.
The feud between Philip Francis, who was named in the
Regulating Act a Member of Council, and Warren Hastings
was conducted in India by two parties on the Council of
which the Francis party was the stronger. That ended
majority rule. Cornwallis, who succeeded, insisted
Lord
upon being able to override a majority of the Council should
he feel it to be necessary to do so, and that remains the position
to-day. The rule is that the Viceroy should act with the

majority of his Council, but he may set aside that majority

if he disagrees with it on matters which he considers affect
"
the safety, tranquillity, or interests of British India." Then,
however, if two members of the Council insist upon it, a
statement of the point in dispute, with minutes and explana-
tions, must be sent to the Secretary of State.
Then the next stage came. At first the Council was a Com-
mittee of similarmembers and not a gathering of departmental
heads. But as the work of administration became more
complicated, it had to be specialised. First of all came the
appointment of the Law member, and then the Finance
one was added, and when Canning's reforming hand re-
arranged Indian administration, to each member of Council
was assigned a special department for the working of which
he was to be responsible to the Governor-General. During
62 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
the Governor-Generalship of both Lord Canning and Lord
Elgin this responsibility was real and rigid, but it gradually
slackened, as it was bound to do, though according to the
"
Report of the Decentralisation Commission a large amount
"
of work is still thrown on the Viceroy as the final
authority
in all departmental affairs.
Then the Council became a Cabinet 1 such as we had in
the last generation when the Prime Minister listened to the
advice of his departmental heads and decided for himself.*
But itwas more than a Cabinet, for it was really responsible
for the rules and regulations which the Governor-General
was empowered to issue as laws and though such regulations
;

had to comply with certain conditions and might be upset

by the King in Council, the authority which issued them was
a quasi-Legislature. Later on Legislative Councils appeared,
so limited in their powers, however, and so constituted that
to this day the Council has more legislative authority than
the Legislative Councils. The evolution is now tending to
weaken the Executive in this respect and strengthen the other
until in fact the latter becomes what it is in name, a Legis-
lative Council.
At present the Executive consists of the Viceroy, who
keeps, as I said, in his own hands responsibility for
have
Foreign Affairs, including the control of the Frontier Province ;
the Commander-in-Chief, who is the head of the Military
Department and members in charge of Home Finance
; ; ;

Revenue and Agriculture Public Works Commerce and

; ;

Industry; Military Supply* Education and Legal Departments.

;

These offices are held for five years, and are filled by the
Crown, for the most part hitherto from members of the Indian
i
Though the use of this word requires a warning that its strict employ-
ment is in connection with Parliamentary Government, and not with a
bureaucracy of Civil Servants and Crown appointees.
1
Lord Curzon's statement (Indian Speeches, ii. p. 299) that " the Viceroy
has no more weight in his Council than any individual member of it " is
a fanciful exaggeration of the Viceroy's weakness.
' Under the
control of the Commander-in-Chief.
 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 63

Civil Service. The Legal member is not a

civilian, the Finance
member generally taken is
alternately from the Home and
the Indian Civil Service the most recent appointment to
— —
;

the Education Department Sir Sankaran Nair came from

the Madras Bench two Indians have been appointed to the
;

Legal Department, one a Hindu and the other a Mohammedan,

and it was assumed that the Law member would henceforth
be an Indian chosen alternately from the Hindu and the
Mohammedan communities, though it is said not to have
worked very well. It would have been unfortunate, however,
had any special office been ear-marked in this way, and an
Englishman was appointed in 1915. The Civil Service is
exceedingly jealous of any encroachment upon its rights to
fill these offices, which it considers belong to it as
part of the
Service for which its members were recruited, and when
Mr. Clark (now Sir William) was sent from the Home Service
to take charge of Commerce and Industry in 1910, much
dissatisfaction arose in the Indian Service.
The members of Council control the administration of
their offices subject to the approval of the Viceroy, who has
to be consulted on certain eventualities, 1 and they meet
usually once a week as a Cabinet to discuss with the Viceroy
matters submitted to them. Each Department has a Secre-
tary corresponding to the Permanent Secretary to a Depart-
ment at home, and these Secretaries attend Council meetings
to give information.
The Governor-General presides over the Council, but when
he is absent, a member, generally the senior member, may
take his place and may otherwise act for him. During Lord
Hardinge's illness after he was hurt by the bomb at Delhi,
Sir Guy Fleetwood-Wilson, the Finance member, presided
regularly over the Council meetings.
1 " In the
year 1907-8 no than 217 per cent, of the cases which arose
less
in, or came up the Home Department "
to, required submission to the Viceroy
{Report of the Decentralisation Commission, Cd. 4360, 1909, p. 11). From the
nature of its work this proportion is much higher in this Department than
in any other.
64 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
A Cabinet composed like this mainly of Civil Servants
and has obvious drawbacks. Members do not resign
officials

upon policy, for they are an administrative Civil Service.

The scheme of Indian Government lacks the element of re-
sponsibility. As regards India, the Council is a superior will ;

as regards the Secretary of State, it is a superior knowledge.

At no place in the system of Indian administration does
public opinion come in with its fresh motives, ideals, and
purposes formed outside offices and nurtured on something
else than departmental files. From beginning to end,
the and the official mind dominate Indian Government,
office
and thus the work of Delhi and Simla consists very largely
in imposing upon India what departmental offices and officials
consider to be advantageous. Hence the bureaucracy
becomes self-centred, the governing machine becomes polished
but unsympathetic, mechanical accuracy and efficiency are
its inspirations rather than a desire for freedom and experi-

ment. The official controls the policy as well as the working

of the policy. The result is admirable as an efficient adminis-
trative product, it gives great benefits to the people, but
the system lacks that adaptability and accommodation to
outside opinion which, it is true, the expert generally holds
in low esteem, but which is the secret of political wisdom.
It is strong in everything except the faculty of consulting
the people. It has not understood the truth that is in the
adage that wise government is self-government even if it be
not the most efficient
government.
Now, a change is Outside opinion, better organised
coming.
than ever, more representative, and with some authority on
the various Legislative Councils, is compelling the bureaucracy
to listen, and many members of the bureaucracy are listening
gladly. The expert is recognising the fact that his task is
getting more difficult as he has now to deal with a political
spirit, and he is preparing to meet his changed circumstances.
The appointment of Sir Sankaran Nair to the Education De-
partment was of far more significance than that of an Indian
 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 65

lawyer to the Law Department, because it was an appoint-

ment of an Indian to a Department of constructive policy
and not to one of technical knowledge but the time has now
;

come for a much bolder advance. The Legislature must be

joined to the Executive by the appointment of members of
the Legislature to some of the Departments.
This Cabinet of Civil Servants was inevitable. It had to
take possession of those high executive offices which are
political in their nature, because there were no politics in
India. The nominees of monarchs and rulers have always
these posts because India has been autocratically ruled,
rilled

and there has been none of those safeguards of democratic

administration like the separation of the legislative from
the administrative functions of the Government. The King
and his servants have been the administration, the Courts,
and the Legislature. The British compromise between its
own method of government and the conditions of India was
to send out a Viceroy who would have some political experi-
ence, or at any rate political opinions of a general character,
and who would be guided and advised by men who had spent
their lives in administering Indian districts. Thus the mind
of general intention and that of detailed knowledge were

mingled, and if the latter, from the circumstances of the case,

was almost uniformly the more powerful, it was honest and
" "
devoted. If superior it was not corrupt, and its most

severe critic can attribute to it no vices excepting those

which belong to its own nature, and to the system of govern-
ment which it found established in India and from which it
derived its parentage.
The members sit as members of the Imperial
of the Council
Legislative Council and have to answer questions and take
charge of the business of their various Departments. When
the Legislative Councils were established in 1853, the Vice-
roy's Council was embarrassed by questions and criticisms,
and had to be protected in 1861, by curtailing the power
of Legislative Councils, as I shall describe in the next
5
66 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
chapter. But the movement so suddenly begun in 1853
cannot be kept back for ever. The India Councils Bill of
1909 transplanted the Executive Council into a new political
atmosphere. It had to face a body with very limited powers,
it is true, but with constituencies behind it, so that if the

Council itself is not the creation of public opinion it now has

to meet those who represent some of that opinion. It there-
fore found itself beset by two influences, the Viceroy with a
Home Government on the one hand, and the Legislative
Council on the other, and the impact of both upon it is pro-
ducing effects of a political kind. The Council will tend more
and more to become like a British Cabinet. Its members
who have political aptitudes for debate and co-operation
with others of dissimilar views will take more and more delight
in the changed circumstances under which they have to work.
For, when all is said and done, a Parliamentary life is richer
and more interesting than one spent in the administrative
service.
In time the new function of the Council will make changes
in its membership, and the work of Departments is already
so complicated that it ought to be redistributed and new
Departments formed. Men who have shown political capacity
of high order will be chosen to sit on it, and in the end it will
cease to be regarded as a section of the Civil Service, and will
become, as it ought to a branch of the Legislature. The
be,
Legislative Council, than the administration, will
rather
supply its recruits. But that is not yet, and some things

must happen before that change will be fully accomplished.

Moreover, it will not be made all at once. It may be that
the Council will be enlarged and the new Departments filled
by others than Civil Servants. Certainly a proposal which
is both bad and inadequate is that in the Montagu-Chelms-
ford report, to increase the Indian membership to two and
continue the present method of appointment. The first
thing is to limit the Civil Service appointments to what they
now are, terminate the rights of new recruits to regard these
 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 67

offices as belonging to the Civil Service, and establish as a

constitutional practice the appointment by the Crown of
members who have had legislative experience. But in what-
ever way events may happen, a complete change in the Execu-
tive Council is ultimately inevitable. One important circum-
stance will make it easy. The argument now is that the
Civil Service, with overwhelming preponderance of British-
its

born men in its highest offices, is the only guarantee of British

responsibility, and that the Viceroy's Council in a special

way represents and emphasises the British supremacy. The
Council ought, therefore, according to this view, to be manned
mainly from the Civil Service. But when Indians share
more largely in the highest offices of the Service, this argu-
ment will be weakened. The Indian civilian will have no
better claims to a seat on the Council than a score of other
Indians who have proved worth and capacity in other
their

ways. At the same time, the Legislatures will be becoming

more and more evidently the sources from which the Viceroy's
Council members should be drawn. That is in accordance
with the operation of things wherever British ideas of govern-
ment rule, and it is also in accordance with the evolution of
the Council's powers and
composition. This democratic
conception of the relation between the Executive and the
Civil Service on the one hand, and the Legislative Councils
on the other, ought at once to begin to show itself in the
machinery of Indian government.
 CHAPTER V
THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
Up to 1830 the Governor-General and his Executive Council
were both the Executive and the Legislature of the Indian
Government, but in that year a Law member was added for
purely legislative purposes, but with no right to sit or vote
during executive business, and thus began some differentia-
tion between the legislative and the executive functions and
organisation of the Government. In 1853 a further change
was made. The Law member became an ordinary member
of the Council, and two judges and four members of the Com-
pany's service appointed by the four provinces that then
existed were added. In a minute addressed to the India
Office,the Marquess of Dalhousie, who was responsible for
the change, describes it thus "A Council was appointed
:

as the Legislature of India, which was no longer identical

with the Supreme Council, but included divers other members
and exercised its functions by separate and distinct pro-
ceedings of its own." That year another characteristic
essential toa Legislature, the publicity of its proceedings,
was provided by statute. The development of this Council
since then has been the most important feature in Indian

government.
The reforms in the Legislative Council effected in 1853
alarmed the Indian authorities. Whig principles were in
the ascendant at home. Parliamentary Government was
considered to be essential to liberty, and one of the necessary
functions of Parliament was to criticise and lead the Execu-
tive. This the new Legislative Council set about with a right
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 69
"
good will, and criticised the Executive. It evinced an
inconvenient tendency to interfere with the Executive." '
But just as in a previous generation an independent judiciary
in the shape of a Calcutta Supreme Court was regarded as an
offence by the Executive, so the Legislature was now also
regarded, and in 1861, whilst its legislative authority was
extended, and its members increased, especially on the non-
official side, its powers were prescribed and limited to the dis-
cussion of legislative proposals only. These restrictions were
not modified until 1892, when, under certain rules which had to
be drawn up by the Executive, discussion upon the Financial
Statement was to be permitted and questions to heads of
Departments allowed. At the same time, the power to
legislate was restored to the Councils of Madras and Bombay,
and legislative members added to the Executives there to
form a Legislative Council. Other Provinces might have
Legislative Councils on proclamation by the Governor- General.
Thus the legislative rights of the provinces that were with-
drawn in 1833 were restored, and the foundations of a separate
Legislature and of self-government for the Provinces were
laid anew. The unity of Indian government is preserved in
the official
authority of the Governor- General to sanction
Provincial legislation and in the somewhat inconsistent power
of his Legislative Council to legislate for the whole of India,
no demarcation between Provincial and Imperial legislative
authority being made.
Finally came the historic change of 1909 for which Lord
Morley was responsible and with which his name will always
be associated.
In 1906, the Viceroy, Lord Minto, drew up a dispatch
summarising the reasons for a change. They can be con-
densed into the single sentence the political spirit had
:

reached a stage in India when a further participation of the

political opinion of the country in its government could no
longer be resisted. The view that the mass of the Indian
1
Gazetteer of India, iv. p. 130.
70 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
people took no interest in politics at all, that their concerns
were best served by an autocracy of benevolence rather than
by representatives responsible to interests and opinions
other than those of the masses, belonged to those considera-
tions which look formidable on paper, but which do not
differentiate between urgent vital issues and mere niceties.
The thinking, agitating, and critical sections of India had in
course of time become so important that the political problem
which their existence had created demanded attention. What-
ever considerations had to be kept in mind, the granting of
further political liberty had become an axiom for practical
statesmen. So after lengthy and voluminous correspondence
with India, Lord Morley introduced his Bill in the House of
Lords on February 17th, 1909, and on May 25th that
year it became an Act of Parliament. It was a compromise
between bureaucracy and democracy, inevitably a short-
1

lived, if necessary, experiment. The Legislative Council now

consists of 33 nominated, and 27 elected members, and of
the 33, not more than 28 may be officials. It is definitely
provided that there must always be an official majority. Now
the Indian constitution is again in the melting-pot.
The Act did not endow Councils with much more power,
though it allowed them to discuss Budgets before they were
finally settled, to take divisions on financial proposals, to
debate matters of general interest and to put supplementary
questions, and it put the representative principle on a legal
basis. The authority which the Act added to the Councils lay
not so much in any new powers given to them as in their being
made more representative, an Act passed in 1892 having opened
the door to that principle without, however, giving it definite
constitutional sanction. It was allowed but not imposed.
The Councils Act of 1909 brought us a distinct stage nearer
the time when the problem will arise in a practical form of

specifically stated that he would have nothing to do with

Lord Morley
1

the reforms " led

if
they directly or indirectly to the establishment of a
Parliamentary system in India."
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 71

the control of the fcxecutive by the Legislature. That is

staved off for the moment by the constitutional limitations

imposed upon the Councils and the large element of official
and nominated members upon them, as hitherto determined
by the Regulations issued under the Act. On all the Councils
save the Governor- General's, where there is a majority of four
officials, the non-officials are in majorities which vary from
thirteen in Bengal to three in Burma. That does not mean that,
as yet, non-official opinion dominates the work of the Councils,
because the Government controls the action of the nominated
non-officials. But Indian
Legislatures are still in a state of
evolution. are young, grateful, and not independent.
They
They are approaching independence by stages, and no written
letter of the Constitution can stand against the vital growth
of a people. These Councils are re-elected every third year.
What is to be represented in the Legislature is a much more
complicated problem in India than at home, and the rules
determining this are not the same for every province. I
give two examples from the Rules of 1912, the last issued at
the time of writing this chapter, and I select Bengal and
Burma as typical of the difficulties that had to be encountered
by those who framed these schemes of representation.
The Bengal Council is limited to a membership of fifty-one, of
whom twenty-eight are elected one to represent the Calcutta
:

Corporation, who must be a member of the Corporation one ;

the Calcutta University, elected by the Senate and Honorary

Fellows five, other municipalities with incomes of 5,000 rupees
;

and over, five, District and Local Boards four,

and another ;

groups of landowners in specified constituencies covering the

province, one alternately by the Chittagong landholders and
municipalities five by the Mohammedans divided into five
;

constituenciesand holding specified qualifications two by the

;

Bengal Chamber of Commerce, one by the Calcutta Trades

Association, one by the Commissioners of the Port of Chitta-

gong, one by Commissioners of Calcutta other than those
appointed by the Local Government, and one by the tea-
72 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
planting community, the electoral roll being compiled from
managers of tea gardens. The Governor nominates twenty
members, not more than sixteen of whom may be officials,
and two must be non-official the Indian commercial com-
;

munity and the European commercial community, other than

tea planters, also nominate one each.
The Burma Council has a membership of fifteen. One is
elected by the Burma Chamber of Commerce and fourteen
are nominated by the Lieutenant-Governor with the consent
of the Governor- General but of these not more than six may
;

be officials and four must be Burmans, and one from the Indian
and another from the Chinese communities.
A general disqualification for candidates for all Councils
is that in the opinion of the Governor-General in Council
"
the reputation and antecedents " of the person to be nomin-
ated are such as would make his election " contrary to the
public interest."
Neither the one nor the other of these schemes can be called
representative government in anything but the most primitive
sense, but it is worth noting that in their representation of
trade and commerce they unconsciously illustrate that move-
ment against geographical constituencies and masses of mixed
electors and in favour of economic interests which has recently
become a subject of controversy amongst ourselves, especially
amongst our more extreme political parties. For the note
"
of the provisions of these schemes is interests as apart
:

from a common national well-being," and it is left for the

Government nominations to secure the presence of spokesmen
on the Councils.
for the general national fife
The view taken by the Government of India is that the
Indian State not sufficiently coherent to allow the creation
is

of constituencies such as we have here, and that education

and political intelligence have not permeated so far down
into the strata of Indian society as to make elections, such
as we know them, of value for reflecting public opinion or
guaranteeing political liberty. So, in these schemes no
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 73

attempt has been made to secure popular representation.

This is a real difficulty in Indian self-government. Not only
do the necessary educational qualifications not exist, not
only is there lacking that individual judgment on affairs of
state which alone gives value to majority rule, but the want
of these things gives opportunity for the exercise of influences,
like bribery and corruption and other forms of undue pressure
and improper practice, which when it once becomes associated
with the governing processes of any State is hard to uproot.
An ignorant people are a subject people whatever the form of
their government may be. At the moment, and under
existing conditions, "popular representation" in India would
not indicate Indian opinion, but would give rise to practices
which would subvert that opinion and fill a field now barren
—
and waste however unfortunate that may be— with tares
and weeds, but certainly not with wheat.
The Indian State being therefore of a form too rudimentary
and primitive below its upmost thin strata to allow demo-
cratic government, and yet at its top too enlightened to permit
its offering no challenge to the rule of any kind of autocracy,

we must consider what scheme of representation is possible

to fitsuch conditions. Obviously, it is always easier to
represent interest than opinion. Interest is always organised,
and has always spokesmen ready at hand. That is not true
of the masses, which to-day in the most advanced of States
are incoherent and divided because they do not know what
their interests are, or are still moved by their narrower and
more immediate interests in the workshop and cannot grasp
their larger and more permanent ones in the State.
Then, in India, religion, particularly when it indicates
different historical conditions and origins, claims a place in
the State alongside of political opinion and interest, and so
the purpose of the rules of election is primarily to secure the
representation of these three elements in Indian Society.
University and municipal representation on the whole supply
the political opinion, that of Chambers of Commerce and
74 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
landlords the interests ;
that of Mohammedans the religious
differences.
But in this respect too we can see a change. Political
interest is tending to absorb all others, and this is best seen
in the use that is being made by the Mohammedans of their

special privileges. It is roughly true to say that Mohamme-

dans, having secured special representation to protect them-
selves, have used it to promote, with Hindus, Indian repre-
sentation.
Fifty years ago, and up to the end of the reign of Sir Syed
Ahmed (say 1912), the Indian Mohammedan was in India
but was not of it.As the Aga Khan has well expressed it, 1

"
he looked upon himself as a member of a universal religious
brotherhood, sojourning in a land in which a neutral Govern-
ment, with a neutral outlook, kept law and order and justice.
His political and communal pride was satisfied by the fact
that his co-religionists in Turkey, Persia, Morocco, and (nomi-
nally at least) in Egypt, enjoyed independence and national
sovereignty." Accordingly, he formed his Moslem Leagues
as rivals to, and safeguards against, the encroachments of
a politically and educationally active Hinduism. But, as I
have shown the introductory chapter, he has now
in

passed out that stage and is uniting with his Hindu

of
fellow Indian upon an Indian platform. Here is the basis
of an Indian electorate. Whether the representatives of this
electorate should be direct or indirect does not seem to me
to be of great consequence for the moment, because, for the
reasons which I have already given, the difficulties of direct
election must remain very great for yet a while.
The Indian system of representation will have to remain
varied in its ways of election for a time, and will have to

reflect diverse methods of ascertaining public opinion, and

even a certain number of nominated persons may have to
be included in the Councils. Direct election can be resorted
to in constituencies formed to enable an educational test to
1
India in Transition, pp. 22 et seq.
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 75

be imposed, as is now done with the universities, but the

electors' roll must be increased, and institutions of a lower

status and tests of a lower standard than university examina-
tions must be recognised. Education is not book-learning —
it is not even literary —
and a test much lower than the B.A.
could safely be resorted to for Indian electors. Interests
also may have to be represented, but in that case they must
not be confined to those of trade and commerce, and organ-
isations like co-operative societies should be brought in.
Then there is the vexed question of caste and religious com-
munities. Ought they to be recognised in representation ?
The Western at once rejects such an idea, and the Montagu-
Cbelmsford Report gives it no countenance beyond a regretful
admission that Mohammedans being separately recognised
now, it would not be possible to go back upon that, and that
the Sikhs may also be able to establish a claim for themselves.
The more one examines the question, the more inclined is

one to favour the expedient if only as a temporary measure.

In any event, the Montagu-Chelmsford examination of the
subject is remarkably weak. This Report argues that the
system is opposed to history, that it perpetuates class division
and stereotypes existing relations. The argument on the
firstcount is that nations developing the arts of self-govern-
ment have always pressed for a united and not " a divided
allegiance
" —
an argument of very doubtful validity, both
as to the actual description of what has taken place and of
the effect of community recognition. The State of composite
nationality and community, so far from having disappeared,
presents to modern statesmanship some of its most interesting
and pressing problems. What is called " a divided allegiance "
is a mere figment the problem is one of a co-operating
;

allegiance, separately recognised. The second count is also

a gratuitous assumption which does not correspond to experi-
ence and is certainly not borne out by what has happened
;

since separate Mohammedan representation was granted ;

whilst the substance in the third count consists in its verbal

76 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
form. Are the existing relations already stereotyped ? Is
India in the near future likely to be without them ? The
irritating problems of the small nationality, of the type of
Ulster, included in a State of different nationality are likely
to be solved by constitutional rights being secured to the
minority; and there is very good reason for believing that
when minority rights are thus recognised, so far from a divided
allegiance being created or existing differences being stereo-
typed, unity will be promoted. Can Indian communities
and sections subordinate to other communities and sections,
in the way that subordination exists in India, ever receive
representative protection or gain in their own esteem or in the
esteem of others that dignity and respect which are necessary
for communal unity, better than by being recognised upon
terms of political equality with predominant communities ?
Theoretically, there is nothing to be said against the experi-
ment. Practically, we must recognise that much of the
bitterness between religious and social communities in India —
like the organised opposition of the non-Brahmins in Madras
to the Brahmins — the opposition of injured inferiors to
is

superiors. I have changed my mind on this point, because

on careful consideration I see that certain communities that
ought to be represented will not be represented except by
special provision, that the representation of these communi-
ties will raise their status, and that it will bring them into
that national co-operation in the Councils which is bound to
issue not in division but in unity of interest and spirit.
As an alternative to this a scheme of Proportional Repre-
sentation might be adopted, because this system of election
is peculiarly adapted to such countries of diverse minorities

and communities as India, but this presupposes a large com-

posite register. It is preferable, however, to any other scheme,

if it could be worked, but failing it, it is impossible to erect a

body of valid objections to community representation.
On the other hand, the proposal for the direct representation
of trade through Chambers of Commerce has nothing to be said
 THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 77

from the point of view of sound political theory.

in its favour
It subversive of every conception of representative democracy
is

as the mirror of general good, and is designed to protect and

advance the interests of a class in India, and be some but-
tress to the dominant race. These interests may have to be

pacified, but if that be so, the Government has a duty to see

that membership of the Chambers shall be thrown widely open
to every one engaged in commerce, so that the representation
of a social function and not of an interested coterie is secured.
As regards indirect representation, its basis should be local

governing bodies from the panchayets upwards to the great

municipalities. In order to bring in the very smallest of
these bodies, it might be well to elect electoral colleges in
the first instance such as is done at the American Presidential
Elections. Groups of these bodies might elect a member
to the Electoral College, which would meet and elect whoever
is to represent the District on the Legislature. Indirect re-
presentation of this kind is, however, a very bad expedient,
and should be countenanced only temporarily.
The Imperial Legislative Council should be wholly com-
posed of representatives of the Provincial Councils, with
perhaps a few nominated members limited in number and
named before the others are elected. I assume that no Province
is to be without its Council. The Imperial body should act as
a Second Chamber to the Provincial ones and the Viceroy
should have power to ask it to consider and decide upon
doubtful legislation passed in the Provinces.
The whole of this scheme is transitional. I believe it to be
the only practical machinery of representative government
that is possible in India at present, and to implant there in an
academic way forms of Western growth is to repeat the mis-
takes we have made again and again in assuming that India
was England, and that there was nothing that pertained to
good except what was English. Moreover, the democratic
methods which some recent converts to Indian self-govern-
ment are hastening to apply to India are being challenged at
 78 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
home by democrats on account of their shortcomings and
failures to secure true representative government.
There still remains the question of the position of the Ruling
Chiefs with their varying amounts of authority within their
States. It is difficult to fit them into a representative system.
Their personal dignity and the spirit of government which
they represent raise insuperable obstacles. But in the first
1

place, their dignity depends upon ceremonial which can be

retained, and in the next a policy should be pursued of making
these States locally autonomous whenever possible. India
has everything to gain by a recognition of differences, so long
as these differences can be blended into a harmonious whole.

Beyond that, an annual Conference of these rulers attended

by the Executive and presided over by the Viceroy will
adequately meet the case.
In connection with the Imperial Legislative Council I have
discussed the whole question of representation, as that seemed
the most convenient procedure, leaving the questions of
function to be discussed when I deal with the Provincial
Councils. Although the political mind of educated India
has been moulded in Western ways of thought, it would be a
mistake to approach the problem of Indian representation
from Western standpoints alone. We have not said the
only, nor the last, word in democratic representation, and the
system that is to be applied to any country must be moulded
to suit the conditions of that country. Therefore, the Indian
system cannot be created on any one simple or consistent
theory. The practical problem is not to compile registers
which will be so big that they will represent India in the
same way that our registers represent Great Britain, but to
examine the interests that a good system of representation
would protect and co-ordinate and see that they have due
weight in the composition of the Councils. I believe that the
methods I have indicated will allow this to be done.
1
The Maharaja of Jaipur once sat on the Viceroy's Council, but there is

lass dispositionon the part of Ruling Chiefs to do so now than before.

 CHAPTER VI

PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS
I —Heads of Provinces
For the purposes of administration India is divided into
fifteen Provinces: Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, having
governors appointed direct by the Sovereign the United
;

Provinces of Agra and Oudh, the Punjab, Burma, and Bihar

and Orissa with Lieutenant-Governors, and the Central
Provinces, Assam, and the North-west Frontier Province,
Delhi, Ajmere-Merwara, Coorg, British Beluchistan, and the
Andaman Islands with Chief Commissioners. Bengal was
divided in 1905 into Bengal and Eastern Bengal, but, owing
to a troublesome and continued agitation on the ground that
the division cut the Bengali people into two, it was redivided
at the time of the Delhi Durbar in 1911, and Bihar and
Orissa and Assam were created.
The origin of the Provinces is found in the early trading
settlements (called Presidencies because the chief officer
responsible for them to the Company was called the President)
of the East India Company at Bombay, Madras (Fort George),
and Calcutta (Fort William), which were, up to the Regulating
Act of 1773, independent administrations. As area after
area was added, it was at first attached to one or other of
these Presidencies. In 1833 the Presidency of Agra (called
then the North-west Provinces) was created from the long
stretch of territory that had been added to Bengal up the
valleys of the Jumna and Ganges, and a Governor was to be
appointed ;
but in 1835 the Governorship, which had not been
filled, was changed into a Lieutenant-Governorship, and the
79
80 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
officer was appointed by the Governor-General in Council.
Since then, no Governorships have been created, except that
of Bengal on the repartition of 1911. Boundaries have been
adjusted, however, and new Provinces created from time to
time, until the present arrangements were fixed.
Most of these new districts were governed at first as non-
Regulation Provinces by a Commissioner directly subject to
the Governor-General, 1 and hence arose the distinction between
a Regulation and a non-Regulation Province. In the Regu-
lation districts the administration was determined by regu-
lations issuedby the Governor-General in Council, but in the
new districts it was found that these regulations could not
be applied with mechanical uniformity. A somewhat free
hand had, therefore, to be given to officers who, whilst adminis-
tering in the spirit of the Regulations, had to use personal
discretion. In the non-Regulation Province the adminis-
tration therefore approached to personal control and although
;

the assumption made by Governments was that their best

men should be sent to the Regulation districts, the non-
Regulation officer had a power and discretion which very often
produced in him such a capacity for dealing successfully with
the people as to mark him out for distinction amongst the
officers in the service.'
Governors are appointed by the Crown, but are in reality
chosen by the party which happens to be in power at home
for the time being, from amongst their own political supporters.
Sir Richard Temple, who was appointed Governor of Bombay
in 1877, chiefly on account of his famine relief work, is the
only exception to this rule. He had not been a Bombay
civilian, however, but had served in Bengal.
The appointment of a Governor from home, as opposed
to the promotion of a civilian in the Indian Service, as is the
case with Lieutenant-Governors, has much to commend it.

1 districts within Regulation Provinces

There were also — like the Santhal

Pergunnahs in —
Bengal which were non-Regulation districts.
*
Cf. The Little World of an Indian District Officer, pp. 223, etc.
 HEADS OF PROVINCES 81

Although it is true that an inexperienced mind coming without

preparation into the midst of Indian administration must
rely greatly upon the advice of the experts with whom he
is surrounded, and may become an echo of their opinions,

the remedy is not an appointment from the Indian service,

but such a change in the surrounding experts as will make
the Governor's advisers more representative than they are
of the various conflicting views and rival interests in Indian
life.

The theory that the Cabinet head of a Department at

home need not himself be an expert, but should be a person
of good ability and broad political common sense, guided in
his decisions by certain defined political principles determined

by his party allegiance, is sound regarding Indian Governors.

Their function the general one of seeing that administration
is

satisfies the requirements of sound policy, the ways and

means and expediencies being left to be worked out by the
experts. A Civil Service as a government must be a passing
form of administration. It is essentially a bureaucracy,
not inspired, but only checked, by public opinion and as ;

self-government is
developed through Legislatures, Civil Service
control becomes intolerable, irrespective of whether it has
done its work efficiently or inefficiently.
However honest, well-intentioned and able a central bureau-
cracy may be, it cannot escape the doom of its defects ;
and
one of the great defects of Delhi stretching its hands and its
regulations from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas is a far
too rigid uniformity, and a ponderously complicated for-
mality which in time will crush under its weight every
officer in a responsible position. Indian government calls
for diversity, for spontaneity, for new ideas, for local impulses,
for a faith and purpose that have not become exhausted or
disillusioned by the great difficulties which bureaucratic
administrators have to face, difficult ies which send home
some of the very best men discredited and disheartened. It
is not enough that the fresh minds should go into the governing
6
 82 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
cadre away back at its recruitment ;
there must also be
infusionsmuch later on.
I have found very few people who have tried to visualise
the drawbacks of this system. The real governing authority
in India is recruited from young men in Great Britain. They
— —
go out into this alien country with all its for them unnatural
and their minds are shaped by their unnatural conditions
life,
and work. However painstaking they may be to get into
touch with Indian conditions, they live a segregated life in
their own coterie. They belong to tiny settlements amidst
vast communities of alien civilisation and culture. One of
two things must happen. They ought to be allowed, as was
the case before the Suez Canal and the rapid transit to
England, to sink themselves in their new world, or their
critical alertness should be maintained by contact with Indian

opinion in authority on the one hand, and British opinion

fresh-eyed from home on the other.
It is only too occasionally that men of great capacity are
sent to fill these Governorships. They have been regarded
as glorified jobs for rich and vain followers, or as consolation
prizes for respectable but disappointed men, or as occupation
for men otherwise idle at home. This type of man fulfils
none of the requirements of an Indian Governor. These
Governorships offer to men desirous of facing some of the most
interestingly difficult problems of Imperial politics oppor-
tunities of usefulness and satisfaction which no other political

appointments afford. We must at once revise our view of

Indian Governorships and regard them as posts of great
importance and dignity.

The Governors are now subject to the Viceroy in Council,

though he does not appoint them, and though they have
the right of direct approach to the Secretary of State. This
is a survival of the time before 1773, when
right they were
supreme in independent Presidencies formed by groups of
and subject only to the Court of Directors and ulti-
factories
 HEADS OF PROVINCES 83

mately to Parliament. For a long time after the Governor-

General of Bengal was made supreme so as to unify policy
throughout, Governors were recalcitrant and were unwilling
to surrender their independence. Communication was slow
and jealousy was active. Warren Hastings found that the
Governor of Bombay did not consult him regarding the
Mahratta troubles in 1775. This friction was the subject of
negotiation and instruction as late as 1883, when it was dealt
with in the Charter Act and in a dispatch in the following
year from the Court of Directors to the Government of India.
Instructions regarding it were again given in a dispatch in
1838. The Decentralisation Commission reported on the
"
relationship as it now is The essential point to be borne
:

in mind is thus that at present, even in matters primarily

assigned to the Provincial Governments, these (the Governors)

act as the agents of the Government of India, who exercise
a very full and constant check over their proceedings."
But the control of the central authorities, according to the

dispatch of the Court of Directors, was to be "a just control,"

and not a " petty, vexatious, meddling interference."
The authority of theGovernor- General in Council over
Lieutenant-Governors and Chief Commissioners is more
direct. The Lieutenant-Governor is appointed by the Governor-
General in Council with the approval of the Crown. He is
the result of an afterthought. When the Act of 1833 was
passed, it was a new Governorship that was proposed by it
to relieve the burden which annexation after annexation had
imposed upon Bengal, but the Government, as has been said
already, changed its mind, and in 1835 put a clause in a Bill
giving the Governor-General power to appoint a civilian of at
least ten years' standing as a Lieutenant-Governor of the
new North-west Provinces. This was a new constitutional
creation, an expedient to use men on the spot without im-
porting them from home, and also to retain the Viceroy's

1
Report, Cd. 4360, 1909, p. 21.
84 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
control over the new Provinces and the right of the Civil
Service to supply the head of the administration.
The Lieutenant-Governor ought to occupy a place mid-
way between the Civil Service to which he belongs (Sir H.
Durand, appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab in
1870 is the only exception) and the representative of the
Crown for whom he acts. By habit, however, the Lieutenant-
Governorships have come to be regarded as posts in the Civil
Service. The Lieutenant-Governor has a delegated authority,
which is subject to the will of the Governor- General in Council
acting with the consent of the Secretary of State in Council.
That being his constitutional position, he required no Executive
Council to assist him but circumstances are changing, and
;

an Executive Council has been given to the Lieutenant-

Governor of Bihar and Orissa, and an attempt has been
made to give one to the United Provinces. When there was
a Lieutenant-Governor in Bengal he had an Executive Council.
The Lieutenant-Governor has no direct access to the Secretary
of State. Before appointment he must have served the Crown
in India ten years, but in practice that period is greatly
exceeded.
A Chief Commissioner is lower in rank than a Lieutenant-
Governor, owing to recent legislation, differences
though,
between them have been swept away, and both offices are
x

essentially of the same nature. The Chief Commissioner is

delegated by the Governor-General in Council to represent
him in the administration of a certain area defined by pro-
clamation, and he is entirely under the control of the Governor-
General, whose subordinate he is and who is responsible for what
the Chief Commissioner does. The office was created when new
territories were added to British rule which, whilst rendering
the Provinces to which they were attached unwieldy, were
not sufficiently advanced or coherent to be made Provinces

As, for instance, that a Lieutenant-Governor was part of a Legislature

1

and could be appointed only with a Legislative Council. Commissioners

may now have Legislative Councils.
 HEADS OF PROVINCES 85

with Lieutenant-Governors, but which from the nature of

their population necessitated individual energy and responsi-
bility.The designation was at first Commissioner, but
when, in 1853, John Lawrence was appointed the chief of
three Commissioners to bring the Punjab under British
administration, he was called Chief Commissioner a title
—
which has been given ever since. The government of a Chief
Commissioner is a transition form, although, as in the Central
Provinces to-day, it is sometimes continued long after it ought
to be. The anomalous position of the Chief Commissioner
of the Central Provinces has been emphasised since 1914,
when he was given a Legislative Council. Although the
constitutional position of a Chief Commissioner is very different
from that of a Lieutenant-Governor, in practice his powers
are substantially the same, and in his own Province his authority
and the respect paid to him do not suffer from his inferior
status in order of precedence and in the constitutional system.

Soon these half-and-half stages must go except on the

all

frontiers. The work of Provincial administration is over-

whelming, and the advantage of Council government is patent.
No man can now govern an Indian Province. Whoever has
stayed with a Lieutenant-Governor and tried to find him
unoccupied except for the barest necessities of rest and food,
or to get up before him in the morning, or to go to bed later
than him at night, will have had an insight into what governing
an Indian Province means. Important work must be given
to the secretaries, must be decided without advice and dis-
cussion, must be delayed— sometimes cannot be done. Nor
is there any guarantee of continuity. The Lieutenant-Governor
goes at the end of his fifth year, and, save for subordinate
secretaries, no authority outlasts his term of office.
1

1
The India Councils Bill of 1909 passed the House of Commons with a
clause enabling the Government of India, with the consent of the Secretary
of State, to create by Proclamation an Executive Council for any Lieutenant-
Governor, but the House of Lords deleted this clause. It was reinserted by
 86 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Further, the practice of appointing members of the Civil
Service to the political wardships of Provinces should be
stopped. They ought not to be debarred, but India has
everything to gain by direct infusion of home influences into
her government, men with fresh minds and eyes, men who
have not been moulded in Civil Service administration, men
whose a different order from those developed
abilities are of

by magistracies, collectorships, and secretaryships. The one

kind of ability ought not to be set over against the other
kind. India needs both, and she should be free to use them.
But if a civilian is appointed he should at once resign his
position in the Service and not be eligible for further employ-
ment as a civilian.
An immediate reform is to turn Lieutenant-Governorships,
and Chief Commissionershipe where the districts warrant it,
into Governorships, to give the Governors Councils sufficiently

large to be responsible for the different great branches of

the Commons, but was finally passed in a form which provided that the
Proclamation would have to lie on the table of both Houses and be dis-
allowed by a resolution of either. This provision was put into operation by
the House of Lords in 1915, when it was proposed to create a Council for
the United Provinces. A Council for this Province is urgently needed,
and indeed is long overdue. The status of the Province and the respon-
sibilities of the Lieutenant-Governor call for it. The matter had come
before the Legislative Council and a resolution in favour of an Executive
Council received the support of exactly half the Council. The Lieu-
tenant-Governor had to vote against, on the principle that the resolution,
having otherwise failed to carry, ought not to be passed by the President of
the Council, and also because it was the Government of India and not the
Legislative Council of the Province that had power to determine whether
there should be an Executive Council or not. The Lieutenant-Governor
was personally in favour of the resolution. The House of Lords passed a
resolution in opposition to the creation of a Council for the United Provinces,
and it is interesting to note how frequently in the debates reference of a
hostile character was made to the desire for a Council held by " certain
members [of the United Provinces Legislative Council] who are advanced
politicians in India" (Lord MaoDonnell, Hansard, March 16th, 1915, p. 763.
See also Lord Curzon's speech, February 16th, 1915, ibid., p. 518 ; Lord
Sydenham's, ibid., p. 775, etc.). The action of the House of Lords in
refusing the Council was confessedly determined by the opposition of its
leading Indian members to the Indian nationalist movement.
 HEADS OF PROVINCES 87

administration, to appoint these Governors by the Crown,

to secure that at least alternately these Governors shall be
sent out from home, and to compose their Councils so that
there shall sit upon them men representing the opinions of

the Legislatures and not merely the mind of the Civil Service.
 CHAPTER VII

PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS (continued)

II —Legislatures
The India Councils Act of 1861 consolidated and amended
the law relating to Councils. The Act of 1833, passed when
the idea of a united and centrally controlled India was upper-
most in men's minds, not only made Bengal the superior
province in India, but withdrew legislative powers from the
Councils of Madras and Bombay. These powers were restored
by the India Councils Act of 1861, when the vast complexities
and range of Indian administration and legislation had again
become apparent, and this Act further provided for the
creation of Councils wherever a Lieutenant-Governorship
was thereafter to be set up. Provincial Legislative Councils
were set up in Bengal in 1862, in the United Provinces in

1886, in the Punjab and Burma in 1898. In 1892 they were

enlarged, an elective element introduced, and a limited right
of questioning and of discussing budgets was given. Finally
came the Morley reform of 1909, the rules and regulations
for the carrying out of which were revised in 1912, and pub-
lished in a Blue book. 1 The Bengal Council under these
rules consists of 28 elected members and 20 nominated, of
whom not more than 16 may be officials and the others are
composed as follows Bihar and Orissa, 21 elected and 19
:

nominated, of whom not more than 15 may be officials ;

Assam, 11 elected and 13 nominated, of whom not more

than 9 may be officials Madras, 21 elected and 21 nominated,
;

not more than 16 being officials the United Provinces, 21

;

1
Cd. 6714, 1913.
88
 ,
LEGISLATURES 89

elected and 26 nominated, of whom not more than 20 may

be officialsthe Punjab, 8 elected and 16 nominated, of
;

whom not more than 10 may be officials Bombay, 21 elected

;

and 21 nominated, of whom not more than 14 may be officials ;

Burma, 1 and 14 nominated, of whom not more than

elected
6 may be officials. It must be noted that these are all known
" "
as additional members. Thus the original idea of adding
members to the Executive Council for legislative work still
obtains. The legislative members are in theory attached to
the Executives, the Executives are not committees of the
Legislatures. Indeed, the actual fact is that, though called
Legislatures, they are essentially Consultative Committees
attached to the Executives.
The volume of rules promulgated for the election of these
Councils also contains the regulations for the discussion of
the Annual Financial Statements, and of matters of general
public interest, and also for the asking of questions of the
Executive. No resolution on the Financial Statement may
criticise a decision of the Government of India, and any reso-
lution may be disallowed by the President of the Council.
Whatever resolutions are carried are only of the nature of
recommendations to the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor
in Council. No resolutions may be moved on the Budget,
and the Budget itself is not submitted to a vote of the Councils.
Resolutions on matters of general interest may also be dis-
allowed by the President on one of two grounds that they:

are not consistent with the public interest, or that they should
be moved on the Legislative Council of another Province or
of the Governor-General and again, all resolutions carried
;

are of the nature of recommendations to the Governor in

Council, or the Lieutenant-Governor. Questions must be
handed in ten days before they are answered, and supplemen-
taries are allowed, but the President has the right to refuse

any question at his discretion.

The position of these Councils raises four important points
for settlement.
90 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
The first is their constitutional status. The time has now
come for giving them a status independent of the Executive
Councils, and establishing them as the Legislatures of India.
Their relations to the Executive can be determined in one
of two ways. The Executive can be made to depend upon
them as in Great Britain, or, as a first step, partly depend
upon them or, as in America, the Executive can
; be an
independent body appointed by the Viceroy, who will be
expected to use discretion and common sense, and take all
the political circumstances into account when making his
choice of men. The latter would be most in accordance with
Indian traditions, though not most in accordance with the
political thought which is stirring in India and creating the
demands for responsible and representative government
which we have now to meet.
I have therefore in this book assumed that the relations
between the Executive and Legislature ought to be determined
on the British rather than on the American model. The
American model, however, must not be dismissed without
being considered, as it may be found to suggest convenient
expedients for avoiding obvious difficulties which meet us at
this moment. It must be noted, however, that whereas the
American Colonies separated their Executive and Legislature
weaken the Executive, the separation is advocated
in order to
for India for the opposite reason.
A study of the working of the American Constitution leads
me to the conclusion that the separation has been bad for
both, though the political genius of the people is such as to
get tolerable results from a bad machine. I do not believe
that an independent Executive in India will be any safeguard
either for British sovereignty or against Indian folly. Should
it acquire the mind of an alien body in authority checking

and watching the Legislatures, nothing but trouble is ahead

of it ;
should it set itself up as an authority equivalent to the

Legislature, even if it avoids racial distinctions, trouble is

ahead of it. I fear it will be impossible for an independent
 LEGISLATURES 91

Executive to avoid being mixed up with the oppositions of the

moment which support it and object to it. In India that is
the conflict between bureaucracy and self-government. There-
fore, the wisest policy seems to be to place the Executive for
the time being midway between the British and the American
position. Let it be appointed by the Viceroy or the Governors
as the case may be, on the understanding that it includes
some of the legislative leaders, and then watch the develop-
ment of events.
But when it is appointed ought to be a unity. The pro-
it

posal in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report that it should con-

sist of two sections, one owing allegiance to the Viceroy and
the other looking to the Legislatures for authority, is clumsy
and in every sense inexpedient.
The second point is how elections are to be conducted, and
what is to be represented in the Legislatures. With that I
have dealt in a previous chapter, and so pass on to the third
and fourth points which should be considered together the —
relation of the Provincial Legislatures to the Delhi Legisla-
ture, and the powers they are to exercise in other words,
:

what type of unity should the Indian Government show ?

