A

CULTURAL HISTORY OF INDIA

THE

BY
A*

YUSUF

ALI,

C.B.E., M.A.,

LL.M. (Cantab.)*

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literatures

etc. etc

60MBAY
.

B.

TARAPOREVALA SONS & Co.

r

Treasure House of Books

Hornby Road, Fort

Copyright l&4d.

PUBLISHERS NOTE
9

much

It is very

regretted

has been

the author

revise the proofs

unable

to

himself , owing

from India while

to his absence

the book was being

that

printed;

every care has been taken

but

by the

Publishers to avoid errors.

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Published by jal Hirji Tarapofevaia for Messts. D. B.

Taraporevala
Sons
Co., and printed by Jehangir R. Vatcfaaghandy at the

&

Sanj Vartaman Press, Apollo Street, Bo&bay.

CONTENTS
PAGE

PREFACE

y
SECTION

THE IMMEDIATE BACKGROUND

Chap.

1.

What

the British

Took Over

SECTION

II

THE APPROACH OF TWO CULTURES,

1773-1818
Chap. 2.

Early British
Culture

Contributions
.

3.

Manners, Morals and Arts

Chap.

4.

Learning,

Education,
.

SECTION

28

. .

Chap.

Literature

Indian

to

Journalism

47

and
...

70

III

THE NEW ORDER GRADUALLY ASSERTS

ITSELF, 1818-1857
Chap.

5.

Chap. 6.

Chap*

7.

Beginnings of Public Education

New

Forces in Religion and Literature

Journalism, Social

105

130

Reform, Economics

and Politics

150

SECTION IV

DEATH .STRUGGLE OF THE OLD ORDER,

1857-1858
Chap. 8,

Cultural Significance of the Mutiny

176

PAGE
SECTION V

ASCENDANCY OF ENGLISH IDEAS,

1858-1885
Chap. 9.

General

Chap. 10.

Education, Religion

Features,

and Literature

195

Journalism, Public Life, Finance and

Economics

219

SECTION VI

AWAKENING OF NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS:

WIDENING HINDU-MUSLIM BREACH,
1885-1907
Chap. 11.

Politics,

Religion,

Literature

Education
.

and

241

SECTION VII

THE LATEST PHASE,

Chap. 12.

Politics,

Economics, Education, Art ahd

Literature

Chap* 13.

Appendix:

1908-1939

Dominating Interest of Politics

Books Referred To

266

298

319

PREFACE
attempt is made in the following pages to trace
the cultural evolution of India during the British period.
"Culture" is a difficult word to define, but I have taken it
in the broadest sense, to include all those movements which
have to do^with a people's mind and its social organisa-

An

tion.

Manners and morals, journalism and

literature,

education and public life, the transformation of religious

and social ideas, economics, art and industry, and finally,
rather
politics in so far as they deal with formative ideas
But
than controversial facts, will all claim our attention.
Here
all these matters must be placed in due proportion.
we are not writing political or literary or religious or
social history, or the history of education or journalism,
We are taking a bird's-eye
art, economics, or industry.
view of the forces which are moulding our culture.

The matters

am

dealing with are rarely touched on

on so slightly or from such
a purely administrative point of view that they lose their
human interest. And yet these are the very stuff of
If we were concerned with a country in Europe
history.
or America we should find numerous separate monographs
In
,on each of these activities to help us in our synthesis.
We must start
dealing with India we have no such help.
from the very beginning.
must not only have an
architectural plan, but we must seek out our raw materials.
We must clear our own sites, make our own bricks and
I

in Indian histories;; or touched

We

and perhaps even extract our own metals from

mines direct. Any one who has had experience of
research on these lines, through books, newspapers, and
manuscripts in various languages, each supplying just the
barest hint here and there, will appreciate the enormous
amount of labour and time involved in such an underI have been under the further
taking.
handicap of writing
these pages away from India, in a busy life of travel and
devotion to most varied interests.
Wherever possible, I
have gone direct to the original sources and
contemporary

mortar,
the

documents.

VI

My

object has been to interest Indian readers in

not usually brought to their attention.
Many
unfamiliar to them will be found touched on in
these pages.
The explanation of unfamiliar matters must
necessarily involve the use of unfamiliar words and
phrases
for which I must crave the
indulgence of readers, especially
those who believe in old traditions and beaten
In

matters
matters

paths.

exploring new territory I have ventured to open

up new
paths for myself, believing, as I do, that literary
style must
follow the evolution of new ideas and modes of

thought.
British Indian culture is dominated
by
British ideas, which lurk even beneath the
protests of those
who are in revolt against what
term
ideas.

The evolution of

they

For

foreign

my

part, I believe, like a character in a famous Latin

comedy, that nothing is foreign which is founded on the

bed-rock of

human

nature.

The list of books in the Appendix will show the books

which I have directly referred in the text. The actual
amount of reading covered is much wider, and can
hardly
be indicated in any but a pedantic list. On minor
points
I have received assistance from
many quarters which I have
to

indicated in notes

in the appropriate places.

I would
mention
the
of
specially
help
competent authorities of the
British Museum on points of Oriental
typography and the
Masonic authorities of Great Britain on the history of

Freemasonry in India. In the work of translation, revision,

and transcription, my warmest acknowledgments are due
to Prof. Saadat AH Khan, who has devoted the whole of
his vacation to this labour of love.
I must also acknowthe
assistance
of
Khan
Saheb Maulvi Feroz
ledge
friendly
Din and Mr. Waheed Khan. For valuable assistance in
translation I am indebted to Chaudhri Gulam Haidar Khan
and Mr. Hari Chand Akhtar. If the interest evoked among
my personal friends is any indication of the interest to be
expected from the public in the work, I may venture to
Hope that this line of inquiry will be followed by more
intensive studies in the future.

A,

YUSUF

SECTION

THE IMMEDIATE BACKGROUND

CHAPTER
WHAT THE

BRITISH TOOK OVER

BRITISH INDIA FOR CULTURAL PURPOSES BEGAN IN 1773

For cultural purposes we may begin the history of

British influence in India from 1 773, the date of the ReFor political purposes the battle of Plassey
gulating Act.

(1757) was important: it led to a

and diplomatic events. But

series of military, poli-

did not directly bring

the British into cultural relations with India. The political
and economic disturbances which these events produced

tical.,

it

a deterioration in the character of the people,

into contempt with their new rulers and

accentuated

which brought them

had existed between Hindus

The terrible famine of 1770., which

disturbed such solidarity as

and Muslims

in India.

the territory of Bengal had its repercussions on the mental and moral life of the people.
The period between 1757 and 1773 in Bengal cannot be

practically

laid waste

called a period of British rule. It may be more fitly called a

period of British anarchy. It added one more centre, perhaps the worst, to the many centres of anarchy all over India.

BACKGROUND OF THE PICTURE, 1750-1780

We

must always remember that the eighteenth century

in India was a period of anarchy. When Warren Hastings,
in the Review of his administration, written in 1785,.
claimed that the British possessions in Bengal and Bihar
were better cultivated when compared with the lands of

any other State of Hindustan, or with the period of the

grant of the Diwani and many years preceding it, the claim
But the comparison is with areas or periods of
is valid.
It does not follow that the people of
continuing anarchy.
India generally in 1785 were happier or better in culture
On
or character than they had been in 1685 or in 1585.
the other hand the plea that there were no dark spots in
pre-British India, Hindu or Muslim, and that British rule
has meant a continuous degradation of the people is
palpably false. In the present study we are concerned
only with the gradual development of Indian culture
.

WHAT THE

BRITISH TOOK OVER

British period, and it will be profitable to cast

a rapid glance at the background of the moving picture
of growth and development which we shall try to present.
That background has its lights and shades, but it is
neither as gloomy as it is sometimes represented to be nor
as bright as we should like it to have been.
To give
definition to the background
let us take the
period
between 1750 and 1780.
in the

CRUMBLING AUTHORITY OF DELHI

The centre of authority in Delhi was growing weaker

and weaker. Its outlying provinces were subject to attacks
from without and disorders from within. The viceroys
in the Provinces were in revolt against the narrow
cliques
that succeeded each other in Delhi, and some of them set
up usurped authority as against Delhi and withheld tribute
from the Empire. Their own revolt encouraged revolt
from various elements in their own territory. The infection
In the Deccan the Subadar's
spread from centre to centre.
authority was being gradually circumscribed by the
Marathas, the French, the British, and various other
contending powers that were rising on the ruins of
The Marathas were aiming at influence at
authority.
Delhi itself, until the battle of Panipat in 1761 broke their
power as an organised Confederacy. The Punjab had
repeatedly been shaken by invasions from Afghanistan
and was becoming a no-man's-land in which the Sikhs were
establishing their own supremacy when the Afghans were
otherwise engaged.
The Nawab-Wazir of the Mughal
Empire was established in Oudh, but his connection with
Delhi had become nominal, and he had soon to meet a
new danger from Bengal.
POLITICAL POSITION OF BENGAL

In Bengal a usurping family had made good its power

and nearly cut itself off from Delhi. A young and
headstrong Nawab came to the Masnad in 1756, and a
series of conspiracies began against him which ended in
his ignominious rout and the reduction of his successors
to the position of puppets in the hands of Clive.
The
British power, after a
itself stronger in arms

few preliminary

reverses, proved

and diplomacy, and also

(it

must

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

than

any of the country powers.

up the river
French
town
of
the
and
Chandranagore,
Hugli
captured
and all Bengal lay at the feet of the British. The Mughal
Crown Prince marched eastward to reassert the supremacy

be confessed)

in

craft,

Calcutta was fortified,

of
the

the British fleet sailed

Empire over Bengal, but the treachery of

Nawab-Wazir of Oudh and the vigilance of Clive

the

thwarted his plans, and Clive got a magnificent Jagir from

ihe puppet Nawab of Bengal in gratitude for the protection
afforded to him.
More intrigues and revelations followed
in Bengal, with more advantage to the East India Company

The Nawab-Wazir of Oudh was drawn

Crown Prince, now the Emperor
Shah Alam II, acting with him, was defeated, and thus
both Oudh and the Emperor came into the power of the
Company. At length in 1765 the Diwani or revenue
administration of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa was formally
obtained by grant in perpetuity from the Emperor, and the
British power in Bengal was thus confirmed by treaty.
and

into

its

servants.

the fray, and the

BUILDING UP OF BRITISH AUTHORITY

After that Bengal (including Bihar and Orissa) was
practically treated as British territory, and figures largely
in the proceedings of the British Parliament.
When the

revenue and treasury headquarters were removed from

Murshidabad to Calcutta in 1772, and the dual system of
government was abolished, the Company really "stood forth
as Diwan." With the passing of the Regulating Act in
1773, to come into effect in 1774, the true British regime
began, with responsibility to the Ministry and Parliament
of Great Britain. Unity was given to the British power in
India by the subordination of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies to Bengal. Although the greater part of the Indian
Peninsula was still outside British jurisdiction, and even
in Bengal the reality of British rule was marked
by various
fictions, such as those connected with coinage or Nazars,
the directing power passed out of Indian hands. In Indian
India there was left nothing but a mass of
conflicting
elements, great and small, decaying, newly risen, or newly
Their mutual rivalries and jealousies, and everrising.

combinations

varying
'

made

the

cultural disorder

still

WHAT THE

BRITISH

TOOK OVER

Rifts which in days of prosperity might have been

worse.
treated as negligible were in days of confusion widened
to the

breaking point.

RtflN OF

CULTURE AND OF MORAL AND SOCIAL LIFE

The dual system of government in Bengal (1765-1772)

requires a little examination from our present point of
When the British East India Company first took over
view.
the direction of affairs, it had few men in its service who
were sufficiently acquainted with revenue matters to deal
justly with rural interests. Even in the matter of merchandise they could not take long views and nourish the goose
The Drakes, the
that laid for them the golden eggs.
who
could not rise
and
the
Watts's,
Holwells, were pedlars
to heights of statesmanship, where men not only seek their
own personal advantage but the good of a larger body of
which they are members, and also see the point of View of
Clive was certainly
those whom they defeat or displace.
able to take large views, but he was a soldier made by
He
opportunity and the genius to take quick decisions.
shared the cupidity and unscrupulousness of his associates*
At

his best he

wanted

to

fasten the

Company's yoke on

Bengal never occurred to his mind

Lifted from the hum-drum
or the minds of his associates.
India.

The

interests of

atmosphere and discipline of the counting-house, to giddy

heights of political supremacy, they found themselvesunable (even if they had been willing) to choose the best
and most honest Indians for their functionaries. They
were out for plunder, and their subordinates could not be
their example.
They put their own
selfish interests above those of the Company they served,,
and their subordinates treated them with as little loyalty

blamed for following

was safe

Just as the Company's.

on
the
ignorance of the Company
English servants traded
at home, the Indians whom the Company's agents employed,
in India traded on the ignorance of their immediate
The Naib Diwans, sitting at Murshidabad and
masters.
were
controlled with no more efficiency from
Patna,
The people of
Calcutta than Calcutta was from London.
of
set
men; and the
Bengal did not count with either
as

in the circumstances.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

its culture, its morals, and its social life,

cultivation rapidly went to rack and ruin.

country,

and

its

ECONOMIC DEMORALISATION PRODUCED

DEMORALISATION

Next

SOCIAL

AND

its

trade

MORAL

the
economic
and
these
can be
startling,
measured in tangible terms. Bengal had been the most
fertile and the most prosperous province of the Mughal
Empire. It had been called the granary of the Empire.
In these few years it was depopulated.
Ryots ran away.
to
hard
to
and
had
be
to cultivate
were
coaxed
find,
They
under
the land.
of
the
the
new system
Zamindars,
Many
of severe demands
and
without
the
enforced,
strictly
nexus
which
had
made
the
old
were
system work,
personal
ruined and disappeared. The dreadful famine of 1770 left
its marks on the country for many years. In the memoirs of
William Hickey, attorney, who was in India for the third
time from 1782 to 1808 and returned to England with a
fortune of 13,000, we find a description of the famine
of 1789. There was a stream of miserable wretches pourDead and dying were lying in every
ing into Calcutta.
street.
For many weeks together no less than 50 died
daily; yet the people were patient and long-suffering, and
there was no act of violence.
On the 18th September,
1789, Lord Cornwallis in his Minute had to say: "I may
to

revolutions

the

revolutions,

political

were the most

safely assert that one-third of the Company's territory in

Hindustan is now a jungle inhabited only by wild beasts.
Will a ten years' lease induce any proprietor to clear
that jungle, and encourage the ryots to come and
cultivate his lands, or lose all hopes of deriving
any benefit from his labour, for which
perhaps by that time he will

away

hardly be repaid?". It was said in the Company's records

that all the evils were due to the system which
they
inherited.
But they scarcely understood the system which
they inherited, which was laid down with meticulous care
in elaborate Dastur-ul Amals from the reign of Akbar
Arrears used to be collected with some consideration and some regard for the conditions of the

-onwards.

peasantry.
system.

Now

they were

Where temporary

collected under a cast-iron

coercion, mild or severe, was

WHAT THE

BRITISH

TOOK OVER

previously employed against defaulters, now, under the

craze for punctuality, they were sold up and set adrift^
and in the conditions then obtaining, practically debarred
from any means of livelihood. Extortion was not unknown
But now it was doubled or quadrupled. The
hefore.
underlings could do what they liked, as their masters were
foreigners and could suspect but could not personally and
And these same
effectually circumvent their tricks.
foreigners were acting on the principle of "get-rich-quicklyand-clear-out-of -the- country." Their greed was on a much
bigger scale than that of their subordinates, and it had to
he satisfied ultimately by extortion. The customs and
usages which regulated the relations between the various
interests connected with land were well understood in the
village, but had no place in the new rack-renting system.

The delays, uncertainties, and technicalities of the new

tribunals penalised the honest as against the dishonest, the
law-abiding as against those who did not wish to deal
fairly. Honest men who had made mistakes or miscalculaCraft and treachery paid,
tions were turned into rogues.

and tended

to displace

normal virtues in high quarters.

AGGRAVATED BY ABUSES IN TRADE AND COMMERCE

In trade and commerce the depression of agriculture
was faithfully reflected, but there were additional evils
due to the very position and history of the East India
Company. The foreign trade of India was entirely ilf theCompany's hands. The Company's position was peciiliaiv
On the one hand it hfetd the
It had a double monopoly.
monopoly of the Indian trade in the Company's own
country, in which the fine textile manufactures of "India
came into competition with the growing cotton manufacThe muslins of Dacca and the white
tures of England.
calicoes of the Madras coast were famous for their quality;
they were subjected in 1774 to a duty of 43 per cent, in
England. On the other hand, by a Farman of Farrukh
Siyar, of 1717, the English Company had obtained a
monopoly in India itself, which placed them not only above
any other European traders, but gave them an extra-

ordinary advantage over the natives of the country.

passport (or dastak) signed by the English President of

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

Calcutta exempted any goods mentioned in it from

duty,,
Its legitimate use was bad
stoppage, or even inspection.
enough for the country. But it was shamelessly abused,,
and that abuse constituted one of the causes of quarrel

between the Bengal Nawabs and the Company. Even the

proposal of the Bengal Nawab's Government to give the
same exemption to its own subjects was resisted by the

Company. When the Company became masters,

became still more flagrant.

the abuse

MONOPOLIES WITHIN MONOPOLY

But there was a further monopoly within the ComThe inland trade in salt, betel-nut,
pany's monopoly.
tobacco, and rice was very profitable, as they were articles
of general consumption. The Company's servants made a
private monopoly of this trade, and pocketed huge profits.
Oil, fish, straw, bamboos, etc., were added to the lists of
articles of daily use in which the market was rigged.
The
scandal of the Company's servants buying and
selling
forcibly at their own prices went so far that the Directors
of the Company intervened in 1764 and forbade
private
trade altogether.
But the Company's servants calmly disobeyed these orders. The superior servants of the Company, including Clive, formed (1765) what they called

The Society of Trade, selecting for their field salt, betelnut and tobacco, the most lucrative items of trade. The
monopoly was so profitable that Clive sold his five shares
in 1767 for
These were promotion shares,,
32,000.
of which five were
without payment. In
the profit had been 45
not trade, but robbery

to the Governor as such,,

an earlier monopoly of salt alone
per cent, in nine months. This was
and spoliation, with the use of the

allotted

weapons which armed power and

political

supremacy had

placed in their hands.

ARBITRARY ECONOMIC OPPRESSION

William Bolt in 1772 published a

scathing denunciation of these evils.
"It may with truth" he
says "be now
said that the whole inland trade of the
country, as at
present conducted, and that of the Company's investment
for Europe in a more
has been one
peculiar
degree,
continued scene of oppression: the baneful effects of
which

WHAT THE

BRITISH

TOOK OVER

are severely felt by every weaver and manufacturer in the

country, every article produced being made a monopoly;
in which the
English, with their banyans and black

gomastas arbitrarily decide what quantities of goods each

manufacturer shall deliver, and the prices he shall
receive for them."

INSTRUMENTS OF SUCH OPPRESSION

an
A Banyan" he explains in another place "is a person
for himself, or as the substitute of some
black
merchant) by whom the English gentlemen in
great
transact
all their business.
He is interpreter,
general
head-bookkeeper, head-secretary, head-broker, the supplier
of cash and cash-keeper, and in general also secret-keeper.
He puts in the under-clerks, the porter or door-keeper,,
stewards, bearers of the silver staves, running-footmen,,
(either acting

torch

and branch-light

carriers, palanquin-bearers, and all

of under-servants, for whose honesty he is
deemed answerable; and he conducts all the trade of his
master, to whom, unless pretty well acquainted with the
country languages, it is difficult for any of the natives to
In short he possesses singly many more
obtain access.
powers over his master, than can in this country be assumed
the long tribe

by any young spendthrift's steward, money-lender, and

mistress all together; and farther serves very conveniently
sometimes, on a public discussion, to father such acts or
proceedings as his master does not avow. There is a
powerful string of connections among these banyans who*
serve all the English in the settlements of Bengal, as well
in all public offices as in their private affairs."

HOW THEY WERE

CREATED AND FOSTERED

"Since the great influence acquired there by the

English," continues Bolt, "many persons of the best Hindu
families take upon them this trust or servitude, and can
even pay a sum of money for serving gentlemen in certain
posts; but principally for the influence which they acquire
thereby, and the advantage of carrying on trade, which
they could not otherwise do; and which in this situation
they frequently do, duty-free,uuder cover of their master's.
There have been few instances of any European
dastaks.
acquiring such a knowledge in speaking, reading, and

CULTURAL HIST^Y OF BRITISH INDIA

10

necessary

writing the Bengal language (whi^Ng^soktely

sach a
for a real merchant) as to be able to dcTWTlliuTil

head-banyan."

DECLINE OF SKILL AND INDUSTRY

The rapid decline of

demoralisation

is

skill

and industry and economic

thus sketched. "Inconceivable oppressions

and hardships have been practised towards the poor manufacturers and workmen of the country, who are, in fact,
as so

slaves

....

many
monopolised by the Company
Various and innumerable are the methods of oppressing
-the poor weavers, which are duly practised by the Comin the country; such as by fines,
pany's agents and gomastas
bonds from them, etc. ;
imprisonments, floggings, forcing
the country has been
in
weavers
which the number of
by

whereof

The natural

consequences
greatly decreased.
have been, the scarcity, deamess, and debasement of the
manufactures as well as a great diminution of the
revenue."

NO MUTUAL RESPECT OR ADMIRATION, AS BETWEEN INDIA AND

ENGLAND
In such political and economic conditions, it was
hardly to be expected that the great virtues should flourish
on either side, or that either side should have respect or
admiration for the other. On the Indian side there was no
doubt much criticism of the English, though, as the subdued
side, its records have not been published to
and in those which have been published,

any great extent,

had to adopt a
But
tone
the
to
Ghulam
Husain
Saiyid
conqueror.
respectful
Khan, the author of Siyar-ul-Mutaakherin had some shrewd
thrusts at the new government, although he was friendly to
the British and particularly to Warren Hastings, as will be
seen in the next chapter. The worshippers of the rising
it

sun naturally said nothing in public to injure their own

But it is interesting to read the contemporary
interests.
account which the poet Mir Taqi Mir gives in his autobiography (Zikr-i-Mir) of the visit of the Governor-General
(Warren Hastings) to Lucknow in 1784. Mir -was under
the patronage of Nawab Asaf-ud-daula, and
naturally
* This sketch of the Banyan
by Bolt may be compared with Burke's
sketch in his indictment of "Warren Hastings (Speech on the Third
day).

WHAT THE
wished

BRITISH TOOK OVER

he could of the Nawab's honoured

describes minutely the magnificence of the
reception, the splendour of the fireworks, and the opulence
of the feasts, but is significantly reticent about the moral
impression which the Englishmen left on his mind. A
later writer, Mirza Abu Talib Khan, in his Travels to the
West, speaks out his mind when he describes "that overbearing insolence which characterises the vulgar part of
the English in their conduct to Orientals."
guest.

to say the best

He

MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW: (1) PROTESTANT

English or European writers in India formed their
impressions in two ways: (1) through the missionaries, and
The missionaries
(2) through the Company's servants.
were very worthy people, but in those early days
they held
The German missionary Schwartz
very narrow views.
came out in the first instance (1750) to the Danish settlement of Tranquebar, on the Coromandel coast, and had
studied Tamil before he came out.
But he subsequently
accepted the post oi Garrison Chaplain under the Government of Madras, and became tutor to the
of Tan-

Raja

no doubt through the good offices of the BriHe was a Lutheran. The rest of the people were to
tish.
him not Hindus, Muslims, or Roman Catholics, but mere
"heathens, Moors, or Romish." He no doubt sincerely

jore's son,

believed that there was nothing good outside the

protestant
form of Christianity. We can therefore understand

he saw very
(2)

little

good

in India.

why

CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW

The Carmelite

Fra Paolino Bartolomeo, was

Catholics. He was in India,
mostly southern India, from 1776 to 1789. He published
an account of the manners and customs of India
in German, and his book was translated into
English
Friar,

mainly interested in the

Roman

He gives a scathing account of the Brahmans.

Their sole business, he found, was commerce. He rarely
met a Brahman who possessed knowledge or was candid
enough to impart it. This was not the experience of the
British in Bengal, but no doubt the good Padri's own
exclusiveness was partly responsible for his being shut out
of the confidence of the Brahmans, The most
in 1799.

interesting

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

12

is about his own Roman Catholic congrepoint he makes

and the effect on them of contact with
gations of Indians,
to become unruly.
tended
He found it
Europeans. They

much

easier in

Malabar

to keep in order fif ty congregations

in the interior of the country than two on the sea-coast,

"where the inhabitants have intercourse with Europeans."

LOW ESTIMATE OF INDIANS

met a different class of
The Company's
who
those
came
into contact with the
from
Indians
mainly
The
latter
were
Missionaries.
mostly Pariahs. The men
whom the Company's servants dealt with habitually were

WHY THE

OFFICIALS FORMED A

servants

or the official classes, who in those

demoralisation
were corrupt and arrogant,,
of
general
days
and whom contact with the clever men from Europe did
not make more confiding or more reliable.
Mr. Luke
the subtle merchants

who had been the British Resident at Murshida1758, published an account of the people in 1763,,
which is fairly balanced in its judgment, though some of
his generalisations are too wide. He describes the
Scrafton,

bad

in

intrigues,,

the treacheries, and the espionage, which he found in the

government of the Nawab of Bengal, with merciless

realism.

WANT OF LOYALTY AND PATRIOTISM

"Loyalty and patriotism," he says, "those virtuous
and noble actions, are here unknown

incentives to great

and when they cease to fear, they cease to obey. But to

keep their fears and mistrusts in perpetual agitation, whole
legions of spies are entertained by the government. These
are dispersed all over the country, and
insinuating themselves into the families of the great, if they
engage in any
plot, are sure to betray them, but often give false information against the innocent for the sake of reward.
The
person informed against, ignorant whence the information
comes, in self-preservation informs against his nearest
friends.
Thus mutual good faith, the bond of
society,* is
broke, and treachery and suspicion embitter every hour of
their lives."

he mentions in

another place, but in that

Corruption
respect the hands of the Company were certainly not clean.
He notes a bribe paid by the
to Nand

Company

Kumar, the

WHAT THE

BRITISH

Nawab's Governor of Hugli,

when

to

TOOK OVER

abandon Chandranagore,

the British were about to attack

'"ONCE FLOURISHING

13

it.

AND PLENTIFUL COUNTRY"

The gloomy picture drawn by Scrafton has its

counterpart in the remarks about the Mughal government
before its power became relaxed and its control over the
Provinces practically ceased.
Till the invasion of Nadir
Shah (1739), he says, "there was scarce a better
administered government in the world.
The manufactures,
commerce, and agriculture flourished exceedingly; and
none felt the hand of oppression but those who were
dangerous by their wealth or power." A recent authority
writes more guardedly *: "Every student of social history
will confess that the condition of the peasantry in Bengal
in the middle of the eighteenth century compared not
unfavourably with that of the same class in France or
Germany." But, to continue Scrafton's story, "when the
governors of the Provinces found the weakness of the
Mughal., and each set up for sovereign in his own province,
although they would not break through these immutable
laws, they invented new taxes under new names which
doubled or trebled the original one, and which the landholder was obliged to levy on his tenants.
The old stock
of wealth for some time supported this; but when that

and the tenants were still pressed for more, they

borrowed of usurers at an exorbitant interest. And the
government still continuing these demands, the lords of the
land were obliged to do the same.
But all this while the

failed,

The consequence
lands did not increase.
unable to pay the interest of the mortgages,
the rents were seized by rapacious usurers. The government,
finding the revenues fall shorter every year, at last sent collectors and farmers of revenue into the provinces. Thus the
lord of the land was divested of the power over his country,
and the tenants exposed to merciless plunderers, till the
farmer and manufacturer, finding the more they laboured
the more they paid, the manufacturer would work no more,
and the farmer cultivate no more than was necessary for
the bare subsistance of his family. Thus this once flourish-value of

was

the

that at last,

*S. C. Hill

Bengal

1756-7

I.

xxiii.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

14

ing and plentiful country has, in the course of a few years,,

been reduced to such misery that many thousands are
continually perishing through want."
HAPPINESS AND THE EQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF

WEALTH

"Hence" continues Scrafton "that equal distribution

of wealth, that makes the happiness of a people, and
spreads a face of cheerfulness and plenty through all

And the riches of the country

ranks, has now ceased.
are settled partly in the hands of a few usurers and greedy
courtiers;

and the

rest is carried out

of the country by the

foreign troops taken into pay to maintain the governors in

their usurpation. This unhappy decay the India Company

have already experienced, in the decline of their

and rise in the price of their manufactures."

trade,,

DRIVING FORCE BEHIND CORN WALL/V LAND REFORM

These dreadful conditions were progressively aggraunder the Company's early administration, until
Lord Cornwallis's land reforms had had time to mature..
Whatever faults economic theorists may find in them,,

vated

supreme necessity dictated some very liberal measure of

tLe relief of land from the burdens of the
government

demand.
SCRAFTON'S SOCIAL PICTURE

few further remarks, bearing on the cultural

picture
may be noted before we take leave of Scrafton.
Even in the Indian anarchy, tank and
irrigation bunds
were maintained by the government. The roads were safe.
Robbery was rare. Even diamond merchants carried no
weapons of defence. There were inns or shelters for
way-farers every two or three miles.
There was widespread interest in astronomy and astrology. Eclipses were
noted and duly listed.
But there were many superstitions.
The careful working-out of the
auspicious and inauspicious
moments haunted the people.
Hindu marriages were
arranged in infancy, and consummated at fourteen years
for boys and ten and eleven for
It was common
girls.

of India,

to see a girl of twelve

already a mother, with a child in her
arms. Barren women were
rare, but the actual number of

children was not large. At

eighteen years of age a woman's
beauty was already on the decline. At
twenty-five she

\X

HAT THE BRITISH TOOK OVER

15

bore the marks of age. Men declined after thirty. The

was far from
practice of Sati (immolation of widows)
of illuswomen
common. It was only observed among
trious families.

with

women

The boys of the Nawabi class were left

till the age of five or six. Then they

or children

were put under tutors, and learned company manners. In

manners and ceremonies they were punctilious.
They
The shield and sabre were
learnt to ride and use arms.
the chief weapons, with a dagger (Katari) at waist.
By
thirteen or fourteen years of age they learnt things they

There was much hospitality. But

should not have known.
within the families there was a great deal of mutual distrust.
There was usually little confidence between father and son,*

A WOMAN'S PICTURE OF WOMEN AND SOCIAL LIFE

we learn more intimate

women. Hindu ladies in Bengal were never
seen abroad.
They devoted an enormous amount of attention to self-decoration.
The hair, the eye-lids, the eye-

From

Eliza Fay's Letters

details about

and the nails all received fancy

Beggars, Jogis, and Sanyasis were met with
Self-torture
was common. At the Charakeverywhere.
of
which
we
have
puja,
contemporary pictures by artists,
men suspended themselves by hooks in the back. In
Madras she found the dancing girls disappointing. She
was much struck by the skill of the jugglers and their
brows,, the teeth, the hands,

decorations.

She notes also the

astonishing powers of balancing.
wonderful courage of the Madrasi boalmen in riding the
surf in catamarans,
crafts of bamboos fastened together
and paddled by single individuals.
POWERS OF PHYSICAL ENDURANCE

Though the physique of the people as a whole was

poor, their simple life gave special classes special powers
of endurance and special nerve.
Orme notes how Kahars
would go fifty miles a day, for twenty or thirty days without intermission, and how Indian infantry, when carrying
no weights, would march faster and with less weariness
than Europeans.
FAULTS OF EARLY ANGLO-INDIANS

Englishmen in India-about the time of Clive and for

a generation afterwards enjoyed an evil reputation with-

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

16
their

countrymen
of

the

at

home> and this was reflected back on

To dive's suicide Dr. Samuel

India.

people
Johnson referred (in 1778),, with his usual blunt plainness: "A man who had acquired his fortune by such crimes
that his consciousness of them compelled him to cut his

own

throat."*

"Nabobs"

these

In the contemporary literature of England,

are frequently referred to with withering

contempt. They have generally enormous fortunes, acquired by unscrupulous means.

They are adventurers. They
are innocent of culture but vulgarly ostentatious. They are
selfish, irritable, and immoral.
They have no respect for
In short they are ridiculous in any decent society,
dangerous by reason of the power of their wealth.
REFLECTED BACK ON THE PEOPLE OF INDIA

law.

if not

We

here with the truth or falsity

Such
Anglo-Indians.
generalised pictures, painted with thick colours, must
But behind these pictures lies
necessarily be caricatures.
the assumption that the faults catalogued were but the
faults of the people of India, caught like an infection.
We must seriously examine whether this was true. If it was
true, wa can certainly mark a great deal of moral progress,
though it would not put us in good conceit of our ancestors.
are not concerned

ofj this

picture

PEOPLE AS A

Now

of

WHOLE

the

earlier

POOR, THRIFTY,

AND LAW-ABIDING

the end of the 18th century, like

had many faults, and we would do well at least
to mark them in ourselves and make ourselves worthier
of our country.
But it seems to me that the Anglo-Indian
the Indians of

ourselves,

traits

are

really

the

antithesis

of

the

traits

of

the

Indian people as a whole,

even in the decadent clays

of the latter part of the 18th century. India's wealth
was and is a myth. There may have been a few men
of wealth, like the Jagat Seths of
Bengal and possibly
.some of the selfish Nawabs.
But the whole of Indian

Hindu and Muslim, was against the accumu

As a whole our people were poor, and
The economic ideal was not to collect riches,
thrifty.
but rather to cut down wants. An
unscrupulous man of
wealth would be an object of
greater execration in our

tradition.,

lation of wealth.

*Boswll's Life of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill,

III. 350.

WHAT THE

BRITISH

TOOK OVER

17

in plutocratic societies, or those which make

Such wealth as
material standards the test of civilisation.
a man possessed he was expected to spend freely for his
But ostentation would not
relatives, friends, and people.
faults
him
rather ran in the
Indeed
our
glory.
bring

society than

There were few

of an ostentation of poverty.
countries in which wealth could procure so little honour as
in India.
Our ancestors' tempers and morals were prono
better
and no worse than those of other people.
bably
direction

We

were considered by Warren Hastings, in the Review of

his Administration, to be submissive, and there is abundant testimony to show that we were law-abiding in circum-

stances of the greatest provocation.

SEX MORALS
tion.

Our sex morals may perhaps require careful examinaOur respectable women's chastity was never called

in question, and our men were no greater sinners against

our institutions than men in other lands sin against their
own. Instances of our men's chivalry can be cited from

British records themselves.

When

the

English factory at

Kasimbazar was captured by Siraj-ud-Daula in June 1756,

the Jamadar, Mirza Omar Beg, chivalrously restored the

On this the
captured English ladies to their husbands.
remark of the French Agent in Chandranagore was: "The
Moors (Muslims) are very respectful to women."
When Calcutta was taken subsequently by the Nawab, the
privacy of Mrs. Watts's apartments was respected, and she
and her children were allowed to retire to the French
This was the lady, who when widowfactory unmolested.
ed, married again, and was known by the title of Begam
She kept a brilliant salon in Calcutta. But we
Johnson.
had institutions that required reform: various phases of
prostitution, (e. g., the devadasi system), and the want of
confidence in the relations between the sexes.
COURAGE AND CONTEMPT OF DANGER

The Frenchman (Monsieur Raymond), who translated

the Siyar-ul-Mutaakherin into English, notes in his Preface
more than one instance of brave deeds done by Indians,
men and women, in those days. He rebuts the charge against

them of being the most pusillanimous

2

set of

men, incapable

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

13

of manly exertion.

He mentions

three striking instances to

Yusuf Khan defended Madura (1763-4)

with an activity and perseverance that cost the English
more blood and trouble in a few months' time than did the
whole French war in India in as many years. In Oudh twelve

the contrary. Haji

Rajputs, shut up in a mud enclosure, against overwhelming,

odds of British troops and sepoys, refused to surrender.
Reduced to six, they were taken wounded and fighting.
These, adds the Frenchman, were not solitary facts, but
links of a chain that seemed once to bind a whole nation at
Then there was the case of a heroic woman, a
large.
delicate princess of imperial blood, who was cut off from
her main army and was attacked by a superior force.
When her guard was about to be overpowered, she threw
off her veil and fought like a man,
"If you
exclaiming:
behave like women, I declare to you that women shall

behave like men."

MILITARY GENIUS

Nor is British testimony wanting to the gallantry

and military genius of our people in the middle of the
Mr. S. C. Hill has published, from
eighteenth century.
the records of the Government of
India, a fine biography

of

Commandant Yusuf Khan,

the

soldier of fortune,
career
he fought with
early
much distinction on the side of the English, at
Trichinopoly
(1752-4) and Madras (1758-9).
This is how Mr. Hill
sums up his character. He
"began life as a humble
peasant; raised himself by his military talents to
high
rank in the East India
Company's service; then by his
administrative ability, reduced to order the two most
torbulent provinces of Southern India

already mentioned.

In his

(Madura and

Tmnevelley)
says, to

and

rebel

finally,

against

when compelled,

the

Nawab

as

James Mill

(of Arcot) in selfmaintain himself against that Prince

assisted by the whole available
power of the English, for
a period of two years,
falling at last (1764) only by the
treachery of his own troops and not by the force of his
enemies. * In his last
struggle, Mr. Hill adds, he fought
chivalrously and died gallantly
His ability, firmness,
defence,

managed

*S. C. Hill:

to

Yusuf Khan, page

x.

WHAT THE

BRITISH

TOOK OVER

19

and courage were admired, and his fate lamented

by contemporary British soldiers.
justice,

CONVULSIONS OF DESPAIR

There was thus a picture of lights and shades. There

were heroic deeds among our martial men and women.
There was the substantial character of the peasantry and
the sensitive consciousness of the better mines overawed by
There were court intrigues and
external circumstances,
treacheries; there were violent internal conflicts and invasions from without; there was confusion and anarchy in
political and social institutions. The dawn of a new evolution in law and order, political and social institutions,
artistic and literary outlook, and religious and moral ideas,
was yet to come. But in the meantime the minds of the
poets and thinkers were confused. -A settled melancholy,
a feeling of despair came over their thoughts.
The convulsions in Delhi swept away many of their landmarks.

They became

spiritually and intellectually homeless.

feeling of despair is the key-note of the swan-song of the
older Urdu poetry.
Let us examine this in two of the
foremost poets of the time, Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda

and Mir Taqi Mir.

THE POET SAUDA AND HIS SATIRES

Sauda (1713-1780) was born in Delhi about the time

when Delhi was the prey of state factions in the disputed
As he grew up, he saw life
succession of Farrukh Siyar.
in its varied aspects. The withering satires which he wrote
in his maturity are evidence of the decay and dissolution
In the subjects of his invective there is the
of society.

widest variety.

Bigots, decrepit

vincials, physicians, poetasters,

noblemen, Punjab proboys flying kites, old men

marrying young wives, and a host of other characters came

under his lash. Of a bigot he says:
"The angels rub

his

Troops of Houris

beard with sandal- wood oil

scatter roses before
;

come and

him."

The poverty in the stricken-down city of Delhi was so

great that noblemen had not the wherewithal to pay their
retainers.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

-20

take service with some one,

"If you buy a horse and
see no sign except in
will
Of your salary you
above."
the world

own

The Punjabi-speaking provincials are hoist with

Of physicians and
petard in their own Punjabi patois.
the
Of
tolerant.
pen with which
he is
their

particularly
poets
he says:
the physician writes his prescriptions
"It is not a pen,
It kills

but a sharp dagger:

both Hindus and Muslims."

The poet who draws

forth his ire is such a fool that

"If you speak to him,

attention ;

A man of
"C

sense

is

you will never hold his

distracted if

he hears him."

A VAGABOND, FROM ONE SHELTER TO ANOTHER"

and
His biting wit pours out embittered invective,
been
have
must
very
trying
of
his
Delhi
the
day
certainly
He was courted by
to a man of his talent and spirit.
and who graduin
to
1760,
who
reign
Shah Alam,
began
rise of the English
the
before
into
faded
nothingness
ally
Shah Alam offered to make Sauda his Poet
power.
Sauda retorted that it was not the Emperor but
Laureate.
his own talent that could confer the Laureateship on him.
It

was about

that time that

he wrote his famous

Mukhammas

**The City of Terror and Confusion" (Shahr Ashob). This

is a
is included in every anthology of Urdu poetry and
the
and
of
Delhi
fall
the
on
Mughal
most pathetic elegy
The Nawab-Wazir Shuja-ud-Daula, who ruled

Empire.
(1753-1775) and died

Fyzabad, was anxious to have in

But Sauda
and
invited Sauda.
his court men of talent,
was sick at heart and was loth to leave Delhi. He replied
at

with the following verses :

&

How long, Sauda, will you wander

In search of comfort in every direction?

How

long as a vagabond

From one shelter to another?

What gain can you win
In comfort or prosperity?
And if these you do win,
How long will you be here?"

WHAT THE

BRITISH TOOK OVER

21

IN THE OUDH COURT

Later he changed his mind and went to Shuja-ud~

Within four years Shuja-udDaula's court about 1771.
Daula died, and his son Asaf-ud-Daula (1775-1797) removed his Court to Lucknow, which now became the literary centre of Hindustan. Lucknow was also in touch with
the new civilisation creeping up from Calcutta. We have no
conservative
reason to suppose that an out-and-out
like Sauda ever paid even passing attention to this new
He passed away in 1780, and did not see
civilisation.
the visit of the English Governor- General to Lucknow.

THE DISMAY IN THE HEART OF HINDUSTAN

Some
Confusion
crept over

from

extracts

"

will

the

illustrate

heart

the

nerveless; his

the

army

is

"
City

Hindustan.

of
a

rabble;

of

Terror

dismay
The Emperor

his

city lies

Only forced by need does he come out of the

moat (of his Fort)
;

His army but knows how to turn from the fight;

The infantry afraid of the barber that shaves!
The cavalry fall off from their beds in their
sleep.

a dream they see their mount frisk.

*
*
HS

its silence and ruin,

If I speak of the city,
Even the senses of the owl would take their

flight:

No

house but resounds to the

bark

of

the

jackal:

you go in the evening to a mosque to pray,

Not a light will you find but the light of the

If

ghoul.

sjs

What
Whose

tale of the ruins of palaces stately,

sight
thirst?

See them

was enough

now and your

to

quench hunger and

soul is but sick of

its

life:

flowers were in bloom, you walk waist*

deep in grass;

Where

is

dead, in

desolation and silence.

If but in

and

which had

utter

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

22

Here

lies

pillar,

and there a

split arch.

Shah Jahan's
wrath?

City,

didst thou

deserve this

A lover's own heart thou sure

Now

wast in thy day,

erased like a picture that is found to be

false.

wondrous-fair shore (that once was) on the

sea of the world,

From whose sands people come

to pick precious

pearls.

Now

silence,

Sauda: what words can say

more?

What

heart but is sadly consumed in this woe?

eyes but are flooded with tears of agony:
Thy riddle can boast of no key save this

No

That

this

age hath lineaments unique

beyond

words.

MIR TAQI MIR

Mir (1724-1810) was born

in

Agra and was about

eleven years younger than Sauda. His taste in

poetry
soon brought him to Delhi, and he suffered the vicissitudes
of fortune which all Delhi men experienced.
But he was
at a greater disadvantage, as he had come from
outside.
He had a more religious and a gentler character than
Sauda. It is interesting to compare his account of the
devastated city with that of Sauda.
He is as pessimistic
as Sauda, but his pen is
more
in pathos than in
dipped
bitterness.
He is also simpler and less artificial. But he
feels that he is out of his element in the
city which he
loves,
line :

and his cry of agony finds

expression in the simple

"0

that in such

company

had not been."

ARTIFICIALITY OF

LUCKNOW
Aiout the year 1782 he
migrated to Lucknow at the
invitation of
Asaf-ud-Daula, after Sauda had passed from
(
0)
^^fore Warren Hastings visited the

lfs 5
M

'

was of a retiring
disposition, and he did not
much care to frequent Darbars or seek
the favours of Courts.
But he must have come into contact
with English influences in
Lucknow, though he was too old to receive
any impressions

<5ity (1784).

lr

WHAT THE

BRITISH TOOK OVER

23

When

Fort William College was founded in

and
wanted to attract the Lest exponents
Calcutta (1800),
its
Mir's
to
name was considered for the
of Urdu
fold,
the
in
But Mir was
preliminary negotiations.
College
then 76 years of age by the solar calendar, and a younger
man Sher Ali Afsos was sent. It is extremely unlikely
that Mir would have been happy in Calcutta.
For a man
of established reputation in Urdu literature Calcutta would
have been an intolerable exile. Even in coming lo Lucknow
from Delhi Mir had felt himself a stranger, although most
of the literary masters had migrated from Delhi to
Lucknow. The dress, the manners, the outlook were all
different in the rising city.
The atmosphere of Lucknow
was to these men the atmosphere of an upstart Court, which
had certainly more money to spend but whose traditions
were yet to be formed. The new school of Urdu literature
which was being formed in Lucknow suffered from arti-

from them.

This artificiality

ficiality.

appears also

in

the

Court

manners and the new architecture of Lucknow. The Delhi

masters lived there as honoured guests, but they founded
no schools. Their tone and temper were of an age that
was passing away and could not be resuscitated.

LAMENT
The lines in which he addressed the people of
Lucknow (the "denizens of the East" relatively to Delhi)

MIR'S

are well-known :6

denizens of the East,

why

ask about

my

home?

Ye know

am

a stranger; do you want to laugh

and mock me ?
Delhi, which was once a city

the cream of the

world,

Where lived only the choicest spirits of the Time

The heavens have given it over to plunder and
ruin:

That

is

the desolate city of which I

am a citizen."

DYING CULTURE OF DELHI

Penetrating beneath the irony, we can see that there was
love lost between the rising native school of Lucthe Masters of Delhi who came there at the call of
To the men of Delhi the cup of their
the Nawab-Wazir.

much
know and

not

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

24

They perceived that when they lost their

in Delhi, there was no further place for
spiritual home
New men would arise with new standards; but it
them.
was futile for them of the older generation to build new
that led them no one knew
hopes on a world of flux
remained
But Mir
independent and true to
whither.
agony was

full.

sweet though sad; eloquent in its

own simplicity; resigned, and certainly free from the
which showed altogether a
biting humour of Sauda,

His verse

himself.

view

different

of

is

life

verses of

Those
arrogant and selfish.
Mir which have almost become

often-quoted
proverbs, express the quintessence
of Delhi
spirit of the dying culture

of Mir's spirit, the

"This

is

but the beginning of the Love-Plaint;

why

criest

thou?

There are more and more things to come ;

see what's in store.

Over the morning caravan

runs a cry:

'We are marching on:

laggard,

Why
Never does

sleepest thou?

'

this withered earth

become green again;

Why sow in thy

heart

the seeds of "Desire?

These wounds are the marks of love

they will not be effaced
:

Why vainly

wash the scars

on thy breast?"

NO HINDU-MUSLIM QUESTION
Mir has left us a valuable but all too brief autobiography, which connects him with the events of his day. It
has been recently edited with a critical Introduction by
Maulvi Abdul Haq, of the Anjuman-i-Tarraqqi-i-Urdu,
Aurangabad. In all his vicissitudes and wanderings we are
struck with the fact that the Hindu-Muslim question did not
exist in his day, in the form which it has taken since.

Among

the writers of Persian histories

we

shall find,

in

Henry Elliot's 8th volume of Indian Historians, quite

a large number of Hindu names. The Hindus record
events and sometimes refer to religious matters in the same

Sir

WHAT THE

BRITISH

TOOK OVER

25

terms as would have been used by Muslim.

In mentality,,
when we read the Indo-Persian literature of the period,
we find little difference. In events, too, as we learn from
Zikr-i-Mir 9 the relations of the two communities to each
other were based on other considerations than religion..
The editor of Zikr-i-Mir has some pertinent remarks on.
the subject,

which we proceed

''THEIR HEARTS

to quote.

WERE FREE FROM RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE"

"In the life of Mir, we find a glimpse of many poliand social facts relating to the period. It was clear
that at that time there was no Hindu-Muslim question.
What could be a worse period than one in which the
tical

country was a prey everywhere to selfishness, internal disand the last stage of decay

sensions, plunder and slaughter,

and decline had been reached.

And yet the mutual relawere

those of brothers among
Muslims
tions of Hindus and
and
brothers.
they united, but neither their
They fought,
their
nor
hostility was based on distinctions of
friendship
community. This pest has come during their
All understand what it leads to,
misfortunes.
The Mir
but are hopeless on account of their false pride.
Sahib was in relations of trust with many Rajas. With
what love and honour he mentions their kindness and conreligion or

common

sideration!

Look

at the

nobility
with the

and goodness of Raja

high-handedness and
he boldly left the fort, but not
without taking with him the twenty thousand households,
Hindu and Muslim, when he had settled there and who mostly
relied upon him.
Though the country was in a dreadful

Disgusted
Nagar Mai.
inhumanity of the Jats,

calamity and decay, and high and low, Nawab and

Raja, were steeped in selfishness, and thought little of the
consequences ahead, yet the old standards of social friendIn combats or feasts, on
liness continued to hold sway.
occasions of sorrow or rejoicing, in affairs of business or

state of

narrow views and intolerance

whose reign we see today. Their age was not free from
grave vices
ill-breeding, trickery, perfidy and treachery
were not unknown among them. But at least their hearts
were free from that great vice, religious intolerance."
pleasure, they

had not

the

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

26

BRITISH TESTIMONY

We

can

cite the

contemporary evidence of an English

witness, an administrator of social and literary distinction.

Mr. James Forbes resided in India in a position of autho-

for seventeen years.

Writing about Broach about
1778, he expresses mild surprise at the fact of there being
no division between Hindus and Muslims, though curiously
enough he notes the existence of a very unpleasant schism
among the Parsis, who formed a considerable proportion
of the population of the Town.
He writes in his Oriental
Memoirs: "Whatever might have been the animosities
between the Hindus and Mahomedans in the time of Baba

rity

Rahan (1078 A.D.) or during subsequent periods, it is

now the professors of both religions (Hindus
and Muslims) have acquired a habit of looking on each

certain that

other with an eye of indulgence unusual in other countries

between those who maintain such opposite tenets. 79 Baba

Rahan was a Muslim

saint whose Mausoleum still stands

on a hill about a mile to the north-west of the city of
Broach.

SECTION

II

THE APPROACH OF TWO CULTURES

1773-1818

CHAPTER

II

EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE,

DECAY OF INDIA'S CLASSICAL LANGUAGES

The period 1773-1818 was one of political consolidations on the part of the British power, and the establishment
supremacy over the whole peninsula. Its interest is
mainly political, and its chief feature is the territorial
But it also saw
expansion of the East India Company.
most
the
of
cultural revolutions
important kind. The new
differentiated
the Hindus from the
set of conditions sharply
the
both
attention
of
It
turned
Muslims.
away from their
on
had
which
the
whole
tended to the
classical traditions,
communities
within
these
of
each
itself, and had,
unity of
a
two
evolved
modus vivendi
the
as between
communities,
and
of
contact
centuries
conflict.
It depressed
seven
through
the position of the older and more traditional kind of
leaders in Indian society, and encouraged the rise, economic and cultural, of newer classes more amenable to
British influence, and more docile to its suggestions.
of

its

LINGUA FRANCA IN INDIA AT DIFFERENT PERIODS

The vernaculars gradually stepped up into a literary

position, and divided the people by barriers that neither
Hindu nor Muslim India had experienced before in the
same degree. Shankar Acharya in the eighth century had
found no linguistic

difficulty in traversing India,

south and

north, east and west.

His four Lodges or Maths

upheld
his philosophical banner in Sringeri (in the modern
Mysore
State) in the south, and in Badrinath in the Himalayas in
the north; in Puri on the east coast, and Dwarka on the
west.

The Muslim

saint,

Khwaja Bande Nawaz Gesu-

Daraz, of the fourteenth century, was born in Delhi,

travelled and preached all over the
country, and lies buried
in Gulbarga in the Nizam's Dominions.
In the Mughal
period the Persian language was the universal
polite
language in India, and carried Muslims and Hindus who

came within Muslim

cultural influence
through the length

and breadth of the land.

The new development of the

EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE

29

vernaculars as media of prose and of business gradually

confined the universal classical languages to specialised
men of learning, and a linguistic division among the

people

began

to

be more and more marked among the

The process was analogous in some resthinking classes.

to
the
gradual dethronement of Latin and the rise of
pects

modern vernaculars in Europe in the 14th, 15th and

In Europe it gave rise to the differentia16th centuries.
tion of nationalities as against the dreams of a universal
Church or a universal Empire. In India the process took
While many of the vernaculars have
a different turn.
and
gathered strength, they could not compete with
grown
the
English,
language of the new rulers. We shall return
to this subject in speaking of English education (Chapter
We may remark, however, that in India the use of a
5).
common language for educated people has not only been
an ideal and an aspiration. It has always been a reality.
Sanskrit, Persian, Hindustani (in a limited way), and now
English bear witness to the fact.
the

MEN

OF CULTURE FROM EUROPE

1774 there had been no British men of

As early as 1615-18
culture in effective power in India.
and the presOxford
of
with
the culture
Sir Thomas Roe,
to Jahangir's
come
had
of
of
a
member
Parliament,
tige
of
I
from
an
as
ambassador
Court
James
England. But
Edward
the
Rev.
and
his
Terry, carried
he,
chaplain
-about them an atmosphere quite different from that of the
Previous

to

adventurers, or the merchants and clerks in the warehouses

offices of the East India Company, and they were only
Other European nations had sent
three years in India.
The Portuguese
out some highly cultured men to India.

and

The
their Jesuit priests constantly residing in Goa.
French had sent out their philosopher Fran?ois Bernier,
a doctor of medicine in the University of Montpellier, and
a disciple of the famous philosopher Gassendi. He was
in Delhi for five or six years from 1659, and discoursed
with the noblemen of Aurangzib's Court on Persian
Literature and the works of the famous French philoon Hindu
sopher Descartes, and with the Hindu Pandits
had
Danes
The
and institutions.
learning, religion,

had

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

30

Missionaries*
sent out to Tranquebar, the first Protestant
culture of
the
in
interested
were
in India in 1706.
They

Dr. Fryer
Southern India and contributed to its study.
Robert
and
India
East
the
of
Company,
and other surgeons
a
of
the
son
in
Company's
1728,
Orme, born in Malabar
The surgeons were mostly
surgeon, are no exceptions.
interested in their professional duties, and Orme was
interested in current history than in Indian culture.

more

^>

/BRITISH MEN OF CULTURE: WARREN HASTINGS

The period inaugurated by the Regulating Act, 1774,

the healthy
brought into power men who had the capacity,

mental curiosity, and the inclination, to study the culture

Foremost among these must be named Warren
of India.
his famous
Hastings. He was a Westminster boy. Among
of
Shelborne,
contemporaries at school were: the Earl

afterwards the first Marquess Lansdowne, who was Prime

Minister of England in 1782; the gentle poet Cowper,,
and under-dogs ; the
philanthropist and friend of slaves
brilliant

satirist

who jumped suddenly from

and illustrates in some sense the

Churchill,

poverty into high life,

tone and temper of English life, in morals and manners,
the 18th cenpolitics and journalism, in the latter half of
in
contemporary English
tury, so monstrously reflected
society in India; and Sir Elijah Impey, the first Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court in India, whose intimacy
with Warren Hastings lasted through life, and whose trial
and sentence of Nand Kumar is an episode in early British
history, which, though it has been defended by able jurists
on technical grounds, stands as a blot on the first attempts

of the British to deal justice in India.

From his Public
the
on
to
service
of the East India
School, Hastings passed
In Bengal and Madras he learnt with
patient industry all the details of Indian life and business*
During a visit to England on leave he became personally

Company

in India.

acquainted with Dr. Samuel Johnson, the literary dictator of

London, and Lord Mansfield the judge, whose interest in
comparative law enriched the law of England with many

modem

and who in his decisions systematised

English commercial law and brought it to the foremost
ideas,

EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE 31

place in the world. With Sir Joshua Reynolds, the fashionable portrait-painter and leader of cultured society in

London, Warren Hastings had friendly relations before,,

during, and after his Governor-Generalship.
HIS ENTHUSIASM FOR INDIAN CULTURE
Hastings' early associations and later friendships have
an important bearing on the early cultural developments
His sympathy with the mind of India.
of British India.
and his insight into the ways of Oriental thought made him.

a patron of Oriental learning.

Such was his appreciation
of Muslim learning as he found it in India that he conceived the idea that the cultivation of Persian might be madea part of the liberal education of an Englishman through
the University of Oxford.* His taste in art and the refinements of western life brought to India some fine western
painters and some portraits painted by western artists. Hisinterest in Indian law, Hindu and Muslim, may also be
On it was built up that study of
called an enthusiasm.
Hindu and MusHm law by western scholars and that codification and modern interpretation, which have done something to rescue our systems from archaism, though their
arrested development has not been prevented by a cast-iron
system, out of touch with the changing conditions of the
Let us examine these three influences,,
last two centuries.
and
law, a little more closely.
learning, arts,
ITS

INFLUENCE ON INDIAN MINDS

number of Oriental works, produced during the

Warren Hastings' power were dedicated to him.

period of

They were mostly in Persian or Sanskrit, as the vernaculars had not yet developed prose literature of any great,
Some of them show how the new influence
importance.
was already working on the Eastern mind.
For example,,
Siyar-ul-Mutaakhkherin> written by Saiyid Gulam
Husain Khan Tabatabai in 1783, describes contemporary
the

history in a spirit of

which
for

is

honourable

whom

it

was

friendly but
to the writer

written.

He

independent

and

to

criticism-,

Warren Hastings

discusses the causes for thepopulation of Bengal

diminution of the revenue and the

* See
Macaulay's Essays

(Warren Hastings) London

1852, p.593.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

-32

His
in the early days of British rule.
in
them
to
refer
we
that
magf
interesting

comments are so
some detail.

-GULAM HUSAIN KHAN*S CRITICISM

The British, when they first acquired power in India,

On the other hand,
found no racial feeling against them.
Husain
Ghulam
to
Khan, one of the
Saiyid
according
causes of their early failures in government was the racial
This complaint
aversion shown by them to the Indians.
of the Saiyid is confirmed by the insolent references to

our

institutions,

manners,

and customs,

and

to

our

-very character in many contemporary English writings.

Secondly, wrote the Saiyid, the new rulers were so
ignorant of the customs and usages of India and of the

of her
appointed to

spirit

institutions,

that

the Indians

whom

they

brought discredit on their system.

For instance, under the pre-British Muslim law, the Qazis
Tiad to be men of learning and dignity.
In the Saiyid's
offices

the offices were leased and under-leased, and became

merely means of private enrichment. They were formerly
remunerated with salaries and Jagirs.
No fees were

day

Formerly there was a court officer

Darogha Adalat to relieve poor defenceless
people who could not reach the Emperor or his Ministers.
He sat from day-break to three in the afternoon. If he
charged

to litigants.

called the

could

riot decide a case

by consent of the parties, he made
statement
up a^
(Siirat hdl 9 case stated), for the Emperor
or his Ministers, who sat twice a week
Under the new
conditions the men appointed to the offices of

and Faujdar were

Darogha

so

worthless and venal

that the Saiyid

""thanks God" these offices were transferred to the
English,
Evidently, in the Saiyid's opinion, the new foreign systeif,
had demoralised the Indian officials.

'UNDER TWELVE COUNTS

The criticism runs on to twelve counts. Two have

been detailed above. The remainder are as follows:
(3) There were endless changes in posts of trust and
importance.
(4) The proceedings of the GovernorGeneral's Council were slow and
protracted.
(5) The

new

rulers did not set

apart stated times regularly for
giving audience and hearing grievances of individuals.

EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE

33

(6) They took away the trade of IJMt country and left
livelihood to the natives of the;; country.
(7) The
Zamindars were given exorbitant powers, which they used
in order to oppress their subjects
and tenants.
(8) The
Governor- General and his Council were so congested with
other business that they could not give speedy decisions
in appeals or complaints made to them by individuals.
(9) The rule of
seniority in promotion to offices
detracted from efficiency.
This apparently referred to
little

the higher British officers of the Company.

(10) The
British were partial not only to their own people but
to
their meanest dependent.
(11) The rules of pro-

cedure of the Supreme Court at Calcutta worked prejudicially against the poor and ignorant.
(12) The British
decided in private what ought to be decided in open darbar
before all the people.
ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE BRITISH
This kind of criticism throws light on the contemporary view of an enlightened Indian on the new administration.
There is no subservience; there is no prejudice;
there is a fair desire to arrive at a balanced
judgment;
there is certainly no eagerness to welcome the new
system
as a heaven-sent gift, though there is a
disposition to take
it as an
And it
accepted fact and make the best of it.
will be noticed that the
Saiyid nowhere draws a line
between Hindus and Muslims. From anything that we can
gather from his pleading, Bengal in his day might have
been a unified country. In fact the Hindus and the Muslims had been played off against each other before and
were to be played off against each other frequently later,
but the better class of mind could still view questions from
a higher standpoint.

THREE BRITISH SCHOLARS

Basting's inspiration to his own countrymen in India
study Eastern learning has had remarkable and farThe three men whom we may mention
reaching results.
in this connection for pure
scholarship were Wilkins,

to

Halhed, and Sir William Jones. For law we shall have

co mention Halhed and Sir William Jones
again later.
3

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

34

of these was Sir William Jones.,

Incomparably the greatest

of the work
but it would be convenient to follow the stages
of scholarship as it was done in India.
CHARLES WILLIAM^ FATHER OF INDIAN PRINTING

Mr. Charles Wilkins (afterwards Sir Charles) (17501836) left India in 1786. Though he continued his
work in Oriental scholarship for half a century after
he left India, his pioneer work was done in India,,
and it prepared the way for the development of the

work of

British Orientalists in India.

He came

out quite

toyoung (say about 1768), without any pretensions

the
in
But
or
western.
factory at
scholarship, eastern
Court
the
then
Malda he learnt Persian,
language, and

also Bengali, the language popularly spoken in Bengal*

and later he studied Sanskrit. Persian and Hindustani,
and Sanskrit were the usual languages studied in

Bengali

Bengal by scholarly servants of the East India Company.

Wilkins was the father of printing in India, for he invented
and cast printing types for Persian and Bengali characters.
This must have been before 1778, for Halhed's Sanskrit
Grammar was printed with this type in that year in Hugli*
"The advice
This is what Halhed says in his Preface:
and even solicitation of the Governor-General" (Warren
Hastings) "prevailed upon Mr. Wilkins, a gentleman who
has been many years in the India Company's Civil
Service in Bengal, to undertake a set of Bengal types.
He did, and his success has exceeded every expectation..
In a country so remote from all connection with European
artists, he has been obliged to charge himself with all the
various occupations of the metallurgist, the engraver, the
founder, and the printer; to the merit of invention he>
was compelled to add the application of personal labour.
With a rapidity unknown in Europe, he surmounted all
the obstacles which
necessarily clog the first rudiments of
a difficult art, as well as the
disadvantages of a solitary
and
has
thus
singly, on the first effort,
experiment;
exhibited his work in a state of
perfection which in every
part of the world has appeared to require the united!

improvements

of different
projectors,

polish of successive ages."

and the gradual

EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE 35

PERSIAN-URDU TYPE
Wilkins's Persian type was the progenitor of the
Persian and Urdu type used in early printing in India
at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the
It must be noted that type-printing
nineteenth century.
for these languages preceded lithographic

only was

printing.

Not

its
descendants used in the
type or
official printing of laws and regulations and in the works
turned out by the Fort William College in Calcutta

this

1800), and Haileybury College in

in 1805), but also in the great mass
of so-called Wahhabi literature printed in Urdu about
1820-1837) in connection with the movement headed by
Saiyid Ahmad of Bareli and Karamat Ali. But the Muslims
preferred caligraphy to convenience even in their printing,
and instead of developing type-printing and making such
(established

in

England (established

modifications in their letters as would cheapen their typeprinting, they have taken to lithography and continued to
print by that process, although it is dearer and less accurate in the mass production of books.
It may be
added
that Arabic moveable type was used in printing in Europe
as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century. *

TYPE FOR

SANSKRIT,

BENGALI,

AND OTHER VERNACULARS:

TRANSLATIONS FROM SANSKRIT

Type-printing in Bengali got thoroughly established,
For
in other Hindu languages.
the printing of Sanskrit the Nagari type is more appropriate, and Wilkins cast that form of type in England

and led the way for type

somewhere about 1787.

For Wilkins was by now an

* The earliest Arabic printed book (moveable types)

which_ I have
in the British Museum Library l.c.52 b.17). It is the Kitab Salat
seenjs
al- sawal containing Roman Catholic prayers for the canonical hours by
day and night, printed in Italy, under the patronage of Pope Leo X, by
Gregorius in 1514, with a Latin dedication to the Pope. It was printed
for the use of Syrian Christians whose language is Arabic. It is referred
to in Schuurrer's Bibliotheca Arabica, p.231, 1 believe that Arabic printing
with wooden blocks was practised earlier in Europe and possibly in Egypt,
but I have not been able to verify this in my stuty of a prolonged search.
I have seen several specimens of Arabic Christian literature printed from
wooden blocks, subsequent to the date of Gregorius's book. Mr. Dinesh
Chandra Sen, in his History of Bengali Literature (p. 849), refers to a
Bengali book printed from wooden blocks somewhere about 1711. I am.
indebted to Mr. A. S. Fulton of the British Museum, for help in the
study of early Arabic typography.

36

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

His English translation

accomplished Sanskrit scholar.
of the Bkagai'ad Gita was warmly commended by Warren
of the East India
Hastings, who persuaded the Directors
His translation
it in London in 1785.
to
publish
Company
1787.
This gave
of the Eitopadesha followed about
English and European readers direct access to the rich
store-house of fable literature which had already reached
them in a diffuse form through Muslims from their popular
versions known as Kallla wa Dimrna.

STUDY OF INSCRIPTIONS
Besides casting Oriental type and translating Oriental
the first to
works, Wilkins was among
investigate
Indian inscriptions scientifically. He translated a Mongbyr
copper-plate grant in 1781 and soon afterwards an inscription on a stone pillar from the Dinajpur District.
Both
these were records of the Pala dynasty of Bengal (750art has been more recently studied, showing
a gradual transition from Buddhism to the Tantric ideas
so prevalent in Bengal.

1200), whose

HALHED: UNITY OF ARYAN LANGUAGES

Very different from Wilkins in his antecedents was

Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (1751-1830), who had been
educated at Harrow (Public School) and Christ Church
His Sanskrit Grammar
College, Oxford University.
(1778) has already been mentioned. Like Alexander
Dow before him, who published a free translation of
Ferishta's Persian History in 1768, he prefixed an enthusiastic Preface to his work. It is to Halhed's credit that

him to anticipate the unity of the

Aryan languages. "I have been astonished to find," he says
"die similitude of Sanskrit words with those of Persian
and Arabic, and even of Latin and Greek; and these not in
technical and metaphorical terms. ..but in the main
ground
work of the language." His inclusion of Arabic in this

his study of Sanskrit led

may be

excused, as the laws

of comparative philoBut his discovery that

Persian, the polite language of the Muslims, Sanskrit, the
polite language of the Hindus, and Latin and
Greek, the

unity

logy had not

yet been

worked

out.

classical languages of
Europe,

had undoubted

affinities,

EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE

37

cleared the way for the co-operation of these three groups

of people for a cultural understanding.

A RAJA AS AN ANTIQUARIAN
Rallied mentions a certain Raja of Kishnagar as
"by
much the most learned and able antiquary which Bengal
has produced within this century." Though the claim made
on his behalf in deriving the culture of ancient Egypt
from India may appear extravagant, it was a gain that the
comparative study of the culture of different nations was
leading to an idea of the cultural unity of civilisation,

which appealed so strongly

West in that Age,

to

the thinking

minds of

the

WILLIAM JONES, GREAT STUDENT OF EASTERN CULTURE

When we come to Sir William Jones (1746-1 794) 5
we come to the most wonderful personality in the galaxy
of Englishmen who revived and organised the
study of
Oriental languages and literatures on modern lines. He was
born in Wales. His father had been a mathematician, a
disciple and friend of Newton. Already, at school (Harrow)
and university (Oxford), he had mastered Hebrew, Greek,
Latin, Arabic, Persian, French, Spanish and Italian.
He
was also conversant with German and Portuguese, Turkish,
and Chinese. At the age of 24 he translated the
History
of Nadir Shah from Persian into French, neither of which

SIR

was his own language. Travelling through France, he

was presented to the French King, and the epigram was
current in the French Court that he knew every
language
in the world but his own (Welsh).
But he was not
merely a linguist. He studied the physical sciences and
the literatures of Asia.
He was equally proficient in law,
for he was sent out to India as a Judge of the
Supreme
Court of Calcutta in 1783. In India he mastered Sanskrit

He

died in Calcutta in 1794.

ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL

During his crowded eleven years in India he comIn his

passed almost the whole field of Oriental learning.
very first year in India he founded the Asiatic Society of
Bengal, "for inquiring into the history, civil and natural,
the antiquities, arts, sciences, and literatures of Asia." He

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

38

was

President.

first

its

The

Society

was

from

the

beginning under the patronage of Government, and the

Presidentship was offered to the Governor-General, Warren
Hastings, but he declined it in favour of Sir William Jones.
In his first Presidential address (1784) he spoke as
follows.
SIR WILLIAM JONES'S

DREAM OF THE EAST

"When

I was at sea last

August, on my voyage to this
I
which
had
country,
long and ardently desired to visit,
I found, one evening, on inspecting the observations of
the day, that India lay before us, and Persia on our
a breeze from Arabia blew
left, whilst
nearly on our
A situation so pleasing in itself and to me so new,
stern.
could not fail to awaken a train of reflections in a
mind,
which had early been accustomed to contemplate with
delight the eventful histories and agreeable fictions of this

It gave me
inexpressible pleasure to find
myself in the midst of so noble an amphitheatre, almost
encircled by the vast regions of Asia, which has ever been
esteemed the nurse of sciences, the inventress of
delightful

eastern world.

and useful

the scene

of glorious actions, fertile in

genius, abounding in natural
wonders, and infinitely diversified in the forms of
religion
and government, in the laws, manners,
customs, and
languages, as well as in the features and
of
arts,

the productions of

human

complexions,
could not help
remarking how important and
extensive a field was yet
unexplored, and how many solid
advantages unimproved; and when I considered, with
pain, that in this fluctuating, imperfect, and limited
condition of life, such
inquiries and improvements could
only be made by the united efforts of
many, who are not
easily brought, without pressing inducement or
strong
impulse, to converge in a common point, I consoled
myself
with the hope, founded on
opinions which it might have
the appearance of
flattery to mention, that, if in any
country or community, such an union could be
effected,

men.

it

was among

my

countrymen in Bengal, with some of

already had, and with most was desirous of
laving, the pleasure of
being intimately acquainted."

whom

EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE

39
-

FAR-REACHING RESULTS! EFFECTS IN INDIA.

This was well expressed from the point of view of
Englishmen in India. Such studies had far-reaching
Similar societies were founded in
effects.
Bombay and
Madras within a few years. In 1823 was founded in
London the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and
Ireland.
Its founder was Henry
Thomas Colehrooke,
whom we shall presently mention as having worked in
Calcutta.
Its aim was expressed to be "the
investigation
of the sciences and arts of Asia, with the
hope of
facilitating ameliorations there and of advancing knowThe Latin
ledge and improving the arts at home."

motto of

many

Society is: Quot rami tot arbores: "as

branches", referring to the emblem of

this

trees

as

the Indian

banyan tree, whose branches reach the ground

and become trees. The Royal Asiatic
Society of London has become a bigger tree than its prototype of Bengal, and there are other Societies in Europe
and America which may in a sense claim inspiration from
and

strike roots,

the example set in Bengal.

Through these early efforts,
the gates of the enchanted land of the Orient were
opened
to the West, and in the great Romantic movements of
western literatures we find echoes which themselves created
a new East of the imagination.
The tribute of Goethe

(1749-1832) to Kalidas's genius in Sakuntala is well

known. As translated into English by E. B. Eastwick, it
runs as follows:
"'Wouldst thou the young year's blossoms
And the fruits of its decline,
And all by which the soul is charmed,

Enraptured, feasted, fed?

Wouldst thou the earth and heaven
In one sole name combine?
I

name thee,
Sakuntala!
And all at once is said."

Ruckert
German.

(in

Indier).

And

itself

1821) tried to naturalise the Ghazl in

Schlegel in 1808 wrote on the languages and
wisdom of India (Uber die Sprache und Weisheit der
in

the middle

of the

* This version as well as the

original
pp. xvi-xvii of "Sakoontala, translated by Sir
Condon 1894.

nineteenth

German

century

will be found at
Moniez Monier- Williams "

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

40

Emerson, Thoreau, and the Transcendenlalist school of

America, popularised their version of Indian wisdom in
Emerson's poem Brahma was written
the United States.
hand the most interesting of the
other
the
On
in 1855.
these
which
waves
impulses produced resulted in transof our own land.
culture
When the methods
the
forming

and standards of scholarship of the West had permeated

India, we produced men like Rajendra Lai Mitra in Bengal
and Bhandarkar in Bombay, whose work we shall refer to
in due time.
COMPREHENSIVE PLANS OF STUDY
Sir William Jones's chief merit was that he
planned
comprehensively and worked most assiduously at his plan.

scholarship are now

his idea of the

of his ideas in

Many
and

we

smile

may

antiquated

at

"superiority
of European talent."
But he judged from what he
saw of our decadent society.
He spoke of the East
with great respect, and never let fly pointed darts of
wit at our expense like Macaulay.
His interest was not

merely

in

scholarship as narrowly
Orientalist societies.
A

understood by the
programme which he
sketched out and which was found among his
papers after

modern

his death was referred to by Sir John Shore

(afterwards
Lord Teignmouth) who succeeded Sir William Jones in the
It contains,
Presidentship of the Asiatic Society.
besides
suggestions relating to geography, history, language, and
literature, the following items:

2.

botanical

description

from the Koshas

5.

On

6.

On

9.

On

the Ancient

of

Indian plants

etc.

Music of the Indians.

the medical substances of

India, and the
Indian art of medicine.

ancient Indian

geometry, astronomy, and

algebra.
13.

On

the

Indian

constellations,

with

their

mythology, from the Puranas.

Some

progress has been

made

his day, but the field has

in these

investigations since

by no means yet been exhausted.

EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE

COLEBROOKE: HIS INSIGHT INTO THE PROBLEM OF

UNEMPLOYMENT

Thomas

Henry

Colebrooke
(1765-1837) was a
three we have already mentioned.

younger man than the

He came out to India in

the Company's Civil Service in

As he served for the first
1782, and served till 1814.
nine years as a revenue official in the Ivlufassal
(Tirhut).
he was remote from the great cultural movements that were

taking shape in the capital at Calcutta under Warren

On the other hand he got a
Easting's inspiration.
deep
insight into rural conditions, and his book on the agriculture of Bengal touches on the economic weak
spots of early
British rule.
"To a government/ 5 he says, "enlightened as
this is by which British India is
administered, it cannot
be a trifling consideration to provide
employment for the
No public provision now exists in these
poorest classes.
provinces to relieve the wants of the poor and

The only employment

helpless.

widows and female orphans

incapacitated for field labour by sickness or by their rank
can earn a subsistance, is by spinning, and it is the
only
employment to which females of the family can apply
themselves to maintain the men, if these be
disqualified
for labour by infirmity or by any other cause.
To all it
is a resource which, even
though it may not be absolutely
in which

necessary for the subsistance, contributed at least to relieve

the distress of the poor.
Their distresses are
certainly
great, and none greater than among the many decayed
families which once enjoyed the comforts of life. These
are numerous in India, and whether
they be entitled to
the particular consideration

of

have certainly a claim on

humanity."

its

Government or

not, thev

IMPOVERISHMENT, AND DECAY OF ART AND CULTURE

This problem of unemployment has

certainly been a
cupboard in the history of the British
administration.
The early British days in Bengal were
marked with fabulous fortunes that men like Clive took
away from India. It was not the Company that was
It was its servants that
getting rich.
preyed on the people.
In those early days, Indian noblemen and
soldiers,
zamindars and ryots, men of letters and artisans, all
skeleton in the

suffered.

few Indians who

lent

themselves

to

the

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

42

intrigues and treachery of the foreign clique, became men

of note and fortune, and founded families.
But like the
-new-rich in all countries and at all times, they were

innocent of art and culture, and in running after the art

culture of their new masters, tended to degrade the
art and culture of their own country. Later, came the

-and

day

of the zamindars, and later still the day of the

lawyers.
The new families, in the course of two or three generations
became more responsive to their own country's inspiration
but by then other discontents had arisen and other causes
for the depression of Indian culture.
Remedial agencies
also came into operation. But unemployment or
impoverishment in some form or among some class or other, has
always gnawed at the roots of British rule in India. With
the rise of a more or less educated middle class towards
the end of the nineteenth century, this
question has come

very much to the fore.

movements of

all

Its close connection with cultural

kinds cannot be questioned.

