India and the Indians Part 6

In the houses of a younger generation you will see large oil paintings by modern Indian artists, in heavy gilt frames and properly hung, although still rather higher than is usual with us. Some are family portraits; some are scenes from the histories of the G.o.ds. The colours used are exceedingly brilliant, and the picture itself is often painted on a very bright background. The drawing, which used to be the defective part of Indian pictures, is much improving now that drawing has become a regular part of the education of the Indian boy.

It is rather difficult to judge of the artistic value of a picture painted in a style so unlike Western models. But on the whole one is led to think that the brilliant colours are suited to the country, and that they are blended with astonishing taste, considering the extreme difficulty of blending happily hues of such a p.r.o.nounced character. If only the study of Western examples helps to purify the Indian style without destroying its individuality, one would hope that Indian artists will eventually produce pictures which will have a great charm of their own.

Their mythology for the most part only supplies them with G.o.ds whose traditional form is either grotesque, or repulsive, or sensual. But when Christianity has been accepted, and incorporated into the lives of the people, the wide field for artistic and religious effect which will then open out will give new scope, and one may expect some very striking results when familiar scenes of sacred story are depicted by the Eastern pencil and brush.

Indians are fond of decorating the outside whitewashed walls of their temples and houses with mural paintings. They often present a quaint mixture of hunting-scenes, and animals and G.o.ds, and soldiers and Indians and Europeans. One such fresco, on the wall of the house of the headman of Yerandawana village, is a most comical reproduction of the garden front of Windsor Castle, taken from an _Ill.u.s.trated London News_, but embellished with many Indian characteristics. The purely decorative part of these wall pictures is often graceful and harmonious, and one can look forward to the day when the Christian Indian artist will joyfully decorate, in his own traditional style, the bare white walls of the village Church of St Crispin, and beautiful saints and angels will take the place of the dethroned G.o.ds.

The, often richly coloured, garments of the Indian woman, whether poor or rich, are always in perfect taste and harmony; even the Pa.r.s.ee ladies, who boldly use colours of astonishing brilliancy in their dresses, seem to be able to do so without producing that amazing discord of colour which greets the traveller from the East as he comes back Westwards into the streets of a European city.

CHAPTER X

THE INDIAN VILLAGE

The village Panchayat; a rough and ready tribunal; its decisions. Magisterial trial of offences on the spot. The Christian Panchayat; its doubtful results; fans the spirit of discord; undesirable reiteration of incidents. Want of wholesome reserve. Knowledge of evil. Out-caste villagers no longer servile; disposal of dead carcases; burial of strangers. Mahars growing prosperous.

In Indian villages there is what is called a Panchayat, or committee of five, for the settlement of disputes, although of late years many of the Panchayats have become practically moribund. The members of this council are chosen from the leading men of the village. All kinds of disputes can be submitted to this court of arbitration, from cases of cattle trespa.s.s, or doubtful land boundaries, to breaches of Hindu religious custom. It is the Panchayat which has the power to out-caste a man--a dreaded punishment--which means that his relations and friends will no longer hold intercourse with him; no one will hand him food or water; shopkeepers may refuse to serve him; and if he dies, none of his own people will bury or cremate him, but his body will be left to be disposed of by the scavengers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS SALOME ZADHAW.]

The Panchayat is only a rough and ready way of settling disputes, or punishing minor offences. Much of the evidence in the cases which come before it is either false or else grossly distorted. The members of the Panchayat are already probably prejudiced either for or against the offender, and make no attempt to rise above their prejudices. Any one of them will side with the party who will make it worth his while to do so.

The final decision may, or may not, be in accordance with the facts of the case. The guilty person, if an offence has been committed, may escape; and an innocent person, who has few friends and little to offer, may get punished. Men who are poor and unpopular sometimes get sorely bullied, and even ill-treated, in an Indian village.

Nevertheless, at present the Panchayat has its use in Hindu India, and the prospect of being brought under its power is a wholesome terror.

When India has progressed a stage further this primitive mode of procedure, already a good deal discredited, will no doubt be superseded altogether.

Unfortunately, even in more august tribunals where the desire to be true and just is uppermost, false evidence is so rife that there has to be a good deal of guesswork, and calculations of probabilities, when trying to come to a right decision. It has lately been advocated that magistrates should, when practicable, hold their preliminary trial of offences in the village where the misdemeanour is alleged to have taken place. The witnesses under these circ.u.mstances are more disposed to give a true account of what has happened. They are surrounded by neighbours who know, to some extent, whether they are speaking the truth or not, and are apt to betray them in case of falsehood. But if the inquiry takes place at a city police-court, the witnesses come in contact with the false witnesses, and bad characters, and petty lawyers (or "pleaders" as they are called), who hang about in the vicinity, and the usual result is that having been tampered with by some interested person, all hopes of an honest narrative are at an end.

