IP R O P E R T Y O &

tº 8 1 7 ***.
— ---. _Zºº e sºmeºmºsºmsº
T $ S C I E N T : A E R I, TAC
1) S
4. 19.4
.* ! &
1-2 12++-2 e-
PIR. E. F. A. C. E.
—o:ce—
About the closing period of the Ilbert Bill controversy,
an interesting correspondence on the subject between Raja.
Rajendra Narayana Bahadar, the Very Reverend F ather
E, Lafont and Mr. D. M. Macfarlane M. P. was published
piece-meal and at long intervals in the columns of the
Indian Mirror. The object was to bring about a recon-
ciliation between the contending parties, in view of which
many ancillary topics of abiding interest connected with
the welfare of the country, were discussed, and important
information on the various aspects of Hindu Society, was
supplied by the Raja. $ & -
The Raja had a very difficult and delicate task to dis-
charge. As a patriot he supported the principle and the
necessity of the Bill by coolly arguing out the different
points of the question, alluding to facts unqualifiedly admit-
ted and urging others not generally known, and presenting
the bright side of our national character with an exuberance
of unimpeachable testimony in its proof; as a peace-
maker he struck out the pleasing way of bringing into a
strong focus, the lustre of the exalted virtues and of the
noble achievements of the ruling people, and by that focal
light, he endeavoured to exhibit to the gaze of some of
their exasperated members, the true lineaments of the
bantling (representing the Bill) that it may be hugged to
their c brace consistently with the characterestics of their
towerin national greatness, and not, by ill treatment to
their own discredit, be smothered out of its life; lastly he
'appealed to the generous instincts and feelings, and religious ºf
ideas of Englishmen and Englishwomen to be kind to our
failings and helpful in our advancement. . .
2
This effort of the Raja was highly appreciated at the
time by the different classes of the community generally.
On these grounds as well as from the circumstance of the
Raja's ideas and citations bearing intimately on some im-
portant questions of the day, and especially from the emo-
llient character of his writings so necessary to keep down
the old irritation which some Anglo-Indian journals are
improperly keeping up, and to check the acerbity of feel-
ing, which, even now the discussion of topics involving con-
flicting interests, threatens to evoke – a desire has been
widely expressed to see the whole of the correspondence
reprinted in a collected form, in response to which, this
pamphlet is issued.
It should be mentioned that as the Raja refers to an
agitation similar to the Ilbert Bill controversy, having oc-
curred about thirty years ago, it has been thought desirable
to give in this brochure, an extract from a letter of the
Raja's late father, Raja Sir Radhakant Dev Bahadur K.C.S.I.
read by the late Maharaja Ramanath Tagore C. S. I. at a
public meeting held in the Town Hall, Calcutta, in April
1857, in support of the Bill then before the Legislative
Council of India referring to the extension of the Criminal
Jºrisdiction in Mofussil Courts to all classes of Her
Majesty's Subjects. This extract will show how about
three decades ago, a conservative aged Hindu, distinguished
for his learning and loyalty, and whom the late Sir Lawrence
Peel styled ‘Nature's nobleman,’ entertained the same
thoughts in respect of the Criminal Jurisdiction law, which
occupy the minds of the present generation of the educated.
Natives of India. :
S. T. M.
INTRODUCTION.
The rampancy of certain crimes among the members of
the ruling race (including in some cases even public func-
tionaries whose bounden duty it is to check crimes), a
glimpse of which has been given by a large number of re-
cent criminal trials, even perfunctorily managed as some of
them were—demands a wide dissemination of the views of
the Raja on the subject, leading, among other things, to
the absolute necessity of separating the judicial and execu-
tive functions of the Magistrate.
The sentiments of the Raja on the guiding principles of
British statesmanship and their intimate connection with
the educational policy in India and its material prosperity
which promotes the commercial prospects and wealth of
England in an indirect way, are now generally responded
to, by the thoughtful portion of the Press. His hints about
the evolution of Hindu Society and its present phase, offer
topics for various reflections. It is very interesting to find
how the opinion of the Raja exactly corresponds with the
ideas of observant foreign travellers, notably those of Mr.
Wilfred Blunt, in not regarding comessation and symposium
as essential to cement friendship or promote familiar inter-
course between Hindus and Europeans. -
| Any reader of the correspondence will also see how many
things almost aphoristically alluded to by the Raja, are
being developed in Papers of the present day dealing with
measures for the advancement of our country's good. There
are others again which need further illustration. I would
here call attention to two diametrically opposite points—
spiritual aims and purely worldly ends—the religious convic-
tions and holy aspirations of the Missionary and the Clergy-
|
4
man, and the business thoughts and the cool calculation of
Shillings and Pence, of the thorough trader.
The Raja has very clearly shewn how the policy inaugur-
ated by Lord Ripon, is righteous to its very core, how it is
called for, by the demands of justice, that it may be meted
out alike to the rich and poor and the proud and the lowly;
that it may stay the oppressor's arms and shield the weak
and helpless ; how again the sons of India prefer strong
claims on the Englishman's high sense of national honor
and humanity, specially since they have been under the
immediate guardianship of the British Sovereign, and how
it is the glory of the British Constitution, “impartially to
watch over all its subjects and dependents without regard-
ing the quality of the person or the distance of his abode.”
It is level then to ordinary understanding that Churchmen
and Evangelists should form a sacred throng to uphold this
holy policy, for to do so, would, not only, be a deed of mercy
and charity but a proper safeguard against the practice of
some of their countrymen here, being systematically at
variance with the merciful religion they invite Indians to
embrace.—Has not Bishop Tillotson truly said that “Truth
is most easily discerned in those reasonings and opinions
which tend to practice; because the absurdity and incon-
venience of them is sooner discovered ”f Following this
lesson, Christian teachers should preach themselves hoarse,
whenever instances of Anglo-Indian wickedness are on the
rampage. Self-sacrificing Missionaries dwell in all parts of
the country and even in outlying places in the interior, and
can easily testify to the many occurrences of high handed
ness and oppression by members of the Christian race, some
of which come to light with more or less frequency, but the
more such instances, the greater the difficulty--nay almost the
impossibility of attaining their object, for the hearts of the
people would be completely estranged by feelings of distress,
5
resentment and discontent, and when the Gospel would be
presented to them for their acceptance, they would give the
indignant reply of the Cazique of Hispaniola to the Fran-
ciscan Friar trying to convert him when tied to the stake.
Jf the lower classes of Europeans here, and some speci-
mens unfortunately among the better classes, even in the
public services, display truculent manners and worse con-
duct—if a proud Britannicus bursting in the haughteur of
a conqueror, exhibits himself on stilts and with mocking
taunts, says: No, we will not allow the Riponian policy
to make our “stature less'—and no admonishing voice is
raised from the pulpit, and no lessons of meekness are poured
A forth by the followers of Jesus, well might the Indian,
) when the faith of his European Masters, is proferred to
him, complain that “judging of the tree by its fruits, to him-
self and his whole race, it is full of bitterness"—It is there-
fore hoped that Missionaries and Christians of all sects,
hould impressively show that it is the first duty of Eng-
ishmen to fulfil the sacred obligation of justice to their
ellow Indian subjects, and to recognise their rights which
ome existing institutions violate. In these times the
clergy would do well to stir themselves up with a little puri-
tanical zeal, and to be inspired with the indomitable
º: of a Luther, and the spirit of that noble sermon which
was read to Queen Victoria on the occasion of Her Majesty's
coronation.
I know they, who are enraptured with the epos of
their martial glory and advocate the omnipotence of the
sword in the acquisition as well as in the maintenance of
an empire, angrily and despairingly, protest against the
sacred character of the Christian religion being implicated
in questions of politics or of the internal administration
of the country as unjust and invidious, but “the associa-
tion", as said by an eminent Christian, “is inseparable in






6
the minds of those who impute their misery to our avarice
and ambition. The foreign Sovereigns and foreign Mission-
aries, both coming from the same country, will be equally
objects of distrust and jealousy to a timid people, unless the
practice of Christianity in deeds of mercy and charity
by the one, precede, accompany and exemplify the preach-
ing of the other.”
I shall now turn to the next point—the merchant's in-
terest in the Riponian policy. - - -
In the early days of the East India Company, when the
merchant rulers of India were absorbed in projects for the
advancement of the prospects of their gigantic monopoly,
and no exalted ideas of statesmanship at first actuated /",
their minds, they were impelled, by the beneficent laws of
Providence, to study for their purely selfiish ends, the con- ſ
dition of the people of India, the state of its internal )
Government and the means of increasing their comforts an
the security of the country. They saw that no nation, howev
prosperous, could derive any benefit by trading with
people like the Indians, the great mass of whom was steep.
ed in poverty. They set about therefore to purify th
Courts aud secure justice to the people, and to take step
for the protection of life, liberty and property. How to
improve the condition of the peasantry, how under their
fostering care, a demand was growing for articles of Eng.
lish manufacture, were subjects of feverish anxiety to them,
As despatch after despatch from Bengal, came before the
meetings of the Court of Directors, and it was discovered
from these reports that English house furnitures were seen
in Native houses in Calcutta, and a taste for English goods,
was created, there used to be exultations in these meetings.
On the occasion of the renewal of the Charter of the Com-
pany, in 1813, benevolent philanthropists asked the ques-
tion : By what political, by what commercial institutions, by






7
|l|
what policy, can the British Parliament best provide for the
happiness of the people of India ; and it was suggested in
reply: by equal administration of justice, by moderation in
the rates and collection of the land tax and by freedom of.
trade. Violent as were the debates in Parliament on the
rival claims of monopoly and free trade, the subject of the
distribution of equal justice and the raising of the standard
of judicial tribunals, were urged forward on selfish as well
as on unselfish grounds. From that day to the date of the
assumption of the direct sovereignty of India by Her
Majesty, this policy, among other considerations, had been
specially recognised as of vital importance for the commer-
cial interests of England, and it found its fullest enunciation
on general and higher grounds in the world famed Procla-
imation of Her Majesty.—Now that monopoly, which receiv-
fed a serious blow in 1883, is broken and trade is almost
y
free, and any foreigner can, according to his pleasure, have
his commercial transactions on Indian soil almost unfet-

teied: Is it not the duty of every one of these foreigners for
- º
is own interest, keeping in mind the hot competition of the
times, to doubly wish for the prosperity of India, and for
the realisation of this end to examine, expose, and to
remedy, where he can, existing impediments to progress and
improvement P But not merely ideas of barter and ex-
change, of profit and loss, should sway the commercial world

inºpholding the Riponian policy. There are great English
wórthies in this sphere, who, while they successfully ply
º energies in the acquisition of wealth, are keenly sensi-
tive to the honor and glory of England, and although busy
- mel as they are, they have been made to see through a false
glas, a distorted picture of this policy, the more they will
4 pºlis, they will see that this policy is no other than that

&
of ** honor and glory of England. - -
*qurious and amusing instance of the purely selfish ins-
8
tincts of the English commercial people, leading to an ear-
nest desire on their part to study the condition, manners,
customs, religion and ways of thinking of the Hindus and
to watch with the keenest interest, every sign of the improve-
ment of their material prosperity, became, the other day, a
topic of conversation here. It is no other than Manchester
getting furious at the Astrologers of India who had dis-
covered stars inauspicious for marriages in a certain season,
and embargoed them for the time. Ohme Phosphor keine
Gedanke say the Germans. So said the Manchester lords:
Without Hindu nuptials—no sale of their goods, and much
ire was spent on the Raja of Benares whom they made their
£scape-goat. It would indeed seem strange how an intimate
relationship has been established between the doings of Cot-
tonopolis in England and the mystic theories of the ancient
Hindu Astronomer Varahamihira. I I
Between thc two extreme points of spiritual and material
interests, on which I have dilated in elucidation of the cor-
responding topics in the Raja's letters, there are all sorts
of interests which may be shewn from texts in those epistles
as deeply concerned in upholding the policy in question.
The Raja has also very clearly explained this policy of
Lord Ripon—it is nothing more than what is involvedi n the
memorable question of Lord Grenville—“How best can
the British Parliament provide for the happiness of the
people of India” which, I must add, cannot but result in
augmenting the happiness of the people of the British ises.
The solution of this question within little short of three
scores of years from the date it was asked, is being attempt-
ed step by step though frustrated, checked or retarted, at
times, by untoward events and adverse influences. Lord
Ripon, than whom a more philanthropic, pure-minded, gºod
meaning and self-sacrificing statesman never filled he
Viceroyalty of British India, has, since he set foot on its h
)
9
taken up the series of the solution—he gives himself no rest
until he feels he is taking fresh steps in it. . .
Disraeli has said that “the freedom and the right of meet-
ing are the two safety-valves of a great nation.” The first
valve after having been allowed, for salutary purposes to
remain open in India, from its first institution, the Native
section of it, was, from lack of wisdom, kept, closed by a
despotic fiat during the preceding Viceroyalty : One of
the first beneficent and wise acts of our present Viceroy,
absolutely necessary for the good of the rulers and the ruled,
was to remove the closing bar, that through the useful vent,
may escape the fumes of discontent whenever they may be
engendered in unseen seething cauldrons —and his latest
liberal measures have been distinguished by repulsing dis-
ingenuous attempts, not only to restore the bar, but to pre-
vent the growing structure of the other important valve—
the right of all classses of people to meet in public to discuss
questions of public importance. -
Jn further solution of the momentous question, the Ex-
tension of the Criminal Jurisdiction Bill was reframed ; the
Bengal Tenancy Bill was ushered into being after a long
gestation under previous administrations; the Education Bill
is about to be drafted on the recommendation of a laborious-
ly, investigating Commision ; the question of increasing
the limit of age of candidates for the Civil Service, has re-
ceived support ; the necessity of adopting a standard of
merit by a competitive examination for admission into all
departments of public employment in lieu of blind or capri-
cious patronage or self interest, has been impressed upon
Local Governments and heads of departments; instances of
miscarriage of Justice from diverse causes, with which the
Viceroy could constitutionally interfere, he has tried his best
to rectify and to see the wrong or rickety screws in the Judi-
cial machinery leading to such acts, removed. These are
10
some of the prominent instances of the Riponian policy.
It has been said that as the Physical Sciences are improv-
ing, their connection with each other, becomes so intimate
that no one branch of them, can advance without giving
an impetus to the progress of its sister science. It is so
with the modern science of Government ; no ong depart-
ment of it can be improved without improving the other.
The great measures of our present Viceroy, though some
one or other of them would at first impose additional and
legitimate charges upon the state, would collectively and
in the long run, be a financial success and hence lead to
reduction of taxation which, with the co-ordinate scheme
of easily accessible and cheap justice, forms the elements of
India's prosperity.
- I cannot but remark here that in carrying out improve-
ments in such a vast country like India where the people
are divided and sub-divided into diverse communities and
classes under almost undefinable influences, who have con-
flicting interests and rival claims, and diverging aims and
pursuits, the most beneficent Government, under the most
philanthropic statesmanship, must, as a matter of course,
give umbrage to some one of them at least—and the dif-
ficulty of pleasing all sections, is increased when it is re-
membered that the varied commercial, industrial, trading
and political interests of the Governing country, exercise
no small sway here.
The Criminal Jurisdiction Bill created a ferment in the
Anglo-Indian community specially in Bengal, the question
of the extension of age of the candidates for the civil service,
which is linked to the former and is no other than the re-
moval of a seemingly intentional imposition of a bar to the
carrying out of the Queen's Proclamation, is regarded with
great disfavour by that class and specially by certain mem-
bers of the bureaucracy here, and its supporters in England.
11
The Tenancy Bill has offended mostly the Zemindars of
Bengal, who view in it, an encroachment of their rights
under the Permanent Settlement and other objectionable
features, chief among which are the difficulty of realising
and enhancing rents, and the certainty of being involved in
endless. litigation ; while on the contrary it must be said
that its broad features are akin to the Riponian policy, in
as much as its aim is to give fixed homes and security of
enjoyment of the fruits of labour, to the peasantry of Ben-
gal forming as it has been called, its very back bone, these
being measures which underlie any possible scheme of
national prosperity and which now, in the proverbial
form of three Fs—fixity of tenure, fair rent, and right of
free sale, are demanded by Ireland, and which the British
Parliament struggling against antagonistic interests, feels its
bounden duty to grant.—But the difficulties, in the struggle
strong as they are, sink into insignificance by the side of
those with which the Imperial Legislature of India is con-
fronted in the shape of the Permanent Settlement. The
History of the proceedings—by which the Bill, introduced
in a tiny form in the interest of the Zemindars themselves
to the notice of an ex-Proconsul, has been cast and recast
into its present gigantic dimensions, and is being further
developed under the fostering care of the present Lieutenant
• Governor of Bengal—is now before the public. The whole
responsibility of the law is thrown upon Lord Ripon but
he is really concerned with the great principles involved in
it, the details of the measure, the data upon which its various
ramifications rest, and the modus operandi of dealing with
obstructions against the aim, provided in its numerous
clauses, are the outcome of the recommendations of the
Rent Commission and the suggestions of the Local Govern-
ment under its preceding and present regime.
3. Lord Ripon could, longere this, have passed the Bill into
12
a Law but his hesitancy proceeds from his recognition of
the essence of a contract in the Zemindary Settlement of
1793, and his inability to overlook the iniquity of forcing
a breach into it, which the present scheme directly or
indirectly must make, he will, it seems, have to leave
it to his successor to remould it. All the mischief which,
it is apprehended, some provisions of the Bill would pro-
duce, is due to a tampering and tinkering process, a
timid advance and recoil, and startings from wrong points,
which characterise the history of the Rent Law from a
date long anterior to the present administration. Some day,
“the bull will have to be taken by the horns.” Either (though
it would be only a partial step) the great blunder of the
Permanent Settlement must be corrected by reducing the
Government share of the produce of the land, and upon this
shearing of the Land Revenue only can some Zemiudars be
asked to set limits to the enhancement of rents and to give
a fixity of tenure to their rayats, or as a thorough advance,
the Zemindaries must be purchased by Government at fair
valuations and distributed in parts among the peasantry on
permanent tenures.
