India Under Ripon: A Private Diary

“We spent the afternoon at the stables with Abd-el-Rahman Minni and Eid el Temini, and arranged with the latter that he should go with us next winter to Nejd, starting from Jerusalem and travelling by Kheybar to Aneyzeh. He is himself of the Harb Tribe, but he knows them all, and we could go to the Ateybeh, who are now in high feather, having beaten Ibn Rashid and the Shammar several times. The son of Saoud has joined, and is living with them, declaring that he will not go back to Riad until Ibn Rashid is destroyed. He is on good terms now with his uncle Abdallah, but remains with the Bedouins. Abd-el-Rahman will give us letters to them all, and he says there would be no danger or difficulty in going to Riad. They would all be delighted to see us. So, therefore, let it be. We need to see the desert again, and we need to visit Medina.

“19th Feb.– Had luncheon at Parel with the Governor, Sir James Fergusson, whom I remember in old days. He is a good fellow of the old Tory type, believing that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and firmly convinced that the Anglo-Indian administration is worked perfectly by high-minded and disinterested men, having the welfare of the natives at heart. He himself undoubtedly has, but I cannot think he knows all that happens under his Government. Talking of the Mahdi, he quoted his own head chuprassi as having told him that the man in Africa could not be he. He admitted, however, that the forest conservancy had been a great evil, and was making the hillmen very angry. The ryots on all other points were highly delighted at our rule. He would not hear of any danger of a revolution, because seven years ago a Mahratta Brahmin had been discovered trying to excite rebellion, and in his diary had been found complaints of the people being as dull as stones to his preaching. The assessment everywhere in Bombay was low, the people everywhere but in the hills and at Poonah were well affected, and he thought a war with the Mahdi would be popular. This is possibly true to some extent in the city of Bombay, because war would bring wealth in the shape of contracts and employment. I told him frankly my views, and he was at pains to convince me that they were wrong. He has asked us to stay with him a few days in Government House before we go. To the races later, where we found Mohammed Ali Rogay and Ali Bey the Turkish Consul. They will dine with us to-morrow. Mr. Gladstone states in Parliament that he disbelieves Gordon’s having proclaimed free slave trade.

“20th Feb.– Wrote letters all the morning and then went to call on Prince Agha Khan, where I met a Persian Mulvi of repute, and had a long talk about the Mahdi. This reverend gentleman would not hear of his being the real Mahdi, who, of course, ought to be a Shiah, but they seemed to think him better than English rule in Egypt. I could not get the Prince to give a decided opinion one way or the other. His father was head of a sect in Persia, and was driven out with some thousands of his followers, and they settled at Bombay, where he was considered to the day of his death a saintly personage. His son inherits something of his position, and is visited by many devotees from Persia, but he is inclined to worldly interests, and thinks a great deal about horse racing. He showed me his stud, and I am glad to say has agreed to send his best horse Kuchkolla to Newmarket for the Arab race.

“Mohammed Ali Rogay and Ali Bey came to dine with us. We discussed the condition of Turkey, the Sultan, and the prospect in Egypt. Ali Bey is of opinion that the fortune of Islam is bound up with the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, but he would see a new system introduced into the administration, for the Mohammedan population was dying out. ‘There are no young men in the villages,’ he said, ‘none but old ones left.’ I could not, however, get anything more definite out of him than a suggestion that the personal power of the Sultan should be curtailed, and the Government intrusted to a Council, that the official language should be Arabic instead of Turkish, and that the revenue collected in the provinces should be spent in the provinces.

“22nd Feb.– Gordon’s proclamation in favour of the slave trade has been fully confirmed, and Gladstone’s later denial seems only to have been a dodge in view of the Vote of Censure, which has been thrown out by a majority of eighty-one. On the whole I am glad of it, as, though the poetical justice would have been admirable, we should lose our game altogether just now with the Tories, as they would certainly annex Egypt and invade the Soudan.

