Part 21 (1/2)
There are many places in India to which I should like to give a paragraph. I should like to write much of Delhi and its palaces in which the Great Moguls once lived in a splendor worthy of the monarchs in the Arabian Nights--no wonder the stately Diwan-i-Khas, or Hall of Public Audience, bears the famous inscription in Persian:
”If there be Paradise on earth.
It is this, oh, it is this, oh, it is this!”
In the ruins of seven dead and deserted Delhis round about the present city and the monuments and memorials which commemorate ”the old far-off unhappy things” of conquered dynasties and romantic epochs, there is also material for many a volume.
Then there is Cawnpore with its tragic and sickening memories of the English women and children (with the handful of men) who were butchered in cold blood by the treacherous Nana Dhundu Pant; and I was greatly interested in meeting in Muttra one of the few living men, a Christianized Brahmin, who as a small boy witnessed that terrible ma.s.sacre which for cruelty and heartlessness is almost without a parallel in modern history.
In Agra is the Pearl Mosque, which is itself an architectural triumph splendid enough to make the city famous if the Taj had not already made it so; the Great Temple in Madura is one of the most impressive of the strictly Hindu structures in India; in Madras I found a curious reminder of early missionary activity in the shape of a cathedral which is supposed to shelter the remains of the Apostle Thomas; and the ruins of the once proud and imperial but now utterly deserted cities of Amber and Fatehpuhr-Sikri have a strange and melancholy interest. But all these have been often enough described, and there are things of greater pith and moment in present-day India to which we can better give attention.
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One thing concerning India, which should perhaps have been said in the beginning, but which has not had attention until now, is the fact that it is no more a h.o.m.ogeneous country than Europe is--has perhaps, indeed, a greater variety of languages, peoples, and racial and traditional differences than the European continent. I have already called attention to the fact that there are 2378 castes. There are also 40 distinct nationalities or races and 180 languages. For an utterly alien race to govern peacefully such a heterogeneous conglomeration of peoples, representing all told nearly one fifth of the population of the whole earth, is naturally one of the most difficult administrative feats in history, and Mr. Roosevelt probably did not give the English too high praise when he declared: ”In India we encounter the most colossal example history affords of the successful administration by men of European blood of a thickly populated region in another continent. It is the greatest feat of the kind that has been performed since the break-up of the Roman Empire.
Indeed, it is a greater feat than was performed under the Roman Empire.”
I was interested to find that the American-born residents of India give, if anything, even higher praise to British rule than the British themselves. ”I regard the English official in India,” one distinguished American in southern India went so far as to say to me, ”as the very highest type of administrative official in the world.
More than this, 90 per cent. of the common people would prefer to trust the justice of the British to that of the Brahmins.” In Delhi an American missionary expressed the opinion that the American Government, if in control of India, would not be half so lenient with the breeders of sedition and anarchy as is the British Government.
It should be said, however, that there are now fewer of these malcontents, and these few are less influential than at any time for some years past. In Madras I was very glad to get an interview with Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer, one of the most distinguished of the Hindu leaders.
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[Ill.u.s.tration: BATHING IN THE SACRED GANGES AT BENARES.]
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[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BATTLE-SCARRED AND WORLD-FAMOUS RESIDENCY AT LUCKNOW.]
The writer was shown through the historic fortress by William Ireland, one of the few living survivors of the great siege. In Muttra the writer also met Isa Doss, a Hindu (now a Christian preacher) who saw the ma.s.sacre of the English women and children by the treacherous Nana Dhundu Pant.
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”Lord Morley's reforms,” he declared, ”have been so extensive and have satisfied such a large proportion of our people that the extremists no longer have any considerable following. We no longer feel that it is England's intention to keep us in the condition of hopeless helots.
The highest organization for the government of the country is the British Secretary of State and his council; Lord Morley placed two Indians there. In India the supreme governmental organization is the Governor-General and his council; he put an Indian there. In three large provinces--Bombay, Madras, and Bengal--Indians have been added to the executive councils.”
”For the first time, too, our people are really an influential factor in the provincial and imperial legislative councils. We have had representation in these councils, it is true, for fifty years; but it was not until 1892 that representation became considerable, and even then the right of the people to name members was not recognized.
So-called const.i.tuencies were given authority to make nominations, but the government retained the right to reject or confirm these at pleasure.”
”Now, however, through Lord Morley's and Lord Minto's reforms, the number of Indians on these councils has been more than doubled--in the case of the Imperial Council actually trebled--and the absolute right given the people to elect a large proportion, averaging about 40 per cent. of the total number, without reference to the wishes of the government. In fact, with two fifths of all the members chosen by the people and a considerable number of other members chosen from munic.i.p.al boards, chambers of commerce, universities, etc., we now see the spectacle of Provincial Councils with non-official members in the majority. In Bombay the non-official element is two thirds of the whole; and in Madras also the non-official members could defeat the government if they chose to combine and do so. But of course the greater willingness of the government to cooperate with the people has brought {252} about a greater willingness on the part of the people to cooperate with the government.”
”The appointment of Indians to the highest offices charged with the responsibility of government; the increased representation given the people on the legislative and executive councils; the recognition of the right of the people to elect instead of merely to nominate members; and the surrender of majority-control to the non-official element--all these are very substantial gains, but the spirit back of them is worth more than the reforms themselves. While there is a feeling in some quarters that the government has not gone far enough, the large majority of my educated countrymen regard the advance as sufficient for the present and look forward with hope to a further expansion of our powers and privileges.”
If I may judge by what I gathered from conversation with Hindus, Mohammedans, Pa.r.s.ees, I should say that no one has given a more accurate and clear-cut statement of the feelings of the Indian people than has Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer in these few terse sentences.
”The wealth of the Indies” has been a favorite phrase with romantic writers from time immemorial; and a book now before me speaks in the most matter-of-course way of ”the prosperous and peaceful empire.” Yet the Indian is really one of the poorest men on earth. The wealth with which the Moguls and kings of former ages dazzled the world was wrung from the hard hands of peasants who were governed upon the theory that what the king wanted was his, and what he left was theirs. Even the splendid palaces and magnificent monuments, such as the Taj Mahal, were built largely by forced, unpaid labor. In some cases it is said that the monarch did not even deign to furnish food for the men whom he called away from the support of their families.