Nor can the Zamindars be exhorted to do so before the
Bengal Government, with such sanctions as may be necess-
ary, sets an example by sacrificing a just proportion of
those tremendously heavy rents which as land proprietor
it wrings from the tenants of its Khas Mahals, leaving
them scarcely sufficient to live from hand to mouth, as late-
ly evidenced in the recent suits before the High Court.
Thus it will be seen that although Lord Ripon proceeds
upon principles of justice and is actuated by one sole aim
of advancing India's prosperity, his measures cannot but in
Soume one or other of their aspects, appear unpleasant to
some sections of the Indian community, and so long as we
do not learn to love our neighbours as ourselves, uo
13
Af
statesman, however wise or however benevolent, can give
universal satisfaction. -
People who care not to reflect, or to examine the patent
facts of history, who are pessimists in all things excepting
their selfish concerns, who cannot believe that any great
and good deeds can proceed from aught but motives of
ambition, self-aggrandisement or popular esteem and who
moreover wish to keep back any unassailable measure of
public welfare (not suited to their taste) by a dogmatic
assertion of the time not being mature for its reception—
should pause before they ascribe them to (in the mind of
Lord Ripon) sordid impulses for the pronouncement of that
Policy of which these measures are the legitimate outcome.
If I did not fear transgressing the limits of these pages, I
could show that every one of the Riponian projects was long,
long ago, conceived by the British philanthropist, argued
out by the British philosopher, recommended by the British
statesman, discussed in the debates of the British Parliament,
and insisted upon for the adoption of "Government by the
British orator with persuasive eloquence or in the thunder-
ing language of warnings and threats, and that each of them
has from time to time not only taken some kind of practi-
cal legislative form and shape but the very words which
appear in modern enactments and political parlance, in.
the Queen's Proclamation itself and in the honest utterances
of Lord Ripon, are but the exact echo of those which are
found interspersed in political pamphlets, Parliamentary
Records and other writings, swelling in number as they
approach the present time. I shall only cite as an instance
paragraphs from the protest of Lord Monteagle to the
las Bill for the renewal of the East India Company's
Charter. .
‘ſ “The 87th Section of the (then) last Charter Act pro-
vided in unqualified terms for the unlimited eligibility of the
14
Natives of India to all offices whatsoever without exclusion.
of any person on account of caste, colour, birth or religion.
The declarations of the statesmen responsible for the Act
of 1833 all concur in giving to this clause the widest in-
terpretation. It was described as a Swbject of just eacwl-
tation and pride that Parliament should have passed
this clause announcing ‘the only principle on which
India could be administered’. Nor was it intended that
this should remain a barren declaration or abstract truth.
On the contrary. The question was asked, “whether Eng-
land could give knowledge without awakening ambition,
and whether it was meant to awaken ambition, and not pro-
vide it a legitimate vent * * * * * Yet after these pro-
mises and the enactment founded upon them, no sooner
had the Statute of 1833 been passed than a regulation
which seems to have been carefully kept back from the
Committees of both Houses, was boldly announced and has
ever since been undeviatingly acted upon by the Court of
Directors, the distributors of all civil patronage. This
regulation neu tralised the effect of the 87th Clause.
The covenanted service of India was declared to be exclu-
sively confined to Europeans. To the uncovenanted or su-
bordinate grades of the service alone the Native Subjects
of the Queen were held to be eligible. Thus the unres-
tricted words of the Statute and the gracious intentions of
the Parliament have been practically defeated. To no one
office from which the Natives of India were excluded before
the Act of 1833 have they been since admitted though it
is undeniable that dwring those twenty years the Natives
have rapidly advanced in education and knowledge,
and though in the offices, they have been permitted to fill,
the Natives have given the highest proofs of trustworthi-
mess and ability.” - - -
“Because the conduct of the Home Government towards
15
the Natives, as above stated, rendered it expedient to
have guarded against the continuance of such abuse by
a declaratory and enacting law, which has been proposed
and rejected; and the only security now obtained for the
fulfilment of the intentions of Parliament, is to be found in
the unqualified declaration of the minister of the Crown
having the conduct of the Bill, that no distinction between
the covemanted and wncovemanted service is hereafter to
work the disqualification of any Native of India for
public employment. This declaration when taken in
connection with the proposed admission of Natives to
Haileybury College and to high offices in India, coupled
with the power reserved to Parliament of amending the
present Statute from year to year, will, it may be hoped,
prevent the intentions of the Legislature from being again
frustrated.”
After reading the above Extract, Can there remain any
ground for insinuating that Lord Ripon in order to attract
popularity, has, in a fitful mood and under the radical ins-
piration of his party, without a statesman's survey of
the time, without any necessity, and without any idea of
fitness of things, introduced a series of new fangled
ultraliberal theories into legislation ?–Let those who are
disposed to cavil from this point of view, observe that so
early as in 1833—the intellectual advancement and the
moral rectitude of the Natives as well as their fitness to
hold responsible posts, were regarded by the British Parlia-
ment sufficient to declare their eligibility to all offices
whatsoever. In 1853 Lord Monteagle points to the further
improvement of the Natives and their stronger claim to
the high offices from which they had been kept out, and
with just indignation, condemns the shift by which the in-
tention of the legislature was defeated.
In 1858 after the troubles and perils of the unfortunate
16
Sepoy Mutiny, and as a sequence of the deliberations follow-
ing it, the celebrated Proclamation of the Queen of Eng-
land and of the Empress of India was published embodying,
if possible, in words more solemn and emphatic, the self-
same policy of the British Parliament :—but to the Orien-
tal mind it was of mighty significance —it was a Royal fiat
wn fragile and irrevocable:-
From that day downwards: Has not that Royal mandate—
owing to evil counsels here and in the Coterie of one or
other of the English ministers of England, with unwisdom
and disingenuousness, with timidity and irresoluteness, with
a step in advance and paees of recoil, under un-English in-
spiration and in a Machiavellian spirit—been made mere
sound signifying nothing, And the sin of Lord Ripon : the
very ‘head and front of his offence’, has been to mark the-
maturity of time recognised half a century ago, and rerêcog-
mised times out of number and to uphold the continuous
policy of England—to prevent further shifts to make the
Queen's words unfructuous and to make that unfalsified
which was “a subject of just exultation and pride to England’
and which was declared to be “the only primciple on which
India could be governed.” -
When we see therefore that the guiding policy of our
ruler is to secure the happiness of the people and to pro-
mote the ends of justice, we should keep out of view, any
errors in his measures which may be due to the imperfec-
tion of human wisdom, or the insufficiency of information
before him, we should distinguish his share of responsibility
in any specific act from that of others, and hold him as an
object of our highest esteem, love and gratitude.
Some erroneously call the law into which the Ilbert Bill
has passed, a failure, others accepting it as a failure, attribute
it to a want of moral courage on the part of our Viceroy, but
the generality of our countrymen are of a different view,
17
they regard the law as the accomplishment of the small
advance it contemplated from the very beginning, and a
check against the Queen's Proclamation being whimsically
tampered with ; the fullest attainment of its object depends
upon the success of the agitation in respect of the age of
candidates for admission into the Civil Service. The Jury
clause which has been tacked to it, may indeed be looked
upon as creating a fresh invidious distinction between the
two classes of Her Majesty's subjects, but it is transparently
seen that it was not in this view, but in the interest of the
law itself (which, further agitation in England threatened
to smother), and for its speedy enactment, that it was done:
nor should it be forgotten that though our Viceroy is
vested with very great administrative powers, he cannot, by
a despotic fiat, alone carry out a legislative measure.
It is well known that Lord Ripon instead of receiving any
aid from those who, he expected, would give him the greatest
help, had to contend against their bitterest hostility : the
English Bench and Bar, and the English Press, prominently
in Bengal, the majority of his responsible Counsellors and
of the Civilian Officers, and even it was whispered many
members of the military service, not to mention most of the
non-officials among the Anglo Indian community—all set
themselves in persistent opposition against him, and a kind
of ‘white rebellion’ as it was then said, was threatened,
unless the “ obnoxious’ measure was withdrawn, and if Lord
Ripon like all rulers, as we Hindus say was obliged
to ‘see with his ears, and thus learnt the character
of the opposition, and if moreover he was obliged to carry
out the directions of the Secretary of State—he cleared the
way for the measure by throwing a sop to Frankenstein and
acted like a prudent general, the Ameasure moreover is
of a nature which sooner or later, will have to be mended.
The law it is believed therefore, is not a failure nor the
4%.
18
result of Lord Ripon's weakness—if he has shewn any
weakness, it is a weakness on the side of virtue: he could,
immediately after the first inception of the Bill, have passed
it into law constitutionally without giving opportunity for
opposition, but he purposely gave opportunity after oppor-
tunity, as an impartial ruler should give, to hear all people's
objections against the proposed measure, he could not
moreover gauge the depth of the race prejudice of his
countrymen here, nor estimate the variations of the spirit of
Christianity according to those of latitude and longitude.
I go to the length of saying that even if the Viceroy had
withdrawn the measure, and it had been a complete failure,
knowing as we do, the generous impulses that sway him,
we would have attributed it to the unsurmountable force
of circumstances and would not have withheld an iota of our
respect, esteem and love for him.
No ruler of men should be judged by his success or
failure in a cause, if his aim be just and benevolent and he
uses his best energies to promote it, we are bound in grati-
tude, irrespective of those considerations, to regard him as
our benefactor and if, moreover he 8wifers in making these
endeavours for our good, as our Viceroy has suffered by endu-
ring with unexampled self control, the volleys and incess-
ant pourings of abuse, taunts, insults and ridicule from
his own countrymen : Can there be any bounds to our grati-
tude 2 Here let me quote the noble words of Mr. Gladstone:
“Do not believe those who too lightly say, nothing suc-
ceeds like success : effort, gentlemen, honest manful, humble
effort succeeds by its reflected action upon character, * * *
better than success.” That we truly understand our Viceroy,
the Raja has shown by apt poetic lines which he has quoted
in his letters, I wish to add here only, the words of Lord
Chancellor Selborne in accounting for the unprecedented
popularity of the present great Premier of England, which
19
apply mutatis mutandis with equal force to Lord Ripon :
“But the people” of India “understand the man. They
know that he has a profound sympathy with them, that he
has nothing at heart but truly to promote their interests
according to his honest views of them, and whether he
judges rightly or wrongly about this question or that—of
course we are liable to error, and none pretend to infallibi-
lity —they know that he is a man, who is actuated only by
the purest motives and that he presents the highest exam-
ple of public and private integrity.” . . -
And now that he is about to resign his Viceroyalty,
let India's sons and England's too, join in the movement,
worthily to preserve the memory of this great nobleman, it
is a spontaneous demonstration of duty, inspired by virtuous
enthusiasm—a perfect jubilee of unbounded gratitude, and I
must say, a measure of political wisdom too. Let them also
whose convictions cannot be removed that some of his
measures have proved failures, remember that though we
generally attribute greatness to success, the great are not
always successful “he is greatest who meets failures without
failing” and as to true nobility—Has not the Poet
Laureate said:—
“Tis only noble to be good”
The nobleman himself we are now fully assured, is utter-
ly unconcerned, whether or not, any popular demonstration
is made to honor him on the eve of his retirement from our
country—we but honor ourselves and prove our self respect
in such movements, he looks up to his God, cares for his
duty and the true glory of England and draws satisfaction
from the approving echo of that—
—“still small voice that sounds within,
Above earth's tumult and o'er glory's din.”
We know too that our retiring Viceroy, long before he
20
accepted the high trust of governing the millions of India,
devoted himself to the study of their condition and the
means of promoting their welfare, and we feel sure that
in England, when he renews his fellowship with kindred
spirits and thus “enters into Communion with the great
intellectual fellowship of all time,” he will advocate our
cause with unflagging zeal and with the power he has acquir-
ed by his practical knowledge of our country. In the mean
time with the conviction of his ardour to promote public
weal, let us stir ourselves to honor him and—
“Each should find his own, in all men's good,
And all men work in noble brotherhood.”
Let us grasp the idea that should “help to lift us above
ourselves, our petty individual aims, our narrow selfish
desires, to feel that we are sharers in a life which is infinite-
ly larger and greater than our own.”—that life which
advances “far above the agitation and strife of man's
petty passions, far above the individual cares and interests
that seem, for the moment, so important.” -
Let us raise ourselves to the height of that moral gran-
deur depicted in the inimitable language of the Revd.
J. Caird that “the highest patriotism is that of the
man, who thinks not of honor or rewards, but so loves his
country that he is content to be forgotten, to lose himself
altogether in the larger, dearer life for which he lives:” Who
then, with a spark of love for his country, can hold back from
the present movement which is no other than an outburst
of patriotism--a call to the discharge of our highest duty.
I cannot conclude without expressing a hope that our
coming Viceroy would take up the threads of the great
Riponian policy which, briefly expressed, is no other than
a complete reversal of that of Taimur and Aurangzeb,
and involves the prosperity of the British Empire. It is
very reassuring to know from the public utterances and
}
|
21
privately expressed opinions of Lord Ripon, that Lord
Dufferin will follow these lines. -
In the hope too that the nobleman about to take up the
sway of the destiny of the millions of India, would unders-
tand the wishes of its people, I quote here, the sympathe-
tic words of James Silk Buckingham, which correctly an-
ticipated these wishes years ago :-—
“There is a phrase in constant use, when speaking of
the Parent State and her distant Possessions, by which the
former is called the ‘Mother Country,’ and the latter are
regarded as her “Offspring'. These designations are at
once appropriate, and pregnant with expression —as the
relationship in which each stands to the other cannot be
more distinctly or advantageously stated than by these
relative terms; while the very conditions of affinity which
they imply, at once point out their specific and reciprocal du-
ties to each other.” And in answer to the question in what
these duties consist, he says:—“The duties of a good mother
to her children, hardly require to be laid down minutely,
as the instincts of natural affection not only point them
out to every reasonable and conscientious parent, but
make their discharge so pleasurable as to require no sti-
mulus for their performance, beyond the delight which
their daily exercise affords.”
Then he describes in what order these duties succeed
each other and concludes, “Let us henceforth rule India
and all our colonies as a Mother Country should govern
her Offspring, thinking first only for their welfare and
prosperity, and in that, making our chief glory and reward
to consist. If we do this, they will prove to us great blessings
and sources of wealth and strength.”
To deserve the affection, indulgence and protection of
this Great Mother worthily and typically emblematised
in our August Empress, let us train ourselves under the ad-
22
vice and with the hope so beautifully expressed in the
brave and solemn exhortation of the ‘Grand Old Man,”
the pride of England —“Quit you like men, be strong :
and the exercise of your strength to-day will give you
more strength tomorrow. Work onwards; and work up-
wards; and may the blessing of the Most High sooth
your cares, clear your vision and crown your labors with
reward”—and prove by our demonstrations of unflinching
loyalty and by the discharge of our duties in our respective
spheres, that we are Hopefuls, who can rejoice Her heart.
See we not the same sun that disappears under the
horizon to-day, rise again at tomorrow's dawn : may we with
the same certitude see with our mind's eye, the same sun
about to journey to-day towards the West in the midst of
a transcendent halo of true glory, ‘in a cloudless blaze of
living light, to reappear in spirit and aim, in that, now
travelling to the East, to commence his career over
India, and with a potency to nurture the seeds already
sown in its soil and to call forth a fresh harvest for the
people's good: at this supreme moment, commingled with
perfervid farwell poeans to the good and great Lord Ripon
who has sought only to achieve the victories of peace, this
prayer springing from India's loyal heart, ascends Heaven-
wards as it escapes from millions of lips.
CALCUTTA
26, TELEPARA LANE, SHAM LOLL MITTER.
November 1884.
ST, XAVIER's College,
10 & 11, PARK STREET, CALCUTTA.
The 2nd December 1883.
TO RAJA RAJENDRA NARAYANA BAHAD00Rs
My DEAR RAJAH,-Mr. D. Macfarlane, a Mem-
ber of Parliament now on a visit in Calcutta,
wishes to see you to find out the true feelings of
the Hindu aristocracy on the subject of the Ilberts
Bill. He hopes to be able to advise the right-think-
ing portion of the Native community, to ask
Government to withdraw the Bill for the present,
in order to allay the dangerous and deplorable ani-
mosity between the two races. - -
As I know how much you deplore this race an-
tagonism, I told the M. P. to see you on the subject,
as your personal influence may help greatly in effect-
ing a reconciliation between the races which would
bring the blessings of god and men upon you and
your family.
Please let me know as early as possible, when
you could receive Mr. Macfarlane.
Very sincerely, yours,
E. LAFONT.
SoBHA BAZAR, RAJAH SIR RADHA KANT's House,
9th December 1883.
TO THE WERY REVD, FATHER E, LAFONT, S, J.
My dear Revd. Father, I have received your
favor of the 2nd instant by post. I offer you my
2
cordial thanks for the kind sentiments you have
therein expressed towards me, and highly appreci-
ate your benevolent endeavours to help a good cause.
I shall, indeed, be most happy to receive a visit
from Mr. D. Macfarlane. M. P., and feel myself
honored by it, but before I appoint a time for it,
I deem it meet to explain certain personal matters
in connection with the main object of his intended
interview with me.
