Indian Unrest Part 8

It may be argued that in replying to a Viceregal _Kharita_, the Ruling Chiefs could hardly do less than recognize the existence of the "common danger" to which Lord Minto had drawn their attention. But the careful a.n.a.lysis of the influences behind the agitation and the practical suggestions for dealing with it which the majority of the replies contain, prove that their opinions are certainly not framed "to order."

They represent the convictions and experience of a group of responsible Indians better situated in some respects to obtain accurate information about the doings and feelings of their fellow-countrymen than any Anglo-Indian administrators can be. The language of the Nizam is singularly apt and direct, "Once the forces of lawlessness and disorder are let loose there is no knowing where they will stop. It is true that, compared with the enormous population of India, the disaffected people are a very insignificant minority, but, given time and opportunity, there exists the danger of this small minority spreading its tentacles all over the country and inoculating with its poisonous doctrines the cla.s.ses and ma.s.ses. .h.i.therto untouched by this seditious movement." The Maharana of Udaipur, speaking with the authority of his unique position amongst Hindus as the premier Prince of Rajputana, not only condemns an agitation "which is detrimental to all good government and social administration," but declares it to be "a great disgrace to their name as also to their religious beliefs that, in spite of the great prosperity India has enjoyed under the British _regime_, people are acting in such an ungrateful way." No less emphatic is the Mahratta ruler of Gwalior:--"The question is undoubtedly a grave one, affecting as it does the future well-being of India," and "it particularly behoves those who preside over the destinies of the people and have large personal stakes to do all in their power to grapple with it vigorously."

The Maharajah of Jaipur, one of the wisest of the older generation of Hindu rulers, agrees that "only a small fraction of the population has been contaminated by the seditious germ," but he adds significantly that "that fraction has, it seems, been carefully organized by able, rich, and unscrupulous men," and he does not hesitate to declare that "an organized and concerted campaign, offensive and defensive, against the common enemy is what is wanted."

According to the Rajah of Dewas, one of the most enlightened of the younger Hindu chiefs, "it is a well known fact that the endeavours of the seditious party are directed not only against the Paramount Power, but against all const.i.tuted forms of government in India, through an absolutely misunderstood sense of 'patriotism,' and through an attachment to the popular idea of 'government by the people,' when every level-headed Indian must admit that India generally has not in any way shown its fitness for a popular government." He goes so far even as to state his personal conviction that history and all "sound-minded" people agree that India cannot really attain to the standard of popular government as understood by the West.

It is another Hindu ruler, the Rajah of Ratlam, who points out the close connexion, upon which I have had to lay repeated stress, between religious revivalism and sedition. He recognizes that "Hindus, and for the matter of that all Oriental peoples, are swayed more by religion than by anything else." Government have hitherto adopted, and rightly adopted, the policy of allowing perfect freedom in the matter of religious beliefs, but as the seditionists are seeking to connect their anarchical movement with religion, and the political _Sadhu_ is abroad, it is high time to change the policy of non-interference in so-called religious affairs. The new religion which is now being preached, "with its worship of heroes like Shivaji and the doctrine of India for India alone," deserves, this Hindu Prince boldly declares, to be treated as Thuggism and Suttee were treated, which both claimed the sanction of religion. "It pains me," he adds, "to write as above, but already religion has played a prominent part in this matter, and religious books were found in almost every search made for weapons and bombs. The _role_ of the priest or the _Sadhu_ is most convenient, and rulers have bowed, and do bow, to religious preachers. These people generally distort the real import of religious precepts, and thereby vitiate the public mind.

The founders are sly enough to flatter the Government by an occasional address breathing loyalty and friendship, but it is essential to check this religious propaganda."

The rulers of the Native States are not content merely to profess loyalty and reprobate disaffection. With the exception of the Gaekwar, whose reply, without striking any note of substantial dissent, is, marked, by a certain coolness that has won for him the applause of the Nationalist Press, they respond heartily to the Viceroy's request for suggestions as to the most effective measures to cope with the evil.

