Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

 (Lord William Bentinck, by D. Boulger, p. 203; 'Rulers of India' series.)

9. A European District Superintendent of Police, under the general supervision of the Magistrate of the District, now commands the police of each district, and sometimes has one or two European Assistants. He is also aided by well-paid Inspectors, who are for the most part natives of India. Measures have recently been taken, especially in the United Provinces, to improve the pay, training, and position of the police force, European and Indian.

10. Police officers and men now obtain pensions, like public servants in other departments.

11. In some provinces the highest salaries of magistrates are much lower than the rates stated by the author, which are the highest paid to the most senior officers in certain provinces; and, in all provinces, officiating incumbents, who form a large proportion of the officers employed, draw only a part of the full salary. The fall in exchange has enormously reduced the real value of all Indian salaries.

12. Another popular view of this subject, and, I think, the one more commonly taken, is expressed in the anecdote told ante, chapter 58 following [10]. Well-paid Inspectors of Police, drawing salaries of 150 to 200 rupees a month, are often extremely corrupt, and retire with large fortunes, I knew many cases, but could never obtain judicial proof of one.

13. When 'sons, servants, or favourites of men in authority', in India, no longer oppress their fellows, the millennium will have arrived.

14. It is some slight satisfaction to a zealous magistrate of the present day, when he sees a great and influential criminal escape his just doom, to think that even the best magistrates many years ago had to submit to similar painful experiences. India cannot truly be described as an uncivilized or barbarous country, but, side by side with elements of the highest civilization, it contains many elements of primitive and savage barbarism. The savagery of India cannot be dealt with by barristers or moral text-books.

15. The number of subordinate magistrates, paid and unpaid, has of late years been enormously increased, and courts are, consequently, much more numerous than they used to be. The vast increase in facility of communication has also diminished the inconveniences which the author deplores. In Oudh, and certain other provinces, which used to be called Non-Regulation, the chief Magistrate of the District has power to try and adequately punish all offences, except capital ones. The power is useful, when the district officer has time to exercise it, which is not always the case.

16. There is a Superintendent of Police for the Province of Bengal; but in the North-Western Provinces his duties are divided among the Commissioners of Revenue. [W. H. S.] By 'Superintendent of Police' the author means the high officer now called the Inspector- General of Police, under the present System each Local Government or Administration has one of these officers, who is aided by one or more staff officers as Assistant-Inspectors-General. The Commissioners in the United Provinces have been relieved of police duties. The organization of police stations has been much modified since the author's time. 'Our Bengal territories', as understood by the author, included, in addition to Bengal, the 'North-Western Provinces', now the Province, of Agra, the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, now in the Central Provinces, and the Delhi Territories. Oudh, of course, was then independent; and the Panjāb was under the rule of Ranjit Singh.

17. All these practices are still carried on; and experienced magistrates are well aware of their existence, though powerless to stop them. People will often give private information of malpractices, but will hardly ever come into court, and speak out openly. A magistrate cannot take action on statements which the makers will not submit to cross-examination.

18. This is still a favourite trick. Every year Inspectors- General of Police and Secretaries to Government make the same sarcastic remarks about the wonderful number of 'attempts at burglary', and the apparent contentment of the criminal classes with the small results of their labours. But the Thānadār is too much for even Inspectors-General and Secretaries to Government. No amount of reorganization changes him.

19. Mr. R., when appointed magistrate of the district of Fathpur on the Ganges, had a wish to translate the 'Henriade', and, in order to secure leisure, he issued a proclamation to all the Thānadārs of his district to put down crime, declaring that he would hold them responsible for what might be committed, and dismiss from his situation every one who should suffer any to be committed within his charge. This district, lying on the borders of Oudh, had been noted for the number and atrocious character of its crimes. From that day all the periodical returns went up to the superior court blank—not a crime was reported. Astonished at this sudden result of the change of magistrates, the superior court of Calcutta (the Sadr Nizāmat Adālat) requested one of the judges, who was about to pass through the district on his way down, to inquire into the nature of the System which seemed to work so well, with a view to its adoption in other districts. He found crimes were more abundant than ever; and the Thānadārs showed him the proclamation, which had been understood, as all such proclamations are, not as enjoining vigilance in the prosecution of crime, but as prohibiting all report of them, so as to save the magistrate trouble, and get him a good name with his superiors. [W. H. S.]

Great caution should always be used by local officers in making comments on statistics. The subordinate cares nothing for the facts. When a superior objects that the birth-rate is too low and the death- rate too high in any police circle, the practical conclusion drawn by the police is that the figures of the next return must be made more palatable, and they are cooked accordingly. So, if burglaries are too numerous, they cease to be reported, and so forth.

The old Superior Court was known as the Sadr Nizāmat Adālat, on the criminal, and as the Sadr Dīwānī Adālat, on the civil side. These courts have now been replaced by the High Courts, and equivalent tribunals. In the author's time the High Court for the Agra Province had not yet been established. Its seat is now at Allahabad, but was formerly at Agra.

20. The gap has been filled up by numbers of Deputy Magistrates, Tahsīldār, &c., invested with magisterial powers, Honorary Magistrates, District Superintendents, and Inspectors, and yet all the old games still go on merrily. The reason is that the character of the people has not changed. The police must have the power to arrest, and that power, when wielded by unscrupulous hands, must always be formidable.

21. A magistrate who can find in his district even one man, official or unofficial, who will tell him 'the real state of things', and not merely repeat scandal and malignant gossip, is unusually fortunate.