I am stricken in years and weighed down with
the infirmities of age, and am subject to various
ailments, I have, moreover, almost lost my visual
power. Owing to all these circumstances as well as
from natural inclination, I am given to retired
habits, I have thus failed to acquire that conver-
sational power in English which, I would have
gained by constantly moving in European society
in my country. I fear, therefore, on an important
subject such as that upon which Mr. Macfarlane
wishes to discuss with me, we shall misunderstand
each other's thoughts and opinions, which is very
undesirable. To obviate this difficulty, I have
thought proper at once to have my views on the
subject (which are substantially the same as those
of most of my countrymen) put on this paper that
you may be kind enough to send it to him for his
perusal, and for any use he may like to make of it.
Yes, Reverend Sir, I deeply and from the bot-
tom of my heart, deplore the bitter and causeless
race-antagonism which some of our Anglo-Indian
3
brethren are exhibiting towards the children of the
soil, and sincerely as I wish, and devoutly as I pray,
for its disappearance, I do not agree with Mr.
Macfarlane as to the propriety and justness of the
course he wishes us to adopt for the consummation
of this laudable object.
The Bill for the amendment of the Criminal
Procedure Code which has been christened in the
name of its formal framer, Mr. Ilbert, is, in its
present scope and application, a very insignificant
measure, but it is the legitimate and inevitable
outcome of agreat and vital principle which freedom-
loving England in the acme of glory, Sublimely re-
cognised, which, its wise statesmen boldly enuncia-
ted, and are gradually carrying out in practice and
its noble Queen, our beloved Empress, emphasised
with all the strength of her earnestness and affec-
tion in the world-famed Proclamation of 1858.
This fundumental principle of governing the
dependencies of a mother-country, is that of equal-
ity in the eye of the law of all classes of subjects,
of distributing equal patronage among such of
them as deserve alike, of entrusting and graduat-
ing administrative and judicial functions according
to practical proofs of competency and trustworthi-
ness, and making no distinction on account of race
and creed, or on consideration of the individual
members thereof, belonging to the ruling or ruled
nationalities, and keeping constantly in view the
greatest good of the greatest number, and as far as
4
human selfishness under chastening influences al-
low, deciding questions of a debatable character
in the interests of the people of the Country.
Starting from this wise, just, and righteous
principle, the British Government, from the days
of Lord William Bentinck, has been working it
out with beneficial results, and finds its operation
in this direction daily facilitated and, in many res-
pects, necessitated by the rapid spread of educa-
tion and the growing influence of an enfranchised,
ramifying and watchful Press, by improved means
of ready and easy communication, and by the cons-
tant contact of the people with Western civiliza-
tion in various shapes. -
In due development of the principle and in view
of the increase of population and the immigration
of foreigners, it has been thought desirable, gradu-
ally, to bring justice home to the door of every
village, and to make it practicable, it is contemplat-
ed to appoint gradually larger numbers of compe-
tent and deserving Natives, including Eurasians,
to the Civil Service. This contemplated measure
having several laudable objects in view,-economy,
hence lightening of taxation, spread of capital in
the country, and the meeting in some way farther,
the natural aspirations evoked by the spread of
education,
From before the time of the present administra-
tion, deliberation on the subject brought out pro-
minently an anomalous fact which would prove a
5
strong drawback to the carrying out of the prin-
ciple, this fact being the result of an unfortunate
deviation from the principle introduced into the
Criminal Procedure Code in 1872.
By this deviation a Native of India, who, though
he is deemed worthy sometimes to become a Chief
Justice of the highest tribunal of the land, to ad-
minister justice in matters, civil and criminal, over
Her Majesty's subjects and residents of all
nationalities in India, European and Native, in-
cluding British-born subjects; and as a Magistry,
in the Presidency Town, similarly to try all peoples
charged with crime; though as a civil functionary
he dispenses justice in civil cases in all parts of
the country out of the Presidency Jurisdictions,
among all nationalities; though as a Magistrate and
Judge in such outlying places, he tries in criminal
cases, all European and American sojourners, and
takes cognizance in preliminary proceedings, of the
crimes of British-born subjects and his meanest
Native subordinates can arrest and detain such
subjects in Police Stations, and bring them into the
Court, he, the Native functionary, however high
his talents, however exalted his worth, and how-
ever mature his experience, cannot in ultra-Presi-
dency tracts, try a British-born loafer, caught
bloody-handed in the public streets with the
Habeas Corpus Act and right of appeal to help
him—nay, more such a right is conceded to his
Ceylonese and Cape Colony Negro fellow-subjects,
6
and what is still more surprising he, the Native
Magistrate, in such places as aforesaid, will have
power to try the highest noble of the land but not
his son born of a Negro wife in Demarara, or of his
illegitimate issue in England.
At the suggestion, I believe, of the late Lieuten-
ant-Governor of Bengal, this deviation was sought
to be corrected, and hence the proposed amend-
ment in the Criminal Procedure Code, which, with
extreme precaution, authorises the Supreme and
the Local Governments to invest from among the
members (Native or European) of the Civil Service,
persons of tried worth and judicial experience to try,
in the hitherto interdicted places, all persons defi-
ned as British-born subjects. Criminals of such
classes being still triable by magistrates of the first
class with powers of Justice of the Peace, and ame-
nable to a sentence of a maximum term of imprison-
ment of three months which is the highest puni-
tive power a District Magistrate can exercise over
them.
It will thus be seen, with what extreme caution
and vigilance, with what tender regard for the
prejudices of Englishmen, but purely from a wise
administrative necessity (about to be felt ), from a
worthy adherence to a progressive policy and loyal
devotion to the principle already enunciated, this
small Bill has been ushered into being. So little is
the tangible advance at present that it may be
likened to a rung in an ascending ladder, the inter-
7
val between which and its nether rung being
scarcely visible. -
On the publication of the Bill, the Indian Daily
News, a paper, which, though conducted in the
interest of the Anglo-Indian community, no less
regarded the welfare of the Country, hailed it in
the following terms:—
“As we have said, our sympathies are against
this change, whilst our reason and experience both
teach us that it is inevitable, not only as a result of
the demands of administration but as a political
necessity, and as a concession on the part of English-
men to the progress of India and the requirements
of her union with England.”
It also expressed an anxiety lest the prejudices,
working under the tall talk that may be used
against the Bill, should make their ugly appearance.
But another journal, well known to have at one
time advocated questions of general interest of the
country, had too soon sounded the tocsin of alarm
and out flew our Anglo-Indian brethren (some of
the wise and good among them, official and non-
official as well as the mob) to the war & outrance,
not unfortunately with the weapons of reason
against the measure (if they thought it to be wrong)
but with those of coarse abuse and vilification
against its projectors and the children of the soil,
whom it was supposed to benefit only. From the
platform and the Press vials of wrath and torrents
of vituperation, insulting and threatening language
{
~
( t
8
culminating in seditious utterances, have since been
continuously poured on the head of our truly noble
Viceroy, and a bitter animosity has been evinced
towards the Native races from the Punjab to the
Cape, but mostly against the people of Bengal.
The young blood of the Native races resented
through their organs and speakers, but generally
in a manner as regards tone and spirit, which, com-
pared with those of their fellow-Christian races,
was modesty itself; and our exalted Queen's great
representative, amidst this furore, fury and fanfar-
onade, amidst this hurricane of wordy violence,
moves on calmly in his righteous course as the
moon in the most terrific tempests, undisturbed in
its appointed orbit. -
In analysing this agitation, we are not a litlle
surprised and deeply sorrow-stricken. As far as
I have been able to ascertain, it is believed by our
countrymen that some of the intelligent portion
of the Anglo-Indian community, men actively
engaged in the different spheres of business, have
not taken the trouble to study the existing state
of the law or the small scope of the Bill in ques-
tion. And hence ignorance is one factor in the
movement, fear is another; it is supposed that by
the extension of the appointment of competent
Natives to departments into which their entrance
had hitherto been barred, Englishmen would be
practically ousted out of the Indian soil, the
unthinking portion in the lower strata, or rather
9
those who are themselves criminally disposed
being apprehensive that while they have oppor-
tunities of escape from the clutches of the law by
the influence of the sympathy of Judges of their
own race, they have none such in the event of their
Judges being of an alien race; prejudice and
consciousness of superiority of race, make a third
factor; undefined motives of designing men, may be
a fourth ; pressure of influence from kith and
kin, wives and daughters, worked up with false
and imaginary ideas being also an all-pervading
element. e
Our countrymen, I repeat again, though grieved
and startled, bear no feeling of antagonism to-
wards their Anglo-Indian fellow-subjects whose
hostile attitude, they deeply deplore, but they have
no grudge or animosity against them. We know
how much we owe to our English brethren here,
how much it would serve the interests of both
by our acting in unison together in all matters
concerning the public weal. We are, therefore,
willing, nay, most ready to take wisely-counselled
and legitimate steps to gain the love of English-
men here and in England, But the means, which,
Mr. Macfarlane advices us to adopt for this pur-
pose, viz., “requesting Government to withdraw
the Bill for the present,” I and my educated
countrymen consider, very wrong and unwise.
Because the Bill, as I have observed, in starting,
symbolises a step in a well-matured progressive
B
IO
policy, and exhibts the fruit of an immutable
principle, founded on truth and justice, and,
therefore, godly ; because it initiates a movement
by slow degrees to meet an administrative neces-
sity which must inevitably grow, and if this
movement be not commenced now, an undesirably
speedy measure on a stupendous Scale, will have
to be adopted in time not far off; because general
good will be its result, and if any evil manifests
itself, it would be such as is inseparable from all
human work, and which, wiser counsels, in future,
can endeavour to correct ; and lastly, because
following as a corollary from the main arguments
for its adoption, it would remove one at least
among many anomalies, and a grave international
sweeping condemnation of the character of a
whole nation, which in effect asseverates that
among the people from the Himalays to the
Southern Ocean, however high might have been
their antecedents in ancient times, however great
their present progress under the benignant British
sway—not a single worthy individual could be
found, though he might have successfully rubbed
shoulders with Englishmen in their own Univer-
sities and in their own country, though his ability
and worth might have been tested by long judi-
cial work,+to try a British-born subject a few
inches out of the bounds of the Presidency
Towns, though he is found capable of doing so
within such bounds.
11
To ask Lord Ripon to withdraw the Bill, would
be to act against our conscience, and our firm
conviction of its beneficial tendency, and of the
absolute necessity of the fructification of a
righteous principle. You, Revd. Sir, accustomed
to move in the calm and serene atmosphere
of Science, to see distant as well as minute
things through media absolutely uncolored, you,
of all others, are the fittest person to see,
judge, and declare, whether the principle in
question, is not a fundamental law of nature,
and whether the Bill is not its legitimate out-
come. If you admit it to be such, you, again,
who know to a demonstration how a slight
disturbance in the general law prevailing in
our solar system, would not only be destructive
of it, but make its effects felt in tremors
in the remotest systems of the Universe, you,
Sir, of all others, would be able to contemplate
with terror what would be the result of the dis-
turbance in the fundamental law prevailing in
the moral sky, upon which the poor little Bill
is based.
Our God-fearing Viceroy is fully alive to this
sense ; he we feel assured, is inspired with the
spirit of the following noble lines —
“Perish policy and cunning,
Perish all that fears the light ;
Whether losing, whether winning
Trust in God and do the right.
12
Some will hate thee, some will love thee,
Some will flatter, some will slight ;
Cease from man and look above thee,
Trust in God and do the right.”
And as our Veda sublimely says he “in God,
fights as if in an armour” impervious to all-
external influences; he treads on sure ground
“for,” he sees, “God is marching on.” “He
has sounded forth His trumpet that shall
never call retreat,” and he lowly hopes that from
the fountain of His love which has given the
primum mobile to the measure, nought but good
can flow.
To us, Hindus, the esoteric doctrine of
whose philosophy, regards abnegation of self,
and self-control as exalted virtues, and teaches
that in doing good deeds we should not
be impelled by any mercenary motives of re-
ward, not even for heaven itself; to us, Hindus,
the present attitude of our Viceroy, presents a
sublime spectacle of beauty and grandeur,
which calls forth our profoundest esteem and
passionate love.
This then, I believe, is the true feeling of most
of the members of the aristocracy and of almost
all the educated portion of the rising generation
of India, whose number is now already great, and
is daily increasing. Under this circumstance, you
can, I am sure, never ask us to request the Govern-
ment to withdraw the Bill : Mr. Macfarlane,
13
when he, according to your statement, adds the
words “for the present,” seems to think that the
measure is a good one, but that as a concession to
the oppositionists and for allaying their hostile
feelings, this should be done now, and the measure
can be taken up at some future period.
This, you and Mr. Macfarlane, if you ponder
awhile, will see, would not be a wise, prudent, and
honest course. For history proves, such com-
motion, such rending of the air with words of
anger and hate had always followed almost every
stage of the development of the great principle
of statesmanship, when our Anglo-Indian brethren
imagined they were losing something. By post-
poning the measure it will be tantamount to
wait with certainty for another outburst of passion
of, perhaps, greater violence, and to render all
this suffering of our Viceroy and the people
unfructuous, not to mention the bad example
that would be set to the many millions of unedu-
cated Natives that by mere agitation, with or
without reason, by abuse and threats and seditious
language, and by bearding the representative of
the Sovereign of England, anythig they want, can
be wrenched out from Government. *
What then are we to do, to bring about a reconci-
liation between the ruling, and subject-races ! I
would suggest that some wise and impartial
European gentlemen, who have not identified
themselves with any party, and representatives of
14
all Christian churches, should call a public meet-
ing of the oppositionists, explain to them the
righteousness of the principle, and the Bill being
its offshoot, the existing state of the law, whereby,
in fact, they do not substantially possess any-
thing that they are to lose by the proposed
amendment ; the groundlessness of their fears, as
in fact upon the very principle now sought to be
subverted, a just proportion of the ruling races
must have service in the land, and to tell even the
loafing classes that it is not honest to try to
escape from the clutches of the law when they do
wrong. The ministers of religion can infuse with
impressive language, that spirit of humility which
would induce our Anglo-Indian friends to regard
us as their younger brothers, and not to trouble
themselves with imaginary loss of prestige. These
ministers can, in effect, “create more room for the
love of God, whereby there would be more room
for the love of man.”
We, on our part, ought to hold meetings giving
expression to our grateful feelings towards our
Anglo-Indian brethren, and to ask them to show
their love, and not to see in the Ilbert Bill, any
cause for a breach between us, as, in fact, it being
a righteous measure, it cannot but lead to good.
We would even tell them that if they believe
that they have hitherto been enjoying a big apple
of privilege, and if our Soverign-mother has
thought fit to give a slice of it to us, you should
15
not grudge it; you should not fret and frown and
disrespect her by reviling her representative, and
hating us with bitterness, and make it the apple
of perpetual discord. We beg of you, we beseech
you that if you are our superiors, plume not
yourselves on your superiority, but as befits an
elder brother, you should be—
“To our faults a little blind,
And to our virtues very kind.”
We shall point to the grand lesson of humility,
taught by our Rishis, and hope prayerfully for
the return of peace, trusting to the magic of time
and patience.
Many a time as fruit after fruit of the great
principle began to make its appearance, false views,
imaginary fears and pride provoked the ire of
our Anglo-Indian brethren, and urged them to
make passionate agitations. I shall allude here
to one only. -
In 1856, a Bill was introduced into the Indian
Legislature for the extension of criminal jurisdic-
tion of the Mofussil or country Courts to all
classes of Her Majesty's subjects without respect
of religion, race, or place of birth. One of the
phases of the criminal law, then extant, was that
European British-born subjects charged with
crime, were amenable only to Her Majesty's
Supreme Courts in the Presidency Towns, and
exempted from the jurisdiction of even British
Civilian Magistrates out of such towns. Many
16
were the instances of failure of justice and of
administrative inconvenience on this defective
state of law, and the Bill was proposed to amend
this defect. Sir Barnes Peacock, late chief justice
of the Calcutta High Court, then in the Council,
strongly supported it. Our Anglo-Indian brethren
(this time, of course, the non-official portion) opposed
the measure, and some thing like the present agita-
tion was got up. The members of the Civil Service
were severely attacked, and the non-official English-
men expressed their determination that they would
never forego their right to be tried only by Her
Majesty's Supreme Courts and by a Jury, and
that they would, on no account, submit even to
“full-fledged Civilian Eagles” as they said. They
christened it “the Black Act,” and the Natives,
“the White Act.” The “Civilian Eagles,” how-
ever, got the power, and the illusive vision of
mischief vanished, time has healed this rupture.
In the agitation that now disturbs the country,
most of the members of the Civil Service have
thrown in their weight, and supported their non-
official brethren. The rift in the lute that was
left in 1856, has raised the present jar; Lord
Ripon will mend the rift ; and time will again
restore the harmony. We are before the supreme
tribunal of God; the cause is righteous; and in
the thought which the expression “Yehovah
Shalom” conveys, is our firm hope of a speedy
restoration of peace and friendship. Nay more,
17
my and my countrymen's faith is that we, Hindus
are by descent, the brothers of the Britons, and
that as we and our Moslem brethren and brothers
of all nationalities, with the march of education
and under various salutary influences, are falling
into the same grooves of thought, and cherishing
the same ideas and aspirations as those of our
ruling race, and as “consanguinity of thought and
feelings is higher than the consanguinity of blood”
we shall all be welded together with the domi-
nant race as practically one nation, worshipping
in many languages and in different shrines, the
same God, regarding each other as sons of the
same Creator, owing allegiance to the same So-
vereign, and blending all individual interests in
the one same great interest of that Sovereign's
Empire.
When next any great measure would be pro-
posed by Government, we hope to be able with
one voice to make our wishes known, with reason
to support, and couched in the language of loyal-
ty and respect. I again say “Jehovah Jereh and
Jehovah Shalom,” and you cannot but only say
Cl???672.
Reverend Father, yours is the loving object of
bringing about peace and reconciliation, and mine
is an humble effort, honestly, loyally, and conscien-
ciously to help it. If you, therefore, think that
the publication of this private correspondence in
the public interest, would be of any avail, I would
C
I8
repuest your permission to give it publicity.
