I HAVE considered the nature of the relation in which India stands to England, and have tried to explain how this relation could spring up without a miracle. We may now advance a step and form some opinion on the question whether that relation can endure without a miracle, as it was created without one, or whether we ought to regard the government of India by the English as a kind of political tmr de force, a matter of astonishment while it lasts, but certain not to last very long. For the great difficulty which the student has to contend Avith in studying Indian affairs is the dazzling effect of events so strange, so remote, and on a scale so large, by which he is led to think that ordinary causation is not to be expected in India, and that in that region all is miraculous. The rhetorical tone ordinarily adopted in history favours this illusion ; historians are fond of parading all the strange and marvellous features of the Indian Empire, as if it were less their business to account 252 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND LBCT.
for what happens than to make it seem more un- accountable than before.
Thus Ave come to think of our ascendency in India as an exception to all ordinary rules, a standing miracle in politics, onlj^ to be explained by the heroic qualities of the English race and their natural genius for government. So long as we take this view, it is of course impossible for us to form any opinion concerning the duration of it. What was a miracle at the beginning is likely to continue so to the end. If ordinary laws are suspended, who shall say how long the suspension is likely to last ? Now I have tried to look calmly at our Empire in its beginning. I have examined the conquest of India, and have found that it is indeed miraculous in the sense of being unlike our experience —the revolutions of Asiatic society would naturally be unlike those of Europe—but that it is not miracidous in the sense of being unaccountable, or even difficult to account for. I now inquire whether our government of India is miraculous in this sense.
It must certainly appear so, if we assume that India is simply a conquered country and the English its conquerors. Who does not know the extreme difficulty of repressing the disaffection of a conquered population ? Over and over again it has been found impossible, even where the superiority both in , the number and efficiency of troops has been decidedly on the side of the conquerors. When the Spaniards failed in the Low Countries, they were the best soldiers and Spain by far the greatest state in IV HOW WE GOVERN INDIA 253 Christendom. For the instinct of nationality or of separate religion mere than supplies the place of valour or of discipline, being diffused through the whole population and not confined to the fighting part of it. Let us compare the parallel case of Italy. Italy corresponds in the map of Europe to India in that of Asia. It is a similar peninsula at the south of the Continent, with a mighty mountain range above it, and below this a great river flowing from west to east. It is still more similar in the circum stance that for many centuries it was a prey to foreign invaders. No long time ago Italy was sub ject to the ascendency and partly to the actual rule of Austria. Its inhabitants were less warlike, its armies much less efficient, than those of Austria, and Austria was close at hand. And yet, though fighting at so much disadvantage, Italy has made herself free. In the field she was generally defeated, but the feeling of nationality was so strong within and attracted so much sympathy without, that she has had her way, and the foreigner has left her to her self. Now in every point India is more advan tageously situated with respect to England than Italy with respect to Austria. She has a population about eight times as great as that of England ; she is at the other side of the globe ; and then England does not profess to be a military state. Yet to all appearance she submits to the yoke ; we do not hear of rebellions. In conducting the government of India we meet with difficulties, l)ut tliey are chiefly financial and econo mical. The particular difficulty which in Italy was 254 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND leot.
too much for Austria we do not encounter ; we do not feel the difficulty of repressing the disaffection of a conquered nationality. Is not this miraculous? Does it not seem as if all ordinary laws were sus- pended in this case, or as if we might assume that there are no bounds either to the submissiveness of the Hindu or to the genius for government of the English ? What I urged above may partly prepare you for the answer which I make to this question. In the question it is assumed, first, that India constitutes a nationality ; secondly, that this nationality has been conquered by England. Now both these assumptions are wholly unfounded.
First the notion that India is a nationality rests upon that vulgar error which political science principally aims at eradicating. We in Europe, accustomed to see the map of Europe divided into countries each of which is assigned to a peculiar nationality, of which a special language is the badge, fall into a profound misconception. We assume that wherever, inside or outside of Europe, there is a country which has a name, there must be a nationality answering to it. At the same time we take no pains to conceive clearly or define precisely what we call a nationality. We content ourselves with remarking that we in England should be most unwilling to be governed by the French, and that the French would be sorry to be governed by the Germans, and from these examples we draw the conclusion that the people of India must in like manner feel it a deepIV HOW WE GOVERN INDIA 255 humiliation to be governed by the English. Such notions spring from mere idleness and inattention. It does not need proving, it is sufficient merely to state, that it is not every population which constitutes a nationality. The English and the French are not mere populations ; they are populations united in a very special way and by very special forces. Let us think of some of these uniting forces, and then ask whether they operate upon the populations of India.
