CHAPTER XV.THE ANGLO-INDIAN AND THE OYSTER.
Allahabad.—It certainly is a very difficult thing to see the real India, the real life of the people. You arrive at a railway station, give the name of a hotel, and are driven there. When you wake up in the morning you find yourself in a region of straight shady avenues, villa residences, hotels and churches, lawn-tennis and whisky pegs. Except that the residences are houses of one storey instead of three, and that the sun is rather glaring for February, you might just as well be at Wandsworth or Kew. In some alarm you ask for the native city and find that it is four miles off! You cannot possibly walk there along the dusty roads, and there is nothing for it but to drive. If there is anything of the nature of a “sight” in the city you are of course beset by drivers; in any case you ultimately have to undergo the ignominy of being jogged through the town in a two-horse conveyance, stared at by the people, followed by guides, pestered forbakshish, and are glad to get back to the shelter of your hotel.
If you go and stay with your Anglo-Indian friend in his villa-bungalow, you are only a shade worse off instead of better. He is hospitality itself and will introduce you cordially to all the other good folk, whom (and their ways) you have seen morethan once before at Wandsworth and at Kew; but as to the people of the country, why, you are no nearer them physically, and morally you are farther off because you are in the midst of a society where it is the correct thing to damn the oyster, and all that is connected with him.
The more one sees of the world the more one is impressed, I think, by the profundity and the impassibility of the gulf of race-difference. Two races may touch, may mingle, may occupy for a time the same land; they may recognise each other’s excellencies, may admire and imitate each other; individuals may even cross the dividing line and be absorbed on either side; but ultimately the gulf reasserts itself, the deepset difference makes itself felt, and for reasons which neither party very clearly understands they cease to tolerate each other. They separate, like oil and water; or break into flame and fierce conflict; or the one perishes withering from the touch of the other. There are a few souls, born travelers and such like, for whom race-barriers do not exist, and who are everywhere at home, but they are rare. For the world at large the great race-divisions are very deep, very insuperable. Here is a vast problem. The social problem which to-day hangs over the Western lands is a great one; but this looms behind it, even vaster. Anyhow in India the barrier is plain enough to be seen—more than physical, more than intellectual, more than moral—a deepset ineradicable incompatibility.
Take that difference in the conception of Duty, to which I have already alluded. The central core of the orthodox Englishman, or at any rate of thepublic-school boy who ultimately becomes our most accepted type, is perhaps to be found in that word. It is that which makes him the dull, narrow-minded, noble, fearless, reliable man that he is. The moving forces of the Hindu are quite different; they are, first, Religion; and second, Affection; and it is these which make him so hopelessly unpractical, so abominably resigned, yet withal so tender and imaginative of heart. Abstract duty to the Hindu has but little meaning. He may perform his religious exercises and his caste injunctions carefully enough, but it is because he realises clearly the expediency of so doing. And what can the Englishman understand of this man who sits on his haunches at a railway station for a whole day meditating on the desirability of not being born again! They do not and they cannot understand each other.
Many of the I.C.S. are very able, disinterested, hardworking men, but one feels that they work from basic assumptions which are quite alien to the Hindu mind, and they can only see with sorrow that their work takes no hold upon the people and its affections. The materialistic and commercial spirit of Western rule can never blend with the profoundly religious character of the social organisation normal to India. We undertake the most obviously useful works, the administration of justice, the construction of tanks and railways, in a genuine spirit of material expediency and with a genuine anxiety to secure a 5 per cent. return; to the Hindu all this is as nothing—it does not touch him in the least. Unfortunately, since the substitution of mere open competition for the remains ofnoblesse oblige, whichsurvived in the former patronage appointments to the I.C.S., and with the general growth of commercialism in England, the commercial character of our rule has only increased during the last thirty years. There is less belief in justice and honor, more in 5 per cent. and expediency—less anxiety to understand the people and to govern them well, more to make a good income and to retire to England with an affluence at an early date.