After Mr. Macfarlane's perusal of this paper,
which, to make myself explicit, has, I fear, run to
great length, if he be kind enough to see me, he
can honor me with a visit any day in the morning
at 9 A.M., only previously informing me of it.
Trusting you are in the enjoyment of perfect
health.
I remain,
My dear Revd. Father,
Yours very sincerely,
RAJENDRA NARAIN DEB.
tºmºmº
ST. XAVIER's College,
10 & 11 PARK STREET,
Calcutta 17th December 1883.
T0 RAJA RAJENDRA NARAYANA BAHADOOR,
My dear Rajah, I send herewith the reply of
Mr. Macfarlane; he proposes, as you will see, to
call on you to-morrow.
Very sincerely yours,
E. LAFONT.
I have no objection to the publication.
12, MISSION Row,
The 17th December 1883,
TO THE WERY REWD, FATHER E, LAFONT S, J,
My dear Father Lafont, I have read the
Rajah's note on the subject of the Ilbert Bill with
deep interest. It is a great advantage to have the
19
views of a distinguished Nativegentleman so clearly
and ably expressed, and I hope the Rajah will allow
me to express the feeling of profound respect and
admiration for his character and sentiments with
which I have perused his letter to you. If all are
actuated by such high and honorable feelings, the
task of governing this country for the good of all
classes would be comparatively more easy, I have
spent a good many years in India, and take a deep
interest in the welfare of the people, and have a
strong desire to see them, more extensively employ-
ed in the work of governing their own country.
But I venture to submit that this is not the ques-
tion at issue. I have no sympathy with extravagant
language or demands, whether they come from
Natives or from Europeans. I condemn, as unwise
and unjust, the attack that has been made upon
Natives in connection with the Ilbert Bill, and all
the recrimination that has followed. But when that
is done, the question still remains as to whether it
was wise or prudent for so small an object (for it is
exceedingly small to the Natives) to raise a need-
less cause of contention. I deplore it on many
grounds, but most of all in the interest of the
Natives themselves, for I fear that this agitation
will prove to be an obstacle in the future to the in-
troduction of reforms, destined to confer substan-
tial benefits upon the Natives. No Government in
the future will be willing to incur the risk of rais-
ing such another storm, unless compelled by actual
20
necessity. In this case, in my humble opinion, the
Natives are fighting for a shadow, an unsubstantial
phantom, which, if they obtain it, will be of no real
value to them. What does it matter to the mass of
the Natives of India, whether ten or hundred Native
gentlemen have the power to try Europeans or
not ? I foresee that the government, when they
have passed this Bill, will be compelled by prudent
considerations to abstain from appointing Natives
to places where it will be likely that he might be
called upon to exercise jurisdiction under its provi-
sions. Can any one doubt that if, having passed
the Bill, the Government were to send a Native
Magistrate or judge to Assam or Behar, a very
serious condition of affairs might arise which might
bring the Government into actual collision with
the whole Anglo-Indian community ? The Govern-
ment, for the sake of consistency, may pass the Bill,
but it will be a dead-letter for another generation.
This will prove, if I am right in my prediction, a
serious source of injustice to Native members of
the Civil Service, for it will confine their appoint-
ments to undesirable stations or places, where there
are no Europeans. Would it not have been better
to have waited for another generation ? In the
meantime, Europeans have had time and opportu-
nity for judging the actions of Native Civilians,
and confidence might have grown to such an extent
that there might have been no opposition. I discard
altogether any idea of imputing to Native Civilians
21
a want of judical uprightness and integrity, but
when that is done, there is left one view of the case
which is very serious to the Europeans, and it is
this, what will the lower-class Natives in the Mofus-
sil do, or be tempted to do, if this Bill becomes
law, and the Native Magistrate or judge is appoint-
ed ' What will they think they can do They will
not take the honorable and lofty view of our en-
lightened friend, the Rajah, but being corrupt them-
selves and untruthful, they will believe their coun-
trymen to be same. That belief, however erro-
neous it may be, will tempt them to bring false cases
before him, which they would not have dared to
bring before a European. It will be said that the
Native Magistrate or Judge will soon, by his action,
remove such a false impression. I am afraid that it
would be a slow operation, although I do not deny
that it might be done in the course of time. But sup-
pose that a great many Europeans have, in the
meantime, to undergo the misery of false accusa-
tions, while the lesson is being taught, is not that
a heavy price to pay for so little Let me quote
here the words of one who is a strong supporter of
the Ilbert Bill, and not rest this view of the possi-
bilities of the case upon my own inferior opinion.
Dr. Hunter says in his book upon Bengal:—“The
Bengali, whether rich or poor, seeks his revenge
against an enemy not by inconsiderate violence,
but by due course of law. He uses the Courts for
the same purpose for which an Englishman em-
22
ploys a horse-whip. A criminal prosecution is the
correct form of inflicting personal chastisement.
The Police Returns in India disclose an overwhelm-
ing proportion of false complaints to true ones,
and the Bengali has reduced the rather perilous
business of making out a prima facie case to an
exact science.” If there is any cause of offence in
this, the Rajah will forgive me for the words are
not mine. If the power proposed to be given to
Natives to try Europeans, would have a tendency
to increase the number of false cases which Dr.
Hunter says, are, under the old system, “over
whelming,” it would be better to wait for a better
state of things. Why not wait for a more advanced
state of education and enlightenment amongst the
Natives in general before trying experiments that
can be of no advantage even to those who obtain
power, and my be a serious matter to many who
might suffer ? No one can doubt that the alarm
created in the minds of Europeans, is very genuine,
and even if you think it unreasonable and unreason-
ing, is it not worthy of serious consideration ?
The European is told that he is already subject,
in civil matters affecting his property, to Native
Courts; and that being so, it is illogical to object
to the same jurisdiction in criminal cases. I can-
not see that this argument is at all conclusive.
The Anglo-Indian has submitted to the one but
is not prepared, if he can help it, to submit to the
other. And what does this prove? It proves that
23
he values his liberty and his reputation more
than he values his money. Natives and the Sup-
porters of this Bill say that his fears are a delu-
sion, based upon race animosity, and that they
will vanish as other delusions have vanished. In
the meantime, they are very real and nothing
short of absolute necessity can justify the Govern-
ment in ignoring them. If it could be shewn, or
if it could be even reasonably pretended that the
Anglo-Indian's privileges constituted an injustice
to the Natives or a very serious inconvenience to
the Government, or that the Natives had petition-
ed for their abolition, there would have been at
least some excuse. But it is not so, for this
measure has been thrust upon the Natives. They
did not ask for it; they did not care for it; and
they would not advocate it now, if it had not been
made into a race question. It is natural that
they should take what is offered. It is natural
too, that small and unasked for as it is, they
should object to having that which was offered,
snatched out of their very mouths by violent
agitation. The Rajah says that the Bill is a very.
small one, but it is clear that his admiration for
it, is not due to its own beauty or magnitude, but
because he looks upon it as a stepping-stone to
much more. He look upon it as an indication
that all the privileges of the" ruliºg race” are
to be abolished, and that, at no distant time.
This finger-post points the way to the consid-
24
eration of a branch of the question which the
Rajah seems to have unaccountably overlooked.
If the “ruling race” is to be deprived of every
privilege, will it be content to have, unassailed,
the many privileges, enjoyed by the “ruled race?”
The Rajah says that “the fundamental principle
of governing dependencies of a mother-country,
is that of equality in the eye of law of all classes
of subjects.” Has this fundamental principle
been attained in India, and is it attainable 2 Are
the Natives prepared to make an exchange with
the Europeans? Supposing all the privileges of
the Europeans to be utterly abolished. Are the
Natives prepared to conceive what must sooner
or later follow 2 If there are to be no distinctions
“in the eye of law,” or rather in the matter of tri-
bunals, to enforce the law in favor of Europeans
on the ground of justice and on the plea of equali-
ty, how can those in favor of Natives be main-
tained? Are Native ladies to be excused by law
from the obligation of appearing in a witness-box
where their European sisters can be forced to
place themselves for examinations and cross-
examinations? Let me put a case to the worthy
Rajah. Let us suppose that I bring a suit against
him, involving a large sum of money. It may be
all I have in the world, and that my wife, having
been put into the witness-box, sworn, and cross-
examined, I demand that the wife of the other
party to the suit shall also appear in the box as a
25
witness essential toº my case. I am ignorant of
there being any obstacle to this course, for I have
been told, and have believed that as the Rajah
says," there is equality “in the eye of law” I
imagine my astonishment when the Rajah's Counsel
oppose my application, and, as support of his re-
fusal, reads Clause 640 of the Code of Civil Pro-
cedure as follows. :— -
“Women, who according to customs and man-
ners of the country,ought not to be compelled to
appear in public, shall be exempt from personal
appearance in Court,” there is a note to this clause
saying that the exemption “cannot be claimed
by all women of rank,” but it goes on to say “but
out of respect to the customs of this country, the
invariable practice has been to allow respectable
females, who are not accustomed to appear general-
ly before the public, to be examined in their palkis.
There is another note which says “there is no
appeal from an order refusing to summon a person
under this section.”
I may think this exemption a serious obstacle
to justice in my case, but what am I to do, there
is the law and it cannot be broken, and even if I
could get the lady into Court in a palki, how is
she to be identified, and is the Judge to watch the
demeanour of a witness who is invisible % I have
a happy thought ; I will summon the Rajah him-
self; again the Counsel intervenes and reads
Clause 641 of the same Code, exempting “from
IY
26
personal appearance in Court any person whose
rank, in the opinion of such Government, entitles
him to the privilege of exemption.” The Rajah
has been so exempted and will not appear, but I
may have him examined by Commission. In this
case too the demeanour of the witness cannot be
watched, and I lose my case. Surely these two
clauses lead to some administrative inconvenience,
and are likely to help a miscarriage of justice and
constitute one, if not two anomalies. It is surely
a greater anomaly and obstacle to the course of
justice that a large mass of persons, some hun-
dreds of thousand, if not millions, should be ex-
empted from appearing in Court at all, than that
Europeans should have the privilege of being tried
by their own countrymen. I could cite some
other privileges that are conceded to Natives, but
I think the illustration I have given will suffice.
To an English mind, it is as incomprehensible that
a Native lady should object to being seen as it is
to the Native mind that Englishmen and women
should object to being tried before a Native
Judge. It is true of every country to some ex-
tent, that people can only live in harmony with each
other, by a system of mutual toleration and by
carrying into practice, the principle of give and
take, but there is no country where it is so urgent-
ly needed as India. I need not tell the Rajah, of
the difficulties caused by the caste system, for he
knows them far better than I do, but I may say
27
that the intercourse between Europeans and Na-
tives, which would have given them a better know-
ledge of each other, has been rendered impossible
by no lack of good-will on the part of English-
men, but by Native social customs. It is social
intercourse, the visiting, the eating, drinking, and
smoking in each other's houses that tends to re-
move race prejudices, and not an occasional meet-
ing in public places. The Rajah knows that it is
no fault of ours that this is not done. Is it not
true that highly as the Natives esteem the Viceroy,
those who have not given up their caste, could
not eat out of the same dish or drink out of the
same cup with him. What would the Rajah and
his co-religionists say and do if the Government
were to nominate two or three clever mehters,
chamars, or domes to the Civil Service 7 I ask
the Rajah honestly to suy if such a thing is
possible in the existing state of things in India,
and if it is not, where is your “equality in the eye
of law 7" Is not this a disqualification due to race
and creed, which is insisted upon by Natives them-
selves 2 Was this disqualification of caste abroga-
ted by the Queen's Proclamation ? It was in the-
ory, but would the Natives like to see it carried
out in practice by appointing such castes as I have
named (there are many others) to places on the
Bench : It cannot be done, and the Natives who
talk of race disqualifications, would not allow it to
be done. I am against race disqualifications as
28
much as any one, but I do not oppose the Ilbert
Bill on any such ground. It is the Natives who
are real supporters of distinction, which have not
even the poor excuse of being on the ground of
difference of race, for they enforce them against
their own people. They have decreed that no man
shall rise out of the rank in which he was born, and
while they are demanding equality with the ruling
race, refuse it absolutely to their own countrymen,
It would be easy to say much on this subject, but
I desire to say no more than will suffice to show the
inconsistency of the claim of equality on behalf of
those whose fundamental principle is that the
Creator has forbidden it.
I have said that I am opposed to race distinc-
tion, and I think that I have shown that Natives
are in favor of them in the case of their own
countrymen. I will say no more against Native
Magistrates and Judges than this, and I say it
without an idea of giving offence, nor do I think
it will do so. I believe that residence of two or
three years in England, is not sufficient to give
any Native, however able, such knowledge of the
English people and their ways, as a criminal Judge
should have, and if that is the case with the
Native gentlemen who have been in England,
how much stronger will the objection be to those
who have never been out of India, that is, the
Native Civilians appointed under the Statute
33 Vict! They are to be specially selected, and
29
will be specially watched during a good many
years before they attain the position that will en-
title them to try Europeans. They will, in the
meantime, have gained much experience; yes,
that is so, they will have had much experience in
trying Natives, but hundred years spent in that
work, will not add one grain to their knowledge
of European character. To my mind it is nearly
all the argument against the Ilbert Bill that is re-
quired to show that Europeans have a genuine
dread of it. I do not think it just, unless an ab-
solute necessity can be shown to subject any class
to tribunals they mistrust. They mistrust these
tribunals mainly, because they have not had a
long enough experience of Native Magistrates
and Judges to create confidence, and perhaps they .
mistrust them partly because of the intense eager-
ness shown by a few Natives to attain this power.
Would it not then have been wiser to have wait-
ed until necessity had arisen, and until confidence
had grown ; Time might have done this, and all
that the Rajah deplores, and that I and every
well-wisher to India and its people, deplore, might
have been avoided. I fear the future of this
question as much as I regret its past. The evil
will not be at an end when the Bill passes if it
does pass, for the spirit of discord has been evok-
ed, and I fear that it will not readily subside.
War and strife are bad enough when they cannot
be avoided and the object is an adequate one,
30
but they are far more unbearable when they are
stirred up without cause. This miserable Bill
has laid a foundation of future discord which can-
not be contemplated without alarm. If you take
away the privilege of the European, he will agi-
tate for the removal of race distinctions in favor
of Natives, and his claims will be unanswerable,
for all the arguments of the Natives and other
supporters of the Bill, will be ready-made to his
hand to be used against them. It will be no use
to talk to him of the obstacle presented by Native
prejudices, for he will reply that his, have not been
respected, and why should theirs.
I have tried to make these notes in reply to
the Rajah's paper short, but they have run out
in spite of me, and I have not said half of what
could be said. Please send this letter to the
Rajah, and I hope I have written no word that
will give him annoyance or offence. If, by any
accident I have done so, I am'sure he will accept
my assurance that it is unintentional, for I have
a high respect for his position and character.
I shall do myself the honor of calling upon
him next week.
Eelieve me, dear Father Lafont,
Yours very sincerely,
D. M. MACFARLANE.
31
RAJAH SIR RADHA KANT's Houss
18t January 1884.
TO THE VERY REVD, FATHER E, LAFONT, S, J., C. I. E.
MY DEAR REVD. FATHER.—Since I heard from
you last, Mr. Macfarlane has been good enough
to honor me with a visit, and with reference to
the conversation I had with him, he wrote to me
several times for my notes on his reply to my
letter to you on the Ilbert Bill. I promised to
send my paper to your care. If he has not left
Calcutta which he intended to do soon, I shall
feel greatly obliged by your kindly forwarding it
to him (after your perusal, should you have leisure
for it), otherwise to his present destination. If
you find time to read my letter, you will see that,
at this terminal stage of the discussion of the
question, a great part of what I have written,
may not have an immediate interest, but I have
tried so to connect it with topics of general im-
portance and with information, not widely known
to European gentlemen, that I hope you will not
disapprove it. -
The Jury system, now intended to be introduc-
ed in the Mofussil, if dispassionately and histori-
cally looked into, will be found by all concerned
to be “a remedy worse than the disease.” Offer-
ing you all the compliments of the season, and
wishing you a happy New Year, and many many
happy returns of the same, I remain,
Yours very sincerely,
RAJENDRA NARAIN DEB,
32
RAJAH SIR RADHA KANT's House,
The 1st January 1884.
TO D. M. MACFARLANE ESQ. M. P.
MY DEAR SIR-I have had your reply to my
letter on the general features and scope of the so
called Ilbert Bill read to me, I have listened to it
with great interest. It has raised many import-
ant points, some of which, I humbly believe, are
met by what I have already said, and by the ex-
planations given in some public journals, the rest
is founded upon much wrong information and mis-
conception, chiefly in connection with Hindu
society and ways of thinking, which I deem it my
duty to endeavour to correct, I shall also try to
be more explicit on certain matters, which, I fear,
I was not able to clear up, in my first letter. In
this attempt, my rejoinder threatened to assume
the form of a lengthy disquisition, but since you
were kind enough to honor me with a visit, I
have, in view of the conversation I had with you
and of your approaching departure from this
country, thought fit to cut it down in the shape
of the following brief notes.
The prosperity of the country and an extensive
employment of its people in the work of govern-
ing the country in the point of view in which I
wish the matter to be seen, are intimately connect-
ed with the question at issue, because the Bill is
the outcome of a great principle which, I have
tried to define, and which, advanced statesman-
33
ship, I humbly think, must recognise.
An absolute sense of security of honor, life,
and property, and hope of material improvement
to cheer the mind, lie at the very bottom of this
prosperity. The organization of Courts for Civil
and Criminal Jurisdiction was, from the com-
mencement of settled British rule, felt as an ab-
solute necessity in the interests of the governing
and the governed. This organization improving
with every decade, has been bearing fruit till it
has arrived at the present stage, when it is found
that, in the interests of all classes of Her Majesty's
British Indian subjects, it requires considerable
expansion and amendment which the Bill contem-
plates to effect by the removal of the legislative
shackle, imposed in 1872 on all Magistrates and
Judges out of the Presidency Towns, who do not
belong to the race of the British-born subjects.