Most of them put in the very forefront of their recommendations the necessity of checking the licence of the Indian Press, to which they attribute the main responsibility for the widening of the gulf between the rulers and the ruled. And it should be remembered that these opinions were expressed some months before the Imperial Government and the Government of India decided to introduce the new Press Act. The Nizam holds that newspapers publishing false allegations or exaggerated reports should be officially called upon "to print formal contradiction or correction as directed." For, in his Highness's opinion, "it is no longer safe or desirable to treat with silent contempt any perverse statement which is publicly made, because the spread of education on the one hand has created a general interest in the news of the country, and a section of the Press, on the other hand, deliberately disseminates news calculated to promote enmity between Europeans and Indians, or to excite hatred of Government and its officers in the ignorant and credulous minds." Several Chiefs recommend more summary proceedings and less publicity in the case of political offences, as, though such measures may appear arbitrary at first sight, "they are quite suited to the country." Several agree that a closer watch should be kept on "religious mendicants" who go about in the guise of _Sadhus_ preaching sedition, and that a more intimate exchange of secret intelligence should take place with regard to the seditious propaganda between the different States and the Government of India. Others believe in the creation of counter-organizations to inform and encourage the loyal elements.

But it is perhaps on the question of education that some of the Ruling Chiefs speak with the greatest weight and authority, and there is nothing they more deeply deplore than the divorce of secular instruction from religious and moral training, which they hold responsible for much of the present mischief. "Strange as it may sound," says the Rajah of Dewas, "it is a well-known fact that the germs of the present unrest in India were laid by that benefactor of the human race, education."

Another Chief is of opinion that, as the formation of character is the highest object of education, all public schools should be graded by the results they achieve in this direction rather than by high percentages in examinations; whilst others strongly recommend the extension of the residential college system and greater care in the selection of good teachers.

One may possibly not agree with all the opinions expressed or with all the recommendations made in this correspondence, but their general uniformity cannot fail to carry weight. It certainly carried weight with both the Government of India and the Imperial Government. Not only did it admittedly contribute to the enactment of the Indian Press Bill of February last, but it has probably also contributed to bring about a more general recognition of the urgency of the Indian educational problem. The effect produced in India itself by the publication of the views held by the rulers of Native States, many of whom enjoy great prestige and influence far beyond the limits of their immediate dominions, was naturally considerable. The "extremists" were lashed to fury, and none of the seditious leaflets directed against the "alien"

rulers and "sun-dried bureaucrats" was more violent than one issued in reply to these utterances of the rulers of their own race. One of the ruling Chiefs to whom it had been sent gave me a copy of it as "a characteristic doc.u.ment." It is headed: "Choose, O Indian Princes." It begins, it is true, by a.s.suring them that there is not as yet any cut-and-dried scheme for dealing with them.

No one but the voice of the Mother herself will and can determine when once She comes to herself and stands free what const.i.tution shall be adopted by Her for the guidance of Her life after the revolution is over. ... Without going into details we may mention this much, that whether the head of the Imperial Government of the Indian Nation be a President or a King depends upon how the revolution develops itself ... The Mother must be free, must be one and united, must make her will supreme. Then it may be that She gives out this Her will either wearing a kingly crown on Her head or a Republican mantle round Her sacred form.

But after being exhorted in impa.s.sioned accents either to sacrifice themselves in the great national struggle now at hand, or at the very least to stand back and keep the ring, they are warned as to the consequences of disregarding these admonitions:--

Forget not, O Princes! that a strict account will be asked of your doings and non-doings, and a people newly-born will not fail to pay you in the coin you paid. Every one who shall have actively betrayed the trust of the people, disowned his fathers, and debased his blood by arraying himself against the Mother--he shall be crushed to dust and ashes.... Do you doubt our grim earnestness!

If so hear the name of Dhingra and be dumb. In the name of that martyr, O Indian Princes, we ask you to think solemnly and deeply upon these words. Choose as you will and you will reap what you sow. Choose whether you shall be the first of the nation's fathers or the last of the nation's tyrants.