Again one very properly thinks first of all of traditional
conditions, and here India presents the curious spectacle of
an extreme development of local autonomy in villages and
an equally strong central authority for financial purposes in
particular. In later days the bureaucracy has developed
masterful centralising tendencies which one hears adversely
criticised in every Province. This cannot be avoided whilst
the strongestmembers of the Civil Service gravitate to
Delhi, and the India Office and Secretary of State invariably
support the Viceroy and his Executive always known and —
thought of as "the Government of India" in any disputes —
with Local Governments as to policy. The Report of the
Decentralisation Commission abounds in evidence of this
tendency, and so does the history of Indian administra-
1

1
See, for instance, the memorandum complaining of Imperial inter-
92 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
tion. Able men do not make good constitutional monarchs,
and a representative system in India cannot be based on an
efficient bureaucracy.
These currents flowing towards Delhi will be checked,
however, by representative government, and others will
begin to flow. There is, for instance, a very marked Madras,
Bombay, Bengal patriotism which, founding itself upon
history, shows itself in literature, speech, institutions, and
administration. Even the Imperial Civil Service is divided
into somewhat secure watertight Provincial compartments,
and representative government will undoubtedly demand a
firm Provincial foundation. This will be strengthened if

more heads of Provinces are sent out from home. 1

Still, no consideration can obscure the fundamental fact

that British administration has made India, and not the
Provinces, its centre, that the Indian political mind has
grown into the same way of thinking, and that therefore the
powers of Provincial Legislatures will have to be delegated
from the Imperial authority. That must be the principle*
It indeed the existing Constitution, the position of Pro-
is

vincial Governments being that, with the concurrence of

the Imperial Government, they exercise power to do anything
not specifically withheld from them. 2 How much and what
ference addressed to the Decentralisation Commission by the Bombay Govern-
ment {Report, vol. Cd. 4367 (1908), Appendix ii., pp. 229, etc.). The
viii.,
Decentralisation Commission has detailed the means by which the Central
Government has acquired authority over the Provincial Governments as
follows Financial rules, restrictions and conditions, the growth of powers to
:

check administration either by specifically granted legal powers or by adminis-

trative encroachments, the power to sanction Provincial legislation, the
passing of resolutions directing Provincial Governments, specific instructions,
the right to listen to appeal by persons against the acts of Provincial Govern-
ments.
1
For instance, in 1877 Lord Lytton found great difficulty in persuading
the Duke of Buckingham, then Governor of Madras, to adopt a famine
" to force
policy, as he was unable upon the Madras Government advice
which it will neither invite nor accept."

Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, being Presidency Governments, have

*

inherited some authority from the old Company administration, and have
slightly more power than the other Provincial Governments.
 LEGISLATURES 93

is to be delegated a question for consideration, and raises

is

nothing but matters of judgment and expediency, and the

same is true of the amount of " concurrence " that should be
required. Local Government and municipal affairs, educa-
tion, a limited amount of financial independence must
assuredly be amongst the transferred powers. But the com-
plicated and somewhat pettifogging network of entanglements
and checks proposed by the Montagu-Chelmsford Report
ought not to be considered. Far better is it that the powers
delegated should, to begin with, be strictly limited in extent
than that they should be wide and hampered in their exercise,
because by the one plan they can be extended as a natural
process upon experience ; by the other, the Imperial authori-
ties are being endowed with new powers of control and con-
tinued in old ones which, if effective, will be justified and
therefore continued, but if not effective will be irksome and
lead to trouble and division between the foreign and the
Indian administrations.
British policy in India has acquired the reputation of with-

holding with one hand what it gives with the other. One
hears in India a universal complaint that we deny to the
heart what we offer to the ear. Our fault has been to give
with reserve. It is a bad policy. We must give what we
do give without reserve. If we cannot give much, neverthe-
less let us give it and let further gifts be dependent upon the

way in which previous ones are used. This is true particu-

larly as regards The Imperial Legislature must
finance.

protect itself
by securing claims upon such income as
first

the Land Tax, Customs duties, and so on; it must also retain
powers to co-ordinate Provincial finance in such a way that
poor Provinces may not be hampered by their poverty. But,
these safeguards laid down, the responsibility of providing
a Provincial Budget can be safely left, and ought properly
to be left, to the Provincial Legislatures, though I think a
very useful end would be served if all the Provincial Budgets
were made the subject of discussion at an all-India financial
94 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
conference held each year before the Budgets are presented
to the Legislatures for consideration. These matters, how-
ever, relate to the art of government rather than to the system.
Here the question of checks has to be considered. The
Montagu-Chelmsford Report finds these in Viceroys, Governors,
and Executives. In no more inappropriate direction can
checks be looked for. Of course veto and suspension must
be powers held in reserve by Viceroys and Governors, but
these cannot be the habitually used parts of the mechanism
of government. The check must be within the representative
system itself, and in India there should be no difficulty in
devising this. The Provincial Legislatures are in direct
touch with electing bodies which are to be the best repre-
sentatives of Indian thought and need that can be devised.
But what of the Imperial Legislature ? No direct election
is possible for it. I believe that the bulk of its members
should be elected by the Provincial Legislatures as the American
Senate used to be elected, with, at first, a limited number of
members nominated to represent interests that are common
to India. If the expert bureaucrat can point out the com-

parative inferiority of such a body, the reply is both easy

and conclusive. We are now definitely encouraging the
development of self-government and we must make a begin-
ning, and in doing so we recognise quite frankly to ourselves
that we cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. This
body, in addition to its Imperial work, should have the power
of suspending Provincial legislation referred to it by the
Governor or Viceroy in Council. Nothing of any grievous
importance could get over such a check, provided we can
convince these Councils of their responsibility. There might
be a special Committee of the Imperial Legislature to con-
sider Provincial Legislature, or other means might be devised
to make the responsibility real. But again that belongs to
the art of government, and I am most concerned here with
its principles.
 CHAPTER VIII

THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE

If the Viceroy is the ceremonial symbol of the British Crown
in India, it is the Collector who is the seat of authority so far
as the mass of the people is concerned. He is the great
sahib whose nod is to be obeyed, who gives and withholds,
who taxes and administers justice, before whom all the
great people of the village
— bunyas
and policemen, headmen
and accountants, bow. He is the mighty one to whom the
most flowery language and ornate titles apply. In fact in
his care are the people of India. He, or those who obey him,
orders the life of the people, and next to the Creator and the
laws of nature, he comes in the hierarchy of arbitrary powers.
Those above him are too remote from the life of the people
to be anything but indefinite gleams, those below him are
outwardly and visibly his servants.
He is successor to the clerks sent out by the Company to
manage the factories, and his predecessors made enormous
fortunes by private trade and brought the word " Nabob,"
which was applied to them, into disrepute. When Clive tried
to purge him of corruption he objected, and revolted against
the interference with his power and privileges, and the most
kindly of his critics have a suspicion that prestige and privilege
have not ceased to influence him perhaps a little too much
since. His latest manifesto against the Montagu-Chelmsford
Report is evidence that that tradition has not died down yet.
" "
The title of Collector which he holds at one stage of his
him up with Warren Hastings, who appointed
service links
him when the Company undertook the collection of revenue
95
96 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, and also embodies the char-
acteristic of Indian administration that it is based historically
on fiscal responsibilities.
He is being shorn of some of his authority perhaps. In
the old days he ruled everything, but now there is subdivision
of power. The Forests, the Public Works Department, and so
on, have been taken from him, and he sometimes complains
on that account. Some people also want to take from him
his judicial authority on the ground that it is bad constitu-
tional practice to unite judicial with executive power. This
he resents still more. He comes of an official ancestry which
was indeed absolute. He a society in which his office
lives in
concentrates in itself all the regal functions of the district,
and be it remembered that the area of an Indian District of
average sizeis 4,430 square miles.

He
originated, as I have said, in 1772 when Warren Hastings,
having to face the double problem of collecting revenue and
of organising some proper system for the administration of

justice in Bengal, appointed District Collectors for that

double purpose. The constitutional objection to the union
of these two functions in one officer was at once taken, and
Warren Hastings accepted its validity and separated them.
Then came difficulties. The courts were used against the
revenue authority, and the complementary functions became
antagonistic. Whatever the theory might be, the Executive,
put in the position of being the foreign administrator of
Bengal, was compelled to secure some uniformity of will
between itself and the judiciary, and when Lord Cornwallis
went out as Governor-General in 1786 he retraced the second
step of Warren Hastings and restored the Collector to his
double authority as chief magistrate and revenue official.
As chief magistrate he is responsible for the order of his
District and supervises the work of its courts even if he
does not do much magisterial work himself but, being ;

responsible for the order and peace of his District, he is

in command of the police and manages the jails. Though
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 97

the creation of separate departments has relieved him

of direct responsibility for Forest, Public Works, Sanitation,
Education, and, to some
extent, jail administration, his
peculiar position executive
as head of the District keeps
him in touch with all these. On his way up through the
Service he determines the land assessment, and when on that
work he lives in the Districts and mixes freely with the people
if he a wise man. This is one of the great attractions of
is

his life. —
He keeps an eye and a hand on municipal and—
local government institutions and is, as a rule, chairman of
the District Board which maintains roads, public buildings,
and so on. He is the eye of the Government and its tongue.
He has to keep his finger on the pulse of his District, and nothing
of any importance is supposed to happen without his know-

ledge. A sparrow ought not to fall without the incident

coming to his ears. He manages estates, compiles returns of
prices and produce, adjudicates on rent, makes loans. Upon
him the burdens of famine relief fall. I have attended a
conference on famine measures and by the end of the day
found the Collector to be an unemployment committee, a
president of the Board of Trade, a railway director, a Minister
of Labour, an engineer. If he has a difficult District say,
—
one where Hindus and Mohammedans do not get on very
—
well together he requires to be a man of unusual tact, influ-
ence, and resource. At best, he is apt to be overwhelmed
in an oppressive network of details and overborne by endless
perplexities and ceaseless cares. Should famine or plague
descend on him, the torrents of adversity fall upon him and
day and night are as one to him. If he gets irritable, if he
becomes a cynic and takes to the philosophy that all life is
drudgery, and no drudgery rewarded, who can blame him ?
In old days this life was toned by some freedom. He could
do things off his own bat. He was more of the people, he
chose consoling wives from them, he was isolated, he was
anything but a clerk but now there is a string about his
;

leg which is frequently pulled, he is becoming more and more

7
 98 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
a reporting agent, his desk work is greatly on the increase,
the drudgery gets harder. He has to combine the qualities
of a great politician with the patience and abilities of a
first-rate clerk, and he finds it difficult to do so.
have seen him in the steaming heat of a Lower Bengal
I
District sitting hour by hour at his desk reducing the bulk
of great files piled in front of him, not one of which contained
matters that would awaken his jaded mind to a living interest,
whilst on his walls were the mouldy stains of the terrible
damp of the season of rain. I have been with him in camp,
and have seen the same thing, files, files, files. I have looked
on whilst local
magnates, district boards, deputations of
allkinds, the aggrieved, the suppliant, the office seeker,
came to see him. I have felt pleased to drag him away for
an hour's change some temple, or for a walk
in the forest, or
before darkness (knowing, perhaps, he would have to suffer
for it), and whilst a recipient of his generous (his generosity
often made me ashamed) hospitality I have wasted his time
(inthe hope that I was really not wasting it) by leading his
thoughts away from his drudgery. The District Officer is
indeed the tortoise which supports the elephant upon which
Indian government rests.
He probably comes of a family that has been connected
with India for generations, or India and the Indian Civil
Service allured him. Heaven pity him if he came here because
he had to eat bread and could not get the post he wanted at
home. I fancy that the best men came out under the enchant-
ment of India and the Service. They were tested by a stiff
examination, but for the rest they were thrown upon chance.
The restless mind of man has always been hankering for
a better test than written answers to questions which can
—
be crammed questions which ingenious professional crammers
who charge high fees can often anticipate. There have been
suggestions that moral character, physique, personal address,
athletic records, captaincies of school teams, education at a

public school, attendance at residential colleges, should be

 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 99

valued and the marks awarded added to those won on exam-

ination. The fact is that the real intention of these schemes
is to make the Service select rather than efficient, and a

study of the Indian Civil Service List shows that nothing is

an improvement on the test of ability and application imposed
by a competitive examination. It is essential that any test
applied to applicants for such posts as those of the Indian
Civil Service should be uniform, and these character tests
are capricious and uncertain, the certificates and records
being of unequal value according to the schools to which they
refer and the masters and other referees who give them ;

they should also be such as every one possessing the qualities

which they are supposed to reveal has an equal chance of
being able to meet, whereas many admirable men were never
school captains, and in early life were deprived of the oppor-
tunity of attending certain types of schools (the virtues of
which, by the by, are by no means universally accepted) ;

further, the qualities tested should not be those which are at

varying stages of development in young men of the same
age, as, for instance, self-confidence, the finest and best forms
of which often show themselves later than the period when
men have to undergo the ordeal of competitive examination.
Once, when I was pursuing inquiries on this subject in India, I
put the question to a head of a Province and two of the
admittedly ablest men in the Service of the Province whether
they thought they would have done well in any such supple-
mentary system of tests and they all agreed they would not,
;

one being quite definite in his opinion that had he been scrutin-
ised for the purpose of discovering signs of these qualities
when he passed into the Service, he was so shy and unused
to social companionship that he probably would have been
rejected. The examination test may not be fully satisfactory.
The papers set are too often mere book papers, and too rarely
searching tests of original ability and intellectual common
sense. In this respect our Civil Service Commissioners have
not done their work particularly well. But when improved in
 100 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
ways that are obvious to any one who studies a series of those
papers, they remain the fairest test to the competitors and
the most satisfactory to the State.
When the examination has been successfully passed, the
future Civilian undergoes a further training at the expense
of the State. To this day this does not seem to be satis-
factory,and has been frequently changed. Before going to
India the Civilian should know something of Indian life and
civilisation so as to sharpen his curiosity and enlighten him

regarding the people whom he is to help to govern he should

;

be taught something impartial about their politics as they

will present themselves to him in India, and in his studies
he should be protected against the prejudices and errors
which will surround him like an atmosphere so soon as he
sets foot in India ;
he should acquire some knowledge of the
classical language of the country both for his use and his
culture ;
he should be made to master the details of the
machinery of government in which he is to find a place.
During this stage he should be taught these subjects not as
though he were attending a trade school, but as though he
were at a university. And yet he should be taken out of
an academic atmosphere and taught by his surroundings to
acquire the condition of mind of a man who has already gone
out into the world. There is far too much of the mere univer-
sity in this part of the Civilian's training. I say nothing of
studies in law and its practice. Only very general principles
should be taught during his training. The young Civilian
ought not to be put too soon to magisterial duties, and with
proper tutelage on the spot he can acquire enough knowledge
of law to serve his purpose. If he desires to pursue a career

upon the judicial side, he should return to England for detailed

training.
When he arrives in India, he is posted to a district for
training as an Assistant Collector, and in due course holds
a responsible post. Then the world is before him. It is
a hard, but by no means an unpleasant one if his heart is
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 101

in it. He a great man, he has power, there are prizes

is

for the winning, his pay is certainly not mean. As self-

government develops he will enjoy more and more the de-
lightful stimulus of the statesman he has many of those
;

difficultiesto surmount which call for good judgment and

bring their rewards of satisfaction to the able man. His
work is not to be compared for a moment in its interest and
variety to that of a Government office at home. If he wants
routine he should stay at home if he wants life he should
—
;

go to India making sure first of all that India calls him, and
also making sure that he now understands that a still greater
change impending which will rob the Service of its character-
is

istics ofa dominating governing authority.

But the Indian Civil Service is more than a collection of
individuals. It is a bureaucracy with a corporate life, a

machine, a free masonry. It moulds the raw recruit into its

own image. It has to work as a whole. When communi-
cation was difficult and Indian conditions resisted centralisa-
tion, the individual had freer play. He was a human being
in touch with human beings, but, though that may still be
retained, too many officers become wheels in a mechanism
working by rule and regulation. The machine reduces its
parts to mechanisms. The tendency has been to centralise
the working, and that was the fundamental fault of Lord
Curzon's rule. The machine of government has become a
thing apart, and by separating itself from the organic life
of India it has over-emphasised the fact that India is ruled
by foreigners. The evolution of such a system is inevitable.
I have described its the work of its represen-
results in
tatives. become all-powerful; not a sparrow
Secretariats
falls but is recorded, reported, and re-recorded, docketed,

initialed, and minuted not a suggestion emanates from be-

;

low but regarded with suspicion or hostility as something

is

of a foreign origin not a thing is done without involving

;

the whole machine in the doing of it. Then, it is the

Government on one side, and the people on the other. Such
102 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
is both the mechanism and the psychology of the Service,

and the one cannot be separated from the other. All this
is unhealthy, is bad government, cannot last. It must end
both in a revolutionary decentralisation and in a much closer
association of the people with the government.

One of the great problems of the Civil Service is how far

and upon what conditions the Indian should be employed
in it. To the Indian, the Royal Proclamation of 1858 is a
kind of Magna Charta, a Bill of Rights. He is never tired
"
of quoting the pledge of the Queen And it is our further
:

will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or

creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our

service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their
education, ability, and integrity duly to discharge." As
early as 1833 a clause was inserted in the Government of India
Act providing that no native shall be debarred from any office
"
solely on account of his religion, place of birth, descent, or
colour." But twenty years later, when Parliament again
reviewed the government of the Company, it was found that
the clause had been a dead letter, and that the Company
intended that it should so remain. John Bright said :
'

" From that time to this no

person in India has been so em-
ployed who might not have been equally employed before
that clause was enacted and ... it is clear that this most
;

objectionable and most offensive state of things is to con-

tinue."
The Act of 1853 imposed competitive examination as the
way of entry to the Civil Service, and an attempt was then
made to have examinations in India simultaneously with
those held in England. There was an interesting debate on
the subject opened by Mr. Rich.
8
The proposal was sup-
ported by Lord Stanley, Mr. Bright, and others, but failed to
carry. When after the Mutiny the Government passed to
1
Hansard, 127, p. 1184, June 3rd.
Ibid., 129, July 22nd and July 25th, 1853.
«
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 103

the Crown, the Secretary of State appointed a Committee

to inquire into the subject of the employment of Indians,
"
and, having decided that they should be employed to as large
an extent as possible consistently with the maintenance of
British supremacy," it pointed out that, though there was no
"
legal bar, practically, however, they are excluded," owing to
" the
difficulties opposed to a native leaving India and residing
"
in England for a time." The Committee had no hesitation "
in recommending simultaneous examinations. The Civil
"
Service Commissioners concurred and did not anticipate
much difficulty in arranging for this." But nothing was
done, and this report of 1860 seems to have dropped out of
the records of the Government of India and has not been
reproduced amongst the papers that have been published
officially on the subject.
Meanwhile the subordinate or Uncovenanted '
Service was
being recruitedby Indians, though in 1 870 the Duke of Argyll,
then Secretary of State for India, complained in a dispatch
that the superior appointments in that Service were being
filledby Englishmen. In 1870 an Act was passed requiring
the Governor-General to frame regulations by which Indians
who had not passed an examination might be put into the
Covenanted Service. But the Government of India would
not move. Reminded again and again by the Secretary of
State of the provision of the Act, it took four years to respond,
and when the regulations were sent to London for approval
"
they were found to place too narrow a construction upon
the statute." In a note written by Lord Lytton on
1
The Services became known as Covenanted and Uncovenanted, because
the higher posts were reserved to the Indian Civil Service by statute (1861),
or were the subject of a covenant. The Uncovenanted Service ranged from
Deputy Collectors and Extra Assistant Commissioners down to Tahsildars
and Myooks, and on the judicial side included subordinate Judges and Munsifa.
A Service with such an inferior bottom was bound to be degraded. As the
result of the recommendations of the Public Service Commission of 1886-87
the Uncovenanted Service was classed as the Provincial Service, to which
were assigned the superior subordinate posts and the subordinate Service,
and the Covenanted Service became the Indian Civil Service proper.
104 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
May 30th, 1878, to a disgraceful dispatch sent by the Govern-
ment of India that year proposing to close the Covenanted
Service to Indians, the whole of this sorry story is reviewed,
"
and this is the summary of it Since I am writing confi-
:

dentially I do not hesitate to say that both the Government

of England and of India appear to me, up to the present
moment, unable to answer satisfactorily the charge of having
taken every means in their power of breaking to the heart the
words of promise they had uttered to the ear." The dispatch
was rejected with something like contemptuous anger.
A puny system of scholarships for Indians to come and study
in England was established and then withdrawn, and in 1879
rules were at last framed, and upon them the
" "
Statutory
section of the Service was built up, beginning in 1880. A

proportion of new appointments not to exceed one-fifth was

to be filled by Indians nominated by the Governor- General
in Council from nominations made by the local governments,
a condition being that the nominees were to be of good family
and social standing. Altogether 69 places were filled in
this way but as the men had not the educational qualifica-
;

tions or the general ability to perform their tasks, the scheme

was foredoomed to failure and fell into disfavour. It had
never met with the approval of Indians, and it strengthened
—
the opposition as in some quarters it was meant to do of —
the British elements to any infusion of Indians into the higher
Service.
The Public Service Commission of 1886-87 opened the next
phase. It recommended that Indians who had done specially
good work in the lower Service should be promoted to posts
in the higher Service. In consequence of this, and after the
usual delay which has caused so much damage in India, rules
were issued in 1892 by which certain posts held by the superior
Service were listed and were made available for promotions
from below. There are now 61 such posts for the whole
of India. This is known as the system of " listed posts."
Men thus promoted do not enter the higher Service, but
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 105

to two-
simply hold these posts and are paid salaries equal
thirds paid to Europeans.
This is the system in force at the moment of writing, and
the history of its growth reflects no credit on the Government
" "
of India. It has yielded better results than the Statutory
Service, but it is far from satisfactory and the Commission
which reported in 1917 proposed to abolish it. Its great
drawbacks are :
(1) men
appointed to listed posts do
the
not pass into the higher Service, and therefore always remain
(2) the men appointed are too old
inferior ;
to fill their places
with energy (3)
;
the men have fallen into the grooves of the
Provincial Service and have lost self-confidence and initiative.
In a sentence, it is not for the good of the State, and it will
not be accepted as satisfactory by Indians, that posts in the
higher Service should be set aside as prizes for old men. Every
man in the higher Service must feel himself to be a member
of the Service, must feel in himself its spirit, and must be held

by his colleagues on terms of trust and equality.

Meanwhile the English door was being used by some Indians
who were fortunate enough to be able to come to England and
attend an English University. One passed in in 1878, the
second in 1882, two in 1885; from 1888 there has been an
unbroken stream, the largest number passing in any one year
being seven in 1899.
The position may be seen in this way. In 1913 there were
2,501 posts under the Indian administration carrying a salary
month 2, 1 53 were held by Europeans,
of over 800 rupees per ;

106 by Anglo-Indians, 242 by Indians including Hindus and

Mohammedans. There were 11,064 posts with salaries of
200 rupees per month and upwards, 4,898 being held by
Europeans and 1,593 by Anglo-Indians. Or again, the
position be stated thus
may of the 200-rupees posts and
:

upwards 42 per cent, were held by people of unmixed Asiatic

descent of those of 500 rupees and upwards only 19 per
;

cent.;
of those of 800 rupees and upwards only 10 per cent. ;

of those of 1,000 rupees and upwards only 8 per cent. It

106 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
is true that these percentages are increasing, but the pace is
terribly slow. On the assumption that teaching the Indian
how to govern himself is an essential part ofour work in
India, the record I have just been giving is more than dis-
appointing.
The Provincial Service is now practically altogether in the
hands of Indians and Anglo-Indians, Europeans being appointed
only with the sanction of the Government of India, and all
the recruitment is made in India. In 1913 only 56 Europeans
were in this Service of 2,432 posts, 54 in the Executive and
two in the Judicial Branch. None were employed in Madras,
the United Provinces, and Punjab, one judicial officer in
Bombay, eleven executive officers in Bengal, fifteen in Bihar
and Orissa, nineteen on the Executive and one on the Judicial
branches in Burma, three executive officers in the Central
Provinces and six in Assam. As Deputy Collectors and
Assistant Judges these men do the greater part of the detailed
work of Indian administration and though everything they do
;

is subject to supervision, they require to be men of ability

and probity. A race could not carry these responsibilities

if it wereto do that and nothing more. Many of these
fit

men put young into the superior Service would work in that
Service as well as they do in the lower one.
Wehave to admit without any cavil that the Government
of India has been opposed to the general employment of
Indians. The politicians at home have regarded India as a
political problem, the Governors in India have regarded it
as an administrative one. They have been unwilling to
surrender or share authority, and so when Acts and resolu-
tions have been passed by Parliament liberalising the adminis-
tration of India, their application has been delayed and their
intention twisted. Nothing has ever been fully catried out.
The Act was not carried out at all the Proclamation
of 1833 ;

of 1858 when translated into Government of India resolu-

tions was pruned until it was a mere stump the Act of ;

1870 lay useless for nine years, and then when the Govern-
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 107

ment of India was forced to act upon it, it was not faithfully
carried out the Report of the Commission of 1 887 was
;

not touched for three years and then the Government used
itto limit the privileges which previous discarded statutes
and dispatches had given to the Indians. In this resistance
we see several influences. There is the very human one of a
Service knit together in race and dignity unwilling to welcome
aliens in custom, habit, and race into its midst, even if these
aliens are the natives of the governed country ;
there is the
feeling that efficiency will suffer if the Service is not kept as
it is, and the unsatisfactory methods hitherto taken to put

Indians into it gave that feeling some appearance of reason ;

there is the assumption that whilst the British occupation

of India remains, a nucleus of British administrators is

necessary, and that the best form for that nucleus is a

comparatively small superior Service retaining in its hands

District supervision and legislative authority.
With the House of Commons at home passing liberal measures
and the Indians welcoming these manifestations as the
dawning of new Government in India could not
days, the
state definitely and emphatically what its feelings were,

except in dispatches more or less private like that of 1878 to

which Lord Lytton wrote the angry note from which I have
quoted. All it could do was to delay and prune. But its
great bulwark was the English examination, not only its
place, but its nature. It would be a long time before Indians
would or could go to England in sufficient numbers to take
many places in the examinations, and the examination itself
was so Western, more particularly in its languages, whether
classical or modern, and Oxford so dominated the minds of
the Civil Service Commissioners, as was seen by the scheme of
marking the examination papers, that nothing but a whole-
sale breakdown in British intellect or a complete destruction
of the attractions of the Indian Service to university
graduates
could enable Indian candidates to secure very many places.
As India had become the possession of the Indian Civil Service,
108 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
so Oxford endeavoured to secure the Indian Civil Service as
its perquisite.

To put an end to this and to make Government pledges

effective, Indians asked for simultaneous examinations. At
first there was little formulated opposition The expedient
was supported by an official committee in 1860, the House
of Commons passed a resolution in favour of it in 1893,
and this resolution was accepted on behalf of the Secretary
of State. Then the opposition was formulated. It had a
1

great margin of trivialities. On account of the variation of

time, it was impossible to have the examinations simultaneous,
and examination papers could be sent by cable from where
they were first disclosed, and candidates in, say, Calcutta
could see them before going inside the examination rooms !

And so on. Two objections, however, were not absurd. If

there were an open competition in India there would be no
guarantee that any British candidates would be returned at
all, and the British nucleus would disappear further, the ;

examination would not be good for Indian education, as its

influence in India would be to make university education
conform to the Civil Service examination papers. The second
objection was, curiously enough, urged by men interested in
British Universities, though Oxford in particular has always
been anxious to have these Civil Service examinations attached
to itself. The theory of the examination is that the papers
should test a good university education, and that view is shared
by the Civil Service Commissioners. That is forgotten by
those who make this objection. It was also the view expressed
in the famous memorandum drawn up by the Committee
which sat in 1845, of which Lord Macaulay was chairman
and Dr. Jowett a member. If for British purposes this
examination is a test of sound university education, why is
its influence in India to be to degrade university education ?
Our educationalists who are also interested in Indian education
cannot have the argument both ways. If they vary it, as
»
Hansard, 17, p. 1035, 1893.
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 109

they sometimes do, and say that examinations are now an

unhealthy influence in Indian education, they may be right,
but that does not justify the continuation of a system of
admission into the Civil Service which is unfair to India and
defeats the declared purpose of Acts, resolutions, and dis-
patches passed and written by Parliament and the Secretary
of State for nearly three-quarters of a century. It may, and

does, suggest that there is something wrong with Indian

education, which, however, is to be put right only by a change
in the spirit of the system.
The first argument is the one of real substance. But it
has been met by Indians, like Mr. Naoroji, who propose that
limits should be fixed to the recruitment in India, and the
Commission which reported in 1917 unanimously recommended
that nine places should be competed for in India every year.
Thus the principle underlying simultaneous examinations
is conceded, and the educational argument against them is

set aside. Nine may not be a sufficient number, but it may

be increased in time, and the English door is still open as
well.

The real problem which the recruitment of the Civil Service

raises is, must there be a British superior Civil Service if the
British connection is to be maintained ? and the answer
will depend largely upon what view one takes
of the nature
of that connection. one assumes not only that India is
If
to remain subject to the British Crown, but subject to British
administrative authority, one must conclude that there ought
to be a sufficient number of British in the higher governing
posts to give direction and tone to the whole of the Govern-
ment. Comparatively few are required to do this, but that
few must be maintained at all costs. If one, however, assumes
that India may remain subject to the British Crown and yet
govern itself with a genius and efficiency all its own, the
importance of the British nucleus in the Civil Service is not
so great. British Governors will then remain as in the
 110 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Dominions, but their position will be ceremonial and sym-
bolic rather than administrative.
This divergence of view is only the indication of a deeper
divergence. Are we to look upon India as a nation which is to
be moulded, as the generations pass, in Western or in Indian
moulds ? Is the transformation of India into a Britain the
service we are rendering mankind by our work there ? Or
can we not render a better one, and regard our mission in India
as being one for the liberation of the Indian genius ? We
found it crushed by its own errors and tyrannies, weakness
and disorders ;
we came to restore authority to it, to give
it back its rights and power of self-government. That cer-

tainly was our ideal during most of last century. If that be

our ideal still, it is best to let India gain power first of all
in Legislatures and gradually supply her own administrators.
For the Legislature is the will, the administration the hand-
maiden of the will; The administrator is the expert who,
taking his instructions from the will, works out details and
applications efficiently. The faculty to administer well
comes after that of forming opinion and expressing it. So
that in the interests of self-government in India, the country
would be well advised to keep its legislative powers ahead
of administrative authority, for it is more important
its
for it that efficient Europeans should supervise the edicts
of an Indian public opinion than that Indian administrators
should carry out British instructions. That thought, I

believe, should guide India in determining the general features

of the reform it is now to demand.
In any event we are coming very near to the limit to which
safe to reduce the British nucleus if we have no intention
it is

of welcoming India as an Indian State under the Crown.

And that at once suggests difficulties. The nucleus must
be one of exceptionally good men, for its number is of less
importance than its qualities. There never has been any
marvel in the fact that a thousand or two able and well-
trained Britishers, glorified by prestige and backed by a
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 111

powerful hidden authority, were sufficient to administer the

public affairs of hundreds of millions of Indians. The marvel
would have been had it been otherwise.
But India is losing some of its glamour. The discontent
of the Service is known in Oxford colleges, and educational
changes have obstructed the flow of the vigorous youths
who used to go from Scotland and Ireland, and were amongst
the sturdiest pillars of the Service. Some of the complaints
are peevish and do a great injustice to the Service, but others
are well founded. The material rewards of the Indian Ser-
vice are not so good as they were and with the opening up
;

of other attractive avenues of employment to university men,

India has to meet a keener competition. This is affecting
allthe Services, but conspicuously so the Civil and Medical
Departments. The blunder committed by the Civil Service
Commissioners in merging the Home and Indian examina-
tions has added to the difficulties of the situation, and men
are now going out who openly confess that they are taking
India because their place in the competition did not allow
them to choose the posts they coveted at home. This has not
gone very far yet, and can be stopped if wisely dealt with.
But the canker is there, and once such evil influences come
into play their effects suddenly become critical. I am not
sure but that they have become critical on the medical side.
This is a problem of the first consequence to those who
can see no chance of safeguarding Imperial interests in India
except by a British bureaucracy. They must do something
to maintain the threatened standard of Indian recruitment.
They must face the problem of pay, of privileges, of pen-
and they must in this way produce a material attrac-
sions,
tion for service in India which will eclipse similar attractions
at home or elsewhere. They must supplement this with
social attractions which will restore some of the vanished
satisfactionand contentment to the hearts of Indian Civilians.
Above all, they must produce in the minds of those from whom
they wish to draw their candidates an interest in India, so
 112 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
that they may hear the call of India. Upon this depends
the decision as to the age at which they should catch their
men. University convenience is not good enough. That must
be studied in relation to the aim.
In making these schemes and devising these plans for a
better recruitment, they would be under no delusion as to
what they are up against. They will have to meet the Indian
opposition which will grow, which has been greatly increased
by the events and emotions of the war, to an administrative
British bureaucracy, to the great increase in the expense of
Indian government they will have to surmount the dangers
;

of an increasing political and legislative power possessed by

Indians whilst they rigidly maintain a British-manned adminis-
tration ;they will have to remember that the economic value
of the men they want is likely to be very high in other Walks

of life, and that by offering them greater rewards they are only
putting up the market against themselves. We have now
reached a point when foresight and farsight are essential
ifwe are to do justice to ourselves in India. The war compels
us to survey the future and revise our policy with remote but
inevitable ends in view, and whatever conclusions the govern-
ing authoritiesmay adopt, let them be definite, let them be
systematised, and let them take into account all the factors.
For myself, I have come to take the other view. I believe
that the Imperial connection can be kept by a self-governing
India enjoying, with the appropriate modifications, Dominion
privileges of Home Rule. I believe our ancestors were wise
when they decided that ifIndians showed themselves capable
of filling the administrative posts of their own Government,
no obstacle should be put in their way. Mere polished
efficiency is not the end of our custodianship of India a ;

pax Britannica is not the end the;

end is Indian life, abun-
dant, responsible, spontaneous.
was a member of a Commission which inquired into
I
the Public Services and made certain recommendations on
the subject, but the new conditions created by the war made
 THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 113

the report obsolete before was published. Our conception

it

of the functions of the Service must now be altered. I then

thought of the possibilities of twenty years from 1914. The
twenty years have gone and twenty have been added to them.
The Indian Civil Service must conform far more to the con-
ditions and status of the Home Service, and must no longer be
recruited for the higher posts of the Executive. In the cir-
cumstances it is far better to institute simultaneous examina-
tions in India and Great Britain than pursue the scheme of
electing proportions here and there, for the reduced attrac-
tions of the Indian Service to Britons be expected to
may
reduce the quality of the men recruited here. On this sub-
ject, the discussion and proposals in the Montagu-Chelmsford
Report are altogether perfunctory and inadequate. If that
Report becomes the basis of legislation, the contention of the
Indian Civil Service that its status will be revolutionised is
unquestionably true. That Service will no longer rule India,
and the posts from which it now does the ruling will be taken
from it or will lose their prestige. It may be consulted, but
it will not decide. It will act not of its own will, but through
that of bodies elected in India and as this is not the time
;

for confused systems and undefined authority, with whatever

regret and misgiving we may contemplate the change, the

change is inevitable. The seat of authority in India is being
removed from the Civil Service to the Legislature, and we must
build up the system of government accordingly. Wisdom
compels us to see not very far off the end of the Civil Service
as we have known it, and that being so it also compels us to
begin without delay to create a new service which will carry
us through the transition stage from a British to an Indian
administration. To Indianise the Civil Service has become
necessary.
 CHAPTER IX
THE NATIVE STATES
The Native State is a sovereignty in which the Crown shares
to a varying extent, but in every case the foreign relations
of the State are the concern of the British Government. Also
the internal administration of the State would at once become
a matter of Imperial interference were it to be considered
subversive to the interests of either British or native subjects,
or were its tranquillity to be threatened either by bad govern-
ment or turbulence. It cannot make war ;
it cannot bind
itself to its neighbours. If its subjects are aggrieved against
a foreign power, that is a matter for the British Government,
not for the Native State. The protecting authority both of
the subjects of Native States abroad and of those of Foreign
States in the Native States is the British Government. The
degree to which the Native sovereignty extends has been
determined by no general principle, but by historical accident,
the size and importance of the States themselves, the terms
of the treaties made between the Imperial Government and
the Native rulers, other agreements and usages.
The Nizam of Hyderabad is the first of these rulers and
exercises the maximum of power. He issues his own coinage,
has a free hand as to taxation, and has absolute powers of
life and death. Some of the rulers of the smaller States have
little more than minor judicial powers and immunity from
British taxation.
As a symbol and embodiment of British sovereignty and its

responsibilities, there are political officers and residents in

every Native State, and cantonments of troops are stationed

114
 THE NATIVE STATES 115

at suitable These complicated relationships also

places.
necessitate arrangements which vary considerably
judicial
from State to State. On the other hand, the rulers have
accepted obligations to provide a certain force of troops which
could be used for purposes of Imperial defence. Before the
war broke out there were about 22,000 of these troops and
they were placed unreservedly at the disposal of the Imperial
authorities.
Of these States there are nearly 700, they occupy territory
of 675,267 square miles, or well over one-third of the whole

country, and their population is 70,000,000 or about two-

ninths of the total for India. Their population is in no way
different to that of British India they are simply the remnants
;

of the estates held by the rulers which for one reason or another
we attached without annexing as we spread from the sea to
the mountain barriers. Our friends we protected, our enemies
we absorbed. The Dalhousie policy of annexation was heroic,
but really neither side wanted it. It was in the interest of
the Native ruler to make peace with us ;
it was in our interest
to leave him responsible for the administration of his State,

provided he did not conspire against us and did his work of

ruling tolerably well. We kept as a power in the background,
and well in the shade out of sight. We had our represen-
tatives at the courts, and they were consulted by and advised
the princes, reported to the Government and took instruc-
tions from it. But the dignity of the princes was main-
tained and their responsibility was real, even when they
were too lazy and too self-indulgent to exercise it. That was
a definite policy, and so, when the Queen assumed the title
of Empress of India, Mr. Gladstone was particularly anxious
to receive from Mr. Disraeli a pledge that the new regal dignity
would in no way detract from that of the Indian princes,
and the pledge was given.
The Indian prince did not always respond satisfactorily
to the new conditions of luxurious security in which he found
himself under our wing. Nothing drew from him energy
116 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
and He was secure in his State, he had an ample
activity.
income, he had prestige and authority amongst his subjects,
he had a bad upbringing and a deteriorated and deteriorating
entourage, he had no traditions of public usefulness to spur
him. Hedid not belong as a rule to a very old family, and
his State had come to him by conquest or favour. His con-
ception of himself was that of a tax-receiver surrounded by
plotters and schemers, by flatterers and traitors that of a god
;

ministered to by hangers-on. He could not understand that

there was any difference between the income of his State and
his own. It was his private possession managed by agents.
His court was too often a maze of crookedness and sensuous-
ness, in which women generally played the leading part, and
through which he sank into physical, mental, and moral decay.
The peace and protection of Britain brought the Native State
to the condition of a fever-stricken morass where diseased
nature was prolific and gorgeous to the eye, but rotten at the
core and feeding on corruption. And British interests and
influence not infrequently increased the corruption. Such
was the parlous transition stage through which the Native
State had to pass whilst its rulers were being taught their
duties and responsibilities as the heads of their people and
the vassals of British rule, and whilst we were deciding whether
we should take it from them or teach them better ways.
Recently there has been a great change for the better. British
policy has been directed to pressing the Chief to make himself
responsible for the government of his State, and a new type
of Native ruler is arising. In him there is still a love of the
pomp and luxury of the past, but his mind has been moulded
and his outlook changed by contact with the education of the
West and its conceptions of the good ruler and good govern-
ment. The Chiefs' Colleges at Ajmeer, Rajkot, Indore and
Lahore have played their part (though on the whole a dis-
appointing one), but of much more importance has been the
general political atmosphere of India, the known views
of

the British Government, the personal contact between Delhi

 THE NATIVE STATES 117

and the Native rulers. Whoever looks at the reports of

administration issued from such States as those of Hyderabad,
Mysore and Gwalior will see on every page, not only the stamp
of the West, but the hand and mind of the East.
Saving a short relapse during Lord Curzon's vice-
for

royalty, the Native rulers are being encouraged more and

more to do their own work, in accordance with the spirit of
the British sovereignty no doubt, but as people sharing that
spirit and believing in its wisdom. In this connection, Lord
Minto said some pacificatory things to undo the evil that
Lord Curzon had left behind him, but his successor Lord
Hardinge widened the Minto declarations into principles of
policy. At Jodhpur, for instance, when, as almost one of
the last acts of his rule, he invested the Maharaja of Jodhpur
with ruling powers, he said: "We have recognised that if a
State is to be ruled justly and well, and to be a source of
real help to the British Empire, it is only through the ruler
himself supported by his sardars and people that these results
can be obtained. Irksome restrictions on the exercise of

sovereign powers are apt to chafe and irritate a proud and

sensitive spirit, with results disastrous not only to the ruler
and his people, but also to the Empire at large. We have,
therefore, made it our aim to cultivate close and friendly

relations with the ruling princes, to show by every means

that we trust them and look on them as helpers and colleagues
in the great task of Imperial rule, and so to foster in them
a spirit of responsibility and pride in their work which no
external supervision can produce. Trust begets trust and I
rejoice to say that in my dealings with the ruling princes in
India I have never found my confidence misplaced."
These are wise words, and they indicate the policy which
has been pursued quite definitely since Lord Curzon left
India. One of the reasons why Lord Hardinge was attracted
to Delhi as his capital and why in the building of the new
Imperial city he urged plans and expenditure on what seemed
to be a scale of only too characteristically oriental extrava-
118 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
gance, was that he might be nearer to the Native States and
thus be more frequently in their minds, and that the seat
of government might appeal to them as truly Indian in its
grandeur. One has only to look at a political map of India
to see how Delhi lies in the midst of what is still native in
India, and that when the British Government went there it
seemed to cut itself off from the alien settlements of British
race and merge itself in the dreams, in the ruins, in the tradi-
tions that to the great mass of the people are India. It may
be that the bureaucracy will defy the dreams, spoil the ruins,
and enslave the traditions but this in any event is certain,
;

that, supposing by some miracle there were established in

India an Indian Government sensitive to the thoughts of
the people and wishful to regenerate them, it could not make
the great coast cities its home from its very nature it would
:

seek prestige, authority, and appropriateness in Delhi or in

some similar place where the spirit of India still broods though —
it be amongst tombs.
The problem presented by these States is not an easy one
to settle. Some, like Hyderabad, are as large as a European
State ; some, like Mysore and Baroda, are almost as enlight-
ened in their government some, like Gwalior, show a complete
;

identification of and people on a liberal basis equal

ruler
to that of not a few Western Governments some, like the
;

Rajput States, are far more ancient than any existing European
monarchy and have preserved a dignity and a pride which
bankrupt those of any reigning European house.
Obviously, whoever tries to piece into a system the whole
administration of India must begin his work by endeavouring
not only to preserve these States, but to make their auton-
omy more complete. The very widespread British opinion
that the Native State isa backward and inefficient Govern-
ment is sheer vanity. In Hyderabad, a Mohammedan shows
how to reconcile Mohammedan and Hindu loyalty, and
in Gwalior aHindu ruler does the same in Baroda, Bikanir,
;

Travancore, and elsewhere, we have magnificent pioneering

 THE NATIVE STATES 119

work done in education in Mysore, experiments in education

;

and popular government have outstripped our own. Some

have more enlightened marriage laws, some have gone farther
than we have in protecting the judiciary from undue execu-
tive influence, some have shown us the way to establish a
flexible system of Income Tax. All teach us wisdom in land
taxation, the patronage of the arts (whatever their mistakes
may be, they have not made the unpardonably fatal one of
crushing or starving out the arts), industrial progress. None
of any consequence are opposed to political progress (except
in one instance or two where the rulers are old, and I know
of no case where their successors will be adverse to change) —
certainly none will resist a good British example in this respect
;

and the most enlightened of them very justly complain that

we have held them back. All, within recent years, have
shown great advances in the purity of their administration.
It is certainly a profound mistake to identify the survival of

a gorgeous ceremony and a court ritual of dazzling trappings

with the politics of the times when personal power and
tyrannical wills expressed themselves in that way. This
truth was borne in upon me with great force one day whilst
staying at one of these courts. I had seen much of the ruler
and we had discussed every Western political movement
from women's suffrage to Socialism. He was interested in
them all and held opinions upon them which showed that
none of them were new to him. But one fine morning there
was a State ceremony. The velvets and the jewels, the gold
and the silks, the scimitars and the headgear were brought
out, and the mind which was discussing Socialism the night
before was animating a body clothed in the pomp of ancient
days, ancient authority, and ancient ideas. This is the incon-
gruity of India, but let no cynical or superficial mind imagine
that the incongruity goes very far below the surface.
The head of the Native State is just as likely to be progres-
sive nowadays as the British bureaucracy, but, quite apart
from that, the advantages of indigenous government are so
 120 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
apparent, and the freedom and confidence which indigenous
—
administration enjoys things, for instance, can be done by
Indian rulers which would not be tolerated at the hands of a
—
foreign authority are so useful that not only ought the Native
State to be preserved, but, were that at all possible, it ought to
be multiplied, and, subject to their administration responding
in a general to the changes that must be made in Indian
way
administration, the existing States should have more powers
of self-government. In any event, far greater care should
be taken in selecting Residents —those representatives of the
Imperial authority who reside in the capital cities of these
States and act as tutors and guardians, as well as mere advisers,
to their Chiefs. These men too often are devoid of the qualities
which fit them for the delicate and which they
difficult office

fill, and and sense

their influence tends to stifle both initiative
of responsibility in Chiefs who perhaps at best have but little
of either, but who under certain types of Residents lose what
1
littlethey have.
It is quite absurd to say that self-government is incom-

patible with the status of Chiefs in these States in view of

the oft-expressed views or practices of the rulers of Mysore,
Baroda, Alwar, and others. Indeed, Indian self-government
would receive the hearty support of these personages. What,
then, ought to be the relation between these States and the
Indian Government, between the Chiefs and their Durbars
and Councils on the one hand, and the Viceroy and the Indian
Legislature on the other ?
The States are at different levels of political evolution,
and that for the moment bars a uniform treatment. But
considering how much the Indian Legislature influences
—
Native State policy the States, for instance, have no
tariff liberty, no separate system of posts and telegraphs,
1 " The attitude of the political officer, while ordinarily deferential in form
(though even that is sometimes lacking), is the attitude of a servant who
directs his nominal "
master, haughty, polite, impertinent, and ironioal
(Chailley, Problems of British India, p. 259).
 THE NATIVE STATES 121

and so on — the States should be represented, at any rate for

advisory purposes, on the Imperial Indian Legislature as
federated communities, and, where they have Legislatures
and Councils themselves, these Legislatures or Councils should
select the representatives.
It would be a mistake toput the Chiefs into organic relations
with the Indian Government. That could only be done by
either lowering their dignity or confusing the nature of the
Government. Rather, the Chiefs together with the Governors
of Provinces should meet in consultative Council, say once
a year, to discuss matters of common interest and co-ordinate
policy, so far as that is advisable, but not to come to any
binding decisions. Their meeting should be like that of the
crowned heads of Europe, and every encouragement should
be given to individual Chiefs to meet and consult at other
times. This should be done without waiting for represen-
tations on the Imperial Legislative Council, as that for the
moment may not be practical. Full recognition should be
given to these rulers in all matters of Imperial concern, and
their status of dignity and responsibility should be put in an
unquestionable place in the minds of the Indian Government.
Two important matters arise, however, in connection with
these proposals. The first is, that they modify the theory
that these States secure their independence only by refraining
from interfering in the affairs of British India the second
;

isa presupposition that the States are sufficiently large and

important to justify the distinction proposed for them and their
Chiefs.
The first point is really not one of substance. The Govern-
ment of India cannot do anything without influencing these
States, and it is far better to recognise the fact formally. The
Imperial Legislature will not deal with strictly Provincial
matters, and the presence upon it of several State represen-
tatives will increase rather than confuse its efficiency for the
work it has to do, even if it may be desirable to withhold
the power of voting on certain classes of subjects from these

\
122 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
representatives. It would be impracticable for each State
to be represented, but the States could form an electoral
college for the choice of a certain number of representatives
for the of each Legislature.
life

The second point

is one of greater difficulty. The status
of States now varies enormously. Some have direct access
to the Government of India, some have not the relations ;

of some are with the Indian, of others with the Provincial,

Government some are clearly independent, others are as
;

clearly not there is the Old India party and the New India
;

party ;Chiefs who still live in the Middle Ages and Chiefs
up to date in habits, dress, religion, and political ideas there ;

is Udaipur and Baroda, there is the State of Nablia and the

State of Gwalior ;
there are rulers educated at English Uni-
versities, and rulers educated in the female quarters. Obvi-
ously there must be a classification and grading of States.
This, indeed, ought to be made in any event, and should be done
by a Committee upon which the States are themselves repre-
—
sented by a Committee which will be directed to pursue
the federal idea and to improve the status of States, wherever
—
that is possible. When this is done and not until this is
—
done many of the fears which disturb the minds of the
ruling Chiefs that they are to lose their authority, that the
strained interpretations put upon treaties by the Indian
Government when dealing with weak rulers may be extended
to all, and similar suspicions which are now perfectly justified,
will be removed for good. The continued liberty of the
Native State and of its ruler does not depend upon a loose
connection, but upon a constitutionally defined relationship
within a federated India.
 CHAPTER X
FINANCIAL POLICY
I —Tariffs
When one tries to imagine what would be the policy of an
India in the government of which ascertainable public opinion
would have substantially more influence than it has now, one
of the first subjects which presses for attention is finance and
fiscal policy, and in this connection we must remember what
the nature of the representative authority will be for some
time to come. Its most prominent features and interests
will be nationalist and capitalist. The Universities and
Colleges and the greater Municipalities that will be represented
will give tone to the Legislatures, and the class from which
candidates will have to be drawn will be in the main that of
lawyers and business men. In the very first Legislatures
provision should be made for the representation of working-
class, cultivator, and co-operative interests, but I do not see
how, to begin with at any rate, this can be very effective.
It will in time gather authority as it goes through its appren-

ticeship, but in the meantime it will find some of the main

lines ofIndian political development set for it by the classes
prepared straight away to make full use in their own interests
of their political powers. The new India will be started by
nationalistand commercial minds, and so far as fiscal policy
is concerned they will agree. They will follow precisely
the same line of action as our own Dominions have done.
The economics of the nationalist are those of self-supply
and foreign exclusion the taxation policy of the commercial
;

classes is that revenue should be found as much as possible

123
 124 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
by customs imposts which, whilst protecting Indian industry
and securing for it high profits, will at the same time
supply revenue and ease the burden of income tax. Indeed,
as has been quite evident in recent financial debates in the
Legislative Council, these interests rather shirk the duty of
imposing direct taxation, are inclined to resort to loans, and,
like a French Budget Committee, fail in courage to make ends
meet.
The system of Indian taxation is an inheritance from past
political conditions modified by the methods of the British
rulers. The Hindu conception of the King's revenue was that
it should be levied from the income of his subjects in varying
proportions, and in fines and fees. A Collector-General
supervised the tax gathering, and he appointed local repre-
sentatives. The foundation of the system is to be found
in the Laws of Manu.
Traders' profits are to be taxed. One-
fiftieth part of cattle, one-eighth of grain (or a sixth or twelfth),
one-sixth of trees, ghee, honey, fruits, hides, earthern vessels,
belong to the king. And so on. At its best, the Hindu
system was excellent and surprisingly modern in its theory ;

at its what he could

worst, in practice, the tax-gatherer levied
and practised corruption and oppression. The barbarous
splendour of the Courts which Sir Thomas Roe and other
'

visitors have described was the result of tribute and taxation

outside the bounds of tax-gathering, and was made possible
owing to the theory that State revenue was the personal
possession of the ruler.
When the Company came, its first income was profit from
trade, but by and by it received political revenues. At first
2

it collected these revenues in the name of the Indian ruler.