The first is community of race, or rather the belief in a community of race. This, when it appears on a large scale, is identical with community of language. The English are those who speak English, the French those who speak French. Now do the inhabitants of India speak one language 1 The answer is. No more, but rather less, than the inhabitants of Europe speak one language ! So much has been said by philologers about Sanscrit and its affinities with other languages, that it is necessary to remark that it is an obvious community of language, of which the test is intelligi- bility, and not some hidden affinity, that acts as a uniting force. Thus the Italians regarded the Aus trians as foreigners because they could not under stand German, without troubling themselves to consider that German as well as Italian is an Indo- European language. There is affinity among several of the languages of India, as among those of Europe. The Hindi languages may be compared witli the Romance languages of Europe, as being descendants of the ancient language, but the mutual affinity of the Bengali, the Marathi, the Guzerati does not help to 256 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND leot.
make those who speak them one nation. The Hindustani has sprung out of the Mussulman conquest, by a mixture of the Persian of the invaders with the Hindi languages of the natives. But in the South we find a linguistic discrepancy in India greater than any which exists in Europe, for the great languages of the South, Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, are not Indo-European at all, and they are spoken by populations far larger than those Finns and Magyars of Europe whose language is not Indo- European.
This fact is enough by itself to show that the name India ought not to be classed with such names as England or France, which correspond to nation alities, but rather with such as Europe, marking a group of nationalities which have chanced to obtain a common name owing to some physical separation. Like Europe it is a mere geogra})hic expression, but even so, it has been much less uniformly used than the na«ie Europe. Europe at any rate has been used in much the same sense since the time of Herodotus, but our present use of the word India is not perhaps very old. To us indeed it seems natural that the whole country which is marked off from Asia by the great barrier of the Himalaya and the Suleiman range should have a single name. But it has not always seemed so. The Greeks had but a very vague idea of this country. To them for a long time the word India was for practical purposes what it was etymologically, the province of the Indus. When they say that Alexander invaded India, they IV HOW WE GOVERN INDIA 257 refer to the Punjab. At a later time they obtained some information about the valley of the Ganges, but little or none about the Deccan. Meanwhile in India itself it did not seem so natural as it seems to us to give one name to the whole region. For there is a very marked difference between the northern and southern parts of it. The great Aryan community which spoke Sanscrit and invented Brahminism spread itself chiefly from the Punjab along the great valley of the Ganges, but not at first far southward. Accordingly the name Hindostan properly belongs to this Northern region. In the South or peninsula we find other races and non-Aryan languages, though Brahminism has extended itself there too. Even the Mogul Empire in its best time did not much penetrate into this region.
It appears then that India is not a political name, but only a geographical expression like Europe or Africa. It does not mark the territory of a nation and a language, but the territory of many *hations and many languages. Here is the fundamental difference between India and such countries as Italy, in which the principle of nationality has asserted itself. Both India and Italy were divided among a number of states, and so were weak in resistance to the foreigner. But Italy, though divided by organ isation, was one by nationality. The same language pervaded it, and out of this language had sprung a great literature, which was the common possession of the whole peninsula. India, as I have pointed out, is no more united by language than Europe is. S 258 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND LBOT.