In some less rabid quarters an attempt has been made to decry the views of the native rulers as emanating from petty Oriental despots, terrified by the onward march of the new Indian democracy. If so it is strange that whilst these "despots" make no secret of their att.i.tude towards disaffection, they are equally outspoken on the necessity of a liberal and progressive policy. The Nizam himself states emphatically that he is "a great believer in conciliation and repression going hand in hand to cope with the present condition of India. While sedition should be localized and rooted out sternly, and even mercilessly, deep sympathy and unreserved reliance should manifest themselves in all dealings with loyal subjects without distinction of creed, caste, and colour."

Unfortunately it requires at the present day more courage for an Indian to hold such language as that than to coquet, as many politicians do, with violence and crime. Indians in high position are peculiarly sensitive to printed attacks, perhaps because behind such attacks there often lurk forms of social pressure, rendered possible by their caste system, with which we, happily for ourselves, are totally unfamiliar.

One of the most discouraging features of the present situation is that so few among the "moderate" politicians who are known to share and approve the views expressed by the Princes of India have had the moral courage to endorse them publicly.

The fearless response made by the ruling Chiefs to Lord Minto's appeal for advice and support in the repression of sedition conveys at the same time another lesson which we may well take to heart. The Government of India consulted them after the danger had arisen and become manifest. Is it not possible that, had we maintained closer touch with them in the past, had we appreciated more fully the value of their knowledge and experience, the danger might never have arisen or would never have attained such threatening proportions? At any rate, now that the consciousness of a common danger has drawn Princes and Government closer together, no time should be lost in establishing some machinery which would secure for the future a more sustained and intimate co-operation between them.

CHAPTER XVI

CROSS CURRENTS

The political aspects of Indian unrest have compelled me to dwell chiefly upon the evil forces which it has generated. But contact with the West has acted as a powerful ferment for good as well as for evil upon every cla.s.s of Indian society that has come more or less directly under its influence. Were it otherwise we should indeed have to admit the moral bankruptcy of our civilization. The forces of unrest are made up of many heterogeneous and often conflicting elements, and even in their most mischievous manifestations there are sometimes germs of good which it should be our business to preserve and to develop. Largely as the cla.s.ses touched, however superficially, by Western education have of late years been invaded by a spirit of reaction and of revolt against all for which that education stands, they have not yet by any means been wholly conquered by it. It is the breath of the West that has stirred the spiritual and intellectual activity of which Hindu revivalism and political disaffection, glorified under the name of Nationalism, are unfortunately the most prominent and the most recent but not the only outcome. Another and much healthier outcome is the sense of social duty and social service which has grown up amongst many educated Indians of all races and creeds, and amongst none more markedly than amongst the Hindus. Traditions of mutual helpfulness are indeed deep-rooted in India as in all Oriental communities. Mutual helpfulness is the best feature of the caste system, of the Hindu family system, of the old Indian village system, and it explains the absence in a country where there is so much poverty of those abject forms of pauperism with which we are compelled at home to deal through the painful medium of our Poor Laws. But until the leaven of Western ideas had been imported into India mutual helpfulness was generally confined within the narrow limits of distinct and separate social units. It is now slowly expanding out of watertight compartments into a more s.p.a.cious conception of the social inter-dependence of the different cla.s.ses of the community. This expansion of the Indian's social horizon began with the social reform movement which had kindled the enthusiasm, of an older generation in the '70's and '80's of the last century. Far from being, as some contend, a by-product of the more recent Nationalism, which had never been heard of at that period, its progress, as I have already shown, has been hampered not only by the reactionary tendencies of this Nationalism in religious and social matters, but by the diversion of some of the best energies of the country into the relatively barren field of political agitation.

Though social reform has been checked, it has not been altogether arrested, nor can it be arrested so long as British rule, by the mere fact of its existence, maintains the ascendency of Western ideals.

Happily there are still plenty of educated Indians who realize that the liberation of Indian society from the trammels which are of its own making is much more urgent than its enfranchis.e.m.e.nt from an alien yoke.