22. The Thugs were suppressed because a special organization was devised and directed for the purpose, the English rules as to the admissibility of evidence being judiciously relaxed. The ordinary law and methods of procedure are of little effect against the secret societies known as 'criminal tribes'. These criminal tribes number hundreds of thousands of persona, and present a problem almost unknown to European experience. The gipsies, who are largely of Indian origin, are, perhaps, the only European example of an hereditary criminal tribe. But they are not sheltered and abetted by the landowners as their brethren in India are.

23. The magistrate, of course, was the author.

24. These motives all retain their full force, and are unaffected by Police Commissions and reorganization schemes. Some people think that the character of the police will be raised by the employment as officers of young Indians of good family. I am sorry to say that I found these young men to be the worst offenders. They are more daring in their misdeeds than the ordinary policeman, and no better in their morals.

25. This is quite true; and it is also true that our police administration is the weakest part of our System. But the fault is not entirely that of the police. In some provinces, especially in Bengal, the action of the High Courts has almost paralysed the arm of the Executive.

26. 'M. Claude Maille, of Bourges. As we shall see in Book I, chapter 18, a man of this name, who had escaped from the Dutch service, was, in the year 1652, a not very successful amateur gun- founder for Mīr Jumla; he had, after his escape, set up as a surgeon to the Nawāb, with an equipment consisting of a case of instruments and a box of ointments which he had stolen from M. Cheteur, the Dutch Ambassador to Golconda. Tavernier throws no light upon his identity with this physician.' (Tavernier, Travels, ed. Ball, vol. i, p. 116, note). M. Maille befriended Manucci, who mentions him several times (Irvine, Storia do Mogor, i, 92, &c.)

27. Ball's version of this horrible story (vol. i, p. 117) does not differ materially from that quoted in the text. Tavernier does not mention the name of the governor, though he observes that he was 'one of the greatest nobles in India'. Tavernier visited Allahabad in December, 1665, and then heard the story, the governor concerned being at the time in the fort. I have no doubt that in the reign of Shāh Jahān ordinary offences committed by ordinary criminals were ruthlessly punished, and to some extent suppressed. But, under the best Asiatic Governments, great men and their dependants have usually been able to do pretty much what they pleased. The English Government has the merit of refusing to give formal recognition to difference of rank in criminals, and of often trying to punish influential offenders, though seldom succeeding in the attempt. From time to time a conspicuous example, like that of the Nawāb Shams-ud-dīn, is made, and a few such examples, combined with the greater vigilance and more complete organization of the English executive, prevent the occurrence of atrocities so great as that described, without a word of comment, by the French traveller. I have not the slightest doubt, nor has any magistrate of long experience any doubt, that women are frequently made away with quietly in the recesses of the 'zanāna'. I have known several such cases, which were notorious, though incapable of judicial proof. The amount of serious secret crime which occurs in India, and never comes to light, is very considerable.

CHAPTER 70

Rent-free Tenures—Right of Government to Resume such Grants.

 ON the 27th[1] we went on fifteen miles to Bēgamābād, over a sandy and level country. All the peasantry along the roads were busy watering their fields; and the singing of the man who stood at the well to tell the other who guides the bullocks when to pull, after the leather bucket had been filled at the bottom, and when to stop as it reached the top, was extremely pleasing.[2] It is said that Tānsēn of Delhi, the most celebrated singer they have ever had in India, used to spend a great part of his time in these fields, listening to the simple melodies of these water-drawers, which he learned to imitate and apply to his more finished vocal music. Popular belief ascribes to Tānsēn the power of stopping the river Jumna in its course. His contemporary and rival, Birjū Baulā, who, according to popular belief, could split a rock with a single note, is said to have learned his bass from the noise of the stone mills which the women use in grinding the corn for their families.[3] Tānsēn was a Brahman from Patna, who entered the service of the Emperor Akbar, became a Musalmān, and after the service of twenty-seven years, during which he was much beloved by the Emperor and all his court, he died at Gwālior in the thirty-fourth year of the Emperor's reign. His tomb is still to be seen at Gwālior. All his descendants are said to have a talent for music, and they have all Sēn added to their names.[4]

While Mādhojī Sindhia, the Gwālior chief, was prime minister, he made the emperor assign to his daughter the Bālā Bāī in jāgīr, or rent- free tenure, ninety-five villages, rated in the imperial 'sanads' [deeds of grant] at three lākhs of rupees a year. When the Emperor had been released from the 'durance vile' in which he was kept by Daulat Rāo Sindhia, the adopted son of this chief,[5] by Lord Lake in 1803, and the countries, in which these villages were situated, taken possession of, she was permitted to retain them on condition that they were to escheat to us on her death. She died in 1834, and we took possession of the villages, which now yield, it is said, four lākhs of rupees a year. Bēgamābād was one of them. It paid to the Bālā Bāi only six hundred rupees a year, but it pays now to us six hundred and twenty rupees; but the farmers and cultivators do not pay a farthing more—the difference was taken by the favourite to whom she assigned the duties of collection, and who always took as much as he could get from them, and paid as little as he could to her.[6] The tomb of the old collector stood near my tents, and his son, who came to visit it, told me that he had heard from Gwālior that a new Governor-General was about to arrive,[7] who would probably order the villages to be given back, when he should be made collector of the village, as his father had been.