“I went to call on Malabari, and afterwards to the stables, where I had a long conversation with Abd-el-Rahman, partly about the condition of the inhabitants of Bombay, but principally about horses. We talked of Rogay, who, Abd-el-Rahman says, makes two mistakes. He is a disciple of Seyd Ahmed (he told me so himself the other day), and he mixes himself up with politics. This, Abd-el-Rahman deplores. But they are friends, and he says he is a good-hearted man. Abd-el-Rahman is a vice-chairman or something of the Anjuman i Islam, and will attend the meeting which is now put off till Friday. His heart, however, is in horses, as becomes an Arab and a horse dealer, and we soon got back to them. Abd-el-Rahman tells me the Nejd horses take longer to get into condition when they come over poor than the Anazeh horses. He says three quarters of the racing Arabs are bay, which is certainly the case at present, as The Doctor is the only first-class gray horse now running. Among the ponies this is not so much so.

“23rd Feb.– Yesterday evening I received the letter promised me by Salar Jung, which has been wandering about, having been first sent to Kalbarga. It is most satisfactory. The Nizam signifies in it his readiness to see the university founded at Hyderabad, he records the Viceroy’s approval, and he invites me to return to Hyderabad to complete the work.13 This ‘crowns the edifice.’ I am now only anxious to get home.

“Ghulam Mohammed Munshi called. He has spent twenty years, he tells me, trying to get up a Mohammedan school at Bombay, and has at last succeeded. He seems a good old man, though apparently a follower of Seyd Ahmed. He was the first organizer, too, of the Anjuman i Islam here, and was sent to see me by Abd-el-Latif, who had telegraphed to him. He gave me some particulars about the Bombay Mohammedans. Agha Khan has 30,000 followers who count as Shiahs, but they are hardly Mohammedans, as they neither pray nor read the Koran nor fast. They are called Khojas, and the sect began not in Persia, but in Kutch, being originally poor; they are now rich and prosperous traders and shopkeepers. The late Agha Khan kept them very strictly, forbidding them to attend the public schools. The rest of the community are Sunnis. The original Mohammedans of Bombay are called Kokhnis. They are Shafites, as they were converted by the Arabs, and are shopkeepers. The rest are descended from northern immigrants, and are mostly Hanafites. He tells me the Mulvis are very much averse to education, but they are all coming to the Anjuman meeting on Friday, when there will be about five hundred persons present.

“Dined at Mr. Gonne’s, where I had some talk with Sir William Wedderburn, a very superior man indeed. We discussed the agricultural question, and agreed, I think, on every point, except that he seems to hope for more good from Lord Ripon’s local self-government scheme than I do. He said: ‘The village is the unit. What we want is to have one village, only one village, really examined, and the fact ascertained that it does not pay the cost of its cultivation.’ Agriculture in India does not suffice to keep the people alive. In old days it was an accessory only; now it is their sole resource. Formerly they were weavers, mechanics, carriers, as well as farmers, and now these trades are stopped, and they cannot live on the land. He agreed with me about the necessity of a permanent settlement everywhere. He said: ‘The assessment is not merely a land tax, nor merely a rent. It is more than both of these. It is a poll tax, and a tax on labour, for it takes more than the whole agricultural profit, the excess being levied on wages received for other than agricultural work done.’ This is a good description of the facts. I told him what Gordon had said to me about the hopelessness of expecting anything being done for the Indian people until they had made a revolution; perhaps if the Government went bankrupt it would do as well. But he said it was incredible how long governments could go on after they were practically insolvent. We are to have another talk to-morrow.