Even amongst politicians of almost every complexion the necessity of removing from the Indian social system the reproach of degrading anachronisms is finding at least theoretical recognition. Alongside of more conspicuous political organizations devoted mainly to political propaganda, other organizations have been quietly developing all over India whose chief purpose it is to grapple with social, religious, and economic problems which are not, or need not necessarily be, in any way connected with politics. Their voices are too often drowned by the louder clamour of the politicians pure and simple, and they attract little attention outside India. But no one who has spent any time in India can fail to be struck with the many-sided activities revealed in all the non-political conventions and conferences and congresses held annually all over the country. Within the last 12 months there have been philanthropic and religious conferences like the All India Temperance Conference, the Christian Endeavour Convention, the Theosophical Convention, social conferences like the Indian National Social Conference, the Moslem Educational Congress, and the Sikh Educational Conference, economic conferences like the Industrial Conference held at Lah.o.r.e in connexion with the Punjab Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition, not to speak of many others, such as the Rajput Conference, the Hindu Punjab Conference, the Kshatrya Conference, the Pa.r.s.ee Conference, &c., which dealt with the narrower interests of particular castes or communities, but nevertheless gathered together representatives of those interests from all parts of India, or any rate from a whole province. Some of these meetings may be made to subserve political purposes. Others, like the Pa.r.s.ee Conference, betray reactionary tendencies in the most unexpected places, for the Pa.r.s.ee community, which has thriven more than any other on Western education and has prided itself upon being the most progressive and enlightened of all Indian communities, is the last one in which one would have looked for the triumph, however temporary, of a strangely benighted orthodoxy.

But the majority of these gatherings represent an honest and earnest attempt to apply, as far as possible, the teachings of Western experience to the solution of Indian problems, and to subject Indian customs and beliefs to the test of modern criticism. They apply themselves, moreover, chiefly to questions in which no alien Government like that of India can take the initiative without serious risk of being altogether ahead of native opinion and arousing dangerous antagonism. As Mr. Lala Dev Raj, the chairman of the last Social Conference at Lah.o.r.e, for instance, put it:--

The reforms advocated here strike at those harmful and undesirable customs which are purely of our own creation and which must be bidden farewell to, as our eyes are being opened to them. If we cannot do that, we can hardly call ourselves a living community.

The results of all this activity may not so far have been very marked, but the mere fact that the supreme sanction of tradition, which was formerly almost undisputed, is now subjected to discussion is bound to make some impression, even upon those whose political concepts are based, upon the immanent superiority of Hinduism. The new interpretation of the _Baghvat Gita_, though sometimes distorted to hideous ends, has itself been inspired by a broader appreciation of social duty than there was room for in the Hindu theory of life before it had been modified by Western influences. So long as the spirit of social endeavour kindled by men like Ram Mohun Roy and Keshab Chunder Sen and Mahadev Govind Ranade is kept alive, even though by much lesser men, we may well hope that the present wave of revolt will ultimately spend itself on the dead sh.o.r.e of a factious and artificial reaction, incompatible with the purpose to which their own best efforts were devoted, of bringing the social life of India into harmony with Western civilization.

A phenomenon, which may prove to have a deep significance is that, side by side with these larger organisations for the promotion of social reform which only claim incidental service from their members, a number of smaller societies are growing up of which the members are bound together by much closer ties and more stringent obligations, and in some cases even by solemn vows to renounce the world and to devote themselves wholly to a life of social service. Many of them present features of special interest which deserve recognition, but I must be content to describe one of them to which the personality of its founder lends exceptional importance. This is the society of "The Servants of India," founded by Mr. Gokhale at Poona. Mr. Gokhale's career itself exemplifies the cross-currents that are often so perplexing a feature of Indian unrest. He is chiefly known in England as one of the leading and certainly most interesting figures in Indian politics. A Chitpavan Brahman by birth, with the blood of the old dominant caste of Maharashtra in his veins, he has often been, both in the Viceroy's Legislative Council and in that of his own Presidency, a severe and even bitter critic of an alien Government, of which he nevertheless admits the benefit, and even the necessity, for India. On the other hand, though he proclaims himself a Nationalist, and though, on one occasion at least, when he presided over the stormy session of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta in December, 1906, which endorsed the Bengalee boycott movement, he lent the weight of his authority to a policy that was difficult to reconcile with const.i.tutional methods of opposition, his reason and his moral sense have always revolted against the reactionary appeals to religious prejudice and racial hatred by which men like Tilak have sought to stimulate a perverted form of Indian patriotism. Highly educated both as a Western and an Eastern scholar, he approaches perhaps more nearly than any of his fellow-countrymen to the Western type of doctrinaire, Radical in politics and agnostic in regard to religion, but with a dash of pa.s.sion and enthusiasm which the Western doctrinaire is apt to lack. When Tilak opened his first campaign of unrest in the Deccan by attacking the Hindu reformers, he found few stouter opponents than Mr. Gokhale, who was one of Ranade's staunchest disciples and supporters. Nor did Tilak ever forgive him. His newspapers never ceased to pursue him with relentless ferocity, and only last year Mr. Gokhale had to appeal to the Law Courts for protection against the scurrilous libels of the "extremist" Press.