"
They held their territories as vassals of the throne of Delhi ;

they raised their revenues as collectors appointed by the

Imperial Commission their public seal was inscribed with
;

1
Journal, Hakluyt Society (series ii. vols. i. and ii.).
*
The turning-point came in 1765 when Clive procured a grant of the
Diwani of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa from Shah Alam.
 TARIFFS 125

the Imperial titles ;

and their mint struck only the Imperial
coin." The inevitable evil of such a system is the dark thread
which runs through the story of Warren Hastings and Nun-
comar, and tarnishes the biographies of the great men and the
history of the great deeds which meet us at the beginning
of our Indian connection. The income of the State was to
"
yield profit to the shareholders, and Warren Hastings, with
an empty treasury, with an unpaid army, with his own salary
often in arrears, with deficient crops, with Government tenants
often running away, was called upon to remit home another
half-million without fail." '

For a time there was a confused jumble between the financial

policy of the Company as a trading concern and as a political
State. It sacrificed national interests in order to make profits.
It ordered the ploughing up of fields of poppies when its
stock of opium was sufficient and it did not want to depress
prices at another time, and for the same business reason,
;

it decreed the planting of poppy crops instead of grain. And

what was even more fatal to revenue, its servants on the
spot traded in their own interest and made fortunes on markets
which they manipulated and by bribes which they exacted.
Adam Smith's account of the procedure remains the classical
criticism of the faults of such a form of government. 1 It is
cold ;but the heat which would arise from a political con-
demnation of such a system was blown with hearty good-will
into the orations of Burke until they glowed like furnaces.
In the end, State revenue had to be separated from trading
profits, and this was finally done by the Act of 1813.
Twenty years later the Company was compelled to end its
trading transactions altogether.
But in the Budget, as elsewhere, the Company and the sys-
tems to which it had become heir still survive. If we take
a Financial Statement of the Government of India we can see

1
Macaulay's Warren Hastings.
*
Wealth of Nations, bk. iv. chap. vii.
126 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
how the revenue is derived and shall appreciate the problems
connected with it. That of 1915-16 showed a revenue of
£54,855,000, £21,000,000 of which came from the land ;

£3,000,000 from salt £5,600,000 from Customs

; £8,000,000;

from Excise £2,000,000 from Income Tax and £5,000,000

; ;

from the Posts and Telegraphs, Railways and Canals. On

the Expenditure side out of a total of £56,000,000, £22,000,000
was for military purposes and £24,500,000 for the cost of

government, including the collection of revenue.

Passing the Land Revenue for the moment, three things
strike —
one in this statement of revenue the Salt Tax, the
Income Tax, and the Customs. The Salt Tax has long been
regarded as a blemish on our Indian fiscal system. It is light
(when it was lowest, from 1907, it stood at 1 rupee per 82f lb.
and meant a tax of about 3|d. per head per annum), but
still it is no mean proportion of the income of Indian families.

Though salt taxation was known in India before, its present

history dates from the imposition of Clive and Warren Hastings

when the Company was hard up. It has been retained on
the ground that it is well that every Indian should feel the
cost of government. As a matter of fact he feels nothing of the
kind he just knows that the price of his salt is high, though
:

a necessity. But supposing there was something in this

salt is
notion of making everybody feel the cost of administration
(and there is nothing), it would only apply to a self-governing
people who may rightly be taught the financial consequences
of political acts. It requires a highly trained intelligence
to decidewhat are the consequences of political policy and what
are not, what consequences are worth bearing and what are
not, and so on through many other processes of accurate
reasoning. We know in this country what an appeal for
reduced rates and taxes generally amounts to. It is as a rule
an appeal to personal selfishness and shortsightedness against
a wise social policy. If the cost of government were to be
made a safeguard against folly, nations would be undone,
because bills come after the events and people show less
 TARIFFS 127

forethought in reckoning up the cost of great follies than in

demanding an estimated cost of cold wisdom.
In India, where the Government is a bureaucracy, even
this theoretical justification for the Salt Tax does not exist.
If the Indian salt consumer had all the wisdom necessary to
come to sound conclusions upon the cost of his government,
he has no power to alter it by one farthing. The Salt TaxW
'

is exaction and oppression and if the people understood it,

;
I

it would only breed discontent. It is a survival of the general

exploitation of India's poverty by a profit-making Company.

The argument for its retention illustrates the error so prevalent}'
in India, of assuming that the political wisdom of a Western
self-governing State is also political wisdom in an autocrati-
cally or bureaucratically governed one, and that a bureaucracy
has the same right to impose burdens on a people that a
representative Legislature has. The payers of the Salt Tax
have no more to say in Indian policy than the man in the
moon, and the price of their salt has no more influence on the
bureaucracy than the cost of their weddings.
On the other hand there is the Income Tax, levied first of

alltemporarily to relieve the charges of the Mutiny, but im-

posed as a regular part of Revenue in 1884. It is the repre-
sentative of the trade taxes imposed by the Moghuls, so that
those not engaged in agriculture should not elude the tax
collector altogether. Before the war, it stood at about 6£d.
in the £, but in 1916 it was raised to from 1\&. to Is. 3d. by
a sliding scale determined by the amount of income. The
yield of the tax has risen steadily, but that it is evaded in
a wholesale way is shown not only by the small sum which
itproduces, but by the further fact that the yield from Govern-
ment salaries is about one-fifth of the total. The import of
'

private merchandise by sea has risen from £64,500,000 in 1904-5

to £122,000,000 in 1912-13, the exports from £105,000,000
to £166,000,000 bank deposits have doubled the paid-up
; ;

capital in Joint Stock Companies registered in the country

1
1914-15.
 128 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
has increased from £26,782,000 to £50,698,000. But during
the same time the yield of the Income Tax has increased from
£1,260,000 to £1,936,000. It is true that the accumulation
of wealth which these figures indicate has been confined to a
comparatively small section of the people, but that is all the
more reason for a much greater State revenue being obtained
from it. This is one of the pressing financial problems of
India how to get at the wealth of the richer people and how
:

to make them yield a juster amount to the national revenue.

Indian revenues have always been taken far too much from the
![ poor, and the rich have got off far too lightly. It took us
a long time here to stop up the back doors by which Income
Tax was evaded, and we have not completely succeeded yet.
But in India we have hardly begun the task and are using its
difficulties as an excuse why we should not begin.
In the mind of the Indian manufacturer, the alternative
to a proper Income Tax is a tax upon imports. If Indian
commercial opinion determined fiscal policy, India would
be a highly protected State, and this would come about from
the ordinaryhuman motives of doing one's best for one's
own advantage. This is specially the case with the cotton
trade. But financial interest is here mixed up with national-
ism as it is in Ireland. The Indian is told that in days gone
by England deliberately ruined his manufactures in order to
" "
find a market for its own, and up to 1918 he has had proof
"
of his opinions in the arrangement by which, in the interest
of Lancashire," his native products have had to pay an excise

duty equivalent to the customs duty imposed upon cotton

imports.
For a long time the fiscal policy of India has been the
—
subject of conflicts between the Government sometimes one
is not very sure whether it was the Home or the Indian Govern-
—
ment and the manufacturing and nationalist sections of Indian
opinion. The contest centred round cotton imports. Cotton
is the one great machine industry in Indian hands, jute being

under British control. But Lancashire has important interests

 TARIFFS 129

in the Indian open door. From 1904-5 to 1913-14 inclusive,

the value of the manufactured cotton goods, including twist
and yarn, sent to India from the United Kingdom was no
less than £288,000,000 in the first of those years it was
;

£23,700,000 and in the last £39,800,000.* The Home Govern-

ment could not, in its political interests, afford to neglect
a stake such as that which these figures indicate, and it hap-
pened to believe in principles of international trade which
coincided with Lancashire's interests. As is usual, when
principles and interests coincide the world accepts the more
ungenerous explanation that the interests are the real ex-
planation of conduct.
When cotton production began to be of some importance
in India, about 1870, Lancashire cotton manufacturers became
alarmed lest the 5 per cent, ad valorem duty they then had
to pay * might prove to be a protective tax for Indian pro-
ducts and they moved at home to get Free Trade principles
;

applied to India. Free Trade held unchallenged sway

over the minds of British statesmen at the time, and it was
not only easy for them to listen to Lancashire, but to do what
it wanted
in the honest belief that it was not to Lancashire
they were giving ear, but to the best interests of India
itself. To offer any explanation except the latter one was
described by Lord Hartington in the House of Commons
in 1882 as putting the matter "on a false issue." In 1874
the Manchester Chamber of Commerce urged the Indian Sec-
retary to end the duty on cotton goods as it was disadvan-
tageous both to India and Great Britain, and a few months
later referred to the competition of Bombay mills that had been
started under protection. After an inquiry, the Government

1
Statistical Abstract (1916).
1
In 1858 when the Crown became responsible for the Government of
India, a 6 per cent, ad valorem cotton duty was in existence. This was
raised in 1859 to 10 per cent., and reduced again in 1864 to
7J per cent.,
and in 1871 to 5 per cent.
9
130 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
decided that 5 per cent, was not a protective duty, and it was
right.
In 1878 Indian finances were overhauled, and an attempt
was made to between raw and manufactured
differentiate
articles, between duties which were convenient forms of
in-

direct taxation upon consumers and those which acted as

protection to native industries. The customs were pruned
and engrafted by Free Trade minds, and those kinds of
Lancashire cotton which had to meet the competition of
—
Indian mills were admitted free not only, be it repeated,
to give Lancashire a chance on Indian markets, but in the
interests of Indian consumers.
The circumstances made it difficult for the Indian manu-
facturers to see the beneficence of the change, and it was warmly
criticised in India, the majority of the Viceroy's Council

protesting against the influence which Lancashire was having

on Indian policy. Indeed, that side of the Free Trade mind
of Lancashire appeared to be hypocritical, and the later events
in the story of cotton duties have only added to the Indian
doubts. In 1882 the cotton duties were completely removed,
but when the exchange value of the rupee fell, and the Indian
exchequer was again in great straits, the old 5 per cent, on
imports had to be reimposed in 1894—5. Lancashire became
active x
and in response to its agitation some details of the

Budget were altered, involving a loss of revenue to India,

and an arrangement come to by which an excise duty similar
to the customs duty had to be paid. That has been the rule
since. But the exigencies of war finance compelled the Govern-
ment to reopen the question in 1917, when, partly owing to
the desire of the Tariff Reform members of the Government

Philip Stanhope: "If there was

1
Cf. Hansard, September 3rd, 1895.

any thing more patent than another in the late appeal to the Constituencies,
it was the stern resolve of the people of Lancashire that this matter should

not be allowed to sleep." Lord Salisbury's despatch of 1871 on the subject,

together with this debate embody the facts and the arguments of the con-
troversy.
 *
TARIFFS 131

to get a contribution made to their policy, partly to unwilling-

ness to offend the nationalist interests of India during the war,
the House of Commons sanctioned an arrangement by which
British cotton imports should pay in India a duty of 4 per cent,
for which there should be no countervailing excise.
This is only a small beginning in the destruction of a system
which the Indian manufacturer has never accepted. It has

always seemed to him that, under the guise of Free Trade,

we have been upholding the old pernicious practice of mer-
cantilism and have been using dependencies for the purpose
of providing markets for our goods. The nationalist move-
ment took the same view. It felt quite accurately that the
financial policy of India was devised to suit British ideas
and sometimes British interests, that in any event it was
not always even the policy of the Indian Government, to say
nothing of India itself, but was sent out from home.
When Lord Morley increased the representative character
of the Indian Councils, the old position could not be main-
tained for long. Indian financial policy had to be devised
in India, even if, in the opinion of the Home Government,
India was wandering from the paths of economic wisdom, and
Lancashire interests were being damaged. So no one was very
much surprised to find that the Finance member, in intro-
ducing his second war Budget (that for 1916-17), announced
the inevitable departure. It was not to be taken then because
when the war was over the whole question of fiscal relationships
for theEmpire itself, and for it in relation to the world, would
have to be considered, but a pledge was given that the old
policy was dead and that Indian opinion would influence
Indian fiscal arrangements in a way which had hitherto been
1
denied to it.

By the following year India had offered to us a contribution

1 The words used
by Lord Hardinge in his Budget speech to the Imperial
Council just before he left India were
" We are all
:
unanimous, I think,
as to what the best interests of India in connection with the cotton duties
may be, and I regard this declaration that I and my Government have been
132 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
of £100,000,000 to our war expenses, and part of the financial
scheme by which it was to be raised proposed an extra 4 per
cent, duty on imported cotton. Lancashire challenged the
departure, but was beaten, and I do not believe that the
1

decision then taken can ever be reversed.

A revision of the fiscal policy of India will be one of the first
acts of a Legislature representative of active nationalist opinion,
and the result will be a tariff in the interests of capital. Cotton
will be protected first of all on account of its financial influence,
and the 4 per cent, difference will probably be increased.
In a normal year the import of manufactured textiles will
be little short of £50,000,000 in value at pre-war prices. This
is the highest value of any group of imports. The next is
that of iron and steel and metals, which may be put down at
£15,000,000, most of which would be subject to a protective
duty. Then therea considerable miscellany of manu-
is

factures, varying from matches to umbrellas, in which Indian

manufacturers are interested and which is not likely to escape
the eye of Tariff Reformers. On the other hand, India is in
a specially strong position for imposing export duties on some
of its raw products like jute, which it will send abroad to the
— —
value pre-war rates of perhaps £20,000,000 per annum.
There is undoubtedly opportunity here for raising a consider-
able revenue, for easing the burdens of capital, for giving an
artificial impetus to industry, for meeting the demands of
nationalist economics and swadeshi.
Such a policy will provide some money for the Exchequer,
but not nearly enough to meet the increased expenditure
which India will have to face as the result of the programmes
of representative Legislatures. It will not be to India's
permanent advantage, and I am sure if the excessive influence

authorised to make in the name of his Majesty's Government as a far-reach-

ing pronouncement of statesmanship and full of hope and promise, implying
as it does the possibility, or I may even say the probability, of a broad re-
consideration of the fiscal interests of India from a new angle of vision."
*
Hansard, March 14th, 1917.
 > TARIFFS 133

of the rich classes of Indians engaged in commerce were

counterbalanced by the political activity of the common
people, the Indian demands for a tariff, especially on cotton,
would not be so conspicuous as they are. One thing is quite
evident. A tariff will not re-establish the old hand industry
of India nor help to revive village handicrafts. Factory and
machine production, native to India itself, will throttle them
as effectively as that of Lancashire and Birmingham has done
in the past. Protectionasked for the Indian capitalist of
is

Bombay, Ahmedabad, Calcutta, not for the artisan of the

mofussil. Its one certain effect will be to increase the pace

by which India is to become a great manufacturing nation,

and it ought not to be granted without concurrent legislation
protecting the wage-earners both in their factory and in their
housing conditions. Whoever has visited the working-class/*
districts of Bombay, with their squalid overcrowding, their /

filthy dens of disease, their insanitary puddles and stinks, \

will pause before welcoming or aiding any rapid strengthening \

of the economic influences which maintain them, until, at any
rate, a public opinion and body of legislation have been created
to protect the people whose labours will be necessary for the (

new factories. Social and labour legislation is so backward/

in India that any policy of rapid economic development can
only enrich a few at the cost of the very lives of the masses.
India ought to prepare itself by dealing with the human pro-
ducts of the factory system before the Government abandons
itself to a policy whose sole object is to extend factories as

though they were a sufficient end in themselves.

This policy of protection must therefore be considered in
relation to the industrial development of India and itsbearing
on politics. To imagine the backward Indian labourers
becoming a conscious regiment in a class war, seems to be
one of the vainest dreams in which a Western mind can in-
dulge. But I sometimes wonder if it be so very vain after all.
In the first place, the development of factory industry in India
has created a landless and homeless proletariat unmatched
134 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
by the same economic any other capitalist community ;
class in
and to imagine that this class is to be kept out, or can be

kept out, of Indian politics is far more vain than to dream

of its developing a politics on Western lines. Further than
that, the wage-earners have shown a willingness to respond
to Trade Union methods ; they are forming industrial associa-
tions and have engaged in strikes some of the social reform
;

movements conducted by Indian intellectuals definitely try

to establish Trade Unions and preach ideas familiar to us
in connection with Trade Union propaganda. A capitalist
fiscal policy will not only give this movement a great impetus
as it did in Japan, but in India will not be able to suppress

the movement, as was done in Japan, by legislation. As

yet, the true proletarian type of wage-earner, uprooted from
his village and broken away from the organisation of Indian

society, is but insignificant. It is growing, however, and I

believe that it will organise itself rapidly on the general lines
of the proletarian classes of other capitalist countries. So
soon as becomes
it politically conscious, there are no other
lines upon which it can organise itself; self-government
will make it politically conscious ; a capitalist fiscal policy
will draw from it a programme and a policy which will repro-
duce amidst the wage-earning population of India all the fea-
tures of what is known in Socialist quarters here as the class

struggle, and will create, if it is not granted to begin with,

effectiverepresentation on the Legislatures of proletarian
opinion and deprive the capitalist and professional sections
of a monopoly of power. To-day, economic political opinion
concerns itself with tariffs under self-government it will
;

also concern itself with social reform.

 CHAPTER XI
FINANCIAL POLICY {continued)

II—The Land Tax

In discussions of Indian Revenue, the Land Tax has oc-
all

cupied a special place. The tax, like so many other features

of Indian government, has a past dating long before the Com-
pany sent a servant to help it to make profits out of India.
The grain heaps of the people had to pay tribute to the needs of
the king, and the contribution was made in kind. Akbar levied
it in cash and during the last century, when British financial
;

administrators were importing order and certainty into the

Indian revenue, the method of fixing the land tribute was
the subject of much consideration when every local custom
—
was taken into account by men, however, who unfortunately
did not understand them.
To-day two methods are in force. One recognises the
ownership of landlords —
typified best in the Cornwallis settle-
ment of Bengal, commonly known as the " Permanent
"
Settlement the other proceeds upon the assumption that
;

the land is State property for which the cultivator pays

rent. The Land Tax of the former method is a true tax,
though a most unscientific one ; the Land Tax of the latter
is not a tax at all, but a rent, and its amount is not the
subject
of legislative enactment like an Income Tax or a Customs
Duty, but of valuation and arbitration.
When the Company became responsible for the adminis-
tration of Bengal, the Land Tax was subject to an annual
revision, no system of imposition was fixed, and the chaos
and uncertainty were made greater by the fact that between
135
136 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
the Government and the people was a set of tax farmers who
could impose their burdens pretty much as they wished.
The Court of Directors determined to end this, and, going
back to the Akbar method, decreed a ten years' settlement.
When the period ended, Lord Cornwallis reported that the
whole of the facts of the assessment had been ascertained,
and that it would be best then to fix a perpetual and unvarying
impost. That was done, the effect being that people who
had been tax farmers became landowners, and cultivators
who had been in reality landowners paying Crown dues be-
came landlord tenants. The reason why this change, with
all its unfortunate errors, was made was that Lord Cornwallis
and his investigators knew next to nothing of the customs
and systems with which they were dealing, and only under-
stood the English land system with which most of them were
directly connected. They read the Bengal position as though
"
Bengal were Sussex or Yorkshire, and produced the Per-
"
manent Settlement and the Zemindar landowner. In time,
the security of tenure which occupiers enjoyed under the
Government was lost. They were exposed to the will and
whim of landowners, and the condition of Bengal ryots and

Bengal rents became such that a series of Land Acts had to

be passed protecting the cultivator in the enjoyment of the
soil and the reward of his labour, and undoing to some extent
what Lord Cornwallis had done in his ignorance. Meanwhile,
the revenue ceased to enjoy any part of the increasing rents,
and the settled tax ceased to bear any relation to the capacity
of the land to bear a share of the cost of government. The
Bengal Zemindar became enormously wealthy on income
which ought to have been kept by the State, and when the
Income Tax was introduced he escaped it on the ground that
his income was derived from the land and was presumably
mulcted already by the tax which he paid. This system
"
holds good in about five-sixths of the present Province of
Bengal, one-eighth of Assam, one- tenth of the United
1

1
Since then Bengal has been reportioned.
 ; THE LAND TAX 137

Provinces, and a quarter

of Madras, representing in all about
l
one-fifth of the area of British India."
Viewed from any standpoint except that of the perhaps
privileged Zemindar, the Bengal system is unjust. It is,

however, as I have said, in accord with the notions of our

English landed governing class, and in 1862 the Secretary of
State decided that it should be made universal in India.
But the practical difficulties in the way were so great, the
sacrifice of State rights and the handing over to private pockets
as a gift what belonged to the Indian nation were so obvious,
that a combination of simple justice and common sense
thwarted the Secretary of State, and in 1883 Lord Kimberley
declared against the extension of the Bengal system. Ever
since then enlightened opinion has rejected it, and wr ere it
possible it should be undone. It is not now possible, but
Zemindar incomes in " Permanent Settlement " districts
ought to be subject to Income Tax.
There is another great objection to freeing the land of India
and allowing to be regarded as personal possession. The
it

cultivator has always been the prey of the moneylender,

and though the development of co-operative Credit Societies
is reducing this evil rather substantially, it is still in existence.
The history of the Punjab land legislation is an admirable
illustration of how this works, though the case of the Deccan
cultivators might equally well be cited.
When the Punjab was annexed, the lands were given back
to the peasants and a very low Land Tax was fixed. But,
largely owing to the rigidity of the annual payment and the
happy-go-lucky disposition of the peasant no doubt the —
—
product of generations of unsettlement the moneylender had
to come in to help over the lean years. His grip tightened
year by year, until, in 1894, when an inquiry was held in
one district, 20 per cent, of the cultivated areas had either
been sold or was seriously encumbered with debt, and in
other districts the percentage was even higher. Between
1
Imperial Gazetteer, vol. iv. p. 229.
138 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
1892 and 1896, over 50,000 acres had been sold to money-
lenders and as much to non-peasant purchasers, and these
sales had grown to 120,000 acres in 1899-1900, whilst nearly
300,000 acres were under mortgage. Thus the agricultural
basis of the Punjab was being undermined. To accelerate
this, the moneylender was adopting various slim devices
"
such as that of conditional sale," by which he became pos-
sessor of the mortgaged land were interest not paid within
a specified time. The conditions of the loans were in most
and could not possibly
cases extortionate to the highest degree,
be But the Courts enforced them until public opinion
fulfilled.
was roused and the Government had to decide, in 1900, to
prevent the sale of agriculturalists' land to non-agriculturalists.
Into the merits of the law I do not enter upon the extra-
;

ordinary agitation against it I make no reflections. I draw

attention to the fact that land in India enfranchised from
Government control tends to pass into the hands of money-
lenders, lawyers, non-agriculturalists, or to become so weighted
by mortgages that the cultivator sinks to slavery, and I put
that down as the explanation of how widely spread in certain
classes is a demand for a landlord system and an opposition
to land legislation. On the other hand, the Government
no doubt has its own selfish ends to promote. But whoever
speaks in the interest of the cultivator, whatever his views
may be upon the weight of the land tax, will not propose
to alter the system of land tenure or leave the cultivator
exposed to moneylenders and forced sales.
Under the system of temporary settlement the tax is usually
fixed for a period which may be as much as thirty years, with
variations in the payments should crop conditions necessitate
abatements. 1 The cultivator is then a permanent tenant
of the Crown and his right of occupancy is both heritable and
transferable.
The assessment requires a careful cadastral survey, and a
1 As the system of assessment gets more complete, seasonal variations
in the impost become more practicable and in fact more common.
 x THE LAND TAX 139

map kept in each village showing in detail the extent and

is

boundary of each field. A list is also kept of those who have

rights over each field, indicating the person responsible for
paying the tax and containing in some provinces, such as
Burma, the most complete information regarding tenures,
rights, and mortgages. This record has to be constantly
kept up to date.
The proportion of produce taken varies. Obviously where
irrigation is efficient the proportion is higher than where it
is not, for the rent of fertile lands is not only higher than that

of poor soil, but represents a higher percentage of the yield.

In estimating the tax which the land ought to bear, not only
isthe cost of cultivation taken into account, but that of
marketing, the productivity of the soil, the effect of existing
settlements, the value of tenants' improvements, the character
of the seasons, and so on, and it is upon the net value thus
arrived at that the tax proportion is fixed. Throughout
the whole of last century there has been a steady lowering
of the proportion of the net product taken. Thus in Orissa
in 1822, 83- 3 per cent, was taken in 1833 it fell to 70-75 per
;

cent. ;
in 1840 to 65 ;
in 1916 it was 54.
1
Fifty per cent, may
be taken to be the general rule. A mathematical standard
"
is the basis, but it is, or ought to be, applied with judg-
ment and sound discretion." Schemes are also in operation
preventing sudden increases as would take place upon
reassessment after a long period of years when the value of

productivity isincreasing.
The sums levied in this way appear to be colossal, but the
principle is sound, and
its apparent oppressiveness disappears
when the economic nature of the impost is understood.
real
It represents precisely what land reformers in this country and
elsewhere are now endeavouring to persuade our governments
to institute, not because they wish to oppress the cultivator,
but because they wish to help him, and because they believe
that they can prove that a system of private ownership of
1 221.
Imperial Gazetteer, vol. iv. p.
140 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
rents is bad for tenants and evil for the State. It provides
revenue which, if justly assessed, does not enhance prices
nor affect the standard of living. The same amount of revenue
raised in any other way would add to the poverty of the
people.
" "
In any event this is clear. The permanent settlement
of Bengal and elsewhere was unjust to the general Indian
tax-payer and was no benefit to the cultivator as such. The
condition of things which compelled the Government to pass
the Bengal Tenancy Acts, in order to save the ryot from
robbery and ruin, are an unanswerable argument against
those who wish us to believe that the Land Tax is the cause
of the poverty of the Indian cultivator. A rack rent is an
oppressive rent, but a true rent is not oppressive, and it had
always better be a State revenue than a private income.
Indian Nationalist opinion has never taken kindly to this
rent tax, and if it had a chance it would probably try to modify
it. The motive for this is complicated, and self- and class-
interest are not altogether absent. But apart from that, the
tax, when considered erroneously and simply as a tax, does
look oppressive, and in a complete indictment of British
administration and exploitation it does look formidable. I
defend it stoutly in principle, but I think it has been raised
too often oppressively, and that is where the Nationalist
attack cannot be rebutted. The error lies here. In theory,
the tax is a rent in practice, a rent should be fixed on an
;

open market by competition between competitors of a decent

standard of living and in relation to the amount, above that
standard, the land competed for will yield; in other words,
it should be assessed with that standard as its first charge.

The habit of the Government, very often under the pressure

of an all too limited exchequer, has been to exact from the
cultivator the uttermost farthing, over and above a standard
of life which has been much too low. In theory again, the
annual fixed revenue was supposed to be an average in which
both good and bad years were computed ; but whilst this
 ,
THE LAND TAX 141

assumed that the cultivator would average his own annual

expenditure, as a matter of fact he did not do so, and in bad
years he did not go to his savings, but to the moneylender.
Over-assessment and the rigidity of the payments, therefore,
have undoubtedly tended to impoverish the people, and a
system of revenue collection thoroughly sound in theory, and
meeting the requirements of unassailable economic doctrine,
has, in practice, become a grievous method of oppression
and the subject of formidable attack. The Government has
only illustrated the dictum that the owner of rents tends to
become the possessor of rack rents, and in this respect India
shows results remarkably similar to those of Ireland. The
power to exact rent has been used in both countries to keep
down standards of living, and the ryot and the cottar have
been doomed to illustrate how economic law is no respecter
of persons. The Punjab and Connemara have been suffering
from the same disease. The Indian Government and Irish
absentee landlords have been proving that there are no races
and creeds in economic law.
Against two forms of complaint we must be specially wary.
We hear much of the excessive " taxation " of India, and we
are frequently asked to condemn the way in which the Land
Tax levied because its total yield steadily increases.
is The
substance of both complaints needs to be critically scrutinised.
Taxation averages are always misleading, and in the case of
India, as I have already shown, large sums which are really rent
(probably £21 ,000,000 out of a total of £54,855,000) are included
"
in what is called Indian taxation." Again, a Land Revenue
yield, as it is a rent,
ought to increase automatically as culti-
vation widens and improves. If, in this country, a proportion
of rent had found its way regularly into the Treasury, an in-
crease in the yield year by year would have been a measure
of national prosperity, not of excessive Government imposts.
The real point of attack upon the levy of the Land Revenue
is not that it exists, but that it is more than a fair rent and
that it has been levied in such a way as to prevent a steady
142 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
heightening of the standards of life which would have tended
to absorb a part of the increasing productivity into the wages
and salaries of cultivators.
It is often said,and as a statement of historical fact it is
true, that our destruction of social custom in India by the
imposition of Western legal methods marked the beginning
of a new severity of oppression on the part of moneylenders,

lawyers, and other classes useful within well-defined limits,

but predatory when they overpass those limits. It was
alleged, for instance, during the agitation against the Punjab
Land Bill, that the banya, as the beast of prey, was created
by English methods. We destroyed the old psychology
and relationships, and we put in their place the new legal
relations between man and man we destroyed the community
;

and put in its place the law. So, it is argued that if we had
some kind of Permanent Settlement of the Land Tax, the
moneylender and the lawyer will return to their old functions.
That will never happen again. The change has taken place,
and the only way to meet its evils is to carry the system to
itslogical conclusion with the appropriate legal safeguards
under whose shelter a new moral and commercial relation-
ship will grow up. So, if, as regards the Land Revenue,
self-government were to follow the lines of Nationalism in

opposition (a consistency which the history of political parties

shows to be anything but inevitable), India would be put more
completely than ever under the hand of the exploiter, and the
Indian cultivator would be turned more rapidly than ever into a
landless man driven into the plague-infested chawls of Bombay
and Calcutta and compelled to swell the ranks of a proletariat
whose industrial conditions cannot be matched for evil
amongst the most miserable wage-earners in any quarter of
the globe.
This, however, must be said in extenuation of the attitude
which some of the leading Nationalists have taken up on this
question. The details of the Bills proposed have often been
—
bad those of the Punjab Bill certainly were they all em-
;
 ,
THE LAND TAX 143

bodied ideas of social relationship alien to the Indian mind ;

they were the proposals of Governments who were held respon-

sible for the evilsthey proposed to cure. If the Nationalists'
opposition has been tinged with some shade of class and per-
sonal interest, some desire to leave the land and the cultivator
open to capture, it is to be hoped that when they have to
settle with themselves the moral obligations of responsibility
in a way they have not yet had to do, nothing but the
sternest considerations of public policy will determine their
decisions, and that they will regard consistency as all
honest men do — as a very valuable possession, but not quite
so valuable as to be bought by the sacrifice of justice.
If the financial policy of self-government would make the
Land Revenue a real rent on the principles I have indicated,
it would be all to the good if it is to set up a new claim to
;

proprietorship it will be all to the bad. The following points

may be stated categorically as they indicate the policy which
ought to be pursued :

1. The Permanent Settlement typified in Bengal was wrong

not only politically, but economically, because it was neither
a State rent nor had it the advantages of a flexible tax.
2. The periodic valuation of land for the
purpose of fixing
a State rent-tax is sound economically, because it aims at
securing for the State values which have not been created
by the labour of the cultivator. The tax, however, should
never exceed an economic rent.
3. Whilst mistaken
impositions may impoverish the culti-
vator, that is not a necessary consequence of the Land Tax ;

and the cultivator is more impoverished under the Bengal

system unless it is guarded by a code of land legislation, and
even then his economic position as a tenant is not so good
as it is when he is an occupier under the State.
4. The
Land Tax requires elasticity of imposition and its
changes should be gradual.
5. Irrigation justifies a larger
percentage of the net pro-
duce being taken, because it is not what is taken, but what
144 THE GOVERNMENT OP INDIA
is left, which determines whether the cultivator is justly
done by.
6. The gross yield of the Land Tax ought to increase as the

agricultural prosperity of India advances, and as prices rise.

7. The economic condition of India is such that rent paid

into the public funds is necessary unless taxation of an oppres-

sive kind is to be imposed on consumers and paid from
the incomes (in the form of high prices) of ihe very poorest
grades of the people.
 CHAPTER XII

FINANCIAL POLICY (continued)

III —Expenditure
Turning to the Expenditure side of the Indian Budget, the
which arrests our attention is the cost of
first set of figures
"
government under the heading of Salaries and Expenses
of Civil Departments." This opens up a wide field for con-
sideration. It is an item which rises steadily, for India has

by no means produced a complete system of government

and for a long time prices have been going up. In 1903-4
it was £10,000,000 ;
was £18,000,000, not in-
in 1913-14 it

cluding pensions nor superannuation and furlough allowances

which added, in the former years, a further sum of £3,300,000
and in the latter, one of £4,000,000. This is a very large item
equal to two-fifths of the amount raised by taxation. It must
be admitted that the government of India is an expensive
affair.
The Indian Civil Service has been regarded for many years
as the most attractive of all civilian employment under the
Crown. It was something apart in its great distinction and
responsibility, and also in its ample remuneration. The time
when the nabobs returned gilt with gain, acquired by means
which did not bear the clear fight of day, to purchase seats
in Parliament and dominate a country-side, ended with the
trading days of the Company, but the traditions and allure-
ments of power, importance, and wealth of those who governed
in the almost mythical land of India lingered. In all soberness
salaries were fixed high by the Government when it deter-
mined to allow no more perquisites, and when salaries ended
10 145
146 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
pensions began. Though money has sadly dropped in value
both in India and at home, and is still dropping, and though
the Indian Civil Service isno longer separated from other
services by such a wide gulf as formerly, it is still an expensive
service. It costs India much, and its own traditions of ex-

penditure are such that the ample salary has to be scattered

by the open hand.
In the early days of the Indian National Congress, one of
the most frequently used arguments in favour of more Indians
being admitted to the Indian Civil Service was that the British
demanded salaries far in excess of Indian standards. I fear
the habit of high standards has become so prevalent that this
consideration has no longer any influence. When Indians
appeared in the higher service of course they were paid the
same rates as their British colleagues. The scale was fixed not
for the race, but for the office and by and by when it began to
;

be hinted that the expenses which an Englishman incurred

when he helped to govern India were so great that only an
imposing salary could meet them, the Indian produced a rival
catalogue of his special expenses, such as his enormous family
obligations, to prove that he too required a great income.
The evidence taken by the Royal Commission on the Public
Services is full of this. British standards of pay have un-

doubtedly become part of the inducements which public

service offered to Indians.
What these standards are may be seen by comparing them
with similar posts at home. The pay of a civilian member of
the Viceroy's Council is £5,336 per annum, whilst that of the
Secretary of State for India is £5,000 a member of a Governor's
;

Council gets £4,265, the Minister at the head of one of the

minor departments at home gets £2,000 the average pay of
;

a man holding a superior executive post is £2,000, a principal

clerk to the Treasury rises to £1 ,200 a professor in the Indian
;

Educational Service rises to £800 with allowances extra, his

work (it varies very much) is done at home for anything be-
tween £200 to £500 the Chief Factory Inspector in Bombay
;
 EXPENDITURE 147

gets £1,200 with allowances, the highest-paid

Deputy Chief
Inspector at the Home Office rises to £900 and so on. ;

Itmay be justly said that the expenses of men in India must

be greater than are those of the men at home. Our officers
have to keep up prestige, which is
expensive, and their open-
handed hospitality is unmatched
anywhere in the world, as
every one who has had the privilege of
1
being their guest
knows. The nabob was not merely a man who made
money,
but who spent it, and as some
gleam of his glory lingered
in the salary when originally fixed, so too it remained in the
expenditure which his successor had to maintain. But that
only proves that the methods we have
adopted to govern the
country are necessarily expensive to the people of the
country.
A foreign Government is always a dear Government— even
if it is worth its
price.
One simple conclusion, however, ought to be laid down.
We should bend our energies to
prevent these high standards
of pay from
becoming more common. Money is not so cheap
as it used to be in
India, and therefore existing rates of
pay
may have to be slightly augmented in some cases, but the
abundant supply of indigenous
ability which is now available
ought to be used to keep down
high salaries
An economical Government is one ofunnecessarily
the necessities of a
like India, where
country
practically the whole of the people live at
bare subsistence levels. The traditional glamour of the
nabob is rather old now, and at no time did
it belong to the
eternal fitness of
things.
Every branch of the public service should have as its standard
of pay an Indian and not a
foreign level, and the allowances
that have to be
given to foreign administrators should be
liberal, but be regarded as
extra, so as not to affect normal
scales. The pay we give to our administrators
is purely
artificial from the
point of view of India (whatever it
may be
Wh
nl
officers T
who
Gr l00kS
°?
y at th6 8alarieS P"* 1 does a 8»ve
receive them,
injustice to the
and I wish to make it clear that I have some
con-
ception of the expenditure which
they have to meet.
148 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
from our own). Thus far we have wrought India much harm,
and this is a reform which self-government would do well
to make.
But the expense of a foreign Government is not only great
as regards its salaries, but also great, and far more grievous,
as regards its pensions. Upon civil and military pensions alone
the Indian tax-payer has to find for claimants living in England
something like £3,500,000 to £4,000,000 each year. And these
dead charges under a foreign Government are doubly serious,
for they are not only drawn from Indian production, but
are withdrawn from India itself. The pension paid to a Pro-
vincial officer who retires to his native village, or lives in Cal-
cutta or Bombay or Madras, is one thing. The people of India
have to find it, but it does not reduce the wealth of India.
The pension paid to an Imperial officer who retires to London,
or to one of the places where Anglo-Indians gather to wait
for death, is a totally different thing. The people of India
have to find that too, and it does reduce the wealth of India.
It withdraws from a fertilising stream a very considerable
amount of necessary water, and means impoverishment.
What I have just written may be taken as a fitting intro-
"
duction to the more general subject of what is known as the
drain," about which we used to hear more than we have
done recently, which used to be the subject of many dis-
cussions at the National Congress and of many speeches and
pamphlets in this country. To explain and condemn it was the
purpose of a book which Mr. Digby, that very devoted friend of
—
Indian reform, wrote in 1901 a book which had considerable
influence at the time. 1 The argument is admirably summarised
in the evidence which Mr. Naoroji presented to the Welby
Commission on Indian Finance (1900). It runs as follows:
The British rule India in such a way as to exploit it. A large
part of the incomes of the rulers is not spent in India, but in
England pensions are spent in England taxation is so heavy
; ;

that it destroys the powers of India to accumulate capital for

1 " " India A Revelation from Official Records.
Prosperous .'
 EXPENDITURE 149

itselfcapital comes from England and its profits return to

;

England, so that India does not benefit from its own develop-
ment ;
a steady export of raw material from India
there is
" "
to pay its debts. Thus there is a drain reducing the wealth
and capital of the land. Mr. Naoroji was subjected to a severe
cross-examination before the Welby Commission, and he did
not emerge altogether scathless from the ordeal. But he was
not utterly destroyed, and the complaint he was then voicing
is far from being silenced. It will have to be re-examined
and discussed, and what is substantial and curable in it
must be dealt with.
The Indian financial dilemma, so far as the Government
is concerned, is this : India needs a greatly increased ex-
penditure upon its own improvement,
e.g. sanitation and

education, but the masses are poor. Taxation can be imposed

wisely only upon the difference between the cost of decent
living and income, and that margin in India does not exist
for nine- tenths of the population.
The apologists keep reminding us of the low taxation
official

of India, but that has nothing to do with the matter. The

question is what is the taxable capacity of the Indian people,
and as regards the great mass the answer must be " Practi- :

cally nil." Englishmen may be taxed, on the average, £10 a

head and Indians only one shilling, and the Indian impost
be heavier than the English one. While prosperity is far from
general in India, the Indian Government will not be able to
raise its income very substantially without lowering the
standard of life of the people and crippling the economic
life of the country and prosperity cannot be widespread if
;

the exported tribute is heavy.

When all is said and done and a balance of advantage and
disadvantage struck, I think there can be no doubt that India
suffers greatly because so much of its created wealth is spent
and fructifies outside itself. Indian exports are not those of
the exchange of a free market. To illustrate the point simply :

India does not export tables in order to satisfy its needs by

150 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
an equivalent import of chairs India exports tables in order
;

to pay debts. Now, there are debts and debts. There are
debts which fructify and are paid for by a proportion of their
own productiveness, but there are debts that are dead weights
upon income, and India's debts are betwixt and between
these extremes. If these interests, incomes, and pensions were
spent in India by way of immediate consumption or were
invested as capital for the economic development of the
country, the case would not be so bad. It would only amount
to an uneconomic diversion of part of the national income.
But whilst it is true that the British officials spend liberally
in India and necessitate the maintenance of a great staff of

people who spendthe whole of their lives in the country,

the vast mass of that staff is paid little above subsistence
rates on the one hand, and, on the other, the export of salaries
is very considerable. When considering the Exchange Com-
pensation Allowance, the Government of India assumed that
one-half of the salaries up to £1,000 a year was likely to be
exported.
1
This is too high a proportion, but it may be put
down nearer to one-fourth. We may also assume that all
pensions, both civil and military, paid in Great Britain by the
Indian Government are spent in Great Britain, and they
amount to well over £3,000,000 per annum. This is to all
intents and purposes a dead loss to the country. Then
there are loans for public works and the great amount of
foreign industrial capital the interest on which is exported.
This is by no means all a dead loss, but a considerable part
of it is. Moreover, the sums paid out of India in this way
are increasing. The grand total of the charges upon Indian
Revenues paid in England was £20,000,000 per annum at
the outbreak of the war in 1835 they were £3,000,000
; in ;

1850 they were under £3,500,000.