But nationality is compounded of several elements, of which a sense of kindred is only one. The sense of a common interest and the habit of forming a single political whole constitute another element. This too has been very weak, though perhaps it has not been altogether wanting in India. The country might seem almost too large for it, but the barrier which separates India from the rest of the world is so much more effective than any barrier between one part of India than another, that in spite of all ethnical and local divisions some vague conception of India as at least a possible whole has existed from a very ancient time. In the shadowy traditionary history of the times before Mahmoud of Ghazni it is vaguely related of this king and that king that he was lord of all India ; the dominion of some historical princes in the first Mohammedan period, and finally the Mogul Empire, were approximately universal. But we must not exaggerate the greatness of the Mogul Empire, or imagine that it answers in India to the Eoman Empire in Europe. Observe how short its duration was. We cannot put the very com- mencement of it earlier than 1524, the date of the capture of Lahore by Baber—that is, in Henry VIII. ’s reign. When Vasco da Gama landed in India it had not begun to exist, and its marked and rapid decline begins in 1707—that is, in Queen Anne’s reign. Between these dates there is less than two centuries. But next observe that the Mogul Empire cannot be properly said to have existed from the moment when Baber entered India, but only from the moment wheo rv HOW WE GOVERN INDIA 259 the Indian dominion of the Moguls became extensive. Now at the accession of Akber, which was in 1559, or the year after that of Queen Elizabeth, this Empire consisted simply of the Punjab and the country round Delhi and Agra. It was not till 1576 that Akber conquered Bengal, and he conquered Sind and Guzerat between 1591 and 1594. His empire was now extensive, but if we consider 1594 instead of 1524 as the date of the commencement of the Mogul Empire, we reduce its duration to little more than a century.
Next observe that even at this time it by no means includes all India. To imagine this is to con fuse India with Hindostan. Akber’s dominion in 1595 was limited by the Nerbudda, and he had not yet set foot in the Deccan. He was Emperor of Hindostan, but by no means of India. In his later years he invaded the Deccan, and from this time the Mogul pretensions began to extend to the Southern half of India. But it cannot be said that anything like a conquest of the Deccan was made before the great expedition of Aurungzebe in 1683. From this time we may, if we choose, speak of the Mogul Empire as including the Deccan, and therefore as uniting all India under one Government, though the subjection of the Deccan was chiefly nominal, for the Mahratta Power was already rising fast. But thus the duration of the Empire is reduced to a mere moment, for the Mogul Emperors purchased this ex- tension of their dominion by the ruin of the Empire. Within twenty-four years decay had become visible.
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and, as I take it, directly in consequence of this am bitious expedition. The Empire had always wanted a sufficient nucleus, and its powers were exhausted by this unwise attempt to extend it.
On the whole then it may be said that India has never really been united so as to form one state ex- cept under the English. And they cannot be said to have accomplished the work until the Governor Generalship of Lord Dalhousie thirty years ago, when the Punjab, Oude, and Nagpore were incor- porated with the English dominions.
Another leading element of nationality is a com- mon religion. This element is certainly not altogether wanting in India. The Brahminical system does extend over the whole of India. Not of course that it is the only religion of India. There are not less than fifty millions of Mussulmans—that is, a far greater number than is to be found in the Turkish Empire. There is also a small number of Sikhs, who profess a religion which is a sort of fusion of Mohammedanism and Brahminism ; there are a few Christians, and in Ceylon and Nepaul there are Buddhists. But Brahminism remains the creed of the enormous majority, and it has so much real vitality that it has more than once resisted formidable attacks. One of the most powerful of all proselytis ing creeds, Buddhism, sprang up in India itself; it spread far and wide; we have evidence that it flourished with vigour in India two centuries before Christ, and that it was still flourishing in the seventh century after Christ. Yet it has been conquered by vr HOW WE GOVERN INDIA 261 Brahminism, and flourishes now almost in every part of Asia more than in the country which produced it. After this victory Brahminism had to resist the assault of another powerful aggressive religion, before which Zoroastrianism had already fallen, and even Christianity had in the East had to retreat some steps, Mohammedanism. Here again it held its own ; Mussulman Governments overspread India, but they could not convert the people.