PROGRESS OF SANSKRIT STUDIES

Colebrooke's study of Sanskrit was fertile of

results,
and these are scattered over the volumes of the
Asiatic
Researches.
He specialised in Sanskrit and thus started
the tendency in the west to
identify Indian culture with

Hindu

culture, to the neglect of the contribution made to

Indian culture by the Muslims.
He published accounts
not only of the major schools of Hindu
philosophy, but
also of the minor th
ough important sectg Hke
Jains>
He studied Hindu mathematics and
as expoundastronomy
ed
ancient Sanskrit works.
His Sanskrit Grammar and

ms

Essay on the Vedas (1805) established his

reputation
as the greatest Sanskrit scholar of
his day, and his finest
memorial is the Royal Asiatic
Society of Great Britain,
which, as already stated, he founded in 1823.

THE LEGAL LORE OF INDIA

Le
n
turn to the stud
y of Ind *an Law.
In a
i
w,
letter which Warren
Hastings wrote to Lord M^ncfi^U
on the 21st March 1774
(printedl Ke
Documents on Indian
Policy, Vol. I), he said:- "l m
he various plans which have
been ktely formed f or thf
improvement of the British interests

V^

W^S^^

fc^

"EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE

43

of establishing a new form of judica"Bengal, the necessity

to people who were supposed to be
laws
ture, and giving
other
no
principle of justice than the arbitrary
by

governed

judgments, of their temporary rulers,

this opinion, I fear, has
been
has
frequently suggested; and

wills, or uninstructed

obtained the greater strength from some publications of

considerable merit in which it is too positively asserted
to the Hindoos, or
that written laws are totally unknown
From whatever cause
of Hindostan.
inhabitants
original
can be more foreign
this notion has proceeded, nothing
from truth. They have been in possession of laws, which
have continued unchanged, from the remotest antiquity.
The professors of these laws, who are spread over the
-whole empire of Hindostan, speak the same language, which
and receive public
is unknown to the rest of the people,
from
every state and people,
endowments and benefactions
besides a degree of personal respect amounting almost to
for the benefits which are supposed to
idolatry, in return
be derived from their studies. The consequence of these
suffered little diminution from the introducprofessors has
tion of the Muhammadan government, which has generally
to
left their privileges untouched and suffered the people
which
time
and
remain in quiet possession of the institutes
familiar to their understandings and

religion had rendered

.sacred to their affections."

HOW

IT

WAS FITTED INTO THE NEW INSTITUTIONS

Warren Hastings proceeds

these benefits under the

to

argue that

if

they

Muslim government, they

possessed
could not be refused a similar concession under a British
It would be a grievance to
,and Christian government.
the protection of their own laws, but it
deprive them of
wanton
would be
tyranny to require their obedience to
He then
others of which they were wholly ignorant.
a
in
England specimen of the
offered to the learned Judge
laws themselves, explaining to him the system of two sets of

"one for the trial of crimes and offences Qaujdari)

The
other to decide cases of property" (mdl).
the
and

courts,

British reorganisation of judicial arrangements, he explains,

did nothing more than re-establish the original principles.

44

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

CODE OF HI1SDU LAW

Ten of the most learned Pandits were invited to
to form a compilaCalcutta from different parts of Bengal
which could be
tion of Hindu laws with the best authority
obtained.

The Pandits compiled

the

Code

in Sanskrit.

This was translated into Persian (the current court

the supervision of one of the Pandits.
language) under
From the Persian translation was prepared the English
Lord Mansfield. From the
translation, which was sent to
dates it would appear that this was a fragment of Halhed's

which was published complete in 1776 as

As a translation from a
the "Code of Gentoo Laws."
translation this could not have been very satisfactory, and
the translators themselves (both first and second) had
of comparative law.
The
very little accurate knowledge
task could only be completed (as far as such task could
be completed at that stage) under the supervision of
Sir William Jones and by Colebrooke, as was clone later,
translation,

(in Colebrooke's Digest of

Hindu Law, 1791).

MUSLIM LAW

"With respect to Muhammadan law," says Warren

Hastings in the same letter, "which is the guide at least to
one-fourth of the natives of this province" (Bengal then
included Bihar and Orissa), "y ur Lordship need not be
told that this is as comprehensive, and as well defined, as
that of most states in Europe, having been formed at a time
in which the Arabians were in possession of all the real
learning which existed in the western part of this continent.
The book which bears the greatest authority among them
in India is a digest formed by the command of the
Emperor
Aurangzib, and consists of four large folio volumes which
are equal to near twelve of ours." This was the famous
Fatawa-i-Alamgiri, whose complete translation into English
has never been accomplished. Portions of it
have, however, been published by Mr. Neil Baillie between 1850
and 1865. A text-book, however, called the
Heddya, was
given to James Anderson and Charles Hamilton to translate. It took them seventeen
years, and was published in
four quarto volumes in 1791 under the name
of Hamilton s Hedaya.
It was not
very satisfactory. Originally in

EARLY BRITISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN CULTURE

45

Arabic, it was translated loosely into Persian, from which

The text and
Hamilton made his English translation.
mixed
are
lime
But
for
the
being i
commentary
up.
The copy in the Bodleian Library &t
served its purpose.
Oxford lias a note inscribed on it by Edmund Burke:
i here is greac power oi mino
ana a very suotie jurisshown
in
this
work."
prudence
f

ij

f**!T

?"IO 1

IT**

STUDY OF COMPARATIVE LAW

Sir

William Jones, on

whom

devolved

the

task

of

movement for making accessible in English

supervising
some of the principles of Hindu and Muslim law, was, as
we have seen, a man of many accomplishments. He himself translated a book on the Muslim law of inheritance
this

This branch
(the Sira/zya), and added a commentary.
of the law had not been touched in the
a.
Jones was
eddy
more than a Judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta. As a
jurist he had a matchless talent for comparative law. We
may quote a celebrated historian's opinion of him as
referred to in Sir John Shore's speech to the Asiatic
Society of Bengal (1794), to which we have already
referred: "He is perhaps the only
lawyer equally
conversant with the Year-books of Westminster, the
Commentaries of Ulpian, the Attic pleadings of Isaeus, and
the sentences of Arabian and Persian Quazis,"
in other

words English, Roman, Greek, and Muslim law, to which

might be added the very important item of Hindu law.

LAW AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

The Hindu and Muslim Laws,

thus placed in juxtaposition, were to apply to Indians only in a limited number

of classes of suits;, viz. those relating to succession, in-

marriage, caste, and religious usages and instiThis last phrase is elastic and has been rendered
more precise by subsequent legislation and judicial
decisions; and the position of custom has been much
discussed and investigated by the Courts.
These early

heritance,
tutions.

compilations have been liberally supplemented by studies

from original sources prepared by jurists and text-bookwriters as well as Hindu and Muslim judges of distinction.

There was and is no official code of Hindu or Muslim law,

enacted by the Legislature, like the Indian Penal Code or

46

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

the Indian Contract Act of later generations. Such official

codes have sometimes been advocated, but on the whole,,
and I think wisely, ruled out. It was supposed that
British judges, bringing their

own

inherited ideas of juris-

prudence, and yet provided in English with the basicnotions of Hindu and Muslim law, might be able to build
up a progressive system. Hastings had hoped that his
work would help "towards the legal accomplishment of a
new system which shall found the authority of the British
government in Bengal on its ancient laws, and serve to
point out the way to rule his people with ease and moderation according to their own ideas, manners, and prejudices." But gradually professional lawyers., in obtaining,
In some cases, as in the
precision, sacrificed elasticity.
law of Waqf, their interpretations of Muslim law went
wide of the Muslims' own "ideas, manners, and prejudices" and has had to be corrected by legislation.
A
similar remark applied to the law of marriage.
In
many cases the adaptation of law to modern needs and
conditions was prevented by a series of carefully recorded
older decisions.
It is just a
question whether the ultimate
result of this policy has not been to leave law far behind

enlightened public opinion,

growth in some directions.

and thus

to

hinder cultural

CHAPTER

III

MANNERS, MORALS AND ARTS

CHARACTERS AND MANNERS OF EARLY BRITISH DIGNITARIES
IN INDIA
In the last chapter we saw the reaction of Indian condion the few men of British culture who were interested
in India's culture. They were earnest students of literature,
manners, and arts. But they were not representative of
British society as a whole, either in Calcutta or in London.,
In England the general attitude was one of lofty superiority.
The distant inhabitants of India were almost, in their view 9
barbarians.
Burke's burning eloquence, and the tributes
which he paid to Muslim and Hindu institutions in his
impeachment of Warren Hastings, ran counter to the spirit
of hero-worship which finally procured Warren Hasting's
acquittal, and therefore made no impression on the British
mind. In Calcutta itself the state of British society
generally was so rotten that it called forth the severest contions

demnation from the British missionaries and the men who

cared for religion and ethics as the foundations of British
character.
In the early days the British "'nabobs" bore
Indian titles and aped the worst of the Indian vices, which*
Clive was
they found fashionable in a decadent society.
Sabit Jang and Saif Jang. Mr. Watts, the Company's'

His widow
agent at Kasimbazar, was Zubdat-ut-Tujjar.
remarried and became Mrs. Johnson, but, as stated in
Both EnglishChapter I, was known as Begam Johnson.
men and Englishwomen smoked the huqqa. In the Calcutta
Gazette

of

1808 the following advertisement appeared

for the benefit of those

who appreciated

the luxuries of

the East:

"H. McKay respectfully begs leave to acquaint the

Ladies and Gentlemen of the settlement that are partial to
the Hookah, that he has prepared some essence, whose
fragrant odour and fine flavour will add considerable zest
Calcutta, the 24th February 1808."

to this luxury.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

43

CORALS, GAMBLING

AND LOTTERIES

In ga.-sibling, hard drinking, loose sex morals, and

a good deal
duelling, Eriiish fashions in Calcutta went
the end of the
towards
further than die fashions in London

18th century.
Many Public Works were constructed out
of the proceeds of public lotteries.
Lottery Commissioners were officially recognised. In 1794 they advertised
Streets and
a lottery of 10,000 tickets at Rs. 32 each.
funds.
The Town
churches were constructed out of these

Hall was built and canals were constructed from lottery

funds.
It is to the credit of the Committee of the Native
Hospital, which was mainly British, but under missionary
that they declined

influence,

in

1793

to

money. The lotteries were under

Governor-General from 1805 to 1817.
the

receive lottery
patronage of the

1818 Chowringhee, the fashionable street of Calcutta, was watered

under the care of the Lottery Committee, which took the
Not only
place of the Lottery Commissioners from 1817.
was public money regularly raised by lotteries, but big
The gambling
dwelling houses were frequently raffled.
spirit, though
to a very

suppressed under the

back

In

rule of Islam, goes

old
Yudhishlhira, the
hero of the Mahabharata, gambled away his all, including
his wife, on the chances of dice.
In the Sutras it would
to
have
been
one
of
the
duties of the King to
appear
maintain a public gambling hall for the use of his
tradition in India.

15

subjects/

ELEMENT OF SELF-RECUPERATION
1
I

With

all that

can

be said in criticism

of English

society and Englishmen in India in that period, there

one feature that redeemed it from all ils faults

weaknesses.
recuperation.
traditions of

was
and

had within itself the element of selfThe individuals who lapsed from the best
their nation had these traditions in their

It

blood, and behind them, a strong vigorous nation to sit

in judgment on them.
If that judgment was sometimes
yet kept individuals in check, and arrested any
tendency to decay in a community cut off temporarily

j^,^

severe,
krt

it

'Cambridge History of India,

vol.

I,

p.237.

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

49

from the sources of

standards.

For,

its power, its strength, and its moral

whether in England or in India, the

class that came to the front of the stage was not necesof the
sarily the class that formed the back-bone
Warren Hastings had been placed in positions
nation.

of peculiar temptations and difficulties.

Whatever criticisms may be levelled against his public policy, he never
acted against the interests of his country and his nation.
Whatever sufferings his policy may have led to in India,
he had respect for the Indian people, and was the first and
greatest among the British of his age to seek, foster, and
preach a common understanding between India and England.

'

The rancour by which he was assailed in his own Council

did not deflect him from his path.
His imagination saw
the
and
weakness
the
of India's position
clearly
strength
under British rule. In his Review of his own Administration written in 1785, he explained his idea of good
government in India on very practical lines as follows.
HASTINGS ON INDIAN CHARACTER
cc
The submissive character of the people; the fewness
of their wants; the facility with which the soil and climate,
unaided by exertions of labour, can supply them; the
abundant resources of subsistence and trafficable wealth
which may be drawn from the natural productions, and
from the manufactures, both of established usage and of
new introduction, to which no men on earth can bend their
minds with a readier accommodation^ and above all, the
defences with which nature has armed the land, in its
mountainous and hilly borders, its bay, its innumerable
intersections of rivers, against inoffensive or powerful
neighbours, are advantages which no united state upon
earth possesses in an equal degree; and which leave little
to the duty of the Magistrate, in effect, nothing but attention, protection,

and forbearance."

CULTURAL DREAM OF SIR WILLIAM JONES

The men who followed Warren Hastings in the

Governor-Generalship were usually fresh from England,
with strong political influence at home at their back, and
raised, among their colleagues in India, above the constant
drag of opposition and envy. And yet none in that long
4

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

50

has done more than Warren HastingsAnd there were men

for the cultural advance of India.
his contemporaries who saw the
serving in India among
with India, and
cultural side of the British connection

line of eminent

men

us the visions of their dreams in words that

Sir William Jonesall time.
ring true and are good for
in
closes the Preface to his translation of the Sirajlya

have

left

these words:

GOVERNMENT TO BE A MUTUAL BENEFIT AND BLESSING

"I have seen enough of these Provinces and their inhabitants, to be convinced, that, if

we hope

to

make our

benefit to-'
government a blessing to them and a durable
for
ourselves, we must realise our hope, not by wringing
Asiatic,
our
the present the largest possible revenue from
wealth than the
subjects, but by taking no more of their

public exigencies, and their own security, may actually

landlords
require; not by diminishing the interest, which
must naturally take in their own soil, but by augmenting
it

to the utmost,

them assurance, that

and giving
^^
^^

it

will

1*1
descend to their heirs; when. their laws of property, which
to
they literally hold sacred, shall in practice be secured
that
when
the
be
so
land-tax
they
shall
moderate,
them;
cannot have a colourable pretence to rack their tenants,,,
and then they shall have a well-grounded confidence, that
the proportion of it will never be raised, except for a time

on some great emergency, which may endanger all they

possess; when either the performance of every legal contract shall be enforced, or a certain and adequate compensation be given for the breach of it when no wrong shall
remain unredressed, and when redress shall be obtained
at little expense, and with all the
speed that may be con;

sistent with
necessary deliberation; then will the

population

and resources of Bengal and Bihar continually increase,,

and our nation will have the glory of conferring happiness*
on considerably more than
twenty-four millions* (which
is at least the
present number) of their native inhabitants,
whose cheerful industry will enrich their
benefactors, and

mia? Tennant's

ft
23
millions

conjecture for the population

in 1803 (Indian
Recreations, II.2-3)

was between 22 and

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

51

whose firm attachment will secure the permanence of our

dominion."
HORIZON TO BE WIDENED
This dream of Sir William Jones discloses a wider
The horizon has.
horizon than that of Warren Hastings.
widened still further, with succeeding generations of British
and Indians. But it is well to note these early landmarks,
because they are apt to be forgotten.

EARLY COURTS OF LAW

Much stress is laid by some writers on the new Courts

of Law and the new spirit of justice established under
But there is another side to the question.
British rule.
True, the living jurisprudence of every progressive country
must necessarily bring increased security to the people and
Unfortuenlarged opportunities of social development.
nately the extravagant laudation of British Courts in India
It is a
is hardly justified, at least in the early stages.
question whether substantive English Law in those days'
was in advance of the law administered in the Mughal
Courts.
The venality and inefficiency charged against
Mughal Courts was only a feature of the general loss of
control that characterised the period of anarchy. The new
British procedure was far more complicated and far less
calculated to favour justice than the simple Mughal pro-

cedure, with easy access to rulers of every grade, including

the Emperor himself.

DRASTIC AND UNEQUAL PUNISHMENTS

The celebrated Fifth Report, made by the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the affairs of the East
India Company, dated 28th July 1812, is of great value

We may note three

for the period we are considering.
meted
out
of
by the Mayor's Court
punishments
examples
in Calcutta prior to the establishment of the Supreme Court
in 1774:

(1)

30th November 1762: case of assault: To be

flogged at

the Cart's Tail every

cat of nine tails^

Monday

for

month with a
(2)

1st

September 1763: Burglary: punished with

death.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

.52

(3)

27th February 1765: Forgery, punishable with

death: but pardoned.

This last case may be compared with the celebrated case

of Maharaja Nand Kumar, who had been, under llie East
India Company, Collector of Burdwan, Nadia, and Hugli,
and later, Naib Subah of Bengal. He was convicted of
forgery in the Supreme Court, and sentenced to death, and
hanged in August 1775. There were political considerations involved in it, and it is clear that forgery was punished

very differently in different cases.

-SUPREME COURT'S SENTENCES

Let us take three other cases in which sentences

were passed by the Supreme Court on
Thursday ihe 18th

December 1806,

as reported in the Calcutta Gazette:

Alexander
(1).
Moore, soldier, killed
soldier in a duel in Muttra; sentenced ior
to be imprisoned for one
year

another

manslaughter

and

to

pay a

fine of

twenty

rupees, or to be further imprisoned.

James Dempsey, soldier, killed another in

(2).
toxing, in Allahabad; sentenced for manslaughter to be
imprisoned for one week, and to pay a fine of one rupee.
Lieutenant Charles Ryan, killed another officer
(3).
in a duel at Cawnpore: sentenced for
manslaughter to pay
a fine of one hundred
rupees and imprisoned for one
month.
^

COURTS AS DEMORALISING AGENCIES

We have seen in the last chapter that
Saiyid
ilusam Khan, author of the
Siyar^ul-Mutaakherin

was

not

much impressed with

the

Ghulam
(1783)

new

Courts, either in
their personnel or in their
procedure. In the Fifth Report
ot the Select Committee of
the House of Commons

(1812)
which we have
already referred, there is abundant evidence that the
Company's British servants, judges as well
withthe results
'f/101118111
to

^^

(afterwards Sir ) Henry

Strachey,
crto Interrogatories, draws a
Pe ple >" he
than formerl yChicanery,
ation, fraud and
perjury, are certainly more

rin?

Tm^

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

SB

common. Drunkenness,

prostitution, indecorum, profligacy

of manners, must increase, under a system which, although it professes to administer the Muhammadan Law,
does not punish those immoralities." Elsewhere he remarks "I Leg leave here to offer it as my opinion that
little morality is learnt in any court of
In Caljustice.
cutta, I have reason to believe the morals of the people
are worse by means of the system established by us. Nor

do I attribute this solely to the size, population, and

indiscriminate society of the capital, but in part to the
Supreme Court. I scarcely ever knew a Native connected
with the Supreme Court, whose morals and manners were
not contaminated by that connection."
POLICE

AND LAW COURTS! CONDITIONS OF THEIR EFFICIENCY

Mr. James Mill, in his History of British India

(Book VI, Chapter 6), discusses this subject with reference
to the Fifth Committee's
He remarks: "The
Report.
temper and practice of the Courts of Justice are enumerated

among the causes of the prevalence of crime ; the Courts

of Justice are represented as so immoral, that they infuse
a deeper strain of depravity into the Indian character;
and corrupt, beyond their usual pitch of wickedness,
the natives who approach them.
An imputation more
of
the
interior
expressive
depravity of Courts of Justice,
cannot easily be conceived. .. That any tribunal, however,
which guides unhappy suitors through a maze of wretched
ceremonies and forms, should be other than a den of
chicane, that is, of fraud, and the chief of all seminaries
of the fraudulent arts, is not very possible.
That such
are the Courts of Justice in India, and above all the
Supreme Court, the Court of English law, is indubitably

proved." There is exaggeration in this sweeping statement,

which is hardly justified by the tenor of the Fifth Report
(Appendix X) read as a whole. But the evils referred
to existed, and we must recognise them even now, after
a century and a quarter, as inherent in the peculiar
circumstances of India.
But we must also recognise the
merits of the new system: the
law was gradually
modernised; the Courts were progressively improved and
rendered independent; a more vigilant and learned Bar

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

54

was established and the tribunals became more and more

on the police system
impersonal. The severe strictures
the
Fifth
in the
Secretary to Government
Report by
doubt
were
no
justified then, and are
(Mr. Doweeswell)
that the police
must
remember
we
but
partly justified now,
each
on
react
courts
law
the
other, and they are
and
both conditioned by the education of the people in good
citizenship and the mutual confidence that may exist
(or not exist) between the people and the State.
;

31EASONS FOR LURID PICTURES OF INDIAN

MORALS

In these circumstances we cannot wonder at the lurid

pictures of Indian manners and morals, sincerely drawn by
men who came into contact with criminal or litigious
classes, chiefly through the law courts or in their intercourse
with the degenerate governing classes in the dirty game of

The picture was even more lurid

as drawn by the
for
three
reasons.
In
the
first
Missionaries,
place they
came with a bias against non-Christian religions, which
made them see things in a false light. In the second place,
their contact was mainly with the most submerged classes
in India, and they transferred the picture of what
they saw
to the whole of the people of India, who were all included

politics.

under the ban of heathens "who dwell in darkness." In the

third place, they were influenced and
they were used for
even
if they were non-British
purposes,
political
Europeans,

new political power, as in their turn

they influenced
more earnest spirits among the servants of the East
India Company in India and
among those who framed its
The German missionary Schwartz was
policy in England.
sent by the Madras Government in 1779 to
spy out the
intentions of Haidar Ali in
The French
Seringapatam.
missionary the Abb6 Dubois was used by Colonel
Wellesley,
afterwards Duke of
Wellington, to reconvert to Christianity
in 1800 those who had become
Muslims under Tippu
Sultan. The
manuscript of his book on Hindu Manners
was purchased by the Madras Government
in 1807, and the
transaction was reported to the Court
of Directors as "an
arrangement of great public importance." That remarkable Scotsman, Charles
Grant, (1746-1823) whose religious
bent (he was a member of the
Clapham sect) and pertina-

3y

the

the

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

55

left such a deep impression on the early cultural

of British India, was very much influenced by the
Grant's contact with India was in
.missionary Schwartz.

-city

have

Jhistory

lour capacities.

From 1767-1771 he was engaged

in

From 1772-1790 he was a noted

private trade in Bengal.
and influential servant of the Company and strongly supOn his return to England he
ported the missionaries.
And
influenced Indian policy in the Court of Directors.
as

Member

of Parliament he had a more effective

fluence on British public opinion

in-

and British policy.

-WHAT OFFICIALS AND MISSIONARIES SAW

Grant's "Observations on the State of Society, among
the Asiatic subjects of Great Britain," 1792, contain some
of the most scathing denunciations of the morals and
character of the people.
According to him, the people
were exceedingly depraved, and even among them the
natives of Bengal ranked low.
They lacked truth, honesty,
and good faith, and made even no pretence to the possession

One, Ibrahim Ali Khan, of Benares,

was a man of probity, but he was exceptional. As a
whole, the people were selfish, dastardly, and cruel.
They
did not even love their children, for they sold them in
scarcity and did not recover them after the scarcity was
We wonder if Mr. Grant enquired whether the
past.
parents themselves outlived the terrible famines. The

of these virtues.

,good Abbe Dubois, who made a most elaborate study of

the manners and morals of the Hindus, could see no hope
9'
he says, "to grovel in
for them.
"They will continue,
their
and
intellectual faculties
as
as
physical
long
poverty

continue in the same groove." It would be necessary to

undermine the foundations of their civilisation, religion,
and polity, and turn them into atheists and barbarians
before they could be given new laws and a new religion.
But even then the good Abb6 did not feel confident. He
and his people would have to give them new natures and
Otherwise their last state might be
different inclinations.
worse than their first. We may laugh at such pessimism,
and wonder that any efforts, political, social, or religious,
could be undertaken by people who accepted such views.
For they were gloomy not only as to the facts, but as

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

56

whole outlook for the future. Fortunately the

Serampur missionaries, and the Clapharn sect itself
adopted in practice methods inconsistent with such views,
and contributed their share to the advance of Indian

to

the

education.

WHAT UNBIASED MEN OF CULTURE SAW

Men who came from England, without official or
missionary bias, drew a different picture. Thomas Twining,

He served the East India

in Madras in 1792.
Company in Bengal for some years, and has left us a

was

book of

his experiences.
Speaking of Indians of inferior
"I did not indeed expect to find a
he says:
resemblance to the grotesque representations which I had
seen on the London stage; but neither was I prepared for
a total absence of all barbarity and coarseness, for
station,

complexions which had nothing repulsive, for features and

limbs as delicate as those of women, and manners as
He describes the Company's Botanical Garden
gentle."
in Madras, and waxes eloquent over its fruits so new to
him, "the refreshing pummel-rose (pomeloss?) .., the
.

strong jack-fruit, the delicate papaw, the luscious custardapple, the delicious and abundant mango in its choicest
varieties, the Chinese lichi, and the loquat, another fruit
5
of China, grateful to the
and taste/
The bananas

eye

were so new to him that he thought

they were sausages.
He was in Delhi in November and December 1794. He
found the city well-peopled but not crowded. The

had a lofty military air. Their behaviour

was perfectly civil, and he was not
subjected to any vulgar
stare.
The Nawab who received him on behalf of the
Mughal Emperor ("SindRazy Khan" Sayid Raza Khan?)
was a man of superior
intelligence, and had the polished
and dignified manners of his
rank.
The

inhabitants

attendantshigh
carried shields and Talwars
(swords), but not matchlocks,

on

visits

of ceremony.

THE DELHI COURT

He was presented

to the
Emperor. The Khil'at
(robe of honour) which he received was a
splendid robe
of muta embroidered with
There were golden
gold.
sandals to match, and a
turban of fine
muslin.
A

gold

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

scarf of white muslin,
deep fringes of gold,

worked with gold, and ending

was worn over the shoulders,

57
with-

right

down to the ground. Another long piece of muslin was

wound round the waist like a girdle over the robe and
under the scarf. He presented a Nazar of five gold
8 sterling. His Munshi
Mohurs, equivalent to about
received a handsome green shawl.
As equivalent to an
invitation to dinner, he received this Farman:
"Your
feast will be supplied from the Presence*"

HINDU AND MUSLIM DRESS

This interesting description of Court dress tallies with
the portraits which we have of the period.
Hindu and
Muslim noblemen wore a similar kind of ceremonial dress,,
not only in Delhi,, but in the outlying parts of what
still

portrait
I.

was
compare the
of Siraj-ud-Daula (S. C. Hill's Bengal in 1756-7,
with the portrait of Maharaja Nub Kissen Baha-

in theory the

xliv.)

Mughal Empire.

We may

dur, founder of the Sovabazar family, for whom Clive got

the title of Maharaja and the Mansab of 6,000 from the
Emperor Shah Alam in 1766 (vide Mr. N. N. Ghose's
Memoirs of that Nobleman). Contemporary portraits of
the Arcot family and the Hyderabad family show similar
features.

THEIR RESPECT FOR EACH OTHER

The

relations between the

Hindus and Muslims were

charactised by mutual respect.

T. D. Broughton, in
his Letters from a Mahratta Camp, 1809, (p. 51) draws a
pleasing picture of what he saw as Resident in Sindhia's
court and camp.
The Marathas, he remarks, observed the
still

When the Holi

solemnity.
concurrently with the Muharram, as it did in
February 1809, they abstained from nautch, which was
one of the incidents of Holi. Every one, including the
Maharaja himself, dressed like a Faqir in the Muharram
colours of green and red, and visited the Tazifys.

Muharram festival with some

festival

fell

PRESTIGE OF

The

MUGHAL EMPIRE

prestige of the Mughal Empire was still very

over India, in the minds of both Hindus and
great
Muslims. Sindhia was still in theory the agent of the
Peshwa, who himself was the Vakil-i-Mutlaq (or agent
all

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

58

of the Mughal Empire.) When the Nizam

.plenipotentiary
was deserted by his British allies in 1795, and his army
.surrendered to the Marathas at Kharda without practically
striking a blow, it
Maratha leaders.

remarked

to

his

was no cause of congratulation to the

It made the young Peshwa sad, and he
minister

Nana Farnavis: "I grieve

to

there must be on both sides,

observe such degeneracy
has been made by the
submission
when such a disgraceful
are
soldiers
own
our
vaunting of a victory
Mughals, and
as

obtained without an effort."

(MacDonald's Memoir of
Nana Farnavis, p.99). In 1813, the British were surprised

when, against their advice and persuasion, Tamburetty,

Princess of Travancore, insisted on applying for a dress of
investiture for her son the infant Raja from the Mughal
Emperor, although her State had never been directly under
Mughal rule, and the Emperor was then only a phantom
figure (Hamilton's Hindostan 1.423).
AN ARTIST'S ACCOUNT
The observations of an artist, a British traveller, are
of particular interest to us, because he carefully noted
points of cultural interest and illustrated them with
engravings prepared from drawings made on the spot.
William Hodges was in India from 1780 to 1783. He
had exhibited pictures in the Royal Academy before he
went out to India, and became a member of the Royal

Academy

in 1789.

He

studied the ancient

Monuments

of

As an
India, and also published a book of travels.
artist, he was quick to note the small and delicate hands
of Indians- the gripe of Indian sabres was too small for
European hands, at least in the Southern Presidency. The
ordinary dress of the country was a long muslin jama,
worn by both Hindus and Muslims. Calcutta was a
long
city on the river-bank without much breadth.
It extended
from the western point of Fort William (it must have been
the new Fort finished in 1773) to
Cossipore, about 4J
Thus Calcutta from north to south has extended
miles,,
very little, for Alipore and Garden Reach are still suburbs.
The conveyances in ordinary use were coaches
(like those
in London), phaetons,
single-horse chaises (two-wheeled),
palankins and hackeries (chhakras).
He notes that the
first

house in Calcutta with architectural

pretensions was

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

59

by Warren Hastings. This still remains as

Hastings House in Alipore, and illustrates the style of the
erected

period.

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS! VILLAGE LIFE

In Katra, Murshidabad, he notes a public

The

Muslim

scheme was so
It was in a
characteristic that we may note some details.
The cloisters were
large square, each side about 70 feet.
divided into single rooms crowned with a dome and lighted
by a window. The centre of the opposite side was
occupied by a Mosque. Near Bhagalpur he saw a cloth
weaver at his loom. In the cool shade of the banyan
tree he plied his trade, with a friend playing music by
Such scenes, he remarks, represented "the
his side.
happy times of the Mughal government," before the
country was devastated by anarchy. He found the villages
and sand
clean, the streets were swept and watered,

seminary in

ruins.

architectural

He was struck by
strewn before the doors of houses.
the simplicity and the model character of the women.
PAINTERS FROM ENGLAND

We

are grateful to this artist for a peep into a side

which
the merchants and officials of Calcutta knew
of
More than one distinguished painter
little
about.
very
from the West visited India during this period. Zoffany
was the best known among them. This versatile and
international artist went to India to enrich himself. Many
of his pictures were engraved by Richard Earlom, the
celebrated mezzotint engraver. Zoffany was in India from
1783 to 1790. In his subjects he combined with dramatic
skill the portraits of well-known characters with social
and historical incidents.
"Colonel Mord aunt's Cockmatch" is a famous picture, in which the Lucknow Nawabs
life

are pitted against English officers, arranging for a cockfight.

Engravings of this picture are much sought after
in India.
The "Tiger-hunt in the East Indies 5 depicts a
hunting scene in all the grandeur of early British day*
The Victoria Memorial at Calcutta contains several pictures
by Zoffany, one of which, "Lord Cornwallis receiving the
son of Tippu Sahib" must have been painted after Zoffany;
left India.
picture recently sold in Christie's Auction
'

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

60

Room

London (28th June 1929) depicts Zoffany (with

monkey) at an easel with an Indian landscape. Colonel
Polier with his Indian cook, and Colonel Martin, the
founder of the Martiniere in Lucknow, showing ihe plans
of his building, as held in the hands of an Indian servant.
This was probably painted in a house in Calcutta in 1788.
in

his

VOGUE OF INDIA AMONG PAINTERS

There were other famous Western
India for their brush.

Thomas Hickey

artists

who

paiiited

his wellin
1799,

used

known historical pictures at Seringapatarn

Thomas Daniell and William Daniell, uncle and nephew,
1794.
were in India from 1784 to
were
They

elected to the
both subsequently
Royal Academy in
London. Their Oriental Scenery in four large folios
(1795, 1797, 1801 and 1807), afterwards reduced to an
Octavo Part 5 (1815), and the series of Oriental Annuals
inaugurated by William Daniell in five volumes in
1834-1838 and continued after William Daniell's death

(volumes for 1839 and 1840), furnish an

and artistic commentary on the period, which
us.
is of some value to
The vogue of this kind of
literature in England may be understood
by the fact that
the 1835 volume was dedicated to the Duchess of Kent
in

1838

illustrated

and
and

the Princess

Victoria

(afterwards Queen Victoria),,

1840 volume had sketches and notes by

(among
others) Captain Meadows Taylor, of the Nizam's service.
In the earlier volumes the sketches were all
by William
the

Daniell, done during his residence in India.

In the later
volumes, there are sketches by other hands, and there is

of Akbar Shah II
one,
(1806-1837),
jhe portrait
done by a "Persian painter," which means a Muslim
painter in the Court of Delhi (Oriental Annual, 1840).
at least

miniature picture in the Indian Museum at Calcutta

referred by Mr. Percy Brown to the end of the 18th
Century, and probably to the Kangra qalam.
It is a
beautiful picture of a
an upcountry
popular scene,
It
party round a camp fire.
has a striking luminous
effect, due to a wash of gold
on the
is

pigment

paper before
(Indian

the drawing was made and the colours

applied.
Art and Letters IV, 1.14).

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

61

PORTRAIT PAINTING

The renowned English painter,, Sir Joshua Reynolds,

and his pupil, James Northcote, painted portraits that
went out to India. Both these painters are represented
Memorial Hall in Calcutta.
some
of
the highest work of the
represented
in
English portrait-painting, and their work may
period
have had some influence on Indian artists. Of these we
have no detailed account, though we know that Indian
portrait-painters turned out excellent work in Delhi and
Lucknow, and probably in Lahore and Calcutta. From the
India Office Records* we learn that Admiral Sir Robert
Harland brought (in 1772), as presents to the Mughal
Emperor Shah Alam, Portraits of Their Britannic Majesties from England.
in the collection in the Victoria

These

artists

ARCHITECTURE

As
ditions

in painting, so in architecture; the political conmade it necessary that Indian art should be

neglected and hide its diminished head, and English art

should secure publicity and predominance, and the sufBut there were differences between
frages of fashion.
the two arts.
There was a flourishing school of vigorous
portrait-painting in England, one which combined imagination with realism and a technique of great perfection,
suitable for all countries and times.
In architecture

England was decidedly weak at the time, with the exception of the work of the brothers Adam.
There were four
.brothers of that name, all architects.
The most famous
of them was Robert Adam (1728-1792), who built the
Adelphi in London, by the Strand, overlooking the river
Thames, besides numerous country houses for noblemen
all over England.
Alas, the Adelphi in London is rapidly
disappearing, owing to the craze for huge modern blocks
of buildings. Robert Adam also built Lord Scarsdale's
seat, Kedleston Hall, in Derbyshire, which partly furnished
the designs for the Government House in Calcutta, commenced by the Marquess Wellesley in 1799 and completed
* See India Office Records, Home Miscellaneous, Vol. III (6). An
excellent Catalogue of these Records, by S. C. Hill, is available, published
in Lon<lon, 1927.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

62

1804

Its chief merit is in the

decorations of the interior, the high flight of steps at the
entrance, and a certain grandiose appearance from the-

in

at a cost of 13|- lakhs.

outside, which was reflected in the private English residences built in Calcutta about that time, many of which

survive round Chowringhee.

The neighbouring Town Hall
(Calcutta), built in 1804 by public subscriptions, mainly
raised by lotteries, is in the Doric style of architecture,,

and

cost seven lakhs of rupees.

To continue

the

story

we may mention

three public buildings built much

later, all adding to the architectural confusion of Calcutta,,
The Anglithough each has individual merits of its own.

further,

can Cathedral on the Maidan, built in 1839-1847, is in a

spurious Gothic style, and both in position and size, is.
quite unworthy of being the Cathedral of the Metroof India.
The High Court, built in 1872, is,
frankly in imitation of the Gothic Town Hall of Ypres, in
Belgium, the town which is entitled to be called the Great
Cemetery of the Great War. And the Victoria Memorial,

politan

in

Maidan, designed by Sir William Emerson, and

1906-1921 in a mixture of Renaissance and IndoSaracenic styles, was a dream of Lord Curzon.
It cost
upwards of 76 lakhs, and was meant to be the gem of
British architecture in the
But even
capital of India.
while it was being constructed, the
capital was moved to
the^

built in

Delhi.

It

stands as a silent

cutta, of so

many

features

and lonely symbol, in Calof British cultural effort in,

India: noble intentions, often

leading to results
of
those
opposite
expected.

the

very

CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS
Architecture as

an Art can only

fulfil

where the builders are in touch with those for

build, and thoroughly understand and

its

mission

whom

they
sympathise with the
surroundings, cultural and social, as well as those provided by climate and nature. Even in the
general anarchy
of the eighteenth
century, wherever there was efficient rule
in Indian hands, we find that artistic
work was done.
building

*Lord Curzon gives a full -account of

"British Government in India" (i.
39-76.).

this

Government House

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

63

SOME GOOD BUILDINGS OF THE PERIOD

Schwartz noted, when he visited Haidar Ali ia
Seringapatam in 1779, that his palace was a good building
In Indore*
of hewn stone with numerous stone pillars.
the famous Holkar Rani Ahalya Bai, who died in 1795,,
beautiful buildings, including the Mausolea in
Bagh, with delicate carvings in low relief, in
which also is her own cenotaph. Jaipur, the beautifullyplanned "pink City," was the creation of Maharaja Sawai
He was a great-grandson
Jai Singh II, who died in 1743.
of the famous "Mirza Raja" Jai Singh I. Jaipur, with
left

many

Chhatri

wide well-planned streets, and noble stone buildings,,

The present Golden,
breathes an atmosphere of art.
Temple at Amritsar, with its domed roof plated with
copper gilt, and surrounded by a lake, was built soon
after 1763.
Though its present mean surroundings are not
in keeping with its artistic beauty or its religious atmosphere, the original building ranks as one of the most
its

still

sincerely-conceived architectural monuments of eighteenth,

century India.

LUCKNOW ARCHITECTURE
Although Lucknow has some meritorious buildingsdating from Akbar's reign, for example, the Nandan Mahal
and Ibrahim Chishti's Tomb, both in Yahyaganj, its rise
from the reign of Asaf-ud-Daula (1775who
moved
his capital here from Faizabad. Asaf1797),

as a capital dates

ud-Daula built magnificently, and the architecture of his:

period affords an interesting study, not only in itself, but
as an illustration of west and east meeting under conditions different from those of Calcutta or British India..
In the Nawabi atmosphere of Lucknow, western art came
not to rule, but to collaborate and serve.
There was no
actual fusion, but the two tendencies developed side by
side, with such influence as friendly neighbours can exerton each other. Asaf-ud-Daula's architecture shows both
vigour and originality, sincerity of feeling, and search,
after new forms*
It has also the great merit of reliance
Dn just proportions rather than on profuse decorations or
rich material for its artistic effects.
The buildings are ia,
Drick and stucco, but they are well-conceived and well-

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

64

Good

built.

Saadat

continued to prevail under Nawab

(who reigned during 1798-1814), but it

taste

AH Khan

gradually declined under his successors, until the

later

became merely showy and fantastic

and deserving of the strictures passed on it by James

Nawabi

architecture

Fergusson, the historian of Indian architecture.

GREAT IMAMSARA:
AN EXPRESSION OF CULTURAL NEEDS
OF TIME AND PLACE
Asaf-ud-Daula's Imambara is a remarkable building.
It reflects completely the social and spiritual life of the
Shia rulers of Oudh. Its success is due to its
sincerity,
just as in the case of the distinctive forms of Urdu
literature

which flourished in Lucknow the Marsiya and

which we shall have occasion to notice

drama
later.
The

the

great

Imambara was built in 1784 by the

who seems to have successfully

.architect Kifayatullah,

solved

the many
and artistic,
problems, technical
which he had to face. There were two outer gates,
only
one of which, the Rumi Darwaza, still remains,
recalling
the
association
of
Lucknow with Constantinople
with the then New Turkey which was
vainly struggling
in its birth-throes after the disastrous
Treaty of Kuchuk
Kainarji (1774) put an end to Imperial Turkey as a Great
Power. Before we enter the two inner courts, we
pass

through another gateway, with a pair of beautiful wroughtiron gates.

Then we come to the Great Hall, which served
as a Darbar hall for state
purposes, and for the Muharram
Assemblies during the first ten
days of the Martyrs'
mourning. In this hall is also the tomb of Asaf-ud-Daula.

The hall is one of noble

proportions, 163 feet long by
53 feet wide, and 49 feet
The roof is unsupported
high.
by pillars. The material used is brick and mortar. There
is neither wood nor stone.
The hall is one of the
largest

vaulted galleries in the world.

In the group of Imambara
buildings is a mosque and a school, and a fine baoli, or
well with a
long flight of steps leading down to the water.
1 he
arrangement of the courts, the grouping of the
buildings, the proportion of each in itself and in relation
to the rest, and the honest
work giving strength and
stability to the whole, make it a monument of which
-Lucknow is justly proud.

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

65

RESIDENCY AND MARTINIERE

The only other monuments that we shall notice are

the Residency and the Martiniere (also called Constantia)*
The Residency is preserved as a ruin on account of its
Mutiny associations. It was a palace of Asaf-ud-Daula,
-which was made over to the British Resident by Saadat
Ali Khan (1798-1814). Though built of brick and
stucco, like the great Imambara, its construction was
sound, and it must have been a beautiful building before
it was battered
about.
The Martiniere was a palace
designed by Claude Martin, a French adventurer who
entered Asaf-ud-Daula's service in 1776 and died in
Lucknow in 1800. It now houses his tomb and the
Martiniere College for boys of European parentage. It is
a fortified building, with a striking tower, in a style which

distantly suggests an Italian castle.

did not please Fergusson. But

style

has admirably stood the

test

The pseudo-Italian
was well built and

it

of time.

APPLIED ARTS
In the decorative and applied arts, again, Lucknow
There is a very
figures prominently during this period.
beautiful piece of enamel work, made in Lucknow, in the
Museum at Calcutta. It has been illustrated and described
by Mr. Percy Brown in Indian Arts and Letters (IV. I,
Plate III).
The muslins of Dacca, the brocades (Kamkhwabs} of Benares and Surat, and other beautiful textiles
still held the field.
The jeweller's and goldsmith's arts
turned out extraordinarily beautiful work with very simple
The swords and armour of the period have
implements.
much artistic merit. While older arts were still holding
their own,

newer

arts

were coming

in,

according to

the

An
opportunities which our artists got to learn them.
ingenious artist named Muhammad Ghaus made a coppe^plate engraving to illustrate Persian caligraphy.
specimen of his work, dated A. H. 1200 (=1785-6), is
reproduced by Sir William Jones (Works, I, 226, plate VI),
In the same place will be found an interesting Urdu ghazl
written by a lady, Gunna Begam, wife of Ghaziuddin

Khan, whom Sir William Jones describes as "a man of

consummate abilities and consummate wickedness, who

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

66

has ,borne an active part in the modern transactions of

Upper Hindustan."

DARBAR EQUIPMENTS

During that period Lucknow was the seat of a Court

of great magnificence and refined artistic tastes. In a letter
dated Fatehgarh 19th June 1815, printed in the Calcutta
Gazette, we have a contemporary account of the reception
of the Governor-General, Lord Moira (afterwards
Marquess
of Hastings), in the camp of the Heir-Apparent to the

Nawab-Wazir. The camp, we are told, was "situated

in a thick grove of trees, and being
composed of various
coloured materials, it sparkled with great
brilliancy."
During breakfast the Nawab's band played "a
of

variety
"A troop
English airs with considerable taste and skill."
of nautch girls were introduced, who danced and
sang;then tumblers, and finally, a theatrical
representation;
When breakfast was finished, the Nawab led his
Lordship
and suite into an appartment formed of Kanats and a
Shamiana, spread with white carpets, where a variety of
trays were displayed containing shawls and gold and silver
tissue.
At one end of the apartment was a
transparency^
representing the portrait of Lord Moira, an excellent

from Mr. Home's admirable picture at

Lucknow. The frame was covered with rich
cut-glass,
double branch shades, by which it was
lighted at

likeness, copied

night.

On

each side of the picture there was a couch

splendidly
adorned." Lord Moira presented the Nawab with his
beautiful grey English horse, decorated with
costly accoutrements in the Hindustani fashion.
The horse had
belonged to the Prince Regent in England, who had given
it to Lord Moira on his
leaving for India.
SHIP-BUILDING

Among

the skilled industries which are now extinct

was that of
ship-building.
Though India has
never been a great maritime
her
nation,
navigable rivers
have always been
highways of commerce and navigation
trom the most ancient times. Alexander's
Admiral built
a fleet in the Punjab. The Indus
and her tributaries were
the great
highways of the Punjab throughout the Middle
Ages. The Jamna has been
navigable as far as Agra and
in India

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

67

All Bengal
Delhi, and the Ganges as far as Allahabad.
Akbar
east of the Hugli is a perfect net-work of rivers.
maintained an important department of the navy. When
the British took over Bengal, they succeeded to the Mughal

Nau-wara, of which details are given in James Grant's

Analysis of the Finances of Bengal (1786), printed in the
Fifth Report.
There was a naval establishment of 768
armed cruisers and boats, principally stationed in Dacca*
guard the coast of Bengal against the incursions of
on which the annual expenditure was 8j lakhs
of rupees. Mr. Radha Kumud Mookerji, in his Indian
Shipping, (p. 249) refers to a Register of ships built on
the Hugli from 1781 to 1839.
The number of ships sobuilt was 376.
Burmese teak was used for the bottoms,
sides, decks and keels; the beams and inside planks were
of Sal; and the frame of Shisham.
The Sal and Shisham
came from North Bengal, Bihar, and Oudh.
to

pirates,

PARSI NAVAL ARCHITECTS

AND DESIGNERS

But the most fascinating chapter in the history of

British-Indian ship-building is connected with Surat and
Bombay. The teak-wood of Malabar and the Western
Ghats is superior to that of Burma.
On the west coast the
Sidi of Janjira had been the Admiral of the Mughal
Empire. He was ousted from his post after a stiff naval
battle in 1759.
The dignity and emoluments of this office
which amounted to nearly a lakh of rupees, were conferred
on the East India Company. A Parsi family, beginning
with Lowji Nasarwanji (1736-1774), became expert in
building and designing ships.
They built ships for the
East India Company, both for their naval and mercantile
service, as well as big ships of the line mounting 74 guns
for the King of England's Royal Navy.
So great was the

fame

of the

Bombay dockyard

in 1819, large frigates

that

in

1814

were built for the

Imam

and again
of Muscat,

which were christened in compliment to the Muslim

monarch with rose-water and attar instead of wine. Private
merchant-ships were also built. A list of Bombay built
vessels during 1736-1863 can be seen in Low's History of
the Indian Navy (1.537-41).
These Bombay-built ships
were very strong and durable, and they did great credit to

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

68

architects and designers.

They often
or
lasted 50 years
more, whereas the life of a ship in the
9
British Navy was about 12 years. (Thornton $ Gazetteer,

their Parsi naval

In 1819 Mr. Jamsetji Bomanji received

and seaworthiness of the

1.93-4).

testimony to the strength

fine
first

His ship,
he had built for the Royal Navy.
with five other small vessels of war,
and twelve valuable merchantmen under their convoy, were
beset by the ice in the Baltic Sea in the winter of 1808-9.
The Bombay-built ship was the only one that escaped
frigates

H. M.

S. Salsette,

shipwreck.

MUSIC

The cultivated people of India, both Hindu and

Muslim, more frequently pursued the practice of music
in these days than seems to have been the fashion later,
when the art was wholly given over to professionals, and
the profession itself was degraded to the lowest rank.
Of
a book on music, called Mufrarih-ul-Qulub, there are a

number

of manuscripts in the India Office Library.

It is
and Hindustani, by Hasan AH Izzat Dakhni.

in Persian

was commenced in the first year of Tippu Sultan's

and finished in 1785. Sir William Jones
wrote an Essay on Indian Music in 1784, of which an
enlarged edition was published in his Works (1. 413-443).
Some of the Sufi orders were specially devoted to it. It
is curious to note that
Bengal, which has since come into
the front rank for the cultivation of Indian
music, was
very behindhand in this respect in Sir William Tone's

It

reign, 1783,

On the other hand, among Urdu poets we find that

Khwaja Mir Dard (Delhi, 1719-1785)* was devoted to
music. Dard inherited the
Naqshbandia tradition of

time.

spiritual music.

Many of the most noted musicians of his

used
to
day
bring their work for his criticism, and regular
music parties were given in his house twice a month.
For

the

Golden Temple

at

Benares Warren

Hastings

presented a music gallery, which the Pandits of Benares

%

*The

incorrect

Encyclopaedia

Britannica's date, 1793, for Dard's death, is

MANNERS MORALS AND ARTS

69

acknowledged in the following quaint words in their

address sent to England during Easting's impeachment;
"To please us dull people, he caused a spacious music
be built, at his own expense, over the gateway
gallery to
of the temple of Viswesvara, which is esteemed the head
of holy visitation."
jewel of all places

CHAPTER

IV

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM

AND LITERATURE

THERE WAS GOOD USEFUL KNOWLEDGE IN THE EAST

Macaulay's off-hand dictum at a later period (see
Chap. 5.) , about Oriental books being "of less value than
the paper on which they are printed was when it
was
blank" has obscured the fact that a good deal of useful
learning existed among our people before the new learning
from Europe came upon us as a flood. When the
Bengal
Asiatic Society in its youth was collecting all kinds of
information, in natural history as well as other subjects, it
got valuable assistance from Indians, who wrote in their
own language,|but whose work was translated into
English.
One such writer was At-har Ali Khan, of Delhi, who described the common bird Baya (the Indian
Gross-beak)
froin personal observation.
It was a detailed
description:
the size of the bird, the colours in its
plumage, its nesting
and other habits, its food, its eggs, its
training under man
and various legends connected with it.
(Sir William
Jones, Works, I. 543-4).
Another, a physician Mir Mu-

hammad Husain, who was described as

"excelling in every
branch of useful knowledge," travelled in
1783 from
Lucknow to Calcutta, and made his contribution to
medical
research

He

gave certain prescriptions, and described

manner found worthy of record
(Jones,
DOO-oJL

diseases in a
JL.

KNOWLEDGE OF VALUABLE DRUGS, AND OF VACCINATION

The knowledge of Indian herbs and
drugs has only
recently begun to be utilised in western
systems of medicine, and has led to remarkable
results,

treatment of
leprosy.

moogra

01 1, is

especially in the

The old Indian

remedy, Chaulnow successfully
employed for leprosy all

cathartic,

are

due

to

India

(See

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

71

Mr.

P. Johnston-Saint, Sir George Birdwood Memorial

Lecture, 1929, The Times, London, llth May 1929).
It is less generally known that vaccination or inoculation

against small-pox was known and practised in the East

from time immemorial. Inoculation against small-pox,
that is, the introduction of a mild form of
cow-pox to

prevent the virulent form of small-pox, was introduced

from Turkey into England in 1721 by Lady Mary

Wortley
Montagu, whose husband had been British Ambassador in
After this, inoculation was practised in
Constantinople.
the British Isles, though not in a large or systematic scale.
Dr. Edward Jenner, an English physician, a pupil of the
famous Dr. John Hunter, made careful experiments in
the introduction of a mild

form of cow-pox for the prevention of small-pox in human beings.

He published his
results in 1798, and his methods were widely

adopted,
both in England and India, and indeed all over the world.
We find in the Calcutta Gazette (June 19, 1806), that "the
principal Inhabitants of Calcutta and its Dependencies"
sent Dr. Jenner a testimonial of their gratitude, with a
subscription of three thousand pounds, and a promise
The Committee consisted of Englishof more to follow.
men, but the subscriptions no doubt came from Indians
as well as Englishmen.

INDIAN SUBSCRIPTIONS TO PLEASE THE RULING POWER

as

it

It was indeed the fashion among wealthy Indians

then,
has been subsequently, to subscribe large sums for

any objects in which the British community in power was

interested.
Maharaja Nubkissen Bahadur (founder of
the Sovabazar family) gave Warren Hastings three lakhs
of rupees for his scheme of the Calcutta Madrasa for the
teaching of Persian and Arabic. This was quite natural.
The Maharaja began as a humble Munshi to the British
when Siraj-ud-Daula still ruled in Bengal, and owed his
wealth and position entirely to the British.
Moreover
the Madrasa was to be a Calcutta institution, in which
But the legacy of
all Indians might be interested.
2,000 left by Amir Chand
(or Uma Charan or

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

72

to the Foundling Hospital in London, is somewhat surprising. He knew nothing of the Foundling Hospital, or its objects or its work; and he would not have felt
complimented at his description in the list of benefactors
as "a black merchant of Calcutta."
Clive had been more
than a match for his treachery.
But he no doubt worshipped power, and he must have found it easy to forgive

Omichund)*

trickery, even at his

own expense*

HINDU METHOD OF VACCINATION

The method of vaccination practised by the Hindu waa

described by Nawab Mirza Mahdi Ali Khan from personal
observation in a memorandum which was published in
translation in the Asiatic Register, (London) for 1804. A
Chaube from Oudh lived in Benares City, and his practice

was

chiefly confined to outbreaks of small-pox. He acknowledged that he could do nothing after the eruptions had
It was
appeared.
mainly a process of prevention, or
"rendering it easy." "From the matter of the pustule on
the cow," said the Chaube, "I
keep a thread drenched,
which enables me, at pleasure, to cause an
easy eruption
on any child; adoring at the same time Bhawani
(who is
otherwise called Debi, Mata, and Sitla, and who has the
direction of this malady) as well in
my own person, as by

causing the father of the child to perform the like ceremonies; after which I run the drenched string into a
needle,
and drawing it through between the skin and flesh of the
child's upper arm, leave it
there, performing the same
operation in both arms, which always ensures an easy
eruption." f

Ed " artick Omichund by

a s a Sikh I thi * k
incorrectly.
c
***, was S. C. Hill's Bengal in 1766-7
rity qU ted S a Babu Sarada &aran
Vol. L T?
No. i1., pp. 1
9-15. After Amir Chand
>

lUA^K

-OT
lsit
f deVOti n to Maldawaj, winch would have been meanineless to a <?ifcti
have been a good euphemism for
ba^shment for a H/
Probably Anur Chand was a Khatri settled in
Most of
Bengal.
"

as aDove

wld

11.

durins

l12-3) ; see

II. 374-S79.

-toncon 1834;

(written in

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

73

THE NEW VACCINATION BECAME POPULAR AT ONCE

rare,

Whereas the practice of vaccination was previously

and only possible when a specialist was avail-

at
considerable expense,
its
able, and
adoption in.
England and the world generally after Dr. Tenner's experiments arid improvements, led to its introduction in.
its new form to India, and it became popular at once..
Mr. James Forbes wrote in 1812-13: "The English have

introduced the blessings of vaccination

among

all descrip-

tions of people in Hindustan.

By which means the livesof thousands and tens of thousands are annually preserved*.

In this

humane undertaking
and

the

Brahmans have

under their

risen

and
Hindus have adopted
the practice.
Many letters on this subject, from eminent
Brahmans to medical gentlemen in India, do them honour;,
they contain the most liberal sentiments, and have been
followed by a corresponding practice." In the Calcutta.
Native Hospital, 1,461 patients were inoculated for cowsuperior to

prejudice,

powerful influence,

all other castes of

extensive

in the year 1803-4, and a similar number in subsequent

It is curiousyears (Calcutta Gazette, September 1806).
that in later ages, this same vaccination should have

pox

much opposition in India. There is no doubt

was due to the waning of confidence between thepeople and their rulers.
aroused so

that this

INDIAN TREATMENT OF OPHTHALMIA AND CATARACT: ENGLISH.

DOCTOR'S TESTIMONY

Mr. Underwood, a relative of Dr. Forbes, who practised

in Madras, about the same time, wrote to him as follows.
"Although I have no high opinion of- the general mode of
practice among the natives, yet in a few instances I should,
1

give a preference to their remedies, particularly in the

The inflammation',
ophthalmia, or sore-eye, of India.
frequently runs so high that the sight is destroyed, unlessby some active means the affection, so deeply rooted,,
can be removed. This, I think, is best done by an early
application of what is called at Madras the "country
remedy," which is a thin paste, made by burning a little
alum on a hot iron, and mixing it with lime juice by a.
This is applied over both eye-lids,.
spafttila into a paste.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

74

of the

to the extent

and washed
leaves.

This

for a disease
.surprising

especially

circle of the

orbit, at going

to

rest,

morning with a decoction of tamarind

consider the best and most certain

off in the

that

so

remedy
causes blindness; a
natives are entirely blind,

repeatedly

number of the
among the poor. I have oftenseenaMahomedan

of
the operation
removing a
a small puncture with the point of a
the iris, into which he introlancet, immediately behind
duced a particular instrument, so guided as to depress the
This operation I prefer to any other mode yet
-cataract.
it occasions less injury to the eye/'
as
practised,
practitioner

-cataract.

perform

He made

"WHY THE OLD LEARNING FELL INTO A RUT

That both the learning and the learned in India had
fallen into a rut, and that they had ceased to keep pace with
the western world cannot be doubted. But it was not due to
'either want of will or want of talent, or want of character.
It was due to want of opportunities when they had power,
and poverty when they had lost their power. Tafazzul
Husain Khan, the Vakil of Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula at
Calcutta, about 1788-92,
Sir Isaac Newton's Principia

was engaged in translating

from Latin into Arabic (or

He also attempted to translate books on

it Persian?).
He
Algebra, Mechanics, Conic Sections, and Logarithms.
knew many languages, including Greek. He died in 1800,
and a notice of him appeared in the Asiatic Register
was

(Vol. V, 1803; Characters, p. 7).

whose

Another learned man,

we have

a detailed record,
written by himself, was Mirza Abu Talib Khan, also of
.Lucknow, but with connections in Bengal and Murshidabad.
.He travelled in western Asia, round Africa, and through

-of

intellectual curiosity

in 1799-1803, and wrote an account of his travels

in Persian, which was considered of sufficient
importance
to be translated into English
by Major Charles Stewart,
orientalist
and educationist. In an obituary
soldier,
notice of him the Calcutta Gazette
1807)

Europe

(September,

wrote: "Influenced wholly by a desire to

improve or amuse
Ms mind, then suffering under a series of
calamities,

heavy

determined to study the manners and institutions of the

European nations." We shall have occasion later to refer
lie

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

75

his literary work.

While select active minds were
reaching out to the new world of ideas that was opening
out to them, the men of the old learning displayed in their
character something of that other-worldliness, which was
a badge of their Eastern birth. The Pandits who were
assembled in Calcutta from upcountry and employed for
to

in compiling a Code of Hindu laws, were offered

for
their labours, but they refused to take anything
money
a
bare
subsistence allowance on account of their
except
from
home. They were content with the
.being away
of
for their own Colleges.*
endowments
promise
public

two years

ENDOWMENTS AND LOSS OF THE ATMOSPHERE OF FRESH

LEARNING: CALCUTTA MADRASA
Hindu and Muslim seats of learning had indeed
.suffered grievously during the numerous revolutions that
had engulfed India in the eighteenth century. They had
In many cases they had lost their
suffered in two ways.
endowments.
But, more important than the loss of
public
endowments was the loss of that tranquillity and settlement of mind which is required for intellectual pursuits,
ioth in teachers and pupils. Nadia and Benares were in
a state of decay as judged by living standards of learning.
The Muslim schools and colleges had even been harder
hit as they had been directly connected with the Powers
which had lost their sway. Warren Hastings established
the Calcutta Madrasa in 1780 "for the study of the differLOSS OF

ent branches of sciences taught in the Mahomedan

Schools." In justifying his action to the Directors of the
East India Company (February 21st, 1784), he wrote:
"It is almost the only complete establishment of the kind
now existing in India, although they were once in
universal use, and the decayed remains of these schools
are yet to be seen in every capital, town, and city of

Hindustan and Deccan*"f

SANSKRIT COLLEGE IN BENARES

A counterpart to the Calcutta Madrasa was the

Sanskrit College at Benares, established by the Resident
there in 1791, in the Governor-Generalship of Lord
*Gleig: Warren Hastings, IIL 158.

fGleig: Warren Hastings,

III. 159.

76

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

The funds were to come from the surplus*

Cornwallis.
the
revenue of
province or Zamindari of Benares (now
The object was stated to be "the
the Benares State).
the
cultivation of
Laws, Literature,, and, as inseparably
two former, the Religion of the
the
with
connected
"under the auspices and approbation of
Government." The subjects of study were comprehensively

Hindus"

Vedas, the Upanishads, the Upa-Vedas, the

Dharma-Shastras, theVedangas, the Darshanas, the
Puranas, and all the different Vidyas as set out in the
Agni Purana. The Professor of Medicine was to be a.
Vaidya, and the teacher of Grammar (Vyakarana) might
be so also; but as he could not teach Panini, it would be
better that all, except the physician, should be Brahmans,
The scholars were to be examined four times a year, in
the presence of the Resident, in all such parts of know*
ledge as were not held too sacred to be discussed in the
*
presence of any but Brahmans.
stated: the

CHEQUERED CAREER OF THE SANSKRIT COLLEGE

Neither the appointment of Professors nor their
supervision could have been on a satisfactory basis.
We
find that the first

Kashinath Pandit, wasPrincipal,

about 1801 for various malpractices,,
including embezzlements and false registers of students,
and teachers. The President of the Committee, Mr. John
Neaves, declared the Principal "to be the greatest villain
he ever saw." Meanwhile several
Pandits had been,
dismissed before him for various abuses.
The high-flown
aims of the College had not been
fulfilled, but it had
trained a few students fit to fill the
position of Pandits,
in Courts of Justice.
In 1811-12 the
College was.
reorganised, and the very wide scheme of studies restrictdismissed in or

Two Sanskrit Colleges had been established

by
Government in Bengal. As the
language of the Courts,
was still Persian, an attempt was made to
open a class for

ed.

Law Pandits in Persian, but not a

single
Fandit availed himself of the
opportunities provided.

the instruction of

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

77

Indeed the instruction in law itself was a failure. While

the Pandits with the weight of their past learning were
unwilling to adapt themselves to the new conditions,

Hindu Munshis and clerks in Government

were taking advantage of learning not only Persian
but English.
Gradually the whole position of the public
service and the judicial organisation was changed, and the
Sanskrit College was absorbed in 1844 in the Benares
the ordinary

.services

College as

its

CRITICISM OF

Sanskrit Department.

THE POLICY OF FOSTERING ORIENTAL LEARNING

Both the Calcutta Madrasa and the Benares Pathshala

"were ineffectual and had to be gradually transformed into
Anglo-Oriental institutions, having nothing to do with the
training of men in Oriental learning or for Courts of Law.
.From their very foundation they were subjected to criticism.
On the one hand it was objected by missionaries and their
friends

that

the

cultivation of

non-Christian

in Sanskrit or Arabic should not

knowledge
by Government.

religious

be encouraged

it was suggested, with

were
too wide, and there
proposed

In other quarters

truth, that the courses

were too many teachers compared with the number of

A third objection was raised by those who consipupils.
dered that instruction in English on Christian principles
was necessary and desirable. Among those who strongly
favoured this policy were men like Charles Grant and
James Forbes, who have already been mentioned. On the
Indian mind, in religious circles, this bias towards Christianity produced a strong prejudice against English education
Thus the educational movement oscillated in
altogether.
waves, one way and another, until practical considerations
won the day in favour of English, as we shall see when

we come

to discuss the

English education movement in the

Jiext period.

FAILURE OF

ORIENTAL

CLASSICAL

EDUCATION

CONTRASTED

WITH THE SUCCESS OF THE VERNACULARS

While this first phase of the Government movement
for the education of Indians was a failure, it is curious to
observe that the Government movement for the training of
their own British officers and the parallel and allied move.ment of the Serampore missionaries produced a consider-

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

78

able impression on the Indian vernaculars, and through*

them on the Indian mind. The failure and the success caiii
The failure was due to the fact,
both be explained easily.
the revival or bolstering up,
made
of events
that the
logic

It was,
of out-of-date systems in any case impossible.
who
did
not
when
attempted by people
doubly impossible
of
Fort
success
The
William
believe in those systems.
missionaries (such as it was)College, and of the Serampore

was

achieved were quite different from

was a direct and earnest wish to
there
at; but
mind. And the popular mind was in-

indirect;, the results

those aimed

reach the popular

fluenced, though it took

a direction entirely

unexpected.

FORT WILLIAM COLLEGE

Fort William College was founded by Lord Wellesley
Its beneficiaries were to be the servants of the

in 1800.

East India Company.

They were now,

at the

dawn

of

the*

nineteenth century, being drawn from a higher social

But
stratum and the better educated classes in England.
its
or
and
of
the
knew
languages
country
they
nothing
traditions, and could not therefore meet on equal or

superior terms with the Indians with whom they had to do

business in the high positions which they began to occupy

immediately on their arrival. It was necessary to train

Civilians in the languages and customs of the country in
an atmosphere congenial to their high dignity. Before
such an institution was in working order, the Company
had been obliged to "employ unlicensed persons, with,
whose characters and connections the Directors wereunacquainted, to fill important posts, to the disadvantage
of the Covenanted Servants, the latter not being qualified

The College was

Indeed it was criticised asbeing maintained extravagantly, and as giving the young.
Civilians "a good time" at the threshold of their career,
when they ought to have been learning business in their

to

discharge their particular duties."

amply provided with funds.

The training of the Civilians from

posts up the country.
all the three Presidencies at Calcutta was also considered
unpractical, and was not acceptable to the other two
Presidencies.

seemed

to

Well-paid Chairs for European subjects

extend the scope of the
College too widely.
-

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

19

Besides the European professors, there were eighty Pandits,.

Maulvis, and Munshis on the teaching staff, a numberoften greater than that of the scholars.
ITS

SHORT CAREER

The Company's Directors in London, whose previous;

grandiose scheme had not been obtained,,
to
in
it
1802, and ordered its abolition, subobjected
it
for
(1805) their own College in England, whichstituting
was afterwards known as Haileybury College. Each
sanction to this

Presidency also provided a local centre of education for

Thus the
its own Civilians in Indian languages and laws.
Fort William College had a very short life as conceived
by Lord Wellesley, though it continued to do useful work,

on a

restricted scale in the Presidency of Bengal for

It was abolished in 1854.

many

years afterwards.*

STUDY OF HINDUSTANI

Under the enthusiastic guidance of its Principal,.,

Dr. John Gilchrist, who came out to India in the medical
service of the Company in 1784, it started a great impulseGilchrist himself
for the systematic study of Hindustani.
published an English-Hindustani Dictionary (1787-90)
and a Hindustani Grammar (both in Calcutta), and
numerous other booksf in the language for the use of
He.
students of the College.
His idea was twofold.
wanted in the first place his Civilian pupils to learn a
vernacular that should have general popular currency in
the whole of India, as Persian had a general currency
then as the administrative, diplomatic and polite language.
They would then be able to talk with every one, and not
merely with their subordinates or with the higher classes.
In the second place, as Hindustani was then the most
* Between 1800 and 1818 it had published 31 Hindustani books, a
number greater than that in any other language that it dealt with..

(Roebuck College of Fort William, Appendix,

:

fGilchrist's

pp. 21-27) .

Urdu Dictionary (Urdu-English?)

is

said to have been:

published in Calcutta in 1787 (Calcutta Review, xiii.143) but none of

the likely libraries which I have consulted (including the British Museum
Library) has a copy. I fancy the Calcutta Review writer had really in
which the first part:
his mind the English-Hindustani Dictionary, o
was printed in 1787.
;

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

.80

vernacular,

with

the

widest

geographical
develop a prose which
.should serve as the universal official language in India.
.Lord Wellesley's idea was to collect learned men from all
parts of India, as Indian Princes used to do, to hold dispu-

developed

currency in India, he wanted

it

tations four times a year in a

to

grand Darbar,

in

fine

Luilding, before Pandits and Maulvis, Rajas, Nawabs, and

Indian dignitaries, and impress them with the grandeur of
Lord Wellesley was willing to
the new British power.
of the Directors
,-spend money liberally, but the veto

nipped his scheme in the bud.*

WAS FORT WILLIAM COLLEGE THE CRADLE OF URDU PROSE ?

It is often
to

claimed that Urdu prose owes its inception

This claim is true only in a qualified

Fort William.

Men

Mir Amman, of Delhi, who lost their all

Mughal capital, were glad to find employment in
Calcutta, and sang the praises of Lord Wellesley, the

sense.

like

in the

Ashraf ul Ashrdf (the noblest of the noble), jin ki tcfrlf

y
men aql hair an aur fahm sar-gardan hai (for whose
praise human intelligence is doubly inadequate), and of
John Gilchrist, sahib i zl shan muhibbon ke qadard&n,
(the gentleman of exalted station, patron of his friends).
In fact the patronage amounted to little, but the new body
of literature turned out for the young British officers and
learned by them set a new fashion in literature among the
Munshis and those who frequented official circles. As to
the older school of literati, the sakhun-dantin i zl sha'tir,
the established schools of Lucknow and Delhi,
they only
-scoffed.
Even Mir Amman, writing in Calcutta, seeks to
.justify his

new idiom

in the Introduction

to

his

Bagh

Bahdr, by two implied arguments: (1) that he was writing

for the instruction of
foreigners, and (2) that the ruin of
.Delhi had scattered its men
and mixed
among distant
places

* Lord
Wellesley' s notes on the foundation of Fort William College
and bis Regulations will be found in Martin's
Wellesley Despatches,
II 325*&61. See also the Annual Asiatic
Register, Vol. II, p! 104. I have
behind
the
gone
colourless official phraseology, which I have
:in the light of events.

interpreted

have also used non-official sources.

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

81

No Urdu writer or reader ever read the

vernacular.
or any of the other text-books of the Fort
o
Bahar
Bagh
William College as literature.*
its

HOW URDU
The

PROSE REALLY AROSE

real foundation of

purposes was

Urdu prose

laid after Persian

for current literary

was deposed

in

1839 from

position as the language of law, administration, diplomatic correspondence with Indian Darbars, and local

its

In Hyderabad and some other States Persian

official language until a generation ago,
and the current use of the vernacular came correspondingly

records.
still

remained the

Law and

legal phraseology gave precision to the

their
use in court records and petitions envernaculars;
nobled them in the eyes of all classes of the people; and
later.

use in terse orders and reports stripped them of that

verbosity and circumlocution, that flowery exurberance,
which had become associated with literature. The rise of
vernacular newspapers brought the vernaculars into touch
with current events, enriched them with new words owing
to contact with a wider world, and affected popular speech
and popular modes of thought far more than the older
literatures, confined to select circles, could have done.
their

FAILURE OF THE

IDEA OF A VERNACULAR AS A COMMON

LANGUAGE OF INTERCOURSE THROUGHOUT INDIA
The chief merit of Dr. Gilchrist's conception lay in a
direction where it failed.
At that time no vernacular had
notable
or stood in the minds of the
literature
any
prose

people as a vehicle for literature.

Sanskrit to the Hindus,

and Arabic and Persian to the Muslims, meant the languages of learning and literature. Verse in the vernaculars
embodied ballads or legends, or combats of wit, or love
themes, or religious songs, or songs of ceremony. The
vernaculars were only used in prose in familiar or bazar
All of them except one were locally confined to
talk.
definite areas, which were called countries
(Z)es's).
* Saiyid Abdul Latif (Influence of English Literature on Urdu
p. 80)
follows the more orthodox view that the Fort William College productions "have contributed in no small measure to the very high standard of
$rose which Urdu writers have attained during recent years." As a
matter of fact the Fort William translations are not free from prose
rhymes. There were hardly any prose works published, apart from these
before 1832 or a good deal later.
6

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

82

of the supremacy of the

That one exception was the result
form was that of Delhi,,
Mughal Empire, Its standard
over the country, from
but its local forms were spread all
and from the
the Afghan border to Eastern Bengal,
It was roughly called HindusHimalayas to the Deccan.
tani or Hindi, or

among

the learned of the

idea was

Urdu* or Rekhta. Gilchrist's

medium of communication between

Muslim Courts,
make it the

to

the English adminisAs Mir

India generally.
the
know
language
Amman says: "The British desired to
of the Camp and converse in it with the people of India/"
ke Urdu hi zabdn se'
(Sdheban i zi shan ko shauq hua
se guft o shanid Karen).
wdqif hokar Hindustdniyon
The Commission which he was given to write he expresses

and the people

trators

of

"Translate this tale into the common spoken

the people of the camp,
language of Hindustan, such as
Hindu and Muslim, women, men and children, great and
ko theth
small, speak amongst each other" (Js qisse
as follows:

Hindustani guftagil men jo Urdu ke log, Hindu Mussalman, aurat mard, larke bale, khds o am, dpas men bolte
If Persian had been abandoned then instead of in
hain).
1839 as the official language, it is possible that Urdu could
have taken its place, and we should have to-day a vernacular language of common intercourse throughout India,
By 1839 the idea of vernaculars had been provincialised.

CAUSES OF THE FAILURE: PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE

would not have been the highly

idiom
Persianised
which it became as the special language
of the Muslims. It would have been closer to the soil.
It would have been Hindustani as understood by the Principal of the Fort William College. Later attempts have been
made in that direction, by, for example, Insha in Lucknow
(who died 1817), Pandit Sudhakar in Benares (circa
1900), and the Allahabad Hindustani Academy (which is
now
to that end).
But without a central direction
working
^^
J*
the movement cannot gather strength, and it will depend

Urdu

"

in that case

'

^rm

>

'

-.

of Clta^or Durwesh from Persian.

--L

..._.

_ *It was Urdu ki 8aban> not Urdu Zaban, as the term is used
BykoBahar. That meant the language spoken in camp and

Mr Amman uses it in describing his

in the

bazar*

commission to translate the story

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

for

its

success

upon a

desire for linguistic unity

among

83
the

two great communities of India. It may be noted that a

mere desire to exclude Persian or Arabic words (as in the
case of Insha) would be only a trick, a tour de force in a:
particular work, and cannot succeed in building up sL
It would only be on a par with Insna's
flexible language.
Persian Mathnavi from which all dotted letters are excluded (Mathnavi be-nuqt\ which can have no possible
effect on popular speech.
The collaboration of Sri Lallu
Lai Kavi and Kazim AH Jawan in the Fort William
College could produce in Singhasan Batttsi, a mechanical
mixture of Persianised and Sanskritised words, but they
did not reflect the language spoken naturally in the
The Hindi prose which Sri Lallu Lai wrote as
villages.
pure Hindi created a new kind of artificial Sanskritised
Hindi, quite different from the beautiful language of Braj
poetry. The difference in vocabulary between Mir Amman's
or Nihal Chand Lahori's Calcutta prose and the popular
poetry of Nazlr Akbarabadi (who died about 1830) ishardly perceptible. We can almost say the same of the
Diwan of Wall of Aurangabad (who flourished about 1722),,
making due allowance for his Deccani. The difference
between the vocabulary of Sri Lallu Lai's Prem Sagar and
the contemporary or even later Braj songs in honour of
Krishna is noticeable to a marked degree. Here we had
the creation of a new high Hindi, which marked a strong
departure from the language popularly used in Hindustan.
Not only did the ideal of a united Hindustani for northern'
India or the whole of India recede more and more into the
background. Even the language of Hindustan became

more markedly

differentiated as between the two comIt may be that this sharp differentiation was
munities.
natural or inevitable in the circumstances of the nineteenth,
It is for consideration among the leaders of
century.

how far a new approximation is

possible in the interests of a united India.
both communities

now

BENGALI AND THE SERAMPUR MISSIONARIES

The Serampur missionaries indirectly laid the foundamodern Bengali literature. As India owes to this
literature such names as Pandit Ishwar Chunder VidyaBankim Chunder Chatterji and Rabindranath
sagar,
tions of

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

84

Tagore, this movement has an all India importance. The

Fort William College, though it was in Bengal, did
less
for Bengali than for Urdu and Hindi.
But the Serampur
leaders were in touch with the College, through the
common
link of the Asiatic Society, and were helped
by it and
helped it. They devoted themselves mainly, but by no
means exclusively, to Bengali the systematisation of the
language, the production of Bengali type and

printing
the publication of vernacular translations, not
only of
the Bible, but of other useful works.
They also taught
English, and were interested in establishing western ideas
in India.
They were missionaries of a very different type
from the general run of missionaries hitherto seen
in
India.
As Baptists they had the evangelistic
outlook,
They believed, not in a priesthood, or in mystical doctrine,'
but in appealing to the people in their own
vernaculars, in
using their own heritage of literature and

and

knowledge, and
in imparting western education of a
practical type. Their
work better reflected the practical direct methods of
the
average earnest Englishman than did the statecraft of the
men in high places. As their success
depended less on
money or organisation than on the personality of their
three leaders, we
might cast a rapid glance at the lives of

Carey,

Marshman and Ward.