His own experiences in political life since he resigned his work as a professor at the Ferguson College in Poona in order to take a larger share in public affairs have probably helped to convince Mr. Gokhale that his fellow-countrymen for the most part still lack many essential qualifications for the successful discharge of those civic duties which are the corollary of the civic rights he claims for them. He does not, it is understood, desire to seek re-election to the Imperial Council at Calcutta after the expiry of its present powers, two years hence, as he wishes to devote himself chiefly to the educational work, which, in one form or another, has perhaps always been the most absorbing interest of his life. When he was a professor at the Ferguson College teaching was with him a vocation rather than a profession, and, if one may judge by his practice, he believes that only those who are prepared to set an example of selflessness and almost ascetic simplicity of life can hope to promote the moral and social as well as the political advancement of India. It is on these principles that he founded five years ago the "Servants of India" Society, recruited in the first instance amongst a few personal followers and supported hitherto by the voluntary contributions of his admirers. The objects of the Society as laid down by its promoters are "to train national missionaries for the service of India and to promote by all const.i.tutional means the true interests of the Indian people." Its members "frankly accept the British connexion as ordained, in the inscrutable dispensation of Providence, for India's good," and they recognize that "self-government within the Empire and a higher life generally for their countrymen" const.i.tute a goal which "cannot be attained without years of earnest and patient effort and sacrifices worthy of the cause." As to its immediate functions, "much of the work," it is stated, "must be directed towards building up in the country a higher type of character and capacity than is generally available at present," and to this end the Society "will train men prepared to devote their lives to the cause of the country in a religious spirit." The const.i.tution of the Society recalls in fact that of some of the great religious societies of Christendom, and not least that of the Jesuits, though with this cardinal difference, that it is essentially non-sectarian and subst.i.tutes as its ideal the service of India for the service of G.o.d, much in the same way as the j.a.panese have to a large extent merged their religious creeds in an idealized cult of j.a.pan.

Every "Servant of India" takes at the time of admission into the society the following seven vows;--

(a) That the country will always be first in his thoughts, and that he will give to her service the best that is in him.

(b) That in serving the country he will seek no personal advantage for himself.

(c) That he will regard all Indians as brothers and will work for the advancement of all, without distinction of caste or creed.

(d) That he will be content with such provision for himself and his family, if any, as the society may be able to make, and will devote no part of his energies to earning money for himself.

(e) That he will lead a pure personal life.

(f) That he will engage in no personal quarrel with any one.

(g) That he will always keep in view the aims of the society and watch over its interests with the utmost zeal, doing all he can to advance its work and never doing anything inconsistent with its objects.

The head of the society, called the First Member--who is Mr. Gokhale--is to hold office for life, and its affairs are to be conducted in accordance with by-laws framed for the purpose by the First Member, who will be a.s.sisted by a council of three, one of whom will be his own nominee, whilst two will be elected by the ordinary members. The powers a.s.signed to the First Member are very extensive and include that of recommending the names of three ordinary members, one of whom, when the time comes, shall be chosen to succeed him. His authority is, in fact, the dominant one, whether over the probationers under training for a period of five years, three of which are to be spent at the society's home in Poona, or over the ordinary members admitted to the full privileges of the society, or over those who, as _attaches_, a.s.sociates, and permanent a.s.sistants, are very closely affiliated to it without being actually received into membership. The scheme is, of course, at present in its infancy, as the society still numbers only about 25, the majority of whom have not yet completed their term of probation. Mr.