The practicability of the intended wide scheme,
depends much upon the economical way by which
it can be carried out.
Thus the Bill is not only a necessary measure
on theoretical grounds (though I submit, a theory
involving an immutable moral law, must form a
fundamental principle of statesmanship) but for
its thoroughly practical character, it constituting
with other co-operative agencies, a means for the
increase of national prosperity, and hence of the
commercial prosperity of England. That it is
insignificant in its present scope and application,
TN
34
I have already said. It, however, initiates a
necessary movement which must gain in amplitude
as the scope expands. Whether the Natives
asked for the Bill or not, that would not affect
the question if it is really a necessary measure,
that it is so, I believe, I have been able to show
above ; That it is cared for by the Natives, is
sufficiently proved by their earnest and unflagg-
ing advocacy now and in 1856 ; that it was not
in a fitful mood of generosity, “thrust upon” them
by Government, and that, therefore, it is valued
by them, will appear from my explanation that
it is the inevitable and gradual outcome of a
fundamental principle and from the whole history
of the criminal law and criminal administration
of justice in the country. Even if it is maintain-
ed that it was thrust upon them, it may be re-
garded as one of the many fruits of the great
principle which, in times past , were thrown upon
them, and will continue to be flung to them,
otherwise there would be an administrative Nihil-
ism deprecated even in England; English educa-
tion itself was brought to their doors, and a
past generation of Natives, upwards of sixty years
ago, instead of seeking for it, closed their doors
against it. I have heard from my late father,
Rajah Sir Radha Kant Deb Bahadur that, when
in the early part of the present century, Sir Hyde
East, one of the Chief Justices of the late Calcutta
Supreme Court, first tried with other noble spirits
35
to lay the foundation of the late Hindu College—
that first properly-constituted nursery of Western
culture in India, he (my father)had to move about
from house to house of the respectable Hindus,
persuading them of the necessity of such educa-
tion, and assuring them against harm therefrom
to our religion by any direct teaching against it.
Such measures and their co-operative institution,
the Press, are now multiplying throughout the
length and breadth of India, and doing their
noble work. - -
That the educational policy of the British Govern-
ment, which is progressively expanding, redounds
to it's glory, and is a proof of its far-seeing wisdom,
not the bitterest opponent of the Bill, can deny ;
that this is a policy akin to the one we are dis-
cussing, is also undemiable ; that the Bill may
also be viewed as a necessary result of this policy
also, a little consideration will show, I shall have
to revert to it again. One of the objections to the
Bill is stated to be the abolition by it of a privi-
lege, claimed by the Anglo-Indian community.
Privileges, whatever their character may be, and
however derived, a wise Government which has
plenary power to interfere with them, will tolerate,
so long as they are innocuous, and whenever it
deems necessary to abrogate any of them on ac-
count of its mischievous tendency, it would doit at
such times and in such manner as would be judged
right and proper. Power is invariably covete.
36 -
and monopolised by the ruling races to the detri-
ment of the ruled, and the former create for
themselves and retain as extensive privileges as
possible. No nation on earth has respected so
much, the laws and customs of a conquered country,
and tolerated its religion and privileges as the
British ; and as the history of British administra-
tion will show, with the improvement of the
standard of statesmanship, have the appropriated
privileges of the ruling class and the tolerated
prejudices and practices of the ruled, been gradu-
ally abolished, whenever they were found to jar
against the first principles of humanity or to be
inimical to the public weal.
In the present case, the privilege claimed is, as
I understand it, that Her Majesty's British-born
subjects, when criminally charged in India, shall,
among other things, enjoy the immunity from
trial by Native and European Magistrates and
Judges.
The privilege, in question, in the form that it
is claimed, is, in the first place, non-existent as
I have endeavoured to show in my first letter,
and as has been ably shown in some public jour-
mals. In the next place, in the form that it exists
from 1872, it operates as an injustice notably to
the Natives but to all classes of Her Majesty's
subjects, in this wise : a British-born subject, in
some outlying village in the Mofussil, murders
a Native or Eurasian, and being arrested by
.º.
37
Native Policemen, is brought before the nearest
Native or Eurasian Deputy Magistrate, on a
charge of felony on several counts. That function-
ary investigates the charge, and sends the felon
for trial before a British-born District Magistrate
in the District Civil Station, who, again, in the
event of his suspecting him guilty of the charges,
commits him to the Sessions of the High Court,
or a still more distant place in any of the Presi-
dency Towns, or if the Magistrate finds him guilty
on any minor count but deserving a punishment
which can be awarded by the next higher func-
tionary—the District Sessions Judge, to this au-
thority he is sent and by him tried, and, if the
case be proved, duly punished. Moreover, under
the right of appeal reserved to the felon of the
British-born class, only his case comes for trial
before one or two Appellate Courts. Now some
relatives of the murdered man and witnesses (it
may be of the peasant classes as any other) collect-
ed by the Police in support of the charge, will
have to peregrinate from place to place, it may be
in the cultivating or harvesting season, or in any
critical times of business, and under various
troubles and discomforts. The idea uppermost
in the minds of these people, naturally would be
how to get rid of the trouble as soon as possible,
and their fate (in respect of protracted trouble
and anxiety) deters their neighbours in future to
avoid coming as witnesses under the clutches of
38
the Police, and even the murdered man's relative
or at any rate, of a victim of minor injuries, prefers,
to lay his complaints before the tribunal of God
in the well-known form, “Thou livest, Thou know-
est, Thou wilt do justice,” rather than be tossed
about in a state of bereavement in pain and misery.
Such is the present state of things, and under it,
want of proper witnesses, apart from other causes,
would make the guilty escape, and the more such
escapes, the greater becomes the rampancy of such
crimes. I beg now the great as also the good
among my Anglo-Indian brethren, who have
ranged themselves in support of the so called pri-
vilege, would prayerfully brush away the mists of
passion from their minds, and with their hands on
their bosoms, ask their conscience, whether this
exemption, in the light I have put it, does not lead
to miscarriage of justice, and if it does (as I think I
can prove also in other ways, but which, I shall not
attempt now) whether it operates as an injustice to
the Natives, Eurasians, &c., and to the law-abiding
classes of the British-born subjects themselves;
that it proves, or, at least, is about to prove, a
serious administrative inconvenience to Govern-
ment, is I believe, admitted to be certain. Justice,
the needs of Government and the requirements
of the prosperity of the country, therefore, demand
the abolition of this privilege.
It has been urged that while the privilege of
the ruling class is sought to be abolished, why
39
should the ruled classes retain some of theirs,
such, for instance, as the immunity of ladies of
genteel families and of certain titled gentlemen,
from attendance in Courts as parties or witnesses
in civil suits; why, when they cry for the aboli-
tion of race-distinction, they (the Hindus) them-
selves not only respect distinctions between dif-
ferent races, but between sub-divisions (casts) of
their own race. The immunity referred to,
which, a few (most insignificant in number in
respect of the population) titled men of all classes
of the Natives of India, enjoy, is akin to such
things as ribbons, feathers, stars, and medals,
which all Governments privilege their recipients
to wear as badges of dignity, devised for good
purposes. In the light in which you have put
the question and addressed it to me, I can say
for myself that old and infirm and helpless as
I am, and, therefore, naturally disinclined to stand
the trouble and discomfort of an attendance in
Court, if, in any particular instance you (as
plaintiff in the case supposed) would insist that
a duly appointed Court Commissioner, with learn-
ed Counsel to aid him, will fail to examine my
demeanour and note it down, and thereby a mis-
carriage of juctice might arise, and if, moreover,
the Judge agree with you, I should waive the
otherwise innocuous privilege, and, even if I fail,
to have the courage of my conviction, there certain-
ly are not a few amongst my countrymen, who
40
would, for the nonce, make their dignity succumb
to so holy a cause. I should say en passant, from
what I had heard on a former occasion, that
Government intend to be very chary in the bestow-
al of such favors in future.
As to the immunity (under the clause cited) of
the respectable ladies of Indian nationalities, or
rather of those who lead a strictly intermural
seraglio life, I shall not now trouble you with a
narration of the circumstances from which the
custom of leading such a life arose, especially in
Bengal, but accepting it as a fact and the easily
deducible aspect of character which results there-
from, coupling it moreover with points of religion
as well as with the custom (not generally known
to our European brethren) of these ladies, guard-
ing against touching the shadows of some of the .
nearest male relations of their husbands, though
living in the same family, against even their voices
being heard by their mothers-in-law—it will be seen
how such timid creatures standing in the witness
box, with their veils drawn up and commanded to
reply to a torrent of questions, would be flurried
and confounded, and thus lead to a miscarriage
of justice—it is then, among other reasons, to pre-
vent such miscarriage that the law, very guarded-
ly and with many provisions, grants this immuni-
ty, and that only in civil cases.
As regards the caste system, a very large sub-
ject as it is to dwell upon, I shall briefly say that
41
both in respect of its theory, its bearing on Hindu
Society, the changes it has undergone, and is
undergoing in its practical features, and of its actual
present phase, a very great misconception prevails
among foreigners, due, not in a smáll measure,
to the writings of some sciolists, and the hastily
adopted notions of its crystalised structure. It
is our holiest teaching that all castes and races of
men proceed from Brahma, and thus “partake
of the same substance,” and are, therefore, equal
in the eye of God. Many popular legends and
allegorical descriptions contributed to cloud this
idea, though it has never been lost sight of ; it is
also believed that the barriers of caste are un-
surmountable, but our mediaeval literature dis--
closes that castes arose from division according
e to occupations, there having been no such dis-
tinction before, and the separation having been
effected by different Princes at different times,
promotions to higher castes by merit, and de-
gradation to the lower by demerit, were admit-
ted ; intermarriages were allowed, and social in-
tercourse in all forms, was not interdicted. In
later ages, a very strict order of things prevailed
though orbaches, under various influences, were,
from time to time, made in it. Under the Maho-
medan domination, the system was greatly affect-
ed, observeable now in many social and political
matters. Throughout all this period, esteem for
intellectual greatness and moral purity and a
42
practical reliance upon merit have stood out in
bold relief as a feature of national character,
smothered and diminished at times under evil
influences. Ministers of Princes, Judges, Pro-
fessors of Arts and Sciences, Officers of the Army
and various important functionaries have, during
a long range of ages, been chosen for merit,
without any regard to caste. When to this in-
digenous movement of the Hindu mind was ap-
plied the potent impulse of Western education,
an education distinguished not only in its character
(much still to be developed,) but in respect of its
dissemination by which mind reacts upon mind—
it has progressed in a wonderful manner. The
*result of the potent influence of this education,
of extended commerce and trade, of an increasing
love for the comforts, conveniences, and luxuries.
of life, requirements of speedy travel, the neces-
sity of recourse to the alien healing arts, and of
many such operating causes, manifests itself (I
can say of Bengal) in almost extinguishing the
vital principle of our caste system. Assigned occu-
pations formed the essence of caste. Now people
from the highest to the lowest caste, make choice of
their pursuits and professions, and work according
to their tastes or necessities—the performance of
the sacred rites only being (except in cases of certain
sects) strictly confined to the priestly class.
The educated and wealthy among them mix with
each other in social intercourse on terms of perfect
43
equality in private convivial parties with whom
Mussulmans and Europeans join in many cases,
where no distinction, I have heard, is observed ;
there are some who keep themselves aloof from such
entertainments, not from any scruples of conscience,
but on principle, not wishing to hurt the feelings of
relatives; others go the length of openly joining
their European friends at the festal board, and not
a few object to do so on account of difference of
tastes, or on account of their not having been ac-
customed to the rules of English society in these.
matters. The strictly orthodox members, certainly,
look askance at these practices, and see the ap-
proach of the time when, according to our Puranic
prophecy, all Hindus would be ekavarma, or of one
caste; but they do not think of the old system of
persecution by boycotting (a fit word to express
my idea) on prudential considerations, and on dis-
covering recusants in most of their own houses.
Thus, the fabric of caste is being undermined on
all points of its foundation, except that of matri-
mony—which even would have been made havoc
upon, if the Hindu law in this respect had not
been protected by the Civil Courts. Such, then
is the real picture of our society now laid bare.
In view of this, it will not be difficult for our
European and Anglo-Indian brethren to under-
stand that the high-caste men neither—the really
orthodox Hindus whose number is fast declin-
ing, nor those who merely keep up an orthodox
44
form, care what low-caste man sits upon the Bench
provided he possesses the due qualification and
unimpreachable integrity ; and pointing to the
special query, I venture to say that scarcely any
of our countrymenwould demur to see a man of the
mehter caste of exalted worth and solid learning,
of requisite experience and good manners, dis-
pensing Justice in the highest Court of the land.
It would only give an extra blaze of glory to
English education. Learned arguments based
upon the influence of heredity and atavism, may
be adduced by some to justify mere prejudice but
they would apply to all nations and countries, and
cannot but be ignored in a practical point of view.
The equality in the eye of the law, of Her Majesty's
subjects, is not only theoretically (so far as the
levelling influence of education is concerned)
within the purview of the celebrated Proclamation,
but is being practically carried out among the
caste-bound Hindus. As a matter of fact, now-a-
days, men of high-caste, and low-caste and out-
castes, indifferently occupy not only the Bench,
and pervade the Bar but fill the higher rungs in
the political ladder, and when found to be possess-
ors of real worth, command our esteem and be-
come objects of our pride.
In one respect, our opinions vary considerably
from those of the civilised people of Europe; we
recognise an intimate and unseverable connection
between private and public character. We cannot
45
reconcile ourselves to a belief that a man who,
in the private affairs of his life, habitually defies
any fundamental moral law, can habitually act
with justice and exhibit a transparent integrity
of purpose in his public character. Intricate ques-
tions of casuistry and transcendental philosophy
may be involved in this matter, but I do not pre-
tend to solve them. I have, I believe, thrown
sufficient light upon our present social structure
and our ways of thinking to enable my Anglo-
Indian brethren to believe that not an iota of
our esteem and regard for our Viceroy, can be affect-
ed in the minds of the members of the strict or-
thodox community, or of many nominally so, if
they fail “to eat out of the same dish with our
noble Viceroy,” and for the matter of that there
are, perhaps, not a few who would gladly avail
themselves of the honor ; I may remark in pass-
ing, that we do not consider eating and drinking
together as essentially necessary to understand
character or to cement friendship, though, of
course, it gives an additional zest to the pleasures
of society. So much so, this is the case that, when
an Orthodox Brahman of the highest class des-
oribes the intensity of his intimacy with one of
a subordinate caste, he says “we are identical,
thread and cookery only divide us.” Even ortho-
‘dox Hindus, now-a-days, will not object to sit in
the company of European gentlemen when they
are taking their dinner, and enjoy with them the
46
“feast of reason and flow of soul,” though they may
not touch a single delicacy that may be grateful
to the palate or a drop of “the liquid fire” out of
the cup that inebriates, or of that which only cheers.
In times gone by, under the Mahomedan sway,
an accidental or punitively-contrived contact of
the flavour of the Mogul cuisine with the olfacto-
ries of a high-caste Hindu, threw him out of its
pale from generation to generation.
It is stated that no one should be brought be-
fore a tribunal he distrusts : the grounds of dis-
trust of the Anglo-Indians to appear in Criminal
Courts presided over by Natives (I must add, in
the Mofussil) being— -
1. That “residence of two or three years in
England is not sufficient to give such knowledge
of the English people &c., as a criminal Judge
should have” and that this objection is stronger in
case of those who have not gone to England, and
that a hundred years' experience will not give
them a grain of experience of the knowledge of
English character.
2. There has not been “a long enough experience
of Native Magistrates and Judges to create con-
fidence.”
3. “Intense eagerness is shown by a few Natives
to attain this power” i. e. to obtain the privilege
of trying British-born subjects.
4. That though the Anglo-Indian has submitted
to Native authorities in civil suits; they are not
47
prepared, if they can help it, to submit to them in
criminal suits, in which their hiſe, liberty, and honor
are concerned. * -
Almost all of these objections have been very
rationally answered in some journals, and can be
met by much of what I have said above. I would
like, however, to say something with reference to
each of them.
1stly and 2ndly. Our Shastras say that “one
fact is stronger than a thousand texts.” I should
say then the suppositions, theories, and inferences,
which make up the first objection, ought to suc-
cumb to the thousands of facts in the shape of
criminal suits, in which British-born subjects are
concerned, tried by Natives (who had gone to
England or not) in the several High Courts, and
IPolice Courts, in scarcely any one of which that
I remember, has there been a failure of justice
on account of the Native Judge or Magistrate
not understanding the character and ways of En-
glishmen. Nor also any snch failures have been
seriously taken notice of, in respect of many more
suits in which were implicated Europeans of other
nationalities, and tried by Native Magistrates and
Criminal Judges in the Mofussil. The character
and ways of members of these nationalities being
in many essential points the same as those of
Englishmen. I believe a thinker approaching the
subject with his mind—a perfect tabula rasa, grasp-
ing the above data and taking the long range of
48
years, which has supplied them, would conclude
that there has been a sufficiently long experience
of Native Magistrates and Criminal Judges to
create confidence in the minds of the members
of the Anglo-Indian community. As to Native
judicial functionaries not having acquired that
knowledge of the English character as to enable
them to try them when charged with a criminal
offence, it occurs to me here humbly to ask the
question : Was it ignorance and incapablity to un-
derstand the character and ways of their own
countrymen, for which even the “full-fledged
civilian eagles” were thought by our non-official
Anglo-Indian brethren in 1856, unfit to sit in
judgment over them in criminal cases 3 -
3rdly. As regards this objection, I submit
that what has been pictured as a fact, is not real-
ly so, nor in the nature of the thing can it be such.