CAREY AND EDUCATION

to

William Carey was a wonderful man.

a shoemaker in
England, he had the

Sf

*T?

Apprenticed

strength of character to study Latin

Greek, and Hebrew, in spite of his
When the call of religion came to
poverty
him, he
worked for two years in his own
country and came out to
Calcutta as the first
Baptist missionary in 1794 at the aee
re
not then allowed to woric
r

h^l

^ionaries
S

SsourSf but he
resources,

^T

worked

He had no material
an indigo factory in Malda

territories -

at

Sr
nn
Serampur,

Ut

to

the

Danish

settlement

thirteen miles north of

Calcutta.
is

of

The Danish

missionary work *
^

Sanskrit

-ii

h"- 'rftppfcv^JLJiv V*

JLJLV

and Bengali in the Fort

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE 85

William College, and worked in conjunction with the
Asiatic Society.
Amidst much discouragement he alsa
much
got
sympathy and assistance, and with his coMarshman
and Ward, he established a centre of
adjutors,
eastern and western education and scientific study, that
has left a deep impression on the cultural history of India.
As a botanist he edited the Flora Medica of Roxborgh,
the father of Indian Botany.
He founded the Agrihorticultural Society of India, which still flourishes.
He

was also keenly interested in zoology. He died in Serampur in 1834. His wife assisted him in all his work*
and established the Serampur Native Female Education
Society, which managed at one time fourteen girls' schools.

MARSHMAN AND BENGALI JOURNALISM

Joshua Marshman was a son of a weaver, and became
a school-master in England.
Seven years younger than
Carey, he joined the Baptist mission at Serampur in 1799,
and worked at Indian schools in Calcutta, while his wife
conducted a boarding school. In 1811 he founded the
Benevolent Institution at Calcutta, for instructing the
children of indigent Christians, not without a protest
from the Junior Presidency Chaplain, on account of its
"injurious tendency" with reference to Church of England
institutions in Calcutta.*
With his son John Clark
he
took
in
the
Marshman,
part
literary activities of his
and
built
the
handsome
river-side building of
mission,
Serampur College, overlooking Barrackpur Park across
the river.
It still flourishes and houses an interesting
library.

But the Marshmans, father and son,

may be

considered particularly as the founders of Bengali journalism.

J. C. Marshman was the first to set up a paper-mill
in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. Hitherto paper had come
from Patna or other places up the country, or been imported from abroad, and in both cases the cost was high. The
new paper was cheap and made on western lines, suitable
for the everyday needs of journalism. J. C. Marshman was
responsible for" the first series of elementary books for
"Native" schools and he closed his career with a meritorious History of India in two volumes (1863), which he
* 31st
July 1811, Calcutta Gazette advertisements.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

S6

"Native Youth of Bengal."

appropriately dedicated to the
In this he devoted a little attention to the cultural growth
of India.

WARD AND PRINTING

William Ward, the third of the Serampur trio, was a son
of a carpenter, and learnt as a youth the trade of a printer
He edited several provincial newspapers in
in England.
his own country, before he went out to India, as a Baptist
His special department of work was
missionary, in 1799.
He
superintended the Serampur Press, which
printing.
of the Bible in 20 different languages.
translations
printed
He set up Bengali type. He was interested in the history,

and mythology of the Hindus, their manners and

and
their philosophy, and wrote an elaborate book
customs,
t>n the subject in three volumes, which was published in
5erampur (1811), followed by a later edition in London
(1822). Though he takes a gloomy view of the Hindus,
he is full of hope for the future. The following words
from his Preface express his zeal both for India
.and for his own country: "But let Hindustan receive
literature,

that higher civilisation she needs, that cultivation of which

she is so capable; let European literature be transfused

her languages, and then the ocean, from the ports

of Britain to India, will be covered with our merchant
vessels; and from the centre of India moral culture and
science will be diffused all over Asia
Never was such
a mighty good put within the power of one nation..* the
into all

raising of a population of one

hundred millions to a rational

nd happy existence, and, through them, the illumination
and civilisation of all Asia." This was a noble dream
none the less noble because the muse of history may after
a century smile at the spirit of British self -complacence.

:NEWS SHEETS BEFORE

When we come

THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING

to examine the
history of Indian

we must not assume that the printed newspaper,

we know it, is the form in which journalism began in
our own country. That is no more true than the statement

journalism,
as

that postal

communication began with the invention of the

1840.
Good and efficient
postal communication existed for State
from very

adhesive postage
stamp in

pu;rposes

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

87

We have detailed accounts of the ordinary

early times.
and the express post in the reign of Muhammed Tughlug*
In the
(1333), and of the post in the reign of Akbar.J
-same way news was collected, written out, despatched, and
communicated for State purposes systematically under the
Mughal Empire. The collector and despatcher of news
was the Khabar-rasan; the writer was the Waqayi '-nawis
or Waqi *a-nawis\ the postal runners who carried the
In
letters or daily diaries were the Harkaras or qasids.
eighteenth century, when the central authority was
weakened and communications became irregular, most of
ihe minor powers had their own means of communication.
But if a regular news service is to be established for the

.the

direct use of the public, it is essential that there should be

a printing press, and that was not introduced into India
.till the establishment of British rule in Bengal.
:

PLACES FROM WHICH NEWS CAME

An interesting glimpse into the circulation of news in

India by means of Persian papers is afforded by an
This was the
English book printed in Calcutta in 1801.
Hindoostance Intellingencer and Oriental Anthology* It
contained a narrative of events in the interior provinces
of Hindustan, Punjab, and Afghanistan, as derived from
Persian papers.
The news was received through Akhbars
and Qasids, from Delhi, Peshawar, Kabul and other places.
was collected at the chief centres of political influence,
e.g. in the Courts of the Maratha Chiefs of Upper India, of
Sindhia's French General Monsieur Perron, of Ali Bahadur
Nawab of Banda, and of the British adventurer George
Thomas, who carved out a short-lived Jat Kingdom at
It

Hansi-Hisar.

ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS: BENGAL GAZETTE

As

the first

printing in India was in the English

the first newspapers to have
and intended for the British readers in

language, we should expect

been in English,
The first Englishman to
India, and that was the case*
start a newspaper in India was James Augustus Hicky.
He was a trade adventurer, became insolvent, and was in
*

See

my Three Travellers to India, p* 35%

In the Ain-i-Akbari.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

88

When he had served his term,

the Calcutta jail in 1776.
he started Hickfs Bengal Gazette in 1780. From the
beginning he was in conflict with the authorities. He was
imprisoned, and fined for attacks on Warren.
Hastings (the Governor-General) and Sir Elijah Impey
In March 1782 his press was seized,
(the Chief Justice).
and the short-lived paper came to an end. I have

arrested,

examined the
was mostly of

files

of the

"Settlement," as he calls
items of Indian interest.

1780, we

Bengal Gazette. The matter

European inhabitants of the

interest to the

Calcutta,

but

Under dates

two items.

there

May

6th

are some
to

13th,

woman was

seized by
poor
a tiger in a tope (a little thicket or spinney) a mile from a
European house in Calcutta. The servants demanded even
find

and did no work unless they were

watched; government regulations were clamoured for.
Under dates Oct. 6th to 13th we find a complaint that
numerous arrack (intoxicating spirits) shops were kept by
Europeans without license; and servants came and got
drunk there.

then exorbitant wages,

ASIATIC MISCELLANY

We can imagine the sort of circles in which Hicky'a

Bengal Gazette circulated. But there was a more cultivated
and select circle of English society in Calcutta, which was
catered for by a quarterly journal, the Asiatic Miscellany*
which lasted for two years 1785-1786, and was revived
in a new form in 1789.
This had a distinctly literary
It sold at a gold Mohur
per volume in Calcutta
(1.7.6). Its contributors included Mr. W. Chambers,
Sir William Jones (Judges of the
Supreme Court), "and

character.

other

literary

contained

gentlemen

translations

now

and

resident

imitations

in India."

It

from Oriental
some news, very

languages, and elegant extracts, as well as

scanty and stale, but of an authenticated character.

THE CALCUTTA GAZETTE AND OTHER NEWSPAPERS

The real British newspaper of Calcutta in those early

days was the Calcutta Gazette. It was a semi-official
weekly, published on Thursdays, and contained official
notifications and orders, editorial
comments, news of all

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

correspondence, verses, reports of social parties,,
reports of cases in the Supreme Court, and extracts from
other papers, including those from England, as well asadvertisements.
Balloon ascents figure sometimes in the
news.
The paper was started in 1784, under the sanction
and authority of the Governor-General and Council, and
Mr. F. Gladwin (its first Editor) was supplied with
material for the official portion. It carried the Arms of
the East India Company on its first page. But the Government was not responsible for the management, or, except
as regards the official communiques, for the contents
of the paper.
Extracts from other papers mention the
kinds,

Madras Intelligence (as early as December 1785), theMadras Courier (February 1786), the Indian Gazette of

'

Calcutta (June 1789), the Bombay Gazette (1791), the

Bombay Courier (November 1794), etc. Reference is
made to "Delhi Ukhbars" (e.g. on April 13th, 1815),.

"Lahore Ukhbars," (3rd December 1812), "Lahore newspapers" (8th September 1814), and "Ukhbars" frontHolkar's camp (same date), which must mean Persian

The
of a public or semi-public nature.
correspondence included newsletters (probably in Persian)
from Delhi and other places up-country, as well as
The advertisements throw
extracts from private letters.
on
varied
matters:
food, drinks, prices, rents*
very
light
wages, books in vogue, pictures, run-away slaves, lotteries,

news-sheets

amusements, and other things that interested AngloThe Calcutta Gazette changed itsIndian
society.
character from June 1815, when it became the Government Gazette, still however retaining some features of
an ordinary newspaper. After 1823 it was published
In 1832, it ceased to exist as a newspaper,
twice a week.
the
Government
Gazette assumed its modern form,,
and
with purely

official contents.

London Gazette the

world, was only started

It is interesting to

note

that

oldest existing newspaper in the

in 1666, a little over a century
It also conbefore the original Calcutta Gazette (1784).
in
addition
toin
the
news
tained ordinary
beginning,

the

official matter.

BRITISH INDIA
CULTURAL HISTORY OF

-90

IN INDIA
DOUBLES OF BRITISH JOURNALISTS
the history of Angloneed not pursue further
those
early days the Calcutta
In
T j-.n innrnalisrn.
that had official countenance,
r l^-was theory paper

We

s
go
so, iit got

1796 for some matter

had tQ digown Qn
absence from Calcutta. There

too ?rouhle

in

into trouble
otner papers, which got
for the
at
wonder
this,
not
time to time. We must
Irorn
iromumc
difficult time in England itself,

eanu

^S

rfk reactionary

Uhel Act of 1792;

1798-

of

there

there

were

ferment.

There was
Newspaper

was
numerous measures under
the rigorous

the

Act

Pitts

and controlling the newspapers,

.Government for influencing
mode of distribution. There
and
tnd reflating their price
and the tax on adverwas thf stamp duty on newspapers
The

Times,
was in such circumstances that
born in London
the
of
world,
the most famous newspaper
but independent
n 1788, set up a tradition of steady
m

tisements

It

won so high a place

the censorship of the
India
In
The newspaper world.*
1799.
Though it was removed in
Press was imposed in
remained in force, and it was only
1819, restrictive rules
of the 1830's that Sir
Movement
the great Liberal
freedom to the Press in
Charles Metcalf e really granted
ol
The Anglo-Indian Press was usually critical
1835
one
More than
hostile.
-the Government, if not actually
India
from
was deported
by the East India
English editor
for example in 1794, 1803, and
-Company's government,
to mention.
1823. One influential English journalist we ought
Calcutta
Journal in
the
started
James Silk Buckingham
obnoxious to Government
1818, but his writings were so
was revoked in 1823,
India
in
reside
to
licence
Jhat his
India
East
The
was
Company in those
and he
expelled.
over Indians but
not
had
only
extraordinary powers
days
the question
.over Europeans. Buckingham, however, raised
and
a
member
of
Parliament,
became
he
in England, where
of
601
Blue-book
1834) was
(No.
.a whole Parliamentary
has
national journalism, which

.devoted to his case.

*It was the

first

The Company had eventually

to use the steam press, as early as 1814.

to

com-

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

91

pensate him with a pension of

200 a year. In England

he started (1828) the weekly literary paper, the Athenceum,
ivhich in other hands had a long and honourable career
until it was absorbed in The Nation in 1921.
NEWSPAPERS WITH TYPE-PRINTED PERSIAN AND BENGALI
About newspapers in Indian languages, the statement
is usually made that the first of its kind was the
Bengali
weekly Samachar Darpan which the Serampur missionaries
issued in 1818*. It was not even the first newspaper printed in the Bengali language. That honour belongs to the

Samachar issued by Gangadhar Bhattacharyaf

(1816-18). But the Samachar Darpan had a longer life,
(1818-1837), more varied items of news and information,
and a wider circulation. As we saw, news letters in
.manuscript had been circulating in Persian long before
that date. In chapter II we noted that Halhed cast Persian
and Bengali types before 1778. Probably Persian printing in India was earlier than Bengali printing, as Persian
was then and for many years afterwards the current official

.Bengal

language in the whole of India.

it

as
its

For newspaper printing,

Persian was used as early

1784 if not earlier. The Calcutta Gazette had, in
very first number (4th March 1784), a Persian

is

interesting

to

note

that

column, type-printed, headed: Khuldsa-i-Akhbdr iDarbdr

iMo'alla ba Ddr al Khildfat Shah-jahandbdd (Summary

News from the exalted Court, at the Capital, Delhi).

was a diary of a Waqi a-Nawis at the Mughal Emperor's
Court from day to day, with an English translation in a
This was continued week after week
parallel column.
for several numbers.
It was more than a Court Circular,
of

fi

It

The date given

in Burgess's Chronology of India is 1821. The

will be found in Marshman's Life and Times,
11.175. The Danish missionaries in Tranquebar, earlier in the 18th
century, also set up a Press in Southern India, in the "Malabar language"
(Kanarese?). But I have seen no record of their having published a
newspaper in a Dravidian language. See account of the Progress of
the Missionaries to Tranquebar, Part II, p. 18, London 1710 : and Letters
relating to the Protestant Danish Mission at Tranquebar, London 1720,
p. 13.
printing press for Malabaric and Portuguese was projected in
1709, and a printing press was received "from our benefactors In England" in 1718, for which they cut moulds and cast type locally. They
also erected a paper-mill at great expense at Tranquebar.
t Sushil Kumar De ; History, of Bengali Literature, p. 236,

correct date (1818)

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

92
as
I

contained general news

the
think, be considered
it

of a varied kind.
first

printed

It

may,

newspaper

in a

Like its English host, in

in
language current
a semi-official journal
was
it
whose columns it appears,
there were typeGazette
Calcutta
the
In later numbers of
and
notices
advertisements,
Persian and Bengali
India.

printed

considered the local language

Bengali being
Persian the general language of India.
BENGALI, PERSIAN,

of Bengal and

AND URDU NEWSPAPERS

When the Bengali Samachar Darpan appeared in

1818,

Hastings was Governor-General. He

the Marquess
and
encouraged the project, and wrote with his
approved
A Persian edition was simultaEditor.
the
to
own hands
a postal concession waswhich
on
neously published,
It was to circulate at one-fourth the rate of the
granted.
About 1822
charges on English newspapers.*
of

postage

Persian newspaper, the

appeared the eight-page weekly
Urdu
an
with
fdmi Jahan-numa,
literary^ supplement,

Tarikh i 'Alamgir.
The Urdu supplement lasted barely two years, but the
Persian paper flourished, and in 1828 had a press of its
containing an

own

in

Urdu

Calcutta.

translation of the

Other Persian papers were: the Aina i

1831, (a literary paper), the Sultan

Sikandari, Calcutta,

ulAkhbar, Calcutta, the Mahri'Alam Afroz, Calcutta,

Mahr i Munir, Calcutta, and the Akhbdr i Ludhiana,
Ludhiana, 1839. The last was a paper issued by the
American missionaries in Ludhiana. Thus the country
was covered by a net-work of newspapers in the Persian
language, from Calcutta in the East to Ludhiana in the
As regards the Sultan ul Akhbar, it may be
West.
noted that it was edited by the well-known literary
luminary of Lucknow, Mirza Rajab *Ali Beg Surur^
the author of the Fasana i 'Ajaib.
I have not been

the

ascertain accurately
the precise date of the
the
or
or
precise year
years when Surur was in
paper,

able to

* Calcutta Review, xiii. 145. The rest of the

paragraph is based on
an article in Khayalistan (Lahore, April 19SO), by Saiyic Shahinshah
of
called
Farsi Akhbar Tahd, Company men,
HusamRazwi,
Lucknow,
which in its turn was based on an article by Khan Bahadur A.F.M. Abdul
o
the
Records
of
the
Ali, Keeper
Government of India. I regret I have
been taxable to get Mr. Abdul Ali's original article.

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

Calcutta.*

It is

stated that Surur in his

93

paper developed

vigorous Qasdrat) journalistic style, and that he ventured to criticise police administration and government
measures. We can quite well understand that Surur's
a.

Lucknow up-bringing would give independence

character, and pointed precision to his pen.

to

his

GUJARATI JOURNALISM PIONEERED BY PARSIS

On the Bombay side the Parsis were the pioneers in

Indian journalism, as they were in Indian trade and manufactures and the practical arts.
Two names stand out in
this connection, both belonging to a priestly family. Mulla
Firoz (1758-1830) did a great deal to investigate the old
Zoroastrianism and revive a spirit of religion among the
Parsis.
He enjoyed the confidence of the Government and
wrote the George-nama, a Persian epic of British rule,
called after George III and dedicated to Queen Victoria.
His library is still one of the public institutions of Bombay.
In 1822 he with Mr. Fardunji Marzban, founded the
Gujarati newspaper, the Bombay Samcichar, which still
exists as a leading Gujarati daily in Bombay.
Marzban

was a practical book-binder and opened his printing press

in 1812.
He collaborated with Mulla Firoz in various
for his own community.
The Bombay
ventures
literary

Samachdr

is

the oldest existing vernacular newspaper in

India.

*The date of the Fasana i 'Ajaib was 1828, not 1845 as noted in Tanha's
Siyar-ul-Musannifin, I. 149. The date 1845 is given by Garcin de Tassy,
Histoire de la Litterature Hindoue et Hindoustanie 2nd ed., III. 188,
but it must be the date of the earliest lithographed copy used by De
the first year of the reign of NasirTassy. The Fasana was completed
ud-din, King of Oudh, 1828 (Hijri, 1244) : see Scale's Oriental Biographical Dictionary, 1894, p. 394. De Tassy's date for Surur' s death is
1869. Tanh. says that he found in Tazkira that Surur was in Lucknow
till 1843, but he does not think he could have left Lucknow before 1856.
Zutshi, in his Guldasta i A dab (p. 14), Quoting Garcin de Tassy
says Surur was in Lucknow till Ib47, and from another authority that he
went to Calcutta in 1863. Shahinshah Husain's date for the Sultan ul
Akhbar (ur supra, p. 30) is 1830. Can it be that after writing the

Ajaib in Lucknow in 1828 he went to Calcutta about 1830 to

that he returned to Lucknow subsequently, and was in
Calcutta again after 1843 that he worked again in Lucknow under WS'jid
4
Ali Shah (1847-56), whose exile he afterwards shared in Calcutta; and
that he returned home to die, some time after 1863? More probably the
unknown Tazkira made a slip about the date 1813, or possibly Tanha may

Fasana

edit his paper

have mixed up

his notes.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

94

CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL JOURNALISM

Thus we see that Indian journalism hegan under
favourable auspices quite early in the history of British
rule, and with a great deal of countenance from the Government. But four elements are essential to really successful

(1) efficient and cheap printing;

education, in touch with current life,
large masses of the people ^ (3) a wide

journalistic enterprise:

(2) a practical
diffused

among

popular interest in public questions, including those of

administration, social movements, and
politics, public
events abroad, and (4) an instructed public opinion, not
necessarily unified, but seeking some measure of unity,,
and able to influence the policy of Government and those at
the

helm of

affairs in various

were

departments of

life.

None

period, and
Indian journals of this period are mere
curiosities, though they are interesting as the first-fruits of
a movement that has gathered strength since.
LITERARY INDIA: THREE VOICES

of these conditions

fulfilled

in this

therefore the

In speaking of the literary voices of the period, we

must take account of three distinct notes: (1) the voice of

dying India, (2) the voice of a new India that was being
born under foreign influences, and (3) the voice of an
India which still spoke in its old accents and according
to the old conventions, but which was
being insensibly
transformed by forces from within, of which it was hardly
conscious.

POETRY OF DYING INDIA

Some

voices of dying India

we considered

in connec-

tion with the Delhi poets of the

end of the eighteenth century.

Other interesting notes were struck by Sufi
poets in Hindi*
both Muslim and Hindu. Gulal Sahib and Bhika Sahib
flourished

in the latter half of the 18th

century. They
carried on the tradition of an earlier
generation of Sufis
who wrote in Hindi, such as Keshav Das and Bulla Sahib,

who themselves

inherited an earlier tradition of Delhi,

represented by Yari Sahbi (1668-1723).
There were two
independent but kindred movements. Shiv Narayan, a
Rajput near Ghazipur, founded (about 1734) a sect rejecting caste

and

idolatry,

and permitting Hindus and

LEARNING, EDUCAT10JN, JUUKlNJALlbM &

Muslims

to

own rites. They claimed to have

Emperor Muhammad Shah (who
Pran Nath, a Kayasth of Panna in Bun-

observe their

the countenance of the

died in 1748).
delkhand, similarly tried a synthesis between the two religions, permitting each member to follow the customary
His patron was Chhatar Sal, the
rites of his own family.
founder of Chhatarpur (who died in 1732). These move-

ments and earlier Panths (sects) founded in previouswere in consonance with the spirit of the times,
and only took a more modern form in the next generationcenturies

in the Brahmo Samaj movement. The latter, however, was

purely religious, while these were poetic and literary.*
The Kabi poetry of Bengal was in the form of popular
religious songs, and arose about the end of the eighteenth-

century.

PROSE OF

AN INDIAN TRAVELLER TO WESTERN LANDS

The new India that was being fashioned in its mind

by conscious contact with the west may be illustrated from
Mirza Abu Taleb Khan. He travelled in Asia, Africa,,
and Europe in the years 1799-1803, and wrote an account
of his travels in Persian.
It was considered of sufficient,
importance to be translated by Major Charles Stewart, Professor of Oriental Languages at
Haileybury. The Mirza was*
born in Lucknow in 1752. He had connections with the

governing class

in

Murshidabad and Bengal generally..

under British administration, he

When Bengal came

returned

Oudh, but retained his connections with.

Bengal.
friendly to the new administration, and
visited
Calcutta.
In 1793 Captain D. Richard-'
frequently
to

He was

son, going on three years* leave to

Europe, took him as a
companion with him, and as he was anxious to study
western life and thought, he
gladly embraced the opportunity of travel, with hopes of getting some
diplomatic post
for the East under the British
In this he
government.
was disappointed, but he was received with
great distinction in England. He was
presented to the King (George III)
and Queen Charlotte. He mixed with the
nobility of
England, saw the Cabinet Ministers and the Archbishop o

*For this paragraph, see F. E. Keay : Hindi

Literature,
For Kabi poetry see S. K. De
:

pp. 67, 68, 69J

History of Bengali Literature, pp. 306-7.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

Canterbury, and attended a banquet of the Lord Mayor of
London, He died in 1807 and was honoured with an
obituary notice in the Calcutta Gazette, an unprecedented
honour for a native of India in those days.
-A.BU

TALEB KHAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND

What did such a man

think of Europe and her ways,

He wrote his impressions
without indiscriminate
without
and
freely,
prejudice,
He
British
esteemed
hospitality highly, and
praise*
the
of
life
with
good things
enjoyed
becoming relish. The
viands he found delicious, and the wines exquisite.
Britain and her institutions?

Englishwomen he considered beautiful, and very graceful

in the dance.
He admired their music. He was greatly
.struck with the glass houses in which every kind of fruit
was grown, and devoted pages of description to them as a
.remarkable novelty.
After a visit to Oxford, he saw
Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, and considered it superior to anything he had ever beheld, not
He
-excepting Windsor Castle, the residence of the King.
was not insensible to the charms of sport. "No country
in the world," he says "produces a greater variety of
He wrote a Persian ode to
>sporting dogs than England."
London in imitation of the Odes of Haf iz. Unfortunately

was no poet. London was of course the largest city he

had seen, but he dwells on other features of London besides its size.
He was impressed with the brilliant
lighting of its streets arid shops by night and the arrangement of its squares or great open spaces. He enjoyed its life

.he

to the full: its coffee-houses, its clubs, its masquerades,

-with fancy costumes and masks, as well as the more
.serious side of its life, its literary, musical, and scientific
.societies (including the Royal Society).
He notices its

Royal Exchange, and its business life, as well as

newspapers and presses. English charity, he justly
observes, was not given to casual beggars but through
organised public institutions. Mail coaches travelling
1,000 miles in seven or eight days evoked his admiration,
as also the British navy and British seamanship. He duly
'observed the excellence of the mechanical arts, steam
foundries, engraving, cutlery, and iron works. The poverty

banks,
its

its

97
LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE
"the
peasants impressed him:
he remarks, "are rich compared to
peasants of India/'
he found

among

the Irish

them."

AND OF ENGLISH PEOPLE

out judicially a reasoned catalogue of British
virtues and vices, extenuating nothing nor setting down
He approves of trial by jury in England,
aught in malice.
He
but not the tendency to allow law to override equity.
of law in India.
courts
British
of
the
altogether disapproves
The severity and ambiguity of English law incurs his
On the subject of liberty, he has a balanced
censure.

He sets

more freedom
opinion. Though the common people enjoyed
than in any other well-regulated State, the equality was
The difference
more in appearance than in reality.
between the comforts enjoyed by the rich and the poor was
much greater in England than in India. In the same

women: he would not admit that the greater

of women in England was not accomfreedom
apparent
panied by greater real restraint than in the case of Muslim
women. He wrote a pamphlet on the Liberty of Asiatic
Women, which was published in the Asiatic Annual
Among the virtues he admired in the
Register in 1801.
English may be mentioned: the high sense of honour
among the better classes; the desire to improve the common
people; obedience to laws and rules of propriety; sincerity
and plain dealing. Among the features which he condemned were: want of religion; luxurious living; contempt
for other nations.
But, he adds, many of these vices were,
about

way

not natural to the English character, but ingrafted by too

much

prosperity.

LTJCKNOW POETRY

The atmosphere wholly changes when we turn from

this chivalrous critic, this cosmopolitan man of the world,
this detached favourite of Calcutta English society, to the

court of Lucknow, where internal forces were working to

transform the old traditions, and where literature, struggling to free itself, was yet under the fetters of the old
conventions and the narrow court life.
In this connection

we

shall content ourselves

of Insha.

with noticing the

life

and work

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

98

INSHA'S BKILLIANT ATTAINMENTS

of a family of
Saiyid Insha-Allah Khan Insha came
the confusion
In
Delhi.
of
Court
physicians to the Mughal
father
his
migrated
of the middle of the eighteenth century
to the Court of Murshidabad, and Insha was born in that
the year 1756-7.* From his earliest
city, somewhere about
and
days he showed great originality, a lively intelligence,

He was

interested in everything,
music, poetry, languages, sciences, arts, and the manners
of men. Among languages he mastered the usual Muslim

wonderful

versatility.

classics in Arabic

his genius was inclined

various dialects, Urdu>

and Persian, but

in

towards popular speech

Punjabi, Braj, Purbi, Kashmiri, Pushtu, Marathi, perhaps
words into
Bengali. He was the first to introduce English
Urdu verse. He both sang and played on the Sitar. After
the English revolutions in Bengal, he moved to Delhi, to
As the Emperor Shah Alam
the Court of Shah Alam.
entered Delhi from his wanderings at the end of 1771, we
may suppose that Insha got to his Court somewhere about
1776 at the age of about 20. But the moribund court of
Delhi was not the place for the young and quick-witted
that
poet who had already seen so much of the new world
its

^^^

"

The poets in
to India by way of Bengal.
Delhi lived in a world of their own. He was young and
He was seeking new ways and they were
they were old.

was opening out

attached to the beaten paths trodden by Sauda and TaqL

His playful wit sharpened his pen, while they were

wrapped up in their own

Hayat, p. 261):

dignity.

As Azad says (Ab

"Though these men might have been practised poets,

and some of them even masters in their art as they
understand it, how should they have (Insha's) varied and
versatile knowledge?
Even if they had such knowledge,
ancient
were
creatures, devoted to their old
they
poor
traditions.

How

should they get this brilliant mother-wit,

*Noneof theTazkiras

know mentions

the date of Insha's

in the Court of
Sawab Siraj-ud-Daula, and Insha was born there. Siraj-ud-Daula &
short reign was in 1756-7, and we may accept that as the approximate
date of Insha's birth. I have reconstructed the other dates of his life
more or less conjecturally, but we may accept the date of his death
1817 with confidence*

birth.

His

that I

father, according to the

Ab i Hayai* was

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE

99

of language, this polish of new phrases, this

pointed inventiveness?"

this flexibility

HIS CAREER IN DELHI

AND LUCKNOW

Perhaps the
jealous.
An
acrimonious
was
new-comer
insolent.
wordy
young
war ensued, and Insha's position became quite impossible
It may be also that the impecunious Court at
in Delhi.
Delhi repelled him and drew him to the glitter of the
Nawabi court at Lucknow. Insha soon moved over to
Lucknow some time about the end of Asaf-ud-Daula's reign
(1797), or early in Saadat Ali Khan's reign (1798-1814).
He became a favourite of Saadat Ali Khan, but he assailed
his rivals with the same bitter tongue that had made Delhi
impossible for him. As long as he retained the Nawab's
confidence, he reigned like a literary despot, and most of
his lasting work was done during this period.
About 1810
he fell from the Nawab's favour, and spent his last days
in loneliness and misery.
The loss of a young son also
preyed on his mind, which was already unhinged with the
Perhaps the greybeards were

disgrace at court.

He

Lucknow almost unknown

As a literary figure he had

died in

and unlamented in 1817.

died in 1810.

APPRAISEMENT OF HIS GENIUS

genius was essentially comic, and it was
which was the cause of his meteoric rise to
fame and favour and of his eventual fall. In happier
have been
circumstances, who knows but he might
the Carducci of Urdu literature?
He brought the
language of the people into the service of the Court*
and though he shocked many of the more orthodox poets,
he set up a tradition in Lucknow similar but not quite soearnest as that of his contemporary Nazir in Agra.
His
flowing style, his experiments with different kinds of
idioms, his respect for the spoken language of the people
and his search for similes and metaphors from daily life
infused a new spirit into Urdu.
Lucknow became the
established nursery of Urdu.
In the next generation Anis
and Amanat gave a new splendour to the marsiya and the
drama, the literary forms in which they were interested. But

His

this trait

the

way was prepared for

their

work by the

intellectual

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

100

curiosity and the literary adventures of Insha during

the period 1798-1810 in which he reigned supreme in
the Musha *aras and the literary circles of Lucknow.

HINDUSTANI PROSE WITHOUT PERSIAN OR ARABIC WORDS

The Ddstan or story which Insha wrote

in Hindustani
of
or
admixture
Persian
Arabic
without
any
prose,
words,

according to the Ab-i-Hayat (p. 270), only fifty pages

long, but it carries out its promise as expressed in the
following extract:
is,

"One

was sitting down, it suddenly occurred

a story in such a way that the language
should be pure Hindi, and there should not be in it the
least little jot of any other tongue there should be in it
neither a foreign nor a rustic word; then would my spirit

to

me

day, as

'Let

me

tell

One among my acquainswell and open out like a bud.'

tances was a great man of letters : tied to old-fashioned
ways and pompous modes. He objected. He shook his
head; his mouth was in a pout; his nose was in the air,
and his eyebrows in an arch; his throat swelled visibly,
and his eyes were hard and red. Said he: 'How is this
possible? To retain the character of Hindustani (Hindui)
and not

to

allow the Bhakha

As good honest men

(village speech) to creep in!

talk

among themselves: that should be

should not be a shadow of anything

the form, and there

from outside! You can't do

do it, why should I say

show you as done/"

it!

said..,*If

it?... Whatever I

say

could not

I will

indeed

COMMON WORDS OF DAILY USE: ENGLISH WORDS

This was perhaps a tour de force.
Though the words
are Hindi, the construction is often forced.
Certainly no
But we can see that, in
ordinary men talk like that.
other pieces, where the rule of exclusion is not so arbitrarily enforced, a great many homely Hindi words, ex-

and constructions come naturally and bring the

nearer
to the spoken language of the man in the
language
street
Indeed his forcible use of homely Hindi words

pressions,

him from his enemy Mus-hafi the opprobrious ephithet

of Bkand, a low .comedian. In the
poem which he wrote on

got

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE 101

from mental illness*

jashn), probably in 1801 or 1804,.

the occasion of George Ill's recovery

(Qasida tar Tahniyat i

as
English words are freely introduced, such
a
Powder (as cosmetic)
Couch (a sofa)

Glass (to brink out of)

Bottle (of wine)
Paltan (originally, Platoon used for a regiment)
Organ (musical instrument)
Orderly (in attendance on a high dignitary)

Bugle (wind instrument)

be noted that these words are all now a part
of our Urdu language, and occur in Insha in the forms
which are still used. The Anglo-Indian word Tiffin also
occurs as Tipan. These words are used as appropriate
It will

and not for comic effect, as was done by

Akbar in our own times.
LIBERTIES WITH METRE FOR EXPRESSING SPECIAL MEANING

for the occasion,

the poet

An

interesting glimpse into the

new leaven working,

Lucknow poetry is furnished in the acrid verse contest

between Mirza Azim Beg and Insha. In pursuance of the
in

worst traditions of the older poets they were carping at

each other's faults in versification, in rhyme, and metre.
It seems that 'Azim once used the metre Ramal in the
midst of the metre Rajaz 9 and Insha attacked him :
o zephyr, thou goest in these (degenerate)'
days to a poetic contest,
Tell 'Azirn to be a little more careful ;
When by night the poets match ghazl with ghazl,
Let him not overleap all the bounds of verse 9
And foist the Rama^ metre into the Rajaz.
If,

*Azim's reply introduced the question of meaning

than the technique of verse:
You see no difference between metre and
meaning;
Because of a change of metre (bahr^ you plunge
into a sea (bahr) of triumph;
But from west to east it is as clear as the full
moon,
That the headstrong crashes in his own pride,
like a thunderbolt

Poor childling! What can he do

walk on his knees!

if

he can only

rather

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

102

The

honours,

must be confessed, lay with *Azim

it

for

this was rank

suiting the metre to the meaning, though
the
of
the
to
day. As a matter
poetical orthodoxy
heresy
of fact Insha himself was on the brink of such heresies,

and

still

more

so Nazir,

whom we

can only

notice in

passing.

KAZlR THE POET OF THE PEOPLE

is par excellence the poet of the bazar and the
the
of
field;
villager, the artisan, and the Banjara; of the
Hindu, the Muslim, the Sikh, and the Sufi; of nature, and
and gay, of the
philosophy, and the many-sided life, grave
know nothing.
we
his
of
And
personality
yet
people.
Makhumur Akbarabadi and Professor Shahbaz have re-

Nazir

deduced a few
cently issued critical studies of him and
facts about him. He certainly lived in Agra (Akbarabad),
and his speech reflects the Hindustani actually spoken in
that neighbourhood.
Though he calls the city his own, it
doubtful if he was born there.
Agra with his words:

is

He

begins his poem on

Now

that I have got a footing (or house) in the

City of Letters,
How should I fail to describe the beauties of

my

He

City!

its gardens, its streets, its river Jamna and

We may
swimmers
the strong
therein, and its music.
infer that he died somewhere about 1828-1830, but we do
not know the date of his birth nor the manner of his life.

He

praises

certainly

did not frequent courts.

We

do not even

know his personal name, only his poetical

(nom de plume). From internal evidence we

takhallus
see that he

"was in touch with all sorts and conditions of men and all
phases of life, and his tastes were catholic. His vocabulary
is not the limited vocabulary of a Court
poet but the living

vocabulary of a

man who

wrote with zest on such diverse

rain showers, the

subjects as:
Agra swimmers, the
seasons, the moonlight night, Holi and Diwali festivals,
ie birth of Krishna, Krishna's flute, Nanak Shah Guru,
Salim Chishti, the Taj Mausoleum, Banjaras, Jogis and
which
in fact
logins, the Kal-jug, &c* &c.,

everything

"interested the

man

in the street.

His poems are almost

LEARNING, EDUCATION, JOURNALISM & LITERATURE 103

like ballads or folk-tales, though they have a Sufi colour.
They run with a go and a lilt which haunt the memory.

And

his refrains

have almost become proverbs;

e.g.

Call not this the Kal-jug {age of evil) ;

Call it the Kar-jug (age of action);
Give by day and get by night;
Tis a fine bargain, all cash!
Give with one hand, receive with the other.
It is a good sign that the poet is now being studied
and edited with enthusiasm in Agra.* He did not even

find

a bare mention in the

Ab

Hay at. And

yet he

represents the first beginnings of the revolt against

artificiality in the nineteenth-century Hindustani poetry.

* This
chapter and chapter VI (where I notice the rise of the Urdu
Drama) were written before I had seen Mr. Ram Babu Saksena's
History of Urdu Literature. I am glad to find his views in general

agreement with mine. I cordially agree with his estimate of Nazir, to

whom he devotes 7 pages. He has started on right lines with the
history of Urdu literature, on which I hope he will publish further
studies.

SECTION

III

THE NEW ORDER GRADUALLY ASSERTS ITSELE

1818-1857

CHAPTER V
THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION,

1818-57

EDUCATION, THE PIVOT OF THE PERIOD

In this period the chief interest centres round EducaThe foundations of modern education were then
laid in India, and most of the other cultural movements
may be traced to this source. They either directly flowed
from the fount of modern education, or they were a
reaction of older forces against a too-fast-moving tide..
tion.

Hindu

religious thought in particular began to undergo

^transformations and give rise to movements whose ebb

and

flow, with their many currents and under-currents,

affect the life of modern India.
They came into the full

stream later, but Hindu society in its thinking strata was

profoundly stirred, and its reaction took forms which are
equally interesting in the study of our national life.
Indian thought of this period mostly found its expression
in journalism, and the early founders of genuine Indian
journalism link us with politics and social reforms.

ECONOMICS AND LITERATURE

Side by side, the political settlement of India in 1819
Thispossible a gradual economic reconstruction.
was not always favourable to India. It brought India,
even more than the political arrangements, to dependence

made

upon England.

But

it

modernised our economics and

furnished us with economic instruments which established

firmly our relations with world movements. In Literature^
British India generally had hardly yet found itself.
But
the patronage of a Royal Court in Lucknow facilitated the
development of Urdu letters in two directions, the

Marsiya
The originality and the catholic poetical
outlook of the Marsiya faded after the annexation of
Oudh. But the Hindustani drama continued to
develop
and flourish on the foundations laid in Lucknow. Parallel
movements in other vernaculars attained all-India

and the Drama.

import-

ance later.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

106

SUPREMACY OF BENGAL: RISE OF A MIDDLE CLASS

In education and other matters the supremacy of
Bengal in this period is noticeable and easily accounted
for.
Bengal was the first province to feel the British
influence intensively. The study of English in that province
made rapid strides before the other provinces woke up.

absorbed and

The

assimilated the
plastic Bengali intellect
creation
of
the new race
The
with
new influences
avidity.
Permanent
Revenue
the
-of Zamindars through
Settlement,

drawbacks of the new system began to wear

a complete drain on the resources of the
checked
away,
established minor centres of patronage
and
countryside
which in some measure supplied and extended the lost
patronage of the Nawabi court at Murshidabad. The
British capital at Calcutta did little for Indian arts and
as soon as the

that stage, and its tendency, due to the influx of

foreign goods and the new fashion in foreign taste, was on
But in mercantile pursuits, new
the whole destructive.
vistas were opened out by a world-wide foreign trade.
The shipping trade employed a number of Indians in minor

Drafts at

activities of Government gave

posts. And the growth in the
-varied openings to middle-class Bengali families. Medical
and legal education on new lines, entirely separated from
religious influences or religious leadership, created a pro-

fessional class. Though only the lower rungs of the ladder

ivere yet open, the class gradually grew and found its
interests interlaced with the increasing class of Government

These together constituted the backbone of the

middle class, which found a voice in the new journalism.
servants.

DEMAND FOR CLASSICAL

EDUCATION SLACKENED: THAT FOR

VERNACULAR AND ENGLISH INCREASED

We
of the

traced in Chapter IV the origin and the*" failure

efforts in Indo-British education through

first

the Indian classical languages, and the tentative efforts

cultivation of Urdu and Bengali through the

at the

Fort "William College. Side by side with these efforts

in the highest government circles, were other movements

Ly humbler agencies. These latter were more successful,

iecause they were in touch, through the local vernacular,
with the basic facts of Indian life, and because those who

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

107

led them had moral fervour and the spirit of self-sacrifice.

limited their vision to Bengal and had no dreams of

They

an all-India development. But limiting their scope, they

were more vigorous in action, and the tangible results they
The Christian missioachieved have been more lasting.
to the cause of
devotion
showed
naries undoubtedly
great
outlook
their
But
hampered their
education.
proselytising
was not their
wanted
Indians
What
efforts.
educational
be of monetary
would
which
education
an
but
religion,
While there were Indian law officers, to sit
value to them.
as assessors with English judges, and expound Hindu or
Muslim law from Sanskrit or Arabic and Persian books,
there was a small demand for such officers, and Sanskrit,
Arabic, or Persian learning had some monetary value
This arrangeapart from its use for religious purposes.
ment continued till after the Mutiny, but progressively
declined in importance, and there was a similar decline in
the demand for such learning except for religious purposes.
For Bengali there had been a slight demand in Bengal
even in the factory days of the East India Company, as
the lower grades of the Bengali Amla (clerical staff) were
required for contact with the uneducated cultivators and
workmen, but this demand was in those days less, and the
remuneration smaller, than that for people who could use
polished Persian for intercourse with the Nawabi courts
When these were abolished, the demand for
officials.
and the Bengali-using Amla and transincreased,
Bengali

and

lators in Courts

and

offices,

employed by Government,

increased by rapid strides, and so did the demand for

Bengali education. But the higher grades of Amla required some knowledge of English, which gradually became
the general administrative language.
English therefore
commanded a far higher market value, and the demand
for

it

grew with a much stronger impetus.

VERNACULAR AND VILLAGE SCHOOLS

A Mr.

Ellerton, employed in the indigo factory at

where
the Baptist missionary Carey also worked,
Malda,
established some vernacular schools at the beginning of
the nineteenth century.
In such leisure as he got from
factory work, he also composed various Bengali books for

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

108

the use of the

in 1814.

apart from

missionary, Mr. May, began

school in the Dutch Fort at Chinsura

scholars.

his first vernacular

The East India Company's Government, as such,

its individual officers, had hitherto made no

towards the education of the Indian people. The

Company's Charter of 1813, however, made a humhle
It set apart a lakh of rupees "for the revival
beginning.
efforts

and promotion of

literature,

and the encouragement of

the

learned natives of India, and for the introduction and

promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the
The solid fact ininhabitants of the British territories."
The policy was only vaguely
this was the lakh of rupees.

and it was expressed in words which mark no great

It enabled,
departure from the earlier tradition.
however,,
defined,

Marquess of Hastings, to take

of Mr. May's school, and to make it a monthly
In a minute on the schools he recognised
grant of Rs. 600.
the claims, to the first place, of "the humble but valuable
class of village schoolmasters."

the Governor-General, the

notice

MISSIONARIES, GOVERNMENT

AND PRIVATE AGENCIES

In 1815 the Indians themselves formed several schools

and its neighbourhood. But education was

in Calcutta

Its methods were antiquated*

in traditional grooves.
and the subjects of instruction were confined to a narrowcircle. There were no text-books of a progressive or modern

still

character.

large

proportion

of

the

children were

Brahmans, and in the beginning Brahman children would

not sit on the same mat with those of other casts.
Thesedefects were gradually rectified, and a healthier public
opinion began to grow up. The Government interest was
mainly in the preparation of a karani class (clerks), and
to this end education was directed, both in
English and
in the vernacular.
The missionaries had wider ideals.
But,

as

suspicion

we saw, their religious proselytism bred

among the better-class Bengalis, who took

advantage of the superior educational resources placed

at their disposal, but broke
away from the religious
teaching as soon as they could substitue institutions of
their own.
Some devoted Englishmen in private life, like

David Hare, and some advanced Bengalis,

like

Raja

Ram

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

109

ilohan Roy, rendered most valuable service in the early

Their personal share will be
history of Indian education.
referred to presently.

EXPANSION IN SUBJECTS, SCOPE AND METHODS: PREPARATION

OF TEACHERS
Reading, writing, and arithmetic have been universally
recognised to be the first steps in elementary education. In
And
India, at that time, they occupied the whole field.
their object was supposed to be, in the case of middleclass boys, that they should be able to earn their livelihood
as clerks, and in the case of peasants and artisans, that
they should be enabled to protect themselves from the

But the true and

oppression of the lower-class Amla.
It was
earnest educationists soon widened the outlook.
soon recognised that geography, a simple knowledge of the
stars and planets, and a simple knowledge of natural
philosophy and surveying helped in agriculture and in the
arts, and that a higher standard of life was as good for a
clerk as for anyone else, apart from the increased earning
capacity which education might give. A normal school was
established at Serampur, and inspecting Pandits were

employed by Hare to help teachers and to systematise

An attempt was made
teaching by untrained teachers.
to transform the old village school-master, who had been
a sort of hereditary village functionary, or family priest
(Guru) into a modern type which could come into line
with new ideals and use new methods for the newer type
Such a boy would not be
of boy that was growing up.
content to trace letters on the floor, or consider it a final
promotion to be taught to write on dry palmyra leaves with
reed and ink.
The Calcutta School Book Society was
founded in 1817, for the preparation, publication, and
cheap and gratuitous supply of useful works in English and
oriental languages, but not religious books. The GovernorGeneral's wife the Marchioness of Hastings, herself pre-

pared several elementary works, presumably in English.*

The Calcutta School Society was established in 1818, to
assist and improve existing schools and establish new ones.
David Hare not only subscribed out of his own pocket, but
* Calcutta Ret-iewi xiii
(1850), p. 141.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

110

subscriptions and helped in supervising the

He did similar service for the Calcutta,
This wasJuvenile Society for Bengali Female Schools.
founded in 1820, and did much to systematise the education

collected

whole movement.

Here the difficulty of getting teachers was even

and
the whole structure had to be built up on new
greater,

of

girls.

foundations.
INITIATIVE OF BENGALI LEADERS:

LAUNCHING OF HINDU COLLEGE

Meanwhile the enlightened Bengalis were not backward

advancing the cause of higher education in English. In
adopting the principle of self-help they showed a power of
initiative to which full justice has not been done.
And
they set in motion forces which have transformed the whole

in

of India.

It

is

true that large-hearted

Englishmen

in

positions, like Chief Justice Sir Edward Hyde

East, freely lent their names and influence to the movement,
but we must never forget the modest men, private indivi-

official

who worked behind the scenes and did all the hard
They sometimes even purposely suppressed their
names for the good of the cause. The idea of establishing
While Ram
the Hindu College was mooted in 1816.
Mohan Roy was inveighing in a meeting against idolatry,.
Hare came in uninvited, and, anxious as he was to identify

duals,

work.

himself with the Indians in all liberal movements, he

formed a lasting friendship with Roy, which, as between

untimely death. Hare

Supreme Court into the
cause of the Hindu College. It was at the Chief Justice's
house that a meeting was held and the College decided on,
"for the education of native youth." Roy's name would
have frightened the orthodox Hindus, and it was omitted
from the Committee in order to meet their objections.
Subscriptions were collected among the Indians,;* A
subscription of Rs. 5,000 made the donor a governor
of the College for life. The Chief Justice became
President ^ and the Governor-General and Members of
Council bacame patrons. Thus the scheme was launched
under the highest official auspices, and with the approval
of the orthodox community. The Hindu College began its
work in 1817.

their families, lasted after Roy's

brought the Chief Justice of the

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

111

IDEAS'
PREDOMINANCE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ENGLISH

There were two sections, primary or preparatory, and

The languages recognised were
superior or college.
the chief stress was laid
English, Bengali, and Persian, but
was distinctly
education
of
on English. The atmosphere
the.

English ideas began to gain ground among

English.
element was alarmpupils so rapidly that the conservative
the Earl of Minto's,
Under
down.
had
to
be
calmed
ed, and

Minute of the 6th March 1811,

it

had been contemplated

Sansstrengthen the Calcutta Madrasa and the Benares

krit College, and to establish new Orientalist colleges
The two Sanskrit centres held in view had'
elsewhere.
to

been Nadia and Tirhut. But these were given up after

1819. English Orientalists, including Professor H. EL
Wilson, urged the establishment of a Sanskrit College in
Calcutta.
Bengalis who had tasted the sweets of English
This is what
education were wholly opposed to the idea.
Ram Mohan Roy wrote (1823) to Government in protest.

RAM MOHAN ROY

PROTEST AGAINST SANSKRIT EDUCATION

"We find that the Government are establishing a

Sanskrit school under Hindu Pandits to impart such knowThis seminary
ledge as is already current in India.
(similar in character to those which existed in Europe
before the time of Lord Bacon) can only be expected to
load the minds of youth with grammatical niceties and
metaphysical distinctions of little or no practical use to
their possessors or to
The pupils will theresociety.
what
was
known
two
thousand
acquire
years ago, with the
addition of vain and empty subtleties since then produced
by speculative men such as is already commonly taught in
all parts of India."
TRADITIONAL LEARNING VERSUS MODERN NEEDS

The Sanskrit language, he pointed out, was so difficult

almost a life-time was required for iis acquisition.
6
The learning, concealed under this almost impervious
veil," wrote Ram Mohan Roy, "is far from sufficient to
reward the labour of acquiring it." If it was necessary to
perpetuate the language, it would be better to subsidise
Pandits, who existed in all parts of the country, with premiums and allowances than to establish a new Sanskrit

that

112

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

College.

He

then proceeded to discuss the futility of the

-traditional learning in Sanskrit Vyakarana,

or Vendanta. "Nor will youths/' he said,

Nyaya
"be

Shastra^

fitted to be

members of society by the Vedantic doctrines which

teach them to believe that all visible things have no real
existence, that as father, brother, etc. have no actual entity,
.they consequently deserve no real affection, and therefore
the sooner we escape from them and leave the world the
better

better."

CLAIMS OF SCIENCE

To supply positive advice as a sequel to this negative

criticism, Roy thus advocated the claims of modern Science.
"The Sanskrit system of education would be the best calculated to keep the country in darkness, if such had been the
But as the improvement
policy of the British legislature.
of the native population is the object of the Government, it
will consequently promote a more liberal and enlightened
of instruction, embracing Mathematics, Natural
Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy, with other useful scien-

system

be accomplished with the sums proposed

a
few gentlemen of talents and learning,
by employing
-educated in Europe and providing a College furnished
with necessary books, instruments, and other apparatus."
ces,

which

may

HINDU COLLEGE HOUSED WITH SANSKRIT COLLEGE

The controversy was temporarily settled by a compromise.

It was decided to have a Sanskrit College in
Calcutta with the aid of Government funds, but to house it
with the Hindu College, which was without a permanent
home of its own, in a single building. The Hindu College

owed

existence to private, i. e., non-government enterand

was financed by public subscriptions independent
prise,
of Government. Under the new scheme there was, in the
minds of the promoters of the Hindu College, some legitimate anxiety lest it should pass under Government control,
but it was explained that Government only wanted supervision in respect of the funds which they gave. Professor
H. H. Wilson was appointed to the Joint Committee, and
David Hare attended almost daily to look after the Hindu
its

College proper. The Government gave Rs. 1,24,000 for the

College building, and Hare gave his own land, on the north

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

The foundation stone of the

side of College Square.
on
the
25th February 1824, as
building was laid
inscription records,
Fraternity of Free

the Provincial

by
Masons

Grand Master of

in Bengal, "in the

113

new
the
the

presence of

a numerous assembly of the Fraternity 9 and the President

and Members of the Committee of General Instruction*"
ORIENTAL SEMINARY, AN ORTHODOX COLLEGE

Meanwhile the Oriental Seminary was founded in

It was designed on more orthodox lines than the
Hindu College, but was equally intended to provide
Its existence was due to the energy
English education.
of a single individual, Babu Gour Mohan Auddy, and its
funds came entirely from Indian sources.
1823.

C'THODGX PAPERS AND SOCIETIES

Hindu orthodoxy was not content

to let the promonopolise public attention. The orthodox

It defended Satii
paper Ckandrika was started in 1821.

gressives
it

supplied

its

readers

with news of the marvels, which

the orthodox delighted in and the progressives scoffed at;

and in its advocacy of the reading of the Vedas through

paid professors and scholars, it had the support of

Dwarkanath Tagore. It worked hand-in-hand with the
Dharma Sabha, a society for the defence of die Hindu
Religion.*

EFFECTS OF WESTERN LEARNING

The D3W wine of western learning was not long in

producing its ferment. In trying to keep the minds of
Hindu students from the influence of Christian missionaries,
the promoters of the Hindu College found themselves
faced with another difficulty.
Among the most distinguished teachers on the staff of the Hindu College in
its early days, was
that precocious Eurasian poet and
At the age of
philosopher, H, L. V. Derozio (1809-1831).
He
eighteen he became a teacher in the Hindu College.
was a sceptic. The Committee of the College were alarmed
by the new spirit among the students, which found
expression in such cries as "Down with Hinduism!

Down

with

* Calcutta

55

orthodoxy!

Review,

They requested

vol. xiii (1850), pp. 157-159,

the

teachers

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

114

communication on the subject

with the boys," and forbade
"suffer any practices inconsistent with Hindu
9

"abstain from any

of the Hindu religion

to

them

to

notions of propriety/
especially in matters of eating
and drinking. In 1831 Derozio was forced to resign
his position, and he died of cholera a few months

To combat the irreligion which was creepafterwards.

ing in, the Scottish Missionaries under Dr. Duff established the Presbyterian College in Calcutta in 1833 (General
r
Assembly s Institution), whose success led to similar instiDr. Duff's College in
tutions in other towns in India.
Calcutta and Dr. John Wilson's College in Bombay had a
far wider scope than Bishop's College (Church of England),
founded in Calcutta in 1820. The further religious deve-

lopments in Bengal we shall consider later. But it is

important to note that the leaven of English education was
already working in Bengali society in Calcutta long before
Macaulay's minute of 1835, in a college which began with
voluntary effort, but which, as Presidency College, has
continued to exert a powerful influence on Indian thought
In February 1824 Bishop Heber
to the present day.
attended a Darbar of the Governor-General, at which he
found several Bengalis who "spoke English, not only
fluently but gracefully."

COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC INSTRUCTION: ITS PROGRAMME

We

saw7 that the first direct Government grant for

education was provided in the assignment of a lakh of
rupees for this purpose in the East India Company's
Charter of 1813. But very little was done to give effect
to that suggestion.
The first practical steps were taken in
when
the
Committee
for Public Instruction was
1823,
and
the
arrears
of
the annual lack of rupees
appointed,
were credited to them as from the 1st of May 1821. The
programme and policy of the Committee may be referred
to the five heads:

(1)

The project of the Sanskrit Colleges at Nadia

and Tirhut was to be abandoned, and a Sanskrit
College was to be established in Calcutta.

(2)

The Hindu College, whose inauguration with

private funds we have reviewed in some detail,

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

115

and which taught English literature and English

We saw how it
science, was to be improved.
got housed in one building with the Sanskrit
College, and eventually absorbed it.
(3)

Two new
Delhi and

Colleges were to be established in

Agra for the study of Oriental

literature.
They were established before
Lord Amherst left India in 1828. But the

demand for English education

asserted itself in
centres also, and the English colleges
have thriven and recently become universities
while the
oriental institutions have quietly
these

faded from memory. In 1827 English classes

were proposed for the Sanskrit College at
Benares and the Calcutta Madrasa.
In fact a
seperate "English

Seminary" was opened in

1830, and the Sanskrit College

became an Anglo-Sanskrit College after 1848.

Benares

in

Madrasa in Calcutta gradually

an Anglo-Oriental institution. Both
these institutions still remain predominantly
oriental in character, but their influence on the
Similarly the

became

general life of the country

(4)

small.

Sanskrit and Arabic books were to be printed

on a large scale to help the education movement.
This part of the programme was an unqualified
failure, as

(5)

is

we

shall see presently.

Accomplished Orientalist scholars were to be

employed for translating European scientific
works into Arabic and Oriental languages. This
was a costly failure. The translations cost 16
rupees per page. Neither students nor teachers
could understand them, and it was proposed to
employ the translator as interpreter of his own
writings, at a further expense of 300 rupees
per month.

LASSICAL ORIENTAL EDUCATION FAILED:

DEMAND FOR ENGLISH

The Committee's report of December 1831 is an intructive document, and shows what a
strong stream they
7

ere

breasting in bolstering

up

classical oriental education.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

116

The demand was all for English education. "A command

of the English language" they say, "and a
familiarity with
its literature and science have been
acquired to an extent
A taste in
rarely equalled by any schools in Europe.
English has been widely disseminated, and independent
schools.,. are springing up in every direction." The
School
Book Society's English books sold tot he number of 31,000
in two years while there was so little demand for
the
Education Committee's Arabic and Sanskrit books that
three years' sales did not pay the expense of
storing them
for two months, to say nothing of the printing
expenses.
Oriental learning did not pay in a worldly sense, and
students had to be hired or bribed to undertake it.
English
education meant posts under the Government, and became
the fashion not only in Calcutta, but all over the muf assaL
POLICY OF 1835 NOT A NEW POLICY, BUT A RECOGNITION
THE STRONG DEMAND FOK ENGLISH

This background
if

we wish

to estimate

to the picture

must be borne

in

OF

mind

justly the significance of the policy

in 1835.
It was not a new

definitely enunciated
policy.
It was the culmination of an urge from the middle
classes
of the people themselves. The Muslims were too
stupefied
by the loss of their power to have any appetite yet for

or subordinate positions under Government.

The impetus of the Hindu urge was all the greater because
it gave them a new
status.
In other countries, as
pointed

clerkships

out by the first Sir Charles Trevelyan in his

history of
Indian education, middle-class youth are
readily absorbed
in what are called the gentlemanly
the church,
professions,
medicine, trade or commerce, manufactures,
^

engineering,
university professorships, the law, or the army or navy.
In the first half of the nineteenth
century, the prizes in
these professions were either not
open to Indians or the

professions themselves were confined

to

special castes

or

in the
classes^ or,

forms in which they had been practised

in Indian
Indian
society, were held In low estimation.
youth therefore flocked readily into clerical service, and

some of them,

Ram Mohan Roy (afterwards Raja

Roy), made a position for themselves in
independent public life after retirement from Government

Ram Mohan

service.

like

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

117

EOW ENGLISH AS A COA1MON LANGUAGE OF INDIA CHANGED

INDIA'S

OUTLOOK

The emphatic announcement in 1829 that English

be the official language in India made English
In a letter from the Government
education inevitable.
the Committee of Public Instructo
(Persian Department)
1829
occurs the sentence: "It is the
tion, dated 26th June
wish and admitted policy of the British Government to
render its own language gradually and eventually the
was

to

the country." This

language of public business throughout
of
the
knell
Persian
official language*
as
death
the
sounded
in
to
the
education
an
It gave
English
higher grades,
impetus
but as English was an entirely foreign language, it necessitated the cultivation of Urdu, Bengali, and the other vernaculars for the people at large. The people of India ceased
to possess officially an oriental language as a common
The cultivation of English as a common
language.

language began, however, gradually to change the menof the intellectual classes, and created
tality and outlook

new desires, new ideals, new fashions, new standards, and

new ambitions in all spheres of life.
WHY ENGLISH TOOK QUICKER HOLD IN CALCUTTA THAN
UPCOUNTRY

And yet the passion for English education, so pronounced in Calcutta, spread but slowly to the upper ProThe reason why it was so pronounced in Calcutta
vinces.
was also the reason why it was absent in (say) a town like
Fatehgarh, in what are now called the United Provinces.
The English-educated clerk in Calcutta at once got a good
post, either under the Government or in the various mercantile or shipping offices in Calcutta,
There was no such
opening in Fatehgarh, and the demand was for traditional
9'
and religious learning for the select few.
"At present,
wrote Mr. Shore, Judge of Fatehgarh in 1834, "few if
any would learn English, as long as it leads to no office

emolument. ** He tells the somewhat depressing story

of Mufti Waliullah's local College.
The Mufti built a
handsome building and endowed it with some funds. He
wanted Government assistance for carrying it on, and the
or

*India Office Records : Home Miscellaneous : Correspondence of the

Hon. Frederick John Shore, Judge of Fatehgarh ; No. 790. pp. 199-202.

118

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

local committee recommended such assistance. The distant

Committee of Public Instruction in Calcutta took no
Their limited funds were barely sufficient for
interest.
Calcutta, and Calcutta was all for English education.
Their horizon was almost limited to Calcutta.

^IACAULAY'S VIEWS

English education had been the subject of much discussion and much difference of opinion in the Committee
of Public Instruction. The Orientalists, and under their

head the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Royal Asiatic

Society, naturally looked

at the proposal as
leading to
with
the eastern mind.
The vested
something incongruous
interests considered the growth of an Indian
intelligentsia

educated in English as dangerous to the permanence of

British rule.
The scale was turned in favour of English
the
arrival
of
Lord Macaulay on the scene. He landed
by

Madras as the new Law Member (under the Charter of

1833) in June 1834. He became the President of a reconstituted Committee of Public Instruction.
He viewed
the question from a fresh English
on
the one
standpoint,
hand despising Oriental learning and on the other hand
willing to extend the benefits of what he considered his
With his
superior civilisation to the people of India.
Liberal ideas, he brushed aside the argument about
political danger to English
supremacy, which he would rather
risk than keep Indians enslaved in what he
regarded as
In his Education Minute of the 2nd
superstitions.
February 1835 he harked back to two historical instances
(the European Renaissance and the case of Russia) "of a
great impulse given to the mind of a whole society
of
prejudice overthrown of knowledge diffused
of taste
of arts and sciences planted, in countries which
purified
had recently been ignorant and barbarous." He
applied
the analogy to India, and recommended education in
English in his owja forceful and picturesque language.
in

STATE FUNDS TO BE DEVOTED TO ENGLISH EDUCATION ALONE

The result was the Government Resolution of the 7th

March 1835. It decided that state funds were thenceforth
be devoted to English education alone. Oriental schools
need not be abolished, if they attracted
any attendance. But
to

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

119

to be supported in such schools during

education. All funds were to "be hencetheir
of
the period
in
imparting to the native population
forward employed
and science, through the
literature
of
English
knowledge
the
of
medium
English language." By this resolution
at the head of the movement for
itself
Government put
it stopped the flow of public funds
and
education,
English
As we saw, the tide
Oriental classical education.
to

students

were not

for English education had been already flowing strong

British territory before Government
recognised it.
Even in territory not then British, such as the Punjab,
Sir Charles Trevelyan notes in 1838 that the higher classes
in

were demanding English education.

a question of teaching a language.
of teaching

It
It

was not merely

was a question

new knowledge, new ways of thought, new

religion, politics, and government. These

But they
last implications were in the mind of Macaulay.
who
before
those
worked
the
educational
not
were
clearly
machinery, and they acted unequally in different directions,
attitudes to

life.,

and at an unequal pace, thus creating tragic problems for

new generations a century afterwards.
EDUCATION OF THE HIGHER CLASSES

up now were: the education

of Government, legal and
wards
of land-holders through
medical education, and mass education through the
The upper classes had been comparatively
vernaculars.
backward in education after the advent of the English,
and special measures have had to be taken to attract them
to the new and changing order in India.

Among

the questions taken

LEGAL EDUCATION MODERNISED

As the legal machinery extended its scope, the secular

lawyer class increased, which studied British enactments
and British procedure. From February 1835 the English
language was allowed to be used in the Courts of Bengal,
with Persian and Bengali, in pleadings and proceedings,
thus leading up to the growth of Indian lawyers trained
not only in English but in English law and procedure.
This process was completed with the promulgation of the
great Codes, (the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal
Procedure), which were begun by Macaulay, but did not

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

120

become law until

the High Courts

after the Mutiny.

The establishment of
in 1861 put legal education on a
still

higher plane.
MEDICAL EDUCATION MODERNISED

The process of modernisation and Anglicisation in

medical education was also by successive
The
stages.
Native Hospital of Calcutta was founded and maintained
by public subscription and government grant as early as
1792, and in Adam's Report on vernacular education we
read of a medical school carried on in Hindustani in
Calcutta about 1807.
Dr. Tyler was appointed anatomical
lecturer in the Sanskrit College in 1838, with Pandits
to
assist him, and sub-assistant surgeons were trained
through
the vernaculars.
The Calcutta Medical College, established in 1835, definitely took up medical education in English.
David Hare assisted in its foundation and worked as its

The cholera epidemics of

secretary from 1837 to 1841.
the second and third decades of the nineteenth
century and
the needs of the large numbers of men under arms
in
Lord Haslings's Central India Campaigns had called attention to the scanty medical

facilities, and with the introduction of general English Education, modern

medical
education began to make rapid
The Grant
progress.
Medical College, in Bombay, with its fine botanical
garden,
was established in 1845. In 1844 two Hindu students
from the Calcutta Medical College were sent to
to

England

complete their medical education in London, financed by

the liberality of Dwarka Nath
Tagore,* who may be considered to have been the founder of
European education
for Indian students.
DAVID HARE: HIS PERSONALITY

The splendid and

in fostering the

unselfish

work done by David Hare

early stages of Indian education lends a

great and abiding interest to his

vras

watchmaker

w"

ath

in

His father
personality.
London, and he was brought up in

wasaweaIth y Philanthropist and reformer.

than once, and refused to perform the
Proya**
ceremony on his return tojndia. He lies buried in Kensai G?een
D
Ti' e * ra a s ch
is
one
of
ceremony
y.
penance or
k^ftf ;
Z
taiBtS derived by a Hindu from
Sf uences
re

S
WA visited England more
He
,

chit

J^?'

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

121

same trade. He came to Calcutta in 1800 at the age

of 25, and prospered so greatly that in sixteen years he
He did not return to
retired with a modest competence.
the

country, but gave the best years of his life to unpaid

work for and in the country which had nourished him and
which rightly keeps his name in remembrance as a true
his

From 1816 to the date of his

and devoted foster-son.
death from cholera in Calcutta in 1842 he was a wellknown and honoured figure. In his white jacket and oldfashioned gaiters he might have been seen in Calcutta
school to school, from meeting to meeting,
going about from
from friend to friend, encouraging education, reconciling
divergent views and interests, and using his own business
experience to help new India to stand on its feet in public
life. He was himself not a learned man, but his personaeffective.
With unassuming manners he
lity made him
He shared in
freely mixed in Indian society in Calcutta.
their amusements and tamashas, caressed their children,
He won the good-will,
and presented them with toys.
of
and
confidence
affection,
Indians, and his service was
effective because he loved them and did not boast either of
his good work or of any "superior" civilisation or religion
or morals which he brought to them. Of Raja Ram Mohan
Roy and Dwarka Nath Tagore he was a life- long friend
and helper in the progressive causes which they had at
heart.
When Roy was in England in 1831, he made his
home in London with David Hare's brothers,, who were
merchants, in Bedford Square, and one of the brothers
accompanied him to Paris, where he dined with Louis
When Roy went to Bristol
Philippe, the "citizen King."
in 1833 to die, he was
accompanied by Miss Hare (a niece
of David Hare), and the Hare
family was represented at
In the foundation and development of
Roy's interment.
the Hindu College, as we saw, he
played a leading part,
and he was no less zealous in
promoting vernacular schools
and vernacular literature. He subscribed
freely for educational movements. He
participated in the movements for a
free Press and the
right of free public meetings, as well as
for jury trials in civil cases, and raised his voice on behalf
of the Indian coolies in 1838 when abuses were discovered
in

connection with coolie emigration

to

Mauritius, which

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

122

1835. The record of his life is full Of

Indian and British lovers of India*
inspiration both for
MASS EDUCATION THROUGH THE VERNACULARS

Began

lars

in

The question of mass education through the vernacuwas systematically taken up by Government much later

than the question of English education.

it is

true,

Missionaries and
themselves to

had addressed

private enterprise,
this question from the beginning, but the results were local
of Calcutta,
The old village
mostly in the neighbourhood
schools and Maktabs were fast decaying, in spite of valient

the

efforts to stem

decay.
could
knowledge
practical
in the vernaculars than

It

be

was obvious
given

either

in

that

sound

much more
oriental

easily
classical

The Court of Directors wrote

languages or in English.
18th
February 1824, drafted by
in a Dispatch dated
should be not to teach Hindu
end
James Mill: "Our great
and added that it would be
learning, but sound learning,"
as found in Oriental
sciences
teach
waste of time to
books.

They did not necessarily rule out the

vernaculars.

eleven years later, assumed that

JVtacaulay, in his Minute
suitable for the purpose. His
not
were
the vernaculars

even at that
assumption could only have been justified
of
the
the
vernaculars, as regards
development
stage in
in the sciences.
Elementary instruction
higher education
been
had
medicine
in modern
given in Hindustani
already
first
annual
the
In
some
Report after the
for
very
years.
of Public
Committee
the
of
Resolution
1835,
Government
"We conceive the formation of a
Instruction said:
vernacular literature to be the ultimate object to which all
59
This view was approved
our efforts must be directed.

by Government.
DIFFUSION

OF

USEFUL KNOWLEDGE DELAYED WITH

TO ARTS AND CRAFTS

INJURY

correct view would have been that the

of
liseful knowledge through the vernaculars
Imparting
was the immediate object to which a great part of

The more

should have been directed. No

Committee could form a vernacular literature.
Even the official efforts to encourage vernacular literatures

the Committee's efforts

official

* See his Life, by Peary

Chand Mittra.

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

123

Vernacular literatures have grown

have been failures.
and developed according to the genius and needs of the
the vernaculars and according to the
people who spoke
standards which they acquired
of
view
literary
enlarged
in many models, ancient and
studies
liberal
through
But
modern, English and oriental. That required time.
the diffusion of modern knowledge among the people at

immediate necessity, and that could only be

done through the vernaculars. And it could have been
done at once. The neglect of that duty caused great
Our
injury to many of our handicrafts and useful arts.
artisans remained chained to traditional ways, while the
large was an

world was moving in directions of which they were unaware.

Their skill remained archaic and unmarketable^ and our
economic position began to deteriorate from day to day.
The industrial system and the introduction of machinery
were inevitable, but if we had had a moderately educated
artisan class, ready to apply inherited skill to the
new conditions, there would have been a simple and
natural transition, instead of the ruin of the older generation before a new generation could take up the task in
the

new

conditions.

REWARDS OF ENGLISH AND VERNACULAR EDUCATION

The disproportion between the attention given to

English and vernacular education caused a good deal of
dissatisfaction in educational circles.
Lord Auckland, in
a minute dated 29th November, 1839, referred to the
subject and called attention to the necessity of providing
good vernacular books. The media of instruction were
But no
clearly stated to be English and the vernaculars.
scheme
for
vernacular
education
was
comprehensive
yet in
being.
English education began to fill the whole horizon,
and the pupils of English schools continued to get more
and more opportunities in the world. The Government of
the first Lord Hardinge in a Resolution dated 10th October
1844 gave preference in first appointments to candidates
educated in Government schools* As far as public services
were concerned, therefore, the prizes went to those who had
received English education. Vernacular education not only
It led to no higher knowledge^
.gave no material rewards.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

124
it

did not introduce

to the

Indian mind the new useful

knowledge which would have enabled our workers to transform their arts and industries, as happened in the next
generation in Japan; and it was not systematised through
the vast network of villages in rural India

THE RELATIONS OF THE ORIENTAL CLASSICS, URDU, HINDI

AND ENGLISH, IN THE UNITED PROVINCES
In the North-West Provinces (now included in
the
United Provinces) the question of Oriental classics as
against English and as against the vernaculars was still
Dr. J. R.
agitating the public mind in 1846.
Ballantyne,
Principal of the Benares Hindu College, has some pertinent remarks in his Report for that year.
With
regard

to

the

study of English the attitude of his Pandits and

pupils was "by no means encouraging" until pecuniary

inducements were offered through scholarships for the

With regard
complicated by the
pose.

pur-

to

the

vernaculars .the question was

relations of Urdu and Hindi in these

Provinces.
Hindi (apart from poetry in Brij
Bhasha)
had not yet been standardised. Urdu was the official
language, and the Lieutenant-Governor in his remarks on
the Report considered it a practicable
proposition that it
should "become the general medium for
and

acquiring

communicating information among all persons of superior

eduation in this part of India." But in the end the
general
tendency of India as a whole to make English the language
of superior education and higher culture
prevailed in these
Provinces also, and the relations between Urdu and Hindi
were much altered during and since the LieutenantGovernership of Sir Antony MacDonnell (1895-1901).
SYSTEMATIC VILLAGE EDUCATION: USEFUL KNOWLEDGE THROUGH

VERNACULARS

The work of drawing up a plan for

systematic village
education was properly taken
up by a provincial administration, the Government of the North- West Provinces under
Mr. James Thomason. He was Lieutenant-Governor for
the long period of ten years, 1843-1853. He had intimate
first-hand knowledge of the
people, and left his impress
on

the Provinces in revenue

reform, the development of
canals and
communications, and popular education. In

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

125

work was twofold. The foundation of the

Rurki Engineering College in 1848 gave the Indian mind
the opportunity of acquiring practical skill in the mecha-

education his

nical arts without undergoing an elaborate literary

The scheme has been
tion in a foreign language.

educa-

much

since, but its early

beginnings, though modest,

expanded
mark the commencement of technical education on right
His other great educational work was the introduclines.
tion of a comprehensive scheme for village vernacular
He began his plans as soon as he became head
schools.

He confined instruction in English to the

abolished the smaller English schools. The
vernacular was used for teaching useful subjects like
In 1850 the scheme was extended to include
mensuration.
agricultural education.
of the Province.
Colleges.