“24th Feb., Sunday.– A visit from Sir Jamsetji Jijibhoy who called to invite us to see the Towers of Silence with him. He is a young man of great simplicity and apparent honesty, who seems to do his duty in public matters, but rather to avoid politics. There is, however, nothing more absurd than to suppose that the Parsis are not on the native side of the quarrel with the Anglo-Indians. Their position was well explained later by the editor of the ‘Rast,’ Kaikhosna Norrosji Kabraji, with whom I had a very long conversation. He said that the Parsis came originally from Persia, twelve centuries and more ago, having been driven out by the Moslems. The Hindus had received them, but on certain conditions. They were to abstain from cow’s flesh especially, and to use certain Hindu forms in their marriage ceremonies. They were persecuted constantly, and repressed, and were in danger of dying out when the English came to Bombay. For this reason they have always supported the English raj, and would support any Imperial Government which should succeed the English. They had become very prosperous and wealthy, and education had brought them a wish to take part in public affairs. They were now with the Hindus in the struggle going on for Home Rule, though they had no wish to weaken the connection with England, which was all to their advantage. I asked him about their priests, and he told me they were very ignorant, that their ritual was in Zend, which few of them understood. It was a language closely allied to Sanskrit, a good Sanskrit scholar being able to read Zend, but few knew either. The richer Parsis, however, had taken full advantage of public education, though they complained, like the Mohammedans, of a lack of religious instruction. He did not think education in England a good thing for Parsis, though he had sent his son there to read for the Civil Service Examination. He only knew one Parsi who had returned improved from England. That was one of the Wadia family. Most were spoilt by it. One had ended by marrying his aunt. Others had stayed in England altogether. He had been instrumental in getting up the ‘God save the Queen’ movement with Canon Harford, having translated it into Gujerati. I explained to him the Egyptian and Soudan situations, and he has already begun to write in his journal against sending Indian troops. I also explained the political situation in England, and promised to see his son and give him good advice.

“Ali Hamid Bey also called, and we are to dine with him on Friday, before the Anjuman meeting. I like the young man.

“At 4 o’clock Sir William Wedderburn called, and we had a long talk. He considers that the chief reforms to be looked to are: 1. To have a fixed sum allotted for the Civil List, so as to make the multiplication of offices impossible. At present, sons and nephews and cousins of Members of Council are stuck into the uncovenanted Civil Service ad libitum. They get posts of two or three hundred rupees a month, and cannot live on it, and so do their work badly. It is just two and three hundred rupee places that would form the prizes of the native Civil Service. Sir William thinks the English civilians should be few and well paid. They are now multiplied needlessly. 2. To do away with the Indian Council in London. They are now made a Court of Appeal, but they are all members of the old covenanted clique, and so are incapable of unprejudiced decision. 3. He is in favour of a permanent settlement everywhere at one-sixteenth of the net produce. 4. He would have an option of paying in kind or in money. 5. He would have agricultural banks.

“He described the state of things at the end of Lytton’s reign as bordering on revolution. Armed bands were beginning to go about, having the sympathy of the people. They were put down with great difficulty. In the Bombay Presidency, Sir Richard Temple contributed much to this state of things. Lytton’s policy of show corrupted them all, and Temple exaggerated it. Temple was a man without principles, good or bad, and his idea of getting on was to head every cry popular with the Anglo-Indians. Thus, during the famine, when the cry was ‘Save life at any cost,’ he had immense heaps of grain collected conspicuously in every station, much of which rotted and was lost, and he issued a minute to the effect that two pounds of grain should be the daily ration. Then came a reaction. It was found that the country was being ruined by this wholesale distribution, and he issued another minute that one pound was a quite sufficient ration, the truth being that one and a half was about the reasonable portion. He was answerable, too, for the severity of the forest laws. Because it was a popular cry that timber should be preserved, he issued a minute confiscating whole districts to this purpose.

“Dined at Sir Frank Souter’s. Abd-el-Rahman and Kamr ed Din Tyabji and a couple of Parsis were there, Sir Frank having what is considered here great sympathy with the natives. But it seemed to me that without intending it, he was insulting them in nearly every word he said, although he is evidently a most kind-hearted man. These mixed native and Anglo-Indian parties are colourless things, and the conversation is all unreal, neither side speaking its real thoughts. I suppose, if the truth had been told, it would have been something of this sort. Souter: ‘You are welcome to my house and honoured guests, because I am an English gentleman, and I think it right that natives should be civilly treated. But I know that you are still half savages, and hope you will take no liberties.’ The native guests: ‘We come to dine with you because it is a good thing to stand well with those in power. But you grow rather brutal after your sixth glass of champagne.’ It is astonishing the amount of liquor consumed here in India.

“25th Feb.– Malabari called, and I had a long talk with him about my plans and ideas, and he has promised to help them on all he can. He is going to get up a small meeting of Hindus and Parsis, but I told him I would sooner not make a speech for fear of saying too much. We lunched with Mr. L., a typical Anglo-Indian, at the Yacht Club, – a tall, dry man, Judge of the High Court, who has carried on through life the recollection that he was a sixth form boy at Eton, and in the cricket eleven. He would like to see Afghanistan annexed, and himself sent to administer justice there. With him General H., who, just as Sir James Fergusson quoted his chuprassi, quoted his native troopers as authorities for the contempt with which the Mahdi was regarded by Mohammedans in India.