Had our Government acted by all the rent-free lands in our territories on the same principle, they would have saved themselves a vast deal of expense, trouble, and odium. The justice of declaring all lands liable to resumption on the death of the present incumbents when not given by competent authority for, and actually applied to, the maintenance of religious, charitable, educational, or other establishments of manifest public utility, would never have been for a moment questioned by the people of India, because they would have all known that it was in accordance with the customs of the country. If, at the same time that we declared all land liable to resumption, when not assigned by such authority for such purposes and actually applied to them, we had declared that all grants by competent authority registered in due form before the death of the present incumbents should be liable on their death to the payment to Government of only a quarter or half the rent arising from them, it would have been universally hailed as an act of great liberality, highly calculated to make our reign popular. As it is, we have admitted the right of former rulers of all descriptions to alienate in perpetuity the land, the principal source of the revenue of the state, in favour of their relatives, friends, and favourites, leaving upon the holders the burthen of proving, at a ruinous cost in fees and bribes, through court after court, that these alienations had been made by the authorities we declare competent, before the time prescribed; and we have thus given rise to an infinite deal of fraud, perjury, and forgery, and to the opinion, I fear, very generally prevalent, that we are anxious to take advantage of unavoidable flaws in the proof required, to trick them out of their lands by tedious judicial proceedings, while we profess to be desirous that they should retain them. In this we have done ourselves great injustice.[8]

Though these lands were often held for many generations under former Governments, and for the exclusive benefit of the holders, it was almost always, when they were of any value, in collusion with the local authorities, who concealed the circumstances from their sovereign for a certain stipulated sum or share of the rents while they held office. This of course the holders were always willing to pay, knowing that no sovereign would hesitate much to resume their lands, should the circumstance of their holding them for their private use alone be ever brought to his notice. The local authorities were, no doubt, always willing to take a moderate share of the rent, knowing that they would get nothing should the lands be resumed by the sovereign. Sometimes the lands granted were either at the time the grant was made, or became soon after, waste and depopulated, in consequence of invasion or internal disorders; and remaining in this state for many generations, the intervening sovereigns either knew nothing or cared nothing about the grants. Under our rule they became by degrees again cultivated and peopled, and in consequence valuable, not by the exertions of the rent-free holders, for they were seldom known to do anything but collect the rents, but by those of the farmers and cultivators who pay them.

When Saādat Alī Khan, the sovereign of Oudh, ceded Rohilkhand and other districts to the Honourable Company in lieu of tribute in 1801, he resumed every inch of land held in rent-free tenure within the territories that remained with him, without condescending to assign any other reason than state necessity. The measure created a good deal of distress, particularly among the educated classes; but not so much as a similar measure would have created within our territories, because all his revenues are expended in the maintenance of establishments formed exclusively out of the members of Oudh families, and retained within the country, while ours are sent to pay establishments formed and maintained at a distance; and those whose lands are resumed always find it exceedingly difficult to get employment suitable to their condition.

The face of the country between Delhi and Meerut is sadly denuded of its groves; not a grove or an avenue is to be seen anywhere, and but few fine solitary trees.[9] I asked the people of the cause, and was told by the old men of the village that they remembered well when the Sikh chiefs who now bask under the sunshine of our protection used to come over at the head of 'dalas' (bodies) of ten or twelve horse each, and plunder and lay waste with fire and sword, at every returning harvest, the fine country which I now saw covered with rich sheets of cultivation, and which they had rendered a desolate waste, 'without a man to make, or a man to grant, a petition', when Lord Lake came among them.[10] They were, they say, looking on at a distance when he fought the battle of Delhi, and drove the Marāthās, who were almost as bad as the Sikhs, into the Jumna river, where ten thousand of them were drowned. The people of all classes in Upper India feel the same reverence as our native soldiery for the name of this admirable soldier and most worthy man, who did so much to promote our interests and sustain our reputation in this country.[11]

The most beautiful trees in India are the 'bar' (banyan), the 'pīpal', and the tamarind.[12] The two first are of the fig tribe, and their greatest enemies are the elephants and camels of our public establishments and public servants, who prey upon them wherever they can find them when under the protection of their masters or keepers, who, when appealed to, generally evince a very philosophical disregard to the feeling of either property or piety involved in the trespass. It is consequently in the driest and hottest parts of the country, where the shade of these trees is most wanted, that it is least to be found; because it is there that camels thrive best, and are most kept, and it is most difficult to save such trees from their depredations.

In the evening a trooper passed our tents on his way in great haste from Meerut to Delhi, to announce the death of the poor old Bēgam Samrū, which had taken place the day before at her little capital of Sardhana. For five-and-twenty years had I been looking forward to the opportunity of seeing this very extraordinary woman, whose history had interested me more than that of any other character in India during my time; and I was sadly disappointed to hear of her death when within two or three stages of her capital.[13]

Notes:

1. January, 1836.

2. Mr. Fox Strangways gives specimens of songs sung at wells in his learned and original book, The Music of Hindostan (Oxford, 1914, pp. 20, 21).

3. Brij Bowla in the original edition. The name is correctly written Birjū Baulā or Baurā. A legend of the rivalry between him and Tānsēn is given in Linguistic Survey of India, vi, 47. His name is not included in Abūl Fazl's list of eminent musicians, or in Blochmann's notes to it (Āīn trans. i, 612), and I have not succeeded in obtaining any trustworthy information about him. Marvellous legends of the rival singers will be found in N.I.N. & Qu. vol. v, para. 207.