Every debtor country of course complains that it has to
pay interest to foreign shareholders, and looks forward to
—
the time which it often tries to hasten by legislative means —
1
Resolution, August 18th, 1893.
 , EXPENDITURE 151

when it will wipe off its debts and trade on its own capital.
But whilst it is a debtor it has no true grievance, unless, being
under a foreign authority, that authority deliberately rules
itin such a way as to continue it in its position of economic

subjection. The very fact that India is so poor and that it

is impossible to raise by taxation vast sums to construct

public works, which are of pressing importance and are

to
be immediately productive, like irrigation canals and rail-
ways, compels the Indian Government to go upon the London
market for loans and the inability of India to provide the
;

capital and experience for some large industries like jute,

at the moment when these industries could be planted in India,
opens the door for foreign capital and management. The
balance of good in the transaction remains with India. What
drawbacks there have been were inherent in the conditions
of India, not plotted and planned by an alien Government.
Young Australia and the Argentine were in the same position.
—
At the moment thi3 drain in the main falsely so called in
this respect —
amounts to about £2,000,000 for interest on
Government debt, £9,000,000 for State railway charges, and
other smaller sums. The drain from private business is un-
known, but the whole transaction, lumped with all the other
balances in exchange, is seen in the figures of Indian export
and import, which show in money values an adverse balance
of from £20,000,000 to £30,000,000. What part of this is a real
drain can be decided only after a very patient examination
of all the items, some of which, however, are not published.
I doubt if it will amount to more than a half.
Even the items must be carefully scrutinised. Take rail-
ways as an example. When railway building began in 1850,
the State had to make a bad bargain with British capital
in order to attract it, and Indian revenues were burdened
for many years in consequence. Later on, the State borrowed
money itself and constructed its own lines. But, from the
borrowed capital, railway and other works were executed
which were devised in War Offices and not in counting houses,
 152 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
and military expenditure became masked as railway develop-
ment. The matter was repeatedly discussed in the House
1

of Commons when Westminster was more interested in Indian

questions than it now appears to be, and the system of borrow-

ing to pay interest on unproductive works was condemned
and stopped. But once again a sound financial policy was
confronted by Indian limitations, and it was found that if
Government had to expand the railway system only from
revenue or from Public Works Loans, India would have to
wait a long time for necessary railways. Private capitalists
were again called in, and Indian capitalists were encouraged
to help. The business of the railways is now settling down.
India bears a debt of £233,000,000 * on account of them upon
which it makes a net profit of just over £2,000,000.* But for
the purpose of estimating the drain which has been caused
by the methods of railway construction and financing which
were adopted, railway figures are exceedingly complicated.
In this vicious spiral of effect becoming cause we must not
overlook the fact that the justification for borrowing out of
—
India namely the lack of capital in India is, as I have in- —
"
dicated, one of the results of the drain," so that it perpetuates
the very conditions which keep it going. Nor must it be
forgotten from our own national point of view that this tribute,
however it may enrich individuals, has an evil economic
effect upon the nation, because it is an import for which no

corresponding export is sent. Its general effect upon the

1
Largo sections of the railways have, however, been planned for purely
civil convenience even from the beginning. This interesting statement,
for instance, appeared in The Wednesday Review on January 7th, 1914 :

" The
pious pilgrim to Rameswaram may now feel at ease and loll nonchalantly
in the railway carriage, unmindful of the sullen silence or the defiant roar
of the sea right below his feet. That is a big boon to the pilgrims which they
will not fail to appreciate.. . They can now step into the sea, so to say,
.

straight from the railway train. What the new route means those alone
can realise best, and in the recesses of their hearts they will bless the agency
which placed within their reach the means of obtaining the salvation of
their souls."
2
1914-15. Ibid.
 EXPENDITURE 153

exporting country is described by John Stuart Mill in these

words : "Acountry which makes regular payments to foreign
countries, besides losing what it pays, loses also something more
by the less advantageous terms on which it is forced to exchange
its production for foreign commodities."
However views may differ regarding the volume of the

drain, it is there, but only in part because of the foreign Govern-

ment, and certainly not to such an extent as a mere process
of subtraction applied to import and export figures would
seem to indicate. A more liberal employment of Indians
in the public service, a more generous treatment of India

by the Imperial Treasury, a greater use of Indians for military

purposes, and an international settlement of armament ques-
tions will reduce it so far as
government charges are concerned.
In private business, the establishment of Indian banks and the
supply of Indian capital will also reduce it. For this last,
—
two things are essential industrial co-operation and a readjust-
ment of taxation so that the rich may pay more and the share
of the cultivator in his product be increased. The problem
of hoarding should be faced, especially by guaranteed savings
banks and a direct propaganda, and a well-considered policy
of encouragement of native industry on sound economic lines
— —
again I emphasise co-operation should be launched.
That policy is intimately bound up with self-government,
the only part in doubt being a proper system of taxation for
the rich. But revenue cannot be raised in any other way,
and Indian financiers, wherever their interests He, will be
driven to it. For, though I have written of saving in certain
directions, the unsatisfied needs of India
—
on education alone
—
for instance will prevent Budgets under self-government
being less in amount than they are now.

The expenditure under military headings, amounting to

about £21,000,000 in ordinary years of peace, with periodical
fluctuations but with a steady average increase, is also an old
subject of controversy. Undoubtedly, India has not been
 154 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
dealt with fairly in this respect. It has had to bear the ex-
pense of operations that have been mainly Imperial. There
are two Indias. There is the India which is a self-contained
unit of government with both internal and external problems
of law and order, and there is the India which has a relation-

ship to the whole British Empire, and which has to face pro-
blems both of offence and defence which arise, or are presented
on an extended scale, because it is part of this Empire. It
isquite impossible to classify into well-defined compartments
these two responsibilities, but certain rough lines can be
drawn. A
military force is necessary to secure India, not
only in our —
possession, but as India to protect it against
invasion and internal disorder. That is very properly an
Indian charge. Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji once admitted that
40,000 soldiers might be required for this, and if that was so
1

twenty years ago, the military will not admit that fewer will
be sufficient now. The strength of the army in India before
the war was 77,500 of our regular army and 159,000 native
troops. What is the proper charge for India to bear for this
military occupation ? A large part of the army in India —
certainly one-half
—
is an Imperial army which we require
for other than purely Indian purposes, and its cost, therefore,
should be met from Imperial and not Indian funds. When
we stationed troops in other parts of the Empire, we did not
charge them upon the Colonies, but in India we have the
influence of the dead hand. When the Company ruled, it
hired troops from Great Britain, and not only maintained them
when in India, but paid the cost of their transport. When the
" "
Company surrendered to the Crown, the habit of lending
troops was kept up, as a fiction convenient to the Treasury
of Great Britain. Owing to the report of the Financial
Commission in 1900, the Home Government now pays £130,000
per annum, which is supposed to be about one-half of the cost
of transport, and £100,000 is charged to the Home Treasury
for half the military costs of Aden. That is all. India pays
Speeches and Writings, Appendix A, p. 74.
1
 , EXPENDITURE 155

the rest. Thus India is treated as an independent State,

which, however, we rule and whose military policy we control,
while it "borrows" from us a certain number of troops for
which it pays. The arrangement is most unsatisfactory.
It may be said thatIndia were an independent State its
if

military expenditure would be much higher. But then,

India is not an independent State, and is entitled to claim
some privileges of Empire its. weakness ought not to subject
;

it to a more expensive military arrangement than Canada or

Australia.
A self-governing India would no doubt insist upon bearing
some definite share in defence, but like the Dominions it
would settle how much it ought to bear it would adjust
:

the cost to its means, and it would decide in what form

it was to make its contribution —
perhaps an Indian-recruited
army. In any event the present plan, by which India pays for
the Imperial army stationed there, without in any way deter-
mining policy, is as bad as it can be. If the existing system of
military defence is to last, the whole cost of the British army
stationed in India should be borne by the Imperial Exchequer.
The Commission which reported in 1900 put an end, it is
to be hoped, to a still greater grievance. Frontier wars and
wars of annexation, like the Burmese Wars, as well as the
Abyssinian Expedition, were all paid for by the Indian tax-
payer. Only £5,000,000 of the £21,000,000 which the Afghan
war cost was found by the Imperial Exchequer. These ex-
peditions are in reality events in Imperial policy and should
not be an Indian charge at all. Mr. Gokhale once described
"
the position thus :
England has in the past borrowed troops
from India for expeditions undertaken from considerations
of Imperial policy, such as the expedition to China and Persia,
the Abyssinian Expedition, and others, and on all these oc-
casions all the ordinary expenses of these troops have been taken
from India, England defraying their extraordinary expenses
alone. On the other hand, when India had to borrow troops
from England, as on the occasion of the Sind Campaign of
 156 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
1846, the Punjab Campaign of 1849, and the Mutiny of 1857,
every farthing of the expenses of these men, ordinary and extra-
ordinary, including even the expenditure on their recruitment,
was extorted from India." The Commission's Report met this
particular grievance, but self-government would completely
end unjust dealing and charge the Imperial Exchequer with
expeditions that are Imperial.
On the civil side, there are several payments objectionable
to a degree which cannot be measured merely by the amount
of the charges. The cost of the Secretary of State's establish-
ment in London is charged to Indian revenues. The Colonial
Office is not so charged to the Colonies. Royal visits to India
and visits of the Secretary of State
are also paid for by the
'

Indian tax-payer. These items, which now amount to about

four hundred thousand pounds, are steadily growing. They
are all Imperial costs and, in the main, are fixed apart from
the Indian Government. Their appearance in the Indian
Budget is mean and is altogether unworthy of us.

One other item on

in Indian expenditure calls for notice
account of its For a long time the value
unfairness to India.
of the rupee was in relation to gold as one to ten, e.g. the rupee
in Great Britain exchanged for 2s. In 1873-4 it began to fall
and lost 2\d. it went down slowly but steadily, every drop
;

of a penny meaning the addition of a crore of rupees to Indian

indebtedness, which had to be met on a gold basis. In 1895
it had fallen to Is. Id. the mints were closed and the policy
;

begun which created a token rupee, bearing the conventional

value of Is. 4d. Officers who had to send home money were
badly hit; from 1893 additions were made to salaries of most
"
Europeans, called
exchange compensations allowances,"
and owing to the settlement of the value of the rupee,
in 1912,
the Government issued a decision to add to European salaries
1 " An
expenditure of £8,800 arises in connection with the visit of the
Secretary of State to India and the establishment of a Trade Commis-
London" (Financial Statement and Budget, 1918-19, 61,
sioner's office in

p. 213).
 x EXPENDITURE 157

1
amounts equal to these exchange allowances. This again
is unfair to the Indian tax-payer. Certainly the officer ought
not to suffer, but the fact that exchange considerations affect
an Indian affair at all, but an Imperial
his real salary is not
one, and these extra emoluments should be found by the
British Treasury.
Indeed, the question is wider than this. When the Indian
exchanges were being so grievously disturbed, the disturbance
" " But British policy
was common to all silver countries.
in India was responsible for a good deal of the Indian un-
settlement, and India's obligations to Great Britain seriously
increased the difficulties. The controversy on the exchange
is voluminous, complicated and obscure in some of its points,

but since this country was responsible for the policy which
brought the rupee problem to a critical head, it ought
not to have left India to pay the whole expense of the
depreciation, least of all that part involved in the payments
made to the Government in London and its own servants
in India.
The war has of course imposed upon India, as it has upon
practically every nation in the world, new permanent burdens,
and has laid them upon every kind of consumer as well as
on the tax-payer. But it is important that I should emphasise
that, until the war broke out, Indian Budgets, though in-
creasing in amount, were not adding to the oppression of
the people. They were not removing burdens, but the official
mind was beginning to understand the meaning of Indian
taxation and was adopting towards it a more sympathetic
attitude. India's power to bear taxes was increasing, and that
affordsmuch consolation for responsible legislators in view of
the increased expenditure which they will have to face. The
extra war expenditure, however, whilst necessitating a better
distribution of burdens, will prevent such a thorough revision
as was possible before it was incurred.
1 The
operation of this was deferred because a Royal Commission had
been appointed to inquire into the whole position of the Public Services of India.
158 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
In ten years up to 1913-14 the Land Revenue increased
by £2,000,000, not owing to increased assessments, but to
widened areas and irrigation Salt decreased by £2,000,000
;

(it would be better if it disappeared), Stamps went up by

£1,750,000 (a sign of prosperity), Excise went up by nearly

£4,000,000 (an increase upon which the Government cannot
congratulate itself), Customs by £3,500,000 (the result of a
policy accepted by Nationalists, whatever it may mean in
taxation to the poorer people), Assessed Taxes by only £700,000
(the weak spot in Indian taxation at the present moment
and certainly no measure or indication of economic stagnation).
The total increase of about £6,500,000 from revenue in these
ten years is not the result of increased burdens. If the Empire
would readjust the burdens which it imposes upon Indian
finance, and if that were done and nothing more, the Indian
Government could inaugurate great reforms which would
increase Indian wealth, and could meanwhile wait, on pretty
much the existing basis of taxation, for the augmented yield
of revenue to the State which would result from that increase.

Only by such an expedient can I see the Indian Government

—
avoid the dilemma India needs more State expenditure :

India cannot stand an increase in the burden of taxation.

 CHAPTER XIII

EDUCATION
I am not to write in this chapter a history of education in India,
I am only to discuss what problems our educational work
there has raised. Nor am I to attempt to go into details of
a reconstructed system I can only make some explanations
;

of the existing chaos and give some general indications of

how I think self-government will raise upon Indian culture
an educational system which will enrich India from its own
genius.
An education system in India is as old as Hindu ritual and
was originally connected with it, and the life of the student was
the first stage in the great pilgrimage to his being's accomplish-
ment. The relation of teacher and pupil was as close and
tender as that of father and son the young man who sought
;

instruction was praised and he found schools and teachers

available. In time, science, mathematics, logic, philosophy
and the other ways to knowledge were differentiated and
studied, colleges were opened, great names were made, and
the busy and subtle brain of the Hindu thought, disputed,
taught from generation to generation. But with the break
up of Indian government after Aurungzeb, misery and anarchy
submerged education, and it sank to such a low level that it
ceased to have any influence on the country. Still, the
tradition survived, and if it cannot be said that education
numbers.
flourished, schools existed in very large
In the Madras Presidency between 1822 and 1826 it was
officially estimated that just under one-sixth of the boys
159
160 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
of school age were at school of some kind (there is now just
twice that proportion). In Bombay the numbers were one
in eight, whilst in Bengal one-fifth of the whole population
could read. The teaching was very deficient, but the demand
for it was there to attest to a widely spread desire on the part
of Indian parents to give their children something that might
be called education. 1
When the British came the care of schools did not at first
concern them ;
but by and by they began to feel responsibility
for the general condition of the people. They accepted their
call to govern and they began to enquire into the condition
of the nation.
The need for education was borne in upon the Company
first of all because it required native clerks and subordinate
officers. Warren Hastings opened a school at his own expense
at Calcutta in 1782, to meet a complaint made by Moham-
medans that the literary Hindu was monopolising appoint-
ments under the Company. In 1791 the Company opened
a Sanskrit College at Benares to supply itself with Hindus
for judicial appointments and to encourage Sanskrit scholar-

ship. The College was grossly mismanaged, the first Rector

having been declared by the Chairman of the College Committee
"
to be the greatest villain he ever saw."
Conspicuous amongst the pioneers of general education
was Sir Charles Grant, who ultimately became a director of
the Company, Member of Parliament for Inverness-shire, and
one of the Clapham sect. From an intimate personal ac-
quaintance with the people he began, in 1792, to write his
Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of
Great Britain, which five years later he dispatched to London. 8
Of the condition of Bengal he wrote that, though the Bengali
"
did not engage in open combat, robberies, thefts, burglaries,

1
For an interesting account of Ancient Indian Education, see a book with
that title by the Rev. F. E. Keay.
* This
was not published until it appeared as an appendix to a Blue book
in 1832.
 v EDUCATION 161

river piracies, and depredations when darkness,

all sorts of

secrecy, or can give advantage, are exceedingly

surprise
common." Thieving was a caste profession. Zemindars
harboured bands of these scoundrels and shared their booty
with them. This was common in town and village. Venal
justicehad done much to encourage such a state of things,
but the roots of disorder went deeper down. They were
nurtured in the disordered life of the people, while a religious
fatalism prevented the benign operation of the fear of punish-
—
ment even of death. Education was the only way of reform,
and the education must consist first of all in teaching English.
"
The first communication, and the instrument of introducing
the rest, must be the English language." Much would follow
from this, but " the most important would be the knowledge
. . .

of our religion. Thence they would be instructed in the

. . .

nature and perfection of the One True God, and in the real
history of man his creation, his lapsed state and the means
:

" " " "

of his recovery the most awful sanctions and the most
;

"
interesting motives would be given to moral conduct. He
discussed the possibility of political complications arising in
consequence, and mentioned such demands as that for self-
government, independence, the admission of natives to com-
missioned rank in the army, and so on. But that risk was,
he thought, no justification for keeping India ignorant. He
also foresaw that the spread of English education might
"
necessitate the control of the press by the Government, which
would not be very favourable to our character for consistency."
Other servants of the Company referred to the same matter
in frequent minutes and dispatches. One thing was clear.
Education was required for India's regeneration, and India
wished to be educated. Children were going to school, but
the education was bad. The problem was first of all how to
improve it and then how to extend it.
In 1813 Parliament agreed to a grant of one lakh of rupees
"
per annum for the revival and improvement of literature
and the encouragement of learned natives of India," and for
11
162 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
"
the spreading of a knowledge of the sciences among the
inhabitants of the British territories of India." Lord Moira's
historical minute, discussing the condition of the village ver-
nacular schools and proposing improvements, appeared in
1815. But other agencies of regeneration, inspired by the
same spirit as Grant's, were at work. Schools were opened
by missionaries for propaganda purposes, and private philan-
thropy moved David Hare to begin, in 1817, his work in
Calcutta for the improvement of vernacular schools. In the
same year the Calcutta School Book Society was formed to
provide books, and the next year came the Calcutta School
Society to provide encouragement for promising youths to
pursue their studies with a view to becoming teachers. This
opened model schools, employed inspectors,
latter Society also
and undertook the supervision of schools. The activities of
the former Society put an end to manuscript books and in-
troduced printed ones.
Then a new difficulty arose. Through what medium was the
education to be given ? The controversy between Orientalists
and Anglicists flamed for some years with extraordinary
fury, divided educationalists into two enraged camps, and
postponed work. The money voted in 1813 was not appro-
priated until 1823, when a General Committee of Public
Instruction was appointed from the Civil Service to supervise
its expenditure. Upon this Committee was a majority of
Orientalists, but the —
Court of Directors influenced, it is said,
by James Mill, who presumably wrote the dispatch of 1824,
which anticipated the minute of Macaulay of eleven years
later —leaned to Anglicism. This delayed progress, but practice
wab settling theory and the demand for English instruction
grew. Both in Bombay and Madras schools giving an English
education were opening. It was the time when awakened
India was casting off all its old garments, and when British
1
The two great modern bodies for missionary propaganda by education,
the London Missionary Society and the Christian Knowledge Society, opened
their first schools in 1819 and 1822 respectively.
 EDUCATION ^ 163

reformers were seeking to re-create the world, independently

and traditional inheritances.
of historical

Macaulay had declined to take his place as Chairman of

the Committee of Public Instruction whilst it was doubtful
as to its policy. In order to settle the matter he drafted
his famous minute as member of the Viceroy's Council, and
for the guidance of the Viceroy.
The minute dated February 2nd, 1835, and ran full tilt
is

against the practices and assumptions which, in his language

"
of picturesque exaggeration, withheld the title of a learned
" "
native from a Hindu familiar with the poetry of Milton,
the metaphysics of Locke, and the physics of Newton," but
"
awarded it to those who had studied in the sacred books of
the Hindus all the uses of cusa-grass, and all the metaphysics

of absorption into the Deity." With this smack of satis-

faction, Macaulay bared his sword. In substance his literary
flourish was cheap and absurd, but it was an opening which
gave confidence to the assault. The expression of ideas and
facts through the vernacular, he went on, was so limited that
"
intellectual improvement can only at present be effected
by means of some language not vernacular." Though, he
"
continued, I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic,"
he had read translations and had conversed with men
"
proficient in Eastern tongues. I have never found one

among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good

European library was worth the whole native literature of
India and Arabia." He took it as an axiom that it was
in poetry that Eastern writers stood highest ; in the recording
of facts and observations they were nowhere. 1 In his

very interesting to compare this fiery memorandum with the para-

1 It is

graphs in the fifty-second chapter of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, in which

Arab learning and culture are discussed. The different spirit and the superior
scientific caution of the older writer are well displayed in the sentences of
" Our education in the
which this is the first : Greek and Latin schools
may have fixed in our minds a standard of exclusive taste ; and I am
not forward to condemn the literature and judgment of nations of whose
language I am ignorant."
164 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
eleventh paragraph he burst out like a psalmist into
praise of English. The extract is long, but it is delicious,
and I give it. " The claims of our own language it is hardly
necessary to capitulate. It stands pre-eminent even among
the languages of the West. It abounds with works of imagina-
tion not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to
us —with models of every species of eloquence,—with historical
compositions which, considered merely as narratives, have
seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles
of ethical and political instruction have never been equalled,
,
—
with just and lively representations of human life and human
—
nature, with the most profound speculations on metaphysics,
—
morals, government, jurisprudence, trade, with full and correct
information respecting every experimental science which tends
to preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to expand
the intellect of man. Whoever knows that language has
ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth which all the
wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the
course of ninety generations." The full orchestration of words
sinks after this. English was also the official language.
"
If we did not teach its science we should countenance, at
the public expense, medical doctrines that would disgrace
an English farrier, astronomy that would move laughter
in girls at an English boarding school, history abounding
with kings thirty feet high and reigns thirty thousand years
long, and geography made of seas of treacle and seas of butter."
Let us bless India with a revival of learning similar to that
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe. English
to India was what Latin and Greek were then to us. Moreover,
"
the languages of Western Europe civilised Russia. I cannot
doubt that they will do for the Hindu what they have done
for the Tartar."
At this point, however, his foot touches more solid ground.
There was a demand amongst students for English. They
paid for that they had to be paid for attending classes in
;

"
Sanskrit and Arabic. The state of the market is the decisive
 >
EDUCATION 165

test." Books in Sanskrit and Arabic were printed at the Govern-

ment's expense and were not sold the School Book Society
;

was making a profit of 20 per cent, on its sales of English books.

Then he turns back upon a false conclusion. Because the
students of the latter learning had petitioned Government
for places, their learning was useless. These poor scholars
actually asked the patronage of Government to make smooth
"
their path through life. Therefore, bounties and pre-
miums, such as ought not to be given even for the propagation
of Truth, we lavish on false taste and false philosophy." Even
in law, the work of the Law Commission ought to put Hindu
and Mohammedan rules and customs on the scrap heap ;

and as regards religion, could we decently bribe young men

"
from State revenues by teaching them how to purify them-
selves after touching an ass or what texts of the Vedas they
"
are to repeat to expiate the crime of killing a goat ? (sic).

Finally, to teach in English was practicable, in spite of what

"
had been urged to the contrary. Less than half the time
which enables an English youth to read Herodotus and
Sophocles ought to enable a Hindu to read Hume and
Milton." If his views were not to be accepted, he would
retire from the chairmanship of the Education Committee.
To read Lord Macaulay's confused thinking in virile and
dashing English is enlivening, to study it is melancholy. It
mixed up subjects to be taught with the language in which they
ought to be taught, and it displayed no appreciation of the fact
that the Indian mind was a product of history and not a blank
sheet of paper upon which anything could be written by any
teacher. The minute stands a curious monument to the total
lack of the historical mind in one who was to be labelled
"historian" in the pigeon holes of future generations. It
ended indecision however. Henceforth, Indian education was
,

to be on English lines, and under English direction, with the

English language as the medium for instruction and Western
civilisation as the nourishment for its roots.
An interesting revival of the discussion took place in con-
166 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
nection with the project to found a University for the Punjab.
In 1865 an education society had been formed in the Province
for the purpose of diffusing knowledge through the vernacular.
Its promoters were of opinion that the State education as
"
hitherto given had neglected the historical, traditional, and
"
religious roots of all real culture, and was far too uniform
in its methods. Donal McLeod, the Lieutenant-Governor,
Sir

supported the movement, and from it the demand for an

"
Oriental University arose. The classical languages of India
were the sources not only of the languages spoken at the present
day, but also of the traditions, religion, and ancient history
of the Indian nation. No system which ignored Arabic or
Sanskrit could hope to meet with respect, popularity, or support
from the people of India, while any errors in scientific teaching
which the ancient literature might contain could easily be
eliminated or corrected by the light of modern European
knowledge." Proposals on these lines were laid before the
Lieutenant-Governor in 1865, and received his support. But
the execution hung fire. Indians were themselves divided,
and, in the end, an institution lower in status than a University
was recognised by Government, where the instruction had to be
given in English as a rule and the examinations conducted in
English.
The time when Macaulay wrote his minute was one of great
revolutions and liberal faith. The West glowed like a land
of promise. The flame of reason was to purify the world.
" "
Enlightened Indians took that view. As I have said,
some of them had gone to Western extremes and saw nothing
in their own past but ignorance and superstition the mis- ;

sionaries, bold men of single-minded purpose and faith un-

clouded by doubt, held that nothing in life mattered but
Christian conversion, and were firm in the conviction that
native ignorance alone stood in their way. To them English
education was the open door to belief, so they set up their
printing presses, turned out their books, and started their
1
Syed Mahmood, A History of English Education in India, p. 91.
 v
EDUCATION 167

schools. The demand was for English, and none would do

reverence to Indian culture. The views of Mill and Macaulay
therefore won an easyvictory in the end. The Governor-
General in Council decided that in future Government funds
"
should be spent in teaching Indians a knowledge of English
literature and science through the medium of the English
language," and the Committee set about its new task.
What that task was it saw quite clearly. It was to be " a
system of really national education which shall in time embrace
every village in the country." Qualified schoolmasters were
to be provided and an adequate series of textbooks in the ver-
nacular was to be produced. But it was a revolutionary
rather than a reforming spirit that was abroad, and revolutions
generally destroy too much. The self -same spirit which
applauded Macaulay killed the indigenous schools of Bengal,
scrapped the whole system of Bengal elementary education,
and began a new system, the purpose of which was to educate
the middle and literary classes on English models, in the
"
expectation that through the agency of these scholars the
reformed education would descend to the rural vernacular
schools."
This, in my view, was the fatal departure. The difficulty
was real. On the one hand was the desire for mass education,
on the other the zeal for spreading Western culture amongst
those who could come into touch with it. At first the autho-
rities meant to build upon the village schools. Inquiries were
ordered upon them, but delay took place. There were wars
to fight and settlements to effect, and meantime the primary
school was left to decay, except by missionaries who used it
for propaganda purposes, and whose views of a universal

religion unconsciously aided the politics of a universal culture.

The humble vernacular village schools with their poorly paid
and imperfectly equipped teachers were neglected. To develop
and transform them was to be a slow process, and everybody
was in a great hurry. The college policy was begun with the
intention of leavening the lump from above with a totally
168 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
new leaven. It has failed to reach its higher
purposes, as it
was bound to fail. It has not got down to the elementary
school. It has produced men, it has created a class, it has

destroyed certain evils, but it has not raised and enlightened

India. The Indians in haste to be " educated " thought only
of colleges. It was the college they wanted. They saw a
Paradise whose gates were shut against them, they knew of
the keys that were used by the Western races for opening the
gates they demanded the keys. And behold, strait has been
;

the gate and narrow has been the way many have missed
;

both, and few there have been who have entered in thereat.
And all the while the education system of India has failed
to make a foundation for itself, and to co-ordinate and pro-
portion its grades.

The enthusiasm and devotion which British educators in

India showed were undoubted, and the influence which the
teachers who laboured in the early days exerted upon young
Indians, keen to acquire knowledge, was great and good.
But one must doubt if they pursued ways which really led
to the goals intended. The Christian teachers assumed that
Christian faith and Western education were bound up together.
The obstacles in the of their main propaganda were ignor-
way
ance and superstition, and when these were removed, they
argued, the way to the enlightenment of the soul would also
be opened up. India could be saved only by the destruction
of Indian tradition and culture. What I have written on the
Macaulay minute shows the secular view of the same subject.
The fault of the educationalists was not that they had
—
ungenerous intentions regarding India the very opposite
is —
true but that they mistook the nature of education ;

and the blame, if blame there was, lay with the thought of
their times, not with their intentions. The reforming radi-
calism of that generation wrote history like a contemporary
political pamphlet and devised its schemes on a priori principles,
overlooking historical differences and the organic continuity
 v
EDUCATION 169

and unity of national life and thought. Education to them was

a teaching, whereas it is a culture it was like filling a bag
:

with treasures, whereas it is like producing a harvest from long-

prepared soil. methods, its subjects, its implements,
Its
are made for it
by the past of the people for whose benefit
it is being devised. Men's minds and habits are not blank
sheets of paper upon which any legend or faith can be written,
or any rule of conduct engraved. The methods and subjects
taught in one civilisation have not the same value and result
when taught in another civilisation. For instance, our school
system rests upon our family life, but the Indian family is
poles asunder from the English one. Nothing is truer, or
is being proved with more conclusiveness in our own experience

during the past two generations than this education cannot

:

come from above and without it must

;
come from below
and within. Even as regards weeds in the mind, the problem
is not really how to uproot them, but how to transform them.

The errors we have committed in our own schools, because

we have never fully recognised that the whole conception of
education had to be transformed and not merely refitted with
a new apparatus of thought and conduct, we have multiplied
a thousand-fold in India. We have been seeking to transfer
Western civilisation into the Indian mind gutted of its Indian
traditions. We have tried to transplant Oxford and Eton
into India. We have imposed a school discipline and a school
psychology which are English and then have wondered at our
,

failure. The French, German, and American systems are not

English because France, Germany, and America are not
England, but we have assumed that India is England. The
task we set before us was an impossible one. We aimed at
destroying Indian culture. We put impediments in the way
of Indian thought by compelling the Indian student to express
himself in English, and, what added to our failure, for gene-
rations we took no pains to see that the English was
properly taught. Some of the men who used it in examina-
tions never could speak it really or think in it. The language
 170 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
weapon was never comfortably grasped by the mental
personality of those who used it.
This, as I say, is partly owing to bad teaching, but the error
lies deeper than that. Most of those who acquired a collo-
quial knowledge of the tongue, or an easy and natural use
of it, did so only comparatively late in life when the
spontaneity
of youth was going. Their speech, like all tongues acquired
through classics, retains a stilted and grandiloquent form. The
Eastern Ungual habit does not go it remains to exaggerate the
;

flowers and nourishes of Burke and Macaulay. A florid ex-

pression means a florid thought, and thosewho are responsible
for having created this, object to it when they meet with it
in the Indian in real life.

Language enshrines thought. It is an instrument evolved,

moulded, and fashioned by the mind that uses it. How, for
instance, can we separate the German mind from the German
tongue ? When used by a culture other than that which
fashioned it, it makes thought superficial and artificial. It
twists it and cramps it. Because this is true, Indian college
education has become largely a matter of memory, a veneer
upon a different substance. From this have come nine-
tenths of the just complaints that can be made against this
education. Not touching the life of the people, it becomes a
mechanical affair.
1

1 The weakness of our educational methods may be illustrated in a concrete

form. In 1916, out of 4,732 candidates who sat for the Madras Uni-
versity Intermediate Examination, 65"8 per cent, failed in English. On the
one hand, it was complained that the English examination was too stiff ;
on the other, that colleges were putting up students whose education did
not reach the requisite standards. Six out of 34 from Hyderabad, 37 out
of 237 from Trichinopoly passed. At a meeting of the Senate it was urged
that this meant ruin to parents (!), and it was moved, though not carried,
that the adjudication of the examiners be set aside and that candidates be
passed who obtained 30 per cent, in English and 35 per cent, of the total
possible for the whole examination. An influential Indian paper, comment-
ing on the result, demanded that examinations should be conducted by those
" who can
correctly appreciate local conditions and approximate their
actions with practical ideals " ! The reports must have been saddening
reading to many Indian educationalists.
 EDUCATION 171

But the organic damage has been greater than that. In

one's wanderings in India one too frequently comes across a
in all the
regal palace glowing in white marble, beautiful
traceries and designs of Moghul architecture, whose great
halls, however, are furnished with cracked furniture from
Tottenham Court Road, and whose vast walls are hung with
dirty pictures from the Salon. That is what we have done
to the Indian mind. We have not only made it despise its
own culture and throw it out we have asked it to fill up the
;

vacant places with furniture which will not stand the climate.
The mental Eurasianism that is in India is appalling. Such
minds are nomad. They belong to no civilisation, no country,
and no history. They create a craving that cannot be satis-
fied, and ideals that are unreal. They falsify life. They
deprive men of the nourishment of their cultural past, and
the substitutes they supply are unsubstantial.
In the larger centres of population like Calcutta and
Bombay, Indians thus educated, successful in business or the
professions, and surrounded by a Western society and being
part of it, conquer all the impediments which they have to
meet and can vindicate in every way their claim to equality
with the best. They have assimilated Western culture, they
have adapted themselves to Western business methods. They
could not do England more credit if they were Englishmen —
in fact they are more akin to us than are the Englishmen
deteriorated by a long residence in the East. But their
success is not the solution of the problem of Indian educa-
tion. The Oriental Club in Calcutta is not India God —
forbid that it should become India. The Indians who have
been at Oxford and Cambridge, London or Edinburgh, and
who spend the rest of their lives on special plots of Indian
soil amidst special products of British education, are too
often a community by themselves, in India but not of it.
Living in India, not the geographical expression but the
Motherland of a people and the atmosphere of a race, they
are not at home there. Not able to join in the organic life
172 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
of their community, they tend to become parasitical and to
live on They have to create new ways of living, from
it.

multiplying legal cases to quack doctoring and, when this

;

is observed by critics, the Indian is condemned, whereas the

blame lies very largely with those who have placed false
ideals before him, and have led him in mistaken ways.. We

sought to give the Eastern mind a Western content and

environment we have succeeded too well in establishing
;

intellectual and moral anarchy in both.

This is sometimes justified on the assumption that Indian
tradition had to be reduced to chaos before liberty came to
dwell in the Indian mind. The argument and expectation
are the same as those of the political anarchists. If they are
wrong as regards the more superficial affairs of State, how much
more wrong are they as regards the much more deep-seated
affairs of the mind ?
Moreover, the first enthusiasm of the educators has gone.
Disillusionment treads on the heels of error, and weariness
on those of disillusionment. The Duffs and the Grants belong
to a past generation. They could pursue a bad system be-
cause their personality, and not their teaching, was what
educated their pupils. Now with the crowds of students,
the numbers of colleges, the formalising of the institutions
by the Government, men of first-rate ability as educationalists
do not go to India. Colleges attached to missions like St.
Stephen's, Delhi, still get them because they listen to the call
of religion, but the Government colleges do not get them.

Discipline has deteriorated because respect has been under-

mined. 1 An opposition between students and professors has
grown up and has led to frequent outbursts of riotous behaviour
1
The colossal blunder which has put and kept Indian teachers of un-
disputed attainments, and of whom students are proud, in a class inferior to
Englishmen of less experience and lower attainments has tended to destroy
the esprit de corps of colleges, and to make students recalcitrant. This is
caused by the grading of the Education Service by which newly imported
professors from Great Britain are given a higher status than distinguished
Indian scholars and teachers.
 *
EDUCATION 173

such as disgraced the Presidency College, Calcutta, in 1916,

and led to the resignation of the Principal. It is also a cause
of the political sedition which has spread in colleges during
recent years. A moan which wanders through all the
surveys of Indian education and all treatises on the habits
of Indian youth has swelled into greater amplitude since the

youthful college students have run after anarchy and political

crime, and have shown restiveness under discipline. What,
it is asked, the moral significance of this education ? Is
is

it only freeing the youth from the control of the old beliefs

without putting them under the yoke of any other system

of moral order ? Whatever may be said against our system
of education in India, the blame for the lack of discipline in
the youth does not lie at its door. What does lie at its door
is a charge that those responsible so misunderstood this

Indian malady that their treatment of it tended to aggravate

it rather than cure it, and that their latest prescriptions are
as mistaken as their earlier ones.
One finds only too commonly in India the opinion that
"
little manuals of religious sentiment and ethical maxims," l
or religious education imparted in a dogmatic and class-book
style, is the proper antidote for this poison. It is urged that
Indian education should be held together by a religious (that
is, a Christian) framework, and the Government is blamed
for an educational policy which, respecting Hindu suscepti-
bilities, concerned itself exclusively with secular subjects
and was absolutely independent of faith and creed.
Thisa mistaken view. It is perfectly true that the social
is

system of law and order to which any community spontaneously

responds is based either upon tradition of a political kind, like
that expressed in the English rhyme :

God bless the squire and his relations

And keep vis in our proper stations,

or upon a religious sentiment, or, and this is most common,

1
Lord Moira's Minute (1815).
 174 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
upon both. and the general British political
British education
tradition are inimical both to the political and social and the
religious traditions of India and are bound to weaken them.
But not really there that the evil lies. That is an inevit-
it is

abilitywhich it would be waste of time either to deplore or

argue about. India could not be guarded from the disturbing
influences of the West by any efforts of any Government
or other authority.
As a matter of fact, however, this loss of moral restraint
was deplored before an English school was opened. We
find that simultaneously with the first movements for a
better education in India, sad reports were made of the de-
terioration of Indian social morals and manners indeed in —
these days that very deterioration was used as an argument
why English education should be given. Sir C. Grant's memor-
andum shows that, and Lord Moira wrote, in the minute to
"
which I have referred : The unceasing wars which had
harassed allparts of India left everywhere their invariable
effects — a disorganisation of that framework of habit and
opinion which enforces moral conduct and an emancipation
of all those irregular impulses which revolt at its restraint.
The village schoolmasters could not teach that in which they
themselves had never been instructed and universal de-
;

basement of mind, the constant concomitant of subjugation

to despotic rule, left no chance that an innate sense of equity
should in those confined circles suggest the recommendation
of the principles not thought worthy of cultivation by the
Government." Lord Moira put his finger upon the spot.
The social and moral unsettlement of India belongs to the
historical unsettlement of India. The one is the result of
the other. The military conquest of an enormous area of
territory and a huge mass of people the government of the
;

tax-collector rather than of the law-giver and the judge the

—
;

social disruption which comes from political disruption, these

would have put obstacles in the way of the very best system
of education, and any curriculum of instruction designed
 EDUCATION 175

to keep the young docile, reverent, and subordinate. The

administrators in India and the students of Indian problems
must not mistake the nature of the difficulty. It is to be solved
by the establishment of an Indian order, and will hardly be
touched by the inclusion of religion, either Hindu or Christian,
in Indian education. It is to be the final proof of the settle-
ment of India, not the result of the work of the schoolmaster
or the professor.
But even though it be true that moral restraint is primarily
a product of social order, an educational system has great
influence upon it. A system which breaks with a historical
past disturbs without pacifying it pulls up anchors without
;

providing rudders and compasses which are of use, and so it

leaves the vessels to drift and bump together and become
stranded. Moral restraint must be a habit, not a precept,
and habits come from traditions. It belongs to the axioms

upon which men act without thinking, not to the conclusions

and conduct of an active reason. At that point, and at that
point alone, is education vulnerable to the charge that it
has aided moral unsettlement. We have deliberately severed
the ties which bound Indian society together rather than
strengthened them, by picking out the strands weakened by
superstition and ignorance and putting in their places new
ones spun on Eastern minds from Western enlightenment. 1

I admit that the religious faiths of India are woven into

the social fabric far more intimately than they are here, that
they pervade the whole life of India, and that, in consequence,
the case for the recognition of religious instruction there is

1 One has
to note that the Government is beginning to be aware of the
truth embodied in this criticism. In an address to the Calcutta University
sent by the Viceroy in the name of the King in 1912, the following passages
"
occur : It is to the Universities of India that I look to assist in that gradual
union and fusion of the culture and aspirations of Europeans and Indians
on which the future well-being of India so greatly depends " "
and,; you
have to conserve the ancient learning and simultaneously push forward
Western science." But we still wait for the changee which are to give effect
to these wise words.
176 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
much stronger than it is With that I shall deal in the
here.

chapter on religion, but note

I here that one must watch
with interest the experiment of the Hindu university just
begun at Benares. It will succeed only as it acquires a place
and spirit for itself. Its education in the sacred books will
be of spiritual value only in so far as its atmosphere is truly
Indian and it gathers up into itself the mind of India. Alighur,
the Mohammedan college, is a place where Mohammedans
are educated, not where Mohammedanism is breathed. I
fear these attempts to recreate the past will fail, but if they
could only catch up the past as a broken thread and weave
it into the future, they would be doing the best work possible
"
for India. I hope," said Dr. P. C. Ray, in an address at
the laying of the foundation stone of the Hindu university,
"
the starting of this university will inaugurate a new era,
and I trust it will be a sacred confluence of ideals of the East
and the West." That is what will give India that social
and spiritual harmony from which the social and spiritual
conduct of the individual springs. But, I repeat, to political
order we must trust more in these days for moral restraints
than to ethical doctrines taught in schools. We have to
establish a national harmony of which education is of course
an essential part, but only a part.

Now I proceed to expose another fault which ought to be

removed from Indian education. The danger of utilitarianism
has for generations beset Indian education and the policy
of the Government has increased it. There is something
like an Indian tradition that the ruler provides for the scholar,
and when the Company first and the Crown afterwards edu-
cated men for public service in one or other of the many de-
partments of Indian government, they encouraged the college
youth to look to Government service as his future career.
This, as well as the rushing tide of revolt from Indian tradition,
determined the issues of the contest between Orientalists
and Anglicists in Macaulay's day. Obviously this expecta-
 EDUCATION 177

tion could be fulfilled only whilst the colleges turned out year
by year a comparatively small number of men. When the
number exceeded the Government's power of absorption,
men with academic degrees and training were like the landless
man after the Black Death in England. The Bar provided
counter-attractions, but the number of lawyers became ex-
cessive too, and the lower types began to manufacture cases
for a living. The other learned professions either gave no
field for ambitious men, or had to be pursued under conditions
for which the students had been unfitted. Here, again,
Indian education, even from a utilitarian point of view, had
been pursued without reference to the life of the country.
The road through the college led too often into the wilderness.
All the while, education was pursued by the Indian in a
blind sort of way. He treated it as practically an end in
itself. He pursued
its badges and its degrees. When the
lists examination results were published, fathers with
of
unmarried daughters hovered around to pick up the boys
who had done best. To pass an examination was held to
be the tangible proof of success, the open sesame to life. To
sit but fail became in time a distinction of itself. Examina-
tions were multipled. They were the events which won the
chaplets. Subjects were taken up not because they interested
the student, but because they were necessary for marks (not
by any means an exclusively Indian fault) and when the ex-
,

amination was over, memory threw off its impressions or they

were covered up. That is true in all countries, but it is tragi-
1
cally true in India. In this terrible problem of the deteriora-
1
Speaking in the Calcutta University Senate, Dr. Fermor, of the Geo-
logical Survey, gave his experience as a member of a certain committee to
examine candidates for an appointment as to their educational fitness. Most
"
of these were Calcutta B.A.s or B.Sc.s. All those who sat failed to satisfy
a single test in their own subject, although they had obtained degrees but
a year before. The physicists had forgotten their physics, the geometricians
their geometry, the mathematicians their mathematics and failed in simple
addition, and ultimately the candidate selected was one who had not gone
through a course of University education" {Indian Review, January 1916,
p. 10).
12
178 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
tion of the spirit of education and of the prospects of the college
youth, India was receiving but little guidance. She was being
allowed to drift. Something would turn up. There would
come a bend in the road with a new prospect ahead. If you
asked when and why, you were told that it would be sure to
come. The unhappy people went on with their work, Indian
education became perverted by examinations, and Indian
intelligence sharpened to secure marks for answering questions.
We set out to educate, but we missed our way and found
ourselves in the realms of utilitarianism and not of culture.
Now we are on the verge of self-government and it behoves
us to resurvey the way we have come to see where we have
gone wrong, to make good our errors if happily it be not too
late, to reorientate our policy. Obviously what we should
aim for is the creation of India, the historical Motherland,

holding a place of honour in the modern world, surrounded

by her children bound to her in a spiritual and political allegi-
ance.
Therefore let us begin by restating the century-old problem
which the early educationalists had to face. Lord Macaulay
and his friends discussed whether India should continue to
"
receive an education in what was known 2,000 years ago,"
or be taught Western up-to-date knowledge but in reality
;

that was not the problem at issue. To abandon India to a

literary Oriental education and a scientific one, the textbooks
of which were centuries old, was impossible. She had to go
to the West to bring her up to date. She was like a person
who had been wandering in a far land and who on returning
home had to be told what had happened in the meanwhile.
The fabric of her education had crumbled and it had to be
rebuilt. During the rebuilding she had to be helped.
Practically no one sought to wrap up India in the mummy
cloths of dead science. Sir Charles Wood's Dispatch of 1854,
far more accurately than Macaulay's minute, states the
problem. It lay in this : How
could Western knowledge
best be used to enrich the mind of India ? Ought it to be
 EDUCATION 179

engrafted on Indian roots, or ought it to be transplanted

from England as a full-grown tree ?
The depreciation of Indian achievements and culture, after ;

the manner of James Mill and Macaulay, was true neither

psychologically nor historically. India has at its command
a literature, a philosophy, and a religion in its undebased form,
which touch the most inspiring chords of human nature. It
has a past of trade, enterprise and prosperity, and of technical
skill which can convince every intelligent Indian that the

Creator did not confine economic and industrial power to

nations of the West and though the history of India, as
—
;

taught to us, deals only with India's decline and anarchy

—
and that not very accurately told India had its Golden Ages
when it was quite as well governed as we were ourselves, and

was certainly as prosperous. No one who knows anything of

India's past and who has read its sacred books, or has come
into contact with their wisdom, no one who has done more
than spend a day in the art and industries section of the
Indian Museum in Calcutta, no one who knows anything of
the architecture of India, can doubt but that in its life lies
a great reservoir of culture and skill, inspiration and pride.
It is a circumstance upon which British and Indians alike

may look back upon with bitter regret that, whilst these
riches were lying neglected and the people's eyes turned

deliberately from them, we were putting nothing but dead

school books in their place.
In spite of all the talk about it, the material for
Western culture in India is really so meagre as hardly to
exist. There is not a decent university library in India,
and such as there is gives no opportunity for original work.
Where is there an inspiring example of Western art ? I
have searched India and still put the question to my friends :

What does stand for Western culture in India ? On the other

hand, such Oriental libraries as that at Bankipur, such
museums as those of Calcutta and Madras, provide ample
beginnings for the higher studies of Indian literature, art, and
180 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
history. Fortunately the growth of Indian nationalism has
created a reaction towards Indian culture. Magazines like The
Modem Review give the artistic, the historical, and the literary,
as well as the political, activities of the new Indian school
a platform and an expression. Such works as that on Indian
shipping by Radhakumud Mukerji show the directions in
which the historical school is to move in science, the Chemical
;

Department of the Presidency College need bow its head before

few such departments in the world the work of its head and
:

his students is universally known, and at the same College,

the Professor of Physics, Dr. Bose, has gathered round him
a band of assistants and pupils equal to any working elsewhere
with a great student and investigator. The Tagores, in art
and poetry, are vitalising other parts of Indian life the Hindu ;

university, if properly managed and kept sufficiently free

from the numbing grip of the Government, should result in
a quickening all round schools like those near Hardwar
;

and Bohlpur should give a new impetus to proper Indian

teaching. Generally, there is evidence everywhere that Indian
educationalists are applying to Indian needs the more modern
conceptions of organic sociology and psychology, and are be-
ginning to undo the mistakes of the preceding generation
guided by the individualist psychology of the Radical reformers.
This point has been well brought out by an Indian writer :

"
It does not seem even now recognised by many that the
educational methods adopted by the Indian universities
have been only one-sided in their character, in that they have
not hitherto sufficiently taken note of indigenous traditions
as contributing to the forces of social order and stability,
but on the other hand, have, either consciously or unwittingly,
but always in the name of progress and enlightenment, set
themselves to the task of undermining the very fabric of Indian
society, by weakening its traditions without being able in
the meantime to foster and promote and create other traditions
which would serve as a social cement." 1
1 The Dawn Magazine, July- August 1913.
 EDUCATION 181

The return young and nationalist India to Hinduism

of
is seen in nothing better than in the project for a Hindu
university, to which reference has been made already. This
was a desire akin to that of Catholic Ireland to have a univer-
"
sity of its own. True Hindus, true Mussalmans, and true
Christians are wanted," wrote an advocate of this university,
"
and they cannot, we have sufficient ground to believe, come
out from any College or other educational institution unless
it is strictly directed according to their respective faiths,

traditions, and religions." I doubt if the substantives which

end this sentence are well chosen. I should substitute one
which is more comprehensive than they, one freer from
error, one that indicates better the changing content of Truth
— "
the word culture." The Government may grant a charter,
the university may be residential, it may have plenty of
—
money that is nothing. It will not produce men, Hindus.
"
Paul may preach and Apollos may water, but it is God who
giveth the increase." The West has done all it can for India.
The Indian must turn back upon his own culture and must
"
enrich it by fertilisation with other cultures. Revive the
Hindu spirit, endeavouring your very best to keep it in order.
This should be the aim of the Hindu university, there being
nothing nobler than that. And if efforts are not made in
this direction, better have no university at all." Here we
have the feeling that education must be organic to a
people. It must be Indian. That is unassailable truth.