Gokhaie, however, hopes very soon to have 50 probationers constantly in residence, and he has already gathered together in the well-appointed buildings of the society's home just outside Poona, in close proximity to the Ferguson College, a group of young men, to some of whom he kindly introduced me, who have evidently caught the fervour of his enthusiasm.

One of the latest recruits was by birth a Mahomedan, of whom Mr. Gokhale was specially proud, as he is very anxious that the society shall be, in fact as well as in theory, representative of all castes and creeds.

One of the first questions which this remarkable experiment suggests is whether the ideals which Mr. Gokhale sets before the "Servants of India"

will suffice to supply the necessary driving power. Hitherto some form of religious faith and the hope of some heavenly reward have alone availed to induce men to renounce the world and all its material interests and surrender themselves to a life of rigorous and selfless discipline in the service of their fellow-creatures, or rather in the service of G.o.d through their fellow-creatures. Mr. Gokhale's society makes no claim to any religious sanction. Though Indian asceticism has from the most remote times found devotees willing to lead a life of far more complete self-annihilation than any that the most rigorous monastic orders of Christendom have ever imposed, or that, for the matter of that, Mr. Gokhale seeks to impose upon his followers, it has always been inspired by some religious conception. Will the "Servants of India" find the same permanent inspiration in the cult of an Indian Motherland, however highly spiritualized, that has no rewards to offer either in this world or in any other? On the political as well as other potentialities of such an organization as Mr. Gokhale contemplates there is no need to dwell. For the "Servants of India," moulded by one mind and trained to obey one will, are to go forth as missionaries throughout India, in the highways and by-ways, among the "untouchables" as well as among the higher cla.s.ses, preaching to each and all the birth of an Indian nation.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE GROWTH OF WESTERN EDUCATION.

The rising generation represent the India of the future, and though those who come within the orbit of the Western education we have introduced still const.i.tute only a very small fraction of the whole youth of India, their numbers and their influence are growing steadily and are bound to go on growing. If we are losing our hold over them, it is a poor consolation to be told that we still retain our hold over their elders. I therefore regard the estrangement of the young Indian, and especially of the young Hindu who has pa.s.sed or is pa.s.sing through our schools and colleges, as the most alarming phenomenon of the present day, and I am convinced that of all the problems with which British statesmanship is confronted in India none is more difficult and more urgent than the educational problem. We are too deeply pledged now to the general principles upon which our educational policy in India is based for even its severest critics to contemplate the possibility of abandoning it. But for this very reason it is all the more important that we should realize the grave defects of the existing system, or, as some would say, want of system, in order that we may, so far as possible, repair or mitigate them. There can be no turning back, and salvation lies not in doing less for Indian education, but in doing more and in doing it better.

Four very important features of the system deserve to be noted at the outset:--(1) Following the English practice, Government exercises no direct control over educational inst.i.tutions other than those maintained by the State, though its influence is brought in several ways indirectly to bear upon all that are not prepared to reject the benefits which it can extend to them; (2) Government has concentrated its efforts mainly upon higher education, and has thus begun from the top in the over-sanguine belief that education would ultimately filter down from the higher to the lower strata of Indian society; (3) instruction in the various courses, mostly literary, which const.i.tute higher education is conveyed through the medium of English, a tongue still absolutely foreign to the vast majority; and (4) education is generally confined to the training of the intellect and divorced not only, absolutely, from all religious teaching, but also, very largely, from all moral training and discipline, with the result that the vital side of education which consists in the formation of character has been almost entirely neglected.

To make the present situation intelligible, I must recapitulate, however briefly, the phases through which our Indian system of education has pa.s.sed. The very scanty encouragement originally given, to education by the East India Company was confined to promoting the study of the Oriental languages still used at that time in the Indian Courts of Law in order to qualify young Indians for Government employment and chiefly in the subordinate posts of the judicial service. After long and fierce controversies on the rival merits of the vernaculars and of English as the more suitable vehicle for the expansion of education, Macaulay's famous Minute of March 7, 1835, determined a revolution of which only very few at the time foresaw, however faintly, the ultimate consequences. Lord William Bentinck's Government decided that "the great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of English literature and science, and that all the funds appropriated for the purpose of education would be best employed in English education alone."