4. Abūl Fazl describes Tānsēn as being of Gwālior, adding that 'a singer like him has not been in India for the last thousand years'. Nos. 2-5 and several others in Abūl Fazl's list of eminent musicians in Akbar's reign are all noted as belonging to Gwālior, which evidently was the most musical of cities (Blochmann, transl. Āīn, i, 612). Sleeman appears to have been mistaken in connecting Tānsēn with Patna. But the musician must really have become a Musalmān, because his tomb stands close to the south- western corner of the sepulchre at Gwālior of Muhammad Ghaus, an eminent Muslim saint. No Hindu could have been buried in such a spot (A.S.R., vol. ii, p. 370). According to one account Tānsēn died in Lahore, his body being removed to Gwālior by order of Akbar (Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, London, 1813, vol. iii, p. 32). The leaves of the tamarind-tree overshadowing the tomb are believed to improve the voice marvellously when chewed.

Mr. Fox Strangways notes that Hindu critics hold Tānsēn 'principally responsible for the deterioration of Hindu music. He is said to have falsified the rāgs, and two, Hindol and Megh, of the original six have disappeared since his time' (op. cit., p. 84).

Akbar, in the seventh year of his reign (1562-3), compelled the Rājā of Rīwā (Bhath) to give up Tānsēn, who was in the Rājā's service. The emperor gave the musician Rs. 200,000. 'Most of his compositions are written in Akbar's name, and his melodies are even nowadays everywhere repeated by the people of Hindustān' (Blochmann, op. cit., p. 406). Tānsēn died in A.D. 1588 (Beale).

5. Shāh Alam is the sovereign alluded to. Māhādajī (Mādhojī or Mādhava Rāo) Sindhia died in February, 1794. His successor, Daulat Rāo, was then a boy of fourteen or fifteen (Grant Duff, History of the Mahrattas, ed. 1826, vol. iii, p. 86). The formal adoption of Daulat Rāo had not been completed (ibid., p. 91).

6. This observation is a good illustration of the tendency of administrators in a country so poor as India to take note of the infinitely little. In Europe no one would take the trouble to notice the difference between £60 and £62 rental.

7. Lord Auckland, in March, 1836, relieved Sir Charles Metcalfe, who, as temporary Governor-General, had succeeded Lord William Bentinck.

8. The resumption, that is to say, assessment, of revenue-free lands was a burning question in the anthor's day. It has long since got settled. The author was quite right in his opinion. All native Governments freely exercised the right of resumption, and did not care in the least what phrases were used in the deed of grant. The old Hindoo deeds commonly directed that the grant should last 'as long as the sun and moon shall endure', and invoked awful curses on the head of the resumer. But this was only formal legal phraseology, meaning nothing. No ruler was bound by his predecessor's acts.

9. This is not now the case.

10. 'It is difficult to realize that the dignified, sober, and orderly men who now fill our regiments are of the same stock as the savage freebooters whose name, a hundred years ago, was the terror of Northern India. But the change has been wrought by strong and kindly government and by strict military discipline under sympathetic officers whom the troops love and respect.' (Sir Lepel Griffin, Ranjīt Singh, p. 37.)

11. Gerard Lake was born on the 27th July, 1744, and entered the army before he was fourteen. He served in the Seven Years' War in Germany, in the American War, in the French campaign of 1793, and against the Irish rebels in 1798. In the year 1801 he became Commander-in-Chief in India, and proceeded to Cawnpore, then our frontier station. Two years later the second Marāthā War began, and gave General Lake the opportunity of winning a series of brilliant victories. In rapid succession he defeated the enemy at Kōil, Alīgarh, Delhi (the battle alluded to in the text), Agra, and Laswārī. Next year, 1804, the glorious record was marred by the disaster to Colonel Monson's force, but this was quickly avenged by the decisive victories of Dīg and Farrukhābād, which shattered Holkār's power. The year 1805 saw General Lake's one personal failure, the unsuccessful siege of Bharatpur. The Commander-in-Chief then resumed the pursuit of Holkār, and forced him to surrender. He sailed for England in February, 1807, and on his arrival at home was created a Viscount. On the 21st February, 1808, he died. (Pearse, Memoir of the Life and Military Services of Viscount Lake. London, Blackwood, 1908.) The village of Patparganj, nearly due east from Humāyūn's Tomb, marks the site of the battle. Fanshawe (p. 70) gives a plan.

12. The banyan is the Ficus indica, or Urostigma bengalense; the 'pīpal' is Ficus religiosa, or Urostigma religiosum; and the tamarind is the Tamarindus indica, or occidentalis, or officinalis.

13. The history of the Bēgam is given in Chapter 76, post.

CHAPTER 71

The Station of Meerut—'Atālīs' who Dance and Sing gratuitously for the Benefit of the Poor.

On the 30th,[1] we went on twelve miles to Meerut, and encamped close to the Sūraj Kund, so called after Sūraj-mal, the Jāt chief of Dīg, whose tomb I have described at Govardhan.[2] He built here a very large tank, at the recommendation of the spirit of a Hindoo saint, Manohar Nāth, whose remains had been burned here more than two hundred years before, and whose spirit appeared to the Jāt chief in a dream, as he was encamped here with his army during one of his kingdom-taking expeditions. This is a noble work, with a fine sheet of water, and flights of steps of 'pakkā' masonry from the top to its edge all round. The whole is kept in repair by our Government.[3] About half a mile to the north-west of the tank stands the tomb of Shāh Pīr, a Muhammadan saint, who is said to have descended from the mountains with the Hindoo, and to have been his bosom friend up to the day of his death. Both are said to have worked many wonderful miracles among the people of the surrounding country, who used to see them, according to popular belief, quietly taking their morning ride together upon the backs of two enormous tigers who came every morning at the appointed hour from the distant jungle. The Hindoo is said to have been very fond of music; and though he has been now dead some three centuries, a crowd of amateurs (atālīs) assemble every Sunday afternoon at his shrine, on the bank of the tank, and sing gratis, and in a very pleasing style, to an immense concourse of people, who assemble to hear them, and to solicit the spirit of the old saint, softened by their melodies. At the tomb of the Muhammadan saint a number of professional dancers and singers assemble every Thursday afternoon, and dance, sing, and play gratis to a large concourse of people, who make offerings of food to the poor, and implore the intercession of the old man with the Deity in return.

