Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 61

1. January, 1836.

2. The tomb of Safdar Jang, or Mansur Ali Khan, described _ante_, chapter 68 [4]. The bridges over the Jumna are now, of course, maintained by Government and the railway companies.

3. The main highways approaching Delhi are now excellent metalled roads.

4. By the term 'the largest military station in the empire', the author means Meerut. At present the largest military station in Northern India is, I believe, Rawal Pindi, and the combined cantonments of Secunderabad and Bolarum in the Nizam's dominions const.i.tute the largest military station in the empire.

5. Comprising parts of the Meerut and Muzaffarnagar districts of the North-Western Provinces, now the Agra Province in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The Begam's history will be discussed in chapter 75, _post_.

6. The members of the reformed police force, const.i.tuted under Act V of 1861, generally on the model of the Royal Irish Constabulary, have no reason to complain of insecurity of tenure. It is now very difficult to obtain sanction to the dismissal of a corrupt or inefficient officer, unless he has been judicially convicted of a statutory offence.

7. Ordinarily there is for each district, or administrative unit, a separate Sessions and District Judge, who tries both civil and criminal cases of the more serious kind. Occasionally two or three districts have only one judge between them, who is then usually in arrear with his work. Sessions for the trial of grave criminal cases are held monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly, according to circ.u.mstances. In some districts, and for some cla.s.ses of cases, the jury system has been introduced, but, as a rule, in Northern India the responsibility rests with the judge alone, who receives some slight aid from a.s.sessors. Capital sentences pa.s.sed by a Sessions Judge must be confirmed by two Judges of a High Court, or equivalent tribunal.

8. The historian Thornton (chapter 27) went so far as to declare that Lord William Bentinck has 'done less for the interest of India, and for his own reputation, than any who had occupied his place since the commencement of the nineteenth century, with the single exception of Sir George Barlow'. The abolition of widow-burning is the only act of the Bentinck administration which this writer could praise. Such a criticism is manifestly unjust, the outcome of contemporary anger and prejudice. The inscription written by Macaulay, the friend and coadjutor of Lord William, and placed on the statue of the reforming Governor-General in Calcutta, does not give undeserved praise to the much abused statesman. Sir William Sleeman so much admired Lord William Bentinck, and formed such a favourable estimate of the merits of his government, that it may be well to support his opinion by that of Macaulay. The text of the inscription is:

TO

WILLIAM CAVENDISH BENTINCK,

who during seven years ruled India with eminent prudence, integrity, and benevolence; who, placed at the head of a great Empire, never laid aside the simplicity and moderation of a private citizen; who infused into Oriental despotism the spirit of British freedom; who never forgot that the end of Government is the happiness of the governed; who abolished cruel rites; who effaced humiliating distinctions; who gave liberty to the expression of public opinion; whose constant study it was to elevate the intellectual and moral character of the nation committed to his charge,

THIS MONUMENT

was erected by men who, differing in race, in manners, in language and in religion, cherish with equal veneration and grat.i.tude the memory of his wise, reforming, and paternal administration.

(_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 a.s.sistants. 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 inc.u.mbents, 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 a.s.sistant-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 Panjab 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 cla.s.ses with the small results of their labours. But the Thanadar 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 Thanadars 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 Nizamat Adalat) requested one of the judges, who was about to pa.s.s 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 Thanadars 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 Nizamat Adalat, on the criminal, and as the Sadr Diwani Adalat, 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, Tahsildar, &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 Mir Jumla; he had, after his escape, set up as a surgeon to the Nawab, with an equipment consisting of a case of instruments and a box of ointments which he had stolen from M. Cheteur, the Dutch Amba.s.sador to Golconda. Tavernier throws no light upon his ident.i.ty 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 n.o.bles 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 Shah Jahan 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 Nawab Shams-ud-din, 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 'zanana'. 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 Begamabad, 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 Tansen 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 Tansen the power of stopping the river Jumna in its course. His contemporary and rival, Birju Baula, who, according to popular belief, could split a rock with a single note, is said to have learned his ba.s.s from the noise of the stone mills which the women use in grinding the corn for their families.[3] Tansen was a Brahman from Patna, who entered the service of the Emperor Akbar, became a Musalman, and after the service of twenty-seven years, during which he was much beloved by the Emperor and all his court, he died at Gwalior in the thirty-fourth year of the Emperor's reign. His tomb is still to be seen at Gwalior. All his descendants are said to have a talent for music, and they have all Sen added to their names.[4]

While Madhoji Sindhia, the Gwalior chief, was prime minister, he made the emperor a.s.sign to his daughter the Bala Bai in jagir, or rent- free tenure, ninety-five villages, rated in the imperial 'sanads'

[deeds of grant] at three lakhs of rupees a year. When the Emperor had been released from the 'durance vile' in which he was kept by Daulat Rao 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 lakhs of rupees a year. Begamabad was one of them. It paid to the Bala Bai 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 a.s.signed 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 Gwalior 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 inc.u.mbents 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 a.s.signed 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 inc.u.mbents 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 princ.i.p.al 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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstance 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 Saadat Ali 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 a.s.sign any other reason than state necessity. The measure created a good deal of distress, particularly among the educated cla.s.ses; 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 pet.i.tion', 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 Marathas, who were almost as bad as the Sikhs, into the Jumna river, where ten thousand of them were drowned. The people of all cla.s.ses 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 'pipal', 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 trespa.s.s. 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.