He

JAIL EDUCATION

He tried to reach all classes of the people, and in

1850-1 the educational experiment was tried in the jails
of Agra and Mainpuri.
"Nothing" said the LieutenantGovernor "is so conducive to the improvement of discipline
as Jail education,"
This was perhaps taking a narrow
view of Jail education.
Discipline was valuable while
the prisoner was in
but it was an even more
jail;
valuable service to reform him 9 and to give honourable
means of livelihood in after-life, thus removing the
temptations to crime from the paths of the waifs and
The useful character of the education
strays of society.

made

experiment an immediate success. "The premathematics" we read "has been seized

upon in its practical bearing on land surveying, the
mechanical arts, and mercantile transactions."
the

valent taste for

VILLAGE OR HALQABANDI SCHOOLS

The schools were grouped together in 1852 in circles

of villages, and thus came to be called Halqabandi (circle)
schools.
They were financed by an educational cess, thus
giving the proceeds of local taxation to local needs.
Mr. Thomason did not live long enough to see the results
of his system, as he died in harness in 1853. But it made
a deep impression on his contemporaries, and was taken
as a model by other Provinces. Lord Dalhousie, in
paying

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

126

to his work on his death (Minute dated

25th
October 1853) contrasted the utter failure of the
system

tribute

of vernacular education in Bengal with its

conspicuous
in the North-West Provinces, and
suggested its
Mr. Thornton (Gazetteer, IV.
application to Bengal.
186)
was able to write in 1854 with reference to India as
a
whole:

success

"The Seminaries"

(i.e. English educational instiwherein the higher studies are

pursued
be pronounced to have been
generally success-

tutions)

may
ful.

In

the

vernacular

attempts

instruction,

to

improve

the

and

extend

British

government,
not been
equally
successful.
The best results attained have been in
the North-West Provinces, where the new
revenue
settlement, under which the rights of every individual interested in the land became matter of
record,
afforded precisely the stimulus
required. The
has^

though equally zealous, has

desire to ascertain and to

preserve their recognised
induces in the people a desire for the
of
acquisition of the arts
reading, writing,
arithmetic, and mensuration.
few other of the
simpler elements of knowledge are found to be

rights,

easily added; and perhaps no great number of

years will elapse before the mass of the
in

people

the provinces above named will be well instructed

in those branches of
knowledge which are more

while those who have

immediately necessary;
advanced somewhat farther will not be few."

WHY THE UNITED PKOVINCES PIONEERED VERNACULAR EDUCATION,

BUT FELL BACK IN GENERAL EDUCATION
This was the optimistic official view. It

has not
been justified by later history.
the
North-Western
Though
Provinces (now in the United
Provinces) were, the first
to inaugurate a
system of vernacular education, they
are still among the most backward
provinces in India
Their first apparent success was due to
educationally.
their meeting the immediate
practical needs of the day,
connected with Mr. Thomason's revenue and
public works
Their failure was due to the fact that
policy.
they failed

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

127

needs and to fit the people

keep pace with advancing
Whereas
after the Mutiny.
created
for the new conditions
with
ahead
English education,
the three Presidencies forged
and their three Universities, established in 185.7, with the
out by means of English education,
great careers opened
the front of the stage, Allahabad
on
men
put their public
its
for
had to wait
University till 1887.
to

REACTION OF ENGLISH

ON VERNACULAR EDUCATION

The reaction of English education on vernacular

a great
It accounts in
has been profound.
measure for the immediate advance of the Bengali
English education can directly
language and literature.

education

reach only a small proportion of the people of India, but

When
infilterting effects should be freely recognised.
Macaulay in 1835 wrote: "It is impossible for us, with

its

our limited means, to attempt to educate

people," and suggested the training of

the

what

body of the
he called a

That his
"class of interpreters," his instinct was true*
a
for
of
idea mainly failed
century was due
three-quarters
fact that official English education in India remained
More recently, when
a mere frame-work, without a soul.

to the

it

has become

found out and

dynamic,

its

total

inadequacy has

been

take a long time to remedy the

"The limited
mischiefs arising out of that inadequacy.
means" which Macaulay lamented only applied to the
The "cess" system, by which local
Central Government.
education is financed from local resources has gone far to
it

will

But the unsatisfactory quality of

education
on the quality of vernacular
reacted
English
education. After the first spurt, vernacular education failed not only to feed the soul of India, but to open up
the practical trades and professions for the artisans and
the middle class, or scientific agriculture for the peasants.
It suffered therefore from a
doable handicap, and its
influence in the making of India has been disappointingly
small.
A third handicap is the diversity of vernaculars
even in one and the same Province.
This has been
accentuated rather than lightened in more recent times, and
will require the earnest attention of all to whom the dream
of a united nation is a valuable ideal to be worked for as
an early possibility.
get over that difficulty.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

128
SIR

CHARLES WOOD'S SCHEME, 1854

The educational review of

the

closed by a reference to Sir Charles

It
tional Dispatch of July 1854.

period

may

Wood's great

fitly

be

educa-

belongs to what has

been called the "Palmerstonian period of English history,
when England was bubbling over with ideas of peace
prosperity, and the mission of England in the world.
Sir Charles Wood was President of the Board of Control
in the Coalition Ministry of the Earl of Aberdeen, which
5'

passed Mr. Gladstone's great social Budget of 1853. At

the renewal of the Company's Charter in 1853 Sir Charles
Wood had piloted a measure of Reform which had curtailed
die power and patronage of the East India Company,
created a provincial government for Bengal, and transformed the character of the Indian Civil Service from a
privileged body to a public service recruited by
open competition in England. Lord Dalhousie did not
think much of the reform.
He wrote in a private letter
(July 23rd 1853): "The India Bill is a wretched thing...
It has been sad bungling work from 1852 till now."
All

close

Government in England had wider ideas

than the most zealous educationists in
India.
While Lord Dalhousie was helping Mr. Bethune
in
Calcutta to establish female education as an object
of national
and placing girls' schools,
importance,
like boys' schools, under the
Government, and the
Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces was

the same, the

of education

organising a complete system of village education, Sir

Charles Wood prepared in London his celebrated Dispatch,
which contained, in Lord Dalhousie's words, "a scheme of
education for all India, far wider and more comprehensive
than the Local or the supreme Government (in India)
could have ventured to suggest." It was a symmetrical

up from graded vernacular village schools,

through Anglo-vernacular schools and high schools, to
It suffered a little from this
colleges and universities.
very symmetry, for it left no rooms for a self-contained
scheme of Secondary Education.
The old indigenous
schools, Hindu and Muslim, were also to be brought into
the scheme by a system of grants-in-aid and their natural
corollary, government inspection. Its aim may be summed
design, leading

THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

1818-57

129

up as the diffusion of European knowledge through all

classes of the people in India by means of the English
language in the high branches, and the vernaculars among
The outbreak of the Mutiny in
the mass of the people.
the
1857 delayed
completion of the scheme in Upper India.
three
the
But
Presidency Universities, at Calcutta, Bombay,
and Madras were created by Statute in 1857. The Department of Public Instruction was organised in 1855, to meet
the needs of this national educational policy. This Department took the place of the Council of Education, which had
replaced the old Committee of Public Instruction in 1842-3,
but had dealt chiefly with higher education in English and
the vernacular.

education

came

With the general movement

the Calcutta School of Arts in

in

modern

1854, which

was taken over by the Government in 1864. This was the

the Arts Schools in other Provinces.
Art
Education was further strengthened and extended under
Lord Northbrook (1872-6).
precursor to

CHAPTER VI

SEW FORCES

IN RELIGION

HOW LAW AFFECTED

AND LITERATURE,

1818-57

RELIGION

thought of a nation are

religious life and
affected
by changes in its education and in its
necessarily

The

economic and social environment. However much we may

guard our inner life as a sort of shrine inaccessible to
outside influences, these influences must penetrate as the
sun penetrates through the scanty openings in a Gothic
cathedral. The British Government in India had from the
beginning pledged themselves to strict neutrality in religion, and in the law which they applied to Indians they
sought to ascertain the religious laws and usages of the
country. But when they came to reduce these to precision,
they found more than one system cherished both under the

names of Hindu and Muslim law, and further they found

many deviations from any given system, arising from
local, family, or tribal custom, which they recognised and
enforced.
As the Courts came more and more under the
influence of English law, the spheres in which Hindu and
Muslim law were enforced came to be more and more
narrowly defined. These religious laws themselves became
crystallised under the labels of various recognised schools
and under the influence of recorded decisions by British
Courts from time to time.
Legislative authority also
began to work actively in India and created a whole body
of general law, criminal, civil, constitutional and commercial, as well as codes and rules of procedure all
based upon English law as modified by the conditions of
India.
The only fields in which, by the middle of the
nineteenth century, the religious and personal law continued to be enforced were: family relations (including
marriage, divorce, caste, adoption, etc.), succession and
inheritance, and certain questions connected with religious
and charitable endowments, guardianship, gifts, and preIt should be noted, however, that even where
emption.
Hindu or Muslim law is professedly enforced, it is not
pure Hindu or Muslim law, but such law, as understood

NEW FORCES

IN RELIGION

and interpreted by the

1818-57

131

Anglo-Indian Courts, and in the

It may well

the Privy Council of England.

or Anglo-Muslim law.

by
Anglo-Hindu
LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS OF THE WEST

last resort,

be called
SOCIAL,

AND LITERATURE,

from

Apart

legislative

or

judicial

influence

on

the cultural influences, due to

religious life and thought,
the social institutions and the literary and philosophical

been profound. They would

thought of the west, have
even have been greater if the interpretation of Hindu and
Muslim law had not been fossilised by the Courts in the
spheres in

which they were allowed to

act.

Education

was a great solvent to the ideas that had grown up and

This process acted
been held unquestioned for centuries.
ideas had grown
and
in two ways.
Many practices
and
Muslims, which were not
up both among Hindus
even
which
were
opposed to the ancient
sanctioned, or
and scholarly study
An
accurate
faiths.
teaching of their
to
books
of the older
dispel the errors and
helped

and to restore the purity of the earliest

This
was facilitated by the light thrown on our
teaching.
outside
from
by scholars and men of affairs
history
who judged by canons which did not appeal to close
corporations of teachers who had created vested interests
for themselves.
But there was a second and even more
own thoughts and standards of life
Our
important way.
enabled to extend the boundaries
were
and
we
developed
to widen the horizon in which we
of our knowledge
placed oldsr schemes of thought.
innovations,

CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES
the influences brought by the new rulers
during
period? The Christian missionaries were
allowed after 1813 to preach and teach in British India.

What were
this

they had done so indirectly, but had

produced no impression on the religions of the people,
although, in the matter of secular education 9 their influence
and their services had been of the highest value. After

Before that date

1813, not only was

Christian religious teaching given

by

Bishops and Archdeacons

were appointed, with State salaries, to superintend the
army Chaplains. Among the Bishops so appointed, the
non-official missionaries,

but

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

132

most
notable early figure was Bishop Heber,
was in India from 1823 to 1826. His Journal shows that
he performed his journeys and his duties in a missionary
His predecessor had established Bishop's College
spirit.
in Calcutta and his successors have sometimes claimed
Bishops have a semi- missionary character.
But it cannot be claimed, in spite of a number of noble
and devoted men who have served the missionary cause in
India for over a century, that their direct influence on
Indian religion has been remarkable.

that Indian

SECULAR INFLUENCES
It

must be

remembered

that

the

atmosphere

of

British society in India has, on the whole, not been reliThis was even more so in the early
gious but secular.
days than it is now. And it is these non-religious and

sometimes anti-religious British influences that have acted

far more powerfully on the mind and character of India
than the direct Christian influences.
for good and for ill
It is difficult to appraise the value of political and humanitarian movements on the religious progress of British
India. But there is no doubt that a non-religious personality like that of David Hare, about whom we spoke in the
last chapter, or of a freethinker like Bradlaugh or a
Theosophist like Mrs. Besant, who came on the scene much
has penetrated far deeper into the hearts and
emotions of the people and awakened heartier responses.
later,

FREEMASONRY

Freemasonry has been a factor in bridging over

the

racial and social gulf, and was certainly closely identified

with the early English education movement in India. Free-

masonry established itself in India long before the intercourse of British and Indians as fellow-subjects could be
thought of. It would seem that a Masonic Lodge (English
Constitution) was opened in Bengal as early as 1728-30,
which is remarkable, considering that the early authentic
history of Freemasonry from records, in England itself,
begins only in 1717.
Roger Drake, Governor of Calcutta
at the time of the Black Hole, was recorded to have filled
the highest local Masonic offices before 1755.
The first
Lodge in Madras was opened in 1752 and in Bombay in

NEW FORCES

IN RELIGION

AND LITERATURE,

1818-57

133

In 1813, the Calcutta Gazette (31st July) informs

of Calcutta drank the health of
us, the Freemasons
in these terms: "That
Governor-General
new
the
bright
the
in
Masonic
Luminary
Constellation, the Earl
1758.

whose unremitted (sic) exertions for the

of
benefit
Masonry render his name indelibly imprinted
on the heart of every Brother of the Craft."
Educational institutions for Indians were actively countenanced
saw in the last chapter that the
by the Fraternity.
foundation-stone of the new building for the Hindu College
in Calcutta was laid in 1824 by the head of Freemasonry
of

Moira,

We

in Bengal.
Similarly the foundation-stone of the new
building for the College in Benares was laid with Masonic
honours (2nd November 1847) by His Highness the Raja
of Benares and the Deputy Provincial Grand Master of the
Masonic body in the North- Western Provinces. Since then

Freemasonry has made great progress in India. Though

its activities come little before the public, its influence on

and social progress is not inappreciable.

now have Indian members, men of
influence in their society. At least one Lodge (in
Hyderabad, Deccan) conducts its ceremonies in Urdu.
Under
the Grand Lodge of England, there are now about 200
Lodges in India, with an approximate membership of say
50 per Lpefge;* and there are other Lodges, under the
GramJ/todges of Scotland and Ireland.
RAM MOHAN ROY HIS EDUCATION AND HIS ATTACK ON
our cultural

Most of the Lodges

IDOLATRY

The

and most striking leader of a new school of

religious thought in British India was Raja Ram Mohan
Roy (1774-1833) t- The impulse which he gave to
Liberal religious thought still survives,
though somewhat
His own mind was
transformed, in the Brahmo Somaj.
formed under many influences. Quite
early in his life he
studied Arabic and Persian. Persian and Muslim
learning
in his day formed
part of liberal education in
first

Bengal.

paragraph I am indebted for some material to Mr. G. P. G.

Hill, Librarian of the Grand Lodge of England.
*For

this

tThe date of birth, 1772, given in Buckland's Dictionary of Indian

Biography seems to be incorrect. See Nicol
Macnicol, Making of

Modern

India, p. 174.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

134

He

Before he began
perfected his Sanskrit in Benares.
the study of English, he had already launched at the
age
of fifteen his attack on idolatry in Bengali. His

was

argument

popular cult of idolatry was not justified hy

the teaching of the Vedas.
This was not a new
discovery
Every Hindu thinker has recognised it. Among the early
Muslim writers, Al-Biruni had clearly explained it in his
book on India (1030-33) in the earliest days of
the
Muslim conquest. But young Ram Mohan proclaimed it
with an impetuosity which cost him dear, for he
was
thrown as an exile from his home and his father. He
that the

studied English, French, Latin, Greek and

Hebrew, and
was thus in a position to study the scriptures of all the
He earned his living in
principal religions at first hand.
Government clerical service, from which he retired at the
age of thirtynine.

WORK AND LATER

BIS

LIFE

After this he lived in Calcutta, and began to

develop
and preach his eclectic religious ideas. He translated
religious books from Sanskrit into Bengali and into
He mixed with Englishmen like Hare and
English.

supported the movement for English education among the

youth of Bengal. He was one of the founders of the
Hindu College, as we saw, although he kept in the background, so that the Orthodox should not be prejudiced
against the College on account of his heterodox views.
His Bengali journal, the Sambdd Kaumudi (1819), was
among the earliest Bengali papers published by Bengalis.
He took a lively interest in public questions and social
reform, as we shall see later.
He obtained the title of
Raja from the Mughal Emperor in Delhi, who entrusted
him with a mission to England,, to press the
pecuniary
claims of the Emperor. The India Office* records contain
papers about this mission, which has received little notice

from his biographers. While he was in

England (1831-3)
he gave his views to the Select Committee of the House
of Commons on public
questions, when the renewal of the
East India Company's Charter was under discussion in
the Reform Bill year 1832.
He went to live in Bristol
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^*^^^-^^^^_^__^^_^..

Home

Miscellaneous, voL 708.

__

NEW FORCES

IN RELIGION

AND LITERATURE,

1818-57

135

1833, and died there of fever in September that year.

lies buried in Arno's Vale Cemetery, just outside
Bristol with a recently erected canopy like a Rajput
But his first tomb was in the garden of the
Chhatri.
house where he died, where his Unitarian and other
in

He now

him a
annual
Bristol and

friends holding liberal religious views accorded

His memory is kept green by the
dignified funeral.

of

visit

some Indian residents in England to

by the Mayor and civic authorities of

their reception

that town.

RELIGIOUS REFORM AS

VIEWED BY DIFFERENT MINDS

the Raja's interests were many-sided, the

life was religious reform.
his
of
In the early
passion
and
the
Hindu
of
of
education
there
College
English
days
was undoubtedly a danger lest the youth of India should

Though

away from religion altogether, and the Christian

stemmed this movement, but were unable to

turn

missionaries

bring

young India into the fold of Christianity.

Mohan Roy was not unfriendly

to

but

Ram

when he

them,
Precepts of Jesus
in
in
the
1820,
Bengali
published
Serampur missionaries
were angry and attacked him. A bitter controversy followed which threw Ram Mohan more and more back on
Even Bishop Heber, who, according to his
Hinduism.
lights, was not narrow-minded, referred contemptuously
to these "deistical Brahmins".
But he looked down from
the high stand-point of the established Church of England,
both on the deists and on the non-conforming Christians
like those of Serampur.
This is what he wrote on the
16th December 1823: "Our chief hindrances are some
deistical Brahmins, who have left their old religion, and
desire to found a new sect of their own, and some of those
who are professedly engaged in the same work with ourThese last are, indeed, very civil
selves, the Dissenters.
and affect to rejoice at our success; but they, somehow or
other, cannot help interfering, and setting up rival schools
denied the divinity

of

Christ

in

his

and they apparently find it easier to draw

our pupils, than to look out for fresh and more distant
9
fields of exertion and enterprise. '*
close to ours;
off

Bishop Heber* s Journey,

iii.

247,

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

136

DEVELOPMENT OF ROY

SYSTEM ORIGIN OF THE BRAHMO SO&AJ

:

The controversy between Roy and the missionaries

carried on as it was in English, attracted considerable
attention in Unitarian and Theistic circles in England and
America. These circles felt much sympathy with Roy's
movement and welcomed it. If there had been a modernised school of Islam in India in those days, it would no
doubt have also welcomed Roy as approximating to their
The Unitarians had only been released from
creed.
penal laws themselves in England (1813,) and were not
In America the
released from civil disabilities till 1828.
great Unitarian leader, W. E. Channing, was defending his
faith by means of pamphlets about the same time that
Roy was fighting his battles in India. After this Roy
began to follow western methods. He began to organise.
On the lines of a Unitarian Committee his scheme had no
In 1828 he founded the Brahmo Somaj.* His
success.
ideas were embodied in a Trust Deed in 1830 "for the
worship and adoration of the Eternal, Unsearchable, Immutable Being, who is the Author and Preserver of the
Universe."
This was a new method of worship in
Hinduism. No images or sacrifices were to be .allowed.
But Roy retained his own Brahmanical sacred .thread, and

own

^*^

.^__.

"^

was still the basis

The Vedas were regularly read in a room

in practice the sacred, mystical Gayatri

of worship.

practically inaccessible to Shudras, although the Trust

Deed had spoken of "all sorts and descriptions of people."

No form

of worship venerated

by other

sects

was

to

be

reviled, and the preaching was to be such as to "strengthen

the bonds of union between men of all religions, perIn the year the Trust Deed was
suasions, and creeds."

executed,

Roy

left for

England, from which (as we saw)

he never returned.

MAHARSHI DEVENDRANATH TAGORE

In the hands of those
the

new body languished

whom

he

left

behind in Calcutta

for twelve years, until Maharshi

* In view of the later

developments under Keshub Chunder Sen and
the formation of the Sadharan Brahmo Somaj, the latter deny that Roy's
organisation was more than a Sabha, or place of meeting. They assert
that the true Soma;" or Brahn^o religion was born later. See Dwija-das
Datta, Behold the Man, Comilla (Bengal) 1930.

NEW FORCES IN RELIGION AND LITERATURE,

1818-57

137

Rabindranath Tagore)
Devendranath Tagore (father of
Trust
Deed
had left temporal
The
took it up in 1842.
of
of
men
Trustees,
position and men
affairs in the hands
the
maintained
who
continuity of the moveof the world,
The spiritual aff airs
view.
of
secular
point
ment from a
of
a
"Resident
hands
the
Superintendent," (or
were left in
Minister), who was to be under the Trust Deed "a person

and well-known for his knowledge, piety,,

and morality." These, however, were not enough to
foster in a new organisation the growth of new ideas,
Devendranath (1817-1905) was a man of spiritual gifts.
He had received his English education at the Hindu College.
Although an uncle of his was a trustee under Ram Mohan
Roy's Trust Deed, Devendranath was not brought up in
The Brahmo Somaj was then
a sectarian atmosphere.
more a cult than a community. Devendranath in 1839
founded an independent Tatwabodhini Sabha (society for
the teaching of truth), with a Bengali paper, the TatwaBodhini Patrika, edited by Akhoy Kumar Datta. DevendraAt the second anniversary of
nath became a fervid deist.
the Sabha he said:
"Owing to the spread of English
education we cannot now, like ignorant people, offer
*
worship to wood or stone, imagining them to be God.
He joined the Brahmo Somaj in 1842, and began to undertake its revival from the lethargy into which it had fallen.

of good repute

Coming of a wealthy family he brought

to it the

advantages

of a press and a journal.

For himself he gave up the
sacred thread, though he did not discard it for his youngest
sons.
The questions of caste and social reform were left
undefined, as he did not wish to cut himself entirely
adrift from Hindu society.
The state of the law as it was

then administered would have prevented legal recognition

of his children's marriages as Hindus if he had cast off
the

time-honoured customs of Hinduism.

HIS DOCTRINES

AND ORGANISATION

He developed

doctrines

on evolutionary

lines,

dis-

carding the infallibility of the Vedas, and relying mainly

on the religious sense within man to interpret his ideas of

God.

"I desire"

worship Brahma.

he

said

"that all men, even the lowest,

decided to leave those who-

I therefore

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

138

can worship by means of the Gayatri free to do

who cannot do that should be free to have

so.

But
recourse t

those

any simple method of giving themselves up to the contemplation of God." These last words sum up Maharshi
Devendranath Tagore's idea of worship.
Pilgrimages
ceremonials, and penances were discountenanced. The
Maharahi lived a mystical, saintly life, somewhat
isolated
from the world. The vigour and passion of
religious
devotion were supplied by a younger man, Keshub
Chunder
Sen (1838-1884), who joined the Somaj in 1857. The
work of the two was in many respects
complementary

-and while their co-operation lasted, they strove for

the
training of young Brahmos to take up and develop an
active propaganda. Devendranath appointed him
minister

of the Calcutta Somaj, and Keshub invested

Devendranath
with the title of "Maharshi" (Saint).
But Keshub's zeal
wanted to outstrip the Maharshi's conservatism, and in
1865 they parted company. Divisions took place in the
Erahmo Somaj, which will be noticed in the story of the
next period.

OTHER MOVEMENTS
With the introduction of English education,
cussion of religion had been fashionable
among
cated youth of Bengal.

In later days,

when

the dis-

the

edu-

journalism,

became more absorbing interests, the

.zeal for religious enquiry and reform cooled
down, but
there were always short-lived societies and
papers started
for the advocacy of new ideas.
One such society is
noted in the Calcutta Review,* which somewhat
anticipated
the Theosophical Society of later times.
It was called the
law and

politics

Hindu Theophilanthropic

Society, established in Calcutta

in February 1843, for promoting the love of God and the
love of man.
It published a few
some

Bengali

Sanskrit and Bengali works, and also

English

tracts,

essays

and

reports.

ORTHODOX HINDUISM

Nor must we suppose that the great Orthodox Hindu

community, though silent, was wholly unconcerned in the
movements going on around it. Kashi Prashad
Ghose,

* Vol.

ii f

(No.

a.

Oct. 1844), pp. 266-277.

FORCES IN RELIGION AND LITEKATUKE,

1818-bV

started
who was opposed to social and religious reforms,
Hindu
Orthodox
1838.
in
society
the Dharrna Sabha
an orthodox paper, the Sambdd Timira Nashak

supported
to Raja Ram Mohan Roy's Sambdd
as a counter-blast
Hinduism spoke
Kaumudi, started in 1819. Orthodox
customs
time-honoured
whenever
voice
with no uncertain
on
a
constriction
it
and
public
always put
were attacked,
good example is provided by
events favourable to itself.
Radha Kant Deb (afterwards
the distinguished educationist
Kant
Radba
Sir
Deb) 9 a descendant of
Bahadur

Raja

the days of Clive. He had

Maharaja Nubkissen Bahadur, of
lived a good deal with
and
of
English
a good knowledge
of the Calcutta School
was
He
Secretary
Europeans.
of several books in Sanskrit and Bengali.
Society and author
Heber wrote of him on the 8th March 1824: "With all
this he is believed to be a great bigot In the religion of
one of the few sincere ones, it is
his country's gods
When
race of wealthy Baboos.
the
present
among
said,

of Calcutta,
meeting was held by the Hindu gentlemen
on
his leaving
Lord
vote an address of thanks to
Hastings

the
to

an amendment that
Bengal, Radha Kant Deb proposed
be
Lord Hastings should
particularly thanked for the
and encouragement he had afforded to the ancient
protection

and orthodox practice of widows burning themselves with

a proposal which was seconded
their husbands' bodies,
Mohan
Thakur, another wealthy Babu. It was
by Hari
the
cry of the meeting, though all Hindus,
lost, however,
But it shows the warmth of
being decidedly against it.
Radha Kant Deb's prejudices."
MUSLIM RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS: SAIYID AHMED BARELAVI

The religious sentiment among the Muslims had also

The community as a
fallen into a state of lethargy.
whole had yet been little touched by English education, and
the disuse of Persian as an official language had also
lowered the general level of culture among them.
Many
of their old Foundations for the study of Arabic were now
without funds, or decaying because the funds had been
wrongly diverted to other uses. The loss of political
power had embittered their souls. The alliance of the
Company with Ranjit Singh, which increased the aggressive

140

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

power of the Sikhs in the Pan jab at the same time that
the Afghans were torn by internal
dissensions, gave rise
to a political movement which had also, as its
counterpart
a religious movement in Islam. The political
movement
was led by Saiyid Ahmad, of Bareli, who opened a Jihad
against the Sikhs in 1826.

He

captured Peshawar from

them in 1829. But his followers did not sustain his

early
successes, and he died fighting in Balakot, Hazara, in
1831. The Saiyid was not merely a fanatical soldier.
He had strong views about religious reform, in which
he had ardent followers as well as violent critics and
opponents.

He

stood for Puritanical reform in Muslim

manners, customs,

away

and practices, and wished to

sweep
and innovations which had

the superstitions

sapped

and vigour of Islam. After studying under

famous theologians in Delhi, he travelled with a large
following through India in 1820-4, preaching and gather-

the purity

ing disciples.

no doubt came

In his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1822 he

with the Wahhabi movement

into contact

in Arabia.
Though Abd-ul-Wahhab had died in 1791,
the first widespread successes of the movement had heen
won under the Ibn Sa'ud family of Central Arabia about
1802 to 1818. The movement did not die, though for a
century afterwards it remained pent up in Nejd, obtaining
its release again as a
pan- Arabian force after the World
War of 1914-18.

URDU TRANSLATION OF THE QURAN

Saiyid Ahmad Barelavi's name became famous
because of his fighting career. The leaders of the cultural

movement were the theologians whose disciple he was, and

the pupils who wrote books and
engaged in controversies
after him.
his
Masters
was
Maulana Shah 'Abdul
Among
*AzIz Muhaddis, of Delhi, who died in 1824.
He wrote a

Commentary on

the Quran, called Tafsir Path ul 'Aziz

which obtained great vogue among the learned of his time.
His brother, Maulana c Abdul Qadir Dehlavi
(died 1826),.
wrote an Urdu translation of the
with
a commenQuran,
tary, which he completed in 1803. Muslim public opinion

did not yet approve of translations of the

Quran into the
vernacular.
But the movement which his
disciples carried

NEW FORCES

IN RELIGION

AND LITERATURE,

1818-57

141

much zeal aimed at enlightening the ignorance

Muslim masses. With that object in view, public

on with so

of the
with their opponents in the vernapreaching, disputations
the
and
newly-introduced art of printing were freely
cular,
The translation was published in 1822 by

employed.
Saiyid Abdullah, a prominent disciple of Saiyid Ahmad.
edition published at
I have seen a copy of the second
It is printed with moveable type, not
Calcutta in 1829.
lithographed.
interlinear

as is also the

type

is

The

Urdu

text is

translation

in
is

Arabic (Naskh) type, the

in Persian (Nastaliq) type,

marginal Urdu Commentary. The Nastaliq

and never established itself in

of poor quality,

favour.

KARAMAT ALI: MASS PROPAGANDA IN EASTERN BENGAL

The most prominent literary apostle of the movement

was a disciple of Saiyid Ahmad, Maulvi Karamat Ali, of
His work was largely carried on
Jaunpur (died 1873).
in Urdu, and in Eastern Bengal, where the Muslims were
very ignorant, and where he produced a deep impression
by his energetic propaganda. Another ardent disciple
was the Delhi poet, Mumin Khan Mumin (1800-1851).
He, however, remained in his narrow circle of Delhi poets.
Though he wrote some religious poetry, it was not of a
dynamic character. Karamat Ali wrote no poetry, but
had a vigorous though colloquial prose style.
His
energetic religious propaganda in Eastern Bengal stirred
the Muslim masses and was a factor in the cultural evolution of Muslim Bengal.
His task was twofold. He tried
to combat the superstitions that had crept into the
practices
of Islam; and he waged a vigorous literary war
against
certain new heterodox schools of thought, many of whose
"ignorant," erring members he brought back into the fold.
He was interested in the relations of Islam to the wider
questions of the world, and competed for a prize offered
by Sir Charles Trevelyan for the best Hindustani essay on
the influence of the Greeks and Arabs on the
European
Renaissance.
His School is sometimes confounded with
the Wahhabi sect, but he
expressly disowns Wahhabi
doctrines, upholds the orthodox and the Sufi schools, and
relies on the authority of certain traditions, which the

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

142

Wahhabis
Saiyid

rejected.

Ahmad

His reform consisted in

accepting
as one of the Renewers of the

Barelavi

Faith, under the doctrine that a Renewer of the Faith is

born in every thousand years of Islam. He was a good
calligraphist, but his early works (from 1824-1840) were
He was a prolific prose
printed with moveable types.

writer.*

DEVELOPMENT OF MAJtSIYA AND DRAMATIC LITERATURE

While the religious field was still mainly held by

the Orthodox, the literary horizon was already expanding.
The glories of Bengali literature were yet to come in the
were already being sown. It
was in Urdu literature that the milieu of Lucknow gave a
chance to two literary forms which had never flourished

next period, but the seeds

well before in India. As a kingdom culturally

independent, Oudh was not yet overrun with the flood of
foreign influence. In the department of the Marsiya, the

so

Shia faith of its rulers opened new avenues of work in

which earnestness and religious belief rescued poetry from
In the Drama the
barren insincerity and formalism.
concord between Muslims and Hindus produced in Urdu a
form which reflected the national traditions of Hindu
art at the same time that it produced new effects by the
mingling of music and dancing with poetry as in western
opera.

WHY THE

MARSIYA FLOURISHED IN LUCKNOW: ANlS AND DABlR

The two

great names in the Marsiya literature of Urdu

are
and Dablr. Though they lived on long
Anis
poetry
after the disappearance of the kingdom of Oudh, their
best

work was produced under

that

kingdom.

It is

scarcely

conceivable that its foundations could have been laid in

any other soil, though the impulse once started continued in
Anis lived from 1801
operation to the end of their lives.
to 1874 and Dablr from 1803 to 1875.
They were thus
close contemporaries from beginning to end.
They were
also rivals in literary fame. It is certain that that rivalry
sharpened their wit and awoke their originality, though the
*See my
of Islam.
his works.

article on Karamat AH at pp. 752-4, vol. II, Encyclopaedia

have there given a bibliography about him and a list of

NEW FORCES IN RELIGION AND LITERATURE,

followers of each
other.

1818-57

143

fanatically belittled the work of

in his critical review of the

two

Maulana Shibli

the

Great
to hold the balance even between them.
poets tries
is
Urdu
it
is
in
his
literature,
permissible
authority
though
to point out that he misses the real significance of these
It is not enough merely to examine critically their
poets.
similes and metaphors, their command of
their
style,
language, their graphic powers of description, and their
They both introduced
ability to soar high in imagination.

And their drama

a dramatic aptness in narrative poetry.
was not mere make-believe, nor their poetry merely a fine
exercise of rhetoric.
They did not write merely to
be read in court circles.
They believed in the noble
drama of religious martyrdom, which they described from
many points of view. Their address was to the multitude,
and unlearned, assembled in solemn
learned
both
religious seances, full of devout faith.
They themselves
read their verses in flowing narrative, face to face
The depth and earnestness of their
with their audiences.
voice, its artistic beauty and effectiveness, and the easy
dignified flow of the narrative through the minds of their

were all factors in their success. Sincerity was

demanded and supplied abundantly both in the poet and

hearers,

audience quivering with religious emotion.

living
This was very different from the artificial atmosphere in.
which so much over-refined Urdu poetry had been prohis

duced, and the hyper-critical court audiences which had

applauded words and conceits rather than human pictures
which lighted up a living faith.

HOW THEY

LIFTED UP MARSIYA POETRY

first Urdu writers of

de
Mir 'Abdullah
mentions
Marsiya.
Tassy*
Miskin as having written popular Urdu Marsiyas, one of
which was printed in Nagri characters in Calcutta in
1802. Illustrative quotations were taken from these by
Dr. Gilchrist in his Hindustani Grammar.
Marsiyas have
always been common in Shia circles, but they rarely rose
in poetical inspiration above the level of devotional songs
for particular congregations.
Anis and Dabir lifted them,

Anis and Dablr were not the

Garcin

^B"^^^^^^^^^^^^^W^PW*"^^*^^^^M^^M^^^^^^^BMM^MM^^B^M^HBM^^^M^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HB^^B^^^^^B^^^^^^^B^^^^^^Mrt^^^^^MMM^M^W^MIV^Ml^M^^^^

*Histoire de la Literature Hindottstanie,

II. 333-4.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

144

up to heights of narrative and lyrical poetry which have

ieen appreciated by men of all religions. There was
nothing abstruse about them, and their dramatic narrative
appealed to the unlearned crowd as much as their artistic
form appealed to lovers of pure poetry. Indeed, one
criticism of them among religious people was, like the
criticism of the Oratorios in some Catholic circles, that
they diverted solemn thoughts to mere artistic pleasure.
Yet they were listened to when they were composed, they
have been read always, and they still command wide popularity, both when read and recited, among men and women
of all classes.

human.
out to

From

Their treatment of religious subjects was

the shroud of religious mystery they came

speak of sorrows and sufferings, nature and human

affection, as seen in the

"but

lives

and relationships of men,

heightened by religious exaltation.

.ANIS'S

DESCRIPTIONS:

MORNING IN
SPIRITUAL KING

THE

CAMP

OF

THE

As the Marsiya is only one out of the many themes

we have to consider, we shall content ourselves with a few
illustrative quotations from only one of these poets, Anis.
The description of the morning is a favourite theme with
him. Though it occurs frequently it is described in
different terms on each occasion.
As in Wagner's music,
is an underlying motif in each description: it prepares us for the narrative to which it is an introduction.
Just before a description of the glorious camp of Imam
Husain and his own personality as that of a spiritual king,
the break of the morning is described in a picture of a

there

.royal city opening

When

the

its

gates:

Sun did

raise

The veil of night from his face,

The gates of the morning were opened,

And

closed were the gates of darkness:

Each

star

rendered up

Its

own

nightly account,

And

the

Dawn

like

an accountant

Turned another page of its ledger;

The splendour on the face of the moon
Became pale in heaven ;
The King of East and West
Now reigned acknowledged.

NEW FORCES

IN RELIGION

AND LITERATURE,

1818-57

145

OFF FROM THE WATER

MORNING THAT THE MARTYRS WERE CUT
SUPPLY

The morning of the day when the Imam and his little
is thus
band were cruelly cut off from their water supply
of
and
abundance
the
to
contrast
in
beauty
described,
water in nature

Such was the arrival of the Sun,

Such the happy morning,
Its very brightness whirled
The peacock of the sky into a dance;

were jealous
on the drops of water;
In the midst flowed the Euphrates
Like a veritable Milky Way.
On every tree and its dewdrop, shone
The light as from the summit of Sinai,
As if the heavens themselves poured out
In abundance a shower of light.

The very
Of the

stars

light

argument, simple drinking water was

yet, runs the

denied to the holy

man and

NO WEALTH BETTER

THAN A SOK

And

his family.
?

LOVE

Family affections are thus described in the scene in:

the
troducing the martyrdom of the Imam's eldest son
freshness of youth and the solace of old age are hit off in

happy metaphors

There's no wealth in the world

Better than a son's (love) ;
There's no delight in the world
Better than the delight of the heart;
There's no taste belter
Than the taste of delicate ripening fruit,
Nor in fragrance is aught better
Than a flower young and fresh.
In affliction this is the cure
Of the heart that is wounded;
This is the balm and the basil,
The essence and the wine.

LOVE AND SACRIFICE

That son describes the motive for the sacrifice of his

life : the simile about the poverty of worldly wealth and
the richness of spirit in self-sacrifice is blended with the
idea that this richer wealth is to be had for the asking:
10

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

146

That

man

Who
That

man

Who

is

dead in

life,

hath not the love of God;

is

mere stone

has tasted not the sweets of Love

Gold and precious stones are as dust;

They will not endure ;
Here is wealth being scattered,
That will endure for ever.

Thus are the lowly exalted,

Thus do beggars gain plenty;
He indeed is the Lord of Fortune
To whose lot falls this wealth.
!

POET S PERSONALITY AND VARIETY OF THEMES

The impressive personality of Anis, his

voice and manner, which gave an interpretation
recitation, and the poetic inspiration which was
in his family, have, combined with the parallel

wonderful
to his

own

hereditary

genius of

Dabir, given us in literature this unique gift of the Marsiya

in

Urdu

poetry.

They extended their canvas until it covered

known to them, Their faith ensured

all experiences of life

of sincerity.
Scenes of nature, scenes of
heroic deeds of valour against odds, praise
of the warrior's horse and sward, gentle musings on duty,

the quality

domestic

life,

conscience, humility, love, loyalty between friends and

associates, and a thousand other themes of the most varied
nature are reviewed in easy-flowing verse with the dignity

and the richness of epic poetry. When the living stimulus

which had led two men of genius in Lucknow to embrace
such a vast variety of life in their poetry, ceased to act, the
Marsiya sank back, in the hands of lesser men, to conventional standards which interested only limited circles of
men instead of the whole literary world.

HINDUSTANI DRAMA

The Hindustani Drama had a different past, and

has had a different future.
Before the days of Amanat
(flourished 1840-57) it scarcely existed in its Urdu form.
it was once established, it took root and gathered
Though
strength from other traditions and associations.

When

no remarkable works of genius have been produced in it,

it has established stage traditions, and numerous companies
tour round India and sometimes even outside India to
countries where the Hindustani language has some vogue.

FORCES IN RELIGION

AND LITERATURE

1818-57

147

The Parsis of Bombay, although their vernacular is

not Hindustani, have shown great capacity in theatrical
and management, and at the present day
organisation

Urdu dramatists are employed and

Parsi
financed by
companies acting in towns of Upper
is
therefore
It
India.
interesting to examine Amanat's
work.
pioneer
many

of the successful

WAJID ALI SHAH'S COURT

The Court of Wajid Ali Shah (1847-1856), whatever

faults in the political or administrative sphere, was a
Poetry, instrumental
paradise for arts of all kinds.
its

and drama were lavishly patronised.

There were Frenchmen and Italians in the Lucknow court,
and they introduced French statuary and Italian paintings.
These works, it is true, were not of the highest kind, and
the statuary's art never caught on in Lucknow.
But in
music, dancing, song,

form

which the acting is

music, European impulse has been
on
the
Indian
incorporated
stage.
Opera is dramatised
music.
In a sense the work of Gluck in Italian opera
in the 1840's laid down a new tradition for
Europe.
The Indar Sabha of Amanat, first produced
about
1847-1853,* gave a new impulse to the Hindustani drama.
MUSIC AND DANCE: HINDU AND MUSLIM TRADITIONS
the

drama, especially

in the

in

to the

only incidental

The traditions of the classical, Sanskrit stage, which

gave us Sudraka, Bhavabhuti, and Kalidas, were unknown to
Urdu writers. If they had been known, they would not have
appealed to them, although the classical Sanskrit drama
was a court art and a secular art, like the greater part of

Urdu poetry. The religious Hindu play would have been

outside the scope of Muslim
poetry. But the humble folkplay and street

comedy offered a living and popular form

Lucknow court adapted and used for its
The passion for dance and song was almost

of art, which the

own purposes.

*Mr. Ram Babu Saksena (History of Urdu Literature, pp. 350-3)

gives 1853 as the date when it was written. I am glad to see that he
devotes 21 pages of his book to the Urdu Drama, about which he is
enthusiastic. Usually
dramatic literature is scarcely mentioned in
accounts of Urdu literature. I wrote this chapter before I had seen his
I
am glad to find that his views accord with those I put
book, but
forward in 1917. (see Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature,
2nd series, vol. 35, London 1917, pp. 79*99).

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

148

The work of Amanat is

vice in Lucknow.
memorabL,e
for having given us dramatised music, a sort of
opera-

play, where full scope was given to dances, and the popular
country airs were incorporated. These included the Chaubola and Chhand, the Thumri and Basant, the Holi and
Sawan, the Sha'r and the Ghazl, thus taking in the cultural
characteristics of both Hindus and Muslims.

INDAR SAB HA OF AMANAT

The scene is laid in the heaven of Indra (Indar)

which is described in the Mahabharat. It is an
assembly
of mirth, with dance, music, song, and every splendour
that can be imagined.
The furniture is of gold, adorned
with all kinds of precious stones, diamonds,
emeralds,
In Amanat's
sapphires (nilam), topazes (pukhrdj), etc.
play the precious stones give names to Peris (recalling
Persian mythology), who dance before Indra as the
courtesans danced in the darbar of Wajid Ali Shah. The
Deos of Persian mythology become the attendants at the
Darbar of Indar, which is peopled with all kinds of beings.
The Emerald Peri is in love with a mortal man, Gul-fam
(Rose-face), and her secret is betrayed to Indar by one
of the Deos.
She is banished and Gulf am is imprisoned.
Many adventures follow, which test the truth of love. She

comes back in disguise and so charms Indar with her

music and dancing that he asks her to name her own reward.
She reveals herself, confesses her love for Gulfam, and
the happy pair are united amid a blaze of music and
dancing.
Though supernatural machinery is used, the
characters and scenes are such as might have been seen
any day in the Court of Wajid Ali Shah. There was
It was a true picture of the
nothing forced or laboured.

Oudh

Court.*

I-ATER HISTORY: RISE OF BENGALI

DRAMA
Such plays might, in time, if the tradition had been
But
established, have led to a true Comedy of Manners.
the conditions which produced it were
at
the
swept away
British annexation of Oudh.
The later plays had to look
*See my

article

on The Modern Hindustani Drama in the Transacof Literature, Second Series, vol. xxv

tions of the Royat Society

pp. 79-99 ; London, 1917.

NEW FORCES

IN RELIGION

The

AND LITERATURE,

18l8-bV

of a pseudo-English
mechanical devices,
and
tradition of gorgeous scenery
of
the
the
with
companies and the
poverty
combined
of the dramatic art, have retarded further
depression
lines. On the other hand the growth
growth on indigenous
in
of the Bengali stage
importance and literary excellence^
a
later
in
note
shall
we
as
period, must be a source of
to

other

models.

influence

encouragement to the vernacular Stage in all India.

CHAPTER

VII

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECONOMICS & POLITICS

1818-1857

CULTURAL SUPREMACY OF BENGAL IN THIS PERIOD

In the last chapter we saw how the growth of certain
indigenous cultural movements in the Hindustani-speaking
world were checked by the revolution in Oudh. One of
the institutions that went with the Oudh dynasty was the
Urdu printing press of the King of Lucknow. While
Delhi had clung to Persian as the court language, the
Oudh dynasty had adopted Urdu, of which the cultural
development suffered a set-back with the annexation of
Oudh. In British India, Bengal then held the supremacy.
Bengal had seen English introduced into pleadings and
proceedings in courts of law from 1835, and Persian
altogether ousted in favour of Bengali in 1839.
Thus,
while English forged ahead as the polite language everywhere, and Bengali obtained a recognised place in the
official

scheme,

when
power and

Urdu went back

a step at the end of the

other vernaculars were gradually
rising

period,

the

to

recognition.

AGENCIES

FOR THE

GROWTH OF A YOUNG LANGUAGE AND

LITERATURE

The
and

chief agencies for the growth of a young language

are: (1) the importance in the world

its literature

by those who use

that language and create

the
(2)
flexibility shown in meeting and
adequately expressing new needs and new conditions; (3)
the use of the printing press in disseminating ideas and
binding together those who speak the same language;

attained

that literature;

(4) the development of journalism as a living and active

force; and (5) the wide diffusion of popular education
among the people concerned. The supremacy lay with Bengal
during this and the succeeding period; Bengal responded
most readily to the new traditions in British India, and
turned its mind most readily to British methods in social

reform and public

life.

English education reached wider

& ETC.
JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECONOMICS

151

period there than elsewhere, and

of thought and expression, which
formed modern
in its vernacular speech*
Thus
later
reflected themselves
it
started
in
the
the modern Bengali language, though
had
over
which
than
Urdu,
Urdu,
advantages
race later
during

circles

that

habits

The development
attain earlier maturity.
the
need
created
of indigenous
education
and
of public
also earlier in Bengal than in the Upper
journalism
Provinces.
Although the earlier successes of Bengali
in English, they laid the foundation for
were
journalism
vernacular journalism and the current use of the printing
all purposes of cultural growth and expansion.
press for
The Bengal Zamindars grew rich, important, and influen-

enabled

to

it

life

tial,

and their

new

status also raised

the

status

of their

language.

LITHOGRAPHY

the

Urdu type never became an accepted institution with

Urdu-reading public, and the development of Urdu

journalism has been slow.

a single

Urdu

daily

To

the present day there is not

newspaper of wide circulation or

commanding influence in the whole country. The introduction in 1837 of lithography for the purpose of printing
Urdu books supplied a cheap medium for the multiplication of Urdu manuscript writing, but its limitations can
never

make

it

a substitute for type-printing.

discovery in Germany itself was no

the end of the eighteenth century, its use for
that its

Considering
than

earlier

Urdu printing
India within forty years shows a certain amount of
enterprise as well as the utter unsuitability of the types so
in

far cast for Persian printing.

In Europe the lithographic
process has been confined to the printing of music and
drawings, as type-printing is cheaper and neater for letterletters in Roman type has been
modified
from
letters
the old calligraphists
considerably
in manuscripts.
In the same way, if Urdu type-printing
is to succeed as a commercial
proposition, Urdu readers
will have to make
up their minds to modified shapes of
press.

The shape of

letters for

printing purposes, different

the cursive
writing to

from the

letters

in

which they have become accustomed.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

152

RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN LITHOGRAPHY

Meanwhile three improvements have been made

i
European lithography, which are worthy of attention
One is photo-lithography, in which a single copy made

by
multiplied indefinitely.
This removes
one serious drawback of ordinary
lithography, that only
a few hundred really good copies can be printed from
one
copy written by the scribe, and that for the production of
more copies the scribe has to write it over and over
again
A second improvement resulted from the rotary machine
Instead of the flat stones from which impressions were

the scribe can be

slowly printed, metal plates rotating by machinery were

introduced, in which the ink and moisture were automatiThis greatly
cally supplied as the machine rotated.
increased the speed of the printing.
A third and more
recent improvement is the off -set process.
In this the
intervention of an elastic rubber sheet between the sheet of

paper and the plate containing the impression gives good

results on rough as well as on smooth
paper. Direct
impressions from the hard metal plate required special
smooth or glazed paper; otherwise the printing was uneven
or even blurred.
These improvements are being
introduced into

Urdu

gradually

presses.

MUTUAL REACTIONS BETWEEN PRINTING, POPULAR

JOURNALISM, AND PUBLIC LIFE

As soon as lithography became

Urdu and Persian presses began to
appropriate, the

EDUCATION,

available in India,
multiply. As was

lithographic press was set

p in
Lucknow followed soon afterwards.

first

Delhi about 1837.

Newspapers, pamphlets, government notices, Acts of the

Legislative Councils in Urdu translations, as well as
serious literary work began to appear in
lithographic

On

print.

the

one hand increased printing helped

diffusion of education.
tion

of public

Press.

On

the other

education created

the

hand

the organisaa greater need of the

Similarly the development of the vernacular and

the expansion of journalism reacted on each other, and
influenced and were influenced by
printing presses and
the spread of education.

SOCIAL REFORM, ECONOMICS & ETC.

JOURNALISM,
RISE OF

153

URDU LITERARY PROSE

was the complex of these causes that gave us

similar influences produced a
modern Urdu prose. And
These
the other vernaculars.
in
flexible prose
It

workable,

causes

began

to

operate

with

considerable

force only

that is, not long,

towards the end of the present period,
in this period
we
see
reason
this
For
before the Mutiny.
and
of
public life, of
the beginnings
journalism
only

and vernacular prose.

instruments of a
these
all
of
The real developments
in subsequent
found
be
will
cultural
progress
nation's
of Maulana Abdul Qadir Dehlavi's
The

lasting

work

periods.

in vernacular education

prose

Translation of the Quran, referred to in the last chapter,

was merely an appendage in the form of explanatory
The prose of the
notes, to the Arabic text
interlinear

propaganda of Maulvi Karamat Ali was forcible

and homely, full of sincerity and without literary artifice*,
The prose
but it was rude and without technical merit.
its
insincere
;
of the Fort William School was showy and
of
the
models
form was modelled on the jingling, rhyming

religious

Above
Persian and Arabic authors of the age of decline.
restricthe
with
died
and
all it had no message to convey,
ted educational

movement for whose

benefit

it

was called

into being.

AHMAD KHAN'S EARLY AND LATER PROSE

Even Sir Saiyid Ahmad Khan, who later on, devehad a social, religious, or
loped a vigorous prose when he
SIR SAIYID

or defend, was still in

political cause to advocate
fetters of ths traditional style inj.847, when he dealt

the

witk

His Asdr-us-Sanadid takes us

from a literary point of view, very little further than the
From the point of view of
prose writers of the century.
it marks a great advance in Urdu,
however,
subject-matter,

the Antiquities of Delhi.

literature.

and

critical

For the

first

time, local history and a detailed

and inscriptions are

account of monuments

It was illustrated, and Lie author

considered in Urdu.
Thistook and recorded actual measurements on the spot.
constitutes its permanent value, as many of the landmarks
of old Delhi are being swept away by time and the rise of

the

new Delhi.

The author's

official

and judical experi-

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

154

ence in the British-Indian law-courts

taught him to handl.e
his subject and arrange his matter in a
plain business-like
style.
Although his discussions of dates and historical
facts were based on imperfect data, his method
remains a
landmark in Urdu, and was further adapted
to
fcw
the
*G
-t
..
j.
.

-|

conditions in his later writings.

URDU JOURNALISM

Apart from what has been said in Chapter IV, no

precise information is available about early Urdu newsIt is said* that the first Urdu
papers.

newspaper printed
by Maulvi
Muhammad Baqir, the father of Muhammad Husain Azad
who afterwards became so famous in Urdu literature. The
date given is 1856.
But there were several Urdu
in

Delhi,

the

Urdu

Akhbdr, was

started

papers

Delhi in 1857, as we shall see when we

speak of the
Mutiny. It is probable that Urdu journalism began in
Delhi not long after the introduction of
lithography in
1837. We know that a Persian newspaper was
lithographed in Teheran edited by Mirza Salih, one of the secretaries
of the Shahf.
Persian papers, however, continued to be
lithographed in India, and they circulated as far as Kabul,
Herat, and Bokhara^.
in

ENGLISH JOURNALISM IN UPPER INDIA

Upper India English journalism

also centred in those

The Delhi Gazette, edited by a

early days
Mr. Place, had a good English press, which
printed such
papers as Saunders* Monthly Magazine for all India, and
the Delhi Sketch-Book a comic paper like Punch.
The
The knowledge
printer in 1854 was one Kanahiya Lai.
of English was spreading so fast, thanks to the old Delhi
College, that British journalists were able to boast" of it as
an achievement of British rule. "Already," said Saunders*
Monthly in 1854, "in the first century of our conquest, the
knowledge of the English language has spread with far
in Delhi.

greater rapidity than that of Persian ever did in the first

four centuries of the Mahomedan rule;... the
pursuit of
*Zutshi's Guldasta i Adab, p. $7. See
Zakaullah of Delhi, p. 29.
f Journal, Royal Asiatic Society 1839, p. 355.
^Calcutta Review, xviii (1852), 491.

also C.

F.

Andrews

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECOiNOMiCS & ETC.

literature

and science in English

is

assiduously and ardent-

ly cultivated."*

JOURNALISM IN BENGAL
In Bengal, too, the real journalistic movement among
Indians began in the middle of the nineteenth century.

For a generation before that there had been religious or

in Bengali and English, but they did not
literary papers
Both Raja Ram Mohan Roy
secular
affect
public life.
Devendranath
Maharshi
and
Tagore used a paper for the
of their views on religious reform, and when
propagation
Keshub Chunder Sen broke with the Maharshi, the paper,
which he carried with him, helped to further his influence.
But Bengali secular journalism began in the English

The Reformer (about 1830?) was the first

conducted by Indians, and belonged to
newspaper
English
Mohan
Ram
Roy's
party f. In 1846 Kashi Prashad
Raja
Ghose (1809-1873) started the weekly journal, The Hindu
Intelligencer^ which continued to be published till 1857,
when the military crisis compelled the restriction of the
This paper represented the views of
liberty of the Press.
In 1849 started the Bengal Recorder,
orthodox Hindus.
language.

for which

the real father of Anglo-Bengali journalism,

Chandra Ghose, was responsible. This paper became
the Hindu Patriot in 1859, and ushered in the period of
post-Mutiny journalism in Bengal, which we shall review

Grish

in its

proper place.
FREEDOM AND RESTRICTIONS OF THE PRESS

The freedom of the Press, which Sir Charles Metcalfe

in 1835, had really very little influence on

established

Indian cultural development, for the simple reason that

the Indian Press hardly became a power till after the
Mutiny. Lord Wellesley's Press censorship of 1799 was
a war measure of the Napoleonic period, and directed

When Lord Hastings relaxed

against British journalists.
the strict control of the Press in 1819, it
by no means
meant the complete emancipation of the Press.
It
only meant that it was no longer necessary to submit
proofs of a newspaper to the Secretary

to

Government

*Saunders* Monthly Magazine, vol. Ill, No. 4. Delhi, 1854.

:
India and Indian Missions, p. 619.

f Alexander Duff

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

156

before publication. The rules then laid down

had in
view (as we saw) only the Anglo-Indian Press.
They
restricted the newspapers from:
(1) animadverting on
the authorities in England, or publishing
"disquisitions'*
on the political transactions of the local administration
or offensive remarks against Members of Council,
Judges*
or the Lord Bishop of Calcutta; (2)
printing
discussions

tending to create alarm among the "native populations"*

(3) republishing, from English or other papers, matter
affecting the British power or reputation in India; and
(4) retailing "private scandal."* These rules give a
clear indication of the Government's distrust of almost
any criticism. The reform of 1835 was distasteful to the
directors of the East India Company in London, but
really
encouraged the growth of a responsible Anglo-Indian

The high

on both the British and

1857 made some restriction
temporarily
necessary, but it applied unfortunately more to the Indian
than to the Anglo-Indian Press.
The first twenty years of
Crown Government in India saw the growth of a vernacular
Press.

racial feelings

the Indian side in

an Indian-edited English Press. Lord

1878 for the first time discriminated the vernacular from the English press.
Press as well as

Lytton's restrictions in

FOUR FACTORS IN SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

In examining the social life of the period we must
bear four considerations in mind. First, the vast mass of
village people continued in their own old ways, though the
change in government and in the economics system did
introduce new elements into their life unconsciously.
Secondly, in the towns and cities, and among the upper
classes remarkable changes and displacements of social
strata occurred, and English fashions set in. Thirdly, new
economic factors and means of communication were

gradually introducing new habits and needs, which seemed

to the conservative element to threaten religion and the

moral order.
terious

Fourthly, this dread

urge to the unknown

conscious movements of social

* Calcutta Gazette,
October, 1819.

of a strange, mys-

was accentuated by
and political reform.

the

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECONOMICS & ETC.

lb/

RELATIVE POPULATIONS IN CITIES

mass of the people, we get a fairly good

in Hamilton's Description of Hindostan,
view
general
in 1820, and later in Thornton's Gazetteer in
published
In Hamilton's day there was no. accurate census of
1854.
the population, but it is interesting to find the cities classified according to the reputed population, occupying such
a different position relatively to each other, compared with
As

to the

34 years later, and the figures available now,

of
the decennial censuses that have been taken
means
by
In 1820 Benares was apparently considered
since 1871.
the largest city in India, with Calcutta and Surat following
The
close, and Bombay and Delhi a long way behind.
estimated figures were as follows.
the estimate

2.

Benares, Estimated population

Calcutta

3.

Surat

1.

4.

Patna

5.

Madras
Dacca

6.

7.

Bombay

8.

Delhi

9.

Murshidabad

600,000
500,000
450,000
312,000
300,000
180,000
170,000
150,000
150,000

Lucknow was not then

in British India, but it no doubt

occupied a high position, from a population point of view,
as it did without doubt from a cultural point of view.
I
doubt whether the figure for Benares was actually bigger
than that for Calcutta; probably it was grossly exaggerated.

probable that Lucknow was very near Calcutta on the

population basis: certainly its cultural importance was
In Thornton's time a closer estimate
very much greater.
It is

had brought down Calcutta's population to 413,000 and

brought up Bombay's population to 566,000. The opening
of the Suez overland route in 1841-3, and the
acquisition
of Aden in 1839,
providing coaling facilities for steamship communication, gave great advantages to
Bombay,
an<! made it the first
city in India in the middle of the
nineteenth century.
Its fine harbour was undoubtedly a
factor in its rapid growth.

158

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

COUNTRY: AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES

The country, though fairly fully cultivated, had

not,
even in Bengal, yet felt the intense pressure on the soil
which it has experienced since. Hamilton estimated that
only one-third of the land in Bengal and Bihar was
In England there were
cultivated, exclusive of fallows.
four acres of arable and meadow land for every

inhabitant;

Bengal there was little more than one acre for every
inhabitant.
Today Bengal has scarcely half an acre of
cultivated land for every inhabitant.
The manufactures
had been continually going down during the period
under the stress of British competition. By the time that
Thornton wrote, the extensive art muslin manufactures of
Dacca and the cotton manufactures of Balasore had nearly
come to an end. What happened in the big manufacturing
centres also happened in the thousands of small manuThe hand industries
facturing centres throughout India.
succumbed; both those which had supplied art products and
those which had supplied the daily needs of the people.
Manufactures became more and more the monopoly of the
The pressure on land increased.
foreign import trade.
India became more and more a producer of raw material.
in

Even the export trade in these raw materials began to be

more and more a monopoly of the foreign merchants, as
the shipping was in their hands, as well as the modern
banking which financed the foreign trade, and which had
the closest connection with the enormous financial interests
of the government of the East India Company.
DISPLACEMENTS AND READJUSTMENTS IN SOCIAL STRATA

While these economic changes were happening on a

large scale, it was inevitable that considerable displacements in the social strata should occur, with corresponding
readjustments. The Indian intermediaries who helped the
trade and banking of the Company, and later its nationals
(when the Company ceased to trade), got the big prizes,
and became the most important in the social scale.
Hamilton noted that the wealthy men in Bengal were the
Hindu merchants, bankers,, and Banyans. The Muslim
nobles and officials and the Hindu Zamindars were reduced
to poverty.
The masses of the people no longer looked to

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECONOMICS & ETC.

their

159

and natural leaders. They now looked to the

servants and even the domestics of the English*

old

official

Warren Easting's Jemadar owned land in Calcutta, while

descendants of the Grand Mughal starved on other
In the Company's Civil Service
people's charity.
the lower and clerical ranks were in practice
In the Army the depression was
to Indians.
greater: the highest
fact, was that of a

only

open
still

rank open, both on paper and in

Subadar, which in emoluments and

was inferior to that of a young ensign

from England. Lord Cornwallis's policy of raising
up families and dynasties of landed proprietors failed.
The reason given officially was improvidence and the laws
of division of property. But more important reasons were
The administrators as a body never
behind the failure.
understood or accepted Lord Cornwallis's policy, which,
if it had succeeded, would have been against the interests
of the Company's Civil Service.
The land revenue law
was administered harshly, and many of the Zamindarsin social respect

fresh

were ruined or impoverished.

The demand fixed in perwas
time
at
the
unduly high, and left very little
petuity
to
the
into
land.
After the pacification of 1819,
go
capital
more than a million people who had earned their livelihood in the army or in services connected with the army
were unemployed, and depressed the standards of lowerThe old martial, administrative, and
grade employment.
landed classes, and men of learning were depressed, and.
the men of subtle wits, who could chime in with the new
On the whole,,
conditions, acquired wealth and influence.

commercial and money-lending classes, as also the

unskilled labourers, gained in this period, while the skilled,
artisans and the higher landed classes, as well as those
the

who were attached

lost

to

old ideas and traditions, materially

ground.

ROMAKCE OF TRADE; RAM DOOLAL DEY, MILLIONAIRE

The romance of trade and commerce in Indian

in the early

nineteenth century

is

which Grish Chunder Ghose* told in

*Manmanath Ghosh
Ghose, pp, 1-43.

Selections

from

life

by a story
a Lecture at the

illustrated

the Writings of Grish

Chunder

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

160

Hugli College in 1868. The Bengali millionaire, Ram

Doolal Dey, who died in 1825, rose from humble
beginHe began life, in the early days of the English, as
nings.
a ship sarkar or clerk on Rs. 5 per month. His Bengali
employer trusted him and sent him to bid at a Calcutta
auction for a wreck at the mouth of the Hugli river.
Dey
had previously saen the wreck and knew its value, and
The wreck was knocked
bid Rs. 14,000 for his master.
down to him, but some people who knew its value
and were too late to bid, offered him Rs. 100,000 almost
immediately, which he accepted. He thus made a profit
of Rs. 86,000 in a single transaction.
He duly told his
.master the story, and the master on his part gave the
money
This was a fortune to Dey, and he founded a
to him.
house of business which established a fine reputation in
He cultivated the American
shipping and foreign trade.
trade, which after the establishment of American indeIn 1801 the
pendence entered the Indian market.
American merchants presented him with a portrait of
Washington, and an American ship was named after him.
He also did a big trade with Britain and China. His firm
was the chief Banyan, or Indian agent, of the British firm
of Fairlie Ferguson & Co. He also dealt in the home
market. Once he wanted to corner broadcloth and sugar,
but his scheme was defected by his wife, in the interests

Brahmans who suffered from the manipulation of

He himself had great superstitious reverence
Brahmans.
the
Though, as in the case of many

of the

the market.

for

millionaires, there may have been dark spots in his race

for wealth, he gave freely for his friends and in cases in
which he was interested. He gave Rs. 30,000 for the

Hindu

College, and spent two lakhs to recover caste for

a friend.
ROMANCE OF EXPLORATION: MUNSHI MOHAN LAL
Another romance, not of wealth but of travel
and exploration, is illustrated in the life of a Kashmiri

Brahman

settled

one of the

in

Delhi,

Munshi Mohan

Lai.

He was

pupils educated in the English College at

1829. His English studies only covered
in
Delhi, opened
three years.
He learnt drawing and surveying and other
useful knowledge.
He travelled in Persia and Central
first

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECONOMICS & ETC.

161

December 1831 to January 1834 as Persian

British military officers, who had a mission
two
Munshi
of India.
One of these officers was
Government
the
from
Alexander
who
afterwards won the
Lieutenant
Burnes,
medal
on the score of
Royal Geographical Society's gold
his journeys in Persia -and Central Asia, and later, as
Sir Alexander Barnes, played such a prominent part in
Afghan affairs, 1836-41. Mohan Lai kept a detailed record
This was pubof his journeys in lands then little known.
lished in 1834 as his Journal of a tour through the Punjab,
Asia from
to

Afghanistan, Turkistan, Khorasan and part of Persia, and

of political conditions beyond the
is a valuable record
north-western frontier of British India, which in his day
was marked by the river Satlaj. Mohan Lai was only
22 years of age when his book was published in Calcutta.
He had a fine reception in Persia, and in Kabul was
asked if he would join the Afghan service.
Ranjit
and the
Singh's court was also impressed with him,
to
find an
Maharaja's General Ventura asked him
Munshi
him.
under
for
English-knowing
employment

He was
among

appreciated and admired everywhere except

own people on his return to Delhi. In their

his

eyes he had lost caste.

Native Agent in Kabul.

The Company appointed him

their

IN ENGLAND AND IN INDIA

One of the sons of Tippu Sultan travelled to the West
in 1837.
He visited England, Scotland and Ireland. He
interested himself in the agriculture and manufactures of
the country which had deprived his father of the soveHe purchased some India stock, and
reignty of Mysore.
thus became a proprietor, with a vote, in the affairs of the
East India Company.
It was said in the Royal Asiatic
Society that he thus had an influence over the British
TIPPU SULTAN'S SON

Government in India, far greater than any which his father

could have possessed in the plenitude of his
power.* The
situation was certainly
intriguing, but it is not to be
supposed that it consoled the Prince for the loss of his
"*^^^^W^B^^^^^ta*W0^^

* Journal

^^

of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1837, p. xxxviii. The son's

name is misprinted Jamhuddin. It must have been either Moizzuddin or
Moinuddin, one of the two younger sons of Tippu Sultan (Wellesley
Despatches,
11

ii.

84).

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

162

The conditions in India were not such

as to give any chance or opening to men of that position*
and many descendants of once powerful families have
decayed into sloth and obscurity through want of

father's kingdom.

opportunity.

STEAMSHIP SERVICE
the changes introduced into India by
printing in the intellectual outlook of the people, were the
introduced into general life by the revolution in

More rapid than

changes

means of communication and the revolution in the

economics of industry and commerce. Steamship service
was earlier in Great Britain than steam railways; the same
sequence was observed in India, though by a longer interval.
Steamer service between Liverpool and Glasgow
began in 1815, and it extended rapidly. As early as
November 1823 a public meeting was held in the Calcutta
Town Hall, which appointed a Committee to promote
steam communication between England and Bengal, either
by the Red Sea route or by the Cape route. Rs. 10,000
was subscribed, and a bonus was offered for two steam
the

voyages by either route within a period not exceeding

an average of 70 days for each of the four voyages.
The competition was to be confined to British subjects
and the vessels were to be not less than 300 tons.
The same year a steamer was built in the Kidderpore
Docks. The Bombay docks followed suit soon afterwards, and steamers began to ply regularly between
England and India, both by the Cape route and by

The early
route through Egypt.
enterprise in steam navigation suffered losses.
Government intervened, and under their auspices river
steam navigation became an established means of commu-

the

Red Sea overland

private

nication until it was superseded by railways. The working

of the coal fields of Burdwan and Palamau also helped
steam navigation in Bengal. In the matter of ocean

steamers

India remained

From 1842 onwards

the P.

and

&

still

0.

remains backward.

Company

has held the

mail contract service to the East. For this it maintained

until the Suez canal was opened, a fleet of boats between
Bombay and an Egyptian port on the Red Sea, and another

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECONOMICS & ETC.

165

between England and Alexandria, the Egyptian port on the

Mediterranean, while large caravans numbering as many
as 3,000 camels did the land journey through Egypt. This

was a great improvement on the state of things in 1837,

when monthly steam packets went from England to Alexandria, hut the further route was subject to many chances
and delays. The postage then from Falmouth to Bombay
was 3s. 2d. (=Re. 1/10) per letter, and the minimum
time taken was 45 days, but the indefinite delays made the
time very uncertain.
By 1854 there were semi-monthly
services between both Suez and Bombay and Suez and
Calcutta.

RAILWAYS AND COAL-MINING IN INDIA

The capital and the working of steamer communicain British hands and its development was rapid*
were
tion
But the profits went out of the country, and this remains
to a large extent true to the present day.
The development of Indian railways was slower; and in the earlier
days they were a dead loss to the Indian finances, while
the British companies, which were granted favourable
terms of guarantee, flourished and built up a profitable
vested interest.
In recent times the railways have come
more and more under State ownership, and now yield, in
prosperous years, a handsome return to the Indian
Government. Though the first railway in England (and
in the world), between Stockton and
Darlington was opened
in 1825, the first railway in India, between
Bombay and
Thana, 21 miles, was not opened till 1853. Lord Dalhousie,,
then the Governor- General, had dealt with the
question
of railways in England in his two terms of offices at the
Board of Trade. He planned a comprehensive scheme in
India, not only for local needs, but for the whole country^
In his Railway Minute of 1853 he discussed the
social,,
political, and commercial advantages of railways, though
it must be said that
strategic considerations and those for
British trade held the predominant
place in "India's
rather
than
India's
Development"
indigenous needs. The
line
was
Bombay
intended, among other things, to link up
the port with the rich cotton districts of Berar for
export
In spite of certain doubts expressed whether
purposes.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

164

Indians would use railways, the railways were crowded as

soon as they were opened. In February 1855 the
Bengal
railway was opened for 122 miles, between Calcutta and
Raniganj, opening up a rich coal field. The merits of
Indian coal had been examined as early as 1832. It left
a greater quantity of earthen ash than British coal, but
it was better for steam purposes than China
coal, which
burned too slowly, like coke.*

TELEGRAPHS AND MARINE CABLES

About telegraphs a passage from a private letter of

Lord Dalhousie, dated Barrackpore February 5th, 1855,
*'Two days before, the electric
speaks for itself.f
was
opened to the public from Calcutta to
telegraph
to
Fifteen
Madras, and to Attock on the Indus.
Bombay,
months ago not a yard of this was laid, or a signaller
trained.
Now we have 3,050 miles opened. The communication between Calcutta and Madras direct by land,
a month ago, took twelve days: yesterday a communication
was made, round by Bombay, in two hours. Again, I ask,
are we such slow coaches out here?" The charges against
Dalhousie was, not that he went too slow, but that he went
too fast.
The marine electric cable was laid along the
Red Sea in 1859, and later in the same year Karachi and
Muscat were connected by a cable. The later extension
to

Aden from Muscat, and

to

Malta from Egypt, completed

Europe and England.

India's cable communications with

CHEAP POST AND POSTAGE STAMPS

Side by side with these activities went cheap inland
A half-anna for letters and a quarter-anna
postage.
for post-cards were the rates fixed when the first postage
stamp was issued in India in 1854. These rates were in
money value cheaper than the penny postage introduced in
England in 1840, though the real value in terms of cost of
living

was higher.

These rates remained current

period of the World War (1914-18) disturbed

all

till

the

economic

standards, throughout the world.

*J, G. A. Baird:
p. 337.

Private Letters of the Marquess of Dalhousie*

t Annual Register for 1832, Second Part,

p.

445.

ECONOMICS & ETC.

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM,

165

AND IMPROVED CROPS

ed

Among the new crops introduced or old crops improvmay be mentioned tea, coffee, potatoes, American cotton,.

sugarcane, and Syrian and other tobaccos.

had
been found growing wild in Assam. But
The tea plant
commercial conditions much remodern
in
tea
to produce
William Bentinck in 1834
Lord
was
necessary.
search
for
Committee
a
attempting tea cultivation in
formed
obtained from China, and
were
and
Seeds
plants
India.
were also intromethods
Chinese
and
cultivators
Chinese
of
the Himalayas^
the
lower
and
Assam
and
slopes
duced,
from Bengal to the Punjab, soon became tea-producing
In 1857 the Assam Tea Company alone was
districts.
to
produce as much as 700,000 Ibs. of tea. In
expected
1934 the Indian production of tea reached the figure of
400 million Ihs. of which more than three-quarters was
Great Britain. Coffee was introexported abroad mostly to
duced into Southern India by Muslims in pre-British days.
But the large demand for the berry in England gave a
In 1845 as much
stimulus to coffee cultivation in India.
Coffee is now firmly
as 4i million Ibs. were exported.
the

Mauritius

a staple production in Southern India, the

Indian exports in 1935 having been 156,500 cwts. out of
There is no evidence that
a production of 293,400 cwts.
India
East
the
Company's government directed much attention to the cultivation of the potato, but the cultivation of
the root became popular in the uplands of the Deccan and
in the Hills and plains, both in northern and in southern
India, before the middle of the nineteenth century. Heber
in a letter dated Titagarh, 10th January, 1824, noted how
the Indians liked potatoes though they had known them
He thought they were soon "likely to
only a few years.
rank as a supplementary staff of life, with rice and plantains."*
Cotton has been one of the most important
established

as

from the most ancient times, but the decay

cotton industries of the finer kind produced a certain.

staples of India

of

its

deterioration in the quality of the raw material produced.

The East India Company, with an eye to the supply of the
Manchester demand, made some attempts to introduce the
* Heber's

Journey, III. 261.

166

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

long staple American variety into

India,

to

improve

the

cultivation, and to establish better methods of cleaning

and packing the produce. These efforts began as
early
as 1788, and have continued in varying phases ever since.
But it must be noted that here there is a certain amount of
conflict in

the

different

interests involved:

those of the

Manchester manufacturer, of the Indian cultivators, of the

Indian hand-weavers, and the Indian mill industry since
1862. Cotton has now become one of the slogans of
economic and political nationalism, and is in that way

mixed up with India's future cultural progress.

Very limited success has attended the efforts to introduce
foreign varieties of sugar-cane and tobacco.
Sugar, however, has become an important industrial interest in India

intricately

since the adoption of a protection

1923 onwards.

policy

in

India from

The competition of Java has been

elimi-

nated; a better quality of cane (developed in Coimbatore)

is grown in northern India; and sugar factories have been
Indian tobacco has also
established all over the country.
received a certain amount of fillip from the protective
policy.

JLLUMINANTS
In the matter of illuminants India has passed through
In the first, the universal illuminant was
three stages.
some form of vegetable oil.
Some of these gave very
^beautiful, cool,

and steady light, but they were expensive.

as an illuminant early in the nineteenth

The use of coal gas

century in England introduced a cheap illuminant specially

suitable for the lighting of public streets.
But coal had
yet to be discovered and worked as a commercial proposition in India.
This became a possibility with the prospect

of the opening of the railway to the Raniganj coal fields

in the 1850's.
About 1854 a company was formed in
Calcutta for providing the chief cities of India with gas
instead of oil lamps.
Gas gradually came into general
use for public lighting in big cities. But it never came
into general use for private lighting even in the cities of
India, on account of the difficulties of plumbing. Kerosene
oil, when introduced, supplanted vegetable oils and now
-electricity is rapidly being made available, but both these

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECUiNUMlt-b a

came into use at a much

are considering.
we
which

illuminants

one

ENGLISH FASHIONS

10 i

later period than the

AND THE CHANGES THEY IMPLIED

All these concrete facts help us to realise how habits

and modes of life were changing in all grades of Indian
In the upper grades the introduction of English
society.
education and English fashions had produced remarkable

A profound change in
changes in ideas and outlook.
religious thought was evidenced by the early theistic movement and its development in the Brahmo Somaj.
But the
outward life and fashions change more readily than the
inward thoughts of society, and outward changes are
accepted with less resistance even by those who cling to
the old ways in religious thought and social
In
practices.
1824 (Nov. 18) Babu Rup Lai Halik's house in Chitpore
Road, Calcutta, showed Corinthian pillars on the outside,
and celebrated a nautch and a Hindu festival,
probably

Diwali, inside.*
is

Heber wrote

in

December 1823:" "There

an obvious and

increasing disposition to imitate the

everything, which has already led to very
remarkable changes, and will, probably, to still more
The wealthy natives now all affect to have
important.
their houses decorated with Corinthian
pillars, and filled
with English furniture.
drive
the
.best horses and
They
the most dashing
of them
carriages in Calcutta.
English in

Many

speak English fluently, and are tolerably read in English

literature; and the children of one of our friends I saw
one day dressed in jackets and trousers, with round
hats,
shoes and stockings.
In the Bengali newspapers, of which
there are two or three,
politics are canvassed with a bias,
as I am told,
inclining to Whiggism, and one of their

leading men gave a great dinner not long since, in honour

of the Spanish Revolution.
Among the lower orders the

same feeling shows

anxiety, to
to learn
*

itself

more

a growing
a
merely
willingness, but an
send their children to our schools, and a desire

neglect of caste

in not

and speak English."f

Heber's Journey, I. 47.

t Heber's Journey, III, 252-53.

beneficially, in

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

168

ENGLISH BARBER AT THE OUDH COURT

went so far that even for
English fashions
familiar trade of a barber,

There

European.
behind such

the

the

King of Oudh engaged

may have been

political

reasons

whatever the original

appointments, but,
of everything European or
motives, the fashion in favour
And Englishmen were shrewd
established itself.
English

The Hon. Emily Eden, sister

enough to profit by this.
of Lord Auckland, the Governor-General, speaks in a
of a barber from the
letter dated March 27th, 1837,
was engaged by the
who
Governor-General's household,
of Rs. 400 per month, with
King of Oudh "at a salary
the same amount, and, if he becomes a
presents to about
his fortune." His
favourite, the certainty of making
"is now going
predecessor, she adds,
or fourteen lakhs of rupees." !*

NEW

home

with thirteen

AND FASHIONS AMONG THE INTELLECTUAL

INTERESTS

CLASSES
wherever
people with intellectual traditions,

Among
the

political

influence penetrated,

the

Nawab

literature

intellectual

fashions

In Lord Amherst's time (1823-28),

of Murshidabad amused his leisure with English
The King of Oudh,
and English politics.

went along with

it.