“To the stables, where we spent a pleasant hour talking and making arrangements with Eid el Temini about visiting Nejd next winter. We decided it would be best to start from Bussora and Koweit, and we agreed to meet him there about the 1st of December. Dined at Dr. Blane’s, and sat between Lady S. and Miss T. The former complained of the shabby way the Anglo-Indian officials were treated by Government, and thought it hard India should not be governed entirely for their benefit. They all hated India so much that they ought to be handsomely treated for being obliged to live there. What would India do without them, and what would England do without India? How could England ever have conquered Afghanistan without Indian troops? How could she have conquered Egypt? This is a sincere woman. Miss T. is a serious person. She would see the agricultural condition of the Indian ryot raised by inducing him to plant fruit trees and keep market gardens. She has been four months in India, but has not yet gone beyond Bombay.

“26th Feb.– The Diwan of Kolapur, a Mahratta Brahmin, called. He confirmed Sir William Wedderburn’s estimate of Sir Richard Temple, but added that he was the best informed of any Governor they had had. It was not from ignorance that he erred, but because he only looked to his own advancement. I asked him about the land revenue of Kolapur, and he said it was about twenty per cent. of the gross produce, the same as in Bombay, but the districts varied. The Bombay Deccan was very poor land, not so good as Kolapur, and there might be some districts as highly assessed as one-third. I asked him if he thought Indian finance in a satisfactory state. He said the agricultural revenue will diminish, because the land is becoming impoverished, but they may make up in other ways by opium and salt taxes. The salt tax was much complained of, both on the sea coast, where it interfered with the fishing industry, and inland, where the cattle were suffering from want of it. He could not explain why, in Northern India, they should not give salt to their cattle, but supposed they were able to give them better food. He was on the Famine Commission and spoke very highly of Sir James Caird, though he said that from want of time he had not been able to understand certain questions, and so had made mistakes. He seemed to think that Wedderburn was too kind to the ryots, and doubted the success of his bank scheme, at any rate financially. He had, of course, a very high opinion of him, both as an honest man, and as one who knew. He likes Fergusson, but says he knows nothing that is going on. Wrote multitudinous letters, among others to Amir Ali and Abd-el-Latif, exhorting them each to unite with the other over this university scheme. But I hardly expect they will.

“The photographs have come representing us with Lord Ripon and the Nizam and Grant Duff, me standing next to Cordery, behind the Viceroy’s chair. There is humour in this; and I shall send copies to my various friends in token of the university scheme having succeeded. It will give them courage. After all, Ragunath Rao could never get to see Lord Ripon, and he writes rather comically about it. We are staying with Fergusson at Parel.

“27th Feb.– There is an article in the ‘Bombay Gazette’ this morning about the university, well and courteously written, and which I am told is probably by a Mr. West of the High School. It is, of course, against it, but will attract attention, which is what we most want, and cannot by any possibility do harm. At breakfast I told Sir James Fergusson that I was going to a meeting of Hindus and Parsis, and asked him for a carriage to go in. He told me very frankly he did not like my going from his house, though when I explained that it was not a public meeting, and that it would be held at the house of Kashinath Telang, an honourable member of his own council, he agreed to send me. But he spoke to me very strongly and very earnestly about the danger of my exciting the native mind by appearing to sympathize with their grievances. He could not understand how, as an Englishman, I could reconcile it with my conscience to do this. The Government of India was a despotism of a paternal and beneficent character, which was day and night working for the people’s good, and any agitation would only impede its efforts. There were, of course, ambitious natives who had their own ends to serve by making out a case against the Government, but he could assure me their tales were lies. He knew, of his personal experience, that the Government officials were entirely anxious to do what was right, that the people looked up to them as their protectors from injustice, and that he believed there was no better Government in the world, or one more respected. He asked me what subjects I proposed to discuss with them, and hoped I should eschew politics, and he spoke so earnestly and well that I had not the heart to say how precisely his good faith proved all the native argument. No one can doubt Sir James’s loyalty. But who are his eyes and hands and ears? His chuprassi, who tells him that the Mohammedans despise the Mahdi; Sir Frank Souter, who tells him, on his experience as a police officer and a friend of the natives, to trust no native’s word; Mr. L., who would like to extend his High Court jurisdiction to Afghanistan, and the old Commander-in-Chief. I said, however, that I could not promise not to talk about politics, but I would say nothing inflammatory, and I felt quite certain that no sympathy I could show them or suggestions that I could offer, would make them more dissatisfied, or make them any clearer-headed about a remedy than they were already. He asked me what they complained of, and I instanced the absence of any real Court of Appeal for grievances. At this he broke out and protested that nothing could be less true, that every day appeals were made to him, and the decisions of lower officials reversed by their superiors or himself. All were anxious to do justice to the poor, sometimes only too anxious. Only the other day he had had to censure an officer for making too strong a complaint as to the oppression of the people. He had written that the people were being ruined by the Government. There was no want of sympathy for them anywhere. I said: ‘Yet you censured him.’ He said: ‘Yes, because he spoke too strongly.’ I like Sir James, because he is quite honest and plainspoken. But were not the Austrian officials in Lombardy equally sure that their Government was the best in the world, and did not Lombardy rise and cast them out? Ignorance is a greater danger than ill-will.