Another influence--too often forgotten--had at least as large a share as Macaulay's in this tremendous departure. That was the influence of the great missionary, Dr. Alexander Duff, who inspired the prohibition of suttee and other measures which marked the withdrawal of the countenance originally given by the East India Company to religious practices incompatible, in the opinion of earnest Christians, with the sovereignty of a Christian Power. Duff had made up his mind, in direct opposition to Carey and other earlier missionaries, that the supremacy of the English language over the vernaculars must be established as a preliminary to the Christianization of India. He had himself opened in 1830 an English school in Calcutta with an immediate success which had confounded all his opponents. His authority was great both at home and in India, and was reflected equally in Lord Hardinge's Educational Order of 1844, which threw a large number of posts in the public service open to English-speaking Indians without distinction of race or creed, and in Sir Charles Wood's Educational Despatch of 1854, which resulted in the creation of a Department for Public Instruction, the foundation of the three senior Universities of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, the affiliation to them of schools and colleges for purposes of examination, and the inauguration of the "grant-in-aid" system for the encouragement of native educational enterprise by guaranteeing financial support according to a fixed scale to all schools that satisfied certain tests of efficiency in respect of secular instruction. Duff's influence had a.s.sured the supremacy of English in secular education, but he never succeeded in inducing Government to go a step beyond neutrality in regard to religious education, and though the remarkable successes which he had in the meantime achieved, not only as a teacher but as a missionary, amongst the highest cla.s.ses of Calcutta society no doubt led him to hope that, even without any active co-operation from Government, the spread of English education would in itself involve the spread of both Christian ethics and Christian doctrine, he never ceased to preach the necessity of combining religious and moral with secular education or to prophesy the evils which would ensue from their divorce.

The system inaugurated by the Educational Minute of 1835 and developed in the Educational Orders of 1854 began well. The number of young Indians who took advantage of it was relatively small. They were drawn mostly from the better cla.s.ses, and they were brought into direct contact with their English teachers, many of them very remarkable men whose influence naturally, and often unconsciously, helped to form the character of their pupils as well as to develop their intellect--and most of all, perhaps, in the mission schools; for the Christian missions were at that time the dominant factor in Indian educational work. In 1854 when there were only 12,000 scholars in all the Government schools, mission schools mustered four times that number and the rights they acquired, under the Orders of 1854, to partic.i.p.ate in the new "grants-in-aid" helped them to retain the lead which in some respects, though not as to numbers, they still maintain. For more than 50 years after the Minute of 1835, and especially during the two or three decades that followed the Orders of 1854, the new system produced a stamp of men who seemed fully to justify the hopes of its original founders--not merely men with a sufficient knowledge of English to do subordinate work as clerks and minor _employes_ of Government, but also men of great intellectual attainments and of high character, who filled with distinction the highest posts open to Indians in the public service, sat on the Bench, and practised at the Bar, and, in fact, made a mark for themselves in the various fields of intellectual activity developed by contact with the West. It is much to be regretted that no _data_ have ever been collected to show what proportion men of this stamp bore to the aggregate number of students under the new system. The proportion was certainly small, but it was at any rate large enough to reflect credit upon the system as a whole and to disguise its inherent defects.

It is characteristic of the narrowness of official interest in educational questions that, whereas abundant statistics are forthcoming on all subjects connected with material progress, no attempt seems to have been made to follow the results of Western education statistically into the after-life of high school pupils and college students. We know that a certain number have emerged into public distinction, but there is nothing to show, except in the most, general way, how many have turned their education to humbler but still profitable account, or how many have turned it to no account at all.