Now religion seems to me to be the strongest and most important of all the elements which go to constitute nationality; and this element exists in India When it is said that India is to be compared rather to Europe than to France or England, we may remember that Europe, considered as Christendom, has had and still has a certain unity, which would show itself plainly and quickly enough if Europe were threatened, as more than once it was threatened in the Middle Ages, by a barbarian and heathen enemy. It may seem then that in Brahminism India has a germ, out of which sooner or later an •Indian nationality might spring. And perhaps it is so ; but yet we are to observe that in that case the nationality ought to have developed itself long since. For the Mussulman invasions, which have succeeded each other through so many centuries, have supplied precisely the pressure which was most likely to favour the development of the germ. Why did Brahminism content itself with holding its own against Islam, and not rouse and unite India against the invader? It never did so. Brahminical Powers 262 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect. have risen in India. A chieftain named Sivaji arose in the middle of the seventeenth century, and possessing himself of one or two hill-forts in the highlands behind Bombay, founded the Mahratta Power. This was a truly Hindu organisation, and, as its power increased, it fell more and more under the control of the Brahmin caste. The decline of the Mogul Empire favoured its advance, so that in the middle of the eighteenth century the ramifications of the Mahratta confederacy covered almost the whole of India. It might appear that in this confederacy there lay the nucleus of an Indian nationality, that Brahminism was now about to do for the Hindus what has been done for so many other races by their religion. But nothing of the kind happened. Brah minism did not pass into patriotism. Perhaps its facile comprehensiveness, making it in reality not a religion but only a loose compromise between several religions, has enfeebled it as a uniting principle. At any rate it appears that in the Mahratta movement there never was anything elevated or patriotic, but that it continued from first to last to be an organisa tion of plunder.
There is then no Indian nationality, though there are some germs out of which we can conceive an Indian nationality developing itself. It is this fact, and not some enormous superiority on the part of the English race, that makes our Empire in India possible. If there could arise in India a nationality movement similar to that which we witnessed in Italy, the English Power could not even make the
IV HOW WE GOVERN INDIA 263 resistance that was made in Italy by Austria, but must succumb at once. For what means can England have, which is not even a military state, of resisting the rebellion of two hundred and fifty millions of subjects ? Do you say, as we conquered them before, we could conquer them again 1 But I explained that we did not conquer them. I showed you that of the army which won our victories four-fifths consisted of native troops. That we were able to hire these native troops for service in India, was due to the fact that the feeling of nationality had no existence there. Now if the feeling of a common nationality began to exist there only feebly,—if, without inspiring any active desire to drive out the foreigner, it only created a notion that it was shameful to assist him in maintaining his dominion,—from that day almost our Empire would cease to exist; for of the army by which it is garrisoned two-thirds consist of native soldiers. Imagine what an easy task the Italian patriots would have had before them, if the Austrian Government which they desired to expel had de- pended not upon Austrian but upon Italian soldiers Let us suppose—not even that the native army mutinied—but simply that a native army could not any longer be levied. In a moment the impossibility of holding India would become manifest to us ; for it is a condition of our Indian Empire that it should be held without any great effort. As it was acquired without much effort on the part of the English state, it must be retained in the same way. We are not prepared to bury millions upon millions or army 264 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
upon army in defending our acquisition. The moment India began really to show herself what we so idly imagine her to be, a conquered nation, that moment we should recognise perforce the impossi bility of retaining her.
And thus the mystic halo of marvel and miracle which has gathered round this Empire disappears before a fixed scrutiny. It disappears when we perceive that, though we are foreign rulers in India, we are not conquerors resting on superior force, when we recognise that it is a mere European prejudice to assume that since we do not rule by the will of the people of India, we must needs rule against their will. The love of independence presupposes political consciousness. Where this is wanting, a foreign Government will be regarded passively, and such a Government may continue for a long time and prosper without exerting any extraordinary skill. Such a passive feeling towards Government becomes inveterate in a country that has been frequently con- quered. Governments most oppressive have often continued for centuries, and that though they had no means of resisting rebellion if it should arise, simply because it did not enter into the habits of the people to rebel, because they were accustomed to obedience. Read the history of the Russian Czars in the sixteenth century. Why did a great population submit to the furious caprices of Ivan the Terrible ‘\ The answer is plain. They had been trampled under foot for two centuries by the Tartars, and during that period they had acquired the habit of passive submission.VT HOW WE GOVERN INDIA 265 Now ought we not to expect the population of India to be in a similar condition of feeling? Of liberty, of popular institutions, there exists scarcely a trace in the whole extent of Indian history or tradition. The Italians had the Eoman Republic behind them, and it was by reading Livy to the people that Ribnzi roused them to rebellion. No Indian demagogue could find anything similar to read to the people. And for seven hundred years when the English arrived, thej^ had been governed not only by despots but by foreign despots. It would be marvellous indeed if in such a country the feeling could have sprung up that Government exists for and depends on the people, if a habit of criticis- ing Government, of meditating its overthrow, or of organising opposition against it, could have sprung up. Nations have, as it were, very stiff joints. They do not easily learn a new kind of movement ; they do what their fathers did, even when they fancy them selves most original. It has been pointed out that even the French Revolution strangely resembled some earlier chapters in the history of France. Certainly the Italian nationality-movement resembles earlier Italian movements that go back beyond the age of Dante. Now by this rule we should expect to find the Indian population silently submitting to whatever Government had the possession of power, even though it were foreign, as our Government is, and even though it were savagely oppressive, which we think our Government is not.