The Muhammadan's tomb is large and handsome, and built of red sandstone, inlaid with marble, but without any cupola, that there may be no curtain between him and heaven when he gets out of his 'last long sleep' at the resurrection.[4] Not far from his tomb is another, over the bones of a pilgrim they call Ganj-i-fann, or the granary of science. Professional singers and dancers attend it every Friday afternoon, and display their talents gratis to a large concourse, who bestow what they can in charity to the poor, who assemble on all these occasions to take what they can get. Another much frequented tomb lies over a Muhammadan saint, who has not been dead more than three years, named Gohar Sāh. He owes his canonization to a few circumstances of recent occurrence, which are, however, universally believed. Mr. Smith, an enterprising merchant of Meerut, who had raised a large windmill for grinding corn in the Sadr Bāzār, is said to have abused the old man as he was one day passing by, and looked with some contempt on his method of grinding, which was to take the bread from the mouths of so many old widows. 'My child,' said the old saint, 'amuse thyself with this toy of thine, for it has but a few days to run.' In four days from that time the machine stopped. Poor Mr. Smith could not afford to set it going again, and it went to ruin. The whole native population of Meerut considered this a miracle of Gohar Sāh. Just before his death the country round Meerut was under water, and a great many houses fell from incessant rain. The old man took up his residence during this time in a large sarāi in the town, but finding his end approach, he desired those who had taken shelter with him to have him taken to the jungle where he now reposes. They did so, and the instant they left the building it fell to the ground. Many who saw it told me they had no doubt that the virtues of the old man had sustained it while he was there, and prevented its crushing all who were in it. The tomb was built over his remains by a Hindoo officer of the court, who had been long out of employment and in great affliction. He had no sooner completed the tomb, and implored the aid of the old man, than he got into excellent service, and has been ever since a happy man. He makes regular offerings to his shrine, as a grateful return for the saint's kindness to him in his hour of need. Professional singers and dancers display their talents here gratis, as at the other tombs, every Wednesday afternoon.

 The ground all round these tombs is becoming crowded with the graves of people, who in their last moments request to be buried (zēr-sāya) under the shadow of these saints, who in their lifetime are all said to have despised the pomps and vanities of this life, and to have taken nothing from their disciples and worshippers but what was indispensably necessary to support existence—food being the only thing offered and accepted, and that taken only when they happened to be very hungry. Happy indeed was the man whose dish was put forward when the saint's appetite happened to be sharp. The death of the poor old Bēgam has, it is said, just canonized another saint, Shākir Shāh, who lies buried at Sardhana, but is claimed by the people of Meerut, among whom he lived till about five years ago, when he desired to be taken to Sardhana, where he found the old lady very dangerously ill and not expected to live. He was himself very old and ill when he set out from Meerut; and the journey is said to have shaken him so much that he found his end approaching, and sent a messenger to the princess in these words: 'Ayā torē, chale ham'; that is, 'Death came for thee, but I go in thy place'; and he told those around him that she had precisely five years more to live. She is said to have caused a tomb to be built over him, and is believed by the people to have died that day five years.

All these things I learned as I wandered among the tombs of the old saints the first few evenings after my arrival at Meerut. I was interested in their history from the circumstance that amateur singers and professional dancers and musicians should display their talents at their shrines gratis, for the sake of getting alms for the poor of the place, given in their name—a thing I had never before heard of—though the custom prevails no doubt in other places; and that Musalmāns and Hindoos should join promiscuously in their devotions and charities at all these shrines. Manohar Nāth's shrine, though he was a Hindoo, is attended by as many Musalmān as Hindoo pilgrims. He is said to have 'taken the samādh', that is, to have buried himself alive in this place as an offering to the Deity. Men who are afflicted with leprosy or any other incurable disease in India often take the samādh, that is, bury or drown themselves with due ceremonies, by which they are considered as acceptable sacrifices to the Deity. I once knew a Hindoo gentleman of great wealth and respectability, and of high rank under the Government of Nāgpur, who came to the river Nerbudda, two hundred miles, attended by a large retinue, to take the samādh in due form, from a painful disease which the doctors pronounced incurable. After taking an affectionate leave of all his family and friends, he embarked on board the boat, which took him into the deepest part of the river. He then loaded himself with sand, as a sportsman who is required to carry weights in a race loads himself with shot, and stepping into the water disappeared. The funeral ceremonies were then performed, and his family, friends, and followers returned to Nāgpur, conscious that they had all done what they had been taught to consider their duty. Many poor men do the same every year when afflicted by any painful disease that they consider incurable.[5] The only way to prevent this is to carry out the plan now in progress of giving to India in an accessible shape the medical science of Europe—a plan first adopted under Lord W. Bentinck, prosecuted by Lord Auckland, and superintended by two able and excellent men, Doctors Goodeve and O'Shaughnessy. It will be one of the greatest blessings that India has ever received from England.[6]