“To the meeting. I confined my questions almost entirely to agriculture and finance. The general opinion of the meeting about local finance was that its condition was not satisfactory, that the assessments were far too high, and that the resettlement every thirty years was a bar to capital being invested in the land. ‘In the old days,’ one speaker said, ‘we used to look on the land as our best investment; now we avoid it. If a permanent settlement were introduced we should again invest in land, just as they do now in Bengal.’ (This in answer to the question, what would be the result of a permanent settlement?) ‘The land would thus fall into the hands of capitalists, but the whole policy of the Government had been to discourage middlemen, because it looked on them as drones who kept a portion of the honey from coming to the proper hands, its own. This was a natural law of economy which legislation could not interfere with without harm.’ The meeting was unanimously in favour of a permanent settlement as the only solution of the agricultural difficulty, and as, by itself, a sufficient remedy. I asked about the assessment, and it was agreed, after some argument, that about one-third of the gross produce was a fair calculation for Bombay. One half of the net produce was the pretension of the Government officers. Gujerat was the most fertile district, but the assessment was high. Wells were taxed, and so the sinking of new ones discouraged. A landowner of Gujerat, Yavinhal, told me his assessment had been raised on account of the possibility of making a well. I mentioned Sir James Fergusson’s assurance that there was no wrong in India without a remedy, and asked if it was so. This caused general laughter; and Rao Shankar, the Oriental translator to the Government and a man in whom Sir James Fergusson has the greatest confidence, went so far as to say that he had never known the instance of an appeal from assessment having been favourably met. They were all against the salt tax, and one man mentioned the condition of the population of the Koucan, south of Bombay, as suffering most from leprosy. They could no longer cure their fish against the monsoon when fishing was impossible. The district between the Ghauts and the sea was very poor, so poor that the villagers only existed by coming in for mill labour, part of the year, to Bombay. The cultivation there did not pay its expenses.

“I asked them, since taxes must be raised, how they would raise them. They said: ‘By import duties. We should all like these, as they would affect only the rich.’ I asked them about the income tax, and here there was a difference of opinion, Telang being in favour of it, but others said it was only a little better than the license tax, and Mr. Ferdunji, C. I. E., a leader among the Parsis, denounced them both alike. It is evident that this tax is unpopular in India, but the license tax seems to combine its disadvantages as an inquisitorial tax, without raising sufficient money. The highest rate paid by any man, however wealthy, in Bombay, is only two hundred rupees, so it is a tax on the middle classes only, not on the rich. Those who have an income of five hundred rupees are exempted. They were all very much amused at Sir James’s fear of my influencing their minds, and it is plain they have no great idea of his intelligence, though they hold him honest. Yet these are the pick of the native community, Members of Council, of the Corporation, and officials of all sorts. Who then are the people Sir James gets his ideas from? Who are the satisfied natives? I have not met a single one since I came to India. We did not touch directly on any political subject.