There is a laudable desire to adapt Indian customs to the needs of Indian Christians. The result has not always been the success which was hoped for. The truth is, that what may be advantageous in the heathen world may be quite otherwise when applied to the circ.u.mstances of the Christian community. Because it was the old custom in Hindu villages to settle difficulties, secular and religious, by a Panchayat, it was thought that it would be advantageous to exercise discipline in the Church in the same way. It was well to give it a trial, but many begin to doubt its applicability. The Indian often is, like many others, a man of strong prejudices, and even Christianity is not altogether successful in uprooting this fault. His likes and dislikes are p.r.o.nounced, and are not always according to reason.

Certain excellent people will side with a p.r.o.nounced wrongdoer, for no apparent cause; not necessarily from a charitable desire to give him another chance. Also, the pleasing Indian characteristic of regard for family relationship, which is so strong, leads to an anxiety to belittle the wrongdoings of anyone who can claim kinship, and this may be carried even to the verge of distortion, or suppression of the truth. Anyhow, the conclusions of the Christian Panchayat are, not unfrequently, singularly at variance with what would appear to be the right verdict.

There is another reason why the Panchayat, as applied to Christian congregations, is not altogether wholesome. The true spirit of charity is a difficult virtue to acquire. When two people quarrel, unless they quickly forgive, they are generally anxious to air their grievance.

Indians in particular wish the whole matter gone into with elaboration, so that, as they say, justice may be done. The Panchayat gives exactly the opening which they crave. A quarrel between two neighbours, which ought to have been quickly adjusted by mutual forgiveness, becomes a subject of endless discussion. Many others get dragged into it; and the spirit of discord, instead of being laid to rest by the proceedings of the Panchayat, often finds a greatly enlarged scope for mischief.

In bringing a case of immorality before this tribunal the evil is intensified. The matter is gone into minutely, with much freedom of expression. Nor does it end there. The members of the Panchayat return to their homes, and, with the fullest detail, repeat to wife and children the incidents that the inquiry has disclosed. For days it is the all-engrossing subject of conversation. "There is no reserve amongst us in the sense that you English people have it," said a leading Indian Christian to me; "there is nothing which our children do not know." Consulting an intelligent Christian Indian on the difficult question as to how much might be said with safety when warning the young on the subject of purity, he replied: "It is impossible to teach them anything which they do not know already.

Other people talk to them, and the youngest know all that there is to be known."

It should be added, that although with very few exceptions this is certainly true, the knowledge of evil does not, as a matter of course, produce evil, and there are many Indian Christian lads who, sustained by the power of sacramental grace, are leading lives of exemplary self-control, while living in circ.u.mstances of great temptation.

Whatever may have been the case in years gone by, the out-caste people of a village are not now the downtrodden, servile folk such as they are commonly supposed to be, although there are still instances of individual oppression. Most of them are leading more wholesome lives than those of the richer, self-indulgent men, and this is evidenced by their more vigorous and manly frame. They are, to some extent, at the beck and call of the chief men of the place, and more especially of the _Patel_, but they are independent in their bearing, and obey cheerfully without cringing. Some of their duties may sound unsavoury.

As, for instance, they are responsible for the removal of a dead carcase found within the village boundary. But if it is the body of an animal fit for food, such as a buffalo, sheep, or goat, they feast upon it themselves, quite regardless of what disease it may have died of.

A buffalo belonging to the Mission died from snake-bite, as it was supposed, though that sometimes is only another name for wilful poisoning. The disposal of its immense carcase seemed a perplexity.

But just as we were considering this point, we saw the buffalo travelling away at a rapid pace on the shoulders of the village Mahars, who took it as their natural perquisite, and did not think it necessary to wait for leave. The horns, hoofs, skin, and bones are marketable commodities, so that, besides the feast, they often make a good thing out of agricultural tragedies.

The same cla.s.s of men are responsible for any stray burials, which are not at all uncommon in a country where there are many homeless wanderers, some of whom, when weary and ill, just lie down by the roadside and die. The Mahars of the nearest village bury the nameless corpse. The clothes of the dead man are sufficient recompense for hasty interment in a shallow grave, and the jackals the next night probably discover, and make short work of, the corpse. I have seen the body of some such poor wanderer, with scarcely a rag upon it, slung upon a pole and carried like a dead dog by a couple of Mahars along the high-road to a place of burial.