If in this critical survey I have been lamenting that Western

education in India has missed its mark, it must not be supposed
that I mean that education in India has been a complete
failure. It has not. Whatever its faults may have been,
it has kept a light shining upon the Indian mind. It has built
and endowed schools, colleges, and universities, and that alone
is something. It has brought to India a few men of wonderful
influence who have taught the youth of India ideals of use-
fulness, of rectitude ;
and given them an interest
of discipline,
182 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
in their country and which otherwise they would
their race
not have known or felt. A
Ranade, a Telang, a Ghokale —
each is a product of Western influence upon an Indian mind.
It has also unified India. A college system stretching from
Madras to Lahore, and from Calcutta to Bombay, has a greater
influence in one generation in making India a community,
in giving it a political nationalism, than a century of govern-
ment centring in a capital city. It moreover breaks down
those artificial barriers which an old-time necessity raised
between class and class, and which religious custom riveted
upon India. Even the use of English has its advantages,
however heavy is the price that has to be paid for it. In the
future, India may look back upon these years and grieve over
some of the havoc they have wrought, but at the same time
it will be able to console itself with the good they have done.
The Hares, the Duffs, the Grants will retain an honoured
place amongst the great benefactors of India.
Further, if Indian education is willing to be judged by the suc-
cess which it has attained as regards a purpose which was candidly
avowed by some of its founders, it has provided the Govern-
ment with a great mass of officials ranging from village clerks
to District Magistrates, from Forestry officers to assistant sur-
geons, and that is an achievement of considerable political value.
It remains to outline what reforms are now necessary to
put the education of India on a more scientific footing.
But before doing this, let there be no doubt about one thing.
We cannot draw the pen through the Macaulay Minute and
begin afresh. We must take what has been done and improve
upon it, modify it, make
our point of departure. It has
it

been embedded in Indian A large part of our reforming

life.

work will consist therefore not in making new departures,

but in filling up and amplifying what has been done, and in
putting into operation recommendations made long since,
and intentions declared three-quarters of a century ago as —
for instance in Sir Charles Wood's Dispatch of 1854. That
being clearly understood I may proceed to proposals.
 EDUCATION 183

We must abandon completely the idea that Indian education

has to be controlled by Englishmen. They are necessary
for teaching some subjects like English literature and may be

employed as special lecturers, but they are not necessary

in order to impart characteristics to the system itself. Only
so long as the system is alien will aliens be required to run
it; an educational system is essentiahy part of national life.
Sir Sankaran Nair, as Education Minister, Principal Rudra,
as head of St. Stephen's College, can do more for Indian
education than Englishmen who may be their superiors as
educationalists at home ; Bohlpur and Hardwar have more
influence on India than the nearest approach to Eton that can
ever be founded there. Of course a great educationalist
is a blessing to a country irrespective of whether it is the country

of his own origin or not. A Chinaman could do well in England,

but, speaking of teaching generally, a good teacher must know
his country and be one in mental make-up with his pupils,
and so Indians will educate India better than Britons can.
Therefore, the policy of supplying professors from Great Britain
must be changed. We are at the end of the period when
—
Indian professors for no other reason except that they are
—
Indian were ranked in a lower grade of the Service than
Englishmen. That system has played havoc in the minds
of the students and is deeply resented by them. Nor has the
English professor in later years been successful. His quali-
fications as a teacher have not been good, even when his place
in his university examination has been satisfactory. He has
not known how to handle his pupils. He has not been their
guru and he has not taken the trouble to understand them.
In class he has too frequently made rude remarks to them,
and nearly all the college strikes and riots have arisen from
this. 1
We have certainly not succeeded in finding the right
men to go to Government colleges. India must produce
1 Cf
the report of the Committee appointed by the Government of Bengal
.

to inquire into the assault committed upon Professor Oaten by students of

the Presidency College, Calcutta, May 1916.
184 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
its own professors, and if they are not ready prepared all
at once we must begin to look for them and see that the
education system is not a barrier against them.
The Government must allow more freedom to Universities.
To-day it regards them as a Department of State and inter-
feres with them too much. In Madras, contrary to good tradi-
tion, the member
of the Executive Council responsible for
education has been made Vice-Chancellor of the University.
The Government has irritated Senates by repeatedly trying
to influence examinations. For
instance, the Bombay
University has been for thirty years at loggerheads with it
about the Matriculation Examination, and even if we were to
grant that the Government view in this respect is right, the
long duration of the controversy only shows how fundamen-
tally wrong government educational methods are. Its present

policy of checking and controlling only encourages University

Boards to kick over the traces. They tend to become a sort
"
of opposition to the Government," whereas if they were
made responsible they would be influenced far more by
purely educational considerations, and would themselves check
the evil tendencies of examinations, and end the other causes
which lower the value of Indian instruction and prevent
it in so many cases from becoming education at all. The
freeing of education from Government management has been
in some way or other recommended by every commission
1

that has inquired into Indian education.

The two great educational needs of India are elementary
schools and teachers. The idea that India can be educated
from above, from colleges, must be abandoned. It not only
" "
means that students find themselves above when they
are not educated sufficiently to be there, but that the lower
schools and colleges and their pupils concentrate their attention
"
upon getting above." A
system of elementary education
covering the villages, based upon Mr. Gokhale's Bill, with an
element of compulsion in it, should be devised, and it should
1 the Report of the 1882 Commission.
Cf.
 EDUCATION 185

1
be adapted to the needs of the people, for all higher education i

depends on sound lower education. At present the Indian

college system is founded upon an untrustworthy foundation
which is both too narrow and too shallow. The condition of
the more primary institutions is disgraceful. Mr. Hornel,
Director of Public Instruction in Bengal, has written as follows
"
in The Calcutta Review l of the Calcutta Schools What :

in fact happens is something like this. I am thinking for

the moment of schools for Indian children and not of schools
for Europeans or Anglo-Indians. Schools are started very
largely as private ventures in response to demands real or
supposed. Those who start them house them wherever
or howsoever they can, and in the case of a high English school,
if a certain number of pupils can be got together and the

standard of accommodation and general efficiency is not

made too exacting, the running cost may be met and even
a profit made. In the case of the primary schools the state of
affairs is even more chaotic. A pandit or a maulvi appears
and he sets himself to establish a primary school. He looks
about for a habitat, and having found some building which
is sufficiently cheap, he gets together a few pupils, and if

he can retain these pupils for a certain time he goes to the

Deputy Inspector and possibly to the Municipality and obtains
a grant. In 1905 the Government of Bengal pointed out to
the Municipality that the primary schools of the town were
a disgrace, being dark, ill-ventilated, damp and unhealthy,
and in most cases too small to accommodate the number of
children attending them. A scheme was at the time proposed
by which the Municipality with the help of Government should
construct some forty-five model primary schools but this ;

1 I have been anxious to avoid making this chapter a mere summary of

facts like the valuable Quinquennial Education Reports issued by the Indian
Government. For statistics of literacy and illiteracy and such things, readers
must go to these Reports. It is enough for me to say that primary education
in India isa miserably low condition.
in Only a little over 2 per cent, of the
population attend schools of any kind.
»
1913, p. 308.
186 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
scheme was not carried into effect and the condition of the

primary schools in Calcutta continues to be absolutely de-

plorable. The condition of secondary schools is very little
better. Very few schools are situated in houses of their own,
and practically none of them are accommodated in buildings
constructed for schools."
The recommendations on the
in the very earliest reports
education of the masses have not yet been adopted by the
Government. 1
But they are the basis of everything. The
greatest efforts, supported by finance and a propaganda of
opinion, should be made in conjunction with such societies as
that of the Servants of India and with college authorities
to get college youths to become teachers. Again, this will not
succeed unless the system is devised with a large amount of
freedom. The Government Inspector working on English
models is not the man to do it. The Gurukul and the Bohlpur
models are far better. Baroda results in compulsory atten-
dance may be criticised, but they are worth sympathetic study.
In India the teacher should feel his freedom and importance
and not be constantly reminded of the hand of Government.
India outside the large towns, outside the courts, outside the
district magistrate'scompound, is too diffuse and intangible
to be inspired by a bureaucracy. The rebuilding of an educa-
tion system in India must come from village councils, pan-
chayets, local bodies, and all the difficulties and drawbacks
of thatmust be faced and patiently overcome.
So long as efficient elementary education is lacking, Higher
Schools will be crowded by pupils not fit to benefit by them —
1 Mr. Howell in his Education in British India, written in 1872, commenting
upon the Dispatches of 1854, 1859, and 1870 emphasising the need of primary
" But so strongly opposed is this view to the traditional
education, says :

that it has not yet in any Province been

policy of the preceding forty years,
sufficiently realised. ... It is not
that the educational policy prescribed
from England has been directly opposed ; it simply has not been carried out,
to the strong tradition of former years,
partly, I venture to think, owing
and partly perhaps owing to the direction given by the Education Depart-
ments recruited as a rule from men of English university distinction." Very
little modification is required to bring this statement up to date.
 EDUCATION 187

pupils who whilst there, and subsequently whilst at College,

drag down standards and defeat the best of teachers. When
technical education was begun in London the same difficulties
were experienced as the early reports of the Technical Educa-
tion Board show, and in that comparatively small area, with
plenty of money and institutions, with committees of the most
enlightened educationalists, it has taken nearly a generation
to master the problem.
The technical school should also be in the main a local
institution linked up with Provincial colleges, and extended
by scholarships sending promising men to Europe. But here
again definite ideas are necessary. It is no use training men
in the arts and crafts of Western industry unless the capital
and organisation are forthcoming in India to provide scope
for these men when they have finished their training. Do
not let us repeat in technical training what we did in literary
instruction, and encourage education to run away out of touch
with India. Education and a country are companions. When
they cease to keep in touch with each other they wander
uselessly. We see year after year the spread of the large
industry in India, but for many years to come it will not only
be confined to one or two trades like jute and cotton, but
will be an insignificant proportion of the whole volume of
Indian production and consumption. For generations the
1

best technical work we can do for India is to revitalise her

arts and crafts centred in her villages. The way to do this
is obviously through the Co-operative Societies, which in places
*
like Conjeeveram are struggling to bring village industry
to a new birth. Then there is agriculture, by far and away
the premier industry in India, the most handed over to tradi-

1
One of the
results of regarding India as subordinate to foreigners in every-
thing the unwillingness to give Indians a fair chance even in Indian in-
is

dustry. For instance, frequent complaints are made that Indians of proved
capacity are not trusted in the great Tata iron works.
I mention this because I have seen it, and was much struck by the weaving
workshop there.
188 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
tionand Providence, and the most difficult to improve by
Here again what one has to say to the
scientific practice.
Government is Decentralise and liberate
: Devise an in- !

dustrial policy to keep step with your educational one !

When one ultimately arrives at the college and university,

one enters a stage of the controversy where the opportunity
to reform is not quite so clear. It is difficult to scrap or even
radically reform existing institutions, and the action of Govern-
ment has so raised suspicion, and the educated Indian is so
jealous of what he has secured, that a thorough university
reform would meet with opposition, not on its merits or de-
merits, but because it was a change brought about by a Govern-
ment which has given good reason for being treated as suspect.
That was the case in 1904, when an Act full of sound proposals
was prejudiced by Lord Curzon's injudicious conduct and
speeches connected with it. The system of the federated
college, part of which reaches one standard and part another
standard, is bad putting the teaching and professorial staff
;

of a college into a Civil Service cadre is bad making professors

;

inspectors, and putting masters of one subject to teach another

in order to suit departmental convenience, is bad x mixing ;

up in one bureaucratic service men of the most varied functions,

and creating distinctions in title which represent no difference
in work or attainments, is bad the iron hand of the Govern-
;

ment controlling colleges is bad the division of staffs into

;

"
One who has specialised in history should not be made a lecturer in
1

English philology, or a man who is believed to know physics, a lecturer in

metaphysics." Evidence of P. T. Srinavas Iyengar Avayal, M.A., Principal
of the M.A.V.N. College, Vizigapatam, to the Royal Commission on the
Public Services of India. This is the self-confessed record of one of the English
professors who was examined by this Commission : He took a second-class
Classical Tripos at Cambridge and studied at Bonn and Paris. He was
private secretary to a member of the Cabinet at home and went to India
as head master of a public school. He was then made Professor of English,
but had done the work of Professor of History and Economics, and had only
taught Economics. He had no special training in Economics, but had read
it in Aristotle. His evidence is not given in full in the official report.
Appendix to the Report of the Commissioners, Education Department. Cd. 7908,
1915.
 EDUCATION 189

Imperial and Provincial grades is bad. Universities should be

in the hands of free educationalists and not
of Civil Servants,
even the latter are educationalists. There should be a
if

sifting out of education which is not of a university

standard from that which is, but that can be done only when
there a complete system built up from below. At present
is
"
the two years of a student's time at college are devoted
first
to what is really school work." But at whatever cost, the
authorities should rigidly refuse to honour with a university
stamp education which is clearly nothing more than higher

elementary. There will be disappointment and opposition

at first and the change cannot be made to-morrow. But if
the authorities could only gain the confidence of the Indian
educated community as regards their educational policy,
they would receive its support in making the necessary changes.
This can only be done under a system of self-government.
The three main grades of education, primary, secondary (in-
cluding technical) , and university, are not merely one coherent
whole, but each grade has its own separate justification and
completion contained within itself. A primary school should
not call itself a high school nor a high school a college, and
the various grades of teachers should understand and accept
the importance and independence of their work. That is
not the case in India, where the college dominates everything
and where college badges and certificates are the only edu-
cational prizes that are sought for. During education a man
must find absorbing pleasure amongst the treasures in the
midst of which he wanders for the time being, and not be
a long-distance runner whose eyes see only the far-away prize
and applause, and who knows no lingering place short of that
goal. This true educational psychology will never be that of >

India so long as its educational system is, as at present, an

inverted pyramid resting on its college apex.
In the Benares Hindu university, to which I must again
refer, the Government retains throughout the right of veto
on most important matters, though it has surrendered its
190 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
nominated majority on the syndicate and does not retain,
as in Calcutta for instance, its right to veto the appointment
of professors. The powers of the Visitor, who is the Lieutenant-
Governor of the United Provinces ex officio, are extensive,
but the important thing is that the University is to be governed
by people who are not official representatives of the Govern-
ment. It is to be national. It is to teach its own students,
who are to be resident. Its religious atmosphere is to be Hindu.
There can be no doubt that ifthis university is fortunate
in its beginning, it will become the great seat of learning in
India. Not the Government colleges, but this, will attract
the Indian youth piously seeking knowledge, and the scholar
piously teaching it. Here India has its chance of showing
what is in it. But it must remember certain things from
the very beginning. A university must not be brought down
to low levels in order to accommodate youths who would like
to have degrees, but whose education cannot carry them. A
university must be bold even against Governments in form-
ing its ownand in claiming its intellectual independence.
life

A university must not be a golden gateway to office so much

as a temple where men go for refreshment and guidance and
equipment for living. A university must have a tradition,
it must be a commune whose sovereignty is accepted by its

students through life. And finally, a university is a place

not where men are examined, but where they are educated.
The Hindu University, of all Indian universities, has the best
chance of following high ideals.
Then there the question of women's education.
is The
outside world assumes that woman is a negligible influence
on Indian society. She is supposed to be ignorant, secluded,
passive. She is nothing of the kind. She is either active
with progress or active with reaction. She is either an en-
couraging help or a heavy handicap. She is never a mere
nothing one way or the other. In India she is advancing
fast and will go far, for in the generations of her apparent
subordination she developed a very pretty will of her own.
 EDUCATION 191

It is significant that in Indian tales the woman is so often the

predominant partner, the emancipated person, or the inspiring
"
force. There are more suffragettes in our homes than you
imagine," said a Madras Brahmin to me.
The Indian woman will more and more demand education,
fortwo reasons, both equally good, and the Government should
support the demand for a reason which is also good. Women
will ask to be educated because they desire to be educated,
and because they wish to enter certain professions, chiefly
those of nursing and medicine and teaching. So we have
medical schools for women like the Lady Hardinge Hospital
at Delhi, and the University for Women at Poona, supported
by the Hindu Widows' Home Association. The Government
must support these adventures not only because an educated
womanhood will be good for India, but because it requires
their help in both medical and teaching work. There is
always a considerable demand for women teachers, and that
ought to grow. Much of the private medical work in the more
enlightened parts of the mofussil, especially the tending of
women, must depend on women doctors, and upon the supply
of competent women teachers will depend to a great extent
how rapidly primary schools multiply.
Meanwhile the higher schools and colleges for women
increase their number of students, and the women of certain
sections of the community, like the Parsees, are beginning to
rival the men in their education. The movement has started ;

it will not fail. The shortcoming is teachers — it is teachers,

always teachers.
Thus India returns to itself like a wanderer who has roamed
far but has found no rest.
 CHAPTER XIV
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
The is commonly assumed to rest upon
British Constitution
law. The Legislature declares it, the Executive has then
to accept it, and the Judiciary administers it. In this scheme
the various functions remain independent, otherwise justice
would not be done. In her symbolic representation, Justice
is blindfold so that outside influences not weigh with her.
may
She is possessed of a mind apart from the world
of convenience
and passing motives. If she gaV3 eye or ear to the Executive
she could be impartial no longer, but would become a serving
maid, and no one who entered a court would be sure of finding
uprightness there.
In India, as elsewhere, justice rested in the King, who was
enjoined by the law books to spend from a quarter to half
of his time in the judgment seat, and who was specially charged
to hear all cases concerning his own dignity and the State's
security. He had also his judges, who acted in his name in
a series of courts down to that over which the village headman
presided, and these were supplemented by tribunals of cor-
porations, trade guilds, and families with appropriate juris-
diction. The law, however, was not Statute Law, but a some-
what confused body of religious and secular rules supplemented
by social custom, and in its administration the common sense
—or the whim— whether Chief Justice or village
of the judge,
headman, played an important part. The judgments were
largely of the nature of equity judgments. In a Golden
Age of civil peace and political wisdom such a system would
yield a maximum of justice, but in the ordinary world of
192
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 193

prejudice, interest, and falsehood both precarious and

it is

unjust. When we arrived, India was undergoing a general

deterioration owing to political anarchy which we first of
all fostered and then took advantage of, and the adminis-

tration of justice suffered with every other social function.

Our own beginnings as magistrates and judges were not
very happy. The early Charters of the Company show the
factories in India to be extra-territorial as regards the ad-
ministration of justice. Every one residing within the areas
of Company jurisdiction was amenable not to the courts of
sovereign authority, but to those of the Company, which were
charged to administer justice based upon English law but ;

the Charter of 1753 provided that the Mayors' Courts, as

the British courts were called, should judge Indians only if
their disputes involved Europeans or if the Indians of their
own free will submitted themselves.
When the to rule, and Parliament to watch,
Company began
the administration of justice was seen to be the point where
a check upon Company faults and failings could be most
conveniently and effectively made. Justice was then under
the real control of the Company and therefore subject to
the general work of the administration. Clive, after having
secured the Diwani grant, put civil justice into the hands of
the British administrators, whilst criminal justice remained
in those of the Nawab. Then Hastings came. He placed
Europeans to preside over the Civil Courts, giving them
Hindu and Mohammedan assessors, and he created a system
of appeals. At the same time he established Criminal Courts
of his own. Obviously this was an offence to the legal minds
at Westminster. It was justice subordinate to the commer-
cial interests and the peace of mind of the Company.
An independent judiciary was necessary, it was argued.
So the Regulating Act set up the High Court at Calcutta as
a Supreme Court of Appeal, a court which was admittedly
to check the administration of the Company. The theory
was admirable the practice displayed that lack of insight
;

13
 194 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
into realities which was then preparing for us all our troubles
in America with the loss of the Colonies. The history of the
world that has still to be written contains the secret of what
the end is to be, but the history that has been finished shows
that when the English mind sets out to construct with a
conscious and definite end in view, it is purely subjective in its
thought, incapable of objective imagination, and innocent of
any suspicion that what has worked in England may not work
elsewhere, or that other nationalities have an evolution of
their own. The success of the British consists in working
unsystematised compromises and adaptations without much
thought of to-morrow, and it may be that we are in conse-
quence the chosen people amongst the earth's rulers. Our
people's qualities cost them their American Colonies, however,
and led them to pass the judicial clauses of the Regulating
Act, which may be taken to be the beginning of the substitu-
—
tion of English court methods the word
"
justice
"
must
" "
not be used, because justice is not a process but a con-
—
clusion in India.
I dispute neither the necessity nor the value of the Calcutta

High Court. Its work since its establishment has been a

conspicuous vindication of the latter its conflicts with a
;

Government which has again and again sought political judg-

ments and wished by its powers and the anathemas in the
columns of newspapers to inform the judges that, in its
its

opinion, its censures ought to be taken as judgments and

its convenience as law, have proved the former. But on its
establishment, the High Court was set into an imperfect
political constitution, and when asked to limit the political
authority of the Company within constitutional bounds
and the decision of its courts within law, neither the bounds
nor the law had been adequately defined. The Company,
however, was not a committee of British colonists ruling
on the spot. It was itself a remote authority. The people
of the country had not the least interest in constitutional
blunders and they were spectators and not actors, so the
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 195

mistakes of the Court worked themselves out in friction and

not in revolution. The newly appointed judges held high
revelry in the china shop of Indian custom and Company
interest.
Thus our first attempt to establish an independent Judiciary
in India brought misfortune. A
Supreme Court appointed
by and responsible to the Crown, lower courts under the
control of the Company, the Company and Parliament little
short of being at constant loggerheads, was a condition of
things bound to produce friction and opposition and not merely
judicial independence. The Supreme Court began by assuming
that it had been created to check the tyranny and injustice
of the Company it also assumed something that was much
;

less well founded and might have led to serious trouble that :

English law, and English law alone, was good enough for
everybody on the face of the earth. Hence it is that the first
chapter in the history of the independent Supreme Court
at Calcutta is taken up wholly with the contest between itself
and Warren Hastings, and it ended in discomfiture for the
Judiciary owing to own folly. The Company's adminis-
its

tration —including matters concerning the raising of revenue

all
— was withdrawn from the Supreme Court, which was also
instructed to judge Hindus and Mohammedans in accordance
with their own laws when they were involved. The Company's
Courts were recognised and two independent judicial systems
therefore existed side by side, the Supreme Court being all
the time in the unhappy frame of mind which came from the
consciousness that it had not the power which properly be-
longed to it. It was isolated ; the lower Courts and the
machinery of justice were largely outside its influence ;
it

had a too limited jurisdiction over British subjects ;

it was
therefore not only jealous, but aggressive. Finally, when the
Crown took over India, the judicial systems were merged into
one. The Supreme Courts became High Courts, but to this
day they retain the condition of mind and the reputation,
especially in Calcutta, that they should set a watch upon
196 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Executive action, and one is constantly hearing complaints,
in connection with political cases in particular, that the High
Courts are not sufficiently sympathetic with government diffi-
culties. In India there is some confusion of mind on this
constitutional point, and a great section of officials supported
by Anglo-Indian opinion cannot understand why the persons
who sit on the bench should take no account of government
difficulties, and should refuse to stretch the process of justice
so as to admit the influence of political opinion. They cannot
understand why the thief-catcher with his full knowledge
of the thief should be disqualified from being the judge in
the case he knows so well, and why he should not use his
general knowledge to supplement the evidence before him
in deciding whether an accusation is well founded or not.

The greater number of judges, justices, and magistrates

are Indians. The lower courts are exclusively manned by
Indians —the munsifs, the subordinate judges, the deputy
magistrates, and so on, through a variety of titles differing
in different provinces, but all included in what, at the time
when this is written, is called the Provincial Services.
1
The
superior judicial appointments mainly belong to the Indian
Civil Service. The collector, in addition to his revenue and
administrative duties, exercises general control over the police,
and he also supervises the work of the Courts in his district,
and acts as District Magistrate. In fact, on him is focused
allthe authority which deals with law and order in his District,
and he has to see, both on the criminal and the civil side, to
the smooth running of the mechanism of justice. Above all
are the High Courts with an appeal to the Privy Council.
On the bench of these Courts must be at least one-third bar-
risters of England or Ireland, or members of the Faculty of
Advocates of Scotland, at least one- third members of the Indian
Civil Service, and the others must be qualified persons who
1 The
Royal Commission on the Public Services of India has recommended
that this designation should be used no longer.
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 197

have held subordinate judicial positions and who have prac-

tised at the Bar of the High Court. Throughout the whole
1
of these higher judicial services, Indians are to be found.
There used to be a considerable number of Europeans practising
at the Indian Bar, but they tend to disappear. They find
that Indians have gained possession and keep possession.
The best Indian mind is a subtle instrument which makes
the most out of the human frailty which every law-maker's
work must show. It is really too ingenious. It often confuses
rather than persuades, but it is never at a loss for excuses
or explanations. I sometimes think that the real explanation
of the way in which the Indian youth took to the Bar as a

post of high honour and emolument is the natural delight of

the young Indian in verbal art. And yet when we check
our impressions of the popularity of the Bar by figures, we
seehow easy it is to get exaggerated notions into our heads.
There are fifty-three million persons returned in the last Indian
census (1911) as being engaged in the professions and liberal
"
arts. Religion accounts for rather more than half, letters
and the arts and science for more than a sixth, instruction
and medicine for one-eighth, and law for one-eighteenth,"
but only a little over one-half of these are lawyers, the re-
mainder being clerks, petition writers, law agents, etc. At

1 The
Royal Commission on the Public Services in India elicited interesting
information as to the position of Indians in the Judicial Service. In the
Presidency of Madras, four out of the ten High Court judges are
Indians ; of twenty-two District and Session judges outside the town of
Madras, six are Indians ; the twenty-four subordinate judges are all Indians.
"
Practically the whole of the original civil suits of the country up to Rs. 2,500
in value and six-sevenths of the original suits above that value, and con-
siderably more than half of all the civil appeals, were disposed of by Indians.
On the other hand, the bulk of the highest criminal work is still in the hands
of Europeans, the proportion being about three-fourths of the Session cases
and nearly four-fifths of the higher Criminal Appeals" (Madras Evidence,
Cd. 7293, p. 5). It will always be a matter of profound regret to Englishmen
that the English in India passionately opposed every attempt to repose
confidence in Indian judges ; and it should be a warning to us, so long as
our faithlessness needs it, that when that confidence was imposed upon them,
none of our fears ever came true.
198 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
the bottom end, the lawyer shades off into a low type of his
profession and makes his living by encouraging litigation,
and often employs agents to procure him business. Above
that, and especially at the top, he is as good an example of
his profession as is to be found anywhere. When he becomes
a judge he does his work well and his conduct has long ago
removed any suspicion of corruption which used to stick to
him. 1

Something akin to a tradition has grown up in India that

—
the Executive influences or would like to influence the —
Courts, and the expressed opinions of some executive officers
give an excuse for that view. In the days of the Company
the Company's courts were Company's tools. In the House
of Commons, General Burgoyne said of Company justice —
"
The laws of England have been mute and neglected,
and nothing has been seen but the arbitrary caprice of
despotism."
*
To this day that frame of mind has not
altogether departed from the Executive. The red-tape of the
Judiciary often thwarts its political projects. It cannot see
why the political mind should not be on the Bench as it has
to be at the Secretariat. The executive officer makes up
his mind about a man not on proof alone, but on what seems
to him to be likelihood or possibility. His business is not to
adjudicate upon what has been done or what has happened,
but upon what is likely, in his opinion, to be done or to happen.
The judge knows but little of likelihood. He has to make
up his mind about evidence and he has to interpret and apply
the law. He has to approach a case with a mind free from
all the impressions regarding it which must be stamped deeply

" The Lord Chancellor did not

i
give the Native judges too high a character
when he said in the House of Lords in 1883, as the result of his experience
of Indian cases appealed to the Privy Council, that in respect of integrity,
of learning, of knowledge, of the soundness and satisfactory character of
the judgments arrived at, the judgments of the Native judges were quite
as good as those of the English" (Strachey, India, p. 162). Sir John
Strachey goes even farther than that in his own praise.
"Hansard, 1772, p. 535.
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 199

on the mind of the executive officer. His outlook and function

make him regard society as static the outlook and function
;

of the executive officer make him regard society as dynamic.

Thus, apart from any taint of corrupt dealing or of any desire
on the part of the Executive to rule tyrannically or to use
the Judiciary as its tool, or of any question as to whether
the executive officer can be properly trained for, or have time
to give to, judicial work, the executive and judicial mind are
at enmity.
Here we see unfolded what is the source of the long-drawn-
out controversy upon the separation of the Judiciary from the
Executive in India. In India the District is the unit of
administration, and all the strings of that administration
are gathered up in the hands of that wonderful functionary,
the Collector-Magistrate. He represents the political govern-
ment. He looks after land and other revenue, and local
government he keeps the general machinery of government
;

going. He is accepted as the ruling sahib of his little Empire.

He is the chief magistrate with control over all subordinate
courts, with power to try original and appeal cases himself,
to transfer cases from one court to another, and to take what
steps he likes to prevent or suppress crime and disturbance.
He, as magistrate, can discipline and punish those with whom
he has come into conflict as political executive officer. These
are his powers. In a memorial sent in 1899 to Lord George
Hamilton and signed by Lord Hobhouse and several other
judges of Indian experience, the Collector's powers are described
"
as the strange union of constable and magistrate, public
prosecutor and criminal judge, revenue collector and appeal
court in revenue cases." He may not exercise them, indeed
he has and less time to do so, and his criminal work dimin-
less
ishes. His magisterial decisions are also subject to the Session
judge, and he himself to the High Court. But none of these
considerations affect the real issue. It is very short-sighted
wisdom to endow an office with powers which, if used, would
be dangerous, but which are given or retained on the ground
200 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
that they will not be, are or not being, used. It is plainly
the duty, as it is in accord with the habits, of the British
Government to give Indian officers powers for the use of which
they are responsible to revise from time to time the nominal
;

duties of officers ;
to clear away rotten wood ;
to prevent
duplication and conflict of functions and to adjust the
machinery and administration to changing circumstances. Nor
is it enough to provide for an appeal. If the system is wrong

every decision may be wrong, so that justice demands that

every decision should be tested by an appeal. Under such
circumstances the original decision might as well not have
been given, and the case should have been brought to the Appeal
Court in the first instance.
The union of executive and judicial functions in the Collector
does not mean the same thing in every province, nor has it
always existed in British India. It exists no longer in the
Presidency towns. In Madras, the separation of the two
functions has been effected in the lower grades in Bengal, ;

it now
obtains in the provincial service, and special deputies
are being appointed to try certain land and other suits in ;

Burma, the growth of judicial and executive duties has led

to differentiation and separation. This differentiation owing
to theamount of work to be done is showing itself generally. 1

When Warren Hastings had to handle the problem of how

to turn the Company into a Government and its servants
into rulers, obviously the necessity was to give his district
first

officers all the authority of an oriental potentate. Divided

power was to be avoided. The governing will could not risk
being checked or revised. It had to be free to come to its
own conclusions and also to enforce them. So Hastings
united executive and judicial authority in one officer the —
District Collector. The House of Commons, however, was
watching. It approached such a phenomenon as the Ex-
ecutive-Judge not merely with the principles of the British
Constitution in mind, but jealousy of the Company as well,
1
Report on the Public Services of India, 1917, pp. 194-196.
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 201

and its view was that whilst the Company might be allowed a
revenue to conduct the general affairs of political administra-
tion, the Crown ought to see that justice was done. Ac-
cording to this view, not only should there be a division
between the Executive and Judiciary, but the Judiciary
should keep a watchful eye upon the self-willed Executive.
As has been stated, Hastings won in the conflict, and,
like so many great men, he saw the other man's point of
view. Therefore, when he had established his mastery
he proceeded to show that he saw his mistakes and separated
the Collector's functions. It was too soon, however. Cir-
cumstances were against him. A system of balances, of checks,
of brakes, can be worked only if in every one concerned there
isa sincere desire to work it, or if the opportunities it gives to
create confusion or deadlocks are not taken. It was otherwise
in India. Checks and counter-checks were worked by people
at enmity against each other, and when Lord Cornwallis went
out he had instructions from the Court of Directors to go
back upon the system which Hastings had latterly adopted,
and concentrate power in the hands of the Collector. Thus
once more the Collector became revenue officer, political
administrator, magistrate, and civil judge. Then this did not
work, and civil judicial work was taken from the Collector.
From that time there have been changes backwards and for-
1
wards, but there have steadily emerged the principles that
civil judicial authority should be taken from the Collector,
as it was really not of any advantage to him as ruler to
exercise it, but that criminal and magisterial authority should
remain with him so that he might keep full control of every-
thing concerned with law and order.
For a long time the Government of India frankly confessed
that the union of the two functions was only a temporary
expedient, and the opinions now so prevalent in the service,
that it is good in itself, are of comparatively modern
1
For a history of these changes see The Question of Judicial and Executive
Separation, pt. 1, by P. C. Miller, M.A., D.L.
202 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
growth and are not even now held by some of the most dis-
tinguished administrators. The view that the Collector is
1

ruler over a district for the order, as well as good government,

of which he is responsible, and that therefore he should retain
the authority of a magistrate controlling the police force and
the criminal courts of his District, is the best that can be
taken in favour of the union of the two functions. But it
supports the union only up to a point. It affords no reason
why the Collector should have judicial powers, though it may
decide that he should be at the head of the police. Indeed,
most objectionable that the officer responsible for collect-
it is

ing evidence and prosecuting through the police should be

the judge who tries the case, 2 or that the head of the police
should be a magistrate who is also the head of the district
criminal courts.
Underlying this argument, however, isthe feeling that
some kind of general authority is necessary for the Collector's
" " "
prestige." We are always being told that the East
needs this, that, and the other extraordinary conduct in
"
order that it may understand things. The East," however,
changes, and the political habits and practices of the old time
of personal and despotic rule have become as historical as
our own trial by ordeal. Great masses remain in that his-
torical condition, but these masses do not determine the
modes of modern government, provide a public opinion as a
foundation for it, vindicate it when it is attacked, support it

1
For instance, during the debate on the Police Bill in 1860, Sir Bartle
Frere, who was in charge of the Bill, said that he personally would be only
" a still more
too pleased to have made complete severance of the police and
judicial functions," and the Committee which in 1881 revised the Code of
Criminal Procedure reported that the Bengal Government had asked it to
omit the section conferring police powers on Bengal magistrates. The Com-
mittee said on its own behalf " We consider that it is inexpedient to invest
:

magistrates with such powers." Finally, in 1908, Sir Harvey Adamson,

as Home member of the Viceroy's Council, promised to separate the two
functions in Bengal and Eastern Bengal, but the promise was not fulfilled.
*
This point was specially emphasised by the Police Commission which
reported in 1860. See paragraph 37 of its report.
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 203

against criticism. The Government must protect these pas-

sive masses, but it must adopt methods of doing so which do
not lay it open to the assaults of that active body of public
opinion which can fight it with its own weapons. Sir Harvey
Adamson's conclusion is correct. Discussing the prestige
"
argument, he said in 1908 The combination of functions in
:

such a condition of society (when ordinary legal processes are

possible) is a direct weakening of the prestige of the Execu-
tive."
We must assume that magistrates belonging to an inde-
pendent branch of the administration will be as inspired as
executive officers to stamp out crime, and though they may not
be willing to consider suspicion or probability as proof, and
to use their authority to prevent something evil from happen-
ing before the proof that it is to happen is established, that,
on the balance, will probably add to the amount of justice
done, and consequently to public tranquillity. There can be
no doubt but that the present condition invites suspicion and
gratuitously puts stones into the slings of Indian critics. As
Sir Harvey Adamson again said during that Budget debate in
1908 : "The inevitable result of the present system is that
criminal trials affecting the general peace of the district are
not always conducted in the atmosphere of cool impartiality
which should pervade a court of justice. Nor does this com-
pletely define the evil, which lies not so much in what is done,
as in what may be suspected to be done for it is not enough
;

that the administration of justice should be pure it can ;

never be the bedrock of our rule unless it is also above sus-

picion."
contended that the separation will impose a heavier cost
It is

upon Indian revenues. Even supposing this were true and l

that the expense would be so great as to make a real differ-

ence, cheapness cannot justify a bad system. If suspicion

1 Mr. Romesh Chunder

Dutt, whilst District Magistrate, drew up a scheme
which, by a reorganisation of the staff, secured all that was wanted without
any extra expense. Other similar schemes have been devised.
204 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
about judicial decisions can be removed at the cost of a few
thousand pounds a year, the end will be cheaply bought.
This is an old problem. It has been inquired into and

reported upon again and again it has been debated times

*
;

without number it has been the subject of innumerable

;

resolutions. It is in reality the battle-ground of those who

regard justice as being no justice at all unless it is without
suspicion, and those who relate justice to expediency and
connect judicial authority with the political ends of an execu-
tive. Consequently the accumulation of cases of injustice
done owing to the system is important, but is not decisive.
On the one hand, some injustice is done under the best of
systems on the other hand, the failure to prove that in-
;

justice has been done under an obviously bad system does not
make a reform of the system unnecessary. So I will not
burden my pages with the charges that have been made
8
against the Collector as District Magistrate. Replies have
been made to them, and counter-replies made again. That
the subordinate magistrates are controlled by executive
officers, that judicial promotion depends upon the good-will
who are frequently parties to suits, is a bad system,
of officers
and has enough luck to avoid indictment by the production
if it

of a great array of instances of miscarriages of justice, that

is no matter it remains a system that will not be accepted,
;

willnot emerge from its enveloping cloud of suspicion, and

ought to be changed.
1
Report of Committee upon Bengal Police, 1838 ; Police Commission, 1860,
etc., etc., alsoThe Question of Judicial and Executive Separation, by P. C.
Miller, M.A., D.L.
2
In an appendix to the memorial presented to the Secretary of State in
1899, signed by some of the most eminent Englishmen who had served on the
Indian Bench, including men who had been Chief Justices of Bengal and Bom-
bay, and Lord Hobhouse, who had been Law Member of the Viceroy's Council,
"
some of these cases of palpable injustice are given, cases which, it is thought,
illustrate in a striking way some of the dangers that arise from the present
system." Various Indian lawyers and organisations have also published
from time to time collections of such cases. That they have been numerous
and have been in the main attributable to the system is not open to doubt.
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 205

Nor has another kind of argument, still based upon ex-

pediency, any value. It is said that the executive officer

during his dozen years' apprenticeship comes into the very

closest personal contact with the life of the people and gains
such a thorough knowledge of their habits and ways that
it would be a waste of this knowledge if Government did not

use it on the bench. Assuming the statement to be true,

which I do only for argument's sake, what is its meaning ?
We send men out to administer Indian affairs, and we start
them as subordinates in country districts where they get
to know something of the people. In the course of their
apprenticeship they develop an interest in the administration
of the law and have peculiar opportunities for becoming wise

judges. To that there is no objection. Let them become

judges if they are fit. Whether or not civilians should be
able to pass into the Judiciary at an early period of their
service is the only question that this argument raises, and it
has little to do with the union of the Executive and Judiciary
at certain points and in certain officers.
Nor has a much more important matter very much to
—
do with it that there should always be a number of civilians
on High Court benches. A man of common sense and logical
faculty who has some knowledge of the law can make a great
judge and dispense justice. In India he will perhaps be
troubled by barristers of unusual subtlety of intellect, but if
he is firmly placed on his common sense he need not fear that.
So there have been great civilian judges and magistrates.
It is the custom at home to select the Bench from the Bar,
but if it had been otherwise, and other walks of life giving
chances for judicial qualities had also been tapped for this
purpose, probably the result on the whole would not have been
bad. But the question that we ask of the Indian Judiciary
is why must Civil Servants sit on the High Court Bench 1
:

And the only real answer is that in the interests of the service
it has been so decreed. The service must have its offices
and its dignities. Once again, it is not necessary to prove
 206 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
inefficiencies(though these are frequently alleged)
'
we need ;

only prove that it is not in the fitness of things, that it is

something done by decree which of itself is not natural, that
it is suspect because it introduces upon the Bench interests,

points of view, frames of mind, methods and associations

which at once suggest, to the unsophisticated mind, bias and
aims and purposes other than those of a blindfolded justice.
Naturally in India there is much opposition from the Bar
to the existing arrangement. It alleges that the civilian has
not enough legal training to entitle him to be a judge or
magistrate, that he has less respect for the law as such than
a desire to secure political aims, that the system is a violation
of that which has made British justice what it is. The case
is difficult to reply to. Even if the civilians have the making
of great judges in them, they should make a more respectable

beginning on the Bench than muddling through the lower

judicial offices.
No one can well resist the conclusion that it is desirable
that the separation should take place, and the Civil Service
should become purely executive in its work. Perhaps for the
first year or two of service it may be possible for a man to

choose whether his later life is to be spent on either the

executive or judicial side. He should then, however, have to
choose early and undergo the proper training if he takes the
latter. We shouldbe wrong to assume that the British method
of taking judges from the Bar comparatively late in life is the
only satisfactory one. It has many advantages, but it has
some disadvantages, and the method of putting younger
men on the Bench and promoting them to higher responsi-
bilities has much to be said for it. But that is not involved
in this old topic of controversy. When there was no efficient
Bar in India, when there was no critical legal opinion there,
when there was one man in the midst of a great district which
he had to govern of his own will, the union of the two great
1 The list of bad
judges on our own Bench is not a short one and every
generation makes additions to it.
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 207

functions of government —the executive and judiciary —in

one service was not only possible, but may have been impera-
tive. India has now outlived those conditions, however.