Curious that we have the same problem of race-difference still utterly unsolved in the United States. After all the ardor of the Abolitionists, the fury of civil war, the emancipation of the slaves, the granting of the ballot and political equality, and the prophecies of the enthusiasts of humanity—still remains the fact that in the parts where negroes exist in any numbers the white man will not even ride in the same car with his brother, or drink at the bar where he drinks. So long does it take to surpass and overcome these dividing lines. We all know that they have to be surpassed—we all know that the ultimate and common humanity must disentangle itself and rise superior to them in the end. The Gñáni knows it—it is almost the central fact of his religious philosophy and practice; the Western democrat knows it—it is also the central fact ofhiscreed. But the way to its realisation is long and intricate and bewildering.
We must not therefore be too ready to find fault with the Anglo-Indian if he only (so to speak) touches the native with the tongs. He may think, doubtless, that he acts so because the oyster is a poor despicable creature, quite untrustworthy, incapable,etc.—all of which may be true enough, only we must not forget that the oyster has a corresponding list of charges against the Anglo—but the real truth on both sides is something deeper, something deeper perhaps than can easily be expressed—a rooted dislike and difference between the two peoples. Providence, for its own good reasons, seems to have put them together for a season in order that they may torment each other, and there is nothing more to be said.
And, putting race-difference aside, it is obvious that the circumstances of our presence in India make any fusion of the two parties very difficult. Certainly the spectacle of our domination of this vast region is a very remarkable one—something romantic, and almost incredible—the conquest and subjection of so many tribes and of such diverse elements under one political rule and standard, the mere handful of foreigners holding the country at such a vast distance from home and from their base of operations, the patience and pluck with which the problem has been worked out, the broad and liberal spirit of administration with less of rapine than perhaps ever known in such a case before, and even an allowance and tenderness for native customs and institutions which are especially remarkable considering the insular habits of the conquerors—all this makes one feel how wonderful an achievement the thing has been. But as far as intercourse between the two peoples goes, the result has been inevitable. We came to India as conquerors, we remain there as a ruling caste. There is a gulf to begin with; how can it be bridged over?
A young man at the age of twenty-two or twenty-three comes out to join the official ranks. He finds two societies existing, quite sundered from each other. He cannot belong to both. He may have the most cosmopolitan ideas; he might evenpreferto associate with the subject race, but that would be obviously impossible; he must join his own people—which means the use of the tongs when a native gentleman calls. As a mere lad, even though of strong character, it is impossible for him to withstand the tremendous pressure which the Anglos will bring to bear on him. When he is forty, he will have accommodated his views to his position. Thus the gulf remains as wide as ever.
Then the people themselves are the conquered, andtheyhave learned their lesson only too well. Walking through an Indian city is as bad as walking through a Devonshire parish, where the parson and the squire have done their deadly work, and the school-children curtsey to you and the farm-laborer pulls his forelock and calls you “Sir,” if you only ask the way. I have walked alone through a crowded city in this part of India for two or three hours without seeing a single white face—one among scores of thousands—and the people officiously pushing each other out of the way to make room for me, the native police and soldiers saluting and shouldering arms as one went by, and if one chanced to look too straight at a man he covered his face with his hands and bowed low to the ground! This does not happen fortunately in the great centres like Bombay and Calcutta, but it does in some of the up-country cities; and it is a strange experience,impressing one no doubt with a sense of the power of the little mother-country ten thousand miles away, which throws its prestige around one—but impressing one also with a sinister sense of the gulf between man and man which that prestige has created. It may be imagined that a long course of this kind of thing soon convinces the average Anglo-Indian that he really does belong to a superior order of being—reacting on him just as the curtseys and forelock-pulling react on the class-infatuation of squire and parson—and so the gulf gets wider instead of lessening.
At dinner last night I met a dozen or so of the chief officials here, and thought them a capable, intelligent and good-hearted lot—steeped of course in their particular English class-tradition, but of their class as good a sample as one could expect to meet. Talking with a Bengali gentleman who was present—one of the numerous Bannerji clan—he reiterated the usual complaint. “The official people,” he said, “are very good as long as the governed submit and say nothing; but they will neither discuss matters with individual natives nor recognise the great social movement (National Congress, etc.) that is going on. Their methods in fact are those of a hundred years ago.” “It is a great pity,” he continued, “because in a few years the growing movement will insist on recognition, and then if that leads to altercation and division the future will be lost, both for the English and the native. The people of India aremostfriendly to the Government, and if the official classes would stretch out a hand, and give and take so to speak, they would be loyal to death.”