Many low-caste men have, of late years, grown prosperous and acquired land of their own. In the neighbourhood of cities some of them get well-paid posts as night-watchmen, and as they are often frugal people, they gradually put by a good deal of money. The servants of Europeans are also largely drawn from this cla.s.s, and a capable servant is able to secure wages which, together with pickings in the shape of tips and perquisites, enable him to save. The low-caste people of a village often present a brilliant appearance when they turn out in holiday attire on some festal day, and the gold ornaments of the women sufficiently indicate their prosperous condition. That they have their own quarter, outside the village proper, does not cause them any searchings of heart. They come into the village freely, and talk and mix with the other people, and Mahar boys often play with the other children. But when there is a village feast they have, of course, to sit quite apart.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAGU, THE NIGHT WATCHMAN.]

There are indications that the village low-caste people are beginning to retaliate for whatever oppression they may have had to undergo, by becoming rather insolent to their betters. Some of them are also using the facilities for education which late years have put within their reach with good effect, and have gradually risen to positions of importance in Government and other service.

CHAPTER XI

INDIAN ENTERTAINMENTS

Indian t.i.tles. The Inamdar. The _pan supari_ party.

Mohammedan saints. The _nautch_; why objectionable. The Inamdar's house; its decorations; furniture. Mohammedan full-dress. The guests; nature of the entertainment. The guests garlanded; no hostess. General conclusions; not an occasion for a missionary.

The t.i.tles belonging to Indians of real or imaginary importance take up an astonishing amount of s.p.a.ce on paper. I received an invitation to what is called on the card, a _pan supari_ party. The person who issues the invitation is, so the card informs me, "Sardar Khanbahadur Kazi Sayed Azimodin Gulamodin Pirzade Inamdar." His real name is Azimodin. The rest could be dispensed with. He is the Mohammedan chief of Yerandawana. Part of the revenue of that village was, at some distant date, allotted to a mosque in Poona City. It is therefore called an _Inam_ village, and the holder of the grant is called the _Inamdar_, the word "inam" meaning "grant." A small percentage of the Government land tax is paid over to the Inamdar, and he has other small perquisites, such as the fruit of certain trees. He also has some privileges connected with the river which flows past Yerandawana; as, for instance, gravel cannot be taken from it without paying him a royalty. He also has certain rights over the stone quarries and the pasturage on some of the hills.

_Pan supari_ is the betel nut wrapped up in a leaf, which is distributed to guests on festal occasions, and chewed by those who like it. It is one of the few things which can be accepted and eaten without prejudice to caste. Just as in England you might be asked to a "tea" party, so here in India we were asked to a _pan supari_ party; only, unfortunately, there is nothing very satisfying in the betel nut, although all Indians are fond of it.

Mohammedans have a great respect for the memory of those of their number whom they regard as "saints"; whether they are technically or actually such does not seem to matter much. Many of their tombs may be noticed in cities and villages, or by the roadside under some spreading tree. The festival of each local saint is kept by the Mohammedans of that locality with prayers and feasting and merrymaking for several days. The occasion of the _pan supari_ party was the festival of the local saint of the mosque which adjoined the Inamdar's house in the city. The saint's names and t.i.tles were also of formidable dimensions--"Peer Sayed Hisamodin Kattal Junjani Chishte."

I consulted another friendly Mohammedan as to whether I could safely accept the invitation without running the risk of finding myself a sharer in festivities of a doubtful character. He said that these sort of festivals always commenced with great propriety, but often degenerated as they proceeded. But that the _pan supari_ party to which English were invited was sure to be eminently respectable, while the concluding days would probably be devoted to singing and dancing of the usual dubious kind.

Unfortunately, parties to which English are invited by both Hindus and Mohammedans are not always free from objectionable features. Not unfrequently part of the entertainment is dancing, and sometimes singing, by professional performers. English people sometimes plead that there is nothing particularly objectionable in the nature of the dance, and that the singing is in a language which they do not understand. But it is the character of the women who dance and sing which some English people are not aware of. They are invariably professional women of bad character, because no other kind of Indian woman ever takes part in public performances of this nature in the presence of men. And it is on this ground that Christians ought always to refuse invitations to any festivity in which a _nautch_, or dance, is put down as one of the events, stating politely the reason of refusal. Indians often arrange for entertainments of this kind because they imagine that it is the sort of thing which Europeans enjoy. A few officials of high rank have done good service by intimating that they do not wish to be entertained in this manner.

I accepted the Inamdar's invitation. I thought it might be useful experience. The hour was from five to six. The address was nearly as long as the host's name--"Badi Darga, Riverside, Zuni Mandai, in front of Shanwar Wada, Kasba Peth, Poona City." But, in spite of these precise directions, it would have been a difficult place for anyone to find who was not pretty well acquainted with the labyrinths of the old city.