This, important though it be, both in its judicial and

aspects, is not the only big question raised by the
its political

administration of British law in India. We have codified

the law, we have introduced a legal method with a tolerable
amount of certainty in its working, we have purified the
—
Bench and have made bribery a thing of the past at any rate
in the higher grades. But we have destroyed native Indian
justice in precisely the same way as we destroyed native
Indian education, and if we say that both were bad we are
not really answering the charge, because both education and
justice belong to the culture of a people and foreign systems
cannot be transplanted with impunity.
The Hindu is said to have been litigious always, and judicial
statistics are really appalling. There are over 2,000,000
civil suits every year, about three-fourths of which arise over

money and movable property affairs, and one-fifth relate to

rent. No than 290,000 suits relate to sums of ten rupees
less
and under, and well over a million are disputes about fifty
rupees and under. About one-tenth of the cases go to appeal.
The Indian regards the courts as some people regard Monte
Carlo. It is difficult for English people to understand the
Indian psychology as regards this, and in consequence it is
difficult to get them to see what has happened as a result of
the introduction of our legal methods. In our historical
evolution, the court has come to be the place where one
seeks justice, not where one pursues chances and as we are
;

a people in whose solid minds justice means something real

in respect to our relationships with each other, the function
of the court is to vindicate and secure. If we, however, can

imagine a people in whose minds a sense of justice is more

rudimentary (say a society of usurers) and only a keen intelli-
gence dominates certain classes of relationships (say borrowings
208 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
and debts), or if we can imagine a people accustomed to
regulate their affairs by accommodation and convenience less
than by contract and obligation, it is easy to see that courts in
such a Society would not perform exactly the same function as
in ours, and that the security of right would not be so much
in evidence formally taken, and in law interpreted in the letter

by lawyers and judges, as in a much rougher process of equity

based upon common knowledge and common sense. This is
an explanation of what has taken place in India. The officers
in touch with the people felt this difference between India
and England, and proposed to maintain a system of justice
which was of course anathema to legal minds both British —
—
and Indian working on the assumptions of the West. These
latter minds prevailed, because, however true was the insight
of the conservatives, they, as aliens and as representatives of
a system of which Western courts were an indissoluble part,
occupied a weak position and could make their case good
only by attacking some of the essential assumptions of Western
administration in India and of Indian minds trained in Western
ways. So the British courts and British legal processes were
transplanted, and behold, the society into which they came
being very different to that from which they came and into
which they fitted, they did not fit and they did not function
as with us. They had to accommodate themselves and to be
accommodated to the alien society in which they were to work.
I have referred to the first false start of the Supreme Court
when it decided to apply its British law to all Indians. That
was a gross error, and consequently could easily be corrected.
But there were more subtle things which had to be done
and could not be corrected. For instance, the relationship
between borrower and moneylender in India was a historical
product of custom and depended on the fact that it was
defined by custom. When this became a legal relationship
and the subject of definitions so precise that they could be
enforced in courts, and be applied not in customary ways
but legally, obviously what happened was not a mere
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 209

formal transference of customary habit to written law, but a

complete revolution in the relationship of borrower to money-
lender, and, as this relationship very largely kept cultivation
going throughout India, the revolution affected the working of
Indian society.
This can best be illustrated in the case of land legislation.
It used to be that the village bunnia was nothing but the
financial agent of the cultivator who took his crops at a price
and advanced him what he wanted to meet his obligations.
As the cultivator had no realisable property, the bunnia re-
garded him as a going concern and his security was the next
harvest. Therefore he had no interest in allowing his client
to run into debt or to ruin him. All that changed, however.
British legal ideas not only established the cultivator on a
more definite relationship to his land, but introduced also a
more between him and his bunnia. The
definite relationship
vakil, or country lawyer,came in to interpret that relation-
ship because it had become technical; and the moneylender,
knowing probably what had happened at the beginning of the
nineteenth century when Bengal moneylenders acquired the
Orissa estates upon which they had issued mortgages, and in
any event feeling the common land hunger, proceeded to
employ British justice to acquire landed property. I do not
concern myself with his tricky methods, with the amount of
his interest or the provisions of his mortgage deeds. I con-
cern myself with the legal and judicial changes of which he
took advantage and which altered village relationships as
completely and as unfortunately as the Permanent Settlement
changed relationships in Bengal.
Again and again the operation of strict legal processes has
brought whole communities to the verge of ruin and the
State to the edge of serious disorder. This was the case in the
Deccan when the Agriculturalists' Relief Act had to be passed
in 1879, and again in the Punjab when the Land Alienation
Act had to be passed in 1900, amidst a fury of conflicting
views and interests. The story is interesting. When the
14
210 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Punjab was annexed the land was restored to the people and
a reasonable land revenue was fixed. The land of the
Punjab was to be the nursery of brave soldiers. But the
brave men were thriftless men, as brave men so frequently
are ; our Revenue was a rigid impost ;
the moneylender
became essential to both the cultivator and the Government.
But we, in the justice of our heart, protected the debtor by
providing that debts that were to be recoverable after three
years and up to six had to be registered. This introduced
the lawyer, first of all, for registration itself, and, later on,
for the court proceedings that followed. When the land
surveys were completed and local courts were set up conse-
quent upon the creation of a chief court for the Province,
all the definitions and the precisions necessary for litigation
and seizure were complete and the machinery was ready to
operate. The lamb had been supplied with a wolf to help
it. Our officers began to see what was happening, but the
Government could not understand how a pure and mechani-
cally equitable system of justice could do anything but punish
the wrongdoers and protect the oppressed. As a matter of
fact both law and lawlessness are alike in this :
they side with
those who can take the best advantage of them.
The Punjab courts became blocked with business and
supplementary ones had to be established. But the bigger
the output, the more was the demand. The game went fast
and furious, and the bunnias jostled each other and blocked
the courts in their haste to become landowners. In 1886 an
official inquiry was ordered, and it revealed an alarming

state of indebtedness and an alarming number of sales. It

took fourteen years to get legislation, and then it came only
because there was a usurious scandal brought to light, and
because the threatened cultivators were getting out of hand
and were dealing with the bunnias in the old extra-legal way
by assault and battery. In the end, non-agriculturalists
were prohibited from acquiring land from agriculturalists.
Whoever surveys in a broad sweep the results of our judicial
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 211

system in India will therefore not see the unqualified opera-

tion of a of protection for the innocent, but a
mechanism
complete transformation of social relationships. And if in
his sweep he includes the criminal courts he will find similar
results. The corruption of the police, the manufacture of
evidence, the concoction of accusations, have too often
made the courts weapons in the hands of the evildoer, who,
so far from regarding them as a terror, has annexed them
as a weapon. To strike at any enemy by falsely accusing
him in court, and providing witnesses to support the accusation,
is by no means a rare thing in India. That which concerns
itself with matters of justice may also be used to deal out

injustice ;
and the abuse does not necessarily depend on the
character of judges (which for a long time has been quite
good in India), but upon the possibility of manipulating the
processes adopted. Every advantage is taken of this. A
specially low type of advocate and agent has arisen, extra-
ordinarily high charges are piled up, every permissible process
of application and appeal is resorted to, and the law drags
on its snail-like pace to its uncertain end. " I fancy few of us
Government officers," wrote a specially competent member
"
of the Service, realised what a fearful advantage our system
of law courts gave to the rich man over the poor. It placed
the poor man at the rich man's mercy." In the end, the l

court of law comes to be looked at from a totally different

angle of vision to what it is here. So it cannot be said
that British justice is really appreciated in India, and any
one who visits Indian courts as I have done must feel how
different they are to our own. The Indian has a suspicion
that much of his poverty and his land trouble is due to them,
and he would be quite content to accept decisions come to
much more simply and would probably question them much
less ruefully in his heart.
But we cannot return to what has been destroyed. The
traditions have been broken and the alien methods have now
1 The Little World of an Indian District Officer, by R. Carstairs, p. 92.
212 THE GOVERNMENT ^OF INDIA
fixed themselves into Indian life, and it is one of the real

dangers of an enfranchised and politically dominant educated

class under self-government that the system will be developed
on its bad side, and full advantage taken of its opportunities
to exploit the cultivatorand reduce him to the status of a
mere tenant at will. A truly great Indian ruler would
judiciously withdraw from the entangling nets of courts and
court processes the greater proportion of those petty cases by
which they are now stuffed, and the numerous disputes between
the bunnia and the ordinary cultivator, and leave them to be
dealt with by village tribunals like panchayets, whilst, by
developing co-operative credit and enterprise, he would seek
to remove the evils which the adaptation of British judicial
methods to India has done so much to intensify. Then he
could cheapen and hasten justice without running the risks
of increasing litigation. Then would the great blessing of
honesty in administration which the British connection has
contributed to the Indian Judiciary remain to receive the
gratitude of the people.
 CHAPTER XV
INDIA AND THE EMPIRE

The Indian proud to belong to the British Empire.

is Its

greatness appeals to his love of pageantry, and its very remote-

ness from him endows it with a majesty which in all soberness
does not belong to it. We pride ourselves on the peace and
justice we have given to India, but they form only a barren
soil for gratitude. The Empire appeals to the Indian's im-
agination and creates inhim the spirit of loyalty. To be a
citizen of such an Empire supplements and modifies his ideas
of nationality. But to him British citizenship means more
than the circumstances warrant. He regards the Empire as a
homogeneous whole, governed from a centre, with common
liberties and rights of citizenship. South Africa and Aus-
tralia, he thinks, ought to be as much his native political soil
as Madras or Burma. I was in India during the troubles
between Indians and the Union Government of South Africa
in 1913, and I found that this assumption of Imperial homo-
geneity, with Parliament as the supreme authority, was uni-
versally made. It not only did service on platforms, but
in private conversation. To try to correct it seemed to be
robbing the Indian of one of his most treasured possessions
and wounding him most sensitive parts. Immediately
in his
after the Indian trouble in South Africa came the high-handed
deportation from that country of certain labour leaders, and
the revelation of the impotence of the House of Commons in
protecting the liberties of white men in the Dominions made
an understanding of the constitutional position easier to
Indians. Up to then there was a widespread opinion in India
213
214 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
that the Home Government was careless of Indian rights and
shared the prejudices of South Africa, but the deportations
showed that a mere neglect of Indian interests and a dis-
regard of Indian sensitiveness were not the cause of Imperial
impotence in the control of Dominion policy. The Indians
were taught that British citizenship was not what they im-
agined it to be.
That Indians wish to claim a full Imperial citizenship is
shown by the case of the Komagata Maru. This ship was dis-
patched with 400 Indians on board from Shanghai in 1914 to
deposit its passengers at Vancouver and thus challenge the
validity of the Canadian immigration laws and test the right
of Indians as British subjects to land in Canada. The pro-
moters of the expedition were characterised by the Viceroy
"
in the Legislative Council ' as culpably responsible," but,
whether that is so or not, this is surely a case where motives
count for everything, and here the motive was wholly reason-
able and praiseworthy. It was precisely the same motive as
was making India at the time rally to the Empire's standard
in the European war. The Canadian Courts upheld the law,
the Indians were deported, and after suffering and trouble
got home aggressively discontented.
The self-government enjoyed by our Dominions limits the
scope and meaning of British citizenship. Economic and geo-
graphical circumstances have led the Dominions to adopt
certain protective policies directed to securing the purity of
the white race and a high standard of living, and this double
intention has produced a series of immigration laws which
must offend the Indian.
I was in British Columbia shortly after the first batch of
— —
Indian emigrants mostly Sikhs landed there in 1905, and
I remember the disturbed feelings which then existed. But
it was said they would not be a success. They were manual
labourers chiefly engaged, if I remember aright, as wood

porters, and it was supposed that the work was too hard for
i
September 8th, 1914.
 INDIA AND THE EMPIRE 215

them. But they stayed, and their numbers reached 6,000 in

about a year. They became agriculturalists too, and began
to amass property. By 1907 British Columbia became
alarmed, and pressed the Dominion Government to take action.
Next year, Mr. Mackenzie King, the Deputy Minister for
Labour at Ottawa, came to London to discuss with the Im-
perial authorities the question of further Indian immigration. 1

The points he urged were that Indians were not suited for
Canada, and could not really settle there without much suffering
and privation, and that their presence in Canada as low-paid
workers might reduce white standards of living and lead to
trouble. In the end, in 1910, Orders in Council were issued
prohibiting the landing of Asiatics in Canada unless they
possessed of their own right 200 dollars, and had come direct
and on a ticket issued in the country of their birth or citizen-
ship. Thisis one of those politically crooked ways of doing

something which one does not wish to do straightforwardly.

There is no direct communication between India and Canada,
so the effect of the Orders was to prohibit further Indian
immigration. The wives and children of emigrants already
settled in Canada were subject to the Orders. The result has
been that the Indian population has fallen from 6,000 to 4,500.
Whilst this has been going on, Chinese and Japanese have
entered Canada under treaty rights and less restrictive legis-
lation. The Japanese can enter if possessed of 50 dollars ;

the Chinese, on paying a tax of 500 dollars. They can take

wives and children with them, but only three Indian women
have been allowed in as an act of grace. The position is
summed up by a writer in an Indian review as follows * " The :

result is that the Japanese and Chinese, who are the subjects
of a foreign Government, are admitted on easy terms, while
Indians, who own allegiance to the same King-Emperor, are
in practice entirely excluded. It is a cruel irony of fate
that British citizenship should be a disqualification in
Canada." Out of these circumstances arose the Komagata
1 The Indian Review, February 1915.
 216 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Maru case, and then the war stifled the agitation for the
time being.
The South African case was the most famous, as it not
only brought the Indians of South Africa into serious conflict
with the Government, but called for the employment of great
diplomatic and official skill in its settlement. Indians went to
South Africa first of all in 1860 as indentured labourers on
Natal sugar plantations, and when their indentures expired
they settled in the country and began to engage in petty
trade. They were not only made welcome, but it was recog-
nised that without them important Natal industries could not
be carried on. The opposition which, however, speedily grew
up against them was both racial and economic, the first being
most conspicuous in the Transvaal, where the most degrading
requirements were demanded of them, and where they were
"
classed with thieves, prostitutes, and other undesirables."
The economic opposition was the moving impulse in Natal.
When I was in Durban in 1902, complaints were loud against
their presence, and invariably the reason given was that they
were ousting their white competitors in trades like those of
dealing in fruit and fowls. Similar complaints made in the
Transvaal were used to justify the passing of the restrictive
legislation of1885, which was held up to our ill-informed
people at home as one of the justifications for the Boer War.
In the autumn of 1906 the passive resistance movement
began in South Africa owing to the introduction of a grievous
Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance, and over 2,500 Indians
were speedily sent to prison. Devastation seemed to have
fallen on the community. Men of substance cheerily suffered
ruin, women stood by the men, families were broken and
homes destroyed. But with a courage and determination
which have not yet received due praise, the Indians stood to
their oath and their fellows. Europeans who backed them
shared in their prosecutions. Then negotiations opened,
promises were made by the Government, and the Indians con-
sented to resume their usual avocations and wait a redress of
 INDIA AND THE EMPIRE 217

grievances. The promises were broken. A Bill embody-

ing them was drafted but never passed. There were squabbles
as to the conditions of the promise. Then Mr. Gokhale visited
South Africa, and there were again squabbles as to what had
been said to him. The Immigration Act of 1913, to which
the Indians took strong exception, reopened the conflict, and
there was nothing for it but that the Indians should again
resort to resistance. The usual prosecutions and persecutions
followed and serious rioting broke out. The scandal was too
disgraceful to be borne. South Africa was carrying its right
of self-government to lengths which were offensive to British
notions. A
brave and opportune pronouncement on the
subject by Lord Hardinge, much censured at the time in some
quarters and certainly employing a freedom of criticism
hitherto unknown, allayed the feeling in India, and a Commis-
1
sion was appointed to report upon the whole matter. Ulti-

mately legislation was carried, aided by the changed feelings

which came with the war, and there is now peace. 1

Australia also prohibits the free entry of Indians.'

The exclusion policy of our Dominions was felt all the more
keenly by Indians because it was also being pursued by the
United States, and the Imperial Government could not object
to a foreign Government doing what its own Dominions were
doing.
Just as the last century was closing, Indian labourers
appeared on the American Pacific Coast. They had wandered
eastwards through Burma, the Malay Straits, China, and the
1
Report of the Indian Inquiry Commission, Cd. 7265, 1914.
1
As book goes to the press, it looks as though the trouble were to
this
break out again. The European competitors in trade never accepted the
settlement, and in June 1919a Bill was introduced into the Union Parliament,
making it illegal for Indians to acquire gold-properties unless they held them
on May I, 1919, and also extending the provisions of the Oppressive Act of
1 885 so that not only individual Asiatics were forbidden to hold real
property,
but companies in which Asiatics " have a controlling interest." The second
provision was in the end omitted, but the whole controversy, including the
question of the good faith of the Government, has apparently been reopened.
3 In round
figures there are 3,000 Indians in Canada and 5,000 in Australia;
8,000 were annually recruited under indenture for colonies.
218 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Philippines, and when they came to America at last, they
found an anti-Chinese and -Japanese agitation on foot. The
American workmen regarded the first Indian arrivals as the
pioneers of a new invasion of cheap labour and low living
standards. For years opposition grew, inspired by the Trade
Unions, and at length in 1907 rioting broke out in the State
of Washington, and attempts were made to rule Indians out
of the benefits of American citizenship. This has been prac-
tically done.
Elsewhere, as in Trinidad and British Guiana, Jamaica and
Fiji,an utterly pernicious system of indentured coolie labour
has prevailed, devastating to the bodies and the souls of
Indians, attended in particular by wholesale prostitution.
This has been the subject of several important official and
unofficial reports which have roused the greatest resentment
in India, with the result that indentured emigration has now
been prohibited.
These impediments and prohibitions are, as a matter of
fact, and are keenly felt by Indians to be, a grievous insult to
their race. Since the war began, certain colonial newspapers
have been wiiting in a more reasonable tone about Indian
immigration, but I doubt if the prejudices and the arguments
against it have been allayed in any great measure in conse-
quence of anything that has happened during the war. The
emotion of a white Australia, the fears of highly paid labour,
racial antagonism, are all likely to persist and to make them-
selves felt in the future as they have done in the past. If
India had a sufficient power of self-government to deal with
the matter itself, it would settle it in its own way and would
probably devise some scheme of economic retaliation against
offending States, whilst prohibiting emigration under improper
conditions. The whole question, however, broadens itself out
into a conflict between the Asiatic and the European races,
and the champion on the Asiatic side will be Japan and not
—
India the actual problem will be the Chinaman and not the
Hindu. Into what proportions it is to develop, who can say ?
 INDIA AND THE EMPIRE 219

Regarding the which it is to raise, who can prophesy ?

conflicts

This, however, no one who knows the facts can doubt. Asia
will not submit to exclusion from the North American Con-
tinent and the islands of the Pacific Seas, and therefore ex-
clusion is as short-sighted as it is accumulating
unjust. It is
a weight of resentment which one day be let loose and
will

perhaps be the signal for the greatest conflict which the world
has ever known.
So far as our Empire is concerned, the recognition of India
as a partner in Imperial Conferences and the grant of a
1

measure of real self-government are the first steps toward a

"
solution of this problem. It will never be solved by the
"
good offices of Downing Street, but by the independent

authority of an India which enjoys in the Empire the same

dignity and respect as one of the British-populated Dominions.
That it must enjoy such a position is inevitable from one fact
alone. So long as the Imperial governing authority was the
ancient Home
Country and the historical British Parliament,
India might have been consoled in its subjection because it
held in high honour the sovereign power. But so soon as there
was an Imperial partnership of Home Country and Dominions,
India felt the change in its heart. It has grievances against
the Dominions ;
!
it will not pay homage to them. Subjection
to Great Britain in the Empire was tolerable subjection to ;

the Empire is intolerable. So India must be a partner, must

sit on the Board of Directors, must have a voice and a vote
in Imperial Councils.
Thus the British Empire expands in its significance. The
alliance with Japan since 1902 began the new order of inter-
racial agreement on terms of equality, and now the Empire

1 India was
represented in a consultative capacity at the Imperial Con-
ferences of 1907 and 1911, and more fully at the various Imperial War
Conferences held since 1914, and also at the Paris Peace Conference.
2
For instance, much evidence was given by Indian leaders before the
Commission on the Indian Public Services appointed in 1913, that Colonial-
born British subjects should, owing to the treatment of Indians in the Domin-
ions, be disqualified for service in India.
220 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
begun and long existing as a combination of people of
itself,
one nationality, is to become a federation of diverse races
enjoying within the bounds of a common allegiance liberty
for self-expression and self-development. It is a new con-

ception for which at present but few minds are prepared, but
the impelling force of events drives us into new conditions, and
the change will be made before we know its meaning. The
Dominions have not said their last word to India, nor India
its to the Dominions. The policy of mere exclusion will, how-
ever, have to be abandoned, and some agreement reached
which, whilst giving the Dominions the legitimate protection
they desire, will not be insulting to India.
One conspicuous badge of emancipation I should give to
India. I should try it with the responsibility of being tutor
to some of the East African peoples under the care of the
League of Nations. It would be a great experiment. If it
failed,the failure would soon be detected, and would produce
no great harm if it succeeded, as I believe it would, it would
;

stamp India with an authority which would command for it

a position of unquestioned equality amongst the federated
nations of the Empire.
 CHAPTER XVI
THE PRESS
The press in India has always been a thorn in the side of the
Government. The memorandum on education written by Sir
C. Grant, to which I have referred, shows that a critical press
1

was foreseen to be an inevitable consequence of the opening

of schools, and the newspaper has played such a part in
British politics that it was bound to appear with political

activity in India.
The first paper printed in the vernacular was issued by
the missionaries of Serampore in 1818, and was called by the
attractive title of the Mirror of Intelligence and when the
;

censorship rules were relaxed next year, against the wish of

the directors, but in accord with Lord Hastings's liberal policy,
and newspaper articles had no longer to be submitted to a
Government official before being published, steps were at
"
once taken to found a press conducted by natives, printed
and circulated in Bengalee and English." The limits of
political criticism and religious controversy were still rigidly
prescribed, but these were the chief topics dealt with. On
December 4th, 1821, the first native paper appeared—the
Sambad Kaumudi —
The Moon of Intelligence, edited by Raja
Rammohan Roy. It was strongly critical of Christianity,
discussed social reform, and appealed to the common folk.
Rammohan Roy and his friends then projected a journal ad-
dressed to the more educated classes, and, on its appearance
in 1822, it discussed politics both Indian and Imperial (an
early issue contained an interesting article on Ireland, and
another set forth the merits of the Great War of Indepen-
1
p. 161.

221
 222 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
dence) and religion. The Government had no pleasure in an
independent critical press, and curiously enough, when Lord
Hastings's liberal administration ended, the first editor to be
struck at was an Englishman, Mr. Buckingham, who was in
charge of The Calcutta Journal, and who was deported for
writing that Mr. Bryce, head of the Presbyterian Church, had
lowered the dignity of a minister of the gospel by accepting
the office of Clerk of the Stationery to the India Company.
This was followed by the deportation of his successor, Mr.
Arnott, who was sent home on a troopship. Since then there
has been an incessant struggle between the press and the
Government, sometimes very fierce and active and carried on
by repression, as in Lord Canning's time after the Mutiny,
and more recently in Lord Lytton's time sometimes more ;

passive and of a waiting and watching character, occasionally

brought to a standstill when liberal administrators like Sir
Charles Metcalfe, who removed the censorship in 1835, were
in responsible positions. 1 Of the position to-day I shall speak
presently. During the whole time the vernacular press was I

virulent in its fault-finding and spared neither the Government :

nor the missionaries. In the end, the Anglo-Indian press,

which was at first an irritating critic of the Government,
following Anglo-Indian opinion, ranged itself completely on
the side of the administration and in opposition to native
Indian opinion, the last of these papers to capitulate being
The Statesman of Calcutta, a few years ago. A change also
crept over the native press, which, until about the middle of
the nineteenth century, was largely given over to religious
controversy, but which has now become mainly political and
in most cases much subdued in tone. The great daily papers
are owned and staffed by Englishmen, though The Bengalee,
The Punjabee, the Amrita Bazar Patrika, The Indian Patriot,
are owned and edited by Indians, and The Bombay Chronicle

1 Sir Charles Metcalfe wrote thus : "If India could only be reserved
as a part of the British Empire by keeping its inhabitants in a state of ignor-
ance, our domination would be a curse to the country and ought to cease."
 THE PRESS 223

by Indians though edited by an Englishman.

1
is controlled
The great bulk of the native press is weekly. They are very
cheap productions and their circulation is not large, though
their influence is considerable.
Theposition to-day is as follows. The English-owned
papers in varying degrees of aggressiveness are pro-English
in the sense that they maintain the British ascendancy with
all its and are vigilantly anti-Nationalist. They
privileges
attack the administration with candour when it seems to be
yielding to Nationalist claims, and carry on an anti- Indian
propaganda which causes much offence and which frequently,
in the case of some papers, oversteps the bounds of public

policy. In a land subject to a severe press law these papers

ought to have been dealt with, for their tone and temper have
undoubtedly added to that feeling of resentment which has
been played upon by the agents of disorder and political
crime. Their criticism, too often takes the form of insults,
and Indian papers pursuing the same recklessly mischievous
course would undoubtedly have had the law applied to them.
On the other hand, the native press may be said to be under
the influence of the Indian National Congress, though some
of its more obscure issues voice more extreme views and in-

dulge in more violent criticism. Government Departments

keep a watchful eye upon the papers, and translations from
them are circulated through the Secretariats.
Most of the India papers belong to Hindus, but the Moham-
medans have an active press too, especially in the Punjab
and the United Provinces. The rapprochement between the
Moslem League and the Indian National Congress has had
considerable effect upon the Mohammedan press, and The
Comrade, published in Delhi to voice the opinions of the
younger Mohammedan party, was written with unusual ability
and expressed Nationalist views, but was suppressed for
articles on Turkey and Mohammedanism
shortly after the
war broke out.
1
Since thia was written, he has been deported.
224 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
The style in which the papers are written varies as the poles.
The English papers are ably edited and are equal to the best
published here, and the same is true of papers like The Ben-
galee, though all the native productions suffer from that literary
wordiness which comes from acquiring English from the works
of its wealthy literary wizards like Burke and Macaulay. The
second grade of native paper published in English is up to the
level of our own average second-rate provincial press, and
the moral standards of their discussions and news are as high
— —
though they are much complained of as those of our own
popular press. On their critical side they are extreme in the
main, but the British view is more fairly represented in the
Indian papers than the Indian view in the English ones with —
perhaps one exception. Hardly a day passes but the two
are attacking one another openly or by implication. From
the second-grade papers downwards, the lack of ability of the
editors, or the consciousness that they are appealing to a
credulous and unreflecting public, is shown in a reckless and
frequently scurrilous criticism based too often upon falseness
of statement or an obvious contortion and misrepresentation
of truth. They show the vibrating suspicions and dislike
which, like lakes of molten lava, lie beneath the surface of
Indian life, and which every now and again burst out in erup-
tion through the crust.The circulation of those inferior
papers generally very small, and their letterpress is atrocious
is

and is full of errors. The proprietor is very often his own

"
editor, manager, advertising canvasser, and reader." The
great majority of them do not pay, or yield but a bare living
—
which means an infinitesimal profit to their owners and
1
editors.
Press laws are directed against two classes of papers: first

of all against those which, belonging to the last class, play

1 "
My own experience confirms this I could mention many newspapers
;

which are run at a loss, and I have had no personal experience of any which
were a source of profit " (Sir Theodore Morison, Imperial Rule in India,
p. 101).
 THE PRESS 225

upon Indian suspicion and susceptibility either for the pur-

pose of making a circulation from it or of doing mischief and ;

in the next place, against those whose opinions are so incon-

venient to the Government that the Government tries to
prevent their public expression. The law now in force was
passed in 1910 when the Government was faced with the
most serious conspiracy since the Mutiny, and when certain
papers were undoubtedly inciting to murder and revolt. It
puts the whole Indian press at the mercy of the Executive.
It provides that persons keeping printing presses shall deposit
with the Government sums of from R.500 to R.2,000 as a
guarantee which is to be forfeited if they publish anything
which in the opinion of magistrates incites to murder, or per-
sonal injury, or disaffection of any kind, and publishers of
newspapers are put under the same regulations. Forfeiture
may also be decreed, but in that case an appeal may be taken
Copies of all papers issued must be sent
1
to the High Court.
to the Governments. The Government may put this Act
into operation without giving any but very general reasons,
" " "
like during the last six months you published articles and
" H
words in various issues." The Indian members of the
Council, whilst warning the Government, as one of them did,
"
that Austrian authorities and the policy of the Chancellor
of Germany are the least calculated to secure popular support
to the measure Indians are the citizens of the British
:

'
Empire," accepted the word of the Government that such a
law was necessary and did not vote against it. It was the
first important Bill brought before the enlarged Council after

1 The
High Court decided, however, in the case of The Comrade, that the
Act was so drafted that the court had no power to question or upset the
decision of the Government. Two of the High Courts have declared that orders
issued under the Act were illegal, but that they had no power under the Act
to set them aside.
1
These words are from the indictment against The Star of Utkal, published
in Cuttack.
3 The Hon. Mr. Dadabhoy, The Indian Press Act 1910, and Proceedings
of the Legislative Council of the Qovernor-Oeneral of India relating thereto, p. 19.

15
226 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
the Morley Reforms, and that of explains the complying
itself
attitude of the Indian members. Moreover, the Law Depart-
ment was then under Mr. Sinha (now Lord Sinha), who,
though not in charge of the Bill, spoke in favour of it.
The objection to a Press Act and to such repressive legis-
lation generally is not, however, its intention, but its adminis-
tration and its effect upon Governments. At times of crisis,
no Government yet known has refrained from adopting re-
pression. Then equitable administration is abandoned, and,
in the interests of the established authority, the innocent
have to suffer injustice so that the disturbers of the peace
may be caught with them. The net is thrown wide in order
that the evil ones may be caught, and accurate individual dis-
crimination is impossible. Let there be no mistaking of the
meaning of this, however. It is tyranny and injustice jus-
tified by a crisis and by the establishment of conditions which
end it. Its continuance as a potential power, sanctioned by law
held in abeyance, can never be justified. It is a weapon which
must be forged when it is required and not one kept in the
armoury of Government ready for use whenever it chooses
to resort to it. Here lies the fault of the Indian Government.
Its Press Act of 1910 and its Criminal Law (Amendment) Acts
of 1919 are contrary to freedom of peoples and responsibility
of Governments, and ought to appear on the statute books of
no free country.
In the first place a power of repression habitually enjoyed
tends to develop a habit of mind in the Government which x

regards all effectively troublesome criticism as sedition, and

it allows a Government which is always partly responsible

itself for seditious conspiracy to avoid its own share of the

1 The Press Act of 1910 was

passed for the express purpose of dealing
with the seditious movement which started in Bengal owing to the mistaken
way in which the Government partitioned that Province, but it has been
used, as in the New India case six years later, for a purpose which was not
in any one's mind when the Act was passed, and which the Government
dared not have asked powers to deal with in that way.
 THE PRESS 227

blame and impose the whole upon the shoulders of its oppo-
nents. A Government which has to justify repression in rela-
tion to any given crisis is not only careful to see that its case
is overwhelming when it asks for powers, but, what is of much
greater importance, it is first of all careful to prevent, by poli-

tical sagacity, the development of the crisis. As arms make

for wars, so the possession of coercive powers makes for tyranny.
The power and policy of repression do not make for tranquillity,
but for repression and nothing more. The hand which im-
poses the punishment is also the hand which has helped to
make the punishment necessary, and such a hand can never
be just, and ought not to have absolute authority at times
when justice ought to be the rule of the State
—that is, in
normal times. This specially true in States like India where
is

the magistrate is in such close contact with the executive

authorities that he is practically their mouthpiece and servant.
The very fact that ifa Press Act exists at all it cannot be
effective if every move which the Government makes under

it may be debated, and every reason for putting it into opera-

tion argued out in court, is a reason why every such law
should be passed not as a part of the body of ordinary legis-
lation but to apply to a particular condition which makes

special powers necessary and in regard to which alone the

Government receives a free hand. Every foolish Government
would like to be able to exercise absolute authority when, in
its own opinion, it thinks it ought to do so, but no people with

any regard for liberty will give its Government such power.
The practical effect of the Press Act of 1910 in statistics is
not very striking. Up to the end of 1913 there were 208
prosecutions under the Act, the busiest year being 1913, when
there were 77. That year, in the Punjab, which had been
rather troublesome, four deposits were forfeited, two presses
were closed, eleven were prevented from starting because they
could not make the necessary deposits, eleven that would have
been published but for the deposit could not appear, and
eleven again were warned for publishing articles that might
228 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
stir up between the religious communities, and one for
strife
sedition. however, do not reveal the oppressive
Statistics,
effect of such a law, but as it is the record is neither imposing
nor satisfying. After the outbreak of war several other
—
papers were suppressed especially Mohammedan organs
under the Defence of India Act. Regarding the suppression
of these newspapers in Bengal the following suggestive com-
"
ment was made by another Mohammedan paper : The
readers of the Tarjuman and the Ekdam were mostly the
Urdu-speaking masses in Calcutta and other places. They
—
used to get correct news correct, if the Reuter's news re-
ceived through the censors be so considered from those—
papers, and now in their absence wild rumours have the
opportunity of playing upon the gullibility of the simple folks.
It is a pity that the Government seems to be totally blind to
this aspect of the question."
The Press Act is only one of the provisions which the Indian
Government uses for repressive purposes. In her little book
on India : A Nation, Mrs. Besant gives a list of the measures
1

which she would classify under this heading. They are the :

lettres-de-cachet system embodied in Regulation III of 1818

(Bengal), Regulation II of 1819 (Madras), Regulation XXV

1827 (Bombay), Act XXXIV of 1850, and Act III of 1858.
The State Offences Act, XI of 1857, only applying to any dis-
trict that is or has been in a state of rebellion, and providing
for trials of persons charged, should either be repealed or
the clause which excepts European-born natural subjects of
the Crown should be expunged. The laws as to the Punitive
Police— XXIV of 1859 (Madras) and V of 1861—should be
repealed. So also the Indian Arms Act, XI of 1878, passed
"
in panic under the influence of the Afghanistan War. It is
not only to be a constant humiliation, but it leaves the
felt

people at the mercy of armed decoits and a prey to wild

beasts. The whole group of panic legislation in 1907-
. . .

1910 must go," and she also enumerates the Prevention of

1
Pp. 78-9.
 THE PRESS 229

Seditious Meetings Act, VI of 1907, the Press Laws, VII of

1908, and I of 1910, the Explosive Substances Act, VI of 1908,
and the Criminal Law Amendment Act, XIV of 1908. In any
event the Government should make a thorough revision of
all these Acts and Regulations, removing from them every-
thing which has been or can be used for repression in ordinary
n times, and trust courageously to those powers which all
Governments have to protect themselves and their States from
anarchy, sedition, and disorder. Governments should be
compelled to meet the growth of sedition by political wisdom
and not allowed to burden other people with their mistakes,
as the Indian Government does when it seeks to maintain
order by its Press Laws and Rowlett Acts. The Indian
Government has been too often content to create a special
class of evildoers —those whose opinions are inconvenient to
it —and in the history of Indian repressive legislation this class
occupies a prominent and distinguished place. The case of
Mr. Buckingham, to which I have already referred, belongs to
it in our own time that of Mr. Tilak largely belongs to it
;

(a number of papers are on the border line between spiteful

and malicious evildoing and honest, if strong, criticism) ;

those of Mrs. Besant and the papers, The Comrade and New
India, wholly belong to it. Whilst in the midst of one of her
several troubles as editor of New India, and after having had
to deposit a guarantee of R. 2,000 for having written an article
advocating Home Rule, Mrs. Besant issued the following
statement which exposes the partiality with which all such
" "
legislation must be administered, and deprives the crimes
created by such laws of a serious character and even of a
"
definite meaning : Under the rule of the bureaucrat it is
safer to conspire than to seek for reforms in an open, law-

abiding, constitutional way. For if a man is found out in a

conspiracy he has at least a trial, and may be acquitted, whereas
if he carries on a constitutional agitation his liberty
may be
taken away and his property confiscated without any more
formality than the turning of a magistrate from his normal
230 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
business of punishing thieves into a licensed plunderer. . . .

The Madras Government, for the first time, attack a newspaper

of the first rank, which has never spoken one word of violence,
which has loyally stood by the English connection, which
has used only constitutional and law-abiding means to bring
about reforms which are absolutely necessary if that connec-
tion is to be preserved.
Loyal as India is, The Madras Mail
states that shemust not be allowed to volunteer lest she
should turn her arms against the English this atrocious
;

article is passed by the Government, which does not care to

protect its Indian subjects from the grossest insult. The
Madras Mail, despite the war, takes the treasonable line of
abusing the Coalition Government in a way which would
land its editor in gaol if he were in England but here the
;

Government never dreams of checking it, although it holds

up His Majesty's Government to hatred and contempt. It
keeps the vials of its wrath for a paper which has dared to
demand Home Rule, and has demanded it so effectively that
the whole country rings with the cry. New India is assailed
because it has started a constitutional and law-abiding move-
ment for self-government in India, with the view of keeping
India within the Empire. ... I have nothing to apologise
for,nothing to regret, in all that I have written in New India.'"
Every one who has followed the prosecutions and repressions
under the Press Act, and who has also followed the per-
nicious but unpunished editorials of papers typified
by the
Anglo-Indian journal named, must admit that Mrs. Besant's
criticisms are fully justified.
Sometimes it is observed in a spirit of disappointment that
no Indian newspaper of any value is on the side of the Govern-
ment in the sense that newspapers here are on the side of

political parties. It would be most extraordinary, however,

if such a paper were to exist — if it did, its support would be
bought. For, however much a Government
appreciated,is
" "
there can be no Government party unless its responsi-
bilities are shared by others than the bureaucracy. The
 THE PRESS 231

wisest and bestof rulers governing an educated community

autocratically can never hope to receive the support of a press

outside their own official Gazette. The Anglo-Indian press
1

supports the Government only in so far as the Government is

the instrument of British rule in India. The link between
them is not an agreed policy, but interest and racial prestige.
On the other hand, I have never failed to observe in Indian
—
papers due appreciation often expressed in exaggerated
—
terms of gratitude of Government actions approved by
Indians. It is not true to say that the Indian press is anti-
Government. It is more accurately described as independent,
and in this respect does not differ from the Anglo-Indian
press. Each looks after its own interest and supports or
opposes the Government accordingly.
But there is a point of still greater importance. In this
country we know that an Opposition is essential to good
government. A House of Commons without an Opposition
becomes futile. That is a general truth, the force of which
has been renewed by recent experience. Governments
always create Oppositions, and in India the Opposition is still
in the main outside Legislatures and is to be found in National

Congresses and the press. That is really the view that the
great Indian liberal statesmen have taken. Macaulay's opinion
was that the function of the Indian press was to bring to the
notice of the Government grievances which would otherwise be
hidden from its eyes, and though he was unwilling that his
sister should read these papers owing to the personal attacks

they made upon himself, he was instrumental in relieving

them of the censorship. He grasped the true meaning of
political power.
And yet the limits of press freedom consistent with
bureaucratic government are narrowly defined. Grievances
1 This has been tried in India and
has failed. Governments have also
subsidised newspapers (in 1915-16 the Punjab Government spent R.17,000
in circulating an Anglo-Indian and Mohammedan journal), and that is only
to waste public money.
232 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
may be ventilated, and the Government may even be attacked
in language which ought not to meet the eyes of the sisters of
its members. Still no harm is done indeed, the Govern-
:

ment may be all the better for the jolting it gets. It thereby
knows the nature of the road it is travelling. But it is quite
another thing when public opinion, supported by a powerful
press, does not merely ventilate grievances, but criticises

policy, or goes the length of demanding that the bureaucracy

itself should cease to exist and a freer form of government
take its place. A representative Government successfully
attacked by the press changes a minister or resigns repre- ;

sentative government sways in the breezes of public opinion

as a tree does in the winds, but its roots remain. A bureaucracy
so assailed can change nothing because it cannot be expected
to change itself it cannot resign, and if it were to do so
;

that would be a revolution in the form of government.

Free discussion, the witness of representative government, is
the destruction of a bureaucracy. This is a fundamental
difference with many attending consequences. The present
[form of Indian government cannot exist in the midst of a
'vigorous public opinion. It may be well intentioned, but it
cannot be obedient. It cannot allow, if it can prevent it, a
determined campaign to be conducted demanding for the
people that —
badge of liberty self-government. That is
sedition so soon as it goes beyond the stage of an interesting
debate and reaches that of a serious demand. And this is the
case even when political opinion here in the sovereign State is
in favour of the change asked for by public opinion in India,
but opposed to, and by, the bureaucracy. For instance, there
can be little doubt but that the opinions which have been
prosecuted in India during the past few years have had the
support of the people of this country. The Indian Govern-
ment is in this dilemma. It may be doomed and its successor
may be almost ready still, it has to govern till the day of
:

its death :
therefore, it cannot tolerate the heralds and fol-
lowers of the new order near to its own throne. The Indian
 THE PRESS 233

reformer is dilemma. He must agitate for the revolu-

in this
tionised Government, for he knows he will never get it other-
wise : he is well aware that this necessary agitation will make
the bureaucracy more obdurate and its trust in repressive
legislation more certain. Of course in actual practice it is
possible to avoid these dilemmas by the exercise of broad-
minded common sense and practical sagacity, but a bureau-
cracy of Civil Servants who have become old in authority must
find it difficult, as the Indian Government undoubtedly has,
to unbend itself and humour the powers which it cannot
subdue. These considerations and not the existence of
sedition and other political crime in India, however much of
that there may have been, are the true reasons why the
Indian codes and statutes are disfigured with so much re-
pressive power. The Indian press, though its function may
be to act as part of the constitutional Opposition to the
Government, cannot do this work in the full way that papers
in this country do, until there is a really free press in India,
but Press Acts will never finally disappear there, though both
their contents and their administration may vary in strin-
gency, whilst the Government is a bureaucracy. To demand
the complete abolition of the Press Acts is equivalent to de-
manding that the Government itself should be put on a more
liberal foundation. The problem of the Indian press is atj
root that of the inherent conflict between a bureaucracy and
public opinion. The last chapter in the history of bureau- 1

cracies is repression. They pass away like an old monarch

driven from his throne, hurling accusations of sedition against
his approaching successor.
 CHAPTER XVII
RELIGION AND NATIONALISM

It has become a threadbare truism to say of India that its

religion is its life. There in sober truth the unseen is lord of
the seen. All its political and social origins are in its sacred
books. Hinduism as a way of life is the trunk on to which
everything else is engrafted and from which everything else
draws its sap. It is therefore important to understand the
currents now running in Indian religion —always remembering
that in the bulk it is immobile.
When, early in the nineteenth century, missionary propa-
ganda and educational influence created a revolution on the
surface of Hinduism, the sections affected were small. Only
a few were really converted to Christianity the bulk of those
;

influenced retained their Hinduism and joined in the resis-

tance offered to the new proselytising. Hinduism was re-
formed in their minds, not overthrown. It was purged of
some of its grosser practices, prejudices, and superstitions, its
gods became transformed, but it itself became active in self-
defence. The Brahmo Samaj was founded because in his heart
the Hindu was unwilling to desert Hinduism, but was quite
willing to become liberal and respond to the impact of
Western faiths. If one were to say that the grand effect of
Christianity and of Western education in India has been
to throw Hinduism back on its purer origins, one would not
be very far wrong, though the statement would not be quite
accurate.
The change took several forms. Amongst the less emo-
tional people of the north-west it was one of doctrine and of
a kind of puritanical activity in Bengal it was more idealistic
;

234
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 235

and led to the study of the poetical and spiritual expressions

of the religion, like the Gita, and to symbolising the temple

worship ; elsewhere it ran into various movements, some of

them, like the Order of Ramakrishna which Vivekananda
founded, being pure Hinduism others, like Theosophy, being
;

a mingling of Hinduism with other philosophies ; others, like

the Servants of India, concerning themselves with social
reform and service.
Perhaps it was only a drop in the ocean. Hinduism believes
and worships as before, its millions living and dying all uncon-
scious of any change. But still, the revolution is to be in-
fluenced profoundly by these movements, and they have all
contributed to its birth. The West has created the Nationalist
movement in India not only by feeding the Indian mind on
Western liberal politics, but by driving back that mind upon
the entrenchments of its own patriotism.
First amongst Hindu revivals is the Arya Samaj, founded
by Swami Dyananda Saras wati, the son of a Gujarati
Brahmin, born in 1824. A dramatic little story is told of how
the light came to Dyananda. When he was fourteen years
of age his father took him to the temple to keep the Shivaratri
fast, which entailed a night being spent in prayer to Shiva.
As the night wore on the worshippers slept, but the boy
kept awake. A mouse came out and crawling round the
base of the image nibbled at the offerings. This struck the
sensitive mind of the lad. If this image was Shiva, why did
the god allow such sacrilege ? Awakening his father, he put
his doubts to him, and finally received as his answer that the
image was not Shiva, but that the devout praying to it found
grace from Shiva. The boy would have none of this refine-
ment, returned home, broke his fast, went to bed and slept.
Henceforth there were no more idols for him, and the anni-
is kept as a feast by his followers.
versary of this night Then
death came into his family, and filled his heart with a yearn-
ing to fathom the mystery of being and not-being, of coming
and going ;
and in 1845 he ran away from home, and for
236 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
fifteen years wandered in search of the teacher who would
reveal to him what his soul wanted to know. After years of
pilgrimage in search of truth, during which his greatest dis-
covery was the debasement of Hinduism, he fell in with the
blind Swami Virjananda, to whom he became pupil, and
who, when he had taught him all he knew, exacted the guru's
fee which it was customary for the Brahmchari to pay, in
"
the shape of a pledge that he would devote his life to the
dissemination of truth, to the waging of incessant warfare
against the falsehood of the prevailing Puranic faith (faith
based on the Puranas), and to establish the right method of
education, as was in vogue in pre-Buddhist times." He went
out into the world again, teaching and disputing, his call
"
being : Back to the purity of the Vedas." At a great
meeting presided over by the Maharajah of Benares he met
the pandits of Benares, and they claimed the victory and
practically excommunicated him. But Dyananda was not
a man to be overawed by the frowns of censuring pandits.
His doctrine was that there is one God who is to be known,
obeyed, and worshipped, who has never been incarnate and
who cannot be approached by the worship of any deity but
himself. Caste is a political and not a religious creation. In
1875, after the Swami had come into contact with the leaders
of the Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta, the Arya Samaj was founded
in Bombay. But it took healthiest root in the Punjab, where
Lahore may now be regarded as its capital city, and in the
United Provinces.
This was a purely internal Hindu reform, a pruning of all
the engrafted shoots upon the Vedas, a return to the authorita-
tive doctrine. The most robust and prolific of these debase-
ments of Hinduism were the claims of the Brahmin. These
the Arya disallowed. The Vedas were a closed book to the
people. That the Arya opened, imitating in this respect the
restoration of our own Bible by the Reformation. Hindu-
ism was a condition of birth. That the Arya denied, and
threw wide its doors to any one who cared to enter.
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 237

In his defence of the Vedas as a sufficient basis for faith,

the Swami came into conflict with Christianity, and thus
gave the Arya its first tinge of aggressiveness which made it
an expression of Indian nationalism. India was combating
the world outside ;
Indian religion was defending itself and
rebutting rival claims. It had been an indefinite and inde-
finable collection of precepts and beliefs the Arya attempted
;

to give it precision, at the same time enhancing its claims to

great antiquity. The effect was to stop many Hindus from
going over to Christianity and to anger missionaries accord-
ingly. Nine-tenths of their attacks upon Hinduism did not
apply to the Hinduism of the Arya Samaj. But the new
Society carried the war of defence into one of offence, and
conducted a propaganda against Christianity. Dyananda
was no smooth-tongued controversialist, and his attacks upon
our faith have been quoted to our annoyance and the detri-
ment of his Society. He created passion as well as contro-
versy. In a most interesting defence of the Society, written
by Munshi Ram, the head of the Gurukul at Hard war, and
Ram Deva, of the Arya College at Lahore, a considerable
number of pages are devoted to extracts to show that Chris-
tians themselves have not been too polite in the attacks made
1
upon the faith of each other or upon that of other people.
In any event, the Arya claims not only to have stopped con-
version in certain districts, but to have drawn back converts
from the Christian fold.
Herein lies the Arya's strength and the contribution it has
made to the Indian spirit. It is aggressive. It makes no
apologies. It challenges and why, when it
fights. That is

began to influence it was

the Nationalist movement, as
bound to do, the combative independence with which it con-
ducted itself made it so detested by official minds. To
belong to the Arya was to carry the badge of a seditious dis-
position.
It is, however, in its social and educational work that it has
1
The Arya Samaj and its Detractors : A Vindication,
238 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
maintained Hinduism most effectually. From its foundation
it has opposed child marriages, and has countenanced the
remarrying of widows it has been sympathetic with the
'
;

outcaste and has sought to raise him and it has been speci-
;

ally interested in schools. In its educational schemes it has

always sought to provide for women. Its chief living cham-
"
pion has admitted that English education and Western
ideas have played an important part in bringing about this
change, but an equally great, if not even greater part has
been played by an appeal to ancient Hindu ideals of woman-
hood and to the teachings of the ancient Hindu religion in the
matter of the relations of the sexes." 2
Its educational work is concentrated in two great institu-

tions, the Dyananda Anglo- Vedic College in Lahore and the

Gurukul in the neighbourhood of Hardwar. The former is
associated with the Punjab University, the other is quite
independent of Government control, either direct or indirect,
but both are intensely national in spirit. Whoever, walking
through the D.A.V. College, sees its rooms, the pictures and
texts on the walls of its offices, talks with its officials and
teachers, who are all Indians, cannot fail to feel how different
is the atmosphere there from any of the other
colleges in
Lahore or elsewhere. At every point he is impressed by
the fact that this is an Indian effort, and the reason for it is
"
stated quite definitely in its literature and reports. To
secure the best advantages of education, it is necessary to
make it national in tone and character." The present system
"
of education in India tends to loosen these ties [of nation-
ality] or obstructs the beneficent influence of education from
being fairly extended to, and
beneficially operating upon, the
"
uneducated," and is therefore partial, and, from the public
"
point of view, undesirable." Foreign education has pro-
duced a schism in society which is truly deplorable." " This
1 It has not
exactly approved of this, but does not condemn it. In any
event the Arya in this as in other rules treats men exactly as it does women.
I
Lajpat Rai, The Arya Samaj, pp. 144-5
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 239

result,sad in itself, is the inevitable consequence of the one-

sided policy of education imparted through a foreign agency,
for whom it was simply impossible to appreciate the indigenous
wants, and to apply a suitable method." The task of the
"
founders of the college, therefore, has been to make pro-
vision for the efficient study of the national language and
literature, and carefully to initiate the youthful mind into
habits and modes of life consistent with the national spirit
and character." These are extracts from the opening pages
of the first report of the college, and there is much more in the
same strain. They make the purpose of the venture per-
fectly obvious.
Since 1886, the institution has been at work and has been
served by teachers and officials who are wholeheartedly with
its purpose, and who have accepted salaries very much — less

sometimes nothing at all—than are paid in similar schools and

colleges.
Even this college, determined Indian spirit, does
with its

not fully satisfy many of its

supporters. Mr. Lajpat Rai,
speaking at a college meeting on Founder's Day in 1914,
"
remarked : But the discipline enforced and the life lived
at the Gurukul at Kangri is more in accordance with genuine
Hindu ideals than those in the college." This Gurukul to
which Mr. Lajpat Rai refers is an offspring from the D.A.V.
college. Its founders believed that the connection of the

college with the Punjab University hampered it in its work,

made it think too much of university examinations (in which
it has had much success) and too little of sound national

education, and prevented it from pursuing such a curriculum

of studies as Indian Educationalists would devise were they
free to do so. After being a dissentient minority on the
collegecommittee they decided to begin work of their own. In
conversation with the head of the Gurukul, Munshi Ram, I
had the following explanation of how he came to start the
school. He had been a successful lawyer, but the spirit of
religion came upon him and he shook the sins of law off his
240 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
soul and sought peace in training youth. He had seen how
English hampered the education of his own sons and so he
desired a new method of instruction he was a devoted child
;

of India and he cast out Western methods and returned to the

ancient models. So in the jungle by the Ganges near Hard-
war he began his Gurukul in 1902. When I was there 300
pupils were at the school.
The Gurukul has been the subject of much suspicion in
Government quarters, and it has roused great opposition in
missionary and other circles of Anglo-India. But its posi-
tion is perfectly clear. In so far as the spirit of an indepen-
dent India, declining to put itself unreservedly in the hands
of the British, determined to preserve its own life and tradi-
tions, refusing to acquiesce in a denationalising educational
system, isa menace to the Government, these Arya institu-
tions are a menace but in so far as the ultimate purpose of
;

Great Britain in India is consistent with the growth and

nurture of a pure Indian conscience and intellect, these in-
stitutions are not only legitimate, but are experiments which
the Government should watch with vigilant sympathy and
copy if need be with grateful care. There are now several
1

Gurukuls in existence.
Of course, there must be political results from these in-
stitutions. Teachers, students, and ex-students must appear
from time to time in Nationalist agitation and must contri-
bute (as every denominational and government college in
"
India does) to the ranks of political undesirables." But the
danger into which the Government ran in those trying years
at the close of Lord Curzon's rule and the opening of his suc-
cessor's was that it would classify everything that was pro-

1 The visit of Sir James

Meston, the Lieutenant-Governor of the United
Provinces in 1913, not only dispelled the official cloud under which the school
was lying, but did a great deal to prove to the Indians that the Government
had not altogether forsaken the many liberal declarations which it had made
since the Crown became responsible for India. His kindly recognition of
this school was one of many marks of wisdom which characterised Lord
Hardinge's rule.
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 241

Indian as anti-British. was running into that

Whilst it

danger it insisted upon regarding the Arya and its works as

dangerous political propaganda, and, unfortunately, it was
encouraged in its error by biased and unbalanced critics who
had an entry to journals of great influence in India and Great
Britain. The years from, roughly, 1905 to 1910, will always
be studied by statesmanlike Englishmen both in India and at
home, as years of warning as to what British policy in India
ought not to be and the terrible blunders into which officials
;

and their friends fell regarding the nature of the Arya Samaj
and the problems which it created will also be studied as
how easy it is for the best intentioned of people,
illustrations of
afraid to face the liberating consequences of their work and
to accept the changing circumstances for which they are re-
sponsible, to try, during a short time of thoughtless panic, to
undo everything they have done. In one of Balzac's night-
mare tales —Don Juan—he
tells how a son anointing the dead

body of his father with a magical fluid which was to bring

him to life again, became terror-stricken with the return of
the dead to life, and how, when only the head and arm were
anointed, he dropped the phial and spilt the liquid, and the
servants who rushed in saw a young, living head on an old,
dead, decrepit body. The work of the British Government
in India cannot end in such a horrible tragedy.
This virile, masculine, propagandist sect now numbers half
a million adherents. Amongst Christians, amongst Moham-
medans, as well as amongst Hindus, works, drawing the two
it

first to its energetic monotheistic faith, the last to its purified

conception of Indian worship, inspiring them all with a patri-

otism which it never dissociates from its religion. The Arya
is India armed against —
aggression India solicitous for its own
"
soul. Nemo me impune lacessit," it might take as its
motto, did it not disdain to use a foreign tongue for such a
purpose.
In the Punjab we find the more " dour " type of Hindu,
serious, stubborn. He does not ascend into flights. His
16
242 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
"
mind runs in channels of the law and the gospel." In
Bengal it is different.The Bengali is more impulsive and
volatile, more poetical and imaginative, in religion more of a
ritualist. The revival of Hinduism there has therefore taken
a different form. Dealing with creed, it has gone into
less
literature and ritual, and has been attracted by the more
ceremonial and sacrificial aspects of Hinduism. It has taken
the Oita as its typical gospel, and Sri Krishna as its charac-
teristic deity, and it has lit the fires of its heart from the

flaming emotions of this song and the seductive abandon of

this hero. The Oita expresses heroic action as the Sermon
on the Mount expresses heroic passivity. It is very curious
that the most beautiful poetry in the sacred books of the East,
the temperament of which is always supposed to be contem-
plation, deals with battle and knightly sacrifice, whilst that
in the sacred books of the West, the temperament of which
is supposed to be bustling action, upholds the virtue of turn-
ing the other cheek.
What wells of the purest spiritual draughts and most in-
vigorating refreshment lie amidst the tangled, weedy growths
of Hinduism. Who is there who has read the beautiful con-
templations of Sri Sankaracharya on man's soul the indi- —
vidual Self and the universal Self —
can fail to do homage to
the religion contained therein, the devout attitude of the
seeker who has to remain in the outer courts, and, from the
glimpses seen there of the Eternal within, fashion hymns of
faith and creeds of satisfaction ? If religious philosophy must

always at a point move from the mastery of reason into the

music of emotion, where is there to be found a more chaste
transformation than in these hymns ? If religious action
must in the end lead to the triumph of sacrifice, defeat, and
death, where are its energies enshrined in more fitting emo-
tions than in the finer chapters of the Oita ? What I may
1
call the neo-missionaries, like Mr. Farquhar, may urge the

incompleteness of Hinduism and the superiority of the Chris-

1
The Crown of Hinduism.
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 243

tian faith in relation to a liberal civilisation, but the Indian

who has a bias in favour of creeds which belong to his own
history finds in his own religious books enough spiritual
energy and ennobling thought to serve him as a patriot, to
guide him as a citizen, and purify him as a man. In any
event, just as it was in Japan, the Indian national movement
has reacted upon creeds, and the young Nationalist inspired by
the conceptions of Indian self-government has also responded
to a revival of national religion, sometimes in the crude form
that the revival of the Ganpati festival at Poona took, some-
times in the more spiritual forms which were followed by men
likeArabinda Ghose and Bipin Chandra Pal.
The revolutionary movement in Bengal has been based upon
a return to Hinduism. A few agnostics, the products of
English education and Western philosophy, led in it, but its
strength did not lie in them. Even they, in garb and out-
ward habit, returned to India. When Har Dayal was as far
removed from religious Hinduism as I am, he discarded Eng-
lish dress and appeared, even in England, in kurta and dhoti.
Most of the extreme left of the movement performed their
temple duties with scrupulous devotion and regarded their
political action as part of religious duty. The dirt of super-
stitious ages had gathered upon their idols, but they set about
to restore and idealise them. Their worship symbolised life
in its bounties and shortcomings, in its promises and failures,
and their writing is full of this renaissance. Bipin Chandra
Pal's The Soul of India may be taken as a guide to this re-
"
vival. All these old and traditional gods and goddesses,"
"
he writes,1
who had lost their hold upon the modern mind,
have been reinstalled with a new historic and nationalist
interpretation in the mind and soul of the people. Hundreds
of thousands of our people have commenced to hail their
motherland to-day as Durga, Kalee, Jagaddhatri. These are
no longer mere mythological conceptions or legendary persons
or even poetic symbols. They are different manifestations
1
Pp. 187, etc.
244 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
of the Mother. This Mother isthe Spirit of India. This
geographical habitat of ours is only the outer body of the
Mother. . Behind this physical and geographical body,
. .

there is a —
Being, a Personality the Personality of the Mother.
. .Our history is the sacred biography of the Mother.
. . . .