With these last expressions I am much inclined to agree, for having talked with oysters of all classes on this subject—from the lowest to the highest—I have always found but one sentiment, that of satisfaction with the stability and security which our rule has brought to the country at large—not of course without serious criticisms of our policy, but with the general conviction, quite spontaneously expressed, that a change of government—as to that of Russia—or even a return to the divided rule of native princes, would be a decided change for the worse. While however thus gladly and unasked expressing their loyalty, my interlocutors have (I think in every case) qualified their remarks by expressing their dissatisfaction at the personal treatment they receive from the English. As one friend mildly expressed it, “The English official calls upon you, and you of course take care to return his call; but he takes care to confine the conversation to the weather and similar topics, and makes you feel that it is a relief when the visit is over, and so there is not much cordiality.”
No doubt as rulers of the country and inheriting, as I have said, a tradition of aloofness and superiority over the ruled, it is difficult for our Anglo-Indian folk to act otherwise than they do. Some of them I think feel really grieved at the estrangement. One of the officials here said to me in quite a pathetic tone, “There is a gulf between us and the people which it is very difficult to bridge.” The native gentleman on the other hand is, very naturally, extremely sensitive about his dignity, and not inclined—under such conditions—to make advances;or, if not sensitive, tends in some cases to be a toady for his own ends; in either case further estrangement results. If the English are to keep India together (supposing that really is a useful object) they mustruleno doubt, and with a firm hand. At the same time the rapidly growing public opinion beneath the surfacehasto be recognised, and will have to be recognised even more in the future. I myself am inclined to think that timidity has a good deal to do with the policy of the English to-day. Conscious that they are not touching the people’s hearts, and cut off from them so as to be unable to fathom rightly what is going on in their minds, they magnify the perils of their own position, and entrenching themselves in further isolation and exclusiveness, by so doing create the very danger that they would avoid.
Aligurh.—This place affords a striking example of arapprochementtaking place between the rulers and the ruled. It is the only place in India which I have visited where I have noticed anything like a cordial feeling existing between the two sections; and this is due to the presence here of the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College, run by Englishmen whose instincts and convictions lie a little outside the Anglo-Indian groove. And the fact shows how much might be done by even a few such men scattered over India. Our friends Theodore Beck and Harold Cox, both Cambridge men, and the latter a decided Socialist in opinion, being connected with the college at its first start a few years ago, naturally made a point of cultivating friendly relations not only with the boys but with their parents—especiallythose who might happen to be residing in the place. Being also, naturally, on friendly terms with the Anglo-Indians and officials of Aligurh, they (and the college) became a point of contact between the two sections of the community. At cricket matches, prize-givings, supper-parties, etc., the good people of both sides met and established comparatively cordial relations with each other, which have given, as I say, a quite distinctive flavor to the social atmosphere here.
Last night (Feb. 17th) I came in for a dinner-party, given in the college reception-room by one of the Mahomedantaluqdars, or landlords, of the neighborhood—a little grey timid man with gold-braided cap and black coat—somewhat resembling the conductor of a German band. Very amusing. Gold caps on beaked and bearded faces, and gorgeous robes; speeches in Hindustani by Englishmen, and in English by Mahomedans; a few Hindus present, sitting apart so as not to eat at the table with us; healths enthusiastically drunk in tea, etc.! and to crown it all, when the health of the Mahomedans and Hindus present was proposed, and the English—including officials, collector, and all—stood up and sang, “For they are jolly good fellows”—the astonishment of the natives, hardly knowing what it all meant and unaccustomed to these forms of jollification, was quite touching.