Sometimes one is tempted to smile as one thinks of the splendour of Eastern entertainments, or of the "gorgeous East," as it exists in the imagination of many English people, or in the mind of the newspaper correspondent of an Eastern tour. The triumphal arch at the entrance of the narrow lane leading to the Inamdar's house might have made an effective Indian photograph for home consumption. But the poles, draped with pink muslin, were a grateful sight only because they told us that we were on the right track. Also, a coat of gravel newly spread along the lane was a welcome indication that there was no need to walk with the caution which is expedient in most of the streets of Poona City.

The Inamdar's house is by the river side, and the river being at that time in flood and full from bank to bank, it would have been a picturesque sight, if it had not been for the colour of the water, which gave the impression of a river of rolling mud. This is the case with most Indian rivers, and detracts a good deal from their beauty.

The buildings forming the Inamdar's establishment enclosed an irregular sort of courtyard. On one side of this was the mosque and the tomb of the saint. The residential part of the premises formed another side, into which the mixed a.s.sembly of a _pan supari_ party would not be allowed to penetrate. A third side of the courtyard was occupied by a long, low, whitewashed shed, open in front, and with a few small windows at the back looking on to the river, and this was arranged for the reception of the guests. It was elaborately festooned with paper flowers and other adornments, something after the fashion of Christmas-tree decorations. The effect was more gay than artistic.

I have never been able to ascertain where the particular sort of furniture originally came from which adorns the reception-rooms of Indians who are in a position to occasionally entertain distinguished guests. It is a little like what is sometimes seen on the stage. The sofas and chairs are very ornate, and equally uncomfortable. The carpets are often really handsome, because their design and manufacture is an art which is thoroughly understood in the East, and in more primitive days they would have formed almost the only furniture of a reception-hall.

Out in the compound were flowers in pots, after the manner of an Indian garden, and a few trees, as well as one or two tombs of Mohammedan saints of a somewhat lower rank than Peer Sayed Hisamodin.

A strip of red cloth from the place where carriages were to set down, indicated that visitors were to make their way into the shed. I was amongst the earliest arrivals, and was received by the Inamdar and his son with all that graceful courtesy which no one knows better how to show than an Indian. The full dress of a Mohammedan is striking and effective. They never of course wear the _dhota_, which is the garment of Hindus, but they wear instead trousers, fitting very close at the foot, but of great width in the upper part.

I thought it prudent to ask what the order of proceedings would be.

They told me that there would be a little music, and distribution of garlands and _pan supari_, and finally dancing. I replied that I could not witness the last item in the programme. The Inamdar's son intimated that this item would not come off till later on in the evening, when the Europeans would have left. I asked him how they could be willing to receive into their house women of the character of the dancers. He looked sheepish, and was no doubt relieved that another arrival called him away.

We presented a curious medley when all were a.s.sembled. A Hindu Collector drove up in his motor car, faultlessly dressed in English clothes, and so like a courteous European in his general bearing that, except for his white and gold turban, it might have been difficult to suppose that he was not one. Many Indians are, comparatively speaking, very fair, and if you are living habitually in the country you become almost oblivious to shades of complexion. The English Collector also arrived, with his wife. Collectors are, of course, magistrates and officials of importance. The Commissioner of the division followed, who is senior to a Collector. Mohammedans, Hindus, and a few Pa.r.s.ees arrived, some in smart carriages, a few in hired conveyances, and others on foot. Another motor car with an Indian owner drove up. At present the dash, and go, and smartness of a motor-car seem strangely out of keeping with the spirit of leisure, and delay, and general shabbiness so marked in things Indian.

When the party might be said to be in full swing I do not know that it was much duller, or more pointless, than receptions in England.

Certainly a cup of tea is more refreshing than the fragment of betel nut wrapped up in a leaf and enclosed in a piece of gold paper. Few Europeans have courage to eat it, but it should always be accepted, and after your departure you can gladden the heart of any native by giving it to him. A few Indians provide spirituous drinks for their English visitors, under the idea that they cannot exist without a whisky peg. And, indeed, it is said that some young English guests confirm this belief by the use they make of the drinks provided.

A couple of Mohammedan men came forward, and seating themselves on a carpet gave a brief musical performance, after which a man sung a song with an air of such comical affectation that it was difficult to maintain the serious gravity with which the Indian part of the audience listened to him. Preparations for a photograph of the a.s.sembled company commencing, it was an indication that it was time for me to depart. All the more distinguished guests had been previously decorated with garlands of pink roses and white jasmine, and in addition they were given a kind of sceptre, made of the same sort of flowers tied to a short stick. The less remarkable people received an inferior garland and a single rose with a few leaves, made up like a b.u.t.ton-hole; and a certain unimportant residuum did not receive any decoration at all.