We her children know her even to-day as our fathers and

their fathers had done before, for countless generations as a
Being, a manifestation of Prakriti, as our Mother and the
Mother of the Race. And we have always, and do still, wor-
shipped her as such." It is easy to blow these words about
like thistledown before the breath of Western materialist
"
philosophy and common sense " but for historical pur- ;

poses, and for purposes of understanding the mind of Bengal,

they stand. This strong back current towards Hinduism
floats most of nationalist extremism on its surface. It is the
creation in the minds of enthusiasts of an India which is
a goddess demanding everything from her sons that has
given the Government of India so much trouble recently.
It is necessary to sift the husk from the corn in this move-
ment and to understand what is good in it as well as censure
what error it may contain. The intense consciousness that
they are subordinate and subject cannot be plucked out or
beaten down in the Bengalis' minds, and this creates a re-
action to tradition. The return to Hindu culture cannot be
stopped. Indeed, so unlovely and barren would India be
under an unchallenged and undiluted Western culture that
the reversion to native roots and types ought to be welcomed.
Our task is to help towards purification, trusting again to the
natural procession of consequences to lead the Indian to some
satisfactory goal. It is easy for a people to deify a land
which they think is oppressed it is natural for a people like
;

the Indians, who are born hero- worshippers, to embody their

spirit in gods and goddesses. Then, persecution does not

suppress error and extravagance it only intensifies them.
;

Meanwhile this religious reawakening in Bengal seizes upon

everything which adds honour to India and cherishes it like
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 245

a jewel. Places of honour at examinations in Oxford and

Cambridge, the achievements of a Dr. Bose or a Dr. C. P.
Ray in science, the work of Indians in the administration,
the winning of V.C.'s at the front, the sacrifices of youths on
the scaffold, are all treasured for laying at the feet of the
Mother and enriching her. In the Punjab there is a belief in
India in Bengal a worship of India.
;

Such movements at their best can often be most profitably

explored by a study of the work of a man, and such a man
exists in Bengal. Rabindranath Tagore is known to the
West almost solely as a poet. But Tagore's poetry is India.
It the product of his devotion to Indian culture it belongs to
is ;

a revival in Bengali literature which comes from the heart of

Bengal far more purely than Chatterji's fiction. It is of the
soul of a people, not merely the emotion of a man ; a syste-
matic view of life, not merely a poetic mood a culture, not
;

merely a tune. Its counterpart is those burning sentences

in which he has time and time again contemned the civilisa-
tion of the West its companion is the work of his nephew,
;

Gogendranath Tagore, who has revived Indian art with the

devotion and soul of a worshipper. And just as in the Pun-
jab the D.A.V. College and the Gurukul proclaim that educa-
tional systems spring out of the national spirit, so in Bengal,
Rabindranath Tagore has expressed that fact, too, in his
school at Bholpur which meets in the ashram and the gardens
where his father retired for rest and contemplation. This
again is characteristically Bengali and has none of the rigidities
of the Punjab spirit. Its classes are open to English teachers,
and there are two there now. There is not the same Puritan
following of the ancient ways as in the Punjab, but it is
Indian and independent, and its worship is the ancient wor-
ship of the people. I have spent a few days there as a guest
of the school, and its atmosphere and demeanour are as
different as can be conceived from those of British-managed
institutions.
In Madras there has been little upheaval. Its educated
246 THE GOVERNMENT OP INDIA
people have responded to the Nationalist movement as poli-
ticians, not as devotees. It is of the south. But there is a
purifying process going on. It has responded especially to

theosophy, which has its head- quarters at Adyar on the out-

skirts of the city.
I need not enter into the controversies which the work of
the Theosophical Society has raised. Its influence has been
great in the awakening of India, and that influence has been
"
described by Mrs. Besant as the revival of the Eastern
faiths, the checking of the destructive effects of missionary
zeal, the establishment of an Indian ideal of education, the

inspiring of self-respect in Indians, of pride in their past,

evoking hope in their future, and the creation of the national
spirit nowthrobbing throughout the land." From the 1

annual meeting of the Society held at Adyar, the Society's

head- quarters, in 1884, came the inception of the Indian
National Congress, and since the Society has passed under
Mrs. Besant' s influence it has become far more Hindu in its
inspiration than in the days of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel
Olcott. From have come the Hindu College in
its activities

Benares on the one hand, and the Home Rule League on the
other.
In Bombay, the religious side of the revival has not been
very marked (though Mr. Tilak bases himself upon religious
Hinduism) and has been overshadowed by its political side.
I have always found it difficult to get an emotional grasp of

spiritual life in Bombay, whereas a political and historical

grasp is easily attained. The Nationalist movement on this
side of India has been kept largely in the hands of men who
—
were politicians first like the Parsis Sir Pherosescha Mehta
and Dadabhai Naoroji, the Brahmins Tilak and Gokhale, the
Mohammedans Tyabji and Jinnah. The new spiritual forces
which have revivified India in the Punjab and Bengal have
hardly disturbed Bombay, though they have made themselves
felt. The Tilak religious movement, however, shows none
l
JThe Indian Review, October 1913.
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 247

of that new life which recreates the gods whilst it preserves

them. It is only a revival of the ceremonies of orthodox
— —
Hinduism Ganpati festivals prompted, his enemies say,
much less by religious fervour than by political designs. Gloomy
and still too clearly impressed
resentful historical events are
upon the minds of the Bombay Hindu leaders to allow the
spirit of a purified religion to inspire the Nationalist move-
ment.
But taken in the mass, the religious and heroic tales, creeds,
and conceptions of India lend themselves admirably to a
Nationalist revival whether conducted on legitimate or ille-

gitimate lines, and the day has gone by — was never any-
it

thing but an interlude of reaction

— when Western modes of
thought and habits of life stood out in the sight of Indians as
perfections to copy. India has returned upon herself and is
1

finding guidance from, and pride in, her own past.

I must now turn to the more direct results of Christian

propaganda and try to estimate their place in Indian life. A

few sentences will suffice for its purely destructive and nega-
tive effects which are found amongst the educated and partly
educated classes.
When a creed is attacked as Hinduism has been, not only
by a new culture, but also by the direct assaults of a rival
faith, the attack is evidenced not merely by an awakened
allegiance to the spirit of the old creed and the conversions
to the new one, but also by the destruction of all credal belief.
I was once shown round a Khalee temple, famous for its rites,
one of the most frequented outside sacred cities like Benares,
by a Hindu dressed in a compromise Eastern- Western garb,
who had been at a university and had a superficial smattering
of Western knowledge. He discussed what was being shown
to me with a semi-cynical detachment, certainly with no
devotional attitude. Much to my surprise I found afterwards
that he was one of the priests. Too much importance must
1 When the Brahmo Sainajbecame cosmopolitan under the influence
of its great and only leader, Keshub Chunder Sen, it ceased to appeal to India.
248 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
not be put upon this, however, as religion has always sat
lightly on many Hindus, especially of the priestly caste,
but some reading of Herbert Spencer and Reynolds's novels,
together with some knowledge of Christian criticism, had
eaten into the foundations of this man's creed, without
supplying him with a new one, and in this he was typical of a,
considerable section of his fellow-countrymen who had been
taught the absurdity of seas of treacle without being led to a
belief in rivers of crystal. The mentality of these men re-
mains Indian, but they have been emancipated from Indian
beliefs. They have creeds, but iconoclasm has shattered
faith. Amongst them, Christian activities have been merged
in the sum total of Western influence. They belong to a
separate group of hybrids, the future of which is doubtful.
They are struggling to find a new spiritual soil and certainly
have not yet succeeded in their quest. Amongst the masses
the case is different.

Christianity in India has not only a long history, but one

which begins in myth and fable. St. Thomas himself is said
to have been thefirst missionary, and the quaint little Catholic

settlement at the Little Mount outside Madras includes the

cavern church where he is said to have worshipped, and is the
place of his reputed martyrdom. On the western coast of
Southern India are Christian populations whose conversion
came by Syriac apostles and whose Christian rites and social
habits are twisted and gnarled by age and the pressure of
native circumstance and superstition. There are Brahmin
Christians who wear the sacred thread and practise Hindu
ceremonies ; there are Hindu Christians who maintain the
habits of caste as rigidly as the most orthodox to-day the ;

Christian Church, especially in the south, is divided as to

whether the outcaste should be baptized from the same font
and in the same place in the church as the man of caste, and
should sit with him at worship and Communion. In some
villages there are different churches for different castes.
Christian Hindus often perform ceremonies forbidden by one
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 249

or other of their creeds, and they then close the doors of the
temples or cover the faces of their gods lest the divinities
that would be offended might see. They sin, as they think,
securely behind the backs of their gods, Christian and Hindu
alike. Christian Hindus have beenknown, when migrating
from one them the image of
village to another, to take with
the goddess which protects them from cholera, to build
temples for Hindu gods and employ priests to minister unto
them out of mission funds. " Near Negapatam," says Mr.
"
Sharrock,
1
the Roman Catholics have a famous image called
the Potter's Virgin, who is specially noted for her miraculous
powers and is visited by thousands of pilgrims, Hindu and
Muslim, as well as Christian. The Roman congregation at
A determined to get the Virgin also to their village, and
so erected a wooden cross to which she was supposed to be
transferred, and this was put next to Karumbayi's stone [the
cholera goddess] and surrounded by a number of minor
deities. Karumbayi, however, signified her disapproval of
the symbol of a cross in her neighbourhood, and so it
had to be placed elsewhere. They say that the two god-
desses are sisters, and St. Thomas and St. Anthony are
brothers, while prayers are offered to all four indifferently.'*
Famine and pestilence bring worshippers who bear testimony
to their Christian faith just as the Hindus under similar
stress bear
testimony to their belief in their gods.
8

The propaganda of the Christian missionaries is not exactly

what many people at home imagine it to be. The vision of
an earnest and faithful man preaching, preaching, preaching
the evangel of Christ with superimposed creeds and
all its

theologies of Catholicism, Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, and

so on, is but an imperfect vision of Indian mission propaganda.
Sir William Hunter writes in The Old Missionary "I asked
:

why he laid so much stress on teaching, as compared with the

1
South Indian Missions, p. 291.
3We find a similar thing in Eastern Bengal, where the people are Moham-
medans by profession, but Hindus by superstition.
250 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
preaching which formed the popular idea of a missionary's
'
work. The reply was I have never forgotten John Law-
:

rence's parting words to me when he passed through Calcutta

"
on sick leave in 1840 :The only way that will bring the
natives to truer and more enlightened ideas is the gradual
" '

progress of education." John Lawrence's words have been

adopted as the motto of Indian missions. Of course one has
to remember that in mission work, as in everything else in
India, there must be variety according to circumstances. The
problem of a missionary working amongst the educated youth
of Calcuttais not the same as that of one working
amongst the
Ghonds of the Central Provinces. The clash between philo-
sophic Christianity and Hinduism which occupies the thoughts
of the missionary faced with the Brahmo or the Arya Samaj

implies a propaganda quite different from that which is to

appeal to the outcaste in Bombay or the Santal in Seoni. But
even amongst these latter the propaganda is becoming more
and more indirect. Amongst the ignorant peoples whose
religion is really not even Hinduism as taught in the Vedas
or anywhere else, but the survival of far more ancient beliefs
and ceremonies, the missionary comes less as a preacher than
as a friend and protector. He cures the sick, he defends the
oppressed. Through the doors of friendship comes the Chris-
tian creed. The physician preaches the gospel and the friend
of the friendless catechises about its creeds. It is not the

dogmatic way of opening the doors to heaven, but it opens

them all the same. One has only to drop in to one of those
humble mission churches on a Sunday evening to see that in
some hearts the good seed has fallen and germinated. The
spiritual light in these churches may be dim, but they seem
to come up you in their smallness and bareness. The
close to

worshippers on
sit the floor and they cannot forbear to look
around and be lively and take a homely interest in a stranger.
The hymns and scriptures are in an unknown tongue and yet
bring into memory the familiar worship at home. There is
devotion, and there is happiness in these tiny places. But
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 251

the missionary is far more than a preacher. He is the father

and ruler of his flock, who before he came amongst them had
not a champion in the world. Some of the older type of
Scottish missionaries, the men who came from the bench or
"
the workshop originally, with their hearts full of love and
pity for the heathen," filled this role of ruler as well as preacher
with a gifted power. Stern, rugged men, with a rich endow-
ment of common sense and an overbearing and commanding
personality, they turned the mission into a State. That type
is disappearing, though in the outlying districts it has still

much work to do. But

in the towns, the football university
Christian is taking the place of the workman missionary. Hin-
duism is not now to be stormed by a rival system ; it is to be
dwarfed and dwindled by a new atmosphere or it is to be
transformed out of itself into Christianity by its own internal
forces of growth, quickened by the influences which Chris-

tianity has brought to bear upon them. Thus the mission 1

lays more and more weight on education, not only that Chris-
tians may be able to read, but because the subtle and creative
atmosphere which is most congenial to Christian influence is
suffused by education and it is not so much the Christian
;

creed that is propagated (though of course this is done all

the time) as the social implications of Christianity which
Hinduism cannot satisfy. The Church thus ceases to be
Christ's body and becomes Christ's spirit. So it can be said :

"
Government officials, from the Viceroy to the lowest sub-
ordinate, stand side by side with the missionary in this sacred
and holy ministry. 8 I know how fine are the men who are
at this work, but I wonder if they can succeed. Particularly
do I wonder they do not lose sight of India, because their
if

little group of converts and would-be converts stands so

close round about them. All the while, however, they are
creating India because they are not making converts so much
* J.
N. Farquhar, The Crown of Hinduism.
1
Lucas, Our Task in India : Shall we Proselytise Hindus or Evangelise
India t
 252 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
as emancipating men's minds, breaking down old social divi-
sions,and purifying old faiths. At one Christian college I
came across a bright attractive-looking Mohammedan lad
who told me he was studying under Christian influences in
order to be "a good Mohammedan." I am not sure that they
are aware of the full significance of this new missionary
method, though it is felt by men like Mr. Andrews who used
to be at St. Stephen's College, Delhi. They are grafting their
new cultures on Indian stocks and in their own minds a
curious Indianising process is at work. They are converting
and being converted at the same time.
The statistical results of centuries of proselytising are not
very massive, but no one would ever think of measuring the
effect of missions in this way alone.
There are 4,000,000 Christians in the Indian population of
about a hundred times as many, and they are mostly drawn
from the outcastes and the lower social classes. 1
Progress is
slow, and of the 4,000,000 a large number can hardly pass
muster. They are poor dear children of dim and uncertain
light, but they have been baptized. By no means have they
all been converted individually. Economic motives have
often determined their profession of faith, and the great col-
leges founded and maintained by missions have yielded but
scanty harvests in converts. Few missionaries are happy
about the result, and there is a perceptible movement in favour
of closing miscellaneous colleges, making these institutions

purely Christian, and specialising missionary activities upon

residential halls where students may congregate. The resi-

1 " Of the whole Christian

community in India 90 per cent, have come
from the depressed classes, or the outcaste community. Of the remaining
tenth of the community, about four-fifths are from the respectable Sudra
classes. Of the remaining one-fiftieth, most are from the Muslim faith ;
members of the Hindu community,
of these again the majority were originally
but they passed through Mohammedanism into Christianity. Probably
not more than one in a thousand (of the whole Christian community in India)
comes from the Brahmin Caste" (Year Book of Missions in India, 1912,
pp. 203, etc.).
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 253

dential college and college hall are, for the time being, the
new toy of the Indian educationalist. It is a good toy, but
as I have walked through it I felt that its story would ulti-
mately be read in the history of the disappointments of well-
"
meaning men who have striven to bring from afar good to
India." Its success will depend upon how it is worked. I
could name some of these institutions which I have visited and
carefully scrutinised, and they will fail and fail badly
;
I have
seen others which succeed in supplying an atmosphere
may
of reverence, of culture, of education to the Indian student.
But I write of the Christian mission here as at once the
creator and the settler of great political problems. So soon
as education penetrates to the very bottom strata of Indian
society and political ideas follow it, the outcaste will become
a mighty Indian problem. A few educated and intelligent
outcastes with some determination and strength of will could
raise that problem in a pressing form. For the challenge
which a handful of such men could throw at Indian society
would find that society unable to resist and would alter at
any rate its political expression. One man breaks down a
barrier and in his footsteps all men may tread. Here is the
real revolutionary effect of missions.
This mission field is of immense width, and no friend of
"
missions need be disturbed because his successes are only
amongst the outcastes." Paradoxical though it may seem,
it is really one of the plainest and simplest of truths, that

whoever emancipates the outcaste emancipates India. In

India there are 50,000,000 outcastes (divided amongst them-
selves by caste divisions) scattered throughout the country,
whose very shadow is a pollution, who live outside villages or
in town under conditions unspeakably bad. The
districts
outcaste's lot worse than that of the beasts who do not
is

understand his religion is of the most primitive kind, his

;

superstitions are appalling. Fear lurks to greet him in every

corner, and terror comes with every unusual occurrence.
Pestilence dwells in his midst. Often sold with the land on
 254 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
which he works, often pawned for debts, he is not treated as
a human being at all. He is known by a name which is
applied to everything outside the pale of kindness and con-
sideration. He eats filth, his drinking habits are disgusting.
The most respectable labour to which he can put his hand is
work on the fields, and when that is not to be had, he becomes
road-mender, scavenger, or anything that no one else will
do on account of its nature or of prejudice against it. In the
eyes of the law the outcaste is equal to a Brahmin, but the
law is only a sentiment. He may acquire property, but it
is constantly encroached upon he must be servile in all his
;

attitudes sometimes he may not even approach a public

;

place like a post-office. He is habitually in debt and pays

without murmur most extortionate interest. The caste man
has no scruples against fleecing him. Twenty-five per cent,
per annum, not always honestly levied, is a common rate of
interest to impose upon him. Yet he manages to be happy.
You meet him smiling. He is said to have a good sense of
humour and he is fascinated by rhythmic beatings of tom-
toms. He accepts his lot. I have written ofhim as if he were
all alike, but that
in reality, not the case.
is, He varies, but
these are his typical characteristics.
Yet, in some districts, he is the descendant of ruling
dynasties and the remnant of an imperial and conquering
race. Sindh was once ruled by Sudras. The masterpiece 1

of Tamil literature was written by a pariah in the south of ;

India, Sivaites worship the deified Nanda, who was a pariah.

Even to-day, in spite of the accumulated disadvantages of
many generations of neglect and outlawry, many able men
are included amongst the outcastes, and their children do well
at school. The aboriginal converts in the Chota Nagpur dis-
trict have made such progress in education that a college has
been established for their boys. Of the Indian Christians
1 " In one we hear
country of high-caste Hindu princes receiving the tilak,
or mark of investiture,from Bhil or Mina tribesmen " (Baden- Powell, The
Indian Village Community, pp. 89-90,/.
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 255

who do so well at Madras University many are of outcaste

descent, and such men are to be found in colleges teaching
Brahmin youths. But if they are appointed to a public office
the responsible officer generally threatened with all sorts of
is

disapproval. Many who claim the benefits of the Queen's

Proclamation that no favour will be shown in appointing any
of her Indian subjects to public office assume that it does not
—
apply to the pariah in any event they have no intention of
applying it to him.
The effect of Christian propaganda is to bring within the
pale of the political community this class, enormous in num-
bers, not altogether mean in capacity, but weakened in will
and self-confidence by long generations of servility. As they
are taught to lift up their heads so will they become of some
political importance, but that is a slow process. Still, the

beginning is made, and with it the most serious assault yet

delivered against caste, and the most doughty blow yet struck
for the liberation of Indian genius and intelligence.
Caste is by far and away the most predominating influence
on Indian life. Begun to protect the higher civilisation of
the invading Aryan from Dravidian and other aboriginal
contamination, it has developed both in theory and in practice
into a rigid religious and social organisation, the breach of
which is attended with the direst consequences. Amongst
the more educated sections its rigidity is slackening, but its
remains amongst the masses its power has hardly been
spirit ;

weakened. In fact, to-day, amongst the masses of the people,

so ingrained is the spirit of caste that new castes are being
formed. Communities, trades, and other groups seek social
distinction and privilege by declaring that they belong to a
caste, and they can usually get their claims sanctioned by
some accommodating Brahmin who supplies them with a
pedigree of race for a fee in the same way that the College of
Heralds supplies an upstart at home with a coat of arms. 1
It perhaps matters not. Caste can be broken either by being
1 There is even a caste of train thieves.
256 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
destroyed or by being made universal, as the glory of titles
may be dimmed either by republicanism or sycophancy, by
their abolition or their extension, after the manner of recent
Honours Lists.
Some the Hindu communities, like the Arya Samaj,
of

dispute the authority of caste, but even amongst Christians it

"
retains its power. Striking as has been the success of
Christian missions, it must be admitted that this great success
has been nullified and vitiated to a great extent by the ad-
mission of caste into Christianity." ' The caste mind is not
only fenced round with social advantage, but with religious
faith, and heroic indeed is the man who defies it. All the curses
of the cruel hundred and ninth Psalm fall upon his head. He
is cut off from his kin and his inheritance, his children are left

un wedded. In the bazaar no one will trade with him he ;

must not cross the threshold of his temples. When he dies

no one will carry his body to the burning-place. He is out-
cast upon earth and debarred from heaven. Turned away
from his own door in life, none of the rites which light his way
through the darkness of death may be done for him.
The spread of education and the prevalence of foreign
travel have modified caste rigidities. In the north they are
less observed than in the south. The rules of exclusive eating
are being widened, tea is not considered as a meal, and in
Madras I was once invited to partake of a real meal with a
company of Brahmins who remained in caste. The ceremony
of purification isnot only being applied to circumstances in
which but a few years ago it would hardly have been
held applicable, but the ceremony itself is being neglected in
cases where it strictly ought to be resorted to. In whole
classes — —
and those of the higher castes caste is becoming not
much more than the social exclusiveness which is prevalent in
our own society, and its evils are becoming, in numerous social
reform societies, the subject of condemnation. 8
1
Sharrock, Hinduism Ancient and Modern, p. 177.
* Lutheran and other
It is interesting to note that the German missionaries
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 257

This division of Indian society has been a source of great

trouble to Indian missions. Caste keeps the Brahmin a Hindu
when he has ceased to believe in the doctrines of Hinduism,
and for the people generally it means that Christianity loses
its influence when it has destroyed the old faiths.
It destroys
but cannot replace. The new inspiration is parched out of
existence by the social power of the organisation of the old
faith. At the same time, and for the same reason, Christian
1

India, being outside the pale of Hindu India, finds its influence
on the intimate life of the people very limited. The Christian
is a foreigner to his own family, and that is true whether he
has been a Brahmin or an outcaste. This is one of the ex-
planations of mass conversion. It is much easier for a whole
village than for an individual to be baptized, and whilst the
religious value of the change may be doubtful (in accordance
with the view one holds of what religious conversion really
is) its political possibilities are
very great.
This mass conversion one of the most interesting move-
is

ments in India from a political point of view, because it arises

very largely from economic causes and from revolts against
oppression which in time are bound to have political conse-
quences of no mean importance.* Then the whole of a com-
munity goes over to Christianity, sometimes taking into Chris-
and its preju-
tianity its gods, its ceremonies, its superstitions,
dices. The famine which lay upon the land from 1876 to 1879
brought thousands of outcastes to baptism. As a result of
the secular work done by the missionaries, two Anglican

and the Roman Catholics coming from societies where social caste is strongly
marked have accepted and explained caste in India as though it were practi-
cally the same social practice which they knew at home. The analogy is
not complete. A more complete analogy is the refusal of white men to have
social intercourse and sanction alliances with coloured people in communities
like the American Southern States.
1 " The
history of South Indian missions ia very largely a history of caste
troubles and caste relapses " (Rev. J. A. Sharrock, World Missionary Con-
ference, 1910, vol. ii. p. 370).
*
Cf. Census Report, 1911, vol. i. part i. p. 137.

17
258 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Societies at Tinnevelly baptized, in 1880, 19,000 people. This
began the great mass movement of pariahs in the south to-
wards Christianity. The north followed later. Here the
American Missions are powerful, and it is said they take less
precautions than others as regards baptism but, be that as
;

it may, Indian Christians have increased in the Punjab in ten

years (1901-11) by 431 6 per cent., and the gains are shared
by all the missionary societies at work in the district. The
moving cause of this must be put down to the fact that the
missionaries got the Government to allot large areas of newly
irrigated land for Christian settlement. Thus the Chuhras,
who have hitherto been agricultural labourers and skin dealers,
if they became Christians could for the first time in their lives

become land-holders. 1
Gross cases of systematic persecution
of pariahs come under the notice of missionaries, and even
if they are not remedied at once, the sympathetic advice
given awakens corresponding sympathy in the mind of the
little community. A new light begins to dawn upon it and a
new interest to awaken in it. When this is amplified by the
feeling that at last the pariah has protection within the law
and in his possessions, he becomes a new man in a new world.
His whole community changes its social allegiance by accept-
ing baptism. But the change does not end there. The im-
provement in his social status lets light into his mind. He is
taught self-respect; he becomes more cleanly in his habits.
He does give some proof of having been " born again." " It
is just as true in the Punjab as in South India that, while

the origin of the movement is mainly social, there is a strong

spiritual force at work within it."
*
As was the case of the
Shanars of Tinnevelly, whose oppression by Brahmin tyranny
led to mass conversion, the revolt of dignity precedes the

religious change and is the reason for it, and, the new allegiance
having been made, it carries certain spiritual consequences
with it.
1 International Review of Missions, October 1914, p. 653.
*
Bishop of Madras, International Review of Missions, July 1913.
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 259

We must not assume, therefore, that mass conversion is

something that isnot conversion. The missionaries can

defend it as missionaries and not merely as reformers. I deal
with it here, however, mainly as one of the great movements
in the emancipation of the Indian spirit. Men are influenced
naturally in masses. Every evangelist campaign in Great
Britain is an example of mass conversion and shows the
characteristics of a mass psychology. It starts from personal
influence. Schwarz acquired his hold over the Shanars of
Tanjore because of his personality, and Ringeltaube laid the
foundations of Christian missions in Travancore in the same
way. The Christian movement amongst the Chuhras in the
Punjab originated in the conversion of a hide-buyer of great
propagandist zeal. But the personal influence is of an illumi-
nating kind, and when it champions as well as persuades, and
when it deals with people accustomed to common action in a
community, a mass response is Truly the method
the result.
ia like casting a net into the sea and hauling in every fish that

gets entangled. This is good for the Church if the Church

has the power and capacity to discipline the baptized in ;

any event it is good for India because it has put men on their
feet. Nor must the sneer that the motives are economic be
taken at too high a valuation. It may be so, but economic
desires are very often the vehicles by which mental awaken-

ings show themselves and find a fuller expression. The spirit

needs a body ;
the free man needs possessions, and if these
masses of outcastes are moved by a revolting spirit to seek
justice and human right and change which has
testify to the
taken place within them in the only way open to them a —
profession of what their champion considers to be all-impor-
tant and an association with him in the worship of his God —
who with any appreciation of the workings of the human
mind will have the hardihood to say that what takes place
can be described in terms of personal gain ? It has a sig-
nificance far deeper than that.
The areas where these mass conversions are prevalent lie
260 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
mainly in the extreme south of India, in Madras from the
Mysore border to the middle of Hyderabad, amongst the
Santals in Bengal, and north-westwards through the United
Provinces and the Punjab from Bareilly and Meerut, in the
Khasi Hills in Assam, in the region of Jubbulpore in the
Central Provinces.
In addition to the Christian missions, other agencies are at
work in India for the reclamation of the outcaste. Within
recent years Hindus themselves have been active, and chief
amongst them have been the Arya and the Brahmo Samaj.
For in the Ayra Samaj in particular and amongst Hindus in
general is a keen determination not to allow the untouch-
ables to be considered as anything but Hindus. The Hindu
requires these people to keep up the numbers upon which
he bases his political claims. If they slip from his fold he is
weakened. So from this point of view, missionary activity
is a grand attack upon his power and he must sacrifice some

tradition to enable him to meet it. When the Gait circular

threatened the Hindus that in the census of 1911 the out-
castes might not be classified as Hindus, great was the con-
"
sternation of Hindu society. The Gait circular had a quite
unexpected effect and galvanised the dying body of orthodox
Hinduism into sympathy with its untouchable population,
because that was so necessary to avert its own downfall." 1

True to its own tenets, the Arya admits outcastes to mem-

bership, allows them to perform rites like Homa, invests them
with the sacred thread. These admissions sometimes are also
of the nature of mass conversion when, as in the territories of
the Maharajah of Jummu and in Kashmere, 10,000, and in
the district of Sialkote 36,000, have been admitted en bloc
into the Samaj. The Rajput Suddhi Sabha, formed by the
Arya for the purpose of reconverting to Hinduism Moham-
medan Rajputs, is said to have won for the Arya the con-
version of as many as 370 in one day. Between 1907 and
1910 it reconverted 1,052. It is estimated that nearly two-
1
Lajpat Rai, The Arya Samaj, pp. 227-8.
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 261

thirds of the Arya members in the Punjab were of the de-

pressed classes. There has been opposition from the orthodox,

but the Arya Samaj is too strong to be cowed or to be turned
from its deliberate purpose. It backs up its work by educa-
tion and other kindsof reforming social effort. The Brahmo
Samaj with less enthusiasm and on a smaller scale is doing

similar work. It has, however, helped by both precept and

example to interest orthodox Hindus in a Mission to the

Depressed Classes. On such thorny questions as whether the
converts of this Mission are to be absorbed into caste Hin-
—
duism or not questions which the Arya Samaj has definitely
—
answered in the affirmative the Brahmo is divided. In this
as in other things the Brahmo is well intentioned but feeble.
The Servants of India and various other Social Reform Societies
are working at the same problem, whilst no single leader of
the Indian people has failed to acknowledge the responsibility
of the higher castes to uplift the lower.
On the other hand, Mohammedan missionaries have met
with some success particularly in the Punjab where they have
made specially marked headway amongst the Chuhras who
have yielded so many converts to Christianity. The outcaste
turning Mohammedan becomes fully enfranchised at once in
his new community —in some respects more than he became
if

a Christian. Thus, the long stagnant waters of Indian life

are being stirred to the very bottom.
The view is very commonly held, both by Indians and
English, that the Christian missions in India thwart the
Nationalist movement not only by openly opposing it, as
some missionaries do, but still more effectively by implanting
in the minds of the people thoughts which lead them away
from Indian leadership and ideas. The results of a propa-
ganda, however, are not always what they are intended to be ;

the harvest to be reaped is not in the keeping of the sower of

the seed. It is true that the older missionaries appear on
the whole to have been anti-Nationalist and to have led their
people on roads other than Indian, and that opposition to
262 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Nationalism has come from some of their converts. This,
however, is changing. The younger school of missionaries
are not anti-Nationalist Indian Christians have shown
;
*

some degree of national independence in church government ;

the vitality of Indian life is bound to draw to itself the minds

and movements awakened by missionary propaganda. The
Christian mission tend to bind the native Christian to the
may
sovereignty of the conqueror by giving him the faith of the
power in possession, but that is not antagonistic to Nationalism.
"
Jesus Christ," a leading Nationalist is reported to have
"
said, was hopelessly handicapped by his connection with
the West." * But Jesus Christ is universal and is not Himself
Western, and a Christian Church in India will, as it grows in
strength, become Indian in spirit. The essential point to keep
in view is that the missions are educating the people. In India,
the highest percentage of literate men is amongst the Christians
with the exception of the Brahmins, and also of literate
women with the exception of the Parsis. This is bound to
break down the barriers which separated the outcaste from
humanity. As a result of this education, the outcaste is
thinking for himself and is acting for himself. He becomes
a personage in his own eyes and not a servile encumbrance
on the face of the earth. He is forming his own communities,
his ownco-operative societies, his own rudimentary forms of
self-government, and, though it will take him as a class some
time to rise out of the deep muddy ruts into which he has
fallen, his past shows that he has genius and ability. The
instinct for self-control which an educated people have is even
shown in the community by an opposi-
of Indian Christians
tion to missionary tutelage. Raja Sir Harman Singh com-
plained in a Presidential address delivered to an Indian
Christian Conference that missionaries showed too much racial
"
prejudice and too great a desire to keep all power and
authority in the missionaries' own hands," and he claimed
1
Andrews, Renaissance in India, pp. 164-8.
8 World Missionary Conference Report, 1910, ii. p. 346,
 RELIGION AND NATIONALISM 263

that Indian advice should be sought and taken in the manage-

"
ment of the Church. He went on to say that the Indian
Christian community must ever keep before itself the national
"
idea and co-operate with non-Christian Hindus. So we
have the National Missionary Society started and a native
Indian Church organising itself. For some years there was
an agitation amongst Anglicans for an Indian Bishop, and
this was successful when the Rev. V. S. Azarian
—
himself of
—
outcaste origin was consecrated for the diocese of Madras
a few years ago. In other walks of life, the educated out-
caste is taking a part in the Nationalist agitations appropriate

to his interests and experiences, and as was the case with the
Mohammedans so will it be with the Christians sharing in the
:

lifeof India, they will give back to it their energy, begotten

of their ideals and their discontents, their claims and their
resentments. It is a strange phenomenon, this struggle for
the control of the minds and souls of the 50,000,000 outcastes.
It means that Indian society at the very bottom as well as at
the top is being educated and is being taught self-reliance, and

that, both above and below, political self-government and

personal ambition are fermenting. It may be long ere this
ferment produces its inevitable changes, but that it will do so
is not open to doubt. One thing will hasten matters. Repre-
sentative government must sooner or later, and in some degree,
be given to India, and the outcaste will not be left out. His
recognition is necessary for the Hindus to enable them to
keep up their proportion of the Indian population, and his
missionary champions are not likely to let him be excluded
in the cold. Moreover, a sufficient section of the community
is now too wide awake to allow an Indian Government to be

established in which they have no share or lot,

 CHAPTER XVIII
CONCLUSION
When the war burst upon Europe, India was in a state of
great political unsettlement. The troubles with the South
African and Canadian Governments had stirred up ugly feel-
" "
ings in India. Anarchism had become threatening.
Centres of disaffection and revolutionary propaganda had
been established in Europe and America, and the bomb had
appeared. Political dacoities were prevalent in some dis-
tricts, particularly in Bengal ; youth was throwing off re-
straint, and students
— now at this college, now at the next
— showed an ominous ferment of conduct. But the forces
making for creative change were to be found elsewhere.
These incidents and signs only hampered those forces, filled
the authorities with apprehension, but also with obstinacy,
.and confused the evolutionary tendencies native to Indian
politics. A new generation had been born. The National
Congress leaders found that a tide of opinion had risen out-
side which had submerged their old landmarks. At first, as
was human, they looked on with regret and unwillingly
accepted the facts. But the circumstances were too strong
for them. The Surat split was healed the demand for
;

"
Home Rule " was taken up the old programme for de-
;

tailed reforms was merged in a general claim for self-govern-

ment. Indian politics were about to take a quick march
forward.
Upon this the war came and suddenly the whole world
seemed to be transformed. Comradeship in danger promised
to wipe out past divisions, and facing a common foe to dispel
264
 CONCLUSION 265

lack of confidence in each other. Those critics of the Indian

Nationalist movement who saw in its demands nothing
but sedition and in themselves nothing but perfection, had
long been misreading the signs of the times and misleading the
British public at home and the British Administration in
India. With the outbreak of the war, the mischievous errors
1
of these critics were revealed. India was proud to send
soldiers to fight as companions with white troops on European
soil'; rich and poor gave, each after his kind, to India's
offering at home we began to talk of turning over a new leaf
;

and of governing India differently. By and by from the field

came stories of Indian valour coveted V.C. badges were pinned
;

on Indian breasts India felt that her blood was washing

;

out her colour. She even talked of saving the Empire from
ruin. The exploits of Japan had been giving the East cour-
age the employment of Indian troops in the war gave
;

India pride. Then there was a lull and a back-set. India's

enthusiasm was not encouraged her recruits were not ac-
;

cepted her;
ambulance corps were disbanded the adminis- ;

1 How
grievously these people misread the nature of the Nationalist move-
ment is known to everybody who has spent any time in mastering its purposes.
The surprise felt when India demanded a share in the war only showed how
little our people understood India. This sentence from a speech delivered
in Bombay in March 1894, by Mr. A. O. Hume, the founder of the National

Congress, is remarkable only for the accuracy of its description of what

"
happened, not for the exceptional nature of what is said in it. A great
—
war will be India's opportunity opportunity of proving that if in periods
of peace she clamours — —
at times somewhat angrily for equal civil rights,
in the hour of war she is ever ready and anxious to accept equal military
risks." The report records that this was followed by " prolonged applause."
*
It is of some importance to note the precise direction in which the thoughts
of Indians turned in those days, and that is shown in the speeches made in
the Legislative Council on September 8th, 1914. Raja Sir Muhammad Ali
" The decision
Muhammad, Khan of Mahmudabad, said :
[to employ Indian
troops] has made the British Government more national than any measure
"
of reform of recent years ; and Rai Sitanath Ray Bahadur said : "It
has not only satisfied the just pride of the several martial races that inhabit
India, it has not only enhanced their sense of self-respect, but has also estab-
lished, and proved before the world at large, their common citizenship with
the inhabitants of other parts of this great Empire."
266 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
tration became timorous at the spectre of an aggressive
nationalism. The lips spoke good things the eyes glanced
;

suspiciously at the audience. There was a reaction towards

the old views that the East was destined to be governed and
—
to yield huge profits to Western capital was a place where
the childhood of the world stilllingered as if protected by
some magic —was unable to look after itself in the bustle and
turmoil of this earth.
Suddenly in the midst of this came the Report of the Com-
mission appointed to inquire into the conduct of the Meso-
potamia campaign. It revealed neglect, miscalculation, lack
of foresight and forethought ;
but above all, it revealed a
broken machinery, an inelastic system of government, an
effete political method. The problem of Indian administra-
tion was brought before the nation with a dramatic force
and an insistence which could not be denied. A change of a
fundamental character in Indian administration must take
place. Mr. Chamberlain resigned an office in which his heart
was never set, I believe, and Mr. Montagu succeeded and
declared for a thorough reform in the Indian Government.
He then proceeded to India to consult with the Viceroy and
representative parties, and in due time the Report christened
after the Secretary of State and the Viceroy appeared. The
bulk of this book was written before the Report was published
—indeed, long before the Mesopotamia blunders were revealed—
but the conclusions come to in it have required no modification
by what has happened or what has been published since.
Without the Report my conclusions would have appeared to
be extreme and might have remained for years a desirable,
perhaps, but certainly a distant goal. And yet, the Report
dealt with a system of government spent before the war. The
war revealed, but did not make, the cracks in it. Before
Indian troops marched within sound of battle in Europe, the
bureaucracy was shattered more completely than any anarchist
bomb could do the work, but Indian Victoria Crosses and
Mesopotamia Reports shortened its
years of apparent utility.
 CONCLUSION 267

In the inevitable reconstruction we must be guided by a

fundamental fact. The system of Indian government which
has come to an end was a historical growth, arising out of
conquest and subjection. The Indian was inferior and had
to be governed in so far as he took part in his government
;

it was as a subordinate with very limited powers. Nominally,

the ideal of self-government as a goal was always before us,
but in the transition from a subordinate to a self-governing
state there must be a break, because the conceptions of the
one, even when liberally held, are different in kind to those
of the other. An administration like that of India may be
reformed ;
its civil service thrown open toits sons a generous
;

infusion of native members upon the governing authorities

all

made. But there still remains the citadel of the foreign

Government, limited in its proud authority and narrowed in
its empire maybe, yet untaken and dominating all else.
When that citadel opens its gates a revolution however peace-
,

ful and constitutional, has taken place, and it is just that

last event in the evolution of liberty which it is so hard to

bring about. The fundamental fact to which I have referred

is that no mere reform of the existing system will be of avail

because the conception of India's place in the Empire which

that system embodied has changed and now no longer exists.
We must now begin with self-government set clearly before
us as our definitely pursued goal, and in reconstructing
Councils and Civil Services we must grant powers which give
Indians a responsible share in their own government. When
that break is made, the future can be left to look after itself,
but until it is made we shall be creating administrative systems
which will not evolve, and applying confusions which will keep
us in the dark.
The most important of the changes required are indicated
in the preceding chapters, and both their necessity and the
attending them are discussed. Regarding them,
difficulties
a word of warning is necessary. The change cannot be made
without great risks, some unsettlement, and the exercise of
268 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
the most commanding statesmanship. It is a task of enor-
mous magnitude and its ultimate success will depend as much
upon the spirit in which it is done as upon the first fashion-
ing of details. It must be approached in no niggling frame
of mind. Whoever does it will be faced by an array of
paralysing facts, failures, disappointments. In countless secret
documents there are records of how unsatisfactory Indian
commissioners and magistrates have been in countless hearts
;

there are secret fears of consequences kept alive by many

tales of troubles ;
in countless psychologies there are racial

antagonisms. These ought not to be pooh-poohed, nor ought

they to befog the minds of those who wish to do justice to
India.
Part of them are the products of the present system, and
if they are to set bounds to our future policy that system
will remain stifling and contorting the genius of India if, ;

however, we regard them as evil effects and courageously set

about removing their causes, they will disappear, and happier
experiences and more generous appreciations will take their
"
place. Part of them may be put down to human nature,"
and will continue to trouble us. During the readjustment,
Indian administration may have to suffer in certain respects,
for you cannot teach a people a subordinate mentality and

expect to find that the fruits of that mentality are those of a

responsible self-governing race. We have done all we can for
India we must now carry on our work with India.
;

I therefore lay the greatest stress upon the personality of

the Viceroy and the Governors sent out from home. Those,
in the reconstruction years, ought to be men of the highest

political intelligence, who will associate with themselves the

best Indian capacity available, who, believing in liberty, will
not be frightened should its first appearance be threatening,
and who understand that liberty, and not repression, is the
safeguard of both rulers and States. When the first storm
bursts, he who runs away will desert the nation, he who
stands firm will save it.
 CONCLUSION 269

The first points to attack are the Legislative Councils and

the Viceroy's Council. The former must have more authority
— especially in finance
—
the latter must be made more rep-
resentative. A Viceroy more distinctly the eyes, the ears,
and the mouth of India, Councils more authoritative and
—
representative that the foundation of everything. But I
is

repeat here, to emphasise it, what I have already written :

we must remember that the democratic forms of the West are

not the only forms in which Democracy can take shape, and
in the Indian reconstruction it will not be enough, after con-

sidering, say, Western constituencies as a basis of representa-

tion and discovering that 6uch cannot exist in India, to
conclude, therefore, that representative government is impos-
sible. India is not a nation of equal citizens so much as an
1

organisation of co-operating social functions. So that I doubt,

even if in India every adult was educated, and the vast
majority took an intelligent interest in what business is
transacted at Delhi or Simla, whether a General Election after
the British manner is the only way to give a mandate to the
Imperial or Provincial Councils, and elicit what Indian public
opinion is. The forms of Democracy which we use and the
methods we adopt to keep them going presuppose not only
general education and political interests, but two other things
— a population compassable in numbers and a land compas-
sable in size. And even as I write our old assumptions re-
garding Democracy and its expression by elections and through
Parliaments are being assailed by critical attacks more for-
midable and better armed by reason and experience than we
have been accustomed to think were possible.