Paradoxical as it may sound, it is the eagerness of young India to respond to our educational call that has led to the breakdown of the system in some of the most important functions of education. In its earlier stages those who claimed the benefit of the new system were chiefly drawn from the intellectual _elite_--i.e., from the cla.s.ses which had had the monopoly of knowledge, though it was not Western knowledge, before the introduction of Western education. With the success which the new system achieved the demand grew rapidly, and the quality of the output diminished as it increased in quant.i.ty. On the one hand education came to be regarded by the Indian public less and less as an end in itself, and more and more as merely an avenue either to lucrative careers or to the dignified security of appointments, however modest, under Government, and, in either case, to a higher social _status_, which ultimately acquired a definite money value in the matrimonial market. The grant-in-aid system led to the foundation of large numbers of schools and colleges under private native management, in which the native element became gradually supreme or at least vastly predominant, and it enabled them to adopt so low a scale of fees that many parents who had never dreamt of literacy for themselves were encouraged to try and secure for some at least of their children the benefit of this miraculous Open Sesame to every kind of worldly advancement. Much of the raw material pressed into secondary schools was quite unsuitable, and little or no attempt was made to sift it in the rough. Numbers therefore began to drop out somewhere on the way, disappointed of their more ambitious hopes and having acquired just enough new ideas to unfit them for the humbler work to which they might otherwise have been brought up[17]. On the other hand, whilst schools and colleges, chiefly under private native management, were multiplied in order to meet the growing demand, the instruction given in them tended to get petrified into mechanical standards, which were appraised solely or mainly by success in the examination lists. In fact, education in the higher sense of the term gave way to the mere cramming of undigested knowledge into more or less receptive brains with a view to an inordinate number of examinations, which marked the various stages of this artificial process. The personal factor also disappeared more and more in the relations between scholars and teachers as the teaching staff failed to keep pace with the enormous increase in numbers.

All these deteriorating influences, though they were perhaps not then so visible on the surface, were already at work in the 80's, when two important Government Commissions were held whose labours, with the most excellent intentions, were destined to have directly and indirectly, the most baneful effects upon Indian education. The one was the Education Commission of 1882-83, appointed by Lord Ripon, with Sir William Hunter as President, and the other the Public Service Commission of 1886-87, appointed by Lord Dufferin, with Sir Charles Aitchison as President. It is quite immaterial whether the steps taken by the Government of India during the subsequent decade were actually due to the recommendations of the Education Commission, or whether the Report of the Commission merely afforded a welcome opportunity to carry into practice the views that were then generally in the ascendant. The eloquence of the Commission, if I may borrow the language appropriately used to me by a very competent authority, was chiefly directed towards representing the important benefits that would be likely to accrue to Government and to education by the relaxation of Government's control over education, the withdrawal of Government from the management of schools, and the adoption of a general go-as-you-please policy. Amongst the definite results which we undoubtedly owe to the labours of that Commission was the acclimatization in India of Sir Robert Lowe's system of "payment by results," which was then already discredited in England. Just at the time when the transfer of the teacher's influence from European into native hands was being thus accelerated, the Public Service Commission, not a single member of which was an educational officer, produced a series of recommendations which had the effect of changing very much for the worse the position and prospects of Indians in the Educational Department. Before the Commission sat, Indians and Europeans used to work side by side in the superior graded service of the Department, and until quite recently they had drawn the same pay. The Commission abolished this equality and comradeship and put the Europeans and the Indians into separate pens. The European pen was named the Indian Educational Service, and the native pen was named the Provincial Educational Service. Into the Provincial Service were put Indians holding lower posts than any held by Europeans and with no prospect of ever rising to the _maximum_ salaries. .h.i.therto within their reach. To pretend that equality was maintained under the new scheme is idle, and the grievance thus created has caused a bitterness which is not allayed by the fact that the Commission created a.n.a.logous grievances in other branches of the public service. Nor was this all the mischief done. It quickened the impulse already given by the Education Commission by formally recommending that the recruitment of Englishmen for the Education Department should be reduced to a _minimum_, and, especially, that even fewer inspectors of schools than the totally inadequate number then existing should be recruited from England. It is interesting to note in view of subsequent developments that, whilst this recommendation was tacitly ignored by the Provincial Governments in some parts of India, as in Madras and in Bombay, it was accepted and applied in Bengal--i.e., in the province where our educational system has displayed its gravest shortcomings.