Ghaziuddin Haidar (1814-27), patronised European

as

well as

Oriental

philology.f

He

art

talked about steam

a new way of propelling ships by a

engines (1824), and
at the bottom of the vessel, which an English
spiral wheel
He had a taste for
invented.
engineer in his day had
of the Tagore
member
A
mechanics and chemistry.?
about
talk
could
chemistry,
familiarly
family in Calcutta
natural philosophy, and the achievements of that versatile
American genius, Benjamin Franklin, who was a scientist
and philosopher as well as a statesman and diplomatist.!
SATI, AND GROWTH IN NUMBERS
a
a
transition
such
In
stage there was inevitably
the
and
old
the
between
of
amount
certain
incongruity
new side by side. And incongruity in ideas is apt to

CHANGED IDEAS OF

* Emily

Eden

Letters,

from

India,

f A, T. Richie Lord Amherst,

"Heber's Journey, II. 75,78.
:

1.

p. 49,

340-1.

ECONOMICS & ETC.

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM,
more
appear even

ludicrous or tragic than incongruity in

Sometimes people of ideas eagerly grasp new

fashions.
and
press their old ideas into forms more deadly
facilities
and dangerous than they were in their original setting.
The Sati idea, for example, practised rarely and only in
the highest families in earlier days, seems to have been
revived and become commoner and less voluntary round
about Calcutta with the disturbance of social strata

among

Hindus, of which we have already spoken. Mr. James

Forbes,* writing in 1813, believed that no Hindu widow
immolated herself in Bombay to his knowledge within fifty
years, but round Calcutta, he considered it well establish-

the

And he urged a
by the exercise of
British executive authority rather than by legislation.
But the evil grew and grew in Bengal.
Lady Amherst
saw a distressing case in October 1825, which she thus
that cases

ed,

of Sati were

common.
5 '

plea for

its

"peaceful abolition,

i.

e.,

described in her Diary:

"A young man having

died of cholera, his widow

mount the funeral pile. The usual preparations were made, and the licence
procured from the
fire
was
the
nearest relations;
The
lighted by
magistrate.

resolved to

when the flame reached her, however, she lost courage,

and amid a volume of smoke, and the deafening screams
of the mob, tomtoms, drums, etc., she contrived to slip
down unperceived, and gained a neighbouring jungle. At
first she was not missed, but when the smoke subsided, it
was discovered she was not on the pile, the mob became
furious, and ran into the jungle to look for the unfortunate
young creature, dragged her down to the river, put her into
a dingy, and shoved off to the middle of the stream, where
they forced her violently overboard, and she sunk to rise
no more."t
SA.TI

PROHIBITED BY

LAW

The evil seems to have forced itself on the attention*

of Lord Amherst's successor Lord William Bentinck.
He
made careful enquiries and ascertained the opinion of the
classes likely to be affected.
* Oriental

Memoirs.

Confidential enquiries in the

II. 373.

f Mrs. Ritchie's Lord Amherst pp.

,

63-4.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

170

Bengal army showed that the fear of its being driven to

rebellion by the abolition of Sati was fanciful. Advanced
Hindus like Raja Ram Mohan Roy did not consider that
the prohibition of Sati would be against the best
tion of the

the

interpreta-

Hindu

religion but they apprehended danger in

The judges of the Nizamat
legislation.

proposed
Adalat thought that the practice ought to be suppressed.
The most positive opposition came from Orientalists like
Dr. Henry Horace Wilson, who allowed no scope for interpretation in religious practices and raised the alarm about
But Lord William Bentinck got the
extensive discontent.
legislation
passed on the 4th December, 1829.
prohibitory
Sati henceforward became illegal and punishable in the
Criminal Courts, whether it took the form of burning
widows or burying them alive. *
OTHER QUESTIONS OF SOCIAL REFORM
'

Other questions affecting Hindu social reform were

Such questions were caste
by reformers.

discussed

distinctions in religious worship, the marriage of girls

before the age of maturity, and Kulin marriages in Bengal.
The Kulins were a very high class of Bengal Brahmans, to
whom many young girls were poligamously married. The
remarriage of Hindu widows was legalised by Act XV
of 1856.
By Act XXI of 1850, passed under missionary
pressure, it was enacted that a change of religion did not

Women's liability
disqualify the convert for inheritance.
for offences against sex morality was not enforced in the
criminal courts.
SLAVERY

The formal

abolition of slavery by Act

of 1843
practical difference in Indian life. The horrors
of plantation slavery, an invention of European nations
after they became powerful at sea, were never known in

made

little

the East.
Domestic slavery had been known, but arose
mostly from wars. The Portuguese had been slave-raiders
in India, and had come into collision with both Shah

Jahan and Aurangzib, who had objected

*Lord William Ben thick's Minute on
ber 1829,
pp. 96-109.

is

printed in

D. C.

to the enslavement

the subject, dated 8th NovemLord William Bentinck,

Boulger's

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECONOMICS & LIC.

their subjects.

When Hamilton

IV I

wrote in 1820, slaves

in British India "were not so few as to be of no consideramany as to form a notable part of the
tion, nor so
British had never recognised the
The
traffic
population.'*
In 1789 they forbade the export of
India.
in
slaves
in
slaves from British India by a Proclamation, which recites
that both Indians and Europeans had indulged in "the
of purchasing or collecting natives of both sexes*
practice
children as well as adults, for the purpose of exporting
them as slaves in different parts of India, or elsewhere."
A corresponding Regulation was passed in 1811 for
preventing the importation of slaves from foreign countries
and the sale of slaves in the Bengal Presidency, and a
similar Regulation was passed for the Bombay
Presidency
The British Parliament had declared the traffic
in 1813.
in slaves to be a criminal offence in 1811. This
piecemeal
legislation was not entirely effective, until the Indian Act
of 1843 made the status of slavery itself illegal.*
The
British Parliament had abolished the
status in 1833,
allowing a transition period of seven years from that
date, but doubts were raised about its application to India.

CONSULTATION OF INDIAN OPINION, AND ASSOCIATION OF

INDIANS IN JUDICIAL AND EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION

The discussion of public questions in

newspapers and
and by consultation with influential non-officials
by Government, began in this period, though the systematic
exercise of the pressure of Indian public
opinion came
into force after the
Mutiny. By Regulation 6 of 1832
Indian juries could have been empanelled in civil and
criminal cases, but there was little
response to this desire
societies,

to associate the

people in the administration of justice.

In the Presidency Towns, from 1832
onwards, Indians could
Be appointed Justices of the Peace, and this
privilege was
In 1836 all disabilities, on account of
highly valued.
place of birth or descent, were removed in the

ments of Sadr Amins, Amins, and

Munsifs,
began to have a wide field in judicial

appoint-

and Indians
training and in

ein na

n India' sres
J * mes ?
sCries too British
rts
T rt
i
vrify
London,
1832, made an impassioned appeal against
Ghat murders, Sati, and Slavery, and advocated Infanticide, Idolatry
European colonisation
e mte s
f Christianity.
See also Wm. Adam: Law and
*?$
in

? British
.

of Slavery

India,

London 1840

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

172

for which they have shown such marked

judicial careers,
in succeeding generations.
By the
aptitude and abilities
section
87, all disabilities of religion,
Charter Act of 1833,
or colour were removed for
holding
place of birth, descent,
or
employment under the Company. But
any place, office,

Parliamentary enactgenerations before

ment was carried out in the highest executive and military
and even now it is subject to many
posts in India,

it

took

many

this

qualifications.

RAM MOHAN ROY BEFORE A PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE

When the renewal of the Company's Charter was
under discussion in England in 1831, Raja Ram Mohan

Roy gave evidence before the

House of Commons dealing with

Select Committee of the

In this way
the subject.

Indian publicly called into consultation by

the general line of British policy
authority for determining
with every phase of public
dealt
evidence
His
in India.
kck of a proper code of
the
He
deprecated
questions.
set the machinery of
afterwards
soon
laws.
Macaulay
Indian Penal Code and
the
motion,
in
codification
though
did not come into
Procedure
Criminal
of
the first Code
the want of
lamented
also
I860.
till
Roy
operation
of
relations
intimate
and
properly qualified judges,
between the Bench and the Bar, and between the public

he was the

first

and the Government in India. He thought that English,

of the judges, was better fitted to be
being the language
He did not
the language of the courts, than Persian.
think that there was public confidence in the general
and urged a more wideoperation of the judicial system,
in the dissemination of the Regulations
spread publicity
He urged the encouragement of
of the Government.
form of Juries. He
Panchayets, as being an indigenous
of
of the combination
judicial with revenue

disapproved
and executive functions in the Commissioners of Revenue
and Circuit, and urged the appointment of Indians to
in the administration.
Collectorships and other high posts
THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE: THEIR CONDITION AND THEIR
ATTITUDE TO GOVERNMENT
The condition of the cultivators, he thought, wasmiserable,
systems.

both under the Zamindari

The wages of Calcutta

and the Ryotwari

artisans, e.g. blacksmiths*

JOURNALISM, SOCIAL REFORM, ECONOMICS & ETC.

173

carpenters, etc. were about Rs. 10 to Rs. 12 per month,

and those of less skilled workmen Rs. 5 to Rs. 6. Unskilled

This scale of earnings

labourers earned Rs. 3j to Rs. 4.
in Calcutta where the cost of living was comparatively

was

The wages were much lower in smaller towns, and

the villages.
Asked about the attitude of
the people to the Government, he gave the only reply that
was possible. Men of ambition were frankly disaffected.
The rich merchants, and Zamindars with a permanent
revenue settlement, looked upon the Government as a
The
blessing as all their interests were bound up with it.
that
the
mass
of
the
indifferent.
were
is,
people,
peasantry,
liigh.
still

lower in

to Bengal
In the Upper
particularly.
(about which he did not speak) there were no
rich merchants or Zamindars., and therefore no class actively
in favour of Government.
In the Bombay and Madras

This

applied

Provinces

Presidencies (which were also outside the Raja's horizon,)

men of ambition who had been thrown out of employ-

the

ment were few in number, and therefore active sedition

was negligible. These facts go a long way to explain the
geographical distribution of the Revolt of 1857 and the
fact that the mass of the people, being indifferent, were
very little affected by it one way or another.

HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE

About the health of the people we have no

statistics

The climate of India has often

But economic conditions and modes of

relating to the period.

been maligned.
have much to do with evils attributed to the climate.
In 1820 Hamilton considered India "a
very healthy
country," compared with the West Indies and other tropical countries.
Plague was not then known. In so far
as the masses of the
people lived in the open air in the
living

country, we may suppose that in normal times their health

was good, and that the growth of a more
complex life later,
in growing towns and
large villages, without any reasonable sanitation or habits of sanitation outside of field
life,
must have adversely affected the general health of the

This
people.
that epidemics
those early

is probably true.
But we must not forget
when they came caused enormous havoc in
days, in the absence of any organised means

174

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

of mitigating their horrors. Famines and starvation

always
brought disease and lowered the people's vitality. Thesmall-pox epidemic of 1796 carried off great numbers of

men and

cattle.

The cholera

that started

among

the Bengal

troops in 1817-18 in connection with the enormous massing

of troops for military operations spread rapidly and inIt spread over Central India to
fected Calcutta.

Bombay.
reached Europe by way of Persia and Russia in 1830But cholera was not contagious in India, nor was it attended with fever. Dysentery was common, but Typhus was
rare in India.
Diseases of the spleen occurred in tracts
like Bengal, where there was a humid atmosphere and
variable temperature, but not where there was a dry sandy
soil and dry winds as in Upper India.
It

SECTION

IV

DEATH STRUGGLE OF THE OLD ORDER: 1857-8

CHAPTER

VIII

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MUTINY

MUTINY DESCRIBED IN THREE DIFFERENT WAYS
The Mutiny of 1857 is a most important,

if

terrible,

event in British Indian history.

It has been viewed and
described in three different ways: (1) as a military revolt
of the Bengal Army, pure and simple; (2) as an insurrection of the people of northern India against the
fast-moving
tide of British civilisation; and (3) as an unsuccessful
War of Indian Independence. Some British writers have
even treated it as a mere outbreak of savagery, unreasoning
and unreasonable, in which all the Indians who participated were brutes and all the doings of the British, civilians and soldiers, were deeds of heroism, worthy of being

commemorated

expression of the
are not concerned here, either with
the narration of events or with the purely political and
military causes and consequences of that dreadful catasas exhibiting the finest

British character.

We

We shall try to see what cultural significance we

can deduce from what we know, not only of the events
themselves, but of what people thought of them, then and

trophe.

subsequently.
BRITISH NARRATIVES, BUT NO EXPLANATION OF MOTIVES FROM

THE BEATEN

The

SIDE

not easy.
Though a great deal of literathe Mutiny, it has chiefly
round
gathered
concerned itself with ascertaining concrete facts from the
British point of view.
From the nature of the case there
is no narrative from the other side,* which could throw
ture

task

is

has

on the objects and motives behind the movement, as

viewed from the point of view of the parties which were

light

Sir Saiyid Ahmad

pamphlet on the Causes of the Indian

beaten in the struggle.

little

asbdb

baghaivat

Khan

a
wrote_
Mutiny (Risdla

Hindustan), which was printed

in

* Two Native Narratives of the Mutiny in Delhi, translated by C. T.

Metcalf e, London 1898, is hardly an exception. The first, a short one,
TKras written by Mu 'inuddin Hasan Khan, who was afterwards most
Tanxkms to keep well in with the British. The second was written by
Munshi Jiwan Lai, an actual employe of the British.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MUTINY

He had done much during

1859.

to assist the British officers

and

the

at

Mutiny

their families

177

Bijnaur

and save
under the

He held high judicial office

and
received a reward of merit for loyal
Government
His
services.
object in writing the Pamphlet was to
inform the Government of the real cultural causes of the
their

lives.

And

yet it was criticised by Sir Cecil Beadon

(Foreign Secretary to the Government of India) as seditious, and apart from the copies which he sent to Government, no copies were then distributed in India*,
They

Mutiny.

merely sent

to England for the information of

public
was the state of feeling at the time about
even a loyalist's discussion of the Mutiny, what chance
could there be that a narrative of any merit from the rebel
point of view could possibly see the light? The poet Mirza
Asadullah Ghalib, who had lived in close touch with
Bahadur Shah at Delhi before the Munity, and had been
commissioned to write a history of the Timur family, was
broken in spirt during the Mutiny, and he was reduced to
-were

men.

If that

such abject poverty that he could only write laudatory

Qasidas for the British authorities in order to save himself

from starvation.
ASSUMPTIONS OF BRITISH HISTORIANS

The standard histories of the Mutiny are: Kaye and

Malleson's History in 6 volumes and Mr. T. Rice Holmes's
This last has already and deserHistory in one volume.
Both these are
vedly passed through five editions.
admirable and well-balanced works, but neither of these
authors is interested in the cultural side of the
question.
Sir John Kaye's mode of
looking at the matter is expressed
by his statement in the Preface : "It was the vehement
self-assertion of the Englishman that
produced the
Conflagration^ it was the same vehement self-assertion that
enabled him, by God's blessing, to
trample it out."t
Further on, in discussing the causes of the
in

Mutiny

connection

with

Lord

Dalhousie's

administration,

he

* Altai
Husain Half: Hayat i Jawed, p. 71. The Pamphlet was
reprinted many years afterwards at Agra, in 1903. An
English translation was published by Sir Auckland Colvin and
General G.F.I. Graham
<5ir Saiyid's English
in 1873.

biographer)

Kaye and Malleson's History of

the Indian Mutiny, vol.

1, p. xi.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

178

that Lord Dalhousie's system "failed,

perhaps
the people preferred darkness to light,
because
only
folly
This makes two assumptions, both of which
to wisdom*."

remarks

One assumption is that the issue

are very questionable.
was a simple one, of darkness or wisdom against light or
folly; that the light and the wisdom were all on the side
of Lord Dalhousie and his nation, and the darkness and
the folly were all on the side not only of the Mutineers,
but of the whole of the general discontent of which the
Mutiny of the Bengal army was a symptom and expression.
In reality the issue was not so simple, nor the folly or
The second assumption is that
darkness all on one side.
the conquest of force by force in 1857-8 disposed of all
the root-causes of the conflict, that all the errors of policy
have been rectified, and that there is no cause for self-

examination either by England or India as regards

passions and prejudices which flourished during

the
the

Mutiny period.
RACIAL FEELING AND HATRED

The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal,

in his

speech

at

Medical College, Calcutta, on the 19th April 1858,

deplored among the many lamentable and melancholy
results of the Mutiny, "that heated, embittered, and
exasperated sentiment of antagonism of race, which has
sprung up in so many minds." It was just such a
spirit which animated the English papers of the period in
attacking Lord Canning's "clemency" even when he sought
to conciliate Indian feeling by rewards for loyal services"}".
Perhaps it is such a spirit which brings out from manuscript
obscurity and publishes even at the present time personal
narratives full of the passions and prejudices of that dark
period.^ Mr. Edward Thomson$ has already, as an

the

Englishman, recorded his protest against such books

*

Kay and Malleson, History of

fThe Indian Punch, Meerut,
observed that he had
gifts to the heathen.

no

the Indian

Mutiny

I.

as

263.

(a British paper,) sarcastically

time for compensation to Christians in giving
1859,

$ For example, see Mrs. Tytler's "Through the Sepoy Mutiny/'

Chambers Journal, London, January 1931 and subsequent numbers.
adds nothing to our historical information, and revives exploded
besides expressing racial prejudice and contempt.
$In his book The Other Side of the Medal, London 1925.

in

It

theories,

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MUTINY

Sir

George Forrest's

179

History of the Indian Mutiny, which

on the other. The

except in books of
must
be represented*
where both sides

one side, but not

record the excesses on
to forget the excesses,
better plan is
scientific

history,

we examine the matter dispassionately, we shall find

feeling found expression on the
that very little race
the
Mutiny period outside the ranks of
Indian side during
If

more violent rebels themselves. The papers of Bahadur

Shah's government, seized at the capture of Delhi, use
the
the very mild term "Karani" (clerk) in speaking of
it
I
wish
East
India
the
of
officials
Company.
District
the
at
Indians
for
claim
same
make
the
to
were possible
Our newspapers are full of bitter abuse and
present day*
not
only on racial, but on cultural and religious
hatred,
not only against foreigners, but by sections
and
grounds,
This passion of hatred
of our people against each other.
and intolerance, or its more subdued form of suspicion,
will have to give place to frank give-and-take and friendly
understanding, if we are to have any cultural co-operation
between India and England, between East and West, or
between the different sections of our own people.

the

THE SENSE IN

WHICH WE MUST UNDERSTAND THE CULTURAL

CONFLICT

The cultural significance of the Mutiny lay in a culBut that conflict must not be imagined in
tural conflict.
terms of a hatred between all members of a race culture
as against all members of another race culture, or even
against different cultures evolved

by

different races.

If

were so, the case would be hopeless. There would

be no lesson to be learnt, and no guidance in history for
the future.
Culture could not assimilate with culture, and
human evolution would be stopped for ever. The cultural
The
conflict should rather be visualised in this way.
British mental attitude and behaviour towards the people
of India induced in the people of India a certain repugnance against the British, or, if looked at differently, a
certain suspicion of their motives, a certain feeling that
that

were not sincere, and that the real

motives were discreditable and could not be professed.
This conflict would become personal, but it would be based
upon conduct, behaviour, writings, speeches, institutions,
the motives professed

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

180

the general manifestations of culture. This

distinction between two kinds of cultural conflict is imIn the relations between the British and Indians
portant.
it implied not the conflict of one culture with another,
but the conflict of men of one culture with men of

laws, and

a variety of others, who acted together because they

believed themselves to be slighted under a common ban.
If we bear this distinction in mind, we shall also understand why there was no cultural conflict between Hindus
and Muslims in pre-British days though there had been
and why such Hindupolitical and military conflicts,
with
have
Muslim conflicts
peculiar fury in our own
raged
how
understand
also
We shall
they became stilled
days.
the
over
in Delhi and
country generally during the Mutiny,
in Delhi during the Mutiny;
killed
were
For no cows
Shah's
Bahadur
Special Secretary during the brief days
of his "Restoration" was Mukand Lai, a Hindu; many
Walayati (Afghan) mercenaries fought on the side of the
Hindu Mutineers, and the rebel Sepoys used British forms
in military and judicial procedure, although they were
fighting against British supremacy.
REVOLT ONLY CAUSED WHEN GOVERNMENT IS REPUGNANT TO
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE
Khan was right when he wrote, in
Ahmed
Sir Saiyid
Revolt: "There is only one
Indian
the
his Causes of
is born in the minds of
rebellion
idea
of
this
.cause why
of such events as are
occurrence
the
That
men.
is,
and
nature
the
to
disposition, the wishes and
repugnant
and the life and manners of
and
the
habits
customs,
ideas,
those

who

rebel."

The study of

the

Mutiny

is

only

profi-

the applicatry to understand in every detail

The great mass of the people had
tions of this principle.
been touched to the
not
by anything that had

table if

we

quick
yet
been done by the Company's government. They were not
active assisonly not hostile but in many cases rendered
had
been so
The Sepoy Army
tance to the Government.
touched; and so were the expropriated governing classes,
not only in annexed territory but in territory directly
administered by the British.
They therefore readily
Sir Saiyid was
joined in the insurrectionary movement.
dear that "there was no general conspiracy of the people

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MUTINY

181

Nor was there

from
or Persia
Russia
any
invasion was often mentioned in the wild
Persian
a
though
rumours that obtained currency in the bazaars and in
The presence of Russian spies was also an
rebel notices.
obsession in the minds of British officers.
CULTURAL HOLD OF THE OUDH KINGS ON THEIR PEOPLE
The annexation of Oudh was really a cause of the
dimensions which the rebel movement took in Oudh in
sympathy with the Mutiny movement of the Bengal Army*
Sir Saiyid does
There it was a real popular insurrection.
not go into its local causes or character, and he was not
competent from his experience to discuss the Oudh reThe Oudh province of the Mughal Empire had
bellion.
been raised to the status of a Kingdom, and the vanity of
the Nawab-Wazir had been encouraged by Lord Hastings
in order to drive a wedge between him and his titular
There was no
sovereign the Mughal Emperor at Delhi.
love lost between Delhi and Lucknow, and therefore the
extinction of the Oudh Kingdom could not have been
But its extinction must, as a matter of
resented at Delhi.
to

remove the rule of an alien people".

aid to

the

movement

either

constitutional theory, revive the question of the

Emperor's

reversionary rights. The Company had no treaty rights of

administration in Oudh as they had in Bengal, Bihar and
The annexation was purely an act of autocracy.
Orissa.
According to the standard British history* of the Mutiny,

was carried out in a "sudden and treacherous manner."

was true that maladministration was put forward to
justify it, but the Oudh King had a reply to the charge of
it

It

maladministration. And in any case popular opinion only

considered the British plea as a lame excuse.
In relation
to the British Government the Oudh
Kings had been faithful to their engagements ; there was no
charge that they
had intrigued against the Company, or had been
guilty of

working against the Company.

Oudh men had

enlisted

largely in the Company's Bengal Army, and their discontent in that

of
army
spread to the civil

rapidly

^^^^*^

Oudh.
their

*Kaye and Malleson: History of

,*r

population

The Oudh Kings had a great cultural hold over

Both Hindu and Muslim Taluqdars fought
people.
the Indian Mutiny, IV. 379.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

182

The Taluqdar Beni Madho,

for the cause of his dynasty.
his fort, surrendered the
hold
no
when he could
longer
surrender
to
himself, saying that he
fort, but refused
"belonged

to his

King!"*.

NEITHER BAHADUR SHAH

S POLITICAL AMBITION NOR

FANATICISM CAUSED THE MUTINY

It

RELIGIOUS

has often been asserted that the political ambitions

of Bahadur Shah and his sons stirred up disaffection in

the ranks of the Company's Army and thus caused the
was more an artist than a
Mutiny. Bahadur Shah himself
He was a poet and wrote under the name of
politician.

Zafar. He was a calligraphist and copied the sacred Quran

He was a musician and composed popular
for mosques.
are still current. There is no evidence
which
airs
Thumris,
was
there
that
any concerted plan of rebellion in the
at
all, and I think that the general evidence of
Mutiny
authentic contemporary documents, including the statement
of Bahadur Shah at his trial, and the fact that he was a
in the new government
passive rather than an active agent
set up by the rebels, negative such a supposition. Though
the religious motive was
religion was used as a battle-cry
The Fatwa of Jihad (religious war),
of the thinnest.
at Delhi, was pronounced by
be a forgery. On the contrary
he asserts that the genuine Fatwa was against Jihad. A
number of Maulvis in Delhi considered that the

which the rebels printed

Sir Saiyid

Ahmed Khan

to

great

ex-Emperor was not orthodox.

THE PART OF INDIA THAT

REBELLED,

AND WHY

The greased cartridges, the curtailment of Sepoy

the Persian wars, the disallowprivileges, the Crimean and
ance of adoption in State successions, the enactment of
and prejudices,
legislation contrary to age-long customs
these were the occasions rather than the causes, which
were

causes
brought about the Mutiny. The deep-seated
the want of confidence between India and England, which
had been progressively increasing during the first half of
the nineteenth century, and which was brought to a bead
When we say "India" and "England" we
In 1857.

*Kaye and Malleson: History of

the Indian Mutiny, V. 203.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MUTINY

183

the India which precipitated the conflict,

small
part of the people of India, and the
tthich was
identified with the government of the
were
who
English
Company, which included the whole of the English and
semi-English population in India, to which were attached
the Indian Christians of the north, who had no root in
The bulk of the Indian population remained
the soil.
necessarily

mean
a

That part which had personal responsibilities

indifferent.
with the English people, such as domestic servants, fulfilled
those responsibilities by a remarkably staunch adherence,
even to the loss of their lives.
Except in Oudh there was
no abstract national feeling to bind Indians together either
The
against or in favour of the British Government.
individual cases of heroic assistance to the British were

governed either by feelings of pure humanity or of personal

predilections.

WANT OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN OFFICERS AND MEN

What were

the governing forces in the mind of the

The chief agent was the Bengal

India which rebelled?

Army.

Its

faulty

organisation

and

distribution

were

important incidents, but the vital defect was the want of

confidence or understanding between the British officers and

In the early days of the Sepoy army

nexus and confidence had been strong.
Clive
could do almost more with his Indian Sepoys than with
their

Indian Sepoys.

the personal

But the atmosphere had changed

With extended conquests
came more racial pride, and when it showed itself in the
enforcement of discipline, a sensitive people, however they
may suppress their feelings, must nurse it as a greater
his British followers.

completely

since

those days-

grievance in their hearts than much more tangible injuries.

Such a grievance would be translated in terms of religion,
or race, or material privileges, as was in fact done.

No army could

live as a healthy, efficient, and reliable

which
was cut up in artificially or racially
organism,
divided compartments.
The flow of healthy blood as
between officers and privates is essential to the life of a
powerful army, as the flow of healthy blood as between
the nobility and the commonalty is essential to the life of
a developing or developed body-politic.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

184

SEGREGATION IN THE RANKS OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

The evil of racial segregation in the army was also
visible in the civil government of the East India
Company.
Though the segregation is being remedied by slow stages
in civil administration it still persists.
The more recent
has
been
to
the
of
reform in civil
tendency
quicken
pace
as well as military administration, but the pace in the
latter is enormously slower than in the former.
"LIVELIHOOD" AS A PRINCIPLE OF STATE-CRAFT

The

Chinese reformer Sun-Yat-Sen, in his book

Three Principles of the People, laid down
"Livelihood" as one of the vital principles in the organisation of a living and healthy nation.
It is
called The

certainly

mass of a people judges of the success of a

government and is attached to it in proportion as it
furthers their means of livelihood.
About the middle of
the nineteenth century there was a great deal of unemployment and poverty in the active element of the Indian
Each annexation restricted more and more
population.
the area of Indian employment in positions of the highest
honour and responsibility. Colonel Sleeman was at least

true that the

worldly-wise in his advice about Oudh in 1852: "Assume

the administration, but do not grasp the revenues". The
second clause of his advice shows that he was conscious
of the danger of curtailing the livelihood of the people or
of appealing to high principles at the same time that the
Company added to its own resources and riches. The

resumption of Muafi (revenue-free) estates in

India earlier in the century had caused an uneasy

British

feeling

of the same kind.

NO OPPORTUNITIES OF TRAINING FOR HIGHEST INDIAN TALENT

Not only livelihood, but opportunities of training the
highest talent in civil and military life, were being taken
away from Indians, and given to British men. There was
no secret about it. India was to be the training ground
for British talent to be used in the service of Britain, or
of India as a possession of Britain.
The British Foreign
Minister, George Canning, at a farewell banquet in London
in 1827 to Sir John Malcolm on his
appointment as
Governor of Bombay, boasted that there was no monarchy

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MUTINY

185

many men of
and
as
India ha&
the first
military life,
hereself
and
for
then
their
native
first trained
given to
"which within a given time had produced so
talents, in civil

country"*

(z. e.

Great Britain).

RACIAL CONTEMPT

proud and sensitive people are swayed even more

by their feelings than by their material interests. Colonel
Sleeman, as British Resident in Lucknow, had treated the

Oudh and his nobles with scant courtesy. When

Oudh was annexed and its government handed over to the

King of

tender mercies

of

Coverley Jackson, his inconsiderate

Taluqdars and of the ex-King's depenHe was
dants became almost a bye-word in the country.
and
in
tact.
Other
wanting
administrators*
hot-tempered
greater and more famous than he, worded their public
utterances in polished terms of politeness, but it is clear
from their private correspondence what contempt they felt
treatment of

the

for the people from whose country they drew their training
and their emoluments. Lord Dalhousie wrote on the

1853
"The King of Oudh seems disposed
I wish he would be.
be bumptious.
To swallow him
The old King of
before I go would give me satisfaction.
not
been
for
is
If
it
the
had
effete folly of
Delhi
dying.
18th August

to

the Court (of Directors, East India Company), I would

have ended with him the dynasty of Timour."f Bishop
Heber almost foresaw the Mutiny when he wrote on

September 7th 1824: "The natives do not really like us,

and... if a fair opportunity be offered, the Mussulmans,
more particularly, would gladly avail themselves of it to
rise against us. ..(The feeling) has been increased of late
years fay the conduct of Lord Hastings to the old Emperor
of Delhi, a conduct which has been pursued by successive
administrations, but which entirely differed from the outward respect and allegiance which the Company's officers
had professed to pay him, from Lord Clive downwards."^!
*

Kaye and Malleson, History of the Indian Mutiny,

X Private Letters, edited by J. G. A. Baird, p. 262.

$ Bishop Heber's Journey,

i.

393-4.

I.

276, note.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

186

IN POSITION OF THE EMPEROR: FEELING OF

SECURITY AND DISMAY

DEGRADATION
Political

mixed up

and

social

in India.

IN-

considerations get
inextricably
it is not
my intention to deal

Though

with political history as such, it is necessary to recall

the
steps in the degredation of the position of the Emperor in
order to explain the feeling of insecurity and
dismay which
had spread over India in the middle of the nineteenth
There was a feeling of injury and resentment"
century.
a feeling that as the Company grew
disregarded its earlier promises or

it

stronger

in

power
understandings, and

encroached more and more on the established

which it respected only so long as it suited its
purpose.

that

it

status quo,

TAKEN AWAY WITHOUT

THAT THE PEOPLE COULD RECOGNISE

.ATTRIBUTES OF SOVEREIGNTY

REASONS

The Mughal

Emperor had never been formally

deposed by the East India Company, and there was nothing
in his dealings with the Company which justified his
being
treated worse in 1853 than in 1803.
When Lord Lake
took Delhi in 1803, and secured the person of the Emperor,
Shah Alam was treated with every mark of respect. The
position of Sindhia, who had
(at least nominally and
of
the
constitutionally)
Emperor, who had bestowed on
him the highest title in the Empire. On General Lake as
representing the Company the Emperor now bestowed the
-second highest set of titles,
Samsam-ud-Daula, Azhgar-

Company stepped

controlled

Delhi

into

in the

the

name

ul-mulk 9 Khan-Dauran-Khan, Fateh-Jang. Lord Lake was

proud of these titles, as from "a legitimate sovereign, of
a lineage second to none in the world"*.
It is true the
Emperor received a pension, but he was not subject to the
jurisdiction of the Courts, and kept some sort of state
in his Palace

in

Mm

in English

Emperor

Delhi.

The Company gave up calling

and began calling him King

Delhi, but neither he nor his two successors Akbar

Shah (1806-37) and Bahadur Shah II (1837-57) agreed
to the lowering of their status, and
they continued to
called, in Persian, Padishah, which was the title of

-of

* Colonel

Hugh Pearse,

Life of Viscount Lake,

p. 203.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MUTINY

187

in India in their palmiest days.

to bestow titles of honour until 1828, when
continued
They
the Company ceased to recognise such titles except when
bestowed on the immediate dependants of the Padishah.
The Company continued to issue coins in the name of the

Mughal Emperors

the

Mughal Emperor until 1835, when the

issued in Incia

first

coins were

name of the British King, William

also, the Company forbade the reception,

in the

In that year,
of the Vakils (representatives) of
its sanction,
the
Court of Delhi.
Powers
at
Nazars continued
country
IV.

without

be offered, even by the Governor- General, until the

time of Lord Hastings, whom Bishop Heber criticised for
to

The officers of the Company, however,

lack of courtesy.
continued to offer Nazars until they were stopped by Lord
In 1853 the Governor-General
Ellenborough in 1843.
refused to receive

a resident Vakil from Bahadur Shah

himself, thus reducing him to the position of a private

About the same time proposals were made to
person.

Bahadur Shah or his heirs from the Fort of Delhi

itself, and to reduce or stop the pension
altogether after

oust

his death.

RESENTMENT AND FEELING OF INJUSTICE IN THE PUBLIC MIND

There can be no doubt that all these steps were
bitterly resented by the Delhi family, as the stoppage of
a pension was resented by the descendants of the Poona
Peshwas at Bithur. Not only were -they resented by the
families concerned, but Indian public opinion
generally

condemned them as unjust, as contrary to the obligations

incurred by the Company in consideration of past transactions, and as mere evidence of a desire to exercise brute
force now that the Company had power to do so.
To do
the

justice, the Court of Directors considered

proposal to oust the Emperor from Delhi "unjust,
gratuitously offensive, and calculated to produce an injurious effect on British reputation"'1".
We are not concerned
here with the political
expediency or necessity of
such steps. The point is what the
feeling about them
was in the public mind in India. There is no cuestion
that at various times the
Emperor himself had advanced

Company

the

Kaye and Malleson,

II. 16.

188

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

"pretensions" which the Company had felt called upon to

Among such "pretensions" a Legitimist lawyer
repress.
could frame the following: that the Emperor's pension was
the tribute paid by the Company in virtue of past
arrangement and treaties; that the Company was administering
territories for him, as the Marathas had in constitutional

theory done before the Company; that the Company's

authority was derived from his f armans in so far as it
was covered by f armans, and was mere illegal usurpation
in so far as it was not so covered; and that the
Company
and the Company's Army owed allegiance to him. This
argument has been developed with considerable force by

Mr. F. W. Buckler in an

on the Political Theory

Historical Society's
Royal
Mutiny,
A refutation of the argument was
Transactions.*
attempted by Messrs. D. Dewar and H. L. Garrett,t mainly
of the Indian

article

in the

on the ground that the Delhi family in accepting the

It is not disputed thai
pension had given up their power.
That had happened even
they had lost effective power.
But legally and constitutionally the Delhi
before 1803.
house had never been set aside from the position they had
occupied when they granted the

Diwani

to the

Company

in 1765.

ATTITUDE OF INDIAN MIND NOT UNDERSTOOD

And the trial of Bahadur Shah before a military

Court after the Mutiny as a British subject guilty of
treason, was an illustration of how little the attitude of
the Indian mind could have been understood at the time.
The Company could have dealt with Bahadur Shah by
right of conquest or as a political prisoner, as in fact they
But it was an anomaly to call it a trial, as of an
did.
ordinary criminal, when the military officers who sat
as judges, had very little idea of the admissibility of
evidence; the prisoner had already been promised that his
life would be spared ; and the feeling in the Army ran so
high that the civil population of Delhi scarcely dared
show their faces on account of the terror of the events
which had so recently happened before their eyes
*4th Series, Vol. 5, 1922.
t Royal Historical Society's Transactions, 4th Series, Vol.
Paper dated 8th November 1923.

7,

1924-

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MUTINY

189

including the shooting of the unresisting sons of Bahadur

Shah by Major William Hodson after Bahadur Shah's
own person had been secured. Hodson's conduct, though

condemned by historians, was

temporary British

approved

by

his

con-

officers.

SUBSEQUENT FEELING OF TERROR AND OPPRESSION

Of

the feeling of terror and

oppression in
population after its capture in

of the Delhi

the

mind

September
of so emi-

1857 we have indisputable evidence in the life

nent a loyalist as Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan himself.
He
came to search for his own mother in Delhi, and found her
concealed with a Syce (a groom, a menial
employed in
On his calling out to her, she
tending horses).

opened
have you come here? All are
You will be killed also." For five days she
being killed.
had been living on the horses's
grain, and for three days
she had had no water. She was in
great privation, in company with an old woman, who died even in the very act of
the rescue.
The Saiyid's uncle and cousin, unarmed, were
killed by the Sikhs.
There was much pillage in the city.*
Many priceless manuscripts were lost in the loot. In the
of the poet Zauq,
by Ahmad Husain Khan, we read
life^
In the revolution of 1857 hundreds of women
(p. 5.):
who had committed no fault were burnt alive like fireworks, and hundreds of innocent children were killed
by
59
the sword of
This is not
cruelty.
contemporary evidence,
and cannot be advanced as evidence of facts.
Zauq died
before the Mutiny.
But it is a good index to the
the door,

crying out,

of the people,

"Why

among whom

feeling

the writer held a

The

good literary

poet Ghalib shut himself up in his house

during the Mutiny.
Though, in his Persian Dastanbti,
he does full justice to the moderation of
the British soldiers,
position.

he describes the
feeling of terror and insecurity after the
capture of Delhi, and the prospect of unrelieved
gloom
with which men like him faced
the future.
"The (moral)
climate of this city
(Delhi)/' he says, "is no longer agreeable to our wounded
hearts."f

And popular

created a wholly
legendary version of the

feeling has

Mutiny in such
*Major-General G.F.I. Graham Life
of Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan, p. 21
Altai
:

Husain Hali, Yadgar

Ghalib, p. 38.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

190

works as

name

Matam Shah
i

Zafar, Zaf ar being the poetical

Bahadur Shah.*
URDU NEWSPAPERS DURING THE MUTINY
There were several Urdu newspapers in Delhi
during
the Mutiny.
There was Bahadur Shah's own paper Sirajof the ill-fated

ul-Akhba-r, published in the royal lithographic press in

But it only described events, and scarcely
throws any light on the motives and intentions behind
those events.
This is what might have been expected, as

the Palace.

Bahadur Shah only played a passive part throughout, and

was more or less in the hands of the Sepoys who had
mutinied and made Delhi their headquarters.
There
were two other Urdu papers in Delhi, the Delhi Urdu
Akhbdr and the Sadiq-ul-Akhbar^ and an Urdu paper in
Lucknow, the Tilism-i-Lakhnau, of which we hear in the
These were mostly full of
proceedings after the Mutiny.
wild rumours or of bare records of what was happening.
They throw little light on the organisation of the rebels,
or the ideas and motives behind their actions.
One other
Delhi paper was that of the Editor Chuni.
He did not
He had not even a proper
print a lithographed sheet.
title to his newspaper.
He merely wrote down, in manuscript, rumours and news that he heard, and sometimes
manufactured, and went round and read it to his subscribers.
There were probably many others who followed
It was a characthe same method in the supply of news.
teristic method, and is even now used with proper lithographed newspapers in the circulation of news in the
bazaars.

REBEL LEADERSHIP, AND THEIR BOND OF COMMON ACTION

There was hardly any leadership in Delhi. The real

leaders which the Mutiny threw up on the rebel side
were scattered about elsewhere. Three could be named:
Topi, Kunwar Singh, and the Fyzebad Maulvi
Ahmadullah. Of Tantia we do not know the antecedents.
He was a Brahman, who fought in the cause of Nana Saheb,
of Bithur, and with marvellous mobility and mental
resource, but scanty material resources, maintained a two

Tantia

years' fight with the

* Matam

Company's well-equipped

Shah by Kazib, Madras

1908.

generals.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MUTINY

191

was a landholding Rajput who had aAhmadullah

the Company's Courts.
grievance against
the Queen
of
Court
the
attached
to
was a learned man,
in
all
widely separated areas:
fought
of Oudh.
They
Kunwar
Central
in
India,
Singh round about
Tantia
in Oudh.
Ahmadullah
and
and
They
Arrah,
Dinapur
no
means
of
had
and
common
no
communicating
had
plan
In race, caste, and religion they were
with each other.
but
different,
they all acted under a common cultural
Their
private grievances were swallowed up in
impulse.
the larger grievances of the cause which each represented.
There was a sense of political resentment and the idea

Kunwar

Singh

the Company stood for the destruction of all that

valuable in social and cultural life. That
considered
they
was the bond that held them together and the whole of theactive men during the Mutiny.
that

REBEL INSTITUTIONS

AND ORGANISATION

Though the rebels were inimical to the culture

represented by the Company., they were themselves brought
up in that culture, and followed the forms and methods
The constitution of
they had learnt in British India.
which they established in Delhi, during their
occupation, used English titles for the officers of their

the Court

Court,

such as President, Vice-President, Secretary,

etc.

They did not use such words as Judge or Qazi. It was

because they were soldiers, and thinking of military
courts.
Their procedure, however, was democratic. They
followed their own ideas and resented the interference
of the Princes, the sons of Bahadur Shah.
They even
complained to Bahadur Shah when the Princes tried to
The Corps of the Indian army which mutinied,
fought as units or brigades.
They went into action with
their bands playing the same old airs and their bugles
sounding the same old calls as they had been accustomed
to in British service.
Sometimes they even played "God
Save the Queen" and fought with British colours flying,
The Subadar of artillery, Bakht Khan, who became a
General and Commander-in-Chief in Delhi during the
rebel occupation, had been fond of English society before*
the Mutiny.
In their very protest against the culture they
interfere,

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

192

were

fighting, they used the methods and symbols identified

with that culture. The culture which was vaguely in their
hearts was dead, and could not be revived by force of

arms.*

MEN WHO FAVOURED ENGLISH

The

antithesis of these

men who had

conditions of

adopted

life.

the

IDEAS

men was

to

be found

in the

new ways of thought and new

They used

the English

language and

were mainly to be found in Calcutta and the large cities.

They were few in number, but both their number and their
influence were increasing.
This increase alarmed the men
of the older ways of thinking and in their ignorance
they
sought a solution by way of a military conspiracy and
revolt.
They did not realise that they lacked both the
material and the cultural means by which battles are

fought and won.

Their cause was hopeless from the first,

was suppressed it remained a memory of
ruthless violence and ineffectual resistance.
On the other
hand the men who were assimilating the new ideas were
not by any means impressed by the men who brought these
ideas.
The Anglicised Indians saw the value of the

and when

it

machinery, but could not see that the men behind it were
better than themselves.
Indeed they saw the failings
and shortcomings of their new rulers even better than the
men of the older culture, because of the new light in which
With the new light they could
they could see them.
glorify themselves or exalt their own past and thus build
a bridge between themselves and the most pronounced reactionaries.
Two generations were needed to accomplish

any

this transformation.

WHY THE

PEOPLE SHOULD BE ASSOCIATED WITH GOVERNMENT

Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan considers as the root cause

of the Mutiny the fact that Indians were not associated
with the British in the Legislative Councils of their
country. This may sound like an anachronism considering

,^
*

*ised:

For the
(1)

last three paragraphs, besides the

The Mutiny papers

usual histories,

have

Record Department, Cal(2) Evidence taken at the

in the Imperial

of which a Press-List has been issued ;

Trial of the King of Delhi; and (3) Colonel Gimlette: Postscript to the
Records of the Indian Mutiny.

cutta,

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE 0* THE MUT1WX

which the Mutineers moved.

the circle of ideas in

when we examine

we

it

But

shall find that there is

closely
He says: "every one
a great deal of reason behind it.
for
the
is
it
that
necessary
stability, efficiency,
admits
conduct of a Government, that the people
and

proper

It
o-overned should be associated with it.
the people that the rulers can understand

is only from
whether their

measures are good or bad in the eyes of the people... The

wishes of the people were not understood by the Government, and the good intentions of the Government were not

On

clear to the people.

evil intentions to

the contrary the people attributed

the Government.

9'

No Government can

purpose unless it is in close and constant contact

with the ideas of the people and has machinery by which
that contact can be constantly and efficiently maintained.
fulfil its

LESSON FOR BRITAIN

AND INDIA

The union of one people with another

has often led to

new

civilisations

even

is possible, and
after sanguinary

The co-operation of one people with another in

mutual self-respect and in furtherance of common interests
can have the happiest results if not directed against any
But the subjection of one people to another
other group.
can lead neither to stability nor progress.
All talk of a
mission of one people to another must necessarily be
insincere in a whole people, however sincere it may be in
conflicts.

individuals.

Subjection must

mean economic and

deterioration in the subject people.

When

in a

cultural

composite

accompanied by discrimination as between

one unit and another, or by cross purposes, or arrogance,
or misunderstandings, or want of sincerity or mutual
confidence, it can only produce frictions and conflicts
Empire

it is

which no well-governed State can afford to risk.

This is
the cultural lesson of the Mutiny, both for the British and
for the Indians.

SECTION V

ASCENDANCY OF ENGLISH IDEAS

1858-1885

CHAPTER

IX

GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION, AND

LITERATURE

NEW

ASCENDANCY OF

LITERATURE AND
ORGANISATION

IDEAS IN

RELIGIOUS

period down to 1885 a new

in the Indian mind.
The
marked
orientation is strongly
the
dominant
feature.
ideas
became
of
British
ascendancy
In the

post-Mutiny

The extremely conservative element that which looked

upon British civilisation as something alien and hostile,
something inferior and transitory, something to be endured
had been given its death-blow
like small-pox or measles
bred in that earlier
Even
the
individuals
the
Mutiny.
by
attitude who survived and retained any influence, could
Ghalib in literature lost
not resist the new time-spirit.
a
of
but
as
writer
Ghazls
gained immensely in
ground
influence as the founder of a new epistolary style in
Urdu chaste, direct, and homely. His pupil Altaf
Husain Hali produced a revolution in Urdu poetry, both
in its form and subject-matter.
In Hindu religious reform,
Maharshi Devendranath Tagore's mysticism gave place to

more practical organisation of Keshub Chunder Sen

Bengal, and the frankly nationalistic organisation of
Swami Dayanand Saraswati in northern India. The new
reaction against British supremacy came after a generation.
The seeds buried in the ground have germinated with new
strength and are producing an abundant crop.
the
in

HOW ENGLISH EDUCATION BECAME THE DIVIDING LINE IN SOCIAL

CLASSES, COMMUNITIES, INDUSTRIES AND PROFESSIONS
In education we no longer strained after European
ideas as a novelty.
took over the type of the London
University organisation, and moulded it to our needs
and purposes. Our early graduates were like priests or

We

Their dazzling
apostles of a new civilisation.
in life also recommended their
example for
acceptance.
the new-born

certain gulf

intelligentsia

now began

to

success

popular

yawn between

and the old-fashioned people.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

196

The

of being on the right side of the gulf was English

While the Province of Bengal began to lose
primacy owing to the spread of English education
test

education.
its

as having been trained longer in

elsewhere, the Bengalis
education
began to spread over other Provinces
English
and to occupy positions of importance everywhere. The
profits of English education also created a gulf between

the

Hindus and Muslims

having for

many

as

communities

the

Muslims

lost the start of the other

generations

communities in English education. Our older arts and

and newer ones founded after
industries also languished,
the pattern of British industrialism

began

to

rear their

heads and despise their earlier predecessors. A similar

gulf began to divide town and country. Old towns decayed
and began to assimilate with the country: agriculture
began to sink in profit and public esteem the intelligence
of the country began to be attracted to towns and town
occupations: and the Zamindars became relatively less
important in public life than the English educated pro:

fessional classes.

The

latter also fostered ideas of public

on lines which ultimately took shape in the Indian

National Congress in 1885.

life

FOUR PHASES OF RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT

We may

take up the religious developments of this

four heads: the further growth of Theism
under
period
in Bengal in the Brahmo Somaj movement: the Muslim
modernist movement associated with the name of Sir Saiyid
Ahmed Khan, of Aligarh* the strong fighting nationalistic
movement of the Arya Samaj and the decline of a real
;

influential men in
religious sentiment among the circles of
communaa
and
its
latitudinarian,
India,
replacement by
marked
more
was
This
sentiment.
or
nationalistic
listic,
in the subsequent period, but its roots lie embedded in the
'

/growth of cultural ideas in this period.

BRAHMO SOMAJ: KESHUB CHUNDER SEN SEPARATES FROM THE

MAHARSHI

We

saw

in Chapter

VI how Maharshi Devendranath

Tagore took up and strengthened Raja Ram Mohan Roy's

theistic movement and gave it definite form and shape,
and how he installed his new recruit Keshub Chunder Sen

GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, KELIGlOiN, & ETC.

iyv

But Tagore's
its Acharya or minister.
(1838-1884) as
of
an
aristocrat
that
and
conservative.
essence
in
mind was
for
ancient
India
to
back
looked
purity of morals
He still
of
his
was
the
Brahma of the
God
The
worship
and religion.
new
India that had arisen at the call of
The
Upanishads.
It cried out for
British culture had little appeal for him.
in
the
social
Hindu
reform
immediate
system; for the
remarriage of

for

intermarriage beyond the

impassable by Hindus;
recognised
for the abolition of the sacred thread as a symbol of the
"twice-born castes," even in the case of an Acharya; and
for a recognition of the teaching of Jesus and the Bible,
and of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam. These princiin Keshub Chunder Sen.
In
ples found their mouthpiece
1863 Keshub actually solemnised a marriage between
members of different castes. The rift between him and

widows;

as

barriers hitherto

Maharshi widened, until Keshub definitely withdrew

from the Maharshfs organisation in February 1865.

the

EESHUB'S PRINCIPLES

After this Keshub began to work out his own ideas,

and with his impassioned eloquence, gave them a more
The modern
pronounced, popular and universal tone*
Brahmo Somaj looks upon Keshub as its real founder. His
meeting of November 1866 definitely set the seal to a
gospel of universality.
were to be read in the

Extracts

Somaj
(including Bddhist), Muslim,

from

services

all

the

Scriptures

Christian,

Parsi, and Chinese.

spirit of the teaching

Hindu
These

were mentioned, but the

would
include the scriptures of every people and sect.
In the
Maghotsav address of 1864, in the Adi (or old) Somaj,
Keshub had said: "The world is our sanctuary, natural
wisdom is our sacred scripture, worship is our means of
salvation, purification of the hearts is our attainment,
and every pious man is our teacher and guide." These
are very wide terms, and they are echoed in the motto of
the Brahmo Somaj:
"This wide universe is the sacred
temple of God; the pure in heart the most sacred of
shrines; Truth is the ever-lasting scripture; Faith is the
root of all religion ; Love is the true spiritual culture ; the
destruction of selfishness is true asceticism."

In practice

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

198
the

Somaj has drawn nearer and nearer

Christianity.

Its

to Free
Church
insistence
on
the
special
position of
it a potent social
force, and female

women has made

education of an advanced order has been the result
Keshub himself, as early as 1862, shared the
ministry
of the Somaj with his wife.
HIS

MISSIONARY ZEAL! THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW

DISPENSATION

his new body and sent out his

Chunder
Mozumdar (1840-1905)
Pratap
was one of his most distinguished missionaries, for he

Keshub organised

missionaries.

throughout India (including Southern India)

He subsequently visited England and America
He carried Keshub's flag and was the most
twice.
prominent exponent of Keshub's doctrines after Keshuh's
death, having held a prominent place in the Parliament
of Religions in Chicago in 1895. Keshub himself visited
England in 1870, and was received by Queen Victoria.
On his return he threw himself into Indian reform, and
formed an association for the purpose, dealing with five
heads of work, viz. female improvement, education,
the dissemination of cheap literature, the preaching of
temperance, and the organisation of charity. In 1872 he
got the Civil Marriage Act passed, thus making a definite
Lreak with Hindu society, both in the matter of idolatrous
rites and child marriage.
In 1878 the marriage of
Keshub's daughter at an immature age to the Maharaja
of Kuch Behar with "idolatrous rites" raised a storm of
controversy in the Somaj, from whose ministry Keshub
ivas dismissed.
But the rift between Keshub and the
Somaj had been growing for some time. It was a matter
of temperament.
Keshub's mysticism, his belief in his
own inspiration, and his general leaning towards a doctrine
of intuition, were inconsistent with the prevailing tone of
the Sornaj, which went by rules and the votes of majorities.
The schism of 1878 thus gave rise to the Sadharan
Brahmo Somaj (the General Body, working on the
lines of the Free Churches of the West).
Keshub then
travelled
in 1870.

definitely announced (January 1881) his New Dispensation (Nava Vidhan), of which he claimed to be the inspired
There are thus
Apostle. He died in January 1884.

GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION, & ETC.

199

marching under the Brahmo banner: the

Adi
old or
Somaj, small in numbers and aristocratic in
constitution; this body does not come under the Marriage
Act of 1872, and has its own marriage ritual the general
or Sadharan body, resting upon an ordinary practical
and the New Dispensation, with
secular organisation;
three

bodies

doctrines.

The

claims in its universality to

mystical
have emancipated itself from Hindu forms and ceremonies,
but this is difficult to achieve in practice.
The Somaj has
its chief influence in modern Bengal.
last

BRAHMO IDEAS OUTSIDE BENGAL

The Prarthna Samaj in Bombay (established in 1867)

had among its notable leaders M. G. Ranade (1842-1901)
andN. G. Chandavarkar (1855-1923), both leaders of
The Depressed
exceptional eminence in social reform.
Classes Mission (1906) and the Social Service
League of
the late Sir N. G. Chandavarkar represent a
great advance
in practical reform.
The Prarthna Samaj has its Marathi

Bombay and Poona and a Gujarati centre in

Ahmedabad. These and eighteen Dravidian centres in the
Madras Presidency represent offshoots of the Brahrao idea
in western and southern India.
The foundation of the
Dayal Singh College in Lahore (1910), under the will of
the late Sardar Dayal Singh Majithia, was an
attempt to
centres in

transplant it to the Punjab, but the Brahmo cult has not

taken root there. The more active
Arya Samaj has rendered the Dayal Singh College somewhat inert as an

agency

for religious reform,

though it continues to exert its influence in uncongenial
surroundings, and counts as a factor
in Punjab education.

A&YA SAMAJ AND

ITS

POUNDER

The Arya movement was established in

Bombay in
Its prominence and
practical successes came after
1885, and chiefly in the Punjab and the United Provinces.
Its founder, Swami
Dayanand Saraswati (1824-1883), was
born of a Brahman family in Morvi in the
peninsula of
Kathiawar in Western India, He was deeply attached to
Sanskrit and religious studies, and left his home for
1875.

Benares, the spiritual

nineteen.

For

fifteen

home
years,

of Hinduism, at the age of

from

1845

to

1860, he

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

200

wandered

over India as a Sanyasi devoted to

study and
soon acquired a repugnance to the
Puranie

all

He

Yoga,
forms of Hinduism, and wished to restore it to its ancient
Vedic purity. By 1870 his position as an expounder of
the Vedas was recognised in the Hindu world,
though his
views as to interpretation differed from those of Orthodox
Hindus. His Society or Samaj was definitely constituted
in Bombay, as already stated, in 1875, and two
years
The remaining six years of his life the
later in Lahore.
Swami spent in preaching, teaching, and writing books
and in fostering the infant Samaj and its branches. Is
Rajputana he won notable disciples in the Maharana of
Udaipur and in the late Maharaja Sir Partab Singh, of
His chief literary work was the Satydrtha Prakash
Idar.
(the True Exposition), of which at least two English
translations have been published.
As a preacher of the
unity of God and a repudiator of idolatry, he won the
good opinion of Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan, who wrote a
favourable obituary notice of him in his Aligarh paper.

SWAMI DAYANAND'S TEACHING

Swami

Dayanand's

attitude to the Vedas.

He

teaching centres around his

attacked the monopoly by the

Brahmans of

the right to study or hear the Vedas, and

swept away a great part of the current interpretation of
He not only attacked the commentaries
those Scriptures.
of later Hinduism but rejected the conclusions of western

scholars in their interpretation of their meaning and place

To him the true and original Vedic hymns

in history.

and sciences, and he looked

and inventions as having been
Caste, in his
anticipated in a golden age of Hinduism.
view, was determined by individual merit and worth.
Idol-worship and polytheism he rejected, as also Vedantic
pantheism and incarnations. He allowed, however, for a
included all knowledge,

upon

all

modern

arts,

discoveries

possibility of the existence of Devatas, or superior created

beings or angels.
Agni, or fire, plays a large part in his
ritual,

and the Homa-sacrifice,

z.

e.

the burning of ghi

(clarified butter) in the fire, to the chant

is a characteristic rite of

Samaj worship.

of Vedic

texts*

GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION, & ETC.

201

SAMAJ ORGANISATION

The strongest point of the Arya Samaj is its organisaEvery local centre has its own Samaj or congregafive elected officers and an elected Committee.
with
tion,
Effective membership requires the payment by each member of one per cent of his income and the acceptance of
tion.

The first three of these

principles.
the attributes of God and the Vedas; the
concern
principles
next six relate to moral conduct; and the last or tenth, while
allowing freedom in strictly personal matters, forbids any
one's individuality to interfere with the general good. The
local Arya Samajes are affiliated to a Provincial Assembly,
to which each local Samaj sends representatives and financial contributions of ten per cent of its own gross income.
Over all is the All-India Assembly similarly organised
and maintained. The creed and principles are fixed, but
business and propaganda are carried on on well-defined
the ten

Niyams or

representative principles,
national organisation.

embodied

in^ a

fairly

strong

EDUCATIONAL AND SUBSEQUENT HISTORY

educational activities are fairly wide-spread and
be
considered under two heads.
First there is the
may
work of education on modern lines, co-ordinated with
State schools and universities, but with a pronounced
Vedic or Sanskrit tinge. The precursor in this line was
the Anglo-Vedic school in Lahore in 1886, followed
by
the College,
opened in 1889. The second stream of
Its

educational thought finds expression in the Gurukula at

Kangri, which goes back to more ancient ideals and
appears to the more modern party to be less practical and
more dissociated from modern life.
These opposing
views, as well

as the allowance or disallowance of meat

caused a split in the Arya Samaj in 1892. In later
times the Samaj came into antagonism with the Muslims
and with the Government. But they claim through their
^^
1
i
leaders that there is no necessary antagonism to either on
the part of the
Samaj as a body. The strong nationalist
doctrines of the Samaj have made its numerical
growth
and its leaders, like the late Lala Lajpat
Rai.? have
rapid,
A
1
been in the front rank of the advanced nationalist movement..

diet.,

*J

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

202

MAHARAJ LIBEL CASE

The religious self-examination of India is not to
be
measured by the numbers of societies or separate
organisations

that

were

started.

had

its

tion

was a leaven working

reactions in

Every fresh religious impulse

unexpected quarters.
in

the

mind

English educaof India not less

in regard to its religious or pseudo-religious ideas than

in regard to its social, literary, or political standards.
Publicity was of the essence of reform, and the growth of
the Press was a powerful engine for bringing questionable

practices into broad

daylight, and superstitions into line

with modern notions. The celebrated Maharaj Libel Case in

Bombay, 1862, is a startling illustration of how the head of
-a sect was
compelled to submit its principles and practices
to the bar of modern opinion through the Press and the

Law

Courts.

The Vallabhcharya

sect (of Maharajas), an

offshoot of Vaishnavism, arose among the Bhatias about

the 15th century, and was based on the absolute religious
authority of its head (the Maharaj) over all members of

community. He was a Brahman, and was identified with

The sex rites connected with a debased form of
Krishna worship had created a horrible tradition. It was
.said that a man was expected to make over his wife or
daughter to the Maharaj. An attack was launched against
these practices and against the Maharaj by Karsandas
Mulji, editor and proprietor of the Gujarati paper, the
Satya Prakash of Bombay. A libel case resulted, lasting
for 24 days, resulting in an exposure of the evils and a
his

Krishna.

vindication of the paper. The Judge, Sir Joseph Arnould,

in his judgment, commended the public spirit of the
defendents on behalf of their community, "whose homes",

have helped to cleanse from loathsome

lewdness and whose souls they have set free from a debas-

.he said, "they

ing bondage".
'TWO GREAT NAMES IN MUSLIM REFORM MOVEMENT

The two great names in the exposition of Islam and

:reform in the Muslim community during this period are
those of Maulvi Chiragh 'AH (Nawab A'zam Yar Jang)
6
.and Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan.
Chiragh Ali was the man
*of learning and the researcher, and wrote
mainly in

GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION, & ETC.

203

his appeal to men of other commuEnglish and addressed

and the Arya Samajists. Sir Saiyid
nities, the Christians
was the man of action, the educater and the reformer. He
wrote in Urdu, and addressed his appeal to his own

Talizlb-ulcommunity, backing it up with his paper the

at
and
school
Aligarh. They
college
Akhlaq and with his
were friends and associates, and worked together for many
though the scenes of their labours were geographiyears,

cally far apart.

CHIRAGH

*ALI

AND HIS WORK

4

Maulvi Chiragh Ali was born in Meerut about the

His father died when he was only twelve years
year 1844.
education was certainly not of a high order.
his
and
of age,
After filling various small clerical posts in the service of
Government, he found his opportunity in 1877.

the British

recommendation he was sent to a high post

he lived to the end of his days. He
where
Hyderabad,
He had
died in Bombay after an operation in 1895.
of English, and his power of
command
his
great
acquired
research and exposition, by his own studies in his spare
The Muslims had for two generations stood aside
time.
from English education and were losing ground in the

On

Sir Saiyid's

in

administrative services in British India, though such serWhat

vices had been their mainstay in pre-British days.

was worse still, they were distrustful of modern knowledge

and had begun in their ignorance to associate many
with their religion, Chiragh
superstitions and evil customs

by his literary work was instrumental in calling their

attention to the true spirit of their marriage laws in favour
of monogamy, to the true relation of Islam to the modern
*Ali

Jadtda), and to the position of women.

SIR SAIYID AHMED KHAN: HIS LIFE
But the most effective work in modernisation in Islam
sciences (ulilm

was done by Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan (1817-1898), the

Grand Old Man of Aligarh. We have already referred to
his views on government and administration and his early
Later we shall refer to
contribution to Urdu Literature.
Here we are concerned with his
his work in education.
and his attitude to modern
religious exposition of Islam
the
Mutiny he had written an
knowledge. Long before

204

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

essay (1849) on the abuses of the system of Piri and

Murldi as practised in India. This system involved a
sort of blind faith in a spiritual leader, who gave

mystic

pass-words and claimed (not always correctly) to follow

the path of a recognised Sufi School.
In 1866 the Saivid
wrote against religious objections that had been made
'by
ignorant Muslims against taking meals with Europeans

taam Ahl

Kitab} thus cordially accepting and

need for frank social intercourse
recommending
between Muslims and Europeans. He also wrote against
His visit to England in
slavery as repugnant to Isjam.
1869-70 was fruitful in brimng him into personal touch
(Risala

the

with British culture in the home of the British

people,
and he did not forget to apply his experiences to the
exposition of Islam in the Tasdnlf i Ahmadiya^ a series
to be published in Urdu (type-printed) on his
Another result of his English visit
return from England.
was the publication of his Periodical Tahztb-ul-Akhlaq,

which began

which started in December 1870.

His liberal views
raised a storm of controversy, but on the other hand
rallied round him many men of the old learning, who
were willing to support him in his modern views of
and who afterwards used the Aligarh
life and religion,
that
purpose. We have only to mention Nazir
College for
Ahmad and Altai Husain Hali, out of numerous names,
to realise Sir Saiyid's influence over men of the older
generation in bringing them over to co-operate in moulding
minds of younger generations on new lines. Retiring
in 1876 from the judicial service he devoted himself to
educational work till his death in 1898.
The, .Knighthood
of the Star of India was conferred on him in 1888.

the

HIS RELIGIOUS VIEWS

Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan's religious views will be
found in his Commentaries on the Qur~dn, over which he
laboured for many years. The value of his work lies
in the new point of view which he brought to bear in

Even those who, like Maulana Hali, are

interpretation.
unable to accept his philological or historical arguments,
consider that this work constituted Sir Saiyid's service to
Islam in an eminent degree.

Sir Saiyid criticised a vast

GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION, & ETC.

mass of theological literature in the light of his

under the
experience and

20& :

own

If the interof history.

were
Islamic
doctrines
contrary to
pretations put upon
of
to
the
course
or
of
the nature
things
history., it was not
but
of
limited
the
the
doctrines
of
the fault
knowledge and
test

narrow outlook of the interpreters. The Word of God,

he said, should be interpreted by the Work of God, which
His views were ridiculed and
lies open before all to see.
abused by the older schools, but he gradually established
a modern standard of judgment which has prevailed.
Some of his views he was able to support by the undoubted
authority of Shah 'Abdul 'Aziz Muhaddis of Delhi, the
learned theologian whom we have already mentioned in
the

The strictures made in

an earlier chapter (Chapter VI.).
Urdu Press on his social and religious views prevented
the formation of a separate school of thought on his lines.
But his attitude of mind was nick-named the "Nature
55
School,
{Nechariya firqa), i.e. the one that followed
Nature, though in a different sense from that in which the
The
phrase was used by the Stotics of classical Greece.
Nechariya school was supposed to be identified with the
But Sir Saiyid wisely kept his educaAligarh College.
the

tional work free from any theological bias.

Indeed the
various theological schools of thought, Shia and Sunni,
were given free scope in the College. But the failure to
develop a religious atmosphere of a liberal kind, which

might have affected the religious thought of Islam in India

generally, has been one of the criticisms of the Aligarh
movement, which has not yet been met.

GROWTH OF LATJTUDINARIANISM AND COMMUNALISM

While all these reform movements in religion were

going on all over India, led by earnest men, a real decline
in religious sentiment was also
creeping over educated
India.
It either took the form of
laughing at the reformers and treating old customs and beliefs with a toleration
accompanied by a mental reservation, or else a latitudinarianism which frankly treated religion as out of date.
In the Bengalee newspaper of the 10th November
1866,
Grish Chunder Ghose attacked the Brahmo reformers for
what he called "their heroics against idolatry", calling

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

206

these views "hypocrisy and cant" in another place.

"The
Brahmo," he says, "shuts his eyes and repeats what
in
he,

the smallness of

his

knowledge, conceives

On

the 1st

soul,
to

and the confinement

be the

attributes

December 1866 he spoke of

the

of

the

of his

Lord."

"simultaneous

worship of Kali and of Kant;" to the educated Hindu,

he said, "religion is a sentiment, not a belief;" those

who were

giving up idolatry had "no

sensational horror

idolatry." Sir Rabindranath Tagore, in his autobiography,* describes two attitudes of mind towards religion
among the educated young men of India in the days of his

of

One was argumentative atheism,

youth, say about 1880.
an aggressive insistence or logic against belief. The other
was religious epicureanism: religion was a matter of
ceremonial and outward forms; and these were to he
pleasing sights, sounds, and scents rather than ascetic
practices. Both the sense worship and the shallow rationalism came with the influences of a superficial English
education, and, chiefly prevailed in Bengal. They are
unsuited to the genius of India, both Hindu and Muslim*
though it must be admitted that they dominated Indian
Colleges and still exert great influence in circles of wealth

and luxury.
educated

younger generation was growing up,,

which cared more for politics than

in English,

religion, though it was willing to use the cloak of religion

for various sectional and communal movements, of which
the baneful effects are appearing more plainly in our own

generation.

EDUCATION: UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES

In the general educational field the two remarkable movements were the growth and popularity of the
Universities and the Muslim educational movement centred
The three Presidency Universities of
round Aligarh.
Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay were established in 1857,
Their examination system immediately affected the Colleges
which had existed before them, and new Colleges began
to spring up to meet the growing demand for a unified and
purely English system of higher education. In Upper
its
India, however, Oriental learning continued to hold
_^_^^__

My Reminiscences, pp.

185-6.

^^^-^^^i

GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION, & ETC.

207

The Canning College in Lucknow was endowed by

the Taluqdars of Oudh in 1864, and receives its main,
income from a cess on land revenue collected by GovernIts Oriental Department
ment with the land revenue.
own.

marked

out

its

work

as different

Presidency Universities.
Lahore, started in 1864,

When
became

from

the

work of the

the Oriental College at

the nucleus of the Punjab

1882, the Lucknow Oriental Department

University
was affiliated to Lahore, while its English Department
The Medical College ia
remained affiliated to Calcutta.
The Panjab University
Lahore was established in 1860,
was the first that took up the cultivation of the vernain

Non-Government Colleges began to increase more

and more, and the Education Commission of 1882-3 was
It
inclined to favour aided rather than State institutions.
also recommended the preparation of a Moral Text-book,
based on "the fundamental principles of natural religion,"
to be used in State and private colleges, and the delivery
of lectures on the duties of a man and a citizen.
These
recommendations about moral and civic education have
never been carried out in State colleges, and the way in.
which they were carried out in religious and communal
colleges tended to divide rather than unite the people of
India in their cultural education.
culars.

MUSLIM EDUCATION: SIR SAIYID'S WORK IN ALIGARH

With regard to Muslim education, the early efforts of

been a failure. The attempt to open the
door of knowledge to the Muslims in English had failed
to take account of their
In a Report on Vernamentality.
cular Education in Bengal, edited by the Rev. J. Long
(W. Adam's Reports, Culcutta 1863, p. 33), it is noted
that where the schools were carried on in the vernacular,,
the Muslims took advantage of them freely, as in
BhagalBut they
pur, where their proportion was 60 per cent.
would not go to English schools. The prejudice against
English schools was due to the attachment of Muslims to
religious education, which was not given in English schools..
Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan, who was not himself educated in
English, saw the disastrous results to his community,
flowing from the neglect of English education, and devoted
the State has

208

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

his later life to the provision of facilities for such

He appealed

educa-

a Fatwa of Shah Abdul Aziz

Muhaddis in favour of English education, and he proceeded to draw up a scheme of education at Aligarh in which
English education should be combined with Muslim religious education, and with British sports, then not yet
popular in Indian schools and colleges. The latter feature
enlisted the support of the Hindu landed gentry and
attracted the active assistance of the British Government.

tion.

to

His Committee, originally formed in Benares, where the

Saiyid had been stationed as Sadr Amm (Subordinate
Judge), opened a school in Aligarh in 1875. The Saiyid
retired from the Bench soon afterwards, and had the
satisfaction, in 1877, of seeing the foundation-stone laid
of the Aligarh College by the Viceroy Lord Lytton. The
idea from the beginning was to found a centre of Muslim
culture and religious research, grouped round an independent Muslim University. The University idea itself was
realised after many delays in 1920, but the ideal of a
centre of cultural and religious research still remains for
the future.

root in the

Meanwhile English education has taken firm

Muslim community, and scientific and modern

knowledge can no longer be said

Muslims of India.

to

be unacceptable

to the

GENERAL EDUCATIONAL FEATURES

Summing up the general features of the period, we

can perhaps say that ever since the Home Government's
Despatches of 1863 and 1864 the Government in India
has sought to induce the richer classes to provide their
own education. In Primary Education a great deal of
progress was made, and the Education Commission in 1883
declared "the elementary education of the masses, its
provision, extension, and improvement," to be that part of
the educational system to receive the State's special attenIn Secondary Education the principle was laid down

tion.

that there should be two divisions, one leading up to the

Universities, while the other was (as in most countries) to

te of a practical character, as a preparation for commercial and non-literary pursuits.

The latter object is still
far from being attained, partly owing to the neglect of the

GE^ ERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION, & ETC.

7

vernaculars for purposes of the practical arts

and

209

sciences.

While Primary Education was to be provided without reference to local co-operation, Secondary Schools, especially
for English teaching, were to be on the system of grantsIn all branches of education,
in-aid wherever possible.
and
collegiate, the aided system was
primary, secondary,
The
he
to
response of the people, both in
developed.
But
educational
in
and
effort, was remarkable.
finance
unfortunately the want of a sympathetic central direction
retarded, if it did not make impossible, the growth of a
The education of special classes
national system.

Muslims, Ruling Chiefs and Noblemen, and lower castes

some attention, but the separatist tendencies in
Facilities for female education
them were not checked.
outside the Presidency Towns, were almost negligible.

received

Even

in the

Presidency Towns their disproportion to the

was so great that the EducaCommission devoted special attention to it and made
It is remarkable that artistic
special recommendations.
education did not enter into the horizon of the Commission,
although several art schools had been established, as we
facilities

for boys' education

tion

Nor did
already noticed in an earlier chapter.
in
nor
education
nor
technical
education,
music,
higher
have

pure or applied sciences, nor original research, which must

The
be the crown of any adequate educational system.
Universities from the beginning had included science in
their curricula, but it was a subject very little in the public
eye, and the wide survey of 1883 only took incidental
notice of science subjects.
LITERATURE, CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF

THE PERIOD

We pass now to literature. Here we may note the

The Bengali
following facts of all-India importance.
Theatre was developed and became a definite instrument
of national life. The Bengali novel established its position
and began its mission of painting, analysing, criticising,
and reconstructing contemporary social life. In these
respects Hindustani fell behind in the race of the vernaculars.
Its
But it had other developments.
sharper
bifurcation into Urdu and Hindi reacted on education,
literature, and politics in the United Provinces, and the

210

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

began to reach Bengal and other

Urdu
The
Provinces.
language became more flexible and
found a brilliant exponent,
novel
Urdu
The
modern.

effects of this reaction

Urdu novel on contemporary

though the influence of the
as profound as the influence
not
was
morals
and
manners
Urdu poetry found a
of the novel in the Bengali world.
a
and richer content
fuller
Urdu
and
new orientation
prose
THE NEW BENGALI DRAMA: MICHAEL MADHU SUDAN DUTT
The Yatras, or folk plays of Bengal, were of a type
that was found among all Hindu societies in India, irresBut the early establishused.
pective of the vernacular
in
Bengal produced a taste for
ment of English education
drama of the modem
for
and
plays acted in theatres
the
Mutiny a number of English
European form. Before
were
by Bengalis in the English lan-

performed
plays
the Belgachhia Theatre, with
guage. In 1858 was opened
and
a stage, scenery, music
acting,, according to modern or
The
western standards.
Play was in Bengali. It \vas an
a
not
translation, of the old Sanskrit Play
adaptation, but
of Ratnavali, of the seventh century, attributed to Bana.
The Bengali Play, in spite of its archaic plot, was, in tone
and spirit, modern. There was an orchestra on western
and Indian music, under
lines, but with Indian instruments
that
of
and
advice
great lover of Indian
the
patronage
The
Mohan
Sir
Tagore.
Jotindro
music, Maharaja
Michael Madhu
success of the experiment stimulated
Sudan Dutt (1824-73) to follow out his own ideas and
create a national drama, of which Bengal is deservedly
The writer was deeply
proud. It was a poetic drama.
read in European plays, including those of the Greek
himself a Christian, he had a deep
dramatists.