Arguments, which have been strongly urged for
the abolition of the claimed immunity in the public
interest, should not be viewed as set forth for the
purpose of acquiring the privilege of trying persons
who belong to the ruling race,and even, if an im-
probable supposition would credit our soundly
educated yonng men with the miserable ambition
of possessing the privilege per se, it would vanish
when it is remembered that they are already ex-
cercising it in many places.
4thly. Half a century ago, there was not an
inconsiderable agitation among Englishmen here
49
to protest against Government placing them under
Native civil tribunals, but it was a protest against
reason and good statesmanship, and, therefore,
failed. Rightly viewed, not only civil suits may
involve questions of life, liberty, and honor, as
well as in criminal suits—(but the judicial dis-
tinction of civil and criminal suits, is, if I mistake
not, of recent date, and there are many matters
including adultery, which can be brought before
any of these Courts optionally), and if, in the ad-
judication of them by Natives in hundreds and
thousands of cases, they have earned a well-merit-
ed reputation, testified to, by the highest compe-
tent authorities : Do not these facts, (more than
sufficient for a scientific induction), I again beg to
ask, create a presumption in favor of the power of
the Native mind to fathom English character ? in
forming an estimate of any particular feature of
which in an individual case, the opinions of your
own countrymen (as it must) often vary and con-
tradict each other.
In pointing to a future effect of the Bill upon
the Anglo-Indian community in the event of its
being passed, it has been urged that corrupt and
untruthful Natives of the lower classes believing
their countrymen to be the same, will be encourag-
ed to bring false cases before Native Magistrates,
and that although the Native Magistrates' action
will take away the wrong belief, it will take time,
during which that community will suffer from
50
false charges, and this opinion is supported by a
quotation from the learned Dr. Hunter's book.
In expressing my view on the subject, I beg most
respectfully to ask : Do not all classes of Natives
know the broad features of the character of each
other ? Have thousands of years failed to pro-
duce this necessary knowledge, without which no
society can subsist : I beg also to call the attention
of my Angio-Indian brethren to the well-known
fact that a large class of Hindus style the Judges,
European or Native, Dharmavatars, or incarna-
tions of Justice, and the criminal classes fear the
Native Hakims, in one sense, more than alien au-
thorities, in as much as they know that they run
greater chance of being detected by the former
than by the latter; and now-a-days, far from erro-
neously ascribing their own corruptible nature to
Judges of their own race, they know them to be
so immaculate and their betters imbued with such
a high sense of honor and good breeding that a
Judge and suitor, however intimate friends they
may be, decline to see each other, or when they
do exchange visits, they seal their lips as regards
the pending suit, although it is a fact that in
former days, not unoften, recommendations on be-
half of suitors, used to be received by Native and
British Judges alike.
Depravity in morals is to be found in our country
as well as in all parts of the civilised world, and
any argument derived therefrom to support the
51
adverse theory in question, can have no force:
Elphinstone, in his History, says that, comparing
class with class, “no set of people among the
Hindus are so depraved as the dregs of our own
great towns.” The citation by which the appre-
hension of an ingrease of false charges against
Europeans (or rather British-born subjects only)
is attempted to be justified, should be examined
properly. The first part of the extract given,
runs thus:– - -
“The Bengali, whether rich or poor, seeks his
revenge against an enemy, not by inconsiderate
violence, but by due course of law. He uses the
Court for the same purpose for which an English-
man uses a horse-whip, a criminal prosecution is
the correct form for inflicting personal chastise-
ment.”
In this passage taken by itself, I do not see
any condemnation of the Bengali national charac-
ter, supposed to be conveyed by Dr. Hunter, nor
do I think the wise Doctor prefers the avenger
who takes the law into his own hands to him
who abides by the law, approves the conduct of
the man who seeks redress for a wrong (real or
imaginary) by handling his whip, steel or revolver,
and deprecates the action of him who, for the same
purpose, repairs to the temple of justice. Permit.
me, Sir, to illustrate this view by a recent instance.
A military officer on horse-back, the other day
took umbrage at a High Court Pleader (a perfect
52
stranger to him), failing, while walking in the
street before his own house, to make obeisance to
him, and flagellated him—the officer, no doubt,
thought that a grave wrong was done to him (in
having been balked of a mark of respect which a
Hindu freely accords to any Brahman, he sees)
and wished to exact it in the fashion of the alien
Governor of Helvetia, who had hoisted his hat in
a market to be bowed to, by the Swiss, but he
forgot or did not know that the Brahman receives
the honor due to the race of Rishis he belongs to,
for their wisdom, knowlege, love, and benevolence,
and that honor is no honor when it is extorted at
, the point of the bayonet. Now, what was the up-
shot of the case ? The man of Law had recourse
to legal means, and got his injurer legally punish-
ed. How better it would have been, if the iras-
cible gentleman had resorted to a Court of Justice
and there learnt that what, he could not demand
as a matter of right, he could earn as a spontane-
ous offering for his love and kindness. To my
mind, then, the good Doctor seems to level a
censure at some of his own countrymen for their
impulsivenesss, violent temper, thoughtlessness
and pride, in contrast with the self-control, patience
and reverence for the law, of the Bengali,
I now come to the second part of the ex-
tract :—“The police Returns in India disclose an
overwhelming proportion of false complaints to
true ones, and the Bengali has reduced the rather
53
perilous business of making out a prima facie case
to an exact science.” Assuming the full force
of the charge of untruthfulness of the Bengali,
which this passage seems to express, and which
would appear to vitiate the spirit of the first if
it be coupled there with, I wish to observe general-
ly, at first, that if the Bengali only be tainted
with a loathsome vice there are other many noble
races in India not so denounced to whom, all ob-
jections, based upon such denunciations, cannot
apply. Next let us see what teñn the Béâgali
implies I think it means all Natives of Bengal—
Hindu and Mussulman and followers of other
religions, domiciled there for a number of gener-
ations—from this category then will be excluded
European sojourners only ; again, out of the
Bengalis so defamed, only those are spoken of,
who frequent the Courts, or whose business lies
there (in the case of the rich, by their agents) or
who hang about their purlieus—just the class of
persons, from an observation of the character of
whom, most thoughtful writers of your country
warn against any general conclusions of national
character being drawn. Lastly, it should be
noticed that “Police Returns” and “prima facie
cases” are spoken of. It would seem, therefore,
the Doctor has in view the character of the
Bengal Police underlings (whose duty it is to
bring prima facie cases) not very worthy people
all over the world. Moreover, it should be observed
54
that the false cases and true cases here spoken
of, are determined to be so by the Police people
themselves. If this be the drift of the passage
quoted, I have nothing to say to it.
There is another point of view from which the
passages may be regarded. The Doctor is a very
learned man, very kind-hearted, and a true friend
of our country, but he is not infallible. Let us
suppose that in the concluding portion in the se-
cond passage, he means that all Bengalis, rich or
poor, (nevertheless the educated classes seem to
be excluded) exhibit a thorough untrnthfulness in
matters in which they are concerned either as
parties or witnesses in a criminal suit, and let us
see whether this conclusion has been arrived at
by following the rigid rules of induction. The
data are furnished by Police Returns, showing
that false cases of complaints are overwhelmingly
greater than true ones. Now my cue being to
deal with the character of the Hindu Bengali, I
should naturally like to be enlightened on some
such points as the following —
1. What proportion of Hindu Bengalis were
found to have brought false charges 2 What wit-
nesses were adduced by the Police, and what, by
the parties, and what was their nationality ?
2. How many of such cases, when determined
as false by proper authorities (supposing that to
be the Doctor's meaning), were not appealable, or
though appealable, were not brought up in appeal.
55
3. What, in each of such cases, were the
grounds of the conclusion arrived at In which
instances, the witnesses (in the sense Mr. Justice
Phear had to explain) tried to prove too much,
and therefore failed ? In which case, owing to
their simplicity—they were confounded ; and in
which they really perjured themselves.
4. In how many cases, the victims of an injury
failed to obtain justice in Courts, though the
whole neighbourhood knew it to be true.
Without these data, the induction could not be
true, and many of such data, in the nature of the
thing, could not be forthcoming,
It is needless however to beat about the bush
in this way with reference to the particular pass-
age cited. Let me at once face the fact that
some historians, some hasty observers, some
writers habituated to look at things through
colored media, some, if for nothing else, only to
“stretch a point” as authors and journalists are
said to do, have propagated the absurd and in-
jurious belief that the Hindus are, as a rule, ad-
dicted to falsehood. To refute this I cannot do
better than refer you and my Anglo-Indian
brethren, who at all care for it, to the second Lec-
ture of Professor Max Muller in “WHAT CAN INDIA
TEACH Us,” in which he has arranged a host of un-
impeachable witnesses of many creeds, races, and
ages, historians, travellers, missionaries, public
functionaris and statesmen of vast experience and
56
noted for their observing powers, critical acumen
and impartial judgment—who have given unquali-
fied evidence of the truthfulness of the Hindu
character. I shall give a few pertinent extracts
from that splendid work—splendid for its concep-
tion, for its benevolent spirit, for the logical pre-
cision of his arguments and the eloquence which
breaks out from true earnestness. On the thought-
lessness of sweeping charges against a nation, he
says —“So often the charge of untruthfulness
has been repeated, and so generally is it now ac-
cepted that it seems almost quixotic to try to
fight against it. Nor should I venture to fight
this almost hopeless battle, if I were not convinced
that such a charge, like all charges brought against
a whole nation, rests on the most flimsy induc-
tion and that it has done, is doing, and will con-
tinue to do more mischief than anything that even
the bitterest enemy of English dominion in India,
could ever have invented.”
“The rules of induction are general, but they
depend on the subjects to which they are applied,
we may follow an Indian proverb, judge of a
whole field of rice by tasting one or two grains
only, but if we apply this rule to human beings,
we are sure to fall into the same mistake as the
English chaplain who had once, on board an Eng-
lish vessel, christened a French child, and who re-
mained fully convinced for the rest of his life
that all French babies had very long noses.”
57
* * * * “I can hardly think of anything
that you could safely predicate of all the inhabi-
tants of India, and I confess to a little nervous
tremor whenever I see a sentence beginning with
“The people of India” or even with ‘All the
Brahmans' or ‘All the Buddhists,’ what follows
is almost invariably wrong.”
The worthlessness of international judgment,
he illustrates thus:—
“Read the account of English travellers in
France, and you will find very little said about
French honesty and veracity, and the French ac-
counts of England are seldom without a fling at
“Perfide Albion.” f -
Only the other day an English paper was being
read to me, in which the French nation has been
described as worshipping the ‘Goddess Lubricity,'
and therefore soon going to ruin.
The Welsh and the Irish have, also of late, been
described in odious colors. Respecting criminal
populations, basing his (Muller's) information
upon Elphinstone, he states that the number of
capital sentences was one in every 10,000 in Eng-
land but only one in every million in Bengal.
On other important subjects I beg to quote yet
more fully, though I am not sure whether I shall,
in all instances, be able to give exactly his own
words.-On the litigiousness of the Natives.
“Dr. Robertson seems to have considered the
litigious subtility of the Hindus as a sign of high .
H
58
civilization rather than of barbarism, but he is
sharply corrected by Mill who tells him that
nowhere is the subtility carried further than
among the wildest of the Irish.” That Courts of
Justice like the English in which a verdict was
not to be obtained as formerly in Mahomedan
Courts by bribes and corruption, should at first
have proved very attractive to the Hindus, need
not surprise us.”
Then he asks the question —“But is it really
true that the Hindus are more fond of litigation
than other nations 7" and replies to it in the
words of Sir Thomas Munro–“I have had ample
opportunities of observing the Hindus in every
situation and I can affirm they are not litigious,”
and refers very properly also to the following
passage from our great Law-giver Manu:-‘‘Neither
the King himself nor his officers must ever pro-
mote litigiousness nor ever neglect a lawsuit insti-
tuted by others.”
Here I beg to add a few facts well known to
my countrymen in support of the above reply :
for one injured man among the Hindus, who
goes to law, how numerous are wronged men who
keep aloof from it for various reasons according
to varying circumstances.
There are kinds of injuries in respact of the ex-
posure of which certain respectable people (in our
country, respectability is not the monopoly of rank
or affluence) are over-sensitive; others are of a too
59
phlegmatic nature, a third class does not like to
fall into the clutches of the Police to undergo
trouble and discomfort, to neglect their affairs in
critical times, to provoke the ire of, perhaps, a
tyrant, and the last class poverty stricken keeps ice-
bound in his cell. What do most of these people
do when they become the victims of myriad
forms of wrong inflicted upon them, either by
their own countrymen or foreigners ? Why, in
the spirit of Chryses, in silence they pray to
their God to witness the deed and to avenge the
wrong. Some, in a more subdued spirit, breathes
out a prayer—“Thou Bhagavan (adorable Lord)
livest and seest. Let Thy will be done,” and even
there are sturdy natures who, like another Anaxa-
goras, can exclaim “strike on tyrant, thou strikest
but my case, thou canst not touch the nan within.”
If the Hindus had been as litigious as they
have been described, the Civil and Criminal
Courts would have had to be multiplied manifold.
In the light I have put the question, the words of
Warren Hastings should be regarded as corro-
borative testimony.
“They (Hindus) are gentle and benevoent,
courteous, intelligent, more susceptible of gratiude
for kindness shown them, and less prompted to
vengeance for wrongs than any people on the face
of the earth : ‘faithful, affectionate, submissive to
legal authority.”
On the truthful character of the Hindus, and
60
how it should be judged, Colonel Sleeman says
in his “Rambles” to the effect, that “no one
knows the Indians who does not know them in
their village communities, and that these com-
munes present true features of their character
which are almost unknown " The collective evi-
dence of Hindu writers, Greek, Chinese, Arabian,
Pathan, general Mahomedan, Italian, and of British
Historians, from hoar antiquity through successive
Governments down to modern times having been
drawn to a focus by Professor Max Muller (and
in doing which the great savant seems to have
been rather overpowered by the exuberance of the
testimony before him than troubled to seek for it)
he concludes, “so I could go on quoting from book
after book, and again and again we should see,
how it was love of truth that struck all the people
who came in contact with India as the prominent
feature in the Native character of its inhabitants.
No one ever accused them with falsehood. There
must surely be some grounds for this, for it is not
a remark which is frequently made by travellers
in foreign countries, and even in our time, that
their inhabitants invariably speak the truth.”
And in another place he observes “Are these
253 millions of human beings to be set down as
liars because some hundreds, say some thousands
of Indians, when they are brought to an English
Court of Law on suspicion of having committed
a theft or a murder, do not speak the truth, the
61
whole truth and nothing but the truth Would
an English suitor, if brought before a dark skinned
Judge who speaks English with strange accent,
bow down before him, and confesss at once any
misdeed that he may have committed ; and would
all his mates rush forward and eagerly bear
witness against him when he had got himself into
trouble 7” Nor is the great German scholar
unmindful of the damaging influence of Mahome-
dan misrule—he says:–“Historically I should
like to draw a line after the year 1000 A. D.
When you read the atrocities committed by the
Mahomedan conquerors of Iudia from that time
to the time when England stepped in, and what-
ever may be said by her envious critics she, at
all events, made the broad principles of our com-
mon humanity respected once more in India. The
wonder to my mind is how any nation could have
survived such an inferno without being turned into
devils themselves.”
* * * “I can only say that, after reading the
accounts of the terrors and horrors of Mahomedan
rule, my wonder is that so much of national virtue
and truthfulness should have survived. You might
as well expect a mouse to speak the truth before a
cat, as a Hindu before a Mahomedan Judge. If you -
frighten a child, that child will tell a lie, if you
terrorise millions, you must not be surprised if they
try to escape from your fangs.”
And affected as were the Indians by the Upas
62
tree shade of the preceding rule, what does Sir john
Malcolm say of them :
“I by no means wish to state that our Indian
subjects are more free from this vice than other
nations that occupy a nearly equal position in soci-
ety, but I am positive that they are not more ad-
dicted to untruth.” And Sir Thomas Munro's testi-
mony is still higher. Speaking of the moral charac-
ter of the Hindus, he says—
“They are not inferior to the other nations of
Europe and if civilization is to become an article
of trade between England and India, I am con-
vinced that England will gain by the import cargo.”
Rickards, in his history, after comparing the
prostration of ancient Europe under its conquerors
as described by Dr. Robertson, with the effect of
Mahomedan conquest upon the Hindus, says:–
“In this respect the advocates of Hindu degener-
acy would be forced to admit that a comparison
between the inhabitants of the East and West, is
not favorable to the assumed innate superiority
of the latter.”
Accepting the fact, as it is, that there is not
any very extraordinary feature of untruthfulness
in India, that is not to be found in other countries,
no arguments against the new system, based upon
the assumption of its existence, can stand. When,
again, a false case, in the ordinary course of things,
may be supposed to be instituted before a Native
functionary by a Native against a British-born
63
subject, supported by Native witnesses, there is
a greater chance of falsity being detected by such
an authority than by a European. The Native
functionary would be obviously more able to un-
ravel the skein of any supposed conspiracy, and
there is comparatively less chance of false evi-
dence in such cases.