Notes:

1. January, 1836. The date is misprinted 20th in the original edition.

2. Ante, chapter 56 [13].

3. 'Amongst the remains of former times in and around Meerut may be noticed the Sūraj kund, commonly called by Europeans 'the monkey tank'. It was constructed by Jawāhir Mal, a wealthy merchant of Lāwār, in 1714. It was intended to keep it full of water from the Abū Nāla but at present the tank is nearly dry in May and June. There are numerous small temples, 'dharmsālās' [i.e. rest-houses], and 'satī' pillars on its banks, but none of any note. The largest of the temples is dedicated to Manohar Nāth, and is said to have been built in the reign of Shāh Jahān. Lāwār, a large village . . . is distant twelve miles north of the civil station. . . . There is a fine house here called Mahal Sarāi, built about A.D. 1700 by Jawāhir Singh, Mahājan, who constructed the Sūraj kund near Meerut' (N.W.P. Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. iii, pp. 406,400). This information, supplied by the local officials, is more to be depended on than the author's statement.

4. 'The "dargāh" [i.e. shrine] of Shāh Pīr is a fine structure of red sandstone, erected about A.D. 1620 by Nūr Jahān, the wife of the Emperor Jahāngīr, in memory of a pious fakīr named Shāh Pīr. An "urs", or religions assembly, is held here every year in the month of Ramazān. The "dargāh" is supported from the proceeds of the revenue-free village of Bhagwānpur' (ibid., vol. iii, p. 406). The text of the original edition gives the pilgrim's name as 'Gungishun', which has no meaning.

5. An interesting collection of modern cases of a similar kind is given in Balfour, Cyclopaedia, 3rd ed., s.v. 'Samadhi'.

6. See ante, chapter 15, note l4. Dr. W. B. O'Shaughnessy contributed many scientific papers to the J.A.S.B. (vols. viii, ix, x, xii, and xvi).

CHAPTER 72

Subdivisions of Lands—Want of Gradations of Rank—Taxes.

The country between Delhi and Meerut is well cultivated and rich in the latent power of its soil; but there is here, as everywhere else in the Upper Provinces, a lamentable want of gradations in society, from the eternal subdivision of property in land, and the want of that concentration of capital in commerce and manufactures which characterizes European—or I may take a wider range, and say Christian societies.[1] Where, as in India, the landlords' share of the annual returns from the soil has been always taken by the Government as the most legitimate fund for the payment of its public establishments; and the estates of the farmers, and the holdings of the immediate cultivators of the soil, are liable to be subdivided in equal shares among the sons in every succeeding generation, the land can never aid much in giving to society that without which no society can possibly be well organized—a gradation of rank. Were the Government to alter the System, to give up all the rent of the lands, and thereby convert all the farmers into proprietors of their estates, the case would not be much altered, while the Hindoo and Muhammadan law of inheritance remained the same; for the eternal subdivision would still go on, and reduce all connected with the soil to one common level; and the people would be harassed with a multiplicity of taxes, from which they are now free, that would have to be imposed to supply the place of the rent given up. The agricultural capitalists who derived their incomes from the interest of money advanced to the farmers and cultivators for subsistence and the purchase of stock were commonly men of rank and influence in society; but they were never a numerous class.[2] The mass of the people in India are really not at present sensible that they pay any taxes at all. The only necessary of life, whose price is at all increased by taxes, is salt, and the consumer is hardly aware of this increase. The natives never eat salted meat; and though they require a great deal of salt, living, as they do, so much on vegetable food, still they purchase it in such small quantities from day to day as they require it, that they really never think of the tax that may have been paid upon it in its progress.[3]

To understand the nature of taxation in India, an Englishman should suppose that all the non-farming landholders of his native country had, a century or two ago, consented to resign their property into the hands of their sovereign, for the maintenance of his civil functionaries, army, navy, church, and public creditors, and then suddenly disappeared from the community, leaving to till the lands merely the farmers and cultivators; and that their forty millions of rent were just the sum that the Government now required to pay all these four great establishments.[4]

To understand the nature of the public debt of England a man has only to suppose one great national establishment, twice as large as those of the civil functionaries, the Army, Navy, and the Church together, and composed of members with fixed salaries, who purchased their commissions from the wisdom of our ancestors, with liberty to sell them to whom they please—who have no duty to perform for the public,[5] and have, like Adam and Eve, the privilege of going to 'seek their place of rest' in what part of the world they please—a privilege of which they will, of course, be found more and more anxious to avail themselves as taxation presses on the one side, and prohibition to the import of the necessaries of life diminishes the means of paying them on the other.