Our Government of India would be a miracle on 266 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
two conditions. First, if the Hindus had been accus- tomed to be ruled only by their own countrymen, and were familiar with the idea of resisting authority. This is not the case of the Hindus, and accordingly they submit, as throughout history vast populations have been in the habit of submitting to Governments which they could easily overthrow, as the Chinese at the present day submit to a Tartar domination, as the Hindus themselves submitted to the Mogul domination before the English came. Indeed this example of the Moguls is well adapted to show that our ascendency over the Hindus is no proof of any supernatural statesmanship in us. For one cannot read the Mogul history without being struck with the very same fact which surprises us in the history of the English rule, viz. that the Moguls too con- quered almost without apparent means. Baber, the founder of the Empire, did not come with a mighty nation at his back, or leaning on the organisation of some powerful state. He had inherited a small Tartar kingdom in Central Asia, but he had lost this by an invasion of Osbegs. He wandered for a while as a homeless adventurer, and then got possession of another small kingdom in Afghanistan. Nothing could be slighter than this first germ of empire. This Tartar adventurer ruling Afghans in Cabul founded an Empire which in about seventy years extended over half India, and in a hundred years more extended nominally at least over the whole. I do not say that the Mogul Empire was ever comparable for greatness or solidity to that which we IV HOW WE GOVERN INDIA 267 have established, but like our own, even more than our own, it seems built up without hands. The Company had at least English money, English military science, and the immortality of a corporation. Baber and his successors had none of these resources. It is difficult to discover any causes which favoured the growth of their Empire. All we can say is that Central Asia swarmed with a wandering population much inclined to the vocation of mercenary soldiers, which passed very readily for pay and plunder into the service of the ruler of Cabul.
Secondly, our rule would be wonderful if the two hundred million Hindus had the habit of thinking all together, like a single nation. If not, there is nothing wonderful in it. A mere mass of individuals, uncon nected with each other by any common feelings or interests, is easily subjected, because they may be induced to act against each other. Now I have pointed out how weak and insufficient are the bonds which unite the Hindus. If you wish to see how this want of internal union has operated in favour of our rule, you have only to read the history of the great Mutiny. It may have occurred to you when I said that a mutiny or even less than a mutiny on the part of our native troops would be instantly fatal to our Empire, that just such a mutiny actually happened in 1857, and yet that our Empire still flourishes. But you are to observe that I spoke of a mutiny caused by a nationality-movement spreading among the people and at last gaining the army. The mutiny of 1857 was not of this kind. It began in the army
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and was regarded passively by the people ; it was provoked by definite military grievances, and not by any disafi"ection caused by the feeling of nationality against our Government as foreign. But now let us ask ; in what way was this mutiny, when once it had broken out, put down 1 I am afraid the only opinion that has ever obtained in England has been that it was crushed by the prodigious heroism of the English and their infinite superiority to the Hindus. Let me read you the account which Colonel Chesney gives of the matter in his Indian Polity, After remarking that an intensely strong espit de corps had sprung up in the Bengal Army—for observe that the Bombay and Madras armies were very slightly concerned in the mutiny—an esprit de corps which was purely military and actually opposed to the feeling of nationality, since it welded together the Hindu and the Mussul- man elements (so that Colonel Chesney remarks : " In ill-discipline, bitterness of feeling against their masters, and confidence in their power to overthrow them, there was nothing to choose between Hindu or Mussulman “), he goes on to point out by what counter-movement this movement was met. “For tunately the so-called Bengal Presidency was not garrisoned wholly by the regular army. Four battalions of Goorkhas, inhabitants of the Nepalese Himalaya, who had been kept aloof from the rest of the army, and had not imbibed the class-feeling which animated that body, with one exception stood loyal the