According to the proofs that Colonel Sleeman
brings forward, there is very little of untruthfulness
even among unscrupulous characters, when con-
fronted with elders of their own tribes, because
they are afraid of a speedy exposure, of which
they would be ashamed. “In punchayets,” he
says, “men adhere habitually and religiously to
the truths, and I have had before me hundreds
of cases in which a man's property, liberty, and
life have depended upon his telling a lie, and he
has refused to tell it. Could many an English
Judge say the same * Such views then, in ad-
dition to what have been set forth in their proper
places, point to the necessity of the new system
in favor of our Anglo-Indian brethren. In connec-
tion with this subject, I wish to set in another
light, the flagellation and deadlier punishments
which some European gentlemen of good breeding
even, think as the proper mode by which they can,
of themselves, take revenge. Contrasting it with
the attempt of a wicked Native to enmesh his
enemy in a net of lies in a Court of Justice—Who
is the greater offender against the State } He
64
who is conscious of doing a greater wrong against
the law than he has received, whose vengeance
takes a form which cannot be corrected, when its
cause is found to be untrue, and from whom edu-
cation and Christianity have failed to wrench the
castigating whip and more dangerous weapons?
or he who flies to the Hall of Justice, has not
learnt as yet that a just end can not sanctify foul
means, and whom education and higher teachings
(they may be of his own or of another country) hope
to induce to drop his enemy-catching Reticulum
for ever ? not even to use it for his life, liberty,
and prosperity ? - *
In making these remarks I beg to be understood
that it is not my intention to give a rose color
picture of my countrymen. We have many de-
fects and many vices as all nations have, and
which need to be remedied,—my sole aim being
to show the other side of the question more strong-
ly than is usually seen, and my meaning will be
fully illustrated by the following passage of Pro-
fessor Max Muller : “No doubt, there is moral
depravity in India, and where is there no moral
depravity in the world ! But to appeal to inter-
national statistics would be, I believe, a dangerous
game. Nor must we forget that our standards
of morality differ, and on some points, differ con-
siderably from those recognised in India, and we
must not wonder if sons do not at once condemn
as criminal what the fathers and grandfathers
65
considered right. Let us hold by all means to our
sense of what is right and what is wrong, but in
judging others, whether in public or private life,
whether as historians or politicians, let us not
forget that a kindly spirit will never do any
harm.” -
I ask your indulgence to introduce here a few
of the many sayings of our ancient teachers on
the subject of truthfulness, as a good deal of
wrong notions prevail on the subject, and more so
because the ethics of the Hindus are inseparable
from their true religion, and its influence is weav-
ed in every tissue of a Hindu's life. It is a good
warning given by a Rishi that “our ancestors
watched the answer of a witness, because, accord-
ing as it was true or false, they themselves would
go to heaven or hell.” The same Rishi says:—
“Practise righteousness, not unrighteousness;
speak truth, not untruth; look far, not near, look
up towards the highest, not towards anything low.”
Manu teaches:–“Self is the witness of self; self
is the refuge of self; do not despise thy ownself,
the highest witness of men.” Again : “Oh friend
whatever good thou mayst have done from thy
very birth, all will go to the dogs, if thou speakest
an untruth.” One of our great epics points a
lesson which you will recognise as a fundamental
doctrine of Christanity: &
“With meekness conquer wrath, and ill with ruth.
By giving, niggards, vanquish ; lies with truth.”
I
66
Another :—
“Whene'er thy acts, the source must be,
Of good or ill to other men,
Teal thou with them in all things then,
As thou wouldst have them deal with thee.”
I have yet some other points of your reply to
touch upon. Among some of the future effects of
the Bill (if passed) upon the Natives, it has been
stated that— - -
(1) Government will be obliged to make at
first appointments under the new system, where
there is a paucity of Europeans, and therefore,
generally, to undesirable places.
(2) That if Natives are sent to such localities
as contain a large number of those inhabitants,
a serious state of affairs would arise bringing
Government into collision with the Anglo-Indian
community. -
(3) It will, by the agitation it has given rise
to, prove an obstacle to the bestowal by Govern-
ment, of substantial benefit upon the Natives, in-
as much as no Government would like to face
another such storm.
(4) It would become a dead letter.
I should say generally of most of these objec-
tions that they appeal to the selfish instincts of
the Native functionaries, under the new system,
they must be prepared in this respect to sacrifice
the interest of their individual selves, if Govern-
ment, in its wisdom, see fit to inaugurate the policy
67
in this way; moreover it should be seen that
there are already Magistrates and Judges in un-
desirable places, and as by just transfers from
time to time they are sent to better places, so in due
time the new appointees can hope to get out of
bad localities. Not to mention that a sense of
duty and a sufficient leaning to altruism, should
reconcile them to their fate, knowing, as they do,
that it is the initiation of a progressive and fruc-
tifying measure by which the country is to benefit.
If, on any future occasion, it should, unfortunate-
ly, happen that the Anglo-Indian community
would oppose any boon being conferred by Govern-
ment upon the Natives, because the latter have
not yielded to its wishes in the present matter,
it would be the duty of Government, that wishes
to rise above a mere Astynomocracy, to decide the
problem as to whether it should yield to the
demands of passion of a few of the ruling nationali-
ty or to act according to the dictates of reason,
justice, and good statesmanship in the interest of
the overwhelmingly many who constitute the
ruled nationality. If, again, the Government is
brought into collision with any section of Her
Majesty's snbjects for its doing ‘what is right, it
should know its own strength to face it or not.
As to the Bill becoming a dead-letter, I should
rather think it would prevent the Queen's Pro-
clamation being so. - *
Now, I believe, I have met in the best way I
68
can, all the broad questions involved in your reply,
underlying all of them however, my countrymen
would say there is a feeling to keep up a race-dis-
tinction—a desire that the ruling race is not to
submit to be tried by a tribunal presided over by
a Native in a criminal suit, because he is a Native
and belongs to the ruled nationality. This feel-
ing and this desire are the elements of a strong
prejudice, and unreasoning, as is the essential
character of all prejudices, they too have to be
taken into consideration by a statesman, or, in
other words, that a statesman should not only see
that a law is the best law on principle, but that
it is the best adapted to times and circumstances,
and it is in this sense, I believe, you say that
even as an “unreasoning alarm, it deserves serious
consideration.” As regards the measure in ques-
tion and the people of the country, our Govern-
ment has slowly and cautiously bided its time,
and has been rather dilatory than hasty, and
although in view, sometimes, of the prejudice of
the Hindus, and sometimes of that of our Anglo-
Indian brethren who assist Government in work-
ing its machinery, or in developing the resources
of the country, it has often had to check legi-
timate progress and improvement in the art of
ruling, the question is whether now it should
withdraw its hands from the good direction in
which they have been stretched. For its solution,
let us first see how the British Government of
69
India has all along proceeded in battling with any
form of prejudice which it has had to encounter.
Its own clearness of vision must precede all its
efforts, it takes into cognizance the character of
the prejudice, in the effects it produces, the men
who entertain it, and the extent to which it per-
vades amongst them, and whenever it has seen
that the prejudice, whether religious or political
or merely traditional, were subversive of the fun-
damental doctrines of humanity and justice, it
has looked round, and if it found it to be very
deep and disseminated and thickly imbedded in an
impenetrable mass of ignorance and its (Govern-
ment's) power weak, it waited for its time, and
when it arrived, the baneful Upas was uprooted
with a gaint's wrench. In this way Governor
Job Charnock could only rescue an almost perish-
ing beauty from the funeral pile, and, as the story
goes, took her for his bride, because she could
not return to her family. But a Bentinck, strong
in his power, stamped out religious suicide from
one end of India to the other, and in this way
also in the maturity of time, the Government
made the Ganges “cease to claim her infant victims.”
Next, let us see what is the character and ten-
dency of the prejudice in question, who entertain
it, and whether Government, in its strength and
wisdom, ought to allow it to work out its results.
That in its aspect as a privilege claimed, it
operates very injudiciously against the interest of
70
the country and hampers the machinery of Govern-
ment, and also in its simple unreasoning feature,
it brings out into strong relief, one element of in-
consistency in submitting to a Native Judge in
one room, and not submitting to him in another
in which again he did submit to him only eleven
years ago—I have already shown.
Again who show the play of this prejudice in
their minds? A few gentlemen of our ruling race,
and of those few, in some, it is genuine, and in
others, the exhibition of it, is said to be factitious
by certain English gentlemen of great experience,
and in those even in whom it is real, it has been
studiously evoked, and has not burst out spon-
taneously, as would have been in a strong form
in our case in the pre-Bentinck days, if the Sati-
abolition agitation had then been attempted, and
which did break out in a comparatively weak form
on that occasion.
Moreover, what is this race—a race, which has
reached the topmost pinnacle of civilization, which
has, not only by the valor of its arms, acquired,
and which domineers over, all the expanse of earth
and ocean “over which the sun never sets,” but
is truly proud of its more extensive and splendid
acquisition in the unbounded domain of knowledge
—a race which has not only advanced wonderfully
in material prosperity themselves, but has been
endeavouring to make the whole world partakers'
of it—a race whose giant intellects (an army of
71
poets, philosophers, men of science, orators, priests
and reformers) have been speaking to all nations
with persuasive arguments, and in strong and
thrilling accents to spurn all prejudice,—to culti-
vate love and altruism, to promote unity and to
recognise equality, at least in the eye of law—a
race above all, chastened by Christianity and I
may say, more determined iconoclasts than the
prophet of Islam or his followers could conceive:
the latter with their clumsy clubs could only
break the visible idols in visible temples, while
the former with the polished arms of education
and science, with persistent energy, vanqishes the
secretly worshipped idola enshrined in our minds.
Now, my good Sir, I ask your countrymen: Is
it wise, is it kind, is it charitable to request the
present Government to wait in the same spirit in
which the pre-Bentinck Governments waited to
abolish the Sati-waited for their want of strength
(spiritual and physical) and for the fear of the
depth, extension and antiquity of the prejudice
in all the millions of Hindus who had not then
sufficiently appreciated the blessings of a new rule,
and would have rebelled against it. I cannot be-
lieve they can, with a little introvision, give the
answer in the affirmative. That we may not re-
ceive such an answer from them, I would appeal
to them in this wise. ‘Brothers and friends; your
ancestors rescued India from a tyrant's sway,
from galling thraldom ; you have given us the
72
blessings of a good government, which is gradual-
ly improving ; you are heirs of freedom ; you are
giving us free institutions; you owe much of your
material prosperity to India, and you are grate-
fully endeavouring to promote her prosperity
which will react upon your own ; you are possess-
ors of vast treasures of knowledge, and you are
scattering them broadcast upon us; you have
just commenced giving us boons in physics, in
politics, in commerce, in the development of in-
dustrial arts, and removed the load of oppression
under which lay smothered the lofty and sublime
teachings of our hoary sages—those spiritual forces
which are regaining their elasticity—your western
culture has awakened new hopes and aspirations
in our young men, and led them to ways of thought
and modes of feeling, congenial to your own, and
has all but demolished the barriers of caste, and
priest-ridden, and superstition-ridden India, as it
is called, has so far risen over the prejudice of
race and class distinction, as not even to grumble,
if a truly worthy scavenger becomes a Judge of
any of its Courts. You know well from your
histories how the Briareus of prejudice, in its guise
of religion or politics, has spread havoc and ruin
in Europe; how it always brandishes its myriad
hands to sate itself with a holocaust of good
measures, how all nations in the world have al-
ways been busy to lop off its limbs, and to point
with pride to that Valhalla of your immortal
73
heroes who battled successfully with the monster,
and Will you, mighty nation as you are—will you
ensconce this mutilated monster before the palla-
dium of justice, obscuring the majesty of Law Ż
Will you, after sedulously nurturing qualities and
virtues in our youngmen, you most require for the
administration of justice, ignore them when they
fructify, and distrust these men when you have
most reason and need to confide in them 2
What is the sum total of all my notes on your
comprehensive reply, the present Government, at
the recommendation of our late experienced
Lieutenant-Governor, has taken up a just and
righteous measure, a portion of which was past
into an enactment after I believe 1856, and the
remaining portion, but for the scare of Briareus,
or perhaps for a mere accident, would then also
have been the law of the land ; the objections now
started against it, are, in some shape or other, the
repetitions of those which had been urged in 1833,
1856, and 1872, and some of them were used long
ago in support of the trade monopolies of the East
India Company, and have been declared by im-
partial authorities as not founded on valid reason
or applicable to the present state of affairs: to
keep it back would be a wrong done to the country.
In the interest of peace, many good and kind-
hearted men like you, who are above all race-pre-
judice, but who may have wrong notions regarding
our state of society, which I have endeavoured to
74
dispel, wish for a further postponement till the
mass of Indian population is duly educated and
polished. This, Sir, excuse me if I say, would be
waiting till the arrival of our Satya Yuga or the
Millennium,
I can illustrate this view by drawing the atten-
tion of good men like you to the condition of your
own countrymen in respect of education, in respect
of a quasi-caste system that prevails there, and
even in respect of opposition to the free dissemina-
tion of knowledge. Speaking of the arguments
of the objector to the education of the people,
Professor Huxley says “The first is what I will
venture to term the caste arrangement, for if lo-
gically carried out, it would end in the separation
of the people of this country into castes as perma-
nent and as sharply defined, if not as numerous
as those of India.” It is maintained that the
whole fabric of society will be destroyed if the
poor as well as the rich are educated ; that any
thing like sound and good education will only
make them discontented with their station and
raise hopes which, in the great majority of cases,
will be bitterly disappointed. “It is said there
must be hewers of wood and drawers of water
scavengers and coal-heavers, day laborers and
domestic servants, or the work of society will
come to a standstill. But if you educate and re-
fine every body, no body will be content to assume
these functions, and all the world will want to be
75
gentlemen and ladies.” The learned Professor
proceeds to smash this caste argument by replies
of the tu quoque sort and of other kinds, and if
this be the way of thinking of a section of the
people in enlightened England towards the close
of the Nineteenth century, which brought out a
sage from his laboratory to demonstrate its fallacy,
what eons would pass before the 253 millions of
India could reach the desired proper standard of
high education, and before this comes to pass, and
in the mean time : Shall one of the elementary
duties of a great government, the dispensation of
equal justice, in the sense I have explained, be
neglected ? That should not be done, says your
great Carlyle: “ Knowest thou the meaning of this
day ? What thou canst do to-day wisely-attempt
to do.” Thus says Locke on the subject “and so
whoever has the legislature or supreme power of
any common-wealth, is bound to govern by es-
tablished standing laws promulgated and known
to the people and not by extemporary degrees, by
indifferent and upright Judges who are to decide
controversies by those laws and to employ the
force of community at home only in the execution
of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress fo–
reign injuries and secure the community from
inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed
to no other end than the peace, safety, and the
public good of the people.” And again in view of
the toleration of a prejudice so fraught with evil
76
consequences. “No opinion contrary to human
Society or to those moral rules which are necessary
to the preservation of Civil society are to be to-
lerated by the Magistrate.”
I have also been endeavouring to show that our
Government, under a lofty sense of responsibility
and duty, with due care and caution has ushered
forth even in a tentative form for the good of the
people, a measure, founded upon truth, right and
justice. At this moment, happily our great so-
vereign's will, an exalted ministry's policy, the
views of the Parliament, and the general tendency
of thought of a good many thinkers in England,
and shall I say the freedom-loving instinct of the
British people, at large, unswayed by local influ-
ences are all in unison on the subject, and if even
now those great principles be departed from, ow-
ing to any reason, the wrong assumes a magnitude
the gravity of which and the stern duty of guard-
ing against which, as well as the holy character
of the principles themselves, could only be ade-
quately conceived and grandly expressed by your
own countrymen. Thus writes your great sage of
Chelsea : “Alas! How many causes that can plead
well for themselves in the Courts of Westminster,
and yet in the general Court of Universe and free
soul of man have no word to utter | Honorable
gentlemen may find this worth considering in
times like ours. And truly the din of triumphant.
law-logic and all shaking of horsehair-wigs and
77
learned-sergeant gowns having comfortably ended
we shall do well to ask ourselves withal, what
says that high and highest Court to the verdict 3
For it is the Court of Courts; that same,
where the universal soul of Fact and very Truth
sits President ;-and thitherward, more and more
swiftly, with a really terrible increase of swiftness,
all causes do in these days crowd for revisal, for
confirmation, for modification, for reversal with
costs,” “ * * “For the gowns of learned ser-
geants are good : parchment records, fixed forms,
and poor terrestrial justice with or without horse-
hair, what sane man will not reverence these ?
And yet behold, the man is not sane but insane,
who consider these alone as venerable. Oceans
of horse-hair, continents of parchment, and learn-
ed sergeant eloquence were it continued till the
learned tongue wore itself small in the indefati-
gable learned mouth, cannot make unjust, just.
The grand question still remains, Was the judge-
ment just 2 If unjust, it will not, and cannot get
harbour for itself, or continue to have footing in
this universe which was made by other than One
Unjust. Enforce it by never such statuting, three
readings, royal assents; blow it to the four winds
with all manner of quilted trumpeters and pursui-
vants, in the rear of them never so manny gibbets
and hangmen, it will not stand ; it cannot stand.
From all souls of men, from all ends of Nature,
from the Throne of God above, there are voices
78
bidding it : Away, Away ! Does it take no warn-
ing, does it stand strong in its three readings, in
its gibbet and artillery parks : The more woe
is to it. It will continue standing for its day,
for its year, for its century, doing evil all the while
but it has one enemy who is Almighty. Dissolu-
tion, explosion, and the ever-lasting Laws of
Nature incessantly advance towards it, and the
deeper its rooting, more obstinate its continuing,
the deeper also and higher will its ruin and over-
turn be "
And what says Rickards (whose words I have
once quoted above), than whom no historian dived
more deeply into the inner life of India, who wrote
in 1829 in view of the (then) approaching expira-
tion of the East India Company's Charter, a work
entitled “India or Facts submitted to illustrate the
character and condition of the Native inhabitants
with suggestions for reforming the (then) present
system of Government,” and dedicated it to a past
generation of the Native inhabitants of India. In
that great work after taking an elaborate review
of a particular phase of the affairs of our country,
condemning the policy of the period and adverting
to the proofs of the education of a few self-taught
Natives (before there were any proper English
Educational Institution) and amongst whom he
brought forward the instances of Rajah Ram
Mohan Roy, my late father, and Ram Raz of
Madras, he thus concludes in burning words and in
79
the enthusiasm of philanthropy. “With all these
facts before us, with the sincerest conviction in my
own mind of their importance as well as truth, I
now again appeal to the constituted authorities in
England, and solemnly say, Beware ! Recollect,
gentlemen, that knowledge is power. You have
now laid the foundation of it among acute and
intellectual people. Its diffusion is inevitable, the
school-master is abroad with his primer, . pur-
suing a course which no power of man can here-
after arrest. A light is now rising in the East,
destined to attain meridian strength and splendour,
and to shine more and more into the perfect day.