Though

used Hindu mythology

feeling of Indian nationalism, and
he goes down to
Comedies
his
In
for
purposes.
stage
freely
lash freely.
the
the basic facts of Hindu society, and uses
GIRISH CHANDRA GHOSH AND DIN

BANDHU MITRA

Within a few years numerous companies began to act

Under the management of Girish Chandra
in Calcutta.
actor-manager-playwright, the
"National Theatre," called afterwards the "Great National
Ghosh took
Theatre," (and other theatres in Calcutta that

Ghosh (1843-1911),

the

GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION; & ETC.

211

became a great force from 1871 onwards for over

up,)

After Ghosh, his mantle has passed to other

and
the Bengali Drama shows both
shoulders,
vitality and
The sensational play. Nil Dargan,
constructive power.
by Din Bandhu Mitra (1829-73) was written in 1860,
attacking the English indigo-planters in their dealings
with the Bengal peasantry.
Before it was acted, it was
circulated in English.
The missionaries and Dr. Cotton
years.

forty

the ryots.
(the Bishop of Calcutta) sympathised with
The Planters' Association prosecuted the translator the
Rev. James Long for libel in 1861, and a bitter controversy ensued.
Though Mr. Long was convicted and

was a moral victory for the ryots. Public

asserted itself, and the exposure of indigo abuses
^
and the settlement of a vexed agrarian
question gave
Bandhu and his play an advertisement which raised the
it

fined,

opinion
T

"

^*^

Dm

The
Bengali stage to an honoured position in public life.
Thenceplay was staged with great success in 1878.
forward the

Bengali drama ceased to be an amateur

and became a growing and powerful public
institution.
It has since
attempted serious tasks proper
to the Drama,
A long
including the Comedy of Manners.
line of actors and actresses have contributed their talents
to its
development. Among the pioneer actresses whose
elocution and careful
study of their parts have lent a
enterprise

distinction to their
long stage career is Tara Sundari,
whose debut occurred at the age of seven at the "Star
Theatre" as early as 1884*

KAVYA IN BLANK VERSE

can create a drama in close relation

and ideas of contemporary life can also tell its
in the same strain, whether
they are founded on old
literature that

to facts

stories

legends of long ago, or recent history, or contemporary

This new spirit of story-telling, with its characterdrawing, was directly derived from a study of English
and western literatures. Madhu Sudan Dutt
(1824-73),

life.

whose plays we have already referred to,

gave Bengal the
gift of blank verse, and retold the Ramayan story of the
*Mr. P. Guha-Thakurta has recently published a fine
monograph on
The Bengali Drama, its origin and
development (London, 1930), to
"which I am mainly indebted for this
paragraph.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

212

Lanka in his Meghanad Badk published in 1861.

Meghanad was the most powerful of the sons of Ravana.
He killed Lakshmana the brother of Rama in a fight in
which the odds were weighted against Meghanad. This
called forth the full prowess of Rama, as Hector's
triumph
in the Greek epic called forth the full fury of
Achilles,
and with a similar result. Dutt had studied Homer, but
his Kavya was a most original and meritorious piece of
fight in

work.

THE NOVEL: BANKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJEE

A similar new spirit in story-telling was manifested
Bankim
Chandra Chatterjee (1838-94) in his prose
by
novels.
Chatterjee was the first Indian to graduate in the
Calcutta University (1858).
as Deputy Magistrate, but his

He

served the

Government
on his Bengali
novels.
Durgesh Nandini* appeared in 1864. It was a
historical novel and took the Bengali-reading public fairly
by storm. His most celebrated novel was Ananda Math
(the Abbey of Bliss)
published about a decade later.
This refers to the Sanyasi rebellion of 1771-4, and contains
-a great deal of
adventure, romanticism, and patriotism,
but is hostile to the Muslims and acridly critical of the
British. Among his epigrams are such as these: "Mir Jafar
.smoked opium and slept; the English collected revenue and
wrote despatches; the Bengali wept and walked to ruin."
This novel contains the famous hymn Bande Mataram
(Hail Mother), which was used by the rebellious Sanyasis
in the Novel, and afterwards became the battle-cry of
revolutionary movements in the 20th century. The passion
of young Bengal to read history anew and give it a twist

fame

rests

.against the

Muslims tended

the communities.

From

new gulf between

view Mr. Naresh
of
point

to create a

this

Chandra Sen-Gupta is right when he criticises Chatterjee's

provincialism and his "morbid dislike of Muslims", f The
most perfect novel of Chatterjee is Krishna Kantcfs
Will.

It

Zamindar.

deals with social life in the family of a Bengal

The action is swift; the character-portraiture

* This was translated through English into Urdu by 'Abdul Halim

who himself wrote historical novels in Urdu.

Sharar,

f In his English Translation of

Abbey of Bliss,

p. vii.

Bamkim Chandra

Chatterjee's

GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION, & ETC.

true to life;

215

and the hardships of a woman's position and

her heroism are

drawn with artistic pathos.

NEW MOVEMENTS

UBDU LITERATURE: ITS

When we turn to

Urdu

literature,

we

find

there also

remarkable original movements in operation, and under

But these influences were
English cultural influences.
in Bengali literature, nor was the
not so direct, as
Our Urdu writers were less
modernisation so complete.
and some of them were
in
literature,
English
steeped
that
with
literature,
though they were
barely acquainted
influenced by new styles and new ideas, which they turned

Their
account in their own way in their writings.
some people
mental and literary stature was not less
may with good reasons claim it to have been greater than

to

Bengali contemporaries. But as their relaEnglish language were less intimate, and
their works were not translated into English
perhaps
they were less translatable
they obtained less vogue in
India as a whole or in the world at large.
This is not tosay that the foundations which they laid were not deep.
Some generations must elapse before we can estimate their
true worth in the movement for an all-India cultural
that of their

tions with the

development.
GHALIB: LETTER- WRITING AS

A LITERARY ART

The deep scars

left by the Mutiny profoundly affected the lives of some of our foremost writers.
Ghalib

whom we

have already mentioned, practiand was broken in spirit after the destruction of the House of Timur. His verse was crammed full
of thought, but neither its philosophy nor its style suited
the post-Mutiny temper.
It was the loving hand of his
Hali*
of glory round his memory,
halo
that
wove
a
pupil
and the recent revivalf of Ghalib after a generation of
(1797-1869),

cally lost his all,

*See

his Yadgar i Ghalib, published in 1896.

t Among the evidences of this revival may be mentioned the
numerous annotated editions of Ghalib and the recent sumptuously

edition of Ghalib, by the Lahore artist Chaghtai. The

Budaun edition of Ghalib' s Drw&n, -with commentary, has been printed
over and over again, as also the Aligarh edition, with a Foreword by
Maulana Hasrat Mohani. Other commentators have been Saiyid All
Haidar Tabatabai, of Hyderabad, and 'Abdul Rahman Bijnauri, but the
""

illuminated

latter puts the claims

of Ghalib

much

too high.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

214

a reaction against some of the shallow

inanities
perpetrated by the lower fringe of the modern schools

neglect

is

of

poetry. But Ghalib was a great literary craftsman, and if

his Ghazls are difficult for the ordinary Urdu reader his

which have been published in a collection

Urdu-i-Mu/alla 9 are a source of unfailing delight.

letters,

new fashion

Urdu

called

They

To say that the

uses
and
is
words
and expressions
everyday
style
simple
is to do them less than justice.
are
full of that
They
and
which
is the
concisely
expressed,
meaning, aptly
started a

in

prose.

very

essence of literary writing. They are full of wit, pathos

and directness, and really lead up to the natural style in

prose and poetry, which became all the rage after his
death in 1869. If only his letters had been critically
edited and selected, with some particulars of the dates
and occasions on which they were written and the persons

whom they were addressed, they would have had not

Their unconsciousonly a literary but a historical value.
ness of a Hindu-Muslim problem is refreshing in an age
which thinks of public life in no other terms.

to

AZAD

AND HALII NEW SCHOOLS OF POETRY,

RESEARCH AND LITERARY CRITICISM

HISTORICAL

Muhammad

Husain Azad illustrates in a

minds of Upper India battled
against tremendous difficulties, and without more than a
superficial knowledge of English prepared the way for the
transition from the old to the new in Urdu literature.
Azad was born in Delhi about the year 1832-3. His
father Baqir Ali was one of the earliest lights of Urdu

The

forcible

life of

way how

the great

journalism in Delhi.

Like other Muslim families of note

in Delhi, Azad's family was ruined in the Mutiny. He

wandered about and at last found a footing in Lahore in
1864 in the office of the Director of Public Instruction on
a salary of Rs. 15 per month. But his talents were not

He established a new centre of Urdu literature in Lahore, which has shown increasing vitality. Free
from the traditions of Lucknow or Delhi, it started on new

to be hidden.

and modern lines, and in historical research, literary

oritcism and the forms and subject-matter of poetry, has
troken new ground. In all these three departments Azad's

& ETC.
GE^ ERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION,
7

215

life of 25 years in Lahore (1864-1889)

busy and active
He organised the Anjuman-ibore wonderful fruit.

and through it arranged Musha'iras

Punjab in 1874
which ushered in the new school of
(poetical assemblies),
Hali (1837-1914), who had
Husain
Urdu poetry. Altaf
in the Mutiny, and was
Delhi
at
likewise suffered
in Lahore, was also in the new movement.
His publication, in 1879, of the famous Musaddas,
The Musaddas was inspired
set the seal to the movement.
of
founder
the
Aligarh College, and in its enormous

now working

by

success,

it

linked itself

with

the

Aligarh

movement.

though it was left incomplete

and was completed by his disciples, showed
of historical research.
Perhaps the book
great powers
was his Ab-iby which Azad will always be best known
It was the first modern
a
classic.
is now
It
Hayat.
Though many of his personal
literary history in Urdu.
it still stands unrivalled as a
be
disputed,
judgments may
fine work of research and historical criticism in Urdu, to
His Nairang-i-Khiyal
the date at which it was written.
consists of essays in smooth and dignified prose, which
Azad's Darbar-i-Akbari,

by him,

Poor Azad became

few writers have been able to equal.
he
did
not
cease
to write after
Though
that date, his strenuous literary life ended then, though
Urdu and the Punjab owe to him
lie lived on till 1910.
a debt of gratitude which is best expressed in the modern
literary renaissance of Urdu in the Punjab.
insane in 1889.

AND OUDH PUNCH

In story-telling Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar, of
Lucknow, (1846-1902) opened the gates of a new method
and a new appeal to a wide middle-class reading public.
He had a little knowledge of English, but a marvellous
knowledge of the picaresque Urdu idioms and slang of
Lucknow. The inner life of Begams and Nawabs, brokendown families, and the hangers-on who preyed on them, was
With his genius for painting word-picfamiliar to him.
dramatic
situations, and character-drawing through
tures,

SASSHAR,

NAWAL KISHOR

PRESS,

to Urdu
dialogue, he opened a new world of imagination
the
enterreaders.
His triumphs were made possible by
was
which
established
Kishor
of
Nawal
the
Press,
prise

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

216

Lucknow in 1858. No cultural history of

Upper India
would be complete without a notice of Munshi
Nawal

in

Kishor (1835-94). He also established the

daily Oudh
Akhbar.
the comic paper, the Oudh
Punch*
This,_and
of Munshi Sajjad Husain, filled a large place in
the
journalistic world of Upper India in the period about
1877-1882. Sarshar contributed to both. He became Editor
of Oudh Akhbdr in 1878.
He at once raised it to heights
of literary fame by his graphic sketches of Oudh lif
e, which

were published in book form as the Fasdna i Azdd in 1880.

This created a new form of story-writing.
Sarshar had

mind Don Quixote, and

Azad has something:

Round him are
grouped other characters such as Humayun-Far, the lady
Husn-Ara, the servant Khoji, and scores of others whose
names have become househould words in the Urdu language. There are snatches of Urdu and Persian verse, and
in his

his hero

unpractical and the ridiculous.

of the

caricatures of Nawabs, police officers, a Bengali Babu, a

theosophist, and a rich gallery of comic characters, men
and women. The interest evoked among the Urdu publicwas like that of Dickens's Pickwick Papers in England.

Sarshar had Dickens's humour and power of caricature,

but he describes a corrupt society that is now almost dead..
He discarded the introduction of supernatural characters^

and relied upon actual living human characters

of his story.
But he failed to catch the

interest

for the

note of

progress as did the Bengal novelists we have mentioned.

The novels of Sharar, who was a young and ardent admirer
of Sarshar, fall under a later period, and will be noticed
in a subsequent chapter.

ZAICAULLAH

We ought not to leave this period without mentioning

four other names, Maulvi Zakaullah (1832-1910) and
Hafiz Nazir Ahmad (1836-1912) for, Urdu; Toru Dutt
(1856-1877) for her contributions to English and French
literature; and
for his work in
* It

Wazir

was an

Bharatendu Harish Chandra (1850-1885)

Hindi literature. Maulvi Zakaullah was

illustrated comic paper, with cartoons

by Indian

artists,

Shauc,, and Ganga Sahai. Its success led to the publication

of the short-lived Punjab Punch, Lahore, and the more permanent Hindi
*Ali,

Punch, which has survived the Lucknow paper.

& ETC.
GENERAL FEATURES, EDUCATION, RELIGION,
one

of

the

Dr. Nazir

early

students

Ahmad, who was

217

of Delhi College, along with

Mr. C. F.

his life-long friend.

\ndrews, the friend of Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore,

has recently paid a high tribute to him in an English
memoir, in which he estimates his personality as one of
the factors in the Delhi Renaissance, so sadly interrupted
by the Mutiny. Mr. Andrews looks upon ZakaullahV
work as the counterpart of Rabindranath Tagore's work
Zakaullah was a prolific writer, and his
at Santi-Niketan.
has some literary and educational
India
of
Urdu History
But the charm of his
now
it
is
out of date.
value, though

and his outlook on Indian culture, wider

personality,
than the bounds of a communal culture, constitute his chief
That width
claims to consideration in a cultural history.
is somewhat less evident in these later days, both on the
Hindu and the Muslim sides, but must reassert itself if
the future of our common motherland is to be assured.

AHMAD
lot fell in pleasant places. He occupied.
in
British India and in the Hyderabad
high positions both
State, and rendered yeoman's service to the Aligarh move-

Nazir

Ahmad's

He was the official Urdu translator of the Indian

Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure (1861-2),
and later in life, he translated the sacred Qur-an (which
He also wrote
he knew by heart) into modern Urdu.
It
social novels, but his style was heavy and didactic.
had not the power of awakening popular interest, which
writers more in the swim and struggle of life, like Sarshar
or Sharar, were able to do.
ment.

TORU DUTT

Toru Dutt was the Keats of India. A Bengali by

birth, she wrote both English and French sketches with
remarkable power.
Considering that she died at the age
of 21, her "Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan"
in English, and her "Journal de Mademoiselle d'Anvers"
in French, dedicated to Lord Lytton, are marvellous
In the one she gives new and sympathetic
productions.
interpretations of tales from old Hindu mythology, and in
the other she gives a psychological interpretation of her

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

218

own

life as a girl in France.

Her brilliant
literary df ta
are a proud possession for all India.

HARISH CHANDRA

Bharatendu Harish Chandra also died

young, at the
age of 35, in 1885, but he left an indelible mark on Hindi
literature.
Indeed he may be considered the founder
the

modern Hindi movement. Educated

of

at

Queen's College

.Benares, he devoted his energies to the popularisation O f

vernacular literature. His Sundari Tilak

gave selections
from Hindi poets, and his Prasiddh Mahatmaon ka
jtban
Charitra, popularised the lives of great men
through Hindi.
His Magazine, the Harish Chandrika, started the
vogue of
.Hindi literary magazines in
upper India. He wrote Urdu
poetry himself under the pen-name of Rasa, and held a
:notable Musha'ira in Benares in 1866.
His short account
in Hindi of the Quran Sharif is reverent in
tone, and
shows that he was interested in
comparative religion. He
was a lineal descendant of Seth Amin Charan
(or Uma

Charan or Omichand) of Calcutta, whose

history is interwoven with that of Clive and the English revolution in

.Bengal.

CHAPTER X
JOURNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, FINANCE
JIISE

OF THE INDIAN-OWNED

AND ECONOMICS

AND INDIAN-EDITED ENGLISH PRESS

At an earlier stage we have referred to the foundations

vernacular
of
journalism in India. After the Mutiny,
series
of
a
journals in the English language, owned
began
and conducted by Indians, some of which attained great
circulation and influence, and survive to the present day.
The growth of English education provided them with
readers; the establishment of the enlarged Legislative

1861 and the quickening of public life enlarged

the sensitiveness of Government to
of
expressions
opinion in English gave them their
public
influence and their opportunity.
It was not only that the

Councils in
their field

of vision;

Government in India listened to them. Papers in the

English language could be sent to members of Parliament
in England and publicists and journalists all over the
The Indian-owned English Press commanded a
world.
far wider influence than vernacular papers, and has indeed
progressively become essential to every public cause in
India.

CHANDRA GHOSE AND KRISTO DAS PAL! THE HINDU

PATRIOT, THE BENGALEE, AND THE INDIAN MIRROR
In Indo-English journalism the first
triumphs were
achieved, as might have been expected, in
The
GIRISH

Bengal.

name of Girish Chandra Ghose* (1829-1869) stands out

prominently, as that of one who showed dash and enterprise in journalism, and who was very modern in many
In his short life of 40 years he controlled and
ways.
made the history of more than one paper. He was the
first editor of the Hindu
Patriot, started in 1853, as a
definite

organ of Indian views at the renewal of the ComIn 1855 he was ousted from it
by Hurrish

pany's Charter.

Chandra Mukerji (1824-61), who upheld Lord

Canning's
policy in 1857, and subsequently (I860) took up the

* The Girish Chandra

Ghosh, mentioned in the last chapter as the
father of theatrical enterprise in Calcutta, was quite a different
person.
2J3& belongs to a later generation.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

220

indigo ryots' agitation and suffered for it.

On MukeriF
death in 1861, the Hindu Patriot came under the contr 1
of Kristo Das Pal (1838-84), a forceful
personality
who "bestrode Bengal like a Colossus" for the last
twenty
Pstl was, however, more
years of his life.
moderate
and

more aristocratic in his views, and in his time the

paper
became definitely the organ of the Zammdars. Girish
Chunder Ghose started The Bengalee newspaper in 1862
and ran it as a mouth-piece of the ryots and the masse*'
in opposition to Pal's paper.
Its literary reviews also
did
for the education of Bengali taste and the
popularisation of Bengali literature.
The Bengalee acquired
a character for successful sensationalism, hut after Ghose's
death in 1869, it went into low water until it was
bought
by Surendranath Banerjea, (1848-1925) in 1878. At
that time its circulation was only 200.
made it

much

Banerjea
almost the leading Indian paper of his day in India, and
it became a Daily from February 1900.
Nor must we
omit to mention the Indian Mirror, which claims a connection with the honoured names of Mararshi Devendranath Tagore, Keshub Chunder Sen, and Mano Mohan
Ghose, and still continues on its placid course as a
Calcutta Daily.
REIS

AND RAYYET AND AMRITA BAZAR PATRIKA

Among

the journalistic associates of Hurrish Chunder

Maker ji and Kristo Das Pal may be mentioned Dr. Shambha

Chandra Mukerji (1839-94), who pursued a middle course
between Pal and Ghose, and later founded the influential
paper Reis and Rayyet in Calcutta in 1882. On the whole
he inclined towards Conservatism. Meanwhile, in 1882,
he had been appointed Assistant Secretary to the Taluqdars' Association in Lucknow, and edited the Lucknow
paper the Samachar Hindustani. In 1864, he was Diwan
to the Nawab of Murshidabad.
His association with Muslims in these ways gave him a wider Hindu-Muslim outlook than that of the more popular Bengali journalists, as
was evidenced by his attitude to the Congress and the CowProtection movements and to the Russo-Turkish war in
1877-8. The most democratic as well as exclusively

Hindu paper was

the Amrita

Bazar Patrika,

started as

& ECONOMICS
JOURNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, FINANCE,

221

Mufassal in 1868 by Shishir

Ghosh
(1842-1911) and his better-known brother
Kumar
Ghose
(1845-1922), but moved to Calcutta in
Motilal
the vernacular Press was gagged by the Act
When
1872.
Lord
Lytton in 1878, the enterprising Patrika
passed by
an
became
English paper, and it became a Daily from
Under many handicaps Motilal Ghose carried it on
1890.
on his sole responsibility from 1888 and made it the most
vernacular paper in the

vigorously written paper in India.

THE HINDU OF MADRAS

the Hindu also owed its impetus to
It came into being
Press Act.
Vernacular
Lord Lytton's
in 1878 under the enthusiastic guidance of two young
Madrasis, Mr. Subramania Aiyar and Mr. M. Viraraghavachariar as a weekly; in 1883 it began to be published
When it
thrice a week; and in 1889 it became a Daily.
In

Madras

its Jubilee in 1928 it took pride in the fact that

views and outlook were wider than its title, and that it

celebrated
its

aimed

at fostering

an all-India feeling.

30MBAY AND UPPER INDIA JOURNALISM: THE INDIAN SPECTATOR

In Bombay, though it had taken the lead in journalism
from the earliest days, influential Indo-English papers

The Bombay community

only arose within this century.
commercial
sections, the
the
besides
-contains,
English
the
the
Parsis,
Marathas,
Gujarati-speaking Hindus, and
the Muslims, who again are divided into sections with
traditions different from those of the Muslims of Upper
the foremost in the
India.
The Parsis were

among

vernacular journalism: their paper the Bombay

Samachar was one of the earliest vernacular papers in

field of

The Gujarati Rast Go f tar

mainly owed its position to the talents of Kaikhusru
Kabraji, who was connected with it from 1863 to 1902.
It is now defunct.
The Marathi Kesari of Poona was
founded by Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak in 1880, about
India,

and

it

still

flourishes.

Indian papers arose in Bengal

The weekly Indian Spectator, conducted

the time that the great

and Madras.

owed its fame and influence to

Behramji Malabari, who took it up in 1880, about the
time when Lord Ripon's Liberal policy gave a great fillip
in

JMr.

English,

chiefly

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

222

newspapers and public life in India. It did not survive

Malabari. The Times of India which was started as the
Bombay Times in 1838 and took its present name in 1861
has always been an Anglo-Indian paper, but its relations
with Indian opinion have been more intimate than those

to

of

other Anglo-Indian papers, for example the Pioneer

(before it became an Indian-owned paper). The modern

Indo-English papers of Bombay, the Bombay Chronicle
and the Indian Daily Mail* are products of the 20th CenThe two Indo-English papers of Northern India,
tury.
the Leader of Allahabad and the Tribune of Lahore,

though

they go back to the last century (the Tribune was founded

by Sardar Dayal Singh Majithia in 1877) have really
become prominent only in the 20th century. The Muslims
have never had an influential English Daily in India, at
all comparable to the papers of the other communities.
The Muslim Outlook of Lahore was comparatively recent.
It is now defunct.
Its place has been taken by the
Eastern Times of Lahore, which began as a Daily, but
is now published as a weekly.
Some of the Muslim Urdu
journals, however, of Lucknow and Lahore, as well as
of Hyderabad, Deccan, have recently established wide
circulations.

HOW

PUBLIC LIFE WAS QUICKENED AT THREE STAGES

The growth of the newspaper press is a good indication of the diffusion of education and the advance of
public life in the country. For the purposes of the present
period we may take three definite movements round which
to group the facts of public life.
The first was the postMutiny Reconstruction Period; the second the Reactionary
Period under Lord Lytton; and the third the Liberal period
under Lord Ripon, which saw a complete remoulding of
the machinery of local self-government.
JUDICIAL DEVELOPMENTS
The reconstruction period (1861-1874) was a period
of great administrative activity, and laid the foundations
of public life on a firm basis.
To education and the
universities we have already referred. The Chartered High
Courts were established in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay
in 1861, to be followed in 1866
one at Allahabad and

by

Now

defunct.

JOCHNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, FINANCE, & ECONOMICS

a Chief Court at

Lahore raised

to

the status

223

of a High

This meant the raising of the status of

Court in 1919.
the Indian legal profession and the opening to them of
high judicial offices. The first Indian Barrister
qualified
at the London Inns of Court, and equal in status to anyEnglish barrister

was Mano Mohan Ghose

1844-96)

who, having been called to the Bar in London in 1866,,

joined the Bar of the Calcutta High Court in the following
year, and won great distinction in his professional as well
as in his public career.
He was an eloquent public
speaker, and served the Indian National Congress causewith great ability.

was the
to the

first

Muslim

Mr. Badruddin Tyabji, of Bombay,

Barrister from India. He was called

Bar in 1867.

The

first

Indian Judge of a High

Court was not a Barrister but a Vakil, a Kashmiri Brahman, Sambhu Nath Pandit, who had risen from a humble
post on Rs. 20 per month as assistant to a Sadr Court
Record-keeper., and acquired a profound knowledge of
land tenures and Hindu Law.
He was on the Calcutta

High Court Bench from 1863 to 1867. The next Indian

High Court Judge was Dwarkanath Mitra (1833-74), who
was raised to the Calcutta Bench at the
age of 34 in 1867^
and filled the office for seven years.
Besides being an
eminent lawyer and a sound
and
French scholar^
English
he was a learned
His
attainments
and
philosopher.
character influenced English opinion
favourably as regards
and the High Courts have never lacked an
Indian judge since.
The first Muslim to be raised to

the Indians,

High Court Judgeship was Mr. Justice Mahmud

(1850-1901), son of Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan of Aligarh.
He sat on the Allahabad Bench from 1886 to 1893, and
has left judgments on Muslim
Law, of remarkable grasp
and justice comprehensiveness.

LAW CODIFICATION AND

ITS

CULTURAL EFFECTS

The codification movements which had

begun in the
time of Lord Macaulay,
began to bear fruit now. The
Civil Procedure Code was
promulgated in 1859, the
Indian Penal Code in 1860, and the Code of Criminal
Procedure in 1861. The Law of Contracts was codified
in 1872. These Codes were also translated into Urdu
and

:224

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

other vernaculars.
Their effect on the cultural
development of India was twofold. They were based on
th
principles of modern English law, but they were freed
from the technicalities of English law, and
adapted to
Indian conditions. This gave an impetus to the
filtration
of modern legal ideas into the Indian mind. We see
this
in some of the vernacular novels, and
especially in the
Urdu novels of Maulvi Nazir Ahmad. Secondly, it raised
the tone of the lower grades of pleaders and
agents in
Indian Courts, thus gradually extending the field of the
rule of law through many bye-ways of Indian
professional
life.
It has been made a reproach to the next
generation
of Indians that they were dominated by
lawyers. The
position had its drawbacks, but it cannot be denied that
its counter-balancing merits
brought with it the desire
for an ordered and democratic form of public and even
private life.
INDIAN PARTICIPATION IN LEGISLATIVE COUNCILS

The enlargement of the Legislative Councils under

Act of 1861 enabled non-official members to be
appointed as "Additional Members" of the Viceroy's

the

This non-official element, though

Legislative Council.
.small in the beginning, was enough to breed a race of
public men in India who could speak authoritatively from
point of view entirely different from, and in some cases
opposed to, the official point of view. The Legislative
Councils of Bombay and Madras were also restored, and

.a

power was taken and subsequently used,

to create such

Councils in the Lieutenant-Governors' Provinces: Bengal,

the North-West Provinces (now the United Provinces),
and the Punjab. These subordinate Councils also had
.additional members.
This secured the diffusion of the
Indian share in legislation all over the Provinces. On
the other hand, the Government of India became more
centralised and unified, and the Indians who went to the
Viceroy's Legislative Council breathed an all-India atmosphere which was good for the political progress of the
country.
They could think in terms of the whole country
and rub off corners in meeting non-official Indians from
other Provinces. In the Provincial Councils the nonofficial members could voice new needs and make the

JOURNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, FINANCE, & ECONOMICS

225

When
Government more responsive to the people's voice.
could
Piari
Chand
Mitra
like
reformers
(1814-83)
social
helped to pass legislation which an
Government,
alien
pledged to religious and social neutraHe entered the Bengal
to tackle.
hesitate
lity, might
in 1868, and helped in passing the
Council
Legislative
Similarly
Act for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
JSiawab Abdul Latif of Calcutta (1828-93) served on the
Bengal Legislative Council for several years and voiced
enter Councils, they

Muslim views.
EXECUTIVE SERVICES

Nor were the doors of the Indian Civil Service, the

premier executive service in India, closed to Indians. The
entry by open competition in London brought it within
the reach of Indians, although both the place for examination and the scheme of subjects placed the Indians at a
The first Indian to enter the Indian
great disadvantage.
Civil Service by competition was Babu Satyendra Nath
Tagore.
Though he himself did not reach any high distinction in the Service, there were many who followed him
and attained high positions. The highest executive position
so far attained by an Indian member of the Service has
been that of the High Commissioner for India in London,
from which Sir Atul Chatterji retired in 1931. The handicap against Indian candidates for the Service led to a
demand for simultaneous examinations in India and
England, which was ultimately met under the post-War
Reforms.

ADVANCE IN OTHER DIRECTIONS

with the advance of India on the
on the education of public
in
the
the
and
on
opinion
press
platform. We have already
referred to the agitation connected with the indigo planting industry, which ended in the liberation of the peasants
from an unfair form of exploitation. The Zamindars also
organised themselves both in Bengal and in Oudh, the two
Provinces with large landed estates.
As a parallel movement came the Indian Association established by Surendranath Banerjea for the middle classes in Calcutta in 1876.
At the same time questions of tenant-right became ripe

Simultaneously

-administrative

15

front went

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

226

for discussion, and the

resulting Tenancy Act was prepared under Lord Ripon and passed under Lord Dufferin

The

loss of over a million lives in the Orissa famine

and
floods (1865-6) caused a thorough examination of
famine
The demand of fifty Parsis in Bombay
relief policy.
in the local volunteer
for
enrolment
(1861)

corps raised
the general question of the eligibility of Indians for enrolment in such corps. The practical obstacles placed hv
the military department prevented any general
participa'-

by Indians in the volunteer defence of their country.

The election in 1885 of Raja Rajendra Lai Mitra (1824-91)

tion

be the President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal was a

recognition of the high standard reached by Indian scholarHe was the most learned Hindu of his day, and
ship.
brought a new spirit into the study of Indian archaeology

to

by Indians.

BHAU DAJI OF BOMBAY

On

the

Bombay

side

the

work of Dr. Bhau

Daji

worthy of commemoration. He was a selfmade man who came from the Muf assal, got his training
as a doctor, and established himself in a large and lucraBut his interests were
tive medical practice in Bombay.
himself
and
into
he
threw
all
kinds of social, humawide,
nitarian, and educational activities, at the same time that
he carried on researches in archaeology and the use of
Indian drugs. He was particularly interested in the cure
For the search of coins, inscriptions, and
of leprosy.
Sanskrit manuscripts, he sent his collaborators to travel far
and wide in the country, as far as Nepal. He was the
first Indian to hold the office of Sheriff of Bombay, and he
held it twice, in 1869 and 1871. He was a warm advocate
One of the original Fellows of the
of female education.
he
was an indefatigable worker in its
Bombay University,
his
and
is
associated with its endowments.
name
cause,
His large-hearted charities to the poor keep his memory
green in the city which he served so worthily and in so

(1821-74)

many

is

different capacities.

MUSLIM MOVEMENTS BESIDES THAT OF ALIGAEH

Apart from the Aligarh movement which has already
been referred to more than once, the Muslims in other

JOURNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, FINANCE, & ECONOMICS

parts of India
associations.

were also active

Nawab Abdul

in

227

forming societies and

Latif (1828-93) of

Calcutta
1863 founded the Muhammadan Literary and Scientific
It looked after
Society, which he served for many years.
in

strictly literary and

the services to the Muslim public life
stemmed the tide of Wahabi agitation and

other cultural interests besides those

Among

scientific.

of India,

it

which culminated in the assassination of Chief

in Calcutta in 1871.
Saiyid Ameer All
(1849-1928), afterwards Judge of the Calcutta High Court
(1890-1904), and after his retirement, the first Indian
Member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,,
excitement,

Justice

Normon

did much public work in his younger days for the Muslims
of Bengal through the Central National Muhammadan
Association (1876-90) and through the Committee of the

Hugli Imambara, just as he continued to work in London

end of his life.
In Bombay Mr. Badruddin Tyabji
worked
for the social and educational
(1844-1906)
of
his
progress
community through the Anjuman-i-Islam.
to the

PERIOD OF REACTION

AND BITTERNESS

Disraeli's rule in

England during the period 1874-80

It was a period of a
"strong" foreign policy and Imperialist ambitions.
Lord
Lytton in India (Governor-General, 1876-1880) faithfully
reflected the views of his chief in
England. To Lord
Lytton the newly risen intellectual class in India was "a
deadly legacy from Metcalfe and Mecaulay."
The
Intellectuals of India responded with as cordial a
repugnance
to the policy and
The polipersonality of Lord Lytton.
tical cleavage between the Hindus and the Muslims
began
to take definite
shape from this time, as also the HindiUrdu controversy in the United Provinces. The burden of
a great part of England's
Imperial ambitions in the East
was thrown on India. In 1877-78 the Indian Public Debt
(exclusive of capital invested on railways and Public:
Works) was 135 crores. Within the next twelve years it
mounted up to over 207 crores, and most of the debt was
held in England, where the interest
charged were payable.
The taxation of India, which in 1877-78 amounted to 3S
crores mounted up in
subsequent years to 41 crores, and
had notable reactions in India.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

228

this was absorbed in

military charges. The
famine of 1876-8, in which the
mortality was
estimated at over six millions, was still in the land
when
the magnificent Imperial Assemblage was held in
Delhi in
No wonder the vernacular press
January 1877.
got
even
restive,
rabid, and had to be curbed by means
of the Vernacular Press Act, 1878. This Act for
the

almost half of
terrible

first

time

made

the

invidious distinction between newswhether they were published in

Indian languages, which masked a

to

papers according
English or in the
distinction between newspapers run in English or Indian
It was responsible for a tremendous
interests.
impetus
to
the
given
Indo-English Press. The Act was repealed
Ly Lord Ripon in 1882.

LORD RIPON'S SYMPATHETIC RULE

The reactionary period did much to strengthen India's

public life. When it was followed by the sympathetic
and pro-Indian rule of Lord Ripon (1880-1884), the seed
sown began to germinate and to show a quickly growing
Indian associations and public bodies like the
crop.
Mahajana Sabha in Madras began to grow up and flourish
all over the land.
At the same time the relations between
the British and Indian communities on the one hand, and
the Hindu and Muslim communities on the other, began to
te less and less cordial. The European Defence Association was formed in 1883, in protest against the Ilbert Bill,
which proposed to remove the anomaly of exempting
.European offenders from the jurisdiction of Indian
The Aligarh movement
Magistrates in criminal trials.
under Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan definitely dissociated itself
in politics from the general Hindu movement which resulted
in

the

formation of

the

Indian

National

Congress

in

The Hindu-Muslim riots in Southern India (JulyAugust, 1882) showed a spirit of uncompromising law1885.

lessness.

ITS CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

Lord Ripon's policy is a land-mark in the history of

British India, because it attempted to introduce an entirely
new atmosphere in Indian administration. It has more
cultural significance than

the

rule

of any other British

& ECONOMICS
JOURNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, FINANCE,

229

The rendition of Mysore to the rule of

in 1881 restored to Indian rule a
the Wodeyar family
India was
lar^e tract of country in Southern India.
her
foreign entanglements across the
extricated from
The Education Commission of
frontier.
North-West
administrator.

1882-3, to which we have already referred, surveyed the

By
whole field of education from a new angle of vision.
means of the Ilbert Bill an attempt was made to assert
of British and Indian before
unequivocally the equality
the law. Violent controversies arose, led by the Englishman
The protest meeting by the nonof Calcutta.

newspaper

Town Hall (28th February

and intemperate language.
unseemly
1883) indulged
about the appointment
sore
were
barristers
English
of an Indian Judge, Sir Romesh Chunder Mitter, as

official

Europeans

in Calcutta

in

Planters feared the further curActing Chief Justice.

tailment of their influence on their estates, where their
an
friendship for the British Magistrates gave them
were
Indians
getting
extraordinary amount of prestige.
and rules
higher and more posts in the Civil Service,
were under consideration for opening wider avenues of
employment for Indians in the Indian Civil Service and

The local self-government scheme

was throwing more local power into the hands of Indians.

the Provincial Service.

Bitter

racial

feeling

was aroused, and the Bill had to be

it was passed in January

considerably modified before

1848.

FOUNDATIONS OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT:

ELECTIONS

AND

RESPONSIBILITY

was the question of local self-government which

He had it in his mind in
interested Lord Ripon most.
revision of the Provincial
the
of
on
and
the occasion
1880,
Contracts (Finance) in 1881, it was suggested to the Provincial Governments that they should consider the devoluIt

tion of functions as well as of finance

to

local bodies

in the

same way that

in certain matters

the

Government of

India had carried out a similar devolution in favour of

The Resolution of the 18th May
Provincial Governments.
1882 laid down certain principles for the guidance of
Provincial Governments, leaving wide discretion to the
Provincial Governments as to the

manner of their applica-

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

230

The methods of election, the extent to which it was

be applied to different bodies, and the height or lowness

tion.
to

were

of the franchise

wisely decided

What was

with.
in

carefully considered.
the
franchise fairly
keep
high
aimed at was, as Lord Ripon

It

was

to start

explained
a representation of the
people, of a
democratic type, but the gradual training of the

letter,* "not

European
best,

all

to

most

intelligent, and most

to take an interest

influential

men

in

the

and an active part in the

community
local
affairs."
their
The local bodies were
of
management
to be left gradually more and more to run alone, and
only
watched from without by the executive authorities and
checked if they went wrong. His object was to revive
such remnants of local self-government as remained in
the

rural

life

of

India. Municipalities, District Boards,

thus given a new orientation. The

and Local Boards were

results

were not remarkable

was undoubtedly

to start with.

But

the policy

chain by which coadministration

and
in
has been invitgovernment
operation
ed from the Indian people, the elective principle has been
introduced and developed, and the way has been prepared
for the larger schemes which we shall have to refer to
the

first

link in the

later.

GOVERNMENT FINANCE
The biggest economic factor in India is Government
Before India was taken over by the Crown, no
The accounts were prepublic Budgets were prepared.
for
as
a
commercial
company. The Mutiny added
pared
40 millions of pounds sterling (over 40 crores of rupees)
to the debt of India, and military changes made after the
Mutiny permanently burdened India with a heavy addition
finance.

This necessitated a
to her annual military expenditure.
For this, as for the
reorganisation of Indian taxation.

Indian Budget, 1861, we are indebted to Mr. James

Wilson, M. P., who came to India with special British
Treasury experience. The customs duties were reorganised
by him, and the income-tax was introduced, which, with
varying changes, has now become a permanent feature of
first

our national

finance.

He

*Lucien Life of Lord Ripon,

also created a
ii.

98.

paper currency.

JOURNALISM, PUBLIC

Llfc'E,

HJNAiNUi, & H,L.UiSUMJL<^

From 1874 onwards the steady fall in the price of silver

The fall in silver caused the fall
created a new problem.
As India's debt
of the rupee in international exchange.
was held mainly in sterling in England, the depreciation
in silver meant a steady improvement in the creditor's
and a steady deteroriation in the debtor's position.
position
This affected not only the Government of India but every
ryot and citizen of India whose assets diminished as
The purchasing
measured by international standards.
power of every Indian was diminished, and the savings
At the International Confeof the people depreciated.
in
rence in Brussels
1878, England had the chance of
rehabilitating silver by joining in international actions, but,
she declined, and India's currency has been a live problem

Side by side with pure depreciation were the

an extravagant railway policy, which we shall refer
to presently. The great famines were tackled admirably as
regards the technique of famine relief, but under the condiever since.

losses of

tions then existing, it was impossible to attack the root problems of Indian poverty, which went on being aggravated
and causing more and more dissatisfaction among Indian
Their criticisms, however, were not effective,
publicists.
because they had no economic or financial experience on

a large scale.
Lord Mayo's financial reforms (1869-72)
referred mainly to decentralisation as between the Govern-

ment of India and the Provincial Governments.

WANT OF EFFECTIVE CHECK

There was no effective check on the financial policy
The executive in India was entirely

of the country.

uncontrolled by the Legislature.

It was nominally conthe
which the Secretary
to
British
Parliament,
by
of State was responsible.
But the British Parliament had
not the time, and it certainly had not the knowledge or
trolled

interest in Indian finance, which could have made its

check effective.
The Secretary of State for India, though
paid then out of Indian revenues, along with his large
establishment at the India Office in London, was a member
of the British Cabinet, and
naturally took a view of Indian

questions from the stand-point of British public life and

British trade and commerce.
His membership of the

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

232

British Cabinet in a way worsened India's position.

Any
Imperial charges that could with any plausibility be thrown
off on to India were naturally so thrown off, with the
full

of the supreme authority in Indian finance

And there was no
vested in the Secretary of State.
off
for
Fund
any part of the Public Debt
paying
Sinking
of India.

concurrence

RAILWAY POLICY

The English

bias of Indian financial

policy was
in the early railway policy in relation
illustrated
specially
to British capital and British companies.
saw how

We

spacious were Lord Dalhousie's ideas about Indian

railways.
They certainly aimed at development, but had
no close reference to India's resources. His extravagant

guarantee system threw money into the pockets of

eight English companies, without commensurate results
It
took the guaranteed companies twenty
to India.
make
to
5,300 miles of railway at an average cost
years
of
17,000 per mile although the land was given free
The original estimate of Lord Dalhousie
Government.
by
was exceeded by 200 per cent. The gauge selected
5 feet 6 inches, was unsuitable for the traffic and unnecessarily expensive, and a narrow or metre gauge, of
3.281 feet (3 feet 3f inches) was subsequently adopted
This made transfer traffic difficult.
for some railways.
'
For some time the "battle of the gauges raged furiously,
and even now, the difference in gauges remains a serious
handicap in many parts of the country. The conversion
of the Sindh and Pan jab lines from the metre gauge to the
broad gauge, when it became necessary, caused much waste
of money.
The original guarantee system soon became
discredited as quite unfair to the tax-payer. A five
3

per cent interest was guaranteed to the Companies, though

Government could borrow at much lower rates. The
companies shared in the profits, and when the rupee fell in
value, the companies* profits were remitted to England at a
A modified system of
preferential rate of exchange.
9'
was
in
which a lower rate of
''assisted railways
tried,
the

interest

was guaranteed

of guarantee was limited.

to

the companies and the period

system of State railways was

JOURNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, HlNAlNCE, & ECONOMICS

263

constructed for British India, and Indian States were

But even State
encouraged to invest money in railways.
most
cases
worked
in
were
by Companies. When
railways
also

the

Guaranteed and Assisted Railways were eventually purmany of them continued to be worked

chased by the State,

bv the Companies. The question of State versus Company

management is one of the politico-economic questions
widely controverted in our own day, and hardly yet settled.
It is only within quite recent years that the railways have
become a paying property to the State, but they are precarious as a source of revenue to the State, and the heavy
losses incurred unnecessarily at the earlier stages will
always remain on the other side of the account*
AGRICULTURE AND STATISTICS
Agriculture fills a large place in Indian economics*
and sixty or seventy years ago its place was even larger
Under Lord Mayo (1869-72), a Governthan it is now.
ment Department of Agriculture was formed for the
was also committed the charge of
first time, to which
Commerce. It was in the fitness of things that the
Secretary of the new Department, dealing as it were with
the life-blood of the Indian masses, should be Mr. Allan
0. Hume (1829-1912), the father of the Indian National
It was under Lord Mayo, also, that a departCongress.
ment of statistics was organised and the first regular
decennial census of the population (1871) was taken in
India.
The State's concern in agriculture was, to start
It was intended to collect facts so that
with, very modest.
the Government should have an accurate economic and
statistical
picture in dealing with famines, irrigation
and
its very vital functions in connection with the
policy,
of land revenues.
It was
not
assessments
periodical
intended then to push steam ploughs and water pumps, or
to improve or modernise Indian
Indeed the
agriculture.
later attempts in that direction by the State have not been
very successful, because the scientific experiments and
demonstrations did not reach a very large class of village
The progress of Indian agriculture, such as,
agriculturists.
it has
has
due to better education and the extent
been
been,
to which the ryot has been able to understand and
apply new

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

234

knowledge or use new or improved methods and machinery,

to use better

seeds, or to

acquire or

command

the capital

material and resources for modern methods. Besides, the

of the agriculreally practical and hereditary knowledge
he
could
which
means
the
with
command, better
turist was,
conditions of soil, climate, and social
.adapted to the Indian
methods of impatient
the foreign
than
.organisation
avoided
Lord
wisely
reformers.
preaching to the
Mayo
he
which
could
not and had
to
do
either
things
Indian ryot
methods
which
to
or
to
centuries
means
the
up
do,
not
give
either
"In
he
sanctioned.
had
case,"
,of experience
wrote,
will laugh at us, and they will learn to disregard

"they

really useful advice

when

TEA, COFFEE, CINCHONA,

it is

given."

AND INDIGO

same time great developments took place in the

-establishment of new and lucrative staples of agriculture, as

At

the

well as in the parallel development of mineral resources,

.and in the growth of the manufacturing interest. Tea,
and cinchona (whose bark produces quinine)
-coffee,
had received the East India Company's attention from
Their successful establishment gave
early times.
.quite

indusIndia, in tea and coffee, two big semi-argicultural

and
in
for
the
new
trade,
two
export
tries and
staples
an efficient drug to deal with the fevers prevailing

quinine
over the country. The phenomenal profits of the indigo
the labour troubles with
industry were reduced after

.all

A few years before, (in

1860's.
indigo planters in the
an
H.
W.
Perkin,
English chemist, in an experiment
1856),
an
the
at
preparation of quinine from aniline,
.aiming
essence distilled from indigo, discovered a beautiful purple
for the dyeing of silk.
dye which rapidly came into use
The German chemists in 1868 discovered that beautiful
made from coal tar, and this chemical
.dye could be
decline of the indigo
industry gradually brought about the
with madder (majith)
industry and the industries connected
,.and

other

ancient

Indian vegetable

dyes.

From

1880

onwards indigo itself was manufactured by synthetic

This was cheaper and could be marketed in a
.means.
It drove out natural indigo.
jnore standardised form.
'The million and a half acres of land under indigo in 1880

JOURNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, FINANCE, & ECONOMICS

dwindled down to 100,000 acres by 1926.
tion hardly comes into the statistics now.

235

Indigo cultiva-

HOW THE GROWTH

IN INDUSTRY HAS AFFECTED INDIAN

LABOUR AND COTTAGE INDUSTRIES

JUTE:

The most striking economic development on a large

was in the fibres, Jute (pat san) and Cotton, and the
Both of them had
manufactures connected with them.
been known in India from very early times, but as important articles of export they came into the front rank after
the Mutiny. The power mills connected with various stages
of their manufacture have for the first time produced the
labour conditions of the factory system.
Jute is mostly
grown in Bengal, and its fibre supplies the raw material
for the manufacture of the coarse gunny bags used in the
India holds a monointernational commerce of the world.
Fibres of the
poly in the production of the raw material.
same quality cannot be produced outside the moist plains
In 1850 the total value of jute exports (raw
of Bengal.
and manufactured) was little over 21 lakhs of rupees. In
1926 it amounted to 38 crores, and the area under jute
was little short of 4 million acres. The early exports of
jute were almost entirely to Great Britain.
Dundee, in
scale

Scotland, soon established a flourshing jute-weaving inCalcutta started the first steam-power jute mill,
dustry.

with British capital, in 1854.

Between 1870 and 1882
the number had increased to twenty. In 1926 there were as

90 jute mills, employing a labour force of over

The Indian jute mills are mostly financed and
managed by the British. Dundee manufactures, besides
coarse jute textiles* other fabrics such as jute rugs and

many

as

300,000.

In this industry, therefore, the growth in the

carpets.
British period has been entirely in favour of British
capital
-and British enterprise.
For Indians it has meant
the

only

-growth of a large industrial population and the

ment of the cottage industries of Bengal.

displace-

COTTON POSITION IN THE 18TH CENTURY

In the case of cotton the history has been different.
in India from the remotest

The cotton plant was cultivated

Cotton manufactures furnished the principal

source of clothing in India, both artistic and common, and

antiquity.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

236

formed an important article of commerce in her foreign

But the indigenous cotton was of short staple
trade.
than half an inch, and rarely exceeding threeless
often
the best qualities were disquarters of an inch, though
fineness
on the one hand and
tinguished by extraordinary
the
Hence
renown
of the famous
the
other.
on
durability
Dacca muslins, plain, striped, and figured. Their delicacy
won them the title of Ab-i-rawan (running water). The
earliest British settlements in India were made in cottondistricts.

weaving

The East India Company's imports of

England affected the growth of Man-

cotton fabrics into

chester cotton manufactures in the 18th Century. The
import of printed calicoes from the East Indies was thereIn 1712 the
fore entirely prohibited in England in 1700.
stricter by being extended
prohibition was made
of
printed calicoes.
wearing or use

to the

NOTABLE INVENTIONS

At the same time the inventive genius of Englishmen

in machinery, which soon enabled

made improvements
to

England
factures.

out-distance her competitors in cotton manu-

Four of her notable inventions may be men-

One related to weaving, Kay's Fly Shuttle, 1733,

the weaver's shuttle, instead of being thrown by
which
by
hand, was thrown mechanically between layers of warp
But rapid weaving could not be carried on
alternately.
without rapid spinning, which was rendered possible by

tioned.

Hargreave's Spinning Jenny, about 1764. This contrivance

was a great improvement on the old spinning wheel, which
could only spin one thread at a time. The Spinning
as
Jenny enabled eleven threads, and afterwards as many
further
a
time.
at
be
to
a hundred,
Arkwright's
spun
invention of the water frame enabled him to set up hi&
first water-power mill in 1771, and within fourteen years
steam power was applied to cotton manufacture. These
inventors were men of humble origin but practical inventive

and they revolutionised the indusArkwright began with the trade

He never had much
of a barber, and ended as a Knight.
of invention were
career
in
his
his
associates
and
capital,
But they raised
and
watch-makers.
mechanics, carpenters,

genius
trial

in

life

mechanics,

of the world.

& ECONOMICS 237

JOURNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, FINANCE,
the position of their country to
India's position
in the world.

one of industrial supremacy

began to sink as an exporter

in
of cotton fabrics, and soon the cheapened production
market
Indian
the
invade
to
it
made
possible
Lancashire
with cotton goods, both yarn and fabrics.
.INDIA'S

POSITION IN

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

of the nineteenth century India's

of raw cotton to Great Britain also
position
In
to other sources of supply.
began to sink relatively
the
quinquennium
1806 she had supplied 40 per cent. In
1849-54 she supplied only 16 per cent. Her two chief
in this field were the United States of America
In

the

first

half

as a supplier

competitors

and Egypt. The United States cotton had a longer staple,

which was better suited to the Lancashire machinery. And
the large-scale activity of the United States in manufrom 1870 onwards.
facturing cotton goods only dates
on
modern
cultivated
as
lines, began to
Egyptian cotton,
modern
her
with
from
available
be
1820,
system of
has
also
therefore
supplied the raw
Egypt
irrigation.
material to Lancashire, and she had not yet developed her
power manufactures to any great extent. Her staple is
better
longer than that of the United States, and therefore
suited for weaving finer counts, and it has further
advantages in its strength, elasticity, and natural twist.
The Civil War in America, 1861-5, and the British
blockade of the United States coast, produced a worldLancashire suffered a
ivide crisis in the cotton trade.
famine in raw cotton, as the American supply was cut off,
This had a three-fold
.and prices rose over 40 per cent.
The high prices benefited the Indian
effect on
India.
cultivators of raw cotton, but they ruined the hand-loom
weavers, who could not purchase their raw materials at
A great
prices so enormously and suddenly enhanced.
cotton
to
the
was
thus
industry in
power-loom
fillip
given
were
made by
hand
On
the
other
attempts
Bombay.
Government to improve and extend the cultivation of cotton
in India with a view to supplying the demands of the
Manchester industry. Cotton Commissioners were appointed
in Bombay, Berar, and the Central Provinces, with cotton
farms under them.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

238

GROWTH OF THE MILL INDUSTRY

The application of steam power to the manufacture of
cotton in India began in Calcutta as early as 1818, but it
led to no great development.
Bombay was a better home
for the cotton industry because of

cotton-growing

tracts.

The

first

its

proximity

Bombay

to the best

cotton mill was

by the Bombay Spinning and Weaving Company

which was incorporated in 1851, and the number of mills
grew to a dozen by 1861. The boom in Bombay raw
American Civil War, poured an
cotton, due to the
enormous amount of wealth into Bombay, estimated at
about 81 millions of pounds sterling.
This caused much
in
and
a
financial
crisis
1865, but its permanent
speculation
effect was to establish the cotton mill industry firmly in the
Bombay Presidency with Indian capital. The slump in
Indian raw cotton, after Manchester resumed her supplies
from America, reduced its prices, and was thus an
advantage to the Indian mills. By 1879 India had 58
mills, and by 1886 the number had increased to 90. Early

established

20th century the number rose to over 200, with

capital of over 17 crores of rupees, and a labour
force of over 200,000.
They manufactured cotton yarn

in

the

and the coarser counts of cotton fabrics, the

finer counts

The Indian yarn

being mainly made in Lancashire.
was used a great deal by the hand-loom weavers, who
still held their own in the local trade in coarser cloth;
and some of

it

found

its

way

in

China and the markets

The same may be said of the coarser

made Indian cloth. But the finer hand-made fabrics
of the East.

mill-

could

not compete in price with Manchester goods, which filled

the Indian markets and created a problem, industrial^
economic, financial and political, which has progressively

The latest trend, promoted by

the
policy of protection, is in favour of
Indian manufactures as against the Lancashire manufactures.
But there is severe competition from Japan.

grown

India's

in intensity since.
fiscal

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN INDIA

which transformed the

structure of European and American society at the end of
the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century

The

Industrial Revolution

JOURNALISM, PUBLIC LIFE, FINANCE, & ECONOMICS 239

reached India in a mild

form

in the third quarter of the"in

a mild form," because it.
nineteenth century.
say
has yet affected a very small proportion of the population.
But the evils connected with the system acted in an intensified form in India: because (1) public opinion was not
strong; (2) the racial question was involved; (3) foreign
rule and foreign capital made many of the questions political; (4) the workers themselves were without education
or organisation;
(5) the cheap rates of labour and its
inefficiency prevented an efficient system of organisation
and a carefully economic use of capital; (6) the idea of
joint-stock enterprise was entirely new to India, and the
proper safeguards against its abuses were not yet developed ;
(7) the old crafts decayed rapidly, but the new industries
grew slowly and not in proportion to the void created and
the expanding needs of a
growing population; (8) suck

We

capital as existed in the country obtained high rates of

remuneration in unproductive uses and could not be
readily
attracted at economic rates into industrial concerns; and
(9) foreign capital meant an even greater want of contact
and sympathy between capital and labour than was usual in
There was a movement
large-scale industries elsewhere.
towards the towns from the
But the new cities,,
country.

such as Bombay and Calcutta, were industrial

camps rather
than permanent homes, and the labour force was unstable
and fluctuating.
larger proportion of people began to

subsist partly

on agriculture and partly on industry, instead

of developing
highly specialised skill in either. The economic conditions thus produced, taken with western education
and the discontent which it
with the
con-

produced

opened the door

existing

The
political developments.
Indian National Congress was born in 1885, but it will be
more convenient to discuss that movement in the next two
ditions,

periods,
stage.

when

to

politics occupied the front

of the cultural

SECTION

VI

AWAKENING OF NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS:

WIDENING HINDU-MUSLIM BREACH,

1885-1907.

CHAPTER XI
POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION, AND LITERATURE

1885-1907

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF EDUCATED INDIA

The year 1885, in which the Indian National Congress

was founded, marks the beginning of a definite epoch in
From this time onwards
the cultural history of India.
of its political
self-conscious
the Indian mind became
its vision was
self-consciousness
In its early
position.
held to old
It
still
and
uncertain.
necessarily confused
or
no
believed
it
which
only believed in
longer
slogans in
its motive
to
It
still
borrow
form.
a qualified
professed
it
from
but
and
force
began to
England,
inspiration
Lord
which
Radical
outlook
the
between
Ripon
distinguish
had brought with him and the more historical outlook of
the established interests in the British Services, the British

British trading and manufacturing comthe great corporations of British capital

and
munities,
On
which had established their hold on the life of India.
the one hand the Indians educated in English ranged
themselves on the side of British Radicalism and looked
with suspicion and mistrust on the established British
On the other hand these interests began to
interests.
ie more and more alienated from the English-educated
Indians, whom they looked upon and rudely called "Babus"
planters,

the

not taking the trouble to understand their

or
their growing influence among the people at
mentality

or clerks,
large.

INSTRUMENTS FOR THE SPREAD OF

ITS

INFLUENCE

This influence was exerted in

many ways,

of which

The highest positions open to the

Indians were in the law. The men of the highest talents
went into this profession. It was not only lucrative, but
it brought them into contact with all classes of the people.
It made them even dominate the landed classes, whose
litigation they handled, and at whose expense they grew
ioth in wealth, social importance, and opportunities of

-we

may enumerate

five.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

242

the administrative, legislative, and

political
machinery. Their second lever was journalism. In a
land mainly illiterate the written or printed word
carriea weight beyond its actual circulation or intrinsic
merit
As Indian journalism grew in circulation, its tone became

influencing

more and more

and anti-Government, and the

a screen which partly protected them
from official notice except during the four years
(1878-1882) while Lord Lytton's Vernacular Press Act
was in force. The third strong-hold which enabled
educated Indian opinion to obtain cohesion and organisation was provided by the High Schools and Colleges. For
examination purposes the Colleges were federated under
anti-British

vernaculars were

the

five

universities,

which also controlled

the examina-

forming the apex of high school education. A

fourth
and a very powerful instrument was placed in
the hands of the educated classes by the new vernacular
literatures, which they formed, and which reflected their
prejudices, their feelings, their hopes, and their ideals.
A fifth lever in the hands of the intelligentsia was
tions

furnished by the organs of local self-government. It was

not used and developed for political ends till a later
period, but when it was so used it became a most powerful
force, as also happened with the Zemstvos in Russia. The
recent activities of the Calcutta and Bombay Corporations
and many smaller municipalities in the country are
instances in point.

ATTACKS ON AUTHORITIES: PUBLIC MEETINGS AND PICE NEWSPAPERS

The
tions

visible starting point of all-India political aspiraconsidered to be the foundation of the Indian

may be

National Congress, but it was preluded by events that

happened, chiefly in Bengal, during Lord Ripon's ViceroyThe Ilbert Bill stirred up passions on both sides
alty.
on the side of the established order and on the side of
Radicalism, criticism, and change. The gulf between
educated India and the British in India began to widen

The Indian journalists became bolder in

Indian
attack,
public men (mostly the same class)
to
mass
Began
organise
meetings and mass agitation.
Mr. (afterwards Sir) Surendranath Banerjea in his-

every day.

and

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION

&

LITERATURE

243

attacked a High Court

paper The Bengalee (April 1883)
for
Mr.
Justice Norris,
ordering a stone idol
Judge,
into
his
be
Court for inspection
to
brought
(Saligrani)
a
with
He was convicted
caseconnection
in
pending
for contempt of court and sentenced to two months*
imprisonment. The attack was based on religious grounds:
that the Judge's order was an insult to the Hindu religion.
The sentence gave the occasion for organised demonstrations and protests, which the hero of the demonstrations
describes as an "upheaval of feeling," "sweeping through
Bengal in 1883." At the call of religion mass meetings
in the

open air became possible, with an attendance as

as 10,000.
The excitement created the demand for
Keshub Chunder Sen, less
cheap vernacular newspapers.
than ten years before, had failed with his issue of a pice
Now the pice Bangobdsi of Babu Jogendranath
paper.
Bose, and the pice Sanjibani of Kristo Kumar Mitter,

large

became popular Bengali papers and soon established a

large circulation.
POLITICAL PROPAGANDA

WITH RELIGIOUS FORMS

Mr. Banerjea was a first-class organiser. He and his
friends arranged that he should be treated as a martyr.
Nor were they content that the movement should remain
provincial, or that it should die down after that particular
incident was closed.
Sympathetic meetings were held as
far apart as Lahore, Amritsar, Agra, Fyzabad and Poona.
A national fund of Rs. 20,000 was raised for the Indian
Association of Calcutta, to be used for all-India political

The Ilbert Bill agitation, and later, the public

demonstrations in favour of Lord Ripon, as a counterpoise
to the unfavourable send-off of the British
community in
India when that Viceroy laid down his office, showed that

purposes.

the Indian community could now

organise effectively.
Indian National Conference was held in Calcutta

An
in

December 1883, and in the following year Mr. Banerjea

toured through Northern India to
gain the support of
other Provinces.
He visited Lahore, Multan, Delhi, Agra,
Aligarh, Allahabad, and Bankipur.
Among the subjects
discussed at the Conference were: representative Councils*
education, general and technical, the separation of judicial
from executive functions in District administration, and

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

244

the larger employment

ment

of Indians in the higher Govern-

The Government of Bengal had

Services.

introduced the Out-still

This was a change for the
temperance. Instead of
served out under strict

recently

Excise system in crowded

areas.

worse from the point of view of

liquor being manufactured and
supervision from a central

dis-

tillery, these scattered out-stills encouraged the consumption

and increased drunkenness. The agitation

was
successful, and out-stills were abolished,
against
The agitation had linked religious forms with political
of liquor
it

Sankirtan parties (perambulating

groups
singing songs) had toured round villages, with Vaishnava

propaganda.

religious chants.

EARLY PHASES OF THE MOVEMENT

in

The second National Conference was held in Calcutta

Christmas week of 1885, simultaneously with

the

the first Indian National Congress in Bombay. At the

Calcutta Conference the three leading local Indian Associations co-operated, viz:
the British Indian Association,
the
Zamindars, the Indian Association
representing
middle
the
classes, and the Central Muhamrepresenting
madan Association, then under the guidance of Mr. Ameer

Ali, representing

some

the

Muslims.

It

seems that

there was

time between Bengal and the more

rivalry
in
movement
general
Bombay, but they soon came
into line, for the second session of the Indian National
From 1888
Congress was held in Calcutta in 1886.
onwards annual Provincial Conferences were regularly
established as auxiliaries and feeders to the Congress.
at

the

BRITISH SUPPORTERS OF CONGRESS IDEA

unnecessary for our purposes to go into the

detailed history of the Congress.
From 1885 to 1907
inclusive, twenty-three annual Sessions were held, in the
course of which the Congress gradually underwent a
transformation
in methods, outlook, and the character of
It is

the personalities who swayed the movement. The year

1907 marked a definite stage in Congress history, and that
is as far as we shall consider it in this chapter. Mr. Allan

(X

Hume (1829-1912) who had

served in the Indian

Civil

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LITERATURE

245

Service in the North- West Provinces

(now the Agra ProUnited Provinces) and was a

Secretary to
Government in the Viceroyalty of Lord Mayo, is
reputed
to have been the father of the
Congress idea. In the
Radical atmosphere of Lord Ripon's
Viceroyalty it found
a favourable soil for its roots.
Indian political organization was not without some indirect official countenance.
Obviously a public body representing Indian opinion and
responsive to it, would be a source of strength to a Government desiring to be in touch with the
Mr. Hume
people.
was General Secretary of the
Congress from its very inception, and continued to work for it both in India and in
vince in the

England
notable

till

the date of his death in 1912.

Among other
who worked for the Congress were:

Britishers

Sir William

Wedderburn, Baronet, Mr. W. S. Caine, M. P.",

Mr.
Charles Bradlaugh, M. P.
Sir William
Wedderburn presided over the
at
Congress
Bombay in
1889, worked for it in Parliament for seven
years, and
kept in being a Congress Committee in London until his
death in 1918.
Mr. W. S. Caine was the
Temperance
and

Reformer, who also supported the Congress cause in Parliament, and carried the Temperance propaganda into India.
He visited the Calcutta Congress in 1890. Mr.
visited the

Bradlaugh

Bombay Congress

in 1889, and introduced a

private Bill the following year in the British Parliament
to reform the Indian Councils and
introduce the elective
It
came to nothing, but the Conservative
principle.
Ministry's India Council Act of 1891 dealt with the same
question in a more orthodox

way.

HOW INDIANS RALLIED TO

BRITISH NAMES

Besides Sir William Wedderburn there were

three
men elected as Presidents of the
Congress
Mr. George Yule, a Calcutta
Merchant, head of the firm of
other British

Andrew Yule and Co., presided at Allahabad in

1888;
Mr. Alfred Webb, M. P., a member of the Irish
Parliamentary Party, presided at Madras in 1894; and Sir
Service, presided
t

iQ??

f oil

wL

Henry
member of the Indian Civil
Bombay in 1904.* The Congress

another retired

Cotton,

at

of Mrs Al iie Besant

^ cction er
another cate Qr
I

cha

J1

<-

y>

to preside over the Congress

wil1 be referred to in the

and

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

246
therefore

owed much

to

Radical British support

in the

And that support was

twenty years
a tower of strength in the early stages and rallied the
English-educated Indians to the Congress cause. It is
remarkable how the names of English Presidents attracted
of

first

its existence.

The first session in

audiences to the earlier Congresses.
of
72.
had
attendance
an
From 1885 to
only
Bombay
1905 there were twenty-one sessions, of which four had
On all these four occasions the
British Presidents.
attendance was over a thousand, and it never reached 1,000
on any other occasion, except one. The exception was in
in 1895, when there was a great deal of excitement

Poona

in the Congress camp over the question of holding a Social

Conference in the Congress Pandal. The Social Conference
had been founded in 1887 by Mr. Mahadeo Govind
Ranade (1842-1901), but there was a strong party opposed
to social reform by legislative action, as for example
through the Age of Consent Act of 1891, by which the age
of consent for girls was raised in the Criminal Law from
10 to 12 years. A redoubtable opponent of the Act was
Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1854-1920). His anti-reform
party mustered in strong force in order to defeat the
Reformers, and a crisis was only averted by the tact and
good offices of Mr. Justice Ranade. Subsequently, in
1901, the atmosphere of the Social Conference was for
root-and-branch Reform, under the lead of the Maharaja

Gaekwar of Baroda, who presided.

plea against caste,
of education to girls.

He

urged a

early marriages, Parda and

strong
the denial

RESOLUTIONS PASSED

The Resolutions passed

in those Congresses referred

the
of
to the enlargement
Legislative Councils, with inover
creased powers
budget and general discussions;
increased employment of Indians in the higher public
Civil
services, with simultaneous examinations for the

Service in India as well as England; the easing of the

military expenditure; the authorisation of Indian Volunteer Corps, with a relaxation of the Indian Arms Act;
and
legal reforms, such as the extension of Trial by Jury

the separation of judicial from executive functions in

District administration; the position of Indians in South

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LITERATURE

247

and the Empire generally; and an enquiry into

and economic conditions. The enthusiasts for
social reform had to keep their proceedings
entirely
as we have seen, there was a strong party
-separate, and,
opposed to their hitching their programme on to the ConAs Mr. W. C. Bonnerjee said in 1892, "we do not
gress.
all understand in the same sense what is meant by social
reform/' and unanimity was more desired in those days
Africa

industrial

than any close grip with facts.

HINDU-MUSLIM RELATIONS

An

made

Muslims as a body
Mr. Badruddin
Mr. Rahmatullah Muhammad Sayani at Calcutta in 1896 made eloquent pleas in
But they were both from Bombay. The
that behalf.
attempt was

to get the

to join, and the two Muslim

Tyabji at Madras in 1887, and

Presidents,

Muslims of Northern India, where the chief centres of

Muslim population lie, obeyed the strong call of Sir Saiyid
Ahmed Khan, and not only refused to join, but considered
the Congress propaganda as detrimental to their interests.
As the years passed, Hindu-Muslim relations became less

cordial

and indeed more bitter. In the Maratha country

Ganpati and Shivaji exasperated the Muslims,

the cults of

and the

five days' Hindu-Muslim riots of 1893 in Bombay

were among the most sanguinary outbreaks then known.
Rangoon, Bareilly, and Azamgarh had suffered from
similar outbreaks only six weeks before, and unity between
the two communities seemed farther than ever.

EARLY PRO-BRITISH TONE OF THE CONGRESS:

TRANSFORMED

HOW

IT

BECAME

We have seen what a large share in the foundation

and maintenance of the Congress was borne by English
The spirit of the Congress
publicists in the early days.
and its outlook were also British. Mr. Dadabhoy Naoroji
spoke at some length on the "blessings of British rule" at
Calcutta in 1886, and his remarks were received with loud
In 1890 a Congress Deputation visited England,
and a London session was discussed in 1891. Mr. Naoroji's
election to the British Parliament in 1892 and the Irish
Home Rule Bill brought the Congress into direct touch
with the Irish Home Rulers, one of whom came over to
cheers.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

248

The estrangement of
preside over the Congress in 1894.
the people from the Government in connection with the

Poona plague operations in 1896-7 started an anarchical

movement in the Maratha country, which affected the tone
The deportation of the Natu brothers
of the Congress.
and the prosecution of Mr. Tilak not only brought the
Maharashtra party into conflict with the Government but
created an extreme wing in the Congress, which was prepared to sympathise with the use of means other than
constitutional against the Government. Mr. Gopal Krishna
Gokhale (1866-1915), the most sagacious and far-sighted
Moderate leader that India has produced, was just saved

from a

false step at an early stage in his career, by a

retractation which seemed humiliating at the time, but
which enabled him to consolidate his position in the

Council in the service of the country,

Curzon's Viceroyalty (1899-1905) and Japan's
victories over Russia in 1904-05, coupled with severe
famines and economic distress, brought about a transformation in Indian public opinion which caused the Congress
crisis in 1907.

Legislative

Lord

'

LORD CURZON'S ATTITUDE AND POLICY

"Lord Curzon did not understand the people of India,""

Gokhale in Benares in 1905. To this misunderMr.
said
standing may in a great measure be ascribed the strange
fact that the ablest Viceroy sent out (till then) by England
to rule India undermined the foundations of British rule
His restlessness and conceit, and his
in that country.
attitude of lofty superiority to the people and their culture
and modes of thought, killed even the wise reforms which

he tried to initiate. What is more, it left a legacy of

hatred and prejudice which has not yet been exhausted.
Besides his own painstaking studies of Indian problems
of every kind, he appointed numerous Commissions to

and give a direction to policies. Unfortunately

point of view, and that of his Commissions
accentuated an Imperialist standpoint amounting almost to
a contempt of Indian views. This caused much misunderHis Universities Comstanding and cultural conflict.

collect facts

his

own

(1902) was unpopular, and its findings and the

policy based upon them disturbed the whole of educated

mission

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LITERATURE

249*

The Congress Presidential speech of 1902 stated,

In its view the new policy
the Indian case against them.
of university education
basis
the
narrow
to
tended
popular
The
area.
Commission's
its
restrict
suggestion of"
and
looked
was
fees
of
rates
College
minimum
upon as an
of
the
The
educational
the
on
attack
opportunities
poor.
the
in
and
constitution
functions
of
reforms
fundamental
the Universities were looked upon as bringing them more
under the control of the bureaucracy and neutralising the.
efforts of the private Colleges, of which there were 59 out
Theof a total of 78 under the Calcutta University.
Famine Commission sought more to perfect the Government
machinery of famine relief than to get to the root causes
of famines and so take measures for their prevention..
Mr. Dinshaw Edalji Wacha's Presidential Congress^
Address in 1901 was an ably-reasoned, though lengthy,,
document, criticising the Government's economic policy

India.

it related to famines, land revenue,

and currency. Four years
taxation
irrigation, railways,
offered
a strong criticism of army
he
had
earlier, in 1897,

in

all

its

aspects

as

expenditure before Lord Welby's Royal Commission of

Indian Expenditure.
PARTITION OF BENGAL; SWADESHI

AND BOYCOTT

The worst mistake of Lord Curzon was the Partition*

(1905) and the manner in which it was carried
It was a psychological rather than an administhrough.
As such it created an atmosphere which
trative mistake.
poisoned Indo-British relations. The inflammatory agitation which was set on foot in Bengal spread all over India,
and compelled the reversal of the Partition in 1911. The
reversal widened the breach between the Muslim and the
Hindu communities, because Eastern Bengal as a separate:
Province with a strong Muslim majority seemed more
likely to be administered favourably to Muslim interests*,
The sense of power which the successful agitation had
brought to the political mind of Bengal and India generally^
was strengthened by striking events that were happening in
of Bengal

the general politics of Asia.

Japan (as already stated)
defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5)*.

Persia

became (1905)

a constitutional monarchy with.

.250

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

The Turkish Revolution of

government.
1908 gave Turkey an advanced form of representative
China got its National Assembly in 191Q
.government.
and swept away the foreign rule of the Manchus in 1912.
The whole of Asia felt a new thrill, and its peoples a new
.parliamentary

.sense of confidence in themselves.

In such

an atmosphere
the Partition agitation of Bengal, led by so skilful a hand
as that of Surendranath Banerjea, had far more than local

or temporary significance. Along with it were launched

two economic movements, Swadeshi and Boycott, which
not only gathered impetus from political and racial
motives, but brought funds into the national movement
from the wealthy manufacturing classes. Swadeshi, or the
.support and fostering of home industries, in its purely
^economic aspects, must necessarily be a permanent factor
in any nationalistic or patriotic propaganda, and was later
accepted by the Government as a legitimate principle in
For a few years after 1905 an
its
industrial policy.
-annual Industrial Conference used to be held along with
the Congress through the inspiration of Rao Bahadur R. N.
Mudholkar, of Berar and the Central Provinces. The

boycott of British goods is frankly a lever for putting

Its use therefore
political pressure by economic means.
involves political conflict and bitterness, and its justification or otherwise must rest on other than economic or

.moral grounds.
CLEAVAGE IN CONGRESS GOKHALE
:

SERVANTS OF INDIA SOCIETY

In the Partition excitement of 1905 signs of a

cleavage of political opinion began to appear in the
Congress. Mr. Gokhale and other Moderate leaders began
to feel that wild talk and wild action might do more harm
than good to India, and might even retard the constituOn the other hand the Government
tional movement.
of Lord Minto, in consultation with the Liberal Secretary
of State, Mr. John Morley, (afterwards Lord Morley),
recognised the phase of Indian discontent that was
"justifiable," and laid plans for further constitutional
.reforms which came into force in 1909.
But a bitter
.and irreconcilable party grew up at the same time, which
did not trust Britain's word, which did not believe in the
efficacy

of

constitutional work,

and which sympathised

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LITERATURE

251

not actively
organise, underground
methods of murder and violence.
and
conspiracies
Mr. Gokhale had a constitutional mind, but he felt the
weakness of his movement in not having a Research
Secretariat behind him, which would enable him to meet
His Servants
the Government in argument on equal terms.
of India Society, founded in 1905, was partly to provide
such a Secretariat and centre of study and research.
Its active work was meant "to train national political
missionaries for the service of India and to promote by
all constitutional means the true interests of the Indian
if

with,

it

did

The Society frankly accepted the British connecand included economic study and social work in its
programme- This recognition of an all-round advance if
politics are to bear fruit has prevented it from working in
a barren field, though the enthusiasm behind it has waned
people."

tion

since

its

early days.

THE STORM AND STRESS OF 1907

Slow and steady work, especially where there seem to
be no results visible, always appeals less to the crowd than
a fiery propaganda, especially if it is allied with religious
mysticism or appears to suffer from political persecution.
Mr. Arabindo Ghose, a poet and religious mystic from
Bengal, and Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a Maratha journalist, with a strong aggressive
outlook, were opposed in

1907

to

Mr. Gokhale the

constitutionalist

and Mr. Surendra-

nath Banerjea the orator; and Tilak's party won.

The
Congress was to have been held that year in Nagpur, but
its Reception Committee was broken up
by extremists.
meeting was arranged for Surat, and Dr. Rash Behari
Ghose was proposed to the chair, but the extremists
wanted LalaLajpatRai, the Punjab hero of the deportations.

A free

fight ensued, and the meeting broke up in disorder.