conspicuous gallantry and devotedness to the British cause displayed by one of these regiments IV HOW WE GOVERN INDIA 269 especially won the admiration of their English com rades. Two extra-regiments of the line, which had been recruited from the Punjab and its neighbourhood, also stood firm. But the great help came from the Punjab Irregular Force, as it was termed—a force, however, which was organised on quite as methodical and regular a footing, was quite as well-drilled and vastly better disciplined, than the regular army. This force consisted of six regiments of infantry and five of cavalry, to which may be added four regiments of Sikh local infantry, usually stationed in the Punjab. These troops were directly under the orders of the Government of that province, and not subject to that centralised system of administration which had a share in undermining the discipline of the regular army. It was with these troops and the handful of Europeans quartered in the upper part of India that the rebellion was first met. Meanwhile the sympathies of the people of the Punjab were enlisted on behalf of their rulers. A lately-conquered people, whose accustomed occupation had been superseded by the disbandment of their army, they entertained no good will to the Hindustani garrisons which occupied their country, and welcomed with alacrity the appeal to arms made them to join in the overthrow of their hereditary enemies. Any number of men that could be required was forthcoming, and the levies thus raised were pushed down to the seat of war as fast as they could be equipped and drilled. And on the reorganisation of the Bengal army these Punjab levies have formed a large component part of it.” 270 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
You see, the mutiny was in a great measure put down by turning the races of India against each other. So long as this can be done, and so long as the population have not formed the habit of criti- cising their Government, whatever it be, and of rebelling against it, the government of India from England is possible, and there is nothing miraculous about it. But, as I said, if this state of things should alter, if by any process the population should be welded into a single nationality, if our relation to it should come to resemble even distantly the relation of Austria to Italy, then I do not say we ought to begin to fear for our dominion ; I say we ought to cease at once to hope for it. I do not imagine that the danger we have to apprehend is that of a popular insurrection. In some of the alarmist litera- ture, for instance, in Mr. Elliot’s book entitled, Concerning John’s Indian Affairs, I find harrowing pictures of the misery of the poor ryot, and then the conclusion drawn as a matter of course that this misery must lead to an explosion of despair, by which we shall be expelled. Whether the descrip tions are true this is not the place to inquire ; but granting the truth of them for argument’s sake, I do not find in history that revolutions are caused in this way. I find great populations cowering in abject misery for centuries together, but they do not rise in rebellion; no, if they cannot live they die, and if they can only just live, then they just live, their sensibilities dulled and their very wishes crushed out by want. A population that rebels is a population IV HOW WE GOVEKN INDIA 271 that is looking up, that has begun to hope and to feel its strength. But if such a rising took place, it would be put down by the native soldiery so long as they have not learned to feel themselves brothers to the Hindu and foreigners to the Englishman that commands them. But on the other hand if this feeling ever does spring up, if India does begin to breathe as a single national whole—and our own rule is perhaps doing more than ever was done by former Governments to make this possible—then no such explosion of despair, even if there were cause for it, would be needed. For in that case the feeling would soon gain the native army, and on the native anny ultimately we depend. We could subdue the mutiny of 1857, formidable as it was, because it spread through only a part of the army, because the people did not actively sympathise with it, and because it was possible to find native Indian races who would fight on our side. But the moment a mutiny is but threatened which shall be no mere mutiny, but the expression of a universal feeling of nationality, at that moment all hope is at an end, as all desire ought to be at an end, of preserving our Empire. For we are not really conquerors of India, and we cannot rule her as conquerors ; if we undertook to do so, it is not necessary to inquire whether we could succeed, for we should assuredly be ruined financially by the mere attempt.
LECTURE V