Through the medium of schools, literary meetings
and printed books, all the learning and the science
of Europe will be greedily imbibed and securely
domiciled by the Hindus of India. Knowledge,
gentlemen, is power, the immortal tree is at length
planted in India ; and if its growth be skilfully
directed, may yield to Britain the fruits of ever-
lasting honor and of permanent prosperity. But
IBeware of error and above all beware of injustice;
for deviation into these crooked paths will now
be fatal and may shake the props of your own im-
perial existence to the very base. You have now
reigned over India for upwards of half-a-century;
but however good your intentions, you have per-
severed in a system not to be reconciled with reason,
with justice, or humanity; and for which you have
no better apology than that it was the system of
80
your barbarous predecessors. Your institutions
must be reformed. The Natives of India will soon
learn, if they know not already, all the horrors and
inapplicability of your system. They have long felt
its overwhelming pressure. They will soon know
that rights and duties are reciprocal, that if you
assume the right to govern, duty requires you should
do it, first, for their benefit, neast only for your own;
if on the contrary, the course of your future
government be to dethrone, and pension indepen-
dent monarchs, to control others by dictating Resi-
dents, and the presence of subsidised armies; to
make treaties and to break them at the suggestion
of self-interest ; to compel all the powers of India
to acknowledge your, superiority, and yield obe-
dience to your will ; if your domestic institutions
be ever changing, and the object of every change,
perpetual increase of annual tribute ; you will find
for the future, or I grossly miscalculate, that an
acute, discriminating, and enlightened community
will no longer be disposed to place blind confidence
in your professions; but to judge you by your
deeds. You have a heavy debt of justice to repay.
It will be demanded at your hands; and the op-
portunity is about to be afforded you of discharg-
ing it liberally, with equal satisfaction to the
claimants and immortal credit to yourself. But
if you neglect the opportunity, and determine to
follow up your past erroneous courses and oppress-
ions, I say, again Beware ! The knowledge now
81
diffused and diffusing, throughout India, will
shortly constitute a power, which three hundred
thousand British bayonets will be unable to control.
That Government, which has been so often called
Government of opinion, must, for the future, have
some better support than the idea of its military
superiority. The Natives of India are now in a
state to desire your protection; and they will
gratefully return the boon, if it be granted with
real liberality and justice. The ground-work of
the future fabric should be co-operation with the
Natives in the Government of themselves; and
for which, under due control they will be found
far better qualified than those to whom it has
hitherto been entrusted. But if you persevere
in merciless exactions and in enforcing the doc-
trine of passive obedience—if your domestic policy
be a system of expedience, and the object of your
foreign policy, military supremacy, the day may
not be far distant when you shall feel, in disap-
pointment and disgrace, how feeble is physical,
compared with moral, power; and in the down-
fall of the magnificent empire of India.
“tot quondam populis terrisque
superbum Regnatorcm Asab’’
may add one more page to the proofs given by
history, that the fleshy arms, and the instruments
of war, are but a fragile tenure, and ‘soon to
nothing brought when opposed to the intesest and
the will of an enlightened people.’” *
K -
82
Another fifty years have now rolled over India
and our benignant Government has struck deep
roots in its soil—it is borne upon the shoulders
of the loyalty of the people—a loyalty that can
be cast into glooms of sorrow by adverse influen-
ces but can never shake so as to affect the props
it bears. p i *
Of the agitation, strife, and discord, which
have arisen, and which every good man like you
wishes, should end as soon as possible, but which
you fear, will continue in some shape or other if
the Bill is passed, I have said some thing in my
first letter, and I have only to add that I and my
countrymen believe there are ample resources
from which to draw our hope that all will end
well. We believe that the countrymen of Bacon
will not shut their eyes to his teachings which
form the fountain of modern science, and that
they will use in their calmer moments, the widely-
spread results of rigid induction to banish all
grounds of distrust of Native character ; we have
great faith in the peculiar virtues of your country-
men. We say, if the British Lion is now furious
at sight of phantoms through a mirage raised
from the reflected glare of the heated sand of race-
prejudice on which he stands; if his eyes flash
fire, his roaring fills the air and reverberates from
England's shores; if he paws the earth and lashes
his tail; in the cool and calm of reason's evening,
the mirage will vanish, and he will be hushed into
•
83
peace, his proverbial generosity will prevail and
in remembrance of the humble services of many
dark Androcli of old, lick their children with
tongues of affection, and look round and find none
but his well-wishers—yet more, we esteem highly
the noble qualities of English women.—we see
many of them leave hearth and home, encounter
unnumbered privations and hardships, and, while
leading lives of voluntary exiles here, visiting
Native houses and endeavouring to enlighten the
minds of their dark sisters, we see them like
true heroines follow in the train of armies, and in
camps pitched on hostile lands of unchristian foes,
amid the flash and roar of artillery, and the grim
scences of slaughter and carnage—undaunted and
with steady hands doing love's work, healing
wounds or nursing the sick; and we have hope
enough in the sisters of these “ministering angels”
when their unfounded fears disappear in the light
of truth, when they see that their dark sister, a
timorous window-peering cage bird can be brought
into a Crininal Court, whether presided over by
a Native or European (where both are the same
in this respect) they can have no objection to come
before a British tribunal in which presides a Native
British subject, well educated in English (perhaps
in England), of tried ability and inviolable integri-
ty, administering British law and specially well-
skilled in untangling the intricacy of false Native
evidence (if it at all happen to be so), and who,
84
moreover, according to the custom of Hindus of
good breeding, accosts a female of another's family
as “mother” or “daughter.” These noble women
have only to hear the key-note of humanity un-
derlying the (now to them represented) obnoxious
. Bill, and they will be busy to use the alchemy of
their words and affection, successfully turn the
ungainly metal of race-prejudice in the stronger
sex into the purest and genuine gold of philan-
thropy. Yes! that hand so ready to pour balm
on the reeking wound, will surely pour “oil on
troubled waters” of the present agitation. The
season too will help us ; our Christian brethren
regard it as peculiarly holy when hate is drown-
ed, and affection and charity rule the mind. May
they forget the past and regard with kind feelings
their dark brethren, remembering that dark or
brown or white skins are but so many irridescent
caskets which by the Great Magician's art hold
the same jewel. - -
I have to touch upon the last phase of the
question, into which the controversy is drifting
in its terminating stage. Rightly or wrongly,
wittingly or unwittingly, a soulless Frankenstein
has been raised, he hopes for victory. The Govern-
ment and the parties to the controversy by the
force of human nature have not only been wearied
of it, but they regard it as an obstacle to the
consideration of many equally or more momentous
questions, and are, therefore, disposed to offer it
85
something to keep it down. So the greatest vigi-
lance is required to examine the character of any
proposed offering. The best suggestion that
strikes us with reference to this rather low aspect
of the topic, is not to see who but what gets the
victory, to discover that it is not a question
whether the Native and Eurasian gentlemen or
the Anglo-Indian community, not whether the
Executive Government, the majority of the Im-
perial Legislature and the Viceroy or the high
Government functionaries win the battle, but
whether truth, justice, and humanity ought to
triumph, and in this light who dare grudge the
triumph to those immutable principles of nature
which “time that devours every thing cannot
gnaw, and which the more smothered the more
effulgent grow.” But we are soon reminded that
Trankenstein cannot be put down in this wise,
and, in this view the Jury system has been offer-
ed for its acceptance. This system, however so
peculiar to England, is unsuited to India, as has
been evidenced by the prolonged discussions,
which at one time prevailed, for its abolition from
the Presidency High Courts and by the law pass-
ed long ago under which Mofussil British-born
subjects have become amenable to the criminal
Jurisdiction of European Civil Magistrates and
Judges. If this system be now introduced into
the Mofussil Courts, it would in the light of those
discussions, prove an additional clog to the many
86
difficulties in the shape of procedure which give
rise to a miscarriage of justice, and modify the
onward progessive movement of Government into
a pendulous motion oscillating between progress
and retrogress. Such being the case and, as it
will not do to say for Frankenstein's sake e
“To live by law, e -
- Acting the law we live by without fear.
And because right is right to follow right,
Were wisdom in its scorn of consequence.”
We must leave it to the wisdom of our respon-
sible Government “to draw expedient from obstacle,
invention from difficulty, safety from danger.”
And when the agitation ends, as end it must,
what shall we have learnt—one more confirmation
of the lesson that “God educes good from evil.”
It will be found to have served as a great flail, by
which many important truths have been threshed
out and gleaned by the Government and all class-
es of its subjects—by which communities have
had opportunities of more intimately understand-
ing each other in their modes of thinking and
ways of acting and of more vigilantly and per-
severingly watching the movements of, and apply-
ing new forces to, the counsels of Government to
which this is a great gain, inasmuch as, however
high its statesmanship and benevolent its motives
it is but fallible and cannot but commit errors in
87
*
public measures, and the more the light it receives
from all quarters the greater are those errors
avoided. Its results will be long remembered in
having caused a great upheaval of the Native
mind, in drawing together the ties between the
educated minds of all Indian nationalities warmed
with the fervour of loyalty, and inspired with the
love of their country—in having made as Carlyle
would call it “a strange to-day” in India, when
a Native in many ranks of society thinks the
thoughts and lisps the language of politics which
your countrymen are now trying to reduce to a
science, complex though it be. It is rightly said
that as civilization advances, every individual’s
property advances that of his neighbour. So it
must be with communities constituting one subject
population. As larger views of the interests of the
Anglo-Indian community cannot but be taken
by the new banding which the agitation has evoked,
they will be found to be intimately connected
with those of the Native community at large, and
as the views of both in the direction of their
corporate interests expand, they will serve under
the new influences that would survive the contro-
versy, to bridge over completely the gulf between
them. - - •
In anticipation of this denouement of the great
drama when played out by the inscrutable ways
of Providence and in view of the facts now patent,
let us all subjects of Her Majesty burst out in one-
88
acclaim of Hallelu, Yehovah, and let us all Indians
in a chorus, singing in the spirit of Davis thus
address our Anglo-Indian brethren.
“What matter that at different shrines
We pray unto one God
What matter that at different times
Your fathers won the sod.”
“In fortune and in name,” we're bound
By stronger links than steel ;
And neither can be safe nor sound
But in the others weal.”
“And oh it were a gallant deed
To show before mankind -
How every race and every creed
May be by love, combined.”
$º # 3: :* :* : ;
“We heed not race nor cleed nor clan
We're hands and hearts for you.”
And now before words are met by words, let us
revert to the great question, who is right and who
is wrong—how can we do this ; Let us each one of
us of all nationalities bearing the common name of
subjects of England's sovereign, pray to heaven.
If I am right thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay ;
If I am wrong, oh teach my heart
To find that better way.”
* British Subject.
89
let each of us again breathe out—
|
Then after our struggle in the direction of right,
*§
“Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has deny'd,
Or aught thy goodness lent.”
One word more, and that regarding myself,
I have already informed you of the difficulties
I labor under. I have had no time to see these
notes compressed, duly examined and sifted. I
beg, therefore, in the first instance to be excused
for the length of the paper, next to ask your and
your countrymen's forgiveness, "if any thing,
without my cognizance, might have crept into this
paper calculated to give the slightest offence to
any body. I have honestly tried to see a full ex-
pression being given to what I belive to be the
views of most of my countrymen on the subject,
and if I have erred, they will kindly correct me.
Many errors in diverse matters might also have
been committed for which I expect the indulgence
of all. My aim has also been to throw light upon
what I believe not to be generally known and to
lay bare my own feelings. I should also say that
in view of the present aspect of the controversy,
much that I have said should have been expunged,
but I could not, in that view, see the whole recast.
I could not moreover in advertence to your wish
expressed in your last note, dilate further upon

90 - i
the easte system and the present phase of º
social structure than what was desirable in connec-
tion with the immediate question, it is a very
comprehensive subject, and should be taken up by
some of our able and experienced countrymen in º
different parts of India. We want more light, more
to learn, much to unlearn—more of humility and
charity. Offering you all the compliments of the
season and wishing you a happy New year and
many happy returns of the same, I subscribe my-
self— -
- Yours very truly,
RAJENDRA NARAIN DEB.
APPENDIX.
ii
Eaſtract from a letter of the late Raja Sir Radhakant
Bahadoor K. C. S. I. to the late Maharaja Ramamath
Tagore C. S. I. read at a Public Meeting—6th April 1857.
3. * * 3. *
The object of your meeting is to consider the propriety
of supporting that portion of the Draft of a Law now be-
fore the Legislative Council of India, which refers to the
extension of the Criminal jurisdiction of the Muffasil Courts
to all classes of Her Majesty's subjects without respect of
religion, race or place of birth.
The Penal Code of India with reference to the jurisdic-
tion of the Company's Criminal Courts as it now exists, is
of a most objectionable character. It would not I believe, be
irrelevant to state here its principal features.
1st. Natives and all Europeans (not British born subjects)
are amenable to the authority of the Magistrates and
Sessions Courts, within whose jurisdiction they are appre-
hended and brought to trial, but European British subjects,
for all acts of a criminal nature, are amenable only to Her
Majesty's Supreme Courts and exempted from the jnrisdic-
tion of the local authorities in the administration of the
Penal Enactment of the Government of India—53 Geo.
III Chapter. 155 Sec. 105 Beng; Beng: Reg. II, 1796
Sec. 2 Cl. 1. Ceded Prov. Reg. WI, 1803 Sec. 19, Cl. 1 and
Const No. 1296.
2nd. In the event of any charges being preferred against
European British subjects which may render them liable to
a Criminal prosecution on Her Majesty's Courts, the process
is so circuitous, dilatory, expensive aud productive of such
infinite inconvenience and trouble to the prosecutors and
witnesses especially if they belong to the class of poor
Rayats and cultivators, that they (the European British
born subjects) are virtually allowed to commit crimes of
the most heinous nature with impunity.
iii
3rd There are petty offences for which indeed, a Europe-
an British subject can be tried by a Muffassil Magistrate
but such cases are removable by a writ of Certiorari to the
Supreme Court—53 Geo: 111 Chap. 155, Sec. 105.
4th. So great is the privilege of a European British sub-
ject that if a Native, happily, happen to be a brother felon
with him, the Magistrate will not be able to try him (the
Native) without a reference to the Nizamut—C. O. No. 79
Vol I. -
5th. The Magisterial authorities have not even the
power to interrogate a European British subject before
them, for any alleged offence upon matters charged against
them—C. O. No. 99 Wol III.
Such are some of the most odious features of a Law
unworthy the enlightened principles of the liberal Govern-
ment of one of the most civilized nations in the world,
which the proposed humane enactment intends to obli-
terate from the Penal Code.
It is indeed strange that the British Legislature should
have delayed so long to pass a law founded upon the
broadest principles of justice and humanity, and stranger
still that many of the British iuhabitants of India should
protest against the enactment and stigmatize it by christen-
ing it “the Black Act.” -
The Law proposed would strike at the foundation of an
inhuman principle.
Far from deserving the epithet “Black Act” I would
call it the “white Act.” It should be likened to the
sun in his meridian splendour shedding the refulgent beams
of justice on all classes of people equally, and dim indeed
are their eyes with prejudice, who can not behold its ge-
nuine lustre. A clebrated Persian poet has aptly said:—
“If bats' eyes cannot see in the day.—
What fault is there in the rays of the sun ?
iv.
- * Desirest thou the truth ? it is better that a thousand
eyes were thus blind, than the sun dark.” -
There needs no argument to prove the necessity of a law
dictating that justice should be administered without dis-
tinction of creed color or caste. Our most cordial and grateful
thanks are therefore due to the Hon’ble Mr. Peacock who,
I am told, has, wisely and with a feeling of noble disinteres-
tedness, framed an Act which proposes to render adminis-
tration of justice at large but as there are always two sides
of the question, we should examine the sum total of the
objection raised against the passing of the Act by the
oppositionists : it is no other than the standing imperfection
of the Muffosil Courts.
I admit there are many serious defects in the constitution
of these courts and I have, all along both privately and pub-
licly expressed this my opinion but this circumstance
should not, in any wise, interfere with the question at issue
which is simply this, Whether there should be one Penal
Code for the “Whites * and another for the “Blacks 7” one
for the Christians another for the Heathens ? What un-
biased individual would not answer in the negative 7 What
man of common sense would not see the injustice of a
Shaheb in the Muffassil maltreating a Native under the
most aggravating circumstances and going unpunished owing
to the difficulties of a prosecution in the Supreme Court 2
Who would not call it a strange perversion of justice that
whilst a Native is amenable to local courts in Civil and
Criminal cases, a European British subject can be tried
there only in matters of certain civil controversy and
would be penally liable to the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's
Courts. The defects of the Muffassil courts should be enqiured
into and corrected by the Legislature but because they are
not yet reformed, it is no reason that justice should be
made to assume a mild form for the conquering, and a
V
harsh one for the conquered, race. -
(. * tº * {} : )
I beg our fellow British subjects would not regard our
proceedings with a hostile feeling, it is not our wish that
they should in any respect suffer, all that we look for, is
that justice should be dispensed with an even hand to all
Classes of Her Majesty's subjects.
Item Selected UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
For Retention ||||||||||||
By MDP 3
*2008 9015 03344 0549