The Congress had now ceased to be a unanimous body.
The party of violence now openly carried on its
propaganda. There were riots in Bengal and the Punjab.
Press prosecutions were undertaken, and special legislation
aimed at public meetings was carried through. The political atmosphere of India was full of anxiety and confusion.
The story of further developments in political ideas will
be taken up in the next chapter.

252

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

VIVEKANANDA AND SISTER NIVEDITA

Politics seemed to overshadow the cultural life of
India during this period. The other cultural movements
seemed now to take their colour from politics. The Arya
Samaj was in the fore-front of the political movement
through its leader Lala Lajpat Rai. The religious reform
movements connected with the Brahmo Somaj fell
more and more into the background on the public stage.
Orthodox Hinduism itself felt the impulse of the national
movement. The boundaries between it and modernist
movements became much thinner. Swami Vivekananda
(Norendre Nath Datta, 1862-1902) produced a great
impression at the Chicago Congress of Religions, 1893, by
his fresh interpretation of Vedantism in English. He had
left the Brahmo Somaj to become a pupil of Sri RamaKrishna Paramhansa Deva, vedantist (1836-1886). A

Ramakrishna mission of social service was founded.

world-wide propaganda was attempted, of which
first-fruits

were the recruitment of that talented

A
the

English

lady Miss Margaret Noble, who was admitted into the

Order as Sister Nivedita. She joined the social work in
Calcutta, and contributed by her beautifully written books
interpretation of Hindu mythology, Hindu folkart and life, as well as a fresh orientation
Hindu
lore, and
of Hindu religious thought in its bearing on social customs*
Her life among Hindu women as one of themselves was a
mission in a far higher sense than the word ordinarily
and service in the famine and
implies, and her sympathy

to a

new

(1906) have left an abiding and

her works may be mentioned:
precious memory.
The Web of Indian Life (1904); Cradle Tales of
Hinduism (1907); and Footfalls of Indian History
(1915). Her death in 1911 was a sad blow to this
floods of Eastern Bengal

Among

importance lies less in the

favourable impression it produced in countries outside
India than in the new atmosphere it created at home.
It was an achievement to absorb into its fold a Sister
The life which this cultured woman lived in
Nivedita.
Hindu homes, not as an outsider but as one of themselves,

movement.

In

my

opinion

its

devoted to the service of the poor, and the teaching of a

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LlTLKATUKL

from dogmas and

Hindu
thought.
have leavened
BHAKTI AND GITA MOVEMENTS

free
practical religion

caste distinctions,

The reaction against the didactic rationalism of the

Brahmo Somaj found expression in many forms in Bengal.
the
Perhaps we may call the whole movement of reaction
emotionalism
to
It
the
Bhakti movement.
strong
responded
of Bengal and was a revival, if not a continuation, of
Pandit Bijoi Krishna
the age-long Vaishnava tradition.
from the Brahmo
himself
seceded
who
had
Goswami,
a
be
as
taken
characteristic
exponent of this
Somaj, may
-school of thought, though many leaders of thought have
it more congenial to their spiritual
cold rationalism of an earlier generation.
Gita is their prime fountain of inspiration,

found

hunger than the

The Bhagavadand the Bhakti

Yoga may be described as their way of life. The ardent

reformer and educationist Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
Ashwini Kumar Datta and
supported the Gita cult.
Manor anj an Guha-Thakurta followed the same banner.
In Dr. Rabindranath Tagore we may see the same influence
though as a great poet he stands apart by himself and is
above labels.

THEOSOPHY AND MRS. BESANT

A very different woman from Sister Nivedita was

Mrs. Annie Besant (1847-1933), whose influence on
As
religion and politics in India has been enormous.
President of the Theosophical Society she was a world
Born in London (1847) she married a Church of
figure.
England clergyman. The marriage was a failure, and
she took up an aggressive atheistic propaganda with
Charles Bradlaugh for fourteen years (1874-88). She
then (1889) took up Theosophy with the same ardour.
The Theosophical Society had been founded in America in
1875 by Madame H. P. Blavatsky. She came of a noble
German-Russian family, had travelled widely in littleknown countries including Tibet, and had a mystical
She rejected the Spiritualism of her day, and
personality.
claimed a higher key to the mystical phenomena through
the ancient wisdom of the East as expounded by spiritual
beings

who

(she

maintained)

still

communicated and

254

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

came

into contact with human beings in the

sacred land
of the Himalayas.
Colonel Olcott, of the United
States
Army, joined her. They established their headquarters
in
India
(Adyar, near Madras) in 1879.
aimed at a universal spiritual brotherhood, and They

found

support in all religions for certain spiritual phenomena

which
they claimed had been misunderstood.
The
Theosophical Society seeks its foundations of spiritual
in nature, science,
philosophy, and the intuition
of superior men.
In philosophy it seeks
inspiration from
the Upanishads, and the three old Hindu

knowledge

schools of

Samkhya, Yoga, and Vedanta, but

lays stress on living

world-teachers, those in the spiritual world as well as
those incarnated in human life.
Esoteric or secret
wisdom,
taught by adepts or Mahatmas, who keep touch with each
other, and seek out fit vehicles for instruction, is a fair
Mrs. Besant's co-operation in
description of its claims.
theosophy in India was most valuable to the
it

movement,

and she was elected President of the Society on Colonel

Olcott's
death in 1907.
Meanwhile she had started
the Central Hindu College in Benares in 1898 and thus,
established a form of modern and scientific
education,
combined with instruction in a modernist school of
Hinduism. The College grew and flourished and became

Hindu University in 1916. Mrs. Besant also interested

herself in the nationalist politics of India, but her
political
the

more naturally within the next period. Her

Central Hindu Girls' School in Benares (1904) was a
symbol of her service lo the women of India.
activities fall

QADIANI OR AHMADIYA MOVEMENT

Among

the

Muslim

religious

movements of

the period

most important was that which arose in Qadian,,

Gurdastur District, in the Panjab. In one aspect it may
be looked upon as a defence movement against the Arya
Samaj, which had carried on an active proselytising
propaganda. But it was much wider in its scope. In
doctrinal matters it has few points of difference from the

the

general Muslim community, but its strength lies in its

social organisation and its
propaganda, which have met
with considerable success.
Its founder Mirza Chilian*

Ahmad (1839-1908),

after

whom

the

movement calk

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LITERATURE

255

Ahmadiya, was a vigorous exponent of religious

his Barahm i Ahmadiya in
doctrines, and published
baVat
1880. From 1889 onwards he began to accept
and
this
Sufi
teachers,
maybe
fealty) like the
itself

(mystic
taken to be the
separate

date of the Ahmadiya movement as a

In 1891 he claimed to be the
organisation.

promised Messiah

(Maslh

He

Mau'&d),

as

prophesied in

called himself the second

Ahmed,,,
Muslim theology.
This involved him in
with reference to Qur-dn^ Ixi. 6.
bitter controversies with Muslims, Arya Samajists, and"
In 1904 he claimed to be a manifestation
Christians.
(buruz} or Avatar (Incarnation) of the holy Krishna. The
movement gained many adherents, chiefly in the Panjab.
It does much educational and social work, and has estaIn 1913 there was a
blished missions far and wide.
The Lahore branch of the Ahmadiyas cut itself
schism.
off from the main body, and claimed for Mirza Ghulam

Ahmad

only the position of a Mujaddid> or millennial

teacher or reformer, thus reverting nearer to the main
body of Islam.
FEATURES OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS
In educational history there are three striking feaplace the field of education was widened,

tures. In the first

made to improve its quality. Secondly,

away from the original London Universcheme of a purely examining body made progress,

and attempts were

the idea of getting

sity

and Indian and oriental ideas began to assert themselves.

to
thirdly, non-official influence and agencies came
From a superficial
count more and more in education.
point of view they may have led to some departure
from official standards of efficiency. But on the whole it.
hastened the process by which the mind of the people itself
began to be reflected in our education rather than mere
foreign ideas super-imposed on them in its inner details-

And

and working.
THE TWO NEW UNIVERSITIES OF THE PANJAB AND
ALLAHABAD: DENOMINATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Two new

OF'

universities were now added to the picture,

Panjab University in 1882, and the Allahabad
University in 1887. They both tapped some of the most;
*?iz,,

the

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

:256

ancient seats of Indian culture, and developed on lines

from those of the Presidency Universities. The
promoters of the Panjab University had conceived of their
-university as performing three distinct functions: those of

^different

supreme literary body, developing the taste and literature

of the people; a supreme teaching body, setting a standard of
teaching that would reach all institutions from top to bottom;

.a

supreme examining body, that would test the results

At first there was some controto
was
it
whether
develop only Oriental learning, but
versy
it was wisely settled that it was to diffuse western
knowledge
.and a

of

its

other two functions.

through the vernaculars as well as to develop the study

of Oriental classics. Its ideals suffered a certain amount
of dilution through the example of the older universities.
But the denominational Schools and Colleges of the Muslims,
the Arya Samaj, and later, the Sikhs, made it possible to

No synthesis, however, of
introduce religious education.
was
or
moral
education
attempted, or was indeed
religious
in actual practice
a
whether
And
it
is
question
possible.
denominationalism in religion did not retard or even prevent
the process of unification in public life, which has been
the great ideal of political leaders since 1885. Under the
Allahabad University, the Muslim College in Aligarh and
the Hindu College in Benares pursued their respective
points of view, but they became so divergent that they
ended by being separate universities altogether later on.

OLDER UNIVERSITIES: OTHER CULTURAL INFLUENCES

The older universities also instituted a number of

fruitful reforms.
Bombay quite early in the 1880's
instituted its degree of Bachelor of Science to correspond
to the scientific side of the Arts degree in Calcutta. The
Calcutta University instituted Honours courses. Madras
introduced the degree of Licentiate in Teaching (1886),
,and thus paved the way for the systematisation of the
theory and practice of teaching. Everywhere the tendency
was to have fewer subjects in a given exmination and

more accurate and fuller knowledge.

became
inevitable, and professional teaching
Specialisation
in Law, Medicine, and Engineering aimed at higher

to

insist

standards.

on

Oriental learning itself began to be specialised

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LITERATURE

257

and teaching of Indians themselves.

Rajendra Lai Mitra of Bengal
fell on Dr. Ramkrishna
Gopal Bhandarkar
(18244891)
The Bhandarkar Institute,
of Bombay (1837-1925).
founded in 1917, and the Annual All-India Oriental
Conference, begun in 1919 under the auspices of the
The researches of
Institute, commemorate his name.
Kashinath Trimbak Telang (1850-94) in Sanskrit antiShibli
quities and Maratha history, and of Maulana
Nu'mani (1857-1914) in Persian literature, Muslim
the researches

Bonder

The

mantle

of

Dr.

and Urdu literary criticism, stand out as monuments in the cultural history of India.
Shibli received no
university education of the Indian State type, but his work
history,

had deep and lasting results.

Among Schools of Art, the
Lahore School, under Mr. Lockwood
Kipling, father of the
poet Rudyard Kipling, did much to study the actual
artistic work of the
It devoted its attention to
country.
the higher and more artistic branches of Indian crafts and
to the
It tried
to become, as
principles of design.

and Bombay have since tried to become, an

centre and source of
enlightened criticism and

Calcutta
aesthetic

advice to the artistic industries of

its

THE UNTAUGHT ART OF RAVI VARMA

While the four Art Schools

Province.
of

Lahore, Calcutta,

Bombay and Madras were laboriously building up a new

art tradition,
the one hand

avoiding an imitation of foreign models on

and the lack of virility and vitality in the

neglected indigenous work on the other, there arose an
untaught painter in the remote corner of Travancore.
His great popularity
proves that he had hit the national
taste.
Ravi
Varma
was born in 1848. His uncle
Hindu_
Raja Varma was a painter, who had access to the Court of
Travancore.
The boy began to paint in water colours at
fourteen years of age, without
any regular training. Eventually he began to paint in oils. In 1873 he came under the
notice of the English
Superintendent of the Technical School

of Madras,

him

to

exhibited

won

who was on

visit to

Travancore. This brought

the

notice of the wider world.

His work was
at the Madras Art Exhibition in
1874, and he

Medal with his Portrait of a Nair

herself
with a garland of jasmine.
He
adorning

the

Governor's

258

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

now went on

painting

mythological subjects.

character studies, portraits

and
In 1 878 he painted a
portrait of

the Governor of Madras.

He subsequently obtained lar*e
commissions in the Baroda and Mysore States, and a large
popular demand arose for copies of his pictures of Hindu
mythology. His oleographs, reproduced by a cheap and
not very artistic process, commanded a large sale in the
bazaars.
Before his death in 1906 he had established a
wide reputation throughout Hindu India. In spite of the
criticism of experts like Dr. Coomaraswamy, the fact of
his wide popularity demands notice, although his work
will not endure like that of the Bengali School of Indian

Art and other works, which we shall notice

in the next

period.

EDUCATIONAL POLICY IN 1904

We

have already referred

to

Lord Curzon's

Univer-

Commission of 1902.

The Universities Act of 1904

must be read along with the Government of India's
Resolution on Educational Policy, dated llth March 1904.
The Resolution comprehensively surveyed the whole field
sities

of Education.
share

it

It

called pointed attention to the

insufficient

paid
primary education and the inadequate
had received of public funds. It found Secondary

attention

to

Education too literary and attempted to connect it

with industries and crafts.
Higher technical education,,
technical scholarships for study abroad, industrial schools,
commercial and agricultural education, and training
hostels
all
received attention. A new
colleges and
of
was
created in the Central
Education
Department

Government.

But Lord Curzon's unpopularity and

the

distrust created in the public mind by other controversies

prevented the full realisation of the ideals sketched out.

SPIRIT OF SELF-HELP IN EDUCATION

The influence of non-official Indian men and women

on education became very marked. The appointment of
Indians as Vice-Chancellors in some of the Universities*
brought the work of the Universities into closer touch
with Indian life and thought. Dr. N. G. Chandavarkar's
Convocation Addresses at the

and 1910 are

still

Bombay

remembered for

University in 1909

their close association

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LITERATURE

259

Indian conditions with lofty ideals,

Justice
to
of
the
claims
failed
economic
never
Ranade
urge
studies and industrial organization on educated India, and
hrw" wife, Mrs. Ramabai Ranade, published in Marathi
in 1910 some reminiscences of their joint lives, sketching;
in the vernacular a picture of the influence which women
were beginning to wield in public life in India, At a later
Dr. Ashutosh Mukerji
(1864-1924) as Vicestage
Chancellor of the Calcutta University dominated the
whole educational field of Bengal. The munificent endowment of Dr. Rash Behari Ghose (1845-1921) to the
of actual

Calcutta

University

are

almost

proverbial.

He was

among the promoters in 1904 of the Association for theAdvancement of Scientific and Industrial Education, and
in 1905, of the National Council of Education in Bengal.
He was also President of the Bengal Technical Institute,
started in 1906, to which Sir Taraknath Palit gave a handsome endowment. Both Dr. Ghose and Sir Taraknath
Palit left munificent sums for education when they died.
Not only in Bengal, but all over India, a new spirit of
self-help had come over Indian thought in matters of
as of public administration.
The
of
Fergusson College
Poona, founded in 1884, on the
principle of self-sacrificing devotion to education, is
associated with the names of Mr. Tilak, Mr. Gokhale, and
education

as

well

Dr. Paranjpye.

LITEBA&Y MOVEMENTS IN BENGAL

The absorption of Bengal in political agitation left

room for new names in imaginative literature during
this period.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee continued to
dominate the literary field till his death in 1894, His

little

idealisation of the cult of Krishna

gave a beautiful literary

Vaishnava thought in
of
which
we have already noticed other forms.
religion,
His later work may be claimed as a literary expression of
political Hinduism.
Younger writers like Dvijendra Lai
Ray and Rabindranath Tagore were coming to the fore*
a&d preparing the way for the
winning of even greater
laurels for Bengali literature.
The dramatic genius of
Bengal was producing literary plays which had more thaa
form

to

the

Bhakti School

of

260

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

a local or temporary significance. It was

beginning to be
introspective, and not afraid of criticising the weak points
in Hinduism itself.
It was taking plots from
history and
them
for
twisting
propagandist aims. It was becoming an
instrument for religious and political reform. The Swadeshi Andolan movement which swept over
Bengal like
an irresistible tide in 1904-7, had as its immediate cause
the Partition of Bengal and as its immediate objective the
boycott of British goods as a means of political pressure
to get the Partition annulled.
But its root causes and its
ultimate consequences went much farther.
It had its literary, religious, and artistic side, and its all-India significance, which appeared clearly long after the Partition was
annulled.
It will be best therefore to defer the consideration of Dvijendra Lai Ray and Rabindranath Tagore to

the next chapter.

THE NEW LEAVEN IN URDU

The same widening of outlook and the same revolt
the domination of English or European culture is to
be observed in Urdu literature. But in degree it was less

from

time it kept a little in arrear of the Hindu

of Bengal; and in tendency it was less concentrated and precise. The Urdu theatre even seems to have
lost ground, judged by the standard of literary art, social
criticism, or the focussing of new ideas on national life.
intense;

in

movement

The increasing political divergence between the Hindu and

Muslim communities also prevented the presentation of a
united intellectual front in dealing with the big problems
of the country as a whole. The immense advance of English
education and journalism, and the increasing share of
Indians in public life, where English was the lingua franca^
threw a further handicap on Urdu.
SEIBLI NU'MANI

Maulana Shibli Nu'mani (1857-1914), though his

chief literary work fell in this period, really in spirit
he
belonged to an earlier age. He knew no English, But
was a great traveller, and his interest in the modern
cultural movements in all Islamic countries was deep and
his knowledge more accurate than in earlier Urdu writers*
His critical faculties were
and his most

highly developed,

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LITERATURE

261

to Urdu literature are to be sought

important contributions
He set a new standard
criticism.
historical
in literary and
in these

attention

His Mawdzina Anis o Dabir called the

Urdu readers to canons of literary criticism

fields.

of

and showed that a wellindependent of personalities,

balanced judgment, viewing rival poets impartially, and
dissecting the strength and weakness of each individual
or author, was necessary for a due appreciation of

poet

literary

work.

His Shar ul 'Ajam discussed the wider

out of a study of Persian poetry, a study

questions arising
In literary criticism
which had fallen into a rut in India.
Pandit Brij Narayen Chakbast of Lucknow (born 1882),
himself a poet, performed a similar service for Urdu, with
the added advantage that Chakbast was an English as well
as an

Urdu

(Essays)

scholar.
In historical criticism Shibli's Ras&il
In his religious biographies
take a high rank.

Al-Mdmun and Al-Ftiruq and the imcomnn Nabi (Life of the Prophet) showed a due
appreciation of the historical setting, combined with a

the

completed

plete Sirat

judicious and reverent discussion of the historical questions

which a religious historian, like any other historian, must
His management of the Nadwat-ulset himself to solve.
'Ulamci brought that society of Muslim divines into touch
with modern views and modern knowledge, as well asThe Dar-ul-Musannifin in Azamgarh
English education.
is a centre of research which keeps Shibli's memory green
and develops his work under the fostering and competent
guidance of Saiyid Sulaiman Nadwi.

SHASAR: THE WIDE INTERESTS OF HIS LIFE

Maulvi 'Abdul Halim Sharar, of Lucknow, (18601926), occupies a large place among the masters of modern.
But he was also a journalist, an educationist*
prose.
a traveller, and a religious and social reformer- Unfortunately, in none of this numerous activities, did he
form a sufficiently large circle to form a school of

Urdu

thought, and his fame will chiefly rest on his novels.

historical novels form a long series, and many of

His
them

were published as serials in his magazines. Brought up

with the Princes of the Oudh Royal family in their exile
In Matiya Burj, Calcutta, he not only imbibed the

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

262

of an Urdu-speaking court, but

learnt
Persian through personal and
intimate
contact with the Persians who frequented
Matiya Burj
With colloquial Arabic he also acquired an intimate
acquaintance by personal contact with Arabs. He accompanied a son of Nawab Wiqar-ul-Umara of Hyderabad to
England as a tutor in 1893-6. His natural powers of
observation and his acute intellect, combined with his

literary traditions

much modern

established reputation as a journalist and novelist enabled

to profit by western literary methods, and
greatly
enlarged the range of his interests. He also learnt French.
He subsequently served (1908-9) in the Education De-

him

partment of the Hyderabad State. But his interest was

always in Lucknow and in the numerous causes which
he had at heart. Quite early in his career he had been
attracted to the simplicity of the Wahhabi doctrines.
Later he wrote on Tasauwuf (Sufi mysticism), and his
mind seems to have taken that turn. The freedom of style
with which he wrote an account of the lives of such sacred
personages as Sakina bint Husain gave offence to religious

persons, and his advocacy of the relaxation of the Parda

in his monthly paper Parda i'Asmat (from 1900 onwards)
created a still wider gulf between him and orthodoxy,
His attempt to bring about a better understanding between

the Hindu and Muslim communities through his fortnightly

paper Ittihdd won him popularity with neither community,
his powerful intellect remained isolated
HIS ^HISTORICAL NOVELS

and

He
benefit to

to the last.

continued his historical researches with much

Urdu literature. They were, however, on a

different plane from those of

savant, and Sharar was

Maulana

Shibli.

Shibli was

an imaginative writer with a

It is fair to compare him with

graphic and popular pen.

Bengali novelist Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, whose
Durgesh Nandini he translated into Urdu in 1899. In

the

characterexcellences of the novelist's craft

interest
sustained
of
construction
skilful
plots,
drawing,
all

the

and easy flow of

story,

and historical scene-painting

Sharar easily holds his own in the comparison. In dealing

with historical facts Sharar* s vision is less distorted,
he had no axe to grind, while the whole Bengali

.because

POLITICS, RELIGION,

EDUCATION & LITERATURE

263

had become
in novels and plays
atmosphere both
a pseudo-history that sought chiefly to glorify
with
charged
In one
Hinduism in its political and religious aspects.
that a very important one from the Indian
and
respect
Sharar yields the palm to his Bengali compeer.
standpoint

His novels

In
belong to past ages and other countries.
and living intimacy of time and place, which

the

close

are

essential

characteristics

in

a national literature, his

and they have never achieved much popularity

In this respect he lags far behind
readers.
Hindu
among
Amir Khusrau, who lived 600 years before him. His
earliest novel, Malik al-'Aziz aur Varjina, deals with
the loves of a son of Saladdin and a niece of Richard
novels fail,

during the Wars of the Crusades.

In his most popular novel Firdaus i Barrin the opening
scene is laid in the Elburz Mountains (Kohsar Taliqan)
between Mazanderan and Kazvin, the wild country known
The period is
as the abode of Deos in the Shshnama.
The
weird
the seventh century of the Hijra.
mysteries
In Flora
of the Batiniya sect are woven into the story.
a
sensational
to
with
Muslim
back
Florinda we go
Spain,
In Mansur
account of Roman Catholic priests and nuns.
aur Mohana we are taken to the times of Mahmud of
Ghazni. To an Urdu reader in Lucknow, Delhi, or Lahore,
in the 20th century, these novels convey no commentary
on the life which he knows, and to convey such commentary
King

is

of

England

the highest function of imaginative literature.

TEE POET AKBAR: HIS STYLE AND SUBJECTS OF SATIRE

In contrast to Sharar shines out the actuality and
realism of the poetry of Saiyid Akbar Husain Akbar
(1846-1921). After his retirement from judicial service
in the United Provinces he poured forth a flood of epigrams
and caustic satires in verse, which form a running commen-

They earned him the

contemporary matters.
'Asr
ul
of
Lisdn
("the Tongue of the Age")sobriquet
In technique his style is comic and admits a large number
In
of English words for their ludicrous effect in Urdu.
subject-matter he embodies three tendencies. First, he
voices the strong protest of the East against the culture of
tary on

the West, all in the satirical vein, but applied to particular

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

264

from day to day. The

has
a
following biting quatrain
piercing cruelty in ill
"What though thou wearest coat and trousers,
incidents as they

in India

happen

Livest in a Bungalow, hast soap and articles of

western toilet?
Let me just ask theethis question, oman of Hind;
Hast thou in thy veins perchance a drop of

European blood?"

This cultural protest is the Muslim counterpart of the

malaise with western civilisation, which finds
general
expression all over India in our day. Only, in similar

Hindu movements, there

more chance of tangible

is

more

constructive effort, and

the political work in

results in

it finds expression.
Secondly, Akbar deplored
decline of faith and religion in India.

which

He

the

says:

"My

rivals have

repeatedly gone to the police

station to report

That

am

ing God

committing (the crime of) rememberin this (advanced) age."

Or again:
new civilisation,
difficulty to get over:

"In this

The

there is not

remain established;

religions

much

only faith

is lost."

In the third place, he was

down on

all cant, insincerity,,

and levity:"If I talk of religion, it vanishes in jokes;

If I talk of a serious purpose it vanishes in
policy;

Whatever

my
Will,

little

sense there

'tis

most

yet be left in

likely, all vanish in this century."

Akbar *s apparently comic

purpose

may

people,

behind

it.

had a very serious

Unfortunately it was undiluted
criticism

destructive pessimism. It failed to see the elements of

recuperative energy that lie hid behind much that is futile
in modern India. He was therefore unabk
in
the
growth of the saner forces. Iqbal, of whom
help
we shall speak in the next chapter, has at least a solution

and ridiculous

to

to

offer

of the cultural chaos which he

unsparingly.

also

criticises

SECTION

Vii

THE LATEST PHASE

CHAPTER
POLITICS, ECONOMICS,

XII

EDUCATION, ART, LITERATURE

A

'

1908-1931

DIFFERENTIATION OF MODERATES OR THE LIBERAL PARTY

THE CONGRESS

FR03I

The split in the Indian National Congress of 1907

seemed to cause an irreparable breach between what were
called the Extreme and the Moderate Parties.
In
reality

brought political India face to face with realities

realities of temperaments or mental altitudes, realities of
Outside the Congress
interests,, and realities of facts.
there was an anarchical party which worked underground
and used bombs, fire-arms, threats, and
inflammatory
literature, and resorted to murder and assassination as
Within the Congress as held in Madras
political weapons.
in 1908, the Moderates seemed to have won, and Constitutionalists like Dr. Rash Behari Ghose expatiated on local
it

self-government and other safe topics.

They hedged
themselves round with loyalty to the British connection in
the

Congress Constitution.

But the real

field for their

work was opening out in the enlarged Legislative Councils

created by the Minto-Morley Reforms in 1909 and in the
high offices of State like memberships of the Executive
Councils, Advocate-Generalships, and memberships of the
India Council in London, which were thrown open to them
under the Minto-Morley Scheme. In the Congress itself
the party of opposition to Government grew stronger and
stronger until it captured the Congress completely at

Bombay in 1918, and the Moderate Party definitely

withdrew as a separate Party under the name of the
Liberal Party and held separate meetings of their own.
JLATER DEVELOPMENTS OF MUSLIM AND NON-OFFICIAL EUROPEAN
FEELING IN INDIAN POLITICS
Since then, even the small number of Muslim adherents to the Congress, such as Messrs.

Muhammad

Ali

and Shaukat AH, Mr. Hasrat Mohani, and others have

undergone transformations of opinion with the changing
tides in the interplay of Muslim and Hindu
political

POLITICS,

ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

267

With Swadeshi (the movement for the support of

home industries), a certain amount of support from the
manufacturing interests was won by the Congress, and its

feeling.

combination with the boycott propaganda brought into the

full stream of politics not only the Indian merchants but
also (on the other side) the British Chambers of Commerce and the British merchants, whose material interests

The European associations

intimately affected.
time of Lord Ripon were organised expressly to
combat the claims of Indians in the direction of selfWhen
government and increased devolution of powers.
British policy accepted these as natural and legitimate
demands, and took progressive steps for their realisation,
non-official British opinion was at first, in a confused state,
and was in general inclined to be indifferent to the moveWhen those movements, however, threaments in India.
tened British trade interests by effective organisation,
British non-official opinion has shown itself willing to cooperate in measures of political reform, directing their
energies for the enactment of proper safeguards for British
were so
in

the

commercial interests.
POSITION OF

THE INDIAN STATES

The Ruling Princes of India, also, since the creation

Chamber of Princes under the Montagu-Chelmsford
Reforms of 1918-19, have been brought into touch with
each other, and with the political movements in British
India.
They have, in joint consultation, through their

of the

constitutional organ, the Chamber of Princes, been able to

examine and ventilate their own grievances, in such

as railway and tariff policies,

the Salt Act,
Defence, their treaty relations with the Paramount Power,

matters

and what they considered unnecessary and unwarrantable

Paramount Power in their internal

They engaged eminent British counsel to pre-

interference by the
affairs.

pare their case; Sir Harcourt Butler's Committee, appointed by the Government of India, examined their contentions

(1927-8); the Statutory Commission under Sir John

Simon devoted an important

to the idea of bringing them
in the

future

Constitution

section of the Report

(1930
into an all-India Federation

of British India;

and die

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

268

Princes themselves joined the first Round Table Conference in London (1930-1) to consider the feasibility of
their inclusion in the Federation.

CULTURAL FEATURES OF MINTO-MORLEY REFORMS

The Minto-Morley Reforms of 1908-9, viewed from
a cultural point of view, had three important features.
Indians to share in the highest executive
First, in inviting
in India, and in the
offices
and judicial
membership of
Council in London, the path was
State's
of
the Secretary
for Indians to influence policy in the
now

open

highest

and to share officially in the public life of tie

quarters
Syed Ameer Ali's appointMetropolis of the Empire.
Indian
first
member of the Judicial
the
as
1909
in
ment

Committee of the Privy Council in London had tended in

Secondly, the enlargement of the
the same direction.
Indian

Legislative

Councils,

with

elected

non-official

which could defeat the Government of India or

majorities,
the Provincial Governments in important divisions, brought
the business of legislation and administration before the
their elected representatives.
people of India through

was never Lord Morley's intention

to

create

It

responsible

Parliamentary government for India. He considered the

But a Legislature
conditions in India unsuitable for it.
which could defeat the Executive by votes without disits will on it was an anoplacing it or without imposing
ran
high, such a situation must
maly. Where feelings
the breach between the peowiden
lead to bitterness, and
of
government. This actually happened^
ple and the organs
and
repressive measures to meet them*
and political crime
than die down. Thirdly, the
rather
seemed to increase
Muslim
the
League in 1906 under the
foundation of
and Nawab Salimullah Khan
Khan
leadership of the Agha
of Dacca (in anticipation of the Minto-Morley Reforms),,
and the creation of separate electorates for Muslims and
Hindus under the Reforms, isolated the Muslims from
the breach
the general politics of India, and widened
The
communities.
two
principle having once
between the
of
fission was carried
the
process
been introduced,
and
communities
other
interests, and Indian
for
further
politics

became

arrangement*

We

of unsymmetrical
a chequer-board
are not discussing here the necessity

POLITICS, ECONOMICS,

EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

269

merits of these arrangements, but noting their

on the growth of political ideas in India.

or the
-effect

KING EMPEROR'S DARBAR OF 1911

King George V's Coronation Darbar at Delhi in

December 1911 was meant to conciliate the feeling in
India, where the Anarchist movement was still strong, and
against the Partition of Bengal was still
Partition
was now reversed, and the creation
The
violent.
of
Province
Bihar recognised the principle of
new
the
of
the

agitation

giving a legitimate right to separate

administrative
organisations, though the
political
of
with
Bihar
Orissa
showed that the time had
Bracketing
not yet arrived for working out the principle completely or
Orissa was eventually constituted a separate
logically.
In the Despatch preliminary to the
Province in 1935.
Barbar the Government of India sketched the ideal of a
There were other
federation of autonomous Provinces.
announcements of great cultural significance. His Majesty
ilie King
himself urged a powerful plea for generous
cultural

difference

and

expenditure in education, which formed the starting point

of a new educational impulse.
Indian soldiers were for
the first time made eligible for the coveted Victoria Cross,

and they subsequently won this supreme military distinction "for valour" in eleven cases during the Great War.
The removal of the Capital to Delhi, though liable to
criticism on financial and other grounds, brought the
centre of gravity of British India to

Upper India, facilirelations between

intimate
geographically
British India and the India of the Indian States, and reestablished the continuity of British Indian culture with
Mughal and pre-Mughal culture through the old historic
The building of
capital of Muslim and Hindu dynasties.
the new City of Delhi gave an opportunity of stimulating

more

tated

was

and industries, and this was utilised to a

Some regard
extent, especially in decorations.
in
the
architecture
of
the
paid
Viceroy's House and

the

Secretariats,

Indian arts
small

and the imposing group of round and

buildings comprising the three-fold Council ChamEastern feeling and traditions. But the artistic
and other direction of the whole enterprise remained in

domed

Bers, to

270

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

British hands, and under British architects, and of the

huge
expenditure of 14^ crores to the end of 1930, only a very
small proportion can really be credited to the encouragement of Indian art or culture.

ANTI-BRITISH

AND RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN THE

TWO COMMUNITIES

FEELING,

The anti-British feeling failed to be pacified by the

Minto-Morley reforms or the Liberal policy which came
in their wake.
The reversal of the Partition of Bengal
did not put India back into the position before the Partition. The Swadeshi movement became a permanent movement, and in so far as it aimed at a resuscitation of India's
manufactures and industries, claimed the support of every
But it was its political and anti-British
patriotic Indian.

form

anarchical crime.
with
Unlaws"
and
Lord
(as
unjust
fortunately the "invidious
Hardinge called them) against Indians in South Africa,
and to a smaller extent in other Dominions of the British
that

allied

itself

Empire, lent great support

to the

anti- British

feeling in

The system of Indentures, under which Indian

India.
labourers were sent to Natal and elsewhere, was subjected
It was abolished for Natal in 191L
to severe criticism.
and was totally abolished as a system of labour emiBut the end of the indenture
gration within six years.
end
of the friction between the
did
the
not
mean
system
South Africans and the Indians settled in that Dominion.
For years a Passive Resistance campaign had been waged
under the lead of Mr. Gandhi, and in spite of temporary
settlements the friction and difficulties still continued, and
in India. The
greatly helped the anti-British movement
Muslims found additional grievances in
England's
attitude in favour of the dismemberment of the Turkish.
Empire. Italy, by- an unprovoked war (1911-12) deprived
Turkey of Tripoli, and the Balkan League of the smaller
Powers in South-Eastern Europe, in the Balkan War
(1912-13), deprived Turkey of Albania, Epirus, Macedonia,
and Western Thrace. Mr. Muhammad Ali (1878-1931) and
his brother Mr. Shaukat Ali (1873-1938) won great poputhe Balkan
larity by their newspaper enterprise during
"War and the relief which they organised under the Red
Crescent organisation.
Hindu sympathy with Muslims on.

POLITICS, ECO.NOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

271

on the one hand, and Muslim bitterness

against Europe, on the other hand, created a temporary
rapprochement between the two communities*
this

occasion,

FEELING DURING

THE GREAT WAR

The outbreak of the Great War (1914-18) saw India

and sympathetic rule of
quiescent under the calm
Lord Hardinge. But as it progressed, a process of disilluTwo great Moderate leaders Mr. G. K.
sionment began.
Mehta
Phirozshah
and
Sir
Gokhale (1866-1915)
(1845-1915) died in 1915. The one had made his mark
as a non-official member of the Viceroy's Legislative
Council, and the other in the civic life of Bombay. Municipal influence was now becoming a great factor in national

development, and the municipalities, great and small,

began to reflect the opinions of political India. With the
passing of these

men

there

was a strong movement

to the

Indian politics. The Home Rule agitation took a

specially bold tone. Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920),
left in

with his English weekly The Mahratta and his Marathi

paper The Kesari, obtained great influence over the masses
in Western India, and became the leader of the Congress.
The Hindu-Muslim understanding was cemented by the

meeting of the Congress and the Muslim League in Lucknow

The word "self-determination" which was used
the
Allies
as a battle-cry during the Great War, was
by
in
India and used against the Government.
caught up
Mrs. Besant, who organised a Home Rule League, and was
for a time (1917) interned as a war measure, became oa
account of that internment so popular that she was elected
to preside over the
Congress of 1917.
in 1916.

MONTAGU-CKELMSFORD REFORMS
There was intense excitement

in India in 1917.
British statesmen in England, faced with the prospect of a
prolongation of the Great War, were gathering up all the

and material, of the Empire in aid of the

The new Secretary of State, Mr. E. S.
struggle.
announced
Montagu,
(August 1917) the goal of British
resources, moral

great

policy to

be

"the progressive realisation of responsible

India as an integral part of the British

government
Empire." The self-governing Dominions of the Empire had
in

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

212

already, by the logic of events, been raised to the position of

partnership in the Imperial Conference and the Imperial
Tar Cabinet in the spring of 1917. India participated
on both these bodies, but on account of her constitution
she could not be represented, like the
Dominions, by an
elected Prime Minister representing her own
people. This
was a weakness, not only for India but for the
Empire
itself
into whose service India's resources in men and
money had been drawn to a larger extent than in the case
of the Dominions.
Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford
,

(then

Viceroy)

worked out a scheme of

to set India on the

way

political reform

of self-government.

'The psycho-

were

many, both in India and in

England. In surmounting them they hit upon the idea of
the "Dyarchy."
The functions of government in the
Provinces were divided into two classes.
One class the
transferred subjects
were transferred for administration
to Ministers chosen from among the elected
representatives
of the Legislative Council, and subject to dismissal on
an adverse vote in the Council.
The other class the
logical

reserved

difficulties

subjects

were retained for

administration by

members of the Executive Councils who were not elected

by the people and who were responsible only to the
Governor. The scheme was intended to be a half-way
house

to self-government, to be revised after a trial of ten

It was passed by Parliament in 1919. Henceforth
years.
the principle of autocracy was abandoned, as His Royal

Highness the Duke of Conn aught said in inaugurating the

Indian Legislative Assembly in February 1921, in the
government of India. Though responsibility to the people
was not introduced into the Central Government, that
Government was to be influenced to a greater and greater
degree by the views of the Indian Legislature.

-EVENTS WITHOUT

AND WITHIN
,.

INDIA.'

HOW THE

EEFOEMS

BROKE DOWN

The scheme was a compromise and an experiment.

Along with the scheme for liberalising the administration
in India, a new status was accorded to
India in
international relations.
She signed the Peace Treaty of
Versailles like any of the self-governing Dominions, and
-she became one of the
original members of the League

POLITICS, ECONOMICS,

EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

273

an organisation comprising most of the

nations
of the world. But her Government still
independent
subordinate
a
Government under the orders of
remained

of

Nations,

the

British

subordinate

Government
status was

at

Westminster.

When

such a

definitely
negatived for the
India's relative position within the

Dominions in 1926,
Empire became worse instead of better. This was felt as a
grievance, and it was accentuated by the inferior position
accorded to Indians in Kenya, which was not even a
Dominion. Meanwhile the affairs in India itself produced
The Rowlatt Acts of 1919 set up
the wildest excitement.
to
deal
with revolutionary crime, and
machinery
special
were much resented. The peace terms offered by the
Allies to Turkey, which destroyed the Turkish
Empire and
threatened the Khilaf at of the Turkish Sultan, caused the
organisation of the Khilaf at Movement (1919) under
Maulanas Muhammad AH and Shaukat Ali. This movement
joined hands with the Congress movement in its opposition
to Government and continued to work as an
auxiliary of
the Congress after the Khilaf at was abolished
by the Turks
themselves in March 1924,
In the Congress camp the
ascendancy of Mr. Gandhi gave a new form to the antiGovernment movement. The disorders in the Panjab, the
declaration of martial law, and the
tragedy of Jalianwala
Bagh in Amritsar (April 1919), where the casualties in
killed and
wounded exceeded 1600 of the unarmed
population, made the rupture between the people and the
Government complete.
MAHATMA. GANDHI'S PRINCIPLES
Mr. Mohandas Karamchand

Gandhi

(Mahatma

Gandhi) (born 1869) has introduced new ideas into Indian

politics, which he tries to connect with his religious, social,
and economic ideas. He disapproves of violence and
underground plots, but preaches and works vigorously
for active and open resistance where such resistance is
For this purpose he believes in a strong and
necessary.
well-disciplined organisation, and his experience in South
Africa in the Passive Resistance movement before the
Great War has enabled him to acquire a great hold on
the people.
He also believes in fasting, prayer, and an
ascetic life as a means of
attaining not only personal but
18

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

274

He owed his start in life

Muslim merchants, and has been one

emancipation.

political

South Africa

to

in

of

the foremost

in championing the cause of

Hindu-Muslim
was mainly his influence that brought about
the
coalescence of the Congress and the Khilafat
movements
including in the former the Arya Samaj leaders, and in
the latter such leading Ulama as Maulana Abdul
BarL
unity.

It

In his Ashram (originally at Ahmadabad and now

at
Wardha in the Central Provinces) he allows free access
to the Depressed Classes, though his movement as a
whole
has not succeeded in satisfying the Depressed Classes on
the subject of temple entry.
His economic ideas insist ou

Charkha or the hand-worked spinning-wheel as an

instrument of India's emancipation from economic exHe has frequently suffered
ploitation by western nations.
imprisonment unflinchingly, and he expects his followers
to cast out fear in working for their ends.
His movements
for mass civil disobedience and boycott, though
they have
led to sanguinary riots, are based on the supposition of

the

non-violence.

PHASES OF NON-COOPERATION

The Non-cooperation
phases and stages

MOVEMENT AND

Movement

at different times.

has

The

ITS REACTIONS

had

various

disillusionment

following the joint working of the civil disobedience movement, the Khilafat movement, and the Hi j rat movement,
(1920-22) led to a greater rupture between Hindus and
Muslims than ever before. The Moplah rising of August
1921 and the Akali movement among the Sikhs of the
Panjab in 1922 were sectional movements and added to

The Akalis, however, forced the

general disorder.
question of the administration of their Gurdwaras (temples)

the

on public attention and compelled a statutory reform which

be of considerable significance in their cultural
The Swaraj party of Mr. Chit Ranjan Das (died
history.
June 1925) and Pandit Moti Lai Nehru (died 193i;
decided (1923) to modify their non-cooperation programme so far as to enter the Councils and organise
A section of them the Resopposition from within.
even
took offices under the Government. But
ponsivists
the friction and political agitation continued, and was

may

POLITICS, ECONOMICS,

EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

275

on the announcement (November 1927) of the

of Sir John Simon's Commission, which excluded
personnel
all Indians. The Commission toured India during two cold
weathers, but were boycotted by the Swaraj Party, which
intensified

now ruled the Congress. The Swarajists prepared a Constitution embodied in the Nehru Report (called after
Pandit Jawahar Lai Nehru, son of Pandit Moti Lai Nehru)
in consultation with all parties which agreed to work
The fundamental basis was full
matter.
together in this
Dominion Status, as understood, for example, in the case
The Congress of 1928 gave
of Canada or South Africa.
the British Parliament a year within which to accept the
constitution of the Nehru Report, failing which indeThe proclamation, in
pendence was proclaimed in 1929.
the- nature of things, remained a paper resolution.
SIMON REPORT, ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE,
NOW IN THE FIELD

AND THE

IDEAS

atmosphere after this was charged with

Mr.
Gandhi's new campaign of mass civil
high passions.
disobedience in the spring of 1930 was directed mainly
against the Salt Act, and led to many disorders and clashes
Mr. Gandhi was again incarcerated^
with the police.
and gradually thousands of Congress men and women
found themselves in jail.
Sir John Simon's Report,
published in June 1930, was coldly received in India.
The first Round Table Conference, which met in London
from the 12th November 1930 to the 19th January 1931,
was boycotted by the Congress Party, but was attended by

The

political

represented in the Legislatures,

including
delegates and the Ruling Princes or
The Government
of
the Ruling Princes.
representatives
on
Commission's
the
Simon
Despatch
Report dated 20th
of the "first but
the
enactment
advised
September 1930,
definite impress of Dominion Status" for India.
This
all

the

other interests

women

first Round Table Conference proposed certain outlines

based on four principles: (1) a federation of* all India
(2) complete autonomy and
including Indian States;
responsible government for each Province, subject, to
safeguards; (3) some responsibility in the Central Government i and (4) safeguards and reservations, about

minorities,

finance, British trade, defence,

and foreign

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

276

No details could be worked out or agreed upon*

relations.
The work was left at that stage, to be completed by other
Conferences. The second and third Round Table Conferences will be referred to in the next chapter* Mr. Gandhi
was released on the 26th January 1931, and most of the
political prisoners shortly afterwards.
By an agreement

between the Viceroy (Lord Irwin, now Lord Halifax) and

Mr. Gandhi, civil disobedience was called off on the one
hand and special emergency Ordinances withdrawn on the
It would seem that the principle of Dominion
other.
Status was vaguely accepted both in Great Britain (in
spite of protests in Parliament in 1929) and by all parties
except the Congress in India, but its attainment was not to

be immediate but gradual.

-QUICKENING UNDER WESTERN INFLUENCE IN OTHER CULTURAL
FIELDS

THAN

POLITICS

We

have devoted rather more space than in previous

chapters to political ideas, because they engross the
greater part of the cultural consciousness of the people in
But it must not be supposed
India at the present time.
that India's cultural progress has been arrested in other
Indeed the political awakening has led to a
directions.

quickening of the pace in economics and industries,

life, education,

art,

science, and

literature.

social

Superficial

Even the late

have failed to note this.
eminent
dramaas
an
whose
Mr. William Archer,*
opinion
tic critic and expounder of Ibsen, carries weight in a
cultural history, failed to understand modern India.
Though in favour of the "complete enfranchisement of a
united India," he was yet troubled with the "impatience
on the part of the half-Europeanised Indian agitator,
which" (he said) "I regard as the gravest danger India
has to face/' Such English criticism is a real danger, ^as
it scorns the real organising power which came with
European influence in India, and drives it into dependence
the very conservatism and ignorance which it
observers

upon

Perhaps a truer appreciation of the growing

deplores.
national unity is contained in Lord Irwin's speech at the
Chelmsford Club in Delhi, on the 26th March 1931, when

__^__^_j^^^^^^^^ai>^

* William Archer: India and the Future, London,

1917.

POLITICS, ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

"Beneath

said:

all

distinctions

and social circumstances, there

consciousness
is

or,

more

to
very closely akin

is

277

of community, class^
a growing intellectual

truly, self -consciousness

call Nationalism."

which

what we

ECONOMIC CAUSES BEHIND POLITICAL DISCONTENT

A great part of the political discontent in India is
due to economic causes. The old economic
certainly

self-sufficing village, immobile labour, hand

iscourt encouragement of the fine art
and
industries,
industrial system has not
new
the
and
recall;
gone beyond
time to adjust itself to the social and cultural
yet had
Her political subjection to a
environment of India.
industrial and commercial nation has also put
powerful
her financial policy into hands at which other interests than
The
her own have demanded predominant consideration.
trade
and
whole of the upper structure of government,

system

the

commerce, banking, shipping, engineering, technical

skill

the learned professions, and the fighting services, rests

of their earnings from
upon men who spend some part

India outside the country during the best years of their

lives and all their earnings outside the country during the
Government and railway stores,
later years of their lives.
other expensive equipment are
and
cars
motor
machinery,
outside
but
in
not
made
India, and in paying for
India,

them India sends out enormous sums of money. There is

It
thus a very large drain of capital from the country.
is not temporary, but steady and permanent, as long as
present conditions continue.

HATOICAP EVEN IN PRODUCTION OF RAW MATERIALS: INVASION

OF HER MARKETS

The

traditional methods

of Indian agriculture and

the stereotyped methods of Indian education put India at

a disadvantage even in the production of raw materials.
In spite of the nursing of the cooperative credit movestill touches only the
is
on the whole
credit.
rural
of
Agriculture
fringe
The Agricultural
starved both of capital and enterprise.
Research Institute, established at Pusa in 1904 and
moved to New Delhi in 1936, has done fine work, but
the mass of
its results have not yet reached directly

ment since 1904, the movement

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

278

India can scarcely produce enough

sugar
Her raw cotton fetches lower prices in
needs.
her
own
for
foreign markets than superior varieties produced under
improved conditions. Her indigo has been driven out by
the synthetic products of highly educated chemists of other
Her markets are invaded and held by foreign
countries.

agriculturists.

countries in textiles, hardware, machinery, electric goods,

railway material, motor cars and bicycles, and most of the

expensive modern articles of merchandise. Until recently

she was precluded from framing a tariff for herself.
Then, under the policy of discriminating protection, her
tariff was governed by the need for the agreement of
the Government of India (which is predominantly British)
with the elected Legislature. Now questions of the extent
of protection required by particular industries and for
particular periods are referred to a specially constituted
Tariff Board.

GOVERNMENT MEASURES FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Sir

Thomas Holland's Industrial Commission, which

in 1918, drew up a comprehensive scheme of

j-eported
industrialisation,

including industrial education, but it

cannot truthfully be said that its recommendations have
been implemented with any remarkable success. Government can do much to encourage home industries, but there
In the case of tie
are limitations to its effective action.
Government of India subordinate in its relations to
Whitehall, and in itself predominantly British, and there-

fore suspect, or at least impotent, in its dealings with

matters impinging upon the variety of social ideas or
habits and customs and traditions of work in the country
the limitations are greater than in the case of national
in
governments. Its powers can chiefly be exercised
its
control
of
its
three ways: through
currency, through
policy of taxation, and through its factory and industrial
The currency policy of the Government of
legislation.
we
been
has
India
subjected to much criticism. But if
make allowance for its position as a subordinate government, we shall find that it has acted according to its lights
in working for the interests committed to its charge. ^In
the matter of taxation, its external policy that which
affects

imports

and

exports

by means of

tariffs

has

POLITICS,
recently

ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

come

more

and more

into

line with

279

Indian

Since the policy of discriminative protection

opinion.
was adopted and a Tariff Board was instituted (1923), a

The
enquiries have been carried out.
a
the
steel industry
sugar industry enjoy
large
The cotton industry has also
measure of protection.
been favoured in recent years, and the Budget of 1931
contained cotton duties against which Lancashire raised
In internal taxation the distribuits unavailing
protest.
tion and incidence cannot yet be considered satisfactory.
The Taxation Enquiry Committee was appointed in 1924
"to examine the manner in which the burden of taxation
is distributed... between the different classes of the popuscheme of
lation and to consider whether the whole
number of

tariff

and

is equitable,
Central, Provincial, and Local
and in accordance with economic principles."
This was
a task of tremendous magnitude.
It
could not be
adequately carried out, as land revenue systems were
excluded from its examination, except as incidental to

taxation

Its report, issued in 1926, pointed

general conditions.
out a tendency to shift the burden of taxation from the

The taxation of the

general population.
it would seem, had risen above the rise in
The more recent heightening of tariffs, even
prices.
luxuries
are specially heavily taxed, does not quite
though
redress the balance, as indirect taxation of articles of
general consumption falls more heavily in proportion on
the poor than on the rich.
On the other hand, the creation
of autonomous and responsible Governments in the Provinces under the Constitution of 1935 has raised new issues
in the matter of internal taxation, which the Provincial
Governments are taking up in the spheres within tlteir
richer to the

poorer classes,

competence, especially in regard to land.

LABOUR LEGISLATION

Factory and industrial legislation has been fairly

active during recent years, and has been specially stimulated by the efforts of the International Labour Office in

Geneva, attached to the League of Nations. India is

internationally recognised as one of the eight countries of
chief industrial importance in the world, and this recognition led to the welcome election of Sir AtuI Chatterji

280

<

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

then (1933) India's High Commissioner in London

as
President of the Governing Body of the
International
Labour Office. She exports over eightyfive crores of
rupees
worth of manufactured articles, and about
eighteen
millions of her population are employed in industries
The problem of converting this
transport, and mining.
of
mass
ill-educated, inefficient, and unspecialised
great
workers into a skilled army of modern labour remains to
be faced. It is being tackled in many directions. The
Factories Act of 1922 further amended by the Factories
Act of 1934, raised the minimum age of children for
employment, from nine to twelve, and the age for full-time
work from fourteen to fifteen. It abolished night work
It shortened the maximum working
for women.
day to
eleven hours and working week to sixty hours. The tendency at present is for a steady increase in the employment of women in factories. Under the Mines Act of 1923
as amended by the Act of 1935, children under thirteen
years of age cannot be employed or allowed to be present

below ground, and the normal working week is limited to

fifty-four hours above ground, with a weekly day of rest
Below ground, the maximum is nine hours a day, with a
weekly day of rest. Precautions have been taken against
industrial accidents by fencing machinery and in other
in the working of factories, but the accidents are
numerous, if not increasing, and the Workmen's
Compensation Act of 1923 as amended in 1937 provides

ways
still

to injured workmen or to the

The organisation of
are killed.
Trade Unions began during the War, and their recognition
in law and their registration was provided for under the

some monetary compensation

families of

workmen who

Trade-Union Act 1926, which came

June 1927.

into

force

from

WHITLEY COMMISSION ON LABOUR REFORM

The Royal Commission on Indian Labour, presided

by Mr. J. H. Whitley, formerly Speaker of
the British House of Commons, is an important document, and may have far-reaching consequences on the
Its report was issued
future history of Labour in India.
over

early in July 1931,

It

surveys the whole field of labour

POLITICS,
in factories,
in

mines

ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

tea and other plantations, on railways,

drastic
and makes
recommendations.

281

and
It

some glaring defects in thecalls pointed

and
condemns
the Sardar system,
of
labour,
position
attention

perhaps too
thirds of the

to

that ordinarily twoindustrial centres are in debt to

It

sweepingly.

workers in

finds

of more than three months wages at usurious

rates of interest, and recommends the payment of weekly
It is in favour of further
instead of monthly wages.
limitations of the hours of work; a stricter regulation of
the extent

women's and children's labour; a better provision for thehealth, housing, and education of industrial labour; an
extension of the principle of pecuniary compensation to

workmen for industrial accidents; a further organisation

Unionism; and the building up of machinery

of Trade
for the

settlement

joint

of

employers and employed.

while

the

industrial

disputes between,

With regard

to inefficiency,,

of

inefficiency
labour, it also
of capital.
Mr. Whitley was theoriginator of the Joint Industrial Councils in England in
These are standing joint bodies, consisting of
1916.
it

recognises

refers to the inefficiency

and employed, and working,

in continuous consultation between capital and labour..
They have done good work in some industries inEngland^,
but have failed in others.
Though the recommendations
for India are not based entirely on English experience but.
have the backing of investigation on the spot, the Comrepresentatives of employers

undoubtedly influenced by English,

doubt the urgent need in India
conditions.
in
the
social and economic condition,
of an improvement
mission's

Report

is

No one can

of workers, in their educational and cultural standards*

and in technical skill and efficiency. Such improvement
has the first claim on the attention of any self-respecting,

But misgivings will arise in many minds whether

of the West can (in the words of Sir Victor
the Commissioners) "be fitted ready-made
of
one
Sassoon,
to India,"
By the introduction of foreign elements of
do not wish to add to the already numerous
we
controversy
causes of division which divide the people of India.
nation.

the remedies

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

;282

EFFORTS OUTSIDE STATE ACTION

WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS

'

SOCIAL

UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG THE EDUCATED

CLASSES
But the effective movements for India's
industrial
-and social progress will come from India's own
efforts
It is good that the
individual and collective.
Swadeshi'
movement has produced a sentiment in favour of home
SERVICE;

But sentiment must he backed with

practical
and cultural work. If such movements are linked on with
politics, they will have to discard the advocacy of primitive and out-of-date methods, to enable India to
compete
on even terms with the rest of the world. In education
-and social life the traditional will have to give
way to the
The question of untouchables, now
progressive.
attracting
increased attention, will have to be solved, until it ceases
The communal bias is found even in Trade
to exist.
Unions; it will have to be removed not only from industrial
The welfare work
organisations, but from all public life.
and social services, which have become a part of the best
organised industrial concerns and public societies, must
be developed to the full, in order to nullify the ugliest
features of industrial organisation.
The women's movement, which is now making good headway, will have to
permeate all departments of life education, health,
-sanitation, housing, and home life in town and country.
It is only through the women that social reform can be
The example of the Seva Sadan, Gamdevi,
effective.
It was founded in 1908
is
instructive.
Bombay,
by the
Malabari
B.
M.
of
and Dayaram Gidumal. It
-efforts
looks after the medical, sanitary, and social needs of
women workers. It is an endowed institution, but wants
The problem of poverty
energetic and devoted workers.
is not going to be solved by efforts in one or two directions.
The attack will have to be from all sides. The pinch of
Hinemployment which is reaching the educated classes can
only be satisfactorily removed by the concentration of
nation-wide forces for the removal of nation-wide evils.
industries.

JAMSHEDJI TATA AND THE ROMANCE OF BIG INDUSTRIES:

BANGALORE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, JAMSHEDPUR,

AND THE STEEL WORKS

Before leaving the subject of industrial development

words may be said about a captain of industry,

a few

POLITICS, ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

283

and enterprise have transformed the

outlook
of IndiaMr. Jamshedji
Tata
(1839-1904) laid the foundations of
Nusserwanji
three movements, which, under the fostering care of his
sons and successors, are pointing the way to large-scale
modern industries. One was the Indian Institute of
Science at Bangalore, which began its work in 1911.
The
conception and original benefaction were due to the Tatas,
but it is being munificently subsidised by the Government
It was intended to
of India and the Mysore Government.
whose shrewdness
whole industrial

be an all-India post-graduate University of Research, as

Its departments of General
its earlier name implied.
and Applied Chemistry, Organic Chemistry and Electrotechnology maintain a very high standard of research with
the practical aim of assisting industries.
The second
of
Mr.
Tata
scheme
was
the
establishment
of the
great
large-scale modern iron and steel industry in India.
After much prospecting, and with the advice of the most
-competent experts from Europe and America, the site for
the works was fixed at Sakchi, an insignificant
village
in the south of Chhota Nagpur, since become a
great

town and named Jamshedpur in 1919 in honour

Jamshedji Tata. The site was selected with
reference to a combination of four requirements:
(1)
nearness to rich iron ore; (2) nearness to a coal field
whose coal was easily convertible into coke, i.e. could
easily be stripped of its bitumen, sulphur, and volatile
matter; (3) nearness to limestone, so necessary for the
fusion of the metal; (4) easy railway transport and access
to a big port.
These conditions were fulfilled in the tract
where the great Iron and Steel Works are situated. Work
was started with iron-making in 1911. During the Great
War, Government drew on it for 1500 miles of rails and
other material for the Eastern campaigns. Numerous
subsidiary industries have grown up since, including the
manufacture of agricultural implements, jute machinery,
enamelled utensils, and parts of railway engines. The
population of Jamshedpur is close on a lakh. During the
ten years between the census of 1921 and 1931 the increase
industrial

of Mr.

in its population was over 47 per cent, from 57,00 to

S4,000. And with it all, it is a modern town, well

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

284

planned, well equipped, with the latest sanitation, electric

and all the amenities fora rapidly growing industrial

light,

population, including hospitals and schools. The Tata Company constructed it at a cost of over a crore of rupees, and
four lakhs of rupees are spent on its maintenance
annually
by that company and its subsidiary companies, with the
result that its inhabitants pay no municipal rates whatever.

HYDRO-ELECTRIC SCHEME: WORKERS' WELFARE: CHARITY

scheme was for the generation of

hydro-electric power from artificial reservoirs formed at
the top of the Western Ghats for the use of the industries
of Bombay City and its neighbourhood.
The Tata HydroElectric Supply Company was launched in 1910, six years
after the death of its originator, and within five years it
was in a position to supply cheap and smokeless electric
power for one-third of all the Mills in Bombay. The
project continues to expand, and was followed by other
The capital involved
big hydro-electric schemes in India.
in these ventures runs to gigantic figures, and a great part
The capital of the
of it was drawn from India itself.
Steel Company is over 10J crores, and that of the HydroElectric Company and two allied companies over fourteen
With all this vast organisation of capital and
crores.
industry, the welfare of the workers has been kept steadily
in view. And the Tatas have not been oblivious of charity^
But they preferred constructive philanthropy, which lifts
up the best and most gifted for the service of the country,.
to "that patch-work philanthropy which clothes the ragged,
feeds the poor, and heals the sick and halt." It may be
said that the gospel of efficiency may be overdone, and

The

third

great

a danger lurking beneath the aggregation

masses of capital in a few hands, especially
where the directive skill and energy have to be imported
from outside. But in these matters the claims of ethics*

that there is

of

vast

patriotism, and business and industrial

irreconcilable, and in human affairsmiddle courses honestly pursued lead to the best results.

commonsense,

efficiency are not

FRESH DEFINITION OF STATE EDUCATIONAL POLICY

Turning

to education

interesting developments.

during the period, we find many

As far

as the Government was-

POLITICS, ECONOMICS,
concerned, the pace

was

at Calcutta in

set

EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

by

the

King-Emperor George

to the Calcutta University's

reply
Y's speech
Address on the 6th January 1912.

"

285

He

said:

my wish that there may be spread over the land

of
schools and colleges, from which will go
.a network
and
forth loyal
manly and useful citizens, able to hold
and agriculture and all the vocain
industries
own
their
it
And
life.
is
in
tions
my wish, too, that the homes of
Indian
subjects may be brightened and their labour
my
sweetened by the spread of knowledge, with all that
follows in its train, a higher level of thought, of comfort,
It is through education that my wish will
and of health.
he fulfilled, and the cause of education in India will ever
It is

be very close to my heart."

This was followed by the Government of India Resolutions of the 21st February and the 24th April 1913,
surveying the educational field and defining the educational
policy in the light of the principles laid down by His
Education was to be a social force; hygiene,
Majesty.
physical training, and the formation of character were to
be in the forefront of the education picture; hostels and
medical inspection were to be popularised; conferences
-and consultations between teachers, enducationists, and
public men were to be stimulated; the importance of
religious and moral education was to be recognised; a
programme of expansion was to be laid down, the State
spending freely in primary education and encouraging
private effort in secondary education; technical, commercial, and industrial education were to claim increased
attention; and new ideas were to be allowed free scope in

University organisation, teaching, and ideals, with a special

to developing new residential and teaching universities, research work, and extension lectures to bring the
universities more into touch with general life.

Tiew

CAUSES OF FAILURE IN SPITE OF GREATLY IN CREASED EXPENDITURE

This was a truly ambitious programme, and if its

had depended only on the funds spent on it, it
should have been phenomenally successful. The expenditure from public funds (local, provincial and Imperial)
on education in 1905 was less than 3 crores of rupees*

success

286

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

It rose in 25 years to over 16 crores of rupees in 1930

but has shown no elasticity since. But education depends
on many factors besides funds. It requires a highly cultured teaching staff devoted to its ideals and identified
with the culture, traditions and future hopes of the
country
co-operation and confidence between the different sections
of the community inter se and with the Government which
controls the funds and the machinery of the State; the
dovetailing of its functions with the cultural and industrial
life around; and a national policy co-ordinating mass
education with the apex of the educational structure in
universities and specialised and professional institutions.

Mr. Mayhew who published in 1926 a study of British educational policy and its bearing on national life and problems
in India to-day, found cultural suspicion and discontent a
very active and vital force, and most of us will agree that
the hard, clear-cut formulae devised by the experience of
the west are not likely to carry us far in India. The
importance of women and the home seems to be ignored
in our education.
The communal antagonisms, instead of

being healed, are being accentuated, and this tendency got

further support, atleast in northern India, by the transfer
of education to popularly elected ministers under the
Reforms of 1919, and the introduction of frankly majority
Governments under the present constitution. The transfer
of power and policy to responsible provincial Governments

under the Constitution of 1935 gives communal majorities

ample scope, but the views of communal minorities are
not likely to get a hearing, and any synthesis likely to
bring out harmonious unity seems to be as far off as ever.
The Non-Cooperation movement of 1920-22 set back State
education, without substituting an effective system of national education, and the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919
with its death roll of 5 millions had already checked the
numerical growth of pupils. The political unsettlement
of 1930-1 did not help matters.The Great War (1914-18)
and the financial stringency since have also stopped a
number of useful reforms* Even though we are spending
education, Sir Phillip
comparatively large sums on
on
Education
Committee
(1929) found
Hartog's Auxiliary

POLITICS,

287

ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

much waste and ineffectiveness, and we must recognise

justice of

its

the-

criticisms.

NON-OFFICIAL EFFORTS,

But there

is

AND MASS EDUCATION

much encouragement

general awakening which

to

be derived

from

noticeable in Indian pubthe

The education of girlslic opinion in regard to education.
is still very backward: but the increase from 400,000 girl
is

1900 to 1,900,000 in 1929 showed encouraging

Adult education is showing some signs of
progress.
improvement in Madras, Bengal, and Bombay, though th&
pupils in

official figures are probably better than the real factsThe present writer has pointed out elsewhere*"
warrant.
some of the difficulties of adults education in India..

Muslim education

is also picking up, but less in the higher

and technical branches than in the lower. As regardsmass education we may take as our starting point.
Mr. Gokhale's Resolution of the 18th March 1910 in the
Viceroy's Legislative Council, "that a beginning should bemade in the direction of making elementary education f re&
and compulsory throughout the country, and that a
9*
Commission be appointed to frame definite proposals.
Though defeated then, he introduced an unsuccessful bilt
with that object in 1911.
He did not live to see evea
a beginning of compulsory education.
But the impulsewere passed in,
Acts
a
and
of
number
remained,
enabling
the Provinces between 1918 and 1920, to try compulsory

Very little actual result was

them, partly owing to economic distress,
reaped
to
the non-cooperation movement, and partly
partly owing
also because the idea had not yet taken root in the Indianmind, and local enabling Acts are no substitute for a.
national policy. There has, however, been a steady increaserecently in the number of schools and scholars, though the
numbers attaining to anything but the lowest elementary
standards are small, and the lapses into illiteracy areThe new responsible Provincial
proportionately heavy.f
education in selected areas.

from

*See the Bulletin of the World Association for Adult Education

No, 47, February 1931.
tSee the present writer's criticisms in The Nineteenth Century
December, 192&

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

388

Governments are

moving in the direction of

universal

'Compulsory education.

NEW

UNIVERSITIES

In the case of the Universities the pace of development

has been rapid and almost revolutionary. We have
already
.noticed the five universities established during the fiftynine
years between 1857 and 1916. During the thirteen years
.from 1916 to 1929, as many as thirteen new universities

were incorporated, bringing up the total number to eighteen*

'They have brought into being new types of structure,
new methods of work., and new ideas of education. The
Benares Hindu University (1916) and the Aligarh Muslim
University (1920) are frankly denominational and religious universities. Perhaps they may more truly be described
as communal universities, as they have done nothing systematic to train up religious teachers and develop modern
:

The Mysore University

of religious thought.
(1916) and the Osmania University in Hyderabad, Deccan,
(1919) are statutory universities in two of the biggest
.States of India, the one Hindu and the other Muslim.
schools

The Osmania University has adopted a vernacular (viz.,

Urdu) as the medium of instruction, while the other
universities, even where they encourage and recognise the
various vernaculars, use English mainly as the medium of
It is a question how far the growth of vernacular universities will hamper the unification of India,
when more than a dozen vernaculars will lay claim to
exclusive spheres.
The position would be altered if one
vernacular (say Hindustani standardised to national needs)
were accepted for all India, but that is not yet practical
Patna (1917) and Dacca (1920) are universipolitics.

instruction.

ties

of the residential and teaching type, and belong to the

of ideas connected with Sir Michael Sadler's

circle

University Commission which was appointed

1917 and reported in 1919. That Commission was

Calcutta
-in

appointed definitely for the reform of the Calcutta Univerof

sity, and it succeeded in carving out of the old field
operations of the Calcutta University the new type of
'Dacca, a unitary teaching university, which was to be the
:type for future universities. Its recommendations, however,

POLITICS,

ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

289

of Intermediate Colleges, with a

Intermediate
Board, were taken up more outside
separate
Calcutta than under the Calcutta University.
An experience of the working of Intermediate Colleges, however,
regarding the creation

las not proved that the recomendations were really wellto Indian conditions.
The Calcutta University,
under the vigorous guidance of Sir Ashutosh Mukerji

suited

(1864-1924) continued to develop on its own lines. Its

post-graduate department, its introduction of new branches
of study, its Chairs of Sanskrit and of Islamic Culture,
its recognition of
the vernaculars and general cultural
.subjects, and its acquisition of the old Calcutta Review
as a University organ, place it on a pedestal all its
own.
The creation of unitary universities in Rangoon
(1920), Lucknow (1920), Delhi (1922) and Nagpu*
(1923) was a recognition of provincial and local traditions, while that of the Agra University
(1927) was
intended to relieve the old Allahabad University of its

Mufassal jurisdiction. The Andhra University

Bezwada (1926) is frankly intended to foster Telugu
culture.
The other branches of Dravidian culture (Tamil
far-flung

^t

and Malay alam) are held in view by the youngest university of all, the Annamalai University,
in 1929.
It is located in

which started work

Chidambaram, (near Porto

South Arcot District), one of the great centres of
Shaiva cult.
It has no degress in Law and welcomes

JSfovo,

the

Its only three

English teachers and English influence,
Faculties
are
Science
and
Oriental
Arts,
Learning.
Unlike the other universities established by legislation, its
creation is due to the enthusiasm of a single benefactor,
Raja Sir S. R. M. Annamalai Chettiar, whose name it

He started the endowment fund with a contribution

of twenty lakhs, to which the Government added an
equal
sum. The Universities now work on a very variegated
plan, and the Inter-University Board, started in 1926,
bears.

which seeks

to promote consultation between them, has an

as
well as necessary part to fill in our higher
important
-education.

OTHER ORGANISATIONS FOR EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

Besides these officially recognised universities, there

are other bodies which bear the names of universities^ but

19

290

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

whose curricula, methods and ideas do not

those of the recognised institutions.
universities

may

Among

fit in with
the "national 5 *

be mentioned the one originally

started

in Aligarh in opposition to the statutory Muslim University in non-cooperation days, and since removed to Delhi
There has also been one at
(the Jami'a Milliya).
Ahmedabad under the segis of Mr. Gandhi. Professor

Karve's Institution in Poona, called the Indian Women's

University, aims at Government recognition but has not yet
reached the standard demanded by Government* Of a
wholly
different character are the Research Institutes, most of them
privately endowed but aided by the State, which carry out
research of a highly technical character.
Among institutions of that kind directly connected with the State,
may
be mentioned the Pusa Agricultural Institute, now of
world-wide fame, and moved up to Delhi; the Dehra
Dun Forestry Research Institute, with its economic, silvicultural, chemical, botanical and entomological branches;
the Indian Research Fund Association for Medical Re-

search; and the Imperial Institute of Animal Husbandry

and Dairying at Bangalore* Of more independent institutions we may mention the Institute of Science at Bangalore, and Sir Jagdish Chunder Bose's Research Institute
at Calcutta, which deal with physical science; the Indian
Chemical Society, Calcutta, with Branches in Bombay,.

Madras and Lahore; the Bhandarkar Institute in Poona

and the Dar-ul-Musannifin in Azamgarh, which pursue
Oriental research, Indian and Islamic respectively. Nor
must we omit to mention the Tibbia and Ayurvedic Collegeand Research Institute founded in Delhi under the
inspiration of the late Haziq-ul-mulk Hakim Ajmal Khan
(obit 1928), where research by modern methods is bringing our older systems of medicine into line with the best

modern knowledge.
GREAT SCIENTISTS AND MATHEMATICIANS
There has been a remarkable growth in
in the study of modern science and in
research in India. Sir Jagdish Chunder

recent years

original

scientific

Bose (1858-1937)

earned world-wide fame by his studies of electrical response in plants, and his daring speculations about the
relations of the plant and animal worlds. He was the first

POLITICS,

ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

291

Indian to be elected Fellow of the Royal Society in England. He dedicated the Bose Research Institute in Calcutta,
Sir Prafulla Chunder Ray (born
to the nation in 1917.

1861), Senior Professor of the College of Science, Calcutta,

not only a renowned chemist, but a man of wide
Professor C. V. Raman, of the Calcutta
general culture.
is

Madras

in 1888) won the Nobel

for
his
work on the scattering
(1930)
of light and discovery of what has been called the "Raman

in

University (born
Prize in Physics

There is an Annual Science Congress

Effect" after him.
now held in India, of which he was President in 1928. A
remarkable Mathematician
was produced by Southern
India in the person of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920),
whose premature death at the early age of 33 cut short
a most promising career.

NEW SCHOOL OF PAINTING

The old
activity.
the
and
what
have
been
called
Mughal painting,
and
the
to
have
died
seemed
Rajput
out,,
Kangra schools,
and the nineteenth century produced an effort of feeble
In

art,

also,

there

is

re-vivified

schools of

and mostly imitative work. Early in the twentieth century,

however, the brothers Abanindro Nath and Gogonendra
Nath Tagore applied their talents to the revival of the
Indian tradition with new imaginative ideals.
Mr. E. B.
Havell,

who was

Calcutta,

then Principal of the School of

was in complete sympathy with these

Art ia

ideals,

and

by his own writings encouraged the new School of Oriental

Art.
In drawing and colour schemes a certain amount of
Japanese influence is visible in their work. But they draw
their inspiration
from Indian motifs, and they hav&
produced work of power and originality. Their influence
has extended to Lucknow, Lahore and Southern India..
Among other notable names in the movement may be
mentioned three Calcutta artists, Nando Lai Bose, Asit
Kumar Haldar and Surendra Nath Ganguly; Ishwarl
Parshad, of Patna; Inayatullah, of Kasur (Punjab); and
K. Venkatappa, of Mysore. A spiritual descendant of
the Mughal school will be found in Abdur Rahman
Chagtai, an artist whose illustrations of the Urdu poet
Ghalib show both the passion of Romanticism and the
reserve of Classicism.
The art critic Dr. James Cousins

292

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

hails his

work with enthusiasm and the poet Iqbal calls

beyond and in some ways defiant

his art creative, going

of Life and Nature. On the Bombay side Mr. Rahamin

Samuel has worked on different lines. Under the patronage of the Gaikwar of Baroda, whose portrait by
him was exhibited in the Royal Academy of London in
1910, he has done some fine work both in portraiture and
mural decoration. The Bombay School of Art, under
Mr. Gladstone Solomon, has devoted much attention
to mural painting and architecture.
Numerous picture
Exhibitions, special and general, are held at frequent
over the country.
Though their average
not high, they attest the awakening of public
interest in the pictorial arts.
intervals

all

standard

is

ARCHITECTURE: ADVANCE UNSATISFACTORY

In architecture the advance has been less

satisfactory,

from the point of view of the development of Indian taste

and talent. Many notable Palaces in Indian States and
public buildings in British India have been erected in the
last half century, and though we have left behind for ever
the barrack-room style of the old Public Works Department, we have not yet reached any definite standards or
Within this century three great
styles of architecture.
arose:
Victoria Memorial at Calcutta;
in
the
openings
(1)

(2) in the building of the State buildings in New Delhi;

in the numerous and expensive Council Chambers
that have been built in the Provinces.
Unfortunately in
all these cases, Indian culture and talent have had very

and (3)

limited

scope.

The Victoria Memorial was opened

in

December 1921.

There is great beauty in the design, but

in the words of Lord Curzon, its progenitor, it is "in the
Renaissance style with some Oriental features."*
Delhi may be described in similar compromise terms,
India
also most of the Provincial Council Chambers-

Italian

New
as

House

in

1930, was designed by one

Delhi, and does not even
interior decorations, to have any

London, opened

of the British architects of

in

New

pretend, except in its

Oriental features of architecture.
*Lord Curzon's
p, 177.

British

Government

The symbolic plaques

in India,

London,

1925,

voL

I,

POLITICS,

ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

293

represent so many different elements that their

combination seems strange and ill-assorted if not grotesque.
According to Mr. E. B. Havell, a great deal of latent
outside

architectural talent exists in India.

When sums amount-

many crores of Indian money were being spent*

all friends of Indian art and talent must feel disappointed
that this stream of colossal expenditure did not go to the
ing to

Indian traditions, or even to the building up of

new great tradition. The Mughals did evolve a magnificent style and school of architecture.
The British in
revival of

India are

still

building without a central

artistic

plan or

purpose, and are content to toy with "Italian Renaissance*

with some Oriental features."

TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE
In Literature the chief points to notice are: that
Bengali, thanks to the genius of Sir Rabindranath Tagore,
has attained to the dignity of a world literature; that the
Bengali drama continues to advance as a provincial instrument of Bengali culture, although (apart from Tagore) it
has exercised no all-India influence; that Hindustani (in a
form nearer to Hindi than to Urdu) as being the language
most used in the recent proceedings of Congress, is graduits way as an all-India language; that Urdu
now taking a wide sweep, and that Urdu poetry
turning more and more to national subjects; that the

ally

winning

prose
is

is

other vernaculars, though showing great development and

vitality, are not instruments of all-India culture; and that
English still holds the field as the language of the most

and most creative all-India thought. Perhaps the

English poems of Rabindranath Tagore and the English
poems of Mrs. Sarojini Naidu stand more to the western
world for Indian poetry than any other literature of
modern India.
effective

TAGORE: BENGALI DRAMA: NAZR-UL-ISLAM

So much has been written about Rabindranath Tagore

(born 1861) and his works are so accessible in English
and partly in Urdu that it is only necessary here to
appraise his influence in general terms. His personality is
one of the striking factors in Indian culture at the present
day. His religious lyrics are naturally expressed in Hindu

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

.294

terms, but their poetic beauty and mystical appeal are universal. His ode to Urvashi is an ode to Beauty,
"the unsurpassed in loveliness/' and yet the "cruel, deaf Urvasti "
sowing tears in her wake. His English Essays and
Lectures are a fine exposition of his philosophy of life and
thought.
Though his vision of Indian history
the
ignores

Taluable contributions made by the Muslims and the British

to Indian culture, his scheme of Vishwa Bharati (or World
University) recognises these contributions, and also lays
a much-needed stress on the artistic side of culture. His

drama

too ethereal, too symbolic, and too poetic for the

every-day stage. The practical dramatist of the Bengali
stage in the 20th century has been Dwijendra Lai Ray
is

(1860-1913). He began writing plays in 1895, but his

triumphs date from the time when he began to expound
nationalism and Swadeshi. In plays like Rana Pratap, Nflr
Jahan, and Mewdr Patan, he goes back to Bengali, Mughal,
and Rajput history, and in Chandra Gupta to Maurya history.
But his history is very much manipulated, and it would be
more correct to describe it as romance. His interest is
In his last play Para Pare ("On
chiefly psychological.
the Shore Across"), he attacks the problems of modern

An interesting Muslim nationasociety in Bengal.

writer in Bengali is Maulvi Nazr-ul-Islam, whose poem

Hindu
list

Bidrohi

is

full of fire

and originality.

'URDU LITERATURE: NOVELS AND POETRY: SIR

In

Urdu

literature the

MUHAMMAD

IQBAL

wonderful growth of a flexible

literary journals and modern

prose as exemplified in
novels is truly remarkable.
In the modern novel the
fashion set by Sharar is being followed up,
not in historical novels of a distant setting, but in character-drawing,
in actualities, and in brisk story-telling.
In this matter
the fashion of detective novels, imported from the West,
has been,a great asset to the novelist.
It must be confessed, however, that the use of the supernatural and of
extraordinary coincidences has not yet been wholly discarded. Among numerous novels of wide circulation we may
mention Prem Chand's Chaugan-i-Hasti and Zaf ar Umar's
Nili Chhalri and Lai Kathor.
Urdu poetry seems to be
forsaking its old routes of imaginative abstractions and
turning more to political and philosophical themes. The

POLITICS, ECONOMICS,

EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

295

interest is exemplified in Hasrat Mohani (born

Lai Chand Falak (born 1887), while the philoand
1875)
interest is personified in Iqbal (1876-1938). Sir
sophical
Muhammad Iqbal also wrote his early poems in Urdu on
and poems like his Hindustan Hamdra
patriotic themes,
attained great popularity as national
Shivdla
and Nayd
his
serious work has been done in the
most
But
songs.
His four works, Asrar-i-Kkudi,
Persian language.
Ramuz-i-Bekhudi 9 Paydm-i-Mashriq, and Zubur-i 'Ajam
construct a definite system of Muslim philosophy, which is
political

also reflected in his political utterances.

protest against two

tendencies:

(1)

Briefly it is a
the tendency to

quietism in the East, and (2) the tendency to accept

Western civilisation as a moral force of any value. His
call is a call to action, to self-assertion,

and self-develophis condem-

Whatever views may be held about

ment.
nation of the West, there can be no doubt of
position of Iqbal in the world of constructive
regret can only be that he forsook Urdu for

the

eminent

thought.
Persian.

Our

URDU DRAMA

The sad position of the Urdu stage is that it has not

a proper milieu^ nor has it found a local centre,
found
yet
like the Bengali or the Marathi stage.
Every Stage tends
to

be commercialised, and unless strong cultural standards

counteract that tendency, it sinks lower and lower

exist, to

in repute.
The commercial side of the Urdu stage is in
the hands of Parsi capitalists.
They are excellent men of

business,

and men

like the late

Mr. Khatau took and take a

pride in introducing mechanical improvements, but they

are not interested in the literary capacities of Urdu. Even
when they find a writer of talent and originality, the
claims of commercial success turn him into a hack-writer
paid a salary of so much a month. They hold the copyHe is too poor
right of any plays he writes to order.
to launch a Play on his own, or to appeal to a reading

public independently, and he has no rights in the Plays

which are produced, sometimes in a garbled form, on the
This position is well summed up in a published
stage.
*
of the dramatist Agha Hashar, whose Plays have a
letter
*See

tiie

Journal Khayalistan, Lahore, September, 1930, pp.

10-12.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

296

He says
great vogue on the Urdu stage.
"To be dependent on the orders, tastes, or commercial point of
view of
the proprietors of a commercial
to
:

company,

make

these

the determining factors in a literary work and to

endeavour
to produce it in a given time
work under such
conditions

not literary work; it is degradation of

knowledge
servitude of the intellect, and hack-work of the
pen.
But
hard necessity compels us to sacrifice our freedom
of
literary invention and our own natural instincts."
is

HOW THE

STAGE CAN BE EMANCIPATED

The Bengali stage achieved its emancipation

by the
association together of men of letters, men of
taste, and
men of wealth, and the same recipe may be recommended
for the ailments of the Urdu stage.
There have not been
6
actors
notable
like
Ali
At-har
of the Meerut
wanting
character
whose
and
art
tended
to raise their
Company,
profession in public estimation.

And

the increasing attenliterary journals is

also a good augury for the future.
It should however be
added that the severe competition of the Talking Films
will adversely affect the prospects of the
Stage in this
country, as it is doing in other countries of the world.

tion

now paid

to the

Drama

in

LESSONS OF THE PAST AND LIGHT FOR

Urdu

THE FUTURE

At different periods in our cultural history

during the
period we have been swayed by different moods.
We began with despair. We went out to imitate. We
found the imitation barren, and we are discovering that we
have put fetters on ourselves. In our first flush of shame

British

at this discovery, we attribute the act of enslavement

not to ourselves but to others.
We take up the fashion
of decrying the virile and still growing civilisations
of the west, and in seizing upon their dark
we

spots

forget their general service to humanity and to ourselves*

Turning our gaze within, each of the elements of which
we are composed seems to magnify itself

forgetting

or vilifying the others.

thus lost and the lessons

The
of

sense

past

of proportion
failures

is

nullified.

Mutual recriminations and mutual distrust prevent that

sureness of step with which every youthful civilisation

POLITICS, ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, ART, ETC.

29T

forward

Selfconfidently into its future*

Fortified
act
as
a
tonic.
in
the
criticism
right spirit may
with the tonic, our cells will put forward new growths
and find cures for disease germs in the system. When
inarches

such germs are eliminated and dead matter removed, the

will put joy into our thought,
process of rejuvenation

concord into our social system, and a spirit of justice and

co-operation into our economic and political arrangements.
Every son and daughter of India, whether of Hindu*

Muslim,

or

satisfaction
future.

British

can then find spiritual

"our India," present, past, and

descent,

and pride

in

CHAPTER

XIII

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

It

only remains to take stock of the present position.

It is, I think, true to say that all cultural

movements
in present-day India are dominated by politics. So
long
^as
the franchise was limited to a microscopic
minority in
India, politics floated on the surface among the Englisheducated classes, but barely interested the masses of the
The Constitution of 1935 gave the vote to
people.
thirtyfive millions of the people (twenty-nine million men and
six million women) and brought the elective
machinery
for the highest offices in the State as it were to the door of

Moreover it brought the highest positions in

the people.
the State and real power over the machinery of government
-within the reach of any individuals (men or women) or
organized bodies which could command the votes in the
remotest areas. This stimulated ambitions, and threw great
opportunities in social, economic and cultural life., as
well as in politics, into the hands of those who were in
contact with the basic features of Indian life.
Voters as
well as candidates for offices threw themselves into the
fray, and merged their other interests in political battles.

EFFECT ON HINDU-MUSLIM RELATIONS

The change of scene

in politics gave a new

meaning
and antagonisms between the two great
communities. Individuals as such began to count for less
and less in public life. Those with the backing of the
largest groups obtained the plums, and in order to retain
such plums it was necessary to ensure the continuance of
to

the

rivalries

The smaller groups themselves began

such backing.
into larger groups in order to
aggregation
plan
obtain and retain their importance. There were jealousies
and rivalries. There was much scrambling for power.
There was much manoeuvring for positions. Power once
to

-obtained,

there

was

the

desire

for

exclusiveness

making it impossible for rivals to reverse

In a truly democratic atmosphere, where

for

the position.
at

least the

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

299

individuals of influence are able to judge for themselves and

on constantly developing general
party labels are founded
and policies, the rivalry is healthy and leads

programmes

to progress

and public good.

In

an atmosphere where

divisions are determined by fixed castes and creeds, there

is stagnation, bitterness and sense of triumph on one side
and hopeless frustration on the other, which stand in the

way

of common welfare and

Communal tangle in India has
The correspondence between

of an ordered progression

The
general public good.
landed us in this position.

pundit Jawaharlal Nehru and Mr. Subhas Chandra Bose

one hand, and
representing the Congress on the
Mr. Muhammad AH Jinnah, President of the Muslim League
as

on

the other, reveals a hopeless impasse

from which

it

is

a radical alteration in
Even the
leaders.
of
Communal
our
the points of view
and
relations
amenities
Hindu-Muslim
individual friendly
and
rarer.
rarer
are
of the old days
becoming
Many of
of
the
fold
the
within
were
who
Muslims
the
Congress have
withdrawn from that body and have become members of
the Muslim League with its strong militant activities.
Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, who may be considered
the leading Congress Muslim, now commands a very
small following. Hindu-Muslim riots have taken place in
nearly all the big cities of India and continue to be of
difficult to see

way

out without

frequent occurrence.

WANT OF INDIAN UNITY; REVOLUTIONARY AND

TERRORIST

MOVEMENTS
In the preparatory stages of the new Constitution which
-was enacted by the British Parliament in 1935, this want
of unity on the Indian side was very marked and resulted
in a very unsatisfactory piece of patch-work. Mr. Ramsay
MacDonald, the Prime Minister of England, was determined to give India a "democratic" Constitution. It cannot be
pretended that he understood the Indian conditions. His
horizon was bounded by the pronouncements of the Indian
National Congress party, but that party under Mr. Gandhi's
into the position of being an unlawful
Early in 1932 Mr. Gandhi had renewed his
He himself preached nonCivil Disobedience Movement.
Tiolent non-cooperation, but his activities encouraged the

lead had

drifted

association.

300

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

terrorist

and under-ground revolutionary movements.

The

Meerut Conspiracy Case, decided on the 15th

January
1933, had dragged on for 4j years and revealed a
connection of some
Indian revolutionaries with the
Communist International of Russia. Labour and
Capital

were to be set by the ears; strikes were to be

encouraged; Indian labour organisations were to be fed
with the Communist programme; and the Government
established by law was to be overthrown.
That the
Government took a serious view of the situation is evident
in

India

from
in

the fact that they spent over eighteen lakhs of

rupees
working out and prosecuting the case.

THE THREE ROUND TABLE CONFERENCES

For hammering out the new Indian

Round Table Conferences were held

Constitution, three

in

London, to which
Indian representatives were invited for consultation. The
first Conference, in the winter of 1930-31, was
boycotted
by the Congress, but was attended by the representatives
of other interests, including women not affiliated to the
Some principles were then outlined (see last
Congress.
and
they formed the basis of the Constitution as
chapter)
The Second Round Table Conference
in
1935.
passed
was held in London in the winter of 1931-32, and was
attended by Mr. Gandhi, who had by then been persuaded

by

the

Viceroy

(Lord Irwin) to abandon his nonand to place his views fully and

attitude

cooperation
He came with high
unreservedly before the Conference.
inclined
and
was
to
even
a
blank
hopes,
"give
cheque" to the
Muslims in the Hindu-Muslim discussions for evolving an
agreed share of representation for the two communities in
the proposed Indian Legislatures. His followers were however alarmed at that attitude.
No agreement could be
reached either between the Hindu and Muslim delegations
or between the Indian and the British points of view.
The Third and final Round Table Conference sat in

London

November and December 1932. By that time

(Mr. MacDonald) had given his
"Communal Award" as to the representation of the two
Communities in the Indian Legislatures. The question of
the representation of the Depressed Classes in the new
Legislatures had been raised. Mr. Gandhi had, consistently

the

in

Prime Minister

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

301

with his principles viz., to give the under-dog always a

chance, threatened to "fast unto death" on that question,
and won his point. Thereafter, Mr. Gandhi was to devote
himself mainly to the question of the Depressed Classes.

THE CONSTITUTION OF 1935

The Round Table Conferences, having shifted the
number of varied and conflicting opinions placed
before it, endeavoured to arrive at a scheme representing
what it considered to be the greatest possible measure of
agreement or the least possible measure of disagreement.
Its report and proceedings went before the British Parliament, of which a Joint Select Committee gave definite
form and shape to the Constitution which was passed in
1935. The underlying principle of this Constitution is
the creation of eleven autonomous Provinces with responsible Government, whose working however is to be subject
large

to certain safeguards under powers vested in the Governors

of the Provinces.
For the Central Government the Constitution proposed a Federation, but the Federation is not
to consist only of the British autonomous Provinces but is
to include the Indian States, with a complicated system of
The Federation is to have a responsible
representation.
Government with the limitation however that Defence and
External Affairs are not to be under its control but under

the Governor-General,

and the Governor-General

is to

have

special responsibility in questions of Peace and Tranquillity, the stability of Finance and Credit, and the Protection

of Minorities.
This portion, relating to the Central Fedehas not yet come into force, owing to certain
-difficulties with the Indian States.
ration,

ITS

WORKING

The coming

into force of the provincial portion of

with the holding of the Elections in the
Spring of 1937, has worked an immense revolution in the
social, economic and cultural (besides the political) life
of India. The Congress Party participated vigorously in
the Elections, in order (they said) to destroy this unwelcome Constitution from within, and they obtained
In the remaining
majorities in seven of the Provinces.
four Provinces non-Congress majority Governments were
this Constitution

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

302

set up, whose working showed that the

Constitution provided substantial opportunities for the activities of
responsible government.
In the Congress majority Provinces
the Congress having refused to take office for some
time*
interim minority Governments were set
up before the
Meanwhile a strong party
Legislatures were assembled.
within the Congress was in favour of
taking office. When
the Governors gave a clear assurance that
they would not
use their exceptional powers in the day-to-day work of the
administration, the Congress parties took office in the
provinces where they had a majority, the interim minority
Governments having resigned. This was in the summer
of 1937.
During the two years that have since passed,
the responsible Governments in all the eleven
provinces
have been working without any special incidents to disturb

the

of responsible Government in India. The

popular policies to which they have directed their attention are: (1) reformed land tenure and land legislation^
with a strong bias in favour of the tenantry; (2) temperance*
initiation

legislation, pointing in the direction of Prohibition, and

(3) radical alteration in the machinery, control and sub*

ject-matter of education, with a tendency to bring education

more and more into Indian hands, make it more and

more responsive

to Indian needs and Indian ideas; also theintroduction of compulsory primary education. In addition
there is desire to take all steps possible for fostering:

Indian industries.
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC COROLLARIES OF

THE PROGRAMME

There can be no doubt that, even allowing for the

long time that must necessarily elapse before any considerable advance can be made towards the effective carrying out of this comprehensive programme, it must involve
radical changes in the social and intellectual life of the

people, and considerable displacement in the social strata

The ecothat have been so far characteristic of India.

nomic

most powerful in changing the life

town and country. New groupings will take place.
Old antagonisms will take new forms, and new antagonismslevers will be the

in both

will arise.

ed with

the

The Communal questions

disputes

between

will

get complicat-

landholders and tenants^

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

303

between capital and labour, between money-lenders and

debtors, between old historic families and
newly-rich
In the Congress party
leaders of wealth and position.
signs of fissure betweea
between
leaders with the old
Capitalists,
and
leaders
outlook
to
whom
politics of the more
religious
In
this
western
type
appeal.
respect Mr. Gandhi
positive
and Mr. Subhas Chandra Bose stand as definite symbols
in the Congress camp, and His Highness the Aga Khan
and Mr. M. A. Jinnah in the Muslim camp. Many other
names may be similarly contrasted in other fields, such as
education, industries, trade and commerce, agriculture
and social reform.
EXPANSION OF EDUCATION
The development of education since 1930 has been
itself

there are already visible

Socialists

and

less in the direction of the quantitative figures than in the

direction of enlarging the scope of education and consolidating the scientific (as opposed to literary) and the

opposed to theoretical) sides. The number of

pupils under instruction in all classes of institutions rose
from 12-7 millions in 1930-31 to 13'8 millions in 1935-6,.
but the expenditure on education from public funds fell
practical (as

from 18 crores of rupees in 1930-31 to 16*2 crores in

1 935-6.
An increased amount of expenditure from private
funds has, however, kept the figure for total expenditure
fairly constant, with a slight tendency to contraction on
account of the economic depression.
Probably the figures
for pupils at the bottom of the scale were somewhat illuin 1930 and they are so still.
But the increasing^
attention being paid to primary education should remedy
this defect in course of time.
Indeed, there is a danger

sory

now, as in Bengal, with the enthusiasm of popularly elected

Legislatures, that higher education may be starved in order
to find more money for elementary education
which would

amount to neglecting or throwing away the ripening fruit in

order to increase the area of orchards being newly sown. The
care of both is necessary, and a proper proportion should
be established, so that the fullest and maturest results may
be obtained from such education as is imparted ta the
But it is satisfactory to find that the universities
people.
are wisely enlarging the scope of their subjects, and

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

304

making

work of

their

thorough and

scientific teaching

practical.

and research more

The honours courses

in

science

are being extended, and a great deal of

historical, social
and economic (including agricultural) research, is
being
carried out.

MORE SUBJECTS BEING TAKEN UP BY UNIVERSITIES

them

The enlargement of university laboratories enables

to handle many more scientific subjects than
pre-

viously. Industrial Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Chemistry,

Agricultural Chemistry, Experimental Psychology, and
various branches of Physics, with a distinctly practical
bias, are being taken up.

Tutorial work

is

being greatly

encouraged, and training classes are widening their scope

-and bringing more school teachers under their influence.
The desire to Indianise the officering of the army has
resulted in the organisation of numerous
University
Training Corps under the supervision of the military authorities.

The demand for enrolment

in such corps

is

indeed

in excess of the facilities provided, in view of the high

standards of efficiency rightly insisted on by the military

authorities

Indian

and

the

limited openings so far provided for

The opening of the Indian Military

Dehra Dun (1932) will provide a steady flow

officers.

Academy

at

of properly qualified candidates for Indian Army commisIn the schools the Boy Scout Movement has now
sions.
The Indian vernaculars are
.attained large proportions.
obtaining more and more footing in the universities, with
^perhaps a regrettable decline in the popularity of the

Eastern classical languages, Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian.

A few words may be added about the Wardha scheme of
elementary education, issued under Mr. Gandhi's auspices
In so far as it aims at teaching
in January 1938.
useful practical arts to students at an early age, the
principle is sound. In so far as it aims at a self-supporting
of education from the beginning, it is unpractical and
unsound. It should always be remembered that too early
,an introduction of the earning question in education does
violence to the psychology of the tender child, who should
tave plenty of play and pleasure before he or she comes
if ace to face with the serious realities of economic life.

DOMINATING IJNTEKEST O* POLITICS

MEDICAL EDUCATION

dub

AND HEALTH MOVEMENTS

efficiency of medical education in India was

into
controversy by the refusal of the General
brought
in Great Britain in 1930 to recognize
Council
Medical

The

Under the Act (XXVII) of 1933

Indian medical degrees.
of
India
was established in February
Council
a Medical
a
It
1934.
panel of Inspectors to inspect the
appoints
instruction
of
the medical examinations at the
of
courses
Indian doctors are increasing
British Indian Universities.
and
the
Indian
dentists are doing valuin numbers.
They
The Medical
able work for the health tf the people.
Research Fund Association helps in the acquisition of new
medical knowledge under Indian conditions. The establishment of the Women's Medical Service ensures that women
in Purdah shall receive proper medical attention and treatThere is a general awakening in health matters.
ment.
Municipalities, District Boards and other public bodies are
providing health education in various forms and employing
Dais (midwives) are
staffs to supervise health activities.
appointed for the service of the poorer classes of mothers,
and Baby Shows and Baby Weeks draw pointed attention
to the methods and the need of improving the health and
comfort of little children. The Red Cross organisation
and the Junior Red Cross are entering more and more into
Since 1937 there has been
the normal life of the people.
a Central Board of Health in India, which brings health

movements

to a focus.

THE STUDENT INTEREST AND

ITS

ORGANISATIONS

The enormous expansion of the student interest in

Students
India requires notice in her cultural history.
are now able to influence courses of study, the framework of examinations, the hours and facilities in libraries,
the arrangements for debates, etc. in their own institutions
-as well as in the general working of universities and in
There
the general educational atmosphere of the country.
is an All-India Students' Federation and a similar Muslim
Students* Federation, besides numerous local organisations.
Students* strikes show that the educational machinery is
not working smoothly. If they also show lack of discipline,
its causes require careful examination by educational
20

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

306

authorities.

At any

rate the

modern

student has
indepen-

dence of character and vitality of spirit, and if these lead

is a protest against a
to self -discipline, even if there
wrong
there is some
from
kind of discipline imposed
^without,
in some measure counterhope that the ultimate gains may
must
friction
which
always involve. The
balance the losses
and
internal
both
external, requires
system of examinations,
our
that
can
we
before
say
training leads
radical alteration
of
combined
with
and
thought,
originality
to independence
the
and
ultimate
self-respect
self-control,
self
-discipline,

ideals in education.

WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS

women's movements is in evidence

have not had to fight for the vote
everywhere. Women
elsewhere.
They have
in India, as they had to fight
no
more
for
if
chivalrous
been welcomed by the men,
of
few
them yet
so
are
there
reason than the fact that
to he
woman
first
The
life.
as competitors in public
Lakshmi
Mutha
Dr.
elected to an Indian Legislature,
Ammal (Madras, 1927) was also at once elected by her
Her medical knowas its Deputy President.

The

strength of the

Legislature
ledge and general

Begam Shah Nawaz

experience fully justified the choice.

Women's
in the Punjab Ministry.

is

and many women students study

Colleges have multiplied,
Women's journals are also to be found
in men's colleges.
The Maternity and Child
in most of the vernaculars.
the Red Cross is well
under
Bureau

working
Welfare
Indian social life is being completely
served by women.
now take in
transformed by the part which Indian women
public affairs.

RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND TOWN IMPROVEMENT

Rural sanitation and water supply, rural communica-

and the provision of brighter leisure hours

of the radio and the cinema have all
villages by means
isolation and
tended to bring out the rural areas from
for

tions,

But there is
the larger life of the country.
and
old
peacefulness
a darker side to the picture. The
I he
to
life are tending
disappear.
simplicity of rural
not
has
yet
Education
drift to the towns continues.

link them

adapted

to

itself

to rural conditions.

The educated man

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

307

mass does not as a whole help in culturally enriching

village, but is on the contrary a prime factor in
The towns again have not developed
depleting it.
traditions of civic life and civic pride.
Many of the
are
and
housed.
badly lighted,
municipalities
badly
Dusty,

the

the

narrow, or unsavoury streets are still far too common

A slight attempt has been made in the
in urban areas.
direction of town planning in Quetta after the Quetta earthquake of May 1935 and of Patna and other Bihar towns
after the Bihar earthquake of January 1934, but the results
are not appreciable except in the wider streets that have
been planned after the earthquake destruction. After all*

town planning depends on the habits and social ideals of

the people and the extent to which the sense of architeccertain:
tural beauty has spread among the masses,

amount of town planning may be possible with mud huts,,

but more permanent housing material
masonry, stone or
a superior kind of timber is necessary to plan and
maintain a beautiful town.
THE EFFECTS OF THE EARTHQUAKES
The enormous material damage caused by the two great
earthquakes has not been without its cultural reactions*
The Bihar earthquake (January 1934) covered an extensive area (estimated at 1,900,000 square miles) not only
The area of greatest
in Bihar but in Nepal and Tibet.
which practically every pucca house was damcovered
6,000 square miles. Twelve towns with
aged,
populations ranging from 10,000 to 60,000 were demolished.
Monghyr and Darbhanga were among the worst
sufferers. Railway bridges and culverts were destroyed or
damaged, The levels of the country were altered, rivers
changed their courses, and much land was silted. When
But on
the monsoons broke that year, there were floods.
the whole the permanent damage turned out to be less than
was expected. The time of the earthquake was in the
afternoon, 2-13 p.m. when most of the inhabitants were
out in the open air. Considering the enormous area aflected, the loss of life was comparatively small, the official
estimate being about 7,000 to 8,000 deaths. In this respect
the Quetta earthquake of the 31st May, 1935 was a
contrast. It occurred during the night at 3 a.m., when most
intensity in

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

308

of the people were asleep in their houses. The loss of life

been estimated at 25,000 and may well have been
more. The epicentre was in area 70 miles hy 15 miles,
and included the towns of Quetta, Mastuing and Kalat.
The greatest intensity was in Quetta, with its densely populated bazaars, of which practically nothing was left. The
high mound of Kalat, which covered the growth of mud
houses and forts for centuries was destroyed. But a
healthier and more spread-out Kalat is now arising in the

'has

stable

open which, given

conditions in Baluchistan, may

develop into a happier and more peaceful city than the one
which is in ruins, Quetta is being rebuilt with earthquake-

proof houses and wider and better-planned streets. It

remains an important frontier military and air force
station

across the frontier to Afghanistan and

looking

Persia.

RELIEF MEASURES IN A SPIRIT OF COOPERATION

These dreadful calamities of nature called for relief

measures, both immediately and for some time subsedistriquently, both in the collection of resources and the
to
take
bution of relief and in disciplined organization

human

factors that arose out of fright,

separation of families, burial of living

.account of all the

physical hurt,
persons within the debris^ escorting of survivors to places
of safety or to persons who could take care of them,
and so on. Both official and non-official agencies were
-employed.

The

non-official agencies

consisted of young

men from Colleges and from other walks of life. They all
worked well and in cooperation. They learnt habits ^of
-quick decision,

firm action, kindly behaviour, inspiring

The test was

confidence and team work in many forms.
forms of
other
for
them
them
and
for
prepared
.good
In floods and for keeping order in
cultural cooperation.
and
large fairs, boy scouts have acquitted themselves well,
for major calamities like the earthquakes, young men
from College added great strength to the volunteer efforts.
This will be employed more and more as time goes on.
TISCAL POLICE AND TRADE AGREEMENTS

For some years past India has been

limits,

to

control

her import

tariffs

able, within certain

so as to encourage

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

own

her

industries

the Fiscal

by means of
Convention.

what

is

309

known as

More

Autonomy
recently she has
been able to participate in definite trade agreements with
England and Canada by tariff preferences on a reciprocal
basis. England changed over definitely from free trade toprotection about 1932; the rest of the Empire had been,
After 1932 it became a
protectionist for many years.
cardinal point of Empire trade policy to negotiate trade
agreements on the basis of reciprocal preferences on
The Ottawa Trade Agreement (1932)
specified articles.
was one in which India participated. The agreement wasnot popular with the Indian Legislative Assembly, which
resolved in 1939 to terminate it. A new Trade Agreement
has been negotiated between England and India by which
the Manchester cotton industry gets a certain amount of
preference as against Japan, but English opinion considers
In trade matters it is rash
that it unduly favours India.
But
to appraise advantages or disadvantages in advance.
there is no doubt that India is determined to develop her
cotton mill industry, and has already gone a long way tosuccess in that direction.

HE* INDUSTRIAL SITUATION

Her

is
situation
internal industrial
favourable^
and
cotton
as
steel,
sugar. Her mineral
regards
especially
production has also shown great expansion. According to
Dr. Meek,* compared with the five pre-War years, there
was an increase in the main industries in 1930 of 62 per
cent in value and 80 per cent in the number of employees..
In the same comparison mineral production increased in.
volume to 182 per cent. But in international trade she is
As such she
still mainly an exporter of raw materials.
raw
materials
of
her
has to safeguard the exports
surplus

world growing more and more protectionist. Every

is being made to make her industrial position
stronger and stronger all along the line. But it will be
long before she can utilise all her raw materials herself
or produce her own machinery or motor cars or railway
material. At present she suffers from three drawbacks t
of
dearth
force, (2)
(1) an ill-educated labour
in a

effort

* See

T&*

New Indw, of

The Times, London,

1937, p. 78.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

310

-directional experience

and

and energy among her own

sons

the shyness of Indian capital.

The Tata exthat these are not insuperable
shows
periment
obstacles.
rise in the standard of living must affect all

(3)

these

factors,
is

and such a

rise is

unmistakably taking place. There

a tendency, in the new political order, to

strengthen

position of the wage-earning classes, especially in

the lower grades.
Whether the lowering of salaries in
the higher grades will not run counter to the aim to raise
the general economic level throughout remains to be tested.
But adjustments in any case are undoubtedly called for
and the greatest economic and social wisdom should be
the

used in making them subserve the common good rather

than favour particular interests in the scramble for votes.

MARKETING SCHEMES
Both

the agricultural
producer and the small
Draftsman-producer in India have been very much handicapped in the past by the absence of any well organised
scheme of marketing. The absence, too, of any recognised system of grading and of facilities for ascertaining hour-to-hour prices in big centrfes very much
hampered the most efficient producers and left them at the
mercy of the middleman.
Many of the old-established

Mandis (marts) almost became

paradise of middlecomprehensive steps to help the producer

in marketing his produce were taken in 1935. Marketing
officers were then appointed and a programme chalked
Now there is a large Central Marketing Staff,
out.
^consisting of an Agricultural Marketing Adviser to the
Government of India, Senior Marketing Officers, a Supervisor for Experimental Grading and Packing Stations, and
several Assistant Marketing Officers.
In addition most of
the Provinces (as well as some of the Indian States) have
jnen.

their

The

own marketing

-with the

the

first

who work in cooperation

They have undertaken marketing

officers

Central Staff.

surveys, covering agricultural produce, fruits, and livestock products. They have studied prices and the question

of grading produce.
tetween producers,

They seek
distributors,

facturers, railway agents

etc.

The

to

establish

wholesalers,
object

is

to

contacts

manuimprove.

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

311

and problems

and

develop marketing facilities,

organise,
of transportation, storage and preservation
within their sphere of work.

also corne

LABOUR QUESTIONS: ORGANISATION OF LABOUR

the Great War, labour questions figured very
in public discussions in India, and their bearing on
After the Great War
social life had not been noticed.

Before

little

two Labour Cabinets have been in power in Great Britain,

and the International Labour Office in Geneva has framed
in all countries.
large schemes for Labour amelioration

Both these facts have supplied a great impetus to the

modern labour movement in India. Labour in this sense
means Industrial Labour. But the vast bulk of Indian

employed in agriculture. The figure for

at
agricultural Labour (excluding peasant proprietors)
be
it
cannot
and
the census of 1931 was 31J millions,
The number of factory
far short of 35 millions now.
The
short
of two millions.
is
workers (including miners)
the
Workmen's
covered
Compensaby
number, however,
But the agricultural
tion Act is about seven millions.
workers are merged in village life; their illiteracy is more
intense than that of town workers; and their isolation has
not yet produced any strong desire for combined action.
The town workers on the other hand have had combinalions of some sort for many years.
Railway workers, on
account of free communications by railway, were the first
to form a union, the Amalgamated Society of Railway
Servants (1897); this however was then more in the
nature of a Friendly Society than a Trade Union in the
modern sense of the word.
Labour

is

TRADE UNIONS

Real Trade Unions came after the Great War. In

ihe great disturbances of prices in the period 1919-1923
the wage-earning classes found that their real wages fell
then formed.
appreciably, and scores of unions were
Trade
All-India
The
Many of them were ephemeral.
the
In
1928-29
1920.
in
Union Congress was formed
the
later
and
unions
the
of
Communists captured many
and
riots
and
strikes
were
There
Trade Union Congress.
repercussions in the political

field.

In 1929 the

more

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

312

of Trade-Unionism seceded from

the
Communist body and formed a separate organisation the
Trades Union Federation. There was a further split in
the Trade Union Congress in 1931.
Efforts for
unity
were made; the Communist element became weaker, and
in 1935 the Federation agreed to
work jointly with
The two bodies combined in
the Trade Union Congress.

moderate section

1938, and the Indian National Congress Socialist Party

(Political) also agreed to joint action with them.
The
combined Trade Union Congress has a membership of
about 130,000 and the number of affiliated Unions is 160.
This of course represents a very tiny proportion of
the estimated two million factory workers in India.
The
most effective Labour Union in India (apart from Railway'

and

Postal

Union.

Unions)

Under

the

is

new

the

Ahmedabad

Constitution

Textile Labour
as such is

Labour

represented in the Indian Legislatures, mainly but not

exclusively through registered Trade Unions.

TRADE UNION LEGISLATION

We may begin the story of recent Labour legislation

with the Indian Trade Unions Act of 1926.
It provided
for the registration of Trade Unions, and laid down the
conditions required for registration, including the proviso
that at least half of the executive should consist of members actually engaged in the unit or group of units which
Union proposes to cover. The definition of a Union
under the Act included a combination of employers or a

the

combination of workers, but not a combination of both

employees and workers. The objects were specified, on
which the funds of the Union could be spent. They excluded political objects, but the Union could establish a
separate voluntary fund for political objects.
Immunity

from prosecution for criminal conspiracy or from civil

suits in certain cases was conferred on the Union.
Registrars for Trade Unions have been established in all the
Provinces*
In 1935-36 the number of registered Unions
furnishing the returns required by the Act was 205 for all
British India, with a
membership of 268,326 and an
income of 5 lakhs of rupees.

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

313

OTHER LABOUR LEGISLATION

The Factories Acts have been already referred to.
The Workmen's Compensation Act was passed in 1923,
came into force in 1924, and has been amended several
times subsequently down to 1933, It affects a much larger
number of workmen than those covered by the Factory
Acts. Payment of compensation has been made obligatory

on all employers whose employees come within its scope,

even where there has been no negligence, where personal
injury has been caused by accident arising out of and in
The influence of British law
the course of employment.
on the subject is here (as elsewhere in Labour legislation)
In regard to strikes and trade disputes,
clearly marked.
the Indian Trade Disputes Act of 1929, as amended in
1934 and 1938, has made provisions for Courts of Enquiry
and Boards of Conciliation when such disputes actually

The Courts of Enquiry enquire into disputes referred to them by Government and make a report on its
The Boards of Conciliation would be set up to
findings.
of the dispute.
Neither the findings
settlement
secure a
of
the
advice
the
Board is binding on
nor
Court
of the
is
and
an
time
but
either party;
gained,
impartial verdict
on the points in dispute forms public opinion, which is the
As regards strikes in public
final arbiter in the matter.
fourteen
services,
days* notice in writing to the
utility
made
is
obligatory, failing which the strike beemployer
comes a penal offence. Strikes and lock-outs, with objects
other than the furtherance of a trade dispute within the
industry itself, and designed or calculated to inflict severe

occur.

community and thereby to compel

take or abstain from taking any particular
line of action, are declared illegal. There are no standing
industrial courts or bodies in India to which trade disputes
can be referred or conciliation machinery can be applied,

hardship upon the

Government

to

as in England.

DEVELOPMENT OF AVIATION

Two new discoveries have yet to be mentioned which

link India with the cultural transformations that are going
on all over the world, *&., the development of Aviation
and regular Broadcasting.

India has now a respectable

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

314

The Royal Air Force has several squadrons

mainly based on the North-West Frontier and
on Quetta. The Indian Air Force was constituted

Air Force.
in India,

specially

1932, and Indian officers are being trained for the

But we are here concerned with civil aviation.
Here India figures very largely on world air lines.
across India through Karachi to
Imperial Airways run
Eastern Asia and Australasia. The Dutch Line (K.L.M.)
Air France
runs from Holland through India to Java.
India
to
Indo-China.
similarly runs from France through

in

Force.

Karachi

is

first-class

thus becoming a very important air-port.

mail between Great Britain and India is

All

now

carried by air with no extra charge beyond the l|d. per

half ounce, reducing the time taken by a letter from
London to Delhi from 18 days to 4 days.

BROADCASTING
in India.
Wireless, too, has made rapid progress
stations
at the
short-wave
broadcasting
four
There are
of
a
number
and
whole
the
serve
to
country,
main centres
It is
areas.
rural
the
serve
to
stations
small- power
receivers used
difficult to estimate the number of wireless

by

the

people.

The number

is

not

yet

large in
clubs, and

very

but educational institutions,

private hands,
been liberally equipped. Community
have
centres
other
in villages,
receivers have in some cases been installed
and efforts are being made to devise cheap sets for the
of cost, there are two
Apart from the question
purposemain difficulties in arranging for a wholesome and wideOne is
in the vernaculars.
cultural

propaganda

spread

in any
the multiplicity of languages and dialects used
for
used
are
six languages
being
given area. More than
arises
other
The
difficulty
broadcasts, besides English.
from the great variation in the tastes, standards, and
broadcast couched in a
leisure hours of the people.
to one section of the people may leave
to

way

appeal
some
another section cold or even be positively offensive to
The most popular vernacular broadcasts are
section.

On the whole it
those intended for amusement.
under
well that Government has so far kept broadcasting

comic
is

its

own

control*

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

RELIGION VERSUS CUSTOM IN MUSLIM

315

LAW

We

may now close with a few remarks on certain

The
aspects of religious thought in the two communities.
Muslims have long had, in the administration of their law
through British Indian courts, a struggle between the force
of local or family or sectional custom as against the wider
-and

more universal

principles of

Muslim Law

worked

as

out by their classical jurists. This has been specially so

in their law of inheritance, and in provinces like the
Punjab or among communities like the Khojas in Bombay.
"The British Indian courts have by recorded decisions
-crystallised a sort of customary law of local applications

contrary to the provisions of &general Muslim Law. The

Muslim Personal Law (Shari at) Application Act of 1937,
which extends to all India excluding the North- West
Frontier Province, gets rid of such local customs in most
cases.

It

enacts

that

in

all

questions

(save

questions

relating to agricultural

land) regarding intestate succession, special property of females, including personal

property inherited or obtained under contract or by gift
or under any other provision of personal law, marriage,
dissolution of marriage (under the various forms recognised by Muslim Law), maintenance, dower, guardianship, gifts, trusts and trust properties, and Waqfs (other
sthaii charities and charitable institutions and charitable
and religious endowments), the rule of decision in cases
-where the parties are Muslims will be the Muslim Personal
.Law (Shari *at). It further provides that any Indian
Muslim can make a declaration that the Act will apply
him and to all his minor children and descendants.

This provision was necessary in order to prevent the courts

from holding that there was a particular family or local
custom to the contrary, applicable to the particular case.

WIDENING HORIZON OF RELIGION THROUGH

OF HINDU THOUGHT

The foundation of
Order has introduced a

the

MODERN

SCHOOLS

Ramakrishna Vivekananda

among the higher

which
is of interest to
thinkers of Religious Hinduism,
as
to
the
well
world
as
at large. Tte
non-Hindus in India
Order celebrated

universality

in Calcutta the centenary of the

birth of

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

316

Ramakrishna (1836-1886) in 1936. It is one of the

ideals of the Order to establish a Ramakrishna Institute
of Culture "for the study and promotion of the creative
achievements and spiritual experiences of the diverseraces, castes, classes and communities of mankind on a
'*
Its ambiscientific, comparative and cosmopolitan basis.
5

tion is to discuss "the

arts

and

philosophies, religions,

moralities,,

economic
developments, measures for the control of poverty, health,
and educational organisations... etc. of the four quarters.
59
activities of Swami Vivekananda
The
of the globe.
crafts, sciences, literatures,

industries,

(1862-1902) in America and other countries outside India

has attracted men and women from all over the world to
ct
the Indian centre on the basis of the formula that
every
faith is a path to God/' The attitude of the Movement
towards Islam has been summed by Mr. Sarkarf in the
following words:
"Diversity of faiths and races is to be accepted as a
But the
postulate in all large -sized social groups.
Movement calls upon the
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda
Hindus to be serious enough in the matter of practising
the teachings of Ramakrishna by opening their souls to
The Hindus
the principles of Islam and other faiths.
ought by all means to cultivate the study of Muslim ideas
first

and
is

institutions

not less

Hindu

and

to

recognise that at the bottom, Islam

in spirit than

Hinduism

itself."

SOCIAL SERVICE EXPERIMENTS

Side by side with the development of the amenities

and trappings of outer civilization, a good many changes
are taking place in social habits and modes of thought*
and a good many social service experiments are being;
When men,,
tried through public and private agencies.
women and children of all classes and creeds travel
through fast electric trains, such as run in the suburban
services of

Bombay, or

in the long distance electric trains

between Bombay and Poona, a certain amount of social

*See "The Remaking of Religion from Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda" by Benoy Kumar Sarkar,
Review, March, 1937, pp. 291-298.
.

pp. 297-98.

toin the Calcutta

DOMINATING INTEREST OF POLITICS

317

generated which runs through the deeper chanIn Hinduism caste is not dead, but is insenThe younger generation of modern
decaying.
sibly
The
Parsis sees life almost through European spectacles.
Maulvi type of Muslims exercises less and less influence
on the Muslim mind and Muslim modes of life. Social
Service and Welfare Campaigns are very much to the fore.
The Piparia Experiment (in the Central Provinces) has
Its comprehensive
-attracted a good deal of attention.
scope is indicated by such items as the impovement of
agriculture, the consolidation of fragmentary holdings,
the reorganisation of cooperative societies, the promotion
of adult schools, rural libraries, scout troops, the digging
of refuse pits in villages, the provision of bored-hole
latrines, the encouragement of vaccination and better
housing*. The solution of the question of chronic indebtedness, and the problems of the pressure of population and

ferment

nels of

is

life.

food planning are also receiving attentiontIMMENSE PROBLEMS BEFORE CULTUIL\L INDIA
The rapid survey which we have taken of cultural
problems has shown what immense possibilities lie before
In some respects these possibilities are not recogIndia.
Some are content with an
nised by our own people.
easy-going belief that education will solve many of our
But education has aggravated many of our
difficulties.
Others sound a pessimistic note and would
difficulties.
cut up India into sections, giving up the hope of cultural
miity as impossible of achievement. Dr. Tagore in his
Convocation Addressi to the students of the Calcutta
University on February 17th, 1937, said:
*4

We

on the shore of this terribly

It has not been given to us directly
turbulent sea of Time.
to take our share in piloting the world through its
But the drag of the maelstrom is upon us
bufferings.
from without and within; also the advancing waves of
<&aos are beating right and left. Well-nigh insoluble
another,
problems rise to confront our country one after
in

India

are

*Sir Edward Blunt: Social Service

in India, p. 392.

tRadhakamal Mukerjee: Food Planning for Four Hundred

t Calcutta Rewew, March 1937, p. 280.

Millions*

318

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

are taking menacing

separatism and dissension
source of our well-being. The
the
very
shape, polluting
but if not
solution of these problems may not be easy,
9*
into
the
lower
abyss.
found, we shall descend lower and
The right attitude is, not to expect too much and not ta
but to work steadily for the conditions in which

Communal

despair,
alone progress

is

possible.

APPENDIX
PARTICULARS ABOUT BOOKS REFERRED TO
General
Mill and Wilson: History of British India, 9 vols., London, 1848..
J. C. Marshman's History of British India; 2 vols M Serampore, 1868*.

H. G. Rawlinson:

Concise History of the

Indian

People^

Oxford, 1938.

The Marquis Curzon of Kedleston:

2
Sir

British Government in India*

London, 1925.
W. Hunter: The Indian Empire, London, 1893.

vols.,

Wm.

A. Yusuf AH: The Making of India, London, 1925.

Sir

Verney Lovett:

Ramsay Muir:

India, (Nations of

Today

The Making of

Series),

British

London 1923.

India,

1756-1858;

Manchester, 1915.

Jadunath Sarkar: India through the Ages, Calcutta, 1928.

Pramatha Nath Basu: History of Hindu Civilisation during British
Rule, 4 vols.; Calcutta, 1914-15.

A. B. Keith : Speeches and Documents on Indian Policy, 2

vols.

Oxford, 1922.

James Burgess: The Chronology of Modern India, 1494-1894;

Edinburgh, 1913.
T.

W.

Beale: Oriental Biographical Dictionary, revised by H. G*.

Keene; London, 1894.

Edward Balfour: Cyclopaedia of

India, Madras, 1857.

India Office Records, Home, Miscellaneous, London

to correspondence revealing contemporary feeling
about educational and other reforms, about the end of the 18th
century and the beginning of the 19th century ; 1 have frequently
with its help consulted manuscript records in the India Office).
NizSmi BadayHni:
Qamus ul Mashshlr (Urdu); 2 vols.;
Budaun, 1924-26.

S. C. Hill

1927 (A guide

Imperial Gazetteer of India, 26 vols.; Oxford, 1908-9.

C. E. Buckland: Dictionary of Indian Biography, London, 1906.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed.; 24 vols., London, 1929.

The Calcutta Review, passim,

Garcin de Tassy ; Histoire de la LitteVature Hindoue
tanie;

2nd Ed.; 3

vols.; Paris, 1870-71.

Journals of the Royal Asiatic Society.

et

Hindous-

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

320

Annual Registers, London, passim.

Indian Year Book, Times of India, Bombay.
Current and Contemporary Newspapers.

The Annual Moral and Material Progress Reports, coming down

to "India in 1929-30."

The Quinquennial Reviews

of

Education,

down

to

the tenth

Quinquennial Review, 1927-32.

CHAPTER

Ramsay Muir: Making of British India, Manchester 1915 (See

Warren Hastings, Review of his Administration).
William Bolts: Considerations on Indian

Affairs,

London, 1772.

Memoirs of William Hickey, edited by Alfred Spencer, 4

vols.:

London, 1913-1925.
Travels of Mirza Abu Talib Khan, 1799-1803. Translated by
C. Stewart. 2 vols.; London, 1810.
.Zikr-i-Mir, edited by Maulvi Abdul Haq. Aurangabad, 1928.
(Mir's Autobiography in Persian, with Maulvi Abdul Haq's
Introduction in Urdu. Maulvi Abdul Haq has given good
reasons for believing that the date of Mir's birth was 1137H.
= 1724-5 C.) and not the earlier dates conjectured by previous
(
writers. He also clears up other dates).
Remains of the Rev. C. F. Schwartz, Letters and Journals, with
sketch of his life. 2nd Ed.
London, 1826.
Fra Paolino Bartolomeo: Voyage to the East Indies (1776-89).
English Translation, London, 1799.
Luke Scrafton: Reflections on the Government etc. of Indostan
and English Affairs to 1758. London, 1763.
|

Sir William Foster: Zoffany in India, 1783-9; Journal of the

Royal Society of Arts, London, May 15, 1931.
Mrs. Eliza Fay: Original Letters from India, 1779-1815. Edited
by E. M. Forster, London, 1925.
S.

C. Hill Bengal in 1756-7, 3 vols., London 1905. (The episode

about Mirza Omar Beg will be found in I. 183 and note).
:

by Saiyid Ghulam Husain Khan, translated into

English by Monsieur Raymond in 1789 reprinted in Calcutta,
1902.

Seir Mutaakherin,

Kulliyat
(

Sauda (Urdu) Mustafa! Press, Delhi, A. H. 1272

= 18S6C)

Inlikhab

Kalam

Mir, (Urdu), edited

by Maulvi Abdul Haq;

Aligarh, 1921.

Sir H. M. Elliott and J, Dowson: History of India as told by

own Historians. Vol. VIII, London, 1877,

its

PARTICULARS ABOUT BOOKS REFERRED TO

323

in India, Engravings from Drawings by Win. Daniell, R. A., and Descriptive Account by the Rev.
Hobart Gaunter. London 1834-38. Later volumes of the Oriental
Annual, 1839-1840 are from other hands: (Letter-press by

The Oriental Annual, or Scenes

Thomas Bacon and engravings by W. and

Wm.

E. Finden),

Tennant: Indian Recreations; 2 vols,; Edinburgh, 1803.

CHAPTER IV
James Forbes: Oriental Memoirs, 2

The Asiatic Register; 12

Sir

Wm.

vols.,

vols. 3

London, 1834.

London, 1800-1801.

Jones, Works, 6 vols., London, 1899.

and Effects of Vaccination, an article in the Edinburgh

Review, April 1899, pp. 341-46. See also J. F. Royle: Antiquity
of Hindu Medicine; London, 1837, p. 67.

History

T. A. Wise:

Hindu System

of Medicine: Calcutta, 1845, pp. 238-39.

George Nicholls: Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Benares

Pathshalla (sic), or Sanskrit College, now forming the Sanskrit
Department of the Benares College ; written in 1848 ; printed by
the Government Press, Allahabad, 1907.
Siyar

ul

Musannifin,

(Urdu), by

Muhammad Yahya Tanha;

vol. 1, Delhi, 1924.

Guldasta i Adab, (Urdu), by Pandit Manohar Lai Zutshi, Allahabad, no date.

Saiyid Abdul Latif : Influence of English Literature on
Literature ; .London, 1924.

Urdu

A View of the History, Literature and Mythology

William Ward
of the Hindoos ; 3 vols., London, 1822.
A. Yusuf Ali: Three Travellers to India; Lahore, 1926.
:

Thomas Roebuck

Annals of the College of Fort William ; Calcutta,

1819.
Selections from the Calcutta Gazettes, vols., 1784-1823; Calcutta
1864-69 (vols. 1-3 edited by W. S. Seton-Karr, and vols. 4-5,
by H. D. Sandeman; in the Preface to voL V, a sixth volume is
promised, but I have not seen it, nor is there a copy in the British
Museum. I have been able to see the original numbers of the

Calcutta Gazettes, 1784-87, in the British

Calcutta Review, vol. xiii, Calcutta,

Museum

Library).

1850 (January to June).

The Despatches, Minutes and Correspondence of the Marquess of Wellesley during his administration
in India; vol. II; London, 1836.

Montgomery Martin:

Khyalistan: an Urdu literary monthly of Lahore: Article oa early

Persian Newspapers in the Journal for April 1930.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

324

Hindi Literature: Heritage of India Series; Calcutta

F. E. Keay:

1920.
Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan in Asia, Africa and
Europe;
written by himself in Persian, and'translated by Charles
Stewart;
2 vols; London, 1810.

MakhmUr Akbarsbadi (Syed Mhd. Mahmud Razawi) Ruh

(Urdu)
Prof.

Nazlr,

Agra, 1922.

Muhammad Abdul Gafur

Shahbaz: Kulliyat i NazlrLucknow, 1901.

J. C. Marshman: Life and Times of Carey, Marshman and Ward;
2 vols., London, 1859.
G. R. Gleig: Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings; 3 vols.,
London, 1841.

(Urdu)

James Fergusson: History of Indian and Eastern Architecture;

revised by J. Burgess and R. P. Spiers. 2 vols., London, 1910.

(Lucknow Architecture

is

described in

II.

324-26).

Hindoostanee Intelligencer and Oriental Anthology; Calcutta,

printed by Thomas Hollingberry, Hircarrah Press, 1801.

Kumar De : History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth

Century, 1800-25; Calcutta, 1919.

Sushil

Ram Babu

Saksena: History of Urdu Literature, Allahabad, 1925.

Urdu Translation, Lucknow, 1929.

An Account

of the Progress of the Danish Protestant

to Tranquebar; Part

II,

Missionaries

London, 1710.

Letters relating to the Protestant Danish Mission at Tranquebar;

London, 1720.

CHAPTER V
Adam: Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar,
submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838, edited, with
a review to date, by the Rev. J. Long; Calcutta, 1868.

"W.

C. E. Trevelyan, of the Bengal Civil Service:

People of India, London, 1938.

Education of the

Bishop Reginald Heber: Journey through the Upper Provinces of

India, 1824-25, 3 vols. London, 1828.
Sir G. 0. Trevelyan Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay ; 2 vols.,
:

London, 1908.
Sir Richard Temple: James Thomson; Oxford, 1893.
S. C. Dutt: Historical Studies, 2 vols., London 1879 (See especially
chapter X in the 2nd vol., on The Progress of Education).

Edward Thornton Gazetteer of the Territories under the Govern-!

ment of the East India Company; 4 vols., London, 1854,
:

PARTICULARS ABOUT BOOKS REFERRED TO

325

William W. Hunter: The Marquess of Dalhousie (Rulers of

India); Oxford, 1890.

Sir

Chand Mittra:
Calcutta, 1877.

Peary
J.

Biographical

Sketch

David

of

Hare*

G. A. Baird: Private Letters of the Marquess of Dalhousie:

Edinburgh, 1911.

George jNicholls: Rise and Progress of the Benares Pathshaila*

Allahabad, 1807,
Calcutta Review, vol. siii; Calcutta, 1850.

CHAPTER VI
R. F. Gould History of the Freemasonry 6 vols. ; London, 1884-87.
:

Sophia Dobson Collet: Life and Letters of Raja

ed.

by

Hem Chandra Sarkar;

Rammohun Roy;

Calcutta, 1913.

Eaja Rammohun Roy: English Works; Allahabad 1906.

Raja Rammohun Roy: English Works: edited by Jogendra
Chunder Ghose, 3 vols.; Calcutta, 1901.
Dwijadas Datta:

Brahmo

Soxnaj

Behold the Man, or Keshub and the Sadharan

Camilla (Bengal) 1930.

Home Miscellaneous, vol. 708 (for

Rammohun Roy's Mission to London on

India Office Records, London,

papers about Raja

behalf of the Mughal Emperor).

M. T. Houtsma & Co.: Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. II, pp. 752-54
(A. Yusuf Ali's article on Karamat All and the significance of
his

movement).

Maulana Shibll Nu'mani

now

Muwazana Anis o Dablr (Urdu) Luck;

1921.

Marasi Anis, edited by Saiyid All Haidar Tabatabai, 2 vols.;

Budafin, 1924. Urdu. (The text in this edition is more carefully
edited than in ordinary bazaar editions).

Mir Mahdi Hasan Ahsan: Wsqi'st

Anis (Urdu)

Lucknow (no

date).

Freemasons.
orrespondence with the Grand Lodge of English
Maulana Shah 'Abdul Qadir Dehlavi: Urdu Interlinear Transmovelation, with Urdu Commentary to the Quran; printed with

Ahmadi

able type.

Ram Babu

Saksena

Press, Calcutta, 1829.

History of

Urdu

Literature ; Allahabad, 1925.

A. Yusuf Ali Modern Hindustani Drama, in Transactions of the

Royal Society of Literature, second series, voL XXXV, pp. 79-99,
London, 3 917.
Maharshi Devendranath Tagore's Autobiography, translated from
into English, by Satyendranath Tagore and Indira Devi;
:

Bengali

London, 1914.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

326

Nicol Macnicol:

Making

Bishop Reginald Heber:

of

Modern India; Oxford, 1924.

Journey through the Upper Provinces of

India, 3rd ed., 3 vols.; London, 1828.

Calcutta Review, vol. II (No. 3, October 1844), pp. 266-77.

Histoire de la Literature Hindouie et HindouGarcin de Tassy
stanie, 3 vols., 2nd ed.; Paris, 1870-71.
:

CHAPTER
Sir Saiyid

VII

Ahmed Khan: As5r-us-Sanadid, 2nd

ed.; Delhi, 1854.

James Pegg: India's Cries to British Humanity; London, 1832.

William Adam: Law and Custom of Slavery in British India;
London, 1840.
F. Andrews: Zakaullah of Delhi; Cambridge, 1929.
.

Saunders' Monthly Magazine for All India; Delhi, 1854.

Zutshi: Guldasta i Adab (Urdu) ; Allahabad, no date.
Alexander Duff: India and Indian Missions; Edinburgh, 1839.

Manohar Lai

Walter Hamilton: Description of Hindostan, 2 vols.; London, 1820.

Edward Thornton: Gazetteer of the Territories under the Government of the East India Company, 4 vols.; London, 1854.
Manmanath Ghosh: Selections from the Writings of Grish Chunder
Ghose; Calcutta, 1912.

Munshi Mohan Lai:

Journal of a Tour through the Punjab,

Afghanistan, Turkistan, Khorasan, and Part of Persia; Calcutta,
1834.

M. Grindlay: Present State of the Question of Steam

Communication with India; London, 1837.
G. A. Prinsep: Account of the Steam Vessels and of Proceedings
connected with Steam Navigation in British India Calcutta 1830.
J. G. A. Baird: Private Letters of the Marquess of Dalhousie;
Capt.

Edinburgh, 1911.
Bishop Reginald Heber: Journey through the Upper Provinces
of India, 1824-25 ; 3 vols., London, 1828.

A. T. Ritchie and R. Evans: Lord Amheret (Rulers of India Series),

Oxford, 1894.
Emily Eden: Letters from India, edited by her niece, 2 vols.;
London, 1872.
James Forbes: Oriental Memoirs; 2 vols.; London, 1834.

D.

C. Boulger: Lord William Bentinck (Rulers of India Series);

Oxford, 1892.

Rajah Rammohun Roy: Exposition of the Practical Operation of

the Judicial and Revenue Systems of India, and of the General
Character and Condition of its Inhabitants, as submitted in
evidence to the authorities in England; London, 1832.

PARTICULARS ABOUT BOOKS REFERRED TO

327

Dr. William Twining: Diseases of Bengal; Calcutta, 1832.

W.T.Thornton:

Indian Public Works and Cognate Subjects;

London, 1875.

CHAPTER

VIII

C. T. Metcalfe: Two Native Narratives of the Mutiny in Delhi;

London, 1898.
Sir Saiyid

Ahmed Khan:

edition, Agra,
9)

Risala Asbab

Baghawat

Hind; 2nd

1903 (Urdu).

English Translation, by Sir Auckland Colvin and Gen.

F.

Graham; Benares, 1873.

Treaty of 1805 with the Mughal Emperor, in India Office Records, Home Miscellaneous, vol. 708, pp. 609-15.
Sir John Kaye and Col. G. B. Malleson: History of the Indian
Mutiny, 6 vols.; London, 1888.
T. R. E. Holmes: History of the Indian Mutiny;

Altaf Husain Hali: Hayat

London, 1913.

Jawed; Agra 1903 (Life of Sir Saiyid

Ahmed Khan in Urdu).

The Indian Punch Meerut, 1859.
Edward Thompson: The Other Side of the Medal; London, 1925.
Colonel Hugh Pearse: Memoir of the Life and Military Services
:

of Viscount Lake; Edinburgh, 1908.

F.

W. Buckler: Political Theory of the Indian Mutiny: Royal

Historical Society's Transactions, 4th Series, vol. 5; London, 1922.
D. Dewar and H. L. Garrett: Reply to Mr. Buckler; idem, vol. 7,
London, 1924,

Graham: Life and Work of Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan;

I.
London, 1909.
Ahmad Husain Khan (Translator, Divisional Court. Lahore):
HaySt i Zauq; (Urdu) ; Lahore, 1895.
Altai Husain Hsli: Ysdgar i Ghalib (Life and Works of Ghalib),
Urdu; 2nd edition, Agra, no date.
Mirza Asadullah Ghslib: Kulliyat, (Urdu and Persian) ; Lucknow
1868, (for Dastanbu, among his Persian Works).

G, F.

List, Imperial Record Department,

Correspondence, Reports of Spies, etc.; Calcutta, 192L
Copy of the Evidence taken before the Court appointed for the
Trial of the King of Delhi, India Office, London, 24th March
1859.
(Accounts and Papers, East India, Parliamentary Series No. 162).

Mutiny Papers, 1857, Press

A Postscript to the Records of the

Indian Mutiny: an attempt to trace the subsequent careers and
fate of the rebel regiments, 1857-58; London, 1927.

Lieut.-Col. G. H. D. Gimlette:

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

328

Kazib: Matam i Shah Zafar Dehli:

Madras, 1908.
J.

Matba

'Usmani; (Urdu)

G. A. Baird: Private Letters of the Marquess of DalhousieEdinburgh, 1911.

CHAPTER IX
Dwijadas Datta: Behold the Man, or Keshub and the Sadharan
Brahmo Somaj Comilla (Calcutta), 1930.
Maharshi Devendranath Tagore's Autobiography, translated from
Bengali into English by Satyendranath Tagore and Indira Devi;
London, 1914.
Laj pat Rai: The Arya Samaj, an account of its origin, doctrines
and activities; with a biographical sketch of the founder;
London, 1915.
Altaf Husain Hali; Hayat i Jawed (Life of Sir Saiyid Ahmed
;

Khan); Urdu; Cawnpore, 1901.

i Ahmadlya; type-printed; Aligarh

Tasanlf

Institute Press. (The

two volumes are miscellaneous religious works, printed in
1883 and 1887 respectively. The next six volumes are the text
of the Quran, with Urdu translation on the opposite page, and a
running Urdu commentary at the foot of the pages; dates from
1880 to 1895. Incomplete, the last volume goes as far as S^ra
Bani Israil).

first

Manmanath Ghosh

Selections from the writings of Grish Chunder

Ghose; Calcutta, 1912.
Report of the Indian Education Commission; Calcutta 1883.
:

Muhammad Yahya Tanha:

Siyar ul Musannifln, (Urdu), vol.

II,

Delhi, 1928.
Sir Rabindranath Tagore:

P. C.

My Reminiscences,

London, 1917.

Mozoomdar: Faith and Progress of the Brahmo Somaj;

Calcutta, 1882.
P. C.

Mozoomdar: Life and Teachings

of

Keshub Chunder Sen;

Calcutta, 1887.
G. A. Natesau:

Swami Dayanand Saraswati,

his life

and teaching;

Madras, N. D. (1912).

Swami Dayanand Saraswati

English, with Life
Lahore, 1908.

of

the

Satyarth Prakash, translated into

Swami, by Master Durga Prasad;

translated by Dr. Chiranjiva Bharadwaja; Lahore, 1906.

Keshub Chunder Sen: Lectures in India; 2 vols., London, 1901
and 1904.
:

Keshub Chunder Sen: Brahmo Somaj, The New Dispensation;

2 vols., Calcutta, 1915-16.

PARTICULARS ABOUT BOOKS REFERRED TO

P. Guha-TIiakurta: Tlie Bengali Drama,
ment; London, 1930.

its

origin

and develop-

Romesh Chunder Dull: The Literature of Bengal; Calcutta,

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee: Abbey of Bliss (AnandaMath)
lated into English by Nares

Bankim Chandra
English by M.

329

1895.
;

trans-

Chandra Sen-Gupta; Calcutta, N. D.

Chatterjee: Krishna Kanta's Will, translated into

Knight; Introduction, glossary and notes by
F. Blumhardt; London, 1895.

J.

S.

Dlwan, annotated (Urdu), 3rd edition: Introduction by

Saiyid Fazi-ul Hasan Hasrat Mohani; Aligarh, 1911.
Ghalib's Dlwan, annotated, (Urdu), 3rd edition; Introduction by*
Dr. Saiyid Mahmud Gliazipuri; Budaun, 1922.

Ghalib's

Ghalib: Urdu

Mu'alla (Letters of Ghalib)

Altaf Husain Hsli:

Yadgar

Urdu; Delhi, 1891.

Ghalib (Urdu)

Aligarh, N. D.

Andrews: Zakaullah. of Delhi; Cambridge, 1929.

C- F.

Mirza Farhatullah Beg: Doctor Nazlr Ahmad ki Kaha~ni; in the

Journal ''Urdu" for July 1927, Aurangabad.
Toru Dutt: Ancient Ballads and~-Legends of Hindustan; London,
1882.

Toru Dutt: Le Journal de Mademoiselle c'Arvers;

Paris,

1879

(French).

Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar: Fasana

Lucknow, 1898.
Muhammad Husain Azad: Ab

AzSd: Urdu: 4

parts; 5tk

edition,

Darbar

Nairang

Klnvaja

Altaf

Hayat: Urdu; Lahore, 1917.

Akbarl ; Urdu ; Lahore, 1921.

i

Khayal; Urdu; Lahore, 1913.

Husain Hali: Musaddas, Madd ojazri Islam;

Urdu; Agra, 1916.

Bharatendu Harish Chandra of Benares: Jhvan Charitra, by
Radha Krishna Das; Hindi; Benares, 1903.
Prasiddh MahatmSo'n Ka Jhvan Charitra; Hindi; 2 Parts;
:

Bankipore, 1885.
Quran Sharif aur Darshan Quran Chakra; Hindi; Bankipore,
1897.
Hayat i Hafiz Nazlr Ahmad: Hayat, by Iftikhar Ahmad Bilgrami;
:

"Urdu;

Delhi, 1912.

CHAPTER X
Manmanath Ghosh:

Selections

from the writings of Grisa Chandra

Ghose; Calcutta, 1912.

Manmanath Ghose: Life of Grish Chandra Ghose, Calcutta, 1911*

Nagendra Nath Ghose: Kristo Das

Pal, a Study; Calcutta, 1887.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

330

F. H. Sfcrine:

An

Indian Journalist, Dr.

Sambhu

C.

Calcutta, 1895.

MookeriVpJ
'

R. P. Karkaria: Forty Years of Progress and Reform: Life

and
Times of Behramji M. Malbari; London, 1896.
Lucien Wolf: Life of the First Marquess of
Ripon; 2

vols.,

London, 1921.
W. T. Thornton: Indian Public Works and cognate
Subjects;
London, 1875.

W. W. Hunter: The Earl of

Oxford, 1892.

Sir

A Life of

the Earl of

Mayo

Mayo 2

(Rulers of India Series)-

London, 1875.
Commercial Products of India; London, 1908.
L. S. Wood and A. Wilmore: Romance of the Cotton Industry in
England; London, 1927.
Nawab Abdul Latif A Quarter-century of the Mahomedan Literary
Society of Calcutta, a rsum6 of its work from 1863 to 1889;
:

vols.

Sir George Watt:

Calcutta, 1889.

D. R. Gadgil: Industrial Evolution of India in Recent Times

Oxford, 1929.
Lalit

Chandra Mitra: History of Indigo Disturbances;

Calcutta,

1909.

CHAPTER XI
Miss Vera Anstey Economic Development of India; London, 1929.
C. A. Natesan: Indian National Congress, 1885-1908; Madras, N.D.
:

Sir Surendranath Banerjea:

A Nation in the Making;

Oxford, 1925.

Sir Valentine Chirol: Indian Unrest; London, 1910.

Sir Verney Lovett: History of the Indian Nationalist Movement;

London, 1921.

Sir William Wedderburn: Allan Octavian Hume, Father of the

Indian National Congress, 1829-1912; London, 1913.
S. K. Ratcliffe: Sir William Wedderburn and the Indian Reform
Movement; London, 1923.

Swami Vivekananda: Speeches and

Writings, 5th edition; Madras,

1919.

Teachings of Swami Vivekananda, by the Secretary

Ramakrishna Mission Dacca, 1904.

Life and

Life

of

Swami Vivekananda, by

his Disciples, 4 vols.; Mayavati,

Almora, 1912-28.
,

sketch of her life

Sister Nivedita (Miss Margeret Noble) :
her services to India; Madras (Natesan 1912).
Jyotis Chandra
Dacca, 1911.

Das Gupta:

and

National Biography for India;

PARTICULARS ABOUT BOOKS REFERRED TO

Sister Nivedita:

Web

331

of Indian Life; London, 1904.

Sister Nivedita: Cradle Tales of

Hinduism: London, 1907.

Sister Nivedita : Footfalls of Indian History

London* 1915.

Mrs. Annie Besant: Autobiography; London, 1893.

Mrs. Annie Besant: Popular Lectures on Theosophy; Benares,
1910.
J.

N. Farquhar: Modern Religious Movements in India; London,

1929.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad: Barahin

Ahmadiya

(Urdu), 4 Parts;

Amritsar, 1880-84.

Ahmad Kashf ul Ghila (Urdu) Qadiyan, 1898,

H. A. Waiter: The Ahmadiya Movement; Calcutta and Oxford,
1918 (Religious Life of India Series).

Mirza Ghulam

Quinquennial Reports of Education in India: First, 1881-86;

Second, 1887-92; Third, 1892-97; Fourth, 1898-1902; Fifth,
1902-7.

Chunder Pal

Bepin

Indian Nationalism,

its

Principles

and

Personalities; Madras, 1918.

the Reform
Ratcliffe: Sir William Wedderburn and
Movement; London, 1923.
Sir William Wedderburn Allan Octavian Hume, Father of the

S. K.

Indian National Congress; London, 1913.

Ravi Varma, the Indian Artist
G, A. Natesan
:

Madras, 1912.

Maul ana Shibli Nu'mani: Nuwazana Anls o Dabir; Lucknow, 1921.

:

S3

Rasail (Eleven Historical Essays), Urdu; Aligarh, 1898.

Al-Faruq (Life of Hazrat 'Umar), Urdu; Cawnpore, 1899.

'Ajam, 5 Parts, Urdu; Lucknow, 1922.

Maulvi Abdul Halim Sharar: Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's novel
Durgesh Nandini, translated into Urdu Lucknow, 1899.
al-*Az!z aur Varjina, Urdu; Lahore, 1893.
99 : Malik
3)

Shi'r-i

Barrin, Urdu; Lucknow, 1899.

Firdaus

JJ

Flora Florinda, Urdu; Lucknow, 1899.

33

Manser aur Mohana,Urdu; Lahore, 1893.

Saiyid Abdul-Hai: Gul i Ra'na; Azamgarh, 1924.

life of and quotations from Akbar).

Hakim

tion of the

tendencies

Asr, (An appreciathe poetry of Sai} id Akbar Husain

MianTasadduq Husain Khalid: Akbar ka

in

(For

Akbar: in the Urdu Magazine, Khayalistan, Lahore, July and

August 1930.
Earl of Ronaldshay: Life of Lord Curzon, 3 vols.; London, 1928.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

332

Failure of Lord
London, 1903.

Curzon, by

"Twenty-eight

years

in

India"*'

Public Meeting on the 10th March 1905, a ProLord Curzon's last Convocation Address and General

Proceedings of a
test against

Administration; Calcutta, 1905.

CHAPTER

XII

Lord Morley: Speeches on Indian Affairs; 2nded.; Madras,

Viscount Morley of Blackburn: Recolletions; 2 vols. London,
Earl of Minlo (4th): Speeches; Calcutta, 1911.
;

1917.

1917.

John Buchan: Lord Minto, a Memoir; London, 1924.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale: Speeches, 3rd ed.; Madras, 1920.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak: his writings and speeches; with an appreciation, by Arabindo Ghose; 3rd eel.; Madras, 1922.

Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms ( Montagu-Chelmsf ord

Reforms) Blue-book Cd. 9109, London, 1918.
Earl of Ronaldshay: The Heart of Aryavart, a study of the
Psychology of Indian Unrest London, 1925.
;

C.

Andrews Mahatma Gandhi's

from his writings; London, 1929.
F.

C. F.

Andrews

Ideas, including selections

Mahatma Gandhi's Own Story London,

;

1930.

Development of

Non-Cooperation as upheld by the Indian

National Congrees, 1920-22 Machilipatnam, 1923.
Mrs. Annie Besant Gandhian Non-Cooperation Madras, 1920.
;

Satyanand Agnihotri: Mr. Gandhi in the Light of Truth; Lahore,

1922.

Ray Life and Times of C. R. Das, Oxford, 1927.

The British Crown and the Indian States, an outline sketch drawn
up on behalf of the Standing Committee of the Chamber of

Prithwis Chandra

Princes, by the Directorate of the Chamber's special organisation;

London, 1929.

Report of the Indian Taxation Enquiry

Madras, 1926.

Committee; 3

vols.;

Economic Development of India London, 1929

Indian Industry, Yesterday, Today and
Miss M. Cecile Matheson
1930.
Tomorrow; Oxford,

Miss Vera Anstey

D. R. Gadgil: Industrial Evolution of India; Oxford, 1929.

The Report

of

Sir

Thomas Holland's

Industrial

Commission;

London, 1918.

Report of the Royal Commission on Indian Labour; London, 1931

iBlue-book Cmd. 3883).

PARTICULARS ABOUT BOOKS REFERRED TO

333

A. R. Caton The Key of Progress, a Survey of the Status and

Conditions of Women in India: Oxford, 1930.
:

Women in Modern

India,

by Indian women writers; Bombay, 1930.

F. R. Harris Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, a Chronicle of his Life

Oxford, 1925.
:

William Archer

India and the Future, London, 1917.

A. Mayhew: The Education of India, a study of British Educational Policy in India, 1835-1920, and its bearing on national
life and problems in India today; London, 1926.
Interim Report of (^ir Philip Hartog's) Auxiliary Committee on
the Growth of Education; Indian Statutory Commission; London,
September 1929.
Bulletin of the World's Association for Adult Education, No. 47,
London, February 1931; Adult Education in India, by A. Yusuf

AH.
Quinquennial Reviews of Education in India: viz. Sixth, 1907-12,
by Sir H. Sharp, Calcutta 1914: Seventh, 1912-17, by Sir H.
Sharp, Calcutta 1918; Eighth, 1917-22, by J. A. Richey, Calcutta
1923: Nineth, 1922-27, by R. Littlehailes, Calcutta 1929; Tenth,
1927-32, by Sir George Anderson, New Delhi, 1934.
Education in India: the New Outlook, by A. Yusuf All; Nineteenth
Century and After; London, EJecember 1928.
J. H. Cousins: Notes and Historical Introduction to Jagan Mohan
Chitra-shala, Mysore, (Gallery of Indian Paintings founded in
1924) ; Mysore, 1927.

V. A. Smith: History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon; 2nd edition,

by K. de B. Codrington; Oxford, 1930.
E. B. Havell: Indian Sculpture and Painting, 2nd edition;
London, 1928.
H. Cousins: Asit Kumar Haldar, notes by 0. C. Gangoly;

J."

Calcutta, 1923.

E B

Havell

"vol. 44, p.

New School of Indian Painting; The Studio, London,

107 (1908).

M. H. Spielmann: An Indian Portrait Painter, S. Rahamin Samuel ;

The Studio, London, vol. 52, pp. 302-6. (1911).
Architectural Review, London, January 1931. (for an account of
New Delhi).

Muraqqa-i-Chughtai: 50 paintings of M. A. Rahman Ch ugh tai;

Introduction by Dr. J. H. Cousins ; Foreword by Sir Muhammad
Iqbal ; Lahore, 1928.
E.

J.

Thompson: Rabindranath Tagore, his Life and Work;

London, 1928.

334 ~ 6

CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA

Rabindranath Tagore: Gitanjali, London, 1913.

Fruit-Gathering, London, 1916.
Personality, London, 1917.

Creative Unity, London, 1922.

My

Reminiscences, London, 1917.

Religion of Man, London, 1930.

Religion of Rabindranath Tagore; in the Transactions of the

Royal Society of Literature, London, Essays by Divers Hands,
vol. IX, 1930.
P. Guha-Thakurta

The Bengali Drama; London, 1930.

Kumud Nath Das:

History

of

Bengali Literature; Naogaon,

Rajshahi, 1926.
Sir

Muhammad

2nd

ed., Sept.

Iqbal:
Bang-i-dira.
1926, Lahore.

(Majmiia Kala~m Urdu),

Nur Ilahi and Mhd. Umar: Natak Sagar (an Urdu

Drama) Lahore, 1924.

history of

CHAPTER

XIII

Information on the latest phases has not yet been enshrined in

books. Current Periodical Literature should be consulted.
Among them the following may be useful.
The New India, published by Tht&Times, London 1937 (Reprint
from The Times (London) India number, 23rd March 1937).

The Indian Year Book 1938-39, and for previous

annually by The Times of India, Bombay.
India

in....(a series of

available, India
discontinued).

in

years,

published

annual reports published in Delhi; latest

1934-35. The Series seems to have been
*

The Calcutta Review, now published by the Calcutta University.

The monthly Indian Review, published by Natesan and Co. y
Madras, devotes attention to cultural as well as political matters
relating to all India.
Industrial Labour in India: International
1938.

Labour

Office,

Ganeva,

Sir Edward Blunt: Social Service in India; London 1938.

Radhakamal Mukerjee Food Planning for Four Hundred Millions;
:

London, 1938.