The repeal of the Corn Laws may give a new lift to England; it may greatly increase the foreign demand for the produce of its manufacturing industry; it may invite back a large portion of those who now spend their incomes in foreign countries, and prevent from going abroad to reside a vast number who would otherwise go. These laws must soon be repealed, or England must reduce one or other of its great establishments—the National Debt, the Church, the Army, or the Navy. The Corn Laws press upon England just in the same manner as the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope pressed upon Venice and the other states whose welfare depended upon the transit of the produce of India by land. But the navigation of the Cape benefited all other European nations at the same time that it pressed upon these particular states, by giving them all the produce of India at cheaper rates than they would otherwise have got it, and by opening the markets of India to the produce of all other European nations. The Corn Laws benefit only one small section of the people of England, while they weigh, like an incubus, upon the vital energies of all the rest; and at the same time injure all other nations by preventing their getting the produce of manufacturing industry so cheap as they would otherwise get it. They have not, therefore, the merit of benefiting other nations, at the same time that they crush their own.[6]

For some twenty or thirty years of our rule, too many of the collectors of our land revenue in what we call the Western Provinces,[7] sought the 'bubble reputation' in an increase of assessment upon the lands of their district every five years when the settlement was renewed. The more the assessment was increased, the greater was the praise bestowed upon the collector by the revenue boards, or the revenue secretary to Government, in the name of the Governor-General of India.[8] These collectors found an easy mode of acquiring this reputation—they left the settlements to their native officers, and shut their ears to all complaints of grievances, till they had reduced all the landholders of their districts to one common level of beggary, without stock, character, or credit; and transferred a great portion of their estates to the native officers of their own courts through the medium of the auction sales that took place for the arrears, or pretended arrears, of revenue. A better feeling has for some years past prevailed, and collectors have sought their reputation in a real knowledge of their duties, and real good feeling towards the farmers and cultivators of their districts. For this better tone of feeling the Western Provinces are, I believe, chiefly indebted to Mr. R. M. Bird, of the Revenue Board, one of the most able public officers now in India. A settlement for twenty years is now in progress that will leave the farmers at least 35 per cent. upon the gross collections from the immediate cultivators of the soil; that is, the amount of the revenue demandable by Government from the estate will be that less than what the farmer will, and would, under any circumstances, levy from the cultivators in his detailed settlement.[9]

The farmer lets all the land of his estate out to cultivators, and takes in money this rate of profit for his expense, trouble, and risk; or he lets out to the cultivators enough to pay the Government demand, and tills the rest with his own stock, rent-free. When a division takes place between his sons, they either divide the estate, and become each responsible for his particular share, or they divide the profits, and remain collectively responsible to Government for the whole, leaving one member of the family registered as the lessee and responsible head.[10]

In the Ryotwār System of Southern India, Government officers, removable at the pleasure of the Government collector, are substituted for these farmers, or more properly proprietors, of estates; and a System more prejudicial to the best interests of society could not well be devised by the ingenuity of man.[11] It has been supposed by some theorists, who are practically unacquainted with agriculture in this or any other country, that all who have any interest in land above the rank of cultivator or ploughman are mere drones, or useless consumers of that rent which, under judicious management, might be added to the revenues of Government—that all which they get might, and ought to be, either left with the cultivators or taken by the Government. At the head of these is the justly celebrated historian, Mr. Mill. But men who understand the subject practically know that the intermediate agency of a farmer, who has a permanent interest in the estate, or an interest for a long period, is a thousand times better both for the Government and the people than that of a Government officer of any description, much less that of one removable at the pleasure of the collector. Government can always get more revenue from a village under the management of the farmer; the character of the cultivators and village community generally is much better; the tillage is much better; and the produce, from more careful weeding and attention of all kinds, sells much better in the market. The better character of the cultivators enables them to get the loans they require to purchase stock, and to pay the Government demand on more moderate terms from the capitalists, who rely upon the farmer to aid in the recovery of their outlays, without reference to civil courts, which are ruinous media, as well in India as in other places. The farmer or landlord finds in the same manner that he can get much more from lands let out on lease to the cultivators or yeomen, who depend upon their own character, credit, and stock, than he can from similar lands cultivated with his own stock; and hired labourers can never be got to labour either so long or so well. The labour of the Indian cultivating lessee is always applied in the proper quantity, and at the proper time and place—that of the hired field-labourer hardly ever is. The skilful coachmaker always puts on the precise quantity of iron required to make his coach strong, because he knows where it is required; his coach is, at the same time, as light as it can be with safety. The unskilful workman either puts on too much, and makes his coach heavy; or he puts it in the wrong place, and leaves it weak.

If government extends the twenty years' settlement now in progress to fifty years or more, they will confer a great blessing upon the people[12] and they might, perhaps, do it on the condition that the incumbent consented to allow the lease to descend undivided to his heirs by the laws of primogeniture. To this condition all classes would readily agree, for I have heard Hindoo and Muhammadan landholders all equally lament the evil effects of the laws by which families are so quickly and inevitably broken up; and say that 'it is the duty of government to take advantage of their power as the great proprietor and leaser of all the lands to prevent the evil by declaring leases indivisible. 'There would then', they say, 'be always one head to assist in maintaining the widows and orphans of deceased members, in educating his brothers and nephews; and by his influence and respectability procuring employment for them.' In such men, with feelings of permanent interest in their estates, and in the stability of the government that secured them possession on such favourable terms, and with the means of educating their children, we should by and by find our best support, and society its best element. The law of primogeniture at present prevails only where it is most mischievous under our rule, among the feudal chiefs, whose ancestors rose to distinction and acquired their possessions by rapine in times of invasion and civil wars. This law among them tends to perpetuate the desire to maintain those military establishments by which the founders of their families arose, in the hope that the times of invasion and civil wars may return and open for them a similar field for exertion. It fosters a class of powerful men, essentially and irredeemably opposed in feeling, not only to our rule, but to settled government under any rule; and the sooner the Hindoo law of inheritance is allowed by the paramount power to take its course among these feudal chiefs, the better for society. There is always a strong tendency to it in the desire of the younger brothers to share in the loaves and fishes; and this tendency is checked only by the injudicious interposition of our authority.[13]