1 Some grave defects have already shown themselves in the way elections
are conducted in India and in the results of the unimaginative transportation
of our democratic machinery to India. On these, The Hindu Review for
" The failure of these new in-
February 1913 makes this sensible comment.
stitutions [District and Local Boards] is due to the fact that they did not
grow naturally from within the people themselves, but were imposed upon
them from without. This failure does not prove our incapacity for self-
government, but only the unsuitability of these to our genius and traditions.'
270 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
India may not accommodate itself to our conditions. But
it has governing organs from the village panchayet to the
its

Viceroy's Council, graded up through District and Municipal

Boards and Provincial Legislatures. It has its men of poli-
tical experience and ability, and though they may be confined
rather much to landowning and the law, every one who knows
them must admit that their outlook is a oivic one and that
their political ambitions are based upon thoughts of their

municipality, their Province, and their country. Growing up

around them is a class of successful manufacturers and men
engaged in commerce and industry, and these, when the
interestand honour of public life are presented to them, will
appear on the representative bodies. The same class of man
as was available for Parliament in England in 1832 is avail-
able now be that only the blinded optimist
in India, and, if it

sees no dangers and ahead, it is equally true that

difficulties

only the paralysed pessimist can refuse to admit that all the
risks must be taken and the Indian trusted with a distinct
measure of self-government.
Moreover, the first buds of a new democratic epoch also
appear in two characteristic forms. The first is the Social
Reform movement, which takes many shapes, from the Ser-
vants of India to the societies for raising the depressed classes.
The second is the growth of the economic conflict between
Capital and Labour. Whoever has visited the industrial dis-
tricts of Bombay or Calcutta with their slums and filthy
—
tenements slums and tenements which make the very worst
I have seen in Europe desirable dwelling-places or whoever —
has studied factory conditions in the jute mills of Bengal or
the cotton mills in Bombay, must have seen that, if this
conflict is not soon organised and produces comprehensive

programmes of legislation, municipal administration, and

trade-union action, India is doomed to pauperism, disease,
and degradation. But the trade union has appeared and the
strike is known —the strike which has evoked the loyal

support of great masses of workpeople both men and women,

 CONCLUSION 271

which has been conducted with persistence and determination

and been rewarded with success.
Equally hopeful and essential to a self-governing India is
a social reform movement, and that now exists with vigour.
The best of the reform societies is the Servants of India, founded
in 1905 by the Gokhale and inspired by him. The
late Mr.

society is
frankly Nationalist, but seeks to serve India by the
disinterested work of its members in everyday concerns, and
particularly those which relate to the downtrodden classes.
Its membership is small because it calls for much sacrifice and
renunciation, but its spirit is far spread.
In Bombay, too, there is a very promising Social Service
League which has organised free travelling libraries of books
meant to be read by working people, evening classes, and
lantern lectures. Its libraries are done up in boxes of from
twenty- five to fifty books, the custodians of the boxes make
provision for their use, and where there are illiterate people
in the chawls, literates are encouraged to gather them round
—
and read aloud to them a familiar Indian scene. A genuine
educational work is carried on by the book-box campaign.
The books are in Marathi and Gujarati, and are used most
encouragingly by members of the depressed classes and by
women. The subjects of the lantern lectures range from
"Co-operative Stores" to "The Human Body," from "Tem-
" "
perance to
Astronomy." University extension lectures
and teaching in hygiene, first aid, nursing, house-
are also given,
hold management undertaken. Co-operative Credit too is a
cardinal work of this League. I have seen that part in opera-
tion, and the financial benefits it has conferred upon those
who have converted their debts into indebtedness to it, have
been most striking. For the first time in their lives some of
its members know what it is to be practically free of usurious

extortion. I pause to give these details because this Society

isone of many, and I wish to give assurance that the work
done is well thought out and of a practical kind.
All a drop in the bucket of Indian life That is so. But
!
272 THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
where the drops have fallen the muddy waters are already
clearing, and those who work and watch are encouraged to go
on, whilst those engaged in the wider fields of politics know
they have reliable allies.

Thus No people can be freed from

political India evolves.
chains unless has done something to strike them off, unless
it

it feels their weight and their dishonour in its heart, unless its

attainments in intelligence and in the things which create

and uphold dignity have won the sympathy of men. India
has met these tests.
Since the early days of the war when many felt that
not less than Gallic zeal
Kindled and burned among the sapless twigs
Of my exhausted heart,

there has been a retrogression, and

history, time's lavish scribe, will tell

How rapidly the zealots of the cause
Disbanded —or in hostile ranks appeared.

The Montagu-Chelmsford Report has been scrutinised and its

flaws discovered. Slowly there has gathered an opposition

to it ;
manifestos against it have been issued by officials and
ex-officials an unfortunate hour the Legislative Council
;
in
has passed Acts grievously menacing liberty and still more
grievously destroying confidence and good feeling. As I
write these last sentences, eyes shade themselves from the
light, hearts harden, and the minds of men long accustomed
to wield authority return to their old moods, their old fears,
their old narrowness. But the way of Britain is clear the ;

war has illuminated it. Heavy will be the responsibility and

terrible the fault of those who obstruct or darken it boun- ;

tiful willbe the reward and ample the justification of those

who respond to the more generous and trustful emotions which
possessed them when Indian troops rode into Flanders.
 APPENDIX I

THE PEOPLE OF INDIA

The distribution of population, its density, and the pursuits of the

people have a very direct bearing on the question of enfranchise-

ment and elections, and Indian census Reports (amongst the most
interesting publications issued by the Indian Government) afford
elaborate information on this point.
The numbering of the people of India presents extraordinary
difficulties on account of the size of the country, the varieties of

government within it, the large numbers of people on the move

at any given time, the backward state in civilisation and educa-
tion of large masses, and their religious and superstitious prejudices.
The first attempt was made between 1867 and 1872, but not until
1881 was any census carried out on systematic lines. Then it
was but a first experiment, and every tenth year since, it has
been done with greater accuracy and completeness. The bigness
of the task can be estimated from the fact that about two million

people were engaged upon it when it was last taken. The census
of 1911 gave British India, with an area of 1,093,074 square miles,
a population of 244,267,542, and the Native States, with an area
of 709,583 square miles, one of 70,888,854. In the whole of India
the population density 175 persons to the square mile
is in ;

British India it is 223, and

Native States 100. The popula-
in the
tion is massed mainly in the Ganges Valley and Punjab, on the
western shore of the Bay of Bengal, in the south below the towns
ofMadras and Mysore, and on the coast districts south of Bombay
between the hills and the sea. The chief factor in determining
this density, in addition to physiographic configuration, is the
climate, and a map of the rainfall follows in general features a

18 273
274 APPENDIX I

map of the distribution of the people. But, in addition, we see

the traces of invasion and insurrection, of disease and famine, of
irrigation
x
and of drainage. The development of commercial and
industrial enterprise is hardly seen yet in the density of population
outside Calcutta and Bombay, and in small localities like the
mining district of Manbhum. India remains agricultural and the
laws which determine the settlement of an agricultural popula-
tion hold an almost unmodified sway. It has appeared to some
observers 2 to be curious that in districts where rents are high and
the cultivator is poor, population should be as dense as where
rents are lower and the cultivator better off. That is. however,
what we should naturally expect. In the one case, population is
attracted to the soil by certain economic advantages, and in the
other it is
kept there by its caste cohesion, the weight of its poverty,
and by the lowness of its standard of living. Generally it is true
that whatever makes for successful cultivation makes for density
of an agricultural population, and that law has to be supplemented
by the other that a low standard of life also makes for a high
—
density especially in a country like India where obstacles are put
in the way of a free circulation of the people.
The importance of the agricultural population in India can be
seen at once by the figures. The census of 1911 showed that 9 '5
per cent, lived in towns. In Assam only 3 per cent, are urban,
in Bengal, 6 per cent. —
only 4 per cent, if Calcutta be not taken
into account in Bihar and Orissa, 3'4 per cent.
;
in Bombay, 18
;

per cent. in Burma, 9 "3 per cent., but the town here is often an
;

extended village and its population can hardly be accepted as

urban in its characteristics in the Central Provinces and Berar,
;

8 per cent. in Madras, 11*7 per cent., but here again the official
;

town is not always a town, but a village founded on the economy

of a village in the Punjab, 10'6 per cent.
;
in the United Pro-
;

vinces, 10 2 per cent. In Baroda, the proportion of the urban

population has actually declined, but in every case the figures are
not absolutely reliable owing to the prevalence of plague when
the census was taken having caused an exodus from towns.

Lyallpur district, for instance, a wheat-growing population of

1 In the

272 to the square mile is maintained solely by irrigation on what used to be

a desert.
2
Census Report, 1911, Part I. p. 26.
 THE PEOPLE OF INDIA 275

With the exception of Bengal, where there is a large Mo-

hammedan agricultural population, the trading propensities of
Mohammedans draw them to urban areas, and the proportion of
town-dwelling Mohammedans is therefore larger than town-dwell-
ing Hindus. Parsis are town dwellers, and Christians are also

largely found in great centres of population. Where there is an

immigrant population, as the Hindus in Burma and the Hindus
and Sikhs in the North-West Province, it is to be found in towns
because it has come for trading purposes. It is found generally
that the Mongoloid peoples of the East are attracted by towns
more than the Dravidians, and the comparative largeness of the
city populations of the North-West is owing to the fact that the
walled city there was important for the fighting races which ruled
and built capitals, and that has created a habit amongst the people.
The racial proportions in towns do not correspond, therefore, with
those of the country as a whole. The same is true of religious

proportions.
Moreover, recent census figures show how steadily railway com-
munication is changing the town geography of India. The old
capitals and trading centres are being deserted. They are now
remote from the paths of men on the banks of deserted rivers,
or on roads and routes once full of a stream of traffic which no
longer flows upon them.
With a direct bearing upon electoral arrangements is also the
distribution of the educated population. In this respect, Burma
easily holds the premier place. Three hundred and fourteen per
thousand over the age of fifteen (the male proportion being 376) are
and they are scattered over the country in Bengal and
literate, ;

Madras, the figure is 77 and 75 at the bottom of the graded list

;

are the United Provinces and the Central Provinces with Berar,
boasting of 34 and 33 respectively. Taking India as a whole, the
distribution of the literate population is three times as many males
and nine times as many females in the cities as in the general
population. Distributed amongst religions the Parsis come first
with 711 per thousand literates, or 831 of persons over fifteen years
of age. Of Buddhists, one in four is able to read and write, and
the Christians come close upon that. The significant feature of
Christian education, however, is that it is found to such a degree
amongst aborigines and outcastes that the proportion of literate
276 APPENDIX I

people amongst these is three times as high as it is amongst Hindus,

and four times more than amongst Mohammedans. One in four
Indian Christian males is able to read and write. At the bottom
of the grade are the Mohammedans, only 69 per thousand of
whose males are literate.
 APPENDIX II

IMPERIAL AND PROVINCIAL REVENUES

The subordination of local to central authority is best seen when
one studies the Indian system of finance. In 1833 the financial
administration of India was put absolutely into the hands of the
Central Government. But in 1870 Lord Mayo began a system
of decentralisation by handing over to the major Provinces con-
trol of police, jails, medical services, roads, education, and a few
other activities together with a fixed sum from which the charges
were to be met. Excesses in cost were to be found from savings
or from provincial taxes, and powers, very limited and entailing
much reference to the Central Government, were given to the
Provincial Governments to employ the necessary staffs. Lord
Lytton was responsible for a further step in advance, beginning
in 1877. The
responsibilities of Provincial Governments were
extended ;
in order to induce them to practise economy and
and
develop their taxable resources, certain sources of income were
placed under their control. The Imperial Government kept the
total income from certain revenues, divided others with the Pro-
vincial Governments, and surrendered others altogether. But
each fifth year the arrangements were revised. In 1904 the system
was again revised, and the present one of M quasi-permanent
settlement" instituted. The theory of the present arrangement
is as follows. First of all, the Indian Government retains control

of the services which it thinks necessary, and the revenues required

to enable to carry on
it work— opium, railways, posts and
its

telegraphs
— Provincial Governments look after what remains, and
receive a definite share of the revenues which they collect. Thus
the Provincial Exchequers receive all the income from the spend-
ing departments which they administer, they share equally with
the Indian Government the land revenue, excise, stamps, and
forest receipts, they have a share in the income of the larger irri-

277
278 APPENDIX II

gation works and the total receipts from the minor provincial
ones. This system, designed for the purpose of throwing back
the Provincial Governments upon their own resources and of
encouraging them to develop their own incomes by improving
their Provinces, has been supplemented by substantial doles from
the Indian Exchequer to enable the Provinces to effect certain
improvements (as in police, agriculture, and education) without
delay. Minor changes that did not affect the general system
were made in 1912.
The method here explained is objectionable. The general con-
trol of the Central Government must, of course, remain so as to
co-ordinate the work of the Provincial Governments, but Pro-
vincial revenues should be mainly under the control of the Pro-
vinces, the contributions to the Central Government being more
and more of a tribute, whilst the system of doles and large grants
for specific purposes, which may be nothing more than a passing

hobby of some powerful member of the Executive Council of the

Governor-General, should be ended. It is liable to be wasteful
and is not always in accord with the most pressing needs of the
Provinces, and it allows the Central Government to exercise a
control on local administration which is properly resented in the
more progressive Provinces.
The changes that have been made have all tended to create
an independent provincial financial system, but the Central Govern-
ment has preserved its position as the sole budgeting authority.
There has been much to be said for this hitherto, although Provincial

Legislative Councils naturally object to it. Provincial autonomy

must be consistent with a policy of Indian development, and this
cannot be secured without central financial control. At present
there is friction, but I can see emerging from present conditions
of dispute an agreed and accepted settlement of existing diffi-
culties in administration when the Provinces will have secured in

practice a financial freedom which will not sacrifice the necessary

central co-ordination, and which will place them independent of
doles and so free them from unnecessary interference.
At the same time, it cannot be expected that self-respecting
Provincial Governments will surrender the right to pass their own
Budgets and be content to send them to the Government of India
to be incorporated into an Imperial Budget. So long as the
 IMPERIAL AND PROVINCIAL REVENUES 279

Executive Councils of the Provinces and of India are composed of

civilians belonging to the same service, and the official element on
the Provincial Councils is so strong, this objection may not be
felt very much but immediately the official power is weakened,
;

the representative bodies will want more financial liberty. The

solution that ought to be aimed at is, I think, such a modification
of the present system as will provide that Provincial Budgets
shall be submitted to the central financial authorities as advisors
whose powers of disallowance and modification shall be strictly
defined, and then returned for discussion and approval to the Pro-
vincial Legislatures. On the other hand, the Imperial revenue
should be derived from profitable services, like the railways, supple-
mented by demands upon the Provinces imposed in proportions to
be fixed from time to time between Province and Province. This
would put an end to the system of divided revenues, which has not
much to commend it. The Indian Government should continue
to be the authority for prescribing forms of accounts, methods of
levying taxation, borrowing on the open market, and for dealing
with all arrangements affecting the general financial administra-
tion, including customs and excise of India.
But when principles are settled, there are problems arising out
of their application. I see no valid objection at all to a system
by which the Imperial Government, having estimated the income
from its own resources, distributes amongst the Provinces their
share of the deficit and presents to them a rescript for the amount.
It is done in Local Government here, and can be adopted in India.
But there are certain revenues which come from impositions which,
in the interests of the whole of India, ought not to be varied from
Province to Province. The Land Tax, for instance, is a purely
provincial matter, and there is no necessity for it to be a uniform

propprtion of product from one end of India to another. It is a

rent and should respond to the economic laws of rent. That is
not the case, however, with the Income Tax, which is a tax and
not a rent, and therefore should be uniform. Commercial Stamp
Duties are of the same nature. These latter ought to be Imperial
revenues, and so the question arises how they can be collected.
If Imperial collectors may be regarded as out of the question,
there are still two methods open. The first is to make some grades
of provincial officers responsible and arrange with the Provinces
280 APPENDIX II

for costs of collection, and the second is to make the Provinces

responsible and allow them a commission. The first seems the
better way But in any event these are only matters of ways and
means. The important thing is to settle that Provincial finance
will be put upon an unassailable provincial basis, and that the

Imperial Government, instead of being the dispenser of financial

benefits, shall receive from the Provinces the means necessary to
make both sides of its Budget balance further, that the Provinces
;

shall be free to develop their 'own resources with a

superimposed
control not for the purpose of hampering policy, but of securing
the necessary uniformity and equity — and even that may soon be
dispensed with.
 APPENDIX IH
THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT
The growth of co-operation in India is phenomenal, though in

every sense of the word the movement is still in its infancy. In

fact, in some places it seems to have spread through the atmo-
sphere. It has been regarded as a panacea, like one of the many
drugs which cure everything, advertised in the Indian press. This
does not discredit the movement or throw any doubt upon its
stability. It has not only come to stay, but to cure, and no country
in the world can give a more sincere welcome to the co-operative

spirit than India. The Indian leans upon his family, his village,
his community. From the moment of his birth till that of his
death, he is under obligations of a social and personal character.
To him the virtues of co-operation and the spirit of interdepen-
dence are an inheritance and not an acquired habit. But the
oo-operation of Indian life has degenerated. The wide world
market has destroyed the co-operative organisation of the village,
and the moneylender has more and more individualised credit.
Commercialism has split up the co-operative life of the people
into separate transactions of profit-making. But the soul of the
people has not gone. Their traditional modes of life are still
natural to them, and these, impelled by the pressure of exploita-
tion which is upon them, make them turn readily to the co-
operative promise.
The chief quarry from which information about co-operation is
to be dug the annual reports issued by the Governments.
is

Figures are striking, but convey only an imperfect idea of what the
movement means. A few will, however, enable one to understand
both its size and its stability. In Bengal the societies of all kinds
increased in 1913-14 from 1,123 to 1,663, the members from 56,889
to 90,363, the working capital from Rs.4,607,301 to Rs.8,940,803.
In the United Provinces the report for 1914-15 records difficulties
281
 282 APPENDIX III

owing to crop failures, and the work of the year was not con-
spicuously successful. But the number of agricultural societies
increased from 2,560 to 2,716. The amounts borrowed from the
27 lakhs of rupees, show their utility, as by that
societies, totalling
much did they save cultivators from moneylenders. In the same
year the societies in the Central Provinces and Berar increased
from 2,213 to 2,297 the membership from 40,415 to 44,085, and
;

the working capital from 65 to 72*5 lakhs of rupees. Here, again,

there were failures in crops to contend with. The Punjab, also
under difficulties, showed no increase in the number of societies
or of members, but did show an increase in working capital of
7 25 lakhs of rupees. The stability which the Punjab Societies
evidenced is very gratifying, for the crisis through which they
passed was severe.
movement a little more closely in Madras. There
I studied the
in 1905-6 there were only 27 societies with 2,733 members, a working
capital of Rs.107,651, and a meagre reserve of Rs.689 in seven ;

years there were 1,078 societies, 82,713 members, Rs.9,548,750

capital, and Rs.443,000 in reserve. It is also noteworthy that
whereas in the first of these years 32 per cent, of the members were
agricultural, in the latter the percentage was 59. In this Province
we also see the
tendency to use these societies as Savings' Banks,
for the deposits of non-members in the first year were 7 per
cent, of the capital, whereas in the latter year they were 26 per
cent. At first the Madras societies were helped by loans from
both the Imperial and the Provincial Governments, but these have
been discontinued because they are no longer required. To supply
the needs of the societies and to organise their credit are two
—
central banks the Madras Central Urban Bank, a joint-stock
society dealing only with registered Co-operative Societies, but
neither managed nor controlled by them and the Madura-
;

Ramnad Co-operative District Bank, Ld., which is a banking union

of societies in the district. Banks of the latter type will in time
control the grand finance of the movement so that the whole work
will be put upon a self-contained basis of self-government.
The societies themselves show different modes of working, and
greater uniformity is desirable. Some
are of limited liability, others
—
are not some work with a large proportion of capital paid up,
others are not so particular ;
but that they all supply a need is
 THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT 283

—
seen by the loans they have paid one hopes that in every case
it isa real need. In 1908-9 the agricultural societies alone gave
6,951 loans in 1912-13 they gave 27,835
;
—
the sum loaned in the
former year being Rs.694,462, in the latter Rs.2,306,447. The
non- agricultural societies gave in the same years 2,362 and 6,981
loans, of Rs.269,759 and Rs.842,764 respectively.
The Indian cultivator undoubtedly spends money and has no
notion of keeping out of debt. It was therefore feared that co-
operative credit, instead of being used to improve agriculture and
the lot of the peasant, would only widen the margin of credit and
be a new incentive to expenditure, and the Government tried, by
regulations defining the purposes for which loans were to be
granted, to protect the cultivator and the societies against this.
The result has been good. Fifty-six per cent, of the loans issued
in Madras in 1912-13 were for production purposes, 41 per cent,
to clear off old debts most of which bore usurious rates of interest,
and only 3 per cent, for non-productive expenditure. That is for
the agricultural societies. For the non-agricultural societies the
figures are almost as good, being 49, 38, and 13 respectively. The
non-productive borrowings were mainly for marriages, the ex-
penses for which in India (until there is a revolution in habits)
are not only essential, but cannot be cut down.
The redemption of old debt it most important, though some of
the superficial critics of the movement always seize upon the
figures under heading to try to diminish the importance of
this

co-operation. Thus, not only is the income of the cultivator re-

lieved of heavy usurious charges — sometimes up to nearly 40
per cent. —
not only is it possible for him to pay off his borrowings
with interest on a considerably lower charge than his interest alone
used to impose, 1 but he becomes a freer man altogether, and, so far
from teaching him more extravagance, this freedom gives him a
chance of learning what economy means. In one of his reports
the registrar of the Punjab societies says regarding the conver-
sion of bunnia indebtedness into co-operative-society indebtedness :

"
It will thus be seen that members have replaced one form of

1 " At a low computation, we save the agriculturists of India from an

absolutely unnecessary burden of at least 10 lakhs of rupees on every crore
of rupees lent out by the Co-operative Societies " (Sir E, Maclagan, Regi-
strars' Conference, 1912).
284 APPENDIX m
indebtedness amounting to at least 30 lakhs by another amounting
to 72 lakhs, and they are still further this much to the good in
so far as the interest they pay on the new form of debt is very
much lighter than what they paid on the previous form, while
they have recovered cultivating possession of valuable ancestral
lands amounting to no less than 8,000 acres." That is a very strik-
ing statement showing the back-breaking oppressiveness of the
moneylender upon the Indian cultivator.
Whoever visits Conjeeveram to see its famous temples would do
well to direct his steps to the workshops of the Co-operative Pro-
ductive Society. It is for weavers. The people one meets there
are imbued with the co-operative idea exactly like the workmen
in a similar factory here. The society supplies looms,raw material,
and capital it buys the products of its
;
members and sells them
to the best advantage. It divides its profits between its reserve
funds, its management, and its weavers, and it employs the attrac-
tions of a bonus to encourage regularity in habits and excellence
in work. It has had its ups and downs, but the time I spent

looking round it and hearing from its moving spirits what their
hopes and fears were was full of the most lively interest.
There are also co-operative trading societies, but I found these
still in a struggling infancy, experimenting to find a field and a

method, and complaining of the hardness of their task. But of

the future I have no doubt, whatever disappointments may inter-
vene between now and final success. In time, the usurious money-
lender will go, the parasitic middleman will go, and co-operation
will take their place in the interests; of the cultivator and the
craftsman.
 INDEX
Adamson, Sir Harvey, on Judicial and Bengal Tenancy Acts, 140
Executive Separation, 202 fn., Besant, Mrs., 19; India; a Nation
203 quoted. 228, 229
Administration of justice in India, the Theosophical Society, 246
192-212 Bipin Chandra Pal, 18
Aga Khan, the, 74 Board of Control, the, 46
Agriculture, Indian, 274 ;
and see made a Council (q.v.), 46
Land Tax Bombay Association, 3
Agriculturists' Relief Act (1879), 209, Bose, Dr., 26, 180, 245
210 Brahmo Samaj, the, 2, 234, 236,
Ahmed Khan, Sir Syed, 7, 12, 74 247 fn., 250
Akbar, land tax of, 135, 136 and caste, 260, 261
Alighur, foundation of 9, 12, 176 Bright, John, on equality of Indians,
American colonies, loss of the, 194 102
Amrita Bazar Patrika, 222 Broderick, Mr. (Secretary of India),
Ancient Indian Education (Rev. F. E. 58
Keay), 160 fn. Buckingham, Duke of (Governor of
Andrews, author of Renaissance in Madras, 1877), 92 fn.
India, 262, 262 fn. Buckingham, Mr. (editor, Calcutta
Argyll, Duke of, on the Council, 48, Journal), deportation of, 222,
49, 50 229
Arnott, Mr. (editor Calcutta Journal), Budget Committee, French, 124
deportation of, 222 Budget, the Indian, 43, 45, 51, 125,
Art, Indian, 24, 25, 26, 180, 245 134
in Native States, 119 East India Company and, 125
Arya Samaj, the, 235-41, 250 expenditure, 145-98
official misunderstanding of, 241 Land Tax, 134-44
and caste, 256, 260, 261 Imperial and Prov. Revenue, 277-
Lajpat Rai on, 260 fn. 84
Azarian, Rev. V. S. (Indian Bishop Burgoyne, General, on Company
of Madras), 263 justice, 198
Burke, Edmund, on Company Govern-
Baden -Powell, authorof The Indian ment, 125
Community, 254 fn.
Villaqe effect on Indian writing, 224
Bande Mataram, 18, 26 Burma, 71, 72, 79, 88, 275
Banerjea, Surendranath, 17, 19
Bank, Indian, 205 6 Calcutta Corporation, 71
Bar, the Indian, 197, 197 fn. High Court, 193, 195, 199, 205-7
Benares, Hindu University, 176, 181, housing, 142
189, 190 Indian Museum in, 179
sacred city, 247 Oriental Club, 171
Bengalee, The, 222, 224 Trades Association, 71
Bengal, revival of Hinduism, 242 University, 71, 173, 175 fn., 183,
revolutionary movement in, 243 190
285
 286 INDEX
Calcutta Journal, deportation of Comrade, 13, 223, 225 fn., 229
229
editors, 222, Connemara, Lord, 5
Canada and Indian immigration, 214, Co-operative movement, the, 137,
215, 216 187, 281-4
Canning, Lord (Viceroy, 1858-62), Cornwallis, Lord, first political
56, 61, 62, 222 governor, 55, 61, 96
Capital and Labour, conflict in, permanent settlement, 135, 136
270 and the collector, 201
Carey, 2 Cotton duties, 43, 51, 57, 128-34
"
Carstairs, R., Little World of an Council, the Executive, 60-7, 269
Indian district officer," 211 fn. argument for abolition, 49-52
Caste, dominating influence in Indian cotton duties in, 131
life, 255 Duke of Argyll on, 48
formation of new, 255 in Montagu-Chelmsford Report,
modified by education, 256 66
and missionaries, 256 fn., 257 Legislative, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68-78,
and mass conversion, 257 124, 131, 269
Chailley, Joseph, on the Congress, Lord Morley on, 45 fn., 48 fn.
21, 120 fn. pay of members of, 47, 52, 146
Chakravarrti, Tarachand, 3 Criminal Law (Amendment) Acts
Chamberlain, Austen, 45, 266 (1919), 226, 229
Chandra Sikhar Deb, 3 Cromer, Lord, 47
Charter Act (1883), 83 " national
Cromwell, India a inter-
Chatham, on India, 39 est," 37
Chatterji, Bankim Chandra, 26 Curzon,Lord( Viceroy, 1899 1904-5),—
Christianity in India, 247-63 11, 15, 16, 56, 58, 85 fn., 188, 240
mass conversion, 257-60 centralisation under, 101, 117
among the outcastes, 252, 252 fn., Customs, Indian, 126-34
255-60
statistics, 252
and Education, 276, 275 Dadabhoy, Hon. Mr., on the Indian
Civil Service, the Indian, 44, 63-6, Press Act (1910), 225 fn.
95-113 Dalhousie, Lord, and annexation,
provincial control, 81, 82, 86, 87 42, 58, 68, 115
examination test for, 98-113 Deb, Chandra Sikhar, 3
Indians in, 102-13 Debt, Indian, 149, 150, 151
covenanted and uncovenanted ser- Decentralisation Commission Report,
vices, 103 62, 63 fn., 83, 91 and fn.
" listed
posts," in, 104, 105 Delhi, seat of Indian Government,
and Montagu- Chelmsford Report, 1912, 56, 56 fn., 117, 118
" the
113 Digby, Mr., on drain," 148
cost of, 145-50 Disraeli, Bill of (1858), 60 fn.
and the administration of justice, and Empire of India, 115
"
196-207 Drain," the, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153
Clark, Sir Wm., 63 Dufferin, Lord (Viceroy, 1884-8), 5
Class struggle in India, 133, 134, Durand, Sir H. M., Lt.-Gov. of
270 Punjab, 84
Clive, 32, 38, 41, 95, 124 fn., 126 Dutch trade policy, 33, 37
Collector, the, 95-101 Dutt,Romesh Chunder, 203 fn.
manifesto against Montagu-Chelms- Dyananda A-V College (Lahore), 238
ford Report, 95 Dyananda Saraswati (founder of
and the administration of justice, the Arya Samaj), 235, 236, 237
196, 199-204
Colleges, Chiefs, 116
Commander-in-Chief, the, member East India Company, trading history,
of Council, 60, 62 29-33
 INDEX 287

East India Company (contd.) : Extra-territoriality of Indian factories

Adam Smith on, 34, 125 under the E. Indian Company,
Parliamentary control, 38-43 193
Chatham on, 39
Wellesley on, 41
Palmerston, 41 Factory system in India, 132, 133, 193
finance of, 124-6, 235 Farquhar, J. N., The Crown of
and justice, 193-8 Hinduism, 242, 251 fn.
Economic penetration, 31 Finance, 47, 48, 61, 62, 63, 89, 123-58
Education, Indian, 159-91, 178-9,275 tariffs, 123-34
and self-government, 159, 189 Hardinge on " new angle of
vision,"
as franchise for, 74, 75 136 fn.
college discipline, 172, 173 the dilemma of, 158
Education in British India (Howell), expenditure 144-58
186 revenue increase, 158
education of women, 190-1 Fiscal Policy, Indian, 128-34
elementary schools, 167, 184, 185 Nationalist, 132, 133
future of English methods, 1 69 seq. Fleetwood-Wilson, Sir Guy, 63
in Native States, 119 Francis, Philip, 61
James Mills's dispatch, 162 French, in India, 29, 32
Lord Moira's minute, 162, 173 fn. Frere, Sir Bartle, on judicial and
174 executive separation, 202 fn.
Macaulay's minute, 1 63-7
Sir C. Grant on, 160-2, 172, 174,
182,221 Gait Circular, the, 260
Sir D. McLeodon, 166 Gandhi, Mr., 26
Sir C. Wood's dispatch, 178, 182 Ghose, Dr. Rashbehary, 17
the college system, 181 seq. Ghose, Arabinda, 18, 26, 243
the examination fetish, 177 seq. Qita, The, 235, 242
under the E. I. company, 160 Gladstone, Mr. and Indian Princes,
Ekdam, suppression of, 228 115
Elections in India, 269, 269 fn. Gokhale, Mr., 19, 26, 155-6, 182, 185,
Elgin, Lord (Viceroy, 1894-9), 15, 62 217, 246
Emigration, Indian, to S. Africa, 213, Government of India Act of 1833,
216-17, 217 fn. 41, 42, 55, 102, 106
to Canada, 214-6 of 1858, 43, 46 48 fn.
toU. States, 217, 218,219 of 1870, 106
to Australia, 217, 218 of 1914, 49
indentured, 218 Grant, Sir Charles, pioneer of educa-
and self-government, 219, 220 tion in India, 160, 161, 162, 172,
Examinations, simultaneous, 4, 102, 174, 182, 221
103, 108, 113 Gregory, Lady, performance of her
Executive and Judiciary, 193-207 plays in the Punjab, 25
argument for separation, 199-207 Gurukul (at Hardwar), 237, 238, 239,
Sir Harvey Adamson on, 202 fn., 240, 245
203
Sir Bartle Frere, on, 202 fn.
P. C. Miller on, 201 fn., 204 fn. Hamilton, Lord George, Memorial to,
R. C. Dutt on, 203 fn. 1899, 199, 204 fn.
Executive and Legislature, relations Har Dyal, 18, 243
of, 65, 67, 68, 71, 90, 91 Hardinge,Lord(Viceroy, 1910-15-16),
in Montagu -Chelmsford report, 91, 59, 63, 117
93,94 and Indians in Canada, 214; in
Expenditure, 145-58 S. Africa, 217
cost of Government, 145-8, 150 and cotton duties, 131 fn.
military, 126, 153-6 and Delhi, 117
288 INDEX
Hare, David, 2, 162, 182 Japan (contd. ):

Harman Singh, Raja 262Sir, and Eastern immigrants, 217

Hartington, Lord, and Indian Free Anglo- Japanese Alliance, 218
trade, 129 Jinnah (Mr. ), Nationalist leader, 246
Hastings, Lord, and the Indian press, Judicial statistics, 207
221, 222 Jute, 128, 133, 151, 187
Hastings, Warren, 40, 65, 61, 83, 95,
96, 125, 127, 160, 193, 195, 200
Keshub Chunder Sen, 247 fn.
Hobhouse, Lord, Secretary of State,
Memorial on Indian justice, 199, Kimberley, Lord, opposes extension
of Bengal Land Taxation system,
204 fn.
Home Rule League, 19 137
Hornel, Mr., on primary education, King, W. L. Mackenzie, and Indian
185 immigration to Canada, 215
Kitchener, Lord, 58
Horniman, Mr., editor of Bombay
Chronicle, deportation of, 223 fn.
Komagata Maru Case, 214, 215, 216
Lord Hardinge on, 214
Housing in Bombay and Calcutta,
133, 142, 270
Hume, Allan Octavian (founder of Lajpat Rai, 17, 238 fn., 239
National Congress), 4, 5, 265 fn. Lancashire and the Indian open door,
Hunter, Sir William (The Old Mis- 128, 129, 130, 130 fn., 131
sionary), 249, 250 Land Alienation Act (1900), 209, 210
Hyderabad, Nizam of, 114 Land Legislation, effect of British,
209,210,211
IlbertBill, 1,3 Land Taxation, in Native States, 119,
Ilbert, Sir C. P. The Government of 126, 134-44
India, 39 fn. land tax a rent, 135, 140, 141
Imperial Conferences, India at, 219, Bengal system, 136, 137
219 fn. Nationalist opinion, 140, 141
Income Tax, 126, 127, 128 proposals for reform, 143, 144
in Native States, 119 increased yield, 1 58
evasion of, 127, 128, 136
Lawrence, Sir John, 85, 250
alternative to, 128, 129
Lewis, Sir G. C, on Parliamentary
India (weekly journal), 4 control of India, 43
India and the Empire, 2 1 3-20
Lytton, Lord (Viceroy 1876-80), 3,57,
and S. Africa, 213 92 fn., 103, 105, 222
and League of Nations, 220
population, 273-76
India Councils Act (1909), 11, 17, 66, Macaulay, Lord, 2, 108, 125 fn.
70, 70 fn., 85 fn. minute on Indian Education, 163-7,
(1861), 88 182, 176, 178, 179,224
Indian Finance (Welby Commis- on Indian Press, 231
sion), 1900, 148, 149, 155, 156 MacDonnell, Lord, 85 fn.
Indian Patrol, The, 222 Maclagan, Sir E., on Co-operative
Indian National Congress, 3, 19, 22 Finance, 283 fn.
and Indian Civil Service, 146 Madras Mail, 230
Government attitude to, 5, 6 Madras, separation of executive and
Mohammedan attitude, 7, 8-13 judicial functions, 200
left wing, 16 Mayo, Lord (Viceroy, 1869-72), cor-
extremists in, 15, 17 respondence with Duke of
effects of war, 1 9 Argyll, 50
and Montagu-Chelmsford, 19 McLeod, Sir Donald, on Indian
and the Press, 223-232 Education, 166
Mehta, Sir Pherosesha, 19, 246
Mesopotamia Report, 45, 266
Japan, fiscal policy, 134 Meston, Sir James, 6 fn., 240 fn.
 INDEX 28»

Metcalfe, Sir Charles, and the Indian Munshi Ram, 237, 239
Press Censorship, 222 Mutiny, Indian, 7, 16, 21, 35, 42, 102,
Mill, James, dispatch on Indian 127, 156, 222, 225
Education, 162, 167, 179 Mysore, Hindus and Mohammedans
Mill, J. S., economic effect of foreign in, 12 fn.,
tribute, 153 education in, 119
Miller, P. C, on Judicial and Execu-
tive separation, 201 fn., 204 fn.
Minto, Lord (Viceroy, 1906-10), 44, Nair, Sir Sankaran, 63, 64, 183
48 fn., 57, 69, 117 Naoroji, Dadabhai, 109
Mirror of Intelligence, first vernacular on the " Drain," 148, 149
paper, 221 on Indian defence, 154, 246
Missionaries, Christian, in India, 2, Nationalism, Indian, and tariff
8, 242, 249-53 policy, 132, 133
end caste, 257 rise of, 1-27
and the Nationalist Movement, and the press, 223
261, 262, 263 and education, 180 seq., 238-40
younger school of, 242, 262 a religious movement, 24, 234-63
Mohammedan, in the Punjab, 261 in art and literature, 24-5
Modern Review, The, 180 and Land Taxation, 140, 141
Moghul Empire, 29, 31 Native judges, 196, 198, 198fn.
trade taxes, 127 Native States, 12 fn., 58, 44-122
Mohammedans (see Religion and Congress of rulers, 78, 121
Nationalism), and the Mutiny, 7 under Curzon, 117
attitude to National Congress, 7, 8, Hardinge policy, 117, 118
10, 11 choice of Residents, 120
education, 8, 9, 10, 276 self-government and, 120
relation to Hindus, 7, 10,11,12 fn., New India, case of, 226 fn.
13, 74, 75, 97, 118,264 Mrs. Besant on, 229, 230
press, 13 North, Lord (Regulating Act of), 60
missionaries, 261 (see Regulating Act, 1773)
illiterates among, 276 Northbrook, Lord (Viceroy, 1872-6),
Moira, Lord, minute on Education 57, 58
(1815), 162, 173 fn., 174 Nuncomar, 125
Moneylenders, 137, 138, 142, 208, 209
Montagu-Chelmsford Report, L 67, 272
and the Congress, 19, 44
and the Legislative Council, 66 Outcastes, the, 250, 252 fn., 263
and basis of representation, 75, 76 and the Arya Sainaj, 260, 261
effect of Gait circular, 260
and the relation of Executive and
education and, 262, 263
Legislature, 91, 93 and representative government, 2 63
checks, 93-4
Collectors' manifesto, 195
and the Civil Service, 113
Moon of Intelligence, first native Pal, Bipin Chandra, 18, 242
paper, 221 Palmerston, Lord, on the Act of 1833
Morison, Sir Theodore, Indian papers 41
run at a loss, 224 on the Bill of 1858, 43
Morley, Lord, Secretary for India, 1 5, Parliament, India in, 37-53
17, 18, 44, 46 fn., 47, 48 fn., 57, Partition of Bengal, effect of, 15, 18,
58, 66, 70, 70 fn., 131 79
reforms, 226 Pensions, cost of, 145, 146, 150
Moslem League (founded 1912), 13, Police Commission Report (1860),
18, 74 202 fn., 204 fn.
and Indian National Congress, 223 Bengal, Committee on, Report
Mukerji, Sir R. N., 26, 180 (1838), 204 fn.
19
290 INDEX
Presidencies, origin of Provinces, 79 Revenue (contd.) :

Press, Indian, 3, 13, 221-33 and cotton duties, 128-34

control of, 161 and cost of district justice, 203, 204
and self-government, 232-3 Imperial and Provincial, 276-80
censorship, 221, 222, 224-30 and secretary's salary, 45
deportation of editors, 222, 223, Reynolds, novels of Mr., 248
229 Rich, Mr., on simultaneous ex-
attitude of Anglo-Indian papers, aminations, 102
222, 223 Ripon, Lord (Viceroy, 1880-84), 3, 6
native press and National Con- Roe, Sir Thomas, 30 fn., 31, 124
gress, 223 Rowlatt Acts (see Criminal Law
repression, 224-31 (Amendment Acts)
Macaulay on, 231 Rudra, Principal, 21, 183
Press law, Indian (1910), 224, 225, Rupee, exchange value of, 130, 156-8
225 fn., 226-31, 233 exchange compensation allow-
prosecutions under, 227, 228 ance, 150, 156, 157
Proclamation of 1858, 56, 102, 106 Russell, Lord John on 1858 Bill, 43
Protection, see Cotton duties
Provinces, the, 79-94
civil servicecontrol of, 81, 82 Salaries, Secretary of State's, 45, 47
Governors, 79-87 range of Indian, 146
theLieutenant-Governor,83, 84, 85 Salisbury, Lord, 50, 51, 57, 130 fn.
legislatures, 88-94 Salt Tax, 22, 126, 127, 158
Chief Commissioners, 85 Secretary of State, the, 44-53, 61
Provincial services, the, 196 his salary, 45, 47
Publio services, Indian, Report on Parliamentary control, limitation
(1917), 200 fn. of, over, 45
Public Service Commission, 1886-7, his Council, 46-50, 52
104, 107 Self-government, 231-3, 262, 263,
1912, 112, 113, 146, 157 fn., 196 fn., 267-72
197 fn., 219 fn. and education, 159, 189
Punjab, annexation of, 137 and emigration, 219, 220
mortgaging of land, 138 and military defence, 155, 156
"
Punjabee, The, 222 and the Drain," 153
and the press, 231-3
attitude of chiefs, 120
Railways, Indian, 151, 152, 152 fn., basis of representation, 73, 123
275 Dominion Home Rule, 112
Ram Deva, 237 Fiscal Policy and, 123
Rammohan Roy, 3, 9, 221 progress towards, 19, 36
Ramtanu Lahiri (Life of), 2 fn., 3 fn. Servants of India, The, 261
Ray, Dr. P. C, 26, 176, 245 Settlement, the Permanent, 135, 136,
Reay, Lord (Governor of Bombay), 5 140, 143, 209
Regulating Act (1773), 39, 55, 60, 61, Sharrock, Rev. J. A., author of
193, 194 South Indian Memories, 249
(1784), 55, 60 and of Hinduism Ancient and
Religion and Nationalism, 24, 234-63 Modern, 256
Representation, on Legislative on caste, 257 fn.
Councils, 71, 131 Sinha(Lord), and the 1910 Press Act,
system of, in India, 72, 73 226
of Mohammedans, 74, 75 Smith, Adam, on Company Govern-
tests for, 75 ment, 34, 125
of trade, 73, 76, 77 Social legislation, backwardness of,
proportional, 76 133
Revenue, Indian, 126 Social Reform movement in India,
the Land Tax, 135-44 270, 271
 INDEX 291

Social Reform (contd.) :

Tilak, Mr., 17, 18, 23, 229, 426
and outcastes, 256 Trade Unionism in India, 134, 271
Social Service League (Bombay), 271 and fiscal policy, 134
S. Africa and Indian immigration, Treaty with Tibet, 58
58, 213, 216, 217, 217 fn. Tyabji, Budrudin, 11, 246
Spencer, Herbert, read by Hindus, 248
Sri Krishna, 242
Sri Sankaracharya, 242 United Provinces, Council for, 85 fn.
Stanhope, Philip, on Lancashire
cotton duties, 130 fn.
Viceroy, the, 54-9, 94
Stanley, Lord, 102 his Council, 60-7, 269
Statesman, The, 222 and Provincial governors, 82, 83, 84
Strachey, Sir John, on the unity of
importance of, in reform, 269
India, 28, 33
on native judges, 198 fn.
Sydenham, Lord, 85 fn. War, effect on Indian politics, 19, 264,
Syed Ahmed Khan (Sir), 7, 12, 74 265
on tax-payer, 157
and Finance (cotton duties, 130),
Tagore, Dwarkanath, 3 131
Tagore, Gogendranath, 245 and the National movement, 265,
Tagore, Rabindranath, 25, 26, 245 265 fn.
Tagore School of Art, 24, 180 employment of Indian troops, 265
Tarjuman, suppression of, 228 Wealth, growth of, 127, 128
Tata, Sir Ratan, 26 Wedderburn, Sir William, 5 fn.
Telang, Mr., 5, 6, 182 Wellesley, Lord, forward policy of,
Temple, Sir Richard, Governor of 41, 42
Bombay, 80 Wood, Sir Charles, on Indian educa-
Thomson, George, 3 tion, 178, 182
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