But the influence of Sir Syed Ahmed here must of course not be overlooked. He is the originator and founder of the M.A.O. College, and one of the leading Mahomedans of India, as well as a confidant of the British and of the Government—a man ofconsiderable weight, courage, and knowledge of the world, if a little ultra-Mahomedan in some of his views and in his contempt of the mild Hindu. He was a member of Lord Ripon’s Council and opposed Lord Ripon with all his might in the matter of the proposed system of popular election to Local Boards and Municipal Councils. The Mahomedan is poles asunder from the modern Radical, and Carlylean in his contempt of voting machinery. His fingers still itch, even in these degenerate days, to cut the Gordian knot of politics with the sword. He hates the acute and tricky Bengali, whom he cannot follow in his acuteness, and whom he disdains to follow in his tricks, and cannot away with his National Congress and representative reforms. But all this perhaps recommends him the more to Anglo-Indian sympathies. There is something in the Mahomedan, with his love of action and dogmatic sense of duty, which makes him more akin to the Englishman than is the philosophical and supple-minded Hindu. And one can easily understand how this race ruled India for centuries, and rejoiced in its rule.
Yet to-day it seems to be the fact that the Mahomedan population is falling into considerable poverty, which—according to some opinions—must end either in the extinction of their influence or their adoption of Western ideas and habits. With the advent of commercialism the stiff-necked son of Islam finds himself ousted in trade by the supple chetty or Brahman. Hence the feud between the two races, which to a certain extent in the country parts was scarring over with mere lapse of time, seems likely now in the more advancing districtsand commercial centres to break out afresh. “In Bundelkhand,” says Beck in hisEssays on Indian Topics, “where society is very old-fashioned, the Rajas are quite Islamized in their customs and thoughts; while in Calcutta, where English influence has been longest, the anti-Mahomedan feeling reaches its greatest height.” That is to say, that in Calcutta and such places the English have brought with them commercialism and a desire among the Hindus for political representation, both of which things have only served to enrage the two parties against each other—Hindu against Mahomedan, and Mahomedan against Hindu.
When a man of authority and weight could make such a jingo speech as that of Sir Syed Ahmed at Lucknow in 1887—who in the extremity of his contempt for the Hindu said, “Wedo not live on fish; nor are we afraid of using a knife and fork lest we should cut our fingers (cheers). Our nation is of the blood of those who made not only Arabia but Asia and Europe to tremble. It is our nation which conquered with its sword the whole of India, although its peoples were all of one religion”—one realises how deep-set is the antagonism still existing. Though forming a minority, fifty or sixty million descendants of a powerful race sharing such sentiments cannot be ignored; and it is obvious that the feud between the two races must for a long period yet form one of the great difficulties and problems of Indian politics.
A few years ago the Hindus tied a pig at night-time in the midst of the Jumma Mosque at Delhi, where it was found in the morning by the infuriatedMahomedans. They in retaliation cut up a brahman cow and threw it into a well used by Hindus. Street fights and assassinations followed and many people were killed—and the affair might have grown to a large scale but for the interference of British troops. Such little amenities are not infrequent, at any rate in certain districts.
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There is a big horse-fair going on here just now. A hundred booths or more arranged in four little streets in form of a cross, with decorations. All round, bare sandy land with horses tied up for sale. The Cabulees—great tall men with long hair and skin coats, fur inside, and ramshackle leggings and shoes—ride in with their strings of horses, 300 or 400 miles from the frontier—where they are obliged to pile their arms until they return, as they would play the deuce in the country if they were to bring their guns with them. They look tidy ruffians, and no doubt would overrun the country if not held back by the English or some military power.
Outside the fair is a wrestling arena, with earth-banks thrown up round it, on which a motley crowd of spectators was seated to-day. Saw several bouts of wrestling. The Aligarh champion’s challenge was accepted by a big Punjaubee, a fellow from Meerut, over sixty years of age, but remarkably powerful—burly, with small nose, battered ears, and huge frontal prominences like some African chieftain or Western prize-fighter—good-humored too and even jolly till accused of unfair play, when he raged among the mob, and the meeting broke up in insane noise and blows of sticks—a small whirlwindof combatants eddying away for some distance over the plain. It was characteristic though, that when they had had enough of fighting, the two parties came back and appealed for fair play to Beck and me—the only two Englishmen present—though there did not seem the least reason why they should, and we were quite unable to afford them any proper satisfaction.