To give India the advantage of free institutions, or all the blessings of which she is capable under an enlightened paternal government, nothing is more essential than the supersession of this feudal aristocracy by one founded upon other bases, and, above all, upon that of the concentration of capital in commerce and manufactures. Nothing tends so much to prevent the accumulation and concentration of capital over India as this feudal aristocracy which tends everywhere to destroy that feeling of security without which men will nowhere accumulate and concentrate it. They do so, not only by the intrigues and combinations against the paramount power, which keep alive the dread of internal wars and foreign invasion, but by those gangs of robbers and murderers which they foster and locate upon their estates to prey upon the more favoured or better governed territories around them. From those gangs of freebooters who are to be found upon the estate of almost every native chief, no accumulation of movable property of any value is ever for a moment considered safe, and those who happen to have any such are always in dread of losing, not only their property, but their lives along with it, for these gangs, secure in the protection of such chief, are reckless in their attack, and kill all who happen to come in their way.[14]

Notes:

1. This phrase is meant to include America.

2. Money-lenders naturally have flourished daring the long period of internal peace since the Mutiny. They vary in wealth and position from the humblest 'gombeen man' to the millionaire banker. Many of these money-lenders are now among the largest owners of land in the country. Under native rule interests in land were generally too precarious to be saleable. The author did not foresee that the growth of private property in land would carry with it the right and desire of one party to sell and of another to buy, and would thus favour the growth of large estates, and, to a considerable extent, counteract the evils of subdivision. Of course, like everything else, the large estates have their evils too. Much nonsense is written about sales of land in India, as well as in Ireland. The two countries have more than the initial letter in common.

3. Theorists declare that it is right that the tax-payers should know what is taken from them, and that, therefore, direct taxes are best; but practical men who have to govern ignorant and suspicious races, resentful of direct taxation, know that indirect taxation is, for such people, the best.

4. This illustration would give a very false idea of modern Indian finance.

5. They have no duty to perform as creditors; but as citizens of an enlightened nation they no doubt perform many of them, very important ones. [W. H. S.] The author's whimsical comparison between stockholders and Adam and Eve, and his notion that the creditors of the nation may be regarded as officials without duties, only obscure a simple matter. The emigration of owners of Consols never assumed very alarming dimensions.

6. The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846, and the shilling duty which was then left was abolished in 1869. Considering that the author belonged to a land-owning family, his clear perception of the evils caused by the Corn Laws is remarkable.

7. By the 'Western Provinces' the author means the region called later the North-Western Provinces, and now known as the Agra Province in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, with the Delhi Territories, which latter are now partly under the Government of the Panjāb, and partly in the new small Province, or Chief Commissionership of Delhi.

8. At the time referred to, the provincial Government had not been constituted.

9. Fifty per cent. may be considered as the average rate left to the lessees or proprietors of estates under this new settlement; and, if they take on an average one-third of the gross produce, Government takes two-ninths. But we may rate the Government share of the produce actually taken at one-fifth as the maximum, and one-tenth as the minimum. [W. H. S.]

It is unfortunately true that in the short-term settlements made previous to 1833 many abuses of the kinds referred to in the text occurred. The traditions of the people and the old records attest numerous instances. The first serious attempt to reform the system of revenue settlements was made by Regulation VII of 1822, but, owing to an excessive elaboration of procedure, the attempt produced no appreciable results. Regulation IX of 1833 established a workable system, and provided for the appointment of Indian Deputy Collectors with adequate powers. The settlements of the North-Western Provinces made under this Regulation were, for the most part, reasonably fair, and were generally confirmed for a period of thirty years. Mr. Robert Mertins Bird, who entered the service in 1805, and died in 1853, took a leading part in this great reform. When the next settlements were made, between 1860 and 1880, the share of the profit rental claimed by the State was reduced from two-thirds to one-half. Full details will be found in the editor's Settlement Officer's Manual for the N. W. P. (Allahabad, 1882), or in Baden Powell's big book, Land Systems of British India (Clarendon Press, 1892).

10. Since 1833 the people whom the author calls 'farmers' have gradually become fall proprietors, subject to the Government lien on the land and its produce for the land revenue. For many years past the ancient custom of joint ownership and collective responsibility has been losing ground. Partitions are now continually demanded, and every year collective responsibility is becoming more unpopular and more difficult to enforce.

11. This judgement, I need hardly say, would not be accepted in Madras or Bombay. The issue raised is too large for discussion in footnotes.

12. The advantages of very long terms of settlements are obvious; the disadvantages, though equally real, are less obvious. Fluctuations in prices, and above all, in the price of silver, are among the many conditions which complicate the question. Except the Bengal landowners, most people now admit that the Permanent Settlement of Bengal in 1793 was a grievous mistake. It is also admitted that the mistake is irrevocable.

13. These two suggestions of the author that the law of primogeniture should be established to regulate the succession to ordinary estates, and that it should be abolished in the case of chieftainships, where it already prevails, are obviously open to criticism. It seems sufficient to say that both recommendations are, for many reasons, altogether impracticable. In passing, I may note that the term 'feudal' does not express with any approach to correctness the relation of the Native States to the Government of India.

14. The evils described in this paragraph, though diminished, have not disappeared. Nevertheless, no one would now seriously propose the deliberate supersession of the existing aristocracy by rich merchants and manufacturers. The proposal is too fanciful for discussion. During the long period of peace merchants and manufacturers have naturally risen to a position much more prominent than they occupied in the author's time.